Page Nine

Gun law update: June 29, 2007

HB 2640 Gun Ban Worse Than Originally Thought

Illegal Aliens Exempt If Amnesty Bill Passes

Rights Restoration Clause Died In 1992

Attorney General Would Get Arbitrary Control

Any Database Manager Can Issue "Procedures"

Undefined "Determination" Can Add You To The Ban List

Still time to fix it

Associated Press takes typical biased swipe at NRA



In a sensational national email alert, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (jpfo.org) incorrectly stated yesterday:

"Is the NRA just another 'gun control' group? Alan Korwin, author of 'Gun Laws of America' seems to think so." JPFO is using my name to promote a belief they hold that I do not.

The NRA is the most powerful gun-rights group in the world, even if other groups (like Jews for the Preservation and others) don't think so, or believe they outperform NRA in some fashion. Like Hillary Clinton or any big dog, the NRA must endure a certain level of attack from their own side, it comes with the territory.

I don't know why NRA is supporting the McCarthy NICS expansion bill as it is currently written, but it doesn't make them the enemy. I think they have misread certain passages, or hold mistaken beliefs about how BATFE and the Justice Dept. will perform under the bill if enacted.* Reasonable people will differ. There is still time for a fix.

This has prompted me to reexamine the bill, and unfortunately, it seems worse than I originally believed. To the NRA, media and others who disagree with my assessment of HB 2640:


1. Not Just Adjudications

Bill supporters have expressed that "adjudicated" mental incompetence, which implies action by a proper court of law, is a fair standard for gun denial, and with an appeals process in place is a reasonable line in the sand. I generally agree. But the bill says "adjudications" can come from any federal "department or agency," not just courts.

And HB 2640 isn't limited to adjudications. It speaks throughout of people with "adjudications, determinations and commitments," and not even "involuntary commitments." The word "determination" scares me most -- it isn't even defined. Who can make "a determination"? The law doesn't say. An agency with even a narrow view could read that to mean almost anything. You're comfortable with that? Does it subject people's rights to a bureaucrat's whim? Where are the controls on "a determination"? There aren't any apparent.

It's true that the adjudications, determinations and commitments must include a finding that the person is "a danger to himself or to others or that the person lacks the mental capacity to manage his own affairs." However, BATFE is already on record that any level of "danger" is enough, and it does not have to be imminent, or substantial. Name some sort of mental issue that doesn't have some sort of danger attached -- you can't. Call me a skeptic, go ahead, I can take it.

Cutting Essential Services

The lamestream media told you:
With state legislatures wrapping up their sessions across America, budget cuts and reduced spending may lead to reduced fire, police, roadwork and other essential services. Legislators who have worked hard on tax rebates, tax reductions and lower government spending may have hurt the public at large with ill-conceived spending cuts.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Although reporters are highly prone to repeat empty statements about cutting police, fire and essential services in hard financial times, there appears to be no logical grounds for doing so, other than a mindless lapdog mentality pervasive in the "news" business.

The obvious top choice for cuts when funds are short is bureaucratic waste, not the fire department.

This is followed by agency redundancies, worthless regulatory programs, burdensome funding of pork recipients and other gross governmental waste. Even a moron knows you cut police and fire last, not first. Because that's less sensational and would not instill a sense of fear to increase spending, it is ignored, and the media faithfully promotes the government's agenda.

Newspapers and network TV viewership continue to decline.

Tags: budget cuts, tax reductions

Recall Which Troops?

The lamestream media told you:
Polls now clearly indicate that the overwhelming majority of Americans want the troops brought back home.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
As I've observed here before -- polls are just tests to see if the propaganda is working. The lamestream media has been pounding away on the idea of bringing the troops home for years now, so let me ask:

Is the "vast majority" talking about the 65,000 troops we have in Germany? Or do they really mean the 34,000 in Japan? Maybe they mean the 10,000 in Great Britain? Bring our 110,000 WWII troops home now! The war ended 60 years ago.

How would the economies of those countries be affected if all that Uncle Sam G.I.-weekend spending screeched to a halt?

If we could just bring home the 30,000 troops from Korea, think what that could do for border protection here. Is it time to start screaming about it?

The public is screaming to bring troops home from Iraq because the media is telling them to scream, not because it necessarily makes sense. The media tells them little about all 388,000 troops stationed outside the U.S. (2003 stats), so it's all quiet on those fronts.

Annual averages, differences in tabulating troop movements and other factors affect the stats. For a detailed report see the Heritage Foundation numbers.

Tags: Germany, Korea, Japan, troop deployment

The Parker Case

The lamestream media told you:
Nothing.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Bob Levy, co-sponsor of the Parker case (the one that overturned the D.C. gun ban) reports:

The D.C. Circuit Court granted D.C.'s unopposed motion to hold off on the requirements of the Parker case until August 7, the deadline for requesting a review by the U.S. Supreme Court. (This means the gun ban stays in effect at least until that outcome of that request is known.) In an extraordinary statement, Judge Silberman warned D.C. that it would have been inappropriate to request a stay if D.C. did not intend to file for the review.

In other words, by asking for the ban to remain in effect for a while, the Circuit Court is warning D.C. that it had better file to take the case to the Supreme Court. This is a good thing if you want the High Court to hear the case.

Lamestream "news" outlets could not be bothered with developments in the most significant Second Amendment case to appear in decades, but have mercifully stopped covering Anna Nicole Smith, who is dead.

Tags: D.C. gun bans, Parker case, Bob Levy

Muslim Moderates Missing

The lamestream media told you:
Headlines nationwide assured the public that Muslims in the U.S. are not a problem, based on a recently released Pew Center poll.

USAToday: Poll: Most Muslims seek to adopt American lifestyle.

"This is a very positive story for the vast majority of Muslims," says Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

The Voice of America: Poll: US Muslims Feel Post-9/11 Backlash Despite Moderate Outlook

The New York Times: Muslims assimilate better in U.S. than Europe, poll finds, and then leads with this: "A new poll of American Muslims reveals a group that is better assimilated, more content and less politically polarized than counterpart Muslim populations in Western Europe -- but also smaller in number than some Muslim groups had estimated."

China's Carbon Counts

The lamestream media told you:
"Fueled by rapid growth in coal-reliant China, rates of carbon dioxide emission from industrial sources increased from 2000 to 2004 at a rate that is over three times the rate during the 1990s," according to a National Academy of Sciences report covered by USA Today last month.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Indiscriminate and rapid increases in coal burning by communist red Chinese have emerged as a driving force behind global carbon levels in the atmosphere. The dictatorship's loosened grip on its economy has lead to a mad rush of growth formerly unknown in the totalitarian regime.

The communists' furnaces, which do not use scrubbers and are believed to be highly inefficient, rely on their vast supplies of CO2 producing coal, lack of environmental regulations, and easy executions of protesters.

The highly controversial Kyoto Accord, which the United States refused to sign because it proposed devastating impacts on our economy, had conveniently omitted the communists from most requirements. European nations and others who did sign the accords have uniformly failed to meet the goals, but it doesn't matter, because there are no penalties, no sanctions, and not even followup reports by the "news" media.

In other news, Hollywood has taken up the carbon emissions banner and is "buying carbon offsets" to demonstrate how green their films are. The upcoming $170 million comedy about Noah's Ark "erased" its carbon "footprint" by spending ten grand on trees, according to PBS. How many trees, where, how much CO2 they absorb in what time frame and whether such a small number of plants can "erase" $170 million in activity for a gigantic crew working for a year is unknown. PBS asked no questions to qualify the proud pronouncement of the film's producer, but the interviewer gushed at how wonderful all this was.

In still other news, communist China surpassed the U.S. in 2006 as the world's leading producer of CO2 gas, by far. Al Gore could not be reached in his 26,000-square-foot home for comment.

Tags: carbon emissions, coal burning, Kyoto Accord, National Academy of Sciences, carbon offsets

Starters

Yes, yes, it's been a while -- I'm pouring my time into my next book, "Bomb Jokes at Airports" (about the limits of free speech), plus we're expanding the line at Bloomfield Press, more news on that soon.

Q: How long until we know if Washington, D.C. will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on the gun-ban case it lost (the Parker case)?
A: 90 days from the denial of the en banc hearing.That means Aug. 6, 2007.

Q: If they do appeal, when might a decision arrive?
A: Assuming that cert is granted before year's end (meaning the High Court agrees to hear the case), we should have a decision no later than June 30, 2008. Read all about it in entry #3, below.

Tags: Bloomfield Press

Gun law update: June 26, 2007

Many NRA Members "Confused" by Proposed Gun Bill

Five-fold increase in gun-ban list is "troubling"

Secretive passage rankles even hard core

Could be fast-tracked through the Senate this week

The swift passage of a gun-ban bill in the U.S. House, without committee hearings, floor debate or a recorded vote and possibly without even a quorum present, has NRA members nationwide asking what happened.

In a nationally released memo addressing the confusion, the NRA said this is "nothing unusual," further confusing their members. Swiftly adopting a gun-control measure on a voice vote has not occurred in at least fifteen years, if ever, according to Bloomfield Press, the largest publisher of gun-law books in the country.

The NRA, long considered a feared and powerful gun-rights lobby, allied itself with the most ardent anti-gun-rights forces in the House to quickly push through a bill that would massively increase the NICS Index -- the database of people who cannot pass an FBI background check for purchase of a firearm.

Psychiatrists and doctors would have an increased role in determining who gets on or off the list. The medical community has in the past exhibited pronounced anti-gun behaviors, bordering in some cases on hoplophobia, a morbid fear of weapons of any kind.

The action was taken during the morning "Suspension Calendar," normally reserved for "non-controversial" bills. Its use to slip through an expansion of gun control is highly irregular, with no similar action known in the past. The bill is HR 2640, "The NICS Improvement Act," posted here.

Gun law update: June 15, 2007

NEW FEDERAL GUN LAW COMING

Dept. of Homeland Security to join in NICS database

Rights restorations promised but fuzzy

The House of Representatives, with unusual backing from both the NRA and anti-gun activists in the Democrat party, just passed HR 2640 on an unrecorded voice vote. The "NICS Improvement Act" will greatly expand the list of people banned from buying or having firearms, and now goes to the Senate where it will likely be fast-tracked for approval.

Using "gun control" and murdered young students as a rallying cry, the federal government has moved another step closer to a national computerized system capable of screening the entire population.

If tied in to a national ID card being developed through linked state driver's licenses (the so-called "Real ID Act" passed in 2005), all significant activity in the nation could be monitored under the guise of crime control.

In typical fashion, the bill coerces states into cooperation with promises of grants and threats of withheld funding, depending on their degree of compliance. It is unlikely that states will be able to afford to resist, compromising any remaining sovereignty they have. The net effect will be to hasten centralized computerization of all relevant local court records in the nation. Many officials see this as a good thing.