… has come and gone, and still nothing in the Federal Register from ATF. Still nothing on their web site either.
UPDATE: A ruling on residency requirements. Still nothing on shotguns.
Month: January 2011
Article on Joyce Foundation
Chicago Business lists them as the anti-NRA. That’s certainly true if you measure the effectiveness of each of the respective organizations.
Constitutional Carry Passes Senate in Wyoming
I was worried the Arizona shooting would get in the way of spreading Constitutional Carry to other states. Perhaps that was premature. The Senate has been the stumbling block for this legislation in the past. Here’s hoping it gets through the House, the Governor, and we can turn 3 states into 4 states.
Drink Up
While gun owners may be wondering if there will be cause to drink tonight with any calls for gun control in the State of the Union, I figured this would be the opportune time to link the State of the Union Drinking Game. Â They say that if all goes well, you’ll be unconscious before the Republican response.
Guns in Church
Suffers a setback in Georgia. I think these kinds of lawsuits, at least on Second Amendment grounds, are highly premature. It’s disappointing many are not seeing the long term consequences to pushing todays hot political fights into the courts before the Courts are really prepared to listen to them with open ears.
Pocket Carry
That Chance Ballew guy, who rumor has may or may not be a well known blogger, has a new article up at Shooting Illustrated highlighting a holster for carrying pocket pistols. There’s no doubt about the fact that pocket carry is suboptimal. My draw from pocket is a good two seconds slower than from IWB at 4:00. The Executive looks like an interesting holster, but just based on the photos, I’m concerned about a few things, based on my experience carrying the P3AT. Some of these might be issues with the P3AT more than whatever holster you’re using. As guns go, I would say the P3AT, Ruger LCP, or other small pocket pistols are very hard to design an effective holster for just because of their size.
I’ve noticed a tendency for the magazine release to trip on the P3AT in pocket carry, because it’s not protected by the holster. It hasn’t happened often, but it’s an issue. That said, I’m not sure how much you can really do about it, because the holster needs to ride low enough to allow you to get a decent grip for the draw. But a holster that rides low on the gun also doesn’t leave much leather holding onto the gun. The other issue I’ve had with conventional leather holsters is that in regular use the split leather smooths out considerably, and they lose their ability to retain the firearm after a while. Retention on the split leather pocket holster I have was adequate when I first got it, but after use, if I turn my pocket holster upside down with the P3AT in it, it’ll dump.
It’s for this reason I’ve largely kept to pocket carry for the P3AT, where protection of the trigger is more of an issue than retention of the gun. I’d be wary of the P3AT carried IWB in something other than Kydex or boned leather, just for fear it’ll work its way out of the holster if it catches something while I’m sitting down. That’s less of an issue with a larger pistol, where there’s more leather to grab onto the gun, but more of an issue with a small pistol.
ATF Announcement Should be Tomorrow
As we await the exact language of ATF’s announcement, which will probably come tomorrow, I’m interested in reports that the target here is the 28 gauge Taurus Raging Judge. The Raging Judge can’t be an SBS, because it is not designed to be fired from the shoulder, though it could be an AOW or a Destructive Device. The distinction between the two is entirely arbitrary. The Serbu Super Shorty, for instance, is an AOW, even though it chambers 12 gauge shells, which are most definitely over 0.50 inches barrel diameter.
Michael Bane has a good explanation of the legal ins and outs. Remember folks, our opponents say guns are less regulated than Teddy Bears!
Doing the Math on Registration
Joe Huffman points out that it would be a huge waste of law enforcement resources to accomplish this. That’s certainly what Canada found out — even registering their much smaller number of firearms requires a huge amount of resources, and compliance with the mandate in Canada is very low. Compliance rates here would no doubt be even lower.
Canada’s registry costs it about a billion dollars a year. As a percentage of Canada’s total budget, if this were extrapolated to the Budget of the United States, it would amount to about 16 billion dollars. Assuming an average salary and benefits of about 60,000 a year, which is probably generous, this amount of money could be used to put over 260,000 police on the streets. What do you think is going to have a larger impact on crime?
Gun control doesn’t just disarm the law abiding, it also diverts limited law enforcement resources away from traditional crime fighting and community policing to track large numbers of people, the vast majority of whom are never going to commit a crime.
Better Education Needed?
Most training courses these days spend a lot of time on basic gun safety, and on the legal instances where one can and cannot use deadly force. These are important things. I’ve never been through Texas’s course, but there’s not much discussion over how to carry a gun, and what kinds of guns are appropriate for carry. This also seems important.
It seems when we hear of stories like this, they are quite often derringers that don’t have the appropriate safety features to be suitable for concealed carry. They also seem to be often carried without a holster, in purses or pockets. People who legally carry guns need more information about how to safely carry; in a holster, with a gun that has appropriate safety features.
Every single incident like this becomes a tool for the other side to use to argue against citizen carry.
Civil Rights Enforcement
Commenter Chas makes an interesting comment I wanted to elaborate on a bit more, because this is a fairly common thing I’ve heard in pro-gun country:
I like the idea of criminalizing subversion of the Second Amendment. Â I used to think that merely allowing lawsuits against those who would infringe my right to keep and bear arms would suffice. Â Not any more. Â If they cannot be civil and respect our rights, then off to the slammer with them. Â If they still do not learn to respect the rights of others, then lock them up for a long time.
I’m not sure how this would pass constitutional muster, depending on what you mean about criminalizing subversion of the Second Amendment. Subversion of Second Amendment rights is arguably already criminalized by the various Civil Rights Acts, the most applicable here being 42 USC 1985 for civil prosecution, and 18 USC 241 for criminal. But it’s worth noting that these two parts of the United States Code only cover overt acts or conspiracies, but don’t go so far as to govern advocacy.
Advocacy is strictly protected by the First Amendment. That applies to the Bradys advocating against the 2nd Amendment just as much as it applies to racial hate groups arguing against the 13th Amendment, or Fred Phelps’ hateful anti-gay advocacy. Just because you don’t like what they advocate doesn’t mean it’s not protected speech. I oppose what the Brady’s advocate too, but as fellow Americans they are free to advocate to change the laws, even the Constitution, if they so desire.
In order for federal civil rights laws to come into play, you need a conspiracy of two or more people. A conspiracy isn’t advocacy, nor is it, say, Paul Helmke and Peter Hamm saying “I’d love to go over to Sebastian’s house and take his guns. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?” You generally have to take some action in furtherance of your conspiracy to be guilty. For instance, if Paul Helmke bought a crowbar, and Peter bought a cutting torch to get into my safe, that could be evidence they acted in furtherance of the conspiracy. The conspiracy element would also reach Paul even if it was Peter who actually came up to my house and committed the act.
These are the kinds of overt acts that the Civil Rights Acts would cover. By the same token, if Peter Hamm, on his own, hatched this plot and executed it, it would be entirely a matter of state criminal law for the breaking, entering, and thievery part of the crime, and only federal law because I hold a Federal Firearms License. The Civil Rights Acts requirements are not triggered for lone actors, except those acting under color of law.
Another proper use of federal civil rights law would be prosecuting New Orleans authorities for the gun seizures after Hurricane Katrina. That could either be under the conspiracy sections, or the criminal or civil sections that criminalize depriving people of civil rights under color of law. Mere advocacy is not and should not be criminal, because it is political speech explicitly protected by the First Amendment. Let us not toss out the First to try to save the Second.