Arms and the Law

Letter to the Court here. It'd signed on to an anti-2A amicus. Now it writes the Court to say that its position has changed 180 degrees.

"Following the change in Administration on January 15, 2022, the Attorney General has reconsidered Virginia's position in this case. The purpose of this letter is to notify the Court that Virginia no longer adheres to the arguments contained in its previously filed brief. Virginia is now of the view that New York's handgun permit regime is irreconcilable with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which secures an individual right to bear arms outside the home for self-defense.

Virginia now urges this Court to reverse the Second Circuit. First, New York's requirement that its citizens show "proper cause" to carry a handgun in public is incompatible with the original public meaning of the Second Amendment."

Elections have consequences.....

Surprise, the hostage-taker bought it from a convicted felon. Look for that story to be buried.

Here's their summary, with links to the cases.

We're all familiar with cases where hospitals audit their drug supply and find they are missing 5,000 pills (strangely, never Amoxicillin).

Arkansas Dept of Corrections finds it is missing 28,000 rounds of .38 Special.

The armorer is suing (legal merits of that debatable) with some startling allegations. (1) The ammo supplier supplied the set with a mix of live and dummy rounds, and (2) the scene proceeded without her even being on the set ("had Hannah been called back in"). Also in badly-worded article, it seems to say that the ammo supplier Kenney said that "all rounds are rattle tested before being sent to film sets." Rattle tested? I've heard of dummy rounds with a BB inside that would rattle when shaken, but personally, when I make a dummy, I drill holes in the side so I can be sure it holds no powder.

As we know, the rules of gun safety are so devised that you can break one or a few and still no one gets hurt (although they may get scared), to hurt someone a person has to break them all. Looks like these morons broke them all, plus a few just meant for movie-making, and two bystanders paid the price.

Story here. The charges were a big stretch, the plea (no contest to two misdemeanors) is a prosecution face-saving move. "We can't afford to dismiss the charges, but offer him a misdemeanor and a fine that will be less than his legal costs."

Justice Gorsuch incorrectly says "I believe" flu kills hundreds of thousands, correct number tens of thousands, and people go nuts. He's displaying his ignorance, spreading disinformation, making false statements, etc.

Justice Sotomayor says Covid has put 100,000 children in the hospital, actual number 700-3,300, and nobody seems much concerned.

Here's his article. I'd agree. We'll probably see this ruling at the end of June, because the Court likes to hand down the most controversial rulings of each Term in its last few days, and to break and end the Term just before the 4th of July.

A French cuirass recovered from the battlefield at Waterloo. They were meant to protect against pistol shots and saber slashes, not against a direct hit from artillery. The caption says the wearer was "wounded by a cannonball." I doubt he was wounded for very long.

Article here.

Lead case: perp caught after burning a car with murder victim dead in the trunk. Perp and victim are known to have been involved in an unemployment fraud scheme. Perp was free on bond after gun charges filed. Perp asked mother to follow him to where he dumped the car and give him ride back. She asks no questions.

Perp is charged with a misdemeanor, concealing a body.

At the end is a list of other Chicago cases where a perp killed someone while charged with a gun offense but was released or charges were dropped. In one, a convicted felon began a gun fight that left a person dead, and was charged with unlawful use by a felon rather than homicide. "Mitchell was on bail for two separate felony cases at the time of the shoot-out."

Chicago sets an all-time record for homicides. In fact, it managed to have more homicides than 47 of the 50 States. And a suspect can be located in only about one case in ten (witnesses know that their lifespan will be short if they talk), the rate is likely to continue.

Story here. I do find this amusing, as fear of mass crime comes to the gated communities where crime was seen as a reaction to deprivation and self-defense was seen as uncivilized, if not outright racist.

Interesting results. Firearms ownership 32% (probably understated: some gun owners don't like to reveal that to strangers). One-third have used gun at least once in self-defense, amounting to 1.67 million defensive gun uses per year.

48% of gun owners own or have owned magazines that hold over ten rounds, and 30%, or over 24 million, own or have owned an AR-15 platform rifle.

Not good news for anti-gunners, at all. When tens of millions of Americans already own what you want to ban.... your cause is out there with the dinosaurs already.

There are estimates that we have 8,000,000 first-time gun owners over the past couple of years. Nearly half those were women, according to other studies.

I've said it before--historically, we were a nation of gun owners. I found a newspaper article describing New York City in the 1890s, saying that let a rabid dog run around Times Square, and you'd see how many people were carrying guns. Another New York City article from the early 20th century gave tips on creating a DIY shoulder holster. That trait was repressed during the 1960s, when gun ownership became unfashionable (or, to more precise, gun ownership among the masses became unfashionable to the elite). It took half a century for that to turn about, but it has turned. The present abandonment of certain cities to massed psychopathy, "defund the police," and police stand-downs while "mostly peaceful" protests burned out cities has certainly raised everyone's consciousness of the need to be able to self-defend.

Story here, without much detail.

I am reminded (hate to date myself) I was in Washington, DC, at the bicentennial of the Constitution. A big event, Warren Burger (thankfully a former Chief Justice) chairing the Commission, and so on.

The bicentennial of the Bill of Rights ... nothing.

Of course, DC is a company town, and the company is the Federal government. So the event that gave it power is a major celebration, the event that limited that power is best forgotten.

Austin pays a price for "defund the police". Murder nearly doubles, to an all-time high. This is called "bad luck," as Heinlein says.

I've seen it all now.

Los Angeles: Three men try armed robbery, the victim gets his hands on their gun, and kills one of the perps. I like a story with a happy ending!

Gun Owners of America v. Garland. The trial court denied a preliminary injunction against the ban, plaintiffs appealed, the Circuit went en banc -- and splits 8-8, with the result that the trial court ruling is affirmed by an equally divided court (which establishes no precedent).