Recalls in Colorado for state legislators who voted for more gun control

It turns out that a tax on obtaining a gun and a limit on magazine sizes may cost a few Democratic state legislators their jobs in Colorado.  Getting signatures from 25 percent of the total vote in the last election in that district is a very difficult task.  From Fox News:

Colorado Democratic lawmakers who recently helped pass some of the toughest gun-control laws in the country now face the political backlash of recall efforts.
Two groups are targeting state Rep. Mike McLachlan and state Sens. Angela Giron, Evie Hudak and John Morse.
The Democrat-controlled legislature passed bills that ban magazines holding more than 15 rounds and require background checks for all gun transfers. They were signed into law in March by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Morse, the Senate president, pushed a more far-reaching proposal that called for holding owners, sellers and makers of assault-type weapons liable for havoc inflicted by their guns. . . .
The petition drives are being organized by the organizations Pueblo Freedom and Rights Group. They will need signatures from 25 percent of the vote in each lawmaker’s district to trigger a special election. . . .

At least for one of the state Senators they appear to be on target for the recall.  Here is part of an email that I received this morning.

I spoke to one of the guys leading the recall for Sen. Hudak this morning.  He's says they are nearly on target for a successful effort so they are heavily recruiting more volunteers to make sure they win and finish strong. . . . 

In the case of Sen. Evie Hudak 18,962 signatures are needed.  Nor is it clear that so much time and money should be spent on recalling state Representative Mike McLachlan who is term limited and has to retire in 2014.

The Denver Post lists two of these state Senators as the biggest losers of the most recent legislative session.

Sen. Evie Hudak. Similar to Salazar, the Westminster Democrat planted her feet firmly in her mouth during a hearing on the bill to ban concealed weapons on campus. Hudak told a victim of a rape who said she'd wished she'd been armed that "statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun" and that it was more likely the rapist would have used the gun on her. Though Hudak later apologized, the comments went viral and contributed to the death of the bill. It also spawned a recall petition against Hudak. Luckily for Hudak, though, the statistics are on her side when it comes to recall petitions, which are extreme longshots.
Senate President John Morse. He sponsored an ill-defined liability-for-guns bill that couldn't muster support from his own Democratic caucus, and pushed a bill to grant tax credits to low-income Coloradans that was greatly watered down in the House. Morse also backed a telecommunications regulation bill and legislation allowing for the repeal of marijuana legalization that he couldn't find enough votes for. Meanwhile, his outspoken support of gun control prompted a recall effort against him — unlikely though it may be. . . .

North Carolina state House votes to allow permitted concealed handguns at college campuses and places that serve alcohol

By an overwhelming two-to-one vote of 76-38, the North Carolina state House passed a bill allowing permitted concealed handguns on college campuses.  As with other states, private universities will be allowed to post signs that ban permitted concealed handguns.  Disappointingly, it would also not allow concealed handguns in classes, which means it would ban guns to and from student's cars.  With 44 Democrats in the state House, not even all the Democrats voted against the bill.  From WRAL television:

State House lawmakers voted late Monday night to allow concealed weapons on college campuses, state property, greenways, bike trails, at sporting events and in businesses that serve alcohol. . . .

However, the proposal faced stiff opposition from University of North Carolina system officials.

Sponsor Rep. Justin Burr, R-Stanly, said recent reports of campus crime illustrate why students and faculty with concealed carry permits should be allowed to have firearms locked in their cars on campus.

"This doesn’t allow them to carry in the classroom," Burr said. "Please tell me why in the world we would want to prevent law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves."

Private universities and schools could opt not to permit weapons on campus, but public schools and universities would have to comply.

Local officials also would no longer be allowed to outlaw guns on greenways, biking and walking paths. . . .

By the way, a Democrat amendment to impose background checks on purchases at gun shows was soundly defeated.

Even Some on MSNBC think that Benghazi looks bad for Obama

State Senate Democrats in New Jersey on guns: “We need a bill that is going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.”

Democrats at both the state and federal level keep pushing for taxes on gun purchases and registration.  Democrats claim that they really aren't interested in reducing gun ownership or confiscating guns, but then you have statements such as this.  From the New Jersey Star-Ledger:

As a committee hearing on new gun-control legislation began winding down Thursday, three state senators started chatting amongst themselves.
What they didn't realize was the microphone was still on.
A recording of the exchange — which appears to be between Democrats Loretta Weinberg, Sandra Cunningham and Linda Greenstein — ended up on YouTube, and gun supporters said today they were upset by the remarks.
The recording opens with what sounds like a senator or staff member saying, "We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate" — although it is not clear who is speaking or if this is what she is saying. . . .

Some of the new laws that will be voted on Monday in New Jersey will substantially raise the cost of obtaining a gun.

• Reinstating a seven-day "cooling-off" period. When someone qualifies for a permit, they would have to wait seven days before buying the gun — an effort to prevent domestic violence and suicide. The original package of bills would have removed the seven-day waiting period. "Someone who is heated and angry can’t just go out to the store and buy a gun right away," said Nicola Bocour, the project director of anti-gun violence group Ceasefire New Jersey.
• Currently, New Jersey residents have 90 days to buy a gun after getting a permit. Under the bill, they would have four years, but changes were made to make it easier for law enforcement to yank the permit.
• Residents who apply for permits would have to undergo training.
• All sales of ammunition online would be electronically sent to the State Police. . . . 

Waiting periods are associated with increased crime rates against women.  The costs of mandated training will make it so that poor people who live in high crime urban areas will be disarmed.

Interview with John Bachman on NewsMaxTV

Even the Washington Post has a devastating discussion of the IRS targeting conservative nonprofits

Well, with Obama's Benghazi coverup being compared to Watergate (only with deaths), Obama apparently felt that he had to out do Nixon on abusing the IRS.  Here are some of the points gleaned from a piece by the Washington Post.

IRS officials claimed that there was no political bias behind the targeting of these conservative groups, but they failed to produce any examples of similar targeting of groups with non-conservative-sounding names. . . . Lerner wouldn’t say whether anyone is being disciplined, then appeared to say there was no disciplinary action, then went back to saying she wouldn’t comment. . . . Lerner said she disclosed the information because someone asked her about it Friday morning — indicating that she had no plans to release the information publicly, despite the confirmed wrongdoing. . . . When asked how they found out about the wrongdoing, Lerner said the investigation stemmed from media reports about conservative groups claiming that they were targeted, not from any internal review. . . . 

UPDATE: Unfortunately, other recent concerns about IRS abuses of power have been arising.

The American Civil Liberties Union released documents in April showing that investigators in the IRS criminal tax division believed the agency could access emails and text messages without a warrant. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, demanded answers from acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on how many emails were accessed and why. . . . 

UPDATE2: Politico has a somewhat less critical discussion.  If Shulman didn't know about this problem, the question is why Lerner or these other "senior" IRS appointees didn't tell Shulman about it.

low level employees in the IRS’ Cincinnati office began flagging conservative groups as early as 2010, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Lois Lerner, who directs the agency’s tax exempt groups unit, said applications were scrutinized if they included words such as “patriot” or “tea party.” . . . 
Lerner has so far declined to say when she first learned of the targeting practice and told reporters on Friday she didn’t remember when she notified her bosses.
But a TIGTA report due out this week will say that senior IRS officials knew about the activities as early as 2011. That would seem to contradict testimony then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman provided to Congress in 2012 when he told lawmakers that the agency wasn’t providing extra scrutiny to groups because of their political affiliations. . . .

UPDATE3: Even Susan Collins was very upset Obama's response to the IRS abuse.

. . . "I think it's very disappointing that the president hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out," Collins said. "His spokesman has said that it should be investigated, but the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America."Collins said on CNN's "State of the Union" that "it is absolutely chilling" for the IRS to target political groups.The tax agency acknowledged Friday that it had singled out groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their names for additional scrutiny of their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed the actions on a small group of employees.
"I just don't buy that this is a couple of rogue IRS employees," Collins said. . . . 

3D printed gun in wild: downloaded over 100,000 times worldwide in 2 days

I still need to be convinced by a third party expert that the plastic is able to withstand the force of the explosion of the bullet.  But if this works, the Genie is definitely out of the bottle.  

Blueprints for the first-ever plastic gun produced on a 3-D printer, that can pass through metal detectors, have been downloaded over 100,000 times since it was posted to the web on Monday. Designs for the 'Liberator' pistol were posted online by Defense Distributed but on Thursday the U.S. State Department ordered the website to take down the blueprints, on the basis that the plans could violate export regulations. The blueprints, that could be produced on 3-D printers costing as little as $1,000, were seen as a breakthrough because no one has previously designed such a weapon that could withstand the pressure of firing modern ammunition.
Surprisingly, most downloads of the plans did not come from inside the U.S. but from Spain.The U.S. is second, ahead of Brazil, Germany, and the U.K., according to Haroon Khalid, a developer working with Defense Distributed, who reported the statistics to Forbes. . . .

The printer itself only costs $8,000.  The files are stored on servers outside the US.

. . . Defense Distributed does not host the files in the US; instead it has uploaded them to the Mega website run by the internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, based in New Zealand, and where user information – including who has logged into the site and downloaded files – is encrypted.
The files have also been uploaded to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site, where they have proved a popular download.
The gun blueprints take the form of computer-aided design files, which have to be read by specialist software which can then be used by industrial 3D printers to build up the hair-thin layers, one by one, to create the finished parts.
On Thursday, a British expert in 3D printing and a ballistics expert separately warned that building a gun from the parts could be lethal to the user, because the physics involved in firing a bullet – with pressures in the gun chamber of more than 1,000 atmospheres, and temperatures of over 200C – could put catastrophic stresses on the plastics used it its construction.
Even so, two British newspapers are understood to have asked 3D printing companies to try to build the gun for them. . . .

Joe Biden on the continued push for gun control

I disagree with almost everything here: the claims about the support and no "substantive reasoning to be against it." From Rolling Stone magazine:

. . . The biggest push since the inauguration has been on gun control. The president made you the point person, and yet the background-check measure failed in the Senate, even though it was supported by 90 percent of the American people. What does it mean that we can't pass even the weakest measures to curb gun violence? 

It means two things. One, that we have had an impact on the public's thinking. If we did that poll a week before Sandy Hook, my guess is you wouldn't have 90 percent of the American people. They said, "You have to do something." So we've already won the battle with the American public on this, not just on background checks but on magazines, on assault weapons, et cetera. This is a case where the public is way ahead of Congress, and the Congress hadn't figured it out, just like they were . . . 

Did you get blowback from the president or people in general? 

I got blowback from everybody but the president. I walked in that Monday, he had a big grin on his face, he put his arms around me and said, "Well, Joe, God love you, you say what you think." I knew he agreed with me. It wasn't like he was in a different place. My point is: That's where the public is on guns. There has been a seminal shift in the attitude of the American public toward gun safety. 

Is the Senate really that insulated from the rest of the country? 

A lot of our colleagues – a few Democrats and a lot of Republicans who know better – thought, "The public hasn't changed, if I vote with you, I get beat up. . . ." The 17 or 18 people I called and spoke to thought they would get in trouble supporting any additional, quote, "burden on gun ownership." The ones who still said no, the four Democrats and remaining nine or 10 Republicans, they didn't offer any substantive reasoning to be against it. In one form or another, they all said the same thing: "Joe, don't ask me to walk the plank, because the House isn't going to do anything, anyway." The other one was, "Joe, I know it's 85-15, 80-20, 90-10 in my state. You know how it works: The 10 percent that are against, they're all going to be energized; they're going to organize against me. And the 90 percent who are for it, it's not going to be a determining vote for them." My argument was, "You've got it wrong. The public has changed." And guess what? It turns out we were right. To use the vernacular, there's suddenly a lot of senators out there who have seen the Lord. You find out that the senator from New Hampshire is in trouble; she voted no. I can name you four senators who called me and said, "Jesus, I guess you were right – maybe we can find some other way of doing this. Can we bring this back up?" 

So what's the next move? 

We're going right back at it. The biggest thing that's changed is that the people who were for the background checks are saying it will be a determining issue. There's pace on the ball now; this is a different country. I'm convinced we'll be able to bring this back up, and I'm convinced we can win this. . . .

Another false attack on Fox News supposedly controlling what people say on its shows

I have experienced inaccurate stories about Fox News first hand.  Yet, amazingly, it just keeps coming.

. . . "Contrary to published accounts no one at Fox News ever either cut my mic or told me what to say But I do advocate cutting Eric Bolling's mic," the Geraldo at Large host tweeted yesterday in response to a claim in a new book that the plug was purposely pulled on him during a November 2012 discussion on Fox & Friends about the fatal attack on U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya. 

"Specifically to Jonathan Alter," he added, referring to the author of the book in question, The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, "I like you mate, but you never spoke with me about Benghazi and you never asked if Roger Ailes cut my mic." 

Per the New York Times, Alter wrote in The Center Holds (out June 4) that, during the debate between Rivera and Bolling, none other than Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes "called the control room and told the producers to cut Rivera's mic." 

But in addition to Rivera's defense of his freedom of speech at the cable news network, Mediaite reports that Ailes never made the call—but a network rep says that executive VP of programming Bill Shine did call the control room and encouraged them to move the segment along because Rivera and Bolling were starting to personally attack each other. . . .

Chinese Film Director could face fine of up to $26 million for fathering seven children, some thoughts

Assume for a second that the Chinese policy on the number of children makes sense, if you have seven children with seven different women, shouldn't that be treated differently than seven children with the same woman?  Also, why should higher income individuals pay such a much much higher fine for having kids?  Why discourage the smartest, most successful people from having kids?  Presumably, if higher income individuals tried to cheat, it would make enforcement against lower income people more difficult.  But I wonder if that is true.  In the US (where speeding fines are based on the crime) or Finland (where they are also based on income), do you have more people breaking speed limits?  I don't know the answer, but it would be interesting to check.  The simplest way would be to see if these relative rates changed when Finland changed the way it fined speeding.  From the Vancouver Sun:

Zhang, 61, reportedly could face a fine of up to 160 million yuan ($26 million), said the People's Daily newspaper, the Communist Party mouthpiece. People caught breaking China's family planning policy must pay a "social compensation fee" based on their annual income. . . . 

Realistic guns made from Lego?

Ever wondered how to make realistic looking guns out of LEGO?  Well here is your chance (see here).    In some sense, this is like the debate over 3D printed guns.  We regulate toy guns so that they don't look like guns, but people find ways to make guns through other ways.

"Politics" behind Defense Department threatening legal action against 3D printed gun?

Will these 3D printed guns be used in the commission of crime?  Undoubtedly.  But will they also be used for self-defense?  Equally surely.  If you ban 3D printed guns, how does this change?  With law-abiding citizens obeying the law, only criminals will be the ones who get these relatively inexpensive guns.

Is this a civil liberties issue?  To me this is a way to lower the cost of people obtaining guns -- a big benefit given that it is poor minorities who live in high crime urban areas who benefit the most from owning guns.  Yet, it looks as if the Obama administration is using threats, without a legal basis, to stifle people obtaining these guns.

From Fox News:

. . . Plans for the working handgun were posted online Monday by Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed, potentially allowing anyone with access to a 3D printer to make a firearm from plastic. The plans, which had been in the works for months, caused alarm among gun control advocates but were seen by some Second Amendment advocates as a breakthrough. More than 100,000 copies of the plans were downloaded before the federal government took the files. 

“[Defense Distributed's] files are being removed from public access at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense Trade Controls," read a banner atop the website. "Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information.” 

Wilson tells FoxNews.com that he decided to comply to a request by the Pentagon to take down the gun specs from his website while he weighs his legal options. . . . 

Wilson says he has complied to most laws on the books and feels that the D.O.D.'s request may be more politically motivated. 

"If this is an attempt to control the info from getting out there, it's clearly a weak one," he said, adding that the CAD design for the weapon has already spread across the Internet at downloading sites like the Pirate Bay. . . .

Obama's whistleblower problem

Or this from the NY Post:

The US diplomat who was second in command in Libya during the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate fought back tears yesterday when he told lawmakers about his colleagues’ final moments — and said he was “stunned” by administration claims it was sparked by a spontaneous protest. 

Gregory Hicks, the first person to testify to Congress who was on the ground in Libya during the fateful night of the Sept. 11, 2012 siege, told a House committee that he was incredulous just five days later when UN Ambassador Susan Rice said on Sunday talk shows that the assault was not a terrorist attack. 

“My jaw dropped,” Hicks said. “I was embarrassed.” . . .

After listening to the testimony above or reading reports such as in the New York Post, please tell me how that is consistent with this administration claim.  From an earlier report on ABC News:

On Tuesday, both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry addressed claims being made by House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committee leaders that the administration is impeding the Congressional testimony of State Department and CIA employees who survived the attack. 

“I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody’s been blocked from testifying,” said the president. “What I’ve been very clear about from the start is that our job with respect to Benghazi has been to find out exactly what happened, to make sure that U.S. embassies, not just in the Middle East but around the world, are safe and secure and to bring those who carried it out to justice.” . . .

Instead it looks like Chaffetz was the one who was correct regarding the Benghazi whistleblowers.

“Absolutely, and more than one,” Chaffetz said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked if the Obama administration had blocked potential witnesses. “There are people who want to testify that have been suppressed. …They’re scared to death of what the State Department is doing with them.” . . .

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had this summary:

Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Libya the night Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, was to be the star witness for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the man leading the probe of the Obama administration’s handling of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.  But despite Issa’s incautious promise that the hearing’s revelations would be “damaging” to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hicks didn’t lay a glove on the former secretary of state Wednesday. . . . 

Suppose that we take everything that Milbank says about the facts are correct, that no direct evidence implicated Clinton.  You still have the problem that Clinton's number 2 person was direct implicated.  If this was a Republican administration, would Milbank not be asking for further investigation to see how high things actually run?

But the problem goes beyond Benghazi.  See for example this article on Politico:

The watchdog who tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to rebuild Afghanistan says government officials have tried to silence him because they think he's embarrassing the White House and Afghan President Hamid Karzai by pointing out the waste and fraud. 

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, used a speech at the New America Foundation on Wednesday to blast government “bureaucrats”' who have told him to stop publicizing damning audits that detail case after case of waste, corruption and mismanagement of rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Some government officials have even complained that they aren't allowed to pre-screen or edit his reports, he said.  

“Since my appointment by the president last summer, I have been surprised to learn how many people both in and out of the government do not understand the role of an independent inspector general,” Sopko said. . . .

UPDATE: As David Limbaugh correctly notes, another example is Gerald Walpin (see here).

Judge Andrew Napolitano: "Lying to Congress carries the same criminal liability and the same punishment as lying under oath to Congress. I'm not suggesting that Mrs. Clinton lied, but I'm saying that a case could be made out, either legally in a courtroom if a prosecutor wanted to, and certainly politically in a public sphere should she decide to seek higher office."

Crime drops, but Americans think that it has been rising?

For someone deeply involved in the data, it can be surprising to see the gap between what is happening and people's perceptions.  Surely the media has a big effect.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found. . . .  

Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed  more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased. 

It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news. . . .

Thanks to Michael Wahl for the link. 

The one serious flaw that I have with PEW's discussion is that they keep discussing 1993 as if it were the peak year in violent crime.  In fact, 1991 was the peak year for murder, robbery, and overall violent crime.  And 1992 was the peak year for rape and aggravated assault.

The Armed Citizen Project expands to now cover 14 cities

Well, the more data the better!  Kyle Coplen has now expanded his program to 14 cities.  From the local CBS station in New York City:

A group wants to arm New York City residents with shotguns for free, in order to put some fear into criminals. 

As 1010 WINS’ John Montone reported Tuesday night, the Armed Citizen Project wants to arm law-abiding citizens. The group’s founder, Kyle Coplen, told 1010 WINS the group will give free pump-action shotguns to New Yorkers who pass background checks and take a safety course. 

“It’s our hypothesis that criminals do not want to die in your hallway. We think that society should use that fear to deter crime,” Coplen said in a report by Mike Puccinelli of WBBM-TV, CBS 2 Chicago.“We’re giving folks the tools with which to defend their life, liberty and property, we’re training them how to use the weapons and empowering citizens.” . . .  

In Houston, Coplen said he hopes to arm one-fourth of the neighborhood where his group is now giving away guns. Then signs would be put up warning criminals that the neighborhood is armed.

Comparing Liberals views about sex and guns: Why do they support training for sex but not guns?

Charles Cooke raises an interesting question about the distinction about what liberals think should be thought about.  From his piece in NRO:

. . . The New York Daily News remains censorious. Lambasting the event’s “Youth Day,” which featured an air-gun range at which children could compete to win multicolored marksmanship ribbons, the paper printed a series of pictures of children holding firearms. The captions read “SCARY SIGHT,” “FRIGHTENING,” and “SICK!” 

Subtle the Daily News is not. Bill Hutchinson, author of the piece, complained that “some of the attendees were the age of the Newtown massacre victims, others too young to know the difference between a toy gun and a real one.” 

This is astonishingly dishonest. How, pray, are children supposed to “know the difference between a toy gun and a real one” if they aren’t shown that difference? And what better way could there be of showing them that difference than to offer them instruction from a professional, as the NRA did, or — even better — having conscientious parents who are open about it? Love them or hate them, guns do exist — there are 360 million of them in the United States. Are we to pretend that this is not true? . . .

More evidence that taxes matter: Boxer takes Fight in Macau, U.S. Federal Income Tax Rate Proves Too High

Taxes forcing a fight to be outside the US.

Manny Pacquiao will look to break a two-fight losing streak when he returns to the ring on Nov. 24 (Nov. 23 in the U.S.) at The Venetian in Macau, China, to fight Brandon Rios in a 12-round welterweight bout, Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz exclusively told Yahoo! Sports on Monday. . . . .

Here are some of the comments about their views on taxes.

Michael Koncz told Yahoo! Sports that the 39.6 percent tax rate Pacquiao would face if he were to fight again in the U.S. makes a fall bout in Las Vegas "a no go." . . . 

"Manny can go back to Las Vegas and make $25 million, but how much of it will he end up with – $15 million?" Arum said. "If he goes to Macau, perhaps his purse will only be $20 million, but he will get to keep it all, so he will be better off." . . .

Is Senator Ayotte changing her position on the gun background check bill?

There are background checks and background checks.  I have written about the changes that need to be made in the current bills to make them acceptable to me.  From Politico:

Facing a wave of intense criticism and plunging poll numbers after opposing a bill to expand background checks on gun purchases, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte tried some damage control in an op-ed published Monday. 

“Out of state special interests are running false ads attacking me and even lying about my efforts to prevent gun-related violence,” Ayotte, a Republican, wrote in the op-ed, published by Patch news sites in New Hampshire. “I want to set the record straight: I support effective background checks and in fact voted recently to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).” . . .

For those who care where their money is going: Amazon.com helps fund gun buybacks

While I already knew that Jeff Bezos is a liberal, it probably isn't too surprising that he also believes in gun control, but it is disappointing.  Gun buybacks don't work (police don't support them), but those who support them are clearly among those who believe less guns, less crime.  Even worse, the buybacks are primarily directed at poor neighborhoods where people actually benefit the most from owning guns.  From the Oregonian:

The buyback program was announced a month after last December's elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., by city leaders sick of hearing about gun violence. Private sponsors including Amazon.com contributed tens of thousands of dollars so that people could anonymously turn in their weapons for shopping cards worth up to $200. . . .

For notes on Australia's gun buyback see here and here.

Bloomberg takes out ads against for Democrats who voted against Senate gun control bill, but will it help them?

If you believe that the Democratic Senators from Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota were merely representing their constituents in the Senate vote on gun control and that these Democrats are generally too much to the left of their constituents, ads emphasizing that the Democrats voted against gun control could really help them.  If there was a serious effort to defeat these candidates, they would try to get someone to run against them in their primaries.  From Politico:

. . . Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote. 

The group is also moving as many as 60 field organizers into about a dozen states where senators — Democrats and Republicans — voted against bill, with the goal of building infrastructure and countering gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association. . . .

Forward for important new book: Framing A Legend: Exposing the Distorted History of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

Professor Robert Turner has this excellent foreword for the book (available here).  Please read and pass on to others.

Biden: Gun control will come after immigration passed

So much for any lingering hopes that the gun control issue was really going to be put on ice for a little while.  From Politico:

Vice President Joe Biden on Monday acknowledged what everyone involved in gun control has been saying privately for weeks: Any votes for expanded background checks must wait at least through the summer while the Senate debates immigration reform. 

Biden offered the White House timeline to a group of about 20 representatives from faith-based organizations, three people who attended the meeting told POLITICO. 

The vice president’s words mark the first time the White House has revealed a timeline that has been widely discussed among gun control advocates and senior aides to senators who are pushing background checks. . . .