Month: June 2011

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A New Addition To The Blog

June 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

You will notice a new addition to the blog. In the upper right corner is a banner ad for LuckyGunner.com.

I thought long and hard about adding any advertising to this site.For the past year, there has been no advertising on this blog. I am in the enviable position of not needing the blog to pay for itself. What little out-of-pocket expenses I incur are minimal and my chief expense is the time that I spend on the blog.

So why did I add a banner ad for LuckyGunner.com?

The simple answer is that it is a way for this blog to generate monies to help support the Second Amendment Foundation as they fight for our Second Amendment rights. Since the win in the Supreme Court in the McDonald case, SAF has filed lawsuit after lawsuit seeking to use that ruling to strategically expand our civil rights. Winning firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time is not cheap. Doing it multiple lawsuits at a time is even more expensive.

All the referral commissions generated by LuckyGunner when you buy ammo, reloading supplies, or other shooting items are sent directly to the Second Amendment Foundation. The fact that they will send the money directly to SAF was a big plus for me.

So I would ask you to consider clicking on the banner ad the next time you are thinking of buying ammo. They have good prices and, unlike Walmart, they are not kow-towing to Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors. You will be getting fresh ammo at a good price and will be helping to preserve, protect, and expand our Second Amendment rights at the same time. That sounds like a win all around to me.

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Overview Of Project Gunwalker On CBS Early Show

June 10, 2011 by

Sharyl Attkisson had a report on this morning’s CBS Early Show in which she gave an overview of Project Gunwalker. The overview was to preview what will come out at the hearings before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee next week. It is one of the better summations of the scandal that I’ve seen.

The accompanying story can be found here.

If you have friends, family, or even anti-gun friends who don’t get it, have them watch this video report. They will understand after viewing it.

The only quibble I have is calling the semi-automatic firearms “assault rifles” when they were not full-auto firearms.

I agree with David Codrea about getting a kick out of hearing Chris Wragge refer to it as the “gunwalker scandal”. After a descriptive name is attached to a scandal, it sticks like mud. Sen. Sam J. Ervin (D-NC) officially headed the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. Everyone knows it as the Watergate Committee. I hope the same will happen here.

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Stay On The Trigger

June 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

Sheriff Jim talks about staying on the trigger after taking the shot. This is something Tom Givens emphasized in our defensive pistol class at the LuckyGunner Memorial Day Blogger Shoot. Instead of taking your finger off the trigger, you keep it on it and only allow it to go forward far enough to reset the trigger.

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I Respectfully Disagree

June 10, 2011 by 7 Comments

The NRA-ILA sent out a legislative alert for North Carolina this morning concerning S. 594. This bill would do away with North Carolina’s ban on possession on ammo and firearms off premises during a declared State of Emergency.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Contact Your State Senator Immediately!

With time rapidly winding down on this year’s legislative session, many pro-gun reforms are in a position to advance. One critical reform has been bottled up, and could die if it is not acted on soon.

Senate Bill 594, an emergency powers bill introduced by state Senator Doug Berger (D-7), has been stalled since its introduction. This critical legislation would ensure that our Right to Keep and Bear Arms cannot be suspended during a declared state of emergency. The NRA has been told that the Senate Republicans are preventing this bill from being heard.

Please call AND e-mail your state Senator IMMEDIATELY and urge him or her to support adding the language in S 594 as an amendment to all pro-gun legislation.

Please also call AND e-mail Senate Republican Leadership and urge them to ensure the language in S 594 is amended to other pro-gun legislation.

I have written a great deal on North Carolina’s ban on firearms during declared states of emergency. I have called the Governor’s Office to inquire about the declared emergency at the start of dove season last year and was called a rumor mongerer. I have chastised Gov. Bev Perdue for misstating the law. I have written about the Senate Bill above. No one can say that I have ignored it and want the emergency ban to remain in place.

Normally, I’d be urging North Carolina readers to call or email the State Senate leadership to move this bill. That said, I disagree with the NRA-ILA on pushing to rush this bill through the State Senate. The reason I don’t want to see this bill passed right now is because of a conversation I had with a certain prominent attorney. All I will say about this attorney is that he has rock star status within the gun community.

He said that in strategic civil rights litigation you need the opinions and decisions so that you can build upon them to expand the right. For example, you had to have the Heller decision before you could get the McDonald decision which incorporated the Second Amendment to the states. If Mayor Adrian Fenty had not in his confident arrogance appealed to the Supreme Court from the Court of Appeals, you would not have had a Supreme Court decision in favor of Dick Anthony Heller.

Likewise here in North Carolina, if the General Assembly passed changes to the emergency powers, it will moot Bateman v. Perdue. At the heart of that case is the right to carry for self-defense outside of your residence. Bateman is fully briefed and is ready to go to oral arguments. It is a good case and despite the strong efforts of Attorney General Roy Cooper and his legal staff, I think we will win it.

There are many opportunities to get a bill passed or a law changed. There is only this one chance to win in the courts. Why blow it just because you are getting antsy? The strongest proponent for changes in this law has been Grass Roots North Carolina which is one of the plaintiffs in the case. With their Alerts going out almost daily as the General Assembly gets near the crossover date, you have not heard them pushing S. 594. Think about that. If the most hard-core, take no prisoners, gun rights group in North Carolina isn’t pushing it, doesn’t that say something? I think even GRNC realizes the value of letting the District Court finish the process that they started the day after the Supreme Court’s favorable ruling in the McDonald case.

UPDATE: S. 594 was not passed (or even considered) by the State Senate before the Crossover Deadline of 11:59pm on June 9th. As a result, it is dead for this session of the General Assembly despite the last minute efforts of the NRA-ILA.

Is this a bad thing that the General Assembly didn’t pass changes to the Emergency Powers statutes? The answer is no for two reasons. First, Bateman v. Perdue is moving along in the courts and as I said earlier, I think we have a good chance of winning it. And second, Governor Perdue herself has changed how she declares a State of Emergency. While she still retains the power to declare a statewide State of Emergency under Chapter 36A of the General Statutes which imposes the firearms restrictions, she has begun to use another section of the General Statutes, Chapter 166A,  that allows declaration of an emergency yet doesn’t impose firearms restrictions.

UPDATE II: I was correct about GRNC recognizing the value of letting the District Court finish the process. GRNC’s leadership sent out this message yesterday to Republican State Senators

To: GOP Senators
From: Grass Roots North Carolina
Re: SB 679, anti-gun effort by Sen. Doug Berger

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Grass Roots North Carolina has reason to believe that Sen. Doug Berger
will attempt to amend SB 679 (“Castle Doctrine/Amend Firearms Laws”) on Third
Reading by adding the contents of SB 594 (“Firearms/State of Emergency”).

I strongly urge you to oppose any such attempt by Sen. Doug Berger.

Although this bill appears to be a well-intentioned effort to repeal the
gun ban which applies during States of Emergency declared by the Governor or
local governments, in reality it is an effort to moot a lawsuit filed
against Gov. Perdue and others by Second Amendment lawyer Alan Gura.

As you may recall, Gura won DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, forcing
SCOTUS to recognize the Second Amendment as an individual right.

This lawsuit, Bateman et al. v. Perdue et al., is intended to expand the
definition of the Second Amendment by the United States Supreme Court. If
won, not only would the lawuit cause repeal of the State of Emergency law in
question, but it would further expand our rights under the Second Amendment.

Again, I strongly urge you to oppose any attempt by Sen. Doug Berger to
add State of Emergency language to SB 679.

Senate Bill 679 passed its 2nd and 3rd Reading yesterday without the Emergency Powers amendment. Sen. Doug Berger referred to in the letter is a pro-gun Democrat.

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FoxNews On Project Gunwalker Hearings

June 10, 2011 by

Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxnews.com”>video.foxnews.com</a>

The accompanying story reports that DOJ officials are in “panic mode” which they well should be. According to the story, the following will come out in the second hearing scheduled for Wednesday, June 15th:

– The ATF allowed and encouraged five Arizona gun store owners to sell some 1,800 weapons to buyers known to them as gun smugglers.

– It installed cameras inside the gun stores to record purchases made by those smugglers.

– It hid GPS trackers inside gun stocks and watched the weapons go south on computer screens.

– It obtained surveillance video from parking lots and helicopters showing straw buyers transferring their guns from one car to another.

– It learned guns sold in Phoenix were recovered only when Mexico police requested “trace data,” which is obtained from their serial number.

What has really caught my eye about this story is the third item on GPS trackers inside the gun stocks. Back in April, I had a couple of posts discussing GPS trackers after Michael Bane had speculated about it on his weekly podcast. I didn’t go further with this because I couldn’t find evidence of purchases by ATF of RFI tags or GPS trackers within a government contracting/purchases database. I should have looked harder because it appears our speculations were correct.

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Second Operation Fast And Furious Oversight Hearing Announced

June 9, 2011 by 1 Comment

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has announced a second hearing to be held into Operation Fast and Furious (aka Project Gunwalker) next week. According to the notice on the Committee’s website, the 2-hour hearing will take place Wednesday, June 15th.

The Full Committee hearing entitled, “Operation Fast and Furious: Reckless Decisions, Tragic Outcomes” will take place at 9:30am on Wednesday, June 15 in room 2154 RHOB.

The hearing will be streamed live at http://oversight.house.gov.

According to David Codrea’s National Gun Rights Examiner column there will be three panels of witnesses including ATF agents, Senator Chuck Grassley, members of Brian Terry’s family, and Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich.

The manner in which Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is holding these hearings seems to be very wise. He starts by building the constitutional case for investigating ATF and DOJ and then goes to the consequences of their actions. I anticipate it will go from there and build into making the case that this was no rogue operation dreamed up by SAC William Newell out in Phoenix. Rather it was explicitly authorized by political appointees in the Obama Administration.

This seems to be the argument that Issa made yesterday when he was interviewed on the Hugh Hewitt Show. From the show’s transcript which can be found here. Definitely read the whole thing as Issa goes into other areas of oversight.

HH: … But when did this Fast and Furious program start that countenanced, basically, Americans selling guns with the effort to sting someone on the other side? When did it start?

DI: It started with this administration.

HH: It is?

DI: It started with, literally, the political appointees, many of whom had to approve specifics of this, including funding. And understand, there were agents at the ATF who have testified that they believe this was a good program. And there are agents who gave up their careers, basically, by refusing to be involved in it. So it was controversial. But it’s not about the agents in Arizona, or a similar program in Texas. It’s about the approvals all the way back in Washington. This is the Iran Contra decision. The Iran Contra decision was made by people around the President in the White House. This decision was made at least by people in the Office of Attorney General Holder. And they’re hiding behind every delay tactic they can, claiming that we’re going to interfere with an investigation. I’ve got to tell you, Hugh, I don’t want anyone to walk because of our investigation. But if some meth addict doesn’t get a strong sentence for buying guns, that’s probably not the worst damage if this kind of program continues, and we believe it continues to today.

Comparing it to Iran-Contra is probably correct. That said, I don’t expect the Obama Administration to produce an Ollie North or a Fawn Hall that can generate support and sympathy for the program. An Eric Holder, a Ken Melson, or a Lanny Breur just don’t inspire confidence or sympathy especially given the tragic outcomes. Stopping Communism in the Western Hemisphere hits a little closer to home than trying to build support for more gun control in the United States by helping the violence to increase across the border in Mexico.

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The Battle On the Second Front Has Opened

June 9, 2011 by

As Doug Ritter, chairman of Knife Rights, likes to say, they are the second front in the battle for the Second Amendment. At the 2010 Gun Rights Policy Conference he discussed the plans of his organization to eventually sue the City of New York and District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. over NYC’s vague knife laws.

The second front was opened today with a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The attorney of record is David Jensen who some may be familiar with from his work for the Second Amendment Foundation. Below is Knife Rights’ release announcing the lawsuit.

Knife Rights Sues New York City

Knife Rights today filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to stop New York City from arresting law-abiding citizens carrying common pocket knives.

The lawsuit challenges New York State law on “gravity knives” and “switchblades,” and New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s attempt to mischaracterize the most widely-owned pocket knives in America as contraband. The case seeks a judicial determination that the law is unconstitutionally vague as applied to these ordinary pocket knives.

“District Attorney Vance is trying to advance his political career by exploiting a vague state law to demonize common pocket knives,” said Knife Rights Chairman Doug Ritter. “In the process, hundreds of law abiding knife owners are being arrested and Vance has extracted nearly $2 million from retailers to avoid prosecution on bogus charges. This lawsuit intends to put a stop to Vance’s abusive and unconscionable civil rights violations.”

“One-hand opening pocket knives are legal tools, used and carried every day by millions of law-abiding citizens for work, recreation and self-defense,” said Ritter. “Shame on D.A. Vance for demonizing common tools and turning honest citizens into criminals for purely political ends.”

If you are a retailer or individual who has been targeted for the sale or possession of so-called illegal knives (one-hand opening and assisted opening knives inappropriately claimed to be gravity knives or switchblades), we urge you to immediately contact Knife Rights at: email nycity@KnifeRights.org or call toll-free: 1-866-889-6268.
Joining Knife Rights as plaintiffs are two private citizens, John Copeland, an internationally acclaimed artist, and Pedro Perez, an artist and fine art dealer, both New York City residents. The defendants are New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., the New York State Attorney General, and the City of New York. Knife Rights is represented by attorney David Jensen. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Knife Rights is supported in this lawsuit by the Knife Rights Foundation Sharper Future Legal Fund™ whose major donors include at Platinum level: Benchmade Knife Co., Blue Ridge Knives, Buck Knives, Columbia River Knife & Tool, Taylor Brands and United Cutlery; Silver level: KnifeWorks.com and Wenger NA; Titanium level: Smokey Mountain Knife Works; Bronze level: Ethan Becker and KA-BAR Knives. Please support those who support your knife rights.

A copy of the complaint can be found here.

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Now We Know Why Dept Of Education Bought Those Shotguns (Updated)

June 8, 2011 by 4 Comments

Last spring there was a story going around the blogs concerning a solicitation to buy from the U.S. Department of Education for 27 short barrel shotguns.

Now we know what they planned to do with them. They went to their SWAT Teams for use in collecting student loans. Unfortunately, this isn’t a joke as this story from Stockton, California illustrates. (The Department of Education is now saying it wasn’t about student loans but may have involved fraud or bribery in connection with student loans.)

According to the story from Sacremento’s KXTV News10 ABC, the Department of Education did issue the search warrant and authorized the SWAT team due to defaulted student loans held by Mr. Wright’s estranged wife who no longer lived with him or their children.


According to the Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General, the case can’t be discussed publicly until it is closed, but a spokesperson did confirm that the department did issue the search warrant at Wright’s home.

The Office of the Inspector General has a law enforcement branch of federal agents that carry out search warrants and investigations.

Stockton Police Department said it was asked by federal agents to provide one officer and one patrol car just for a police presence when carrying out the search warrant.

Stockton police did not participate in breaking Wright’s door, handcuffing him, or searching his home.

H/T WizardPC 

UPDATE: Links to the embedded video on KXTV are down. I’m not sure why but I have sent an email to KXTV’s news desk asking about the reason. This has been a very popular story on both blogs and Twitter today. Could be that their servers are overloaded.

I just updated the story link as KXTV has updated the story on their website.

UPDATE II: The video and story links have been updated to reflect the latest coming from KXTV News10. The Department of Education is still mum on why they thought they needed a SWAT team to execute a search warrant on the wrong guy.

UPDATE III: Here is a link to a redacted search warrant. There are allegations that Mr. Wright’s wife engaged in student loan fraud. Unfortunately, for Mr. Wright and his kids, the confidential informant wasn’t aware that suspect didn’t live there anymore.

Frankly, I don’t see any justification for a SWAT team on a white collar crime where there is no indication of violent actions. I am assuming that the sole reason that the Dept of Ed’s OIG used a SWAT team was to justify having one.

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Knife Rights Win In The Granite State

June 8, 2011 by

Knife rights just got a boost in the state of New Hampshire. Gov. John Lynch just signed into law a bill that provides state preemption on knives. From the Knife Rights release:

New Hampshire Governor Signs Knife Rights Preemption Bill

June 9, 2011: New Hampshire Governor John Lynch has signed into law the Knife Rights backed Knife Law Preemption Bill, HB 544. New Hampshire becomes the third state in the nation to enact Knife Law Preemption.

Congratulations to NH Rep. Jenn Coffey who sponsored this bill and who worked tirelessly with her colleagues, local advocates and our lobbyist to ensure the bill passed unanimously in both houses of the New Hampshire legislature. Rep. Coffey’s efforts enacted a strong preemption law which will protect knife owners from senseless local ordinances well into the future.

Rep. Coffey won Knife Rights’ Freedom’s Edge award last year for her successful effort to repeal New Hampshire’s prohibitions on switchblades, dirks, daggers and stilettos.

Knife Rights’ National Knife Law Preemption Campaign started successfully last year in Arizona. Earlier this year Utah enacted knife law preemption. Preemption prevents the creation of, or eliminates, a patchwork of ordinances and rules which serve to confuse or entrap those traveling within or through the state. A person traveling in a state without preemption laws could be charged with a violation of local law when they have no intention of violating the law. Preemption ensures citizens only have to know and abide by state law.

Preemption allows Knife Rights to focus its legislative efforts at the state level where it can more easily succeed in improving the legal environment for knife owners or opposing efforts to impose further restrictions on knives.

 As Doug Ritter of Knife Rights likes to say they are the Second Front in the battle for the Second Amendment.