Who would have guessed it?

Federal “Terrorist” Legislation Could Threaten Gun Owners

I doubt anyone would have problems with prohibiting the sale or transfer of firearms to dangerous terrorists, which is what this bill calls for. There’s just one problem about how that “dangerous terrorist” list is compiled:

“It doesn’t say anything about trials and due process,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told Fox News. “This is one of the most outrageous pieces of legislation to come along in some time. It’s basically saying, ‘I suspect you, so your rights are toast.’”

The bill’s Constitutionality was a big question.

“There is a Second Amendment right to hold and bear arms,” said Robert Cottrol, a law professor at George Washington University. “That right is not absolute, for instance with convicted criminals. But there would have to be an individualized determination, as in a trial, to prove someone is guilty of something before they are deprived of such a right.”

(via Instapundit)

Oops. Don’t forget the spare mag in your carry-on.

That’s a bummer, but I’m glad it ended well enough.

Say Uncle: Thought crimes: more serious than real crimes

At Pelham Library, a teen did some research on the laws related to the concealed carry of a handgun. Someone at the library reported the suspicious activity. The teen was then called to the principal’s office and interviewed by police. Seems that reporting someone’s reading habits may also be a violation of the law. The library seems mostly unconcerned about this.

Sebastian on the denial of an appeal in the Olofson case:

What it boils down to is that if you have a firearm that fires more than one round per single pull of the trigger, and you know it does this, you need to take it to a gunsmith and get it fixed pronto, because by the strict legal definition, you are in possession of a machine gun.

No due process required

Say Unlce:

A bill in TN to require someone subject to an order of protection for domestic violence relinquish their firearms has advanced in the senate. That’s right. No conviction, no jury of peers, just an order of protection based on one person’s word over another.

Uncle wrote previously about the automatic revocation of concealed carry permits in Tennessee when a protection order is filed against someone. This takes it several steps further by requiring that you “turn over” your firearms to someone. But just someone, apparently. Anyone who is legally allowed to posses them. No system. Just a requirement to turn them over “to a family member, a friend or anybody who can legally possess a weapon.”

What a joke. And it’s sponsored by a Republican.

I discussed the CCW revocation here, asking

Are they saying that someone who is going to break a protection order to commit murder will change their mind because they cannot legally carry a concealed weapon?

I also mentioned that in Michigan, there are optional restrictions on firearms possession when a personal protection order is issued and noted that the sister of a good friend of mine had recently been killed by an ex-boyfriend with a PPO issued against him.

Pieces of paper only work against the ones you don’t need to worry about.

Parolee faces murder charge in death of girl’s mother in Tenn.

A young girl who told police her father forced her to help as he cut up her mother’s body with an electric saw said she could only look away when the head fell to the floor.

The girl is the chief witness against James Hawkins, 31, a prison parolee charged with first-degree murder in the death of Charlene Gaither, 28, a longtime companion with whom he had three children. His trial is scheduled for September and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The defense’s main, um, defense seems to be an attempt to argue that the defendant’s admission that he dumped the body can not be used as an official statement.

No guns involved.

I knew times were tough in Massachusetts, but I had no idea about this:

Since 1994, the number of federal firearm licenses – FFLs – issued in Massachusetts has declined from 4,109 to 531, or by 87 percent. [emphasis Murdoc's]

That’s what Murdoc calls a shockingly large number. These two issues are where a lot of it comes from:

The first is the Brady Bill, named after White House press secretary James Brady who was shot in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It increased the license fee from $10 per year to $200 for the first three years and $90 for each three-year renewal.

The second piece of legislation was the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known as the Crime Bill. It requires applicants for the federal licenses to notify their local police department, submit fingerprints and a photo with the application, and certify that their businesses adhere to local zoning regulations.

It also requires gun dealers to have an established location for their shops that must be separate from their residences. This eliminated many hobbyists and part-time dealers.

But, what does “eliminated” really mean here? In at least some cases, it probably means “Many hobbyists and part-time dealers stopped legally selling firearms.”

Here’s a bit more background:

At the time, the Clinton administration was concerned about smaller gun dealers operating under the radar and potentially outside the law.

Ah. We’re concerned about potential law-breakers, so we’ll make it more expensive to follow the law. That will keep people from doing it illegally.

And:

Police departments complained that with dealer licenses easy to obtain and difficult to track, they were often the last to know to whom the licenses were issued.

Ah. We used to be the last to know who legal dealers were. Now we’ll never know about any of those folks.

So, as a recap, the increased fees and paperwork hurt everyone except bigger businesses and crooks.

Hat tip to the reader who forwarded this story!

I had seen this but failed to point it out. If you haven’t heard, go get some more info at Caleb’s.

UPDATE: David Hardy has More on injunction against park CCW

SanFranciscostan area: Gun collector loses appeal in lawsuit against Hayward

There’s not a lot of details in the write-up and I’m totally unfamiliar with the case, but this seems crazy. Ed Barsch’s son Wayne apparently suffers from a bi-polar disorder and made a bunch of threats against a bunch of people, including his dad. When police showed up outside the dad’s house to arrest the son, they confiscated the dad’s gun collection and sold or destroyed it. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision that the police’s entry was lawful because they were performing a “protective sweep” of the area and no due process was avoided by selling or destroying the guns. The dad has apparently been charged with no crime and was not arrested at the time.

Some of the guns in the collection were apparently owned by the son or owned jointly by the father and son. The son received some compensation. The dad received nothing.

Via Ride Fast & Shoot Straight, who is trying to gather more info.