Gun News of the Week: California Braces for Launch of ‘Bullet Control’ Campaign

TOP STORY

Feinstein Bloviates On Beliefs, Kavanaugh Presents Facts in Hearing Showdown

It was a long, testy week for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh but with his confirmation hearing out of the way, the overwhelming consensus is President Donald Trump will successfully add a second eminently qualified pro-Second Amendment justice to the nation’s highest court during in his first 21 months in office.

Democrats, of course, aren’t happy and are still stewing about how Republicans delayed hearings for Obama nominee Merrick Garland until after Trump’s 2016 unexpected ascension to the Oval Office.

But elections have consequences and if the Democrats won a few more, maybe they wouldn’t be whining now.

As expected, Kavanaugh was grilled by anti-gun Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) about his views on the constitutional right of an individual citizen to own a personal firearm (she doesn’t like that) during the second day, opening her inquisition with a long and rambling lecture about the horrible things horrible people have done with automatic rifles.

Feinstein reminded the millions watching on CSPAN and elsewhere—lights, camera, action—that she wrote the federal “assault weapon” ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004.

The law “essentially prohibited the transfer, sale, and manufacture of assault weapons. It did not at the time affect possession,” she said, either lying or forgetting or something because it did not do that.

“That is plainly untrue,” the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action noted. “The law did, in fact, ban possession of the controlled firearms. The law did not apply to firearms that had been lawfully obtained before the law’s effective date, but that clause operated as an ‘affirmative defense’ that put the burden on the accused of raising the issue at trial. Simply put, anyone found in possession of a firearm described in the Act was presumptively in violation of the law and susceptible to federal felony penalties.”

Feinstein said she happens “to believe that (the ban) did work and that it was important,” illustrating — again, again and again — the frustrating and dangerous trend these days to elevate believing things to the same level of knowing things.

“Unfortunately for her,” the NRA-ILA said, “there is no credible evidence to this effect. Two government-funded studies of the law’s effects in fact found it had no measurable impact on violent crime. More recently, a survey of gun control laws by the Rand Corporation found that the only perceptible effect of assault weapons bans generally is perhaps a short-term increase in the price of assault weapons; that in itself does not establish any beneficial crime reduction effect, however.”

For more, go to:

— Anti-gun Senator Distorts the Law and the Facts in Unsuccessful Attack on Supreme Court Nominee

— Rep. Curtis coauthored a bipartisan bill that addresses gun violence

— Shotgun-toting Manchin shoots anti-Obamacare lawsuit in new ad for re-election bid in West Virginia

— Timeline of suspected Russian plot to infiltrate NRA, GOP

— Midterm 2018: Mikie Sherrill, Gabrielle Giffords event highlights gun rights in campaigns

— GOP Lets Vote on Guns, Break the Self-Defeating Republican Election Strategy

— Should Federal Money Pay for Guns in Schools? Senator Demands Hearing With DeVos

— Taxpayers Funded ‘Unprecedented’ Armed Protection for Gun Control Sen. Kamala Harris

DENIM DOLLARS

Levi Strauss Joins the Bloombergians’ Anti-Constitution Crusade

San Francisco-based clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss will donate more than $1 million to gun control groups, including Big Daddy Warbucks Michael Bloomberg’s front-group Everytown for Gun Safety, which spent more than $60 million during the 2016 campaigns, so this drop on the bucket is more about marketing than doing something.

The company announced that it will also match employee donations to anti-gun groups and is encourage its staff to devote their time to anti-gun doing something activism.

CEO Chip Bergh said on Sept. 4 that Levi has joined the Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety, which is dedicated to leveraging member companies’ “market footprints, employee networks, and public communications platforms.”

Bergh called Levi’s anti-gun campaign to previous company efforts aimed at combatting pre-Civil Rights Era racial bigotry.

AWR Hawkins writes in Breitbart News that this is nothing new for Levi’s which, since the 1990s, “has used its name and resources to attack gun rights. In 1999, the company gave $100,000 to gun control group PAX, followed by a $250,000 donation in 2000 and another $100,000 in 2001.”

According to Hawkins, PAX was founded in 1998 by Dan Gross, who went on to become president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. PAX would change its name to the Center to Prevent Youth Violence and later merge with the Brady Campaign.

For more, go to:

— Can the anti-gun-violence movement outraise–and outspend–the NRA?

— NRA Slipping With Voters, Though Many Have Moved on From Gun Control

— Levi Strauss Joins Forces with Michael Bloomberg Gun Control Push

— Baldwin Fundraises at K Street Firm Working Pro-Bono for Gun Control Lobby

— Old Firearm/Ammo Brands Make a Comeback

— Gunwerks approved for funds by state business council

— 3D printed plastic guns are dangerous, untraceable

— YouTube bans author of 3D-printed gun blueprints, Cody Wilson

STATE ROUNDUP

California Braces for Launch of ‘Bullet Control’ Campaign

Beginning in 2019, California will require ammunition vendors to report bullet sales to the state’s Department of Justice and will eventually require full background checks and tracking procedures for any bullet purchase, as the Golden State continues to make life difficult for its law-abiding gun-owners.

New York and New Jersey are the only other states that have such “bullet control” measures in place, although cities, such as Los Angles and Sacramento, have also implemented them.

California lawmakers banned direct internet ammo sales in January, requiring bullet shipments to be sent to a local licensed dealer, where proprietors can perform requisite checks.

In July of next year, the state will also begin implementing ammunition background checks in addition to mandatory record keeping for ammunition purchases.

Lawmakers are also talking about introducing legislation next year calling for a “bullet tax” to increase the price of ammunition.

Mind you: The only people affected here are people who obey the law.

“It is wrong to treat California’s law-abiding gun owners like criminals,” NRA Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Chris W. Cox told the New York Times.

National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) Senior Vice President Lawrence Keane compared California’s gun control measures to the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic.

“Raising taxes on bullets to offset the cost of gun violence is akin to putting a levy on prescription drugs to pay for the price of heroin addiction,” Keane told the Times.

For more, go to:

— California Tries New Tack on Gun Violence: Bullet Control

— Vermont: Law allowing seizure of firearms from suspected abusers takes effect

— Kansas: Governor candidates fight over gun control

— Democrats who backed NY Senate’s GOP leaders targeted

— Colorado: Longmont mistakenly publishes unedited Firearms Awareness and Safety Day proclamation

— Wake-up Call: Pa. Dem congressional candidates talk gun control with Giffords

— ‘We aren’t comfortable being sitting ducks’: Gun owners march in Downtown Boise

— Connecticut: State Rep. Warren Introduces Bill To Expand Gun Background Checks

— In Texas, The Trace’s Gun Theft Investigation Spurs Proposals to Track Stolen Firearms

— “Law is Dead in Washington state” – Outraged Reaction to Court Decision on I-1639

— Pennsylvania: Domestic violence prevention advocates push for new law

— Florida: Ron DeSantis ~ Good News on Gun Rights & Your Right to Bear Arms

— Rhode Island: Raimondo Wins Key Gun Control Organization’s Endorsement

IN THE COURTS

Hawaii to Clarify: It’s ‘Shall Issue,’ Not ‘May Issue’

Hawaii Lieutenant Gov. Doug Chin announced on Sept. 7 that he’s requesting a legal opinion from the state’s Attorney General to clarify the authority of county police chiefs to issue licenses permitting individuals to carry unconcealed firearms.

“I care deeply about public safety and it’s very important that we uphold Hawai‘i firearm laws for everyone’s benefit, ” Lt. Governor Chin said.

In July, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a Big Island resident George Young that the Second Amendment affords the right to openly carry a gun in public for self-defense.

The 2-1 ruling, which could have portent beyond the 9th Circuit, said the state’s “may issue” permitting requirement—which requires a citizen to seek permission to exercise a constitutional right—unfairly denies Young the right to openly carry a firearm in public to protect himself.

“The 9th Circuit looked at the history and the history demonstrates that the 2nd Amendment right applies to self-defense outside the home,” attorney Alan Beck, who represented Young, said in July.

In Hawaii, gun owners are only allowed to carry their guns in their homes or businesses. It’s up to local police chiefs to “grant” permits to openly carry a loaded gun in public, but those permits have never been issued by police chiefs except, of course, to police.

For more, go to:

— Hawai’i Lt. Gov. Seeks Legal Opinion on Gun Law

— Judge upholds University of Missouri campus gun ban

— My Father, a Judge, Said a Gun Control Case Was One of His Hardest. Now I See Why.

— Judge rejects lawsuit against gun permit delays in Chatham County

— Utah Lawsuit over guns in schools heard in court

— Hawaii: Testimony Divided On Funding Open Carry Lawsuit Fight