Airline jerk learns how 9/11 changed things
The 9th Circuit just handed down an affirmance in US v. Gonzales (pdf here). Facts: shortly after takeoff a passenger got hysterical, demanded that the plane land, paced around, started opening overhead bins and shouted he had a bomb and was going to blow the plane up.
The opinion quotes a flight attendant on the results. Yes, some passengers started screaming "we're all going to die." As for the rest:
"I saw many of our male passengers unbuckle their seatbelts and they stood up and they — I remember seeing the people throwing punches and everybody, you know, they were all on top of Mr. Gonzalez. . . . [Gonzalez] was hysterical and he was swinging and kicking and he was just — he was hitting and kicking passengers and the passengers were trying to take him down and hold him down."
They ultimately tied him up. The 9th Circuit upheld the trial court's decision to enhance the sentence by nine levels, and then max him at 27 months' imprisonment.
Permalink · Self defense · Comments (2)
Antigun leader makes strawman buy
Gun Owners' Action League has the story. John Rosenthal, of Stop Handgun Violence and American Hunters and Shooters Association, went on a radio show to discuss his latest anti-NRA billboard, and in the process explained how he'd made a straw man purchase at an out of state gun show, after licensed dealers refuse to sell to him.
Not that he'd have to worry about prosecution, of course. Which is why he felt free to confess to a federal felony over the radio. Oh, and the Boston Globe paid for the buy.
[UPDATE: the theory of a strawman sale is (1) if the ultimate recipient is not able to buy (here, he's a nonresident), then he has made an illegal purchase through the use of a third party and (2) whether he's an illegal buyer or not, he's a party to making a false record in connection with a firearms purchase (getting the straw man to fill out the 4473 claiming that he is the purchaser), which is likewise a felony. (2) is even clearer today, when, as I recall, the 4473 form has a clause specifically asking if you are buying for someone else.]
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (5)
Resignation from Bloomburg mayors' group
Mayor Harry Moore, of Oldmans Twnsp, NJ, has resigned. Here's his resignation letter.
"I joined your coalition because of its purported purpose to combat the criminal acquisition and misuse of guns, which is a goal shared by all Americans. Regrettably, it has become abundantly clear to me that you are using this coalition of mayors to advance a hidden agenda of bringing lawsuits against members of the firearms industry and spreading anti-gun propaganda.
......
According to ATF and the Department of Justice, your actions in having civilian private investigators conduct clandestine sting operations against federally licensed firearms dealers, without the knowledge of ATF or your own police department, actually interfered with ongoing criminal investigations, putting the lives of law enforcement officers and others at risk. The Department of Justice warned you to refrain from these actions because such efforts could "interrupt or jeopardize ongoing investigations." In response, your Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler stated that the operations would not necessarily stop. I do not want the blood of a police officer on my hands so that you can advance your anti-gun litigation campaign. I prefer instead to support the Fraternal Order of Police, a group that opposes your coalition's efforts to gain access to gun trace data for use in civil lawsuits."
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (0)
Interesting tune
I'm not into modern music, but here's a pro-Second Amendment piece.
Hat tip to Eric Schultz...
Illinois legislative news
Governor Blagojevich suddenly advocated magazine size limitiations, just at a moment when he needs to distract attention from budget woes and his proposal for a $7 billion tax increase. Story here.
Permalink · State legislation · Comments (1)
When the shoe is on the other foot...
A Texas legislator, one of the minority who voted against "castle doctrine," has shot an intruder in a house that the legislator owned.
More Joyce Foundation "astroturf"
According to its website, WAVE, or the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (which strangely only seems interested in firearms violence), is "Wisconsin's only statewide grassroots organization solely dedicated to reducing gun violence, injuries and deaths."
It goes on to list its accomplishments:
"A fully functional professional organization has been created essentially from scratch and is now up and running with a solid infrastructure.An active coalition of partner groups is in place, drawn from sectors including public health, violence prevention, law enforcement, families and children, education, faith, grassroots, community and neighborhood-based, and others."
Curiously, it doesn't seem to have any true members, just contributors. The only staffer identified is an excutive director who is mentioned in press releases. And its newsletters only go back to 2006. This "grassroots" group seems to have appeared out of nowhere in the last year. How did they muster public support?
They didn't. Bouncing over to the Joyce Foundation's lists of antigun grants, we find:
"Thursday, November 30, 2006 Printable version
WAVE Educational Fund
Milwaukee, WI
Amount: $630,000.00"
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (5)
Dragonskin vs. Interceptor body armor
I'd posted on this debate months ago, but Michelle Malkin's HotAir appears to have the final word.
Interesting page on early 20th century handguns
Over at The Unblinking Eye. It covers Walthers, the 1908 Bayard, the Browning 1910 and its imitators, not to mention grips, holstermaking, etc.
Permalink · shooting · Comments (2)
Jesse Jackson plans to expand gun shop protests
Story here.
What I don't understand is this -- Jesse Jackson normally extorts firms with enough money to be worth shaking down. More here and here.
Maybe he's desperate for cash this month. But it's so undignified, like Al Capone collecting protection money from lemonade stands.
Permalink · antigun groups · Comments (7)
More documentary clips at YouTube
I've got seven clips posted (in addition to the original trailer) over at YouTube.
The new clips concern: the 14th Amendment, arms in the civil rights movement, and a city/police agency has no legal duty to protect you.
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (0)
Prof. Balko on militarization of police
He's posted his Congressional testimony on the subject at Reason Online.
Letter to the Academy (Awards)
Academy Award nominated producter Dan Gifford ("Waco: The Rules of Engagement") has written a letter to the Academy asking -- in the documentary category, does truth matter any more, or is it just a subdivision of fiction/entertainment? Text is in extended remarks.
Continue reading "Letter to the Academy (Awards)"
Article on Parker in Harvard Law Bulletin
Not bad, actually. One big error is a reference to " lawyers for the National Rifle Association—who helped steer the legal strategy of the plaintiffs and backed them financially...." Which wasn't the case at all. But then the heights of academia probably feel it necessary that a major legal matter not be brought by a couple of attorneys on their own buck, just as in tales of ancient Greece it is necessary that the invader have at least a million men (even tho it would have been impossible to move, or feed, a fraction of that number).
I like this segment:
"Pro-gun activists like Froman are confident that the Court will hear an appeal by the district in Parker, and they say that they couldn’t have gotten this far without help from an unlikely quarter: liberal law professors. In the past 20 years, several prominent legal scholars known for liberal views, including Professor Laurence Tribe ’66, have come to believe that the Second Amendment supports the individual-rights view. In the 2000 edition of his treatise “American Constitutional Law,” Tribe broke from the 1978 and 1988 editions by endorsing that view. Other liberal professors, including Akhil Reed Amar at Yale Law School and Sanford Levinson at the University of Texas at Austin, agree.
“My conclusion came as something of a surprise to me, and an unwelcome surprise,” Tribe said in a recent New York Times interview. “I have always supported as a matter of policy very comprehensive gun control.”"
Permalink · Parker v. DC · Comments (1)
Strange program in Philadelphia
According to this story, the city is establishing a program where, if a citizen consents to an officer searching their house for guns, they won't be charged based on any guns found.
I could grasp the idea of an amnesty, but can't see the relevance of consent to search. Of course, the reporter might be off base here. Or maybe the idea is that a person only gets amnesty if he lets officers search the house to make sure that's the only one. (One problem with drafting amnesties, BTW, is figuring out how to exclude someone who's already cornered: you don't want a team to execute a search warrant and be told as they enter "there are sawed-off shotguns upstairs, I want to turn them in and get the benefit of the amnesty."
I'll stay in AZ, thank you. Where if an officer asks you what guns you have in your house, the next question is likely to be how much you want for the Glock.
Good reason to spend the 4th here
OK, it got up to 110 yesterday, and soon will be summer. But in DC:
1. A storm swept into the area, with tornado warnings in the VA suburbs, forcing evacuation of the Mall. It swept out in time for the fireworks to go on.
2. But after the display, one of the unfired ones detonated, injuring two workers.
3. And in the suburb of Vienna, a projectile burst in the crowd, leaving ten injured, two with life-threatening injuries.
Media morning
Now BBC publishes a pretty fair article on Americans and guns. It opens with an interview of Suzanna Hupp, no less.
But here in the US, the Sandusky Register, presumably hard up for controversy, publishes the names and addresses of CCW permit holders. Who respond by searching public records on the publisher and putting them online (they're polite enough to redact his SSN).
Hat tip to Dan Gifford.
Permalink · media · Comments (2)
Posting some clips from my documentary film
Posted two more on Youtube. Going to create and post a few more later this week. (Note that the video transitions are grainy, because of the degree to which YouTube compresses the video).
Permalink · documentary film · Comments (2)
Events from across the seas...
From the Philippines comes this story:
"Neither does the Philippine National Police have the appetite to go after Bedol for admitting that he owned a cache of 20 firearms. Such private armories are normal among traditional clans in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, according to Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, ARMM police director.
Under the country’s tough gun laws, civilians are not supposed to maintain such weapons stockpiles. But Philippine laws apparently do not apply to the ARMM, as far as the PNP is concerned. A study in 1995 reportedly showed that 80 mayors in the region each owned at least 60 firearms, including assault rifles, grenade launchers and M60 machine guns."
And in Nigeria, with the elections over, the the bottom has fallen out of the machete market.
Meanwhile, Canadian polls show little support for more gun control, and support for easing what exists.
Permalink · non-US · Comments (2)
Article on Oklahoma CCW
What looks like a pretty fair treatment, at the Tulsa World.
Hat tip to Budd Schroeder...
Permalink · CCW licensing · Comments (1)
Don Kates on arms and genocide
It's an email, and as it's rather long, I'll put it in extended remarks below.
