Guns – Page 1113 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Decent article by Lancaster Online, but…

Lancaster Online has a pretty good article on whether or not the Virginia Tech Killer could have gotten his guns if he had been a resident of Pennsylvania. The answer, they say, is no. They do get a few things wrong. For one, you can’t buy a gun on the internet without an FFL. And they are, probably not intentionally, misrepresenting a few statistics at the end.

I’m going to point this out, because this isn’t the first paper I’ve seen make this mistake. They are using the Pennsylvania State Police 2005 Firearms Report. This is accurate to use for gun sales, but it does not show the number of people licensed to carry a firearm in any specific county, it only shows the number of people run through PICS that year for a concealed carry license application. Lancaster Online mistakenly reports the number of people with concealed carry licenses in the county as 3989 people. The true number would be approximately five times this amount, since our licenses renew every five years.Â One year won’t give you a very good number, because a lot of people got them as soon as the law changed, so some years will be slower than others. To get a true number, you’d have to contact the County Sheriff, and most won’t tell you how many they issue.

Statewide, the last number I heard was 600,000, or thereabouts. According to the 2005 State Police Report, they processed 101,000 background checks through PICS for license applications. I’d say 600,000 is probably about right, but you’d really have to see the numbers over a five year period to know for sure.

Walker County Gunnies Respond

I posted a few days ago about this letter to the editor.Â It seems that gun owners have made themselves heard in response.Â Â I always like it when that happens.

Brady’s Pushing Microstamping Hard

The Brady Campaign made a press release today urging California to pass the microstamping bill:

Microstamping technology was most recently demonstrated last Friday at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. There, the co-inventor of the technology, Todd Lizotte, conducted a successful live fire demonstration of the technology at the building’s shooting range with media
and Hill staff in attendance. Participants were able to see the remarkable clarity and redundancy of the technology when Lizotte projected a microscopic view of a microstamped cartridge onto a projector screen. “All of the questions about microstamping have been answered,” said Joshua Horwitz, Executive Director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun
Violence. “It has passed test after test. Law enforcement leaders want this. Community groups want this. It’s time to get it done.”

Interesting.Â I thought guns were illegal in Washington D.C.Â I’m curious to know exactly how the firearm was brought into the district, and under what conditions this test was conducted.Â Of course, it’s quite possible and probably that they wouldn’t face prosecution here, because of the Parker decision (which they are against) in any case. Â Wouldn’t that be a fun bit of irony?

Of course, it isn’t true that this technology is a panacea:

To test the effects of repeated firing, Beddow fitted engraved firing pins into six Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handguns that were issued to California Highway Patrol cadets for use in weapons training. After firing about 2,500 rounds, the letter/number codes on the face of the firing pins were still legible with some signs of wear. But the bar codes and dot codes around the edge of the pins were badly worn.

They also found that results varied widely depending on the type of firearm used, and the type of ammunition.Â Of course, there’s also this:

Codes engraved on the face of the firing pin could easily be removed with household tools, Beddow found.

And you can bet, just like criminals remove serial numbers, they’ll remove these as well.Â And these will be much more easily and thoroughly removed than serial numbers.

I’m not sure this serves any other purpose than to frustrate manufacturers, and drive smaller custom shops and gun makers out of business.Â That would be fine by most of the groups who are supporting this nonsense.

Ed Rendell Harping on Gun Control

I guess Ed is a little pissed off after voters handed him a stunning defeat over the Act 1 tax shift proposal. He’s scolding the legislature over it’s refusal to pass gun control laws.

Gov. Ed Rendell today bashed the General Assembly for failing to pass gun control laws. “This Legislature, for too long, has been in control of the NRA,” Rendell said at a news conference with mayors from cities across the state and lawmakers pushing bills such as limiting handgun sales to one a month.

The Legislature for decades has resisted significantly tightening gun laws.

Asked for evidence of his statement that the Legislature has been under the “control” of the National Rifle Association, Rendell noted that penalties are tougher for receiving a stolen TV than a stolen gun.

Rendell is either ignorant of Pennsylvania law on this matter, or lying. Receiving stolen property is graded in Pennsylvania as a second degree felony if the property in question is a firearm. If the property is a car, it’s only a third degree felony. Receiving a television as stolen property is a first degree misdemeanor. I suspect Ed Rendell, as an attorney and former prosecutor, is well aware of this, and is deliberately misleading the public.

He said limiting handgun purchases to 12 a year would curb “straw purchases,” in which many weapons are purchased at once and resold to criminals.

Again, show me evidence that this constitutes a majority of trafficking, and show me proof that this law will have any real effect. South Carolina repealed its law because it didn’t. And Virginia weakened its one-gun-per month law. If 12 guns a year is enough, who’s to say that 1 a year isn’t enough? Sorry Ed, that’s not something politicians have any business deciding. Plus, if you only allow one a month, that means you’re keeping track of what I buy, right? Forgive me if I say f**k you.

Frankel said his amendment to make the penalty higher for receiving a stolen gun than a stolen TV failed last year in the House.

Funny, I just read the law, and the penalty is higher. If you want to see for yourself, look here to see how the law is graded. Here is the receiving stolen property law for Pennsylvania. I searched in vain for some evidence of Frankel’s defeated amendment, but couldn’t find it. It does appear in the past he’s tried to clarify the language by defining “firearm” in the state’s theft statute, probably to overcome the fact that a firearm can mean different things in different parts of Pennsylvania law, but still, this is house cleaning.

Politicians lie folks, and journalists don’t bother to check what they say or call them on their bullshit. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s part of the reason the blogosphere exists.

Getting Involved

Earlier today I posted about the young man who was shot by the shooter in Idaho. I had presumed the man saw the shooter nearby his house, grabbed his pistol, and tried to take a shot at him. This post by Joe Huffman indicates that he did exactly what I advised not doing in my post yesterday, and went looking for the shooter. Apparently, he as not alone in this:

Another citizen became involved at the scene, Moscow Police Chief Dan Weaver said. The man, who had a handgun and a semi-automatic weapon in his car, was stopped by police as he drove through the crime scene.

Weaver said police initially mistook the man for a shooter and brought him to the police station in handcuffs to be interviewed.

The chief said he was concerned that the two men got themselves involved, especially with law enforcement already at the scene.

A good rule of thumb would be, if you aren’t close enough to the shooter to be able to engage him immediately, then you’re not doing anyone any favors by getting involved. Definitely, once the police arrive, it’s their situation. Uniforms are an important safety feature here, which is why police wear them. If you’re not wearing one, you don’t have any business being at the scene.

I am a big believer in an active citizenry, and I do think the citizen has a role to play in a situation like this, but that role involves keeping himself, his family, and his immediate vicinity safe from the shooter. Bringing someone to justice, that not our job, it’s the reason we hire police officers.

Better Choice Democrat Gun Owners

From Instapundit, quoting Gallup:

Although Rudy Giuliani is the front-runner for the GOP nomination, Republican gun owners are less likely than non-owners to support him. On the Democratic side, both gun owners and non-owners rate Hillary Clinton as their top choice for the party’s presidential nomination by similar margins over the rest of the Democratic contenders.

Democratic gun owners might want to take notice of Hillary Clinton’s atrocious record on guns, and instead look to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who’s record on guns is better than any of the current candidates, Republican or Democrat. Yesterday, he formally announced his candidacy.

More From the Tinfoil Hat

I think it’s quite possible that, rather than an astroturfing campaign, we’re seeing the fact that newspapers just love this “I’m a gun owner, but I support gun control” articles.Â I should be clear that if it is astroturfing, I don’t think the Brady’s are behind it.Â My guess would be the AHSA, but this is the tin foil hat talking.Â It very well may be that the newspapers just dig this gun owners for gun control meme, and are giving people with this idea preferential treatment.

But something sure does smell funny.

More Astroturfing?

Jeff Soyer finds another article, this one in the Roanoke Times, that follows the same pattern I’ve been mentioning here before. As I mentioned in Jeff’s comments:

I have a theory that all these editorials and letters to the editor are part of a coordinated campaign of astroturfing on the part of our opponents. I donâ€™t have much evidence for this, but it seems to me that all of these have been following the same pattern. Itâ€™s like someone took a template and played it out over and over with only slight variations. I just happen to feel that real people have different ways of approaching an argument. I have no doubt there are gunnies out there who believe this stuff, but every one of their letters follows the same template? Color me skeptical.

Here’s another thing that raises my level of suspicion. I think they might have screwed up with this one by trying too hard:

High-capacity magazine ban. I own a Super Nine, or high-capacity 9mm. It can carry 16 rounds, plus one. It never seemed inappropriate, until now. Even for personal defense, a simple eight-round magazine would be fine. Also, a high-capacity magazine ban for all weapons would negate the need for a gun ban.

I have never heard of any 9mm pistol called the “Super Nine”. Has anyone else? There’s a Super 90, but that’s a tactical shotgun. ~~Saying he carries a gun that doesn’t exist~~ [See SayUncle’s comments below] is more evidence that either a lot of these people are lying sacks of shit, or this is, in fact, a coordinated astroturfing campaign by our opponents. What say you all? I won’t feel offended if you tell me it’s time to put away the tin foil hat.

Urban Renewal

With the City of Philadelphia wanting to take guns away from honest people, and certainly make it difficult if not impossible for them to carry them for self-defense, I’m always happy to highly Pro-Gun Progressive’s efforts to clean up his neighborhood in Baltimore:

All of this is risky, but itâ€™s what needs done. Unfortunately, my truck and a ballistic vest is all the protection Iâ€™m allowed in the State of Maryland. Why is it so hard to understand that people will find it a lot easier to fight for their own neighborhoods if the law doesnâ€™t make them do it empty handed? I donâ€™t want to be a vigilante; I just want to give the police the help they need in turning this neighborhood aroundâ€“and have a fighting chance if some miscreant decides to try to take my life for doing so.

I’m glad the other Sebastian wears body armor for his neighborhood cleanup effort, but I have to say, in a similar situation, there’s no law that’s going to keep me disarmed. Â I fail to understand why the Philadelphia politicians want to make sure the good people in their city are stuck in the same situation as Pro-Gun Progressive, unable to legally provide for their own self-defense.

Another Hero Who Needed a Rifle!

I have to tell you folks, I admire the hell out of anyone who has the guts to put himself in the line of fire.

On the positive side, if you can call it that, we found out who the wounded citizen is. He is a mechanical engineering student here at UI, and when he heard gunshots he grabbed his â€œsemi-automatic .45 pistolâ€ and ran outside to try to help. He didnâ€™t get a chance to return fire before he was wounded. That story alone almost brings tears to my eyes. There are many who might call him stupid, or emboldened by his firearm and a fool for putting his life in danger. I call him heroic. He had absolutely no obligation to do what he did, but as a concerned citizen he ran into danger instead of away from it. I canâ€™t help but compare that behavior to the images we saw of cops at Virginia Tech, hiding behind cars and trees as 32 people died. Same goes for officers Newbill, Shield and Jordon, who all perceived a threat and ran to do their duty instead of worrying about their own safety.

I’m in total agreement. I also think the media are shits for failing to recognize people like this for the deeds they have done. But folks, when there’s an active shooter in your neighborhood, don’t go grabbing the pistol. Grab yourself a rifle. I think somewhere there’s a rule in gun fighting that goes “Bring a rifle. Bring 5 friends with rifles.” This is especially true when going up against someone else armed with a rifle. If you have a pistol, he’s going to be able to reach out a lot farther than you can, and you’ll be relying on him not seeing you in order to get close enough. If you don’t have a rifle, it’s time to get one. You can get an old surplus SKS for under 200 bucks. It’s a great investment, and they shoot reasonably well.

Hat Tip: SayUncle