Constitutional Law

leaving NRA convention

Posted on May 18, 2010
Heading home... too busy to blog for a few days, but Snowflakes in Hell has had great coverage of events.

Light blogging for a time

Posted on May 13, 2010
Off to the NRA convention in the morning. I won't be reporting much for a while since I'll be busy at their legal seminar all of Friday. In the meantime -- if you're commenting and use a gmail address, I had to block that due to a wave of comment spam, but the blog is set so that it will accept comments with no email address, or with an invented one.

Challenge to Geo. Mason Univ. exclusion of firearms

Posted on May 12, 2010
Pleadings here. Fellow blogger Rudy Digacinto challenges GMU's ban on open carry, as violating State pre-emption, the State constitution, and the 14th Amendment. And here is NRA's amicus. I find it rather ironic that the policy is in place at George Mason University, of all places, given Mason's enormous role in creating the first State declaration of rights, in pushing for the Federal bill of rights, and in arguing in the Virginia ratifying convention that disarmament leads to tyranny.

NRA Convention

Posted on May 12, 2010
The word is that 70,000 are expected to attend the convention in Charlotte this week -- so many that TV stations are announcing likely traffic delays.

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Elena Kagan's nonreaction to Heller

Posted on May 12, 2010
The NY Times has her answers to questions posed when she was nominated for SG.

Does gun control contribute to militarization of police?

Posted on May 11, 2010
Article here, citing Chicago as a prime example. Thought: at the same time that we are militarizing police, we are orienting the military toward civilian police standards. The objectives are increasingly toward arresting suspects, as opposed to destroying the enemy...

Elena Kagan nominated for Supreme Court

Posted on May 10, 2010
And Paul Campos asks whether she is the next Harriet Miers? It's a very good question. What distinction has she achieved? As a judge -- zero. Not that I consider that a barrier; the Warren Court boasted some serious intellect, despite only one Justice having sat on a Circuit court (and Justice Black having served a year as a police court judge)...

No fly lists

Posted on May 08, 2010
With regard proposals to turn persons listed on terrorism watch lists into prohibited possessors, this story is but one of many: "There are about one million names on the combined government watch list for airline travelers, according to the Public Education Center, a Washington DC-based non-profit group that tracks airline security...

Omaha police abusing registration

Posted on May 07, 2010
Nebraska Firearms Owners Association has the story. A member shot a gang member in self-defense, and police held his firearm as evidence. NFOA took up contributions, and got him a replacement. But Ohama apparently has some manner of registration requirement, and when he went in to register it, he was told that his registration would be "delayed," for some unspecified reason...

More thoughts on whether we are seeing a cultural shift

Posted on May 07, 2010
A cultural shift, and not just fear of a new Administration (which by now is over a year old). Here's Ruger Arms' report to its shareholders. 2009 earnings per share trebled, and first quarter of 2010 beats first quarter of 2009 (i.e., the quarter following the election)...

ATF: still without a director

Posted on May 07, 2010
The current acting director had to step down because there's a limit on how long a person can be "acting" without Senate confirmation. (I think a person can only be "acting" for 120 days in such a post -- this keeps a president from calling someone an acting director or acting secretary and giving them full power without getting Senate confirmation).

This is REALLY pitiful

Posted on May 06, 2010
Brady Campaign sets up an online fundraiser, raising bucks to oppose open carry and its squabble with Starbucks: "is this the America you really want to live in?" And raises a a whopping $20.

Video of SWAT raid

Posted on May 06, 2010
Pretty horrifying. Hat tip to reader George Mocsary...

State pre-emption bars university ban on carrying

Posted on May 06, 2010
Dave Kopel has the story, and a note that CCW permittees had already been allowed to carry at the largest campus, for seven years, without incident.

Nevada ACLU declares for the individual right to arms

Posted on May 04, 2010
Story here.

New record sniper shot

Posted on May 03, 2010
A British sniper in Afghanistan has scored two one-shot kills at 1.54 miles, on a pair of Taliban machinegunners. (The reference in the article to an 8.59 mm bullet is actually a reference to the .338 Lapua Magnum version of the British L115A1 rifle...

Taking a long term look

Posted on May 03, 2010
NSSF reports that in 2009, with the rest of our industrial picture going from bad to worse, the firearms industry added 16,000 jobs (a 10% gain) while wages went from six billion to eight billion dollars. In first quarter 2009, Ruger Arms reported increased sales over first quarter 2009...

Further thoughts on effects of pardons

Posted on May 01, 2010
Snowflakes in Hell has some thoughts on the effect of a conviction and then pardon in State A, on the person's gun rights if he moves to State B. I had a related issue once posed in relation to, I believe, Florida. A restoration of all civil rights, including gun rights, means a convicted person is no longer barred from gun ownership...

Those were the days!

Posted on April 30, 2010
From The American Rifleman, April 1928: "'U.S. Rifle, cal. 30, model 1898 (Krag) ......$1.50.' So reads the all too brief description of one of the finest, truest, and most companionable rifles ever produced, in the rifleman's treasure-house, the D.C...

Suit over gun ownership by pardoned felons

Posted on April 30, 2010
Story here. I'd guess that the legislature forbade ownership by anyone convicted of a felony, and forgot to insert an exception for ones who are pardoned. If that's the case, there may be an interesting separation of powers question. If the State constitution gives the governor the power to pardon, can the legislature interfere with the normal effects of that? Hat tip to Sixgun Sarah...

Bus passengers fight back in Belize

Posted on April 30, 2010
Story here, via Consul at Arms. Two robbers hijack a moving bus in Belize; one orders the bus driver to slow and to open the door. The driver does so, whereupon a ballsy passenger gives the hijacker a kick that send him out the door. The other tries to shoot, his gun jams, and the passengers give him a fatal overdose of Whupass...

Mayor Daley talks of suing in the World Court

Posted on April 28, 2010
Story here. I suppose narcissism has difficulty seeing limits.... Hat tip to Sixgun Sarah....

Can we run this guy for President?

Posted on April 28, 2010
Texas governor Rick Perry, out jogging without a security detail but with a .380, pops a coyote who was giving his daughter's dog some hungry looks. His spokesman explains there is no report: "People shoot coyotes all the time, snakes all the time," Mange said...

Giving up hope

Posted on April 27, 2010
On the Brady Campaign grading system, Arizona scores two points out of 100. That means we're beating Florida (six points) Texas (nine points), and many others. I checked out the details of their grading system, hoping that we could get down to zero, but it's going to be hard...

Leader of Deacons for Defense passes on

Posted on April 27, 2010
Robert Hicks, one of the last surviving leaders of Deacons for Defense, has died at age 81. "But his role in the civil rights movement went beyond armed defense in a corner of the Jim Crow South. He led daily protests month after month in Bogalusa ? then a town of 23,000, of whom 9,000 were black ? to demand rights guaranteed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act...

Followup on Customs & ATF seizure of airsoft pellet guns

Posted on April 27, 2010
Story here. Customs seized a lot of airsoft rifles, apparently thinking they were machineguns, and then gave them to ATF. PajamasMedia filed a FOIA request for supporting documents ... and got a reply which is utterly incomprehensible.

Thoughts on picking a non-judge for the Supreme Court

Posted on April 27, 2010
An interesting article in the National Law Journal. I'd agree that the tend of the last few decades -- select only Federal Court of Appeal judges, on the theory that they have experience and a track record -- is one that treats judging as something separate from knowing the law...

89 year old lady fires in self-defense

Posted on April 26, 2010
Story here. She had a .22, went for a headshot, missed, but the thug for some reason decided to depart. I guess he figured the odds were good for him against an 89 year old, but not so good for him against an 89 year old and a pistol. Via Fear and Loading.

AR-15 popularity

Posted on April 26, 2010
NSSF notes their survey data indicating that 8.9 million Americans shot an AR-15 platform rifle last year. That'd be over a quarter of all shooters. This may be useful in light of Heller's reference to "dangerous and unusual weapons" being unprotected.

Family histories

Posted on April 25, 2010
I was just remembering a matter involving my my late ex, Frances. After I discovered that the name Hardy is an alias, taken by my outlaw judge great-grandfather, our son Mark found it very interesting, but Frances found it rather appalling. Mark wanted to write a paper for school on the subject, and she made him pick some other topic...

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