Tag: Politics

Potential Addition to Banned Shotguns in the Works

Via Snowflakes in Hell I learned that everybody’s favorite agency of overreached government authority is up to its old tricks against. The Bureau of Everything Fun Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is going to issue new rules regarding shotguns:

Today, the ATF announced at the 2011 SHOT Show that a new ruling would be issued on Monday, January 24, 2011, regarding the importability of certain shotguns. ATF informed the audience at the ATF Townhall meeting that they wanted to ensure that they were properly and justly enforcing the requirements of a shotgun being for a “sporting purpose.”

What does this mean? Most likely that future importation of popular sporting shotguns such as the Saiga AK-based shotgun will become verboten. Although it’s a very popular three gun shotgun the ATF will completely ignore that fact I’m sure. Basically the Saiga has the bad fortune of being an awesome shotgun that accepts magazines that hold more shot shells than is politically accepted.

ATF ruling on shotguns is also the reason the SPAS-12 became illegal to import because it served no “sporting purpose” (even though I’ve used mine to shoot clays several times now). The worst part about this whole situation is the people don’t get a say, the ATF has the authority to do pretty much whatever the fuck they please and we slaves can just shut up and like it. Well we can shut up and like it or work to abolish the ATF. Personally I’m down with the second option.

Right to Carry Law Moving in Wyoming

It seems Wyoming is destined to be the next state that “gives” its citizens the right to carry a concealed firearm. The Wyoming Senate committee gave their recommendation on approval at the right to carry bill. It’s nice to see logic can find hold in some places:

Matthew J. Huntington, a Cheyenne-based “freedom lobbyist,” told the committee that an armed citizen was at the scene in Tucson and ready to shoot to stop the violence. The gunman responsible for the shooting was tackled before the armed citizen could act.

“If that tackling didn’t happen, and the shooter loaded that second magazine and continued, that gentleman who was legally carrying would have been able to stop the threat at that point in time,” Huntington said. “The overall point is that when you make it easier for legally armed citizens to carry guns, you make it harder for bad guys to commit violent crime.”

Of course one of “the only ones” doesn’t like the idea and spouts hypothetical situations that haven’t been a problem in Vermont, Alaska, or Arizona so far:

Casper Police Chief Tom Pagel told the committee that any change to the state’s existing concealed carry system demands careful consideration.

Pagel said more than 21,000 people in Wyoming already have state concealed-carry permits. He said only 1 or 2 percent of applications result in denials.

“Where I see the potential risk to this is citizen to citizen,” Pagel said. “Something that might be a fight will end up with gunplay.”

Being the three states with right to carry laws in place don’t have any issue I think we can all just drop this “blood in the streets” argument.

California AB962 Struck Down

For the first time in a long time some good news as emerged from California. The law passed last year that would have made it illegal to mail order ammunition in the state of California has been struck down in the Fresno Superior Court:

The law, passed last year as AB 962, would have banned mail order ammunition sales and required all purchases of so called “handgun ammunition” to be registered. In an unwritten ruling from the bench, Judge Jeffrey Hamilton found the law unconstitutionally vague on its face and issued an injunction against its enforcement. For now, at least, mail order ammunition sales to California residents can continue, and ammunition sales need not be registered under the law.

The lawsuit—funded by the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle and Pistol (CRPA) Foundation as part of a joint Legal Action Project—was prompted in part by the many objections and questions raised by confused police, ammunition purchasers, and sellers about what ammunition is covered by the new law. Plaintiffs in the case include Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker, the CRPA Foundation, Herb Bauer Sporting Goods, ammunition shipper Able’s Ammo, collectible ammunition shipper RTG Sporting Collectibles, and individual Steven Stonecipher. Mendocino Sheriff Tom Allman also supported the lawsuit.

Being California is about as tyrannical of a state as you can get you can bet money this will be appealed. Still score yet another one for the good guys.

Wisconsin Carry

I’ve found some good news via Says Uncle for those of you living in the state east from mine. It seems Illinois will be the last state in the union that disallows any form of carry a concealed handgun as Wisconsin is planning on passing carry legislation:

Wisconsin, one of two states in the nation that prohibits citizens from carrying a concealed weapon, is expected to reverse this law during the upcoming state legislative session, according to a local newspaper.

Only Illinois and Wisconsin forbid carrying concealed weapons. A Republican was elected governor and Republicans won majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature in November, bringing many more supporters of gun rights to the state government.

“You’re going to see a concealed carry bill pass the Legislature, I have no doubt,” Chris Danou, a Democratic legislator from Trempealeau, Wisconsin, told the LaCrosse Tribune newspaper. “The question is what kind of bill it’s going to be.”

Personally I can’t wait. I’m also hoping for reciprocity with Minnesota since Wisconsin is a state I visit with some semblance of frequency and really hate the fact I can’t carry there. It looks like Illinois will be the last holdout for allowing citizens a means of legal self defense.

Ron Paul on Gun Control and Violence

It’s no secret around here that I really hate politicians. I do have an exception to that rule and that exception is Ron Paul because he actually makes sense. He posted a very good writeup on his site about the recent surge in demand for more gun control. I think this sums things up very nicely:

Also troubling are the renewed calls for stricter gun control laws, and for government to “do something” to somehow prevent similar incidents in the future. This always seems to be the knee jerk reaction to any crime committed with a gun. Nonsensical proposals to outlaw guns around federal officials and install bulletproof barriers in the congressional gallery only reinforce the growing perception that politicians view their own lives as far more important than the lives of ordinary citizens. Politicians and a complicit media have conditioned many citizens to view government as our protector, leading to more demands for government action whenever tragedies occur. But this impulse is at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and individualism, and it also leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty.

Remember our government officials are like you and me only better.

McCarthy Going for Full Gun Ban

I’m a little late with this news but Sebastian over at Snowflakes in Hell has posted information regarding McCarthy’s draft bill to ban ammunition feeding devices above an arbitrary size.

The transfer, importation, and manufacture of any ammunition feeding device (not just magazines it seems) would become illegal under this bill. I don’t know how they could enforce who I transfer magazines to as they usually don’t even have serial numbers to identify them and thus can’t really be tracked.

Likewise many firearms would also become illegal to transfer, import, or manufacture under this law. What firearms you ask? Basically any firearm that has a fixed magazine that can store more than 10 cartridges. Spare parts for standard capacity magazines also become verboten under the law.

What is funny though is police, active or retired, are exempt from this because they obviously need to kill as many people as possible (in McCarthy’s words describing standard capacity magazines). This makes sense because when you’re the government’s enforcement body you get special privileges over the peasantry.

Better Than Us

Our “representatives” have been positively frothing at the mouth with gun control legislation ideas. A New York “representative” appropriately named King is going to introduce legislation that makes it illegal to carry a gun within 1,000 feet of a federal official.

Of course the crazy ass Arizona shooter wouldn’t have shot Gabrielle Giffords if this law was in effect because it would be illegal to carry said gun that close to her. You know they really should just it illegal to shoot somebody as that would be kind of a catch all for these types of situations… wait it already is. I guess we just have to find that one magical law that will make murdering psychopaths reconsider their desires because that makes sense.

The other interesting thing to wonder is what will be the definition of federal official. The federal government employs a great number of people and chances are you have be closer than 1,000 feet to one without even realizing it. How will we know who are federal officials and thus who we have to keep an arbitrary distance from when carrying? Will federal officials be forced to wear some kind of indicator, maybe a “I ban guns within an arbitrary distance of me” sign, as they walk around? I doubt dip shit King put any such thought into these questions as they are concerns only of the peasants of which he rules over.

Interesting Charges in the Arizona Case

Mr. Arizona Shooter appeared today in court and I found the list of charges interesting:

Mr Loughner was charged with five crimes – the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, the first degree murder of two federal employees and the attempted murder of two federal employees.

Why do all these charges involve attempted or successful murders of government officials? Because they’re like you and me only better. You get a much tougher punishment usually if you commit a crime against a government official as opposed to a little peasant such as you or me. It’s rather telling what our government thinks about us when they decide not to treat all murders with the same punishment (we’re just not that important I guess).

Also the blame game is still going on as everybody is trying to show out the shooter’s politics mirror the politics of those they disagree with. It doesn’t matter if the shooter was a liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, communist, or anything else because the simple fact is he killed people. Once you kill somebody your political beliefs are irrelevant as there are far more non-violent people who hold any political belief than there are violent ones. Stop trying to demonize everybody you don’t like because of the actions of one fucked up individual.

Arizona Shooting

Crazy things certainly do happen on weekends. I’m sure everybody has already heard about the tragic shooting in Arizona that six people dead and one congresswoman in critical condition. This is yet another case of crazy people being crazy.

Of course as with any act of violence people want somebody to blame. Jared Loughner was arrested and will be appearing in court for the shooting but most people seem to want to plan the tea party movement instead. The thing in we don’t know Loughner’s political beliefs and in most case like these the shooter has held beliefs on both sides of the political spectrum.

The other thing that many people seemed curious about is how this could happen in a state with constitutional carry. There are two simple explanations for this; nobody there was carrying or those who were carrying decided take shots at somebody while they were in a crowd. I haven’t seen pictures of the gathered crowd but discharging a firearm in a crowd of any size is dangerous. Of course so is letting a guy on a rampage continue is killings but it comes down to the fact shooting into a crowd could cause you to hit an innocent person and thus is a very sticky proposition at best. In these situations the best option is to get the Hell out of dodge.

Immigration

The subject of immigration seems to keep coming up. Many people want stricter laws in place for immigration while others want looser laws. Those clamoring for stricter laws claim immigrants are coming into the country and taking jobs from resident Americans while people on the other end of the spectrum point out the fact that the only people in this country who aren’t immigrants are the Indians.

Personally I’m all for bringing new productive citizens into this country. Because of this I have a potential solution to the overly complicated immigration system in this country. Should anybody want citizenship in this country who has a job, education, or other valuable skill we will grant it immediately. In order to balance out the system and ensure our population doesn’t explode though we will export one politician to the new citizen’s country of origin.

If a man from India with a Ph.D. wants into the country that’s perfectly OK, we’ll let them on in and send a worthless senator back to India in exchange.

I think this is a good system that will ensure more productive people come into the country while worthless baggage is sent out without any increase in population.