Category: Gun Rights

From the AP. Focuses mostly on Mike Vanderbough and the Virginia rally.  The Washington Independent, focusing on a statement by Mike Vanderbough. The HuffPo with photos and videos. From the WaPo blog mostly covering the DC rally, and in the theme that there really isn’t anything to protest on the gun front. CNN’s coverage focused mostly on the rally in DC, but did make a mention of the Virginia rally. Probably the worst coverage was AFP:

“We are the tip of the Tea Party’s spear. We are the IRA to the Tea Party’s Sinn Fein,” Vanderboegh said, referring to the Irish Republican Army, the main paramilitary force in three decades of violence between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and its political wing.

Not playing into any carefully constructed narratives there about the Tea Party. No. None at all. The AP had later coverage which they note the numbers were in the hundreds. I wouldn’t say that’s undercounting based on the pictures so far. The Richmond Times Dispatch says VCDL delivered at least 100 people to the rally.

Dave Kopel linked to a new law review article on Mexican Gun Laws, and also on the current controversy in regards to trafficking from the US into Mexico. You can find a PDF copy here. Let me quote from it:

In the middle of the twentieth century, Mexico was a popular hunting destination for Americans, and Mexican hunters invented a new shooting sport. ―Silhouette shooting—shooting at metal silhouette targets in the shape of game animals—originated in Mexico in the early 1950s. Mexican hunters were looking for ways to sharpen their eyes between hunting seasons, and so began shooting at live animals which had been placed on a high ridgeline, visible in silhouette from hundreds of yards away. Whoever shot the animal would win a prize. American hunters near the Mexican border—most notably the Tucson Rifle Club—adopted the sport, but used life-sized metal targets instead—hence the sport’s name of Siluetas Metalicas.

In Mexico as in the United States, civil unrest in 1968 led to important new restrictions on firearms. Before then, many types of rifles, shotguns and handguns were freely available. Anti-government student movements, however, scared the government into closing firearms stores, and registering all weapons. Compliance with the registration has been very low.

I had to include that one because I shoot that sports pretty regularly, and it’s a good bit of fun. I’m glad Dave included that bit of history. It’s also interesting that Mexico got restrictive at the same time we did. There’s also more meat:

An oft-repeated claim is that 90% of Mexican crime guns come from the United States. The more accurate statement would be that the Mexican police choose to give a selected minority of seized firearms to the United States BATFE offices in Mexico, and of those guns that are turned over the BATFE, a high percentage are traced to the United States, in the sense that the guns were at one point manufactured or sold in the United States.22 This does not mean that the guns were necessarily sold in the civilian United States market; for example, a gun might have been lawfully sold to a Mexican police agency and then stolen. Or the gun might have been manufactured for U.S. Army use during the Vietnam War, later captured by the communist government which currently rules Vietnam, and then exported on the international black market.

I read it last night and it’s worth your while if you want a deep understanding of the issues we’ve been having in regards to Mexico. One thing that strikes me immediately is how imprecise Mexican law is compared to American law. Very little seems to be defined under Mexican law, which I would have difficulty believing doesn’t lead to abuse, as agencies and police interpret the law from situation to situation so that it always goes against the accused. I have no idea whether Mexico has any equivalent to Administrative Law, like we have in the United States.

NRA reports Governor Brewer has signed the bill:

“This is a major victory for gun owners in Arizona, and I would like to thank Governor Jan Brewer, as well as the primary bill sponsor, Senator Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), for their leadership in working to improve the self-defense rights of law-abiding citizens in Arizona,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA. “Both Governor Brewer and state Senator Pearce have been strong supporters of the NRA. The NRA is also grateful to the legislators who voted for this measure making Arizona the third state in the nation behind Vermont and Alaska to offer its residents a constitutional carry option.

Clearly they’ve replaced Chris Cox with an impostor, because it’s a well known fact that NRA does not support Constitutional Carry. Dustin is pretty happy, and Arizona Riflemen has been checking out the hysteria, and notes an oddity with the current law.

Looks like, much to VPC’s chagrin, Elanor Holmes Norton is conceding to moving the DC Voting Rights bill forward with the language that removes DC’s gun laws and preempts them from making more. The New York Times calls this “extortion.” I call it making them follow the constitution if they want representation. What will be the likely effects of this?

For one, the voting rights language is pretty straightforwardly unconstitutional. It’s hard to see how it’s going to stand up to scrutiny in the Courts. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution only specifies representatives are to be apportioned to states, and the extra Utah representation is clearly a violation of apportionment. In addition, it is a violation of several Warren Court decisions that found the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause prevents some people from having disproportionate representation over other people. It’s hard to see how the actual voting rights bill stands up to constitutional scrutiny.

The gun rights language should be completely severable from the voting rights language. In other words, when the voting rights language is likely invalidated by the Courts, the gun rights language is going to stand. If this passes, and is signed by the President, the “Heller II” case, which just lost at the District Court level, but is appealing, lawsuit will become moot. I don’t consider this a bad thing. We should prefer legislative solutions to unconstitutional laws where we can accomplish that. The Courts are far more risky.

The net effect on this will be that the District of Columbia’s gun laws default to the federal law. To buy a gun you fill out a 4473, and go through the background check. It guts all the assault weapons nonsense out of their law, as well as the licensing, registration, training and ballistic testing requirement. The Districts laws on carrying in public will remain untouched, so the Palmer case, which is being advanced by Alan Gura and SAF will be undisturbed.

I am not too keen on passing an unconstitutional law in order to repeal another unconstitutional law, but in the end I am pragmatic about these things, and believe that this will work out fine for us in the end.

The Brady Campaign is busy using the anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy, which has precisely nothing to do with gun shows, to promote their campaign to close the “loophole.” Personally, I plan to do something very different. Shortly I will walk through the “loophole,” not once, but twice.

One of the guys I shoot with at the club has been selling off bits of his collection. Last year I bought an M1903-A3 from him using this dreaded loophole. How he’s selling his M1 Garand. As it is, I already have an M1 Garand, but mine was made in 1955, so it’s a late production run. The one he’s selling was made in 1941, and is in pretty good condition. So I might want to make an upgrade. The 1941 model has more historical value, and would still be a decent shooter.

But I don’t have a need for two M1 Garands, so a friend of mine who’s blogged here once before when his Calico M950 blew up on him, is in the market for a new piece, so I figured selling my M1 to him might work out well. So sometime in the next week or two I’m going to buying an M1 Garand made in 1941 through the dreaded “Gun Show Loophole,” then using the same dreaded “Gun Show Loophole,” to sell my current M1 to a friend.

The Brady folks would like you to believe the vast majority of private gun transfers are from one stranger to another stranger, who clearly runs a good chance of being a violent criminal, or some kind of NRA XXXL t-shirt wearing tea party domestic terrorist. But most of them take on the character of what I’m trying to do. Close the gun show “loophole” and force me through an FFL, at the going rates in the Philadelphia area, it would add anywhere from 70 to 100 dollars to the cost of doing this transaction. All so we could make sure people I know for a fact aren’t criminals get the background check. Maybe that’s worth 100 dollars of my money to the Brady folks, but it’s not to me.

An Appeals Court in Colorado ruled that the University Board of Regents is subject to preemption, and has to honor State permits to carry. If you want to read the opinion, you can find it here. As the Appeals Court says, “Had the legislature intended to exempt universities [from preemption], it knew how to do so.” The Regents, in this case, seem to have taken up two main arguments, arguing that they were not a “local government” under the preemption law, and that the Colorado Concealed Carry Act didn’t divest them of any power to regulate the campus environment. The Appeals Court rejected both of these arguments:

As with their “local government” argument, the Regents’ “express divestiture” argument is undermined by section 18-12-214, which reflects the legislature’s intent to subject “all areas of the state,” except those specifically enumerated, to uniform regulation of concealed handgun carry.

Congratulations also to Dave Kopel, who was cited in this Appeals Court ruling as an example of the scholarly and public debate on this subject, alongside the Brady Campaign folks who were examples from the other side of the issue.

Another bit of good news in this ruling is that the Appeals Court rejected rational basis review for claims under Colorado’s right to keep and bear arms provision. While not forcing strict scrutiny, it did adopt a “reasonable exercise test” that was applied in a previous case, and is a form of intermediate scrutiny. The case is remanded the case back to lower court for consideration along that standard. It doesn’t seem anyone wants to come out and say strict scrutiny for the RKBA, which is a shame, but maybe we’ll get there.

This would appear, to me, to be a great victory for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, who were the plaintiffs in this case. Lets hope this goes as well at the Colorado Supreme Court should the Regents decide to appeal.

Hat tip to Dave Hardy for the pointer.

Jacob is reporting that Bloomberg’s Carrying While Intoxicated bill has been killed in the New York State Assembly. As I mentioned before, while I don’t support carrying while intoxicated, the New York Bill had some serious constitutional problems, in that refusing to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights meant you lost your Second Amendment rights.

This is a victory for the Bill of Rights, all around. Now Bloomberg can go back to the important issues, such as regulating people’s salt and trans-fat intake.

In response to the open carry controversy generated in California, it looks like anti-gun activists there are going to run a bill to ban the practice. Obviously there’s going to be opposition to this, but gun owners in California are at a political disadvantage. Whether you agree with open carry or not, this has to be opposed. Now isn’t the time to point fingers at each other.

I’m not sure how this happened, because word on the street is that NRA doesn’t give a crap about NFA owners.

Governor McDonnell just signed a bunch of laws into effect, including allowing restaurant carry, renewing carry permits by mail, and some addition rights for people seeking licenses to carry.

The restaurant carry thing is long overdue. Expect much in the way of bleating from the other side, but this means far fewer guns being left in vehicles, and that’s a good thing.