Last Day to Comment on National-Park Carry: ...Under current law, if you carry a loaded, operable firearm into any national park, trail or monument, you are violating federal law and may face criminal charges, even if you possess a legally issued permit to carry a concealed handgun in that state. Want to see the Grand Tetons or the natural wonders of Yellowstone? You could end up with a criminal record! Want to take an autumn ride down Virginia's Skyline Drive, or take your family for a drive to see the wonder of the Everglades? You're in violation. And you don't even have to leave your car. Just turn down a public road! ...The U.S. Department of the Interior has issued a proposed rule to eliminate, once and for all, this prohibition on Right-to-Carry in national parks and wildlife refuges...These new rules cannot take effect until after a period of public comment. And make no mistake; our opponents are aggressively ramping up their efforts to try to convince the Secretary of the Interior to reverse his decision. To combat this effort, you must take a few moments to submit comments on this issue by June 30, 2008, by going to this web site: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=090000648053d497 --- Heller Affirms Natural Right: ...Perhaps Heller's deepest affirmation is that it invokes the natural right of self-defense in support of the constitutional right to have firearms. Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia cites the historical evidence that the founders intended protection of an individual, not a collective right. He quotes founding-era legal scholar St. George Tucker's version of Blackstone's Commentaries: "The right to self-defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine the right within the narrowest limits possible." ...Many questions remain. Does the Heller decision apply to the states and lower levels of government? Exactly what kinds of firearms are protected? (although the court guides us here with "the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon.") New legal challenges will now be fought at the local level, the rules of engagement drastically changed. The Illinois State Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association are already challenging Chicago's D.C.-like handgun ban. And within a day of the decision, Chicago suburb Wilmette suspended enforcement of its handgun ban... http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDcxNDI0MmYzMzYwNDM1NzBmN2I0ZGVlOWIxYTIzOWM= --- A Contrasting View: ... Indeed not: Scalia's opinion suggests that the role of the Court is to placate key elements of the Republican coalition while suggesting alternative routes to those who seek the eventual abolition of the right that was once protected by the Second Amendment. While Scalia's ruling reinforces one of the few effective rallying points for the demoralized Republican Party ("This year's election is all about the judges!"), it does nothing of substance to defer the day when some judge or president will be able to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct... http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w32.html --- Heller's Election Impact Unclear: The landmark Supreme Court decision last week that voided the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns may have rekindled the gun-control debate on the national landscape, but local officials and political analysts don't expect it to last for long. Those wishing to make political hay of the issue for the presidential candidates - such as National Rifle Association leaders who already have filed lawsuits against gun bans in Chicago and San Francisco and vowed to pump the issue during the fall election - may be disappointed... http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/jun/30/gun-rulings-impact-on-election-unclear/ Did Kennedy Save Obama?: After months of claiming insufficient information to express an opinion on the District of Columbia gun law, Barack Obama noted with apparent approval Thursday that the Supreme Court ruled the 32-year ban on handguns "went too far." But what would he have said had the high court's five-to-four majority gone the other way and affirmed the law? Obama's strategists can only thank swing Justice Anthony Kennedy for enabling Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion to take the Democratic presidential candidate off the hook... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2008/06/30/scalia_saving_obama --- Supreme Court Wrap-Up: ...District of Columbia v. Heller, declaring an individual right to bear arms, was a landmark case, Kerr says, but it allows for regulation of the right and sets no standard for assessing such regulations. During oral argument in March, Roberts repeatedly questioned why the Court needed to articulate such a standard in addition to establishing the right, and Scalia clearly went along with that minimalist approach when he wrote the majority opinion. Kerr says Scalia may also have added the section reassuring that many firearm regulations would remain constitutional, in order to hang onto Kennedy's crucial fifth vote. Kennedy's past role as a swing vote re-emerged in several key cases this term... http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/PubArticleDC.jsp?id=1202422530471 --- DC Regroups: The D.C. Council is looking at instituting criminal and mental background checks, waiting periods and other measures in response to the historic Supreme Court decision striking down the city's 32-year ban on handguns...Yesterday, Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, which must shepherd in the city's new laws, was not fazed. "It's real simple," he said. "To bring our law into compliance, we have to change two sentences." ...Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said he would call a special meeting during recess if necessary. He said the council will look at other cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, for guidance. In addition to background checks and waiting periods, the council could establish requirements for carrying guns outside the home, he said... (In other words, DC will do everything it can to impede the city's law-abiding residents from defending themselves legally.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062703407.html Related Commentary: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27254 --- Where Will DC Residents Buy Guns?: ...Gun shops in suburban Maryland and Virginia felt an immediate impact from the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that the District's handgun ban is unconstitutional. City leaders said it would take about three weeks to iron out the details: Which kinds of guns will be legal, and how will the registration process work? ...Mason and about 50 other people called or came into the Atlantic as of Friday after the ruling. The well-stocked gun store next to a tattoo and body-piercing shop is about a half-mile from the District border, making it one of the gun shops closest to the city and among the busiest after the ruling. It's been in the same brick, one-story building since 1955...His father, George Schneider, opened Atlantic Guns in 1950 on 14th Street NW in the District and relocated several years later. Stephen Schneider said he has no designs to reopen a store in the city, because he's not sure it would be profitable. He said it depends on the red tape involved. He has other concerns, too, including crime... (Since DC is not a state, will it be legal for DC residents to purchase a handgun in Virginia or Maryland?) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901886.html The Next Fight?: ...I asked Fenty whether the court's ruling means that the District must now allow retail sales of guns. "It's hard to say," the mayor replied. "Who knows what the demand is." He said there have been no discussions about how or whether to proceed toward any new regulations on gun retailing. The District has had a couple of gun dealers who were grandfathered in from before the gun ban went into effect in 1976. Those dealers, working from offices or home rather than from a storefront, sold their wares to security guards and law enforcement officers. But the mayor didn't seem terribly eager to incorporate gun shops into his economic development agenda. If the District doesn't allow gun shops to open, it's in for a fight, says Robert Levy, the lawyer and Cato Institute fellow who conceived the lawsuit that ended with last week's decision by the Supremes. "That would certainly eviscerate the court's decision," Levy told me in an interview for this week's edition of Raw Fisher Radio, which you can hear right here on the big web site starting at noon tomorrow (Tuesday) or anytime thereafter at washingtonpost.com/rawfisherradio... http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2008/06/the_next_dc_gun_battle.html --- Lawyers the Ultimate Winners: The real landmark set by Thursday's Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment is likely to be the money lawyers make filing suits in response to the ruling. In the long run, though, the court's decision on U.S. v. Heller that struck down the Washington, D.C., handgun ban won't matter on at least one front: The court has ensured the gun debate will stay trapped in the muck of divisive rhetoric and gun-control-vs.-pro-gun polemics for years to come... (Of note, The Philadelphia Inquirer could not even get the name of the case right.) http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20080630_GUN_RULING_DOESN_T_MATTER.html --- What About the States?: ...One major thing the decision didn't do, however, was directly address a crucial question going forward: whether the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is applicable against the states as well as the federal government (which administers Washington, D.C.). Under what's known as the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court has gradually ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment applies many of the protections contained in the Bill of Rights against infringement by state and local governments. The Second Amendment, however, has been glaringly absent from this process. Did Heller change that, too? ...Alan Gura, the attorney who successfully argued Heller before the Court, and who is now representing the plaintiffs in the Chicago case, is more than ready. As he told Reason this week, "The next step is obviously 14th Amendment incorporation. I'm looking forward to leading that fight." http://reason.com/news/show/127243.html --- Chicago Rehashes All the Old Arguments: Mayor Richard Daley and gun control advocates have lined up predicting more innocent lives lost if the city's handgun ban is overturned, but David Sigale isn't buying it. "I don't know for whom the gun ban has made the city safer," said Sigale, one of the attorneys who filed a lawsuit to overturn Chicago's 26-year-old handgun ban just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.'s gun ban. "It doesn't seem like the gun ban has made the regular citizen safer." Sigale will have his chance to make his argument in a Chicago federal court, as the lawsuit he helped file on behalf of four individuals and two pro-gun groups puts Chicago at the center of the fight over handgun bans. So will the National Rifle Association, which filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Chicago Friday and announced they filed comparable lawsuits against the suburbs of Morton Grove, Evanston and Oak Park... http://www.thehawkeye.com/Story/IL-ChicagoGunBan-062908 --- Heller, CCW and Wisconsin: Verbiage in the Heller decision suggests that concealed carry is not protected by the Second Amendment to the federal constitution. Wisconsin prohobits concealed carry and its state supreme court has ruled that this is not unconstitutional because open carry is an available option. Wisconsin Patriots is conduction a petition drive asking each county to formally affirm the right of its residents to carry openly, without harassment. As a collateral benefit, widespread open carry could possibly encourage the governor finally to sign a concealed-carry bill for the state. http://www.wisconsinpatriots.com/ --- Heller Provokes Media Temper Tantrum: Whhaaaaaaa! Hear that? That's the national media throwing a temper tantrum over the Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment does in fact protect an individual right to own firearms...It's a simple idea that most gun rights supporters have always understood. But journalists and editors in mainstream news departments around the nation don't get it. In fact, many seem shocked that one of their primary assumptions has been so suddenly and utterly shattered with the hammer of logic and historical wisdom. Here's just a small sample of this foot stomping fit from the media, along with my thoughts on their thoughts... http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/5795 Related Commentary: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27262 Gasps from Sacramento: ...A number of gun-control bills are pending in Congress that will protect public safety without infringing on people's constitutional rights to possess guns. They deserve to become law. First, Congress should repeal the Tiahrt Amendment entirely. It should also end the gun show loophole that allows unlicensed gun dealers to sell guns at gun shows without conducting background checks on buyers. It should end the "fire sales" that permit licensed gun dealers who've been shut down for selling guns illegally to sell off their existing inventory, incredibly, without conducting background checks... (Aren't such sales made to other dealers, who are licensed to receive firearms without any further background checks?) http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1048657.html --- CBS Looks at Robert Levy: ...How did it happen? Why this particular case? Why now? It took exactly the right cast of characters, perfect timing, and the determination of a lawyer named Robert Levy who knew just how to play the game...Levy's story is remarkable: He got rich in finance, but cashed out and went to law school at the age of 50. (He's now 66.) This is the only lawsuit he's ever litigated. He's never even owned a gun...Levy deliberately distanced himself from the NRA. "We didn't want to be identified with the usual gun lobby groups," he said. "This was the case that we brought because of our interest in the Constitution." Levy hand-picked his plaintiff, security guard Richard Heller, and then calculated that the Supreme Court would move to the right before the case managed to get there... (Except that there were actually six plaintiffs in the original Parker et al. v. District of Columbia case.) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/29/sunday/main4217235.shtml One of Those Other Plaintiffs: ...His connection with the court ruling on the Second Amendment is that he was one of the plaintiffs in the case. He and five other Washington residents challenged that city's strict firearms law which bans possession of handguns, as well as imposing other firearms restrictions. This was a very personal issue for Palmer, a former Marine who is accustomed to being willing and able to defend himself. And defending himself has been something he has had occasion to need to do, as explained in the brief challenging the D.C. gun ban. Palmer is gay and this has resulted in him being assaulted by people who oppose his sexual orientation. Once he had to ward off an assault with a handgun. But in Washington he could not legally keep a handgun in his home to defend himself. He, and his co-plaintiffs involved in the case, said that is unconstitutional... http://www.yumasun.com/opinion/gun_42645___article.html/rights_ruling.html --- Florida Parking-Lot-Storage Law Takes Effect Tomorrow: Sandy Brygider knows gun owners. He's been in the firearms business for 36 years and has owned Ocala Armory for 10. The 61-year-old with gray hair says what he thinks. And he doesn't think that Florida's new guns-at-work law, which goes into effect Tuesday, will make a difference with his clientele. The law bars public and private entities from prohibiting customers, employees or invitees from possessing a legally owned firearm in their locked vehicle in the parking lot. "Understanding people who own guns, I know it won't have an effect," he said. "Owners already have guns in their cars and are lawful about it, so where they go with them is pretty inconsequential." (Someone should teach Liz Whiteacre to grasp her pistol with the trigger finger in the "register" position, up on the frame.) http://www.ocala.com/article/20080629/NEWS/806290347/1025/NEWS&title=New_law_puts_some_businesses_at_odds_with_gun_owners --- Georgia Group Challenges Residency Requirement: GCO has filed a class action in federal court, challenging the state law that prohibits issuing GFLs to nonresidents. The GCO member plaintiff, who is a resident of Wisconsin, sought to obtain a GFL for when he visits Georgia. The Fulton County Probate Court confirmed that he would not be permitted to apply. The case seeks to have the law ruled unconstitutional as violating the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the Militia Clause, the 2nd Amendment, and the 14th Amendment. The 2nd Amendment claim is bolstered by yesterday's Supreme Court of the United States decision in Heller. http://www.georgiacarry.org/cms/2008/06/27/gco-challenges-refusal-to-issue-gfls-to-nonresidents/ --- This Judge Gets It: General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon said Friday that crime in Chattanooga "has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens." He told a woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head that she or her mother needed to "purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself." The woman moved back in with her mother after the May 4 incident on E. 17th Street. Judge Moon said, "The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that all citizens have a right to purchase a weapon to defend themselves, their families and their homes - unless there is some disqualification that prevents them from owning a weapon." http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_130537.asp --- A New Approach to Cripple Firearm Manufacturers: ...We propose a new way to prod gun makers to reduce gun deaths, one that would be unlikely to put them out of business or to prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining guns. By using a strategy known as "performance-based regulation," we would deputize private actors - the gun makers - to deal with the negative effects of their products in ways that promote the public good. In other words, rather than telling gun makers what to do, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses; companies that don't would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, gun makers - whose products kill even when used as directed - would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll... (Does that mean that a manufacturer would be penalized if his product was used in a justifiable homicide?) http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-sugarman29-2008jun29,0,1307373.story --- Rule One, Rule Two, Rule Four Reminder: Four people including a child were in a critical condition today after live bullets [sic] were used instead of blanks during a French special forces open day, army and regional officials said. Seventeen people were injured in total. Fifteen civilians and two soldiers were injured in the incident, of which the details remained unclear, involving a demonstration by members of a marines parachute regiment of hostage liberation exercises, a regional authority, Bernard Lemaire, said. (Rule One: All firearms are always loaded. Rule Two: Don't let the muzzle cross anything you're not prepared to shoot. Rule Four: Always be sure of your target and what's beyond it.) http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23943890-12335,00.html http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hHw7sKKMAWDJ-lx8jFSTOorb9mEQ -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .