“Democrats push ban on ‘deceptively colored firearms’ amid flurry of lame duck gun bills,” The Midwesterner reported Wednesday. “Designates illegal any firearm other than black, brown, dark grey, dark green, silver, steel, or nickel in color.”
Senate Bill 1134 would amend the Michigan penal code to make “An individual who violates this section or any rule promulgated under this section … guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year or a fine of not more than $500.00.”
This insulting and oppressively matriarchal assault on both the First Amendment right to expression and the Second Amendment right to arms is the “brainchild” of Democrat Senator Dayna Polehanski, who can get away with such tyrannical acts of legislative sabotage because she’s a “safe seat” Democrat. Per Ballotpedia, she won Michigan State Senate District 5 in 2022 by 61.1% to 38.9% over her Republican opponent, and she’ll be in office until 2027.
Forget that she’s inventing a “solution” in search of a problem, and a Google search for terms like “homicide with ‘colored firearms’” yields no relevant (but unintentionally racist) results from Google, and even if they did would not justify depriving gun owners of their rights under threat of a “law” enforcement response and punishment. Much like the Clinton “assault weapon” ban, it’s entirely cosmetic. And it’s not even an original idea, which, considering it comes from a Democrat Moms Demand Action endorsee is hardly surprising.
The impulse to ban them goes back years ago to then-New York City Mayor and perennial Everytown billionaire money man Michael Bloomberg holding a press conference where he denounced “red and yellow DuraCoat-painted guns … saying anyone who sold them was ‘sick’ and ‘twisted’.” That, in turn, per a 2008 Daily News report, prompted Steve Lauer of Lauer Custom Weaponry to push back by “market[ing] a line of bright colors called the ‘Bloomberg Collection,’ …[and] introduce… a bright-red shade called ‘Furious Mike.’”
The bill is not without exemptions, notably for “an individual who owns or possesses it on the effective date of the amendatory act that added this section,” and, of course, for “Only Ones” of:
“The United States… This state or another state… A department, an agency, or a political subdivision of the United States, this state, or another state… A member of an entity or organization… while engaged in the course of that member’s duties with that entity or organization or while going to or returning from those duties.”
How the problem of “deceptively colored firearms” goes away when in the hands of someone with a badge is not explained. Neither is the rational basis for “grandfathering” colored guns for one group of citizens, but not providing equal protection for individuals who got theirs “after the effective date of the amendatory act that added this section,” but instead dictating that “no later than 14 days after receipt” they’ll be required to either surrender it “to the department of state police for disposal” or “Modif[y] the deceptively colored firearm or covert firearm so that it is no longer a deceptively colored firearm or covert firearm and cannot be readily converted into one.”
Surrender it or make it impossible to repaint, which is impossible? ALL firearms can be “readily converted.” And if you don’t do the former and can’t do the latter, you’ll be arrested? In addition to “Furious Mike,” how about “Despotic Dayna”?
Where she may have gone too far without realizing it in her hatred of all things, gun is who will be most affected by her cosmetics ban. Those include a large bloc of potential Democrat constituents.
The first is women, as a Google image search for the term “Women’s guns” demonstrates.
“Armed women nationwide refused ‘to be victims’ in 2023 as gun ownership increases,” a Fox News story from last December documents. “Gun ownership among women has boomed in recent years.” Make sure to check out the accompanying photo.
Dayna won’t allow them to have that choice.
The other thing limiting choices to “black, brown, dark grey, dark green, silver, steel, or nickel” does is it bans camo. Tell that to the “Fudds” who vote Democrat right after convincingly refuting all the good reasons that camo wrap makes more “gun sense” than making Ricky Taylor a “gun criminal.”
So much for out-of-state sportsmen boosting the economy by making Michigan a hunting destination, and so much for gun owners in general wanting to take any risks by going there.
Here’s the thing, actually, several things: Much of what will become illegal are actually gun parts, and not a firearm as defined and regulated by ATF.
Further, as shown by the widespread public demand for decorative colors and patterns on firearms, that runs afoul of established law, as the reply brief by the petitioners to the Supreme Court in the Snope v. Brown challenge to Maryland’s semiauto ban demonstrates. “Heller clearly teaches that arms in common use by law-abiding citizens cannot be banned,” they contend. (Let’s just hope such arguments don’t provide the precedent to allow future developments in firearms technology to be banned.)
And on top of all that, banning colored firearms flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision with its standard of relying on the history, text, and tradition at the time of the Constitutional debates and ratification. Really. The Founders knew about colored guns.
As Frontier Partisans documents with a citation from “c. 1775”:
…the youth of Williamsburg formed themselves into a military corps and chose Henry Nicholson as their Capt.; that on (British Governor Lord) Dunmore’s flight from Williamsburg, they repaired to the magazine and armed themselves with blue painted stock guns kept for the purpose of distributing among the Indians…”
“Some similar guns had vine patterns painted on them. It is well to remember that the 18th century was a flamboyant period — all was not earth tones,” the article advises.
“Toward the end of the Seven Years War (AKA French and Indian War), some of the cheap, lightweight muskets manufactured for the Colonies and her native allies were actually painted blue,” The Colonial Brewer adds. “What color ‘blue’ is up to serious interpretation as these were likely painted with a lacquer made of linseed oil and Prussian Blue which can manifest in any color from bright green to light aqua…”
Don’t expect Dana Polehanki and Democrats bent on eviscerating the Bill of Rights to pay any attention to that even if they knew about it, which they probably don’t. Speaking of probability, they also know that if a challenge ever makes it that far it would ultimately be overruled by a Supreme Court further enhanced by incoming Trump administration appointments. But they don’t care.
They have the unlimited war chest of the state to fight court battles, while challenges need to be financed by already overstretched gun advocacy groups relying on the generosity of supporters of limited means. Nonstop harassment of gun owners by waging lawfare against them on countless fronts is all part of the plan.
Gun owners can’t relax with Donald Trump in the White House, slim Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and the problematic Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice. What we can do (and let’s hope “Gun Owners for Trump” was more than just for campaign optics and will actually have a conduit to the president’s ear) is pressure the administration and the Department of Justice to treat violations of the Second Amendment under color of authority exactly as they would were states depriving citizens of other rights.
Until persecutors can be held personally accountable for attacks on any of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights, there will be nothing to stop their smugly imperious and relentless assaults. Gun owners need to make that expectation loud and clear.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
from https://ift.tt/wCAe7bp
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment