gun control

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Ben Stein On The Need For Gun Control…Or Not

August 19, 2012 by 6 Comments

Economist, lawyer, and actor Ben Stein provides an occasional editorial comment on CBS’s Sunday Morning. Today’s topic was gun control. Contrary to what one usually gets on guns from the mainstream media, this was actually good.

Stein felt the calls for more gun control as well as the attempts to demonize the NRA are misplaced. He pointed out that in places like Chicago, LA, and DC which have strong gun control laws there are many more shootings than in a place like northern Idaho where carrying guns is quite common. While Stein is not sure what the correct answer is, gun control isn’t it.

We know that gun control is a failure and that it will never stop madmen. If we want to prevent the aberrant shootings like Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colorado, I think the answer lies in the mental health realm. This is what Clayton Cramer has been saying for a while now and I think he is correct.

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The White House Still Dances Around Gun Control

August 7, 2012 by

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who could give the Dancing With The Stars contestants lessons, continues to dance around the issue of gun control. The shootings at the Sikh Temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin led to the obligatory questions from the media at today’s press briefing on whether or not President Obama is going to push for gun control legislation.

On new gun control legislation Carney said:

Q: But does anything — either one of these incidents suggest that there need to be new gun control legislation?

MR. CARNEY: I think the President addressed this at the Urban League, John. And his view is, as I’ve said, that we need to take common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights and make it harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining weapons.

I think he made clear, too, in his speech in New Orleans that violence in America is a problem that is greater than just the issue of gun laws. And he talked very clearly about the prevalence of violence in America, that even as overall statistics show that crime has gone down over these last many years but there is still too much violence. And incidents like the ones you mentioned are horrific, and our hearts go out to the victims of such appalling acts of violence, but we should not forget that there are victims of violence every day in America, and we need to address that problem in a concerted way that deals with education and summer jobs and other ways to help address the violence problem in America.

I must say that anytime I hear a politician or their flacks use the expression “common-sense measures”, I know they are just itching to impose more restrictions.

Of course, in what seems to be a popular refrain in this White House, Carney went on to essentially blame Congress for being the impediment to gun control legislation.

Q: Does the President share Minority Leader Pelosi’s view that even if Democrats controlled Congress, there still wouldn’t be the votes for significant gun legislation? And is that why the White House hasn’t pushed for new or tougher legislation more strongly?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think the President has made his views plain on this, which is that he is for common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights — very important Second Amendment rights that American citizens have, but that make it harder and harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining them.

There is no question that there has been a reluctance to act in Congress on these issues. Whether that will continue to be the case in the future is anyone’s prediction. The President is focused on the progress we can make along the lines I just described.

So again, his positions on various issues I think we’ve talked about. He believes that we can take action within the existing environment that moves the ball forward in terms of enforcement, that enhances background checks, that makes it harder for those who shouldn’t have weapons under existing law — makes it harder for them to obtain weapons, but continues to ensure that Second Amendment rights are protected.

Whether Carney wants to make the prediction for more gun control legislation in the future or not, I think virtually everyone on our side of the issue fully expects more gun control if Obama is re-elected. It may be overt as in legislation or it may be under the radar with how they “interpret” laws and regulations. Without the need to worry about re-election, Obama and his minions won’t be obliged to offer platitudes about “Second Amendment rights” and their protection nor will they feel constrained in their efforts to undercut our freedoms.

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A Tale Of Two Chicago Newspapers

August 2, 2012 by 1 Comment

One Chicago newspaper had a column today that espoused a voice of reason with regard to semi-automatic firearms. Its competitor calls them “extreme weapons of slaughter.”

Steve Chapmen, writing in his Chicago Tribune column, called Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto “a pointless gesture.”

If allowing these guns stimulated more killing, the national murder rate wouldn’t have declined by 13 percent after the ban expired. But that’s what happened.

Prohibiting “assault weapons” is a pointless gesture. Those who propose a ban are only proving they don’t understand basic facts about guns and violence or don’t care.

The Chicago Sun-Times, by contrast, is happy that Gov. Quinn is exploiting the shootings in Aurora. When Illinois State Sen. David Luechtefeld (R-Okawville) accused Quinn of exploiting the tragedy, the Sun-Times said, “Damn right he is — and good for him.”

Showing that they really don’t understand the bill and just how extreme the restrictions that would be imposed if the Illinois General Assembly concurs with Quinn’s amendatory veto, they say the veto won’t limit handguns. Then they make the nonsensical suggestion to single out only AR-15s.

Quinn didn’t dilute his moral argument by calling for any other form of gun control, such as new limits on handguns.

But let’s go the governor one better. How about we agree to ban only assault weapons, putting off for another day the debate over high-round magazines?

Better yet, let’s ban only certain assault weapons, such as the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle used in the Colorado theater rampage. The AR-15 can rattle off 30 rounds as fast as you can pull the trigger.

Let’s bang the drum for a ban on just these extreme weapons of slaughter to make the point, if nothing else, that even the most conservative gun control proposal will always be shot down by one extremist organization, the National Rifle Association.

The problem with their argument is that as the veto reads firearms such as the Glock pistol would end up being banned due to the existence of the Glock 18. Read the amendatory veto here and see if you don’t agree. See Sec. 24-1.9 (a)(1)(C)(vi).

The Sun-Times editorial tries to make the NRA the whipping boy in this matter and accuses them of being the extremists for sticking up for the Second Amendment and constitutional rights. What if a bill was passed that said newspapers were restricted to letter presses such as Ben Franklin used that could only print a page at a time. Those high capacity web presses would be forbidden as they were never imagined by the Founding Fathers when they passed the First Amendment. This is analogous to their arguments and just as ridiculous.

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The Bill Of Needs?

July 31, 2012 by

Kurt Hofmann, the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, recently posted a column entitled, “Gun rights: Of rights, needs and ‘sporting purposes'”. In it, he examines the responses from the gun prohibitionists including Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and  Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn McCarty (D-NY) to the shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

As Kurt notes, the common thread among all three is their claim that we don’t “need” whatever they want to prohibit.

Never mind the fact that it is not the place of Congress to determine what we “need.” Never mind the fact that when being attacked by dozens of assailants (as can happen right here in St. Louis) a person most definitely does need the ability to fight off more people than can be accounted for with a 10-round magazine. Never mind that Lautenberg and McCarthy apparently believe that police officers–even retired ones–do have such a need.

 Read the whole column here. It is well worth it.

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Touching The Third Rail

July 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

As Sebastian noted, President Obama is going for “gun bans and sales restrictions” with his speech to the National Urban League meeting in New Orleans.

In his speech, he made the obligatory dig at Congress and then said they had implemented things so that “background checks are now more thorough and complete.” I guess that is the reason BATFE just redid Form 4473 to ask a buyer’s ethnicity – Hispanic or Latino or Not Hispanic or Latino.

As to AKs, I prefer my Bulgarian AK-74 to the AK-47 that Obama thinks is more suited to the military. Not that the US military uses the AK-47, mind you.

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Blood Dancing Bloomberg-Style

July 25, 2012 by

Within hours of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on the air demanding more gun control. On Monday night on CNN, he went further and made the ludicrous statement that the police should go on strike until more gun control is enacted.

Now Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors has gotten into the act with a full page ad in USA Today, a brand new website, and a petition demanding “a plan” to stop “gun violence” (sic). They are using some of the survivors of the Tucson shooting to push the message. Moreover, the gun prohibitionists from VPC and CSGV are going full tilt on Twitter pushing Bloomberg’s new efforts.

Interestingly enough, Bloomberg’s call to have the police strike may violate New York State’s Taylor law which says “no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike.” Hmm, isn’t the mayor of New York City a public employee? Unfortunately, just like with his efforts at gun shows in Arizona where he hired private investigators to make straw purchases, he’ll probably skate on this as well.

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Arms Trade Treaty Talks – Day 3

July 6, 2012 by

At the United Nations, Ginny Simone of NRA News talks to Tom Mason from the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities. Among the topics discussed were the seating of the Palestinian Authority as an observer, the push by Norway to include all firearms in the treaty including civilian firearms, and how the conference is totally ignoring the constitutional guarantees such as the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

Dr. Ted Bromund of the Heritage Foundation has more on Day 3 at his blog here. Or as he calls Day 3, “the International League of Supervillians speaks.

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There Are No Coincidences

April 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

Yesterday, the BATFE held a briefing for the media on the results regarding traces of firearms recovered in Mexico. Reporters that attended this briefing were not allowed any cameras, recording devices, or video equipment. They were only allowed pen and paper to take notes. Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com tweeted after the event that the moment they got into the briefing they were given a flash drive with the statistics.

The data released show that 68% of the guns submitted for tracing originated in the United States. Note that is only the guns submitted by the Mexican government. Moreover, as Larry Keane of NSSF pointed out in a tweet early this morning, no mention is made of the “Time to Crime” stat. Thus, you don’t know if the “recovered” firearms traced are ones from Operation Fast and Furious or from a burglary in El Paso in 1997.

The BATFE released this yesterday regarding the briefing on the traces.

ATF Releases Government of Mexico Firearms Trace Data

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today announced the release of trace information for firearms recovered in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing. Trace information shows that between calendar years 2007 and 2011 the Government of Mexico recovered and submitted more than 99,000 firearms to ATF for tracing. Of those firearms more than 68,000 were U.S.-sourced. More complete information will be available on the ATF website.

U.S.-sourced firearms are guns determined by ATF to be manufactured in the United States or legally imported into the United States by a federal firearms licensee. Since 2007, trace data shows a trend in recovered and submitted crime guns from Mexico shifting from pistols and revolvers to rifles. Law enforcement in Mexico now report that certain types of rifles, such as the AK and AR variants with detachable magazines, are used more frequently to commit violent crime by drug trafficking organizations.

ATF is working with its law enforcement partners at every level and the Government of Mexico to keep firearms out of the hands of gang members and criminal enterprises. The Mexico trace data is the result of information provided by the Government of Mexico to ATF about crime guns recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing.

Firearms tracing provides information on the movement of a firearm from its first sale by a manufacturer or importer through the distribution chain in an attempt to identify the first retail purchaser. This information provides investigative leads for criminal investigations.

The Mexico trace data is not the result of any criminal investigation, or investigations, initiated by law enforcement in the United States.

ATF’s National Tracing Center (NTC) is the nation’s only crime gun tracing facility. The NTC provides critical information that assists domestic and international law enforcement agencies solve firearms crimes, detect firearms trafficking and identify trends with respect to intrastate, interstate and international movement of crime guns. The NTC traced more than 319,000 crime guns in calendar year 2011.

ATF is dedicated to reducing firearms trafficking and firearms-related violent crime on both sides of the border.

ATF will also release trace information for firearms recovered in Canada and the Caribbean and submitted to ATF for tracing between calendar years 2007 and 2011.

SayUncle had a post yesterday about how the multiple-long arm reporting requirement for the Southwest border states has now resulted in 123 investigations being started in south Texas. This came from an article on Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the ATF emphasized the use of ARs and AKs “with detachable magazines” by the narco-terrorists in their press release.

Yesterday, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) had an amendment adopted to the FY13 Commerce, Justice and Science House Appropriations Bill which “would prevent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from using federal funds to track the purchases of gun owners who buy multiple rifles within a certain time period.”

From Rehberg’s statement on his amendment:

“While President Obama and his allies in Congress continue to undermine the Constitution, and infringe on our gun rights, I’ll keep fighting to ensure those rights are upheld,” said Rehberg, a member of the Second Amendment Task Force. “The ATF continues the effort to implement new gun control regulations without the approval of Congress, and, tragically, those efforts have included breaking our own country’s laws with the ‘Fast and Furious’ program. My amendment tells the Obama Administration that Congress will not tolerate this.”

The ATF regulation, first proposed in December of 2010 and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 11, 2011, requires federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) to file reports with ATF on all sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles within five consecutive business days if the rifles are larger than .22 caliber and use detachable magazines. The requirement applies to dealers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but could be expanded to other states using the same obscure regulatory process used to create the rule. Information gathered from the dealers will be kept in a federal database for two years. While Congress passed legislation in the 1990s to allow ATF to track multiple-sales of handguns, they did not intend to expand this regulation to include long guns.

I also think it was no coincidence that BATFE held their press conference as Rep. Rehberg was working to amend the appropriation for their agency which would remove their ability to force FFLs in the Southwest to make reports on certain gun sales. The congressional liaison for BATFE (or more appropriately, agency lobbyist) would have known of these hearings and of Rep. Rehberg’s intent to offer his amendment which did pass.

Nothing happens without a reason in Washington. The BATFE press briefing may be seen as a counter-attack on the critics of that agency for both Project Gunwalker and the Administration’s attempt to use regulatory fiat as a gun control measure.

UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had this to say in a release about the data given out by BATFE yesterday.

“Thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret. The key to this data is that most of these guns can’t be traced to U.S. gun dealers. And, some of those would actually trace back to the United States because of the federal government’s own gunwalking scandal. We also have to remember that the only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the Mexico.”

Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com who did attend the press briefing has a full report on it here. It seems some of her questions were not able to be answered (or they said they didn’t have the data).

UPDATE II: Larry Keane, General Counsel of NSSF, has a blog post up entitled “The Shrinking ‘Vast Majority’: NSSF Responds to ATF Mexican Trace Report.” It dissects the BATFE report and how some politicians and some in the media have played it up.

On the 90% myth:

But it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that many of the firearms recovered and traced come from the United States. That is because U.S. law requires markings on firearms precisely so they can be traced by law enforcement through commerce. It is sort of like tracing the VIN number on cars on a Ford dealership lot and be surprised to learn that most are Fords. What the 90 percent myth does not account for, and the media turns a blind eye to, and what yesterday’s ATF report does not shed light on, is the fact that you know nothing about the firearms recovered in Mexico but were never traced — like the firearms that the 150,000 or so Mexican soldiers took with them when they defected to go work for the drug cartels over the past several years.

On Time to Crime:

Perhaps what is most interesting about ATF’s report is the fact that it does not discuss the “Time to Crime” (TTC) for the Mexican traced firearms. ATF always gives TTC when it issues a tracing report (click here for an example). Why did ATF omit this piece of information? Because it knows that on average firearms (of all types) recovered in Mexico and successfully traced were on average originally sold at retail after a background check more than 15 years ago.

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A Bit Of Honesty From The Times

April 6, 2012 by 3 Comments

The New York Times, or as SayUncle appropriately calls it, the paper of making things up, let slip a little bit of honesty today. In the midst of a column opining that if we could just agree on “reasonable gun regulation” the National Rifle Association would cease to exist, Andrew Rosenthal had this to say:

The question of the constitutional right to own guns is irrelevant here—even if you believe that the Constitution gives every last American the right to own a firearm (which The Times editorial board does not, but many other reasonable people do).

The rest of the column was your usual litany of complaints about concealed carry, the Tiahrt Amendment, and the lack of restrictions on the number of firearms we are allowed to purchase. In other words, just a rewritten press release from the likes of MAIG or the Brady Campaign.

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And They Say We Are Paranoid

April 3, 2012 by

Gun rights activists have often been accused of being paranoid when it comes to President Obama and guns. His supporters like to point out that that he signed into law the bill that allowed concealed carry in National Parks. Moreover, they note he hasn’t proposed any new assault weapons (sic) ban or similar gun control measures so our distrust of him must either be racism or paranoia.

I would have to agree with them that he did sign the bill allowing concealed carry in National Parks and that he hasn’t proposed a new AWB. However, the former was signed because it was attached to a bill regulating credit cards that the President wanted and the latter is because he seems to have learned from the experience of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Gore, you may remember, lost his home state of Tennessee in the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush in part due to the gun control measures of the Clinton Administration.

It is neither racist nor paranoid to believe that a president who, in an unscripted moment, said that we in the gun culture were bitterly clinging to our guns and religion might seek alternative ways of enacting more gun control. We were given an inkling of that last year when Mr. Obama told Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign that he would be working on gun control measures “under the radar.”

More confirmation of the president’s mindset came when he asked Russian President Medvedev to be patient on missile defense because he would be able to be more “flexible” after the election. While this “flexibility” depends upon his re-election, the odds are at least 50-50 that he will (unfortunately) serve a second term.

Senator Obama was highly critical of the Bush Administration’s use of signing statements, recess appointments, and executive orders. Since being elected, President Obama has made use of all three in his pursuit of his agenda.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal had a feature article entitled “Obama Shifts View of Executive Power.” The article notes that despite his campaign pledge to roll back executive power, just the opposite has happened.

The allure of executive power, it turns out, is hard to resist. Most every chief executive has found ways to escape the shackles of the legislature and expand the power of the presidency. Three years into his first term, Mr. Obama has developed his own expansive view of going it alone, asserting new executive powers and challenging members of Congress in both parties.

“He’s using executive orders as a political tool—’I can’t work with this Congress so I’m going to do it myself,'” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who has worked with the White House on selective issues.

In the past, most clashes about executive power were about national security and foreign policy. What makes the Obama Administration different is that they are using executive power to push their domestic agenda as well. Moreover, they are not shy about about it.

Today, Mr. Obama’s use of executive power is a central part of a re-election pitch that is trying to draw a contrast with congressional inaction. It even has a catch phrase—”we can’t wait”—and senior White House aides meet about once a week to look for executive actions they can take on their own, officials said. …

But in an interview, White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler acknowledged Mr. Obama has developed a broader view of executive power since he was a senator. In explaining the shift, she cited the nature of the office.

“Many issues that he deals with are just on him, where the Congress doesn’t bear the burden in the same way,” she said. “Until one experiences that first hand, it is difficult to appreciate fully how you need flexibility in a lot of circumstances.”

Vice President Joe Biden, behind his facade as the court jester of the Obama Administration, has often signaled the administration’s thoughts on an issue. Yesterday, on CBS’s Face the Nation, he gave a solid indication that the Obama Administration might well use the Trayvon Martin case to push gun control.

Mr. Biden, who was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee for eight years, said that the Martin case underscores the need to ensure public safety in accordance with current gun laws.

“The idea that there’s this overwhelming additional security in the ownership and carrying concealed and deadly weapons… I think it’s the premise, not the constitutional right, but the premise that it makes people safer is one that I’m not so sure of,” Biden said.

As Ben Shapiro said in a critique of Biden’s performance on Breitbart.com,

But that’s been the two-barreled liberal agenda throughout this debate: first, raise the specter of race; second, crack down on guns. The left isn’t all that interested in what happens with George Zimmerman – if they cared, they’d stop tainting the jury pool – but they are interested in making political hay out of the killing. And Joe Biden is just following in his boss’ footsteps.

I don’t think it is paranoia to say I expect moves on gun control legislation if Obama is re-elected. I’m just not sure what we can expect before the election in terms of executive orders and other regulations regarding firearms but let’s just say I’m wary.