Posts Tagged ‘guns’

“Weapons Policy Bans Fencing Group From Practicing On Campus”

“The fencing club at North Dakota State University cannot hold practices on campus as a result of the school’s weapons policy, Campus Reform reported.” [University Herald; Valley News Live (Fargo/Grand Forks)]

Also, note the ambiguity of the next line, “Members of the newly formed club said that despite having no pointed tips or sharp blades, the school classifies the club’s equipment as weapons.” It sounds as if the school administration itself is being described as “having no pointed tips or sharp blades,” which might be a version of “not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

More: Scott Greenfield, who has a family connection with the sport of fencing.

Filed under: colleges and universities, guns, North Dakota

No, as a matter of fact, it isn’t

“It’s Doctors’ Duty to Promote Gun Safety With Patients” [Art Caplan, Medscape via Bill of Health] Next step: giving patients a hard time about kitchen or camping knives? [A. Barton Hinkle]

Filed under: guns, medical

FBI raids Indiana antiquities collector

I’ve got a write-up at Cato at Liberty about the federal government’s massive, SWAT-like occupation of the rural Indiana property of Don Miller, a celebrated 91-year-old local collector who has traveled the globe and whose impressive collection of world and Indian artifacts “was featured in a four part series in the Rushville Republican.” Under various treaties and federal laws, mostly dating to relatively recent times, the federal government now deems ownership of many antiquities and Native American artifacts to be unlawful even if collectors acquired them in good faith before laws changed. [WISH (TV), Indianapolis Star, The Blaze.] More: coverage in two more outlets with a flavor very different from each other, Shelby County News (FBI source stresses Miller’s cooperativeness and suggests federal actions were wtih his consent or even at his behest) and National Public Radio (“seized,” “confiscated”)

Related: Richard Epstein at Hoover on Obama Administration plans to prohibit selling your family’s vintage piano or moving it across a state line. And aside from ivory chess sets, the nascent War on Antiques might take a toll of replica firearms [Washington Times]

Filed under: antiquities, guns, Indian tribes, Indiana, police

“Brady Campaign To Honor Yee For Violence Prevention”

That was in happier days, when California State Sen. Leland Yee was winning national applause for his gun-control efforts. Yesterday the San Jose Mercury-News reported:

In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area. … Yee asked whether he wanted automatic weapons, and the agent confirmed he did — about $500,000 to $2.5 million worth.”

Is it time to retire our “Do as we say” tag yet? Eliot Spitzer got exposed after crusading for longer sentences for “johns.” Czars of alcohol-abuse programs keep getting nabbed on the road after having a half dozen too many. Rep. Bob Filner groped his way to the podium to chair hearings on women’s issues.

Now there’s this. Maybe Sen. Yee came down so hard on private gun dealers because he wanted to muscle into the business himself.

The entire criminal information, which beggars belief in its colorful detail (Chinese gangs, Russian arms runners, Muslim insurgents in the Philippines) is here, with highlights summarized by Scott Lucas of San Francisco magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized: “Few observers of San Francisco politics are surprised by [Yee’s] arrest on corruption charges.” Then there’s this sidelight: “Keith Jackson, accused by the FBI on Wednesday of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and a gun- and drug-trafficking conspiracy, was San Francisco’s top elected educator during the late 1990s.” [San Francisco Chronicle]

Filed under: Bay Area, California, do as we say, guns, San Francisco

Maryland roundup

“Maryland To Cut Estate Tax As Blue States Fall In Line” [Ashlea Ebeling, Forbes]
Why is the state doling out tax credits to the successful House of Cards TV series? [David Boaz, Cato]
Union boon at kids’ expense: assembly moves to impose prevailing-wage scheme on school construction [Carroll County Times, Maryland Reporter]
Bill appears to have stalled: “Proposed Maryland Law Could Lead to Confiscation Of Guns from Noncomplying Folks with Criminal Records” [Brian Doherty, Reason, HB0623]
“HHS Inspector General To Examine Maryland’s Troubled Health Exchange” [Kaiser Health News]
Bill to prohibit fracking reported unfavorably by environmental committee, but opponents set sights on blocking LNG terminal at Cove Point in Calvert County, compressor at Myersville in Frederick County [MLW; Sean Hackbarth, US Chamber; Frederick News Post]
“Maryland politicians already reneging on pension reforms” [Steve Malanga, Public Sector Inc.]

Filed under: guns, Maryland, ObamaCare, oil industry, taxes

A “Stand Your Ground” backgrounder

Decent articles on Stand Your Ground in the general press are relatively few, being far outnumbered by those that are sensationalist, axe-grinding or simply uninformed. So it’s nice to be able to recommend this one by Peter Jamison in the Tampa Bay Times [via Jacob Sullum].

In other news, a United Nations panel in Geneva monitoring compliance with international human rights law has questioned a wide range of United States domestic policies, including some states’ adoption of Stand Your Ground as well as lack of gun control and other offenses. “The committee is charged with upholding the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a UN treaty that the US ratified in 1992.” Another reminder that treaties have consequences, and that ratification of other purported human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD), would not be without public consequences relating to many domestic policies. [Guardian]

Filed under: guns, international human rights, stand your ground, United Nations

March 5 roundup

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights commissioners Gail Heriot, Peter Kirsanow: Administration’s new policy on race and school discipline likely to make schools more chaotic [Robby Soave, Daily Caller, 2011 related, earlier here, etc.]
French court: fan club members suffered legally cognizable emotional damage from Michael Jackson’s death [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
“The Newkirk incident demonstrates why cameras in the courtroom are a bad idea” [James Taranto, includes bonus New York Times disgrace]
Claim: advocates stymied firearms research over most of past two decades. Accurate? [Fox News]
Another look at the CPSC’s war on former Buckyballs CEO Craig Zucker [Jim Epstein, Reason, earlier]
Chris Christie use of monitorships in white-collar prosecutions draws renewed scrutiny [New Republic, earlier]
In which I am included in a list with George Will and Heather Mac Donald, all very flattering etc. etc. [Charles C. W. Cooke, NRO]
D.C.: disbarred lawyer sat for years as workers comp judge [Washington City Paper]
“German home-school family won’t be deported” although Supreme Court declines to hear asylum appeal [AP; discussion in comments earlier]

Filed under: Buckyballs, cameras in the courtroom, CPSC, France, guns, New Jersey, school discipline, settlement monitors, Washington D.C.

Maryland roundup

Reminder: SB 353, which would ban bringing of knives and other weapons onto private school property whatever the school’s wishes, up for hearing at 1 p.m. Wed. Feb. 26 [text, Senate, related Virginia] With Ninth Circuit’s Peruta decision, Maryland now one of only six holdout states to resist any recognition of gun carry rights [David Kopel]
Slew of labor proposals moving through Annapolis would require employers to offer paid sick leave, push unionization on community college employees, and require employers to pay interns’ transportation costs. Study finds boosting state’s minimum wage would cost jobs [WaPo]
Supremely irresponsible: state already hobbled by nation’s slowest foreclosure process, but NAACP, Casa de Maryland and Legislative Black Caucus demand six-month foreclosure moratorium on top of that [Washington Post; earlier on Maryland foreclosure law here, here (couple spends five years in million-dollar home without making mortgage payment), here, etc.]
Review of recent developments in asbestos litigation in the state [Lisa Rickard, Chamber Institute for Legal Reform]
Goodbye to another Free State tradition? Senate votes ban on sale of grain alcohol, with urging from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg nanny crew [Washington Post]
Just say no to the Maryland Small Business Development Financing Authority [Mark Newgent, Baltimore Sun]
Sen. Zirkin “litigates dog-bite cases on behalf of plaintiffs” and is player on dog bite bill [Insurance Journal]

Filed under: alcohol, asbestos, dog bites, guns, Maryland, Michael Bloomberg, mortgages

Police and prosecution roundup

After criticism of heavy-handed Ankeny, Iowa police raid on persons suspected of credit card fraud, not actually reassuring to be told militarized methods needed because one house occupant had firearms carry permit [Radley Balko, more, more]
Advocates strain mightily to fit unpopular Dunn verdict into Stand Your Ground theme [David Kopel, Jacob Sullum] More: sorry, pundits, but Rasmussen poll shows public’s plurality SYG support unshaken [Althouse]
“‘Drop the Cabbage, Bullwinkle!’: Alaskan Man Faces Prison for the Crime of Moose-Feeding” [Evan Bernick, Heritage] “Criminalizing America: How Big Government Makes A Criminal of Every American” [ALEC “State Factor”]
“We’ve also bred into dogs … an eagerness to please us.” Bad news for K-9 forensics [Balko]
“Has overcharging killed the criminal trial?” [Legal Ethics Forum] Is the “trial penalty” a myth? [David Abrams via Dan Markel, Scott Greenfield]
What if cops, as opposed to, say, gun owners, were obliged by law to purchase liability insurance? [Popehat]
That’s productivity: North Carolina grand jury managed to crank out roughly one indictment every 52 seconds [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]

Filed under: Alaska, animals, crime and punishment, guns, Iowa, North Carolina, police, stand your ground

Ninth Circuit recognizes right to carry arms

I’ve got a post at Cato at Liberty on today’s big decision in Peruta v. County of San Diego, in which a Ninth Circuit panel struck down a licensing scheme under California law in which even persons with legitimate self-defense concerns were unable to get permission to carry handguns outside the home.

More from David Kopel and Eugene Volokh on how “today’s decision creates a split of the Seventh and Ninth Circuits vs. the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits,” on the court’s reasoning on open vs. concealed carry (an individual right to bear implies that at least one of the two must be allowed), and on how the substantial majority of states already have laws according respect to the freedoms at issue here (& welcome Jim Geraghty/NRO readers; I was also a guest on the Michael Graham Show Friday afternoon to discuss the ruling).

Filed under: constitutional law, guns, Ninth Circuit