Category: Gun Rights

Wisconsin Releases List of Recognized Out-of-State Carry Permits

Starting November 1st those who live in Wisconsin will be allowed to obtain carry permits and exercise their right to self-defense. In addition to that, those holding carry permits from many other states will be able to exercise legal armed defense. Wisconsin’s Attorney General released their reciprocity list and I’m glad to say Minnesota made the cut:

  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Georgia
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Maryland
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Nebraska
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • North Dakota
  • Pennsylvania
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Washington
  • Wyoming
  • Puerto Rico
  • U.S. Virgin Islands

That’s a fairly inclusive list, which is good to see. I’m also glad this law came into play before the Christmas season as that is when I end up entering Wisconsin with some frequency.

Minnesota Permit Holder Facing Charges for Chasing Muggers

Most advocates of armed citizenry strongly warn those who hold or are seeking carry permits do so for the right reason, and that reason is for the protection of you and yours. Due to various complexities it is not advised that carry permit holders involve themselves in situations that don’t involve them or their loved ones. A Minneapolis permit holder tried being a good samaritan and things could be getting very dicy for him soon:

Just before 10 p.m., police got a 911 report that someone had been shot in a parking area behind the Super Grand Buffet restaurant about a block west of Cub Foods near the intersection of Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenues, according to police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer. When police arrived, a man with a gun who said he had a valid concealed-weapon permit told them he had interrupted the robbery of a woman in her 60s. The man said that he chased the robbers, a male and a female, exchanged fire and killed the male robber.

While I will personally commend the man for getting involved during the mugger his failure was chasing after the muggers after they attempted to flee. From what I understand the state of Minnesota has laws allowing for citizen’s arrests, but only for felony level crimes. In conversation with various carry instructors I’ve learned that while the initiation crime may have been felony level and thus warranting a citizen’s arrest it was no longer a felony crime, but a property crime, when the muggers attempted to flee.

Pursuing a fleeing attacker is dangerous for legal and personal reasons. Legally most state laws will put you in murky water if you attempt to chase after an attacker which exposes you to legal ramifications for doing so. On the personal side of things by chasing after a fleeing attack you’re increasing the window in which you may suffer bodily harm. As the good samaritan learned in this case the muggers were armed and by pursuing he placed himself at a greater risk of being shot by increasing his exposure time to armed criminals. The latter reason alone leads me to believe chasing after a fleeing attack is seldom a good idea (I say seldom because it may be necessary if the attackers have abducted somebody or another similar extenuating circumstance).

In any event this will likely be an interesting case to keep an eye on, especially for a Minnesota resident holding a carry permit.

Californians Push Back

The California legislature recent passed a law that prohibits denizens of the state from openly carry unloaded handguns. It’s nice to see some people with spines still exist in California and are pushing back:

Fremont, CA – October 22, 2011 – In response to the governor’s recent signing of AB 144, a bill to ban the Open Carry of handguns, the Responsible Citizens of California (RCC) is organizing twin meet-up events from Noon-1PM on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at the corner of Hesperian Blvd. & Bayfair Drive in San Leandro and the corner of Felspar and Ocean Front Walk on Pacific Beach in San Diego. These will be the first kick-off events of Unloaded Open Carry of Long Guns (rifles and shotguns) held simultaneously in both Northern and Southern California.

Let me just say from the bottom of my heart that those participating in this event are awesome. When the government pushes us we need to push back. Nothing like a little friendly protest to keep those bureaucrats aware that we are actually paying attention to what they’re doing.

A tip of the old hat goes to Uncle for this story.

A Quick History on Why the Second Amendment is Necessary

While there are many reasons I’m a proponent of the right to keep and bear arms one of the biggest reasons is because that right allows one to defend themselves against an otherwise superior opponent. If you’re being attacked by two armed men your chances of survival are very low if you’re unarmed. The tables can be turned completely around though if you give that would-be victim a firearm and some basic knowledge on how to use it. Throughout history oppressed people have been able to defend themselves because they were able to arm themselves. A great writeup form the days of yore I ran across deals with minorities using firearms to defend themselves against the Klan:

In the early 1960s, I taught at Tougaloo College — a black school in Mississippi. My wife, Eldri, and I were extremely active in the civil rights movement and, among other things, I was chairman of the strategy committee of the Jackson Movement during the historic demonstrations in the spring and summer of 1963.

I was beaten and arrested many times and hospitalized twice. This happened to many, many people in the movement. No one knows what kind of massive racist retaliation would have been directed against grassroots black people had the black community not had a healthy measure of firearms within it.

When the campus of Tougaloo College was fired on by KKK-type racial night-riders, my home was shot up and a bullet missed my infant daughter by inches. We received no help from the Justice Department and we guarded our campus — faculty and students together — on that and subsequent occasions. We let this be known. The racist attacks slackened considerably. Night-riders are cowardly people — in any time and place — and they take advantage of fear and weakness.

Later, I worked for years in the Deep South as a full-time civil rights organizer. Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine.

The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay. Years later, in a changed Mississippi, this was confirmed by a former prominent leader of the White Knights of the KKK when we had an interesting dinner together at Jackson.

The Klan were cowardly assholes back in the day (and the few remaining Klan members today are still cowardly assholes) and relied on groups of riders who came into a town at night to terrorize minority families and businesses. At this time the government wasn’t too willing to help with the problem so those in minority groups had to fend for themselves. If you’re alone or with a small group and a bunch of jackasses come into town on horses meaning you harm you’re going to be heavily outmatched unless you and/of members of your small group are armed. The nice thing about firearms is that they allow you to engage an attacker at range and also allow you to easily engage multiple assailants.

In more recent times groups of attackers (which the media has dubbed flash mobs without realize that term means something entirely different) have been known to attack individual targets without cause. If you find yourself the unfortunate target of such a group you’re best chances of walking away unscathed is to have a firearm on your person. Being attacked by 10 people is a frightening endeavor no matter how you look at it, but if you’re armed with a pistol that holds 10 rounds and keep a spare magazine in your pocket you’re chances of walking away alive are greatly increased.

Anti-gunners like to claim that we should depend on the police to protect our lives. They should have a conversation with somebody who was active in the civil rights movement and targeted by the Klan sometime so they can learn how unreliable police “protection” really is.

The Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act

One of the biggest cluster fucks in United States law regards the sale of firearms between individual states. Basically the only legal way to sell a firearm to a person residing in another state is by doing a transfer through a federally licensed dealer. Well it appears as though some congress critters have finally had enough of this stupidity and introduced H.R. 58, The Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has a good rundown of the bill:

In the 1980s, the Congress revisited these restrictions during the debate over the Firearms Owners` Protection Act (FOPA). As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s report on FOPA put it, the 1968 interstate sales provisions were “so cumbersome that they [were] rarely used.”2 When the Congress passed FOPA in 1986, it did away with the state authorization, notification and waiting period requirements. Federal law now allows dealers to make interstate rifle and shotgun sales, as long as (a) the buyer meets in person with the dealer, and (b) the transaction complies with the laws of both the buyer’s and the seller’s states.3

Since 1998, however, all people buying firearms from dealers in the U.S. have been subject to computerized background checks under the FBI`s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), either by the dealer contacting NICS (directly or through a state “point of contact” agency) or by the buyer presenting a state firearms permit issued after a NICS check. Any of these systems are far more advanced than anything available in 1968.

H.R. 58 are common sense measures that would take advantage of these technological improvements to further reduce restrictions on law-abiding citizens. Under H.R. 58:

Individuals could buy handguns, as well as rifles or shotguns, from licensed dealers in another state, subject to the background check requirement. The buyer and dealer would still have to meet in person and comply with the laws of both states.

[…]

Finally, H.R. 58 would reduce theft and loss of firearms during shipment between dealers. BATFE’s longstanding interpretation of the Gun Control Act generally forbids licensed dealers from transferring firearms directly to other licensed dealers, face to face, away from their licensed premises.5 Even though the dealers have already had a thorough background check, under the current interpretation, dealers who agree on a sale are forced to return to their business premises and ship firearms to each other by common carrier, which always involves some risk of theft or loss. H.R. 58 would allow a face-to-face exchange instead.

I could never figure out why I’m forbidden from buying a handgun in a neighboring state when all federally licensed dealers, regardless of the state they’re in, are required to perform the same National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) check on me. Before the anti-gunners start shitting their pants lets just get this out of the way; this bill will not allow somebody to bypass stricter laws in their state of residence by purchasing a firearm in another state. H.R. 58 only affects federal laws and will not prevent states like Illinois from requiring stupid things like Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card before being able to legally own a firearm. An Illinois resident who purchases a firearm in Wisconsin will still be a criminal unless he has a FOID card in hand when he gets back to his home state.

Eric Holder Subpoenaed

Things are not looking too swell for Attorney General Eric Holder. Documents were released a little while ago suggesting Holder was lying when he claimed to know nothing about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’s (ATF) gun smuggling operation known simply as Fast and Furious. Now the top law enforcer in the United States is being subpoenaed:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced Wednesday that he has issued a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder for Justice Department documents related to the failed “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation.

The subpoena requests all of Holder’s communications on the Fast and Furious operation. It also requests any communications between the White House and DoJ relating to Operation Fast and Furious.

[…]

The 22-point subpoena also lists 15 other high-ranking Justice Department officials by name and requests any communications from them on the operation.

This entire operation seems to be blowing up more and more by the week. Isn’t it amazing what happens when we hand practically unlimited power to a government agency? It’s almost as if somebody could have predicted that this type of power abuse performed by the ATF during Fast and Furious.

I’m just happy that the media has started reporting more heavily on this event because if it remained in the shadows there is a high likelihood that it could have been used to demand further restrictions on our right to keep and bear arms. Now that everything is out in the open it’s kind of hard to sweep it all back under the government’s massive rug.

Some Common Sense from Wisconsin’s Attorney General

While I’m not keen on Wisconsin’s rule requiring four hours of training before a person can exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms, it’s still not as bad of a system as it could have been. It’s also good to hear some common sense come from Attorney General Van Hollen:

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Thursday he would be comfortable with allowing people to carry guns in the Capitol and other state buildings.

“I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m not going to have a say in that,” the Republican attorney general said in an interview.

“One of the oldest arguments out there is that the criminals – the ones who aren’t entitled to have firearms – are carrying concealed already,” he added. “They’re the ones we’re worried about, not the ones who are going to be abiding by the law.”

There is no danger in a person like myself carrying a firearm into any building. I’m a peaceful person who will only use violence in response to somebody initiating violence against myself. Regardless of what the anti-gunners think the majority of people are in the same boat as me, if it were otherwise we wouldn’t have a functioning society. Sadly there are violent individuals in our society and the best way for us peaceful citizens to defend ourselves against such scourge is by having a proper self-defense tool available to us.

We’re not the ones who law enforcement officers should be concerning themselves with. If law enforcement are concerned with criminals carrying firearms into the Capitol building they can do what Texas does and install metal detectors but allowing those with permit to bypass the security as they’ve already been checked out through a background check and are known to be free of violent crime.

This year saw massive protests at the Capitol as Republicans who run the Legislature debated and passed a new law that eliminated most collective bargaining for most public workers. Van Hollen said those demonstrations did not change his opinion on whether people should be allowed to carry guns in the Capitol.

“Any one of them could have been carrying a firearm without our knowledge already had they wanted to do so,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen seems to understand a fact most anti-gunners fail to grasp, bad people will do bad things regardless of the laws put into place telling them they can’t. A statute passed by some politicians isn’t going to stop a violent criminal from performing a violent act.

“I’m a proponent of concealed carry for law-abiding citizens because I don’t believe there has been a redeeming argument or evidence of the government (needing) to interfere in our lives in that category because there’s just not this pile of anecdotal cases where law-abiding citizens are abusing firearms to the detriment of the public,” Van Hollen said. “So I don’t know that there’s a problem to protect ourselves from.”

This is where the anti-gunners have failed to make a case; they’ve been crying that there will be blood in the streets if carry laws are loosened but so far there hasn’t been any evidence supporting their claim.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter California

Not surprisingly Governor Jerry Brown of California has signed into law the ban on openly carrying unloaded firearms in his state:

Gov. Jerry Brown announced early Monday that he had outlawed the open carrying of handguns in public in California, a controversial practice that top law enforcement officials had denounced as dangerous.

Clearing his desk of final bills sent to him by the Legislature, Brown signed the ban into law after it was backed by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and other law enforcement officials throughout the state.

“I listened to the California police chiefs,” Brown said in a statement.

He listened to the police chiefs by forsaking the people he supposedly represents. So there you have it, your Constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms no longer applies on the People’s Republic of California. This supposed right wasn’t eliminated due to intolerably high gun crimes being committed by those legally carrying but because some police chiefs don’t like the idea that mere serfs could carry an unloaded firearm openly. Although it’s been known for quite some time that police officers, as agents of the state, receive priority over the serfs it’s still sad to watch actual demonstrations of this fact move through the legislative process. Here’s a gem of a quote from one “representative” of California’s serfs:

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge), author of the ban, and his supporters said California is no longer the wild west, where citizens had to carry six-shooters on their hips for protection.

“The bottom line is the streets will be safer for law enforcement and families,” Portantino said.

I’m sure the streets are going to be much safer without those horribly law-abiding people walking around with openly displayed and completely unloaded firearms. Those unloaded guns certainly are known for jumping out of the holsters of the law-abiding and gunning down random people on the street, which is why states that have looser restrictions on carry permits have much higher rates of violent crime… oh wait, that’s not true at all.

Those of you living in California may want to consider either fleeing to the United States or performing mass acts of civil disobedience. Personally I’d take the first option and run to Arizona where your right to keep and bear arms is fully recognized.

Fast and Furious Weapons Appearing Everywhere

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’s (ATF) troubles have been getting worse by the minute. We’ve heard a lot of outrage stateside due to the death of a border patrol agent but not much has been said about the death toll caused by Fast and Furious in Mexico. Well it seems a great deal of firepower ended up in one of the worst cartel’s hands:

Reporting from Washington— High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF’s Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

[…]

In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel.

Arming one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico? That’s top notch work only a government could properly pull off. I’m sure those living in Mexico and in American cities on the American-Mexican border and pretty stoked about the fact the United States government has been slipping weapons to powerful criminal organizations. Perhaps the ATF was simply jealous of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) record of arming violent criminals and wanted in on the action.

If anybody from the ATF is reading this post please note that I’d be more than happy to take some firearms off of your hands. Unlike the current people you’ve been giving firearms to I have no history of violence and am an overall nice person (so other people say). Heck I’ve passed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) many times. I believe I’d be a far better candidate to receive those firearms than those murdering thugs who’ve been specializing in terrorizing the poor unarmed citizens of Mexico.

Ending the ATF Could Go Either Way

The Gunwalker scandal has gotten so big that there has been talk about completely dismantling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). While many are cheering this possibility some, like Sebastian, are quick to mention abolishing the ATF could turn out poorly for us:

The country’s gun laws are not going away, and someone is going to be charged with enforcing them. That agency is likely to be the FBI. While the FBI would certainly do the enforcement part far more competently, you’d be giving the FBI an incentive to lobby Congress for more gun laws.

The problem with that is that people in Washington have a high degree of respect for the FBI, and they are listened to. ATF is the bastard step-child of federal law enforcement, and Congress and the other D.C. powers that be don’t really take them too seriously. It’s also worth noting, because of the FBI’s other missions, you’re not really going to have much luck threatening the FBI’s funding in order to keep it under control.

This is a valid point although, as Joe Huffman, points out the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have enough skeletons in their closet that much of what they say may not be taken too seriously:

The concern that the FBI has credibility and respect the ATF doesn’t and we would rather have a money starved easily demonized bunch of screw ups instead of the FBI, the Secret Service, or the U.S. Marshalls enforcing the regulations has been the whisper from behind the scenes since as least the Regan years when the first serious thoughts of disbanding them came up.

Things have changed with the FBI since the 1980’s. Remember Ruby Ridge and Waco? The ATF created the messes but it was during the FBI “cleanup” that the FBI shot the woman holding the baby and burned down the church with the women and children in it. The FBI has it’s own public relations issues to be concerned about.

So what’s my take? Honestly, I’m all for abolishing the ATF. Although I realize that the federal gun laws won’t be abolished alongside their enforcer it would require either creating a new agency or loading up a current agency with even more pointless shit to do. If we’re lucky the latter option will be taken and an agency that doesn’t have the time or resources to effective enforce those arbitrary regulations will be given the task. Whether due to lack of resources or the fact gun control enforcement is a secondary task it’s likely the federal government won’t be putting as much time into harassing innocent gun dealers and owners.