Tag: Gun Rights

I’m Not Saying They’re Gold Diggers

Here in the United States we have a tradition that goes back at least as long as I have been alive. When something bad happens to you or one of your family members the tradition is to find an organization that is both tangentially linked to the bad thing and wealthy and file a lawsuit against it. That is exactly what family members of four New York firefighters who were ambushed by a man with a firearm are doing:

The families of four New York state firefighters are suing St. Paul-based Gander Mountain, alleging that the retailer’s Rochester, N.Y.-area outlet could have prevented a “straw buyer” from purchasing the rifle that was turned over to a convicted killer and used on Christmas Eve 2012 to kill two firefighters and wound two others.

The lawsuit, which has the legal heft of prominent gun control advocates behind it, said the rifle used in the bloody ambush should never have been sold to 22-year-old Dawn Nguyen in 2010 with the eventual shooter at her side.

Along with payment to the families of punitive and compensatory damages, the suit seeks to have Gander Mountain reform its practices and employee training procedures to prevent these “straw purchasers.” The suit was filed Tuesday in state court in Rochester, N.Y.

How can Gander Mountain stop straw purchases? Preventing straw purchases requires the ability to read minds, which no human has as far as I know (although I sometimes suspect that my mother has such powers). There is no way for employees of Gander Mountain to know that a person purchasing a firearm isn’t doing so with the intention of giving that gun to a prohibited person. Even if, as this lawsuit insinuates, I go into Gander Mountain with a friend and purchase a gun there is no way for the employees involved with the transaction to know if I’m buying it for myself or to give to my friend.

In other words what this lawsuit is demanding is that Gander Mountain perform an impossible feat, which hopefully means that this lawsuit will be dismissed.

Thankfully the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act shields gun manufacturers and dealers from a lot of legal gold digging. But it doesn’t completely close the door as manufacturers and dealers can still be sued for selling defective products, breaching contracts, and performing criminal actions. Depending on how this legal gold digging is being justified the case may get thrown out or Gander Mountain may be dragged into a pointless lawsuit because it was unable to read one man’s mind.

Designer of Smart Gun Says Smart Guns are Safer

Ernst Mauch, the man behind the Armatix iP1 so-called smart gun (really a gun with an onboard authentication system), recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post where he states that smart guns are safer than regular guns:

Respect for this freedom to protect your family as you see fit is a major reason I believe that gun owners in the United States should have the right to purchase personalized firearms using high-tech safety features. The reality is that firearm safety has not meaningfully advanced in the past century. Nearly every other industry has transformed its safety features — often multiple times — in that same period. Given how tragic the misuse of firearms can be, guns should be no different.

While firearm safety hasn’t meaningfully advanced in the past century it still doesn’t hold the record. Sword, for example, haven’t meaningfully advanced in regards to safety in over a millennium. Clubs also haven’t advanced in regards to safety for even longer. Why is this? Most likely because firearms, swords, and clubs are weapons and weapons are meant to cause damage. Ernst’s claim that nearly every other industry has advanced its safety features ignores most industries involving weapons.

Armatix offers market-based solutions for improving gun safety. We understand that any time a major new technology enters the market, some people will be skeptical, and that is why it is important to clarify exactly what the Armatix pistol is.

As far as I know Armatix hasn’t been lobbying in the United States for mandating that all firearms include built-in authentication systems. That being the case I have no issue with Armatix introducing its iP1. Let the market decide whether or not gun owners want such technology. So long as Ernst and Armatix rely on the market to decide whether or not people should buy their firearms I have nothing against them.

The firearm also detects the proximity of the watch, meaning that even if the gun is stolen after the code has been keyed in, it cannot be fired. If the gun and the watch are both stolen, the thief might as well throw them out because the gun won’t fire without the correct five-digit code.

This is something I didn’t know about the iP1. In addition to having the watch you also have to know a five digit code. That further complicates things will offering relatively little additional security. Five digit codes can be brute forced pretty quickly. Even if the watch itself implements mechanism to slow down a brute force attack that means little if the thief is in physical possession of the watch. Downloading a copy of the watch’s firmware will allow an attacker to bypass any watch implemented slowdown mechanisms, which will likely render the five digit code irrelevant.

The thing to take away from this article is that the author isn’t unbiased. He designed the authentication system and is therefore invested in making it sound good. On the other hand he doesn’t indicate that he wants to lobby for mandating his design be including in all handguns, which is a good. I have no objections to the technology itself although I don’t have any interest in it since its reliability hasn’t been proven. But I also cannot accept his claim that firearms like the iP1 are inherently safer since he has a direct business interest in saying so and there are a lot of scenarios where the technology could cost you your life (for example, if your arm with the watch is injured you could be unable to fire the gun with your functional hand).

Chipotle Requests Gun Owners Not Bring Guns Into Its Stores

I have no issue with open carry. In fact I open carry quite often (basically whenever I’m on a bicycle). But actions have consequences and if you’re open carrying AR-15 rifles into stores you should understand that backlash is a likely outcome. Case in point, after an incident involving gun rights activists open carrying rifles into a Texas Chipotle location the company has officially requested that customers not bring guns into their stores:

NEW YORK (AP) — Chipotle is asking customers not to bring firearms into its stores after it says gun rights advocates brought military-style assault rifles into one of its restaurants in Texas.

The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.

But in a statement Monday, the company said that “the display of firearms in our restaurants has now created an environment that is potentially intimidating or uncomfortable for many of our customers.”

I’m not going to invest time into criticizing those who were carrying rifles into Chipotle. They knew what they were doing and what the possible consequences would be. The lesson to take away from this announcement is the same lesson to take away from Starbuck’s similar announcement: being a dick never helps. I know that there’s nothing inherently dickish about the act open carrying firearms. But intent does play a factor in everything and when your intent is to make a political statement by open carrying then it’s a dickish act. Let’s face it, much like religion, politics is a topic that should only be discussed upon invitation. Any attempt to bring up politics before an invitation has been made is dickish.

Am I going to boycott Chipotle over this? Well I couldn’t even if I wanted to since I never eat at Chipotle. It seems to put cilantro in everything and cilantro does not interact favorably with my tastebuds (that shit tastes nasty and I don’t know how people enjoy it).

Wonderful Drama in the Gun Rights World

If there’s one thing I love it’s Internet drama. And boy do I have a heap of it for you guys. Dudley Brown, the main guy behind the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) rustled Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF), jimmies:

Dudley Brown and his “National Association for Gun Rights” (NAGR) have built a reputation by attacking every other major gun rights organization and even pro-gun politicians, to the detriment of the gun rights movement. His rhetoric has done more to marginalize Second Amendment activism than all of the slanders from gun prohibition lobbying groups combined.Now Dudley has spewed his venom toward Alan Gottlieb, a true champion of Second Amendment advocacy with a proven track record of accomplishment. Gottlieb is founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

In his latest effort to raise money for his own self-aggrandizement, Dudley Brown has launched a vicious canard against Alan Gottlieb, accusing the veteran gun rights advocate of “Leading the fight for national gun registration.”

Alan Gottlieb has never advocated for gun registration in his life. His legislative efforts have been to prevent that, and Dudley knows it.

Burn! Of course the SAF delivers an onslaught of just retribution:

The Second Amendment Foundation has championed gun rights legal actions and won in federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. Remember, it was SAF that took McDonald v. City of Chicago [PDF] to the Supreme Court and won. Where was Dudley?

SAF and CCRKBA have conducted the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference for more than 25 years, bringing together major gun rights leaders with grassroots activists to unify and expand the gun rights movement. Where was Dudley?

When SAF and the National Rifle Association joined forces to stop the unconstitutional gun grab in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, where was Dudley?

When SAF and NRA joined forces to defeat the San Francisco gun ban, where was Dudley?

When SAF, NRA and CCRKBA joined forces to defeat the City of Seattle’s parks gun ban – thus strengthening state preemption in Washington state and providing a lesson for anyone who might challenge other states’ preemption laws, where was Dudley?

When the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) was created, Alan Gottlieb was there to help bring together an organization that now has member groups from every continent and several nations. Where was Dudley?

When multi-national gun rights organizations gather in Europe to resist global gun control efforts, Alan Gottlieb is there, but where is Dudley?

I have been very critical of Mr. Gottlieb’s recent advocacy of universal background checks but there is one major difference between him and Mr. Brown. Mr. Gottlieb and the SAF actually gets shit down.

The NAGR is only well known for two things: whining about everybody else and taking people’s money. Scratch that, there’s a third thing they’re well known for: leaking the personal information of its members to random people. But as far as victories in the fight for gun rights? The NAGR has done all of jack shit. Sure they’ve cultivated some extremely zealous supporters, a couple of whom are friends of mine (more on that in a bit), but they can’t actually point to any of their victories.

What’s really annoying is that us Minnesotans have to deal with one of the NAGR’s dumb ass affiliate groups called Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR). MGR mimics the NAGR very well. It invests a lot of time bitching about the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) and asking for money from people but it hasn’t actually done a damn thing as far as fighting for gun rights in Minnesota is concerned.

Now back to what I said about the NAGR having a track record of cultivating some very zealous supporters. As I mentioned a couple of these zealous supporters are my friends. One actually went so far as to block me on Facebook when he was praising MGR and I asked for a track record of what the organization has accomplished (by the way being blocked was my only answer). This rabid devotion from people who are generally cynical and skeptical of any political organization leads me to believe, although I have no proof, that they’re getting some money from either the NAGR or MGR. Either way they tout both organizations as the greatest thing since sliced bread (and denouncing every other gun rights organization as quislings) but cannot produce any information demonstrating either organization’s effectiveness. When your most devout supporters can’t provide any proof that you’ve actually done something then you’ve almost certainly done nothing.

It amuses me to no end that the individual who runs the NAGR, and presumably its affiliate organizations, is criticizing organizations like the SAF while his organization has absolutely nothing to show for itself. That would be like me criticizing Ludwig von Mises for failing to advance the cause of liberty while being unable to provide any evidence that I have advanced the cause of liberty (the only difference is that I’m pretty certain I have done more to advance gun rights and liberty than the NAGR has, and all I’ve done is help introduce people to the shooting sports and write this blog). As the saying goes, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

I really hope this drama spreads (as you can see here I’m doing my part to fan the flames). Watching the NAGR shoot its mouth off is just fucking hilarious and I love watching it made a fool of in public.

If You’re Doing Something Illegal Don’t Brag About It

I feel that this is something that shouldn’t need to be said but if you’re doing something illegal don’t go around bragging about it. Bragging is how people get caught:

YOKOHAMA – A 27-year-old man who allegedly made handguns with a 3-D printer was arrested Thursday on suspicion of illegal weapons possession, the first time Japan’s firearms control law has been applied to the possession of guns made by this method.

The suspect, Yoshitomo Imura, an employee of Shonan Institute of Technology in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, had the plastic guns at his home in Kawasaki in mid-April, the police said. No bullets have been found.

The police launched an investigation earlier this year after Imura posted video footage online of the guns, which he claimed to have produced himself, along with blueprints for them, according to investigative sources.

Emphasis mine. I completely support what Imura did. He lives in a country with very strict gun control laws. By manufacturing firearms he was able to bypass those laws and demonstrate how ineffective gun control laws really are. But he also screwed up by posting video of is escapades in a manner that didn’t preserve his anonymity.

If you’re going to break the law, something that I believe is moral so long as you’re not hurting anybody, either keep your mouth shut or brag about your caper anonymously (the latter being more risky than the former mind you). The desire to received credit is the biggest downfall of law breakers. Breaking the law is an act that will enter you into a conflict with the state. When you’re involved in a conflict, whether it be physical or just verbal, the first thing you should do is put your ego aside.

Why Firearm Access Control is a Futile Effort

The issue of access control technology built into firearms (erroneously called smart gun technology by advocates of gun control) has been a hot topic as of late. Anti-gunners want it and gun owners want nothing to do with it. But the argument is irrelevant and Forbes, in an article trying to explain why gun owners should fear access control technology in their firearms, explains why:

10. Firearms must be able to be disassembled in order to be cleaned and maintained. One of the principles of information security is that someone who has physical access to a machine can undermine its security. Smartgun manufacturers need to show evidence that criminals who steal smartguns cannot modify them to work with the smart technology removed or disabled (or that preventing any components from being accessed that are accessible in conventional weapons will not impact the durability of the weapons).

Physical access is the ultimate killer of any security system. If an individual has both physical access and unlimited time they can bypass any security system. After all security systems merely buy time. An effective security system is one that takes longer to bypass than an attacker is either willing or able to invest. With access control technology on firearms both of those criteria are met since the owner necessarily has permanent physical access.

Mandating access control technology in firearms is entirely futile. The technology won’t survive even a few days once it’s introduced to market. With that said, the technology would give us something fun to play with at Defcon.

War Criminal Claims American Gun Culture is Out of Balance

I’m still laughing about this:

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the nation’s gun culture has gotten “way out of balance” and the U.S. needs to rein in the notion that “anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime.”

This coming from a war criminal. Talk about hilarious!

But few people are discussing the irony of a war criminal lambasting gun owners. Instead they’re talking about supporting whatever candidate the Republican Party runs against Hillary (because Hillary is almost certainly going to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate). The fear machine is already ramping up as I’ve started seeing comments on several gun forums that claim Hillary will be even worse than Obama. Although this will fall mostly on deaf ears I might as well make an attempt to point out the game being played. I again return to Noam Chomsky’s great quote about political debate:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate

Here in the United States the oligarchs have successfully narrow the spectrum of acceptable opinions to the point where only one opinion is truly acceptable. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a liberal or a conservative, if you play the Republican versus Democrat game you’re arguing in favor of the oligarchy. Within this narrow spectrum only a handful of issues are allowed to be debated. Gun rights, the legalities of abortion, how open the borders should be, whether we’ve always been at war with Eurasia or Eastasia, and so on. The trick is that all of these issues are very emotional for those who are invested. And those issues are almost always argued in a manner that insinuates that our rulers have a right to make decisions about what we can and cannot do.

So long as we all continue to fall for their tricks and play their game we’re never going to be free. Unfortunately the oligarchy is good at playing the game and know exactly what buttons to push to get the results they desire. By simply referring to the gun culture as being out of balance an army of gun owners are whipped up into a Republican frenzy and not even thinking about the prospects of a society devoid of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Suicide by Cooperation

I give credit to the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) for developing a successful alternative strategy to political lobbying. But every time its founder opens his mouth about background checks I cringe:

“The gun rights lobby has to wake up and realize we need to lead, not follow,” the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and the the chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms told Guns.com in an interview at the at the NRA’s 143rd Annual Meetings and Exhibits in downtown Indianapolis last weekend.

Gottlieb’s desire to strike a deal on an enhanced background check measure that would cover private sales made over the Internet and at gun shows is based on the premise that fighting UBCs is a losing battle over the long run.

Do you know what a great way to commit suicide is? Cooperating with your enemies. Trust me, they will find a convenient way for you to die if your work with them. Gottlieb obviously has some powerful gray matter in his brainpan as his organization has lead several successful lawsuits that ended in favor of gun owners. But his belief that the gun rights movement needs to strike a deal on background checks is, to put it nicely, really fucking stupid.

Fighting universal background checks isn’t a losing battle. Private sales remain legal in many states (Minnesota being one of them). It also looks like most of those states will continue to allow private sales without mandating they go through a federally licensed dealer. There is also the fact that firearms are simple mechanical devices that can be built by small groups of people. Distributing the knowledge on home gun manufacturing would render universal background checks of any sort impotent.

The history of gun control in this country is proof that cooperating with anti-gunners is a losing strategy. First they said they only desired to control machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, and a few other odds and ends. Then they wanted the purchase of machine guns by non-state entities to be entirely verboten (and only settled on newly manufactured machine guns being verboten). After that they wanted aesthetically offensive rifles, which they erroneously called “assault” rifles, prohibited and all magazines to only be legally allowed to hold 10 rounds. Every time the gun control advocates got what they wanted they demanded more and the same will happen with universal background checks. If gun rights activists cooperate with gun control advocates on universal background checks the initial bill may not be as bad as it would otherwise be. But then the anti-gunners will demand more. And they will likely get it because the precedence was set by the law gun rights activists initially helped pass.

The State is Hindering Smart Gun Availability, Not the NRA

Today’s theme, as you can probably guess from the previous post, is putting the blame where it should be. Far too often the media attempts to blame anybody but the actual culprit for perceived wrongdoings. For example, The Verge recently ran an article accusing the National Rifle Association (NRA) of taking peoples’ smart guns. At least that’s the accusation found in the title, the article itself points out that the NRA doesn’t actually oppose smart gun technology:

Opponents counter that the technology adds an unnecessary failure point — you don’t want to fumble with a fingerprint unlock if someone is breaking into your home. They also fear the spread of laws like New Jersey’s, since similar proposals have been introduced in other states and in Congress. “The NRA does not oppose new technological developments in firearms,” the group writes on its website. “We are opposed to government mandates that require the use of expensive, unreliable features, such as grips that would read your fingerprints before the gun will fire.”

And the closing paragraph finally points to the real cause of opposition to smart guns:

Many gun owners don’t object to smart guns, as long as they’re still allowed to buy regular guns. “If someone wants to buy a smart gun, that is fine,” Raymond said in his Facebook address. “When the law legislates it, that is a sin.” After the apology, he and his shop were flooded with supportive emails, calls, and visits. Members of the Maryland Shooters forum even rallied for a barbecue at Engage Armament. “It is only a matter of time before such guns are available. Acting like babies about it doesn’t make things better,” one user wrote. “Assuming of course there is an actual market for such a bad idea.”

So we come again to the real culprit, the state. As the article points out New Jersey passed legislation that would mandate smart gun technology be integrated into all firearms sold in the state within three years of the technology becoming available to consumers. That being the case it’s pretty simple to figure out why so many people oppose this unproven technology.

Smart gun technology is another victim of the gun control advocates’ policy of making everything either mandatory of verboten. If a new technology can inhibit firearms they demand it become mandatory and if the technology can enhance firearms they demand it be prohibited. Access control policies (which is what gun control advocates really mean when they say smart guns) could inhibit the reliability of firearms as none of the proposed access control methods have been rigorously tested. I don’t want a gun that will sudden cease to function because some asshole decided to jam the radio frequency being used to authenticate with my firearm. And I certainly don’t want to cut up and deface my current firearms (some of which are very valuable to me) to jerry rig some half-assed access control system into them. But that’s what the politicians in New Jersey have demanded and, as a general rule, if the politicians in New Jersey concoct a gun policy then us gun owners know it’s not to be trusted (and in this case those politicians were kind enough to make it blatantly obvious why we shouldn’t trust them).

There’s almost certainly a market for firearms with reliable access control technology. But the state doesn’t want to allow that market and the market for guns sans access control technology to coexist. So the debate necessarily becomes one of “us” versus “them”. If the state wasn’t using its monopoly on force to favor one market over the others then we could have both and everybody could be happy (except the anti-gunners but they’re never happy so there’s no point in trying to please them).

The NRA’s Speaker Selection Needs Work

As it happened over the weekend I didn’t pay much attention to the news coming out of the National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meeting. The only news I paid any attention to involved new firearms and firearm accessory announcements. I didn’t even bother to look up any of the speeches. If an organization has people like Sarah Palin speaking then I know it’s not worth my time looking up the speeches. Unfortunately Palin’s speech found me. Once again she opened her mouth and a flood of stupid came forth. And this was stupid that I couldn’t let go without commenting:

(CNN) – Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told a capacity crowd at a National Rifle Association rally how she would baptize terrorists if she was an elected official.

“If I was in charge,” Palin said Saturday in Indianapolis, “they would know, waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Once again we return to the culture clash within the shooting community. It saddens me that so many people in the shooting community are warmongers. I’m sure this statement by Palin was met with great applause and cheering. Nothing gets a warmonger harder faster than discussions about torture.

But those of us who oppose imperialism don’t find statements like this funny, endearing, or appropriate. Torture is a barbaric act used by cowards and sadists whose only interest is inflicting pain on other human beings. The fact that Palin sees something like water boarding as a positive thing demonstrates her psychopathy. And this is far from her first time saying something like this, which makes me look down on the NRA for having her as a keynote speaker.

Obviously it’s impossible for any single organization to appease everybody. The NRA looks for speakers that will appeal to the majority of its members. That majority is made up by the old guard of the shooting community. But there are speakers that could be hired that appeal to both the old guard and people outside of the traditional shooting culture because they focus on gun rights and self-defense and not United States imperialism and warmongering. It would be nice to see the NRA try to bridge the gap between the traditional and nontraditional gun owning communities by hiring speakers for and hosting events at its Annual Meeting that appealed to both sides.