Meme Battles

I’m hopping angry at Attorney General Gonzalez and the Bush Administration over this terrorist watch list anti-gun bill.  He might as well have handed the anti-gun groups and the media the rhetorical vise with which to put the screws to us.

Here’s the meme we’re fighting, it’s all over the media:

NRA wants to allow suspected terrorists to purchase guns

Take a look, and you’ll find this everywhere, and it’s incredibly damaging to us.  The reason is because these battles are waged in the public mind through use of memes, and that is a powerful one.  The answer to that is not a meme.  It’s complicated, and difficult to dispense with in a sound bite.

Much of the left, which normally strikes out against the administration for various perceived or real infringements on civil liberties, has embraced this one, since it’s damaging to a core conservative constituency.

How do we fight this meme battle?  How do we make the position that no citizen should be deprived of constitutional rights without due process? How do we make people understand that we don’t want terrorists getting a hold of firearms any more than anyone else in this country does?

I don’t have an answer to this.   And I’m quite getting tired of the media, who are quick to defend liberties they find dear to them, so carefully maligning liberties other people find important, and not even having the courtesy, and actually having the gall, to suggest that our concerns are driven by a desire to arm terrorists rather than legitimate due process and civil liberties concerns.

NBC25 Gets it Wrong

Gretchen Gailey should have talked to someone familiar with PICS before writing this article:

For anyone who wants to purchase a gun they must go through paperwork on the federal and state level. The federal check clearly asks if the buyer has ever been committed to a mental institution, but the state form from Pennsylvania, never delves into the issue.

The application/record of sale (which only applies to handguns, long gun sales still go through PICS, but rely on the federal 4473 form) does indeed delve into the issue.  One of the questions on the SP4-113 form “Application/Record of Sale” asks:

31. Have you ever been convicted of a crime enumerated in section 6105(b) or do any of the conditions under 6105(c)  apply to you? 

In 6105(c), which is printed on the back of the form, you will find:

4.  has been adjudicated as an incompetent or who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution for inpatient care and treatment under Section 302, 303, or 304 of the provisions of the at of July 9, 1976 (P.L.817, No. 143), known as the Mental Health Procedures Act. 

Answer yes on the form, the sale stops right there.  Answer no, and you will still get run through the PA Instant Check System.  Someone answering no falsely on the form would be committing a felony.  The article notes:

“If it has been a court order that they are ordered to see mental help, that should go on the books and that should be a part of the background check,” says Heckman.

It is part of the background check in Pennsylvania.  PICS includes the mental health records for the entire commonwealth.  It also includes whatever is in the federal NICS system.   The reporter is correct when she points out:

Pennsylvania is one of 28 states that does not share its mental health records with the federal gun database, because it would violate the Mental Health Procedures Act.

True, but Pennsylvania does use mental health records in the state system.  Reporting mental health records to the feds is something Rendell can’t change.   That would require a legislative remedy.

 

Reporters like Ms. Gailey would be wise to remember that gun shop owners aren’t always experts on all aspects of firearms law.  By not doing thorough research, people are mislead to believe that Pennsylvania’s firearms laws and purchase regulations aren’t addressing mental health issues.  This is not true.

Should it Be a Priviledge to Drive?

I said it is, Uncle disagrees.   I had thought I had posted on this in the past, but I think I meant to and never did.  I actually think driving ought to be a right, as an element of the right to travel, but it isn’t currently seen that way.  You have a right to travel, but not operate a motor vehicle.

When arguing against gun controllers, it’s worth pointing out that it is, legally, considered a privilege.  That’s why it gets different treatment.  It’s important to make people understand that distinction in the law, even if we might not agree with driving being treated that way.

Do I agree with that classification?  No.  I think another neat question to ask is, if the right to travel includes the right to operate machinery on the public roads and skies, what does that right look like?  How may it be limited?  Can you still license it?

No Water Cooler for You!

This is crazy:

A coalition of students, environmentalists, Christians and thirsty people have written a letter to Mayor Street asking him to get rid of all the bottled water the city buys.

Philadelphia, as you may know, has a pretty decent water supply, not full of arsenic or lead or blood or floating heads or whatever. The push is organized by Corporate Accountability International, who is leading the push against “the marketing muscle of bottled water corporations.” Indeed!

Emphasis mine.  Philadelphia water tastes like total crud, generally.  I’ve never been able to stand it.  It seems to be rather than worrying that the city is buying bottled water for its employees, they should worry more about the city wasting money on unmerited lawsuits against the state in regards to the well established fact that they may not make their own gun laws.

Rendell Honest on Gun Control

I was surprised to come across this article highlighting our Governor’s views on gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and I found it refreshing that Rendell doesn’t seem to be taking a hard line approach, even making some honest admissions for someone who has strongly supported gun control efforts:

The Rendell administration is examining laws that control who may buy guns in Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, but the governor is unlikely to follow his Virginia counterpart’s lead and call for barring firearms sales to anyone ordered to get mental-health treatment, a top administration aide said.

“Should everybody who’s depressed not be able to buy a gun?” asked Donna Cooper, Gov. Ed Rendell’s policy secretary, whose staff is pulling together information about how other states balance patient privacy rights and public safety.

Wow! To be fair to Tom Kaine, his executive order limited itself to outpatient treatment combined with a danger finding. It doesn’t just apply to anyone ordered to outpatient treatment.

“Laws alone cannot protect society from crazed killers”, Cooper said, recalling the October 2006 shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County.

Double wow! Read the whole thing. Apparently Pennsylvania is one of the states that deosn’t report mental health records to NICS, though they are contained in the PICS system. Mentally incompetent people wouldn’t be able to buy a gun in Pennsylvania, but would be able to buy a long gun in another state.

Of course, I doubt this changes his support for gun rationing, which I will continue to oppose.

UPDATE: The article now actually includes a link to the story.

Dog Control

Eric at Classical Values is on his 9th post about California’s AB1634, requiring cats and dogs to be spayed or neutered.  I’m neither a cat or dog owner, but this law strikes me as going way way too far, and probably won’t even solve the problems its attempting to address.

People in California, in all honestly, need to get their state government under control, and remind them who they work for, and what appropriate limits on their power is.   That might mean that folks in California may need to hold their noses, and vote for another party, just to get some of these people out of office.

Terrorist Watch List Bill Out

The “Dangerous Terrorists Act” is out in PDF over at Of Arms and the Law.  I’m really curious why the DOJ wants this so badly, and I’m also really curious why Bush has yet to fire Alberto Gonzalez.  This is not the kind of crap I expect to be coming out of a “pro-gun” administration.

Of course, I could just chalk this up to the Aministration’s penchant for ignoring due process concerns when it comes to people they have declared “terrorists”.   I’ve been willing to grant them a lot of leeway in dealing with foreigners captured in a theater of war, but not with the rights of US citizens.   This is an outrage.

You Don’t Say?

From KYW1060, we learn City Council’s efforts on gun control aren’t likely to succeed:

Philadelphia city council has sent Mayor Street gun control bills and, lacking state authorization, plans to go to court, seeking the ability to enforce them. But council’s strategy faces long-shot odds of success.

Franklin and Marshall College professor and political analyst Terry Madonna says even if a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge were to side with council over the state legislature, based on history, council is not likely to prevail on appeal.

State Senator Erik Arneson said, “The city could probably find many other priorities that the money they’re spending on lawyers would be better used for.” I couldn’t agree more!

Why Philly Won’t Get Its Assault Weapon Ban

Took a trip to the Chester County public PGC range this Saturday. Chester County has the one remaining Philadelphia suburban area public shooting range that hasn’t been closed by the PGC. If you want to get an idea of why it’s going to be hard for Philadelphia to get a state wide assault weapons ban out of Harrisburg, all you have to do is look down at your feet:

http://www.pagunblog.com/blogpics/casings.jpg

Of course, brass collectors will snatch up any actual brass pretty quickly, so this can’t be taken as a representative sample, but the Chester County range bench area is always covered in a thick layer of mostly 7.62×39 spent steel casing in various stages of rust.