Constitutional Law

Heads up for FFLs who sell to California FFLs

Posted on June 12, 2008
California has enacted a new silly statute: before shipping to a CA dealer, you must obtain a verification and approval from the State Bureau of Firearms. Effective date July 1. I say silly, because the object is to verify that the recipient has an FFL...

No opinion in Heller today

Posted on June 12, 2008
Gitmo detainees and four other cases. With 22 cases going in, that leaves 17 to be decided. Next day for opinion releases will be Monday. But I do like it when the Court goes on a historical bent (and not just because that makes odds of a Heller win higher)...

Fun with a Thompson

Posted on June 11, 2008
Video here.

Josh Horowitz on the situation in Mexico

Posted on June 11, 2008
Over at the Huffington Post. It's one of the fad arguments: American guns are being used by the drug gangs there, so America needs to change its laws. One wonders ... how do the guns get there? Answer: slip the border guard a small sum (used to be $10, now I've heard it's $20, weakening dollar affects everything) and he doesn't look in the trunk of your car...

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Ohio castle doctrine signed into law

Posted on June 10, 2008
Story here.

The (anti)Gun Guys at it again

Posted on June 10, 2008
To properly terrorize their audience, they post video of A Magpul Industries guy demonstrating an invention, a prototype. It looks like a large billfold, but unfolds into a shoulder-stocked full auto Glock. They add "all the company would have to do to legally sell the weapon is convert it from a fully automatic machine gun into a semi-automatic assault rifle...

Taser loses liability suit

Posted on June 10, 2008
Story here. And has punitives awarded to boot.

Quite a case

Posted on June 10, 2008
Appellate opinion here, in pdf. Defendant was prosecuted for tax evasion (and got ten years) and for soliciting the murder of government officials (and got 33 years for that). Key witness to the latter testified he was a Marine vet, served in secret missions in or after the Korean War, had a purple heart and silver star, and when challenged, pulled out the service paperwork to prove it all...

Amusing hoax and gullible media

Posted on June 10, 2008
Here's the story of "The Arm the Homeless Coalition" It sent out press releases with pics of a guy in a Santa suit with a sign reading "100 percent of contributions will be used to provide desperately needed protection for our country?s homeless." The Columbus Dispatch editorialized against the group, the story was picked up by AP, Rush Limbaugh, and others, newspapers buzzed with angry letters to the editor...

CCW bans in churches

Posted on June 10, 2008
Many CCW permit systems forbid licensees to carry in certain locations -- bars, courthouses, etc.. A fair number of these have a prohibition on carry in churches. Jack Burton has some interesting thoughts on this, and principles of separation of church and state...

College pro-2A groups expanding

Posted on June 10, 2008
Article here. I was impressed that Students for Concealed Carry on Campus has quickly mustered 30,000 members. And related news: Hillsdale College, in Michigan, has built a 71-acre shooting range and plans gun storage lockers for students. That's the spirit!

Vote for top gun bloggers

Posted on June 09, 2008
You can cast your vote here. The top ten vote getters receive a ParaUSA pistol and a weekend of training with Todd Jarrett. Everyone casting a vote gets entered in a raffle for the same weekend training (and maybe the pistol, I'm not clear there).

Obama's proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school

Posted on June 09, 2008
Reader Henry Bowman had a comment blocked by the spam filter, and merits a separate post. He writes: "Barack Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America." is more than just a little exaggeration...

Thoughts on reasoned discourse

Posted on June 09, 2008
Snowflakes in Hell has some strategic thoughts on reasoned discourse, why our side tends to use it, and why the other side gets upset when we do.

San Fran police chief has little problem with her guns

Posted on June 08, 2008
Story here. Officers there are supposed to re-qualify with their firearms every six months. Scores of them have been disciplined for failure to do so. The chief sorta forget to re-qualify for five years. Ooops. Hat tip to The Mechanic...

At first I thought this was satire...

Posted on June 08, 2008
But I think he's serious. With friends like this, Obama needs no enemies. NRA is "smearing" him as antigun, when actually he only favors registration, waiting periods, training requirements, ban on guns that are too cheap, one gun a month, ban on State CCW permits, no gun shop within five miles of a school, AW ban, and a few other trifles...

I'm glad that NY City thinks only LEOs should carry...

Posted on June 08, 2008
Hofstra campus police see a fellow burst thru their security checkpoint, confront a fellow who was dating his ex-girlfriend, and stick a gun in his face. They arrest him, and find out he's an NYPD officer with his service pistol Hat tip to reader Greg Mirsky...

More on the Jack Weinstein gun lawsuits

Posted on June 08, 2008
Interesting story in The Daily Reporter. Judge Weinstein, US District Court, denied jury trial to one of the dealers sued by Bloomberg. To be precise, he allowedly only an "advisory jury." That's a procedure in judge-only trials (of which there are a few narrow classes), where the judge takes the jury's verdict as "advice" in the course of entering his own verdict...

More knife violence

Posted on June 08, 2008
Yesterday I posted on articles reporting that "stabbings have become an epidemic in Britain" and in Canada. Today comes word of a fellow who "went on a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's premier electronics and video game district, killing six people and wounding 12, authorities said...

How NOT to rob a store

Posted on June 07, 2008
Video here. NB: if planning to rob a convenience store, do not announce the robbery and then find you can't get the gun out of your pocket.

Knife crime in Canada, UK

Posted on June 07, 2008
The Toronto Globe and Mail has the story. ""All those things we're doing to decrease firearm weapons is cutting down the availability of these guns," says Staff Inspector Brian Raybould, the head of the Toronto police homicide squad. "At the same time, criminals who choose to arm themselves have to find some way to do it...

Professor introducing self to the gun culture

Posted on June 06, 2008
Here's her blog entry, and here's her first post to Inside Higher Education.

In Utah?

Posted on June 06, 2008
The city council in South Jordan, Utah, is considering banning toy and replica guns, and paintball guns. Hat tip to reader Nathan...

Last night

Posted on June 06, 2008
I'm relaxing in the hot tub late in the evening. I hear an engine approaching at high speed, and then a long crunching sound. I knew what it was. The road comes up here in a long, straight course, rising to a ridge ... and then as you pop over the ridge it weaves left, then right...

Dumb crooks -- felon in possession

Posted on June 06, 2008
Note: if a person is a felon, they shouldn't possess a firearm. And if they do, they shouldn't take a picture of themselves doing so. And if they do take such a picture, they shouldn't use somebody else's camera phone.

New book

Posted on June 05, 2008
Howard Nemerov's new book, "Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn't It Working," is available at Barnes & Noble onlin.

More on knife crime in Great Britain

Posted on June 05, 2008
Story here. "The deaths have sparked fears of a knife crime "epidemic" among Britain's young, and spurred the government to announce tougher penalties for teens caught carrying a blade." ..... ""Young people need to understand that carrying knives doesn't protect you, it does the opposite - it increases the danger for all of us, destroys young lives and ruins families," Brown said...

NFA scam

Posted on June 05, 2008
SayUncle has the story. Basically, a guy has a registered, relatively cheap, NFA firearm. Say it's a MAC-10, serial no. 1000. He cuts the serial no. section out, makes a receiver for a high cost NRA, say a BAR, and welds the serial number in. Then he sells it with the assurance it's perfectly legal...

Glad to know the DC gun ban has made things safer

Posted on June 05, 2008
DC will seal off high-crime areas, set up vehicle checkpoints. Drivers who fail to show ID will be arrested for failure to obey an officer. (?) Reading carefully -- actually, they're going to set up a checkpoint only on one street in the area. Pedestrians will not be stopped (and in DC, you get around on foot or via Metro whenever you can -- traffic goes slowly and usually there's no parking)...

NRA wins Philly challenge

Posted on June 04, 2008
They got a permanent injunction on two statutes. On others, the court held plaintiffs had no standing to sue (thus neither upholding or striking down the rules). The mayor's spokesman says the latter shows they were "legal and not actions of a renegade government...

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