Zimmerman "Stuns" Court Observers?

His lawyers waived a separate hearing on a Stand Your Ground defense, and ABC News headlined the stunning of "court observers."

Maybe some "observers" are more easily stunned than others. I doubt many students of self-defense law were even trickle-charged.

George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin.  Beyond that, the debate is open. If it was legally justifiable -- as it may have been --  it was on grounds other than Florida's Stand Your Ground law. Zimmerman left that legal cloak behind when he stopped his car, got out, and initiated the confrontation. A suspicious looking kid quietly walking through your night-time neighborhood is grounds for calling the cops, watching from a discreet distance, and taking steps to protect yourself in case he confronts you.

Zimmerman's self-defense argument will succeed or fail based on a judicial determination of what happened after he faced Martin and then, as he alleges, walked away. The details are in dispute and foggy. That's why we have courts.

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Stand your ground law laws should be universal -- a simple affirmation of your right to use all necessary force to stay alive when a criminal threatens you. If we insist that they give full police power to every guy with a suspicion, we'll lose them, state-by-state.

Darwin at work in the frozen North

Strapping on a 9mm pistol, getting drunk, then crashing your snowmobile may not be the best idea a guy ever had.  If the cops and reporters have it right, that's what a fellow did last week. He dumped his sled in an "open field"  down near Storm Lake, badly injuring his back-seat lady. Officers charged him with OWI, and:


"In addition, authorities discovered ------  had a concealed 9 millimeter handgun on his person. Authorities say (he) had a valid permit to carry the gun, but when a person is intoxicated that permit is NOT valid, as well as when operating a snowmobile. An additional charge of carrying a concealed weapon was filed...".

I have no problem with the carrying-while-puked charge. Our two-year-old shall-issue law permits carry while sipping in bars and restaurants, but the second you hit .08 on the  joy meter your CCW becomes worthless. That strikes me as reasonable. I never found great fault with one of the old NRA "10 rules" which said firearms and booze don't mix.

The carrying while snowmobiling or ATVing prohibition is part of DNR law {Iowa Code § 321G.13(2)} and is more debatable. A permit holder would seem to be no more danger to man or beast  on a sled than at the wheel of a rust-bucket Ford Ranger with giant wheels,  4x4,  and an aftermarket Zoomenkrash 460 V-8. 

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I haven't kept close track of the gun bills in the Iowa legislature this session. For that you go to Stranded in Iowa. From what I have been following, it appears that there won't be much, if any, gun-law change this session. Our pols are fully occupied bickering about education reform (stop giggling), property tax relief (dammit, I told you to stop), and what to do with our modest budget surplus. About the only consensus of that last point is that we shouldn't give it to His Ineptness  even though he badly needs it to buy votes from union ship welders in tidewater Virginia.

Gun Buyback Logic

A nice quick take from my friend JAGS down in Texas.

Participating in a gun buy back because you believe that the criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you believe that the neighbors have too many kids.
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Sexy me

Some childhood values linger into the mature years. A three-year-old with a cut finger will tour the neighborhood showing off his bandage.

Me? I have a romantic limp. Your place or mine, Baby?

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It's been 20 days since the power dive on ice, and the charlie horse is still giving me an excuse to carry the Celtic-American assault stick occasionally.

There's no disabling weakness, just pain varying from mild to sit your butt down right now.  It seems to be getting better. At least sporadically. Yesterday was pretty comfortable and  ibuprofen-free. This morning four tabs seemed like a wonderful idea. Carrying in that arm load of oak last evening was possibly a poor health-care decision.

Travis McGee nailed it. When you hurt yourself, you turn inward, listening hard for all the little signals about the status of  the precious and irreplaceable me.  So you don't do anything else  properly, including your sworn duty.

For instance, I've given Shotgun Joe a complete pass on his directive that you must meet a lethal threat by carrying a double barrel shotgun to the veranda and firing randomly into the air. That's purdey stupid, and I'll be glad when I'm fit enough to comment on it.

"They Deserve a Simple Vote"

And by God, Barack, with you in charge that's just what they'll get.
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Here's the one getting the teevee time today --  the "bi-partisan" anti-gun-tafficking bill. (PDF)


At first read it seems to echo what a number of us have been saying for decades: It makes more sense to go after bad guys than to get hysterical about the color of a gun -- or whether you keep your spare ammo in your pocket or a magazine.

Giggle-snort gun report

Multiple layers of fact checking and editorial oversight  at the New York Times:

Correction: February 2, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the type of weapon that President Obama fired in a photo released Saturday by the White House. It was a shotgun, not a rifle.

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Some years ago a teacher's wife here went public with an anti-gun rant which included a charitable bone to us blasters. Something very like: "No one wants to take away your pistols for shooting skeet..."

The nice old lady didn't work for the New York Times. But she could have.

H/T Roberta.

Loophole report in, mostly, .22 LR

Scads. Hordes. Gobs. That's a former reporter's finely-honed estimate of the Saturday morning crowd size at the 80-table loophole over in Estherville. You could imagine yourself at Phoenix or Las Vegas, trying to (politely) elbow your way to the tables.

We talked with a number of people who probably never would have acted on a vague urge to "get a gun someday" were it not for the antics of Feinstein, Biden, Schumer,  &  Obama, Inc. I wonder if those clowns really know what they have done?

The psychology may be quite simple. Tell an American citizen he can't do some perfectly innocuous thing and he will grin and do it -- if only to remind the government,  "Who the Hell is in charge around here, anyway?"

We didn't notice much traffic in assaultish-looking rifles Only a few  were there, and they met resistance at the $2,000-plus askings.

But my oh my was it a different story with the Glocks and other hi-cap 9mms made of coal tar and Gorilla Glue. They moved out as fast as dealers could fill out 4473s and call NICS. (Note to Diane: These forms and the calls are how we evade the law and loophole most of our guns.) 

At our three tables, we had no truck with the 21st Century.  Two were resplendent  with the work of Genius Jeff, the gunsmith, who displayed an assortment of Lazarused Marlin lever guns, Winchester .22 pumps, and, especially, Stevens single rifles. 

The third, mine, was resplendent with what the unkind might call junk, leftover (or never wanted in the first place) shooty stuff and other items for field and stream jocks. I often set up that way because (a) it generates interesting conversations and (b) it nearly always yields enough small-denomination Federal Reserve Cartoons to finance some pleasant acquisitions. To wit:

The long drink of water is a hi-cap (16 rounds or  more) Remington Speedmaster, probably from the 60s. Didn't need it, but for an amazingly small amount of FRC "money" and a brick of .22s, I couldn't resist something so pretty.

Miss Short is, of course, a Browning Challenger, Belgian, an early piece but I don't know how early yet. Those waggish gnomes of Herstal like to get together, slurp pilsner to excess, and giggle at one another. "Hey! I'm bored. Let's make our serial numbering system even more obscure."

She joined my arsenal for a very modest dowry, but I'm afraid I stretched a sacred rule: "It is a mortal  sin to sell a gun."  I confess to  venal error. The Colt New Police  (.38 Colt /.38 SW) lives elsewhere. I rationalized the trade  --  I could shoot the Colt only by reloading for yet another caliber. Balderdash! Too many diameters already. The Browning will be shot and shot and shot.  I've coveted one for years.

Hmmm. Lots of .22s moved here lately. At least I'm ready for a gopher apocalypse.

Murder math in Chicago

Let me impose on your kindness. I know I'm know I'm giggling in public, a breach of taste and good manners.

Please forgive me. You see, I was just reading about Chicago, the political womb of one Barack Obama, sometimes known as His Ineptness, the lawyer-cum-neighborhood organizer. He is the politician who is, at the moment, busily explaining to us what the Constitution of the United States actually means.

As you have read, Chicago -- actually Cook County which is about the same thing --  lost a murderer the other day. The perp had been serving 60 years in an Indiana pen. Chicago borrowed him so he could be tried on an old "drug and armed violence case." Never mind that the case was closed, dismissed, six years ago. Never mind that Cook County prosecutors told Sherf Tom Dart that no prosecutor or  judge had a yen to talk with the Hoosier convict. But Sherf Tom Insisted, so the killer got a nice ride to Chicago, accompanied by a polite note from Indiana, "Y'all wanna please make sure and send this fella back when you're done with him?"

The sherf lost the paper. Somebody in uniform opened the jailhouse door and wished him  good luck. Hilarity ensued. Somebody caught the crook. Game over?

Not quite. That gradual warming trend for upper Illinois can be attributed to the hot breath of Chicago pols, screaming blame at one another. The sheriff finally admitted he and his troops were guilty of misfeasance, but not too guilty. Budget cuts, don't you know. An outdated computer. A Homeric load of work piled on his poor shoulders.

"It's our fault but we move 100,000 people a day and it's all done with paper," Dart said.

(Gratuitous full-frontal arithmetic follows. Reader discretion is advised.)

So, Sherf, you are telling us that you and your acolytes move the equivalent of the entire population of Cook County every 52 days? (5.2 million divided by 100k). Or that you can move every man, woman, and kid in Illinois  between Spring Training and the All-Star Break?  If you have enough paper, of course.

All that may be unfair to Officer Tom as a person. After all, he works in a mysterious numerical environment where a ward of 200,000 human beings can easily deliver 200,001 votes for Rahm, Daly, & Obama, Inc.

Besides, how could this Indiana killer have been part of "armed violence" in Chicago? Guns were (and generally still are) illegal there prior to McDonald, so he couldn't possibly have been armed. This principle has been carried to the White House whose occupant these days is offering it as a paradigm for America.

Gun Control and Language Control

Another parallelism, further demonstrating the increasing uselessness of the English language as a tool for expressing logical thought processes:

Semi-automatic assault weapon

Horse-drawn automobile
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Feinstein in black and white

Here is the text of Barbara's bill banning some guns that look like assault weapons:


http://www.scribd.com/doc/122212105/S-150

it isn't as long as it first appears. Most of its bulk is a list of guns which the government will permit you to own. (Think about that for a minute or two.)

For instance, if you want a replica of a .50-70 Sharps, why, that's just fine with Babs.

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Edit: Blogger won't accept this as a hot link. Cut and paste works.

Ayn Rand on gun control

"Emotions are not tools of cognition."

If she ever wrote a more important sentence,  I missed it.

Time-sensitive material enclosed!

If you aren't  doing something more important or pleasurable --like cleaning and lubing your weapons -- go immediately to your electric teevee room and tune the telescreen to C-Span 3. The caring aristocrats of the public tit are there,  telling you why you're such a terrorist thug, because Newtown among other things.

So far, the performances are noteworthy for emotional grave dancing. And error.

Representative McCarthy, as you'll recall, lost a child  husband to a gun shot and re-informs us of the fact each time the red light goes on. While we empathize with her grief and continuing sorrow, we might question them as the bases for making high public policy. She of course has no evidence to demonstrate that the Feinstein bill will do much to prevent violence, so takes refuge in the rhetorical device of assumed ethos. Because she is a victim of personal tragedy, she is an expert on tragedy prevention. To wit: "Some on the other side say it can't be done... I know with all my heart and soul it can be done." QED.

Senator Schumer again demonstrates his dependable lack of information. His voice achieved tremolo as he railed against the AR-15 and its "hundred-round magazine." You know, the one held in place by a thingie that goes up, or sideways, or some way, anyway.

Well, at least that's settled

I'm indebted to my MSM pal Hans for a final resolution to "What's an assault rifle?"

The AR15, usually black and always ugly, is leading in all the polls that measure assaultiveness. Hans isn't buying, and neither is our mutual MSM pal Dave who raised the subject on Facebook. Each has had it up to  >here< with cant about "assault rifles."

They agree, as do most of us, that assaultiveness is a matter of purpose, not tools. Which is to say that my Remington 514 becomes an assault rifle the moment I get to feeling a little assaultory.

Hans modestly suggests that the nomenclature problem goes away with good intent-recognition software. A guy could legally run around with an AR15 (or Bazooka or tactical nuke) as long as the program cleared him of assaultitarian motives.

Course, the system would have to incorporate an active RF transmitter and be permanently attached to the toter. No problem these days. His Ineptness just  executively orders the chips implanted in our innards. You know, like they do on Guernseys and Lhasa Apsos.

The Rocky Obama Picture Show

The AP previews His Ineptness's imminent dog and pony extravaganza to erase guns, the primary object of which is to demonstrate that he rilly, rilly,cares:

Obama was to announce the measures Wednesday at a White House event that will bring together law enforcement officials, lawmakers and children who wrote the president about gun violence following last month's shooting of 20 young students and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

I know. Politicians do this sort of thespian crap all the time. But can Providence forgive -- and perhaps even assist -- those of us who quaintly believe that the job of high-policy maker is to engage our intellect rather than our emotions?

The children will be cuter than Hell, and that's what the electric teevee will focus on.

And if that ain't James Madison's own sweet truth I'll kiss Mayor Bloomburg's  arse at the Bushmaster factory gate and let you invite Rachael Maddow to do the commentary. 

Alarums and diversions

Side notes on gun control, Obama style:

--See? He meant it when he told the Russian he would have more flexibility in his second reign. And some guys thought we were being silly and mean and partisan to mention it.

--I just found my first loophole in the New York law limiting handgun magazine capacity   A Hi-Standard Sentinel holds nine "bullets" -- two over the limit.  And what is a double action revolver if it is not a semi-automatic with a slightly awkward trigger pull? Alert Mayor Bloomburg.

-- And speaking of loopholes, perhaps the neatest one in the country is down on the corner of 68th and Halstead in Chicago -- the neighborhood organized by His Ineptness when he was still at the low end of the government pay scale.  The dealer counts your cash but doesn't ask impertinent questions. (If you're on a tight thuggery budget, the same entrepreneur will rent you a piece.)


(h/t for title to Mr. Thurber)

Confiscating your guns and other shooty stuff

What I'm watching for today:

Since I don't think His Ineptness  is politically stupid, I doubt he'll take the supreme political risk of demanding confiscation of all of your guns which might look like assault weapons to, for instance, Governor Cuomo.

If I'm wrong, I suspect it he'll lipstick the pig, making it a "soft "confiscation. A mandatory buyback or some such scheme to get the stuff out of citizens' hands and into the vaults of the Only Ones.*

Magazines are another matter, and he might well look at the fresh New York state  confiscation scheme -- complete with lipstick. Empire staters have a year to sell their high-caps to an officially approved buyer. In 366 days they (a) become subject to government seizure and (b) turn the owners into criminals.

In any case, I think type and degree of what ever confiscation proposals he might make will be a pretty decent guide to how the debate will progress. It would take a very different congress to approve gun confiscation. To a lesser extent, the same is true of magazine seizures.

If the president opts for the most draconian rape of rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, we'll have most of the evidence we need that he's rather careless about Newtown and other violent horrors -- that he's just play-acting in search of political cover and liberal-base pandering.

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*Please stop fretting about the buyback cost. It can easily be handled if the Bank of China develops a payday loan office. Alternatively, Attorney General Holder might actually make it profitable, capitalizing on his experience in filling the arsenals of  Mexican drug warlords.

New York: New gun law text

It is here, and, Cowboy, it swings a wide loop. The state senate passed it yesterday, and by the time you read this it may have cleared the Albany house.

I read it from the enacting clause to the final word,* but I confess a degree of eye-glaze and some confusion. Much of the language modifies other laws which are referred to only by statute number. It is quite unnecessarily wordy. I understood as much as I did only because of career experience in extracting actual meaning from political gobbledygook.

The standout quality is its impact on subjects other than firearms control. It affects the mental health system, family law, education laws, and a variety of other criminal and tort procedures. A cursory reading suggests that this is a useful guide to what the United States will be when the extreme Left and the neocon Right finally achieve their post-constitutional America . This is true even if you eliminate the bill's actual gun-control  provisions.

For just one -- there are several others -- example: There is a one-day procedure for declaring an upset  spouse a "protected party" and imposing a variety of restrictions on his or her mate.There are complicated administrative and judicial reliefs written into the law, but for most real-life purposes, for many or most people, they are permanent.  And this occurs before any finding of legal guilt.

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The actual firearms restrictions tend strongly toward the the Pelosi/Feinstein solution to violence. Another coat of pancake makeup.

Thumb-hole stocks become illegal on semi-automatic long guns. So do barrel shrouds.  So do "pistol grips" if they are "conspicuous."

Seven rounds becomes the legal capacity limit for nearly all detachable magazines. (Someone is going to make money with new seven-rounders for millions of Colt Woodsmans, Ruger Standards et. seq., Browning Nomads,  Hi-Standard HDs. And so forth.)

Higher capacity magazines already possessed are legal to own, but not use, for one year, after which they must be sold for out-of-state use. The alternative is confiscation and a criminal charge. (New York doesn't mind the horror of murder  via the eighth round in a magazine provided, of course, that the victim is shot in a place other than New York. Federalism at work.)

There much more, and at the risk of inviting you devote a lot of time to a tedious chore, I suggest you read the bill. It is almost certainly the sort of frightening nonsense which our president lusts for.

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*How many of the lawmakers did before voting, I wonder  (C.f. Nancy Pelosi's "pass it to know what is in it" theory of making law.)

Parallelism

The urgency to get new gun-control before the Newtown emotion wears off.

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The urgency to get the girl to a room before the roofie wears off.
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"I own a gun!"

So says New York's hysterical Governor Cuomo who fleshes it out with "I've hunted...I own a Remington shotgun...You don't need ten bullets to kill a deer."

1. I wonder how many of those background checks lately have been on gun-grabbing politicians who don't want to get caught lying when they trot out the obligatory  "I own a gun, but...".

2. When the gun arrives do they call in a gun consultant who begins, quite necessarily, with  "Now, Governor, you hold on to the wooden parts and point the metal parts at the deer. Try hard not to get  that part  mixed up."

3. Your Remington shotgun, Governor, is likely a Model 870 or variant and hence one of the world's deadliest assault weapons at close range -- such as from one end of a classroom to the other.  While it holds only six bullets, each one of them may legally contain eight or nine littler bullets, each as big around as a medium pistol bullet. So you're slinging an offensive weapon capable of firing 48 to 54 bullets without reloading! Why, that's  almost twice as bad as having two 30-round magazines cuz after first one runs out of bullets  you have to reload, giving the hall monitor time to knock you out with  a Dixon No. 2.

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I think you're a little out of your league here, Sir, both in knowledge of your chosen subject matter and in demagogic skills. You might be better off to study the technique of the governor just up the coast from you. Governor Malloy has it down pat. When  faced with a serious policy issue, call in the teevee cameras and cry.