When Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) was seriously running for the Republican nomination for President, high profile cases involving New Jersey’s unjust gun laws tended to bring clemency. In this latest case involving a Pennsylvania corrections officer who was hit by a drunk driver on his way home from Atlantic City, one has to wonder.
Ginny Simone, in a report for NRA News, discusses the case of Sgt. Ray Hughes who is facing felony charges.
The Illinois State Rifle Association has always had to fight the gun prohibitionists on many fronts. These two alerts show that nothing has changed.
First, if you live in the Cook County area, you might want to have a bun and coffee at the Corner Bakery tonight around 6:30pm.
REVISED: URGET ALERT – YOUR ACTION NEEDED
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS GUN CONTROL GROUP WILL HOLD PUBLIC STRATEGY MEETINGYour
ISRA has learned that a gun control group called “Northwest Suburbs
Organizing for Action(NWSOFA)” will be holding a recruitment and
strategy meeting this week in Arlington Heights. The NWSOFA has the
following objectives:
1. Passage of a state “dealer licensing” law which would
drastically raise the cost of firearms and ammo and eventually lead to
the closing of all gun shops in the state. The NWSOFA is a proponent of
Father Pfleger’s “Bad Apple Gun Dealer” campaign which has harassed
law-abiding firearm dealers for several years.
2. Replacing the late Justice Scalia with a gun grabber.TAKE ACTION TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT YOUR GUN RIGHTS!
1. No matter where you live, you should plan on attending the NWSOFA Meeting:
WHAT: Gun control recruitment and strategy meeting
WHEN: Thursday, February 18, 2016
TIME: 6:30 PM
WHERE: The Corner Bakery, Northpoint Shopping Center, 470 E. Rand Road, Arlington Heights
NOTE: Please dress “under cover” so that you are not denied
entry to the meeting. Nobody needs to know your view on guns until the
meeting gets started.
2. Pass this alert on to all your gun owning friends and family and tell them to attend the meeting.
3. Please post this alert to any and all Internet blogs, bulletin boards, or social media sites to which you may belong.
REMEMBER – GUN CONTOL IS A DISEASE AND YOU ARE THE CURE
Second, no matter where you live in Illinois, you can respond to this one. Under a bill being considered, you would need the permission of every building owner and tenant in a 1,000 yard radius to discharge a firearm while hunting. The bill exempts “licensed ranges”. That’s fine except there is no such thing in Illinois. The wording “licensed ranges” is something that has been used in Bloomberg-sponsored bills in other states. I don’t doubt that this is the origin of this bill as well.
SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE ALERT – YOUR IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIREDBILL WOULD BAN HUNTING, SHUTTER GUN RANGES, AND MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO WALK YOUR DOG
fatal blow to hunting and target shooting here in Illinois. We all
know that the next step would be a full out attack on defensive firearm
ownership and the shuttering of gun shops.Under HB6008, it would
be illegal for anyone to discharge a firearm for hunting purposes
within 1,000 yards of any building without the permission of the
building owner or tenant. Yes, that’s right – 1,000 yards! What that
means is that if you want to bag a rabbit for dinner, you have to get
the permission of every person living or working within one square mile
of where you’re standing. What are the odds of success with that
endeavor?Meanwhile, your dinner has hippity-hopped his way down the road.
Even
crazier is the provision in HB6008 that would make it illegal for you
to allow a dog to hunt within 1,000 yards of any building without the
permission of the building owner or tenant. So, you’re out walking your
dog one evening and Scooby-Doo happens to flush out a couple of
sparrows. Ruh-row…no permission from the neighbors so it’s off to the
big house for the two of you.The gun controllers are especially
sneaky when it comes to the third provision of HB6008 – a provision
that exempts “licensed” ranges from the 1,000 yard rule. If you feel
good about that exemption, you shouldn’t because there are no licensed
ranges in Illinois. No license – no neighbor permission – no range.
It’s as simple as that.HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO SAVE YOUR FIREARM RIGHTS
1.
Call the bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Carol Sente at (217) 782-0499, and
POLITELY inform her that you are a lawful Illinois firearm owner and
that you won’t be fooled by what’s contained in HB6008. Tell her that
you expect her to withdraw the bill or you will do everything in your
power to see that HB6008 is defeated and that you will work tirelessly
to prevent her from being re-elected.2. Call your own State
Representative and tell him or her that you are a law-abiding firearm
owner and that you deeply oppose HB6008. Tell him or her that you
expect them to vote against the bill. If you do not know how to get in
touch with your State Representative, then click here for the Illinois State Board of Elections lookup.page.3. Pass this alert on to your gun-owning family and friends. Tell them to make calls as well.
4. Post this alert to any and all Internet blogs, bulletin boards or social media sites to which you may belong.
As many of you know, I am a regular co-host of The Polite Society Podcast. Paul Lathrop is the host, producer, and creator of that podcast and he needs our help.
His regular job is that of a long-haul truck driver and he often has student drivers assigned to him. On Friday, he was training a student and they had stopped in Nebraska for refueling. This is where the incident began. The summation below by Frank Fiamingo, a fellow friend and the former president of New Jersey 2A Society, explains it well. Suffice to say, he is facing serious charges due to what I consider a false report.
Paul is a graduate of Massad Ayoob’s MAG-40 class and is sponsoring one in Sioux Falls, SD later this spring. I add this to emphasize the fact that Paul has been trained by the master in what you should and should not do when carrying concealed. Moreover, in our weekly podcasts we review defensive gun uses and what the person did right and wrong. Paul’s comments are well-reasoned and reflect how one should act in a confrontation.
Paul is a longtime advocate of the people’s right to self-defense. He is the author of the popular Podcast “Polite Society”. Paul is about as “salt of the earth” as you can get. A truck driver and driving instructor by trade, he and his loving wife Susan are two of the finest people on the planet.Paul was in Nebraska with a truck driver student perfoming training. The student stopped at a station to refuel. As the student pulled away from the pump, another driver apparently felt that the student was too close to his rig. Although there was no collision, the irate driver of the other truck rushed over to the driver’s side and agressively approached the student to the point that the student felt that he was about to be assaulted.The student told the other driver to back off. Paul also demanded that the driver back off. After some back and forth, the other driver finally went back to his vehicle and the student drove off. Unfortunately the other driver decided to call the police and accused Paul of threatening him with a gun. The student swears that he never saw a gun at any time during the confrontation, but the police stopped them and Paul was arrested.Paul is being accused of making “terroristic” threats. Many of you are aware that that is one of the latest ploys used by ambitious prosecutors all over the nation. In addition, they included “Possession of a weapon during the commission of a felony”. Of course the “felony” is the trumped up charge of making terroristic threats. I find that to be a self-referencing, catch 22 type of charge.In any event, many of you know Paul and those of you who don’t but who know me (Frank) can feel confident that he deserves our help and support. Paul is going to need money for bail and for a defense attorney. I am asking you to please consider helping this very deserving, hard-working advocate of our rights. Paul’s resources are modest and he really needs the help of the 2A and human rights community. Thank you.(Susan) I am on my way to Nebraska this morning to meet with a lawyer and to hopefully get Paul out of jail. I will keep everyone updated as more information becomes available.We are working on setting up a Go-Fund me page for Paul’s legal defense and for bail. If you would like to donate before the page is operational, you can send donations through PayPal to disasterjunkiesue@gmail.comThanks!
Paul and his wife Susan are not wealthy people. They are salt of the earth, good-hearted people struggling like everyone else in this economy. I can only imagine the financial burden that these false accusations have put on them. I have sent money their way and I hope you will see to it in your heart to do so as well.
While we are working on setting up a donation page or GoFundMe page for Paul’s defense, please consider sending any amount you can spare to Susan by way of PayPal. Send it as a “friend and family” donation which will mean all the money goes to Susan and Paul. The email address is disasterjunkiesue@gmail.com.
UPDATE: Paul was released from jail yesterday morning and arrived home in South Dakota yesterday evening. I spoke with him last night. He is overwhelmed by the level of support he has received from the 2A community. He was rather choked up when we spoke.
He is under orders from his attorney to say nothing about the incident. He will be having a court hearing next month and is hopeful.
As most people know by now, Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in his sleep sometime over Friday night and early Saturday morning while on a quail hunting trip to Texas. His death is a loss not only to the gun culture but to the country as a whole. It is also a loss to his wife Maureen and his nine children.
When I choose to think of Justice Scalia’s legacy, I think back to his majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) when he wrote this:
We know of no other enumerated constitutional right
whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding
“interest-balancing” approach. The very enumeration of
the right takes out of the hands of government—even the
Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a
case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting
upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future
judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional
guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with
the scope they were understood to have when the people
adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes)
even future judges think that scope too broad. We would
not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibition
of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See
National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43
(1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the
freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified,
which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure
of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely
unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second
Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very
product of an interest-balancing by the people—which
JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew. And
whatever else it leaves to future evaluation, it surely
elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding,
responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and
home.
You can also hear Justice Scalia reading the Court’s decision in Heller from the bench here.
I remember something former NRA President Sandy Froman said at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in (I think) Orlando. She said “pray for the five” meaning the majority in the Heller and McDonald decisions.
Unfortunately, there are only four now.
President Obama has said he plans to nominate a successor and that is his Constitutional right power. However, that right power is subject to the Senate’s Constitutional right power of “advise and consent”. As Second Amendment scholar Josh Blackman has pointed out, it has been since 1880 that a person was both nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court during a presidential election year when the President and Senate majority were of different parties. Professor Blackman has also posted some potential scenarios.
We in the Second Amendment community and gun culture have lost an intellectual giant. We must be on our guard to make sure Justice Scalia’s replacement – as if he could be replaced – is someone true to the meaning of the Second Amendment. If it means forcing the Republican majority in the Senate to drag their heels, so be it.
The argument against North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit system has been that it was a racist era law meant to keep blacks from owning handguns, that it is ignored by criminals, and that the FBI run NICS system is more up-to-date and less subjective than the state’s sheriffs.
It appears someone was listening. Joel Burgess of the Asheville Citizen-Times did a story on Monday that examined the rates of approval for pistol purchase permits and concealed handgun permits in five western (North Carolina) counties. The context for the story were the executive actions and gun control proposals released in January by President Obama. What was most surprising about the story was that Burgess acknowledged some of the objections to the pistol purchase permit system.
But Obama’s order will have little effect in North Carolina when it comes to handguns. The weapon already faces more scrutiny in this state because of a Jim Crow-era law once aimed at blocking African-American gun ownership. But sheriffs now say the law is a critical stopgap allowing them to use local knowledge to prevent tragedies.
With regard to the subjectivity, he reported this:
The law is not uniformly followed, sheriff’s acknowledge, nor is it enforced at the same rate, according to 2013-2015 data collected by the Citizen-Times through a public records request. Henderson County Sheriff Charles McDonald, whose department had the highest permit denial rate, said he will defend private gun ownership, but that he will also sometimes say no based on things not revealed in a background check.
“Maybe you’re the guy in the neighborhood who is constantly getting drunk and beating up his wife, and maybe you haven’t been convicted in court. But we know.”
Henderson County Sheriff McDonald’s example makes for a good story but you have to wonder if that is the really the reason behind the number of denials in Henderson County. Given the peculiar demographics of Henderson County – a significant Hispanic population and an extremely large number of retirees – does either ethnicity or advanced age play a greater role in permit denial than alcoholism or domestic abuse.
That might make an interesting follow-on story by the Citizen-Times.
The Military Arms Channel did an excellent feature on the Daewoo K2/Max II rifle today. They showed both the pre-ban Max II and the post-ban DR-200. The latter had its ugly thumbhole stock replaced with a regular AR stock and the Stormworkz adapter.
The DR-200 was my first 5.56 semi-auto rifle. I bought it after the Clinton AWB. If I had been more on top of things – or had more money – I’d have gotten a pre-ban rifle. I still have mine in its original configuration. This is mainly because I haven’t found time to switch out the trigger group to make it 922 compliant. The only downside to my DR-200 is the it has a 1-12 twist barrel which limits me to 55 grain or lighter ammo.
I did a blog post on the Daewoo back in the early days of this blog. It can be found here.
Hillary Clinton is one of the most shameless politicians of this era or any era. If an endorsement or ad will get her just one more vote, she’ll go for it. It doesn’t matter if the person making the endorsement was the most partisan, the most contemptible, the most brutally corrupt Attorney General since the founding of this Republic. A man whose fingerprints were all over an operation to run guns to Mexican cartels so as to build support for gun control. A man who was found in Contempt of Congress. A man who said he supported voting rights but dismissed charges of outright voter intimidation against favored groups. A man who used the Department of Justice as a shakedown machine against corporate America.
Of course, I’m referring to former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Living in western North Carolina, 3/4’s of our broadcast TV comes from the Upstate of South Carolina. I was watching Jeopardy! last night when the ad below came on with Holder’s endorsement of Hillary. The two themes pushed were gun control and voting rights. These are themes that play well with black voters and Hillary needs to lock down the black vote to stave off Bernie Sanders.
Who cares if the endorser and his minions were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the murders of two Federal law enforcement officers, the deaths of a minimum of 300 Mexican nationals, and the arming of Mexican drug cartels through smuggled guns?
Hillary doesn’t. All she cares about is getting one more vote.
Aaron at The Weapon Blog has released his monthly list of contests in which you can win guns, ammo, and other cool stuff. If you have other contests you’d like to share, go to his notification page and share it.
The top handgun listed, the S&W SW22 Victory I got to shoot at the SHOT Show. It is a sweet little .22LR pistol.
Thanks, Aaron!
Handguns
Rifles
Shotguns
Air Rifles
Ammunition
Knives
Constitution
Gun Rights Organizations
Accessories
Raffles
Training
Hunting
Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors is royally PO’ed that a governor that they thought they owned lock, stock, and barrel has now come to an agreement with pro-gun legislators and forces. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) is, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, the focus of a social media campaign by Everytown in an effort to stop his agreement to reinstate and expand concealed carry reciprocity.
It’s possible to find common ground on guns. @GovernorVA‘s deal with the @NRA isn’t that. https://t.co/qEJ0Qey80c pic.twitter.com/EWUOFRcZej— Everytown (@Everytown) February 5, 2016
Gun rights activists and supporters in Virginia need to keep up the pressure on both McAuliffe and their legislators to reinstate existing reciprocity agreements as well as to expand to universal reciprocity recognition.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has not been too good for gun rights in the past few years. However, a case involving Maryland make signal a change. Kolbe v. Hogan (formerly Kolbe v. O’Malley) challenged Maryland’s ban on certain semi-auto firearms and standard capacity on Second Amendment and Equal Protection Clause grounds. The District Court for Maryland agreed with the state’s arguments and found the bans were constitutional using intermediate scrutiny.
Today, the 4th Circuit overturned that decision in part and remanded it back to the District Court to be reconsidered using strict scrutiny. The court affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the Equal Protection claims involving retired law enforcement and the vagueness claims that “copies” of certain firearms were not specific enough.
From the synopsis of the decision:
TRAXLER, Chief Judge, wrote the opinion for the court as to
Parts I, II, and III, in which Judge Agee joined.In April 2013, Maryland passed the Firearm Safety Act
(“FSA”), which, among other things, bans law-abiding citizens,
with the exception of retired law enforcement officers, from
possessing the vast majority of semi-automatic rifles commonly
kept by several million American citizens for defending their
families and homes and other lawful purposes. Plaintiffs raise
a number of challenges to the FSA, contending that the “assault
weapons” ban trenches upon the core Second Amendment right to
keep firearms in defense of hearth and home, that the FSA’s ban
of certain larger-capacity detachable magazines (“LCMs”)
likewise violates the Second Amendment, that the exception to
the ban for retired officers violates the Equal Protection
Clause, and that the FSA is void for vagueness to the extent
that it prohibits possession of “copies” of the specifically
identified semi-automatic rifles banned by the FSA. The
district court rejected Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment challenges,
concluding that the “assault weapons” and larger-capacity
magazine bans passed constitutional muster under intermediate
scrutiny review. The district court also denied Plaintiffs’
equal protection and vagueness claims.In our view, Maryland law implicates the core protection of
the Second Amendment—“the right of law-abiding responsiblecitizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,” District of
Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008), and we are
compelled by Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S.
742 (2010), as well as our own precedent in the wake of these
decisions, to conclude that the burden is substantial and strict
scrutiny is the applicable standard of review for Plaintiffs’
Second Amendment claim. Thus, the panel vacates the district
court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claims and
remands for the district court to apply strict scrutiny. The
panel affirms the district court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ Equal
Protection challenge to the statutory exception allowing retired
law enforcement officers to possess prohibited semi-automatic
rifles. And, the panel affirms the district court’s conclusion
that the term “copies” as used by the FSA is not
unconstitutionally vague.
The decision from the 4th Circuit was not unanimous and contains dissents, concurrences, and multiple parts. Indeed, the full decision is 90 pages long. Needless to say, it will take some time to read and digest this decision. That said, having the case sent back to the District Court to apply strict scrutiny to the Second Amendment claims is a definite win.
It will be interesting to see what legal legerdemain that Judge Catherine C. Blake will employ to assert that Maryland can still ban the most popular firearm in common use in America today even if strict scrutiny is applied.
UPDATE: Sebastian has more on this case at Shall Not Be Questioned. He is correct in saying that the ban on semi-auto rifles and standard capacity magazines still remains in place. The 4th Circuit didn’t find the law unconstitutional. It merely said that it needs to be reheard using the correct level of scrutiny. This is a win but not a complete win.
UPDATE II: Attorney Andrew Branca (Law of Self Defense) has his take on the case here.
UPDATE III: Gun rights scholar and attorney David Kopel examines the case in detail in the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy blog. As he notes, the Second Amendment protections should extend to gun parts (magazines) and that strict scrutiny is appropriate in this case.
UPDATE IV: Dave Hardy weighs in on Kolbe. He makes note of the dissent and the response from Judge Traxler to it.
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