Snowflakes in Hell: NRA Board recommendations
Here are Snowflakes in Hell's recommendations in the ongoing vote for NRA Board members.
[Oops. Deleted the double posting!]
Permalink · NRA · Comments (1)
Ohio Supreme Court to hear pre-emption case
Story here. Cleveland adopted a bar on open carry, maintaining that the legislature's pre-emption statute violates its home-rule powers, under the State constitution. The Court of Appeals agreed with that, but the Ohio Supreme Court, after being petitioned by the state's Attorney General, has agreed to take the case.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (2)
Report from Ohio State University campus
Reader Mark Noble emails his thoughts in relation to yesterday's shooting at OSU:
I’ve been very disappointed in OSU PD’s handling of public safety. The campus is surrounded on 3 sides by some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Columbus. When I’ve talked to the Columbus Police Community Liaison officer at on-campus safety events they blame the victims for getting assaulted and robbed in the neighborhood. Many of the robberies happen to students walking in pairs or groups (which are no match for one or two armed attackers) and the Police parrot the same advice “walk in groups”. To discourage car and apartment thefts they advise OSU students to carry all of their valuables on their person – this just leads to juicier unarmed targets.
I watched the 11:00a press conference from OSU PD. Important facts from the conference.
OSU “takes safety very seriously”.
OSU PD arrived exactly two minutes and one second after the situation was over.
OSU PD heroically captured the suspect who had shot himself and lay dying.
OSU heroically notified students of the danger a half-hour after the threat was over.
Reporter: Are you satisfied with the way that everything worked?OSU Director of Public safety: I'm extremely satisfied and I'm also very appreciative of not only the way that the staff responded in terms of notifying us - taking cover - but also I'm very pleased with the response of our police and law enforcement personnel and also the EMS personnel who responded fairly quickly.
SOURCE: 6:50 into this video.
Other incidents on campus involve multiple armed robberies on the gun-free campus. One very close to the scene of today’s shooting in the same building with the police station. Several shootings have happened at the University Hospital nearby where state prison inmates are brought for treatment and occasionally try to escape.
Because of fears of “drunken college students” misusing handguns, my mom and brother who work in adjacent buildings to this fatal shooting are prevented by their employer and state law from defending themselves at work. My brother is a concealed handgun licensee. My wife, an OSU student frequents another part of campus where a woman was raped the other day. A few days prior, a student with a golf club disrupted an earlier attack attempt in the same area – yet my wife, an NRA Certified Pistol instructor cannot be trusted to defend her own life because she’s a “college student”.
Article on standards of review in 2A cases
By David Kopel and Clayton Cramer, here.
Hat tip to reader Joe Olson...
Background to Chicago handgun ban
Some background, at The American Thinker.
Permalink · Chicago gun case · Comments (0)
Bonus for registering for National Firearms Law Seminar
The National Firearms Law Seminar is the annual Continuing Legal Education seminar put on in connection with the NRA Convention -- the next one is at Charlotte, on May 14. Here's the program.
This year, registration has a bonus. The first 150 to register will get a credit, equal to their registration fee, toward setting up an NFA Gun Trust, courtesy of gun trust lawyer David M. Goldman. Here's his webpage.
You can register online, or use a pdf linked to that page to register by mail, or call 877-NRF-LAWS. For more info, email LawSeminar@nrahq.org.
Mayor Daley doubles down
While awaiting the result in McDonald, Mayor Daley is lobbying for additional gun laws. ""The aggressiveness of the gun advocates is just one reason it's more important than ever that we work for common-sense gun laws..." He demands "changes to state law that would require background checks for those buying a gun in a private sale, ban assault weapons, require that gun dealers be licensed and limit the number of handgun purchases to one per person per month, plus micro-stamping and making it a felony to sell a gun to a known gang member (the last has major void for vagueness problems).
Permalink · Chicago gun case · Comments (4)
Starbucks and the Supreme Court
Bob Barr has thoughts on both. Personally, I may buy a terribly overpriced cup of coffee, for the first time in my life.
Interesting article on an aspect of the Tiahrt Amendment
I knew that the Amendment bans release of gun trace data to cities seeking to sue firearms dealers, but I didn't know that it also declares any such data admissible in evidence. This article argues that the latter restriction, as applied to State courts, is unconstitutional. I wonder, however, whether the fact that the restriction pertains to data originating in Federal investigations, with an allegation that its release might compromise those investigations, doesn't make this more of a "necessary and proper clause" case than a commerce clause case.
Pictures from the McDonald v. Chicago argument
Here are some that I got that day. Understand, we began waiting at 5 AM. Ahead of me were Sarah Gervase and Frederick Jones, who'd been waiting since 4:15 AM, I think he said. He's Otis McDonald's nephew, and a member of the Supreme Court Bar, and was taking no chances on missing his uncle's Supreme Court case. Here are the pictures:
Some of us waiting in the predawn darkness (on the left is Frederick Jones, Mr. McDonald’s nephew.)
Otis McDonald and Alan Gura after the argument.
Mr and Mrs. McDonald coming down the steps.
Here's the crowd outside after the argument,
and the Second Amendment Foundation’s reception that evening.