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January 2013
Waco-related documentaries available
Mike McNulty is making "“Waco- a New Revelation” and “The FLIR Project" available for $14.95 plus shipping. To order, click here and go to the end of a long post about Waco in general.
ATF and....
ATF team wins first place in the competition for the most mucked-up sting operation in LE history. I've seen some SNAFUs, but this leaves the competition in the dust, down to having a full-auto stolen, three people charged by mistake (one was in prison on the day he supposedly sold them drugs), rented premises trashed, and a landlord-tenant dispute with their landlord. Oh, and a real "buy-back." Among the guns they bought was one that was stolen from the premises.
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (3)
Varieties of originalism
Pejman Yousefzadeh has an excellent discussion of the matter, pointing out that originalism is not a single interpretative tool, but an evolving family of them.
Which one is used dictates what data is to be used. For example: the Journal of the First Senate shows that it voted down a proposal to make the right to arms one "for the common defense." In original intent, this is very important evidence. In original public meaning, it is at most some indication that some people understood an unlimited right to arms, and one "for the common defense" to be different things, and that the first was broader, but that's all. (The Journal of the First Senate wasn't available until years after the ratification; its section on the Second Amendment wasn't widely known until, in the 1980s, I found it in the Interior Department library). The same is true of Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention, which he did not release until decades later.
Conversely, Tench Cox's newspaper articles on the Bill of Rights, telling readers that the Second Amendment would protect people's rights to keep and bear "their private arms" is vital evidence as to original public meaning, but only moderate evidence of original intent (and that only because Madison's letters to him note that the article was in all the newspapers where the First Congress was sitting).
Then we also have the point made by Eugene Volokh: materials such as these may be valuable, in that if we wish to know how a mechanism operates, and can be made to work well, we would go to the manuals and the designers' notes.
Randy Barnett: proposed gun control fails even rationality test
Prof. Randy Barnett has an interesting post on the subject. "Assault weapons" are defined by cosmetic appearance, and this is irrational. NY limits magazines to seven rounds, but exempts police and retired police. If retired police need 7+ rounds for self defense, why don't other citizens?
Never bring a plastic gun to a gun fight...
In Ohio, a group of home invasion robbers breaks in, waving a plastic gun, and finds the homeowner has a real one. I dead, 1 wounded, four captured.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (0)
Mother Jones and AW bans
"How Mother Jones makes my case against the assault weapons ban". Interesting data.
Permalink · AW bans · Comments (0)
Fellow asks Bloomberg to disarm his team of bodyguards...
Citizen journalist asks Bloomberg the question the mass media won't -- if he's so in favor of gun control, will be disarm his bodyguard team? Instead of an answer, he gets blocked off by the team, and questioned and followed by NYPD.
Gun laws are for the little people....
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (1)
Rule of law and all that....
Last week, the DC Circuit ruling that the recess appointments of three members of the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional, meaning that the NLRB lacked a quota and its rulings were unlawful.
The ruling seemed a sure thing to me. (1) The Constitutional clause allowing recess appointments (Art. II, sec. 2) reads: "The President shall have power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." The NLRB vacancies had occurred while the Senate was in session. Second, the clause distinguishes between "recess" and "session," suggesting that "recess" doesn't mean a temporary gap in proceedings, but the period after adjournment.
The NLRB, in short, lost for two very good reasons. Its response, however, is:
"The Board respectfully disagrees with today’s decision and believes that the President’s position in the matter will ultimately be upheld. It should be noted that this order applies to only one specific case....
In the meantime, the Board has important work to do."
In other words, giving the DC Circuit the one-fingered salute and announcing they are going to keep on business as usual anyway. Well, there's always time for a suit for an injunction, brought by some appropriate membership organization claiming standing on behalf of its members....
DHS advertises for AR-15s, calling them "Personal Defense Weapons"
DHS is inviting sales offers for 7,000 5.56 mm rifles, with 30 round magazines, calling them "personal defense weapons" rather than "assault rifles." Oh, and they must have folding stock, flash suppressors, and be select fire. (See Section C of the proposal).
Hat tip to reader David McCleary ...
Permalink · AW bans · Comments (6)
CIty councilman walks out because of vet with CCW
Personally, I like the Mayor's stance, and so do the commenters.
Dick Act mythmaking
I've rec'd 3-4 copies already of an email claiming that the Dick Act of 1902 ... well, let me post it:
"DICK ACT of 1902 - CAN'T BE REPEALED (GUN CONTROL FORBIDDEN) - Protection Against Tyrannical Government This criminal Cabal is counting on the fact that the American Citizens don't know this, their rights and the constitution. Don't prove them right.
The Dick Act of 1902 also known as the Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R. 11654, of June 28, 1902 invalidates all so-called gun-control laws."
No, the Dick Act repealed the Militia Act of 1792, and created the National Guard system. It says nothing about gun control. And it was extensively re-written in a couple of post-WWI Army Acts.
"It also divides the militia into three distinct and separate entities. ** SPREAD THIS TO EVERYONE ** The three classes H.R. 11654 provides for are the organized militia, henceforth known as the National Guard of the State, Territory and District of Columbia, the unorganized militia and the regular army."
I believe 10 USC 311 survives (and is almost the only section that has survived) from the original Act. That breaks the militia into two classes, organized (Guard) and unorganized. Why would the regular army have been part of the militia?
"The militia encompasses every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 45. All members of the unorganized militia have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford to buy."
No authority cited for this, I notice. In any event, such a right would vanish once a person hits 45.
"The Dick Act of 1902 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights."
There is no such thing as a statute that cannot be repealed. The bill of attainder clause prevents Congress from convicting people without a trial. The ex post facto ban prevents punishment, or increased punishment, of actions taken before the law in question was passed. As noted above, most of the Dick Act was rewritten by the Army Acts (I think of 1916 and 1920), so it HAS been repealed.
"The President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their State borders.
The National Guard Militia can only be required by the National Government for limited purposes specified in the Constitution (to uphold the laws of the Union; to suppress insurrection and repel invasion). These are only purposes for which the General Government the can call upon the National Guard."
Those are the only purposes for which the government can call out the militia. They got around this in the post WWI Army Acts by organizing the Guard as part of the reserve forces of the regular army, etc., and by requiring dual enlistment: any Guardsman also takes an oath to the U.S..
A bit of history: in 1912 the Attorney General indeed ruled that the militia could not be used outside the US. Then came WWI. The government dealt with that ruling by simply drafting National Guardsmen en masse. The Guard didn't care for this: its units were broken up, officers became enlisted men, etc.. So after the War, they were supporters of the system of dual enlistment, so that their units could be called up as units.
[Update: if your comment is blocked, try omitting your email. I had to block gmail, yahoo and some others due to unbelievable waves of spam comments linking to them, but set it so you can comment while giving no email address at all].
Holder prepares firearm regulations
Story here. The paucity of regs -- allowing police to run background checks before returning seized firearms, allowing Indian tribal authorities to run them (for any FFLs on a reservation, and I know of none, retaining "denials" for ten years -- shows that there really is not much he can do through that means. The battle will be on the Hill.
A great resource
Ruger has posted a page that lets you easily email your Representative, Senators, Governor and other officials. You can use their form letter or compose your own.
Permalink · Politics · Comments (3)
Chicago residents: don't worry, the city will protect you
From a University of Illinois study, "Crime, Corruption, and Cover-ups:"
"An analysis of five decades of news reports reveals that since 1960, at least 300 Chicago
Police officers have been convicted of serious crimes, such as drug dealing, beatings of civilians,
destroying evidence, protecting mobsters, theft and murder.
Moreover, the listing of police convicted of crimes undoubtedly underestimates the
problem of corruption in the Chicago Police Department (CPD). The list does not include
undetected and unreported illegal activity, serious misconduct resulting in internal disciplinary
action, and officers who retire rather than face charges.
Our analysis of police corruption in Chicago yields four major findings.
First, corruption has long persisted within the CPD and continues to be a serious
problem. There have been 103 convictions of Chicago police since the beginning of 2000."
. . . . . .
"In the 1980s, police corruption again became front-page news. In 1982, ten officers in the
Marquette police district were among the first Chicago police officers to be convicted of drug–
related corruption charges. “The Marquette 10" arrests were followed by Operation Greylord, a
federal investigation into the Cook County court system that swept up several corrupt police
officers along with numerous judges, court bailiffs and attorneys. In the 1980s and 1990s, Joseph
Miedzianowski, a member of the department’s Gang Crimes Unit, ran a drug operation with
several gangs.
The conviction of CPD Chief of Detectives and Assistant Police Superintendent Edward
Hanhardt in 2001 for using secret police information to direct a mob-connected jewelry theft ring
showed that organized crime could still reach into the CPD even in the 21st Century. The
drug/gang connection continued into the current decade. In 2007, the U.S. Attorney’s arrested of
Keith Herrera and Jerome Finnegan of the Special Operations Squad for corruption and
attempted murder."
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (6)
Claims that 40% of all firearm transfers are private sales
In National Review Online John Fund takes the claim apart. It's based on a tiny survey, of 251 people, twenty plus years ago. He notes that John Lott's estimate is more like 8-10%.
At least the story had a happy ending
Fleeing rapist takes time to post to Facebook, “Well folks, I’m about to get to get shot. Peace,”
And that's just what happened. I doubt the grand jury will take long to review the case.
The type of law that makes me want to pull my hair out...
Except that I don't have any hair.
Arizona Revised Statutes §13-3101(A). Definitions. In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:
3. "Explosive" means any dynamite, nitroglycerine, black powder, or other similar explosive material, including plastic explosives. Explosive does not include ammunition or ammunition components such as primers, percussion caps, smokeless powder, black powder and black powder substitutes used for hand loading purposes.
OK, so explosive means black powder except that it doesn't mean black powder.
4. "Firearm" means any loaded or unloaded handgun, pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun or other weapon that will expel, is designed to expel or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.
And firearm means anything that expels a projectile by action of an "explosive." But (3) tells us that ammunition and smokeless or black powder is not an "explosive." So what is a firearm?
Piers Morgan, a gunny?
An interesting bit of history. The simple fact is that almost all political commentators (whether on the right or on the left) are entertainers first. They also have a target audience -- not the listeners, directly, but network managers who keep their show going. P. Morgan may be pro-gun, but if he sees the network management as interested in "gun owners are Neanderthals," he's going to give them what they want.
"Mafia Bodyguard" ban
A thought: the MAIG mayors have had a remarkable run of felony convictions. I wonder if anyone has pointed out to them that a convicted felon cannot employ armed bodyguards.
18 USC 922(g) contains the prohibitions on possession of firearms. The next subsection reads:
"(h) It shall be unlawful for any individual, who to that individual’s knowledge and while being employed for any person described in any paragraph of subsection (g) of this section, in the course of such employment—
(1) to receive, possess, or transport any firearm or ammunition in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce; or
(2) to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce."
The Supreme Court long ago (and I think quite wrongly) read the interstate commerce nexus out of the statute, essentially saying that it covers any gun possession.
Ray Nagin indicted
He certainly didn't do things in a small way.... he took in money, granite for his business, airplane trips, whatever was available, for everything from government contracts to "fixing" delinquent taxes.
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (1)
Well, at least he's honest
From the Huffington Post: "The National Rifle Association Is Correct: I Do Want Your Guns."
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (1)
"the medicalization of evil"
Interesting thoughts, at The Guardian.
"Today, the medicalisaton of deviant behaviour has made it difficult for us to accept notions of "evil". Nancy J Herman, associate professor of sociology at Central Michigan University, notes that "the diminution of religious imagery of sin, the rise of determinist theories of human behaviour, and the doctrine of cultural relativity" have led further to the exclusion of "evil" from our discourse."
"I want to remind the US and the world of one thing: evil is about choice. Sickness is about the absence of choice."
Homicide trends
The FBI has released an interesting chart plotting homicide numbers over the last five years. (the declines would probably be a little sharper if rates were used, since the population increased over that period of time).
Total homicides: down from 14,916 to 12,664, a drop of 15%.
Firearm homicides: down from 10,129 to 8,583, a drop of the same.
Rifle homicides: down from 453 to 323, a drop of 29%.
Rifle homicides (of which "assault rifles" are but a part), are now far below homicides by club or other blunt object (496), or by beating (728) and far below those committed with knifes (1,694).
Hat tip to Prof. Raymond Kessler.
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (0)
A thought on history
The original Gun Control Act made it very easy to get an FFL license; $10 a year fee, as I recall, no requirement that the applicant have premises in an area zoned for business, etc. The reasoning was simple: private sellers don't have to keep records of sales, which FFLs, and so letting lots of people have FFLs meant lots of sales "on the record." A person simply claimed a room in his house as his business premises, could buy interstate, kept records of sales, with no great burden. As I recall, at the peak there were about 200,000 FFLs.
Then under Clinton, Violence Policy Center staged a media pitch that there were so many FFLs out there, more gun dealers than gas stations. And a private group, National Association of Stocking Gun Dealers, or something like that, attacked the in-home FFLs, seeing them as competition. The result were amendments making it harder to get an FFL. Your premises had to be in area zone for business, had to have certain security, and the fees were increased. The result was that the number of FFLs shrank, I believe to about 25% of what they had been.
Now the pitch is... "there are people who make private sales, and they don't have to keep records, that's terrible and ought to be stopped."
As the saying goes, make up your mind.... unless of course the only objective is to make acquiring guns as difficult as possible. Drive 3/4 of the FFLs out of business, and then complain that non-FFLs shouldn't be allowed to transfer guns.
Bill Clinton loses his title....
as the greatest NRA recruiter in history. 250,000 new members in a single month, very impressive work.
Permalink · NRA · Comments (0)
Hilarious!
A few days ago a NY newspaper published an interactive map showing gun owners' addresses. So Project Veritas sends a team around to ask if its editors would proudly post a sign proclaiming "this home is proudly gun-free." Strangely, they don't find many takers, although they do find the publisher's house and an editor's house with armed guards.
Via Instapundit
Permalink · media · Comments (3)
3-D printers and homemade large cap magazines
An interesting concept. As it points out, a magazine is simply a spring-loaded box of specific dimensions. That the pattern has been downloaded over 2,000 times is interesting as well.
Piers Morgan gets owned, again
By Dana Loesch, as he describes the Bushmaster .233 caliber AR-15, or maybe AT-15, which "can fire up to 6 bullets a second, like a M-16 military assault rifle. Wise up."
Maybe petitioning to have him deported without due process is too much, but it's overdoing it for us to demand that the Department of Agriculture see whether CNN got a got a 526 permit before bringing Morgan here. It's required before importing foreign insect pests.
Washington Post on NRA origins
An amazingly impartial article. There are a few minor factual errors, but those are the inevitable product of having to rely upon hearsay, relating to events decades ago, and aren't slanted.
[UPDATE: If you're commenting and get blocked, try dropping your email address. I had to block gmail, yahoo and a few others because of unbelievable waves of spam comments, robot generated and coming sometimes at a dozen per minute, but set it so you can comment while leaving no email address at all]
Permalink · NRA · Comments (9)
Washington Post misses the real issue
WashPo is reporting that during the 1994-2004 "ban" on high-capacity magazines, the percentage of guns seized by Virginia LE agencies fell, and then sharply rose when the ban expired.
But the supposed purpose of the "ban" was to reduce crime. So let's look at a few Virginia figures, from 2004, the last year of the "ban" and from years after it expired.
2004: Murder rate 5.2 Robbery rate 92
2010 Murder rate 4.7 Robbery rate 70
2011 Murder rate: 3.7 Robbery rate 67
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (2)
Diane Feinstein forgot to buy her domain name
Hilarious! Hat tip to Len Savage,
Self Defense in Ohio
I think this CCW holder handled things very well.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (0)
Good article on "assault weapons" and hi-cap magazines
By Katie Pavlich.
Good article on "assault weapons" and hi-cap magazines
By Katie Pavlich.
busy day for the Second Amendment
In Klachaksky, where the Second Circuit upheld the Sullivan Law's vague standards for issuing permits to carry, a petition for certiorari has been filed. That petition is the standard route for getting cases to the US Supreme Court, which can accept or decline them.
In Moore v. Madigan, which struck down the Illinois ban on carrying (open or concealed) without a permit issued on similarly vague grounds, the State has moved for en banc reconsideration, i.e., consideration by all the judges of the circuit, rather than the three-judge panel that heard the appeal.
In the latter case, Brady Center has filed an amicus. Interesting that it agrees that the issues are very important -- which would argue for a motion for cert. down the road, if Illinois is inclined to seek it.
Things are heating up!
Hat tip to Gene Hoffman of CalGuns....
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (6)
Gun "buyback" in Tucson
They had one today, offering a $50 gift card. I took it as an opportunity to get rid of two old, broken, and probably irreparable guns. In the parking lot, a fellow bought one of them for cash, saying that he had some gunsmithing skills and thought he could fix it. The other ... I said it was such a piece of junk that I couldn't fairly ask $50, or even half that, I'd rather relieve the city of $50.
One fellow had a Browning shotgun, which he refused to sell for $100, but other than that everyone was talking about getting rid of their junk guns. The fellow ahead of me had an automatic pistol whose repair would cost more than it was worth; it had gathered dust in his gun safe for 20 years, and he was happy to be getting $50 for it.
Nordyke finally finished...
Cert. denied. Thus finishes the Methusala of gun rights cases, one that was literally filed in the last century.
Permalink · Nordyke v. King · Comments (4)
Antigun newspaper hires armed guards
A few days ago the White Plains (NY) Journal News went public with an interactive map of handgun permit holders, entitled "The Gun Owner Next Door: What You Don't Know About the Weapons in your Neighborhood."
Now comes word that the newspaper has hired armed guards.
Permalink · media · Comments (0)
When clowns attack
Great video on handgun shooting stances
I especially like the Highly Modified Gangsta Grip. As he says, the hurling of insults is the most important aspect.
Permalink · shooting · Comments (1)
The Hollywood Tax Break continues
Nice to know that while payroll taxes go up for the rest of us, the new tax bill continues the special entertainment tax deduction. Because we know how many in the entertainment industry are indigent. Here's a summary. Essentially, the producing company gets a deduction of 9% of its income, up to 50% of the wages it paid.
Arizona used to have a State tax credit as well; New Mexico still has one. Since Hollywood companies aren't headquartered here, and thus don't pay corporate income taxes here, ours was transferrable, i.e., they could sell the tax credit to someone who did pay Arizona income tax. Note these are tax credits, not deductions: a $10 tax credit reduces your taxes by $10. New York offers an incredible 30% tax credit for filming! In practice, that means that, instead of paying taxes, a filming company is funded by the government.
Permalink · media · Comments (1)
Do mass murderers need large-cap mags?
Bogota, 1986: Campo Elias Delgado kills 30 people, using a knife and a .32 revolver. In most mass slayings, police response time is 10-20 minutes, meaning that the killer doesn't need a large magazine, or as in this case, a magazine at all.
Howard Nemerov compares a mass murder that didn't happen in San Antonio. The shooter was shot down by an off-duty officer after he wounded two people.