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Weekly Gun News – Edition 37

Happy hump day. The two all-waking-hours work session the past few days has paid off, and I’m now a bit more free to get ready for the NRA Annual Meeting and clear out some tabs. Fortunately, a lot of the time is a car ride, and thanks to the wonders of 4G and WiFi tethering, I can blog while Bitter drives. BTW, there’s still some openings (or at least was as of the 15th) at the Annual Firearm Law Seminar. I will be there.

Living in a different reality: “How gun violence prevention finally became a winning political platform.” Bernie is a kooky old Senator of little note from Vermont, and if it weren’t for super delegates, he’d be within striking distance of the nomination. Gun control isn’t saving Hillary, the non-democratic nature of the Democratic primary process is.

Exurban Kevin looks at some of the people leading seminars at Annual Meeting.

You’re doing it wrong.

As a wise man once said: “Think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines and you won’t often go wrong.” She called for Australian-style confiscation as a model for the US to follow. They have no credibility with this at all.

Things are looking up in Missouri.

One of the architects of the SAFE Act is going to jail for 5 years.

The “2A” write-in campaign against Toomey managed to get a mention from Philly Voice. We really need to primary Toomey when he’s up in an off-year election, which is next time, assuming he wins this year’s election.

If we were completely honest with ourselves,Â the reason prosecutions are so low for people who fail background checks is that most of them are harmless, and probably had no idea they were prohibited. A lot more people are prohibited for mundane technical reasons than they are for robbing people or other violent crimes.

Speaking of creating vast new swaths of prohibited people.

Exurban Kevin wonders what’s going to happen when the gun bubble finally bursts.

Off Topic:

Ilya Somin, playing the role of Captain Obvious: “Political ignorance haunts the 2016 campaign.” It’s hard to ignore the problem now.

Seems like it to me:Â Social Networking algorithms boost conspiracy theories.

I keep saying my generation are horrible parents. Yes, our parents were a selfish lot, but we x-ers turned parenting 180 degrees and drove until we went off a cliff. We were the latchkey generation that became helicopter parents.

Glenn Reynolds: Don’t be a sucker for socialism.

Major Civil Rights Victories

Maybe I should get too busy to blog more often if we’re going to have a rash of good news. I’ll probably take a bit more time in the car to look over the details, but I’m very happy to announce we scored a major court victory over Washington DC in regards to issuance of concealed carry permits. Remember that DC’s prohibition regime was thrown out by another case, and in they immediately implemented a weak may-issue regime modeled after New Jersey, Maryland and New York City. The judge tossed that, as he should have. Key findings in the decision:

The Second Amendment’s applicability is not limited to the home.
Defendants [DC] are unlikely to demonstrate an unrequited presumption of constitutionality for the District’s “good reason” requirement.
The district’s concealed carry scheme is likely unconstitutional.
Strict scrutiny is likely the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny.
1. The District’s “good reason” requirement burdens core Second Amendment conduct.
2. The District’s “good reason” requirement imposes a substantial burden on core Second Amendment conduct.
Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief.
The balance of equities and the public interest also with in Plantiff’s favor.
Issuing a permanent injunction would be imprudent.

You’ll note from the case that the Judge has granted a preliminaryÂ injunction, rather than a permanent one, so there will still be a trial, but this is very good news, and indicates the case will be tried by a judge who takes this stuff seriously. This is about as good a result as we could hope for.

The second victory is out in California, in the case of Teixeira v. County of Alameda in the Ninth Circuit. This is a three judge panel. This case is interesting because it will have direct bearing on the Nova ArmoryÂ situation. Here the antis tried all their usual tricks: no gun stores within 500 feet of residential areas, schools, parks, etc. From the case:

The government canâ€™t satisfy this scrutiny simply on the assertion that â€œgun stores act as magnets for crime.â€ â€œIndeed, Teixeira took pains to remind the court that â€˜all employees working at a gun store, and all clients/customers are required to be law-abiding citizens.’â€ Therefore, the case must be remanded to the district court. And on remand, the district court must require â€œat least some evidentiary showing that gun stores increase crime around their locationsâ€ and must require some â€œexplanation as to how a gun store might negatively impact the aesthetics of a neighborhoodâ€ (if the government continues to rely on a community aesthetics rationale for its zoning rule).

Of course, they can’t show gun stores drive crime rates. That was just a bullshit excuse to ban gun stores from opening. Now, certainly they do care about the wrong kind of people coming into their community, but you, dear readers, are that wrong kind of person.

It’s a good thing when the courts make them back up their assertions, because they honestly can’t.

Not Dead, Just Getting Ready

We’re heading to Louisville, KY on ThursdayÂ for the NRA Annual Meeting. This year is a bit of a dilemma, as we attend the NationalÂ Firearm Law Seminar on Friday, but that tends to overlap with the Leadership Forum. In past several years I’ve been fine with skipping that, since I’ve grown tired of listening to boring politicians and other such talking heads droning on beyond their welcome. But this year’s three ring circus is bound be entertaining, and I’m interested to hear and report on whatever crazy, off-the-cuff shit Trump has to say. You can say what you want about Trump, boring the man is not. One of us may skip out early to cover the Leadership Forum.

More seriously, in terms of forums that get genuinely covered, NRA’s Leadership Forum is a key Trump opportunity to start uniting the GOP base behind him and start getting buy-in from the people who worryÂ they are being sold a bill of goods. Will Trump take the opportunity?

In the mean time, I’m trying to get ahead of my work so I’m not completely behind when I return next Tuesday. That’s the bigger reason posting is light. I’ve been behind to begin with, in case you haven’t noticed.

Ted Nugent No Longer a Top Vote Getter?

I’ve heard through the grape vine that while Ted Nugent still managed to get re-elected to the Board, his rank was 18 out of 25 [UPDATE: Apparently alphabetically, not by vote]. Nugent used to be a top vote getter, because he’s a celebrity candidate (which usually rank near the top). It would seem our effort to encourage members not to vote for him has had some impact. Hopefully he will be made to understand that the voting membership has tired of his antics, and I’d also like to think this will send a loud and clear message to the NRA Board’s Nominating Committee. After Annual Meeting, there should be raw numbers released, which we’ll take a look at.

UPDATE: I’m told from other sources this is not necessarily true. We’ll post the raw numbers when we get them at Annual Meeting.

Nova Armory Update

At the end of the day, there are a lot more of us then there are of them, and we’ll show up when necessary. The Zoning Board unanimously voted to keep Nova Armory’s occupancy license in tact.Â From Virginia Citizens Defense League:

We had a HUGE turnout – truly flooding the room to standing room only proportions earlier in the evening.

There was only ONE anti who spoke, almost the entire rest of the room was wearing VCDL stickers. She gave several lame excuses why NOVA Armory should have their permit revoked AND she didnâ€™t want NOVA Armory to be able to reapply EVER! (I love it when the antis overreach. Makes my job so much easier. They simply canâ€™t help themselves, bless their pointed little heads.)

That even shocked the Zoning Board.

The Board members asked some very key questions and that gave me my first hint that they viewed this as a frivolous case.

I was particularly pleased that we had so many women speakers! I love to see women at these things as it destroys the stereotype of gun owners being only men.

RTWT. Hopefully no one will mind if I crib a photo, but I’ll link back to the source. Click on the photo to see what strong activism looks like. I’ll give Phil Van Cleave credit, he can turn them out when we need them.

The Continuing Saga of Nova Armory

I’ve been meaning to write about this for two weeks, but just haven’t found the time. You might remember a story that popped up a year or so ago that busy body whack jobs in Arlington County, Virginia were trying to prevent a gun shop from opening up there. The shop, Nova Armory, managed to open, but not until after the crazies managed to get a few state reps to use their offices to attempt to intimidate the landlord into cancelling the lease. A few weeks ago, Nova Armory filed a suit, arguing that there was a Conspiracy to Injure Another in His Trade or Business. This is now relevant again, because as Miguel reports, the busy bodies are busy getting the county to revoke Nova Armory’s Certificate of Occupancy at a hearing tonight. If you live in Arlington County, now is a good chance to go stand up to these whack jobs.

I don’t know much about how steep of a hill it is to climb with this kind of lawsuit in Virginia courts, Â but I wouldn’t be afraid of looking into suing in federal court, especially if they revoke occupancy. I would file in federal court under 42 U.S.C. Section 1985(3), “Conspiracy to Interfere with Civil Rights.”

A lot of folks on our side incorrectly speak of using civil rights laws to shut down what is mere advocacy, but in this case, by using State Legislators and County Government to attempt to shut down Nova Armory’s business, they have actually taken measures to deprive Nova Armory of their Second and 14th Amendment rights. Absolutely if this were happening because residents of Arlington County didn’t want a Black-owned business opening, and engaged in a conspiracy to take actual measures to shut it down, that business owner would have a case. This is no different. The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is necessarily the right to buy, sell, and trade in arms as well. Granted, Heller lit the way for government to regulate arms sales with that infamous clause we’re all too familiar with, “The Courtâ€™s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on … laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” But this is going much farther than regulation.

In this case, they are not imposing conditions or qualifications, but arguing that no gun store may operate in Arlington County, and they’ll act extra-legally if need be to ensure it doesn’t happen. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in which Virginia resides, has been more friendly to a lot of Second Amendment claims than others. I’d say dragging these fiends into federal court is worth a shot. You can’t negotiate with people who do things like this. You just have to hit back and hit back hard.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 36

Time to clear the tabs out. Often when I do this I end up with a few more posts where it turns out I had more to say about a link than I originally thought I would.

Hillary tears are even sweeter than hippie tears: Bernie Sanders wins West Virginia. That should have been Hillary country, but telling coal miners you’ll put them out of a job in coal country is usually not a winning strategy.

The New Hampshire legislature has sent Constitutional Carry to the Governor yet again. She vetoed it last time.

The Governor of Arizona signs two gun bills and vetoes one. I’ll be honest, I don’t really understand the bill he vetoed, which seems to have to do with an interstate gun compact (which I’ve never heard of). The two he signed were campus carry and enhanced preemption, kind of like what we had for a bit here in PA.

Clayton Cramer: Can Assault Weapon Bans survive rational basis scrutiny? They can survive any kind of scrutiny if we end up with an Court packed by Hillary appointees!

Missouri is considering a bevy of pro-gun bills, including “stand your ground” or removing the duty to retreat. Miguel highlights part of Bloomberg’s campaign to stop it, which grossly misunderstands self-defense and how it works in practice and law. More on that campaign here.

SayUncle: The Trumpeting. You kind of have to laugh at it, because the alternative is depressing.

Shooting Illustrated will become an official journal of the NRA, meaning you can get it with your membership. I received some complimentary copies for a while, and it absolutely deserves to be elevated to one of the member choices.

Jim Shepherd things we may be seeing Gun Culture 3.0 forming. To me it looks more like Gun Culture 2.5. His idea for manufacturers doing “fitting days” is great, though.

Our opponents are always surprised to find there are assholes on the Internet. Do they think top NRA officials haven’t received death threats? Lots of nastiness out there on both sides.

This looks to me like something pitched from gun control groups. If I see Theme and Variation out there in the media on this motif I’ll know for sure it is. Why? Because it’s a great narrative for them, and all they have to do is claim it’s so, and fine one chief somewhere to quite, and bam, cops are against liberalizing gun laws.

Remember folks, they aren’t against money in politics, they are just against your money in politics. Bloomberg is spending big on state level races. This will eventually make things very difficult for us.

Is there really anyone out there who get their political opinions from vapid celebrities? Sadly, I know the answer to that and it is, well, sad. I haven’t been to a movie in years, and I don’t miss it. Don’t feed the monster!

Democrats in New Jersey are dead set against even loosening their may-issue regime even slightly. I don’t notice that Delaware, which has a may-issue regime far more liberal than even Christie has proposed, is a cesspool of crime.

John Richardson got the gun question from his doctor and lied. That’s probably the easiest path forward, but the truth is that it’s none of their damned business unless you’re being treated for a mental health issue that makes you a danger to yourself or others.

Is Facebook Suppressing Gun Content?

Bob Owens has an interesting story over at Bearing Arms about whether Facebook is deliberately suppressing gun related content.

Several people in the industry Iâ€™ve spoken with in the industry have claimed that theyâ€™ve seen Facebook pages which were growing steadily see a dramatic decline in terms of reach and shares over the past year.

At the same time, they claim page â€œlikesâ€ have plateaued, and that their pages are seeing no growth. Several specifically claimed that their content seems to be buried well down in the feeds of their readers, which is also something our readers have complained about with a fair degree of regularity.

I notice my Facebook traffic has been pretty regular, but I make almost no effort to cultivate my social media presence, nor do I pay Facebook to “boost” posts. I’ve always felt that the reason Facebook throttles my reach is because they want me to pay up.

That said, there is almost certainly a concerted effort to shut down our “horizontal interpretive community” and prevent us from organizing. These efforts are, of course, funded by one obnoxious billionaire. Well, I hate to tell him, but you can’t stop the signal. Our folks are always going to find a way to communicate and organize. Who knows, the community-based gun blog might even become a thing again.

AR Bleg

I’ve been wanting to build a custom AR for a couple of years now, but a distinct lack of disposable income has been a real drag on my plans. At this point I don’t know much about what the current goodies are. The rifle would be primarily used for target shooting, possibly in matches (if I decide to get back into that kind of shooting). I’m looking for recommendations on:

Barrels. I dot know much about barrels and twist rates, etc. It’ll be a .223 AR, probably mostly shooting your standard 55gr XM193 at distances out to 200 yards 99% of the time.
Triggers. I’ve looked at the Geissele triggers, but they are spendy. Worth it though? Geissele is a local company, so it would be nice to support them.
Stocks. Magpul makes an adjustable stock I think might work.
Uppers. I notice they have uppers that allow the charging handle to operate on the left side of the upper instead of the traditional straight pull back. I’d tend to lean against this since I prefer to stick with a more standard AR, but I’m wondering if anyone has any feedback on that style of upper.
Parts Kits. I’d get the trigger separately, but is there any quality difference in the non-trigger parts? I would tend to imagine there wouldn’t be much difference.

I’ll probably build this slowly over time, when I can come up with some spare coin to grab a needed component. Any advice one can offer would be appreciated.

We Will Survive Trump, Or Hillary

Seen on the Internets, via Tam:

At this point we’re going to get a probably anti-gun president or a definitely anti-gun president.

What I’m trying to avoid is the constant losertalk of “OH MY GOD BURY YOUR GUNS AND BUY ALL THE PRIMERS” that I had to put up with in ’08 and ’12. We’ve beat this before and we’ll beat it again. Now send some dough to the NRA-ILA, SAF, and GOA, then hop out of the wagon and help pull this thing.

I am by no means pleased Trump is the presumptive nominee, but I do not join with many on the right with all the doom and gloom. If there’s one thing I won’t be in the business of this election it’s predicting Donald Trump.

I actually don’t think Trump will be too bad on the gun issue. I know, I know… he’s said anti-gun things in the past and he’s duping people and lying to us. The truth is they are all lying, except the rare pol who’s actually a shooter. They arrived at their position on this issue by cold political calculation, and as many other interests as Trump has goofed and fumbled, he’s been more consistent with us. Â So I don’t worry about Trump on the gun issue too much. Though on everything else…. that’s a different story.

But even if the worst case happens and Hillary is President for the next four or god forbid eight years, we’ll weather. Oh, we may have setbacks. Some may be quite severe. But if you look at the success of the concealed carry movement, the gun rights movement is probably the only movement active today that could pass an Amendment to the federal constitution, and I think we should be prepared to pull that wagon should it become necessary. I hope folks at NRA are reading. I think we will likely need to think about a federal constitutional amendment to do what the Second Amendment should have done in the first place. It’s a hard wagon to haul, but I think we can do it.