We are all susceptible to the occasional knee-jerk reaction.  We hear something and immediately jump to a position of opposition or support with little or no evidence to support the position.  Sometimes such gut responses are correct and are subsequently validated by additional information, but often they are completely off base. 

As a Second Amendment advocate I run into a lot of jerking knees and gut feelings that can be very difficult to overcome.  They usually hit me as questions – like “why should anyone be allowed to have a gun like that,” or “why should anyone be allowed to have a gun in a church – library – school – bank, etc.”  There are typically two parts to my answers to such questions.  First I point out that, as the person exercising a constitutionally protected, fundamental right, it is not I who carry the burden of proof – it is the person wishing to restrict my rights.  Therefore the questions should be; “what justification and authority exists for banning this type of gun, or prohibiting firearms possession in this location.”  Because these questions come from gut feelings, most people asking them are completely blind to the bias implicit in the questions, even when it is pointed out to them.  So the second part of my answer tries to apply some logic and proven historical facts to the issue.  Of course, if the person is more committed to emotion than reason, there is little hope of swaying them, but, if a person is willing to suspend their emotions and let fact supercede assumptions, there is a chance I can make a convert.

Continue reading Shun Knee-Jerk Reactions →

Every year, voting members of the National Rifle Association (those with 5 or more years of consecutive membership and those with Life or higher-level memberships) are asked to participate in the governance of their organization by voting for a third of their 76-member board of directors.  And each year, due to a long and tumultuous personal and family relationship with the organization, I am asked to make recommendations among the candidates.  This year I am calling for voting members of the association to “Bullet Vote” for one candidate:  Mrs. Maria Heil.  There are certainly other candidates on the ballot whom I feel have been, and/or would be, good directors, and members who value my guidance should also feel free to vote for other worthy candidates, but I don’t believe any of those candidates needs my endorsement to win a seat.  Mrs. Heil has an impressive record in Pennsylvania and with the Second Amendment Sisters, but is not well known among NRA members.  I think she would be an excellent addition to the NRA Board and hope that my endorsement might give her the nudge she needs to be elected. 

Due to the way NRA elections work, the only real competition in the election is for the last few positions, and the vote totals for those marginal candidates are often within just a few votes of each other.  That means that just a few extra votes for a candidate can make a big difference, and voting for more than just a few candidates – especially voting for several who are expected to be in the bottom dozen vote-getters – can dilute an individual ballot and cost their favorite a seat.

Continue reading NRA Board Elections Continued →

Guns are Booming

You wouldn’t guess that the nation’s economy is in the doldrums by looking at the activity on the floor of the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas this week.  This is the week of the annual SHOT Show, when tens of thousands of members of the firearms and outdoor sports industry make a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to attend the industry’s biggest trade event.  Sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), SHOT stands for Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade.  It is where manufacturers, importers, dealers, wholesalers and distributors, get together to examine wares, make connections, and do business – lots of business. 

As I’ve been making my way around the acres and acres of the exhibit hall, talking to old friends and meeting new folks, there are two things that are very clear: Business is good, but people are concerned about the future.  It has been suggested that Barack Obama should receive the title of Firearms Salesman of the Year for the past three years, but you find little interest in extending his tenure.  Sentiment runs high (and high is an understatement) in favor of Mr. Obama being held to a single term.  Nonetheless, there is much concern about the Republicans’ ability to deliver a candidate who can defeat him.  The consensus seems to be almost as opposed to Mitt Romney as they are to Obama.  Romney’s enthusiastic support for an “assault weapons” ban when he was Governor of Massachusetts leaves gun owners mistrustful of him.  Nor is the idea of a Republican controlled Congress with Romney in the White House an especially reassuring prospect, since politicians tend to stand with their president.  Several pointed toward the tragic murders in Tucson when Rep. Gabriela Giffords was wounded, and suggested that had Romney been President at that time, a ban on magazines over 10 rounds would almost certainly have been enacted.  Republicans seem to excel at shooting themselves in the foot – particularly when they control both Congress and the White House – and the gun industry has noticed.

Continue reading 2012 SHOT Show →

Tripping over NYC’s Stupid Gun Laws

        The closing days of 2011 brought a rash of collisions between otherwise upstanding citizens and New York City’s infamous gun laws.  On December 16 Mark Meckler, a prominent California Tea Party leader, was arrested at LaGuardia Airport as he attempted to check luggage containing his unloaded, cased, handgun in accordance with TSA, FAA, and Delta Airline rules.  Then on December 22, fourth-year medical student Meredith Graves was arrested at the 9/11 memorial when she asked a security guard where she could check her pistol in an attempt to comply with a “No Guns” sign.  That case echoed a September case in which Indiana jeweler, Ryan Jerome, also tried to comply with a “No Guns” sign at the Empire State Building by asking a guard to hold his gun.

These are just the latest examples in a long stream of incidents that serve to demonstrate how gun laws snare the law abiding.  Each case is unique, but virtually every case of an otherwise law-abiding citizens running afoul of draconian gun laws – in New York or elsewhere – falls into one of the following broad categories:

• ●Ignorance:

Both Meredith Graves and Ryan Jerome thought they were complying with the law when they attempted to surrender their sidearms for safekeeping.  They saw the signs and tried to obey.  Unfortunately they didn’t see any “No Guns” signs when they crossed into New York.  They should have known better.

Ignorance is a dangerous thing.  There are several web sites which feature interactive gun law maps.  For more detailed information, I recommend GunLaws.com, where my friend Alan Korwin offers the most comprehensive collection of books about owning, carrying, and using guns at home or away, anywhere in the country.

Continue reading More NYC Gun Laws →

Fewer Stupid Gun Laws

 I wasn’t among the estimated 2 million or so people who found a gun under the tree this Christmas, not because I didn’t want one or because my wife doesn’t love me, but because of stupid gun laws and an aversion to spending extra money to satisfy those stupid gun laws. 

I’m frugal by nature and that inclination has gotten more pronounced with the current economy and future uncertainties.  But this Christmas my friends at J&G Sales made me an offer I didn’t think I could refuse.  They lowered the price on their P64 pistols to just $149.95!  The P64 is a Polish knock-off of the famed Walther PPK carried by James Bond, but with a little more power.  I just had to have one and my wife agreed so it was settled.  That’s when the stupid gun laws kicked in.

In order to take advantage of the great deal from my friends in Prescott, I had to either drive up there or call and have the gun shipped to a dealer closer to my home in the Phoenix area.  Driving up to Prescott takes about 2 and a half hours each way and would burn close to $50 worth of gas.  Having the gun shipped down to a local dealer would add a $22 shipping charge plus a $35 transfer fee from my local dealer.  Either way I would have to fill out paperwork and get approved through the NICS “instant” background check system.  My sister, who lives in Prescott, could have gone down to J&G and picked up the gun for me except that’s illegal.  If she were buying the gun for me as a gift, that would be OK, but if she were to buy it on my behalf or with the intention of selling it to me, that would be considered a “straw purchase” and she could face 5 years and $50,000 in penalties.

Continue reading All I Wanted for Christmas Was →

Presidential Hopefuls are Human

With less than 11 months until Americans go to the polls to elect the next President, and early Primaries and Caucuses underway, the prospects for “Hope and Change” are not looking promising.  Certainly plenty of promises are being made, but those promises, and the politicians making them, are long on brag and woefully short on substance or credibility.  While I represent a single-issue organization and use the right to arms as a primary litmus test of any politician’s qualifications, I also look at broader issues beginning with understanding and support for the rest of the Constitution, understanding of liberty-based economics, and their ability to effectively express their understanding and support of these things in such a way as to engender confidence and garner support from the voting public.  Mr. Obama has proven that his qualifications in that regard are limited to saying things that elicit support from certain segments of the population (most notably mass media), but virtually all of his policy positions and personal values are in conflict with my own beliefs and the vision of our founding fathers.  Unfortunately, the choices on the Republican side fall seriously short as well.  

My brother and close collaborator, Chris Knox, and I have been hashing through the candidates, their philosophies and histories, and likely election scenarios for months now in hopes of finding a candidate to whom we can, in good conscience, offer our endorsement.  There isn’t one.  Every candidate we have examined has glaring flaws in their records or beliefs which we simply cannot endorse. 

Continue reading 2012 Primaries →

Attention Lamestream Media…

          To all of those “reporters” and pundits at ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, the New York Times and all the other Times, the Boston Globe, the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Arizona Republic, all of the Tribunes, Stars, and Ledgers;

Let me make something perfectly clear: The NRA is not the Gun Lobby.  Neither is the NSSF, nor the GOA, nor even The Firearms Coalition, nor the hundreds of grassroots and activist organizations or the thousands of local gun clubs.  I am the Gun Lobby.  Whenever you talk about the Gun Lobby, you are talking about me.  All those groups and entities work for me, but they are not me, and they do not necessarily speak for me.  My power does not derive from my personal wealth nor financial support from the industry that serves me.  My power comes from the fact that I am one of tens of millions who understand that individuals have the right and the obligation to protect themselves from criminal assault, and that no one — not the government, not the media nor anyone else, has the right to decide what, when, where, or how I responsibly exercise that right and obligation.  We – each of us – are the Gun Lobby, and we’re not going away, We’re not backing down, and we’re not giving in – not one little bit.

It infuriates me when I hear “reporting” and editorializing about “the powerful Gun Lobby” and “the intransigent Gun Lobby” and sometimes even “the evil Gun Lobby,” as if we were a handful of rich fat cats in safari shirts sitting in a mahogany-lined room full of leather, stuffed animals, and cigar smoke plotting how to increase our profits by increasing crime.  We are the people!  We are the 80 to 90 million people in this country who own guns and the tens of millions more who do not own guns, but fully support our right to do so.

Continue reading I Am The Gun Lobby →

A Disturbing Case in New Mexico

Guilty or not, this is too much

                A family of four – Rick Reese, his wife Terri, and their two sons, Ryin – 24 and Remington – 19 – was arrested in Las Cruces, New Mexico on August 30, 2011.  They have been held in four separate county and federal detention facilities without bond ever since.  Their alleged crime is that, over the course of several months, they sold between 15 and 30 guns to people they knew, or should have known were gun traffickers for Mexican drug gangs.  The Reeses insist that they are innocent of any crime.

Shortly after they were arrested in Las Cruces, dozens of police vehicles, including four armored personnel carriers and two helicopters, full of armed officers and agents from numerous federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies swarmed over the Reese’s home and businesses.  The entire firearm and ammunition inventory was taken from Rick Reese’s store as well as his entire personal collection of firearms and all cash and valuables from his home safe.  Even the 30 to 40 empty gun safes that were on display at the store were seized.  US Attorney Ken Gonzales indicated that he is going to seek asset forfeiture of the Reese’s home and 25 acre property (including the shooting range on the property which he leased to various law enforcement agencies), all of the cash and valuables seized, their vehicles, and a monetary judgment of at least $36,000 from whatever assets might be left.

Continue reading Reese Family Under Attack →

Congress Packs Firearms Riders in “Minibus”

           (29 November, 2011) Rather than pass a large, all-encompassing omnibus appropriations bill for the new fiscal year – which began on October 1 – Congress narrowed the scope of their first funding bill to cover only certain essential services and agencies in what they dubbed a “minibus” appropriations bill.  Even so, the measure, which was finally passed in mid November and signed by the President on November 18, was massive and complex.  Along with funding government agencies and specific programs, the Congress included numerous limitations on how the money can and cannot be spent, including over a dozen riders pertaining to firearms issues.  Most were directly related to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), while others were aimed at the Justice Department and other agencies which deal with firearms law enforcement, record keeping, import, and export, etc.  Such instructions, known as riders, are nothing new, in fact, most of the ATF provisions have been included in appropriations bills for years, some for decades.  But this year’s unique “minibus” has some new tricks.

A permanent prohibition against the establishment of any sort of federal registration system of firearms and firearm owners, which has been included in appropriations bills since 1979, is among the more significant features of this bill.  That provision was originally promulgated under the guidance of my father, Neal Knox, when he was Executive Director of NRA-ILA, the NRA’s lobbying division, and has been included in appropriations bill each year since.  Dad would be pleased to see this protection finally made permanent.

Continue reading Minibus →