I’ll be shocked if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule in favor of Alan in the McDonald case.
Paul Helmke
President of the Brady Campaign
May 14, 2010
He was referring to Alan Gura and the Chicago Gun Case.
See also Alan Gura v. Paul Helmke.
Category Archives: Gun Rights
Fraternization with the enemy
I know some people are a little shocked that some hard-core gun bloggers would shake Paul Helmke’s hand and have a civil discussion with him.
I’m reminded of Winston Churchill’s words, “When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.” Not in the literal case in this instance but the sentiment is the same.
Yes, I want to make him the social equivalent of a Grand Wizard of the KKK and, if possible, get him some serious jail time for violation of 18 USC 241 and possibly 18 USC 242. But I don’t see a problem with smiling at him as I work toward that goal.
Besides, we picked up a little bit of intel by listening to him debate Gura and even more in the private conversation afterward.
Socializing at the NRA annual meeting
I had planned to walk the exhibit floor today but other than attend the debate between Gura and Helmke I spent nearly the entire time socializing. Mostly it was with bloggers but I did spend probably an hour of pretty intense face to face time with NRA Board of directors member Scott Bach (and here).
Scott told us a little bit of some of the behind the scenes stuff at the NRA and how he thinks things will shake down after the McDonald case comes down. Since he lives in New Jersey there was a particular emphasis on his home state. The application of the McDonald case will be particularly interesting there and in California. There is tremendous opportunity to gain ground but there are lots of things that can go wrong too.
I was pleased to meet some gun bloggers I have read for the first time and see others again. I screwed up and did not get a picture of Rick even though we met and talked quite a bit this morning and throughout the day. I will try to remedy that error tomorrow.
I met Breda for the first time. For some reason I expected someone much smaller.
Alan also took some pictures of Breda at dinner but she said she would kill him if he posted them.
Honest, it had nothing to do with Say Uncle making a comparison to a porn star. That was much earlier in the day.
I have five pictures of Jay G. These two suck the least. He also posted on the afternoon and evening activities.
This was my first time meeting him. But I have talked to him when I was on Vicious Circle and listened to him even more.
This was the first time I have met Weer’d Beard. He is a frequent commenter here and on daughter Xenia’s LJ.
I first met Denise and Yosemite Sam at the NRA meeting in 2008.
I got in trouble with Barb for not attending Sarah Palin’s speech so maybe Denise’s post can get me almost back in good graces at home.
I first met Alan at Boomershoot 2009 where he helped make the targets as well as shoot them.
He also is the ringleader of Vicious Circle.
I first met Mike W. at the NRA meeting in 2008. He is also a frequent commenter here.
He says I’m a celebrity so I need to keep reminding Barb that she sleeps with one.
Say Uncle and Alan decided they had to expose Breda and me to southern food. A group of ten of us went out to dinner. Say Uncle recommended the shrimp and grits which I did enjoy. Breda liked the greens and said, “I could eat these forever!”
After dinner was over, about 22:30, I was just coming alive and ready to talk until 2:00 or 3:00 but everyone else was a wimp (and mostly on east coast time instead of west coast like me) and said they were headed back to their hotels for the night.
Tomorrow, I really will get out on the exhibit floor and take a bunch of pictures.
Alan Gura v. Paul Helmke
Say Uncle beat me with my own picture and what I planned to make QOTD tomorrow (I’ll have a different one from Paul from today to use tomorrow). Countertop has a picture of us. Jeff has some more pictures.
Here is my take on the debate we just saw with a slightly edited version of the same picture Say Uncle used:
Proof I shared space with Alan Gura and Paul Helmke.
Alan Gura. Our point man in the war for our civil rights.
Paul Helmke. The point man in the war on our civil rights.
Paul Helmke shakes hands with Say Uncle.
Countertop, Paul Helmke, Jeff Bishop, and Say Uncle.
The debate was civil and interesting. The gun bloggers (yes, we have some biases) were of the opinion that Alan was holding back some and could have “mopped the floor” with Helmke.
Paul did make a point that surprised us. He pointed out that the First Amendment has been ruled to protect the right to view pornography and other potentially harmful material in private but allows “reasonable regulation” of those same activities in public. “The Second Amendment should allow similar restrictions.”, he said. We would disagree with this point in that the Second Amendment specifically enumerates the right to bear arms and the purpose of defending innocent life. But it was a surprise and an interesting take on things.
I asked the first question when it was opened up to the floor. I pointed out that Paul had specifically called out gun violence when comparing U.S. v. U.K. when Alan had pointed out that the U.K. is one of the most violent countries in the world. Paul had sidestepped Alan’s point by ignoring the total violence rate. Paul responded by saying his organization focuses on the one component of violence. Alan followed up better that I could have. He said the violent crime rate in the U.S. is lower than in the U.K. even though the rate of violent crimes committed with guns in the U.S. is higher. For example the burglaries in the U.S. are done when the occupants are away because they are afraid of being shot (prison interview confirm this). In the U.K. criminals frequently invade homes when people are home because people have money and person items of value. This causes more confrontation between criminals and their unarmed victims. He also pointed out that regardless of the utility (or lack thereof) of some social policy we are talking about a protected constitutional right that does not depend on the crime rate for it to be protected. Constitutional law does not look to the social sciences for validation.
Quote of the day–Alice Marie Beard
I had the perfect chance to put a bullet thru the back of his head. I regret that I did not do so.
…
How easily I could have pretended to stumble, shooting him in the back of the head. An accident. Folks would have felt sorry for the young girl and might have wondered why the old man had been so careless. A blameless tragedy. I could have done it so easily.
Alice Marie Beard
Ray Pierce, pedophile, Montmorency Co., Michigan
[I’m not sure what to say about this. I understand why she says that. But I wonder if there would be regrets for taking the action she didn’t and who is to say that a five ten year old is sufficiently mature to make those decisions. When confronted with immediate threat of death of permanent injury, sure. But this is a little different.
Update: Ms. Beard informs me she was ten when the opportunity occurred.–Joe]
Registration day at the NRA annual meeting
The weather is just a little on the warm side of what I am comfortable with and the humidity is pretty high but it’s still well within tolerable limits.
There is lots of press coverage. Below is a picture of the mobile units from a couple local television stations. I later saw a “talking head” standing around in front of a camera wait for their time to say a few sentences.
In the picture below the three people on the left are NRA staff. On the right are Sebastian and Bitter. In between are the media badges.
Below is the view of the exhibit floor from the Press Office.
At ~17:30 a few bloggers and some NRA staff went to a bar for drinks and to talk. Say Uncle showed up not too much later.
At ~19:30 a few of the bloggers went to a restaurant at the Westin Hotel where we had very small tasty meals which were very expensive and very pretty.
At ~20:30 we moved to a bar in the Westin where Dave Kopel and other high powered legal types hung out with us and kept us enthralled with stories from behind the scenes and what may and may not be possible for the right to keep and bear arms in the future. I also met George after years of occasional correspondence.
At ~12:45 the last of the bloggers and one of the legal minds retired. Two lawyers went off to smoke. One a cigar and the other a pipe.
Tomorrow I will spend most of the day on the exhibit floor.
On my way
I’m on my way to Charolette for the NRA annual meetings.
I made it through A Security Theater at Seatac with only a minor hassle.
Because I was checking a gun through in my baggage TSA handles the bag “special”. They opened up the suitcase, pulled out the hard-sided case with the handgun and swabbed the interior for explosives. The gun was in a side compartment and they didn’t even see the gun. They just wanted to swab the interior of the gun case.
What do they think that is supposed to do? Other than, of course, irritate me.
How to get the answer you want
When I was in college at the University of Idaho I remember fellow electrical engineering student Marget M. (her father happened to be one of my favorite EE professors) explain “The Fudge Function” as was sometimes used in the labs by students who didn’t get the correct results. “You multiply by zero and add the correct answer”, she said.
Looking at things a little differently
I was browsing through some screed by the VPC about civilian “sniper rifles” and it made mention of how ours law allows civilians to own the same equipment as law enforcement and the military. This is essentially true but the wording is a little misleading.
It would be more correct to say that the people allow law enforcement and the military to use the same equipment as civilians.
Number of Colleges Allowing Concealed Carry on Campus Doubles
Via email from Daniel Crocker:
I don’t know if you have seen anything about this, but the number of colleges allowing concealed carry on campus has more than doubled this week. Especially as this has not received any media coverage, I feel that this is a substantial news issue that should be covered and would be of interest to your readers. I’ve gone into more detail about this below, but feel free to email or call me at the address below for any additional information.
Prior to this week, only twelve colleges in the entire nation explicitly allowed carry of a firearm: The ten public colleges of Utah, Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia and Colorado State University. Following a substantial ruling to remove the ban at the University of Colorado, the fourteen colleges in the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) voted to rescind their current ban and allow any licensed adult with a concealed carry permit to exercise that right while on campus. While I cannot find any direct news articles about it, you may link to the revised policy at:
http://www.cccs.edu/SBCCOE/Policies/SP/PDF/SP19-10.pdf
This action alone more than doubles the number of universities and colleges allowing concealed carry from twelve to twenty-six.
In addition, one of the two community colleges in Colorado not part of the CCCS, Aims Community College, has scheduled a meeting to make the same changes in their policies. You may view an article about this at:
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20100511/NEWS/100519933/1007
This dramatic shift follows in the wake of a ruling against a similar policy at the University of Colorado. Members of Students of Concealed Carry on Campus (Concealedcampus.org) and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (Rmgo.org) originally filed suit against the University of Colorado claiming that state law preempted any governmental entity, including the Board of Governors, from banning concealed carry license holders from possessing a firearm on campus. While the initial ruling went against the firearms activists, it was reversed on appeal:
http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=8082
The Colorado State University (CSU) Board of Governors originally voted to reverse the long standing policy of allowing students with state-issues concealed carry permits to possess firearms on campus shortly after the initial ruling:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14454241
Over the last seven years while the policy had been in place, crime had rapidly decreased and not a single instance of gun misuse by a licensee has been reported. The new ban was opposed by CSU’s student government, the county sheriff, the editorial boards of both the campus newspaper and the Colorado Springs Gazette, as well as more than 1,000 students who signed a petition against the ban in just a few short days. Larimer County Sheriff Jim Aberdeen, was so outraged by its passage that he told local media that he intended to undermine it by refusing to book violators of the ban into his jail, which the CSU police department utilizes for arrests. In the wake of the recent ruling however, Colorado State University has reversed it’s ban on firearms.
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_15027249
This issue will likely continue to be fought in court. For the time being however, it appears that some Colorado students and faculty will be allowed an option for self defense and that some criminals will no longer have a governmental guarantee that their potential victims will be unarmed.
Regards,
Daniel Crocker
Southwest Regional Director,
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
Daniel.Crocker@concealedcampus.org
(205) 370-9126
I am have more than the usual interest in this topic because I have two daughters and a niece in college. Two of them have concealed carry licenses and are prohibited from using the most effective defensive tools should they be attacked.
Quote of the day–JadeGold
So how do you measure a “potential terrorist”?
NRA ballcap or decal.
JadeGold
May 6, 2010
In the comments to Bloomberg on the “Terror Gap”.
[And when 80,000 “potential terrorists” get together this weekend just think of the havoc they will create. And it happens every year. It’s time people realized we can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately have freedom of association…
Oh, that’s right, the people at a NRA convention are extremely well behaved. It’s when a dozen or more leftists get together that they frequently riot and/or destroy property. The leftist terrorist organizations (FALN, ALF, ELF, anarchists, revolutionary socialists, etc.) commit far more crimes in this country than all the conservative, right-wing (National Alliance, WCOTC, Aryan Nation), and libertarian (have there any been libertarian terrorist organizations?) organizations combined.
I guess it must be the mental problems of JadeGold causing them to engage in projection.–Joe]
I think I detect a note of sarcasm
Or perhaps, as Peter Zatloukal has said, an entire symphony of sarcasm:
After hearing the news that consideration was being given to National Guard troops being dispatched to the city of Chicago to quell violence, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Mayor Daley and Governor Quinn.
Mayor, Governor, congratulations. Your pathological efforts to disarm the honest law-abiding citizens of the state of Illinois have finally paid off in a most graphic way. By making Illinois one of only two states in the United States that denies its citizens the rights granted under the Second Amendment, you have succeeded in turning the city of Chicago into a war zone. Since the beginning of 2010, there have been more Americans killed in Chicago than in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Congratulations, great job, I hope you’re proud.
Frank Ladonne
Buffalo Grove
Kevin asks why, I have the answer
Kevin points out that the other side lies, extensively, even when actual numbers are easy to come by and their lies are easily exposed.
He asks why do they do that. That is actually an easy question to answer.
As I have demonstrated before they are incapable of determining truth from falsity. They cannot distinguish their fantasy world from reality. This is part of the reason they can be so convincing with their lies. They actually believe them. The other reason they can be very convincing is that many of their audience want to believe them. They want to believe there are solutions as simple as congress flipping a switch and making the Boogie Monster under the bed go away.
They are frequently pathetic creatures for whom the light switch on the wall is, in a very real sense, magical. They have no concept of how things actually work. How else do you explain their belief that some collection of people could write down set of rules on a piece of paper and evil people, who fail to obey existing rules against violence crime, will suddenly obey still another rule to turn in or destroy their tools which enable them to pursue their chosen evil ways?
Of course do not underestimate our opponents. As Sean likes to point out, not all of them are so simple minded.
Quote of the day–Sheriff Richard I. Mack
Police have a difficult and thankless job. They put their lives on the line every day in a world affected by drugs and violence and social decay. May each of us in this noble profession, as we pursue the guilty among us, never be guilty ourselves of the greater crime: violating our oath in God’s name to defend the constitutional rights of the people for whom we work.
Sheriff Richard I. Mack
From My Cold Dead Fingers–Why America Needs Guns, Third Edition (“Final Chapter”), page 217.
[I have an autographed, and addressed to me, copy of this book. I found it in the garage when cleaning this weekend. I don’t remember buying it. I remember it laying around, but I don’t remember when or where I bought it. Probably at a gun show someplace. I haven’t read it yet. I just scanned it a some.
There are lots and lots of great quotes in it. You’ll be hearing more from this book.–Joe]
After hours with the Boomershoot staff
After the main event is over and most of the participants have left there is still work to be done. There is trash to be picked up, trash cans to be emptied, caution tape and signs to be taken down, stakes to be pulled and put away, and the left over targets have to be burned or detonated. I drive the ATV back and forth from the field to the Taj carrying trailer loads of stuff to be put away. The staff with ATF approval to handle explosives take care of the left over and damaged targets. The ones damaged too much to be moved are detonated in place.
No sound system we have tried can really capture the experience but Barron has the rest of the story and the video from this year. At about 3:00 minutes in Rolf demonstrates his .357 and Entertainingly Close.
Blacklists
I surprises me that as much history as we have in this country on blacklisting people exercising a specific enumerated right that people have not learned the appropriate lessons. We need to make sure the people advocating for blacklisting of people who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights get the same treatment by history as those who infringed upon people’s First Amendment rights 60 years ago.
Stripping controls from taxpayers
From the editorial The Gun Lobby’s Long Shadow in the NY Times:
Senator John McCain and other members of the gun lobby’s cohort are pressing for legislation to strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls as owner registration and a ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles — laws already upheld by the courts.
First off, the owner registration and “ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles” was not upheld in the Supreme Court. My presumption is that they are talking about the Heller decision which merely said registration and bans on certain types of guns were not at issue in the decision.
Second, it is very telling the way the writer words things, “strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls…” It has not been proposed the taxpayers be stripped of anything other than “chains”. It has been proposed the local government be stripped of a claimed power than infringes on a specific enumerated right. The wording used is analogous to someone whining about proposed legislation that would eliminate registration of blacks and prohibitions against them being in public after dark after the 13th Amendment was passed.
Such basic controls are just common sense, right? It was foolish to pass the 13th Amendment but even if we accept it at face value surely no one can believe that it can mean that the people will be stripped of basic common sense Jim Crow laws. Can they?
Bigotry is an ugly thing. No matter where it is found.
Quote of the day–Sebastian
I’m sure the Administration’s position that “Thou shalt have no position on guns,” drives Holder nuttier than a fruitcake. It’s a joy to watch.
Sebastian
May 7, 2010
You Can Tell it Just Drives Him Nuts
[One might argue Holder was already “nuttier than a fruitcake” but that is just being nit-picky. It is definitely a joy to watch.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Steven F. Hayward
According to the annual Freedom House survey of democracy and liberty around the globe, there was almost no increase in freedom during Carter’s presidency. Instead, both Iran and Nicaragua, principal targets of Carter’s human rights policy, became human rights disasters; the Soviets cracked down on human rights activists Anatoly Scharansky and Aleksandr Ginzburg; and Carter’s foreign policy weakness encouraged the Soviets to invade Afghanistan. The aftershocks of Carter’s foreign policy failures reverberated most powerfully in the Islamic fundamentalist terrorism we have today. It was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that created the mujahadeen, who revived the idea of jihad. More important, the fall of the shah in Iran gave Islamic fundamentalist radicalism an enormous state sponsor and inspiration and made being an American ally in the Middle East seem more dangerous than being an American foe. Carter’s idealism failed in confronting communism during his presidency and later in confronting communist North Korea. Carter idealism–if it can be called that–in the Middle East would have us side with the terrorist PLO rather than the democratic Israel, and would have us on a perpetual merry-go-round of talks aimed at appeasing Arab dictators rather than toppling them or challenging them to reform and cease sponsoring terrorism.
Steven F. Hayward
The Real Jimmy Carter, page 230.
[One can claim, with reasonable ability to defend the thesis, that Carter was a “nice guy” and had “good intentions”. But the results of his policy are just like the “nice guys” who have “good intentions” and want infringe our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They fail. They fail because they are naive. “Bad guys” exist. Bad guys take advantage of the weak. It is, as George Orwell said, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Guns in the hands of the common person allow them to sleep peaceably in your bed at night because they can do their own violence when it becomes necessary to defend themselves and other innocent life. It is hopelessly naive to believe removing the power to do violence from the innocent will ever make the world a better place. At every level from the individual through city, state, and national level the means and the will to defend the innocent will always be a requirement for a safe and just society.
H/T to Davidwhitewolf who donated the author signed copy of The Real Jimmy Carter to the Boomershoot raffle. The inscription reads “Dear Boomershooter, Thanks for supporting the 2nd Amendment, Boomershoot 2010, and Project Valor-IT, [signed] Steven F. Hayward. I put many raffle tickets in the bucker for this book but someone else got it. They brought it to me afterward and asked me to blow it up for them. “Huh? Didn’t you read the find print on the jacket cover? It says, ‘How our worst ex-president undermines American foreign policy, coddles dictators, and created the party of Clinton and Kerry’?” Nope. They hadn’t read the fine print. I said that I would be glad to take the book and even blow it up for them if they really wanted that. But I would rather read it and use it as a source of quotes. They agreed and gave it to me.–Joe]
Recovered?
Does it bother anyone else when the government talks about “recovering” guns from citizens? An example:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ New York Division traced 9,673 guns in 2009, more than half were recovered in New York City. Handguns outnumbered long guns in New York by two and a half percent, and in New York City that number increased to four to one.
Or, more directly, on page three here:
The Statistics used in this report were gathered and prepared in February of 2010 from a data set that was created as of February 15, 2010 and includes crime gun recovery information with a recovery date between January 1, 2009 to December 31st, 2009. The statistics from this report are taken from data submitted to be traced by all law enforcement within the jurisdiction of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) New York Field Division and ATF National Tracing Center (NTC). If the recovery date is blank then the date that the trace was entered into the Firearms Tracing System was used. This yearly report was created to show firearm patterns and trends for certain geographic areas within New York State. Reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy and completeness of the statistics. The statistics may change due to the finalization of traces and/or recovery information. All data excludes traces with a completion code of XX or DT which correspond to Duplicate Traces. Additionally Gun Buy Backs and Firearms Not Recovered are excluded. The data was gathered by the following criteria: Recovery State = NY, if the Recovery State is blank, then Requestor OA_State= NY, if blank, then SA_State= NY Recovery County = ______________, based upon the counties for each geographic. Successful traces are those traces where a final purchaser was found as deemed by the NTC, Martinsburg West Virginia. “In Progress” traces are those that are still being researched by the NTC For traces involving New York State Police with more than one Originating Number (ORI #), all of these traces were grouped as one ORI number even though they have separate ORI numbers.
What they really mean is “confiscated“. “Recovered” has an entirely different meaning which is totally inappropriate for what is going on.
I don’t have a problem with the government confiscating things, even guns, under certain situations. And sometimes “recovered” is in fact what is going on. If some criminal stole my guns I would be pleased if the police confiscated them from the bad guy and recovered them for me. But to talk about all confiscated guns as “recovered” is Orwellian and I don’t like it.