February 2014 – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Monday News Links

Greetings and Happy Monday. I wish I could say we were going to have a week without any more snow, but there’s some strong possibilities in the forecast. We have to change our expectations to hope we will have a week with just an inch or so, and wouldn’t that be nice? I’m pleased March is coming, but we’ve been known to have major March snowstorms around these parts, and it just seems like such a thing would be the icing on the cake for this winter.

But now for the news:

Weaponization of government: all the non-profits audited by the IRS were conservative. Maybe getting rid of the IRS isn’t looking like such a crazy libertarian pipe dream these days?

Who are the enemy? We are. (h/t Instapundit)

How the DEA launders classified information.

Mass shootings, it turns out, aren’t very good pretexts for gun control.

A disabled man is suing over Connecticut’s new gun control laws. His disability means that only pistol grips are comfortable for him.

Home made bump fire stock.

Uncle has more thoughts on the 9mm takeover we talked about a few weeks ago.

Some animals are more equal than others.

Going postal.

When MAIG membership becomes a liability. It has to be toxic for political ambitions for higher office. It must be why they had lost 15% of members before they decided to stop keeping track.

The case challenging the new Connecticut gun laws, which lost in district court, will be appealed.

We must close the gun theft loophole! I agree. It should be illegal to steal guns!

The latest hand wringing out of Chicago: Anti-gun folks don’t like the “no guns” signs, so they want businesses to have to post that guns are allowed. They want this because they are having no luck getting them to post “no guns” signs.

Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin goes down. Unfortunately, neither stealing guns nor violating the civil rights of residents by stealing their guns was not among the charges he was convicted on. Nagin was a case where prosecutors couldÂ have usedÂ 18 U.S.C. 242. Anyone surprised they didn’t?

Tam on opening pocket knives.

A Massachusetts panel recommends more gun control, because they don’t have enough or something. They are proud of their low gun ownership rate, whereas to me it’s something they should have to explain in court to a judge deciding whether or not to strike their laws from the books. h/t Jeff Soyer

Danger to the grid. It would take a large coordinated attack to cause real widespread and long-lasting disruption, but it’s scary how vulnerable it is. How much damage could even a small team do? What if they just keep moving on from substation to substation? How long before authorities catch them?

They’re Just After “Common Sense” Gun Laws

The Hartford Courant is just fine with the idea of sending hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens to the gulags. In fact, they embrace the idea:

But the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law. Authorities should use the background check database as a way to find assault weapon purchasers who might not have registered those guns in compliance with the new law.

A Class D felony calls for a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Even much lesser penalties or probation would mar a heretofore clean record and could adversely affect, say, the ability to have a pistol permit.

If you want to disobey the law, you should be prepared to face the consequences.

If you’re a gun owner in the Courant’s market, and you still subscribe, you’re part of the problem. They want you in prison.

A Look at What’s Next for Peruta

Dave Hardy talks about the next steps. There’s an interesting dynamic at work here. Our opponents have started to wise up a bit, in the sense that they realize taking cases forward when the Heller majority is still in place is probably not the wisest of moves. Dave Hardy notes that there are twice as many Democratic appointees on the 9th Circuit as Republican appointees, so this would, in my view, make the panel much more likely to reverse than uphold the three-judge ruling in Peruta. But that would put the decision to appeal to SCOTUS back in the NRA’s hands. Will San Diego County want to risk rolling the dice? Â Will Bloomberg and other gun control groups pressure San Diego not to appeal?

Remington Leaving New York for Alabama?

According to a local source, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley is reportedly going to announce on Monday that Remington plans to move most of the jobs currently in New York to the southern state.

They claim that the historic Ilion plant will remain open, but with a reduced workforce.

Guns in European Schools

The next time you hear an anti-gun advocate promoting gun laws around Europe, let them know that Italy has an official program that allows gun owners to promote the shooting sports to school children.

Perazzi posted photos of a lecture from a program organized by the Italian Olympic Committee.

Perazzi shooter Maria Sole Santasilia and Sergio Carella, FITAV representative for sports in schools, have lectured a delighted audience of young students about shooting sports at the Municipal Teatre at Sant’Oreste, today.

The photo set not only shows her lecturing to the room full of students, but she also had her shotgun there and allowed students to pose with it, too. Yes, the children were allowed to handle her shotgun. It also appears that some of the girls lined up to get an autograph from the female world champion shooter.

Don’t Call Your Friends, Call the Cops

Not making any commentary on OC v. CC, I think in this specific situation it was pretty much guaranteed to lead to trouble. Unrelated to the method of carry, the trouble started here:

Simonsmeier; Danny Price, 32; Shannon Wheeler, 25; and Amanda Zastrow, 26, were arrested at a Turner Street home after they were called to help with a dispute between roommates, said Capt. Greg Hagenbucher of the Wausau Police Department. The incident began when a woman living in the home asked a man, also living in the home, to leave, Hagenbucher said. When he refused, the woman called friends to help.

If a friend called me needing this kind of “help,” I’m going to tell her to call the cops. As armed citizens, we ought to be nobody’s “muscle.” If you have a domestic dispute, that’s a job for the guys who come, as Tam likes to say, dripping with qualified immunity. I mean, you can take guns out of this situation entirely and it’s still just a bad idea. Guns just make things more likely to go from misdemeanor to felony in a hurry.

Though, I will say, I’m not sure that the shotgun was among the equipment OC’d, but anyone showing up to my door wielding a shotgun I’m going to assume is a deadly threat and act accordingly. Just saying.

Civil Rights Victory in California!

Go outside to shovel some now, and come back in and the world has changed. I wish every snowstorm accompanied good news like this.Â The restrictive licensing regime imposed by San Diego County, where applicants have to demonstrate need, has been struck down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which would effectively make California “shall-issue” if the ruling holds. I can’t believe I just said “California” and “shall-issue” in the same sentence. Congratulations to Clayton for having two of his law reviews cited in the opinion. From Dave Kopel:

TheÂ PerutaÂ decision doesÂ notÂ strike down Californiaâ€™s statutes about licensing for the carrying of firearms. The decision simply says that the â€œgood causeâ€ requirement may not be interpreted in a manner that disable typical law-abiding citizens from being able to obtain carry permits. The state statute is fine; the way the statute was interpreted by many California jurisdictions is not.

The next step for San Diego would be to petition for en banc review, in front of the whole circuit, and from there, to the Supreme Court, if they choose to hear it. Hopefully this is the next step in bringing the blue states back to America.

UPDATE: All is proceeding as Joe has foreseen.

UPDATE: Bob Owens has a pretty good list of choice quotes from the opinion.

UPDATE: Emily Miller: A big win for NRA. It’s been crickets from the gun control groups. They’ve been trying to tailor a narrative that they win most of the court cases, which is true. But we’re winning the ones that matter.

Trouble Brewing in Missouri

They are trying to pass a nullification bill in Missouri, the only trouble is that an unfriendly lawmaker is moving to attach a “Lost and Stolen” provision to it. Even worse the sponsor of the nullification bill isn’t filling me with confidence. NRA is trying to kill it:

Nieves told reporters the NRA has not spoken to him and that it does not matter to him what they say about the bill. He said he did not know what Nasheedâ€™s amendment would mean for the billâ€™s chances. His own opinion about the reporting requirement was ambivalent.

â€œI can live with it. I wouldnâ€™t raise it on a flag pole and say itâ€™s the greatest thing Iâ€™ve ever seen but I can live with it,â€ Nieves said.

Your nullification bill is nearly useless, yet you’re going to let real control just cruise through along with it? In exchange for a bill that is purely symbolic political posturing, Rep. Nieves is going to impose real gun control onto Missouri gun owners? Really? The GOP really is the stupid party.

h/t SWAT magazine.

The Peril of Trusting in Democracy

What? Just talk to our opponents in the gun control movement. Democracy can never go rogue!Â Venezuela is a great example of a country that successfully transitioned from a democratic government to a dictatorial police state in the space of slightly longer than a decade, while still maintaining the facade of being a free country. Our opponents can believe whatever they want, but sometimes it’s morally justifiable to shoot back, and a free people should always have that ability. As Miguel notes, “Hunting ainâ€™t fun when the bunny shoots back.”

Great News out of New Hampshire

With Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition anxious to show that they could swing a purple state on the background check issue alone, they chose to target New Hampshire with a specific bill that was Schumeresque in its structure. Despite a misinformation campaign from the media, the bill has been pretty overwhelmingly defeated. The vote wasÂ 242-118, in a purple state over an issue the other side keeps consistently saying everyone just wants because its common sense.

They are kidding themselves. Their 2013 run is increasingly looking like the battle of the bulge. We just need to stay valiant and continue to push them back until they are crushed mercilessly and driven into political extinction, along with prohibition, and every other failed progressive experiment. They will work hard to target “no” votes in 2014. They can’t be allowed to succeed in defeating any of them.