The Brady Campaign to create 'gun crime'

Henigan succinctly explains what the "gun control" lobby's approach is to more "gun crime"--more gun laws! With the new gun laws, we have yet more "gun criminals," and thus more "gun crime," so the "good first step" (the most recent "first step") must be followed up by a second step (but they won't call it that). And so on ad infinitum.

I've written before about "What the Brady Campaign really wants." The above is how I believe they intend to get there, and I fear that the Supreme Court's Heller decision will prove to be a rather small speed bump in their road, at best. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. I think it's better than a lot of my recent material.

The continued retreat from the '90%' claim regarding U.S. guns in Mexico

The claim that "90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States" has been thoroughly debunked (I talked about it here, for example). I have also discussed, here and here, various sources of drug cartel weapons that the forcible citizen disarmament lobby would prefer not to talk about.

The "90%" claim has, in fact, been so thoroughly discredited that even those who tried to make political hay of it have been forced to back away from it. Here's Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke:

Rather than argue about percentages, let's focus on the fact that 20,000 trafficked guns from America have ended up at Mexican crime scenes.

[More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. I know it looks like I ripped of Days of Our Trailers--and I did get some ideas there, but that's what I was planning to write about even before I saw his piece.

You, too, can be part of a 'hate group'

"While the amendment seeks to keep gang members and members of violent groups out of the military, the amendment by its language is much more broad. Specifically, it confers upon the Attorney General the ability to categorize groups as hate groups, and this sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as "extremists," warned Franks.

"I take extreme offense that the federal government -- through a report issued under the authority of a Cabinet-level official -- would dare to categorize people who are "dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition or abortion or immigration" as "right-wing extremists" and it begs the question of whether the Attorney General, under Mr. Hastings' Amendment, can look to the Napolitano report to decide who is an extremist, or can make the same categorization of the majority of Americans as extremists who may then be kept from joining the military, or who may be discharged," said Rep. Franks. [More]

Today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Hope to see you there.

California 'assault weapon' ban not oppressive enough?

I especially like the last sentence--let's look at it again: "The round (it fires) is the same and the mechanism is the same," he said. "It's basically the same thing." That's exactly what we have been saying all along about faux "assault weapons"--they're functionally no different from guns that (supposedly) no one is trying to ban. Now the other side is saying it, and it's not hard to see where they're going with that--banning the heretofore legal guns, as well. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Hope to see you there.

Brady Campaign observes Independence Day by lobbying against liberty

Oddly, though, the Brady Campaign itself not so long ago trumpeted that Obama's election heralded an era of much more restrictive gun laws (see "We Win, They lose. Now, Let's Get To Work," or "Barack Obama: I Am Not In Favor Of Concealed Weapons"). Weren't they "adding fuel to this toxic mix," with their "incendiary rhetoric"?

So, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of our free nation, the Brady Campaign continues its relentless lobbying for banning private sales of firearms, rationing the right to buy them, banning useful and hugely popular semi-automatic rifles, and giving the BATFE more money and power with which to abuse gun owners. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Happy Independence Day, everyone.

Minors, the Second Amendment, and incorporation

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Forget the U.S. Supreme Court, and what it may, or may not, rule, if it rules one way or another on incorporation anytime soon. We're still left with the fact that 9th Circuit precedent now holds that the Second Amendment applies to the states, and thus the Second Amendment is at play here (not to mention, as Mr. Reitz points out in his Supreme Court of Washington blog, that Washington's state constitution has its own explicity protection of the right to keep and bear arms).

The question thus becomes one of whether or not the Second Amendment protects a minor's possession of a firearm. Readers might guess that I'll have difficulty finding a way of reconciling shall not be infringed with a lack of protection for such a right. Those readers would be correct. [More]

Today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Hope it's worth your time.

Brady Campaign acknowledges proposed gun laws violate due process; doesn't care

That the Brady Campaign endorses legislation like United States Representative Peter King's (R-NY) H.R. 2159, the "Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act," and Senator Frank Lautenberg's (D-NJ) S. 1317 (H.R. 2159's Senate counterpart) is hardly surprising. These bills are, after all, draconian infringements on the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms, and as such, are what organizations like the Brady Campaign exist for.

[ . . . ]

What surprises me, though, is that Brady Campaign Vice President (and ostensible Constitutional law expert) Dennis Henigan acknowledges that people guilty of nothing will be swept up in such nets, and says that doesn't matter. [More]

Today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner--hope you like.

By the way, Days of Our Trailers has a good piece along the same lines--consider yourself as having been given your assigned reading.