UPDATE: Now it looks like the version that passed in the Senate FAILED 39-29 to get a chance when it had to go back to the Assembly (which the original version had already passed) because of changes in the Senate-approved version.

Looks like they just plain ran out of time and shelved the bill to get to other things.

Monday the California Senate rejected a ban (AB1934)on open carrying (of unloaded guns) in the Golden State.

Late last night they tried again and passed it.

Many law enforcement officials joined forces with Saldaña to create Assembly Bill 1934 amid increasing concern about the growing number of sidearms in public places.

They said people often don’t know whether the guns are loaded or not and have called police, requiring a response that ties up law enforcement resources. Further, responding officers are put into potentially dangerous situations because they also do not know if the weapons are loaded, police say.

This is ridiculous. You can’t tell if someone driving a car just robbed bank, either, but you don’t worry that they did. You can’t tell if someone walking out of a convenience store just robbed it, either, but you don’t worry that they did. This is a simple case of people being irrationally scared of guns.

“Guns are an intimidating presence,” Saldaña said. “The average citizen can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

I’ll repost this from yesterday:

If people called police because they saw black people driving fast in a car and couldn’t tell whether or not they had just robbed a convenience store, they’d be bigots. If people called police because they saw some Hispanics gathered on a street corner and couldn’t tell whether or not they were in the country legally, they’d be bigots. If people saw some Muslims talking to each other quietly and called the police because they couldn’t tell whether or not they were terrorists, they’d be bigots.

So why is it when someone sees a gun owner and calls police because they can’t tell whether or not the gun is loaded that they have a right to be concerned?

People just calling 911 out of the blue just because they saw some black people driving fast in a car, just because they saw some Mexican-looking people gathered on a street, or just because they saw some Muslim-looking folks conversing in whispers do not deserve to be taken seriously and should be held accountable. The same goes for people who call in the cops just because they saw someone with a gun on their hip.

Now the bill goes to the Governator. The claims are that he’ll sign it.

I’m not sure if they tried again with the long gun registration (AN1810). Does anyone know?

UPDATE: It occurs to me that the “open carry but unloaded” compromise, which has never been a good one, is out of the way and proponents for real open carry can at least now fight for a real legal allowance for open carrying. But I fear it’s a long uphill battle.

The fact that a loaded gun would be illegal, I guess, makes people worry that a law is being broken when they see a gun an can’t tell. The way to fix that is to make it legal to carry a loaded gun.

UPDATE: They tried again and the bill passed. Terrible news.

Great news: California Senate rejects open-carry gun ban

The California Senate rejected a bill Monday that would have made it illegal to carry unloaded guns in public, but lawmakers will give the vote one more try.

Monday’s 20-16 vote fell one short of the majority needed, but the Senate will reconsider the measure Tuesday.

The bill, AB1934, was introduced after a series of demonstrations by gun-rights organizations during which they encouraged participants to openly carry unloaded weapons. California law lets gun owners carry a rifle or handgun in a holster if it is not loaded.

Via Instapundit, who writes

Okay, it’s a small thing. But it’s California.

I actually don’t think it’s a “small thing” at all. Though I’m not what you’d call an “open carry advocate” I do believe that the right to carry guns legally is a crucial one. The problem with open carry in California is not that it’s allowed, it’s that the gun must be unloaded. Defeating this bill maintains a bad staus quo, but it makes the fight for the legal allowance to carry loaded guns a possibility in the future. That would have been far more difficult had the legal allowance to carry even unloaded guns been revoked.

The stated reasoning behind the bill was that too many people call the police whenever they see a gun in public, and since they cannot tell whether a gun is loaded or unloaded they somehow have a right to be concerned.

This is my issue with that: If people called police because they saw black people driving fast in a car and couldn’t tell whether or not they had just robbed a convenience store, they’d be bigots. If people called police because they saw some Hispanics gathered on a street corner and couldn’t tell whether or not they were in the country legally, they’d be bigots. If people saw some Muslims talking to each other quietly and called the police because they couldn’t tell whether or not they were terrorists, they’d be bigots.

So why is it when someone sees a gun owner and calls police because they can’t tell whether or not the gun is loaded that they have a right to be concerned?

People just calling 911 out of the blue just because they saw some black people driving fast in a car, just because they saw some Mexican-looking people gathered on a street, or just because they saw some Muslim-looking folks conversing in whispers do not deserve to be taken seriously and should be held accountable. The same goes for people who call in the cops just because they saw someone with a gun on their hip.

Bill A1810, which would have required registration of long guns, was also rejected.

Head over to Murdoc Online and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe.

Last week I linked to a story about how the sales of hundreds of thousands of M1 Garands and M1 Carbines in South Korea were being blocked by the US government. Like a lot of others, I suspected the reason was that it was just an easy way for the Obama administration to limit gun sales.

Now more info is out, and it looks like the real reason is that the guns were given to the Koreans as part of a Lend-Lease program, and therefore cannot be sold by them. (via Say Uncle)

If they are no longer needed, they should be returned. At which point they could be sold as surplus by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. That’s Murdoc’s vote. He’s not holding his breath, though.

We’ll probably pay the Koreans to destroy them.

What gun activists need to learn

Far too many gunnies spend their time trying to be right, whether it’s compiling facts about private gun ownership and crime or digging up quotes from the Founding Fathers, and not nearly enough time on how to actually implement their ideas. Anyone who has ever seen the floor debates on gun bills in Albany knows that a rational discussion on the facts never comes up from the other side. Why worry about it then? There is nothing wrong with simply telling a legislator to vote your way or else you will work against them next election cycle…

The best chance for revenge is at the ballot box. Vote early, vote often, vote pro-gun.

Now, being right is important. Compiling facts about private gun ownership and crime is important. Even digging up quotes from the Founding Fathers is valuable. But the only two languages that most politicians seem to understand (or at least pay any heed to) are votes and money. So when trying to communicate with them, you have to do so in a manner that will be listened to.

Having a good point and being right are important. But that alone won’t convince most high level policy makers.

Via Say Uncle.

UPDATE: Sebastian notes that needing a good point and being right have been covered by recent Supreme Court decisions, which is important. Two years ago gun control types had the luxury of being able to shut down discussion by claiming that the Second Amendment meant state militias. Now they can’t play that card. Last year gun control types had the luxury of saying that the Heller decision didn’t affect the rest of the country. Now they can’t play that card, either.

So, in effect, the requirement to prove that gunnies have a good point and are right are, to a large extent, taken care of in ways that they have not been before, and now it’s time to spend more time talking about what is going to be done about it.

The California Rifle and Pistol Association have a release out about two anti-gun bills advancing through the legislature: AB1810 (Rifle and Shotgun Registration) and AB 1934 (Open Carry Ban). I was familiar with the attempt to outlaw open carry (even though the gun must be unloaded when OCing in California) and noted it in June:

So what’s the so-called reasoning behind this attempt to end California open carry?

[Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, D-San Diego] said her measure would help police, who are now called by citizens who get intimidated by groups carrying guns in full view. The police, she said, respond not knowing whether a weapon is loaded, increasing the danger. These responses also take time away from regular patrols, she argued.

Hmmm. Looks like the restriction needs to be on people who call in the cops for no reason, not on those engaged in legal activities.

Why is Obama administration blocking import of surplus rifles?

“The U.S. government opposed South Korea’s bid to sell hundreds of thousands of aging U.S. combat rifles to American gun collectors,” Jung Sung-ki of The Korea Times reports.

“The ministry announced the plan last September as part of efforts to boost its defense budget, saying the export of the M1 Garand and carbine rifles would start by the end of 2009.”

So why didn’t they?

Codrea knows they’re anti-gun. I know they’re anti-gun. You know they’re anti-gun.

This was probably just a low-hanging apple.

Release from the Sharron Angle campaign:

In the face of the worst recession since the Great Depression, where has the money from Harry Reid’s stimulus bill gone to help our ailing economy? Cocaine-addled monkeys and a million dollars worth of exotic ants, according to a new report out this morning.

“Harry Reid says ‘no one can do more’ for Nevada. We had no idea Harry’s plan of ‘more’ meant spending millions on coked-up monkeys and exotic ants while our state is ravaged by the worst foreclosure rate and highest unemployment rate in the nation,” said Jerry Stacy, spokesman for U.S. Senatorial Sharron Angle.

Other examples of how the stimulus has squandered taxpayer dollars include $750,000 towards creating a YouTube-like computerized dance choreography program; $300,000 to study the effects of “integral yoga” upon hot flashes; and $60,000 to study public perception of stimulus spending.

“Harry Reid promised his $787 billion stimulus bill would create jobs. Instead of creating jobs, this wasteful bill has piled on ‘more’ massive debt and ‘more’ unemployment in Nevada since the bill’s passage,” Stacy said. “Nevada needs a Senator who will fight for economic policies that fosters an environment which encourages real job creation and gets Nevada moving again. That’s Sharron Angle.”

A New Report Out This Morning Highlights The Massive Amounts Of Waste In Harry Reid’s Stimulus Bill:

A Few Examples Of The Waste Highlighted In The Report Include:
(more…)

Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who writes:

Whenever the government collects information, it lies about what it will do with it. This is a near-universal law.

And that goes double for information related to firearms.

Pro-Gun Dems May Get a Boost

With things looking a little less than sunny for the Democrats this fall, we’re probably going to see more pro-gun Dems than any time in recent memory. And some of them saying the right things are going to benefit:

According to the center for responsive politics, a non-partisan group that tracks political spending, during the 2002 election cycle the NRA put 8% of their federal campaign contributions toward Democrats. This election cycle, they’ve received 26% percent.

Though the NRA has yet to release many key endorsements heading into the fall elections some major races could be affected when the word comes down. In the midst of a tough re-election campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could get a boost as the NRA considers endorsing him.

In Indiana, Democratic Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth, a former sheriff, may win the organization’s endorsement over Republican Dan Coats.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. While a staunch defender of gun rights should benefit regardless of his party, it’s tough to expect a Democrat majority to act in way that please most gun owners most of the time. And the Harry Reid thing is certain to tick off a lot of gun owners, this one included.

What do readers think of this?