Quote of the day—CIrcuit Judge Stephanos Bibas

The ban impairs using guns for self-defense. The government’s entire case is that smaller magazines mean more reloading. That may make guns less effective for ill—but so too for good. The government’s own police detective testified that he carries large magazines because they give him a tactical “advantage[],” since users must reload smaller magazines more often. App. 116-18. And he admitted that “law-abiding citizens in a gunfight” would also find them “advantageous.” App. 119. So the ban impairs both criminal uses and self-defense.


The law does not ban all magazines, so it is not per se un-constitutional. But it does impair the core Second Amendment right. We usually would stop there. How much the law impairs the core or how many people use the core right that way does not affect the tier of scrutiny. So like any other law that burdens a constitutional right’s core, this law warrants strict scrutiny.

Stephanos Bibas
Circuit Judge, dissenting.
December 5, 2018
Page 5 of the dissent in Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc.; Blake Ellman; Alexander Dembrowski, Appellants v. Attorney General New Jersey; Superintendent New Jersey State Police.
[See also my “dissent”.—Joe]

Their goal is clear

Here is the Washington State Alliance for Gun Responsibility agenda for 2019:

RESTRICT ACCESS TO HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINES: High-capacity magazines make  shootings more deadly and allow shooters to fire more rounds, faster. Recent reviews of mass shootings showed that 50% involved high-capacity magazines and, in shootings where high-capacity magazines are used, more people are shot overall and more people die. Keeping high-capacity magazines away from people looking to cause harm would reduce risks and help limit the scope of mass shooting tragedies in Washington.

“Keeping high-capacity magazines away from people looking to cause harm”? If you know someone is looking to cause harm why are they not in a cell or getting psychological help? And how do they think they can determine this? What are the details of a law they think will accomplish this? Reviewing your social media history? Interviewing your friends and neighbors every time you want to buy a spare magazine?

If they were serious about wanting to “limit the scope of mass shootings tragedies” they would encourage the one thing known to work over 90% of the time. Since they will never suggest that you know they are lying when they say they want to “limit the scope of mass shooting tragedies”.

Joining the 27 states and the Distict [sic] of Columbia who require safety training for a
concealed pistol license;

This isn’t because there is a problem with people with CPLs being a hazard to public safety. We are already much less likely to shoot an innocent person than a police officer when confronted with a deadly force situation. This is about making it more expensive and difficult to get a CPL.

Updating our list of people prohibited from possession firearms to include additional
crimes that are indicators of future violence and individuals found incompetent to stand trial.

It isn’t good enough that convicted felons and domestic abusers are prohibited persons. They want to expand it to those convicted of “additional crimes that are indicators of future violence”. Misdemeanors which happened 40 years ago? Public intoxication 20 years ago?

For over 30 years, our local towns, cities, and counties
have been blocked from taking action to prevent gun violence own [sic] their own because
of the statewide preemption law. Local leaders are best positioned to know how best
to protect their communities.

They want to remove preemption. The crazy patchwork of laws that will be impossible to remember will make it a high risk adventure to travel across the county with a gun let alone across the state.

Today, we take steps to keep
our kids safe by making schools gun-free zones. It just makes sense to extend these
gun-free zones to child care and early learning centers.

They want more “gun-free zones”! It is the existing “gun-free zones” where something like 90% of the mass shooting occur. And they want to create more of them. This cannot be for any other reason than they want to make it more and more risky to own and carry a firearm. This is not about keeping “kids safe”.

Crime guns are a major problem and a
contributor to gun violence across our state. There are common-sense steps we can
take to keep crime guns off our streets and make our communities safer.

Allow the State Patrol to destroy confiscated crime guns, rather than require them
to auction or trade them.

This is almost baffling. One way to interpret this is that they believe that once a gun has been involved in a crime they think it is more likely to be used to commit a crime in the future. Don’t laugh! This is what some people believe (see also here).

Another way to interpret this is that they believe this is, in essence, a zero sum game. They may actually believe that every time a gun is destroyed that is one less gun in existence. This is, of course, not true. It just increases the market size for new guns. Is this what they really want?

Considering the usual lack of sophistication I don’t think this is the most likely thought process but they may think that raising the price, by decreasing the supply, of guns can be achieved this way. Increasing the price means that fewer people can afford them making it more unlikely people will exercise their rights. The problem with this line of thinking is that the number of “crime guns” is so small compared to the total new gun sales, less than 1%, that any change is in the noise.

Ensuring we are able to respond to new technology by closing loopholes that
currently allow sharing and downloading designs for untraceable weapons that can
be printed or manufactured anywhere.

They want to infringe on the First Amendment as well as the Second. Got it. That’s not going to work any better than the war on drugs. When law enforcement can’t keep high school dropout from getting illegal drugs from South America 24×7 via boats and airplanes there is no chance of keeping encrypted files from sneaking in from anywhere in the world at the speed of light.

Their goal is clear. In the short term they want to make gun ownership difficult, risky, and expensive. Long term they want to eliminate it.

We can’t out vote them. We have to stop them in the courts. They won’t stop unless we stop them. Help stop them.

Quote of the day—Drew Rinella

So average New Jersey residents and veterans have the skill to safely fire 10 lethal rounds at a time in self defense, but if they fired 11 lethal rounds at a time without POST training it would create a dangerous situation? Am I understanding all of this correctly? And this law upheld by judicial apologetics is causing a reduction in violent crime in New Jersey, right?

Drew Rinella
December 6, 2018
Comment to New Jersey must have a stupidity force field
[Yes. Yes. And yes.

Any more questions?—Joe]

New Jersey must have a stupidity force field

From pages 41 and 42 of the ruling in Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc.; Blake Ellman; Alexander Dembrowski, Appellants v. Attorney General New Jersey; Superintendent New Jersey State Police on appeal from the United States district court
for the district of New Jersey (see also A Powerful Dissent Charges Judges Who Casually Uphold Magazine Restrictions With Disrespecting the Second Amendment and Third Circuit upholds NJ’s ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds.). “LCM” means “Large Capacity Magazine” which in this context is anything greater than 10 rounds. This is a decrease from the previous restriction on magazine capacity which was 15 rounds:

Plaintiffs assert that the Act violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because it allows retired law enforcement officers to possess LCMs while prohibiting retired military members and ordinary citizens from doing so. N.J. Stat. Ann. 2C:39-3(g), 2C:39-17. Plaintiffs have not shown that retired law enforcement officers are similarly situated to other New Jersey residents. Retired law enforcement officers have training and experience not possessed by the general public. Kolbe, 849 F.3d at 147 (holding that retired law enforcement officers “are not similarly situated to the general public with respect to the assault weapons and large-capacity magazines banned”). Police officers in New Jersey must participate in firearms and defensive tactics training, including mandatory range and classroom training, under a variety of simulated conditions. App. 144; see, e.g., App. 1361, 1369, 1368, 1383. Law enforcement officers are also tested on a periodic basis after initial qualification and must re-qualify twice a year and meet certain shooting proficiency requirements. App. 144-45; see App. 1322-410 (describing standards, requirements, and full courses for law enforcement firearms qualification). Retired law enforcement officers must also satisfy firearms qualification requirements. N.J. Stat. Ann. 2C:39-6(l). Moreover, because the standard-issue weapon for many New Jersey law enforcement officers is a Glock 19 with a loaded fifteen round magazine, App. 116-17, these officers have experience carrying and using LCMs. Thus, law enforcement officers, both active and retired, have training and experience that distinguishes them from the general public.

Law enforcement officers are also different from members of the military. Unlike military personnel trained for the battlefield, law enforcement officers are trained for and have experience in addressing volatile situations in both public streets and closed spaces, and they operate in noncombat zones where the Constitution and other rules apply. App. 148-49. Even if some military members receive firearms training comparable to the training law enforcement officers receive, App. 140-41, the scope and nature of their training and experience are different, App. 141, 147-49.

For these reasons, retired law enforcement officers are not similarly situated to retired military personnel and ordinary citizens, and therefore their exemption from the LCM ban does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.

Also of note is that New Jersey residents have until Monday to get rid of all their magazines with a capacity of greater than 10 rounds.

Interesting logic going on here. I didn’t know that people in New Jersey were so stupid that the difference between using a 10 round magazine and a 15 round magazine required so much training and experience. And that, furthermore, no matter how much training you had in the military to use magazines with capacities greater than 10 you still aren’t capability of using one once you set foot into New Jersey. It must be that New Jersey has some sort of naturally occurring “stupidity force field” where people become stupid and incompetent once they step across the state border into their political jurisdiction.

But it must be true. How else would legislators and judges dream up and insist everyone believe something so stupid as the above?

Quote of the day—Robert Snaza

This law does nothing to prevent criminals from doing what they want to do. This law is more like going after people who are gun owners who are not criminals and telling them what the state wants them to do.

Robert Snaza
Lewis County Washington Sheriff
November 30, 2018
Lewis County Sheriff’s Office won’t seek out I-1639 violators
[Correct. Gun owners are resentful of this and I expect there will be a lot of people who ordinarily are law abiding who will ignore this law and donate money to court cases to see that the law is overturned.

Via email from Chet.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Arnold (@TomArnold)

This explains why 80% of gun owners shoot themselves or members of their own families.

Tom Arnold (@TomArnold)
Tweeted on November 30, 2018
[See also, Math is hard by Carl Bussjaeger.

As we have known for a long time, anti-gun people have problems with numbers and arithmetic. Arnold is just reminding us of that and that Hollywood types do not have any special knowledge in anything other than pretending to be something other than what they are and reciting lines from a script.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Vote Blue November 6‏ @AlvardoMitchell

The solution is quite simple.

Ban civilian firearms and make illegal possession and/or distribution a capital crime.

Every dead gun owner makes society a better place.

Vote Blue November 6‏ @AlvardoMitchell
Tweeted October 6, 2018.
[Simple solutions for simple minds.—Joe]

Useful research

Via NRA-ILA we have Anti-Gun Researchers Undermine the Anti-Gun Narrative:

Comprehensive background checks and prohibitions based on violent misdemeanors had no effect on homicide rates in California.

The latest study published by the highly-credentialed researchers in these well-funded programs, “California’s comprehensive background check and misdemeanor violence prohibition policies and firearm mortality,” was designed to evaluate the effect of California’s 1991 comprehensive background check and prohibiting those convicted of violent misdemeanors policies on firearm homicide and suicide. The study period was 1981-2000, with secondary analysis up to 2005.

Using a synthetic control methodology, the researchers found that the comprehensive background check and violent misdemeanor prohibitions were not associated with changes in firearm suicide or homicide.

In conversational language, the two policies had no effect.

This can and must be used to block further attempts at “enhanced background checks” and eliminating existing background checks. They are a waste of resources in addition to being constitutionally suspect.

Quote of the day—Braden Lynch

I appreciate “studies” about firearms, but discount them in regards to policy decisions. The absolute right to be armed was decided in 1791.

Braden Lynch
November 30, 2018
Comment to Quote of the day—Jacob Paulson
[Furthermore, this right includes military weapons. Thinking about it from the point of the founders and the text of the 2nd Amendment this makes sense. But following up on this it was clearly pointed out in the Miller Decision. Even further it implies that unless it was a weapon useful to the militia it is not protected. In other words, it could be claimed that according to SCOTUS the 2nd Amendment only protects military weapons:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

I would also point out that the right preexists 1791. It is a right which has been claimed by all species for all time. Even mushrooms claim this right.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Wheel of Death

Most people don’t realize an easy high explosive is nothing but nitromethane and ammonium nitrate. Beats TNT in some aspects. Add 800 mesh Al powder, and you can make EFP’s with a decently formed plate.

An RPG is a step up in complexity. And fusing a fuel air bomb is as well. All doable with patience.

Wheel of Death
November 29, 2018
Comment to Mark Walters: What a Democrat House Means to Our Gun Rights
[People talk the talk over there but I haven’t seen anyone walking the walk. Until then we need to invest in lobbying, voting, and lawsuits.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jacob Paulson

Of all the active shooter events there were 33 at which an armed citizen was present. Of those, Armed Citizens were successful at stopping the Active shooter 75.8% of the time (25 incidents) and were successful in reducing the loss of life in an additional 18.2% (6) of incidents. In only 2 of the 33 incidents (6.1%) was the Armed Citizen(s) not helpful in any way in stopping the active shooter or reducing the loss of life.

Thus the headline of our report that Armed Citizens Are Successful 94% Of The Time At Active Shooter Events.

…

At the 33 incidents at which Armed Citizens were present, there were zero situations at which the Armed Citizen injured or killed an innocent person. It never happened.

Active-Shooter-FBI-Data-Infographic

Jacob Paulson
September 18, 2018
Armed Citizens Are Successful 94% Of The Time At Active Shooter Events [FBI]
[33 is a pretty small sample so it’s not a fair comparison but do remember it has happened that when the police showed up they injured or killed an innocent person.

I have never been able to find the study referenced but according to Jeffrey R. Snyder in A Nation of Cowards:

A nationwide study by Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The “error rate” for the police, however, was 11 percent, over five times as high.

This is not to say that the police are necessarily stupid, poorly trained, or trigger happy.  The more likely reason is that they were not there as the situation developed and don’t know the participants as well as the armed citizen who is caught up in a deadly force situation.

Via an email from Rolf.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Crichton

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

Michael Crichton
September 15, 2003
Crichton: Environmentalism is a religion
[Or as I sometimes say, truth and falsity.

It’s critical, and extremely difficult, in all things. I see it most often in the fight to preserve our right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Harvey Milk

It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.

Harvey Milk
Sometime prior to November 27, 1978
[The previous talk of compromise made me think this was an appropriate time to bring this up.

Milk was thinking of rights other than the right to keep and bear arms but it applies to all true rights. His words resonate well with some people who think of us as the enemy. Use them to your advantage.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

If a citizen is law-abiding in his home state, he or she is going to be law-abiding in a different state where they might find a firearm they want to buy, but the interstate sales ban prevents that. Citizens can purchase all sorts of other goods across state lines, but why not the one tool that is specifically mentioned and protected by the Constitution’s Second Amendment? That simply defies logic and common sense.

Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
November 26, 2018
CCRKBA SEEKS SCOTUS REVIEW OF MANCE INTERSTATE HANDGUN SALES CASE
[While it’s true that many anti-gun people steadfastly oppose logic and common sense (see examples in this post), it is probable that in this case, at some level, there is a logic to this situation. Such a law makes perfect sense and is entirely logical to anyone that who is of the mindset to deny people their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Such people are the enemy of our country and the U.S. Constitution.—Joe]

If cars were treated like guns in Washington State

From Rehv Arms:

Funny stuff. It would be more funny if I didn’t have to live it instead of just laugh at the poor suckers who have to endure it and hope the courts turn things around. I donated several hundred dollars to SAF and the NRA this weekend. This stuff is real. It must be turned around.

Quote of the day—People for US Disarmament (@USDisarm)

People for US Disarmament is a movement of Americans working to ban all guns and imprison or execute all gun owners i.e. potential mass shooters.

People for US Disarmament (@USDisarm)
Twitter profile as of November 21, 2018. It is now suspended.
[It was a satire account but it was close enough to reality you had do dig a little bit to convince yourself of that (Poe’s Law) and many people were taking it seriously.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you realize that such views can be taken seriously now. Beware the normalcy bias and don’t let reality catch us by surprise.—Joe]

Quote of the day—KrisAnne Hall

The entire argument for gun control is built upon a false premise. The second amendment is not about self-defense from criminals.

As unpleasant as it may be for this modern society to say out loud, historically and constitutionally speaking, the right of the people to keep and bear arms has always been a right to protect yourself from those in power who want to enslave you. If America wants to engage in a real factual debate on the right to keep and bear arms, then it must be approached from the proper perspective.

A proper debate on one’s right to keep and bear arms is NOT one that is framed in the terms of whether you can feel safe from wicked and depraved people, full of hate and malice, who want to hurt you. You will NEVER feel safe from those people and those people will not cease to exist just because YOU are not allowed to legally own a gun. Why? Because those people do not care about laws and they will always find a way to hurt and destroy, with or without gun laws.

If society is honest and historically accurate, the only question that has any relevance to the gun control debate is,

“Do you trust those in government, now and forever in the future, to not take your life, liberty, or property through the force of government?”

If the answer to that question is “no,” the gun control debate is over.

KrisAnne Hall
Facebook post, October 2, 2017
DoYouTrustGovernment
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—enemy of the state‏ @NormaltonJim

Of course it’s going to be a long uphill battle to disarm you dumb fucks. Start with shutting down gun stores, then use a buyback program, then anyone caught with a gun after the buyback expires goes to jail.

enemy of the state‏ @NormaltonJim
Tweeted on November 22, 2018
[Interesting.

No apparent concern for the Constitution. No apparent concern for the development of a black market. No apparent concern for the the ethics of the forced confiscation of property from people who have harmed no one. No apparent concern about the potential for the backlash to affect him directly.

And he thinks we are dumb.—Joe]

Statement on #I1639

From a gun store, Precise Shooter, just north of Seattle:

As a local firearms dealer, we are committed to delivering the best firearms to local shooters at the best price while fully compliant with the existing laws.

The advantage of AR platform is that it is effectively a “lego set”: different components of the rifle snap together easily even when they come from different manufacturers.

In particular, AR-15 consists of two main components that simply snap together, and upper receiver…

AR15upper

…and a lower receiver…

AR15lower

The upper receiver is an unserialized part and can be sold without a background check. The lower receiver is not a rifle and thus is not subject to the requirements of the initiative.

Therefore, if the initiative in fact passes the court scrutiny, you would still be able to buy America’s most popular rifle just as you did before, it will just be coming in two separate pieces. And of course we will be carrying a full assortment!

Two important exceptions.

Lower receiver cannot be sold to a person under 21 per federal regulations. So if you are a young shooter, you have until January 2019 to buy your rifles.

Also, we cannot legally break existing rifles into uppers and lowers if they were designated as a rifle by the manufacturer. But almost every AR-15 vendor makes these two components available separately.

We will be working with Ruger and other manufacturers of 10/22 components to make the same deal available for 10/22 as well. We will also research and make available an economic 22lr solution based on AR platform.

Best regards,

Your friends at Precise Shooter

I hope they sell thousands of guns.

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

To pull off confiscation now you’d have to be willing to kill millions of people. The congressman’s suggestion was incredibly stupid, but it was nice to see one of you guys being honest about it for once.  In order to maybe, hypothetically save thousands, you’d be willing to slaughter millions. Either you really suck at math, or the ugly truth is that you just hate the other side so much that you think killing millions of people is worth it to make them fall in line. And if that’s the case, you’re a sick bastard, and a great example of why the rest of us aren’t ever going to give up our guns.

Larry Correia
November 19, 2018
The 2nd Amendment is Obsolete, Says Congressman Who Wants To Nuke Omaha
[The quote above is the conclusion to his post. The post is basically a confirmation of my Boots on the Ground analysis.

The political left doesn’t understand numbers and they don’t understand the psychology of gun owners. Correia gives them some insight:

A friend of mine who is a political activist said something interesting the other day, and that was for most people on the left political violence is a knob, and they can turn the heat up and down, with things like protests, and riots, all the way up to destruction of property, and sometimes murder… But for the vast majority of folks on the right, it’s an off and on switch. And the settings are Vote or Shoot Fucking Everybody.  And believe me, you really don’t want that switch to get flipped, because Civil War 2.0 would make Bosnia look like a trip to Disneyworld.

Don’t expect the political left to let facts get in the way of their beliefs.

We live in interesting times.—Joe]