Unintended consequences

Who could have predicted insurers wouldn't want to issue policies for schools that allow any local yahoo with a gun to wander around the building?

The EMC Insurance Cos. insures 85 percent to 90 percent of all Kansas school districts and has refused to renew coverage for schools that permit teachers and custodians to carry concealed firearms on their campuses under the new law, which took effect July 1. It's not a political decision, but a financial one based on the riskier climate it estimates would be created, the insurer said.

"We've been writing school business for almost 40 years, and one of the underwriting guidelines we follow for schools is that any on-site armed security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law enforcement officers," said Mick Lovell, EMC's vice president for business development. "Our guidelines have not recently changed."

Hearing this is not sitting well with the gun absolutists because they don't see a problem. I mean, they're just protecting the children. What could go wrong?

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Freedom is in the gunsights of the holder

Save us from 25 year old glibertarians with big brains and little vision. Defense Distributed successfully test-fired their 3D printed, nearly all plastic gun this week.



It took some amount of nerve to actually fire it by hand since an earlier string pulled test with a higher caliber bullet exploded the whole damn gun. We should qualify that the gun does have one non-plastic component, "a common hardware store nail used as its firing pin." It also incorporates a strip of non-functional metal somewhere in the body in order to render it detectable to security gates.

The owner of Defense Distributed Cody Wilson is a self-described American crypto-anarchist, free-market anarchist, and law student. He's going to post the schematics on his website for free. Clearly he's not stupid and understands the gun can be built without the metal detector strip allowing it to be carried past any security device. That doesn't concern him:

But Wilson denies advocating any sort of violent revolt in America. Instead, he argues that his goal is to demonstrate how technology can circumvent laws until governments simply become irrelevant. “This is about enabling individuals to create their own sovereign space…The government will increasingly be on the sidelines, saying ‘hey, wait,’” says Wilson. “It’s about creating the new order in the crumbling shell of the old order.”

Wilson doesn’t deny that his gun could be used for murder or political violence. “I recognize that this tool might be used to harm people. That’s what it is: It’s a gun,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s a reason to not put it out there. I think that liberty in the end is a better interest.”

Because nothing shouts freedom louder than providing the means for any homicidal maniac to produce a gun that can be carried undetected into any building. Ought to be very popular with disgruntled ex-husbands and crackpot sovereign citizens with visions of Wolverines dancing in their heads. What's even crazier is, the government gave him a license to be a certified firearm manufacturer.

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It's only just begun

Our broken Senate managed to prevent any reform of gun safety regulations yesterday. In a way it's almost a good thing because there were more amendments than just the watered down expansion of background checks that failed to break the perpetual filibuster requirement of 60 votes. In fact, the GOP's Cornyn amendment to further weaken interstate gun safety laws got more votes than Manchin-Toomey, though it also failed to reach the magic number.

While many were angered and disappointed by this complete failure of good governance, few have more reason to be angry than Gabby Giffords whose op-ed ran in the NYT last night. A powerful piece but these passages get to the heart of her remarks:

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on. [...]

They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby — and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.

They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.

As Gabby and the parents of the Newtown dead and so many others have vowed, this is not over. If anything this blazing display of political cowardice has only hardened the determination to change the status quo. And as Gabby said in the op-ed, if we can't reform the laws with this Congress, then we'll change the Congress members. In the end, anger may bring more change than hope ever could.

Meanwhile, while the vote was going on, many victims of gun violence were in the gallery. One of them was Patricia Maisch who shouted, “Shame on you!”

You may remember her from when Gabby Giffords was shot on that horrible day in 2011. "Maisch was hailed as a hero for disarming Tucson shooter Jared Loughner by preventing him from reloading a fresh magazine." As she was leaving the gallery, she was detained by security. They held her for two hours, which is "approximately 115 minutes longer than a background check at a federal gun dealer," in order to run a criminal background check because she dared to briefly disrupt the proceedings -- with three words. The irony is lost on no one.

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Tennessee restores Yeager's gun carry permit

You'll recall some months ago that hot-heated CEO James Yeager of the dicey gun training camp Tactical Response had his carry permit revoked because of his video "'threatening to start killing people' if President Obama took executive action on guns." This week, Yeager got his gun carry permit restored.

Here's his personal video statement. Man, he still looks totally crazy to me.



Actually, the most frightening thing I learned in the video is they took away his carry permit, but they never took away his guns. Tennesee law doesn't require that even if they take your permit to carry. He still has that huge warehouse of artillery. Apparently no psyche eval is required either, even after you've publicly threatened to kill a bunch of people with your personal giant arsenal of weapons. [More from TPM at the link.]

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Senate does something about gun safety reform

It's not much so far. Really it's kind of pathetic that a simple cloture vote to allow debate is such big news.

The procedural vote followed a breakthrough by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, who reached a compromise on broadening background checks to include private purchases at gun shows and on the Internet.

Because of the bipartisan deal, Senate Democrats backing the legislation received support from enough Republicans to approve the cloture motion, 68-31, setting up debate on the proposals and amendments expected to last for two weeks.

Only two Democrats defected and 16 Republicans voted for cloture. One of them surprisingly being my own generally useless Richard Burr. While I'm certain he'll vote against any actual reform bill, just voting to allow it to come to the floor brought out the gun loving crackpot hordes in protest. The general drift of the commentary was how dare he give OWEbama a political victory. They will never forgive this grave betrayal of their constitutional rights and they're going to kick his RINO ass out of office. Of course they'll forget all that when he votes against the final bill.

Some milquetoast bill may yet get passed out of the Senate. Then John Boehner's House gets to further eviscerate the reforms. Unlikely to solve the problems. But DC media and the Beltway junkies have something to talk about for the next few weeks. So there's that...

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Harry Reid ready to bust out gun control bill

Our Senate Majority Leader tells us he is a patient man, but apparently he's lost his patience today. Harry Reid is forcing a cloture vote on the current Democratic gun reform bill. The kabuki is complicated on this move with the compromise bill still stuck in the back rooms and the above pictured GOPers being joined by Mitch McConnell threatening a filibuster, along a few red state Dems.

Not clear how serious they are about the filibuster. Josh says their resolve is failing. Surely, there are long term problems for the Republican party in blocking a vote on a bill that has the support of 90% of the voters at least on the background checks. Thing is with a misinformed public, blocking the vote won't hurt them with the rubes back home. It's not about screwing Obummer this time. The 2014 contenders have to choose between saving the party or their own sorry butts.

Mitch McConnell is one of the 2014ers and he's under fire from the left and the far right. He could demand party unity to block the bill but not sure he wants to risk it. He might lose. There's already several defectors including Grumpy Gramps McCain. If Harry actually follows through on this, could make for an interesting day tomorrow. [graphic via]

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Armed and dangerous idiots

This is the stuff that makes me want to break crockery. Assholes with loaded weapons crash a gun law reform rally.



This is not responsible gun ownership. These guys didn't have to crash this event. They had to know there would be kids there. In the wake of the school murders, just seeing the guns would likely frighten the children. And in the light of the daily accidental discharges, it's fucking dangerous. If they want to strut around acting like dicks, they could hold their own damn event at a different time.

And these asshats are all about their free speech rights, but you don't have to be Einstein to figure out they're not interested in protecting anybody else's right to disagree. Clearly, their objective is to intimidate and it's working.

A member of Moms Demand Action said that she felt unsettled by their presence and said that the organizers would have to think twice before holding another event, particularly one where children could be present.

Seriously. Not that hard to imagine some idiot dropping a loaded gun that goes off and kills an innocent bystander. These are the people who should not be allowed to own guns at all. [video at the link]

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How to build a big gun with a 3D printer

Should probably have titled this one, "Smart kid kills the world" because this kid seems a little crazy to me. But that aside I've been trying to visualize how this 3D printer thing works. I've seen dozens of stories about how they're using this technology to build everything from spare body parts to automatic weaponry. Now thanks to Roger Ebert at least I understand, "How to print out a firearm in the comfort of your own home."



Calling it printing is somewhat deceiving. It's more like you design it in 3D and then build the model from the specs with a fairly simple machine. They're using plastic in this video. Not sure how that would work with metal. Would think you need a much different setup to build that. And I'm still mystified on how they would build body parts. I mean what do they use for the human tissue in the construction? Nonetheless, rather astounding technology.

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