What’s Coming

Bob Owens points to the actions of the new sheriff of Orange County, California:

In California, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens unveiled a new policy that could cause “dozens, if not hundreds,” of concealed carry permit holders to lose permits issued by the previous sheriff. Did these law-abiding Orange County citizens do anything illegal, immoral, or unethical to cost them their permits?

No, they’ve merely fallen afoul of a sheriff that spent the bulk of her career as a deputy in the Los Angeles County prison system, and who apparently has issues with trusting those citizens she was appointed to serve.

Hutchens’ new policy requires that to get a concealed firearm permit, applicants must prove there is a legitimate threat to their safety and agree to undergo possible psychological, polygraph, or medical testing.

Add to that what David Kopel posted yesterday at The Volokh Conspiracy about Obama’s choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder:

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called “assault weapons” (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that “Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence”–a statistic is true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as “children.”(Sources: Holder testimony before House Judiciary Committee, Subcommitee on Crime, May 27,1999; Holder Weekly Briefing, May 20, 2000. One of the bills that Holder endorsed is detailed in my 1999 Issue Paper “Unfair and Unconstitutional.”)

After 9/11, he penned a Washington Post op-ed, “Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists” arguing that a new law should give “the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale.” He also stated that prospective gun buyers should be checked against the secret “watch lists” compiled by various government entities. (In an Issue Paper on the watch list proposal, I quote a FBI spokesman stating that there is no cause to deny gun ownership to someone simply because she is on the FBI list.)

Remember how very narrow the Heller decision was. Only five justices supported an individual right to keep and bear arms. We are only one vote away from having our rights taken away. In Orange county, it has already begun despite the Supreme Court decision.

The Frozen Wastes Of…… Britain?

The Telegraph reports that Britain is – quite literally – colder than Moscow right now. More snow and cold are predicted over the weekend. Heck, it’s actually colder than Oslo, Norway, too.

Forecasters have issued a string of severe weather warnings covering the entire eastern half of the country.

There were warnings that night time temperatures could fall as low as -5C (23F) in some rural areas from Scotland to East Anglia as an icy blast moved in from the Arctic.

That placed parts of Britain on a footing with the Russian capital where -3C (27F) was forecast, and several degrees colder than Oslo, Norway, where a low of -1C (30F) was expected.

The forecast threatens transport chaos and forces millions of elderly people to turn up the thermostat despite higher heating costs.

Meanwhile, here in the US, snow is falling in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and brutal cold is predicted for the Northeast into next week. Where I live in the Midwest, we hit a low of 11 degrees last night and never reached 30 today – a very cold day for this time of year.