I’ve noted the theoretical problems with door-to-door weapons searches. Let’s see how that works in the real world.
Firearms Recovery Operation Held In Santa Cruz County
Santa Cruz County law enforcement agencies teamed up with agents from the California Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms for a two-day operation on Tuesday and Wednesday to recover guns owned by individuals who are prohibited from possessing them, according to the Santa Cruz County Law Enforcement Chief’s Association.
In this case, California started with a gun owner database, which they compared to other databases to see who suddenly became a prohibited person. So, unlike my worst-case (for the cops) “belling the cat” scenario, they should have a good firearms hit rate. Right?
So how did it go? Multi-agency teams. Two days. 47 addresses.
One bust. For one gun.
At that rate, it’s going to take them 426 days just to clear the current backlog of 10,000 newly prohibited persons they think they know about. Never mind all the folks continually being added to the list even as they work.
But — as the infomercial says — Wait! There’s more.
One bust. For one gun. Perhaps that means that Californians are just really compliant with gunpeople control laws, unlike the old days of 20 years past when the state saw a whopping 2.33% compliance rate with registration, and those prohibited folks properly disposed of their firearms. Except…
California does have registration. And universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks. If they properly disposed of their guns, that should have been in the state’s records and there’d be no reason to send the confiscation squads.
Are state records that bad? Did 46 out of 47 people lawfully transport their firearms out of state? Did 46 out of 47 unlawfully transfer them within the state? Did the cops simply not try very hard?
Was 1 out 47 simply a slow learner? Or maybe he didn’t even know about that protective order.
If it took California 2 days to not find 46 registered weapons in the hands of 46 registered gun owners, how long will it take to fail the other 9,953 (and counting) times?
On the bright side, this may identify another challenge to California’s obscene gun laws. You may recall that New York City was forced to end their warrantless “stop and frisk” program not merely because it was unconstitutional. Courts have long upheld unconstitutional practices if the government could demonstrate an overriding need for the sake of public safety. The judge in the NYC case tossed “stop and frisk” because, according to the city’s own data, it didn’t work, obliviating their “public safety” argument.
California’s restrictions and confiscation attempts don’t work either.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
The LVMPD’s Preliminary Investigative Report (PDF) on the Mandalay Bay mass shooting has been released. If they expected this to silence doubters of the ever changing narrative, they screwed up. Do read it; it’s 81 pages, but that includes photographs and victim lists.
I noticed little things. Early leaks said there were AR- and AK pattern rifles. According to this report there were only AR-15 and and AR-10 pattern rifles, one revolver, and a Ruger bolt-action in .308.
Early leaks said the asshole was in financial trouble. This reports says not only were all his debts paid, but he’d paid the resort bill.
One point of agreement between early leaks and this report is that the asshole wired at least $100,000 to the Philippines.
But something missing from this report is hinted at here.
Paddock was on the floor south of the chair and side table. He was wearing black pants, a long sleeve brown shirt, black gloves, and grey shoes. Paddock was on his back with his head to the south, feet to the north, and arms at his sides. There was apparent blood surrounding his nose and mouth, and on the floor under his head. There was also apparent blood on the front of his shirt. A rifle was on the floor under his legs. A grey box cutter was on the floor between his feet. There were casings on the floor surrounding him. A silver/black colored “Smith & Wesson”
revolver with apparent blood on it was on the floor south of Paddock’s head.
Please refer to this previously leaked crime scene photo (mildly graphic shot of the body). Unmentioned in the report is the rifle under which the asshole somehow managed to extend his foot without overturning it.
Also unmentioned is something to be found in this leaked photo (very graphic; head shot): expended brass on top of the blood.
The geometry is odd, too. The asshole shot himself in the mouth and fell over. The revolver (the suicide weapon per the report) is two feet “above” his head, and his arms are along his side, foot under a bipod-mounted rifle. Shades of Vince Foster (has anyone checked Hillary’s alibi?).
And now we get to something else I find odd. The room service ticket for October 1st included two entrees. The asshole’s body in 32-135 was found wearing gloves. Another pair of gloves was found at the shooting position in 32-134 (he changed gloves mid-shoot?), which happens to be where the scoped bolt-action rifle was found.
Now, looking at the weapons list, you’ll note that many rifles had no sights/optics. At least one only had a front sight. Clearly precision shooting wasn’t expected…
…except we have a note of precision ballistics calculations. And a spotting scope.
Two entrees, two shooting positions, two pairs of gloves, a precision rifle and a spotting scope. Computers connected to different cameras in both rooms. Video recording with the sound of two different weapons fired simultaneously. Brass on top of blood from suicide.
One shooter.
Oh, and the laptop whose hard drive walked away. You’d think if the asshole was concerned about incriminating computer files, he’d have disappeared the one with the reported kiddie porn, too.
Draw your own conclusions. (I have my own, but in deference to The Zelman Partisans I’ll stay out of that here.)
Back to why this still matters. At the state and local levels, we’re seeing legislation to further restrict rights based on this incident. Bump-fire stocks, most notably. Peruse that report and you’ll see multiple reports from civilians and police officers of automatic weapons fire. While there were leaks that at least two firearms were fully automatic (in addition to the bump-fire stocked rifles), that isn’t addressed in this report at all. Seems odd.
Perhaps they’re after the person who sold (or converted) automatic weapons to the asshole and don’t want to tip him off that they know auto weapons were involved. Except that was released back in October. If I were that black marketeer, I’d have started covering my butt back then.
If no weapons were full-auto, why not correct the initial report, leaving the path open for regulating bump-fire stocks? If all the weapons were legal, and they no longer consider the girlfriend a suspect, why not set the record straight? And who could they be considering for charges if no one else did anything unlawful?
If this report was expected to allay concerns, they missed… their own target.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
The latest gunpeople control argument making the rounds is a “report” from the Violence Promotion I-mean-Policy Center that purports to show:
U.S. Gun Death Rate Jumps 17 Percent Since 2008 Supreme Court District of Columbia v. Heller Decision Affirming Right to Own a Handgun for Self-Defense
Not. Let’s take a look at the VPC’s own chart demonstrating that dramatic jump post-Heller.
Hmm. Modest increases through 2012; but nothing dramatic. Still well below the long-term average and part of a long term decline in firearms-related deaths. But look where we do see a dramatic jump: 2015 and 2016. That starts 7 years after Heller.
You’d think that if Heller were the cause, we’d see that big increase a little sooner. My uneducated, troglodytic gun owner guess would be that something changed in 2014 or 2015; maybe 2013 or 2016. But what?
2013:
New York passes “NY SAFE” act )assorted bans, registration, licensing, universal firearms PPYI, ammo PPYI, and more).
Maryland passes its “Firearm Safety Act,” called “one of the strictest gun laws in the nation.” (Sure helped Baltimore reach its goal of one of the highest homicide rates in the world, eh?)
2014:
California begins keeping more firearms sales records and bans “high capacity” magazine sales.
Connecticut begins “assault weapon” and “high capacity” magazine registration.
Obama launched his “Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions;” 23 new executive orders intended to restrict honest folk.
Obama announces his intent to expand DACA protections for illegals.
Washington passes I-594 PPYI checks.
2015:
Oregon launches universal PPYI.
California somehow found something about guns not already regulated to their taste and added several more restrictions, including confiscations.
Alabama prohibited more people possessing firearms, and required more reporting.
Obama ordered the ATF to increase FFL licensing requirements, increase hiring, boost NICS reporting, and make many SS disability recipients prohibited persons.
Virginia’s AG reneged on reciprocal carry agreements.
2016:
California expands firearms seizures, blocks campus carry, imposes ERPOs
And much more.
Granted, none of that establishes causation, but at least the temporal correlation is a lot closer than a SCOTUS decision years back. And about that decision…
Heller was specifically about District of Columbia firearms restrictions. Not national laws. It was important at the national level because everyone expected it — correctly — to be used as a precedent in future. But to blame Heller itself for an increase in deaths indicates a simplistic… nay, simple-minded understanding of law and precedent.
It wasn’t until the SCOTUS McDonald decision two years later that Heller‘s precedent was applied to all the states. Funny that the VPC report doesn’t even mention that case.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
Update:For some reason, my questions have disappeared.
Had to reenter all but one question. Seems to be working now.
—
I’m presenting another survey. Unlike past polls, this one is not directed at the RKBA/Firearms community, although anyone and everyone is welcome to participate.
But I would very much appreciate it if you distributed it far and wide, to the general population. Specifically those who allegedly poll in favor of new “gun” control laws.
After every high profile shooting, the usual suspects dance in the blood and cry out for a solution to “gun” violence. Somehow, knife, baseball, and fist violence don’t rate.
The proferred “solutions” always involve more rules and laws that restrict the rights of people who didn’t do it. Laws that, oddly enough, won’t apply to the folks perpetrating the violence. They specifically blame the innocent for the acts of criminals.
Laws that regulate things that had nothing to do with the shooting.
When rational people point that out, the gunpeople controlling victim disarmers plug their ears and run around chanting, “Nyah, nyah; can’t hear you!” and claim we don’t have any better ideas.
Yes. I do. I’ve mentioned them a time or two over the decades. And for the disarmers’ convenience, here they are. Three basic reforms that would fix most of the “gun” (and other weapons) violence: incarceration, education, and defense.
Incarceration
End catch and release sentencing policies for violent criminals. If they’re that dangerous, you don’t need to be putting them back on the street. Repeat felons would not be eligible for plea bargains. Victim restitution must be included.
End “3 strikes” style sentencing guidelines that actually encourage criminals to escalate (i.e.- two time loser kills next victim to eliminate witnesses).
Reform sentencing guidelines to promote rehabilitation. Regardless of sentence length, the criminal will not be eligible for parole or release until he has successfully completed a course of study. For first offenders without a high school diploma, that can be a General Equivalency Diploma program. For repeat offenders and those who have a high school diploma or GED, it will be a trade school such as welding, machinist, mechanic. Also acceptable will be a college degree program in hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) or engineering. Soft sciences (sociology, psychology, etc.) or liberal arts that prepare one for a career as a minimum wage barista will not qualify. Some industries or businesses might sponsor training programs, for a source of skilled workers who they’ve had a chance to observe improving their lot.
Instead of eliminating questions about criminal history from job applications, we could add, “And what new useful skill are you bringing me from that experience?”
Divert money from victim disarming “gun” control programs to increase staffing and training in parole offices, if we keep that. The goal there is to have sufficient parole and probation officers to properly supervise and counsel their subjects. Parole/probation should require gainful employment or continuing — successful — education (maintain C average, for instance).
Education
The public school system is broken. Taken over by education majors who’ve rewritten the rules to require an education major to be a teacher, rather than a degree in the subject(s) taught. Schools focus on socialization over learning. They’re full of the latest, ever-evolving theories of teaching subjects they do not understand The result is high school graduates who are not literate enough to fill out a job application or capable of balancing a check book. Too often those people — otherwise unemployable — fail at boring unskilled labor and turn to lucrative crime like drug dealing.
Schools must abandon social justice, and teach basic skills: reading (to the point of reading a novel and comprehending it), writing (to the point of drafting a comprehensible resume cover letter), mathematics (balancing a check book and estimating whether you’ve got enough gas in the tank to reach your destination), basic science (basic laws of motion, enough biology to under what allosomes do in mammals, enough chemistry to understand why mixing vinegar and baking soda doesn’t make a great cleaning product, and why there’s no such thing as chemical-free food). I had a science teacher who believed that potatoes have zero calories.
Classes that teach actual life skills like old style home economics, shop, and basic firearms safety are good.
English. English. English. Classes must teach and be taught in English. English has been the defacto majority language in the US for a very long time. If a person cannot function in English, she’ll be severely limited in employment and life opportunities.
America does not have the educational resources to hire qualified teachers in every subject for every possible at-home language. We cannot have parallel English/Spanish/Somali/Arabic/whatever curricula. If a student does not function at an age appropriate level in English, that student should be placed in a remedial English class until she achieves a level which allows her to successfully participate in the regular curriculum.
I knew two women at a company whose first language was Spanish. One woman only had a few words of English and had worked in her section for years. She could not get promoted up. As a new hire, I had to read instructions for her and show her how to do her job. She was not stupid; she simply never bothered learning English.
The other woman was fluent in spoken and written English. Since she was able to read technical manuals and parts diagrams, she was immediately hired in another department at a much higher wage.
If a Somali won’t learn English, he’ll most likely be restricted to his local Somalian community, with limited employment opportunities. Perhaps all he’ll be able to do for a living is sell drugs to his neighbors, in competition with folks who will shoot it out over turf.
End peer promotion. You aren’t protecting someone’s self-esteem by promoting him to a higher level where he’s going to fail again. Hold him back until he learns. If he’s ashamed to share a class with younger folks, he can work harder.
If he works hard enough, he can test to see if he is ready to rejoin his former classmates in the more advanced class. He can be proud that he accomplished something himself, instead of it being given to him. Maybe he’ll learn to appreciate that over a sense of entitlement.
For that matter, any student who believes herself to be ready can take the tests for high school graduation; if she passes — regardless of age — she gets her diploma and walks out.
It wouldn’t break my heart to see it made a felony to graduate a person who is functionally illiterate after twelve years of “schooling.” My sisters — 2 and 4 years older than I — taught me to read before I started school. We have “teachers” far less effective than a couple of untrained little girls.
Self Defense
The last time a nuclear weapon was used in combat on this planet was fifteen years before I was born. Like it or not, one reason for that was deterrence. Mutual Assured Destruction was… ahem, overkill, but no one dropped nukes because they didn’t want anyone replying in kind.
Criminals, being human, too, also realize this. There have been multiple surveys of inmates which showed that, given a choice of targets, criminals will choose to avoid a potential victim they believe may be armed. I have personally heard convicted felons state that flatly.
I also saw a dayroom full of inmates who were watching a news report on “gun control.” Their consensus was that gun control, and firearms bans in particular, would be a good thing. One inmate gleefully noted how helpful it would be to disarm victims, and “I’ll always be able to get a gun when I’m out anyway.”
Please note that “studies” allegedly showing lower rates of violence or crime in places with stronger “gun” control typically lump in suicide with real crime, exclude violence with other implements, or use artificial — nonexistent, that is — “synthetic states” for comparisons. Cherry-picking time frames is also popular.
The reality is otherwise. Baltimore has strong “gun” control laws, and the highest murder rate in the country at more than 55 per 100,000 people. That’s worse than Venezuela or cartel-ridden Mexico. For that matter both Venezuela and Mexico have very restrictive gun laws.
Licenseless New Hampshire and Vermont generally vie for the last nationwide slot for homicides and violent crime.
So the ability of noncriminals to defend themselves will reduce violent crime; through deterrence and — if widespread — Darwinian selection. Dead would-be killers are rarely recidivists.
So…
National reciprocal carry is a good idea. National “constitutional carry” is better.
A national Stand Your Ground (SYG) law that places the burden of proving guilt on prosecution, rather than requiring an honest defender to prove his innocence, is good. If a criminal killer says, “I didn’t do it.” the burden of proof is on the prosecution. If a lawful gun owner says, “I did it in self defense.” the burden shifts to him sans SYG.
The police must stop regarding a holstered or slung weapon as probable cause for stopping, questioning, and too often shooting noncriminals. Particularly when they, ironically, have holstered or slung weapons. Lawful gun owners make up such a tiny fraction of a percent of firearms-wielding murderers that being in possession of a car is as much an indicator of criminal intent as gun possession.
Divert money from useless gun “buybacks” to free firearms classes for the community. More people trained will mean more honest people carrying (deterring criminals who’ll probably have to move to Baltimore), and even fewer firearms accidents.
But lawful gun owners who want protection from bad guys, don’t really want to inadvertently sell guns to bad guys. So put the thumb-twiddlers at NICS to work on “Blind Identification Database System” (BIDS). Either allow private sellers access to the system, or pay dealers to run the checks without paperwork (unless someone fails, maybe).
Establish “firearms assistance” programs for poor but honest folks who can’t afford guns, ammunition, and practice. If abortion, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, is a right worthy of subsidy, certainly protection should be supported.
We need more ranges, too.
Local and state governments could promote self defense, and raise money for it, by running gun lotteries. Pow’R Ball, if you will. Prizes could be high end defensive tools, ammunition, accessories, gift cards, and range memberships.
There you have it the — already declining — problem of “gun” violence (all criminal violence) largely solved.
1. Teaching people the things they need to function in an honest society.
2. Providing second chances and skills to those who slip and survive.
3. Providing skills and equipment to those who want to stop the real violence.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
That would be the one — commissioned by anti-human/civil rights activists Elijah Cummings [D-MD]and Elizabeth Warren [D-MA] — in which the GAO attempted to purchase guns on the Internet while posing as prohibited persons.
They made 72 attempts on public sites. All failed. Twice, they thought they’d succeeded only to discover they were scammed; folks took theirour money and never shipped guns.
Go figure. Gun owners who often are gun owners because they want protection against bad guys are generally not going to knowingly provide guns to bad guys.
Well, they had to come up with something for Congressional weasels, so they went to the “Dark Web,” to sites specifically set up for illegal black market transactions. They skipped the part about claiming to be prohibited persons.
And still only succeeded twice, out of seven attempts. I have no doubt that Cummings and Warren will present that as a 29% success rate rather than 2.5%.
If it’s really that high. One firearm they purchased was billed as an Uzi converted to full-auto. The report notably says, “If the firearm meets the NFA’s definition of a machine gun, the seller’s prior possession of the Uzi, and the shipment to our agent, likely violated federal law.” Which means they aren’t sure they got what they ordered.
Interestingly, while the report mentions prices paid in other online stings, they neglect to tells us how much they paid for an old AR-15 or a dubiously “converted” subgun.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
“Gulliver” appears to be the author of that failed attempt at satire. “Gulliver” also appears to have bought the big lie.
Let’s see how “under-/unregulated firearms are. I’ve done this in abbreviated form in the past, but this will be a little more detailed.
[“Gun Culture” types can stop here; you know this, more than likely. This column is for the less-informed like “Gulliver,” whoever s/he/ze/zyr/&tpen/@/it may be.]
Manufacturing
Naturally, a firearms manufacturer has to comply with all the same rules that any other manufacturer faces: OSHA, EPA, labor law, finance… it’s a long list, which is why we have to import a lot of stuff; regulatory compliance makes it too expensive to actually make a lot of stuff in America these days.
Moving on, we have firearms specific laws and regulations. First, you need a Federal Firearms License to build guns for sale. Usually that will be a Type 7 FFL. Maybe.
Let’s say you had a potentially great idea for a system that disperses fire retardant chemicals over an area. You think it’s just the thing for suppressing forest or grass fires on the perimeter. Fire departments and ranchers will love it. Your system is a 40 millimeter “grenade” full of said chemicals, fired from a light weight polymer launcher.
Whoops. 40mm makes that a “destructive device.” Now you need a Type 10 FFL. And you’ll mostly be able to sell it to governments; tougher for volunteer fire departments of ranchers. Manufacturing the rounds for the launcher also requires a Type 9 FFL, so it’s no good contracting out just the launcher while you assemble the ammunition.
So you scale it back to 37mm. It’s less effective than 40, but better than nothing.
Or maybe you say the heck with it, and move on to a different product. Howa bout a short self defense shotgun with a 14 inch barrel? If you put a standard shoulder stock on it, it becomes a short-barrel shotgun, and buyers will need a market-limiting tax stamp. If you put a pistol grip on the same exact action, it’s magically not. You aren’t sure why, since smoothbore pistols are “Any Other Weapons” (AOW) and require tax stamps. But the ATF made a ruling. (Ghu save the buyer if he puts a shoulder stock on it without getting a tax stamp.)
That’s too complicated, so you decide to enter the light weight polymer defensive pistol market. You have a fantastic design that makes even the slide nonmetallic. This will be easy to to carry on a daily basis.
But is it too light? Federal law bans the production of nonmetallic “undetectable” firearms, even if the dense polymer shows up in x-rays. If your metal barrel is underweight, you have to build in a chunk of nonremovable metal, raising the weight of your previously light weight sidearm.
The heck with it, let’s just make a cute little pistol out of metal, that looks like a cell phone. Except that might be an AOW, too; so you’d better submit a sample to the ATF and get a ruling.
One these is a pistol, and one is an AOW cell phone gun. Which is yours?
Hmm… how ’bout a simple little pen shaped gun (made of metal, of course). You’d best submit your design to the ATF again.
One of these is a pistol, and one is an AOW pen gun. Which did you submit to the ATF?
Argh! All right. Conventional pistol, with the action simplified to make it cheap to machine.
Wait. You didn’t make that an open bolt design, did you? That’s a machinegun. I know it’s just a semiautomatic-only, but new open-bolts are automatically machineguns now, under firearms regulations.
Good Bog, you’re trapped in a regulatory maze, and you haven’t even built anything yet!
OK, screw it. You’ll build a simple autoloader pistol. Reverse engineer a Raven with enough differences not run afoul of any patents, and better quality. Good to go.
So you start building guns. Which have to be marked: manufacturer, serial number, caliber. You’re CNC milling these, so you do the marking during initial milling to minimize the process.
Bad move. Every firearm you make — and it’s a firearm once marked — has to be logged in the books for ATF inspection. Yes, inspections. If you make one and it fails quality control testing, and you destroy it, you have to log that, and prove you destroyed it.
So you mark it afterwards. No, no, no! You can’t do that. If firearms are not marked, that’s illegal, too. You’ll just have to guess at what point in production the serial numbers are required. Good luck complying with that rule.
Umm… you did do the marking in the approved font, in the regulated size, and to the specified depth? Right?
But somehow you manage. Your firearms are ready to ship. You exchange FFL paperwork with distributors across the country (under firearms laws and regulations, you can’t ship to end buyers). And away you go!
Wait a minute there, bud. You didn’t design that pistol for a round which the ATF considers armor-piercing (this week), did you? Back to the drawing board.
So it’s finally ready for prime time. Keep your fingers crossed.
State Laws and Regulations
First, you need assorted state (and possibly local) licenses to operate. Not just any old manufacturer licensing; that and licensing specific to firearms. There be additional zoning laws to keep firearms manufacturing out of areas where other manufacturing is allowed. Forget being within miles of a one room schoolhouse in the country.
You can’t just start shipping out federally legal guns to anywhere. Some states will require you to submit samples for evaluation and approval. Massachusetts wants to be sure they’re “safe” and don’t look too much like weapons they banned that complied with their rules but also looked too much like guns they don’t like.
California will do the same and more. Is the gun too small? Too big? Will it pass drop testing? Did you remember to submit a sample of every single variation you make? That means if you offer the pistol with black plastic grip panels and pink plastic grip panels, you have to submit two complete pistols in both colors. We’re aren’t sure how color makes a difference, but we aren’t smoking what the California legislature smokes.
Whoops! Your pistol doesn’t microstamp pistol-identifying data on the case of each round fired, in two places. Yes, we know the technology doesn’t yet exist to do that, but California apparently has really good weed.
So you just scratch off some large potential markets and just ship a firearm that complies with physical reality to the sane parts of the country. Or…
You could say the hell with manufacturing. Eliminate the need for FFLs and all that garbage. You go back to your plastic pistol design and tweak the 3D printing files so the design complies with all federal laws (minimum metal content, and such), and sell those on the Internet. You can draw on the Defense Distributed Ghost Gunner market; they have the mill, you can supply really cool printer files, right?
You’re going to prison for violating ITAR arms export laws and regulations. Yep, more of those “grossly under regulated” laws and regs.
At this point, maybe you’re thinking that firearms manufacturing is too tough and you’ll just say the hell with it and make something safe. Like shoelaces.
Sorry, that might a machinegun, too. Better get an FFL anyway, just in case the ATF changes the rules again.
Back to just selling legal pistols in the safe parts of the US.
The Retail World
So — complying with all federal and state laws and regulations — you sell a shipment of Super-Concealed Thug Slayer pistols to a distributor. Distributor checks laws and regs and sells some to a fully compliant retail FFL (yes, another federal firearms license). The retailer follows all laws and regs and logs the guns into his bound book for ATF inspection.
The FFL dealer also has state and local laws and regulations to deal with. Some zoning laws keep him out of cities altogether. If someone builds a church a thousand feet away, he might be forced to relocate or close. He’ll be required to install security systems beyond that required for banks or jewelry stores. He’ll be required to pull all his merchandise off the shelves and lock them in a safe in a back room after hours, even if the cases are unbreakable and the store has roll-down blast-proof shutters. He might be required to install anti-vehicle barricades to prevent thieves driving a stolen car through his store front.
The dealer is required to be a mindreader or precognitive, capable of determining whether a customer who meets all legal requirements is really a straw-purchaser, or might commit mass murder years down the road, or if the ATF overrides a NICS denial to allow an unlawful sale so they can pretend to “entrap” someone. He’ll be required to provide unlicensed mental health counseling for potentially suicidal customers; he’ll be required to be an unlicensed psychologist to make that diagnosis.
Joe Citizen walks into the Isher Weapons Shop and likes your gun. He presents state-issued photo ID, fills out a multi-page form swearing that he is allowed by the feds to purchase a firearm. As required, he informs the feds of his race. In some states, Joe will also present his license to merely own a firearm (more PPYI, fingerprinting, photos, taxes and fees, probably training). The dealer calls the FBI to complete a prior restraint on the would-be buyer’s constitutional rights requiring him to preemptively prove his innocence.
If the buyer is lucky, the FBI will approve the sale. If he isn’t lucky, they might make him wait a few days for approval/denial. If the FBI doesn’t respond in three days, the dealer has the option of completing or killing the sale. If the buyer is really unlucky, the FBI will declare him a prohibited person and deny the sale.
Joe Citizen, being a law-abiding type, can’t understand why the sale was denied. Assuming he isn’t in one of the states that requires the dealer to report him to the police (whereupon he’s arrested, charged, jailed, etc.), he files an appeal of the denial. Maybe he knows that virtually all NICS denials are false positives, and it’ll all get straightened out. Some day. Maybe. Because there’s a backlog of tens of thousands of unprocessed appeals.
But we’ll back up; Joe was legal and got his new defense pistol. He takes it home and locks it in a safe (per state “safe storage” laws, with ammunition locked away in a separate safe). Because he has not yet also gone through the PPYI check, fingerprinting, photographing, mandatory training by state-approved/licensed instructors, and paid the taxes and fees for a separate carry license for that specific firearm in his state (even though he’s already licensed for the Super-Concealed Thug Slayer with blue grip panels. Bog save him if he lives in Hawaii, where his license is only good in one county and he’ll have to try to repeat the process in every county to which he might travel.
Well, perhaps. In some states, there’s a mandatory waiting period before he can take his new pistol home. He still has to pay for, but he must wait. Even though the point of the federal NICS “instant background PPYI check” was to eliminate waiting periods. He must wait to prevent him from doing anything impulsive with that gun. He must wait even if he already owns a dozen guns with which he could act impulsively. Because of grossly under-regulated guns.
The “End User”
But finally Joe takes it home. After registering it, depending on state. Hopefully with ammunition he purchased after yet another round of PPYI checks, in some states.
And that night, some goblin breaks in, murders Joe, gets into the safe, and steals that Super-Concealed Thug Slayer you built and sold. Goblin steals a Ford Escort, uses it to plow down a bunch of pedestrians, then uses your product to finish off the survivors.
What’s that got to do with you? It’s your fault. Not Ford’s fault, even though Goblin used a Ford. Not the Ford dealer. Not the Ford’s owner. But it is Joe’s fault for negligently storing the gun in a safe that the Goblin could get into after Joe negligently let himself be murdered. Thanks goodness you excluded California sales, or Joe’s estate might be prosecuted for dead Joe failing to report the stolen firearm.
It’s the dealer’s fault for following all local, state, and federal laws. Ditto for the negligent distributor. And most especially you, Mr. Manufacturer, for making and marketing a weapon to kill people.
“But the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act protects me if I followed all the rules and someone else misused my product,” you cry. “Why not sue Ford?”
Possibly they’ll get around to it, though it seems unlikely. But you engaged in “negligent marketing.” By obeying the grossly under-regulating state and federal laws and regulations that damned near kept you out of the market in the first place.
Welcome to the wonderful world of unregulated firearms. Next week, we’ll talk about the laws, regulations, and rules surrounding ammunition for those unregulated guns. If my head doesn’t explode; I may need a Federal Explosives License from the ATF for that.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
While much of the world celebrated New Years Eve as the start of a fresh new civil year, it is not the same for Jews. Remember, the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, began at sunset on September 20th, 2017. New years eve is also known as Sylvester night. Sylvester night has long been known as a scheduled pogrom night. This column explains it very well. But here are some salient points.
This evening was, once the calendar settled on December 25th as Christmas, calculated to be the night preceding the circumcision of the child born in the “little town of Bethlehem”, therefore a call for the local peasants to engage in drinking, making merry and killing Jews.
Darkness along with the silence before a storm reigned in Jewish shteitls (small villages) that night in an attempt to make it harder to find defenseless victims, barricaded behind the flimsy doors of their huts. Torah study, which was done by the light of candles, was thus impossible.
As opposed to random pogroms and other manifestations of Jew hatred, this was a predictable yearly date.
A “Yerushalmi”, i.e. someone who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem before the State of Israel was declared, once told me that in this part of the world they would barricade their doors on Easter Sunday, knowing that the traditional Christian procession would often end in rioting against the local Jews.
Sylvester was Pope from January 31, 314 C.E. to December 31, 335 C.E. His Saint’s Day is the day he was buried, and it falls on December 31 of every year, that is since the civil solar calendar was straightened out (the Jewish calendar is a lunar one).
“On New Years Day 1577 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services. On New Years Day 1578 Gregory signed into law a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a ‘House of Conversion’ to convert Jews to Christianity. On New Years 1581 Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.
“The Israeli term for New Year’s night celebrations, Sylvester, was the name of the ‘Saint’ and Roman Pope who reigned during the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.). The year before the Council of Nicaea convened, Sylvester is said to have convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem.
I know that’s a lot of quoting, but I think you understand what I mean when I say it’s not the same New Years Eve commonly thought of. I want to compare history with today. Easy one first, Jerusalem. This is actually the most cheerful one of the lot. While perhaps the media would have you believe that the Arab world is united standing behind the Falestinians, that is not at all the case. They are not. Now, the UN, that is another story. No matter who it is, if Israel is involved, the UN stands behind them in condemning Israel. If Israel were invaded by something out of the movie “Independence Day” or “Men In Black” the UN would unite behind the space invaders who want to destroy all of humanity to condemn Israel. Iran slaughtering it’s citizens? Yawn. And the Israeli politicians are finally, perhaps, beginning to act like all of Israel, is well, Israel. There were two good bills passed. The United Jerusalem bill and the bill calling for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. You should check out the link on the United Jerusalem bill just to see the jaw dropping beautiful picture of Jerusalem they used with the article. So this New Years does show some good things happening as compared to the past.
My various sources in Paris tell me it is life for Jews in France is intolerable. The large spike in Muslim immigration has made the terrible – the horrible. Daily humiliations and the constant threat of violence are their constant companions. And it is widely known that going to the police is pointless. The police have long turned a blind eye to the war on country’s Jews.
So that part is about the same, except they attacks and killing seems to be coming from the imported Muslims and the tax part is coming from the government. Not both from the same source, not that who it comes from affects the outcome much.
So regarding at attacks, let’s look at another country which is becoming Muslim dominant, jolly old England, and specifically London. London proudly did the politically correct thing and elected a Muslim mayor. Not sure that they think it turned out all that well, well at least the law abiding citizens may not. We know islamic terror has been up under Mayor Sadiq who dismissed it as part and parcel of living in a big city. Raheem Kassam has a good column on how that’s played out for Londoners as crime has skyrocketed.
It would seem that while Christians attacking Jews has dropped way off, in fact I don’t know of any recently, there may have been, I haven’t heard of it, muslim attacks have not decreased at all, in fact they are increasing I would say.
Which brings me to a particular attack that occurred recently in Jerusalem. The was an attack against two Jewish kids in Jerusalem. In case you don’t know what a 2013 EASY attack looks like, here ya go.
A pack of Falestinians attack and the crowd grows ever bigger, even the “kids” get in on the fun. A game the whole family can play it seems.
In this particular attack, the victims were beaten. They reported it to the police, who opened an investigation and caught the “arab youths” or as we might call them, “thugs”. This column was from Arutz Sheva.
I found out later from another column that someone shared there is a bit more to it than that. They were forced to convert to Islam, to praise the terrorist organization Hamas, and curse the State of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And all the while it was being video taped. In addition to going to the police, they went to the legal organization Honenu. Forced conversion version 2018. Side note, this is no big deal as it’s been going on in Germany and America for awhile, just minus the beating part.
I would maintain the Haredi are easy targets. Their clothing sets them apart, and it’s well known that they have no military service, and so no self defense skills. Unless of course they are attacking a lone female IDF soldier who attempts to clear them out of the road when they are blocking traffic.
Why they didn’t do that when they were attacked by the arabs I don’t kno….yeah, I do.
They don’t know their enemy. Reminiscent of Moshe Feiglin asking a the Chief of Staff who the enemy was, Hamass or the tunnel and the the Chief of Staff couldn’t answer.
My answer of course is predictable. I think all the Israeli citizens, well, all citizens, need to be allowed to carry concealed. Moshe, of course agrees with me. From August 2016 Give the Good Guys Guns and from May 2014 Gun Control? Or Citizen Control? Some governments view us as the enemy. We are not. They don’t know who their enemy is. We are people that don’t wish to experience a modern day Sylvester night. The government and the liberal leftists with their paid bodyguards think normal little people, us unwashed masses are “dangerous”. I would ask why they think that? What is it they want to do that they think we will resist, and they want to remove the most effective means of resistance we have? The tools that make us dangerous. They haven’t yet figured out it’s what’s in our head, not our hand that makes people dangerous. Dangerous. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend not all that long ago. A person can be dangerous, and they can be good or evil. It’s not that fact that they are dangerous you need to fear. It’s whether they are good or evil. I want to be dangerous. I want to have the ability to protect myself and my family. I want to be dangerous, I have no intention of kneeling on the ground reciting islamic conversion sentences. I want to stand on my own two feet and scream Shema at them and have them run. His point was, we have to know who we are, and what we are. To me, being dangerous is an asset. I have no desire to huddle behind a flimsy door afraid to have a light on. I have no desire to see a modern day Sylvester night, no matter who is perpetrating it.
New year, new start. I will give you this by Rabbi Johnathan Sacks, Five Ideas for Life. We are all here for a purpose I believe. We all have something we were meant to accomplish. I believe we are happiest when we know what that is and we are fulfilling that purpose. We have to know ourselves. So my goal for this year is to become better at my purpose, for my soul to become closer to what G-d created it to be. I want to be a child that makes him smile as he thinks, ah, she is catching on. I want to be dangerous, and I want to lose that ten pounds.
And so to help you stay dangerous, I have a little goodie for you. Stephen Wenger who wrote DEFENSIVE USE OF FIREARMS is making the book available as a free download! This fantastic book is out of print, so this e-version is a great way to start your new year. Thank you Stephen for permission to share!
I wish you all the bright promise the new year can bring, with hope, happiness, dreams fulfilled and all the good things that matter to you. And may you all stay dangerous, because whether it is New Years Eve or Sylvester night, depends on us.
Now is the time to discuss gun control: Letter to the Editor
We need sensible gun legislation now. We need to ban military style assault rifles, bump stocks and high capacity magazines now, and then move on to pass legislation for universal background checks for all gun sales, which is supported by 90 percent of Americas.
But he’s confused as to what. Is it insanely expensive, highly regulated, taxed, and registered assault rifles of very limited quantities? Or is is nonexistent “military style assault weapons“? If the latter, can he inform of us of what country in the world generally issues semiautomatic rifles to its regular troops?
He tells us that that 90% of Americas [sic] want unconstitutional prior restraint of a constitutionally protected right through universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence — PPYI (“background checks,” is his term). Can he tell us in what state such PPYI was actually approved by 90% of the population when put to a vote? I can’t help but recall polls predicting Jeb Bush would win the Republican primary, Clinton would defeat Trump, Moore ahead of Jones, or… heck, everyone knows Dewey beat Truman.
Can he tell us how PPYI would have stopped the Mandalay Bay murderer, who passed such checks; the Sutherland Springs killer, who passed such checks because the Air Force never reported his involuntary committal or domestic violence conviction; or the Sandy Hook murderer who bypassed checks by murdering his mother and stealing her guns? Can he explain how prohibited persons can be required to self-report their unlawful attempt to obtain firearms, which would be in violation of the Supreme Court’s Haynes decision?
Since Bob Ault believes there is no need for civilians to have weapons such as that possessed by the Sutherland Springs killer, does he believe the man who stopped the killer with his own AR-pattern rifle should instead have let him go to keep killing?
Can Mr. Ault explain, should a ban on semiautomatic rifles be enacted, how he expects to identify gun owners when mere estimates of their numbers range from 55 to 120 million; or to find the rifles when estimates of firearms in civilian hands range from 265 to 750 million?
If Ault’s solution involves kicking in the doors of 125 million households to search them all — in case they’re heavily armed — will he personally volunteer his jackbooted services?
[An abbreviated form of this column was sent to Cleveland.com as a Letter to the Editor in response to Bob Ault’s letter. It was not printed.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
In recent years, victim disarmament advocates have been making more use of international firearms homicide rate comparisons. The United Kingdom used to be their go-to example, but that’s largely fallen by the wayside since, not only has its crime rate been growing as America’s has dropped, but they were outed for faking their low numbers.
These days, the line is, “The United States has the highest firearms murder rate of any developed nation,” along with assorted variations on the theme. Typically, they also throw in the fact that we have far more guns per person than any other country (I see that as a point of pride). When they want a specific example, they point to Australia and its post-Port Arthur confiscation and proclaim, “Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting since,” carefully ignoring at least four mass shootings (using the anti-rights Gun Violence Archive’s definition of 4+ people shot, not counting the shooter). And then there’s the low confiscation compliance rate which has caused them to hold multiple “amnesties.”
Now, it’s true that Australia’s firearm-related homicide rate is only 0.16/100K, compared to the United States at 3.60/100K. But we’re allegedly talking about developed nations.
The United States is ranked first in the world by Gross Domestic Product. Australia comes in at number 13. Australia’s GDP is roughly one-fifteenth of the United States, less than 7% of ours. Peaceful Sweden is another country that the gun people controllers like to point to, with its 0.19/100K firearm homicide rate. But we’re talking economics, too. Sweden’s GDP ranks 23rd, well behind even Australia, and is just one thirty-sixth that of the US.
Instead, let’s try a country quite close by which is closer to Australia’s GDP than Sweden’s.
Our southern neighbor Mexico ranks 15th, with a GDP 83% of Australia’s. For that matter, there’s Brazil in the #9 slot. If Sweden is economically developed surely Brazil counts. But the gun grabbers don’t like to talk about them for some reason.
Said reason being:
Firearms-related homicide rates per 100K
Australia (13)
0.16
Sweden (23)
0.19
United States (1)
3.60
Mexico (15)
6.34
Brazil (9)
19.99
At this, the controllers are screeching that GDP is meaningless, that GDP per capita is the indicator of development. Well, no; that’s more an indicator of average wealth than development. And by per capita GDP Mexico does trail the US’s #7 ranking at #70. I think that says more about wealth distribution than development.
With Chinese made goods filling most department stores, I think we can agree that China is an industrially developed nation. They are producing that stuff we’re importing.
So is Mexico. Let’s look at our imports from various countries. We get $14.3 billion worth of vehicles from China. But we get $75.2 billion worth of vehicles from Mexico. That’s more than than we import from Japan, Korea, Germany, or any other country.
For total imports, Mexico is our second largest provider, behind China and ahead of Canada.
Yes, they’re developed. And with 15 guns per 100 people they have a firearms homicide rate almost double that of the US with 101 guns per hundred people. Brazil, with a mere 8 guns per 100 people, still manages a firearms homicide rate 5.5 times ours.
If guns and gun ownership were the problem, the United States would have depopulated itself decades ago.
Louisiana ranks 13th in gun ownership, but #1 in murder rate. Maryland is 43rd in gun ownership, but #5 in murder rate. Baltimore alone has a murder rate of 55.4/100K (and note that Maryland has strong gun control laws).
It isn’t the guns or the honest owners.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
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