Quisling Gun Owners.

So Walter Kirn writes on the New Republic in an article called "What Gun Owners Really Want".

Just take a guess given the source and the title what his drive will be.

Perhaps the "I'm a gun owner but..."   Someone who says he owns guns but they're all for hunting. Someone that talks about how "middle of the road" they are. Someone that protests that "I'm not a gun nut!". Someone who can't see why someone could ever Need those scary assault weapons and those high capacity bullets?

You'd be close.   Amazingly, he does talk about conceal carry and self defense in a fairly positive light.

And he also notes the absurdities that gun owners live under.

On talking about his CCW class and the laws and jurisdictions he had to keep in mind:

It's flattering being recruited into an ethos of responsibility. It makes you want to walk the line. It also reminds you how arbitrary some lines are. Cross the wrong state border with your gun or wake up one morning to new legislation or a new presidential executive order, and suddenly you're the bad guy, not the good guy. No wonder some gun owners seem so touchy; they feel, at some level, like criminals in waiting. This feeling helps promote a bond. "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," says the cussed old right-wing bumper sticker. Perhaps there should be another one that says: "If guns are outlawed, there will be a lot more outlaws."

All well and good.  But this is also a guy that repeatedly insists he's not a traitor.  His word.

And then he ends with this:

Of the five or six guns I've gathered over the decades (IF YOU KNOW HOW MANY GUNS YOU HAVE, YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH read a t-shirt I saw once) only one is designed to use on human beings: a .38 revolver of the type that burdened policemen's sagging belts once, before the adoption of sleeker 9mms. The gun is a stodgy old classic, Smithsonian-worthy, that evokes the Made-in-USA age and also speaks of my distance, I like to think, from the cult of maximum firepower that draws harder-boiled folks to stores and gun shows to handle Bushmasters and similar weapons with death-dealing, quasi-military designs. Such ominous firearms hold no allure for me, in part because I doubt they'd do much good against a maniac carrying one or a hypothetical goon squad equipped with their vastly superior big brothers. Ban those guns. Neuter them. I'm fine with it. I can hunt with my shotguns and my deer gun (although I've grown tired of hunting), and I can protect myself from miscreants with my trusty .38.

To some in the gun-owning fraternity, this view makes me a traitor. So be it; I think they're wrong. As they have repeatedly pointed out themselves, and as even Wayne LaPierre might agree, assault rifles are functionally similar to ordinary semi-automatic rifles, differing chiefly in their sinister cosmetics, not in their underlying ballistics. This being the case, what will be lost by giving them up? Nothing but their destabilizing allure for the grandiose, image-obsessed mass killers who favor them—and whose crimes represent a far greater risk to gun rights than does the perceived hostility of certain politicians. By assenting to such a ban, the gun-owning community can demonstrate precisely the sort of reasonable public-mindedness of which some believe it to be incapable. Otherwise, the showdown will go on and we will have only ourselves to blame if our self-destructive intransigence leaves us despised and cornered, with no way out.

Ah, smell that?   It's the urine-soaked bootlicking of someone who says "I've got mine! Don't come after me! I'm one of the good ones!"

And you gotta love his logic.  "Sure Assault Weapons are an arbitrary classification. And banning them will do nothing, so why not cave into their demands and support such ban!"

Because remember, agreeing to a ban based on cosmetic features is the height of reasonable public-mindedness. It's totally not craven cowardice. And it's not like politicians exploiting tragedy to get absurd laws passed are a threat to gun owners.

Nope, all gun owners have to do is lie back and give the politicians everything they want.

It's funny how he can go from realizing that these laws can randomly turn people into outlaws to going "Well we might as well support stupid laws."


Oh and of a bonus.  You can only comment on the article if you pay.    Classy.


Update:  Though Walter's not alone.  The Vice president is also on the sure these proposed gun control laws won't do anything to stop mass shootings, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ban something! bandwagon.

Yeah, gun owners should totally throw in their lot with these folks!

Sen Donnelly: Against an AWB, "neutral" on Private Sales Bans.

Well, him going out against an Assault Weapons Ban is good.

But he's noodling around the notion of banning private sales.

That's bad.

If you live in Indiana,  drop him a line.    Use the carrot and stick.

Go with the whole: "I am gladdened by you taking a stand for the rights of Hoosiers by rejecting the Assault Weapons Ban."

But go in with some stuff like:

However, do not vote for a Private Sale Ban.  Like the Assault Weapon Ban you, rightfully oppose, it would do nothing to stop such tragedies we have seen.

It is already illegal for a prohibited person to acquire a firearm by any means.  Thus banning private sales would do nothing to deter them.  They would simply steal, murder (as was the case in Sandyhook), or have someone conduct a straw purchase in their stead (as we saw in the Webster New York shooting where a convicted murder got a gun by having a neighbor pass the background check).

It is naked political exploitation to ban Private Sales when neither a private sale nor a gun show was even involved in any of these Mass Shootings.

Doesn't need to be much.  Encourage the AWB stance, and give a prod on the Private Sales stance.

Link via   Sebastian  who with Bitter has been doing amazing work.

Such as watching 4 hours of Senate Gun Control hearings and liveblogging it.

The next gun grabber "consensus": Private Sale ban.

That looks like what they're gonna try to get through too.  With some nebulous add ons with "mental health checks". The devil's really in the details there.

This time it's bipartisan!  And the media's still supporting Manchin's lie that he's working through the NRA.

 Ed Morrissey comments:

Small wonder that Chuck Schumer calls expanded background checks “the sweet spot.” That will give Congress a chance to claim that they are doing something in the wake of the Newtown, Aurora, and Tucson mass shootings while bypassing the more politically dangerous action of banning weapons — especially since there will be no functional difference between banned and allowed semi-automatic rifles, and since murders by rifles of any kind are an exceedingly small percentage of the overall level of homicide victims.  Background checks would have the virtue of addressing the entirety of firearms, too, without pursuing outright bans based on aesthetics.

Right.

And then Ed shows he's a knob:

Update: I’m with War Planner in the comments: “No problem with background checks; just no permanent registration of firearms.” But let’s be clear that these background checks will not have much impact on the kinds of mass shootings that are driving this debate, although they may help keep firearms out of the hands of more ordinary criminals. 

Well, no.   Given that straw purchases are already illegal  banning private sales won't do diddly.  Unless you have a universal registration too.   And if you think that having mandatory background checks won't be grounds to go to permanent registration, for that exact reason, then you're a fool.


Perhaps you should contact your legislators.  Or here.

Gun Grabber Digest.

Here Have a bunch of links to read:


Silly Glen Reynolds.  Waiting periods are for the proles.

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN FOR TOMORROW: Why Not A Waiting Period For Laws? “I’d like to propose a ‘waiting period’ for legislation. No bill should be voted on without hearings, debate and a final text that’s available online for at least a week. (A month would be better. How many bills really couldn’t wait a month?) And if the bill is advertised as addressing a ‘tragedy’ or named after a dead child, this period should double.” 

Recall that New York had such a "waiting period" for proposed bills, and the Governor declared an emergency in order to suspend that rule so it could be voted on in the middle of the night, less than a half hour after it was printed.

Speaking of New York:

BOB OWENS: Register … or Rebel: How Many New Yorkers Will Defy New Law? “Already, signs that Governor Cuomo and his allies underestimated the pushback.”
Hey, if you can’t even get orderly Canadians with no Second Amendment tradition to go along with a rifle registry. . . .

From Bob Owens:

New York has estimated that there are one million firearms that fit their new definition of an “assault weapon,” and they are concerned that a large number of citizens will rip the teeth out of the law by simply refusing to register their arms. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of New York’s most law-abiding citizens are likely to make the choice to rebel against an unconstitutional law that violates their Second Amendment rights.

Perhaps of even more concern to Governor Cuomo and his anti-gun allies: this high level of resistance arose before Assemblyman McLaughlin released the list of confiscatory amendments Democrats had wanted to include in the NY SAFE Act.

Also check the link to see the gun control that didn't get into Cuomo's ban.  Gems such as limiting the number of magazines you can own.

On a related note this article by Sebastian is worth a read

Gun Control Requires Our Willing Compliance.

Recall that if Canadians (and Germans) flaunted their country's registry systems.  What hope is there for the US?

Well... for starters  registration seems like an easier game.   At least the precursors are.   And remember when a politician starts talking about hunting...  be ready.

Hunting has very little to do with the Second Amendment but it’s an evergreen rhetorical sop to rural voters (many of whom live in purple states) whenever Democrats start getting grabby about guns. Clinton mentioned it the other day in warning Democrats not to condescend to their opponents, moments before he said of rural gun owners, “A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing.” Obama’s been talking up the glories of hunting since 2008 at least; he celebrated it again in the opening to his speech two weeks ago before launching into an explanation of why he needs to take executive action on guns. Listening to a liberal defend hunting is like watching a volcano start to smoke: You know what’s coming, and it won’t be good. But hey — if your concept of self-defense extends no further than long rifles or shotguns, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Continue to cling bitterly to them as needed.
....
That’s the White House’s new plan. Focus on universal background checks, which are popular across the board in polling, as something that really might pass Congress and then try, try, try to hold as many Democrats together as possible on more aggressive doomed-to-fail stuff like the assault weapons ban. If they can at least manage a near-party line vote, then they can blame gun control’s failure on the GOP and hope that the public is peeved about that in 2014. Aside from background checks, it’s all kabuki.

And the background checks are bad enough.   Given how banning private sales is kabuki in and of itself.  It's a system built to fail and lead into requiring registration to "close the loopholes"

RobertaX has related thoughts on that progression.   And a reminder to contact your reps.

And more on the "laws are for the little people"...

Here's a reminder on how Media Matters' David Brock has body guards armed with illegal guns.

And yes this is the same Media Matters that is pro gun control and against concealed carry.

And of course Feinstein's ban exempts government officials.  Even retired ones!

Laws for thee but not for me.

And such a roundup wouldn't be complete without mentioning Baron Bloomberg.

It seems a peon dared to ask the Baron if he'd have the grace to divest his men-at-arms of their "swords"

Naturally the Baron was displeased. And sent some of his men after the so-called "journalist" to show them what for.

And speaking of New York City:   TOP NYC COP: Banning 'assualt rifles' not enough...

Recall that New York city has its own gun laws and bans, in addition to the double bans the State has.

San Diego’s Top Cop: We can disarm Americans within a generation!

Was there any doubt?

It's almost like there's some sort of progression of gun control with an end-goal in mind.

Anti-Gun Security Blankets

So Buffalo Wild Wings is coming out with gun free zone signage.

That's a shame, but their product isn't not worth the hassle of taking my holster off and on again.

And while I could carry inside (they don't have metal detectors or pat downs), I would not.

Because I'm basically law-abiding.

A criminal with the intent to rob the place would not care about the sign, and might even be encouraged by it.
That's just common sense there.  If a crook bothers to do recon of a place, they're likely to do a risk-reward analysis. (Do you rob the bank with the armed guard or the one without?)


What's fascinating about that article are the comments from the anits.  There's the expected sister-humping-rednecks slurs, and there's many repeats on this theme

"Guns don't make us safe."

Huh, so if something bad happens you don't call armed men to help you?

There's also a bleating of "It'll bring increased safety".  Not that it'll reduce robberies,  but that it'll stop drunken patrons from pulling leather.  Which is a concern that seems to prey on their minds.

As seen with this theme:

"Thanks for being a voice of reason. I prefer to dine without fear of the gun carried by guy at the table next to me."

Yes, there's a lot of "We are the reasoned ones",  but my interest is the second sentence   This theme of "Peace of Mind" comes up a lot in the comments

Gun Free Zones are not about stopping criminals.  They won't obey a sign like that .  They're about allaying the fear of the above commenters.

You have people who see guns as only causing bad things.  Only making things worse.  And while criminals are hard to reach, the law abiding are less difficult.  So, they make signs that declare certain areas off-limits to guns.

And the result would be less people being armed there. Granted it doesn't effect the number of people being armed with violent intent, but that's not the concern.  The lady afraid of having someone one table away from her carrying a gun isn't afraid he's going to rob the place or take hostages, or do any sort of premeditated crime.

Because a person in that case, would not care about signage. Now, she's afraid he'll "go nuts" or "get angry" and start shooting.

They want know there aren't any icky guns near them.

Yes, someone could be eating in a signed restaurant, and they could in violation of the sign! be armed. But that little sign means that they are wrong for doing it.

And note that Conceal Carry has nothing to do with these mass shootings (They all took place in Gun Free Zones and were done by people without carry permits), but CCW is still being targeted. It's like desire to ban Private Sales (which were also not a factor in these shootings).

A large part of Gun Control is a cultural thing, and the antis will go hammer and tongs whichever way they can to marginalize and push aside "Gun Culture."  Read the preceding link, including this passage:

Victory in the culture war provides a foundation for the gun culture we know and enjoy to enter places like New York and Chicago. They know this, and at some level, I believe the ultimate goal of the current attack isn’t necessarily to get legislation passed, though they will certainly try. No, the current attack is meant to shame people out of the idea of supporting gun rights, because gun rights are what those people do. I believe many coastal elites have a deep anxiety that not only will those people start to spring up like dandelions in their fair cities, but more importantly, they may have to do business with them, to socialize with them, and to hear talk of AK v. AR, 9mm v. .45, or to have to listen to someone who should, by all rights, be one of them, talking about their new carry piece, and the thought of that drives them crazy.

Or maybe going to a chicken restaurant and hearing that the people one table over own guns?

It's not that the gun control people like criminals and want them to be out there committing mayhem.  It's that they're much harder to control than the law-abiding.   And the antis see both groups as part of the same "Gun Culture", so they figure they can go after the low hanging fruit as it were.


Tam has more on the motivations of the antis and how they think.  And as for the Gun Control version of "slut shaming'  well Weer'd has a couple of links.

Here's one with a 5th grade girl being harassed and punished for a "gun" shaped piece of paper.

And here's one with Paypal playing the role of moral guardian and closing accounts on things they find icky.

QoTD Weer'd: "It’s the gun grabber version of “How about a .38 Snubbie for the little lady!”

Said in reply to this bit about Biden's  self defense advice.

That's right,  take comfort in that slow Joe has your back.

Meanwhile, not  Steven King is not only letting his anti gun flag fly.
(If you're shocked don't be; he's always been one.  When some punk who did a school shooting was found with a book written by King about... a school shooting.  King went right into blaming guns and gun culture.)

But the funny part is that King is charging for his essay.  Ace has a fun take down, but soon gets to the meat of the matter on why the antis are for such seemingly stupid and cosmetic bans.

The measures being proposed are so obviously inadequate to accomplish what they purport to accomplish that a gun-righter could almost say, "Sure, let baby have his bottle, if you want these cosmetic, symbolic, futile actions to convince yourself you're a Good Person, and then you'll shut up about it, fine."

But a guns-righter can't say that. Because he realizes something: These proposed measures are in fact so obviously inadequate to accomplish what they purport to accomplish that that must not be the reason they are offered at all.

Because these measures would accomplish nothing directly, one must then wonder why they would be advanced at all; and of course the immediate realization is that they are advanced to accustom people to the ritual of giving up this and that freedom in response to some new Moral Panic.

....

But they cannot agitate for that, for the public would not hear of it; so instead they push measures which are deliberately calculated to be perfectly useless for attaining their stated goal, but in fact are quite useful for attaining their unstated goal, which is to say, conditioning the public to give up gun rights on a piecemeal, this-one-and-then-that-one basis such that that which cannot be accomplished in one great step can be accomplished in 40 or 100 smaller ones.

And hence the shouting, because we are, in fact, not talking about these measures in reality; we are on both sides really talking about the intended endgame of complete disarmament of the public.

If we were talking about achieving the goal of reducing the number of people killed by guns, why on earth would a gun-control advocate be extolling the shotgun as a more efficient and deadly person-killing weapon than an AR-15? 

Hence you see  New York State go from a 10 round limit to a 7 round magazine limit.

And back to Weer'd.  Yeah, Biden really did recommend that a shotgun over a  rifle because it's more deadly.  In some cases... yes, but funny how "more deadly" is a good thing when he deems it.  And if those "evil" guns are less deadly, then why's he wanna ban them?

And speaking of real motivations here's a choice little exchange.

 GINGRICH: Isn't your real view that you would ban pistols if you could?
MORGAN: No, it wouldn't. What --
GINGRICH: Wouldn't you ban pistols if you could?

You trust Piers Morgan right? I'm sure he's concerned only with these rifles, and doesn't want a handgun band. Never-mind that the Feinstein bill he supports covers many pistols, and even shotguns.

Oh and speaking of Piers Morgan here's him talking with someone with very sexist ideas about guns
You see those lil' women are too weak to use those beefy manly ARs and should use "traditional" rifles.

Which... tend to have more power per cartridge.

Anyone who's fired an AR would know the 223 has very mild recoil.  But know, these clowns say if you're worried about recoil you should go for the shotgun... and not the rifle.

You wanna take gun advice from someone who has made it a life's work to lobby and legislate restrictions on guns?

Hey may not like blood dancing but...

Mr. A might be able to make his peace with it.

 Man I dunno. I talk about Obama being a Chicago politician like that's a good thing, but if his entire angle on gun control is meta-politics, a (successful) attempt at smearing NRA crazy all over Republicans, that's pure Chicago politics.
I guess something along the lines of "the ends justify the means.. until the means involve shitting in my Wheaties" hypocritical NIMBY bullshit at it's worst

Let's unpack this.  This is a man who a week ago said this:

 In this case you have liberals whoring out a bunch of dead kids to enact legislation that does not appear to have any value add or relevance to their death, and infringes on established rights, and pretty much saying "fuck your rights, there are dead kids on TV I can use to do what I want!" It's difficult for me to describe just how wrong Obama, Feinstein, etc.. are on this one.

And now he's trying to go all three-dimensional chess to excuse Obama's actions.  And this fits. Right after the massacre Mr. A had another bitch about "liberals" and gun control.  And I theorized that his main concern was fallout to his side.

Though he is a bit myopic if he thinks it's just the re just the Republicans that are feeling the heat from the NRA and gun owners.  And despite some real stupidity, the NRA isn't exactly loosing the mainstream/popularity contests.

 I mean any politician that is for an Assault Weapons Ban is either ignorant or conning you. So it's a rank cynical exploitation of base emotions and ginning up fear to infringe on a basic right without 

And I asked him what the point was since he himself has said such laws do " not appear to have any value" and do not even have a even the fig leaf of a social good.  What's the point of doing this?

And Mr A replied:

 Well, the social good is smearing Republicans

Get that?   Threatening a right, exploiting dead children, and whipping up emotion is okay if it can be used against your political enemies. Say the President et al. get the laws that they want.  Like they did in New York. Well... I guess  liberal gun owners are just supposed to bend over and take one for the team.

 Hell in Mr. A's own words the gun grabbers and media are all: "fuck your rights, there are dead kids on TV I can use to do what I want!"  But that just might be okay if it'll hurt the Republicans.

At least Mr A has some self awareness:

The question is, "am I cool doing this unethically"

But not enough.

Basically... he thinks the president and others holding an enumerated right hostage via laws Mr. A himself has admitted are pointless. And that Mr. A might just be okay with it because –hey- it could hurt the Republicans.

Ah, gotta love how rights can be tossed aside for political vengeance.

By this logic, Mr. A would be for free speech restrictions if it could be used against the "enemy".   Oh wait,  he is.