Smith & Wesson M&P with pink combination trigger lock (coutesy tactical gear.com)

I am constantly amazed (but not amused) by the gun control crowd’s utter insensitivity to gun owners’ civil rights. Would the LA Times run a headline “Let’s Lock Up Cell Phones”? And yet they feel perfectly comfortable “encouraging” the Los Angeles City Council to “pursue” their plan to pass a law requiring gun owners to lock up — and render inoperable — their firearms. Without addressing the fact that any such law opens the door to unannounced home inspections (presumably by California’s newly-financed Gun Confiscation Team). That said, I found this startling gem in the middle of their anti-gun agitprop . . .

If one accepts the notion that the 2nd Amendment affords individuals the right to own a gun for self-protection, it’s hard to argue that an individual can own a gun but can’t have it handy and operable when it’s needed. The D.C. law clearly went too far in requiring guns to be dismantled and rendered inoperable.

Wait. What? If the D.C. law — struck down by the Supreme Court in the Heller decision — went too far, how does LA’s proposed law — which would require the exact same strictures on gun storage — not go too far too? The Times editorial board reckon it does, BUT –

But removing a trigger lock is not necessarily time-consuming. Some have simple three-digit combination locks that take seconds to open. It’s by no means clear that that is an onerous obstruction, especially balanced against the public interest in reducing accidental deaths.

It’s by no means clear that any member of the LA Times editorial board has ever held a gun. Fit one with a trigger lock. Attempted to remove said trigger lock during an adrenaline dump. Clearly, it’s time for the NSSF to hold a media day giving practical instruction on firearms storage and operation to willfully ignorant anti-gun journalists.

And the best way to reduce accidental firearms deaths is education. How about a law requiring firearms safety education in schools? Not that I like laws, but if “something must be done,” it’s probably best to do something effective rather than just politically correct.

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67 COMMENTS

  1. I live near LA. Most LA dwellers consider themselves enlightened progressives, when in reality, they are predominantly ignorant idealists who know nothing about the reality of how the world works, how self defense and crime work and why they should exercise their civil and God given right to self defense.

    It cracks me up that whenever a Liberal Progressive I meet or know is the victim of a crime, how quickly they migrate their thinking to “Maybe I had better buy a gun and get some training.” If only their heads weren’t so far up their rears before they were victims of crime. Even if this law passes, almost no gun owners will comply. If I lived in LA County, I wouldn’t.

    • Other than unconstitutional random searches, how will they know? Buy a lock, and leave it open, sitting beside wherever you keep your gun at home.

      • I live in LA and I will be breaking this law if it passes.

        The city council waffled and dropped a magazine ban (on banned magazines) this year.

        This might be hot air. I’ll let that shiteater busciano know exactly how I feel about him.

        Again.

    • This one guy I met in L.A. said that he “doesn’t believe in guns” and that the 2nd amendment is outdated.
      He said governments can now be overthrown with Twitter. Yes, apparently your tweets can overthrow tyrannical governments.
      So I showed him my gun and went over the four safety rules.
      Turns out he doesn’t really know anything about guns (shocking, I know).

      • Yeah, those tweets sure got those Nigerian girls back, didn’t they? The word “twit” seems particularly appropriate for that guy.

      • “He said the overthrow of governments by armed rebels could be covered by twitter now.”

        I fixed that for him.

      • Letters of Marque and Reprisal may be a bit dated, but the Second Amendment is needed now more than ever, especially if your twit interlocutor’s premise is to be believed. (Never mind for the moment that you can get a lot farther with a defiant tweet and a gun, than with a defiant tweet alone.)

        Part of the federal government’s constitutional mandate (or is the preamble outdated, too?) is to “insure domestic tranquility [and] provide for the common defense.” If modern governments cannot even withstand a social media onslaught, then doesn’t that up the ante and shift the onus of security to the citizens themselves? In these troubling, oh so modern times, doesn’t an armed populace, with their RKBA intact, make the Second Amendment never before more relevant?

  3. Ownership of and use of cellphones is not protected by one of the primary amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps the LA Times would offer to have the Freedom of Speech, which protects it and its readers, and those to the left of everything (as well as us all) to be stifled, stymied, and muffled. Only available in a lock box or in a safe, not available in public, not available for any use outside of that closet, safe,

    What damnable hypocrites! Oh, they must be Democrats. Democrats = hypocrisy.

    • Especially because most phones now run Twitter apps, and apparently you can use Twitter to overthrow a government.

      Mr. and Mrs. America, lock ’em up or turn ’em in!

    • Ask them if the phone should be placed in a locked box while driving, such as the glove box or center console. Distracted driving killed 3,328 people and caused 421,000 motor vehicles crashes in 2012. Should we not pass laws mandating this? Think of the children?

      • “Ask them if the phone should be placed in a locked box while driving, such as the glove box or center console.”

        Seeing how practically every human operating a cell phone drives, it would be a very welcome decision. You’re not constitutionally entitled to distractions while operating a vehicle on a public road. You are, however, constitutionally entitled to defend yourself from imminent threats with the firearm of your choice.

      • My city has “anti-distracted driving” laws now, so anyone spotted operating a hand-held device will be ticketed, and a large one at that. I still see plenty of people ignoring that law every day, even while passing cops, but the compliant people just buy a car mount for their phone and keep tapping away. So in my anecdotal experience the police are largely ineffectual at enforcing a law (tied to a big, easy ticket) that operates in the areas they regularly patrol and have jurisdiction over, public roads. How exactly are they going to enforce laws that operate in our homes? That’s right, they’re not. We need to get the legislators out of our private homes and focused on the problems in the streets and enforcement of the laws already in the books. This is just another “do something” tactic without any chance to make any kind of positive impact.

  5. I posted this earlier today, but accidental deaths by firearm are not very common. In fact, before we consider locking up firearms we should concentrate on things that accidently kill FAR more people, like household chemicals, bath tubs, ladders, swimming pools, anything that can start a fire, etc. Heck, deaths by crushing due to large pieces of furniture falling on people (apparently most often a large television or appliance tipping over) usually tie or outpace firearms accidents.

    http://www.nssf.org/PDF/research/IIR_InjuryStatistics2013.pdf

    Again and as always, we should point out that any argument for locking up guns for public safety so as to prevent accidents shows an obvious and clear bias against firearms specifically. If it was about public safety, the list of things that should be locked up or otherwise controlled first (before getting to firearms) is extremely long.

  7. It takes about three seconds for an owner to unlock a three-digit trigger lock. It takes a bad guy about two seconds to crack the lock with a screwdriver.

    “Gun control? It’s the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I’m a bad guy, I’m always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I’ll pull the trigger. We’ll see who wins.”

    ― Sammy Gravano

    • Ralph-thank you for The Bull’s quote. It brought me back to Queens in the 80’s in a half a heartbeat. It has been copied to my file of memorable quotes, as I am sure i will find use for it in the future.

  8. ‘It’s by no means clear that any member of the LA Times editorial board has ever held a gun.’

    Actually it’s perfectly clear that none of them have ever owned or handled a firearm.

    • And they’re probably just as experienced with every other subject they opine about.

      • Yes!

        I’m convinced that willful ignorance is a journalistic pre-requisite for employment in the field of news reporting, and anti-gun journalists excel in that attribute.

  10. Let’s lock up LA’s liberals. Maybe then we conservatives who actually work won’t have to worry about being late.

      • The ‘herd’ should thin out the flock once they’re done with them.

        Then all we would need to pay for would be the burial.

        ‘Course, this being CA and all…they’d just be released.

      • Feeding them? Why would we do that?
        Better idea, let’s lock them into a lush wilderness, plenty of game and fresh water. Whichever ones manage to survive the easiest caveman experience, then they can petition to be let back into society. Bonus points to the ones who figure out spears and bows,

  11. “….but if “something must be done,” it’s probably best to do something effective rather than just politically correct.” Why, it has worked out so marvelously for the anti-gun mob so far? Maybe it’s the “sunk cost” effect, where nobody wants to admit they’ve been blatantly and irrevocably wrong on the gun issue for so many years? That, and who wants to feel the chastising, liberal wrath of idiots that they themselves wreaked on the 2A side for so many years?

  13. Ok , so this is incredibly asinine… but I dont get it, cant you satisfy the law with one of those “biometric” tin boxes that are sold as “safes”. Im pretty sure I saw some wiseass guy in a youtube video open one of those with a photocopy of his finger print or a hotdog or something like that, another one he opened with a paperclip. Heck if you actually want it to be legitimately locked get one of those simplex locked bedside lockboxes. All those “comply” with the law I’m pretty sure. Its not like they are asking people to pour the thing into a slab of concrete.

    • There are more than a few issues surrounding the idea of requiring biometric safes.

      1. It’s an infringement on Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
      2. Some people don’t trust them. What if your fingers are bloody or the bloody thing doesn’t work?
      3. Anytime the state requires a locked gun the state has a vested interest in making sure that you’re complying with the law. In the UK and Australia, the government can and does random “home safety” inspections on licensed gun owners.
      4. Why should I be required to do ANYTHING with my gun except not use it to commit a crime? If a child gains unauthorized access to a firearm and causes harm I am already legally liable. AFTER THE FACT
      5. All laws designed to prevent an action are ineffective and intrusive, especially when compared to laws that punish a given behavior.

  14. … especially balanced against the public interest in reducing accidental deaths.

    Like those of the ventilated home invaders in places like Detroit. Da poor yoots were turning their lives around. Tomorrow.

  15. There will be no audible outcry about this in LA. Threaten to lock up juicers, or mandate the amount of photos one can take of one’s self, and there’s your outcry.

  16. Let’s do this. We give the editorial board a gun with a lock. Then come at them with a baseball bat. If the can press the 3 digit code and unlock it, the attack stops. No warning of course. Either way the problem gets solved.

  18. Jeesh. Nobody reads anymore.

    DC v Heller, 2008. Page 3.

    “Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

  19. 591 accidental firearm related deaths in the U.S. out of 311,587,816 people in 2011. They account for 1/2 of 1 percent of all accidental deaths, poisoning, for example, was the cause of 36,280 deaths (almost 29 percent of accidental deaths) over that same period yet no one is screaming for safe storage of household chemicals (which do not need to be accessible for self defense and are not protected by the Constitution). If these people really cared they would go after something that would make a real difference, but they don’t and we all know that.

  20. Robert, seriously, where is your righteous indignation about all other assaults on our Constitution and our rights? I get this is a gun site, but the 2A doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the lack of critical thought and concern concerning other liberties which have been either completely flushed or are being flushed (which arguably the 2A was intended to prevent from happening) is a huge deafening silence on this site.

      • RL, get bored with the Huffington Compost? Really, much more your speed, you can interact with all sorts of special Pavlovian types like yourself who capitalize words like progressive with the proper conditioning.

  21. Speaking of fighting the stupid at LA, and Hollyweird.

    Here’s an excellent article about GamerGate. ( A bow of Respect to the COD boyz, btw. )

    And lessons learned there with progressive thought-nazi’s, that we POTG are already well familiar with, and I am sure we will be seeing more of, now that the howling leftist feminists and beta male PC fetishists have been crushed in the reality based world of the 2A vote in elections.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/11/12/The-authoritarian-Left-was-on-course-to-win-the-culture-wars-then-along-came-GamerGate

    (h/t Instapundit for the meme and link to Breitbart)

      • RL, all jokes aside, you are in La-La land if you really think the right or conservative culture is winning the culture war. Todays right is the equivalent of the yesterdays left. Todays republicans are the same as democrats from 20 years ago. If you’re not familiar with the concept of Hegelian dialect, I suggest you do so.

        • Not really. It’s intellectual laziness that promotes the idea that this political party was exactly the same as the other one several years ago, mainly because there are different concerns and issues during any period of time. You can also go back 100 or even 50 years ago that both parties either had a shared principle or were completely opposite from one another. Also certain ideas may have been started in one, but was fully embraced by another several years later (Progressives for example, started with Teddy Roosevelt and still exists to some degree in the Republican party but was eventually embraced in full by the current Democrat party). Likewise no current party defends the institution of slavery but that wasn’t the case in the 1860’s.

          The cultural war is another issue, but I will contend that spending and economics trumps all, which is why you will hear most people claim to be “Socially Liberal, but Fiscally Conservative:.”

        • YD, both agree and disagree, of course replicants of today of today are not identical to democrats of 29 years ago, but can argue the right has shifted to the left? Just look at health Care, immigration, and gay issues, there are many many more. It is intellectual laziness to ignore this and focus on the minor differences that exist only to give us the illusion of choice in this alleged 2 party system.

  22. Are they suggesting using the trigger lock on a loaded gun with one in the chamber? Because I would imagine that every trigger lock probably specifically states to only use on an unloaded gun. Common sense would say that you don’t want anything around or on the trigger until the gun is on target, especially while loaded.

  23. It’s about time. LA Guns was a terrible excuse for a band. Should’ve been locked up long ago. Go ahead and lock up Guns ‘n Roses, too. They’re not so bad, but I think it’s time we realized that civilized metalheads just don’t need that kind of thing laying around unsecured.

  24. I like this gem from the article:

    This year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case from San Francisco that a trigger lock alone “does not impose a substantial burden on conduct protected by the 2nd Amendment.”

    … and the 9th Circuit will once again get bitch slapped for the egregious half baked decisions those aging hippies keep churning out. SCOTUS has vacated or reversed the 9th Circuit about 80% of the time since 2008.

  25. MA has such a locking requirement. It is actually worse than the LA proposal.
    When I lived in MA, it was my understanding that the law requires the any firearm be fixed with a trigger lock, unloaded, and locked in a gun safe. The ammo must be locked in a separate gun safe. Criminals love this.

  26. I’ve never been anti-gun because I grew up with them in Detroit, but when I was young(er) I’ll admit I tended to think in a vacuum.

    By that I mean, I would hear about these various laws and think, well that seems innocuous enough, why not. You know, it’s just a lock and I feel pretty safe anyway so….

    This blog is great but it tends to preach to the choir. Somehow through the NRA, or some type of broader campaign we need to help the people who can still think, to understand the burden this places on people and the consequences these laws have.

    I’m completely unfamiliar with the costs involved, but short radio or TV spots, small articles or letters to the editor of papers, etc. Something that would get the message to the average person who wouldn’t frequent a gun blog. Thoughts?

    • I think there are plenty of people from outside the choir who pop in from time to time and read what we have to say.

      But considering the nature of the message, were always going to have a majority of like minded folks, that’s just the way it is.

      • I guess I’m wondering what else we can do to get the message out. Nothing against drawing them in here, just thinking about a broader audience.

  27. How is it that whenever such a “safety measure” is suggested it is touted and then backed as if it’s the greatest safety measure ever devised and that pro-gun individuals are just head-in-the-sand NRA-controlled rednecks? How can “intellectual progressives” have no interest in hard data on these kinds of measures and their effects? We’re all preaching to the choir here, but how can we get an actual discussion on anything gun-related when it turns people into instant authoritarians (otherwise known as moms) that only want to tell us what to do for our own good because they know better? The data doesn’t support these kinds of measures. How can “intellectuals” be so wrapped up in feel-good legislation?

    • It should pretty obvious that safety and security issues with guns have nothing to do with safety and security. The agenda is control.

      • Average and ordinary people aren’t really in “the know”, though. They might somehow agree with the sentiment that controlling the populace is good for safety (idealistically), but how can “educated” people buy this crap on the points given without once being interested in the facts? They’ll print up pamphlets and brochures to shove in our faces when they want to “educate” people about how farm animals will be killed in order to have burgers and ribs (duh), but when it comes to this topic they buy every headline hook, line, and sinker. Maybe it’s messenger bias or they really don’t know anything about anything related to guns so they couldn’t care less and rely on their “experts”. The hypocrisy of intellectuals caring nothing about the data is bothersome, divisive, and leads to two different echo-chambers that can never agree.

        • Fred, it’s been my experience that average people are actually in the know a heck of a lot more than intellectuals. Often the higher the education level, the lower the ability to critical think. My opinion anyway.

  28. I demand all baseball bats, broom handles, shovels, rakes, pitchforks, kitchen knives, pointy sticks longer than 3 inches, be disassembled for storage.

    Oohh and all fist sized rocks be broken down into small pebbles.

    Double ooooh, all pools deeper than 3 inches have to be drained when not in direct use.

    Because children. #safetyatallcostsiswherefreedomdies

    Gosh it’s almost like there should one big law against doing violence to people, Huh, ’cause then we wouldn’t have to have all these little laws. Please let me know when my nobel peace prize arrives, I will pick it up on my flying unicorn.

    Once again the internet has made me sad. I will go watch some full auto mag dumps on youtube to make me smile again.

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