So, you run a library. In that library, you find a WW1 German machine gun that was captured by Alvin York. You want to sell it to fund your library. Tough shit, it’s illegal:

According to the research, Lewis had plucked the weapon from a pile given up by surrendering Germans and shipped it home. Briefly prized as a souvenir of the war, it was paraded through the town on Armistice Day in 1919 by Boy Scouts who towed it in a red wagon. But over the years it faded from public view.

Its rediscovery stoked dreams of a big windfall for the library, where officials had been pondering ways to finance an expansion of the cramped facility and an upgrade of an antiquated cataloging system. Library officials said they contacted several auctioneers in New England who estimated the weapon’s value at $100,000 and perhaps several times more than that.

But the dreams didn’t last long. Library officials soon learned that the gun is illegal and that they can do very little with it.

Federal gun laws prohibit possession or sale of automatic guns unless they are registered with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. In the library attic for years, the German machine gun was never registered. The library isn’t allowed to register the gun now because federal law prohibits new registrations on automatic weapons, except in rare circumstances.

Since it is illegal for the library even to have the gun, Nahant police took it and stored it under lock and key in an evidence locker, forestalling seizure by the ATF.

“We cannot hold onto this weapon,” deStefano said. “If we kept it on the premises, they were going to come and get it, and they were going to destroy it. This is a piece of history. We’re kind of caught between a rock and a hard place.”

The town has appealed to the ATF for permission to sell the gun, but so far, bureau officials have rejected the pleas.

Possession of an unregistered NFA weapon can land you 15 years in club fed and a big fine. But:

A spokesman for the ATF said yesterday that it would be possible for the Nahant police to register the gun and take responsibility for it, which would prevent it from being destroyed. They could also possibly transfer it to another public agency, but it’s unlikely that it can be sold on the market , according to Jim McNally, a spokesman in Boston for the ATF.

He said the agency — at the request of US Representative John F. Tierney, a Salem Democrat — is researching options that Nahant might be allowed under the law, such as transferring the gun to a private museum.

Sorry. The weapon cannot be transferred. It is already contraband now. Such a transfer (and possession) is illegal. Time to destroy a piece of history due to our gun laws.

Sebastian is giving a class on gun laws. Good idea. I often see these polls wherein some percentage (usually about 30 – 40) say they favor stricter gun laws in the US. I wonder if you asked those 30-40% what gun laws there were if they could answer. I tend to doubt it. But they may know what a barrel shroud is.

While you’re over there, check out: Demonstration of why you should wear safety glasses while shooting. Ouch.

Hi-power.

No need to know that the expert, identified as a retired ATF agent, is also on the board of the anti-gun disguised as pro-gun group American Hunters And Shooters Association. In other news, Oliver Willis is still blogging and still stupid. I thought he’d quit or something since I haven’t noticed any right wing blogs making fun of him in a while. Anyway, most states ban the use of full metal jackets and non-expanding bullets for hunting. That pretty much dictates that to hunt, you use hollowpoints.

I may have spoke too soon. Here’s comes the first wave:

US Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and US Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) said Sunday they will push legislation in the US Congress that would mandate that states improve their system for reporting mental health records of gun purchasers to the federal databases for background checks in the wake of last Monday’s shootings at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute that left 33 people dead. US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) , chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also said Sunday he will hold hearings to consider the issue of guns following the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

My understanding is that as of now, most states have minimal requirements for getting said info into the NICS and 20 or so states have no requirement at all. Depending on how said legislation is drafted, I may not be a fan. After all, medical records should be private. So we can have abortions. Or something. And, of course, if said reporting includes those not convicted/committed with due process, it’s quite a slippery slope. The LAPD, for example, has been known to assume that because a person is suspected of a crime and is in possession of a gun (though said gun had nothing to do with said crime and was at the suspect’s home) that person must require a psychiatric evaluation. So, said person loses their right to arms without due process. Or, taken to an extreme, a judge can just decide you’re mentally defective, etc.

There’s also the issue that, like a lot of other gun control pipe dreams, that the feds hand down an unfunded mandate and the states tell them to give them money or get bent.

And, honestly, I don’t think anyone wants Carolyn “I don’t know what it is but I want to ban it” McCarthy making laws about something she knows nothing about. The article concludes with:

Overall, members of Congress do not seem particularly keen to amend existing gun control legislation, though there has been some support for streamlining state and federal laws regarding whether and how someone with a history of mental illness can purchase firearms.

Yeah, pretty much.

Nothing new:

Poll: Tragedy Hasn’t Changed Views On Guns
Despite Va. Tech Shootings [what media bias? – ed], Nation Remains Split On Gun Laws, No Rise In Demand For Tighter Controls

The nation is profoundly split along gender, racial and other lines over gun violence and what the government should do to control it, despite near-universal sorrow over the Virginia Tech shootings, an AP-Ipsos poll has found.

Women and minorities are far likelier than men and whites to view gun violence as a major problem, to worry about being shot, and to want stricter firearms laws, said the survey, which was taken after the killings.

Fault lines also exist by political party and where people live, with Democrats and city dwellers taking a far dimmer view of guns than Republicans and suburban and rural residents. Though similar divisions have long existed, the findings spotlight how each group’s views remain entrenched despite this week’s shootings, the worst gun slaying in modern American history.

“It’s just too easy for anybody to go in and buy a gun,” said Daphne Renolds, 59, an office manager from McDonough, Ga., a respondent in the AP survey.

Though Monday’s horrific killings of 32 students and teachers — plus the gunman — were fresh in people’s minds, there was scant movement in their attitude toward gun laws. Forty-seven percent said firearm controls should be tightened, 38 percent said they should remain unchanged and 11 percent said they should be loosened — about the same as in a January survey.

Six in 10 women think gun laws should be toughened, nearly double the proportion for men. Fifty-five percent of minorities favor stricter legal requirements, compared with 44 percent of whites.

[…]

Nearly 60 percent of Democrats favor stricter gun laws, almost double the number of Republicans, with more women in both parties supporting tougher standards.

WBIR:

The shootings at Virginia Tech have sparked a renewed debate about gun control. It may have also sparked an increase in gun sales at shops across the country.

“There’s all kinds of crazy things almost every night when you turn on the television and I think that just raises people’s worries more about protecting themselves and protecting their homes,” says Chaz Sunser of Chuck’s Guns and Ammo.

Chuck’s, a Jupiter, Florida firearms store noticed a sharp increase in business last week.

Sales had been slow after Easter, but following the Virginia Tech tragedy their concealed weapons class filled up.

Handgun and ammo sales skyrocketed, both at Chuck’s and around the country. Chuck Sunser, the gun store’s owner, says it’s a nationwide trend.

“I spoke to three of my bigger distributors up north, and most of them are in the Pennsylvania area and Connecticut and they told me that their sales, the phones are going off the hooks. And most of the gun shops that they were dealing with were out west and mostly up north.”

I don’t know that I’m willing to believe that overall gun sales are up based on one shop’s reported uptick and he-said-she-said with a distributor. But it seems lately that we always hear of gun sales increasing after some tragedy.

No, the other kind.

While we’re at it, a look at Women’s Self-Defense.

I’ve noticed something odd. I fully expected that, in light of the horrific incident at Virginia Tech, that we’d see calls for gun control. And we have. But I figured we’d also see more people agreeing with those calls. But that’s not the case (see here, here, and here – note: they’re not scientific polls).

In the 1990s, I would have bet money on that. Now, not so much. What changed? I don’t really know. But a few guesses:

1) Blogs – more importantly, faster dissemination of info and faster ability of critics of gun control to respond. On guns, the press just takes dictation from the anti-gunners. Now, folks can respond to that and dispel untruths.

2) Katrina – I think people realized during that incident how useful and practical guns are. People would not have thought so before. A spike in gun ownership happened after Katrina.

3) More concealed carry – There are now only two states that have no provision for concealed carry. And there are nine states that have may issue provisions. Your average citizen is more likely now to pack or know someone who does.

4) And, yeah, maybe (as much as I am loathe to get on the ‘it changed everything’ wagon) 9-11. But gun ownership also increased after 9-11.

I’m just speculating but there’s something in the water.

Update: And no politicians are really screaming for gun controls either. Well, except the usual suspects. And Barack Obama, who seems trapped in the 1990s. Seriously, have you heard the rest of his message? He’s like Bill Clinton only without the cool.

Meanwhile, the AFP:

The powerful US gun lobby, far from being weakened by last week’s tragic college campus shooting, actually has emerged stronger, gun advocates said, stepping up calls Sunday for a better-armed US citizenry to prevent future attacks.

A college professor was fired for re-enacting the VT shooting and how it would have been different if someone there was armed:

Winset said he gave students a disclaimer before he started his Virginia Tech re-enactment, which involved him pointing a Magic Marker at students and saying, “Pow.” He then had another student shoot him with an imaginary gun to make the point that Cho could have been stopped by another student with a firearm.

Here’s video of him talking about it.

Here’s some discussion as to how Cho did it. I’d asked before how he was able to since he was adjudicated mentally defective. Says Kopel:

Well, let’s take a look at the statute. I think, actually, the federal law was clear enough in this case, but the problem was that, as in lots of cases, the law didn’t get properly enforced.

The Federal Gun Control Act, ever since 1968, has prohibited the possession by a person or the sale to a person who is what they call mentally defective. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wrote a regulation, and that regulation says that that category includes a person who has been found by some kind of official body to be a danger to himself or others.

Cho was found to be a danger to himself or others when he was brought before a magistrate. The magistrate had the option to commit him but found that less restrictive treatment, the outpatient treatment, would be sufficient. Yet even though he wasn’t committed, that’s sufficient under federal law to bar him for the rest of his life from ever possessing a firearm.

And, in fact, there’s a case from the federal district court of Michigan, U.S. v. Vertz, that finds exactly that, that, in a very similar situation, the Federal Gun Control Act did apply and prohibited the person from having a gun.

Now, clearly it would be very helpful if these regulations were better known and disseminated more broadly to the mental health community and to the judges and magistrates who may make these commitments or determinations about a person’s danger so that this information does get reported.

Not really commenting but just gonna go ahead and say this misinfo in these bits is pretty severe.

O’Donnell

Bloomsie.

More Bloomsie..

On the issues.

The AP:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said this week’s shooting at Virginia Tech highlights serious shortcomings with gun control.

“We’re still selling handguns to crazy people,” Obama said during a campaign stop at a Nashua senior center on Friday. “We’re supposed to have a system that these people are screened out. What’s clear is the background check system in this case failed entirely.”

And:

“(Cho) had a semiautomatic weapon with a clip that allowed him to take 19 shots in a row,” Obama said. “I don’t know any self-respecting hunter that needs 19 rounds of anything. The only reason you have 19 rounds is potentially to do physical harm to people. You don’t shoot 19 rounds at a deer. And if you do, you shouldn’t be hunting.”

Gun rights aren’t about hunting and need. They never have been.

The AP:

Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle’s tires and stop an intruder.

Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

Here, for your weekend gun blogging fix.

Here, the uncle family is doing that:

See, when we get on our road, we let junior move to the front seat while I drive 10MPH for about 100 yards. I think that’s child abuse. She thinks it’s fun. The Second is oblivious.

Uncle Fred says:

Despite such attitudes, average Americans have always made up the front line against crime. Through programs like Neighborhood Watch and Amber Alert, we are stopping and catching criminals daily. Normal people tackled “shoe bomber” Richard Reid as he was trying to blow up an airliner. It was a truck driver who found the D.C. snipers. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that civilians use firearms to prevent at least a half million crimes annually.

When people capable of performing acts of heroism are discouraged or denied the opportunity, our society is all the poorer. And from the selfless examples of the passengers on Flight 93 on 9/11 to Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself to save his students earlier this week, we know what extraordinary acts of heroism ordinary citizens are capable of.

Read it all.

Dr. Helen notes some issues actually getting the info about such adjudication into the NICS. States, it seems, often don’t report mental health records and professionals in the field don’t like to divulge info due to privacy considerations.

And the mentally defective tend to lie on form 4473.

So, should mental health records be reported? What say you, gun nuts and privacy sorts?

Sebastian thinks so.

In light of this, an oldie but goodie:

1F U C4N R34D 7H15, U R34LLY N33D 70 G37 L41D

Hard to tell. Radley has an email from a guy who was at a raid on a Dallas poker room. Seems the cops ninjaed up and took an A&E film crew to bust these miscreants who are a danger to society.

And, of course, the tapes that would confirm one guy’s story disappeared.

In this post, there is a lot of info about my questions in comments.

These past couple of weeks have been big for The Second. I mentioned he’s taken a few steps and had his first haircut. He is also, as of now, off of formula and drinking whole milk. Now, The Second is a big boy. And he eats a lot. He’d go through about 1.5 cans of Similac Isomil Advance in a week. And, with tax, they run about $25 each. In a month, it’s about the same amount I make off of Google Ads.

Up next: purging my house of bottles.

Power to Automatics for the people.

Seen over at Les Jones:

“The page view has been the traditional measure for advertisers to compare which websites provide the most opportunities to display their ads to consumers. The large portals and social networking sites tend to dominate this way of looking at engagement.”

“However, as the technology that publishers use to deliver content to the user moves away from static, reloaded pages to be more streamlined content-e.g. online videos- the page view is becoming a less relevant gauge of where might be the best place to advertise online.”

“Consequently advertisers will have to look at other metrics, such as time spent or visits, to see where their online ad pound might be best spent.”

Well, the average visitor here sticks around for two minutes and twenty-one seconds. Don’t know if that’s good or bad.

HR 1859: Anti-Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act of 2007. Well, I prefer to to call them regular capacity.

Write your Rep.

Chris has some info so you can avoid having your life ruined by the feds.

The NRA hates Jooooos.

Smith & Wesson Model 22A

PGP notes that Washington Monthly is deleting his pro-gun comments.