Category: Weekly Gun News

Very busy. This will probably be the first year I don’t attend NRA Annual Meeting. I have attended every one for the last 10 years, but this time I’m too short of time, too broke, and Dallas is just too far. Bitter is also starting a new job, so there’s also that complication. I am disappointed I cannot go, given what we’re up against.

They see me trollin’ they hatin’: Everytown for Knife Safety

Glenn Reynolds on Fair Weather Federalism.

I’m afraid there’s not much that’s going to stop New Jersey from getting worse. Any state where the Democratic majority is largely untouchable is going to be in trouble.

Can we dispense with this notion that 97% want universal background checks? On the ballot it got 59% in a deep blue state, was a razor thin win in another bluish state, and outright lost on the ballot in a purple state. People tell pollsters all kinds of shit. They act differently in the voting booth. This is, at best, an issue where Americans are divided pretty evenly.

The Hoggs have signed a book deal. But this is a genuine, organic grassroots response to a tragedy. Hell, when I was in high school, I could have pounded a book out no problem while touring the country.

They are going after preemption in Illinois. They will go after it everywhere they can. Really, gun ownership without preemption is unworkable. No one could possibly know the laws of every jurisdiction they pass through. Which is exactly why they want to get rid of it. Going after preemption is a direct assault on carry and transportation rights for firearms owners. It’s not a “no big deal” kind of thing. Preemption is a defend at all cost issue.

Pennsylvania has dropped reciprocity with Virginia. I figured when Virginia recognized our licenses by statute, they’d statutorily recognized by PA, but I guess not. Shapiro also removed recognition of non-resident permits. Added reciprocity agreements were made with Alabama and Idaho. Shapiro was careful not to screw anyone who can vote in Pennsylvania. I’d like to see Pennsylvania pass universal reciprocity, and tighten the Attorney General’s power with regards to reciprocal agreements. I’d be willing to trade a fix to make it so that a PA resident has to have a PA LTCF to carry in PA.

I did this kind of analysis a while ago, and came to the same conclusion: “Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide.” This guy did a much more thorough job. The reason researchers control for confounding factors is based on the idea that comparing say, New York City to rural Vermont isn’t a fair comparison, so we have to control for differences. But there’s a lot of room for bullshit in that process. Also, I think admitting there are confounding factors at all is tacit admission that guns aren’t the real issue.

You’re damned right it’s intentional. Remember, when New York City banned almost all semi-automatic rifles, they used the registration lists to round them up. We already have a sort of de facto registration with the 4473, but at least it’s distributed.

Speaking of New York City, when you concentrate this kind of power into a small number of hands, corruption is inevitable. It’s not a matter of getting the right people. There are no right people.

The same people who a few months ago were saying it was unreasonable to expect armed police officers to engage an active shooter with an AR-15 are now saying only wimps need a gun to engage an active shooter with an AR-15. This Hogg kid is going to grow up to be a great slime ball some day. I’m not saying that because he disagrees with me: I’ve met plenty of gun control people who are otherwise decent folk who I just disagree with. But there’s something about Hogg that is very off putting. Maybe he has a career as a politician ahead of him? I don’t know. Politicians have to be likable, and this dude always looks angry and pissed off. Maybe a yellow journalist? Sleazy lawyer? In the typography of sleazy professions, which one do you think fits?

Speaking of the Parkland Kids, one of them is now admitting that the confiscation of all semi-automatic weapons is the goal. Remember, this has never been about public safety. In the words of Glenn Reynolds, “It’s about sticking it to those flyover rubes and showing them who’s boss.”

Gee whiz, I can’t imagine what issue could be killing the Democrats right now?

I think Apple realizes that if they let SJW’s dictate content, there’s no logical end to their demands. Of course, Apple says they are keeping a close eye out for “Hate Speech.” How long before one of their Ack-Mac approved loose cannons says something stupid enough to get NRA TV kicked off? I’m so old I remember when NRA TV was basically just Cam & Company, and not much else. While some of their additional voices have been good (think Colion Noir), overall I’m not so sure. I have a strong preference for happy warriors. The angry pundit deal doesn’t work for me.

AR-15 used to repel home invasion. But I thought the AR-15 was no good for home defense? I’m told this by noted experts bought and paid for by Mike Bloomberg.

Apparently the CDC has been holding out on studies it did that suggests Gary Kleck’s estimates on defensive gun use (DGUs) were correct.

Time for some tab clearing. Sorry for the light posting. Things are getting busy, and my sinuses haven’t been managing this odd seasonal change, or not change, as the case may be, well at all.

No, The ‘March For Our Lives’ Isn’t Defining A Generation

Bloomberg’s money is making a big difference: “In the struggle over Virginia’s gun laws, gun control advocates are winning the money battle – big time” If the media were doing its job, they’d be harping on Everytown and Moms Demand about what percentage of their funding comes from Mike Bloomberg and other billionaires he’s friendly with at every opportunity. When they have been asked, they won’t answer, which should tell you something. As it is now, they are willing to play along with the narrative that these are grassroots driven groups.

You don’t say? “This seems to have had the opposite effect than what was intended. A major shift in the generic congressional ballot polls occurred this past month. In February, Democrats led by 16 points. By the end of March, that lead shrank to six. When Republicans hear the demagoguery and read op-eds like former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ call to repeal the Second Amendment, they are motivated to turn out and protect their rights.” Our greatest asset is that our people care, deeply. Six months from now they will still care. Six years from now, they will still care. We have something to lose.

The Portland Press Herald loves the ruling out of Massachusetts that says assault weapons have no constitutional protection. The judge in this case cherry picked some parts of Heller he liked, and ignored the parts of it that didn’t suit the result he wished to reach. He even invented parts of the Heller decision that are not there. The whole idea that militarily useful weapons are categorically unprotected is found exactly nowhere in the Heller decision. The fact that this guy is a Reagan appointee doesn’t give him automatic pro-gun bonafides like the Press Herald suggests. Silents have always been more supportive of gun control than other generations, so this does not surprise me.

I’ll have more to say on the Pennsylvania situation in a bit. There are some who would burn everything down and attack on all fronts. Quinn’s bill is an analogue of a federal law, and generally speaking we’ve not burned bridges over that. I’m much more concerned over Stephens’ bill, as it lacks sufficient due process. In Pennsylvania, an observational commitment is disabling, and all that takes is for someone to take you in for observation involuntarily. It’s not a high bar to reach, so I’m not sure why Stephens thinks this kind of thing is necessary. But hey, “Something must be done!,” right?

Despite what your lefty friends scoff at, this is true: “Armed civilians have the power to resist a bad government, and the collective force of millions of armed Americans absolutely acts as a deterrent to increased authoritarianism from its own leaders.” Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t understand how humans exercise power over other humans. Planes, tanks, bombs and nuclear weapons are useful for destroying armies in the field, but to subjugate a population, you need to send people out to use force and intimidation against the people you wish to subjugate. That becomes a lot harder when that population has the ability and will to turn the tables on the subjugators. At that level, the kinds of tools you use to defeat armies are a lot less useful.

I’ve seen a lot of this: “Will the NRA go the way of the tobacco lobby?” It was actually Ed Rendell who came up with the idea of trying to do to the gun issue what governments did to the tobacco issue. This isn’t a new idea. It’s just that Bloomberg’s money is a really useful mechanism for trying to put something like that in place. Personally, I think people like “Mark Pertschuk, former president of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights and former legislative director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence” are querulous busybodies who need to learn to mind their own business.

Also along the lines of the tobacco companies, The Brookings institution has another ridiculous idea. We’re very well served to keep the gun industry largely a cottage industry. Bloomberg could not ever hope to do as much damage to the gun making business as Cerberus Capital did.

Business these days seem to want to be involved in politics. So give it to them good and hard. Hopefully that convinces the other big banks to stay out of the debate. Apple and the other streaming companies seem to be holding. I think they realize if they start censoring politically controversial speech at the behest of activists, there will be no logical limit.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: This is not a left-right issue. This is an issue of the upper classes, who can afford to pay security and pay to live in very safe neighborhoods, versus working class Americans. For the most part, it is a class issue. While you’ll find people in all classes on both sides, for the most part, we’re up against wealthier elites.

Joe Huffman: “Talk is cheap. Thankfully so is ammunition and gas. Talk less about how bad genocide is and invite your friends and family to Boomershoot instead.”

Glad to hear that, but the lower courts are being permitted to do an awful lot of damage to it: “Parkland student says Clarence Thomas assured him 2nd Amendment ‘won’t be touched’” I think what you’re dealing with is a Court in stalemate on the issue. Without a change, there isn’t going to be another decisive ruling on the matter.

This is what happens when you give in to the kind of people who demand gun control.

Well, that doesn’t fit the narrative: “Florida’s state lawmakers haven’t gotten a dime from the NRA since 2005” Well, the Republicans haven’t done much for us in Florida since then, and have, in fact, actively screwed us.

When it comes to banning guns, the South Florida Sun Sentinel doesn’t think we ought to let pesky things like definitions bother us at all. What a bunch of clueless dolts. You can define assault weapons. That was never the argument. Our argument is that the definition is absurd. It’s a war on cosmetics and ergonomics. Guns must be uncomfortable to use, and look the same as they did 150 years ago!

The gun control people acted like this was the end of the world, and the Congressman should be charged for brandishing. But it’s really not cool to whip it out in public if you’re not planning on using it. It’s not a prop.

They can’t help themselves:

Every D candidate should be asked about this. https://t.co/TLjm4QL4XR

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) April 1, 2018

Get used to it kid: “It’s not just because I’m rolling my eyes at ignorant ‘full semi-automatic’ or ‘weapons of war’ comments coming from the anti-rights crowd, but because I’m ashamed of what the people on my own side are saying.” That’s why you never read the comments. Except here. You should read the comments here.

How about no? US Mayors call for an end to preemption. It would result in a patchwork of laws that no one would have any prayer of understanding.

Nothing like joking about murdering your constituents if you’re running for Sheriff in North Carolina. But by all means, stay home in 2018 because the GOP passed a bloated budget.

Miguel takes a look at “military style.”

The Federalist: “Why Good Fathers Prepare Their Sons for War”

Believe me, these gun owners do exist. There’s a lot of people who will heartily embrace “Well, if it won’t affect me, I’ll support it.” That goes double if they think they can appease the opposition with someone else’s rights. These are fundamentally selfish people who don’t stand for anything.

If Politico actually believes this, they don’t understand organizing: “A small group of teenagers from Parkland, Florida, with no organizing experience or money has single-handedly energized the national movement for gun control after the Valentine’s Day mass shooting at their high school.” I actually stopped reading at that point, because the author of the story is either a propagandist, or too naive to be worth considering.

A lot of these people don’t really understand the nature of war, or how human beings assert power over one another. If power was just about killing, the Bundy family would have been charred corpses.

There is no epidemic of school shootings.

Delta went through great length to try to explain to use that rescinding their NRA discount was an effort to be politically neutral. That was a lie.

“I Went to the March for Our Lives Protest. Here Are My 7 Takeaways.”

USA Today: No great surge in youth support of gun control. From what I’ve seen, we get our values from our families; our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. While a lot of my family are knee jerk liberals, the people I was closest to growing up, including my mother, were not knee jerk anything. They taught me to think for myself. The future belongs to those who have children. Raise them well.

Vox: “Realistically, a gun control plan that has any hope of getting us down to European levels of violence is going to mean taking a huge number of guns away from a huge number of gun owners.” But I am assured no one wants to do that, right?

Could #MarchForOurLives be a setback for gun control? The Republican Party took a terrible risk alienating college educated suburbanites to embrace issues important to white working class voters. Why? Because white working class voters are historically unreliable. But I can’t think of very much that will get them to turn out to the polls than gun control. Also, speaking as a college educated suburbanite: the Republican Party pisses me off, and I’d be a lot more willing to find better things to do with my time when it comes to elections if the Dems would lay off the gun control bullshit.

NRA ought to be reaching out to people like this to build a lawsuit. Punch back twice as hard.

Would Vox be pushing something like this if the subject were abortion? Didn’t think so. “A gun debate compromise: let cities and rural areas pass different laws”

Sultan Knish: “March for Our Lives is funded by Hollywood celebs, it’s led by a Hollywood producer and its finances are routed through an obscure tax firm in the Valley. Its treasurer and secretary are Washington D.C. pros. And a top funder of gun control agendas is also one of its directors.“

I haven’t really had enough material to continue with the regular news link post for some time. It’s not that the media isn’t writing about guns, it’s that so much of it is dreck it’s not even worth a link. It used to be, I’d ignore a lot of the local papers, and focus on big, reputable national papers writing stupid and ignorant things about guns. Of course, they still do that, but are there still people who aren’t committed lefties who don’t realize the New York Times is, for the most part, full of shit? So I’ll do these kinds of posts when I have material, and dispense with the notion that it is a regular feature.

The sky is, in fact, falling in Illinois. They only need to get lucky once. We have to be repeatedly lucky. If they can get assault weapons bans in just a few more states, that makes our fight against them that much more difficult. Right now those laws are outliers. We want them to stay that way.

Also, Florida is in big heap trouble, and Florida WILL be a bellwether for the nation, unlike some of the other states.

Dave Kopel is starting a multi-part series on the history of the assault weapons issue. He starts with the Stockton murderer, whose story will sound eerily familiar. Worth keeping an eye on.

Axios has a story about NRA’s digital game. I’m working up an article in my head about NRA’s ground game in general, and how it’s going to need to improve. This incident should be a wake up call. But more on that later.

Salena Zito: By ditching the NRA, companies are dividing Americans. They had all this planned out and ready to execute at the first viable pretext. You should be very worried, because they have been executing this strategy very well. I have in my time in this issue never seen the gun control movement so well-organized. We will need to up our game. Doesn’t matter that billionaire money is the only reason they can afford all this. Doesn’t matter that it’s unfair. It is, and we have to be prepared ourselves. I can say personally, I was not prepared for the Republicans to cave as quickly as they did.

I haven’t done any posts people about Trump’s gun control comments with Democrats. One, because Trump has a habit of saying whatever crazy shit comes into his head and then changing his mind later. Two, because my preferred candidate in 2016, Marco Rubio, folded like a cheap deck of cards under pressure, so it’s not like my preferred option was any better, and three, NRA has met with Trump and said everything is fine. All I have to say is I would not count on Trump with a Democratic Congress, so don’t any of you Trump voters even think about saying home in 2018.

School shootings spread like a virus. The article points out the media has managed to maintain an unwritten rule about not covering field rushers. Well, field rushers don’t earn the media great ratings. School shootings do. The media aren’t going to stop glorifying the mass murderers until there’s real social shame in it. But until then, the drive for ratings will dominate.

The Federalist: “Why Did It Take Two Weeks To Discover Parkland Students’ Astroturfing?”

Tam on “Playing Hooky For Gun Control”

Let the age giscrimination suits begin! Delta has already been made to pay. Others should follow. They need to be convinced that Bloomberg’s people mislead them. They must pay a terrible price for working with him.

Shocker: Membership in pro-gun groups surging. I’m at the highest level of life membership, so I can’t join any more, but despite the fact that my finances have been tight for some time, I’m going to find some money for a donation.

Kevin Creighton: “How do we flip that into a message of hope?” One word: community. As civil society and civic culture in this country implode, it’s what a lot of people need. It’s also something we can offer if we develop it. Churches were more successful when they were community institutions, but we’ve spent a lot of time in the past 40 years trying to tear it down. I’d also note: online communities are no substitute for real ones.

USA Today: “School shootings are not the new normal, despite statistics that stretch the truth.” More on that theme here as well.

Reason: “The jumping-off point of the story is that millennials (variously defined as those between the ages of 18 to 29, or people under 40-years old) seem to be left-wing on such issues as marriage equality, more-open immigration, drug legalization, for instance. But they also seem to be pretty right-wing on guns, despite having come on age in the post-Columbine era of semi-regular school shootings.” I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. None of this will matter if they don’t actually give a shit about the issue. Because if they elect a fanatic anti-gun big city Democrats, our gooses are cooked.

Remember, no one wants to take your guns. Though, personally, I agree that they should call for that. It would at least be a more honest debate. I’ll likewise do the favor of admitting that I think machine guns should be legal.

LA Times: “Actually, there is a clear link between mass shootings and mental illness.”

Analysis True: “Attacking the NRA is really attacking everyday Americans.”

Fortunately, things are starting to calm down. But I still have much to clear from my tabs.

New York is investigating NRA over Carry Guard. Additionally, anti-gun folks are putting pressure on Chubb, the underwriter. I hope NRA has all its ducks lined up with Chubb, and they will hold and not wimp out under pressure. I’m sure the investigation in New York is a political shake down. NRA is a New York corporation, so it seems unlikely to me they wouldn’t have evaluated the program’s legality under New York law.

Know your enemy: “Gun reform needs grassroots activists, not astroturf.” I might not agree with the author’s goals, but he knows what he’s fighting better than most people who decry “the corporate gun lobby.”

This is always a mystery to the media: “As with many gun control pushes, the effort has already fallen by the wayside despite the support.” Maybe because journalists can’t read legislation. If they had just tried to ban bump stocks, they might have succeeded. But they tried to ban all modification of semi-automatic firearms, and failed. This is what I predicted would happen.

Constitutional Carry being pushed in Michigan.

Now anti-gun folks are looking to restrict night-vision gear. This technology is now ubiquitous, and no longer that sensitive. That’s why it’s cheap. It’s just cameras and displays.

People can bitch about Chris Christie all they want, but if Murphy wins on Tuesday, it will be effectively over for New Jersey gun owners.

Dem AGs fighting National Reciprocity.

They don’t understand why gun control is so hard, because, after all, all their friends agree with them.

Florida Political Review: “This conversation shouldn’t be construed as both-sides-ism. The evidence is clear that higher rates of gun ownership correlate with higher rates of gun violence. Countless studies suggest a variety of policies – waiting periods, universal background checks, buyback programs, limits on magazine capacity – can and do reduce the rate of gun death. The point of this wasn’t to debate policy, it was to understand a different perspective.” What evidence? Provide it. I’ve followed this issue a long time, and there is no credible study that has come to this conclusion. There’s certainly no consensus that this is the case.

Monumental Mental Health Second Amendment As-Applied Challenge Success

“Researchers says law to expand background checks in Colorado and Washington failed most likely due to noncompliance and a lack of enforcement.” You don’t say? I never would have predicted this. In truth, it’s better for the cops to chase real criminals than trying to lock Elmer in jail because he lent his rifle to his hunting buddy. None of this was ever going to be reasonably enforceable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional, or doesn’t understand the scale of what’s trying to be regulated.

Are Millennials Moving Right on Guns?

Yep: “Blogs opened up the internet for honest debate. Social media will kill it.”

The root of gun control: “On reflection though, as an urban liberal who has not touched a gun in 20 years, that is an easy position for me to take. ‘Taking their guns’ seems reasonable, but owning a gun is a right that I will never exercise and means nothing to me. I should recognize that that might influence my willingness to place the Second Amendment on a sacrificial alter.” There’s also the fact that urban liberals don’t very much care for the kind of people who own guns either. After years of writing on this topic, the idea that this issue has anything to do with public safety is naive at best.

I started this feature not long after Sandy Hook, because the amount of bullshit flowing in the media was high enough that I couldn’t cover it all. This is a feature I’m happy to skip because of lack of news, but since we’re in the aftermath of a particularly bad mass shooting, the news is flowing. There are a few surprising things, however. One is that the gun control groups aren’t getting much traction. I have alerts for Everytown, Brady, and CSGV. For the most part the press aren’t writing about them. However, NRA’s announcement changed the news cycle.

The media were very quick after the incident to spread far and wide that in their estimation, Nevada’s gun laws are awful. They were even chiding Nevada for failing to implement Bloomberg’s badly drafted background check law. That narrative dried up quick once the facts started to come out.

This is the big article of the week: “I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.”

If you read nothing else here, you’ll really want to read this. Worth sharing even on the vast wasteland of social media.

This bit by Sci-Fi author Larry Correia is also worth your time. Probably one of the best things I’ve seen defending suppressor deregulation.

The Federalist: “6 Reasons Your Right-Wing Friend Isn’t Coming To Your Side On Gun Control”

Because it worked so well in 2016: 2020 Democrats Target Guns.

This one is going to be fertile ground for the conspiracy loons, because it’s increasingly looking like we aren’t going to have answers.

Guns now at forefront of Virginia Governor’s race. This won’t help the Democrat. Bloomberg is also dumping a lot of money into the race. You remember last time he did that and almost cost Terry McAuliffe the election?

It would be helpful to Senator Murphy if this was actually true: “Mass shootings are an American problem. There’s an American solution.” Unfortunately for him, it is not.

Smart guns won’t stop mass shooting, says Wired. I don’t know, judging from the thumbprint reader on my phone some days it just might.

We must ban springs! One easy way ATF could have ruled against bump stocks is to argue they are readily convertible. Just add a spring.

The Federalist: “When You Politicize Shootings You Make It Harder To Find Solutions” An excerpt: “Those in the press who mislead the public on all these issues give themselves away, as well. They are interested not merely in stopping mass shootings, but limiting gun ownership.”

Patrik Jonsson, whose reporting on this issue has always been fair: “Why gun experts don’t support banning – or buying – ‘bump stocks’”

Your hearing is a joke to them.

Gun groups now rejecting Pat Toomey’s “landmark background check bill.” How does it feel to be a sucker, Pat? I told you, none of those people will ever vote for you. Last election, a lot of us didn’t either!

Remember that when someone starts to argue that your hobbies aren’t worth precious lives, that we tolerate an awful lot of death and societal harm for people’s pleasure in other contexts, so what makes you such an peculiar asshole? And unlike guns, alcohol isn’t particularly useful for self-preservation in most situation, though I suppose it’s a useful fuel and disinfectant.

Philip Bump at WaPo: “But the effect of having a silencer probably would have been negligible. Clinton and others appear to be assuming that silencers — or ‘suppressors,’ as they’re known in the industry — work the way that they do in the movies.”

Bearing Arms: “In the wake of the Las Vegas shooing, YouTube has banned all videos demonstrating how to modify firearms so that they can fire in more rapid succession.” Oh well, Internet freedom was fun while it lasted.

The New York Daily News thinks they’re being played by Congress and the NRA. If your goal is more semi-auto gun bans, then yes, you are. And we are very good at it. The truth is that overreach on the part of the anti-gunners is why nothing happens. We’ve been willing to make trades, and we’ve made trades. The other side seems to have a real issue with that.

What if I were attending a shooting match or training class in Vegas? Or Reno?: “While amassing private collections of firearms may be consistent with the spirit and the letter of the Second Amendment, it is hard to accept that anyone has a protected right to appear in the time and place of their choosing bearing more than 10 rifles.” I don’t offer advice to Bridge players because I don’t know or understand the game. But hell, bring up guns suddenly everyone’s a fucking expert.

An oldie, but worth bringing up again: “There’s No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, and Murder Rates” I did a similar analysis years back and got the same result. Once you start controlling for confounding factors like urbanization, income, etc, you’re admitting that the problem is more complicated than just the prevalence of firearms.

Raise your hand if you thought Jimmy Kimmel’s cry-a-thon was a bit much. Ben Shapiro has an excellent retort. So does Charles C.W. Cooke.

 

It’s time for some tab clearin’. We’ve actually had some positive developments in the past week, namely that the SHARE Act passed committee, and rumor has it a floor vote will be held in October. Time to put pressure on the critters.

Breyer: Second Amendment not about the right of an individual to keep a gun next to his bed. Notice Kennedy didnt’ retire this summer? Nothing changes. I had worried those rumors were meant to push him out, but it looks like he’s staying on at least another year.

The press went absolutely nuts that NRA did a concealed carry fashion show. I saw this all over my news alerts when the Carry Guard Expo was happening. Foreign press particularly covered it.

Science Alert: “Here’s Why Gun Violence Research in The US Is About to Come to a Grinding Halt.” As Glenn Reynolds notes: “Because it’s been a cesspit of politicized pseudoscience for decades.”

Breitbart: “Moms Demand Action’s Secret War on Concealed Carry for Law-Abiding Citizens.” I’m not sure it’s all that secret, but then I suppose that wouldn’t generate clicks.

New Jersey is moving to legalize tasers in light of Caetano.

Yehuda Remer: “The National Rifle Association is the Jews’ Safest Place.”

John Lott: “Apply background checks for gun purchases to voting.”

Tam: “Review: SIG Sauer P320 X-Carry Pistol.”

Kopel & Greenlee: The racist origins of gun control.

Scam Artists in the Firearms Community.

California is disarming people who commit misdemeanor hate crimes. Eventually, getting a speeding ticket will be a disqualifying offense. It’s not like the courts will stop it.

LEO Weekly: “Black People Should Arm Themselves NOW!”

Dave Hardy on Heller’s common use test. It’s not perfect, but if it was actually followed, we’d have far broader protections than courts now are willing to offer.

Kennedy didn’t retire, so not going to happen: “Supreme Court Urged to Overturn Maryland’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban” Cert will be denied.

Police brass comes out against Constitutional Carry in Indiana.

Everytown boss in New York Times: Ban open carry of firearms.

You don’t say: “N.J. in line for tougher gun laws if Democrat wins governor’s race.” Christie has his faults, but he’s been the most pro-gun New Jersey governor of my lifetime, which should give you an idea of what sorry shape that state is in.

I’m pretty much back to 100% since my several day stay in the hospital. I’m surprised how much it took out of me considering they weren’t doing anything to me other than monitoring for a dangerous side effect of the Sotalol they started me on. I felt worse coming out than I did going in! Now I have some mental cycles to spare on a news links post:

Detroit Metro Times on Constitutional Carry: “In this case, there’s another reason; your average good ol’ boy doesn’t like paying the $100 application fee for a concealed weapon permit, plus subsequent fees every few years to renew the license.” Or maybe, just maybe, the fee disenfranchises vulnerable populations of their right to self-defense, and serves to perpetuate white privilege. If it cost $100 to vote, they’d throw a screaming fit. Remember your Alinsky: Make them live up to their own standards.

Hard to argue: “No knock raids should be banned except in cases of imminent threat to life.”

I’ll be honest, I’m not optimistic the GOP controlled Congress is going to accomplish anything important in the next two years. But if all we get out of Trump is another two solid Supreme Court justices, it might be enough to move the ball forward a good bit.

NRA-ILA: Poll shows overwhelming support for more background checks is actually underwhelming. Well, we know that. Last time Bloomberg put the issue before the actual voters he very nearly lost in one state, and outright lost in another, both of which were purplish blue states. Even in a deep blue state he didn’t win by the margins polls said he should have.

SAF has won a FIOA action to find out how much revenue Seattle is collecting from its gun tax. The tax was never intended to raise revenue. It was meant to prevent the wrong kind of businesses from operating in Seattle. No different than if they were trying to drive out book stores or newspapers with punitive taxation.

Annette Evans: “There Is No Crying in Shooting.” Having once gotten a bit of powder residue behind my eye protection and into my eye, I’m not so sure!

Yes, we do love ourselves some good old fashioned law and order, don’t we?

A plea deal is probably the best this guy’s attorney was going to get. To me he seemed rather unbalanced.

Bloomberg’s The Trace: “The NRA’s New ‘Carry Guard’ Program Has Some Certified Trainers Seeing Red.” They link primarily to this article. I don’t really have a problem with NRA selling concealed carry insurance, but I do have a very big problem with it undermining its own long standing training programs in favor of something that to me looks very poorly thought out.

I’ll give NRA credit for doing some reporting that a decade ago we’d never have seen anywhere other than the blogosphere.

NRA is pushing ballot reform in Maine. This isn’t directly a gun topic, but the ballot has been Bloomberg’s primary tool to achieve wins. He lost in Maine, but generally speaking if you have enough money, you’ll win ballot fights. They’d be foolish not try to shut these mechanisms down. Personally, I think ballot measures should be unconstitutional under the Guarantee Clause, but what do I know?

 

I have to admit, it’s getting hard making this even a biweekly feature. Let me throw out a theory: the worst thing in the world that could happen to the National Rifle Association is for their opponents and the media to ignore them, following the late Brian Anse Patrick’s book on the subject. NRA has certainly gotten a lot of negative media attention, but almost none of it related to guns. The media isn’t writing much about the subject these days. In fact, the best gun news coverage out there is done by Guns.com, owned by the name Chicago-based media company that does Cracked.com. None of this is good news for the NRA.

Tamara Keel: How to Carry Concealed In a Purse (If You Must).

What universal background checks really mean. It’s one of those things that sounds good, so it polls well, but when the rubber meets the road, it’s a lot more complicated. Technically loaning a firearm is illegal in Pennsylvania too, but we except loans to LTC holders.

Carry permit holders up to 14.5 million. You have to wonder how much the spread of constitutional carry is going to put a damper on these numbers… not that I’m arguing that isn’t a good problem to have.

Everytown is winning at the state level, according to themselves. If you get enough media to share, maybe it’ll be true!

This is the kind of garbage the media is putting out these days. What is even the point here?

Same kind of trash. Seriously, this stuff isn’t even worth linking. And it’s not because it’s taking a contrary point of view, or pointing out something uncomfortable. It’s just bad, as in not good.

From the same source, you’re also starting to see progressives question gun control again: “For all the root causes of gun violence, the history of gun control research has never conclusively shown evidence of progressive gun legislation working.”

The NRA As Church.

Kevin has shared my disdain of Carry Guard, and I’m glad he’s writing about it. He believes NRA is throwing its own training and instructor program under the bus. I think he’s right.

Gun control folks seem to have a fondness for armed guards these days.

What do you know: the PSP actually have to back up their assertions with verifiable facts to deny someone an LTCF.

Jury nullification hampering feds efforts to prosecute Bundy supporters. It would probably help if the federal government hadn’t blown its legitimacy with the locals.

Guess who’s getting $2,000,000 from Google? I first saw this over at Clayton’s, and at first I was thinking they were only funding the interruptor model, which isn’t gun control. But further investigation shows they are donating to a coalition of groups that includes Everytown and the Brady Campaign. I miss the days when corporations feared taking political stands and risking alienating customers, but when you’re a monopoly, that’s less of a concern.

Constitutional Carry: One Year Later.

“These Charts Help Explain NRA Politics”

Larry Keane of NSSF: “Unpacking The Pew Research Center’s Latest Gun Survey.”

The Akins Accelerator 2. The only thing it lacks from the first one is the spring. If you recall, ATF classified the spring as a machine gun.

It’s goal of passing the SAFE act having been achieved, New Yorkers for Gun Safety seems to be closing its doors.

Maybe the Brady Campaign can use the $1.1 million in attorneys fees they are getting from the State of Florida to pay off the debt they owe to the Phillips family.

“Black woman writes about getting a gun for protection. NY Times readers don’t like that one bit.”

OSU study tries to paint gun control opponents as extreme.

California bullet button regs.