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February 2009
A curious day in Congress
The Senate sets out to give DC voters the ability to elect a voting member to the House of Reps, which is blatantly unconstitutional (the Constitution refers to House members in terms of being residents of a State, which DC is not), and compensating the GOP by adding one member from Utah (which, depending on how it is done, is probably unconstitutional as well.
Along the way the Senate adds an amendment repealing most of the DC gun laws. At least that's constitutional.
UPDATE: I dunno who would have standing to challenge the constitutionality. Maybe anyone, maybe no one. I recall back, nearly 30 years ago, Rep. Abner Mikva was confirmed as a judge of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The salary for the position had been increased (via an automatic pay raise) during his time as a legislator, so there was a good, if not 100%, argument that he was barred from taking it. Congress passed a bill that specifically said any Congress critter could challenge the appointment in the name of the US. Senator McClure sued -- and the court ruled that he had no standing, despite the enactment. In that case, there was at least a theoretical way to raise the issue ... anytime he was assigned to a panel to decide a case, either side could have objected. But since that would really hack off the court, no one ever did.
An interesting group
A bipartisan Congressional task force devoted to protecting the Second Amendment? Some potential there.
Hat tip to reader Ambiguous Ambiguae...
Should self-defense be limited to the strong?
Kurt Hoffman asks the question, which has a personal angle.
Via Instapundit...
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (1)
Supreme Ct interprets Lautenberg Amendment
It's US v. Hayes. The question was whether to read the less than clear statute as requiring proof that the firearm possessor either (a) was convicted of a misdemeanor, whose elements were use of force, and against a household member, or (b) was convicted of a misdemeanor who element was use of force, with the government able to show in the firearm felony prosecution that it was in fact against a household member. (Defendant's underlying conviction was for generic battery, not specifically DV).
Majority, per Justice Ginsburg, goes for (b).
Roberts, joined by Scalia, dissents, going for (a). It's a straight statutory matter, Second Amendment neither briefed nor mentioned in either opinion.
UPDATE: courts got around the ex post facto problems by arguing (1) a violation of Lautenberg requires you to do something after its effective date, namely possess a gun and (2) as far as retroactively increasing the penalty for the DV charge, well, gun ownership is something like driver licensing or other such licensing, you can make licensing standards stricter without it being increased punishment for past acts.
I don't think (2) is viable in light of Heller. It's hard to see how stripping a person of a constitutional right, retroactively, for a misdemeanor, can't be seen as increasing the punishment for it.
Permalink · prohibitted persons
NJ narrowly rejects additional gun laws
Story here. From what I understand, to get a handgun in NJ you have to get a police-issued permit, which takes months to obtain. But this wasn't enough for some advocates, who wanted one-gun-a-month atop it. The measure passed the Assembly, and fell short in the Senate by a single vote.
Thoughts on the 14th Amendment cases
The National Law Journal has some thoughts on the Chicago and other cases raising the incorporation question. I tend to think the thoughts rather shallow, rooted in "liberal vs. conservative," which doesn't always work in a 2nd Amendment context, and rarely works in a 14th Amendment one.
(To go back to my formative years ... Justice Black said the 14th Amendment incorporated the entire of the bill of rights, and "Congress shall make no law" meant Congress "shall make no law," period. Is that liberal or conservative?)
Permalink · Chicago gun case · Comments (5)
Youth Education Summit applications
If you know any high school students who are interested in the second amendment, recommend NRA's Youth Education Summit to their consideration.
Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day
ISRA has announced it for March 11, at noon.
Details are here.
Win in 10th Circuit
A District Court in Oklahoma struck down its law allowing employees to have firearms in locked cars on company lots -- grounds were that OSHA's general duty to keep a workplace safe overrode the State law. The 10th Circuit just reversed the ruling and upheld the State law.
I can't find the opinion on the 10th Circuit website, will link as soon as I can.
UPDATE: Joe Huffman found it, in pdf, here.
Arms and the strife in Mexico
Kurt Hoffman has thoughts on the issue.
Permalink · non-US · Comments (5)
Send a reader to Australia!
Reader Guy Smith writes:
Help me spend six months in a luxury house overlooking the Great Barrier Reef and get paid an obscene amount of money to do so.
All it takes is sixty seconds.
The tourism board of Queensland, Australia is running a contest for this job (http://www.islandreefjob.com). To apply I had to create a 60-second video to apply for this “job”. You can help me win this gig by doing the following:
Watch the video at http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/applicants/watch/F8dDZvzguiQ
Be sure to rate it five stars by clicking in the right most star where it says “Rate me”
Pass this email along to every friendly person you know so they can rate my video a five as well (a little buzz marketing).
And if you have the time while at the office, turn off your speakers, leave the video up in a separate window, and play it when you are working on other stuff (I don’t know if the total number of views helps, but it can’t hurt).
Thanks in advance and I’ll see you in Oz!
Little more on Roger Barnett case
Here's the Washington Times story on the verdict. The reporter mentioned that his first story on the case got 2.5 million hits and generated 1500 emails, virtually all supportive.
Roger and I will be on Fox New's Glenn Beck show today at 5:30 Eastern. Right now I'm slowly working thru 50+ voicemails and 100+ emails that piled up during the trial.
Roger Barnett case verdict
Finally can talk about it. Dog tired after 2 wks of trial. Verdict I'd score as 90-95% defense win.
Court dismissed conspiracy against civil rights and some other claims. Dismissed case as to Mrs. Barnett and as to his brother Donald. Also dismissed claims by 10 of the 16 plaintiffs, who hadn't testified.
Jury verdict on remainder:
Civil rights violation: defense verdict.
Unlawful imprisonment: defense verdict.
Battery, allegedly kicking the girl: defense verdict.
Assault: defense verdict as to two, two got $1400 each (minus 25% for their own fault), two got a nominal $1.
Infliction of emotional distress: Two got $1,000 each (minus 25% for their fault) plus $10,000 punitives each, two got $7,500 each actuals (-25%) plus $20,000 each, two got a defense verdict.
We have good grounds for appeal on the two where some Ps won. But to sum up:
They lost 12 of 16 plaintiffs (10 dismissed, two defense verdicts on everything),
2 of 3 defendants,
their hope for atty fees award (which requiring winning one of the federal claims)
and got a total of under 0.5% of the $32 million they wanted,
and that's likely reversed on appeal.
Here are some of the photos we used as exhibits, showing illegal entrants, trash, and dumped drug loads on Roger and Barbara's land.
This from a supporter of Roger: "Anyone interested in making a contribution to Roger's defense by check, please send and address funds directly to:
Roger Barnett Legal Defense Fund
1498 E. Fry Blvd.
Sierra Vista, AZ 85635
or by Credit Card: call Barnett's Towing: 1-800-722-2303
- Tell them you want to make a credit card contribution to the Roger Barnett Legal Defense Fund
- At this time, there is no mechanism for making credit card contributions over the internet."
American Hunters & Shooters Ass'n
Paul Valone takes on AHSA.
Wash Po on suit over Parks carry rule
Reader Ambiguous Ambiguae sends this link.
Brady Campaign suit against Interior
Snowflakes in Hell has an excellent discussion.
Another case of impressive flying
Story here. 1956. A four engine stratocruiser, flying from Hawaii to San Francisco, loses two engines midway, has to ditch in mid-ocean. Capt. Richard Ogg pulls it off and gets everyone out alive. Video of the landing at the bottom.
Hat tip to Peter Buxton.
Another case of impressive flying
Story here. 1956. A four engine stratocruiser, flying from Hawaii to San Francisco, loses two engines midway, has to ditch in mid-ocean. Capt. Richard Ogg pulls it off and gets everyone out alive. Video of the landing at the bottom.
Hat tip to Peter Buxton.
Brady Campaign grades and crime rates
Howard Nemerov points out that Brady's top ten States have a significantly higher homicide and violent crime rate than its bottom ten.
Gun buyback in Columbia SC
Story here .
Gun buybacks are a great subsidy to gun owners. Everyone has a junker or two that's beyond repair and unsalable. You can still get $50-100 for it! When they had one here, gunnies turned out at the sites and watched as people came up, and made offers for anything worthwhile. One fellow got a Parker shotgun for $100! A gun dealer sold all his junkers to his employees, and they went around turning them in, and netting a nice profit as their bonus. I got $50 for a broken old single-barreled shotgun. We got the list of what was purchased, and I guess some of the sites were manned by people who didn't know much, because they laid out $50 each for broken Daisy BB guns.
Hat tip to reader Bruce Mills....
Oregon case re: colleges
The Oregon Firearms Federation is taking on a case involving a college student arrested at Western Oregon U. for possessing a firearm in a public place. The minor problem being that he is a CCW permit holder, and thus is exempt from that statute.
Linked is a pdf of a letter from the Legislative Counsel (i.e., of the State legislature) advising that colleges and universities are covered by the State pre-emption statute.
Hat tip to reader Vinnie Moscaritolo....
Done with trial
Won't be blogging much today, tho. Understand a jury trial means getting up at 6, and working on it until about 10 PM. Lunches wolfed down in haste (you get an hour and a quarter, but some of that is lost walking from courthouse to office, and the rest spent eating quickly while thinking and making notes). Work right through the weekend. 7-8 hours in the courtroom multitasking, simultaneously taking notes, noting if you should object, noting what questions to ask the witness, rooting thru depositions and past statements of the witness, etc. By the end of it you're staggering and getting rather goofy.
I've been in that mode since Feb. 3, and it'll take a while to decompress while waiting for the jury verdict. Which may be a hung jury, since Federal rules require unaminity. Yup, previous guesses as to the case were correct.
Why the innocent may be punished worse than the guilty
Concurring Opinions has thoughts on the case of Timothy Cole, who died in prison, and was subsequently exonerated by DNA evidence and the real rapist's confession. He turned down a plea bargain that would have gotten him probation, and couldn't be paroled because he "refused to accept responsibility."
ROTC cadet suspended for having drill props
Story here. She had several fake guns used at drill, made of wood and duct tape. The school invoked a Colorado law that defines dangerous weapons as "a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, or a firearm facsimile that could reasonably be mistaken for an actual firearm."
Link taken from David Codrea's Examiner report.
Permalink · arms law victims · Comments (9)
"Good and capable" teacher suspended due to gun photo
Beaver Dam WI schools have suspended and are investigating a teacher who posted a pic of herself aiming a gun on her Facebook page. While I don't care for pics where the gun is aimed at the camera, I can't see what it has to do with her teaching.
Hat tip to reader L. Flam....
UPDATE: yes, a lot of local ACLU chapters are pretty good on the right to arms. After national HQ issued a release on the Heller decision that (at best) complained the Court got it wrong, the Arizona ACLU issued one stating that they had always seen the right to arms as an individual right, and Heller merely accepted what had always been obvious.
San Francisco antes up
The city agrees to pay $380,000 in attorneys' fees incurred in the lawsuit challenging Proposition H.
NJ governor signs harsher law
And calls for more.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (8)
Slow blogging
Whew! I'm in the midst of a two-week jury trial, so there will be a little blogging in the evenings. Working 12-14 hour days doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging.
The election did wonders for gun sales
Data here, in pdf.
Superbowl surprise in Tucson
Great game yesterday, but it had a surprise locally. It's in the final minutes, I think while the AZ Cardinals were holding onto a two point lead, so probably half the TVs in the city were tuned to it.
Scene cuts to woman and man, woman reaching into his pants. I thought it a bit much for a Superbowl commercial -- I mean, there are kids watching! Then down go his pants, and there is about 5-10 seconds of full frontal nudity, and I do mean FULL.
I thought maybe the TV had malfunctioned somehow. But the morning paper reports that this happened throughout the Tucson Comcast network. Somehow segments of a porn channel got spliced into the Superbowl broadcast.
I suspect that promptly at 9 AM (1) Comcast is going to get a bunch of calls from upset parents and (2) whoever was working on the broadcast is going to be undergoing a grilling.
Update on Phillip Dominguez case
Sensibly Progressive has update. I blogged about his case a few days ago -- Mr. Dominguez is a law-abiding construction company owner, who owned a registered "assault rifle," which in California he could legally take from his house to a shooting range. He was going shooting with a friend who was arriving by plane, and was arrested at the airport on the apparently claim that by stopping at the airport in the middle of that drive he broke the law.
The update notes that they followed with a SWAT raid on his house and seizure of all his (legal) firearms, and those of his family.
Fortunately, he's got some first rate firearm attorneys. If you'd like to contribute to his defense, click here.
UPDATE: Mr. Dominguez writes:
Thank you for all of your support, I can't wait to tell all of you the whole story and all that my family has been through and all that I have learned over the past few weeks.
It may shock you to learn just what your tax dollars are doing for you, and what lengths some will go to force their agendas, legal or not.
My lawyer will prepare a statement and it will be made available after Feb 6th.
Phil Dominguez
Permalink · arms law victims · Comments (10)
Georgia permit apps nearly doubling
Story here.
Hat tip to reader Ed Stone....
Permalink · CCW licensing · Comments (2)
Clever tax collection technique
Scrappleface reports on a clever technique for raising tax revenues.