Month: January 2011

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Indefensible Is Right

January 24, 2011 by 2 Comments

Judge Milton Shadur denied attorneys fees to the plaintiffs in McDonald v. Chicago saying that because Chicago changed their gun laws the case was moot. Since it was moot, then there was no prevailing party which, to be blunt, is utter bullshit. Chicago lost and McDonald won.

Dave Hardy has the whole ruling and his comments on it at Arms and the Law.

This ruling is, I’m sure, simply indefensible. They fought all the way to the U.S. Supremes, won there, Chicago (with no choices left) changed its ordinance … and the court still rules McDonald was not the “prevailing party.” I trust this is going to appealed, although it may be assigned to the same Seventh Circuit panel (which definitely did not like the McDonald result and thus may, like the District Court, let it show).

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Why They Hate Us

January 23, 2011 by 2 Comments

The Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Edition ran a travelogue by journalist Kate Bolick on her visit to Austin, Texas. On her last day she visited a shooting range. Here is how she described it:

Day Four: Monday
9 a.m. Close out your trip with a bang—literally! Red’s Indoor Range (6200 Highway 290 West; 512-892-4867; redsguns.com) in the aptly named Convict Hill, is only a 15-minute drive away, and for the uninitiated, shooting a gun can be shockingly intoxicating. There’s no better way to imbue yourself with a dose of Texan swagger—and the testosterone rush will embolden you for the trial to come: flying home.

 The gun prohibitionists of the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, and others of their ilk would have you believe that the only reason to have and shoot a firearm is to kill someone or something. In their dour, almost Calvinistic, worldview, the thought that someone – especially a woman – could enjoy herself by indulging in an hour or two of target shooting is inconceivable. That there are sports like IDPA, sporting clays, and cowboy action shooting which involve firearms and no killing is beyond their comprehension.

I don’t know Ms. Bolick’s background with guns and don’t know if this was the first time she ever handled a firearm but her experience reinforces the idea that taking someone shooting is the best way to inoculate them against the anti-gun message peddled by the prohibitionists and their allies in the media. What these groups fear most of all is the feeling that Ms. Bolick describes – the sheer joy combined with the feeling of empowerment that can come from shooting.

And that is why they hate us.

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Astroturfing By ThinkProgress

January 21, 2011 by 6 Comments

Reporters from ThinkProgress, which is the lefty website for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, attended the SHOT Show this week. They were trolling for people who would say that standard capacity magazines were not needed for self-defense. As might be expected in an edited video, they found the answers they wanted. I imagine this clip will be shown to Congressional staffers and wavering Representatives in an effort to pass HR 308.

You have to wonder how many of the people answering the question realized that they were being used. It points out just how tricky it can be dealing with the press and advocacy groups.

ThinkProgress attended the SHOT Show convention in Las Vegas this week — “the largest and most comprehensive trade show for all professionals involved with the shooting sports and hunting industries” — and asked many attendees if they thought these types of clips are necessary for self-defense. Most we talked to concurred, “Not really”:

TP: Do you think that for self defense purposes it matters whether you have 10 or 15 rounds in your magazine?

ATTENDEE 1: Probably not. No probably not. Honestly. […]

ATTENDEE 2: It takes one shot to kill. … Anything more than one shot is excessive. I mean if someone is breaking in to your house at a panic you’re might going to shoot him once. You’re not going to empty your load on him while they’re lying on your kitchen floor. […]

TP: If someone were to use a gun for self protection purposes, would they need 10, 30 rounds?

ATTENDEE 3: No, I hope not. I don’t know why. If ten rounds of ammunition can’t do the job you probably shouldn’t own a gun. I don’t want to live next to that guy.

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The Other Brady Bill – HR 318

January 21, 2011 by

Congressman Bob Brady (D-PA) of Philadelphia has followed through on his promise to introduce a bill to criminalize threatening speech against members of Congress. His bill would piggy-back on existing law that makes it a crime to threaten the President or Vice-President. The existing law, 18 USC 871, makes it a crime to:

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

The text of Brady’s bill, HR 318, is below. Currently, it has no co-sponsors.

H.R.318
Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To amend title 18, United States Code, to punish threats to commit violent crimes against Members of Congress, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. AMENDMENTS TO SECTION 871.

Section 871 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking `or Vice President-elect’ and inserting `Vice President-elect, Member of Congress or Member-of-Congress-elect’.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO SECTION HEADING AND TABLE OF SECTIONS.

(a) Section Heading- The heading for section 871 of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

`Sec. 871. Threats against President, Vice President, and Members of Congress’.

(b) Table of Sections- The item for section 871 in the table of sections at the beginning of chapter 41 is amended to read as follows:

`871. Threats against President, Vice President, and Members of Congress.’.

I know Members of Congress are convinced of their own importance but frankly they are not the Head of State and don’t need to have the Secret Service following up on every letter from an angry constituent. This is not to say that credible threats should not be investigated. They are and should be investigated. However, there are plenty of other laws on the books, both Federal and state, which can take care of these type of offenses without making one specifically for Members of Congress. People have spoken of the Imperial Presidency for decades. We don’t need to add the Imperial Congress to that list.

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Holster Testing

January 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

One of the things mentioned at Everyday, No Days Off is that the holster is a Raven Concealment which has been featured in Magpul Dynamics videos. Travis Haley, who was a founder of Magpul Dynamics and interim CEO of Magpul Industries, left Magpul this week to start another company, Haley Strategic Partners. He “starred” with Chris Costa in the Magpul videos. This is from a report in GearScout. The parting of ways is reported to be friendly.

H/T Everyday, No Days Off

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Another By-Product Of The Tucson Shootings

January 21, 2011 by

Beyond the call for more gun control, another by-product of the shootings by the madman in Tucson is an upsurge in the media calling for the confirmation of Andrew Traver.

Helping to push this is Mayor Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns. They are calling for “common sense” measures. Number three on their list released on January 11th is this:

Fill the Leadership Gap and Appoint an ATF Director – The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for fighting gun crime, has operated without a Director for four and a half years. President Obama has nominated Andrew Traver, a career law enforcement officer, to fill the position. The nomination has the strong support of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and the Senate should give Mr. Traver a careful and prompt review to help ATF spearhead the fight against gun crime.

From Jonathan Alter in Newsweek comes this from a piece entitled Can Obama Turn Tragedy Into Triumph? Saturday’s shooting spree could prove a turning point in the Obama presidency. How the White House should talk about the tragedy:

Finally, the president should speak out forthrightly for better enforcement of existing gun control laws, which the gun lobby is always fighting to undermine. He should re-state his support of Andrew Traver to be head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF). The NRA is currently blocking the nomination because Traver once had the temerity to serve as an adviser to a police association on its gun violence reduction program. Obama can reiterate his (and Giffords’) support for the 2nd Amendment while using this chance to make a case for common sense gun control.

Alter is hoping that Obama could turn the shootings in Tucson into an Oklahoma City bombing sort of event and use Jared Loughner just like Bill Clinton used Timothy McVeigh.

The New York Daily News devoted an entire editorial to the Traver nomination accusing “NRA toadies in the Senate” of keeping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives without a permanent Director. In typical, over-the-top, Daily News fashion they said:

The truth is, the National Rifle Association and its puppets in Congress push just as hard to hogtie enforcement as they do to gut the nation’s all-too-feeble statutes.

And the prime example is their blockade against confirming a permanent chief for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – the federal front-line force against gun trafficking.

In the editorial they also try to link the shootings at Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and Tucson to the lack of an ATF Director. They conclude by urging Senators to confirm Traver saying “As bodies pile up, it’s the least they can do.” Obviously, they haven’t heard Obama’s call for civility in political discourse.

In California, the Sacramento Bee has picked up the call for Traver saying that we shouldn’t let the NRA dictate who should be “the top gun cop.” After dismissing Traver’s cozy relations with the gun ban lobby, they say:

The bureau responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws has not had a permanent director since 2006. Senate Republicans even held up the Bush administration’s appointee to the post at the behest of gun-rights groups. The bureau is under siege by the powerful gun lobby as illegal gun trafficking within the United States and abroad is rife. Our neighbor, Mexico, is being held hostage by vicious and well-armed drug cartels that buy their weapons in the United States.

The NRA is pushing so-called reform legislation that would make it even harder for law enforcement agencies to prosecute illegal gun dealers. In the face of relentless pressure from the gun lobby, Congress and even the president have shown themselves unwilling and unable to support even the most common-sense gun-safety laws.

Traver’s nomination is a test for the nation and its lawmakers. If a cop with an exemplary record of going after illegal gun sales can’t win confirmation as ATF director following last Saturday’s rampage, we are likely to see more Tucsons, more Columbines and more Virginia Techs.

These incendiary editorials have just begun as well as the push for more gun control – ineffective though it would have been in preventing Jared Loughner from doing this deranged act. We can expect more calls and more pressure on Senators to approve Andrew Traver.

If you haven’t called, written, emailed, or faxed your two Senators, what the hell are your waiting for? Do it and do it now.

UPDATE: In what should be no surprise, NPR is the latest media outlet reporting that ATF has been without a permanent Director and asking why Traver hasn’t been approved.

The Senate has yet to hold a hearing on Traver. A Judiciary Committee aide says the panel is waiting for the administration to submit the necessary paperwork.

Cavanaugh says the lack of a Senate-confirmed director with the backing of the president is disconcerting.

“The agency goes on because law enforcement people are ‘can do’ people and they’re mission people, but nevertheless there’s not an agency in government that has to face that kind of problem,” he says. “Can you imagine a big city police force not having a chief for 4 1/2 years?”

And while that might suit the gun lobby, gun control advocates hope the shootings in Tucson will spur the administration to push for Traver’s confirmation.

For some reason, James “Waco Jim” Cavanaugh must be the only former ATF person in the mainstream media’s Rolodex. Rachel Maddow had him on within the last week and now NPR uses him to push their story. Heck, even the SPLC has used Waco Jim.

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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.