Arms and the Law

Chicago's handgun ban was struck down in McDonald. It responded by enacting a tight permitting system, requiring among other things training on a range, while retaining its ban on shooting ranges. That got struck down in Ezell I. It responded by allowing ranges, but only under high restrictive zoning (among other things, they must be in areas zone for manufacturing, not just for commercial use, must be 500 feet from any other building, and no person under 18 may enter them. That resulted in Ezell II.

Here's the oral argument, held this morning. Chicago's attorney leads, and walks into a firestorm of plainly irritated judges.

On Amazon, Prof. David Berstein's (George Mason Univ. Law) new book, "Lawless: The Obama Administration's Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law." It also makes the point that the Obama Administration's actions are often predicated on questionable actions of the Bush II Administration. Bottom line: power begets, and seeks, power.

Nearly two years ago, "Bill Clinton Warns Democrats Against Overreaching on Gun Debate."

"Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.
"Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them," Clinton said.
"Alot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things," Clinton said. "I know because I come from this world.""

2,475 meters, 2,700 yards, using a pair of Barrett .50s against a Taliban commander in Afhghanistan.

Story here.

"those arming themselves are primarily women.

"If anyone wants to buy a long gun in Austria right now, too bad for them," the Czech newscaster says. "All of them are currently sold out.""

Here's is another account, via Google Translate.

Pro-gun attorneys Joshua Prince and Allen Thompson have an article on the subject in the St. Thomas Law Review.

An alternate approach to the question was taken by Thomas Hobbes. To him, we start in a state of nature which is pretty rugged. Everyone is legally free to murder, rob, etc. their neighbor, and their neighbor is legally free to do the same to them. We give up certain of these legal impunities to form a government, the object of government being personal security. But we cannot bargain away the right of self-defense, since personal security is the object of the bargain, and the reason we gave up certain things to the government. One cannot sell a house, pocket the proceeds, and then demand the house back. To Hobbes, self-defense was the one and only inalienable right.

I like this!. "Hillary for Prison 2016."

It's here, on Kickstarter. The idea is to create a 24x36" poster with images of firearms through the ages. If the project succeeds, the posters will be ready next month, well in time for Christmas.

That report, and some interesting thoughts, here at Breitbart. NRA's approval ratings are about twenty points (or 50%) higher than either.

The survey also found that, if you subtract the unfavorable from the favorable, NRA comes out +23. In the most recent poll, Hillary came out -8.

Conservatives gave NRA the highest ratings, moderates not far behind, self-identified liberals gave it the lowest, with a lot in the strongly unfavorable category.

You can access the opinion here. (For some reason a direct link to the opinion doesn't work -- go to the menu bar at the top and click on "decisions" and look for NY State Rifle and Pistol). Pretty much affirms the lower court's ruling, which sustained most of the gun laws at issue. Dave Workman has some interesting thoughts, tho -- such as the court at least recognizes that "assault weapons" and larger magazines are in "common use," and thus within Heller (even tho they can be banned because the court really doesn't like them).

No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, has an interesting chart on the spread of "may issue" CCW, from 1986 to the present. In 1986, a minuscule percent of the population lived in States where no permit was necessary, and under 10% in "shall issue" areas. Today over 72% of the American population lives in States that fall into those classes.

Story here. It's not an "x-ray," but more like radar. Same thing they use (to the limited extent it has "use") at many airports. I'd say there are some serious Fourth Amendment issues posed here (compare the Supreme Court case on using passive thermal detection to spot "grow houses" through walls).

The article suggests that it can see thru the sides of autos. If have fiberglass panels, I wouldn't be surprised. But since the entire idea is that it reflects off metal, it's seem to me that seeing through a metal car body would be impossible, absent an enormously powerful signal and some means to read the return in very fine detail, perhaps not even then.

Right here.

It's just a ploy to pick up the pro-gun vote, with a promise that she'd support repeal of GCA 68 and enactment of 50-State constitutional carry, plus a $10,000 gift to each gun owner, so long as we self-verify that we have no plans to commit a crime.

At the Vokolh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh demonstrates that States' Brady Campaign grades have no association with their homicide rates, or with rates for homicide plus accidental gun deaths.

Denton Bramwell recently updated his 2006 study of the same issue, and got the same results as nine years ago: no correlation. Brady "As," "Fs," etc. can have high or low rates, with no pattern discernible.

Now, it's (quite) possible that Brady ratings do not correlate with strictness of gun control. The items evaluated are chosen on a political basis ("do we want this now"?). But at the least these results suggest that policymakers would be foolish to base enactments on Brady proposals.

From the Washington Times:

"Senate Democrats gathered Thursday on the steps of the Capitol surrounded by about a dozen armed guards to announce a new push for tougher gun-control laws."

In approval ratings, positive vs. negative views of a person or entity, if we subtract the negative ratings from the positive ones, NRA comes off nine percent ahead, and Hillary comes off ten percent behind. Probably not a good time for her to declare war.

Over at National Review Online, Charles Cooke takes apart Saul Cornell's article claiming that early State gun rights cases were a product of slave State courts.

The fact is that the early gun laws were the products of the then-frontier southeast, and so were the early gun law challenges. What conclusion can be drawn from either isn't terribly clear.

Story here. The one thing lacking is just how any of these will affect mass shootings. But then I suppose a person can overlook that detail -- in this context, they are playing to a "base" that regards gun restrictions as a matter of religious dogma, existing beyond proof of truth or falsity.

From 1997, tho I just saw it. Using a 5,200 person telephone surgery, authors conclude that annually about 1.9 million people draw a gun during a home intrusion, but don't actually see the intruder, another 503,000 draw a gun and do see the intruder and (not surprisingly) 497,000 report the intruder fled in response to the gun. These don't include defensive uses other than in response to home invasion, and on the other hand surely include some where no intruder was sighted because there was no intruder, but certain support Kleck's conclusions that defensive gun uses number in the millions per year.

For the first time in six years, NFL goes a month without a player getting arrested.