Standard Mischief

I was wandering around the web last night, and ended up on the Second Amendment Foundation’s website. Lo and behold, there on the front page was that sooper-seekrit New Orleans judgment (and some supporting documents, all of which are PDFs). You know, the one that the NRA didn’t want you to see. The one that only got handed over to a handful of bloggers, festooned with, according to Publicola, a “Not For Publication” on the copy.

The Second Amendment Foundation is the NRA’s co-plaintive in the suit.

So I’m reading over the “top secret” thing, and I’m scratching my head. What exactly was in this thing that the NRA didn’t want me to see? (I blogged earlier, saying I was gonna call the membership line and ask for a copy of the judgment myself. That never happened, I never did find my lifer card).

The only thing I can see that the NRA might not want their rank-and-file to know about would be this (page 16):

NRA has a long record of representing the interests of its members in civil litigation, and its standing to do so is well recognized.18 An association may challenge a firearm ban on behalf of its members. Peoples Rights Organization, supra, 152 F.3d at 526-27. An association may have standing even though “it is not possible to state with certainty which of the members in the plaintiffs’ associations will be harmed.” American Maritime Assn v. Blumenthal, 458 F. Supp. 849, 855 (D. D.C. 1977), aff?d 590 F.2d 1156 (D.C. Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 943.19

You see, the NRA was widely criticized for not jumping in right away and filing a suit. I myself blogged, “… when the seize orders came down, and enough members called the NRA, they finally issued a wishy-washy press statement…”, yet in their own pleading, they claim they had every right to file suit, even if they are unsure which of their members were harmed. They do, however, seem to have waited until they could get a Mr. Buell Teel on board with them. Whether or not that was a wise move on their part, I’m not going to say, as I am not a lawyer.

Please feel free to chime in and let everyone know if you have an idea of why the NRA acted the way they did.

Readers may wonder why I’m being such a hard-ass on the NRA, each and every time I blog about them. To answer that question, I’ll have to relate an incident that happened during the few weeks the “Beltway Sniper(s)” were on the loose.

The “sniper taskforce” that was assembled was still going on the “crazy white guy” in the white box truck or van theory. Two fellow Maryland gun owners (both of which owned a AR-15s, and both of which had to pass the Maryland “background check” before taking possession, after purchase) told me that they had their firearms seized by the police for “ballistic fingerprinting”. In this case, however, there was no report in the Mainstream Media, no stunning Ken Wayne videos, and hence no nationwide call to the NRA from its members. I have to assume that the police were going down the list of all the AR-15 firearms that were registered during the “7 day, or however long it takes until we get back to you” waiting period that is the law in Maryland, and rounding all those guns up. To this day, unless you personally, know a Maryland gun owner, I’m willing to bet you have never heard this part of the “sniper” saga.

Maryland gun owners did, as far as I know, receive their firearms back, but that’s not the point. They were seized without probable cause, and without a warrant. Whatever records were recorded from the seized firearms would seem to be “fruit of the poison tree”, and therefore inadmissible, but I bet the data is still in the local police possession.

Remember the delay by the NRA in the New Orleans case? Were they waiting to see the reactions of their members’ The NRA should not have to be chided into defending our rights. That’s exactly what I pay them for.

Update 2005-28-11: Here’s a cite for the gun seizures back in October 2002, during the “Beltway Sniper Incident”

Gun Week is a Second Amendment Foundation publication.

“People with white vans and box trucks aren’t the only ones who had problems. There have been repeated reports by individuals and in some media of law enforcement contacting people who own .223-caliber rifles, as determined from gun shop Form 4473 records.

“The Times also reported that authorities checked gun shops, ranges and gunowners in hopes of turning up some kind of lead. ATF agents and local police phoned or visited gunowners at home or work. There were verifiable reports of police taking rifles for test-firing experiments, and later returning them.

“But just being a gunowner in that area became a cause for special concern.

“The Times also reported that ATF agents confiscated the sign-in log for the prior six-month period from at least one range, apparently not just for a list of names, but in order to obtain handwriting specimens.”