Category: Gun Rights

Interesting story in the Canadian media.  Most of the guns they seize at the border aren’t seized off of gun smugglers, as the media would have us believe.

Crossings into British Columbia account for the largest percentage of all gun seizures, and about a third of all handguns, the agency says. A high percentage are in transit to Alaska and not intended for the illicit firearms market, the report says.

Americans travelling through Canada between Alaska and the lower 48 states, often doing seasonal work, can take their guns if they declare them.

My understanding is that you can’t declare restricted firearms, which are basically pistols, and many semi-auto rifles.  For those you need to get a special permit to transport restricted firearms through Canada to Alaska, which you can get if you jump through the hoops.  Still, it’s not shocking that most of the guns seized are from people who don’t realize our government is one of the few to recignize a right to bear arms for self-defense.

From Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club:

And as anyone who has mis-spent his youth can testify, what constitutes a bladed weapon is limited only by the imagination. A wine bottle rapped against a railing. An artfully folded aluminum can. Forks bent to fit around your hand. Ballpoint pens. Sticks cut at an angle. Flathead screwdrivers. Hard wire. Anyone who works in corrections knows that a determined man can make a weapon out of practically anything.

The implements of mayhem were always ready to hand. What was lacking once was the wolfpack social infrastructure to wield it at random. The hardware remained largely inert until the right software was downloaded to animate it into chopping, slashing and stabbing motions. Maybe what we need is a software patch, not downrated hardware.

Arms control really does boil down to a form of ludditism; a desire to uninvent certain technology, and drive it from the knowledge of man.  The British experiment has shown that this does not cause violence to cease.

Most of us don’t have the time or inclination to learn to fight with bladed instruments, and my understanding from people in the know is that such fighting is likely to result in being stabbed even for a skilled fighter.  One reason the firearm was such an important technological achievement is because it gives ordinary people of moderate fighting skills the same power as someone much stronger and well learned in fighting.  As the old saying goes, “God may have created man, but Sam Colt made them equal.”

Apparently DeCosta and Franklin were both served papers, during a press conference, for the federal lawsuit surrounding the Atlanta Airport showdown.  Excellent!

The ACLU says they disagree with the Supreme Court and continue to hold the Second Amendment is a collective right.  I have to admit, I have at one time been a member of the ACLU, because I have often respected some of the work they have done.  I will never give another dime to them because of this.  Not another dime!

This country desperately needs a real civil liberties advocacy group.

Daley seems to be suggesting Chicago will rework its laws, no doubt to make an incorporation case harder.

Looks like it’s being filed as a Title 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 lawsuit, which is a federal civil rights statute that allows officials to be sued for deprivation of civil rights under the color of law.  The case is Guy Montag Doe vs. San Francisco Housing Authority (CV-08-3112).  You can see a copy of the complaint here.  One of the attorneys in this case is Don Kates, who is a pioneer of Second Amendment rights.  It names several defendants, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, as defendants.  They are being sued in their official capacity.

This case would seem to be a test as to whether the Second Amendment is actionable under Section 1983.  I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be.  No doubt the officials being sued are going to claim qualified immunity, using the theory that Heller is not clearly established law as applied to state and local government and officials.  My understanding is that qualified immunity is often difficult to overcome in these kinds of suits, especially where there’s not well established case law.  But I imagine the hope might be that The Courts might use existing case law and take notice that the second amendment is incorporated.

In the case of Duncan v. Louisiana, which incorporated the right to trial by jury, The Court laid out a guideline for whether a right would be considered applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.  They stated:

The question has been asked whether a right is among those “‘fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions,'”  whether it is “basic in our system of jurisprudence,” and whether it is “a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial.”

Given the broad ruling in Heller, it would be hard to see how the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms doesn’t pass the conditions spelled out in Duncan.  Nontheless, there is no clear ruling that says the second amendment is incorporated.  It will be interesting to see if the courts here simply take notice of its incorporation based on existing case law, or whether this will go to the Supreme Court.  Considering Justice Scalia’s disdain for selective incorporation, this might be just the kind of case The Court is looking for.  It’s very good that we’ll have a wide variety of cases proceeding upwards on this important question.

UPDATE: I asked Dave Hardy about qualified immunity claims in suits like this, and he indicated that when the 1983 suits merely asks for an injunction, qualified immunity isn’t at issue.  That only comes into play when the plaintiff is seeking damages.  In this case, they seem to only be asking for an injunction.

DC has released this handy guide, which SayUncle tears apart.

With high explosives.  I love the “End of Miller” bit too.

At least you are if you’re Oak Park, IL village manager, you think so.  Here’s an unintended consequence of Heller that’s going to be good for us.  You see, currently Chicago has no shooting culture.  It’s been, pretty much, completely eliminated because of the Chicago and surrounds’ gun bans.  Heller offers an opportunity for those cities to rebuild a healthy shooting culture.  I can’t think of a better use for an old warehouse than a nice, indoor, 50 yard indoor shooting range.  Can you?

Even Philadelphia hasn’t managed to eliminate its shooting culture, and we even have a few pro-gun state reps that represent constituents in the city.  There are constituents for the right to keep and bear arms within the City of Brotherly Love, and definitely within its suburbs (I’m living proof).  Suburban reps tend to either support guns rights, or are moderate on it.  Only in a few near-city suburbs do you get radical anti-gun representatives.  Even as bad as Nutter is on guns, his rhetoric is nothing like Mayor Daleys.  Nutter has to decieve to do what he wants.  Daley has no such restriction.

That may likely change.  Given the calls the Oak City, IL manager has gotten from people wanting to own handguns, it seems that it might change rather quickly.  If the anti-gun folks lose Chicago and New York as solid anti-gun enclaves, it’ll be over for them.  Once people have friends who are shooters, or relative, or neighbors, it gets a lot harder to maintain the level of ignorance needed to get them to sign onto the gun control agenda with any enthusiasm.

This from an NPR article from today:

Village Manager Joe Wade says Morton Grove isn’t going to wait for a court battle. It’s going to act.

“The village of Morton Grove has every intention to comply with [the Supreme Court ruling],” Wade says. “We’re going to propose an ordinance that would eliminate the possession-of-handgun ban within the village.”

So that pretty much confirms it.  I did send an e-mail to them earlier, but have yet to hear back.  We shall see what happens here.