Constitutional Law

Heck of a gun meet!

Posted on November 12, 2010
It's the Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show! Next one scheduled in June, here's the webpage.

IG criticism of ATF border-related activities

Posted on November 10, 2010
Story here. "It said the ATF focuses largely on inspections of gun dealers and investigations of "straw purchasers," rather than on higher-level traffickers, smugglers and the ultimate recipients of the trafficked guns." The point is likely that ATF is adhering to its decades-long customary approach: see if you can bust a gun dealer or an illegal buyer, rather than trying to look for big fish...

Another dumb crook story

Posted on November 08, 2010
Reminder memo: do not commit an armed robbery while leaving a business where you just filed an employment application with your real name and address.

Bill Whittle on the right to arms

Posted on November 07, 2010
A very nice video discussion. Via Instapundit. My brother in law had a heart attack Saturday, will get a triple or quad bypass tomorrow, so there won't be a lot of blogging for a while.

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Medical update

Posted on November 04, 2010
It's gotten to where I can walk, but still have to go barefoot on the left since I can't get it into a shoe or even a sandal due to tissue damage and swelling. But a lot better than it was before. Here's what it looked like in the ER. I can time this to between 10 PM and 1:30 AM, or 4-5 hours after the bite, while it was still worsening...

Status of challenge to NY's permit system

Posted on November 04, 2010
An update on the Kachalsky v. Cacace case, over at Guns and Money. NY plans to try every procedural ploy they can, and has gotten permission to file a 50 page brief, twice the normal size.

DC court equivocates on right to arms and ammunition

Posted on November 04, 2010
Discussion over at The Volokh Conspiracy. It's Herrington v. United States, a conviction under the DC Code section that outlaws possession of ammunition unless the possessor has a registered arm in the same "gauge or caliber" (so might a person with a ...

oral argument over GMU ban on carrying

Posted on November 03, 2010
Summary here. At issue is a challenge (apparently by a nonstudent) to George Mason Univ's ban on firearms possession. It's not clear to me whether the ban relates to campus or to school buildings.

robbers pick wrong guy

Posted on November 03, 2010
Video here. I can't believe the first armed robber got only five years, until I realized this was California.

Remington 700 safety problems

Posted on November 02, 2010
Not good news for the rifle.

Internet scam warning

Posted on October 30, 2010
This morning I received an email, with s spoofed return of the Lexis/Nexis company, saying that all subscribers must sign in every so many months and I had not, with a link to click on to restore my account. I don't have an account with them, and the link goes (with a spoofed url so it looks like Lexis/Nexis) to an Indian webpage...

Research discoveries

Posted on October 26, 2010
Been too pained with rattlesnake bite to do much writing, but while out of town I researched the papers of Homer Cummings, Attorney General in the 1930s. Found an interesting 1935 memo to him from J. Edgar Hoover (who then signed his name John Edgar Hoover)...

Another research discovery

Posted on October 26, 2010
Forgot to mention another find. Remember, back in 1935, the understanding of the commerce power was that Congress could control, well, interstate commerce. How to apply that to a person who bought something locally and kept it at home and never took it interstate was a serious question...

Justice Scalia takes Justice Kagan shooting

Posted on October 25, 2010
Now, this is interesting. Apparently he's teaching her how to shoot skeet. Hat tip to Sixgun Sarah....

Another "this is pitiful" moment

Posted on October 24, 2010
Brady Campaign issues candidate endorsements, State and Federal. In 21 States, they cannot find a single candidate, at either level, that they endorse. For the remainder, they have States like Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, Louisiana, Georgia, Colorado, Maine and Tennessee, with one US House endorsement each.

You never know which way is up

Posted on October 24, 2010
Once upon a time, you could be sure that, if a band of guys clad all in black with masks concealing their faces kicked down your door, they were not law enforcement. Then it got to where if a band a guys clad all in black with masks concealing their faces kicked down your door, it WAS law enforcement...

Oral argument on Nordyke v. King

Posted on October 21, 2010
Audio is here. This is the argument on remand from the en banc panel, in light of the McDonald ruling.

The times they are a-changing....

Posted on October 20, 2010
You know that's the case when the Washington Post blog -- specifically its book review section -- runs an article by Paxton Quigley. Hat tip to Dan Gifford....

Out of ICU

Posted on October 19, 2010
Out of ICU and hospital and back home. Still pretty incapacitated. Can't stand without great pain.... foot and calf are distended, and when I stand blood pools there and hurts like blazes. I can see black patches on foot where tissue is going to be lost, but they are not large...

alive

Posted on October 18, 2010
returned from research trip and that night stepped on a diamondback rattler. Still inn the IUC but at least they have free wifi. Went iff morphine last night. Five rounds of antivenin,fourvials per round beforre blood coag normalized. Leg very swollen.

Interim ruling in one of the Chicago II cases

Posted on October 14, 2010
Discussion of the evidence and ruling here. This isn't a final disposition by any means. A lot of test cases do get disposed of at the prelim injunction stage, but the judge rules that this is not one of those. To get a preliminary injunction, which would bar enforcement of the statute during the time while trial is pending, a party must show that they are likely (tho not sure) to win, and also that they will suffer irreparable harm if made to wait for trial, plus two other things...

public reaction to allowing firearms in bars

Posted on October 12, 2010
It's generally quite favorable. HT to Sixgun Sarah...

Brady Campaign can't make up its mind

Posted on October 10, 2010
At the Huffington Post, Dennis Hennigan complains of an "insurrectionist view of the Second Amendment." He is appalled that the Solicitor General's brief in Heller argued that "an armed citizenry as a deterrent to abusive behavior by the federal government itself...

Mental commitment, disarmament, and standard of proof

Posted on October 09, 2010
It's a debate at the Volokh Conspiracy.

New article on McDonald and Privileges or Immunities

Posted on October 08, 2010
"The Tell-Tale Privileges or Immunities Clause" by Alan Gura, Ilya Shapiro, and Josh Blackman. Abstract: Help is on the way! That?s the Supreme Court?s most readily obvious message for those Americans living in the small handful of states that don?t respect the right to keep and bear arms...

Canadian refuses to register, govt tries to forfeit his house

Posted on October 06, 2010
His family has set up a webpage, here. He let it be known that he had firearms without a permit, in order to challenge the requirement. The result was that he was convicted, imprisoned for 11 days, and now the Ontario government is seeking to forfeit his house...

Embarrassments enough

Posted on October 06, 2010
I think it was Cicero who said of a senator who'd become a skirt-chaser, "old age has embarrassments enough, without adding to them those of youth." That came to mind when reading this story -- a 67 year old senior Federal District Judge busted for buying cocaine to share with an exotic dancer...

File under only police are competent to have handguns

Posted on October 05, 2010
The headline says it all:SHERIFF'S DEPUTY MISTAKENLY FIRES EIGHT SHOTS AT ROBBERY VICTIM, MISSES. ""The deputy fired eight rounds and missed him,'' Ault told WeHo News. ?Ultimately, deputies determined that the man the deputy fired upon was the store's clerk who was pointing to them trying to get their attention...

18 USC 924 mandatory sentence in the Supreme Court

Posted on October 03, 2010
Abbott v US, to be argued Monday. Preview here. 18 USC 924(c) provides a mandatory, consecutive five year sentence for use of a gun in a drug offense, "Except to the extent that a greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by this subsection or by any other provision of law...

Argument Monday in post-McDonald case

Posted on October 03, 2010
The case is State v. Charles Williams, pending in the Maryland Court of Appeals. I'm told Williams was charged with carrying without a permit, said permits being very difficult to get, and has raised the constitutionality of the requirement. I'd expect there will be procedural issues (e...

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