Month: September 2010

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Hysteria

September 9, 2010 by 1 Comment

Yesterday, a short notice appeared on the Senate Judiciary Committe website. It read in its entirety:

September 7, 2010

NOTICE OF COMMITTEE HEARING
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing entitled “Firearms in Commerce: Assessing the Need for Reform in the Federal Regulatory Process” for Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

By order of the Chairman.

This notice was picked up by everyone from the Drudge Report to Gateway Pundit and assorted gun blogs. Unlike the general blogs, gun blogs didn’t fly into hysteria. Most assumed, correctly, that it was about the BATF Reform Act. SayUncle, David Codrea’s National Gun Rights Examiner, and others made the connection almost immediately.

Part of the problem is that the notice appeared near lunch time and people were away from their desks. Moreover, Erica Chabot, the Committee’s press secretary was out of the office on jury duty and couldn’t respond quickly.

With most everyone having free nationwide long distance with their cell plans, you would have thought that people would have just picked up the phone and called the Committee. That is what I did and what David Codrea did.

I ended up speaking with Stephen Miller, press secretary for the Republicans on the Committee. He said that the primary focus of the hearings would be on S. 941, the BATFE Reform and Firearms Modernization Act of 2009. He noted the Committee Chairman, Sen. Pat Leahy, was one of the 36 co-sponsors of the bill. Mr. Miller said he didn’t have a witness list yet so he could not be sure that the hearings wouldn’t take off on tangents into other areas. He did suggest that I speak with Erica Chabot. I ended up emailing her and got a response this morning.

FOR BACKGROUND PURPOSES ONLY:

The Judiciary Committee notices hearings one week in advance, and often times, witness lists are noticed a few days later. We are still working to finalize the witness list for this hearing, and once that is finalized, we will notice it on our website.

This hearing is intended to examine the BATFE’s practices for enforcing Federal laws against federally licensed firearms sellers and proposed legislation to make reforms and improvements to that system.

The hearing will look at S.941, legislation proposed by Senator Mike Crapo, of which Senator Leahy is a cosponsor along with a bipartisan group of 34 other Senators. The legislation is intended to improve the regulatory process for federally licensed dealers by, among other provisions, instituting a graduated penalty system, providing expanded administrative and judicial review of agency sanctions and revocations, and directing the Attorney General to produce investigative guidelines for the BATFE.

Sometimes the most obvious explanation is the correct explanation. That was the case here.

As an aside, the National Shooting Sports Foundation supports this bill and has asked people to contact their Senators to support it.

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Are You Sure This is Texas?

September 8, 2010 by

The Dallas Morning News ran a story today about a proposal in Carrollton, TX to prohibit gun stores from opening near liquor and certain other stores. Carrollton is a suburb of Dallas.

The Carrollton City Council heard from residents who were upset when Big Slim’s Guns opened for business in a mini-mall that also contains a liquor store. The controversy was started by an email sent to residents of the Highland Neighborhood Association by its president, Steve Babick. Mr. Babick said the opposition to Big Slim’s was “fear of the unknown” and suggested that the owner, Jack Kendall, speak at a future neighborhood association.

In response to the “concern” shown by residents, Councilman Terry Simons proposed a new ordinance “that would restrict future gun shops from opening near liquor stores and certain other retail establishments.” The ordinance will be discussed at a future Council meeting.

The co-owner of Big Slim’s, Jack Kendall, is none too happy about being treated “like strip clubs.” Kendall vowed to fight the ordinance and predicted it wouldn’t go anywhere. If it is approved, the Texas State Rifle Association has said they will fight it.

In defense of his proposed ordinance, Councilman Simons said:

During a break in the meeting, Simons defended his proposal. Big Slim’s posed a potential threat to public safety, he said, pointing to numerous burglaries and a deadly shooting that took place near the mini mall in recent years.

A threat to public safety? Who is he trying to kid? Gun stores have some of the stoutest security of any retail establishment with CCTV systems, iron bars over the windows, security gates, and vaults for the firearms when closed.

At this same meeting, the Council passed laws against herbs used as intoxicants such as K2 and salvia. This passed without any discussion. Given that, you’d expect more concern about a liquor store than a gun store.

H/T Alphecca

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Costco and Guns

September 8, 2010 by 8 Comments

Sailorcurt of the Captain of a Crew of One blog has an interesting post about the wholesale club Costco and their policy on guns in the store.

Their policy is that guns are not allowed in the store except for law enforcement personnel. As a membership store, this is, of course, their right to do so. But as Sailorcurt points out, you have to dig to find out this information. It is not in the FAQ’s on their website nor in their brochure outlining the terms and conditions of your membership.

Not that long ago, a West Point graduate who was carrying concealed was shot and killed by police outside a Costco store in Las Vegas. It is still not clear exactly what happened and, while I hate to be a cynic, I expect the outcome to exonerate the Metro Las Vegas police. What is clear is that a Costco employee called 911 and reported a man with a gun in their store.

It is up to you whether you want to deal with Costco or not. For me, it is a non-issue as we don’t have any Costco’s in western North Carolina. We only have Sam’s Clubs and their policy is to abide by the laws of each state and locality with regard to guns. I suggest you read Sailorcurt’s post above and then make up your own mind after reading it.

UPDATE: “nealatkins” below suggests that I’ve been punked. By extension, then Sailorcurt has been punked. The suggestion that this is not really Costco policy is because of the header which leads to Costco’s in-store firearms policy. It reads:

https://costco.egain.net/system/selfservice.controller?CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=1101&REQUEST_FRM_ESCALATION=true&CONFIGURATION=1001&PARTITION_ID=1&isSuggestedArticle=true

If I just looked at the header I might have agreed. Since I was challenged to “prove” it I will. If you go to www.costco.com and then click on the menu header for Customer Service you will get this:

http://shop.costco.com/Customer-Service/Index

Once there click on the link to “Membership Information”. You will then get a header that looks like this:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/ProductSet.aspx?Prodid=24743

On that page is a section called “How Do I Join?” The fourth item reads:

Membership cards will be issued immediately when you apply in person, or mailed within 7-10 days after receiving the application in the mail. If you desire additional information, please contact our call center at 1-800-774-2678, or e-mail us at customer comments and suggestions.

The part that reads “customer comments and suggestions” is a hyperlink. Clicking on that you will get:

https://costco.egain.net/system/web/custom/initialPage.html?lang=en-US&topnav=&whse=BC

The link to the firearms policy quoted by Sailorcurt begins “costco.egain.net” just as the hyperlink to customer comments and suggestions reads “costco.egain.net”. I am presuming that they have outsourced either parts of their customer service or IT infrastructure. Checking using whois, egain.net is registered to Savvis.net. Savvis, Inc. provides data centers and other IT professional services.

Why did I just go to such lengths just to show that the information presented on this blog is correct? Because I strive to do my best to provide honest, verifiable information on guns, gun laws, legal issues dealing with firearms, and gun policy.

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The Mexican Gun Story …Again

September 8, 2010 by

As SayUncle notes, we haven’t heard about guns in Mexico in a while. We have ABCNews to thank for pushing the story again.

In a story breathlessly headlined, “Mexican Crime, American Guns”, they talk about a “shocking new report” that has been obtained by ABC News. They “obtained” the report from Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. You can “obtain” it, too on the MAIG website here.

The study, based on Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) data and prepared by the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, shows that three out of four guns used in crimes in Mexico and submitted for tracing were sold in the four U.S. states that border Mexico. (emphasis mine)

The key in all of this data is just which guns are submitted for tracing. The Mexican government is not going to submit the M-16s stolen or sold to drug cartels by the Mexican Army for tracing. This would show that the weapons were originally sold to Mexico under the Foreign Military Sales program. They are not going to submit the AK-47s that the cartels obtain from countries such as Venezuela as that would obscure the story that they are trying to promote. So while the average American is led to believe it is AR-15s and AK-47s submitted for tracing, it is more likely an old H&R Topper single shot 12 gauge that has been cut down.

When you use as the basis of your story a report that is entitled by the gun control organization’s authors as an “issue brief”, you are just as complicit in pushing an agenda as the gun control organization.

A couple of notes on the report itself. First, by using export rates, MAIG can skew the data to make it look like California with their restrictive gun laws is less of a problem than other border states with more relaxed laws. In reality, in 2009, more guns were traced to California than to Arizona, New Mexico, and Florida combined. Using “export rates”, they list Arizona as the “worst” state and California comes in at number five instead of number two.

Second, the efforts by Bloomberg and his allies to weaken the Tiarht Amendment are what allowed ATF to provide this information to MAIG.

The data analyzed in this report was provided by ATF to Mayors Against Illegal Guns on March 4, 2010. Until 2007, this data was not available because Congress had implemented restrictions, known as the “Tiahrt Amendments,” which prohibited ATF from releasing crime gun trace data. However, in 2007 and 2009, after national campaigns by Mayors Against Illegal Guns and over 30 police organizations, Congress relaxed these restrictions on sharing crime gun trace data. Although there are still significant restrictions on the use of ATF crime gun trace data, the recent reforms allowed ATF to provide the data set that is the basis for this report to Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Providing aggregate level data is one thing. However, this reports shows that individual level data still needs protection from fishing expeditions by Bloomberg and his allies. With Todd Tiarht leaving Congress at the end of this term, we will need to be wary of attempts to weaken the Tiarht Amendment further.

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Hardly Seems Fair

September 8, 2010 by

George Grier faced a gang of men outside his Uniondale, Long Island (New York) home on Sunday night. He thought they were members of the MS-13 gang and that they were about to invade his home. He ran inside his home and returned with his legally owned AK-47.

The men started shouting at him and another 20 more thugs arrived. Mr. Grier then fired 4 shots into the grass in front of his house to disperse the crowd. He felt that doing so would bring the police as his town has the “ShotSpotter” technology. After the police arrived and the crowd dispersed, Mr. Grier was arrested and charged with felony reckless endangerment by the Nassau County Police.

From WCBS New York:

You may think a person has the right to defend their home. But the law says you can only use physical force to deter physical force. Grier said he never saw anyone pull out a gun, so a court would have to decide on firing the gun.

Police determined Grier had the gun legally. He has no criminal record. And so he was not charged for the weapon.

In looking at what he did, I think his first mistake was being outside in the driveway. He was without cover. If he had been inside of his house, he would have had more protection and been able to call the police without being assaulted. If the gang had forcibly entered his home, then it would have been a home invasion and he would have been legally justified in using force. Not that I don’t think he was justified in what he did but legal justification is different that just being “justified.”

Given the violent and vindictive nature of Latin gangs such as MS-13, it is probably just as well that Mr. Grier didn’t shoot any of them.

Despite it being in New York, the comments on this story are running heavily in his favor.

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San Francisco MTA Punked (bumped)

September 6, 2010 by 3 Comments

The San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority has rather rigid guidelines for the ads they will accept. For example, they won’t take any advertising that “appears to promote the use of firearms.” They even forced the new Will Farrell/Mark Wahlberg movie “The Other Guys” to change their ads so that it featured a can of Mace instead of a pistol.

Poster for GRPC on MTA bus stop (Calguns.net/forums)

However, the MTA was no match for the fearless duo of the CalGuns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation. According to Alan Gottlieb, he believes that MTA violated its own ad guidelines because “they believed we were prepared to file a lawsuit on First and Second Amendment grounds if, for any reason, the city didn’t take them.”

Gene Hoffman posted a crytic note on the CalGuns.net forum last night that said:

If anyone lives or works in the City, please stop by the following locations and report back (photos would be awesome) on what, if anything, you see there

Townsend St SS 86ft E/O 4th St F/E – 2
Masonic Ave WS 44ft N/O Hayes St F/N – 1
Geary Blvd NS 61ft E/O Divisadero St F/W – 2
Fulton St NS 94ft W/O 8th Ave F/W – 2
Mission St NS 86ft W/O 8th St F/W – 2
Polk St WS 23ft N/O Sutter St F/N – 1
North Point St NS 44ft W/O Polk St F/E – 1
Jackson St NS 38ft E/O Van Ness Ave F/W – 2
Columbus Ave WS 61ft S/O North Point St F/S – 2
Van Ness Ave WS 34ft S/O Greenwich St F/N – 1
McAllister St NS 28ft W/O Webster St F/E – 1
Lincoln Way SS 30ft W/O 21st Ave F/W – 1
Stockton St WS 181ft S/O Clay St F/N – 1
Haight St SS 39ft W/O Pierce St F/W – 1
Geary Blvd NS 24ft E/O 3rd Ave F/E – 1
Main St ES 269ft S/O Howard St F/N – 2

-Gene

Speculation ran rampant that this was going to be another LCAV non-event or other guerrilla action against the anti-gunners. The result is what you see above – an in-your-face poster (with a shotgun) that promotes the Gun Rights Policy Conference in San Francisco. These posters appear on 15 bus stops scattered around San Francisco.

Way to go CGF and SAF! There is nothing like taking a guerrilla war to the heart of the enemies’s territory.

UPDATE: If you go to the link above to Calguns.net, you can see more of the GRPC posters around San Francisco.

UPDATE II: According to a report from CBS News, the San Francisco MTA is investigating whether the GRPC posters violate their policy on ads promoting the use of firearms. It looks like they are getting pressure from the SF Board of Supervisors to take them down. All of this publicity is making Alan Gottlieb happy. If they take down the ads, he’d be even more happy saying ” “All I can do is pray that all the publicity will make them want to decide to take down the ads — so we can sue!”

UPDATE III: Thanks to a reader of Snowflakesinhell.com, I see that the New York Times is now covering the story.

On Friday, riders waiting at a bus stop displaying the pro-gun poster seemed unaware that they had previously been shielded from such images. “I don’t want to see guns,” said Zsuzsanna Legradi, a 42-year-old gardener. “No one should have guns. It is bad enough that people have knives.”

Imagine her horror at seeing the Toyota Prius in this post.

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I Take Back Everything I’ve Ever Said About Prius Owners

September 6, 2010 by

Living just outside of Asheville, a city which is giving Austin, TX a run for its money as the Alternative Culture Capitol of the South, you see a lot of Toyota Priuses. Or is that Pria? Anyway, if they have bumper stickers it is usually along the line of “Coexist”, “Stop the Endless War”, “Bush Lied, People Died”, and, of course, a whole variety of Obama stickers. Anyway, I have never seen one like pictured below.

This Prius was seen at the Grand Canyon by a reader of the Legal Insurrection blog. If I saw one like that in Asheville, I’d stop and shake the owner’s hand!

H/T Instapundit