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Maryland Shall Issue On The Lifting Of The Stay In Woollard Decision

July 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

With US District Court Judge Benson Legg’s lifting of his temporary stay in Woollard v. Sheridan, the Maryland State Police will have to start processing carry permit applications without regard to the “good and substantial reason” requirement.

Maryland Shall Issue has released a 5-point analysis of what the lifting of the stay will mean for Marylanders.

  • On August 8th, MSP will begin to process carry permit applications without regard to the “good and substantial reason” clause that was ruled unconstitutional back in March. Please bear in mind that the state of Maryland may ask the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (CA4) for an emergency stay of the Woollard ruling. If they ask for a stay and it is granted, MSP may decide to “sit” on applications until the appeal is decided.
  • The appeal of the Woollard decision itself remains before CA4. They may side with the state and overturn the lower court’s ruling, or they may uphold the decision. While the order lifting the stay is unquestionably good news, appeal itself is far more important.
  • We anticipate that MSP will receive another flood of carry permit applications. While the law requires that MSP process permit applications within 90 days, the sheer volume of paperwork involved will make that deadline very difficult if not impossible to meet. The court system is inclined to give an entity like MSP some leeway if they are processing applications in good faith. MSI will be monitoring any delays to ensure that it is good faith delays.
  • Remember that while the appeals process plays out, it is possible that permits could be denied or revoked if CA4 or the Supreme Court rules in the state’s favor. To that end, we encourage you to avoid spending money that you cannot afford to lose in the process of applying for a carry permit.
  • Expect that Anti-2A forces in the Maryland General Assembly will press hard to find new ways to deny your rights.
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Touching The Third Rail

July 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

As Sebastian noted, President Obama is going for “gun bans and sales restrictions” with his speech to the National Urban League meeting in New Orleans.

In his speech, he made the obligatory dig at Congress and then said they had implemented things so that “background checks are now more thorough and complete.” I guess that is the reason BATFE just redid Form 4473 to ask a buyer’s ethnicity – Hispanic or Latino or Not Hispanic or Latino.

As to AKs, I prefer my Bulgarian AK-74 to the AK-47 that Obama thinks is more suited to the military. Not that the US military uses the AK-47, mind you.

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Arms Trade Treaty Catches The Attention Of Fox News

July 26, 2012 by

The major media outlets have been rather quiet about the Arms Trade Treaty talks going on at the UN in New York. This short report from Fox News seems to be the first one that I’ve seen on it outside of NRA News.

As part of the the story they interview Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA. Cox pointed out that shotguns, pistols, and rifles are what’s meant by “small arms”.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

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Wisdom From Noted Outdoorsman Steny Hoyer

July 25, 2012 by 1 Comment

In an effort to steal a page from Jim Zumbo, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) opined that he didn’t know any Maryland hunters using AR-15s to hunt deer, ducks, or geese. His remarks came at a media breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor.

“Assault weapons have one purpose and one purpose only, to kill a lot of people quickly, no other purpose. I don’t think anybody hunts deer, quail, geese, in Maryland with an assault rifle. And if they do, they shouldn’t be,” he said, though conceded that there is not enough support in Congress to revive the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

Perhaps one reason Mr. Hoyer doesn’t know anyone hunting ducks and geese with an AR-15 is because it is against Maryland hunting regulations. The only firearms allowed for hunting migratory game birds in Maryland are shotguns. Moreover, much of Maryland – and it seems all of Hoyer’s district – restricts the use of rifles in hunting deer and only allow shotguns. In those place that do allow centerfire rifles, it must have a cartridge that generates 1,200 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. Many 5.56 or .223 rounds fall short of this requirement.

Now if Mr. Hoyer knew any woodchuck or coyote hunters he’d know that an AR-15 is not only suitable but ideal for hunting them. Frankly, I think that even if Steny Hoyer was confronted with the facts about the use of ARs in hunting, he’d still make the same stupid and outrageous comments.

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Blood Dancing Bloomberg-Style

July 25, 2012 by

Within hours of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on the air demanding more gun control. On Monday night on CNN, he went further and made the ludicrous statement that the police should go on strike until more gun control is enacted.

Now Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors has gotten into the act with a full page ad in USA Today, a brand new website, and a petition demanding “a plan” to stop “gun violence” (sic). They are using some of the survivors of the Tucson shooting to push the message. Moreover, the gun prohibitionists from VPC and CSGV are going full tilt on Twitter pushing Bloomberg’s new efforts.

Interestingly enough, Bloomberg’s call to have the police strike may violate New York State’s Taylor law which says “no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike.” Hmm, isn’t the mayor of New York City a public employee? Unfortunately, just like with his efforts at gun shows in Arizona where he hired private investigators to make straw purchases, he’ll probably skate on this as well.

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CCRKBA – Bloomberg Should Go On Strike

July 25, 2012 by 3 Comments

In response to Mayor Bloomberg’s incredibly stupid remarks suggesting that police nationwide should go on strike in the name of more gun control laws, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms had this response:

BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s call for American police officers to “go on strike” in an effort to force Congress and state legislatures to push his gun prohibition agenda is “a new low in demagoguery,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“Mayor Bloomberg has gone from bluster to blackmail with his extremist gun ban campaign,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He would have police officers quit their posts and abandon their public safety missions in what would amount to an exercise of national extortion.

“Perhaps he believes it would be better,” he noted, “for cops to walk off the job than to engage in illegal gun and drug transactions, as some of his own New York City police have done lately.”

Bloomberg was on CNN Monday speaking to Piers Morgan when he encouraged police officers stage this strike. Gottlieb noted that by even making the suggestion, Bloomberg might be close to violating a New York statute known as the Taylor Law. Under that 1967 law – officially titled the Public Employees Fair Employment Act – public employees and employers are prohibited from encouraging strikes by public employees.

“If Bloomberg is violating the law, it would not be a first for a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the anti-gun organization he founded,” Gottlieb added. “At least 18 members of that group have been prosecuted for various crimes, which is not a track record I’d be proud of.

“Obviously,” he observed, “Mayor Bloomberg did not think things through before he suggested this preposterous course of action. If the nation’s police were to walk off the job today, by tomorrow, American citizens would be flocking to gun stores to purchase firearms for personal protection. All his stupid statement will do is increase gun sales.

“Maybe Bloomberg wants to replace Barack Obama as the unofficial gun salesman of the year,” Gottlieb concluded.

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Laptop Bleg

July 24, 2012 by 6 Comments

I’m in the market for two laptops.

The first is for the Virtual Stepdaughter who is going back to grad school to get her masters in education. Her current Dell laptop is a 2005 vintage from her freshman year in college. It is more than a bit outdated.

Her non-negotiables are built-in DVD/CD-Rom, Intel (or AMD) based, and decent battery life. She will need to carry it to class sometimes so weight is a major secondary consideration. While her classes will meet only one day a week in person, she’ll have additional work to do through Blackboard and/or WebCT.

My consideration on this laptop is that it not cost more than $600 or so.

The second laptop is for me. I’m in the market for an ultrabook or something light, thin, and MacBook Air-like. I’m torn between the MacBook Air and an Intel Windows 7 based ultrabook. I plan to use it for blogging from the road and the like. Battery-life and weight are my major considerations. I’d like it to be under 4 pounds. I don’t have any preference between a solid-state drive vs. a more traditional harddrive.

I can get employee discounts on HP and Dell through work and because I’m adjunct faculty at a local university I’m eligible for higher ed pricing.

My goal is to purchase these during North Carolina’s tax-free weekend of August 3-5.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

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Yellow Journalism At Its Worst

July 23, 2012 by 3 Comments

The Mormon Church sells unregulated guns

That was the title on an opinion piece published yesterday afternoon in The Detroit News. The author, Libby Spencer, uses the tagline “separating fact from fiction” and describes herself as a “social media maven whose political commentary has been published on a wide variety of websites”. I think a yellow journalist would be a better description.

What she is referring to is the website for KSL-TV and KSL-Radio in Salt Lake City. The stations are owned by the Deseret Media. This company is a for-profit enterprise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints aka the Mormons. On the site, a large and active classified section where individuals are selling everything from cars to livestock and everything in between. Among the categories is firearms. This is just like many newspapers and trading post type newspapers also do on a daily basis. Locally here in the mountains, we have Iwanna which does the exact same thing.

Ms. Spencer doesn’t even have the decency to accurately quote the source for her story. That source is none other than gun prohibitionist Mayor Michael Bloomberg who, by the way, was one of the first to start dancing in the blood of the Aurora shootings. Bloomberg’s office issued a “report” which was featured in the British newspaper The Telegraph back in February. Bloomberg criticized KSL.com for allowing firearms classifieds and said that the Mormon Church “owns (a) unregulated gun sale website”.

That is a far cry from saying the Mormons are selling “unregulated” guns.

Most Americans and probably most Michiganders think of Mitt Romney nowadays when they hear the words “Mormon Church”. With his presidential run, Romney has become the most prominent Mormon in America. This, in my opinion, is why Ms. Spencer ran with the headline she did. She wanted to tar Romney with her absurd claims about private gun sales in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado shooting. Mind you, the shooter there legally purchased all of his firearms at big box sporting good stores and underwent a FBI NICS background check.

As I said in the headline, this is yellow journalism at its worst.

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Quote Of The Day

July 22, 2012 by 4 Comments

In a column for PJ Media, Mike McDaniel examined the killing of two home owners when their homes were invaded by SWAT teams. In both cases, neither home owner had broken the law and no evidence of any wrongdoing on their part was found. Their only “crime” was to be armed in the presence of overzealous SWAT teams. In the case of Jose Guerena, the police had a warrant but no probable cause for its issue. In the case of Andrew Lee Scott, they had the wrong guy and the wrong apartment when they knocked on the door.

McDaniel is a former police officer, detective, and SWAT team officer so I think he knows of what he speaks.

In a free society, a society with a fundamental right to keep and bear arms, police officers believing they may shoot a citizen in his own home simply because he is carrying a firearm cannot be tolerated. Officers must absolutely avoid putting citizens in situations where they might be armed, or even pointing firearms in the direction of police officers banging on or breaking down their front doors. If such misconduct is tolerated, as in the cases of Jose Guerena and Andrew Scott, the next knock on any citizen’s door may be the last they ever answer.

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Now They Want You To Be The Victim, Too

July 21, 2012 by 20 Comments

ABC News is not just satisfied with sensationalism and bad reporting a’la Brian Ross. After watching the video below with the ABC news show 20/20’s Deborah Roberts, I’ve come to the conclusion that they want you to roll over and become the victim as well.

In the episode aired last night – the evening after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado – 20/20 reported on clerks and store owners who stood up to armed robbers and fought back. Chris Cuomo introduced it as “Vigilante Video”. I think that set the tone for the episode.

In the episode, Deborah Roberts interviewed a jewelry store owner who fought back as well as a convenience store customer who attacked the gun wielding robber with bottles of beer. Neither the owner nor the customer, who by the way was shot four times, regretted their actions. While I don’t necessarily think it was the wisest thing for the customer to have gotten involved, I don’t condemn him either.

To provide a tut-tutting counter-point to people refusing to be a victim, Deborah Roberts brought in a “security expert”. Rosemary Erickson, Ph.D., is a forensic sociologist and the president of Athena Research Corporation. From her vita, it appears she specializes in working as a consultant with convenience stores, restaurants, hotels, and similar such businesses. She serves as an expert witness in civil premises liability cases and testifies on business security.

When asked if it was “heroic” to challenge a robber, Erickson responded, “I think it’s suicide.” She continued, “Because the odds are you’re the one who is going to be injured or killed.” She goes on to say that, in general, robbers just want to get the money and get out. Roberts then asks Erickson about the odds of being killed or injured if one resists based upon research. To which, Erickson responded, “They found that 82% of the deaths are when people resisted.” From that statement, you are being led to believe that being passive and not resisting is the smart thing to do in virtually all cases. In other words, you are a victim once, don’t make it worse by becoming a double-victim by resisting the robber and becoming injured as a result.

Erickson is being disingenuous because her own research seems to contradict this. There was a study from Chicago done in 1986 by Franklin Zimring and James Zuehl that provided the 82% statistic. However, in a study that Erickson did for the National Association of Convenience Stores which analyzed 79 robbery-homicides in convenience stores in 1989 and 1990, she found:

The majority of the cases appeared to be gratuitous and senseless in nature with no signs of resistance….There was evidence of resistance in only 16% of these cases.

In her later research on Teenage Robbers, she found them to be more violent than adult robbers and were twice as likely to hurt or kill their victims. In cases where people were hurt or killed, her survey of teenage inmates found:

The juvenile robbers were asked whether in those robberies in which someone was hurt or killed they had planned to use the weapon in advance. Over half said they did plan to use it before they went in to do the robbery

I’m not sure who at ABC News decided that this episode was the right one to air on the evening after the Aurora shooting but I really do question their motives. To encourage non-resistance in the face of armed criminals ignores just how many compliant persons have been murdered because they were a witness or because it gave the perpetrator a thrill. The media should not be encouraging people to be like sheep before the slaughter.

To say I was disgusted is enough. I don’t want to even get started on so-called gun free zones which, as Massad Ayoob once noted, are nothing but hunting preserves for psychopaths.

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