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Biden’s enforcement of gun laws near Trump’s levels

March 13, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

In the midst of the gun debate, there are a number of camps. Two that get the most press are those that want more gun laws and those that want to see those laws enforced better.

There are many who don’t want to see new laws passed and quite a few that want to see them repealed, but those two occupy a lot of media attention.

Frankly, I’m more sympathetic toward those who want to see the current laws enforced, which is probably pretty obvious. While I don’t think gun laws are constitutional as a general thing, it makes far more sense to point out how poorly the laws currently on the books are enforced when debating whether or not to pass new laws.

Over at the Tenth Amendment Center, they took a look at gun law enforcement numbers and found that there has been a slight dip in them under Biden, but not much of one.

Federal gun control enforcement numbers dipped in 2022, but the Biden administration still aggressively pursued enforcement, and kept things close to record levels.
In his first two years, the Biden administration took up right where Trump left off and generally maintained the record enforcement pace, with just a slight dropoff.
The number of cases recommended for prosecution fell by just under 1,000 cases — from 11,224 in 2021 to 10,138 in 2022. This was roughly the same number of cases recommended for prosecution in 2018. (See Footnote 1)
The number of firearms cases initiated by the ATF fell slightly, from 37,003 in 2021 to 34,436 in 2022.

Now, there might be a question as to whether the Tenth Amendment Center thinks this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Well, the next paragraph should clear that right up for you.

But, as can be seen in the breakdown below, an aggressive level of federal gun control enforcement isn’t something limited to Joe Biden, or even just Democrats. Both parties have utterly failed to abide by the clear restrictions in the Second Amendment.

I don’t disagree, either.

After all, the whole “shall not be infringed” part is pretty damn clear, in my opinion, and gun laws are all kinds of infringement.

But the pragmatic part of me recognizes the argument for what it is: A way to hit back at those who continue to push new gun laws in an effort to further restrict the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms while allowing armed criminals to walk our streets without repercussions.

I see both sides of this, and I think it’s important for us to recognize that while the goal can and should be to roll back these blatantly unconstitutional elements, the first thing we have to do is halt the advance of gun control as a whole.

Whether the enforcement angle will do that or not is a matter of debate. What isn’t, though, is that if we’re not careful, we’ll end up seeing more and more of our rights winnowed away.

Bruen laid a tough rule on lower courts, but you know that the anti-gun side will change the makeup of the Court the first chance they get, so it’s best to halt the spread at the legislative level.

Lashing out at each other when folks are legitimately trying to halt the spread of gun control–as opposed to, say, lashing out at pretty blatant grifting–isn’t exactly beneficial to the Second Amendment cause.

Study claims AZ gun laws responsible for police shootings

March 9, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

The state of Arizona may not be thought of as being as pro-gun as some other places, but they aren’t exactly known for a proliferation of gun laws, either.

In fact, at least for a while, they’re one of the most pro-gun states with regard to firearm regulation.

That is a problem for some people, and those people absolutely love a new study that links the state’s lax gun laws with officer-involved shootings.

The study, to be released Thursday, comes as the Phoenix Police Department has been involved in nine shootings since the start of the year. Of those, seven suspects died on scene.
“It’s not just a Phoenix thing. It’s an Arizona thing,” said Will Humble, former Arizona public health director who commissioned the study.
The recent spike in shootings can be attributed to the state’s gun laws, the study found. It ranked the strength of Arizona’s gun laws 42 out of the 50 states.
The study also concluded the Phoenix police department had the highest rate of police shootings among the ten largest U.S. cities from 2015 to 2021. Tucson and Mesa had similar rates, the report said.

Except, as the site reported, a number of those suspects were legally prohibited from having firearms in the first place.

The last time I checked, that was a federal gun control law and not one Arizona nullified somehow. How, then, does anyone figure that a lack of gun laws are the problem when gun control clearly failed in many of these cases?

Further, these are officer-involved shootings. That means that unless the cops were gunning down innocent people for no reason–and there’s nothing suggesting they are–these were people who were trying to shoot law enforcement officers.

Now, let me suggest something outlandish for a moment. I’m going to suggest that the very people who would break the law by trying to kill police officers are the kind of people who might just buy a gun illegally regardless of what laws you have on the books.

Yeah, I know. It’s a crazy idea. We know criminals to be awfully law-abiding and all that, but it kind of fits.

On a more serious note, though, we have the fact that this “study” has managed to make this leap, yet there are other potential factors as well. For example, we have studies that link high temperatures with violent crime. Arizona isn’t exactly known for its Minnesota-like weather, now is it?

If heat can lead to an increase in violence, then it stands to reason a hot state like Arizona might well see its police officers involved in more shootings than elsewhere.

Was that accounted for in the study? It doesn’t seem like it was, and that’s a huge problem.

Then again, we know one of the problems with gun research is that the methodologies are incredibly suspect, and that’s me being polite. This is just another example.

Especially since, as per usual with anti-gun research, correlation is once again presented as causation. It’s not and these supposed experts know this.

Why pass new gun laws when old ones not being used?

March 6, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

There are thousands of gun laws on the books in the United States at the federal, state, and local levels. Tons of regulations dictating what one can and cannot do with a firearm sit in law books all over the place.

What’s more, there’s an entire industry devoted to creating more laws regulating firearms.

Yet, as Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso, why bother passing new laws when the old ones aren’t being used?

In New Orleans, a former Innocence Project lawyer named Emily Maw is currently serving as an assistant district attorney. And it is going about as well as you would expect.
Maw is now the focus of controversy for declining to press charges in at least 15 gun crimes that occurred over the Mardi Gras season. These crimes included at least one egregious case in which the defendant was carrying around a machine gun — a federal crime that carries a lengthy prison sentence. That particular defendant also had prior convictions, according to local news reports.
Yet instead of prosecuting these crimes, Maw let these defendants off the hook, on the condition that they surrender their guns.
There’s a big problem with this approach. You remember that old saw about how guns don’t kill people, people kill people? Well, it’s not just some NRA talking point. It’s actually true.

Now, understand that I oppose pretty much every gun control law on the books. There are none that I can think of that I support.

However, if you’re going to try to convince me that we need new gun laws, you’re going to need to show me that the existing laws just aren’t enough despite everyone’s best, good-faith efforts.

When I was a kid, there was a toy I wanted. While out with my mom, I asked her if I could get it. She pointed out that I had pretty much the same toy at home and rarely played with it, so why should she buy me another one?

Gun laws aren’t toys, obviously, but the point remains. If prosecutors are going to allow machine-gun armed felons to walk, why should anyone support a new round of gun laws in order to combat violent crime?

We see a lot of violent crime, and our default tends to be to point out how the gun laws in question simply aren’t working. However, we generally don’t know if the laws aren’t working or if they’re not being allowed to work. Not definitively, at least.

I side on them not actually doing anything, but a lot of people disagree. They’re comfortable with these laws and don’t want to see them go.

Yet those laws accomplish even less than nothing if they’re not actually used as described.

Freddoso is right to call this out. Sure, the fact that the assistant DA worked for the Innocence Project shouldn’t matter–they use DNA evidence to get innocent people out of prison, something we should all be glad to see–but the fact that she’s refusing to prosecute some serious firearms-related crimes is.

When one of these people hurts or kills someone, there isn’t likely to be any repercussions on her for allowing them back on the streets. That would be bad enough, but then someone would use that incident to try and justify still more gun laws.

And that’s just the icing on the excrement-filled cake.