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October 2015
New record for longest sniper kill
2,815 meters, 3,000 yards, using a pair of Barrett .50s against a Taliban commander in Afhghanistan.
[I originally had the distance down short, as a comment points out]
Austrians arming themselves
Story here.
"those arming themselves are primarily women.
"If anyone wants to buy a long gun in Austria right now, too bad for them," the Czech newscaster says. "All of them are currently sold out.""
Here's is another account, via Google Translate.
Joshua Prince: the inalienable right to stand your ground
Pro-gun attorneys Joshua Prince and Allen Thompson have an article on the subject in the St. Thomas Law Review.
An alternate approach to the question was taken by Thomas Hobbes. To him, we start in a state of nature which is pretty rugged. Everyone is legally free to murder, rob, etc. their neighbor, and their neighbor is legally free to do the same to them. We give up certain of these legal impunities to form a government, the object of government being personal security. But we cannot bargain away the right of self-defense, since personal security is the object of the bargain, and the reason we gave up certain things to the government. One cannot sell a house, pocket the proceeds, and then demand the house back. To Hobbes, self-defense was the one and only inalienable right.
New election poster
I like this!. "Hillary for Prison 2016."
An interesting crowdfunding project
It's here, on Kickstarter. The idea is to create a 24x36" poster with images of firearms through the ages. If the project succeeds, the posters will be ready next month, well in time for Christmas.
Gallup finds NRA far more popular than Obama or Hillary
That report, and some interesting thoughts, here at Breitbart. NRA's approval ratings are about twenty points (or 50%) higher than either.
The survey also found that, if you subtract the unfavorable from the favorable, NRA comes out +23. In the most recent poll, Hillary came out -8.
Conservatives gave NRA the highest ratings, moderates not far behind, self-identified liberals gave it the lowest, with a lot in the strongly unfavorable category.
Second Circuit rules in NY State Rifle & Pistol
You can access the opinion here. (For some reason a direct link to the opinion doesn't work -- go to the menu bar at the top and click on "decisions" and look for NY State Rifle and Pistol). Pretty much affirms the lower court's ruling, which sustained most of the gun laws at issue. Dave Workman has some interesting thoughts, tho -- such as the court at least recognizes that "assault weapons" and larger magazines are in "common use," and thus within Heller (even tho they can be banned because the court really doesn't like them).
The advance of "shall issue" CCW
No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, has an interesting chart on the spread of "may issue" CCW, from 1986 to the present. In 1986, a minuscule percent of the population lived in States where no permit was necessary, and under 10% in "shall issue" areas. Today over 72% of the American population lives in States that fall into those classes.
NYC using vehicle-mounted backscatter search
Story here. It's not an "x-ray," but more like radar. Same thing they use (to the limited extent it has "use") at many airports. I'd say there are some serious Fourth Amendment issues posed here (compare the Supreme Court case on using passive thermal detection to spot "grow houses" through walls).
The article suggests that it can see thru the sides of autos. If have fiberglass panels, I wouldn't be surprised. But since the entire idea is that it reflects off metal, it's seem to me that seeing through a metal car body would be impossible, absent an enormously powerful signal and some means to read the return in very fine detail, perhaps not even then.
Hillary compares dealing with NRA to negotiating with Iran
Right here.
It's just a ploy to pick up the pro-gun vote, with a promise that she'd support repeal of GCA 68 and enactment of 50-State constitutional carry, plus a $10,000 gift to each gun owner, so long as we self-verify that we have no plans to commit a crime.
UPDATE: the debate between natural rights and legal positivism can never be settled!
Natural rights: rights are natural, established by God or nature. [The "nature" part involves reasoning along the lines of: "man has a strong will to keep on living, and a need to converse with other men. Ergo, his nature is proof that he has a right to self-defense and to freedom of expression."] The Framers were of this school -- why else the Ninth Amendment, recognizing that there are rights not set out in the Bill of Rights? Under this approach, a bill of rights "guarantees" a right, but does not "create" it.
Legal positivism: rights are human constructs, created by human agreements. The right to free expression exists because the First Congress proposed it, and 3/4 of the States ratified it, and we are bound by their decision. This approach really originates in the early 20th century, and is now so near-universal that most attorneys and judges don't even think of the alternative.
Of course, both sides do fudge things a little when they have to. Positivists see no problem espousing Roe v. Wade and other non-enumerated rights, on which the one certainty is that 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the States never agreed to matters. And those who take the natural rights approach can cite legislative history, which is of limited relevance. (I say limited because I can see an argument that "the right exists independent of the guarantee, but the guarantee establishes an indisputable minimum definition of a right.")
Are more gun law associated with a lower homicide rate?
At the Vokolh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh demonstrates that States' Brady Campaign grades have no association with their homicide rates, or with rates for homicide plus accidental gun deaths.
Denton Bramwell recently updated his 2006 study of the same issue, and got the same results as nine years ago: no correlation. Brady "As," "Fs," etc. can have high or low rates, with no pattern discernible.
Now, it's (quite) possible that Brady ratings do not correlate with strictness of gun control. The items evaluated are chosen on a political basis ("do we want this now"?). But at the least these results suggest that policymakers would be foolish to base enactments on Brady proposals.
Great lede for a story
From the Washington Times:
"Senate Democrats gathered Thursday on the steps of the Capitol surrounded by about a dozen armed guards to announce a new push for tougher gun-control laws."
Bad news for Hillary....
In approval ratings, positive vs. negative views of a person or entity, if we subtract the negative ratings from the positive ones, NRA comes off nine percent ahead, and Hillary comes off ten percent behind. Probably not a good time for her to declare war.
Response to Cornell's claim that gun rights cases were uniquely slave-state
Over at National Review Online, Charles Cooke takes apart Saul Cornell's article claiming that early State gun rights cases were a product of slave State courts.
The fact is that the early gun laws were the products of the then-frontier southeast, and so were the early gun law challenges. What conclusion can be drawn from either isn't terribly clear.
Hillary comes entirely out of the closet on the 2A
Story here. The one thing lacking is just how any of these will affect mass shootings. But then I suppose a person can overlook that detail -- in this context, they are playing to a "base" that regards gun restrictions as a matter of religious dogma, existing beyond proof of truth or falsity.
Support for Kleck and millions of defensive uses
From 1997, tho I just saw it. Using a 5,200 person telephone surgery, authors conclude that annually about 1.9 million people draw a gun during a home intrusion, but don't actually see the intruder, another 503,000 draw a gun and do see the intruder and (not surprisingly) 497,000 report the intruder fled in response to the gun. These don't include defensive uses other than in response to home invasion, and on the other hand surely include some where no intruder was sighted because there was no intruder, but certain support Kleck's conclusions that defensive gun uses number in the millions per year.
Something the Camp Perry competitors don't worry about
For the first time in six years, NFL goes a month without a player getting arrested.
Hillary Clinton declares war on the 2A
Some leaked audio from a private fundraiser. Held, appropriately, at the house of a wealthy "prohibited person," a fellow convicted of selling cocaine.
"I'm going to speak out, I'm going to do everything I can to rally people against this pernicious, corrupting influence of the NRA and we're going to do whatever we can."
"And here again, the Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment. And I am going to make that case every chance I get."