Some TN Permit Holders are Now Felons

Plain and simple, Tennessee's self-defense law was in my opinion much better before the NRA endorsed legislation was pushed through with the bi-partisan help of Republicans and Democrats in the Tennessee legislature many of which, in my belief, simply did not understand existing law and therefore tried to change it in perceived but misplaced need for a "castle doctrine" in Tennessee although we have had one for many years...

The effect of the new law is that now even non-violent felons are prohibited from possessing any firearms and also from buying firearms (TCA 39-17-1316) and also from having a handgun carry permit (TCA 39-17-1351) even if they have previously had their full rights of citizenship restored by a Tennessee court. They cannot hunt with a firearm. They cannot have a firearm in their home for self-defense. They cannot work as an armed guard. They cannot work in an armed law enforcement position.

They are unindicted felons instantly on July 1, 2008 whose names are in many state databases as firearms owners.

The title-linked post is a few months old--it's the best substitute I could find for a Tennessee Firearms Association email that I don't see posted yet on their website. Here's the beginnning of their email:

From: "TFALAC"
To:
Subject: TFALAC Alert: ATF Opinion on Tennessee Restorations
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:43:09 +0000

Tennessee Firearms Association, Inc.
Legislative Action Committee

I have written previously about the serious problems caused to 10's of thousands in Tennessee as a result of the Tennessee General Assembly, with what I understand to be the blessings of NRA-ILA's lobbyist Heidi Keesling, changed Tennessee's criminal code effective July 1, 2008. Below is an opinion by ATF's legal division on the consequences of this adverse change in the law. This was not just "2 steps back" for the issue of gun rights but more like a football field.
Call not only your legislators to demand that this be changed but call Chris Cox at the NRA-ILA.

I can't reproduce the entire lengthy text of the balance of the email here, and suggest you contact TFA for details. If someone can come up with a link where the complete alert is posted, please share it and I'll update this post.

Anybody from NRA care to address this and give us your side?

New Pro-gun Column in Cleveland

The Cleveland section of the news website Examiner.com had a new column start up this week, the Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner.

Written by gun rights advocate and writer David Codrea, this column will cover gun rights issues in Ohio with a focus on Northeast Ohio and the Cleveland area.

Ohioans For Concealed Carry noticed. Thanks for the plug!

Lightworker vs 2A

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

David Hardy tells us about it.

The Robber State

As the economy collapses, credit lines become constricted, and tax revenues are choked off, we can expect local representatives of the parasite class (commonly called "government") to become perversely creative in finding new ways to extract money from productive people. For parasites looking to feast on the wealth of others, the liberty-devouring fraud called the War on Drugs offers a particularly rich menu of possibilities.

Soon to be ratcheted up for the War on Guns...?

[Via Ron W]

This Day in History: October 22

Mr. Lorthrope has given me this account of the demand upon Falmouth. A Man of War and two tenders went down and sent to the inhabitants to demand their Arms and require them to Stand Nutur, they required time to consider, they gave them till nine oclock the next day, which time they imployed in removeing the women, children and the rest of their most valuable Effects out of Danger when they sent their answer in the Negative. Upon which they began a cannonade and were continuing it when the Express came away. --Hitchbourn and an other Gentleman got out of Town in a cana small Boat, one of the fogy nights we have had this week. I have not heard what intelegance he brings. An other person says that How enlarged all the prisoners but Lovel and he would not come out.

Who are the "Only Ones" We Can Trust with Guns?

How often have we been told this though, by police officials, by politicians, by anti-gun groups, by the media? Our laws have been geared to exempt police from carry restrictions in "No Guns" zones, assigning to the uniform and the badge an automatic and unquestioned trust that police are better trained, and just generally more cheerful, thrifty, brave clean and reverent than we mere mortal citizens. They are, we are told, the only ones who can handle the awesome trust of being armed in public.

My latest Examiner.com post is up, and it covers a subject very familiar to WarOnGuns regulars.

Hey, not bad for the 2nd day on the job (click image to enlarge)--this may yet make a go if it:



I've started compiling link lists and feeds. Right now I'm looking specifically for Ohio gun bloggers. If you are one, and would like to reciprocate links with my Examiner page, let me know and I'll include your blog in my list.

In the mean time, I'll continue to shamelessly beg for regulars here to support this effort by spreading the word. A growing audience not entirely comprised of choir members couldn't hurt...

The True Student of History

...can spot a holocaust when it's an idea yet to happen.

Every once in a while you come across a comment posted by an anti that is so profoundly stupid and ignorant, it just makes your jaw drop.

Telefon

Bryan Pick and Jon Henke invited me to particpate in a telephone conference with MO Governor Matt Blunt tomorrow. 2A will be among the topics and I'm told he will take questions.

No idea what to expect, really, but I will do a follow-up report.

UPDATE: As a point of clarification, I'm told the principals behind the call are doing this on their own and not under the auspices of QandO.

"Obvious Stonewalling": Savage Finds BATFU in Willful Violation of FOIA Request

Via E-mail :

FOIA request 08-1494

Ms. Graham,

In your final "final response" to my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for "the documents and final determinations of the investigations" of the four closed investigations based on complaints made by myself or on my behalf.

Due to the poor punctuation in the response I can only assume the BATFE disclosure division meant to cite the following, which BATFE contends is exempt from disclosure under the Title 5, United States Code, Section 552(b):

b(5) inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda or letter which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency;

b(6) personnel and medical files and similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute a clear and unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;

It's a bit hard to envision b(6) as being applicable, as I never asked for personnel or medical files. BATFE can probably justify at least some of b(5); however, I don't see how the disclosure division can lawfully withhold the results of the investigations as I originally requested in September.

This is obvious stonewalling. It appears you are parsing words of the law to prevent the results of the investigations from becoming known. Your office clearly stated: "We are transferring these documents to that federal agency..." In other words your disclosure division admits it had the documents and got rid of them to prevent from complying with my lawful FOIA request? Perhaps another FOIA asking for a budget breakdown of how much money your office and the BATFE spent in man hours and all other expenses while responding to my FOIA request 08-1494 is in order? I would think the results of that would be of great interest to the U.S. Inspector General, the honorable Glenn Fine.

Ms. Graham, please respond to my original FOIA request for "the documents and final determinations of the investigations".

Respectfully,

Len Savage
-----------------
Ain't that something? And note when they want records, they just come in, armed, and seize them.--DC

Stop Me Before I Kill Again

“I dont like guns much, and the reason I don”t like them is because I do like them,” the New York Daily News quoted him, as saying.

“If you put one in my hand, I feel incredibly omnipotent. And I hate that truth,” he added.

Nice self control. There's a man I can admire.

If I didn't know better, I might think some of these movie heroes are nothing more than weakling stage props with artificially inflated egos.

I'm sure glad the "Authorized Journalists" hang on their every word so that we can share in their wisdom. We want to keep that pH Factor growing (currently at 1.6:59, up from 1:24 just since February)...

[Via KABA Newslinks]

A Weapon of Thought

_2A Today for the USA_ is a free 23-minute video presentation, aweapon of thought, specifically produced to disrupt and destroy theevil, inhumane agenda of victim disarmers and gun prohibitionists withgenerous applications of legal and historical truth. Because JPFOencourages the widest possible distribution of this film, it is beingoffered on the Internet for free, with numerous options for viewing ordownloading.

L. Neil Smith writes about a new "weapon of thought," JPFO's new, free downloadable video, "2A Today for the USA."

Click on the title link to access your viewing options. Also note I have placed a graphic click-though ad in the left sidebar, so you won't need to hunt for this post again if you don't have time to watch it now.

Express Painting

EXCLUSIVE: Report, .22 Gunshot, paint balls fired at McCain / Palin Straight Talk Express

Anybody know anything about this? Because I can find zero confirmation from the "Authorized Journalists." Not that that necessarily means anything, but still...

[Via Mark G]

We're the Only Ones Smuggling Enough

The sheriff of a rural Texas county next to the U.S.-Mexico border has resigned after being indicted on federal drug charges.

Ah, Los Unicos! The border! Drug lords! Bloody violence!

If we could just close that damned American gun show loophole, we'd all be singing Chiapanecas and livin' la vida loca!

At least that's what all our great pals in government are telling us, and what incentive could they possibly have to steer us wrong...?

[Via Portly Pirate]

We're the Only Ones Signature Marking Enough

A man caught on camera shocking a 15-year-old boy with a taser, just for fun, was a Eustis police officer and he did it after a night of drinking with kids...

"You're gonna get five seconds. You will have two marks. These will be signature marks," Nesmith tells the 15-year-old on home video showing the incident.

Yep, it sure looks like this moron is the "Only One" with the mature and sober judgment needed to be trusted with weapons forbidden to you or me (post '86 LEO Only), and in places where you or I (school zones, bars) would not be.

Hey, now that the video has been released, maybe he can sue for humiliation...

We're the Only Ones Entrepreneurial Enough

The TSA reached a mind-boggling new low in customer service this week when it was revealed that one agent had single-handedly absconded with over $200,000 worth of travelers' belongings, primarily cameras and laptops, and proceeded to unload his booty on eBay. His latest haul: A near-$50,000 camera that an HBO employee had been traveling with.

I feel so much safer flying, knowing there are "Only Ones" out there like Pythias Brown, who make sure people like you and me (who can't be trusted) don't try slipping anything past "security."

[Via Chris Horton]

A Rebuke from the "Right"

Similarly, Judge Richard A. Posner, in an article in The New Republic in August, wrote that Heller’s failure to allow the political process to work out varying approaches to gun control that were suited to local conditions “was the mistake that the Supreme Court made when it nationalized abortion rights in Roe v. Wade.”

Yeah, that's just what we need: "home rule" for which rights will be recognized.

Hey, who needs a Fifth Amendment when you're in Chi-Town, anyway, huh? What, this rubber hose? It's in case the suspect gets thirsty under all these lights...

We talked about the other supposed "conservative," J. Harvie Wilkinson III (and tell me that name doesn't sound like it belongs cheating at bridge at Thurston Howell's country club) a while back, and again a while back further, and I gotta tell you, they just don't make "prominent" judges like they used to.

Consider, for example, William Rawle, a contemporary of the Founders, the man George Washington wanted as the first attorney general, and whose "View of the Constitution" was the "go to" resource at Harvard and Dartmouth until the mid-Nineteenth Century, who wrote:

“No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give the Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under a general pretence [sic] by a state legislature. But if in any pursuit of an inordinate power either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.”

We can listen to him or we can listen to Dickie and Harvie. Come to think of it, if we listen to them, we might actually resolve things sooner.

[Via Zachary G]

Neither Predator Nor Prey

At 200 yards, Yugoslavian SKS rifles are perfectly adequate. Purchased for under $150 each via private sales, they were equipped with cheap but satisfactory Chinese made 4 power scopes. The Russian made 7.62x39mm ammunition is not noted for its accuracy, but very much so for its reliability. With these rifles and ammunition, the eclectically-armed duo systematically wrecked the resented roadblock.

The tires went first, then sights shifted to the engine compartments. The two deputies and one of their federal confederates ran as fast as they could to the treeline, covering the several dozen yards in record time and keeping right on going deeper into the forest. The other fed foolishly hunkered down behind his increasingly gunshot gutted GSA.

Western Rifle Shooters Association presents an excerpt from Mark Spungin's new novel, "Neither Predator Nor Prey."

Mark sent me a review copy a couple weeks back for magazine consideration, and I just have not been able to get to it yet--although I expect to get some read time in the next week. I'm looking forward to it. It looks like Mike Vanderboegh and Matthew Bracken fans should like it, too. Matter of fact, when I told Matt I was going to review this, he let me know "Mark is the real deal. I spoke at last years WSSA meeting, and spent the next week with him driving around WY."

UPDATE: Mama Liberty tells me she has written a review...

More Campus Hijinks at U of A

He said the two students were robbed at gunpoint by one man and the alleged gunman fled in a white, four-door Taurus driven by an accomplice.

The alleged robber covered his face with a black hood, he said.

Alvarez issued a "campus watch alert" Monday advising students to remain calm and compliant during "a robbery situation."

Dumb feral thugs probably couldn't read.

But by all means, give them what they want and never resist.

Otherwise, you might end up like this guy.

[Via Plug Nickel Times]

A Question for California Gun Owners

Have you done anything to help Tom McClintock?

Anything at all?

Why not?

Really, why not?

This Day in History: October 21

On the recommendation of the Continental Congress and news of an imminent attack, the Provincial Congress of New York orders all sulphur and brimstone supplies in New York City shipped to a safe place on the Hudson River.

Based on the hellishness of the place, it has evidently since been returned...