Fudd Leaves Me Speechless

Fuddus Maximus, the pernicious gun-owning pest and nattering 'butter' of gun control support, made an appearance in July's Guns & Ammo magazine. Tom Page, of Boardman, Ohio, decried those vewy very scawy 'assault weapons' on the cover. They even published a 'thank you' added on when the May edition didn't have an AR-15 on the cover. Yeah Tom, keep thinking it's about you. I'm sure that a business decision didn't have anything to do with it.

"It has been reduced to 'Black Guns & Semiauto Pistols.' It's the worst excuse of a magazine that purports to represent the interest of all shooters." Now this Fudd admits he owned, but got rid of, the terrifying, baby killer 'assault weapons', which he ironically also praised. Jerkoff Tom clearly prefers hunting rifles and the wood, non-threatening rifles that Fudds are known for. 

Well Tom, they did feature your favorite Shannon Watts approved type rifle the next month. However, Tom is remiss in noticing that right now 'black guns and semiauto pistols' are really, really, really popular in the gun community. Surplus guns and wood stocked bolt guns have had their day, though they still remain popular. Since the rage right now are the scary 'salt weapons, Guns & Ammo is simply following the market with an occasional foray into other topics. One wonders if Tom of the early 1900s decried the introduction of smokeless powder and semi-autos, longing for the days of trapdoor Springfield conversions and lovely Winchester lever actions. And GD that Browning for his automatic pistol!

Tom also compounds his foolishness by going on to say:

"...although it gives the anti-gunners great ammunition to foster more gun control laws. All black guns are trouble." 

I don't think I need to point out what a total asinine moron this guy is for that statement. Guess what Tom: one day your precious scoped hunting rifle firing a bullet at 2000 FPS will be described as a "high power sniper rifle." Let me know how that works out for you. Tom, it's gun owners like you that cause trouble for the rest of us. Congrats on looking like the dumbass you are in front of America.

*When trying to compose a title, I was literally rendered speechless to describe just how strongly I felt.

-GC

Few Rules Restricting Tactical Assault Pants in Public in Nevada

We decided to investigate a surprising public safety hazard that most people have overlooked. But in light of recent media reports highly Nevada's lax gun laws, we thought it was time someone investigate the dangers of tactical assault pants.

Nevada gun laws, along with open carry laws, allow people to carry a firearm almost anywhere they like. That might include the Las Vegas Strip, clubs and bars.

Bigh Lameaux, an attorney for Designers for Fashion Sense in America, said Nevada receives an F when it comes to fashion safety.

“The fact is, if these pants make it easier to carry things, then many more Americans would be wearing them. People must realize these pants of war have no place on our streets.”

“Pants with high capacity storage just aren’t needed by civilians. It’s excessive and dangerous. It’s too easy to hide an assault rifle inside them and bypass security. It is unconscionable that Nevada allows such a thing.”

We contacted Five Period Eleven who sells these military-style pants to the public, but they declined to comment. Several fashion control bills, including one that would ban pants with more than four pockets, were defeated in the Senate this week. As the debate in Congress rages, we must decide if this is the kind of country we wish to be, where almost anyone can wear these pants in public. 

Special thanks to the real "Joe Camo," the US Army, and Rob Buck. And no, "Joe Camo" is not editor GC Gates and we were not focusing on that girl's butt. 

Universal Background Checks are Unenforceable and Easily Defeated at Trial

As you may or may not know, we are fighting this very fight in Nevada. Ballot Question 1, a ballot initiative that was funded by Bloomberg's Everytown and MDA organizations along with the local liberal shrews and limousine liberals will be on the November ballot. Basically the idea is to force you to go to a dealer to have a background check done via NICS before transferring a firearm, with limited exceptions. In Nevada, normally DPS does the background checks for dealers and charges $25 per transaction. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for choosing to use NICS for the private party sales, but that will add another layer of confusion for dealers who have never used it, I'm sure.

Here is the issue that I see with these "universal" background checks. First, I will talk about enforcement. I want you to keep in mind that you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This means that it is on the prosecution and by extension, the police, to prove that you have committed a crime. What would be the crime they would be enforcing? The crime would be failing to obtain a background check. The police have to have probable cause that you did NOT do something in order to arrest you for failing to get a background check.

Then the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you haven't completed a background check. It's difficult enough proving that you actually did do something let alone trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you did NOT do something. Keeping in mind that you are innocent until proven guilty, you don't have to tell them what FFL you used to get a background check. You don't have to tell them what date you transferred the firearm. You are free to exercise your 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The entire onus of the investigation lies with law enforcement and the prosecution.

For example, Nevada currently has approximately 740 licensed FFLs. There are 365 days in a year. Remember that FFLs keep their records in their "bound book" per ATF regulations. Some may have converted to electronic bound books if issued a variance by the ATF, but this is not yet the norm. That means someone has to physically go and paw through their bound book and possibly the 4473 forms at each dealer to prove that a record does not exist. So they would have to reasonably ensure that they inspect every record at every dealer.

If law enforcement/prosecution do not check every dealer or check every record, they leave the door open for the defense to create a reasonable doubt that the one record at the one dealer that they did not inspect could be the form proving that the background check was completed. Remember that by federal law, the NICS system may not be used to create a registration of firearms or gun owners. This means that under federal law the identifying records on their end must be destroyed after the background check is completed. The man-hours required to attempt to prosecute a single violation of this law would be ridiculously prohibitive.

Second, I will talk about the background checks as they apply to prohibited persons. It is unconstitutional to require a prohibited person to present himself for a background check. Yes, I'm serious. There was a Supreme Court decision in 1968, Haynes v. UnitedStates. The reader's digest is that a man who was a convicted felon was caught in possession of an unregistered NFA firearm. He successfully argued that requiring him to register the NFA firearm is akin to forcing him to make an open admission to the government that he is a felon in possession of a firearm. Remember that 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination? The courts agreed with him that the law cannot compel him to perform an action that would amount to confessing to committing a crime.

While the Supreme Court did not invalidate the law requiring the registration of NFA firearms nor did they invalidate the prohibition on felons possessing firearms, they agreed that the law requiring registration could not be enforced against convicted felons. How hard do you think it would be for a defense lawyer to make this same argument for his client previously convicted of a disqualifying offense (domestic violence, felony, etc), subject to a protection order or adjudicated mentally ill? These are the very people that this law was intended to keep guns away from and they are already exempt from the requirements of this law!

I believe this law was written to intentionally fail. The left wants it to be unenforceable so it opens the door to push for registration. As the law abiding citizens go for background checks at dealers, their updated 4473 forms will help create more accurate, useful records to show who owns which firearms as of a certain date. Then the forms can be pulled to create the registration database. The next step will probably be confiscation of certain types of firearms. Think it can't happen? California and Connecticut have already been reported to be tracking down owners of certain types of firearms. It's not hard to imagine that being stretched into a nationwide system.

-John

Library Lawsuit, Round One: Judge Demonstrates Need for State Preemption

Judge Stephanie Miley denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District today in the lawsuit over the library district’s illegal open carry ban.

NBC News 3 has a good story on the proceedings.

Counsel for the district portrayed the incident as a disturbance rather than the true facts of library staff interfering with Mrs. Flores’ right to open carry in a public building. The district also insists that state preemption laws do not apply to it because it is a joint city-county library district, rather than a city library district.

Flores stated that she was never actually asked to leave the library by the staff. Library administrative staff have conspired for years to illegal prohibit openly carried firearms in their district. There is no basis under state law for the policy the district has in place.

It is unfortunate that Judge Miley chose to play a part in the corrupt Clark County system that has consistently infringed on Second Amendment rights. It is not surprising that this played out, but quite shocking that a judge would clearly ignore the obvious legal arguments showing that the library district is in violation of the law. This kind of behavior, dating since the 1950s, is why enhanced pre-emption was passed in the form of SB 175/240 in 2015.  

In similar cases, particular on essentially the same foundation as this case, Michigan Open Carry v. CADL, have been won on appeal. Instructor Mac pointed out that by the library district’s trustee Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod’s statement that the legislature should take up the issue, she is tacitly admitting the library district does not have the legal authority to ban openly carried firearms. In fact, among the Intermountain West states, open carry is legal in the vast majority of public buildings.

For a summary of the history and issues in this case, please see this post cataloging the topic.

Guns and Alcohol; Bars, Nightclubs, and Private Property

Feel free to share the meme

Carrying a gun in a place that serves alcohol seems a little incongruous at first. Guns and alcohol can’t mix, one might assume at first. Dangerous objects combined with the intoxicating effects of alcohol could easily lead to disaster. Yet is far more nuanced than at first glance. One might also say that alcohol and cars don’t mix either. The fact is, alcohol is not some sort of mysterious elixir that induces violence or causes irresponsibility; it only reveals what was already there.

Nevada law prohibits anyone who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or has a BAC of .10 or greater, from possessing a firearm. No other laws prohibit firearms in bars, clubs, or any other establishment that serves alcohol. Rather than a blanket prohibition, the law is applied on a case-by-case basis against individuals based upon their behavior the same way DUI laws are applied.

 Millions of us routinely drive cars with blood alcohol concentrations less than the legal limit of .08 without problems. Roughly the same numbers of people (in the 10k range) are murdered by guns and killed in DUI accidents yearly. What makes cars different than people? So what makes cars different from guns and that some legislatures prohibit guns in bars, but allow alcohol in drivers? Most Americans would find it absurd that a non-intoxicated driver would be too irresponsible to drive a car after a few drinks.

If we trust citizens to drive vehicles with tolerable levels of alcohol in their systems, why wouldn’t we trust them with their guns? As everyone knows, intoxication is widely variable. One might be unsafe for the first fifteen minutes of a buzz, but fine after four beers two hours later. A small-framed young woman may become legally drunk off one drink whereas an alcoholic who is a big and tall middle-aged man shows no signs of intoxication and two or even three times the legal limit. It’s a fine line.

Everyone's body, regardless of sex or size, absorbs alcohol at a rate of .016 BAC per hour. This is the basic metabolic rate and it is uniform, based on how quickly the liver can process the alcohol and break it down into sugars. The difference is how quickly BAC rises, which is tied to sex, size, and alcoholism, which is why a petite female who seldom drinks will get drunk much faster than a fat alcoholic man. One sip or one drink does not make one a drunk or incapable of exercising good judgement. Having a drink or two does not mean you forfeit your Second Amendment rights the same way you retain your First Amendment right to free speech, all the way to the hospital or jail as the case may be. 

If one were to prevent anyone from driving a car with any measurable level of alcohol in their blood stream or banning parking lots at any place that serves alcohol, American drinkers would become apoplectic. Even with the strict laws regarding DUI, crashes still occur. People still get drunk and fight fist to fist, say nasty things to each other, and make bad decisions that result in children or STDs. We know the dangers of alcohol, yet regardless of the law or consequences, bad things happen by choice.

No Magic Numbers

Take states with 51% laws, such as Texas, where guns are excluded from establishments that derive 51% or more of their gross receipts from the sale of alcohol (generally not restaurants). 51% is the magic number that makes the establishment ‘safe’ for guns? Can’t somebody get just as wasted in a wine bar or at their table as they could if they were getting bottle service? Heaven forbid a drinker is carrying illegally. There is no magic number or set of circumstances that divide the law abiding from criminals, the drunk from the sober, or good behavior from bad.

Bar fights and bad behavior can still erupt without guns as countless news reports and anecdotes can attest. Most crimes happen when the perpetrator is sober (at least from alcohol). There have been several high profile incidents where guns have been fired, either in anger or by accident, in clubs. How often do we find out that the person in question either a, broke the law to bring the gun in, or b, wasn’t supposed to have a gun in the first place (prohibited person, no CCW, etc.)? Does a law dissuade that?

Laws do exist that give business owners and police authority to arrest or remove an armed and/or problematic patron. Trespassing. A business that prohibits firearms will likely tell the gun owner to disarm or leave the property. If that person doesn’t disarm or leave when they are told to “get out”, a trespass occurs. In Nevada, the request must be made orally or in writing. In fact, most ‘no guns’ (even ‘no skateboarding’) signs that are visible cite NRS 207.200, trespassing.

Using state law to prohibit guns in establishments that serve alcohol makes a fundamental judgement based not in fact, but in supposition, on the character of every gun owner and every drinker: that gun owners are too irresponsible to drink while carrying and drinkers are drunks who can’t be trusted with a gun. Interestingly enough, most concealed firearm permittees have a general understanding that if one is going to drink to levels of intoxication, they leave their gun behind.

Public Execution of Private Policy

If bars, clubs, and other businesses choose to exclude patrons who are armed, that is their affair. Every business has a right, within limits, to exclude anyone they want. Trespassing does not necessarily criminalize the why someone did what they did; it criminalizes the violation of private property rights that occurs when one ignores the owner’s request.

Specific statutes, like Texas’ 30-06 and 30-07 gun laws, that exclude gun owners from posted properties are an example of government executing private policies. The business owner made a choice to exclude armed citizens, the same way a private property owner can choose to do pretty much anything that’s legal with their property. That is the business owner’s choice; the government arguably shouldn’t add weight under the penalty of law to that choice.

Taken to an extreme, should governments pass a law allowing bars to limit the ideology of the patrons so a blue collar, union bar can ban Republicans and lessen the chance Debate Night turns into a barroom brawl? Such a law would be an unconscionable abuse of the First Amendment; the Second should be no different. Shoe on the other foot, a law mandating business to admit armed citizens would be a wholesale violation of private property rights.

Pointless

Also, what’s the point of such a law? Open carriers can be detected, but concealed carriers would presumably remain invisible. If they used their gun in lawful self-defense, what does it benefit society to charge them with a misdemeanor of carrying in a bar? The alternative quite possibly have been a dead innocent person and a murder trial. Or, if a bad guy uses a gun while drinking, is he really concerned about another charge on top of a felony, if not several more?

If someone is a hothead who suffers from lapses of judgement, is the kind of person who will be deterred by a law he isn’t even thinking of? And let’s say there is a law and that hothead leaves his gun in the car. What stops him from going outside to get it? Suddenly, you have a victim faced with a gun and no defense other than raising his hands and hoping for the best.

If bars and clubs want to prohibit weapons they have every right do so. Yet time and time again we have seen killers take advantage of a gun-free zone to kill. Both men and women have been attacked and killed after leaving bars, often on the way to their cars, hypothetically before they might reach their gun. Should non-drinkers carrying guns be disarmed too? Or those who know they can handle their alcohol and carry their gun at the same time? Bartenders show discretion on who not to serve at a certain point, so staff can show the same level of discretion to armed club goers.

Frankly, some establishments are patronized by gang members and thugs where a multitude of past incidents have occurred. One can make an argument that disarming patrons, with a capable armed security force, is an effective deterrent to would-be murders and terrorists. But note that an effective screening process is required to detect weapons and capable armed force able to respond. A half-assed wanding and a single security guard with no more than the basic state required training won’t do. If everyone coming in is disarmed, there must be a plan and credible resources to stop a worst-case threat like in Orlando.

For establishments without security screening, just how the heck will they detect a concealed firearm? In Nevada and most states, private persons have no right to demand to see a permit. In most cases, concealed weapons go undetected without incident at a dramatically higher rate than anyone would believe. Many bars and restaurants in Nevada also have no problem with patrons openly carrying. This once again goes to show the problems are with the person, not the gun.

Alcohol does have the ability to impact judgement, but is that impact so severe we must set a ‘zero’ level for carrying guns, far lower than we do with driving? Laws do not prevent crime and a law that criminalizes what is now ordinary, innocent behavior would only serve to punish those who seek to protect themselves. The mere appearance of guns and alcohol being incongruent doesn’t mean the actually are. Discretion on both the part of the citizen carrier and staff/security is key to keeping everyone safe while respecting the right to armed self-defense.

Library District Trustee Wants You Defenseless

Editor’s Note: For more background on the issue, including the legal issues at hand and the past history, please see this post cataloging the relevant articles on the issue.

A Las Vegas-Clark County Library District trustee just stepped all herself, well, figuratively in the library open carry lawsuit case. Only Trustee Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, also a Democratic candidate for the Assembly, spoke publically. She told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: 

“I think it’s going to be something we’re going to have to take up in the Legislature to make that distinction (regarding where libraries fall when it comes to open carry). [..] I think it was a complete oversight. [...] I worry about open carry in areas where I bring my children, [...] I’ve been going to the library with my daughter since she was 3 months old. It’s a place people would assume would be weapon-free.” 

Instructor Mac said Bilbray-Axelrod's admission that she would like to legislate to make it illegal to open carry in a library is a tacit acknowledgement that what they library district and LVMPD was illegal.

Challenging open carry in a public building by creating a new law, such as a library, with no history of threats or special security concerns, is unlikely to survive in court. Had this been a concern for Nevada legislatures, the matter would have been addressed in the past. In this case, Bilbray-Axelrod is playing partisan politics with citizen’s rights and lives; nothing unusual for a Democrat.

Secondly, Bilbray-Axelrod’s concerns about children are totally unfounded. If she is so concerned about firearms being around her children, she should not take them outside, much less to a store, park, or shopping mall where countless unseen concealed carriers and possibly even open carriers could be present; not to mention armed criminals.  

Libraries are not some sort of magical safe space where danger does not lurk. Time and time again we have seen murderers and terrorists exploit gun free zones to kill unarmed victims. Bilbray-Axelrod would have mothers and fathers defenseless in the face of a killer all because she doesn’t like guns or citizens who can fight back against evil.

So let me get this straight: there have been zero problems (except what LVCCLD did itself) and she thinks there is a problem with the law? The Henderson Library District made the correct decision to follow the law as written. No other library, even those with policies on paper, have made an issue out of open carry.

The law was written deliberately to exclude open carry. With very few exceptions, Nevada and many western states recognize that it is unconstitutional to regulate open carry. Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, just to name a few states, allow the open carry of firearms in libraries. There have been no known incidents of unsafe discharges, abandoned firearms, or other bad behavior by legally armed citizens in any of these states.

Challenging open carry in a public building by creating a new law, such as a library, with no history of threats or special security concerns, is unlikely to survive in court.

It must be remembered that for years the library district has pursued this policy in direct contravention to state law, depriving citizens of the right to bear arms under both the state and federal constitutions. As the recent decision in Peruta v. Gore by the Ninth Circuit District Court of Appeals showed, many court cases have found that open carry is the constitutionally protected method of carry.

A multitude of communications have been sent to the library over the years, so any claim that this was unintentional is a lie. The library’s general counsel, Gerald Welt, stated in a private conversation, later recounted on Facebook, that the library district was aware of the law and would have to be sued. The district is being represented in this case by Bailey-Kennedy.

Bilbray-Axelrod was present when a group of citizens and Assemblywoman Shelton warned the library district it faced a suit if it kept up its illegal behavior. Now the taxpayers are on the hook for the intransigence of these unelected trustees and protected bureaucrats.

Clark County taxpayers out to be shocked and outraged at the willingness of the library district and its trustees to waste public money pursuing an obviously illegal policy and infringing on citizens’ right to effective self-defense.

Nevada Carry's original post breaking the story: Library Has Mom Illegally Arrested for Legal Openly Carried Gun; Suit Filed

Illegal Conceal Carrier Shoots at Car

The suspect's booking photo from LVMPD

Thursday night, Stephen Howard, 44, tried to apprehend a shoplifter and shot at the suspect's car. The Las Vegas Sun has the story. He was arrested on carrying a concealed firearm without a permit (NRS 202.350, a felony), unsafe discharge of a firearm (NRS 202.285), and traffic warrants. Bail is a combined $14,930.

There are several lapses in judgement here that are not surprising. Someone who would choose to carry illegal and commit a felony, rather openly carry, which is legal, clearly shouldn't be carrying a gun at all. This was highlighted by the fact that he compounded his mistake by shooting a car.

No circumstances have articulated why it was necessary for a private citizen to intervene with Target security to try to arrest a shoplifter. There was no apparent threat to life. This was not Mr. Howard's store. Unless you or a loved one were a victim, you probably shouldn't attempt to apprehend anyone who isn't an immediately threat to life or limb. Too much risk and liability.

Shooting at a car is a bad idea because it is too difficult to hit the target and if the suspect dies or looses control, a car without a driver is a very dangerous thing. Police are generally discouraged from shooting at suspects in moving cars. It's also illegal for citizens to shoot at a fleeing felon. Read the self-defense laws, please. You are not a cop just because you have a gun and you have no duty to get involve. You can't shoot a fleeing suspect and definitely shouldn't be in a position where they might run you over if you can help it.

This is why training and judgement is extremely important.