Month: April 2010

NRA reports Governor Brewer has signed the bill:

“This is a major victory for gun owners in Arizona, and I would like to thank Governor Jan Brewer, as well as the primary bill sponsor, Senator Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), for their leadership in working to improve the self-defense rights of law-abiding citizens in Arizona,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA. “Both Governor Brewer and state Senator Pearce have been strong supporters of the NRA. The NRA is also grateful to the legislators who voted for this measure making Arizona the third state in the nation behind Vermont and Alaska to offer its residents a constitutional carry option.

Clearly they’ve replaced Chris Cox with an impostor, because it’s a well known fact that NRA does not support Constitutional Carry. Dustin is pretty happy, and Arizona Riflemen has been checking out the hysteria, and notes an oddity with the current law.

Looks like, much to VPC’s chagrin, Elanor Holmes Norton is conceding to moving the DC Voting Rights bill forward with the language that removes DC’s gun laws and preempts them from making more. The New York Times calls this “extortion.” I call it making them follow the constitution if they want representation. What will be the likely effects of this?

For one, the voting rights language is pretty straightforwardly unconstitutional. It’s hard to see how it’s going to stand up to scrutiny in the Courts. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution only specifies representatives are to be apportioned to states, and the extra Utah representation is clearly a violation of apportionment. In addition, it is a violation of several Warren Court decisions that found the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause prevents some people from having disproportionate representation over other people. It’s hard to see how the actual voting rights bill stands up to constitutional scrutiny.

The gun rights language should be completely severable from the voting rights language. In other words, when the voting rights language is likely invalidated by the Courts, the gun rights language is going to stand. If this passes, and is signed by the President, the “Heller II” case, which just lost at the District Court level, but is appealing, lawsuit will become moot. I don’t consider this a bad thing. We should prefer legislative solutions to unconstitutional laws where we can accomplish that. The Courts are far more risky.

The net effect on this will be that the District of Columbia’s gun laws default to the federal law. To buy a gun you fill out a 4473, and go through the background check. It guts all the assault weapons nonsense out of their law, as well as the licensing, registration, training and ballistic testing requirement. The Districts laws on carrying in public will remain untouched, so the Palmer case, which is being advanced by Alan Gura and SAF will be undisturbed.

I am not too keen on passing an unconstitutional law in order to repeal another unconstitutional law, but in the end I am pragmatic about these things, and believe that this will work out fine for us in the end.

The Brady Campaign is busy using the anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy, which has precisely nothing to do with gun shows, to promote their campaign to close the “loophole.” Personally, I plan to do something very different. Shortly I will walk through the “loophole,” not once, but twice.

One of the guys I shoot with at the club has been selling off bits of his collection. Last year I bought an M1903-A3 from him using this dreaded loophole. How he’s selling his M1 Garand. As it is, I already have an M1 Garand, but mine was made in 1955, so it’s a late production run. The one he’s selling was made in 1941, and is in pretty good condition. So I might want to make an upgrade. The 1941 model has more historical value, and would still be a decent shooter.

But I don’t have a need for two M1 Garands, so a friend of mine who’s blogged here once before when his Calico M950 blew up on him, is in the market for a new piece, so I figured selling my M1 to him might work out well. So sometime in the next week or two I’m going to buying an M1 Garand made in 1941 through the dreaded “Gun Show Loophole,” then using the same dreaded “Gun Show Loophole,” to sell my current M1 to a friend.

The Brady folks would like you to believe the vast majority of private gun transfers are from one stranger to another stranger, who clearly runs a good chance of being a violent criminal, or some kind of NRA XXXL t-shirt wearing tea party domestic terrorist. But most of them take on the character of what I’m trying to do. Close the gun show “loophole” and force me through an FFL, at the going rates in the Philadelphia area, it would add anywhere from 70 to 100 dollars to the cost of doing this transaction. All so we could make sure people I know for a fact aren’t criminals get the background check. Maybe that’s worth 100 dollars of my money to the Brady folks, but it’s not to me.

An Appeals Court in Colorado ruled that the University Board of Regents is subject to preemption, and has to honor State permits to carry. If you want to read the opinion, you can find it here. As the Appeals Court says, “Had the legislature intended to exempt universities [from preemption], it knew how to do so.” The Regents, in this case, seem to have taken up two main arguments, arguing that they were not a “local government” under the preemption law, and that the Colorado Concealed Carry Act didn’t divest them of any power to regulate the campus environment. The Appeals Court rejected both of these arguments:

As with their “local government” argument, the Regents’ “express divestiture” argument is undermined by section 18-12-214, which reflects the legislature’s intent to subject “all areas of the state,” except those specifically enumerated, to uniform regulation of concealed handgun carry.

Congratulations also to Dave Kopel, who was cited in this Appeals Court ruling as an example of the scholarly and public debate on this subject, alongside the Brady Campaign folks who were examples from the other side of the issue.

Another bit of good news in this ruling is that the Appeals Court rejected rational basis review for claims under Colorado’s right to keep and bear arms provision. While not forcing strict scrutiny, it did adopt a “reasonable exercise test” that was applied in a previous case, and is a form of intermediate scrutiny. The case is remanded the case back to lower court for consideration along that standard. It doesn’t seem anyone wants to come out and say strict scrutiny for the RKBA, which is a shame, but maybe we’ll get there.

This would appear, to me, to be a great victory for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, who were the plaintiffs in this case. Lets hope this goes as well at the Colorado Supreme Court should the Regents decide to appeal.

Hat tip to Dave Hardy for the pointer.

Jacob is reporting that Bloomberg’s Carrying While Intoxicated bill has been killed in the New York State Assembly. As I mentioned before, while I don’t support carrying while intoxicated, the New York Bill had some serious constitutional problems, in that refusing to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights meant you lost your Second Amendment rights.

This is a victory for the Bill of Rights, all around. Now Bloomberg can go back to the important issues, such as regulating people’s salt and trans-fat intake.