Category: Gun Control

Robb Allen on gun liability insurance

Robb talks a bit about why the proposals that “gun owners should carry liability insurance, just like car owners” are a bad idea.
Here’s a quick summary for those who don’t want to read the whole thing:

  • The vast majority of damage, injury, and death stemming from cars is accidental. The vast majority of damage, injury, and death stemming from guns is intentional (e.g., suicide, assault, murder, etc.). Insurance does not cover intentional acts.
  • Existing liability insurance (e.g. homeowners or renters insurance) already cover true accidents (not intentional acts) both in and away from your home.
  • Damage, injury, and death due to guns is — while certainly meaningful to those affected — statistically rare enough that mandatory gun liability insurance would be extremely inexpensive.
  • Those proposing additional liability insurance are not doing so in good faith: their goal (based on the context of their other gun-related statements, proposals, history, etc.) is to price people out of being able to lawfully on firearms.

Robb goes into a bit more detail and I recommend reading the whole thing.

Comments on Nick Symmonds’ article in Runner’s World

Nick Symmonds at Runners World (of all places) recently published an article calling for more gun control. Let’s take a look:

I love my Second Amendment right. I was raised in Boise, Idaho, and have been hunting the Treasure Valley for upland game and waterfowl since I was strong enough to carry a gun. I come from a long line of hunters who take pride in the time-honored tradition of stalking game, killing it ethically, and providing food for their families. I was raised to appreciate the awesome power of firearms and to treat all guns as if they are loaded. I own several guns and would be sad to part with them.

Hi there. I was born in San Francisco, and raised just outside the city. Other than shooting some .22 rifles in the Boy Scouts, I never held a gun until I was 21. My family has no history with the shooting sports and I don’t have much interest in hunting. Nonetheless, I also love my Second Amendment right (as well as all the other enumerated and unenumerated rights protected by the Constitution and other laws). I have a deep respect for firearms and I too would be sad to part with them.

All of that being said, I make this appeal to the members of the United States Congress: For the sake of your citizens, please pass some gun-control legislation.

Why? What would that accomplish?
I’m going to channel Joe Huffman?by asking, “Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?”

On Friday, I was booked to fly from Los Angeles to Eugene, Oregon. That morning, a gunman walked into LAX with a semiautomatic assault rifle and opened fire, killing a TSA officer and wounding several other people. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be booked on an afternoon flight.
As I travelled to LAX that afternoon, the scene was chaotic. It was impossible to drive up to the terminals, so people were walking to the airport from the nearest parking lots. With several pieces of luggage, I hiked two miles from the rental car agency to Terminal 7. Inside the airport people were stressed and scared. As I went through security and looked at the TSA officers, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through the minds of these hardworking men and women.

Seriously, that situation sounds pretty bad. I wouldn’t wish such chaos on anyone.
Still, I’m not sure how more laws would have made the situation any different or prevented it: it’s been illegal to own or possess magazines exceeding 10 rounds in California made after 1989 (the shooter had several), many variants of the AR-15 rifle are illegal in California, it’s illegal to carry loaded firearms in California without a permit, ?it’s illegal to discharge a gun in Los Angeles (and most places), it’s illegal to break through a security checkpoint at the airport, it’s illegal to possess weapons in the “sterile” area at an airport, it’s illegal to murder (or attempt to murder) people, etc.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, criminals break laws. I’m not sure what making their illegal actions more illegal would accomplish. (And no, just because I recognize that criminals break laws and that I oppose a specific proposal doesn’t mean that I think all laws are useless and we should live in complete anarchy. See?here?and?here?for a more detailed discussion on that particular topic.)

Why do we allow ourselves to live in this kind of environment? Are we seriously going to let a small, radical contingent of our population keep us living?as if in the Wild West? I?would gladly hand in all of my weapons if I knew that doing so would prevent any more gun-related murders in this country.

I don’t know about Mr. Symmonds’ life in particular, but crime statistics show that for the vast majority of Americans not involved with gangs, the drug trade, or efforts to combat them, violence occurs incredibly rarely. Indeed, gun-related homicide has decreased to historically low levels. In an article for the Washington Post, Randolph Roth, professor of history at Ohio State and author of a landmark study on the history of killing in the US, says the nation’s homicide rate in 2011 was as low as it’s been in the past 100 years.?According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the 2011 homicide rate was the lowest of any year since 1963.
And yet, even with homicide at such historically low levels, the public is largely unaware. In a March, 2013 survey, the Pew Research Center found that 56% of Americans believe that crimes involving a gun have increased over the last 20 years (in fact, gun crime has dropped significantly).
In short, the environment of chaos, violence, and confusion that Mr. Symmonds is referring to is, in fact, quite rare — gun crime has dropped by roughly 50% since he was born.
In regards to his comment about a supposed radical group of people trying to keep us living in what he imagines the Wild West to be, I’m not sure what to say, so I’ll quote Mr. Granderson in his opinion piece at CNN: “The folks spraying our cities with bullets are not NRA members or legal gun owners. And despite the tendency to tie it all together, they have nothing to do with the Adam Lanzas of the world. […]?This is why gun-control advocates need to abandon the routine of using mass shootings to turn law-abiding citizens into social pariahs and instead focus on something that could work.”
Considering there’s been essentially no negative effects resulting from the liberalization of concealed carry laws and the expiration of the federal AWB in 2004, advocating for the continued legality of handguns and modern rifles for lawful purposes hardly seems “radical”. If anything, it would seem to be “common sense”.
Mr. Symmonds is welcome to hand is his weapons if he thinks that would help prevent murders. Unless he’s inclined to murder people (which seems unlikely), I don’t really see how that action could have much of an effect on murder rates.
Moving on.

As Americans, we have a long history with firearms. We also have a government built on compromise, so here is the compromise I propose:?Ban assault rifles and handguns for everyone except police and military personnel.?These weapons are made to kill humans and should be strictly limited.?At the same time, allow responsible citizens to own rifles and shotguns.?Rifles are for hunting big-game animals, shotguns are for hunting birds; non-automatic versions of these weapons should be available for those with an interest in hunting or target shooting.

(Emphasis in original.)
Perhaps Mr. Symmonds is unaware, but hunting is no longer the top reason why people own guns. I’ll refer to a different study conducted in February, 2013 by the Pew Research Center, in which they find that 48% of gun owners say they own a gun for “protection” (vs. 26% in August, 1999). Hunting is listed as the top reason by 32% of gun owners in 2013 vs. 49% in 2013. Target/sport shooting, collecting guns, owning guns as a hobby, and owning guns simply because it’s one’s Second Amendment right, each garnered single-digit percentages. (An October?survey by Gallup has similar results, with “protection” being listed as the primary reason by 60% of those polled.)
That’s not to say that hunting is not popular, but people are primarily buying, owning, and using guns for non-hunting purposes these days and the market reflects that. Concealed carry is now available (to greater or lesser extents) in every state in the country. The very properties that make a handgun dangerous in the hands of a criminal (e.g. its light weight, ease of concealment and carriage, and modest power) make it ideal for private citizens, police officers, and others for defensive purposes. Fortunately, there are far more good people in the country than there are criminals, and handguns are overwhelmingly used for safe and lawful purposes. (As with any population, there are exceptions, but the vast majority of gun owners are peaceable, law-abiding people and exceptions to this rule are exceedingly rare.)
The AR-15 is among the most popular models of guns in the United States, as it’d easily adapted to a wide range of shooting activities, sports, and, yes, protection. Hunting rifles and shotguns are quite popular as well, but they tend to be less flexible in their uses.
According to a study funded by the Department of Justice, AR-15s and other modern sporting rifles are use in only a tiny fraction of crimes involving a gun (typically around 2%). The same study concluded, “Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. [Assault weapons] were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.”
Why should millions of ordinary, non-criminal gun owners give up a specific model (or group of models) of gun when there’s no evidence that they are in any way responsible for crimes or that such guns are widely used by criminals, nor any evidence that their giving up those particular guns would have any meaningful effect on public safety?
Of course, none of this takes into consideration that handguns and other firearms in common use are protected by the Constitution (see DC v. Heller) so banning them is off the table anyway.
On a related note, I find it somewhat ironic that he proposes banning common semi-auto guns while he, in the picture included in the original article, is holding a semi-auto shotgun.

It?s true that guns don’t kill people; people do. But when deranged individuals decide to kill, they too often use assault rifles and handguns.

Mr. Symmonds is correct about the criminal use of handguns: a majority of homicides involving a gun are committed with a handgun. The criminal use of rifles is extremely uncommon, and his statement involving rifles is not correct.

As runners, we cover a lot of territory. Our runs take us from “safe” neighborhoods to more “dangerous” parts of town and everything in between. We pound the pavement, hearts pumping, lungs aching, unarmed with only a millimeter of dry-fit shirt to protect us. To some, we look like good targets,?as was the case of Christopher Lane in Oklahoma. While out for a jog in August, Christopher was?shot to death by several “bored” teenagers???and the autopsy indicated the shooter used a handgun.

Runners do indeed cover a lot of territory and it’s true that criminals may well regard them as good targets. Still, such crimes are so rare as to be exceptional. As a personal anecdote, the runners I know dislike running with more than they absolutely need, so they tend to run without carrying any valuables so I’m not sure how good of a target the typical runner would be.
That said, it’s certainly not uncommon for runners (or other people) to carry various means of self-defense (including handguns) while out and about. I doubt that Mr. Symmonds intends that more people carry rifles or shotguns (even those of a more traditional style) while in public for self-protection, but in the absence of legally owned and carried handguns, what other effective means of self-protection would be available to the public?

Christopher was one of us, and we owe it to him and others to make sure his death wasn’t in vain.?I have decided I will not vote for any political candidate who does not support gun-control legislation ? and I implore you to join me in this stance.

It’s noble for Mr. Symmonds to honor the memory of a fellow runner and, while I have no doubts about his his sincerity, I do question the effectiveness of his proposed actions.
Murders involving a gun are typically committed by people who have an extensive criminal history (it’s quite rare for someone to just “snap” and commit a murder) and who would, under current laws, be prohibited from owning or possessing guns. Even though their possession of a gun (not to mention the act of committing murder) is illegal, they still manage to acquire guns. The federal government banned a large number of so-called “assault weapons” between 1994 and 2004 (and several states had state-level bans from even earlier that are still in effect) and there was no meaningful effect on crime rates. Several states have (or had) extremely strict laws on handgun ownership, again with essentially no effect on crime rates.
The actions that Mr. Symmonds proposes would overwhelmingly affect ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding people who own handguns and modern rifles while likely having no significant effect on criminals. For that reason, I think that his proposal is?na?ve and would be ineffective at achieving his goal of reducing murders (and presumably other violent crime). There’s tons of things that would be far more effective at reducing the rate of murder and violence than banning commonly-owned firearms: helping the poor and downtrodden, providing meaningful alternatives to gang life, removing the economic incentives behind drug trafficking, to name but a few.
In summary, forcing law-abiding people to give up their most effective means of self-protection is unlikely to stop criminals from getting or using guns for nefarious, illegal purposes. I’m not sure what Runner’s World hoped to accomplish by stepping into the discussion over gun laws, but it seems that there’s a lot of people who are unhappy about their decision.

On gun control via government purchasing

As I do on occasion, I was perusing some of the various gun control groups sites and seeing what they were up to. In so doing, I discovered an interesting proposal that I had not previously known about: using the purchasing power of government agencies like police departments to implement gun control.
Although some people, including former Governor of New York Elliot Spitzer, have written about such strategies in the past, I’ve not heard of it before now. Gov. Spitzer’s explains the strategy:

Here is how it could work with guns: The Defense Department and the city of New York are among the largest purchasers of guns. If the president and the mayor truly believe that semi-automatic weapons should not be available to private purchasers, and that magazines with more than 10 bullets should not be sold over the counter, they should simply say that, from now on, the federal government and the city of New York, as a matter of public safety, will not buy any weapons or ammunition from companies that do not agree to pull semi-automatics from their stock and refuse to produce magazines with more than 10 rounds other than for sale to the government. President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg should announce that semiautomatic handguns with high-capacity magazines?the kind used in Oak Creek; Aurora, Colo.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Virginia Tech?can no longer be sold to private citizens by any company that wants to do business with the federal government and the city of New York.
The major gun manufacturers will agree to the limits imposed by their major customers.
Gov. Spitzer’s plan is certainly interesting, but it relies on a few key assumptions without which the entire scheme collapses:

  1. Government sales constitute a sufficiently large fraction of gun sales that manufacturers would be unwilling to lose their business, thus restricting what’s available for public sale to keep government business.
  2. No other manufacturer would step in to fill the gap left by those playing along with the government.

While point #1 may apply to certain companies that are particularly reliant on government sales (what’s the breakdown of government:civilian sales for companies like, say, Colt?), it’s unlikely to matter for a lot of the smaller companies — I doubt that Stag Arms, Mega Arms, Magpul, and other relatively small manufacturers of somewhat “controversial” things like AR-15s, magazines holding more than 10 rounds, or guns with black plastic bits really care much if the Defense Department or the government of the State of New York don’t buy their stuff because they probably don’t buy their products already. They can’t lose sales they’re not already making, so this strategy can’t apply any sort of leverage against them.
Point #1 also breaks down when you look at sales figures: sure, a government agency may be the largest single customer of a particular company, but they make up a relatively small amount of total sales. As an example, let’s be generous and say that the State of New York is a manufacturer’s largest single customer and contributes to 10% of the company’s total income with the rest coming from smaller customers (e.g. local police departments, say a combined total of 10%) and individual buyers (80%). Even if the local police departments play along with the state, why would a company eschew 80% of its sales to appease a minority of its customers? That wouldn’t be good publicity for the company, particularly when the government makes it clear that they’re doing this specifically to apply leverage — what’s to stop the government from asking for more in the future and cutting off purchases if they don’t get what they want?
Point #2 reflects the state of the market: ARs are among the most popular guns in the country for private citizens. Manufacturers have been running around-the-clock to keep up with demand and there’s still a backlog. It would be foolish in the extreme for one company to simply give up their share of that market, generate enormous customer backlash, and allow other companies to take their place. There’s plenty of competition in the market, and while there might be some disruption if one of the big contract forges/casting houses leaves the market, someone else will happily take their place. Again, while the government might be the largest single customer of certain companies, they almost certainly make up a relatively small fraction of their over all sales, and there’s plenty of companies who don’t really care about government sales and so wouldn’t be pressured at all.
This doesn’t even begin to take into account that there’s a huge number of guns that are hugely popular with private citizens but almost never purchased by government buyers — how many governments purchase imported AK clones? Saiga shotguns? Ruger Mini-14s (yes, I know they’re reasonably popular with officers in jails/prisons, but you rarely see police using them outside of that context)? How many agencies buy Kel-Tec rifles, Kahr pistols, M1As, or any of the zillions of other products that anti-gun people would restrict if they could?
Of course, the strategy doesn’t take into account the fact that the government is a purchaser of items, not a manufacturer. If the large manufacturers decided to stop selling their products to the government (Barrett was the first major company I can recall that did this, and now there’s quite a few other companies who refuse to sell guns or accessories to governments in states that infringe the rights of private citizens). I think it’s more plausible that gun companies would band together and refuse to sell or service products to governments that infringe the rights of their citizens (thus applying leverage to change policy for the better) than for governments to use their relatively minor purchasing power to influence gun companies.
As always, I welcome the thoughts and comments of readers.

MDA not interested in gun deaths, suicide prevention — only banning guns

A few days ago the Twitter user @deborahdouhner tried making some in-roads with Moms Demand Action and its founder, Shannon Watts. You can read about their story here.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that Ms. Watts and MDA really don’t care about reducing violent crime or suicides (which account for 61% of all gun deaths). Rather, they only care about getting rid of guns.
Ms. Watts isn’t some random person who supports gun control; she is the founder of a new anti-gun group that’s been getting a little bit of media attention. I think it’d be fair to say that she reasonably represents the aims of the group: neither she nor MDA are interested in reducing deaths, nor working toward any sort of compromise — they simply want to ban guns.
This should be clear from their website, where they list their objectives:

  1. Require background checks for all gun and ammunition purchases;
  2. Ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds;
  3. Track the sale of large quantities of ammunition, and ban online sales;
  4. Establish product safety oversight of guns and ammunition, and require child-safe gun technology;
  5. Support policies at companies and public institutions that promote gun safety;
  6. Counter the gun industry?s efforts to weaken gun laws at the state level.

Those points have been the objective of extremist groups like the Brady Campaign for decades. There simply is no “middle ground” or compromise with these groups. They must be opposed at every step.
Hat tip to mike, a commenter at SNBQ. The linked-to post at SNBQ is also quite telling: it turns out that Ms. Watts defines an “assault weapon” as any gun that can fire 10 shots per minute — that includes essentially every gun except muzzleloaders. Even lever-action guns and single-shot shotguns can fire more than 10 shots per minute.

Keep Up the Pressure

According to a public blog post by Moms Demand Action (I will not link there), “the other side” (i.e, pro-gun people) are calling their politicians regarding gun issues more than 5x as often as the anti-gun people, even though MDA claims there are “more of [anti-gun people]”.
Excellent. Even though things are pretty quiet right now, keep up the pressure. It’s easy to call your legislators and express your opinion. Writing a letter can also be effective. Keep things short, polite, and to the point, but take a few minutes a week to call or write and make your opinion known.

California gun control update: mixed Results, overall not bad

The LA Times reports on CA Gov. Brown’s recent decisions on gun control bills.
In brief,

  • The AWB expansion that would ban all semi-auto rifles with detachable mags was vetoed. From the Times:

    The ban on rifles with detachable magazines goes too far, he said in a veto message, because it would outlaw the sale of guns used by hunters and marksmen.
    ?I don?t believe that this bill?s blanket ban on semiautomatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners? rights,? Brown said.

  • Lead ammo will be illegal for hunting starting in July 2019, giving hunters and manufacturers time to switch to non-lead ammo for hunting purposes. (My understanding is that the restriction only applies to hunting, not shooting at ranges.)
  • Gun ownership will be prohibited to people who make serious threats to psychoanalysis.
  • The state’s “handgun safety certificate” (answer 10 questions at the gun shop and they give you a card good for 5 years that says you can buy handguns) will now also be required for long guns.

The NRA-ILA has more details here. They have links to the governor’s veto statements, which make for interesting reading.
In short: the results are somewhat mixed, but they could have turned out a lot worse. Considering this is California, I’m generally pleased with the results — there were a few things, like the safety certificate, which are effectively minor infringements on our rights but no more so than the NICS check that also takes place at a dealer (the 10-day waiting period in California is much more onerous), but the obnoxious, major infringements were stopped and the governor put, in writing, that the ban on semi-auto rifles would infringe on people’s rights.
That’s pretty good.

NBC: Does anyone care about gun control? (Answer: No, not really.)

NBC has a rather motivating article about how, despite the best efforts of the gun control crowd, pretty much nobody cares about the subject.
The pro-gun-rights side has raised more money, gained more members (Gifford’s ARS gained about half a million new members post-Newtown, while the NRA gained twice that and now has over 5 million members), and has more of a presence in government (a 9-1 spending advantage in Washington). The NRA alone has over 3x the number of members of “The Big Three” gun control groups combined: ARS, The Brady Campaign, and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Amusingly enough, NBC says that the post-Newtown push for gun control doubled the membership in the Brady Campaign and MAIG — this only goes to show how small those groups actually are and how little grassroots support they have.
NBC talks about this situation and its historical precedence:

Such lopsided growth mirrors what happened after the Columbine massacre. The Senate failed to pass a bill requiring universal background checks, among other popular reforms, and the gun control movement was swallowed by a wave of gun rights activism. It spent the next decade in the wilderness, starved of funding and support as the NRA won victory after victory.
This time?after the failure of a similar background check bill in April, and the recall of two pro-reform politicians in Colorado last month?the mission has narrowed to a single overarching goal: maintain the momentum. ?It?s like a sugar rush,? says Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign, of the cycle of public concern after a major shooting. ?It seems like we have intensity?there?s sympathy, there?s outrage?but that intensity proves to be transitory.?

Later, Mr. Gross attempts to explain the lack of intensity thusly, “Common sense is not an intense emotion.” Of course, he assumes that his proposals are “common sense” and would actually do something to reduce violent crime, stop deranged madmen, and somehow preserve the rights of law-abiding people (though there’s no real evidence that he supports those rights).
Clearly, not many people agree with him.
NBC points out this lack of grassroots support for the anti-gun-rights side when they say,

But this seemingly unbeatable political coalition?three deep-pocketed groups, allied with a sitting president, seemingly aligned with a huge majority of Americans?enters the fall on a low ebb that seemed unimaginable just a few months ago. ?It?s not important enough, sadly,? says Johnathan Abbinett, 60, a founding member of the Nevada chapter of Americans for Responsible [S]olutions. His chapter colleague Christian Gerlach, 26, isn?t even sure the chapter exists any more. ?I only went to that first meeting,? he says, before changing the subject.

Both ARS and MAIG ran extensive nationwide tours over the summer: ARS visited 7 states, while MAIG went to 25 states in 100 days. The results were somewhat disappointing for the anti-gun people:

But the results of both tours were mixed at best. In state after state, major politicians ducked Giffords and Kelly, despite (or perhaps because of) ample advance notice of their arrival.? In Alaska, Mark Begich, one of four Democrats who voted against closing the gun show loophole, was said to be vacationing on an island without cell service when the tour arrived. In North Dakota, ?friends in the NRA? forced a last minute venue change, according to a Team Giffords advance man, who himself declined to be named for fear of mixing with gun-grabbers from Washington. And when members of MAIG arrived in Fargo, the mayor told them that guns were not a problem.
The grassroots side of the campaign struggled as well. At a MAIG event in Columbus, Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association organized a counter rally that drew twice the crowd.? In Raleigh, N.C., when Giffords passed through, a gun blogger turned out two-dozen people shaking green signs that read: Guns Save Lives. But perhaps the most dramatic scenes were in Manchester and Dover, N.H., where protesters arrived ?full battle rattle,? as one man noted on a Facebook page for the counter-protest, toting guns?including an AR-15?and forcing Giffords out a back exit after her speech. The same week, Mayors Against Illegal Guns made its own campaign stop in the state, where police subdued one pro-gun activist with a taser and dispersed the crowd.

With the exception of the pro-gun activist being disruptive and getting tased, that sounds like a bunch of pretty solid wins for our side. I’m not familiar with the details of the “full battle rattle” folks in Dover, but I’m not so keen on firearms being openly displayed for political purposes at such events (concealed, yes, openly used for political purposes, no). Still, overall things sounded pretty good for our side.
NBC shows an interesting bit of insight with this bit,

To make the world safer, the gun control lobby wants fewer guns in the hands of bad guys. The pro-gun side supports the same goal. But it also wants more guns in the hands of the good guys, believing that a bullet is the best way to stop the next unfolding national tragedy. ?Both sides think the other is crazy and dangerous, but only the pro-gun side seems to have supporters who are passionate enough to focus on almost nothing else.

They’re right — the pro-gun side does want fewer guns in the hands of bad guys (our objectives should be the same, though our methods of accomplishing those objectives differ) — but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the pro-gun-rights side “focus[es] on almost nothing else”, rather that we’re more personally invested.
Why? Owning a gun is not something to be taken lightly, and gun owners are often fairly active with the shooting sports, competitions, hunting, training, etc. We’ll meet up with friends at the range, go to the SHOT Show, show off our groupings online, setup individual blogs not sponsored by some larger organization, discuss gear, techniques, or events, shop for parts and accessories, and so on. For many, owning a gun is part of their lifestyle and they’ll vehemently defend against potential infringements. Although pro-gun-rights people come from different walks of life, different cultural backgrounds, live in different places, have different political views, etc., we share a common, unifying thing that helps bind the community together and helps us overcome our differences.
The anti-gun-rights people don’t really have that same level of involvement in the issue — it’s hard to drum up passion for something that’s not an active part of their lifestyle, involving an item that they don’t own and often have little experience with, and which doesn’t really involve the type of social activities that bring them together.
Although anti-gun-rights people often blame the “NRA” or the shady “gun lobby” for their failures, and to some extent they’re right, I think the real reason we keep winning is because we actually have a large, diverse, and passionate grassroots that they lack. It’s fantastic to see ad hoc, unorganized, unfunded gatherings of pro-gun-rights people bring out double the number of anti-gun-rights people attending scheduled, announced events like those that ARS and MAIG arranged.
Still, we need to keep in mind that while anti-gun-rights people are our opponents in the political realm, they’re still Americans and still people who, while we may disagree with them, still deserve civility and respect. Mockery and hostility is always counterproductive. Many have no connection with or understanding of the gun culture and those involved with it. Some have personal connections with gun-related tragedies that motivate them. We should strive to understand and accept their reasons, positions, and motivations, and to work with those who are willing toward meaningful solutions that reduce violent crime, protect people and their rights, and generally improve the lives of everyone. After all, we all want to live in a world without violent crime.
NBC closes the article as follows,

Even before Washington shutdown, the Big Three had almost no hard events on the calendar for October, and sparse calls to action compared to earlier in the year. Each organization will mark the Newtown anniversary in December, but how, exactly, they aren?t ready to say. And a similar sense of hiatus pervades activists on the front lines. None of those contacted were willing to rank gun control as their top concern, or even something they were still working on, not with marriage equality, immigration reform, health care, and poverty crowding the mind.
If there were another vote in Congress, [Beverly] Moffet [a retired judge in Columbus, Ohio, and a supporter of Americans for Responsible Solutions] added, ?I think people would turn out for it.?
Until then, however, she doesn?t see the point.

Excellent. We need to keep the pressure on, both in Washington, in the state legislatures, and in the public eye: gun control isn’t the solution and, while we oppose infringements on our rights, we still want to reduce violent crime and will work for realistic, practical improvements that will make a difference and preserve people’s rights.
If we can keep up the pressure, continue to present a good public image (*looks pointedly at people pushing rifle open carry*), bring new shooters into the fold, vote, contact and work with the legislature, move some key cases through the courts, and not put our feet in our collective mouths, I think we can make some good improvements for our cause like national CCW reciprocity, overturning various onerous laws like state-level AWBs, registration, licensing, etc., getting more states switching to a shall-issue CCW model, and so on.
We’re in a great position now and have a lot of advantages. Let’s try not to screw this one up.

Thoughts on rifle open carry

not_wrong_asshole
Yes, in many places you have the right to carry a rifle wherever you go. Outside of certain narrowly-defined situations, however, such behavior is unexpected, unsettling, and often counterproductive (even in places that are friendly to handgun open carry).
As Sebastian says, openly carrying rifles to “educate” people “[brings] both parties together to support gun control. That was quite an education! We have enough trouble to deal with on a regular basis without having to worry we?ll need to turn people out to fight a gun ban that didn?t need to happen.”
Seriously guys, knock it off.
Before you go start open carrying long guns in public, you might want to read and understand this: open carry as a means of working toward a specific goal (e.g. VA used to allow only handgun OC in restaurants but not CC. People started OCing in restaurants to highlight the silliness of that law. VA eventually changed the law to allow CC.) is one thing, but open carry — particularly of long guns — just for the hell of it, or to “educate” people in general is a different thing entirely.

Exactly.

The folks spraying our cities with bullets are not NRA members or legal gun owners. And despite the tendency to tie it all together, they have nothing to do with the Adam Lanzas of the world.
[…]
This is why gun-control advocates need to abandon the routine of using mass shootings to turn law-abiding citizens into social pariahs and instead focus on something that could work.

– LZ Granderson, in this CNN Opinion piece.
Go and read the whole thing.