Month: May 2008

Tyrant

Harsh words from C. Scott Shields for Mayor Nutter:

NRA attorney C. Scott Shields later accused Nutter of being a “tyrant” willing to cast gun-shops owners in a false light. “To suggest that they’re engaging in unlawful trafficking of handguns is outrageous,” Shields said.

The city ultimately hopes to take this fight to a higher court to provoke reconsideration of a 1996 state Supreme Court ruling that killed the city’s last attempt at gun-control laws.

City Solicitor Shelley Smith yesterday said that she’d be ready with an appeal in a week to 10 days if Greenspan rules against the city.

Earlier in the article

Nutter said that “you don’t have to be a rocket scientist” to know some legally purchased guns are later resold to people who are prohibited from owning them.

So Nutter thinks having lost in the state legislature, he can just decree Colosimo’s and The Firing Line to be criminals?  Well, that pretty much fits the definition of tyrant if you ask me, which in ancient Greek meant a ruler who seized power without legal right.

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Nutter Targeting Philly Gun Shop
  2. Lawsuits Going Forward
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Nutter Targeting Philly Gun Shop

Nutter is dragging Philadelphia gun shops into this now.

“These gun traffickers are not going to stop us from keeping the citizens of Philadelphia safe,” Nutter said in a news conference before an afternoon court hearing on the five laws he signed into law last month. One of them limits gun purchases to one a month in an effort to curb “straw purchases,” in which individuals buy multiple firearms for resale to felons and others forbidden to own guns.

I would be talking to a lawyer right now about a libel suit against the Mayor.  Good thing is, the lead attorney appears to hint at the possibility:

C. Scott Shields, who spent the afternoon arguing the case against the laws in a City Hall courtroom, called Nutter’s words “shocking.”

“He may be inviting separate legal action for casting Colosimo’s and the Firing Line in a false light,” Shields said. “To suggest that they’re engaged in illegal trafficking of handguns is outrageous.”

The three ring circus in that city continues.  But why isn’t Mayor Nutter talking about this?  Why isn’t the media forcing him to address it?

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Philly Loses in Commonwealth Court
  2. They Did It: Philadelphia Passes Gun Bills
  3. Shields Calls for Nutter’s Arrest

Bradylaunch

As some of you may know, The Brady Campaign linked to me yesterday.  I have taken a careful measurement of their power to drive traffic with Google Analytics.  Here are the results.

The Brady Campaign’s main site drove a total of four hits, three of which were me clicking through the link on their site.  The cross post at the Huffington Post drove a total of six click throughs, five of which were actually unique.  Just for contrast, SayUncle and Dave Hardy were my top two referrers with 165 visits driven my way.  You can see the screen shots of here for Brady Blog and here for Huffpo.  As you can see there, Brady Blog and HuffPo were my 40th and 29th highest referrer respectively, scoring below most of the pro-gun blogs who are driving traffic my way via their blog rolls rather than direct links in posts.  When you’re getting beat by blog rolls, that’s a rocket to the moon, let me tell you.

UPDATE: David had the same experience.

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New Graphic Contest

I was talking to Dave Kopel at the Annual Meeting about the fact that my headlining banner is getting long in the tooth.  I tend to agree.  Truth be told, if I could go back, I would probably change the name of the blog too, but it’s too late for that.  I never thought anyone would actually take this seriously.

So I’m going to have a contest to see if anyone can submit a headline banner close to what I’m looking for.  I am looking for a drawing, rather than a picture, but my idea is an AR-15, with a muzzle flash (rather embellished flash) and a snowflake in the flash.  If anyone wants to have a stab at it, send the graphic to my address listed in the top corner.  Click on the graphic to make it readable.

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Disarmed for McCain

David pokes some fun at the McCain event held last Friday in Louisville.  Yeah, I disarmed for McCain.  Several people chose to watch from the NRA press office, where they had a feed, and you could be armed.  Before the McCain event, I was open carrying around the press office and the exhibit hall.  No one seemed to be too bothered, including the Louisville Police, the Secret Service, or the authorized journalists.  David opines in the comments:

Blaming it all on the SS rings hollow. I believe NRA had a choice of saying “No thanks–do it all via TV feed if that’s your position,” and McCain also had the option of telling the SS who the boss is–which I cede is extremely unlikely.

If McCain and NRA wanted to turn some of this around, he would show up for an impromptu photo op at their range next to armed members. Does anyone honestly believe randomly present members would pose a danger? Because if so, the gun controllers argument that none of us can be trusted must be true. And quite the opposite statement would be made about the trustworthiness of peaceable gun owners if he did–a real in-your-face to the gungrabbers who portray NRA members as violent lunatics.

McCain was pretty unlikely to call off the secret service, but David is correct that he could have done so if he really wanted to.  Given the speech he gave, it’s not too surprising he didn’t go out of his way to act like a true friend to gun owners.  NRA then had a choice of telling McCain to bugger off, pissing off a lot of ticket holders, or just dealing with the Secret Service security.  It’s one of those cases you’re not going to make everyone happy.

I also don’t think the security reflects too much on NRA members, because anyone could have gotten into that forum if they had a scalped ticket, or just outright forged credentials, which wouldn’t have been that hard for someone determined to get close enough to McCain to take a shot.  Secret Service security centers around controlling the forum, rather than being concerned about specific individuals, unless they have a reason to be.

Based on what I was told, Secret Service was worried about the blogger creds, since people were being issued press credentials who weren’t actually press, but that problem was ironed out by NRA before we started arriving.  There was definitely a lot of security theater going on, but in general, I thought the Secret Service was pretty accomodating of the fact that McCain was appearing in a location with thousands of armed people.

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The Olofson Thing

In honor of this, I have upgraded to a life membership in the NRA (well, and because they were offering it for half price at the Annual Meeting).  I have blogged little about the Olofson case.  I knew my views on this were going to piss a lot of people off, because while I think it represents the ATF at its worst, it also represents our side at its worst as well.  Everyone needs to read the entire thread on AR-15.com.  Olofson is Bladerunner2347.  Some comments:

  • When served with a federal search warrant, the smart thing to do is shut up and get a good lawyer.  Posting about your case for the world to see is not a wise idea when the federales come knocking down your door.
  • It’s rarely a winning strategy to represent yourself, and using a disbarred lawyer to help you doesn’t sound like one either.  This is probably a big reason why NRA didn’t get involved.  Most competent attorneys who practice gun law are able to get that kind of help, but NRA has to be asked.
  • Ignoring advice of real lawyers who say a legal argument that challenges jurisdiction of the federal argument to charge you won’t do anything except piss off the judge strikes me as a bad idea as well.
  • The kid he lent the AR to made a sworn statement that Olafson had told him not to move the selector into the unmarked burst mode setting because it was missing “some type of thing.”  That type of thing would likely be a drop in auto sear.
  • Why would you lend an AR that has been partially converted to someone, when you can probably bet they are going to actually try pushing the selector past fire?
  • Olofson’s AR contained numerous M16 parts.  As far as I know, some manufacturers in the 70s and 80s used some M16 parts in their AR-15s, like bolt carriers and hammers, until the ATF issued a ruling that the practice be stopped.  Olofson’s AR had an M16 trigger, disconnector, selector, and hammer.  As far as I know, there weren’t any manufacturers that used this many M16 parts in their ARs.  The agent who examined the parts, correctly in my view, stated that this did not constitute a machine gun, but ATF has long held M16 parts in an AR to be a no no.
  • Implying that the ATF broke into your house and planted evidence is not going to work with a jury unless you have other evidence to back this up.  Admitting you disposed of evidence doesn’t seem like a good idea either, especially when the evidence in question was the one part in question that would make the AR a fully working machine gun.

This isn’t to say the ATF have been angels in this case.  Most of the criticisms I’ve seen leveled at ATF have been on the money.  ATF pretty clearly deserves to be raked over the coals for:

  • Not having any standardized testing procedures for determining if a firearm is a machine gun.
  • Not having any standard for determining if the requesite parts in possession constitute “readily convertible”
  • Not allowing the defense access to evidence against them so that it may be examined by their own experts.
  • The ruling that any M16 parts constitute a machine gun is bogus, and deserves to be rebuked in court.  ATF should have the burden to prove that the arm, or combination of parts in question, is a functioning machine gun, or can be readily made into a functioning machine gun.  Basically, if they didn’t find the auto-sear, they shouldn’t have a case.

If you’re going to challenge the ATF on these matters, you need to have competent legal counsel that’s experienced in firearms laws.  It is not the time to play legal expert.  If you lose your case, you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re hurting every gun owner out there, because now ATF has winning precedent they can use to screw everybody else.

I don’t blame NRA for not getting involved in this case, because a) they were never asked, and b) the case is a bloody mess, with a poor defendant and a poor circumstances.  The case was very likely from the get go to result in a loss that would actually harm gun owners, rather than help them.  That’s why I get pissy when guys like this do stupid shit that gets them in trouble and then pile more stupid shit on top of that when they get caught and go to trial.  If we’re going to challenge them in court, we have to have our A game on, and I don’t see any evidence that this was the case here.

That said, I believe Americans have a right to own an M16, and I don’t think the public safety is enhanced one iota by putting Mr. Olofson in prison.  But ATF went ahead with this, and it won.  Now some are turning it into one more reason to bash the NRA.  Sorry, but you don’t get to douse yourself with gasoline, light yourself on fire, and then run around bitching that no one is helping you put out the fire.  I call bullshit on that one.  We have to choose our battles carefully, and this isn’t a case I’d want to use to challenge ATF.

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  1. Response from David Olofson
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