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Volunteers Needed For Asheville Gun Show

March 6, 2017 by

Grass Roots North Carolina sent out an alert this morning saying they need volunteers for the Asheville Gun Show this weekend at the WNC Ag Center. I have volunteered to work on Saturday morning. I try to work the GRNC booth for as many gun shows as I can.

ASHEVILLE GUN SHOW
NEEDS
VOLUNTEERS!
Volunteers are needed
to help man the GRNC table at the upcoming MK Shows, in Fletcher, on March 11th and 12th,
2017. The show will be held at the WNC Agricultural Center, located at 1301 Fanning Bridge Rd., Fletcher, NC
28732.

Help defend Second Amendment freedom and join GRNC in expanding North Carolina gun
rights!

Potential Volunteers
should contact John Hammond by email at johndhammond@msn.com or by phone at 828-699-3117.

I’d love to see some new people volunteering to help. I’ve made some great friends over the years working the booth and have met a lot of nice people at the gun shows.

This is your chance to help out the Second Amendment in North Carolina. While we have a solid pro-gun Republican majority in both houses of the General Assembly, they still have let us down on things like the pistol purchase permit system. When you also factor in that North Carolina has both a governor and attorney general who are not exactly gun friendly, the work that GRNC does in Raleigh becomes critical. We need both members and volunteers if we are to make headway.

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Big News On Fight For Carry On Corps Of Engineers’ Lakes And Recreational Areas

March 3, 2017 by 4 Comments

Back in 2014, the US District Court for the District of Idaho issued an injunction that prevented the US Army Corps of Engineers from banning functional firearms in campgrounds and on lakes. Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s opinion in Morris v. USACE stated that the prohibition was a substantial burden on the exercise of the Second Amendment. The case was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by the government.

Fast forward to today and a different administration. The Mountain States Legal Foundation who represents Elizabeth Nesbitt (formerly Morris) and Al Baker in their case just learned that the DOJ lawyers have submitted an emergency motion stating that they plan to revise the policy and codify the win at the District Court level. If this does become the case, this is a great win for the Second Amendment and its practice on federally-regulated lands.

MSLF just released this statement a few hours ago on the case.

DENVER, CO. An Idaho woman who is barred from carrying a functional firearm for self-defense when she visits vast federal recreational facilities today learned of the Trump administration’s intention to codify her victory before an Idaho federal district court, which ruled the federal government agency’s ban on firearms violates the Second Amendment, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Elizabeth E. Nesbitt of Nez Perce County is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, regularly carries a concealed weapon, and often seeks to recreate on lands managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Because Corps of Engineers regulations ban functional firearms, even while camped in tents, Ms. Nesbitt is subject to criminal prosecution if she attempts to exercise her Second Amendment rights. Alan C. Baker, a firearms instructor and resident of Idaho’s Latah County, is a co-plaintiff in the suit, which was filed in August of 2013 in Idaho federal district court. The Corps of Engineers did not reply to requests from the attorney for Ms. Nesbitt and Mr. Baker, Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), seeking an exemption from its firearm ban, a ban that has not changed since the landmark Heller ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States.

“On the eve of oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit in Seattle, federal lawyers filed an emergency motion stating their clients’ intention to ‘reconsider[] the firearms policy,’ which the panel granted moments ago,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation. “We are pleased the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will at last comply with the Constitution.”

The Corps of Engineers operates public parks and recreational facilities at water resource development projects under the control of the Department of the Army and thus is the nation’s largest provider of water-based outdoor recreation. It administers 422 lake and river projects in 43 states, spanning 12 million acres, encompassing 55,000 miles of shoreline and 4,500 miles of trails, and including 90,000 campsites and 3,400 boat launch ramps. Waters under its control constitute 33 percent of all U.S. freshwater fishing.

Ms. Nesbitt was issued an emergency license by the Nez Perce County Sheriff to carry a concealed handgun in 2012 due to threats and physical attacks against her by a former neighbor. She regularly carries a handgun for self-defense. She uses Corps-administered public lands near the Snake River in Lewiston, Idaho, to boat with friends, regularly walks the Corps-administered paths in the area with her dog and/or her family, and must travel across Corps-administered public lands to reach Hells Gate State Park.

Mr. Baker is a NRA-Certified Home Firearm Safety, Personal Protection In The Home, Rifle, Pistol, and Shotgun Instructor, is a Utah Concealed Firearms Instructor, is licensed to carry a concealed handgun in Idaho, Utah, Oregon, and Arizona and regularly carries a handgun for self-defense. A life-long outdoorsman, he regularly recreates on Corps-managed lands in Idaho, including Dworshak Dam and Reservoir on the North Fork Clearwater River.

More news on the case can be found here.

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Ryan Zinke Doesn’t Waste Time

March 3, 2017 by 4 Comments

Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke was confirmed yesterday. Today he rode in to work on a horse and in one of his first acts got rid of the lead ammo and fishing tackle ban. That ban, Directive No. 219, was the work of former Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe who signed it on the last full day of the Obama Administration.

Sec. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, obviously knows to have to get things done.

Safari Club International released this statement on his order:

Safari Club International was one of nearly twenty pro-hunting organizations invited to meet with Secretary Ryan Zinke today, on his first day at work as Secretary of the Interior. We applaud Secretary Zinke for reversing Dan Ashe’s last minute Director’s Order that directed the phase-out of traditional lead-based ammunition and fishing tackle use on all 81 million acres of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands and waters by 2022. Former FWS Director Ashe issued Director’s Order 219 on the last day of the Obama Administration, imposing severe ammunition restrictions without input from the states, the public, and ammunition and tackle manufacturers.

Ashe’s Director’s Order failed to take into account the harm that eliminating lead-based ammunition could cause to wildlife conservation and habitat management programs supported by the sales of firearms and ammunition. It ignored the question of whether adequate alternate ammunition types would be available to substitute for lead-based ammunition. The former Director’s measures would have seriously undermined hunting and the important role it plays in wildlife conservation. In issuing Director’s Order 219, Ashe sought to impose Obama Administration prejudices into FWS management of lands for the next five years and beyond.

Today, Secretary Zinke returned science and reason to federal decision-making about ammunition use. By reversing Director’s Order 219, the Secretary has prevented the harm the former administration’s hasty and thoughtless attack would have caused the hunting community.

The NRA was represented at this event by NRA-ILA Director Chris Coxe who released this statement:

The National Rifle Association applauds Secretary Zinke’s decision to withdraw Director’s Order No. 219, a decree imposed on the final day of the Obama presidency to ban the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on national wildlife refuges. Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, attended the official signing of Secretarial Order 3347.

“This was a reckless, unilateral overreach that would have devastated the sportsmen’s community,” said Cox. “The Obama administration failed to consult with state fish and wildlife agencies or national angling and hunting organizations in issuing this order. This was not a decision based on sound scientific evidence — it was a last second attack on traditional ammunition and our hunting heritage.”

Issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on January 19, 2017, Director’s Order No. 219 bans the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on lands, waters, and facilities managed by the Service. Today’s action demonstrates Secretary Zinke’s commitment to protecting our country’s treasured outdoor legacy.

“The fact is that traditional ammunition does not pose a significant population-level risk for wildlife. On behalf of the five million members of the NRA and tens of millions of American sportsmen, we thank Secretary Zinke for eliminating this arbitrary attack on our hunting heritage,” Cox concluded.

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Interesting Conference At Amherst College

March 2, 2017 by 1 Comment

Amherst College in Massachusetts holds their annual Copeland Colloquium this Friday and Saturday. The colloquium brings in a number of scholars from around the country to discuss a theme or topic. Past topics have included the place of art, the future of the humanities, international development, and “castrophe and the catastropic”.

This year’s theme will be The Symbolic and Material Construction of Guns.

Sponsored by the 2016-17 Copeland Colloquium, this
conference will explore the symbolic and culture
construction of guns (and other weapons), the way in
which the material culture of the weapon shapes quotidian
forms of violent interaction, and the narratives in which
we embed the “weapon as actor.” We want to ask new
questions about the symbolic value of guns and the
meanings the weapons used in the making of day-to-day
violence convey. How do those meanings take on a life of
their own in the minds of participants in violent encounters?
What kinds of symbols are guns, after all? Do they
condense multiple other meanings into a token to be
exchanged in civic life or do they operate as metaphors,
suggesting larger complexes of meaning?

Normally such a conference would be a bit esoteric even for me. However, among the presenters is my friend Prof. David Yamane of Wake Forest University who runs the Gun Culture 2.0 blog. David’s topic will be “The First Rule of Gun-Fighting is ‘Have a Gun’: Technologies of Concealed Carry in Gun Culture 2.0”. Now that doesn’t so esoteric to me.

The conference program and schedule is here along with a list of the other presentations. I have checked and the conference is open to the public. If you are in the western New England area this weekend, it might be worth a trip to Amherst for this conference.

I guess it should not be too surprising that such a conference would be held at Amherst College for a couple of reasons. First, the location is just at the north end of “gun valley” which is that swath of firearms companies (Colt, S&W, etc.) running from Hartford to Springfield. Second, fans of John Ross’ Unintended Consequences know that the protagonist Henry Bowman was an Amherst grad as is Ross himself.

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Not Only No But Hell No!

February 28, 2017 by 2 Comments

Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) is floating a plan where one of the sitting justices of the Supreme Court retires, President Trump appoints Judge Merrick Garland to that seat, and the Senate would then confirm Judges Gorsuch and Garland at the same time.

“You had President Trump saying, ‘I want to unite the country, I’m a deal-maker, I’m going to bring people together,’” Udall told reporters following his meeting with Gorsuch on Monday. “Well, the deal right now for President Trump, if he wanted to do it, would be to put Gorsuch and Merrick Garland on the court at the same time.”

This is how Udall described it: Trump would discuss the option with one of the three Supreme Court justices often mentioned as retirement prospects in the coming years – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer or Anthony Kennedy – and secure a resignation letter from one of them, contingent on Garland getting nominated and confirmed as their replacement.

Then the two nominees would have a simultaneous confirmation process and votes, Udall said.

Has Udall been sneaking up to Colorado to visit brother Mark (former US Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) and then partaking of some of Colorado’s best weed?

The answer President Trump should give Sen. Udall is an unequivocal no. Both surveys and my own anecdotal evidence suggest that the primary reason many people voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton was the Supreme Court and court appointments. The era of the GOP making deals with liberal Democrats on judicial appointments is over.

We have just seen the impact of President Obama’s appointments on gun rights in the 4th Circuit with their nonsensical ruling in Kolbe v. Hogan. We need that sixth originalist justice if we want to preserve the Second Amendment as an individual right and as a right that the courts will actually respect. Judge Merrick Garland is not that man.

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Ted Cruz Responds To The 4th Circuit Ruling

February 23, 2017 by 2 Comments

CPAC or the Conservative Political Action Conference is going on now in Washington, DC. It is where the leading lights of the conservative movement show up to see and be seen. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is one of those people.

In an interview with radio talk show host and author Mark Levin, Cruz discussed the fallacies of the majority opinion in Kolbe v. Hogan. He eviscerated the logic (or illogic) shown by Judge Robert King in the majority opinion.

Watch and listen:

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Comment Of The Day

February 23, 2017 by 7 Comments

The comment of the day comes from Jim Shepherd of the Outdoor Wires. He concludes his discussion of the 4th Circuit’s majority opinion in Kolbe v. Hogan with this:

But don’t forget, that if this silly ruling were to survive, it wouldn’t be much of a reach- at least for lawyers and legislators- to extend the withdrawal of protections to everything from bolt action rifles and pump shotguns (trench guns in World Wars I & II and Vietnam) to the venerable cowboy action lever guns carried by the U.S. Army in the 1800s.

Will this one head to the Supreme Court?
Probably.

But with the District of Columbia and Chicago still thumbing their noses at the high court after rulings that should have repealed their oppressive anti-gun regulations, what real difference would it make?

When it comes to protecting the enumerated right defined in the Second Amendment, the United States Supreme Court isn’t just divided.

It’s toothless.

Why should any state or local official be concerned with the “supreme court” and its rulings if the court itself lacks the conviction to compel compliance?

Unenforced rules aren’t rules, they’re suggestions.

Jim is absolutely correct. The Supreme Court has had multiple opportunities to reinforce and correct misinterpretations of their rulings in Heller and McDonald. Every time they have blinked and let them go unchallenged.

Erin Palette was correct to call Supreme Court nominations “the Kardashians of politics”. By extension and given their reluctance to take another Second Amendment case, I’d call the justices themselves “the Kardashians of politics”.

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New Hampshire Becomes 12th State With Constitutional Carry

February 22, 2017 by

Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) signed a bill today making New Hampshire the 12th state to have permitless concealed carry. The bill he signed had been vetoed in each of the preceding two years by then-Gov. Maggie Hassan (D-NH).

There are a number of other states where constitutional concealed carry bills have been introduced this year including both North Carolina and Texas. My fellow co-host on the Polite Society Podcast, Rachel Malone, is leading the charge in Texas.

From the NRA-ILA on the New Hampshire signing ceremony:

Today, in a private signing ceremony, Governor Chris Sununu signed Senate Bill 12 into law. Similar legislation had been vetoed by former Governor Maggie Hassan for two years in a row, but thanks to your active involvement, law-abiding gun owners will now be able to carry their firearms without a required permit in the state of New Hampshire! This law goes into effect immediately. Please take the time to thank your state legislators for passing this important legislation and Governor Sununu for signing it into law.

Sponsored by Senator Jeb Bradley (R-3), SB 12 will repeal the license requirement to carry a concealed pistol or revolver, unless a person is otherwise prohibited. For those who choose to obtain licenses, SB 12 will also increase the length of time in which a license is valid from four years to five years.

In New Hampshire, existing state law recognizes the right of any citizen who can legally own and possess a firearm to carry it openly, either loaded or unloaded, anywhere in the state not prohibited by law. However, if a firearm becomes covered by a coat or if a woman prefers to carry a firearm for protection in her purse, he or she would need a concealed carry handgun license. The new law will extend permitless open carry to permitless concealed carry, allowing law-abiding gun owners to protect themselves and their loved ones in the manner that best suits their needs.

Keep your fingers crossed and your calls to legislators coming in that more states will adopt this.

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The 4th Circuit Has Gone To Hell In A Handbasket!

February 21, 2017 by 7 Comments

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in its infinite wisdom has decided that the most common rifle in America in not entitled to the protection of the Second Amendment. Thank you President Obama for stacking this Court of Appeals with nitwits and halfwits given that seven of the 15 active judges (non-senior status) were his appointments.

The 4th Circuit issued an en banc decision in Kolbe et al v. Hogan et al which upheld the Maryland law that banned so-called assault weapons (sic) and standard capacity magazines. The case was decided in a 9-4 split with the majority opinion written by Judge Robert B. King, a Clinton appointee, and a native of West Virginia.

Using intermediate scrutiny, Judge King wrote:

Because the banned assault weapons and large-capacity
magazines are clearly most useful in military service, we are
compelled by Heller to recognize that those weapons and
magazines are not constitutionally protected. On that basis, we
affirm the district court’s award of summary judgment in favor
of the State with respect to the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment
claims.

Earlier he wrote:

Thankfully, however, we need not answer all those difficult
questions today, because Heller also presents us with a
dispositive and relatively easy inquiry: Are the banned assault
weapons and large-capacity magazines “like” “M-16 rifles,” i.e.,
“weapons that are most useful in military service,” and thus
outside the ambit of the Second Amendment? See 554 U.S. at 627.
The answer to that dispositive and relatively easy inquiry is
plainly in the affirmative.

Simply put, AR-15-type rifles are “like” M16 rifles under
any standard definition of that term. See, e.g., Webster’s New
International Dictionary 1431 (2d ed. 1948) (defining “like” as
“[h]aving the same, or nearly the same, appearance, qualities,
or characteristics; similar”); The New Oxford American
Dictionary 982 (2d ed. 2005) (defining “like” as “having the
same characteristics or qualities as; similar to”). Although an
M16 rifle is capable of fully automatic fire and the AR-15 is
limited to semiautomatic fire, their rates of fire (two seconds
and as little as five seconds, respectively, to empty a thirtyround
magazine) are nearly identical. Moreover, in many
situations, the semiautomatic fire of an AR-15 is more accurate
and lethal than the automatic fire of an M16. Otherwise, the
AR-15 shares the military features — the very qualities and
characteristics — that make the M16 a devastating and lethal
weapon of war.

To quote the philosopher Forrest Gump, “I may not be a smart man” but that is utter bullshit! The opinion, concurrences, and dissents go on for 116 pages. I just can’t bring myself to read the whole thing tonight I’m so pissed off.

 The Wall Street Journal opines that this case will go to the Supreme Court. If so, it is time to get Judge Gorsuch on the court as Associate Justice Gorsuch. Moreover, it is time to start using the nomination process to appoint judges who are originalists and not some flim-flam men and women who misinterpret the plain words of Justice Scalia in the Heller decision.