July 2013 – Page 9 – Shall Not Be Questioned

National Review Cover Story on Guns in America

The current issue of National Review’s print magazine is centered around this piece by Charles C.W. Cooke – Remington, USA.

I’m actually still reading it, but it’s quite interesting so far. For example, I didn’t realize this tidbit of history:

It is thus fitting that the longest continuously operating manufacturer in North America is a gun maker. The Remington Arms Co., which has been in business for just shy of two centuries now, is also the oldest company in the United States that is still making its original product.

I guess now I’m curious about what the oldest company in the US is that isn’t making their original product anymore.

The second page of the article is basically a showcase of how Remington is exactly the kind of manufacturing set up that Democrats say they want – long-time loyal union employees who are largely promoted from within without much outsourcing. Yet, for some odd reason, they keep trying to hurt the industry that is supporting these jobs. Funny how that logic works – or, rather, doesn’t work.

As I said, I’m still reading. So far, it’s a very interesting profile in a magazine that’s not normally big on covering the nitty gritty of the gun issue. Check it out.

UPDATE: Okay, so this section may be the best part and makes it worth reading the entire article:

â€œDo you want to go full auto?â€ he asks me, with a grin. Of course I do. … After firing a couple of test shots, I flick the switch to automatic and empty the magazine into a nearby target. I laugh: â€œI can see why these are so popular!â€ â€œFun, huh?!â€ asks Paul Merz, watching from the next room. Youâ€™re damn right it is.

Another Public Employee Funded by MAIG

Open records requests on government actions are very handy when uncovering the network of anti-gun funding going to pay city employees to do research and take action on behalf of Mike Bloomberg’s pet projects. One such worker has recently been uncovered in Milwaukee, and the records show the money coming from Joyce and actually being funneled through MAIG-associated organizations.

All Nine Yards had come across this name before in their MAIG/public official funding research, but the direct funding details are more evident with local public records requests that know the local government connections.

Raising questions about local spending and how cities use funds from the Mayor of NYC or other politically controversial groups is a great way to raise the political costs of doing business with the self-declared ruler of your food and guns in smaller communities across the country.

Mehl Case Dismissed on Standing in 9th Circuit

Mehl v. Blanas was a carry case in California brought by Attorney Gary Gorski that had the potential to upset the whole apple cart of Second Amendment litigation in the 9th circuit. Given that the Supreme Court has denied cert in the 2nd Circuit and 4th Circuit cases [UPDATE: Not for Wollard though. Williams was denied.], and the 7th Circuit case has now been remedied legislatively, the 9th circuit carry cases are more important than ever. Calguns offers a scathing review of the issues at handÂ with the Mehl case, and the attorney arguing it. They conclude with:

We are certainly not guaranteed a positive result inÂ RichardsÂ andÂ PerutaÂ but we are very encouraged thatÂ MehlÂ was disposed of on grounds that do not injure those critical cases or, most importantly, the precious civil rights and millions of law-abiding people they represent. As we live to watch the Seventh Circuit force handgun carry by non-prohibited people upon Illinois and anti-gun rights municipalities like Chicago, we believe that the ultimate outcome â€” up to, and potentially including, a United States Supreme Court decision â€” will respect and protect our right to keep and bear arms for self-defense outside the thresholds of our homes as the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights intended.

It’s certainly encouraging. They could have taken Mehl and used it as a vehicle to screw us, but they didn’t.

Quinn’s Veto Overridden

Earlier today, the house voted 77-31 to override, and just now the Senate voted 41-17 to override. The concealed carry bill is now the law-of-the-land in Illinois. While the bill is far from perfect, and far from what we’d like to see, it is a start. In most states where the initial bill has been a bit of a disappointment, we’ve been able to come back later and improve the situation once politicians realize the sky has not fallen. Also not out of the question is litigating on some of the aspects of this bills we’re not happy with. At this point, the 7th Circuit is probably the strongest circuit in the country when it comes to Second Amendment law.

UPDATE: Howard Nemerov has more over at PJ Media.

The Sign of a Good Law

The New York legislature, in the stealth of night, fixes the SAFE act through a budgetary measure to exempt retired police officers. I say the title sarcastically. Remember folks, when retired cops have AR-15s, they are wholesome and good patrol rifles, highly useful for self-defense and sport. When we have them they are bullet-spraying assault rifles whose only purpose is to kill large numbers of people as quickly as possible.

Joe Manchin Lied, Gun Rights Nearly Died

Okay, so maybe the slogan in the title is a bit over-the-top and not really that catchy. Regardless, it sort of sums up the content of a letter that NRA is mailing to 200,000 voters in West Virginia.

The letter will outline why NRA opposed Manchin-Schumer-Toomey, and it will also highlight that Manchin intentionally mislead voters on his views on this very specific policy when he was running for office.

I guess this shows that Sen. Manchin really is allowing Obama to rub off on him. It looks like his election promises are now reaching their expiration dates.

Shooting Ranges & Anti-Gun Political Activism

Reader Chris from Alaska pointed us to the local angle on the Mark Kelly anti-gun tour of pro-gun states and how an Alaskan gun club is coming under fire when it was disclosed that they hosted Kelly with his anti-gun media entourage.

Although, it turns out that hosted may not quite be accurate. It turns out that the club member who invited the gun control group to his range to use for their media tour lied to the staff and members of the range and told half-truths at best when challenged. Unfortunately for the club, there were reports that named the club and the perception that they invited an anti-gun group to use their ranges for their photo ops that hit gun communities.

It would be interesting to know if the PR firm hired to run this tour* by Giffords & Kelly actually asked the club member to purposefully misrepresent their names and purpose or if the member took such misrepresentations on himself. It’s not out of the question that the Kelly-Giffords group may be specifically asking local organizers to keep the mention of Mark Kelly’s full name and media attendance with the rest of the entourage out of such requests in an effort to keep their requests for range use secret. (Of course, even if they ask the local contacts not to mention the nature of the visit in terms of the message they’ll be pushing, they may not mean they actually expect them to misrepresent their party to the degree as may have happened in Alaska in a way that violates range rules.)

Grassroots North Carolina tried to find out more about the supposed shooting events and “roundtables” with gun owners that Kelly claimed to have scheduled in North Carolina after the press highlighted that the tour events were being kept secret, but it’s not clear they ever discovered what range they supposedly visited. In fact, keeping the media narrative focused on the fact that Kelly refuses to meet with actual local gun owners when he makes these stops proved fruitful in North Carolina. By making that the message, even sympathetic coverage for Giffords still had to highlight that their supposed roundtables were with handpicked volunteers already on their side and were closed off to members of the public and other gun owners. It takes the wind out of their sails when that becomes the story of their trips.

Back to the issue of gun clubs being used for these handpicked media photo ops. If a club or gun range doesn’t already have a policy in place to ban these kinds of dog and pony shows without prior approval of the board, then they need to get one fast. Now I realize that in Alaska, Mark Kelly’s local contact may have lied to the on-duty management in order to gain access to the club according to the online remarks. There’s not much you can do to actually stop that other than to have a strict guest policy that’s applied the same way regardless of who the guest is or what title they might hold. However, having a rule in place about dealing with such press events does mean you have grounds to kick that member out and cut off their access to the club.

I’ve mentioned before how we have these resources for fast grassroots organizing, and they don’t have “anti-gun ranges.” Because they are without such resources, these new anti-gun groups are trying to use our ranges and resources to give themselves false legitimacy for the media who don’t know that they are there without invitation or approval. Their experience in North Carolina now demonstrates that if the media are informed that they are only receiving their “invitations” to shoot by misrepresenting who they are or that not a single attendee to their roundtable isn’t someone handpicked because they already agree with the message, then they will be outed. The media may not turn hostile, but it will undermine their narrative that pretends gun owners love their policy proposals.

*A commenter on one of the local threads discussing the club’s actions who attended the “round table” said he was contacted by a PR firm arranging the events. He also verified that everyone is handpicked.

I Don’t Know Why They are Surprised

Many on the left have been angered at Diane Feinstein’s reaction to the NSA surveillance scandal, as evidenced by this New York Times article here. Is it any surprise? One reason I like the gun issue is that it’s such a great political proxy. You can tell a lot about how a politician thinks by whether or not they believe you ought to be permitted to have some parity with the government, in terms of application of force, and the means to do so.

Really, the whole notion of popular sovereignty ceases to have any meaning of the people can’t meaningfully withdraw their consent to be governed. Feinstein has Napoleon-like tendencies? The devil, you say. One thing I’ve never understood is the shock so many left-of-center voters display when they find out some of their heroes are nothing more than Napoleon wannabes. A little careful thinking about how Feinstein believes citizens and government ought to relate should reveal that in a hurry.

One Key Difference Between Our Side and Theirs

Miguel goes through Bloomberg’s list of victims from the Miami area and finds a list of doozies, including one police shooting. This illustrates a key difference between those who support gun control and those who do not. Generally speaking, gun control advocates rarely accept the notion that there are some people out there who need shooting. Pull a knife on a cop? The results are predictable, and that the police officer was able to defend himself successfully is what most of us would regard as a good thing. To the other side? Mr. Knife Puller is just another tragic victim of gun violence. All lives are precious. When you boil all the other BS away, this is one of the core philosophical differences.

Lawfully Arming Yourself isn’t Menacing in Alabama Now

I blogged about a case back in October where an Alabama landlord was dealing with trespassers on his commercial property and then was charged with menacing after getting a shotgun from his truck which he never pointed at anyone. The state’s Supreme Court ruled last week that merely possessing a firearm lawfully does not constitute menacing.

Menacing is defined in Â§ 13A-6-23(a), Ala. Code 1975: “A person commits the crime of menacing if, by physical action, he intentionally places or attempts to place another person in fear of imminent serious physical injury.” (Emphasis added.) The Commentary to Â§ 13A-6-23 states that menacing encompasses the situation where “‘physical injury’ is neither inflicted nor intended.” There is no statutory definition for the term “physical action.” In this case, the trial court found that getting the gun was sufficient “physical action” to constitute the offense of menacing. …

Consistent with the foregoing and applying the principles of statutory construction, we conclude that Pate’s getting the gun, without more, was not sufficient to establish the physical-action element of menacing. Therefore, we conclude that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in determining that there was sufficient evidence of the physical-action element of menacing.

The Supreme Court’s review of the facts of the case show there was only one witness who claimed that the landlord actually held the firearm up, but it was the guy who not only trespassed once, but continued to do so even after police ordered him to leave the property. But police who were on site agreed that while the landlord was clearly pissed off, they never saw him actually point a firearm at anyone. Oh, and security cameras also show the gun was only ever pointed at the ground in direct conflict with the trespasser’s claim. In fact, the entire story the trespasser gave as to threats made by the landlord while he was driving away were proven completely false by the video cameras.

While one of the officers did take possession of the firearm for a time, the landlord was never arrested on site or accused of breaking any law while the police were there with him. They only arrested him a week later for this supposed menacing because the repeat trespasser who violated police orders and then made up a completely false statement insisted on charges, and then the trial court also tried to claim that legally possessing a firearm around the presence of police officers is enough to warrant a menacing conviction.