Category: Gun Rights

The Nordyke case was head a few days ago, right after the Peterson oral arguments concluded. This was the case over Alameda County banning gun shows on its property. Apparently now they are suggesting the gun show can continue as long as the guns are tethered to the tables. This seems reasonable to me, since many gun show operators around here tether the guns with a cable lock anyway. The San Francisco Appeal has more. This is an indication that the county doesn’t have much confidence in its case.

New York Second Amendment enthusiast are rallying in Albany today. You know one thing they won’t be rallying for? Castle doctrine or “stand your ground” laws. Why? Because New York already has them. That’s right, hysterical media, the self-defense laws that govern Florida are not that materially different than the ones that govern New York City, and I don’t hear New York prosecutors bitching that their laws are an abomination and interfere with their ability to prosecute criminals.

She took a plea to a misdemeanor and paid a $200 fine:

“This is not the kind of case that should prevent her from being a doctor,” attorney Daniel Horwitz said. “Licensing boards have a lot of discretion.”

“It’s the type of disposition that will allow her to get on with her life and career,” he continued, explaining why Graves, whose husband accompanied her to New York for her court appearance, decided to plead guilty. “What she did is not a crime in Tennessee.”

Graves will have pay a $200 fine in the case.

It’s still a travesty, but we will fix this. We can’t have individual cities opting out of respecting the Bill of Rights.

Sounds to me like if this passes, the Cerberus folks are going to regret relocating all their manufacturing to New York.

If microstamping were to become law, firearms manufacturers would be forced to employ a patented, sole-sourced concept that independent studies, including those from the National Academy of Sciences and the University of California at Davis, found to be flawed and easily defeated by criminals. Passage of this bill could result in layoffs of factory workers throughout New York as manufacturers, already being heavily lobbied by tax and gun friendly states, consider moving out of New York. Furthermore, firearms manufacturers could be forced to abandon the New York market altogether rather than spend the astronomical sums of money needed to completely reconfigure their manufacturing and assembly processes. This would directly impact law enforcement, firearms retailers and their law-abiding customers.

What we would call a bug, the supporters of this bill would call a feature. If you don’t think New York City politicians would sacrifice upstate jobs on the altar of their hatred for the Second Amendment, you’re kidding yourself.

 

John Richardson wants to know why the Brady Campaign want to keep gays defenseless. Peterson, a gay man, is suing the State of Colorado for not issuing licenses to carry to non-residents so that they may be able to carry while in Colorado. Colorado’s reciprocity statute is limited, and Colorado does not have reciprocity with Peterson’s home state. This is another small step in the lengthy struggle to get a carry case before the Supreme Court.

From the National Post:

She is a Toronto grandmother of two in her mid-sixties and she is sharing her love of guns in mid-winter on a underground range in Toronto’s west end. (That range has since closed; Ellen’s club now shoots at another range in the City of Toronto but will not disclose its location.)

Ellen also won’t share her real name. The request for anonymity reflects a reluctance to disclose personal information in a city in which even legal gun ownership comes with a stigma attached.

“You have to be careful who you talk to,” she says. “It’s like religion and politics.”

As long as gun owners remain underground and won’t talk about what they do, the extinction of the culture that allows and tolerates gun ownership is inevitable. Also, to change anything for the better, you have to change the culture. From a Canadian Criminologist:

“I know some people like sport shooting, but it doesn’t seem to me like much of a sport, personally. I think a lot of people would also think of it as quite peculiar as a sport, especially because where are those guns stored and how safely? A lot of people would share the view that you should get yourself a proper sport and go play hockey or something.”

And the reason you need to be “out of the closet” so to speak, is because if you’re not, you can’t attack people like this above for being the sanctimonious pricks that they are. The key to changing the culture is to make the attitude displayed above unacceptable. You won’t see anti-gun folks here saying stuff like this, because we have succeeded in accomplishing that.

This was a surprise to wake up to this morning, but it does go to show why Constitutional Carry is such a difficult issue for us in Pennsylvania, when it’s extremely difficult to get it even in states where it should be a slam-dunk. Governor Daugaard has signed a number of pro-gun measures into law during his tenure, but this was apparently a bit too much for him. South Dakota would have been the 4th state to enact Constitutional Carry, and the 5th state to not require a license or permit to carry a concealed firearm. The other states are Alaska, Arizona, and Wyoming. Vermont has always had constitutional carry.

Gun owners tend to think favorably of the 5th Circuit, because it’s the circuit that Emerson came out of, but they’ve been on a roll lately with unfavorable decisions. This latest one they argue that the right to bear arms only covers arms in general, and not one specific firearm. What? So let me get this straight, the police can come into my house, take all my firearms, not charge me with anything, and that’s not a violation of my rights because I can always go buy new ones?

The right protected by the Second Amendment is not a property-like right to a specific firearm, but rather a right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

I’d be curious to know what the case law is on something like this in a First Amendment context. Can the police seize a printing press from a newspaper, fail to file any charges, and keep the press? Would this create a viable First Amendment complaint?

Very interesting is that Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, the dissenting judge in this case, brings up, once again, Judge Kavanaugh’s dissent in the Heller II case in the D.C. Circuit. I may have more to say about this later. But I think Judge Kavanaugh was on to something when he penned that dissent.

Newtown Township, here in my County, has decided to follow state law. They are seeing the writing on the wall in regards to how we feel about preemption, and decided to take some preventative measures. This is a great development, considering the bill isn’t even law yet.

UPDATE: Greg notes in the comments that they are still requiring a permit for parks, meaning they still have some changing to do if they want to remain compliant with state law in regards to preemption since it’s not unlawful to openly carry in a park, according to state law.