Sebastian – Page 595 – Shall Not Be Questioned

My Faith in Humanity …

… gets shaken severely when I consider that this guy is the hottest ticket on Fox News:

Taken back to the point of creation where science can no longer offer an explanation, this line of reasoning isn’t poor, but it sure doesn’t show off Bill O’Reilly’s vast knowledge of the subject he’s deriding. Considering we have a pretty good idea where the moon came from, and Mars has not only one, but two moons (which may be captured asteroids, but that’s neither here nor there).

If there’s order to Bill O’Reilly’s universe, then quantum mechanics would make his head explode, and let’s not even talk about entropy, and what the laws of thermodynamics says is does. If there’s one thing observing and studying the universe, both macroscopically and microscopically, ought to reveal to the faithful, is if there’s order to God’s creation, we do not possess (yet) the mathematical and physical knowledge to comprehend it, and perhaps we weren’t meant to. But beyond that we can explain most of what we see around us.

O’Reilly, on the other hand, seems to have difficulty understanding the things math and science can explain. That certainly doesn’t make him unique among the American population, but most of us aren’t pundits on a popular cable news show. AÂ famous quote of Abraham Lincoln’s comes to mind here.Â O’Reilly has one purpose, for me at least, and that’s making Glenn Beck seem considerably less annoying in comparison.

Trial for Gerald Ung Begins

You might remember the shooting that was caught on a Fox News studio surveillance camera a year or so ago. Quite a number of people thought this looked like a legitimate case of self-defense. Gerald Ung’s trial for attempted murder is now underway.

Assistant District Attorney Jan McDermott told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial that the evidence will show that Ung, a native of Fairfax, Va., became infuriated when DiDonato and his three friends appeared to be flirting with Ung’s female companion.

“Don’t . . . me off,” McDermott said, quoting Ung. “What he was saying was, ‘I got a gun, I’m a man and I’ll show you.’ “

Gun people need to watch this trial carefully, because this is going to be instructive about what you can expect to go through if you shoot someone who doesn’t have a weapon.

Already we have a key mistake on the part of Ung. Verbal command should be telling them to back off, not “Don’t piss me off.” If they don’t respond to verbal commands, you should have some kind of less-than-lethal option to go to. If they produce a weapon or start to attack you, go to the gun. In Ung’s case, from what can be seen in the video, he did not produce a firearm until he was being attacked, and it appeared to me he was in the process of retreating.

Force disparity should be easy here. Multiple attackers on one person doesn’t leave you with a lot of choices if you don’t want to end up in a hospital. The key question will be whether Gerald Ung created the circumstances that lead to him having to use deadly force. I would imagine the testimony of Ung’s girlfriend is going to be key in this, because it’s hard to imagine a jury is going to convict someone of attempted murder if he was trying to protect his girlfriend from unwanted harassment by a group of drunken men.

UPDATE: Much more information here.Â I still don’t see anything yet that defeats the self-defense claim.

UPDATE: Prior link has been updated with more testimony:

â€œThe defendant resisted handcuffs and wouldnâ€™t give the gun to the police. They had to pull their guns to get his gun. Use every day common sense and watch and listen.â€

Bad move. This will greatly complicate Ung’s defense.

You May Notice an Ad

It’s long been my policy not to take ads for commercial purposes, but I have occasionally advertised for not-for-profit causes I support at no cost, and such is the case here.

Every year the fine folks in NRA’s Office of General Counsel and the Firearms Law Seminar Task Force, put on the National Firearms Law Seminar. I was fortunate to be able to attend last year’s seminar, and I highly recommend it to anyone deeply interested in firearms law, or to anyone who’s a Lawyer who are looking for CLE credits. Where else can you go hear Dave Hardy talk about Carthaginian War Elephants, after all?

If you plan on going to Annual Meeting this year in Pittsburgh, and if you’re really interested in Second Amendment law, the seminar draws the top experts in the field. I would recommend it.

UPDATE: I was informed that law students get in for free this year, and you can do registrations in sections, like if you wanted to hear Prof. Glenn Reynolds speak, you can just buy tickets for the lunch where he’s speaking. See here for details.

The Activists Commeth

One thing that’s always shocked me is that, from what I’ve been able to tell, the vast majority of activists on the other side are people who are channeling their grief into the movement to ban or severely limit gun rights. We would seem to have the first of what no doubt will be many gun control activists created by this high profile tragedy.

It’s not uncommon, and certainly not limited to gun policy in this country. Many individuals who lost loved ones to lung cancer have gone on to become anti-smoking crusaders, for instance. Bitter and I both lost parents, hers arguably to smoking and poor lifestyle choices, and mine to breast cancer. This kind of channeling grief into activism is a difficult thing for both of us to understand, and I’ve pondered why some people channel their grief into public activism while others either don’t get the idea or are put off by it. I tend to have a negative view of channeling grief into activism, no matter what the activism, because when I went through it, I didn’t think it was the world’s duty to revolve around what I was going through, and what happened to my mother.

That’s one reason I’m not a huge breast cancer advocate, nor is Bitter an anti-smoking activist. Lots of diseases kill people, and breast cancer being a leading killer, will always get research money, mostly because big, evil pharma companies want to make money selling those treatments. Bitter, similarly, views her father’s poor lifestyle choices as just that, his choice.

In the aftermath of the tragedy in Arizona, I feel for the victims, but particularly the ones who don’t want their grief made into a public spectacle. If I were in that situation, I would deeply resent the news coverage, and attempts by groups to try to manipulate my circumstances for their own gain in the public arena. If I spoke out, it would only be to condemn them.

NRA Bought Congress?

Howard Nemerov of Pajamas Media takes a look at this assertion, and debunks it, noting that the Joyce Foundation has far outspent NRA in several areas. Where would their movement be without wealthy foundations and rich a***oles?

Stunning Admission

The New York Post is ticked that Bloomberg spent $100,000 worth of money out of the NYPD budget to pull off his publicity stunt at Arizona gun shows noting, “Bloomberg, of course, has never been bashful about putting taxpayersâ€™ money where his mouth is.” They later go on to argue that the real solution is for the NYPD to stop buying from Glock, until they stop “selling high-capacity magazines to private citizens.”

New Yorkers have a tendency to think the world revolves around their city, but the fact of the matter is that whatever NYPD spends on Glocks is a drop in the bucket compared to what Glock makes selling guns to the civilian market. As it currently is, people are buying Glock magazines (the vast majority of which hold more than ten rounds) faster than they can make them.

Kudos to the post for recognizing the waste and silliness of Bloomberg’s stunt, but it’s disappointing they offered up an equally silly proposal to deny their police one of the best defensive handguns on the market. Imagine instead of spending $100,000 on publicity stunts, and wrangling about whether NYPD officers should sacrifice equipment on the altar of political correctness, if we actually spend all this time, energy, and money on helping the police, I don’t know, catch criminals or something?

Ed and Midge Split

Our former Governor is apparently separating from his wife of 40 years. Says the Daily News:

Their e-mail makes no mention of divorce or the cause for the split. But Rendell has long been the subject of speculation involving younger women, typically leggy blonds. Rendell most recently turned heads last May when he arrived at a typical Election Day lunch at the Famous 4th Street Deli with Dr. Kirstin Snow, a state employee and former Miss Pennsylvania.

As a woman accomplished in her own right (Midge Rendell is a Federal Judge), I think she’s probably better off without him.

Cato Panel Featuring Alan Gura and Dennis Henigan

Gura’s optimism is refreshing. I am probably more pessimistic by nature about the Federal Courts’ willingness to give us a strong Second Amendment right. It’s good to hear experts who feel strongly that our chances are good.

Dennis Henigan starts out, instead of talking about constitutional law, talks about public policy instead, talking about how this is just a strategy to implement our “guns everywhere” policy. He later goes on to speak of how narrow the Heller decision is, suggesting that the right is limited to the home. He pleads with other panelist not to regard the Second Amendment like the First Amendment:

The Second Amendment should be regarded as, to some extent, sui generis. It is like no other right. It is, in my view, the most dangerous right. It demands its own unique constitutional jurisprudence that is highly deferential to the very very difficult judgements our elected officials have to make as they seek to formulate policies that will prevent future Tucsons, and that will reduce the tragic toll of gun violence in this country that now takes 80 of our fellow citizens lives every day.

In other words, because the right is unique, and lots of people die by gunfire, we should read it as meaning as little as possible.

Nelson Lund makes a number of criticisms of Heller from an originalist point of view. He seems to be much more on the pessimist side, and doesn’t seem to like the Heller and McDonald decision all that much, for similar reasons we all don’t like it. I’m probably not even close to as pessimistic as Lund, though maybe not so much as Gura. But I think I’m closer to Gura’s position than Lund’s.

Alan Morrison was supposed to argue the Heller case for DC, but infighting in DC government prevented it. He also reiterates that the Second Amendment can’t be like the First Amendment because “guns can hurt you.” It’s funny how many of his criticisms are identical to Lund’s.

Montana Considering a Militia Bill

While I would not count myself as a supporter of such a bill,Â I think the opposition the bill in Montana to establish a “home guard” is overwrought, particularly by our opponents. My main reason for not supporting it is because it’s a symbolic political gesture, rather than something that fills a genuine military need.

That said, I’m not opposed to the idea outright either. Â You’re going to have people who are attracted to the idea of being in a militia no matter what you do, and it would seem to me that it would be better for everyone if they were put under control of some form of civil authority, the way our militia system originally worked. And who knows, if Montana were to experience some sort of natural or civil disaster, it might be helpful to have such a force in place at the disposal of authorities to keep and/or restore order.

LEO Instructor at NRA Previously Resigned in Disgrace

Radley Balko has noticed that one of the LEO instructors being touted by the NRA’s Law Enforcement training division resigned from his position with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department after being caught making an unlawful arrest, then covering up the evidence:

This isnâ€™t just a case of a cop losing his temper over a guy leaning on his car. His bad judgment carried over into an illegal arrest. He then filled out, signed, and filed a falsified a police report to cover up his other mistakes. Were it not for the video, Overcashâ€™s report could very well have resulted in a man getting convicted and sentenced for crimes he didnâ€™t commit.

NRA should investigate this, and remove him from the position post haste. I agree with those who suggest this is not the kind of person we want representing NRA’s law enforcement programs. At the very least, they owe members an explanation.

Here’s their contact information for those who wish to call.

UPDATE: Going to see what I can find out about this. To me NRA should set the example for honor and integrity, and I think these kind of actions falls below that standard.

UPDATE: From an earlier story from August,Â “Overcash gave 6-month notice of his intention to leave FLPD in January 2010, which predates the release of the controversial video in April 2010 in which Overcash arrests a man who demanded Overcash’s badge number. So while that incident triggered an investigation by FLPD into Overcash’s actions, it does not appear to be a factor in Overcash’s decision to leave the department.”