Dr Yamane bats it out of the ballpark again.
Defensive Gun Ownership is Irrational – The Standard Model Part 4 (Light Over Heat #45)
Category: RKBA
Another Church in New York files suit
New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship
New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship
First Liberty Institute, Clement & Murphy, and Ganguly Brothers challenge law adopted by NY legislature just days after Supreme Court struck down numerous state restrictions on firearms
Rochester, NY—First Liberty Institute and the law firms Clement & Murphy PLLC and Ganguly Brothers PLLC filed a federal lawsuit against the state of New York challenging the state’s prohibition on firearms at houses of worship. The suit was filed on behalf of His Tabernacle Family Church, a nondenominational Christian church in Horseheads, New York, founded by Pastor Micheal Spencer.
You can read the complaint here.
Erin Murphy, Partner at Clement & Murphy said, “No American should be forced to sacrifice one constitutionally protected freedom to enjoy another. Houses of worship have a constitutionally protected freedom to decide for themselves whether to allow otherwise legally possessed firearms into their facilities.”
“Singling out houses of worship for total disarmament demonstrates hostility toward religion, leaves them defenseless to rebuff violent attacks, and defies at least two recent Supreme Court rulings against New York. Religious leaders are no less qualified than secular business owners to determine whether to allow carrying a firearm for self-defense, and New York should end its defiant assault on First and Second Amendment freedoms,” added Jordan Pratt, Senior Counsel at First Liberty Institute.
In late 2020, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, chiding New York for singling out religious groups and restricting how they worship in violation of the First Amendment. And in June 2022, the Court issued its opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, invalidating New York’s unprecedented effort to limit individuals’ ability to carry a firearm outside the home. Just days later, New York enacted expansive new laws restricting the carrying of firearms outside the home, including a total ban on carrying in houses of worship. New York now imposes criminal liability on any person who carries a firearm into a place of worship regardless of whether that person possesses a license to carry a firearm under New York law, and regardless of whether the religious community would prefer to authorize congregants to carry a firearm. Secular business owners, by contrast, are allowed to choose for themselves whether to allow firearms on their premises.
“Those decisions,” the complaint states, “should have taught New York to proceed with extreme caution where First or Second Amendment rights are at stake going forward. Instead, the state recently doubled down on its rights-denying tendencies—by infringing two fundamental liberties at the same time. New York now puts houses of worship and religious adherents to an impossible choice: forfeit your First Amendment right to religious worship or forfeit your Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense.” The complaint adds, “New York’s attempt to force houses of worship and their parishioners to choose between their First Amendment rights and their Second—an outlier policy shared by no other state in the Nation—stands as an act of defiance to the Supreme Court’s recent and emphatic holdings protecting both.”
BLUF
In my view, professors Miller and Tucker are incorrect in theory, because the TLI has no utility in assessing the relative dangers of modern firearms in a nonmilitary context. On the other hand, if Miller and Tucker are theoretically correct that TLI extrapolation is a useful guide to the dangers of modern firearms, the TLIs for AR rifles or for 9mm handguns are similar to or less than the TLI of the classic American early 20th century rifle. Thus, there is no need for gun controls beyond those that existed around the turn of the twentieth century. As for Professor Cornell’s assertions that AR semiautomatic rifles are “50 times” or “200 times” more lethal than flintlock rifles, there was never any basis in fact.
The Theoretical Lethality Index is useful for military history but not for gun control policy
Professors Miller and Tucker miss the mark, while Saul Cornell disdains accuracy
An article by Duke law professor Darrell A.H. Miller and Wesleyan history professor Jennifer Tucker argues that gun control laws should vary based on the dangerousness of the firearm. They claim that danger is easy to assess by using the Theoretical Lethality Index (TLI), a metric developed in the early 1960s by military history analyst Trevor Dupuy. In this post, I explain why the TLI is useless as a guideline for the risks posed by different types of firearms in a nonmilitary context.
On the other hand, if TLI is valid in the civilian context, then the TLIs of modern firearms are not much different from those of a good rifle from the early 20th century. Thus, the level of gun control necessary from modern arms would not appear to be greater than the level of gun control in the early 20th century.
This post proceeds as follows:
- Part I of the post briefly summarizes the Miller and Tucker article for the U.C. Davis Law Review.
- Part II describes how gun control enthusiast Saul Cornell misused a blog post by Miller to fabricate preposterous claims about the lethality of AR rifles.
- Part III examines the Theoretical Lethality Index in depth and explains why its military-oriented metrics do not provide useful information in a nonmilitary context about the relative dangerousness of different types of firearms.
- Part IV calculates TLIs for the common modern firearms mentioned by Miller and Tucker: the 9mm handgun, and the semiautomatic AR rifle. (“AR” means “ArmaLite Rifle.” The rifle was invented by ArmaLite in the 1950s.)
- Part V addresses Miller and Tucker’s claim that the American Founders were unfamiliar with dramatic technological changes in firearms — a claim that is refuted by Dupuy’s data.
Northwest Body Counts Suggest Time for Change on Gun Control Is Here
It is familiar political ground in the Pacific Northwest, with rising homicide numbers providing strong evidence that gun controls in Washington have been an abject failure.
Seattle has recorded its 52nd homicide, and with two full months remaining in the year, there is no doubt the number will eventually exceed the 53 recorded two years ago. The city, as previously reported, is headquarters to the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group Alliance for Gun Responsibility. The organization has bankrolled two restrictive gun control initiatives since 2014, making it difficult for law-abiding citizens to exercise their rights while demonstrably not accomplishing the promise of reduced gun-related violence and murder.
Down the road 175 miles, Portland is the tarnished gem of Oregon, with more than 80 slayings so far this year and an outlook for hitting a new record. It is against this backdrop Beaver State anti-gunners hope to pass next week a restrictive gun control measure—Ballot Measure 114—that will require a permit to purchase a firearm and add more restrictions including a training requirement.
At least one county sheriff—Brad Lohrey of Sherman County—told Fox News, “It is impossible for us to do what they’re asking us to do.”
In decades past, Seattle and Portland were known as laid-back growing metropolises, with far left politics and lots of tourist attractions. Nowadays, both cities are experiencing drug and gang epidemics, and crime is spiking because police manpower is down.
There may be change coming, in both states. Oregon appears on track to elect the first Republican governor in a generation. In Washington, there could be changes in the legislature and some changes in congressional representation as well. With changes in people, there will be changes in policy, but it all depends upon a strong turnout of gun owners and conservative voters across both states.
Gun politics is playing out in other regions. The Des Moines Register is editorializing against a proposed state constitutional amendment affirming the right to keep and bear arms. Iowa is one of a handful of states without such an amendment, and gun owners are seeking to change that.
But the newspaper is dead set against protecting the right at the state level, continuing a trend where the media uses the First Amendment to throttle the Second. It excoriates the June Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen for opening the door to both legal challenges and court corrections of infringements on the right to be armed. This suggests anti-gunners still haven’t accepted the explanation in Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion that the Second Amendment must be treated like all other rights.
For decades, gun control proponents have had it their way, with incremental imposition of restrictions on gun owners. Violent crime is increasing, not decreasing. Election Day could change that pattern, with a new Congress and power shifts at the state level, rejection of Oregon’s ballot measure and adoption of Iowa’s proposed amendment. At least, that is the perspective of Second Amendment activists who are hoping for a strong turnout of “gun voters” Nov. 8.
Editorial calling for magazine ban misses tons of points
The day I see a pro-gun editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times will likely be the day that sites like this aren’t needed anymore. It’ll mean that we’ve so completely and totally won the gun war that gun control will be relegated to the dustbin of history; a museum-piece idea dead and gone, sitting on a shelf like eugenics and phrenology.
But that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Today, they’re pushing for state-wide gun control. In particular, they want a magazine ban restricting people to just 10 rounds.
A new gun threat is painting a larger target on everyone’s backs. Lawmakers should figure out how to curb it.
As Frank Main, Tom Schuba and Stephanie Zimmermann of the Sun-Times and Chip Mitchell of WBEZ reported in Sunday’s Sun-Times, extended-capacity magazines — which hold 10 or more bullets and can be used with handguns as well as rifles — have become more common despite bans in some places.
Moreover, a surging number of guns with illegal attachments called “switches” on the street, which convert guns from semi-automatic to automatic weapons, are being seized by the police department, according to the investigation.
A shooter with a semi-automatic gun needs to squeeze the trigger every time a shot is fired. A shooter with an automatic gun needs only to squeeze and hold the trigger, and the gun will continue to fire, causing far more damage.
When weapons with high-capacity magazines are converted to automatic and are easily obtainable, young people who carry guns will want them. But we can’t afford to have these murderous weapons even further embedded into the gun culture.
When combined with illegal devices that convert guns into fully automatic firearms, the large magazines can spread almost unimaginable devastation and death in a matter of moments.
Twelve states ban high-capacity magazines. Illinois should join them.
That’s right. Illinois needs a magazine ban because an illegal device that cannot be possessed lawfully anywhere in the nation is a thing.
Yet what tickles me the most is how little they’ve thought this through.
Sure, such magazines are restricted in many areas of Illinois, but the argument is that criminals just go to where they’re legal and buy them, so by restricting them statewide, that can’t happen.
Really?
This is the same city notorious for blaming Indiana for the guns in criminal hands, and they think somehow these folks who get guns from another state won’t be able to get magazines?
Hell, they’ll get them easier.
In Indiana, there are still federal requirements for the sale of firearms from a licensed dealer. Yet criminals commit a crime in order to obtain these guns so they can sell them to Chicago criminals.
Magazines have no such checks or requirements. Anyone can stroll into a gun store and buy a higher-capacity magazine in any state without even having to show an ID.
If federal regulations and Illinois state law can’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals, how does the Chicago Sun-Times think a magazine ban in the state will? Especially when all the rules on the planet aren’t keeping these people from getting full-auto switches.
And yes, magazines can be 3D printed, which makes a ban even more pointless.
But do you want to know who will get hosed over by a magazine ban? The law-abiding citizens who might well need more ammo capacity to combat the heavily armed criminals who will still get these magazines, switches, guns, and literally anything else they want.
Newspaper editorials are often used to advocate for various laws. However, this is a prime example of how those who sit on those editorial boards often don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
Racism Against the AAPI Community and Gun Ownership
As a gunologist, not to mention an Asian-American gun owner, a recent episode of the Red, Blue & Brady podcast on racism against the AAPI community and gun ownership caught my attention.
The episode focused on a recently published study by a group of public health scholars who fielded a national survey of 916 Asian Americans asking about their experiences of racial discrimination and their firearm-related behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is a lot of anecdata floating around about how anti-Asian discrimination increased during the pandemic (think of people taking the “China virus” and “kung flu” language to the next outgroup level), and that this led to unprecedented gun buying among Asian Americans.
Of course, without historical data, we can’t really speak to “precedent,” but these scholars find that 6.0% of respondents said they purchased a gun during COVID and another 11.2% said they intended to purchase a gun. Of the 6% of COVID gun buyers, 54.6% were first-time gun buyers.
If the survey is accurate and representative, then 3.3% of Asian American adults in the United States became new gun owners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some quick calculations (roughly 20 million Asian Americans, about 75% being over 18) suggests that about half a million Asian Americans became new gun owners.
Abstract
Guns shows are estimated to account for 4–9% of firearm sales in the US. Increased regulation of firearm sales at gun shows has been proposed as one approach to reducing firearm injury rates. This study evaluated the association between gun shows and local firearm injury rates. Data regarding the date and location of gun shows from 2017 to 2019 were abstracted from the Big Show Journal. Firearm injury rates were estimated using discharges from trauma centers serving counties within a 25-mile radius of each gun show. Clinical data were derived from the National Trauma Databank (NTDB). We used Poisson regression modeling to adjust for potential confounders including seasonality. We evaluated injury rates before and after 259 gun shows in 23 US locations using firearm injury data from 36 trauma centers. There were 1513 hospitalizations for firearm injuries pre-gun show and 1526 post-gun show. The adjusted mean 2-week rate of all-cause firearm injury per 1,000,000 person-years was 1.79 (1.16–2.76) before and 1.82 (1.18–2.83) after a gun show, with an incident rate ratio of 1.02 (0.94, 1.08). The adjusted mean 2-week rate did not vary significantly by intent after a gun show, (p = 0.24).
Within two weeks after a gun show, rates of hospitalization for all-cause firearm injury do not increase significantly within the surrounding communities. The relatively small increase in available firearms after a show and the short time horizon evaluated may account for the absence of an association between gun show firearm sales and local firearm injury rates.
Heller v. DC (D.C. ammo carry limit):
Joint status report “The Parties have entered into a settlement agreement.”
Hunting Coalition Seeks Injunction Against California Law Banning Free Speech
California – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Sportsmen’s Alliance, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and Safari Club International filed for a preliminary injunction today in their federal lawsuit against a newly passed California law to protect the free speech rights of shooting, hunting, and conservation organizations throughout the state.
The law, created by the passage of AB 2571, which purports to prohibit the “marketing” of firearms to minors, actually goes much further by banning free speech regarding the use of firearms while hunting, shooting or engaging in competitions that might be “attractive to minors.” It’s anyone’s guess what this means.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance was the first to alert sportsmen on AB 2571 early in the legislative session, citing the bill’s prohibition of communicating any youth firearm-related activities as the death-knell of recruitment efforts and hunter safety training statewide.
Because the law institutes a massive $25,000 per occurrence penalty, individuals and organizations responded by putting the brakes on communicating anything about youth shooting and education programs of all types.
“We’ve just implemented a major overhaul of our next magazine to comply with this draconian law, removing a number of stories about youth hunter recruitment, our high school Conservation Science curriculum and pulling all photos of kids hunting with firearms,” said Todd Adkins, vice president of government affairs for Sportsmen’s Alliance.
“And this is precisely what Gov. Newsom and supporters of AB 2571 want, to muzzle our free speech and gut our recruitment efforts, because their ultimate goal is to remove hunters from the landscape altogether.”
Although Newsom signed an amendment that was passed in the waning moments of the 2022 legislative session, the new language does little to protect free speech by hunting organizations like the Sportsmen’s Alliance which regularly publish on firearm-related issues. Many organizations with routine communication outlets like magazines, websites, social media platforms, and the like will simply cease to exercise their protected First Amendment rights because of the uncertainty created by the new law.
“The amendment Newsom signed is just a bunch of nice-sounding words that don’t fix the underlying gag order the law puts on organizations like ours,” continued Adkins. “It’s political eyewash to call this is a ‘fix’ when it’s really nothing more than a shiny object to show some groups who wanted a carve out.”
The Sportsmen’s Alliance legal challenge in federal district court continues, and the filing of the preliminary injunction necessary to stop enforcement of the law so that free speech related to youth hunter education, recruitment, and shooting programs can continue while the case is pending.
The Range Access Act Would Bolster Public Lands and Gun Rights
As more Americans purchase firearms, opportunities to access shooting ranges on public lands should be expanded.
A newly-introduced House of Representatives bill aims to bolster public range access for new and returning recreational shooters.
Congressman Blake Moore (R-UT) introduced the timely Range Access Act to “require the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to ensure that each qualifying National Forest and BLM district” designate—at a minimum—one public recreational shooting range without charging a user fee.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages the USFS, states some ranges located on National Forest lands impose usage fees.
“This legislation is an important step in expanding access to recreational shooting practice. Americans from coast to coast love spending time in the outdoors, and expanding our ability to recreate on and enjoy our public lands is one of my core focuses in Congress,” said Congressman Blake Moore in a press release. “The Range Access Act would establish free shooting ranges for sportsmen to safely participate in target practice while supporting our wildlife conservation and local economies.”
The legislation also received praise from the nation’s preeminent shooting sports and conservation organizations.
“The National Shooting Sports Foundation commends Congressman Blake Moore for introducing this vitally important legislation to increase access for the public to practice marksmanship at safe recreational shooting ranges,” said Lawrence G. Keane, National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This legislation, which would require the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to have at least one qualifying recreational shooting range in each National Forest and BLM district, is crucial to ensuring safe public recreational shooting. Congressman Moore’s bill would also benefit conservation by reducing pollution at non-dedicated ranges on federal public lands while also generating additional Pittman-Robertson revenue.”
Just more willful ignorance
BLUF
The stereotype of gun owners is a lie. The media calls us male-pale-and-stale, and who cares if old white men are disarmed anyway. In fact, gun owners now look like a cross section of the USA. Minority urban women are the fastest growing segment of new gun owners. I think Democrat politicians are afraid that more women and minorities will decide to become gun owners. These new gun owners might enter the culture of armed America and protect themselves.
That fear keeps Democrat politicians up at night.
New Gun Owners are Invisible to the News Media and Democrat Politicians
More people own guns today than ever before. That growth is a continuation of a long term trend that goes back several decades. In addition to that gradual increase, we’ve also seen an extraordinary growth in new gun buyers in the last two years. We had to rewrite who owns guns and why they own them. Today, about four-out-of-ten families have a firearm in their home. Despite the astounding changes in gun ownership, the way some politicians talk about guns and gun owners is out of date. New gun owners are subjected to a crash course in being misperceived and misrepresented by politicians and by the mainstream news media alike.
What is real and what is fantasy?
Sitting President, Joe Biden, echoed old myths about gun owners at a fundraising event in June. He said,
“More people get killed with their own gun in their home trying to stop a burglar than, in fact, any other cause.. Think about that. Because it’s hard to do. It’s a hard thing to do.”
Mayor John Fetterman, the Democrat candidate for the US Senate from Pennsylvania, also felt the need to comment on guns and gun ownership. He said,
“I have seen with my own eyes at the scenes in my community what a military grade round does to the human body.” He said that rifles, particularly modern rifles, should be outlawed.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said,
“This whole concept that a good guy with a gun will stop the bad guys with a gun, it doesn’t hold up. And the data bears this out, so that theory is over.”
Those statements don’t fit what we know. We know a lot about new gun owners because we talked with them. Gun stores asked new gun owners why they wanted a gun so the gun shop employee could direct the customer to the appropriate products. The industry trade group representing firearms manufacturers and distributors collected those answers. The stereotypical gun owner used to be an old white man who bought a gun to go hunting. Several years ago, personal safety replaced hunting as the major reason new gun owners buy a firearm. Today, gun owners are from every demographic group; male and female, rich and poor, urban and rural. Gun owners represent every ethnic and racial group. About one-out-of-four African-American adults own a firearm. It seems strange that the mainstream media and politicians have deliberately ignored that change.
If my research convinces me of anything,” [John R. Lott Jr.] said, “it’s that you’re going to get the biggest reduction in crime if the people who are most likely victims of violent crime, predominantly poor Blacks, are the ones who are getting the permits.”
In Dallas, there has been a rise in the number of homicides deemed to be justifiable, such as those conducted in self-defense, even as overall shootings have declined from last year’s high levels.
“We’ve had justifiable shootings where potential victims have defended themselves,” said the Dallas police chief, Eddie Garcia. “It cuts both ways.”
Last October in Port Arthur, Texas, a man with a handgun, who had a license, saw two armed robbers at a Church’s Chicken and fired through the drive-through window, fatally striking one of the men and wounding the other. His actions were praised by the local district attorney.
Michael Mata, the president of the local police union in Dallas, said that he and his fellow officers had seen no increase in violent crime tied to the new permitless carry law, though there were “absolutely” more guns on the street.
Sheriff David Soward of Atascosa County, a rural area south of San Antonio, said he had also seen no apparent increase in shootings. “Only a small percentage of people actually take advantage of the law,” he said.
— J. David Goodman in Texas Goes Permitless on Guns, and Police Face an Armed Public
HOUSTON — Tony Earls hung his head before a row of television cameras, staring down, his life upended. Days before, Mr. Earls had pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston.
Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.
“Is Mr. Earls licensed to carry?” a reporter asked during the February news conference, in which his lawyer spoke for him.
He didn’t need one, the lawyer replied. “Everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” A grand jury later agreed, declining to indict Mr. Earls for any crime.
The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license.
At the same time, mainly in rural counties, other sheriffs said they had seen little change, and proponents of gun rights said more people lawfully carrying guns could be part of why shootings have declined in some parts of the state.
Far from an outlier, Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns. When Alabama’s “permitless carry” law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun.
The state-by-state legislative push has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them.
I seem to remember this thing called the 1st amendment…..
Lawmakers Call on Biden to Make it More Difficult for People to Download Gun Blueprints
Lawmakers in California, led by Congressman Mike Thompson, penned a letter asking the Joe Biden administration to hold manufacturers responsible for homemade ghost guns.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Currently, it is relatively easy to buy gun parts, or make them at home with a 3D printer, and create an untraceable firearm. Ghost guns allow people to circumvent the background check requirement to own a gun.
“It is far too easy for anyone to download from the internet the computer code to 3D-print unserialized, untraceable, plastic ‘ghost guns,’” the letter said. “These 3D-printed weapons circumvent our system of gun safety rules and regulations, and pose a serious threat to public safety and national security.”
The question of banning the distribution of blueprints for 3D printed guns has been debated over the years, with much speculation that banning the sharing of blueprints is a First Amendment violation.
“President Biden can undo the Trump-era rule that has made the instructions for the 3D-printing of untraceable and deadly ‘ghost’ guns widely available online,” said Senator Markey. “The online distribution of these ghost gun blueprints only increases the risk of these weapons proliferating and poses a serious threat to public safety and national security. President Biden should fulfil his campaign promise and reverse the Trump administration’s weakening of these gun safety regulations.”
“They’re making firearms and they’re shooting and they’re killing people,” Thompson said.
“If you are a danger to yourself or to others, if you’re dangerously mentally ill, if you’re a criminal, you should not be able to get your mitts on a gun,” he added.
CBS13 asked Thompson about gun advocacy groups pushing back against manufacturers being held liable yet they did not commit the actual crimes.
“I have one word for these groups and that’s, ‘tough.’ We need these rules,” he responded.
Thompson is urging the Biden administration to tighten federal enforcement on these guns because he does not believe that such legislation would pass through Congress.
“Well, I’d like to see congress have the intestinal fortitude to pass legislation that would prohibit this nonsense from taking place. But as you know, as long as they have this 60-vote rule in the Senate, we’re never going to get a bill like that passed,” said Thompson.
Thompson wants the President to direct the ATF and DOJ to pass stricter rules that would hold manufacturers liable for ghost guns.
Judge Lynch: "How can there be probable cause to believe that there is an unlawful firearm anywhere based on the fact that there is a permitted firearm?"
Andrzejewski: "The answer to that is it really doesn't matter whether it was permitted or not." https://t.co/cd7QRWEodv
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) October 28, 2022
Fourth Amendment Forbids Handcuffing Driver Just Because He Has Gun + Gun Permit
“Any contrary holding ‘would eviscerate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed individuals’ by presuming a license expressly permitting possession of a firearm was invalid.”
From Friday’s decision in Soukaneh v. Andrzejewski, written by Judge Janet Bond Arterton (D. Conn.):
Massachusetts Gun Control Scheme an Abject Failure
Gun Related Homicides Increased 111% Since 1998 Gun Control Act
2020 Massachusetts Department of Public Health Report on Deaths Still Reflects the Commonwealth’s Gun Laws are an Unmitigated Disaster!
On Thursday, October 27, 2022, Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL) released a report reflecting a nearly two-fold increase in gun related homicides in Massachusetts. The report included data taken directly from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Injury Surveillance Program (ISP). The report breaks down gun deaths in the Commonwealth into three categories: Homicides, Suicides, and Accidental deaths.
“What just jumps off the page is the more than doubling of gun related homicides since the passage of the 1998 Gun Control Act,” said Jim Wallace, Executive Director of GOAL. “For more than two decades we have constantly heard that Massachusetts is leading the nation in ‘common sense’ gun control laws. Using the State’s own data, we are proving that is simply a false and dangerous narrative.”
Using the State’s own data, the report reflects an 111% increase in gun related homicides since 1998. Gun related suicides are down a few points, but that marginal success is outweighed by a huge increase in suicide by hanging/suffocation. Virtually no gains have been made in accidental gun deaths as those numbers were so minuscule already.
It is GOAL’s hope that the legislature will finally see what this so-called, gun control effort for what it really is. An affront to our Second Amendment civil rights. There is absolutely no way to justify what has been done to the Second Amendment Community in the name of “safety”. One of the first things the legislature needs to address in the next legislative session is a complete revamp of the State’s gun laws in a manner that respects our community’s civil rights. Further, the political leadership needs to start addressing the human criminal element head on and the growing mental health crisis.
Crap For Brains Quote O’ the Day
Sen. Nia Gill (D- Essex) pushed back on some of Durr’s claims about the bill violating the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s June ruling……
“This is an exercise in legislation that we must do in order for the court to determine the legislative constitutionality of it,” Gill said.
Fast-tracked bill to limit concealed carry stumbles as constitutional concerns mount
A fast-tracked bill to limit concealed carry in New Jersey hit a snag Thursday when Assembly leaders yanked it from a scheduled vote, conceding its broad restrictions could fold under constitutional scrutiny.
The canceled vote came the same day a Senate panel approved the bill along party lines — and with about 15 amendments that appear to be aimed at appeasing critics who have vowed to fight any new law in court. The bill, introduced two weeks ago, has already been approved along party lines by three Assembly committees.
Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), one of the bill’s sponsors and the majority leader in the Assembly, said legislators plan to revise language in the bill to ensure “it’s directly in line with our legislative intent.”
“That may help constitutional arguments at the end of the day,” Greenwald said. “There’s a focus on making sure that it’s not too broad, not too vague, and that it withstands a challenge.”
Greenwald said lawmakers still aim to pass the bill by the end of November.
“Obviously, the day that the governor signs it, there’s going to be legal challenges — those against it have already made that clear,” said Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex), another bill sponsor. “So we’re just doing everything we need to do to cross our t’s and dot our i’s. There’s no lack of resolve. If anything, we’re even more determined to get something to the governor’s desk.”
Legislators say they drafted the bill to counter the uptick in gun usage they anticipate after about 300,000 gun owners applied for concealed carry permits in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that affirmed a constitutional right to carry. In that ruling, the nation’s highest court struck down a New York law requiring gun owners to prove a reason why they need to carry a concealed gun, prompting New Jersey to remove its similar “justifiable need” requirement.
New Jersey’s bill would create new hurdles for gun owners seeking carry permits and carve out 25 categories of sensitive places where guns are prohibited, which range from beaches to bars to parks.
But gun rights advocates have singled out various provisions of the bill they find problematic — and grounds for a court challenge. A federal judge in New York last week temporarily halted a similar ban there on guns in sensitive places, citing constitutional concerns.
Some of the amendments made to New Jersey’s bill since its introduction have addressed critics’ concerns. After gun supporters complained about one provision that would allow the state’s 565 municipalities to define their own sensitive places where guns would be banned, lawmakers amended the bill to remove it.
Scott Bach, president of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, on Wednesday sounded the alarm about other language in the bill referring to “weapons.” Such vague wording could refer to any everyday tool, including mops, kitchen cutlery, and knitting needles, the association warned in an alert to members.
Greenwald on Thursday conceded the weapons verbiage was one tweak legislators would make before rescheduling the bill for a full Assembly vote.
We’re just doing everything we need to do to cross our t’s and dot our i’s. There’s no lack of resolve. If anything, we’re even more determined to get something to the governor’s desk.
– Assemblyman John McKeon
Earlier in the day, during the Senate’s Law and Public Safety Committee, Sen. Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex), the committee’s chair, agreed some unclear language in the bill needs further consideration.
The committee made 15 amendments to the bill. Two amendments would remove requirements that someone with a carry permit stopped by police produce the gun for inspection and show proof of liability insurance. Two more would allow active and retired law enforcement officers to carry a handgun in sensitive places where the public can’t take them.
Still, supporters and critics spent nearly three hours debating the bill Thursday, with some especially testy exchanges between the panel’s Democratic members and Sen. Ed Durr (R-Gloucester), whose political campaign centered on Second Amendment rights.
“If I were to sit here and list all the problems with this bill, we’d be here until sometime next week,” Durr told the panel.
Durr especially objected to the increased fees proposed in the legislation, complaining they would “make it impossible for a person of modest means to protect him- or herself.”
He questioned the state’s ongoing effort to reduce its prison population while tightening gun control at the same time.
“You were making room (in prison) for all the responsible but unlucky gun owners who are going to unintentionally violate this bill,” he said.
Sen. Nia Gill (D- Essex) pushed back on some of Durr’s claims about the bill violating the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s June ruling.
“I’m a lawyer,” Gill told Durr.
He responded, “I’ve seen many lawyers get things wrong.”
Gill retorted: “I’ve seen legislators get them wrong too.”
After almost three hours of testimony, the panel advanced the bill.
“This is an exercise in legislation that we must do in order for the court to determine the legislative constitutionality of it,” Gill said.
It’s already obsolete as the McDonald and Bruen rulings made ‘judicial scrutiny’ out of bounds for a fundamental right, but it does enshrine RKBA in the Iowa Constitution.
Iowa sheriffs endorse gun rights constitutional amendment
DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa sheriffs are speaking out in support of a proposed gun rights amendment to the Iowa Constitution. But not everyone thinks it’s appropriate for sheriffs to endorse political issues.
Iowans will vote on the so-called “Second Amendment” bill on Nov. 8.
“Whenever one of my constituents loses a freedom it’s my fault. It’s our job to speak out,” said Cedar County Sheriff Warren Wethington.
Wethington is one of six Iowa sheriffs officially endorsing what he calls the freedom amendment. It says, in part, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” and is basically creating an Iowa gun rights amendment similar to the second amendment in the federal constitution.
“It needs to be in the Iowa constitution, just simply for the fact that if you have your Second Aamendment rights violated, the way it is now, you have to wait until your time in a federal court. It can be dealt with in a state level now,” Wethington said.
Many Iowa sheriffs are also endorsing Brenna Bird for Iowa attorney general. And they appear in a new political advertisement for Bird, the Republican candidate running for Iowa attorney general against incumbent Tom Miller.
“Those 74 sheriffs, they want a new attorney general,” Bird said.
“The difficulty is while people are entitled to their own opinion, when people have a certain authority over others, whether it’s law enforcement, employers, professors, teachers whatever, they’re in a position to make people subordinate to that authority is uncomfortable at best,” Goldford said.
But Wethington disagrees.
“When I ran for office and was elected I did give up my First Amendment rights, not only is it my right, to speak my mind, but it’s also my duty as an elected official who has a sworn oath to protect the constitution,” he said.
Only six Iowa sheriffs publicly endorsed the firearms amendment, but the Iowa Firearms Coalition says many more are also in support.
THE AYOOB FILE
READERS KNOW MASSAD AYOOB AS A WRITER, BUT HE’S ALSO A LEADER
American Handgunner and GUNS Magazine readers have known Massad Ayoob over the years for his insight and careful analysis of self-defense incidents, and for his several books on the subject, but there’s another side of this multi-talented fellow with the deep voice and New England accent.
He also serves as president of the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights organization that has become the national leader in firearms litigation. It’s also where I hang my hat as editor and communications director. It was a SAF case — McDonald v. City of Chicago — which won a Supreme Court ruling that incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment. It is SAF, sometimes with national and/or local partner organizations, which now has nearly 40 active lawsuits challenging restrictive gun control laws across the states.
And it is SAF, along with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which annually sponsors the Gun Rights Policy Conference. This year, the event was in Dallas, Texas, and it was Ayoob — a pal of mine for decades — who delivered opening remarks and later on the agenda, some timely and important tips on how to win the “gun battle.”
Suffice to say, Ayoob did it with a style all his own; a bit of activist, some diplomat, a dash of cop humor and a heavy dose of reality.
BLUF
“The right to carry is here, and it’s here to stay, and everybody’s got to get used to that,” Bach told the outlet. “This angry fist-shaking by various states like New York and New Jersey is going to blow up in their faces. They can pretend that Bruen doesn’t say what it says, but it’s only going to come back to bite them.”
New York court rulings against gun law may signal trouble for similar New Jersey bill
A gun restriction bill backed by top Democrats in New Jersey is already facing legal threats after the Supreme Court affirmed a constitutional right to carry and sparked challenges to New York ‘s similar gun law.
Assemblyman Joe Danielsen, the New Jersey bill’s main sponsor, is pushing the legislation to prohibit licensed gun owners from bringing firearms into nearly 25 “sensitive places” while imposing stiff barriers for people seeking gun licenses. The bill made it out of committee via a party-line vote this week and has the backing of Gov. Phil Murphy , who has vowed to sign it into law.
If enacted, the legislation could be a tough road ahead in light of two federal court rulings in New York that held the Empire State’s new gun law fails the test established in the summer high court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen .
Just last week, a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order on a provision of a New York gun law that made it a felony for a person with a concealed carry gun license to bring a firearm into churches or other houses of worship. That ruling came just weeks after a separate lower court ruled that much of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act , signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul , failed the Bruen test. Since then, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court has restored much of the act while a three-judge panel decides on a motion to stay the lower court decision.
New Jersey’s Bill A4769 features many similar components that have been subject to judicial scrutiny in light of the 6-3 high court opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas .
BARR: Hate Unconstitutional Gun Control? Make Friends With Your Sheriff
A number of sheriffs in upstate New York are declaring that their officers will not prioritize or “aggressively enforce” the state’s recently enacted, highly restrictive gun control law. These elected sheriffs have concluded quite correctly that the state’s new law is at odds with both the Constitution of the United States and with the most recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared New York’s previous and long-standing gun control law – the Sullivan Act – unconstitutional.
The sheriffs’ actions have rekindled a recurring debate about the powers of the more than three thousand local sheriffs serving in every state except Alaska and Connecticut.
The United States has had elected sheriffs long before there was a “United States of America,” with the first one taking office in Virginia in 1652. Police departments, on the other hand, are a relatively new phenomenon. The first municipal police department was not established until 1838 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Unlike most county sheriffs, who hold their positions under their state constitutions, police chiefs answer only to local office holders who appointed them, not to the voters. It is this distinction that has caused a number of sheriffs in “Blue States” to earn the ire of the Left.
Two factors have exacerbated this enmity in recent years – increasingly restrictive gun control measures and abusive COVID mandates by Blue State governors and legislatures. Sheriffs who decline to prioritize enforcing such laws find themselves increasingly maligned by the Left, notwithstanding the fact that they are carrying out their sworn duty to support the federal and state constitutions, and in accord with the wishes of the voters they represent.
Consider Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who declared in 2021 that he would not force officers under his command to be vaccinated against COVID, as mandated by that county’s liberal Board of Supervisors.
Even more vexing to liberals, however, is the number of sheriffs who in recent years have refused to enforce what they consider unconstitutional infringements on the rights of citizens in their jurisdictions to exercise their Second Amendment rights in the face of Blue State gun control laws.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) berates these sheriffs who follow the Constitution of the United States as “radicalized” officials who do not themselves understand the Constitution. The recently discredited SPLC simply cannot bring itself to accept that elected law enforcement officials should be permitted to resist such government overreach.
However, these “constitutional sheriffs” are not alone in their views. Since the Supreme Court’s seminal Bruen decision in June that tossed New York’s Sullivan Act, similarly restrictive laws in other states have fallen. Even more to the point, some of the very restrictions in the legislation signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul just days after the Supreme Court rendered its opinion, as part of her attempt to undercut the High Court’s directive, were blocked last week by a federal judge in New York City.
With state and federal courts seeming to agree with sheriffs who decline to vigorously enforce laws they view as inconsistent with their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, especially as related to Second Amendment rights of citizens in their jurisdictions, it is becoming increasingly difficult for their detractors on the Left to argue with a straight face that the sheriffs are the outliers.
Three years ago, the gun control group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — “Everytown for Gun Safety” — published a paper highly critical of sheriffs who declined to prioritize the gun control measures the organization championed. The title of the piece was, When Sheriffs Refuse to Follow the Law.
It is, however, becoming increasingly clear to citizens across the country that it is liberal, anti-gun public officials like Hochul who are not following the law, and that it is constitutional sheriffs who are the ones following it.