Voting is over this year in the California legislature and three horrible firearm related bills failed.

AB1934 – Would have banned unloaded open carry (UOC) in California.  This bill was a response to the UOC movement in California which has become a way for firearm advocates to display their discontent with firearm laws in California.

AB1810 – Would have put in place a system for long gun registration.  The system would have been similar to the handgun registration already required for handguns in California.

AV2358 – Would have required ammunition sales be recorded similar to the way they are in the city of Los Angeles.  That would have meant getting fingerprinted, the quantity, caliber, date and signature being taken at the time of the transaction: this bill would have effectively banned the sale or purchase of ammunition online in California.

Thankfully these bills did not pass in the whirlwind session tonight.  It is a seriously dizzying display to watch legislators pass bill after bill in quick succession and suspending the rules of the senate so that all the bills can be hastily voted on (often without debate).

Hopefully these bills never see the light of day again and are not resubmitted at a later date.

The 4th Amendment is not what it use to be.

The 9th circuit court thinks that it is perfectly fine for federal agents to come onto your property and plant a GPS device on your vehicle in your driveway without a warrant.  This case is sure to end up in front of the Supreme Court, but it just amazes me that any judge could have such an ill conceived notion of what the 4th Amendment means.

Story

We have mentioned the use of full body scanners (backscatter x-ray technology) in airports several times already.  LAX has a bunch of them.  They are the tubular Star Trek transporter looking things at the end of the security line at LAX.  Their ability to peer beneath clothing to see what a person is carrying is justified as valuable to airport security in need of a quick and efficient method to search a person.  The justification for random highly invasive searches is highly questionable and violates our 4th amendment right against search and seizure without probably cause.  At least in an airport you have the option of having normal pat down search rather than be forced to use a full body scanner.

That is not the case with the latest product that is literally rolling out of American Science and Engineering …  the Z Backscatter Van or ZBV.  These vans have backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in the back of vans and can be driven past cargo containers, cars or people to see their contents.  Supposedly the resolution is not as great as the body scanners present in airports and offer little threat to our personal privacy according to Joe Reiss, AS&E’s VP of Marketing.

“(T)o a large degree will penetrate clothing,” he points to the lack of features in images of humans shown in images like the one shown at right, far less detail than is obtained from the airport scans. “From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be,”

Poor resolution simply seems like a technological hurdle at this point and will certainly improve.  Joe also wouldn’t want to threaten his companies sales by saying that they are a huge privacy concern.  He wouldn’t be much of a Marketing guy if he did.

This is just another step along the slippery slope that is eroding  personal privacy and freedom in our modern technological age.  I can certainly see the utility of this technology, but without proper use of it our privacy will certainly be violated by the overzealous and nefarious, and likely in the name or protecting our freedom.

summary: man and woman, white truck, high powered rifle.  Shot at an employee (intimidation?) at 640am; were able to steal accessories/scopes, but, no guns.  Were finally arrested on the 10 freeway when one of the truck’s tires went flat.

Her history suggests that she does not support 2nd amendment issues as individual rights nor recognize a right to self-defense…

NRA-ILA announcement here.

It turns out that all the TSA has been keeping all those naked pictures it has been taking of passengers.  You know…. the fancy body scanners that look under your cloths to check for weapons penis/breast size.  Nope… no possibility of abuse with this one.

“While working as a cashier at a convenience store,
nineteen-year-old Sara R. Reedy was sexually assaulted and
robbed at gunpoint by a serial sex offender. She reported the
crime to the police within minutes, subjected herself to a rape kit
examination, and gave detailed and consistent statements to law
enforcement officers and hospital staff. However, Detective
Frank Evanson of the Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania Police
Department, the lead investigator assigned to Reedy’s case,
believed that Reedy had fabricated the incident to cover up her
own theft of cash from the convenience store. Approximately
three months later, Evanson also became the lead investigator on
another sexual attack that was substantially similar to the assault
on Reedy and that Evanson knew was suspected to be the work
of a serial rapist. Six months after the assault on Reedy,
Evanson filed a criminal complaint against her, charging her
with falsely reporting a crime, theft, and receipt of stolen
property. Reedy spent five days in jail. The charges against her
were dropped only when the serial rapist was captured and
confessed to assaulting her, to committing the theft, and to
committing the other sexual assault investigated by Evanson.”

To make things more comfortable for the girl — she consented to a blood draw (it is required to exclude her dna from the rape kit) and the officer went ahead and got the blood tested for drugs  (it was positive – diazepam and marijuana).  Violation of expectation of privacy?  Great way to kick a rape victim in the face? Legal without a warrant?

Thankfully the courts ruled that the cop was a dumb-ass (legal term) and removed his “qualified-immunity” protection.  Im looking forward to Evenson (personally) and  Cranberry PA making this girl very very rich.

Obvious issues worth considering here about being alert, etc.  But, this alone didn’t grab my attention enough to post.  It was fun to conjecture about the possible suspects…  gangs, felons looking for guns, some other scofflaw with a lack of disregard for life looking for an easy couple of G’s.  Heck, the victim was a personal injury lawyer, perhaps a disgruntled client?  Ostensibly, one might even imagine using these possibilities as rationals for increasing gun control..

Well we do not have to hypothesize about the nature of the assailants any more as they were just arrested and charged with the crime:  Two GUARDS Arrested in Pennsylvania Gun Range Shooting Death.  Yup; by current best guess, it looks like our lack of disregard for life thieves were PA state prison guards.  So much for gun control.

Overall a tragic incident, but, it reminds us of an important lesson.  No matter how much we can trust our government and our police as a group — it is still a group made of individuals that have the same failings as the rest of us.

The guy is able to fight off the attackers using a folding knife (story at NBC).  In the process he does enough damage to send the assailants to the hospital.  I imagine the identification line up is easier when you are looking for the stab wounds :-p.

P.S.  Remember, the unfortunate statistics about resisting a robbery.  Resisting with a gun is the least likely to end with the victim getting injured.  Then, _no resistance_.  Then resisting with a weapon…  Of course, in this case, it looks like the guy was injured but had considerably less injuries than if he hadn’t had the knife…

Schwarzenegger declares California fiscal emergency

But some trends are positive…  Home sales fell less than expected….

We’ve now had two “recoveries” that ended up not panning out.  I am genuinely concerned at this point…..