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February 2012
DC Council committee proposes to retract parts of new gun law
Story here. The story illustrates a side-benefit of litigation:
"A majority of council members are on record as being skeptical of lessening restrictions on guns, although many have stressed that they hope to fend off more court challenges to the city’s law."
Permalink · Heller aftermath · Comments (0)
Learn CPR over the internet
Webpage here. In the center video, "Hear from Families and Survivors," Rob Charles is my brother in law, and Ann Charles my sister.
Iowa Dems walk out of legislature over pro-gun measures
Story here. Neither measure seems particularly controversial. One would insert language from the Second Amendment into the State constitution; the other would essentially remove a retreat requirement from self-defense law (bringing Iowa into line with the majority of States).
Thanks to reader Jim K.....
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (5)
Virginia repeals one gun a month
The governor signed the legislation today. Caveat: the effective date is July 1.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (0)
Emily gets her gun ... in DC
And finds just buying a box of ammo is a complex task.
Fordham U Law Rev. symposium
It will be held on March 9, at Fordham, in NYC. Description of the presentations here. It looks like a good and well-balanced panel of speakers.
Another reason to be glad I'm in Arizona....
Canadian man detained, strip-searched, and house searched because ... his 4 year old daughter drew a picture of a gun.
Permalink · non-US · Comments (4)
Shooting in the Olympics
Interesting. In Olympic shooting events, women and men competed together until 1976, when an American woman won the silver and nearly the gold in small bore rifle, whereupon the IOC decided to split the events into men's and women's shooting.
Permalink · shooting · Comments (4)
Not in a million years,
but this would be interesting.
Permalink · Politics · Comments (2)
Both sides appealing attorneys fees award in Heller
Story here. Basically, the trial court awarded Heller's team somewhat over a million. DC wants it to be more like $840,000, and Heller's team thinks $3 million is a better number.
I personally find it delightful that the argument is over whether DC will be out of pocket for $800,000, or a million, or three million.... The last number sounds so reasonable, but the fact that the District is looking at 840K as the bottom line for violating the Second Amendment is quite amusing.
Nordyke to be argued yet again
En banc, or should I( say the latest en banc, is set for March 19 at 2:30 PM. Understand, the complaint was filed in the previous century...
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (2)
Another Fast and Furious gun linked to murder of ICE agent
Story here. The link is to the murder of ICE agent Jaimie Zapata, in Mexico. And just as in the case of the BP agent Brian Terry, the Feds claim that his family, and an agent injured in the same attack, are not "victims" of anything. Because if they were, they'd be victims of the government's own gunrunning.
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (0)
New 4th Amendment/qualified immunity case
Messerschmidt v. Millender, handed down today, by the U.S Supreme Court.
Girlfriend is moving out of place where she lived with boyfriend, a Crips member with a very long rap sheet. He attacks her, tries to throw her from a second floor landing. She speeds away while he fires five shots at her from a sawed-off shotgun. She reports situation to police, adding that boyfriend might be staying at the house of his stepmother.
Police get a warrant to search stepmother's place for all firearms and gang-related material, and execute it, seizing a shotgun that belonged to the stepmother. She sues under 42 USC 1983, apparently arguing that (1) the warrant called for searching and seizing all firearms, when only one, of a specific known appearance, had been used in crime and (2) there was no probable cause to search for gang-related things.
Which in turn raised the question of qualified immunity -- the concept that an officer cannot be sued for a constitutional violation unless a reasonable LEO would have known that it was a constitutional violation. The majority rules that a reasonable officer would not have realized that it was a constitutional violation (assuming that it was indeed such), and qualified immunity applies.
Sotomayor dissents, with an interesting note:
"They did so for the asserted reason that the search might lead to evidence related to other gang members and other criminal activity, and that other “[v]alid warrants commonly allow police to search for ‘firearms and ammunition.’ ” See infra, at 8–9. That kind of general warrant is antithetical to the Fourth Amendment."
Breyer concurs -- with an opinion only six sentences long!
Kagan concurs in part and dissents in part. She agrees that the firearms part of the warrant could be covered by qualified immunity, but disagrees as to the part relating to evidence of gang membership, since that is not illegal.
To me, there is one startling passage..;. but then this case did come out of California. Boyfriend had been arrested 31 times, including three times for assault with a deadly weapon, three times for other violent offenses, and nine times for firearm offenses. And he's out on the street....
Permalink · General con law · Comments (9)
Miranda followup issue
Miranda v. Arizona generally requires that certain warnings be given before questioning a person who is in police custody. But how about a prisoner who is serving a sentence, and thus in custody 24/7, who taken into a room and questioned? Are Miranda warnings required then? Today, in Howes v. Fields, the US Supreme Court said nope.
Permalink · General con law · Comments (2)
Canada's long gun registry fades out
$2.5 billion spent to no effect. "The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police have not yet provided a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a case. The problem isn’t just with the long-gun registry. The data provided above cover all guns, including handguns. There is no evidence that, since the handgun registry was started in 1934, it has been important in solving a single homicide."
Just in time for Rahm Emanuel to propose Statewide registration for Illinois.
Permalink · non-US · Comments (2)
AK-12
Kalashnikov has produced a new variant of the venerable AK. It's said to be accurate (some American versions of the AK, I've read, can shoot to an MOA -- all a matter of quality control in barrel-making), and as reliable as the original. From the video, it doesn't appear to have much muzzle rise in full auto.
Permalink · shooting · Comments (1)
Fast and Furious: Holder and Napolitano have never spoken about it
What we have here is a problem with communication:
""I have not," Napolitano answered when asked during a House hearing if she had talked about Operation Fast and Furious with Holder. To explain their lack of communication, she observed that "it's been under investigation here and with the inspector general, and there was no occasion to do so.""
An agency, answering to Holder, was responsible for killing an agent working for Napalitano. But that's no reason for raise the subject, in the year-plus since it came to light.
It's amazing how tolerant we (or at least the media) are to governmental moronity. If a subdivision of Colt or DPMS were knowingly arming the drug cartels, and the president of the company, a year later, said he'd not bothered to discuss it with anyone, there would be (justified) cries for his head. Heads of private entities are expected to be sane and not morons. Heads of government agencies, on the other hand....
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (3)
More on Waco
Mike McNulty's Waco blog has been expanding. His most recent addition is infrared video showing how a gunshot can ignite methylene chloride spray (meth chloride being the solvent used to dissolve the "tear gas" powder before it was show into the Davidian residence. Meth chloride has other undesirable properties. It has a chemical affinity to modern anesthetics, and can have the same effects, and it also quickly metabolizes to carbon monoxide... fatalities have been reported from that effect ... probably not a good thing to inhale just before a fire breaks out).
"Media Matters" gets hit hard
Ouch! The founding chief of the quite antigun MM turns out to be quite paranoid, convinced right-wing assassins were stalking him, and required his assistant to pack a Glock whenever escorting him, including to events in DC.
SAF collects another check
Story here. It's 16K from Omaha, over its ban on gun acquisition by legal aliens, not so impressive as its earlier collection of nearly 400K from Chicago. But sufficient to start sending a message: irrational gun control can hurt a city's bottom line.
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (2)
If a robber uses a gun, his victim will just take it away and use it on him
Another case of that occurring. I cannot recall reading of a robbery victim being disarmed by the aggressor, but have read of several cases where the robber was disarmed by the victim. I attribute this disparity to (1) robbery victims are more intelligent than robbers, and (2) they are less likely to be under the influence of narcotics.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (2)
Justice Breyer robbed by machete-wielding perp
At his vacation home on the island of Nevis.
Sobering thoughts about the upcoming election
To quote the First Lady, "You’re here because you know that in just 13 months, we’re going to make a choice that will impact our lives for decades to come … let’s not forget what it meant when my husband appointed those two brilliant Supreme Court justices … let’s not forget the impact that their decisions will have on our lives for decades to come.”
And let's not forget that both Heller and McDonald were 5-4 decisions.... and that two members of the majority are now 76, and will be 80 in four years.
Of course it takes more than an election. In Heller, two of the four dissenters were Republican appointees (Stevens was appointed by Ford, and Souter by the elder Bush.
Permalink · Politics · Comments (7)
Ev Nappen wins a pair in NJ
Ammoland.com has the report.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (0)
The best Rahm Emanuel autograph
Is one found at the bottom of a City of Chicago check to Second Amendment Foundation, for attorney's fees and costs, in the amount of $399,950. Looks like Alan Gottlieb holding it. OK, so it's probably an automatic signature, but the thought of how Rahm must have reacted to the news that it had be sent is amusing. Essentially, Chicago involuntarily becomes the funder of the next round of pro right to arms challenges.
Permalink · Chicago gun case · Comments (8)
D.C.
The District accuses 130 of its employees of unemployment compensation fraud -- they were receiving unemployment compensation while holding down District government jobs.
I was a little startled to see that the District employs 32,000 people. DC's population is about 617,000; Tucson's is 520,000, and Pima County's is over a million. Tucson employs 4,900 people, and Pima County another 5,000. The county has to provide services to over 9,100 square miles, whereas DC has to provide them to about 80 square miles.
Novel theory of civil liability
This is cert-worthy from the very beginning.
Fun at Knob Creek
Pro-gun attorney Dan Peterson has a weekend of fun at Knob Creek.
Permalink · shooting · Comments (0)
Bad advice of loss of gun rights, plea bargains to DV
State v. Nickolas Agathis, 2012 NJ Super. Lexis II (Feb. 1, 2012). Defendant was arrested for DV, plead to it, without being informed that under New Jersey law he would be permanently barred from obtaining a firearm purchaser ID card, effectively barring him from firearm ownership. His counsel and the judge informed him that he could reapply for the card at the end of probation. The appellate court relied upon Nunez-Valdez, a recent US Supreme Court ruling voiding a plea bargain where the defendant was told that the plea would not affect his immigration status, when in fact it subjected him to immediate deportation.
The court had previously heard the case on direct appeal, and refused to grant relief. The intervening Supreme Court ruling (and, in a footnote, the decisions in Heller and McDonald) appear to have changed the situation. Note that both this and Nunez-Valdez hinge, not upon failure to inform the defendant of collateral consequences, but on the defendant being misinformed with regard to them.
Another noteworthy aspect: the appellate court treats this as ineffective assistance of counsel, but I think it's better analyzed in terms of whether the plea was "informed," regardless of the source of the misinformation. The fact that part of the advice came from the trial judge, rather than from counsel, should, I think, make the case stronger.
Hat tip to reader Alice Beard...
Permalink · prohibitted persons · Comments (0)
Handgun rationing dies off in Virginia
The House had already passed a repeal of "one gun a month," and today the Virginia Senate passed it. The governor has said he would sign it, so it appears that gun rationing is on its way out.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (0)
Appeal in Moore v. Madigan (Ill ban on carrying)
No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, has the story. The case challenges Illinois' effective ban on all carrying of handguns. The trial court dismissed the case, with some extremely sloppy reasoning (along the lines of "McDonald just dealt with possession in the home, so anything beyond that is outside the right to arms" and "rights are not unlimited, this is a limitation, therefore it is valid" and even "I think plaintiff will lose at trial, so I dismiss his case right now."
A notice of appeal was filed within hours, so we can hopefully look forward to another stunning Seventh Circuit ruling.
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (2)
Pretty lame....
AG Holder claims he's never discussed Fast and Furious with President Obama, DHS Sec Napolitano, or Sec. of State Clinton. I suppose cabinet meetings deal with things more important than agencies committing acts of war against an allied nation....
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (2)
Cato: armed civilians are tough targets
By Clayton Cramer and David Burnett (head of Students for Concealed Carry). Here's a summary, and here's the study.
Cato has also established a webpage to track defensive gun uses.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (1)
Blog beginning on the Waco tragedy
Mike McNulty has established a blog relating to Waco. Mike was the producer of the Oscar-nominated "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," and played a major role in reopening the case. Among other things, he managed to discover that the Texas Rangers had an "evidence locker," more like a warehouse, of evidence in the case.
I did some public records requests for him, and the results were most peculiar. The Rangers said that they had picked up the evidence in their capacity as deputized US Marshals, and couldn't turn it over without the Marshals' Office consent. So I sent a FOIA to the Marshals, and they denied knowing anything about it. I went back to the Rangers, and they said, if I remember, that the US Attorney had control of it. So I made a FOIA to the Executive Office of US Attorneys, and they denied they had any control. At that point the head of Texas DPS, which is over the Rangers, got involved and really blew the thing open.
Social media and criminal cases
Investigator (and former policeman) Paul Huebl has some interesting thoughts on the subject. These may be good approaches for a firearms owner charged under, for example, the New York laws.