Credit where credit is due

As one who has been critical of Michelle Malkin for joining the "Me-Too "Conservatives" and piling on to Ann Coulter I though I would take a minute to draw your attention to something good which she has done. From NRO:


“The Second Amendment,” Charlton Heston used to say, “is America’s first freedom.” The Second secures the rest.

It’s a message narcissistic journalists need to hear again. A decade ago, Heston chastised the media in a National Press Club speech for its collective ignorance, apathy and open hostility toward gun owners’ rights: “Clearly, too many have used freedom of the press as a weapon not only to strangle our free speech, but to erode and ultimately destroy the right to keep and bear arms as well. In doing so you promoted your profession to that of constitutional judge and jury, more powerful even than our Supreme Court, more prejudiced than the Inquisition’s tribunals. It is a frightening misuse of constitutional privilege, and I pray that you will come to your senses and see that these abuses are curbed.”

Alas, Heston’s prayers have yet to be answered. While courts have recently bolstered Second Amendment rights, endangering gun owners in the name of free speech continues to be the blood sport of the Fourth Estate.

Two weeks ago, the Roanoke Times published an online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders in the paper’s community under the sanctimonious guise of “Sunshine Week.” The database included both the names and street addresses of some 135,000 Virginians with permits to carry concealed weapons. Columnist Christian Trejbal patted himself on the back for making it easy to snoop on the neighbors: “I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It’s nobody’s business but mine if I want to pack heat. Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone’s business.”

Trejbal denied that compiling the concealed carry permit holders list was “about being for or against guns.” But he exposed his true agenda when he compared law-abiding gun owners to . . . sex offenders: “A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not.”

The Roanoke Times showed reckless disregard for the safety of the license holders and reckless disregard for accuracy. In his column, Trejbal admitted that he knew some of the information he had obtained was inaccurate — but published it anyway: “As a Sunshine Week gift, the Roanoke Times has placed the entire database, mistakes and all [emphasis added], online at www.roanoke.com/gunpermits. You can search to find out if neighbors, carpool partners, elected officials or anyone else has permission to carry a gun.” [. . .]

She ends her column with this:


While the Roanoake Times has retreated, the witch hunt against gun owners continues. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a “sting” operation targeting gun shops in five states for allegedly selling guns illegally. Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman of the Second Amendment Foundation report that Bloomberg sent unauthorized private investigators to conduct the operation — without notifying the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF):

“The odor ripened when Bloomberg filed civil lawsuits against these gun shops, rather than turn over evidence to the proper authorities for criminal prosecution. Bloomberg’s office refused to turn over that evidence, and instead the billionaire mayor launched a high-profile media campaign demonizing the targeted gun shop operators.”

Bloomberg has, of course, earned the praise of the anti-Second Amendment media for his security-undermining stunt. The unholy alliance between Big Nanny politicians and journalists threatens us all.

Thank you Michelle, that was a good start.

For those of you wondering why Bloomberg has not turned his evidence over to the BATFE there is an excellent reason. The mayor does not wish to go to jail.

You see, for a gun store operator to be guilty of abetting a "straw purchase" they must be able to see behavior from the purchaser that the gun being bought is for a third party. For example if a man and a woman enter the gun store together and the man picks out the gun, then tells the woman "this is the one" and she takes out a permit and ID and money to pay for it. This is a classic "straw man purchase". The gun store operator has a legal duty to refuse to make the sale.

In Bloomberg's "sting" operation pairs of private investigators went into gun stores and one of the investigators, who was legally authorized to purchase a handgun, made a purchase without engaging in the kind of behavior which would have alerted the guy behind the counter that a "straw purchase" might have been happening.

This means that the gun store did nothing illegal, but the two private investigators and Mayor Bloomberg did. If fact Bloomberg and his gumshoes committed felonies. All three of them are guilty of felony conspiracy, the private dicks are guilty of the straw purchase and Bloomberg is guilty of being an accessory before and after the fact. Additionally if the investigators turned the guns over to Bloomberg in New York City then all of them are guilty of bringing guns into the city illegally and transfering firearms illegally. And if Bloomberg has the guns in his home or office he is guilty of possessing illegal weapons. If he gave the guns to a staffer who is not a sworn law enforcement officer to store then that is another illegal firearms transfer and another person who is guilty of possessing illegal weapons.

So you see bringing law enforcement into this could very well end with Bloomberg doing the perp-walk between a phalanx of BAT-Fags* with his hands cuffed and his jacket pulled up over his head.

*BAT-Fag is the nickname for an agent of the Buearu of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who is involved with the enforcement of firearms laws.