Peace officers throughout California have bought more than 7,600 assault weapons that are outlawed for civilians in the decade since state lawmakers allowed the practice, according to data obtained by the Associated Press after it was revealed that federal authorities are investigating illegal gun sales by law enforcement.
Investigators have not said what kinds of weapons were involved, but did say they were ones that officers can buy but civilians cannot. That category also can include certain types of handguns and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The AP’s findings and the federal probe have prompted one state lawmaker to revisit the law to ensure that the guns can be bought only for police purposes.
“I think it’s much more questionable whether we should allow peace officers to have access to weapons or firearms that a private citizen wouldn’t have access to if the use is strictly personal,” said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento.
The information was obtained through a California Public Records Act request filed after federal authorities served search warrants in November as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of illegal weapons sales by several Sacramento-area law enforcement officers.
The investigation has raised questions about the kinds of restricted weapons that the more than 87,000 peace officers in the state are entitled to purchase and about a 2001 law that allows them to buy assault weapons “for law enforcement purposes, whether on or off duty.”
The AP found that some departments allow officers to use the weapons in their off time while others require that the weapons be used only on-duty, although an opinion by the state attorney general issued last year says officers can acquire the guns for any purpose but must relinquish them when they retire.
A department-by-department breakdown of purchases made this year, released as part of the AP’s records request, shows that Los Angeles Police Department officers bought 146 guns, the most in the state. The department’s policy says the guns are to be used only for police purposes.
Today, about 1,300 of the nearly 10,000 LAPD officers have assault rifles, more than 500 of them purchased by the officers themselves.
“We’re not interested in loading up people’s gun closets with assault weapons,” said Cmdr. Andrew Smith, who spent $1,200 on his gun. “The idea is that these guys would be able to have these in the trunks of their police cars if they’re needed.”
Officers in the San Diego Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and Long Beach Police Department also registered large numbers of assault weapons so far this year.
Skirting the law, they are. So the LEOs purchase the weapons, and then don’t turn them in when they retire. But the LEOs want to keep their weapons.
“We think that an officer that extends himself and buys this for his department and his community is being unduly punished as they go out the door,” said Ron Cottingham, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California.
City police officers, county sheriff’s deputies, California Highway Patrol officers, state game wardens, school police officers and other law enforcement personnel can buy assault weapons with their own money, at a cost often exceeding $1,200.
The proposed legislation is still being written but likely would allow officers to re-register their weapons once they retire, similar to the registrations required for those who owned assault rifles before California’s ban became law in 1999.
The peace officers group is a federation of more than 900 local, state and federal law enforcement associations representing 62,000 public safety employees in California. It bills itself as the state’s largest law enforcement organization.
No, no, and a thousand times no! It doesn’t work this way. So there is some utility in so-called assault weapons having nothing whatsoever to do with the official duties of being a law enforcement officer (such as home defense), or the retired LEOs wouldn’t want to keep them.
But if retired LEOs can be deemed to be stable, crime-free and reliable enough to own a weapon with a high capacity magazine and a forend grip, then so can citizens who weren’t employed as LEOs. There is no basis – logical, moral or legal – on which to exempt retired LEOs from the same law under which everyone else must live in California.
I must strongly encourage the state legislature of California to do the right thing and reject this subversion of the rule of law. On the other hand, if they may be persuaded that so-called assault weapons aren’t really used to perpetrate mass killings like the propaganda says, and that the AR may be considered a legitimate home defense weapon, and if the sensibilities of the retired LEOs in California are correct and there is some utility to so-called assault weapons in defense of the home, then perhaps they may also be persuaded to undo the assault weapons ban for all citizens of California. Either way, consistency isn’t the hobgoblin of little minds as claimed by the idiot Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is the stuff of life. It’s the way we all live.
As an editorial remark before beginning our journey through Mitt Romney’s views on the second amendment and gun control, I cannot promise the reader that this article will be easy to read, nor that the various videos and sources won’t be more time consuming than you would otherwise wish. However, I can promise you that after studying the sources I cite, you will understand enough about Mitt Romney’s views to categorize and understand what he believes and see how his record matches what he believes.
To begin our journey, take a moment and view Romney’s position on the federal assault weapons ban that had a sunset provision at 0001 hours on September 13, 2004.
Take careful note. Romney is referring to the federal assault weapons ban, not the assault weapons ban he signed into law in Massachusetts. Along with Obama, he would have signed an extension of this ban. But this is only the beginning of the maneuvering concerning the portrayal of his views. The Gun Owners Action League attempts to defend Romney’s having signed the pertinent bill banning assault weapons.
The bill was the greatest victory for gun owners since the passage of the gun control laws in 1998 (Chapter 180 of the Acts of 1998). It was a reform bill totally supported by GOAL. Press and media stories around the country got it completely wrong when claimed the bill was an extension of the “assault weapon” ban that had sunset at the federal level. They could not have been more wrong … [the bill]
Permanently attached the federal language concerning assault weapon exemptions in 18 USC 922 Appendix A to the Massachusetts assault weapons laws. This is the part that the media misrepresented.
In 1998 the Massachusetts legislature passed its own assault weapons ban (MGL Chapter 140, Section 131M). This ban did not rely on the federal language and contained no sunset clause. Knowing that we did not have the votes in 2004 to get rid of the state law, we did not want to loose all of the federal exemptions that were not in the state law so this new bill was amended to include them.
GOAL is dancing on the head of a pin. For those people who claimed that the particular bill was an “extension of the federal assault weapons ban,” that’s a bit of a misnomer. I have never made that claim. Romney signed an assault weapons ban in Massachusetts, and that’s the long and short of it, whether it was precisely an extension of the federal ban or not. The other crumbs that “fell from the master’s table,” as it were, included a reversal of prior Massachusetts law that banned certain versions of certain pistols that were considered competition weapons (“bull” barrels, modified trigger pull force, etc.). The concessions given by the Democrats were not very significant, and the assault weapons ban was continued into the foreseeable future for Massachusetts.
What is more troubling, however, is Romney’s defense of the bill. Assessing a DNC ad criticizing Romney’s flip-flop on assault weapons, Politifact.com weighs in with this citation from 2004.
“It very well may be. In our state what we did is we got both sides of this issue to come together, because we relaxed a number of things, allowing people who hadn’t been able to get weapons in the past to be able to purchase those. … There are hunters in the NRA and the gun owners’ action league (who) backed the legislation that said, ‘Look, let’s protect our citizens from dangerous assault weapons, but let’s also make … regular weapons more available to our citizens.’ And we made a compromise that works.”
Our takeaway is that Romney, at that moment, was arguing that ordinary Americans have the right to bear some types of arms but not assault weapons. He said it “very well may be necessary” to extend the federal assault-weapons ban, while adding that he acted on the state ban because it also included expansions on other types of gun ownership rules.
And then in 2008 they have this from Romney.
“I do support the Second Amendment. And I believe that this is an individual right of citizens and not a right of government. And I hope the Supreme Court reaches that same conclusion.
“I also, like the president, would have signed the assault weapon ban that came to his desk. I said I would have supported that and signed a similar bill in our state. It was a bill worked out, by the way, between pro-gun lobby and anti-gun lobby individuals. Both sides of the issue came together and found a way to provide relaxation in licensing requirements and allow more people to have guns for their own legal purposes. And so we signed that in Massachusetts, and I said I would support that at the federal level, just as the president said he would. It did not pass at the federal level. I do not believe we need new legislation.
“I do not support any new legislation of an assault weapon ban nature, including that against semiautomatic weapons. I instead believe that we have laws in place that if they’re implemented and enforced, will provide the protection and the safety of the American people. But I do not support any new legislation, and I do support the right of individuals to bear arms, whether for hunting purposes or for protection purposes or any other reason. That’s the right that people have.”
[ … ]
The reality is that Romney’s answer in the debate was unfocused, even self-contradictory. He said that he would have signed a federal assault ban extension — but he added that after it failed on the federal level, he felt he did not believe new legislation was necessary.
Romney is dancing on the head of the same pin that GOAL is on. His position is logically incoherent because he is attempting to appeal to multiple (and diametrically opposed) constituencies. In fact, the language he used to defend the bill is as troubling as his having signed it.
“These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
Of course, these guns are indeed used for home defense, and modern sporting rifles of the AR design are used for hunting, target shooting and competition in the .223 / 5.56 mm, .243, and .308 / 7.62 mm calibers. Hear the same sentiments in the video below.
These same words could have been spoken by Dennis Henigan of the Brady Campaign. If these sentiments seem conflicted between supporting the second amendment and finding room for gun control, Alex Kauffman writing for Conservative Daily News explains why as he analyzes similarities between Romney and his father on three different fronts.
Handgun Ownership: In order to understand Mitt Romney’s actions here, it is necessary to give a little background information about Massachusetts gun control laws: In 1998, Massachusetts established a list of “safety” criteria for handguns sold in the state. The criteria were designed to disqualify most handguns. The Roster is the list of those few makes and models which have passed the testing requirements.
Mitt Romney created two exemptions: One for handguns already licensed in the state prior to October 21, 1998, and one for “match-grade” pistols (high-dollar handguns purpose-built for shooting competitions).
The 1998 exemption is significant when one understand the “preban effect”: Some gun laws are written with an effective date, where firearms sold after the date are subject to the law, while those sold before the date are “grandfathered”. Since there is a limited supply of grandfathered items, the sale price of those items skyrockets.
The net effect of Mitt Romney’s exemptions was this: In Massachusetts, a person now has three options for legally owning a handgun: 1) an expensive pre-1998 handgun; 2) an expensive “safety-approved” handgun; 3) an expensive match-grade handgun.
Compare this to George Romney’s “safety” law- Public Acts 215 and 216 of 1964- which required all handguns to be submitted, within ten days of purchase, for inspection by a law enforcement officer in order to obtain a “safety certificate”. “Safety”, however, was undefined, and determining that a handgun was “safe” was left entirely to the discretion of the officer conducting the inspection. In effect, law enforcement could determine any handgun to be “unsafe”, and confiscate the handgun on the spot, without compensating the buyer for his loss. This provided a disincentive for unpopular persons and minorities to attempt to lawfully buy handguns, knowing their handguns would be confiscated. Likewise, a lower-income person would not want to take the risk of saving money to buy a handgun, only to have their investment confiscated in this manner.
Like father, like son: Both Romneys used the guise of “safety” to deny the right to own a handgun to lower-income persons and “undesireables“.
Next, Kauffman turns to carrying handguns.
Before George Romney became governor, Michigan had created a very restrictive licensing law for carrying a concealed handgun: License applicants had to prove an immediate physical risk to a county license board consisting of representatives of the county prosecuting attorney, county sheriff, and the commissioner of state police. Needless to say, many applications for a carry license were rejected (and this state of affairs led to concealed carry reforms decades later). A concealed carry license was also required if a person wanted to transport a loaded handgun in an automobile, whether or not the handgun was concealed. Open (visible) carry of a handgun was technically legal (outside of an automobile), but in practice, doing it would usually lead to arrest for a “disturbing the peace” type of charge.
So, what was one to do if they wanted to carry a handgun, but weren’t politically connected enough to get a concealed carry license? Answer: Get a private security guard license. Said license authorized a person to carry a handgun openly without fear of arrest, carry a loaded handgun in an automobile, and was issued to virtually anyone who applied.
George Romney, however, made that practice illegal. Public Act 100 of 1966 made it a misdemeanor for a licensed security guard to carry a handgun except during work; Public Act 49 of 1967 made it a felony.
Romney did, however, extend concealed carry privileges in Michigan to licensees from other states- understanding that, in the 1960s, almost all states had similarly-restrictive processes for issuing a license to carry concealed. Romney did little more than extend a privilege given to an “elite few” in his state, to the similar “elite few” of other states.
By comparison, Mitt Romney had little work to do in this regard: By the time he took office, Massachusetts already had a two-tiered carry law: Persons with a “Class B” license could “carry” (transport in a box) an unloaded firearm to and from hunting areas and target ranges; the “elite few” granted a “Class A” license (issued to those who could prove a “need” to local law enforcement, as in Michigan in the 1960s) were entitled to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense.
While running for Governor in 2002, Mitt Romney infamously said: “I won’t chip away at them; I believe they protect us and provide for our safety.” And he didn’t.
Like father, like son: Both Romneys supported restricting the carrying of handguns for self-defense to an “elite few” of police and politically-connected businessmen.
Kauffman’s discussion on Romney and assault weapons is a recapitulation of what we already know. Summarizing his analysis, Kaufmann says:
It is fair to say that Mitt is an elitist on the subject of firearms. His record demonstrates a WASP-y, 1950′s view of gun ownership: “Decent” people own guns for hunting and sporting, and protecting their homes. “Decent” people don’t “need” to carry guns for self-defense. Preventing people who aren’t “decent” from owning guns is a good idea.
I have spent some time studying the firearms laws in Massachusetts, and find them to be some of the most draconian of any state. There are also odd and inexplicable statutes such as this one:
Such club shall not permit shooting at targets that depict human figures, human effigies, human silhouettes or any human images thereof, except by public safety personnel performing in line with their official duties.
Presumably this is part of that elitist culture in Massachusetts, where LEOs can train on silhouettes but other shooters can’t. My state, on the other hand, sees the common sense in requiring CHP holders to be qualified on their weapons. I filled out paperwork for the County Sheriff attesting that I had been tested placing so many rounds on target at 7 yards using silhouettes. It’s better, in the state’s opinion, if I am going to carry a weapon, to ensure to the extent possible that my rounds impact their intended target if I ever have to use my weapon.
As best as publicly contradictory views can be assessed and summarized, Romney wants firearms only in the hands of sportsmen who hunt, and then only transported to hunting lands in certain ways (I would point out that the second amendment has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with hunting). Only LEOs have the right to carry, along with a certain small number of other “approved” people. You have the right to own a handgun in your own home, but only under certain circumstances, and only if you can afford the high price. If you want to carry that weapon outside the home, you’re a creepy person, perhaps even poorly bred, uncouth and ill mannered. You’re even more creepy if you want one of those awful assault weapons. You just want to kill lots of people.
In a nutshell, Romney is a consistent Northeastern elitist concerning his views on the second amendment, smokescreens notwithstanding. He and the Brady campaign got along just fine while he was governor of Massachusetts.
This post is sparked by a short article in The Hill:
A senior GOP lawmaker said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder could be impeached over botched gun-tracking operation Fast and Furious.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) suggested at a House Judiciary Committee hearing that Congress may impeach Holder if it does not get satisfactory answers about inaccurate statements and information the Department of Justice provided on the operation.
“If we don’t get to the bottom of this — and that requires your assistance on that — there is only one alternative that Congress has, and it’s called impeachment,” Sensenbrenner said. “And I don’t want to go this far, but if we keep on getting pushed down the road and the can keeps on getting kicked and we don’t get closure to this, what is Congress to do so that we don’t spend all of our time in court arguing privilege, which is not a way to get at the truth?”
Sensenbrenner, a former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was referring to a letter DOJ wrote to Congress that denied any agency involvement in “walking” guns — letting weapons fall into the hands of suspected criminals. That letter has since been withdrawn because of its inaccurate statements.
First off, kudos to Congressman Sensenbrenner for at least having the nerve to raise impeachment as a possibility. Far too often, the GOP members of Congress are simply too afraid of the Leftist Media (and their own shadow) to take a firm stand on anything.
When Sensenbrenner states, however, that the only alternative is impeachment, he is either ignorant of or intentionally avoiding the power of Congress to appoint a Independent Counsel to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute members of the Executive Branch, such as Attorney General Holder, or subordinates in the Department of Justice.
I am fine with impeachment proceedings that involve dereliction of duty and require removal of an incompetent or otherwise compromised member of the Executive Branch. But there are two reasons why Republicans should not be talking about impeachment with regard to the DOJ (not to mention the other agencies involved) in the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning conspiracy. (And I use the term “conspiracy” decidedly).
First, there is zero chance that impeachment of Holder or lesser minions would succeed. Although the odds are good that the Republican-majority House could vote to impeach, actual conviction and removal of the impeached official (as we know all too well from the Clinton Follies) requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. There is no way to get to that margin, period. So impeachment is a non-starter unless it is undertaken simply to expose the lawlessless of the Obama Administration. In my opinion, the light is not worth the candle.
The second reason impeachment should not be considered is more substantial: mere impeachment is simply too good for those in the Department of Justice. Even if these officials could all be removed from office by impeachment, they will otherwise escape any, real punishment for their crimes. And that is the heart of the matter. Eric Holder and the Administration want us to believe that Fast and Furious was simply a good idea that was executed poorly— a mistake that will not be repeated. According to Holder:
Holder defended DOJ’s actions and blasted Republicans for trying to “score political points.”
He called the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious “flawed” and “unacceptable.” He also pointed to recent changes in training and oversight measures taken by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which headed the failed operation, to ensure it never happens again.
The attorney general stressed that the mistakes made under Fast and Furious, which oversaw the sale of thousands of weapons to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels in an effort to track and dismantle gun-trafficking routes, must not detract from the larger goal of stopping the flow of weapons south of the border.
He has been joined by congressional Democrats in his push to use the issue of Fast and Furious to highlight the weaknesses within the ATF, including the agency’s lack of a confirmed director and the lack of a law requiring gun dealers in the Southwest to report multiple purchases of long guns.
This is nonsense and a shameful example of lawlessless, something that cannot be tolerated in a nation of laws. “Fast and Furious” and the associated “Gunwalker” programs are not about “flawed” tactics. Multiple federal (and international) laws were broken.
A good synopsis of this that has not been touched on elsewhere is this article by James K. Stinebower posted at PJ Media. According to Stinebower:
As we continue to watch the general uproar over the Operation Fast and Furious program, and specifically what Attorney General Holder knew and when he knew it, it needs to be noted that perjury is not the only apparent violation of law to have occurred.
I refer to the apparent violation of at least one (probably two) major U.S. laws by the Holder Justice Department. A few years ago, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701, the follow-on to the Trading with the Enemy Act) was expanded in order to criminalize any transactions between U.S. entities — to include departments and agencies of the U.S. government — and all foreign drug cartels.
I am familiar with these prohibitive statues because several years ago, while serving as the senior drug analyst for the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was tasked to initiate and became the principal drafter of legislation which became known as the Kingpin Act (21 U.S.C. §§ 1901-08). The Kingpin Act is an extension of the highly successful IEEPA sanctioning program specifically targeting Colombian drug cartels. It expands sanctions authority against various drug cartel operations worldwide — including Mexico — which have been determined by the president to be threats to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.
A violation of any of the IEEPA sanctioning programs or the Kingpin Act carries stiff penalties, both criminal and civil, and potentially totaling decades in prison and tens of millions of dollars in fines. It is not necessary that an individual or governmental entity be shown to have “knowingly” violated any of these programs: it is illegal for any U.S. entity or individual to aid, abet, or materially assist — or in the case of Operation Fast and Furious, to facilitate others to aid, abet, or materially assist — designated drug traffickers. There are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.
Based on the July 5, 2010, memo to Eric Holder, it would appear that Fast and Furious facilitated the delivery of weapons to — at a minimum — the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, which administers both the IEEPA and Kingpin Act programs, has designated numerous members of the Sinaloa cartel under both programs. IEEPA prohibitions apply to the U.S. government as well as to individuals, and as stated there are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.
I am sure that this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of laws being broken. Nonetheless, it is a good example of just how outrageously the Administration has acted in this regard. Congress has an absolute duty to exercise its Constitutional power to oversee and reign in (when necessary) the excesses of the Executive Branch. While there have been calls for the appointment of independent counsel (formerly known as a “special prosecutor”), those calls have been directed at the Obama Administration to make that appointment, presumably under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution known as, “The Appointment Power.” But this power is not the exclusive prerogative of the Executive Branch. According to the case of Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988), Congress has the power to indirectly appoint “inferior officers” such as Independent Counsel by directing the Judiciary to make such an appointment with its approval. This power arises for the very reason that the Executive Branch cannot always be expected to cooperate in appointing an Independent Counsel when Executive wrongdoing is involved.
There are many things today that engender cynicism and despair in the ordinary citizen when it comes to politics, but perhaps nothing corrodes and undermines our national coherence like elected officials and appointees who thumb their noses at our laws— the very laws that would be used mercilessly and without hesitation against you or me– and are not brought to account. If this were a Republican administration and the House was in the hands of Democrats, you can be absolutely certain that a veritable crop of Independent Counsels would be springing up under similar circumstances. When you throw in the Solyndra loans, the failure to enforce the civil rights laws against Black Panther intimidation of voters and the brewing scandal over money being laundered for the Sinaloa Cartel by the Drug Enforcement Agency, it is incredible to me that there is not a firestorm in Congress right now to prosecute everyone involved in this abuse of power.
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.
Concerning one of Tim Lynch’s posts, I commented on a picture that:
Tim, the dude to your right needs to have better muzzle discipline. Tell him to stop pointing that dead blame thing at you! At least his finger isn’t on the trigger.
To which Tim responded:
That was one of the Afridi Tribal fighters and none of them have a clue about gun handling, combat marksmanship, known distance marksmanship, cleaning their weapons etc…. So you end up getting muzzle flagged often which, as I recall, earned you a 5 minute room of pain session in Bravo 1/8 back in the day. You get muzzle flagged a lot from the Brit military too – their weapons handling is also atrocious.-
Yea, I know one Marine who, when he was a Private, had a ND from his SAW, and let’s just say this “room of pain” thing … well, we’ll leave it at that. Room of pain. Concentrate on the word pain. And … no ND ever occurred again from his SAW. Not even one more time.
Recall that Michael Yon discussed an ND from Canadian Brigadier General Menard, and was deeply criticized for it? Well, this is apparently a pattern within the Canadian military.
Officers in the Canadian military were partly to blame for lax firearms safety in Afghanistan, a military judge said as he sentenced a former reservist to four years in jail for fatally shooting a fellow soldier.
Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Vincent d’Auteuil said on Friday that Matthew Wilcox was well trained and “should have known better” than to point a loaded pistol at his best friend, Corporal Kevin Megeney, on March 6, 2007.
However, Col. d’Auteuil also said senior officers at Kandahar Airfield hadn’t done enough to crack down on improper handling of firearms before and during the deployment of Mr. Wilcox’s unit.
“No discipline was imposed other than warning soldiers,” the judge said, referring to incidents in which soldiers failed to unload the magazines from their pistols after leaving a shooting range on the base.
“All combined brought an atmosphere … where a human being forgot to unload his weapon, pointed and fired at somebody and killed somebody. He is responsible, but the Canadian Forces must be blamed for not having the proper leadership in the circumstances.”
[ … ]
“Leaders, section leaders, the company commanders … created an atmosphere that let soldiers think if they forget to unload their weapons, it was not a big deal,” he said.
As a civilian shooter and firearms owner and holder of a concealed handgun permit, I have more discipline than this. Much more. This behavior is simply atrocious and should not be tolerated in any military anywhere in the world or by civilian shooters either. The U.S. Marines make sure that its men know better with a … well, Tim called it a “room of pain.”
Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first major move by the Obama administration to impose limits on firearms.
Officials say the administration is concerned about the potential clash between gun owners and encroaching urban populations who like to use same land for hiking and dog walking.
“It’s not so much a safety issue. It’s a social conflict issue,” said Frank Jenks, a natural resource specialist with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres. He adds that urbanites “freak out” when they hear shooting on public lands.
If the draft policy is finally approved, some public access to Bureau lands to hunters would also be limited, potentially reducing areas deer, elk, and bear hunters can use in the West.
So exactly how would such regulations be implemented?
This is the key paragraph foes say could lead to shooters being kicked off public lands:
“When the authorized officer determines that a site or area on BLM-managed lands used on a regular basis for recreational shooting is creating public disturbance, or is creating risk to other persons on public lands; is contributing to the defacement, removal or destruction of natural features, native plants, cultural resources, historic structures or government and/or private property; is facilitating or creating a condition of littering, refuse accumulation and abandoned personal property is violating existing use restrictions, closure and restriction orders, or supplementary rules notices, and reasonable attempts to reduce or eliminate the violations by the BLM have been unsuccessful, the authorized officer will close the affected area to recreational shooting.”
The new regulation may as well say that for any reason under the sun when an employee of the BLM wants to close down lands to shooting, he may do so at his discretion. This has a potentially huge affect on shooters, and the most remarkable thing is its broad sweep (note that implementation of the regulation doesn’t require demonstrated safety issues), combined with the bypassing of the process for making law – you know, the Congress. Congress has been left out because, you know, the Obama administration knows better than to have to wait on something silly like the law-making process.
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.
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.
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.
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.
13 years, 10 months ago
