Arms and the Law

"Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine" by attorney Clay Conrad. 300+ pages long, it traces the evolution of what the author prefers to call jury independence. Essentially, at common law, up through our own Framing, and for a generation thereafter, juries were judges of both fact and law. Attorneys would argue the law to them (easier in the days when the law was Blackstone's treatise) and they would decide what it meant. Some judges would, at most, instruct on the law, tell the jury they'd heard argument on it, but suggest that they should give weight to the judge's interpretation since his advice was impartial.

In the mid 19th centuries, judges began to assert that their instructions WERE the law, and to forbid legal argument that contradicted their instructions. By the end of that century they were asserting that jurors' oaths bound them to follow the court's view of the law. The author then proceeds to answer objections to nullification. Historically, he suggests, the broadest use of outright nullification came from opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts and to the Fugitive Slave Act. (The latter did not allow an a

Shoplifters pull a gun on security officer at a shopping mall. Not a good idea in Arizona, where we don't need no steenking permit to carry concealed.

Detroit's police chief speaks out:

"If more citizens were armed, criminals would think twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Thursday.

.......

Coming from California (Craig was on the Los Angeles police force for 28 years), where it takes an act of Congress to get a concealed weapon permit, I got to Maine, where they give out lots of CCWs (carrying concealed weapon permits), and I had a stack of CCW permits I was denying; that was my orientation.

"I changed my orientation real quick. Maine is one of the safest places in America. Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed."

It's discussed at the Volokh Conspiracy. Florida law allows a defendant to move for dismissal on self-defense grounds prior to trial (which is unusual). If he or she establishes justifiable self-defense by a preponderence of the evidence, the case is dismissed. (If not, it goes to trial, where the burden on the prosecution is stiffer -- it must prove it was unjustified beyond a reasonable doubt).

In this case, the trial court denied a motion to dismiss, and the Court of Appeals rules that the motion should have been granted. Defendant left his gun in his car, since he was going into a restaurant that served liquor. There was an argument with two others, and defendant and his friend went outside for a smoke, during which he retrieved his gun.

The two who had argued came after them. The first attacker attacked defendant's friend, fracturing his eye socket, then turned on defendant. The first attacker was joined by another one, who defendant testified reached under his sweat shirt, as if for a weapon. Defendant fired, killing one and wounding the other. Knives were found near where the attackers went down. Defendant was charged with second degree murder. When he moved to dismiss, the trial court ruled that since he'

Right here. The online format isn't the easiest thing to read, unfortunately. You can click on the two arrows that point diagonally to get a larger image.

Story here. He upheld the ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds, but struck down the provision banning putting more than seven rounds in one of them.

UPDATE: Here's the decision itself. The judge strikes the seven round limit, because it is impossible to believe that a bad guy with a ten round mag will obey the law and only load seven rounds, so the law bears no relationship to the government's interest. He also strikes the definition of assault rifle that includes a firearm with a "muzzle break" on the grounds that it is meaningless, and he is unwilling to hold that a law can be applied by correcting a mis-spelling. (That error gives us an idea of how carefully the legislature considered what it was enacting).

After nearly a year: 1,146 felony charges, which were previously misdemeanors, 59 arrests for possession of a magazine holding more than ten rounds, or of a ten round magazine with more than seven cartridges in it.

In the meantime, NYC has cut its police force by 17%, I assume to reduce its budget.