Arms and the Law

First story here. An armed gang tries to rob tavern workers after closing time, one victim opens fire and kills one of the robbers, with police later arresting the remainder. The robbery gang was responsible for dozens of armed robberies over the past three days. The shootee also had a string of arrests for robbery, auto theft, fleeing and whatnot, and had been injured in a gang shooting a few weeks ago.

And last month, a Milwaukee nurse, a victim of an attempted carjacking, shot one carjacker. The day before, the shootee had shot a person during an attempted carjacking; when his accomplice was rounded up, police arrested ten more suspects believed to be involved in dozens of robberies and carjackings.

Hat tip to Tamara Keel.

Brady Campaign, in a desperate quest for continued relevance, announces it will protest "bad apple" licensed dealers. "Bad apples" are to be measured by the raw number of BATF traces tracing guns back to them.

SAF is holding it at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago O'Hare Airport, on September 26, 27 and 28, 2014. Drat, I won't be able to make it, but for any who can, the event is very useful, and free (so are the extensive materials distributed with it. You can make hotel reservations by calling 888-421-1442 -- mention you are attending the conference, and the rate will be $112/night.

At least if this article is correct.

Ohio: two perps try to abduct a woman walking her dog. She draws her gun, and they reconsider.

Florida: armed robber enters jewelry store, pulls gun on 89 year old WWII vet. The vet grabs perp's gun, draws his own .38, and puts six rounds into perp. (The perp survived: the vet needs a bigger gun and/or hotter loads. He may have been using the old 158 grain round noses).

In the dispute over how many self-defense cases occur, one data point often cited by those seeking to minimize the number is the FBI Uniform Crime Report's count of justifiable homicides (a legal category that includes self-defense). This is usually in the range of 900 a year, including several hundred by police. While that doesn't count self-defense that doesn't result in the perp's death, it is argued that it is inconsistent with hundreds of thousands or millions of defensive uses annually.

Washington, DC. Federal employee gets into a minor fender-bender, gets a $100 traffic ticket. Alleging he was on duty at the time, the Dept of Justice appears on his behalf and gets the traffic ticket removed to U.S. District Court. (It later reconsiders).

It's a blog post by Prof. Nick Johnson of Fordham Law. He discusses Otis McDonald and Shaneen Allen (who faces a mandatory three year jail term for having driven into NJ with a firearm for which she had a PA permit to carry concealed).

An interesting article by Frank Miniter. The part I found most amusing:

"[A] mainstream reporter next to me in the press section gasped, "Oh no," when Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted that he believed the Second Amendment to be an individual right while asking the government's attorney a question."

I was there and remember the question. Actually, there were two, but a listener wouldn't have noted unless he'd been following the Second Amendment legal issue for thirty years. The second, yes, a reporter could understand where Kennedy was coming from.

The first question was whether we could grasp the meaning of the Second Amendment by considering its two clauses separately. Yes, a militia is important. And yes, the people have a right to arms. The importance of the militia is independent of the right to arms and the right to arms independent of the militia.

"RESISTANCE BY INFERIOR COURTS TO SUPREME COURT'S SECOND AMENDMENT DECISIONS," by Alice Beard, in Tennessee Law Review. It takes an optimistic view of long-term trends. At the moment, judicial recognition of the 2A as an individual right is relatively new and, to many courts, even irregular, something to be approached with caution or outright resistance. In the longer term, it may become accepted as one more American constitutional right.

Rather funny. Remington decides to move its AR-15-making operations to Alabama, and with it 2,000 jobs. Cuomo's reaction:

"We have been talking to Remington about rehabbing and redoing their facility in New York. It is a very important part of New York. It is a big employer in New York. Their plant here is old and we want to work with them on restoring that."

So these rifles are just killing machines, that do not belong in civilian hands, but please manufacture them here, we'll be happy to help?

Filed this morning, Silvester v. Harris (Eastern Dist. of Cal) looks like a solid win (after you go through all the pages detailing California's unbelievably complex answer to trying to prevent bad guys from buying guns). It finds the "cooling off" period rational for the 10 day mandatory waiting period to be unfounded, and basing the requirement on "we need the time for all the background checks" makes no sense when applied to (1) a person already permitted to own a firearm or (2) a CCW permit holder or (3) anyone whose background checks are completed in less than 10 days.

Reading between the lines, you can get a grasp of how much work went into this win. You don't base a winning record on "this is wrong, so let's sue and look for an obvious win."

Washington state is involved in a battle over Initiative 541, a lengthy antigun measure... and, as David Workman reports, a study of contributions in support of it finds that 84% of contributions came from ten zip codes in urban and suburban Seattle. Here's a map of the Seattle area to give some idea.

Self protection, like laws, are for the little people.

Story here.

But won't the parakeets dislike the new format? It'll probably be glossy and not very absorbent.

High school student suspended over writing assignment where he said he'd shot a neighbor's pet dinosaur.

The assignment was to write something that could be a "status" statement on Facebook. Glad to know the schools are teaching and valuing the important things in life.

This time its Gordon Jenkins, of Monticello, NY, arrested for taking bribes and intimidating the witnesses. We need to bust MAIG for RICO violations! Where are DoJ's Organized Crime Task Forces when you need them?

This is hilarious. 'Nuff said.

Court allows suit against Aurora theater, based on allegations of inadequate security. The court notes that it is only saying the issue is sufficiently disputed to require going to trial, not that either side might necessarily win.

Patterico pretty well takes it apart, but I'd add a thought.