The NRA board election ballots are due by this Saturday, so if you have not yet sent in your ballot, better do it today if you want it count. Ballots received after the deadline, Saturday April 25th, won’t be counted.
Category: Guns
9th Circuit Incorporates Second Amendment!
In the Nordyke case, linked here.  More commentary to follow. Nordyke was the case where county officials kicked a gun show off of county property. Nordyke argues that violates Second Amendment rights.
UPDATE: An excerpt:
The County does little to refute this powerful evidence that the right to bear arms is deeply rooted in the history and tradition of the Republic, a right Americans considered fundamen- tal at the Founding and thereafter. The County instead argues that the states, in the exercise of their police power, are the instrumentalities of the right of self-defense at the heart of the Second Amendment. This argument merely rephrases the col- lective rights argument the Supreme Court rejected in Heller. Indeed, one need only consider other constitutional rights to see the poverty of this contention. State police power also covers, for instance, some of the conduct the First Amendment protects, but that does not deny individuals the right to assert First Amendment rights against the states.
[…]
We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.†Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.†Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.
So they took the due process clause route, rather than the privileges and immunities clause route. But the ruling is a great victory for our side regardless.
UPDATE: I should note this ruling only applies to those states in the 9th Circuit Court. Those states are Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona. If you live in those states, congratulations, the Second Amendment now applies to your states and local governments (that means you, California). The County of Alameda will be able to appeal, naturally, first to the entire 9th Circuit, en banc, and then to the Supreme Court of the United States.
UPDATE: Dave Hardy has more. It looks like the ban on gun shows on county property is being upheld as reasonable under the Second Amendment, even though we won on incorporation. This means that Alameda technically won the case, and the decision can only be appealed by the plantiffs. This means the incorporation decision will likely stand in the 9th circuit.
Schumer, Gillibrand Want Records
Oh how wrong I turned out to be about Kirsten Gillibrand. The New York Daily News even notes the flip flopping. Gillibrand and Schumer want to keep the NICS records for ninety days again, much like they were under Clinton. This goes to show there are no principles in politics, only interests. The anti-gun folks downstate managed to threaten her enough to make her think changing positions was the politically smart move. She very well might be correct in that. When you boil it down, politicians care about keeping their seats. Your influence over them comes down to hard political calulations, and if Second Amendment advocates don’t have anything to offer, under the bus they will go.
So Republicans in New York State: you know what to do. I’d take even Giuliani over this. At least I know the devil I’m getting with him. With Gillibrand, it seems we’ll have to keep watching behind us for the knife.
Heed Warnings of More Experienced Shooters
This morning and afternoon were the outdoor NRA Air Silhouette matches at our club. One match in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Last Saturday, I was at the club looking at some resettable silhouette animals we were considering buying, and adjusted my sights higher. Rowland, one of our best shooters, advised me, “Better not set those sights in this cold. When we get out shooting in warmer weather they’ll be off.”  I knew he was right, but readjusted anyway. I wanted to see if I could land hits on chickens at the ram distance. With a CO2 gun like mine, the pressure is a function of temperature, so below a certain degree (about 60 F), your point of impact starts dropping, and becomes a bit erratic. Last Saturday it was 45 degrees, this Saturday it was 65 degrees, with a bit of a head wind.
Come this morning, I went through my first bank of chickens without a hit. I can have off days, but missing 5 chickens in a row?  Crank the settings back down. Next bank of chickens. Miss 5 more. Blow through 5 pigs without a hit, trying to figure out where I am, crank up, crank down. Listen for the “tink” of hitting the rail telling me I’m getting close. Blow through 4 more. Finally! I hit one. I’m in the ball park. I check on paper a few times on the even relay. Could be better, but no more mucking around for this match. Take down 12 turkeys and rams. Oh well, at least an A score, not a B.
We broke for lunch and I went back to the chickens and got them right where I like them: hold on the leg. Then back to rams to see where I was on them. Hold on the back. Great. Pigs will be just about where chickens are, and turkeys will be pretty much dead on body hold. Second match I shot a 33, which is a master score, and the highest score I’ve ever shot with air pistol open sights. I won 5 dollars for having the highest open sight pistol score. I won’t complain!
I am currently AAA for outdoor air pistol open sights, but now have one leg up into master. If I shoot two more master scores, I will be bumped up to master. It’s always good to have goals, but in trying to achieve them, listen to those who are more experienced. I could possibly have been a match winner if I hadn’t mucked around with my sites. We have several master shooters, so those opportunities don’t come around often. Rowland can typically figure out in a few animals where his sight settings are. I do not yet have that talent. For me, I think the best recipe is not to change my settings once I have them, and to check before the match starts. The last thing you want to be doing is trying to find your sight settings while you lose points in a match!
National Park Carry Update
It’s being reported around blogs and in the media that the Obama Administration is not appealing the concealed carry rule injunction issued by a DC District Court earlier in the month. That doesn’t mean the issue is dead though.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who handed down the injunction against implementing the firearms rule change, also granted NRA’s Motion to Intervene, which allows NRA to appeal the ruling independent of the Obama Administration. That’s not a guarantee that NRA will prevail on appeal, but the issue is not dead, and it’s honestly probably better to have NRA appealing it than the Obama Administration.
Ed Rendell vs. Wayne LaPierre
On Face the Nation this morning:
I think Wayne did a reasonable job articulating the issue, though no doubt some will be upset over the reference to Project Exile. But the point was that Ed Rendell won’t really address the fact that the City of Philadelphia does not use the gun laws it already has to lock up violent people who misuse guns. Rendell tries to deflect that by arguing we’ve grown the State’s prison population. Maybe it’s not enough? If you only have room for rapists, armed robbers, and murderers, what good is passing more gun laws going to do if there’s no room in prisons for them?
Ed has an idea though. He wants to make the entire Commonwealth a low grade prison, where he gets to decide which sharp and dangerous objects you “need” and which ones you don’t.
One Way GOA Could Make Itself Useful
It seems pretty clear that Obama is willing to push a treaty that would appear to require extensive licensing in order to participate in many shooting activities, including reloading and home building, as well as requiring the United States to share such licensing information with the Mexican Government.
While it would hardly be fair to call John Tester and Brian Schweitzer of Montana anti-gun, after all, Schweitzer just signed a bill that’s a pretty bold midle finger to the federal gun control regime. But the fact is that Obama is the change Tester and Schweitzer told Montanans to vote for:
“I heard him tell us in Montana that he is not going to take our guns away,†the governor said.
The Obama campaign disputed Cox’s comments, saying the candidate has been honest about his position on guns.
“The NRA is wrong to suggest we are misleading anybody,†said campaign spokesman Caleb Weaver, adding “gun owners have nothing to fear from Barack Obama.â€
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester says Barack Obama is regular guy who is no threat to gun owners. Tester said Thursday that he spoke with Obama “straight up” on the gun issue. The senator says his fellow Democrat understands the issue much better than he used to.
Now we know how Barack Obama understands this issue, and Tester and Schweitzer were both dead wrong to try to pull the wool over the eyes of Montanans about Obama. No one who took a serious look at Obama’s record could come to the conclusion that he was “no threat to gun owners.”
NRA is not going to call either of them to account for it, because it wouldn’t be smart politics. Tester will vote the right way in the Senate, and Schweitzer will sign pro-gun bills. But I can’t really stomach the thought of those two getting off easy for helping bring us to this point with President Obama. I know Tester will vote against CIFTA in the Senate, and I appreciate that. Gun owners should appreciate that too. But if groups like GOA want to do something that would be useful, generating a little embarrassment over their support of Obama during the campaign would be in order.
Gun owners in Montana should be reminded that Schweitzer and Tester campaigned hard for Obama in Montana, and deliberately tried to cover up for his anti-gun record. Now Obama has made his positions clear, and gun owners in Montana should make their position clear to the Governor and Senator Tester: we don’t like being lied to. GOA would be the perfect vehicle for helping send such a message. But will they?
Ed Rendell is Nuts
Fast Eddie took to the airwaves to call all gun owners who own semi-automatic rifles “nuts.” If you own one of these firearms, you also hate police. The anchors of CNBC didn’t challenge him on anything at all, they agreed that there’s no reason at not to ban guns.
Ed Rendell says these guns have zero purpose because you wouldn’t use a black rifle in a duck blind. (Actually, Governor, if that is your new standard, no American could own anything other than a shotgun.) The “fact” that they have no purpose might come as a surprise to all of these people.
Eddie also seems to have missed out on the latest talking points – he’s about three months behind. The argument that NRA is worthless was only the popular meme after the election up until Inauguration Day. After that, the NRA suddenly became so powerful that even Dianne Feinstein is afraid to introduce a gun ban.
UPDATE: From the comments:
So the police have need of weapons whose only purpose is to kill and to maim? Has “To kill and maim†replaced “To protect and serve�
Heh.
Dance Mr. Obama, Dance!
You can hear the whip cracking now if you listen closely. It seems that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is in the process of writing the White House gun control policy. Given how quickly Obama was to fold on the Inter-American Arms Treaty, we should probably prepare to fight not only that, but the rest of Mexico’s demands following their meeting:
- Ban on semi-automatic rifles
- Gun owner registry
- One gun-a-month
- Enact Mexican gun laws in the United States
That bit about applying Mexican gun laws here in the United States is exactly what Paul Helmke called for last month. That list is just from one press conference. I’m sure if we looked back at his other statements, he’d find even more demands. Just like our own President, the Mexican President pays lip service to “respecting” the Second Amendment, but argues that if American citizens could just understand how much of a problem the drug trade is for Mexico, then we should be willing to compromise it away as if that’s simply the neighborly thing to do.
President Obama might dance for you as you crack your whip, President Calderon. But we voters will oppose every gun restriction you tell him to introduce. We will send his party packing from Congress, and you will get nothing. It would be better to get your own house in order instead of telling us what to do and trying to rewrite our Constitution for us.
Anti-Gun “Debate” for Philly District Attorney
Last night, CeasefirePA held its heavily promoted forum for District Attorney candidates in Philadelphia. I intended to send Bitter to cover it, but we both forgot about it. It may be for the best since it was described by the Inquirer as “sparsely attended” and questions were only allowed from journalists and anti-gun activists who had to recount the loss of their family members in “heartbreaking detail.” If Bitter had been there, she probably would have been considered an anti-gunner, and she would not have been able to ask any questions. Even the paper called the event “unusual…political theater.”
There are a few points worth highlighting from the report. One is that two of the Democratic candidates seems to realize that there’s a problem beyond blaming guns for Philadelphia’s problems.
“What it’s going to take,” [Dan McCaffery] said, “is someone with enough balls – excuse my language – to stand up to” soft judges. “If I have to go to war with the judiciary, I will.” …
[Brian] Grady said the most dangerous criminals needed to be incarcerated for decades. He faulted a system in which assistant district attorneys prepared hard to win trials, then fell down on the job in the sentencing phase.
“Sentencing is not a day off for the A.D.A.,” he said. “Sentencing day is a day of reckoning.”
Those statements may well have come with plenty of anti-gun rhetoric, but there’s not much in the way of pro-gun choices. Proving once again that the Second Amendment isn’t a matter of partisan politics, the only Republican candidate used the event as an opportunity to push “laser branding” for tracing guns. But the award for the most creative statement goes to Democrat Michael Turner who wants to frame the fight for Philly to end preemption and disregard state gun laws as a “civil rights” debate. Using the term “civil rights” to trample civil rights, that’s a funny one.