Arms and the Law

Story here. He was a heck of a nice guy, and died in harness, as Shakespeare said. I am told he was doing his job at the September NRA Board meeting when he suddenly collapsed, I assume a massive coronary or stroke. They gave him CPR but he didn't make it. Gad, he was only 55, and slender. My brother in law nearly died of a massive coronary at age 52, coming off a tennis court, but fast CPR (and a cardiologist and a defib unit nearby) pulled him through.

A good summary at Reason.com. I've heard of similar things happening in California. Regulatory "inspections" are traditionally given only loose Fourth Amendment protections by the courts, because they usually are no big deal. But some locals send the "inspectors" in with real law enforcement, supposedly to protect them. The team with them then uses the opportunity as a chance for a warrantless search (at least as to anything in "plain view.")

NY Times editorial, "Myths About Gun Regulation," January 31, 2013:

Story here. Brady will sue on behalf of the parents of a child killed in the Aurora CO shooting, against the dealer who sold the ammunition and some unnamed others.

Protestors picket national police championships, as if learning to shoot accurately had much to do with questions about whether a shooting was justified. Of course, it's being consistent to some degree. Most just assume that firearm skills = being an accessory to crime applies only to the general citizenry.

From one of their spokeswomen: "Green said women and girls should be aware that lax gun laws lead to gun violence which can beget domestic violence."

Some 19th century wag wrote something like: "If a man engages in casual murders, next he will descend to excessive drink and pilfering, and thence sink to profane oaths and sabbath-breaking, and so become utterly lost."

From Glenn Reynolds, "The Second Amendment as Ordinary Constitutional Law," arguing that the 2A has become a normal part of Con law, legal doomsday did not come, and courts might as well accept that. Then, from David Wolitz, comes "Second Amendment Realism," suggesting that that just means the courts will screw it up like they have all the rest of the field. He phrases it a little more tactfully.

First story here. An armed gang tries to rob tavern workers after closing time, one victim opens fire and kills one of the robbers, with police later arresting the remainder. The robbery gang was responsible for dozens of armed robberies over the past three days. The shootee also had a string of arrests for robbery, auto theft, fleeing and whatnot, and had been injured in a gang shooting a few weeks ago.

And last month, a Milwaukee nurse, a victim of an attempted carjacking, shot one carjacker. The day before, the shootee had shot a person during an attempted carjacking; when his accomplice was rounded up, police arrested ten more suspects believed to be involved in dozens of robberies and carjackings.

Hat tip to Tamara Keel.

Brady Campaign, in a desperate quest for continued relevance, announces it will protest "bad apple" licensed dealers. "Bad apples" are to be measured by the raw number of BATF traces tracing guns back to them.

SAF is holding it at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago O'Hare Airport, on September 26, 27 and 28, 2014. Drat, I won't be able to make it, but for any who can, the event is very useful, and free (so are the extensive materials distributed with it. You can make hotel reservations by calling 888-421-1442 -- mention you are attending the conference, and the rate will be $112/night.

At least if this article is correct.

Ohio: two perps try to abduct a woman walking her dog. She draws her gun, and they reconsider.

Florida: armed robber enters jewelry store, pulls gun on 89 year old WWII vet. The vet grabs perp's gun, draws his own .38, and puts six rounds into perp. (The perp survived: the vet needs a bigger gun and/or hotter loads. He may have been using the old 158 grain round noses).

In the dispute over how many self-defense cases occur, one data point often cited by those seeking to minimize the number is the FBI Uniform Crime Report's count of justifiable homicides (a legal category that includes self-defense). This is usually in the range of 900 a year, including several hundred by police. While that doesn't count self-defense that doesn't result in the perp's death, it is argued that it is inconsistent with hundreds of thousands or millions of defensive uses annually.

Washington, DC. Federal employee gets into a minor fender-bender, gets a $100 traffic ticket. Alleging he was on duty at the time, the Dept of Justice appears on his behalf and gets the traffic ticket removed to U.S. District Court. (It later reconsiders).

It's a blog post by Prof. Nick Johnson of Fordham Law. He discusses Otis McDonald and Shaneen Allen (who faces a mandatory three year jail term for having driven into NJ with a firearm for which she had a PA permit to carry concealed).

An interesting article by Frank Miniter. The part I found most amusing:

"[A] mainstream reporter next to me in the press section gasped, "Oh no," when Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted that he believed the Second Amendment to be an individual right while asking the government's attorney a question."

I was there and remember the question. Actually, there were two, but a listener wouldn't have noted unless he'd been following the Second Amendment legal issue for thirty years. The second, yes, a reporter could understand where Kennedy was coming from.

The first question was whether we could grasp the meaning of the Second Amendment by considering its two clauses separately. Yes, a militia is important. And yes, the people have a right to arms. The importance of the militia is independent of the right to arms and the right to arms independent of the militia.

"RESISTANCE BY INFERIOR COURTS TO SUPREME COURT'S SECOND AMENDMENT DECISIONS," by Alice Beard, in Tennessee Law Review. It takes an optimistic view of long-term trends. At the moment, judicial recognition of the 2A as an individual right is relatively new and, to many courts, even irregular, something to be approached with caution or outright resistance. In the longer term, it may become accepted as one more American constitutional right.

Rather funny. Remington decides to move its AR-15-making operations to Alabama, and with it 2,000 jobs. Cuomo's reaction:

"We have been talking to Remington about rehabbing and redoing their facility in New York. It is a very important part of New York. It is a big employer in New York. Their plant here is old and we want to work with them on restoring that."

So these rifles are just killing machines, that do not belong in civilian hands, but please manufacture them here, we'll be happy to help?

Filed this morning, Silvester v. Harris (Eastern Dist. of Cal) looks like a solid win (after you go through all the pages detailing California's unbelievably complex answer to trying to prevent bad guys from buying guns). It finds the "cooling off" period rational for the 10 day mandatory waiting period to be unfounded, and basing the requirement on "we need the time for all the background checks" makes no sense when applied to (1) a person already permitted to own a firearm or (2) a CCW permit holder or (3) anyone whose background checks are completed in less than 10 days.

Reading between the lines, you can get a grasp of how much work went into this win. You don't base a winning record on "this is wrong, so let's sue and look for an obvious win."

Washington state is involved in a battle over Initiative 541, a lengthy antigun measure... and, as David Workman reports, a study of contributions in support of it finds that 84% of contributions came from ten zip codes in urban and suburban Seattle. Here's a map of the Seattle area to give some idea.