Category: Gun Rights

Tom King has the low down on what he thinks gun owners in The Empire State will be facing in 2008.  Chief among them is the effort there to close the “musket loophole”, by classifying black powder muzzle loading firearms the same as modern firearms.

2008 is going to be rough sailing folks.  We have to be ready.

The City of San Francisco has lost its appeal to get its gun ban reinstated.

In today’s 3-0 ruling, the appeals court cited its own 1982 decision overturning a San Francisco ordinance that prohibited handgun possession within city limits.

Sponsors of Prop. H had hoped to comply with that ruling by drafting a narrower measure that applied only to San Francisco residents. But the court said the 1982 decision properly interpreted state law as “depriving local entities of any power to regulate handgun possession on private property.”

The court declined San Francisco’s request to allow the city to enforce the ban on the manufacture or sale of rifles and shotguns, saying the city must first rewrite the ordinance to narrow its scope.

Noting the existence of state gun laws, Presiding Justice Ignazio Ruvolo said, “When it comes to regulating firearms, local governments are well advised to tread lightly.”

Take that hippies! It would seem preemption, at least, is alive and well in The Golden State.

UPDATE: NRA has their press release.

UPDATE: The decision can be found here.  The original San Francisco Superior Court case can be found here.

— Welcome Instapundit Readers —

Thanks for stopping by.  If you’re interested in second amendment issues, you’ve found the right place.  2008 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for us in the gun blogosphere, so I hope you’ll have a look around, and visit some of the fine gun blogs on the blogroll to your right.

Joe has an excellent post that highlights a real danger in making deals with the likes of the Brady Campaign, such as happened on HR2640, which was signed into law yesterday.  The passage of HR2640 raises the political capital of the Brady Campaign, and other anti-gun forces, because they were able to claim victory.  They are naturally going to want to spend that capital to push for more gun control.

This was always a legitimate reason for opposing HR2640, but it wasn’t an argument that was sensibly made by certain other pro-gun groups.  I still think the deal was worth making, because we weren’t going to get those concessions out of this Congress otherwise, and the amount their political capital has been raised is a lot less than their rhetoric is indicating.

There will be no serious move on gun control in Congress until after the elections.  If the anti-gun Democrats cement their hold on power in 2008, we’re in a lot of trouble, especially if the White House has Obama or Clinton in it.  We’re in a lot of trouble.   That will have little to do with HR2640 though, and a lot more to do with the fact that elections matter.  That’s why 2008 is so important for us.

Because one-gun-a-month apparently didn’t do much for Baltimore’s stratospheric violent crime rate, the City is going back to the Legislature for more:

Dixon also wants to require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns within 72 hours of discovering their disappearance or face misdemeanor criminal charges. The idea is to allow prosecutors to punish people who are careless with their weapons or knowingly loan them out for nefarious purposes.

“All too often we trace guns used in horrible crimes back to owners who claim their guns were stolen,” Dixon said.

Let me paraphrase this, so you know what they really mean:

Dixon also wants to require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns within 72 hours of discovering their disappearance or face misdemeanor criminal charges. The idea is to allow prosecutors to punish people who are careless with their weapons own a gun or knowingly loan them out because the only reason for owning them is for nefarious purposes.

“All too often we trace guns used in horrible crimes back to owners who claim their guns were stolen,” Dixon said, “Pretty clearly anyone who claims their gun was stolen is a liar and should go to jail.”

Yeah, that’s I think a bit closer to what they would say behind your back. Ignorance of the law is no defense for this “crime”. It will result in perfectly law abiding people ending up in jail, which is exactly the point.

UPDATE: David Codrea makes the point:

And, of course, you can’t compel a criminal–you know, the folks causing all the problems– to report his gun lost or stolen, because that would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self -incrimination.

True.  War on Guns has been pointing out that angle for a while, and I was remiss not to mention that here.

Senator Crapo explains the hold he’s put on the Sullivan confirmation:

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Acting Director Sullivan to inform him of multiple concerns that I have had in recent years with BATFE treatment of small firearms dealers. Mr. Sullivan conveyed his belief that BATFE is fair and impartial in its treatment of these businesses, and only revokes federal firearms licenses when it has no other options. I am not satisfied with Mr. Sullivan’s response.

I’m not pleased either.  The question is, will he look into this for real or keep pretending there’s no problem?  I have no doubt this is what his underlings are telling him, but pretty clearly he’s not too interested in digging deeper.  Sullivan remains in charge of the ATF even with his confirmation on hold, so I don’t know how much incentive he’s going to have to kowtow.

A little birdy told me that HR2640 has Bush’s John Hancock now affixed to it.  It is now law.

I’ll let this be an open thread for folks to have their say, good or ill.

Interesting article about a man who retired from Massachusetts to Arizona and took up what, for Massachusetts, would be an unusual hobby: Cowboy Action Shooting.

He and wife Debbie, aka Ruby Tucson, have gone to several shooting events, including one held in October in Tombstone.

At these events, says Gretsky, “only the top 1 or 2 percent are national competitors. The rest of us are just there to have fun.”

Even so, Gretsky has wound up with an arsenal that includes two six-guns, one shotgun and a rifle — something he says would have been tough to do back East.

“In Massachusetts there are very strict gun laws,” says Gretsky, who stresses that he’s “not a gun nut.”

Not long after moving to Tucson, Gretsky went to a local firing range. “It was the first time I’d held a gun since I’d used a .22 in Boy Scouts,” he says.

But he soon found out just going to the range “was kinda boring.” Then someone told him about cowboy action shooting.

He’s not a gun nut, but he acknowledges his completely leigitimate pastime would have been difficult to do back in Massachusetts.  Cowboy Action is a quickly growing segment of the shooting sports with an apparently wide appeal.  I think it will probably get wider as the baby boom generation, who were raised on westerns, start to retire, and head to places with sunshine and “easy access” to such lethal killing machines as a Ruger Single Six, which I’m not sure are on the Massachusetts “approved” list.  Even if it was, you have to convince your local police chief that you have a good reason to keeping one, which he’s completely free to disagree with and tell you “no constitutional rights for you.”

Cowboy shooters are people we need to be reaching out to.  I think their numbers are going to keep getting bigger.