Arms and the Law

SAR, Illinois Carry, and Illinois State Rifle and Pistol have filed Culp v. Madigan (C. D. Ill.), challenging a feature of the new handgun carry permit system, adopted in the wake of prior legal challenges. The new system, for reasons that seem hard to understand, says that nonresidents can only apply for a carry permit if their own State has a handgun carry permit system substantially identical to that of Illinois.

The suit should be a winner. It's hard even to understand how that limitation got in there. I can only guess that someone knew that carry permit systems often have reciprocity and that these provisions commonly limit recognition to permits issued by States with similar standards, or standards at least as strict as those of the State being asked to recognize them. But the provision here isn't a matter of reciprocity, but of which nonresidents can get an Illinois permit.

Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Info lawsuit regarding ATF's operation "Fast and Furious," which ran guns to Mexican drug cartels.

The DoJ just asserted executive privilege as a reason for withholding communications to and from Mrs. Eric Holder.

Extraordinary. The spouse of a government employee is not a member of the executive branch, she's a member of the general public.

Gunman storms the Canadian Parliament building -- and finds the Master at Arms is indeed armed. Nice shooting. The only thing that stopped a bad guy with a gun was a good guy with a gun.

Story here. Sounds like the statute allows for recovery of attorney's fees, which would be an important addition.

The Court just granted cert. in Henderson v. U.S.. The issue: can a person who is convicted of a felony, and has firearms seized (because of his status as a felon, not because the guns were used in an offense), deal with it by selling them to another party, who does not have a felony record?

There's a recent law review article on just that topic.

Symposium issue here. Very interesting articles. George Mocsary on requiring insurance as a condition of gun ownership, Clayton Cramer on mental illness and the 2A, Michael O'Shea on slippery slope and background checks, myself on standard of review Josh Blackman and Shelby Baird on the "Shooting cycle" -- mass killings and media coverage lead to support for gun restrictions, but the support soon fades away.

Also of course some antis.

Robbers hit credit union, are departing with a sack of cash when an incoming customer opens fire and kills one. This is Arizona. When it comes to concealed carry, we don' need no steenking permits.

"South Carolina Prosecutors Say Stand Your Ground Doesn't Apply To Victims Of Domestic Violence." Sounds like the argument is a variant of "the statute on its face says this, but we can't believe the legislature meant this to happen." Amusing to see prosecutors arguing that. It's usually argued by defense counsel, when the prosecutor comes up with a theory that the statute, if applied very literally, would turn a jaywalking charge into a ten year felony sentence.

An entirely nice female student, who has to travel though rough areas of Detroit, gets suspended from school for an entire year after she is found with a pocketknife that was a quarter inch longer than the school rules allowed.

I can't help but wonder if what we are seeing is "cracking down on the aggressive thugs in school might be difficult or dangerous, so let's crack down on the decent students."

Prices of black market semiautos rise into the thousands, so criminals turn to sharing or leasing out their guns. They even do so on a contingency basis: the user only pays if he actually commits a crime with it.

Joe Foss, NRA President who earned the Medal of Honor. I got off the plane with him in DC when he was talking about the incident with airport security, and I called some folks who had media contacts.

Interesting. But I wish the story explained how the person lost their firearm rights. I can only think of (1) it's some State disqualified or (2) while he was incapacitated following the stroke, they had a guardian created for his property, and that was treated as being found mentally defective.

Article here. It's apparently military contract overrun, and loaded to 9mm+P levels, good in modern guns but not in all.

David Codrea has the story. The BATF hierarchy terminated Agent Vince Cefalu after he exposed illegal wiretapping. (The grounds for the firing were essentially "telling the truth while under oath"). The District Court settlement is that he will be reinstated, allowed to retire, negative references will be deleted from his record, and the government will pay attorneys' fees.

Unless, as the saying goes, "that's not a bug, that's a feature!" The District is requiring submission of a second set of fingerprints, stating that it somehow lost the first set.

NRA lights a fire under the former mayor.

To his mind, it's not hypocrisy, mind you. One of the traits of narcissistic personality disorder is for the person to feel that he can lay down rules, but they don't apply to him because he is "special," with unique purposes, attributes, and needs.

Story here.

MSNBC finds someone to blame for the Ebola scare: the NRA.

I just hope they never figure out how the virus was genetically modified in the NRA labs so that it cannot infect anyone who has recently been exposed to nitrocellulose smoke or Hoppe's No. 9.

Story here. The trial starts Monday, and the defendants are two Sacramento County deputies, an FFL, and a private purchaser.

As I read the story, it arises out of California's discriminatory gun laws. To be sold new in CA, a handgun must pass "safety tests," which are expensive (they must be done by State-licensed labs, and involve a lot more than safety). Lots of ordinary handguns -- such as the Ruger .380 said to be at issue) don't have the certification.

BUT (despite this being a supposed safety standard) police officers (and as I recall the law, employees of a prosecutor's office) can buy unlisted guns from a dealer. I'd guess that the charges involve officers buying unlisted guns and reselling them to private persons who wanted an unlisted firearm. Since California requires all sales to go through an FFL, and also as I recall requires handgun sales to be reported to the State, there can't be an argument that these were true "straw sales," intended to hide the identity of the ultimate owner.

A judge of the Federal Court of Claims has awarded former agent Jay Doybyns over half a million in damages for agency misconduct. "Misconduct" that amounted to betraying and backstabbing an agent who had spent years infiltrating the hell's angels.

His book outlines his work. It's likely the most dangerous undercover work of which I've ever heard: he was infiltrating a large gang to whom murder was a casual matter, and he got full membership by faking the murder of a rival gang member. Then his agency abandoned him, let his new false ID become known, and when his house was destroyed (and wife and kids nearly killed) in an arson fire, backstabbed him with suggestions that he might have done it himself.