As part of their Day Two roundup, Ed Head and Tommy Sanders of the Outdoor Channel examined the 50th Anniversary Edition of the Ruger 10/22 that was designed by customers. Instead of calling it the 50th Anniversary Edition, they could just as well name it the Appleseed Edition because it seems like a stainless and polymer-stocked version of the RWVA’s Liberty Training Rifle.
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You may have seen a story recently that actress and model Charlize Theron convinced her new boyfriend Sean Penn to give up his guns. He had them melted down and made into a sculpture by Jeff Koons which generated $1.4 million in a charity auction.
What you didn’t hear in the press or see on E! News are the questions that David Codrea raises today in his National Gun Rights Examiner column.
What Penn is even doing with guns in the first place is a mystery, if the reports are true that when partnered with Madonna, he tied her to a chair and beat her up with a baseball bat.
The Lautenberg amendment prohibition on gun ownership applies to those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, and according to the New York Daily News, “Penn was also charged with felony domestic assault during his marriage to Madonna. He pleaded to a misdemeanor.”
Was that report in a major metropolitan newspaper accurate, and if so, is Penn a prohibited person, or have his legally-recognized gun rights been restored? How? Those would seem to be fair questions to explore.
While I am not a fan of the denial of constitutional rights based upon a misdemeanor conviction, I am also not a fan of the high and mighty being treated differently than some poor schmuck living in a trailer park.
David asks even more questions and I think the public deserves some answers.
In Part Two, Jeff Quinn of Gunblast.com again previews a number of new firearms being released at SHOT Show.
Included are a number of revolvers from Smith and Wesson including the reintroduced Model 66, the Model 686-6 in .357 Mag, the 5-shot 460 S&W Magnum, and the Model 986 in 9mm. This last gun seems to have very minimal recoil with the 9mm.
Speaking of low recoil, Armalite has introduced the AR-31 .308 Target Rifle that has a muzzle break more like one would see on a Barrett .50 BMG rifle.
Sig Sauer held their portion of Media Day at a separate range from what I understand. Jeff shot the new Sig P320 which is their first striker fired pistol and the Sig MPX submachine gun. It is a damn shame that the Hughes Amendment prevents us from being able to buy one of those because it looks like a great gun.
The CalGuns Foundation had sued Sheriff Lee Baca of Los Angeles County for his policy of forcing carry applicants to first be approved by their local town or city police chief. This acted as a de facto ban on carry licenses in LA County. On Tuesday, this policy was overturned in a decision by Judge Deirdre Hill.
From the CalGuns release on their win:
ROSEVILLE, CA — In a decision released today that forces the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to begin accepting and processing handgun carry license applications, Judge Deirdre Hill said that LASD must “consider the applications of all persons seeking a CCW permit in the first instance without requiring any applicant to first seek a CCW permit with his/her local police chief or city.”
The case, titled Lu v. Baca, was filed in 2012 by California-based gun rights organization The Calguns Foundation and a number of individual plaintiffs seeking to overturn an unlawful LASD policy that functioned as a de facto ban on handgun carry licenses for Los Angeles County residents.
“This decision means that all Californians need not jump through more hoops than those required under state law in order to apply for a handgun carry license and exercise their Second Amendment rights,” explained Gene Hoffman, the group’s Chairman.
According to the Foundation’s executive director, Brandon Combs, the victory represents an affirmation of its legal strategy and presents new opportunities to advance gun rights in the Golden State.
“It’s long past time for sheriffs and police chiefs to adhere to the same laws they swore an oath to enforce, starting with the Constitution,” said Combs. “Hopefully they’re getting the message that our fundamental rights are not open to debate. We’ll keep filing lawsuits if that’s what it takes to restore Second Amendment freedoms in California.”
“I’m very pleased by the outcome,” said Charles Hokanson, the plaintiffs’ Long Beach-based attorney. “It is always positive to see the rights of law-abiding people vindicated as they were today in this decision.”
The CalGuns Foundation will be filing more lawsuits as part of their Carry License Sunshine and Compliance Initiative to force state and local officials to comply with state law, legal precedents, and the US Constitution. Since they started their legal campaign in 2009, the number of carry permits in California has grown by almost 30,000. This may not seem like a lot but it is tremendous when you consider that there are California counties whose carry permits number in the single and double digits.
I think most reasonable people – even ones who love all things zombie – can agree that the zombie theme has jumped the shark a long time ago. We have zombie killing ammo from Hornady, we have zombie green ARs, and now, we have Trulock Zombie Slayer Choke tubes.
From the product description:
New for 2014, the Trulock Tactical Zombie Slayer Choke is available by special order as part of the Tactical Choke Tube line. Available in zombie hunter green, the Zombie Slayer Choke is designed to give optimum performance with breaching rounds, buckshot and rifled slugs to eliminate the need to change muzzle devices when alternating ammunition from breaching rounds to buckshot or rifled slugs.
The crenulated muzzle ensures positive grip when used as a standoff tool. More than just a breaching tool, this new design goes beyond single purpose. The Trulock Tactical Zombie Slayer produces improved downrange accuracy and performance for buckshot or rifled slug applications.
Like all Trulock Chokes, the Tactical Zombie Slayer is resistant to cracking, abrasion wear, corrosion and damage from common gun cleaning chemicals. The Tactical Zombie Slayer is backed by Trulock’s lifetime warranty and its 60-day satisfaction guarantee.
I’m sure this choke would work just as well if finished in flat black or a blued finish. I don’t see how neon green paint improves anything more than marketing performance. I guess you could make the argument that the neon green is easier to find in your range bag than something in black but even that is stretching it.
The Outdoor Channel is streaming live interviews from the SHOT Show at different times during the day. The host of it is Tommy Sanders who used to host the outdoor block of programming for ESPN. In the recap of Day One of the SHOT Show, he talks with Ed Head of Gunsite and Downrange,tv.
Ed makes the point that he really hasn’t seen anything that was new and revolutionary. Rather, it has been an evolution of existing product lines. Much of these evolutionary products are aimed at the new shooters and especially those that are younger and women. These are the growth areas of the gun culture and smart companies are the ones who have responded with new products for that segment. He mentions Ruger in particular as a company that has seen good growth from their new products.
The other thing in this interview that caught my ear was Ed’s description of the mood of this year’s SHOT Show. He said people seem upbeat and united. He contrasted that with last year when the SHOT Show came about a month after the shootings in Newtown and the mood was gloomy. We expected to be hit with both new gun control laws and Executive Orders aimed at firearms. As Ed notes, the community rallied and beat back much of this. He says the AR-15 was the firearm that provided the rallying point. I’m not sure if I totally agree on that but it is an interesting point.
When Judge Chang granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment in Illinois Association of Firearms Retailers v. Chicago he stayed it so that the city could either appeal or file a motion to stay his decision. Today, he granted Chicago’s motion to stay his motion for six months in order to give the city time to develop new regulations for gun sales and gun stores.
A federal judge today granted the City of Chicago a six-month delay in allowing gun stores to open in the city so that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration can set up rules and regulations to restrict where the new firearms sellers can hang their shingles.
The extension was expected after Emanuel said last week that he wouldn’t fight U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang’s order in court because he wasn’t interested in in “litigation for the purpose of litigation.” The city has suffered a series of legal setbacks in recent years while fighting in court to reverse rulings favoring firearms advocates.
Chang today agreed to give the city time to put together the regulations. He issued his ruling from the bench today at the Dirksen Federal Building.
The devil will be in the details. I don’t expect Chicago to either make it easy to open a gun store or to conduct a private sale of a firearm. I fully expect them to regulate private sales more stringently than do the State of Illinois or the Federal government. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has instructed the city’s law department to work with community leaders and public safety experts to craft a “comprehensive set of restrictions on the sale of firearms to ensure that illegal guns don’t find their way into the hands of criminals or straw purchasers.” By public safety experts, I’m assuming he means gun control groups.
Jeff Quinn of Gunblast.Com shows a number of the firearms and optics that he tested at Media Day. Contrasting with last year, it doesn’t seem quite a cold and windy.
Among the firearms shown in the video below include the Glock 41 and 42, the Ruger American Rimfire, the Double-Star Compact Constant Carry SBR, and Colt Competition 14.5RR. The optics shown include scopes from Burris, Trijicon, and MSE.
Jeff Quinn of Gunblast.com has an interesting mini-review of the Remington R-51 pistol. Remington brought a number of gun writers to Gunsite in Arizona for a preview of the pistol. While there have been a number of articles about this new pistol, I don’t think any of them said where it was going to be made.
Look at the close-up at the 3:13 mark. I think a lot of people have assumed that this pistol was going to be made at the Ilion, New York plant. If this model is any indication, it is being manufactured in Charlotte, North Carolina. With Freedom Group’s Para-USA located in Pineville which is a suburb of Charlotte, I’m wondering if they aren’t actually being made there.
Morris et al v. US Army Corps of Engineers is a case brought in US District Court for the District of Idaho by the Mountain States Legal Foundation that sought to enjoin the Corps from prohibiting firearms on Corps-administered lands. The case was brought in August 2013 on behalf of Elizabeth Morris and Alan Baker who wanted to have functional firearms for self-defense while camping, hiking, and boating on Corps-administered lakes in Idaho. On Friday, Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued a preliminary injunction against the Corps and in favor of the plaintiffs’ request to have functional firearms on Corps-administered property.
The argument before the court was whether Corps regulations that prohibited a loaded, functional firearm unless hunting or at a target range violated the Second Amendment. To evaluate this, Judge Winmill used the two-step analysis established in the recent 9th Circuit decision in US v Chovan. First, the court had to determine whether “the challenged law burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment.” The second step was to determine the appropriate level of scrutiny.
The plaintiffs had argued that a tent is a temporary residence and should be entitled to the same protections one would have in a more permanent dwelling. Noting that the Supreme Court in Heller had held that the home is the place where the need for self-defense is most acute, Judge Winmill agreed with the plaintiffs that a tent is a temporary residence entitled to the same protections.
The same analysis applies to a tent. While often temporary, a tent is more
importantly a place – just like a home – where a person withdraws from public view, and seeks privacy and security for himself and perhaps also for his family and/or his property.
Indeed, a typical home at the time the Second Amendment was passed was cramped and
drafty with a dirt floor – more akin to a large tent than a modern home. Americans in
1791 – the year the Second Amendment was ratified – were probably more apt to see a
tent as a home than we are today. Heller, 554 U.S. at 605 (holding that “public
understanding” at time of ratification is “critical tool of constitutional interpretation”).
Moreover, under Fourth Amendment analysis, “tents are protected . . . like a more
permanent structure,” and are deemed to be “more like a house than a car.” U.S. v.
Gooch, 6 F.3d 673 (9th Cir. 1993). The privacy concerns of the Fourth Amendment carry
over well into the Second Amendment’s security concerns.
The regulation at issue would ban firearms and ammunition in a tent on the Corps’
sites. This ban poses a substantial burden on a core Second Amendment right and is
therefore subject to strict scrutiny.
Judge Winmill then took up the issue of whether the ban on functional firearms in other places by the Corps violated the Second Amendment and, if so, what was the burden to the plaintiffs. He starts out by stating that the Supreme Court in Heller held that carry outside the home for self-defense was protected by the Second Amendment. Looking to see how other courts had dealt with this issue, he examined the 4th Circuit’s decision in US v Masciandaro and the 7th Circuit’s decision in Moore v. Madigan (and by inference, Shepard v. Madigan).
In Masciandaro, the 4th Circuit concluded that the National Park’s regulation struck a balance between public safety and self-defense and thus was permitted. By contrast, in Moore, the 7th Circuit concluded that the Illinois law was so restrictive that a balance couldn’t be struck and thus was unconstitutional.
The ban imposed by the Corps places this case closer to Moore than Masciandaro.
The Corps’ regulation contains a flat ban on carrying a firearm for self-defense purposes.
By completely ignoring the right of self-defense, the regulation cannot be saved by the
line of cases, like Masciandaro, that upheld gun restrictions accommodating the right of
self-defense.
As to scrutiny, Judge Winmill said it was unnecessary for the court to decide because the regulation failed even at intermediate scrutiny. He said the regulation designed to protect both infrastructure and the public was just too broad and could not satisfy the “reasonable fit” test. The Corps had argued that its regulations should be evaluated under a rational basis test given the 9th Circuit’s decision in Nordyke. The judge disagreed because Nordyke never discussed self-defense.
Finally, the court looked at the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction and whether it was as the Corps argued a mandatory injunction. The judge said since the plaintiffs only request a non-enforcement of a ban and did not require an affirmative action on the part of the Corps, it was not a mandatory injunction and merely a prohibitory injunction. After examining whether the plaintiffs met the standards for granting a preliminary injunction, Judge Winmill wrote:
From the discussion above concerning the motion to dismiss, it is apparent that
plaintiffs have shown a very strong likelihood of success on the merits. Moreover,
irreparable harm is likely because the plaintiffs have made out a colorable claim that their
Second Amendment rights have been threatened. See Sanders County Republican Cent.
Committee v. Bullock, 698 F.3d 741, 744 (9th Cir. 2012) (holding that colorable claim of
constitutional violation satisfies irreparable harm element). This threat tips the balance of
equities in favor of plaintiffs because the harms complained of by the Corps could be
“addressed by a more closely tailored regulatory measure[].” Ezell, 651 F.3d at 710. For
the same reasons, an injunction would be in the public interest.
Accordingly, the Court will grant the injunction requested by plaintiffs enjoining
the Corps from enforcing 36 C.F.R. § 327.13 as to law-abiding individuals possessing
functional firearms on Corps-administered public lands for the purpose of self-defense.
Two things need to be noted here. First, this is an preliminary injunction and the Corps is entitled to an evidentiary hearing that could overturn the injunction. The second points out just how critical it is to get a body of earlier decisions affirming the Second Amendment. In this case, the judge looked at not only Heller but such cases as Ezell, Nordyke, and Moore v. Madigan to name just a few. Having this body of case law is critical for wins in future cases.
The full memorandum and order can be read here.
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