by Privacy is a big concern nowadays. This Wall Street Journal report details how “Whitey” Bulger lived off the grid for 16 years while on the lam from the FBI. I’m guessing he didn’t have a Facebook account and used a lot of cash and USPS money orders.
Month: July 2011
Is Rahm Afraid Of Alan Gura?
When the New Chicago Gun Law was passed in 2010, shooting ranges for civilians were banned. This became the basis of the lawsuit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation in Ezell v. Chicago.
Judge Kendell’s denial of a preliminary injunction was appealed by Alan Gura to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals where it appears quite likely he will win his injunction. When a judge says to you, “Mr. Gura, what would you like your injunction to say”, any reasonable person would take that as a good sign.
Against this background comes a report in the Chicago Sun-Times that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will introduce an ordinance next week to allow shooting ranges in Chicago.
The new ordinance should address the concerns raised in the lawsuit, officials say.
The proposed ordinance limits gun ranges to areas zoned for manufacturing. Outdoor ranges would be banned.
Anyone opening a gun range would have to obtain a gun permit from the city and obtain approval from the Chicago Police Department for a safety plan.
The Court of Appeals has not rendered a decision in this case and, presumably, an ordinance allowing shooting ranges would moot the case.
NRA-ILA Gives CPD Superintendent A History Lesson
Chicago Police Department Superintendent Gerry McCarthy said that Federal gun laws were tantamount to “government sponsored racism” in a speech at St. Sabina’s Catholic Church in Chicago. Recognizing that McCarthy had a poor education in history growing up in New York, the NRA-ILA gives him a history lesson on where the real connections between racism and gun control lie.
Chicago’s Top Cop: The Racist Roots of Gun Rights?
Friday, July 01, 2011
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, newly appointed by anti-gun Mayor Rahm Emanuel, has wasted no time in sharing his views on Chicagoans’ individual right to keep and bear arms. Less than a month after his approval by the City Council, McCarthy attended a service at St. Sabina’s Church (a parish led by anti-gun extremist Father Michael Pfleger) and made a speech claiming that a lack of restrictive gun control laws is “government sponsored racism.”
Those with a better understanding of history will find themselves confused trying to interpret McCarthy’s logic, as decades of scholarship have proven just the opposite; that gun control, rather than its absence, has often been used as a means of government sponsored racism.
In his 1995 Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy article, “The Racist Roots of Gun Control,” Second Amendment scholar Clayton E. Cramer outlines the historical case that “racism underlies gun control laws.” Cramer notes that racist gun control in America stretches as far back as 1751 with a French law in the Louisiana territory that required colonists to “‘[i]f necessary,’ beat ‘any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane.’”
Though Superintendent McCarthy might be excused for not looking that far back, he should certainly be aware of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the case of McDonald v. Chicago. In a concurring opinion in that case, Justice Clarence Thomas explained that in the years preceding the Civil War, “Many legislatures amended their laws prohibiting slaves from carrying firearms to apply the prohibition to free blacks as well.” After the Civil War, little improved. Justice Thomas writes: “Some States formally prohibited blacks from possessing firearms… Others enacted legislation prohibiting blacks from carrying firearms without a license, a restriction not imposed on whites.”
Other Reconstruction Era (and later) laws were less candid. For example, an 1870 Tennessee law barred the sale of all but the most expensive pistols, effectively disarming newly freed blacks and the poor. New York’s Sullivan Law of 1911, requiring a permit for handgun possession, was largely targeted at Italians and other disfavored immigrant groups. (That law is still on the books.) And the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was denied a concealed carry permit in Alabama under a similar discretionary permitting law—even after his house had been bombed.
We suggest that in the future, Superintendent McCarthy might do a little more research before conflating respect for a fundamental individual right with its antithesis, government-sponsored racism.
Feinstein’s No Guns For Gulag Survivors Act of 2011
If one goes by the press release sent out the esteemed senior Senator from California, then any person convicted of a felony overseas for a crime that would also be a felony in the United States would not be eligible to own a firearm.
Opposition to an authoritarian state and agitating for democratic reforms is probably considered treason in countries like Cuba, the former Soviet Union, and others of their ilk. Treason is most definitely a crime in United States courts. So by Senator Feinsten’s reasoning, if you were convicted of treason and sent to the gulag for opposing a Communist state (and somehow survived), you were convicted of a felony in a foreign court thus are ineligible to own a firearm if you make it here as a political refugee.
I’m sure she and her fellow travelers would object to this example but unless she carves out an exception for political crimes then it would apply. Of course, what you have to do to be convicted of treason in the United States is not the same as what it would take in Cuba.
Feinstein: Prevent Foreign Felons From Obtaining Firearms
“Cannot continue to give foreign-convicted murderers, rapists and terrorists the right to buy firearms in the United States”
Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today introduced legislation to close a loophole in current law to ensure that individuals convicted of foreign felonies and crimes—including domestic violence—cannot possess firearms in the United States.
Under current federal law, people who are convicted in the United States of violent felonies like rape, murder and terrorism are prohibited from possessing firearms. However, the law does not currently prohibit criminals convicted of these same violent crimes in foreign courts from possessing guns.
“America cannot continue to give foreign-convicted murderers, rapists and even terrorists the right to buy firearms in the United States,” said Senator Feinstein. “It makes no sense to have a law that forbids convicted Americans from possessing a firearm, but leaves the door wide open for foreign convicts to possess a firearm in our country. We must close this loophole before it is exploited by terrorists, drug gangs, and other dangerous criminals who threaten our communities.”
The No Firearms for Foreign Felons Act of 2011 would make it clear that if someone was convicted in a foreign court of an offense that would have disqualified them from possessing a gun in the United States, then they will be similarly disqualified from gun possession under American law.
This loophole for foreign convicts is the result of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Small v. United States. In that case, the Court analyzed the 1968 Gun Control Act, which states that anyone who has been convicted of a felony “in any court” cannot possess firearms. The Court concluded the phrase only applied to American courts, despite the fact the Gun Control Act had routinely been applied to foreign felonies since 1968, the year it took effect.
As it is, many criminal offenses committed overseas including the ones that Sen. Feinstein specifies in her press release are a bar from even entering the United States legally. You cannot be given a visa for a whole host of reasons including having engaged in any terrorist activity, having been convicted of prostitution, and, of course, murder and rape. And that is just for visitors. Immigration requires an even higher bar to jump over.
Since this is the case, why introduce a bill that applies to virtually no one who is here legally? Could it be that Senator Feinstein is trying get more publicity for one of her pet causes, i.e, gun control? The multitudes of illegal aliens in her home state of California are already precluded from purchasing a firearm. In case she doesn’t realize it, that is one of the questions on the ATF Form 4473.
Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has more on Feinstein and “the foreign felon loophole hobby horse”.
Senator Grassley On NRA News
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) returns to NRA News to speak about among other things the horse and pony show that Rep. Elijah Cummings’ and the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee held yesterday.
Happy Canada Day
July 1st is what was known in the old days as Dominion Day. It is now called Canada Day. So if you see a Canadian today, congratulate them and thank them for the hard work their forces are doing in Afghanistan. Canadian Forces have been on the front lines next to American troops since the early days.
Go Ace
The Complementary Spouse’s nephew is Aaron “Ace” Elam. This is for him. Good luck to Status Quo at the next tournament.
Fisking The Obfuscators
The Obfuscators, otherwise known as the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, issued a report today entitled Outgunned which sought to shift the blame for Operation Fast and Furious from ATF to gun control laws. As I said yesterday, they are merely diversionary tactics to divert attention from the Obama appointees in the Department of Justice (and maybe DHS) who more than likely authorized this project in order to build support for more gun control in America.
It looks like CNN and the LA Times are buying into it which doesn’t say much for the intelligence and integrity of much of mainstream journalism. CNN took much of what Rep. Elijah Cummings and the rest of Democrats at the “forum” said as gospel and then reported that:
Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told a forum on illegal firearms trafficking he organized Thursday that he knew the recommendations of the new report “will face stiff resistance in Congress and beyond.”
“Before today’s forum even began, it was criticized as a conspiracy to confiscate the firearms of law-abiding citizens, which is ridiculous,” he said.
Cummings also said he and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, would introduce legislation on the reforms called for in the report.
Christine Mai-Duc of the LA Times Washington Bureau ran with an story entitled “Democrats seek crackdown on gun trafficking”.
Cummings and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said that although the investigation into Fast and Furious was “very important,” they were looking for solutions to the broader problems of gun trafficking in Mexico. In an accompanying report released by Cummings, the Democrats said authorities from the Mexican federal police had told them that as many as 80% of the weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes are traced to the United States.
On a side note, Carolyn Maloney – not be confused with the Queen Bee of gun control, Carolyn McCarthy – is a Greensboro, North Carolina native and graduate of Greensboro College. While my hometown is well rid of her and the people of New York were stupid enough to elect her, she supposedly plans to introduce legislation to “combat trafficking” despite the fact that everything involved in Operation Fast and Furious was already a Federal offense. Go figure.
Fortunately, Bob Owens in an article Pajamas Media tears down the Democrats’ report part by part. He fisks the obfuscators.
Bob notes that Rep. Cummings and the rest of his panel ignore what is at the heart of Project Gunwalker: the deaths of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and the weapons that were allowed to be walked by ATF. Briefly summarizing, the report downplays the serious penalties for engaging in straw purchases, it ignores the role of Obama-appointed U.S. Attorneys and their offices in not wanting to prosecute these crimes, and then they repeat the 90% myth again. They also insist on calling semi-automatic AR-15s and AK-47s “military-grade” weapons based upon their cosmetics and not their performance.
Bob concludes:
“Outgunned: Law Enforcement Agents Warn Congress They Lack Adequate Tools to Counter Illegal Firearms Trafficking” is a purely political document created to advance a dishonest gun control agenda, even in the face of 152+ deaths caused by this same sort of duplicity.
Rep. Elijah Cummings should be ashamed to have issued this report, and he should be pressed to answer for it.
Indeed he should as should all that are associated with it.
Former Head Of El Paso Intelligence Center On Project Gunwalker
Cam Edwards interviewed Phil Jordan about Operation Fast and Furious on NRA News today. Mr. Jordan is the former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center. He made some interesting points in the interview. With regard to the firing of ATF Agent and whistle-blower Vincent Cefalu, Mr. Jordan said that it was done as a warning to other agents to not cooperate and to keep their mouths shut. He also said it was a complete injustice to the Terry and Zapata families for the DOJ to allow the damage control/cover-up efforts to continue.
Crimson Trace Likes Taurus Owners
If you have the Taurus Milenium Pro, then you are in luck. Crimson Trace has just released the LG-493 Laserguard for this pistol. I have a Laserguard on my Ruger SR-9c and was amazed at how easy it was to mount on the SR-9c.
(Wilsonville, OR) Crimson Trace today announced the retail availability of the LG-493 Laserguard™ for the Taurus Millennium PRO as of July 1st at an MSRP of $209.
The Crimson Trace Laserguard increases the flexibility of this already versatile pistol, adding an instinctively activated laser sight to the long list of available options. Constructed of the same material as the pistol’s frame, this Laserguard has been designed and tested to shrug off recoil and maintain zero, even when fitted to the powerful, 21oz, .45 ACP Millennium PRO.
Fitting seamlessly to the trigger guard and dust cover, Laserguard’s slim profile matches the Millennium PRO’s width, ensuring that the pistol is easily concealed and holstered. Featuring an industry-leading four hour run time on one 1/3N battery, the laser is user-adjustable for zero and requires no gunsmithing to install. The unit retails at $209 and is available through the usual distribution channels. All Crimson Trace products are proudly engineered and made in Wilsonville, Oregon. Visit www.crimsontrace.com to learn more about Crimson Trace products and see other new product releases.