Year: 2015

As is our tradition, we try to be the blog to turn to in order to get the very important NRA Annual Meeting attendance figures. But because Nashville is so close to the fly/drive line, and we chose to drive, we had to skip the NRA Board meeting this year where they announced the figures. Fortunately we managed to get someone who would be attending the meeting to send us the figures.

We place Nashville up there with Houston as a convention city, and the attendance numbers reflect that. There were 78,865 attendees at this year’s meeting! How’s that compare to previous years? The record is still Houston, Texas in 2013, with a total attendance of 86,228. That was the meeting right after Sandy Hook, when the blame and shame machine was running full tilt against the American gun owner. Last year’s figure in Indianapolis was 75,267. Nashville this year was the second highest attendance figure in NRA’s history.

You can see from Bitter’s graphic last year, the meeting continues to climb along roughly the same slope, with post-Sandy-Hook Houston being a statistical outlier. I find this funny because that’s kind of how things have worked with traffic for this blog, with 2013 being an usually high year for traffic, and then returning to historical norms.

One thing I want to mention, because we ran into some friendly bloggers and media on the issue: be sure if you attend with media credentials to also register as an attendee. Media creds don’t count for attendance figures, and there was one meeting (I think Pittsburgh in 2011) where we came within a few hundred persons from the previous record.

It hasn’t been unusual for NRA Country to bring country artists into arenas to do shows for NRA members. That’s been the case many times in the past, but they’ve always been confined to arenas or events that have been going on “in there.” But this year is really the first time NRA has put on its own street festival. Is it successful?

It’s hard to see because it’s pretty dark out, but that crowd stretches packed tight all the way up to the stage. Don’t ever let them tell you we’re not mainstream, or that we’re all just a bunch of crazy extremists. NRA is now very much part of the mainstream.

Meanwhile, Shannon Watts and her fellow dour puritans at Moms Demand Action, are expecting to draw 400 people for a protest against this much fun! Personally, I think 400 is a bit optimistic.

Sitting next to me at the Annual Firearms Law Seminar this year are Todd Vandermyde, who is the Illinois State Liason for NRA. Todd works miracles. Also, John Richardson of “No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money”

3:30PM CDT – Derek DeBrosse

This presentation is “Gun Rights Restoration – The Nuts & Bolts and Present-Day Military Issues.” He covers the various cases that concern rights restoration for people who, for one reason or another, have become prohibited from buying and possession firearms. An interesting thing I didn’t know is that you could send a fingerprint card to the FBI, and they will determine whether or not you’re eligable to own a firearm. You can argue you were misclassified, and get a UPIN number that you use on subsequent purchases. If you think you might be prohibited, and you go to try to buy a gun, and you end up denied, technically you just committed a crime if it turns out you are indeed prohibited.

He’s focusing more on the economics of rights restoration from a lawyer’s point of view than other speakers. That’s a polite way of saying he’s talking about the fact that a lawyer can make good money in this category. I don’t have a problem with that. Running a law practice is a business just like any other.

“I’m going to have to speed this up, because I’ve got 55 slides here.” Yeah, I’d agree. It’s you and one more speaker standing between me and beer. It’s not a good idea to get in between me and a beer.

There’s quite a lot of detail when it comes to rights restoration. It has to be done correctly. There are a lot of pitfalls. Too much detail for me to successfuly summarize for you all. Much of it is new to me. For instance, I did not know that felons get a Certificate of Final Release when they are released from prison, that often says “restoration of civil rights.” There is case law that suggests that gun rights are restored. He notes that recently, authorities have wised up and put “except for firearms” on Certificates of Final Release.

I also didn’t know it was still possible to raise due process issues in Misdemanor Crimes of Domestic Violence. Years ago, I can’t remember the case, Lautenberg Amendment was challenged on ex post facto grounds and lost. I thought that was the end of that. But apparently not completely, when seeking grounds to get a conviction set aside by the courts.

He speaks to the NICS Improvement Amendment Acts of 2007, passed in the wake of Virginia Tech. It’s very helpful with mental health restoration of rights in states that have implemented its provisions, but not all states have.

Going into military and veterans cases in regards to gun prohibitions, as DeBrosse goes through all the cases: I have to say is how the government and VA treats our veterans in regards to their gun rights is appalling. I believe this is by design.

It’s very surprising how much a domestic lawyer who doesn’t know gun laws could screw up an ordinary, uncomplicated divorce case and earn their clients a permanent prohibition on their gun rights, and possibly land them in jail for quite some time if they aren’t properly informed. It’s quite apparet we have a legal system, not a justice system. You can thank the late Senator Lautenberg for this state of affairs.

Interesting gun law trivia: It’s easier to restore the rights of a felon, apparently, then someone who was convicted of a MCDV (Lautenberg). I’m not sure I quite understand the reason that is, but something to do with because it was a misdemeanor, you never really lost your rights, so they can’t be restored.

4:35 PM CDT – William J. Ryan

William Ryan works in the Office of Cheif Counsel, BATFE, Firearms, Explosives and Arson Division (FEA). His talk is on NFA trusts. “Hopefully I can take a little of the mystery out of the NFA Branch.” His first few slides are background information, noting that both attorneys and ATF often get terminology confused. I’d note that ATF’s own slide says:

Note that even ATF admits that a trust is a person under the NFA, but it is missing from the Gun Control Act. This is important, because 18 U.S.C. 922(o), popularly known as The Hughes Amendment, is part of the Gun Control Act, and not the National Firearms Act. So how does a the post-86 machine gun ban, part of the Gun Control Act, apply to trusts? Why can’t a trust possess a post-86 machine gun when by ATF’s own admissions under GCA a trust is not a person.

There’s some discussion of NFA transfers to heirs. Heirs fill out Form 5 and do not have to pay tax. They are considered involuntary transfers. But apparently if the decedant had a trust, and it is transferred to an individual, even under a bequest tax must be paid.

ATF notes that NFA forms processed are increasing exponentially sine 2002. Wow! He encourages lawyers to do more work with trusts, because trusts handled by lawyers cause fewer problems than ones put together by individuals.

He speaks to 41P rule change, regarding trusts, to require the same checks and CLEO signoff as an individual. He notes that the APA requires them to respond to any serious public comment, and they receieved a ton of them.  THIS IS WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO COMMENT!! Mr. Ryan notes that ATF is still persuing rulemaking on 41P.

A question is asked about what happens if an executor is a prohibited person. ATF notes that as long as there’s a probate ruling from a judge putting the collection in the hands of an FFL, ATF is fine with that for as long as probate is proceeding.

Back to the issues of pro se trusts, Mr. Ryan relays a story of a trust that was copied extensively on the Internet, where people would change the name, but not change the name of the beneficiary. “So some woman in Kansas is going to inherit thousands of machine guns!”

I continue with liveblogging the seminar. Really pseudo liveblogging, since I’m not using timestamps for every update. But I am trying to keep things updated as the seminar unfolds.

2:50PM CDT – Cord Byrd

Cord Byrd’s presentation is “‘Bad Apple’ Gun Dealers: The Brady Center’s Latest Assault on the Second Amendment. Most readers are familiar with the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), and state analogues, which offer limited immunity from some lawsuits based on questionable grounds. For some time now, the Brady Center has focused on blowing holes through the protection, using the exceptions that are found in the PLCAA. Those exceptions are, roughly:

• An action brought against a transferor convicted under section 924(h) of title 18, or a comparable or identical State felony law, by a party directly hardmed by the conduct of which the transferee is so convicted.
• An action brought against a seller for negligent entrustment or negligence per se.
• An action in which a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or makreting of the product, and the violation was a proxmiate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.

It is the second item under which Brady is focusing much of its litigation. It’s very interesting that he notes that the firms that are providing legal services, presumably pro-bono, don’t know the federal and state firearms laws very well, and aren’t very good at litigating on them.

 1:00PM CDT – Dwight Van Horn

Van Horn’s presentation is on “Firearms Forensics in the Courtroom.” His presentation covers quite a lot of detail. First he speaks about the history of firearm and toolmark identification. It’s actually a fascinating talk, that I wish I could sum up for you, but there’s just too much detail in his talk to successfully summarize. Not all of it is complicated. For instance, a defendent claims “I dropped it, and the gun just went off!” Well, how do you test that? Or perhaps a defendant claims, “It was a hair trigger!” Well, if you do a trigger test, and it’s a 6lb pull, surely that’s not a “hair trigger.”

He speaks to evaluating ballistic fingerprinting, where they asked for five consecutive barrels manufactured from a batch of 100 in .45 ACP produced by a manufacturer. The challenge was whether firearms examiners could distibguish, by bullets fired from each barrel, between the fact that there were five barrels. Time after time they were able to.

Question from the audience: “Has microstamping gotten to the point where it’s useful in forensic firearms identification?”

Mr. Van Horn: “Nope!” He points to several studies that show it’s not particularly useful, and even speaking about California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s forensic experts which concluded the technology was useless, which he later overruled.

So don’t ever let them tell you microstamping is about public safety.

He goes on to give a visual presentation, showing various techniques. Things I didn’t know: on examining cartridges cases, he notes that they tend to look more to breech face impressions rather than firing pin impressions. Did you know a unique impression is left on a cartridge case when it’s stripped from the magazine? “It’s called a magazine signature,” notes Mr. Van Horn.

1:50PM CDT – Massad Ayoob

I don’t think Massad Ayoob needs an introduction for very many readers, but he’s a well known firearms instructor and expert witness for the courts since 1979. If you don’t have a copy “In the Gravest Extreme” in your library, you really ought to.

Mas Ayoob’s lecutre is “Debunking the Myths of Armed Self-Defense.” You’ve all heard them. The “Drag the corpse inside and plant a knife in his hand” myth. The “Shoot and Scoot” myth. “I can shoot anyone in my house” myth. Mas debunks them all. (paraphrased) “The single most common thing I get called on by attorneys around the country are mistakes that have been made after the last piece of brass hits the ground.”

He stresses the importance of always calling 911 when a gun is drawn. The first person to file a report is considered the victim. Echoing Andrew Branca, he doesn’t advise completely not speaking to police for people who have engaged in legitimate self-defense. “Point out the evidence. Point out witnesses. Tell the police you’ll sign a complaint. Establish yourself as the victim, and the guy on the ground as the perpetrator.”

Mas notes that a lot of people have bought the Gun Control movement’s assertion that anyone can use deadly force if they are merely frigtened. Has asks if anyone remembers the Brady billboard to that effect. He implores people who are instructors to be sure to debunk the myth among students.

Mas discusses the immunity laws many states have passed that prevent people being sued for acts of self-defense. But most of these cases are untested. You get immunity for self-defense, but who decides whether a case was self-defense? You may have to go through a hearing or perhaps even a full trial to assert your immunity.

It’s quite apparet why Mas Ayoob is in demand for expert testimony. He’s probably the best speaker of the day among a crowd of pretty good speakers already.

Our Lunch speaker is Professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame. We eat while he speaks, so I’ll try to fill you in later. Glenn’s presentation is on the Second Amendment as an ordinary part of Constitutional Law.

1:02pm (Bitter’s summary) – Glenn’s speech was largely taken from the foreward to his article, The Second Amendment as Ordinary Constitutional Law. However, he took it a step beyond that article on the history of the Second Amendment being largely acknowledged by federal courts and included commentary on why current news events such as Shaneen Allen and Brian Aitken provide great opportunities for more legislative fixes, too. After all, he made the point that just because the Second Amendment might be taking the right somewhat more seriously doesn’t mean that they are going to get it right.

Many of the things he said weren’t completely new to regular readers of Instapundit, but his delivery is really always entertaining and fun. Making the speech even more enjoyable was seeing on my Twitter feed that anti-gun PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane is now facing a new legal investigation in violating a court order. All around, a good lunch break from the legal seminar.