Category: Gun Rights

Dave Hardy has a summary of Oral Arguments today before the Supreme Court. Sounds like the justices were tough on both attorneys, so not too much tea leaf reading. This case centers around whether you can buy a gun for someone else if that someone else is not a prohibited person. In Abramski’s case, he bought a gun in his home state of Virginia, took the gun to Pennsylvania and transferred it through an FFL there to his Uncle. He was charged with lying on 4473 in regards to whether he was the actual buyer. Abramski’s contention is that unless the other buyer is prohibited, it’s lawful to buy a gun for someone else, and ATF is exceeding its authority on 4473.

Yesterday an Alberta Clipper dumped a good 7 inches of global warming in the driveway, so this morning involved sweeping the cars off and shoveling it all away so the sun and salt can get to work. When I started, it was still single digits out, and now it’s warmed up to a balmy 11 degrees on Fahrenheit scale. That’s -11C for you Canadians who no doubt wonder why I’d complain about such warm weather. But for me it’s enough to make me wear my big silly looking Russian hat. Hey, it’s warm. Shows 64 degrees in my office now, because the furnace has some trouble keeping up, but compared to outside it’s the South Pacific in here. But the news links wait for no man, not even Al Gore:

But I thought AR-15s were battlefield weapons, only useful for mass murder?

Bearing Arms also has a story from the City of Brotherly Corruption. Seems some gun buyback money got “diverted.”

Some of our opponents act like nobody ever killed everyone else until about 500 years ago when firearms were invented.

S.E. Cupp: “Spare us the gun lecture, Harvey”

NRA responds to Harvy Weinstein as well. If Weinstein is stupid enough to think this will hurt NRA, he’s never read this book by Brian Anse Patrick. The more they hate, the stronger we get.

Gun Nuts Media offers a Shot Show 2014 recap, and some advice on how to travel with guns on an airline.

Glenn Reynolds in USA Today: One legacy of Obama is that government conspiracy theories don’t seem so crazy anymore.

Randy Barnett: How the NSA program is like gun registration. But our opponents tell us all right-thinking people favor gun registration. It’s common sense.

It’s a shame this guy can’t use the David Gregory defense. Laws are for the little people, little person.

This bill seems to be to be some duct tape added to the giant ball of fail that is Florida’s criminal law, so in that sense I tend to agree with Bob Owens of Bearing Arms that “[t]his is bad legislation piled up on top of bad legislation, instead of legislators admitting that they made a mistake.” Florida’s criminal laws seem particularly nutty and laced with unintended consequences from legislators showing how they are “tough on crime.” But having read this post at Legal Insurrection, and read the HB89 bill, the characterization of this as the “Warning Shot” Bill is greatly overblown by the media.

The bill in no way, shape or form authorizes warning shots, and the media is grossly irresponsible for suggesting it does. Why? Because when it passes, there will be people who have an entirely false belief they have state sanction to fire warning shots. This matches the media’s gross irresponsibility of characterizing elimination of the duty to retreat as a “shoot first” bill that lets you blast away at anyone you feel a little scared of. When you spread this kind of nonsense, there are certain people who are going to believe it. It makes a culture of violence more likely, not less. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I suppose they don’t care about the body count, as long as it advances their agenda of reinstitution the duty to retreat from your attacker before resorting to use of deadly force to protect yourself.

All this bill says is that if you’re justified in using deadly force, you’re justified in also threatening to use deadly force. Could that be a warning shot? Maybe. But this bill never mentions warning shots. As Legal Insurrection points out, even under this bill, Marissa Alexander would still be in jail.

Headed out to lunch today since this is the first day this month that neither of us are sick. Just in time to get snowed in by the latest snowstorm that I’m sure The Weather Channel has assigned some stupid name to. Now for some news links …

Private militias in Mexico refuse to disarm, because they are fighting the drug cartels. I’m sure CSGV stands ready to condemn them.

Ruger CEO explains why they are abandoning the California market. I expect more companies will do this. That was probably the point of this legislation. They have to figure out ways to ban guns that the courts might let them get away with. Here’s a legislative and legal history of the CA handgun roster. More from John Richardson too.

Gun Dealers need to wake up.

How to get the government to read the constitution?

First Amendment victory: freedom of the Press was meant to protect a technology, not an industry.

I thought only “corporate gun lobby” bullies did the whole hate thing?

Is Slidefire about to Akins themselves? I’m not entirely certain how that sled works, but my understanding has always been if you have some mechanical contraption actuate the trigger, but your action is to press some device that counts as a single function, you’ve got a machine gun on your hand.

This is a good question regarding Sean Penn. I think there have always been different rules for Hollywood in California. Though misdemeanors can typically be expunged, which would restore rights provided the expungement fully restores rights, causing the conviction to be free of legal effects.

TN gun rights case going to the Supreme Court.

Part 5 of Miguel’s series looking at the MAIG e-mails in more detail.

Gun wars to heat up in 2014? I would imagine the Democrats are not going to be all that eager to take the issue up in an election year when they are facing a number of vulnerable seats in red states.

The Supreme Court has denied cert on an appeal for the Montana Firearms Freedom Act. There was never any chance the Firearms Freedom Acts were going anywhere.

 

Josh Prince revises his previous post, noting that some of the protections that appeared to be missing are apparently still in place. It didn’t appear to mention the prohibition on creating a registry. Is that part of permanent legislation too? Or are we still missing that? It seems to me that preventing ATF from consolidating all those records in West Virginia into a registry is a pretty key provision to lose.

Joshua Prince notes that the new budget, awaiting signature by the White House, is missing key provisions that prevent ATF from abusing law-abiding gun owners:

In HR 2112, the restrictions included: 1. the funding of any “consolidating or centralizing, within the Department of Justice, the records, or any portion thereof, of acquisition and disposition of firearms maintained by Federal firearms licensees” (see page 58 of the Bill); 2. the appropriated funds to be utilized to “promulgate or implement any rule requiring a physical inventory of any business licensed under section 923 of title 18, United States Code” (see page 59 of the Bill); 3. “[N]o funds authorized or made available under this or any other Act may be used to deny any application for a license under section 923 of title 18, United States Code, or renewal of such a license due to a lack of business activity, provided that the applicant is otherwise eligible to receive such a license, and is eligible to report business income or to claim an income tax deduction for business expenses under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986″ (see, id.); and 4. “no funds appropriated herein shall be used to pay administrative expenses or the compensation of any officer or employee of the United States to implement an amendment or amendments to 27 CFR 478.118 or to change the definition of ‘Curios or relics’ in 27 CFR 478.11 or remove any item from ATF Publication 5300.11 as it existed on January 1, 1994″ (see id.)

Read the whole thing. There’s a lot more. Someone has demanded these provisions be removed. Why? What is the Obama Administration and ATF planning to do with that huge warehouse full of 4473s that they’ve retrieved from dealers who have closed up shop? Who are their lackeys in Congress who are threatening to derail the budget deal if these provisions weren’t removed? This is very bad news. This is a strong indication the Obama Administration plans to compile a registry from the records in West Virginia.

Prince also notes that Administration is seeking the power to alter the definition of Curios and Relics, and on requiring FFLs to do physical inventories.

This Stanford University student managed to get her name removed from the “no fly” list. She is only the first person to successfully challenge placement on the list, out of 875,000 names on it.

Pipkin and a team of lawyers handled the case pro bono, spending $300,000 in court costs and racking up $3.8 million in legal fees covering some 11,000 hours of work, she said. “Why in the United States of America does it cost that much to clear a woman’s name?” she asked in a telephone interview.

Glenn Reynolds notes, “A watch list is one thing. But a “no fly” list with 875,000 names? Banning someone from flying is a punishment. There should be due process.” Yes, there should be. I think it’s also worth noting that while the right to travel is an unenumerated right, people like Bloomberg and, ahem, Chris Christie, think it’s just fine to deny the fundamental, constitutional right to keep and bear arms by someone presence on this list. Does being guilty until you can spend 4.1 million dollars on attorneys the kind of due process the framers of the 5th and 14th Amendments were thinking of? It’s shameful that this is happening with people’s right to travel. We should not double down on this shame.

The media has been going nuts over the Florida “Popcorn Shooter”. It’s obviously not the perfect narrative for them, because the shooter was a retired cop, and is in the class of “people who should have access to guns,” to pretty much everyone except the looniest anti-gun activists. Here’s a Christian Science Monitor article about the whole thing.

I think it’s hard to argue that a retired cop shouldn’t be carrying a gun everywhere, all the times, especially when they are in or near the area they used to patrol. But if we’re going to start one of those “national conversations” maybe it’s time to start one on police culture, and how we can identify cops who have anger issues, and encourage them to take a different career path. Also, maybe we need to have a conversation about things like this, from the CSM article:

Some have suggested that Reeves, 71, may have felt legitimately threatened and bullied by the younger Mr. Oulson, and that the thrown popcorn could qualify as an assault on an elderly person, a felony worthy of self-defense in Florida. That tack toward a possible “stand your ground” defense has already been dubbed the “popcorn defense.”

If assault on an elderly person is, in fact, a felony, regardless of stand-your-ground, it’s always been law in Florida (and many other states) that you can use deadly force to stop the commission of a forcible felony, and my understanding is that felony assault would qualify. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on Florida law could comment. If there is a “popcorn defense,” that strikes me as an awful mistake in the part of the legislature, and should be corrected. Florida seems to be full of nonsensical criminal law. Legislatures seem to instinctively gravitate towards “getting tough on crime” through passing penalty enhancements that have little overall deterrent value. But did they unthinkingly create a ridiculous justifiable homicide situation by making a ridiculous felony? Wouldn’t surprise me if that is indeed the case.

I’m happy to repot that Bitter is done with her illness and on the mend, just in time for me to get sick again. Based on the fact that I don’t feel like death warmed over, I’m guessing just a cold. It certainly seems to be following the cold progression, and my temp is only slightly elevated. Hopefully I won’t pass this on to Bitter, otherwise it’s going to be like we had children disease wise. I’ve heard of some couples who have lots of kids and almost never have everyone well in winter.

First up, we have the SHOT show going on, and lots of interesting stuff there:

Jim Zimbo won a communication won an award at the State of the Industry Dinner. I think he made all the right reconciliatory gestures after the fact, so I don’t think he needs to be a pariah. Now Dick Metcalf on the other hand ….

The Robinson Arms XCR is a rifle I’ve been irrationally attracted to ever since I saw them change it from 5.56x45mm, to 6.8SPC, to 7.62x39mm all in one shooting session. Apparently it’s popular with Canadians because it’s unrestricted. I believe their law hinges on whether it’s a variant of a military rifle, which the XCR is not.

Hollywood is making another bomb of a movie. I’m not sure how the market for leftist political porn is these days, but I predict a flop.

New precision rifles, soon to be renamed “sniper” rifles and put on the anti-gun banwagon.

First look at the “Appleseed Ruger”

R51 Photos. PDB has some concerns about their marketing. I’m not sure “our product will make you into a ninja,” type advertising has ever been fail if your target audience is men.

The MG-34 Maschinengewehr.

And now for some non SHOT links:

Local opposition stymies SAFE Act. Note that SAFE is not any kind of happy medium, as the anti-gun folks push for even more laws. I wonder how Remington feels now about investing in New York.

Chicago has been given a six month stay to reform its laws about gun sales and transfers. As an Obama appointed judge in Utah showed on gay marriage, when the issue in question is favored, they know how to issue immediate injunctions.

Joe thinks California will be shall-issue eventually, nothing a recent lawsuit victory.