« May 2018 | Main | July 2018 »
June 2018
8th anniversary of McDonald v. Chicago
Today is the 8th anniversary... The closeness in timing to Heller is not a coincidence. The Supreme Court releases controversial decisions late in each Term, the Term beginning in early October and usually lasting until late June. Both Heller and McDonald were released on the last day of each Term (I think each was the very last opinion released).
The custom isn't recent. Dred Scott, 1857, was the last opinion of its Term.
Justice Kennedy just announced his retirement
Very interesting. There has been debate, since McDonald, as to whether other members of the Court were unsure of his willingness to go beyond the basic Heller right, and whether that why why the Court was turning down otherwise quite impressive petitions for cert. Maybe so, but I've always wondered if it was a different vote that they were unsure of. Kennedy had, after all, volunteered for a heavy weapons platoon assignment in the Army, and had taught a seminar class on the 2A long, long before Heller.
Prepare for a bruising battle on this nomination. The last one didn't change the balance of power any, a conservative replacement for a conservative. This one will change it some. Kennedy usually voted with the conservative wing, but shifted to the liberal one on some issues (most notably things to do with gay rights), so for people who see those issues as important, his replacement by a person who consistently goes with the conservative wing will be a complete and dramatic change in the Court's composition. I suspect those issues will predominate, not the new nominee's 2A stance.
But for that stance, give us Hardiman of the Third Circuit, who strongly dissented from a ruling upholding NJ's permit law, and suggested that "shall issue" permitting and/or legal open carry were necessary to pass constitutional muster.
Makes me glad Trump fired his arse...
James Comey shows his antigun colors.
Interesting that a few months ago, he told ABC News that since he was 16, "I've always, since then, had some weapon at hand nearby," Comey said.
Tenth anniversary of Heller!
June 26, 2008! I was there for the oral argument. Everyone was betting that the Justices were split 4-4, and whoever got Kennedy's swing vote would win. I knew we'd won when I heard the following:
JUSTICE KENNEDY: "...it seems to me that there is an interpretation of the Second Amendment differing from that of the district court and in Miller and not advanced particularly in the red [Heller's] brief, but that conforms the two clauses and in effect delinks them. The first clause I submit can be read consistently with the purpose I've indicated of simply reaffirming the existence and the importance of the militia clause. ... And so in effect the amendment says we reaffirm the right to have militia, we've established it, but in addition, there is a right to bear arms. Can you comment on that?
MR. DELLINGER: Yes.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: And this makes, it does -- I think you're quite right in the brief to say that the preface shouldn't be extraneous. This means it's not extraneous."
He'd made the step in logic that makes our argument beyond refutation. If the militia clause and the right to arms clause are separate things, one does not limit the other, then "is the 2A militia oriented or individual right oriented" becomes pointless, because it is both. The other side could only argue that some of the Framers valued and spoke of the militia. OK, they got the first half of the amendment. Can you find ONE framer who said anything like "oh, and the 2A does not concern an individual right"? No, because there were none.
I don't think Dellinger, arguing for DC, got it at the moment. His face fell, I'm told, about thirty seconds later when Kennedy asked
MR. DELLINGER: -- the second clause, the phrase "keep and bear arms," when "bear arms" is referred to -- is referred to in a military context,that is so that even if you left aside -
JUSTICE KENNEDY: It had nothing to do with the concern of the remote settler to defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws,wolves and bears and grizzlies and things like that?
Not news to those who have been there
DC is a magnet for psychopathic personality disorder. It beat runner-up Connecticut by two to one.
" The FBI, The DOJ and Hillary Clinton's Huge Weiner Problem"
Former Ass't US Attorney Sydney Powell has some serious thoughts and questions on the subject.
Podcast on my latest book
Right here. It's on Tactical Payments, which provides credit card processing for FFLs.
Divisiveness in politics
From CBS News:
"The footage shows Mexican congressional candidate Fernando Puron posing for a selfie with a supporter after a campaign debate last Friday, when a man walks up from behind, raises a gun and fires at the back of his head.
Puron was running on an anti-cartel platform which made him a target in Piedras Negras, which borders Texas.
He is now one of 113 candidates and politicians who have been murdered in Mexico just since last September, when the election cycle started. Fifty relatives have also been killed and 132 politicians, mostly at the local level, have been threatened."
Unexpected!
22 injured in New Jersey mass shooting. "New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he was troubled the shooting happened just days after he signed tougher gun laws into legislation." I guess the perps just didn't get the word. I'd hate to think they would have knowingly disobeyed the law.
Carjacking isn't safe in Florida
Robber sets a record!
Fleeing after robbing a liquor store, and having his own car fail, he hops into another, cutting the driver with a knife. The driver pulls a gun, and the robber flees again.
He hops into a second car. A lady at a Starbucks drive-in, should be safe. No, she too pulls a gun and puts him to flight.
SAF wins preliminary injunction in Deerfield, ILL AW ban case
Information here. Deerfield promulgated an "assault weapons" ban, and the suit argues this violates Illinois' preemption of that form of ordinance.
Words you should never utter to a law enforcement official
"You aren't going to ask to look in the trunk, are you?
"Sure, I can get my license. Will you hold my beer?"
[Egad, busted for drunk and disorderly at Disney!]
Florida and background checks
A big news item (and a tactic in Florida's gubernatorial election) is that the state supposedly issued concealed carry permits for a year without doing background checks. But read the Washington Post headline and notice that it says they did not "complete" them for a year.
I just received an email from Marion Hammer of United Sportsmen of Florida which explains:
"The Division of Licensing under the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DOACS) did, in fact, do background checks on applicants for licenses to carry concealed weapons or firearms.
Background checks were done through FCIC (Florida Criminal Information Computer system) and NCIC (Nation Criminal Information Computer system -- the national FBI fingerprint data base) and they also did a NICS check (National Instant Check System), which is the name-based background check system.
The NICS system is the same system used by retail firearms dealers to do background checks when a person buys a firearm.
ALL THREE BACKGROUND CHECKS WERE DONE.
During the time the employee failed to do her job, approximately 350,000 applicants for carry licenses were processed. Of those 350,000, 365 had a disqualifier based on the NICS background check.
The employee should have uploaded those 365 into the internal computer system to stop the processing of those applications. She did not. So those 365 applicants got their licenses anyhow....
When the Division discovered the problem, the employee was let go. The Division then ran new background checks on all 365 applicants who initially had NICS name-based disqualifiers. Of those 365, 74 were cleared and 291 still had disqualifiers, so their licenses to carry firearms were immediately suspended."
Interesting notes: supposed disqualifiers were found for around a tenth of a percent of applicants, suggesting the system is self-policing. Second, nearly a quarter of the disqualifiers were false positives. (Actually, it may be more, since we don't know how many errors slipped through the second review. I seem to recall hearing that the error rate was more like 50%. Considering that Brady Campaign is stating that about 127,000 sales are blocked per year, that suggests that, even using the percent, the annual number of erroneous denials is about 30,000)/
An interesting trend
Handgun sales tripled during the Obama Administration.
I saw a study by NSSF during that period; they could get access to what the manufacturers consider trade secrets, like how many of each model were made. They figured they could get an idea of whether the surge was "panic buying" or not by watching the sales levels of guns that would be likely targets of restrictions ("assault rifles" and handguns) and comparing them to sales levels of all other firearms.
Their conclusion: at the beginning of the Obama Administration there was some panic buying. After that, however, sales increased for all forms of firearms and that continued. Their conclusion was that the trend was a result of Americans wanting more guns, not a concern about gun control.
I think Americans were traditionally gunnies. Then in the 1960s, as a result of three assassinations, rioting, resistance to the Vietnam War, and the mass media pouring it on for gun control, that slacked off. Now, half a century later, we're returning to the norm.
Lawsuit challenges failure to handle NICS appeals
Right here. Background: under the NICS "instant check" for firearms purchases, there are a LOT of incorrect denials. Record-keeping of criminal convictions was until recently quite sloppy (police felt their job was done when an arrest was made, whatever the outcome, and courts felt that they kept records of individual cases, compiling a full list of everyone actually convicted or making sure each defendant was correctly identified was not their duty). So there are a lot of incorrect denials, and the FBI stopped processing appeals from them in 2016, stating they didn't have the resources.
Those who were incorrectly denied had the right to sue and in theory the right to recover attorney's fees. But the Supreme Court has ruled that, unless Congress creates an exception, fees can only be recovered if FBI is actually ordered to change the records. If it instead reacts to the filing of a suit by changing the record, before a court orders it to do so, no fees. So a person incorrectly denied the right to purchase a gun is out of pocket thousands of dollars in order to correct the mistake. I hope this suit will end that.