Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Don’t underestimate the damage he can do to firearms manufacturers through rule making.  I’ve often lamented rule making through the federal register, effectively a bypass around law making through the senate and house (not that that’s routinely any better than rule making, just a bit more difficult).

And never forget his involvement in the killing of women and children in Waco, Texas.  Proud of it, he was, stopping in the aftermath to pose for a picture in front of the wreckage he helped to create.

Background checks.  More.  Give us background checks.

A record number of gun sales along with the disruption to normal life by the coronavirus pandemic have contributed to a 25% surge in homicides and non-suicide-related shootings in 2020, according to a gun control advocacy group.

“What we know is the year will be remembered for two conflicting, compounding public health crises — COVID-19 and gWith more guns being purchased and trafficked than ever, Suplina is calling for a nationwide mandate on background checks, “so that gun traffickers and criminals don’t go shopping across state lines.”un violence,” said Nick Suplina, the managing director for law and policy of Everytown for Gun Safety.

[ … ]

With more guns being purchased and trafficked than ever, Suplina is calling for a nationwide mandate on background checks, “so that gun traffickers and criminals don’t go shopping across state lines.”

Oops.  Maybe they didn’t get the memo.

After a shooting in America gets national attention, the debate usually centers around a few gun control measures, particularly universal background checks and an assault weapons ban. That’s what happened after the April mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis — with President Joe Biden calling on Congress to pass both measures.

But if America wants to make a real dent in gun violence, it might want to consider another approach: requiring a license to buy and own a firearm.

For one, the evidence on the effects of universal background checks and assault weapons bans is pretty weak. Several studies in recent years have found that universal background checks, at least on their own, don’t seem to have a big effect on gun deaths. Similarly, the research on assault weapons bans, including the national ban that Biden helped pass in 1994, found they have little effect on gun violence, largely because the vast majority of such violence is committed with handguns.

But there’s some solid evidence that a license system reduces gun deaths. A 2018 study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that universal background checks alone correlated with more gun homicides in urban counties, while license systems were associated with fewer gun homicides. Other studies have similarly found that license requirements lead to fewer gun deaths.

[ … ]

In Massachusetts, one of the few states with a license system, obtaining a permit requires going through a multi-step process involving interviews with police, background checks, a gun safety training course, and more. Even if a person passes all of that, the local police chief can deny an application anyway. That creates more points at which an applicant can be identified as too dangerous to own a gun; it makes getting and owning a gun harder.

Whatever one makes of all of this, the evidence strongly suggests the license requirement works. Massachusetts, for one, has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country.

Don’t give us background checks – they don’t work.  Give us license requirements.  Oops.  Maybe they didn’t get the memo.

Mass shootings in Massachusetts increased to eight in 2020 from five the year before, while nationally mass shootings jumped nearly 50% during a pandemic with crippling unemployment, violent protests and idle youth.

In 2020, Massachusetts reported eight mass shootings that killed five and injured 33. A year earlier, the state had five mass shootings that killed seven and injured 17.

Among Massachusetts’s deadliest shootings last year was one Dec. 26 in Lynn that killed one and injured five.

Or the other memo.  Gun owning Wyoming is much safer than Massachusetts.

They just want to control you.  They want to disarm you and make you subjects of the globalist power system.  All of the arguments aren’t really intended to be logical or consistent.

Controllers are the same everywhere and in all times and eras.  I’ve had this debate before over gun bans by the Nazis.  It’s claimed that they weren’t really gun banners because some people were able to keep theirs.

Right.  Gun bans don’t affect everyone, just those for whom the bans have been targeted.  Just like in South Africa.  Those poor folks are in real trouble and stand to lose everything.

The wealthy think they will be eaten by the crocodile last.

News from Russia.

President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to the victims on Monday and immediately ordered authorities to tighten up gun regulations.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had ordered the head of Russia’s National Guard that oversees gun ownership to develop new rules for the type of weapons civilians are permitted to possess. Peskov said the change was needed to address to assault weapons sometimes being improperly classed as hunting rifles.

Russia’s National Guard quickly said it would fulfil Putin’s order to develop the new rules in coordination with other government bodies.

Sounds like something you’d hear from the American communists.

Via David Codrea.

Hey.  Calling Rob Pincus.  Was it worth it to throw away your friendships in the community?

News from Florida.

This is Florida’s preemption law, and this is a good thing.  I’m impressed with DeSantis, but my next question is this: where is your open carry law, Ron?

I know you’re dealing with ninnies in the House and Senate, but you could do this if you wanted to.  Simply refuse to sign all other bills that come to your desk until an open carry law comes your way, even at the threat of shutting down the government because of funding bills.

News.

The chances of South Carolina joining most other states allowing licensed people to openly carry pistols and not hide them under a jacket dimmed Tuesday as a small group of senators didn’t find time to vote on a House-passed bill.

A Senate subcommittee set a 90-minute deadline to hear testimony about the open carry bill. Several senators held long conversations with witnesses and when the hour-and-a-half was up, the subcommittee adjourned without taking a vote and with several other witnesses waiting to speak online.

Sen. Tom Young, a Republican from Aiken, said he would hold another hearing “as soon as possible,” but with eight days left in the General Assembly’s regular session, it seems doubtful the bill can make it through the subcommittee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate.

[ … ]

During the House subcommittee hearing on the open carry bill, lawmakers set a three-minute timer for witnesses and asked almost no questions.

The Senate hearing Tuesday meandered a bit more. Senators asked almost every witness a question and former State Law Enforcement Chief Robert Stewart spent about 30 minutes telling them why he opposed open carry.

So there you go.  They limited the pro-speakers to 3 minutes, let a cop speak for half an hour, chatted some and then walked out without so much as a how do you do?

That’s the sort of consideration they give their constituency.  Their names are here.  Luke Rankin presides.  We suspected he was a controller, and he is.

With the influx of foreign voters into S.C., this may be the last, greatest opportunity to pass open carry in S.C.  Apparently no gun owner in S.C. cares about this enough.

I’ll just file this one under gun control.  I guess South Carolinians are okay with it.

Reason.

There are at least five major differences between Clement’s QP and the Court’s QP.

First, the Court’s QP focuses on the state’s decision to deny “concealed-carry licenses” to the petitioners. Clement’s QP challenged the law on its face, and as applied. Is the Court’s decision now limited to an as-applied challenge, rather than a facial challenge? Might the Court leave open the possibility that other may-issue regimes are unconstitutional? Are there some unique aspects of the New York law that would distinguish it from other may issue regimes? Is there the possibility the Court will need to remand for further explication of the regime? Is there some evidence that the state improperly denied licenses to these particular plaintiffs? Might there be some Due Process Clause argument? Then again, the QP references the Second Amendment, so a Due Process issue would not be squarely presented. I see this slippery change as a way for the Court to issue a very, very narrow decision that will leave the issue unsettled.

But of course.  Cowards and totalitarians.

There is more at the link.  Zelman Partisans makes is simple for us.

By changing it from a question about law-abiding citizens carrying in public, to denial of licenses Period — no mention of “law-abiding” people carrying — the InJustices can now say, Gee, states have to be able to deny some licenses, otherwise prohibited persons could apply and get licenses. No one wants that to happen.

They’ve dodged the entire issue of denial of rights based on an arbitrary you didn’t show good enough need to carry a gun. The point of contention was shall versus may issue, and if the Second Amendment applies outside the home. Now it’s is licensing constitutional?

Prediction: 5/4 denial of licenses does not not violate the Second Amendment; Roberts with the majority. “May issue” remains because the Court refused to look at that.

Although it could go 6/3. Gorsuch is such an insufferable hair-splitter that he may go along with the majority, too. On the other hand, he might object to the reframed question itself. Hard to say.

As I observed, I’d rather that the SCOTUS not have taken the case up at all.  Is there anything requiring courage that the SCOTUS is actually willing to do?  They take the easy ones, leave aside the hard ones, and when they do take a hard one they limit the scope of the review so they don’t have to actually decide anything of significance.

Of what worth are they?  Why do we even have a supreme court?  Wouldn’t we be better off without them?

News.

On April 27^th, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee is hearing House Bill 3094, to legalize the open carry of handguns. Please contact subcommittee members and ask them to SUPPORT HB 3094.

House Bill 3094 allows citizens who hold a concealed weapons permit, to carry a handgun in the manner they choose. Currently, South Carolina is one of just five states that does not explicitly allow open carry, among them Illinois, New York, and California. Self-defense situations are difficult to predict and everyone has different circumstances. It is unreasonable for the law to impose a one-size-fits-all method of carrying a handgun for self-defense.

This is very good news.  We’re tracking names, yes?

This narrows the field substantially.  We let Luke Rankin know just very recently that we expected him to pass this bill on for a vote in the senate.

If this fails, the House isn’t to blame.  Right now the finger of attention points to the senators in this subcommittee.  We’re watching you.  Luke, we’re still watching you too.

Should this pass on to a vote in the senate, if the bill fails, I’ll publish the votes of every senator, along with the city they live in and area they represent.

The field is being winnowed.  You cannot hide from this vote.  The only thing you can do is take it and be prepared for what comes.

From a reader, this one took me off guard and surprised me.

North Carolina would scrap its pistol permit system, which requires local sheriffs to sign off on handgun purchases, under a proposal unveiled Tuesday with support from the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association.

Gun rights advocates have pressed for the change for years, but the sheriffs’ association – a lobbying force at the General Assembly – always opposed it. Under the current system, anyone who doesn’t already have a concealed carry permit must file with a sheriff to buy a handgun. That’s not a requirement for rifles.

With recent advances in the database checks gun dealers run at purchase, the pistol permit is no longer needed, Sheriffs’ Association Executive Vice President and General Counsel Eddie Caldwell said Tuesday. The administrative arm of the North Carolina courts system finished uploading involuntary commitment records to the system in 2019, he said.

“Now that those records are uploaded, the [National Instant Criminal Background] check and the pistol permit are duplicative,” he said.

House Bill 398 would do away with that system, and the bill moved through an initial House committee Tuesday on a divided vote. Several Democrats, backed by gun-control groups, said they fear the change will open a loophole, since only licensed firearm dealers have to run background checks.

Regular people who sell a gun to a friend, or to someone they meet at a gun show, for example, don’t have to.

As you know, this isn’t a “loophole.”  That’s just a madeup word the communists like to use for something they don’t like.

Not all Sheriffs support this.  I suspect the Mecklenburg County Sheriff didn’t go for this, and I know the Wake County Sheriff didn’t.  Listen to his interview.  He exudes all the intelligence and mastery of the facts as a second grader.

North Carolina has this antiquated system where you must demonstrate fealty to the CLEO and prove yourself by turning over fees to be licensed to carry or purchase a handgun.

This initially surprised me, but I think I know what’s happening.  The communist governor of NC, the awful, terrible, loathsome, despicable, reprehensible Roy Cooper, will veto it – that’s a sure thing.  There aren’t enough votes to override his veto.  The Sheriff’s association having come out in favor of repealing the permitting scheme is good cover for the Sheriffs who run as republicans.

Politics.  Do you see how this works?  They can take a vote that helps reelect them, but their vote on a bill that will never be approved is as meaningless as the permitting system – except for the revenue it provides.