The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
They shoot a lot like the previous “Guns that Need to be Banned” that are now banned:
I especially like the Executive Director of New Yorkers Against Gun Ergonomics Violence. She says the pistol grip allows people to better control their rifle, because apparently having people firing bullets off wildly is somehow more desirable. In truth, it doesn’t matter worth a damn, it just makes the gun more comfortable to shoot.
It’s time to clear the tabs and RSS feed out again, so here’s the news:
Gun News:
Here’s the press coverage of the protest-counter-protest this past Monday. They weren’t evenly matched groups, but it was impossible to tell that because our side didn’t have a plan and they did. More here at Levittown Now, which has better coverage.
I have to agree with SayUncle, it’s not like we didn’t know Hillary was anti-gun. Her problem is that she has no legacy. Everything she’s tried has been a failure. The big problem the Dems face is they’ve burned up all their political talent, and political talent matters more than most other things.
Mostly wins in Florida for us this year.
Did the NRA convention cause a dip in teen crime?
Looks like the unity at the Bundy Ranch is falling apart. Here’s an article that talks about how close this situation came to a bloodbath.
Mass shooting averted? These never get much press. Not a high enough body count.
NRA’s statement on “Operation Choke Point.”
Dave Kopel talks about “Smart” guns, and how armed jews saved lives.
Jim Geraghty: The left’s war against the gun culture.
A 12-year-old girl successfully protects herself from a home invader with a .40 caliber Glock. Meanwhile, gun control groups would like to put parents like her’s in prison for allowing her access to a firearm. I’d also note if smart guns were mandated, she’d likely have been successfully kidnapped.
Miguel is also unhappy with Alan Gottlieb’s rehashing of Manchin-Toomey. One thing I would mention is that Coburn was kicked out of the negotiations with Schumer et al, meaning they rejected his amendment. No one really got behind his amendment because it wasn’t going to satisfy anyone.
Charles C.W. Cooke:Â The terminal vagueness of “Everytown”.
I don’t think too highly of firearms as a fashion statement, but this probably has enough Chicago establishment types in a fit I’ll give it a pass.
S.E. Cupp: Bloomberg’s Everytown will make more enemies than supporters.
Another anti-gun protester tries to stifle free expression.
Common sense calls for the repeal of the Second Amendment, according to Jerry Large of the Seattle Times.
Important cultural distinctions between the land culture of the east and west.
Gun safety moms hope to be 2014s soccer moms. Aren’t they already the same thing?
Legislative:
New Jersey’s magazine and gun ban continues to move forward, now in the Senate.
There’s a movement to impeach Attorney General Kathleen Kane. Given who’s heading up this, I’m not sure anyone takes it seriously.
Bozos in Gun News:
Journalism!:
The Augusta Chronicle thinks federal reciprocity is unlikely. Clearly they haven’t been paying attention to the vote tallies when this has come up.
Off Topic:
Not good results in the primaries yesterday for the tea party. “The North Carolina results are a strong indication that the GOP rank and file is undergoing a shift from prioritizing purity to prizing victory.” Purity doesn’t do you any good if you can’t get elected.
Looks like a lot of tea party groups are doing mostly nothing to actually advance the cause electorally. The worst thing the Tea Party could do is become subsumed by the DC money changers.
When all has been said and done, our side did pretty well for only having a few hours to put a counter-protest together. I counted 42 people in our group, and 25 people in theirs. Except they had their act together a bit more. They marched in from the center of Langhorne Borough, to Frank Farry’s office, while our group was already gathered outside the building. The CeaseFirePA folks immediately monopolized the area in front of traffic, which was smart on their part. Our group mistakenly went to join them, which only served to make their group look bigger than it really was, and given that many people on out side did not have signs, that wasn’t going to be a winning tactic.
Eventually our side kind of figured things out and spread out along the street to make our point to passing traffic. The good thing there is when people drive by and honk, you can’t be sure who they are supporting. This denied the other side the emotional self-satification of thinking everyone supports them.
Because there was only a few hours notice, few in our group had signs, whereas almost all the CeaseFire people had signs, and they also had a large banner. They had more time to plan. One thing it taught us to have signs on hand and ready to go at a moments notice. Folks honored the request not to open carry long guns, and both our people and their people were sending people inside the office to make ourselves heard.
One thing I’d note is that a lot of people want to argue with the other side. I tend to think this is rather pointless. The folks that show up to these rallies are going to be true believers, and not amenable to having their minds changed. All it accomplishes is making their group look bigger. I’m a big fan of staying in two different areas. Our group was bigger, and that could have been very apparent to any person driving past, or to any reporters covering the events.
The purpose of counter-protest is a) denying your opponents the emotional satisfaction of believing they own the field, and b) making sure the media covers both sides of the issue, and c) demonstrating organizational effectiveness to the particular lawmaker targeted. I believe we accomplished a) and c) pretty well, and probably b) too, but we’ll have to see how the media spins it. If they end up misreporting the numbers, that’s because it was really hard to tell once this got going. I counted out our folks before they arrived, and counted their folks as they marched in.
I know I have some local folks who are readers, so I just want them to be aware that the Bloomberg funded group, CeaseFirePA, is planning a rally outside the local district office of Frank Farry, one of our NRA endorsed State Reps in Bucks County. They in particular are incredulous that he is supporting eliminating PICS and relying on the federal NICS system.
If you are in the area, please see if you can stop by his district office today at 4PM. His office is at 370 E Maple Ave, Langhorne PA. I appreciate anyone who can come and show their support, especially on such short notice.
FOAC/CGOPA are asking people not to OC long guns, which I think is a wise decision. We need to show CeaseFirePA, and more importantly Rep. Farry, that they can’t outmuscle us.
Dave Hardy is reporting a decision is being pushed off until 2015. I tend to think nervous Democrats are, well, nervous about doing this so close to an election year. ATF will also no doubt want to be sure all its Is are dotted and Ts crossed, because they are nearly certain to face lawsuits over whatever is decided. I don’t think this represents a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Administration for getting this rule in place. Getting paybacks against those who oppose him is important, after all. But it does represent the reality that they know they can’t just throw caution to the wind. Any other issue would have been steamrolled already.
This weekend there are a few posts I want to do about the Annual Meeting, so things won’t be so dead around here. Today is always difficult though, because it’s my office day, and when most of our meetings happen. But here are some mini links. The links are not small, but there’s not as many of them:
Looks like the Armatix Smart Gun almost got another vendor, but backed down after a backlash. It would mean the death of Second Amendment rights for everyone in New Jersey. The only problem I have with Smart Gun technology is that our opponents mean to mandate it, rather than letting the market decide.
The limited Constitutional Carry bill is dead in Florida. It’s hard to pass, especially in big states with politically diverse populations.
Polling shows Vermonters want stricter gun laws. Vermont has practically zero crime. This is a solution in search of a problem, but the default position of many people is that there has to be controls.
I thank the other side for this tool, which lets you know whether your 401K investments have made the wise decision to invest in gun companies. I want my investments making decisions based on their return, not based on PC garbage.
The Second Amendment in South Africa.
Tom Ridge may have quit Bloomberg’s group, but he’s still no friend.
Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma has decided she’s fed up with the legislature not taking on issues she wants them to address, but a pro-gun bill seems to have been caught up in their political fight.
She vetoed the nearly unanimously passed bill that mandates law enforcement sign for the transfer of any item regulated under the NFA within 15 days if the applicant is not prohibited by law from receiving it.
Fallin says that she’s going to keep vetoing bills until the House does what she wants. So, I would suggest that Oklahomans let her know that they want her to respect their rights rather than use the Second Amendment as a pawn in her negotiations with the legislature, which she is apparently vowing to continue.
UPDATE: It looks like a KnifeRights bill got caught up in Fallin’s political games, too.
Let Oklahoma Gov. Mary Hamlin know you don't appreciate her veto of HB 3367 our Knife Law Preemption bill: (405) 521-2342
— Doug Ritter (@KnifeRights) May 1, 2014
Some of the links for today might be a bit old. Sorry if that’s the case, because I didn’t have time to really do much hunting while at Annual Meeting, so there’s a bit of a gap. But here’s a try:
This .223 pocket pistol has to be the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time. The .223 is a rifle cartridge. It uses slower-burning rifle powder, meaning it needs a rifle-length barrel to build up speed. Maybe you can stun and confuse your attacker with the massive fireball that will result from all that unburnt powder exiting the barrel, but I doubt a 55 grain .223 bullet fired from a pistol-length barrel will do all that much to stop him. I’d wager you’d be better off with a single shot .45ACP.
Bloomberg’s dollars just aren’t enough, pointing out that $50 million isn’t actually a whole lot of money. Maybe so, but how much more is he going to put in? Money in politics matters. It is possible for someone like Bloomberg to buy legislation. Don’t believe it isn’t.
Dave Kopel: First Amendment Guide to Second Amendment. How the First Amendment can be a guide to interpreting the Second.
Some questions don’t make sense in a free society.
West Side Last Shift takes a look at the insurance anti-discrimination bill in Florida. I had a coworker who told me she was turned down for homeowners insurance because of gun ownership. Much like the parking lot bills, I can’t get too enthusiastic about this either, because it is anti-free-market. But insurance is already pretty regulated, and we’d never tolerate discrimination like this in other contexts.
John Lott: Bogus Gun-Control Numbers.
NRA’s Worst Nightmare is America’s Moms, says the Daily Beast. Yeah, because we’ve never had to deal with that phenomena before. No. There was never a failure of a previous incarnation of this idea. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Meanwhile, 18,000 women, many of them moms, came to NRA.
Why are we so conflicted about manhood in the modern age? Long read, but very insightful.
MDA would seem to stand for Moms Doubling Attendance.
Our opponents continue to misunderstand the nature of conflict. Most of the time the powers that be don’t want you dead, they want you compliant. It’s like a kid that doesn’t want other people to play with his toy. He can accomplish that by breaking the toy, but then he doesn’t have the toy anymore.
I didn’t even know there were rocket companies that made gun stuff.
West Chester University looking to revise its weapons policy. A step in the right direction.
Military to destroy 1.2 billion worth of ammo. What a waste.
Jersey City’s extra forms for getting purchase permits are ruled illegal. The plaintiff filed an application using only the required forms, but the police denied him arguing that his non-compliance with the additional extra lawful requirements made him “a ‘threat to public health, safety and welfare’ and had not demonstrated ‘good repute within the community’.” The Court rejected that argument, and more importantly, rebuked the lower court who played the typical Jersey game of not allowing gun owners to make a proper case. From the case:
McGovern appeared pro se at the hearing. The judge repeatedly declined to allow him to present evidence supporting his attempted legal argument that Jersey City had demanded unauthorized information as part of the application. The judge also would not allow McGovern to cross-examine Brusgard about his qualifications to determine who may receive a handgun permit or his knowledge of the law in that regard. The judge stated that the only purpose of the hearing was for McGovern to prove he was not disqualified under the N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3 for a handgun permit. The Assistant Prosecutor representing Jersey City also repeatedly objected to any attempt by McGovern to develop information pertinent to his legal positions and arguments.
In this case, McGovern argued that the court had in fact reversed the burden, placing it on him to prove he was qualified rather than on the state to prove he was unqualified. Eventually we need to attack New Jersey’s entire regulatory regime for firearms, but for now this is a significant victory, given how rampant abuses like this are in the Garden State.
Well, we were hoping maybe we’d get an early decision on cert for the Drake case, but it was not to be this morning when the Supreme Court made announcements. We shall soon see whether we’re going to head back to the Supreme Court. Needless to say I’m going to be very nervous if the Court denies cert, since I don’t think we have much in the way of meaningful protections with just the current two cases, and the Heller Five aren’t getting any younger. Let’s see what we have in the way of links today:
NBC laments money in politics one week, and then another week cheers a rich billionaire putting $50 million in to politics. They aren’t against money in politics. They are against our money in politics.
Everytown for Gun Safety (God I hate that name) seems to be launching in cities around the country. Here’s one in Las Vegas. Here’s one in Denver. Note the close in shots so you can’t see how sparsely attended the events are.
Mayor Squidward, Michael Nutter, is joining up with Everytown. Because Philadelphia is just Everytown, USA for sure. Philadelphia is certainly unique in many ways, most of them bad.
John Lott: “What the press is missing in Bloomberg’s anti-gun push.”
Hot Air takes on EGS’s first ad.
Why Bloomberg’s Nanny Campaign Will Backfire.
EGS is misleading people about the guns used at Columbine. They were textbook straw purchases, where a legal buyer stands in for the actual buyer, who is prohibited. In this case the Columbine killers were juveniles.
Jacob is skeptical that Dems are really happy about Bloomberg’s $50 million dollar pledge. Well, if he runs ads against Pryor, Landrieu, or any of the other Dems up in red states, it could help them. No better way to advertise your bone fides than getting attacked by Bloomberg.
Jacob also notes that Cuomo could be in trouble. I’m skeptical that he’s vulnerable enough to lose re-election, but if we could pull that off it would be epic.
And finally from Jacob, Five ways gun control advocates fail.
Well, trolling EGS on Facebook was fun while it lasted. Of course, they have their work cut out for them to get rid of all the state and local pages.
Chicago reducing crime by cooking the books? They are just making concealed carry look better.
Civil Rights victory in Massachusetts. Massachusetts? Yes. Massachusetts.
Victor Davis Hanson: “Cliven Bundy and The Rural Way“, and Breitbart: “Cliven Bundy and the Origins of the American Abundance Revolution.” This is still something to keep and eye on, especially given that Reid would seem to be looking for paybacks. Hey, solar farms don’t build themselves, you know.
Off topic:
Hillary Clinton’s legacy: “She has no legacy. Everything she’s done, except getting preferential treatment from the Democrat establishment, was a failure.” That must be why they are grooming Chelsea.
