The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Both Eugene Volokh and Dave Hardy have commentary. The courts can not be counted on to do anything except take the extreme, like total gun bans in the home, off the table. I’m not optimistic about much else.
UPDATE: More from Josh Blackman
UPDATE: Even more here.
Kudos to Jeff Winkler of the Daily Caller for noticing:
Get collared years ago on a bogus drug charge because the oregano in your back pocket looked like was a bag of weed? Or maybe a judge back in 2006 dropped those charges because you were able to provide proof for that Adderall prescription? Under proposed legislation, it will not matter if you were innocent all along or even proven innocent by a court of law.
Read the whole thing. The article points out one of the hidden easter egg in the bill to encourage more states to report mental health records to NICS, which I pointed out flaws in a few weeks ago.
The whole point here is that owning a gun is a constitutional right. If that’s going to be the case, you can’t just take the right away from people without due process of law. Our opponents in Congress suggest they accept Heller and McDonald, but their policy preferences show that’s all lip service. There are certainly criteria for prohibited drug users that would probably be constitutional, but that’s not what our opponents are talking about. Their goal is different. Their goal is to expand the class of prohibited person to be as wide as humanly possible.
It’s very interesting that even the Brady Campaign acknowledges due process concerns here. They say they are working with McCarthy’s office on this. It will be very interesting to see the language of McCarthy’s bill.
Vote was 14-4. Says Marion Hammer:
“Every time they leave the house with a concealed weapon, they run the risk of it being accidentally or unintentionally or inadvertently exposed, and being observed by a law enforcement officer who’s having a bad day,” Hammer said.
Right here. Seeing someone with a gun is not even legal cause to stop someone in Pennsylvania, let alone draw a gun on them.
UPDATE: Listening to the whole video, and listening to the tone in the cop’s voice, I think that guy was actually close to being shot. Probably best to just keep quiet and be very compliant in that situation. The lawsuit can come later. I’m not sure whether it’s exceptionally brave, or exceptionally stupid to amp up a cop who has a gun drawn on you.
Yesterday the legislature passed a bill creating a dove hunting season, and today the Governor signed it. This bill was opposed very strongly by the Humane Society of the United States, who say that people don’t want this gentle bird of peace to be hunted. Apparently enough Iowa legislators thought, “Screw that, peace is tasty wrapped in bacon and basted with maple syrup,” to get this done.
Hundreds of gun owners, firearms manufacturers and people who shoot for sport came to the Legislative Office Building in Hartford Wednesday to criticize a bill that would make it illegal to own large-capacity ammunition clips — those capable of holding 10 rounds or more.
Several people at a lengthy public hearing before the judiciary committee went on record in favor of the ban, including the mayors of the state’s three largest cities, but critics vastly outnumbered supporters.
The Connecticut bill is not as carelessly drafted as McCarthy’s, but it would still make it unmanageable to comply, as there is no grandfathering. All magazines possessed would have to be turned in for destruction. Do you know where all your magazines are? I don’t. I keep track of the guns. The magazines just end up places, and I have dozens and dozens of them. And how many gun owners are going to know about the new requirement? How many are going to find out about it at a traffic stop, after the cuffs go on?
“Large-capacity ammunition magazines are designed to enable shooting mass numbers of people quickly and efficiently without reloading,” Mayors Bill Finch of Bridgeport, John DeStefano of New Haven and Pedro Segarra of Hartford said in a joint letter to the committee. “We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to ensure that another Tucson, Arizona incident never happens again.”
So your police don’t need them either right? Right? I mean, if that’s what they are for. But it’s probably not surprising that Connecticut’s bill exempts police officers. Great turnout by people in Connecticut. Hopefully the pressure stays on, and this can be defeated.