See details over at Volokh. The lawsuit has survived the Government’s motion to dismiss.
UPDATE: More here from Ilya Somin
Category: Politics
A Lie Repeated Often Enough …
Joe Grace and Phil Goldsmith, the two people behind CeaseFire PA, are trying their level best to minimize the damage potential of McDonald:
While support for the reporting of lost or stolen handguns grows, hundreds of Pennsylvania police chiefs have come out in favor of another reasonable reform to close a loophole in state law that allows state residents to sidestep law enforcement and obtain permits from Florida to carry concealed guns, even if their applications were denied in Pennsylvania.
This loophole lets people with criminal backgrounds get out-of-state permits to carry guns in the commonwealth, even after state authorities determine they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.
None of those laws have been upheld on the merits. The suits were dismissed because of standing and ripeness. In other words, they have to prosecute someone for failing to report a gun before the law can be challenged. To date, none of the 45 cities and towns that have passed this law have prosecuted a single person under them — laws they claim are critical for prosecuting criminals.
There’s also not a single state that issues a license to carry a firearm that doesn’t perform a criminal background check on applicants. None. The idea that hardened criminals, with extensive records, are getting permits to carry from other states is just nuts. We could solve much of this problem with universal reciprocity, but you won’t hear them supporting that idea.
Pro-Gun Op-Ed In New Jersey Media
An attorney that works with ANJRPC currently has an Op-Ed in North Jersey media market that suggests why the Garden State’s gun laws are unconstitutional:
As it turns out, New Jersey gun law offers fertile ground for challenge, not merely because the state has such strict laws but because New Jersey law is exceedingly aggressive toward the law-abiding gun owner.
New Jersey’s regulatory scheme is highly unusual in that it approaches gun control by categorically banning guns and then carving out extremely limited exceptions to the prohibitions.
Read the whole thing. New Jersey’s gun laws are designed to frustrate the exercise of the right by making it exceedingly legally hazardous to own and transport firearms. Despite anti-gunners claims to the contrary, it’s hard to see how it’s constitutional to start out with the default assumption that all guns are banned.
UPDATE: More here.
Public Range Shooter Caught
Some excellent good old fashioned police work have lead authorities to get a suspect into custody. Sounds like the alleged murderer was a correctional officer. Police called out the SWAT team to bring him in. I would like to note this is a use of SWAT teams I can approve of. I also got a chuckle out of this:
For two days, authorities scoured the range for evidence — a tough job because of all the spent shell casings littering the grounds. By the end of last week, police said they knew the kind of gun used to kill Getgen.
Yeah, not the place I’d want to have to gather evidence on a shooting — but they did it, and got their man. I am very happy they caught this guy. This was indeed a case of murdering the guy to get his gun, which made him very dangerous to have roaming the streets, which hopefully after a fair trial, he will never see again.
PA Liquor Gestapo Strikes Again
This time raiding a gun club and a firehouse, who have been selling alcohol to members without a liquor license, a practice I cam promise you they have been doing for a loong time. Gun club was probably a member looking to get even with someone for a transgression.
Yes, some shooting clubs have bars. Every one I’ve been to or heard about has procedures in place that if you’re coming to socialize (i.e. drink) you get flagged and can’t enter the firing ranges.
But let me just say I am so glad that crime in this state is under such firm control that the State Police have the resources rid our society of the scourge of unregulated liquor sales. Clearly this gun club and firehouse were sending drunk people onto the streets by the hundreds to poop on lawns, puke on the sidewalks, and pass out in the azaleas.
Note this part they are speaking of at the end:
Kriedeman said club licenses, other than those issued to veterans organizations, are issued as long as a vacancy exists in the county. Club licenses can be obtained through purchase or transfer if a vacancy does not exist. Veterans organizations can receive liquor licenses even if there are no vacancies.
See, in Pennsylvania, we ration liquor licenses. Each county only has a certain number available, so if you want one, you have to wait for some other establishment to give theirs up. Given the hassle, it’s no wonder some private organizations just take their chances. Perhaps it’s time to consider making liquor licenses more freely available in Pennsylvania, like they are in most other states? This has impeded the restaurant business in this state for years.
No Charges for Lehigh County Sheriff
It is actually a crime in Pennsylvania overcharge for a License to Carry, but the District Attorney for Lehigh County isn’t going to charge the Sheriff. It would appear that the Sheriff is going to make clear the state mandated $25 dollar license is available, but will still issue the credit card sized $38 dollar license. To me this is preferred. We are required to carry the licenses with us while carrying, and an oversized piece of paper isn’t going to last five years in a wallet. But it looks like some jurisdictions that issue cards are going to stop because of the controversy, and go back to just the state prescribed paper.
Going Nazi
Thanks to Instapundit for this very interesting article from Harpers in August of 1941. The premise of the article is, who might you know that would go Nazi? Very well written, and four months before the US would get involved in World War II.
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.
Read the whole thing.
Update on Cumberland Public Range Shooting
They’ve performed the autopsy, but aren’t releasing details, except to say he was shot multiple times from a distance. They are still asking people to keep an eye out for his rifle which was taken from him.
DISCLOSE is Almost-But-Not-Quite Dead
From the Center for Competitive Politics, who’s mission it is to fight campaign finance laws that infringe on the First Amendment:
I just wanted to let you know, if you haven’t heard already, that the Senate Republicans held together yesterday to block the DISCLOSE Act from being considered. This is a major win for the First Amendment, and a big setback for the speech regulators.
Unfortunately, that is all it is – a setback. Senator Schumer, who’s been leading the charge for the DISCLOSE Act in the Senate, has vowed to bring it back up as often as it takes to pass it. Needless to say, the Center for Competitive Politics will continue to do everything we can to prevent this speech-killing legislation from being passed. We are already talking with people on Capitol Hill to make sure that all 41 Republicans remain “no” votes on this bill, and also are reaching out to a handful of Democrats that might potentially switch to “no.”
As soon as I’m home from Hawaii, when money will not be as tight, I’m going to kick these guys another donation. I’m glad there’s an organization out there dedicated to battling the quashing of political speech under the guise of campaign finance reform.
Unintended Consequences in Paradise
The other day, I stumbled across a post at Boots & Sabers that made me laugh about the nature of unintended consequences. It would seem that San Diego voters decided to ban drinking on beaches in 2008. Not surprisingly, the voters who disagreed with the van and visitors simply took to floating their various beach gear out off shore a bit and enjoying a cold one in the water. That was not good enough for local bureaucrats who have now decided to take the ban even further – 3 miles off the shore to be precise. Owen adds:
I see a market for party barges that head a few miles off shore. Of course, they could just allow drinking on the beaches where people who pass out will wake up with a bad sunburn instead of drowning.
Who needs common sense, right?
I was reminded of it last night while reading through the guidebook I bought for our trip, Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed. The specific paragraph:
Sometimes even good intentions can lead to disaster. At one adventure, a trailhead led hikers to the base of a wonderful waterfall. There was only one trail, to the left of the parking lot, that a person could take. Neither we, other guides nor websites ever said, “stay on the trail to the left” because at the time there was only one trail to take. The state (in their zeal to protect themselves from liability at an unmaintained trail) came along and put up a DANGER KEEP OUT sign at the trailhead. Travelers encountering the sign assumed they were on the wrong trail and started to beat a path to the right instead. But that direction started sloping downward and ended abruptly at a 150-foot-high cliff. Hikers retreated and in a short time a previously non-existent trail to the right became as prominent as the correct (and heretofore only) path to the left. Not long after the state’s well-intentioned sign went up, an unwitting pair of hikers took the new, incorrect trail to the right and fell to their deaths. They probably died because they had been dissuaded from taking the correct trail by a state sign theoretically erected to keep people safe.