The Arizona Rifleman

The House of Representatives and the Senate are considering several “internet blacklist” bills — “PROTECT-IP” in the Senate, and “Stop Online Piracy Act” (“SOPA”) in the House.

If passed, these laws would have a devastating effect on free speech, internet infrastructure, privacy, and current “safe harbor” provisions for websites all while doing little to stop the availability of pirated content.

To quote the EFF:

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet’s domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users’ attempts to reach certain websites’ URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.

It gets worse: Under SOPA’s provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities.  While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough).  And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).

I find it terrifying that the US government is even considering such a blatant censorship scheme. This sounds like something one would expect from oppressive regimes, not from a Western nation, and certainly not from the U

Please, contact your Representatives and Senators. This is a Big Deal.

The Arizona Republic reports that Governor Brewer has vetoed SB 1467, citing vagueness in defining “public right-of-way”.

That said, the definition is somewhat vague. A.R.S. § 9-461 defines “right-of-way” as “any public right-of-way and includes any area required for public use pursuant to any general or specific plan”. Somewhat circular reasoning.

Naturally, all the anti-rights folks (both on-campus and off) are focusing on unexplained statements¹, emotional claims, and irrelevant refererences to the incident where Congresswoman Giffords and others were shot² as that incident and empowering the law-abiding to lawfully carry, if they choose, on public areas of a campus have essentially nothing to do with each other. Go figure.

The Arizona Republic also provided some interesting information:

Brewer’s office was inundated with calls about the bill.

Between April 7 and April 13, the Governor’s Office of Constituent Services received 904 calls, letters and faxes in support of SB 1467 and 951 in opposition to it, a Brewer spokeswoman said.

It’s rare to get actual quantitative information about support/opposition to a bill. While it’s unlikely that the absolute number of support/opposition letters had any direct bearing on the governor’s decision, it’s still nice to get some numbers of what was received by her office. Although I oppose the governor’s veto, the fact that this information was released is a good thing. Well done!

In addition, the governor vetoed the absurd “birther” bill that the legislature sent to her desk. Again, well done. The fact that such a bill was not only proposed, but actually passed out of the legislature is quite embarrassing and reflects poorly on the state and the legislature.

1. For example, “Guns have no place in school!”, without explaining how it’s fine for people to carry guns on a public sidewalk on any non-campus street in the state, but is somehow worse to have the same people carrying the same guns on a public sidewalk on-campus. [↩]
2. It’s already illegal to commit murder and attempted murder, yet that law didn’t seem to stop the shooter. How are stickers declaring a campus to be a “weapon free zone” going to be any better? Criminals would ignore them; only the law-abiding would obey those rules. [↩]

I’ve been getting a lot of traffic recently to my post about SB 1467 so I thought it would be prudent to do a follow-up with some (hopefully) useful information.

First off, while the bill is often publicized as allowing “guns in the classroom”, that is not the case. Rather, the bill simply adds a section to the existing law which says:

Notwithstanding subsection D of this section and section 15‑341, the governing board of an educational institution shall not adopt or enforce any policy or rule that prohibits the lawful possession or carrying of a weapon on a public right-of-way.

In short, if one can legally possess or carry a firearm off-campus, one would then be able to possess or carry a firearm on a sidewalk, street, or other public place on-campus. Possession of firearms in the classroom would continue to be prohibited.

According to the Arizona State Legislature’s fact sheet about the bill, there are two caveats:

1. The bill does not “preclude school districts from conducting approved gun safety programs on school campuses” which would presumably be held in classrooms and presumably involve the presence of actual (albeit unloaded) firearms.
2. The bill does not “apply to private universities, colleges, high schools or common schools or other private educational institutions (A.R.S. § 13-2911).”

Honestly, I can’t really see how this would be remotely controversial — law-abiding people can already carry in public places in Arizona, why should they be prohibited from carrying in a public place on campus? If one can legally walk down a sidewalk on a public street while discretely armed, why can’t one do the same on a sidewalk on a public university? It makes no sense for the same action to be legal on one side of a street, but illegal on the other side.

All the official information about the bill itself can be found at the Arizona State Legislature website for the bill.

Here.

Interesting part:

[Justice Department legal adviser Amid] Torres said the measures will include a requirement that shooting ranges keep logs of how much ammunition their members use and cap the number of bullets each client can fire in target practice at 500 per year.

Police Department legal adviser Estrella Mar Vega voiced support for the measures as “more specific and stringent controls to monitor whether people who say they acquire weapons and ammunition at shooting clubs are using them for such purposes.”The attorney deemed it necessary to limit the use of weapons and ammunition that licensed vendors can have and distinguish that from competitive target shooting and hunting.

I went through 150 rounds of 5.56mm ammo the last time I was at the range, and that was a pretty laid-back session. If I’m shooting .22LR, going through a brick at the range in a single day is not uncommon. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who go through 500 rounds in a day or two, let alone an entire year.

I fail to see what such restrictions would seek to accomplish.

In addition, this restriction stands out:

The measure will also limit the quantity of weapons that a person con posses[sic] to take to a gun club.

“It is imperative that we control the transfer from one place to another of the firearms that are owned in Puerto Rico. With this measure we avoid possible tragedies by gun accidents and thefts,” Torres said.

Yes, they want to limit the number of firearms one can transport from home to the range. What the hell will that do?

Despite some of the tightest firearms restrictions in the United States, Puerto Rico also has one of the highest homicide rates, with drug-related gun violence blamed for the majority of the killings.

Gee, ya think?

Violent crime is a symptom. Get rid of drug smuggling, and violent crime drops through the floor. Being that the drug smugglers have no qualms about violating prohibitions on drugs, I suspect they will continue to have no problems violating firearms restrictions. Once again, gun control only affects the law-abiding.

One good thing, however, is mentioned. They say that after the Heller case, there’s now 800 registered gun owners in DC. Yes, it sucks to have to jump through the outrageous hoops they put in the way, but at least some people are standing up for their rights.

The Saudi and UAE governments are thinking of banning certain services on BlackBerry phones, as theyare encrypted and communicate to foreign systems.

Joe reminds us that while encrypted communications can be used for nefarious purposes, they can also be used for good. Phil Zimmermann, inventor of the common encryption software PGP feels the same way.

Indeed, they are used for good far more than for evil, and their use is almost ubiquitous: essentially any site that deals with personal or financial information is SSL-encrypted. Gmail uses SSL by default, and now even Google Search is available over SSL. Most instant-messaging clients use SSL between the client and server, and Skype uses transparent, end-to-end encryption for all voice, video, and chat messages, as well as file transfers.

In a way, crypto is not unlike firearms¹ : it can be used by bad guys plotting dastardly deeds, but its benefits to society are considerably greater than its drawbacks.

In fact, I consider strong crypto to go hand-in-hand with free speech: being able to speak privately (and, on a related note, anonymously) is one of the strongest foundations of liberty. I hold this believe so strongly that I regularly use and encourage others to use strong crypto in their everyday lives. For those wishing to contact me securely, my PGP key is available here. One can also send me an S/MIME-signed message and I will reply with a signed+encrypted message.

1. Even the government considers certain cryptosystems to be munitions, and restricts their export, although the restrictions have been considerably lessened in my lifetime. [↩]

One nice thing about the recent Arizona immigration law is that it’s running remarkably good interference for the permitless carry law in Arizona.

Sure, the permitless carry law isn’t really a big deal in Arizona, but what little drama that could be stirred up against it has been replaced with ire for the immigration law and I haven’t heard a peep against the carry law in any media recently.

The Arizona House of Representatives just voted to approve SB 1108, the “Constitutional Carry” measure that was up for voting.

Now, it goes to the governor. If she signs it (or it passes without her signature), Arizonans will be able to carry firearms concealed without a permit (e.g. Alaska/Vermont-style carry). I’m pretty sure the governor will sign the measure.

Big day indeed.

Here’s a video of the proceedings from the ASUA meeting tonight.

Sorry for the poor quality video and audio — I recorded it with my cellphone video camera, which is clearly not the best recording tool. Such is life.

I’ll go through the videos and add annotations/captions in the future.

At several points, I wanted to say to the pro-gun people, “Stop it. You’re not helping.” — we’re not talking about the Second Amendment, nor guns in parking lots, nor anything else. We’re talking about whether the ASUA, the University of Arizona student government, should support or oppose a state senate bill that would allow faculty with valid CCW permits to carry concealed firearms on campus. Your efforts basically confirm every negative stereotype, though most of the pro-gun females who spoke were clear, articulate, and made some good points. This is a matter of giving responsible adults — professors, specifically — the choice to carry a firearm on campus if they wish.

The ASUA is holding a voting meeting tomorrow in the Ventana Room at the Student Union at 5:00pm. They’ll allow a brief period of public discussion on the topics (the gun issue is the first thing on the schedule, so show up promptly), but then the ASUA Senate will have their own discussions and vote on the matter. I highly encourage decent public speakers (i.e. not like those who spoke tonight) to attend and speak tomorrow. If we get good public speakers, particularly those who don’t fit into classic stereotypes of gun owners (e.g. women, disabled, professors, etc.), that could go a long way toward getting the ASUA to support this measure.

A state senator in Pennsylvania wants to pass legislation naming the Pennsylvania Long Rifle as the state’s official firearm. Report here.

While I think that such legislation is silly, I otherwise don’t have any objection to it. Some, however, do:

[O]opponents say the idea of designating a state firearm is unthinkable, especially since Pennsylvania cities are scarred by gun-related crimes.

Said opponents are not named in the article, nor is their reasoning — such as it is — explained. How does naming a historical, blackpowder, single-shot, longer-than-four-feet-long rifle as the state’s official firearm have anything to do with violent crime? Whoever these opponents are, they need to unbunch their panties.

It is not “Ted Kennedy’s senate seat”, it is the seat for one of the two congressmen representing Massachusetts.

For a while, Kennedy held such a seat, but that doesn’t make it “his seat” after he no longer holds it.