Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

From CSM:

The US Supreme Court declined Monday to take up a potentially important gun rights case examining whether a federal regulation banning loaded firearms from vehicles in a government park violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Lawyers for a Virginia man had asked the justices to examine a question left largely unresolved in the high court’s two prior landmark rulings identifying the scope and substance of Second Amendment protections. The question is: Does the Second Amendment guarantee a right to bear arms in public for personal protection?

The court dismissed the case in a one-line order without comment. The action leaves lower court rulings intact and postpones the prospect of high court clarification on a key gun rights issue.

[ … ]

The dismissed appeal, Masciandaro v. US (10-11212), had asked the court to examine whether Americans have a right to carry loaded weapons in public places for self defense.

How the justices answered that question would have established guideposts for future gun regulations at the local, state, and national levels of government.

In the 2008 decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, the court said that gun rights are not unlimited. The court said there is no right to “carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

The details of the case can be found here, here and here.  Fundamantally at issue is whether the Second Amendment carries the right to possess a weapon outside the home, and the lower courts are almost begging for the Supreme Court to answer this question in the wake of the half-hearted Heller ruling.

Heller and McDonald left open important questions regarding the scope of the self-defense right beyond the home and the appropriate method for evaluating government regulations affecting it. The lower courts have struggled mightily with these issues. See, e.g., Masciandaro, 638 F.3d at 467 (“But a considerable degree of uncertainty remains as to the scope of that right beyond the home and the standards for determining whether and how the right can be burdened by governmental regulation.”); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (“Skoien II”) (Heller creates an individual right that includes keeping operable handguns at home for self-defense but “[w]hat other entitlements the Second Amendment creates, and what regulations legislatures may establish, were left open.”), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1674 (2011).

The highest state courts that have considered the issue unanimously decided that the Second Amendment right is limited to the home. Maryland, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Kansas have all limited Heller to its holding. For example, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s firearm permitting statute, concluding that the right is unavailable outside the home. Williams v. State, 417 Md. 479, 496 (Md. 2011) (stating that “[i]f the Supreme Court, in this [Heller] dicta, meant its holding to extend beyond home possession, it will need to say so more plainly”), petition for cert. filed, 79 U.S.L.W. 3594 (Apr. 5, 2011). That court noted that Illinois, the District of Columbia, and California also limited the right in similar cases. Id. at 496-99. Given this trend, state courts that confront Second Amendment issues in the future will likely limit its protection to the home.

Other state and federal courts have held that even if the right might exist outside the home, it is substantially weaker than the right enjoyed in the home.

So in spite of the urgent need to sort out the lower court chaos concerning bearing arms, the Supreme Court declined to hear Sean Masciandaro’s case.

Supreme Court fail … big time.  This is just what Lanny Breuer asked them to do in his brief, and I’m sure that Dennis Henigan is popping the cork somewhere.

AFP:

A top US Justice Department official told lawmakers Tuesday that better controls are needed to help stem the flow of weapons from the United States into Mexico, where they may end up in the hands of drug cartels.

“It is clear that we need more tools to get those people who are buying the guns and illegally transporting them to Mexico,” Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing. “We need to stop the flow.”

According to Justice Department figures, in the past five years 94,000 weapons have been recovered from Mexican drug cartels, of which 64,000 — 70 percent — come from the United States.

Yet currently the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), a division of the Justice Department, is not permitted to “receive reports about multiple sales of long guns, of any kind of semiautomatic weapon or the like,” Breuer said.

“Very few hunters in the United States or sports people and law-abiding people really need to have semiautomatic weapons or long guns,” he said.

Breuer said that if US officials were notified then they could keep track of the powerful weapons.

This is a remarkable report on the testimony before Congress for several reasons.  First, even now after all of the information is out on the scandal that Fast and Furious has become, Breuer is still pretending that the handover of thousands of weapons to the drug cartels with absolutely no ability whatsoever to track them any further than the border was all about trying to stop the flow of weapons to the drug cartels.  It’s absurd on its face.

Next, Breuer still insists on perpetuating the 90% myth (although it has now morphed into the 70% myth in an apparent attempt to make it more believable).  Finally, Breuer steps on his own testimony by reintroducing the anti-firearms argument to the calculus.  If he was smart he would have avoided this as a potential for contaminating his (and the Justice Department’s) motives.  But like a dog returns to its own vomit he must continue his assault on the Second Amendment.  It’s a canard, this idea that so-called assault weapons are somehow responsible for mass shootings in the U.S.  Based on information I compiled when examining Heller II and assault weapons, long guns and assault rifles were no more likely to be used in shootings than handguns or shotguns.  Moreover, the number of mass shootings is so low as to be statistically insignificant.  They just don’t happen that often in America regardless of what the main stream media portrays.

But Lanny Breuer wants everyone to shoot a bolt action rifle, apparently, or better yet, nothing at all (Would Breuer allow us to use single action revolvers?).  Law abiding citizens just don’t need such a thing, according to him.  Not for hunting feral hogs in Texas or Georgia, not for home defense, not for sporting (such as 3-gun or other shooting competitions like IDPA), not for any reason at all.  And thus has Breuer told us what he and the Justice Department (and by extension, the White House) really thinks is important in this whole affair.  Citizens don’t need firearms.

Got it.  Hopefully the American public will file that one away for the next election cycle.

UPDATE: Cross posted at reddit/r/guns.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to Dave Hardy for the attention.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to Say Uncle for the attention.

From WYFF4.com:

The Spartanburg County Sheriff is known for speaking his mind, and at a news conference on Monday, he didn’t hold back his anger and frustration after a woman was attacked in a park over the weekend.

Investigators said 46-year-old Walter Lance grabbed a woman who was walking her dog in Milliken Park on Sunday afternoon. They said Lance choked the woman, made her take off her clothing and tried to rape her.

Lance is in custody and was denied bond on Monday.

Sheriff Chuck Wright opened his news conference by saying, “Our form of justice is not making it.”

He said, “Carry a concealed weapon. That’ll fix it.”

Wright said Lance had been charged numerous times with crimes again women, and other crimes such as resisting arrest and escape. Wright said Lance had been on probation for a federal gun charge.

He referred to Lance repeatedly as an “animal,” and expressed his disgust about Lance’s long record and the attack.

Wright said Lance has had more than 20 charges dating back to 1983.

Wright said Lance has been in jail more often than he has, and he runs the jail, and he said Lance gets out easier. Wright punctuated it by saying, “And I’m aggravated.”

He said he doesn’t believe every person needs to be kept in jail, but he said, “I don’t think this animal deserves to be out in our society, walking alongside our women.”

Wright said,”Liberals call me and tell me the chain-gang form of justice isn’t working. Well, let me inform you, your form of justice isn’t working either.”

He said Lance should not have had the right or opportunity to “violate a good, upstanding woman.”

“This is a horrific crime,” Wright said. “Her life was threatened so many times.”

He said Lance “doesn’t fight police or men folk — he just goes after women.” He said Lance is not married because, “No woman can stay married to him because he beats them down too much.”

Wright said, “It’s too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn’t walk by. That would fix it.” He said people are tired of doing the right thing and criminals getting away with their actions.

He said several times, “I want you to get a concealed weapons permit.”

Wright said, “I’m tired of looking at victims saying, ‘There’s life after this’ … I’m tired of saying, ‘We’re sorry, we can’t keep them in jail.'”

Wright said in his view, gun control is, “How fast can you can get the barrel of your gun back on the target?”

I know this county.  It’s right down the road from me.  And it’s refreshing to hear a law enforcement officer admit to the truth.  LEOs are minutes away when crime happens in seconds.  They cannot possibly prevent crimes except to keep the criminals off of the streets, and Sheriff Wright reminds us that this is a dubious proposition in spite of their best efforts.

And also take careful note.  He doesn’t restrict his admonition to self defense inside the home or the so-called “castle doctrine.”  He said, “It’s too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn’t walk by. That would fix it.”

Fix it indeed.  One still has to be careful to be responsible and know the circumstances, know the law, have previously made the commitment to intervene in such circumstances (this requires some serious consideration), and be qualified with your weapon (trigger discipline, muzzle discipline, knowing what’s behind your target, knowing that the one attacked is in imminent bodily danger or in danger of sexual assault).  But assuming these stipulations, the Sheriff knows what we all know.  Law enforcement begins when your person is jeopardy, not when the police arrive on scene.

In No Right To Carry Concealed Handgun and Heller Versus D.C. Before the Circuit Court of Appeals (Assault Weapons Ban), we discussed the case of Sean Masciandaro.  While traveling, Mr. Masciandaro fell asleep in his automobile at or near Daingerfield Island, an area of NPS land near Alexandria, Virginia.  He had a handgun, and instead of separating the ammunition in proximity from the weapon, he had the weapon loaded.  He was convicted of a crime, and has appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the U.S.

Since Mr. Masciandaro’s conviction, Congress has passed a law prohibiting executive regulation of enforcement of weapons bans on National Park land (including the specific infraction with which Mr. Masciandaro was convicted).  We will revisit this fact later in our analysis.  Mr. Masciandaro’s attorneys submitted their Petition for Writ of Certiorari, and until recently were awaiting the response of the Solicitor General.  Donald B. Verrilli and Lanny A. Breuer finally submitted their Brief for the United States in Opposition to Sean Masciandaro.

Analysis of Core Argument[s] in Brief for the U.S.

The brief spends some unfortunate pages rehearsing what we already know about this case, providing detail that has been provided  by they attorneys for Mr. Masciandaro.  By the time that the argument begins and goes a single paragraph, it is reduced to the following three unrelated points: (1) intermediate scrutiny is appropriate (and thus the government is not required to prove whether the core question implicates Second Amendment considerations), (2) the level of danger with a loaded weapon is high and warrants government controls in the interest of public safety, and (3) the case is irrelevant due to its having been made void by an act of Congress.

On page 8 the brief begins the argument that the subject regulation implies specificity inasmuch as it only applies to loaded firearms in National Parks and inside a vehicle.  The argument to specificity is important and we will revisit its implications.  On page 10 the brief argues that whether the core right identified in Heller extends outside the home as well is an “abstract question,” and adds that the case of Masciandaro “presents no occasion to decide that issue.”  On page 12 the brief extends the argument that whether the Second Amendment extends outside the home is an “abstract question.”

On page 13 the brief begins to walk this argument back when it states:

Petitioner suggests (Pet. 21) that lower courts “will continue to limit the Second Amendment right to self-defense in the home” until this Court affirmatively extends its scope. Even if that were so, it would not preclude this Court from addressing the broad question, after full consideration by the lower courts, in a case (unlike this one) where its resolution would be outcome-determinative.

So rather than an “abstract question” effecting the broad application of firearms rights outside the home, in just a few pages the Masciandaro case has become one that cannot possibly be “outcome-determinative” because any decision by the U.S. Supreme Court would effect only regulations in National Parks (or more specifically, the case of Sean Masciandaro in a National Park convicted of this specific crime at this specific time in history).

A new section begins the argument (on page 14) that the question of bearing firearms outside the home is not “cleanly presented” in the Masciandaro case.  Brief continues:

… when this Court in Heller pointed out that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” 554 U.S. at 626, it identified several “presumptively lawful” regulations of that right, id. at 627 & n.26, including “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings,” id. at 626. Although the court of appeals found it unnecessary to decide the issue, national parks — heavily traveled, government-controlled areas where “large numbers of people, including children, congregate for recreation,” Pet. App. 15a — can readily be described as “sensitive places” within the meaning of Heller. At a minimum, they implicate specific public safety interests, and their “circumstances justify reasonable measures to secure public safety.”

In a 16 page brief, Verrilli and Breuer have stumbled into a serious logical blunder.  The brief argues that the Masciandaro case doesn’t implicate Second Amendment rights on a large scale, since this case involves only National Park land and any decision would effect only this specific regulation.  Recall from above that the initial argument straight out of the gate had to do with the specificity of this case and any decision thereto.

But the brief apparently feels that the Second Amendment implications are massive, arguing extensively that this case involves “sensitive” areas where large numbers of people are congregated.  On the one hand, this case is specific.  On the other hand, its implications are broad enough that the court should decide it later because public safety is at stake and the implications for any decision are far too broad.  This is fundamentally contradictory, as the case doesn’t fit the category for broad constitutional implications because of its specificity, but does so to such a degree that any reversal by the Supreme Court of Mr. Masciandaro’s conviction would imply carry rights in areas that the government would seek to prohibit.

This problem can be seen again in the way in which the brief argues for non-consideration by the Supreme Court.  On page 7 this case is noted as having “little importance” since the law has been reversed.  So it has been categorized as not implicating second amendment rights as a justification for dismissal.  Then on page 12, precedent is cited for rejecting cases with “underlying issues with such broad ramifications.”  The brief’s core argument is self-referentially incoherent.

Further Analysis

It is appropriate at this point to make some additional remarks about the brief that don’t go entirely to the core argument[s].  The brief is so poorly written that it is difficult to follow the flow of thought (if there is any).  It seems to revert at times to the leaky bucket approach to rhetoric.  First there is the judicial “now you see it, now you don’t” trick of intermediate scrutiny, and thus whether Second Amendment rights are implicated is irrelevant – but even if Second Amendment rights are implicated, the government has an interest in public safety that bears on this question – but even if we don’t, the law has been overturned anyway – and even if all of that isn’t true, the Supreme Court should wait to decide cases with such broad constitutional ramifications as this one – but any decision by the Supreme Court wouldn’t effect larger questions since the regulation only effected behavior on National Park Service land, so the Supreme Court should reject it from consideration since it is so specific.  And on and on, back and forth from page to page it goes, dizzying the reader like a ping pong match.

The brief is such a completely disconnected, randomized flow of consciousness paper that it leaves one without a sense of having been persuaded of much of anything except that it is a pleasing experience to stop reading it.  It places heavy weight on the notion that a loaded firearm is “surely more dangerous than an unloaded one.”  But this assertion is stated as axiomatic and lacks demonstration or evidence.  For most concealed handgun permit holders, trigger and muzzle discipline approaches religious fervor.  To be sure, the state has an interest in knowing that weapons owners (who have a permit to carry) know how to make their weapon function with no danger to anyone except an assailant.  Hence, a range test and firearms safety training (e.g., knowing where your target is and also what is behind your target) is part of the process to get the permit to carry.

But it is a juvenile and illogical leap simply to assert that a loaded firearms in the hands of trained, permitted individuals, is “surely more dangerous” than an unloaded one (as if weapons randomly discharge).  This is analogous to the argument in Heller 2 where D.C. continues with the ban of so-called “assault weapons.”  An analysis of mass shootings in the U.S. demonstrates rather conclusively that assault weapons do not deserve the approbation heaped upon them.  Similarly, in spite of the prediction of bloodshed in the National Parks by the Brady Campaign’s Dennis Henigan, based on a FOIA request I filed concerning violent crimes in National Parks after reversing the ban on loaded weapons, there is essentially no change in 2010, and firearms related incident continue to remain statistically insignificant.  Dennis Henigan was wrong.  But then so are many adjudications concerning firearms because they rely on arguments made mainstream by the likes of Dennis Henigan.

After arguing for a compelling government interest in public safety because of the threat of violence from loaded handguns, the brief all but stipulates to the contrary proposition by dumping the basis for their argument and asserting that a Supreme Court decision wouldn’t matter because the law had changed.  Note well.  The brief doesn’t argue for the Supreme Court to take up the case to justify their assertion that a loaded handgun is surely more dangerous than an unloaded one and hence the compelling interest in public safety makes such regulations just and right even if the court exonerates Seam Masciandaro (a position which they could have taken).  The brief argues that the Supreme Court should not take the case because there may be other cases in the future that also bear on the question.

There are several other things that can be gleaned from the brief.  First, it is clear that neither the appeals court judges nor the authors of the brief have any significant personal experience with firearms.  No one with personal experience would make such manifestly absurd, factually incorrect statements about firearms.  Second, it becomes clearer with this brief what the current administration thinks about Second Amendment rights (they are not friendly to the Second Amendment).  Third, the brief eventually seems to devolve into a whiny, nagging missive on the fact that the Supreme Court shouldn’t take the case of Sean Masciandaro because we, the administration, really don’t want them to.  And if that’s not enough, we really … really … really don’t want them to.

The case of Sean Masciandaro presents a perfect opportunity to establish once and for all that U.S. citizens have a right to self defense outside their home.  The home is a man’s castle, and castle doctrine has now become law in most states as it should be.  Thus the burden of proof is placed squarely where it should be, i.e., on the prosecution, and the burden is heavy and the bar high for cases of self defense inside the home.  Rightly so.  But while the burden may not be as high outside the home, that doesn’t mean that a citizen relinquishes the right to self defense when he leaves the confines of his domicile.

Life in the United States of America generally requires interaction with the balance of society, and the warp and woof of America involves rich and robust ideas on firearms ownership and the right to self defense.  It did at the founding of our country and that continues to this day.  There is no evidence that the majority of Americans feel that their rights cease and desist because there are other people around them.  In fact, the presence of others is precisely the circumstances under which self defense would be exercised.  Restriction of the right in circumstances where it is most likely to be required to be exercised doesn’t comport with the spirit of the constitutional guarantee.  Rather, it mocks it.  Neither, for that matter, does requiring Sean Masciandaro to separate his ammunition from his weapon, rendering it completely useless as a means of self defense, comport with the intent of the founders or the rights granted to us by God.  Judges and attorneys who have experience with firearms or even who care just a little about constitutional guarantees would know these things.

UPDATE: Reddit/r/guns link.

The Solicitor General, along with Lanny Breuer, has responded to the Petition for Writ of Certiorari before the Supreme Court by Sean Masciandaro’s attorney, Antigone Peyton, a case which I have discussed here and here.

I see a number of serious weaknesses and logical blunders in the brief that I intend to exploit in a followup analysis article.

In the mean time, if you wish, you may weigh in yourself in the comments with what you perceive to be the problems with the brief.  The Solicitor General’s brief may be found here.

The Washington Post editorial board droned on about a recent ruling concerning the District of Columbia “assault weapons” ban.

Last week, the judges — or, more precisely, two of them — delivered a pleasant surprise. Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson upheld the District’s ban on “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines — defined by the District as those holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Also upheld were certain provisions that require gun owners to register handguns. The decision was, in our view, correct in its conclusions and methodology.

The judges, as is common with constitutional issues, asked a series of questions: Are semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines in “common use” or are they the type of weapon — think, sawed-off shotguns — that the Supreme Court has said is not covered by the Second Amendment because they are “not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes”? Do the regulations infringe on the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for self-defense? How does any infringement of the individual right balance against the government’s interest in protecting public safety?

Gun registration, the judges ruled, is “deeply enough rooted in our history to support the presumption” that it is constitutional. The ban on semiautomatic long guns is permissible, they concluded, because it does not prohibit possession of “the quintessential self-defense weapon” — the handgun. Those who wish to keep a long gun for hunting or self-defense may legally own a non-automatic rifle or shotgun. The judges also rightly deferred to the District’s concerns over safety in banning high-capacity ammunition clips that “pose a danger to innocent people and particularly to police officers.”

The third panel member, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, would have struck down regulations banning semi-automatic long guns and requiring gun registration, but he would have asked a lower court to conduct more fact-finding on whether a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips passed constitutional muster. The right to keep and bear arms, he argued, should not be subject to the balancing test adopted by the majority. Because semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines have been in common use, he argued, they should presumptively be deemed constitutional. But “common use” in this approach spells the end of common sense and quashes the ability of diverse jurisdictions to fashion laws that address specific safety concerns. As the majority opinion shows, Second Amendment rights can be respected without thwarting legitimate public safety goals.

The editorial board is referring to the case of Dick Anthony Heller, et. al., versus D.C. before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, decided October 4, 2011.  This case follows on from the Supreme Court ruling in D.C. v Heller, decided June 26, 2008.  Dick Heller and others decided to appeal a D.C. court ruling that prohibited them from owning so-called “assault weapons” in D.C. due to local ordinances.  The SCOTUS decision in Heller, they claimed, made D.C.’s ban of these weapons unconstitutional.

The phrase “assault weapons” is, of course, deplorable because of its misleading connotations (weapons with rails for attachments such as tactical lights, forend grips, a pistol grip, collapsible stock, etc., are classified as “assault weapons due to these features).  More deplorable is the complete ignorance of the subject in the MSM, especially when they decide to weigh in on the issue.  But more deplorable still is when judges make life-altering decisions based on factually incorrect information, in total isolation from any personal knowledge of the subject upon which they are supposed to adjudicate.  Such is the case with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its latest foray into the unknown.

Much of the decision is occupied with the two judges arguing for intermediate scrutiny as opposed to strict scrutiny as to whether second amendment rights are implicated by the D.C. ban.  But it doesn’t take long for the decision to become muddled.  On page 30 they state:

We think it clear enough in the record that semi-automatic rifles and magazines holding more than ten rounds are indeed in “common use,” as the plaintiffs contend. Approximately 1.6 million AR-15s alone have been manufactured since 1986, and in 2007 this one popular model accounted for 5.5 percent of all firearms, and 14.4 percent of all rifles, produced in the U.S. for the domestic market. As for magazines, fully 18 percent of all firearms owned by civilians in 1994 were equipped with magazines holding more than ten rounds, and approximately 4.7 million more such magazines were imported into the United States between 1995 and 2000. There may well be some capacity above which magazines are not in common use but, if so, the record is devoid of evidence as to what that capacity is; in any event, that capacity surely is not ten.

Here is the perhaps the only correct set of assertions contained in the ruling, and the Washington Post has gotten it exactly backwards.  The judges didn’t base the ruling on whether assault weapons are in “common use.”  They clearly are.  But the rejection of this framework contained within Heller isn’t comprehensive or final, as we’ll see in a moment.

On page 33 of the decision, the judges begin to construct their own framework for rejection of assault weapons and exoneration of D.C.’s ban.    They turn their focus on D.C.’s “Committee on Public Safety,” the findings in their report, and whether the ban has a reasonable “fit,” tailored to the goals of public safety and reducing violent crime.  The committee relied upon An Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban:Impact on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003.  The report does make the claim that “AWs and other guns equipped with LCMs tend to account for a higher share of guns used in murders of police and mass public shootings, though such incidents are very rare.”  But no evidence is offered to substantiate the claim (as we’ll see in a moment, there is none).

But there is sleight of hand.  By lumping police murders and mass shootings together, along with “assault weapons” and high capacity magazines (what they termed “large” capacity magazines, which I take to be rather outdated and not in colloquial usage), the authors get to make claims that are sweeping in nature while misleading in the details.  It only takes a single shot to murder anyone, including a police officer.  No one needs a high capacity magazine to pull off a murder.  But the ugly specter of “mass shootings” introduces the emotional element that the committee needs to make their case.

Then the judges return to the framework of Heller, after jettisoning it earlier, by referring to whether assault weapons are “dangerous and unusual” (see page 34).  After quoting Brian Siebel of the Brady Center as an expert witness, the judges conclude “In short, the evidence demonstrates a ban on assault weapons is likely to promote the Government’s interest in crime control in the densely populated urban area that is the District of Columbia.”  On page 35, the judges jump into bed with Siebel when they parrot his own words.

The Siebel testimony moreover supports the District’s claim that high-capacity magazines are dangerous in self-defense situations because “the tendency is for defenders to keep firing until all bullets have been expended, which poses grave risks to others in the household, passersby, and bystanders.” Moreover, the Chief of Police testified the “2 or 3 second pause” during which a criminal reloads his firearm “can be of critical benefit to law enforcement.” Overall the evidence demonstrates that large-capacity magazines tend to pose a danger to innocent people and particularly to police officers, which supports the District’s claim that a ban on such magazines is likely to promote its important governmental interests.

This is highly problematic prose, not only for the facts it claims to exist (“dangerous in self-defense situations”), but also for the light that it casts on the decision process.  The judges have earlier jettisoned Heller’s framework for weapons that are unusual by observing that the AR style weapons are not at all unusual, then reintroduced Heller’s framework in their decision by arguing that these weapons are “unusual and dangerous,” changed the framework again by arguing that the basis for the decision is public (police) safety, and then modified their argument again to introduce their concern for people involved in self-defense and those around them.

The rest of the decision is just as muddled as the foregoing was, and it is appropriate at this point to make several observations concerning some of the alleged facts upon which the court has based its decision.

It can be argued that not only is the 5.56 mm round and the AR style weapons a legitimate home defense weapon, it is in some circumstances the optimal one to use.  The District of Columbia and the judges find themselves in the uncomfortable position of saying that it is acceptable for citizens to possess a long gun shooting the 7.62 mm round, as long as it doesn’t have a collapsible stock, forend grip, or rails for lasers or lights (after all, we wouldn’t want individuals to be precise in their self defense, or perhaps we do because of the safety of others around them).  Or, substitute here a shotgun, even shooting slugs for self defense.  Yet one feature of the 5.56 mm round shot from any AR is that brick (and in fact multiple layers of drywall) shatter the round, turning it into shrapnel due to its tendency to yaw upon impact (and even during flight).  Thus, people in adjacent homes are at least as safe with the AR as they are with any shotgun, and they may be more safe.  The same holds true for rounds fired from pistols (from 9 mm and above in caliber).  Pistol rounds penetrate more layers of drywall than 5.56 mm rounds.

As for the testimony of law enforcement officials, it’s always easy to find a police chief or sheriff who wants to rid his area of all weapons.  Concerning the recent ban on open carry in California, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said “For law enforcement officers and community members, any type of weapon being carried, openly or concealed, could appear as a threat to their well-being and is regarded as a public safety threat.”

Note what was said.  The subject was open carry, and not only does the Sheriff not like open carry, he doesn’t approve of concealed carry either.  It is regarded as a “safety risk.”  But risk in this context is defined by him, as a policy matter, representing police officers, rather than innocent citizens looking to do nothing more than defend their person in the case of peril.

But if assault weapons aren’t really dangerous in self defense situations as the Brady Center (and the court) claims, what about this notion that they (whether long guns or high capacity magazines used for handguns) represent a danger to public safety because of the threat of mass shootings?  This is the real bogey man lurking behind the curtain after all of the other reasons are given, reasons that appear to be like so many leaky buckets slammed together, and it makes sense to assess the history of mass shootings in America.  I have provided some of the details in Mass Shootings in the U.S. (HPS).

Disclaimer and stipulations: (1) I have tried to include all known mass shootings in recent history, but the list may not be comprehensive, (2) Number of deaths excludes suicide by the shooter, (3) Some information is marked unknown, (4) the list is in no particular order, and finally, (5) I have followed no specific definition of “mass shooting,” except that no attempt has been made to capture individual murders or even double-murders.

As Robert Farago observes, there is no single, equivalent definition of high capacity magazine.

California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oak Park, Illinois – 10 cartridge limit
Chicago, Illinois – 12
New Jersey, Aurora, Illinois; – 15
Franklin Park, Illinois – 16
Maryland – 20
Denver, Colorado: – 21
Riverdale, Illinois – 35

Thus the Violence Policy Center has used a gratuitous definition that improves their chances of making compelling literature.  The definitions are not particularly useful, however, since I have tried to provide what is publicly available.  Moreover, analysis of the data provided in Mass Shootings in the U.S. (HPS) gives some insights that call into question the usefulness of generalizations and categories.

First, there simply haven’t been that many mass shootings in the U.S.  There aren’t enough to be statistically significant, but anecdotal wisdom can nonetheless be gleaned from the data.  Second, the charge that assault weapons are somehow the weapon of choice, or are involved in increasing proportions in mass shootings, is simply false.  The data shows that handguns are involved at a rate of 4:1 compared to either shotguns or rifles of any kind.

Third, the most frequent choice for such shooters in order to achieve effectiveness seems not to rely on magazine capacity, but having multiple weapons and magazines.  Fourth, the highest number of deaths occurs in instances of handgun use, not AR or AK use.  Fifth, determined and well-prepared shooters, e.g., the Texas tower murders, can use bolt action rifles to wreak carnage without the accouterments of the “assault weapon” label.  Sixth, most shooters carried multiple magazines, and seemed to be capable of fairly rapid magazine changeout.  In fact, given the ability to perform this action quickly, it isn’t obvious that use of magazines of different capacity would have substantially changed the calculus for any of the incidents.  The Fort Hood shooter used a high capacity magazine for his FN Five-Seven, but he also performed magazine changeout.  He didn’t stop shooting until he was himself shot.  It isn’t apparent that more magazine changeouts would have changed the outcome of the incident.

While correlation isn’t causation and no conclusive judgments may be made from this data due to the limited quantity of the set, this is true in the superlative for those who would try to use it to demonstrate in the legal system that so-called assault weapons are more dangerous than any other type of weapon or are involved in more crimes.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling continues to amuse at it goes on.  Eventually the court parrots the words of the ATF concerning the lack of a sporting purpose for assault weapons, a cultural framework that is dated by at least twenty five years.  I pointed this out in Analysis of the ATF Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns.  Mentioning the Saiga-12 competitions or the local 3-Gun competitions should be enough to cause the authors to go back to the drawing board and craft up-to-date language and regulations (or better yet, simply reverse the regulatory trend of micromanagement).  The ATF language is simply outmoded, incorrect and useless.

But hysteria over assault weapons causing bad judicial outcomes isn’t the only problem.  In the Southern district of New York, Judge Cathy Seibel has ruled that possession of a firearm of any kind outside of the home is a privilege rather than a right.  Continuing with this theme, Sean Masciandaro fell asleep in his car while resting from a long drive, and this happened to occur on National Park land.  He was arrested for failing to remove the ammunition from the proximity of his weapon and place it in a remote location such as the trunk of his car (as if the weapon would have been any protection for him unloaded).

The attorneys for Sean argue thusly.

Heller and McDonald left open important questions regarding the scope of the self-defense right beyond the home and the appropriate method for evaluating government regulations affecting it. The lower courts have struggled mightily with these issues. See, e.g., Masciandaro, 638 F.3d at 467 (“But a considerable degree of uncertainty remains as to the scope of that right beyond the home and the standards for determining whether and how the right can be burdened by governmental regulation.”); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (“Skoien II”) (Heller creates an individual right that includes keeping operable handguns at home for self-defense but “[w]hat other entitlements the Second Amendment creates, and what regulations legislatures may establish, were left open.”), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1674 (2011).

The highest state courts that have considered the issue unanimously decided that the Second Amendment right is limited to the home. Maryland, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Kansas have all limited Heller to its holding. 9 For example, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s firearm permitting statute, concluding that the right is unavailable outside the home. Williams v. State, 417 Md. 479, 496 (Md. 2011) (stating that “[i]f the Supreme Court, in this [Heller] dicta, meant its holding to extend beyond home possession, it will need to say so more plainly”), petition for cert. filed, 79 U.S.L.W. 3594 (Apr. 5, 2011). That court noted that Illinois, the District of Columbia, and California also limited the right in similar cases. Id. at 496-99. Given this trend, state courts that confront Second Amendment issues in the future will likely limit its protection to the home.

Other state and federal courts have held that even if the right might exist outside the home, it is substantially weaker than the right enjoyed in the home.

Heller was a muddled decision and at least placed language in effect that justified the micromanagement of weapons types (with the statement that the “handgun is the quintessential self-defense weapon,” it sounds as if Antonin Scalia has been watching too much television).  But if Heller was muddled, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (and other courts throughout the nation) have made the problem an order of magnitude larger, with incoherent arguments, factually incorrect statements, lack of personal knowledge of firearms, and reliance on “experts” who are known to be duplicitous and ignorant of the subject.  We can forgive editorial boards.  After all, they wax eloquent in ignorance all the time on all kinds of things.  Courts cannot be forgiven.

According to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the D.C. assault weapons ban is based on something other than those weapons being unusual since there are hundreds of thousands of them in circulation.  But not really, because they are unusual and dangerous weapons, and the real concern has to do with the safety of police officers, until the public is mentioned, because their protection is paramount.  And if all of that doesn’t work, the big bad bogeyman of “mass shootings” should be enough to convince the reader that they should be banned.  It’s just a horrible decision that wouldn’t make the grade in any college writing class.

And worse?  The Supreme Court bought all of that and refused to hear Heller’s appeal.  The Supreme Court has one more chance to get it right this term with the case of Sean Masciandaro.  If they don’t, Heller will be nothing more than a right to possess a weapon inside the home, and the second amendment will have been eviscerated.

UPDATE: I appreciate the links give to this article by Say Uncle and David Hardy at Of Arms & the Law.

California has recently prohibited open carry.

Sunday night, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law two bills affecting gun owners and dealers.

Brown signed AB 144 by Assemblymsn (sic) Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada-Flintridge) to ban the open carry of handguns in California; and AB 809 by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) to close a loophole in state law that required the destruction of long gun sales and transfer records.

“The Governor has shown common sense and real courage by standing with law enforcement and victims of gun violence to make our communities safer,” said Dr. Dallas Stout, President of the California Brady Campaign Chapters.

AB 809 will require the preservation of records for long guns sold or transferred in the state after Jan. 1, 2014. Currently, only handgun purchases and transfer records are retained by the state Department of Justice.

“The retention of long gun records will enable the tracing of long guns used in crime and help law enforcement expose traffickers and sources of illegal guns,” continued Stout. Data from the state Department of Justice shows more th an half the guns recovered from armed and prohibited persons are long guns.

AB 144 will prohibit carrying in public openly displayed handguns. Last January, the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign announced their Demand Gun-free Dining – California project in response to a political movement of gun enthusiasts testing an old law — which allows the open carry of semi-automatic weapons with live ammunition magazines readily available — by holding gun gatherings in local restaurants and on public property.

“By prohibiting the open carry of guns, we can now take our families to the park or out to eat without the worry of getting shot by some untrained, unscreened, self-appointed vigilante,” Stout continued.

A gun registry is one of the stepping stones to the holy grail for the Brady Campaign, the total absence of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.  But don’t be deceived.  The Brady Campaign is lying about being able to “take families to the park or eat without the worry of getting shot by some untrained, unscreened, self-appointed vigilante.”  It isn’t really concealed carry that the Brady Campaign wants.  Not at all.  The Brady Campaign puts out so much silly propaganda that it cannot keep its own story straight.  As reported by Rock River Times (apparently reporting not too far, ironically, from Rock River Arms in Colona Illinois), the Brady Campaign is arguing for something different in Illinois.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence intends to file two amicus briefs in federal courts this week in Illinois urging dismissal of two gun lobby lawsuits challenging the validity of Illinois law restricting the public carrying of firearms.

Illinois is the only state in the nation that has yet to legalize a form of concealed carry of firearms.

“The people of Illinois have made the reasonable decision to keep deadly semi-automatic weapons off the streets,” said Brady Center Acting President Dennis Henigan. “Courts have wisely rejected the gun lobby’s argument that the Constitution provides a right to carry loaded handguns in public, and the Second Amendment does not require people to be subjected to the grave risks of more loaded guns in our communities.”

You see, the Brady Campaign doesn’t want concealed carry either.  Their faux praise for the new California law prohibiting open carry is for appearances.  They must keep up the facade of reasonableness and legitimacy on their way to their holy grail.  In reality, they want the total disarmament of the population (which can never succeed with the criminals).  In shouldn’t be able to succeed with law-abiding citizens either, which is one reason we mustn’t give one inch to the anti-firearms zealots and bigots.

I’ve discussed my open carry practices in my home state of North Carolina before, and this is another fine time to mention that my sister state of South Carolina still needs a progressive and forward-thinking congressman to carry them out of the dark ages and allow open carry.  South Carolina still agrees with California, as odd as that may sound.  They both prohibit open carry now.

Chris Brown at Media Matters gives us an amusing take on so-called “assault rifles.”

Chris wrongly assumes that the firearms community must be ashamed and embarrassed at the debate.  With Robert Farago, I think that this alleged takedown is much ado about nothing.  This is just the firearms community talking to each other.  Frankly, it doesn’t much matter to me whether one calls it an AR, a home defense weapon, a rifle, a long gun, or a modern sporting rifle.  It’s all of those things, and more.  But there is one particular myth that I want to take down once and for all, and it is given to us by someone calling himself “progressive” at Media Matters.

I’d personally consider an ‘assault rifle’ to be a weapon other than a handgun (ex: semi-automatic or revolver) or submachine gun (ex: FN Herstal P90, Tec-DC9, H&K MP5) that can fire high-powered rounds such as .223cal, .308cal, or 7.62mm with a selective fire capability. Many tend to have a lever built into the trigger assembly for selecting single-shot, multi-round burst, or safety-on.

The category especially includes military-derived rifles like the AR-15/M4 family used by many US and NATO forces, Kalashnikov-style rifles (AK-47, AKM, AK-74) that originated from the former USSR, and newer high-tech weapons from Europe like the FN Herstal SCAR, H&K G36, or SIG-Sauer 556.

I think ‘assault rifle’ is a perfectly accurate term. These rifles were all designed and mass-produced to be (quite literally) anti-personnel weapons in a combat situation. They were NOT designed with residential protection, competitive shooting, or hunting in mind- otherwise there would be no need to sell a modified version of any of the above rifles to the general public. For example, you cannot wisely use an AR-15 rifle to protect your home from a burglar who is inside- the penetration properties of a high-powered weapon would make the risk to your family in an adjacent room a serious concern. There’s a reason that police SWAT units rarely use assault rifles for operations inside an occupied building.

Oh my.  There are so many errors in this one post that it’s difficult to know where to begin, but I want to cover this notion that the AR isn’t a legitimate home defense weapon.  The acronym AR, as we all know, stands for Armalite.  My own rifle is a Rock River Arms Elite CAR A4, an M4-style variant that has a long enough barrel to be legal (the M4 does not for civilian use).  I have put many rounds through it, and never had a failure to feed or failure to eject.  Until you have shot the 5.56 round, you simply don’t get a feel for how high the muzzle velocity is (viewing through scopes at 100+ yards shows no discernible time delay between firing and observing impact on target) compared to the extremely low recoil.

The 5.56 mm is a high velocity round with superior terminal ballistics, yawing upon impact and leaving an enlarged trail of tissue damage.  Yet this idea that it will kill people one or two houses away or that it is more dangerous to people in adjacent rooms than other rounds, even pistol caliber rounds, is entirely wrong.  Tests have demonstrated that the 5.56 mm penetrates less drywall than most of the pistol caliber rounds (depending upon the specific brand and type).

My AR is fabricated (with its quad rail) to hold attachments such as a forend grip and a tactical light, and upon meeting a home intruder in the dark, without a tactical light you may as well be blind.  Sending the wife to the movies for the night lends a wonderful chance to darken the home and practice clearing tactics from room to room.  The light weight of the rifle along with its collapsible stock make it a great weapon for maneuverability around doorways, and so it makes a great CQB firearm.  Finally, while the round does yaw and tend to fragment (causing tissue damage or conversely beginning the process of disintegration if it misses), it does well if the home intruder is wearing soft body armor, a trend in the more violent home invasions in urban areas.  While there are those who disagree, I believe that Eugene Stoner was a genius.

Tiger McKee sums it up it well.

When people ask, “What do you keep beside your bed at night,” I tell them it’s an AR. Usually their first response is, “Yeah, but you live in the middle of Alafrickinbama.” Which is true, but that doesn’t mean the .223/5.56 carbine isn’t an excellent weapon for home defense, even in urban environments.

When it comes to terminal ballistics high velocity rifle rounds perform much better than pistol rounds. Another advantage of the .223/5.56 round is its limited penetration, unless you’re firing steel core rounds specifically designed for penetration. Numerous tests show the .223/5.56 round penetrating through less interior walls than 9mm, .40 and .45 ACP rounds. This is even true for hollow-point pistol rounds, which fill up with sheetrock and such and never expand the way they are supposed to, and buckshot. If you’re shooting, the possibility of missing shots exists. Limited penetration of errant rounds is a good thing.

The carbine allows you to place one bullet exactly where you want it to go, as opposed to a shotgun. Even though great advances have occurred in shotgun rounds, you still have to be concerned with distance and pattern, and wads and spacers, which at close distances can injure or kill. In a hostage situation, an AR and the proper skills allow you to place one round with surgical precision. The AR is accurate from three yards to three hundred. Not that you could justify to a grand jury shooting someone at an extended distance, but this means it’s no problem to hit at thirty yards, which could be necessary.

The AR is lightweight, has limited recoil, and simple to operate. Anyone in the family of age can learn how to use it, effectively, in a short amount of time. A lot of people, even hard-core operators, will flinch when pressing off a magnum round of twelve-gauge buck. After firing the shotgun you have to pump it, which a lot of people forget or fumble under stress. When firing a semi-auto without getting a good aggressive position there’s a chance the shooter will be clearing a malfunction. With an AR you slip off the safety, get a good sight picture, press the trigger, follow through, and repeat as necessary.

While most self-defense problems only require a few rounds to solve, the AR’s high capacity magazine does allow you to stay in an extended fight for longer periods of time without having to reload. Just keep in mind Clint Smith’s saying that a higher capacity magazine isn’t a license to shoot more, it just means you have to manipulate the weapon less.

We also can’t ignore the psychological advantages of the carbine. I’ve seen people with pistols pointed at them who really didn’t seem to care. A carbine normally commands much respect.

The AR may not be the weapon for your home defense, but don’t discount it without serious consideration. When attacked, your task is to stop the threat as efficiently as possible. With the proper training and practice the .223/5.56 carbine is an excellent tool for this task.

Lastly, there is always the threat of bear in Pennsylvania, bear in Idaho, mountain lions in Sierra Madre, feral hogs in South Carolina, Georgia, or frankly anywhere in the Southeast running children indoors (if they don’t harm or kill them first), or rabid  Coyotes in suburban Charlotte (McAlpine Greenway near where I live and  walk my dog).  Even if you want something more hefty for bear, you may not have ready access to it.  The AR platform provides a ready and reliable means of defense against nearly all threats (confession: I don’t carry my AR while I walk my dog, I open carry my XDm .45).

Where else can you get 3100 fps muzzle velocity, rounds yawing upon impact, almost non-existent recoil, light weight, rails for needed attachments, ability to penetrate soft body armor during home invasions, relative safety for adjacent rooms compared to large shotgun shot, relatively short barrel and rapid ability to attain a viable sight picture?

It may not be the weapon for everyone, but while it isn’t the only weapon I use, it sits under my bed at night.  Media Matters can supply us with laughs, chuckles and snortles, but a serious assessment of the matter shows that the AR is not only a legitimate home defense weapon, it is a superior one.  Enough with the notion that this weapon is around only so that psychopathic kooks can “kill large numbers of innocent people.”  It’s high capacity magazine has turned out useful in defensive engagements before and will so in the future.  Besides, as I’ve said before, a high capacity magazine is an aluminum parallelepiped with a spring and follower.  Anyone with a little ambition can build one in his garage.  Prohibiting them from sale is both silly and deceiving.

I withhold my counsel on use of the AR for Chris Brown and Progressive at Media Matters.  I strongly advise that upon sensing a threat of any kind they call and wait for the police to arrive.  That should happen on the order of 8 – 20 minutes from placement of the call.

Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has a post up on Presbyterianism and gun rights concerning “Presbyterian” leadership and anti-gun advocacy.  I like the spirit of his post, but there are two very problematic aspects to his post.

First, he conflates the PCUSA with Presbyterians.  Not so.  Not at all.  There is the PCA, the OPC, the RPCNA, the ARP, and so on.  Presbyterianism isn’t a monolith, and the PCUSA is noted as the very left wing of Presbyterianism.

Second, and most important, Sebastian argues thusly:

I really don’t like it when churches insert themselves into political matters under the guise that these are really spiritual matters. Murder, rage, and vengeance — these are all matters of the spirit. Gun control is a matter of politics

And that, my friends, is exactly how to lose the gun rights argument.  Make it a political debate where, with enough pressure, votes and power, a man can take away what God has granted.  There is more background in Let Him Who Has No Gun Sell His Robe and Buy One, and Dr. Greg Bahnsen has much more.  But the short version is that the right to self defense is a right seen by our forefathers as inalienable.  That  means that it isn’t subject to the ebb and flow of politics.

My right to firearms ownership is granted by God, no  matter what the PCUSA says.  They’re just wrong.  But the way to defeat wrongheaded arguments is not to remove our rights from the framework of righteousness and morality.  It is to prove our opponents wrong on this very basis.

The problem is that while Sebastian claims that gun control is a matter of politics rather than religion (“spirit”), it really is a matter of religion and righteousness and morality rather than politics.  He has it exactly backwards.  I’m not being critical.  I’m trying to ground our rights in something other than the machinations of the political animal.

The Police Department of the City of Warren, Michigan, behaved badly towards a citizen engaged in open carry.

A Warren man who is an advocate for firearm “open carry” practices is suing the city and its police department, claiming officers violated his Second Amendment  right to bear arms.

Jeffery Haman, 54, seeks a $100,000 judgment and $500,000 in punitive or exemplary damages, as part of the lawsuit he filed recently in U.S. District Court.

With a semi-automatic pistol holstered at his waist, Haman, a former firearms dealer, was walking home from a local drug store at 12 Mile and Hoover roads in August 2009 when a patrolman quickly drove up to him.

“At the first instant where I could see through the open passenger window, he had a gun pointed at me,” he said. “Then he came to a stop. As soon as I saw the gun, I put my hands up.”

Haman was ordered to lie on his stomach, with his hands outstretched. The officer handcuffed him and three additional officers in two patrol cars arrived.

“I asked him what his reason was for stopping me. He said, ‘You’re walking down the street with a gun.’ I said, ‘That’s perfectly legal, I’m open carrying.’”

Police took the .45 caliber handgun and his ammunition, and asked if he had documentation for the weapon. Haman said he showed a purchase receipt and a concealed-weapon permit although it’s not required for open carry.

In a police video of the incident, an officer is heard telling Haman: “You should at least call us and tell us what you’re doing. Walking around like this is just going to get you hurt somehow.

“You’re just asking for trouble, brother.”

[ … ]

Warren Police Commissioner Jere Green, who along with former commissioner William Dwyer are defendants in the lawsuit, said Friday he had just received a copy but had not read it yet …

“We have to train and educate our troops when things like this happen,” said Green, “and we certainly do.”

Emphasizing that he was not commenting on the Haman case, the city’s top police administrator said any officer who sees a person carrying a firearm must quickly assess any potential threat.

“I don’t think a citizen would just want us to drive by and assume it’s an open carry situation,” Green said.

“Safety’s first.”

Haman explained the two-year lapse between the incident and the lawsuit was due to finding the right lawyer and unsuccessful efforts to try to meet with the city attorney in the hope of convincing the legal department to issue a memorandum to police on how to address open carry situations in public.

There are some very telling quotes in the article – gems that get to the heart of the problem.  “You should at least call us and tell us what you’re doing” … “Walking around like this is just going to get you hurt somehow” … “You’re just asking for trouble, brother” … “any officer who sees a person carrying a firearm must quickly assess any potential threat” … “I don’t think a citizen would just want us to drive by and assume it’s an open carry situation” … “Safety’s first.”

“Safety’s first.”  Right.  So lets’ examine some of these positions in a little more detail after a few questions.  Before we exercise our right to free speech or religion, must we contact law enforcement to inform them?  Has the police commissioner polled the citizens to see what they expect concerning open carry, or has he just assumed that he knows?  How will walking around with a weapon get someone hurt?  Who will hurt them and for what purpose?  Why didn’t the police commissioner educate his officers (not “troops”) to understand that Michigan is a traditional open carry state?  Why didn’t the police commissioner educate his officers to understand that Michigan has no stop and identify statute?  Do his officers routinely unholster and aim their weapons at people who are not violating any law?

A bit more background before I make several observations.  I open carry, and it’s not because I am trying to make some sort of political point.  I walk my dog, and in the afternoons here in Charlotte, N.C., it can reach 100 degrees F in the summer, even late in the afternoon.  I got tired of sweating all over my weapon when I concealed it.  I suppose I could use something that lifted my weapon off of my body like a super-tuck holster, but the last thing I want on a 100 F day is to put a slab of leather next to my body to get wet and salty and make me more hot than I already am.

So I have been open carrying for a number of  months now.  Women and children don’t go running home and screaming in fear for their lives.  People don’t scatter when they see me.  On the contrary, many people stop to talk and pet my dog.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police (Baker 2) drive by often, smile, and wave – or simply ignore me.  My time open carrying has been completely uneventful.  No one has been harmed, no one has sought to harm me, and most importantly, no out-of-control police officer has unholstered his weapon and aimed it at me.

In fact, I use extreme discipline when I carry my weapon.  I have never unholstered it when I am in public.  If I did, someone could charge me with brandishing a weapon, and properly so.  Not so for the Warren Police, apparently.  If safety is first for the Warren Police, then why did this officer unholster his weapon and aim it at someone who wasn’t violating any statue or law?

There are two cardinal sins for any firearm owner.  Lack of muzzle discipline, and lack of trigger discipline.  Sweeping someone with a muzzle is forbidden in the superlative, and this officer pointed his at an innocent citizen.  If he had been lacking trigger discipline – like other incompetent LEOs – he might just have killed someone with a negligent discharge.

So the salient question is this.  Who is the one who supplied the safety in the situation; Mr. Haman who held up his hands, or the police officer?  I think that the answer is clear to any thinking man.  And with a little more thought, it isn’t hard to ascertain the cultural basis for this kind of behavior.

It’s okay if an officer has a negligent discharge and kills an innocent man (we’ll just find “analysts” who say that it was something procedural).  It’s okay if police officers fire off 71 stray bullets in a shootout and kill an innocent bystander (whereas I would have been charged with second degree murder if I attempted to defend myself and ended up shooting a bystander).  It’s okay if a SWAT team terrorizes the Guerena family, killing former Marine Jose Guerena, and fail to recover a single shred of incriminating evidence for the raid.  And it’s okay if a Warren police officer unholsters his weapon on an innocent citizen who is obeying all laws.  We shouldn’t expect him to know or understand the law, whereas I would be jailed for brandishing a weapon if I did something like that.

You see, they are sworn law enforcement officers, and they are entitled to these things.  I, on the other hand, cannot be trusted with a firearm, any more than Mr. Haman.  How disciplined I am with a firearm has nothing to do with it.  I’m not a sworn LEO.

So there you have it.  Prejudice and bigotry on display.  It is the intellectual edifice they have built for so many years.  This officer overreacted during the incident by unholstering his weapon and losing his muzzle discipline.  I could never get away with that.  But the real problem is manifest by the refusal properly to educate the officers on the open carry tradition and (lack of) stop and identify statutes.  Did you catch that?  The police commission refuses to issue a memorandum.

A memorandum to educate his officers.  Good grief.  A memorandum could have made this whole ugly scene go away, and they are too proud to do it.  Prejudice and bigotry.

And speaking of prejudice and bigotry, I notice that my sister state, South Carolina, forbids open carry (causing me some moderate inconveniences).  It’s about time for some thoughtful congressman to put forward a bill to bring S.C. into the 21st century.  Michigan is already there, even if their police aren’t.