Category: Gun Rights

Ryan Horsley has an excerpt from a transcript detailing Rep. Chris Cannon’s concerns over the ATF’s mishandling of the NFRTR that was raised with Gonzalez during hearings.

Denise of The Ten Ring has a post up detailing how she believes the public’s views toward handguns has changed over the years.

I feel bad that I haven’t linked Ryan in a while, so what do you think about taking the Red’s Trading Post Challenge?  One of the issues we brought up with Glen and Ashley at the GBR was getting hearings on ATF abuses.  I don’t know whether that’s something that would be possible to get out of Nancy Pelosi’s Congress, but letting them know how you feel can’t hurt.

What is the biggest obstacle we face in our efforts to preserve our gun rights? Apathy among gun owners is certainly a big one, but I don’t think it’s the biggest. In my experience, apathy can be easy to overcome once you get someone to understand what’s at stake, and what the other side is really trying to do. The biggest issue we face is that most people are simply completely unfamiliar with firearms.

A small minority are downright afraid of them. They are harder to reach, but they are a minority. The vast majority of people simply have little to no experience with guns, and don’t understand much about them, or the greater political issues involved. Combine that with a media establishment that’s only too happy to misrepresent everything about the gun issue, and you have a recipe for disaster.

That’s why I’m happy to read this:

The other librarians at work have found out about my new hobby. Some of them are curious, some are excited and wanting to join me at the range, but most are silent on the matter. My manager has been curious, asking questions about how it feels to shoot, if you need to be strong physically, if it’s loud, that sort of thing.

That’s a good start. If you want to know what I think the best thing folks can do for our movement, it’s get new people to the range. Demystify the totem that the media has made the gun to be, and make them see it for the tool that it is. If you take ten new people to the range, and only one of them becomes pro-gun, and if everyone did that, we just went from 4 million, to 8 million.

Just to illustrate what you have to deal with out there, while I was at the GBR waiting for someone with a key to come down and unlock the Hospitality room, we were sharing the hallway with the National Weather Association. One of the NWA chicks asks me, kind of shyly “What’s going on in there?” referring to our hospitality room. “You guys are gun bloggers? What is that about?” So I explain that we’re basically a diverse bunch. “Some of us are competitive shooters. Others of us blog about the political aspects of the gun issue. We talk about gear, collecting. All kinds of things.” She latched on to the competitive shooting issue “You mean like those clay birds?” I answered “Well, yes. That’s a shotgun sport. We don’t have any people who do that competitively here, but [Mr. Completely] is a steel plate and pin shooter” She immediately became curious as to what you would shoot a bowling pin or steel plate with, so I answered “Generally a pistol.” She seemed shocked by that: “Really?” Another NWS guys said “Oh yeah, you generally do that kind of stuff with pistol.”

Do you see how successful the media has been? She had no idea pistols were used in sport at all. I can promise you she had no idea that evil “assault weapons” had any sporting use as well. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that we won’t win this on sporting uses. Self-defense is an important component of the debate, but when people who accept the sporting use argument don’t even know what they are, we have a long way to go.

Ignorance of firearms is, without a doubt in my opinion, our biggest obstacle.

… at least has the courtesy of giving us the reach around:

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed legislation to prevent the confiscation of firearms from law-abiding Californians during a future state of emergency or natural disaster, as happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Assembly Bill 1645 was introduced in the General Assembly by Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa (R-2).

“In passing this law, Assemblyman LaMalfa and California’s General Assembly acted to protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners when their rights are most vital,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “During a time when there is no 9-1-1 or police upon which to rely, honest citizens will never again have to worry that their only means of self protection from looters or thugs will be taken away by the government.”

After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Police Superintendent issued orders to confiscate all firearms- including those from law-abiding residents. With that single order, he stripped the only means of self-protection innocent citizens had during a time of widespread civil disorder. This legislation guarantees those actions will never happen in California.

That’s good news for Californians, provided there are still guns to be had to defend themselves with by the time the politicians there are finished screwing gun owners.

This doesn’t make up for signing the microstamping bill and lead ammo bans.   Hey Governor Arnold: If you buy me a drink one minute, and then turn around and punch me in the face the next, don’t get upset when I don’t want to sit next to you at the bar.  Gun owners in California should demand more than an abusive relationship with their Governor.

Assemblyman LaMalfa deserves our praise, however.  It looks like he did some serious work to get this bill passed through what is arguably the most anti-gun legislature in the country.

I’m really surprised about their reaction to Arnold’s busy pen.  I feel bad for Golden State gun owners, but the only way this stuff is going to be brought to a head is for California’s government to feel the pinch.  It sucks, but I can’t really think of any way to convince them to reconsider the idea of gun control as being a good thing.

On correcting stupid college kids:

You know, I actually believe that the pen is mightier than the sword…but the pen needs the sword as well.  You see, there are people who don’t like the pen, and they have lots of swords, so when they come to silence the pen you’re going to need a sword of your own.

Pretty much.   I wonder if people in Burma think the pen is mightier than the sword?   Or China for that matter.  Rights don’t mean a thing without the ability and will to protect them, violently if it comes to that.

You can change people’s minds by being respectful and making good arguments.  It’s exactly why the other side won’t have any of it.

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed the AB 1471, the micro stamping bill in California:

 To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am signing Assembly Bill 1471.

While I appreciate and understand that this technology is not without limitations, I am signing this bill to provide law enforcement with an additional tool for solving crimes committed with semi-automatic handguns in California.

Public safety is one of the most important roles of government and I encourage all stakeholders to work on improving this technology so that it may become an even more effective crime fighting tool.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Fucking turd.  If California gun owners are starting to wonder what the difference between Republicans and Democrats are on the gun issue in their state, it would seem to be whether they use lube as they are buggering you.

I think it’s high time manufacturers start fighting this stuff by refusing to sell their products to the State of California, to civilians and law enforcement alike.  That’s the only way I can see to make legislators in the Golden State to question this bull.   Having just spent the weekend with more than a few California gun owners, it’s particularly upsetting to see their shooting community screwed like this.

Fuck you Arnold!

Earlier this week I posted something I’ve been mulling over:

Now, some of you aren’t going to like this, but the public rhetoric needs to be that we support the National Firearms Act. The only way, you’re ever going to convince the public and the politicians to repeal the 1986 Hughes Amendment is to convince them that the NFA was just fine, and that the 1986 ban went too far, and is too restrictive. Even this is going to be a hard sell, I’m sorry to say. But if you just say “repeal it all” the public and politicians are just going to say “no” and dismiss you.

I think I chose my words poorly here, and didn’t really get the point across that I wanted to make.  I shouldn’t say that we ought to proclaim our faithful support of the National Firearms Act.  I don’t believe that, and I know most of you don’t either.

But I’m not going to take on the National Firearms Act any time soon, and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect our public interest groups on the issue to do so either.  If there’s anything I think might be possible on machine guns, my shorter term goal is the 1986 ban on new registrations.   I would like to either eliminate or weaken that.  If I have to tell a politician, media person, or other person of influence “It’s not that big a deal.  We still have the NFA, and all its requirements, and I’m not asking you to get rid of those.  But this ban is a problem for reasons x, y, and z.”, I’ll do it.

Once that happens, and the sky doesn’t fall, we might be able to ease more restrictions.  Get people comfortable taking baby steps, and it all adds up.  It certainly has with concealed carry.  This will take a long time.  It’s hard to get bad laws repealed, even when most people agree they are bad laws.  It’s even tougher to get bad laws repealed that most people actively support.   We can’t even get the Veterans Heritage Firearms Act passed, which is only a minor period of amnesty from the ban on new registrations.

So just to clarify I’m not suggest anyone switch their position and embrace the NFA with heart and soul.  But we might need to stand on it to convince people to take that baby step forward.