Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell:

There are an awful lot of folks out there questioning NRA’s position on the Kagan nomination, believing that they need to be up front and aggressive in going after her. I agree with them that Kagan is going to be a disaster for gun rights, and for the Constitution in general. I also don’t find the position to be implausible or irrational. I won’t tell you there haven’t been moves by NRA that haven’t puzzled me, and I disagreed with, but I have very seldom second guessed their strategy in public.

Go read.

Mayor Daley backs off plan to limit residents to one gun

The headline makes it sound like good news, but check out some more details in the Sun-Times:

It prohibits possession of those handguns outside the home. The home is specifically defined as the inside portion “traditionally used for living purposes” — not the garage, yard, porch, deck or walkway.

No more than one firearm in the home could be “assembled and operable.” The rest must be secured by a trigger lock or locked box or “broken down in a non-functioning state.”

Additionally, a $100 firearms permit good for three years would be required for each gun owner and an application fee of $15 plus an annual “reporting fee” of $10 for each gun. Mandatory classroom training and range time (cost unspecified) would be required to get the firearms permit.

Here’s an interesting bit: people over 18 but under 21 would require parental permission to obtain a gun. They want to tell 20-year-olds to go get a note from their mommy.

No gun shops allowed. Period. Buy your guns elsewhere. (Though I’ve got to think that ten thousand prospective gun shop owners are licking their chops about the possibility of setting up a store just outside the city.)

Finally, the city would maintain a list of “permissible” guns that residents could own. No word on what would be on the list.

Chicago Corporation Counsel Mara Georges, who a couple of days ago said that previously proposed restrictions, including one handgun per person, were reasonable and would stand up in court says, well, that these new proposed restrictions are reasonable and would stand up in court.

She also makes the driver’s license comparison. I keep seeing that one. I really don’t think those people making that argument have thought things through.

Via Say Uncle and Newsalert:

Chicago Moves Quickly To Draft New Gun Ordinance

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley will push for a strict handgun ordinance to replace its doomed gun ban that will likely include limiting each resident to a single handgun, requiring gun owners to have insurance and prohibiting gun stores from setting up shop in the city, his top lawyer said Tuesday.

This is all part of the way things are done. Rulings are handed down, the losing side tries to make new rules that comply to the letter of the new but the spirit of the old. If it’s not good enough, the new rules get challenged and, if warranted, overturned. And establish precedent along the way.

Chicago Corporation Counsel Mara Georges weighed in:

She said that limiting Chicago residents to one handgun would pass constitutional muster. Nowhere has the court determined that “a person is entitled to more than one handgun,” she said. “And one handgun is sufficient for self defense.”

She said banning gun shops in the city is another reasonable restriction. She said studies have shown a disproportionate number of shootings near gun shops and because there are dozens of gun shops in the Chicago area — 40 in Cook County alone — a ban would not inconvenience gun buyers.

Regardless of what anyone thinks about Georges’ logic, let’s just look at her previous statements about the 2nd Amendment, gun laws, and how they’ll hold up in court:

City Corporation Counsel Mara Georges has told two City Council committees she’s confident Chicago’s law will stand.

Georges tells Aldermen the Supreme Court’s decision on Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban shouldn’t apply to Chicago, because previous Supreme Court rulings have said Second Amendment “right to bear arms” doesn’t apply to local governments, like Cities. She says D.C. is a federal jurisdiction.

Hmmm. She didn’t quite get that one right.

Anyway, it’s probably easier for everyone if she convinces Daley to just keep trying to restrict things unreasonably. That way the challengers don’t have to travel all over the country to get stuff struck down.

On the road right now, but here are a few thoughts about the decision.

Like Heller, this is a game-changing landmark. But we didn’t get where we are in a couple of years, and it’s going to take more than a couple of years to get back closer to where we should be.

However, sooner or later people are going to have to give up on the whole “the 2nd Amendment means guns for an organized government militia” thing. We’ve been telling them for years and years that it doesn’t mean that. The Supreme Court keeps judging that it doesn’t mean that. At some point critics are going to have to accept that it doesn’t mean that.

UPDATE: Here’s something else by Reynolds. It includes:

the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have made a major difference. In particular, they have offset the gun-control community’s longstanding effort to “denormalize” firearms ownership — to portray it as something threatening, deviant, and vaguely perverse, and hence demanding strict regulation, if not outright prohibition. That effort went on for decades, and received much media support. Two decades ago, it seemed to be working.

But with the Supreme Court saying that it’s clear the Framers regarded individual gun ownership as “necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” that effort must be seen as a failure now. Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law.

I was asked last night what I thought this decision would mean by the person who told me that it had been handed down. I responded that since I hadn’t read any details about it, I could only say that I thought it was good and though I doubted gun laws in many places would change overnight, this decision would change the playing field and form a new foundation that future cases (and laws) would be built upon. The key is to maintain the momentum and not lose focus just because it looks like things are going well.

Republican senator’s plan to let guns on Amtrak moves closer to reality

The GAO ruled Thursday that an amendment inserted into a transportation funding bill by Republican Sen. Roger Wicker R-MS was permanent law, erasing doubts that Amtrak would have to comply. The mandate would force Amtrak to reverse a longstanding rule banning passengers from bringing guns onto trains instituted after 9/11.

Gregory Kane:

Is there anyone doing more damage against advocates of gun control than Daley? The man is a walking billboard for right-to-carry laws.

Yah. I’m crying my eyes out.

Someone give Daley another microphone.

Snowflakes in Hell has

An example of the ways Mexican criminals sell guns to other criminals

More: In Depth Look at Trafficking in Mexico.

Daley won’t say if 80-year-old will be charged under gun ban – Chicago Breaking News

Mayor Richard Daley refused to say today whether an 80-year-old Army veteran who shot and killed an intruder will be charged under the city’s handgun ban.

Asked about the possibility of charges, the mayor ended a news conference he had called about summer curfew in the city.

“I don’t know. Thank you very much,” Daley said and stepped away from the microphone.

Before walking away, Daley acknowledged people's frustration over the issue of gun control but insisted “I don’t think the answer is guns.”

A parolee with a record of drug and gun arrests broke in an reportedly fired two shots before the homeowner dispatched him.

The man has been hailed as a hero by his family and neighbors, but Daley cautioned that “guns is not the answer to the problems that we see in a home, in the streets of America. It’s as simple as that.”

Actually, Mayor Daley, I think that this story illustrates that you are just plain wrong. As simple as that.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said Wednesday he expects lawmakers to once again override his veto of bill to allow handgun carry permit holders to bring weapons into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

The Senate was expected to vote Thursday on whether to turn back the Democratic governor's veto, which takes only a majority in both chambers of the General Assembly.

Bredesen laughed when asked by a reporter whether he would be surprised to see lawmakers reject the veto.

“Not in the least,” he said. “Not in the least.”

via Tenn. gov expects veto override on guns in bars – CNBC.

More on Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s false claims to Congress:

Among Calderon’s other assertions, he said: “And if you look carefully you will notice that the violence in Mexico started to grow a couple of years before I took office in 2006. This coincides, at least, with the lifting of the assault weapons ban in 2004.”

He also warned that America faces the same danger.

There is only one problem: American and Mexican murder rates fell between the ban and the latest official data in 2008.

The article’s author, John Lott, notes that 2009 data may show an increase. But that is not what Calderon said and that is not what he was getting at.

It’s almost like he’s saying whatever he can to score political points.