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Florida Carry, SAF Sue Broward County And City Of Tallahassee

May 3, 2014 by 2 Comments

Florida Carry is joined in a pair of lawsuits against Broward County and the City of Tallahassee by the Second Amendment Foundation. The suits are to force the municipalities to bring their local ordinances into compliance with Florida state law regarding firearms. Florida has statewide preemption but a number of municipalities over the years have tried to evade it.

From Florida Carry:

Florida Carry today filed two lawsuits for blatant violations of Florida’s law that preempts local gun control.

Joined by the Second Amendment Foundation, the first case filed is against the City of Tallahassee.

In the second case, Florida Carry filed against Broward County.

“Since 2011, Florida Carry has prompted the repeal of anti-gun ordinances and regulations in over 200 Florida jurisdictions, including municipalities, counties, colleges and state agencies,” noted Florida Carry Executive Director Sean Caranna. “Usually the jurisdiction is responsive to our notification that there is a problem and no lawsuit is necessary. It is a rare and unfortunate circumstance when local government leaders decide to willfully break state law, despite the personal penalties. When local officials are willing to knowingly violate the law in order to suppress the rights of law-abiding gun owners, they can expect that we’re going to make them pay for it.”

Broward County has ignored repeated attempts by Florida Carry to gain its compliance with state law and left us with no choice but to file this case. When local officials refuse to stop breaking the law in order to deny the rights of Floridians, Florida Carry will act to demand that people’s rights be protected. Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry is also named as a defendant in the case. Florida Carry is represented by Miami attorneys Michael T. Davis and Benedict P. Kuehne of The Law Offices of Benedict P. Kuehne, P.A. and Florida Carry General Counsel Eric J. Friday with Fletcher & Phillips of Jacksonville.

Florida Carry, Inc. and the Second Amendment Foundation joined forces in the lawsuit against the City of Tallahassee for refusing to repeal ordinances restricting the use of firearms in defiance of Florida’s firearms preemption law.

“We’re happy to partner with Florida Carry on this legal action,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “This is not the first time we have had to take a city to court for violating a state preemption law. Why municipal governments still don’t understand the concept of preemption is a mystery to us”

“Clearly,” Gottlieb observed, “Tallahassee has way over-stepped its authority under state preemption. The Florida Legislature has exclusive domain over firearms regulation. When the law was passed, it nullified all existing, and future, city and county firearm ordinances and regulations.

“Mayor Marks and his colleagues on the city commission knew all of this,” he added, “but they rejected an opportunity to bring the city into compliance in February. Their stubbornness really left us no choice but to join Florida Carry in this action.”

Named as defendants in the Tallahassee case are Mayor John Marks, and City Commissioners Nancy Miller, Andrew Gillum, and Gil Ziffer. SAF and Florida Carry are represented by Jacksonville attorneys Lesley McKinney with McKinney, Wilkes & Mee, and Florida Carry General Counsel Eric J. Friday with Fletcher & Phillips.

Florida Carry is a non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots organization dedicated to advancing the fundamental civil right of all Floridians to keep and bear arms for self-defense as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Florida Constitution’s Declaration of Rights.

Florida Carry, Inc. was organized in order to better coordinate activities, effectively lobby the state legislature, and to provide a legal entity capable of filing suit to demand compliance with state and federal law. Florida Carry stands to represent our members, the approximately 8 million gun owners, and countless knife and defensive weapon carriers of Florida.

As an editorial comment, this is the stuff that the Second Amendment Foundation should be doing and not trying to get involved with background check legislation. I’ve made the comment before and I’ll make it again: the NRA-ILA should do legislative stuff which it does so well and the Second Amendment Foundation should do legal stuff which it does so well and neither should get involved in areas in which they are less than excellent.

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Comment Of The Day

May 3, 2014 by

For a Brit, Charles C. W. Cooke of the National Review gets it on gun control and gun rights. Maybe because his native land has so eviscerated any semblance of gun rights, Cooke is more aware of what is at stake than many Americans. In an article published yesterday in the National Review, he takes on what he calls the “terminal vagueness” of Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors. When he asks both a Demanding Mommies volunteer and Everytown Communications Director Erika Soto Lamb a direct question regarding whether they support a new AWB or mag restrictions, he gets evasiveness. While one would assume that they would have no problem supporting both of those restrictions, they don’t want to go on record.

Cooke concludes that the gun prohibitionists have a problem with being too specific about their intentions and it carries over to their “branding”.

While the National Rifle Association has maintained its name and branding since it was founded in 1871, the gun-control movement has gone through names and outfits faster than Prince. Before market research informed its leadership that words matter, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was named first the “National Council to Control Handguns” and then “Handgun Control Inc.” — both of which titles are nice and descriptive but, alas, leave little room for ambiguity. This, evidently, will not do. In a fight in which deception has become paramount — who honestly believes that Everytown would not support an assault-weapons ban? — vocabulary has become king and euphemism indispensable. Gun “control” has thus become gun “safety”; restrictions on ownership have become “gun-violence prevention”; and hard policy has been subordinated to woolly platitude. Michael Bloomberg may have rebranded his effort, but he has not yet managed to stop the truth getting out, nor to prevent his more moderate supporters from recognizing the ruse and bolting. And “a hog in a silk waistcoat,” as Charles Spurgeon famously quipped, is ultimately “still a hog.”

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Purdue University Homeland Security Institute: Guns In Schools Save Lives

May 2, 2014 by 2 Comments

Dr. J. Eric Dietz, director of the Purdue University’s Homeland Security Institute, presented research at the recent NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis regarding active shooters in schools. Their threat assessment modeling program examined the active shooter scenario and looked at factors that would be most effective in reducing casualties. These factors included locked doors, school resource officers, and staff carrying concealed.

The control scenario was just a school with locked doors and no resource officers or staff with concealed carry permits. The researchers found that the control scenario had the most casualties and the longest response time. Their model showed that the response time would be 10-12 minutes and an average of 20 casualties. Their model used historical active shooter data to arrive at this.

When a school resource officer is introduced to the scenario, response times dropped to a quarter of the original times and casualties were reduced by two-thirds.

The scenario involving concealed carry in the school had rather conservative parameters. Only 5-10% of the staff and administration carried concealed and those holders sheltered in place with their students. They only engaged the threat when the shooter came into the room in which they were sheltered. In other words, they were not roaming the school actively searching out the shooter. The Homeland Security Institute found that adding concealed carry holders to the mix reduced both response times and casualties the most of any scenario tested. As Dr. Dietz charactered it, more friendly guns in a firefight is a good thing.

The research has not yet been published but will be soon.

You can see Cam Edward’s full interview with Dr. Dietz below:

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Mark Glaze Out; Question Mark In

May 1, 2014 by 5 Comments

Mark Glaze was is the Executive Director of Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors has announced he is leaving his position with the group in June according to a report out from Thompson/Reuters.

“It is time for me to hand off the fight to somebody else,” Glaze, 43, said in an interview. “The issue is unbelievably important to me. But it’s a tough issue and a tough grind. And there’s a point where you feel you’ve done all you can do.”

Glaze said he planned to do some consulting.

Sebastian offers his analysis of the move here.

In my opinion, Mark Glaze was an outsider and Bloomberg wants to put one of his inner circle into the position. Glaze is a principal in the Raben Group which is a DC political consulting firm. Now that Bloomberg is putting up some serious cash, he wants someone whom he can control in the position of Executive Director.

My guess for the next Executive Director would be John Feinblatt. He served in Bloomberg’s NYC administration as the chief advisor for policy and strategic planning and as the criminal justice coordinator. He was Bloomberg’s point man for MAIG within the Office of the Mayor. Now that Bloomberg is out of office I think he wants to continue using Feinblatt in that role. Like Glaze, he is both a lawyer and gay. However, at age 62, he is considerably older and presumably more experienced in the halls of power than the younger Glaze. I only bring up that Feinblatt is gay to point out that Glaze isn’t being pushed out over his sexual orientation.

As to the stay-at-home mother of five being the next Executive Director, not a chance in hell.

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A Better Question To Ask

April 30, 2014 by 6 Comments

The Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence (sic) has started a campaign called “Asking Saves Kids”. They are encouraging parents to ask other parents if there is an unlocked firearm in their house. The Brady Campaign alleges that thousands of children are killed annually.

From their web text that they are suggesting supporters use:

In America, one out of three homes with children has a gun, many kept unlocked or loaded. Every year thousands of kids are killed and injured as a result.

When one examines the CDC’s National Vital Statistics Report – Deaths: Final Data for 2010, which tracks mortality and the cause of it, we see that 62 children under the age of 15 died as a result of an accidental (negligent) discharge of a firearm. Thus, the Brady’s claim that “every year thousands of kids are killed” is an outright lie. See Table 10 on Page 40 for the confirmation of this.

As part of their campaign, the Brady Campaign has been releasing a series of YouTube videos and PSA videos. The one below is called “Conversations” and talks about awkward conversations. It tells parents to ask if there is an unlocked gun before letting their children go over to play.

I can suggest a better question to ask before letting little Jimmy go over to play with little Billy and Bobby.

Have your children been through the Eddie Eagle Program? If not, why not? Unlike anything put out by the so-called “gun safety” (sic) groups, it is a proven, award-winning program that has been shown to be effective in reducing accidental deaths of children with a firearm.

The bottom line is that locks can be defeated. Proper training like the Eddie Eagle program will help protect kids, locks or no locks.

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ATK To Merge With Orbital Sciences And Spin Off Sporting Group

April 29, 2014 by 8 Comments

ATK, formerly Alliant Techsystems, Inc., announced today that they plan to merge with Orbital Sciences in a $5 billion deal. The new company will be called Orbital ATK. As part of the merger, ATK will spin off their sporting group to shareholders as a new company.

From the Wall Street Journal:

ATK valued the all-stock combination with Orbital at $5 billion and its shareholders would retain 53.8% of the aerospace and defense business, to be known as Orbital ATK.

The proposed deal, which is expected to close by the end of 2014, would match the total level of defense M&A over the past three years combined, and puts 2014 within reach of the $9 billion in deals reached in 2008. Executives had shied away from transactions before securing more visibility of business trends from the fiscal 2014 and 2015 Pentagon budgets.

Mark DeYoung, ATK’s chief executive, would run the separated operation business which, with 2013 revenue of $2.2 billion, is less than half the size of the $4.5 billion aerospace and defense business.

Excerpts from ATK’s press release on the merger:

The company’s Sporting and A&D (aerospace and defense)businesses operate in two fundamentally different markets with very different operating dynamics, compliance requirements, customer sets and growth opportunities. As standalone companies, they will be more focused businesses, with clear and distinct strategic visions and objectives, additional operational flexibility and the financial strength to make the most of their unique opportunities in their respective industries.

Since entering the commercial ammunition and sporting accessories space in 2001, ATK has built a leading position in the shooting sports for hunters, shooting enthusiasts and law enforcement professionals. The acquisitions of Savage and Bushnell in 2013 enabled ATK to expand its core competencies while creating opportunities to enter into new, adjacent markets in the outdoor recreation industry.

In today’s growing market, the Sporting Group enjoys expanded distribution for some of the most widely known and respected brands in the industry: Federal Premium, Bushnell, Savage Arms, BLACKHAWK!, Primos, Final Approach, Uncle Mike’s, Hoppe’s, RCBS, Alliant Powder, CCI, Speer, Champion Targets, Gold Tip Arrows, Weaver Optics, Outers, Bolle, Cebe, and Serengeti.

“Sporting continues to deliver excellent performance,” said DeYoung. “Results from our recently completed fourth quarter demonstrated continued revenue and earnings growth, and margin expansion. Full details on our fourth quarter results will be discussed on our May 15 earnings call.”

ATK believes that separating Sporting into a standalone entity will facilitate opportunities to further drive growth and marshal resources to broaden and deepen its market leadership. ATK believes that a more focused corporate leadership team, operating within a clearly defined commercial market with a competitive business model, will contribute to unlocking significant value for ATK shareholders. Following the completion of the transaction, Sporting will also enjoy a strong balance sheet that will provide the ability to fund its growth strategy. Over the past 10 years, ATK’s Sporting Group has delivered annual sales growth of approximately 16 percent (14 percent organic growth).

And on the new management and location:

Upon completion of the transaction, Mr. DeYoung will serve as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sporting. Mr. DeYoung is working with ATK’s Board of Directors to develop detailed plans for an efficient and capable corporate structure with experienced management and strong governance policies and practices, as well as to establish the name and branding of Sporting. Sporting will be headquartered in Utah and is expected to employ nearly 5,800 workers in 11 states and worldwide.

And the details of the transaction which will be tax-free:

Under the terms of the transaction agreement, ATK will distribute ownership of Sporting to ATK shareholders in a spin-off transaction, following which, ATK shareholders will own 100 percent of Sporting. The spin-off will be immediately followed by a merger of Orbital with a subsidiary of ATK, with Orbital surviving the merger and becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of ATK. In connection with the merger, Orbital shareholders will receive 0.449 shares of ATK common stock for each share of Orbital common stock that they hold. Upon the closing of the merger, ATK shareholders will own approximately 53.8 percent of the combined company on a fully diluted basis and Orbital shareholders will own the remaining approximately 46.2 percent of the combined company on a fully diluted basis. As part of the transaction, Sporting has secured a $750 million senior secured financing commitment from BofA Merrill Lynch and will dividend $300-350 million of the proceeds of such new indebtedness to ATK immediately prior to the closing, which will be used by ATK to repay existing debt. Post issuing dividend to Orbital ATK, Sporting’s net debt and total debt will be equal to the dividend. At the closing, Orbital ATK is expected to have a total of approximately $1.7 billion in gross debt and $1.4 billion of net debt. The transaction is expected to be tax-free to both companies as well as to ATK and Orbital shareholders.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of calendar year 2014, and is subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals and the approval of each of ATK’s and Orbital’s shareholders. ATK and Orbital will continue to operate separately until the transaction closes.

The two most interesting aspects of this whole merger is that the sporting group will be spun off and that the current ATK CEO Mark DeYoung has cast his lot with the sporting group and not the aerospace/defense groups. It says a lot for the strength of the shooting sports industry that a CEO sees his future prospects as being better there than in the defense industry.

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Comment Of The Day

April 29, 2014 by 1 Comment

In response to an announcement on Facebook by Cam Edwards that 75,267 people attended the NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Bob Owens (Editor of BearingArms.com) had this to say:

That’s only 75,167 more than attended the Moms Demand Illegal Attention rally.

Not to mention that nearly all of those 75,267 who attended the NRA Annual Meeting paid their own way unlike those from Moms Demand Illegal Attention whose travel and lodging was paid for with Bloomberg’s money.

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No Word Yet On Drake v. Jerejian (Updated)

April 28, 2014 by 5 Comments

Examining the list of orders from the US Supreme Court issued this morning, the one obvious omission on the list was Drake et al v. Jerejian et al. This is the New Jersey case that challenges that state’s requirement for the showing of justifiable need in order to obtain a carry permit.

The case was up for discussion as to whether to take it or not on Friday. As it hasn’t been denied, I guess this means no news is good news.

UPDATE: Dirk Diggler reports in the comments that the SCOTUS has passed this case to this coming Friday’s conference. Keep your fingers crossed.

UPDATE II: The SCOTUS passed on this again. It wasn’t denied nor was it granted certiorari. Thus, for now, no news remains good news.

From Lyle Denniston at the SCOTUS Blog:

The Court also took no action on the latest attempt to get the Court to expand the Second Amendment right to possess a gun so that it applies outside the home. The case is Drake v. Jerejian, seeking to challenge a New Jersey law that requires an individual to obtain a permit to carry a handgun in public. The law requires proof that an individual has a “justifiable need” to carry a gun in public for purposes of self-defense.

Here is the link to the SCOTUS Blog’s Relist Watch for this week which does mention Drake. It also notes that many of the more recent grants of certiorari have come from the relisted cases.

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Stag Arms May Not Be Leaving Connecticut

April 27, 2014 by 4 Comments

I stopped by the Stag Arms booth at the NRA Annual Meeting on Friday. Given that their CEO, Mark Malkowski, had previously said they were leaving Connecticut and that the choice had come down to either the Houston area or Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I wanted to find out if there had been any movement on that. Of course, I was hoping to hear Myrtle Beach.

If the company representative with whom I spoke is correct, there won’t be any movement. As in, they have decided to stay in Connecticut. He said they have four facilities in the New Britain area and they have decided it will be too expensive to move. The irony of this situation is that the firearms they manufacture can’t be sold in that state.

I should caution that this didn’t come from Mark Malkowski but rather from a representative at their booth. I will be following up with an email to the company to get confirmation.

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A Company That Doesn’t Get It

April 27, 2014 by 9 Comments

While roaming the floor today at the NRA Annual Meeting, I happened to pass by the H-S Precision booth. They manufacture both precision tactical rifles and high end stocks.

You may remember that H-S Precison ran afoul of the gun community by publishing an endorsement of their products by the infamous FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. Horiuchi, to remind everyone, was the sniper who shot and killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge while she was holding an infant in her arms.

After criticism from the gun community, H-S Precision took down the endorsement but dissembled about the reason.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I overheard one of H-S Precison’s reps telling a potential customer that the rifle he was showing him was an actual ATF sniper rifle. He then went on to say that they try to get either a rifle from the FBI or the ATF for these shows.

I said to myself, WTF? I probably should have gone back to the booth to ask the rep to repeat himself but I didn’t.

He could have said it was a sniper rifle from the Marines or a special Army unit or even the sniper rifle used by the Sheriff’s Department SWAT Team in Upper Podunk County and it wouldn’t have mattered. However, saying it was an ATF sniper rifle at the NRA Annual Meeting is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. In other words, sheer and utter stupidity mixed with a strong dose of contempt for the setting.

This is a company that just doesn’t get it. Why would anyone in the gun culture want to deal with them when there are plenty of others that make both top-notch tactical rifles and stocks and that respect both gun and civil rights.