Murdoc is guessing that shooting the No Shooting sign is not permitted.

Agents of Incompetence: ATF Dodges FOIA, Still Has Seized BB Guns

Somehow I’ve managed to miss this story until now. It appears that the Customs and Border Protection guys seized some airsoft guns in Washington back in February and claimed that they were real machine guns disguised as toys. They turned them over to the BATF who agreed.

When a Freedom of Information Act request was filed, they provided information about a different case from 2004.

Go read.

Self-proclaimed vampire brings out Seattle SWAT

My guess is that the girls won’t be swooning over this cat.

WA AWB is likely DOA

The bill was named in honor of 18-year-old Aaron Sullivan, who was shot and killed by a SKS 7.62-caliber rifle in Seattle in July. The legislation focuses on “military-style” assault weapons, which can fire rapidly and carry large magazines of ammunition.

The SKS? Large magazines of ammunition?

And I won’t even mention “7.62-caliber,” which would be the main armament of a World War 2 heavy cruiser.

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.

Via Random Nuclear Strikes, we find this Seattle Times editorial concerned with recent shootings of police officers:

A constitutional right to own a gun does not carry a subsequent right to put others at risk, or to amass a personal armory with a lethal capacity beyond some hypothetical need for household defense.

Got that? The Seattle Times editorial staff thinks that A) household defense is “some hypothetical need” and B) the right guaranteed legally by the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution should be limited to the absolute bare minimum for personal safety.

I wonder if they believe that other “constitutional rights” should be so severely limited. Say, for instance, the one about freedom of the press from government abridgment. Should the 1st Amendment be interpreted to mean that the press does not have a capacity to print stories beyond some hypothetical need for household safety?

One dead, one wounded by jury nullification anarchist on Halloween in Seattle.

What?

Even though police say they have not yet determined what weapon was used, Ralph Fascitelli, president of Washington CeaseFire, says he plans to cite [police officer Timothy] Brenton’s murder when lobbying for the bill in the next legislative session.

“Maybe this particular [police victim] wasn’t killed with an assault weapon, but the next one maybe will be,” Fascitelli says, adding that police safety was a key reason that automatic weapons were banned decades ago and that the International Association of Police Chiefs supports a ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons today.

Based on “the next one maybe will be”, this guy is going to take it to the state government. Must be nice to not need any proof or any evidence or even any case to back you up.

NRA, others take aim at gun ban in Seattle parks

Four gun-rights organizations, including the National Rifle Association, are suing the city of Seattle and Mayor Greg Nickels over the new ban on guns in city parks.

They were joined by five individuals, including two Department of Corrections workers who say they need to carry their personal weapons in city parks to protect themselves against criminals.

“The city is acting illegally in putting a ban into effect,” said Alan Gottlieb, with the Second Amendment Foundation, and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court. “Lots of people in Seattle need firearms for self-protection.”

The story is discussed (term used loosely) at a site called Slog:

The insistence of this form of stupidity, gun rights, is like the backside of a proud water buffalo.

And the conversation (term used loosely) continues in the comments:

Let’s legalize guns in schools too, right? Legalize guns in courthouses, jails, and bars too, am I right? After all, a #2 pencil can kill someone too, right? And let’s legalize poison gas and explosives, since it’s the people killing other people, not the poison gas.

Pro-gun rights arguments are so leotarded.

That guy’s user name is i heart hunting accidents. No, I didn’t make that up.

Here’s another good one:

I failed to mention my respect for the second amendment despite personal sentiments. I just don’t respect the white man’s burden blubbering, tea-baggers who carry them.

But at least someone has a solution:

I think any law-abiding citizen should be able own and carry guns, but I also think that guns should be much more strictly regulated.

“But.”

Here are the proposals to incorporate that “but”:

Buying and selling of guns should be tightly regulated. All transfers of ownership should be registered with the state, even when between private parties. Perhaps a gun can be “scanned” out of one license holders inventory, and scanned into another. Obviously close the gun show loophole too.

All guns should be inventoried every two years. Since each transfer of a gun would have to be registered with the state, we would theoretically know who had every gun in the state.