Pay Your Tax, Son, and Go and Sin No More...

(if this is not perfect King's English, its because I was reminded to get off my ass and walk the dog. edits will come later. also note I am speaking for myself)

Ammo at The Outdoorsman of Santa Fe
Santa Fe New Mexican photo, Luis Sanchez Saturno credit

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” From “The Crack-Up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Sin taxes, and an ammo tax proposal as reported in the Santa Fe New Mexican sounds like such a beast, are attempts to transfer to the user of a harmful product the costs to society of self-destructive behavior. In a perfect world, we use the collected funds for public health purposes, i.e., an alcohol or cigarette tax should go into prevention and disease control so society doesn't shoulder the whole burden when the smoker/drinker gets lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver.

In the case of an ammo tax, the principal users of bullets are folks who spend days at the range, not days shooting up the neighborhood or putting a gun in their mouth. Trap, skeet, or IDPA shooters go through a boatload of ammo but do not impose the gun violence public health risk on New Mexico. The elephant in the room is that the risk to the public of gun violence is imposed by local hotheads having little or nothing to do with a traditional, legal gun culture or the various shooting sports. A sin tax directed at ammo users is penalizing the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

 As we know from sociology professor Andrew Papachristos' work, all gun owners don't have similar risk factors of "cirrhosis of the bullet"; the disease, so to speak, is concentrated in cohorts of people who hang out with people who shoot each other or who resort to violence as their main problem solving tool. I don't think there is any credible study linking heavy ammo users to "gun violence diseases" or for that matter, suicide. Sure, states with a high population of gun owners have higher gun suicide rates because the chances of using a gun to check out is higher if more homes have guns. Its not that simple of course. Alaska, which has a very high suicide rate and very high gun ownership, is also dark half the year and people are isolated. Besides, paying a tax on That Last 45 Round will not stop a suicide. More cooperation on projects such as the Gun Shop Project do help but I wonder if the mayors really want to go there with an ammo tax.

This is yet another tax on the innocent to punish us for being on the wrong side of the culture wars, not to mention punishing the innocent in order to "do anything" about the guilty. To quote David Ropeik in the NY Times (link two lines above and I suggest reading that whole series of 2013-2014 essays in that Times piece):

"...This fight isn’t about guns as weapons, nor about public safety. It is about guns as symbols, of a much more profound and ancient conflict over how society should work, and who decides. It’s just one more surface manifestation of deeper trends that have divided America into warring camps, each group retreating to the protection of its own circled wagons, looking down the sights of the tribal guns at those outside the circle. Other ideologies are the enemy, a threat. Until that deeper conflict softens, little is likely to change about gun control."

In the New Mexican article, Ms. Viscoli of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence suggests amending the state constitution to remove the state constitution's gun law preemption clause so that cities like Santa Fe could ban assault rifles. I've read of conservatives in New Mexico who wanted to ban late term abortions from places like Albuquerque. I am not fond of anyone trying to carve out political fiefdoms of the left or right to proscribe what should be considered universal rights.  Either  some guns (and some abortions) are legal or they are not. I'd like the US Supreme Court to decide these AR issues on a national scale, since the current patchwork of who can own what doesn't really make sense since motorists can quite easily cross state (or city) lines. After all, what's to keep someone who really wants an AR or a case of untaxed ammo from buying it in Carlsbad (or fill in the blank)) and stashing it at home? Universal police searches?

Finally, on a related topic, the current version of the background check bill prefiled at the legislature (see my previous post) is pretty close to universal and would impose FFL fees on what are currently private transactions. I worked a fair amount with Stephanie Garcia-Richard in 2016 on HB 50 to narrow the bill to instances where people are selling guns to strangers rather than to their brother in law or best friend of forty years, especially if two best friends live miles from an FFL in a rural part of the state and pose a negligible risk to anyone. I would still support that final, narrow 2016 bill language but have bad heartburn over this one. A universal background check is a lot like universal BAC interlocks in cars and while potentially marginally useful, both penalize innocent and guilty alike with the costs of compliance, whether it be with widgets or calls to the NICS system. Besides, universal BAC monitors in cars have always been a political third rail.

Universal drunk driver interlocks, Universal Background Checks and ammo taxes are shouldered by all of us whether or not we ever "sin". I guess that is my gripe. Maybe this idea is a good start of a discussion but as I tweeted the Mayor last night, those discussions seem always to be held behind closed doors between gun control people rather than between all interested parties. Some of this year's Legislature's bills are potentially good ideas, such as background checks, if they are restricted to sales between people who cannot vouch for each other, ERPO laws aimed at dangerous individuals, and safe storage incentives. These could be useful, especially if some carrots are added to the sticks. After all, "if it saves one life", background checks or storage requirements save society millions of dollars, i.e., the estimated social costs of homicides. So these requirements should be free (UBC's) or subsidized (gun safes, etc) and easy to obtain, not a Progressive club held over our heads. These should pay for themselves, especially if done cleverly. As Weer'd Beard said in a response to one of my posts, by issuing a state Firearms Owners ID card that would be required to purchase guns and ammo, we could issue it once and cross check it periodically for prohibited conduct. We could easily get around onerous and expensive individual background and ammo checks at point of purchase and flag those who should not be trusted with guns or bullets. So why are we not talking about these?

"...The Supreme Court’s recent decisions protecting the right of people to have guns may in time have a salutary effect on the gun debate. The court held that while people have a right to own guns – and thus government can never disarm the civilian population – there is also plenty of room for gun control under the Second Amendment. In the long run, these decisions may convince gun control advocates to give up their “first-step” ideology and gun rights advocates to realize that their rights are safe. Only then will we have a more nuanced, less emotional debate over what gun laws would make us safe – both from guns and from the criminals who use them to deprive people of their lives and liberty."  Adam Winkler, in Emotions About Guns Can Be Ratcheted Down

Note added in passing.

 The Saturday Albuquerque Journal ran an editorial by its editorial board asking why an Albuquerque judge sent home a man who had emptied an AR at Albuquerque's Finest when the judge could have, if he had wished, held the gunman without bond. I wonder if His Honor could have at least sent the gunman to a hospital for involuntary evaluation. As long as New Mexico judges are taking egregious behavior so lightly, I wonder if anything the Legislature or mayors do will accomplish much of anything. This guy wasn't just accused of shooting at cops. He had to be shot by cops to stop the threat. There ain't much doubt as to what happened. Sure, there might be mitigating circumstances. Figure that out after making sure the community is safe. I suppose this could be a case of improper i-dotting and t-crossing, but as long as our justice system is dropping the ball, laws have limited effects. Law and Order was a TV series. In real life, these fubars have real consequences.

Firearms related bills prefiled at the New Mexico Legislature

 Updated, again

 All of the House bills cleared Public Affairs without changes. I sent emails and requests for a legal opinion to the NM-ACLU on the "red flag" bill (83) and to Rep. Garcia and the AG's office on HB40. So far no one has answered the phone, which doesn't surprise me.

I did not see any of these bills scheduled for their next hearings, which will be in the House and Senate Judiciary committees. Those interested should check the committee schedules in case you can get down there. The bill web pages tell you who got the bill next and the committee schedules are linked from here.

The whole list of bills is here. I'll list the gun bills I have found and provide direct links and brief snippets. Please go to the Legislature site for details. I don't want to make endorsements or critiques here for anyone else unless the full LA-SC board concurs. These are my thoughts and do not reflect either a board or club position. This is for information purposes only to the club and others.

SB8/HB 8, background checks. (Wirth, Martinez on Senate side, Sarinana on House side) This bill would mandate Federal background checks for virtually all firearms transfers except a few temporary ones. It is far broader than the final HB 50 introduced in 2016 by Stephanie Garcia-Richards. There are currently no exceptions for close friends or family members. The final HB 50 was narrow and only covered transfers over the internet, want ads, or other exchanges between people who didn't know each other. I could support that idea. Its a Federal offense, not to mention a little scary bit of a thought, to inadvertently sell a gun to a prohibited person.

This bill defines sale as  "sale" means the sale, delivery or passing of ownership, possession or control of a firearm for a fee or other consideration, but does not include temporary possession or control of a firearm provided to a customer by the proprietor of a licensed business in the conduct of that business."

So its not clear to me whether a gun club sponsoring a shooting instruction class and letting students use club or range safety officer firearms would be considered a transfer or if a club would be considered a licensed business.

HB 35 (Garcia) would require a 24 hour reporting by FFL's if a gun is stolen and requires an FFL to pay an annual fee to cover administrative costs of this bill.

HB 40 (Garcia) would require a Federal background check for all guns sold at a gun show, i.e., no private party sales. This would impact gun shows but I don't know how many private sales go on statewide. I have seen a few tables advertised this way, i.e., "private party sale".

HB 83 (Ely) would create Extreme Risk Protective Orders, i.e., a person deemed a risk to one's self or others by a family member or law enforcement could, after a quick hearing, be required to surrender all firearms to law enforcement. These can be contested by the gun owner.  I think a review of this language by a lawyer is better than me guessing.

Note added on 2/4. Over the weekend, I got a review of this bill from the NM ACLU, of which I am a member. To make a long story short, here is what Exec. Director Peter Simonson had to say after reviewing the bill with his legal staff:

The upshot is that we have looked at this bill and concluded that it has substantive differences to the ERPO bill that our Rhode Island affiliate opposed and that the due process concerns are alleviated enough that we aren't going to take a position on the bill. Our reading is that the bill has due process protections fairly similar to a person served with a domestic order of protection.

HB 87 (Armstrong) significantly expands the list of domestic violence offenses that can result in a mandatory surrender of firearms. Again, I'll punt this to a lawyer.

 HB 101 (Rehm) would put into law that a Concealed Carry renewal would not require new fingeprints. Sorry for the wrong bill number yesterday.

HB 105 (Rehm) provides for enhanced penalties for using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

HB 130 (Trujillo) is basically a safe storage law and provides penalties if firearms are accessible to minors without parental permission or oversight. The violations become a felony if negligent storage results in death or injury. Civil penalties are also called out. The bill is written rather broadly and its not clear to me whether the "negligent storage" provision could be used against a person keeping a loaded firearm in a home for self defense, even if nothing goes wrong.

(HB 129) (Trujillo) School Security Personnel and Deadly Weapons would define who could carry at schools as a security resource and the training requirements. Not a bill that affects most gun owners.

SB 201 (Padilla) is yet another universal background check bill that also elucidates reporting to the NICS system and defines how someone can get off of the NICS prohibited list. Ridiculously, it defines a transfer so universally ("C. "transfer" means the sale, lease, delivery or other passing of possession or control of a firearm.") that if I let someone shoot my rifle at the range, I have to get a background check to do it.

SB 224 (Sharer) would waive concealed carry fees for reserve/retired police officers.

 To me, the background check bills are absurdly overbroad and should be opposed or amended. These regulate virtually all transfers of firearms, not just sales. You could not legally "transfer" a firearm to a friend, or even swap rifles with a hunting buddy under some of these provisions. If you were on travel and wanted to store weapons in a buddy's safe to prevent theft, you would have to legally transfer them at an FFL. If you or a family member were upset, potentially self-destructive, and wanted to secure your weapons with a trusted friend until you got over a crisis, you would have to legally transfer them at an FFL. Same deal to get your own guns back. This is absurd.

As far as the ERPO law, we need legal advice from a good gun law/civil liberties law attorney. The Rhode Island ACLU opposed a Rhode Island ERPO aka "red flag" bill on due process grounds and the ACLU is not exactly a gun rights organization. That info is here:

ACLU of Rhode Island Raises Red Flags Over “Red Flag” Gun Legislation

Please go to the bill locations and read for yourself. Call your legislators.  I'll add stuff but want mainly to call these out so readers can contact their legislators with input. I'll add more bills if and when they appear. Those who read this blog know I am not opposed to all forms of gun laws but I am opposed to laws written badly and our legislature seems at times good at doing that.

More ranting and raving here:

Pay Your Tax, Son, and Go and Sin No More...

 Stay Tuned

Khal Spencer
LA-SC Board Member, speaking for myself here. Even the Mutts and I often disagree.

1946 NRA Gun Safety Video

As David Yamane says in his Tweet, "...How much better is this than the culture war fighting NRATV?...". Indeed, a few more of these videos, updated, would do more to promote NRA credibility than taking a match to the NY Times or a sledge to a TV set. So courtesy of the NRA, albeit the 1946 NRA, here is a genuinely useful and non-partisan video:

Do we need a Human Reliability Program for (Certain Kinds of) Gun Ownership?

Barely have we gotten out of the news cycle of the Florida mail-bomber than an extremist, anti-Semite in Pittsburgh shot up a synagogue, killing eleven and injuring four police officers in a firefight before being captured. Robert Bowers apparently left a trail of evidence of his extreme views on social media (and hints of acting out) but unfortunately, the First Amendment protects most of this garbage, as well as social media's right to act as a toxic mind pollutant to the American psyche.

But all this has a price when one also has a stockpile of guns or bombs, as per Bowers and Cesar Sayoc. Perhaps we in the firearms community need to admit, belatedly, that the 2A has two clauses and the first one mandates that the people who universally populate the "well regulated militia" with arms in their hands need to be vetted to make sure they are pointing guns at legitimate adversaries rather than figments of their warped imaginations. How far should we go in the name of preventing these demented clowns from shooting up the nation? That, as usual, is the question.

In accordance with 18 PA C.S. §6109, a sheriff may deny an individual the right to a License to Carry Firearms if there is reason to believe that the character and reputation of the individual are such that they would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety. PA State Police web page.

Bowers apparently left a trail of hate on the Internet. Should we be monitoring the Internet and serving people who sound like they are about to go violently off the rails with Extreme Risk Protective Orders? Should owning certain classes of small arms be contingent on something like a Human Reliability Program? I think its clear that as long as anyone can procure a firearm easily, there is a clear statistical probability that some will go off the rails at other people's expense and the more lethal the firearm, the more the expense. Especially nowdays with politicians, Russian troll farms, and social media activists pouring on political gasoline and handing out matches. What can go wrong?

One could imagine something like a violence triangle as we do a fire triangle. One needs motive, means, and a decision to act, i.e., a defective mental circuit breaker, to go batshit crazy and shoot up a mosque, synagogue, church, school, or whatever your personal choice of imaginary enemy happens to be on a given day. Means plus motive without the mental circuit breaker almost guarantees some "fires" will start. One can remove the means, albeit with some difficulty in a nation with a Second Amendment. One can try to eliminate motive, but in an age of toxic social media, gutter politics, and tribalism, its tough to do that. Mental circuit breakers seem to be in short supply. I was waiting in line for an Rx on Saturday and some other customer simply went off on the poor lady behind the counter, berating her loudly enough for the whole store to notice. Several of us were contemplating the possibility of having to tackle the guy if it got much worse but he stormed off.

So how about this? As Mike Weisser has said, some hunting rifles and shotguns (and probably certain kinds of handguns) are rarely implicated in crimes or mass shootings. How about we go lightly on these lower public risk firearms but examine those guns which seem to beckon for misuse and raise the standards for ownership of some firearms?

To be qualified for the job that I once held for fifteen years in a Federal lab, I had to undergo annual background screening, including a sit down with a company shrink, to ensure that the public and fellow workers could trust that I would not go off the rails at everyone else's expense. Maybe its about time we designed a scaled down version of that sort of process for those who want to own high cap Glocks, ARs, and similar weaponry that can turn a synagogue into a charnel house in a few short minutes. I wouldn't make it prohibitive or expensive, just clear and fair to the gun nuts and the public at large. With fewer mass shootings, such a system should pay for itself, actually, even if Matt DeLisi's numbers are a little hard to believe.

Any takers?

Suggested reading: David Brooks, The New Cold War.

Santa Fe County vs State Constitution Preemption Clause

Stay tuned.

Communications Coordinator Kristine Mihelcic
Santa Fe County, NM

Dear Ms. Mihelcic

Good morning.

Over the weekend I sent the following email to the Sheriff and the County attorney. This morning I spoke to Ms. Gurule in the attorney's office. She said my message had been forwarded to a county attorney but if I wanted a response, I would have to contact the county manager. So I am contacting you.

My question remains. I am concerned that the firearms part of ordinance 2001-1 as posted on the Rail Trail is, in my understanding, in conflict with the state's preemption clause. Is the county enforcing this provision? Has anyone considered this question?

I would appreciate some guidance on this matter.

thank you,

Khal Spencer
Santa Fe

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Santa Fe County Ordinance 2001-1 and the New Mexico State Constitution Preemption clause
Date: 2018-08-12 14:37

Dear Sheriff Garcia or County Attorney's Office (Robin Gurule):

I'm not sure of whom to ask this, but the sign on the trailhead said to call the Sheriff with questions or concerns. So here goes, and I'll copy the county attorney as well.

Today I was riding my bicycle out to the Santa Fe Rail Trail for a ride to Lamy and got to the trailhead south of Rabbit road where the Rail Trail becomes unpaved. I saw a large sign at the trailhead fence that said no firearms allowed. It referenced County Ordinance 2015-6.

On returning home, I looked up 2015-6 which has nothing about firearms but refers back to Ordinance 2001-1, which says in part:

"...It shall be unlawful to carry or discharge into any County park, trail, or open space area firearms or projectile weapons or explosives of any kind..."

But the New Mexico State Constitution says in Article II, Sec 6 "No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms."

I understand that the county can ban the discharge of a weapon due to safety considerations but was surprised about being able to ban mere possession on a trail because that seems to conflict with the state constitution's preemption clause. So the bottom line, I suppose, is to ask you whether that ordinance is being enforced, whether there is a loophole in preemption clause of the state Constitution allowing firearms prohibition in parks or on trails, or if no one has asked the question yet? Since I am not a lawyer, I have no idea of the answers to any of those questions.

Can (or Should) a State Try to Ban Virtual Guns?

At what temperature
 do Internet files burn?

 "States do not have the power to censor speech or commerce in other states, especially when that commerce is licensed by the federal government." --Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation v Gubir Greywal and Michael Feuer.

"...When it comes to molding public opinion, nobody on either side ever concerns themselves with narratives based on facts..." --Mike the Gun Guy, aka Michael Weisser

Gun controllers and blue state law enforcement officials are trying to block the publication of additive manufacturing gun code. But gun designs, whether on paper or on the Internet, are not real guns. There is no domestic "gun code control law" at the Federal level; the Federal rule that for several years blocked Defense Distributed was ITAR, which controls the export of defense technology. I don't think states or cities can regulate ideas based on legal theory whipped up out of whole cloth but which are based on the notion of prior restraint unless the situation narrowly fits the bill for prior restraint. Further, in spite of the whipped up hyperbole, including panic by some in law enforcement, there is no immediate public danger overriding 1A protections, since no one has demonstrated that 3D guns are being used in crimes (not to mention, proved that reliable "AM", or additively manufactured, guns can be made in Joe's Garage.) This has got to stop, or at least pause, as cooler, technological and legal heads weigh in.

This issue goes back a few years.  Defense Distributed owner Cody Wilson has been involved in a protracted legal action with the United States regarding his publishing of code allowing someone to print an AM gun using a 3D printer. The original object of the fight, a handgun called the Liberator was a cumbersome and functionally primitive design and hardly a threat to national security. Sure, the technology will eventually get better and it's the technology which is a concern. The Feds asserted that Wilson's posting of AM plans amounted to an export of technology and therefore regulated under ITAR, the regulations used to control the export of arms, presumably for military purposes. This gambit is to keep the technology as well as the weapons out of the "wrong hands", so to speak. Ingenious malefactors can make guns out of the most primitive stuff, as the Vietcong did during our war in Southeast Asia, but there is no point to helping them do a better job of it.

Recently, however, Uncle Sam settled out of court with Wilson, agreeing that he could post the plans for guns and gun parts not deemed directly suitable for military purposes. The ears in Gun Nut Nation perked up when this rule excluded civilian versions of modern military rifles from the ITAR prohibited list. These so-called AR's are often referred to as "weapons of war" by the Anti-Gun Nut Crowd. Well, Uncle Sam is now on record as saying these are not weapons of war. I suppose close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades. Be that as it may...

When the Feds relented on Wilson's demands to publish, several gun control organizations immediately went to court to stop him from posting AM gun design code. In a decision made last week, a Federal court in Texas denied the gun controller's request for an injunction. Meanwhile, Attorney General Grewal of New Jersey and city attorney Feuer in Los Angeles threatened DD with legal action if it goes online with the data.

In the latest legal volley and return (note added later, this was before the latest Federal injunction in this fast moving story), DD and its lawyers, with the Second Amendment Foundation, are suing Greywal and Feuer for infringing on DD's 1A and 2A rights and asserting that since Uncle Sam issued a license to publish, a state or city has no jurisdiction to override Federal arms regulations and ITAR. The Reason link has a direct link to the lawsuit in case anyone wants to read what the suit actually says. I'm not a lawyer so anything I say might be off target, but Alan Gura (the winning attorney in District of Columbia v Heller) and Josh Blackman are pretty keen ones.

Your average crook can do far better than a Liberator without buying a 3D printer and further, you cannot make an entire, credible AR with a common, 3-D printer that uses plastic ink. Cody Wilson printed the AR lower, not the entire gun; much of the gun is of traditional manufacturing and furthermore, the first few failed miserably.  I don't think a virtual gun, i.e., the design code, is the same as an actual gun and I think people have the right, as Uncle Sam now agrees, to have a virtual gun just as we have the right to any other concepts other than those explicitly restricted by law, i.e., information controlled by lawful authority of government (for example, the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, 1947 National Security Act, the law behind ITAR, etc). If someone actually makes an illegal gun in New Jersey or Los Angeles, or an already illegal undetectable gun, that's a different story and is within the purview of local or state government to regulate, consistent with established law. Virtual guns, or notions of guns, should be off the regulatory table other than via legitimate rulemaking such as ITAR.

I think this is a virtual fear rather than a real one and Mike Weisser seems to agree.There is no clear and present danger here to justify clearing the very high Constitutional bar against imposing prior restraint. What we are seeing is just a lot of additively manufactured panic. Besides, its virtually (pun intended) impossible to stop something once on the internet.

"...What I hope all of this illustrates is that making a 3D printed gun is not easy, it is not quick, it is not cheap and it does not result in especially dangerous or deadly weapons. Not only is it cheaper to just buy a real gun in the United States, but it is also probably a lot faster to go buy one, even with any state-mandated waiting periods. ..."

-Scott J Grunewald, 3DPrint.com

Stay tuned.

note: I used Reason and Guns since they published a lot of this and it was easy to find links.

Hey, is there room for a 3D printer along side those drums?

To the Santa Fe New Mexican: My View on Gun Violence Prevention

Note that to get this under 500 words, a lot was left out. A few added comments here.

1. I don't like the idea of piling more laws on people but gun culture has changed. More households owned guns when I was young but we didn't have this "me too" movement of mass shootings. Plus, to borrow an analysis from Wake Forest University's David Yamane, Gun Culture 1.0 was about gunsport and hunting. Gun Culture 2.0 is about self defense, i.e., shooting people. I think that transition has encouraged a violent outlook. So if we can't figure out how to keep people from going off the rails in today's culture, we need to interdict them so they derail without taking out their schools, churches, or government buildings. Hence the need for ERPOs and watching for the Deadly Signs of Becoming Armed and Stupid.

2. The culture driving shootings is controlled by social mores (such as social media), drug violence, poverty driven crime, domestic violence, and suicidal urges in a nation where social darwinism has replaced social cohesion. The transfer of firearms from the legitimate to the illegitimate market is inevitable in a nation with 1.2 guns for every person, but we need to make it harder to transition to that illegitimate market.

3. Today's polarizing politics encourages us to see each other as not belonging to the same culture, to say nothing of the same nation. We stop taking each other's advice and instead, bury ourselves in our political bubbles. That really explains a lot about what currently amounts to the gun non-debate. To say its not about the guns but about the people has a lot of truth to it, but clever sayings don't solve the problem. I think educational and social services, drug law reform, and economic justice are far more important than gun control but the left refuses to relent on gun control and the right has abandoned the social safety net. What can possibly go wrong?

Now, on to what was sent to the New Mexican.

To reduce gun violence, we need to find consensus solutions. Consensus is hard on such a polarized topic. Some suggestions follow.

Stop trying to ban guns. Bans on so-called assault rifles fly in the face of a half century of legal ownership. Millions are out there but they make up a very minor portion of shootings.  The lion's share of shootings, including multiple shootings, are committed with handguns. “ARs” are responsible for some high profile carnage, but we can increase public safety well short of a ban.

We can require higher standards of ownership for modern, military style rifles or concealable handguns that put the public at greater risk. This could be done through progressive licensing and screening, as we presently do for automatic weapons or to screen motorists before letting them hop from a subcompact car to behind the wheel of a Mack Truck. Rules should be clear, fair and not subject to arbitrary and capricious subjective interpretations. A lower bar should be set for owning low capacity firearms or handguns more at home in the woods. Storage requirements should reflect risk, such as if children are in a home.

Once we decide on categories of firearms with respect to risk, we can issue firearm owners ID cards (FOID) with a nationally-agreed on set of criteria for reciprocity.  Each gun owner would have an ID card, similar to a driver's license, that would allow the person to own and carry some or all categories of guns, openly or concealed, depending on the permit. Of course this means red and blue states have to compromise on the reciprocity criteria but in return, we could stop worrying about gun running between states with different levels of restrictions.

In such a system, private sales would be done by entering data into a computerized National Instant Background Check-like system with FOID card numbers, PINs, a gun serial number and gun description. An exchange could be approved remotely between previously cleared people based on their level of screening for the class of weapon exchanged.

Finally, stop moving the goalposts. The biggest, and often enough, legitimate fear that gun owners have is that the rules are too fluid and often the changes can be bewilderingly stupid. Want examples? Start with California or New Jersey, states that change their gun laws faster than most of us change our socks.

The Second Amendment provides an individual right for a public purpose, i.e., that “the people” could be called to arms in order to defend the nation and to prevent the unwarranted amassing of too much coercive power by government. The Supreme Court’s Heller decision explicitly recognized in the 2A an individual right to have a functional weapon for personal self-defense. The historical reasoning behind the 2A implies some standards need to be met among the people and imposes limitations on the power of government to regulate arms. There is a lot of middle ground that can be explored if we stop demanding all or nothing solutions.

Khalil J. Spencer
Santa Fe, NM

A Modest Proposal Sure to Piss Everyone Off

6/4/18 Draft.

At the rate the GVP discussion is going, 
we are getting nowhere fast

As we continue to accomplish very little with regards to solving the problem of gun violence, I have a modest proposal. Well, maybe not so modest. But what the hell.

First. Stop trying to ban categories of guns such as ARs that have long been in circulation, since that creates a battle royal and since most of these guns are owned with little real risk to society in proportion to the political battle that would ensure if we try to ban them.  The lion's share of shootings, including multiple shootings, are done with handguns. ARs are a convenient political target for the left as a symbol of what they see as America's Gun Problem.

But as a hedge, and as I suggested in 2015 and as Mike Weisser suggested about a week ago, we can, if necessary to keep Junior from mowing down his school or place of work, modify the 1934 National Firearms Act to regulate ARs and some handguns, i.e., arms more lethal than garden variety hunting rifles, shotguns, and some large unconcealable handguns, in some manner between machine guns and Dad's Remington 1100. That doesn't mean people can't have exotic guns or, "modern sporting rifles", or whatever you want to call stuff. It just means it will be a little harder to own more lethal guns, there will be a little more screening, and not every bozo who walks into a gun shop can come out armed to the teeth with his Man Card intact. How we decide what would fall into this category should be decided carefully so we don't run afoul of Heller or intractable political issues. As a point of discussion, how about if owning "modern sporting rifles" and/or being able to carry concealed require a common, higher level of screening than traditional low capacity firearms and hefty handguns more at home in the woods. A "basic" firearms owners identification card (FOID) could be had by anyone who scores 100% on a Form 4473 and one could upgrade if the spirit moved one.

this was stupid

Secondly, stop trying to keep people from owning guns if they have not proven that they should be disqualified. Once we decide on categories of firearms, how about national reciprocity with ownership? Or at minimum, a state-issued FOID card with national reciprocity? Make it shall-issue after jumping through reasonable hoops.  Each gun owner would have an ID card, similar to a driver's license, that would allow some or all categories of guns to be owned, openly or concealed, analogous to a license that allows individuals to drive just cars vs allowing the person to drive cars, motorcycles, eighteen wheelers, etc. Of course this means red and blue states have to compromise on M.Q.'s but in return, we could stop talking about gun running from so called weak law to strong law states and I could plink at tin cans with my old man's hand cannons in NYS without fear of being chased down by Andrew Cuomo. State level sensitivities such as not carrying in government buildings could be preserved. What a concept.

Background checks? Easy.  Private sales/transfers between owners would be done by entering a computerized NICS-like system with a pair of FOID numbers, PINs, a gun serial number and description and presto, a private exchange is done between previously cleared people based on their level of screening. You want to be screened to own an M-60 for shits and grins or sell one to your buddy who is equally screened? Sure, why not? Right now there are hundreds of thousands of legally owned machine guns. They are never in the news because you have to be pretty squeaky clean to own one.  Just show you are responsible for the damn thing and God bless ya.  Just make sure you can afford the ammo.

Finally, stop moving the goalposts and messing with people who have never crossed paths with the law. The biggest, and often enough legitimate fear that gun owners have is that the rules are too fluid and often the changes are bewilderingly stupid. Want examples? Start with California. These situations make Molon Labe an understandable, if not a legally defensible response. Plus, these situations result in single issue politics at the polls, which doesn't help the bigger issue of running the country.  The recent editorial by Santa Fe Mayor Webber, i.e., that he would attempt to circumvent the state constitution's preemption clause, is yet another example of why gun owners are wary of trusting government. Sure did bug me that this showed up in the Santa Fe New Mexican three months after I moved here. No, I didn't get a call from Mr. Mayor as a "responsible gun owner", either.

I think we need to do more to keep guns under control, i.e, from being diverted from the legal to the illegal side of the house and to ensure the irresponsible dofus and clearly identified legal loose cannon is not sending rounds whizzing past my hair do. That means some controls on ownership (i.e., theft prevention and periodic cross-referencing with court records) and transfer (to ensure you don't sell that semiauto to someone about to blow away his wife after she got a restraining order against her slap-happy hubby). But if the laws are designed to control transfer  and reward lawful ownership rather than prevent ownership by good people (i.e., California et al), maybe we can get past the impasse.

The 2A was written so that a citizen militia (of whoever passed for a citizen back then) could be called on to defend the state and/or nation and to try to prevent the unwarranted amassing of power by a government that no longer represents its people. UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler covered that pretty well in Gunfight and there have been numerous papers written about the evolution of arms and self defense in England and America. Heller's contribution was explicitly including in the 2A the right to have a usable weapon for self defense in the home. The historical reasoning behind the 2A implies some standards need to be met among the people. For one, it would be wise if we don't elect assholes who we might genuinely worry about as far as usurping excessive power (hence the ballot box and high school diploma with an A in rhetoric and civics are far more powerful tools than the sword) and two, that we know the limits of being armed and therefore, know muzzle from breech as well as the law of self defense. No American who has thought carefully about the often-used Jefferson quote about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants wants to live in an Anbar Province, no matter how pissed off he gets at Big Gubbmint. Any doubts? Read the history of the Civil War.

Fix the country with a saw and hammer, not with a match and gasoline.

On Guns, Santa Fe Gun Owners Need to Be Heard

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber put a column into the Sunday New Mexican in light of the Santa Fe TX school shooting lamenting the lack of state gun control efforts. Mr Mayor stated that if the city can't regulate guns due to the NM Constitution's preemption clause, it will try to regulate magazines, ammo, and potentially take other actions if the city's lawyers think they can get away with regulating firearm use short of regulating guns. I think any attempt to circumvent the state constitution will further polarize the gun violence debate, and should be avoided.

Note this tactic was explored by the city once before, in 2013, and fortunately died a quick death as it most likely violates the state constitution's preemption clause. We are once again caught between the liberal version of regulating guns in general, especially trying to eliminate those guns that liberals find offensive, and trying to keep guns out of the wrong hands, whichever hands happen to be turning rogue.

I find it interesting that Mayor Webber put the usual Progressive language about ridding the community of assault weapons and big magazines into the context of the Santa Fe, TX shooting. That shooting was done with a garden variety shotgun and revolver, i.e., that shooting, unlike some others, had nothing to do with high capacity magazines or "black rifles". Black rifles are not necessarily the problem. Any gun in the wrong hands is the problem. But that's somewhat beside the point of the city ignoring the state constitution.

Article II, § 6 of the Constitution of New Mexico provides:

No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.

 Italics mine. Now one can suggest that ammo, or a magazine, is not a gun, but a gun without ammo or a magazine is not much more than a blued steel paperweight. Ammo, magazines, etc, are "incident" of the right to keep and bear arms since they are part of the overall package. But of course I am no lawyer.

 Having recently moved to the City Different, I would resent becoming a criminal merely by having signed a change of address form. I would likewise hate to have to sign on to an injunction to prevent an ordinance from taking effect and see my own tax dollars drained down a black hole fighting a constitutionally problematic ordinance in court rather than seeing our tax dollars directed at preventing a shooting. Hopefully, the city attorneys will not go down this rabbit hole. If the gun violence prevention folks want to get rid of preemption, it is by amending the state constitution, which from my read, is absurdly easy. One might think of that if the other side of the political fence tries the same game some day on some other hot button issue such as abortion.

The Mayor blamed the NRA for that preemption clause. While the NRA may have "swept into the state" in 1986 in support of said clause, it was added to the constitution not by the NRA, which is not a registered voter, but by the voters of New Mexico. The whole state of New Mexico is not a Progressive paradise: it is a mix of urban, rural, conservative, moderate, and liberal people. Animal rights activists and pig hunters. Vegans and venison connoisseurs. Gun haters and black rifle tinkerers. Plus, its not just the NRA that sweeps in to mess with our gun laws.  When Everytown for Gun Safety "swept into the state" in 2016 carrying a pre-written background check bill and a large wad of cash to pass around to key legislators and liberal black money organizations, their bill failed because it was ridiculously overbroad and was rejected by the Legislature. I worked on it, trying to help Stephanie Garcia-Richards cobble together a bill that had more support, but since I was not a lobbyist with a checkbook, my opinion did not much matter, although a moderated bill emerged a little too late to move forward. In fact, the NRA was out-spent and outnumbered by Mr. Bloomberg's lobbyists on that one. The one NRA lobbyist who was in the state thought my efforts were, to put it charitably, lost in the maelstrom.

Sometimes, although not necessarily in a deep red or deep blue location, consensus matters. So rather than treating gun owners like the enemy and playing fast and loose with the constitution, perhaps the City Different should find points of agreement with the firearms community. I don't think anyone here, and that includes gun owners, wants to see our schools shot up . Laws directed at actual problems, such as CAP laws to keep Junior out of the family arsenal unless supervised, tax breaks on gun safes, background checks for private sales to anyone you don't know well, well written ERPO laws, violence intervention, holding parents accountable for their kids (such as knowing if your kids are planning a mass shooting or piling up arms and explosives), engaged parenting so that kids don't go down the rabbit hole of toxic social media while having access to firearms, free gun safety training, and other efforts that don't violate the Constitution, many of which require state bills, aren't even being discussed by the City.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, if this proceeds as you have written, some of us will most likely not get out of the way. For better or worse, gun ownership (as in that "guns and bibles" quote) is part of the American fabric. I still hope there is a way to deal with gun misuse without resort to more political gasoline and matches from either side.  I would prefer both sides find common ground, which seems to be the opposite of what the nation is experiencing. Maybe we can be the "city different" with regards to gun violence prevention and find some of that elusive common ground. Maybe.

New York Magazine: No "epidemic" of school shootings.
Northeastern Univ.: School shootings, 1990's-present.

Maybe its not a drought

Editor, New Mexican

Stolen from the Albuquerque Journal article
 linked in the text

 Both the Santa Fe and Albuquerque newspapers have recently run stories about how New Mexico is in severe, persistent drought. To be sure, "severe drought" has plagued the state in 2011-12, 2013, and presently. Maybe there is a pattern here we want to avoid discussing.

Many if not most of the climate models for the 21st century suggest that climate change, in part driven by human industrial emissions, will result in progressive drying in the American Southwest. The reasons for drying include an expansion of the subtropical high, warming that increases evaporation and transpiration, and reduced snowpack. All of these will impact ground and surface water in New Mexico and put increasing stresses on natural systems and human agricultural and urban resources.

Drying in the Southwest is nothing new. Decade to century long drying has occurred several times in the last couple millennia, most pronounced during the Roman and Medieval periods. During the twentieth century, Elephant Butte Lake levels have oscillated between poverty and plenty in concert with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Anthropogenic climate forcing due to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere is an overprint onto natural variability; it intensifies the chances of increased warming and drying on a century to millennial time frame.

The bottom line is that individuals, governments, and newspapers have to stop behaving as though we are in a transient drought with a return to "normal" and realize that more likely, we are going into another prolonged drying. How well we manage drying will depend on policy decisions we make if we wish to be proactive rather than suffer the consequences of whistling past the graveyard.

Closed Course, Don't Try This At Home?

NPR ran a story a few minutes ago titled "Sandy Hook Families Push To Hold Gun Maker Accountable In Connecticut Court". The question to a state judge will be whether parents of the Newtown school kids shot up and killed by Adam Lanza can sue Remington, which made and marketed the Bushmaster rifle that Lanza used to assault the school, in spite of Remington not having any control over Mr. Lanza acquiring the rifle and in spite of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects gun manufacturers from being sued due to the intentional misuse of an otherwise properly functioning product.

 The story on NPR indicated that the lawyers will go after Remington not because the gun is dangerous.  After all, all guns are dangerous. But instead, the lawsuit will suggest Remington marketed its product in a manner that raised the chances that these rifles would be used inappropriately, i.e., "negligent entrustment" with ads like the one on the left and some shown in this NY Magazine article. Never mind that millions are out there among innocuous collectors and gun nuts and only a very few are used inappropriately, even when marketing guns with stupid ads such as the Man Card ad shown here.

If we held car companies to such standards, would cars be sold at all or would many of the car ads fail the lawsuit test? Not only are cars used inappropriately, but some car advertisements go at least as far as Remington in marketing them as something we should be using to get our aggression or sex appeal sated. See, for example these two below. I got into a shitfest with Bicycling Magazine a few years ago when BikeMag published ads advertising cars as ways to exercise one's aggression on the road. All the while, bicyclists were being subject to road rage. Bicycling told me its ad department and editorial department were on separate pages.Yeah, right.



Or this one.



 I'm not sure guns are sold any more stupidly than cars and if we expect car buyers to be able to separate dumb ads from real life, I wonder whether we are holding Remington and Benz buyers to the same standard since gun buyers should be able to do the same.

Closed course. Don't try this at home as you will be held to real life standards. You think?

Gun Owners Need a Credible NRA

 Sent to the Santa Fe New Mexican but not published.

Ebenezer Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ memorable novella A Christmas Carol, uttered the equally memorable phrase "I'll retire to Bedlam" when he thought everyone he was talking to had gone nuts. In the heated and often unfocussed rhetorical aftermath of the Parkland, Florida shooting I wonder if its time to do the same.

The National Rifle Association has gone off the rails. It promotes a toxic view of citizenship as well as gun ownership. With hunting on a downward spiral, perhaps its goal is to gin up a gun market designed around self-defense, even if we aren’t sure from whom we are defending. Furthermore, prominent NRA organizational spokespeople Wayne LaPierre and Dana Loesch compete with people like Alex Jones for who can be the most outrageous.  

Meanwhile, Democrats in Ohio wrote a bill equating innocuous, 22 rimfire hunting and target rifles from the ninteen-sixties to so-called "assault rifles” used to mow down people at the Parkland Fl school. “Kill the NRA” is a popular hashtag. On the local front, a thoughtful leader of a local gun violence prevention organization demands that school, law enforcement, and government organizations purge themselves of anyone with NRA affiliations, which amounts to McCarthyism. This in spite of people like NRA Life Member Mike Weisser being an outspoken critic of NRA leadership and an outspoken supporter of gun violence prevention on his blog and in the pages of the Huffington Post. My stepdad, also an NRA Life Member, dutifully follows the most recent NYS Safe act, putting ten round plugs in his magazines. Breaking with his single-issue tradition, he refused to vote for the Orange Loose Cannon.

As far as the NRA, gun owners need a voice in government. It’s a fact of life that any party subject to government rulemaking needs a competent, full time representative in the halls of the various legislatures to make sure its voice is heard and story understood; gun owners will be heavily impacted by any state or Federal gun control legislation. Indeed, the gun violence prevention community has multiple full time advocates, such as those funded by Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety. Mr. Bloomberg’s people don’t always get it right on the details. Neither does the NRA. Most thoughtful gun owners work full time and cannot descend on their elected representatives. We depend on competent spokespeople lurking in the halls of government. I wish we had more.

An example of a glaring misunderstanding that could affect legislation was recently provided by Lois Beckett, a thoughtful analyst who extensively covers US gun issues for the UK based Guardian. She noted that in a recent CNN poll indicating 57% of Americans would ban “rifles capable of semi-automatic fire such as the AR-15” the pollsters never defined semi-automatic firearms nor the difference between traditional autoloading hunting rifles and assault-style semiautomatic rifles based on military models.

The problem with the NRA isn’t that its claims that someone needs to represent the interests of gun owners is invalid. The problem is that the NRA leadership no longer represents gun owners; it has become a voice of the far right in the culture wars rather than a voice representing the bulk of the estimated 30-40% of Americans who own firearms. Likewise, many on the left see “guns and bibles” through the eyes of left of center culture warriors.  Thus, we don’t discuss the actual problem of gun violence so much as the overprint of our cultural values. That’s what we need to fix.

If I were still an NRA member, I would demand that the entire NRA Board of Directors be recalled and that the organization find spokespeople who understand the role of guns in society rather than competing for the Atilla the Hun Award. How about we start there?