Sebastian – Page 395 – Shall Not Be Questioned

On Carrying Zombie Ammo

SayUncle links to a story that suggests it might not be a wise idea, especially when considering Hornady’s disclaimer. The best advice I’ve ever heard for carry ammo was to find out what your State Troopers carry, and carry the same. That pretty much defeats any prosecutor’s argument that you were carrying shred-o-matic rounds of mayhem and destruction in your carry piece.

Robb has some contrary thoughts on the matter. I tend to think the odds of this coming up in a case are slim, but I believe this advice is based on an actual case that I’ve read about. I just can’t remember the case name, or where I read about it. It might be a story told by Massad Ayoob, who had been expert witness is a number of cases. I think the reason most lawyers suggest carrying ordinary factory self-defense ammo is because, in a self-defense case, there are going to already be enough factors for your attorney to deal with, and there’s not much good sense in introducing yet another element that’s going to make the case complicated for them, and by association you, the defendant. One thing to remember about the legal process, is that much like the political process, it’s a game. It’s about what you can convince a jury to do. One the prosecution decides to bring a case, and they generally won’t bring a case they believe they are certain to lose, they are going to use every angle they can possibly thing of in order to discredit you in the eyes of the jury. If they have to go after the ammunition you carried, they certainly will. That will be one more expert witness you’ll have to pay for, and several more hours of your lawyers time to deal with that issue.

Everyone has to weigh the risks versus the benefits. Personally, I think factory self-defense ammo works well enough to rely on it. In fact, I will trust it over my own loads. I just don’t see the advantage to carrying hand loads, or other unusual ammunition for self-defense purposes, enough to make up the downside.

Odd Conviction in Self-Defense Case in Philadelphia

I’m sure there is more to this case than the media story here is covering, but I find several things about it odd. For one, I don’t know why his attorney would have his client waive his right to trial-by-jury in a self-defense case. Any of you criminal defense lawyers out there, feel free to comment about this. I would imagine in virtually all circumstances, that a jury is going to be more likely to acquit on self-defense grounds than a judge is. Based on the media reports here, this looks like a cut and dry case of self-defense to me, meaning this is yet another case of the city frowning upon people defending themselves. I’m surprised the Daily News reporter is surprised by this:

The case underscores how uncertain the claim of self-defense can be, even in a state that revised its “Castle Doctrine” last year to give an individual the right to use deadly force in self-defense anywhere in which a person has a legal right to be.

Such was the case before castle doctrine, and such will continue to be the case after castle doctrine, because the honest truth is that the castle doctrine laws in the various states don’t change that much in regards to the standards that have to be met for self-defense. Because there’s a reasonableness element to it, it’s always going to be subject to some degree of uncertainty in some cases, as to whether one’s perception of the threat was reasonable.

You have to wonder if a lot of reporters really bought into the chicken little nonsense from the gun control crowd and the D.A. association.

King Bloomberg Knows What’s Best

Busybody-in-chef for the City of New York is looking to ban large sized bottles of sugary drink in an effort to fight obesity. It’s not just our Constitutional freedoms Bloomberg hates. I’m pretty sure he hates pretty much all freedom. This is the most anti-choice politician in America today, and it’s a sad testament to New York City that they tolerate this bozo lording over them like he’s everybody’s mother.

UPDATE: Whatever you do, don’t read the comments. If it’s true that global warming is going to cause sea levels to rise, and put Manhattan underwater, I’m thinking I’m not driving nearly a big enough vehicle.

Quote of the Day

On Mitt Romney:

I received a free bumper sticker from his campaign in todayâ€™s mail: “Romney. Â Believe in America.”

Believing in America is not the problem. Â Believing in Romney is.

Jacob also has some thoughts on keeping Mitt in lineÂ on the gun issue. My expectations of Romney are almost entirely placed around his short list for the Supreme Court. Some of the names I’ve seen floated would be welcome. One good thing about McDonald and Heller happening when they did is we now know a good number of “conservative” judges on the bench who are either not reliable, or outright hostile to gun rights. If the Second Amendment gets erased on Mitt’s watch, I’ll be looking to help these guys in 2016.

The Law of Averages

It has finally caught up with the whole “the criminal will just take your gun away from you,” meme long beaten to death by our opponents. Only took them nearly a quarter century of shall-issue to finally come up with a concrete example, but here it is.

A bit more on the law of averages, unrelated to this incident, which suggests that if there’s, say, six million people with concealed carry permits, that some percentage of them will be total morons, even though they will have cleared the hurdles and jumped through hoops. That percentage can be extremely small, but it’s still going to be the case that in any group as large as the number of concealed carry permits holders, or gun owners in general, not everyone is going to be a real genius.

This creates an interesting paradox for our opponents. On one side of the paradox, there will be more incidents of stupid people doing stupid things with guns, or incidents where a long time meme plays itself out. On the other side of the paradox, more people keeping and bearing arms means there’s a larger constituency to fight new gun control, so I’m not certain it really helps our opponents any.

I’ve generally of the opinion that the vast majority of people can be trusted to do the right thing, exercise good judgement, and be responsible. For me that’s reason enough in society to tolerate the very small minority of morons and losers. A primary difference between us an our opponents is that particular philosophy. They are more of the mindset that everyone freedom needs to be restricted, because you might be a moron or a loser. It kind of makes you wonder what they really think about their fellow citizens that they are willing to do that over the poor judgement and actions of the very few.

Hat Tip to Common GunsenseÂ for the link, who hopefully won’t think this post amounts to illegal harassment.

Plugin Updates

I just upgraded our WordPress instance and plugins last night. Normally when I do this, I don’t expect anyone to notice, but it looks like there’s been a significant change to the comment editing plugin. One reader is already having an issue, but it always helps to hear from others if they are as well. It would help me track down the problem, if there is one.

Oops

Apparently Roanoke County cops had some issues with an armorer not sticking a firing pin back in a gun. I’d also add to the discussion here that if I had someone work on my gun, I’d at least field strip the gun to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. All the more reason to learn how to do basic maintenance on your own. It kind of amazes me, given that police are far more likely to need their firearms than ordinary citizens, how little effort many put into not only competent shooting skills, but into basic firearms maintenance skills.

They Do Need a Checkbox for That

SayUncle gets jury duty, and notes that among the reasons listed for being dismissed does not include, “will judge the factsÂ andÂ the law.” Well, we can’t have that, the system working how it was intended to. That would lead to chaos!

I’ve written in the past, though I can’t for the life of me find it now, about my own views on nullification. It’s really one of those things they ought to teach in civics class, to whatever extent they even teach civics anymore. Juries are a check against the power of the state, and in the United States, it’s generally worked to oppose highly unpopular laws:

In the United States, jury nullification first appeared in the pre-Civil War era when juries sometimes refused to convict for violations of theÂ Fugitive Slave Act. Later, duringÂ Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws,^[23]Â possibly as often as 60% of the time.^[24]Â This resistance may have contributed to the adoption of theÂ Twenty-first amendmentÂ repealingÂ Prohibition, theÂ Eighteenth amendment.

Of course, the flip side of nullification is that it was also extensively used in the reconstruction era to acquit those who committed crimes against blacks, but were unambiguously guilty.

But generally speaking, I believe in the people judging the law, as well as the facts. The only caveat there is, the legal system has to work, so I would generally frown on Â one person hanging a jury because they don’t agree with the law. That has to really be over a matter where there’s a general sense of the members of the jury that the law is unjust, or it’s particular application is unjust. But in order for that to happen more often, people have to know that a jury’s verdict is final.

Reconsidering Illegal Ordinances

Looks like Chestnuthill Township in Pennsylvania is considering repealing a ban on guns in parks, which has been in violation of state law for some time now. A lot of towns and counties have these illegal ordinances still on the books. I’m glad people are bringing these issues to the attention of local communities. Many are unaware the ordinances are unlawful. Now if only we could get people hounding their MAIG mayors, we’d be set.

I Thought This Was America

Apparently you can be arrested for political speech in this country that someone finds offensive, if you get a judge that out of touch and senile enough. See more here from Popehat. This is just outrageous. I don’t think that Judge should ever be allowed to try a case, or sit on the bench again. Sometimes we have to beware of tyrants in robes just as much as tyrants in business suits. Perhaps even more so.