Category: Gun Rights

From a press release today:

Today, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore notified the County Board of Supervisors of his intention not to seek en banc review in the matter Peruta, et.al v. County of San Diego. A copy of Sheriff Gore’s letter to the Board of Supervisors is below. 

Members of the public wishing to obtain a CCW under the standards articulated by the Ninth Circuit should be aware that the decision has not yet become final. Federal court rules prescribe a period of time which must elapse before the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings. Should the decision of the Ninth Circuit become final, the Sheriff’s Department will begin to issue CCWs in situations where the applicant has met all other lawful qualifications and has requested a CCW for purposes of self-defense. 

Additionally, those seeking a CCW are advised that the process for obtaining a CCW involves several steps. The application process includes a scheduled interview, payment of fees, as well as state and local background checks. Successful completion of a firearms course of training is also required. This process can take several months.

The downside to this ruling is that this case won’t be going to the Supreme Court. Though it is circuit precedent, so future cases will have a chance to to bat and see if they want to swing for the fences. Will Hawaii just start issuing when challenged? Or will they appeal En Banc and all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary?

UPDATE: More from Dave Kopel at The Volokh Conspiracy.

From the LA Times:

Orange County has loosened requirements for carrying concealed weapons in public following a pro-gun ruling last week by a federal appeals court, officials said Thursday.

So Orange County has now gone effectively shall-issue. How many other counties will follow? Hopefully, at the end of all this, even LA will have to capitulate.

Is it Thursday already? Time files when you’re enjoying the warm, tropical weather. My weather station outside says 48F, with 58% relative humidity. Well, hell, pour me a margarita and I’ll sit out on a beach chair and watch the snow melt. This the warmest it’s been in weeks. Hopefully it’ll do good work on the glaciation going on around my driveway and on the roof of the house. Now for some fun-in-the-sun news:

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens would like to amend the Second Amendment to render it meaningless.

The State of New York thinks it’s worse to murder someone in a park than some other place. Gun control is a dishonest politicians hobby horse for avoiding blame for failing at one of the most basic functions of government. Funny how when government does too much it always screws up the basics.

Is the Bureau of Land Management in cahoots with anti-hunting HSUS?

Massachusetts is looking at deregulating pepper spray. Currently you have to have a Class B License to Carry in order to possess pepper spray. It’s not often you’ll hear me use “Massachusetts” and “deregulation” in the same sentence.

New national consensus on the right to carry. Sadly, many federal judges are still way behind the culture on this.

New York State abolishes trial by combat. What surprised me is that the date is 1786. I think we should bring it back, but only for politicians accused of crimes against the public.

South Carolina rejects Constitutional Carry. It’s difficult to pass, even in very gun friendly states, but if we can get a few more, the tide might start sweeping up other states.

The ACLU is standing behind the Second Amendment being a collective right. Fortunately, some of their state chapters are more progressive on the Second Amendment, and accept it as an individual right. I have actually been a member of the ACLU in the past, but never again until they accept the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Giffords and Kelly are planning to write a new book on gun control. Mark Kelly is, as always, eager to demonstrate he’s really one of us. Beware gun owners bearing gun control.

Why that .22 revolver isn’t all that cheap.

“This is – to me – a classic case of personal disempowerment, where we refuse to participate in our own defense but request or even demand that others protect us.”

“Let me suggest that the real problem is that we have too many felons, because too many crimes have been designated as felonies. Traditionally, felonies were very serious crimes, for which the death penalty was common. The justification for loss of civil rights, like voting, was that though you were being allowed to live, your crime — rape, murder, etc. — was sufficiently serious that it separated you from civil society. That can’t be maintained where today’s rather promiscuous designation of felonies is concerned.” I look forward to reading some legal writing on this topic.

Gun sales are plunging! More like returning to (still higher than) normal levels, after Obama and the anti-gun folks sent everyone into a panic.

Did ATF provide adequate comment period for 41P?

Progress on suppressors. It has to be pushed in the states before there’s going to be support for it federally. It’ll be a long march back for a lot of Title II stuff.

“Gun Control Sent Me Packing.”

Massad Ayoob on Dunn and Zimmerman.

Bloomberg’s report on school violence ignores reality.

The City of Oakland wanted to be able to create its own gun laws, so they went to the California Legislature to receive a special dispensation to have their own gun laws. The legislature OK’d the bill post-Newtown, but Governor Jerry Brown vetoed it. Now he’s hinted in a speech that he’s not going to be down for more gun control laws:

“What can laws do to solve immediate problems?” Brown said. “I want to say that laws have their role, but in terms of crime and guns and violence, we’ve been at this thing for more than 50 years on this very topic, and we’ve passed a tremendous number of laws. There is something else, it’s called administering the laws we have and working together in a community. That is where the greatest yield can be found in terms of making Oakland a safer place.”

Seems like common sense talk on gun laws to me, though I can’t imagine the California Chapter of the Brady Campaign are very happy with him for speaking the truth.

h/t Dave Hardy

They are trying to get a bill passed that would bar anyone convicted of misdemeanor stalking, sexual battery or domestic violence from owning a firearm for five years.

The group moms demand action for gun sense in America flood the general assembly building holding what’s called a stroller jam.

With their kids in tow, these women lobby for legislation protecting domestic violence victims like Lisette Johnson, a Midlothian mother herself, who was shot several times by her husband in 2009, before he took his own life.

In order to cause a jam, doesn’t that imply you have reasonable numbers? They must not have, because that bill was tabled in the House [Originally this mentioned it was defeated in the Senate. This was in error.] Looking at the bill, I’m actually rather surprised sexual battery is a misdemeanor. It’s worth noting that Virginia’s definition of “family or household member” for the purposes of “domestic violence” is far broader than under the federal Lautenberg definition, and it’s relatively easy under Virginia law to convict a severe abuser or serial abuser of felony domestic violence, which would be federally prohibiting.

But it’s interesting that Moms Demand are taking the “tough on crime” approach. What’s the end game? Probably to make gun ownership a legal tightrope. There are no minor mistakes in this issue already, and my guess is their aim is to make it worse. Walk the tightrope. It’s a felony if you make any mistakes.

Here’s a summary of other bills in Virginia.

Greetings and Happy Monday. I wish I could say we were going to have a week without any more snow, but there’s some strong possibilities in the forecast. We have to change our expectations to hope we will have a week with just an inch or so, and wouldn’t that be nice? I’m pleased March is coming, but we’ve been known to have major March snowstorms around these parts, and it just seems like such a thing would be the icing on the cake for this winter.

But now for the news:

Weaponization of government: all the non-profits audited by the IRS were conservative. Maybe getting rid of the IRS isn’t looking like such a crazy libertarian pipe dream these days?

Who are the enemy? We are. (h/t Instapundit)

How the DEA launders classified information.

Mass shootings, it turns out, aren’t very good pretexts for gun control.

A disabled man is suing over Connecticut’s new gun control laws. His disability means that only pistol grips are comfortable for him.

Home made bump fire stock.

Uncle has more thoughts on the 9mm takeover we talked about a few weeks ago.

Some animals are more equal than others.

Going postal.

When MAIG membership becomes a liability. It has to be toxic for political ambitions for higher office. It must be why they had lost 15% of members before they decided to stop keeping track.

The case challenging the new Connecticut gun laws, which lost in district court, will be appealed.

We must close the gun theft loophole! I agree. It should be illegal to steal guns!

The latest hand wringing out of Chicago: Anti-gun folks don’t like the “no guns” signs, so they want businesses to have to post that guns are allowed. They want this because they are having no luck getting them to post “no guns” signs.

Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin goes down. Unfortunately, neither stealing guns nor violating the civil rights of residents by stealing their guns was not among the charges he was convicted on. Nagin was a case where prosecutors could have used 18 U.S.C. 242. Anyone surprised they didn’t?

Tam on opening pocket knives.

A Massachusetts panel recommends more gun control, because they don’t have enough or something. They are proud of their low gun ownership rate, whereas to me it’s something they should have to explain in court to a judge deciding whether or not to strike their laws from the books. h/t Jeff Soyer

Danger to the grid. It would take a large coordinated attack to cause real widespread and long-lasting disruption, but it’s scary how vulnerable it is. How much damage could even a small team do? What if they just keep moving on from substation to substation? How long before authorities catch them?

Dave Hardy talks about the next steps. There’s an interesting dynamic at work here. Our opponents have started to wise up a bit, in the sense that they realize taking cases forward when the Heller majority is still in place is probably not the wisest of moves. Dave Hardy notes that there are twice as many Democratic appointees on the 9th Circuit as Republican appointees, so this would, in my view, make the panel much more likely to reverse than uphold the three-judge ruling in Peruta. But that would put the decision to appeal to SCOTUS back in the NRA’s hands. Will San Diego County want to risk rolling the dice?  Will Bloomberg and other gun control groups pressure San Diego not to appeal?

They are trying to pass a nullification bill in Missouri, the only trouble is that an unfriendly lawmaker is moving to attach a “Lost and Stolen” provision to it. Even worse the sponsor of the nullification bill isn’t filling me with confidence. NRA is trying to kill it:

Nieves told reporters the NRA has not spoken to him and that it does not matter to him what they say about the bill. He said he did not know what Nasheed’s amendment would mean for the bill’s chances. His own opinion about the reporting requirement was ambivalent.

“I can live with it. I wouldn’t raise it on a flag pole and say it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen but I can live with it,” Nieves said.

Your nullification bill is nearly useless, yet you’re going to let real control just cruise through along with it? In exchange for a bill that is purely symbolic political posturing, Rep. Nieves is going to impose real gun control onto Missouri gun owners? Really? The GOP really is the stupid party.

h/t SWAT magazine.

What? Just talk to our opponents in the gun control movement. Democracy can never go rogue! Venezuela is a great example of a country that successfully transitioned from a democratic government to a dictatorial police state in the space of slightly longer than a decade, while still maintaining the facade of being a free country. Our opponents can believe whatever they want, but sometimes it’s morally justifiable to shoot back, and a free people should always have that ability. As Miguel notes, “Hunting ain’t fun when the bunny shoots back.”