Honolulu police on Oahu, Hawaii issued the first concealed carry permit for the county today. This revolutionary impact of SCOTUS’ Bruen decision marks the first substantive victory in a long list of cases that are being fought right now in courts from NY and NJ, to CA and more, as anti-gun legislatures attempt to circumvent the highest court in the land. Hawaii was the first to fall, in what looks more and more like a massive domino arrangement.
As significant as this Hawaii win is, it’s worth noting that this was just the first of hundreds of applications submitted since November, and there is still resistance, most notably in mentions of potentially denoting “sensitive areas” where carry might be prohibited. Given how well this same end-run is going for NY, CA, and NJ, it’s unlikely that it will succeed in the end, but it may well have to go to SCOTUS to be put entirely to bed.
Hawaii, though small, going to shall-issue is a major win for pro-gun advocates as it has been among the most strident of anti-gun legislatures for decades. The small island chain has a limited amount of both public and private land, meaning gun ranges make up most of the potential shooting spots. Unlike many of us on the mainland, heading out to a patch of BLM land to bust caps really just isn’t a thing for most of Hawaii. This means private range fees stack on top of permit and transfer fees, potentially pricing the poorest of Hawaiians out of gun ownership. Much is yet to be done to improve the situation, but this dramatic first step is a harbinger of what’s to come both in Hawaii and across the country as the Bruen decision’s impact is truly felt for the first time.
Sen. Lamar: Memphis Not Ready
Democrat Sen. London Lamar, pictured above, announced in late November that she was introducing a bill to reinstate handgun licensing requirements in Tennessee, but oddly, only for two particular counties. Describing these enumerated counties as “…hav(ing) demonstrated that they are not ready to handle the wide free range of guns, with so many of the crime challenges and the violent crime we have had in our cities…”, she proposes that eliminating permitless carry will have a positive impact on violent crime.
Firstly, lets dispense with the obvious issue with Sen. Lamar’s proposal: Permitless carry doesn’t facilitate violent crime. People who are willing to commit homicide were never dissuaded from doing so by a gun permitting scheme. If the prospect of a felony murder charge wasn’t enough to dissuade someone from their chosen task, something tells us that an additional lesser charge for carrying unlawfully wasn’t going to tip the scales. The sooner we dispense with this fantasy that laws (and by extension law enforcement) are proactive, rather than reactive, the sooner we can address issues from the reality in which we live.
Secondly, has it occurred to no one else that Davidson and Shelby counties are home not only to Memphis and Nashville, but the majority of the People Of Color in the state? Gun control’s history is liberally leavened with paternalist racism, but it’s rarely spelled out so clearly. Sen. Lamar likely has the best of intentions, but could do with some introspection before blatantly declaring that the black people of her home state aren’t responsibly enough to be capable of legal firearm ownership. There are plenty of ways to address violent crime in urban areas without a blanket statement in the form of legislation declaring their incapacity for living within the law, and they start with investing in the communities most affected by violence, and reducing the causative factors. Guns are the symptom end of the problem, and treating symptoms may make you feel better, but it fails to address the disease.
30 Day Reprieve: OR 114
https://katu.com/news/local/federal-judge-denies-filed-injunction-motion-against-measure-114#
A 30 day gap of continued liberty arrive as an early Christmas present for Oregonians today. Unfortunately, District Court Judge Immergut denied the restraining order requested by 2A activists in a lawsuit attempting to stop the implementation of Oregon Measure 114 in court on Tuesday. Immergut however did grant the state time to put together the permitting scheme previously due to go into effect on Thursday, December 8, mere days after the OR Attorney General implied in a tweet that delaying the implementation of the law would cost lives.
Whether granted a 30 day reprieve, or 300, the evidence that the law was poorly written and entirely unplanned for is inescapable. One has to wonder if the defendants changed their tune on the implementation date because they recognized the untenable position it placed them in, or because they realized that letting it go forward would create a constitutional crisis that would call into question the entire law on its face.
The massive glut of purchases that hit the OR NICS system in November, which continues to grow in size, should make clear the harm this law as written had the potential to cause, but apparently Her Honor disagrees. As yet, while the permitting portion of the law has another 30 days until implementation, the magazine capacity ban seems to be going forward, and unless something dramatic happens before the 8th, will become law. The case will continue, and the many 2A groups fighting for your rights in court will continue to do so, but for now a glimmer, however faint, of hope has arrived for Oregonians.
Hopefully Benitez will put an end to California’s mag ban soon, which would put yet another nail into the coffin of 114 that OFF, GOA, FPC, and others are currently constructing. While relief from an arbitrary limit on magazine capacity would be a welcome thing, the real meat of this case is the permit to purchase, and we’re hoping to see more action on this front soon now that our foot, however barely, is in the door.
Moms Demand Schizophrenia
The narrative of any shooting is a confusing jumble for the first few days, and anyone can get caught with their informational pants down, from Moms Demand Action, to the NRA. Any news source should be considered likely to get at least a few things wrong in the rush to get to print. Police often even make erroneous statements in the early aftermath. As we’ve seen numerous times a claim of “suspect in body armor” can rapidly turn out to be “suspect in Wish dot com airsoft vest”. High stress situations and a financial incentive to be the first to report can’t help but produce inaccuracies.
That said, we’re awarding Shannon Watts, of Moms Demand Action, a gold star for not only failing to take this sort of information deficit into account, but running with whatever narrative suits, even as the story changes dramatically. Initially, Ms. Watts announced that a crazed gunman, who naturally must have been spurred into criminal action by the ever-nefarious NRA, was facing murder charges, presumably rightly in her mind. Just over a half day later, when the story developed enough for her to learn that the shooter was a Person Of Color, naturally this depraved murderer morphs into a lawful shooter who was being railroaded by the racist Texas police.
While it’s inescapable that racism exists, and can impact police decisions, the skill and acumen Ms. Watts displays on the Moms Demand twitter account in changing both direction, and horses midstream makes one wonder if she has a secret background in rodeo. At least as a clown, certainly.
“Magazine capacity restrictions and permitting requirements have a proven track record: they save lives!”
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum of Oregon said in a statement the above and added. “We are confident the Oregon Constitution — like the Second Amendment of the U.S. constitution — allows these reasonable regulations.”
I don’t know if I would be confident in that Madam AG, that whole “shall not be infringed” section doesn’t just magically become void if you state that what you’re doing isn’t infringement. That’s not how it works. Sure you got your liberal urban voters, who couldn’t pass an elementary school level test on the subject, to approve your measure without a critical thought passing through their heads. But that’s the wonderful thing about constitutional republics you see, the tyranny (or idiocy in many cases) of the majority can be challenged and beaten.
Capacity restrictions and permitting requirements have no such track record. The strongest evidence in our possession suggests that safe storage laws have some influence on injury rates among minors and that pretty much ends what we know has a positive influence from gun control.
Illinois has one of the most stringent permitting schemes in the nation, the FOID, and Chicago is still crying out about how it isn’t nearly good enough and how ‘People with terrifying firearms of immense power are hunting the residents of Illinois!‘
Where is this data that says 10 rounds is safe and that we are curbing violence with it? Where is this data that says a permission slip to exercise a constitutional right is saving oh so many lives? Where is peer review on the data showing it, the prohibitions and pieces of paper, are protecting people from homicide?
Luckily for the rational folks who understand what infringement means, the Oregon courts have put a pause on it.
The Oregon measure bans the sale, transfer or import of magazines over 10 rounds unless they are owned by law enforcement or a military member (who never do anything wrong, unless its ACAB time) or were owned before the measure’s passage. Those who already possess high-capacity magazines can have them only in their homes or use them at firing ranges, in shooting competitions, or for hunting, as allowed by state law after the measure takes effect (which makes this whole thing rather moot as magazines are durable goods and the next tragedy will be leveraged to remove grandfathering).
It would also close a federal loophole that allows gun transfers to proceed if background checks cannot be completed quickly.
That loophole is in place to make certain the Fed can’t just forget a background check and leave it in limbo, which happens every day. There were dozens of checks that didn’t get a resolution when I was behind a gun counter, there were plenty of times NICS wasn’t working at all as their computers were in the midst of yet another operating crisis. We should totally suspend people’s right to a firearm for use in their defense over technical difficulties though, right? It’s only safe.
NICS and state systems have never passed a mass killer after all. Hint: It was 77% of the time according to a 1966-2019 NIJ review. Mass killers got their gun legally and passed all checks 77% of the time, acquiring their weapon another way in only 23% of instances. Making for 100% damned if you do damned if you don’t, it’s almost like a motivated killer can’t be stopped if they are otherwise free to act as they wish regardless of the circumstances of that freedom.
But I’m sure limiting magazines to 10 rounds, except all the ones that aren’t, and removing the Brady transfer mechanism that was put into place specifically to not violate anyone’s rights through an arbitrary system failure will solve things. The permit-to-purchase requirement is another one that is especially interesting, because I don’t think they actually came up with a state method for that. They made it a requirement without having a process in place, fantastic execution of authority team. Way to keep the confidence levels high.
The Supreme Court decision on the New York law signaled a shift in how the nation’s high court will evaluate Second Amendment infringement claims as they now require a much stricter scrutiny, that judges can no longer declare a law ‘serves public interests like enhancing public safety’ without strong evidence and instead must weigh whether the law is “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.”
That was a huge win in Bruen, and the follow-up reckoning from the bench that lower courts should reexamine recent 2A cases under that guidance before the Supreme Court starts handing out more defeats was telling. ‘Public Interest’ has always been a catch all defense that have allowed courts to drop cases and side with the government for nebulous and ill-defined reasons.
Because of course if it was for ‘the greater good’
we should shelve things like logic and evidence, or lack there of, and do the thing you consider to be in the publics interest. Funny that if something you don’t think is in the publics best interest comes along you suddenly don’t think folks should just be able to declare it so, but I’m sure that is not hypocrisy talking or anything.
Anyway, Oregon government is the biggest of mad that their new rule is probably going to get the SCOTUS ban hammer if they don’t get it sorted before hand and that is just wonderful.
No Serial Number? No Problem!
In case you missed it, the federal requirement that firearms possess serial numbers was found unconstitutional. In yet another impact of the decidedly significant Bruen SCOTUS ruling, a federal judge blocked a federal law criminalizing possession of a firearm with an “altered, obliterated, or removed” serial number.
Per Bruen, if a law has no historical parallel to the time of the drafting of the constitution, it may be found unconstitutional. Since in the 1790’s serialized guns didn’t even really exist in any significant numbers, if at all, there is little argument to be made against such a law. The case arose in Charleston, WV from a prohibited person caught in possession of not only a firearm, but one without a serial number. The defendant, Randy Price, challenged both charges on constitutional grounds, but only the challenge to the law requiring a serial number was upheld.
Despite being less than half a year old, the Bruen decision continues to ripple across US courts, rolling back gun control laws left and right. This hasn’t deterred anti-gun advocates, but it has given those fighting for RTKBA significant help in fending them off. Expect a lot more to come from this landmark ruling which eclipses even Heller and McDonald in scope and impact.
Measure 114 Under Fire In Oregon
Ballot Measure 114 is now facing Firearms Policy Coalition, who has filed the second lawsuit aiming to take it out. The measure, which will be the law of the land after December 8, would ban magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds, and would require a permit to purchase for anyone wishing to express their enumerated 2nd Amendment right by purchasing or selling a firearm.
The mendicants that orchestrated measure 114, which won with a <2% margin, seem to have completely failed to make any sort of preparation for actually implementing the law. Under it, one must pass a firearms safety class with a live-fire section, then pay a fee to be granted a license to purchase a gun. Unfortunately not only is there is no enumerated class, there is not even a curriculum, funding (the program is estimated to cost $40,000,000/yr) instructors, or facilities in the state to make such a requirement accessible for all Oregonians, let alone marginalized groups who may not have money or transportation to go to such a class.
In a city of over 600,000, there are precisely 5 gun ranges. Even if there were classes and permits available immediately, the obvious bottleneck this would create puts this bill on shaky constitutional ground all by itself. Then we get in to the fact that the police they wanted to defund 2 years ago now being the arbiters of a constitutional right, and the magazine capacity restrictions. Given the original intent of the 2A was focused on producing an armed citizenry with access to military weapons, the idea that limiting magazine capacity to 10rd will stand up to the historical test required by the SCOTUS Bruen decision is laughable.
Between the total failure to plan ahead for this new law, its’ blatant unconstitutionality and obvious disregard for the rights of all OR citizens, not least of which the poorest among us, we are hopeful that the courts will do the right thing and put this whole debacle to bed.
Dr. Mark Hamill vs. the Empire (Again)
From our friends at DRGO
DRGO member Mark Hamill, MD recently let us know about his team’s newly published paper on how firearm sales across the states correlate with crime and murder. (Short version—they don’t.) Specifically, “Legal Firearm Sales at State Level and Rates of Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Homicides” will be published in the January 20023 edition of the Journal of Surgical Research. It should be available online through November.
Dr. Hamill is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha specializing in critical care and trauma surgery. Yes, he’s one of those physicians who put back together victims of “gun violence”. Yet he didn’t get infected by the public health virus and has been looking at gun laws, the consequences of gunfire, and the realities of gun ownership and gun carrying in themselves.
We reported on his earlier study “State Level Firearm Concealed-Carry Legislation and Rates of Homicide and Other Violent Crime” from the January 2019 Journal of the American College of Surgery. In that, his team showed conclusively that relaxing concealed carry laws makes no significant difference in violent crime rates.
Hamill and his co-authors do a similar service in their new study showing that there is no “association between increased lawful firearm sales and rates of crime or homicide.” These are not casual conclusions or simple correlations based on artificially constructed controls, like so much agenda-driven work that tries to undercut the value of gun ownership. Hamill et al stay reality based, using consistent, deep statistical analysis based purely on solid official statistics compiled over decades, state by actual state.
Please read the abstract (and the paper, if you can access it via your subscription or institutional affiliation). This is the kind of work that is incontrovertible no matter what your politics. It underlines the fact that the thesis that restricting legal gun use would reduce crime, death or injuries is null.
There is reason to believe that privately keeping and bearing arms as protected by the Constitution really reduces those tragedies. But all that is necessary is to prove that doing so doesn’t cause or increase them, which many studies like these, expert panels and good surveys support. With no societal utility for infringement, there’s no case to be made.
With good work like this, Dr. Hamill risks being tarred by the “mainstream” medical and media establishment as beyond the pale, the same neighborhood Dr. John Lott, Jr. resides in their imaginations. It is not a comfortable place to live, but the integrity and quality of their work makes such ostracism a badge of honor. Like Lott, Hamill has the courage of his convictions and the strength to stand tall by them. Thank you, Mark!
.
.
— DRGO Editor Robert B. Young, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY, an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
Founding Fathers & AR-15’s
If you’re unfamiliar with the capability of a flintlock rifle, which was a common arm employed by American militiamen in the Revolutionary War, Flannel Daddy’s video above is a fantastic intro. The founding fathers understood its capabilities, and that it had advantages over the smoothbore muskets the British Army employed, particularly in the accuracy department. To wit: The founding fathers enthusiastically employed better, more capable, privately owned guns than were the military standard of the day.
Addressing the argument we’re dancing around, if you’re unfamiliar with it, bless you and your sheltered life: Anti-gunners will often propose banning any gun that wasn’t known by/available to the founding fathers. Ignoring the obvious absurdity of the argument that the inalienable rights written down by the founding fathers only extend to the technology available at the time (otherwise the internet, telephones, fax machines, and ballpoint pens would not be covered by the 1A), let’s take a look at this commonplace argument and how to counter it when encountered in the wild. AR-15’s certainly didn’t exist in the 18th century, but that point alone does not actually mean anything, particularly when considering the context of the era the founding fathers lived and wrote the Bill of Rights in.
First of all, the Continental Army grew from citizen militias which were as old as the colonies themselves. Most colonies required all able-bodied (usually those capable of strenuous physical activity, aged 16-60) men to keep, and be ready to bear arms in action with little notice. They were mustered periodically to practice functioning as a paramilitary unit, and were often the primary line of defense against native raiders. They were considered a local extension of the British Army, and were expected to have arms of modern military quality. After all, they were often deployed alongside the army (the most modern and powerful one in the world, at that), and needed to be similarly capable and equipped. The founding fathers knew this, many viscerally as they had been members of, or fought alongside the colonial militias in the British Army.
By the time of the “Boston Crisis” of 1774, American militias had over a century of combat experience. Particularly in New England, militias had by then developed a specialized branch of younger (typically <25y/o), enthusiastic, reliable, and more highly trained men, with arms supplied by the government, who were expected arm up and turn out with “a minute’s notice”. They were hand picked by regular militia commanders, essentially the first specialized American elite military unit, appropriately named “Minutemen”. By the American Revolution, they accounted for about a quarter of the New England militia’s roster, and were among the first to fight. Does this sound like a force that would turn down an AR-15 if you handed them one? We don’t think so, and we suspect the founding fathers wouldn’t either.
The militia, and the Minutemen in particular, employed tactics considered “ungentlemanly” by the standards of warfare of the day. Anything besides moving over open terrain in massed formations was considered terrorism, and the American irregular forces that made up the bulk of the early American revolutionary military took great pains to employ those “terroristic” tactics. The greater range and accuracy of their rifles meant that they did not need to fire in massed volleys to hit the enemy, and could even target NCOs and officers to disrupt their more numerous, and often better trained foe.
It should also be noted that especially early on, there were no government stores of small arms, artillery, or warships. Significant portions of the Continental Navy were converted merchant ships, armed with privately purchased and owned cannons, commissioned as privateers. The same goes for the cannons and small arms used by the Army.
Lastly, repeating arms absolutely existed during the founding fathers’ day. From the Puckle Gun (which makes an AR-15 look like a .22), to the pepperbox pistol, and the 22-shot Girardoni Air Rifle, capable of bringing down large game.
So to bury this argument once and for all, let’s take a look at what history has to say about what the founding fathers would have thought of an AR-15, shall we? We have:
-A nation at war with privately owned arms of all kinds, from swords and pistols to cannons and warships.
-A preference for top-of-the-line rifled flintlocks that exceed the capabilities of the British Brown Bess musket.
-An understanding of repeating arms, and period employment of such by hunters, the Austrian Army, and even Thomas Jefferson himself.
-An appreciation for ingenuity, engineering, and leveraging every possible advantage over the enemy to achieve unlikely success, even if that makes some label them “terrorists”.
We think you’re capable of looking at the above and coming to your own conclusion, but if nothing else, keep all this in mind the next time you find yourself facing what may be a well-intentioned argument, however poorly supported by observable history it may be.
A New Year’s Gun Control Push! Biden goes for broke before losing the House
President Biden and his administration have been far from silent on pushing for gun control, specifically an Assault Weapon Ban after each of the major incidents regardless of circumstances.
Every slaying, they seem to think, can be solved or made less lethal if only we’d ban semi-auto firearms and limit magazines to 10 rounds. No word on how in the wide wide world of sports they expect to get hundreds of millions of semi-auto weapons out of circulation currently, prevent murders, suicides, and accidents with any weapon other than a semi-auto, or prevent the manufacture of new ones from 3D printing and other simple production mediums.
But that won’t stop him from making the noise.
NPR sat down and asked one of their experts,
Let us see what they came up with. I’ve been unsympathetic to NPR as of late, they’ve held onto several untenably stupid opinions as ‘fact’ when it comes to gun control and other subjects. Even if you personally do not care for firearms, even if you dislike firearms in private hands, that doesn’t dissolve responsibility as a conveyor of information (especially publicly funded), from coming at the information objectively and with aggressive reason.
From NPR,
NPR’s A Martinez speaks with gun control expert Robert Spitzer about President Biden’s push for an assault-style weapons ban after recent mass shootings in Colorado and Virginia.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Biden is seeking to pass a ban on assault rifles before the end of the year. He’s making that pitch in the immediate aftermath of several deadly mass shootings across the U.S. in recent weeks. Democrats have made this proposal dozens of times in recent years, but they have been able to get it done, mainly because many Republicans in Congress oppose any type of gun control. So will it be different this time around? For more, we turn now to Robert Spitzer. He’s a distinguished service professor emeritus of political science at SUNY Cortland and an expert on gun policy. Professor Spitzer, what kind of pitch does President Biden need to make to push increased gun control legislation through Congress before the end of the year?
ROBERT SPITZER: I’m not sure there’s anything he can say that will make the Senate move. It’s important to remember that the House of Representatives has already passed an assault weapons ban bill and included in that a limit on large-capacity magazines, which arguably is even more important. But as you just discussed, the Senate has a full plate. The spotlight will be on the Senate when it comes to assault weapons and possible action. But it’s hard to imagine the Senate mustering 60 votes to enact a new assault weapons ban.
MARTÍNEZ: You know, professor, I was going to start off by asking you how likely it is that he would be able to push gun control legislation through Congress because usually, the answer is not likely. But not even a pitch, no pitch at all you think could crack the Senate?
SPITZER: Well, he might want the Senate to take a vote. And other Democrats might want a vote to be held, as well, just so that they’re on record on the issue. The assault weapons ban idea is supported by most Americans. It’s been floating around a long time. And so for political reasons, there might be a push to go ahead. But with so much on the Senate’s plate and on Congress’s plate, I think it will be a difficult haul. And the question that he will need to ask is whether that’s where he wants to put significant political effort in the short time between now and when the new Congress convenes in January.
And here we stumble across the real goal of making this noise from the White House.
This isn’t about the safety of the American people, there is no realistic way that the White House can accomplish anything with a ban and I’m done believing they’re just altruistically stupid. This isn’t tackling the myriad of problems that result in violent conclusions. This isn’t about assessing why young people seem to be committing an appalling number of excessively violent attacks, or why urban violence is so substantially increased.
This is about saying the right things so that they ‘tried’ the right amount to point at those who didn’t vote for it and blame them. It is all about passing the buck and not being held to blame for something they are actually blameless for already, but their voter base gets grumpy and they can win political capital.
MARTÍNEZ: What about executive action to overcome the gridlock?
What about directing the DoJ, you know… something he is in charge of, to follow through on more NICS Denial cases, put resources into making sure NICS is as up-to-date, easy to access, and constantly functioning as it can be. Perhaps make certain their are enough NICS examiners and data folks as compared to IRS agents since the number of bodies in the ground due to 1099-EZ’s is significantly lower than violent crimes.
SPITZER: President Biden issued some executive actions this past summer pertaining to the gun issue. And he probably will be looking at a way or may be looking at a way now to tweak existing rules that could affect gun policy. But it’s important to remember that executive orders are not the vast, sweeping, unlimited powers that many people ascribe to them. And he this summer, for example, said that they would tighten up on gun dealer regulations and on restricting ghost guns. And especially moving on ghost guns, I think, will be significant in terms of executive actions. But it’s not clear that there’s a whole lot more he can do within the realm of executive orders and other unilateral actions because important policies are still framed by Congress.
So… no. He won’t do anything meaningful because meaningful wouldn’t line up with politically advantageous. We’ll be promised he is trying but no complex action will be taken and certainly no action that would put him at odds with his necessary voter bases, he’s got two years to look useful enough to get re-elected and hope that the Republicans are foolish enough to run an annoying meme-grade candidate that won’t make him look like the slack jawed buffoon who cost them so dearly this midterms. The only reason the Dems weren’t taken to the cleaners was some of the more imbecilic decisions of the Republicans.
We have gridlock instead, and maybe that’s for the best. But Biden is still going to cry and “try” for something with this Congress, so at least he can blame them. He won’t even have to blame them long since the new Congress will seat and then the actions of the old one won’t matter so much anymore.
It’s just political hot potato.
MARTÍNEZ: Biden has also mentioned red-flag laws, the lack of enforcement of red-flag laws around the country. Now, those are state laws. What could Washington do to increase enforcement of red-flag laws across the country?
Remember the BSCA? Are you telling me the BSCA, the most meaningful and comprehensive piece of gun legislation in a generation as Biden told us, isn’t doing diddly to curb violence? What about that boyfriend loophole!? Surely that loophole being unlooped has saved people, right?
SPITZER: In the bipartisan gun bill that Congress passed and President Biden signed this past summer, there was a provision to encourage more states to adopt red-flag laws and to provide funding for them. And he’s – at the least, I would think would want to be very public to encourage states to move ahead in doing that. Nineteen states have red flag laws in place right now. And one of the problems we’ve seen is that often, the enforcement of these laws is pretty spotty, and knowledge of red-flag laws is very limited. And red-flag laws are typically triggered when a family member or somebody who knows somebody who owns guns and who makes a threat against others or against themselves then goes to the police to begin the red-flag law process to perhaps remove guns from the person. But you’ve got to be able to know that you can do that before the process begins. And much more publicity could be issued surrounding that. That’s not an executive order matter, per se necessarily, but it’s something that could be done to increase the effectiveness of red-flag laws.
So it is as vague an ineffectual as predicted.
People are reluctant to snitch on their neighbors and family. Judges, doctors, and cops are reluctant to be professionally liable for wrongly flagging someone. I don’t think that the ‘publicity’ is what is lacking, its that there was no hope it would work to begin with.
MARTÍNEZ: I remember as candidate Biden, he had promised to hold gun manufacturers accountable and repeal a law that provides protection for gun-makers. What kind of an impact would that kind of move make?
How? How would Biden keep this absurd promise?
We just said he wasn’t going to be able to move legislation, so how would he manage a repeal of the PLCAA and why would it have a positive effect?
SPITZER: If Congress decided to move ahead with changing the law to allow lawsuits against gun manufacturers to proceed, that would be a major, major change. It’s not on the agenda, and it is not something to my way of thinking that the president could advance through unilateral presidential actions.
Oh it isn’t, the President just lied for political capital. Gotcha.
It would be a major change, an absurd one that tied up money of manufacturers defending spurious lawsuits for people misusing their products.
MARTÍNEZ: It sounds pretty hopeless for people that want some movement on this, professor.
It should, especially after Bruen. Stop screwing around with the ease bake oven solutions that solve nothing and start working on the individual criminal environments of the cities and counties that are the problems. Those socio-economic environs will require tailored approaches and solutions specific to their unique situations. None of them, and I do mean none of them will be perfect or foolproof but they can, over time, rebuild confidence in the civility and rule of law within the spaces.
SPITZER: Well, the only other question, I think, is whether movement could be made separately on limiting large-capacity magazines because that’s a major problem.
No, it isn’t. This argument is stupid and demonstrates a willful lack of understanding of how a firearm operates. Magazine capacity is not a problem, it is a strawman argument that relies on perfect responses to perfect situations and the magical disappearance of literally hundreds of millions of durable magazines from ever being used in a crime again.
Gun control is one of the ultimate expressions of ‘stupidly altruistic’ by using no critical thinking. Just pass the law and things will get better, we promise. Don’t ask how, you’re just a gun extremist if you do.
MARTÍNEZ: Gun control expert Robert Spitzer, thanks for your time.
SPITZER: You bet.
So none of my faith in NPR’s deep and critical journalistic problem solving has been restored by this interview. Gun control continues to be the Utopia Fantasy of ‘if everything goes right than nothing will go wrong’.
If we just had a few more rules against shooting people indiscriminately then people will stop.
Sounds stupid when you put it that way, doesn’t it.