January 2010 – Page 8 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Austin Gun Show Controversy

A reader sent me a link to a dust up between a gun show promoter, the Austin, TX police, and ATF. I was hoping today to getting around to looking at this story more closely, but in a fantastic bit of citizen journalism, Howard Nemerov already has the scoop on this issue. His conclusion:

There are no clear-cut villains and victims here. In the final analysis, you the reader need to decide the best course of action. Facts, not rhetoric, help make educated decisions.

Having this kind of thing happen to a gun show is not all that unusual. We lost a big one here in Pennsylvania because the Fort Washington Expo Center’s new management decided they no longer wanted to host gun shows on their property. Not much you can do in that situation except find a new venue. I would point out that the Fort Washington Expo Center is now defunct, however, so maybe kicking the gun show to the curb was not their only poor business decision.

But I still want to write about what I think would be a novel legal issue in regards to gun shows, particularly if nuisance ordinances are used against them. Texas, like most other states, preempts local governments from enforcing anti-gun ordinances:

No governmental subdivision or agency may enact or enforce a law that makes any conduct covered by this code an offense subject to a criminal penalty. This section shall apply only as long as the law governing the conduct proscribed by this code is legally enforceable.

Texas preemption statute is very strong, and I suspect whatever Austin might want to construe its nuisance ordinances to mean, it can’t construe them as meaning they can use them to force out a gun show. But does it prevent them from asking the landlord to put restrictions on the show? One could argue if there’s no legal threat, it’s not enforcement, and so preemption does not apply. But one could also argue that any lawful authority, such as a nuisance unit of a police department, that even talking to a landlord, who might have good reasons to want to stay on good terms with a police agency of that nature, amounts to a form of coercion. This would, of course, be a long shot argument, but such arguments have been made successfully in other contexts.

It’s interesting what could happen if other cities suddenly started taking generally applicable laws, and even hinting to property owners that they could be applied if they don’t kick out gun shows. Preemption laws, in spirit, are supposed to deal with that problem, but that gets more dicey laws get applied sneakily or stealthily, in a way that makes it hard for us to prove a preemption violation. For this, we will need show promoters to fight, and work with relevant organizations, like NRA, NSSF, etc, to uncover exactly what local authorities are up to if they suspect pressure is being applied to get gun shows out of their jurisdictions. Preemption is merely a tool, it’s not an absolute protection against all malfeasance on the part of local governments. Making is work is up to us.

Hottie with a Gun

I would call it gun porn, except said hottie is all dressed up. And here’s a close up.

UPDATE: I would like everyone to note the author on the above post. I have not become a switch hitter, or started to bat for the other team :) -Sebastian

UPDATE: I would like everyone to note that Sebastian just took the fun out of this post. :( -Bitter

Game Changing

A few weeks ago I would have said a candidate like this, running on a platform of getting rid of gun registration in Texas, even though there is no gun registration in Texas, wouldn’t stand a chance. Of course, I don’t think she means ending gun registration in Texas because she’s speaking of non-existent Texas law. Given her platform of claiming state nullification of federal laws that interfere with what she thinks of as Texas’ prerogative, I’m thinking she means to do away with 4473s. We have a similar candidate here in Pennsylvania, a laid off biologist who cashed in his retirement and mortgaged his house for a shot at the top job.

Normally this kind of outside the box thinking is punished at the polls, but we just elected a Republican to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, and while Scott Brown may not win social conservative of the year award, on fiscal matters he’s not exactly a soft Republican. Anything is possible now. Run your cat. Maybe he’ll win. Can he meow softly on tax policy?

Guns: Not Just For Shooting People

Apparently they can also double as a vehicular rescue tool.

The Boxer Rebellion

Now we have heard theÂ Scott Heard Round the World, next up, the Boxer Rebellion:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CprVYsG0k[/youtube]

Babs, you are SO next!

Brown in the Black

It’s looking increasingly like the Massachusetts race is coming out in favor of Brown. With a majority of precincts reporting, it’s looking like Coakley is conceding. You’d think I’d be jumping for joy, but you know, I think I’m still in shock. We just turned Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts over to the GOP, and with an NRA A rated candidate. It’s like any minute things are going to get fuzzy and I’m going to find myself naked at school, and then hear the alarm go off.

I can’t even really speculate on the political implication of this for the Democrats. This is an upset of epic proportions for them. It’s like Bill Gates beating Mike Tyson. At the least, I would imagine we’re not done hearing about Democratic retirements. How’s this going to affect the health care monstrosity? I suspect it’s done. At the very least, the Democrats now have to know Obama cannot save them.Â I can’t imagine the Democrats are going to be in the mood to do anything controversial at this point. But if there’s one thing I’m amazed at, it’s the self-destructive tendency the Democrats have been exhibiting, so I wouldn’t write anything off.

UPDATE: Blog post title of the day on this “Hell. Ice. Some Assembly Required“

Politically Motivated?

As SayUncle is reporting, an executive at Smith & Wesson is facing a federal indictment, along with 22 others. I wouldn’t toss the suggestion that this could be politically motivated lightly, but what has my suspicious is what they are charged under:

The indictments charged the individuals, including Smith & Wesson vice president for sales Amaro Goncalves, with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering involving the sale of items including guns and body armor, among other things.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act essentially makes it a crime to bribe foreign officials. My understanding from people involved in international business, is that bribery of foreign officials is pretty much par for the course if you want to do business in certain countries, like China, Russia, or most of the third world. That would lead me to believe that Smith & Wesson is hardly alone if some of their business practices involve bribing foreign officials. You can’t really do business in many places of the world without paying bribes.

Maybe I’m off base here, and prosecutions under the FCPA are a lot more common than I thought, which would mean this isn’t a case of selective prosecution at all. But it’s hard for me to believe this isn’t a commonly flouted law, which would cause me to wonder what, in particular, motivated the feds to bring charges in this case.

UPDATE: More info here, courtesy of The Firearms Blog. The arrests were made at SHOT? Not politically motivated at all! No, sir. It would appear to be that revenge may be at least a partial motivator, though:

As part of the FBI sting operation, an unidentified business associate who was a former executive for an arms manufacturer arranged a meeting between the arms sales representatives and undercover FBI agents who posed as representatives of an African country’s minister of defense.

And evidence this type of operation is indeed unusual:

Breuer said the investigation was the largest action ever undertaken by the Justice Department against individuals in an FCPA case. He also said it marked the department’s first large-scale use of undercover techniques in an FCPA investigation.

“We’re steadily pushing this unacceptable practice out of the business playbook by prosecuting companies and individuals who ignore the law, as well as by working with our international counterparts in their efforts to prevent and prosecute foreign bribery,” Breuer said.

He said the Justice Department currently has 140 open FCPA investigations. Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division, said 20 agents were working on FCPA cases full time.

I wonder if this was a way to go after the firearms industry in a way that we couldn’t rightly complain, because they are breaking the law, after all. Unfortunately just about everyone is a federal criminal these days. Perhaps this marks the feds cracking down on this practice in general. I’m sure it will do wonders for the economy and job creation if our corporations are unable to do business in large chunks of the globe because the feds won’t let them pay bribes.

1,000 Words

Cemetery has a picture worth far more than that to New Jersey gun owners.

Problematic Bill in Utah

I may be skeptical of open carry’s effectiveness as a public relations strategy, but I do support it being legal. But I find this bill in Utah to be rather odd, because it was my understanding that you could legally carry openly under Utah law with a Utah permit. This doesn’t seem to outright legalize open carry, as you would still appear to need a permit by language. Here’s what it does:

(1) An individual who is not prohibited from doing so by federal or Utah state law

(a) openly carry a firearm; and

(b) communicate to another person the fact that the individual has a firearm.

(2) If an individual who is carrying a firearm reasonably believes that the individual orÂ another person is threatened with bodily harm, the individual may warn or threaten the use ofÂ force, including deadly force against the aggressor, including drawing or exhibiting the firearm.

It could be that the law is clarifying open carry is legal because of some practices by law enforcement in Utah. That’s entirely possible, in which case subsection 1(a) of this bill is worthy of support. I’m a little troubled by subsection two, however. I’m assuming here that Utah law is similar to other states, in that you have to be in reasonable fear of grave bodily injury or death in order to resort to deadly force. Utah, being a Western state, probably has no duty to retreat, but the standard for deadly force would still be that. Now the legislature wishes to create a situation where you can threaten, but not use deadly force. To me you’re either justified bringing deadly force into the encounter or you aren’t. What if you threaten, and then the guy charges you, like we saw here? Maybe your defense attorney can argue that once the guy charged you, the standard changed, and you were in fear of grave bodily injury or harm. But the law is often that if you create the circumstances by which you had to use deadly force, you can’t claim self-defense. It seems to me that if you’re going to introduce deadly force into a situation as a threat you should also be justified in using deadly force. I think if this passes, it’s going to get good people in trouble. Maybe I’m misunderstanding how self-defense works in Utah, but it seems to be they should sever the brandishing aspect of this bill and just push the clarification on open carry.

Filling Up a Little Used Category

It’s been a while since we’ve had content for the How Not to Win category here, and yet it seems we could fill it every day by featuring Martha Coakley’s Gaffe-of-the-Day antics.

We warn all the time about the trouble in dealing with the media if you haven’t prepared for it. Â Martha Coakley’s volunteers should probably remember that next time they encounter a reporter with the video camera already turned on.

Things we can learn:

Calling someone who is there to report on your candidate a Nazi is probably not going to gain you any favors.
Calling them a Nazi with the camera turned on, well now you’re just trying to kill the campaign.
Cursing at someone trying to report on the campaign is generally not a good idea.
Do so while standing at the open door to the sidewalk with your candidate’s signs are on display means you start influencing potential voters to the other guy.