Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists

In the pages of the New York Times, Alan Berlow writes that he has found the perfect gun control legislation – the 1934 National firearms Act. In the days of Bonnie and Clyde and Machinegun Kelly, the Federal government decided that they needed to clamp down on fully automatic weapons, short-barrelled rifles and silencers so they required that owners of those items should be registered with the Feds, that they’re photographed, fingerprinted and pay a tax. Since then, very few guns with those features have been used in crimes. Berlow extrapolates that to ownership of most other firearms.

N.F.A.-classified weapons do show up at crime scenes. But nearly all of them were unregistered, so the simple act of possession was a crime. According to A.T.F. analysis, among N.F.A. weapon owners there were only 12 felony convictions between 2006 and 2014, and those crimes did not involve an N.F.A. weapon. If that conviction rate were applied to the owners of the other privately owned firearms in the United States, gun crime would virtually disappear.

That’s unlikely to happen, of course, because a majority of our lawmakers are so cowed by the N.R.A. that gun control advocates rarely even consider registration as part of their agenda.

First of all, let me remind Mr Berlow that the NRA’s interests are my interests, too. They lobby for me and the other millions of members. So, if lawmakers are cowed by the NRA, I fully support that condition. Secondly, if you were to check the guns used in crimes, guns that aren’t subjected to NFA restrictions, you’d find that those guns, used in crimes, were probably purchased in contradiction to existing laws in back alleys and vacant parking lots. That trade would probably continue if you required that legal gun owners present themselves for photographing and fingerprinting. The Bonnies and Clydes of the 1930s didn’t bother to register their fully automatic firearms. The supply of those guns has just dried up.

The reason that fully automatic firearms aren’t used in crimes is because no one is selling them to criminals these days. Legal gun owners don’t generally commit crimes, because we like that we can buy firearms – it’s not that we won’t commit crimes because we’re registered with the feds. We don’t commit crimes because we’d really rather not commit crimes. My face, my fingerprints, my DNA are already in some federal database because of my military service, but that doesn’t keep me honest – I’m just not a criminal. I have never been a criminal, it’s my own conscience that keeps me honest, not the threat of being caught because of the federal registration of my guns.

But, that’s the difference between me and the New York Times – they think that government keeps us all in line, we’re not capable of governing ourselves without the government watching everything we do. I wouldn’t think that the New York Times would be just as eager to photograph and fingerprints of other constitutionally-protected rights – you know like voting registration, or the freedom of the press.

Fox News reports that Hawaii is working on a law that would submit the island’s gun owners names to the FBI to be entered in the agency’s database so that if a resident is arrested any where in the country, local law enforcement will be notified;

Even though other states don’t enter gun owners in the database, Honolulu Police Department Maj. Richard Robinson said it will still benefit Hawaii police. Right now, Hawaii gun owners undergo a background check only when they register a gun, so police have no way of knowing if they’re disqualified from owning a gun in the future unless they try to register a new firearm.

“We were only discovering things by accident,” said Robinson, who helped draft the bill. “They happen to come register another firearm, we run another background check, and then we find out they’re a prohibited person.”

It’s like treating all gun owners as potential criminals. I wonder how many criminals from Hawaii actually commit crimes on the mainland. Maybe there should be a database of people who go to church or speak freely, or some other constitutional right. Journalists’ names should be in a database so that when they get arrested, we’ll all know and they don’t get the protections of the freedom of the press. I agree that convicted criminals should not have the right to own a gun – they’ve demonstrated that they can’t follow the rules. But, I’m pretty sure that they won’t follow the rules to purchase a firearm anyway – so they probably won’t pop hot on a firearms owner database, anyway.

I’ve heard stories of some states that accessed other states’ firearm owners databases and used it as an excuse to stop and search out-of-staters’ automobiles (looking at you Maryland). I can only imagine how this technology has a potential to be abused.

Thanks to Hondo for the link.

New Jersey’s 101.5 reports that Army Lieutenant Colonel Terry S. Russell, the product manager for the Army’s Individual Weapons and Small Arms program applied to local authorities for a permit to carry a concealed weapon to work at the Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, New Jersey. The local police chief, Daniel W. Barcus, denied his application because Russell couldn’t show “justifiable need” because there have been no specific threats towards Russell;

After police [rejected] Russell’s application, he appealed to Superior Court. Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni stood by the denial, saying in a Jan. 29, 2015, letter to Judge Joseph Oxley that the soldier had failed to demonstrate “justifiable need” to have a carry permit.

“None of these threats appear to specifically relate to this applicant — he is in no different position than any other person who is assigned to that facility.”

Gramiccioni also contends that if Russell is granted a concealed-carry permit, other employees of Picatinny would have to be issued permits as well.

So, that’s real good excuse – if we give you a permit, we’ll have to give everyone a permit. Funny how the founders didn’t worry about that when they wrote the Second Amendment into the Constitution.

On April 5, the judge in the case agreed with the prosecutor, issuing an order that “thanks” Russell “for his service” but denies Russell’s appeal.

Thank you for your service, now give your life to your country, pleb.

In support of his application, Russell specifically mentions a threat that was verified by the U.S. military against members of the military and their families. He also says the Picatinny Arsenal’s web page had been hacked in an attempt to “obtain personal military member and family information” and refers to a “full evacuation of the arsenal due to “the discovery of a dry run attempt to drive a Vehicle Borne Improved Explosive Device onto Post.”

Aside from his Top Secret security clearance investigation, Russell also has a concealed weapon permit from Texas that is no good in New Jersey because New Jersey has no reciprocity agreements with any other state.

The other day, plus-size comedienne Amy Schumer, cousin to Chuckie, did a little skit on Comedy Channel about gun control. She portrayed a TV host on a home shopping network-style program from which she pretended to sell guns. It begins at about :55 into this video that was posted at Esquire;

During the skit, she had an exchange with a viewer who claims to be a felon and unable to buy a gun.

A hopeful buyer laments that he can’t get a gun because he has a criminal record riddled with felonies.

“Caller, you bite your tongue, you silly goose!” Schumer’s character says. “You can absolutely get a gun if you have several felonies, as long as you buy it on the Internet or at a gun show.”

“If you go to a gun show, you can get an unlicensed seller to sell you a gun, no questions asked,” Dunnigan added

Politfact checks Schumer’s script;

To be clear: The kind of transaction Schumer’s character describes is illegal. Federal law prohibits felons from getting a gun unless their rights have been formally restored.

Felons can theoretically get around this obstacle, however, by buying guns from unlicensed sellers who are not required to conduct criminal background checks. This is sometimes referred to as the “gun show loophole,” even though it refers to all private sales, and not everyone considers it a loophole.

Schumer’s sketch was referring to this aspect of current gun law, said a spokesman for Everytown for Gun Safety, gun control advocacy group Schumer promotes at the end of the sketch.

Politifact says that Schumer was “Half True”, but they stop short in their evaluation. If indeed the type of show exists like the one Schumer pretends, in order to ship the gun, they’d have to ship it to a Federal Firearms licensed dealer, and then that dealer would have to do the regular background checks to which we’re all subjected when we legally buy firearms. In other words, it’s already against the law to ship guns directly to a buyer without a background check.

The only solution to the problem that Schumer advocates is the one where everyone turns in their guns to the government. Even that is no real solution. The District of Columbia forbade the ownership of most guns more than 40 years ago, but the Metro Police still confiscate about 2000 illegal guns every year.

Schumer got a little bit upset when the media called her spot a “gun control” message;

Because “gun safety” sounds more innocuous than “gun control”, but “gun control” is exactly what she wants no matter what she calls it. She portrayed a sale that is already illegal under existing laws. But, yeah, we should write more laws.

According to Newsweek, Connecticut State Judge Barbara Bellis rejected the gun companies’ motion to dismiss them from responsibility for the tragic shooting of 26 people at that elementary school over three years ago. Ten of those families are suing Remington Arms Co., the manufacturer of the weapon, Camfour Inc., a distributor of firearms, and Riverview Gun Sales, the retail dealer that has since closed it’s doors because the litigants say that they knew, or that they should have known about the high risks posed by the weapon that was used in the crime.

Of course, the judge has dismissed completely that allowing the law suit to go forward is against the law, specifically, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a 2005 law that protects gun manufacturers and sellers from specious lawsuits.

I understand that the victims are looking for someone to blame, since the shooter is dead as well as his mother, the person who bought the gun legally and left it where the shooter could get a hold of it after he killed her. The existing gun laws prevented the shooter from buying a gun himself, so he needed an alternate plan – killing his own mother with a .22-caliber Savage MK II-F bolt action rifle, shooting her four times in the head while she was in bed, still in her pajamas.

So the victims are looking for deep pockets because money makes people feel better about the loss of their children, and of course, that’s Remington and the others.

Democrat candidates have made it an issue in their campaign for the presidency. Who wants to punish the manufacturers of legal products more? You know, despite the fact that it’s un-American. Where will it end?

Old Trooper sends us a link to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune which tells the story of eccentric 74-year-old Ralph Gilbertsen, a former Marine, and, now a former gun owner. He has a state-issued concealed weapons permit, but no guns, because someone got worried about him and the fact that he believes in Big Foot and claims to have seen a UFO. He also claims that the CIA has been following him for years;

In his letters, Gilbertsen identified specific residents and staffers at his apartment building as CIA agents, and warned that “they will lie and deny it.” He also identified specific Richfield police officers as CIA spies.

In neat, precise handwriting, he keeps a list of the license plate numbers of more than 75 vehicles that he believes have followed him recently.

“There are literally hundreds of CIA spies in Richfield alone that harass me,” he wrote in one letter. “There are thousands of these people in the south-suburban area. I am certain I will be murdered some day.”

So the building managers where he lives called the police and the police took his guns.

When three Richfield police officers knocked on Gilbertsen’s door last May, they were there at the request of Hennepin Community Outreach for Psychiatric Emergencies (COPE). The 30-person agency is a sort of SWAT team for mental illness, handling more than 13,000 cases last year, about one-third of them in person.

The managers of Gilbertsen’s apartment building called COPE after his latest series of letters. When they warned he might have guns, COPE called for a police escort.

Yeah, he’s a little eccentric and a bit paranoid, but he has a clean criminal record, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to get a CCW. He hasn’t made any threats, he hasn’t assaulted anyone.

If anyone needs their guns taken away, it’s those stupid Big Foot hunters on the television. They’re nutty and don’t know how to handle firearms around other people. But, not Ralph. If he is the victim of a crime, and the police have his guns, who will take responsibility?