Monthly Archives: June 2008

Post Heller

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In a few hours my world will change. I’ve been actively involved in gun rights since Bill Clinton (spit, spit) was elected. He was the reason I bought my first gun. My second gun was because of Diana Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and of course Clinton again. A significant part of Boomershoot and the website for Boomershoot was because of a law pushed through by Diane Feinstein.

Ruby Ridge was a motivator for my first gun too. I lived just a few miles from where that went down and know things that were never in the news reports. By the time the Butcher of Waco did her thing I was fully immersed and, as Barb will tell you, very difficult to live with.

Those were very dark days. Many leaders in the gun rights movement believed we had lost and were only fighting a holding action that merely slowed down the inevitable. I remember one prediction in the news group talk.politics.guns that captured the sentiments of many at the time. I didn’t save a copy because I didn’t want that sort of thing on my computer. I just went looking for it in the news groups archive–it took me 45 minutes to find it:

Robert Lewis Glendenning
Sep 4 1994, 10:39 am

Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.batf, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, alt.conspiracy
From: rlgle…@netcom.com (Robert Lewis Glendenning)
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 16:21:41 GMT
Local: Sun, Sep 4 1994 9:21 am
Subject: Re: The Revolution

During the next 3 to 5 years, the Supreme Court will rule on a gun
case. This case will have national media attention, and every gun owner,
libertarian and proto-revolutionary will be watching closely.

If they rule by the plain meaning of the Constitution, it will be a
signal that we are moving back to Constitutional rule.

If they rule for the federal government, it will be a signal that
the gov has permanently escaped the Constitution. In this case,
I expect:

1) That every major federal building in the US outside of WDC and
army bases will be burned in the next 48 hours.

2) That the Federal gov’s ability to enforce laws will be restricted
by the lack of anybody willing to identify themselves as a federal
employee.

3) That many states will pass resolutions demanding return to
Constitutional gov, and opting out of federal control via the 10th.

4) That the US Congress capitulates by passing a revolution
pledging return to the Constitution, and listing a preliminary set
of laws which they intend to repeal. This list will include all
Federal gun laws.

Note that this is as close to a bloodless revolution as one can
imagine.

In preparation for these events, may I suggest that you learn all
about your local federal buildings?

Lew
—
Lew Glendenning rlgle…@netcom.com
The CONSTITUTION, the WHOLE CONSTITUTION, and NOTHING BUT the CONSTITUTION.

We are now hours from that moment Glendenning predicted. What will be the result? The only thing I am certain of is that neither of predicted potential outcomes will come to pass. Even if the Heller decision goes against us all the Federal buildings will be standing 48 hours and even 48 weeks later–barring an severe earthquake someplace. Overturning the D.C. gun ban and declaring the 2nd Amendment is an individual right won’t put the government “back on the path to righteousness” or any such thing.

Some people have been predicting (here and here for example) a favorable ruling on Heller will mean the anti-gun forces will find it difficult to raise money and get people excited if they know they can’t actually ban guns. Sort of like if they can’t win the fight with a knock-out they won’t even bother to stay in the ring and knock all the teeth out of their opponent. I’m not convinced of this.

When the south lost the war of northern aggression and all their slaves were freed did they suddenly start treating blacks as equals? No. They paid little regard to the Federal laws protecting blacks as they discriminated against, scorned, beat, and lynched blacks for 100 years after that decision was made. I believe we could still have a 100 years of political fighting ahead of us still. It could, for all practical purposes, be an eternal fight.

I don’t really think freedom is a natural state of mankind. Some semblance of freedom has only really existed for about 200 hundred years in a relatively small portion of the human population out of the roughly two thousand years that we have any sort of written history. I think the concept of “the tribe” is more important than the individual was a powerful meme that enabled our distant ancestors to be more successful than their individualist neighbors. That concept selected for anti-freedom mindset at a fundamental level in the personality of the human race. It was only in a small subset of the world population that the individual, the smallest minority, was regarded as important as “the tribe”. That resulted in a remarkable burst of economic and personal freedom that, in the big picture, was extremely shocking.

Western culture developed the concept of individual freedom and, in essence, conquered the world. It went against the inherent personality of all the civilizations and tribes before it. We did not breed that out of the human mind as that concept took root and flourished. At best it was suppressed in a sufficient number for a short (on the civilization scale) time. The group that values the individual is less inclined to kill or put the anti-individual person at a serious disadvantage of passing on their genes than the other way around. Hence you can think of the meme of individual freedom as sort of a recessive gene. The “tribe is more important” meme is more like a dominate gene. Hence freedom is likely to always be unfinished business.

So how will a positive Heller ruling affect us? As I said in my first line my world will change. I will be in a better position to claim the anti-gun people are bigots just like those that promoted the Jim Crow laws against blacks. If we are to come close to anything resembling a complete victory I believe that meme will be the key. We have to drive those bigots into political extinction. We can, and probably must, leverage concepts that already resonate with the majority of people. The comparison to minority (non-whites, Jews, gays, women, etc.) rights of all types is the most winning strategy I can think of. Sure the courts and legislatures will need to overthrow the existing repressive laws against us but that only comes after the public opinion has changed. They aren’t leaders. They are servants of the people and only enforce the will of the people. To win we must make the will of the people match our mindset. That is the job ahead of us.

If Heller goes against us my world will change in a different way. I don’t want to contemplate that scenario. That is the stuff of nightmares and dark ages.

I expect we will have some semblance of a win but still I’m sad. It could just be the late hour as I write this but a significant component is the freedom fighters that carried the fight for decades before I ever said a word or donated a single penny to the cause who didn’t make it to see this day. Neal Knox (and here) especially comes to mind. I met and talked to him at two different Gun Rights Policy Conferences. I was very, very impressed by him and I wish he could have seen this day. The best tribute we can pay to him is to win the fight.

Let’s celebrate and analyze the ruling for a few days then–Let’s roll.

Blog problems

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I changed a setting on my blog a few days ago and apparently there are some bugs associated with that feature.

It turns out that some of my blog posted only showed up for me. I wondered why some of my posts didn’t get the attention I though they should. Now I realized that  their invisibility contributed to that.

The rest of the world was being deprived. Once I realized this could mean the end of the world as we know it I changed the setting back to the original. Still the postings did not show up. I finally hand edited the .xml and the missing posts appeared. The RSS feed still didn’t work but it was 1:30 AM and I went to bed anyway. This morning I found another field in the .xml that needed to be fixed so I went all geeky on that the RSS feed was populated and probably everyone is wondering, “Where did that come from?”

So now you know. I’m using a “daily build” of software under development and, surprise, surprise, it has bugs. But you probably already knew that from all the time my blog waits several minutes to respond or just plain says, “Service unavailable.” Now that Boomershoot 2009 registration is almost complete maybe I can spend some time on upgrading my blog software.

Quote of the day–Daryl Manhart

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Put simply, if the phrase “the people” connotes an individual guarantee in the First and Fourth Amendments, it logically follows that the same term, used in the same document (the Bill of Rights), in the same series of amendments within that document, should also be construed as guaranteeing the preservation of an individual, not “collective” right.

The next portion of the operative clause necessary to the determination of whose right the Second Amendment protects is the sentence predicate — “shall not be infringed.” This language indicates that “the right to keep and bear arms” was not created in the Amendment, but rather preserved by it. Id. at 382. The right to keep and bear arms was viewed at the founding as a natural right that preexisted the formation of the national government. Thus, the Second Amendment was guaranteeing its preservation by providing that it “shall not be infringed.” Case law from the late-nineteenth century expounding on the purpose for the Bill of Rights supports this interpretation of its plain meaning.

Daryl Manhart
February 11, 2008
Brief of Maricopa county attorney’s office and other prosecutor agencies as amici curiae in support of respondent.
[No Heller decision today. We are assured, by the Chief Justice, that the Heller decision will be announced tomorrow at 10:00 AM.

It was suggested to me by a fellow activist that we should celebrate the decision, assuming we get the expected result, by going out and drinking Miller beer. In a sense it would be “Miller Time”. I’m not much of a drinker of any type of alcohol so one of the first things I will be doing is going to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. The next non-work thing I’ll be doing is having lunch with a fellow gun-nut. Then in the evening my Lautenberg victim friend is coming over to get his guns back. All his legal troubles have been resolved in a satisfactory manner–other than the expenditure of way too much money and time.–Joe]

Full-throated?

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I never been called this before:

Joe Huffman, the full-throated Second Amendment activist

For some reason that brings to mind “deep throat” and there is no version of that phrase that applies to me. Particularly in the context of the Pink Pistols as was the case in this post.

It must be something new. The rest of the post was nice. I think it was a compliment.

Busy busy

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I have a huge backlog of things I want to blog about but I have been rather distracted by other things.

Barb and I had barely seen each other for several weeks. The week after I went to Louisville for the 2nd Amendment Blog Bash (and NRA Convention) Barb went to Sacramento to visit her sister. Then I had a very busy time at work and was unable to go on vacation with Xenia, Barb, and her family to Montana.

Finally, on Wednesday, Barb arrived at my bunker in the Seattle area and we tried to make up for lost time. I did make it out of bed long enough to go to work for a few hours and we go to dinner and see a movie (Get Smart — It had it moments, but there were some parts that were too silly for me) with son James and daughter Xenia. But for the most part we were pretty much inseparable.

Then Saturday I started opening up Boomershoot 2009 registration for staff, on Sunday for 2008 participants, then yesterday for the general public. Even though that is mostly automated it has resulted over 170 emails being received or sent plus countless hand edits of data files and fixing of obscure bugs in my code.

One bug was particularly “interesting”. If two shooting positions used the same phone number for registration and I then tried to swap the shooting positions of those two entries then both entires would be deleted (I had a back up and it wasn’t that tough to recover from the bug). That bug had existed since day one over a year ago and I just now tripped it.

In any case that spike of Boomershoot activity will soon settled down because the event is almost full (91%) with only seven positions still open as of 11:00 PM. I was surprised at the number of bloggers that took me up on the offer. Those free spots are costing me a LOT of money in the short term. David and Phil have a big tent and are filling it with bloggers. Other bloggers signed up include BillH of Free in Idaho!, Matthew from Trigger Finger, Kevin of Smallest Minority, Barron Barnett, and of course Ry, Xenia (not really “signed up”, it’s more like “drafted”), and I. I expect Lyle at UltiMAK (who blogs here with me) will sign up too.

Speaking of Matthew in the context of Boomershoot, he just put some new posts with pictures and text up from Boomershoot 2008:

Straw sales of Title II toys

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Ry nails this one:

The private military company Blackwater has found an unusual way to skirt federal laws that prohibit private parties from buying automatic weapons. Blackwater bought 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmasters, gave ownership of the guns to the Camden County sheriff and keeps most of the guns at Blackwater’s armory in Moyock.

Unusual, as in, illegal. Not only are these straw purchases, but they’re straw purchases of Title II firearms. Good for me, not for thee.

One might conclude this little arrangement might not last much longer:

The agreement between Blackwater and the Sheriff’s Office could be an illegal straw purchase, said Richard Myers, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A straw purchase, Myers said, is when one person fills out the federal firearms registration form to obtain a weapon for another person’s use.

“I prosecuted several when I was with the U.S. attorney,” Myers said. “If I were Blackwater’s attorney, I would be concerned about whether this is a genuine purchase or a straw purchase.”

Sheriff Perry said he did not consult a lawyer about the agreement until recently, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI inquired about the arrangement.

My guess is the Feds will “decline to prosecute” and ignore the whole thing. Those laws weren’t really intended to apply to everyone. Just the people the Feds want to keep in their place.

It would amuse me if the Feds do push the issue and Blackwater and friends (the local sheriff) use the Heller decision to defend themselves. They would be a great “poster child” for our side on this issue.

Quote of the day–Theodore M. Shaw

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The effects of gun violence on African-American citizens are particularly acute; in 2004 alone, all but two of the 137 firearm homicide victims in the District were African Americans, most of them between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine years old.
 …
The principal characteristic of the District’s firearms legislation that is being challenged in this case–a rule that prohibits handguns while permitting shotguns and rifles (see D.C. Code § 7-2502.02)–was enacted over 30 years ago, in 1976, after the District Council received substantial evidence that handguns were disproportionately linked to violent and deadly crime, and posed unique risks in an urban setting. See PA101a-04a, 112a. In sum, the District’s handgun regulations are reasonable, passed by a legislature, in line with long-standing historical practices and Supreme Court precedents, and recognizes the unique circumstances posed by the link between the District’s high crime rate and the prevalence of handguns.

Theodore M. Shaw
Brief of Amicus Curiae the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. in support of petitioners.
[I just don’t understand how someone smart enough to pass law school could overlook the dangers inherent in making such an argument. If African-Americans are particularly at risk (and although not mentioned are also the most frequent perpetrators) then in addition to concluding the violation of the 2nd Amendment is “reasonable” then one could make the equally abhorrent argument for “reasonable” violation of the 13th Amendment. That being, “Some people just can’t be trusted with their freedom. We need to put them back on the plantation where they will be looked after and safe.” And from the NAACP of all people.–Joe]

Your turn

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If you haven’t already done so you should make yourself heard on the issue of firearms in National Parks. Our opponents are not quiet on the topic and we must not be either. Here is what the bigots are saying:

The NRA Wants Loaded Guns in Parks. What do YOU Want?

That’s right, guns in parks. LOADED guns in parks. For some reason, the NRA thinks it’s a great idea to let anyone and everyone possess loaded weapons in our national parks. Visitor safety? Who cares, right? You care. And you know that our current policies are smart and sound, and protect the rights of gun owners and visitors’ safety equally. Allowing loaded guns in parks poses a threat to wildlife, park visitors, and puts our already over-burdened park rangers at even greater risk. The Bush Administration has opened up the regulations for comment. If they want comments, let’s not disappoint them. Submit your comments TODAY and tell them to keep the current regulations in place. Take action!

Here is what they are suggesting people say on the topic:

Millions of visitors visit our national parks each year. They visit the parks because they offer a glimpse into America’s heritage. They offer the unique opportunity for families to experience peace and reflect in a safe environment. But opening the national parks to loaded weapons could change that forever.

Today’s national security threats make the protection of these iconic places and the millions of people from around the world who visit them a serious concern deserving of special vigilance. Requiring guns to be stored and unloaded is no more onerous a limitation on the rights of law-abiding citizens than requiring them to be searched or pass through a metal detector to enter a federal building.

We cannot put the safety of visitors at risk because of the political agenda of one organization. I urge you to keep the current regulations in place.

There is a big difference between the interior of a federal building with armed law enforcement close by and the deep woods of some national park. Here are some hints. These are actual pictures I took in a National Park:


Here is the actual proposed regulation change.

Here, here and here is the best advice I have seen on what to say to our Washington D.C. servants.

Here is the electronic submission form.

Do the right thing and don’t let the bigots win this one.

Boomershoot 2009 registration is open

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Update June 24, 10:00 AM: The event is now 88% full. There are only nine positions still available.

The day before yesterday (Saturday) I opened up registration for staff to select their positions in Boomershoot 2009. This is the last weekend of April which is over 11 months from now.

Yesterday (Sunday) at 2:02 PM I opened up registration and sent an email to participants of Boomershoot 2008.

Later in the day I sent out email to gun bloggers that had expressed an interest.

By noon today the event was over 75% full.

Today at 4:37 PM I sent an email to the Boomershoot announcement list telling them registration was open.

Currently the event is 84% full with just 12 positions still available.

Sign up soon if you want to attend.

Here is the email I sent to the announcement list:

Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 4:37 PM
To: BoomerShoot@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [BoomerShoot] Boomershoot 2009 registration is open.

 

Sign up here: http://entry.boomershoot.org/

 

Yesterday I sent out email to 2008 participants and the event is now over three-fourths full. Sign up soon if you want to participate.

 

The position numbers are unchanged since last year.

 

Prices went up this year. The cost of the ammonium nitrate, the primary ingredient in the explosives, went up by a factor of over 3.5. The prices of the other components also went up. I don’t need to tell you about the price of gasoline which makes trips to the site for preparations and site improvements much more expensive.

 

I thought the price for the 2008 dinner was high at $26/plate. When we were confirming the prices for 2009 we were told $30/plate. This caused a several week delay in opening up registration for 2009 as we looked at numerous cheaper alternatives. We didn’t have any good options. We haven’t completely given up and Barb and I will be talking to people over the 4th of July weekend when we are in Orofino. We might still find something else but we don’t know for certain. We have locked in the $30/plate price and if we can find something better this summer we will give you a refund.

 

Boomershoot improvements planned for this year are:

 

1) Extending the target area at the 375 yard line so more targets can be placed at one time.

2) Enlarging the shooting berm so it is more comfortable for shooters.

3) Increasing the number of targets.

 

One of the constraining factors on the number of targets for Sunday was storage space. Because we held back a large number of targets for “cleanup” that took additional storage space on Saturday night. We have moved cleanup to Friday night. Hence the storage space that was used for cleanup will now be available for additional targets for the main event on Sunday.

 

Keep this in mind when/if you sign up for cleanup. It will not be on Sunday afternoon as it was in the past. It will be sometime Friday evening with the possibility of extending until after dusk when we may do some after dark fireballs.

 

There will probably be a few targets left over on Sunday which will be exclusively for staff use. Some of my staff do not do any shooting during the main event so this is their only chance to shoot boomers.

 

See you next April. It will be a blast!

 

 

Joe Huffman

Boomershoot Event Director

Quote of the day–Lawrence G. Keane

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Many Americans at the time of the constitution’s ratification feared that this national government – to be run by an equally unprecedented office of “President” – would become a new source of tyranny, replacing the British crown they had just overthrown. Accordingly, they sought protections from potential tyranny, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right “to keep and bear arms.” While, to some, the notion may seem quaint today, the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the individual right to bear arms ensured that the new national government would not be able to oppress the American people. That guarantee cannot now be read out of the Bill of Rights simply because times have changed.

Lawrence G. Keane
Brief of The National Shooting Sports Foundation, inc., as amicus curiae in support of respondent.
[For people that claim the U.S. is a “living document” that need not be amended to change the meaning ask them if that applies to the 13th Amendment as well.–Joe]

SCOTUS is releasing opinion(s) today

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You can get live blog coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court action this morning if you go here. No guarantee D.C. v. Heller will be released. It could be later this week instead.

Update: Nothing on D.C. v. Heller today. Maybe later this week. Additional hints from the above link:

10:12
 Tom Goldstein –  The only opinion remaining from the March sitting is Heller.   The only Justice without a majority opinion from that sitting is Justice Scalia.
10:14
 Tom Goldstein –  The Court has announced that it will release opinions against at 10am Wednesday.   Because seven opinions remain, it will almost certainly have one additional day.   Based on past practice, that day likely will be Thursday.

Any more Boomershoot gun bloggers?

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Gun bloggers planning to attend Boomershoot 2009 should send me an email at JoeH@boomershoot.org. I posted about this last month and several people expressed considerable interest but didn’t actually say yes.

General announcement of Boomershoot 2009 registration will be made soon. The event fills up very quickly and I want bloggers planning to attend to get a fair shot at getting a position.

Quote of the day–Albert W. Wallis

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The gun control legislation enacted in the District of Columbia in 1976 that banned handguns in the city (“D.C. Gun Control Law”) is an effective law enforcement tool that has promoted the public health and safety by reducing the level of handgun violence in the District of Columbia (“District”). Criminological studies evaluating the effects of the D.C. Gun Control Law have proven that it has reduced the rate of firearm homicides and suicides committed in the District.

Albert W. Wallis
Brief of professors of criminal justice as amici curiae in support of petitioners.
[Typically the District of Columbia, even with the draconian gun laws, has the highest murder rate in the U.S. So one has to wonder just how violent the people of the District of Columbia would be if they could own firearms. One must also wonder why just across the river in Virginia, with far easier access to firearms and the right to bear them in public, those people have such a low rate of violence. It is also worthy of note that they refer to firearm homicides and suicides, not total murder and suicide. I take this to mean they are only concerned if someone is killed, justified or not, with a firearm. Murders by people armed with knives, baseball bats, and broken bottles are not of interest. But this is a brief of professors, they don’t work with the real world, that should explain a lot.–Joe]

Letter to the Mayor of Montesano

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As widely reported the city council of Montesano passed an ordinance banning gun owners from city parks. The mayor wisely vetoed it. Send your thanks to him. I did:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 2:21 PM
To: ‘mayor@montesano.us’
Subject: Thanks for vetoing the ordinance discriminating against gun owners.

What was the council thinking? Once they had established a precedent of discriminating against constitutionally protected individuals carrying firearms were they then going to expand the list of undesirables to Jews, homosexuals, and people involved in mixed race marriages?

Thank you for doing the right thing. 

Joe Huffman
Kirkland, Washington

The anti-gun male

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Joe Waldron sent a copy of this by Julia Gorinto to an email list I’m on. A small sample:

The very ownership of a gun for defense of home and family implies some assertiveness and a certain self-reliance. But if our man kept a gun in the house, and an intruder broke in and started attacking his wife in front of him, he wouldn’t be able to later say, “He had a knife–there was nothing I could do!” Passively watching in horror while already trying to make peace with the violent act, scheduling a therapy session and forgiving the perpetrator before the attack is even finished wouldn’t be the option it otherwise is.

…

In short, he is a man begging for subjugation. He longs for its promise of equality in helplessness. Because only when that strange, independent alpha breed of male is helpless along with him will he feel adequate. Indeed, his freedom lies in this other man’s containment.

There is lots of very powerful stuff in there. Some useful concepts for when you write letters to the editor and politicians.

2nd Amendment in the belly of the beast

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On July 2nd (presumably this will be post Heller decision) Stephen P. Halbrook and Don B. Kates, Jr. under the auspices of The Independent Institute will be putting on an What the Second Amendment Means Today in Oakland California.

California in general and to a great extent Oakland in particular is extremely hostile to gun ownership. I wonder if the politicians will get the hint that they are on the wrong side of the issue.

Quote of the day–M. Carol Bambery

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Violent criminals who may view women as easy targets find their jobs far less taxing in communities such as Washington, D.C. Researchers conducting the Institute of Justice Felon Survey confirm the common-sense notion that those wishing to do harm often think closely before confronting an individual who may be armed.

M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent.
[I found 10 quotes to add to my database in this brief. I’m proud to say that of those 126 women state legislators 12 of them were from Idaho.–Joe]

Quote of the day–David B. Kopel

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Petitioners implicitly claim that a typical citizen of the District who can pass a criminal records and mental records background check (such as the National Instant Check System) is at serious risk of committing murder. It is hard to imagine how such a population could be considered fit for home rule.

David B. Kopel
D.C. v. Heller
Brief of The International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA), The International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI), Maryland State Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police, Southern States Police Benevolent Association, 29 Elected California District Attorneys, San Francisco Veteran Police Officers Association, Long Beach Police Officers Association, Texas Police Chiefs Association, Texas Municipal Police Association, New York State Association of Auxiliary Police, Mendocino County, Calif., Sheriff Thomas D. Allman, Oregon State Rep. Andy Olson, National Police Defense Foundation, Law Enforcement Alliance of America, and The Independence Institute as amici curiae in support of respondent.