2010 – Page 88 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Civil Rights Victory in Indiana

Congratulations Hoosiers… due to a state Court tof Appeals ruling, the police can no longer point a gun at you for no reason:

“Reinhart gave no indication that he was armed or dangerous,” Crone wrote. “Nevertheless, with the laser sight of Deputy’s Coney’s gun prominently fixed on him, Reinhart was ordered first to kneel with his hands behind his head for a period and then lie face down on the ground for an additional period of time while waiting for the second police officer to arrive. Reinhart was then handcuffed before he was searched twice. We believe that a reasonable person in Reinhart’s position would not have believed himself to be free to leave but instead would have considered his freedom of movement to have been restrained to the degree associated with a formal arrest.”

They threw out his conviction because his arrest was unlawful, and the subsequent evidence was fruit of the poisonous tree. I’m happy to note, also, that this was a unanimous decision. Good. It would have been kind of scary if any judge thought it was fine for the police to wave guns around willy nilly at the citizenry.

Second Pro-Gun Group Endorses Strickland

This time it’s the Buckeye Firearms Association, citing his carrer of consistent support for our issue. They were careful not to bash Kasich, which I think is wise. Kasich voted for the Clinton Assault Weapons ban, twice if I recall, and also for closing the so-callled “gun show loophole.”

I’m willing to accept Kasich may have come to Jesus on the issue, so to speak, you stick with the guy with a long record of supporting you over promises of someone who’s been out of elected office for a decade, and is making promises. If Kasich wins, he will benefit from the same policy of favoring incumbents who support our issue.

Hat tip to Dave Kopel

Nordyke Remanded

It’s been remanded back to the original three judge panel by the 9th Circuit sitting en banc. Eugene Volokh doesn’t think it looks good for the gun show, as it originally upheld the individual right, but concluded that the County Fairgrounds the gun show was hosted at could constitute a “sensitive place” under Heller. I think the reasoning is poor, since not all government property can rightly be considered a sensitive place. I hope the panel does a more thorough analysis this time around of sensitive places.

Lost and Stolen Introduced Federally

You can probably guess by who. We’ve been fighting this stupid idea in Pennsylvania for more than a year now. But why should we have all the fun? McCarthy is pointing to a study by the highly scientific and unbiased group Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns. It’s interesting that McCarthy says this law is working in states that have adopted it, when none of the municipalities in Pennsylvania, all of whom claimed this legislation was highly necessary, have prosecuted a single person using it.

Look Who’s Having a Forum

Someone in the DC area might want to infiltrate this gathering and take notes. I should note that Mike Castle, one of the hosts, is running on the GOP ticket for Joe Biden’s senate seat in Delaware, and is no friend to the Second Amendment. This is a stacked forum, meaning none of the panelists are pro-2A.

Several Food Freedom Issues

Bitter notes over at her gun-blog-turned-food blog how Bloomberg is being two-faced about food control, and also that home brewers in Oregon are getting screwed by aÂ bureaucraticÂ ruling that’s just destroyed a good part of their community. Now they know how gun owners and shooters feel.Â BureaucratsÂ in this country are out of control. One thing I would suggest for fixing this problem is rediscovering a very strong non-delegation doctrine.

Coolest Hobby Ever

I am intrigued by this wingsuit jumping, but it looks highly hazardous, and I think I enjoy life a little too much to try it. Plus, I’d imagine I’d have to get my flabby ass in shape first, since I’m guessing myÂ ballisticÂ coefficient could use some work.

On another note, I never understood why suicidal people didn’t take up sports like this. I mean, if you think life sucks so bad you want to die, I would imagine strapping on a wing suit andÂ parachute, and throwing yourself off a fjord is going to clear things up for youÂ mightyÂ quickly.

Why We Won’t Negotiate

Joe Grace laments that Pennsylvania doesn’t have true gun registration, and notes about Lost and Stolen, the current law CeaseFire PA is pushing:

“Will it solve the problem?” Grace said. “No, but it is a step in the right direction.”

That right there is why we won’t give an inch. He really wants a mile. If he had to take it an inch at a time, that’s fine by him. The Brady Act was considered reasonable by many gun owners as well, and was quickly followed up with Brady II. Fortunately gun owners helped vote that Congress out before it could go anywhere. Dan Onorato seems like Joe Grace’s best buddy, in terms of supporting his agenda, and I’ve been less than impressed with what we’ve been able to accomplish in the PA House with the Democrats running things. If we don’t teach them a lesson this fall, the lesson is going to be that being in favor of gun control Pennsylvania doesn’t hurt you.

Caleb Gets Eaten by the Drama Llama

While I was happy that in the last episode of History Channel’s Top Shot, Caleb seemed to have finally learn his lesson about hostage shooting, it would seem that this episode caused Caleb to be eaten by the Drama Llama, having been eliminated after being compared to several species of the order Rodentia, and possibly the Mustelidae family as well (I’d have to go back and watch again).

Several people have stepped up to defend Caleb. Chris Byrne makes some very good points. Les Jones also makes some good points. I will stake out a middle position of saying Caleb is neither rat, nor fink, or any member of the Mustelidae family for what transpired on last night’s Top Shot. But I don’t agree he took the high road, because I’m not sure there’s much high road to be had. It’s not a shooting competition, where sportsmanship and excellence play the biggest role. It’s reality TV. Shooting is relatively incidental; a backdrop for the drama. Caleb was trying to survive the game, same as Adam.Â Any fan of reality TV shows knows that the nice guys often finish last. I’m not going to blame anyone for setting up voting blocks or otherwise thinking strategically about how to get to the end of this game. Adam probably figured he needed a voting block to get rid of some of the top shooters on his team if he wanted to have any prayer of winning. Caleb probably figured he was better off currying favor with the top shooters on the team. Unfortunately for Caleb, that turned out to be a bad political move, and you only get to make one of those, unless you’re a really good elimination shooter, which Caleb almost was.

On to the shooting. Â In the last episode before this one James made me cringe where in a shooting style that called for a more tactical stance he took a traditional high-power style offhand shooting stance — very good for accuracy, not very good for speed. In this episode I cringed when Caleb chose a tactical stance for what was looking like an accuracy game. I think the fact that the target was basically rotated 90 degrees threw them both off from what they practiced on, and evened things up a bit. I think a more traditional stance would have worked out better, because you would have been more stable, and still been able to work up a reasonable volume of fire needed to sever the rope. But this is arm chair stuff… if Caleb ever hosts the gun blogger competition he’s talked about, I totally want to try traditional vs. tactical stance and see which one works better for the rope shot. I suspect that kind of game is something a silhouette shooter would be good at — we don’t have all day to aim at our targets like slow-fire standing in high-power shooting, but we still have to hit with reasonably good accuracy at long distances.

In other news, I think I really need to get a flintlock muzzle loader. It looks like fun. Anyone know a decent brand? I know little about smoke poles.

Run Its Course?

This is the first news article I’ve seen about a drop in concealed carry permit applications from anywhere, but I guess like you eventually run out of other people’s money, you also eventually run out of gun nuts. Of course, this means we need to make more. Don’t forget, our opponents tell us we stand for a gun for every hand, everywhere, anywhere, no questions asked.