Snowflakes in Hell

Department of Interior is stalling in hopes that an Obama administration won’t force them to change their rules on National Park Carry.  The deadline for comment has been extended to August 8th, so be sure to get your comments in!

I’ll bet it never occured to my friend Jason that he could become a contemporary artist using nothing but his M11 machine pistol and a caseload of 9mm:

Maybe now we can raise a first amendment argument for machine gun ownership ;)

UPDATE: Linoge actually beat me to this one.  He’s actually on my RSS feed, but it doesn’t always embed videos, so I must have just missed it.

The Brady Campaign says we’re just people who haven’t committed a crime, yet.  And I suppose anyone with a bottle of whisky and a Ford is someone who hasn’t driven drunk, yet.

Breda! Breda! Breda loves guns.  Breda is my favorite librarian!

She needed some google love.

The City of Philadelphia has begun to enforce one of the gun laws that were not thrown out.  It should be noted that the laws that remain were not upheld, it was ruled that the National Rifle Association did not have standing to challenge the remaining three laws.  The city will begin enforcement of the Lost & Stolen Reporting Requirement only, at this point.  Anyone arrested under this ordinance will have standing to challenge the law under Pennsylvania’s preemption statute.  Any police officer or prosecutor enforcing this law is opening him or herself up to the possibility of lawsuits.

Uncle asks about whether ATF would argue a bipod grip attached to a handgun would make it an AOW.  I have to admit… the the bipod grip almost looks useless enough to be designed specifically to piss off the ATF.

A Pennsylvania State Senator retaliates against the Game Commission after his kid has a run in with a game officer.  Game wardens are law enforcement officers under Pennsylvania law.  They wear uniforms and carry guns.  It is unlawful to have a loaded long gun in a vehicle in Pennsylvania (loaded pistols are fine with a license).  What I definitely would have appreciated from the Senator, is some help repealing this stupid law.  But no, we’ll crap on the game wardens because they messed with my kid who was breaking the law.  Will he jerk the game commission around if I get caught with a loaded rifle in a car?  Yeah, didn’t think so.

When we hear the word mouse gun, we generally don’t think of a .44 revolver.  Apparently there are people out there stupid enough to think that.  Clayton Cramer argues that this woman falls into the category of “people that shouldn’t have guns”:

A point that I often make to reporters–and they are usually surprised to hear me say this–is that not everyone should have a gun. There are people who the law prohibits from having guns–and I agree, such as violent felons. There are also people who the law does not prohibit, but whom I discourage from owning guns.

Well, it looks like this woman made great Brady fodder too.  I think I’ll stick to using my .44 on the hiking trail, and to shoot little metal animal shapes.  As for mice?  Well, I love cats, but Bitter is allergic.

The Supreme Court isn’t the only institution that’s gotten a boost in the polling data from Heller.  I wonder how the Brady Campaign and VPC are polling post Heller?  That pesky constitution’s a bitch isn’t it?

At least Olympics shooters will be able to practice in their own country in the run up to the games.  At least one of the people in this video will get some measure of relief:

Never here.

Eugene Volokh relays a case where a felon tried to raise a second amendment claim and was shot down.  The Court did us a huge favor by taking this off the table immediately.  This makes it far more likely that the people who raise Second Amendment in courts will generally be more sympathetic individuals, rather than career criminals.

Also, there are already have people raising the machine gun issue, which all the legal experts I’ve talked to agree is a dead end.  As one notable legal expert pointed out to me “We got 5-4 on a .38 revolver.”

Then you have a postal employee challenging the ban on firearms in post offices.  The magistrate dismissed the challenge in this case, arguing that:

Indeed, federal law (OSHA) requires employers to abate workplace hazards and encourages employers to take measures to prevent gun-related injuries. Surely, the United States Postal Service would be remiss if it failed to practice what federal law requires. Without question, § 232.1(1) bolsters the United States Postal Service’s zero tolerance for workplace violence and is a regulation designed to maintain safety and order on postal property.

I don’t agree with this one, but there’s always a political solution to this problem.  Professor Volokh has a lot of worthwhile commentary on this one.

This case just seems like a disaster waiting to happen [Edit 7/17/08 - Linked to the wrong item.  A few weeks later, I don't remember what I intended to link to here, but will try to find again]  Thankfully, we have some very talented people pursuing other incorporation cases.

But hey, at least we don’t have courts still pretending like Heller doesn’t exist, right?  This should be a wake up call to gun owners that Heller hasn’t really settled much.  We have the fight of our lives ahead of us, and I think we seriously need to face the fact that we can either have McCain picks on the federal courts, who has a chance of being good, or perhaps Deval Patrick.  If the thought of that isn’t enough to get you to hold your nose this fall, I don’t know what is.