Category: RKBA

There’s a reason why gun control fails after mass shootings

In the wake of any mass shooting, we hear a lot about gun control. Proponents of it argue we simply need to embrace it to make such shootings a thing of the past. It just hasn’t worked out for them.

Over at Axios, they decided to lament this fact by pointing out all the times gun control failed to materialize after a mass shooting.

What they miss is that there’s a reason it didn’t pass in pretty much all of those cases.

Sandy Hook, December 2012
  • After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, in which 26 victims — including 20 children — were killed, Congress proposed a bipartisan bill expanding background checks for gun buyers, a ban on assault weapons and a ban on high-capacity gun magazines.

Part of the reason that didn’t pass was that the killer didn’t purchase his gun. He murdered his own mother and took an AR-15 that she lawfully purchased–and underwent and passed a background check for–to use it to carry out that particular atrocity.

Expanding background checks wouldn’t have prevented such an attack.

Charleston church, June 2015

When a white man opened fire at a Black church congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people, Democrats proposed legislation to tighten background checks.

Democrats sought to eliminate what became known as the “Charleston loophole,” which allows people with incomplete background checks to purchase guns after three days, Politico reports.

And that remains because going beyond those three days is too much of an infringement on people’s Second Amendment rights.

What people have to remember is that the three-day window was put in place to appease gun rights advocates who worried that people could be long-term denied the ability to purchase a firearm simply because their background checks never came back.

The three-day window remains because no one trusts the government enough to take it away.

San Bernardino, December 2015

A shooting at a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health holiday party killed 14 people and injured 22 others.

One day after the shooting, the Senate rejected two gun control proposals introduced by Democrats on background checks, the Washington Post reports.

California pass universal background checks in 1991. The killers in this case still acquired weapons illegally and without undergoing a background check.

Why pass more of what clearly didn’t work?

Pulse Nightclub, June 2016

The proposed bills would have prevented people on the federal terrorism watch list from buying guns and closed loopholes in background check laws, per the Times.

And that one failed because there’s no due process on the terrorism watchlist. You can be added for any reason and aren’t told you’re on it. Getting yourself removed is a nightmare.

Plus, the terrorism watch list is a list of names. There are no other identifiers. So if a terrorist named Tom Knighton exists somewhere on Earth, I don’t get to purchase a firearm under this rule.

Yeah, it’s an absolute mystery why this didn’t pass.

Look, you’re starting to see how this goes, and Axios does continue.

For example, they bring up Atlanta and how background check bills didn’t pass despite President Biden calling for just that, but the shooter in that one actually passed a background check. They tie this to Boulder, but he also passed a background check.

Time and time again, there’s a mass shooting, then lawmakers make demands for laws that wouldn’t do anything to stop the attack, but would do wonders for infringing on people’s rights.

Look, gun control isn’t the answer to this. Especially since the two high-profile attacks we saw last weekend were both in heavily gun-controlled states.

Gun control doesn’t pass because, in each of these cases, it’s clear that the laws proposed wouldn’t have done a damn thing. Further, each of these is actually something of a black swan event, meaning they’re not the norm, despite people trying to pretend they are.

So I’m actually OK with inaction from Congress on this. Frankly, I prefer inaction in Congress on most things, but especially here.

There are better ways to handle mass shootings than infringing on the rights of the non-shooters, especially when it’s clear that infringement wouldn’t have stopped diddly.

But they said nobody wants to take your guns.
And actually, if there were magically, mystically, no guns, life would return to the world of ‘main force’ where might makes right and the stronger rule over the weaker. The world “BG” – before guns – had a much higher murder rate than after they became reliable. That’s her world with swords

Sick of Massacres? Get Rid of the Guns. [hah]

Gail Collins Gail Collins

[it’s sooo nice they provide pictures for positive identification]

A) Toughen background check laws
B) Limit the sale of semiautomatics to people with hunting licenses
C) Good Lord, just get rid of them
Yeah, C does simplify things, doesn’t it?

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Manchin gives Democrats a reality check on gun control

Democratic lawmakers are calling for new gun control legislation in the wake of the racially motivated massacre in Buffalo, New York, last weekend, but once again Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is standing in the way of the most fervent progressives.

President Joe Biden went to Buffalo on Tuesday and visited with the families of 10 people who were killed and three others wounded by a white supremacist gunman. In a speech, the president denounced the attack as an act of “domestic terrorism,” condemned white supremacy, and renewed calls for a federal ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

“There are certain things we can do. We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when I passed the crime bill,” Biden said, referring to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included a 10-year assault weapons ban.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), also speaking in Buffalo Tuesday, vowed that Democrats would “work towards finally ridding our streets of weapons of war.”

But Manchin, speaking to reporters shortly before Biden spoke, gave his realistic assessment that in the 50-50 Senate, the only gun control legislation that has a chance of passing is a bipartisan compromise on background checks that previously failed. That bill, named for Manchin and his chief co-sponsor, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), would expand federal background check requirements to all advertised commercial sales, including sales at gun shows and over the internet.

“I support the Manchin-Toomey, I’ve always done that,” Manchin told reporters, according to The Hill. “The Manchin-Toomey is the one. I think if you can’t get that one, then why try to do something just for basically voting for the sake of voting?”

While some Democrats want action on a universal background check bill that passed the House in March last year, the West Virginia moderate has previously said that bill goes too far because it would extend to private transactions, such as those between neighbors, hunting buddies, or even family. The Manchin-Toomey bill exempted those transactions.

“The best piece of legislation that we’ve ever had, that most people agreed on, was the Manchin-Toomey. We didn’t infringe on anyone’s rights privately,” Manchin said.

But if Manchin-Toomey was the bill “that most people agreed on,” that wouldn’t mean much — the bill failed in 2013, coming six votes short of the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster at a time when a stronger Democratic majority held the Senate. Only two Republicans voted for it, Toomey and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

It is far more unlikely that 10 Republicans would cross the aisle to vote for any sort of gun control bill this year, especially before the midterm elections in November.

Gun control groups issue new (and impotent) demands to D.C. Democrats

A day after the number two Democrat in the U.S. Senate publicly stated that he doesn’t see a reason to hold a vote on any gun control proposals because they’re doomed to failure, a coalition of 38 gun control organizations (who knew there were that many?) is demanding that Congress not only vote on, but approve Joe Biden’s gun ban and more.

The gun control activists laid out three demands for the Democratic-controlled Congress, none of which are likely to happen. First, the gun control lobby wants the House to approve spending $750-million on “evidence led Community Violence Initiatives”, which is on top of the roughly $2-billion that was approved in Biden’s “American Rescue Plan”. Just a few days ago the White House even issued a call for these groups to apply for grants because the money is there for the taking. Nancy Pelosi might be willing to go along with this demand, but I doubt there are 60 votes in the Senate.

The second demand from the gun control groups is House passage of “legislation banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” which is also going nowhere in Congress. Nancy Pelosi, who put a universal background check bill on the floor of the House for a vote, hasn’t pushed for a similar vote on Biden’s gun ban plan, and while that could change, any bill that would pass the House is going to die in the Senate.

The gun ban fans are also specifically calling on the Senate to “live up to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s pledge to hold a Senate debate and vote on legislation expanding background checks to all gun purchases and addressing the Charleston Loophole,” though oddly they don’t say anything in their demand letter about the Senate voting on Biden’s gun ban and compensated confiscation scheme.

“Following the most recent racist act of domestic terrorism in Buffalo, New York and the increase in gun
violence across the country, we are calling on you to immediately do everything and anything in your power to live up to the promises you make to voters every election year,” the groups wrote in their letter.

The groups also asked the Biden administration to answer the calls of survivors and “establish a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in order to expedite the government’s response and issue further executive actions that will save lives.”

“With voters expressing concern about public safety and rising crime, you have a moral and political
responsibility to fight for the safer future you promise Americans on the campaign trail every election season,” the groups wrote.

The White House has resisted that particular demand for well over a year now, and new press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked again yesterday about the idea, but was decidedly non-committal in her response.

Q    Further on the issue of guns: Gun prevention groups or gun violence protection groups — prevention groups, rather — have been pressing the White House to start an office of gun violence protection.  Is that something that President Biden is considering, particularly in light of this most recent attack?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE:  So I would have to go back to the team and see if that is something that’s actually on the table.  I have not heard of that.  I could understand why that is being requested or asked, especially what we have been seeing these past — this past weekend.  I just don’t have anything more to share or preview or anything to —

If Jean-Pierre hasn’t heard about the idea, then that means no one in the White House is seriously talking about it, because that particular demand has been made for well over a year. My guess is she knows far more than she was willing to disclose in a press gaggle; namely that the White House has no plans to acquiesce to this particular demand from their anti-gun allies.

I’ll confess that I’m a little surprised that Biden hasn’t thrown the gun control lobby this particular bone to appease them, but whatever internal politics are in play seem to have kept that option off the table. Still, with Congress a dead-end for their anti-gun agenda at the moment (and likely for the next two years as well, begging the White House to help make them relevant is the best option the gun control lobby has left.

Follow the Science, Unless it Leads Where You Don’t Want to Go

Researchers in California have published the results of a study evaluating the effectiveness of so-called “gun violence restraining orders” (a.k.a. “extreme risk protection orders” or “red flag” orders). Assembly Bill 1014, was enacted in California in 2014, and since then, 19 states and the District of Columbia have adopted similar laws.

Authors of the study, Firearm Violence Following the Implementation of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order Law, include Garen Wintemute, the director of the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center and a “key contributor” who helped draft AB 1014.

Very briefly, these laws create a mechanism that allows a family member, police officer, or some other third party (in California, this includes coworkers, school employees, and teachers) to file a petition in court, supported by allegations that the person named in the petition, at some point in the future, poses a danger to themselves or others by possessing or having access to a firearm. If the court is satisfied that there is some potential of future harm, it issues an order authorizing police to take away all firearms the person owns or controls, and prohibiting the person from possessing or acquiring firearms while the order is in effect. The initial court process may be “ex parte” (without any notice to, or an opportunity to respond by, the affected person) or a full hearing on notice. In California, the ex parte order has a minimum duration of 21 days. Once confirmed in a full hearing, the “temporary” order is in effect for up to five years, although orders may be renewed indefinitely.

The researchers examined whether implementation of the California gun violence restraining order (GVRO) law was associated with decreased rates of “firearm assault” or firearm self-harm between 2016 (when AB 1014 took effect) and 2019. They compared the post-GVRO rate of firearm violence in San Diego County (chosen because it had a “high GVRO uptake” or incidence of GVROs) with the estimated outcome in a synthetic control unit (a combination of California control counties weighted to match the firearm violence trend in San Diego, 2005-2015, as closely as possible). The researchers “hypothesized that the GVRO law would be associated with a reduction in firearm violence.”

The results, though, showed that the GVRO law had no impact – “we found no evidence that GVRO implementation was associated with decreased firearm assault or firearm self-harm at the population level in San Diego.” The researchers sought to qualify this result by noting that the findings could be “partially explained by access to firearms through the underground market,” or “could reflect a true absence of association or limitations of our study; further research is needed to determine which of these is the case.”

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More People Dead as Gun-Control Fails in New York State

Time and again we’ve seen crazy murderers target unarmed citizens in New York City and New York State. A few weeks ago, a black man deliberately attacked white people on the New York City subway. We saw a white teenager deliberately go hunting for blacks and Jews in Buffalo last week. Sadly, the response of New York politicians is the same each time. Despite the extraordinary gun-control laws already in place, New York Democrats think the solution is to disarm more law-abiding citizens. It is hard to look at violence but it is more dangerous to think that more ink-on-paper will keep us safe next time.

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What he also wants is for the reinstitution of the Obammy era program of listing Veterans and Social Security recipients who get their monthly payments sent to a fiduciary who manages the person’s finances to be entered as a prohibited people in NICS.

In Buffalo, Biden calls for gun control that’s already law and didn’t work

Joe Biden brought his confusing anti-gun rhetoric to Buffalo, Tuesday – a city still grieving the loss of 10 good souls who were cut down Saturday by a hell-bound madman.

Even though most of the victims have yet to be buried, Biden didn’t hesitate to use the solemn occasion as an opportunity to advocate for more gun control, in this case another federal “assault weapon” ban.

“There are certain things we can do,” Biden told the grieving crowd. “We can keep assault weapons off of our streets. We did it before and violence went down.”

Even the FBI has acknowledged that the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that Biden referenced, which was a part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, did little to deter or prevent crime.

Besides, New York already has a stringent “assault weapon” ban, as well as every other anti-gun law Biden has ever called for. They’re codified into state law, yet none of them worked.

The mass murderer was not stopped by New York’s SAFE Act, which bans AR-15s and similar weapons. The state’s ban on standard-capacity magazines didn’t stop him, nor did the New York’s mandatory background check requirement or its Red Flag gun-confiscation law.

New York State Police were called to the gunman’s high school last June because he threatened to commit a mass shooting during the school’s graduation ceremonies. He was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for an evaluation, and was released after a day and a half. However, this did not trigger New York’s red-flag law, which should have stopped him from purchasing a firearm.

Rather than infringing upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, Biden should focus on why yet another mass murderer was “known to law enforcement,” yet no action was taken before he began killing people.

Why New York’s ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Didn’t Stop the Buffalo Massacre
The problem is not sneaky entrepreneurs who sell accessories; it’s legislators who ban guns based on functionally unimportant features.

The suspect in the mass shooting that killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store on Saturday used a rifle that was widely described as an “assault weapon.” With certain exceptions that don’t apply here, that category of firearms is illegal in New York. Yet The New York Times reports that the shooter legally bought the rifle from a gun dealer in Endicott, New York. How is that possible?

It turns out that the rifle, a Bushmaster XM-15 ES, was not an “assault weapon” at the time of the purchase, but it became an “assault weapon” after the shooter tinkered with it. The details of that transformation illustrate how arbitrary and ineffectual bans like New York’s are.

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Gun Owners Need to Think Like Supply Chain Managers Before the Next Ammo Shortage.

During the two years that COVID-19 has altered American life, we have seen shortages of goods ranging from toilet paper and N95 masks to semiconductors and new cars. The supply chain disruptions that fueled those shortages often followed a general pattern.

  • Unexpected demand caused booming sales for a given product.
  • Retailers and manufacturers depleted their inventories of that product.
  • Supply chain bottlenecks such as temporary Covid-related factory closures or delayed shipments prevented firms from replenishing their inventories, leading to stockouts, rationing, and higher prices.
  • With their resources and options limited, manufacturers and retailers streamlined their offerings, focusing on their most popular products while abandoning niche items.

While gun and ammunition supply chains are unique in some ways, they have experienced many of the same problems and trends seen in other industries during the pandemic.

Below, we examine how gun and ammo supply chains performed in the face of massive demand and outline supply chain principles that will help gun owners prepare for future shortages.

Firearm Supply Chains

Guns

When uncertainty looms, demand for guns surges. Anxiety over election outcomes, civil unrest, and increasing crime rates all fuel demand spikes. In fact, the connection between gun prices and the federal election cycle is strong and predictable enough to be classified as an economic law. But the COVID-19 pandemic raised the bar considerably.

Many gun buyers seem worried that the exponential spread of COVID-19 will lead to a season of hard-to-find essentials — of illness-related disruptions in the grocery supply chain — with angry have-nots out to steal from the haves.

From the Washington Post . . .

Speaking to the Charlotte Observer, a North Carolina [firearms retailer] said, “Our new motto is, ‘Dedicated to helping you protect your toilet paper.’”

The coronavirus, supply chain disruptions, social unrest, federal economic stimulus, and a lockdown-fueled spike in durable goods spending caused unprecedented demand for guns. FBI mandatory background check records dating back to 1998 show that 2020 and 2021 saw eight of the ten busiest days for background checks and nine of the ten busiest weeks. More than 5 million Americans became first-time gun owners between January 2020 and April 2021.

While some supply chains would have buckled under such pressure — particularly during a global pandemic — the American firearms supply chain performed fairly well. Prices rose, but that was inevitable given record demand. And though some retailers experienced stockouts of popular models, they were often able to offer satisfactory alternatives from various domestic and foreign manufacturers. The robust secondary market for used guns acted as a final backstop for buyers.

Ammunition

While consumers were able to buy guns without too much hassle, finding ammunition proved far more difficult. This is a classic example of how fluctuations can be magnified through a supply chain.

Changes in firearm demand cause even larger changes in ammunition sales. Firearms are durable goods that can be passed down for generations if correctly maintained. And though ammunition has a long shelf life if properly stored, a marksman may go through hundreds of rounds with a single gun during a visit to the range, so each gun sale causes demand for many more bullets.

As new and longtime gun owners reacted to the pandemic’s uncertainty by stocking up on hundreds or thousands of rounds — and media reports about bare gun store shelves fanned the flames — ammunition manufacturers could not meet the demand.

Several factors contributed to the ammunition shortage. For example, while there are dozens of American ammo manufacturers, only four produced primers when the pandemic began. With domestic primer production capacity stretched to its limits and a primer shortage serving as a bottleneck to ammo production, some manufacturers began the lengthy process of sourcing and importing European and Asian-manufactured primers.

Manufacturing and shipping disruptions also interrupted the flow of foreign-made ammunition into the country. And while imports of Russian ammo helped mitigate the shortage early on, the Biden administration restricted those imports in September 2021 as part of its sanctions against Russia for the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin.

While the shortage affected all types of ammunition, eventually popular calibers like 9mm handgun bullets and .223 rifle cartridges were easier to find than some of their more obscure counterparts.

This reduction in product variety (so-called “SKU reduction”) is a typical coping mechanism for stressed supply chains. Managers allocate scarce production capacity to their most popular offerings. You have probably noticed this in your local grocery store: while your favorite brands are still on the shelf, fewer sizes or flavors are available.

The shortage was amplified by ammunition manufacturers’ reluctance to invest too heavily in new productive capacity to meet record demand that will eventually wane. Firms in other industries made similar calculations during the pandemic, but few industries have experienced the severe “boom or bust” cycles ammo companies have seen in recent decades.

Executives who saw massive demand during Barack Obama’s presidency give way to a four-year long “Trump slump” know full well that this too shall pass.

Additionally, it is not too conspiratorial to fault big business collusion for the shortage. Two entities — Olin Corporation and Vista Outdoor — own most major American ammunition companies, so it was fairly easy to unify the industry in choosing “market stability” (and high prices) over new and risky investment in production capacity.

Supply Chain Principles for Gun Owners

The pandemic has dramatically raised public awareness that supply chains exist and can be disrupted. While that was not news to longtime gun enthusiasts who have experienced previous ammunition shortages, we will highlight a few core principles of supply chain management that should help all gun owners weather the next shortage, whenever it may come.

  • Flexibility – When the pandemic began, companies who were able to quickly adjust their manufacturing, sourcing, product development, and shipping plans fared much better than their inflexible competitors. During an ammunition shortage, those who own guns of various calibers and those who have firearms with interchangeable barrels that can accept multiple kinds of ammunition are much better positioned than those who rely on a single type of ammo.
  • Demand Forecasting – Retailers and manufacturers plan their yearly operations using demand data from recent years (though that historical data had little value during what will hopefully be a once-in-a-century pandemic). Once the current shortage ends, recent history suggests that demand will go up when a Democrat is president and down when a Republican is in office. Given ammunition’s long shelf life, it makes sense to stock up when low demand drives down prices.
  • Inventory Management – Just-in-time inventory management is a thing of beauty when it works well, as it generally did during the three decades preceding the pandemic. But recent supply chain disruptions have led some firms to take more of a just-in-case inventory approach that involves holding more safety stock. Gun owners may be wise to follow this trend as well, and keep a bit of extra ammo on hand just-in-case.
  • Procurement Diversity – The pandemic has shown companies the dangers of relying on one region, country, or factory to provide key inputs. Similarly, the ammunition shortage shows that it is important for gun owners to build relationships with fellow enthusiasts and multiple shop owners whom they can rely upon when the next shortage hits.

A final principle for gun owners is to adopt a strategy of total quality management—of pursuing excellence at each stage of the supply chain, from gun and ammunition purchase to firearm cleaning and maintenance after a day at the range.

In the end, the purpose of the firearms supply chain is “rounds on target.” This requires excellence in marksmanship, which in turn requires excellence in training and equipment. Higher-order competence in “delivery” cannot exist without competence in the earlier stages of the supply chain: procurement, and inventory management.

Andrew Balthrop is a research assistant at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business. Ron Gordon is a Supply Chain Communications Specialist at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business. Doug Voss is a Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management at the University of Central Arkansas. 

New York state has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation and it didn’t make one itty bit of difference, so crap-for-brains Goobernor believes crims will somehow obey more laws.

NY Gov. Wants More Gun Control in State with Tough Restrictions

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul used the weekend mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket to demand “stronger” gun control laws in a state that already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and President Joe Biden will fly the city on Tuesday, likely to make the same plea.

According to WIVB News, Hochul told reporters during a Sunday press conference, “I continue to call on Washington to do just some basic things that we’ve done here in New York. I also call on the Supreme Court, which is actually considering rolling back some of the protections that were put in place here to protect New York citizens from gun violence.”

The high court is expected to hand down a ruling on New York’s restrictive “good cause” concealed carry permit requirement by the end of June.

The Associated Press is reporting that Biden and his wife will go to Buffalo to “grieve with the community.” Biden, a perennial gun control advocate during his nearly half-century inside the Beltway, is expected to call for new gun control measures.

Ten people were killed in what authorities are saying was a “racially motivated” attack. The suspect, an 18-year-old, was armed with an AR-15 rifle, according to published reports. There were other guns in his car, WIVB said.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday to declare, “So I think people all across this country have to rise up. They have to speak more loudly and more clearly that there must be gun control in this country. This is a uniquely American phenomenon. These mass shootings don’t happen in other countries across the world. We have to ask ourselves — and more than ask ourselves, we have to take action to stop it, to stop it after this Buffalo, New York incident, to make sure that other communities, that other families don’t go through this again.”

WIVB quoted Gov. Hochul acknowledging, “What was used was not purchased legally in the state of New York. The basic gun was, but the high-capacity magazine associated with it had to come from another state because it is illegal in the state of New York. We need a smart national policy. And let’s start with something that’s — what I would say — is in the no-brainer category after Sandy Hook. Shame on this county, shame on Congress at that time, for not passing something as basic as a background check.”

However, Congress years ago passed a background check requirement. The National Instant Check System (NICS) has been in operation since November 1998. New York adopted the SAFE (Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement) Act under Hochul’s predecessor, anti-gun Democrat Andrew Cuomo, in 2013.

BECAUSE IT WORKED WELL IN CHICAGO: DEMS SEEK CHICAGO-STYLE GUN CONTROL NATIONWIDE

Lawmakers from Illinois last week introduced bicameral legislation on Capitol Hill that would make unlicensed gun possession illegal.

The move, billed as a way to stomp out gun crime, doesn’t target gun criminals. Instead, the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act would outlaw unlicensed firearm ownership and the transfer of firearms without such a government-issued permit, then direct the U.S. Attorney General to create a federal registry for sales tied to fingerprint-based nationwide criminal background checks.

The measure was introduced in the U.S. Senate as S.4184 by Sen. Tammy Duckworth and in the U.S. House as H.R. 7730 by Rep. Bobby Rush. Both lawmakers are Illinois Democrats with offices in Chicago. Both have been endorsed in the past by a variety of national anti-gun groups, which have given them platforms for support.

According to a hyperbolic joint release by their respective offices, the proposal is modeled in part after the controversial Illinois Firearm Owners Identification Card statute. FOID cards are seen by some in the Land of Lincoln as obsolete and, while they haven’t proven to prevent criminals from getting guns, they have sometimes delayed law-abiding citizens from getting them by months. Notably, courts have also found the FOID process flawed and potentially unconstitutional.

Of note, on the trail to the White House in 2020, Joe Biden endorsed such mandatory gun owner licensing as a part of his platform, to the accolade of assorted gun control groups.

BLUF:
It’s time for the U.S. to quit the Programme of Action. And while we’re at it, we should quit the U.N. ammo group and make it clear that, no matter what the U.N. does about bullets, we won’t try to apply its foolish ideas here.

UN Gun Control Program Runs Amok Again

More than two decades ago, the United Nations created a program to curb the trafficking of small arms. It’s done nothing but fire blanks. So now, the U.N. wants to control bullets.

In 2001, the United Nations started the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. Its next meeting will be held in New York from June 27 to July 1.

The Programme isn’t a treaty. It’s a political gathering that’s meant to encourage voluntary cooperation. It meets every other year to produce an outcome document that’s politically (but not legally) binding.

It’s supposed to work by unanimous consent.

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The Programme has achieved very little, if anything. That’s not just my view. The U.N. secretary-general said so in 2008. New Zealand said so in 2012. Its supporters said it was “firing blanks” in 2014. In 2018, the Red Cross said that governments in the Programme talk a lot, but do nothing.

In practice, that suits most of the U.N. fine: All the nations get credit for participating in the Programme while actually doing nothing, while the Programme focuses on peripheral issues, such as 3D-printed guns.

This year, the rumor is that the Programme’s president wants it to focus on banning toy guns. (No more water pistols for your kids, says the U.N.)

If the nations in the Programme genuinely wanted to help control the illicit trade in small arms, it could in theory be modestly useful.

For example, it could seek to eliminate the “Chinese exemption,” under which Beijing is exempt from the requirement to put serial numbers on its firearms, which makes Chinese guns difficult to trace.

But instead, the Programme focuses on irrelevant distractions—and on breaking its own promises.

In 2018, the Programme broke its rule of unanimity to approve an outcome document that added ammo over U.S. protests. The Programme wasn’t supposed to include ammunition. And adding it serves no useful purpose.

The idea of putting numbers on, and trying to trace, individual rounds of ammunition is nonsensical. The resulting database would have trillions of entries.

Most of the Programme’s member nations can’t and don’t even meet their existing commitments. But that didn’t stop the United Nations from adding ammo.

The U.S. does most of the work of running traces on firearms, providing expertise, and giving aid to upgrade foreign recordkeeping through the Programme.

But if the U.S. is going to do most of the work and simultaneously going to have the Programme’s rules broken against it, there’s no reason for us to continue to participate in it.

There are now more good reasons than ever to quit. When the Programme voted to include ammo in 2018, it lined itself up with a U.N. working group. That group’s report came out late last year, and it’s a bureaucrat’s fantasy.

It calls for the negotiation of “a set of political commitments” to “concentrate on through-life ammunition management.” In other words, an entirely new Programme of Action, focused just on ammo.

“Through-life” ammo management may sound innocuous, but isn’t. Here’s what it means, in the U.N.’s own words:

States would reduce security risks by encouraging ammunition producers, where feasible, practicable and consistent with national legislation, to maintain effective accounting and record-keeping systems that permit the retrieval (by serial, batch, or lot number) of detailed sales and transfer records. Ideally, such records should be digital, easily retrievable, and held for as long as feasible.

Translation: The U.N. wants manufacturers of ammo to number their bullets. Then the U.N. wants to track where and to whom every bullet in the world is sold or sent. The U.N. also wants to track who sells to whom. And it wants all those records digitized, easily accessed, and kept forever.

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1st Lawsuit Over ATF’s Frames & Receivers Rules Filed in Texas

The country’s first lawsuit against the new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rules on privately made firearms (PMF).

A Houston, Texas-based company named Division 80 filed suit against the ATF claiming the new rules would put it out of business. The company was formed in November and didn’t have a website. The company claims to be a manufacturer of 80% kits.

President Joe Biden declared war on what he referred to as “ghost guns.”

He ordered the ATF to create new rules around unfinished frames and receivers. This action was a response to calls by anti-guns to ban kits from companies such as Polymer80. The anti-gun groups were frustrated at what they saw as inaction by the administration.

Biden unveiled the new rule surrounded by anti-gun advocates such as David Hogg in the White House Rose Garden. At the same ceremony, he introduced Steve Dettlebach as his new nomination to head the ATF. The President also made wildly inaccurate claims, such as that cannons were illegal when the Constitution was signed.

Division 80 also points out that the new regulation is vague. The company claims that the new rule is “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.” That sentiment is shared across the firearms industry. Instead of the new rule clarifying the ATF’s opinion on unfinished frames, it muddied the waters.

Division 80 also referenced the ATF revoking all opinion letters. The Bureau’s new rule revoked all issued letters and asked the industry members to resubmit their products to the Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD) for a new opinion letter. Most in the industry believe that FATD will not approve any new unserialized frames.

Division 80 has put together an all-star legal team to take on the government. Co-counsel for the plaintiff is Cory Lui. Mr. Lui is a high-priced attorney that was the assistant general counsel for Texas Governor Greg Abbot. He is seen as an all-star lawyer in many conservative legal circles.

The legal team has also brought in Michael Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan was a former acting ATF Director under President George W. Bush. He will be used as an expert witness in Division 80’s case. Sullivan isn’t the only high-priced legal expert that Division 80 is bringing in to help win the suit.

Division 80 spared no expense in the suit to directly take on ATF.

The company also brought in former ATF member Rick Vasquez to work on the case. Mr. Vasquez is a former head of FATD and consults for a large part of the firearms industry. He oversaw FATD when the department issued the opinion that a bump stock did not make a rifle a machine gun. He still believes that the reclassification of bump stocks under the Trump administration was wrong.

Division 80 is asking for the federal judge to block the new regulations. This case will be the first case in the country to challenge the ATF’s new receiver rule. Several other lawsuits in different parts of the country will be filed to challenge the new regulations in the coming weeks.

The rule is due to go into effect in August. This suit and other cases are trying to prevent that from happening.

Johns Hopkins researchers peddling debunked data in war on constitutional carry
Study was funded by anti-gun, left wing foundations.

If you didn’t know any better, the headline on a press release published Wednesday by Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health could appear damning: “Study Finds Link Between Dropping Permit Requirement for Carrying Concealed Weapons and Increase in Officer-Involved Shootings with Civilian Victims.”

The Trace — the propaganda arm of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun empire — was as excited and breathless as a young pup in their response to the press release:

“Shootings by police officers increased by 12.9 percent in 10 states that loosened public carry restrictions. That’s according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that looked at states which made it easier for people to carry guns without a permit between 2014 and 2020,” they wrote.

The head Johns Hopkins researcher — apparently a well credentialed “gun violence” researcher — sounded as if his team had found a cure for cancer.

“The trend of more states allowing civilians to carry concealed guns without a permit may be influencing the perceived threat of danger faced by law enforcement,” Mitchell Doucette, PhD, MS, assistant scientist in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management, core faculty member in the Center for Gun Violence Solutions, and the study’s lead author, said in the press release. “This could contribute to higher rates of fatal and nonfatal officer-involved shootings.”

Discerning readers will note Doucette’s use of the words may and could. This may be serious, one could think. It could prove problematic for the 25 states that have passed constitutional carry, right?

Nope.

Turns out it’s all bunk — nothing but a complete load of crap, because the vaunted Johns Hopkins researchers used flawed data from the Gun Violence Archive — a group of anti-gun activists masquerading as researchers that we debunked nearly a year ago.

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CDC ‘back to old tricks; report takes guns out of context’ says CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – A new report from the Centers for Disease Control focusing on a spike in gun-related violence pulls data out of context and demonstrates how the CDC is “up to its old tricks” under the Biden administration, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“All violent crime was up in 2020, the year on which the CDC research focused,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But the CDC, which is not a crime control agency, has an unhealthy fixation on trying to make guns the issue, turning the Second Amendment into a public health problem.

“The CDC report showing gun-related deaths is alarming,” he added, “but even more alarming is the return of the CDC under Joe Biden’s administration to its assumed role as a gun control advocacy agency. This is why gun owners support legislation to keep the CDC out of anything remotely connected to firearms policy.”

Gottlieb pointed to data from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2020 showing an estimated 5.6 percent increase in violent crime over 2019. Aggravated assaults were up by 12.1 percent, and murder and non-negligent manslaughter were up by more than 29 percent, including crimes where guns were not involved. In any given year, he noted, more people are murdered with knives, blunt objects and even hands and feet than are killed with rifles of any kind, yet gun prohibitionists will use CDC data to push for bans on certain types of rifles.

“Maybe the real public health threat are people who commit violent crimes,” Gottlieb suggested. “We don’t see the CDC working on a cure for all the problems that contribute to the uptick in violent crime, such as demonizing and defunding police agencies, reducing police manpower, despair over the economy and rising inflation under Joe Biden, the emotional pressures of job loss and homelessness; all of these factors play into the dilemma. Spotlighting guns is not going to provide a solution, but only a scapegoat to advance a gun control agenda.

“It is no wonder more Americans are buying guns for personal and family protection,” he continued. “And just like clockwork, here comes the CDC with research focusing on guns that appears tailor-made for the gun prohibition lobby’s crusade to add even more restrictions on a constitutionally-protected right. At a time when violent crime is on the rise, we should not be considering new ways to disarm the public.”

“This year,” Gottlieb observed, “courageous, common-sense lawmakers in four states have adopted ‘Constitutional carry’ laws that will allow citizens to arm themselves against violent criminals without having to wait to obtain a concealed carry permit or license. We now have 25 of the 50 states with permitless carry laws, and we nearly had two more—Florida and Nebraska—so let this be a signal to the gun control crowd. People are willing to defend themselves and fight back, because they do not care to become a statistic in some future CDC report.”

The CDC report also noted a slight increase in firearm-related suicide, a subject Gottlieb is very familiar with. Four years ago, he championed a suicide prevention pilot project in Washington State, helping to secure funding for study and intervention, and enlisting the aid of gun shops, gun ranges and firearms instructors and experts.

“The firearms community has stepped up to the plate,” he said. “We’ve advocated for policies that work, and we fight to protect the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. Gun taxes, gun buy-backs and gun bans don’t work, haven’t worked and will continue not working. It’s time for a different approach.”

Analysis: Is California’s Handgun Roster on a Collision Course with the Federal Courts?

The Golden State continues to tempt judicial fate with the administration of its handgun roster law. Before too long, it could wind up costing them in court.
Last Friday, the California Department of Justice announced it is removing all previously approved models of the popular Heckler and Koch (H&K) USP pistols from its handgun roster. It did so without warning or elaboration on the rationale behind the decision.
Gun owners were simply left to speculate as to why a well-established gun maker’s popular handgun, used safely across the country and around the world, could no longer legally be sold in the country’s most populous state.
While this latest move was unexpected, it was not an aberration. Different handgun makes and models have been unceremoniously dropped from the list of state-approved pistols many times since the Unsafe Handgun Act became California law in 2001. There have been 33 models decertified so far this year alone, and that number will only grow as the year goes on.
That’s because ever-increasing requirements for a handgun to meet approval have charted a gradual course toward a total ban on handgun sales in the state.
When the law was signed, a handgun needed to have a manual safety, a loaded chamber indicator, a magazine disconnect mechanism, and pass a drop test to meet approval. In 2007, the California legislature passed a law declaring that a semi-automatic handgun could not be approved unless it was equipped with microstamping technology once such technology was declared feasible.
In 2013, then-Attorney General Kamala Harris (D.) declared that the technology had arrived, despite evidence to the contrary, and the microstamping requirement officially went into effect. Since then, there have been zero new handguns approved to the roster due to the inability of gunmakers to comply with an as-of-yet infeasible technology. Meanwhile, handguns have continued to be removed from the roster for various reasons, resulting in an ever-diminishing supply of legal handguns for civilians to purchase.
A comparison between the California DOJ’s list of recently de-certified handguns to its list of newly approved handguns starkly reveals the trend at hand.
As of the writing of this piece, there are 788 handguns listed as “certified for sale” on the state’s approved handgun list, all of which were manufactured and released at least a decade ago. For context, despite being the second-most restrictive state to utilize a roster system, the Massachusetts approved handgun roster contains roughly 1,100 different options and includes most modern generations of common civilian pistols (including H&K USPs). In states without roster limitations, the options available for civilian buyers number well into the thousands.
When different color offerings are factored in—that’s right, each cosmetic feature offered in a particular model must be individually approved—the number of unique handgun makes and models still legal to buy in California is actually far more limited than the 788 figure would suggest.
Exacerbating this issue is the recently passed Assembly Bill 2847. Set to go into effect in July, the law will automatically remove three previously approved handguns from the roster for every new model the state approves—if it ever does approve another gun.
The addition of this latest roster requirement, a three-for-one swap intentionally meant to further diminish the options for legal handgun purchasing, could finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in court.
Previous challenges against the roster regime have proved fruitless for gun-rights advocates. In 2018, the California Supreme Court upheld the microstamping requirement in a challenge brought by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. That same year, the Ninth Circuit upheld both the handgun roster and the microstamping requirement, specifically in Pena v. Horan. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on appeal in 2020.
Since then, however, the court has added an additional originalist justice and has already taken up another Second Amendment case where it looks poised to strike down restrictive laws around gun carry.
It has also inadvertently signaled its willingness to make bold rulings on controversial matters if the leaked Dobbs opinion is any indication.
Add in the new additional three-for-one requirement, and it would seem California’s roster system is due for renewed judicial scrutiny.
A legal challenge in federal court against this new requirement is already underway, and it could provide just the vehicle for this to happen.
A more conservative court newly motivated to take on gun-rights cases could view California’s slow-motion ban on handgun purchasing the same way it has viewed previous attempts at outright handgun bans.