McDonald v. Chicago: Respondents' Brief Filed

Counsel for the City of Chicago and Village of Oak Park have submitted their brief [pdf], and just under deadline.  It's better written (and longer) than I'd expected, but it's still not going to do much for their case.

Their primary argument is that regulation, including outright bans, of handguns "may reasonably be thought to preserve, not intrude on, ordered liberty."  Of course, the Supreme Court ruled otherwise just last year.  Never mind that—respondents are smitten with the phrase "ordered liberty," so much so that their brief uses it no less than 27 times.

Much of their work is concerned with contradicting the Heller decision, claiming that the right to keep and bear arms refers to a "right" of the states to arm militias, rather than the right of the individual to keep arms for self protection.

The scope of the Second Amendment right—weapons in common use—also reflects its purpose of protecting the militia, rather than an individual right related to self-defense, since the Second Amendment protects weapons regardless of whether they are useful for self-defense. p. 6

Yep, they're going to get real far with that.

Is this where it's going?

Last week, Leonard Embody donned a fetching camouflage and GoreTex ensemble and paraded around Radnor Lake Park carrying this:



It's an AK-47 pistol, with the tip painted orange to resemble an Airsoft gun. His reasoning is that "cops don't shoot people with airsoft guns. If this handgun looks like an airsoft the cops won't shoot me."

I can certainly see his concern. Apparently, he'll be repeating this questionable behavior. According to one paper, “I guarantee that when I carry in Bicentennial Mall I will be stopped. You're more than welcome to come and watch or video.”

This is the crux of the matter: Mr. Embody (known as kwikrnu on the forums) likes to be the center of attention. His hobbies include freaking out the squares, being stopped by the police and filing lawsuits.

Yep, this guy's a winner. Far from being alone, he's emblematic of the self-defeating caricature that is overtaking the open carry movement.

It's Not the Guns

The preliminary Uniform Crime Reports are in for 2009, and the results are promising.  Murder is down 10%, robberies are down 6.5%, and motor vehicle thefts are oddly down 18.7%.  As many in our camp have pointed out, this takes place during an unprecedented year-long surge in firearms ownership.  According to NICS, there are at least 25 million more guns in circulation than there were before the election.

The obvious conclusion is that more guns do not equal more crime.

However, this does not mean there is a direct relationship between increased firearms ownership and this drastic decline in crime.  Without more data, causality would be difficult to prove, so that's probably a point best avoided in debate for now.

Now It's Just Silly

Domino sugar, "now certified Carbonfree."  Spotted in WalMart.

I am, of course, compelled to point out that the molecular formula for sucrose is C₁₂H₂₂O_{11.  That's 12 atoms of carbon.}

According to Domino, what they actually mean is that the "carbon footprint" of the production process is neutral.  Evidently, that was just too clunky of a slogan to put on the label, so they settled for implying that their product is composed only of colorless gases.

Hey, whatever makes you feel all self-righteous...

GCO v. MARTA

The Northern District Court has ruled against Georgia Carry in a case they brought against the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA). According to the ruling [pdf]:

On October 14, 2008, Christopher Raissi drove to the Avondale MARTA station and parked his car in the south parking lot. He got out, went to the back of his car, and pulled out a handgun in a holster. Raissi reached behind his back and clipped the holster to the waistband of his pants. He pulled his shirt over the holster so that it was completely covered and then walked toward the station. All of this was seen by Malcolm Nicholas, a MARTA police officer who had been patrolling the parking lot.

Responding officers detained Mr. Raissi while they verified that he had a Georgia Firearms License and ran a GCIC check for warrants. After the check was completeted, Mr. Raissi's gun was returned to him, and he was released.

Raissi claimed that he was unlawfully detained without probable cause, that it was illegal for officers to request his social security number, and that MARTA failed to respond to Open Records Act requests on the matter.

Frankly, the merits of this case are questionable at best, and I'm surprised anyone took it.

Three Degrees of Untruth

These are the 2006 mortality statistics, straight from the CDC National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).  The actual report you want is R00.1-Y89.9 [pdf].  The relevant statistics begin on page 4515 (727 in the browser).

And yes, they do a great job of burying this stuff.

Want to know how many children under the age of 15 died of negligent discharges from handguns in 2006?  9.  Homicides?  29.

I'll start with interpretations and follow with the original data.  The data is broken up into three categories:

• Handgun discharge


• Rifle, shotgun, and larger firearm discharge


• Discharge from other and unspecified firearms

In each case, the first number is an aggregate of all types of firearm, while the second includes only handguns.

We'll begin with unintentional and accidental shootings (W32-34).

Total: 642/107
All Children under 10: 31/6
All Children under 15: 57/9
Age 15-19: 100/26
Age 19-24: 93/21
Age 15-24: 193/47
Age 30-50: 161/15

All said, there were 642 deaths from negligent discharges.  There were 157 deaths before age 19, 35 of which were from handguns.  While certainly tragic, this hardly constitutes the epidemic some claim it to be.

Replying to the Naysayers

An organization called the Arms Keepers wrote a brief in the McDonald case.  In it, they argue for an odd model of "selective" incorporation through the Privileges and Immunities (PorI) clause, while strangely insisting that Slaughterhouse can (and possibly should) be preserved.

They were just formed this year, and there's scant information on them.  Their website is registered to a lawyer named Andrew Hyman.  The brief describes them as, "a volunteer organization that supports reasonable regulation of handguns and rifles, instead of prohibition."

The phrase "reasonable regulation" is a red flag, being appropriated as it's been by the Brady Campaign, and it makes me wonder.

Alan Gura has a few notes on the matter.  Apparently, Orin Kerr is involved with Arms Keepers and was one of the co-authors of the brief.  Although he seems open to the idea of visiting PorI, he cast some grim predictions about its revitalization on the Volokh site.

Town Center Mall Off-Limits

Today, I made my once-a-year trip to the mall to finish Christmas shopping. Given that bad things can happen in places where large numbers of people are gathered, I tend to be pretty vigilant. As such, I took notice of their new policy sign.



Rule #6 is a new wrinkle:  Possession or carrying of firearms or weapons of any kind, openly or concealed, with or without a permit is prohibited.

That wasn't there last year.

People have been open-carrying there.  I know; I spoke to one a few months back who bragged about it.  This is the result.  Yet again, those of us who exercise discretion and common sense have to suffer for the actions of those who choose not to.

Grips by Esmeralda

New stocks for the Dan Wesson, courtesy of Esmeralda O'Sheehan.

Still a Ron Paul Fan?

I wrote briefly about the Congressional amicus curiae brief [pdf] in support of the petitioners in McDonald v. Chicago when it was submitted.  We saw a great deal of support from both sides of the political spectrum, but one signature was notable for its glaring omission: Ron Paul.

I'd been wondering about that, and Howard Nemerov was able to get a statement from Dr. Paul's office:

Congressman Paul’s DC office said he didn’t sign the brief because he believes that it interferes with state’s rights, whose policies shouldn’t be dictated by the federal government.

Let's get a few things straight here, people.  First off, states do not have rights. Like any other government, they have powers that are delegated to them by the people.  Only people have rights.

Second, the 14th Amendment does not conflict with the 10th, and in no way does it interfere with the agendas of individual state governments.

Dan Wesson Bobtail Commander

I got out of 1911's for a number of reasons.  This gun seems to address every one of those concerns.

The Dan Wesson company was founded Daniel B. Wesson's grandson.  He left the employ of Smith & Wesson during the Bangor Punta years, and the new company focused on a unique modular revolver design, which was very popular with silhouette shooters.  In the 1990's, the company passed out of the Wesson family's hands, and the focus was shifted to automatics.

I'd heard good things about Dan Wesson's 1911's, and they certainly deserve praise for keeping the 10mm cartridge alive.  It wasn't until a few months ago that I actually had a chance to shoot one, though.

I found myself very impressed.  The gun was accurate, controllable and reliable.  It's also quite unique.

The Day the Earth Got Flatter

Here it is Monday, and the administration is keeping quiet about the climate-change fraud conundrum.  The only word I've heard comes from climate czar Carol Browner, who stated,

I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real (...) [people calling for action] are a very small group of people who continue to say this isn't a real problem, that we don't need to do anything.

At least she stops short of calling us "deniers" or "flat earthers."

Which is better than I can say for Al Gore.  His new book is called, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, and it opens with this happy quote from Deuteronomy:  "I’m offering you the choice of life or death. You can choose either blessings or curses."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Gore thinks very highly of himself.  He's on a crusade to save us from our own worst instincts, much like his wife was in the 1980's.  He loves to see himself on television, and it's even better that he gets to lecture us from a position of moral authority.

Junk Science and Propaganda (Slight Return)

By now we've all heard about "climate gate."  The evidence so far is damning, to say the least.  I've certainly had my fill of the politicizing of pseudoscience, and I hope this new episode gets people questioning what they've blindly accepted for quite some time.

In any case, I imagine things will be a bit awkward at Copenhagen next week.

Reading through the current tale of scientific dishonesty and whitewashing, I can't help but be reminded of the Michael Bellesiles incident.

NAACP v. Civil Rights

All of the current amicus curiae briefs in McDonald v. Chicago are now posted on Alan Gura's site.


The NAACP has submitted theirs, and it's one that really bothers me.

They argue against revisiting the Privileges or Immunities clause at all, claiming,

The Court should turn to the largely unexplored Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment only if it first determines that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not incorporated as against the states through the Due Process Clause. p. 2

They repeatedly claim that there's nothing wrong with selective incorporation, and that it should be kept, as it has not "suddenly proven unworkable."  Sure, no problem.  Selective incorporation can work, it just takes a hundred years or so sometimes.

Regarding Slaughterhouse and Cruikshank,

While it is undeniable that these cases are part of a dreadful chapter in the history of this nation, they present no bar to incorporation of constitutional rights as against the states under the Due Process Clause. p. 13

I can't help but get the feeling they're being more than just a bit glib about post-Reconstruction harassment and lynching, something that's confirmed a few pages later:

It would be ironic, to say the least, if this Court decides to reexamine the Privileges or Immunities Clause in this case—which involves firearms regulations in a city where, each year, many times more African Americans are murdered by assailants wielding guns than were killed during the Colfax massacre by white insurgents who escaped federal prosecution in Cruikshank. pp. 5-6

They argue that the Court, "should not decide Constitutional questions unnecessary to the resolution of this case," which is a bit disingenuous, since revisiting Priviliges or Immunities is necessary to the resolution at hand.

The NAACP has serious political capital invested in gun control as a political ideology, and I guess overturning bad civil rights precedent would threaten that agenda.

If this was 1968 or so, do you really think they'd would be so content to forestall a rehearing of the 14th Amendment?

McDonald v. Chicago: Brady Weighs In

So, they got theirs up just under the wire.  The Brady Campaign brief is pretty much exactly what I expected.

The whole thing is about "reasonable regulation" and "public interest." Without weighing in on incorporation, they simply beg for a standard of review that's as close to rational basis as they can get without calling it such.

They dig pretty deep (Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc.?) to prove that strict scrutiny doesn't usually apply across the board for civil liberties, and they seem to encourage such a situation.

If anything, the Left needs to tread very carefully when praising infringements on 1st and 4th Amendment rights.

Their usual arrogance comes through on page 5:

Gun policy is best determined as it always has been in this country: in the political arena, without courts second-guessing reasoned legislative judgments.

I guess they didn't read this week's 7th Circuit opinion, because they rest part of their case on this:

Our society’s broad acceptance of firearms regulations is confirmed by the fact that while over forty states have constitutions with right-to-keep-and-bear-arms provisions, not one reviews such restrictions under heightened scrutiny. p. 22

Oh, and Arthur Kellerman is used as a source.  Twice.

This is really all they've got.  Can't wait for orals in January.

McDonald v. Chicago: Last Briefs

As the day winds down and my body starts rejecting the caffeine, we have two final briefs coming across the wires.

The first is filed by a group including 34 California District Attorneys, 8 Nevada District Attorneys, the California Rifle & Pistol Association Foundation, the Long Beach Police Officers Association, the San Francisco Veterans Police Officers Association, the Arizona Citizens Defense League, the Texas Concealed Handgun Association, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, and the Bloomfield Press.

They argue that incorporation through Due Process is a given, through any reading of the 14th Amendment.  Since the right to keep arms is fundamental, it must be incorporated automatically as a matter of course.  Their brief focuses on principles of individual defense, and they point out prior court precedent reserving citizens that right, including the 1895 decision in Beard v. United States.

The second brief comes from the Calguns Foundation.  Like Kopel's, it is a specialized brief designed to occupy a specific strategic niche.  In this case, they seek to refute the contentions of Raoul Berger and Frankfurter protegee Charles Fairman, the two authors best known for claiming that the 14th Amendment was never intended to enforce the Bill of Rights against state action.  In their words, "Charles Fairman’s and Raoul Berger’s work on Fourteenth Amendment incorporation of the Bill of Rights is deeply flawed, inaccurate, and should not be relied upon by this Court.”

As they point out, Fairman sank to personal attacks upon John Bingham's character in making what thin points he could.  It's high time someone dragged Berger and Fairman's biased and agenda-driven drivel into light where it can be seen for what it is.

The Calguns brief is deft and clear in its purpose, and it suceeds admirably.  I do recommend that everyone read their primary sources. The first is Akhil Amar's The Bill of Rights, which anyone with even a passing interest in the matter should own.

The second is On Misreading John Bingham, which is available here.

Third, but not last, is Michael Kent Curtis' No State Shall Abridge, which should be required reading at the college history level, if not sooner.

For context, I'd also recommend David Hardy's Original Popular Understanding of the 14th Amendment as Reflected in the Print Media of 1866-68, available here.

Curiously, I've heard nothing on behalf of Chicago.  The Brady Campaign was supposed to file a brief, but there's been no announcement.  In fact, there's only silence from the whole Annenberg/Joyce Foundation axis.

I checked Helmke's column on the Huffington Post, and there's nothing.

While I was there, I did a search that had some interesting results. There are at least four dozen articles about Heller, but only one about McDonald. I'm wondering if that means what I think it does.

McDonald v. Chicago: Dave Kopel's Brief

Dave Kopel has posted a brief in conjunction with the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA). The argument is summed up in the first sentence: Guns save lives.

This one isn't about the 14th Amendment at all.  Rather, it's an ancillary brief written to underscore the point that firearms in the hands of citizens fulfill a useful purpose, and that bans such as the one in Chicago are not only ineffective but dangerous.

It occupies an important strategic position, since the counterargument will likely involve a plea for "interest balancing."  Kopel's research will serve as an effective bulwark against that.

The brief goes into great detail explaining why blood will not run in the streets if the Court incorporates the 2nd Amendment. Lots of charts, graphs and statistics prove the point, and it's worth noting that the information in this one will be useful to 2nd Amendment advocates long after resolution of the case at hand.

McDonald v. Chicago: Institute for Justice Brief

The Institute for Justice has submitted an amicus curiae brief [pdf] in support of petitioners.  Their thrust of their brief is that the 14th Amendment was meant to give teeth to the antislavery protections of the 13th, and that the marginalization of the 14th allowed "constructive servitude" to exist.  They ask that the Court look at the whole intent of the Privileges or Immunities clause, and not simply use it only as a mechanism for incorporation:

There is ample historical evidence that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, and particularly the Privileges or Immunities Clause, was not merely to provide for the mechanistic “incorporation” of the first eight amendments (it would have been easy enough to say so), but instead to redress a whole host of laws, practices, customs, and mores whose common purpose was to destroy the ability of newly freed slaves to become self-sufficient members of society.  p. 12

They argue that incorporation is not only unneccesary but disingenuous, since the 14th Amendment (particularly Privileges or Immunities) was meant to protect a "pre-existing right."  Philosophically, they're absolutely correct.

McDonald v. Chicago: Congressional Brief

I'll post locations throughout the day as the amicus curiae briefs are posted.  It's a lot to absorb in a short time, so I'll just be posting links for now.

The Congressional brief is here.  I'd like to thank Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson for signing onto it.  58 Senators (19 Democrats) and 251 Representatives signed on in total.  There are no great legal insights we haven't heard in any other briefs, but it does mention an interesting historical point:

At the outset of World War II, Congress authorized the President to seize certain property for the national defense under the Property Requisition Act. The Act explicitly excluded “the requisitioning or. . . registration of any firearms possessed by any individual for his personal protection or sport” and further denied that the Act could be used “to impair or infringe in any manner the right of any individual to keep and bear arms.”  p. 29

They also argue that state-level firearms restrictions impede the ability of Congress to call forth militias.

Most of the Senate signatures come from gun-friendly states, but several Representatives from New Jersey and New York have signed on as well.

Nordyke Brief Up

The appellants from Nordyke v. King have filed an amicus curiae brief [pdf] in support of McDonald v. Chicago.

My notes from the original verdict are here.  As expected, the decision at hand created a circuit split.  An order was filed to remand the verdict for a rehearing by the full 9th Circuit, who decided to shelve the matter pending the outcome of McDonald v. Chicago.

Their brief for McDonald not only argues that incorporation is necessary and prudent, but that the Supreme Court must establish a unilateral standard of review so as to give guidance to lower courts in deciding future litigation.

The original Nordyke verdict suggested strict scrutiny, as did the 7th Circuit in this week's Skoien decision.

The current brief is more specific:

An opinion in the McDonald case that incorporates the Second Amendment against the states, but which also includes a holding that all laws regulating the “right to keep and bear arms” must be uniform within each state serves the following functions: (1) Since firearms are ubiquitous, exercising the right to possess firearms should not conflict with the right of intrastate travel; (2) law-abiding firearm owners need only acquaint themselves with federal and state laws, instead of being held criminally accountable in every town, city, county, and parish they travel through within their state while exercising a fundamental right; and (3) instead of the municipal codes of tens of thousands of cities and counties being subjected to challenges under the Second Amendment, a constitutionally recognized, baseline preemption of “the right to keep and bear arms” that funnels down those challenges to the bodies of law of 50 states plus one federal body of law, strangles the majority of potential lawsuits in their crib.  p. 25

U.S. v Skoien and Review Standards

Steven Skoien was indicted under § 922(g)(9) for possessing firearms after being convicted of midsdemeanor domestic violence.  He appealed, arguing that the statute under which he was convicted is unconstitutional under the terms of the Heller decision.

The 7th Circuit has agreed and is vacating his indictment [pdf] until such a time that the government can prove that its interests are in balance with the means involved.  The law in question places a lifetime prohibition on gun ownership for those convicted of domestic violence, even if only a misdemeanor.

The importance? Up until now, it has not been established what standard of review Heller implied for the constitutionality of gun laws. According to the 7th Circuit:

Although Heller did not settle on a standard of review, it plainly ruled out the deferential rational basis test; this leaves either strict scrutiny or some form of “intermediate” review. On the facts of this case, we hold that intermediate scrutiny applies. In its usual formulation, this standard of review requires the government to establish that the challenged statute serves an important governmental interest and the means it employs are substantially related to the achievement of that interest.

The government's justification rested on Heller's reference to "presumptively lawful regulatory measures," to which the 7th Circuit replied, "that's not enough."  If this becomes precedent, then the burden of proof will be much more stringent upon the government when it comes to defending gun-control regulations.

Weird Science: Planetary #27

Almost three years since the last issue, Warren Ellis has delivered the final book of Planetary.  It's an odd and problematic epilogue, but a welcome one nonetheless.

The premise seemed simple enough on the surface.  All that stuff in the superhero comics?  It really happened.  Four scientists did venture into space and return with supernatural powers.  A dying planet did send its last son to earth.  Sherlock Holmes was real, and there's an island off the coast of Japan where giant monsters live.

Of course, none of it happened the way we've been led to believe.  Spoilers ahead.

McDonald v Chicago: SAF Brief Submitted

The Petitioners have published their final brief [pdf] in the case of McDonald v Chicago.  The brief is sharp, focused and well-argued, as I've come to expect of Mr. Gura.  It's also unrelentingly meticulous in predicting and dismantling potential counter-arguments.

The first part explains the history and intent of the 14th Amendment.  To remove any doubt that "privileges" meant anything but "rights" to the drafters, he quotes Andrew Jackson Rogers, himself no friend to the idea of incorporation:

What are privileges and immunities? Why, sir, all the rights we have under the laws of the country are embraced under the definition of privileges and immunities. The right to vote is a privilege. The right to marry is a privilege. The right to contract is a privilege. The right to be a juror is a privilege. The right to be a judge or President of the United States is a privilege.  [p. 25]

From there, he moves on to the meat of the case: overturning Slaughterhouse.  Gura understands the gravity of what he's asking the Court to do, and he takes a multi-pronged strategy in his arguments that's very persuasive.

McDonald v. Chicago: Briefs Pending

The deadline for amicus curiae briefs in the McDonald case is November 23. Chicago filed for an extension, and their brief is now due on December 30.

Two Senators and two Representatives have drafted a brief in support of the plaintiffs, and we'd like to see it receive as many signatures from other legislators as possible. Please contact your congressmen and ask them to sign this brief.

The 1990's Are Now Officially Over

Geocities has closed down.  Frankly, this came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I didn't know it was still around.

The whole service represented everything that was wrong with not only web authoring, but the whole idea that anyone could (or should) do it.  It gave people a venue to publish whatever they wanted, no matter how inane, vapid, or just irrelevant.  The result was that people who could barely write a sentence in their native language were now all "webmasters."

Webmasters!  Talk about empowerment.

For those too young...

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In a way, I wish significant parts of it had been preserved.  We need to remember the Zimmerstraße death zone.  We need to remember people like Peter Fechter, who was left to bleed to death in a ditch after being shot during an escape attempt.  We can never forget the simple truth that socialism can only be enacted on a large scale through oppression and force upon the governed.

The Wall may have been the largest public symbol of that fact. Its fall was a huge victory, both in idea and act, but schoolchildren need to know that some systems are so cruel, so harsh and so repressive that the risk of death is acceptable if it means escaping.

Pushing the Envelope vs. Pushing Your Luck

Pictured below are the sad remains of a S&W M&P 340 revolver.  The 340 is a J-Frame chambered in .357 Magnum.  Its frame is an aluminum alloy infused with a small percentage of Scandium, and it weighs in at 12 ounces.

The owner fired six rounds of .38 Special through it without issue. The first shot of .357 blew up the gun. The operator was unharmed, as all of the unpleasantness happened forward of the muzzle.

An Embarrassment of Cartridges

I've been clearing this up for a lot of people this week.  If you're new to shooting, it's easy to look at the huge variety of ammunition out there and get incredibly confused.  There is nothing wrong with asking, and it's far preferable to blowing up a gun or getting hurt.

Here are a few of the misconceptions I most frequently have to address:

• .38 S&W is not the same as .38 Special


• .38 Super is not the same as .38 Special


• .357SIG is not the same as .357 Magnum


• .32 S&W is not the same as .32 ACP (also known as .32 Auto)


• 7.65 Browning is the same thing as .32 Auto


• 6.35mm is the same thing as .25 ACP


• .45 Colt is not the same as .45 ACP


• .45 GAP is not the same as .45 ACP


• 7.62x39 is not the same as 7.62x54R


• 7.62x51 is pretty much the same thing as .308


• 7mm Mauser is not the same as 7mm Remington Magnum is not the same as 7mm Ultra Mag is not the same as 7mm-08 is not the same as 7.5mm Swiss


• 9mm Largo is not the same as 9mm Luger


• 9mm Kurtz is not the same as 9mm Luger


• 9mm Luger is the same as 9mm Parabellum


• .38 Short Colt is...wait, where did you find .38 Short Colt?!?

Yobbery in the UK

News comes this week that Gun crimes in England have doubled over the last decade.

In Lancashire alone, the rate has risen by nearly 600%.  London police are breaking with age-old  tradition by sending out routine armed patrols, armed with Glock 17's and H&K MP-5's.  Previously, the only armed officers in the Metropolitan area were the CO19 tactics units.

By all accounts, the United Kingdom should be relatively unscathed by gun violence.  The English government has been abridging its citizens' rights to firearms ownership by increasing degrees since the 1903 Pistols Act.

Following the 1996 Dunblane Massacre, English gun control efforts came to their peak.  The Firearms Act of 1997 outlawed nearly all functional firearms in civilian hands, and English citizens were left with no choice but to turn in their guns.  The result was the largest peacetime confiscation of firearms I can recall, and it resulted in the complete annihilation of what was once a thriving gun culture.

The ostensible aim was to reduce violent crime.  As shown this week, the measurable result was failure.

So, what went wrong?

Some Bargains Aren't

Gun show reloads strike again.  Fortunately, the gun was intact.



This is a casing from a 9mm reload, fired from a Glock 19.  It's a standard-pressure, 115gr FMJ sold in bulk at local gun shows.  What you're looking at is a case-head failure.  This can break a gun really quick.

It can also lead to severe injury.  Saving a few bucks isn't worth taking such risks.

Citizen's Arrest

I recently spoke with a lady whose daughter had been the victim of an attempted abduction.  The daughter was able to repel her attacker, and the mother was able to get a description of the perpetrator and the license-plate number of his vehicle.

A crisis was averted, and thanks to a keen sense of observation on the mother's part, the criminal will likely be apprehended in short order.

The mother has a license to carry a firearm.  In playing the events over in her head, it occurred to her that she might have been justified in using her weapon to hold the man for the police.  She asked me about it, and I had to give an honest answer.

Painful as it may be to hear, that answer is an emphatic "no."

The Myth of "Non Lethal"

Ever since Taurus started marketing this silly gun, I've been saying something like this would happen:

The gun, a model known as "The Judge," was loaded with bird shot, and Davis took aim at her husband and emptied all five of the weapon's chambers as he fled through the yard, Bonnett said. He was hit in the upper and lower back by two blasts before escaping, Bonnett said.

Connie Davis shot her husband after he admitted to a prior affair.  Full stop.

It doesn't matter that the loads were likely insufficient for causing serious bodily harm.  Ms. Davis leveled a deadly weapon at another human being and pulled the trigger.  That's the salient fact, and it illustrates my problem with the Taurus Judge.

Cobb County GFL Renewal

Just a heads-up for anyone applying for a Georgia Firearms License in Cobb County: my recent renewal took fifteen days.  I applied on 09/28 and received it today.  That's eleven business days.

In truth, the license was issued 10/06, so make that six business days.  Mark that as a huge improvement in the four-month wait I endured when I renewed in 2005.

Silly thing still looks like it was printed and laminated by an elemetary-school art class.  Fulton County has started issuing hard plastic licenses that look more professional, and which are far easier to fit in a wallet, but I guess I'm stuck with this one until 2014.

Sunday Info Dump

New Ahrends stocks for one of the S&W Combat Magnums. The wood is Cordia.

A few days ago, I spoke to a friend who's a lawyer friendly to the LGBT cause in Atlanta, and the scuttlebutt is that there's an amicus curiae brief in favor of the appellants in McDonald v Chicago. We're going to be keeping some strange...ahem...bedfellows on this one.

Which means two things. First off, I need to get a good shave and iron a shirt if I'm to hang with that crowd!

Second, people from all political sectors are going to be interested in the outcome. This case is about an entire doctrine of Constitutional interpretation; the 2nd Amendment is only a vehicle.

All of which means we've got to be accepting and open-minded when dealing with our new allies. This is a chance to truly "mainstream" the 2nd Amendment in the pantheon of civil rights, not just in the courts, but in public opinion. Every chance we get counts, but this is the big one, gang.

Where's My Nobel?

President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Price this morning.

I've no idea why.

Actually, I do.

He's not George W. Bush.

No, that really is the reason: I'm not being the least bit flippant or cynical.  The Left in this country did a thorough and enthusiastic job of painting the former President as a monster and a warmonger, and of course, Northern and Western Europe were glad to accept that picture.

So, now we've got a more "cosmopolitan" Chief Exectutive, a man who pushed the Camelot image to the hilt in his campaign and promised to "reach out" to the world, and the navel-gazing Norse progressives couldn't be happier.

After all, he buys fully into their pet environmental policies, soundly echoing previous winner Al Gore.  He wasted no time in going on a world tour to apologize for our supposed failures as a country, going so far as to bow deferentially to Saudi princes.  Never mind that we're still in Iraq, long after he'd promised to remove troops, or that we're still in the process of building troop levels in Afghanistan.

Nope.  Apparently, he's a man of peace despite this.  Despite the ~150 other people who could have been chosen.

Many people are asking what he did to deserve this, and even among the Left, the answer is largely, "nothing."

In fact, the answer is actually, "absolutely nothing."

You see, the nominations are made February 1st.  President Obama had only been President Obama for a few days.  He didn't have a chance to do anything.

This isn't recognition; it's cheerleading, or the most transparent and ridiculous sort.  When it was awarded to Al Gore for his wildly inaccurate and discredited movie, I observed that the Nobel Prize had lost a great deal of credibility.  If there was any doubt, today's award certainly removes it.

Tragedy and a New Low for the AJC

Last year, Meleanie Hain made headlines when she openly carried a firearm to her daughter's soccer game in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.  She broke no laws in doing so, but found herself in a legal battle with local officials, which she won in time.

Evidently, there were problems in her household, and last night, she and her husband were found shot dead in their home.  The PAFOA has a thread running in which people who knew her personally are discussing the case.  At the moment, few hard facts about the situation are available.

But that doesn't stop Cynthia Tucker from turning the issue into easy political fodder.

Before the facts are in, before police have released the particulars, Ms. Tucker has used the incident as fuel for an editorial on gun regulation.  She should be ashamed of herself.

Obviously, she has an obligation to put a certain amount of ink to paper, but nothing justifies capitalizing on a tragedy in such a way.

She is commenting--and getting paid to do so--on an event that is still scant on facts, and one that did not even occur in Georgia. Is there no city-level corruption, budget shortfall, crime or woe in Atlanta at the moment, or has she just run out of ideas?  Really, is it that easy to get a Pulitzer nowadays?

Whatever the case, any decent person, journalist or not, should spare Ms. Hain’s family the additional grief and show a little respect for the dead.  I've little use for Ms. Tucker, or the newspaper for which she writes, but this is unacceptable. 

I urge everyone reading this to contact the editors of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and register their disgust.

Edit:  As of this afternoon, reports are that Hain and her husband had been dealing with marital problems for quite some time.  One of their three children told witnesses that the husband shot her.  She leaves behind a 10-year-old son and two daughters, aged 2 and 6.  Scott, her husband, was a parole officer and likely had a government-issued firearm of his own.

Prominence and Permanence

As the we prepare to reignite the debate on the meaning and implications of the Privileges or Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, we find ourselves reaching back to the 19th century for guidance and interpretation.

From the Georgia Supreme Court, we have two interesting pre-Civil War precendents.  In Nunn v. State, Chief Justice Joseph H. Lumpkin nullified a state-level handgun ban by interpreting the 2nd Amendment as an injunction against all governments, as opposed to a limitation only on Federal powers.  Nunn v. State has gained quite a bit of notoriety over the last few years, and is likely to be cited in the arguments for McDonald v. Chicago.

Lumpkin subsequently revisited the issue in Campbell v. The State of Georgia.  James Campbell was convicted of voluntary manslaughter based in part on the deathbed testimony of one Alfred Mays.  Campbell's attorneys argued that Mays' testimony was inadmissible as evidence as its use would have contravened the 6th Amendment right of Campbell to be confronted by witnesses against him.

Dead men may tell tales, but they cannot address a jury.  Prosecutors argued that the right to confront witnesses did not bind the State courts since the Bill of Rights did not enjoin the States.  Though affirming the judgement of Judge Starnes based on other evidence, Justice Lumpkin took ample opportunity to refute the exclusionary argument.

While the amendments to the Constitution of the United States were primarily intended to be restrictive upon the powers of the General Government, and not the Legislatures of the several States--yet they are "declaratory" of great principles of civil liberty, which neither the national nor the State governments can infringe. (...) The right of a party accused of a crime, to meet the witnesses against him, face to face, is no new principle. It is coeval with the Common Law. Its recognition in the Constitution was intended for the two-fold purposes of giving it prominence and permanence.

They Walk Among Us

This is not the actual person, but it's pretty close.  Don't call me with stuff like this at 10:15 on a Saturday morning.  I haven't had my coffee yet.

Creepy Stranger:  "You ever shot a Desert Eagle?"

Me:  "Yep."

Creepy Stranger:  "That's bad ass, ain't it?"

Me:  "It's...um...different.  Can I help you with something?"

Creepy Stranger:  "You know, I carried one when I was in Desert Storm, or as we called it, 'Desert Joke.'  I was in the first chopper that touched down."

Me:  "Folks who served there might not appreciate..."

Creepy Stranger:  "I can say what I want.  I was Special Force.

Incorporation: a Brief Primer

McDonald v. Chicago has officially been docketed, case number 08-1521.  Notice the wording of the question presented:

Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is incorporated as against the States by the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities or Due Process Clauses.

Though the Due Process clause is mentioned as a fallback approach, Gura's case hinges almost entirely on the Privileges or Immunities clause.

Ideally, we'll see Slaughterhouse overruled and the resurrection of the Privileges or Immunities clause it so wrongly gutted.  Cruikshank and Presser would logically follow, and we'll see a return to the total incorporation model.

Flower

I can see why some folks wouldn't care for this game. You can't dual-wield weapons, the team deathmatch mode is sorely lacking, and the final boss is a pushover.

If that last sentence meant nothing to you, then you'll likely enjoy it.

McDonald gets Cert

The Supreme Court has chosen to hear McDonald v. Chicago next session.  Neither NRA v. Chicago or Maloney v. Rice have been consolidated with it.  As it stands, we're left with Gura's case, which is the strongest and, potentially, the most wide-reaching.

According to Gura, opening briefs are due November 16, and we can expect oral arguments in February.  A decision will be reached by June.

The scuttlebutt is that we'll win.  This will be an interesting test for Justice Sotomayor, as she chose in Maloney to refuse incorporation based on precedent.  The only problem with the Supreme Court doing so is that the precedents against incorporation are incomptetent, morally loathsome and generally indefensible.  It will take a huge intellectual stretch for the Court to deny incorporation based on precedent.

As a Supreme Court Justice, Sotomayor no longer has the option of waffling.  She'll have to take a stand one way or the other, and what she decides here will tell us more about her character and judicial philosophy than the Congressional hearings did.

You tell me that you've heard every sound there is

I doubt there's ever been a piece of music that's had as much of an effect on my life as Revolver.  Never mind that it was recorded half a decade before I was born.  In fact, I wouldn't hear it until the early 1980's, when the survivors of the "psychedelic culture" supposedly inspired by this record had gone on to become corporate raiders and investment bankers.

According to some sources, the Beatles were somewhat influential on musical trends and cultural movements in the late 1960's.  I wasn't around for that, and I couldn't have cared less.  What attracted me to them was the sheer talent they had, and the quality of their output, which has never been matched.

Like just about everyone else, I've heard their early output all my life.  It's hardwired into our cultural DNA.  I wasn't as familiar with their middle-period input until a friend gave me a copy of Revolver.  It was the old Capitol mono mix, and I'd end up literally wearing it out as I pored over every minute detail month after month.  To this day, I know every note and nuance of the record.

With this record, the Beatles had gone from catchy pop band to true artists and innovators.  We take many of the studio techniques they used for granted today, but on Revolver, they were revolutionary.  More to the point, they were judiciously used to complement a suite of nearly perfect songs.

Then 1987 came, and I got to hear the record in stereo when their catalog was issued on Compact Disc.  To say the least, I was disappointed.  I imagine that the CD masters were what George Martin thought people expected, but I found them to be harsh, brittle and completely sterile.

We'd be stuck with those for another twenty years.

Sharks in the Water

Lots of people are openly carrying guns to political rallies.  It's something of a big deal at the moment, what with a Chief Executive blatantly ignoring the will of the people.

Still, overlapping the Open Carry movement with other causes is a bit disingenuous.   These rallies are about health care, taxation and debt rather than the 2nd Amendment.  The signal is lost in the noise, and the media doesn't hesitate to ask the hysterical question, "what's that weirdo doing here with a gun?"

Fortunately, the whole thing has gone on without incident or accident.  When the media has gotten snippy, the rebuttals have been heard.

Let's just be very careful, folks.  We need to be sure that none of this ends up being interpreted as threat rather than demonstration.

And we need to be wary of those among the ranks harboring less-than-noble intentions.

Form Letter for "OMG GUNZ B4N!"

Frankly, I'm really sick of this whole thing.  There's a handy website called Google that dispatches these rumors with a simple query, but it seems that people would rather fly into hysterics over innuendo than check facts.


I am responding to the numerous daily emails I get about the matter by simply cutting and pasting the following into the reply box.  I also have a few printed copies to hand out to address personal queries.  Feel free to reprint and use this.


You do not, and will not, have to report your guns on your income tax forms.

This is at best a misunderstanding, and at worst, an outright lie. SB-2099 was introduced in 2000 by Senator Jack Reed. It never went anywhere, and it does not exist in the current legislature.

There is no Federal licensing or registration scheme pending on handguns.

H.R. 45 (also referred to as the “Blair Holt Act”) is dead. Congressman Bobby Rush has been pushing this since 2000, and it has never gained any traction in the legislature. The current version has not accrued one single co-sponsor since its (re)introduction in January.

Please do not spread rumors of these bills around. If anyone tries to tell you these bills are a threat, please correct them.

This is the equivalent of “crying wolf,” and it distracts all of us from the endeavor of protecting our Second Amendment rights from real threats, should they arise.

"Heaven will smell like the airport"

I've been involved with music most of my life.  I don't recall when it began, but I can clearly remember first hearing Giant Steps and the Bartok quartets.  Once in a great while, a piece of music will give me an epiphany as strong as the first pangs of love, something majestic and transcendent.

From adolescence on, I set about trying to create something that could generate that sort of reaction.  I think I came close a few times.  In one medium or another, I think we all get that chance a few times in our lives.

Neko Case certainly has.  Several times, she's nailed it perfectly.

Team Assegai

Ah, Wipeout.  It's only been ten years since the last proper release from the series game on home consoles.

Argumentum ad Metum

Garen Wintemute is at it again. For those of you just joining us, he's a doctor at the University of California Davis Center who made his mark turning the gun-control debate from a political issue into one of perceived public health back in the early 1990's.

This week, he published a study entitled Inside Gun Shows: What goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody's Watching. He was assisted by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, which received $175,000 from the Joyce Foundation (pdf) this year for "Gun Violence" research.

As is to be expected, the "research" here consists almost entirely of take-my-word-for-it anecdotes.  The recovering academic in me took immediate notice of the fact that there are very few citations or statistics presented, and that many of those are self-referential (1).

By a Hair's Breadth

Below is a 95gr .380 FMJ. Due to a negligent discharge, it ended up plowing through two plastic rifle cases, a wooden 2x4 bench, two layers of drywall and a chunk of carpeting. Though it was robbed of most of its energy, it still bounced hard enough to cross ~35 feet of a retail sales floor and lightly impact a wall.



Notice that it's still largely intact and quite capable of rending flesh and bone.

Marketing: 1935 and Now

When FN Herstal came out with the 5.7x28mm cartridge (and the accompanying Five-seveN pistol) a few years back, there was a bit of hand-wringing in certain circles over its ability to pierce body armor.

Bear in mind, the 5.7mm is really a souped-up .22 WMR, not some >5000 ft/s barnburner.  It's not the first (or only) gun made that'll punch through body armor.  Yet, everyone got their panties in a bunch over it.

My Hands Are Lethal Weapons...

So, a twentyish sort started asking me about AR-15 rifles.  He was interested in starting cheap and building up from there.  Fair enough.

Then he asked me which model was more "tactical."  Devoid of any context, that term really doesn't have any meaning, folks.

Realizing that I was edging into serious Mall Ninja territory, I chose to throw in some lingo.  I told him that the answer would depend on how he planned on "deploying" the rifle.

He responded that, for him, a fiream is "just a fallback, if you know what I mean."

I assured him that I didn't know what he meant, and then he said it:

"I don't really need a gun.  My hands are registered as lethal weapons."

He said this without the slightest hint of irony.  He was serious.

Our Own Worst Enemies

Want to know why there isn't an outdoor range anywhere convenient to a metropolitan area? Want to know why even the remote ones keep closing up? Want to know why existing ranges receive such harassment?

Here's your answer:

[flv:http://lonelymachines.org/video/resaca.flv 480 368]

This video, filmed at the John's Mountain WMA range in Resaca, was brought to my attention today.  I've witnessed some truly horrid behavior at outdoor ranges, but I assumed that John's Mountain was far enough from the suburbs that it hasn't been subjected to this sort of treatment.

Apparently not.  Besides the shocking number of safety violations, you can see plain vandalism to the property.  This is why we have to drive farther by the year to find a 100-yard range.

Poking the Bear

According to a report issued this week by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Almost a decade after virtually disappearing from public view, the antigovernment militia movement is surging across the country, fueled by fears of a black man in the White House, the changing demographics of the country, and conspiracy theories increasingly spread by mainstream figures.

The "report" is little more than a sloppy editorial, citing no statistics or academic sources, and relying only on anecdotal evidence gathered from interviews.  Nonetheless, it dovetails nicely into the pattern of rhetoric that we've been seeing for the past six months.

The strategy of this administration has become increasingly strident and transparent.  Here's how it works:

"Don't listen to anyone who questions us.  They're out of touch, and if they're not with the program, they're crackpots and liars.  Better yet, imply that they're terrorists.  It also helps to throw down the race card.

"We won the election, not them.  They don't matter.  We're the elites now, and we know what's best for the ignorant masses. Do not allow yourself to get cornered with facts or statistics.  Ignore their petty concerns, and do so blatantly.  If that doesn't work, hand-pick a friendly audience.

"We're going into the August recess, and these idiots are going to whine about the money we're going to spend on our health care program.  Don't let them point out that it hasn't worked in Canada, Northern Europe, or even in Massachusetts.  If anyone argues, imply that the Right planted them there.

"As a matter of fact, 'Right Wing Conspiracy' worked really well the last time we had control of the government.  Let's stick with that.  Better yet, let's resurrect the whole white-supremacist militia thing from Ruby Ridge and imply that they're all like that."

The best thing about this whole agenda of arrogance and disdain is that it's patently obvious to the general public.  They're not even trying to hide it.  I don't think this is what liberals meant by "transparency," but that's what they're getting, and it's going to haunt them through the next election cycle, and hopefully far beyond.

Pesky Originalism

The Constitutional Accountability Center has filed an amicus curiae brief [pdf] on behalf of certiorari in the McDonald case. It spends a great deal of time looking into the history of the ratification of the 14th Amendment, emphasizing just what the the Privileges or Immunities clause was meant to protect.

The brief quotes Senator Jacob M. Howard, who was instrumental in drafting both the 13th and 14th Amendments.  Howard's testimony during the 39th Congressional Session (page 2765) is eloquent and clear and leaves absolutely no ambiguity as to the question of what should be incorporated by the Privileges and Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment.

The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in their nature fundamental, which belong of right to the citizens of all free Governments, and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign.

As Blackstone meant, and as Justice Scalia pointed out in the Heller opinion, the 2nd Amendment protects an individual, fundamental right. The historical record abundantly confirmed that interpretation. Here, the record proves that Howard, Bingham and the other drafters of the 14th Amendment were just as specific in their intentions.

Chicago Responds

Counsel for the City of Chicago have responded [pdf] to the McDonald/NRA petitions to have their case heard before the Supreme Court next term.  If you're just tuning in, jump in here.

First off, it's a mess.  Seriously, as I parsed through this and took notes, I felt like I was grading a grammar-school book report rather than a legal argument.

They pounce very quickly on the fact that Nordyke is being reheard and that, in the meantime, it is not precedent. Therefore, there is no split among the Circuit courts. That removes one of our arguments for petitioning for cert.

Of course, that situation may change in the near future.

They seem to be trying their best to preclude incorporation under Privileges or Immunities clause. Their strategy seems to be to force the issue to be decided by the Due Process clause.

Why? Because they're trying to prove that keeping and bearing arms is not a "natural" right, and therefore not subject to incorporation, I guess. They appear to be trying to push us into a corner, forcing us to prove that self-defense itself is a natural right.  Plenty of precedent, from Locke and Blackstone to present day, says it is.  So what are they thinking?

Saturday Info Dump

First off, the gun porn:



New Ahrends cocobolo stocks on one of my L-Frames.  In recent years, Smith & Wesson retired their square-butt frames and standardized on round butts across the board.  This is a disappointment, as the square butt feels and shoots better for me.  Fortunately, Mr. Ahrends makes a conversion stock that emulates the traditional grip contour.



Yes, it's my summer carry gun.  I have little trouble concealing it.  Take note: hiding a handgun isn't as hard as you'd think.

Concealed Carry Badges

Back in the 1990's, I used to see these things at gun shows from time to time, but I didn't think anyone actually bought them. I certainly don't expect to see anyone with a lick of common sense wearing one.  Yet, I saw three of these things this weekend.

I can't emphasize enough what a bad idea they are.

Facing Lead

Her name is Barbara, but her friends call her Barbie.  I am not kidding; she told me this herself.  She's in her mid-40's, fake blonde and not very bright.  At some point, someone did Barbie the disservice of telling her she could cruise through life on her looks alone.

Under some circumstances, I could almost pity her.

That is, unless she's waving a loaded .357 Magnum in my face.

The Ruger LCR

Well, it can shoot; I'll give it that.

Now for my complaints:

• the front sight is hard to keep in focus,


• I can't get all my fingers on the grip, and


• it's a bit snappy on recoil.

Yeah, I'm being smarmy.  These things are par for the course with any snubnose revolver.

Thune Amendment: 2 Votes Shy

It's amazing how quickly this came to a head.  I'd just heard about it a few days ago, and as of yesterday, the Brady Campaign and their ilk were in full panic mode over it with the media.  Last night, Fox News was running a constant ticker about it over their program.

Then came the vote today. 

We lost by two votes.

Two.

In a Democrat-controlled Senate.

We may have lost this one, but look at the circumstances.  This never would have been imaginable ten years ago.  Heck, it never would have seemed feasible at any point in modern times.

The winds are changing.  Harry Reid voted for it.  So did Russ Feingold, as well as Democratic Senators from Alaska, Montana, Arkansas, Colorado, Virginia (both Senators), and Arizona.

SA 1618: The Thune Amendment

SA 1618 is an amendment to S. 1390, a bill authorizing appropriations for the Department of Defense for the 2010 fiscal year.  The amendment seeks,

[t]o amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to allow citizens who have concealed carry permits from the State in which they reside to carry concealed firearms in another State that grants concealed carry permits, if the individual complies with the laws of the State.

There are 21 cosponsors including Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Naturally, the Left is pissed, which means it stands a chance.

ATF v. the 10th Amendment

The ATF has fired its first shot across the bow (pdf) regarding the Firearms Freedom Act that passed last month in Tennessee.  In a letter recently sent to Tennessee Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders, they stated:

The passage of the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act (...) has generated questions from industry members as to how this State law may affect them while engaged in a firearms business activity. (...) However, because the Act conflicts with Federal firearms laws and regulations, Federal law supersedes the Act, and all provisions of the Gun Control and the National Firearms Act, and their corresponding regulations, continue to apply.

The remainder of the brief memorandum simply reiterates the basic responsibilities of FFL's.

So far, it's just a "friendly" reminder. What happens this winter, when the Act takes place in several states, remains to be seen.

Sotomayor and the Pitfalls of Precedent

Senator Leahy put Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on the spot today, and her answers don't surprise me in the least.  She paid the expected lip-service to the Heller decision:

Like you, I understand that how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans. In fact, one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA. And I have friends who hunt. I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.

All well and good, but her answers regarding her decision in Maloney v. Cuomo are a bit questionable.  As with Ricci v. DeStefano, she chose to defer rather blindly to precedent rather than risk making waves:

In Supreme Court province, the right is not fundamental. It's a legal term. It's not talking about the importance of the right in a legal term. It's talking about is that right incorporated against the states. (...) My decision in Maloney and on any case of this type would be to follow the precedent of the Supreme Court when it speaks directly on an issue.

This is where it gets a bit slippery.  There are some precedents that are so disastrous, so detrimental to liberty, that they must be defied, even before they are overturned.  Two of those--the Slaughterhouse Cases and United States v. Cruikshank--will be tested before the Court next term.

USC § 922(b)(1)

I got several questions about this today, and I thought I'd clarify.  As of November, you must be 21 years old to receive a frame or receiver for a firearm.  It doesn't matter if it's to be used to make a rifle or a handgun; it's now treated in a similar manner as a handgun.

Congress didn't pass a law while we weren't looking, nor did the ATF sneak a regulation in under the radar.  This is simply a clarification and enforcement of a clause buried in Code section 922, which states:

[It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver] any firearm or ammunition to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than eighteen years of age, and, if the firearm, or ammunition is other than a shotgun or rifle, or ammunition for a shotgun or rifle, to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than twenty-one years of age

Receivers were never explicitly targeted previously, but as per a letter sent out last week (pdf):

A frame of receiver is a type of firearm "other than a shotgun or a rifle" and the transfer by the dealer to an individual under 21 years of age would be prohibited by Title 18, U.S.C., section 922(b)(1).

The letter also states that an FFL may not sell a frame to anyone under 21, nor to unlicensed individuals from other states.  Essentially, if it's not a shotgun or rifle, they're treating it like a handgun.

All of which scotches the idea of anyone under 21 building their own rifles.

The worst part is that there's no real way around this.  The ATF has chosen an unjustly strict reading of the code, but it's all there.  § 922 is pretty much the omnibus of modern gun regulation, and challenging it would require a massive effort.

This could be a shot over the bow in reaction to the Firearms Freedom Acts passing in several states, but if so, it simply proves the need for such acts in the first place.

Sunday Handloads

158gr lead wadcutters over 7.5gr of Hodgdon HS-6.  These are an outgrowth of a self-defense load developed by a friend, which consisted of a 125gr XTP bullet over 8gr of the same powder.

Clark: Totems Flare Review

I was absolutely smitten with Chris Clark's 2006 album, Body Riddle.  It didn't grab me immediately, but with time, it grew to be one of my favorite records released that year.

Last year's Turning Dragon left me a bit cold.  The reclusive genius of previous records had become quite the extrovert for a change.  Much of the abstraction and complexity of his previous worked had been toned down in favor of more danceable, and dare I say, sunny material.

So, with Totems Flare, I had no clue which way he'd go.  Turns out he went both ways at once, and with striking results.

First Briefs for NRA/SAF v. Chicago

California Attorney General and former Presidential Candidate Edmund "Jerry" Brown has submitted an Amicus Curiae brief (pdf), asking the Supreme Court to hear the joint NRA and SAF suits against Chicago.  At first, it seems surprising and perhaps a bit heartening, but don't worry, Brown's got an agenda here.

It opens with the pronoucement:

(...) unlike many states, California has no state constitutional counterpart to the Second Amendment. Unless the protections of the Second Amendment extend to citizens living in the States as well as to those living in federal enclaves, California citizens could be deprived of the constitutional right to possess handguns in their homes as affirmed in District of Columbia v. Heller.

He points out that the Heller ruling failed, "to establish a standard of review applicable to asserted Second-Amendment infringements," which is correct.  He also concurs with Halbrook and Gura that the current schism between the 9th Circuit and other circuit courts on the matter of incorporation can only be settled by the Supreme Court.

Gun Control Fails in Iowa

The group known as Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence has closed up shop, citing a loss of funding.  According to Director Rex Honey,

There was a grant with the Joyce foundation for a period of close to a decade from the mid 90s well into this decade, and that funding did end.  That meant we could no longer hire staff, so everything was done on a volunteer basis.

The Joyce Foundation provided IPGV with $400,000 in grants in 2003, but as of 2007, their net income was only $13,927 (pdf).  They also received funds from the Freedom States Alliance, a major Joyce beneficiary.

Squib Loads

S&W Model 29 Mountain Gun. The loads were factory CorBon 200gr .44 Special. The operator was an experienced shooter with military training.

The shooter started with .44 Magnums, then switched to Specials. It's likely that he expected the milder report and recoil of the .44 Special loads and therefore didn't notice the discrepancy at first.

Surprisingly, the ejector rod is fine, as are the topstrap and cylinder. Looks like a new barrel assembly should have her back up and running. The shooter was wearing eye protection and was not hurt.

Lesson learned: be careful when switching between Magnum and Special loads, as you might not pick up on the difference in time.

The November that Never Ended

In September of 1993, America Online (AOL) granted Usenet access to its subscribers. The infrastructure was crippled by the sudden, overwhelming influx of new users, none of whom knew the protocols or cared to learn. These were the days when a 28.8k modem was considered screamingly fast, bandwidth was precious, nobody had the time to sift through countless "me too!" posts.

In early 1994, Dave Fischer referred to this period as the September that Never Ended, and the name stuck. Usenet was, for all intents, dead as a medium and would never recover.

11/05/08 will go down in history as the gun industry's version of this phenomenon. I have seen more lunacy in the last six months than I've seen in my entire life. I've heard conspiracies that would make Art Bell chortle, and trust me, that guy believed in everything. I thought it would die out, but it hasn't.

Vintage Blank Media

Here's one from the vaults. These are the HiSpace iMac blank minidiscs, produced between 2000 and 2001. With the exception of TDK, they were the only company making interesting blank media at that point. I have no idea what relation these have to the Apple computer of the same name, which was introduced two years earlier.

As of 2003, the HiSpace brand has ceased to exist, though parent company MPO still operates out of France.

They made a series of custom discs for Minidisco (who sadly sell very few minidisc-related products now) with a neat cartoon robot motif, and I'm still searching for a set of their Tribal series discs.

Return of the Four Horsemen

Led by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court struck down the 2nd Circuit's decision in Ricci v. Destefano (pdf) this morning. He was joined by Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts. The decision shows a conservative-leaning court interpreting Title VII in its original spirit, which was to be completely colorblind:

Without some other justification, this express, race-based decisionmaking violates Title VII’s command that employers
cannot take adverse employment actions because of an individual’s race. (p. 19)

It's worth noting that the balance of Justices in this case is exactly the same as it was in Heller. When the question of incorporating the 2nd Amendment under the aegis of the 14th comes before the Court next year, we should be able to expect a 5-4 margin.

Our current situation is strikingly similar to the one existing between 1930 and 1937 in the Hughes Court. Much of Roosevelt's early New Deal legislation was stalled by a bloc of conservative Justices comprised of McReynolds, Devanter, Sutherland and Butler. Referred to as the Four Horsemen, they were frequently joined in their verdicts by Chief Justice Hughes.

Back then, the Court was the only branch of government keeping FDR's agenda in check, and his exasperation with their resistance (and influence) led him to propose a politically disastrous measure to force a change in the balance of the Court. Soon after, Devanter retired and was replaced by Hugo Black, and the Court became more sympathetic to the New Deal. Still, a point had proven: the Supreme Court is the true Third Branch, and is on equal footing with the other two (*).

So now we've got our Four Horsemen in Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts, with Kennedy often concurring. In this administration, we're going to need them.

Marksmanship and Self Defense

Sunday morning, I put some Ahrends on the Model 18 and took her shooting. Even with the bargain-basement stuff, she does me proud:



According to Wikipedia, a penny is 0.75" in diameter. 3/4 of an inch. Double action.

Man, did it feel good shooting that!

Maloney v. Rice

Today's the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Heller v. District of Columbia. James Maloney, appellant in Maloney v. Cuomo, has filed a petition for his case to be heard before the Supreme Court next session. The case is now Maloney v. Rice (pdf). Kathleen Rice is the current District Attorney for Nassau County.

The petition follows and supplements the 14th Amendment claim Mr. Maloney made before the 2nd Circuit in February. It points out that the Circuit Courts are now divided three ways on the question of 14th Amendment incorporation, which would demand that the Supreme Court rectify this discrepancy. It's worth noting that 7th Circuit Justice Easterbrook also acknowledged this disparity in NRA v. Chicago.

Maloney also recognizes the existence of the pending petitions from Alan Gura and the NRA, and he suggests consolidating all three:

Either or both of the pending petitions for certiorari on the Second Amendment incorporation issues arising out of National Rife Association would be fitting for this Court to grant because those cases present the same Fourteenth Amendment issues concerning applicability of the Second Amendment to the States invoked in this petition. Indeed, consolidating those cases with this case and granting certiorari over all of them as a unit would put before the Court the fullest possible range of factual and legal settings in which to consider and resolve the burning issue of Second Amendment incorporation. (p. 25)

Such a measure would represent the largest, broadest coalition of 2nd Amendment resources in American history towards a single goal.

S&W Model 18

The Smith & Wesson K-Frame in .38 Special was a resounding success from its inception. In 1931, they introduced the K-22 Outdoorsman, a 6" K-Frame in .22. The platform was an immediate hit, and its utility and popularity have never waned.

The K-22 was designed for the "high velocity" .22 rounds that were in vogue at the time. There had been concerns over the possibility of case head failures, so D.B. Wesson counterbored the cylinder with recessed chambers. This approach would also be used on the company's Magnum caliber revolvers until the late 20th century, when stronger metallurgy (and better ammo design) rendered it unnecessary.

For many collectors, the recessed cylinder is a symbol of a bygone era of better craftsmanship. I'm not sure I agree, but given the choice, I'll certainly take a revolver with pinned barrel and recessed cylinder over one that doesn't have those features. I don't know why; perhaps it's just the allure.

The year after its introduction, the K-22 would see service on the American Olympic pistol team. After a few slight changes, the K-22 Outdoorsman became the K-22 Masterpiece in 1940. In 1957, Smith & Wesson assigned model numbers to their pistols, and the K-22 became the Model 17. Despite its demotion in nomenclature, affectionate shooters continued to refer to it as the Masterpiece, and with good reason.

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

I'm not a fan of the man's music, but there's no denying he had talent. He released the highest-selling record in history. I doubt there is a person alive who doesn't know who he was.

Nor will I speak for his mistakes and possible misdeeds. For a time, he deliberately fostered a surreal public image, and though he stopped doing so in the 1990's, his eccentric persona would continue to haunt him through the rest of his life. There's no doubting he made some poor choices.

But that's not the point. We all watched this terrified, lonely, shell-shocked man disintegrate over the last two decades, and we were entertained. We should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Obama's Deep Concerns

So, there I am looking for our President's reaction to the unrest over the Iranian elections. His response? To express "deep concern." He made it clear that the depths of his concern were shared not only by "the world," but by Ahmedinijad, who he referred to as the "Supreme Leader." Great.

He's also "deeply concerned" about the fighting in Gaza, terrorism in Pakistan, and the two American journalists currently languishing in a North Korean jail. On prior ocassions, he's expressed "deep concern" for the state of the American automobile industry and Hurricane Gustav.

While he did all kinds of nothing, Hillary Clinton told the press she was "deeply concerned" when, for the first time in almost two centuries, pirates took control of an American ship.

Heck, he's probably "deeply concerned" about climate change as well, but I'm bored of digging up links. Point is, "deep concern" is this guy's answer for everything.

Irresistible Force, Meet Immovable Object

It appears that the DC Voting Rights act (H.R.157/S.160) has been shelved, much to the chagrin of its supporters. It was approved in the Senate by a 61-37 margin, despite the inclusion of Senator Ensign's amendment, which imposed enactment of the Second Amendment Enforcement Act. It seems the House isn't having it.

If this situation seems familiar, that's because Congress was forced to authorize the carry of firearms in national parks last month if they wanted the Credit Card Holder's Bill of Rights to pass. This situation ruffled more than a few feathers, but it set up an interesting precedent. Essentially, if Congress wants to get a spendy bill passed in a timely matter, they're going to have to make concessions to gun rights.

And frankly, the irony is just delicious.

I love Mondays

This week, 23 state Attorney Generals signed off on a letter (pdf) to Attorney General Eric Holder, in which they advised against any sort of renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Part of the letter reads,

As Attorneys General, we are committed to defending our constituents’ constitutional rights –including their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms. This duty is particuarly important in light of the United States Supreme Court’s recent Heller decision, which held that the Second Amendment “elevated above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” The high court’s landmark decision affirmed that individual Americans have a constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms. We, the undersigned Attorneys General, are staunch defenders of that right and believe that it should not be encroached upon without sound justification – and a clear law enforcement purpose. (...) we believe that additional gun control laws are unnecessary. Instead, authorities need to enforce laws that are already in place.

Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, who has had a hit-and-miss record with gun rights, signed the letter.

This follows a similar letter sent by 65 Democratic Congressmen to Holder in March.

Ten years ago, these sorts of initiatives would have been unthinkable. Given the current administration's well-documented contempt for gun rights, it would seem even more unlikely now. Yet here we are.

We're winning, folks.

Rimfires and Self Defense

The .22 Long Rifle cartridge has a long and rich heritage, and it is superb for target shooting and small-game hunting. As a self-defense loading, it has several major shortcomings. There are very few realistic situations where it can be considered viable.

To its credit, the .22 LR produces only slight recoil, facilitaing easier follow-up shots. The size of the cartridge allows it to be chambered in smaller pistols. Ammunition is cheap and widely available, and in countries that ban civilian use of service calibers, it may be the only alternative available.

Balancing out its meager virtues, one must consider the fact that rimfire ignition can be unreliable. Quite simply, you're going to have duds. This is patently unacceptable for a platform that should be expected to perform under unpredictable and dire circumstances. A gun that fails in the face of violence is the most dangerous thing you could possibly hold in your hand.

Most loadings tend to generate a great deal of fouling, and smaller designs must be kept absolutely clean to ensure regular function.

Ballistic performance is disappointing to say the least. From a pistol, you're sending a small bullet weighing ~30-40gr at subsonic velocities. Even the well-regarded CCI Stinger load fails to achieve 12" of penetration in gelating, long considered to be the minimum acceptable standard (pdf).

If you must carry a small gun, there are plenty of small handguns in production in proven calibers such as .38 Special or 9mm.