Quote of the Day

Overlapping school zones can make it literally impossible for people to legally carry firearms, and this is exactly the situation in Billings, and similar communities all over the country. People living in, or moving through these communities can be charged and prosecuted, permanently costing them their Second Amendment rights. Such restrictions clearly make the law unconstitutional.

Adam Kraut
December 6, 2024
SAF FILES 9TH CIRCUIT AMICUS BRIEF IN CASE CHALLENGING GUN-FREE SCHOOL ZONES – Second Amendment Foundation

These types of infringements have been in place for over 25 years. It is long past time for the courts to throw these laws out.

Remember Huffman’s rule of firearms law.

Quote of the Day

In the November 14 edition of the Miami Herald, in an article titled: Report: Majority of trafficked guns in Caribbean are from the U.S., shipped from Florida, reporters Jacqueline Charles and Jay Weaver claim a lack of restrictive gun laws in the United States cause high murder rates in Caribbean countries. From the article:

A new report from the U.S. government’s lead investigator on gun trafficking in the Caribbean area is confirming what region leaders have long said: Most of the firearms wreaking havoc in their vulnerable nations and being used in 90% of the homicides are coming from the United States.

Note the premise included in the misuse of the English language in the opening sentence:  the firearms wreaking havoc.

Firearms do not wreak havoc. This is Orwellian distortion of the language. Firearms are inanimate objects. Firearms do not cause harm. Firearms do not have a will of their own. The correct usage would be: People in vulnerable nations are wreaking havoc with firearms. This is important. Semantics are important. You must correctly understand cause and effect if you are to solve a problem. If you confuse cause and effect, your attempts to solve problems will almost certainly fail. You will attempt to change an effect rather a cause. Occasionally, simply by chance, an action taken with the wrong assumption may line up with a real cause.

Firearms do not cause murders and violent crime. The evidence does not support this assumption. Firearms numbers vary wildly across the globe, and in the Caribbean. Firearms laws vary wildly across the globe and the Caribbean as well. Murders and violent crime vary wildly as well. There is no correlation between them.

People can sometimes find a correlation between firearms laws and murders/violent crime committed with firearms. This does not show firearms cause crime. It shows a truism. Firearms can be used in crime.  Firearms can also be used to defend against crime. There is no good evidence to show a decrease in overall murders or overall violent crime when/where extremely restrictive firearm laws are implemented. If overall murder rates or overall violent crime rates do not decrease when firearms laws are implemented, the laws have failed in their stated objectives.

Dean Weingarten
November 22, 2024
GUN WATCH: Miami Herald Misdiagnoses Murder in Carribbean

Excellent points.

Quote of the Day

Why are there small lifeboats on gigantic steel ocean liners? Why do we spend thousands equipping our vehicles with airbags? Why do we wear seatbelts and place our infants in safety seats? Why do we build storm shelters under our homes? Why do we install ground-fault interrupter outlets by sinks and bathtubs? Why do we get painful inoculations? Why do we voluntarily undergo sickening chemotherapy? And why do we protect ourselves with firearms?

…

Sadly, there are those who seek to usher in a sort of post-Constitution era where the citizens’ individual rights are only as important as they are convenient to a ruling class. Seeking ancient laws that may partner well with a present-day infringement on a right proclaimed in the Bill of Rights without reading it in conjunction with the aforementioned history is nonsense. The Statute of Northampton cannot in the least bit be used to vex the rights of Illinois citizens in the 21st century to keep and bear arms. The oft-quoted phrase that “no right is absolute” does not mean that fundamental rights precariously subsist subject to the whims, caprice, or appetite of government officials or judges.

Stephen P. McGlynn
U.S. District Judge of the Southern District of Illinois
November 8, 2024
Barnett v. Raoul

McGlynn writes some great stuff in declaring “assault weapon” bans illegal. But his “permanent” injunction was stayed upon appeal. It will probably take SCOTUS to put an end to this nonsense. For now, it is just words and not the force of law.

Quote of the Day

FPC LEGAL UPDATE: The Supreme Court has distributed our lawsuit challenging Maryland's "assault weapon" ban for the court's conference on December 13th. These conferences are where the court decides which cases to take up this term. https://t.co/CpAh5oTzbT

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 26, 2024

We are on a path to have “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine bans declared unconstitutional nationwide by summer. If SCOTUS decides to accept the case, which most observers think they will, then we probably will win.

See also what Mark Smith has to say:

If it is successful, it will be just short of 31 years after the original national “assault weapon ban.” It will “only” be 17 years after the Heller decision.

The 1994 ban and Ruby Ridge motivated me to buy my first gun and start advocating for gun owner rights. It has been a long fight for me and much longer for a lot of other people. And even if we win this case, it will be far from over. We need to start prosecuting the perpetrators of these rights infringements. Otherwise, it will be another 30 years until their constant whining is little more than noise.

That said, a win will be a really big deal. A win will crush our opponents moral and create a powerful precedent. It will be among the best things that has happened on this long journey.

As said by Conan when asked, “What is best in life?”

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

Quote of the Day

The NFA never should have been enacted but we are (unfortunately) stuck with it for now. In my view, the proper way to attack in the courts the NFA is incrementally, i.e., one case at a time. As I see it, we need SCOTUS victories on AR bans and Mag bans first. Then attack the NFA by arguing “suppressors” and perhaps “short barrel rifles” are protected arms and, of course, look to attack the NFA via going after the Hughes Amendment as per the Rybar dissent in the Third Circuit by then-judge Alito. We have several 2A issues to clean up first before I think we can launch a serious legal assault on the NFA. That’s just the political and legal reality today.

As to my views, I unfortunately do not possess the power to waive a magic wand and eliminate unconstitutional and and/or stupid gun control laws. So, I have to work within our constitutional system, which is not perfect but it certainly beats all the other political systems out there.

Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar @fourboxesdiner
Posted on X, November 17, 2023

Yes, this was posted a year ago. I’m trying to clean up my queue.

If you follow Smith’s YouTube channel (164 K subscribers), you will find his predictions about SCOTUS. He predicts they will take the semi-automatic ban case out of Maryland this term. That would likely mean “assault weapons” and normal capacity magazine bans in all states would be “dead men walking” by next summer:

With that out of the way the NFA would soon see front line action in the courts.