I spent an hour this evening speaking on the air with Dr. Laurie Roth on her syndicated radio program. The discussion covered a lot of ground and the hour was gone before I knew it. The show was done on short notice and while I don't think it was my best work, I think you'll find it interesting. You can listen to the program by clicking here or go to www.theRothShow.com.
Two rumors keep popping up and making the rounds through the viral e-mail circuit:
1. Obama is planning a 500% tax on ammo
2. All the ammo you currently have is going to become illegal in July and only ammo with serial numbers will be legal.
Both of these rumors are bogus.
The ammo tax idea has been a fantasy of the gun banners for decades, but I have seen no recent attempt to implement any such thing. Such a tax would require an act of Congress and while there has been a bill introduced which addresses gun and ammo excise tax issues, it is a pro-gun bill trying to fix some problems in the system. There has not been a serious proposal put forward to dramatically increase taxes on ammunition.
Part of the source of the resurgence of the ammo tax rumor could be the ammo serialization rumor. While ammo serialization is a real issue, it is not an imminent threat. There is a company that built a machine that can engrave tiny serial numbers on bullets and cases and they have established a fake organization promoting the technology as a crime solving tool. They have also convinced legislators in about 18 states to introduce model legislation they have written. So far not even California or Massachusetts has come close to actually adopting the legislation.
So while the threat of mandating serialization and registration of all ammo – and the destruction of all non-serialized and registered ammo – is real, it is not gaining any traction and is unlikely to do so in the near future. This idea should be carefully watched, but not panicked over.
There is another rumor that I'm a bit more concerned about. Sources say that some in the State Department are moving to block the importation of "military caliber" ammunition. While this is still just a rumor at this point, it is something I warned about during the effort to block the Holder nomination. Hillary Clinton at State, Eric Holder at Justice, Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, not to mention Obama himself… We definitely have enemies in high places and there are things which can be done to harass the firearms community without involving Congress. Restricting, delaying, and generally interfering with imports of ammunition, guns, and gun parts are all very real possibilities. It is also very possible that Eric Holder might change regulations on firearms manufacturers, dealers, and importers to make it much more difficult for them to do business and make them more vulnerable to criminal charges for technical errors.
None of these things is anything more than rumor and speculation at this point, but they are likely possibilities and require careful watching and an immediate response if any of them begins to come to life. In the mean time, we all need to be careful about raising false alarms that could dull the response when a real alarm is sounded.
On that note, if you have not signed up for the Knox FC Alerts e-mail alert list, now would be a great time to rectify that. We won't bury you in spam or fill up your in-box. We only send alerts when there is something to report – or occasionally when things have been slow for a month or two I'll send out a little update just to remind you we're here and to make sure the system still works.
To sign up for the Knox FC Alert e-mail alerts list, just click here.
An important oversight in the drafting of the Tennessee concealed carry permit system left the record of who has a permit to carry concealed weapons resulted in a grandstanding newspaper putting up a web site with permit hoders' names and zip codes . A huffy editorial from columnist Chris Peck resed on the sanctity of the public's right to know, pointed out that the paper only published a matter of public record, and feined shock and dismay that anyone should object. Some bloggers responded by publishing home addresses of the paper's staff including Mr. Peck's.
The issue heated up recently as an argument over parking escalated into an incident such as the Brady Bunch would have scripted and a man was shot. Locals tell me that it looks like the permit holder was in the wrong and probably needs to go to jail. The Brady Bunch told us this would be happening all over the place. That such incidents are exceedingly rare is the news that doesn't make the news, much as an armed citizen who stops a rampage barely makes a ripple in the media.
A New York Times Op-Ed piece by John Arquilla, a Naval Postgraduate School professer, titled “The Coming Swarm” warns of a possible terrorist threat in the form of a “swarm” attack, a series of simultaneous smal-unit actions much like the Thanksgiving Mumbi attacks. The piece correctly points out that anti-terrorism respondents are geared toward a single mass-casualty event, where Mumbai was paralyzed by a half-dozen two-man teams.
I made a similar prediction shortly after the Mumbai event in a Knox Report column, “The Siege of Mumbai ” and friend Derek Bernard followed up with a piece by Richard Munday that was printed in The TImes of London. Mr. Munday focused on an obvious point that seemingly went right over the head of Professor Arquilla, that being that some of the would-be victims might happen to be armed. That there could be an armed citizen to fight back would indeed be a tall-odds proposition in disarmed Mumbai, London, or in Monterey, California, home of the the Naval Postgraduate School. But in Phoenix, Dallas, or Orlando, where roughly two percent of the population have obtained concealed carry permits, the odds tilt.
In those cities, I suppose we can expect the attacks to occur in airports or other disarmed victim zones.
The Knox Update
From the Firearms Coalition
The NRA Board: Where is Your Voice?
By Chris Knox
(February 11, 2009) If some mythical “conservative” President were to appoint James Dobson of Focus on the Family to head the Federal Communications Commission, can you imagine the stink that would arise from the American Civil Liberties Union? Likewise, if some hypothetical “liberal” President were to appoint Planned Parenthood Vice President Dr. Vanessa Cullins to be Surgeon General, the protests from pro-life activist organizations would rattle the walls.
So why is it that when this President appoints a virulently anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment activist to be the chief enforcer of the nation’s gun laws (and defender of the Constitution), the largest and most powerful organization tasked with preserving, protecting and defending the Second Amendment confines its opposition to a nicely written letter to the Judiciary Committee that closes with a meek request to “consider our concerns carefully?”
Alan Korwin, author of a number of books on gun laws and rights related matters, writes a review of the news which he calls "Page 9." If you don't subscribe to this clever and thought provoking e-newsletter (it's free) I would encourage you to do so, or you can read it here as we plan to post each new eddition. Here is the table of contents for the current eddition. Just click the "Read More" link to read the entire newsletter.
by Alan Korwin, Author
Gun Laws of America
Contents:
(searchable by item number)
1- Million Gun March
2- State Sovereignty Bills
3- No-Fly Gun Ban
4- Gun Rights Commerce
5- Pork Free Stimulus
6- Kelo's Empty Lot
7- NewsBull Continues Unabated
(Click "Read More" for the full report)
Interpreting the Second Amendment
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
By Jeff Knox
(February 5, 2009) It has been famously said and often repeated that the Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means. While this statement is generally true, it is incomplete. Regardless of what the Supreme Court says, the Constitution ultimately means what the People believe it to mean.
So far in our history the Supreme Court has refrained from any interpretation of the Constitution that was so flagrantly at odds with the beliefs of the People that a serious, violent uprising ensued. But they may have come perilously close in last year’s decision in DC v. Heller. In that case the Court unanimously agreed that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right to arms, but disagreed in a 5 – 4 split as to whether the District of Columbia’s virtual ban on handguns violated that individual right. Even in the prevailing opinion, the justices expressed positions which are completely at odds with the understanding of those of us in the Second Amendment community.
(Click "Read More" for the rest of the story) Continue reading Surrender or Die!
Jeff's been after me to create a "bumper sticker" image that guys can put in their sig files or on their web sites. Clicking on this link will bring people directly to our home page. We'll be more effective if we get more traffic. That's good for us, good for your readers, and ultimately good for our gun rights. We hope you'll agree and add us to your signature line and web site.
Here's the code.
HTML:
<a href="http://firearmscoalition.org/s.php " title="The Firearms Coalition" target="_blank"><img src="http://firearmscoalition.org/fclogo.gif" alt="The Firearms Coalition" /></a>
BBCode (for forums and such)
[url=http://firearmscoalition.org/s.php][img]http://firearmscoalition.org/fclogo.gif[/img][/url]
By Jeff Knox
(January 29, 2009) When Barack Obama announced that he intended to nominate Eric Holder to be his Attorney General, we at The Firearms Coalition launched an aggressive campaign to block the appointment and urged all other Second Amendment organizations to do likewise. Holder was Janet Reno’s top deputy in the Clinton administration and has proven himself to be a radical opponent to the rights of firearms owners. Holder has not only testified before Congress in support of expanded restrictions on firearms ownership, he signed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in DC v. Heller in which he espoused the theory that the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is actually a right of the states to organize militias. Someone with such twisted opinions about the Constitution should not even be considered for the position of Attorney General.