The New Media Darling

The father of one of the shooting victims, Richard Martinez, is likely going to be someone we’re going to be seeing a lot of. He’s been plastered all over the media ever since the shooting, because he was on the stump immediately demanding gun control and badmouthing the NRA by association its members. I have to admit to being completely dumbfounded by this. When my mother died, I needed some time. I have to admit to not understanding people who can charge right into a political debate after losing a loved one.

“What has changed? Have we learned nothing? These things are going to continue until somebody does something, so where the hell is the leadership? Where the hell are these people we elect to Congress that we spend so much money on? These people are getting rich sitting in Congress, what do they do? They don’t take care of our kids.

My kid died because nobody responded to what happened at Sandy Hook. Those parents lost little kids. It’s bad enough that I lost my 20-year-old, but I had 20 years with my son, that’s all I’ll have. But those people lost their children at six and seven years old. How do you think they feel? And who’s talking to them now? Who is doing anything for them now? Who is standing up for those kids that died back then in an elementary school? Why wasn’t something done? It’s outrageous!”

California has all the things that were proposed after Sandy Hook. All it takes in California is one cop willing to take a person in for evaluation for that person to earn a five year prohibition from buying or possessing a firearm. The shooters parents begged the authorities to do something. They did nothing. He wasn’t even worth a ride to a mental hospital. Because of that, the shooter was able to buy his firearms legally. I get the guy is angry, but his anger is entirely misdirected. He should be asking the authorities in California why they refused to take even the simplest action of taking him in for a 5150.

News Links for Wednesday 5-28-2014

It doesn’t quite feel like hump day this week, since Monday was a holiday, and I started the week on Tuesday in the office. My apologies for the dead air yesterday, but I was too tired on Monday and too busy on Tuesday to get anything up.

California Shooting:

It’s time to stop blaming the NRA and constitution for madmen. The idea that NRA is responsible for this is insulting enough, but it makes it doubly so that they are being blamed for an incident that happened in a state Brady rates as tops, with an A-, and that has a legislature the NRA only has minimal influence over.

Clayton Cramer notes that California already has enough gun laws. Note you don’t see that anywhere in the traditional media. Wouldn’t help the narrative.

The USA Editorial Board pushes the “gun violence restraining order” idea, which would mean your friends who don’t like you or don’t like guns could have your rights removed on a whim. Second Amendment rights at the whim of an angry ex! Yep. Sounds like freedom to me.

WaPo’s Paul Waldman: “Could the California shooting revive gun control?” Only if the conversation includes how everything the anti-gunners claim to want, California has, and why it didn’t work.

The New York Times manages to both propose laws that would have done nothing to prevent the UC shooter, and demonstrate to us that they are indeed coming after our guns in the same editorial. Quite an accomplishment! Remember, no one wants to ban guns, except semi-automatic pistols, semi-automatic rifles, and anything else they think they can get away with.

Democrats introducing more gun control in the house that would have done nothing to stop the UC shooter. You’d think some reporter would question them about this? But they are as eager to drive the narrative as the lying politicians.

Joan Peterson can’t convince me she’s not a prohibitionist. It’s an outright lie to write these things and suggest you’re not about banning guns. Fortunately, the Brady organizations are almost completely irrelevant in the current debate, and Joan is too.

This supposed celebrity I’ve never heard of is a prohibitionist too. But no one wants to take your guns. I don’t know if Thirdpower ever heard of him either.

The Never Ending OC Fallout:

Gun free zones work so well, Jack-in-the-Box has suffered three armed robberies since their decision to ask icky gun people to stay the hell out. We hear you loud and clear. Unfortunately for you, the criminals don’t care.

Things we don’t want to see: stories on why more businesses are going “gun free.” It’s the latest trend!

I don’t know if these guys are rifle OCers, but they got their event booted from Texas Roadhouse. What’s been happening with restaurants and long guns is going to be bad for all forms of carry, and particularly for people who open carry pistols. Restaurants are unlikely to make the distinction.

David Harsanyi of the The Federalist doesn’t think conservatives should boycott Chipotle. I agree boycotts aren’t effective, but if they don’t want me, I don’t want them. The problem with just ignoring all this is that eventually these companies will get bold enough to post, and then we have a big problem.

General Gun News:

Exurban Kevin is hanging it up, but because he got a job in the industry. We congratulate him.

Over at Volokh: More on Operation Choke Point.

Why I, an avid gun owner, hate Red Jacket Firearms.” I never even heard of this show.

Chris Cox: “We Love Our Moms and Trust Our Doctors, But We Still Don’t Want Gun Control

Alabama passes hunting with suppressors. There’s good news out there after all!

Author and pro-2A activist Ken Blanchard is running for public office in Maryland.

This is why we need some good evasion doctrine when it comes to the Second Amendment. Most of the stuff these people propose is shamelessly intended to evade the court’s constitutional pronouncements.

The lesson here is that if you find yourself in a position where the police want to take you to the loony bin, go voluntarily. This is especially true if you live in Pennsylvania. Make it clear you are going voluntarily. Make that clear to the attending psychiatrist too that you are there of your own volition. You don’t lose your gun rights if you go voluntarily, and even if they mark it involuntary, you give your lawyer something to work with.

Those Crazy Anti-Gunners:

The problem, Rep. Maloney, is that the same thing that happened with cars also happened with gun violence.

Fortunately, I don’t think anyone gives a crap what college presidents think. I sure as shit don’t.

 

The California Shooting and Mental Health

I haven’t offered up much coverage of the California mass stabbing/shooting, largely because most everything that comes out early turns out to be wrong, and also the fact that I had a busy Memorial Day weekend, and needed some time to uncompress. It should be very telling to everyone that in Brady A-rated California, the top state in this nation for thorough gun control, their laws still did not prevent a crazy person from getting a gun. California has everything the antis say will fix the problem.

  • Universal background checks? Check
  • Very strong mental health requirements for gun ownership and possession? Check
  • Full registration? Check
  • Waiting periods before purchasing a firearm? Check
  • Magazine restrictions? Check

I want to especially focus on the mental health law in California, especially given Bob Owens piece this morning about how California is going to make it easy for your friends or family who may not like guns to deny you your fundamental rights with no due process. They are proposing to make a means for friends and family to petition to have you denied your Second Amendment rights. How many people you know, coworkers, etc, think you’re nuts just because you own a gun?

California already has strict laws governing firearms possession by the mentally ill. They are, in fact, very similar to Pennsylvania’s, though in some sense our law is more strict. Pennsylvania has the 302 commitment, and California has the 5150. Neither require any due process. I can just be a matter of a cop thinking your kooky enough to take you to the loony bin, and the attending physician agreeing to hold you for observation. In California, a 5150 earns you a five year prohibition from your gun rights. In Pennsylvania, it’s a lasting prohibition unless you petition to have your rights restored. But despite all this, someone still slipped through the cracks, because no one with the power to act acted. And, much as we can expect from politicians and gun control whack jobs, their proposed solution is more restrictions on the rights of ordinary people.

Shannon Watts Targets Chili’s

Fresh off the fallout from Chipotle, we have another battle in the Restaurant Wars to fight. Now Shannon Watts is going after Chili’s with the hashtag #RibsNotRifles, and it already looks like Chili’s is pre-conceding:

Chili’s isn’t going that far yet, but the idea is on the table. “Given the recent attention to open carry laws, we are evaluating our policy to ensure we provide a safe environment for our guests and team members,” a spokeswoman for Brinker International, Chili’s parent company, told The Huffington Post.

I’m not going to slam Open Carry Texas, because they did the right thing yesterday in offering new guidelines that includes telling people not to carry in restaurants. I sure wish they had gotten word out to supporters to remove any pictures or video of OC events in restaurants from the Internet, so they couldn’t be used against us. I certainly hope they are doing that now.

For all the losses so far, I never really frequented Starbucks very much, because I very seldom drink coffee. We don’t have Jack in the Box around here, so no big loss there. I’ve never been a big fan of Chipotle either. But Chili’s is kind of our go-to place when we don’t feel like cooking and are looking for something cheap. I’ve never felt a need to carry a long gun into Chili’s and film the reaction of the staff, but there have been times when we’ve decided to stop while I have a concealed pistol on me. So this would be the first loss that hurts if I can no longer eat in Chili’s because they don’t want business from those kinds of people, i.e. Bitter and me.

I sincerely hope that Chili’s decides to follow state law on the matter, but at this point, I wouldn’t blame them if they set a policy that customers may not display firearms while dining. But I do hope they consider that there are approximately 10 million potential customers in the United States who won’t be eating at their establishment if they cave to Shannon Watts.

UPDATE: I just noticed, as predicted, they are going after Sonic with #ShakesNotShotguns. Bitter grew up in Oklahoma, so she loves Sonic, but our nearest one isn’t that close, so we don’t go as often as we like. Though, given Sonic is mostly a drive-in, I doubt they will seriously want to regulate what their customers keep in their own vehicles.

Justice Thomas Gets It

From a Supreme Court case in 2000, Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 1001 (2000), Footnote 16 of Justice Thomas’ dissent:

“The fact that the statutory term “partial birth abortion” may express a political or moral judgment, whereas “dilation and extraction” does not, is irrelevant. It is certainly true that technical terms are frequently empty of normative content. (Of course, the decision to use a technical term can itself be normative. … But, so long as statutory terms are adequately defined, there is no requirement that Congress or state legislatures draft statutes using morally agnostic terminology. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 922(v) (making it unlawful to “manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon”); Kobayashi & Olson, et al., In Re 101 California Street: A Legal and Economic Analysis of Strict Liability For The Manufacture And Sale Of “Assault Weapons,” 8 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 41, 43 (1997) (“Prior to 1989, the term ‘assault weapon’ did not exist in the lexicon of firearms. It is a political term, developed by anti-gun publicists to expand the category of ‘assault rifles’ so as to allow an attack on as many additional firearms as possible on the basis of undefined ‘evil’ appearance”). See also Meese, 481 U.S., at 484—485.”

Emphasis mine. This shows at least one of the justices gets it. If you love your gun rights, pray for Justice Thomas’ good health.

h/t to Annual Firearms Law Seminar.

Thursday May 22, 2014 News Links

OCT Fallout:

Legal Insurrection’s Andrew Branca, author of The Law of Self-Defense, does not go kindly on the Open Carry In Your Face crowd.

SayUncle notices something disappearing down the memory hole at NRA. This doesn’t happen very often, but I’ve seen it happen before. What probably happens is the person who puts together the news links puts up something NRA doesn’t want to take a position on. As annoying as the OCT crowd is, it’s best for NRA not to comment on it, even if it’s just offering up a link, and even if Shannon Watts is egging them on.

Esquire salutes the moms who got guns banned from Chipotle.

Christian Science Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson covers the broader issue and notes “The Chipotle decision, analysts say, may spur further campaigns to prod corporations to stake out ground on publicly displayed guns and whether they should become part of everyday life for Americans.” Yep. Thanks Open Carry Texas.

Bloomberg’s gun group now says it’s safe to eat at Chipotle. Obviously they’ve never tried their burritos. “Despite its new gun policy, Chipotle insists it is a neutral party in the Second Amendment debate.” They were a neutral party. Then you caved to Shannon Watts. Personally, I never really liked their crappy food.

Newsbusters takes a look at Jon Stewart’s reaction to the OCT demonstration in Chipotle. I don’t watch The Daily Show anymore, because I don’t like Stewart’s politics, but OCT gave him irresistible ammunition.

The havoc in their wake.

General Gun News:

Bob Owens of Bearing Arms talks about how the gun review world works. I’ve never been a fan of Truth About Guns because I don’t like sensationalism and don’t appreciate how they’ve interacted with the gun community. And that’s a shame, because sometimes their content is excellent.

Dave Kopel talks about the vagueness challenge to NYC’s interpretation of their gravity knife law.

Laser engraved bolts for the 10/22. I’ve always wanted to build a custom match grade 10/22. This would be a nice looking addition to such a project.

Dems pushing to restore CDC funding for using your tax dollars to undermine your gun rights.

SAF notes that being more gun friendly could help New Jersey’s economy and budget. They don’t care. As far as the anti-gun politicians in New Jersey are concerned, those are jobs for the wrong kind of people.

You would think that the Army Times would know something about guns.

Weird Crime Stories:

Another mass knifing, 4 killed and a dozen injured.

Those Crazy Anti-Gunners:

Tam: Clutch the pearls! Takeaway quote: “[Y]ou could turn up better out of the cabs of the pickup trucks in the parking lot of any blue collar employer in flyover country.”

Another MAIG Mayor charged with a crime. Everytown might be a stupid name, but can you blame the guy for rebranding?

OK, this one isn’t about anti-gunners, but a university in North Dakota kicks a fencing team off campus. It won’t just stop with guns. These people are mentally deranged.

It’s always good to talk to antis who are willing to talk, as Joe Huffman relays.

Hot Court Action:

Cal-FFL and Cal-Guns are taking Attorney General Kamala Harris to court again.

The Brady Center is suing Gander Mountain, they seem to assert that you can’t go shopping for firearms with a friend, spouse or girlfriend because that’s indicative of a straw buy. We’ve called out the anti-gunners before for equating women buying firearms as automatic suspected straw buyers.

John Richardson takes a deeper look at Brady’s suit against the NJ Attorney General to file the smart gun reports.

Legislative:

Massachusetts gearing up to make its gun laws worse. Yes, it’s apparently possible.

Off Topic:

P.J. O’Rourke’s commencement speech to Rutgers, if he had given one.

It Gets Worse

Bob Owens points out that one of the two individuals pictured at the Chipotle would seemingly have a drug problem, first noted by this anti-tea party site who went digging. The alleged Facebook post saying:

I want to Smoke Some Kushh so Badd. But fuckk thatt. My Babys need me And Not sitting behind barzz …. Maintaining….

Youngg enoughh to still Sell Dopee, But Old Enoughh … i Knows betterr.

Maybe he’s a recovering addict, and the latter are rap lyrics. As long as you’re not currently addicted, the law has nothing to say about it, but it’s illegal to be both a stoner and gun owner. Generally speaking, it takes seriously poor judgement to admit to a felony publicly. I hope for his sake he’s a recovering addict, because I would imagine this could be enough evidence to get a judge to support a search warrant. It would certainly warrant an officer checking on his background to ensure he’s not a prohibited person.

One problem I have with the tactics that OCT uses is that it had a very high likelihood of bringing out attention whores and other people with less than great social skills. You can’t control what people do, but you can control your tactics. Everyone supports making handgun OC in Texas legal, but there are probably dozens of better ways to go about achieving this. I’m not optimistic OCT will reconsider, but if they were open to ideas, I’d sure like them to see them adopt Chris from AK’s recommendations.

Next Battles in the Restaurant Wars

Now that we’ve endured three losses at the hands of the rifle OC crowd, it does beg the question of what to do to mitigate the damage. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to get Texas to pass an open carry bill as soon as humanly possible, but I suspect that’s going to be a bigger uphill climb the longer this goes on. I also suspect it wouldn’t stop. If you take a look at Open Carry Texas’ mission statement, you’ll notice affecting legislation is number three. Their primary goal is to “educate” Texans. So I think we’re stuck with this. I also don’t think we’re going to convince them to stop, so we can expect more losses. One thing I’d mention is that Watts seems to be pushing each company a little further. I believe this is meant to desensitize us to the losses, until she can eventually convince one company to actually ban guns on their premises, and then eventually to post. I’m fairly certain this is where it will lead. One one company crosses that Rubicon, others will follow. It’s a grim future.

Taking a look at Open Carry Texas’ busy schedule, we have the following Restaurants up who I’m nearly certain will be targeted by Shannon Watts:

  • Pizza Hut
  • Double Dave’s (Never heard of them before. We don’t have those up here.)
  • Sonic

I don’t believe Shannon Watts will jump on these until we’re closer to the planned event. She’ll want the pictures and the news footage to promote the campaign. Sonic is an Oklahoma-based business. They stand a good chance of standing up to Shannon Watts. But who knows? Open Carry Texas must be taking some heat, or they wouldn’t be trying to deny any responsibility. I’ll repeat, a tactic that accomplishes nearly nothing, yet motivates our opponents to action and causes us to lose ground in the culture is a bad tactic. The biggest asset we have, and the biggest problem they have, is that there’s a very wide enthusiasm gap on the gun issue. People who want gun control just don’t want it as bad as we want freedom. But OCT is helping close that gap. If you look at Moms Demand’s Facebook group, their posts on open carry draw a much higher level of engagement (measures by shares, likes and comments) than other non-OC topics. Whether you mean to or not, if you carry a rifle into a fast food joint, you’re not accomplishing anything except helping Shannon Watts succeed.

More Evidence Mounting DOJ is Targeting Firearms Industry

Kelly Riddell with the Washington Times is adding up the evidence, and it’s becoming more and more apparently that indeed, Eric Holder’s DOJ is targeting the firearms industry by cutting off its access to financial services and the banking system:

“This administration has very clearly told the banking industry which customers they feel represent ‘reputational risk’ to do business with,” said Peter Weinstock, a lawyer at Hunton & Williams LLP. “So financial institutions are reacting to this extraordinary enforcement arsenal by being ultra-conservative in who they do business with: Any companies that engage in any margin of risk as defined by this administration are being dropped.”

Read the whole thing. While we don’t have any direct evidence the industry is being targeted, it’s all adding up to something rotten at the DOJ. All this is ostensibly in the name of fighting fraud, but it’s just a little to convenient for the Administration, if you ask me.

Monday Gun News

I’m getting a bit worried that this could be all I have for today, but things often start out that way, and then something interesting comes along later. But there is news:

From Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court: government can’t fire employees for exercising their right to self-defense.

Miguel notes that the rifle OC folks can stop helping anytime they want. I’m betting Chipotle goes the way of Jack in the Box. If they are going to keep OCing ARs into Chipotle locations to “thank” them, Shannon Watts will be declaring victory by weeks end.

Bloomberg “We need the NRA to be afraid of us.” I’m afraid of the former Mayor’s money. He is a great villain.

WSJ: Poll Shows Why Gun Control Looks Impossible.

Wired: How 3D printed guns evolved into serious weapons in just a year. I think that’s overstated. A plastic gun isn’t really that practical. But the technology of 3D printing is advancing quickly.

This is The Onion, but it’s hard to tell these days.

Armed citizens can defend themselves, even in Nigeria. They captured a tank, according to the article.

Armed women, in…. Massachusetts?

Detroit’s top cop interviewed for NRA First Freedom.

John Richardson has an update from the Knife Rights folks about their case against the City of New York.

“It’s not your grandfather’s NRA,” seems to be meme being pushed by the antis in various media outlets. I mean seriously, who in the world doesn’t know the NRA is heavily involved in politics? We know. Everyone knows. That’s why NRA is powerful. That’s why we’re members.

Also from Joe: “Alan Gura may not be our savior.” I don’t think any one person is. Heller and McDonald were great victories, and we owe Alan Gura a debt of gratitude for winning them. But the foundation for those cases were laid by a number of people.

Why Carry When Hiking? Most people think the four legged critters. The two legged variety is more dangerous. If you’re hiking, you’re not getting law enforcement help except to recover the body. Getting robbed on the trail is very dangerous.

HSUS settles a racketeering suit with Ringling Bros. Circus for a cool 16 million. Unfortunately chump change for them.

Andrew Cuomo kills jobs in upstate New York.

I linked to the story about the gun control activist who allegedly was spit on by a pro-gun individual, and thought it smelled like bullshit. I’m glad I’m not the only one. Bob takes a very detailed look and calls shenanigans. It’s not that I don’t think there ugly people on our side, the circumstances are just very improbable to me.

You may have heard of the Heller II case in DC losing at district court. Prince Law Offices takes a detailed look.

It’s going to take more than 1.5 people on an e-mail list to defeat us in November.