2011 – Page 160 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Ung Video Dissected

From the Inquirer. This largely matches what I saw.

Anyone who wants to take a close look, I would recommend screen capturing the video and slowing it down. You can pretty clearly see the following action happen:

On the video, the two groups walk toward the cameras mounted outside the Fox29 studios at Fourth Street and Market: Ung and friends, then DiDonato and his friends about 10 feet behind. Kelly, recognizable in a white cap worn backward, darts into Market and walks ahead to flank the trio.

Ung kicks at Kelly, backs up, and holds up a gun. Suddenly, DiDonato moves forward and appears to lunge at Ung.

Twice Kelly rushes to the sidewalk at Ung. The first time he is pushed away by the woman. The second time, he gets through.

And that’s the point where Ung starts firing. It looks as if DiDonato fell onto Ung, which can explain why Ung kept firing. It would be difficult to tell the difference between someone falling on you, and continuing to attack you.

Text of McCarthy Gun Show Bill

John Richardson has the text. It’s every bit as unacceptable as the last bill, and basically offers multiple ways for a hostile administration to close down gun shows, and to implement a back door registration scheme. Transferring a gun to someone else in the parking lot of a gun show, or at a gun show, without going through an FFL, registering with the government, etc, would be a felony leading to two years in prison and loss of gun rights.

Markell Pushes Gun Control

Delaware has always been one of those states that neither side could really move. Their carry are may-but-we-kind-of-sort-of-mostly-issue, but other than that Delaware’s gun laws aren’t that different from most other states. Neither side has tried very hard to change anything until now:

Gov. Jack Markell announced a package of bills Wednesday aimed at strengthening Delaware’s gun laws.

He wants to “close the gun show loophole,” make it illegal to possess a firearm under the influence, improve reporting to NICS, and allow seized firearms to be destroyed. The first one is non-negotiable, but I’d trade making it illegal to carry under the influence to make Delaware a shall-issue state. No word on what the legal BAC limit would be, but if it’s the same as an automobile, I have no objection.

32 Rounds in 16 Seconds

Joe shows it can be done easily with ten round magazines:

The Brady solution would probably be to ban semi-automatic firearms, but knowing that’s politically infeasible, they will try to get as close as they can.

Civil Rights Victory

Dave Kopel reports that South Dakota has been enjoined from discriminating against legal residents when it comes to carry permits. It was reached on equal protection grounds, rather than Second Amendment grounds, however.

Too Many Safeties

Instapundit reports on what can happen when your gun has too many safeties.

Travelers Insurance Anti-Gun?

It would certainly seem so. I insure my guns through NRA, so it’s not an issue that’s ever come up with my insurance company.

Public Comment Period

NRA is asking folks to go comment on the long gun reporting requirement ATF is proposing. You can read their comments here. Clearly what ATF needs it more guns being reported to it that it will fail to adequately track.

Stratfor on the Mexican Gun Canard

Very good article here:

Interestingly, the part of this argument pertaining to guns has been adopted by many politicians and government officials in the United States in recent years. It has now become quite common to hear U.S. officials confidently assert that 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels come from the United States. However, a close examination of the dynamics of the cartel wars in Mexico â€” and of how the oft-echoed 90 percent number was reached â€” clearly demonstrates that the number is more political rhetoric than empirical fact.

Read the whole thing. Hat tip to No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money.

UPDATE: Key bit of information I forgot:

In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 wereÂ not traced back to the United States.

So can we count on our opponents to stop using this now completely discredited statistic? I’ll expect that will come in the mail with my Unicorn.

UPDATE: More as I’m reading:

In fact, there is an entire cottage industry that has developed to smuggle such weapons, and not all the customers are cartel hit men. There are many Mexican citizens who own guns in calibers such as .45, 9 mm, .40 and .44 magnum for self-defense â€” even though such guns are illegal in Mexico.

I’ve said before, what if a lot of the guns being trafficked are going to ordinary Mexicans to defend themselves from the cartels? That’s not the kind of smuggling I’m interested in stopping. It might be illegal, but it’s not wrong.

Holders DOJ and FOIA

DOJ is selectively complying with FOIA requests. Well, if they are even telling Republican Senators to take a walk, it’s hardly surprising they are stonewalling ordinary Joes.