« February 2015 | Main | April 2015 »
March 2015
Torrance CA settles suit over illegal destruction of guns
Story here. The city police would refuse to return guns that came into their hands but should legally have been returned to their owners. In this case, they destroyed the guns despite court orders to the contrary. And wound up paying $30K to settle the civil suit.
Update: whether the taxpayers are on the book depends upon the law being sued under and local policies. If it was brought as a California case, I don't know. If brought under section 1983, the officials themselves would have been liable (since unconstitutional acts are not seen as "official duties." But a lot of governments will cover the sums anyway. The one limit there is that the 9th Circuit has ruled that a policy of covering punitive damages (that is, a policy, rather than a case-by-case review) can make the government liable, since it is essentially endorsing willful constitutional violations in advance of their occurring).
Brady Center loses suit against online ammo sellers
To make it still better, the judge indicates he's going to award attorney fees to the winners.
Peruta just went en banc
"THOMAS, Chief Judge:
Upon the vote of a majority of nonrecused active judges, it is ordered that
this case be reheard en banc pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 35(a) and Circuit Rule 35-3. The three-judge panel opinion and order denying motions to intervene shall not be cited as precedent by or to any court of the Ninth Circuit."
In the Ninth, that means the case will be reheard by a panel of ten randomly-chosen judges (out of around 28 active duty ones) plus the chief judge.
Phoenix: mother saved by armed neighbor
Story here.
She's not one of those who would blame the neighbor for shooting her son, who was the drug-demented attacker.
"Mendez is now beginning a painful recovery.
She's also mourning the loss of a son she feels she truly lost to crystal meth, not the man who pulled the trigger. "There was nothing else you could have done," Mendez said she wants her neighbor to know. "And as sad as I am to lose my boy, you did the right thing. And I thank you for my life."
Interesting trends in concealed carry laws
From an article in the Idaho Statesman (which cites Clayton Cramer and John Lott).
Between 1986 and the present days:
States prohibiting concealed carry, with no licenses to do so available, shrank from 16 to 0.
States allowing permits on a discretionary "may issue" basis shrank from 25 to 9.
States allowing permits on a "shall issue" basis rose from 8 to 36.
States allowing concealed carry with no permit rose from 1 to 5.
All this over a period when both total homicides and gun homicides have fallen by about half.
More hypocrisy....
As a publicity ploy, "States United to Prevent Gun Violence" (an astroturf group created by Bloomberg) sets up a fake gun store in New York City, with seemingly real guns hanging on the walls. But not too long ago, New York City announced:
"Early in 2009, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sent letters ordering over 100 retailers to stop selling toy guns that weren't properly marked as imitations. Warnings went to manufacturers, local stores, and national retailers like Big Lots, Dollar Tree and Dollar General. Investigators visited dozens of stores throughout New York and found that most sold toy guns that didn't comply with the state law.
Toy guns can't be sold in New York City unless they are colored bright green, blue, red or another neon color. Over the past seven years, city officials have seized over 7,200 illegal toy guns from stores and levied $2.4 million in fines. Retailer Party City paid a record $500,000 in fines for 800 violations of the city's toy gun law.
New York City passed even tougher toy gun laws to take effect in 2010. Fines for selling illegal toy guns will go from $1,000 to $5,000 for a first offense and up to $8,000 for repeat offenses. It'll also be easier for the City to temporarily close stores that continue to break the law.
Toy Guns Can Be Deadly"
As usual, there is one set of laws for those who have connections, and another set of laws for everyone else.
Can a gun trust own a "post ban" MG?
Joshua Prince has an interesting post. The key is that the NFA says a "person" may register and pay taxes on an MG, and 18 U.S.C. §922(o) says a "person" may not possess a post-ban MG, but the two statutes have different definitions of "person." An unincorporated trust is a person within the definition of NFA, but is not a person within the definitions of the GCA, which govern §922(o).
Former head of MD pistol licensing explains his change of view
A self-defense case that, strangely, was not covered by the media
Story here. My friend Phil Murphy had a similar experience. He held a burglar at gunpoint until police arrived. The local media did interview him. He mentioned that he'd used an AR, and, strangely, the story never saw the light of day.
Some red faces on the other side
Plaintiffs sue Harrisburg, PA, in state court, over its gun restrictions (I assume on preemption grounds). Harrisburg files a removal to Federal District Court (I assume some Federal legal issue was involved, don't know the details). But the removal motion omits one plaintiff, so plaintiffs' attorney Joshua Prince files for default judgment in state court, in the plaintiff's name, since the city never answered the complaint. He reportedly gives notice to Harrisburg (some rules require giving advance notice of an intent to take a default judgment) and the city ignores it. So he takes a default judgment for $20,000 plus.
Now the city wakes up and moves to set aside the default judgment. That's possible, but if the PA rules are like the federal ones, it's a heavy burden of proof. And the first question is going to be "he gave you written notice, well in advance, that he would take a default ... why didn't you object then, or move to add this plaintiff to your removal motion?"
Washington Post: "Obama's Odd Series of Exaggerated Gun Claims"
It's gotten to where even WashPo is criticizing them.
NRA Board elections
I didn't have time to say anything when the ballot arrived, I was swamped with work and barely had time to fill out my own, and besides, everyone on the ballot seemed qualified. But thinking of my associates from Interior Dept days, I realized that William "Bill" Satterfield was on it. He's a good one, a 'Nam vet, was Deputy Solicitor under the Reagan administration, then General Counsel to FERC, then returned to private practice. He's a shooter and a hunter, and serves on NRA's Legal Affairs Committee and its Civil Rights Defense Fund.
Blast from the past
Decades ago, when I worked in Interior Department's legal shop, the Solicitor's Office, a good buddy was Rick Robbins, Assistant Solicitor for National Capitol Area Parks. They handled all legal issues for the Park Service in the DC area, things ranging from litigation over the rules for protests on the White House sidewalk to issues in the battlefield parks near DC (as I recall, extending out to the Bull Run battlefield). In those days, Rick was clean-shaven and, like all of us, in shirt and tie, with jacket in the closet in case we were called to a meeting of importance. He had one heck of a sense of humor, and really, really, really loved to hunt.
Rick just sent me this video of him today, retired to rural Virginia.
U Cal Irvine raises the bar on self-beclowning
It bans the American flag (apparently even from private display).
And the student resolution doing so demonstrates how literacy and clear thinking are no longer requirements for getting into that college: "[F]lags construct paradigms of conformity and sets homogenized standards for others to obtain which in this country typically are idolized as freedom, equality, and democracy." Apart from noun-verb disagreement, this is brain mush.
I'd like to extend on Iowahawk's comment to that article: cut the university off from direct fund transfers, and send all student loan and federal grant money in with tiny flags printed on the check. Somehow I suspect they'd speedily overcome their aversity to flags.
Pretty hilarious!
Guided by comments to the previous post (thanks!) I find that BATF just posted online a notice that its removal of M855 ammo from the exemption for AP ammo is a mistake. Sounds like the decision was made to remove M855, while allowing a sham comment period, and whichever team compiles the annual list of published ordinances was told about the decision but not told "but, 'officially,' this decision hasn't been made yet, so don't let it out."
Those responsible are probably down on their knees thanking the Almighty that this happened in early March. (Federal agencies do job evaluations after the end of the fiscal year, end of September. If you foul up in winter or early spring, you can hope that your supervisors forget about it by then. A disaster in September is a REAL disaster!)
Pretty astonishing....
ATF is required to publish, and I believe annually update, a list of "published ordinances" relating to guns, for guidance of firearm dealers. In mid-February, ATF announced that it was seeking comments on its proposal to removed the "sporting purposes" exemption of M855 ammunition, meaning that (if ATF's interpretation of the ban on handgun "armor piercing" ammo is correct, which I've critiqued earlier) the M855 would be banned. Further, anyone having M855 projectiles would commit a felony by handloading them (the ban applies, not to "manufactures" which the gun statutes narrowly define; instead it makes it illegal for "any person to manufacture" such ammo).
Katie Pavich has made an astounding discovery: the 2015 book of published ordinances, released in January, deletes the exemption for M855 ammunition. The decision was made BEFORE the agency sought comment on it! Possibly long before, since releasing a book in January requires editing it well before then, and getting it to the Government Printing Office so they can run the presses.
2A CLE in Tucson
The State Bar is offering three hours CLE credit to watch "In Search of the Second Amendment," followed by an hour discussion by your humble servant.
More on declaring "green tip" 5.56 as armor piercing
Over at Real Clear Policy, Robert VerBruggen has thoughts on the issue.
Default judgment entered against Harrisburg
For $21,000 in attorney fees, plus such damages as may be proven at trial, in an action charging that the city's gun ordinances violate the Pennsylvania preemption statute.
Court denies stay in Mance v. Holder
Story here. This is the case that struck down the GCA ban on interstate handgun sales by licensed dealers.
The government asked for a sixty-day stay so it could consider whether to appeal. We all know it's going to appeal, but the government wanted to proceed in its usual way (pondering everything, with meetings and exchange of memos and alerting 10,000 people before officially reaching the only obvious conclusion, hey, I used to be a GS-14 and know the ropes). The judge said, no way, you'll meet the deadline imposed on every other case.
National Firearms Law Seminar
It'll be at the NRA annual meeting in Nashville, on April 10. And how often can you satisfy your CLE requirement while watching Massad Ayoob share the stage with Instapundit? I've read some of Massad's advice to defense attorneys, and it was first rate. His pieces on the George Zimmerman case were astounding in their depth.