universal background checks

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Bloomberg’s Minions Win In Oregon

May 6, 2015 by 11 Comments

With apologies to all my good friends in California, Oregon, and Washington State but the Pacific Coast is not also called the Sinister Coast for nothing. Yesterday, the Oregon House of Representatives voted 32 to 28 to concur on SB 941. This follows the 17-13 vote on April 14th by the Oregon Senate to pass the bill.

Governor Kate Brown (D-OR) indicated through her spokesperson that she would be signing the bill. According to The Oregonian, she is a gun control supporter of long standing. Brown assumed the Oregon governorship when ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber (D-OR) resigned the office under a cloud of scandal. 

Senate Bill 941, according to its summary, would:

Requires private person to complete transfer of firearm by appearing with transferee before gun
dealer to request criminal background check or shipping or delivering firearm to gun dealer in
certain circumstances. Specifies exceptions for family members, law enforcement, inherited
firearms and certain temporary transfers. Punishes violation by maximum of one year’s
imprisonment, $6,250 fine, or both, or maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment, $250,000 fine, or both, for
second or subsequent offense.

[Requires] Authorizes Department of State Police to notify [local] appropriate law enforcement
agency when, during criminal background check performed prior to transfer of firearm, department
determines that recipient is prohibited from possessing firearm.

Authorizes court to prohibit person ordered to participate in assisted outpatient treatment from
purchasing or possessing firearm during period of treatment if certain criteria are met.

Declares emergency, effective on passage.

Unlike the I-594 which passed in Washington State, SB 941 is a bit more clear about what is a transfer and what isn’t. The bill says a transfer is a sale, gift, loan, or lease of a firearm with certain exceptions made for “temporary transfers”.  Among the exceptions are when at a range whether for just target practice or a class; when hunting; when sent to a gunsmith or someone who customizes firearms; and when loaned to prevent “imminent death or serious physical injury” but only as long as needed to prevent death or injury. I will say that last exception is a bit vague. How do you determine when the threat begins or ends?

The vote for this bill was along party lines. In the Senate, 17 out of 18 Democrats voted for the bill while all 12 Republicans plus St. Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) voted no. Meanwhile in the House, 32 out of 35 Democrats voted for the the bill while all 25 Republicans voted no along with Democrat Representatives Jeff Barker (D-Aloha), Caddy McKeown (D-Coos Bay), and Brad Witt (D-Clatskanie).

Excuse this tangent but what I found so striking about both houses of the Oregon Legislature is that they are so overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean just predominantly white – I mean lily white or, as Procol Harum sang, a whiter shade of pale. The only minority in the State Senate is a Republican woman – Sen. Jackie Winters (R-Salem). In the House, it is barely better. Rep. Lew Frederick (D-Portland) is the only African-American while Representatives Jessica Vega Pederson (D-Portland) and Joe Gallegos (D-Hillsboro) appear to be the only Hispanics in the legislature. According to US Census figures, Oregon is 77.5% white, 2% black, 4% Asian, and 12% Hispanic which includes “white Hispanics”.

If Oregon was either a Southern or conservative state or both, the Justice Department under both Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch would have been all over them demanding answers. Since it isn’t, all is well.

Back on topic, I think the politicians who voted to preserve the Second Amendment rights of Oregonians should be recognized.

In the Senate: Senators Baertschiger, Boquist, Ferrioli, Girod,Hansell, Johnson, Knopp, Kruse, Olsen, Thatcher, Thomsen, Whitsett, and Winters.

In the House: Representatives McLane, Barker, Barreto, Bentz, Buehler, Davis, Esquivel, Gilliam, Hack, Hayden, Heard, Huffman, Johnson, Kennemer, Krieger, McKeown, Nearman, Olson, Parrish, Post, Smith, Sprenger, Stark, Weidner, Whisnant, Whitsett, Wilson, and Witt.

 (The Democrats are in italic)

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I-594 And The Aftermath – Why Washington State And Who Might Be Next (Pt. 1)

November 15, 2014 by 82 Comments

We underestimate our enemies at our peril. The Washington State universal background check initiative, I-594, should have taught us that. We may think that Michael Bloomberg is a rich, power-mad little Napolean or, as Michael Bane calls him, a nastly little Fascist. However, he did not get to be rich by marrying the right woman or picking the right parents. No, he saw a need and devised a way to fulfill it. Along the way, this insight and his skills made him a very rich man. The bottom line is he is not stupid and he can think strategically.

Likewise, it is easy to dismiss Shannon Watts as an up-marrying, social climbing PR flack who attached herself to gun control as a  way to rejuvenate her ailing career. However, she didn’t get to be a VP at Wellpoint without some degree of talent and a mastery of public relations tactics. We have seen that with the way she created the appearance of a win for gun control – even it if wasn’t – from the announcements by companies like Starbucks and Chipotles that they didn’t want guns in their stores. Perception is reality and the perception is that guns were banned there even if it was merely an unenforceable polite request to leave the guns at home.

Thus, when I read this post from Hyperion 1144 on Reddit, a light went off. The goal of Bloomberg wasn’t universal background checks. It was to kill the gun culture in America by strangling its ability to bring new adults into it. We always say that taking someone shooting is a great way to inoculate them from the claims of the gun prohibitionists. If that is made too hard by the restrictions on transfers in I-594, then we can’t achieve this inoculation.

I-594 is a not a tactical move by gun confiscationists, it is a strategic move.


This law was created by smart, wealthy, well-funded persons who are playing the long game, and if gun owners don’t start running a long-game strategy to match, we are done for within two generations.
Washington has passed Initiative 594, a law marketed as requiring background checks on all sales, but which in reality has criminalized the act of touching any gun you do not own. This means that if you don’t own a gun in Washington State, it is now illegal for you to touch a gun.


I haven’t yet seen an article, comment, or post anywhere that takes into account the long-term cultural implications of such a regulation. I-594 is literally a legislative vaccine against the spread of gun culture.


How is someone curious about guns in Washington state supposed to learn about them about now? They won’t be able to go shooting with friends, they won’t be able to go to friends house to be shown how to field strip a 9mm. Gun classes have likely been outlawed. Gun rentals are likely gone now, too.


The only way to learn, now, is to buy a gun and learn by yourself, completely on your own. No one can help you, since they can’t touch your gun and you can’t touch any of theirs.
This law is intended to isolate us, to prevent us from spreading ideas, knowledge, information, culture. This law, played out of over years and decades, means that gun owners are now likely limited to two pools of people in the future:


1) The children of gun owning families.
2) The rare, entirely self-motivated individual who is willing to trek into an unknown world completely alone.


Played over years and decades, this is how you slowly disarm a population without getting substantial complaints from that population.


The only way we maintain our 2nd Amendment rights is to fight for them. The only people who will fight for them are people who understand firearms, and the reasons for owning them, well enough to be willing to fight. The only way most people come to an understanding of this is if someone else taught them or helped them to understand.


Now, virtually all non-familial acts of teaching and culture-sharing are illegal. In the long-term cultural sense, I-594 is the single most dangerous piece of gun control legislation ever conceived.


It makes the NFA and the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban look childishly simplistic by comparison. This time, they didn’t ban certain mechanical or cosmetic features. They didn’t ban full-auto or select fire or short-barrel rifles.


This time, they banned a culture, our culture.


If this stands or spreads, we are done for.

I think the author, Hyperion 1144, makes a lot of sense and we need to get that message across to all gun owners – Fudds, Threepers, Prags, or what other subgroup of gun owners you can think of.

As to the last sentence in the Reddit post, it has spread to the state of Nevada. This was not unexpected as a universal background check bill passed the Nevada legislature last year but was vetoed by Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NV). Everytown President John Feinblatt said as much after I-594 passed calling it just the beginning. The group fought off an attempt by the Nevada Firearms Coalition to keep it off the 2016 ballot. The only change made to the wording of the ballot initiative was make sure voters knew the penalties for violations would be a gross misdemeanor for first offenses and a felony conviction for the second offense. This is identical to Washington State’s I-594.

Sebastian has some ideas on how to fight off Bloomberg on the ballot initiatives. I haven’t digested all of it yet but it sure has set off a storm of comments.

David Codrea notes that the effort in Nevada was something he warned about last year. Back then, David did some investigative digging into the Nevada effort and found the fingerprints of Bloomberg all over it. Unfortunately, not enough people listened at the time.

Part 2 of this post will be an effort to identify future targets of Bloomberg’s opportunism.

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Joe Manchin Said He Supported The Second Amendment, Too

September 28, 2014 by 2 Comments

Democrats running for the US Senate from red states love to say they are for the Second Amendment.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he was for gun rights, boasted he was endorsed by the NRA, and even showed himself shooting a rifle at the “cap and trade” bill. That was in 2010. In 2013, he introduced a bill that would “only add gun checks to online sales and gun shows.” That was a myth among many other problems.

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) said she supported the Second Amendment in 2008 when she won against a lackluster Liddy Dole in the Obama landslide. That didn’t stop her from voting for Manchin-
Toomey in 2013 along with gun prohibitionists like Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and the late Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).

Now comes Kentucky Sec. of State Alison Lundergan Grimes who is running against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). She said she disagrees with Obama on guns, coal, and the EPA. She even ran an ad showing herself at the skeet range. She even chides McConnell’s waving a Kentucky long rifle a’la Charlton Heston at the 2014 NRA Annual Meeting saying, “That’s not the way you hold a gun.”

Then she was a guest on the Kentucky Sports Radio show in which she said was for the Second Amendment but supported closing the mythical “gun show loophole.”

I’m sorry but if you say you support closing the non-existent “gun show loophole” (sic) then that means you support universal background checks. Answering a question about whether you’d support banning any guns by saying “I support the Second Amendment” is nothing more than obfuscation. You want to appear gun friendly but you are supporting exactly the same thing as Bloomberg, Watts, and the rest.

Mitch McConnell is not my favorite Republican. I think what he’s done to undercut the non-establishment wing of the Republican Party is stupid politics. However, I vote the Second Amendment and he supports gun rights. I am also well aware that we are but one Supreme Court justice away from seeing Heller and McDonald overturned. The only way to ensure Obama doesn’t get a chance to seat another Kagan or Sotomayor on the Supreme Court is with a Republican-majority Senate. If Grimes wins, that isn’t going to happen.

UPDATE: Alison Lundergan Grimes’ support for closing the non-existent gun show loophole gets a “hallelujah” from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic).

Can we get a “hallelujah”? Thank you Alison Lundergan Grimes, for good old fashioned common sense.

We were told growing up that we are known by our friends. If these are her friends, well…..

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Dingy Harry Is Right – Billionaires Are Trying To Buy Democracy

September 10, 2014 by 2 Comments

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a speech yesterday on the floor of the Senate. It was his first floor speech since the end of the August recess. As The Hill reports it, he said, in part,

“We have had in this country a flood of very, very dark money coming into this nation’s political system,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “Radical billionaires are attempting to buy our democracy.”

Reid is correct in his statement – just not in the billionaires to whom he referred. He, of course, was continuing his jihad against the libertarian Koch brothers.

However, if one were to examine the backers of the universal background check initiative in Washington State, I-594, you would come to the conclusion that a gaggle of billionaires was indeed trying to buy “our democracy.”

Examining the public reports from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, one finds that a full 72% of the funding for the anti-gun Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility has come from five billionaires (including spouses) plus one very wealthy woman from an “old Seattle family”. In dollar terms, these six have donated $5,171,600 out of the $7,175,542 donated to the anti-gun organization. Small contributions to this gun control ballot initiative total only $63,009 or less than 1% of the total.

So who are these billionaires (or near billionaires), how much have they given individually, what is their estimated net worth, and where do they stand on the Forbes 400 list of richest people in America. Here is the list in order of contributions:

  1. Nick Hanauer, $1,485,000; net worth $1 billion, venture capitalist, Second Avenue Investing

  2. Bill and Melinda Gates, $1,050,000; net worth $72 billion, No. 1 Forbes 400, co-founder Microsoft

  3. Michael Bloomberg*, $1,030,000; net worth $31 billion, No. 10 Forbes 400, founder Bloomberg LP

  4. Connie and Steve Ballmer, $830,000; net worth $18 billion, No. 21 Forbes 400, former CEO Microsoft, owner LA Clippers

  5. Paul Allen, $500,000; net worth $15.8 billion, No 26 Forbes 400, co-founder Microsoft, owner Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers

  6. Ann Pigott Wyckoff, $276,600; net worth est. multi-millions, heiress and daughter of the late Paccar Corporation president Paul Pigott. Paccar manufactures Peterbilt, Kenworth, and Leyland trucks.
To put these contributions into perspective, let’s look at the campaign committee for I-591 which is the other ballot initiative which opposes universal background checks. Protect Our Gun Rights is the campaign committee formed to support I-591. The largest individual (non-organizational) contribution was $1,500 by a Boeing engineer. The primary contributors to Protect Our Gun Rights are the Washington State-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Washington Arms Collectors. This committee has raised a total of $1,121,535 at last report.
As Dave Workman, the Seattle Gun Rights Examiner, put it, this is a billionaire bombardment and he is correct. So when Dingy Harry speaks of “radical billionaires attempting to buy our democracy”, he just has the wrong set of billionaires in mind. It isn’t the Koch brothers, it is the Hanauers, the Gates, the Allens, the Ballmers, and the Bloombergs who plan to dominate the TV airwaves with their appeals to low information voters in an effort to impose their will on the people of Washington State.
*Bloomberg’s contribution was funneled through MAIG and Everytown for Gun Safety (sic).
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Quote Of The Day

February 4, 2014 by

The quote of the day comes from US National Rifle Team member and gun blogger Anette Wachter who is also known as 30CalGal. She was one of the people who had testified before a Washington State legislative committee about Initiatives 591 and 594. Initiative 594 is the gun prohibitionists’ “background check” initiative which would criminalize transfers without a state background check while Initiative 591 is the Protect Our Gun Rights Act.

Describing how one opponent of gun rights had said she was afraid of guns, Anette said we must work on those in the middle.

But as I listened to Wa St. Senator Jeannie Darneille from Tacoma state she is deathly afraid of guns period, I knew that there was to be no convincing people like her to back off of gun control measures. They hate guns period. Our work to be done is to make those on the fence see the light. Those on the fence are the ones that only hunt, or only have a pistol, or only go to the range once in a while or who’s dad used to shoot, that all aspects of the 2nd Amendment need to be protected. Just because you don’t shoot an AR and it does not affect you does not mean you should vote against the right to own them. Do you want me to vote against one side of your First Amendment because I don’t like your choice of social media but as long as my social media choice is not affected that is it ok? It is all or nothing.

She is dead on with that observation and that is where we need to concentrate our efforts. It is what military strategists call the concentration of force.

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90% Support Universal Background Checks?

December 23, 2013 by 8 Comments

You know how all we’ve heard for the past year is that 90% of Americans support universal background checks? Well, not so fast.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has released a poll today that shows only 40% of Americans want universal background checks at gun shows. The difference in the poll results is because contextual detail was added to the question. Instead of asking do you want to close the “gun show loophole” or other such nonsense, the poll points out that most sales at gun shows are conducted with background checks and are by FFLs.

The poll goes further. Only 39% of respondents thought that requiring a background check for transferring a firearm between friends or family members would reduce violent crime. That’s a long way from 90% in my calculations.

The poll was conducted in November for NSSF by McKeon and Associates. The poll sample included over 1,200 respondents and contained a margin of error of +/- 4.1%.

The release on the poll results with more details is below:

Americans Don’t Think ‘Universal Background Checks’ Extension for Gun Shows Are Needed, National Poll Finds
NEWTOWN,
Conn. — Only four out of ten Americans support so-called “universal
background checks” at gun shows after being informed that the vast
majority of firearms sales at these shows are transacted by licensed
retailers that already conduct such checks through the National Instant
Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as required by federal law. The
poll results stand in contrast to the vague claim often reported in the
media and attributed to gun control proponents without important
contextual detail that 90 percent of Americans surveyed support
“universal background checks.
 “These
findings were the among the results of a national scientific poll of
more than 1,200 Americans conducted in November by McKeon &
Associates and released today by the National Shooting Sports Foundation
(NSSF), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry.
The McKeon poll found that only 40 percent of respondents said that
extension of “universal background checks” to private transactions at
gun shows are necessary, while 53 percent said they are not necessary
and 7% said they did not know.
The
Americans polled also said by a combined 74 percent margin that
conducting background checks against an incomplete database was not
effective at all or not very effective while 54 percent said that
requiring background checks for transferring guns between friends and
family members was not at effective at all or not very effective in
reducing violent crime.
links to hi-res JPG
The
poll also discovered that 92 percent of Americans agree that the states
should submit all records of persons federally prohibited from owning a
firearm to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check Systems
(NICS), passing legislation if needed.
Some
70 percent of the survey sample also said that did not believe that
government should mandate that all firearms produced incorporate “smart
gun” technology should it become commercially available. Only 17
percent approved of a mandate, while 13 percent didn’t know.
links to hi-res JPG“We
commissioned this poll to help determine where Americans stood on the
various aspects of how the NICS system actually works today,” said Larry
G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “When
properly informed of relevant details, it turns out that only four out
of ten, not nine out of ten Americans support so-called ‘universal
background checks’ at gun shows or for firearms transfers. The poll
also found that Americans want a National Instant Criminal Background
Check System with a dependable and accurate database, which supports the
goal of the FixNICS initiative we launched in 2013 and will continue in
2014.”
links to hi-res JPGThe
poll conducted Nov. 6-7 has a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percent.
Respondents self-identified as 33 percent Democrat, 26 percent
Republican and 41 percent independent. As to ethnicity, 62 percent of
respondents said they were Caucasian, 18 percent African-American, 11
percent Hispanic; and 9 percent, other. As to age, 20 percent of
respondents said they were 18-30; 36 percent, 31-45; 23 percent 46-60;
and 21 percent, 60 or older.
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No, She Isn’t

July 8, 2013 by 1 Comment

The Maine Sunday Telegram had an editorial in today’s edition speculating that the visit of Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly “could shake up gun stalemate.”

They made this statement in the editorial.

We have just come through a legislative session in which no progress was made in the effort to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Giffords is a national symbol of the consequences of doing nothing. Her career in Congress was cut short when a deranged man armed with a semiautomatic handgun and high-capacity magazines opened fire on her in a crowd of constituents, killing six people and wounding Giffords and 12 others.

If by doing nothing the editors of the Sunday Telegram mean implementing universal background checks, Ms. Giffords is NOT a national symbol of “the consequences of doing nothing.” The shooter did not purchase his firearm through a private transaction, at a gun show, or in an otherwise prohibited transaction. The shooter and killer purchased his Glock 19 from a licensed dealer in
Arizona and passed the requisite NICS background check conducted by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If Ms. Giffords is any sort of national symbol of the consequences of doing nothing, the fault lies at the foot of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik and his Pima County Sheriffs Department as well at the foot of officials at Pima Community College. Despite his run-ins with law enforcement and his suspension from Pima Community College for what appears to be mental illness, this information never went any further. Any database is only as good as the information in it and inaction by Dupnik and Pima Community College kept potentially disqualifying information out of the NICS database.

Universal background checks of private sales would not have stopped the shooter in Tucson nor at Virginia Tech nor in Aurora, Colorado and it is time to stop pretending that it would have. They all passed Federal NICS background checks.

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Background Check Veto Upheld In Maine

June 28, 2013 by 7 Comments

The Maine State Legislature passed a universal background checks bill on June 19th in what was considered a surprise vote. The bill had been defeated twice before in the State Senate.

In a surprise vote Wednesday, the Maine Senate passed a bill that creates civil penalties for those who sell guns in private sales to people who are prohibited from having them.

The legislation imposes a civil fine of $500 if a gun seller does not perform a background check and the buyer is later discovered to be a prohibited person.

The bill, LD 1240, was first watered down by the Senate, but on Tuesday, the House of Representatives sent the original measure back to the Senate. The Senate approved the bill on a 18-17 vote, with two rural Democrats joining Republicans in the minority on the measure.

Fortunately for Maine gun owners, Gov. Paul LePage (R-ME) was true to his word and vetoed the bill. He said the bill only impacted honest gun owners and for that reason he vetoed the bill.

Yesterday, the Maine State House voted to uphold the governor’s veto in a 77-71 vote. The gun prohibitionists in the State House are now threatening to go to a referendum to pass the measure and cite the misleading poll number from an anti-gun push poll.

The background-check bill, L.D. 1240, sponsored by Rep. Mark Dion, D-Portland, would have created a civil violation for selling a gun to a person prohibited from owning a gun, such as a convicted felon.


It originally was a sweeping bill that would have mandated background checks before all gun purchases. His bill passed narrowly in the Legislature earlier this month, and the House upheld the veto in a 77-71 vote on Wednesday.


In his veto message, LePage said the bill was focused “on those who would choose to obey the law, and for that reason I believe it misses the target.”


“This is an issue that may need to go straight to our citizens,” Dion said in a statement after the vote. “The governor described my bill as ‘well-meaning,’ but public policy requires more than intentions, it requires action.”


Dion was referring to a potential referendum on the matter: J. Thomas Franklin, president of Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence, a pro-gun control group, said last week that it is considering bringing a citizens’ initiative to ask Maine voters to decide on mandatory background checks in 2014.

Searching the Maine register of lobbyists, I cannot find any that represent Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors nor any that represent other gun prohibitionist group. I am going to assume that Bloomberg didn’t employ his full court press like he did in Colorado and Nevada.

Still that a state like Maine with a long tradition of protecting gun rights would have even considered such a bill – much less passed one – is disappointing. Maine, like the rest of northern New England, is changing and, in my opinion, not for the better.

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Bloomberg Loses In Nevada

June 14, 2013 by 1 Comment

While Bloomberg’s billions were enough to “persuade” both houses of the Nevada Legislature to pass SB 221, it wasn’t enough to “convince” Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NV) not to veto the bill. SB 221 provided for universal background checks on all transfers in Nevada.

Bloomberg had blanketed Nevada with his lobbyists and spent a lot of money on ads pushing Sandoval to sign SB 221. However, Gov. Sandoval, who had pledged to veto the bill even before it passed, seems to have listened to callers to his office instead.

It is a significant defeat for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control advocacy group, Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars working to get the bill passed.

The group bought numerous ads on social media sites, news websites and television, in addition to mailing out materials attacking select lawmakers who voted against the bill during the session. Video ads pressuring Sandoval to sign the bill surfaced immediately following the Assembly nod of approval.

But an automated system set up to field the flood of calls to the governor’s office about the bill showed an overwhelming majority of calls wanted Sandoval to veto the bill. The system did not record names, so it was possible for callers to call multiple times and distort the numbers.

 The gun prohibitionists are still clinging to their mythical 86% of Nevadans in favor of the bill and are castigating the governor for ignoring their push poll.

Repeating an oft-cited result of a poll showing 86 percent of Nevadans favor background checks for private party gun sales, critics said Sandoval has made an unpopular decision.

“Clearly Gov. Sandoval is going against the will of the people,” said Brian Fadie, executive director of ProgressNow Nevada, a group that favored the bill’s passage. “He is standing with extremists who are mostly filled with paranoid fears of the government taking away their guns.”

 Gov. Sandoval, in his veto message found here, said that the bill’s measure on the reporting of mental health issues were very good. However, he goes on to say that that bill’s background check provisions “constitute an erosion of Nevadans’ Second Amendment rights under the United States Constitution and may subject otherwise law-abiding citizens to criminal prosecution.” He adds that the bill would also alter the burden of proof for illegal sales of firearms under Nevada.

I congratulate Gov. Sandoval for vetoing the bill and for recognizing the “flypaper” nature of this bill written by Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors. These transfer provisions were never meant to stop crime but are intended to create a new class of inadvertent criminals ultimately leading to the loss of their rights under the Second Amendment.

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Has Bloomberg Bought Another Western State?

June 4, 2013 by

Yesterday, the Nevada State Assembly passed universal background checks by a vote of 23 yea to 19 nay and sent it to Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NV) for his signature or veto. The text of the bill as enrolled can be found here.

One of the most contentious bills of the day was Senate Bill 221, sponsored by Sen. Justin Jones, D-Las Vegas, to require background checks on private gun sales.

The bill appeared dead early Monday, but in an unexpected move, the Assembly Judiciary Committee approved it on a 7-5 vote.

The full Assembly then voted 23-19 to send it to Sandoval despite his promise to veto the measure. Four Democrats joined with all 15 Republicans in opposing the measure.

The bill previously passed the Senate on an 11-10 party-line vote with Democrats in support.

Multiple reports indicate that Gov. Sandoval will veto this bill. That has not stopped Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors from running ads asking people to call the governor and asking him to sign it. Moreover, they are saying that “86% of Nevada voters” support the bill.

The other day I wrote about how certain legislators were expecting substantial campaign contributions as a result of pushing Bloomberg’s bill.

It is obvious from the lists below, that Bloomberg saturated Carson City with lobbyists. There are a total of 63 legislators in both houses of the Nevada Legislature. Examining the list of lobbyists below for Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors, I see a total of 13 paid lobbyists or one lobbyist for every 4.85 legislators. An asterisk after the lobbyist name indicates that he or she is a paid lobbyist. Bloomberg had no volunteer lobbyists.

By contrast, you have three paid lobbyists and three volunteer lobbyists for the pro-rights side. Besides the NRA, you had the Nevada Firearms Coalition and the Stillwater Firearms Association. The Nevada Firearms Association is the state affiliate of the NRA. As they themselves note, they relied on the NRA-ILA to handle things in the legislature until recently. The Stillwater Firearms Association is a non-profit that puts on classes, organizes shooting competitions, and manages a shooting range in Fallon, NV.

From an outsider’s perspective, it appears that Mayor Bloomberg overwhelmed the grassroots organizations with money, ads, and paid lobbyists just like he did in Colorado. Unlike Colorado, having a Republican governor may be enough to stop this in its tracks. A veto of the bill cannot be overriden by either house of the Nevada Legislature.

While it is past time to have made your voice heard, we still have a chance with Gov. Sandoval. I’d emphasize that this measure won’t stop crime and would not have prevented the Newtown shootings. Moreover, if you are not a state resident but have visited Reno, Las Vegas, or other gambling locations, make that known along with your determination not to spend your money in a state that doesn’t believe in your civil rights.

Contact information for Gov. Sandoval is located here.

One final reminder: be firm but respectful.