Careful when you leave America
Tea party co-founder arrested with gun at NY airport.
23 Responses to “Careful when you leave America”
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
December 16th, 2011 at 10:57 am
If I had to guess, this is going to be a lawsuit filed to challenge the New York handgun law. He is federally protected by safe travel laws.
He is a prominent person with a creditable need and strong financial backing.
He is not the plantiff Bloomberg wants his laws tested against, so I bet it gets dropped.
December 16th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Which one do you think is wrong?
December 16th, 2011 at 10:59 am
The story isn’t very helpful, but this sounds like another arrest of someone for possession of a firearm while travelling. He’s in violation of the law for having a firearm in NY without a NY firearm permit. Being a lawyer, you’d think he’d know this. From the sound of it, he’s toast. We’ve already had a case of this type where the plaintiff lost and SCOTUS denied cert. The case was Revell v. Port Authority, so there’s precedent. Unless someone decides not to prosecute, Mr. Meckler will become a convicted felon. Since he’s a high-profile member of the Tea Party, I suspect that he hasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of not being prosecuted.
December 16th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Something tells me that if HB822 gets signed into Law, the SAF will be on this quick.
December 16th, 2011 at 11:24 am
I saw the G27 – 9mm issue too on first reading, but its not impossible, lots of 27’s have been converted to 26’s with just a barrell change and different mags. So maybe, but I doubt it.
I will be following this one too, but I am with Kevin, he’s got a huge hill to climb in NY, this has been through the courts once already. Good luck.
December 16th, 2011 at 11:34 am
Don’t you have to have the gun and ammo separate when you check in? That could be the problem.
December 16th, 2011 at 11:38 am
Yes, get this case to SCOTUS!
December 16th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
@ Kevin: Revell v. Port Authority involved the defendant having to stay at a hotel with his luggage due to a cancelled flight. That hotel stay put him outside FOPA’s travel protections.
Based on a statement from his attorney that’s in another article, it sounds like that’s not the case here.
Also, the bit about him being “moments away from boarding” appears to be complete and utter BS. From another article:
The man is apparently an attorney, with a pro-rights and activist bent. NY has a history of ignoring FOPA’s safe travel provisions. I would not be surprised if this was planned, or at least planned for.
December 16th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
19 rounds is about right a 27 in .40 short and weak. two 9 rounds mags +1.
December 16th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
No, you don’t have to have the ammo and gun separate. They can be in the same locked container, just not in the gun.
And Paul? SCOTUS has already denied cert. in the very similar Revell case linked above. January of this year. I don’t think he has a hope in hell of beating it.
December 16th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@Jake
I’m with you, something is unclear here. I’ve traveled with firearms before and I would never have done so on a trip that passes through NYC, even on a layover.
The conflicts I notice in those two articles is that the lawyer describes it as a temporary transit. But you should not be checking in the firearm again if it’s just a layover during a larger trip. In that case, you would have checked in the firearm case at the origination (outside of NY, somewhere safe) and never have had contact with the firearm case again.
What is confusing is that he declared the firearm inside La Guardia. This is clearly a mistake, and seems to indicate it was not a temporary transit.
Also, I find it fascinating that a lawyer would bungle this up by accident. I agree with the others who think this was planned.
December 16th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Why are so many lawyers dumbasses when it comes right down to it? I’m not a lawyer, and I would never in a million years take my gun to NY, let alone try to fly with one in my carry-on baggage, and then try to show an out-of-state permit to justify it! Yeesh!
December 16th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
The policy of the 2AF and other 2A defense groups is what is at fault here. Every single case of a violation of FOPA should be vigorously defended, and the policy of just waiting for “the perfect case” gets us nowhere, because (1) that “perfect” case may never come up, and (2) too many convictions stack up in the meanwhile as precedent with no effective rebuttal of NY’s policy.
Every single case of FOPA-abuse should be vigorously defended, and every single defendant should counter-sue in Federal Court for a Civil Rights violation.
Do do less means WE don’t have OUR shit in one sock.
December 16th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Does NJ honor CA permits? If it does and he was in NJ on business, then flying out of La Guardia would make sense, and would be a temporary transit.
December 16th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I too am waiting to see what this results in, I think that he is up to something but have nothing else to go on yet confirming it.
@Jake, it is entirely possible that he was in PA and had flown into PA but was flying out of NYC or something else. This one bears watching.
December 16th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
I think he spent a few days in NY. So…temporary, yes. Transit, no.
December 16th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
@MrSatyre – there was sloppy reporting on the “about to board”. From the story, it appears he was checking it per the law, it wasn’t in a carry-on.
@Jake – I don’t think NJ recognizes anyone’s permit, they damn near don’t recognize their own ๐
My first thought on this was it was a deliberate act to get standing to sue as well.
Revell had the gun in his possession overnight in NJ which (wrongly, but what can you do) broke the letter of FOPA. In hindsight he should have left the state to sleep. (insert eyeroll)
I’d argue that if Meckler started with the gun properly unloaded, cased and locked per FOPA in, say, PA (and hopefully could document it sufficiently) then had to drive into NY to take the flight out of LaGuardia he’d be covered under FOPA as he would have always been travelling from a place it was legal to a place it was legal.
Revell got screwed, but the hitch of his spending the night with the gun in his possession, even involuntarily, when FOPA can be reasonably read to forbid that, makes his case fuzzier than it needed to be to make good law.
Depending on the circumstances here this might provide a clean question of “does FOPA mean anything at all when air travel is involved given how regional hubs work?” Particularly post-McDonald with the Ezell reasoning, which would support the idea that one shouldn’t have to drive out of one’s way or pay more for a ticket from an inconvenient airport just to exercise the Right(s) of KBA and travel, for the Court to use.
Of course, Congress should really be the one to clarify the situation, particularly post-McDonald. Those jerk-offs.
December 16th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
reason 34,587 why I’ll never willingly set foot in NY.
December 16th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem…ith_handgu.php
publius2009 has a comment there (drill down to find it) that gives a 4 1/2 day itinerary of talk shows and lectures before getting busted as he was apparently trying to head home. I’m thinking this was not NY State refusing to follow/allow FOPA travel but a guy who had the heater with him since he left California to go to NYC.
If that’s the case all I can say is he pretty much deserves what happened to him. I am open to magic beans and other explanations of how the gun got to be in his baggage for the trip home but was not with him since he left home.
stay safe.
December 17th, 2011 at 1:21 am
@ skidmark: The link got truncated, could you repost it?
December 17th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
The article is linked on the font page at tpmmuckraker, You gotta go to the 3rd page of comments to find the post & all it shows is he had 4 interviews/guest appearances over mon-tues-wed in various locations in ny city. It doesnt state whether he had other appearances in other states in between or where he stayed.
If you never been to muckracker before, huffington post is a good comparison.
December 18th, 2011 at 4:48 am
Everyone is ignoring the most important fact here,how the hell did he get a gun permit in People’s Republik of California????111!!??
December 18th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
#22
It is possible to get a CCW permit in Commiefornia. In general it means the permit holder lives in one of the rural counties of California, the primary exception being Sacramento County.