Category Archives: Gun Rights

First they came for the gun owners

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Sebastian tells us about a Random Conversation About Fingerprinting. A woman (who happens to be very anti-gun) doesn’t want to get her fingerprints taken just so she can be a crossing guard near a school. Sebastian compares it to gun owners exercising constitutionally guaranteed rights having to submit fingerprints first. Which leads to his observation:

What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.

Of course this reminded me of the famous Niemoller quote and I mentioned it in the comments and figured that will be the end of it. But then commenter ParatrooperJJ says the FBI just checks the fingerprints and discards them after they come back clean. That set off my alarms because just a few days ago this came out:

FBI effort will build biggest biometric database

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here.

Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives.

And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists.

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

If the technology exists it will be used, data obtained will be kept, used, and abused. The features will creep into areas that were promised would never happen. Remember that NICS records were supposed to be destroyed and then Janet Reno kept them for “audit purposes”. Then they used those “audit records” to see if suspected terrorists had purchased firearms. My SS card says “FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES–NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION”. None of my childrens SS cards have any such markings. It used to be something like a $10K fine if anyone tried to use your SSN for anything other than tax purposes. No so anymore.

We are creating all the mechanisms necessary for an effective police state. Remember what Milton Friedman said.

It will always be a loophole

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One would think that eventually they would figure it out when something isn’t working they would stop doing it. Nope. This is the U.K. and guns. All rational thought must be resisted.

Banning real guns didn’t solve their problem so now they are banning deactivated guns. What is a deactivated gun? From the BBC News:

Typically, a deactivated gun has its barrel sawn down the middle and a metal rod is then welded inside to make it incapable of discharging a bullet.

The breech block – which contains the mechanism to actually fire the bullet – is ground down so there is no firing pin.

Hmm… so these must be used in crime a lot in order to justify banning them. Wrong:

However, the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084.

Reactivated handguns were used twice; deactivated firearms were used four times; and other reactivated firearms were used twice.

So what is going on here? As near as I can tell it’s mass insanity. Other links:

And of course the anti-gun bigots are pleased:

Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network said: “We are delighted. This has been on our agenda for a long time. It is a big loophole in our firearms legislation.”

When you hear the bigots in this country call the lack of a repressive gun law a “loophole” keep in mind there will always be a “loophole” for these people.

I’m late to the party

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And a party it should be!

The anti-gun bigots in San Francisco got their asses handed to them with Proposition H. Sebastian and Uncle have already posted on it. The NRA has their news release here and SAF has their’s here.

The Brady Bunch, the VPC, and the “Gun Guys” are all strangely quiet. Maybe someone forgot to invite them to the celebration.

Runnin’ With the Devil

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[Mostly this is a rant because I’m pissed. I don’t particularly blame the NRA-ILA or any other pro-gun group. Political reality is significantly different from gut response. The following is 95% emotion and its to just get it out of my system.]

The instant Bush signed the NICS Improvement Bill into law we get this crap:

President George W. Bush signed the nation’s first new gun-control legislation in 14 years Tuesday to help keep guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy immediately announced she would take her crusade to the next step.

This time, she and others want to close the so-called “gun show loophole” that allows some dealers to sell firearms without background checks.

[…]

Schumer agreed that the next item on the gun-control agenda would be to require background checks in every gun sale, but predicted that would be harder to get passed because of opposition by the National Rifle Association. The law signed Tuesday, in contrast, had NRA support.

And this from Paul Helmke:

Many of us in the gun violence prevention movement are excited about the year ahead.

America is turning a corner on the gun issue, because the people are finally being heard.

Today, President Bush signed into law the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 – what some have called “the first major new gun control bill in more than a decade.”

[…]

Brady background checks have stopped an estimated 1.4 million people from legally buying guns since 1994, but background checks are only as good as the records in the system.

[…]

Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from common-sense gun laws that will reduce the toll of 30,000 gun deaths every year in this country.

  • Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from preventing suspected terrorists from walking out of a gun store or a gun show fully armed.
  • Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from getting a background check for every single gun purchase they make, including at gun shows (this is closing the gun show loophole).
  • Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from strengthening Brady background checks to make sure that “prohibited purchasers” like felons, the dangerously mentally ill, and domestic abusers are denied guns at the point of sale.
  • Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from reporting lost or stolen guns to the police in a timely manner.
  • Law-abiding Americans (who aren’t in the legal gun business) have nothing to fear from being prevented from buying guns in bulk purchases.
  • Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from keeping military-style assault weapons out of most civilian hands, reserving them for military and law enforcement use only.

If you “compromise” with the Devil don’t be surprised if you get burned.

Sean’s words need to be repeated here:

What typically gets lost, and lost deliberately, is the meaning of the word ‘compromise’. In a compromise, both sides gain or lose bargaining points in a mutually acceptable, if not optimal fashion.  In the gun control debate, the meaning of compromise is twisted to, “Okay, we’ll only take half your guns, this time.” The pro-RKBA folks are never even offered anything in return. This is a variation of the slippery slope that I call “Zeno’s Paradox of Lost Rights”. As with the paradox of motion, the remaining scope of the Second Amendment is progressively halved, and halved again. The illusion is that we never lose the right, because there is always the remaining half. The Theory of Limits suggests otherwise.

Sean Flynn
6/15/98

If McCarthy, Schumer, and their ilk were asking me to compromise my initial position would be that they get the death penalty under 18 USC 242. The only people that aren’t allowed to own weapons are those that are locked up or are unable feed themselves. If they are safe enough to be allowed on the streets with a 2000 pound car, a full tank of gasoline and a book of matches then they are safe enough to be allowed a M60, a M60 Patton, or, with suitable storage facilities, TNWs. And finally the 2nd Amendment guarantees the RKBA and since a right someone can’t afford to exercise, just like a right to an attorney, isn’t really worth anything the Federal Government should subsidize arms for those that want them but cannot afford them.

We start our negotiations there.

And now that I’m got that out of the way let’s talk about those words from Helmke:

So, 1.4 million people were stopped from legally purchasing firearms. Since there are about 200 million adults in the country and only about 40% own firearms that must mean that about one out of every 60 people that tried to by a firearm were legally prohibited. And that’s not good enough for him. When will it be good enough? One out of 20? One out of 10? No. We know what the real number he is looking for, one out one.

Those “30,000 gun deaths” include justified, even praiseworthy, shootings by police and private citizens. Either Helmke is deliberately misleading or he thinks the life of a thug who put an innocent life in immediate jeopardy of death or permanent injury is just as valuable as the innocent life. In either case he is not to be trusted.

If suspected terrorists are to be prevented from owning guns, the list of suspected terrorists is created without due process as currently is the case, then President Hillary could declare all NRA members, or all even private citizens, suspected terrorists and we all are screwed. Helmke is an enemy of the U.S. Constitution if he supports the disemboweling of both the 2nd and the 4th Amendments.

As for the other bullet items, except for the last item, those can only be implemented if you have a gun registration in place. And we all know that registration always leads to confiscation within at most a few decades.

As for the last bullet item, Helmke has demonstrated he can’t be trusted, so Μολὼν λαβέ.

And because this is what I was listening to while writing this and I think it fits Schumer, McCarthy, and Helmke well; Runnin’ With the Devil by Van Halen:

I live my life like there’s no tomorrow
And all I’ve got I had to steal
Least I don’t need to beg or borrow
Yes I’m living at a pace that kills
Runnin’ with the devil
Runnin’ with the devil
I found the simple life ain’t so simple
When I jumped out on that road
I got no love, no love you’d call real
Ain’t got nobody waiting at home
Runnin’ with the devil
Runnin’ with the devil

Quote of the day–Benjamin Franklin

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin
[Yeah, I know. Everyone has heard this one before. That is most of the reason I have never used it directly before. Today is special however. Check out my next post, Runnin’ With the Devil, people compromised with the Devil to gain temporary “safety” and the ink hasn’t dried before they are pushing for the “next step”.–Joe]

Financial restrictions by the bigots

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Of course you knew PayPal won’t handle transactions for “certain firearms, firearm parts or accessories, ammunition, weapons or knives“, right?

You probably knew Google has issues with guns too.

Here is a story I don’t think I have told here before:

Years ago, when I first created Modern Ballistics, I tried to get a merchant account for processing credit cards. I had one a few years earlier when was selling software to software developers instead of gun owners and I figured it wouldn’t be a problem. I sent in my application and to my surprise they turned me down. At first they wouldn’t tell me why. But after much calling and pestering them they finally told me it was because of my product. I carefully read through all their fine print and couldn’t find where there was anything wrong with my product according to their published rules. I told them I didn’t understand, what is wrong with my product? The most I could get out of them was that I could submit my application again if I wanted but it probably wouldn’t make any difference.

Now via Sebastian and NSSF I find out:

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp. are refusing to process any credit card transactions between federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers — a move which will severely limit available inventory of firearms and ammunition to military, law enforcement and law-abiding Americans.

The first company to be affected by this decision appears to be firearms distributor CDNN Sports Inc.

“We were contacted recently by First Data/Citi Merchant Services by a June Rivera-Mantilla stating that we were terminated and funds were being seized for selling firearms in a non-face-to-face transaction,” said Charlie Crawford, president of CDNN Sports Inc. “Although perfectly legal, we were also informed that no transactions would be processed in the future, even for non-firearms. I find this very frightening.”

To voice your concern to Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp., please contact June Rivera-Mantilla at 631-683-7734 or her supervisor Robert Tenenbaum at 631-683-6570.

Read the letter, they claim a violation of the law but yet apparently don’t bother to turn them into law enforcement. Just like some experiences I have had (above and with PNNL) if they want to get rid of you they will just make stuff up that is at best half true. They don’t need or want to know the truth, they just want to get rid of you. It’s very tough to win against people like that. Just like literacy tests for voting, when tested none of the blacks could read the daily newspaper, hence they failed the state approved test. Never mind the newspaper given to them was printed in Chinese. Technically they can get away with it but it’s still not right.

If they were refusing to do business with people with a certain skin color, sexual orientation, or religion this would be on the front page of all the newspapers. But it isn’t. And its because we are just “gun-ni**ers” and it is socially acceptable to the elites to treat us like this.

Redefining themselves

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This is actually old news but I read it again here and it pissed me off again.

Fifteen states have closed what gun safety advocates call the “gun show loophole.”

[…]

…gun safety advocates using federal statistics showing a significant portion of private gun show sales wind up in criminals’ hands.

“Gun safety advocates”?

Since when are people advocating gun safety concerned with firearm sales at gun shows?

Of course they aren’t “gun safety advocates” they are gun restriction advocates. They are just trying to redefine themselves, with the help of the media, to be something less offensive. Sort of like a KKK member turning in his white sheets and pillow cases for something with a floral pattern.

Maybe it’s just me because I listen to words carefully and take them literally but I hear this sort of thing from salesmen sometimes. They say things that are almost half true and deliberately intended to be misleading. I immediately suspect everything they say and know they cannot be trusted with anything. I resist the urge to punch them out, glare at them, and walk away checking my wallet to make sure they haven’t lifted it. Unfortunately with the anti-gun bigots they are selling their bigotry to lawmakers who will use violence against those of us who are the targets of their irrational hatred.

But these bigots have reached their zenith and we are now winning. We just need to keep them on the run and politically exterminate them. Don’t let them redefine themselves. Just because their sheets are a floral design rather than white doesn’t mean they won’t lynch us if they get the chance.

Quote of the day–William F. Buckley

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The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

William F. Buckley
[It’s impossible to be truly assertive unless you have some means to back it. When the government usurps your ability to vote you have very few options in asserting yourself except by the force of arms. This is why respect of the 2nd Amendment is essential for a free society and why any who attempt to infringe it must be vigorously opposed. This applies to all, except Richardson, of the current Democrat candidates for president and some of the Republicans.–Joe]

NRA to ATF, “You’re out of line”

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I would prefer to see a letter to the Attorney General saying, “Anyone involved in enforcement of laws restricting firearms should be prosecuted under 18 USC 242.” But that is way, way too much to expect at this time. For the time being this is a decent enough start.

Of course I expect that the ATF response, internally at least, be something along the lines of “Who are you to tell us what to do? You are a mere subject. We are the King’s men.”

This message was brought to you via the apex of the Triangle of Death marching orders and a wheelbarrow full of cash.

Quote of the day–Gerard Valentino

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Only those with a vested emotional interest in seeing through on the promise of total gun confiscation continue to hang onto the false hope of gun control. After years of being convinced of the righteousness of their cause they are blinded to reality and have begun to believe their own lies. That is the only way to explain how they can still be pushing their failed agenda.

If it wasn’t such a serious issue the determination of anti-gun proponents would border on the laughable. Since their misguided ways have led to untold numbers of people being left at the mercy of armed thugs, it takes all the humor out of their laughable ways.

Still, their determination has brainwashed them to believe in their cause at all costs. I also proves that they are incapable of creating a conspiracy with the anti-gun establishment media. The sad sorry truth is they actually believe this crap.

Gerard Valentino
Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair
January 3, 2008
There is No Leftist Anti-Gun Conspiracy – They Really Believe This Crap
[The conspiracy theory model explains a lot but ends up with more questions than answers. I’m with Valentino, as implausible and counter factual as their belief system is I think they actually believe it.–Joe]

The enemy is in disarray

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Cool. Very cool.

Via Sebastian.

Cookies, carrots, cartridges, and milk

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Jason sent me a picture of what his kids left out for Santa and his reindeer:

ATF special agent gets it right

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We all jump on the ATF etc. when they screw up and use the Brady Bunch talking points. But here is one case where it appears one of the agents got things right:

According to Peter Forcelli, a supervisory special agent with ATF, most of the arms were assault weapons such as AK-47s and AR-15s.

Whether Bentley will face charges for the weapons will be based on such factors as whether the guns were bought before or after Bentley’s conviction or if they were stolen, Forcelli said.

“You can own automatic weapons. There are certain things you can do to legally own them,” Forcelli said. “We have yet to determine if he’s done any of that or not.”

ATF laboratory personnel will conduct firing tests on the seized weapons to determine if any are fully automatic.

It is still unclear what Bentley was planning to do with weapons, whether he was a collector or had something else in mind because of his “propensity for violence,” Forcelli said.

“There are people who have large collections of weapons that are 100 hundred percent legit,” Forcelli said. “We’re still determining if these were.”

The person in question was serving two years probation for a December 2006 felony endangerment conviction and had 75 guns in a storage locker. Given that it seems to me Special Agent Forcelli was giving the guy every benefit of the doubt. He also correctly reports the guns could be legal under U.S. law.

Thank you agent Forcelli.

I’m still of the opinion that the ATF should not exist but given that it does exist I’m a lot more tolerant of the individuals that work there when they have a clue as to what they are doing. My personal experience with ATF personnel has been good and I’m inclined to believe the bad cases are relatively rare. Should we ever get to the time and place in gun rights activism where we are prosecuting law enforcement personnel for crimes under 18 USC 242 prior behavior should play a significant part in their sentence.

Okay, so there are two full auto toys I might like to have

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Full auto, recoilless, 12 gauge shotgun.

It has 20 and 32 round magazines available. I especially like the new ammo. Does Wal-Mart have the HE rounds in stock yet?

The other full auto that I would be interested in is this one.

Thanks to Joe D. on the Lewiston Pistol Club discussion list for the pointer.

More hypocrites for gun control

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Ry has the details. In case the name isn’t familar to you read this.

H.R. 4900 text

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As reported earlier (and here and here) H.R. 4900 makes some reforms in the ATF regulations and Federal firearms laws. The text of the bill is now available on-line here. It’s all NRA-ILA said it was and more. Alas, it doesn’t do anything of interest to me in terms of explosives, but I’m very happy with what it does in regards to firearms.

The following item was reported by NRA-ILA but was lacking in detail and should be of interest to a great number of people.

SEC. 210. CLARIFICATIONS RELATING TO MANUFACTURING OF FIREARMS.

    (a) Clarification of Definition of Manufacturing- Section 921(a)(10) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: `The term `manufacturing’ shall not include repairing firearms, making or fitting special barrels, stocks, trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms.’.

    (b) Clarification of Definition of Dealer- Section 921(a)(11)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking `or trigger mechanisms to firearms’ and inserting `trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms’.

Striking, adding, and inserting in the original as described in the bill we end up with:

(10) The term “manufacturer” means any person engaged in the business of manufacturing firearms or ammunition for purposes of sale or distribution; and the term “licensed manufacturer” means any such person licensed under the provisions of this chapter. The term `manufacturing’ shall not include repairing firearms, making or fitting special barrels, stocks, trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms.

(11) The term “dealer” means (A) any person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, trigger mechanisms, or other parts to firearms, or engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker. The term “licensed dealer” means any dealer who is licensed under the provisions of this chapter.

Hence gunsmiths need to have a dealers license but not a manufactures license. This is an improvement. But on the downside it means that you need to be careful if you charge a friend for helping him mount a scope on his hunting rifle or give her AR-15 a pink paint job. Conceivable you could be considered to be “in the business” and need a dealers license. This is not the case under current law as I understand it (I am not a lawyer!).

I have to wonder why the Feds should have any interest at all in “engraving or otherwise altering the appearance of firearms”. I think the entire section (B) should be removed but if that is impractical then at least the engraving and appearance should be removed.

Reasonable restrictions

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Assuming we win the Heller case then if some bigot claims the functions of the ATF in regards to firearms and explosives are reasonable restrictions then shouldn’t we be justified in demanding for the creation of a government agency devoted to the “reasonable restrictions” of speech and religion?

Interesting questions

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From Sitemeter, “can a fingerprint be recovered from a fired shell casing”? My guess is yes, at least under some circumstances. DNA from the oils left behind should be possible too.

The more interesting question is, “Who’s asking?” Is it someone on the criminal side or on the law enforcement side?

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What’s going on here?

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I don’t know if was the reporter or the ATF agent. But it was probably one of them that has a decimal point out of place or has much more valuable AKs that I have ever heard of:

Agents said Thursday they found the 42 weapons in a storage locker about 10 days ago. There guns were worth $250,000 in all: Belgian-made “FN” handguns, semiautomatic AK rifles and other pistols. They also found four olive boxes loaded with 50-caliber bullets—ammunition that’s big enough to take out an airplane.

“These are, quite frankly, weapons of war,” ATF special agent Tom Mangan said as he picked up an assault rifle and examined it.

“The type of fire power you’re seeing here is on the increase,” he said. “You’re seeing sophisticated weapons, military weapons, assault type weapons, assault pistols, very expensive pistols.”

ATF officials said gun runners typically gather large caches of weapons anonymously through “straw” purchases. They might give someone $100 to go into a gun show or a Wal-Mart and buy a few rifles at a time. They might buy guns over the Internet.

Any idea what an “olive box” is? Ignoring that–the 42 weapons figures out to nearly $6,000 per firearm. Could it be someone was that sloppy with the numbers? Or was it something else? If it were just the numbers I would give someone a pass for making a careless mistake. But the ATF agent is exaggerating with the other stuff too. It makes me suspicious. Mr. Mangan sure gets his name in the news frequently.

Quote of the day–Rev. Jesse Jackson

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The fact that it is legal does not make it moral. Jim Crow was legal, but it was not moral. Denying women the right to vote was legal, but it was not moral. Denying workers the right to organize was legal, but not moral.

Rev. Jesse Jackson
President of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
July 12, 2007
Anti-gun activists building momentum
[This is from the same article as the QOTD from yesterday where Father Michael Pfleger used this same theme to push for more restrictions on gun owners. Another thing that strikes me about this line of thinking is that they are comparing the lack of restrictions on firearms to excessive restrictions on people in years past. They are whining about excessive freedom yet invoking memories of repression. Do they even have a glimpse of the irony? I sometimes think they are incredibly stupid to use such crude attempts at emotional trickery. But I keep hearing the voice of Sean Flynn telling me otherwise.–Joe]