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House Dems accuse gun makers of fueling mass murder

July 27, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on “the practices and profits of gun manufacturers” was just as one-sided and propagandistic as you would expect from a meeting controlled by Democrats and chaired by longtime anti-gun politician Carolyn Maloney of New York. On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co we’re taking a look at some of the new lows, misinformation, and outright falsehoods unleashed by House Democrats during the hearing, starting with Maloney herself.

The chairwoman of the Oversight Committee started things off by falsely claiming that gun makers are selling AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles to “children”, which would be a clear violation of federal law. No one under the age of 18 can lawfully purchase a rifle or shotgun at retail, and you must be at least 21-years old to buy a handgun from a federally licensed firearms retailer. 18-year olds may still be teenagers, but they’re also legal adults in the eyes of the law, and Maloney was simply wrong to assert otherwise.

Things didn’t get any better from there, with Maloney asking questions to the CEOs of Daniel Defense and Sturm, Ruger like how many more children have to die before you will stop selling “weapons of war” that are the “weapon of choice in most mass murders”; another blatant falsehood easily disproved by looking at FBI data, which shows that handguns are used far more frequently in both active shooting incidents and violent crimes like aggravated assaults and homicides of all types.

There were some odd lines of attack from other Democrats on the Oversight Committee, including Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, who took issue with the fact that many manufacturers allow for firearms to be bought on credit or using payment plans. Lynch honed in on the fact that the killer in Uvalde, Texas purchased a Daniel Defense rifle in that manner, while ignoring the fact that far more law-abiding Americans have done the same. In Lynch’s world it would be illegal to buy a firearm on a payment plan, even though requiring all gun owners to pay 100% cash up front would make it difficult if not impossible for many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and struggling under Bidenflation to save the money necessary to purchase a firearm for self-defense.

Rep. Katie Porter of California, meanwhile, tried to make the case that gun companies are willfully ignoring “safety features” like fingerprint scanners that would identify authorized users before a gun could be fired. Porter claimed that “smart guns” are already on the market, though from what I’ve been able to tell companies like Lodestar Firearms and SmartGunz (which uses RFID technology instead of a biometric fingerprint reader) haven’t yet opened up sales to consumers.

Porter asked both gun company CEOs at the hearing whether they would commit to putting fingerprint readers on all of their future firearms, and both Daniel Defense’s Marty Daniel and Sturm, Ruger’s Christopher Killoy told her “no,” with Daniel adding that his customers haven’t asked for such a feature. Killoy tried to explain some of the inherent flaws in “smart gun” technology, but like Maloney and many of the other Democrats on the Oversight Committee, Porter cut him off rather than let him finish a complete sentence.

The intent of today’s hearing was twofold for Democrats; first to provide committee members with a soundbite-friendly setting to scapegoat gun makers and blame them for the actions of criminals, but also to try to goose support for the “assault weapons” ban that was scheduled for a vote in the House Rules Committee this afternoon. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended up yanking the bill from consideration after an intra-party squabble between progressives and moderates over the legislation and a companion bill that would have increased funding for local law enforcement.

In her closing statement, Maloney asserted that she invited gun makers to today’s hearing to apologize to the victims of mass shootings and to promise to stop the sale of “assault weapons” in the future before calling on Congress to ban modern sporting rifles and to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, once again using the podium to demonize the firearms industry instead of looking for real solutions aimed preventing violent actors from carrying out their cowardly acts. Maloney and her cohorts have made it clear that their path to public safety involves taking a bulldozer to the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, and I suspect that Republican congressional candidates will be making use of their colleagues’ anti-gun rhetoric in their own campaign ads between now and November. Lord knows Maloney and company gave them plenty of material to work with today.

New Jersey AG opens new office dedicated to suing gun companies

July 25, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen the gun control lobby has cranked up its efforts to use civil litigation to try to shut down the firearms industry. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a several gun bills designed to make it easier to sue gun makers over the criminal misuse of their products, and now New Jersey Acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin is dedicating staff to that same end.

Platkin announced on Monday the formation of the Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement office, which he says will be dedicated to suing companies within the firearms industry that ““knowingly or recklessly contribute to a public nuisance in New Jersey through unlawful or unreasonable conduct.”

“Make no mistake – thanks to Governor Murphy and the Legislature, New Jersey is once again a national leader when it comes to combatting gun violence,” said Acting Attorney General Platkin. “At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is undermining states’ efforts to protect their residents from the carnage of gun violence, New Jersey’s Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement Office will use the new public nuisance legislation to hold the gun industry accountable. With the establishment of this office we are sending a clear message to every participant in the firearms industry: if you violate our laws, you will pay.”

The Supreme Court didn’t “undermining states’ efforts to protect their residents from the carnage of gun violence.” It told the state of New York (and other “may issue” states like New Jersey) that they were infringing on the rights of residents to protect themselves. The state of New Jersey is under no obligation whatsoever to protect any of its individual residents, and the same is true for every police department and law enforcement officer in the state. Ultimately your safety is your responsibility, and Platkin and his fellow anti-gun Democrats want to do everything they can to prevent law-abiding New Jersey residents from exercising their right to armed self-defense.

The acting AG’s press release makes clear that companies don’t even have to violate any of New Jersey’s gun laws in order to be sued into oblivion.

SAFE’s work will be distinct from but supplement the Department’s ongoing – and successful – efforts to use the state’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) to stop out-of-state gun dealers from selling illegal firearm products into New Jersey over the internet. In March 2022, Acting Attorney General Platkin announced that the State had obtained a $175,000 judgment against Florida gun vendor 22Mods4All for violating the CFA by advertising and selling illegal large-capacity magazines (LCMs) to New Jersey consumers online. The judgment also permanently barred 22Mods4All from future online sales of LCMs here. A second gun vendor named in that suit – Florida-based Elite Aluminum – agreed to pay a $150,000 civil penalty and stop selling LCMs in New Jersey.
But the public nuisance lawsuits will provide even more robust enforcement tools, by allowing the Department to hold firearms manufacturers and retail dealers accountable for endangering the safety and health of New Jersey residents through the sale, manufacture, distribution, or marketing of lethal, but nonetheless legal, firearms.

Those victories against companies selling “large capacity magazines” are likely short-lived, since I don’t see the state’s mag ban passing constitutional muster, but note as well the last paragraph quoted above. Even guns and magazines that don’t run afoul of New Jersey’s many restrictions on firearms could be the subject of “public nuisance” litigation under the theory that simply manufacturing, selling, distributing, and marketing these products creates a risk to health and public safety.

While Plakin is taking aim at the firearms industry, teenagers who are bringing loaded guns to school in the state are walking away with probation and he’s not saying a word. It’s evident that New Jersey’s latest anti-gun initiative isn’t about stopping crimes like these, but about preventing law-abiding citizens from accessing their Second Amendment rights. Matthew Platkin should be embarrassed by these actions aimed at curtailing the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right, but he’s proudly touting them instead. Here’s hoping that he’ll soon get a reminder from the courts that what he’s trying to do doesn’t just place him on the wrong side of history, but the wrong side of the law as well.

House Dems target gun makers with public hearing

July 7, 2022 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

House Democrats aren’t giving up on making gun control one of their central issues for the midterms, even as the economy and inflation dominate the minds of voters.

The latest? House Oversight Committee is calling on the CEO’s of several major gun companies to testify on Capitol Hill in a politically-motivated witch hunt that appears designed to scapegoat the firearms industry and blame it for the actions of criminals.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, on Wednesday sent letters to Marty Daniel, the CEO of Daniel Defense, Mark Smith, the president and CEO of Smith & Wesson Brands, and Christopher Killoy, the president and CEO of Sturm, Ruger & Co., requesting testimony as a part of a second hearing hosted by the committee examining the firearms industry.
Daniel Defense is the maker of the DDM4 rifle the gunman used to kill 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., and a shooter on Monday used a Smith & Wesson M&P semiautomatic rifle to kill at least seven people and wound dozens of others during a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Ill.
The July 20 hearing comes after Maloney launched an investigation into gun manufacturers in May. Maloney requested information from five manufacturers regarding the making, sale and marketing of deadly weapons used in mass shootings that were purchased legally and used by the gunmen responsible for the carnage in Uvalde, Highland Park and Buffalo.
Maloney requested each company’s gross revenue and profit from sales of semiautomatic rifles based on AR-15-style guns, annual spending on advertising and marketing of these rifles, annual spending on federal and state lobbying, and funding provided to the National Rifle Association. Maloney cites new financial information that has been provided to the committee so far as reason for the CEOs to appear.
“The information you provided has heightened the Committee’s concern that your company is continuing to profit from the sale and marketing of weapons of war to civilians despite the harm these weapons cause, is failing to track instances or patterns where your products are used in crimes, and is failing to take other reasonable precautions to limit injuries and deaths caused by your firearms,” Maloney wrote in a letter to Killoy, provided to The Washington Post.

With such an open-minded and non-partisan invitation, how could these CEOs refuse to show up for Maloney’s dog-and-pony show?

The New York Democrat has every reason to try to make gun companies villains in the eyes of the public. Not only have Democrats decided that their best bet to stem an expected red wave election is to focus on guns and abortion while downplaying our imploding economy, but Maloney herself faces the toughest primary fight of her political life in August, when she’ll square off against Rep. Jerry Nadler for the nomination in NY-12. Thanks to redistricting, the two longterm congressional Democrats are vying for the same seat, and I’m sure that Maloney and her campaign staff would love to cut an ad or two ahead of the primary featuring her accusing Marty Daniels and other CEOs of aiding and abetting the murder of innocent civilians to curry favor with the gun-control loving voters in Manhattan.

Whether or not the CEO’s show up, Maloney and her fellow Democrats will use them as punching bags during their next act of political theater. If the CEO’s do appear, they’ll face hostile questions designed to elict the applause of Democrats’ progressive base, and if they decline to show up Maloney and her cohorts will portray them as cowards unwilling to face “commonsense” and “reasonable” questions from lawmakers; a narrative that will be eagerly repeated by many in the national media.

I know what I would do in that situation, but Daniels, Smith, and Killoy are probably not going to tell Maloney to kiss their rear ends and go pound sand… at least in those words. There’s little upside to these CEOs volunteering themselves for Maloney’s witch hunt, however, and I hope their response to Maloney is to politely decline to take part in her attempt to blame gun makers and law-abiding gun owners for the actions of cowardly mass murderers and violent criminals, while offering to take part in an honest conversation about the industry’s efforts to prevent straw purchases and other illicit means of obtaining firearms. There’s a lot to discuss, but as long as Maloney and her anti-gun allies on the Oversight Committee are really interested in using these CEO’s as political pawns in their re-election bids, there’s also no reason for these CEO’s to play along.