Tag: gun control

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general freedom ideological culture Second Amendment rights

Another Disability for Paralympians

Olympics, shooting, guns, Instagram

The Paralympic Games, being held this year from August 28 to September 8, in Paris, are a “major international sports competition for athletes with disabilities.” 

We should cheer their efforts — not undermine them.

Meta’s Instagram apparently disagrees. In mid-​July, Instagram restricted the account of McKenna Geer, member of the American shooting team, so that it could be viewed only by current followers.

The “problem” seemed to be that she had posted photos of herself in competition. With firearms. For similar reasons, Instagram has also censored the accounts of other athletes. (Skittishness about pics of guns may be why an Olympics​.com photo of an Indian athlete “shooting” shows only head and arm.)

When the restrictions were imposed, Geer observed that she and other athletes use social media to spread the word about their sport and firearm safety, “build our personal brand, and connect with potential sponsors.” Her livelihood and ability to continue shooting competitively were thus at stake.

Geer’s Instagram account is again accessible to non-​followers. But the problem has not been resolved permanently. As aaronalvarado asserted at her account, “a bad AI program with no monitoring” may be to blame. “We appeal and the program shadow-​bans everything.”

If so, at least a human being is not consciously choosing to censor Geer or other athletes because they shoot competitively. But somebody wrote the programming. And Meta must be aware of these problems. 

It’s time to remove the “guns bad, context irrelevant” line of code.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment defense & war Second Amendment rights

Brace Yourself & Your Gun

gun, gun brace, 2nd Amendment, gun rights, gun control

Many foes of Second Amendment rights want to outlaw guns for everybody except military, police, Secret Service, sundry federal agencies, and bodyguards for left-​leaning celebrities.

Since this isn’t politically feasible given at least intermittent legislative and judicial support for the right to bear arms, anti-​gunners often pursue various piecemeal bans. The hope is that these will add up to an overall prohibition. Or at least provide an excuse to go after any particular gun owner for neglecting to comply with some subsidiary prohibition.

The anti-​gun forces seemed to have been having some success with an outlawing of “stabilizing braces” on short-​barreled rifles. A voluminous ATF rule sought to partially or wholly ban these braces — basically an added pistol grip —  even though the same agency had earlier said such braces were okay. 

And why wouldn’t it be okay to have a pistol brace if it’s okay to have a thing that shoots bullets?

Maybe the idea is that if you’re in a situation where you have to fight for your life using a gun, and a brace would help, trying to survive is okay, sure, but you shouldn’t have too much of a chance to survive. A stabilizing brace might give you an unfair edge? I’m guessing.

In mid-​June, the Northern District of Texas tossed this ATF gun-​brace-​ban rule. Which, according to Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision in the case, Mock v. Garland, is “arbitrary and capricious.” As Shooting News Weekly puts it, “Oof.”

Unlike the similar looking (at least to me) “bump stock,” braces do not change the mechanism of firing. And bump stocks were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court about the same time. While stabilizing braces seem here to stay, a decision by the Supreme Court may still be required.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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judiciary national politics & policies regulation

Regulatory Pressure?

gun control, Supreme Court, regulations, regulators, persuasion

Should government regulators be able to urge financial institutions to cancel clients that regulators dislike for political reasons? Such as oil companies and groups advocating Second Amendment rights?

Although a court of appeals has said Yes, the Supreme Court has just said Maybe No in a case involving the National Rifle Association (NRA v. Vullo).

The NRA hasn’t won final victory. But the court is unanimously letting it proceed with its lawsuit, which argues that by pressuring banks and insurance companies to cancel their business with the NRA, New York regulator Maria Vullo violated its freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court seems to accept an artificial distinction, though, between a regulator’s “persuading” an organization to hurt a client and “forcing” it to do so.

An official with power over a company who seeks as a government official to “persuade” that company to do something is engaging in coercion. The implicit threat is: “I have the power to hurt you if you don’t do this little favor for me.”

Moreover, in sending the case back to the lower court, the Supreme Court has also said that it may consider whether Ms. Vullo is protected by qualified immunity, the get-​away-​with-​anything card that government officials are too often able to rely on when they commit wrongdoing.

So this decision is hardly a final, definitive victory for the NRA and other victims of thug-​regulators. But at least the NRA can keep fighting — for itself and the rest of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom

ATF’s 115-​Year Mistake

mistaken identity, prison, guns

“Oops. Sorry about almost sending you away for 115 years. Case of mistaken identity and dishonest testimony.”

But Bryan Montiea Wilson did not get even a “sorry” from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) or local law enforcement.

Wilson, who works for a railroad equipment manufacturer, had never been arrested when ATF agents nabbed him in December 2023. Accused of gun and drug sales to local police officers said to be working with the ATF, Wilson could only repeatedly assert his innocence.

His looming punishment included up to 115 years in prison and millions in fines. Then, suddenly, he was released.

How did Wilson wind up being falsely accused? The Truth About Guns site reports that prosecutors realized their blunder after his court-​appointed lawyer investigated. But an uninformative request to dismiss the case is all ATF offered.

“Further review … reveals that the interests of justice would best be served by a dismissal of the pending charges as opposed to further prosecution.… The Government respectfully requests that the Court dismiss the pending charges against defendant Bryan Montiea Wilson.”

I guess we can thank the prosecutors for mentioning “justice.” But there should at least be an accounting in such cases; and this accounting, plus further consequences, should be mandatory.

“Something got messed up and they landed on me,” Wilson says. “I don’t know how this happened, but it can’t happen again. It shouldn’t happen again.”

Wilson has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom privacy Second Amendment rights

Second Amendment Privacy Act

gun control, Second Amendment, self defense, surveillance state

If you live in Georgia and have recently bought a gun or are about to, good news!

Governor Kemp has signed the Second Amendment Privacy Act to protect the financial privacy of persons buying guns and ammo. Georgia is the fourteenth state to enact such legislation.

According to Lawrence Keane, a lawyer with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, this means no more collusion between financial companies and the government to spy on the private finances of gun owners.

At least not in Georgia.

States must institute these protections because enemies of our right to bear arms have started using financial transactions as way to penalize gun owners. It would be nice if the federal government enacted equivalent protection. But given our present federal regime, the chances of that happening anytime soon are slim.

The main thing the Act does is prohibit financial institutions from requiring that a firearm code be associated with purchases of guns and ammo that you make using a credit card. When banks flag your purchase in this way, it’s easy to target you for sanctions like cancelling your account or maybe adding you, without any good reason, to a government watch list.

The Second Amendment Privacy Act also prohibits using existing firearms codes to discriminate against gun owners. So it protects people whose purchases have already been code-​flagged, not just people who buy a gun now.

It’s progress. Thirty-​six states to go.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Balking at the Ban

Key Albuquerque officials won’t enforce the New Mexico governor’s recent order.

At a press conference last Friday, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham had vowed to suspend the right to publicly carry firearms “in any public space” in the Albuquerque area. The temporary order, declared in response to recent shootings, was justified by the governor as an “emergency health measure.”

The response has been far from uniformly positive. In addition to officials balking, a gun-​rights group, National Association for Gun Rights, is suing to block the order. And there has been talk of impeaching the governor. There was even an armed protest.

The governor is either unaware or heedless of the possibility that bad people with guns can be stopped by good people with guns — a lesson that would-​be robbers belatedly learned in Maryland a couple weeks ago when they failed to rob a pub full of police officers. (They had missed the cop-​bar scene in Code of Silence.) Violent criminals in the area, for their part, have somehow not agreed to defer their activities for a month in deference to her wishful thinking, however.

Officials who say they won’t cooperate with the governor’s aggressive power grab include Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, Police Chief Harold Medina, and Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.

Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen says he is wary of the risks “posed by prohibiting law-​abiding citizens from their constitutional right to self-defense.”

District Attorney Bregman says, “As an officer of the court, I cannot and will not enforce something that is clearly unconstitutional.” 

Thus raising a standard to which people in positions of authority should repair much more often than they do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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