SF Weekly blogs reports that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency doesn’t allow movie ads with guns in them: While the official poster for [The Other Guys] features a maniacal Ferrell and the menacing Wahlberg sailing through the air, guns drawn, the version on Muni vehicles and in stations features Ferrell brandishing a vial of […]
Archive | Guns
The Second Amendment and Non-Violent Felons
United States v. Williams (7th Cir., decided yesterday) (Judge Michael Kanne, joined by Judge Ilana Rovner and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, sitting by designation) upholds — as usual — a conviction for being a felon in possession of a gun, but has this to add: the government does not get a free pass simply […]
My Senate briefing on Kagan and the McDonald Case
By David Kopel on August 5, 2010 3:20 pm in Constitutional Law, Guns, Kagan Nomination, McDonald v. City of Chicago
It was delivered in late June to the Second Amendment Task Force, a group of Republican Senate aides. (Unfortunately, the Senate’s protocals of partisanship prevent organizations like this from having aides from both parties.) My presentation is here (22 minutes). The presentation by Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is here. And […]
The Second Amendment and Unmarked Firearms
The Third Circuit has handed down an interesting Second Amendment decision, United States v. Marzzarella. It begins: This appeal presents a single issue, whether Defendant Michael Marzzarella’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(k) for possession of a handgun with an obliterated serial number violates his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We hold […]
Self-Defense as a Defense Against a Charge of Being a Felon in Possession of a Gun
Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court handed down an interesting case — People v. Dupree on this. The case is not novel, and my sense is that the defense is generally recognized: Just as what would otherwise be the crime of murder, attempted murder, battery, and the like might be justified if done in defense against […]
Florida ACLU Gets Sheriff’s Office to Return Man’s Guns
The Sun-Sentinel reports; this is the case I blogged about last week. Here’s an excerpt from the story: “Just as a kind of a query, what legal authority does the sheriff or anybody have to walk in to someone’s home and take property?” [Broward Circuit Judge Dale Ross] said. “Don’t we call that, in the […]
The UN’s “Programme of Action” on Small Arms
Here’s a short new paper, written by the Heritage Foundation’s Theodore Bromund and me: As the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty Process Begins, U.N.’s “Programme of Action” on Small Arms Shows Its Dangers.
“Shall Not Be Infringed”
A commenter discussing the gun show case writes, among other things, So, along with Chicago and DC trying to keep poor people from exercising their “fundamental right” by pricing permits/licenses/training/registration out of their reach, now California is trying to reduce the Second Amendment to a “want” instead of a “RIGHT”. The standard of review should […]
No Guns for You — You’ve Slammed Doors Very Hard
In a few states — including New Jersey — people need a license to even get a firearm to keep at home, and the police may deny such a license if they think the person poses a danger to others. This isn’t limited to getting concealed carry licenses; it applies to having a gun in […]
The Ninth Circuit Panel in Nordyke v. King Seems Open to Reconsidering Its Earlier Decision About the Second Amendment and Gun Shows
In 2009, a Ninth Circuit panel held (in Nordyke v. King) that the Second Amendment was incorporated against the states, but concluded that a ban on gun possession on county property was nonetheless constitutional. The Ninth Circuit then agreed to rehear the matter en banc, but then suspended its consideration of the case while it […]
Florida ACLU Petitions for Return of Man’s Guns
So reports the Sun-Sentinel: Fort Lauderdale attorney Barry Butin, a cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Florida’s Broward Chapter … is representing the gun owner, Pompano Beach retiree Robert Weinstein…. “Under the Second Amendment, he has a right to have his guns in his house. He’s not a convicted felon,” Butin said. “It is unusual […]
“We Affirm, But Only Because We Are Unable to Write a Principled Opinion Reversing”
That’s how State v. Neis (Wis. Ct. App. July 15) (appeal decided by one judge sitting alone), puts it. I’m not sure that the phrasing, especially the “only,” is optimal. But I take it that the court simply means that it is bound by a precedent that it finds to be unsound. The issue is […]
When Are Bodyguards for Foreigners — or Mentally Disturbed or Drug-Addicted Rock Stars — Allowed to Possess Guns?
18 U.S.C. § 922(h) provides that “It shall be unlawful for any individual, who to that individual’s knowledge and while being employed for any person described in any paragraph of subsection (g) of this section, in the course of such employment” to possess a gun. (It also requires a supposed connection to interstate or foreign […]
Seventh Circuit Upholds Ban on Gun Possession by People With Past Convictions for “Misdemeanor Crime[s] of Domestic Violence”
The case is United States v. Skoien (en banc); Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote the majority opinion, and Judge Diane Sykes wrote a dissenting opinion. UPDATE: Josh Blackman has many details.
Gun Show Second Amendment Case Remanded Back to Original Panel — Gun Show Organizers Unlikely to Win There
[UPDATE: For a new development that suggests that the panel might indeed change its mind, and the gun show organizers might indeed win, see this post.] In early 2009, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled (in Nordyke v. King) that the Second Amendment was applicable to state […]