Looks like some movement is happening on Austin’s “feels-good-to-do-something-that-accomplishes-nothing” desire to ban gun shows.

First, Don Dahl, Director of Range Safety at the Austin Rifle Club, writes that “I put some chinks in the armor” and the Travis County Commissioners want a session with their attorneys. Apparently Nordyke v. King, 681 F. 3d 1041 – Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2012  is playing a part.

TSRA sent out a mailer:

Background and History on Gun Shows

Texans love their gun shows. Until the mid-80’s gun shows were a venue soley for private seller and the collector’s clubs across the country. Anyone holding a federal firearm license was limited to doing business at the address on their license. Congress was successfully lobbied by licensees wanting to “even the playing field” and today’s gun shows developed.

In 1999 Todd Beiter was the only promoter who answered the call to come to Austin during the legislative session to work with TSRA and fight down Rep. Debra Danburg’s attempt at a statewide Gun-Show-Loophole bill. The legislature was out to level the playing field some more and this time the private seller would be out the door.

Beiter testified in House Public Safety Committee and explained the laws covering private sales and those covering the sale of a firearm by an FFL. He also explained the safety precautions taken at the door of his gun show, including the number of off-duty police officers who check and cable firearms brought in for sale by both the vendors and the general public.

At the end of the day, the House committee voted and the Democratic majority defeated Rep. Danburg’s bill. This was a giant win for Texas gun owners and the outcome could have been different if Todd Beiter had not come to Austin.

That’s an interesting and significant bit of history.

The TSRA mailer continues:

The Contract:

Todd Beiter has a contract with Travis County for the use of the facility until January 2014. He pays a great deal of money to Travis County. The county does not want to lose a good tenant. Remember it’s pressure from the City of Austin.

Pressure from the city? or from a select few council members?

More from the TSRA mailer:

The Federal Court Ruling:

In 2000, Todd Bean, owner of High Caliber Gun and Knife Show was handed a list of requirements by the City of Houston. High Caliber contracted to use Houston-owned property. The list included, among other things, a requirement to register attendees and another to remove the firing pins from firearms.

There was a legal challenge and the case went to federal court. NRA’s general counsel, Bob Dowlut, wrote an amicus brief in support of High Caliber. Bean prevailed against Houston. The language of the ruling was unusually broad and likely applies to Saxet.

Todd Beiter runs a safe, legal business, takes care of the public, the facility, his vendors, and Todd is a good tenant. The attempt to break his contract comes from the City of Austin and “feel-good” city politics.

So the legal pressure builds.

But if you REALLY want to see what legal pressure is, just look at the response Lawrence Person received from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott:

If Austin or Travis Co. try to ban gun shows they better be ready for a double-barreled lawsuit.

Granted, it was over Twitter and isn’t anything official, but I think it speaks volumes for itself.

So like I said, Austin City Council, is this really the wisest way to proceed? To try to ban gun shows is not going to make one bit of difference in terms of reducing violent crime. But for certain if you proceed, you are going to lose revenue from the lost contracts and sales tax, and then spend too much money out of the city’s coffers to fight the inevitable lawsuits. This is not a wise move for a city struggling with finances. If you really want to spend that money, there are tangible issues in our city that you can address that would make an actual reduction in violent crime. Why not start there.

So the Austin City Council thinks that banning law-abiding citizens from engaging in lawful commerce will lower violent crime rates.

Of course, there’s no data nor facts to back up such approaches, but why let facts, data, and reason get in the way of a good knee-jerk “do something” emotional reaction.

Now, I’m all for doing things to reduce violent crime, and if those that claim to want to reduce violent crime really want to do such a thing, they should look at real root causes and work to address those things. That Guy points out an interesting find about Austin’s violent crime rates. From KLBJ 590AM:

Austin police say downtown crime involving the homeless or transients is becoming a big problem. Assistant Chief Raul Mungia with the Austin Police tells the Public Safety Commission, “From January 2011 to November 6th 2012, 35 percent of the violent crime down there involved transients.”

Mungia says 254 violent crimes were reported with 29 of those incidents involved transients as a suspect and 13 as a victim.

So Councilman Martinez, if you want to “do something” about reducing violent crime, looks like you’ve got a good place to start. That’s real crime, real violence, real problem, really happening. Instead of “feeling good” and accomplishing nothing, here you could feel good about accomplishing something tangible.

I’m sure Leslie Cochran would appreciate it.

When you can’t do anything useful, that’s when you “do something”.

And so it goes, with the City of Austin and Travis County considering bans on gun shows.

City of Austin and Travis County officials plan to take steps to ban gun shows on city- and county-owned property — and potentially even curtail them on private property within the city limits, the American-Statesman has learned.

Why would they do such a thing? There’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue at stake from just the use of the facilities, then all the sales tax revenue for the city. “In these tough economic times”, why would the city throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue?

“This isn’t a silver bullet that is going to solve all of our problems, but this is our way of saying, ‘What we do have control over in terms of the Austin City Council, we should take a proactive stance to not further enable the distribution and sales of guns through public property or through public facilities,’” [City Council member Mike] Martinez said.

[Travis County Commissioner Sarah] Eckhardt said, “It is all that we can do. It is a drop in the bucket, but if everybody does what they can, in aggregate, I think we will have made a difference.”

Oh I see. They think doing this is somehow going to stop gun violence. That this will somehow stop media-sensationalized mass murder from happening.

I see.

And their data that action A causes result B is where?

But you see, this has nothing to do with logic, and reason and facts.

“I would just prefer that if people want to buy firearms, they do it through a retailer and not through gun shows,” Martinez said.

I would just prefer it.

I wonder how Martinez feels about eBay and Craigslist. And how about all those local Austin farmers and flea markets? Garage sales?

So you see, no rational debate. No rational discussion. No logic. No facts. Just one Councilman’s preference because of his own ignorance and misunderstanding… and a need to “do something”, even tho that something will have no impact upon reduction of violence.

But it sure will have impact upon reduction of city revenue.

Some additional coverage at stainles’ blog and Lawrence Person’s blog.

Consider as well this could lead to breach of contract, and all manner of lawsuits for the city. More things to reduce city revenue. Can the city really afford it?

Look, if y’all think gun shows are hotbeds of criminal activity, then take steps to manage the criminal activity. But preventing law-abiding citizens from engaging in lawful commerce and depriving the city of much needed revenue strikes me as irresponsible behavior in our elected officials.

We will remember these actions on election day.

From HuffPo author Amitai Etzioni:

We should not wait for our elected officials, in President Obama’s good words, “to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” We should do our share. One way to proceed is to mark our homes, apartments and condos, with a “gun free” sign. Parents should notify their friends that they would be reluctant to send their child over for a play date unless the home was safe from guns. Residential communities should pass rules that ban bringing guns onto their premises, clearly marking them as gun free.

Anyone who puts up such signs will become an ambassador for gun control, because they are sure to be challenged by gun advocates to explain their anti-gun positions.

You know what? That would be an interesting effort for sure. I truly appreciate Mr. Etzioni’s proposal for these “gun control ambassadors” because he’s suggesting people take immediate action themselves, instead of waiting for politicians to bicker and waffle and solve nothing.

He’s calling for people to put their money where their mouth is. To proudly proclaim their stance on this issue. Put signs in your yard. Wear a t-shirt proclaiming your stance. Put a bumper sticker on your car. If it’s what you believe, let everyone know.

So for you that support gun control, what say you? Are you willing to do as Mr. Etzioni proposes?

 

You know what’s frustrating?

When someone demands their ignorance is right, and refuses to first educate themselves on the topic. They believe plunging headlong with their ignorance is the way to achieve meaningful results.

Look at the topic of global warming. Any time some “tea bagger” brings up how it isn’t happening, there are those that point out the ignorance and wonder how any sort of “meaningful discussion” can be had when the other side is so full of morons.

Well, that’s how a lot of people feel when you want to talk about “gun control” and you have a demonstrable ignorance about “AK-16 automatic assault machine guns with their high capacity clips and shoulder things that go up”.

If you want to pursue the route of gun control, that’s fine, but you’d do well to first educate yourself about guns. Speaking from a position of ignorance shouldn’t be seen as a righteous position.

 

I know everyone’s in an emotional state right now… and gun control is hot on the lips of so many people.

This woman would have been raped or murdered, if she didn’t have a gun.

Is that what you want?

“Of course not!” you reply.

But that’s precisely what you’ll get if you get your way.

A gun is neither good nor bad; it’s what someone does with it that’s good or bad. It’s the person and their actions.