You may remember earlier posts about Missouri illegally providing a list of its concealed-carry licensees to the Department of Homeland Security.  The governor of that state claimed he didn't know about the request.  Turns out he was lying and even received an official thank-you letter from Janet Napolitano.

No word yet on where, but they say they will reveal more after the NRA's annual meeting this weekend.

... which is pretty much an admission that the previous one wasn't. 

What makes you think we'll trust you this time?  Sorry, you had your chance.

Don't be the guy who gives them their story.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Looks like it's too late.

A lawsuit to be filed against Connecticut's sweeping new gun laws will argue that the legislation signed into law by Governor Malloy in April was not properly vetted and pushed through in a way that snubbed the opinion of some gun owners.

I haven't read the actual lawsuit yet, just the news report.  The news report doesn't exactly give a favorable case, focusing on the "emergency" nature of the law and the lack of public input.

Unless there are real procedural issues with the law, a judge is going to be reluctant to second-guess the legislature.  But we'll have to wait and see how this one goes.

Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post's pet "conservative", is attacking Ted Cruz and twisting herself into a virtuoso gymnastic knot to do so.   Here's her thesis:

It is a shopworn technique of hard-line conservatives to declare themselves men and women of principle in contrast to those other Republicans -- the ones, you know, who pass legislation and try to represent their constituents. It is both self-serving (presuming principles are of no matter to opponents) and lazy in that it is always easy to say no, ridicule compromise and remain pristine rather than trying to improve legislation or introduce an alternative.

It's interesting that Rubin characterizes Cruz's Republican Senate colleagues as his "opponents", but it's more important to note that Rubin criticizes Cruz for not "trying to improve legislation" or "introduc[ing] an alternative".  There will be a test at the end of this post.

Let's see what prompted the Post's pet "conservative" to attack an up-and-coming Senator who is already demonstrating political skill and leadership, shall we?  It seems Cruz gave a talk to his constituents in which he  reports that "a bunch" of his Republican Senate colleagues were "yelling at the top of their lungs" at him over the gun filibuster vote:

We've had probably five or six lunches with a bunch of Republican senators standing up and looking at Rand and Mike and me and yelling at the top of their lungs -- I mean really . . . And they said: 'Why did you do this? As a result of what you did, when I go home, my constituents are yelling at me that I've got to stand on principle.' I'm not making that up. I don't even bother to argue with them. I just sort of let them yell. . . . They said: 'Listen, before you did this, the politics of it were great. The Democrats were the bad guys. The Republicans were the good guys. Now we all look like a bunch of squishes.' Well there is an alternative. You could just not be a bunch of squishes."

Frankly, Cruz's response to being yelled at by his colleagues seems rather mild to me.  Yelling at someone is unprofessional and impolite at a minimum.  It certainly qualifies as being a jerk, so at first glance, I was willing to follow along for this:

There is being principled, and then there is being a jerk. Putting down your colleagues to boost your own street cred with the base falls into the latter category.

But then I read the next paragraph...

There are many things wrong with Sen. Cruz's comments, whatever you think of the merits of the gun legislation.

Wait a minute, she's saying Cruz was a jerk?  He was the one being repeatedly yelled AT, not the one doing the yelling.

For starters, it's just not smart to annoy colleagues whose cooperation and support you?ll need in the future. Second, as a conservative he should understand humility and grace are not incompatible with "standing on principle"; the absence of these qualities doesn't make him more principled or more effective. Third, for a guy who lacks manners (see his condescending questioning of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) he comes across as whiny. They yelled at me! Boo hoo, senator.

Yelling at Cruz, Lee, and Paul (the three Senators who have been shaking things up) isn't going to annoy them?  How does yelling at the trio demonstrate humility and grace?  Personally, I find his simple response ("Well, you could just not be a bunch of squishes") to be polite, humble, and graceful in comparison to being repeatedly yelled at.

The kicker, though, is Rubin's acceptance of the media meme that Cruz was "condescending" to Feinstein. He wasn't.  I've seen the video.  He asked her to defend the constitutionality of her proposed assault weapons ban.  She tried to duck the question.  He pointed out that she didn't answer his question, and asked again.  Polite and reasonable, without condescension at all -- well, without any from Cruz, Feinstein's answer was positively dripping with it. 

The condescension talking point is the media take, but it bears no resemblance to the actual event.

There is a deeper problem, I think, with Cruz's approach to the Senate, which has nothing to do with ideology. The contrast between him and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is telling. Paul is no less conservative than Cruz, but he is polite to a fault, soft spoken and gracious. These qualities serve him well, indeed making some strident positions seem less so. Moreover, Rand Paul is trying to accomplish something. He's put forth a budget. He's offered suggestions to amend the Gang of Eight's immigration bill. He's suggested reforms to our drug laws.

It seems that the Cruz-Grassley gun bill escaped Rubin's notice.  He did put together a constructive alternative to the Democratic position on gun control.  It got 52 votes.

But it gets better!

What exactly is Cruz doing affirmatively to aid the country, the conservative movement and the GOP? Yelling at people and voting no don't qualify.

Voting no is a good place to start, especially when it constitutes standing on principle and representing your constituents who are demanding you stand on principle.  And if you remember, it wasn't Cruz doing the yelling; he was the one being yelled at.

Cruz's actions suggest an immaturity and lack of sophistication about conservative governance. He might want to apologize to his colleagues for betraying their confidence and sit down and think what it is he wants to do in the Senate. Obstruction is easy; governance is hard. And if the answer is that only hackneyed gestures (e.g. push for repealing Obamacare with a Dem Senate majority, but offer no alternative) that interest him, then the people of Texas are being shortchanged. Worse, he's doing nothing to suggest he's a man of stature and future leader in the party.

His colleagues might want to apologize to him for "repeatedly yelling" at him.  As far as I, one of his constituents, am concerned, standing on principle for the Second Amendment is demonstrating his stature and leadership qualities.  He has done more to lead the opposition on the gun control issue than any other Senator, and I completely approve of his performance.

The names of hundreds of thousands of current and former New Jersey residents who have been involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities have been added to an FBI database used to bar firearms purchases by people with criminal records or a history of mental illness.

Whether this is good or bad depends a lot on the standards being used. I'm going to tentatively call it good, because:

1. It's what should have been happening all along, by federal law;
2. "involuntarily committed" is the correct legal standard (ie, not "voluntarily checked in" or "admitted for observation" or "takes anxiety medication")

There are likely to be some negative effects too, as people who had issues when they were younger and got over them might find themselves denied.  But they were, assuming no errors, already a prohibited person... just the system wasn't aware of that. 

I am mainly posting it to point out that they are only now, in 2013, actually doing the work to submit this data to the NICS system.  They started after the Tucson incident in 2010, and like any IT project, took a while before they could actually submit any data.  (3 years to get to a working system does seem a little extreme, though).  This for a system that was mandated in 1993 (Brady Act) and launched in 1998.  It only took New Jersey 15 years after launch -- 20 after the enabling federal legislation -- to begin submitting data. 

When people complain that the system doesn't work because the mentally ill can still get guns, this is part of the reason why. 

This isn't the only case where the same large cities and blue states that call for gun control the loudest have sought to ignore or even suppress factual information related to the gun issue.  California has being trying to avoid gathering actual data on "assault weapons" used in crime for years.  The problem being, of course, that they aren't used in crimes, but gun banners wouldn't have a boogeyman if that was widely known.

They cited sources in Yemen.  Yemen has Al-Qaeda like a dog has fleas.  This is a separate warning from the Russians.

Obama was warned multiple times by multiple sources and did nothing.  He was worried about his second term legacy?  This is it. 

This one is clearly about show more than about substance. 

The deal is, Hawaii already has firearms licensing and registration.  If you want to buy a firearm in Hawaii, ask permission first -- including fingerprints, a photo, a national background check, and "volunteering" to give police access to your mental health records.  But if you already own a firearm and want to bring it into Hawaii, you don't need to get the national background check, even though you still need all the other stuff.

So Hawaii is going to pass a law about "Universal Background Checks" that will close the "licensed, registered, mentally-examined, moved to Hawaii after buying a gun" loophole.

Why are they going to bother?  Same as with all the other bluish and purplish states: they are trying to use gun control laws in blue states to create a sense of political inertia.  The idea is to pressure purple states to pass gun control, and one presumes, to drive gun owners from purple states into red states, where our influence will become more and more concentrated.  (Concentrated, in this case, means less influence over national legislation). 

So the only thing that really matters about this legislation -- unless you are planning to move to Hawaii -- is that it has "Universal Background Check" in the title.

Stronger gun control laws would have prevented the accused Boston bombers from getting firearms and could prevent future terror attacks, according to a New York Democratic lawmaker.

Really?  He didn't have a gun license -- required in MA.  His gun had the serial number scratched off.  No dealer or honest gun owner would touch a weapon in that condition.

That means he got it illegally. 

And that means a background check would have done precisely jack to stop him getting it.

Oh, and about stopping the terror attack?

He used bombs, not guns.  Idiot.

If the courts don't release these documents, we may never find out what happened.  The fact that the Obama administration is still stonewalling after they won re-election suggests that whatever is in those documents is likely to lead to serious consequences for someone if let out.

It also seems likely that Fast and Furious is not the only gunrunning operation the Obama administration has been involved in. 

Gun control advocates in Washington launched an initiative campaign Monday, enlisting the help of voters to expand firearm background checks after lawmakers declined to pass a similar measure.

The group Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility will need to collect nearly 250,000 valid signatures, with state officials recommending the submission of more than 300,000 to account for duplicates and invalid signatures. Organizers are still finalizing language for the initiative and will begin gathering signatures in the summer months.

Voters in Washington State and Arizona, be aware of this.

From a national perspective, ballot initiatives are interesting.  A lot depends on timing -- a random date, a regularly-scheduled election, a statewide election, a national election -- and turnout.  It lets legislators avoid voting on gun control issues themselves and thus avoid responsibility for the results.

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance ? a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

You get more of what you pay for.  In our case, we're paying for more people to do nothing all day. That's bad enough, but some of them are terrorists.

This is not a new problem.

We don't seem to be looking for a solution very hard, though.

This is just the petition to get on the primary ballot in Indiana, not actual votes.  It is, nonetheless, indicative of the level of corruption in our political system that flies under the radar.  While the Libertarian Party struggles every year to get ballot access for its candidates under rules both inane and arcane, the Democrat party hires someone to forge the necessary signatures for ballot access.

Both candidates.

It's not like either Obama or Hillary would have real problems getting on the ballot the legitimate way, although the forged petitions might have kept Obama off the ballot in that state had they been challenged.  They were not -- because the people committing the fraud were the same election officials in charge of preventing it.

It's that last bit that's concerning.  What else would these election officials do to help their candidates?

Hat tip to Jay G.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the committee's chair, and Michael S. Lee (R-Utah) nullifies a provision of federal law allowing the authorities to acquire a suspect's e-mail or other stored content from an internet service provider without showing probable cause that a crime was committed if the content is 180 days or older.

That the Senate has to "consider legislation" about this is outrageous.  It should be judicially enforced under the 4th Amendment.  And no, it's not just terrorists.

Talks to revive gun control legislation are quietly under way on Capitol Hill as a bipartisan group of senators seeks a way to bridge the differences that led to last week's collapse of the most serious effort to overhaul the country's gun laws in 20 years.

It's not over yet.  Stay vigilent, and be thinking of ways we can improve our response.

I missed this story a while back about Obama "using executive power to move gun control forward":

The president has used his executive powers to bolster the national background check system, jumpstart government research on the causes of gun violence and create a million-dollar ad campaign aimed at safe gun ownership.

The executive steps will give federal law enforcement officials access to more data about guns and their owners, help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, and lay the groundwork for future legislative efforts.

But it could explain a lot about the federal request for concealed-carry data in Missouri (and suggests it would be a good idea to check for similar requests in other states).  (It turns out that the Missouri request was made by the BATFE). It's also suggestive to consider this New York case for possible federal involvement or encouragement.

Also, this:

In January, Obama directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to begin studying the causes of gun violence for the first time since Congress, at the behest of the NRA, began blocking funding for such research in 1996.

The CDC has since awarded a contract to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which this spring will soon begin looking at the role video games and social media play in gun violence, as well as whether gun technologies and access to guns can be used to reduce violence.

As part of the agency's preliminary research, the CDC and IOM will host an all-day conference on April 23 in Washington, D.C., to hear from firearm and gun violence experts; researchers; and advocates on both sides of the issue, according to Richard Feldman, a former NRA lobbyist who now leads the Independent Firearm Owners Association.

Problem: I had not heard Congress had removed the block on expenditures related to gun control "research" by the CDC.  Neither have some of the people who are attending, but they seem willing to attend anyway.

But wait, there's more:

In another administrative move, Obama directed the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to examine the efficacy of existing gun trigger locks and firearm safe standards to determine if they need to be improved. The CPSC has partnered with the American Society for Testing and Materials International, but does not have a firm timeline for when its examination will be finished, according to a spokesman.

Separately, the administration has given $1 million to the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) to create, produce and distribute a nationwide multimedia ad campaign on safe gun ownership and storage. The campaign is heading into the research phase and is expected to air by the early fall, according to a NCPC spokeswoman.

Gun locks, and a national ad campaign on "safe gun storage", which we can assume will be as political as Obama can possibly make it while still spending public money.

So, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg believes that the public's interpretation of the Constitution must evolve in the face of terror attacks such as the one in Boston. "You're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days," the man explained, "and our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."

Bloomberg don't get to make that decision.  We do.  For now, at least. 

Bloomberg's recent efforts to raise his national profile on issues such as gun control suggest that he plans to run for higher office soon.  I won't be surprised if he seeks the Democratic nomination for President in 2016.  If so, quotes like this, along with nanny-state behavior like regulating soda cup sizes and banning salt from restaurant food, will hopefully destroy any chance he has of receiving the nomination. 

If it doesn't, we're really in trouble.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Wednesday that he was worried that last week's bombing at the Boston Marathon would make it tougher to pass the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill.

And so it should, since both alleged bombers were immigrants.  Not all immigrants are bombers, but not all are here to "do the jobs Americans won't do" either.  Until we control the border, we won't have any idea who is coming into our country.

This one was so good I figured I would pass it along to my audience as well.

There are tens of thousands of firearm laws in the U.S.A. to which a citizen could fall victim. One of them is Federal Form 4473, which must be completed by any applicant wishing to purchase a firearm from a licensed gun dealer anywhere including a gun show, neighborhood meet or person to person.

Recently defeated background check legislation originally included all (universal) transfers but was modified to exclude some family members. Making a false statement on form 4473 is a felony which carries a fine of up to $250,000 and up to five years in prison. Remember there is no parole in the federal system ? only supervised release after serving the full term.

According to the most recent data available from the Department of Justice, the FBI denied 72,659 form 4473 applications in 2010, based on the background check system (NICS). That's just 1.2 percent of the more than 6 million applications processed that year. The system is so rife with errors, that of the 72,659 only 44 applications were considered prosecutable, and only 13 were proven to be form 4473 violations.

Background checks cost the consumer $48 million a year and the taxpayer $30 million a year or $13 per application. (source: Justice Department spokesman Bill Cosh) The cost to USA citizens of the 13 convictions maths out to $6 million per conviction in NICS fees alone.

Bob [redacted]

Thanks for writing it, Bob!

There have been too many explosions lately for my peace of mind. The latest one is in Michigan, near Detroit. 

Bill Whittle is good at this video thing.

A common trope of many Second Amendment advocates is to urge more vigorous enforcement of existing federal gun control laws, as the alternative to enacting additional laws. Rhetorically, that?s very effective. But as a policy matter, it is not always a good idea. Consider legislation recently considered by the Senate...

Both Manchin-Toomey and Grassley-Cruz included a variety of other changes in federal gun laws, and some of them were very constructive. But as for the prosecution provisions, I think they were dubious.

Read the whole thing.

For the record, I agree that calling for more enforcement is not always a good idea -- but it's not the same thing as pointing out the lack of enforcement of existing laws when opposing new ones. 

Then the next day, we weren't allowed out at all -- not even to get some coffee. Men dressed in black gear paraded through the streets with weapons. In Watertown, they were confiscating guns from residents. This they don't tell you on the news.

Unconfirmed, so far, but it wouldn't surprise me.  Especially given that we have video of people -- not the bombing suspects, just ordinary residents -- being yanked out of their homes at gunpoint.

Hat tip to David Codrea.

He has some interesting perspectives, but also a lot of misconceptions.  For example:

He accepts that 90% of the public supported gun control -- when that number was inflated by lack of specificity, ignorance of current law, and untrustworthy polls.  If 90% of the people supported new gun control laws, more then 4% would see it as the most important problem facing America, especially with the media screaming about it for months.  Instead, Americans consider gun control a solved problem within existing law.

He blames the NRA for being extreme, and the Democrats for being wimps and failing to support a more comprehensive bill.  Yet the comprehensive bill got much less support, and independent legal scholars exposed the Democratic gun control proposals as being much more extreme than Democrats claimed them to be.  Democrats asked for a small piece of gun pie, then tried to swipe half the pie in the process.

It's not just my opinion on that.  From another article in the Wall Street Journal:

A word, first, about that Senate "minority." Majority Leader Harry Reid was free to bring the deal struck by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey to the floor for an up-or-down vote, and this background-checks amendment might have passed. It did convince 54 Senators, including four Republicans.

But under Senate rules, a simple majority vote would have opened the measure to up to 30 hours of debate, which would have meant inspecting the details. The White House demanded, and Mr. Reid agreed, that Congress should try to pass the amendment without such a debate.

Why try to pass legislation -- any legislation -- without 30 hours of debate?  The only possible reason is if you are afraid that the details of the bill will be discovered, and the resulting public opposition will sink the bill.  As, in fact, happened -- Dave Kopel sunk the legislation with a single post on the Volokh Conspiracy, and thanks to the internet the word spread fast enough to turn a bill that might have passed into one that was significantly short of votes.

I just have to pull this quote out: "liberals tend to be less ambitious and tenacious than their conservative rivals."  When was the last time a conservative tried to impose Obamacare on the whole country?

And finally, he blames Obama for being difficult to work with.  That's a good point, because Obama has certainly not been a good representative for his side of the debate.  He has a track record of negotiating in bad faith, rhetorically claims the center while arguing from the left behind closed doors, and refuses to engage in honest debate.  That said -- if Obama had been a reasonable person on this issue, I don't think he would have gotten much more traction. 

There is a very real, very intense problem with bad faith on the gun control side of the argument.  Put simply, gun owners know that the ultimate goal of every major leader of the gun control movement is total confiscation.  This has been reinforced again and again.  No matter what "reasonable compromise" is agreed to today, they will be back tomorrow for more. 

Any attempt at "reasonable compromise" will be viewed in light of that past bad faith, with predictable results.