The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Ryan has the scoop on how Sullivan’s confirmation hearings went. A little butt kissing in a confirmation hearing is par for the course, but I’m concerned about his statement indicating he’d release more trace data.
Have you sent your letter to DOJ yet? Â Here was mine.
I’ve been looking at the speeches the various candidates gave before the NRA’s Celebration of American Values, and I’ll offer up a few impressions. I’ll split this up into a few posts, because there’s a lot that was talked about, and it’ll get too long otherwise.
Senator John McCain
McCain, whether you like him or not, has generally been pretty friendly to gun owners over his career. I have my differences with him on several gun issues, which he acknowledges:
Over the years, we’ve not agreed on every issue. We had differences over my efforts to standardize sales procedures at gun shows and to clean up our campaign finance system. I understand and respect your position. But while we may disagree on the means, we do agree on the need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and, in the light of the number of my colleagues who have been disgraced or under investigation and are worried about indictment, agree that Washington needs cleaning up. Americans have lost trust in their government, and that trust must be restored.
But I’m as big a believer in the first amendment as I am in the second, and I can’t abide by a method of restoring trust that places limits on the speech of its citizens to criticize candidates for federal office. I will never forgive John McCain for McCain-Feingold. He either repudiates that, or he won’t get my vote.
Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney tells us:
Now, as governor, I worked closely with the NRA and the Gun Owners Action League to advance legislation that expanded the rights of gun owners in my state. And my door was always open to you, and that will continue to be the case if I’m elected president. Together, we reduced burdensome bureaucratic regulations, we made it easier for people to exercise their constitutional rights.
This would be Mitt’s definition of working closely:
“Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,†Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen’s groups and gun safety advocates. “These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.â€
Now, as it happens, the bill Romney signed actually helped out gun owners in Massachusetts in a number of ways, and kept the federal exemptions to the assault weapons ban in place when the federal ban expired. But you’d think from the Governor’s rhetoric, he was, you know, pandering or something. Mitt Romney? Pander? Naaah. At least he said he’d repeal McCain-Feingold:
And I’ll ask Congress to repeal the McCain-Feingold law which sought to impose restrictions on the First Amendment rights of groups like the NRA to advocate for issues we care about. Some parts have already been declared unconstitutional. We ought to get rid of the entire bill.
I couldn’t agree more, but can’t help but feel Mitt’s lips are chafing against my ass a bit too harshly. I’m surprised he didn’t offer to not only repeal the law, but personally eat the paper it’s written on at the Banquet for the Annual NRA Members Meeting.
Jacob picks up on a statement by Chris Cox:
“Historically, we have not gotten involved in primaries. We traditionally wait until after the conventions,” said Chris Cox, head lobbyist for the NRA. “That being said, given the candidates and the process and the front-loading of the primaries, it is a possibility that we could get involved in one of these presidential primaries.”
And comments:
What I would do in NRAs case would be a targeted mailing in certain states stating Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson are the prefered candidates in each party’s primary. No need to make up separate mailers, just list both guys on a single postcard to keep costs down. I wouldn’t give anyone an endorsement until after the primary.
I would consider only half of that. I think it could be smart for NRA to become involved in the Democratic primary, because Bill Richardson has been a real friend to gun owners in the past, and all the other serious contenders are absolutely no friends of ours. If you can give Bill enough of a boost to where he’s a serious threat to the other two candidates, you force Hillary and Obama to spend more money defeating their primary opponents. It also will hold the Republican candidates feet to the fire, with the prospects a pro-gun democrat winning the endorsement in the general election.  It wouldn’t make much sense, in my opinion, to get involved if Richardson is a lost cause.
I don’t think under any circumstance it makes sense to back a candidate in the Republican primary. If you pick a losing candidate, the eventual nominee is going to hold it against you that you actively helped his opponent. In the general election, it might come down to two candidates hating you, whereas if you had stayed out, you might have been able to work with the eventual nominee, even if he turned out to be less than ideal.
I agree with Jacob that it makes sense to get involved in primaries because it’s easier to affect change in them, but one must use caution. When you have multiple candidates vying for NRA’s affections, as is happening now in the current Republican primary, it wouldn’t be smart politics, in my view, to endorse one of them. If you have a pro-gun challenger sparring with all anti-gun candidates, then it might make sense.
It’s time we had a serious debate in our society about why so many minor and trivial offenses are felonies. Historically, felonies were reserved for only the most heinous offenses, and were typically capital crimes.
I would be much more open to the blanket idea that all felons lose their right to bear arms if it weren’t for the fact that so many minor crimes are felonies.
Supposedly it’ll pass the Senate tonight, and head to Bush for signature. I’ve said before that I don’t believe this bill is a bad deal, and I remain unopposed to it. I know a lot of people have concerns about this bill, some legitimate, some not so much. I’m prepared to eat crow if this turns out to make things worse for gun owners, but for now, I think having a means for relief from mental health disability is a positive step.
I completely sympathize with Megan McArdle over the process for getting Sudafed. Is there a constituency that’s really pushing this kind of law? Or is this how far our political class as sunk in terms of how they view their fellow citizens?
If you click through the link she supplies to Overlawyered here:
For a while now, lawyers in Minnesota, Oklahoma and elsewhere have been suing companies that make over-the-counter cold remedies containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine on the grounds that they were aware some buyers were using the drugs as raw material for illegal methamphetamine labs. Now such litigation appears to be gaining momentum in Arkansas, where many county governments have signed up to sue Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and other companies. “If successful, it could open up litigation against manufacturers of other produce used in making meth, such as drain cleaners and acetone.”
Those of us in the gun blogosphere are all too familiar with this tactic, since it was also used on gun manufacturers.
Some bills that are up for consideration in Harrisburg, courtesey, again, of Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs:
HB 1744 Caltagirone – (PN 2323) Amends Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) providing for a notice of limits on lending or transferring a handgun. Each purchaser of a firearm would receive a copy of a notice, to be promulgated by the Pennsylvania State Police, containing the information regarding limits on lending or transferring a handgun. The bill also states that the Joint State Government Commission would conduct a continuing study for the purpose of evaluating the extent to which multiple purchases of firearms by any individual during the period of the study are a contributing factor to the use of firearms in criminal activity. The bill adds that the Attorney General would have the authority to investigate and to institute criminal proceedings for any violation of this chapter. The Attorney General would be able to inspect or examine the inventory and records of a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer or licensed dealer without reasonable cause or warrant in certain cases.
This seems to me to be a worthless law. Any law that is not obvious enough that it requires notification probably should not be a law.
HB 41 Thomas – (PN 66) The Illegal Firearms Trafficking Act establishes the Bureau of Illegal Firearms Trafficking in the Office of the Attorney General. Duties of the bureau would include investigating potential violations of 18 Pa.C.S. (relating to crimes and offenses) relating to illegal firearms trafficking; and bringing prosecutions relating to illegal firearms trafficking. The Attorney General would receive complaints from individuals concerning illegal firearms trafficking and investigate and assist in county prosecutions relating to illegal firearms trafficking and, as necessary, coordinate with Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies in the investigation of similar crimes. Additionally, the Attorney General would annually report to the General Assembly detailing the activities engaged in by the bureau.
This is the one Philadelphia DA Lynn Abraham is wary of. You know how we talk about going after criminals? This proposal is mostly about that, but Philadelphia’s political leadership is opposed to it because it invades in on their territory. Better to go after gun owners than have the state AG threatening your turf eh?
HB 21 James – (PN 46) Amends Title 42 (Judiciary) further providing for bail by stating that the amount of bail fixed for any person charged with an offense committed while the person used or displayed a firearm would not be less than $50,000 unless special circumstances are presented.
Displaying or brandishing? There’s a difference. A lot of these bills I might be willing to talk about, but what is “displayed” and what is “offense”. If I have a pistol in my center console, and I get pulled over, am I subject to 50,000 bail if the officer, as the Supreme Court of the United States has permitted him to do, decides to arrest me formally?
My guess is that the reason Giuliani has been getting a pass from NRA leadership is:
1. They perceive him as someone that can defeat Clinton in the general election.
2. He’s not a social conservative. I get the impression from who NRA leadership favors that they are libertarian, not conservative.
Maybe Giuliani has really changed his mind on this. But call me skeptical.
Well, at this point, it wouldn’t really make good political sense to snub Giuliani, Romney, or really anyone. It’s very early in the game, and the winner is far from clear. It would be unwise to alienate the candidate that walks away with the nomination. Giuliani is certainly, from a gun rights point of view, far far from a desirable candidate, but if he wins, that’s who we have to work with, if Hillary or Obama is the nominee.
If by some miracle Bill Richardson wins the nomination, then Richardson should get the endorsement, because he’s more pro-gun than any of them. But it’s probably going to be Hillary. Given that, if I were NRA leadership, I’d be very prejudiced to endorsing Giuliani for 2008, but would hold out the possibility, if we like how he treats us on our issues, of an endorsement in 2012. In 2008, I would agree that we’ll help tar The Hildabeast, and make it clear to our membership what Hillary’s record is on our issue. In short, I’d make people hate me by playing politics ;)
I agree with Clayton that I doubt Rudy has had a real change of heart. But I’m not sure that matters. What matter is that he understands where his bread gets buttered. It’s not ideal. As I mentioned yesterday, it helps to have a real friend in the White House, but absent that, a guy you can deal with is better than Hillary.
Clayton Cramer talks about some important development in how the Philadelphia political class is talking about the gun issue. They admit at least one thing:
“This society has chosen to live with guns,†Dr. William Schwab was saying in July, as he stood before a roomful of reporters in a Penn Law classroom. “There are over 220 million guns in circulation in the United States of America. There is nothing that’s going to take those guns away.â€
We have to live with guns. You can’t un-invent technology. No attempt to do that has ever succeeded.  Now the bad:
“There’s kind of two different models,†he said. The first is “the idea of a ‘take-away’ model, where the more guns seized, the less guns are carried. But I think what’s really working is a ‘keep-away’ model. That is, if you are deterred from carrying your gun into an area where police might take it away from you, you don’t want lose it, even for the week or two it takes to replace it, because somebody might hear that the cops took your gun, and they might come after you because you’re unarmed.â€
The political class in Philadelphia needs to remember that they live in a state where 600,000 people are licensed to carry a firearm lawfully concealed on their person.  The City of Philadelphia issues 32,000 of these licenses. There are more legal firearms on the streets of Philadelphia in the hands of law-abiding citizens then there are police officers patrolling the city streets.
“Stop and Frisk” is basically having police officers apply what’s called a “Terry Stop”, named after Terry v. Ohio. Terry’s standard in “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed, and that the person is armed. This is much more lax standard than probable cause required for, say, a search of a vehicle, though Terry Stops can be used for a traffic incident as well.
It’s worthwhile for City leaders to realize there is a standard with Terry, and that they may not just randomly stop and search people. I have no problem, in theory, though I do have some specific problems with Terry, with police being able to do a limited unintrusive search to check for weapons on a suspect that’s been seized because of probable cause about a crime committed.
What I fear is that the City will use this as a pretext for harassing people who are lawfully carrying firearms.
Lynn Abraham, District Attorney for Philadelphia, has made a pilgrimage to Harrisburg to plead for more gun laws.
When challenged by Rep. John Pallone, a Democrat from a pro-gun district in southwestern Pennsylvania, Abraham said her testimony was not an “assault” on gun dealers or law abiding gun owners.
“My constituents are different. All I see is dead bodies and people who are quadriplegic.”
Her constituents are different. It’s only a small percentage of her “constituents” that are causing a problem in Philadelphia. The vast majority of people are law abiding. If I lived in Philadelphia, where I might actually need a gun to protect myself, I’d be outraged that Lynn suggests I’m “different” and thus my rights may be curtailed at the whim of city government, while nothing is done about putting more police on patrol, or keeping criminals behind bars. The City can’t protect it’s residents, and they would prefer its residents not be able to protect itself either. If there’s a way out for Philadelphia’s political culture, I’m not seeing it.
Abraham said she took issue with two other gun violence bills under consideration today, one that would set bail at $50,000 for anyone displaying a firearm while committing an offense and another that would create a firearms bureau in the state Attorney General’s office and give that office the power the authority to investigate local firearms trafficking cases.
I might have a problem with the former too, depending on the definition of “display” and “offense”, but I find it interesting that when it comes to enforcing the laws the state already has, Abraham’s office gets territorial about having the state AG involved. We can’t have that, now, can we?