Whenever I get a chance to ask anti-gun people questions in public I do my best to take advantage of it.

People in the Indianapolis area have their chance today:

INDIANAPOLIS – Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and a former Fort Wayne mayor, plans to speak in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Helmke is scheduled to speak on what he calls weak guns laws in Indiana and the nation at the Lecture Hall building on the campus of Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis beginning at 6 p.m. The event is being sponsored by a group called Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence.

Helmke says a recent Brady Center analysis of crime data shows that Indiana ranks fifth in the nation in the number of crime guns exported to other states. He says Indiana also ranks fourth in its per-capita rate of total crime gun sales.

If you go then dress appropriately, be polite, and leave your tin-foil hat at home.

I like to imagine that once we reach some critical threshold in the courts the victories will be almost automatic and our opponents will scatter like rabbits at the sight of a large predator. It may be true that we reach that point but we aren’t there yet:

The latest example is a decision late Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which said that a criminal defendant may not be allowed to present a Second Amendment defense to a federal jury in Utah. It came after the appeals court granted an extraordinary emergency appeal, called a writ of mandamus, from the Justice Department after the district judge agreed to allow those jury instructions.

The defendant, Rick Engstrum, has an earlier misdemeanor domestic violence conviction and has been charged with possessing a firearm in violation of a federal law that applies to anyone “who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” He has pleaded not guilty.

(The prosecution arose when Engstrum broke up with his girlfriend, who subsequently told police that he had a gun in his bedroom. Engstrum voluntarily showed police the gun, which he inherited from his father; there’s no evidence he has ever used the firearm, let alone threatened anyone with it.)

Engstrum, reasonably, wanted to argue to the jury that the Second Amendment renders that law invalid, at least when applied to people who show no risk of future violence. (Remember, this is a Utah jury, which raises the odds that jurors are familiar with the right to keep and bear arms, and may even have heard of the concept of jury nullification.)

The Justice Department rejected this idea out of hand. By a 2-1 margin, a Tenth Circuit panel agreed, concluded that the Second Amendment didn’t apply, and prohibited those jury instructions. “If the case proceeds to trial, the district court is directed not to instruct the jury on this Second Amendment defense, including not giving the proposed jury instruction,” they wrote.

The defense isn’t allowed to even bring up the Second Amendment.

We need incorporation and then we need to attack a whole barge load of infringements one tiny step at a time. The Heller decision was just the tiniest of steps in the right direction.

There is a lot of work ahead of us.

This guy apparently wanted free room and board at tax payer expense so yesterday he, indirectly, requested the local police transport him to his new accommodations:

According to information from the Birmingham Police Department, the Birmingham Police 911 Communications Center received a call about 7:00am CT Wednesday, August 12, 2009, from a man stating his intent to kill a Birmingham Police Officer.

The man called the officer by name and further stated that if he could not find that officer, he would kill every Birmingham Police Officer until he found that particular officer.
Detectives gathered information received by the communications center and later identified the caller as the suspect Marlon Simmons.

After obtaining a warrant for the subject, the Birmingham Police Crime Reduction Team (CRT) located the subject at his home at 7232 2nd Avenue North.

The subject was taken into custody without incident, but was found to have a rifle and handgun in his possession.

Nothing particularly blog-worthy there but what is interesting to me is the following:

While executing the search warrant investigators recovered an SKS type rifle, AR-15 rifle, 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun, hobby cord (fuse), body armor, and assorted ammunition.

According to ATF Agents the shotgun was illegal due to its magazine capacity that is between 10 to 20 shotgun shells.

Huh? There is a Federal law on shotgun magazine capacity? Sure, if it is a “Street Sweeper” or some other specific shotgun with a scary name or looks I know the U.S. Attorney General declared them “destructive device” and got them banned. But the above article sounds a little more generic than that. So doing a little more research I came up with this, an ATF letter stating (emphasis added):

A shotgun with a telescoping stock or a magazine greater than 5 rounds is prohibited from importation into the United States under the provisions of section 925(d)(3) of Title 18, United states code (U.S.C.). Assembly of such a shotgun from imported parts is prohibited under 18, U.S.C. Section 922(r). The implementing regulations in Title 27, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 478, Section 478.39 (formerly Part 178, Section 178.39) prohibit assembly of such a shotgun that contains more than 10 of the imported parts listed in paragraph (c) of the regulation. Please see the enclosed brochure for further information. Assembly of such a shotgun using 10 or less of the listed import parts is not prohibited. The shotgun is also subject to whatever State laws and local ordinances may apply.

I’ve looked up all the Title 18 and 27, section and subsection mumbo-jumbo and was unable to find any references to a five, or any other number, round limit. Did I just miss it? Or did the AG make a declaration that anything over five rounds was “not being particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes”?

I’ve sent a couple emails out to lawyers to see if I can get this clarified.

Update: My lawyer friend Mike came back with the answer:

This has to do with the import ban on “assault weapons” first put in by (former) NRA member George H.W. Bush in 1989. Under the GCA, the Secretary (now the AG) can bar importation of firearms that are not “particularly suitable for sporting purposes”. The import ban made a list of “assault weapons” unimportable per se. The 10 parts rule is contained in the reg cited. I remember that it was popular for a while to buy an American made Fal receiver and assemble it with 9 foreign parts.

The original AWB in 1994 had the following definition:

Section 921. Definitions
      (a) As used in this chapter –
                    (30) The term “semiautomatic assault weapon” means –
       
                (D) a semiautomatic shotgun that has at least 2 of –
          (i) a folding or telescoping stock;
          (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the
        action of the weapon;
          (iii) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of 5 rounds; and
          (iv) an ability to accept a detachable magazine.

After the AWB ban expired in 2004 the ATF kept the definition in their policies to determine what is “particularly suitable for sporting purposes”:

Nonsporting Firearms – such as handguns which do not meet the sporting purpose criteria on ATF Form 4590, any rifle or shotgun with a folding stock or folding bayonet, and shotguns having a fixed magazine with a capacity of more than 5 cartridges and certain military style semiautomatic rifles and shotguns.

I think we have another opportunity for our congress critters to do some reform on our gun laws in the form of an amendment to some “must pass” legislation. In light of the Heller decision the “sporting purposes” definition needs to go. The Second Amendment isn’t about “sporting purposes”.

A report on guns on campus after one year.

What? No professors shot for not giving someone the grade they thought they deserved? No shooting demonstrations at the keggers?

Nope. Everything is pretty much the same, including the gun-grabbers still refuse to acknowledge the obvious solution to, and contributing cause of, school shootings:

One year ago, David Thweatt made a decision so controversial and groundbreaking the story about it sped around the world.

The superintendent of the isolated Harrold Independent School District, about 30 miles northwest of here, made history last August when he and his school board decided to allow select teachers and staff members at the 110-student school to carry guns on campus — a first for Texas and the nation.

…

“Would you stick a sign at a school that says, ‘No guns on this property’? Why wouldn’t you? It invites nasty people to come,” he said. “That’s what you’ve done to every public school in the nation. That’s why there were no shootings until Columbine. It’s turned into a dad-gum shoot fest.”

…

When a London reporter asked Thweatt to explain why so many kooks go into schools looking for a body count, Thweatt said he couldn’t explain such a devolution of society, but he did know a simple way to stop it — the same solution he chose for Harrold ISD.

“Good guys with guns — good,” he said. “Bad guys with guns — bad.”

Reputo demonstrates that if someone claims the firearm homicide reductions in the late 90s were influenced by the anti-gun laws passed in ’93 and ’94 then those same laws can be claimed to have reduced the homicides by sharp objects and suffocation.

Nice job!

My lawyer friends tell me it’s going to be good for a laugh to see the Feds twist and turn a little bit but not much more. I hope they are wrong but I do enjoy laughing. Have your popcorn and soft drinks ready by October:

The man who helped write the bill that exempts federal regulation of Montana made firearms says that the idea is gaining support around the country.

The state legislature passed the Montana Firearms Freedom Ac during its last session and now the Montana Shooting Sports Association plans to file a lawsuit on October 1st.

The suit will challenge the authority of Congress to regulate Montana manufactured guns, accessories and ammunition that stays in the state according to Montana Shooting Sports Association President Gary Marbut.

Last month the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms sent out a letter stating that the federal law still applies in Montana.

Marbut says that ATF acknowledgment will help the Montana Shooting Sports Association gain standing in its lawsuit.