Category: Guns

Movement on Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania

Looks like the House Judiciary Committee will be considering the castle doctrine legislation next Thursday, the 19th of November. NRA is asking people to contact the members of the judiciary committee to support the measure. The actual House Bill is HB40. Look over it, it’s a pretty standard type bill. Major provisions:

  • Eliminates the duty to retreat within one’s home, including attached structures like porches, decks and patios. Exception for people who are using their property to further a criminal activity, so if someone is running a grow operation, and shoots someone breaking in to steal some pot, they can’t claim castle doctrine. Also applies to vehicles, including non-motorized vehicles.
  • Eliminates the duty to retreat on the streets provided you are in fear of grave bodily injury or harm, and provided you are not engaged in criminal activity. Criminal activity is this instance is narrowly defined as to not include things like spitting on the sidewalk. If you’re a drug dealer, you won’t be able to claim castle doctrine if you end up in a gunfight with a rival.
  • Clarifies the definition of loaded firearm to include magazines being secured in a separate pouch, rather than specifying a separate container, provided the magazine is secure, and the ammunition covered. This means you only need one range bag, provided it has a place to secure the magazines.
  • Provides for civil immunity for actions that are ruled self-defense. If the perpetrator sues anyway, it’s a loser pays system, so you can recover attorneys fees. There is no civil liability immunity if you accidentally hit a bystander, so this is not absolute.

To there you have it. Call the reps listed. No doubt there will be a lot of huffing and puffing by politicians, interest groups, and the media about the world will end if this passes. Many of them will never read the bill, or just have an agenda. But I have read it, and will continue to report.

UPDATE: Thanks to Sean for reminding that ACSL will be holding a lobby day on November 18th in support of the Castle Doctrine bill. I didn’t realize they had set a final date, but it looks like they have. Time will be from 9am until sometime in the afternoon. They will meet outside the security checkpoint at the South Entrance to the Capitol, the one with the water fountain outside.

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Research

This is what a news article on the Five-Seven would look like if the topic weren’t sensationalized, and the news media took their facts from someone other than the Brady Campaign.

h/t again to Instapundit, who deserves a lot of credit for getting this information out there to a wider, non-gunnie audience.

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Press Stupidity on Guns

Instapundit points out the press is being silly when it comes to the FN Five-Seven. This Wired article actually isn’t too bad, but some interesting tidbits from it:

Gun control group The Brady Campaign says it bought and test-fired a Five-Seven, and that it successfully penetrated a police vest. That said, it doesn’t seem quite accurate to call the Five-Seven a pocket-sized assault rifle. Its barrel would give it a lower muzzle velocity than a PN90; likewise, it strikes me as unlikely that it would give a shooter much more accuracy and effective range than a standard pistol. And plain-vanilla pistol round can be devastating enough: Think of the Virginia Tech shooter, who used a Glock 9mm and Walther .22.

Wired at least seems to know the basics, or did some research before spouting about cop killer guns. The Brady’s once again don’t offer the complete picture. All police armor is not created equal, and I have little doubt the round they used penetrates the lowest level of body armor, which are of the older generation. But so would a hot 9mm round, or a 22 magnum. Also, the round the Brady Campaign tested with is no longer available on the civilian market (or any market, it was discontinued).

ATF shows the ammunition commonly available to civilians does not penetrate typical police body armor.

UPDATE: It has to warm the heart to see a Brady press release over at Opposing Views bringing up the old “magazine” v. “clip” debate in the comments. It’s reminiscent of the old Brady Blog, back in the days before Reasoned DiscourseTM took over.

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Firearms Freedom Acts

Evan Nappen takes a look at the problems with the various Firearms Freedom Acts from a legal point of view. I can understand why the FFA’s are a useful tool for politicians to please an important constituency, and are useful symbolism, but I think time and energy is best spent actually expanding gun rights.

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Custom Gun

A very interesting Smith & Wesson 686 over at Les Jones’s blog. Tricked out for Silhouette shooting. It’s interesting about custom guns not ever being able to recover what you will generally put into them. Not something I’ve seriously considered, by all my guns are production models, except for my Ruger Mk.III, which I put a Volquartsen trigger in. Much better than the Ruger stock trigger. Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t up the gun’s price by 100 dollars. If you shoot the gun enough, I agree it’s worth it.

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