The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
This is tongue and cheek, and I think meant to make people think about health insurance mandates, but I would be against compulsory gun ownership just as much as I am against compulsory health insurance.
But I would point out that at least with compulsory gun ownership, Congress could claim it’s a legitimate exercise of its military powers. Under what enumerated power can they claim I must buy health insurance or face jail time?
He’s currently calling for less than outright denial, but he’s still calling on using the terrorist watch list, which is secret, and which is only a database of names, to keep tabs on guns people buy. Actually, the interesting part of this is that apparently the FBI is already keeping track of gun purchases by suspected terrorists:
It is my understanding that when an individual is buying a handgun, National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) staff checks with the Terrorist Screening Center for hits in the Terrorist Screening Database. In the case of valid hits – where the purchaser in question is the subject of a preliminary or full terrorism investigation – NICS staff can delay the gun transaction for up to three business days and contact the FBI Counterterrorism Division to determine whether those agents have prohibiting information about the individual that is not yet contained in the automated databases.
That’s interesting. I wonder how many people are sent into manual review because their name happens to be identical to someone on the terror watch list. And certainly the FBI is destroying those records if they end up clearing the transaction right, as is required by the Brady Act? Of course they are. They’ve always been so scrupulous about that, you know.
It still exists, much to the dismay of a lot of hysterical elites:
Galloway is a licensed gun owner. He keeps a registered and permitted 9 mm handgun in his store vault. He went in and loaded it with a 10-round clip. By that time the robber had begun smashing jewellery cases with the butt of his pistol.
“I stepped out and started shooting,” Galloway said. “Both robbers turned and started running for the door. The first guy made it out. The second guy collapsed in the entrance. I guess I was aiming because I hit him, but I don’t really remember.”
Galloway emptied his clip. Police told him he hit the robber twice. They recommended charges of unsafe storage of a firearm and careless use of a firearm.
Fortunately, Crown prosecutors have so far declined to bring charges. But it’s started a debate; a debate that needs to happen in Canada. It is not vigilanteism to defend oneself from a criminal threatening you with deadly force.
There are plenty of people who agree. Among them is Norman Lapierre, President of the Quebec-based Canadian Association for Self Defence, the organization behind Galloway’s award for bravery.
Lapierre said he believes Galloway did the right thing.
Makes you wonder if there’s any relation to Wayne LaPierre, but it’s good that they are having this debate in Canada. It needs to start happening other places too.
Looks like the Scottish Government is trying to get power to regulate airguns from Westminster, but shooting enthusiasts are trying to stop it, fearing that the Scottish Government will ban them.
Yes, even airgun sports are not safe if our numbers and political power are dropped to a sufficient degree.
Petitioners brief can be found here, which Dave Hardy says is very, very well done. NRA has also filed its brief in this case, which can be found here. Expect more briefs filed in McDonald to be forthcoming.
UPDATE: Dave Hardy points out that the NRA brief is actually filed as a respondent in support of the Petitioner, rather than an amicus brief, and describes the difference.
The Firearms Blog has a post up about racking a Glock with just the inertia of the slide. I was skeptical, so I decided to do that math. I only have a Glock 19 at my disposal for measurement, but it can’t be that radically different than any other Glock. We can get a ballpark figure for how fast a Glock has to be moving for the slide to rack.
We can figure out how fast a Glock has to be traveling in order for the slide to rack when the Glock comes to a halt. We can do this through conservation of energy. The Glock 19 spring takes about 15 lb. or 67 Newtons to move the spring the 3.5cm it needs. Given that the energy of a spring is 1/2 Fx, that give us 0.5 * 67N * 0.035m or 1.17 Joules. To generate enough kinetic energy, the 350g Glock slide would have to move at 2.6 m/s. The human body is certainly capable of generating this kind of speed, but I’m a bit more skeptical one could stop the movement of the gun quickly enough. From a matter of force, it would take an acceleration (using F=ma) of 191 m/s^2, or about 19.5x the force of gravity. That sounds like a lot of acceleration, but it’s not beyond human capability.
What makes me skeptical is the fact that I can’t seem to reproduce this, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Seems to me it would just be easier to repeal it. This list of things that needs improving shows the absurdity of this law in the first place.
As Jacob points out, the Obama Administration isn’t retreating from the Assault Weapons issue entirely, but they pretty clearly aren’t in a hurry to pass it, or to take it on right now. As long as Obama has other issues he wants to get through Congress, he’s probably not going to fight with us. But just because that’s the case today, doesn’t mean it will be the case tomorrow.
Dave Kopel is looking for some information:
I am asking for commenters who can point to similar cases in the U.K., United States, or elsewhere. For example, a student finds a knife on a playground at school; she picks it up and takes it directly to a teacher. She is expelled for possession of a weapon on school property. I’m not looking only for cases involving weapons.
The case that immediately came to my mind was the case of US v. Baker in the 10th Circuit. Mr. Baker saw a loaded speed loader for a revolver laying on the ground, which had been previously stolen. He took this item into his possession for fear children would find it, intending to turn it over to police. But police stopped him, and found it before he could turn it over. He asked that the jury be allowed to get an instruction about innocent possession, which the panel denied. Looking a bit further, in a case with very similar facts, this would also appear to be law in the 4th Circuit as well. There wouldn’t appear to be an innocent possession exemption to the felon-in-possession statutes, but one wonders whether a felon-in-possession could claim a necessity defense under some circumstances.
I just watched Paul Helmke and Jacob Hornberger debate on Nightline’s Twittercast, and I thought Paul mopped the floor with him. Hornberger came off as a foaming at the mouth libertarian extremist, while Paul Helmke was, well, Paul Helmke. Hornberger is President of the Future of Freedom Foundation, which has little to do with gun rights, and I wish would have nothing to do with gun rights after hearing him debate Helmke. My disdain for doctrinaire Libertarians is well known, but it’s hard for even me to believe Hornberger’s statement on Fort Hood:
Amidst all the debate over whether the Ft. Hood killer is a terrorist, murderer, enemy combatant, traitor, sleeper agent, or insane person, there is one glaring fact staring America in the face: what happened at Ft. Hood is more blowback from U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, specifically the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Even at this early stage of the investigation, the evidence is virtually conclusive that the accused killer, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated to kill U.S. soldiers at Ft. Hood by deep anger and rage arising from the things that the U.S. government has been doing to people in the Middle East for many years.
Yeah, you can go to hell Mr. Hornberger. You don’t represent the views of mainstream gun owners, hell, you don’t even represent the views of mainstream libertarians. With guys like this on our side, we don’t need enemies. Hornberger is an extremist, and yet he was chosen by Nightline to represent gun owners. Unbelievable.