Tag: Gun Rights

Chicago’s Ban on Firearm Transfers Ruled Illegal

In an unexpected twist of judicial ruling a federal judge decided that Chicago’s blanket ban on firearm transfers wasn’t constitutional:

A federal judge ruled Monday that Chicago’s ban on virtually all sales and transfers of firearms is unconstitutional.

“The stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun. But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment,” wrote U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang.

“Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms,” he continued.

Of course this ruling, like most judicial rulings, won’t prevent Chicago from maintaining a blanket ban so long as it finds another way of doing it:

Chang explicitly did not rule out other types of regulation, short of a complete ban, in order to “minimize the access of criminals to firearms and to track the ownership of firearms.

Overly complicated testing and regulation for dealers, exorbitant permit fees, a cap on the number of authorized dealers within city limits, and many other options are still on the table. And one or more of those options will be used because there is no way the oligarchs of Chicago are going to allow their hard on for gun control to whither. But that’s how the illusion is maintained. Courts hand out rulings that appear to favor the people but always leave exceptions that allow the oligarchs to continue doing what they were doing. Then the cases go back to court where another ruling that looks to favor the people will eventually be made to continue the cycle.

Part of the New York SAFE Act Shot Down

Here’s some good news to start off 2014. A federal judge has shot down the seven round restriction of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act, although he upheld the ban on aesthetically offensive semi-automatic rifles:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – A federal judge has rejected a controversial portion of New York’s tough new gun law while upholding the majority of the SAFE Act.

Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny in Buffalo rejected restrictions of no more than seven bullets in a magazine, but upheld the ban on in-state sales of assault weapons and high capacity magazines.

In his ruling, Skretny found the seven-round limit “tenuous, strained and unsupported” but found that the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines “do not impermissibly infringe on Plaintiff’s Second Amendment rights” and furthers the state’s “important interest in public safety.”

I am left to wonder if the judge would have found a 10 round limit acceptable on the same grounds he claimed the restriction of aesthetically offensive semi-automatic rifles was acceptable. Perhaps the mistake New York’s lawmakers made only a measure of three rounds.

As with most rulings related to firearm laws, this one was arbitrarily made. Somehow Second Amendment privileges (because we don’t have rights in this country) are infringed by a seven round magazine but not by a ban on rifles based entirely on aesthetic features. How a rifle with a pistol grip and bayonet lug is more dangerous to public safety than a rifle with a traditional stock and a bayonet lug is beyond me.

Fun with Stereotypes

I love stereotypes. Kevin at The Smallest Minority posted a great quote posted by somebody who doesn’t judge books by their cover:

(A)s soon as I learn that someone owns a gun, and is pro-gun ownership without heavy regulations, I totally judge them to be uneducated and conservative. Responsible or not, having a gun comes with a mentality of thinking it is ok to buy a killing device. I am happy to do that, because I have yet to meet an intelligent, well educated person who is pro-guns in real life.

The problem with stereotypes is that they suck for making accurate assessments of people. For example, I consider myself a dirty leftist liberal because, as an anarchist, I favor radical change. While I don’t consider myself terribly educated my friends and acquaintances have described me as such. For the purpose of this post I will defer to their opinions since the topic at hand is how one individual judges other individuals. As other seem to believe I’m intelligent I effectively smash the stereotype held by the person quoted above.

As a gun owner I know many fellow gun owners. Most of them are very intelligent people. If I had to stereotype gun owners, which I’m only doing here for the sake of discussion, I would say that they tend to be very practical individuals. What I mean is that the gun owners I know tend to be very good with their hands. If need advice on building something or somebody to build me something I check with my gun owning friends first. Likewise, if I’m having trouble with an automobile, plumbing, wiring, and other practical matters I tend to ask my gun owner friends first. In addition to having a great deal of practical knowledge they usually have a great deal of historical and legal knowledge. I spend a great deal of time discussing history and legal matters with my gun owner friends as those are topics that tend to interest us.

The person quoted above claims that he has never met an intelligent pro-gun person. With his preconception of gun owners I can see why. In all likelihood he disassociates with anybody who is pro-gun in order to maintain his confirmation bias. Unless you’re willing to associate with people who oppose your viewpoint you’re probably never going to get to know them well enough to determine their level of education.

Double Standard of Laws Barring “Mentally Ill” from Possessing Firearms

One of the big gun control drums being beaten today, often by both gun control and gun rights advocates, is barring people who have suffered a mental illness from ever possessing firearms. But we know that the state is hypocritical so any law prohibiting those who have suffered a mental illness from possessing a firearm will be a double standard that benefits the state. In fact Pennsylvania just demonstrated that fact:

Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael L. Keyes is in an odd situation.

When on duty, he can carry a gun.

Yet while off duty, he is barred by law from possessing any firearms, because seven years ago he suffered from deep depression, repeatedly tried to kill himself by taking drugs and was involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.

Keyes’ latest attempt to be allowed to have a gun all the time was rejected this week by the state Superior Court.

It’s important to point out that the officer suffered from deep depression. Since depression is something you can overcome, and his freedom from a mental institute indicates he has overcome it, there is no reason he should still be prohibited from owning firearms. But the double standard here is what is most interesting.

Based on this situation I am lead to believe that the state believes that anybody who wears one of its issued costumes is instantly cured from any mental ailment… until they remove that costume. Obviously that’s a ludicrous belief so I’m lead to believe something more logical. In all likelihood the state has no issue with the mentally ill possessing firearms so long as they’re using those firearms to hurt people who disobey its decrees. In fact anybody willing to kick in a random door and shoot a dog because the occupants were accused of possessing a plant is probably suffering from some form of mental illness already.

When you demand that the state prohibit the mentally ill from possessing firearms remember that it will only prohibit the mentally ill outside of its employ from possessing firearms. The state exists on hypocrisy. Its only law is that rules are for thee, not for me. It is the reason politics has never solved a social issues in the history of humanity and never will. Whenever it issues a decree to fix a social issue it always exempts itself from that decree.

Registering Firearms: Something You’ll Never See Me Do

Do you want to know something I will never do? This:

MIDDLETOWN, CT (WFSB) – There are only five more days until the new gun laws go into effect for our state, that means a dash to register assault weapons or high capacity magazines.

A long line of people stood outside of the Public Safety Building in Middletown all day Thursday to register firearms.

Specifically, anything the state considers an assault weapon or a high capacity magazine must be registered before Jan. 1, 2014.

Remember all of those warnings to never talk to the cops? Those warnings also apply here. Never volunteer information to police officers. Their job is to expropriate wealth from the general population. Their tool is enforcing the state’s decrees. The only reason the state wants to know what you own is so it can tax or take it. Registering a firearm and magazines is volunteering the fact you own those possession to the police. Later those cops will use that information to either tax or take your registered firearms and magazines because that is their job.

I understand why people are willing to register their firearms and magazines. They believe doing so will protect them, at least for a while, from government harassment. But registration always leads to confiscation or taxation. In the long run what these people in line are doing is telling the state where to round up aesthetically imposing semi-automatic rifles and standard capacity magazines. When the law changes again and makes those objects illegal or taxable the state will know where to find them. It will then send its enforcers, the police, to ensure you comply with the new law at the point of a gun. And if you managed to “lose” those registered firearms and magazines when the state comes knocking you can damn well bet that you will be spending some time in a cage. Meanwhile the people who didn’t go for the state’s carrot will be able to maintain that they own no such firearms or magazines.

Test Firing of Liberator in Japan

I that 3D printable firearms will destroy gun control. Once individuals are able to easily manufacture firearms from their homes it will be impossible for any government to restrict ownership. But beliefs and demonstrations are two different things. Today I have a demonstration of 3D printable firearms apparently skirting gun control laws. Japan isn’t know for being a weapon friendly island. Throughout Japanese history rulers have disarmed segments of the population. Disarming people took the form of sword hunts, which eventually concluded in the disarmament of the samurai in 1876. Today acquiring a firearm in Japan is extremely difficult [PDF]. Even possessing parts of a handgun can get you into legal trouble. So seeing a Liberator pistol being fired in Japan is pretty exciting:

My understanding of Japanese weapons laws leads me to believe that the video is showing an illegal act but I’m not entirely sure as the demonstrator was willing to show his face. Either way I think this thoroughly demonstrates the viability of producing 3D printable firearms in localities with strict gun control laws. Gun control advocates will be quick to point out that 3D printable firearms aren’t yet viable, which is true today. Tomorrow will be a different story. 3D printer technology is advancing rapidly and we will see affordable printers capable of manufacturing reliable firearms in the near future. After we reach that technological achievement gun control laws will be unenforceable and thus gun control will be dead.

Open Carry Sensationalism

Have you heard the news? Us gun owners have discovered a new way to instill fear into the hearts of men! How? By advocating for the ability to openly carry a firearm. OK, it’s not a new strategy. Some of us have been open carrying for quite some time now. And it’s not a strategy meant to instill fear. But if you read Salon’s latest gun control article, and knew nothing about open carry laws, you would be lead to believe that gun owners are fighting for open carry laws so they can scare grandmothers and little children:

The debate over open carry is the new front line in the battle over gun rights and public safety in American culture. In Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, gun rights activists have been staging protests, demanding broader liberty to display their guns in public rather than keep them concealed under clothing. Major candidates in statewide elections have voiced support for open carry, asserting that the conspicuous display of firepower will deter crime. For decades, though, social scientists have studied the way people behave around guns, and they’ve found that all of us — not just criminals — will be affected by seeing guns in our everyday environment.

This is pure sensationalism. We already live in a society where guns are openly carried by people. These people are called cops and they’re responsible for killing eight times as many people as terrorists. In fact the number of Americans killed by cops has surpassed the number of Americans killed in the Iraq War. We’re not only exposed to people carrying firearms every day but those people have a rather violent history.

Let’s discuss carry permit holders for a second. Compared to carry permit holders cops are three times more likely to murder somebody. Here in Minnesota the rate of murder and manslaughter committed by carry permit holders is .542 per 100,000 whereas the rate for the general population is 1.78 per 100,000. So people should actually feel less threatened by permit holders openly carrying firearms than by the general population sans firearms.

If seeing a person openly carrying a firearm instills fear or aggression I haven’t noticed it even though I’m always openly carrying a firearm while biking. Nobody cares nor have people made any attempt at avoiding me on the trail (in fact I get asked for directions with notable frequency).

Open carry is already normalized in American society thanks to the police. The article sites a 1967 study to argue that people act more aggressively when in the presence of a gun:

Even when you’re not holding a gun, you can be psychologically affected by seeing one. Since 1967, researchers have been observing the “weapons effect,” a phenomenon in which the mere presence of a weapon can stimulate aggressive behavior. Of course, a person doesn’t respond to a gun the way a cartoon bull reacts to the matador’s cape; we aren’t spontaneously enraged every time we notice a firearm. But empirical research has repeatedly shown that when people are already aggravated, seeing a gun will motivate them to behave more aggressively.

Imagine you’ve volunteered to participate in a study on a college campus. You arrive to find the lab somewhat cluttered: There’s a badminton racquet and some shuttlecocks on a table. The researchers tell you to ignore that stuff — it’s for a different study. They hook you up to a machine that administers electric shocks, and hand the controls to another participant like yourself. He zaps you. Repeatedly. (He’s secretly part of the research team, following specific instructions — but as far as you know he’s just being a jerk.) Now it’s your turn to zap him. How many shocks will you administer?

Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage repeated this experiment with 100 male students at the University of Wisconsin, sometimes replacing the badminton equipment with a revolver and shotgun (or no stimulus at all). They found that participants administered more electric shocks when in the presence of guns. According to Berkowitz and LePage, the weapons were “aggressive cues.”

There’s a major flaw in that study’s methodology. How a person perceives a gun sitting on a table is likely to differ from how he or she perceives a gun carried on a person. If this weren’t the case then police officers would find themselves constantly dealing with more aggressive than average behavior. Most people, when dealing with a police officers, tend to act less than aggressive. The primarily reason for that likely stems from the fact that aggression is unwise when the other person has the ability to defend him or herself. As Robert Heinlein wrote in Beyond This Horizon, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” A good example of this may have been a time period often cited by gun control advocates: the Old West. Unlike portrayals in Hollywood and claims by gun control advocates indicate, the Old West was quite peaceful (at least until the federal government started grabbing for more power in the region). Openly carrying firearms during that time period wasn’t uncommon yet the rate of violence was quite low.

Openly carrying a firearm isn’t anymore dangerous for a society than secretly carrying a firearm. The manner of carry isn’t important, the people carrying are. In our society firearms are openly carried by law enforcement agents, who have higher rate of violence than the average carry permit holder. Our civilization hasn’t collapsed due to this. Civilization also hasn’t collapse in states where open carry is legal. Advocating to legalize open carry in other states isn’t a dangerous new strategy being used by us gun nuts. It’s an acknowledgement that legalized open carry hasn’t negatively impacted any state so there is no justifiable reason to prohibit the act elsewhere.

On the Colorado School Shooting

I’m not going to spend much time discussing the recent school shooting in Colorado since most of the facts aren’t in yet. But I do want to quickly mention one important aspect: the extent of time the shooting lasted:

In less than 80 seconds, Karl Pierson “fired one random shot down a hallway,” then entered an area where 17-year-old Claire Esther Davis was seated with a friend, “and shot the female victim point-blank” in the head. “There was no time for the victim to run from the shooter,” Robinson told reporters on Saturday.

Pierson then fired another round down a hallway, then entered the library, where he fired again and ignited one of the Molotov cocktails, according to Robinson.

That ignited at least three bookshelves, causing smoke to pour into the library.

He then fired a fifth round and ran to the library’s back corner, “and there took his own life.”

By 12:35 p.m., it was all over.

[…]

The rampage might have resulted in many more casualties had it not been for the quick response of a deputy sheriff who was working as a school resource officer at the school, Robinson said.

This event shows that a lot of damage can be caused in a mere 80 seconds. It also shows that having the ability to respond quickly to school shootings is critical. In most of these shootings the shooter has committed suicide upon meeting armed resistance. That means having armed individuals on site is an effective way to reduce the amount of damage cased by a shooter. I’m not a fan of having uniformed officers on site because it both creates an obvious point of failure and reinforces the prison-like environment that schools already reflect. I would far prefer schools allow teachers and faculty to carry a firearm is they so chose. That would add uncertainty to any plan to shoot up a school and would remove an obvious point of failure.

There will never be a perfect solution to prevent violence but we can work to mitigate its effects. One of the most effective ways of doing so is to have a more widely armed populace.

Poll Reveals 60 Percent of Americans Want Unicorns

Reason did a poll asking Americans whether or not they should be allowed to manufacture firearms on 3D printers:

3D printers can create a variety of items from plastic, including working guns. However, the new Reason-Rupe poll finds six in 10 Americans say Americans should not be allowed to print 3D guns. Thirty percent of Americans believe people should be allowed to print 3D guns at home.

Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree that printing 3D guns should be prohibited. However, Democrats are more unified in their opposition with 67 percent who favor prohibiting 3D printed guns compared to 52 percent of non-partisan independents and 55 percent of Republicans. Twenty-five percent of Democrats and a third of non-partisan independents and Republicans think people should be allowed to print their own functioning 3D guns.

One cannot stop the march of advancing technology, which renders the opinions of those 60 percent irrelevant. The beauty of 3D printers is that they are devices that can be kept entirely within a home. There is no need for a separate shop that could raise the suspicion of local law enforcement. That makes enforce any laws that prohibit manufacturing a good on a 3D printer impossible to enforce. By favoring laws against manufacturing firearms on 3D printers the respondents might as well have asked for unicorns.

I’m a strong advocate of 3D printers because they enable individuals to manufacture goods from easily copied rendering files. Just as the Internet rendered censorship irrelevant 3D printers will render regulations against physical objects irrelevant.

Carrying a Firearms is Apparently a Gateway Crime

Remember when your teachers tried to scare you away from cannabis by claiming it was the gateway drug? Supposedly smoking cannabis would lead to your also snorting cocaine, dropping acid, and injecting heroine. Following that line of thinking Garry McCarthy, the Chicago police superintendent, had something to say about those of us who carry a firearm:

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says that’s more than any major city and he says if you can reduce weapons you will reduce crime.

“Carrying a loaded firearm is the gateway crime to committing a murder,” McCarthy said.

If that’s the case then receiving a badge must be a gateway crime as well because it seems that the Chicago Police Department has a rather interesting history of criminal behavior [PDF].

In all seriousness I do understand McCarthy’s attitude. Police officers often seem to have a desire to commit murder and other violent crimes. Were I surrounded by police officers every day, especially Chicago police officers, I would probably hypothesize that carrying a gun is what drives their desire to commit violent acts. But when you’re not involving in the police machinery the picture looks quite different. Most non-state agents who carry firearms are quite peaceful.