The Philadelphia case challenging statewide preemption is being appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. It should be noted that The Court is being asked to turn over a decade old ruling, which confirms well established law. This is merely an appeal, The Court might choose not to hear it, leaving the lower court ruling stand.
Author: Sebastian
Fun Brady Campaign Rhetoric
The only people I’ve ever heard use “Where’s Wayne?” are those who offer up frequent criticism of NRA leadership for not doing enough. I’m starting to think Paul Helmke and Larry Pratt are having cocktail lunches or something.
Machine Gun Shooting By Juveniles Illegal in MA?
Peter Hamm, of the Brady Campaign, in the comments suggested it was so, and quoted this section of law. That section would appear to make furnishing a machine gun to anyone under 21 years of age criminal. The law makes exceptions for rifles and shotguns, but not for machine guns.
I’ll be honest, I’m not an expert on Massachusetts gun laws. They are monsterously complicated. But I will try to find out from an expert whether there’s an exception that’s being overlooked, or whether the definition of “furnish” is something the courts already define. I’ll be honest, I don’t know.
I do find it odd, though, that some lawmaker would suggest that anyone 18 to 21 weren’t mature enough to handle an automatic weapon, when most of the automatic weapons in use today are wielded by those 18 to 21 when in military service.
UPDATE: Article here. One other note:
On Monday, Bizilj told The Boston Globe he was about 10 feet behind his son and reaching for his camera when the weapon fired. He said his family avoided larger weapons, but he let his son try the Uzi because it’s a small weapon with little recoil. The family did not return messages for comment Tuesday.
Bizilj is pretty clearly not all that familiar with firearms or Newton’s laws of motion. A bigger machine gun would have actually been better, because recoil is not a function of the size of the gun. A Micro Uzi has far more recoil than belt fed heavy machine gun because the Uzi has less mass to absorb the equal and opposite reaction of the bullet being fired out of the barrel. I believe the boy’s father can probably get away with pleading ignorance, but there are a lot of questions the instructor needs to answer.
UPDATE: Asking an attorney who’s familiar with Massachusetts firearms law, this section could be a real problem for people who run the shoot if the District Attorney tries to proceed with charges. The law is the law, and if you’re going to run something like a machine gun shoot, you need to know what it is, in intimate detail.
Hazel Township Allows Open Carry Picnic
The Rest of Dan Cooper’s Donation
Found at the Federal Election Commission, Dan Cooper of Cooper Firearms of Montana did indeed donate $3300 bucks to Obama this election cycle, all in the primaries:
Add that to the $200 from OpenSecrets.org, and you have the amount listed in the USA Today article. Also, conspicuously absent is any donation to John McCain or the Republican National Committee. Pretty clearly Cooper Firearms of Montana is worried about damage to their business. They ought to be. Selling gun rights down river isn’t something we pariticularly appreciate. Just ask Jim Zumbo.
More on Cooper Arms
Cooper Arms, who’s CEO we talked about earlier, have updated their web site:
Regarding the USA Today Article. Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc. did not contribute and does not support in any fashion the campaign of Senator Obama.
Nine months ago Dan Cooper (personally) made an online donation to the campaign in an effort to help defeat Hillary Clinton and in protest of American plant closures and the shipping of jobs overseas. Three months ago he made yet another donation to the McCain campaign and the RNC totaling over twice that given to Obama campaign.
There is no doubt that the article in USA Today has caused a considerable response. To this end we are encouraged and stand with our fellow NRA members and supporters of the Second Amendment and against those who oppose it.
There’s one problem with this claim, the USA Today article was an interview. Dan Cooper was quoted as supporting Senator Obama. He was also quoted as being “chief executive of Cooper Arms, a small Montana company that makes hunting rifles.” I appreciate that Cooper Arms didn’t donate to Senator Obama, since corporate contributions to candidates for public office are illegal, but the man who runs the company, and represents himself as its CEO, did. But what about the other claims? Fortunatly, John McCain keeps his entire donor list online:
You will notice there’s no donation from a Dan Cooper. Now, it’s possible that he donated to McCain’s camp after September 1st, which means his donation went to the RNC, rather than the McCain camp. But we look up his donation history on OpenSecrets.org:
Of course, there’s not to be found the donation for 3,300 that was mentioned in the USA Today article. I’m not buying Cooper Arms spin on this. They need to explain why their CEO is on record, in an article that he was pretty clearly interviewed for, as supporting Barack Obama this election. I can understand why the employees of Cooper Arms might want to minimize the damage something like this could do to their company, but there are consequences to be suffered by the poor decisions of their CEO, who should have thought about his company before endorsing a candidate who has voted to ban guns, and common hunting ammunition.
The Danger of Hunting
Hunters are three times more likely to die from a heart attack while hunting than from any other injury.
Westroads Mall Gun Free Zone
You probably remember the Westroads Mall Shooting from last year, which prompted the Mall to declare itself a gun free zone. Joe in Nebraska has an update on how that’s working out for them.
Toasting the PLO
Bruce links to a piece by Newsbusters that suggests the LA Times is sitting on a video of Barack Obama toasting Palistine Liberation Organization operative Rashid Khalidi at an Israel-bashing party with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. One wonders whether Khalidi is just another guy in Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood.
Cooper Arms
Dan Cooper of Cooper Arms is backing Obama.
Cooper said he voted for George W. Bush in 2000, having voted in past elections for every Republican presidential nominee back to Richard Nixon. In October 1992, he presented a specially made rifle to the first President. Bush during a Billings campaign event.
This year, Cooper has given $3,300 to the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama. That’s on top of the $1,000 check he wrote to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2004, after he was dazzled by Obama’s speech at that year’s Democratic National Convention.
This needs to get around. Gun owners need to know which companies sell their interests down the river. Here’s contact info for Cooper Firearms. I would talk to them, and be sure they know Obama’s record, why you’re not voting for him, and why you’ll never buy one of their products.
Hat tip to Blog O’ Stuff, who passed this along to me.
UPDATE: Cooper Arms has updated their home page with a statement. It does not hold water, in my opinion.
UPDATE: The Board of Directors and Employees Cooper Firearms of Montana has asked Dan Cooper to step down as CEO. This was the correct move for Cooper Arms to undertake. I’m satisfied with it, provided there is follow through.