SAN FRANCISCO is well known for its fog.  But while the sunshine sometimes cuts through fog in the atmosphere, one fog that rarely seems to lift is the fog of anti-gun thinking.  Twice, the city has tried to ban handguns, and been turned back by court challenges.  The city’s public housing authority also had to be sued to end its ban on gun possession by public housing residents.  And the NRA is currently backing a challenge to the city’s gun storage law, which requires city residents to store their handguns in locked containers or disabled with trigger locks.

But as if all that weren’t enough, SF Weekly blogs reported this week that the city of San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) doesn’t allow advertisements with guns in them.  Specifically, SFMTA advertising policy regarding firearms says, “Advertising on Municipal Transportation Agency (“MTA”) property, or as authorized under any contract with the MTA, constitutes a nonpublic forum.  No such advertisement shall:  … appear to promote the use of firearms.”

One victim of the policy (other than the First Amendment rights of advertisers) is a subway poster for the action-comedy movie “The Other Guys.”  The official poster for the movie shows Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (their characters are law enforcement officers, no less) flying through the air with guns drawn. Typical movie stuff.  But not for SFMTA, which apparently finds the poster threatening and will only allow a revised poster, featuring Ferrell holding a can of pepper spray and Wahlberg sporting only his fists, as they supposedly take on the bad guys. The anti-gun lobby presumably would be happy if real cops had to use pepper spray instead of firearms.

Ads like the official movie poster pose no threat to anyone.  The ridiculous SFMTA policy, as applied to movie ads, is not only unconstitutional, but is another example of anti-gun paranoia and political correctness.  And that makes it an outrage.

WASHINGTON: Yesterday Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced his opposition to Kagan’s appoint to the Supreme Court. We here at the NIP hope that other Senators will put personal interests aside and remember their oath of office. Hatch enumerates two main objections, lack of experience and a proclivity toward judicial activism. The NFL draft has tighter standards than this judicial process. It’s time to take it seriously.

Orrin Hatch Opposes Kagan as SCOTUS

I have carefully examined Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s record, actively participated in the entire Judiciary Committee hearing, and considered the views of supporters and opponents from Utah and across the country. Qualifications for judicial service include both legal experience and, more importantly, the appropriate judicial philosophy. The law must control the judge; the judge must not control the law. I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard and that, therefore, I cannot support her appointment.

Supreme Court Justices who, like General Kagan, had no prior judicial experience did have an average of 21 years in private legal practice. General Kagan has two. The fact that her experience is instead academic and political only magnifies my emphasis on judicial philosophy as the most important qualification for judicial service.

Over nearly 25 years, General Kagan has endorsed, and praised those who endorse, an activist judicial philosophy. I was surprised when she encouraged us at the hearing simply to discard or ignore certain parts of her record. I am unable to do that. I also cannot ignore disturbing situations in which it appears that her personal or political views drove her legal views. She promoted the Clinton administration’s extreme position on abortion, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. As Dean of Harvard Law School, she blocked the access by military recruiters that federal law requires. And she took legal positions on important issues such as freedom of speech that could undermine the liberties of all Americans.

General Kagan is a good person, a skilled political lawyer, a brilliant scholar, and was a fine law school dean. I like her personally and I supported her to be Solicitor General. But applying the standard I have always used for judicial nominees, I cannot support her appointment to the Supreme Court.  Orrin Hatch

Anyone needing proof that fanaticism for gun control hasn’t waned on Capitol Hill, that anti-gunners are — as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) put it last year — only waiting to “pick the time,” should watch the video of Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s speech to Congress last week, versions of which have been posted on youtube.com. When Calderon asked that the federal “assault weapon” ban be re-imposed, a very large number of U.S. Representatives and Senators present gave him a standing ovation.

However, on Monday the FBI released crime statistics that should cause the applauding anti-gunners to sit on their hands. The statistics indicate that between 2008 and 2009, as gun sales soared, the number of murders in our country decreased 7.2 percent.  That amounts to about an 8.2 percent decrease in the per capita murder rate, after the increase in our nation’s legal and illegal population is taken into account. And it translates into about a 10.5 percent decrease in the murder rate between 2004, when the ban expired, and the end of 2009. And finally, it means that in 2009 our nation’s murder rate fell to a 45-year low.

If you have a desire to protect your 2nd amendment rights you need to do all you can to oust those from office who seek to take them away from you, like Dianne Feinstein:

WASHINGTON: On Thursday, Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, where prohibitive gun laws prevent good people from having firearms for protection against criminals and governments of dubious legitimacy (historically the norm in Mexico), encouraged Congress to reinstate the federal “assault weapon” ban. With a warning seemingly designed to appeal to those who believe that speaking out against the Obama Administration’s policies are one step short of sedition or worse, Calderon said, “[I]f you do not regulate the sale of these weapons in the right way, nothing guarantees that criminals here in the United States with access to the same power of weapons will not decide to challenge American authorities and civilians.”

Calderon also misinformed Congress, claiming that violence in Mexico rose significantly after the U.S. ban expired in 2004. In fact, Mexico’s murder rate has been stable since 2003 and remains well below rates recorded previously. However, he did not explain why violent crime has declined significantly in the U.S. since the ban expired, or how a ban on flash suppressors and bayonet mounts relates to drug thugs in Mexico or anywhere else.

Notwithstanding the Washington Post’s judgment that Calderon “made a powerful case,” we suspect his speech fell on mostly deaf ears in Congress and in Arizona, which he inappropriately criticized for having an illegal immigration enforcement law that is similar to Mexico’s. But it had some effect, however. New York Democrat Rep. Carolyn McCarthy issued a statement incorrectly claiming that she has repeatedly introduced legislation to “reinstate” the ban. She has repeatedly introduced legislation, of course, but not to reinstate the ban. Rather, her bills have proposed to apply the “assault weapon” label to far more firearms than were covered by the expired ban, including the M1 Garand service rifle, the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22, and any semi-automatic shotgun or rifle a future attorney general might claim is not “sporting.”

CHICAGO: Fearful that America’s Supreme Court will soon strike down Chicago’s handgun ban, frustrated by the Illinois legislature’s rejection of his anti-gun agenda, and repudiated by American courts and legislatures over his plan to sue federally licensed manufacturers and dealers of firearms for third-party crimes, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D) is showing contempt for his own country’s and state’s institutions, by seeking a foreign entity to enforce his anti-gun agenda against the American people.

This week, Daley called for “redress against the gun industry” in the World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. Wrapping up the sixth annual Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum:

Daley convinced more than a dozen of his counterparts from around the world to approve a resolution urging “redress against the gun industry through the courts of the world” in The Hague.

“This is coming from international mayors. They’re saying, ‘We’re tired of your guns, America. … We don’t want those anymore because guns kill and injure people,’ ” Daley told a news conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun-Times

Read more…

GLENN COUNTY, CA: In a case that received national attention, the Glenn County, Calif., Board of Education on January 22 overturned the expulsion of 17-year-old duck hunter Gary Tudesko, who was expelled from his central California high school after police dogs sniffed out unloaded shotguns in his truck.

The truck was legally parked off-campus, on a public street, and the guns were in the truck because Tudesko had gone hunting that morning before school.  All those factors just show the school’s lack of common sense in enforcing its “zero tolerance” policy; according to guidelines from the California Department of Education, administrators don’t have to recommend expulsion unless a violation is committed at school or at a school activity.  Even that agency’s website notes widespread criticism of “zero tolerance” policies.

On the legal side, the school made many errors, such as confusing its authority to expel students under California’s Education Code with the district attorney’s authority to enforce the state’s “Gun Free School Zones” law.  Both the district attorney and the local police have said Tudesko would face no criminal charges.

Leading California civil rights lawyer Chuck Michel—a longtime advocate for Golden State gun owners—represented Tudesko.  For more information on the Tudesko case, read the article on ESPN or visit Michel’s website at www.calgunlaws.com.

Do Not Pass Go

WEST MIFFLIN, PA: Tuesday the  Bourough of West Mifflin council passed a gun control ordinance 6-1 which makes it a crime to have your gun stolen. The ordinance is not yet posted on their web site but details are reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The ordinance, which passed Tuesday night by a vote of 6-1, states, “Any person who is the owner of a firearm that is lost or stolen shall report the loss or theft to the West Mifflin borough police department within 72 hours after discovery of the loss or theft.”

It also sets penalties of no more than 30 days imprisonment and/or a fine of no more than $1,000 for violation of the ordinance. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

So let’s get this straight. You own a gun. You keep it at home. A burglar breaks in and steals your gun. You have to report the theft within 72 hours or you pay a fine and you spend 30 days in jail. Shouldn’t the burglar be punished and not you?

We here at the NIP can read. Apparently the West Mifflin Borough Council can’t. Because we can’t find anything in the 2nd amendment that give city councils any rights whatsoever in controlling gun ownership by American citizens. Don’t they have anything better to do?