Busy busy

Have had some meatspace stuff taking up my time.

Good news is that the end is in sight.  Bad news is that that means I've gotta move a bunch of crap.

So... today was a good day.

I'll let Sebastian say it:

While we are not out of the woods yes, I think we can all give ourselves a big pat on the back for winning round one. They will be back for more, and there will be 2014, which will be critical. We cannot allow the gun community to return to their slumber. The gun rights machine is fired up and engaged, and it’s important to keep everyone involved so that we can not only push our opponents back, as we have done today, but drive them to political extinction. We came very close, once again, to achieving National Reciprocity in the Senate. We won today because millions of gun owners woke up and did something. Let’s hope we can keep that up.

No vote on either gun bans or magazine bans cracked a bare majority of a Democratically controlled Senate, with the full weight of the White House and Bloomberg driving the anti-gun effort. We have succeeded in moving the center of this issue to the point where gun bans are practically a third rail. That is a great victory.

After all he and Bitter did tremendous work on running herd over the gun rights community.

Stay active stay engaged.  Find out how your senators voted today.  And contact them to either praise or punish them.

We can't go back to sleep.  Our opponents sure won't.

Also perhaps take Tam's advice and give the NRA's tip jar a bit of  love.  They deserve it too.

Call your Senators... there's still time

Sebastian watches CSPAN so you don't have too.

The arm twisting continues.   Maybe you can add a little twist on your own and call.

Again a phone call is a very simple thing.  Even if they don't listen it's the least you as a gunnie can do.

Edit:  No vote today.   And it's 6pm now.  So write tonight. Call tomorrow. Hell call now can get voicemail too.

Call your Senators

Might as well give them a call.  Even if you get voice mail.

It turns out the Toomey-Manchin Amendment is vague and unclear as to what is and is not a prohibited private transfer.

I am of the opinion that the Toomey-Manchin Amendment doesn’t honestly give us enough to justify the vague language, and what we’re being asked to give up. I think it would be difficult for an ordinary gun owner to know what’s legal and what’s not legal, so the smart advice would be to run all sales to someone you do not know, or who is a cop, through an FFL. I think there are probably also quite a lot in here we’re missing. I don’t trust what the courts and the DOJ are going to do with it. Also, today’s exceptions will be tomorrow’s loopholes. I think this Toomey-Manchin deal needs to be opposed, and people need to call their Senators.

So there's an angle if you have a senator that is "friendly" to this mess.   Keep calling and writing. It's cheap and easy.

Write and Call your Senators.

Might as well.  

Here's a letter the NRA already has drafted up at www.nraila.org/writeyourreps and a phone contactl 202-224-3121.

Also way to make Toomey look like Bloomberg has bought and paid for him.   You'd think there'd be some subtly  then again it's rush, rush, rush.

The Devil is in the Details.

Who lotta stuff today about Toomey-Manchin's little pow wow.

Complete with Schumer playing ref.  Apparently he's the one that killed the National Reciprocity part of the bill

No language of the bill itself but there's a press release.  That's close enough right?

"- Closes the gun show and other loopholes while exempting temporary transfers and transfers between family members."

There's your private sale ban.

With these exemptions

"- Authorizes use of a state concealed carry permit instead of a background check when purchasing a firearm from a dealer.

- Family transfers and some private sales (friends, neighbors, other individuals) are exempt from background checks"

How the hell will friend be legally defined?  The actual language of the bill is critical on how bad of a hosing this is.  Conceivably it could be a ban on private sales at gun shows (how's that defined?) and on "teh internet" (Again define an internet sale). Conceivably it could be the full private sale and casual transfer ban.


There are some more positive parts.  If they actually get implemented.  Like a CCW permit can exempt you from a background check (though they'll still record it). Or a ban on a registry that supposedly has "teeth".

But without the actual language who knows.  The NRA doesn't like it.

There's also what amendments Senate Republicans put on it.  There's poison pills going both ways.

Update: here's some more of those devilish details.  Bloomberg extortion working,  Schumer hiding his involvement, and doctors having the power to yank someone on NICS.


My view.  It's a bad bill.   It's *probably* less bad than what Schumer came up with by himself, but without actually seeing the text I have no idea.

Still it can't hurt to lodge your complaints to your rep and Senators.  Why not.

ATTN PA Gunnies: Contact Pat Toomey on his Gun Control Bill

Republican Senator Pat Toomey has "negotiated" a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin and has not given any details.

Bitter urges you to call and call again.

I doubt a flood of calls will truly change his mind at this point, but the debate isn’t over and there have been no votes cast, so the message that gun owners are not happy needs to be sent loud and clear.

I’m just baffled. I would not agree with a vote on a bill, but I can at least understand the pressure to cast a vote will be an issue for some senators on both sides of the aisle. But, this, this is just politically stupid. Now the narrative is that Sen. Toomey is writing gun control bills. He isn’t just under pressure to vote in this case, he went out of his way to write a bill.

As a reader on Twitter noted, Pat Toomey just gave a political victory to Obama, and I would argue that we just lost at least two House GOP votes from Pennsylvania on this issue, if not three to four votes. (Toomey’s support now makes it damn near politically impossible for Representatives Fitzpatrick and Meehan to oppose the bill. It makes it very tough for Gerlach and, perhaps, Dent.)

 And not only that but as a commenter notes this is:

Remember folks, this is closing the gun show loophole. That term fell out of favor, but here we have a conservative Republican from PA writing a bill to close the gun show loophole.

Donnelly's going for Private Sale Bans.

So I got an email from the Senator.

And he's still trying to split the difference:

I also support exemptions to background check procedures for certain situations. Current legislation under consideration would not require a background check and explicitly allow for gifts between family members, for licensed hunting or sporting purposes, and for transfers in legal wills. This legislation also reaffirms the long-established prohibition on any system for the registration of firearms and records of a transfer.

It's best to drop him a line.   On the upside it does show that the bills are being watered down (which is a negotiating tactic on their part as they try to gin up votes.

I'd wonder if he would really vote against a bill that would maintain records as the rest of his Party is eager to do.

And note that the ACLU itself is against these bills for this exact reason.

Gunnies Helping Gunnies helping...

So I heard on the grapevine  about  Sam, six year old boy battling brain cancer,  and is father Hutch.

Naturally there's a donation link.

6 year old. Brain Cancer. 

THere's enough talked about that, but I'm gonna look at the boy's father Hutch.

Last time I talked to Hutch was after Sam's surgery. He talked to me about the chemo and stuff.

As usual, Hutch was upbeat and confident. He talked about all the weapons at their disposal, and how they were going to use them to whup this cancer bitch's ass and send it running home to momma and crying.I gotta be honest with y'all. If that was my son, I'd be a blubbering fucking idiot.

So here's the kicker. Hutch is going to shave that fucking mustache off his face to help raise some money. He's had that damn caterpillar on his face since before High School, seriously, I've never seen him without it.

His target is only $500, I think he should be getting a lot more than that

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. There is a lot to complain about on this crummy world, but that doesn't mean there's nothing that we can do.   Especially when you can do something, anything, without doing much.


In short, you can be a cynical pessimistic bastard, but you better earn it *first*.

The Gun Grabber's ignorance is amazing.

And what's also amazing is that a non-Fox journalist has spoke up about it.

It's like the they think even learning about guns is beneath them.

Well, the alternative is that they know the difference and are lying to scare people.

At least we can be pretty sure that some of them are genuine morons.  And remember in the preceding  Miss-I-don't-know-that-magazines-can-be-reloaded  made gun control, specifically magazine bans  a specialty of hers.

That's why it's important to have your own facts very straight, and to point these things out to friends and family.     Nothing helps quite like a bemused mockery.

Because if they don't even know *what* they're banning...

URGENT: Connecticut Gunnies

Tomorrow they're going to try to pull a Cuomo on you and vote away your rights.

Call and show up.  Sebastian has information and where there's  shuttle service to the State Capitol.

Also take note of who votes for this.  And that like New York there's useful idiots on the GOP who think this is a wise bill to vote on.

The importance of being heard.

Sebastian looks at the negotiations on the whole Private Sale Ban / Background Check ban.

And he wonders on the whole issue of "If the choice is between bad and disastrous, do you risk disastrous?" and if "Something Must be Done"  what do you have getting passed?

It ends with this:

If all 80 million, or hell, even 20 million, gun owners called or wrote their Senators, we would not even be having this conversation, but the reality is most will not. Meanwhile, Bloomberg will continue to run ads telling everyone how reasonable “universal background checks” are, and who could be opposed to that? The White House will continue to twist arms. Lobbyists on their side tell lawmakers to look at their polling, and try to convince them any opposition to gun control is already baked into the election figured. Our lobbyists will show their polling, and threaten to upset apple carts in 2014. Can we keep 41 Senators? How confident would you be?

One thing you can do is be part of that minority that will call or write.  And can then be out there convincing friends and family and others.   I've gun into people touting how wonderful "universal background checks" are who got angry when I pointed out that it was a Private Sale ban.  

One got angry at being lied too, the other got angry at me and said it was a Faux news hoax.