Don’t deranged criminals who go on violent rampages and shoot innocent people know that their possession of firearms is violating the law? Does gun violence at home have anything to do with military violence abroad? From Jacob G. Hornberger at fff.org:
Upon hearing that a man dressed in a military-style outfit was shooting people with an assault rifle at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California on Sunday, I imagine that there were at least some Californians saying to themselves, “That’s impossible. It’s illegal in California to take an assault rifle into a public festival.” Indeed, according to Wikipedia, “The gun laws of California are some of the most restrictive in the United States.” So, what are gun-control advocates in California going to do now? Make their gun laws even more restrictive?
For 20 years, I have been writing that people who are going to kill other people with guns don’t give a hoot about gun laws. After all, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, if a person doesn’t care about obeying a law against murder, he’s not going to care about violating a law against taking an assault rifle into a food festival.
But ordinary, law-abiding people do care about obeying gun laws. That’s because many of these laws make it a felony offense to violate them. That means jail time, big fines, and a serious criminal record. Even when it’s just a misdemeanor offense, oftentimes a conviction can also mean jail time.
For most people, violating the law in order to have a means of self-defense is just not worth the risk. The chances of being caught in a place where some mass murderer is indiscriminately shooting people is relatively low and, therefore, not enough to justify the risk of a felony conviction if caught with, say, a concealed handgun for self-defense.
The mainstream media has a political position to peddle, and has no interest in actually learning anything about guns or the people who own them. From Awr Hawkins at breitbart.com:
Former National Public Radio (NPR) CEO Ken Stern suggests the liberal media’s coverage of the Second Amendment proves they do not understand guns.
He said these things after taking a year away from the Democrat circles in which he once ran, and embedding himself with NASCAR fans, Tea Party members, collegiate evangelicals, and gun owners.
Writing in the New York Post, Stern said, “I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.” He even undertook a hunting trip near Gonzalez, Texas, which was “[his] first time with a gun.” He joined with hunters who had traveled in from Georgia and others from Houston, Texas, all of whom were there to shoot wild pigs.
After a full day of hunting, Stern observed, “None of my new hunting partners fit the lazy caricature of the angry NRA member. Rather, they saw guns as both a shared sport and as a necessary means to protect their families during uncertain times. In truth, the only one who was even modestly angry was me, and that only had to do with my terrible ineptness as a hunter.”
Stern spent time in Pikeville, Kentucky—another gun-loving part of the country—and in Youngstown, Ohio. Both trips allowed him to see Americans struggling to make ends meet, Americans “who felt that their concerns had long fallen on deaf ears and were looking for every opportunity to protest a government and political and media establishment that had left them behind.”
He stressed that he not only spent time with these Americans but tried to see the world as they did as well. The divide between gun rights versus gun control was a vehicle for doing that, and he quickly noted that the “media is obsessed with the gun-control side and gives only scant, mostly negative, recognition to the gun-rights sides.”
Stern added:
Take for instance the issue of the legitimate defensive gun use (DGUs), which is often dismissed by the media as myth. But DGUs happen all the time—200 times a day, according to the Department of Justice, or 5,000 times a day according to an overly exuberant Florida State University study. But whichever study you choose to believe, DGUs happen frequently and give credence to my hunting friends who see their guns as the last line of defense for themselves and their families.
From a senior European interior ministry official:
This is one channel we’re paying increasing attention to. Recommissioning them [guns] takes some skill, but we know those skills are being used.
The Wall Street Journal, “Europe Looks to Tighten Gun Laws,” 11/18/15
Europe has some of the tightest gun control laws on the planet, but even tight laws have loopholes. Many European nations allow collectors to own decommissioned firearms. Some firearms can be recommissioned. In true governmental fashion, some Europeans lawmakers are proposing to make their gun laws even more draconian to close this avenue to live firearms ownership.
Here’s a suggestion that goes the other way: instead of trying to turn the entire continent into a gun-free zone, how about a concealed carry law instead? Concealed carry laws have reduced violent crime in the US. Those bent on mass mayhem, even those who have accepted their own deaths as the inevitable result of their violence, usually attack gun free zones. Even if widespread possession of firearms under concealed carry laws did not deter all attacks like the ones in Paris last week, they might deter some, and there probably would have been fewer victims in Paris if someone under attack had been able to fire back. Europeans might regard widespread ownership of firearms as barbaric and primitive, but so is dying at the hands of Islamic nut jobs.
Tens of thousands of Connecticut gun owners chose to become overnight felons rather than comply with that state’s new gun registration law. The defiance spurred the Hartford Courant editorial board to impotently sputter about rounding up the scofflaws.
New York’s similar registration law suffers such low compliance that state officials won’t even reveal how many people have abide by the measure—a desperate secrecy ploy that the New York State Committee on Open Government says thumbs its nose at the law itself.
Now Washington state residents pissed of about i594, a ballot measure inflicting background check requirements on even private transactions, plan an exercise in mass disobedience next month.
The fellow getting much of the credit for organizing the rally is Gavin Seim, a former (unsuccessful) congressional candidate and passionate conservative. Seim got a lot of buzz last month when he pulled over an unmarked police car and demanded that the officer show identification. Perhaps surprisingly, Seim not only wasn’t ventilated, but the officer complied.
Seim and his allies (the Facebook event page lists Kit Lange Carroll, Sondra Seim, and Anthony P. Bosworth as co-hosts) plan a rally for the Washington State Capitol, in Olympia, on December 13 at 11am PST. That’s nine days after the law goes into effect. So far, almost 6,000 people have indicated their intention to attend and “exchange guns” without going through a background check, in defiance of the new requirements.
According to the state Attorney General’s analysis, there are exceptions to the background checks, but they’re pretty clearly delineated.
The measure would establish a number of exceptions to the background check requirement. A background check would not be required to transfer a firearm by gift between family members. The background check requirement also would not apply to the sale or transfer of antique firearms. It also would not apply to certain temporary transfers of a firearm when needed to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm. Background checks would not be required for certain public agencies or officers acting in their official capacity, including law enforcement or corrections agencies or officers, members of the military, and federal officials. Federally licensed gunsmiths who receive firearms solely to service or repair them would not be required to undergo background checks.
Certain other temporary transfers of a firearm would also not require a background check. These include temporary transfers between spouses, and temporary transfers for use at a shooting range, in a competition, or for performances. A temporary transfer to a person under age eighteen for hunting, sporting, or education would not require a background check. Other temporary transfers for lawful hunting also would not require a background check.
A person who inherited a firearm other than a pistol upon the death of its former owner would not be required to undergo a background check. A person who inherited a pistol would either have to lawfully transfer the pistol within 60 days or inform the department of licensing that he or she intended to keep the pistol.
Those are pretty broad exceptions (to unenforceable requirements), but they still don’t seem to accommodate exchanges at political rallies. What are the chances the authorities decide this is a “performance” and so they need take no action?
Even so, if the event comes off as planned and thousands of people show up to demonstrate an intent to publicly defy the law, that should be an indicator that Washington’s background checks are destined for the same fate as the registration laws in New York and Connecticut.
Below, Seim speaks about guns and i594 in the days leading up to the measure’s passage.
