Having successfully removed the “violence” component from the federal “domestic-violence” prohibitor, gun controllers set to work on removing the “domestic” component. The current version of the federal Violence Against Women Act (H.R. 1620 or VAWA) would alter the types of relationships that give rise to a prohibiting “domestic violence” conviction to include “dating partners.” There is no temporal or cohabitation limit to the definition of “dating partners.” Ladies, next time you see that cad who ghosted you after two dates, don’t throw a drink in his face—it might cost you your gun rights under the federal government’s increasingly ridiculous definition of “domestic violence.”
…
Over the last half-century, gun-rights supporters’ enthusiasm to protect the ownership and availability of the types firearms necessary to exercise the Second Amendment right has altered the political landscape. Now, as gun-control supporters increasingly set their sights on gun owners, gun-rights supporters must marshal that same passion to combat the more complex anti-gun campaign to expand prohibited-persons categories. At stake is more than just what types of guns Americans may own, but whether the average American will qualify to own any firearm at all.
Jason Ouimet
Executive Director, NRA-ILA
March 6, 2022
From Prohibited Firearms To Prohibited Persons
[I found this to be an interesting observation. With the new ban on standard capacity magazines in Washington State the article could have had better timing but it is still a valid point.
The anti-gun people have opened up a new front in the war against the right to keep and bear arms and to a large extend gun rights advocates have been caught flat-footed. We do not have a good response to this new type of attack.
In part we have ourselves to blame. We have often said things to the effect of, “It is the criminal, not the gun.” And, we were unable or unwilling to prevent the enactment of laws against convicted felons owning firearms (even though they had “paid their debt to society”). So now when they push us down the slippery slope of any type of conviction it is tough to get traction and push back.
As it stands there is no connection between being a violent criminal threat and being banned from firearm ownership. An petite elderly woman with a felony conviction for $1,000 of tax fraud 50 years ago and has lead an angelical life since is banned from protecting herself with the most effective self-defense tools. But the Antifa thug with dozens of arrests for assault, battery, and arson but no convictions can purchase artillery pieces just like the rest of us normal people.
We need a good response to this threat and absurdity.
My thought is since NICS, and background checks in general, have not changed the violent crime rate we should push for the elimination of these costly infringements which do nothing for public safety. That’s the logical approach.
Am more emotionally based response might be, “If someone is safe enough to be allowed in public with gasoline and a book of matches they are safe enough to be in possession of a gun in public.”*
A better one might be, “Background checks don’t make us safer.** What is the real reason you are doing this?”
Short and clever sound bites are best. Any ideas?—Joe]
* I can’t take credit for this observation. I think it was someone named Jason who, probably in the late 1990’s, told me his father pointed this out to him.
** California’s Background Check Law Had No Impact on Gun Deaths, Johns Hopkins Study Finds
I was under the impression that we can distinguish between violent felonies and the other sort. The former should include the possibility of a gun license being lifted (and later reinstated by a specific process); the latter should not.
From the perspective of gun rights, there is a world of difference between a felon convicted of armed robbery, vs. a felon convicted of embezzling $5 million from some Las Vegas wiseguy and giving it to charity. The former has used violence to commit a felony in the past, and thus may be reasonably assumed to try to do so again. The latter has not.
This is also why we must be careful to distinguish between violent gun crime and the other sort. We all know what violent gun crime is; it includes either the use of violence, or the imminent threat of violence. But non-violent gun crime could be nothing more than your jacket flapping open in a state that doesn’t allow open carry.
That is the word-game of the sort the left loves. “Our violence is protected free speech. Your words are violence.” They play with definitions to tie things in legalist and linguistic knots in order to defile the spirit of the common-sense law. Nobody wants to support someone convicted of “domestic violence,” but if they twist word definitions so far that a splashed drink on a first date qualifies, then what does the law really mean any more?
[insert your fav Tower of Babel ref here]
The political right has failed at playing the word-games for a long time, and it’s something the left has excelled at for centuries. Even Tolkien knew the Grima Wormtongue was a trope from way back.
Other than calling attention to the manipulative word-games, not sure what the best solution is.
Cache
Related, the passed ban on so-called ghost guns is equally stupid. Since when does police ability to trace a firearm prevent crime? When has it actually even solved a crime? The Canadian gun registry, a huge failure, admittedly was only used to solve only a handful of cases.
With the new law, you have until 2023 to have an FFL engrave and log serial numbers on any “untraceable” firearm, including the heirloom rifle or pistol you inherited from your grandfather. How will that make anyone safer?
The Canadian gun registry, a huge failure, admittedly was only used to solve only a handful of cases.
And even then, my understanding is it was one piece of a comprehensive criminal case, and never the lynch pin upon which everything else relied.
IOW, if they didn’t have the long gun registry, the crimes would still have been solved — and the suspects convicted — by other, more conventional evidence.
And those are the best “success” stories they can come up with.
How ’bout we just stick with what our fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, founders and Jesus taught us?
“Self-defense is a human right.”
And the 2A tells government it can’t even discuss gun control. Anyone passing or enforcing gun control is committing crimes against humanity.
And are legally persona non grata. From congress to street cops. Wither they want to believe it or not.
And according to every legal precedence known in our system they are not-with-standing.
“Anything in the law of any state, or constitution of any state to the contrary is notwithstanding.”
“The right of the people, (not specified which people or persons), to keep and bear arms, (no type of arms or accessories described on propose), shall not be infringed.”
And my personal favorite, BFYTW!
Here’s a major part of the problem;
”… gun-control supporters increasingly set their sights on gun owners.”
Disparity of risk. When the authoritarian ring leaders win, we may lose our property, we may lose our businesses, we may be cancelled, we may have our bank accounts frozen, and we may go to jail. We may be treated like Kyle Rittenhouse, or worse. When they lose, they might not get as many votes, and increasingly there is evidence that even our votes, or lack of votes, no longer matter so much.
They have little or nothing to lose, while we have everything in this world to lose.
In the ILA model, this is as it ever was, and ever will be. In the ILA model, the constitution and the other laws supporting the constitution are nothing but an increasingly toothless body of old rhetoric. Thus, unless this model is replaced, we surely lose in the end. The ILA might win, financially, but we as a people who love liberty will surely lose.
Unless or until there are regular prosecutions AND convictions of individuals (prominent politicians, and their network of associations which conspire with them, including international organizations) responsible for these assaults on our constitutional principles, we are guaranteed to lose. In short, we are guaranteed to lose.
Our psychology is so firmly established and entrenched that we’ll never get out of the dialectic. It always goes like this;
1. They propose some outrageous affront to our nation’s principles
2. We throw a fit, send money to the NRA, etc.
3. They either get their outrage passed into law or they don’t
4. Repeat until there’s nothing left for the left to attack
It’s a war of slow attrition. One side always and forever on the attack, the other side always and forever on the defensive, making concessions. It’s a recipe for guaranteed, certain, eventual victory for the authoritarians and certain ultimate failure for the principles of liberty.
Notice what’s lacking? Literally always and forever lacking?
No arrests were made, of anyone perpetrating or conspiring in the war against the principles of liberty.
Argue all you want, make all the excuses you want, wave your various flags and chant, tell patriotic stories and sing songs, and raise millions of dollars in contributions, make a lot of noise, build a firearms museum, make a sport out of calling the left both stupid and evil (but which is it?), make some more lawyers rich while your contributors get poorer, but it doesn’t change the recipe (our very own recipe) for certain failure into anything but a recipe for certain failure.
As someone else pointed out, we’re always playing defense. When all we play is defense, fighting multiple fronts gets very expensive very quickly, and we need to win every single time.
On the other side, it costs them practically nothing to keep attacking, and they can attack as many times as they need to, on as many fronts as they please. They need to win only once.
What is needed is two things:
1. We need to find ways to go on offense. Second Amendment Protection Acts (ones with real teeth, like Missouri’s) are a good start. Filing bills to repeal gun laws at all levels — federal, state, and local — is the next step.
2. (Partly an extension of #1, but important enough to be its own line:) We need to make it prohibitively expensive for them to keep attacking endlessly. Seek extensive “frivolous lawsuit” damages every time we prevail in court, including any anti-freedom group that contributed to the lawsuits. And for the love of all that is holy, start charging anti-freedom politicians under 18 U.S.C. 241 and 242. A few convictions, jail time, and big fines (paid personally, not from campaign coffers) — and disqualification from holding office in the future — should do much to discourage further attacks.