April 2014 – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Monday News Links

Well, we were hoping maybe we’d get an early decision on cert for the Drake case, but it was not to be this morning when the Supreme Court made announcements. We shall soon see whether we’re going to head back to the Supreme Court. Needless to say I’m going to be very nervous if the Court denies cert, since I don’t think we have much in the way of meaningful protections with just the current two cases, and the Heller Five aren’t getting any younger. Let’s see what we have in the way of links today:

NBC laments money in politics one week, and then another week cheers a rich billionaire putting $50 million in to politics. They aren’t against money in politics. They are against our money in politics.

Everytown for Gun Safety (God I hate that name) seems to be launching in cities around the country. Here’s one in Las Vegas. Here’s one in Denver. Note the close in shots so you can’t see how sparsely attended the events are.

Mayor Squidward, Michael Nutter, is joining up with Everytown. Because Philadelphia is just Everytown, USA for sure. Philadelphia is certainly unique in many ways, most of them bad.

John Lott: “What the press is missing in Bloomberg’s anti-gun push.”

Hot Air takes on EGS’s first ad.

Why Bloomberg’s Nanny Campaign Will Backfire.

EGS is misleading people about the guns used at Columbine. They were textbook straw purchases, where a legal buyer stands in for the actual buyer, who is prohibited. In this case the Columbine killers were juveniles.

Jacob is skeptical that Dems are really happy about Bloomberg’s $50 million dollar pledge. Well, if he runs ads against Pryor, Landrieu, or any of the other Dems up in red states, it could help them. No better way to advertise your bone fides than getting attacked by Bloomberg.

Jacob also notes that Cuomo could be in trouble. I’m skeptical that he’s vulnerable enough to lose re-election, but if we could pull that off it would be epic.

And finally from Jacob, Five ways gun control advocates fail.

Well, trolling EGS on Facebook was fun while it lasted. Of course, they have their work cut out for them to get rid of all the state and local pages.

Chicago reducing crime by cooking the books? They are just making concealed carry look better.

Civil Rights victory in Massachusetts. Massachusetts? Yes. Massachusetts.

Victor Davis Hanson: “Cliven Bundy and The Rural Way“, and Breitbart: “Cliven Bundy and the Origins of the American Abundance Revolution.” This is still something to keep and eye on, especially given that Reid would seem to be looking for paybacks. Hey, solar farms don’t build themselves, you know.

Off topic:

The United States of SWAT.

Hillary Clinton’s legacy: “She has no legacy. Everything sheâ€™s done, except getting preferential treatment from the Democrat establishment, was a failure.” That must be why they are grooming Chelsea.

Everytown for Gun Safety: Starting with FAIL!

The funny thing is, they know they have to convince a fair number of gun owners to go along with their schemes, which is why a poster like this is just so damned full of fail:

Everytown Has Morons

Something must be really wrong with that rifle if it’s shooting out the whole cartridge like that. To enlighten our gun safety experts at Everytown, the bullet is the shiny thing at the end (they also aren’t usually silver, unless you’re hunting werewolves), and that’s the only part that goes down the barrel. I kind of thing if you’re going to lecture fellow Americans about “gun safety,” you ought to at least get the basics correct. And notice that’s a rifle bullet. I thought you guys were giving up on the whole “assault weapons” thing? And outrunning bullets is exactly what these folks expect us to try to do because they are strong believers in a duty to retreat.

UPDATE: Miguel has more background.

Weird Gun Laws in India

I have to admit, I did a double take when I saw this headline come across my Google Alerts: “Rifle association hit by polls, forced to cancel national event.” I was concernedÂ that something horrible had happened overnight or during the morning, ahead of the NRA Annual Meeting, forcing them to cancel everything (as happened in Denver the year Columbine happened). But no, it turns out this article is about the National Rifle Association of India. The problem? A national “all India” match came too close to election day, and apparently election day has special consequences for gun owners in India:

It has had to cancel an all-India shooting event because its members received notices from the police asking them to surrender their weapons during the election period.

This, despite the Commission (EC) exempting the sports body from impounding its weapons during the poll season.

Indians have to surrender their firearms during elections? We’re somewhat fortunate in this county that such a thing would be impractical (where would they put them all?) because I could totally see the antis trying to do something like that here.

Security Problems at NAGR?

Paul Lathrop, of the The Polite Society Podcast, and John Richardson of No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, take a look at what appears to be a pretty serious privacy breach going on with NAGR. To make a long story short, it appears that there’s some kind of misconfiguration or mistake in forwarding web forms:

When asked if the rest of the emails looked like the email he provided to us he stated, â€œYes. Itâ€™s random questions from people who visited their â€œContact Usâ€ page, then forwarded by someone within their organization for follow-up or review. Some of them contain some very specific personal information, like the USPS worker who details which facility he works at in pursuit of an answer to a legal question.â€

I’d say that’s a pretty serious issue, and one that ought to be addressed rather thanÂ shrugged off. What’s even more disturbing is that in the comments, other people report getting similar e-mails, which means it’s not just going out to one person by mistake.

I am not a fan of NAGR, as anyone who’s been following this blog for some time would know, so I should get that bias out of the way first. I don’t encourage people to join and suggest gun owners have no dealings with them or any of Dudley Brown’s other organizations. This would seem to be yet another example of amateur hour.

Happy Easter

To all who celebrate: Happy Easter. Bitter and I got a really good deal on a Smithfield ham the other day, and so we intend to bake that along with some sides. Given that I am a ham fiend, and don’t get to eat it very often, I’m starving myself now in anticipation.

Shot Heard Round the World

I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to resist watching this video on today’s anniversary if you’re of a certain age range:

The View from the Other Side

Sebastian highlighted John Richardson’s excellent post about the $1 million+ views from the gun controller’s homes.

I just have to add that I think there’s a part of that same way of thinking at work in this series of interviews with gun controllers that’s been making the rounds.

Notice that the question at 1:40 is simply whether a citizen should be able to defend him/herself at all with any weapon in case of attack, and the woman (who probably doesn’t have Mike Bloomberg’s wealth, but probably isn’t hurting in the wealthy Virginia suburbs) simply says, “No.” Later in the video, he uses an example of being in a bad neighborhood, and she simply asks, “Why? … Well, why are you in the bad neighborhood?”

This is someone who can afford to be out-of-touch. It doesn’t take being dirt poor to end up in bad neighborhoods, especially in that area. The apartment I lived in cost a pretty penny in rent each month, and I would go to bed with the sounds of “Stop! Police!” outside my window or walk outside of my building to be passed by running men fleeing authorities. I could simply ask my neighbor not to play music so loud that it knocked pictures off the wall and end up being threatened. It’s not something that most people seek out, it’s something that just happens around them. To her, the notion that a potential victim may not have the financial means to leave just means the person needs to accept the circumstances and take the assault rather than having a tool to fight back should an attack put his or her life at risk. As John so aptly put it:

When you live in a million dollar plus home in a plush neighborhood, your view of the world is just different. You don’t have crime at your doorstep and you really don’t have to worry about home invasions.

The woman I mention in the video is another great example of this kind of thinking. I get the feeling that with the new name and theme of Bloomberg’s group, we’ll see even more of this preaching from the comfort behind the gates of their communities.

How the Other Side Lives

John Richardson has put together and excellent article of how our opponents in the gun control movement live. I do have to hand it to Bloomberg for taste. His North Salem farmhouse’s quaint, understated quality is quite nice I think. For those of us who can barely afford one home, and certainly can’t afford hired armed security, and who struggle to be able to donate $50 dollars to the cause every now and then, let alone $50 million, no, we certainly won’t take this personally.

Petition Being Considered in Drake v. Jerijian

Today the Supreme Court will be deciding whether or not to grant certiorari in the case of Frake v. Jerijian, challenging New Jersey’s restrictive handgun carry licensing regime:

Issue:Â (1) Whether the Second Amendment secures a right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense; and (2) whether state officials violate the Second Amendment by requiring that individuals wishing to exercise their right to carry a handgun for self-defense first prove a â€œjustifiable needâ€ for doing so.

The Court could announce as early as Monday what they decided. Obviously this is one to watch, because the Court is running out of cases they could use to decide this issue. It’s not certain yet what the fate of the 9th Circuit cases are going to be yet, and so it is also uncertain whether the Supreme Court will get a stab at those as well.

Perry County Finds Itself in Hot Water Due to Audit

There’s an interesting situation going on Perry County, Pennsylvania. Auditor Kimberly McMullen may have put the county in some hot water due in a recent interview.

First, she’s demanding permission from the County to spend $6,700 in legal fees to have lawyers research whether she’s allowed access to the confidential files of license to carry holders. (The sheriff won’t hand all of the records over because he notes that that it’s against the law to release the personal information.) The County gave her $2,000 to pursue it instead. Second, she told the media that the law supposedly changed last year and that she would have had access before that “change.”

Well, attorney Josh Prince is doing the taxpayers of Perry County a favor and helping them save $2,000 on legal research. He sent a letter to the auditor making clear that the license to carry applicant information is not to be released to her.

However, McMullen’s claims that the records were available in previous years caught Prince’s attention since he noted that the section of law he cited hasn’t changed since 1997. Oops. McMullen may be regretting that claim since Prince included this little gem in the letter:

Thus, the confidentiality of firearms license information is nothing new and the County and its respective Departments, employees and agents are liable for any disclosures that have occurred. Based on your statement to reporter Sean Sauro that prior to a year ago, all this information was available via right-to-know law requests, I am requesting all information on previous LTCF applicant disclosures by the County and its respective Departments, employees and agents.

So, sorry Perry County taxpayers. Because your auditor doesn’t know the law, now you have to spend resources going through all paperwork to see if the confidential information has ever been released before. Oops.