Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 685 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Chicago Attorney Gets Savaged in Gun Case

Thanks to Dave Hardy for linking this audio of oral arguments in the Ezell v. Chicago preliminary injunction appeal. Ezell is the case that challenges Chicago’s ban on gun ranges, even though it requires live fire training as a condition to obtain a license to own a gun.

If you listen to nothing else this week, listen to this. It’s so sweet it will rot your teeth. The Chicago attorney gets absolutely savaged by at least two out of the three federal judges on the panel. I think he may have even been on the verge of tears at some points. Imagine if there were a couple of gun bloggers on the federal bench, pelting the Chicago attorney with questions. That’s pretty close to what it’s like.

I think Mr. Gura may very well get his injunction. Definitely a job well done.

Bloomberg Gaining Quite a Collection

Here’s yet another illegal mayor. It’s getting to the point I have to check to make sure I’m not getting this latest one confused with someone I’ve already reported on. There are that many. This one is mayor of Tamarac, Florida. Charges are bribery corruption.

One thing is pretty clear. At this point, MAIG has a considerably higher rate of criminality than people who hold concealed carry permits. Think VPC will set up a site about that?

Missing Something

I believe an editor might have missed a key word in this headline:

One of my most common mistakes is leaving out a word by accident. Let’s hope it’s never quite this bad.

Do the Math

The gun control supporters are unbelievable with some of the arguments they make. I’m not talking about the blatantly dishonest arguments, like about magazines holding ten rounds being dandy, while ones holding eleven rounds are baby killers. I’m talking about when they fail to do some basic math on their own assertions:

Regulation efforts have failed as courts hold the 2nd amendment to permit virtually anyone a gun, allowing 25% of the population to threaten the remaining 75%. Unequivocally, people have the right to self-defense, however, just 1.5% of the population has used guns for this purpose while over 23,000 die and 52,000 were maimed in 2010.

Even assuming those statistics are correct, which they are not, the United States, as of the 2010 census, has 308 million people. If 1.5% of them have used a firearm for self-defense, that represents 4.62 million people. Assuming an average life expectancy in the US of 78 years, that would average out to about 59,230 self-defense cases with a gun every year, and that’s without weighing the fact that children are typically not permitted to own or carry guns under most circumstances. That sounds like a great case for private gun ownership, then, if you ask me. This is more evidence the gun banning crowd doesn’t think much about what they are saying.

Insights Training New Media Effort

Looks like Caleb scored a gig with Insights Training Center. They are going to produce a new web series called Down Zero TV, “which each week will feature an ‘InSights Training Tip’, where one of InSights Trainingâ€™s top flight instructors will use their skill and knowledge to make the view not only a better shooter, but safer in their everyday activities.”

Here’s a Headline I Never Thought I’d See

“Medical Marijuana Users Fight For Gun Rights”

You really have to wonder if some mornings Helmke can’t help but cry into his coffee.

Craiglist Killer: Blaming NH’s Gun Laws

I don’t know about you, but it seems to be that just about everything here but New Hampshire’s gun laws were to be blame:

Markoff was able to get an affidavit of residency at the Nashua city clerkâ€™s office, using the driverâ€™s license with another manâ€™s name and photograph, the paper reports. Deputy City Clerk Patricia Piecuch told the Globe the city doesnâ€™t require people to provide evidence to prove their residency – the affidavit is signed under penalty of perjury – but the city has since modified its forms to state that the affidavits should be used as proof of residency only for motor vehicle registrations or driverâ€™s license applications.

And yet the mother of the murder victim in this case still says the gun store was negligent, and has been gathering information for a lawsuit. It should be noted that PLCAA does not specifically preempt negligence suits, though it’s hard for me to see how it would prevail, given the guy was sporting fake identity and a perjured residency affidavit. Sometimes I think there’s hardly anything more dangerous to freedom than other people’s misplaced grief.

What’s Good for the Goose …

The Chicago Media is upset because the Illinois State Rifle Association commissioned a loaded poll that shows people support carry reform in Illinois.

The word â€œconcealedâ€ is not mentioned â€” odd, considering that this is a fight over â€œconcealedâ€ carry. Yet, the association claimed in a press release that the answers to the question showed support for concealed carry. Also, how did the association know that the pollâ€™s respondents were law-abiders?

I’ve watched our opponents use this tactic time and time again, so I have little or no sympathy that our opponents are whining that we’re doing it. Truth is, I can’t confirm we are doing it, because I don’t have access to the poll results. Presumably the politicians do as well. Even if somehow we managed to get concealed carry passed out of the legislature, it’s almost certainly going to be vetoed by the Governor, even though polls show his numbers are currently in the toilet.

Thorough Analysis of UN Gun Data

Howard Nemerov has some excellent analysis of the UN’s gun data, and notes that it does not jive with their purported agenda of small arms control. I did some quick analysis of the same data about a month ago, but Howard’s is more thorough. I did not have time to look at suicide data, but he did and found no correlation.

International comparisons are always difficult because of how different countries measure crime. One must always be careful not to assume correlation is causation, but that’s never stopped our opponents from drawing conclusions that make them feel good.

Five Takes on McDonald v. Chicago

Law review article by Prof. Glenn Reynolds and Prof. Brannon Denning. I am most interested in their fifth take, which looks at what the lower courts are doing and will likely do with the case. It is not very optimistic, but not terribly pessimistic either.Â They conclude by saying:

Will the Heller and McDonald decisions herald another constitutional revolution where no one showed up? Probably not. To a much greater extent than the Commerce Clause issues addressed in Lopez, the Second Amendment involves questions and issues that inspire fierce passion in large numbers of Americans, and in well-funded organizations both equipped and inclined to pursue follow-up litigation in both state and lower federal courts. So in concluding that this is, at most, â€œthe end of the beginning,â€ we do not mean to suggest that there will not be further battles â€“ only that those battles will now be fought on terrain, and in fashions, that constitutional lawyers will find familiar.

And some of those well funded organizations have the political muscle to make sure friendly Presidents and Congresses put the right people on the Court. NRA needs to be able to demonstrate it can play the role of kingmaker when it comes to federal judges, which they can’t do without us.

The goal would be to make it such that any federal judge who wants to be elevated to a higher bench had better not have a weak record on the Second Amendment, either in opinions from the bench or in their writings. I would imagine that judges are like anyone else who’s ambitious in their careers, in that every Federal Magistrate imagines himself a District Judge, every District Judge images himself on the Circuit Court, and every Circuit Court Judge imagines himself on the Supreme Court. If bad rulings on the Second Amendment end up being a ticket to a dead end career on the federal bench, that might tame some of the more ambitious judges, and force them to take the right more seriously than they might otherwise be inclined.

I’ve generally been more impressed with SAF’s litigation strategy than I have been with NRA’s. However only NRA has the power to influence which judges end up on the bench or get elevated. Both roles are going to be critical moving forward, if we’re going to win a broad, well-protected right.