Woollard v. Sheridan et Alii

The 2nd Amendment Foundation is spearheading a lawsuit [pdf] to challenge Maryland's rigid scheme on the issuance of concealed carry permits.  In short, a civilian seeking a permit for "personal protection" must show "documented evidence of recent threats, robberies, and/or assaults, supported by official police reports or notarized statements from witnesses."

Plaintiff Raymond Woollard should therefore meet the criteria.  According to the complaint, his home was broken into on Christmas Eve, 2002.  Woollard was beaten by the intruder, and it took police over two hours to respond to his wife's 911 call.  His assailant was sentenced to probation at first, then imprisoned after assaulting a police officer.

Upon the assailant's release only three years later, Mr. Woollard was issued a permit.  In 2009, his renewal was denied by the defendants, who cited a lack of evidence to "support apprehended fear (i.e. - copies of police reports for assaults, threats, harassments, stalking).”

The man who assaulted Mr. Woollard in his home now lives three miles from him.  If that doesn't qualify as "apprehended fear," I'm not sure what does.

My Darkest LIght Will Shine

A very, very loose cover of the old Felt song.

My Darkest Light Will Shine (00:53)

Loop (00:17)

Weird Handgun Buying Criteria, Part 1

Today's issue: difficulty using the slide release on an empty magazine.

This is an utterly irrelevant issue. First off, that little lever on the left side of the gun is a slide stop, not a slide release. Notice the somewhat inconvenient placement on many guns. To release the slide, the proper technique involves pulling the slide to the rear and letting it "slingshot" into battery.

Now, I'm aware that there are very experienced and knowledgeable shooters who use the slide stop as a release. They're not wrong, but that method has its drawbacks. In a stress situation, fine motor skills evaporate. Operating a small, oddly-positioned lever with shaking, sweaty hands will be problematic at best.

If you try the slingshot method on a pistol with an empty magazine inserted, you'll quickly discover that it does not work. Why not? Because you're not supposed to drop the slide in that state. The whole idea is that the gun locks up to tell you it's empty and needs reloading. Insert a live magazine, and the slide drops easily.

There is nothing wrong with a gun on which it is difficult to drop the slide on an empty magazine.

Herter's Ammunition Isn't

George Herter was a character, to say the least.  He made a living making and selling things he liked, and while eccentric at times, many of his wares were quite good.  By his own estimation, everything he made was the Best Thing Ever.  I've seen the old catalogs, and some of the claims are hilarious.

Hyperbole aside, I have some of his 6.5x55 ammunition, and it's very accurate.  Some folks think he used Norma components.  By all accounts, his ammunition was good stuff.  He was also known for developing some interesting wildcat cartridges.

His company went out of business years ago, so I was quite surprised to see people showing up to the range recently with newly-minted pistol ammunition bearing the Herter's name and crest.  More sobering have been the two catastrophic failures I've seen it cause.

Me the Optimist

I didn't mean for this to come out sounding like Tim Hecker.  I really didn't, but hey, these things happen.

Me the Optimist (00:48)

U.S. v Skoien Decided

We've got our first post-McDonald decision [pdf], and it's a bit of a disappointment.  Judge Skyes' original decision, in which the 7th Circuit had applied strict scrutiny to the "core right" of the 2nd Amendment and "intermediate" scrutiny to the rest, has been overturned.

The Heller dicta regarding "presumptively lawful" regulations and "longstanding prohibitions" were on full display here.  I worry that those two phrases will continue to cause us trouble into the foreseeable future.

For now, the constitutionality of §922(g)(9) (the Lautenberg Amendment) still stands, and the bar for scrutiny has been lowered from strict to intermediate scrutiny across the board:

The United States concedes that some form of strong showing (“intermediate scrutiny,” many opinions say) is essential, and that §922(g)(9) is valid only if substantially related to an important governmental objective.  [p. 8]

The Ends of Invention

An exercise in harmonics and ring modulation.

The Ends of Invention  (00:55)

Attention All Planets of the Solar Federation

If you recognize that quote, you're a Rush geek like me.  If not, I really can't help you.

There may be no other band in popular music that has so sharply illuminated the divide between critics and normal folks.  On one hand, cool guys like Robert Christgau and JD Constantine despise them.  On the other, they've sold 40 million records and they continue to fill arenas worldwide.

If it were my career, I'd take the opinion of millions of loyal fans over some guy who gets paid to write witty boilerplate any time.  I've always wondered how the guys in Rush felt about all this, and now we've got the answer.

Beyond the Lighted Stage is a documentary produced by the same guys who did last year's great Iron Maiden film.  For a band that's been around for nearly four decades, it's well past time we got something like this.

And fortunately, it's marvelously done.