Arms and the Law

Story here. Alan and some others sponsored an ad on bus stands which the city of Phoenix rejected. It's isn't the clearest opinion, but seems to recognize that his ad would have met the city's 2011 standards (which required a commercial message, but not an exclusively commercial one), and so rejecting it was a First Amendment infraction.

Story here. I would only note that (1) the reporter could use some education in gun nomenclature and (2) Grannie ought to aim higher next time.

Francis Winters passed away on Saturday. Visitation will be at George H. Lewis & Sons located at 1010 Bering Drive in Houston, Texas on Sunday May 11 from 5-8 pm. The funeral will be Monday May 12, 2014 at 2 pm at St.Martin`s Episcopal Church at 717 Sage Road (at Woodway ) in Houston, Texas. A reception following the service will be held in the Bagby Parish Hall next to the church.

Francis was a member of the Board of Directors of NRA, and one of the major figures in the1977 Cincinnati Revolt, which essentially created the NRA as we know it. Here's how the Washington Post sees the Revolt.

She says the pendulum has swung too far toward freedom.

Order here. As is traditional, no reason is given. In any event, different Justices may have different reasons. By my count, the Court granted two petitions for cert. and denied over a hundred of them, underscoring the fact that petitions face long odds.

Two of the petitioners must have hacked off the Court, since the denials include "As the petitioner has repeatedly abused this Court's process, the Clerk is directed not to accept any further petitions in noncriminal matters from petitioner unless the docketing fee required by Rule 38(a) is paid and the petition is submitted in compliance with Rule 33.1." An elaborate way of saying "get lost."

Story here. A final rule publication has to answer substantive objections raised by the comments, and BATF got over 9,000 comments.

Chuck Michel sums it up nicely.

Correlation doesn't establish causation, but this seems like a mighty strong correlation.

Yesterday the Ninth Circuit panel issued an order commanding the San Diego Sheriff to inform the court as to his position on California's motion to intervene, and to inform the court as to whether he thinks the case is moot, given his decision to start issuing permits.

As I recall, he said he'd start issuing permits once the case is final, so we have rather a problem in circular reasoning. If the court finds the case is moot, then it will become moot, even if it were not before.

Here's the page where you can pledge support. If anyone knows a potential major donor, I'd suggest passing this along).

Here's the video, on Youtube. Very nice work. He protects the lady, gets the robbers out of the car and lying on the ground as he keeps them covered.

Story: at the NRA convention, a sheriff tells the story of a janitor who was attacked by three thugs.

"He was being savagely beaten by three suspects, one wielding a small club," Clarke said. "He told me afterwards he thought he was going to die. He was able to pull his firearm from its holster and deliver two shots, killing two of the suspects and saving his own life."

(I might add that, according to the article linked in the story, the county prosecutor found that he had acted out of reasonable fear of death or great bodily injury).

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel runs the story under this headline: "NRA crowd cheered story of Milwaukee janitor killing two teens."

That's the title of this hyperventilating article. It centers upon the fact that Clayton Williams Energy Inc. gave a million to NRA, and suggests that oil and gas interests are trying to influence the Association to oppose habitat and suchlike issues.

Clue: Clayton Williams Energy was founded by (you guessed it) Clayton Williams, whose hunting career is staggering even by Safari Club standards, and who presumably really likes guns.

Houston: a perp tries to snatch a woman's purse, she holds on. Perps find themselves looking down the barrel of a bystander's gun. After police arrive, the bystander buys some candy for his kids and goes home.

So much for the ammo shortage. The article seems to suggest that ammo has a shelf life. If it does, I've never found out what it was. I've shot plenty of 20 year old ammo without a misfire.

From Charles Cooke, an article in National Review Online:

"Contrary to the paranoid sneering of America's ever-impotent gun controllers, the National Rifle Association is not imbued with magical powers, nor can it avail itself of an unlimited supply of money and favors. The National Rifle Association is successful because it is popular, because its members are highly engaged, because it is defending a right that is enumerated in the nation's founding document and a tradition that is cherished by members of both major political parties, because its opponents routinely embarrass themselves with their hysteria and with their lack of rudimentary knowledge about the topic at hand, and, most of all, because it is a single-issue organization that maintains its focus."

His ultimate point is that we have to retain our focus on that single issue, and not stray into others.

I've not posted much, because I'm at the NRA annual meeting in Indianapolis. Yesterday I attended the Moms Demand Action "protest." It was actually staged about 3/4 mile away from the convention (probably because they didn't want their handful to be seen against a backdrop of tens of thousands of NRA members going into the convention hall(, When I set up a videocam, one of their members stood in front of it, blocking the view, I assume to ensure that only trusted mass media could get footage. Given how pitifully few showed up, that was understable. In the cell phone image below, the dozen or so people in white T-shirts are the protestors.

"Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston".

"Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement."

Drake v. Jerejian, the challenge to New Jersey's "may issue" system for licensing to carry, was set for the conference (where votes are taken) of last Friday. Today the Court issued its orders from that conference, and said nothing about the case. It's now up for consideration on April 25.

Conferences are entirely private, so we can't know what went on. I can think of several possibilities. Most obviously, perhaps some Justices wanted longer to think it over. A good sign. Or perhaps they wanted to see what would happen in the Ninth Circuit -- will California be allowed to intervene, which might mean a petition for cert.? There really is no way to say, although either of these possibilities mean the Court is giving it serious consideration.

Story here. Under pressure from the mayor and high level administrators, police reports are changed to reclassify murders as non-criminal deaths, and aggravated assaults are understated by nearly 25%.