The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has failed to provide adequate police services to the District of Columbia’s citizens. The District is consistently a national leader in various crime categories while simultaneously demonstrating inability to adapt or change under the crippling bureaucracy endemic to the District. Compounding this deadly combination of high crime and inflexibility are constant examples of corruption, incompetence and outright misfeasance in the operation of the department.

[...]

Unfortunately, this is not a mere phase or temporary problem for the District. Since the 30-plus year old implementation of what amounts to a complete ban on owning, carrying or using firearms for self-defense, the MPD has cycled through new chiefs and precinct commanders with depressing frequency. The only constant within the department has been the incompetence, corruption, cronyism and failure to perform the most basic duty of a police department--to protect and serve.

L. Kenneth Hanson III
Brief of Buckeye Firearms Foundation LLC, National Council for Investigation and Security Services, Ohio Association of Private Detective Agencies, Inc., dba Ohio Association of Security and Investigation services (oasis), Michigan Council of Private Investigators, Indiana Association of Professional Investigators, and Kentucky Professional Investigators Association, as amici curiae supporting respondent.
[Only six more days until oral arguments.

I've only read about a quarter of the briefs supporting the respondent but surprisingly this brief makes the strongest case, for me, for supporting the RKBA in D.C. Had they concluded, instead of urging the court to affirm the lower court decision, asked the court to issue varmint hunting licenses (no bag limits) for residents for the taking of D.C. cops and politicians I would have cheered.

Assuming you have the stomach and the blood pressure meds for it, read the whole thing.--Joe]

Sean said he has a dream. Now he just has to get a really big bonus this fall so he can bring it to Boomershoot 2009.

Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (6 MB WMV).

Boomershoot enthusiast, Bruce, sent this to me. He wants one for the flat trajectory when shooting squirrels.

DOJ and now DHS.

This time they are interested in the 5000 pounds of ammonium nitrate I bought and had my daughter pose for a picture with it.

I really need to do a Privacy Act request and get a copy of the file they have on me.

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I suspected the Heller case had the most amicus briefs ever. I was wrong. Amicus Briefs Are Ammo for Supreme Court Gun Case:

The 67 amicus briefs in what is simply known as "the D.C. gun case" fail to topple the record number filed in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases in 2003 -- 107 -- but they easily fit within the top 10 filings at the high court.

Guns are not pathogens, and the loss of lives from guns is not a public health phenomenon in any meaningful sense. Vaccines could be taken as a public health analogy for guns. Vaccines are widely recommended or even mandated with the support of the APHA and AAP despite the fact that many are killed or injured by them, and their effectiveness is imperfect. But the APHA’s and AAP’s logic could be applied to vaccines with the false conclusion that all vaccination programs are harmful because all vaccines have some side effects. The benefits of vaccines and guns are both indirect, but the benefits are very real in both cases, and it is essential to address those benefits in any argument attempting to ban the product.

Andrew L. Schlafly
February 7, 2008
Brief for amicus curiae association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. in support of Respondent.
[Only seven more days until oral arguments.--Joe]

I keep wondering if disgraced New York Governer and anti-gun bigot Spitzer was aware of the book Mayflower Madam when he booked a room at this particular hotel:

As recently as this past Valentine's Day, Feb. 13, Spitzer, who officials say is identified in a federal complaint as "Client 9," arranged for a prostitute "Kristen" to meet him in Washington, D.C.

The woman met Client 9 at the Mayflower Hotel, room 871, "for her tryst," according to the complaint.

The book was a true story and a very good one. If he hasn't read it already maybe he'll have time while he is in prison.

Just a couple of minutes ago I ordered the last of the critical items for Boomershoot 2008. I now have another 275 pounds of potassium chlorate scheduled to arrive within a week or 10 days. Over the weekend I ordered 1100 cardboard boxes.

The only remaining items are small things like air horn cartridges, wooden stakes, and garbage sacks.

Combined with the existing materials we have stored in the Taj Mahal we plan to build over 1600 reactive targets for Boomershoot 2008. This will require over 1700 pounds of high explosives which we will be manufacturing on-site in the two days prior to the event.

It's going to be a real blast.

Another person canceled and position 41 will become available at 8:00 AM Tuesday March 11th. See details of the position here. Refresh the page at 8:00 AM tomorrow to sign up. Remember, once you press the button for that position you have taken the position.

When viewed from a national perspective, the right to keep and bear arms is not an archaic right. The right to arms is deeply rooted in our nation's tradition and history. The Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. The earliest guarantees to arms were adopted in 1776 by Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The most recent guarantee was adopted by Wisconsin in 1998. Since 1945, twenty one (21) states have adopted or readopted the right to bear arms in their state constitutions. Presently, forty-four (44) states have a guarantee to arms. The people have spoken in support of the right to arms. It is a mainstream right that is still valued in the 21st Century, and it is a vital part of the Constitution.

Robert Dowlut
February 2008
Brief for amicus curiae American Legislative Exchange Council in support of respondent.
[Only eight more days until oral arguments. This brief includes all the state constitution provisions for the right to keep and bear arms. A nice reference.--Joe]

Sebastian points out new technology may make concealed carry more difficult.

What the people that develop these tools don't tell the politicians that will buy them is they are easy to defeat. Just as a tank can be defeated with a Molotov Cocktail, if you know what you are doing very simple and readily available materials can defeat multi-million dollar surveillance equipment.

In this particular instance what the developers probably aren't telling the potential buyers is that there is something called the Skin Effect. This is, in essence, a law of physics that says the higher the frequency of an electromagnetic wave the shallower the penetration of that wave through a conductor. It depends on the resistivity and magnetic permeability of the conductor but for copper a 1 Terahertz wave will have a skin depth of about 66 nm. The typical aluminum foil you buy at the grocery store has a thickness of 200 um which is over 3000 times thicker. I don't have the skin depth numbers for aluminum but I can tell you that lining your jacket with aluminum foil will make your jacket completely opaque to such machines. Even aluminized mylar balloons or "space blankets" will be opaque. Hence, these machines will not be able to see anything on the other side of the metal lined clothing. I expect even sequined purses and dresses will be opaque.

I just finished reading the DC response in the Heller case. The following sentence jumped out at me:

The Council concluded that concealable and lethal handguns are responsible for a disproportionately high number of violent crimes, accidents, and suicides, particularly in an exclusively urban jurisdiction.

Apparently "The Council" believes inanimate objects have volition and commit violent crimes, accidents, and suicides. Why suicides of handguns are a problem for them when "The Council" already bans them seems particularly odd but one cannot expect these type of people to be rational.

But what is even more odd to me is the mindset that in some jurisdictions the public servants apparently believe their masters to be morally and/or intellectually deficient. I've run into this before with people from the Chicago area. They will say something like, "Its okay for people in the country to have guns but the people in the inner cities just can't be allowed to have guns--they will use them to commit crimes." Realize what these people are saying. They are admitting to being bigots and frequently they are racist bigots. They don't trust the inner city minorities to own firearms. In their view the inner city residents are inherently immoral and if allowed the tools to commit violent crimes they will do so.

Of course, we also urge the Court to reject the invitation of Petitioners to read a fundamental Constitutional right stated in plain English in the text out of the Constitution altogether. The American people can read, and they can see that unlike some of the other rights found by the Court on the basis of complex reasoning, the Constitutional text forthrightly promises that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." No amount of artful linguistic acrobatics or fanciful historical tales can rub those plain words out of the text. We respectfully submit that the rights clearly stated in The Bill of Rights should be read broadly and vigorously enforced, rather than minimized to suit a particular ideology.

Peter J. Ferrara
February 2008
Amicus curiae brief of the American Civil Rights Union in support of respondents.
[Only nine more days until oral arguments.--Joe]

It is the cornerstone of American political philosophy that, as a human being, every individual possesses certain inalienable rights. Even a cursory glance at the text of the Founding documents reveals a recurrent intention to preserve these "endowed" human rights.

Jay Alan Sekulow
February 2008
Amicus Brief of the American Center for Law and Justice
[I find it very frustrating that many people believe governments grant rights. This leads to all kinds of kooky ideas such as people having a right to health care. Rights cannot be granted by a government--only infringed.--Joe]

I've explained build breaks before and why they are big deal.

Last night about 10:40 the guy across the hall submitted a code change for review. About 11:35 someone else replied saying it looked good. At 11:49 the guy across the hall checked it in.

This morning I saw the request for a code review and took a look at it and thought, "Hmmm.... just one line was changed. I'll look at the bug report to make sure this is the right thing to do but it almost for certain should be fine as long as it passes the buddy build." Then I saw that he had already checked it in--without any mention of a buddy build. Hmmm... Okaaaaay.

Then I saw the email about the build being broken this morning. Then I saw the email about a new bug assigned to the guy across the hall. About 30 minutes ago another other guy showed up with a very large baseball bat* in the hall. I started laughing and went out to watch more closely. I stopped laughing and left when the thumping started. It wasn't going to be pretty.

I came back after a few minutes and the guy with the baseball bat was gone and I examined the guy across the hall for bruises. There were none showing so I'm assuming his clothes cover them all.

They take their coding processes seriously around here.

Yesterday a friend (nameless to protect the guilty) and I were chatting over cups of hot beverages. He told me about ending up spending $1000* to save $100. He had purchased a noise suppressor for one of his toys and was going to save the $100 fee the suppressor manufacture charged to remove the "permanently attached" flash hider. After he and his grinding wheel were done he concluded it was less painful to purchase a new barrel than to submit the old mangled one for the installation. I think I managed to look sympathetic throughout the entire story even though I was thinking of Tam's relevant post with a smirk struggling to burst out. When he finished his story he read my mind and said, "Tam's post was so timely."

Yup.

*The $1000 included some other stuff that was a side effect, not just the barrel replacement.

The President of the Brady Campaign is not anti-gun. He says so, so it must be true:

Helmke said he’s not pro-gun and he’s not anti-gun, but he is for establishing rules so that guns can be owned by responsible people.

I've said this before but it's worth saying again. If someone walking unsupervised on our streets can't be trusted with a gun then they can't be trusted with a can of gasoline and a book of matches. Hence, the rule for gun ownership has already been established: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

As reported by TFS Magnum (via Uncle) we are informed that a burglar had his lawsuit against the homeowner who shot him thrown out with these words from the judge:

“There is no doubt that the jury would find for the defendant,” Judge James Welker wrote in his memorandum decision. “In fact, it is likely that the jury would prefer the option of throwing the plaintiff down the steps of the courthouse.”

TFS concludes this is why we need Castle Doctrine laws but investigating further I respectfully disagree in this case. The homeowner used a gun that had the number ".380" on the side. A better result would likely have been reported had the number started with ".4" or "12".

Dave Young has a web page with critical commentary on the pro-DC historical briefs.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not a single American political theorist or legal commentator on the Constitution ever suggested a collective rights interpretation of the Second Amendment. Joel Barlow, for example, writing in 1792, argued that in a democracy "the people will be universally armed: they will assume these weapons for security, which the art of war has invented for destruction". Only tyrants, he wrote, "disarmed their people"; "[a] republican society", he argued, "needed armed citizens".

Jack Brian McGee
Brief of the Alaska Outdoor Council, Alaska Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fund, Sitka Sportsman’s Assoc., Juneau Rifle and Pistol Club, Juneau Gun Club, and Alaska Territorial Sportsmen, inc. as amici curiae.
[Only tyrants disarm their people. Remember that.

Only 11 more days until the oral arguments.--Joe]

Are these people interested about what I have to say in a friendly manner? Or are they gathering material to put in my file?

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The Second Amendment did not erupt in a philosophical vacuum. The Amendment, like the remainder of the Bill of Rights, arose from widely shared judgments regarding citizenry, government, and the distribution of power. Three of these judgments are particularly relevant here.

Private possession of arms is not merely acceptable, but virtuous.

[...]

There is a natural right to arms, linked to that of self-defense.

[...]

A militia composed of all freeholders and voters is the only safe and effective defense of a republic.

David T. Hardy
Brief of amicus curiae, Academics for the Second Amendment
[Remember that. It is not merely acceptable, but virtuous! Don't let the bigots try to shame you.

Only 12 more days until the oral arguments.--Joe]

News from STI:

.22 Caliber Conversion Kit

STI international, Inc has joined with Bob Marvel to bring you the finest .22 conversion kits available anywhere. With these conversion kits, you can easily swap out your top end to go from one caliber to another- it’s like getting a second pistol for less than half the price. This will allow shooters to increase their trigger time while decreasing the cost of good training.

The improved Bob Marvel design locks the barrel in place for improved reliability and accuracy. The conversion kit may be purchased for either the 1911 (single stack) platform or the world famous 2011 (double stack) platform. The kit comes complete with adjustable sights, lock back on last round (single stack), an excellent extended 10 round magazine, complete cleaning kit, magazine loading tool, and a custom fitted hard case. The top end works on either 1911 or 2011 frames with only the magazine to replace if the shooter wishes to change frames. Extra magazines for the 1911 and/or 2011 are available.

It's an extra $35.00 for the 2011 frame over the 1911 frame but that is a small price to pay if you don't have the 1911 frame to put it on.

In competition I shoot an STI gun, I carry an STI gun and you should too.

The Apex of the Triangle of Death has a good web page up on the Heller case. It has all the briefs in one convenient location.

I can't really claim credit for creating the concept but I have been a big proponent of it for a long time. It's nice to see others adopting the language such that anti-gunners are openly called out as bigots.

Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is at the top of my must read list. Unfortunately the audio version isn't out yet and I have a very large stack of paper books that I haven't read beside my bed already.

My latest urge to get this book was fueled by Initial Thoughts... from Musings of The GeekWithA.45. Uncle and Kevin are also impressed with his post.

Last night while watching Farscape with son James I told him he must read the Geek's post. It's just wow!

Whether one examines the District’s murder rates relative to other large US cities, the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, or relative to the US as a whole there is no evidence that the ban reduced the District’s relative murder rate. Indeed, if anything, the evidence points to the opposite conclusion. The District’s rising murder rate cannot be explained as a result of the crack cocaine epidemic during the late 1980s because this increase started occurring right after the ban was instituted, long before crack cocaine became an issue.

Everyone wants to disarm criminals. However, the problem with bans is who is most likely to obey them. If the ban primarily disarms lawabiding citizens and not criminals, the ban can have the opposite effect of what was intended.

Richard E. Gardiner
February 2007
BRIEF OF ACADEMICS AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT
[I really liked reading this one. The comparision data was represented as ratios between D.C. and other areas (such as large cities, nearby states, etc.) over time. Usually I see the data represented as absolute numbers. The ratio representation is a good tool.--Joe]

Ouch.

As I have said before, a lot of crime is created by the government. Here is a great article with the details of one such area.

As street values rise, gun thieves get bolder

Most of us know the gun debate as a war of words - a battle of sound bites between this side and that.

The real front lines are on the streets, where good guns try to hold back the bad ones, and no one takes the time to hold rallies, give speeches or argue about the Second Amendment.

There, the struggle is as intense as ever.

"In so many murders and robberies, the weapon of choice is a gun," said Norfolk Police Chief Bruce P. Marquis. "Millions are being manufactured every year, and we know a lot of them end up in criminals' hands. We put a higher priority on taking guns off the streets than we do drugs."

But clamping down on firearms can have an unintended effect.

"You create a market when you tighten things up," Garfield Headlam said.

He should know. Headlam is serving a 10-year prison sentence for operating a gun-running ring out of Norfolk in the late 1990s. His customers lived in Washington, D.C., where handguns have been outlawed for more than 30 years. Saturday night specials were Headlam's bread and butter.

"You could make a 300 percent profit on those," he said. "Buy 'em from the gun shop for $89 to $150. Cheap quality. That's what they wanted up there."

Money like that has made gun runners bold. Fourteen Virginia gun shops were burglarized last year, including six in Hampton Roads. In two of the cases, thieves sawed a hole in the roof and used ropes to drop inside. In another, armed men forced a clerk to the floor and walked out with 75 handguns.

I found the following line here:

Want to find some tools for fighting junk email?

It made me laugh. Actually a pretty good argument could be made for imposing the death penalty on people that send mass junk mail--assuming that sending junk mail should be considered a crime. As much as I hate spam I don't think it should be a crime, but the argument for making the offense punishable by the death penalty is an interesting intellectual exercise for me. I may have hinted at it here before, I'll have to see if I can find it and flesh it out a bit more sometime.

An ATF whistle blower got demoted and had other problems:

Edgar A. Domenech says he thought Justice Department officials would welcome information about mismanagement at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Instead, the 23-year ATF veteran says, Justice officials ignored his complaints and later retaliated against him by demoting him, denying him a bonus and attempting to give him a poor job review.

"I realized I was committing career suicide at the time, but I felt I had a moral obligation as the deputy director to protect the agency and the men and women of the agency," Domenech said in an interview yesterday. "In retrospect, I was naive to believe that the department would welcome my honesty."

Domenech filed a 13-page complaint yesterday with the Office of Special Counsel, saying that ATF and the Justice Department punished him for raising questions about the performance of former ATF director Carl J. Truscott, who resigned in August 2006 while under investigation for alleged financial mismanagement.

I know from personal experience that people in power do not follow the rules and will find a way to harm you if they decide that is what they want to do. We do not have a "Justice System". We have "Legal System". It will not protect you. At best it will give you an opportunity to compensate you for your losses.

In larger terms what this means is that abuse of power is seldom prevented by the legal system. Only when it becomes egregious and a large majority of people demand the abuse stop will it actually take place. Case in point is the ATF and their abuse of firearms owners and dealers. ATF Special Agents who read Brady scripts to the press should be prosecuted for violation of 18 USC 242 but what Federal Prosecutor is going to take on that case? The prosecutor who should be building a case to put the agent in jail is a work associate of of the ATF agent. It's no different than law enforcement and prosecutors not caring if a few blacks get lynched every once in a while. It may be against the law but, basically, their reasoning will go, the people that did it are "good people" and don't deserve to have their careers ruined over something like that. "It just doesn't matter, it's only about about 10%" (inside "joke" for people that know my sociopathic ex-friend Walter).

In most cases law enforcement will not protect you from government abuse of power. Only you can protect yourself. Naive people believe we have a system of laws that will protect us. But the examples of this not being true are too numerous to even attempt to count.

That is why we have the 2^nd Amendment. It is the last ditch guardian of inalienable rights.

Even in their homes, LGBT individuals are at risk of murder, aggravated assault and other forms of hate violence because of their sexual orientation. In fact, the home is the most common site of anti-gay violence. Thus, for certain LGBT individuals, the possession of firearms in the home is essential for a sense of personal security -- a fact generally lost in the majoritarian debate about restricting individual’s access to, and use of, firearms. As shown below, not only do members of the LGBT community have a heightened need to possess firearms for self-protection in their homes, the Second Amendment clearly guarantees this most basic right. This Court should not permit the democratic majority to deprive LGBT individuals of their essential and constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in their own homes.

Michael B. Minton
Brief of Pink Pistols and gays and lesbians for individual liberty as amici curiae in support of respondent.
[As suggested by Kevin I downloaded the entire set of Heller briefs from Constitution Arms and found it quite useful.

One of the points made in the Pink Pistols brief is that majority rule without the minority right to self-defense leads to physical abuse and even death of those minorities. The essence of the way I see it is the minority individual has a much easier time defending themselves in court against a prosecution than being protected from the initial attack by an uncaring or hostile police force. Think of it in terms of what is required for successful prosecution versus a successful unlawful attack on the minority individual. Or, if you want, use the old standby, "It's better to be judged by 12 than carried by six."--Joe]

Both in January of 2007 and 2008 our group at work took the day off (with pay) to go to Stevens Pass to ski (all expenses paid--including transportation and two meals). Those not interested in downhill skiing could snowshoe or cross country ski. Both times I took my own snowshoes (rentals would have been covered but I would rather take my own) and opted for the hike through the trees instead of the downhill adventure my knee surgeon (after the second surgery) advised me to never take up. Even though snowshoes were recommended I found my size 14 boots were more than adequate for the packed trails. It was a very nice hike and I kept wanting to take Barb up there. Yesterday I finally got around to it. She agreed, it was a very nice place to go hiking. Below are some pictures:

Here is what it looked like in January when I went with the people from work:

Although there was less snow on the trees it was sunny and nicer weather when Barb and I went.