A round-up of Supreme Court links at SCOTUS Blog.

Via The Firearm Blog:

U.S. charges 22 with bribery in arms sting

An executive of Smith & Wesson (SWHC.O) and 21 others have been charged with violating U.S. bribery laws after an undercover sting in which federal agents posed as arms-buying representatives of an African defense minister.

The defendants, including a senior Smith & Wesson sales official Amaro Goncalves, were accused of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, and conspiracy to commit money laundering tied to the sale of guns, body armor and other law enforcement equipment.

The FCPA prohibits the payment of bribes to foreign officials in order to secure business contracts.

Twenty-one of the men were arrested in Las Vegas, where they were attending the SHOT Show, a large shooting-sports and hunting convention. The 22nd defendant was arrested in Miami.

I didn’t see or hear anything about this while at the show today.

Just yesterday I posted a story about a Washington state ex-felon who is going to prison because his wife owns guns and he’s not allowed to “possess” firearms.

Now a federal court has ruled that the state cannot bar incarcerated felons from voting.

Can vote while in prison but can’t live with someone who has a gun years after getting out?

The ruling is going to be appealed.

Bremerton man faces prison sentence for wife’s guns

Luke T. Groves was convicted of a felony in 1990. In 2008, he called police after his home was broken into. His wife owns two guns (and owned them since before they were married, I understand) so the guy goes to prison for being a felon in possession of guns. 31 to 41 months.

This is brilliant:

During closing arguments, Deputy Prosecutor Giovanna Mosca painted a simple picture for jurors: Groves had the guns in his “dominion and control,” and that was enough for a conviction.

Mosca used a metaphor to make her case: When you rent a movie or check out a book from the library, “you don’t own it, but you possess it,” she said.

But Groves didn’t “rent” the guns or “check out” the guns, did he? His wife did.

I will admit that I guess I didn’t realize this worked like this. The comments are full of people saying things to the effect of “c’mon, everyone knows felons can’t have guns” and even some who defend him say “he didn’t hurt anyone, he only wanted to protect his family.” Neither of these have any bearing on the case.

What matters is if guns owned by his wife were “possessed” by him. Apparently, the fact that he knew where they were made a big difference. If she had hid the guns from him, would he still have been in possession of them?

It’s not said whether the guns were secured, only that he led police to them and that they were in the couple’s bedroom.

I certainly am in favor of making people follow the rules. If the rules are bad, get the rules changed. Don’t break them.

But I’m not sure I’m buying the idea that a man who committed a crime when he was 17 can marry a gun owner when he’s 31 and she has to get rid of her guns. If that’s accurate (and it apparently is) I think it needs to be looked at again.

The story is short on details that may affect my opinion. Besides not telling us how the guns were stored, it doesn’t tell us what plea bargain he turned down and what evidence he wanted to use that was not allowed.

They plan to appeal the ruling.

Coming Soon: Stupid Warning Labels on Baseball Bats for Stupid People Thanks to Stupid Lawyers and a Stupid Jury

The parents of a boy killed in baseball game win $850,000 because the bat didn’t have a label warning that it could hit baseballs hard.

Illinois: Court OKs storing guns in car consoles

Illinois law lets people carry guns in their cars if they are unloaded and enclosed in a case or other container. The question was whether a compartment for items like CDs and sunglasses meets the legal definition of a “case” for carrying guns.

In issuing its ruling Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned a 2003 appellate court decision that said a glove compartment is not a “case” under the law.

Via Instapundit.

State to mom: Stop baby-sitting neighbors’ kids

Michigan:

Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee child care, however, don’t see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

The law states that no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks a year without being a fully-licensed day-care provider.

[Michigan Governor Jennifer] Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said the agency was following standard procedure in its response. “But we feel this (law) really gets in the way of common sense,” Boyd said.

Like a lot of laws about a lot of things.

Here’s a nice evenhanded headline for you:
Tennessee law lets thugs pack heat
A violent past doesn’t necessarily prevent a Tennessean from getting a gun permit

This is just the latest example of media excitement over non-felons not prevented from getting permits that felons can’t get. Understand? This man, who is NOT A FELON, got a permit that FELONS CANNOT GET.

And this, says the media, is reason for concern.

Fletcher is one of them, despite his repeated run-ins with the law. Several felony charges over the years that would have disqualified him for a gun permit were either reduced to misdemeanors or dismissed.

In other words, he was NOT CONVICTED of a felony.

This type of scare story, about how not being a felon was a loophole that allowed some folks not be classed as felons, was all the rage in Florida for a while.

If people don’t like people with rough pasts plea bargaining themselves out of a felony conviction and then getting guns, get the people with rough pasts convicted of a felony when they’re charged with one. Don’t pretend it’s some sort of loophole.

More at SayUncle, Walls of the City, and Snowflakes in Hell.

Replica rifle has Brooklyn man at odds with cops

Michael Littlejohn is under fire from the NYPD over a replica Revolution-era flintlock rifle:

Littlejohn fired the first shot when he hired a Tennessee blacksmith to recreate the vintage rifle. It arrived at his Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, apartment in June – followed quickly by city cops.

Police claim it’s illegal for Littlejohn to keep the flintlock without a gun license.

Littlejohn, 50, cites the earliest American patriots as his inspiration while refusing to surrender his firearm or apply for a license.

The social worker is also clinging to a little-known exemption in the city’s strict gun laws.

The loophole allows license-free ownership of “antique firearms” – defined as rifles that require the bullet and gunpowder to be loaded separately.

The way it’s described here, anyway, it sure sounds like he can legally own and possess this rifle without a license.

What Murdoc finds even weirder is how the cops found out about the rifle:

The NYPD learned about Littlejohn’s $825 rifle when he left a receipt inside a Staples copy center, prompting a call to the cops.

Find a random receipt for a gun and call the cops on it?

Feds Declare Tennessee Gun Law Invalid

Last month, the state of Tennessee’s General Assembly passed House Bill 1796, the “Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act,” which states that any firearms or ammunition manufactured within the state and legally owned and kept within the state by citizens are “not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration” due to provisions in the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

The ATF, unsurprisingly, takes a slightly different view of things.