By Jeff Knox

(December 29, 2016) In the final days of the Obama administration, several agencies have finalized new rules and regulations that Mr. Obama had been pushing for. Among those, the Social Security Administration, or SSA, has announced that they have finalized rules under which they will be reporting – possibly many thousands of – Social Security benefit recipients to the FBI’s National Instant Check System as “prohibited persons” for firearm possession purposes. Inclusion in NICS means complete loss of all Second Amendment rights, and makes it a felony for the person to possess or have access to any firearm or ammunition – ever. It also makes a felon of anyone who provides a “prohibited person” with access to firearms or ammunition. So parents of developmentally disabled children who receive SSI, and have used shooting and hunting as a family bonding activity, can continue doing that until the child turns 18, at which time, they would be committing a felony if they allowed their ward to touch a gun or ammunition.

The basis of this “final rule” is a bureaucratic finding that the person is “unable to manage their own affairs.” Just as we’ve seen from the Veterans Administration since the mid-1990s, the SSA is going to submit to NICS the name and identifying information of anyone whom they say is “adjudicated mentally defective” under the wording of the 1968 Gun Control Act. The primary criteria for that determination is that they be an adult who, rather than handling SSA benefits themselves, has a “designated payee” who acts as a fiduciary to manage the person’s benefits. For instance, a person might have sustained a head injury and, as a result, has trouble dealing with numbers, so they have a parent or spouse named as their “designated payee.” Under the new SSA rules, that person would be labeled as “adjudicated mentally defective” and would be barred from ever holding a gun or ammunition for the rest of their life. It doesn’t matter to the SSA if the person is fully functional in every other way, if they “can’t manage their own affairs” with SSA, they are considered a “mental defective,” and their name is submitted to NICS.

In some cases, someone who requested a “designated payee” as a matter of convenience, might be able to appeal the NICS submission, but they can only appeal after the submission has been made, and they could be looking at significant time and legal expense. They would also have to remove their guns and ammunition from their home until the matter was resolved. That could be a problem in states like Washington, where any firearm transfer, even just temporarily while sorting out a SSA mistake, must be processed through a licensed dealer, with a per-gun fee, and a required background check. Assuming the person won their appeal, legally transferring the guns back to their possession would require processing again, including the per-gun fee, and a background check on the person getting his guns back.

The thing that is the most frustrating about this new rule, is that SSA says they are merely obeying a law which received broad bipartisan support, and which was supported by the NRA. The law is called the NICS Improvement Amendment Act of 2007. It was passed in response to the horrible attack at Virginia Tech. One of the provisions of the act requires that government agencies share with NICS the names of people who are prohibited from firearm possession for mental health reasons. Even more frustrating, the law which forbids possession of firearms by “mental defectives” does not say anything about people who can’t manage their own financial affairs.

What the law says is that “prohibited persons” includes anyone: “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution.” That’s it. Nothing about managing financial affairs, etc. But several years ago, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or BATFE, promulgated regulations for enforcing that line of the law, and in their definition of terms, they stated that “adjudicated as a mental defective” means: “A determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease:

1. Is a danger to himself or to others; or
2. Lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.”

Out of the blue, the BATFE simply added the part about the “capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.” They also stretched the term “adjudicated” to now include rulings by boards, commissions, and “other lawful authority,” which they say includes the bureaucrats at the VA and the SSA.

Where was Congress when this agency took it upon itself to overreach so dramatically. And where have they been in the subsequent two decades as this unfounded regulation has been used to strip Second Amendment rights from countless, innocent veterans?

Let’s hope that this ruling from the SSA will be the wake-up call Congress needs to finally take action to correct this travesty. Realistically, we are talking about a pretty small minority here. The majority of people whose names will be submitted to NICS as of January 18, probably won’t be too bothered by it. But for those who do care, and are bothered, this is a huge deal, and it is completely unfounded and unfair. There is no public benefit to this policy, and it will hurt real people who deserve to have their rights protected.

Please let your senators and representative know that you want this travesty corrected. The number for the Capitol Switchboard is (202)224-3121, or you can find their local office number online.

Liberals Arming Up
Welcome to the party pal.

By Jeff Knox

(December 22, 2016) As the proverbial shoe moved to the other foot November 8^th, liberals suddenly found themselves worrying about the future and their own survival. In the circle of life and partisan politics, what goes around, comes around, and liberals’ heads are spinning. The thought of our nation, with Donald Trump as President, and Republicans in the majority in both the House and the Senate, not to mention a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, has many liberals envisioning a dystopian future of pollution, poverty, crime, and climate crisis. Their dreams of “free” education, “free” healthcare, the extinction of the internal combustion engine and coal-fired power plants – and all of the destructive, extraction activities that go into fueling those nasty, dirty, devices – were dashed on the rocks of political whim by bitter, clinging, white people – who are undoubtedly racist – and the, oh so unfair, Electoral College system. In the blink of an eye the future turned from one of hope, tolerance, and social justice, to one of dread, polarization, and privilege.

The liberals haven’t realized it yet, and probably never actually will, but they are now experiencing something very much like what the “deplorables” in fly-over country have been feeling for at least 8 years. The difference, of course, is that where the rubes in the heartland’s fears were just delusional fantasies fueled by narrow-mindedness and personal prejudices, the fears of the liberal masses are real, tangible, and virtually unavoidable. Donald Trump and his followers are evil, racist, misogynists that are going to destroy the nation. At least, that’s how they see it.

Thankfully, our nation’s founders foresaw the challenges of philosophical conflict, and they built in checks and balances which still function well enough to keep one group from running roughshod over the rest. Obama chipped away at it, and certainly did damage, but not the catastrophic harm his detractors feared. Likewise, G.W. Bush, with his foreign entanglements and domestic surveillance-state, undermined liberty, but didn’t extinguish it as some feared.

Perception in politics is very much about perspective and what a person believes to actually be possible. Predictions of a president trying to seize total control and declare himself King, have persisted from the very foundation of the Republic. The fact that it never has happened does not mean however, that it never could happen, and no one can say with any certainty just how close we might have come to that at some point in the past. But such fears are only viable to someone who actually believes it possible, and no one ever believes that their guy could possibly do such a thing.

In the early 1970s, my late father, Neal Knox, had a good friend who was a competitive shooter. Although a shooter and a gun owner, this friend was one of those gun owners who supports “reasonable restrictions” on other people’s guns. He got frustrated with Dad for spending so much time and energy fighting a gun control bill sponsored by the Nixon administration. The guy said; “Neal, how can you be worried about some gun control bill when Nixon is about to impose martial law and declare himself emperor for life?” Dad looked him in the eye and growled, “And what do you think keeps him from doing it?”

In that moment, because this guy actually believed that Nixon might do such a thing, a light bulb lit in his head, and suddenly he truly understood the real purpose of the Second Amendment, and the importance of Americans being armed. Had he not truly believed that Nixon might try to stage a coup, he would never have accepted the idea that Americans being armed is an actual, viable deterrent to government overreach.

Many conservatives had the lights go on during the Clinton administration, with the example of Waco burning in the backs of their minds. Some liberals came around to the idea during the George W. Bush years after passage of the Patriot Act. I recall reading a thread in the forum of the Daily Kos – a far-left news and views site – toward the end of the Bush administration. Some “progressives” were discussing the need for liberals to arm themselves for fear that Bush was going to be coming for them. What was astounding to me was not that these people really believed this was a possibility, but that as they were advocating for liberal armament for this gravest extreme, they were also advocating for “reasonable” gun laws – like full registration of all guns and gun owners. I registered with the site just to be able to point out the obvious disconnect in their reasoning: “Bush is coming for liberals, so you want liberals to buy guns, and you want a law passed to be sure that Bush knows who has guns?”

Now we’re seeing that same illogical reasoning playing out again. It’s looking less likely that Obama is going to stage a “Reichstag fire” as a way to hold onto power, and the only “faithless electors” who voted against their states’ choices were pledged to Hillary. So as the fears of the right fade, the fears of the left are winding up toward hyper-drive. In the midst of all of that, groups like the Pink Pistols, and the Liberal Gun Club are reporting surges in membership, and “progressives” appear to be picking up the slack to keep gun sales booming – while calling for stricter gun laws and denying that gun control played a key role in their candidates being trounced last November.

Liberals’ capacity for cognitive dissonance is stunning, but the wisdom and prescience of the Founders is even more amazing. There is much to be done to revive and restore that wisdom, let’s hope our leaders can make some progress in that direction over the next four years.

More Guns in Carry-Ons

By Jeff Knox

Bringing a gun into an airport checkpoint is a really big mistake, but as more people carry more frequently, such mistakes are bound to happen. The Transportation Security Administration is reporting that the number of guns discovered at security checkpoints at our nation’s airports has been steadily growing in recent years. TSA says they confiscated 2,653 guns from airline passengers in 2015, and are on track to break that record this year. They have been averaging a little more than seven guns a day at airport security checkpoints nationwide.

There’s no question that 2,653 guns at airport checkpoints is way too many, especially when every gun owner should be fully aware that it is a felony-stupid thing to do, but a little context can help to bring that number into better perspective. As mentioned earlier, there are more people legally carrying more often than ever before, but how many make up that “more?”

First, it is estimated that there are as many as 400 million guns in civilian hands in the U.S., and approximately 2 million guns are sold each month through licensed dealers. Gun sales have been climbing exponentially, particularly over the 8 years of the Obama Administration. Surveys suggest that there are guns in 30% to 40% of U.S. homes, with the rate being much higher in rural states where 80%, or more, homes contain firearms. Estimates put actual gun owner numbers at somewhere between 75 and 100 million, with over 15 million licensed to carry concealed firearms. It’s anyone’s guess how many more people carry in the dozen states where no licensing is required. All of this adds up to “more” meaning a whole bunch of people who might have a legally carried gun in a purse or pack.

Second, the TSA inspects and clears some 2 million airline passengers every day – over 700 million per year – at over 400 airports nationwide. That’s a whole bunch of people too.

With close to 1/3 of the adult population having arms at hand, and at least 20% of those legally carrying a gun in public at least occasionally, the idea of 7 people out of 2 million, inadvertently carrying their gun into an airport checkpoint, doesn’t seem quite so outrageous. That amounts to only 0.00035% of airline passengers.

It’s also worth noting that the busiest airport in the world is located in the center of the “gun-friendly” South – Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson – and is the airport where the highest number of guns are discovered. In fact, 13 of the 31 busiest airports in the world are in the U.S., and 9 of those busiest airports are in gun-friendly states with “shall-issue” concealed carry licensing: Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Miami, Phoenix, Houston, and Seattle-Tacoma.

These aren’t people planning to hijack a plane or commit an act of terrorism. They are people who got busy and forgot that they still had their pistol in the special gun pocket of their purse, or tucked into the bottom of their backpack. All sorts of people have run afoul of the checkpoints. One was an NBA team executive who was caught with a gun in a carry-on bag on the return leg from Newark, New Jersey – the gun was undetected on the outbound leg. Another was former NBA superstar Bill Russell. Others have included a congressman, and a notoriously anti-gun Illinois state senator from Chicago.

Leaving a gun in a carry-on is a relatively easy mistake to make in a society where guns are common, and where many people are so comfortable with their presence. And though it is a foolish mistake to make, it is not a dangerous one – except in the legal sense. TSA screens every bag and passenger, and even if the gun somehow made it onto the plane, it is only dangerous if there is a person with evil intent, and knowledge of the gun’s presence. It can’t just “go off” from being bumped around, and even if it were to discharge somehow, a bullet through the fuselage or a window will not cause the plane to explode or violently decompress. That only happens in the movies.

As a right–to–carry advocate, I take the issue of people being found with guns at airport checkpoints very seriously. It makes my side look bad, makes my job harder, and scares the less-knowledgeable public. This is just one reason that I strongly recommend “on-body” – in a holster on their belt or elsewhere on their person – rather than “off-body” in a bag, briefcase, or purse. Not only is a gun carried on-body quicker in a crisis, and harder to steal, it is also much less likely to be forgotten or overlooked in preparing for a flight.

Guns are tools. In some segments of our society, they are very common tools. All gun owners should know and understand that their license does not apply on airplanes, and it is extremely foolish and irresponsible to ever carry a gun into an airport security checkpoint. Regardless of how unintentional it might be, there will be a significant price to pay for doing so. Your gun is your responsibility – always.

For non-gun owners, don’t let the media hype get you worried. Yes, guns at checkpoints are becoming a more frequent occurrence as gun ownership and carry are becoming more common, but it’s still statistically rare, and these aren’t terrorists or gang-bangers, they’re poor schlubs who got in too big a rush and made a stupid and expensive, though relatively benign mistake. They will regret it, but they are not putting you at risk.

Confessions of an Active Shooter

By Jeff Knox

(December 8, 2016) Hi, I’m Jeff, and I’m an active shooter.

[Hi Jeff.]

I’ve been a shooter for most of my life, beginning when I was about 4, shooting BB guns in the back yard with my mom and older brother. When I turned 8, my brother and father presented me with my first .22 rifle, a single-shot bolt-action, hand-me-down, and I actively shot that as often as I could. A year later, my father gave me a brand new Browning lever-action, repeating rifle for my birthday, and I have actively been shooting that rifle every chance I get for almost 50 years. Growing up, I spent many afternoons after school, wandering the hills behind our house, hunting rabbits or shooting targets. In my teen years, my family was often at the range shooting benchrest matches or spending Sunday afternoon shooting skeet. After a tour in the Army, I got serious about my shooting, working in one gun store, while living in a room in the back of another. That’s when I got heavily into action shooting, spending all of my extra money on ammunition, and going out shooting 4 or 5 days a week, with competitions on weekends.

Not only have I been an active shooter for over 50 years, I have routinely carried a personal protection sidearm for over over 30 years. In all of that time, I have never shot a hole in a floor, ceiling, or wall. I have certainly never shot another human being, or come close to shooting another human being, either intentionally or unintentionally, and I have never even put a hand on my sidearm in a threatening situation.

I’m an active shooter. Not as active as I once was, and not nearly as active as I would like to be, but an active shooter nonetheless. And I hate the fact that law enforcement and the media have stolen the term “active shooter” to apply to deranged murderers attacking innocents. Not only has a perfectly good description for me and millions of other recreational and sport shooters been purloined and redefined, the term now seems to apply to criminals who don’t use guns.

Late last month, a deranged young Somali refugee, who had expressed frustration about people being afraid of him simply because he was a Muslim, decided to prove those people’s fears about the “religion of peace” correct by driving his Honda Civic into a crowd of fellow Ohio State University students, then jumping out of the car to hack and stab people with a large butcher knife.

In the moments after the attack, the school sent out an “Active Shooter Alert” instructing students and faculty to “Run, hide, fight” until the situation could be resolved. The media followed the school’s lead, reporting that an “active shooter” had injured at least 7 before being shot by campus police. This led to former Democratic Party vice presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, sending out a tweet saying that he was “Deeply saddened by the senseless act of gun violence” at OSU, and offering condolence to the victims and their families. Two hours later, Kaine corrected his error, long after the media had realized their mistake, but the use of the term “Active Shooter” to describe any deranged criminal on a destructive rampage, remains the norm.

Most people don’t give the use of this term a second thought, especially when applied to someone who is actively shooting people in a criminal attack. In that circumstance it seems like a fairly accurate description, but to me, it is not only inaccurate, it is insulting. It is inaccurate because it does not include any direct suggestion of criminality, using “shooter” to infer that, and it is insulting because by doing this, it implies that shooting is a criminal activity. Don’t call a rampaging murderer a shooter. Call him a rampaging murderer, or a rampaging attacker, or even a criminal shooter or violent gunman. My brother Chris and our friend Alan Korwin both object to the use of the term “gunman,” making the point that it is part of the sensationalist and glamorizing vocabulary that the media too often uses. But the term has held negative, criminal connotations since at least the 1860s, so I’m willing to let that one slide. The term “active shooter” on the other hand, has only come into vogue as a description of a mass murderer in the past 20 years or so. It began gaining traction in the wake of the Columbine atrocity, and has now become so ingrained in the vernacular that it’s even being applied to attackers who are “shooting” with cars and knives.

Maybe I’m being overly sensitive and should just retreat to my safe space where I can pretend like this is all a bad dream that will go away if I wish it hard enough or whine loudly enough. unfortunately, that doesn’t work for me since unlike many of today’s college students and other Hillary Clinton supporters, I’m an adult, and a realist. Calling rampaging attackers “active shooters” is easy and accepted, so it’s not likely to go away anytime soon.

Nonetheless, I refuse to participate in this misappropriation of terms, and I refuse to abdicate the proper application of “active shooter.” As George Orwell noted; “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” I am an active shooter. I hope to be a more active shooter going forward, and to remain an active shooter for many years to come.

To all of my fellow active shooters out there I say, stand firm. Don’t let them shame you from who you are. Shoot on brothers and sisters. Be proud. Be loud. Stay active. And shoot!

Shooter ready? Stand by…

Will Trump Betray us with Petraeus?

By Jeff Knox

(December 1, 2016) David Petraeus is reputed to be on President-elect Trump’s short-list of candidates for the office of Secretary of State, along with former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney. The Trump transition team has said that the list has been whittled down to just four names, but they have only confirmed Romney and Giuliani as being among them. Several other names have been floated, as numerous foreign policy luminaries have been spotted coming and going from meetings with Trump, but who is a contender, and who is merely advising on choices has not been clear.

Of significance to GunVoters is the fact that all three of the most prominently mentioned names, Giuliani, Romney, and Petraeus, have gone on record in support of restrictions on firearms, with Petraeus being the most recent and perhaps the most egregious among them. Romney signed an “assault weapon” ban when he was Governor of Massachusetts, and made statements supporting various gun control proposals during his first run for President, but walked back those positions during his 2012 run for the presidency. As a U.S. Attorney and later as the mayor of New York City, Giuliani was voraciously anti-gun, but has also backed away from the issue as he moved further into the Republican camp.

Petraeus has generally been silent about issues outside of his specific areas of expertise – international relations, military strategy, and related economic issues – but he deviated from that rule this past June when he, along with former astronaut, Mark Kelly and a handful of other retired,high-ranking officers, announced the formation of a new gun control advocacy group called the Veterans Coalition for Common Sense.

Kelly is the husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was seriously injured when a deranged leftist – who had passed a background check – shot her and several other people at a Tucson gathering in 2011. Giffords and Kelly subsequently formed a political action committee called Americans for Responsible Solutions, which advocates for and funds gun control efforts. They have collected and contributed millions of dollars to pro-gun control politicians – almost exclusively Democrats – and were ardent supporters of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

All indications are that the very highly publicized new veterans group was actually nothing more than a publicity stunt to try and create the appearance of veteran support for “progressive” causes like gun control. Since the announcement, this “coalition” has not even established an internet presence or created a Facebook page. In fact, a Google search of the name finds only references to the original announcement, a frustrated disclaimer from a long-established group with a similar name – Veterans for Common Sense – firmly denying any connection to the Veterans Coalition for Common Sense, and lamenting that Kelly, Petraeus, and company chose such a similar name, and a spoof Facebook page established by some creative pro-rights advocate.

The parent organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, might occasionally use the group’s name and list of military advisers for fund raising and lobbying purposes, but the lack of any any evidence that the group actually exists beyond its name and list of advisory board members, strongly suggests that it was nothing more than a facade to allow a few prominent, left-leaning officers to throw a rock on the tracks of the Trump train and try to bolster the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

The fact that David Petraeus would lend his name to such a political farce, suggests that he is either incredibly naive, or a closet partisan. Either way, in spite of his education and experience, the poor judgment or political chicanery disqualify him from holding the office.

Rights advocates, led by Gun Owners of America, are actively petitioning the Trump transition team to remove Petraeus from the list of potential candidates, and calling for their members and other groups to join the push. The Firearms Coalition is also opposing Romney and Giuliani due to their past positions and concrete actions in support of gun control.

While some might suggest that the office of Secretary of State has little to do with domestic gun control issues, the global trade in guns and ammunition gives the State Department direct bearing on the rights of American gun owners. Along with issues like the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which has already significantly impacted availability of surplus ammunition and many firearm replacement parts, the State department also has jurisdiction over the re-importation of firearms that were sold or given to our allies, and oversees implementation and enforcement of the International Traffic in Arms Regulation, or ITAR, which has recently been used to threaten firearm designers and gunsmiths. For almost a decade, the State Department has been blocking the re-importation of thousands of highly collectible, World War II vintage guns that were sold or given to Korea back in the 1950s and ’60s.

Petraeus has a strong resumé, and arguments can be made in favor of his nomination, but right now those arguments are primarily being made by CNN and The Atlantic, whose recommendations are themselves pretty good arguments against him.