Your last day to vote in Para USA’s gun blogger contest. You’re voting to send your favorite gun blogger there and for a chance to win a spot yourself.

And if you vote for Joe, you may get to see Todd Jarrett blow up a car by shooting at it.

After Heller, comes this.

Highlights received via email:

Official Washington DC firearm registration pamphlet issued
Interesting highlights:

1. Only shotguns*/**, rifles**, and revolvers can be registered.
*Shotguns with a barrel length less than 20″ aren’t legal.
**Any semi-automatic firearm that can fire or could be made/restored to fire more than 12 rounds without being manually reloaded is illegal.

2. NFA and semi-automatic handguns are illegal.

3. You must be 21 or older to register ANY firearm.

4. Anyone found guilty of any prostitution-related offense is disqualified from registering a firearm. (Never heard of this restriction in any other state before..!)

5. Cost is $13 per firearm plus a $35 fingerprinting fee and it can take up to 14 days to get the registration through.

More:

Pass a test?

I’m one to talk but they could have sprung the $$ for a proof reader.

I think that semi-auto handgun thing is going to get DC into more trouble. If It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon, then the fact a semi-auto handgun is the most popular, well, you know.

And:

Must not suffer from a physical defect which would make it unsafe for you to possess and use a firearm safely and responsibly.

Wow.

More: Safe storage (i.e., useless storage) has gone from required to strongly encouraged.

$48 in fees.

But of course: Hours of operation at inconvenient times for working folks.

14 days is a long time to wait, if someone is trying to kill you.

Glenn:

What’s most striking about Heller is that absolutely everybody — majority and dissents — says the Second Amendment protects an individual right.

But:

It’s true that the dissenters’ view of that right is somewhere between “minimalist” (to be charitable) and “incoherent” (to be accurate).

Mike has an interesting observation:

Now we are in the Post-Heller United States (feels kind of nice to say that) the “reasonable gun control folk” are offering compromises. Funny thing is, their compromises now are pretty much the same as their compromises then

Update: See.

Bersa.

Kopel can’t find the right that Stevens says exists.

GOP Plans to keep guns in spotlight this election.

But let’s remind them that a few gun banners had Rs after their names (ahem, Helmke & Blooberg).

From the Netherlands of all places:

Gun Control Lost; What Happened

It’s really quite simple: gun control legislation did not reduce violence. Secondly, people started actually reading the text of the second amendment of the United States Constitution. Thirdly, ‘laws allowing concealed weapons proliferated – with no ill effects.’

Via Bane.

Heller: on track to be the most widely read Supreme Court opinions by the general public of all-time.

I’ve been critical of in the past – after all, when they go from reporting news to making it, it can’t be good

It happened. I thought it’d go the other way. See, I thought those idiots at NBC’s To Catch A Predator would one day find themselves in a room with a nutjob who was armed. And carnage would ensue. Instead, they filmed a show and the would be predator decided to introduce his brains to the light of day.

His family sued. NBC settled.

That’s a lot of AKs

Wow! A piece on Heller at the HuffPo that features no PSH?

First, an Illinois City manager says if you support gun rights then you supprt gangbangers.

The NYT on Heller comes pre-fisked.

Remember, thinking that police will come confiscate your guns means you’re part of the lunatic fringe (and probably also bitter).

Blaming Heller for a judge advising someone to arm themselves?

Gamo now makes an air shotgun. Sweet.

Keep your booger-hook off the bang-switch!

Joe blows stuff up, namely an appropriately named beer.

Carteach breaks out the Mosin. Nice looking rifle. I should have picked one of those up at the last gun show.

These moratoriums on local gun bans are an effort to avoid challenges to them. They should be challenged anyway.

That seems to be the gist of the Heller spin for Obama. Articles keep popping up with that theme, like this one:

Did Obama Dodge a Bullet on Gun Control?

What were the candidates’ reactions to yesterday’s landmark decision on gun rights by the Supreme Court? John McCain supported it, and Barack Obama … kind of supported it. There’s a paper trail suggesting Obama was for the D.C. ban, but yesterday he claimed to have “always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms” — while also seeing the need for “common-sense, effective safety measures” to protect “crime-ravaged communities.”

No. He did not. See, he thought that his alleged belief in an individual right to arms was perfectly consistent with banning handguns in DC. He supports and has supported all manner of gun control. This spin that the issue is now off the table is ridiculous on its face to anyone paying attention.

Supreme court viewed more favorably since Heller ruling.

Dave Kopel looks at Heller and its effect on New York’s gun laws.

In the latest move elevating Barack Shamalamadingding Obama to minor deity status, his supporters are taking his middle name. I shit you not:

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

Really? And I show how dumb the middle name thing is by making fun of it.

Story and middle name via Breda.

Paul Helmke, trying to save his job, writes of Heller:

Because of this Court decision, proposals such as Brady background checks on all gun sales, limiting bulk sales of handguns, restricting access to military-style assault weapons, and strengthening the power of law enforcement to shut down corrupt gun dealers can now be debated on their merits without them being seen as a “first step on the road to gun confiscation.”

Generally, you lose based on the merits too.

Morton Grove suspends gun ban.

Holy crap: Wilmette has suspended enforcement of its 19-year-old ordinance banning handgun possession in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that appears to invalidate such bans.

Update: The cynic in me says we’ll see more of this to avoid challenges that lead to incorporation. After all, Brady tried to talk Fenty out of his appeal.

Update: Ouch: Do the Brady’s still want to keep calling this a victory?

I haven’t really said too much on the Heller ruling to this point, in large part because gun rights and gun control aren’t the hot button issue for me that they are for most here (like Uncle). I will say that I think that the right decision was reached here, although I worry about the reasoning used to get there, and I worry even more about the growing tendency of Supreme Court justices — from both wings — to go on historical fishing expeditions to find legal justification for the outcomes they personally prefer. (Really, when was the last time you saw a SCOTUS justice — liberal, conservative, or otherwise — rule that “I hate this outcome, but this is what the law says,” or something along those lines?) On this note, I think Sandy Levinson hits it pretty squarely on the head:

Then there are the “internal” features of the opinions. I confess that I am equally dismayed by the Scalia and Stevens opinions (though, if absolutely forced to choose, I’d go with the Scalia opinion). One of the most remarkable features of Justice Scalia’s majority opinion (joined, of course, by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito) and Justice Stevens’s dissent (joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter) is the view that the Second Amendment means only what it meant at the time of its proposal and ratification in 1789-91. Justice Scalia, of course, has long been identified with “originalism,” even though some of his critics, both liberal and conservative, note that he has been a most inconsistent one. But Justice Stevens has certainly not embraced originalism. Yet they spend a total of 110 pages debating arcane aspects of the purported original meaning of the Amendment.

If one had any reason to believe that either Scalia or Stevens was a competent historian, then perhaps it would be worth reading the pages they write. But they are not. Both opinions exhibit the worst kind of “law-office history,” in which each side engages in shamelessly (and shamefully) selective readings of the historical record in order to support what one strongly suspects are pre-determined positions. And both Scalia and Stevens treat each other—and, presumably, their colleagues who signed each of the opinions—with basic contempt, unable to accept the proposition, second nature to professional historians, that the historical record is complicated and, indeed, often contradictory. Justice Stevens, for example, writes that anyone who reads the text of the Second Amendment and its history, plus a murky 1939 decision of the Court, will find “a clear answer” to the question of whether the Second Amendment supports a “right to possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes.” This is simply foolish. Justice Stevens pays no real attention to a plethora of first-rate historical work written over the past decade that challenges this kind of foolish self-confidence, as is true also of Justice Scalia. There is no serious discussion, for example, of Saul Cornell’s fine book A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control, but many other examples could be offered, from various sides of the ideological spectrum.

Both Scalia and Stevens manifest what is worst about Supreme Court rhetoric, which is precisely the tone of sublime confidence when addressing even the most complex of issues. The late Victoria Geng once wrote a marvelous parody of Supreme Court decisions in which, among other things, the Court announced that “nature is more important than nurture.” We wouldn’t take such a declaration seriously. It is not clear why we should take much more seriously the kinds of over-confident declarations as to historical meaning that both Scalia and Stevens indulge in.

What is especially ironic is that the strongest support for Scalia’s position comes from acknowledging that the Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, has been “dynamically” interpreted and has taken on some quite different meanings from those it originally had. Whatever might have been the case in 1787 with regard the linkage of guns to service in militias—and the historical record is far more mixed on this point than either Scalia or Stevens is willing to acknowledge—there can be almost no doubt that by the mid-19th century, an individual right to bear arms was widely accepted as a basic attribute of American citizenship. One of the reasons that the Court in Dred Scott denied that blacks could be citizens was precisely that Chief Justice Taney recognized that citizens could carry guns, and it was basically unthinkable that blacks could do so. Thus, in effect, they could not be citizens. Charles Sumner, who, unlike Taney is quoted by Scalia, strongly endorsed the rights of anti-slavery settlers in Kansas to have guns to protect themselves against their pro-slavery opponents. If one reads only Scalia and Stevens, one would believe that there is no dynamism to the Constitution, which is both stupid as a theory of interpretation and, more to the point, completely misleading as a way of understanding the American constitutional tradition.

So, everyone is posting their ATF celebration photos on the internets after Heller. Here’s mine:

Note that I have an E. The powdered sugar isn’t just for mint juleps, ya know. I was out of coffee creamer. I can’t decide on the bourbon or scotch. However, the cigar for the evening will be a Rocky Patel.

Update: for those wondering, it was bourbon.

Suits filed in San Fran with SAF and Calif State Rifle and Pistol; then in Chicago, Morton Grove, Oak Park and Evanston, IL.

Update: Presser here.

American Manifesto notes that Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Ownership said:

Right to carry states are 48 of the 50 states right now…If there are clear restrictions on people [felons and the mentally ill] and to make sure that they know what they’re doing with the gun, that they pass the background checks, that the local police have signed off on it, that’s something that doesn’t cause that many problems

Note, even when he quotes our statistics, he gets them wrong. But still. How’d I miss that?

Post Heller: banning becomes regulating.

Another post Heller suit heading to Cali?

So, how does one lawfully get guns into DC? Even after Heller takes effect, it’s a tough issue due to zoning:

Washington has no federally licensed gun stores, so nowhere in the city can residents buy a handgun legally.

Not true, really. There is one licensed firearms dealer in the city. One Josh Sugarmann of the anti-gun shill group the Violence Policy Center.

They can be reached at:

Violence Policy Center
1730 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Suite 1014
Washington, DC 20036

phone (202) 822 8200

Ask them what they’re charging for transfers. If they say they don’t do them, remind them that, thanks in part to their kind’s lobbying efforts, it is typically viewed a violation of federal law to hold an FFL and not be in the business of dealing firearms.

Update: another suggestion is to get a C&R.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley:

You have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle in the streets.

My pacifist nature prevents me from accepting your challenge.

Via Tam, who says: Awwww. Who’s the sad clown? Who’s the sad clown?

Bazookas and black helicopters? That the best you can do? No wonder we win.

Paul Helmke looked beaten. And continues to lie about precedent. But he says it’s history and now the law of the land is clear.

Commenter Craig:

First, I don’t own a gun. I don’t have a FOID card. I don’t belong to the NRA.

But how on earth are gun laws protecting citizens? Bruce, read your own paper. How many people have been shot over the past week? Year? Yeah, that gun ban is really working.

Some gun control group spokesmonkey:

We are concerned the resources are going to be diverted to the defense of laws already on the books

And Heller Followed With Him

I think we should have shirts made for Alan Gura that say that.

S&W stock up!

A Human Right, A Civil Right: Fundamental, Pre-existing, Strictly Scrutinized, Universal, and Incorporated

We won! Now what?

Well, challenges are already filed in Chicago and here’s the Chicago Gun Case Website:

Following Thursday’s (5-4) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms, and that a municipal gun ban violates that right, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) filed a federal lawsuit (complaint) challenging the City of Chicago’s long-standing handgun ban.

“Chicago’s handgun ban has failed to stop violent crime,” SAF founder Alan Gottlieb stated. “It’s time to give the Constitution a chance.”

And Kevin got to talk with Gura!

The American Hunters And Shooters Association once claimed 25,000 members. They seem to have lost some:

Pushed hard by skeptical writers in the audience, Schoenke declined to say how many members AHSA had, but said that more than a thousand members paid membership dues in the past year.

Diane Feinstein, after adjusting her carry piece, said:

I must admit as much as I knew this decision was coming, I was viscerally affected by the decision.

I remember both Justice Roberts and Justice Alito sitting in front of us and indicating how they would respect stare decisis and precedent – and this decision takes down 70 years of precedent.

Trouble is, no such precedent exists.

Bob Tuke, Senate Candidate:

The Second Amendment provides for a constitutional right of responsible gun ownership, and I support the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the absolute gun ban that had been enacted in our nation’s capital. If elected to the U.S. Senate, I will remain vigilant in upholding the right to bear arms of law abiding citizens of the United States.

More Dems like this please. And a twofer:

Russ Feingold:

I think this is a long overdue decision; I don’t think the precedent has been seriously reaffirmed in decades.

Compared to Lautenberg:

Today, President Bush’s radical Supreme Court justices put rigid ideology ahead of the safety of communities in New Jersey and across the country. This decision illustrates why I have strongly opposed extremist judicial nominees and will continue to do so in the future.

Those extremist judges with whom 73% of the population agrees!!!!!

Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership got like four supporters to show up!

CBS, your anti-gun bias is showing.

Well, one impact of Heller is honesty: Repeal the 2nd Amendment. Before, they just acted like it wasn’t there.

We’ve discussed issues with the dissent. And basically, they’re lazy. They are old, after all. For instance, some factual inaccuracies in the Heller dissents and, basically, saying we can’t change now that’s too hard.

Well, more evidence of their general laziness: Simply because it will be disruptive to existing (unconstitional) laws Breyer thinks that is a valid reason to allow the D.C. ban to stand.

That’s two Justices on the supreme court who basically said Why change what we’re doing, even if it is wrong? I though only conservatives did that?

Lots of stuff here.

NJ law chief says NJ laws not threatened by ruling

Post Heller: So What Gun Regulations Are Reasonable?

I’m thinking that telling handgunners to quit that hobby and take up stamp-collecting isn’t gonna go well with handgunners. After all, it’s probably hard to defend your family with a 19th century Queen Victoria stamp.

On Mayor Daley’s reaction to Heller:

He described America as a country of gun-lovers who export their weaponry to neighboring countries like Canada and Mexico, spreading violence to relatively peaceful areas.

Those quotes are now gone. But the google still sends you there.

Eric S. Raymond is back from his two year blogging break. I missed that guy. Looks like he’s back to get his civil disobedience on.

No, really. Over that little machine gun issue we discussed earlier. And one question has been answered:

She said it is not unusual for Blackwater to store automatic weapons because the company is licensed to sell, provide training on, or even manufacture firearms.

So, why the arrangement with the sheriff? And it seems ATF knew all along.

No Peanut Butter Heller Time for me.

Everyone is telling me their plans for celebrating this wonderful day. Sadly, I will not be. I’m sick as a dog. My celebratory drink will be Pepto-Bismol and my celebratory cigar will be hitting the sack early.

I haven’t read them yet (for reasons explained here) but David Hardy notes some errors in it, and I mean errors other than just being on the wrong side of history.

I mean, if I were a Republican running for office, I’d remind the over 70% of the population who think there is an individual right to arms exactly who appointed these four justices. Of course, they’re to blame for Souter.

Update: For some reason, I thought Stevens was a Carter appointee. Nope, a Ford guy. So, two of these bozos were Republican appointees?

This is making the McCain case pretty weak.

You’d think they would value a civil rights victory. Instead, they opt to prove they’re nothing but shills:

The Second Amendment has not been the subject of much Supreme Court discussion through the years. To the extent it has been discussed, the Court has described the Second Amendment as designed to protect the ability of the states to preserve their own sovereignty against a new and potentially overreaching national government. Based on that understanding, the Court has historically construed the Second Amendment as a collective right connected to the concept of a “well-regulated militia” rather than an individual right to possess guns for private purposes.

In Heller, the Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment as a source of individual rights. Washington D.C.’s gun control law, which bans the private possession of handguns and was widely considered the most restrictive such law in the country, became a victim of that reinterpretation.

The Court was careful to note that the right to bear arms is not absolute and can be subject to reasonable regulation. Yet, by concluding that D.C.’s gun control law was unreasonable and thus invalid, the Court placed a constitutional limit on gun control legislation that had not existed prior to its decision in Heller. It is too early to know how much of a constitutional straitjacket the new rule will create.

Let’s play spot the hysteria and spot the outright lies.

Chicago suit has been filed:

Gun Lobby Quickly Sues To Overturn Chicago Ban

That’s the headline. No where does it mention that the suing is actually going on.

Incorporation could follow.

Update: Whoops. I meant NRA as the gun lobby. Illinois State Rifle Association is on the ball.

DC presser here:

In addition, although the Court struck the safe storage provision on the ground that it was too broadly written, firearms at home should be kept either unloaded and disassembled or else locked except for use in self-defense in emergencies.

Uhm, you were just told no to that one. Don’t piss the court off.

Lots of stuff here.

A favorite: In response to Justice Stevens’ complaint that “hundreds of judges” have relied on the anti-individual rights interpretation of Miller, Scalia shot back: “their erroneous reliance upon an uncontested and virtually unreasoned case cannot nullify the reliance of millions of Americans (as our historical analysis has shown) upon the true meaning of the right to keep and bear arms.”

We’ve been doing it wrong so long, we may as well stick with it?

Press says right to arms is ‘new right’.

NRA to move on Chicago Gun Ban:

The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several of its suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday’s outcome.

Good:

McCain: Chicago Gun Ban Infringes On Rights

What say you, Barack? Like most other things that are politically inconvenient, are you going to throw your gun-banning ways under the bus?

DC’s Attorney General is already getting his ‘reasonable restrictions’ on:

Among the likely regulations: Gun owners would have to be 18 or older and could not have been convicted of a felony or any weapon-related charge or have been in a mental hospital for the past five years. Registrants also will be finger-printed and required to pass a written test to be sure they understand the city’s gun laws, Nickles said.

At least initially, he added, residents would be limited to one handgun apiece. The city will set up a hotline for firearm registrations.

Wow, DC is the gift that keeps on giving. Your government is truly a gift.

The most important bit: The Heller decision is not the call of victory, but a call to battle.

Heh: DC ban struck down; bloggers run out of clever Heller headlines

Room to work.

My sources say Fenty is already laying down the law:

Semi-autos still banned (well, DC law classifies them as MGs)

No guns outside of home

Update: here:

Mayor Fenty has directed the Police Department to begin an orderly process for licensing handguns to citizens for home defense. Before you may lawfully possess a firearm, handgun or not, it must be licensed.

There must be a process within 21 days to register new handguns. During that time, the old law remains in effect. You MAY NOT POSSESS A HANDGUN INSIDE YOUR HOME at this time.

The City Council will be working with the Mayor to create effective regulations for storing firearms in your home.

I’d leave off that last bit. It’s what got you into trouble in the first place.

Codrea:

This is pretty much the outcome most of us expected–an individual rights ruling that leaves the door open for gun control

And also leaves the door open for challenging existing gun controls.

Short version: Even though these windmills keep kicking our asses, we will continue to charge them.

So send money!!!!! Getting your ass kicked is expensive.

Barack did I say that Obama: I didn’t mean all that stuff I said about supporting gun bans.

I keep seeing folks take issue with:

Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.

Like Kevin.

Stop freaking out. The court is stating appropriate relief and specifically stating that they’re not addressing the requirement.

Remember, Heller was very narrowly tailored on purpose.

Now, don’t you feel silly!

Josh Sugarmann: WAAAAAAAH!!!!

Here

Audio to come at DRTV.

I started to read the dissents. Then stopped. Maybe later. Why ruin a good mood by ingesting all that fucking stupidity. I’d have to shower after.

In other news, 5-4 was bit too close for comfort in my opinion. I was figuring on 6-3 or 7-2, honestly. Sure, this quiz was pass/fail but we were only one heart attack away, my friends. I hate to say it but that one reason is why I’ll hold my nose, get good and hammered, and pull the lever for John McCain. And I’d have to shower after that too.

It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon.

That term is used on page 55. First, all weapons are dangerous. I mean, I don’t want to be on the business end of either a pointy stick or a 44 magnum. Unusual is quite odd too.

Additionally:

We also recognize another important limitation on the
right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have
explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those
“in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think
that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual
weapons.” See 4 Blackstone 148–149 (1769); 3 B. Wilson,
Works of

What about laws that have been passed specifically to make certain weapons not in common use at the time? Think 1986?

Update: I should have read the next graph:

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful
in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be
banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely
detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said,
the conception of the militia at the time of the Second
Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens
capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of
lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia
duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as
effective as militias in the 18th century, would require
sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at
large.

And:

But the fact that modern developments have limited
the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the
protected right cannot change our interpretation of the
right.

Nice:

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications,

The amendment means what it says, who knew?

From the Heller opinion:

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Affirmed.

More as I get it.

Update: The Court has released the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), on whether the District’s firearms regulations – which bar the possession of handguns and require shotguns and rifles to be kept disassembled or under trigger lock – violate the Second Amendment. The ruling below, which struck down the provisions in question, is affirmed.

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion. Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg. We will provide a link to the decision as soon as it is available.

Update 2: 5-4? Srsly?

So much for speculation that Ginsburg was on our side.

Update: 3 opinions. One for, two dissents.

Update: awaiting opinion. Details will matter.

Update: Opinion here.

Later kids. Off to read.

Update: Thanks to Mr. Levy and Mr. Gura. It’s a good day.

R. Neal on Heller:

In other words, we may finally know what “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” means, and whether “the people” means you and me or us. (”Shall not be infringed” seems pretty clear.)

Actually, I think we’ll probably be spending the next several decades arguing over exactly what Shall not be infringed means.

My prediction:

Court says there is an individual right.

DC’s ban violates that right.

Some vague reference to reasonable restrictions without offering any guidance on those. Hence, we spend the next several decades arguing over exactly what Shall not be infringed means.

Brady’s claim victory. NRA claims victory.

Anti-gunners and editorial boards (but I repeat myself) yammer on about activist judges overturning 70 years of supreme court precedent, even though that precedent doesn’t exist.

Update: Oh yeah, and lawsuits filed in NYC and Chicago tomorrow.

A new (to me) gun blog: Politics, Guns and Beer.

Update: I guess all the pessimists are reading this early. Buck up, little campers.

Machine guns and grenades from the US flood Mexico. Trouble is, those are illegal here too. It’s a trend of the Mexican government to blame the US for all it’s gun issues even though it’s obvious the machine guns are not coming from here.

You know what would keep our guns out of Mexico, though? A fence.

So, Mayor of Atlanta attaches her name to some astro-turf generated by Mayors Against Guns as evidenced at the bottom of the page:

Shirley Franklin is mayor of Atlanta. Contributing to this column were: Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee; Manuel A. Diaz, mayor of Miami; Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco; Greg Nickels, mayor of Seattle; and Douglas H. Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J.

This bit of astroturf basically says OMG Heller will be the end of gun laws!

AJC blog links to it. Comments overwhelmingly tell the mayor her astroturf is wrong. Comments are shut down. Nice!

Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam is a member of this group as well. This group is clearly on the wrong side.

Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center lying.

I wonder if she’s googled up a study lately?

At about 10:00, her and Mr. Sugarmann might be busy as one of the few FFL holders in DC. Someone will have to do those firearms transfers.

Ralph Nader decides to point out that Barack Pinto Beans Obama talks white. Nader, who doesn’t really have a career these days save for the quadrennial 15 minutes of fame in which he complains we don’t pay attention to him, doesn’t really have a need to view this as a career-ending move.

Obama responds by saying: Ralph has nahh idea what he’s jivin’ about, you know das right! knowwhuti’msayin’?

No, I kid. They said they’re disappointed in Ralph. Then they reminded supporters that Barack, in fact, does like mayonnaise.

Homicides up 12.7% in gun free Chicago!

A 16 year-old can’t have a handgun in NJ.

Another mass shooting in a gun free zone.

And in gun free Japan, a man slaughters his family. With a hammer.

Seen at Bane’s:

Paul Erhardt, Erhardt & Associates: “Handgun competition shooters now outnumber shotgun competition shooters…competition shooters are the super-users…hunters may be very avid, but they’re not going to shoot a lot during the season…Todd Jarrett, in preparing for the Steel Challenge, will shoot 30,000 rounds of ammunition…to give you an idea of how many rounds USPSA shooters might shoot, based on their most recent classifier scores, the rough but conservative estimate is that in the last 60 days those 20000 classifier scores amount more than a million rounds downrange…16,000 members of USPSA spent approxmately $45 million just on that sport last year

Ninja sighting in New Jersey.

No Heller for you. Come back one day. Or in the Fall. We’ll get around to it.

This is like the third time I’ve anxiously watched SCOTUSBlog and, after a tense build up, nothing happened. It’s like dating.

Update: The Chief Justice has announced from the courtroom that the Court will issue all of its remaining opinions tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern

Statement here:

The NSSF has no intention of abandoning pistol shooters. Our very successful First Shots program is specifically designed and targeted to encourage pistol sports shooting. Much of the NSSF staff, including its new president, have been pistol shooting both recreationally and competitively for decades – and, in fact, some have worked in the handgun industry.

Good! Hats off to these guys.

So, Heller today maybe? They better hurry up because I’m running out puns.

Via several sources, it seems that Blackwater has questionably purchased NFA firearms. Seems that the local sheriff was listed as the buyer, Blackwater paid for them, and Blackwater keeps them at their facility. The weapons consist of 17 AKs and 17A ARs.

Ry notes that this transaction is likely illegal. Joe likens it to a straw purchase of title ii firearms.

I wonder why Blackwater would go through the trouble. I seem to recall recently a bill passed that exempted federal contractors from the NFA ban. Nope. Never mind. The bill is part of the ATF Reform act, which has not passed yet.

Next, assuming it is illegal, this is another negative from the NFA ban. After all, we can’t equip our contractors with appropriate weaponry until they’re out of country. They’d have to train with them first and could not, in country, under the NFA. So, most of their weapons stuff is OK out of country.

This in addition to the fact manufacturers won’t develop military rifles in country because there’s no market.

This is not the first time there have been issues with Blackwater and NFA laws. A while back, there was some press because they exported suppressors without dotting i’s and crossing t’s.

Update: BTW, why wouldn’t Blackwater just get an FFL and an SOT?

Chicago Alderman loophole passes. Good thing somebody important ran afoul of the law.

Gets ice cream. Nothing happens.

Here’s hoping it puts an end to this mythology.

So, why not just send guns?

Yeah, its an old story but, for reason, this one is popping up on the anti-gun blogs.

Heh.

Btw ‘Til Tuesday rocks.

I was harsh on open carry folks the other day. Guy With Guns has a detailed read on it and why people do it.

Personally I think that guns, like Kos Kids in the general election, shouldn’t be seen.

I agree. This is the first time I’ve heard of someone actually being arrested for lying on their form 4473. Not saying it never happens. Just I don’t recall seeing it in the news.

In a city that enacted tough gun laws, violence increases?