Arms and the Law

NY Times story here. Of course "Campaign Against Gun Violence" means "Campaign Against Gun Owners." If NBA actually wanted to combat gun violence, it'd dissolve itself.

Very sharply cuts back, following a ruling by its Attorney General. As of February 1, it will no longer recognize concealed carry permits from: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

It will continue to recognize only those from West Virginia, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Clayton Cramer has posted an an in-depth examination of the question. For one thing, the FBI uses a strange definition of justifiable homicide, which excludes "I shot because he was attacking me with deadly force" -- which most would consider the very core of self-defense. For another, the FBI reports are gathered soon after the investigation and/or arrest, and Clayton found that including acquittals at trial doubled the numbers involved.

The new standard is becoming counterattack. What's equally interesting is that this report is from the Washington Post, via MSN.

There are bunch of trend lines merging here. Skyrocketing gun ownership and concealed carry permits, fighting back against killers, etc.. And the "ruling class" seems stuck in the past. Even this article seems reluctant to acknowledge things fully. It several times refers to successful unarmed counterattacks, never once mentioning the armed ones.

That's the group founded by John Lott, the economist who has done so much over the decades for the right to arm. Donations can be made here. On the left margin of that page you can see links to some samples of his research output....murder rates before and after gun bans, comparing murder rates and gun ownership across countries, and plenty more.

Right here. A choice bit:

"Which of the terrorist attacks cited by Obama in his speech -- which included two he had never before acknowledged as such, the Fort Hood shooting and the Chattanooga attack on a military recruiting office -- would a no-fly gun ban have prevented? None of them. None of the suspects were on the no-fly list. Farook and Malik flew last year with no problems, and Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan was still in the Army. In fact, even after Russia warned the FBI about Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011, the U.S. allowed him to fly to Russia and back in 2012.

In other words, the no-fly list is not just unconstitutional, it's also a red herring. Democrats want to change the subject from the failure of this administration to prevent these attacks. When government feels the need to strip Americans of their constitutional rights -- including the right to bear arms -- they should prove their case in court while allowing for full due process. That is precisely why our founders wrote the Constitution in the first place: to protect a free people against the whimsy of tyrants."

Right here.

I reported recently that Clayton Cramer's gun self-defense blog is back online. I just realized it has an interesting feature. In the right margin are a list of labels. Clicking on these you can get cases from each of several states, the nature of the self-defense, and some firearms used (including ARs and AKs). I was interested that one of the largest categories is "pizza delivery driver." One of the smallest is "mistaken identity," listing one case where police mistook the defender for a burglar and fired on him. (Fortunately their marksmanship wasn't up to snuff, and no one got hurt).

Opinion here. The dissent begins after p. 11 of the orders.

A dissent from denial has no precedential value, though it can be cited for whatever strength its reasoning holds. It does serve as a signal (here, by two Justices, one of whom authored Heller) that there are two votes for cert. in a good case raising 2A issues (tho it also signals that the reasons given in this case were insufficient to attract enough votes to grant cert.). It can also signal lower court judges who want to rule in accord with the dissent that there is support for that view on high.

Sentencing Law and Policy blog has some thoughts.

Quite a number. Of course, ten years ago Sen. Ted Kennedy found he was on the no-fly list It took him six weeks to get his name removed. Then, again, he had killed somebody.

AG Loretta Lynch pledges to prosecute "hate speech" directed at Muslims. Never mind that there is no First Amendment exception for "hate speech," however defined. You'd think someone competent to be AG would at least know the First Amendment exceptions.

But I wonder if she would direct her attention here?

Got an email from Prof. Nick Johnson:

"The John Stossel Show on Fox Business is doing an hour on gun issues, airing this Friday the 4th at 8:00. (Already taped) It will appear on the main Fox network sometime over the weekend. Stossel is a pro-gun libertarian. The theme of the show is debunking gun control myths and illuminating some of its absurdities. I am on someplace in the middle talking about [his book] Negroes and the Gun and why trusting your security entirely to the state has been a bad idea for some folks."

My article in America's First Freedom, about finds in the Clinton Presidential Library, is online here. The most interesting finds related to how the Clinton Administration was trying to settle the suits against gun manufacturers -- by creating a system that would essentially register guns, ban all firearms that could take 10+ round magazines, ban polymer frames, ban FFLs from selling at gunshots, etc., etc. All by judicial settlement, with no need to turn to Congress.

Right here!

He'd had some troubles with a copyright troll, and so it now bears the message: "Documenting civilians using guns in self-defense. Email complaints/requests about copyright infringement to clayton at claytoncramer.com. Reminder: the last copyright troll that bothered me went bankrupt."

Video, via Project Veritas, here.

Docket here. The Supreme Court votes on (among other things) whether to take a petition for cert. during its "conferences." Most decisions are made at the first conference, sometimes some are unable to be decided then, and the case is "delisted" for a later conference. In this case (concerning and "assault weapons ban") the Court has considered the case seven times, over a period spanning two months.

Most unusual, but hard to read the tea leaves. Is the vote in doubt? Are the votes there to deny, but some Justice or Justices want time to write a dissent from the denial? No way to know. It's interesting to note that 23 States filed an amicus urging the Court to take the case, noting that the lower courts have shown considerable resistance to the Court's ruling in Heller and McDonald.

PETA has long run an "animal shelter" in Virginia, a major function of which is snuffing the animals brought in (in 2014, the "shelter" adopted out 39 dogs and cats and killed 2,454). Now, they're being sued for snatching a dog off its owners' porch and snuffing it. Unlike Val Kilmer's Doc Holliday, their hypocrisy seems to have no limits.

It's Mann v. United States, set to be considered on Dec. 4. It concerns an issue of which I was unaware.

This report states that the annual turkey pardoning was canceled due to Russian protests. They were concerned about pardoning a Turkey "after an unfortunate misunderstanding between an Su-24 fighter and a Turkish AIM-9 Sidewinder a few days ago."

But one says the turkey (who had taken the name of Al-Turki) was pardoned, hijacked an aircraft at Andrews AFB, and defected to ISIS.

The case is State v. Herrmann. The opinion is very well-written, and two features stand out to me.

(1) The court applies intermediate scrutiny, but doesn't treat it as an easy way to rule for the government. "To meet this standard, the government must demonstrate "that the recited harms are real, not merely conjectural, and that the regulation will in fact alleviate these harms in a direct and material way." ... [S] law challenged on Second Amendment grounds is not presumed constitutional, ... and the burden is on the government to establish the law's constitutionality..." It thus brushed off the State's argument that the ban would prevent surprise knife attacks. "[T]he State cites no evidence to establish that this danger actually exists to any significant degree."

(2) The court doesn't buy the argument that only one class of knives is affected. "[I]f a complete prohibition of handgun possession in the home for self-defense is unconstitutional, despite demonstrable public safety concerns, it follows that a complete prohibition of a less dangerous category of arms in the home for self-defense is also unconstitutional."