Arms and the Law

John Lott's Crime Prevention Research Center is having a very interesting event on the evening of Friday, April 10. You can sign up here. It's $50-200, depending upon your choices, and it's going to a good cause -- in terms of refuting antigun research and conduct progun research, the best cause, in fact. And how often can you hear about details of criminology alongside Katie Pavlich and Dana Loesch?

Good news! Shes the lady with the PA carry permit who was stopped in NJ, and thinking her permit valid, informed the officer that he had a gun. She was looking at a mandatory sentence of around three years, as I recall.

Dave Workman has the story.

Right here. The weapons-grade plutonium is a little pricey, though.

Just remember the offers may not last long after April 1...

John Lott takes apart an FBI report claiming that the number of mass shootings is increasing. Among other things, he notes that the FBI data including shootings where no one was killed (which make up nearly a quarter of the incidents counted) and someones nobody injured. It includes cases where one person was killed (which hardly are mass slayings), which makes up another quarter of the cases counted. It also overlooks cases fitting its criteria early in the period, which including some that shouldn't be counted at the end. The FBI count begins with the year 2000, which had an exceptionally low number of events (and undercounts them -- showing zero when actually there were four). He replies with a count over the last four decades, which finds only a slight rise. (And we might note that the US population increased 43% over the period used by Lott, and 12% over the shorter period US by the FBI).

Hat tip to reader Alice Beard....

Story here. The city police would refuse to return guns that came into their hands but should legally have been returned to their owners. In this case, they destroyed the guns despite court orders to the contrary. And wound up paying $30K to settle the civil suit.

To make it still better, the judge indicates he's going to award attorney fees to the winners.

"THOMAS, Chief Judge:
Upon the vote of a majority of nonrecused active judges, it is ordered that
this case be reheard en banc pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 35(a) and Circuit Rule 35-3. The three-judge panel opinion and order denying motions to intervene shall not be cited as precedent by or to any court of the Ninth Circuit."

In the Ninth, that means the case will be reheard by a panel of ten randomly-chosen judges (out of around 28 active duty ones) plus the chief judge.

Story here.

She's not one of those who would blame the neighbor for shooting her son, who was the drug-demented attacker.

"Mendez is now beginning a painful recovery.

She's also mourning the loss of a son she feels she truly lost to crystal meth, not the man who pulled the trigger. "There was nothing else you could have done," Mendez said she wants her neighbor to know. "And as sad as I am to lose my boy, you did the right thing. And I thank you for my life."

From an article in the Idaho Statesman (which cites Clayton Cramer and John Lott).

Between 1986 and the present days:

States prohibiting concealed carry, with no licenses to do so available, shrank from 16 to 0.
States allowing permits on a discretionary "may issue" basis shrank from 25 to 9.
States allowing permits on a "shall issue" basis rose from 8 to 36.
States allowing concealed carry with no permit rose from 1 to 5.

All this over a period when both total homicides and gun homicides have fallen by about half.

As a publicity ploy, "States United to Prevent Gun Violence" (an astroturf group created by Bloomberg) sets up a fake gun store in New York City, with seemingly real guns hanging on the walls. But not too long ago, New York City announced:

Joshua Prince has an interesting post. The key is that the NFA says a "person" may register and pay taxes on an MG, and 18 U.S.C. §922(o) says a "person" may not possess a post-ban MG, but the two statutes have different definitions of "person." An unincorporated trust is a person within the definition of NFA, but is not a person within the definitions of the GCA, which govern §922(o).

Video of his testimony here.

Story here. My friend Phil Murphy had a similar experience. He held a burglar at gunpoint until police arrived. The local media did interview him. He mentioned that he'd used an AR, and, strangely, the story never saw the light of day.

Plaintiffs sue Harrisburg, PA, in state court, over its gun restrictions (I assume on preemption grounds). Harrisburg files a removal to Federal District Court (I assume some Federal legal issue was involved, don't know the details). But the removal motion omits one plaintiff, so plaintiffs' attorney Joshua Prince files for default judgment in state court, in the plaintiff's name, since the city never answered the complaint. He reportedly gives notice to Harrisburg (some rules require giving advance notice of an intent to take a default judgment) and the city ignores it. So he takes a default judgment for $20,000 plus.

Now the city wakes up and moves to set aside the default judgment. That's possible, but if the PA rules are like the federal ones, it's a heavy burden of proof. And the first question is going to be "he gave you written notice, well in advance, that he would take a default ... why didn't you object then, or move to add this plaintiff to your removal motion?"

It's gotten to where even WashPo is criticizing them.

I didn't have time to say anything when the ballot arrived, I was swamped with work and barely had time to fill out my own, and besides, everyone on the ballot seemed qualified. But thinking of my associates from Interior Dept days, I realized that William "Bill" Satterfield was on it. He's a good one, a 'Nam vet, was Deputy Solicitor under the Reagan administration, then General Counsel to FERC, then returned to private practice. He's a shooter and a hunter, and serves on NRA's Legal Affairs Committee and its Civil Rights Defense Fund.

Decades ago, when I worked in Interior Department's legal shop, the Solicitor's Office, a good buddy was Rick Robbins, Assistant Solicitor for National Capitol Area Parks. They handled all legal issues for the Park Service in the DC area, things ranging from litigation over the rules for protests on the White House sidewalk to issues in the battlefield parks near DC (as I recall, extending out to the Bull Run battlefield). In those days, Rick was clean-shaven and, like all of us, in shirt and tie, with jacket in the closet in case we were called to a meeting of importance. He had one heck of a sense of humor, and really, really, really loved to hunt.

Rick just sent me this video of him today, retired to rural Virginia.

It bans the American flag (apparently even from private display).

And the student resolution doing so demonstrates how literacy and clear thinking are no longer requirements for getting into that college: "[F]lags construct paradigms of conformity and sets homogenized standards for others to obtain which in this country typically are idolized as freedom, equality, and democracy." Apart from noun-verb disagreement, this is brain mush.

I'd like to extend on Iowahawk's comment to that article: cut the university off from direct fund transfers, and send all student loan and federal grant money in with tiny flags printed on the check. Somehow I suspect they'd speedily overcome their aversity to flags.

Guided by comments to the previous post (thanks!) I find that BATF just posted online a notice that its removal of M855 ammo from the exemption for AP ammo is a mistake. Sounds like the decision was made to remove M855, while allowing a sham comment period, and whichever team compiles the annual list of published ordinances was told about the decision but not told "but, 'officially,' this decision hasn't been made yet, so don't let it out."

Those responsible are probably down on their knees thanking the Almighty that this happened in early March. (Federal agencies do job evaluations after the end of the fiscal year, end of September. If you foul up in winter or early spring, you can hope that your supervisors forget about it by then. A disaster in September is a REAL disaster!)