Guns – Page 1073 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Fleeing Criminals

Yesterday’s story from Michigan involved a poorly considered shot at fleeing suspects.Â Â Reader KathyH sent me this story from Pennsylvania illustrates the legal risks involved in doing so:

Police said two masked teens armed with BB guns and baseball bats were in the process of robbing the home of Eraldo Iannitelli shortly before 6 a.m. when he returned home. Grabbing a 12-gauge shotgun, he fired at the fleeing teens.

A 16-year-old boy was hit. Neighbors who heard his cries called 911. Police are searching for the second teen.

According to police, Mr. Iannitelli is being charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

The 16 year old will be charged with robbery and aggravated assault, police said.

The gray area comes in when the suspects are not fleeing, but are merely engaging in a tactical retreat, and plan to continue the fight.Â There’s always a possibility this man felt that the suspects were not breaking off the fight, and thus his actions were not inappropriate, but one should always be inherent wary of firing on suspects who are retreating from you.

Black Sunday

Attention Pennsylvanians!

This is the first day of the Pennsylvania Instant Check Outage.Â I encourage everyone within the Commonwealth who cares about gun rights to write your state representatives and make sure they know how hopping mad you are about this.

This goes double if your representative is a Democrat, especially a rural Democrat who normally supports gun rights. I would advise including something along the lines ofÂ “This action by our governor makes me question the Democratic party’s commitment to my right to keep and bear arms.”Â Make all the Democrats concerned that you think their party is abadoning your gun rights.Â Make them want Rendell’s head on the platter for going ahead with this and damaging their party.Â And don’t be afraid to mail the Governor’s office and tell him you won’t vote for his party in the next election.

It’s only by raising a stink about this that we can head off the possibility of these types of outages happening in the future.Â Rendell felt safe in screwing us because he doesn’t have to worry about being up for re-election, but if it looks like this could hurt the Democrats, they’ll be sure to keep the next lame duck governor on a short leash.

Careful Out There

Over at AR15.com, a guy gets into some trouble in Pennsylvania for a non crime:

Told him my .45 is on my hip and my CCW is with my license. He gets me out of the vehicle and takes the pistol to run it to see if it stolen. I am thinking no problem I have had this pistol since 88. Bought it in CA from a buddy in the Marines. The weapon comes back with no history in fact after a four hours search ATF can not find any weapons in my name. They want to know why it is not registered in PA. Told him when I moved to PA, I asked Chester County Sheriff if I had to register my pistols in PA since I bought them in CA. He said no they are in the system.

This wasn’t a lawful seizure.Â The course of action here would be to retain an attorney, and file suit to get the firearm returned.Â Under Pennsylvania law, the state is required to pay attorneys fees for a gun owner who has to file suit to get an unlawfully held firearm returned to him.

Under Pennsylvania law, there also isn’t supposed to be a registry of firearms, but the State Police has been maintaining one “illegally”, well, it used to be illegally, until the PA Supreme Court essentially read the registration prohibition right out of the Uniform Firearms Act and said the registry was a “record of sale” rather than what it actually is.

So it would appear because this officer wasn’t able to find the gun in the registry, he presumed it was illegal, and seized it.Â Â We need a legislative fix for this in Pennsylvania, and it needs to come soon.Â Unfortunately, there’s no chance that we’ll be able to get this through our current Governor.

Opinion on Open Carry

I think I’m slowly starting to change my opinion on open carry. Previously I tended to view it as damaging to our cause, because it tended to just scare people, without really educating them. But I am impressed with what’s been done in Virginia. Open Carry has always been lawful in Virginia, but there were always places you risks getting hassled by the police. Now it’s not uncommon, it’s accepted, and the police know the law and won’t generally bother you.

I’m also very impressed by how much the issue has motivated activism, particularly from the kind of person who otherwise might choose just to sit around and be angry. I’m also reminded of Countertop’s example of open carry in Virginia, where he opined that part of it’s utility was showing the folks traveling through Virginia that “the rest of the country isn’t like New Jersey and New York.”

I will still choose to carry concealed, but I’m being converted on the utility of open carry in regards to pro-gun activism.Â What do you folks think?

There is no saving people…

… from a perception of reality that is this fundamentally warped.

UPDATE: Follow the link, and one faculty member makes the claim that if they arm campus poilice, it will mean the obviously racist cops will just shoot more black people:

Social work professor Katherine van Wormer said UNI regularly rates as one of the safest campuses in the country, and murders at colleges nationwide are extremely rare. She added that national statistics show African Americans are more likely to be shot by police than a white suspect.

“It explains why people from the black community are very concerned about this,” she said.

Professor Wormer, what an appropriate name. To smear all police officers with this brush is unconscionable. These are the people that are teaching our kids! God help us.

UPDATE: Rightwingprof has more.

Outrageous Hunting Fees

Countertop has a pretty good post on the high cost of hunting licenses.Â Let’s see what he would pay as a Pennsylvania resident:

Resident State Hunting $20.00
It appears you get one turkey with your license.
Resident Bear: $16.00
Resident anterless deer: $6.00
Resident Muzzleloader $11.00
Migratory Waterfowl Conservation Stamp $3.00
Contribute $2.00 to Hunters for the Hungry $2.00
Total Fee $58.00

So if Countertop were a PA resident, he’d pay a bit less.Â As a non-resident:

Non-resident Hunting:Â $101.00
Non-resident Bear: $36.00
Non-resident Deer: $26.00
Non-resident Muzzleloader: $21.00
Non-resident waterfowl: $6.00
Contribute $2.00 to Hunters for the Hungry: $2.00
Total Fee: $192

Wow, that’s pretty insane.Â Remember that hunting has been in decline for quite a while, and most game agencies do not receive state tax dollars to fund them.Â They are entirely funded by license fees and Pittman-Robertson funds, which is a federal excise tax on guns and ammunition.

Pennsylvania also does not allow Sunday hunting.Â Sunday hunting has been fought by a lot of groups, including hikers, who do not pay a blasted thing to use public lands and trails that other people pay for.

Can you imagine someone who wants to get into hunting having to navigate the legal maze that exists? Â Barriers to entry for this sport are too high, and I think that is, in large part, responsible for the decline.

Hunting is an important part of the shooting sports community.Â A lot of us deride the “Fudds” who would gladly throw shooters under the bus as long as they get to keep their deer rifle, but hunters are an important part of the shooting community as whole, and without them, we lose political power as a whole.

Illinois CeaseFire in Some Hot Water

Well, well, Thirdpower (who now that he has a blog, and is getting Hardy and Uncle links, should think about moving off of blogspot) finds another anti-gun group ends up with some money troubles.

The organization started in 2000 and is run by the University of Illinois at Chicago. CeaseFire received $16.2 million for the fiscal years between 2004 and 2006. The state funded the majority of its total, $11 million. The audit comes days after Gov. Rod Blagojevich cut more than $6 million in funding for the group.

Let me tell you, if I were down state, and I found out my state government was spending 11 million a year to fund a group that was dedicated to removing my constitutional rights as an American, I would throw a fit. I think it’s time people downstate started getting together and burning the Governor in effigy. We don’t do nearly enough of that these days, and it was always fun back when it was royal governors, which Blagojewhateverthehellhisnameis is dangerously close to becoming.

It’s a Service Rifle

Kevin points out that Tom Gresham wants to find a different name for the AR-15.Â Â Well, there’s a class of high-power competition where the AR-15 belongs, which is called service rifle competition.Â Why not call it that?Â I also agree with Kevin on “semi-automatic rifle” but I’ll one up him and say “self-loading rifle” since a lot of folks have no idea what semi-automatic means.

Ah.Â I thought I was having deja vu writing this.

That’s Some Bias

Countertop caught the WaPo in a pretty big doozey.

Forest Services Changes Shooting Policy

According to SAF:

Under the old interpretation, the USFS, particularly in Coloradoâ€™s Boulder Ranger District, had been preventing the public from recreational shooting within 150 yards of any road on the presumption that a road is an â€œoccupied areaâ€ under the language of Federal Regulation 36 CFR 261.10. But the memorandum, issued by Joel Holtrop, deputy chief of the National Forest System, clarifies the regulation.

â€œRoads are not inherently considered occupied areas under 261.10(d)(1),â€ the memorandum notes. However, there remains a prohibition against shooting across or along a forest road, or any body of water adjacent to a road. The Aug. 29 memorandum was sent to all regional foresters, station directors, and other personnel including USFS law enforcement supervisors.

This is good news for people who shoot in National Forests.