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PA: Self-defense, or gun-happy cop?
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...an off-duty officer who fatally shot a young man during a large street fight Saturday night is a bully who's maced their kids and brandished his gun around the neighborhood for years.
Police said that the officer had been trying to break up a street brawl about 11 p.m. when he was attacked, leading him to shoot unarmed William "Billy" Panas Jr., 21, once in the chest.
But Port Richmond residents, who identified the officer as Sgt. Frank Tepper, said that the fight had spilled out from a party at Tepper's own home on Elkhart Street near Edgemont, and that many of his relatives, including his own son, had been involved.
Several neighbors also claimed that Tepper was visibly intoxicated when the shooting occurred. |
IL: East St. Louis robber shot in self defense by store clerk
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One violent robber was fatally shot after he and three accomplices attempted to rob an East St. Louis, IL convenience store.
Police say that four armed robbers forced their way in through the locked front door of the Quality Market at about 3:00 AM. The robbers are said to have rushed toward the 21 year old clerk, who grabbed his self defense pistol. The robbers reportedly attacked the clerk, at which point one of the robbers was shot in the chest. The uninjured robbers grabbed their injured accomplice and fled, according to police. The injured robber reportedly died of his wounds at a nearby hospital, and two suspects who accompanied him to the hospital were arrested. |
AL: Stabbing may be ruled self-defense
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Tuscaloosa Sheriff’s deputies were called to the emergency department at DCH Regional Medical Center about midnight Sunday because there was a 26-year-old being treated for stab wounds to the abdomen, said Capt. Loyd Baker, commander of the Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit.
Investigators believe the victim, whose sex and name were not released, went to a house in the 14000 block of John Tyler Road to confront a resident about money, Baker said. During the exchange, the stabbing victim hit the resident with a shovel, Baker said. |
WA: Why was man arrested after shooting burglar at his home?
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Q: Why was the man in Arlington arrested after he shot a man breaking into his house? Isn't that self-defense?
A: That case, in which the burglar was fleeing, was not considered self-defense.
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Last week, Dave Workman, author of "Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities" wrote about the case and law on his blog.
"Certainly the public is frustrated with the criminal court system, which seems dysfunctional more often than not," he wrote. "And it is equally frustrating to find a culprit with your property in his hands and be limited by law from dispensing a little street justice, but that sort of thing only happens on film. |
PA: Pa. Lawmakers Consider Self-Defense Reform Bill
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An attorney for the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee says he doesn’t know if or when the panel will vote on a controversial bill that would change the legal principles for use of deadly force in self-defense.
The committee heard testimony on the measure last week.
The bill would eliminate the mandate that people facing a threat in public places retreat to safety if possible. And while current Pennsylvania law allows deadly force against an intruder who has entered a home, the bill would expand the definition of a home to include decks, patios, and porches. |
Cato Files Brief to Extend Second Amendment Rights, Provide Protections for Privileges or Immunities
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Now Cato, joined by the Pacific Legal Foundation, has filed a brief supporting those challenging the handgun ban — who are represented by Alan Gura, the lawyer who successfully argued Heller — and calling for an overruling of the Slaughter-House Cases, which eviscerated the Privileges or Immunities Clause in 1873. Slaughter-House narrowly circumscribed the rights protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause, contrary to the intentions of the Amendment’s framers and in direct contradiction to the developments in legal theory that underlay its adoption. |
Disarming the military
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Mark A. Taff
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When oh when will the psychos and jihadists respect our government's gun-free zones? Can't they read? All military posts are gun-free zones where the soldiers are legally disarmed, even if they have a conceal carry license....
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I am writing this letter to request that those who care about the safety of our soldiers and government employees to please contact either your legislators or, if military, your chain of command. It is truly ironic that in many ways we are safer overseas. As a Fort Hood wife put it, "At least over there he can shoot back."
Please consider this bit of folk wisdom proven to be so sadly true: "When seconds count, law enforcement is only minutes away." |
CA: Letter: School has no right to expel student
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Mark A. Taff
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The expulsion of Gary Tudesko by the Willows Unified School District is a dire violation of that student's civil rights. The lawful taking of game and transportation of firearms seem to have been followed by the victim in this case. There are several points of contention with district policy and state law:
1. The state's 1,000-foot firearm exclusion around schools is a violation of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment equal protection clause.
2. The firearms were between his home and the place he last legally used them according to the State Fish and Game laws and, based on your story, the non concealable firearms were being transported legally.
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FL: "Stand Your Ground" law a defense against animals?
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A man is facing third degree felony charges for shooting an endangered black bear in his back yard and wants to use the "Stand Your Ground" law as his defense.
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"It's a unique legal argument in the sense that this immunity statute has only been around since 2005 and we're trying to use that statute to justify Mr. Doerr's actions - that he was lawful in shooting that bear," Viacava said.
Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law protects citizens against criminal prosecution who use deadly force in self-defense.
The prosecution argues that it's illegal to kill an endangered species and that Mr. Doerr was not acting in self-defense because made a statement to police the bear was not acting aggressively. |
From the Horses' Mouths: The 'Politically Correct' View of Our Founders
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"The right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense is justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the law of society."
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England.
"Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense."
Ed.: A large collection of quotes from the Founders, as well as more recent quotes. |
NE: Chief: Gun rules must be followed
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Omaha police must both protect the public and follow the rules that govern officers' use of their weapons, acting Omaha Police Chief Alex Hayes said Monday after a weekend in which two officers fired at suspects in less than 48 hours.
Investigators still are gathering details about a shooting involving two off-duty officers that occurred early Sunday outside Cheaters bar at 40th and Farnam Streets.
A witness said one of the two officers providing security at the bar yelled for the driver of an SUV to stop after someone threw a bottle into a crowd outside the bar. The officer then fired four or five times as the vehicle sped away, the witness said. One man in the car was shot. |
Gun Control: a doctor's view of wound treatment
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We know rather well the trauma that comes with having to shoot someone in self-defense. Every year, 2.5 million gun owners de-escalate a violent act, and only a very small percentage of them - about 1% in 2008's citizen justifiable homicides – believe they had to fire the weapon. 99% manage to stop the crime without firing.
That's a lot of good judgment and self-restraint. That's a lot of non-crime and a lot of non-shootings that could have happened, and did not. What might have happened is far worse than what had to happen in preventing it. It's wrong to discourage life-saving action because how it might make you feel. It could make you feel alive.
Ed.: A lot of good bits in this article. |
OH: Gov. Ted Strickland grants clemency to 78 people
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Among the others whose sentences were commuted by Strickland is Sonya Jackson, an East Cleveland woman who was convicted of aggravated murder in 1998 for the stabbing death of her boyfriend Jerome Moorer. She had claimed self-defense, saying that Moorer had attacked her with a lead pipe, but prosecutors said Moorer was defending himself from Jackson's knife attack. Strickland commuted her sentence so she is now eligible for parole if the state parole board agrees to grant it.
In the Jackson case, Strickland said he was convinced that she was being abused in her relationship and that she got a harsher sentence than others in similar circumstances. |
TX: Gun rights for all, Hutchison says
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Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison continues her gun rights push - probably her strongest claim to the affections of conservative voters.
Today, she and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., filed a friend of the court brief at the Supreme Court in McDonald v. City of Chicago - the next big gun rights case since the high court's ruling 17 months ago in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Hutchison was a key player in Heller. She, Tester and others rounded up support in Congress for a brief urging the Court to agree with their view that gun rights belong to individuals. The court ended up vastly curtailing the district government's ability to regulate gun ownership, and embracing the more expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment. |
IN: 2nd Amendment gun rights should apply to all 50 states
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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear MacDonald v. Chicago, which will likely determine whether the Second Amendment applies to the states.
I am not a constitutional legal scholar, so I am incapable of the linguistic acrobatic contortions necessary to answer profound legal questions such as what the definition of “is” is, but it does seem the Second Amendment aside, a state’s constitution certainly applies to that state.
Forty-four of the 50 states have Second Amendment language in their constitutions, while six states’ constitutions are silent on the subject. |
Will McDonald be another victory for gun rights?
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The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has filed a brief in the Supreme Court case of McDonald v. Chicago and expects a decision favoring gun rights. SAF President Alan Gottlieb spoke to Public Nuisance Wire about the ramifications of such a victory.
PNW: After the victory in Heller, why is this case so important?
Gottlieb: The McDonald case not only challenges the Chicago ban, but also brings up the question of the application of the right to keep and bear arms to the states through the 14th Amendment.
PNW: What does the presence of new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor mean for gun rights advocates? |
IL: Gun Control, Chicago-Style
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That makes aldermen a special class in Illinois, one of only two states with an almost complete ban on the carrying of concealed handguns. In most places, an adult with no criminal record or history of psychiatric commitment can get a concealed-carry license after taking a training class.
But here, we have a unique system. You want to be able to pack a weapon in public for your safety? Fine. All you have to do is 1) run for the city council and 2) win.
Why the state assumes that aldermen are fit for this prerogative is a mystery. "Law-abiding" is not the very first word that comes to mind when you think of the city council. Since 1972, 27 of its members have been convicted on charges involving malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance, disfeasance, and anti-feasance with mopery aforethought. |
WV: South Charleston police settle in roadside search case
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South Charleston police have settled a lawsuit with a man who says he was subjected to a humiliating roadside strip-search by the department's officers.
Ivan Lee II alleged that on May 5, 2006, he was at the 7-Eleven on Second Avenue in South Charleston when he was questioned by police officers about a shooting. After the questioning, he drove away and was followed and then stopped again by officer D.P. Pauley.
When asked why he was stopped, Pauley told Lee, a high school student, that he "had committed several traffic violations and that [Lee] did not use his turn signals, none of which are true," according to the lawsuit. |
Cato brief in McDonald v. Chicago
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Available here. An outstanding brief, as one might expect. The bulk of the brief (21 pages, comprising Part I) shows that from the Founding Era into through the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment, national citizenship was paramount to state citizenship. Part II briefly argues that Slaughterhouse violated canons of constitutional construction–such as by interpreting the Privileges or Immunities Clause to make it nothing more than a reiteration of the Supremacy Clause. |
Will Pentagon Purge Oath Keepers?
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"And here's one other thing to keep in mind: What do you call a person who has been dishonorably discharged?"
"That's right, a 'prohibited person.' Subject to having their firearms confiscated."
Monday's Gun Rights Examiner column looks at a new potential where intended consequences can devolve into unintended ones. Then again, some may be counting on provoking a reaction.
Also listen to a Sunday radio broadcast substantiating that AG Holder is stumping for a course that can only lead to confiscation attempts. |
Academics for the Second Amendment brief in McDonald
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Available here. Co-authored by Joseph Olson (Hamline), David Hardy, and Clayton Cramer. Key point: From 1789 to 1860, popular and legal understanding of the Second Amendment became much less militia-centric. Well before Reconstruction, the Second Amendment was considered to be mainly a guarantee of a right to own and carry guns for personal protection. Back in 1998, I wrote a hundred-page article, The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century, 1998 BYU Law Review 1359, which focused mainly on cases and treatises. Olson/Hardy/Cramer have gone further, and brought forward extensive evidence about the understanding of the public and of elected public officials. |
Financing the fight for gun rights
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George Soros once said he'd spend his entire fortune if someone would guarantee that George Bush would lose the last election as a result. He later claimed he was joking. What isn't a joke is that foreign financiers and domestic despots are willing to spend enormous amounts of money in order to see gun rights abolished in this country. All that stands between them and their dream of a ban on gun ownership is a few million gun owners. |
More evidence that concealed carry benefits Blacks
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New research shows that states with liberal concealed carry laws may be safer for Black Americas.
A previous article examined eight years of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data, finding that in states with shall-issue concealed carry laws (aka right-to-carry or RTC), Blacks successfully defended their lives more often. Now it appears that Blacks are less likely to be murder victims in these states as well.
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