Category: Gun Rights

Nothing beats starting out the week with a scaling and root planing at the Dentist. I’ll be happy when my gums no longer feel like someone cleaned them with a wire brush. But I will say, the bill hurt more than the procedure. But there is gun news to be had:

A handy flow chart on how to follow the new law in Washington State. Surely no innocent person could ever end up trapped in such a simple system! In other Washington State news, it looks like they are going to be in for a mass protest with civil disobedience. A grand idea.

Miguel takes a look on the stats on household gun ownership. Those are done by polling, and so probably more accurately reflect the percentage of households willing to tell a pollster they own guns, rather than actual percentages which are likely higher.

The narrative in the media seems to be that gun control actually won the midterms. I am disappointed in the midterms, not because we lost, but because I wanted to deal a blow to Bloomberg so hard he’d wonder why he was flushing his millions down the toilet. We didn’t get that. Close, but no cigar.

With that in mind, they are falling in love with the ballot. Gun owners in any state with ballot measures have to be concerned. The narrative is that gun control is on the move and popular among voters.

The voters in Philadelphia would elect Hitler if he ran as a Democrat.

This is an interesting idea in regards to 3D printed guns. Usually a firearm without a rifled barrel is an AOW, and I’ve been wondering if people realize these are potential NFA violation. Here’s the thing, the NFA says the barrel has to be rifled. But it doesn’t say the rifling has to work, does it?

The wages of Obamaism: A sea of red.

Apparently there is precedent to block Supreme Court nominees until the next President. The Republicans absolutely need to do this if there’s a vacancy.

You don’t see this kind of concern in the media and elite about the same types of barriers interfering with the rights of minorities to exercise their Right to Keep and Bear Arms. (h/t SayUncle)

Reason’s Brian Doherty takes a look at Bloomberg’s new strategy. Outspend gun rights proponents 10:1 on ballot measures using rich billionaire friends. Remember, they aren’t against money in politics. They are against your money in politics.

Neither of the two Colorado Recall candidates managed to hold their seats. The antis are trying to spin this as a win, but that is nonsense. We punished the guilty. I doubt you’ll see those replacements touching the gun issue, and if they do, we’ll recall them too.

A First Amendment challenge to a law in California that prohibits advertising of handguns. Dave Hardy also notes that oral arguments for the SAFE Act challenge are scheduled for December 8.

I didn’t think it was possible for a state GOP organization to be worse than Pennsylvania’s, but it is definitely possible.

I’d argue Minnesota stayed blue because they were largely settled by Scandinavian immigrants who have socialism in their blood.

Mit Pulver und Blei, die Gedanken sind frei!

Real progress in the culture wars.

There is some discussion in a previous post about how a ballot measure, passed by a rationally ignorant electorate, the vast majority which never actually read the measure, could possible be legal. I share their disdain for the ballot. Our founders were rightfully quite skeptical of direct democracy, and one needs to look no farther than California to see how the ballot has essentially caused more trouble than it’s saved. It’s bad enough we have politicians that pass laws they don’t understand without reading them, but at least we can kick them out of office for it. Putting measures up to ballot is just a case of the elite manipulating the ignorant.

I would argue that ballot initiatives are unconstitutional under the Guarantee Clause of the federal constitution. Unfortunately, when the United State Supreme Court decided to look into the issue of whether the ballot was a violation of this clause, it weaseled out, and ruled the Guarantee Clause was purely a political matter, under the jurisdiction of the other two branches.

I do think there might be a court remedy for I-594, but I don’t believe the courts would ever strike down background checks, even for private sales. But we may have a chance in arguing the statute is overly broad, and covers too many constitutionally protected activities, such as a temporary loan of a firearm to a friend or family member, even for protected educational purposes under the Second Amendment. But I also do not believe we have enough firm case law currently to make that argument right now. For now I think Washingtonians are stuck with what the voters have done to them.

Caleb has a really good write up on it:

The reason why 594 passing is bad news for gun owners everywhere is because it validates Bloomberg’s strategy. This is a new kind of gun control game, they’re smarter than the Brady Campaign and they have functionally unlimited resources. Yes, they played it smart in Washington. They picked an issue that’s easy to misrepresent in universal background checks; they played that issue to a strong blue voter base, and then they spent a ton of money on marketing and GOTV. That’s textbook “Winning Ballot Questions 101″ and it’s really hard to fight against.

I think Caleb has it right. The reason states with the ballot need to worry is because ballot fights almost always come down to money, and Bloomberg and his other billionaire asshole friends can afford to outspend us in state after state. The amounts involved are big money for us and pocket change for him and his buddies.

It’s mostly the western states that have the ballot. Pennsylvania does not have it, except for Constitutional Amendment, and before that can happen, a measure must pass two consecutive sessions of the legislature. I had hoped that we could get the margin narrow enough to Washington to tamp Bloomberg’s ambition in other states, but I don’t think that happened. This will be tried again, it’s only a matter of where.

This is likely why Alan Gottlieb was so eager to get a federal compromise on this issue. I can understand his desire to do that, even if I strong believe that Manchin-Toomey was the completely wrong thing to push. In the long run, the public largely supports the concept of background checks. Overwhelmingly so. We have to figure out a way to deal with that, and unfortunately, something that’s going to involve losing small over losing big.

So what can you do? The biggest issue is to educate gun owners. This is not about background checks. It’s about backdoor universal registration, and extinguishing the gun culture by eliminating the ability to even shoot with a friend and try each other’s firearms. The restrictions on transfer (not just change of title or sale) in the Washington initiative would essentially make it impossible to bring new shooters into the gun culture. Washington gun owners only hope now is that the authorities won’t actively go after marginal cases. But now, as gun owners, you’ll constantly be at the mercy of prosecutors and law enforcement any time you let someone else shoot your guns outside of the very narrowly defined exceptions.

UPDATE: Bloomberg is already working on several more states. Remember, there is no way he won’t be able to outspend us.

Everytown for Gun Safety is gathering signatures for a similar initiative in Nevada, and future campaigns are being planned for Arizona and Maine, according to Feinblatt.

So what do we do other than do our best to educate?

Now that I am firmly back from our trip to Oklahoma, I’m sorry to report I still have the client to deal with. That is, however, starting to wind down. So I should have a little more time for blogging, though I’m hoping the news cycle gets more interesting.

No tears for corrupt tyrants: Co-founder of MAIG, Thomas M. Menino dies at 71. I won’t celebrate, but I can’t say I’m sad to see him depart this earth.

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Why the Washington State school shooting incident seemed to fade so quickly. Remember that the I-594 vote is tomorrow as well, if you live in Washington State.

Tam laments the destruction of so many M14s. Personally, I think they’d even be safe handing them out with the auto sears still in place and working. I’ve fired an M14 on full auto. About the only thing you’d accomplish firing that rifle on full auto is emptying the magazine quickly.

Good news department: people are giving up on gun control.

More gun control advocates get busted for doing “research” only using Google.

Shooting .22 pellets out of a rifle with nail gun cartridges. Looks like it moves that pellet pretty fast.

A settlement has been approved in the Class Action suit against Philadelphia for disclosing License to Carry records.

Imagine where their movement would be if it wasn’t for rich assholes.

Also, Tom Corbett is probably going to be toast tomorrow. I actually place most of the blame for that on the Senate Republicans, who are wed to the establishment and special interests. The Sandusky scandal certainly is a large factor as well, but perhaps that could have been overcome if Corbett actually managed to accomplish something. He’s been good for gun owners. Wolf will not be. Republicans in this state need to do some hard reflecting, because the establishment here is killing the party.

I keep saying I want to wrap up with this current client, but things keep coming up. So I’ve been in “I think I can wrap this whole thing up in the next few weeks” mode for the past two months. So I dare not say things should be returning to normal in a few weeks, but maybe! At some point, the project will end and I’ll be on to other things. Anyway, here’s some news links. Not too many this time, because to be honest, I haven’t even had time to gather links:

Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

What’s wrong with Oregon Republicans? Oregon is dominated by the Portland Metro area, so there’s not much hope for the GOP there. The GOP’s weakness in Pennsylvania, however, is almost entirely the fault of the GOP. The party in this state is sclerotic.

Holder: gun control among biggest failures. Happy to disappoint ya there Eric. I would imagine it was a tough thing to weigh his greatest failure.

John Richardson points out some other players in the I-594 initiative in Washington State.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a gun forfeiture case.

Glad to see Clayton Cramer has been doing better, but he’s still having some ups and downs. Hitting the tip jar would probably help. Money may not buy happiness, but the lack of it can certainly bring on a lot of misery.

Just another Everytown grassroots spokesperson who happens to work pretty high up for the Mayor’s office in New York City. It’s astroturf as far as the eye can see!

DC gets smacked down by the judge who ruled their carry ban was unconstitutional, but their new ordinance still has to have a hearing. Let’s hope the judge has read this.

A civil rights victory in Idaho! Ban on carrying guns on Army Corps of Engineers land is struck down. Right now this only affects the District of Idaho.

Mass shooting in Canada. Multiple shooters would seem to suggest terrorism.