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March 2013
Oh, no!
ATF busts the Mad Russian! Now, what will we do for video entertainment?
Illinois to the Federal courts: bugger off
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that
"Despite a federal ruling that Illinois' concealed carry ban is unconstitutional, police, prosecutors and judges alike say they are disregarding the finding and continuing to enforce the law — at least for now.
Police say they continue to arrest those who violate the state's ban on carrying a gun in public, and prosecutors continue to charge them. Backing up the authorities — but perhaps creating more confusion — a state court ruled last week that the federal decision is not binding on Illinois courts and upheld the nation's last concealed carry ban as constitutional."
Laws are for the little people, not the powerful ones....
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (5)
Stories on pullout from Vietnam
Here's one. Many cite the experiences of Jim Warner, a friend and former staffer at NRA General Counsel's office, who spent 5+ years in a North Vietnamese POW camp.
Prof. Cottrol interviewed by Huffington Post
He's said to be set up for video interview by them at about 6:10 EDT.
Gun dealer cancels Mark Kelly's AR-15 purchase
You just can't be too careful about straw man sales. I suppose that also answers a question people have had, "how did he find a place with an AR-15 for sale? Apparently, even at $1,295 a pop, they still have to be backordered.
I say, snuff the little bugger
Prosecutor seeks death penalty for fraudulent Punxsutawney Phil.
NY offering $500 reward for turning in owners of illegal guns
"A “tip line” has been set up to field phone calls 24 hours a day.
Republican Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin said, “This initiative seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor and use their own tax dollars to pay for the $500 reward.”"
NY to suspend 7-round magazine limit
The Senate Majority Leader says he'll append a suspension to a budget bill.
Its great to know that the folks pushing this stuff know what they are doing: "Cuomo has said the law needs to be rolled back because manufacturers don’t make seven-round holders. The measure was a center piece to a gun law the 55-year-old Democratic governor pushed through the legislature in January..."
I assume that should be read as (1) there was no exception for law enforcement; (2) LEOs commonly use 9mms, and (3) there are no, or perhaps few, 7 round magazines in 9mm.
"His gun law was passed within 24 hours of being introduced..." Yep. There are downsides to "we've got to pass this before we can think clearly."
UPDATE: Legal Insurrection has thoughts as to the method.
"But why via the budget?
Lumping it in with the budget deprives opponents of the opportunity to make the gun law a separate issue and to point out the haste with which the legislature acted.
Most important, this maneuver deprives opponents of the gun law the chance to vote against changing the 7-round limit in isolation? Huh, you say.
The limit is unworkable as the Governor admits, and makes a mockery of the entire gun law. By keeping the limit in place, opponents of the gun law in general would have created a situation where the gun law all but imploded of its own weight.
Now that weight will be removed in a manner designed to make as if it never were there in the first place."
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (5)
Did Feinstein's AW ban bill take down other forms of gun control?
Adam Winkler thinks so.
"There was one certain impact of proposing to ban the sale of assault weapons: it was guaranteed to stir gun-rights proponents to action. Ever since Obama was elected, they’ve been claiming that he wanted to ban guns. Gun-control advocates mocked this claim—then proposed to ban a gun. Not only that, the gun they were trying to ban happened to be the most popular rifle in America."
Joyce Malcolm on the 2A, on PBS Newshour
Video here.
Historical view ... ten or twenty years ago, it was impossible to foresee that an established news outlet like this, would seriously and openly interview a professor of law (and earlier, of history) in this polite and serious a manner.
Louisiana trial court strikes down State felon-in-possession
Discussion here. Louisiana voters recently amended their constitution to expressly State that the right to arms is individual and fundamental, and all review shall be at the strict scrutiny level. Applying that, the judge held that a ban on all felons, violent and nonviolent, recently and ancient, failed the test and invalidated the ban on its face (i.e., as to everyone, including violent felons).
I'm on an email list where Prof. O'Shea noted that this sort of result is reflection of judicial hostility to the right to arms. Courts announce they are applying intermediate scrutiny or a variant, and we wind up with rulings like Kachalsky and Woollard, where the court in fact applies rational basis "laws that are not psychotic pass muster." (I don't think I have seen any other intermediate scrutiny cases announce that the court must defer to the legislature while applying it). So voters decide that the only way to get courts to take the right seriously is to mandate the standard of review... and then we get these results.
Woollard reversed
Just in. The District Court had sticken Maryland's {corrected, thanks] "may issue" carry permit system. The Fourth Circuit reverses, finding that it passes intermediate scrutiny. Another one bound for the Supreme Court.
UPDATE: here's the opinion, in pdf.
I cannot think of any other right considered a fundamental right, whose exercise can be (1) punished unless the person receives a government permit and (2) there are no standards for the permit issuance beyond a government official's feelings.
Culture wars
Story here. Demo senators with secure seats in antigun areas are demanding a vote on the AW ban, even if that imperils fellow Demos in "fly-over" country.
Some good news
First, Harry Reid strips the AW and magazine bans from gun control bill. Not too surprising; the last thing Reid would want is symbolic legislature that puts Demo Senators, and thus the Demo majority, at risk. Sen. Feinstein says she'll offer it as floor amendments anyway, but I suspect he's arguing against it. It's one thing for a California or NY Senator with a secure anti-gun constituency to see those as a good thing, another thing for a Senator from Montana to be put on the spot. Reid's action might be seen as a signal that a "no" vote won't be putting a Demo crosswise with the leadership.
Second, appropriations committees add several pro-gun provisions to their bills.
Magpul will never be called indecisive
They'd said they'd move out of Colorado if the ban on 10+ round magazines passed, and here's the core of their reaction to its signing into law:
"We will start our transition out of the state almost immediately, and we will prioritize moving magazine manufacturing operations first. We expect the first PMAGs to be made outside CO within 30 days of the signing, with the rest to follow in phases."
The "assault weapon" "ban" and political theater
A good article, at The Week.
"Once again, our lawmakers cloak unpassable legislation in base-pleasing rhetoric."
Interesting page on background checks
Right here. The point that most mass killers would have passed a background check, while Martha Stewart would have failed one, is a nice jab.
I guess I shouldn't have worried about Mark Kelly being in the marital doghouse....
With a photo like this hitting the blogosphere...
S. 374, the "universal background check" bill
At Shall Not Be Questioned, Sebastian hits the bill hard, and so does Only Guns and Money. I've had a chance to read it (he has a link to the text, and fully agree. It's incredible this thing ever got out of committee. I'll here describe it by page rather than subjection.
Universal background check (p. 11): this applies to any firearm “transfer,” which is defined as including “a sale, gift, loan….” (p. 13). So just handing a firearm to someone else is a forbidden “transfer’ unless it falls within an exception.
And note “loans” and “gifts” are different matters. As Sebastian notes, the bill has exemptions for “bona fide gifts between spouses” and other close relatives, but this only covers gifts, not loans. Handing your spouse or child a gun in the field would be a “loan” and thus a violation (unless you brought an FFL with you to authorize each handing over of a firearm).
Another example. Let’s suppose you go shooting in the countryside (or even on your own property, not near your house) with a friend, and you loan them your rifle for a few shots. You just committed a federal crime, and they’ll commit one when they had it back.
Look at the exemptions on pp. 11-13. It’s not a transfer between spouses, or other designated family. It’s a not a transfer by will. It’s not a temporary transfer “in the home or curtilage” (the area immediately around the house), it’s not a transfer at a target range, nor while hunting. It’s a loan not within any exemption.
The penalty? This section will be numbered as 18 U.S.C. §922(t). Under §924, “Whoever knowingly violates subsection (s) or (t) of section 922shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 1 year, or both.”
Note the “knowingly.” That means you must have known of your action (you were conscious at the time) but not necessarily knew of the law. The fact that you didn’t know that there was a law against handing your friend a rifle is immaterial.
Or suppose you take a firearm to show to a friend, while inside his house, and let him hold it. Again, a violation. The exemption for a temporary transfer inside the home only applies if it’s the transferor’s home.
Or suppose you hand him a firearm while at a shooting range. You’d better check out the ownership of the range, because the exemption for temporary transfers at ranges only covers ranges owned or occupied “by a duly incorporated organization,” with the specified purposes. If the range is owned by an individual, or a partnership it’s not within the exemption. Ditto if its corporate purposes are not those specified in the bill, so you'd better check its articles of incorporation.
The bill also empowers the Attorney General to shut down all person-to-person transfers, even thru FFLs. He is instructed to promulgate regulations setting a maximum fee that FFLs may charge for handling such transfers (p. 13). So set the fee at $10 and no FFL will take a gun, log it into his books, log it out of his books, check the 4473 and run the background check for so small a sum. Ergo, all transfers between individuals will halt.
Lost and stolen guns reporting (p. 14). The bill requires anyone who has lost a firearm or had it stolen to report it to the Attorney General, and to local authorities, within 24 hours. A violation is penalized by §924(a)(1)(B), which provides that the offender “shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” It moreover need only be a “knowing” violation, not a “willful” one. That is, it is enough prove the defendant knew that he had had the gun stolen and knew that he didn’t report it, even if he had never been told of the requirement to report.
On the side: it appears the drafters of the legislation, as is all too common, had no knowledge of existing gun laws. The AG’s regulations must require of “record of transaction” of any transfer under paragraph 1. (p. 13). That paragraph covers transfers handled by FFLs, and requires the FFL to take possession of the firearm and comply with all requirements for selling a firearm. (p. 11). Those include logging it into and out of his acquisition and disposition book, and getting a 4473 from the recipient. Whoever drafted the bill apparently did not know that FFLs are required to record all transfers!
I don’t know if this reflect cleverness or ignorance, but the bill provides that “notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter,” the AG may promulgate regulations. (p. 13). This may reflect ignorance of the fact that the AG already has power to promulgate regulations to enforce the Gun Control Act. 18 U.S.C. §926. Or it might be a clever attempt to get around that section’s restriction that he promulgate “only such rules and regulations as are necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter.”
Discord over appealing Moore v. Madigan
Story here. The case struck down the Illinois system of no carry without a permit, and permits on a "may issue" basis. The governor says he wants to appeal, the AG doesn't want to.
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (3)
Poor Utah
The Brady Campaign scores it as dead last for gun control in the U.S.. But its gun homicide rate is under 1 per 100,000, a fraction of that of California. The same with gun assault and gun robbery. (Not that "gun" crime rates really matte, but still...)
New York grand jury does the right thing
It refuses to indict, for homicide or gun violations, after a clear (captured on security cameras) case of self-defense.
Of course, this not being NYC, I suspect the prosecutor dropped a few hints that he'd like to see the case go away...
Hat tip to Sixgun Sarah....
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (2)
Senate Judiciary passes universal background checks
By a vote of 10-8. I suspect this means in reality "passes a ban on private sales," but I haven't seen the exact language.
They live. They're here. And they vote.
Sharp as a Marble has an interesting post of, I guess, some tweets from a person who has an abysmal lack of knowledge, but no shortage of certainty.
Mark Kelly explains
The local paper, very surprisingly, carried the story (I can't get the link to work for some reason) and gives his explanation: he bought the AR-15 to investigate how easy it was to buy.
C'mon, admit it. You bought it because it was a fun gun.
UPDATE: Let's not be too hard on the fellow. This may be a purchase he wanted to keep secret from his Mrs.! Married gunnies face that option from time to time.
Illinois Congresswoman speaks frankly
Video here.
Bad news for Chicago
"Snowstorm in Chicago Delays Hundreds of Morning Murders".
"The city of Chicago is steadily recovering from an overnight snowstorm that delayed hundreds of murders on Friday morning and will likely continue to push numerous homicides across the city drastically behind schedule, public authorities announced."
Hmm... Mark Kelly bought an AR-15 and high cap magazines
Here in Tucson, just a day after testifying against them in Colorado. He must live on this (eastern) end of town... the dealer where he bought it is not far away.
He also picked up a 1911. Our tastes are similar -- admit it, Mark, you want this sort of stuff!
UPDATE: I don't see his statement as "I bought the rifle so I could turn it over to police," but as "I bought the rifle, and seeing as it's become an issue, I'll turn it over to the police, drat!"
Enough said
Objection to exempting veterans from "AW Ban"
Story here. S. 150, the "assault gun ban," has an exemption for LEOs and retired LEOs. A motion was made to add in military veterans, and Sen. Feinstein objects: why, veterans might have PTSD (which she appears to think only came about during the Iraq war). We're in the best of hands.
As I pointed out in my written testimony, if an LEO has mental issues so significant that he cannot do his job, he is given disability retirement. Such a retiree would be exempt from the ban and could possess "assault guns," even while ordinary citizens are covered by it. The only sense I can make of this is that the chiefs of police, etc., who are supporting the ban would only do so if they were assured it would never apply to them, even after they step down.
Nixon a gun control proponent?
So it would seem, based on the latest batch of White House tapes released.
"He asked why “can't we go after handguns, period?”
Nixon went on: “I know the rifle association will be against it, the gun makers will be against it.” But “people should not have handguns.”
He laced his comments with some more colorful words not fit for the Sunday newspaper."
Interview of Judge Alex Kozinski
Right here. An interesting life, born in Communist Romania, and winds up on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
A good shot
In Torrance, CA. Rapist chokes woman from behind, she gets out a .22 (the .22 you have has more stopping power than the .45 you left at home) and fires two shots over her shoulder. One was a solid hit, and the rapist expires. DNA shows he also committed a murder back in the 90s.
"A few weeks after Kemp died, Torrance's city prosecutor said the woman who shot him might have been illegally carrying the gun in her purse, but cleared her of wrongdoing in the interest of justice."
So much for the remark of Colorado State Senator Evie Hudak, to a rape victim: "Chances are that if you had had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you."
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (2)
A question I wish Rand Paul would raise now
His flibuster got the White House, rather reluctantly it would seem, to state that a President does not have "authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on an American soil."
Nice to know. Further question: do situations like Waco or Ruby Ridge constitute citizens having "engaged in combat"?
At Waco, the government deployed an M-1 Abrams and armored personnel carriers, military aircraft, and even a battlefield robot (which kept breaking down).
UPDATE: the "incident commander" had an Abrams. The building was broken up and gassed by Combat Engineering Vehicles, while APCs contributed CS gas projectiles.
Permalink · General con law · Comments (6)
Change in antigun tactics
Politico is reporting a change in tactics. The White House is essentially asking antigun groups to take a lower profile and unite behind whatever the Administration is pushing -- and don't push anything beyond it.
"In exchange: a voice in the discussions, a role in whatever final agreement is made and weekly meetings at the White House with Biden’s chief of staff, Bruce Reed — provided they don’t discuss what happens there.
. . . . . .
In past fights, gun control groups sparred with each other and got used to dictating the agenda to allies in Congress.
Now they’re just happy to be included in the discussion, and still holding out hope that something might happen."
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (0)
You don't need_____
To go with its billion rounds of ammo, DHS is acquiring 2,700 armored fighting vehicles. And of course drones.
Not that I'd begrudge anyone ten tons of ammo and some really cool cars, but why is it that spokesmen for government power protest "you don't need a (rifle of that type, large magazine, whatever)." Apparently that argument is only applicable when applied to citizens or taxpayers, not when applied to a governmental department.
UPDATE: via Instapundit, ACLU is investigating police militarization.
A prosecutor friend made an interesting point. Every Federal agency (even the Department of Agriculture and the IRS) seems to have its SWAT team. Why? Granted, agencies may need SWAT capabilities from time to time. But those folks don't need the agency's training, they don't need to know how to audit tax forms or do a net worth investigation or handle food stamp fraud. So why isn't there just a handful of Federal SWAT teams ... maybe two or four, spread out ... that agencies may call upon, rather than having, and paying for, their own team?
UPDATED UPDATE: My prosecutor friend figured on the agency's own people going in right behind the SWAT teams. Now, there might be some touchy issues here. Apart from Marshals and FBI, as I recall, agencies do not have *general* arrest powers. Any arrest outside their agency function is a citizen's arrest, with all the legal exposure that entails (no probable cause defense: the arrestee either did it or he didn't, and if he didn't, you're liable for false imprisonment no matter how much it looked like he did). So it might get delicate as to when and by whom an arrest was made. Were the suspects "free to go" after a brief detention, as of when the SWAT team went in? Etc. That might be resolved by putting the SWAT teams in Marshals or FBI.
EVEN MORE UPDATED: Little Green Footballs is reporting that it appears the armored fighting vehicles were a Navy procurement for the Marine Corps. The contract it found matches exactly the number and type of vehicles described.
George Zimmerman waives "stand your ground" hearing
Story here. I don't know anything about such hearings, except that they are a method to try to gain pretrial dismissal. My guess would be that the defense attorneys judged the probability of a win was insufficient to offset the dangers of a loss -- i.e., that the prosecution would get a a free shot at questioning him and using that to prepare for trial.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (5)
Prof. Johnson and I on Youtube
Right here. There were a lot of electronic transformations to getting it there, and a lot of compression, so audio and video are a bit out of synch and the audio is a bit "thin," but it's there.
Student disarms gunman, gets punished
He wrestles the gun away from an aggressor, and is immediately suspended for having been involved in a gun incident. Somedays you can't make this stuff up. Especially in education.
Missed an anniversary
I was so busy I forgot to mention that February 28 was the 20th anniversary of the Waco tragedy. My long out of date Waco page is here. After years of FOIA litigation, the most astonishing finding was probably this document.
UPDATE: I dunno what's up with the webpage. I had a friend email me that the page was down. I got it to load with no problem, told him, he tried again and couldn't get it to load. Then the next day he had no problems loading it. I just tested it, and it loads for me, as of now.
Trip with a time machine
I bought a December 1966 issue of The American Rifleman at an estate sale today. It's quite a trip back in time.
Circulation -- it was then the only NRA magazine -- 855,000. It lists all the new life members for the month, a bit over a page of fine print.
Harlon Carter was President, Harold Glassen the vice president.
An article on handgun training, with everyone shooting one-handed. One on an NRA member who'd earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and another member who won the Navy Cross, on top of six Purple Hearts.
And of course the ads... M-1 carbines for $65, Mauser 98 barreled actions in many chamberings for $59, surplus Winchester 97 shotguns, with military markings, for the same price, ordinary M98 Mausers for $28-30....
Colorado bans semiauto and pump shotguns
Story here. Legislation commonly has botch-ups, but when the emphasis is on passing it hastily, before people return to thinking clearly, the odds begin to approach certainty.