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The Issues That Matter to Gun Owners, Part Two
Part one of this series, if you haven’t read it already, is over here. Picking up from there, here are four more issues that matter to American gun owners.
Liability Laws: This is the pet issue for one of the currently unindicted Democratic candidates for President. She is pushing the idea that gun companies are somehow completely free from the product liability laws which cover improperly made or dangerous products, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Gun companies can be sued for guns that are dangerous or are poorly built, which is right in line with every other manufacturer in America. What the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act covers is frivolous, inane lawsuits against firearms companies which are designed to put them out of business because of the fact they are gun companies. A prime example of this was the nuisance lawsuit brought by the parents of one of the victims of the Aurora theater shooting against the online ammo retailer Lucky Gunner, because they sold the ammunition used in that horrific event (Disclaimer: I know the people at Lucky Gunner pretty well, and consider them to be terrific people). The suit was thrown out of court and the family was ordered to pay the court costs of Lucky Gunner because it was patently obvious that Lucky Gunner had no idea that the products they sold would be used in such a manner.
Not only would repealing the PLCAA give the green light to trial lawyers everywhere that the gun companies were ripe fruit ready for the picking, but it would be a return to the bad old days where gun companies compromised their integrity and paid the consequences with gun owners.
Gun Control as a Medical Issue
It’s an unfortunate fact that Americans have a propensity to kill each other with guns. It’s awful, and it’s something that no legal gun owner endorses in any way. Violence committed with firearms needs to end, of course, but the root cause of this violence is still under debate. The answer to this question, according to a number of Democrats, is to treat “gun violence” as just another epidemic and have the Center for Disease Control study it as if it were malaria or some other disease.
Bad idea. It was tried once before, with laughable results. Studying how guns were used in the free-fire zones of the inner city and then expecting the rest of the country to be full of the same kind of decision making is not medical science, it’s a political agenda covered with a thin veneer of doctorate degrees and then shoved onto the American people as “science.”
I will leave any comparisons to how this study was performed back in the ’90s and the current “science” of anthropogenic global warming to the reader, as it’s time to move on to another topic.
“Universal Background Checks”
Take a look at the photo that accompanies this article. Nothing could be more American, right? A father and a son, out in the greatness of the American wilderness, communing with nature, looking to participate in mankind’s second-oldest profession, finding wild game with which to feed their family.
Sounds good, right up to the point where Dad hands his son the gun and therefore becomes a felon, because he transferred possession of a gun to someone without a background check. While that sounds crazy, that’s one possible outcome in a world of “universal” background checks. These kind of laws aren’t about “closing the gun show loophole” and they’re not about stopping violent crime on our streets, they’re about making it harder to legally obtain firearms. There is no gun show loophole; crooks either steal their guns or have someone else lie in order to obtain them. “Universal background checks,” like every other gun law on the books, would only apply to law-abiding gun owners, not criminal gun owners.
“Common sense gun laws” should begin with common sense, not avoid it altogether.
Public Land Usage
Heavy and easily-molded, lead has been the preferred component of firearms ammunition ever since the days of the first handgonne. In California, though, the era of lead ammunition is coming to an end, due to some questionable research about contamination of the ecosystem. (Anyone else seeing a pattern here?) I’m not opposed to non-lead, “green” ammunition because a high concentration of lead (a poisonous metal) is not a good thing, and non-lead ammunition like the Army’s new M855A1 round and Ruger’s “ARX” pistol ammo look very promising. However, dollar for dollar, non-lead “green” ammunition tends to cost more than their leaded counterparts, adding yet another barrier to entry for shooters on a budget.
If there’s a bright side to a ban on lead ammunition, it’s that such actions have made hunters and other gun owners realize that preserving and expanding the right to keep and bear arms isn’t something that matters just to owners of “evil black rifles” and concealed-carry activists: In the mind of an anti-gun zealot, the only good gun is a gun in the hands of a police department or military that marches to their drum and no other.
Fear the politician who fears you owning a gun: If they’re not in favor of you protecting what matters most to you, they’re not in favor of you having any amount of power at all over your choices in life.
Published in Culture, Domestic Policy, General, Guns, Law
Universal Background Checks are utterly useless. They are entirely unenforceable, especially when law enforcement isn’t on board with harassing legal commerce.
I’m extremely worried about the future composition of the Supreme Court and what it could mean for our Second Amendment rights. That’s why I just this week purchased an “evil black rifle.” It’s not something I particularly felt a need for, but I’ll be damned if the government is going to tell me I can’t have one at a later date. The arms salesman that is the Left succeeds again.
I think they should check the background of everyone at NBC-Universal.
Don’t you mean “the assault media”?
#1 on my list.
This is one (of many) reason(s) Hilary is never the answer, no matter what issues you have with one or another Republican, even one selected by the “Establishment” at a brokered convention.
With a Republican president, there is a chance, probably around 60% that Supreme Court nominees over the next four years will not change the recent 2nd amendment decisions.
If Hillary (or Bernie) is elected the chance drops to 0%, and 2nd amendment rights WILL be eliminated, and not just around the edges or in urban areas. They will first get the court to declare there is NO right to own a gun, except as a member of the armed forces, national guard, or a police force, and then go on to pass new Federal laws, banning the individual ownership of pistols, rifles, and most shotguns.
We will wind up looking a lot like Britain, only probably with even fewer gun “rights”. If one is very lucky, they will leave a right to shoot a shotgun, kept locked in a police supervised locker at a gun-range at clay targets, with NO other access to guns at all. Hunting, using any form of gun, at all will of course be completely banned on all Federally controlled lands, or lands within say 5000 feet of any Federal land, (a stray bullet might land on public access land). So vote for Hillary or Bernie, if this seems your cup-o-tea.
Yes, yes, yes! Great article, but this is the key to me. Why don’t they want me to have a gun? It is so they have one and I don’t.
This kind of cultural change can’t happen in a moment. This isn’t an argument that it can’t happen, but I don’t see it happening the way you describe.
I agree, it won’t happen in a moment, its been going on for a hundred years now, and the extreme left controls the Democratic party, and what individuals say in surveys is now completely meaningless. Republicans claim the party is ignoring them, its worse in the democrat party. All that matter is what the Supreme Court says, and what the left will pass, when they next control the house and the senate, likely to happen relatively soon.
I agree with John Hanson – neither party feels the need to respond to the people. Think drastic changes in gun laws will require much time? The last seven years’ experience says something pretty definitive about that.
As Cicero put it: “O tempora, o mores!”
They won’t, and that’s a GOOD thing.
Sherman, set the WAYBAC Machine for 1996. The Assault Weapons Ban had taken effect, and standard-capacity magazines were banned for the most-popular guns of the day. If you wanted a magazine-fed semi-automatic rifle, you had to make sure it didn’t look too evil, or else you couldn’t buy it new and had to pay outrageous prices for something made before 1994.
Flash-forward to today.
The NRA-ILA is probably THE most powerful lobbying group in Congress, you can buy the foundation of an AR-15 “assault rifle” for $50 and accessorize just about any way you want, and we’re even talking about taking suppressors off the National Firearms Act restricted list and letting people own them as if they were the safety item they truly are.
The “assault weapons ban” didn’t eliminate those scary weapons, it made them easier and cheaper to own.
You can’t stop the signal, Mal.
Kevin – you’re right on the timeline, of course. And I hope the changes continue in the direction of enhanced rights for individuals. My comment was intended also to highlight the mercurial nature of the 21st Century American polity. I fear many things could go either way. For the first time in my life, which is getting to be a seriously substantial number of years, there seems to be a large number of Americans for whom individual liberties are less important than advancing whatever narcissistic sophism they embrace.
Justice Scalia’s death and the appalling electoral prospects lead me to be very wary about the future course of the Republic. Still, “… of these, the greatest is hope” seem to me good words to remember. Hope may be a poor strategy, but it enables continued effort.
Why so sexist? My daughter owns more guns than my sons do. ;-)
Because… {SamElliotVoice} Firearms ownership in America is part of a storied tradition, passed down from father to son {/SamElliotVoice}
Well that, and I could find a LOT more images of two dudes out hunting together than a guy and a young girl. ;)
I honestly think any attempt to outright ban and/or confiscate guns would result in armed insurrection. I don’t use the term lightly. I think Americans are that serious about their guns and this particular freedom.
Bring it on. I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.
“You’re braver than I thought.”