Category: Gun Rights

Denise has a story about how new arrivals, presumably from the worker’s paradise to the south, are trying to shut down a local New Hampshire gun range.

The VPC is bragging in this editorial about putting gun dealers out of business:

Tougher laws and stricter enforcement cost nearly 200,000 U.S. gun dealers their licenses since the mid-1990s, a new study shows.

Led by remarkably sharp declines in states including California, Florida and Washington, the number of federally licensed firearms dealers fell 79 percent nationwide since 1994. In that year, Congress adopted new gun-control measures that still spark fiery debate.

“The sharp drop in gun dealers is one of the most important, and little noticed, victories in the effort to reduce firearms violence in America,” declared Marty Langley, a policy analyst with the Violence Policy Center.

What the VPC is not telling you is that most of those licensed dealers were collectors who obtained Type 01 FFLs for their own purposes.  During the Clinton Administration, a decision was made to put “kitchen table” dealers out of business.  They were portrayed as people who sold guns to criminals, when in reality, they were collectors who bought guns for themselves, and sold a few here and there to friends and family.   Sure, I won’t deny there were some bad apples in the bushel, but by in large, getting a type 01 FFL was a way to save money if you were into collecting firearms.

Clinton shut that down by directing the ATF not to issue dealer licenses to anyone who wasn’t zoned as a business.  That’s where most of the reduction came from.  After that, the only option for people like me was a type 03 FFL, which only applies for certain firearms.  For firearms that are not C&R, I still have to go through a type 01 or type 02 FFL.

The government has been making it increasingly difficult to operate  business selling firearms.  This certainly makes folks at the VPC, and most other gun controllers ecstatic.

Just remember though, they only want to target criminals, and illegal guns.   It’s not about destroying the shooting culture in this country or anything, so that a political climate can be created to destroy the second amendment.  If you think that, clearly you’re just a paranoid militant.

Apparently the PICS system will be down Sept 2nd through the 6th.  I think if the government needs to take these systems down for maintenance, that’s fine.  But during that period when the system is down sales can proceed without the check, and the check can be done later when the system comes back online.  I’ll bet if that were the law, the Pennsylvania State Police would suddenly find they can do maintenance a lot more quickly, or invest in a system that could stay up.   When was the last time you heard of Amazon.com going down for maintenance?  And they are storing a lot more data than PICS.

Looks like there’s some problems with the Tenneesee Instant Check System. Just in case anyone from TBI is reading this, my consulting fee is 150 an hour, plus travel expenses. It is possible to set up a database system that doesn’t go down. You just need to hire the right people. Wait, this is a government job isn’t it? I think there might be some continuing maintenance fees I can throw in there.

But seriously, this is a good example of how the instant background systems, because they act as a prior restraint on the exercise of a fundamental right, are infringing. Systems can always go down, or be unreliable. In the mean time, if Squeaky had a violent ex boyfriend after her, she’d be in danger and unable to defense herself.

I do think we are stuck with having some kind of background check system, and I’d be very surprised if the court’s invalidated it, even under strict scrutiny. The lesson here for people is not to wait until you’re in danger to take steps to look after your personal safety. The time to do that is now. The criminal can always buy a gun off the streets, or do a straw purchase, if in quick need of protection. The lab abiding do not have that option. We must work with the bureaucracy.

While the anti-gun folks would like to say the instant background checks are not infringing, tell that to any scared woman right now dealing with a violent ex who might be trying to buy a gun in Tennessee, or a merchant who may be getting threats from the local street urchins in Memphis, and suddenly find himself not wanting to be a 911 call and 20 minutes away from any real protection.

Looks like we have a good ending to the Jim Zumbo controversy.  Now when is someone going to give him back a column so he can talk to hunters about this side of the shooting community and the need for unity?

Clayton Cramer has a pretty good article on HR2640 in Shotgun News.  This will be a useful article in my fight to keep the club I recently joined from removing its 100% NRA status.   There has been a lot of claims that fail to pass the smell test circulating in regards to this bill, and I think Clayton does a good job with some of them.

As I’ve said before, some have come up with good reasons to not like HR2640, but others have become downright unhinged over it.  I think this is one of those cases where reasonable people can debate whether the deal is worth it.

I engage Paul Helmke in some reasoned discourse, guest blogging over at SayUncle.