Month: December 2010

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Brian Aitken’s Sentence Commutted by Gov. Christie

December 21, 2010 by 2 Comments

Here is the official commutation order:

Office of the Governor
Office of Constituent Relations
Post Office Box 001
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0001

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE ELECTRONIC RESPONSE

Please see below the signed commutation order for Brian Aitken, signed by Governor Christie at 4:30 pm today.

ORDER FOR COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE

WHEREAS, Brian D. Aitken was convicted of Possession of Dum-Dum
Bullets in the Fourth Degree in violation of N.J.S.A 2C:39-3(f)(l), Possession of
Large Capacity Ammunition Magazine in the Fourth Degree in violation of
N.J.S.A 2C:39-3(j), and Unlawful Possession of a Handgun in the Second
Degree in violation of N.J.S.A 2C:39-5(b) in the Superior Court, Law Division
(Criminal), Burlington County, New Jersey, and was sentenced on August 27,
2010 under Indictment No. 09-03-00217-1 to a seven-year term of imprisonment
with a three-year mandatory minimum; and

WHEREAS, the said Brian D. Aitken, caused to be made a written
application to the Governor for a Commutation of Sentence for the aforesaid
crimes of which he was convicted, and the State Parole Board, upon request of
the Governor in accordance with the law, has made an investigation of the facts
and circumstances concerning said application for a Commutation of Sentence;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, CHRIS CHRISTIE, Governor of the State of New
Jersey by virtue of the authority conferred upon me by the Constitution of New
Jersey and the statutes of this State, do hereby grant to the said Brian D. Aitken,
a commutation of the aforesaid sentence to time sewed, and satisfied on
December 20,2010.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, that Brian D. Aitken’s release from the
custody of the New Jersey Department of Corrections be effected as soon as
administratively possible, or within a reasonable period to allow for release
processing pursuant to customary policy and procedure. ,

This Order is subject to revocation at any time, at the discretion of the
Governor, without notice.

The Free Brian Aitken page on Facebook has lots of discussion about it.

NJ.com has the story here and the Philadelphia Inquirer has the story here. Some of the comments from the anti-gun sorts make my blood boil but I’ll just leave it at that.

Congratulations to Brian Aitken and his family. I hope his appeal which is pending totally overturns the conviction.

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Bradys All For ATF Reporting Requirement

December 20, 2010 by 3 Comments

The Brady Campaign is very much in favor the ATF’s proposed “temporary” requirement that sales of more than one semi-automatic rifle with certain characteristics in a five day period be reported to ATF. I know that surprises no one. Here is their (as usual) misleading press release on the proposal:

Brady Campaign Applauds ATF Plan to Collect Reports of Bulk Weapons Sales
“A step toward battling Mexican gun violence”

Dec 17, 2010

Washington, D.C. – The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence today applauded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for its plan to issue an emergency rules change to require that federally-licensed gun dealers near the Mexico border report multiple sales of assault weapons.

Under the proposal published in the Federal Register today, certain gun dealers would be required by a “demand letter” issued by the ATF to alert the agency when they sell two or more semi-automatic rifles greater than .22 caliber with detachable magazines to the same person within five consecutive business days

“It makes sense that law enforcement should be alerted if someone is buying 5, 10, or 100 assault weapons, when it’s likely that those guns could be headed to drug cartels in Mexico,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign. “It will give ATF the same amount of information about people who buy military-style assault weapons in bulk that they already have had for more than 40 years about people who buy handguns in bulk. It’s the kind of crime-fighting information that our law enforcement officials ought to have if we want to reduce the number of assault weapons being trafficked illegally to Mexico, as well as to American cities.”

While the National Rifle Association and other gun lobby groups have already expressed strong opposition to this attempt to stop illegal gun trafficking and curb gun violence in Mexico, the Brady Campaign noted that the Obama Administration has clear legal authority to require the bulk sales reports. “Demand letters” were used during the Clinton administration to force dealers with high crime gun traces to submit additional information to the ATF and the courts have upheld their use. For example, in 2001, the 4th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to this authority by former NRA Board member and gun shop owner Sandy Abrams, whose license was eventually revoked for massive violations of federal gun laws.

The Brady Campaign also urged the Obama Administration to develop a comprehensive approach to gun violence by advancing policies to require background checks on all gun sales at gun shows, limit the bulk sales of guns and restrict access to military-style weapons. “Steps like these will improve our border security and our ‘hometown security’ in neighborhoods and communities of the United States,” added Helmke.

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MAIG And CredoAction Push Traver In Joint Website

December 20, 2010 by 1 Comment

Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns and CredoAction have formed a joint website to push the nomination of Andrew Traver to head ATF. The website is called TopCopNow.org. They say that Traver:

Special Agent Andrew Traver has dedicated his career to keeping our families and communities safe from gun violence. He understands firsthand the challenges that the ATF faces and knows what our agents need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

CredoAction is a one of the parts of the liberal funding group Working Assets. The group promotes their credit card, cellular service, and long-distance telephone service as a way to support “progressive causes”. With regard to CredoAction, they say, “Our CREDO Action Web site plugs you into a network of like-minded citizen activists and provides easy and effective ways to take action on the issues you care about..” Among the other causes they are promoting currently is the START Treaty and opposition to the crackdown on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

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Bloomberg’s Mayors Endorse Andrew Traver

December 20, 2010 by

Somehow along the way I missed this press release from MAIG. They released it in November with their endorsement of Andrew Traver.

November 16, 2010
No. 9

STATEMENT OF MAYORS AGAINST ILLEGAL GUNS CO-CHAIRS BLOOMBERG AND MENINO ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S NOMINATION OF ANDREW TRAVER AS ATF DIRECTOR

Joint Statement of Coalition Co-chairs Michael R. Bloomberg and Thomas M. Menino:

“On behalf of the more than 500 mayors who have been petitioning for tougher
enforcement of our nation’s gun laws, we commend the President on his nomination of Andrew Traver to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Mr. Traver has dedicated his career to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and his nomination to this post as America’s top cop on illegal guns deserves careful and swift review by the U.S. Senate.”

About Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Since its inception in April 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown from 15
mayors to over 500. Mayors Against Illegal Guns has united the nation’s mayors around these common goals: protecting their communities by holding gun offenders and irresponsible gun dealers accountable, demanding access to trace data that is critical to law enforcement efforts to combat illegal gun trafficking, and working with legislators to fix gaps, weaknesses and loopholes in the law that make it far too easy for criminals and other prohibited purchasers to get
guns.

Contact: Mayor Bloomberg’s Press Office (212) 788-2958
Mayor Menino’s Press Office (617) 635-4461

UPDATE: David Codrea at the National Gun Rights Examiner received a very interesting email from a confidential source regarding the Traver nomination. The bottom line is that this nomination is not good for ATF. As the source put it, “Appointing Traver has f***ed ATF royally.”

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BATFE And Proposed “Two-A-Day” Long Arms Regulation

December 20, 2010 by 1 Comment

The Washington Post is reporting that the BATFE is requesting an “emergency regulation” that would require Federal Firearms Licensees along the Mexican border to report any sale of two or more semi-automatic rifles in a caliber greater than .22 that may accept a detachable magazine within any five consecutive day period. The actual language from the Federal Register reads:

The purpose of the information is to require Federal Firearms Licensees to report multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of two or more rifles within any five consecutive business days with the following  characteristics: (a) Semi automatic; (b) a caliber greater than .22; and (c) the ability to accept a detachable magazine.

The Post headlines the article “Proposal calls for gun dealers to report bulk sales of assault weapons” which makes it seem like BATFE is talking about crate sized sales of AK’s and AR’s sold in Arizona. Despite what the Post would have you believe, it doesn’t matter if you live in Tucson, Arizona or Talkeetna, Alaska the requirement is the same.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation calls the Post on this and has some suggestions for commenting on this proposed “emergency regulation”:

ATF to Require Multiple Sales Reports for Long Guns
December 17, 2010 By Larry Keane

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is moving to require federally licensed firearms retailers to report multiple sales of modern sporting rifles beginning January 5, 2011. Specifically, the ATF requirement calls for firearms retailers to report multiple sales, or other dispositions, of two or more .22 caliber or larger semi-automatic rifles that are capable of accepting a detachable magazine and are purchased by the same individual within five consecutive business days.

Today’s Washington Post suggests that the reporting mandate would be limited to retailers along the Southwest border; however, the Federal Register Notice does not limit the geographic scope of the reporting requirement.

This ATF “emergency” mandate was originally pushed by the anti-gun Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) coalition, headed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, more than a year and a half ago. And the Post reports that the Department of Justice has “languished” over this plan for several months. Given this timetable, it’s hard to see exactly where the “emergency” is.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation opposes this reporting requirement because it further burdens America’s law-abiding firearms retailers with yet another onerous regulation that will do nothing to curb crime. Multiple sales reporting of long guns will actually make it more difficult for licensed retailers to help law enforcement as traffickers modify their illegal schemes to circumvent the reporting requirement, thereby driving traffickers further underground. This is not unlike how criminals maneuvered around one-gun-a-month laws in states like Virginia – which is still considered an “exporting source state” by anti-gun organizations like the MAIG despite its restrictions on the number of firearms law-abiding residents may purchase.

Multiple sales reporting for long guns is an ill-considered mandate and one that ATF does not have the legal authority to unilaterally impose. In fact, ATF has not specified under what legal authority it presumes to act. The decision as to whether ATF can move forward with this agenda-driven mandate will be left to Cass Sunstein who heads the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). This is the same Cass Sunstein who in a 2007 speech at Harvard University said, “We ought to ban hunting, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”

NSSF will be submitting comments in opposition to this registration scheme and is encouraging all firearms retailers, sportsmen and enthusiasts to do the same.

Please voice your concern by doing the following:

1. Call the Office of Management and Budget, Office of Information and Regulation Affairs, Department of Justice, Desk Officer at (202) 395-6466.

2. E-mail Barbara A. Terrell, ATF, Firearms Industry Programs Branch at Barbara.Terrell@atf.gov

3. Call your Senators and Representative: United States Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Points to make:

1.Multiple sales reporting of long guns will actually make it more difficult for licensed retailers to help law enforcement as traffickers modify their illegal schemes to circumvent the reporting requirement. Traffickers will go further underground, hiring more people to buy their firearms. This will make it much harder for retailers to identify and report suspicious behavior to law enforcement.

2.Long guns are rarely used in crime (Bureau of Justice Statistics).

3.Imposing multiple sales-reporting requirements for long guns would further add to the already extensive paperwork and record-keeping requirements burdening America’s retailers – where a single mistake could cost them their license and even land them in jail.

4.Last year, ATF inspected 2,000 retailers in border states and only two licenses were revoked (0.1%). These revocations were for reasons unknown and could have had nothing to do with illicit trafficking of guns; furthermore, no dealers were charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

5.According to ATF, the average age of a firearm recovered in the United States is 11 years old. In Mexico it’s more than 14 years old. This demonstrates that criminals are not using new guns bought from retailers in the states.

6.Congress, when it enacted multiple sales reporting for handguns, could have required multiple sales of long guns – it specifically chose not to.

This “emergency regulation” goes along with the Department of Justice Inspector General report on Operation Gunrunner released back in November. At the time, Deputy Director Kenneth Melson said he concurred in the recommendation to require reporting of multiple long arm sales but thought it required a change in the law. Now that Andrew Traver has been nominated as Director and I presume is now the Acting Director of ATF, I guess how the law reads is of no great importance as long as the words “emergency” and “Mexico” are used in conjunction.

See also Sebastian’s post regarding the statutory authority for BATFE to do this. There is none.

UPDATE: Thanks to Kurt Hofmann, .45Superman, who pointed out that the caliber restriction is for calibers greater that .22 which presumably means an AR-15 in .223 would be covered. I had originally read it as .22 or above. I guess they were afraid of irritating people who were merely buying Ruger 10/22’s for their twin sons.

UPDATE II:  David Codrea put up a special Gun Rights Examiner column on this issue. It is well worth reading. With regard to the ATF’s notice in the Federal Register, he says:

That’s funny. I don’t see anything in there about “Assess where in the Constitution such authority in data-gathering is determined consistent with the intent of the Founders that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’” I guess that kind of archaic thinking generally results in a scornful “Are you serious?” rejection these days…

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Is Harry Reid Greasing The Skids For Andrew Traver?

December 19, 2010 by

According to a post from the NFA Owners Association, it seems that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not scheduled any hearings or votes on the nomination of Andrew Traver to head ATF.

From their post:

“Pinky” Reid is showing his true colors again.
He is stealthily, but very clearly, supporting anti-gun zealot Andrew F. Travers, to become the new head of BATFE. He has to do this by stealth in order to maintain the myth that he is a strong supporter of our RKBA.

Reid has NOT made any real effort to ensure the Traver nomination is voted on before congress adjourns.

This is typical of him.

He will let Traver become a recess appointment, then continue to claim that he “really does” support our RKBA. If anyone complains he will deny all responsibility, probably blaming the republicans for time running out.

Readers here might remember that one of the claims for allowing Reid to remain in office was that he is SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, and a (claimed) supporter of our RKBA. IF he TRULY wanted Traver’s nomination to be scheduled and voted on it would be.

I checked with his DC and local office, asking when a hearing would be held.
They could not give me a direct answer. The D.C. office insisted they did not know, and transferred me to a busy signal. The Carson office promised to send me a written response, which I expect to get several days after the question is moot.

We can let him slide on this, or we can demand that he actually make more than a token effort to REPRESENT US on this!

Contact info:

Senator Harry Reid (D) NV.
Web site: http://reid.senate.gov
Mail: United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-2803
Ph. (202) 224-3542, Fax (202) 224-7327

Carson City – Ph. (775) 882-7343

Reno – Ph. (775) 686-5750

Las Vegas Ph. (702) 388-5020

Rural Mobile – Ph. (775) 772-3905

Using senate rule 14 Reid could easily bring the Travers nomination to a vote before the “Lame Duck” session’s end.

That he is NOT doing so confirms for me that he intends to see ATF headed by an anti-RKBA zealot via “Recess Appointment”, and deny all responsibility for it.

I checked status on this before posting, as of today there is still no hearing scheduled for the Travers appointment.

While this does make some sense and would make it easier for Traver to be a recess appointment, I have to say I doubt that not scheduling a vote on Traver is akin to pushing Traver. Reid has plenty of other things on his agenda before the end of this session that are of greater importance to both Reid and Obama than Andrew Traver. Indeed, Reid has threatened to not recess the Senate in order to get it all in before the new Congress forms in January.

Full hearings in the Judiciary Committee take time for any nomination. Checking the committee’s website, no hearings of any sort have been scheduled for the month of December. They also have a number of judicial nominees that have had their hearings waiting for confirmation.

The last hearings held by the full committee were on November 17th which was the same day that Traver’s nomination was sent to the Senate. The hearings on the 17th were for judicial nominations from May.

Frankly, I hope Harry Reid carries through with his stupid obstinate refusal not to recess because it prevents any recess appointments. Let’s face it, castrating the U.S. military’s nuclear capability is more important to Obama and Reid than Andy Traver.

H/T SayUncle

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NRA Responds To ATF Proposal

December 19, 2010 by

From the NRA Grassroots Alert:

BATFE Requests “Emergency”
Authority To Track Semi-Automatic Rifle Sales

Friday, December 17, 2010

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has proposed that it be given emergency authority for six months, beginning January 5, to require about 8,500 firearms dealers along the border with Mexico “to alert authorities when they sell within five consecutive business days two or more semiautomatic rifles greater than .22 caliber with detachable magazines.” A Washington Post story reporting on the BATFE proposal described that definition as being applicable to “so-called assault weapons,” but it would also apply to many rifles that have never been labeled with that term.

The reporting requirement will apparently be imposed under the “authority” the BATFE has used in the past to demand reporting of other types of transactions from certain limited groups of dealers over the past 10 years, but the new proposal is far broader than any previous use of this authority. Of course, there’s no law today that prevents dealers from reporting suspicious transactions (or attempted transactions) to the BATFE, and dealers often do so. The BATFE is also free to inspect dealers’ sales records—either for annual compliance inspections or during a criminal investigation.

NRA-ILA’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, denounced the attempt to establish a registry of Americans who purchase semi-automatic rifles that gun control supporters ultimately want to see banned. “This administration does not have the guts to build a wall, but they do have the audacity to blame and register gun owners for Mexico’s problems,” Cox told the Post. “NRA supports legitimate efforts to stop criminal activity, but we will not stand idle while our Second Amendment is sacrificed for politics.”

The Post says “The plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revives a proposal that has languished at the Justice Department and in the Obama administration for several months,” and that the gist of the plan was proposed by Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) last year. It its August 2009 Blueprint for Federal Action on Guns, MAIG indeed proposed that “ATF should identify the long guns most linked to crime and require dealers to report multiple sales of such guns.”

The idea must have appealed to the BATFE, because in June of this year Congress’ Government Accountability Office released a report noting that BATFE officials had claimed that U.S. efforts to stop the smuggling of firearms to Mexico are hindered by “a lack of required background checks for private firearms sales, and limitations on reporting requirements for multiple sales.”

Curiously, in September, a draft of the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Office’s unfavorable review of BATFE’s Project Gunrunner, established to combat the trafficking of firearms to Mexico, didn’t mention multiple sales at all. But the final version of the review, released in November, mentions “multiple sales” 43 times and says “the lack of a reporting requirement for multiple sales of long guns – which have become the cartels’ weapons of choice – hinders ATF’s ability to disrupt the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico.”

Whether BATFE intends its plan as another expansion of its oft-criticized firearm sales record tracing empire, or to lay the groundwork for legislation or regulations restricting “assault weapon” sales, or to fatten the files the agency keeps at its National Tracing Center in West Virginia remains to be seen. And the legality of requiring sales reports on any long guns is also in doubt. When the Congress specifically imposed multiple sales reporting on handguns only, it implicitly stated its intention that the same requirement not apply to sales of long guns.

However, it is crystal clear that some in the Obama Administration agree with those who believe the answer to crime is always more gun control. In September, MAIG blamed crime in states that have “strong” gun laws, on states that don’t have the same laws. And ever since President Obama took office, gun control supporters have been blaming Mexico’s crime problem on America’s gun laws.

The fact that Mexico’s multi-billion dollar drug cartels have machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and other potent weaponry you cannot buy in the United States is, to gun control supporters, irrelevant. The fact that most of the cartels’ guns have never been on this side of the U.S. border is, as far as they are concerned, a trifling inconvenience. The fact that the cartels will never have enough “assault weapons” or any other guns from the U.S. to hand out to all the Mexican policemen, soldiers and politicians on their payrolls, is, in their view, an unimportant detail. And the fact that the murder rate in the United States is at a 45-year low, while crime in Mexico is through the roof (the murder rate in Juarez is 115 times higher than in El Paso) is, they would certainly say, a contradiction best ignored.

To read the BATFE’s Federal Register notice about the plan, and for information on how to send your comments, click here (http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-31761.pdf). Comments about the proposal will be accepted for two months; if you choose to comment, please state your firm but polite opposition to the plan.

Needless to say, the NRA will not only comment, but take whatever other action is appropriate to block this sweeping expansion of federal recordkeeping on gun owners. Stay tuned.