Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Sarah Brady

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We are here today to tell you about an industry whose secrecy, opportunism, cynicism and disdain for consumer protection make it the next logical target for reform in America. That industry has hidden behind its mouthpieces and lobbyists for years and years. That industry, although it contains some respectable and responsible companies, also has chief executives who boast about marketing tools of mass murder.

Sarah Brady
Symposium moderator and Chair of Handgun Control, Inc. and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.
October 8, 1997
GUN INDUSTRY EXPERTS PREDICT FAR-REACHING REFORMS; POINT TO TOBACCO AND OTHER INDUSTRIES AS PRECEDENT
[It appears the “mass murder” sound-bite has been around for quite a while. It’s not quite “weapon of mass destruction” like some people recently started saying but it’s close.

I thought this was an appropriate QOTD since I received my T-Shirt yesterday. If it’s not too cold (it got down to -7F last night but it has now warmed up to a balmy 12F) to show it off I’ll wear it to the Steel Challenge match tomorrow.—Joe]

Quote of the day—MikeB302000

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I think what you guys have decided, if I understand you correctly, is you’ve taken a fairly universally accepted right like “life,” the idea that we all have a right to “life,” and you’ve moved from there to “self-defense.” If we have a right to “life” we must have a right to defend that life. So far so good. But here’s where you lose me and a lot of other people too, If you have a right to “self-defense,” you keep saying, then you have a right to own guns in order to best exercise that self-defense. I say that doesn’t follow.

How about this? We have a right to life, right? Too many guns in the hands of irresponsible or criminal people are interfering with that right, the right to life. We need proper (strict) gun control laws in order to ensure the ability of people to enjoy their right to “life.”

Why would your leap of faith that easy individual gun ownership is the best way to exercise our right to life be any more valid than my idea that the best way is to severely restrict and control guns?

MikeB302000
February 23, 2011
Comment to Quote of the day—LaciTheDog
[As I mentioned in the comments I was fairly impressed with MikeB302000 comment. It showed remarkable understanding of our position and a plausible alternate conclusion. And he did it without his usual animosity. I said that I would respond to him. But it took far more time and words than I thought it would and my response brings up points that I wanted to get more visibility than they would in a comment. I know I run the risk of exceeding his attention span but perhaps the first few paragraphs will get sufficient information across that he will at least catch a glimmer of my point.

MikeB30200,

You don’t explicitly call it this but your claim ‘We need proper (strict) gun control laws in order to ensure the ability of people to enjoy their right to “life.”’ is a hypothesis. And in the absence of little or no data I would consider it a quite reasonable hypothesis. Even “common sense”. Perhaps even qualifying as obvious and of little need for validation. In fact, I think it is just as common sense and obvious as the hypothesis that the earth is flat was 500+ years ago.

I think this is where your weak point is. It is “obvious” to you and your fellow gun control supporters. In your camp there is no need for validation. It is so obvious that if was just “done right” strict gun control would result in a safer society. But the test data does not support your hypothesis.

But after many decades of testing this hypothesis, all over the world, in many different circumstances and cultures the best that can be said about gun control is that the benefits are inconclusive. If you want to look at more middle of the road data we have the example of what happened to the murder rate in Washington D.C. when the gun ban was declared unconstitutional. Within one year it dropped to the lowest level since 1985 – a 24 year low. And what about forcible rape? That turned out different. Within one year it dropped to the lowest level since 1967—a 42 year low. Or (via Roberta’s comment) some international data that suggests similar trends. That should be a strong hint that strict gun laws are not the solution to increasing public safety.

But if you want to look at the strongest evidence that gun control is a risk to public safety look at the genocides committed in the 20th Century. From the 1 to 1.5 million Armenians murdered in Ottoman Turkey from 1915->1917 to the 800,000 Tutsi murdered in Rwanda in 1994 gun control enabled the murder of tens of millions of people by their own governments. The evidence continues to mount in places like Darfur. Genocide only occurs when the government knows who owns the guns and/or bans guns.

I think of people advocating gun control similar to people still claiming the earth is flat. They are absolutely correct that evidence to support their belief is all around us. It’s easy to see they are correct. It’s obvious if you just look around your neighborhoods and cities. But as soon as you look at the question from a little higher altitude you see the curvature of the earth and then you see the earth is unmistakably round and that gun control is not a net win for society.

Perhaps an analogy with public safety implications will help get the point across. When nearly everyone gets vaccinated you don’t see the downside of not being vaccinated. You only see the one in 10,000 or one in 100,000 that dies from a reaction to the vaccine. It is difficult to directly see the benefits. It is only through control groups and testing that the hypothesis is rejected and gun control is found to not improve public safety. The one valid point gun control advocates have is (as first pointed out to me in Wright and Rossi’s book) is that with firearms relatively freely accessible it enables criminals to hit harder targets. Instead of young thugs snatching purses from little old ladies they can “knock off” a bank or maybe even an armored car. Just as with vaccines there are innocent victims no matter which path you take.

Gun control shifts the demographics of the victims. How do you want to measure public safety? If you want to measure it strictly by the number of deaths which occur via a bullet, as Joan Peterson apparently does, then you end up with a different solution than you do if you measure public safety in terms of total murders and/or violence crime rates. Most people see no benefit to being murdered or raped by a criminal using a club or a knife instead of gun and this is a big part of why we are winning the gun control debate. This is especially true when the chances of being injured by a criminal increase with increased gun control.

Using the most favorable data to gun control advocates they can only say that the demographics of violent crime are changed in some favorable manner. They end up arguing that one person’s life is more important than an other. I suspect this is part of why the liberal elites are frequently in favor of gun control. It probably does make them safer because the rich generally are “harder targets”. And this is also the basis of “it’s for the children” type of arguments. With very strict gun control society can reduce the number of accident deaths of children. It’s not like murder, rape, or armed robbery where substitute tools come into play. Without guns in the home there will not be a substitute in accidental deaths by drowning or poisoning. What will be substituted is an increase in the murder rate for the weak who might have been able to defend themselves had they had access to the proper tools. And in the long term even the murder rate of children is dramatically increased because of the increased risk of genocide which seldom shows mercy to children.

Gun control also violates the principle of prior restraint. For the most part we punish actions which have victims. If one were to falsely shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater and it resulted in injures there could be both criminal and civil actions against the perpetrator. This is a reasonable restriction on free speech. An unreasonable restriction on free speech would be to duct tape everyone’s mouth shut as they enter the theater. The analogous restriction on firearms is that you couldn’t shoot your firearm in the theater unless it was to stop an attack that was believed to be a immediate threat of death or permanent injury. Something on the order of 10 billion bullets are consumed by private citizens in the U.S. every year yet there are only about 100,000 injuries via shooting. That is a ratio of 100,000:1. In other words a gun being fired is up to 100,000 times more likely to be used beneficially or innocently than maliciously or result in an accidental injury. [Yes, I know that the way I used the number it assumes only one shot per injury or death, but the 100,000 injuries or deaths also includes legally justified shootings of people. I’m hoping the errors will come close to canceling each other out.]

Yes, people have a right to life and gun control is a plausible means of preserving innocent life but when put to the test it failed to live up to it’s promise. It’s time to end the experiments.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Don Henley

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A man with a briefcase can steal millions more than any man with a gun.

Don Henley
[True. And what is perplexing is that no one is advocating restrictions on people carrying briefcases.—Joe]

Quote of the day—LaciTheDog

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I have to admit that I find the US concept of rights to be incredibly biased and ignorant.  It seems that they are stuck in the rut of inalienable rights, natural rights, god given rights, and pre-existing rights. Various definitions of inalienability include non-relinquishability, non-salability, and non-transferability. If one thinks about it, all those terms are gibberish.


…


Thus these are nice terms, but truly meaningless as any person with a mind can figure out. Society is what grants rights and it grants the rights which enable certain minimum standards which are ‘of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty.’ It does not grant rights which would create a state of anarchy or otherwise contrary to public order.


LaciTheDog
Rights: Natural and Legal
[I find this rather amusing.


He claims those who were regarded as the best political philosophers of their time spent weeks carefully writing what they knew was the most important document in their lifetime ended up with meaningless gibberish. I have to wonder how he came to achieve such a high state of enlightenment. Or perhaps he should reevaluate his own writings for indications of meaningless gibberish.


Since I doubt that there will be any forthcoming self evaluation I will do my own evaluation of this particular post by LaciTheDog.


In other parts of the post he paraphrases Edmund Burke. It is true Burke argued against metaphysical/natural rights of ordinary men but he leaves out the part where Burke argues that rights are granted by the king who was granted his rights from God.


It appears that LaciTheDog must now argue he is improving upon the philosophy Burke in that some entity with the name of “society” inherited the role of King or God and now is in a position to bestow or withhold those rights as desired. In the absence of a King and/or God(s) one has to wonder why the individual did not inherit this power but perhaps this knowledge comes from great enlightenment.


Overlooking that major gap in his reasoning I would now like to point out that the Declaration of Independence specifically rejected Burke’s philosophy and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights rejected LaciTheDog’s “improvements”.


But the real meat of the LaciTheDog deficiencies are that he argues rights are granted and can be taken away by government and/or society. Implicit (and nearly explicit in his post) is that force is used as needed to take rights away from the individual. And it must follow that if the force necessary to remove those rights does not exist then the right remains with the original holder. And this is the part I find most amusing.


LaciTheDog is opposed to individuals having the right to keep and bear arms and has specifically stated that no such right exists. Yet the right is recognized by the majority of the people in our society, the courts, most of the legislators, and the executive branch (or at least given lip service). And even if the entire population that does not own firearms were to agree that no such right exists and they held even a moderate majority they would be incapability of enforcing that decision upon the population of gun owners because the tools of applying force would be in the hands of the gun owners—hence by LaciTheDog’s own philosophy the gun owners would still retain the right simply because no societal element was capable of taking the right away.


It boils down to LaciTheDog saying society can forcibly take away the right to keep and bear arms on a whim and society is philosophically entitled to do this because it can forcibly accomplish it.


I say, Molōn labe!—Joe]

If you don’t choose to fight you are choosing death

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American Mercenary took the quotes I gathered from the Brady Campaign and explains why they are wrong from an armed tactics viewpoint. And since he has the military officer training to back up his claims I’m strongly inclined to believe his take on the topic.

He lectures us:

Pistols and shotguns actually do a great deal of good against tanks and machine guns.  Because Tanks and Machine Guns can only be pointed in ONE direction at a time (although if count a pintle mounted MG on a tank then a tank could fire in two directions).

If four people have nothing but pistols, and they work together, they can swarm a machine gun nest.  Then they might be three people with pistols and a machine gun.  Then they get two more freedom minded individuals and use the machine gun to set up a base of fire to drive a squad of government goons into taking shelter where the guys with pistols shoot them in the head.  Now they are four people with rifles, pistols, and a machine guns, and likely a few grenades thrown in.

He corrects the Brady’s:

Gun control advocates seem to believe that it is better to live as a slave than die as a warrior.  Unfortunately history has made it clear that such a choice doesn’t exist.  The real choice is DIE as a slave or FIGHT as a warrior.  And yes, sometimes warriors die.  And sometimes warriors are forgotten.  And sometimes we fail to secure the God given freedoms innate in every human.

But if you don’t choose to fight you are choosing death.  How cowardly.

And he concludes:

The Brady Bunch and their ilk seem to be so afraid of “violence” that they prefer unarmed people to be crushed to death by tanks than armed people dying for the cause of freedom.

Quote of the day—michaelchron1

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EXCELLENT! Now maybe we can start getting rid of the teachers that create young Republicans right at the source. With a little luck, maybe these young Republicans will also start killing each other.


GO TEXAS!


michaelkchron1
February 20, 2011
Comment to Texas poised to pass bill allowing guns on campus.
[H/T to AntiCitizenOne in the comments here who asks, “Why are antigunners so violent? I answered that question a few months ago so I won’t get into it again other than to point out that in general anti-gun people are a subset of liberals and that this is just another data point which supports my claim that it is inherent to their philosophy.—Joe]

A work of satire

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I was scanning my Bing and Google alerts and found a long discussion on a forum about a “New Study Links Guns, Sexual Dysfunction”. So I clicked on the link to the article/”study”. I didn’t record it with a stopwatch but I have a pretty darned good sense of time from all the shooting I do with a timer. I’m certain it took me less than a second to notice the article said, in bold print, “Notice: A work of Satire”. Even without that notice it should have been blindingly obvious after reading things like:



Some of the gun nuts are simply ‘wet noodles’ but many of them have a double-whammy, their private parts are so small we can’t even use the tongue depressors on them, we keep a supply of popsicle sticks on hand, and now we’re even having to resort to using those little tiny collar stays from men’s dress shirts. It’s like an inverse proportion: The smaller these guys are, the bigger the handguns they buy to compensate. It’s really weird.


Yet this forum went on and on about it. I didn’t read all the posts but I did a search for “satire” on all the pages without getting a hit. Read the “study” before you criticize it guys. It’s was just another confirmation of Markley’s Law.

Campus carry in Texas

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For being published in a San Francisco newspaper this is a fairly balanced article claiming Texas will soon ease the restrictions on both students and professors exercising their right to keep and bear arms on college campuses.

Quote of the day—Suzanne Verge

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People buy guns in a moment of passion. I think if you’re going to kill someone, you’d better make sure you take the time and make sure you’re prepared to take someone’s life.


Suzanne Verge
December 7, 2009
Sister takes a stand against gun violence
[I’m willing to entertain the proposition that the reporter messed this quote up because most of it just doesn’t make any sense to me. But the main point I wanted to make is about “People buy guns in a moment of passion.” I have never bought a gun in that manner and I don’t know of anyone that has done that. Guns are expensive and it involves budgeting for them and a lot of time selecting the best value for the intended purpose. It is carefully considered decision and has nothing to do with “a moment of passion.”


This is just another data point that demonstrates the anti-gun people make a lot of false assumptions about gun owners. Whether they confirm Markley’s Law, call us uneducated (false), or think us as vigilantes they are just demonstrating their bigotry.—Joe]

Channeling the Jews from Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe

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I have been reading some of the anti-gun people’s thoughts on the events in Egypt recently and a particular theme appeared.

From Colin and Andy Goddard:

If instead of staging peaceful demonstrations, Egyptian protesters been armed with guns, it is highly likely that the Egyptian military, equipped with billions of dollars worth of weapons supplied free of charge by our own government, would have retaliated. That would have produced massive casualties among both the armed and unarmed Egyptians.

From Brady Campaign board member Joan Peterson:

If things had gone otherwise and the military had decided to side with President Mubarek instead of the people, what good would pistols and shotguns have done against tanks and machine guns? I say, not much. It would likely have elevated the violence and increased the potential for deaths and injuries.

This theme bothered me but I didn’t quite have the words to express my discomfort. Then I found them here. This is from Reuben Ainsztein’s book Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe page 585:

The Jewish leaders, however, rejected the offer, arguing that if they behaved quietly the Germans might deport and murder 20,000 or 30,000, perhaps even 60,000 of them, but it was inconceivable that they should destroy the lot; while if they resisted, the Germans would certainly do so.

I fully agree that going to the street in a massive, anticipated to be peaceful, protest while being openly armed is generally not a good idea. I agree that making every reasonable effort to avoid violence is a good idea. It does not follow that the general population is better off without owning firearms the government is unaware of. It does not follow that once the government begins killing innocent people that non-violence is the best response.

The anti-gun people may be channeling the thoughts of the Jews prior to the Final Solution but the Jews hindsight is surely superior and it is those thoughts you should attempt to channel.

Quote of the day—Oleg Volk

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Oleg Volk
February 19, 2011
No such thing as a social contract with evil
[Oleg can do more with a single picture and two sentences than I can do with thousands of words.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Violence Policy Center

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The Lady Laser 25 caliber pistol from Sundance Industries of Valencia, California. The Lady Laser is a Saturday Night Special pistol that comes equipped with a laser sight mounted on its trigger guard. Laser sights offer the user point-and-shoot killing capability. Based on the unique characteristics of the weapon price, size, and lethality the Lady Laser appears to be an attempt by Sundance to break into the criminal pistol market that so far has been dominated by fellow California Saturday Night Special manufacturers Lorcin, Davis, and Bryco.


Violence Policy Center
January 20, 1995
Gun Industry, Pro Gun Lobbying Organizations Meet At Las Vegas S.H.O.T. Show To Preview New Products And Hone Marketing And Press Strategies
[Are affordable cars an attempt by the automobile industry to get into the criminal getaway car market? How about a printer for your computer that is within the price range of single mothers? Would that be an attempt to sell to those who would use it for libel?


Those were the dark days of gun ownership and the forces of evil were constantly hammering on us as if we were the scourge of the earth. They came very close to extinguishing the last spark of resistance. But I think they overplayed their hand just a little bit and the public began to see the absurdity of their actions and their rhetoric. We fought back and now if we play our hand right over the next generation or two we should be able to politically extinguish them.—Joe]

Another Brady Campaign job opening

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In addition to the Associate Director of Communications they are looking for:

Director, Development

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and its sister organization, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, are the nation’s largest, non-partisan, grassroots organizations leading the fight to prevent gun violence. For additional information and a full job description, please visit www.bradycenter.org. We are searching for a talented Director, Development.

The Director, Development leads the development activities of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.  The Director is responsible for planning and implementing all fund raising for the organizations, with specific emphasis on direct mail campaigns and online giving.  The Director, Development, works with Deputy to the President to set and execute the organizations’ development strategy.  The Director manages and develops the development department’s professional staff.

The Director, Development maintains and expands successful existing programs while designing and implementing new initiatives. The Director, Development manages direct mail, membership services, and new member development, with emphasis on member retention, and online giving.  The Director, Development is accountable for individual annual fund donor programs, fund raising events, foundation grants, solicitor training, and planned giving and endowment gifts.

In coordination with the Deputy to the President, the Director, Development serves as principal staff to the development/fund raising committee of the Board and provides appropriate budget and income analyses.  The Director, Development is responsible for researching, proposing, and executing additional fund raising strategies and opportunities, including but not limited to the use of audio, print and video materials.

Qualifications for this role include:

·        Bachelor’s degree or equivalent. Masters degree desirable.
·        At least 7-10 years of progressively responsible experience in a related nonprofit fund raising position, preferably at the Director level, with experience using traditional and online strategies. Experience with specific emphasis on direct mail campaigns and online giving required.
·        At least three years of experience managing and developing a development staff.
·        Experience planning and implementing all types of fund raising campaigns, including marketing, social networking, foundations and major gifts. 
·        Ability to plan, execute and evaluate major events.
·        Demonstrated skills and experience in budget development and management, strategic thinking and tactical application of an organization’s finite resources for successful development programs.
·        Demonstrated ability to facilitate relationships and work successfully with other organizational units to achieve common objectives.
·        Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both oral and written).
·        Demonstrated success in managing a staff to achieve results while developing and motivating employees through positive management techniques.
·        Proficiency in fundraising software applications, use of social media and Internet tools.

Please submit your resume and letter of interest to Expand HR Consulting, the organization’s Human Resources Consulting Firm, at jobs@expandhr.com. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

NOTES:
Local Residents Preferred (No Relo)

Requirements

·        Bachelor’s degree or equivalent. Masters degree desirable.
·        At least 7-10 years of progressively responsible experience in a related nonprofit fund raising position, preferably at the Director level, with experience using traditional and online strategies. Experience with specific emphasis on direct mail campaigns and online giving required.
·        At least three years of experience managing and developing a development staff.
·        Experience planning and implementing all types of fund raising campaigns, including marketing, social networking, foundations and major gifts. 
·        Ability to plan, execute and evaluate major events.
·        Demonstrated skills and experience in budget development and management, strategic thinking and tactical application of an organization’s finite resources for successful development programs.
·        Demonstrated ability to facilitate relationships and work successfully with other organizational units to achieve common objectives.
·        Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both oral and written).
·        Demonstrated success in managing a staff to achieve results while developing and motivating employees through positive management techniques.
·        Proficiency in fundraising software applications, use of social media and Internet tools

I have to wonder if the rats are jumping ship. And furthermore isn’t taking a job with them a lot like going to work for a buggy whip or slide-rule manufacture?

Nice of you to admit that

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Colin and Andy Goddard posting on the Brady Campaign blog admit something I have been saying for a long time:

The laws on the books aren’t working…

Yup. And the CDC agrees with us.

Then they should have no problem agreeing that we should repeal those laws and try something different, correct? Let’s look at what does work. For example what happened to the murder rate in Washington D.C. when the gun ban was declared unconstitutional? Oh, yeah! Within one year it dropped to the lowest level since 1985 – a 24 year low. What about forcible rape? That turned out different. Within one year it dropped to the lowest level since 1967—a 42 year low. Just maybe strict gun laws are not the solution to increasing public safety.

But then we know that the Brady Campaign has no real interest in public safety so don’t expect them to agree with me anytime soon.

Quote of the day—David Heller

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In the recent assassination attempt on congresswoman Giffords, the gunman employed a weapon of mass destruction he could buy over the counter as easily as a pack of cigarettes: an extended magazine for his 9 mm Glock.

David Heller
January 29, 2011
Shootings reinforce need for gun control
[It turns out Nutter was not the first to call a standard capacity magazine a WMD. The first reference I have been able to find was published on January 27th and was by Freshman Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans. David Heller, above, then showed up two days later.

All this WMD talk has me hearing voices. I have this voice of Paul Hogan telling me “That’s not a knife. That’s a knife.” After reading my next post this will make more sense.

Update: Joel has more instances of the WMD meme. Robb has the graphic and the t-shirt.—Joe]

Game, Set, Match

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Brady Campaign board member Joan Peterson just gave us the win. She says she would rather our society had any violent crime rate than allow there to be just one death by gunshot wound.

Linoge and Heather have the details.

Action item from FirearmsCoalition.org

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Via email from Jeff Knox:

Immediate Action Needed – Window Closes Today!!

Copy the text of the email below or rewrite it in your own words and email it to:

barbara.terrell@atf.gov

The comment period has been extended for the ATF’s proposed “temporary,” emergency regulation requiring firearms dealers to file reports every time someone purchases more than one semi-auto long gun, but that comment period closes this Tuesday, February 15.

The ATF claims the reporting is necessary to combat the flow of firearms across the border into Mexico, but recent revelations and accusations raise significant questions about ATF’s motives and the efficacy of such a reporting requirement.

In what has been dubbed “Project Gunwalker” ATF is accused of allowing hundreds of AR and AK- type rifles to be sold in questionable sales and smuggled across the border – including two rifles recovered after a shootout with bandits on the border in which Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.

The implications of the Project Gunwalker scandal are that ATF has already been receiving significant, voluntary cooperation from gun dealers in the border states, but that the agency has used that cooperation more to build support for their Project Gunrunner interdiction program and justify the need for the emergency reporting regulation by inflating the numbers of illegally “trafficked” weapons tracked across the border.

Beyond the complications of Project Gunwalker, the idea of requiring reporting of multiple long gun sales is clearly in conflict with established congressional mandates and restrictions on ATF’s authority.

Back in 1968 when the federal Gun Control Act was passed Congress included a requirement that multiple sales of handguns be reported to ATF and local law enforcement.  At that time, and several times since, Congress has had the opportunity to include multiple sales of long guns in the reporting requirements and they have chosen not to do so.
Congress has also passed several resolutions and included language in laws restricting ATF and other government agencies from instituting any sort of registration program or collecting detailed information from firearms sales without a direct connection to a specific criminal investigation.  By attempting to push through this major regulatory change without congressional approval, ATF is seriously overstepping their legal authority.

Here is a sample letter which we ask you to copy and paste into an email or use as a template for writing a letter of your own to email in response to this proposal.

To: barbara.terrell@atf.gov
Subject: Oppose Regulation Expanding Multiple Sale Reporting

I am writing to oppose the so called emergency regulation to register multiple sales of certain rifles with BATFE as described in FR Doc.
2010-31761 from the 12/17/2010 Federal Register.
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-31761.pdf

This regulation is both illegal and unnecessary.  Further there is no justification for any “emergency” implementation as reported by the Washington Post:
White House delayed rule meant to stop gun flow to Mexico, Washington Post, Dec. 17, 2010, On-line edition:
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/17/AR2010121706598.html).

*  The regulation proposed is outside the statutory grant of authority to record information about multiple sales of firearms.  Title 18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(3)(A) specifically grants the authority to collect multiple sale information on handguns and revolvers.  Other firearms are excluded and there is no implied authority to extend this reporting requirement to rifles or any other type of firearm.

*  “FFL” holders are already required by law to respond to BATFE requests for information on firearms distribution pursuant to criminal
investigations:  Title 18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(7).

*  The regulation contains no provision for the destruction of information collected, which establishes a nationwide registry of “certain types of firearms” as proposed. Because of this the regulation as proposed is illegal under Title 18 U.S.C. § 926(a).  “No such rule or regulation . may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or disposition be established.”

There is a grave potential for this regulation to unduly burden citizens who are collectors or must obtain purchase permits at the local or state level to possess firearms. The proposed regulation does not say what the agency intends to do with the information but ostensibly it would be for criminal investigations. Subjecting law abiding gun owners to this type of investigation under the guise of “information collection” is an overt attempt to prevent them from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights to purchase and own firearms.

*  This regulatory action has not allowed the public sufficient time to comment.

This regulatory action should not be approved.

# # #

Whether you use this specific language, edit it, or compose a letter of your own, please take action immediately!  Do not put off sending a comment!

Comments must be received by Tuesday February 15, 2011.

Please Send Your Comments Immediately!

Thank you for your Action!

Jeff Knox

Director, The Firearms Coalition

www.FirearmsCoalition.org

—
Now available!
Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War
A compilation of the best of Neal Knox’s writing from 35 years in the trenches http://thegunrightswar.com/

Quote of the day—Evan F. Nappen

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Claiming New Jersey in 2011 needs stricter anti-gun laws would be like saying Alabama in 1961 needed stricter laws against blacks. Both gun rights and racial discrimination are constitutional, civil rights issues. Alabama eventually respected civil rights and maybe one day New Jersey will respect civil rights, too.


Evan F. Nappen
February 13, 2011
DOES NEW JERSEY NEED EVEN TIGHTER GUN CONTROL?: Abusive gun laws make felons of state’s law-abiding citizens
[Read it all. I have nothing further to add.


H/T to Sebastian.—Joe]

Any Catholics out there?

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If you are Catholic John Snyder, founder of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, has a request:

This year the society plans to mark St. Gabriel Possenti’s feast day, Feb. 27, by urging Catholic firearms owners to put one of their website coupons (www.gunsaint.com) in the collection basket. The coupon states: “Millions for charity but not one cent for gun-grabbing church bureaucrats.”

She’s back

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If you don’t remember Robyn Ringler, here the outline of the refresher course:

She is back spreading her hate on the web again. This time she says she supports efforts to limit accessibility to what the U.S. Supreme Court says is a specific enumerated right:

As a member of The League of Women Voters (LWV), I encourage you to show strong support for these efforts. The LWV believes that the proliferation of handguns and semi-automatic assault weapons is a major health and safety threat. The LWV supports strong federal measures to limit the accessibility and regulate the ownership of these weapons by private citizens.

If she were advocating the limiting of accessibility to religion, books, or trial by jury do you think a newspaper like The Saratogian would publish her opinion? Why is it they let her spout her hate when it’s a different part of the Bill of Rights she is attempting to destroy?

She should create her own blog again and be left to whine by herself in some obscure corner of the Internet.

Update: From Barron in the comments:

As a member of The League of Women Voters (LWV) National Rifle Association (NRA), I encourage you to show strong support for these efforts. The LWV NRA believes that the proliferation of handguns and semi-automatic assault weapons Women’s Suffrage is a major health and safety threat threat to freedom and morals. The LWV NRA supports strong federal measures to limit the accessibility and regulate the ownership of these weapons by private ability of female citizens to vote.

And, like Barron, I do not support the restriction of women voting but the word substitution is very useful to illustrate the bigotry.