NRA Endorses Tate Reeves For Lt. Gov. Over Tea Party Challenger

The NRA endorsed Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves for re-election last week, giving him an A+ rating and saying the State Senate has taken “critically important steps” to protect the Second Amendment under Reeves’ leadership.

Reeves is being challenged by conservative Alisha McElhenney in the Republican primary for Lt. Governor, which takes place on August 4th. McElhenney is a newcomer to politics and is considered a long shot candidate in the primary.

Reeves’ record on gun issues has generally been decent, although he has occasionally been accused of letting pro-gun bills languish in the Senate to settle political scores. He supported two pro gun bills earlier year, and recently backed Gov. Bryant’s executive order to allow national guardsmen to carry at certain recruiting centers.

On non-gun issues, Reeves has been a frequent target of conservatives and Tea Party groups. Earlier this year, he proposed a study group to scrutinize Common Core standards that the Brookhaven Tea Party called a “waste of tax dollars” that would “enrich Haley Barbour’s friends.”

He has also clashed frequently with Chris McDaniel, who openly backed Reeves’ opponent Billy Hewes III in 2011. McDaniel has frequently accused Reeves of preventing bills he supported from moving forward.

Is Ted Nugent Switching To Gun Owners Of America?

Ted Nugent, possibly the NRA’s most famous board member, appeared in a publicity photo for rival gun group Gun Owners of America last week. Does this mean Nugent might be switching to a new team?

GOA tweeted a photo of Nugent along with a quote of him saying: “Be a real American warrior for gun rights and freedom. Join GOA & sign up as many members as you can.”

Although Nugent doesn’t seem to have said anything publicly about switching over to GOA, the organization certainly reflects his strong views on gun rights. 

In 2013, the NY Times said GOA “pushes harder than the NRA” in its defense of the Second Amendment, and credited GOA with convincing Republican lawmakers like Tom Coburn to back off gun control legislation that year. 

The newspaper also pointed out that GOA spends almost as much on lobbying as the NRA despite being less than 1% of its size:

While it might be increasingly potent, the group is not rich. Gun Owners of America’s total revenue in 2011 was less than $2 million, compared with the N.R.A.’s nearly $220 million. The group spent $1.3 million last year to lobby Congress, while the N.R.A. spent nearly $3 million. Its campaign contributions last year were $119,850, placing it at 2,669 on a list of 20,968 lobbying groups ranked by the Center for Responsive Politics. The N.R.A. spent $1.5 million, putting it at 230th. Gun Owners of America has 300,000 dues-paying members; the N.R.A. has five million. 

Anti-Gun Democrat Pleads Guilty To Arms Trafficking-Related Charges

Former California State Sen. Leland Yee pleaded guilty last week to bribery, money laundering and arms trafficking – related charges.

A prominent San Francisco-area Democrat, Yee was known for his support for gun control and had an “A+” rating from the Brady Campaign. He was arrested last year after being caught up in an eight-year investigation of a Chinese-American mafia association.

Last week, Yee admitted that he discussed helping an undercover FBI agent buy automatic weapons from the Philippines. News reports have said the guns were intended to be brought to the US for distribution.

In 2012, Yee said, “no one will convince me it’s anything other than a joke to say having multiple clips and semi-automatic weapons that can shoot 100 or more bullets at a time is necessary in this state or in this country, it’s ridiculous.”

Yee previously pleaded not guilty to all the charges, but changed his plea last week. According to news reports, he now faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Federal Court Says Police Can Confront Open Carriers

Should police be allowed to stop and question open carriers who they believe are acting “suspiciously”?

A United States District Court in the state of Michigan said yes earlier this month, ruling that police are entirely within their rights to question open carriers.

Johann Deffert of Grand Rapids filed the lawsuit after police confronted him at gunpoint while he was legally open carrying a holstered FNP-45 pistol.

According to a video of the incident captured on a police dash cam, an officer forced Deffert to lie on the asphalt at gunpoint until backup arrived.

The officer said he thought Deffert seemed to be “mentally ill” because he was talking to himself. (It was later determined that Deffert was in fact singing a song from the Disney movie The Lion King.)

Deffert was released after fifteen minutes, once officers determined no laws had been broken. He filed a federal lawsuit several months later.

Deffert’s lawsuit challenged whether law enforcement had the authority to detain him. He argued that his constitutional rights had been violated because he did not break any laws.

In ruling in favor of law enforcement, the judge said they used “swift action to determine whether [Deffert’s] behavior gave rise to a need to protect or preserve life…in the neighborhood.”

Deffert’s lawyers said he intends to file an appeal.

Democrat Presidential Candidate: One Life “Is Worth More Than All The Guns In The United States”

Left-wing politicians have been hard at work trying to exploit the tragedy in South Carolina to advance their gun control agenda.

Barack Obama called for a renewed push for gun control on Friday, saying America should follow the example of the strict anti-gun laws in Australia. The following day, Hillary Clinton stated her support for “common sense” gun restrictions like universal background checks.

It was long shot presidential candidate Martin O’Malley who took things the farthest. In a speech US Conference of Mayors in San Francisco on Sunday, he called for a national “assault weapons ban,” claiming “a single American life is worth more than all the guns in the United States.”

These comments conveniently ignore the fact that gun violence has dropped by almost 20% since the end of the previous assault weapons ban in 2004. The only places it remains high are ones that already prohibit so-called “assault weapons.”

Take O’Malley’s home state of Maryland, which passed an assault weapons ban while he was Governor in 2013. The state remains one of the most violent in the country. The city of Baltimore, where O’Malley was Mayor for six years, has a murder rate nearly ten times higher than the national average.

None of this seems to bother O’Malley, who has vowed to make gun control a central issue for his struggling presidential campaign. For him, it seems that the horrific deaths of nine innocent people are nothing more than a political opportunity.  

Republicans Scramble To Save Obama’s Anti-Gun Trade Bill

Establishment Republicans are scrambling to save Obama’s anti-gun “free trade” agreement in the face of opposition from both conservatives and Democrats.

House Speaker John Boehner spoke with the President yesterday to figure out a way to save the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which fell apart after 158 Republicans and 144 Democrats voted against it last week.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy re-stated his support for the bill, saying there are “many different options” for passing it and assuring people the bill’s opponents would “come to their senses.”

Boehner and McCarthy have shown yet again how willing they are to sell out freedom and the Second Amendment just to please their corporate donors.  

As conservatives like Sen. Jeff Session have pointed out, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would create an international legal framework that the President could use to regulate labor policy, immigration policy, environmental policy, and even guns.

Gun Owners of America pointed out that the deal will give the President power to unilaterally install everything from “gun import bans…micro-stamping of firearms…ammunition bans…[and] the anti-gun UN Arms Trade Treaty.”

As he has shown over and over again, Obama will use any means necessary to achieve his gun control agenda -- most recently by trying to unilaterally ban M855 “green tip” ammo.

Is there any question he would use his new trade powers to do the same thing?

Obama Trying To Censor Free Speech About Guns?

The Obama Administration may be trying to censor free speech about guns by proposing a new rule requiring anyone who posts “technical data” about firearms online to first obtain permission from the federal government.

This restriction – which the State Department claims is meant to limit “international traffic in arms” – could affect hobbyists, gunsmiths, bloggers and potentially anyone who talks about guns on the Internet, threatening them with severe penalties including fines of up to $1 million and up to 20 years in prison.

The proposal involves a broad re-interpretation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), rules intended to prevent foreigners and enemies of America from obtaining sensitive information about American weapons technology.

While ITAR are generally intended to stop people from doing things like sending submarine blueprints to the Russians, the new proposal means they could be applied to anyone who shares or discusses technical information about weapons on the Internet.

The specific language in question is pretty vague and complex, so I’ll leave it to the National Review to explain:

“At present, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) dictate that any weapons-related ‘technical data’ that is in the ‘public domain’ can be published and discussed with impunity. This arrangement, State submits, was all very well when ‘public domain’ meant ‘in a library,’ but it is simply not good enough in the era of Twitter and WordPress. (Clearly, it would be self-defeating if the rules intended to prevent foreigners from reading the technical data for the F-35 became impotent the moment that that information found its way online.) In principle at least, Foggy Bottom has a point: In a rapidly changing world, regulations do indeed to need to be updated. And yet the manner in which the proposed alterations have been constructed is alarming indeed. Essentially, the State Department now wants to ensure that any new information that is subject to ITAR be approved by the government prior to release online. ‘If you’ve talked about a given piece of information before,’ the agency is saying, ‘you can talk about it again. But if you haven’t, you’ll need to ask our permission first.’”

As the NRA wrote last week, this means that “gunsmiths, manufacturers, re-loaders, and do-it-yourselfers could all find themselves muzzled under the rule and unable to distribute or obtain the information they rely on to conduct these activities.”

The provisions could also be used to outlaw “detailed reviews of new firearms, in-depth technical discussions involving recently patented parts, amateur repair- and upgrade-manuals, 3D-printing schematics, and even self-defense programs,” according to the National Review.

Whether or not the Obama Administration intends to use the proposed rules this way remains to be seen. But given the administration’s history on gun rights, gun owners are right to be a little nervous.