Category: RKBA
Heller Weighing Another D.C. Gun Suit
DC police blame ‘unprecedented demand’ for months-long waits on handgun transfers
The man at the center of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down major gun-control laws may be back in court to challenge Washington, D.C.’s handling of Second Amendment rights.
Dick Heller, whose lawsuit led the Supreme Court to declare blanket handgun bans unconstitutional, told the Washington Free Beacon that he may sue the city for hindering his right to bear arms in the face of long wait times for purchases.
Heller has been waiting since mid-April for police to process a transfer for a .32 caliber handgun he purchased in Pennsylvania. He accused city authorities of dragging their feet.
“It’s a bureaucracy and they’re understaffed,” Heller told the Free Beacon. “They couldn’t care less. They are noticeably not in a hurry.”
Residents who wish to purchase guns must go through the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the only federally licensed gun dealer in the city—an arrangement unique to the nation’s capital. In neighboring Virginia, as with many states across the country, handgun transfers and the background checks that accompany them generally take minutes instead of months. The department told the Free Beacon that record demand was to blame for the delays.
I figure the noble Phat one already has his concealed carry license taken care of
Seattle Region Erupts in Violence; CPL Application Process Still ‘Suspended’
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- For the first time in history, a police officer in Bothell, Washington—a suburb just northeast of Seattle—has been shot dead in the line of duty. The suspect is in custody.
The slain officer was identified as Jonathan Shoop, who had been with the department just over one year. The suspect was tentatively identified as Henry Eugene Washington, according to KIRO news, the CBS affiliate in Seattle.
That murder came on the heels of a shooting at a Renton shopping center immediately south of Seattle in which a 15-year-old was wounded, which happened about the same time six people were injured in a shooting at a bus stop in Kent, a community located south and east of Seattle.
Seattle is still recovering from the “CHOP” zone shootings that left two black teens dead in separate incidents and at least four others wounded before police moved in to reclaim the six-block area in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Missouri’s Republican Governor Backs the McCloskeys’ Right to Defend Themselves.
St. Louis, MO has been the scene of violent protests over the past few weeks. In the most notorious case of violence related to the unrest, rioters murdered retired police captain David Dorn and ransacked his pawnshop. Dorn was black. His killers shot him multiple times.
As “defund the police” gained traction in St. Louis and other cities, and cities all over the country lost hard-won ground to violent crime, Americans purchased firearms in record numbers. They are preparing to have to defend themselves.
It was in this context, and the rising violence and abdication of public safety in St. Louis and many other cities around the country, that a St. Louis couple, Mike and Patricia McCloskey, suddenly found themselves facing a large number of protesters on their property last month. The moment was captured on video that went viral.
The McCloskeys were having dinner when the protesters showed up. The McCloskeys were not the protesters’ target — the city’s mayor was — but the protesters were on private property and had damaged a gate on their way in.
Protests have turned violent in an instant, and there is evidence some of the protesters in this instance may have been armed.
The couple retrieved their rifle and handgun and made sure the protesters were aware that they were armed. There was a brief, intense confrontation that thankfully did not turn deadly.
When they kick in the gate, when the first thing they do is destroy private property and they storm in angry and shouting and threatening. This isn’t a protest. It’s a revolution. It’s just an attempt to inflict terror.
Protesters have once returned to their property, chanting “If we don’t get no justice, then they don’t get no peace.”
The city’s circuit attorney, Kimberly Gardner, has had police confiscate the couple’s rifle, leaving them apparently undefended should anyone want to harm them. The McCloskeys believe Gardner will have them indicted as well.
But the state’s Republican governor has weighed in on the McCloskey’s side.
Republican Missouri Governor Mike Parson said during a Tuesday press briefing that Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who were captured on video brandishing firearms as Black Lives Matter protesters marched past their home in June, had “every right” to attempt to protect their private property.
snip
Governor Parsons defended the McCloskey’s actions Tuesday. “That couple had every right to protect their property,” Parson said. “They have the ability to do that as private citizens like everyone else.”
Missouri respects the Castle Doctrine, which provides legal defense should a citizen use a firearm to defend their property.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Senator Josh Hawley is calling for a federal civil rights investigation into St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner after claiming she is “targeting the McCloskey family for using firearms to defend themselves and their property against a mob of protesters.”
Hawley sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr Thursday morning accusing Gardner of abusing her power in handling the investigation.
“This is an unacceptable abuse of power and threat to the Second Amendment, and I urge you to consider a federal civil rights investigation into the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office to determine whether this investigation and impending prosecution violates this family’s constitutional rights,” Hawley wrote.
From the Police Chief’s statement “I don’t want to see guns out when people are very hostile and angry at each other..” I think the charge they’re going to try to nail them with is ‘Unlawful use of weapons’.
Missouri Laws 571.030
1. A person commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons, except as otherwise provided by sections 571.101 to 571.121, if he or she knowingly:
(4) Exhibits, in the presence of one or more persons, any weapon readily capable of lethal use in an angry or threatening manner;
But there’s an exception.
5. Subdivisions …(4)… of subsection 1 of this section shall not apply to persons who are engaged in a lawful act of defense pursuant to section 563.031.
St. Louis police apply for warrants in McCloskey case
ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) – St. Louis police have applied for warrants in the case of the Central West End couple who pointed guns at protesters on their street.
St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden on Tuesday told News 4 they applied for warrants but did not elaborate on what those warrants allege or who they are against. The guns were turned over to police as evidence.
“The hostility is what I noticed,” Hayden said. “I don’t want to see guns out when people are very hostile and angry at each other. Those are recipes for violence, so again we applied on warrant, there’s been follow up information and we are waiting on the decision on the warrant application.
GROUPS FOUGHT TO REGULATE GUNS WHILE SEEKING TAXPAYER DOLLARS
Second Amendment advocates on Monday slammed prominent anti-gun groups for reportedly taking federal Paycheck Protection Program loans.
PPP loans are intended to helps businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis. The Brady Campaign received between $350,000 and $1 million on April 10 while in the same month the Giffords Law Center reportedly accepted a loan worth between $150,000 and $350,000, according to reports by the Washington Free Beacon. Both groups have long stumped for strict gun control measures and have pledged millions to anti-gun candidates for office that have voiced support for such restrictions.
GUN CONTROL NARRATIVE SHIFTS AS MORE AMERICANS SEE IMPORTANCE OF 2A
The narrative on guns in the U.S. has taken a dramatic shift in 2020 amid a global pandemic and civil unrest that led thousands into the streets in protest.
While the future remains unclear, leaving many Americans wondering what the remaining months of 2020, an election year, have in store, there is one thing that seems rather certain — the argument in favor of gun control just got a little murkier. With the National Shooting Sports Foundation reporting 40 percent of gun purchases coming from new gun owners, this year has seen previously anti-gun supporters jumping the party line to grab a gun of their own.
Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb told Guns.com that COVID-19, coupled with rioting, led many Americans to reevaluate their stance on the Second Amendment.
Gun Control’s Black Lives Matter Problem
Gun-control advocates have reason to worry that their support for the police will make them the next casualty of cancel culture.
June has been marked in recent years by a flurry of orange-clad marchers promoting National Gun Violence Awareness Month. This year’s planned gatherings, however, fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic and were overshadowed by Black Lives Matter’s nationwide protests against institutional racism within policing. But the gun-control lobby’s reticence isn’t out of respect for the lives of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor but rather concern for its own preservation.
For decades, gun-control advocates promoted greater police power as well as known practices of institutional racism within police firearms-licensing divisions. Now that there are calls to “defund the police,” many leaders of the gun-control lobby, who are mostly white, should rightly fear that their history of siding with the police and promoting policies now deemed racist by progressives may make them the next casualty of cancel culture.
I’ve no real idea what this accomplishes, except some kind of vindictive retribution from the city prosecutor. Maybe the Soros bought and paid for idiot believes she has actually disarmed them.
Well, as the couple haven’t been charged with any felony yet, and Missouri state laws on firearms purchases by adults are basically non-existent, (basically follow federal law) and with state preemption, the McCloskey’s can simply go to any gun store and buy more, if they so desire.
McCloskeys served with search warrant, police take rifle shown in viral pictures
Sources told 5 On Your Side police seized one of the weapons, the rifle, from the couple and they told police their attorney has the pistol seen in photos.
ST. LOUIS — 5 On Your Side has learned St. Louis police officers executed a search warrant Friday evening at the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the Central West end couple who confronted protesters with weapons in June.
Sources told 5 On Your Side that police seized one of the weapons, the rifle, from the couple and they told police their attorney has the pistol seen in photos. Continue reading “”
Just a FYI to pass along to any gun owners that may still be undecided.
Only in the pea sized brains of idiots and tyrants.
DO AMERICANS HAVE EXCESS FREEDOM?
Amazingly, a new “study” is making headlines, despite the fact that it relies on obviously faulty assumptions, irrational methodology and has not been peer-reviewed.
The authors cite themselves as support for spurious statements like “Surges in firearm purchasing…have been well documented in association with mass shootings and significant political events and are followed by population-level increases in firearm violence.” Crime data for the most recent months isn’t available yet, but we know history proves otherwise.
Sure, Americans tend to buy more of something they think will soon be scarce. Just as there was an increase in toilet paper buying during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, adults are more likely to legally purchase a certain firearm they have been thinking about when there is a political discussion of banning that firearm. Does that mean those purchases are, as the author argues, “excess” firearms?
Any chef will tell you they require different types of knives for different kitchen tasks. Any hunter will tell you they would not rely on the same firearm for self-defense as they would in the field. All guns are not the same and do not meet the same needs for law-abiding citizens that choose to exercise their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. The difference is, although there are more homicides each year committed with knives than with Modern Sporting Rifles, no one seems to argue seriously against owning any knives or for limiting the number that a home may possess because more than one is excessive.
“At the end of the day, the real problem isn’t that the NICS wasn’t robust enough to handle the surge.
No, the problem was that millions of Americans decided to buy guns. They recognized that it was on them to protect themselves and now they wanted the means to do so.”
Progressives Think People Buying Guns Is A Loophole
Not too long before the entire nation shut down due to COVID-19, gun stores started seeing a surge in sales. Many people who had never considered buying a gun in the first place decided maybe they should rethink it. Some were concerned about crime increasing due to the virus. Still others, Asian-Americans, were concerned ignorant morons would blame them for the disease. Still others had different concerns.
Regardless, gun sales soared and have been consistently high ever since.
Now, we know that many of these gun buyers went to gun stores, which means they’re required to undergo a background check and have any required permits before buying.
For some, that’s not enough. The increase in gun sales is somehow evidence that our gun laws are too lax.
Almost immediately after governors began to issue orders in early March directing nonessential businesses to close and individuals to stay at home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, news stories began to emerge of increased traffic at gun stores. One photo of a line of buyers outside of a California gun shop is likely to become one of the most recognizable images from this moment in modern American history. Anecdotes emerged of individuals who had never considered buying guns before rushing to gun stores to make their first purchase, motivated by the fear and uncertainty of this unprecedented moment. Since this early reporting, data have confirmed a dramatic increase in the number of guns purchased during the pandemic. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the federal agency responsible for conducting background checks for gun sales, revealed that nearly 2 million guns were sold in March—the second highest monthly number since these data have been tracked. April gun sales were nearly as high, with an estimated 1.6 million guns sold—a 71 percent increase over April 2019. The trend in gun sales continued in May and June; June saw the biggest increase yet, with an estimated 2.3 million guns sold.
Just as the coronavirus pandemic has exposed gaps within the U.S. health care and economic systems, the surge in gun sales during this period brings to the forefront weaknesses in the current laws and systems governing the sale and ownership of firearms and ammunition. Far too many gun sales are allowed to proceed without background checks, and gun owners face minimal legal requirements to ensure that guns are handled and stored safely. These gaps in the law create risks for all U.S. communities vulnerable to gun violence, and both federal and state policymakers should take this opportunity to strengthen these laws to help reduce gun violence.
With a still Senate controlled by the opposition party, this is merely more election year grandstanding for the home front. But it does show these anti-civil rights, wanna-be tyrants aren’t ignorant about technology.
CONGRESS LOOKING TO BAN ‘GHOST GUN’ MACHINERY
Democrats on Capitol Hill have introduced a bill championed by anti-gun advocates to strictly regulate machines designed for the manufacturing of firearm frames or receivers.
The measure, titled the “Stop Home Manufacture of Ghost Guns Act of 2020,’’ would ban ownership of what the bill terms a “firearms manufacturing device” unless the tool is in the hands of a federally licensed firearm maker or of a business that produces such machines for use by FFLs.
Confusingly, the broad new definition to be added to federal code would place the regulation on “a device designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be used primarily to make or convert a product into, a frame or receiver for a firearm, and any combination of parts designed or intended for use in making” such a device.
Self-defense is not immoral, and neither is arming oneself
In his response to Jeff Jacoby’s recent column about rising gun ownership among Blacks (”Must self-preservation be the top priority?” Letters, June 29), Remy Trahant praises 1960s civil rights protesters for their willingness to die for a cause. He contrasts them with present-day gun owners, who selfishly indulge “the urge to protect [their] own life and family and property and to heck with everyone else.”
I wonder what Trahant believes “everyone else” loses when a person acts to protect their family or property. Other than the criminal, I can’t think of anyone who suffers when a crime is prevented.
The morality of self-defense probably isn’t a hot topic in the cities still smoldering from riots, and the potential need for self-defense is obvious where city governments refused to protect their own citizens. No one should be surprised that people are arming themselves in this environment. Their logic is impeccable.
North Carolina: Gov. Cooper Vetoes Bipartisan Second Amendment Preservation Act
North Carolina: Second Amendment Preservation Act Up for Veto Override
The House of Representatives will consider overriding Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the Second Amendment Preservation Act. Gov. Cooper erroneously claimed that the bill will allow guns in schools and threatens the safety of students and teachers. Instead, it only applies to churches that operate schools and simply allows parishioners to carry when the schools are not in session, if the church wishes to opt-in. Please contact your representative and ask them to override Gov. Cooper’s veto of HB 652.
“Today, the ice-cold reality of self-reliance settles in when people observe professional protesters rioting with violence and destruction. That’s why they are buying guns.”
The Record-Breaking American Arms Race of 2020 Means One Thing: You Loot, We Shoot!
Florida – -(AmmoLand.com)- Record numbers of firearms have been purchased over the past couple of months in Florida and around our nation. Many of the firearms were – and are – purchased by people who never thought they would want or need a gun. Firearms training classes are full and booked for months ahead. Florida Tax Collectors are reporting huge increases in the number of Concealed Weapon or Firearm License applications being processed locally.
Around the country, professional rioters and violent protesters have been destroying private property. These acts of violence are soon followed by looters who help themselves to what’s left. These are not acts of civil disobedience; these are planned and orchestrated acts of domestic terrorism.
People around the nation are getting fed up and are buying guns, getting trained, and are preparing to protect what they have worked hard to achieve. We’ve seen people wake up and take responsibility for themselves and their property like never be before.
The Gun Sales of June: When citizens conclude cops won’t protect them, they buy firearms.
Patricia and Mark McCloskey are the couple made instantly famous—or infamous—after a video showed them wielding firearms as they fended off protesters who had trespassed on private property outside their St. Louis home.
The Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, Kimberly Gardner, reacted by issuing a statement saying she planned an investigation, and that her office will not tolerate any effort to chill peaceful protest by the “threat of deadly force.” Never mind that Mr. McCloskey says he and his wife feared they’d be killed. As they told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the only thing that kept those mobsters, that crowd, away from us is that we were standing there with guns.”
If soaring gun sales are a guide, millions of Americans are with the McCloskeys. This week the FBI announced a record 3.9 million background checks for June, the highest monthly total since the FBI began keeping the statistic in 1998. Adjusting to reflect checks only for gun purchases, the National Shooting Sports Foundation says this works out to 2.2 million, a 136% increase over June 2019. NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva says about 40% of these checks are for first-time gun buyers.
This is a warning to the Defund the Police movement about unintended consequences. The more progressives push policies that mean cops won’t be around when people need them, the more they are inviting Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves.
Did you catch that?
“There’s no police there, our private security wasn’t there… oh my god, we’re absolutely alone, there is nobody coming to protect us.”
That’s why he grabbed his rifle. Nobody was coming when the mob smashed down his gate and marched onto his property.
Nobody is coming. You are on your own. Be prepared and act accordingly.
Pro-Second Amendment Measures Take Effect Today in Indiana
Indiana residents will start enjoying expanded gun rights beginning July 1, as the new amendments to the concealed carry laws take place. Republican representatives Jim Lucas and Ben Smaltz sponsored House Bill 1284 during the last legislative session, which Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill in April.
The new legislation will allow residents of Indiana to carry firearms in a church compound even if it is located within a school ground. The only exemption is if the owner of the compound has a different firearm policy. Religious leaders will no longer be tied to the state’s restrictions in deciding whether people can carry in church.
CCW permits will also be free of charge. The free permit will last for five years. The lifetime permit however will still have a fee.
The same act gives gun owners the right to use their firearms in self-defense without fear of unnecessary lawsuits from justified cases of self-defense. Many victims are always victimized by gun control laws that persecute them for defending their lives.
The measure will award attorney fees for victims who are unfairly prosecuted for using their firearms in defense. When cleared, most individuals are unable to recover their costs despite having been the actual victims of the crime. Unnecessary lawsuits after self-defense cause the victims to suffer twice and be punished for stopping criminals.
CCW applicants will also register to vote while applying for their licenses at the police stations. This provision will ensure more participation in elections, thus ensuring more gun owners vote to protect their constitutional rights.