2014 – Page 61 – Shall Not Be Questioned

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.

Shooting Sports Scoring Challenges

I’ve seen quite a few competitive shooters praising this column in today’s Shooting Wire about the methods of scoring that contribute to making watching a shooting competition about as exciting as watching paint dry.

It’s an interesting thing to consider because as much as the Olympic shooting sports are criticized from many shooters of the more modern shooting competitions as boring because of the shooting style, they do real-time scoring with graphic representations of the targets on screen during the television coverage. You get to see that pulled shot within seconds or stand amazed at the accuracy of a shooter you’re cheering. It makes it much easier to get involved as a spectator.

It’s an interesting challenge to think about for the various shooting sports. The beauty of having so many different types of sports at so many different levels of competition is that maybe this column will spur some clubs to try out different methods of sharing scores to see what works to improve the sports for spectators and even other shooters.

Jonah Goldberg on the “Heart of Liberalism”

If you haven’t read Liberal Fascism, I’d highly recommend it. It’s not real fire breathing stuff, but is rather an in-depth exploration of the intellectual roots of modern liberalism. In this article he mentions something on the same topic, in regards to guns:

Consider gun rights. Yes, conservatives believe in second amendment rights because they are in the Constitution. But they also value a culture of self-sufficiency, self-defense and a traditional understanding of individual sovereignty. (Relatedly, I think itâ€™s fair to say that hunting culture is inherently conservative and, very broadly speaking, anathema to much of liberal culture). Liberals dislike gun rights, because they detest gun culture (their Constitutional arguments in this regard have always struck me as nearest-weapon-to-hand debating points and rationalizations given their general disdain for Constitutional literalism in nearly every other regard) and see gun violence as a kind of public health issue, which means the State should have an unlimited license to deal with it. The right of armed self-defense also offends the Stateâ€™s monopoly on violence, and liberalism is a jealous guardian of State power.

One might wince at the two dimensional political spectrum, but this is quoted somewhat out of context. He goes on to explain why he thinks conservatism is more libertarian leaning than liberalism.

I appreciate well-thought-out philosophical political constructs, but I don’t think real people fall neatly into them in most cases. Most people either don’t put that much thought into their political philosophy, or have strongly held beliefs that move across the spectrum of liberal-conservative-libertarian-authoritarian. There are also many legitimate pragmatists out there, or people like me who value philosophical political constructs, but have a strong pragmatic streak as well.

Feeding the Maybe Not-So-Tin-Foil-Hat Conspiracies

I have to agree with Glenn Reynolds that perhaps the greatest “achievement” of this Administration is making crazy conspiracy theories seem less crazy. This begs the question:Â what the US government needs 600,000 AK-47 magazines for?Â As Clayton notes, that seems awful excessive if your intention is only to arm Syrian rebels. Clayton speculates that perhaps the goal is to dry up the civilian supply to make them more expensive. Previously I’d say that was tin-foil hat territory, but with this crowd, I’m not so sure.

Under Attack Again in Delaware

The Democrats in Delaware are looking to come at us again, this time at preemption. For a state that’s solid blue, and controlled by Dems, the First State got off rather light post-Newtown, which I’m sure is very unacceptable to some, especially Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. Nothing like trying to make up for daddy’s federal embarrassment on the backs of Delaware gun owners.

It’s really not good news. The proposed House Bill would repeal preemption only for Wilmington. The Senate bill would repeal preemption in Delaware entirely. I think it’s very important to follow the link and get involved if you live there.

South Carolina Passes Restaurant Carry

You can find the bill here, which was signed into law by Governor Nikki Haley this morning. It’s pretty much the basic law: you can carry in a restaurant, but you can’t drink, and restaurant owners can post prohibiting guns. The law also eases training requirements and some easements for transport.

Now if they’d just improve their reciprocity law to honor non-resident licenses of reciprocal states, we’d be set.