Category Archives: authoritarian swine

authoritarian swine, gun control, You can't fix stupid

Unintended Consequences

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The title has been used, but victim disarming wanna-be tyrants seem deadset on providing an endless stream of appropriate legislation. One of the most recent is this:

The alarming phenomena of homemade firearms and their ease of access without any scrutiny, has led me to introduce two pieces of legislation in the House – the Homemade Firearms Accountability Act and Home-Assembled Firearms Restriction Act. These two bills would mandate anyone who intends on legally manufacturing their own firearm to obtain a registered serial number to be affixed on the firearm and would block the sale of any form of do-it-yourself firearms parts or kits – especially those currently being sold over the internet. It is my hope to draw attention to the too often overlooked issue of homemade firearms and include these firearms in the national discussion on gun control. For once we may be able to have a proactive approach in protecting the American people from an emerging threat rather than retroactively lashing out after great damage and loss has already been done.
 – Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.)

Starting with HR 376: Home-Assembled Firearms Restriction Act, the PRK’s ill-informed, ethically-challenged congresscreep wants to ban gun kits for home use. But kit being tough to define when one is that box-of-rocks dumb, he bans basically anything that could possibly be used to contruct a semiautomatic firearm.

Like… steel pipe, sheet metal, blocks of metal, nails, springs, rivets, iron oxide and aluminum,and even plastic bags.

Looks like Home Depot is going out of business. And I guess we will see the return of paper grocery bags. Finally. (Luckily, Honda only obsessed over semiautos, or paper would be gone, too, as I’ve seen single use paper shotguns which were confiscated from prison inmates.)

As an aside, 376 also prohibits marketing or advertising castings and blanks. Gotcha covered, dimwit. (Amazon has pulled that listing, but expect more elsewhere.)

Next up is Honda’s HR 377: Homemade Firearms Accountability Act, stripped to basics, requires all ‘homemade’ firearms be registered and serial numbered. It’s a repeat of ‘Ghost Gun’ Honda’s HR 5606 from the last session.

On the one hand, it assumes that gangbangers and thugs, who have been assembling gadgets like these…

… for pretty much since the dawn of firearms, will suddenly exclaim, “Oh, darn! I need to run down to my local FFL and register my crude zip gun.” C.R.I.M.I.N.A.L.

On the other hand – and here’s where consequences raise their little heads – up to now, a home-built firearm, like an AR built from an 80% lower blank, could not be sold. No record, no serial number, no sale. Under GG’s bill, your handicraft project can be sold down the line, if you need the cash to build a better gun. You can’t go into the manufacturing business, sans FFL, but this moves your little science project into the ‘occasional personal sale from collection category. If anything, this will get more 3D printed and CNC milled goodies out into the wild.

On the amusing side, Honda is mandating the individual FFLs issue their own ‘unique’ serial numbers,without specifying a format that identifies a serial number set by FFL. Assuming this managed to get passed, some 50,000 FFLs could all uniquely (in their shop, anyway) SN 1, SN 2… SN 51998.

You could see a lot of homebrewed ARs with the identical serial number 666.

Perhaps Honda should have thought of opening up the ATF’smanufacturers’ registry to personal builders, so those numbers would be unique.

Not satisfied with banning virtually all metallic and plastic materials in the world, our deeply paranoid compulsive bill sponsor wants to ban body armor. HR 378: Responsible Body Armor Possession Act bans ‘enhanced body armor.’

WTF is ‘enhanced body armor,’ you ask? It is any “body armor, including a helmet or shield, the ballistic resistance of which meets or exceeds the ballistic performance of Type III armor”. Plain English: anything rated for rifle rounds. Since the vast majority of freelance criminals don’t bother with rifles (less than 2.5% of all firearm deaths, 2013 last year available), who is it that he wants to be sure can kill you?

Consequence of this one? A whole lot more citizen research into homemade ballistic plates. No doubt, the quivering mass of fear will sponsor yet another bill to ban that. (I should send him an email claiming that someone is 3D-printing armor.)

Honda is bound and determined to render you helpless, depriving you of active and passive defense. The real unintended consequence of these bills is that more and more people understand precisely that.

Added: Lest you think that the idea of common items getting caught up by Honda’s vague language, take a look across the pond in the UK.

Breaking: Policing and Crime Bill will criminalise possession of common tools
(a) the person has in his or her possession or under his or her control an article that is capable of being used (whether by itself or with other articles) to convert an imitation firearm into a firearm, and
(b) the person intends to use the article (whether by itself or with other articles) to convert an imitation firearm into a firearm.

Dremel, drill press, file…

Anyone believe the gun grabbers in DC are any smarter?

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on 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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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns, hoplophobia

Maryland’s Scary Black Gun Law: Back to the Drawing Board

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scary black gunsRemember when former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who during a Democratic debate (his pathetic campaign has thankfully and quietly faded into the annals of historical obscurity) got into a screeching argument with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton about who among them is the biggest enemy of American gun owners?

Remember how O’Malley and his gun-grabbing monkeys in the Maryland legislature rammed though the “Firearms Safety Act” assault weapons ban, which had nothing to do with actual safety?

That’s the one upheld by an activist judge last year, because she soiled her frilly, pink panties at the thought of scary, black guns being legal in the state, even though they were almost never used to commit crimes.

That judge has been issued a slap on the judicial nuggets by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Maryland’s assault weapons ban implicates its citizens’ core Second Amendment rights and must be reviewed under a more rigorous judicial standard than the one used by a judge who upheld the law’s constitutionality, a divided federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

[…]

The appeals court said Maryland’s law affects the constitutional right to possess firearms for self-defense and home protection by banning virtually an entire class of weapons commonly owned by law-abiding citizens. In 2012, the number of semi-automatic rifles manufactured and imported into the United States – and banned by the Maryland law – was more than double the number of Ford F-150 trucks sold, the appeals court said.

I want to stress that the court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of said law, but did say that the judge who issued the ruling on the Scary Black Guns ban issued a ruling that “conflicts sharply with rulings of other federal appellate courts.”

What? You mean to tell me that standards pulled randomly out of a petty statist Clinton appointee judge’s fourth point of contact, influenced by her own  prejudices without any knowledge about these guns, and armed with nothing but an uninformed opinion, don’t represent sufficient reason to deprive Americans of their rights?

You mean “Well, I think these guns are scary, so I’m upholding their ban” is not sufficient legal standing to shred the Constitution?

Look at my shocked face!

Of course the gun-grabbing authoritarians in Maryland aren’t done yet. There’s a chance they will appeal this case to the Supreme Court. There’s no length to which they will not go to infringe on the People’s right to keep and bear arms!

But for now, at the very least, we have a ruling that recognizes that bigotry and ignorance are not standards by which the constitutionality of a law should be judged.

The entire decision is here (h/t This Ain’t Hell) if you want to read it.

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authoritarian swine, gun control

It isn’t the gun people’s loophole

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The “gun show loophole.” You’ve heard about it over and over and over and…

If you’re a gun guy, you get annoyed and explain that there is no such thing as a “gun show loophole” that lets unlicensed dealers sell guns at shows without background checks. After all, 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A) says that anyone engaged in the business of selling guns must be licensed (and thus must run background checks). It doesn’t matter whether that FFL sold the gun in his store, at a gun show, online, or in a back alley at midnight.

So… No loophole, right? The victim disarmers are simply lying to confuse the ignorant about occasional private sellers and dealers. Yes, but…

There is a loophole. But it’s the government’s loophole. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(21) defines “engaged in the business”: a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms;

If you’re making repetitive sales to make money, you’re a dealer and must get a license no matter where you conduct your business. Occasional sales, liquidation of a personal collection, maintaing and tuning a hobbyist’s collection… none of that requires an FFL because you clearly aren’t a dealer.

Where’s the “loophole” that lets a dealer skip background checks?

In the 1990s Prez Billy Jeff Clinton decided there were too many Federal Firearms Licensees. In short, a bunch of folks who would normally be considered hobbyists or collectors had gotten FFLs so that if the occasion arose, they could make a little profit, and because it made interstate shipping easier. Note that they still had to do all the record-keeping, reporting, and checking as any FFL with a store on main street.

But Cigar-Boy and the ATF didn’t like that situation: 250,000 FFLs meant it was convenient (and competitive) for honest people to lawfully purchase arms. So they changed the definition of “engaged in the business” to “engaged in enough business, and in the right places.”

Worked out of your home? Scratch that FFL. The ATF began coordinating with local zoning authorities and you had to prove your home was zoned (or a variance granted) for a business, even if you only did business at gun shows.

Didn’t sell enough guns in a year to make a profit? You’re just a lowly collector, not really in the business. There’s goes another FFL.

And that’s when the ATF started with the insane form 4473 enforcement: wrong color pen used to fill it out? Lose your license. Customer wrote “Y” instead of “Yes”? Lose your license. Bound book got updated the next morning rather than at closing in the evening? Yep, another FFL bites the dust.

We went from roughly 250,000 FFLs in the 1990s to approximately 50,000 today.

FFL-chart

But let’s say you got a zoning variance for your home business. You do a lot of business; in fact, you make a decent fortune every year selling guns at shows across the midwest. Your paperwork is perfect. You won’t even release a firearm after the three-day background check hold if you don’t hear back positively. Sure was a good thing you got that FFL, eh?

Nope. Because you got trapped by the ATF’s loophole.

ATFform7-Gun-Show-Loophole

Yes, take a look at item 18a on the ATF form 7. Despite doing business, the ATF will not issue you a license. They pulled out of their asses invented a new condition not in law: a physical store front.

Gun shows don’t count. Except when they do, when people whom the ATF told weren’t really dealers got busted anyway. For doing what the ATF said was okay.

The Gun Show Loophole: ATF: “You’re a dealer any time we need some publicity and arrests for promotion points.”
Now, after decades of the Clinton rules on dealers, President TelePrompter says he’s going to make those terrible “gun show dealers” get FFLs so they have to run background checks. I hope he remembers to tell the ATF to take that restriction off of 18a, and start accepting those applications.

If so, I’ll think about getting a license myself. I’ve run across some particularly good deals on guns that I could have turned around for a profit. It might be nice to be able to take advantage of that without the ATF busting me. History suggests that 200,000 other people would also consider it.

Somehow, when if the number of FFLs increases five-fold, I don’t think the extra 230 NICS workers are going to be sufficient.

FBI background checks Dec 2015_0

A five-fold FFL increase probably won’t translate into a five-fold NICS traffic increase, but somehow I don’t think they be able to keep up. (Something to bear in mind when you hear about bills to increase the NICS-delay time to 25 days and beyond.)

In fact, I don’t think the ATF will issue those licenses. Instead of letting people operate legally as they wished to do, it’s far more likely that they’ll crack down further on the honest folks they’ve been denying FFLs. That’s why Barrycade is authorizing an additional 200 ATF goons, instead of clerks to process applications.

Obama’s self-admitted goal is not to get more dealers licensed and into compliance. Clerks would do that. He’s just looking to crack down on honest sales.

“It’s a little bit harder to get a gun.”
[…]
“It may be a little more diffult and a little more expensive. And the laws of supply and demand mean that if something’s harder to get and a little more expensive to get then fewer people get them.”

Barry, allowing me to introduce you to another little economic tidbit:

The black market
When he makes transactions difficult and expensive, he makes the black market cost effective. It worked for the War On (Some) Drugs. Fortunately for honest people who want defensive tools, the black market for firearms is already well established.

Now there’s a loophole.

“Smitty,what do you think of these trick rules the new Head has thought up? Should we knuckle under, or make a squawk”?

“Squawk? What for?” Smythe gathered up his tools. “There’s a brand-new business opportunity in each one, if you only had the wit to see it. When in doubt, come see Smythe — special services at all hours.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Red Planet

If he’s crazy enough to reverse the Clinton rules, we can make him look darned silly. Not just salesman of the year, but FFL recruiter of the century.

Sadly, he won’t. That’s talk. The real clue is: 200 new agents, not 200 clerks.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, guns

Well, bye!

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Has anyone ever seen any problem at a gun show that required a mass police presence? Me neither. There have been a few accidents here and there, but nothing criminal that required an armed police response in recent memory.

That’s why a Pennsylvania Mayor’s hilariously impotent temper tantrum in response to an upcoming NRA-sponsored gun show’s refusal to fork over a 60 percent increase extortion in fees to hold the show in Harrisburg is so perplexing. Specifically, Mayor Eric Papenfuse is refusing to provide police security for the show.

Harrisburg police have provided security for the annual Great American Outdoors Show, scheduled this year for February 6-14, in the past. Mayor Eric Papenfuse said that the decision not to offer the department’s services this year was motivated in part by the NRA’s opposition to the city’s gun control policies.

“We have an epidemic of gun violence,” Papenfuse told WHTM. “It’s no secret that the NRA has worked against the city’s interests repeatedly over the past year causing us to spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend common sense gun ordinances. We don’t need to be doing them any favors.”

The NRA has already been paying Harrisburg $600,000, but Papenfuse wanted more ostensibly to provide police protection for the gun show. Police protection from what? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s probably Papenfuse’s passive/aggressive effort to close down the gun show by refusing to offer armed security. As if anyone really cares…

This is equally hysterical coming from a guy who in December 2012 pled guilty to exceeding the speed limit by 15 mph in a 25 mph zone – probably a residential one.

MDJCourtSummaryReport

Hey, Eric! Did you know that nearly 34,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2014? That makes your speeding through what was probably a residential neighborhood much more dangerous than the gun shows with their handful of 2014 accidents! It also makes your histrionic claim about children’s safety just a bit disingenuous, don’t you think?

Ooops!

In any case, I doubt that police presence at the gun show in Harrisburg will be needed.

Nice try, dimwit.

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authoritarian swine, gun control

About those “Executive Orders”: What really changed

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Despite all the talking heads babbling about executive orders on “gun control,” there aren’t any. In fact, all I can find are a new FFL guidance pamphlet from the ATF, two versions of a “white paper,” officially “Presidential Memoranda,” and a Health and Human Services proposed rule change.

So what changes happened, or are going to happen?

Defining “dealer”: The ATF pamphlet, DO I NEED A LICENSE TO BUY AND SELL FIREARMS?, is getting nearly all the attention, with ignorant commentators claiming the “gun show loophole” is closed and dealers will have to get licenses. In fact, many people including myself expected that Obama would attempt to redefine “dealer.” According to the ATF publication, nothing changed.

18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A), 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(21)(C), and 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(22) already defined “dealer” (the key phrases are “predominantly one of obtaining livelihood and pecuniary gain” and “regular and repetitive purchase and disposition”). The ATF “guidance” merely reiterates that.

What to expect: Nothing. Sort of. Keep reading.

Investigations: “ATF has established an Internet Investigations Center (IIC) staffed with federal agents, legal counsel, and investigators to track illegal online firearms trafficking and to provide actionable intelligence to agents in the field.”

What to expect: Look for a lot more gun show stings. The ATF will be busting people for “dealing” even when they know the person is not legally required to be licensed. They don’t plan to win in court; they plan to destroy people through horrific legal expenses incurred fighting malicious prosecution. That’s why Barrycade is looking for an additional 200 ATF kitten-stompers.

Trusts: Rule-changes in progress to clarify that using a firearms trust doesn’t dodge “prohibited persons” restrictions. So far as law goes, this may even be a good thing in that the ATF has been selectively applying that at whim, sometimes revoking trusts retroactively. On the other hand, the ATF lives on whim, and this probably won’t really help.

What to expect: Continued confusion, and delays in establishing firearms trusts. Lawyers will be happy with their new Lexuses and Beemers.

Firearms Loss Reporting: To hear plastic-haired TV heads tell it, there’s a new requirement for FFLs to report lost or stolen firearms. No such thing; the reporting requirement has been there for years (not even counting simply recording inventory in the bound book). Supposedly this change clarifies that the licensee shipping the gun has the responsibility to report the loss. That’s no change, because the firearm is never in the inventory of the recipient until he receives it. The FFL in whose inventory the firearm is has always been responsible.

What to expect: Not much. FFLs with inventory responsibility already had a vested interest in knowing where their guns went.

Prohibited persons: This is a nasty one. Per the white paper: “Current law prohibits individuals from buying a gun if, because of a mental health issue, they are either a danger to themselves or others or are unable to manage their own affairs. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has indicated that it will begin the rule-making process to ensure that appropriate information in its records is reported to NICS.”

Current law prohibits persons from buying a gun if adjudicated a danger to themselves or others. Not because some SSA bureaucrat said so, due to someone having physical issues that make managing financial affairs difficult.

What to expect: Loss of rights by a large class of people. Cheering by idiots.

HIPAA & More Prohibited Persons: The HHS rule-change proposal is especially dangerous; probably the worst of all these actions. Currently, HIPAA forbids most disclosures by HIPAA-covered entities (doctors, nurses, insurance companies, hospital, etc) of patient data. There are large LEO loopholes, of course. The rule-change would eliminate much of the privacy protection and allow any HIPAA-covered entity to report directly to NICS and condition believed to be disqualifying. They could report adjudicated findings of mental incompetence. But they could also report suspected drug abuse, suspect domestic violence, and suspected any other disqualifying condition. Without proof, without adjudication, without any due process conditions.

What to expect: You told your doctor you’ve been feeling depressed? He may pick up the phone when you leave and abrogate your rights, without you knowing until you buy a .22 plinker for Junior. Of course, a prohibited person attempting to purchase a firearm is a felony… too bad.

Now imagine that your doctor is a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the AMA’s war on RKBA, and wants an excuse to disarm all his patients.

NICS: Throwing more money at NICS, supposedly hiring more people to man the phones, and extending working hours 24/7. Wonderful; more bureaucrats. If you are dependent on background checks, this –theoretically — is a good thing; FFLs would appreciate decreased phone-wait times.

What to expect: Hopefully, shorter wait times. We’ll need that with the brand new surge in sales triggered by the Salesman-In-Chief.

Smart Guns: Oh dear Bog… President Unicorn Dreams will direct the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to research, develop, and promote the use of smart guns. I can save them plenty of time and research bucks right now: Replace all firearms held by all three department with Armatix iP1s. There. Done. And all the anti-war, anti-police, anti-rights protesters are happy.

What to expect: Lucrative R&D contracts, but no workable solutions until technology in general advances greatly.

Summary: Essentially, all the rhetoric comes down to this: A bunch of claims that they’re cracking down on “gun violence” while doing almost nothing new, but setting the ATF loose to conduct more more questionable operations. But hidden in the bureaucratic rule-making is the plan to let any health professional render nearly anyone a prohibited person by slandering them as “crazy.”

No.

Your move.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns

Just follow the money

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I wrote recently about Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s unilateral move to ban reciprocity. Virginia, according to Herring’s diktat, will no longer recognize concealed carry permits from 25 other states.

The reaction from pro-rights advocates has been vicious, and in retaliation, the Virginia GOP has moved to defund Terry McAwful’s executive protection unit. Virginia state senator Bill Carrico proposed a budget amendment that could strip the anti-gun McAwful, who apparently has no problem working to disarm the very people who are the source of his power, and who has no problem using those same taxpayers’ money to protect his own worthless hide, of his protective detail. “If he’s so afraid of guns,”Carrico said, “then I’m not going to surround him with armed state policemen.”

However, it is instructive to see to whom McAwful and Herring are truly beholden, and John Richardson at No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money did just that.

Would it surprise anyone to know that both McAwful and Herring are beholden in no small part to former New York mayor and statist imbecile Michael Bloomberg? I didn’t think so.

Lo and behold the top donor to his campaign for Attorney General was none other than Independence USA PAC. They gave $1,292,417 of in-kind donations to his campaign. The money went for media production and advertising buys. To put this into perspective, the next two highest donors gave approximately half this amount each. The only candidate to get more money from that PAC was Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA).

Bloomberg-2-777x437And would it surprise anyone to know that Independence USA PAC is Bloomberg’s personal vendetta against our Second Amendment rights, and is dedicated to helping to elect candidates who support stricter gun-control laws? It was founded in October 2012 by Michael Bloomberg, and, so far, has been entirely funded by the former New York City mayor, according to FactCheck.org.

When your politicians are paid for by nosy, authoritarian, meddling nanny statists this is what you can expect. Bloomberg bought himself Virginia’s governor and attorney general. Now all he needs to do is say the word, and they will bend over.

Meanwhile, criminals will continue to carry Glocks in their sagging pants, while law-abiding citizens from out of state will simply switch to open carry, as is legal all over the Commonwealth.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns

Well, we could have had Mark Obenshain…

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Mark Obenshain ran for Virginia’s Attorney General in 2013 and lost by a tiny, slim margin to a leftist, anti-Second Amendment authoritarian tool named Mark Herring, because apparently Virginia’s voters were somehow scared that their lady parts would be under the control of the EEEEVILLLL Republicans.

I know Obenshain personally, and he’s a solid pro-gun politician and a decent guy. Herring, on the other hand, is a statist nutbag who hasn’t met an anti-gun regulation he didn’t like. It is under his and Terry McAuliffe’s reign (Thanks, Trump, you buffoon, for giving thousands to elect that Clinton crony in my state!) that Virginia will no longer honor concealed carry permits from 25 other states.

Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) announced Tuesday that Virginia will no longer recognize concealed carry handgun permits from 25 states that have reciprocity agreements with the commonwealth.

Under the policy, Virginians with a history of stalking, drug dealing or inpatient mental-health treatment cannot obtain a permit in a state with comparatively lax laws and carry a handgun legally at home.

Herring said severing the out-of-state agreements can prevent people who may be dangerous or irresponsible from carrying a concealed handgun.

Note the severe amount of stupid in that last statement. Herring actually thinks (if it can be called that) criminals who don’t obey laws in other states will miraculously obey Virginia’s.

Thanks a lot, vagina voters! You’ve given us authoritarian swine, for whom this is likely only the beginning! If they have their way, Virginia will soon be getting an “A” from the Brady Center, and you will be defending your giblets from armed thug invasion using only a spork and a cell phone.

I guess out-of-staters will simply open carry, as is legal all over the state.

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authoritarian swine, gun control

Precedent

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FAA Finally Admits Names And Home Addresses In Drone Registry Will Be Publicly Available
The FAA finally confirmed this afternoon that model aircraft registrants’ names and home addresses will be public. In an email message, the FAA stated: “Until the drone registry system is modified, the FAA will not release names and address. When the drone registry system is modified to permit public searches of registration numbers, names and addresses will be revealed through those searches.”

“Wait, what’s that got to do with RKBA, or Jews, or whatever?” I pretend to hear you mutter.

Let’s take it a step at a time. The Federal Aviation Administration, in response to a few incidents involving RC drones near aircraft — none of which caused deaths, injuries, nor even an aircraft crash — issued a new, retroactive rule requiring a national registration database of nearly all drone owners. [ding]

Lacking new legislation to authorize this, the FAA simply, and arbitrarily, redefined toys to be aircraft requiring registration. [ding ding]

Despite telling prospectively compliant drone owners that their personal data (name, address) would be kept private, in fact, they plan a publicly searchable database. [ding ding ding]

“So what?” you might wonder. Hopefully not though, since I’d expect regular TZP visitors to be ahead of me here.

President Barrycade has stated his intent to issue executive orders to implement gun control, since he lacks legislation to do so.

Reportedly, one element of this will be to — again, lacking new enabling legislation — simply redefine occasional sellers as “dealers”. Bound books, 4473s, NICS checks, ATF inspections, and all. [ding]

Hey, it worked for the FAA, and they don’t even have an executive order. [ding ding]

The ATF already has their searchable FFL database. [ding ding ding]

Since Obama and other blood-dancers have stated publicly that they wish to crack down on private sales, it seems safe to assume this will be in one EO or another. But what if he emulates the FAA a little more closely?

Imagine “redefining” all firearms as NFA items. Just like toys became airplanes. Or how atmospheric plant food became a pollutant.

Or how a shoe string became an NFA machine gun.

Registration. Permission slips. Inspections. And maybe that database would become publicly searchable, too. Oh, well; for once we might be glad of ATF incompetence.

There is precedent for registering undesirables.

Fortunately, there’s an easy answer to any such moves.

No.

Your move.

Backing up those brave words might be a little harder, but let me leave you with two quotes.

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

The sheer immorality of victim disarmament aside, one would hope every government thug out there would stop to consider all the possible ramifications of kicking in several million doors because the occupants are well armed.
– Carl Bussjaeger

When the law is twisted by arbitrary, unilateral redefinitions, there is no law to break.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, hoplophobia, Politics

Executive Orders, Watchlists, and Rights Violations — Oh My!

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So in the wake of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Obama’s curiously limp Oval Office speech, the latest call — by everyone from (pardon me while I laugh) “conservative” Donald Trump to “progressive” Big O himself — is to deny gun rights to anyone on the no-fly list.

Or is it the terrorist watch list? Even the politicians screeching most stridently in favor of this latest political fad don’t seem to have any idea that the no-fly list and the terrorist watch list are two different things.

Two very similar things, granted. Two lists created arbitrarily out of the fears and fantasies of bureaucrats. Two lists filled with flawed, incomplete, and often irrational data. Two lists that often produce laughably awful injustices.* Two lists it’s nearly impossible to get removed from. Two lists that are maintained in undemocratic secrecy. Two lists that are worlds removed from the due process protections of the Bill of Rights.

But different. Really.

One state governor — unsurprisingly it’s Dannel Malloy of Connecticut — has even vowed to issue an executive order ensuring that none of those pesky terrorists in his state can buy guns. Which list of terrorists he plans to use remains muddled.

Malloy is, of course, not the only one promising to sling orders about. Valerie Jarrett reports that Obama is finalizing his long-awaited executive order on guns. That should be exciting. And ineffective.

Because that’s the thing

All these faddish measures won’t work. You know that. But it’s the ways in which they won’t work that are fascinating.

They won’t work to prevent terrorist attacks of course. (The San Bernardino murderers weren’t on these lists, and the female of the pair had even been vetted and passed by immigration officials despite the fact that she and her future hubby were already merrily chatting away about jihad and mayhem before the fedgov welcomed her to the USA.) But they also won’t work for their real purpose, which is to keep us from buying guns.

AND — most telling of all, I think — they won’t even work for their political/PR purpose, which is to display the peacock feathers or sound the rooster crows of politicians.

Other than a few diehard fanbois and grrls is anybody — anybody? — the least bit impressed with Obama or Malloy? In your wanderings about town (or about the Internet) do you hear anybody saying, “Yeah, boy, they’re really gonna stop those dirty, rotten gun owning terrorists now?” or do you hear gun owners lamenting, “Oh no, this time my guns and I are really done for! I’m so scared!”

Riiiight.

Sure, all this order-slinging is anti-constitutional, dictatorial, and in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the Bill of Rights. Sure, arbitrarily putting people on government lists to be punished is creepy. Sure, using those lists to deny basic rights is everything bad you might ever want to say about it. And potentially dangerous.

If politicians get away with this, it will inspire them to treat us even more ill. Conceivably, there would be very little, at some future moment, to stop an anti-gun politician or bureaucrat from data-dumping the whole U.S. census into some list and declare in the fashion of the Soup Nazi, “No rights for you!”

All true. And effectively already in process.

But they’re only doing it because they’ve already lost. Not only lost the gun-rights battle (because, if nothing else, 3D printers are about to nullify every gun law on the planet). But because they’ve lost us. Our respect. Their credibility. Our belief that governments “represent” us or even can represent us. Their power to control us. This is increasingly true on both right and left. It’s been true in the libertarian center for decades.

We are watching not political peacocks displaying their grand feathers or roosters strutting about the chicken yard. We are watching political fish flopping about on a dock, hooks in their mouths, eyes wide with panic.

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* Although it’s sadly not true that 72 employees of the Department of (Achtung!) Homeland Security are on the lists. Because surely thousands of these agents are a greater danger to both our liberty and our security than many of the people who actually are on the lists.

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Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on 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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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, So Much Stupid!, You can't fix stupid

NYT uses front page to spout inanities

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Okay, it’s not exactly news that the New York Times spouts nonsense, especially when it comes to guns and gun rights. But when the senile old hag venerable Gray Lady prints an editorial on its front page for the first time in 95 years — and that editorial (obviously sparked by this week’s jihadi-team murders in California) is 100% dedicated to spewing obvious silliness on guns — it’s worthy of note.

TZPNYTFrontPageEditorial_121415

Here are a few selected gems from the editorial:

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.

Yes, confusing plain old semi-auto with full-auto again just based on the scary appearance of the rifles shown in media photos.

No mention of the emerging information that the murdering jihadis in San Bernardino may have broken the law both attempting to modify their weapons and, of course, in going out and slaughtering people. As if they’d ever care what “civilians” are legally allowed or not allowed to do.

So what do you want, NYT? Another ugly-gun ban like the one we already had for 10 years, which didn’t accomplish one thing except to create new criminals out of the formerly law abiding?

Well, yes, that appears to be precisely what the NYT wants, because they then go on to say (emphasis mine):

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not.

“At least those countries are trying.” So let me get this straight. As long as you make a really sincere try at things that deprive people of freedom while doing absolutely zero, nothing, nada, zip, bupkis to protect lives … it’s okeydokey. It’s good.

Take even more freedom. Leave people vulnerable to even more death. It’s all to the good as long as you do something.

The shrieking old bat Gray Lady continues:

It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

As usual no plan is outlined for drastically reducing numbers and eliminating large categories.

That this is a) impossible and b) would require stormtroopers bearing large numbers of those very categories of scary weapons (even for a vain attempt) is a fact too untidy for the front page of the New York Times. So no, let us delicately sidestep any actual thinking about any actual plan for “reducing” and “eliminating.” We don’t want to consider what would actually end up being reduced and eliminated, now do we?

But not to worry! Because you see, no untidiness would be required:

It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

Yes, despite the fact that the censorious, dried-up old biddy Gray Lady opens and closes her editorial by implying that Americans who support gun rights and own ugly guns are “indecent,” we nasty folk would simply turn over our weapons for the good of humanity.

I can envision us now, patiently lined up outside our local police stations or firearm melting centers by the thousands, little American flags waving from the barrels of our Evil Black Rifles, patriotic gleams in our eyes as we wait to surrender these indecent, macho, insurrectionist arms for destruction.

TZP_Poster-The-German-Student-Fights-for-the-Fuhrer-and-the-People

Yes, there we are, converted into Times believers simply by passage of yet another law. Because of course this law, unlike all other laws the world has ever known, has shown us in a “clear and effective” way the evil that we have been harboring in our gun cabinets and in our hearts. So we have repented and with the fervor of new converts are delighting in “giving up” all that the Times dictates we should give.

And a new day dawns in which nobody — nobody! — ever again commits mass violence because the tools to do so have been made clearly and effectively illegal!

Hooray and hallelujah for our glowing future! The sun will shine upon us forever, its pure radiance never again dimmed by the blood of innocents. Our Glorious Leaders will protect us with their Great Wisdom. And we are proud — proud! — to surrender our evil, knowing we will forever be protected and kindly led by those Above Us.

TZP_Stalinist-youth

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It must be so, right? Because the NYT thought their words were brilliant enough, original enough, revelatory enough, and necessary enough to write a front-page editorial for the first time since 1920. Surely they wouldn’t have resorted to such drama merely to spout cliched and bloody nonsense.

(H/T Jim Bovard for the inspiration)

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