Year: 2009
Academics for 2A Working on Another Brief
Clayton Cramer is working on finishing up the final cuts and edits for the Academics for the Second Amendment‘s brief in the McDonald case. They are also looking for donations to help offset the costs of filing the brief.
Tracking the Blood in the Streets
This editorial could have been written by our friend Mark in the comments of a previous thread. Perhaps we are seeing a new tactic against concealed carry, to claim it’s just dangerous, and then say there’s no way to prove its safe because the evil gun lobby won’t let us see who has licenses. Good to see VPC’s allies in the media willing to help this meme along.
Support for McDonald from Mordor
Chuck Michel is reporting that:
Today, 34 California District Attorneys and 8 Nevada District Attorneys joined a consortium of other “friends of the court†to file an “amicus†brief in the United States Supreme Court in the cases ofMcDonald v. Chicago (08-1521) and NRA v. Chicago (08-1497). Both cases ask the Supreme Court to hold that the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution stops state and local governments from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms, just as the Supreme Court has already held that the Second Amendment stops the federal government from infringing on that right.
For those of you who are curious, the California AGs who are signing on are Will Richmond (Alpine), Todd Reibe (Amador), Michael Ramsey (Butte), John Poyner (Colusa), Michael D. Reise (Del Norte), Vern Pierson (El Dorado), Elizabeth A. Egan (Fresno), Robert Holzapfel (Glenn), Edward Jagels (Kern), Ron Calhoun (Kings), Gilbert Otero (Imperial), Michael R. Keitz (Madera), Robert H. Brown (Mariposa), Meredith Lintott (Mendocino), Larry Morse (Merced), Gary Woolverton (Modoc), George Booth (Mono), Tony Rackauckas (Orange), Brad Fenocchio (Placer), Candice Hooper (San Benito), Michael Ramos (San Bernardino), Bonnie M. Dumanis (San Diego), James Willett (San Joaquin), Christie Stanley (Santa Barbara), Gerald C. Benito (Shasta County), Larry Allen (Sierra), J. Kirk Andrus (Siskiyou), David W. Paulson (Solano), Carl V. Adams (Sutter), Greg Cohen (Tehama), Michael Harper (Trinity), Phil Cline (Tulare), Gregory Totten (Ventura), and Jeff Reisig (Yolo).
The Nevada Attorneys General who signed on are Arthur E. Mallory (Churchill), Todd Leventhal (Esmerelda), Russell D. Smith (Humboldt), Hy Forgeron (Lander), Robert Auer (Lyon), Cheri Emm-Smith (Mineral), Jim Shirley (Pershing), and Richard Gammick (Washoe)
In addition to that, there are several California police organizations who have also signed on. California has fifty-eight counties, so this represents 3/5ths of California’s total counties, including some of their more urban counties. Nevada has sixteen counties total, so 1/2 of the counties in Nevada have signed on, including Washoe county which contains Reno and Tahoe. It’s actually kind of disappointing more didn’t sign on in Nevada.
Quote of the Day
From the comments at Richard Fernandez’s blog:
I have always been of the view that carbon based AGW is not proved. It could be true, but the evidence hasn’t been put forward. It would be ironical if it were actually true. But who would believe it now? What these “climate scientists†should have done is conducted the inquiries transparently, with open source code for their models and openly available data for their factbase.
Then everyone could have followed along where ever it led. But somewhere someone got greedy. The prospect of being the Master of the Universe danced like sugarplums in their heads. The Ring grew and took possession of their minds and ate them out. Finally, climate science became a climate carnival. And now the geek just ate the chicken.
Scientists are fallible people too, and no process involving people is going to be immune from politics. Take scientific claims with a grain of salt. The scientific process is much like our government. Theoretically, it’s a very well designed system, with lots of checks and balances to help ensure the best results. But when you fill the system with people, it never works as well as it would seem to in theory.
Another Brady “Cop Killer” Gun
Looks like Kel-Tec is making a semi-auto pistol in .22 Magnum. Of course, this fairly common and 50 year old rimfire caliber isn’t generally thought of as an armor piercing, but it’s performance is very close to the 5.7mm round fired by the much maligned FN Five-Seven. Will the gun control crowd advocate banning this gun too?
Ruling on Tennessee Restaurant Carry
This ruling is certainly a setback, but it doesn’t yet change the law for most of the state, as far as I can tell. SayUncle is checking with his peeps too [UPDATE: Looks like it only applies to Davidson County]. Hopefully like National Park Carry, this will be a short lived victory for the other side, one way or another.
So Begins Thanksgiving Vacation
Leaving work shortly, and will be on vacation for the rest of next week. Blogging will continue, but maybe not on the actual holiday. It’ll actually be a bit of a working vacation, since I have crap to do here that needs to be done by the end of the year. I’m mostly taking off because I have a lot of use-it-or-lose-it vacation left, and I might as well use it as an excuse to work (a lot less) from home.
Gun Control Groups Misleading on Ft. Hood
Surprise, they are claiming their terror watch list legislation would have made a difference, but it wouldn’t have. There is no rule, law, or regulation that is going to stop all tragedy, or even most tragedy. Sometimes bad things just happen. If anything, Ft. Hood is an example of the folly of counting on the government to protect us.
Holder on Gun Policy
The Law Enforcement Alliance of America is reporting on Holder’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee two days ago:
Transcribing General Holder:Â “The position of the Administration is that there should be a basis for law enforcement to share information about gun purchases.” “… [It’s not] inconsistent to allow law enforcement agencies to share that kind of information, for that information to be retained and then to be shared by law enforcement.” “It seems incongruous to me that we would bar certain people from flying on airplanes because they are on the terrorist watch list and yet we would still allow them to posses weapons.”
So the Administration is on record as being in favor of denying Americans constitutional rights based on their presence on a secret government list, and quite probably based only on their sharing a name with someone who is on the list. Will Congress act here? Probably not. But I also wonder what kind of information sharing Holder thinks is allowed by law. The law is pretty clear that if someone passes the background check, the identifying information in the record is destroyed.