Sorry for the dead air yesterday. I’m in the process of bringing in a new project for our company, and trying to get a new consultant configured and set up. Yesterday I realized the spare laptop I gave the new guy really should have been nuked from orbit. I ordered a new machine, but in the mean time, I don’t want to delay him from billing. Unfortunately, paying the mortgage comes first, but this edition of the Weekly News goes to eleven!
NRA comments on the proposed ITAR regulation. The State Department got 12,000 comments. That’s a pretty good showing. I’m sheepish to admit that I was too busy, and the deadline passed before I realized it. So I unfortunately did not submit a comment.
This July was the best month on record for NICS. It’s looking more like this represents a fundamental cultural shift than a trend driven by fear of gun control. We’ll have to see what happens when Obama is no longer in the White House.
Seattle has adopted their “Gun Violence Tax.” It almost certainly violates Washington State’s preemption law.
Charles C.W. Cooke: “Amy Schumer is Wrong on Gun Control.” So is her cuz, but that hasn’t stopped him.
The Polite Society podcast is looking to live stream the 2015 Gun Rights Policy Conference, and are looking for people to help out their GoFundMe campaign. If I had any money to give them, I’d kick some funds over.
Cody Wilson has been denied an injunction against the State Department. This is bad news. The denial is being appealed to the 5th Circuit.
Idaho veteran assigns a fiduciary and has his guns banned. S.2002 would help him.
Apparently an FNX can go all wobbly in the heat. Something tells me they should have gone with a more heat-resistant thermoplastic.
Yes, next question:Â Are stun guns protected by the Second Amendment?
A retired U.S. Magistrate Judge says of voter ID laws: “At no time in our history would Americans have countenanced similar restrictions on the rights protected in the First or Second Amendments.” Cleary Judge McPherson has never tried to buy a firearm in this country.
Background check law in Oregon is off to a rough start. The law is useless and unenforceable, but that’s not going to stop Bloomberg from pushing it elsewhere.
John Lott, get your Panama hat ready! Panama is loosening its gun laws in response to rising crime. This will be a good opportunity for interrupted time-series analysis.
Tam has been putting a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380 through its paces with a 2000 round test. The BG380 has been on my short list for a while.
John Richardson: “Why State Preemption Matters.”
Finland is going to keep using the 7.62x39mm Rk. 62. They were originally looking to replace it with a 5.56x45mm rifle. I’m wondering if they are announcing this now to quell Russian fears they plan to join NATO. Or they figure they’re better off scrounging ammunition from dead Russians.
The League of Leftist Women Voters is going to spearhead opposition to campus carry.
Governor Wolf has appointed failed State Police Commissioner Marcus Brown to head up Homeland Security. It pays more than the State Police commissioner, and does not require Senate confirmation. Politically, Wolf owed Brown, but this is pretty clearly a middle finger to the Senate on Wolf’s part.
Glenn Reynolds on jury nullification. I heard someone argue the problem with this idea is that juries aren’t accountable. Well, that’s the idea. The people are sovereign, and don’t have to be accountable.
On the passing of the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this essay from the 1980s is a useful reminder of why we used the bomb.
Glenn Reynolds again: “Trump indicts America’s ruling class.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill in Politico: “How I Helped Todd Akin Win — So I Could Beat Him Later” I think as Republicans read this, they should think “Bernie Sanders.” The tables can be turned.
“Or they figure they’re better off scrounging ammunition from dead Russians.”
Unlikely, since the Russians are all using 5.45×39, and have been for ages…
Probably they just don’t see a lot of need for ammo-sharing with NATO, and don’t care about STANAG magazines either.
That’s true. Good point.
This.
A more likely explanation is that Finland already has a LOT of 7.62×39 and magazines stocked, and cached up and figures now is not a good time to change horses. Not wanting to agitate the Russians is likely a factor as well. No sense getting them riled up till their ties with the west are more secure anyway.
I see Kane is now refusing to resign & screaming sexism.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/pennsylvania-top-prosecutor-says-charges-tied-to-porn-emails/ar-BBlFvKm?ocid=ansnewsap11
Ive got a bodyguard 380 that i carry a lot in “low threat” situations. We live in a very small town so as long as im just roaming there i carry it in my back pocket with an extra mag. I do switch to either the shield or the full size m&p9 if were going into the city though.
I have been reading many of the submissions on the State Department’s proposed ITAR changes. There is significant opposition coming from universities across the country saying that the redefinition will restrict how they treat fundamental research. While these organizations cannot be said to be pro-gun in any sense of the imagination, the fact that they hate it just like we hate is good.
Every time I read a Volokh article, I go down to read the comments and end up really wishing I hadn’t. The quality of their commenter pool has really gone down hill since the move to WaPo.
I really don’t understand why Wolf had such a hard on for Brown. The only thing I can figure is that Wolf actually owed O’Malley, and O’Malley owed Brown.
All I can say, as a resident of the not-so-free state of Maryland, is that whatever Maryland does vis-a-vis crime, everyone else should run (not walk) from. Far far away.
Any organization Brown is heading up should because the Dept of Insecurity. I have no doubt he will be happy to give felonious immigrants and other criminals sanctuary.
Brown left his position at the Maryland State Police to take the job with the Pennsylvania State Police at Wolf’s request. If Brown didn’t get another position, it would probably end his career. I don’t really have any sympathy, because he would have had no trouble getting confirmed if he wasn’t acting like a jerk. It’s really on him. But I can see that Wolf might have felt he owed him, and the Homeland Security position also made a convenient fuck you to the legislature.
Wolf has no prior political experience. He has a business background. He’s used to being the boss and getting what he wants. Politics doesn’t work that way if you want to get anything done. You have to work with the legislature the voters give you.
Perhaps the official spin in Harrisburg is that Wolf asked for Brown, but that’s not entirely accurate. I do not think Brown was going to survive our newly elected Republican governor here in MD. At least, that was the word on the street leading up to the swearing in of Hogan. I think at best the parting was likely “mutual.” Even if Brown did survive, no one was going to defend him anymore. O’Malley covered Brown’s a** so many times involving controversies that it might lead you to believe Brown had the goods on O’Malley. Perhaps Wolf did ask for Brown. I just don’t think it was Wolf’s idea to ask.
“This July was the best month on record for NICS. It’s looking more like this represents a fundamental cultural shift than a trend driven by fear of gun control. We’ll have to see what happens when Obama is no longer in the White House.”
True, but watch out if November ’16 rolls around and it even looks like HRC might win the White House. I’m figuring it will make the 2013 gun/ammo panic look like nothing.
Claire McCaskill picked Todd Akin, because she knew he was the weakest candidate?
He was also a sitting US Congressman and a good, loyal, establishment Republican. He was the party’s pick, because those silly Tea Party people could not be trusted. Just like senile Thad “where’s my keeper?” Cochran, and Pat “I wanted to retire” Roberts. The only difference is they managed to win based on name recognition and enormous party support. The GOP abandoned Akin when he said something stupid once, so much for party loyalty.
When I was about half-way through that essay on the dropping of the bombs, I was thinking “I like Bill Whittle’s explanation on why we had to use the bomb better.” Whittle’s explanation is certainly a tour de force of both logic and logistics…
But, by the time I was finished with this essay, I completely appreciated it for its own tour de force: this essay drives home the horrors of war that were ended by dropping bombs, that Bill Whittle only touched on (if I recall correctly).
I especially appreciate how the essay-writer emphasized the difference between people who were on the ground fighting, and their opinion on the dropping of the bombs, from those who never saw combat (even if they participated in the war).
I don’t think many people, including those peddling the jury nullification concept, understand the nuances of jurors, their roles, and protections of their duties by the court. The power to nullify comes alongside a specific set of requirements for conduct by jurors, and, for example, to state blatantly that one intends not to work toward the law, he ought to be reported and the judge ought to dismiss. In Pennsylvania, neither jury tampering nor aggravated jury tampering touches upon educating even sitting jurors on the law. And, in fact, the Supreme Court of Pa. has recognized that juries are triers of both fact and law, and that while a judge may often provide best evidence of law, that need not be infallible. The most dangerous disconnect between the descriptions of jury power comes with juror oaths which have been crafted to require jurors to act taking only the judge’s word as law. There is actually quite a bit of nuance to the use of the word ‘law’ when describing evidence, whether of fact or of law, and if/how it gets from its presenter, through the judge, to the jury. So on one hand, a motion in limine or an offer of proof is not for the jury, but at the end of the day, all fact and law allowed to the jury is, to be weighed by that jury. In disciplining the jury, it ultimately comes down to a right of conscience, and if that conscience escapes into words too dangerous, that is usually the line drawn. A juror cannot be blindly questioned on that conscience and be required to respond, and perhaps not even so if it is suspected, but he can be called to it for evidence, and dismissed. That is the fair restraint of a power of a jury to nullify, and the source of confusion for the ‘right of a juror’ and the ‘power of a jury’.