Moe Lane

I’m highlighting this for a somewhat tangential reason:

“When you have not one, not two, but dozens of women well over 70 come in here to buy a gun, something is going wrong out there,” he says. “It’s not just little old white women — it’s young people, white and black, affluent and struggling, who are worrying about the (government’s) overreach and the need to protect themselves.”

As if on cue, a middle-aged black man walks in and is greeted with a hearty handshake. The man says he came in to pick up a gun he ordered the week before.

The 65-year-old shopkeeper says everyone who walks through his door is concerned that the latest push for stricter gun laws will return to the congressional agenda, perhaps within weeks, despite his belief that Americans do not support the legislation as much as the Obama administration claims they do.

His newest customer nods in agreement.

(more…)

Let’s look at the practical results of gun control, shall we?  Three states have recently signed into law some hefty gun control laws; what were the results?

• Colorado: Magpul is now making some magazines and sights outside of the state.  They’re also working on a new HQ.
• Connecticut: PTR Industries will be moving out of the state shortly.  It’s rumored that other companies will follow.
• Maryland: Beretta’s pretty much just waiting for Martin O’Malley to sign a new gun control law next month*.

…and that’s pretty much it.  Good-bye jobs, good-bye tax revenue, good-bye money circulation from the first two categories, and here’s the important point: there will be nothing to compensate for those losses.  As usual, the new rules will do nothing to curb mass shootings; also as usual, the people who are patting themselves on the backs about forcing gun manufacturers out of particular states are not the sort of people who create new revenue-producing ventures.  Put another way: they’re busy-bodies, not businessmen.  Many of them would be vaguely insulted to be mistaken for businessmen. (more…)

Via JWF (and AoSHQ) comes this remarkably bald-faced gesture of contempt by Democrats towards gun control advocates.

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate.

The two candidates most mentioned in the Hill article above were former Governor Brian Schweitzer (for Montana) and former Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (for South Dakota).  Both are supposedly firm gun rights advocates; neither will survive being flipped on the topic (neither would Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, both of whom sensibly voted against Joe Manchin’s* background check amendment).  Of course, it’s an open question whether any of those four mentioned will survive even without being flipped on the topic, which is why the DSCC has zero intention of catering to fanatical gun-grabbers by allowing them to dictate ‘acceptable’ candidates.  This, of course, was known: what was perhaps unexpected was the way that nobody’s particularly trying to hide this political calculus. (more…)

Sucks to be you!

I’m guessing here that the answer is probably “no:”

Is the Obama administration planning another public push on gun control?

Vice President Joe Biden plans to meet with gun control activists at the White House this afternoon, according to his schedule.

It’s more likely that Joe Biden is trying to kiss up to gun control types in anticipation of 2016.  Barack Obama’s not the N-dimensional genius of his remaining acolytes’ fever dreams, but he’s surely bright enough to understand that gun control is dead for at least the remainder of the 113th Congress.  And the 114th, for that matter; if gun control types are going to be going after anybody this election cycle it’s going to be heretical Democrats.  That may be a personally satisfying endeavor for them (it might even be a reasonable long term strategy*), but it’s not going to result in less civil rights activists in the next Congress, which is pretty much the important thing right now.

So… Biden rallies the troops.  And Obama probably shrugs.  From his point of view, après moi le déluge anyway.

Via

Plan B? Biden meeting with gun control activists today at the White House washingtonexaminer.com/article/2528109

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) April 25, 2013

Moe Lane

Oh.

No.

Please.

Don’t.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the well-funded group co-founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is seriously considering a months-long television, radio and direct-mail campaign against Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, one of four Democrats who opposed expanding a background check for guns.

The goal: Make an example of him.

(more…)

Which is impossible, right?

A Massachusetts police official say the brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon before having shootouts with authorities didn’t have gun permits.

Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas tells The Associated Press in an interview Sunday that neither Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) nor his brother Dzhokhar had permission to carry firearms.

…I mean, Massachusetts has strict gun control laws.  You’re not allowed to have a firearm without permission!  How could this have happened? (more…)

I may just link to other people today: it’s been a goram long week and I’d like to get some actual creative, non-political work done.  Anyway, James Taranto on gun control polls:

The senators who voted down the gun-control measures did so on the basis of a deeper understanding of the constituents they represent than can be conveyed by a single number from an opinion poll. They’re professional politicians, and they managed to get elected, in most cases from states Barack Obama never managed to carry. If they misjudged popular opinion, they can be voted out of office. It’s an example of representative democracy at its best.

When fascist or socialist movements have managed to gain a foothold, it has been by appeal to a pre-existing organic source of identity, whether national, ethnic or religious. Today’s dominant strain of American leftist thought is multiculturalist, not nationalist, which means leftist identity politics is mostly a matter of trying to forge alliances among disparate and potentially antipathetic ethnic and other identity groups.

Multiculturalism is pernicious in many ways, but perhaps its only virtue is that it is self-limiting because the identity coalitions on which it relies are inherently unstable. The left’s desperate attempts to conjure up a 90% or 99% supermajority are reflections of weakness, not strength.

I never trust confident assertions that X Will Win/Lose In 20YY.  Yes, even the ones that I make. Especially the ones that I make.  But optimism is a life choice.  And a healthier one that most, I’m thinking.

Moe Lane

Adam Winkler:

Congressional consideration was also delayed by gun control proponents’ insistence on a ban on assault weapons. This was a nonstarter to begin with; nearly everyone familiar with gun politics recognized that such a ban would never pass the House even if it made it through the less conservative Senate. Even if the law could be passed, it wouldn’t have made any dent in gun violence statistics because these guns are rarely used in crime. There was only one certain outcome from proposing to ban assault weapons: It was guaranteed to stimulate the fiercest opposition.

Focusing on assault weapons played right into the hands of the NRA, which has for years been saying that Obama wanted to ban guns. Gun control advocates ridiculed that idea—then proposed to ban the most popular rifle in America.

(more…)

Senator John Cornyn’s (R, Texas) common-sense proposal that states with concealed-carry permits recognize other states’ concealed-carry permits was up for a vote yesterday as an amendment to Reid’s otherwise-useless “gun control” bill; and it came close to passing.  Pretty freaking close, in fact (57/43).  Flip South Dakota, New Hampshire, and West Virginia next year, and that’s sixty for cloture and let’s-see-what-bill-Obama-won’t-dare-veto.

Here’s Sen. Cornyn’s description of the bill.

(more…)

Indeed, this is true:

The second paragraph here shows why it was so important to ban earmarks: politico.com/story/2013/04/….

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 18, 2013

Here’s the paragraph in question:

“Bribery isn’t what it once was,” said an official with one of the major gun-control groups. “The government has no money. Once upon a time you would throw somebody a post office or a research facility in times like this. Frankly, there’s not a lot of leverage.”

Good. Also: …yeah, my side was the one with the Good Guys, thanks.

Moe Lane

From the Free Beacon comes this time-delayed, epic slam:

A GOP Senate aide told the Free Beacon [Democratic Senator Kay] Hagan’s decision to jump out early in support of Manchin-Toomey was “a testament to her skills” as a politician.

I assume that we all understand why, yes? – Because I have to go pick up my kid, now.

Moe Lane

Via:

There’s a fantastic dig at Kay Hagan in this @cjciaramella piece, btw. freebeacon.com/prognosis-nega…

— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) April 17, 2013

They apparently don’t have the votes for a ‘compromise’ amendment extending background checks for firearm purchases.

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell tweeted this morning “Sen. Joe Manchin tells me ‘ we will not get the votes today.’”

The Senate had been expected to vote Tuesday on the deal Manchin unveiled last week with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., but Democrats late Tuesday were still scrambling to find the 60 votes the amendment will need to pass.

…Which means that Chuck Schumer’s original, quite comprehensively bad, restrictive background check language will likely be in the final bill*. I certainly hope that every Democrat up for reelection in 2014 in a Red state enjoys voting for it, particularly since John Boehner and Bob Goodlatte are already patiently waiting for the legislation over at the House.  Complete with a brazier, a can of gasoline, and a match.

(more…)