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June 2013
NJ Appellate decision on permit to carry
It's In re Pantano. Facts: a police chief issued a permit to a contractor who often has to carry thousands of dollars in cash at night. The State appealed, the trial court barred issuing the permit, and the appellate court upheld this. It notes that the standard for a permit to carry is "justifiable need," but that police regulations construe this as "urgent necessity for self-protection, as evidenced by specific threats or previous attacks which demonstrate a special danger to the applicant's life..." Since he hasn't been robbed (yet), he could not issued a permit (even if the police chief approved, as he had).
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (12)
Good news
Audit of US Park Police firearm inventories
Considering how many FFLs have lost their licenses over recordkeeping errors ... this Office of Inspector General report, reflecting an audit of Park Police gun inventories, is interesting..
"Due to the noncompliant and ad hoc USPP firearms inventory method, we could not determine with any degree of accuracy whether any USPP personnel had taken weapons for unauthorized use."
"During our reviews of USPP field office armories, however, we discovered more than 1,400 extra weapons. These included 477 military-style automatic and semiautomatic rifles. The USPP has a force of approximately 640 sworn officers"
"For example, as recently as April 2013, the Force Firearms Custodian reported two automatic rifles discovered during a firearms search at the USPP Aviation Unit, part of the Anacostia Operations Facility. The Force Firearms. Custodian had no prior knowledge of these weapons and could not locate any
property records pertaining to them."
ATF looking to create a new database
Story here.
"Instead of requiring an analyst to manually search around for your personal information, the database should “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches” such as social security numbers (or even just a fragment of one), vehicle serial codes, age range, “phonetic name spelling,” or a general area where your address is located. Input that data, and out comes your identity, while the computer automatically establishes connections you have with others."
Permalink · BATFE · Comments (1)
NRA video attacks Bloomberg
On Youtube, right here. It hits him over including one of the Boston bombers as a "victim of gun violence."
NY exemption for retired LEOS
In a late night session, NY exempts retired LEOs from its 7 round magazine limit. This really goes to underscore how irrational and arbitrary that sort of thing is. If 7 rounds is all a citizen would need in self-defense, isn't the same true of law enforcement? But even if there was some evidence that law enforcement has some special need to perform their duties, that cannot apply to retired LEOs, who have no such duties and have need for self-defense identical to everyone else. It's just a patronage ploy, exempting a favored, and in NY politically potent, group of citizens.
UPDATE: yep, it exempts serving LEOs. That was the whole reason for the amendment. They rushed the legislation through, never let a crisis go to waste, and only then realized that they'd cut magazine size to seven rounds, officers I guess mostly carried 9mm Glocks, and try finding a seven round magazine for a 9mm Glock.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (20)
Interesting cert grant
The Supreme Court today granted cert in NLRB v. Canning, raising the question of Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB. The Constitution says the President can make certain appointments without Senate consent, if the vacancies arise while the Senate is not in session. The Administration (and, I seem to recall, others in the past) have used that to fill vacancies during Senate recesses, even thought the vacancy itself arose while the Senate was in session.
The Court also ordered: "In addition to the questions presented by the petition, the parties are directed to brief and argue the following question: Whether the President's recess-appointment power may be exercised when the Senate is convening every three days in pro forma sessions."
Permalink · General con law · Comments (4)
Netroots sets sight on NRA
Story here. Samples:
The NRA isn’t [just] selling guns, they’re selling fear and mistrust of government,” Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said Friday...
“The NRA is selling fear, mainly fear of government,” echoed Matt Gertz, deputy research director at Media Matters for America....
Hmmm... I wonder if that was quite the message they wanted to be going out with, in the wake of the NSA and IRS revelations of the last month.
Here's an interesting contrast.
Permalink · NRA · Comments (3)
CN" "We're not kicking out that rifle company"
No, they're leaving by their own choice. It's amusing to see legislators ban a product as supposedly too dangerous, and then express dismay that a maker of that product doesn't keep making and shipping them from their State.
A thought on "immigration reform"
David Codrea notes that if immigration reform passes, those now illegal will no longer be barred from possessing firearms. The present prohibition bars sales to aliens who are illegally within the US. That vanishes as soon as they convert to legal status. And of course the background check system isn't much use with a person who spent most of their life outside the US.
A thought on "immigration reform"
David Codrea notes that if immigration reform passes, those now illegal will no longer be barred from possessing firearms. The present prohibition bars sales to aliens who are illegally within the US. That vanishes as soon as they convert to legal status. And of course the background check system isn't much use with a person who spent most of their life outside the US.
Documentary out
Here's a review of "Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire." A progun documentary with Ice-T as narrator, no less....
Jury chosen in Zimmerman case
Legal Insurrection reports that the jury is chosen. All women, 5 "white," 1 "hispanic." (I guess Florida has six person criminal juries, I forget what the constitutional rules are on that). Alternates are two men and two women.
Interesting that the prosecution got zinged for using pre-emptory challenges on four "white" women, and had two of those disallowed. If your pattern of pre-emptories suggests they're being used on the basis of race or ethnicity, the other side can challenged, and make you explain a good non-racial basis for them. Apparently the State couldn't come up with one for two of its challenges.
An all-female jury seems unusual, although with a six person jury it becomes more likely. A predominantly female jury is a common result, simply because you largely wind up with retirees (an employed person can't take off for weeks), and with women's longer lifespan they make up a bigger fraction of retirees. My mother outlived my father by seven years; my ex mother in law outlived her husband by seventeen.
UPDATE: Here's a discussion of the 6 person jury, at the Volokh Conspiracy.
UPDATE: The defense probably can't get in more evidence about T. Martin because of a quirk in the law of self-defense. Under English common law, the test for that was whether the defender's actions were necessary to protect against death or great bodily injury. American law transmuted that into whether the defender had a reasonable belief that his actions were necessary to defend against death or great bodily injury. Generally that favors the defender, but it hurts him where there is evidence that his actions really were necessary, but for reasons he did not know. A belief cannot be based upon data that the person did not know. That's probably the situation here. I've got a draft for self defense law here that would broaden that to cover cases where either the use of force was necessary, or the defender reasonably believed it was necessary.
UPDATE: Yep, the prosecution can make it relevant, unintentionally. That happened here, in the Harold Fish case. Fish claimed that the guy he shot ran at him, fists clenched, arms windmilling as he came on. In fact that guy had gotten into one or two fights where he began just that way. Judge ruled those fights couldn't come into evidence: they couldn't have been a basis for Fish having a reasonable belief, since he hadn't heard of them at the time. Court of Appeals reversed, confirming that general rule, but ruling that since the prosecutor had ridiculed the claim that someone charged with fists windmilling, it should been allowed in.
Interesting question: since Heller concludes that self-defense is a right, and the underpinnings of the 2A, could it argued that whether a person in reality had to act to defend their life is relevant, whether or not they knew of the other events? Why would a constitutional right depend upon belief but not upon reality?
Dumb crooks, part 1,210
Carjacking fails because robber can't drive a stick shift.
Permalink · Dumb crooks · Comments (4)
Another oops moment for Bloomberg
His mayors group just held a rally in New Hampshire, and in reading off the names of victims of gun violence, included the name of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Well, he did die from gun violence (and being run over by his brother), as often happens to people who engage in a shootout with police.
UPDATE: three more people killed in gunfights with police are on the list, one being a mass murderer.
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (5)
Hubris
On Tuesday, Rahm Emanuel took credit for Chicago's drop in homicide rates.
Today, headlines read "7 Dead, 30 Wounded in Weekend Violence".
Permalink · Crime and statistics · Comments (3)
Insight
This article and some of the comments to it give an insight into how the other side feels. As an experiment, the author (who is antigun) bought a gun while taking the minimum number of actions required by law, and set out to open carry for a month.
She relates how scared she is. Well, yes, she has zero training and experience, and is carrying a Glock, which in my judgment is not the gun for a beginner.
"Tony told me a Glock doesn’t have an external safety feature, so when I got home and opened the box and saw the magazine in the gun I freaked. I was too scared to try and eject it as thoughts flooded my mind of me accidentally shooting the gun and a bullet hitting my son in the house or rupturing the gas tank of my car, followed by an earth-shaking explosion. This was the first time my hands shook from the adrenaline surge and the first time I questioned the wisdom of this 30-day experiment."
She has to drive the firearm to a police officer to have him unload it. One commenter notes "Even to make a point, I wouldn’t be able to do this. I give you a lot of credit for doing this Heidi and look forward to reading more about your experience."
House committee reports out major pro-hunting bill
The House Natural Resources Committee has reported out, by a 2-1 vote the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act, H.R. 1825.
This is indeed a game-changer. Among other things, it opens Forest Service and BLM lands to hunting and fishing, unless closed by the agencies. (Now the statute goes the other way, these are allowed only if the agency allows them). This makes a big difference because it's much easier to sue to challenge an action (the environmental work wasn't done right, the rulemaking didn't answer all objections, the administrative record doesn't fully support it) than it is to challenge inaction (almost any reason, including "we've never had time to get to that" will justify inaction). Now the action is opening lands, so any decision is vulnerable. Under the statute, the action is closing lands, so the closure in vulnerable.
Here's the text of the bill. It also provides that no authorization of hunting or fishing shall be considered a "a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." That means NEPA doesn't apply (NEPA analysis is a major burden and point of legal challenge), and that any closure of more than a square mile must involve conference with State game officials, and notice to the Committee.
Jay Dobyns' case goes to trial here
Story here. He's the ATF agent who infiltrated the Hell's Angels, and when his family came under serious threat the agency essentially abandoned him. After his house burned down after an arson attack, the agency claimed he'd done it. When he sued, the government made a counterclaim (!!!) against him for publishing a book without its clearance.
Gun free school zones are such a wonderful thing
The result: a surrender to a psychopath. A teacher's ex was stalking her, despite restraining orders. The school resolves the threat by firing her.
A parochial school, too. In my day, the principal would have told one of the nuns "deal with this man," and he would have been faced down by a 4'6" 80 year old woman with an iron will who got her jollies by intimidating Marine drill officers.
Actress calls for gun safety (real gun safety), loses followers
I don't twitter, and don't know who this is, but actress Katee Sackhoff lost 100,000 Twitter followers after she urged people to practice gun safety>
“Please practice gun safety. This is horrible!”
Soon after, Sackhoff’s Twitter feed blew up with followers advocating gun control instead of gun safety.
“Here's a radical idea folks. How about NO gun?” one wrote.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/06/11/actress-katee-sackoff-urges-gun-safety-on-twitter-loses-half-her-followers/#ixzz2W2GtimPg
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (11)
History of media bias
Via Instapundit, The History of Media Bias. Interesting thoughts on how the change from "a reporter works his way up" to "a reporter starts with a degree in journalism" may have affected that.
I can verify that once media bias was quite open, with no paper pretending to be objective. Arizona had its Democrat and its Arizona Republican, and their orientations reflected exactly that. Today the Democrat has long faded away, and the Republican became the Arizona Republic. In those early papers, one's editorials would respond to the other's, quite directly and even insultingly. It did make reading more interesting.
Permalink · media · Comments (0)
CA sues over magazine "repair kits"
Story here. It argues that the repair kits can be used to make banned large cap magazines.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (4)
Santa Monica shooter
Clayton Cramer has interesting thoughts. Reports indicate that the shooter had (surprise!) serious mental health issues, which led to his commitment (unknown if it was voluntary or involuntary, but if the latter it's a bar to gun possession and should have flagged him). California has had an "assault weapon ban" since the year he was born, requires all sales to be after a background check since he was a toddler, and banned transfers of larger magazines since he was eleven.
In short, he's an example of why (1) passing gun laws will not affect a murderous mental case and (2) why we really need to fix the mental health system.
Ruminations on the NSA-Verizon datamining
From my 2001 book on the Waco tragedy, "This Is Not An Assault":
"To be sure, we have seen totalitarian governments before—the word, “totalitarian” deriving from the root, “total,” implying a political system whose philosophical aim is as near-total social control as it is possible to achieve. But one crucial factor has changed: in their most depraved visions for the domination of humanity, neither a Hitler, on the political right, nor a Stalin, on the political left, could have envisioned the totalitarian potential embodied in the computer, the microchip, or sophisticated microelectronics. “Do you have your papers?” is an outdated, hardcopy demand, in a world where the presentation of a driver’s license can automatically be reported to a central database, where the whereabouts of every employee in the nation is already online, and where your every banking transaction can be checked, in an automated instant, against a profile for your appropriate earnings and deposit patterns.
Let’s be blunt. We have created an Executive establishment which is capable, whenever it really wants to be, of violating the constitutional rights of its citizens, of shutting off (or co-opting) media investigation, and of shrugging off legislative oversight. This political force is capped by agencies’ own military detachments, their private Praetorian Guards, with internal loyalties and assault training. These micro-praetorian forces are beyond the control of any elected political establishment, indeed beyond the control of their own agency heads; at Waco, even the orders of the FBI director could not stop HRT from moving up tanks when it wanted to. This establishment represents sufficient power that a growing number of citizens are genuinely beginning (for the first time in recent history) to fear their own government.
. . . . . . .
If a government can violate the rights of citizens, with it being extremely unlikely that any one citizen or group of citizens can realistically wield the legal power that would permit timely redress of legitimate violations, then to the degree that this becomes the norm, such an organization is practically and functionally above the law, and society which it governs has become to some extent post-democratic in character. American democracy, after all, presupposed a society in which the people were independently minded, individually powerful, and (let us not forget) heavily armed—in a phrase, far more powerful, in potential terms, than the government they created. That is hardly the case today, and as the preconditions change, so does the resulting government."
I suppose a decent insight, for a dozen years ago....
Illinois governor faces interesting choice
The Seventh Circuit struck the Illinois complete ban on carrying, with a stay on the ruling's effectiveness extended thru July 9. The legislature has passed a bill which provides for carry permits which (while it has exceptions) is an enormous improvement on the status quo.
The Chicago Tribune reluctantly endorses the bill, noting "Quinn doesn't have to seal the bill with a kiss. But he should take note of two realities. One, a veto would place Illinois at risk of having no law regulating the concealed carry of firearms."
Permalink · Chicago aftermath · Comments (3)
Effective ban on new handguns in California
Chuck Michel reports it here. Essentially, (1) microstamping of firing pins is now mandatory, but (2) it adds to the cost of manufacture and (3) given the current demand for firearms, why bother making a special model for California?
My memory may be off, but as I recall the law only became effective if the microstamping technology was not covered by patent. The patent holder waived the patent, but remains the only firm with the equipment to make the firing pins, so its patent monopoly just became an economic monopoly.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (13)
Perhaps the record for school stupidity
Some students at Chase Lake Elementary School asked to bring nerf guns to school in order to conduct an experiment relating to probability theory. Their teacher approved, but they got suspended anyway. The school insists it was a "safety issue." Yep, Nerf guns are surely a clear and present danger.
Colorado recall petition succeeds
The recall petition against Senate President John Morse has mustered over twice the required number of signatures.
DNA samples and the Fourth Amendment
Today the Court handed down Maryland v. King, finding that taking of DNA samples from arrestees is not a Fourth Amendment issue because it's used for identification, like photographs or fingerprints taken after arrest. I find Scalia's dissent more convincing -- he points out that the statute requires that the DNA be taken only after the arraignment, and that its processing takes months, so it's hardly comparable to fingerprints and photographs in terms of establishing who the defendant is. The dissent has an unusual group of signers -- Scalia is joined by most of the liberal wing, Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan.
The last footnote is amusing: "Compare, New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981) (suspicionless search of a car permitted upon arrest of the driver), with Arizona v. Gant, 556 U. S. 332 (2009) (on second thought, no)."
Permalink · General con law · Comments (3)
Rather amusing
From a recent op-ed piece:
"The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That's treason, and it's worthy of the firing squad. ... To turn the song lyric they so love to quote back on them, "We'll put a boot in your ---, it's the American way." Except it won't be a boot. It'll be an M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles. Try treason on for size. See how that suits."
He attacks his opposition as "knuckle-dragging Cretan talk," although what he has against the inhabitants of Crete is unclear.
His page at RateMyProfessors gives the real humor, tho:
"Class was supposed to be journalism, not liberal political rant 101."
"Prof Swindell needs to audit some American history courses. His understanding of Lincoln's motivation during the Civil War is elementary school level."
"Pretty full of himself and thinks his material is more demanding than what it is. He genuinely cares about his students though. Look for the lesson in between the bouts of political ranting."
"He's ADHD and sprays when he talks so sit 5-10 feet out of range."
Nothing like educating future journalists....