« November 2006 | Main | January 2007 »
December 2006
Senators call for investigation of ATFE headquarters
Senators Menendez and Lautenberg have called for a Judiciary Committee investigation of the ATFE's spending on its new HQ.
"In a letter to Carl Truscott, ATF director, the New Jersey senators questioned the need for expensive office upgrades while laws governing firearms are not adequately enforced and equipment for field agents is under the knife.
“[These] unnecessary upgrades, including nearly $300,000 in upgrades for your office suite alone, ha[ve] put this project $19 million over budget, just as the ATF is eliminating funding for 500 bulletproof vests and 300 new cars for field agents who enforce the nation’s federal gun laws,” the letter said.
A recent press report outlined extensive upgrades proposed by Director Truscott for the ATF’s Washington headquarters including such costly items as a $65,000 conference table, and $100,000 for hardwood floors. "
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (5)
Call 911 and wait
Bitter calls 911 and finally gets thru on the sixth try. On a Saturday afternoon, no less.
Texas proposes Castle Doctrine/no retreat law
Rep. Joe Driver has introduced HB 284. The Dallas Morning News has the story.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (0)
Michigan passes Emergency Powers Protection Act
Michigan passed an emergency powers protection act, forbidding state and local governments from seizing lawfully-owned firearms during an emergency... it passed unanimously in the House and 37-1 in the Senate.
The bill is now on Governor Granholm's desk, and firearm groups are urging Michigan residents to contact her by phone at (517) 373-3400, or (517) 335-7858; by fax at (517) 335-6863; or by e-mail via her webpage.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (0)
Looking forward to John Conyers as House Judiciary chairman
He's already got his first citation for ethics problems, and Congress hasn't yet convened. The GOP at least had the decency to obtain power before abusing it.
Permalink · Politics · Comments (1)
Passing a modest milestone
Shipped out the 500th copy of the documentary today. It's going slower than expected, but I'm not complaining.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (0)
Collection of articles on firearms control
Just happened upon a huge collection of published articles at Heartland Institute.
NRA "Calling out" the Brady Campaign
That's what Instapundit terms it. Here's the release.
"Get a load of what the president of the Brady Campaign recently said while he was in Maine. Paul Helmke let loose with this: "I absolutely don't want to do anything to make it harder for the legitimate hunters or gun collectors or anybody who even wants it for personal protection."
Oh really? Mr. Helmke, it's time to put your money where your mouth is. If you're not opposed to people having guns for self-defense, then I've got an offer for you. Let's make history together. When Congress convenes next year, let's both push for passage of the D.C. Personal Protection Act. This bill would restore the Second Amendment to our nation's capitol, something that I'm sure you support. After all, you don't want to make it harder for people who want a firearm for personal protection, right?
And let's push to end those stupid "one-gun-a-month" laws. Like you said, you don't want to do anything to make it harder for gun collectors, right? Ever try to buy a matching set of pistols in a state with a "one-gun-a-month" law? Good luck. "
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (6)
Dumb crooks, episode 36,843
It's probably a bad idea to shoot at a homeowner ... while trying to break into his gun safe.
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (0)
Bush Administration flip-flop?
Instapundit asks: Is the Bush Administration flip-flopping on the Second Amendment?. Story is here.
Basically, FAA, in precribing rules for space pilots, and forbidding them to be armed (so much for Star Trek), went out of its way to assert the "collective right" theory.
UPDATE: David Codrea emails the FAA and is told the rule was approved by the Executive Office of the President. Of course, this may just mean that some overworked fellow got a stack of papers relating to rules for private space flight on his desk, knowing nothing of the subject, gave it a quick read and signed off.
Challenge to felon in possession turned back
There's a discussion of a 6th Circuit case, rejecting a challenge to prohibited person prosections as "selective prosecution" based on race, over at the Volokh Conspiracy
The debate reflects a problem that often occurs: (1) if you allow a challenge to be made, and discovery to be obtained, based on little evidence, you'll spend a lot of time sorting out those challenges and (2) if you require the defendant to come up with the evidence without discovery, odds are no challenge will ever be made. Courts in that situation tend to go with (2). Maybe I'm cynical, but the fact that (2) entails less work for the judiciary may play a role.
Permalink · prohibitted persons · Comments (1)
Study of Australian 1996 gun law
The British Journal of Criminology has it.
Permalink · non-US · Comments (2)
British bail jumpers
Britain is having one heck of a problem with arrestees jumping bail.
"Thousands of suspected highly dangerous criminals are roaming Britain's streets because police forces are failing to track down bail jumpers to enforce arrest warrants.
A total of 3,273 accused rapists, robbers, violent offenders and career criminals remain at large after failing to turn up at court while on bail."
Permalink · non-US · Comments (0)
UN, guns, and guitars
Alphecca posts on the latest UN plan to bring about world peace by turning guns into guitars.
[I think they're a bit late -- Ted Nugent already has a few of those]
Permalink · UN · Comments (0)
Ohio pre-emption
The Columbus Dispatch has a story on the legislature's pre-emption of firearm laws and other local measures. Most of which sound like they needed to be pre-empted, IMHO.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (1)
Calls for more gun control in Canada
Story here. Now, it notes they already have just a few:
"Since 1976, Canadians have had to obtain a Firearms Acquisition Certificate in order to purchase new firearms and a Restricted Weapons Permit for handguns and certain other military-style weapons.
Gun owners had to be at least 16 and had to check a box on the application, stating they were not mentally ill.
In 1991 the then-Conservative government passed Bill C-17. The law tightened restrictions on handguns, required a firearms safety course and a background check for would-be gun owners, as well as a 28-day waiting period before purchase.
The Liberals later introduced Bill C-68, which took effect on Dec. 6, 1995, the sixth anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre.
The new law put a screening process in place and banned semi-automatic military-style assault weapons and large-capacity gun magazines like the one used by Lepine.
It required a licence to own a gun and added shotguns and rifles to the list of firearms that had to be registered. Handguns and other restricted weapons already had to be registered."
Permalink · non-US · Comments (1)
Blogging lawsuit
A lawsuit is generated by a blog that was probably a lot more interesting than this one is. A female Senate staffer created a private blog to discuss the intimate details of her sex life with six guys (busy lady!), in which she named names. Then a major DC blog picked it up and a sizeable part of Washington wound up reading. I tend to agree with the judge's comments -- this isn't lawsuit material, and if plaintiff wanted to keep his privacy, filing a federal case like this is hardly helping.
A bit of Christmas gun news
Well, there is always one reliable gun law related thing going at Christmas -- John Snyder's Christmas card!
Normally, it gets a rise from the Washington Post, but they seem to be slacking off this year.
Slow blogging
Not much gun law news, I had some work to do on a new project, and mailed something over 110 copies of the documentary out (representing all orders rec'd from 3 PM Christmas Eve to 3 PM today). Had the family over for a post-Christmas dinner.
A little difference in local custom. I remember when I lived back east with my late ex, Christmas dinners would be sit-down affairs with turkey or ham, a bit on the formal side. Here, I just barbecued beef and chicken, and my sister brought potato salad. Maybe not holiday milspec, but a lot more relaxing.
Good try by unarmed university police officer
An Iowa court rejects an argument, by a university policeman forbidden to carry firearms on the job, that the restriction creates an unsafe workplace. (pdf file)
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (3)
Bringing back non-Christmas memories
With a big grin. 2-3 years ago I interviewed for a legal job here in Arizona -- didn't get the job. The operation sounded strange as heck, but after nearly 10 years of government work, you get used to strange things. It was an office operated by Interior Dept on a military base that did procurement work for the Dept of Defense. Some strange arrangement whereby a portion of the procurement contracts went to Interior. Why DoD wasn't doing its own procurement I could not figure out, let alone why they went to Interior, which is mainly a land management agency, to get it done.
Today's WaPo has a big article on the operation. Apparently the Inspector General had a few problems with it. Such as half a billion bucks awarded without competitive bidding.
Shooter saves officer in LA
Here's the story. It sounds complicated. Officer pulls over a Mercedes that cut into a funeral process, guy tries to bribe him. When officer tries to arrest him, the guy decks the officer and is on top of him, beating away. The officer is crying for help and says the guy was grappling for his gun. Citizen pops the guy.
Gotta say, there has to be more to the story. Young guy, driving a Mercedes, with over $3000 cash in his pockets, tells the officer to look at what he's driving, writing him a ticket is a waste of time, call your boss, tries to bribe him, then refuses to be arrested and tries to call his parents.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (4)
Right to arms, militia, and Iraq
Iraq the Model reports on fighting in Baghdad:
"The big problem is that the security forces are not strong enough to stop them, worse than that, some members of these forces let themselves become partners to the criminals.
We had no choice but to rely on ourselves to protect our homes and neighborhood insurgents and militias alike. In our mixed block the elders met to assign duties and make plans in case things go wrong. They decided that people should all exchange cell-phone numbers as the fastest means to communicate at times of action, it was also decided that if someone calls to report an attack on his home, everyone else must go up to the roof and start shooting at the direction of the assailants.
More roadblocks were erected and older ones strengthened—streets and alleys were blocked in any possible way to prevent any attack with vehicles.
They also agreed that no one moves on the streets after a certain hour at night and any moving person would be dealt with as a threat.
....
No major incidents happened near us except some shooting at a stranger vehicle which neighbors told me carried militants who were trying to launch mortar rounds from an abandoned space but were forced to run away by the shooting."
Permalink · non-US · Comments (2)
memo to files
If playing Russian Roulette, don't keep pulling the trigger until you get a result.
(Another note: use a revolver, not an automatic).
Nevada legislator proposes arming teachers
Nevada State Senator Bob Beers has floated the proposal.
Request for volunteers
Bitter needs volunteers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. It's related to this post on turning Bloomberg in to the ATF hot line for gun crime.
Review of "Active Liberty."
The Volokh Conspiracy links to a pdf of Judge Michael McConnell's book review of Justice Breyer's book "Active Liberty." ("Active" liberty is more like non-liberty, Justice Breyer uses it to describe the liberty of the majority to pass laws. A little touch of 1984 here).
I only had time to skim, but it's powerful criticism. I esp. liked the note at the end that Breyer asks that judges pay less attention to constitutional text and history, and more to carrying out the will of the people... but constitutional text and history themselves reflect the will of the people.
Permalink · General con law · Comments (2)
Australian media and a rather confusing headline
"Anti-gun lobby concerned laws will be watered down". After reading the article, I concluded it means that an antigun lobbying group is concerned that existing gun laws will be watered down. At first read, I thought it might mean that laws concerning some manner of gun lobby would be watered down. On the up side, this is the first time which I can recall in which any media, US, Aussie or anywhere else, has described a group lobbying for gun control as an antigun "lobby."
Permalink · media · Comments (0)
Rather strange result in a gunfight
A perp gets into a close-range gunfight with a citizen, and the citizen shoots him between the eyes with a 9mm.
Legal question that arises: in prosecuting the perp, can prosecutors make him undergo surgery to remove the bullet, so that it can then be shown to have been fired by the defender's gun?
I always favored the bigger calibers, and thought of the 9mm as a .45 "set to stun," but this is rather bewildering. He takes a 9mm in the forehead, and is left with a black eye and a knot on his head.
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (5)
Article on infantry and marksmanship
There's an interesting article in Infantry magazine on the subject. The thrust of it is that the Army has neglected marksmanship, due to (1) emphasis on high-tech weapons and (2) the tendency of past wars ('Nam) to be fought in jungles at close range. Whereas WWII soldiers were trained to engage out to 600 yards, whereas today emphasis is on 200 yards and less. Also the Army (unlike the Marines) have a shortage of first-rate marksmanship instructors.
And now we're fighting in the desert and mountains, where people can see and shoot from longer range.
[Update: link corrected. Thanks...]
Permalink · shooting · Comments (3)
Adolph Hitler on federalism
At the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin notes that 'Dolph discussed federalism in Mein Kampf. He and the Framers agreed that federalism was a major impediment to a totalitarian state -- their point of disagreement was that he wanted that state and they did not.
Permalink · General con law · Comments (1)
Uproar over airsoft and pellet guns
The Modesto Bee has the story.... A few highlights:
"Popular new pellet guns that look remarkably like real, lethal weapons have gotten at least one teenager killed in Florida and caused scares in communities around the country in recent months.
....
Modesto police were involved with another toy gun situation Tuesday afternoon when an officer found three teenage boys with two Airsoft handguns in an alley behind a grocery store, Gundlach said. ... He said the Airsoft handguns were confiscated and will be destroyed. "If it looks like a real gun, it's going to be treated like a real gun," Gundlach said.
Minnesota law makes it a crime to have a fake gun on school property. St. Paul City Councilman Lee Helgen is calling for an ordinance that would bar the carrying of replica guns in public. Other local governments are moving in the same direction.
After a 14-year-old boy with a BB gun was shot and wounded by police in Chicago over the summer, the City Council banned BB and pellet guns. And officials in Beaverton, Ore., are considering a ban on Airsoft guns.
.....
This fall alone:
Two high schools in Apple Valley, Minn., were locked down after a 14-year-old used a fake gun to shoot plastic pellets at other students. Two other students in the district brought fake guns to school recently.
In Melbourne, Fla., a 12-year-old boy was charged with aggravated battery for firing plastic pellets at elementary students at a bus stop.
A 16-year-old Millwood, Wash., boy was arrested on suspicion of shooting two students with an Airsoft pistol on their way to soccer practice.
Two high school students in Hurricane, W.Va., were suspended for having a pellet gun on campus.
"We're running into about one of these guns in possession of a juvenile per week," said Scott Johnson, police chief in Apple Valley. "This is dangerous. This could get somebody killed.""
A VERY good cause
Project Bore Snake. You make a deductible donation, and they send a bore snake to troops in the field. (Why they're not already issue is beyond my understanding). Here's where to donate.
Candadian school trustee raises controversy
A Vancouver school trustee is raising the issue of whether their gun laws should be rolled back.
Hat tip to Joe Olson
Permalink · non-US · Comments (0)
Brady Center on "crime surge"
FBI reports that, after many years of declines, violent crime went up 5%. The Brady Center promptly issued this press release proclaiming it a "a surge in violent crime" and attributing it to guns and less federal money for police.
As to the first: hmmm... funny how crime rates declined for years, as Americans bought more guns.
As to the second: why are cities so dependent on federal funds, for their most basic task of policing their communities?
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (4)
A southwestern perspective
Off topic but -- apparently it was a slow news day, and so the media is grousing about not being told sooner that the Laura Bush had a form of skin cancer.
Hello, people... it's sunny in Texas and Arizona. You go in annually to have those frozen off. If one gets past that it's time to cut it away (I've had it done -- you can tell people it's a bayonet wound you took before you killed, depending on your age, that suicide bomber or VC or North Korean or Kraut. Stay away from the last three unless you have grey hair). When the doc cuts one away he tells you it was pre-pre-cancerous, so it sounds serious enough to merit his fee.
This is about as hot a piece of news as the fact that she took her car in for emissions inspection.
Packing up documentaries
The main order of 4,500 came in this morning. 90 boxes of 50 each. Got a system for printing postage, and got out all orders received by 3:30 PM out on the same day. (Previous days had usually been next-day due to Christmas crush at the post office. Got word that the first day's shipment had reached someone in D.C. this morning.
With 4,500 in boxes, and another 300-400 already in envelopes standing by, there is not a lot of room left in this office! But I've got an ad in America's First Freedom that should be delivered today.
(Might as well repeat, since this page may be picked up by Google, that you can order here).
At last -- I started filming this thing in early January 2003; it's been just about 4 years.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (0)
Paper publishes names of gun permit holders
A while back, the Journal News printed the names of 30,000 licensed New York gun owners (and thoughtfully provides an on-line list, for any burglars with internet access). It caught some flak and now has this response.
"The Constitution gives people the right to own guns in this country, and it also gives people the right to know whether they own a gun or not," said Henry Freeman, editor and vice president/news at The Journal News. "This is a public record. People have a right to know that.
"We did take it into consideration and did not publish your street address, which is also public information."
I don't think anyone doubted that they had a legal right to do it. Under the first amendment, they would have had a right to write a story praising the KKK, or suggesting excellent targets for future terror efforts. When you do that -- or run a story that targets people simply because they have obeyed the law -- the question is one of judgment, consideration, fairness, not of right. To talk of "having a right" in this context is the equivalent of "I did it because you can't stop me."
Permalink · media · Comments (5)
Media response to Ohio override
The legislature passes pre-emption, the Gov. vetoes it, the legislature overrides him by a comfortable 2/3 majority in each house.
The Morning Journal says it's time to take it to court.
Permalink · media · Comments (4)
Madison's notes on an autobiography
Gene Volokh discusses them at the Volokh Conspiracy.
Madison never did write his autobio, but he was collecting notes toward it. It's amazing in a way how few of the Founding Fathers ever bothered to write one, when their lives were so extraordinary. Washington and Jefferson left none, Madison left only notes. Franklin is the only one I can think of who left one.
Text of Ohio bill
Here's the text of the Ohio bill that was passed over the governor's veto.
Minn: felon in possession of BB gun
A Minnesota court has upheld a felon-in-possesion prosecution based on posession of a BB gun.
State laws defining "firearms" fall into several classes:
1. Track the federal rule, basically a cartridge-loading arm.
2. Or expels projectiles by action of an explosive (nevermind that smokeless powder is hardly an explosive, legislatures don't know that much), or
3. Expels a projectile by means of an expanding gas (which would include BB guns).
Thought re: crime rates
Via Volokh Conspiracy comes this WaPo article by gadfly Jeremy Rifkin. He's pointing out the environmental costs (of course!) of dense cities.
Just a thought: crime and in particular homicide rates go up drastically with urbanization, and the larger the city the worse they become. It may be the animal in us -- pack lab rats in densely and they start to fight. How much of the crime rate may be attributable to increasing urbanization might be an interesting question.
It has some local impact here. Channeled by mountains and government land, Tucson has expanded mostly to the Northwest and the East, becoming rather L-shaped. I live in the northeast end, and rarely go downtown (except to court). There's nothing down there, really, and the streets were laid out a century ago, so traffic is slow. We have shopping malls, office supply stores, and everything else here in the east side.
So the local governments are spending millions to "revitalize downtown" in hopes that I would drive 16 miles to go somewhere that has nothing that interests me. Of course it's a boondoggle. But I can't see why revitalizing downtown is a slogan in this context. In some places "downtown" is a crime-ridden slum and improving it might be nice. But here, it's just downtown, narrow streets and old buildings, and most of us have essentially moved away because other places are just more convenient.
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (3)
Shipping documentaries
Got the first shipment of DVDs in yesterday, and sent first shipment out at 8:30 this morning, covering all that had come in by then. Whew! It was a 30+ minute wait to get to the head of the line. (The postal meter equipment comes in today, and when I get it set up things will be much easier). The first load was of about 20 of them (I didn't stop to count). You can order here.
Actually, this is the easy part. I've got an ad coming out in America's First Freedom, probably hits on Monday, and that's gonna lead to a big surge. But by then I'll have 5,000 on hand, probably 500 of them already in envelopes, so it should be do-able with a lot of work.
I'd planned to have them in hand 3 weeks before the ad hit, so I'd have time to start internet movement, give the systems I've created time for testing, etc. But the firm creating the DVDs had a problem -- that I had to diagnose -- the software used for video compression at certain points made video transitions rather blocky. Diagnosing and fixing that took the 3 weeks. So I've only had a day to work out kinks in the system, such as.... the label-creating software is a mediocre port for the Mac, and wouldn't cut and paste. Nor will it allow a template to be created in Word. It took hours to find a way around that, but now I think the assembly line is working, as it were.
BTW, I'm very pleased with the job they did on it. The cover, and DVD art, are great, and with this encoding all of the transitions went very smoothly, no blockiness.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (1)
Dave Kopel debates on TV
Bitter has this post about Dave Kopel debating Arnold Grossman, author of "One Nation Under Guns." She notes it will repeat at 2:30 PM, I guess today, and 1 AM Monday EST.
School idiocy--student finds pellet gun, turns it in, is expelled
Here's the story. A middle school student finds a pellet gun in a restroom, turns it in to a teacher, and is expelled for possessing it since he had to possess it in order to take it to the teacher.
hat tip to Dan Gifford.
Packing documentary
Got the first shipment of DVDs in, played one to make sure -- very nice! Got all the orders that came in thru today labelled and stuffed, will send out early tommorrow (Saturday).
You can't believe what a pain some of this is. PayPal says it's simple -- why, just click on "print packing label."
Except that won't let you send without inputting postage, and that won't let you send first class. I emailed them to ask why, and was told you can send things first class at any post office. True. I can also send them priority, or parcel, or anything else. So why refuse first class? Apparently the interface is designed on the assumption that you simply must have a big parcel, and simply must want it to get there either tommorrow or in a week.
I can cut and paste from Paypal. Except that the label printing software (Brother QL-500 for the Mac) didn't support cut and paste! I finally found that by updating it it would. Altho every paste puts the text over on the left and you have to move it. There is no concept of a "text box" in the software. It's reportedly a very clumsy port from Windows. No way of knowing that until you fired it up and tried to cut and paste.
Then another problem ... in paypal the message to you is quite long, and you have to scroll down to see name and address. I'd prefer something where I just get that and can quickly crank it in. So I go to email programs. Eudora is simple text, no html. Unfortunately, it also shows all the html encoding, so you still wind up scrolling down. I fiddle with the email that comes with the OS. Maybe that will work. It took about an hour to get it configured and running.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (0)
Two ATF agents shot in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a short story on it. Apparently they were serving a search warrant and were shot thru the door. One was hit in the knee, the other in the lower abdomen (I'm guessing below the bulletproof vest, or perhaps the vest stopped it and the medical treatment is for the bruising. Suspects are in custody.
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (4)
Documentary about to become available!
No blogging today, since I spent 7 hours in a settlement conference for a firearms dealer whose inventory was seized by ATF, dropped into plastic garbage cans, and trucked away. My first suit got the firearms back, and this second one ended with a hefty settlement for damages to the guns.
But I have the honor (roll of drums) to announce that the documentary is on its way here. The first 500 should arrive tommorrow (Friday) by 2nd day UPS, and the remaining 4500 on Monday. I should be able to start shipping Saturday, or maybe Friday if they come early and I get some legal housecleaning done in time.
The distribution website is here.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (4)
More on fellow shot during dynamic entry
Here's one story and here's another.
This is shaping up to be a world-record SNAFU.
The student was shot thru the door as they were breaking it down. The officer who fired says that he mistook the sound of the battering ram hitting the door for gunshots, and began firing through the door.
The grand jury indicts the officer, the prosecutor announces it, and then the foreman of the grand jury tells the judge he checked the wrong box, their finding actually had been no true bill, i.e., no indictment, and the finding is changed to reflect that.
More on Ohio veto overrride
From the Columbus Dispatch:
"This is the first veto override since the legislature overturned the veto of a line item in a budget in 1986, according to Ohio Senate officials.
The Legislative Service Commission said it is the first override of an entire bill since 1977."
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (1)
Another dumb crook story
The guy's on the run from charges of theft, sexual assault, and beating an 88 year old woman. But he just has to update his MySpace page daily.
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (0)
Expanded interactive guide to shooting ranges
MapMuse has it. Click on the map, or enter your zipcode to find private and public ranges.
Permalink · shooting · Comments (2)
CBS evening news on Parker case & Saul Cornell
CBS News has Lawyers, Guns And History: Recent News Over The Right To Bear Arms.
Another BAFTE reversal
ATFE initially ruled that the Atkins Accelerator was NOT a machinegun, and so the company went ahead and sold them. Now it's changed its position and rules that they ARE machineguns.
Gov. Taft veto is overidden!
The Ohio Senate just passed the override. Here's the story.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (0)
Brady Center "grades"
Here's another critique of Brady's grades, noting that states that got a D grade had a larger drop in violent crime than those that got higher grades.
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (2)
US incarceration rate
Another article on the subject.
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (3)
Criminal law out of control
Over at Cato, Gene Healy has posted Criminalization Out Of Control.
"A research team led by professor John Baker of Louisiana State Law School recently estimated that there are more than 4,000 separate federal criminal offenses. That number, inexact as it is, vastly understates the breadth of the criminal law, because the federal criminal code, in turn, incorporates by reference tens of thousands of regulatory violations never voted on by Congress."
ESPN on athletes and guns
A rather hyped article, and apparently by someone who knows little about firearms. "That's a clip," [fired off] Scott said matter-of-factly as he looked up, emptied the cartridge from his handgun and slid the weapon into his front pocket."
Hat tip to reader Ken Bullock...
Permalink · media · Comments (1)
Article on NY State gun law
Here it is. Interesting on several levels. If a permit holder dies, his or her family are expected to turn in their guns to police within two weeks (they can then be sold to other permit holders). But since there is no way police are informed when a permit holder dies, they have no idea how often this isn't done.
And on the side is a helpful link: "See listings of the pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland." Wonder if burglars have internet capabilities out there?
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (2)
Impressive music video
"I'd rather be tried by twelve than carried by six," from Lady Magdalene's by J. Neil Schulman.
Swordsman holds off home invader
In Memphis, a home invasion robbery ends when one of the victims draws a sword and lops off the attacker's trigger finger. He'd been beaten unconscious, but awakened, found the sword (apparently used for yard work, altho one might suspect since it was under the couch, doubling as a home defense tool), and slashed away.
There was no difficulty identifying the robber, since police just fingerprinted the finger. He served eight years for home robberies, only being released from prison last year.
I suppose now we'll have to say "never bring a blade to a gunfight -- unless you can nail the other guy's trigger finger with the first slash."
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (4)
Article on J. Edgar Hoover, by judge in Parker case
Here it is.
Informal transcript of Parker argument
K-Romulus attended and has an informal transcript on his page.
Sounds as if it was indeed a "duck on a june bug" moment for the DC attorney.
Vermont officials speak out
The Vermont Guardian has the story, as VT officials stick to their guns, as it were.
Interesting quote from Bloomberg's office:
“He [Bloomberg] has no quarrel with the Second Amendment,” said Lam. “He does not wish to restrict anyone from buying legal, licensed handgun or rifle and has never advocated to pass additional federal laws that would be viewed as being gun control.”
Bloomberg back at it
The NY Times has, of course, a favorable spin on the suits.
Here's his press release.
Ohio pre-emption: veto and override vote
Governor Taft vetoed the bill this morning, and the Ohio house passed an override this afternoon. It goes to the senate, where the vote will be close. Story here.
(Link fixed--thanks)
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (1)
Oral argument in Parker v. DC
Forbes has the story.
""We interpret the 2nd Amendment in military terms," said Todd Kim, the District's solicitor general, who told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the city would also have had the authority to ban all weapons.
"Show me anybody in the 19th century who interprets the 2nd Amendment the way you do," Judge Laurence Silberman said. "It doesn't appear until much later, the middle of the 20th century."
Of the three judges, Silberman was the most critical of Kim's argument and noted that, despite the law, handguns were common in the District.
Silberman and Judge Thomas B. Griffith seemed to wrestle, however, with the meaning of the amendment's language about militias. If a well-regulated militia is no longer needed, they asked, is the right to bear arms still necessary?
"That's quite a task for any court to decide that a right is no longer necessary," Alan Gura, an attorney for the plaintiffs, replied. "If we decide that it's no longer necessary, can we erase any part of the Constitution?""
Update: another story. And now Fox News is covering it.
Cherry Tree, PA decides not to require guns
The Council voted it down, apparently because sending a message to criminals was moot in a town that has very little crime.
(I forget now which statistician pointed this out, but in any given year around 90% of US counties will report not a single homicide).
Hat tip to reader Kathleen L. Habel.
The inventiveness of American troops
They've discovered that you can detect tripwires by shooting "Silly String" into a suspected boobytrap location.
RoEs in Iraq limiting self defense?
The Captain's Journal raised the question. Some serious disputes raised in the comments, too.
Blogging will be light today--got a bit of serious work to do.
Ohio pre-emption bill would knock out 80 ordinances
The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the recently-passed Ohio pre-emption law would invalidate 80 local gun ordinances (five in Columbus alone). That is, if it's not vetoed.
Great quote from Toby Hoover, of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence: "Once they pass a law to allow carrying concealed weapons, they keep coming back year after year until the laws are all gone."
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (5)
Trailer of 2nd Amendment documentary
I put the trailer on Youtube here.
I gather the DVD producer is starting work. Finally got it compressed just right. (Mapping out a DVD is NOT a simple task. The movie is split into video and audio, each is compressed separately (mpeg-2 for the video, Dolby for audio), then they're rejoined, and divided up into segments. The production house's mpeg-2 compressor wasn't quite up to the task. After much investigation, I got a better one, and compressed it myself, then shipped it to them. Yesterday I reviewed the resulting DVD, and it was up to snuff).
Will probably be working tonight on the internet store.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (3)
Medieval English law on self-defense
Just finished reading Thomas A. Green, The Jury and the English Law of Homicide, 1200-1600, 74 Mich. Law Rev. 413 (1976). Several interesting aspects.
As the period starts out, self-defense isn't much of a defense. The defender must prove that he did *everything* to avoid use of deadly force, and that it was an absolute necessity. At that, he would still be convicted, but upon the jury's recommendation, the judge would forward a request for pardon, and kings rubber-stamped them. The defender's property was still forfeited to the Crown, and he sat in jail until the pardon came back. Further, all intentional killings were the equivalent of first-degree murder. There was no second-degree, and no manslaughter (that didn't come in until Tudor times).
Juries, however, dealt with the problem. If a fellow was a decent citizen, they'd just acquit, no matter what the facts were. The court records suggest that England must have been full of hedges, unclimbable ditches, and walls, because jurors were constantly finding that self-defenders had retreated to one and been unable to escape. :Nearly every act of self-defense was said to have been undertaken by a cornered defendant: ditches, walls, and hedges had constrained the fleeing defendants at every turn. Moreover, all juries, when questioned by the incredulous bench, tenaciously repeated these assertions." 14th century records show findings of self-defense in over 50% of some sets of trials. One case involved an attacker who hit the defender with a bow, and when it broke, continued to hit him with one of the broken staves. The judge questioned the jury as to how the defender could have thought he was going to be beaten to death with that, but the jury stood by its findings. (Remember that without manslaughter, the jury's choice was find self defense or send the fellow to the gallows).
There was also at this period no doctrine for use of force to defend a third person, but when that came up juries just found that the defender was really defending himself.
(We also have to read this against the background that at common law there was a general privilege to use force to prevent a felony, so self-defense was only argued when the aggressor was not trying to commit robbery, rape, burglary, etc.).
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (0)
Libertarian fusion
Over at Cato, Brink Lindsey is giving some thought to "small L" libertarian fusion with liberal, rather than conservative, thought.
I'm slowly working on a book on politics, one point of which would be that both liberal and conservative movements involve fusions of several different groups, whose views are based more upon emotion and world-view than upon cold reason and political philosophy. The conservative fusion is more obvious, since it involves an alliance between what are commonly referred to as libertarian conservatives and social conservatives, I'd call the latter rules conservatives, since the emotional underpinning is that the world properly consists of rules and people to enforce them. The libertarian conservatives pretty much believe the opposite. Jefferson vs. John Adams. The alliance is, I think, based simply on the fact that the liberal alliance hacks both off. The liberal approach tends to believe that (a) government should keep out of matters of morality and social norms (and in its more extreme version, so should everybody else, too -- there is no morality or social norm except that one must believe there is no morality or social norm) and (b) the government should most decidedly become involved in everything else. The first hacks off social conservatives, the second hacks off libertarian conservatives.
Sandy Froman interview
Moment Magazine has an interview of Sandy Froman. From the spin, I'd gather that the writer was on the other side.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The Bulletin has an article entitled The NRA Goes Global. I trust their grasp of science is better than their grasp of politics.
Permalink · media · Comments (4)
Working on documentary....
Reviewing sample DVD, and so far it looks good. I had to recompress the footage (the compressor used by the studio wasn't quite up to what was required), but it looks as this is a go.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (0)
Just about sums it up
Sen. Evan Bayh, on throwing his hat into the ring for the Demo presidential candidacy in 08:
""We need someone who can deal with the dysfunction here in this city so that our government begins to empower our people to fulfill their potential."
On the other hand, some of us would feel mightily empowered of Washington would just leave us alone and let us fulfil our potential.
Permalink · Politics · Comments (0)
History of GCA 68
Just came across a legal history of the Gun Control Act of 1968, by Franklin Zimring. Zimring generally supports more gun laws, but his preface has an interesting note: "The study will be of little use to the most fervent friends and foes of gun control legislation. It provides data they do not need. Each group has already decided that the 1968 Act has failed, and each group uses the Act’s presumed failure to confirm views already strongly held. Enthusiasts for strict federal controls see the failure of the law as proof that stricter laws are needed, while opponents see it as evidence that no controls will work."
Permalink · Gun Control Act of 68 · Comments (4)
Sen. Allen and carry in National Parks
The Virginia Gun Owners' Coalition is calling upon people to contact outgoing Sen. George Allen and push for him to fulfil his campaign promise to allow firearms in national parks. Their email is in extended remarks, below.
Continue reading "Sen. Allen and carry in National Parks"
Comprehensive index of state RTBA provisions
Prof. Volokh has a post linking to an upcoming article where he lists all State right to arms provisions, 1776-1998, with changes.
Washington Sup. Court on right to arms
From the Volokh Conspiracy comes a note of yesterday's Washington Supreme Court ruling touching upn the right to arms.
At issue was, in a prosecution for an overly short-barrelled shotgun (in popular parlance, a sawed-off shotgun), the State must prove the defendant *knew* the barrel was too short, or whether it's absolute strict liability. In reasoning that the offense wasn't strict liability, the court said:
"[W]e are ... concerned that possessing a firearm can be innocent conduct. Citizens have a constitutional right to bear arms under both the federal and state constitutions. U.S. Const. amend. II; Wash. Const. art. I, § 24. A person may lawfully own a shotgun so long as the barrel length is more than 18 inches in length and has an overall length of less than 26 inches. RCW 9.41.190 precludes possession of a short-barreled shotgun. Moreover, the statute also criminalizes possession of a short-barreled rifle and a machine gun. The factor concerned with innocent conduct is particularly important in the case of a machine gun, which can be altered in ways not easily observable. If strict liability is imposed, a person could innocently come into the possession of a shotgun, rifle, or weapon meeting the definition of a machine gun but then be subject to imprisonment, despite ignorance of the gun's characteristics, if the barrel turns out to be shorter than allowed by law or the weapon has been altered, making it a machine gun. The legislature likely did not intend to imprison persons for such seemingly innocent conduct."
The court concluded that the State had to prove that the person knew or had reason to know that the shotgun's barrel was under 18", but it need not prove that the person knew that was the legal limit. Since the barrel here was 13" long, the court ruled it was harmless error, since any person would have known that something that size was under 18", and upheld the conviction.
Now, THIS is just going too far!
The Smallest Minority has images of a Glock tricked out with bayonet, muzzle brake, bipod, flashlight, and scope.
Glad I'm a traditionalist. If John M. Browning didn't design it, I'm not taking it to a gunfight.
[Oops--typo corrected]
Permalink · shooting · Comments (2)
Police chief on receiving end of DC crime
The police chief of Lincoln, NE, tried to get a ban on concealed carry there (i.e., even if the carrier had a state CCW permit). Then he visits DC, as in home of handgun bans, and he and his wife are on the receiving end of a purse snatching. Cam Edwards has the story.
It sounds as if the snatcher was a mental case. Lots of them in DC, and some don't even hold public office. Once saw one of those official motorcades coming down a street, and one of the bag-people started to run out into the street, and a policeman on one of those three-wheeled motorcycles peeled off to brush them back. It seemed to be a standard drill for such motorcades!