Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Thomas J. McAvoy

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When Defendants’ statements and alleged conduct is examined in its totality, there are sufficient allegations to state plausible freedom-of-speech claims.

Thomas J. McAvoy
Senior United States District Judge
United States District Court Northern District of New York
November 6, 2018
NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Plaintiff

-against- 1:18-CV-0566

ANDREW CUOMO, both individually and in his official capacity;  MARIA T. VULLO, both individually and in her official capacity;  and THE NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES, Defendants.
[The case is about the defendants putting pressure on the insurance and banking industry to not do business with the NRA. Reading the entire ruling it’s interesting to see how it boiled down to, so far, mostly, a freedom of speech issue. It is also an example of Ayn Rand’s observation about laws being needed to create criminals. It turns out that the insurance companies violated a law which was only enforced in the case where the NRA was their customer.

See also Jacob Sullum blog post:

Federal Judge Says It’s Plausible That Andrew Cuomo Violated the First Amendment by Pressuring Banks and Insurers to Shun the NRA

The organization’s lawsuit against New York’s governor survives a motion to dismiss.

As I explained in my column today, and as McAvoy describes in his decision, there is strong evidence that Cuomo and Maria Vullo, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), are in fact threatening banks and insurers that dare to do business with organizations that oppose the governor’s gun control agenda.

The bottom line is that case survived a motion to dismiss and will proceed. I wish the NRA the best of luck and I have pleasant fantasies of Governor Cuomo having to pay the damages out of his own pocket.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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It’s written in a way that puts a chilling effect on gun ownership, but quite frankly, it’s unenforceable. There’s a giant loophole in this law. If they go to Oregon or Idaho, they can bring [a rifle] back. It’s totally legal. They just can’t buy it in Washington state.

Alan Gottlieb
Founder, Second Amendment Foundation
November 7, 2018
Second Amendment Foundation: Loopholes aplenty with I-1639
[There are other loopholes as well. I was at a gun store recently and suggested a loophole they might use. The clerk behind the counter said, paraphrasing, “That should work. But most of the time I expect we will just do it like….” and he explained a simpler approach. I had considered his suggestion weeks ago but figured it was clearly violating the spirit of the law even though it was complying with the letter of the law and that might be too risky. But, he didn’t seem bothered by it so I’m not going to worry about it. I make so many trips to Idaho I will just buy my guns there and not subject myself to the risk.

I’m a bit torn between keeping loopholes like this quiet and openly mocking the ignorance and stupidity of the people that write these laws. On the one hand we get more time to get more guns into the hands of more people. On the other we embarrass the anti-gun activists and cause them to lose face and status in the eyes of those who donate millions of dollars.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeffrey Guterman @JeffreyGuterman

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Anyone who is paranoid that their guns will be taken away should have their guns taken away.

Jeffrey Guterman @JeffreyGuterman
Tweeted on November 8, 2018
[Implementing a Catch-22 scenario. Nice try.

Apply this to other specific enumerated rights such as the right to trial by jury, right to representation by a lawyer, free speech, free association, freedom of religion, and in Mr. Guterman’s case I would like the local National Guard unit to knock on his door every day and his Third Amendment rights treated in such a manner.—Joe]

Quote of the day—On licensing a right

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I was going to make the content of this image my quote of the day because of the application to I-1639:

LicensingLiberty

“No state shall convert a liberty into a license, and charge a fee therefore.”

(Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105)

“If the state converts a right (liberty) into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right (liberty) with impunity.”

(Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Alabama 373 U.S. 262)

Unfortunately, as near as I can tell, neither ruling contains the word “convert”. There are some phrases that one might extrapolate to what is seen above, but they are extrapolations.

Here is the phrase in MURDOCK v. PENNSYLVANIA (CITY OF JEANNETTE) which I found to be the best fit:

A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.

And in SHUTTLESWORTH v. BIRMINGHAM, (1969) No. 42:

“It is settled by a long line of recent decisions of this Court that an ordinance which, like this one, makes the peaceful enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official – as by requiring a permit or license which may be granted or withheld in the discretion of such official – is an unconstitutional censorship or prior restraint upon the enjoyment of those freedoms.” Staub v. Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 322 . And our decisions have made clear that a person faced with such an unconstitutional licensing law may ignore it and engage with impunity in the exercise of the right of free expression for which the law purports to require a license.

Hence, I would like to suggest people not use the “quote” which has been circulating for some time now. Use an exact quote from the actual cases so you won’t get drawn into a debate over the meaning of the words you used versus what the courts actually said.

The actual words should be strong enough to make the case for our rights to be free of licensing restrictions. This practice should actually be far more effective since it avoids the deflection made possible by using words not actually found in case law.

Quote of the day—Kris Brown

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Just getting a vote in the House on background checks, which hasn’t happened in more than a decade, would be “monumental.”

We’ll know by Nov. 7 whether it really has changed or not and I think we’ll wake up and find that it has.

Kris Brown
October 25, 2018
Co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Gun control, once a third rail, now a key issue as Democrats seek to control House
[See also this QOTD by Brown as well.

I queued up this post on October 26th for publication on November 8th. So… how well did Ms. Brown predict the future? Did she get it right or, as usually is the case, are the anti-gun people routinely waking up in an alternate reality?—Joe]

Rounds in the last month

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I reloaded 4,069 rounds of .40 S&W last month. 406 rounds were 180 grain Hornady Action Pistol (HAP) bullets. 505 rounds were from Eggleston Munitions. These were 180 grain polymer coated bullets loaded really light for steel matches. 504 were blue and one was purple (it somehow found it’s way into the container of blue bullets). 1,567 rounds were loaded with red bullets from Acme Bullets. These were also loaded for steel matches. 1,591 of those rounds were 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges.

This is the most rounds I have reloaded since the first month I started reloading back in October 1996 when I reloaded 10,944 rounds. The Dillon XL650 made the difference. Ignoring the time running the cases through the case gauge after assembling it more doubles my rate of production I was getting with the Dillon 550B. If I don’t have many malfunctions with a messed up piece of used brass or something I can reload 800 rounds in an hour.

This month will not be so productive. I reloaded a few .40 S&W rounds but am switching back to the 550B to reload .223. Back in 2016 I purchased a bunch of components in preparation for a Hillary Clinton presidency and with the passage of I-1639 I now feel a need to do something to support the AR.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 95,381 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 126,189 rounds

It looks like #I1639 will pass

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At 8:30 PM with 63.45% of the precincts reporting I-1639 is passing 60.69% to 39.31%. Unless eastern Washington hasn’t sent in any results yet and they voted something like 90% against it means the next step is to take it to court.

The last time I talked to someone in the office of the Second Amendment Foundation they expected to win in court but I’m not quite as confident as they appeared to be.

Quote of the day—Vote Blue November 6‏ @AlvardoMitchell

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The answer is simple.

Ban civilian firearms and make illegal possession a capital crime.

The public execution of a few hundred thousand illegal gun owners and dealers will curtail the problem quite nicely.

Vote Blue November 6‏ @AlvardoMitchell
Tweeted October 6, 2018.
[See what Miguel has to say about this guy and Say Uncle as well.

Vote like your life depends on the right to keep and bear arms. Because it does.—Joe]

Quote of the day—L. Mac from Melmac‏ @SlaveToTheAxe

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It says you support the 2nd Amendment….

Can you please explain why you don’t support the other 26?

It’s almost as if you are a full of shit or something….You must have an awfully small penis to require an extension like a gun.

L. Mac from Melmac‏ @SlaveToTheAxe
Tweeted on October 30, 2018
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Matthew Knott

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Gun control is now a winning issue for US Democrats – in the key swing state of Florida it’s shaping up to be critical. Could it be the “Gunshine State” that helps end America’s love affair with firearms?

Matthew Knott
November 4, 2018
How gun control went from a vote loser to a vote winner these midterms
[In Washington state the anti-gun people have the mindshare they need but they may not have the passion to vote in sufficient numbers to win. I suspect it is also the case in many other states.

Gun people need to vote and get others of a similar mind to vote.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Shelba Herring

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Black, white or pea green with purple polka dots, a responsible gun owner has the right to own and possess a firearm under the second amendment of the constitution, and all three should scream bloody murder if that right has someone trying to take it away from you.

Shelba Herring
November 1, 2018
Comment to Banning guns is a white privileged idea
[Minor correction: The Second Amendment protects a preexisting right. See US v. Cruikshank.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joshua Prince, Esq.

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You quickly learn that the Government is seeking to preclude ATF FATD (Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division) determinations from being used in any way during trial. These determinations appear to have been part of a discovery dispute, which is also sealed and is evidenced by the Government’s statement that “[t]he Government produced the letters under the protection of a protective order that the Court authorized on August 1, 2018.”. For the reasons that follow, I find it extremely comical that the Government actually contended that “ATF FATD letters at trial creates a grave risk of confusing the issues and misleading the jury,” but I digress…for now.

…

Mr. Wright has likely incurred tens of thousands of dollars of attorney fees and costs fighting for his freedom – all because ATF decided that it would invent a new interpretation of the law and it did so without notifying the Industry or the public. Let that sink in for a couple minutes…

Joshua Prince, Esq.
October 28, 2018
ATF Unhinged: Prosecutions Made Up Out of Whole Cloth – You Might Be Next…
[Think about that for a bit. The government thinks interpretation of firearm law by the ATF and distributed to the public is too confusing for a jury to understand when explained to them by two or more lawyers. And they will prosecute individuals who violate the privately held interpretation of the prosecutor and suppress any interpretation publicly distributed by the ATF.

I think it’s time for some firearms law reform. The new law must be easy to understand by a person of ordinary ability. I would like to suggest:

No government entity shall pass or enforce, directly or indirectly, any arms specific law of any type. Every attempt to violate this shall be punishable by up to 10 years in prison and fined up to three fourths of the net worth of every individual associated with each attempt.

Even the most stupid and/or devious politician should be able to understand that.—Joe]