MI: Driver recounts firing at robbery suspects: "Almost striking two masked men as they darted away from a N. West Avenue gas station, Daniel Szymanski turned left and stopped to pinpoint their direction of travel. Before his son, a back-seat passenger, could call 911, one of the men stuck what appeared to be a shotgun in the passenger window just inches from the face of Szymanski's wife. "I wanted to kill him immediately," said Szymanski, a corrections officer at the Jackson County Jail who legally carries a gun and pointed it at the masked man, believed by police to be accused armed robber Devon Glenn, 18. The man dropped back and Szymanski, 55, got out of the car. As the suspect ran away, he pointed the shotgun — a deceivingly real-looking fake — at Szymanski and Szymanski fired, sending the masked man quickly fleeing over a fence. Glenn and two others — Georval Pennington, 18, and Kyle Ybarra, 16 — were later arrested on armed robbery charges. They were arraigned Aug. 4 and their cases are pending. Pennington's preliminary examination was scheduled for today. Ybarra is accused of driving Glenn and Pennington to the gas station at 1612 N. West Ave., according to a Jackson police report obtained this week. Glenn, armed with the Airsoft gun, and Pennington went into Buddy's Mini Mart while Ybarra waited in a vehicle nearby, according to the police report. Neither Glenn nor Pennington got back into the vehicle after Szymanski fired his gun. Jackson County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer said Szymanski acted appropriately by shooting at the man."


Gun registration not supported by history: “As for those on ‘our side’ who feel a compelling need to volunteer that the Heller decision combined with Militia Act intent now makes mandatory gun registration ‘legal,’ remember that the Constitution is the ’supreme law of the land.’ They and those who would exploit their ‘reluctant’ admissions would do well to remember that some of us know you don’t need to wear black robes and speak all the ritual judicial incantations to understand the intent behind our right to keep and bear arms — and our commitment to preserving and restoring it.”


Can’t suspend civil rights: "Seattle’s officially lame-duck Mayor Greg Nickels and the District of Columbia’s delegate-for-life Eleanor Holmes-Norton have something in common that has already gotten one in a lot of trouble and the other may be asking for some. Both seem to believe that constitutional rights can be suspended. Nickels lost the gun owner vote in Seattle and has now lost his job, coming in third in the primary election last week, because he’s spent the last 14 months waging a quiet war on gun rights and Washington State’s model preemption statute. He had threatened to ban all firearms … from city property by executive order. Advised that he lacked the authority, he promised to do it, anyway."


The media gets it wrong, again, on guns: "In Portsmouth, New Hampshire recently, a man carried a handgun a few blocks away from the site where President Obama was scheduled to hold a town hall a couple of hours later. Was it a danger or not? The man carrying the gun, William Kostric, even had permission to have the gun on private church property while he was protesting Obama’s appearance. … Obviously no one wants to see a president even remotely threatened and people need to be sensitive to such things. But worrying over a law-abiding citizen legally carrying a gun several blocks and a couple of hours away from an indoor event that the president will attend is overdoing it. … Yet, the most amazing thing about the news coverage was how much the media missed. Far from being a hothead, Kostric and a friend had been roughed up by a union member. … Kostric and his friend notified the police of the incident, but the police officer shrugged and went away. Kostric’s gun did however defuse the volatile situation with the union member — once the union member saw Kostric’s gun in its holster he backed up and moved away.”