Friday, October 2, 2015

Friday 10-02-15


Court ruling makes Minnesota latest state to call BB gun 'firearm'

red ryder.jpg
The Red Ryder BB gun was made famous in the 1983 film "A Christmas Story." (Courtesy of Daisy Outdoor Products/Daisy Museum)
Perhaps if Ralphie had been told his Red Ryder BB gun was legally considered a “firearm” in some states, he wouldn’t have had to be told “you’ll shoot your eye out.”
It turns out the spring air action pellet gun so sought after in the holiday classic “A Christmas Story” is considered far more than a toy in the eyes of the law. Case in point: Minnesota, where the Court of Appeals ruled on Monday to uphold the conviction of David Lee Haywood for possession of a “firearm” – in this case a Walther CP99 Compact .177-caliber BB gun.
Haywood wasn’t allowed to own a handgun after a 2005 felony drug conviction, so he was sent back to prison after cops found the BB gun in his glove compartment during a 2013 traffic stop. Haywood argued that a BB gun wasn’t a firearm. The Minnesota statute uses the word “firearm” but never defines it, so Haywood said the accepted definition of “firearm” should apply: a weapon that features a projectile fired by gunpowder. That’s far different from the operation of a BB gun, which uses no gunpowder to expel its shell.
“Treating airguns as firearms would make teaching firearm safety to children much more difficult.”
- Jennifer Baker, NRA
But Haywood, 37, was sentenced to a mandatory minimum of five years because the appellate court instead used language established in 1977, when the state Supreme Court defined a BB gun as a firearm using wording plucked from the state game and fish laws. Because the state legislature has enacted other laws in the statute since that ruling 38 years ago without adding a new definition, the court’s 1977 explanation has stuck. It can only be changed if the legislature decides to adopt new language or if the state Supreme Court changes the definition.
“Generally, airguns are not defined as firearms under state or federal law because of the numerous negative effects such a definition would create,” NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “In the case of state law, many states use multiple definitions of firearm, some of which may include airguns. For example, airguns will almost always be excluded from definitions governing possession, transfer and use, but may be included for criminal misuse.”
State definitions vary, with New Jersey and Rhode Island using some of the strictest language, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Those states classify all non-powder guns as firearms. Illinois and Michigan treat certain non-powder guns as firearms while Connecticut, Delaware and North Dakota list them as “dangerous weapons.” Thirteen states impose age restrictions on the possession, use and transfer of non-powder guns.
“Treating airguns as firearms would make teaching firearm safety to children much more difficult,” Baker said, listing a litany of potential issues with designating BB guns as firearms.
Grant Gibeau, who represented Haywood, told FoxNews.com that even though the definition of a “firearm” may be arbitrary when examined state by state, it’s anything but subjective when applied as a standard within the state. For instance, the court didn’t take Haywood’s intentions into account, nor did they care that the BB gun closely resembled a standard firearm.
“It’s not a matter of the court looking at the client,” said Gibeau, who’s appealing Haywood’s case to the Minnesota Supreme Court. “It’s pretty much: ‘Do you fit into this category? And if you do, the court has to do the minimum.’”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/29/court-ruling-makes-minnesota-latest-state-to-call-bb-gun-firearm/

Intense Solar Flare Unleashed from Unruly Sunspot

An intense solar flare took out low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean earlier today (Sept. 28), and the unstable sunspot is likely to erupt again.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured an amazing video of the solar flare from space.
At 10:53 a.m. EDT (1453 GMT), the medium-size M7-class solar flareburst from the sunspot called Active Region 2422 (AR2422). The explosion unleashed extreme ultraviolet radiation that rushed over the Earth, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center said in a statement. The peak of the action, when there was a brief radio communications blackout on the sunlit side of Earth, was about 5 minutes later, at 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT). The flare ended 7 minutes after that. [Biggest Solar Flares and Sun Storms of 2015 in Photos]
Sunspots are caused by knots and complications in the sun's magnetic field, and the particularly tangled field within AR2422 generated this recent solar flare when it released a buildup of magnetic energy suddenly — causing a burst of high-energy radiation that rushed to Earth and supercharged the atmosphere. Scientists do not expect an associated coronal mass ejection, where physical gas ejected from the sun hits Earth.
Solar Flare of Sept. 28, 2015
At 10:53 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT) on Sept. 28, a solar flare caused a blackout in low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean, with weaker effects farther out. The unruly sunspot may prompt more solar flares, according to NASA.Credit: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory
That M7-class flare was strong enough that the extra atmospheric charge interfered with low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean, with weaker effects farther out. And there's a chance that sunspot AR2422 may release more solar flares.
"AR2422 has an unstable 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that could erupt again at any moment," Spaceweather.com said in its forecast. At the time of this writing, there was a 40-percent chance of another, similarly sized solar flare and a 5 percent chance of a powerful X-class flare during the next 24 hours. X-class flares can cause planet-wide radio blackouts and radiation storms, and are 10 times more powerful than M-class flares.
M7-Class Solar Flare Sept. 28, 2015
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is an observational spacecraft that has been orbiting the sun since 2010, taking incredibly high-resolution images of the solar surface, gathering data about the sun's magnetic activity and helping to predict solar storms' impacts on Earth.

http://www.space.com/30682-solar-flare-unrduly-sunspot-video.html

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