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Pushing Obama On Gun Control

January 21, 2011 by 5 Comments

Gun control groups are pushing hard to have Obama not only mention, but push for gun control in the State of the Union speech on Tuesday, January 25th.

The Brady Campaign is one of the main groups pushing it. From a story yesterday by Michael Isikoff of NBC News:

“There’s a major push to get [Obama] to say something on this,” said Chad Ramsey, legislative director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun control group. “We’ve been told he will say something, but we’re not sure how strong it will be.”

There have been a number of different gun control ideas put forward since the Jan. 8 Tucson shooting. But gun control groups most of all want Obama’s endorsement of the bill introduced this week by Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York (with more than 40 co-sponsors so far). That bill would ban the sale or transfer of high-capacity gun magazines such as the one allegedly used by Jared L. Loughner to fire off more than 30 rounds. So far, the proposal (and a companion bill to be introduced next week by Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey) has yet to pick up a single Republican co-sponsor.

The Brady Campaign and their congressional backers are also campaigning to get big Democratic donors to prod Obama on gun control according to that story. What is giving them some hope are the comments made by Dick Cheney who said maybe it was time to enact restrictions on standard capacity magazines.

Sarah Brady in a commentary for CNN has this to say:

We feel it’s our duty, and we’re asking President Barack Obama to help lead the way. As he so eloquently put it in his remarks at the memorial service in Tucson, Arizona, if we want our democracy to be as good as Christina Taylor Green and other children imagine it, we have to be able to come to that proverbial table of brotherhood and work on solutions to gun violence.

He is the only political leader who has the capital, the conscience and the competence to gather us. On Thursday, press secretary Robert Gibbs affirmed the president’s commitment to banning assault weapons, and with them those high-capacity-killing magazines.

Obama is our best hope, because he is surely aware that much of the resistance to common-sense changes to our gun laws is meant to shut us down and shut us up. It is meant to allow the guys with the guns — instead of ordinary Americans like us with the ideas — and men and women of good conscience, like Gabby and Jim — to make the rules.

The bullies have succeeded too often. They have made cowardly lions out of too many members of Congress. This moment, as grievous as it is, presents a new opportunity for the president and other elected leaders to demonstrate political courage — the way President Bill Clinton did when he stood by the side of victims and fought with all he had to pass the Brady Bill.

I love all the buzz words in that statement by the sainted Sarah. High-capacity-killing magazines, gun violence, common-sense changes, the guns with guns, ordinary Americans. Of course, despite all the calls for civil discourse, we who disagree with her are “bullies.”

The online political website Politico ran an article this morning entitled “Barack Obama’s conspicuous silence on guns”. The article notes that despite his longtime and unambiguous record on gun control he has been relatively quiet on the issue since becoming President. It goes on to say despite the efforts of gun control groups and liberal Democrats the White House has been noncommittal about using the State of the Union speech to push gun control and McCarthy’s magazine ban. The article goes on to say that gun control groups are saying that Obama has “a moral responsibility” to push for it. They quote Paul Helmke who says:

“If the president could address the issue in the State of the Union that would be really important,” says Paul Helmke, president of the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a major gun control group.

“If he could announce his support for the high-capacity clip legislation, that would be the best thing. The next best thing would be for him to support a presidential commission to study gun violence,” adds Helmke, the former mayor of Ft. Wayne, Ind. “But he can’t stay silent. Either way, he’s just got to do something.”

There is always that refrain that we must “do something” when often the best course to take is to do nothing.

And this evening, Peggy Noonan, who seemingly has been Obama’s biggest cheerleader on the Wall Street Journal editorial page despite her time in the Reagan and Bush 1 White Houses, suggests that one idea Obama should embrace in the State of the Union speech is a “ban on extended ammo clips.”

What civilian needs a pistol with a magazine that loads 33 bullets and allows you to kill that many people without even stopping to reload? No one but people with bad intent. Those clips were banned once; the president should call for reimposing the ban. The Republican Party will not go to the wall to defend extended clips. The problem is the Democratic Party, which overreached after the assassinations of the 1960s, talked about banning all handguns, and suffered a lasting political setback. Now Democrats are so spooked they won’t even move forward on small and obvious things like this. The president should seize the moment and come out strong for a ban.

Noonan seems to believe that such a ban is a “centrist” position. I’m sure in her milieu that might be a centrist position but then again I bet she has a doorman to guard access to her apartment building.

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Another NC Representative Plans To Carry Concealed

January 20, 2011 by

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC 11) made news when he announced after the Tucson shootings that he had a Concealed Handgun Permit (NC’s version of CCW) and planned to carry concealed at public events.

According to WRAL – Raleigh, Shuler will now be joined by freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC 2) who defeated incumbent Bob “Who Are You” Etheridge in November. Ellmers obtained her CHP after taking the required training back in February 2010. She never hid the fact that she had a CHP during her campaign and even spoke of it with regard to belief in Second Amendment rights.

“We have to protect ourselves. We know that. That is something we have always been cognizant of,” Ellmers said. “There have been times in the past I have carried my weapon, and I will probably continue to do so. Some days I might have it. Some days I might not.”…“I feel safe with it, and I think we should all be able to defend ourselves as we need to,” Ellmers said.

WRAL also reported that in addition to Shuler and Ellmers, Rep. Sue Myrick “told The Charlotte Observer that she’s a good shot and likely would carry a gun when she felt the need to do so.”

While I am glad that Representatives Shuler, Ellmers, and Myrick plan to take their protection into their own hands, North Carolina may be problematic. As Sean point out in his blog, NC law forbids carrying concealed at certain public events.

§ 14‑277.2. Weapons at parades, etc., prohibited.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person participating in, affiliated with, or present as a spectator at any parade, funeral procession, picket line, or demonstration upon any private health care facility or upon any public place owned or under the control of the State or any of its political subdivisions to willfully or intentionally possess or have immediate access to any dangerous weapon. Violation of this subsection shall be a Class 1 misdemeanor. It shall be presumed that any rifle or gun carried on a rack in a pickup truck at a holiday parade or in a funeral procession does not violate the terms of this act.

(b) For the purposes of this section the term “dangerous weapon” shall include those weapons specified in G.S. 14‑269, 14‑269.2, 14‑284.1, or 14‑288.8 or any other object capable of inflicting serious bodily injury or death when used as a weapon.

(c) The provisions of this section shall not apply to a person exempted by the provisions of G.S. 14‑269(b) or to persons authorized by State or federal law to carry dangerous weapons in the performance of their duties or to any person who obtains a permit to carry a dangerous weapon at a parade, funeral procession, picket line, or demonstration from the sheriff or police chief, whichever is appropriate, of the locality where such parade, funeral procession, picket line, or demonstration is to take place.

Subsection C does provide for obtaining a permit to carry a dangerous weapon at those events. Frankly, after Tucson, I don’t see any sheriff or police chief turning down a permit for a sitting Congressman who plans to carry concealed.

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Jim Shepherd On Cam And Company

January 20, 2011 by

Cam Edwards interviewed Jim Shepherd at the SHOT Show on a number of topics. Jim is the publisher of the Outdoor Wire, the Shooting Wire, and the Tactical Wire among other things. He also was involved in the founding of CNN with Ted Turner. He is a very astute observer of the gun industry and of politics.

The entire interview is worth listening to. At the 3:45 mark he describes an encounter he had with an anti-gunner who was at SHOT incognito and what he said to him after the anti said no one needs an assault rifle.

You are all emotion and no fact. You don’t understand history. You don’t have perspective on what you’re doing. It is all about what I feel and not what I know. You don’t know enough to have the discussion.

What a wonderful thumbnail description of the problem we face when we try to discuss, debate, or argue guns and gun rights with the gun banners and their fellow travelers. We have fact and they have emotion.

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Backpedaling A Bit

January 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Well, that didn’t take long. Senator Dick Lugar is now backpedaling from statements he made in an interview with Al Hunt on Bloomberg TV saying he would support a renewed Assault Weapons Ban.

As reported in the Indianapolis Star, he is now saying that he isn’t pushing for a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004.

“I was innocently trying to say that I voted for this in the past and probably would do so again,” the Indiana Republican said. “But there was absolutely no chance, zero, that we’re going to have such debate.”

Let me be blunt – a politician who has been in Washington as long as Lugar never innocently says anything.

He goes on to say that discussing it now when it has no chance of passing will only spur people to go on a buying spree.

OK, so he isn’t pushing for a renewal and he doesn’t think there will be a debate will happen BUT he would vote for it if it came up again. Somehow that doesn’t inspire me and I hope it doesn’t inspire the voters of the Hoosier State to reward him with a seventh term.

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I am TJIC

January 20, 2011 by 4 Comments

A Massachusetts gun blogger, Travis Corcoran, has had his firearms license suspended over a blog post he made after the shooting of Gabriele Giffords. His blog, Dispatches from TJICistan, is down. Borepatch and JayG have much more on the story and you should read them.

To lose your Second Amendments rights because you used your First Amendment rights to write something insensitive – but not illegal – puts a damper on the exercise of both constitutional rights.

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Grandfathering and HR 308

January 19, 2011 by

HR 308, Carolyn McCarthy’s bill to outlaw standard capacity magazines and other feeding devices, does not allow any currently owned magazines above 10 rounds to be transferred. The Assault Weapons Ban (sic) of 1994 did allow for existing magazines to be sold, traded, or transferred. The new bill makes it a felony.

Sebastian at Snow Flakes in Hell has an excellent analysis of this provision. To understand just how radical a bill this is, you must read it. As he notes:

McCarthy’s bill contains no such exemption (as in AWB of 1994 regarding proof of ownership), which puts the burden on you to prove you fall under one of these two exemptions. Carolyn McCarthy has been on NPR saying that the things bloggers have been saying about her bill aren’t true. She knows damned well they are true, and so do the anti-gun groups. The purpose of this bill is to try to get more of us thrown in federal prison.

I am not naive enough to believe that they merely don’t know how to draft laws. Dennis Henigan is not a fool or an idiot. He knows federal guns laws, and I would be very surprised if McCarthy’s staffers didn’t consult with the Brady Center on this bill. By removing the original grandfathering and protections that were in the original 1994 ban, the effect is vastly different than what we lived under with that regime. Under this law, you may really only possess 11 round or greater magazines, unless you have proof you possessed them prior, at the arbitrary discretion of the authorities. How many magazines do you have documentation for?

 When you have RINO dinosaurs like Dick Lugar coming out in favor of a ban as well as the comments by Dick Cheney, it tells you two things: most don’t understand the difference between the law in 1994 and what McCarthy proposes AND we are going to have a fight on our hands to stop this monstrosity.