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OH: Change in Self-Defense Law Does Not Alter How Appeals Are Conducted
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A 2018 state law change addressing the use of deadly force in self-defense does not change how an appeals court evaluates cases where a jury has rejected a self-defense claim, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.
The 2018 law places the burden on prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the use of deadly force was not justified. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the shift in law does not change the way appeals courts assess the evidence produced at the trial. |
NJ: Black gun owners in N.J. say new concealed carry restrictions won’t make their communities safer
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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is soon expected to sign new regulations revising the state’s concealed carry laws, which removes the justifiable need standard while upping other requirements.
Supporters say it will make the state safer, especially in underserved neighborhoods in cities like Newark, Camden, and Trenton where reports of gun-related crime are among the highest in the state.
However, some gun owners in these historically marginalized communities think the new regulations could further put their neighborhoods at risk. |
IL: Law enforcement, gun rights advocates debate assault weapon ban
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State lawmakers held the third and final hearing of the year to discuss the assault weapons ban proposal.
Committee chairman Rep. Justin Slaughter (D-Chicago) described as a “pressing, polarizing, and passionate topic.”
That was most evident in the testimony from gun right’s groups.
“I’m here to tell you that if House Bill 5855, or anything remotely like it passes, we will see you in court,” Todd Vandermyde, a former NRA lobbyist said.
At the third hearing for Representative Bob Morgan’s (D-Deerfield) bill that would ban semi-automatic firearms statewide and raise the legal age of gun ownership to 21, law enforcement experts testified on the current statistics of firearms. |
CDC funding decisions based largely on politics, not science
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Now comes word that CDC is again allowing partisan politics to influence its policies. This time, gun control activists got the CDC to remove research from its website. Yet, the CDC is trusted to impartially dole out millions of dollars for public health research on firearms: From 2020 to 2022, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) each spent about $50 million on such research.
Until May of this year, the CDC cited a 2013 National Academies of Sciences (NAS) report showing that the annual number of defensive gun uses ranged from about 64,000 to 3 million. The CDC website listed the upper figure at 2.5 million. But now, the CDC has removed from its website all of those numbers and even the link to the NAS report. |
NY: Record number of firearms turned in at Bed-Stuy gun buyback — but not all Brooklynites feel safer
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A record number of 206 firearms were turned in by residents at a Bedford-Stuyvesant gun buyback organized by Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and New York City Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell on Dec. 17. The event resulted in the most surrendered weapons in New York City’s history.
Several assault rifles and 130 handguns, five of which were ghost guns —home-assembled arms, unmarked, purchased in parts without a background check — were exchanged by residents, who received up to $500 and an iPad for their weapons. |
TN: Metro PD investigate fatal shooting following self-defense claim
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Metro Police detectives are investigating a self-defense claim made after the fatal shooting of a 44-year-old man.
On Tuesday night, 26-year-old Alcapone Branch was accused of shooting and killing 44-year-old Jamie Whitehead in the 600 block of Sylvan Street at the James Cayce Homes.
Officials said Branch, who lives in a nearby apartment, reported that he and Whitehead had just returned from a store when Whitehead allegedly began threatening him.
According to a witness, Whitehead drew a gun first, prior to Branch drawing his weapon and firing. |
VA: He killed a man in a fight outside his Newport News home. A jury agreed it was in self-defense.
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A jury deliberated for less than 40 minutes Tuesday before acquitting a Newport News man of manslaughter charges brought after he killed a man in a fight outside a home five years ago.
The 12-member jury found Michael Robert Paparelli not guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the Nov. 24, 2017 slaying of 34-year-old Corey David Hunter.
Paparelli, who was out on bond for years pending trial, hugged his attorneys, Cathy Krinick and Christina James, in emotional embraces after the verdict capped the weeklong trial. |
NE: Gel vs Pepper Spray: Which Is the Best for Self Defense?
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College girls, nursing students, and healthcare workers working night shifts have a right to defend themselves. This doesn’t mean that you need to take martial arts classes, but it does mean that you should have some knowledge of self-defense techniques and weapons.
Pepper spray and gel are two common non-lethal weapons that can help keep you safe in case of an attack or assault. However, they’re different from one another—each has its advantages and disadvantages when compared to the other. |
NM: Police say morning shooting in Barelas may have been a case of self defense
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One person was killed and two injured in a shootout Wednesday morning in the Barelas area.
“Homicide detectives are investigating the incident as a possible case of self defense,” Gilbert Gallegos, an Albuquerque police spokesman, said in an evening update.
Gallegos said three people were taken to the hospital, where one died, one remained and one was treated and released. The person killed had not been identified.
He said officers responded around 10:30 a.m. to reports of a shooting in the 1400 block of Third SW, north of Avenida Cesar Chavez. |
SIG P322
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Rimfire firearms don’t immediately come to mind when one thinks of SIG Sauer, a company that prides itself on its tactical guns. But while .22 LR firearms aren’t a major part of SIG’s DNA, it hasn’t ignored them, either.
The SIG 522 rifle, for instance, followed the lines of the legendary Swiss-made SIG556. The 522 was reliable, well-featured and competitive with any of the .22 LR-chambered AR-15s on the market. Two models were offered and would likely sell well if brought back. |
NY: New York’s updated gun restrictions up for another fight at high court
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Challenging new restrictions on who gets to carry a firearm in New York state, a group of gun owners asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to intervene.
Just last term the Supreme Court handed down a landmark Second Amendment ruling after the previous incarnation of New York's law inspired a challenge. The conservative majority not only shot down New York’s law in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, it also created new criteria for evaluating all gun laws across the country. |
TX: Texas drops fight to prevent 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public
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Texas will no longer fight to ban 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public. A judge ruled earlier this year that a state law banning the practice was unconstitutional, and Texas initially filed a notice that it would appeal. But Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw withdrew the appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman’s ruling was the first major decision about Texas gun laws since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Second Amendment protected individuals who carry weapons for self-defense. |
Government Agencies Should Not Be Doing This
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been caught red-handed deleting defensive-gun-use statistics from its website.
In a story broken by Stephen Gutowski at The Reload, a collection of emails accessed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that gun-control activists worked closely, both face to face and via email, with CDC officials to remove statistics they didn’t like from the CDC’s website. Specifically, they didn’t want people to know about criminologist Gary Kleck’s 1992 study that indicated that Americans use firearms for self-defense up to 2.5 million times a year. |
TX: Paxton Works to Stop UPS and FedEx from Targeting Gun Sellers With New Burdensome and Intrusive Regulations
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The letters note that FFL holders “allege that the new regulations allow your company to track firearm sales with unprecedented specificity and bypass warrant requirements to share that information with federal agencies.”
The shippers are not only requiring FFL holders to create new separate shipping accounts for firearms, firearm parts, and other firearm-related shipments, but they also ask gun store owners to retain documents about specific shipments and make those available to the companies upon request. The shippers can then send those documents to the federal government at their discretion. |
MO: Missouri lawmaker floats proposal derided as ‘Make Murder Legal Act’
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A southwest Missouri lawmaker is again pushing for passage of a law that prosecutors across the state have condemned as a “get out of jail free” card for murderers.
In a Republican-controlled state that already has permissive gun laws, the legislation introduced by Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho, would establish a presumption that a defendant acted reasonably in self-defense when they use deadly force against another person.
Baker acknowledged the change is opposed by county prosecutors and police, but said he thinks it is a starting point for expanding the state’s “stand your ground” law. |
IN: Osceola man found not guilty of 2020 Mishawaka murder
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A St. Joseph County jury on Thursday acquitted an Osceola man of murder in connection to the fatal 2020 shooting of 28-year-old Ryan Serafino.
The jury deliberated for approximately 90 minutes before finding Brandon Stahl, 29, not guilty. Court documents in the case say Stahl and Serafino exchanged gunfire in the basement of a Mishawaka house in a dispute over a woman who apparently had a relationship with both men.
However, Stahl's attorney, Jeff Kimmell, presented evidence during the four-day trial that Stahl had acted in self-defense and was shot four times in the exchange. Kimmell also said the evidence presented leaves "serious questions" about who fired the shot that killed Serafino. |
TX: After appeal dropped in court, 18- to 20-year-olds not banned from carrying handguns
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The Texas state law barring 18 to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns is no more as of Wednesday.
The plaintiffs told KXAN the state dropped its appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In August, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman wrote that the Second Amendment does not specify an age limit and protects adults under 21 years old.
This means 18- to 20-year-olds can carry handguns in Texas. The district court ruling struck down the ban, calling it unconstitutional.
Ed.: The ruling applies to *licensed* carry, not constitutional carry. So if you are an 18-20yo in TX, apply for a carry license. Applying it to constitutional carry will require more work, in legal and/or legislative action. |
NY: Buffalo Files Massive ‘First of Its Kind’ Lawsuit Claiming Gun Companies Have Created a ‘Public Nuisance’
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A New York State metropolis recently rocked by a racist mass shooting filed a groundbreaking lawsuit Tuesday against multiple gun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Remington, Sig Sauer, and Beretta. The city of Buffalo, New York, the Empire State’s second-largest city, also sued a host of “ghost gun” manufacturers, referring to homemade gun kits that produce difficult-to-trace firearms without serial numbers.
Filed in New York state court in Erie County, the 197-page complain [sic] seeks to hold gun companies accountable for creating gun violence that constitutes a “public nuisance,” as well as for violation of multiple New York state business regulations. |
CA: Government Reports Surge In Firearms Linked To Crimes In California
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California is one of 15 states in which the rise in firearm tracings exceeded the national average. The ATF traced a reported 53,761 firearms in the state in 2021, up from 44,709 in 2020. The 20.2% increase ranks as the 11th largest among the 50 states.
The most commonly traced firearms in California in 2021 were chambered for 9mm, .40 caliber, and .22 caliber rounds, in that order. These three calibers alone accounted for 59.4% of all firearms traced by the ATF in the state last year. |
CT: Lamont eyes rifle confiscation; and press adopts euphemism
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Was Governor Lamont serious the other day when he said, as he had said during his campaign for re-election, that he wants to repeal the part of the state's gun law permitting people to keep the military-style rifles they owned before the state banned their possession and sale?
The governor, a Democrat, might not have much support for such an initiative in his own party in the General Assembly. New Haven Sen. Gary Winfield is skeptical. Betraying the assurances that were made to rifle owners to pass the original legislation would be a problem, Winfield told the Connecticut Mirror. |
Gun lobby money doesn’t compare
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A recent New York Times editorial noted that the gun industry has “reaped an estimated $1 billion over the past decade from sales of AR-15-style rifles.”
While this sounds impressive, compare it to $205.5 billion in sales of iPhones in 2022 alone. An argument can be made that iPhones and other smartphones, with their associated social media apps, have had a significantly bigger impact on American culture than the AR-15.
The editorial also noted that gun rights groups have donated $50.5 million to politicians from 1989 to 2020, mostly to Republicans. But this pales in comparison to the political contributions from teachers unions of $48 million for the 2021-22 election cycle alone — almost entirely to Democrats. |
OH: Ohio preemption law must fall if cities want local gun restrictions
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Columbus is likely to lose its escalating legal contest with the state over the city's proposed gun control restrictions.
That means if Columbus — or any Ohio community for that matter — wants the power to set its own local legislative agenda regarding firearms, victory probably won't come by fighting against the state's so-called preemption law, but by seeking instead to overturn it. |
WA: Inslee, Ferguson renew push for ban on assault weapons in Washington
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Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson are again calling on lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session to ban assault-style semiautomatic rifles .
Inslee and Ferguson joined legislators and others Monday affected by the recent gun violence in Tukwila, Washington, to announce upcoming legislation to reduce gun violence. The legislation addresses assault weapons, permits to purchase guns and holding businesses that sell guns liable.
“We know that Washington state is not passive, and we do not have to surrender to this scourge of gun violence,” Inslee said at the news conference. |
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