Gun Rights – Page 174 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Philly OC Abuse Case Getting Media Attention

Folks might remember the YouTube sensation from a month or so ago of a Philadelphia man who was threatened by a Philadelphia Police officer for legally carrying a firearm. You might also remember that the City is charging him with reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct. This weekend activists held a protest to demonstrate against this kind of treatment. This, to me, is a textbook example of how to use open carry effectively as a form of protest.

Today, the media is on fire with the story. First, from the Daily News, complete with a transcript. Next John Stossel has picked up on it at Fox News Business. The Daily News notes that they will be retraining officers on open carry:

“Our officers weren’t up to speed [because] we never really addressed it,” said Lt. Francis Healy, the department’s lawyer.

“In the last several weeks, we’ve done a lot of training and put out a lot of information about what is allowed and what’s not allowed. Right now, our officers are better-versed on the subject matter.”

Of course, this isn’t entirely true, as this directive from last year demonstrates. This is a very interesting case, in addition to being an utter disgrace. Pretty clearly Fiorino has a pretty good case for a Civil Rights lawsuit, but we’ll have to see what happens with these charges. It’s hard to believe that they will stick, given he was exercising his rights and was within the law.

Restaurant Carry Bill in Ohio

Our opponents areÂ already in hysterics over the bill, and appear to be conceding the Senate vote on the matter, and are appealing directly to Governor Kasich by asking him to veto it. This is good.

This weekend I took advantage of Virginia’s new restaurant carry provisions, and somehow, by some miracle, managed to avoid consuming alcohol while carrying as prescribed by law, and managed to avoid shooting up the place. That’s in contrast to back home in Pennsylvania, where you can have a glass of wine with dinner while carrying. Clearly back home I’m shooting up restaurants on a regular basis, along with all my other fellow 600,000 LTC holders in the Commonwealth.

Weed and Guns

A Rhode Island Superior Court has upheld the gun rights of a person growing medical marijuana under the state’s medical marijuana law. Obviously this only applies to a state action, the feds could still take a whack at this defendant if they chose to do so.

SAF Lawsuit in Illinois

SAF has filed Moore v. Madigan. Over at Only Guns and Money, John Richardson talks about the plaintiffs. John also noted that the NRA suit is filed in the Southern District of Illinois, and the SAF suit is filed in the Central District, so the cases cannot be combined. I believe, however, they could be combined on appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, much like McDonald was with NRA’s case. Either way I don’t think it’s bad for the circuit court to have more than one case to choose to hear in the event this gets appealed, which it probably will.

Restoring Right-to-Carry on More Federal Land

Representative Bob Gibbs (R-OH) has introduced new legislation that would open up more federal land to lawful carry. Specifically it would legalize carry on lands controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers. There a number of such federals lands in Pennsylvania. To be honest, I didn’t even know carry was an issue on these lands until a few years ago.

Luzerne County Lowers Permit Fee

The new Sheriff of Luzerne County is lowering the fee for License to Carry from $31 to $20. This is good news, because overcharging for LTCs has been a persistent problem among PA Sherrifs. It’s good at least one is doing something about it.

Constitutional Carry in Pennsylvania

As much as I’d love to see Constitutional Carry happen in Pennsylvania, there are a few problems associated with getting it done. The chief problem, that I see, is that Senate Judiciary is headed by Stu Greenleaf, who only tends to be pro-gun when he really feels like it. In addition to Greenleaf, there are a number of other weak kneed Republican Senators who would make passage of such a bill problematic. Remember that last year, we did not have the votes on Judiciary to even keep the silly Florida Loophole amendment off HB40.Â There are ways around the committee, but they can be problematic avenues.

What makes Pennsylvania problematic for Constitutional Carry is that the southeast is becoming less pro-gun. The Democrats here are almost uniformly anti, and the Republicans are precarious enough they don’t want to stake out strong positions on contentious issues. If suburban legislators start voting along with their urban counterparts, it’s over for this issue, and there are a lot of suburban GOP legislators that don’t think there will be much pro-gun cover for their votes in this decidedly anti-gun media market. Just as an example, we tried to knock off Steve Santarsiero this past election by backing the campaign of Rob Ciervo, and failed by a few hundred votes. It’s tough to unseat even the anti-gun politicians around here, let alone unseat the softies. Without some more solid representation on the gun issue in the suburbs, I’m afraid Constitutional Carry is going to be a serious uphill battle in the Keystone State.

Debate Over Minnesota Castle Doctrine

Good debate over the Castle Doctrine debate in Minnesota. This would also open up reciprocity in the North Star State to recognize all other state licenses. I’m particularly keen on that provision because Minnesota, otherwise, is a tough state to get a reciprocal license for. The language of the bill can be found here.

Of course, the best reason to get this passed is because it’ll really upset Joan Peterson, who has been cheering on CSGV’s campaign of releasing personal information of gun bloggers.

Constitutional Carry Veto in Montana

Very disappointing. I don’t see what the big deal is, since in the majority of Montana, I believe carry without a license is already the law, and it’s only incorporated areas that require a permit to carry.

UPDATE from Bitter: You don’t need a permit in most of the state, and it’s an issue that NRA’s guy made last night with Cam when discussing the mystery of this veto.

Puerto Rican Court Recognizes Right to Carry

Over at Volokh, Professor Bob Cottrol reports on the ruling, which would appear to turn Puerto Rico into a shall-issue jurisdiction. Professor Cottrol notes that it will likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. If the case prevails there as well, that would be the end of it. If it does not, it could be appealed to the US Supreme Court. He also notes that the case looks pretty good, with a good plaintiff.