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July 2015
Serial killer hires escort service, gets stopped permanently
He introduces himself at the door with the words "Live or die?" And winds up being the one dying. He's a suspect in ten murders.
Taurus settles class action
$39 million, over defective safeties.
Home invasion: some useless advice
Here is advice from Simplisafe Security Sellers. Put a deadbolt lock on a closet and retreat there, then use your cellphone to call for help. I guess it never occurred to them that a modern closet door (and for that matter, most interior doors) are nothing but two very thin sheets of plywood that would be easily broken by a kick.
But don't grab a weapon, not even pepper spray! "They all sound like a good idea, but again, we don't know how the burglar will react to seeing an armed person." No, but we can probably predict how he will react to the impact of 1.25 ounces of 00 buck.
Report: two of the servicemen attacked in Chattanooga shot back
Report here. I suppose that, as with any other law that demands people give up their right to defend themselves, some folks will choose to disobey the unreasonable demand.
Target, or its attorneys, appear to be insane
A mental case run into a Target, pursued by some bystanders (reasons for pursuit unstated). Mental case begins stabbing a teenage girl. One of the pursuers, Michael Turner, makes a flying tackle and drags the mental case off her. Now Target is suing Turner.
According to story, the mental case had stabbed a friend of Turner outside the store, and Turner and others pursued him inside.
My guess from the above stories: the teenager has sued Target, and target made a third-party claim against Turner and the other pursuers, claiming that were partially to blame because their initial pursuit of the mental case led to the stabbing. Good luck with the jury -- if it gets that far.
Hat tip to Alice Beard and Sixgun Sally....
Robert Cottrol on the Black Experience
At George Public Radio. He speaks with Philip Smith of the National African-American Gun Association.
Social Security moves to ban certain recipients from owning guns
The news has been out (and I too busy to blog it) that the VA is moving to report the names of certain pension recipients to NICS, so as to ban them from purchasing firearms -- and in legal effect, from possessing them, as well. The rationale is that those veteran-pensioners who receive payments thru a fiduciary (appointed because the pensioner was found incompetent to handle his or her financial affairs) comes within the GCA 68 ban.
Now, it's reported, the Social Security system is going to do the same for its pensioners who receive payments through a fiduciary.
This would certain curtail the number of mass shootings and drive-by homicides caused by our WWII vets and SSI recipients, except for the fact that it's hard to reduce zero.
To add to the mess, the reasoning must be that these people come within the 18 U.S.C. §922(d) ban on a person who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective." That's a term from the 1920s and 1930s, the heyday of progressivism ... and of eugenics. Its use appears to have faded out after the Nazis showed their method of dealing with the "mentally defective." Yet here it is in Federal law.
Bernie Sanders and the Second Amendment
Sander's attitudes on gun control have the liberal/progressive commentators befuddled, or at least more befuddled than they generally are. The one explanation they can put up is that it's a posture to please his Vermont constituents. As the Christian Science Monitor puts it, "Why would a candidate who is staking his campaign on progressive reform be so soft on gun control? The simplest explanation, as my Middlebury colleague Bert Johnson argues, is that, like it or not, Bernie is representing the preferences of a good number of his Vermont constituents."
But that's a little hard to accept, given that when he was a youngster in 1972, and a leader of the Liberty Union Party, it adopted a very pro-gun plank.
I can see that. In fact, the true left (as opposed to liberal/progressive) opposition to gun control can be quite consistent. If you believe the present establishment is run by a corporate oligarchy, why would you want it to have a monopoly on arms? I have a friend, an attorney who's said that he is a socialist, and feels insulted to be called a liberal. He's thoroughly pro-2A, and loves to point out to liberals that when the wealthy elite call for disarming the working class, they always make sure to exempt private security guards, which are their own hired armies.
Close the police loophole!
A New York City police officer is busted for stealing other LEO's guns and selling them to a drug ring.
A Florida officer loses a submachine gun, an assault rifle, and two handguns, stolen from his car.
A California officer leaves loaded gun on motorcycle during school safety demonstration, and three students are injured.
A Pennsylvania officer is charged with reckless endangerment after a gun accident that killed a State Trooper.
A federal agent has a gun stolen, which an illegal alien uses to murder a girl, and the city responds by proposing ammunition record keeping on its one FFL.
A better answer: close the police loophole!
(Hat tip to Mark Moritz for the idea)
Robert Adams case
Some background. He's New Mexico firearm collector and importer who had DHS pull a mega-raid on his house.
The Tenth Circuit just affirmed a District Court ruling suppressing the results of the search, on grounds of no probable cause. The claimed probable cause was that he bought some firearms in Canada, got the permit to import them, but only reported importing some of them. Yes... that and he'd occasionally gone to Canada, and on one occasion apparently drove back rather than flew. Yes...
UPDATE: well, this is interesting. Part of the probable cause claim related to Adams' supposed international travel, using data from DHS' Automated Targeting System. Turns out that that system (1) records airline reservations, and does not purge them if the person cancels the reservation and (2) has been exempted, at government request, from legal requirements that data be accurate and updated, since the government contended that even inaccurate and outdated "data" can give clues. And how much credence is a court supposed to place in data from that system?
Celebrate diversity!
Over 100,000 concealed carry permits issued in Illinois: 14% to women, many in minority neighborhoods. Rest in peace, Otis McDonald.
More on the Charleston killer
Eugene Volokh thinks FBI director was wrong, the shooter actually wasn't a prohibited buyer. If so, it is interesting that our gun laws are so vague that even the Director of the FBI can't get them right.
The Gun Control Act's prohibited person category does have an ambiguity. It bars gun receipt and possession by those who are illicit users of controlled substances. But, except in those cases where the defendant is caught with both drugs and a gun at the same moment, this gets murky. Does he have to be using the drugs at the moment he possessed the gun?
FBI: we screwed up the background check on the Charleston church killer
From ABC News. The story is somewhat off, tho, when it says the problem was that the check system did not note that he'd been caught with drugs:
"When Roof first tried to buy the weapon from a dealer on April 11, an FBI examiner spent several days determining whether the sale should be approved. The examiner missed Roof's previous admission to drug possession during an arrest, which under FBI guidelines should have barred him from buying a gun, according to Comey."
It was a delayed approval, so presumably the check turned up his arrest, and the examiner then had to figure out if it resulted on a prohibiting event. It turns out that it was a felony arrest for drug possession, and those charges were apparently still pending. A person under felony charges can continue to possess firearms, but cannot receive any additional ones. 18 U.S.C. §922(n) ("It shall be unlawful for any person who is under indictment for a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year to ... receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.") When the examiner followed up on the arrest, they should have found it was for a felony and the charges were still pending, and thus should have blocked the sale.
UPDATE: Bloomberg's Everytown is claiming that this proves the the waiting period for clearing up "delayed" cases should be longer. It concedes the dealer waited five days. How long does it take for the background examiner to call the prosecutor's office and ask if the case is still pending? The most logical conclusion is that someone dropped the ball, not that it would take many days to make one quick phone call.
You don't need no steenking permit in Maine
Maine becomes latest State to allow concealed carry without a permit requirement. Note the law goes into effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns, which would mean an effective date sometimes in October.
News you can use....
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse in North Dakota. A state full of guns, ammo, pickups and crude oil does have the advantage when there is a zombie outbreak.
Brady Campaign puffs smoke regarding fundraising
Came across this by coincidence. The Sandy Hook massacre came on December 14, 2012. On January 14, 2013, Brady boasted that the incident had raised $5 million for it..
"The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has raised about $5 million since late December, a spokeswoman for the group told POLITICO.... The cash influx came from previous supporters upping their contributions, new donors and old supporters coming back, said Deborah DeShong Reed.
The $5 million haul is close to double what the group pulled in 2010, according to the most recent tax documents available. That year, their total revenue was $2.8 million."
But if you look at Brady's IRS Form 990 report, its total fundraising for 2012 was $4.8 million, and for 2013 was $4.2 million. (That's gross: net would be those figures minus fundraising expenses of $1 million and $800,000 respectively). So the surge in funding Brady claimed was in fact more than it brought in total for either year in question. And the 2013 claim was that the cash had come in "since late December (2012)," but in fact 2013 saw a fundraising decline of 13%.
Antigun CA State Senator takes dive on gunrunning charges
Story here. Sen. Leland Yee plead guilty to racketeering after being accused of conspiring to run guns to Islamic terrorists, not to mention taking $40,000 in bribes from undercover agents and money laundering.
For his previous service, Brady Campaign had named Yee to its Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll.
One of his codefendants is Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, a onetime gangster whom Sen. Nancy Pelosi praised for his "tenacity and willingness to give back to the community and working 'in the trenches' as a change agent."