Tag Archives: PPYI

[UPDATE 2] Laugh of the Day: Andrea Chamblee

See updates below. This is  getting serious.


Maybe even the week. We’ll see.

Andrea Chamblee wants her some gun control, and she ‘s mad that State Sen. Bobby Zirkin “slow-walked” a universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence bill. But the funny part is why she wanted that passed.

…the bill that would make it illegal for already disqualified people to obtain rifles and shotguns at gun shows and other transfers. (emphasis added)

She thinks it’s legal for prohibited persons (“disqualified people”) to obtain rifles and shotguns.

So I tweeted to her that it’s been unlawful for prohibited persons to obtain firearms for decades Try to keep up. And that’s where it started getting funny.

From the NRA website:
“Maryland does NOT regulate the sale of rifles or shotguns and no permit is required to purchase a rifle or shotgun that is not an “assault weapon.” Nov 12, 2014
Keep up. Dumazz? Liar? Both!

Yes, in a discussion of prohibited persons, she’s citing the VNRA on Maryland state laws on long gun regulation. I cited 18 U.S. Code § 922(g), Gun Control Act of 1968. And laughed at her carefully considered and mature use of language.

Her response:

So the NRA webpage is lying? Whine to Putin.
Ok, Boomer?

-face palm- She still doesn’t grasp that she’s looking at the wrong reference. And I’ve got no clue what Putin has to do with this. Maybe she thinks 18 U.S. Code § 922 is a Russian law. Does that “§” look Cyrillic to you?

The “OK, Boomer” is great. That’s the first time anyone has pulled that on me. And this time seems a little… odd.

Unless she’s led a particularly hard life, I’d say she could easily be older than I. Somehow, I thought I’d first hear it from a Millennial or whatever they’re tagging younger folks as.

If Andrea wants to be a gun control activist, she really should learn something about gun control. I referred her to our Gun Culture Primer.

I needed those laughs. Gun People controlling victim disarmers aren’t usually so entertaining in their ignorance.


UPDATE: Holy Moley. Andrea Chamblee thinks MD Crim Law Code § 5-622(b) & 18 U.S. Code § 922(g) are a Russian conspiracy pushed by Putin, and that it’s actually lawful to sell rifles & shotguns to prohibited persons.

Is that really her, and she’s that fugbuck nuts? Or has someone hacked her Twitter account?

You know it’s legal to sell it to him. You’re just spreading Russian propaganda on behalf of Putin. Putin has figured out how to murder Americans. He just has other Americans do it. Other Americans who spread hate and conspiracy theories like you

If that’s Chamblee, and not some prankster trying to make her look bad, she’s in need of some serious professional help.


UPDATE 2: I’m heartbroken. </sarc>

I guess that was the real Chamblee. Hopefully someone will get her some help.

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Background Checks for Murder

I had to read this a couple of times to be sure I saw what I thought I saw. But…

Ohio Researchers Say Mental Health Care Alone Won’t Cure Gun Violence
“Obviously, if somebody, like in Sandy Hook, goes into an elementary school and kills 25 first graders the person is insane,” he states. “But the question still is, how are they able to get the guns, and if we could do a better job of background checks and so forth, maybe some of that could be avoided.”

We know exactly how the Sandy Hook chumbucket got the guns. He killed his mother in her bed, and took her guns. Background checks would…

Dear freaking Ghu, Wickizer is advocating for background checks for clearance to commit murder.

OK, claims that background checks would have prevented that massacre are  hardly new, but this “professor” has had several years now to learn some bloody facts before spouting off “professionally.” I’m not even going to bother fisking his “research” paper because it’s already clear it’s not fact-based.

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Rorschach Research Associates

The news today is full of the latest poll alleging massive support for an “assault weapon” ban, universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks, and more human/civil rights violations. The numbers claimed were so outrageous I was sure it would prove to be another Quinnipiac poll.

But not this this time; it was conducted by Langer Research Associates, an outfit of whom I’ve never heard before.

I had some time to kill, so I took a look at the poll data. This was a “nationwide” telephone survey of 1,003 people, supposedly randomly dialed. There is no further information on methodology. But given the questions they asked, no methodology was going to save them.

16. Would you support or oppose a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons?

They failed to define “assault weapon,” a term with different meanings in a few jurisdictions and none in most. Therefore the question has zero meaning, or a wildly variable meaning in the mind of each individual respondent.

Did they mean an “assault weapon” as defined by the 1994 federal law? A Massachusetts assault weapon whose definition was based on the ’94 federal law until it was bureaucratically expanded? The NY definition which encompasses both more and less? The CA definition which covers even more, while missing things covered by the others? Respondents were left to their own imagination.

17. Would you support or oppose [ITEM]?

a. requiring background checks on all potential gun buyers, including private sales and gun shows

All retail sales require background checks already. It’s already unlawful to knowingly transfer a firearm to a prohibited person. The question should mention costs, too. It should note that nearly all firearms used in crimes are obtained unlawfully, bypassing any required checks.

b. a nationwide ban on high capacity ammunition clips, meaning those containing more than 10 bullets

“Clips” are devices used to load magazines, and hold cartridges, not just bullets. The most common clips already hold 10 or fewer cartridges.

c. a law allowing the police to take guns away from people who have been found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others

Such laws already exist. Their summary refers to “red flag” laws, so for the question to have meaning, they must specify that the order would be ex parte and the subject would not have the chance to speak in his defense and that the accuser need provide no evidence (if there were evidence, a regular arrest warrant could be issued).

d. a mandatory buy back program in which the federal government would require assault weapon owners to turn in those weapons in exchange for payment

Again, “assault weapon” must be defined, and the payment specified. For instance, New Zealand’s new ban specifies a maximum payment below market value, which may be part of why compliance is running below 10% (and dropping with each “buyback” event).

18. Who do you trust more to handle gun laws in this country – (Trump) or (the Democrats in Congress)?

That question is so biased that, if I had been polled, I would have hung up on the idiots. It presupposes that more gun laws are desirable. It frames the debate as an individual vs. a Dem majority. (Incidentally, Trump has implemented more new firearm restrictions in this year, than the Democrats have managed in the past twelve years.)

19. How confident are you that [ITEM] would reduce mass shootings in this country – very confident, somewhat confident, not so confident or not confident at all?

You failed to define “mass shooting.” The GVA definition, which includes people not shot? The CRS/FBI definition which excludes gangbangers shooting it out over turf and revenge? Meaningless question.

21. Do you or does anyone in your house own a gun, or not?

I’ve always found that question amusing. Imagine answering your own phone one day and hearing, “Hi! I’m a stranger randomly dialing numbers, so I don’t really know where you live. Will you tell me if you have valuable merchandise that’s easily stolen?”

It gets even better when you toss that question in with the suggestion of confiscation.

All in all, the clowns didn’t find “support” for anything specific. They conducted a verbal Rorschach test of “support” for whatever was in the mind of each individual. They might as well have asked, “Do you support or oppose color?” And left it to each person to guess if they meant color vs. B&W imagery, people of color, or red vs. blue.

I’d like to see more detail on the methodology. Did they ask the questions of whomever answered the phone, or ask for youngest likely voter? Someone else? What regions did they poll, and how did they weight responses? It doesn’t much matter, given the questions, but I’d like to further ridicule them.

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FakeCheck.org

I hate it when FactCheck.org shows up in my news searches. Because this is fairly typical of the lying SOBs.

A False Claim About H.R. 8 and a ‘Firearms Registry’
A viral meme falsely accuses five House Republicans of voting with Democrats to create a “firearms registry.” The bill in question specifically prohibits “the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a national firearms registry.”

The headline is certainly right: Angelo Fichera is making a false claim. A classic strawman argument. I’m not aware of anyone claiming that HR 8 would create a firearms registry. We correctly note that it would enable the creation of such.

For Angelo and his fellow short-bus riders, I’ll explain.

HR 8 would expand preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI) checks to virtually all firearms transactions. It does that by requiring private parties go to a federally licensed dealer (FFL) so that the dealer can process the transaction in exactly the same way that his own transactions are done: boundbook entry, 4473, NICS, fees.

The 4473 is the potential problem, because it’s forever. Even when and if an FFL goes out of business, the stack of 4473s goes to the ATF to be filed.

Fichera knows that, but blows it off, because everyone knows the ATF is forbidden to enter those into a searchable database. Of course, that law got passed specifically because the ATF was caught doing exactly that. And they still do mass photocopying of 4473s during license inspections.

Let’s pretend that HR 8 passes the Senate, too, and Trump signs it. As a result, Trump properly loses the 2020 election to a Democrat who will stab us in the chest, not the back. So at least we can see “them” coming and dodge.

Then they pass another bill repealing the databasing restriction. The ATF issues a Request for Purchase for several thousand document scanners with character recognition, along with thousand of temp hires to hit every FFL in the country for copies of those conveniently collected 4473.

Database.

We had a Dem presidential candidate designated gun control stalking horse, whose main campaign promise was to confiscate every semi-auto firearm in civiilan hands. To do that, the government needs to know who has what and where. If they didn’t know that before, they’ve surely learned from New Zealand’s embarrassing ban attempt.

Universal PPYI, with 4473s is the perfect setup. And the government is well aware of it. Since NICS began, pro-rights people have advocated different systems that would allow background checks, while preventing the creation of a permanent record subject to ATF collection. BIDS: Blind Identification Database System is one of the better suggestions (assuming our rights are going to be violated at all). BIDS still has weaknesses, but those can be fixed.

Legislators and bureaucrats have actively resisted all attempts at switching to a recordless system. Go ahead; tell me I’m paranoid for thinking they want those permanent records.

I wonder how Fichera would like his favored right — the First Amendment — regulated in the same way.

Imagine some congresscritter doesn’t like being ridiculed, and files a bill “prevent verbal violence” by requiring everyone who purchases a computer or smart phone to pass a background check. The transaction would be logged on an FCC form 7734, and will include things like purchaser’s race, and the device’s serial number and MAC. Bill makes it into law, because only someone who wants to verbally abuse children could object.

Then someone else insults Rep. Wilson‘s intelligence (properly, the lack thereof). So she files a bill to collate those 7734s into a searchable database; all the better to track down that mean person.

No doubt Mr. Fichera will be just fine with preemptively proving his own innocence before exercising his First Amendment rights online, and being forced to pay for it. Of course, if he smokes marijuana, or has a felony conviction, or even some misdemeanors, he won’t be allowed to buy that phone. And if he has one, someone may “red flag” him because maybe he’ll slander someone or write a article based on his own… li… oh. Wait.

No First Amendment for Fichera.

Of course, once the Dems are on a roll, they could ban high capacity batteries because no one needs to talk for more than half an hour. And there would be an 8 day cooling off period before you could take possession of your phone or computer, lest some hack writer draft an ill-conceived strawman column on the spur of the moment. Writer licensing (that’s been proposed before).

How about safe storage laws for computers and phones so little children can’t get their hands on them and hook up with an Internet predator? And that’s all the more reason to register devices and owners, right? S0 you can use the MAC to track pedophiles… or annoying journalists who insist on covering embarrassing government screwups.

Heck, maybe they’d even ban those fully automated smart phones suitable only for military communications. Or swapping kiddie porn. Do that for the children.

That, FactCheck and Fichera, is why we object to “universal background checks.” It would enable all that.

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Inadvertent Honesty?

I often ask victim disarming gun controllers how they expect their infringement du jour to apply to criminals who already bypass laws. For instance, I recently asked Senator Johnny Isakson [R-GA] how he expects to get criminals — who already obtain their firearms through unlawful channels around 93% of the time — to submit their black market purchases for “universal background checks;” otherwise known as preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI) prior restraint of rights.

I almost never get an answer. Certainly Isakson hasn’t answered yet.

This why:

Tucker Zings Progressive’s Attempt at Comparing the Border Wall to Lawful Gun Ownership
“And to borrow the NRA’s argument though, if we put a wall up though to block out illegal, you know people from coming here to want to harm us, people who come here legally are going to be the only ones stopped by that wall because people who are going to come here illegally or to harm us are going to figure out a way around it, just like they’re going to figure out how to get guns.”
[…]
[Former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)] Hahn laughed and then continued, “No, no. Law-abiding people will be stopped by the wall but the people who wish to break our laws will avoid the wall. That’s the right’s argument for everything! It should be accepted here too!”

Don’t build a wall, because it only stops law-abiding people.

Do pass victim disarmament laws because they only stop law-abiding people.

Masks off. They aren’t even pretending anymore. As we all knew, the laws are never intended to do anything but infringe human/civil rights. Criminals aren’t even supposed to be affected.

That’s why Democrats (and Republicans like Isakson) see no irony in announcing new PPYI legislation to “honor” Gabby Giffords, who was shot by a man who passed a background check.

 

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GAO: Background checks STILL don’t work

This just screams for comment, given that universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence prior restraint is probably going to pass next year.

GAO: Few Individuals Denied Firearms Purchases Are Prosecuted and ATF Should Assess Use of Warning Notices in Lieu of Prosecutions
Federal and selected state law enforcement agencies that process firearm-related background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) collectively investigate and prosecute a small percentage of individuals who falsify information on a firearms form (e.g., do not disclose a felony conviction) and are denied a purchase. Federal NICS checks resulted in about 112,000 denied transactions in fiscal year 2017, of which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) referred about 12,700 to its field divisions for further investigation. U.S. Attorney’s Offices (USAO) had prosecuted 12 of these cases as of June 2018.

CNN is reporting this as “More than 99.9% of those who were investigated escaped with nothing more than a warning.”

But that’s misleading. It’s far, far worse than that.

112,090 denials. 12 prosecutions. Only 0.0107% — a hair over one-one hundredth of one percent — of denials are prosecuted.

112,090 denials. Only 11% are even referred for investigation. Meaning it was clear that 89% of the denials were false positives. 89% of denials were clearly violations of constitutionally protected human/civil rights.

Of the 12,710 that warranted looking into, only 12 were clear enough cases of prohibited persons trying to obtain firearms to bother going to court. That suggests that the percentage of rights violations was actually 99.99%, but not necessarily.

ATF field divisions […] generally only refer cases to USAOs for prosecution when aggravating circumstances exist, such as violent felonies or multiple serious offenses over a short period of time.

It turns out that they referred 50 cases for prosecution. Fifty cases of people allegedly with a history of “violent felonies or multiple serious offenses over a short period of time” referred.

12 the prosecutors actually think can be prosecuted.

But there’s a big gap between 12,710 investigations and 50 prosecution referrals. And the report does not give a number for “proper denial, but we didn’t think it worth wasting our time,” or “Nope; X number shouldn’t have been denied.”

By the government’s own numbers, a bare minimum of 89% percent of false positive denials are proof that NICS background checks don’t work. The number could range as high as 99.99%.

Background checks don’t work. The results are meaningless. And the GAO essentially found that other folks agree with that assessment.

Officials from 10 of our 13 selected POC states said that they do not
investigate or prosecute NICS denials.

Here’s another number: 77% of states know NICS results are worthless and will not even try to investigate referred (the one’s which might actually be problems, much less the rest) denials.

 

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What color is your coat?

David Codrea addresses the recent minor furor over the lack of prosecutions for NICS denials.

Gun Groups and Grabbers Find Common Ground on NICS Denial Prosecutions
That mass roundups of the scofflaws haven’t begun has got gun-grabbers – and some gun groups – in a lather. Lost in much of the noise is economist and author John Lott’s contention that a “high percentage” of “false positives” wrongly deny purchases. Not that due process is a concern when there are guns to be “taken off the street”…

I was a bit concerned where Codrea was going with this initially, since I’m not one of those in a lather over lackadaisical enforcement. My take differs that; and it certainly doesn’t share common ground with human/civil rights violating victim-disarmers.

Let me spell it out for those who have not yet caught on:

We now have 20 years of data that clearly establishes that preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI) prior restraint on Second Amendment-guaranteed (not “protected,” sadly) human/civil rights is a complete failure as “gun safety.”

1. Roughly 96% of the denials proved to be false positives. As David notes, there were a mere 12 referrals for prosecution in 2017. The last time I checked the total number since it began, it was…

140. In two decades. Out of tens of millions of NICS transactions.

When the Bradys et al proudly point at three million denials, they are gleefully bragging on violating constitutionally guaranteed (not “protected,” damnit) rights of 2,880,000 innocent people.

Almost three million people that they have successfully — at least for a time — rendered into helpless targets for criminal predators. And they’re happy about it. If you hadn’t before, think about that now.

That’s false positives, which brings us to…

2. False Negatives. Almost every week, I come across a news story about a felon (or other prohibited person) who got a gun by passing the NICS check. No one seems to track false negatives, so I don’t know how common it is. And I’m not speaking of cases like the DC Navy Yard or Sutherland Springs shooters, whom the “authorities” never entered into the NICS databases. I’m speaking of those who are in the databases, who pass by misspelling a name, changing their name, or just giving the wrong birth date.

And those are just the few felons who bother gaming NICS. Roughly 94% of firearms used in crimes were obtained through unlawful channels, completely bypassing NICS.

NICS doesn’t have a bloody thing to do with most criminals; those who do submit to checks can easily spoof it.

The only thing NICS is good for is delaying rights, and completely denying them, for honest folks.

And that is precisely the point.

I have heard well-meaning people call for 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law charges for those responsible for the violation of rights through improper denials, or for deaths when a sale is improperly allowed. In fact, survivors of Sutherland Springs (where the Air Force failed to report a felony-equivalent conviction, a domestic violence conviction, and an involuntary committal) trying to sue over it.

I wish them luck, but I’m astonished that the judge hasn’t dismissed the case already. There’s something in 18 U.S. Code § 922 that many people don’t seems to know about.

18 U.S. Code § 922(t):

(6) Neither a local government nor an employee of the Federal Government or of any State or local government, responsible for providing information to the national instant criminal background check system shall be liable in an action at law for damages—
(A) for failure to prevent the sale or transfer of a firearm to a person whose receipt or possession of the firearm is unlawful under this section; or
(B) for preventing such a sale or transfer to a person who may lawfully receive or possess a firearm.

Bureaucratese Translator: We can directly violate your rights — even get you killed — and you cannot hold us responsible for our failures, sucker!

That was built into the Brady Bill. Its original intent was to rape human/civil rights with total impunity.

And the Bradys brag.

As I said, I was briefly concerned about Codrea’s direction, which seemed odd for someone with whom I’ve been somewhat acquainted for years. My confidence in his respect for rights was rewarded.

Enforce existing “Intolerable Acts?”

The people who have been complaining consistently are the NRA’s “leaders.” They’ve made “enforce existing gun laws” a mantra many gun owners repeat unthinkingly, as if ceding to the status quo of infringements will dissuade the totalitarian lobby from enacting any new citizen disarmament edicts.

Substitute “Intolerable Acts” for “gun laws” and see how much amplification that gets from members and supporters. Instead, we got “bipartisan” kabuki.

Intolerable Acts, indeed. Any supposed “pro-gun” group or person in a “lather” over the lack of enforcement of a law meant to violate rights, is supporting exactly the same disarmament which sparked the American Revolution.

Is it any wonder the field of pro-PPYI NRA’s logo is red?

What color is your coat?


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About those “fugitives”

Anti-gun types are all upset now that they noticed the FBI was eliminating some folks with active warrants from the NICS database, making them eligible to purchase firearms.

Tens of thousands with outstanding warrants purged from background check database for gun purchases
Tens of thousands of people wanted by law enforcement officials have been removed this year from the FBI criminal background check database that prohibits fugitives from justice from buying guns.

The names were taken out after the FBI in February changed its legal interpretation of “fugitive from justice” to say it pertains only to wanted people who have crossed state lines.

Well… No. It isn’t so much as they changed the interpretation as that they noticed they weren’t in compliance with federal law. Again. (Kind of the inverse of the military not bothering to report felons.)

Allow me to explain, setting aside for the moment the unconstitutional prior restrain of preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks.

It appears from a search on US Code that to be a “fugitive” under 18 U.S. Code § 922, once has to have actively fled when a warrant is issued. The fact that a warrant was issued doesn’t make one a fugitive; or even necessarily aware of the warrant.

No flight, no fugitive.

I find it interesting, but not surprising, that gun controllers think people should be denied rights based on a mere warrant… when it’s Second Amendment rights. But not so much when it comes to other rights.

A federal court found it unconstitutional for for Michigan to deny welfare benefits to people with felony warrants unless they are actually fugitives.

So… same thing for 2nd Amendment rights. For once the DOJ did something half right (the other half being the whole prior restraint bit).

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