North Carolina

The law dates back to 1935, which was old enough to predate the state preemption law and get grandfathered in.  The bill to repeal it has passed the Senate.

North Carolina's State Board of Elections is referring evidence to prosecutors that five people appear to have voted in both North Carolina and in Florida. The information the board is passing on wasn't gathered by government officials, but by a private watchdog group called the Voter Integrity Project.

The state is turning over five names to prosecutors, out of 33 names given them by the Voter Integrity Project.  That project is not a government project, mind you; it's a volunteer effort, privately funded. 

When the left points at those five possible prosecutions out of millions of votes, and says that it demonstrates that voter fraud isn't a real problem, it's important to understand what sort of funnel goes on to get those five potential prosecutions.

It looks like this.

Some unknown number of people vote illegally -- maybe they vote more than once, or in two places, or vote once after a felony conviction.  Lots of possibilities.  This is the real size of the problem.

Some fraction of those people committed voter fraud by voting in two states.  This is likely small, because voting in two states is a lot of trouble for small gain (one additional vote).

Some fraction of the people who voted in two states listed two addresses on their voter registration paperwork.  This is also likely small, because people are likely to realize that it may get them caught if they realize voting in both places is wrong.

Some fraction of those people did so in North Carolina, rather than the other 49 states.

Some fraction of those were detected and investigated by the Voter Integrity Project -- probably a small fraction, limited by the resources of a volunteer project.  We know this number is 33.

Some fraction of those investigated had enough evidence to warrant referral to prosecutors.  We know this number is 5.

We don't know how many illegal votes resulted from this.  We can speculate that there are at least 66 (33 people voting twice).

And finally, we know that there are other investigations here and there turning up similar small numbers of prosecutable voter fraud cases.  One case I remember involved 5 people and 19 illegal votes.

We only see the five cases coming out at this point, but when you look at how many filters we passed through to get those five, it becomes clear that the scale of the problem could be much, much larger than that. 

At one point, one of the ladies we were speaking to said "Well, handguns can only carry what, 7 rounds?"  I shook my head and said "20."  She looked shocked and disbelieving until her friend spoke up and said something along the lines of "Yeah, the pistol I was looking at the other day holds 17!"  This was followed by the organizer of the event admitting that she is getting her CWP next weekend.  South Carolina: where gun control activists are getting CWPs.  I can't speak for the folks I didn't talk to, but most of the ones I did speak with didn't seem like lost causes.  With some polite conversation, education, and some range time, there's potential there.  On the other hand, it definitely looked like there had been some discussion about which of their people to send to talk to us, and I'm sure they picked most polite.  Not the person who insulted my intelligence on facebook after the rally despite not speaking to me.  Fun times!

I guess the whole "Fudd" thing goes both ways.

karh40 has pictures.  Looks like a couple hundred people to me.  He also has some questions about concealed carry legislation in that state; it looks like it would disallow non-resident permits, which would be a step backwards.

... See NC Gun blog for the details, and as a bonus, one of their Senate seats is up in 2014.

The bill, already approved by the Senate, would require judges to seize guns from defendants when certain circumstances arise in domestic violence cases. In all cases, judges would have the latitude to take guns when issuing a domestic violence restraining order.

I'd be a lot happier with this kind of law if restraining orders required actual evidence, and were not practically standard procedure in divorce cases, and if recovering the firearms after the order was no longer in effect was less likely to present a problem. But as it is, this represents an unConstitutional lack of due process.

Residents concerned about Durham's rising homicide rate are invited to attend a series of brown-bag lunches Mondays, beginning today, at the Lyon Park Community and Family Life Center.

The "How to Stop the Shootings in Durham" lunches follow a study released Friday that revealed three years of research by Dr. Tamera Coyne-Beasley, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Injury Prevention Center, and Marcia Owen, coordinator of the Religious Coalition for a Non-Violent Durham.

The "study" was funded by the Brady Bunch, huh? Gee, I have real confidence in its objectivity now.

Defendants in emergency domestic violence orders would have to turn in their guns if they are considered a violent threat in a bill that the House Finance Committee approved Tuesday. The measure, which already passed the Senate, would require a person to surrender firearms to the local sheriff if a judge sets an order for the defendant to stay away from a spouse or lover. The gun provision would apply only when the judge setting the order determines the defendant threatened to kill or seriously hurt the person who sought the order or a child. A defendant also could be threatening suicide.

This is subject to the same problems that appeared in US v Emerson. Specifically, there is no presumption of innocence or adversarial process for a restraining order. They are issued in most states at the judge's discretion (and what judge will turn away a "battered girlfriend" even with a complete lack of evidence?). And of course, if the order is removed, will the defendent get the gun back? No likely, at least not without a long court fight.

A new North Carolina law is taking aim at preventing domestic violence from happening. The law forces domestic abusers to give up their guns if the person has a history of violence or threats involving firearms. Under the new law, when a domestic violence victim asks a judge for a restraining order, the judge will be required to ask if the abuser has a history of violence or threats involving firearms. If so, the judge must order the defendant to surrender all of them. The law also states that the judge must have guns taken away if the abuser threatens to commit suicide or has ever physically injured the victim.

The key word here, folks, is "suspected". This is practically the definition of "lacking due process". Under this law, anyone willing to swear that you have abused them or threatened suicide can get a court order to take away your firearms; whether the accusations are true or not, without even a chance to defend yourself in court.

Anyone want to bet on what the chances of getting your firearms BACK might be, even if the law provides for their return?