Category: Gun Rights

Bitter has had her say about Dick Metcalfe’s response, and now I’m going to address the questioned he asked for those who disagreed with many aspects of his article.

Difficult as it may be for some to believe, To those who have expressed their vigorous opposition to the content of the December column (and to my continued existence on this planet), I would pose these questions:

1. If you believe the 2nd Amendment should be subject to no regulation at all, do you therefore believe all laws prohibiting convicted violent repeat criminals from having guns are unconstitutional? Should all such laws be repealed?

Do I believe the courts will hold them as constitutional? Or do I personally think they are unconstitutional? There are a lot of things I think the courts should do that they won’t, because our courts are often more concerned with not upsetting legislative and precedential apple carts than they are about fealty to the Constitution. My personal belief is that the law as currently structured is unconstitutional, but because it violates 5th or 14th Amendment due process rights rather than violating the Second Amendment directly. Congress and States could pass a prohibition on firearms as part of sentencing for certain crimes. I even think some misdemeanors could come with temporary prohibitions as part of a sentence for a crime. But criminal defendants should know what’s on the line when they accept a plea or go to trial. Retroactively going back and suggesting that anyone convicted of X has now been stripped of their right to bear arms ought to be a violation of their due process rights.

2. Do you also believe all laws establishing concealed-carry licenses are unconstitutional?

I believe that fundamental rights should not be subject to licensing by the government. If the courts had real courage they’d toss every single state licensing requirement for ownership or carrying of firearms out the window. But they won’t, because we already lost that battle when the Court discovered marrying was a fundamental right, but nonetheless subject to licensing by the state. I actually think licensing carry is more odious to the Constitution than licensing ownership, because people don’t generally change residences all that often, but I might want to carry in 5 different states in a day under normal and regular circumstances. Nonetheless, I fully expect the courts will endorse licensing of gun ownership and carry. If we’re exceedingly lucky, the courts will rule that state officials can’t exercise much discretion over who gets one. It’ll take less, but still a large amount of luck to get the courts to rule that states can’t require applicants to articulate a justifiable need. Most likely, I think, is the courts will bend over backwards to maintain the status quo in regards to carry laws.

3. Do you have a concealed-carry license anyway?

Yes, because I want to be able to carry, and even if I didn’t, I’d have one anyway because my state makes even unloaded carry of a handgun in a vehicle legally problematic if you don’t. Yes, I’d rather not go to jail.

4. Are you thereby violating the Constitution yourself?

Who even argues this? I think DUI checkpoints ought to be unconstitutional too, but does that doesn’t mean I’m violating the Constitution every time I decide to pull over one rather than run down the cops, or getting in a high speed chase with them? The Constitution is meant to restrain government, not private behavior. If they want to put up hoops between me and my rights, it’s up to me to decide whether or not I want to jump through them. Like Bitter mentioned, I think this hits to the root of what people are upset about. It’s not that he tried to open a discussion, it’s more than he doesn’t even understand the framework through which rights theoretically function. Readers and advertisers of Guns & Ammo have simply decided that this is unacceptable in today’s climate.

Via John Richardson, I saw that Dick Metcalf published a response to all the turmoil he created with his recent gun control column in Guns & Ammo. I applaud Jim Shepherd for giving him the space to do it since I think we can learn quite a bit from his response. I’ll start with the easy and obvious parts that had me rolling my eyes.

Do not 2nd Amendment adherents also believe in Freedom of Speech?

Ah, yes, rather than address the specific issue, he resorts to implying that those who disagree don’t believe in freedom. This is a message to Dick: The Bill of Rights is a limit on government powers to silence you (in the case of the First Amendment), not a promise for any job you want with any private company you desire to work with and a free pass to say anything you want or behave any way you want without consequence from other private citizens. By trying to play this card, Metcalf is going into what I like to call Full Dixie Chicks Mode. The Chicks were outraged that their political rantings weren’t fully accepted by their audience and were stunned that the same audience simply decided not to buy future products. It’s the same situation here. The Bill of Rights does not provide a guarantee that someone has to keep giving you money when you say something that they fundamentally disagree with.

Do Americans now fear open and honest discussion of different opinions about important Constitutional issues? … In today’s political climate within the community of firearms owners, even to open a discussion about whether 2nd Amendment rights can be regulated at all, is to be immediately and aggressively branded as anti-gun and anti-American by outspoken hard-corps pro-gunners who believe the answer is an absolute “NO!”

This is denial, folks. The fact is that serious conversations on various gun control schemes and whether or not they pass constitutional muster happen all of the time in our issue. This site has played host to many of them, and they don’t devolve into the simple scream of “NO!” that Metcalf claims happens when someone even opens the discussion. Look at the kind of legal and academic discussions that happen at the Volokh Conspiracy on this issue. The fact is that we, the audience that Guns & Ammo needs to sell to, have already been having these discussions for years. Don’t blame the audience for how they read your column, Dick. Evidence abounds that the audience is more than capable of having the discussions you claim they can’t handle.

I am also fully aware that the different rights enumerated in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and following amendments are different, and are regulated differently. But they are all regulated in some form or fashion, hopefully appropriate to their particular provisions.

Okay, this one made me laugh out loud. Ask Sebastian, I couldn’t hold back the chuckle. Dick, can you please enlighten me on the extensive regulatory system at either the state or federal level on what concessions we citizens have to make on quartering of troops? I’d like to know more about these regulations that apply to how we compromise on the Third Amendment.

This actually highlights a larger issue that Sebastian has noticed as well. It’s pretty clear that Metcalf thought he could just spout off amendment numbers without really thinking about what he was saying. He probably never expected that a reader would question why he said what he did about the Third Amendment because he probably assumes that his readers know little to nothing about the Third Amendment. That’s where he, and much of the industry, continues to misjudge the audience.

I’m not going to argue that every pro-gun person is a published academic or a scholar on obscure constitutional law. However, the pro-Second Amendment audience is far more serious about the issue today than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Like any political movement, there are certainly people who only understand it at the bumper sticker level, but the vast majority have a better understanding of the legal complications than they did two decades ago. The shifting landscape and the realization that no matter what the anti-gun groups try to claim, they really are trying to come after pretty much every gun ever made, have forced that education on most gun owners.

Even looking at the questions that Metcalf poses to “challenge” his opponents in the end of his response, it seems clear to me that he didn’t stop to choose his words carefully. He opens up the door to debate on whether or not licensing carry is a violation of the Second Amendment, but then ends by asking if the possession of a license by a citizen is therefore a violation itself. That doesn’t even make sense, and it’s certainly not an argument that I have ever seen made anywhere hosting a serious debate. I’ve seen it argued that participating in the licensing system is empowering a perception that discretionary licensing of rights is acceptable, but never to say that the mere possession of a license is the actual constitutional violation. The fact that Metcalf apparently sees no distinction between those two arguments is just baffling and certainly leaves me with the impression that he is the one who isn’t serious about having a discussion on the gun issue.

When I read Metcalf’s response, what I see is a man who is feeling extremely defensive, and not at all ready to acknowledge that the industry and world around him are changing. I’m not sure that any sentence sums up his disconnect from the community any better than this:

Do voices from cyberspace now control how and why business decisions are made?

It’s as if he doesn’t even comprehend that those “voices” are the very customers and readers of Guns & Ammo and purchasers of the firearms products advertised in the pages. Not everyone may be a subscriber, but they are all part of the target market.

The industry is shifting. The markets are adapting. The audience, as a whole, is more sophisticated. I think the evidence suggests that it’s Metcalf who isn’t ready to have a serious discussion on these topics, not his audience.

Another topic people have been speaking about lately is “How do we create a pro-gun insurgency within the Democratic Party.” This is a great, worthwhile topic, because if the gun issue enjoys bipartisan support, our fortunes won’t rise and fall with a single party. So what drives success? What’s driven our success, and this works regardless of party affiliation, is the single issue voter, and it is through the single issue voter that we can win among Democrats too.

Reality is that most of us here aren’t single issue voters, but I think most of us are near single issue voters. In other words, I’d be hard pressed to vote for anyone who’s a hard core Bloomberg-backed gun control supporter, regardless of party. But I’d also be hard pressed to vote for a true communist, fascist, socialist, or theocratic candidate just because I agreed with him on gun rights. I voted for Bob Casey in 2006, despite Santorum carrying an NRA endorsement in that race, and knowing that Casey’s A rating was a promise (at the time, now we know it was a lie) rather than a record, because Santorum had pissed me off on too many other issues. So the single issue has its limits. But nonetheless it ranks very high in my political calculus, as it does most of yours. We have to have these folks in both parties in order to win, and that means getting more people to politically identify as gun owners. It doesn’t matter worth a damn whether someone owns a gun or not, what matters is whether they politically identify as gun owners. One of my biggest fears is that we continue to improve our standing in polling and public opinion, but start losing the single-issue voters necessary to keep winning elections. The former doesn’t mean squat if you can’t keep the latter growing too.

In truth we’ve already seen how a pro-gun insurgency works in the Democratic Party, because it happened between 2004 and 2006 with the Blue Dog wave that swept the Democrats into power. The Democrats had been in the political wilderness for some time, and gun control got much of the blame from Democratic strategists, so they started running candidates whose views on gun rights reflected those of the districts they were running in. Combine that with broad dissatisfaction with the GOP, and you had a recipe for the Democrats taking the House and Senate. We actually did quite well in the 2006-2010 Congress. Better than we’ve done since, in fact. The problem is that the Democratic strategists thought they could piss off their districts on every other issue and that gun rights would be enough to save them. They were wrong.

So how did we get from a Democratic House and Senate being willing to pass things like National Park Carry to where we are now? Well, because the Chicago political machine are talented snake oil salesmen who have convinced Democrats that gun control is a winning issue rather than a losing one. Additionally, conventional wisdom in progressive-left circles is that Obama has created a new progressive-left coalition that is destained to forge a permanent majority, so they no longer have to care what those cousin humpers in flyover country really think. This delusion is believable, because the Republicans have been floating some spectacularly awful candidates, and have been weakened severely by infighting between the tea party and the establishment. But the Democrats can’t count on that to go on forever. Part of making the Democrats pro-gun again is just to create a perception that gun control is a losing issue by continuing to defeat anti-gun Democrats, and to do that, we need single-issue Dems that are willing to cross the aisle when it counts. I think the overwhelming defeat of Angela Giron in Colorado is strong evidence that such folks exist.

So that’s what we ultimately need: single issue voters in the Democratic Party willing to vote in Democratic primaries for pro-gun candidates, and become involved enough in their local party races so that the people in the party know that there’s a gun vote to be pandered to. More importantly that those party leaders know that that gun vote will cross the aisle in a heartbeat if an anti-gun candidate wins. There really isn’t any insurgency involved. It just takes winning elections.

This time in “Runner’s World” of all places. I’m not sure why Runner’s World needs to stake out a position on gun control, but it does.

On Friday, I was booked to fly from Los Angeles to Eugene, Oregon. That morning, a gunman walked into LAX with a semiautomatic assault rifle and opened fire, killing a TSA officer and wounding several other people. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be booked on an afternoon flight.

So he walked into a place where guns are banned, being from a state that banned the gun he was carrying, being in a state that banned the gun he was carrying, and what we clearly need are some more laws?

I propose: Ban assault rifles and handguns for everyone except police and military personnel. These weapons are made to kill humans and should be strictly limited. At the same time, allow responsible citizens to own rifles and shotguns.

If you think they are going to let you keep your rifles and shotguns for deer hunting once the rest of us are out of the fight, you have no idea what you’re up against, and I can’t help you achieve reality. The truth is those kinds of firearms work just fine for mass killing. Just look at the guy who shot up the Navy Yard in DC.

And I’d note I went through a similar thing in the Houston airport right after we arrived, and it didn’t scare me enough to advocate taking everyone else’s freedoms away, because I don’t believe in punishing the sane for the acts of the insane.

This guy is taking a beating on the Facebook page, and he deserves to.

The Democrats are already spinning that this a great victory for gun control, to be able to elect someone like Terry McAuliffe in Virginia. I will make no bones that I absolutely can’t stand Ken Cuccinelli’s positions on a range of social issues, but gun rights are sinking along with the Republican brand, and we can’t honestly afford too many losses before this whole game will be up. We can make a statement in other races. Bloomberg is spending dollars by the millions to buy elections in swing states. Take this article from the New York Times.

“I don’t think you’ve seen any Democratic candidate run in Virginia as rabidly anti-gun as McAuliffe has in the last two weeks,” said David Adams, legislative director for the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, the state affiliate of the NRA.

Cuccinelli reminds me a lot of Santorum, only without having a Bob Casey at least talking a good A rating as was the case in our 2006 Senatorial race. I would reluctantly vote for Cuccinelli were I in Virginia. Especially given that it’s coming out that a big Obama Donor is bankrolling the Libertarian ticket, and that the Libertarian candidate isn’t very err… libertarian.

So to Virginia gun owners, close your eyes and think of England. I’d be sure to get out and vote for Cuccinelli. You’ll only have to deal with him for four years.

It’s Tuesday, and time to clear the tabs. The news cycle is all about the collapse of Obamacare, and not guns. I guess we got our time in the sun pooping on the Obama Administration for a while, and now it’s other issue’s turn.

I’ll lead off with a non-gun story, just because it’s cool. Apparently someone shattered the cannonball run speed record, and cracked the 30 hour mark doing it.

Virginia Tech is not liable for failing to warn students about the shooter. The government won’t let you protect yourself if you’re a college student, but they’ll absolve themselves of any responsibility if they fail to protect you.

The last lead smelter in the US shuts down. I guess we’ll be importing all our lead from now on, or more accurately recycling most, and importing some. But no more lead manufactured from ore in the US.

Simple ideas for Simple Minds.

How NRA became ATF’s biggest enemy. But the fact that we can have some input into ATF’s operations, director and budget is one reason you don’t see a huge move to abolish the agency. Gun owners wouldn’t get that kind of input into the FBI, and the FBI will very competently violate your rights.

Facebook is become some lame thing old people use.

Government is magic. Highly recommended, though off topic.

Looks like Newtown might just want to be left in peace as the anniversary approaches, but the gun control groups and Obama Administration aren’t going to let that happen.

John Lott also takes down the new study showing owning a gun makes you a racist.

Ted Cruz speaks about Stand Your Ground.

More zero tolerance nonsense.

Landowner liability act finally passes the PA Senate.

Serving the people.

The media is still getting it wrong about assault weapons.

This is how we spell e-n-t-r-a-p-m-e-n-t

Billboards advertising jury nullification. More of this please.

Piracy has dropped significantly since ships are being armed. Who would have guessed?

Why people own guns. If someone asked me that, I’d have to ask “Well, which gun are you talking about?”

I’m wondering who floated this piece to the San Francisco Chronicle. It essentially says the reason that Fast and Furious happened was because the agency isn’t well funded enough. It takes an increase in federal funding to realize that deliberately allowing firearms to be trafficked to drug cartels is wrong? Really? The alternate message is that since the NRA apparently controls ATF’s funding, it’s really NRA’s fault that ATF can’t do its job.

The NRA’s efforts to control the ATF have ended up costing the bureau millions. An NRA-supported congressional appropriations provision prevents the agency from building a national gun registry. As a result, the 375 contract employees at its National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W.Va., work largely without computers, relying on phone calls and scanned or microfilmed paper records to connect crime gun serial numbers to original purchasers.

Because if you put them into a computer, you have a searchable, national registry of what guns people own, that would actually have very little little missing information, given the number of dealers that go out of business. If the ATF and government are so concerned about what the West Virginia facility is costing, it’s always an option to shut the doors and destroy all the records. I’d feel a lot better if we weren’t always one hostile appropriations bill away from having a national gun registry, wouldn’t you?

But now, it’s backed with science!

The research, published in PLoS One, was led by Dr Kerry O’Brien from The University of Manchester and Monash University and used data from a large representative sample of white US voters.

After accounting for numerous other factors such as income, education and political ideology, the researchers found that for each one point increase (on a scale from one to five) in symbolic racism there was a 50 percent increase in the odds of having a gun in the home and a 28 percent increase in support for policies allowing people to carry concealed guns.

If you support gun rights, or are a gun owner, you’re a racist, and these people aim to prove it! They aim to convince your progressive friends that they aren’t out to disarm fellow citizens, but are out to disarm xenophobic racists! And that makes it OK. Talk about coming to your conclusion and then setting out to prove it, which is kind of the opposite of science.

However, the authors note that this reduction is unsurprising as opposition to bans on guns equates to self interest on behalf of those who already own a gun and do not wish to give it up. And racism was already strongly associated with having a gun in the home.

Admit it, Neandertheal, you’re a racist! Kneel before the power of our science! There’s no way, if you advocate for gun rights, you’re getting out of being a racist in our study.

Dr O’Brien said: “According to a Pew Research Center report the majority of white Americans support stricter gun control, but the results of our study suggest that those who oppose gun reform tend to have a stronger racial bias,  tend to be politically and ideologically conservative and from southern states, and have higher anti-government sentiment.”

But they’ll completely ignore the racist history of gun control. No, let’s not talk about that at all. Own it, opponents of the regime. You’re the racists. Face it!

These people need to be shamed. They need to be exposed and never hear the end of it, and by people who know and understand science better than they do.

An important part of building success for the Second Amendment, over the long term, rests in making good arguments within the legal community. We lament the current state of federal rulings in Second Amendment cases, but it’s worth noting that most of the judges on the bench today spent most of their careers believing the Second Amendment was a meaningless anachronism, and old habits die hard. There is a chance with the next generation. Jonathan Goldstein has an article in The Philadelphia Lawyer discussing the issue of gun rights in a way that’s not going to come off as mouth foaming to the uninitiated:

These and other uncertainties in the law must be clarified. Gun owners working hard to comply with the law shouldn’t have to live with the constant threat of prosecution for vague offenses or uneven application of the law. Instead, our statutes and regulations should serve as a clear guide to help principled gun owners comply with the law.

In short, if we treat law abiding gun owners as the respect-worthy citizens that we are – mainstream people exercising a constitutionally protected civil right – we can find common ground to keep guns away from inappropriate people and demonstrate to any observer that compliance with the law is worth the trouble.

As they say, read the whole thing. I know a lot of people aren’t comfortable with the idea of “inappropriate people,” but “gun rights for felons and schizophrenics” isn’t a hill I think most of us are particularly keen to die on, especially not in publications meant to persuade the legal community.

A few New York assembly folks are calling on social media companies like Instagram to crack down on gun sales. This is quite likely an overblown problem, but it’s worth noting that the gun control movement is still pushing the “OMG! People are selling guns on the Internets!” meme. It’s capitalizes on the fact that most people don’t know the law, and reinforces the notion that our gun laws amount to an unregulated wild west. While it is technically legal to ship, via common carrier, to a non-licensee in your own state, practically none of the common carriers will accept firearms that aren’t being shipped by or to an FFL, and the U.S. mail is only an option for FFLs. So really, these are face-to-face transactions at the end of the day.

UPDATE: More on this subject over at the Daily Beat.