Arms and the Law

Story here. Among the comments was "Quit looking for ways to skirt the law," when what they had done was to conform to it. And in the process show how meaningless it is.
Neither they nor any inventors of AW bans realize how the separate pistol grip came about -- it's an artifact of the design. Recoil comes along a line that centers on the barrel -- that's where the action and reaction occur. The standard rifle design had the buttstock and thus the shooter's shoulder several inches below the line of the barrel. This created some muzzle flip, but it was tolerable when firing shots one at a time. In full auto, it was not tolerable.

The solution, starting I believe with the German MP-44, was to move the barrel lower, putting the gas tube on top, and to raise the buttstock up to where it was just below the line of the barrel.

But that if the area where the trigger hand grips is raised that far, the position become ergonomically awkward, if not impossible. Hence the pistol grip, separate from the buttstock.

Otis McDonald, petitioner in McDonald v. Chicago, has gone to his rest. Here he is, with his wife, on the steps of the US Supreme Court after the oral argument, four years ago.

Here's his memorial Facebook page. A good man, and a moment in human history.

My thanks to the reader who suggested that the "hit counter" was for some reason locking up the system when viewers tried to load a page.

From today's hearings before Issa's committee. B. Todd Jones, the new head of BATFE, is testifying:

ISSA: Thank you, Director Jones.

And I too want to reiterate the importance of the work that the men and women of the ATF do. And how much we appreciate the many who take a risk to do the right thing in the right way.

Let me go through a couple of questions, no surprise, the first one is a little related to Fast and Furious. Everybody at Department of Justice, from yourself to the attorney general, is living under the specter of Fast and Furious and how it discredited the men and women who do these jobs otherwise right.

Just to make the record clear, was anyone fired as a result of Fast and Furious?

JONES: Mr. Chairman, I can say publicly in this forum that everyone involved at ATF and the chain of command has either been disciplined or is no longer with the agency. ISSA: OK.

But, the answer of, fired, is no. Is that correct?

It's a yes or no -- it really is, Todd.

JONES: As a result of the inspector general's report, the answer is no.

ISSA: OK, so no one was fired. Some chose to retire. But let's go to a particular individual of interest, William Newell. The I.G. recommended he be removed, but in a settlement

An editorial in the Arizona Republic is entitled "Dennis Burke should've been celebrated, not sanctioned" and begins "Exactly why the State Bar of Arizona pursued sanctions against Dennis K. Burke for his involvement in the "Fast and Furious" gun-running scandal is a mystery..."

No, it isn't. He was at the very heart of Fast and Furious, may even have invented it. It sent 2,000 guns to the Mexican drug cartels, got quite a few people killed. On the side, he leaked documents to the press that were meant to harm whistleblowing agent John Dobson, either as revenge or to intimidate him, and in so doing broke the Privacy Act. USA Today has fairer summary. But to the Republic why the Bar gave him -- get this -- a reprimand (the second lowest sanction that can be given), is mystery. He is a scapegoat for Washington, was "standing up" for his office, "He sought to correct the record when others were blinding the American people to the truth."

Strangely, nowhere does the editorial state what that truth was.

Brady Center rescinds Piers Morgan 'Visionary Award' after gun sales skyrocket.

"Yeah, it's weird," Wilson said. "I've always been pro gun-control but when I heard Piers Morgan on television saying we'll all mindless barbarians too afraid of the NRA, I thought, 'you know what? This guy is annoying.' I don't know, something inside me said 'screw that twit, I'm buying a gun.' And that's what I did. It was really out of character."

Hat tip to Peter Buxton....

Right here. As to the State, they have to agree that the court has the power to allow intervention in its discretion; as to everyone else (Brady Campaign, etc.) the argument seems clear that they have no standing to become parties. The State and they are seeking to intervene in order to file a motion for rehearing en banc.

He told FBI undercover agents that he could obtain millions of dollars worth of guns illegally, and had an associate who supplied arms to Islamic terror groups in the Phillipines.

Here it is. Fifty pages, 213 fns. It did take a while to write.

State senator Leland Yee, prominent in pushing for firearm restrictions, gets busted for official corruption, including taking money from a supposed gun trafficking ring.

"The indictment alleges Yee and Jackson defrauded "citizens of honest services" and were involved in a scheme to traffic firearms in exchange for thousands in campaign donations to the senator.
.....
The indictment also describes an August 2013 exchange in which Jackson told an undercover officer that Yee had an arms-trafficking contact. Jackson allegedly said Yee could facilitate a meeting for a donation."

"In 2006, Yee was named to the Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll by the Brady Campaign for his efforts that included co-authoring a first-in-the-nation bill to require new semiautomatic handguns be equipped with ballistics identification technology known as micro-stamping. In 2013, he stood with law enforcement officials and then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to propose a bill that would regulate assault weapons."

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-yee-charged-trafficking-firearms-fbi-20140326,0,4807012.story#ixzz2xBJeX9xK

Opinion here. The core issue: defendant had been convicted under a State statute that forbids knowingly "causing bodily injury," in this case to the mother of his child. The Gun Control Act forbids gun possession by anyone convicted of using or threatening "force" against an intimate partner. Does he fit within the Federal statute, since (1) you can cause bodily injury without using force (e.g., by giving someone drugs or poison) and (2) "force" under the Federal statute might mean something more than what is required to prove common-law battery (for which an offensive poke of the finger is sufficient, although I can't see how this meshes with the State statute that requires injury).

The Supreme Court answers -- good try, but no cigar. Scalia concurs on narrower grounds, agreeing that "force" means enough force to at least hold the potential of causing bodily injury.

Right here. He's one of the whistleblower agents. In his case he spent years infiltrating the Hell's Angels -- then ATF, for reasons unknown, let his personal data become public. Credible death threats followed, without ATF giving him any security. His house was burned down, and ATF tried to pin it on him.

He sued the agency ... the court took three weeks of testimony, and has not yet ruled. Here's a news account of the last day of the trial. Dobdyns' blog is more detailed:

"Today U.S. Court of Claims Judge Francis Allegra opened the closing argument phase of my lawsuit by making the statements that he was the "finder of fact" and "decider of law" in this matter. He went on to say that after three weeks of trial (June and July 2013) his assessment of ATF's treatment of me was "wretched", their acts were "purposeful", derived out of "professional jealousy" and "simply spiteful."

Judge Allegra went on to say that during trial, witnesses testifying for the government had answered questions in his courtroom with "less than candor". That is a tactful way of saying they committed perjury, or for the rest of us

Story here.

Innovator Enterprises v. United States, D.D.C., Mar. 19, 2014.

ATF ruled that a sample muzzle brake submitted for testing was a silencer. But it turned out that, while ATF has equipment to measure sound levels, it doesn't use them to test samples. Instead it used it to establish that certain features are consistent with being a silencer, and then just looks at the sample to see if it has those features. Which is rather like determining that competitive racing cars have transmissions with five or more speeds, thus any auto with five or more speeds is ready to enter the Indy 500. Or, for that matter, ATF is a federal agency, FBI is a federal agency, so ATF is FBI.

As the judge notes,

"A mouse is not an "elephant" solely because it has three characteristics that are common to known elephants: a tail, gray skin, and four legs. A child's bike is not a "motorcycle" solely because it has three characteristics common to known motorcycles: two rubber tires, handlebars, and a leather seat. And a Bud Light is not "Single-Malt Scotch," just because it is frequently served in a glass container, contains alcohol, and is available for purchase at a tavern."

via

That's the title and the content of this article in Reason Online.

When I first got into 2A writing, back 39 years ago, I never dreamed I'd see a headline like that. Heck, I wouldn't have dreamed it ten years ago.

The Delaware Supreme Court, in Boone v. Wilmington Housing Authority, ruled that a public housing agency cannot preclude possession of firearms in common areas. It noted that many of those common areas are what would in ordinary houses be part of the house/home, and rejected claims that the government here was acting as a landlord and not as a sovereign.

"With the Common Area Provision in force under penalty of eviction, reasonable, law-abiding adults become disarmed and unable to repel an intruder by force in any common living areas when the intervention of society on their behalf may be too late to prevent an injury."

Via reader Mac Cox comes this post on the differences. I've fired both in my AR-15 without problems, but the post says this is not advisable.

News of the first here. The bills would required chief law enforcement officers to sign the required certification within a deadline (15 days in the Utah bill).

David Codria has them.