Category: Anti-Gun Folks

That seems to be Josh Horwitz’s position. He quotes from Heller, as an example of “Justice Scalia’s dangerous insurrectionist rhetoric in Heller“:

“If…the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia … If, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee — it does not assure the existence of a ‘citizens’ militia’ as a safeguard against tyranny.”

Nice cherry picking there Josh. Here’s the full quote:

Justice Breyer’s assertion that individual self-defense is merely a “subsidiary interest” of the right to keep and bear arms, see post, at 36, is profoundly mistaken. He bases that assertion solely upon the prologue—but that can only show that self- defense had little to do with the right’s codification; it was the central component of the right itself.

Besides ignoring the historical reality that the Second Amendment was not intended to lay down a “novel principl[e]” but rather codified a right “inherited from our English ancestors,” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281 (1897), petitioners’ interpretation does not even achieve the narrower purpose that prompted codification of the right. If, as they believe, the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia, see Brief for Petititioners 8—if, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee—it does not assure the existence of a “citizens’ militia” as a safeguard against tyranny. For Congress retains plenary authority to organize the militia, which must include the authority to say who will belong to the organized force.¹⁷ That is why the first Militia Act’s requirement that only whites enroll caused States to amend their militia laws to exclude free blacks.

So in context, we can see Scalia is arguing against Justice Breyer’s assertion that the militia prologue essentially negates the self-defense interest in the Second Amendment. He does this by arguing that showing how Justice Breyer’s interpretation would permit Congress to essentially destroy the right using its militia powers, which Scalia correctly points out is an absurd result for an enumerated Constitutional right.

Perhaps the reason the Court did not address the issue, as Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s brief urged, is because CSGV assertion that this was an issue was absurd and ignorant. These guys seemed to prosper when they were media darlings, but the party is over. Post Heller, the Brady’s immediately went into tactical retreat mode. CGSV just seems to have gotten angry and ridiculous. Perhaps they always were, and success covers a lot of faults, except their movement has not had any since the mid 90s.

Remember that article from the New England Journal of Medicine I linked to a few days ago? I should have looked her up when I noticed the JD next to her name. An intrepid reader did, and she’s with a Califnornia law firm, and filed a brief supporting Chicago in McDonald. The brief was not cited, despite the fact that it was essentially a justification for total firearms prohibition.

I anxiously await the New England Journal of Medicine taking editorial articles from actual practicing pro-gun doctors, of which I seem to have a number of among my readers.

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times are running stories on the evils of the Utah permit. The Brady Campaign is naturally standing by to demonize the idea:

But Utah’s permit program has its critics. Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, asserted that Utah’s policy was dangerous because many states were lax in submitting felony and mental health records to the federal database used for background checks.

“I think it’s absolutely shameful and ludicrously irresponsible to say that anybody anywhere who wants one of our concealed-carry permits, and thus will be able to carry legally in dozens of states, can just log on to our Web site and pay 60 bucks and that’s all she wrote,” Mr. Hamm said.

I agree with Peter that this is a less than ideal situation. I look forward to him joining with us for expanding reciprocity so that individuals don’t feel the need to seek a license to carry out of state.

Bryan Miller is usually, if nothing, willing to speak his mind, but even he’s still pretending like McDonald is without any actual meaning:

At the same time, Bryan Miller, executive director of Cease Fire NJ, said there was nothing in the ruling that made him believe the state’s gun laws were in for a substantial revision.

“There is nothing in New Jersey law that denies anyone, a legal purchaser, to buy a gun in the state,” he said.

The state does not ban handguns, he said, and the assault weapons ban is limited.

“I’ll say this: I think the decision will give temporary comfort to the pro-gun lobby,” Miller said, “but that will only be temporary, because once they spend all that money to overturn New Jersey’s gun laws, they will have failed.”

So Bryan Miller, who’s beloved CeaseFire New Jersey was recently absorbed by a peacenik group, is believing that we’ll eventually fail and run out of money… you know… just like he did. Can you spell “p-r-o-j-e-c-t-i-o-n?” I knew you could.

The Bradys manage to even make Independence Day depressing.

Earlier in the week, a few gun bloggers noted, along with AR-15.com, that the Brady Campaign was breaking the law in regards to this video showing Colin Goddard going to out of state gun shows with friends and buying guns. Is it illegal? To know, first you need to find out exactly how these transactions went down, so I actually asked them. Peter Hamm, Communications Director for the Brady Campaign, responded with the following:

Colin Goddard only purchased firearms in Virginia, and he is a legal resident of Virginia.  All other guns, at gun shows in states other than Virginia, were purchased by legal residents of those states, and Colin was just a witness. And all firearms purchased were turned over to local police departments in the jurisdictions where the gun shows were conducted.

This is legal. I would be surprised if they had done something illegal. As much as I disagree with Dennis Henigan and Daniel Vice on the legal issues surrounding firearms, they are competent attorneys are know this area of law. So how is this legal? First, it’s not illegal to buy a gun out of your state in a private sale. What is illegal is bringing it back to your state of residence or transferring it to someone else who is not a resident, except for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes. This is found in 18 USC 922(a)(3):

[It shall be unlawful] for any person, other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to transport into or receive in the State where he resides (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, the State where it maintains a place of business) any firearm purchased or otherwise obtained by such person outside that State[.]

So the crime isn’t purchasing, but transporting back to your state of residence. Since Colin and his resident buddy turned them into local police, they were never transported back home, or even across state lines. Now, if Colin had been the actual buyer of the firearm, it could have opened the seller up to liability under 922(a)(5):

[It shall be unlawful] for any person (other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector) to transfer, sell, trade, give, transport, or deliver any firearm to any person (other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector) who the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the transferor resides[.]

Now whether or not you could nail him on the conspiracy element for the crime on the purchase, I don’t know. It seems to me the answer might be yes, so I suspect that’s why, even not yet considering state law, that it’s safe to use a resident to avoid problems on the purchase. But the main reason you need to use a resident is because once you have the gun, you have to get rid of it. It would be lawful to transfer it back to an FFL, but for PR reasons I don’t think the Bradys wanted to do that, so they gave it to police. But police aren’t exempted under 922(a)(5)! It would have been unlawful for Colin to turn them into police himself. Doubly so if he dropped his buddy off and then turned them in to police, one unlawful transfer to Colin, and one to the police. But what about straw buying? That’s a crime under 922(a)(6):

[It shall be unlawful] for any person in connection with the acquisition or attempted acquisition of any firearm or ammunition from a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, knowingly to make any false or fictitious oral or written statement or to furnish or exhibit any false, fictitious, or misrepresented identification, intended or likely to deceive such importer, manufacturer, dealer, or collector with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm or ammunition under the provisions of this chapter[.]

Emphasis mine. That section only applies to acquisitions from FFLs. There’s no such thing as a straw purchase under federal law from a private seller. That’s not to say that purchasing a firearm on behalf of a prohibited person is legal in a private sale, but it’s prosecuted under 922(d) and (g) rather than 922(a). There is also 922(a)(9):

[It shall be unlawful] for any person, other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, who does not reside in any State to receive any firearms unless such receipt is for lawful sporting purposes.

This only applies to someone who is not a resident of any state, which would include American citizens living abroad. Alan Gura has actually been litigating on 922(a)(9), but the case is running into standing issues (DC Circuit’s standing requirements are a bitch).

But the ultimate conclusion is that the Bradys aren’t breaking the law here. It would have been interesting if Colin Goddard had been caught in temporary possession of a rifle, and charged. The logical thing would be to claim the sporting purposes exemption. “But it wasn’t a sporting purpose,” the government would fire back. That could leave Brady the only option of arguing that the sporting purposes exemption is too narrow in light of Heller. Wouldn’t that be funny? Think they would? I think they’d let Colin rot in jail. And the next time one of these joker groups claims that firearms are less regulated than teddy bears, point to this post. Or better yet, drop the ATF publication that contains all federal, state and local firearms laws on their foot. It’ll hurt. I promise.

That’s what Mom’s Against Guns is saying, as they merge with CeaseFirePA. We covered Mom’s Against Guns once before, when they obtained free billboards in the Philadelphia Area on false pretenses of being a 501(c)(3). Well, I guess now they won’t have to worry about their corporate status, having failed and merged with CeaseFire PA.

Dennis Henigan explains:

LaPierre may also be contemplating the future of the gun debate now that handgun bans are “off the table,” in the words of the Heller majority opinion. How long will the NRA’s leadership be able to argue, with anything approaching a straight face, that the Second Amendment precludes gun regulations like background checks, limits on large-volume sales, safe storage requirements, assault weapon bans, owner licensing, and registration of gun sales, when both Heller and McDonald read like legal briefs for the constitutionality of those laws? And, more importantly, how long will the NRA’s leadership be successful in using its legendary scare tactics to convince gun owners to oppose every gun regulation as a step down the “slippery slope” to a gun ban, when Heller and McDonald have taken gun bans “off the table”?

Wayne’s really scared, you see. The gig’s about to be up. This was a secret plan to win it all on the part of the Bradys all along!  I am the Great Oz! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. But how is the Brady Campaign going to keep raising money based on an end product they can no longer deliver? How many people are going to give to close the gun show loophole? How many people even understand it? No, the fight isn’t over. Not by a long shot. I don’t know anyone at NRA who believes that, or is worried about too many people without enough to do. But let’s go down the list anyway:

“like background checks”

No one, to my knowledge has made that argument yet. But what if the system goes down for a few days? For those two days, the Second Amendment is cancelled? I that case it defaults to the Brady waiting period. But is a waiting period unconstitutional? Can you delay exercise of a constitutional right? If so, by how much? The Supreme Court in Casey upheld a waiting period for abortions of twenty-four hours, but rejected a forty-eight hour period.

“limits on large-volume sales”

What other constitutional right can you ration? If you want to buy a gun for your vacation home, and a gun for your regular home, and of course we don’t have carry, because the Bradys tell us a ban on that is constitutional, so you can have your Second Amendment rights at your home, but not your vacation home, unless you wait a month?

“safe storage requirements”

Already largely thrown out in Heller because it substantially burdens self-defense with a firearm.

“assault weapon bans”

Assault weapons are in common use, and used for lawful purposes. They are useful for self-defense, otherwise the police would not use them.

“owner licensing, and registration of gun sales”

The only other fundamental right that’s licensed is marriage. There are some rights you have to register to exercise. This one they might have the strongest case on. But it’s not open and shut, like they make it out to be. There’s ample reasons with other rights why you can’t be required to get a license or register. This is one area that’s probably smarter to fight in the political arena rather than the Courts.

From Paul Helmke:

But in response to complaints by the NRA bosses who don’t want to tell the public where their money comes from, the 53 Democrats who receive money from the NRA apparently insisted the bill be changed. This led to a “compromise” that exempts groups with more than a million members; and that raised 15 percent or less funding from corporations; that have members in all 50 states; and that have been around at least 10 years.

So you’re suggesting NRA doesn’t want to tell the public where their money comes from, even though the exemption tells you where. NRA is raising most of it’s money from its 4 million members in increments of 20 and 30 dollars. I’m glad when our opponents make mistakes. Why include the terms of the exemption? It basically just tells the world they’ve been lying to the public about the nature of the “gun lobby” for years — that it was a tool of the gun makers rather than a real grassroots organization.

If you have kids, you might find you have a couple of nosy neighbors today. It’s National ASK Day. They like to say that it’s not about gun control, yet their “activists” say that this is about preaching to others about the dangers of owning guns. So, it’s not about taking your guns with force, just trying to be nannies who bother you into giving them up. Because that’s so much better – death by harassment and annoyance.

At least if we had kids, no one would have to ask. We’re pretty outspoken about our gun ownership in a very polite and “normal” way – whether it’s the NRA stickers, the political volunteer time, or the fact that we’d probably be shooting parents instead of soccer parents, I think we’d send the message pretty loud and clear while sending the right messages about gun ownership being a normal thing.