Time for another amnesty?

So, the debate around Coburn's amendment to the Credit Card Holder's Bill of Rights brings up several possibilities.

The one I've heard most of is reversing the Hughes Amendment to the FOPA. If you're unfamiliar with it, I suggest reading up here. It's a long but enlightening read.

The Hughes Amendment made it "unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun except in the case of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date of enactment." In plain terms, civilians cannot procure machineguns made after 1986.

The primary effect was to reduce the supply to a pre-existing pool of weapons, therefore raising prices through the roof. You want a machinegun? Find someone who already owns one and convince them to sell it to you. They can ask pretty much whatever they want.

Like many people, I'd like to see the Hughes Amendment repealed, but I know that the chances of such a thing are pretty much nil.

I'll defer to Alan Gura on this one:

The solution to 922(o) will have to be political in the end. The fact is, outside the gun community, the concept of privately owned machine guns is intolerable to American society and 100% of all federal judges. If I had suggested in any way -- including, by being evasive and indirect and fudging the answer -- that machine guns are the next case and this is the path to dumping 922(o) -- I'd have instantly lost all 9 justices. Even Scalia.

In short, it ain't gonna happen.

Who needs a filibuster?

Well, we're past the First 100 Days, and if anything, the Left's perceived monopoly on power seems to be getting more tenuous by the day. President Obama wants a Credit Card Holder's Bill of Rights, so he told Congress to draft one.

This time, however, there's one little problem:

The Senate bill to tighten regulation of credit cards just became a tougher sell to the House yesterday after senators approved an amendment by Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to allow people to carry firearms on visits to national parks.

No, no, no! That's not how it's supposed to work! This administration is supposed to be the Second Coming of FDR, and this is the new legislative process:

1. President decides on an edict


2. President demands asks Congress to draft a bill meeting his wishes


3. Congress does so and submits it


4. President gleefully signs bill into law, without any messy hurdles.

That's the change we're supposed to believe in: an effective blurring of the lines between the Legislative and Executive branches, with more power in the hands of the Chief Executive than George W. Bush ever had.

So, why isn't it working?

On Strategy

I got a call from an NRA rep this morning, asking me for my support on a "critical issue." OK, which one?

His response? HR 45, a bill that was introduced in January. I wrote about it in February, and it hasn't gained an inch of traction since. It's dead, people. Just like last year.

And yet, I'm getting frantic calls about it in May. It was the big story in America's First Freedom last month. Are they truly this far behind the curve? I don't think so.

So, why are they bugging me about it?

Jimmy Carter on Gun Control

The only Chief Executive to ever come from Georgia had this to say in a New York Times editorial last week:

(...) none of us wants to own an assault weapon, because we have no desire to kill policemen or go to a school or workplace to see how many victims we can accumulate before we are finally shot or take our own lives. That’s why the White House and Congress must not give up on trying to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, even if it may be politically difficult.

As much as I admire Mr. Carter for his humanitarian work, I really wish people would stop asking for his opinions on politics.

Of course, nobody knows the horrors of violence first-hand like Mr. Carter. Observe:



If he'd had an AMD-65 with a 50-round drum magazine, perhaps the oar wouldn't have been necessary. To each his own, I suppose, but what kind of self-respecting Southern Babtist goes fishing without a gun?

Things we don't discuss

I've been subject to some truly absurd lines of conversation over the last few months, some of which are truly troubling.

Yesterday, I was approached by a meek middle-aged sort. He asked me, without preamble, "which handgun calibers will pierce body armor?"

There's no way I'm answering that, and he seemed a bit miffed when I told him so. Tough. You don't go asking strangers that kind of thing out of the blue. It's rude, and it's dangerous.

Let's get a couple of things straight. The Revolution is not on our doorstep, and frankly, if you're asking stupid questions like that, you're not going to be fighting it anyway.

Pravda, Brady Style

They're sticking to their guns, so to speak. Despite watching their agenda slip away, the Brady Campaign continues to put a sunny face on things. Their response to the 9th Circuit Nordyke decision reads,

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld Alameda County’s ordinance banning possession and sales of firearms on county-owned property, that was enacted to end gun shows on county fairgrounds.

“We are pleased that the court recognized that the Second Amendment does not prevent state and local governments from enacting common-sense gun laws,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Actually, that's not the case at all. The ruling narrowly allowed Almeida County to ban guns from county-owned property. It did not allow anything further. To the contrary, the main story with the Nordyke case was that the 2nd Amendment is incorporated against State and local governments through the Due Process clause of the 14th.

Of course, they don't want to talk about that.

First Fallout from Nordyke

The ink's barely dry, and there's already a challenge to California's practice of maintaining a list of "approved handguns."

Defendant’s handgun roster program violates Plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in that Defendant allows some people access to handguns barred to plaintiffs, and otherwise make arbitrary, capricious, irrational, and otherwise unjustifiable distinctions among the handguns that Defendant deigns to allow Plaintiffs in their exercise of fundamental Second Amendment rights. Defendant is thereby propagating customs, policies, and practices that violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, facially and as applied against the individual plaintiffs in this action, damaging plaintiffs in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to permanent injunctive relief against such customs, policies, and practices.

Pena v. Cid [pdf], 9th Circuit, p. 10

It's too late to paddle

OK, I think I get it. A hostile alien race is planning an imminent attack on Earth. Conventional weapons are useless against them, but owing to their squishy physiology, the meager .380 ACP cartridge is the only thing that can stop them.

Am I close? Because that's the only reason I can see for the inexplicable shortage of .380. Some folks are stockpiling it like there's no tomorrow, while those who were late to the party seem to be going into apoplexy over the sudden shortage.

Demand quickly exhausted the supply, and now we're seeing crap like this:

Mind the Gap

I'm not worried about another Assault Weapons Ban. In fact, I'm not worried much about any legislation. What scares me is a sort of scheme like this, which could stand up to post-Heller scrutiny:

If we can use a capital infusion to a bank as an opportunity to control executive compensation and to limit use of private planes, why can't the government use its weight as the largest purchaser of guns from major manufacturers to reward companies that work to keep their products out of criminals' hands? Put another way, if it is too difficult to outlaw bad conduct through statutes, why not pay for good conduct? Why not require vendors to change their behavior if they want our tax dollars?

--Elliot Spitzer, writing for Slate

I don't think this'd fly, but it gives me pause. Bear in mind that executive orders, particularly under an administration that sees itself as the second coming of FDR, fall into a gap where there is no real oversight. They require no ratification from Congress, but if worded carefully, they can carry the force of law.

The jury's still out as to whether it was intentional or not, but OSHA's attempt at revising 1910.109 last year proved that it's possible to stifle or kill the gun industry without passing a single law.

You can bet this is the stuff I'd be brainstorming if I was in their shoes. Here's what we need to watch for:

• import bans


• controls on manufacture and distribution of raw materials


• controls on the flow of commerce.

Cybersecurity Act of 2009

Some guy yelled at me about this today. People seem to yell a great many political things at me lately. Frankly, it's all quite tiring. Anyhow, this doofus went of on an unsolicited rant about how President Obama was going to "shut off the internet at will."

Man, I thought, I gotta know how he can do that. So, I googled (is that a verb now?) "Obama shut down internet," and I was led to the documents for the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. The actual bills are S. 773 and 778. The first draft is here [pdf].

I skimmed through it and found that it echoed almost everything I'd heard about last year's CSIS report. Basically, the report acknowledged a few things that should have already been glaringly obvious:

• That our government's computer infrastructure is vulnerable to attack and disruption,


• That you can trust Congress, who are experts on these things, to throw tons of money at it if you like, and


• It won't do much good.

So, in the interest of doing something, Congress came up with S. 773. It's a really professional-looking, well-organized proposal that's basically full of hot air. And it's expensive hot air, too.

Still, I didn't see anything sinister until I neared the end. There's some boilerplate about funding, qualifications and clearance for Federal I.T. contractors, and a program of "challenges" to incite students into becoming code monkeys for The Man.

S. 843: Cause for Concern

Frank Lautenberg's at it again. S. 843 is a piece of legislation intended to "establish background check procedures for gun shows."

Because, as we all know, gun shows represent a huge artery of supply to the criminal community:



The wording isn't up yet, but it's safe to assume that Here is the wording, and it's a carbon copy of S. 2577, which he tried to get passed last year. In fact, he's been trying to get something like this passed every year since the twilight of the Clinton administration.

Earth Day

Ah, April 22nd. Birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the October Revolution and savior of the Proletariat. Let us all take a moment to...

What? Oh. Oh...that April 22nd. Earth Day. Right. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Earth Day wasn't founded by Lenin. It was founded by Ira Einhorn, who, unlike Lenin, only murdered one person.

Accounts vary, and many contest the allegation that he founded it, though he claims to have done so. What is uncontested is that he was pivotal in organizing it, and he served as Master of Ceremonies for the inaugural Earth Day Rally in 1970.

Heck with it, I'm going to buy about 300 cases of Aqua Net and use it all in one fell swoop. If I survive the fumes, at least I'll know I helped keep that pesky ozone layer from healing itself. Think of the tan I'll have then.