Category: Guns

SayUncle is reporting that the sixth circuit affirmed Richard Hamblen’s conviction for NFA violations. Pray that Hamblen lets this one rest, and doesn’t appeal to the Supreme Court. Also pray that if he does, they won’t take the case. Hamblen was a case premised on the collective rights theory of the Second Amendment, which by this point is well and truly dead. In short, the case can’t really do any favors for us at this point, and actually has significant potential to inflict damage. That’s aside from the fact that Hamblen is a kook of the first order.

If you are looking for evidence of that, you can follow a thread about his case over at Calguns.net, where Hamblen appears himself, and where he answers many forum members’ perfectly good questions with an ever increasing amount of lunacy. I’m afraid I agree with this poster here, and also here. This is the kind of guy Alan Gura warned us was a bigger threat to the future of the Second Amendment than any of the gun control groups.

Hamblen is one of those guys who’s right, and needs to have his rightness validated, and will pursue that validation no matter how many other people’s rights it hurts. It’s an addiction that afflicts many in our community, but it just as destructive as other addictions.

UPDATE: The court opinion can be found here, and it’s brief. The court addressed his membership in the State Guard thusly:

We note, as a preliminary matter, that Hamblen’s possession of nine unregistered machine guns was not only outside the scope of his duties as a member of the State Guard, but also directly violated State Guard policy. Therefore, this case does not present a novel issue of law regarding the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause.

So much for that argument. It goes further to rule there’s no constitutional right to a machine gun:

Hamblen’s challenge to his conviction for unlawful possession of unregistered machine guns has been directly foreclosed by the Supreme Court, which specifically instructed in Heller that “the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Id. at 2815-16. Moreover, the Heller Court expressly rejected Hamblen’s reading of United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), when it opined that it would be a “startling” interpretation of precedent to suggest that restrictions on machine guns, set forth in the National Firearms Act, might be unconstitutional. See Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2815. Thus, whatever the individual right to keep and bear arms might entail, it does not authorize an unlicensed individual to possess unregistered machine guns for personal use.

It would be interesting though, to know what would happen if the State of Tennessee authorized their state guard members to obtain and possess machine guns.

Tiahrt points out how the poll was misleading.

The Sacramento Bee covers the story, with a great quote from Larry Keane:

“California will become like Cuba with cars,” said Lawrence Keane, senior counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents the gun industry. “You will only be able to get very old models of guns.”

According to the story the number of pistols approved in California is already falling, and is expected to fall even further. The gun hating politicians of the Golden State should pat themselves on the back. It would appear they’ve successfully achieved the “handgun freeze” that was rejected 2-1 by California voters back in 1982. A losing issue can be turned into a winning one if you do it over time, slowly enough that no one notices until it’s too late.

I’m particularly incensed by MAIG’s suggestion that we rescind many of the changes made after the Richmond Gun Show Incident. For those who didn’t follow the link in the MAIG Blueprint post, let me summarize for you what happened at Richmond. ATF agents basically conducted a dragnet, invading people’s privacy with no regards for whether they were innocent or guilty, and accusing them, in more than a few cases, of federal crimes.

• Went to people’s addresses and asked questions of neighbors, family members, about gun purchases, and asking them what they were doing at the gun show.
• Stopped several people with no probable cause, in some cases seized their weapons, and handed them a form indicating they were suspected of committing federal crimes. BATF claimed the letter was meaningless, but only a fool wouldn’t hire a lawyer after getting a letter like that.
• Unlawfully pulled 4473s from dealers without a connection to a specific criminal investigation.
• Detained several people for questioning who were legitimately selling firearms privately.

I don’t think too many of us would object if ATF conducted professional, undercover investigations looking for criminal activity at gun shows. It is possible to build a case against someone for dealing without a license, without ensnaring the innocent as well as the guilty.

To the extent that the Congressional backlash from Richmond has spooked the ATF from investigating gun shows, the proper remedy is to encourage professionalism in their investigative techniques. The remedy is not to huff and puff about the big-bad gun lobby, and tell ATF the solution is to go back out and act like thugs again. Gun owners aren’t going to tolerate thuggish behavior that targets the guilty and the innocent equally. We will tolerate professional, legal and courteous law enforcement presence. Maybe if MAIG were more interested in promoting the latter rather than the former, we’d be more willing to listen.