Category: Gun Rights

Interesting case out of Missouri, via SayUncle. A man drunk at home is charged with having a firearms while intoxicated. It seems to me that the public has an interest in a person not carrying a firearm in public while intoxicated, but the state’s power to reach into the home ought to be considerably diminished. Should someone be charged because they are intoxicated at home, but have a loaded pistol in the bed stand upstairs, or have a rifle in the closet?

Looking at the Missouri Statue, it would indeed seem the law reaches this far.

571.030. 1. A person commits the crime of unlawful use of weapons if he or she knowingly:

(5) Possesses or discharges a firearm or projectile weapon while intoxicated; or

In fact, it would seem to even make possession of an air gun or a bow and arrow a crime. The law isn’t entirely clear about what possession means, and doesn’t stipulate loaded or unloaded. Here’s the major exception, other than self-defense:

Subdivisions (1), (5), (8), and (10) of subsection 1 of this section do not apply when the actor is transporting such weapons in a nonfunctioning state or in an unloaded state when ammunition is not readily accessible or when such weapons are not readily accessible.

So you can transport firearms unloaded, in your car, and be as tanked up as you want! Well, DUI laws still apply, but they can’t get your for transporting an unloaded gun in your trunk. But it would appear this is a blanket prohibition on having a gun in the home while intoxicated.

I think the lower court got it right. This statute is pretty clearly over broad and unconstitutional. How can there be an exception for self-defense if you can’t have the gun around in a state ready to use for self-defense? I don’t suddenly lose my Second Amendment rights because I have a couple of beers in the home. The discharge portion of this is probably constitutional, but mere possession? I don’t see how that is, since it effectively destroys the right to keep a gun in the home.

I appreciate Doubleplusundead for helping spread the word about MAIG to a wider audience. A few of these new mayors are in my area, and I’m currently thinking about how to approach them in an attempt to get them out. We’ve tried one approach previously, but I wasn’t all that pleased with the result, so we’ll try something new. The important thing is grass roots pressure. That’s the only thing that’s going to get a lot of these mayors to quit.

Via Jeff Soyer, we have one of the early victims. A competitive pistol shooter who police refuse to renew a gun license for. I’m trying to think of a jurisdiction that enacted licensing, that didn’t then tighten the wrench on the requirement until they got to the point where bans or de facto bans were feasible. We saw it happen in New York City, we saw it happen in the United Kingdom, in New Zealand, in Finland, Canada, Massachusetts, and several others.

But you know, we’re just unreasonable and paranoid for not agreeing to the eminently reasonable step of licensing gun owners.

He’s currently calling for less than outright denial, but he’s still calling on using the terrorist watch list, which is secret, and which is only a database of names, to keep tabs on guns people buy. Actually, the interesting part of this is that apparently the FBI is already keeping track of gun purchases by suspected terrorists:

It is my understanding that when an individual is buying a handgun, National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) staff checks with the Terrorist Screening Center for hits in the Terrorist Screening Database.  In the case of valid hits – where the purchaser in question is the subject of a preliminary or full terrorism investigation – NICS staff can delay the gun transaction for up to three business days and contact the FBI Counterterrorism Division to determine whether those agents have prohibiting information about the individual that is not yet contained in the automated databases.

That’s interesting. I wonder how many people are sent into manual review because their name happens to be identical to someone on the terror watch list. And certainly the FBI is destroying those records if they end up clearing the transaction right, as is required by the Brady Act? Of course they are. They’ve always been so scrupulous about that, you know.

Looks like the Scottish Government is trying to get power to regulate airguns from Westminster, but shooting enthusiasts are trying to stop it, fearing that the Scottish Government will ban them.

Yes, even airgun sports are not safe if our numbers and political power are dropped to a sufficient degree.

As Jacob points out, the Obama Administration isn’t retreating from the Assault Weapons issue entirely, but they pretty clearly aren’t in a hurry to pass it, or to take it on right now. As long as Obama has other issues he wants to get through Congress, he’s probably not going to fight with us. But just because that’s the case today, doesn’t mean it will be the case tomorrow.

I’d like to know the numbers without the word “registered” being in there, but this is interesting:

Our survey included the question: “In general, do you agree or disagree that an individual should have a right to have a registered handgun at home?” 52% strongly agreed, 30% agreed somewhat, 10% disagreed somewhat, and 7% strongly disagreed. This is also consistent with polls concerning views of the Second Amendment, where over 70 percent view gun ownership as an individual right. See [here]. It appears that support for gun rights has increased during Obama’s first year in office, although the trajectory seems to be a continuation of a trend that began during the last years of the Bush Administration. See [here].

And I have to wonder how much of the 10% somewhat disagreement was people who hated the “registered” language. I think a lot of gun owners would have a tough time saying yes to that entirely. Either way, it’s enough of a majority to pass a constitutional amendment, in all likelihood.

I think we knew that no good would come of the Joint Task Force. Well here is the no good we were worried about. I think we’re probably safe until the mid-terms, but things could get ugly if the Second Amendment gets lost in other issues Americans have on their minds.