Constitutional Law

Study of killers of LEOS

Posted on August 19, 2008
Right here. Tho I am a bit suspicious of the claim that they frequently practice with weapons (80% practicing, average 23 times a year). A big city gang banger is going to be hard put to find open countryside in which to shoot. I note they only studied 43 offenders, so perhaps the results should be taken with a bit of salt.

American Hunters & Shooters Ass'n director takes out new antigun ad

Posted on August 19, 2008
John Rosenthal, the millionaire founding director of AHSA (he resigned last year after his antigun connections became a little too publicized) has taken out a billboard that is a fake gun store front proclaiming "We Sell Guns! No ID required. No background checks...

Heller gets his gun registered

Posted on August 18, 2008
Story here. Hat tip to Six-gun Sarah...

Chicago suburbs trying to get around Heller

Posted on August 18, 2008
Chicago Public Radio has a story. The group doing the drafting, Legal Community Against Violence, is a Joyce Foundation subsidiary.

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Dems pushing DC gun regulation rollback

Posted on August 18, 2008
Story here.

Smackdown of Demo platform on guns

Posted on August 18, 2008
Ouch!

Difficulties of getting a handgun in DC

Posted on August 17, 2008
Story from WTOP News. One FFL dealing with the public (temporarily out of business while he changes address), $125 charge to transfer and paper a gun. Interesting that, while before Heller, the city government was predicting the fall of Republic if their ban wasn't sustained, and now the Chief of Police is simply encouraging people to get firearms safety training, and suggesting maybe someone ought to open an indoor shooting range in the city.

US v. Fincher: no 2A right to own an NFA in a private militia

Posted on August 16, 2008
The 8th Circuit has so ruled. (pdf). The ruling essentially says that a well organized militia must be a State organized militia (and the State law recognized non-Guardsmen only as the "unorganized militia") hence his possession of the NFA firearms was not related to service in a well organized militia...

Disney backs off a little in FLA

Posted on August 16, 2008
Story here. It's claiming that its license to store fireworks (explosives) puts it within an exemption to the statue allowing employees to leave firearms in their parked, locked, cars while working. That's not how I read the statute. Disney has now agreed that employees at sites other than the big one, which has the explosives license, are protected by the law.

TX school district allows teachers to carry guns

Posted on August 15, 2008
Story here. Hat tip to reader Charles Oldfield....

FedEx workers charged with stealing 146 guns

Posted on August 14, 2008
Report here. They were selling so many stolen guns on the street that locals complained. I find it surprising that police then had to set up a sting to catch them. I'd have thought FedEx would have a little more security, i,e,, security cams inside), or at least a system where workers could carry seventy boxes shotguns out to the parking lot...

Len Savage reprisals

Posted on August 14, 2008
Here's an article on the latest. Len is a firearm inventor and designer, who starting having serious problems with ATF Technical Branch after he testified as an expert witness against them several times.

National Rifle Assn ... of India.. getting big boost

Posted on August 14, 2008
Its member, Abhinav Bindra, just won India's first Olympic Gold Medal (in any sport) and has returned home to a hero's welcome ""As long as the sun and moon remain, the nation will remember your name," chanted the crowd at New Delhi airport." Another report: "Bindra returned from Beijing on Thursday to be immediately engulfed by an adoring crowd, followed by a series of meeting with dignitaries including President Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi...

FLA gun buyback

Posted on August 14, 2008
With the usual result: people who are not criminals pick up some cash for old guns. The sad part here is that some of those had history, ownership by grandparents, purchase by a fellow, as a child, 70 years ago, etc.. Hat tip to reader Jack Anderson...

Judge Posner's criticism of Heller

Posted on August 13, 2008
At The New Republic. Generally, he's a good thinker and writer. But not on this subject.

Summing up the British experience

Posted on August 13, 2008
For self-defense, a fellow in Scotland was reduced to carrying, under the seat of his car, a gobstopper (a very law jawbreaker type candy) in a sock. The story comes to light after he was fined 400 pounds for carrying the weapon. "Sheriff Kenneth McIver told him that, even though it was not in the same category as a knife or axe, it was capable of inflicting a nasty injury...

Justice Kennedy on Heller and 14th Amendment

Posted on August 12, 2008
Here it is, in RealMedia video format. Justice Kennedy is speaking at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference. He gets to Heller about 38 minutes in (and the rest of it is interesting, too. He has a great sense of humor. My notes: Audience member asks him what are the best teaching cases of his time on the Court...

Blog devoted to Obama and the gun issue

Posted on August 12, 2008
Right here. It's just getting going, but I figured folks might want to get in on the readership ground floor!

Evanston IL drops handgun ban

Posted on August 12, 2008
Story here. "[Alderman] Rainey suggested that the city might want to consider printing the names of all those who have state firearms cards in the local paper. "Do you want your grandchild going to visit someone who has a gun?" Rainey asked. But no action was taken on that suggestion...

Post-Heller case on Lautenberg matter

Posted on August 11, 2008
At the Volokh Conspiracy, Gene Volokh has a posting on a rather thinly reasoned District Court case, involving a gun possessor who had a misdemeanor DV conviction. The court does little more than cite other post Heller district court decisions upholding other restrictions (e...

Obama's gun problem

Posted on August 10, 2008
My friend Jim Warner has a column on the subject. In the meantime, the Demos keep digging. Their draft platform (pdf) at p. 43, states: "We recognize that the right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans? continued Second Amendment right to own and use firearms...

New trouble for Detroit mayor

Posted on August 08, 2008
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, one of Bloomberg's mayors, gets out of jail for violating conditions of release, on a perjury charge, and is promptly charged with two felony counts of assault on an officer.

I guess John Edwards is off the short list for VP

Posted on August 08, 2008
His explanation doesn't do him much good, either. Yeah, he did her (and apparently was trying to last week) but he doesn't love her and he's sure the child isn't his, but sired by one of his staffers. I suspect there are quite a few who don't demand that a politician keep his zipper shut, but do expect him not to be a cad afterward...

TSA contemplates banning guns at airports entirely

Posted on August 08, 2008
Snowflakes in Hell discusses it. The story is a bit ambiguous: it says TSA is considering "authorizing" airports to ban from everywhere, including parking lots. Note that the request for the action comes from the Atlanta airport, which is facing lawsuits over its rule to that effect, which reportedly conflicts with Georgia's pre-emption statute...

More on the raid on the mayor in MD

Posted on August 08, 2008
From the Baltimore Sun. "When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes...

What Congress should do, post-Heller

Posted on August 08, 2008
Bob Levy and Dave Kopel have an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal on the subject.

Aftermath of DC v. Heller

Posted on August 07, 2008
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is scheduling gun courses for DC residents. And DC residents are forming a lobbying group.

Downfall of another "Mayor Against Illegal Guns"

Posted on August 07, 2008
Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is prominent in Bloomberg's group. It's amusing to read this report, which ends with "The mayor's chief of staff, Kandia Milton, will run the city while Kilpatrick is in jail, mayoral spokeswoman Denise Tolliver said."

Heller and W. Va. municipalities

Posted on August 07, 2008
Not that there's a lot of strict gun laws there, but even so, Heller is having an impact.

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus

Posted on August 06, 2008
Story here, regarding their first national meeting in D.C.. Rather slanted -- a five second clip from the meeting, and more from their opponents -- but then it's hard to expect much else.

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