Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

New sign posted this week at the front entrance to Ramsey County Property Records and Revenue (the place where you file your deed and pay your taxes), located at 90 West Plato Blvd. It’s across the river from downtown.

The building sits on land owned by Ramsey County government and used for official government business.

The “guns banned” sign comes from Minn. Stat. 624.714, Subd. 17. That law allows posting by a private establishment controlled by a nongovernment entity and used for a nongovernment purpose. On its face, that law does not apply to the government office where the public comes to pay taxes.

Quiz of the day question: are guns banned in that building because of that sign?

Joe Doakes

Como Park

I’m going to guess that the building has some connection to the Ramco Court system, and can be legally posted.  It’s the same technicality that the City of Minneapolis used to arrest Joel Rosenberg a few years back; even though he wasn’t in a “court” facility per se, the court system was involved with the building.

That’s just a hunch, and I can’t say as I’m going to line up to be the text case.

That being said, I’m going to shine the GOCRA signal on a passing cloud and hope a real gun-rights expert turns up…

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails in re Aurora, and provides a quote that the NRA or the GOA should put on a T-shirt:

Orc: The Aurora theatre was a gun-free zone but it didn’t matter because the shooter wore body armor, he was Invincible!

Joe: Not so much. The initial media reports thought “tactical vest” meant “bulletproof vest.” No, he wore the cop version of a pheasant hunting vest, with the pockets modified to hold pistol magazines instead of shotgun shells. It affords no protection to the wearer whatsoever.

Orc: Well that doesn’t matter. The theater was dark and noisy and full of smoke. Even if theatre patrons had been allowed to carry pistols, nobody could have made a shot to stop the threat under those conditions, it’s like a battlefield.

Joe: Four military veterans died in that theatre..

Orc: Yeah, but not every veteran can shoot. They’re just Air Force computer clerks, unlikely they had experience in war or handling weapons.

Joe: Jon Blunk died in that theatre. He threw himself on top of his girlfriend to save her life.

Orc: Yeah, but he was only a sailor. Could he shoot? Would he have had the guts to shoot in a dark, noisy smoky theatre? With someone shooting back at him?

Joe: Blunk already had three tours in the Middle East under his belt and had plans to re-enlist with a goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. That’s what SEALS do – they go into dark, noisy smoky places where people are shooting at them, and they kill bad guys. Would he have had the guts? Listen to someone who knows him:

“Gill, who lived with Blunk several years in the Navy and later in Aurora, described his friend as an avid outdoorsman and gun rights advocate.

“Pretty much every weapon the guy in the theater used [Blunk] owned,” Gill said. “If you asked if he was still alive, he would have said his only regret is he didn’t have his sidearm with him and he couldn’t do anything to stop him.”

This part should be on the T-shirts and bumper stickers:

Gun-free zones don’t stop bad guys from killing good people; they stop good people from killing bad guys. That’s why they matter.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

For starters – my thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims of last night’s outbreak of senseless, cowardly violence.

Not that I have a lot to offer in re this story, but here are some observations:

• As many people died in that theatre as died in the previous week and half in “gun-free” Chicago. And the week and half before that.  And the week and half before that.  So far this year, they’ve been almost 300 firearms homicides in Chicago, and many many hundreds maimed.  And there is no end in sight.
• I say that for the benefit of the liberal orcs who are already coming out of the woodwork demanding big changes to American gun laws.
• Notwithstanding the occasional headline-grabbing spree killing, violent crime has been dropping steadily in the US, even as (or, I believe, because) the number of Americans owning guns has skyrocketed in the past decade.  43 states have either shall-issue permitting laws – which have been shown, all other things being equal, to reduce violent crime – and about half the states have some variety of “Stand your Ground” laws, all of them successful outside the media’s rarified sampling of high-profile politicized cases (like the Zimmerman case).  No state has even considered repeating a shall-issue law in the nearly thirty years that the laws have been on the ascendant.
• One of the arguments is “what if someone with a carry permit brought their piece to the theatre?”  On the one hand, liberals – expressing the deep intellectual rigor for which the liberal anti-gun argument is so famous – respond “Oh, yeah, just what they needed – a bunch of wannabe Dirty Harries”. To which the conservatives respond “Yeah, good thing nobody in the theatre fought back. It might have gotten dangerous!“

So pray first for the victims, their families and friends, the doctors who are treating them, and the people of Aurora.

And then, when all that’s done, pray for the liberal hamsters who come out calling for more moronic gun control laws.

Pray they get God’s mercy, because rhetorically speaking, I will show them none.

UPDATES:  I am at the moment thankful that both b the President  and even the folks at iMedia Matters seem to be taking the high road so far.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel – mayor of a city that forbids gun ownership by the law-abiding and is spending millions in taxpayer money to try to find ways to flout the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision which expressly condemned Chicago’s handgun laws, and is “unexpectedly” in the middle of a wave of gang violence that has increased the city’s murder rate 30% at a time when the national murder rate has been dropping for years – is appealing to gang-bangers’ “values” to try to stem the flood of blood:

“We’ve got two gangbangers, one standing next to a kid. Get away from that kid. Take your stuff away to the alley. Don’t touch the children of the city of Chicago. Don’t get near them,” Emanuel — President Obama’s former chief of staff — told anchor Scott Pelley.

It’s…er…

…novel?

“And it is about values. As I said then [when a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed last month], who raised you? How were you raised?

Oh, that’s easy!  They were raised by single parents in a system that systematically devalues fatherhood – the institution that traditionally helps boys channel their natural aggression!  They were either raised by people who may have had values of their own once, but for whatever reason either couldn’t keep their kids – or grandkids – out of institutions that think summarily ending the lives of people who wear  your colors, or “disrespect” you, or who sell drugs on your gang’s drug turf, is a perfectly acceptable way to resolve issues…

…or by people who subscribed to those beliefs themselves.  And many to most of them were raised into a post-nineties ‘urban culture” that glorifies violence, especially violence that ends up in wealth, however transient, and a form of “honor killing” no less noxious than the most backward Wahhabi.

And I don’t buy this case where people say they don’t have values. They do have values. They have the wrong values. Don’t come near the kids — don’t touch them.”

Let me know if that works better than “no guns for you!” has been working out.

EIght young people were shot in Chicago in gang-related violence yesterday alone.

Who knows how bad  episode would have been…

The armed gunman, 53, murdered a bailiff, 47, a locksmith, 33, and the prospective new tenant of the flat, 45, in the south-western city of Karlsruhe with shots to the head before taking his own life.

The bailiff had two bullets in his thigh before he was finished off.

The victims were tied up and ‘executed’, according to the local prosecutor. ‘This was a planned act and we are dealing with four cold blooded murders,’ he added.

…if Germany didn’t have gun laws every bit as draconian as violence -addled Chicago!

…will all be Dodge City or something.

By the way, these county attorneys will get the same training each and every one of us 94,000-odd civilian, un-blessed carry-permittees get.

Exactly the same.

(Via Joe Doakes)

…it’s almost reassuring to see that gun violence in Washington DC, which along with Chicago is the model city for gun control, is skyrocketing…:

Violent crime so far this year in the District has spiked sharply — a 40 percent increase that includes twice as many robberies at gunpoint than at this time last year.

Across the city, all police districts are reporting increases in violent crime, and all but one have had double-digit percentage increases, according to internal Metropolitan Police Department documents. The documents contained preliminary crime data for the city as of Thursday.

The crime rate is increasing this year after a downward trend — the number of reported homicides last year dropped to the lowest level in a half-century.

Homicides were the only category of violent crime to decline in the first six weeks this year. As of Thursday, the city had recorded 10 homicides compared with 11 at a similar point last year.

Overall, though, incidents of violent crime — homicides, sexual assaults, robberies and assaults with deadly weapons — are rising at an alarming pace.

…even as the Democrat orcs that govern our federal cesspool continue to stonewall the law-abiding gun owner and the defy post-Heller law of the land.

Democrats! The blood of all those innocent victims is on your hands!

If you’re old enough to remember the seventies and early eighties, you remember the isolated stories of the Japanese soldiers who lived in the jungles of New Guinea and other parts of the South Pacific that our troops had bypassed, who’d gone into the wilderness awaiting word from their leadership that never came.  They never heard of HIroshima, the surrender, the complete collapse of their military, and finally the rebirth of Japan as a fairly pacific society and then industrial giant.

And they staggered out of the jungle, three and sometimes almost four decades later, wearing improvised and native clothes, their rifles long-rusted into uselessness, amazed that Japan had surrendered, their Emperor had renounced the war that “he” had (by proxy) sent them to fight, and that life – and fact – had gone merrily on without them.

Anti-gun zealots are the new Japanese-Soldiers-who-never-got-the-word.  Exhibit 47839203943823983290 – this fellow, “Capper”, from the perhaps-incongruously-named blog Cognitive Dissonance, about a dissonant decision at a gun show in Wisconsin:

It has been recently reported that Waukesha County, deep in Republican red, has expanded its ban on concealed carry to other county buildings besides the courthouse and the administration building.

What was not reported is that it is also possible that when a person or group rent one of their facilities, like the expo center or a park, they can ask that the facility be marked as do not carry and that the county will honor that request.

The only reason that I even bring this up is that I’ve heard that at least one group, renting the Waukesha County Expo Center, has availed themselves of this new rule.

It’s not so much a “new rule” as it is “part of Wisconsin’s carry permit law“: from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s fairly capable summary of the law, “You can’t carry concealed at law enforcement buildings, prisons, jails, secured units or secured mental health institutions, courthouses, courtrooms, beyond security checkpoints in airports, on school grounds and premises, in taverns if you’re drinking alcohol, at special events such as concerts or games where organizers don’t allow it, at colleges or universities where prohibited, in businesses or on private property where the owner prohibits or limits concealed weapons”.  In other words, a lot like Minnesota’s law (but apparently without the idiotic posting requirement).

I’m going to issue an O’Rourke alert here; “LIfe is full of ironies, for the stupid”.  Not to say that Mr. Capper is stupid – far from it – but generally if someone finds “irony” in the mundane, it means they haven’t looked far enough for the not-so-“ironic” explanation.

Ironically, if my information is correct, that group is none other than the Bob and Rocco Gun Show. My source indicated that it wasn’t Bob Pucci that wanted this, but the national franchise. They said that there’s been too many accidental shootings by people bringing in their concealed weapons and, either through clumsiness or ineptness, have had the gone accidentally go off shooting the vendors.

Sorta.  Like most such restrictions and such events, it was actually a matter of a lawyer at an insurance company waving a big financial surcharge at the franchiser, because of the elevated risk that it might happen.  It has much less to do with people “bringing in their concealed weapons” than it does to people bringing in weapons at all, because – remember this? – Wisconsin didn’t have a concealed carry law until November 1.

Doesn’t that make you feel better knowing that Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature has now made it possible for any fool to walk around armed without even taking an inadequate four hour training course?

And here we are with the Japanese Soldier bit again.  Perhaps “Capper” never heard – legal carry permittees nationwide, over the past thirty years, have proven themselves not only two orders of magnitude more law-abiding than the average citizen, but vastly more competent than them as well.

And one thing Mr. Capper definitely has in common with the Japanese soldier; the soldier never had any need to read Wisconsin law.  Mr. Capper needs to, but apparently hasn’t; the law requires a training course.  It’s not the specialized training course you have to take in Minnesota – but it’s training.  Although there has been no link shown between training classes and safety; carry permittees are equally safe and reliable in states that don’t require training as in those that do.

And they wonder why we are recalling them….

Back into the jungle, Capper.  Walker is going to be in office for another three years.  And even if he does get recalled, it won’t be over this; even hard-core Democrat states – see Oregon, Washington and Connecticut – have shall-issue laws that are in no danger of repeat.  Because they work.

Sayonara.

I’ve got a bit of a dilemma here.

In trying to address the claims made in h this piece from Ian Millhiser in “Think” “Progress”, on a federal-level proposal for national reciprocity for carry permits, I faced a gnarly dilemma:  do I do a piece on “Think” “Progress”‘s efforts to cull selectively through facts to try to trash a conservative initiative, or do I do a piece on the congenital liberal inability to think through an argument logically?

The answer, unfortunately, is “both”.  Why choose?

The “National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act” has broad support in both chambers of Congress; Right-to-carry has been an untrammelled success throughout the United State for the past thirty years, with immense, intense support on both sides of the aisle at the federal and state level.

If the bill becomes law, it would allow nearly anyone to shop around for the one state that is willing to issue them a license to carry a concealed firearm, and then force other states to honor that license.

I’m not sure if Millhiser has really thought this through.  For example, they indulge the “progressive” conceit of looking in mock horror at the “red” state gun laws…:

Many states’ licensing rules for concealed carry are shockingly lax. Florida, for example, issued 1,700 concealed carry permits to people with “criminal histories, arrest warrants, domestic violence injunctions and misdemeanor convictions for gun-related crimes.”

…while, leaving aside for a moment the fact that the Florida story is a bit of bogus scare-mongering – the issues cited didn’t involve convictions, or “gun-related” misdemeanors serious enough to warrant denying their permit applications – it shows both “Think” “Progress”‘s myopia and ignorance of facts; carry permit holders’ crime records in “lax” states like Florida [1] are statistically no less impeccable than those in “strict” states like New York or, for that matter, states requiring no permit from the law-abiding, like Alaska, Arizona and Vermont.

Because Illinois is the only state that does not have a concealed carry law, the NRA’s bill would render out-of-state visitors immune to every state but Illinois’ licensing laws — so long as they obtained a license from a state that practically gives them away.

Right.  Because goodness knows if that happens, Illinois might get overwhelmed with gun violence or something.

OK,. back to my dilemma.  We established above that “Think” “Progress” is, like most (but by no means all) liberals, clueless about the reality of guns rights. Now, it’s on to the whole “couldn’t do logic in the throes of a full-bore Vulcan Mind Meld” bit.

Because Millhiser wants to throw out fifty years of “progressive” social policy!

Yet… forcing New York to honor Florida’s poorly vetted carry licenses…flies directly in the face of the right’s professed views on the 10th Amendment’s guarantee of states rights. The NRA’s bill is a direct attack on each state’s ability to determine on its own how best to protect the public’s safety.

Ultimately, however, this kind of fair weather tentherism is nothing new. Conservatives hate federal regulation of health care, until they want to invalidate state tort law or immunize the insurance industry from state consumer protection law.

There is a difference – legally and, if you care about America’s history and liberties no matter what your political stripe, morally – between “human rights”, especially those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and the niggling impedimenta of government policy and regulation on  issues that are, let’s just say, a tad less exalted in this nation’s legal canon.

This country decided – with the 13th Amendment and, also, the blood of 600,000 dead Americans – that the Bill of Rights’s exaltation of inalienable human rights trumps the states and, for that matter, The People.  The Supreme Court, and generations of decisions pushed by generations of lawyers pushed for everyone from Dred Scott to the ACLU, has established that the states do not trump human rights.

Like the right to free speech and the press.  Or freedom of (and, apparently, from) religion.  And assembly.  And unreasonable (whatever that means under the prevailing legal winds) search and seizures.  And, now that Heller has been incorporated by McDonald, the right to keep and bear arms.

Health care?  It’s not a constitutional right.  It’s an entitlement; we can argue over whether it’s something that should be dealt with at the federal level, or that of any government, and indeed we have been arguing about it for the past two years, and I have a hunch we’ll renew it in 2013.  And while “progressives” have used FDR’s courts’ bogus interpretations of the Commerce Clause to federalize a lot of things, there is no rational way you can say Health Care exists on the same plane as Speech and Jury Trials.

Most conservatives and libertarians recognize this distinction; we are more or less absolute (with prudent exceptions) on issues of human rights, and reserving lesser issues to the states. Most “progressives” blur it, but at least recognize (and push!) federal supremacy on civil liberties issues, as they constantly remind you.

…provided they’re not scary, like commoners with guns.

So Mr. Millhiser is mistaken when he writes…:

In other words, the right’s lockstep embrace of the NRA’s concealed carry bill is just one more example of conservatives’ willingness to claim that the Constitution means whatever they want it to mean.

…because, indeed, it’s Mr. Millhiser, not conservatives, with the case of moral confusion.  Are human rights a federal issue, or not?

My stance is clear.  Mr. Millhiser seems to want it both ways.

UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION:  Why yes, my stance is in fact consistent.  I believe that specifics of gun laws should be a state issue, provided that they are consistent with the idea that the right to keep and bear arms is a right “of the people”.  Most state qualify, although I personally campaign for more “liberalization”.  Illinois’ law does not qualify.

Remember 1982, when Willy DeVille’s twitchy paranoid masterpiece “Due To Gun Control” drew brickbats from (invariably smug left of center) “music critics” because of its “right-wing message”?

Take a listen:

“Only thieves on parole and cops out on patrol walk the street feeling safe anymore”.

Look at the news from Chicago – in this case the story about the the teeth they’ve added to their juvenile curfew.

Chicago has, of course, been racked by gang violence in recent years, “despite” the most comprehensive gun ban in the United States.

Look how it’s working:

“When it’s dark, people can hide in the shadows,” said Da’Quan, somersaulting to the ground and landing firmly on his feet. “In every little corner, there is a piece of the dark where they can hide.”

Even at 10 years old, the fourth-grader grasps the dangers facing children on Chicago’s streets. “It’s in the nighttime that violence breaks out,” said Da’Quan, with a glance toward his mother, who smiled in approval.

Nope.  No post-traumatic stress in little Da’Quan’s future or anything.

With the aim of protecting children from that violence, Chicago officials passed a tighter curfew that takes effect Sunday. Fines for parents who repeatedly ignore the law are going up to $1,500, under the new rules.

By all means: put the law-abiding under a state of siege.  That always works with violent crime…

…well, not really “siege”.  Siege is when the besieged can defend themselves.  What do you call a “siege” where you are completely at the mercy of your besiegers?

“Being held hostage?”

“Prison?”

During the 2010-11 school year, CPS reports that 256 students were shot, and 27 of them were killed.

Good thing those guns were all illegal, huh? 

Nonsense.  Chicago’s nightmare is due to gun control – and the disdain for the rights and worth of the individual that inevitably accompanies it – not in spite of it.

Under North Carolina law, all carry permits are null and void the moment a governor declares a state of emergency:

Thanks to a brain-dead state law foisted upon us by a Democratic state legislature (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-288.7), every time the governor—in this instance, Democrat Beverly Perdue—declares a state of emergency, it is illegal from that moment onward to carry a concealed weapon until the state of emergency has been declared over.

Yep – tha’ts what the law itself says:

14-288.7. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, it is unlawful for any person to transport or possess off his own premises any dangerous weapon or substance in any area:

(1) In which a declared state of emergency exists; or

(2) Within the immediate vicinity of which a riot is occurring.

It’s a Class 1 Misdemeanor.

The state of emergency issued by the governor, Beverly Purdue, covers the part of the state east of I95:

Governor Purdue made this declaration while the state was at work, meaning everyone who has a carry permit and lives east of Interstate 95 who was away from home instantly became a criminal by proclamation.

And geography aside, remember – it’s a law that only attacks the law-abiding!  Criminals aren’t putting their guns away, declaration or no!

It’s the sort of deeply, intensively stupid law that is the DFL’s stock in trade that Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill was, at least in part, intended to prevent.

All you gun-clinging Jebus freaks out there – next session, we need to hold the Legislature’s feet in the fire for this one.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

The BBC asks: Are brooms the sign of resistance to looters?

No, that’s a sign of capitulation to looters. That’s resignation that looting is inevitable and unstoppable so all we can do is clean up afterwards.

I’ll allow a few points for the British tradition of taciturnity and stoicism that got them through The Blitz – while averring that a foreign (would-be) invader is beyond the citizen’s control; civic violence is something that springs from one’s neighbors.

Doakes:

The sign of resistance to looters is this:

Korean shopkeepers, during the 1992 LA riots. From the blog "Ask A Korean"

The picture above is hotlinked from (and links to) “Ask A Korean” – a Korean immigrant who, to be fair, is pro-gun-control, and finds the image “dispiriting”.

I strongly disagree, of course. The picture – Americans (of whatever ancestry) pushing back mob rule and anarchy using their God-given right to keep and bear arms is inspiring – indeed, a thing of profound, if pointed and loaded (as it were), beauty.

Joel Rosenberg is holding a Legal Defense Fund fundraising dinner tonight:

Location: Chanhassen AmericInn conference room. Donations can be made at the door, or by contributing to the Legal Defense Fund either by mail or in person at any Wells Fargo location, in or out of Minnesota.

It’ll feature photographer and Second Amendment activist – and yes, he combines the two – Oleg Volk:

Oleg Volk will be both speaking and giving a photo presentation*.

Joel will be attending but, on advice of counsel, won’t be discussing pending legal matters.

All profits, after the room and the food are paid for, will go to the Legal Defense Fund. (Oleg and all of the servers — Joel, Felicia, Judy, Rachel, and friends — are donating their time, of course.) Attending registrations are limited to 40 people — the Fire Marshall insists — so please sign up in advance, if you can.

Note: the Legal Defense Fund is not a registered charity, and contributions are not tax-deductible. Alas.

Volk’s an interesting guy, and I hope you can make it.  I have family stuff tonight, but I’ll be donating via other means…

We’ve been covering the Joel Rosenberg  case.  Joel carried a handgun and knife into Minneapolis Police Department’s headquarters, leading him into a rhubarb (here, here and here) with a Sergeant Bill Palmer.  A month after the rhubarb, Hennepin County issued an arrest warrant, and held him for a couple of days (Joel was bailed late last week).

Now, I’m no lawyer.  But Mark Bennett is – a criminal defense lawyer in Texas – and last week he had a pretty sanguine view of Rosenberg’s chances both against the charges and in his future lawsuit against Hennepin county.

Joe Doakes of Saint Paul is also an attorney.  And he takes a rather different view.

Joel Rosenberg is charged with violating Minn. Stat. 609.66, Subd1(g), possession of a dangerous weapon in a courthouse complex.  I think he’s in grave danger of being convicted.

“Dangerous weapon” is defined in Minn. Stat. 609.02, Subd. 6 to include guns, of course, but also includes “. . . any device designed as a weapon and capable of producing death or great bodily harm . . . .”

Minn. Stat. 609.66, Subd. 1(g) (b) (2) provides an exception for persons carrying pistols pursuant to a valid permit, if that person gives notice to the Sheriff.  The method and timing of notice is not specified.   Joel claims he gave notice, the Complaint claims the Sheriff has no record of it.  This raises both a matter of legal interpretation (can you give notice once and it’s good forever, or must you give notice for each visit, and how far in advance) as well as a matter of proof (did he actually give the notice).

Rosenberg has pointed out that he has is notice on file.  Hopefully that won’t be an issue; I’m looking forward to seeing the county claiming that  you have to notify them before every visit…

Even assuming both go in Joel’s favor, the case is not ended.

A knife is capable of producing death.  A knife is a dangerous weapon within the meaning of Minn. Stat. 609.66.  If the office where the incident took place is part of a courthouse complex, then Joel’s gun may have been legal but his knife certainly was not.

Hm.

Of course, the big question has been “can a judge more or less arbitrarily call buildings “courthouses”…

Red: Henco Gov't Center - Green: City Hall, where Rosenberg was arrested.

…that, in fact, are not ?

“Courthouse complex” is not defined.  The statute does not specify who has authority to designate a building as being part of the “courthouse complex.”

Minnesota’s government is divided into three co-equal branches.  The legal doctrine of Separation of Powers means the Judicial Branch has exclusive authority over matters of judicial administration and judicial officers.  Lawyers, for example, are licensed not by the Executive Branch in the manner of electricians or land surveyors, but instead are licensed and disciplined by the Supreme Court.  Naturally, there is a great deal of overlap (for example, under Article VI, Section 5 of the Minnesota Constitution, judges’ salaries are set by the Legislature).  There is no clear line dividing the branches’ powers.

Minn. Stat. 484.77 provides the County Board must furnish suitable facilities for court purposes; thereafter, the County Board and the District Court must mutually agree upon relocation, renovation, etc.   To my knowledge, the Hennepin County Board has not designated any buildings to be part of a “courthouse complex.”

There is no specific statutory authority for judges to designate buildings as part of a “courthouse complex,” but because of the Separation of Powers doctrine, judges historically have had the power to maintain order in their own courts.  Bailiffs are Deputy Sheriffs (Executive Branch) but they are assigned to work under the control and direction of the court (Judicial Branch).

S0 – separation of powers is good.  So how about a branch of government using that separation to more-or-less arbitrarily decide which state law applies to them?

There is a standing Order designating the City Hall as being one of the “court facilities” for purposes of banning dangerous weapons. I assume “court facilities” is the functional equivalent of “courthouse complex.”  The Order was issued by Chief Judge James Swanson in 2008.  In my experience, it is unlikely for such an Order to be the work of one rogue judge; instead, all the judges on the Hennepin County bench likely agreed on the order and the Chief Judge signed it.

The Order states its authority to designate buildings as part of the court facilities for purposes of banning dangerous weapons is the inherent responsibility of the Judicial Branch to ensure order in the court.  Joel may argue that Judge Swanson lacked authority to issue the order because of Minn. Stat. 6624.714, Subd. 23, which provides: “No sheriff, police chief, governmental unit, government official, government employee, or other person or body acting under color of law or governmental authority may change, modify, or supplement these criteria or procedures, or limit the exercise of a permit to carry.”  But the named officers are Executive Branch officials.  Judges are conspicuously absent from the list perhaps because, under Separation of Powers, the Legislative Branch knew it lacked authority to tell the judicial branch how to run its shop.

When a statute is ambiguous, the courts look to the legislative history to determine the intent of the law.  The harm meant to be addressed by Subdivision 23 was the problem of local officials exercising discretion in issuance of carry permits and this subdivision cures that ill.  I don’t remember anybody testifying to the need to carry guns in courtrooms.  Reading this subdivision to limit the judicial branch’s inherent authority to maintain order in the courts is a stretch.

So is the Henco judge’s order “overly broad?”

Another possible argument is that the Order is overly broad because it lists entire buildings, not only those sections of the buildings used for courtroom purposes.  In contrast, the Ramsey County judges issued a similar order in May 2003 that limited the definition of “courthouse complex” to those areas of buildings where court activities took place, except where the layout of a building made that impossible (50 West Kellogg) in which case the entire building is designated.  Hennepin’s Order is not so narrowly tailored.

Over-breadth is a fact-specific analysis.  If it would be difficult or burdensome to reconfigure the building to segregate the courts portion from the rest of the users of the building, then designating the entire building as part of the “complex” probably would be found to be valid.  Certainly the local trial court judge will think so.  The Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court tend to defer to the trial court in matters of fact because the trial court had the best opportunity to assess the credibility of the witnesses and hear all the evidence.

And in places like Henco, if there’s one thing that’s more important than upholding state law, it’s never, ever offending the Chief Judge:

As a practical matter, no District Court judge is going to find that her own Chief Judge lacked authority to issue the Order or that it was over-broad.

Then, there’s the matter of the knife:

Assuming the trial judge finds the Chief Judge had authority to issue the Order designating the entire City Hall building as a courthouse, the statute prohibits knives as dangerous weapons.  Aside from Sgt. Bill Palmer’s word, is there any proof Joel had a knife?  Sadly, yes; Joel himself shot a video of it and posted it on YouTube.  But a YouTube video is not eyewitness testimony, it is hearsay; can that be used against him?  Sure, when Joel publicly posted the video and its taunting follow-up, he made an admission against interest, basically a voluntary confession, which is an exception to the hearsay rule.   It was an unforced error but it still goes against him.

If this goes to trial, Joel will be convicted and the conviction will be upheld on appeal.

Ouch.

More on this later today.

Now, Joel’s been on a mission for a while now.  Was there another way?

But he had no choice, right?  He had to carry the gun to bring a test case to have the Order thrown out, right?  What else could Joel have done to contest the overbreadth of the Order?

He could have filed an Application for the Writ of Prohibition under Rule 120 of the Minnesota Rules of Appellate Court Procedure.   That application asks the Court of Appeals to prohibit the Hennepin County court from enforcing its order.  The Court of Appeals then decides whether Judge Swenson had authority to issue the Order, and whether designating the entire building made the Order overly broad.  If Joel doesn’t like the Court of Appeals’ answer, he goes to the Supreme Court.  If he doesn’t like their answer, he goes to the Legislature for an amendment to the law.  But no matter how many times he loses in those places, he doesn’t go to jail.  The filing fee is $550, the attorneys will cost a couple of grand, he probably could get a group of people to join in the application (form a non-profit named “Citizens for Safer Courtrooms” and have it accept donations to fight the case).  That’s the proper way he should have proceeded.

Bear in mind, Joe is not a critic of Joel’s:

I like Joel.  He’s a great writer and a good teacher.  But this time, I think he’s stepped in it.  I suspect his preoccupation with his wife and daughter’s troubles prevented him from thinking the problem all the way through.

If he hadn’t brought the knife, if he hadn’t videotaped himself violating the Order, if he hadn’t published his confession on YouTube . . . maybe things would have worked out differently and I’d have been eager to stand behind him.  I’ve hit his Donate button on the Ellegon website out of respect for his past contributions to the carry movement, but I don’t think the carry community benefits from making his case a hill to die on.  I won’t be publicly supporting him.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

So to sum up – judges can walk all over the intent of state law because “separation of powers” allows them to.

Even if it means walking over it to attack people – carry permit holders – who are, statistically, two orders of magnitude less likely to commit crimes than the general public.  And I suspect that includes county judges.

More on this later this week.

Wanna good laugh for the  morning?

Here’s a scan from Henco’s complaint against Joel Rosenberg:

Now, as I’ve ascertained, I’m no lawyer.

But Mark Bennett is.  And he’s got the ultimate write-up, so far, of the Rosenberg case.  It’s over at his blog.

The warrant is for the felony of carrying a firearm in the courthouse. Because carrying a firearm in the courthouse complex is a felony—except for “persons who carry pistols according to the terms of a permit issued under section 624.714 and who so notify the sheriff or the commissioner of public safety, as appropriate“—which, oddly enough, is a category into which Joel neatly fits. And except that the city hall is not really a part of the courthouse complex, but a judge says it is.

The warrant is also for contempt of court because, you see, there was a judge’s order declaring the police station a courthouse (how many legs does a dog have, if a judge says that a tail is a leg?) and barring citizens from carrying firearms there—except that, among other problems, “no sheriff, police chief, governmental unit, government official, government employee, or other person or body acting under color of law or governmental authority may … limit the exercise of a permit to carry.”

Bennett, a defense attorney in Texas, points out the rather odd circumstances of  a judge INSERT A VERB a court order that didn’t even have a charge filled in:

Yes, it is in fact alleged that he DESCRIBE BEHAVIOR in contempt of the Hennepin County Juvenile Court. Now, I ask you: can we really have people like Joel Rosenberg going around DESCRIBE BEHAVIOR? I say not, and I say we should DESCRIBE KANGAROO PROCEDURE and then DESCRIBE BIZARRE AND PAINFUL PUNISHMENT them.

I don’t ordinarily pick on other people’s judges—Texas being a target-rich environment—but what kind of Ruben-Guerrero judge is Janet Poston, to sign an arrest warrant based on the allegation that someone has DESCRIBE BEHAVIOR? She didn’t even bother to read the papers.

Conclusion?

So Rosenberg will sit in jail dealing with his health problems, and Rosenberg will fight the case, and Rosenberg will win the case. And, before all is said and done, Sergeant Palmer’s little self-esteem-fluffing exercise will cost the city a pretty penny.

Read the whole thing.

And I hope that when Joel’s lawsuit is over he has the City of Minneapolis by the DESCRIBE A TENDER PIECE OF ANATOMY, and walks out with DESCRIBE ABSURD AMOUNT OF MONEY.

…Joel Rosenberg’s hearing is in Room 142 at the Courthouse.

He is apparently under arrest and charged with a felonly for obeying existing state law.

He could use the support.  Wish I could get there…

Joel Rosenberg got arrested yesterday while at Minneapolis City Hall.

The Strib has the story – relating the same story we did earlier (parts I, II and III) – and then yesterday’s “incidence”,  sort of:

On Wednesday, Rosenberg was booked into the county jail on charges of possession of a dangerous weapon in a courthouse, a felony, and contempt of court, a misdemeanor.

City Hall is part of the courthouse complex because it houses conciliation court on the third floor, the charges say. A sign posted in the hallway that connects City Hall with the county Government Center states that weapons are prohibited by district court order.

Rosenberg was being held in jail Wednesday night in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Rosenberg, of course, contents that the county’s “court order” barring guns in the hands of legally-permitted carriers from county courts conflicts with state law.

His court appearance is scheduled 1:30 this afternoon.

Here’s Part III of Joel Rosenberg’s side of his encounter with Minneapolis Police sergeant Bill Palmer last month.

The incident was the subject of a fairly egregious bit of lousy reporting by the City Pages, among others.

———-

Part Two: The Contempt of Court that Joel Didn’t Commit

By Joel Rosenberg

And so, we finally arrive at the point of this particular part of the exercise, where we get to the crimes that Bill Palmer committed when he lunged at me, took my gun without authority, acting under color of law and authority, and only gave it back — and only let me continue to examine the public data that he, as MPD Data Practices Officer, had invited me to Tim Dolan’s office to examine — when I submitted to his unlawful order to remove it from City Hall.

And, let’s once again, look at the law, as it’s written, with some emphasis added.

609.27 COERCION.

Subdivision 1. Acts constituting. Whoever orally or in writing makes any of the following threats and thereby causes another against the other’s will to do any act or forbear doing a lawful act is guilty of coercion and may be sentenced as provided in subdivision 2:

(1) a threat to unlawfully inflict bodily harm upon, or hold in confinement, the person threatened or another, when robbery or attempt to rob is not committed thereby; or

(2) a threat to unlawfully inflict damage to the property of the person threatened or another; or

(3) a threat to unlawfully injure a trade, business, profession, or calling; or

(4) a threat to expose a secret or deformity, publish a defamatory statement, or otherwise to expose any person to disgrace or ridicule; or

(5) a threat to make or cause to be made a criminal charge, whether true or false; provided, that a warning of the consequences of a future violation of law given in good faith by a peace officer or prosecuting attorney to any person shall not be deemed a threat for the purposes of this section.

Subd. 2.Sentence.

Whoever violates subdivision 1 may be sentenced as follows:

(1) to imprisonment for not more than 90 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $1,000, or both if neither the pecuniary gain received by the violator nor the loss suffered by the person threatened or another as a result of the threat exceeds $300, or the benefits received or harm sustained are not susceptible of pecuniary measurement; or

(2) to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both, if such pecuniary gain or loss is more than $300 but less than $2,500; or

(3) to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both, if such pecuniary gain or loss is $2,500, or more.

History: 1963 c 753 art 1 s 609.27; 1971 c 23 s 40; 1977 c 355 s 7; 1983 c 359 s 87; 1984 c 628 art 3 s 11; 1986 c 444; 2004 c 228 art 1 s 72

609.43 MISCONDUCT OF PUBLIC OFFICER OR EMPLOYEE.

A public officer or employee who does any of the following, for which no other sentence is specifically provided by law, may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than one year or to payment of a fine of not more than $3,000, or both:

(1) intentionally fails or refuses to perform a known mandatory, nondiscretionary, ministerial duty of the office or employment within the time or in the manner required by law; or

(2) in the capacity of such officer or employee, does an act knowing it is in excess of lawful authority or knowing it is forbidden by law to be done in that capacity; or

(3) under pretense or color of official authority intentionally and unlawfully injures another in the other’s person, property, or rights; or

(4) in the capacity of such officer or employee, makes a return, certificate, official report, or other like document having knowledge it is false in any material respect.

History: 1963 c 753 art 1 s 609.43; 1984 c 628 art 3 s 11; 1986 c 444

Lets review the bidding, shall we?

Palmer threatened to arrest me if I didn’t leave. He had no right to arrest me; none at all, regardless of his interpretation of the court order. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) Doesn’t matter what the judge’s interpretation of the court order is, either, for the same reason. It’s null and void, and WOULD BE constitutionally overbroad with regard to the Minneapolis City Hall, if it applied to City Hall at all.

It doesn’t. I’ll get back to that again.

Whoever orally … makes any of the following threats and thereby causes another against the other’s will to do any act or forbear doing a lawful act is guilty of coercion….

a threat to unlawfully…hold in confinement…. (that’s the threat of arrest that Palmer made, repeatedly. Let’s keep going) a threat to make or cause to be made a criminal charge

609.43 Misconduct of a public officer …

A public officer or employee …. does an act knowing it is in excess of lawful authority… or intentionally and unlawfully injures another in the other’s rights…

Which is why Palmer’s lawyered up.

One last, minor thing. “But wait, you say; there was a court order for Minneapolis City Hall at 300 South Fifth Street. It might be questionable, but until the courts determine that it’s invalid, you have to abide by it, Joel. That court order, just as it was written, was effective on that date — Craig Steiner, the head of Minneapolis Data Practices, told you so.”

And I’ve shared with you a copy of that court order, which was, arguably (not very, but a weak argument could be made) effective on that date for 300 South Fifth Street, Minneapolis City Hall.

Let’s take Bill Palmer’s word for it that he was familiar with this court order. He’d read it, he studied it, and by God he was going to enforce it. He was going to grab me, to threaten me to compel me not to carry at 300 South Fifth Street.

The address of Minneapolis City Hall, though, is at 350 South 5th Street. It says so, right on their official web page.

Hell, you can ask Bill Palmer that. He should know. He works there. At 350th South 5th Street.

Ask him, but remember, he does have the right to remain silent. He had that right in Tim Dolan’s office, too. He had the right to remain silent; he had the right to keep his hands to himself; he had the right to not engage in coercion or misconduct. He had every right to not grab my property — and no right whatsoever to take it, without my permission — at all. He had no right to hold it as a hostage to my compliance to his unlawful demands.

He had the right to not commit any crime at all.

He did not, however, have the ability.

Too bad that you can’t find a City Attorney around when you need one to draw up a summons and warrant, isn’t it?

Susan Seigel, Minneapolis City Attorney: please have one of your prosecutors draw up papers and charge the son of a bitch?

Thanks in advance.

More on this story coming up, I have a hunch, this week.

A few weeks ago, I ran the first part of a three-part series by Joel Rosenberg regarding his confrontation with Minneapolis Police sergeant Bill Palmer.

The confrontation was captured on video.

The City Pages tittered about the story, but really didn’t understand it.

Here’s Part II.  Part III follows later today.

Part Two: The Contempt of Court that Joel Didn’t Commit

By Joel Rosenberg

When last we left our heroes, we were about to take a look at the court order that poor Bill Palmer couldn’t find, and which he pretended to be trying to enforce. He knew better, which is why he didn’t arrest me.

Here it is:

———-WHEREAS it is the court’s responsibility to ensure the proper, safe, and orderly administratio nof justice throughout Hennepin County coutr facilities, and

WHEREAS the Court has a weapons policy in place since July 12, 1995 that prohibits any firearm or other weapons from being taken into a courtroom or the environs of any other juvenile justice or other court facility witin Hennepin County except under certain conditions described below,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that all persons, exept as provided in this Order, are prohibited form having weapons on their person or in their possession in Hennepin County court facilities, regardless of whether or not they have a firearms permit, and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that persons entering Hennepin County court facilities may be subject to screening for weapons upon entry; anyone refusing to submit to such searches shall be refused admission, and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all weapons, including but not limited to firearms and any related ammunition, stun guns, taser weapons, and replica or toy guns shall be removed form said persons before they are allowed to proceed further into the court facility and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this order shall not apply to licensed peace officers or federally authorized law enforcement agents in the performance of their official duties. Only law enforcement personnel empowered by law to carry weapons may enter a court facility with a weapon. The peace officer exception to the Order shall not apply to officers present in court as private parties, support persons, or to provide testimony not required by their job duties, and

IT IS FURTHE RORDERED that weapons be used as an exhibit in an official proceeding may be taking into a courtroom or any other court facility only fter they have been checked for safety by the Hennepin County Sheriff or HSeriff’s designee, e sealed in a transparent vinyl tape envelope or otherwise be secured to ensure security during the proceedings by a peace offier in the performance of official duties, and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Hennepin County Court facilities include:

1. Hennepin Government Center

300 South Sixth Street, Minneapolis

2. Minneapolis City Hall,

300 Wouth Fifth Street, Minneapolis

3. District Court Division II – Brookdale

6125 Shingle Creek Parkway, Brooklyn Center

4. Disrict Court Division III – Ridgedale,

12601 Ridgedale Drive, Minnetonka

5. District Court Division IV – Southdale

7009 York Drive, Edina

6. Hennepin County Public Safety Facility

401 South Fourth Avenue, Minneapolis

7. Hennepin County Family Justice Center

110 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis

8. Hennepin County Juvenile Justice Center

626 South Sixth Street, Minneapolis

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that any person violating this Order shall be suejct to being held in contempt of court and may be subject to a jail sentence.

This Order is effective immediately.

Date: 9/28/08

———-

Interesting, isn’t it? The judge appears to have decided that Minneapolis City Hall is part of the Hennepin County Court complex.

How’s that work? Can the judge decide that a radius of a thousand miles from his bench is part of the court complex? How about fifty? How about the McDonald’s across the street? How about Minneapolis City Hall?

Well, there’s actually just a touch of logic to that — there are courtrooms in City Hall. They’re not used all that often, I understand, but when they are being used by a judge for official county business, the order would clearly apply.

But the rest of it? Nah. It’s what’s called “unconstitutionally broad.” Ask your favorite law professor; I’ve asked more than one of mine.

Here’s what one said:

“This covers entire buildings where courtrooms and court office space are only a portion, often small and temporary, of the entire facility. A good example is the Minneapolis city hall. This order is OVERBROAD [his emphasis. JR].”

In practice, the order is enforced, almost all the time, perfectly legitimately, by the HCSO: outside the security zone of the courthouse, no problem; permit holders come and go, carrying if they please as they do whatever business they have with the courts. Before going into the zone, the permit holder disarms, and stores his weapons somewhere — typically, out in the car.

Easy, peasy.

Also in practice: Tim Dolan and the badged bullies of the MPD have been using their willfully false “interpretation” of the order to bully permit holders into not carrying anywhere in city hall. But they don’t *dare* actually arrest somebody who has, like me, given notice (covering the felony issue, even if you believe that, say, the janitor’s closet in City Hall is a courtroom).

Why? Because they know that the order, being overboard, is utterly unenforceable.

And if they try to enforce it?

That’s for the last chapter: The Crimes Bill Palmer Committed.

Later today – where Palmer allegedly messed up.

The other day, we ran the video of Joel Rosenberg’s encounter with Minneapolis Police sergeant Bill Palmer, along with some derisive catcalls at the City Pages’ “coverage” of the incident.

Joel is, I should add for those who don’t follow science fiction literature or Second Amendment law, both a science fiction writer and the author of the definitive concealed carry bibles for both Minnesota and Missouri (?). 

Among many other things.

The following is Part I of Joel’s account of his encounter with Sergeant Palmer.

———-
The Palmer Fiasco:  Part One:  Why Joel Isn’t A Criminal

By Joel Rosenberg

A few preparatory matters…

The Palmer Fiasco is only a small part of what’s going on. I could get into the malicious, false arrest of my wife the dismissal of the charges, once she and her lawyer made it clear that they weren’t interested in a plea, but her complete and total exoneration; and, last weekend, the reinstatement of the charges against her. I could get into the data practices requests I’ve been making, and Bill Palmer’s unlawful demand for money before he started to do his job. I could get into the connection to http://gangstrikefarce.com, and how I told Jesse Garcia of the Minneapolis Police Department that I had been working on a book on that, before I ran into a much, much bigger story.

But I’ll save that for another time, and just point whoever’s interested to http://familymatterii.com. There’s a lot going on. Leave it at that, for now.

In order to understand the crimes that Bill Palmer committed—that’s crimes, plural—you have to know a little law, both in statute, and in practice.

[Continued after the jump]

(more…)

Joel Rosenberg – firearms instsructor to the stars – has been involved in an ongoing kerfuffle with the City of Minneapolis.  And when I say “kerfuffle”, I mean “series of intricately interlocking kerfuffles” complex enough to warrant a book of their own (which one might expect Rosenberg, a science fiction writer with a long bibliography, to be working on).

Last month, he got into a kerfuffle – I guess it’d be a “sub-kerfuffle” in this case – with Minneapolis Police Department Sergeant William Palmer when he went to a pre-arranged interview with Palmer at the MPD headquarters.  He was carrying a number of handguns openly.

Here’s the video of the event (most of the action is right up front):

Now, “Erin Carlyle” at the City Pages – former alt-journalism powerhouse, now a glorified small-college newspaper – ht tackles the story in a way that’d do the late Twin Cities Reader’s Margarete Grebe proud in terms of pure incurious superfluity.

Because besides the names of the people involved and the location of the incident, Carlyle gets pretty much everything wrong:

Joel Rosenberg tried to bring a gun into the Minneapolis Police headquarters and the cops wouldn’t let him.

Now Rosenberg is accusing the cop who took his gun of assault.

Er, yeah. We’ll come back to that.

Earlier this month, Rosenberg, who says he is ascience fiction writerand handgun instructor,

…which is something he “says” because he is a sci-fi author of some renown, and one of the state’s leading handgun instructors – including mine.

paid a visit to the MPD chief’s office to pick up some documents he’d requested. Sgt. William Palmer, the public information officer, saw that Rosenberg was packing, and asked him to dump the gun. Rosenberg refused. He insisted he had the right to wear his gun.

Palmer explained that a court order prevented him from carrying the gun. Rosenberg disagreed.

So Palmer physically took the gun away from Rosenberg and unloaded the cartridge. He handed it back when Rosenberg agreed to put the gun in his car.

And if you left it right there, it’d seem like a Catskills comedian’s joke; “A cop and a gun nut walk into the lobby of the cop shop…”

But Ms. Carlyle didn’t apparently see fit to report that Rosenberg’s “accusation” resulted in Rosenberg walking away from the event scot-free, but Palmer looking at potential legal nastiness. 

Ms. Carlyle apparently either didn’t bother to check that out, or think it was important for her smug, cossetted, know-it-all liberal audience to know it.

What’s the rest of the story? 

More tomorrow in Shot In The Dark.

Remember all those shootings in Obama’s Chicago?  The gang warfare that’s made Chicago just about the most dangerous city between Juarez and Kandahar?

Maybe not – the national media has been pretty hands-off on “gun violence” in Chicago since The One’s ascenscion.

And it turns out that it’s even worse than the shooting figures indicate; in the event they catch a shooter, they can’t seem to put ’em in jail:

The Chicago Sun-Times tells “the story of why they won’t stop shooting in Chicago.” The newspaper said the story is told “by by the wounded, the accused and the officers who were on the street during a 2008 weekend when 40 people were shot, seven fatally.” Two years later, nearly all the shooters from that weekend have escaped charges. “You don’t go to jail for shooting people,” says Dontae Gamble, who took six bullets that weekend, only to see his alleged shooter walk free. So far, not one accused shooter has been convicted of pulling the trigger during those deadly 59 hours from April 18-20 of that year, a Sun-Times investigation found.

Only one suspected triggerman — a convicted armed robber caught with the AK-47 he allegedly used to blow away his boss — is in jail awaiting trial. Three other victims said they know who shot them but refused to testify. Six murders from the weekend remain unsolved. Time’s running out to catch the bad guys who shot 29 other people because there’s a three-year statute of limitations on aggravated batteries with firearms. The Chicago police batting average for catching shooters has fallen to an alarmingly low level. Detectives cleared 18 percent of the 1,812 non-fatal shootings last year. They were slightly better in catching killers — 30 percent of murders were cleared. Even though detectives cleared 18 percent of non-fatal shootings last year, almost half of those were cleared “exceptionally,” records show. That means more than 90 percent of those gunmen weren’t charged.

But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, don’t let people defend themselves Mayor Daley!  If you can’t do it, why should they?

Richard Daley, mayor of the most corrupt, crime-ridden city in the United States, a place where gangs roam freely, shooting and terrorizing at will, wants to defy the  spirit of the McDonald decision by ramming through gun laws marginally less intrusive than the Sullivan Act:

“As long as I’m mayor, we will never give up or give in to gun violence that continues to threaten every part of our nation, including Chicago,” said Daley, who was flanked by activists, city officials and the parents of a teenager whose son was shot and killed on a city bus while shielding a friend.

Oh, Daley.  Daley, you corrupt, authoritarian psycho.  Did you explain to the stage props with the murdered son that the people who killed their son don’t obey gun laws?

The ordinance, which Daley urged the City Council to pass, also would :

• Limit the number of handguns residents can register to one per month and prohibit residents from having more than one handgun in operating order at any given time.
• Require residents in homes with children to keep them in lock boxes or equipped with trigger locks.
• Require prospective gun owners to take a four-hour class and one-hour training at a gun range. They would have to leave the city for training because Chicago prohibits new gun ranges and limits the use of existing ranges to police officers. Those restrictions were similar to those in an ordinance passed in Washington, D.C., after the high court struck down its ban two years ago.
• Prohibit people from owning a gun if they were convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Residents convicted of a gun offense would have to register with the police department.
• Calls for the police department to maintain a registry of every handgun owner in the city, with the names and addresses to be made available to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders.

Those who already have handguns in the city — which has been illegal since the city’s ban was approved 28 years ago — would have 90 days to register those weapons, according to the proposed ordinance.

Residents convicted of violating the city’s ordinance can face a fine up to $5,000 and be locked up for as long as 90 days for a first offense and a fine of up to $10,000 and as long as six months behind bars for subsequent convictions.

Just goes to prove the old adage; “you can lead East Germans to the hole in The Wall, but you can’t make them go through”.

To:  Mayor Richard Daley

From: Mitch Berg, Real American

Re:  Your priorities

Mayor Daley,

Your city is overrun by gang-bangers who, despite your gun ban, make your city more violent than Baghdad today.

Your city is broke – and that great legacy of your city’s corrupt, stupid system, Barack Obama, is doing the same to the rest of the nation.

So now that the Supreme Court has strapped your city’s moronic gun ban – itself a racist concoction and a legacy of your notoriously corrupt father’s tenure in office – into the chair and gotten the switch ready to flip, I suppose it makes sense that you’ll focus on the “real problem”, the law-abiding gun owner:

As expected, Mayor Daley and Chicago’s City Council are circling the wagons to defend against an unfavorable decision by the Supreme Court concerning the city’s gun ban.

Daley said the city would have in place a new ordinance aimed at making it difficult to purchase and own a gun in Chicago.

“We’ll publicly propose a new ordinance very soon,” Daley said at an afternoon press conference concerning the gun ban.

Great to see you’ve got your priorities straight.

That is all.

As Real America celebrates the judicial whack the SCOTUS gave the City of Chicago, even the ChiTrib notes how miserably Chicago’s gun ban has failed; Justice Alito, in his majority opinion, noted:

“[A group of Democratic Illinois legislators who proposed calling in the National Guard to try to re-take Chicago’s blood-drenched streets] noted that the number of Chicago homicide victims during the current year equaled the number of American soldiers killed during that same period in Afghanistan and Iraq,” the opinion stated.

“If (the) safety of . . . law abiding members of the community would be enhanced by the possession of handguns in the home for self-defense, then the Second Amendment right protects the rights of minorities and other residents of high-crime areas whose needs are not being met by elected public officials.”

If you can say anything about the government of Chicago, it’s that it doesn’t meet the needs of the people for safety.

And if there’s anything we can count on Richard Daley for, it’s that he’ll do his best to reinforce failure.

Just what kind of idiot is Chicago’s mayor?

In an interview with the Tribune, the mayor said his primary goal would be to protect police officers, paramedics and emergency workers from being shot when responding to an incident at a home.

Right – because cop-killers obey gun bans.

Now, if the NRA doesn’t print Daley’s next statement on T-shirts, and if the GOP doesn’t post it on billboards, and if the Illinois Tea Party isn’t harping on it at the top of their lungs, then all of them need to leave their jobs and never come back:

 He said he also wants to save taxpayers from the financial cost of lawsuits if police shoot someone in the house because the officer felt threatened.

Got that?   The law-abiding should remain unprotected so Daley’s cops don’t get the city in trouble for blazing away at people in their own homes.

It’s East Germany on Lake Michigan.

Come to think of it, maybe they do need the National Guard. 

They should storm City Hall.