Arms and the Law

Dave Workman has the story. Just inside the "no firearms allowed" sign was an armed guard, for their protection.

Right here. In response to the court's questions, the sheriff says he supports California's motion to intervene, and case is not moot since he won't issue permits until the court orders him to do so (which would be after the appeal is remanded to the district court).

Rep. John Conyers does not qualify for the primary. Two of his signature-gatherers were not registered voters, as MI law requires. Of course, I'm sure there will be a legal challenge, and with a friendly judge it is amazing what can turn out to be unconstitutional.

By PewResearch.

Findings:

The gun homicide rate has fallen by 49% over the last twenty years, and the rate for other gun crimes has fallen by 75%.

BUT...

"Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower."

The government of Mexico has announced it is demobilizing the vigilante movement against drug cartels there.

Under the demobilization agreement, the ranchers and farmers will keep their now-illegal guns, the government will proclaim the gun legal, and they will be organized into the rurales.

"The new rural forces are designed to be a way out of an embarrassing situation, in which elected leaders and law enforcement agencies lost control of the entire state to the pseudo-religious Knights Templar drug cartel. Efforts to retake control with federal police and military failed. Eventually government forces had to rely on the vigilantes because of their knowledge of where to find the cartel gunmen.

Since the commissioner, Alfredo Castillo, was named in January, federal forces have arrested or killed three of the main leaders of the Knights Templar. The fourth, Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, is in hiding and rumored to be in the rugged hills outside his hometown of Arteaga."

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state...

A student tries bullying another, isn't successful, so he tries another tack. When the other student is twirling a pencil, the bully calls out, "He's making gun motions, send him to juvie." The school obliges, the bullied student gets suspended, has to take a psych evaluation, and blood tests for drugs. No word if they did anything to the bully.

The cry would be to disarm the dangerous lunatics. 377 shots fired, the suspect and an unarmed passenger in his car killed, reports that the wounded passenger was killed while trying to raise his hands, so much firing that two people experienced eardrum ruptures.

The shooting is under review, and "those reviews will likely take years to complete."

The Oklahoma Senate voted unanimously to override the governor's veto of a bill requiring CLEOs to sign off on NFA firearms transfer applications. The override had already passed in the House.

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."