Snowflakes in Hell

A letter to the editor, in response to a letter to the editor.  I could swear I’ve linked to this paper before for the same thing.

As a longtime gun owner, world traveler and, I like to think, common-sense advocate, I need to make the following notes regarding his “fear” of losing his “rights.”

…

Anyone who believes that there has been a single bill designed to eliminate hunting rifles and shotguns needs to really read the proposals. No one wants to inhibit hunting, sporting clays, target shooting, or sport of any kind. AK-47’s, Glocks and Uzi’s are not sporting guns.

A quick googling would indicate the Bob Zembower is from Bedford, PA, sells Vulcanized Fiber in Wilmington, DE, and is religious.  In other words: a real person.  We see so many of these letters following the same pattern, but maybe it’s not astroturfing.

Looks like the authorities here busted up a fairly significant burglary and gun trafficking ring that extended into Chester, Montgomery and Berks Counties.  Kudos to Montgomery County DA Bruce Castor and the Pennsylvania State Police Troop K for helping make my collection just a little safer from these losers.

We had some storms roll through.   At work they seemed to be pretty mild, but when I got home, it looked as if someone dropped a bomb on my neighborhood.  I had to dodge a few down trees.  My blog was down earlier, and this is why.  Our power went out briefly.  It looks like I have a limb down on the house:

One of those lines holding up part of the branch is my FiOS cable which supplies internet for the blog.  Hopefully the rest of the branch will not come down in the mean time, or I’ll be seeing ya all for a bit.

Considering my neighbor’s house looks like it had a tree struck by lightning, and the people up the street had a tree come down on the power lines, snapping the pole, cutting out power for that part of the neighborhood, and closing the street.  I’m pretty lucky to have gotten away with a minor branch down on the roof that almost, but not quite took out power, internet, or cable.

I suspect power or internet could be going out any minute, really.  If it’s looking like a prolonged outage, I’ll move the blog to Jason’s server for the time being.

A court challenge to New Hampshire’s concealed carry laws fails:

The case arose from an incident at Dover City Hall on March 16, 2006, during which Bleiler, a resident of Isaac Lucas Circle, displayed a handgun in the office of City Attorney Allan Krans. The gun was used as a prop to tell a story, and though Krans said in court that he did not feel threatened, he did call Fenniman immediately afterward to report the incident.

If the firearm was at any point drawn from the holster, even if it wasn’t brandished, it’s definitely stupid. You don’t use a loaded firearm as a “prop”. Period.

…He also argued that state law allowing municipalities to revoke concealed weapons permits for “just cause” is too vague and allows for arbitrary enforcement.

The Supreme Court ruled state law does in fact give someone of “ordinary intelligence” notice of what conduct could lead to a revocation.

According to state law, no permit is required to own a firearm but one is required if the firearm is going to be concealed…

There’s a good rule of thumb if you’re going to litigate on constitutional rights like this: take a case before the court that’s actually an example of abuse of discretion! This case would not appear to be it. Most people, including myself (though I am opposed to discretionary clauses like this), think that if you believe using a loaded weapon as a prop in a conversation is smart behavior, you should probably rethink carrying a firearm in public.

UPDATE: Another case along a similar vein from New Hampshire.

Ahab points to another gun buyback destroying an antique firearm:

The gun was an antique revolver with a gold-plated frame and wooden grips.

And the Rev. James Tennyson was sad to see it go, but considered it his duty to destroy the gun — because keeping any firearm off the streets was a success, he said.

Yeah, because I’m sure antique black powder revolvers are all the range among muggers, gang bangers, and drug dealers.  How delusional can you get?

It’s been a common misconception among the gun blogosphere that Full Faith and Credit should apply to carry permits.  Eugene Volokh talks about why that isn’t necessarily the case.

SayUncle is running a poll on Parker. I’ll make my prediction:

The Supreme Court grants cert. Reasonable regulation of firearms are OK, but it gets treated as a right. I don’t expect the court to go into much detail on what kind of regulations it would accept, just that DC’s law is in violation of the second amendment. They’ll leave that to the lower courts to argue over for a few years, then take another case. I think the ruling will be 6-3 in favor of an individual right. It will go thusly:

In the majority, in order of how certain I feel we’ll have them on our side:

1. Thomas
2. Scalia
3. Roberts
4. Alito
5. Kennedy
6. Ginsburg

In dissent, also in order of how sure I feel:

1. Breyer
2. Stevens
3. Souter

I figure the last two could go either way. Souter I’m not sure about being in dissent. Of course, Roberts and Alito we don’t really know much about. We know Roberts knows the law surrounding the second amendment from his confirmation hearings, which suggests he’s looked into it, or at least knew that might come up in the hearings. Really, I think we only have two votes on The Court we can be certain of, and that’s Scalia and Thomas (both of whom are shooters). I think we can feel pretty confident that Alito and Roberts wouldn’t look too kindly on ignoring part of the Bill of Rights. Strangely enough, I think Ginsberg, despite being the most liberal justice on The Court (by some people’s measure) with a background in civil rights litigation, and being big on women’s issues (remember, Parker is a woman), won’t look too kindly on throwing out part of the Bill of Rights either. I think Kennedy could go either way, but suspect he’ll fall on the individual rights side, also not wanting to poop on the Bill of Rights.

But who knows. Chances of me being spot on are slim. Hopefully any surprises are pleasant. The big worry I have is not so much Parker, but what comes after. What kind of regulations will the courts accept? Will the cases that move forward through the federal courts be as good as Parker? Probably not. We’ll surely have setbacks. But if we prevail in Parker, and I think we will, it will shift the battle against the gun control movement into significantly better ground. It will be the most significant victory for gun rights of my lifetime.

UPDATE: Be sure to read Dave Hardy’s take.  He posts the following from one of Ginsburg’s opinions:

“Surely a most familiar meaning is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment (”keep and bear Arms”) (emphasis added) and Black’s Law Dictionary, at 214, indicate: “wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.”"

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown is back on CNN. This time she didn’t misspeak, and I think offers some pretty good advise to women:

Can’t really argue with that. Thanks to Jason for spotting and encoding this for me.

These are two people who should really pick topics to talk about where one of them actually has a friggin clue.  From Illinois:

Jeff Berkowitz: What about the state, should there be some state controls on the sale of guns?

Terri Ann Wintermute: I don’t have a problem with the waiting period. I don’t have a problem with registration.

Jeff Berkowitz: Would you like to see a ban on assault weapons?

Terri Ann Wintermute: It depends on what’s on the list?

Jeff Berkowitz: Semi-automatics. How about that? Do we need more semi-automatics out there?

Terri Ann Wintermute: I don’t know that we do.

Jeff Berkowitz: So, you might want to restrict semi-automatics.

Terri Ann Wintermute: It depends—Is it used for hunting? Is it used for sport?

Jeff Berkowitz: Well, you can hunt people or you can hunt deer.

Terri Ann Wintermute: Exactly. Or is it used for hunting people.

Jeff Berkowitz: So, the same gun can be used for multiple things. Do people who hunt deer need semi-automatics? Is that the way it’s done, I don’t know. I am not a hunter.

Terri Ann Wintermute: I don’t know. I think you can—there’s a description of whether it goes into the chamber–

WTF? Seriously, do either of you have any idea what you’re talking about?  If not, do us all a favor: DON’T.  Yes, semi-automatics are used for hunting, they are used for shooting clay pigeons. Even scary looking “assault weapons” are used for service rifle competition, and numerous other recreational activities.  They are also damned useful for self-defense, as evidenced by the fact hat police are using them almost exclusively these days.   So go get a clue, or leave it to people who actually know this stuff.

It scares me that “there’s a description of whether it goes into the chamber” is making public policy.