February 15, 2019 Newsletter by Jeff Pittman
MS Legislation update.
Apologies to list members not in Mississippi.
I missed a few bills in my previous reports, probably due to their not being posted on the legislature’s website at the time I compiled my report. Here’s my latest status report. Still not guaranteed to be complete, or even completely accurate. The next deadline is March 5 for committee action on general bills and constitutional amendments originating in OTHER House.
You can read the bills and keep up with their status at https://www.legislature.ms.gov/Pages/default.aspx — Go to Legislation. See All Measures (Not Dead).
HB 21
Rep. Shirley
Passed Jud B, Passed full House
Makes the murder of a utility worker a capital offense.
HB 390
Rep. Bounds
Passed Jud B, Passed full House
Clarifies that “qualified retired law enforcement officers” mentioned in the church security law may be members of an armed church security program, and are eligible for the civil immunity provided under the law.
HB 397
Rep. Scoggin
Passed Jud A, Passed full House
Allows law enforcement agencies to use proceeds from the sales of seized weapons to be used at their discretion rather than only to buy body armor.
HB1505
Rep. Clarke
Died in Jud B
Prohibits shooting guns “near” any business or property that contains flammable or explosive petroleum products. Felony offense.
HB1581
Reps. Cockerham, White
PASSED Jud B
Clarifies that “courtroom” includes a judge’s chamber, witness room and jury room or similar, and does not include hallways, courtroom entrances, courthouse grounds, lobbies, corridors, or other generally public areas on courthouse property, for purposes of legal CCW.
HB1582
Reps. Cockerham, Scoggin
Died in Jud B
Prohibits legal CCW in any medical facilities except with enhanced permit.
SB2868
Sen. Younger
Died in Jud A
Removes allowance in state law for an employer to prohibit guns in employee’s cars on employer’s property.
Administrative Forfeiture Lesson
Ever heard of due process? Presumption of innocence?
- Asset Forfeiture: Lessons from Mississippi [National Review]
Litigation
Predictably, the much-reversed leftist US Ninth Circus Court of Appeals says it will re-hear a case previously ruled in favor of the Constitution.
Also from the Ninth Circuit, a California law which requires that all new models of semi-automatic handguns stamp the handgun’s serial number in two locations on each round of ammunition, an apparent impossibility which has the effect of banning all handgun models created since early 2013, is Constitutional. A pending cert. petition asks the US Supreme Court to consider the question.
AG Nominee Barr Confirmed
The US Senate voted 54-45, to confirm anti-gun William Barr as US Attorney General. Write-ups here and here.
About those school shooting drills
- “Tragically Misguided” School Shooter Drills [Active Response Training]
Gun Permit Demand Surges in Chicago Area
MS burglaries
A Safehome.org study based on FBI crime data says Mississippi ranks second in the nation for the most home burglaries, and that 30% of the state’s break-ins happened in rural areas. I live in a rural area. Fortunately, I have property with limited access, a monitored alarm system, several large dogs, and a crotchety old man who’s home all the time.
Enemy Action Report
Smith & Wesson announced last week it will not pursue so-called smart guns or abandon any of its current product line despite pressure from a group of left-wing activist investors. An accompanying report prepared by the S&W’s parent company, American Outdoor Brands, on potential “reputational risk” associated with gun violence in the US and efforts it was making to develop guns with electronic locks or GPS monitors was produced after the group of investors, who bought shares in the company with the express purpose of trying to change its internal policies, were able to win a vote forcing them to do so. The report found customers don’t blame S&W for criminal acts committed with firearms, that smart gun technology is “neither reliable nor commercially viable at this time,” and the company’s performance and reputation “are rooted in Smith & Wesson being a strong defender of the Second Amendment.”
Ruger similarly responded to the same report requirement by essentially saying that the troublesome investors could go jump in a lake, that they couldn’t force Ruger to do anything beyond producing the report, and they were free to leave Ruger and invest elsewhere.
The enemies?
The Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary of Marylhurst, Oregon, brought these shareholder resolutions to both companies. More accurately, it’s the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a group of 300-plus religious investors who pushed the issue with The Sisters leading the way.
More enemies
Gun-grabbing space cadet Mark Kelly (Gabby Giffords husband) has announced his campaign as a Democrat for the US Senate in Arizona, competing for John McCain’s old seat, which is currently held by Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who was appointed to the seat. As far as we can tell, Kelly’s only claimed qualification is that he is married to the victim of a shooting. Kelly’s campaign reported raising $1.1M the first day.
This week the nation’s two largest education unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, reiterated their opposition to allowing armed teachers and staff members as a response to school shootings, falsely claiming that more guns on campuses will make them less safe, because, they say, students might steal teachers’ guns, responding officers might confuse an armed teacher for the shooter, and teachers are horrendously bad shots: “An armed teacher is much more likely to hit a student bystander or be shot by law enforcement than to be an effective solution to an active shooter in a school.” It’s hard to find a more uneducated bunch than these “education” unions.
ATF caught with its pants down. Again.
One of those should-be-nameless Parkland children who was apparently never shot at but is famous in liberal lamestream media circles anyway, says that those who own AR-15s and similar rifles are not interested in self-defense but in hunting human beings: “If you’re using a weapon with an effective range of over 1,500 meters (sic), you are not defending yourself. You are hunting a human being.” Hence the term “evil black rifle,” because according to the left, if you own one you are evil. Tell you what, buddy — stay over 1,500 meters away from everyone and we won’t have any problems.
Department of Idiocy
SHOT thefts
Thieves stole 29 firearms, including machine guns, and 36 suppressors from the SHOT show in Las Vegas last month. Caught trying to find replacement firing pins.
The Only Ones
An unidentified Boston (MA) police officer accused two strippers of stealing a handgun from him while he was “hanging out” with them in his hotel room in Pawtucket (RI). Police arrested the two women and recovered the officer’s service weapon hours after he’d reported it stolen. It seems he had left the gun locked with a cable lock inside his car but later lent his keys to one of the thieves.
Former Cypress (CA) police officer Michael Munoz, 61, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly shot at and grazed a fleeing but nonthreatening misdemeanor shoplifting suspect in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Riverside last weekend.
An 18-year NYPD detective, who was working on a separate, unrelated case, was fatally shot Tuesday night by “friendly fire” during a robbery attempt when he and six other officers responding to the call fired a total of 42 rounds at the suspect, who was holding a fake gun. The detective’s supervisor was working with him and was also shot (in the leg).
Obit
John Dingell, the gruff Michigan Democrat who entered the US House of Representatives in 1955 to finish his late father’s term and went on to become the longest-serving member of Congress, died last week at the age of 92. Dingell was perhaps best known as co-author of the Dingell–Johnson Act, also called the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act, a 1950 federal law that authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to provide financial assistance for state fish restoration and management plans and projects. Dingell was also described as an avid sportsman and hunter, strongly opposed gun control, and was a former board member of the NRA, from which he received an A+ rating for many years. Dingell helped make firearms exempt from the 1972 Consumer Product Safety Act so that the Consumer Product Safety Commission had no authority to continue practicing gun control. Dingell’s wife, Debbie, who was elected to succeed him, introduced legislation in 2018 to remove this exemption from the law, endorsed Hillary for president in 2016 and pushes the usual unconstitutional infringements to “keep guns out of the hands of wrong people.” Mr. Dingell also coined the much-maligned “jackbooted thugs” description of ATF back in 1981, saying “If I were to select a jackbooted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick A.T.F.”
Fun
Mail bomb?
Robbery in progress
Lubrication 101
- Gun oil, snake oil, and how to tell the difference [Grant Cunningham]
Products
Ripcord speedloader test/review.
New AR-10 Cartridge: .475 Bishop Short Magnum — 390 grains at 2,500 fps. That’s a bit more than a .416 Rem. Mag. Around $9 per pop.
Wild West Guns’ new .30 WWG and .35 WWG cartridges are created by necking down their .457 WWG cartridge case to .308 and .358 calibers, offering 150 and 180-grain bullets at 3,000 and 2,850 fps, respectively.
