Michelle Malkin is the most recent blogger to bring this to my attention.  Someone else did a few days ago but I can’t seem to find that post right now. 

The story is that some wacko judge ruled that two radio talk show hosts (I’ve met and talked with both personally, but those are stories for another time) were campaign contributors because of their on the air support of an effort to eliminate a gas tax increase in Washington State.  The Seattle Times carried the AP story: 

KVI and Fisher Broadcasting executives were aghast. They said talk-show hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur were only doing what political commentators and newspaper editorial pages do across America: discussing issues and recommending action.

“Each host is entitled to his own opinion on the issues of the day,” said Dennis Kelly, a top official at Fisher Broadcasting, KVI’s parent company. “We don’t agree with the premise of the ruling. If the judge’s ruling holds, it will have a chilling effect on talk and news shows across America. It was a really unwise ruling.”

The Seattle Times editorials, somewhat surprisingly, had strong words against this ruling:

See what is being done here. The judge is following a simple syllogism:

All political contributions may be regulated;

Speech is a political contribution;

Therefore, speech may be regulated.

…

Though state law sets no spending limits on initiative campaigns, it does set a limit of $1,375 per contributor to state election campaigns. Suppose, then, that Dino Rossi ran for governor again, that Wilbur and Carlson strongly supported him, and that the Rossi campaign were required to report it as a $20,000 in-kind contribution by Fisher Broadcasting.

In that case, Fisher would have violated the law. And how? By speaking on political topics during an election campaign.

Two years ago, when the federal campaign-finance law reached the U.S. Supreme Court, dissenting justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas warned that something like this would happen. We doubted it; it seemed clear to us that the law applied to ads, not editorial content. We thought Thomas was over the top when he said campaign-finance law was leading toward “outright regulation of the press.”

Judge Wickham has made a step toward just that. It is a dangerous, unconstitutional ruling. The losers need to appeal it and the appellate courts need to reverse it.

The more astute people on the left have began realizing that all that power they gave, and in this case are giving, to government is more and more being put in the hands of their political enemies.  The editorial writer(s) were able to think far enough ahead to see they could be next.  I don’t know the exact process that occurred in their mind(s) but I envision it was something like what Lyndon Johnson articulated.  This is what we call a learning moment.  It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine them having a learning moment about firearms as a result of this same incident.

I live in a state where machine guns are legal and people often ask if I have any.  I don’t.  I’m not a fan of machine guns.  I’ve fired a few, when other people were paying for the ammo, but my impression was that I could get more rounds on target in the same amount of time with a semi-auto.  I’ve also read of fairly well done tests and saw one video of such a test where similar conclusions were reached.  The bottom line for me, assuming you are using a reliable gun in the right caliber for the job, is always time and accuracy.  Machine guns just don’t improve my bottom line.  I’ll agree there are valid applications for full automatics but I just don’t envision myself being in a situation where it would be the proper tool for the job.

Regardless of the above position on machine guns, I have a big problem with government restricting firearms of any type.  Part of the reason is the “slippery slope”, part is the obvious “someone else has legitimate use”, and part is the problem of distinguishing between “good guns” and “bad guns”.  This latter problem is addressed on this JPFO web page:

The technicians who work at FTB testify before the courts as “experts” on the technology of firearms. They may or may not have any real-world or industry experience. It is a fact that no technician at FTB has ever held a federal firearms license or ever designed a firearm. Unfortunately the problem runs even deeper than that. The recent public exposure of an incompetent FTB technician, Michael J. Cooney (U.S. v. Glover), which resulted in the dismissal with prejudice of a federal prosecution of an innocent citizen, raises troubling questions about the legal validity of past prosecutions in which Mr. Cooney testified, and possibly those of other FTB technicians.

Congress has given the ATF the task of “classifying” firearms – for instance, determining whether a firearm is a common, semi-automatic that fires one shot with each trigger pull or whether it is a machine gun, designed to fire multiple rounds on one trigger pull (full auto). Numerous gun owners and gun makers have been bankrupted or imprisoned because the ATF stated that their firearms were “illegal machine guns” rather than semi-autos. If the ATF’s classifications were accurate, then this would just be a matter for lawyers and lawmakers. But there is ample evidence – and not only in the case of Mr. Cooney — to indicate that the ATF’s classifications are arbitrary and inaccurate. The ATF seemingly does not employ consistent testing criteria and standards.

The core issue is the methodology (or lack of) in making firearm classifications. The ATF does not employ the time-honored and well-honed methods of scientific inquiry.

…

In attempting to “prove” that a semi-automatic firearm is, or can easily be made, full-auto, ATF “experts” have been known to attach a variety of devices to the gun being tested. They commonly, for instance, fasten new parts to the firearm or remove parts from the firearm, then hold the resulting device together with duct tape, plastic cable ties, or small metal bars before test firing it. They use these aids because otherwise the components of the jury-rigged test weapon will not hold together on their own. Such a device would be useless in the real world, yet the ATF freely uses these Rube Goldberg contraptions to “prove” that a weapon is illegal, and that the original maker or owner of the firearm is committing a federal crime!

These strange ATF-created lab contraptions can also be so dangerous that the testers hide behind barriers to protect themselves against exploding firearms. Yet ATF agents may still tell a jury that such a weapon is a usable “machine gun.”

I didn’t follow up on the story to verify it for myself but I heard several years ago a guy had a machine gun which was made inoperable by the receiver being cut in half.  He was a successful gun rights activist.  The anti-gun politicians didn’t like his successes.  A police raid on his place turned up the cut in half machine gun.  It was claimed by my story teller than the ATF lab used duct tape to hold the two pieces of the receiver together and got it to fire two rounds with one pull of the trigger before it fell apart.  What I do know is true is that the gun rights activist spent several years in prison for illegal possession of a machine gun.

And as Alphecca points out today:

Poorly worded laws are an open invitation to abuse by authorities.

…

A bad law is worse than no law.

And I’m with Jeff Cooper on machine guns (full story in tomorrows “Quote of the day”):

As I have often stated, if someone wants to shoot at me, I sure hope he does it on full-auto.

Jeff Cooper
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 1, No. 9
October 1993

Let’s just get rid of the silly restrictions on full automatics.  There is no valid use for such a law.

Washington D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, a Democrat, apparently has some sort of mental problem.  This was reported about some things he had to say yesterday:

Bitter about efforts to loosen gun restrictions in the US capital, Washington’s mayor yesterday told Congress to stay out of the District of Columbia’s business and contrasted the fight for democracy abroad with the lack of rights for the city’s residents.

…

In wielding its budgetary power over the district last week, the Republican-led House voted to prohibit the city from spending funds to enforce a 29-year-old gun control law requiring any firearms kept at home to be unloaded and disassembled or protected by a trigger lock.

…

”It’s really no one’s business other than the citizens of the district,” Williams told reporters. ”It really is so galling when you’re fighting for rights overseas, to build democracy overseas, and then you have the capital of this country just totally disregard any kind of home-rule consideration.”

Apparently he is concerned about his “rights” as mayor to deprive the citizens of their inalienable rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.  A reminder to Williams–governments have powers, people have rights.  And in this country governments have enumerated powers.  If they aren’t give those powers by the people in the constitution then they don’t legitimately have those powers.  And our Bill of Rights says, “… The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Alphecca has a slightly different, but entirely supportable, view on the same thing.

Sure, it’s a commentary but I don’t see any opposing commentary and it’s in the Los Angles Times.  That’s a very big paper in a liberal city/state.

The Big Lie of the Assault Weapons Ban

This wasn’t supposed to happen. When the federal assault weapons ban ended on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes and police killings were predicted to surge. Instead, they have declined.

For a decade, the ban was a cornerstone of the gun control movement. Sarah Brady, one of the nation’s leading gun control advocates, warned that “our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis.” Life without the ban would mean rampant murder and bloodshed.

…

For gun control advocates, even a meaningless ban counts. These are the same folks who have never been bashful about scare tactics, predicting doom and gloom when they don’t get what they want. They hysterically claimed that blood would flow in the streets after states passed right-to-carry laws letting citizens carry concealed handguns, but that never occurred. Thirty-seven states now have right-to-carry laws — and no one is seriously talking about rescinding them or citing statistics about the laws causing crime.

Gun controllers’ fears that the end of the assault weapons ban would mean the sky would fall were simply not true. How much longer can the media take such hysteria seriously when it is so at odds with the facts?