TTAG Daily Digest: Gabby’s Latest Targets, Holder’s Prosecutorial Disinterest and Chris Murphy is SUPER CLOSE!

Gabby’s group can always find something to ban…and use to raise more cash . . . Gun reformers search for the next bump stock

On Wednesday, the gun-violence prevention group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) will release a report detailing nine products — all commercially available under current federal law — the advocates say are designed specifically to circumvent long-established gun checks and therefore pose a threat to public safety. …

The products singled out by the group are a combination of obscure accessories and military-style firearms that, like bump stocks, are hardly household names. They include binary triggers, which modify firearms so one round is fired with the pull of the trigger, and another upon the trigger’s release; trigger cranks, which allow shooters to fire more rapidly with the turn of a handle; and incendiary rounds, which ignite when they hit a target.

The list also features modern AR- and AK-style pistols, which can be concealed like handguns but have the firepower of rifles, and .50-caliber rifles, which can fire rounds accurately for a mile and retain the punch to pass through a house.

Also listed in the report: pistol arm braces designed to help disabled people shoot safely and muzzleloaders, but especially the SilencerCo Maxim 50. Oh, and note the use of the term of art, “gun reformers.”

Of course they did . . . Police knew ‘madman’ had guns before killing rampage

At a tense news conference, police conceded that neighbors had repeatedly complained about Kevin Neal firing hundreds of rounds from his house among other erratic and violent behavior.

Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said authorities responded to neighbors’ calls several times, but the 44-year-old Neal wouldn’t open the door, so they left.

“He was not law enforcement friendly. He would not come to the door,” Johnston said. “You have to understand we can’t anticipate what people are going to do. We don’t have a crystal ball.”

They knew he’d been charged with felonies. And they knew about the restraining order.

There are no simple solutions . . . Why mental health test for gun ownership is a slippery slope

During my 30 years as a prosecutor I encountered many cases where a defendant’s mental status was an issue. I both utilized and challenged, “mental health experts” from throughout the country.

You can hire an accredited “mental health expert” to testify under oath to any conclusion you need. There are few objective criteria about “mental” health. Conclusions backed up by objective standards on which “experts” on both sides agree are rare. Ultimately a jury of lay persons decides whom to trust.  Feedback I’ve gotten from many jurors is they disregard the “psycho-babble” from all the experts.

Then there is the problem of biased experts. I’ve gotten some to admit their opposition to the death penalty leads them to “always find a mental deficiency” that would preclude imposition of a death sentence. Outcome-determinative bias is likely in experts who personally advocate gun control.

Because talk is cheap and action costs time and money . . . Obama Rarely Prosecuted Criminals Who Sought To Buy Guns Illegally

Daniel D. Roberts, who in 2009 was named Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, confirmed that more than 100,000 criminals each year attempt to buy guns even though they have rap sheets.

“When I was there, it was running around 100,000 a year of firearm purchasers that tried to go through to buy guns. I think it’s more than 100,000 now,” he told TheDCNF in an interview. “That should trigger a referral to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for investigation for lying on the forms.”

Two of every 10 gun denials referred to the ATF was sent to field offices for prosecution, a Justice Department report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2013 and 2014  found. Eight of ten never faced prosecution, according to the report.

Note to Washington Post: straw purchases are already illegal . . . One illegal gun. 12 weeks. A dozen criminal acts. The rapid cycle of gun violence.

Six days after the Glock was purchased on Aug. 4, 2014, it was used in a gun battle that wounded six at a birthday barbecue a few blocks from Nationals Park.

It was fired three days later at a woman driving along a District highway listening to R&B, a victim who happened to be an off-duty D.C. police officer headed home from a nightclub. She kicked off her Louboutin heels and punched the gas pedal trying to catch the shooters.

The same night and less than two miles away, the Glock was fired again at a man stopped at a traffic light in a hulking Yukon Denali. In a coincidence, he, too, was a cop and a random target, in plain clothes and driving into the District to testify in a murder trial.

Oh look…another good guy with a gun stops a serious crime . . . ‘Hero’ pulls gun to stop woman from being raped on Austin trail

An Austin man takes his weekly trail run armed with a flashlight, cell phone — and a handgun tucked in a Velcro belt. Last month he pulled out the  weapon to help rescue a woman who was being sexually assaulted.

Josh Williams, 39, was running about 5:30 a.m. on the north side of Austin’s Hike-and-Bike Trail when he heard a woman screaming and pointed his flashlight in her direction, KVUE-TV reported. He saw a man on top of her and realized she was being sexually assaulted.

“I came up, pulled my gun and told him to get off of her,” he told the station. “I said, ‘Get on your knees and show me your hands.'”

These 4 countries have nearly eliminated gun deaths — here’s what the US can learn

A US buyback would mean destroying 40 million guns, but on a statewide level the undertaking might not be so massive.

Forty million? Is that just in Texas?

Don’t get between Chris Murphy and a reporter or a camera . . . Dem senator: ‘Super close’ on bipartisan deal on guns

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that senators are nearing a bipartisan deal on gun legislation following a number of high-profile mass shootings.

Murphy’s office pointed The Hill to comments made last week by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), who said that he would talk to Democrats about strengthening background checks – an initiative that gained some bipartisan momentum earlier this month after a gunman opened fire on a church in southern Texas, killing 26 people.

It was revealed shortly after the attack that the gunman, 26-year-old Devin Kelley, was able to slip through the system and purchase firearms, despite a known history of violence.

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