Obama Campaign Arm Urges Gun Control Rallies on Newtown Anniversary

The Hill reported yesterday that Organizing for America, the Obama campaign advocacy group, is urging supporters of gun control to hold events on the anniversary of the Newtown school shooting this month.

Organizing for America (OFA) says it intends the events to be a "powerful reminder of what we lost a year ago, and a reminder that we as a nation need to do more to prevent gun violence and keep our communities safe."

OFA says that the events will be held in towns and cities across the country and will be used to "call on Congress to finally take action to make our communities safer."

Nevermind that nothing proposed by Obama or the gun ban lobby since the shooting would have stopped it from occurring.

Hat tip to John Lott.

Anti-Rights Side Mounts Offensive Strike

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing reports that in the hope of keeping the public's attention squaring on their goal of massive restrictions on our rights, the gun ban crowd launched a two prong offensive today.  First, for the first time since resigning her seat in Congress, former Representative Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly took to USA Today to announce the creation of Americans for Responsible Solutions, with the goal of raising gobs of money to try and counter the pro-rights side.  Second, Mayor Bloomberg and his band of merry mayors took to the airwaves with an appeal from the mother of a 9-year-old daughter child who was killed in the Tucson shooting. 

The same report notes that Biden's group of gun ban proponents has meetings planned for tomorrow with gun ban organizations and groups representing victims of gun violence; on Thursday with gun ownership advocates and sportsmens’ groups; and on Friday with Hollywood and video-game lobbyists. To give the appearance that this is all about more than gun control, CQ also mentions that Education Secretary Arne Duncan is meeting with parent and teacher groups, and HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius is meeting with mental health experts.

Regarding that supposed Thursday meeting of "gun ownership advocates and sportsmen groups, a call came in to the VSSA office a producer at CNN's Washington Bureau.  He said that he, and everyone else at CNN are trying to find out exactly who are the "gun rights" groups invited to the meeting.  According to this producer, their sources cannot identify any such groups, and that NRA, GOA, etc have told them they have not been invited, and can't get an answer from the people hosting the meeting.

Folks, we need to make sure our representatives who are our friends do not get weak kneed.  This past Sunday, Gun Talk's Tom Gresham announced Operation Gun Rights, where he asked everyone to call and email your two senators and representative in Congress every week for the next eight weeks and politely let them know we're the good guys, we don't commit crimes, and gun control does not stop criminals, so I am opposed to any and all gun control.  We all need to make calls, send emails, and write letters (understanding that it takes three weeks for a letter to get through the system).

Update: The Hill reports that NRA and a variety of other groups  will meet with Biden on Thursday.

Given His Performance on the "Fiscal Cliff" Boehner is Not Who I want Leading this Discussion

Via The Hill:

"We need to have a discussion about guns," the lawmaker said, relaying Boehner's remarks, "and that doesn't mean that all of a sudden we abandon the Second Amendment or the NRA [National Rifle Association] or anything like that. But there needs to be a discussion and everybody needs to participate and we need to depoliticize it."

Yesterday, this blog linked to a couple of articles, one by Dave Kopel, and one by Clayton Cramer, that suggested gun control is not where we should be putting our focus, but instead, areas like how the country deals with the issue of mental health. They should be required reading for Boehner and the rest of the members of Congress. 

If the "Fiscal Cliff" is an example of Speaker John Boehner's negotiating skills, I fear for my Second Amendment freedoms

At least not every member of the GOP is getting weak kneed.  Virginia's 6th District Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte of told CQ Roll Call on Tuesday that he does not favor additional gun control, such as banning assault weapons or high-capacity magazines. Goodlatte will take over as chairman of House Judiciary next year.

Hat tip to Sebastian.

White House Lays Out What Gun Control Obama Would Support

Politico has this report on what White House press spokesmen Jay Carney said during this afternoon's press briefing:

Kopel Writes about Guns, Mental Illness and Newtown

Maybe Virginia Senator Mark Warner, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and now Republican Senator Marco Rubio should have read Dave Kopel's Op/Ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal before jumping on the modern sporting rifle ban bandwagon:

Back in the mid-1960s, in most states, an adult could walk into a store and buy an AR-15 rifle, no questions asked. Today, firearms are the most heavily regulated consumer product in the United States. If someone wants to purchase an AR-15 or any other firearm, the store must first get permission for the sale from the FBI or its state counterpart. Permission is denied if the buyer is in one of nine categories of "prohibited persons," including felons, domestic-violence misdemeanants, and persons who have been adjudicated mentally ill or alcoholic.

And for those talking about bans on ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds:

Nor are magazines holding more than 10 rounds something new. They were invented decades ago and have long been standard for many handguns. Police officers carry them for the same reason that civilians do: Especially if a person is attacked by multiple assailants, there is no guarantee that a 10-round magazine will end the assault.

Read Kopel's entire article.  He makes some similar points that Western Idaho professor Clayton Cramer makes in this article.

Amid Gun Contol Talk, White House Says No Simple Solution

The Hill reports that the White House spokesman said while the president has expressed support for "commonsense measures" he said Friday's shooting is a complex problem that requires a complex solution. Though he refused to address specific proposals or give a timeline for proposals.

Carney was asked whether delaying a legislative proposal risked failing to harness the outrage in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The press secretary said it was hard to "imagine in a few weeks or a few months that pain would not still be incredibly intense and present."

The article also noted that Virginia Senator Mark Warner has joined the chorus talking about banning sporting rifles, also known as so-called "assault weapons." Warner called the Newtown shooting a "game changer."  While Warner earned an "A" rating from the NRA in 2000 after having signed a number of pro-rights bills as governor, he has what can be termed a checkered past on the issue.  As chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia he supported a waiting period for purchasing handguns, supported Governor Doug Wilder's handgun rationing bill, and later supported the Clinton Gun ban.

UPDATE: CBS TV 6 and The News Leader reported and a stronger statement by Warner making it clear he now supports Obama's call for banning so-called "assault weapons."

Roll Call Daily Briefing Lays Out Gun Control Options

Roll Call's Daily Brief provided a glimpse of the gun control options available to the Obama Administration after Friday's Newtown school shooting.  They started by noting that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, whom they note is a "lifetime NRA member," has come out and said now may be the time to discuss more gun control.  This from Roll Call's Daily Briefing:

The West Virginian, who’s becoming the most influential culturally conservative Democrat in the Senate, said on MSNBC that he agrees with Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York, who has advocated a ban on the sale of assault weapons even more far-reaching than the one on the federal books for a decade ending in 2004. Manchin strongly suggested that sportsmen and people seeking to defend their homes should not view their Second Amendment rights as being violated by reviving that same law’s ban on the sort of high-capacity ammunition clips that Adam Lanza attached to his Bushmaster while killing 20 first graders and six school officials on Friday. “I’ve never had more than three shells in a clip,” said Manchin, who says he spent the weekend deer hunting. “I’m a proud outdoorsman and hunter, but this doesn’t make sense.”

Then the Daily Briefing went on to talk about Obama's options.  They started with executive orders or DOJ regulations on "high capacity magazines."

The most aggressive option would be to impose a unilateral ban, either by executive order or through Justice Department regulations, on high-capacity magazines. (The 1994-2004 law banned clips of more than 10 rounds.) Other options mainly involve tightening the rules for background checks (to include private sales as well as those by licensed dealers) and expanding the reach of the FBI system (so that it becomes aware of information on file at other federal agencies about such things as mental competence, for example). They have been floated by administration officials several rimes in the two years since the Gabby Giffords shooting, but not pushed beforehand, because of administration officials’ concerns about enraging the NRA while the president was running for re-election.

Retiring Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman has suggested the creation of a presidential commission with that would include representatives from the NRA to look at the issue of gun laws and the mental health system.  The first thing that should give people heartburn about this suggestion is that he also said the panel should include representatives from Hollywood.  Not sure what they know about firearms or mental health.

On his program today, Rush Limbaugh noted that Bill Bennett suggested yesterday that there should be at least one "competent" armed person in every school.