Arms Control

The American Hunters and Shooters Association, a false-flag operation run by gun banners to give political cover to candidates who want to ban guns but don't quite have the political courage to say so, has decided to endorse Obama.

Obama has never seen a gun control measure he did not like... before running for president.  Now, he's praying no one looks into his slim and scarce voting record.  And that they forget about him insulting gun owners by claiming their "bitterness" leads them to "cling" to their guns.

Gun owners have long memories.

Hat tip to The War on Guns for the story.

Bitter shoots, cleans, cooks, and eats an editorial from the American Hunters and Shooters false-flag operation.

He's right, but no one seems to be listening.

One popular "gun control" measure lately is the idea of banning gun sales near schools.  It's popular because it doesn't seem like a big sacrifice at first glance, it has the virtue of "saving the children" from the perceived menace of school shootings, and probably most important, it's new enough that the facts haven't had time to reach the public awareness and overpower the propaganda.  Most people are still evaluating the idea based on superficial first impressions.

One person who is trying to move the discussion into serious policy analysis instead is Les Jones, who has been posting "Rights Exclusion Zone maps" for various cities, indicating the areas within those cities that are within the mandated "forbidden zone".  (King County) (Texas, Indiana, Tennesee)

The area in green are the parts of King County within which no firearms dealers would be allowed to operate, based solely on exclusions for middle and high schools, as proposed by Obama. This excludes elementary schools, higher education, and parks. Most of the east side (right side) of this map are parks of various compositions. Map from MapPoint. Data from Washington State.

For most cities, there are no gaps. 

Rather than being a "small sacrifice" this proposal would effectively ban gun dealers from operating within city limits anywhere.  If the law has a grandfather clause allowing existing businesses to continue operating, it would have very little practical effect -- only as the grandfathered businesses failed would new businesses be required to locate outside the city limits.  (It would, however, provide a significant barrier to entry for new gun stores -- effectively creating a market incentive to raise gun prices within cities).

If it does not contain a grandfather clause... well, there would be lots of chaos as any gun store within one of the exclusion zones would have to relocate in a hurry.  And the chaos would be ongoing, presumably, as new schools are built and force gun stores to relocate away from them.

There are reasonable arguments for not locating outdoor gun ranges in heavily populated areas, as there is always the chance of someone being stupid and letting their bullets escape the range.  But gun stores, without attached ranges, pose no threat to anyone. 

Like many other gun-control measures, this is a feel-good law that could have a tremendous cost attached to it and absolutely no benefits.  Unless you consider imposing huge and otherwise unjustified economic burdens on firearm dealers (who are already hugely burdened with regulations) to be a benefit in and of itself.  Which would be pure bigotry... not that that's news either.

Sebastian is reporting on an effort in your state to ban "inherently dangerous firearms".   As he says, you only get one chance to stop things like this, it's very hard to repeal a law once passed.

... but it can sure make you wonder.

A gun summit?  I know what that means.  That means Hillary will tell us what she wants and then accuse us of not being "bipartisan" for not going along with it.  It's par for the course when only one side is asked again and again to compromise for yet more meaningless measures.

Oh, and the best part?

?I think we can do that, but it?s going to require us all to maybe give a little and understand the point of view of the other people,? she said. ?That?s something I would do as President to really bring people together.?

?We know we need better background checks and we know we?ve got to have mental health information in there,? she said.

Didn't we just pass that legislation?  Didn't you just vote for it, Senator Clinton?  (I don't actually know how she voted on the legislation I'm thinking of, or even if she did, but it did pass the Senate)  Is it too much to ask that you read the legislation you are voting on?  I guess so.. but that's also only to be expected from gun control advocates.  For some reason, they love to keep pushing the same measures again... and again... and again... even if they passed the first time. 

Don't ask me why; I just report the news... at least, in this post.

I guess Hillary thinks she can pander to both sides and get credit for it somehow.  I doubt she'll fool anyone.

Speaking of doublethink, here's some thoughts from Obama on guns:

Although Obama supports gun control, while campaigning in gun-friendly Idaho earlier this month, he said he does not intend to take away people's guns.

... and ....

At his news conference, [Prof. Obama] voiced support for the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month.

But wait... the District of Columbia's ban on handguns takes away people's guns.  (In case you are wondering, the District also bans functional rifles and shotguns; you are allowed to have a rifle or shotgun only if it doesn't work and has been registered through an intrusive and difficult process).

UPDATE: And there's more.  Per the Volokh Conspiracy, Obama has favored increased penalties for the interstate transport of firearms, making it a felony to have your gun stolen and used in a crime, restricting gun purchases to one gun per month, banning the sale of firearms at gun shows, increasing the fee to obtain an FFL, banning the sale of used firearms by police agencies, limiting gun ownership to those over 21 with mandatory training, banning firearm dealers from having a storefront within 5 miles of a school or a park, banning "Saturday Night Specials" (and isn't THAT a nice bit of racist irony?), mandatory background checks for all people working at a gun dealers (doesn't look too bad at first glance -- except that it would impose a huge economic penalty on large stores that also happen to sell guns, like Wal-Mart), mandatory "smart gun" functionality that only allows the original owner of a firearm to operate it (no resale?), and finally, increasing federal taxes on firearms and ammunition by 500%.

... but there's little doubt he's better than what they Democrats will be offering in 2008.  The latest demonstration of this comes from a bill to allow firearms into National Parks (when they are accessible for self-defense; I believe it's already legal to transport them when properly stored).  McCain is cosponsoring the bill and the Senate leadership is blocking is, reportedly to prevent Hillary and Obama from having to take a vote. 

Hat tip to David Hardy, from whom I got the story.

It seems that the head of the noted anti-gun organization Violence Policy Center has a Federal Firearm Dealer's license, which lists as his place of business the VPC's offices in Washington DC... where possession of functional firearms by the peasants is banned.  This license allow him (and presumably, his organization to some extent) to deal in firearms.  If the press were actually independent, this factoid would have resulted in quite a few embarassing questions at press conferences by now.

David Hardy has the evidence, and notes that the license probably allows the VPC to ignore the ban on functional firearms imposed on the ordinary citizens of the District of Columbia.

It seems a Canadian newspaper is finally waking up to reality, and noticing that gun control is based on lies.  But they aren't yet ready to go all the way.

The Grits pretended the long-gun registry (handguns have had to be registered since 1934) would help prevent a repeat of the 1989 Montreal massacre in which 14 women died.

This was nonsense. Gun registries don?t deter such crimes. The main purpose of a gun registry is to warn police if they are entering a house that has registered weapons, primarily in domestic dispute cases. It?s also ? combined with requiring gun owners to obtain permits and properly store and transport their weapons ? aimed at reducing the spontaneous use of guns in moments of anger, despair or recklessness, that lead to domestic murders, suicides and accidental shootings.

Even a well-run registry won?t deter random gun violence. To suggest otherwise is a fraud. If gun control advocates want to argue for the registry to reduce domestic murders and suicides, fine. But be honest about it. For once.

What they haven't yet realized is that gun registries don't do anything about domestic murders or suicides, either.  The only thing a registry can possibly do is make it more expensive -- in time and money -- for ordinary people to own a gun.  It won't even slow down criminals, and "ordinary people" have a myriad of other options for "spontaneously" killing themselves and/or their spouse.  That assumes that actual ordinary people do such things, when the evidence is that they overwhelmingly don't. 

Indeed, there is even an argument -- presently anecdotal -- that owning a gun can reduce such incidents, by teaching a responsible gun owner how to think ahead, evaluate the potential consequences of his actions, and back down from a fight when prudent.  The cycle of doing it again, only HARDER, has been broken.

... we have documents from the Clinton administration describing their strategy for attacking the 2nd Amendment and firearms in general.  In case you haven't noticed, the rash of gun liability lawsuits we've seen are the outcome of those plans.  So was the Smith & Wesson "settlement".  The Clintons were unable to implement their gun control fantasies legislatively, so they turned to other means.  This is the paper trail.

The Geek with a .45 has a take on the documents, as does Smoke on the Water.

I've read through the documents posted so far, and every single one of the points mentioned has later come up in various lawsuits. 

Wondered what the fuss was all about?  Find out here.

It should come as no surprise that an association of dictators, kleptocracies, monarchies, and communist "republics" tends to dislike the idea of ordinary people with firearms.  What surprises me is the way that so very many democracies seem willing to go along with them.

American farmers were the standing militia of the day. There were no police or National Guard, and only the beginnings of an army. These were the minutemen - brave, tough men and women ready to fight at a moment's notice.

The historical context of this part of the Bill of Rights - the recurring nightmare of Redcoat soldiers - shows that every American family needed a musket standing against the wall, ready to load and ready to kill.

Not so today. The premise of the Second Amendment, the need for minutemen, no longer exists. In a free society we must rely on the police. We have more important rights to fight for than the right to bear arms.

... comes a certain refreshing honesty.  When the 2nd Amendment is considered fairly, even its opponents must recognize that it protects an absolute right for ordinary Americans to own firearms.  They deny this, and write whole treatises on the fiction of a "collective right", because their policies are wholly foreclosed by the 2nd Amendment.  No form of gun control is permissable under the correct reading... and they have so much invested in the policies of gun control that they are willing to invent elaborate and transparent fictions in order to allow for them.

Until very recently, the courts and the legislatures were willing to go along with this fiction.  That seems to be changing, and none to soon.

What the forces of gun control do not understand is that the rights we have today are ours because our ancestors fought and died for them -- fought and died with arms, in a revolution against the lawful authority of their time.  The Founders gave us the 2nd Amendment because they wanted to ensure we could protect the other rights they had bought with blood.  To say now that we should rely upon the police would be to tell the Founders that the Redcoats would keep them safe. 

So when someone asks us to give up the 2nd Amendment in favor of protecting other, "more important" rights, ask them how those other rights will be protected?  As Mao once said, political power flows from the barrel of a gun.  The disarmed cannot even protect their lives, much less their rights.

Of Arms and the Law writes that the BATFE is looking into the "stings" that form the basis of this lawsuit.  This newspaper article has more details on exactly how those stings work; it seems they sent two "investigators", one a retired cop, trying to buy a gun without the right paperwork, then sent them back the next day with the right paperwork but two numbers transposed when the dealer refused to sell, and then tried to talk the dealer into completing the sale with the wrong numbers.  The dealer called into the office that issued the paperwork and got permission to update the numbers and sell the gun.  End result: no crime committed, but Bloomberg gets a very public raid.

Later, of course, the dealer gets a very private "Here are all your guns back, sorry," and a warning of "heightened scrutiny".  Typical.  This is about intimidation more than anything else.

FIREARM owners in Wodonga, and in fact the whole of Victoria, have been put on notice.  Victoria police will be calling on them in the coming months to check they are complying with the law when it comes to the stage storage of their weapons. And those who are not doing the right thing had better watch out as the penalties for breaking the law are pretty severe.

It seems that police in Australia will be making use of the registration system to go door-to-door, verifying compliance with the safe-storage laws.  if you've ever wondered why gun owners in the United States are so determined to never allow registration, this is an excellent answer: once the police have a list, they are determined to use it.  They aren't looking to catch criminals who are out committing violent crimes; it's much easier to write tickets to honest gun owners who haven't hurt anyone.  And let's not forget this little bit of editorializing by the "journalist":

Those who legally own and use firearms have to know it is not a right, and it comes with a special responsibility to comply with all relevant laws.

In the US, it is a right.  And we intend to make sure it stays that way.

Three criminals, one armed good guy.  Good guy wins.  It's a good thing that the handgun ban was struck down recently, or the police might have felt obligated to track down the good guy and arrest him for defending himself.

According to Dave Kopel at The Volokh Conspiracy, the UN conference on "small arms" is ending without a final treaty and without any follow-up conferences scheduled... primarily because the US ambassador to the UN refused to back down.

As he puts it, the outcome would have been very different had Bush not been in office.  A Democratic presidential appointee would almost certainly not have had the spine to resist.

I got it from the Geek.

A popular tactic for gun-control advocates is to call for laws regulating firearms "like cars", since we all know that cars are licensed by the government, have mandated safety inspections, a detailed registration system, and are as popular as guns, if not even more. This comparison as an argument for gun control is fatally flawed when the details are examined.

First, cars are not "licenced". Drivers are "licensed" to operate their vehicles on public roads, but are free to operate without a license on private property. You can buy a car without presenting a driver's license (just be sure to bring a truck or trailer to tow it off). The proper analogy for a driver's license is a state-level concealed-carry permit, which is the corresponding "public operation" of a firearm. Under this system, a concealed carry license could be had with no training needed by passing a simple test -- a test so simple, in fact, that practically anyone can pass, whether they can drive or not. Driver's licenses from any 1 state are honored in all 50 states, without worries about reciprocity agreements. So if you license guns like cars, you are actually advocating fewer restrictions on guns.

Second, cars are subject to stringent safety standards mandated by the government. Surprise, so are firearms! The government maintains a licensing system for manufacturers of firearms -- and dealers as well, which you don't see for cars. However, compared to cars (which produce over 30,000 annual accidental fatalities), firearms are much less dangerous; accidental deaths from firearms are very low, and the numbers have consistently dropped every year for quite some time. Firearms are not magically exempted from product liability, and if there were serious safety problems, lawsuits (non-frivolous ones, that is) would be rampant.

Third, despite speed limits nationally being around 65 mph, car manufacturers continually build cars capable of exceeding this limit -- often by a factor of two or even three! Yes, you can buy a car today that is capable of achieving 3 times the national speed limit (195mph). Or even higher. What's the appropriate analogy? Just try to buy a gun that exceeds the "bullet speed limit" -- fully-automatic firearms are heavily regulated. Or do you want to be fingerprinted the next time you go to buy a Corvette? Better remember to get permission from your local police officers, too. And they might just ask if you are planning on speeding...

In fact, it's more constructive to examine the ways that guns differ from cars in regulatory terms.

• You don't need to pass a background check to buy a car.
• You can buy as many cars per month as you can afford.
• There are no safe storage laws for your car.
• I don't need a government license to manufacture a car, or modify my own.
• Mistakes with your car result in minor fines that can continue for years before losing your driver's license is a serious possibility.

(Note: Another older repost for the archives).

There's a silly news release trumpeting the fact that the University of Kentucky has allowed itself to become a tool for political propaganda: Is There a Gun Where Your Child Plays? 

It's talking about the silly ASK campaign designed to encourage fear, suspicion, and social ostracism of gun owners and their children.  I do not think I have ever seen a more blatant attempt to achieve political goals by demonizing a targetted group through their children.

Some people have suggested that gun owners should respond to parents asking this question with a simple, terse "none of your business".  I think perhaps a different tactic is appropriate -- one that will better counteract the intent of the propaganda.

Imagine a conversation that begin like this:

"Hi!  I'd like to send my little Johnny over to play at your house.  But before I do that, I need to ask you whether you have a gun at your house, and whether it is safely stored, so I know my son will be safe!"

"Thanks for asking.  Yes, I do have a gun at my home.  I keep it loaded and on my person at all times; in fact, I am carrying it now.  I can assure you that little Johnny will be quite safe here and supervised by an adult at all times.  However, since I do have guns around the house, before I can allow Johnny to play in my house I will need to make sure that he understands the rules of gun safety so he can do the right thing if it ever comes up.  Have you given him any instruction?  If not I would be glad to, and you are welcome to sit in yourself."

This response neatly turns the question back on the questioner, frames the question of safety differently ("Your son is safe because I have a gun to protect him") and provides an opportunity to open a dialogue on safe terms ("gun safety") in a non-threatening environment (since the instruction is directed at the child), while reinforcing your own image as a responsible adult capable of owning and using firearms safely.

I haven't had anyone nosy enough to ask me this question, probably at least in part because I don't have kids.  I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has.  Leave a comment!

According to FreedomSight the BATFE has raided KT Ordnance, makers of "80% complete" unfinished receivers used by those who want to manufacture their own firearms.  As far as the BATFE is concerned this is a problem because it is a way to anonymously manufacture a firearm while remaining within the law (so long as the firearm is never transferred to anyone, as I understand it).  And of course as far as everyone else is concerned, this is something that is perfectly legal and should be just fine to do.

KT Ordnance was relying on an official interpertation of the law that says, basically, it's legal to manufacture your own firearms.  Since the receiver is only partially completed, it's not considered a firearm, and there's still quite a bit of work to be done before it can be used as a firearm part.  This is one of those areas of the law that is defined more than case law and precedent than legislation.  Normally, once established, those are fairly reliable, but throw in an agency that's been feeling the heat a lot lately and they may decide to reinterpert things in order to get a big prosecution.

The original reports came in from ar15.com.  There's more information available at the home gunsmithing forums, and an official alert from the JPFO.  There are some disturbing rumors that the BATFE was exceptionally curious about certain names in the liberty community:

It seems as though the meeting with his local sheriff was a ruse to get Richard out of his establishment so the JBThugs could go in and steal his guns, his computers, & ALL OF HIS FILES. The machine tools are still possibly going to get stolen as well in the future.

It does seem that the trigger for this raid, is that the previous sheriff had been protecting him up until yesterday. That sheriff lost the election (probably thru voter fraud), and the new sheriff had a BATFag and an FBI agent at the sheriffs? office waiting for Richard to hand him a warrant to steal his stuff at his KT Ordnance store. By the time Richard got back to his store, the Fed Thugs were there in the process of stealing all of his merchandise, all of his livelihood.

The FedThugs were also more then curious about a few known names with in the freedom/truth community. The 2 that Richard mentioned were Devvy Kidd from WE THE PEOPLE and Aaron Zelman from JPFO. They also wanted to know if Richard was in contact with any Militias and if he had sold any guns to them. (It?s none of their DAM business)

Yep, there's the militia scare word again.

What concerns me most about this is the big picture.  Bush may have been the better of two evils on the gun rights front but he was not what I would describe as a friend of gun owners; merely someone who knows he needs to do just enough to win our support to get elected.  It's his agency that's run amok here and he's shown no signs of being willing to rein it in.  I can easily believe that Bush would even support the BATFE on a case like this; his authoritarian brand of government doesn't have much room for "untamed" supporters of liberty. 

Combine that with Bloomberg's anti-gun "sting" operations and I'm afraid the Republican party may be forgetting who put them in power.

... but rather indoctrination.  Witness (thanks to The War on Guns) what happens when a physics teacher tries to actually teach physics:

Every year, physics teacher David Lapp brings his Korean War era M-1 carbine to school, fires a shot into a block of wood and instructs his students to calculate the velocity of the bullet... The rifle demonstration would not even be an issue if an anonymous parent had not complained.

This one strikes close to home for me, because I work in computers -- and one of the major sources of funding for early computer efforts was calculating ballistics.  How are we ever to make great strides in knowledge if whole areas of inquiry are deemed verboten?

It seems that Amy Fisher is making a living as an opinion columnist.  You remember her; as a 16-year-old she got national media attention by attempting murder and served 7 years in jail.  Her present employer is very open about hiring her to exploit her notoriety.  As you might expect from someone whose criminal history prevents her from owning or possessing a firearm, she's in favor of gun control. 

There seem to be quite a few people on the gun control side with this sort of problem.  Everything from the infamous Mrs. Brady buying her son a gun to Million Mommies who file off their serial numbers.  It's easier to blame the gun than to realize you, personally, are the villian in your own life story.

Captain Ed says maybe so, at least in Canada, and he has a convincing argument.  The Liberal government, recently ousted, had imposed a national registry of firearms upon the country.  The RCMP (Canada's national law enforcement body) were tasked with creating and maintaining that registry, but they were not given sufficient funding for the task.  Instead, other law enforcement operations had to be shortchanged in order to operate the registry.  This had the obvious consequence of ensuring that the registry itself was very poorly run, and the less obvious consequence of diverting the RCMP from other enforcement activities -- such as investigating political corruption.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Canadian government fell in large part due to long-standing internal corruption, particularly the AdScam scandal.  It's useful to remember that everything has unintended consequences, even when those consequences are only visible as opportunity costs.  When you keep law enforcement busy doing paperwork to keep track of honest citizens who own guns, they aren't doing the legwork necessary to track down criminals who abuse them.

For example, there are a lot of people at the BATFE whose time would be better spent issuing parking tickets. 

Publicola lays down the argument for repealing the law prohibiting convicted felons from possessing firearms.  I don't disagree with any of his arguments, and in fact I agree with his philosophy.  The problem is that I see his goals as being politically impossible to achieve in the near future.  Our only real hope is a Supreme Court ruling on the 2nd, and even that would likely leave felon-in-possession bans intact. 

I want to roll back what we can roll back and focus on continuing to win the debate until what can be rolled back is in line with what we want to be rolled back.

But he's right about the core premise.  I'm not concerned about a murderer who can buy guns, I'm concerned about a murderer who isn't in a jail cell or a grave.