Arms and the Law

ATF is required to publish, and I believe annually update, a list of "published ordinances" relating to guns, for guidance of firearm dealers. In mid-February, ATF announced that it was seeking comments on its proposal to removed the "sporting purposes" exemption of M855 ammunition, meaning that (if ATF's interpretation of the ban on handgun "armor piercing" ammo is correct, which I've critiqued earlier) the M855 would be banned. Further, anyone having M855 projectiles would commit a felony by handloading them (the ban applies, not to "manufactures" which the gun statutes narrowly define; instead it makes it illegal for "any person to manufacture" such ammo).

Katie Pavich has made an astounding discovery: the 2015 book of published ordinances, released in January, deletes the exemption for M855 ammunition. The decision was made BEFORE the agency sought comment on it! Possibly long before, since releasing a book in January requires editing it well before then, and getting it to the Government Printing Office so they can run the presses.

The State Bar is offering three hours CLE credit to watch "In Search of the Second Amendment," followed by an hour discussion by your humble servant.

Over at Real Clear Policy, Robert VerBruggen has thoughts on the issue.

For $21,000 in attorney fees, plus such damages as may be proven at trial, in an action charging that the city's gun ordinances violate the Pennsylvania preemption statute.

Story here. This is the case that struck down the GCA ban on interstate handgun sales by licensed dealers.

The government asked for a sixty-day stay so it could consider whether to appeal. We all know it's going to appeal, but the government wanted to proceed in its usual way (pondering everything, with meetings and exchange of memos and alerting 10,000 people before officially reaching the only obvious conclusion, hey, I used to be a GS-14 and know the ropes). The judge said, no way, you'll meet the deadline imposed on every other case.

It'll be at the NRA annual meeting in Nashville, on April 11. And how often can you satisfy your CLE requirement while watching Massad Ayoob share the stage with Instapundit? I've read some of Massad's advice to defense attorneys, and it was first rate. His pieces on the George Zimmerman case were astounding in their depth.

CalGuns Foundation link to the ruling is here. You can read the first few pages and know what the outcome will be. California seeks to ensure guns are safe, etc., etc., so only very safe guns are put on the roster ("Safe" means, for example, that the gun must have a loaded chamber indicator that somehow allows a new user to know whether the firearm is loaded without consulting the manual. Every loaded chamber indicator I know of assumes that you read the manual or had someone point it out to you, so at least you know what to look for).

The contrast comes at the very end, when the court has to deal with the fact that the statute exempts law enforcement personnel (including, as I recall, employees of prosecutors' offices). The court simply pronounces that police may have different needs for firearms than do non-police. But if the roster would truly about safety, the question must be, do police and prosecutors have a special need for unsafe guns?

One plaintiff had no right arm, and wanted a Glock with an ambidextrous magazine release. But while the Glock he wants is on the roster, California does not list it with an ambidextrous release, and considers that a different, and unlisted, firearm.

Posted here.

"One of the heroes of the Waco fights of the 1990s has passed away. Mike McNulty did more than any other single person to doggedly pursue the truth about Waco. And he produced or co-produced a number of superb films that vividly and compelling explained why the feds were lying about the carnage they unleashed in Texas. And he fed great information to me and other journalists - as well as sometimes impatiently pushing us forward, urging us to turn over more rocks."

The government's "constructive possession claim didn't get very far. The government had been contending that designating to whom the firearms could be transferred was "control," and hence exercising illegal "possession." Then before argument they conceded that Henderson could transfer them to a licensed dealer. Looks like they didn't prepare for "if his transfer to a dealer isn't possession, how can his transfer to a nondealer be possession? There's no difference in terms of exercising control"?

Charity Navigator just revoked their rating and put a "donor advisory" alert in its place. This comes in the wake of a $15 million payout to settle an extortion and bribery suit, and moving $26 million to offshore accounts.

I just heard, know no details.

Mike produced "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" and directed "The FLIR Project" and "Waco: A New Revelation." Back in '93, he and I forced reopening of the Waco issue, which led to appointment of an independent counsel (who spent a lot of money, prosecuted the one honest guy on the government side, and did little else). The third member of the group (I can't call it a team, since we had no organization) was Gordon Novel, who died last year. (If a dictionary wanted an illustration for the term "enigmatic," they would have used Gordon's picture

Tuesday, Feb. 24, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Henderson v. United States, describing in this SCOTUSblog post. Henderson surrendered his firearms to the government, as one of his conditions of release. He was later convicted of a felony, and thus could not "possess" firearms. He requested to be allowed to sell or transfer his firearms to others, who could legally have them. The government refused, arguing that one aspect of possession is control, and for him to designate who the firearms went to would be for him to exercise control. In other terms, he "constructively possessed" ("constructive" here derived from "construe") if he tried to transfer them, even if they were locked away in an evidence locker and inaccessible to him. Looks like Second Amendment issues are raised, as well.

By pure luck, I came across this, a provision allowing recovery of attorneys' fees in forfeiture cases. It ought to be of great use in gun forfeiture cases at the Federal level.

M855 is the current military issue, and so comprises the "surplus" ammo market in 5.56 NATO. BATFE originally classed it as suitable for "sporting purposes" and thus exempt from the AP ban. It now proposes to reverse this and ban production for the civilian market. The official reasons given largely hinge on the development of AR-15 platform handguns.

It's carried as the cover story.

Mance v. Holder, opinion in pdf. US District Court for the Northern District of Texas holds that the ban is unconstitutional on its face and as applied. A resident of Washington, DC (which now allows handgun in the home, if registered) wanted to buy from a Texas FFL, because the only FFL in DC charges $125 to do the paperwork. The court holds that the GCA prohibition on the sale fails strict scrutiny, and also intermediate scrutiny, and enjoins enforcement of the restriction. Another win for the industrious Alan Gura!

An amusing video takedown, from Louder With Crowder.

The Washington Post, no less, discusses Park's private papers and what they tell about guns.

Story here. Original story here.

Right here. It features Jonathan Goldstein, attorney for the good guys, and Shira Goodman, director of a Bloomberg subsidiary, excuse me, of CeasefirrePa.