Category: Gun Rights

The Undetectable Firearms Act was introduced into the 100th Congress back in the year 1988 by our good friend William Hughes. Yes, that Hughes. It was in response to the big plastic gun scare that was whipped up by Handgun Control Inc, former name of the Brady Campaign, back in the days when they were relevant. NRA opposed the original bill, but dropped opposition to the bill once its requirements no longer met the the criteria of any actual guns currently in production. In other words, the bill had no actual, practical impact.

If nothing is done, the UFA will expire on December 9th. This is not the first time it has has been set to expire. The first expiration date was ten years after the first enactment, in 1998. In 1998, it was extended for five additional years. In 2003, it was again extended for an additional ten years. Given that it’s been readily extended by both parties, I have no expectation that we have a prayer of stopping extension. The big threat is that the UFA will be expanded to include a ban on manufacturing a polymer receivers or magazines by non-FFLs, even if the polymer used is doped with a chemical that renders it radiopaque, or is made from a polymer that is dense enough to be easily x-ray detectable. This is because it also must contain enough metal that it sets off an x-ray machine calibrated to the security exemplar. The existing UFA law regarding metal content only applies to the entire firearms, minus grips, stocks, and magazines. By creating a separate requirement, applicable only to non-licensees, it effectively bans home fabrication, or smithing done under the auspices of a dealer FFL, which is typically sufficient for gunsmiths. Additionally, it also creates a requirement to have a manufacturer’s FFL to create magazines, which is not currently the case.

I am not optimistic we have the juice to stop UFA renewal outright. We haven’t any time in the past, when this outlawed what only existed in the imaginations of our opponents. But 3D printed plastic guns have been all over the news. Even people at work are asking me about it the topic. We might all know this is really nothing new, and that a plastic gun is about as much of a threat to the person pulling the trigger as it is to the person it’s being pointed at, but the public does not generally know these things. This law getting expanded to restrict hobbyists is a very real possibility, and something worth contacting your congress critters over.

Trying to do a little more blogging over the weekend to make up for being busy during the week. We will be taking a break from the blog somewhat during the holiday weekend, but given how dry the news cycle has been, you might not notice. Seems a collapse of the health care system is something people really want to pay attention to!

Vancouver bans doorknobs. No, seriously. But notice how the nanny staters have infiltrated even Popular Science? If your house has knobs, and you want levers, it’s an easy thing to negotiate at sale. It’s cheap. A few hundred bucks would do my whole house. But I hate levers because they get caught on things.

“If you ignore the adrenaline dumps and the blood pressure spikes this is a very, very good book.” – Joe Huffman on “Emily Gets her Gun.” More here.

More on the Melissa Bachman controversy: Stupidity is a luxury.

Outgoing NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly blind to his gun control hypocrisy.

Bigotry on parade. I would be ashamed to have such low quality followers. Not that we don’t have intolerant ignoramuses on our side, but I’ve never agreed with running things in such a way as to attract them.

The gun control groups hit a new low when it comes to deception: when you can’t achieve, just lie about it.

Surprising strength in the GOP with female hispanic candidates.

Via Instapundit, a tale of an SR-71 pilot who survived his aircraft breaking up at 78,000 feet and Mach 3. Well worth reading. It was amazing they put that aircraft together with what was essentially 1950s technology.

Why opposition to gun control has increased. I think there’s more to it than that.

Canadians get fun toys we don’t because in some ways their import laws are less strict than ours.

Initiative 594 is gaining in Washington State. This would enact a Schumer-style ban on handing a firearm to someone else for purposes of instruction, etc, without a background check. Ace of Spades had a very astute observation on this phenomena, only in this case in the context of Obamacare:

It has long been my contention that it makes no sense to poll questions simply about the “goodies” of Obamacare, like “do you support free health care for the poor or sick.” Everyone’s in favor of that. Including myself.

Yes, I’m in favor of that, and so are all of you – if we do not ask the question in connection with the costs. Of course I’d like everyone to have free health care; in fact, since we’re asking about things I just want, I’d strongly prefer to live in a disease-free world where no one ever gets sick at all.

But questions of policy are only answerable in consideration of the costs. Do I favor a manned mission to Mars? You bet I do. Do I favor such a mission, if it costs $60 billion over ten years? No, I don’t.

And for a polling company to ask the question without asking about my sensitivity to the cost of it, and then to report me as being in favor of it, is misleading and stupid.

You can only gauge someone’s actual support for a policy by informing that person of the likely costs they’ll be forced to bear to have that policy. But for four years, virtually everyone in a position of responsibility sought to hide those costs from the public.

That’s the problem with this issue as well. Polling on background checks amounts to no more than an affirmation that people don’t want criminals to get their hands on guns. But public polling on this issue never speaks of the costs of doing so, such as not being able to engage in firearms instruction in some circumstances, going to jail if you lend a rifle or shotgun to a friend to go hunting or shooting, or being unable to leave guns with a friend if you’re experiencing some kind of personal crisis. I 594 is likely to pass, because like public polling, the ballot question will never explain the costs.

It’s a busy week for me, but I still have some news in the tabs:

Just when you think his 15 minutes is over … I think I’d consider joining a monastic order if I were him.

They ban lead ammunition, and then tell us the alternatives are ‘armor piercing’. The EPA and lead opponents are also putting the squeeze on copper in addition to lead.

Why are anti-gunners so violent?

Jeff Soyer also has another “I’m a gun owner, but…” story.

Josh Prince has an update on the Erie case in Pennsylvania. This is very important case because if this goes pear shaped, it’ll significantly weaken preemption.

The Pottstown, PA Police Athletic League is raffling off a Tavor. But I thought cops were on their side?

Miguel highlights a proposed 28th Amendment repealing the 2nd. It’s laughable. It says I get to assess a 4% income tax. On who?

Banning private transfers is rearing it’s ugly head in New Mexico. The Dems are going to try to do this in every state they control.

Dave Hardy highlights an interesting study by Yale sociologists.

At least one police chief isn’t so keen on weapon-mounted flashlight. Well, there’s going to be that temptation to use the gun as a flashlight.

Home made submachine guns seized in Australia. Gun Control can never work in a technology environment where you can manufacture things like this out of your garage.

Good to see Michelle Obama helping the NRSC for 2014.

John Stossel rejected for a NYC pistol license.

“I am encouraged to report increasing evidence that gun control is an old white guy’s movement. ”

More guns, less crime?

Recently, Eugene Volokh, Dave Kopel, Sanford Levinson, and Alan Dershowitz appeared in New York for a debate over whether the Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness. Not surprisingly, with an audience of New York elites, Professor Levinson and Alan Dershowitz, who argued against the Second Amendment having modern usefulness, “won” the debate. It seems I can embed the introduction, but to watch the full debate, click on the “Watch Full Program” at the bottom right.

I would encourage everyone to watch. I think if you really boil away everything about the debate, the folks that think the 2A an anachronism have an abiding faith in the democratic process. Like many of our founders, I am deeply skeptical of it. I’d much rather live under a benevolent constitutional monarch than live under the tyranny of the majority.

The idea that the Second Amendment is an anachronism, and that instead we can be happy with some vague but constitutionally guaranteed right of self-defense strikes me as moving the goal posts. They are saying if we just got rid of this nasty gun business, they’d be happy to concede we had an even less well-defined right to defend ourselves. I’m not buying.

To me, guns are the core of the debate. Maybe in 100 years, particle beam or electromagnetic weapons will be at the core of the debate. But for now that debate is over firearms, which is the current pinnacle in self-defense technology and has been for the past 500 years. You can’t have a debate about the legitimacy of self-defense if you’re arguing to take the most effective means of doing so off the debating table. I can see right through that as if it were a sheet of glass, and so can most everyone else who doesn’t live on the Upper East Side. I’m fine with the idea of including a right of self-defense in any proposed constitution, but given that having effective means of doing so is still very much a political issue, any such constitution damned well needs to have something that looks an awful lot like the Second Amendment. Then we’re right back to the gun debate, which is where we started in the first place.

I’ve had this in my tabs for a while now, meaning to get around to highlighting some of the article int his issue. Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit too busy to get around to it, but there is some excellent stuff in here. I’ve read drafts of Nick Johnson’s “Firearms Policy and the Black Community: An Assessment of the Modern Orthodoxy,” and would highly recommend it. I plan to get around to highlighting these articles eventually, but I wanted to offer an opportunity to anyone who might want to get a head start on me. I probably won’t have a whole lot of time until the holidays.

Sorry for the lack of posting today, but things are going to be exceptionally busy for me into next year, so there will be days when things just don’t get off the ground blog wise. We’ve been finding it challenging to find a contractor to build our rather odd data center who doesn’t want to charge an arm and a leg. Because I’m cheap, I’m doing the plans instead of hiring out for it. The Township wants electrical plans. I don’t know much about making electrical plans, and after reading quite a bit about it, I still don’t know much about it, but I’m giving it a go anyway. Anyway, here is the news:

Looking for gun safe software for Android? Check out Seven Bit Software’s Gun Safe.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Prevent Gun Ownership is now leaning on Visa to stop doing business with NRA. Visa offers and NRA credit card. Visa might get a whole dozen people really pissed off at them if they just ignore them!

A disarmed populace has nothing at all to fear from its government. No, nothing at all.

What a great time for some rifle OC, don’t you agree? I’m sure many people were educated.

The law on machine guns works the same in Pennsylvania as it does in Tennessee. Machine guns are illegal in Pennsylvania, except that it’s a defense to have complied with the provisions of the National Firearms Act. Affirmative defenses don’t necessarily keep you out of jail.

Rampage killings and the media.

This story talks about how Mom’s Demand Action is being dishonest, but more like MDA played the rifle OC people for suckers. When anti-gun folks ask you to pose all scary with your rifles, don’t be a fool. It greatly worries me when I see “our side” being outsmarted by a group I generally think plays the game pretty poorly most of the time.

Prince Law Offices has more information about the 3D printed gun.

The 11 nations of America. I think that’s oversimplified, but interesting, nonetheless.

Did Dick Metcalfe deserve to be fired? I still maintain it’s not what he said, but that how he said it demonstrated a lot of ignorance, and it just so happened to be it’s the same ignorance perpetrated by our opponents in the gun control movement. Yes, the Second Amendment will have limits, like any other right. But Dick played into the notion that it is somehow quaint or different from other rights. That’s exactly what the Brady Center argues.

So demands a town in Massachusetts. In recent years, it seems like in places where the left runs things, it’s being treated less and less like a right than it was before the Heller and McDonald rulings.

The selectman said state law requires Massachusetts gun owners to keep their firearms locked away or rendered inoperable.

The problem, he said, is that police do not have the authority, granted by a local ordinance, to enforce the law and inspect the safeguarding of guns at the homes of the 600 registered gun owners in town.

To channel Glenn Reynolds: tar and feathers. This is police state level stuff. If I lived in this town, I’d already be planning the lawsuit.

UPDATE: More from Days of our Trailers on this topic.