The winner for tweet of the day goes to the Firearms Policy Coalition.
Update: 10 of those 15 states have now passed permitless carry. pic.twitter.com/nCSmF4fLnp
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) March 22, 2022
The Interwebs never forget.
Well played, FPC! Well played.
Gov. Eric Holcomb (R-IN) signed House Bill 1296 into law this afternoon. Hoosiers will now be allowed to carry concealed without a permit effective July 1, 2022. The state already allowed free lifetime carry permits. Indiana becomes the third state in 2022 to adopt unrestricted or permitless carry joining Ohio and Alabama. It is now the 24th state in the United States that has constitutional carry.
As the updated graphic below shows, approximately 33% of all Americans now live in a state that allows unrestricted carry. By contrast, only 25.34% of Americans lives in may-issue or virtually no-issue states.
Gov. Holcomb had this to say as to why he signed the bill.
“The Second Amendment has been debated for years, yet time and again our U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed this important constitutional right that I fully support. Twenty-three other states have laws comparable to HEA 1296. Vermont has had a constitutional carry law in place since it became a state, and several other states have had a similar law for more than a decade. HEA 1296, which I’ve signed today, entrusts Hoosiers who can lawfully carry a handgun to responsibly do so within our State. It’s important to note that if a person is prohibited, under federal or state laws, from possessing a firearm before this law goes into effect, that person will still be prohibited. And if a prohibited person has a firearm, he or she can be prosecuted. Firearm permits will remain available, without fee, to anyone who wants or needs one, such as Hoosiers desiring to carry a firearm to, through or in another state that has reciprocity with Indiana.”
Many in Indiana law enforcement had campaigned against the bill including the head of the Indiana State Police. Nonetheless, ISP Superintendent Doug Carter indicated he will work to make the bill’s passage a success. He did still encourage Hoosiers to apply for their free lifetime carry permits.
Also opposing the bill were the usual suspects within the gun control industry. In the Everytown.org press release, they now refer to themselves as “public safety advocates”. I guess that will now supersede the term “gun safety” in their lexicon.
I anticipate the state of Georgia will be the next state to pass and implement constitutional carry. Florida is off the books for this year. I would say that my home state of North Carolina will not have constitutional carry until either Roy Cooper is gone or the Republicans regain a super-majority in both houses of the General Assembly.
As can be seen in the picture below, there is an issue with the receipt of NRA ballots by Rogers & Co. They are the accounting firm charged with counting the votes in the 2022 NRA Board of Directors election.
This is a case where the US Postal Service is not to blame.
Years and years ago I had a small business that managed political mailing lists and processed them to append the correct ZIP Plus 4. I understand something about how the Plus 4 for a ZIP Code is generated. In the case of post office boxes, the ZIP Plus 4 is the ZIP Code plus the post office box number. If you look at where I’ve circled in red on the envelope, you will see that this is not the case with the ballot return envelope. It is clear that when the Postal Service’s automated sorting equipment read the bar code below the address it saw this as a problem.
The correct ZIP Plus 4 for the return envelope of the ballots should have been 22027-0686. I confirmed this by using the Postal Service’s ZIP Code lookup tool.
The returned ballot leads to the obvious question: how many valid ballots have been returned to the sender or even discarded by the US Postal Service? The follow-up question is it enough to affect the outcome of the board election. With the death this week of Rep. Don Young (R-AK), you now have 29 candidates seeking essentially 28 seats when you add in the 76th Director. Until the votes are counted, we won’t know how many votes separated each candidate.
Ballots must be received by May 8th. If you have not returned your ballot yet, you may want to consider my suggestion on how to correct the issue.
In the picture below is another ballot that has not been mailed yet. If you look where I’ve circled in red, here are my suggestions to make sure it arrives in Dunn Loring, Virginia and is counted. First, scratch out the Plus 4 portion of the ZIP Code. Second, scratch out the bar code below the address. Doing both of these actions will prevent the US Postal Service’s automated sorters from rejecting the ballot due to conflicts between the address and the ZIP Code Plus 4.
It is my understanding that NRA Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer has been made aware of this issue. As this issue just came to light this weekend, it is too early to see if he will have any response.
UPDATE: If you are a voting member of the NRA and have not sent in your ballot yet, please check the envelope’s return address. I would like to know if you have a different return address or different ZIP Plus 4. I happen to know that these two examples come from the eastern Pennsylvania area. That is also the home of reform candidate Frank Tait.
You can leave either a comment in the comment’s section or email me at jpr9954 AT gmail dot com. I would especially be interested getting a photo of your envelope if it is different.
UPDATE II: I have heard from readers in Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, and North Carolina that their return envelopes all had the wrong ZIP Plus 4 on it.
I have also heard that there are more people in eastern Pennsylvania who have had their ballots returned as undeliverable.
When Chris Cox was forced out as the Executive Director of NRA-ILA, his Deputy Director and General Counsel David Lehman was out soon thereafter.
Jason Ouimet was appointed to take Cox’s position as head of NRA-ILA. As has been explained to me, he then started to search for a general counsel who would have his back and who would protect the NRA-ILA from Bill Brewer’s depredations. He went outside the Second Amendment world and hired Wade Callender who had served as a trial attorney, a Judge Advocate in the Navy, and for eight years as a general counsel in the software industry.
It appears Wade did his job too well. He protected the NRA-ILA from those outside forces such as Brewer whose goals and aims were inconsistent with the purpose of the organization. Unlike John Frazer at the NRA, he did his job as a good general counsel should therefore he was a threat.
Today a memo went out from Jason Ouimet saying that Wade will be leaving the position effective Labor Day. There was the typical mumbo-jumbo about Wade wanted to seek new opportunities and that he wanted to remain in Texas where he had been working during COVID. Ouimet did say that Wade “improved legal operations, saved millions and his counsel to me as Executive Director has been invaluable.” He is also being credited with shepherding the NYSRPA v. Bruen case through the Supreme Court.
This is bad news for the NRA-ILA. Bill Brewer has had his sights set on the ILA’s Second Amendment budget for a long time. It is another pot of money from which he can get legal fees. Wade stood in his way and now Ouimet has cracked open the door for Brewer.
Not only will the ILA not have a General Counsel who could and would stand up to Brewer but their long-time litigation counsel Chris Conte passed away in 2021. Conte was the one responsible for developing cases which then would work their way up to the appellate level.
As should be self-evident by now, Brewer and his firm are not qualified to handle Second Amendment cases. The few minor 2A cases in which he has been involved have either been dropped or dismissed. To make matters worse, qualified Second Amendment lawyers like Charles Cooper of Cooper & Kirk were purged for “disloyalty” in 2019. I have even heard rumors that Brewer thought he should have been the one to bring the NYSRPA case to the Supreme Court and not Paul Clement. Even the thought of that makes me cringe.
I’m sure we will hear more on this in the coming days as the Annual Meeting approaches at the end of May. When we do, I’ll be reporting it.
After the President of Ukraine spoke to Congress, President Joe Biden announced another $800 million in weapons and other security assistance to Ukraine. There was one thing in the list that kind of struck me as interesting. See if you can find it.
The new $800 million assistance package includes:
800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
2,000 Javelin, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems;
100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
100 grenade launchers, 5,000 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 400 machine guns, and 400 shotguns;
Over 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenade launcher and mortar rounds;
25,000 sets of body armor; and
25,000 helmets.
Since I don’t think the Ukrainian Army nor its Territorial Army are yet ready to engage in trench warfare, I’m wondering a bit about those 400 shotguns.
Given it is Biden, I surely hope he doesn’t expect the Ukrainians to take his advice on “self-defense” with a shotgun from his Vice-Presidential days.
Necessity is the mother of invention and it appears the Ukrainians are doing a good job of it. They have captured a number of abandoned or semi-destroyed Russian Army tanks and armored personnel carriers. Who has not seen the videos of Ukrainian farmers towing away Russian tanks with their John Deere tractors?
Most of these vehicles are armed, in part, with the Russian PK-T machine gun. That is the tank or coaxial version of their standard PK machine gun. France 24, the French public TV network, has a story on how Ukrainian auto mechanics are re-engineering and repurposing these tank machine guns into infantry weapons. They have added a stock and bipod as well as converted the firing mechanism. You can it in the video below.
Repurposing tank machine guns for infantry use is nothing new. As Ian McCollum relates in the next video, the Finns did it extensively with captured Soviet weapons in the Winter War.
H/T Stephen Gutowski on Twitter
My good friend Amanda Suffecool, co-host of Eye on the Target Radio, told me days ago that she thought that Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) would sign unrestricted or constitutional carry into law in Ohio. Her reasoning was that DeWine was being primaried by two strong 2A advocates and that given his somewhat lackluster record on gun rights he needed to prove his bonafides. Today she was proven correct. Ohio became the 23rd state with permitless or unrestricted carry.
From Cleveland.com:
As of June 12, you no longer need a permit or training to carry a concealed handgun in Ohio.
Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday signed Republican-backed legislation to allow people in the state to carry a concealed handgun without a permit or training and no longer require them to proactively tell law enforcement during traffic stops that they’re armed.
Senate Bill 215, which takes effect in 90 days, allows anyone 21 or older to carry a concealed firearm unless state or federal law prohibits them from possessing a gun. Ohio will become the 23rd state to allow conceal-carry in public without needing a license, according to the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action. Ohio currently requires conceal-carry applicants to take eight hours of training and pass a background check.
The bill also removes the duty to notify law enforcement that you are carrying unless you are specifically asked about it.
Ohio is the second largest state with unrestricted carry after Texas. As with Texas and the rest of the constitutional carry states except Vermont, you can still obtain a carry permit if needed.
The addition of Ohio and Alabama to the roles of unrestricted states brings the percentage of the US population that lives in unrestricted states to approximately 31%.
As might be expected, the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the gun prohibitionists has begun. The Bloomberg organizations in Ohio are claiming DeWine prefers the “gun lobby” to public safety and law enforcement. They are stomping their feet and saying they will hold him accountable at the ballot box. No word yet from Brady United, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic), Violence Policy Center, or the Demanding Mommy herself Shannon Watts.
Now we just have to wait on Gov. Eric Holcomb (R-IN) and on Georgia to finish out numbers 24 and 25. Florida, sad to say, will not be on the list this year as they have just ended their legislative session without passing it.
Dr. Daniel Crawford sought to find out which apex predator struck the most fear in whitetail deer. They did this playing the calls of predators such as wolves, coyotes, and others to see which the deer would react to the quickest. As a control, he also played the calls of various local birds to see if the deer had any reaction to those sounds. He used trail cams to capture the reaction of the deer.
Dr. Daniel Crawford is affiliated with the Jones Center of Ichauway, Georgia and the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Center at Texas A&M University – Kingsville. He conducted his study at the Jones Center, a 29,000 acre reserve, located in southwest Georgia and it formed the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation.
The video below with Lindsay Thomas of the National Deer Association shows many clips that Dr. Crawford and his team recorded. You might be surprised at which apex predator caused the strongest flight response in whitetail deer.
If you are interested in reading more about the research on this super-predator interaction with whitetail deer, Dr. Crawford published an article in the journal Oecologia where he goes into much more detail.
Alabama became the 22nd state with permitless, unrestricted, or constitutional carry this afternoon. Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) signed House Bill 272 which will go into effect in January 2023. When I first started publishing this graphic created by Rob Vance in 2011, the unrestricted or blue section at the upper right of the graphic was rather small. Now over a quarter of all Americans live in a state with unrestricted carry.
Furthermore, as I write this, the governors of the states of Ohio and Indiana both have unrestricted carry bills awaiting their signature. If those states join Alabama, another 7% of the United States population will reside in unrestricted carry states.
Gov. Ivey had this to say in her signing statement:
“Unlike states who are doing everything in their power to make it harder for law abiding citizens, Alabama is reaffirming our commitment to defending our Second Amendment rights,” said Governor Ivey. “I have always stood up for the rights of law abiding gunowners, and I am proud to do that again today.”
The primary sponsor of this bill was Rep. Shane Stringer (R – Mobile). He brought the amended bill to the floor of the Alabama House today and it was approved in a 70-29 vote mostly – but not entirely – along party lines. The Alabama Senate then approved it in a 24-6 vote. The House had originally passed it on February 22nd but then the Senate made amendments which pushed it to a conference committee.
Rep. Stringer had this to say about the bill’s passage:
“I am deeply thankful to my colleagues in the Legislature for passing this constitutional carry measure, which allows Alabamians to exercise their fundamental rights without first having to pay a gun tax in the form of permit fees,” Stringer said in a statement. “Those who still wish to purchase a permit for reciprocity with other states or other reasons continue to retain that option under this law.”
Stringer also noted that the law does establish a database of prohibited persons which he contends is more important than whether one had a permit or not. He contended there were some Alabama sheriffs who did not conduct background checks before issuing – or selling – permits.
Stringer himself has had a long career in law enforcement. He served as a deputy in the Mobile County Sheriffs Department and was also the police chief of the towns of Citronelle and Satsuma.
George Owens, Legislative Director of the Alabama Gun Rights Network, pointed out some of the details of the bill in this post.
First it means that if you can legally own a pistol you don’t need a permit to carry that pistol openly or concealed, or in your vehicle.
Second, you can still buy a permit including the lifetime permit that will become available later this year.
Your permit remains important to legally protect you from being criminally charged under certain circumstances.
You must have a permit if you carry a pistol onto a school grounds or at any school function like at a football game. This includes having a pistol in your vehicle when picking your child up. This is a federal law and it is taken very seriously.
You may not carry onto the private property of another person unless you have a permit, OR have the permission of the owner of the property.
Your permit will still grant you carry privileges in the roughly 22 states that have reciprocity agreements with Alabama. That includes Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, to name a few.
Regardless of whether you prefer to call it the Yellowhammer State or the Heart of Dixie, congratulations to all Alabamans on the hard won freedom.
My good friend and fellow co-host of the Polite Society Podcast Charlie Cook has a series of videos called “Riding Shotgun with Charlie.” The series involves Charlie driving with a guest (or two) while he films his interview of them. It is the gun culture’s equivalent of Jerry Seinfield’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee or James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.
Charlie’s most recent guest was Frank Tait who is running for the NRA Board of Directors. In this case, Frank really was riding shotgun as Charlie’s carry permits were not valid in Pennsylvania. While driving around Philadelphia, they discussed a number of things including how Frank got started in competition, how he became an instructor and training counselor, his work with Appleseed and Revere’s Riders, and, of course, his run for the NRA Board of Directors.
In full disclosure, I have endorsed Frank for the NRA Board and have encouraged people to “bullet vote” for Frank. He is the only person I endorsed for the Board and the only person who got my vote. If you are eligible to vote, I would encourage you to vote soon and to vote for Frank.
I got to ride shotgun with Charlie a few years ago. I think Frank’s interview is much better than mine!
by