As the Supreme Court assesses the emergency brief, it is increasingly likely that Second Amendment jurisprudence will take center stage in this term.
Matthew Rice
December 27, 2022
Gun Rights Advocates Seek Supreme Court Intervention to Block New York Restrictions
[Since Heller was nearly 15 years ago, I expect SCOTUS will be hearing appellate court rulings regarding the 2nd Amendment for at least another 15 years.—Joe]
How do we combat propaganda? Censorship isn’t working. Even the most pro-censorship people will admit that getting companies like twitter to censor propaganda is hard. We can do better. I know that people can do better. You just have to try.
Noah @noah_anyname
Tweeted on April 20, 2022
[This is really late game thinking.
Just keep saying no to Stalinists like this until you are out of ammo. Then attach the bayonet and continue to defend yourself as long as you can.—Joe]
Civilization itself rests on an understanding of when, why, and how violence is essential to preserving the peace.
DonKilmer @donkilmer
Tweeted on December 25, 2022
[See also, why the gun is civilization.—Joe]
Brown Eyed Susan @smc429
Tweeted on November 11, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!
Via In Chains @InChainsInJail.
How about, “You fear shopping because you might see someone exercising their constitutionally protected rights? Let me buy you a one way, no return allowed, ticket to Venezuela, China, or North Korea.”—Joe]
The entire reason for government is to protect the rights of the people. Portland politicians apparently think otherwise:
Portland throws out hundreds of criminal cases due to public defender shortage
A shortage of public defenders in Portland, Oregon, has led courts to dismiss hundreds of criminal cases and delayed justice for scores of other victims whose cases have languished in a backlog for months.
Between February and December of this year, Multnomah County dismissed 300 cases because no public defender was available to represent the defendants, according to the Multnomah district attorney.
…
In all, the district attorney’s office said, nearly 2,500 felony cases were affected this year by a lack of public defenders.
“The courts are put in the position of releasing defendants without prosecutors having so much as an opportunity to request bail or release conditions. And it’s not getting any better,” District Attorney Mike Schmidt said in a statement last month.
“This sends a message to crime victims in our community that justice is unavailable and their harm will go unaddressed,” Schmidt said. “It also sends a message to individuals who have committed a crime that there is no accountability while burning through scarce police and prosecutor resources. Every day that this crisis persists presents an urgent and continuing threat to public safety.”
Oregon, primarily due to the influence of Portland, has passed laws that would have halted all gun sales if the courts had not stopped the enforcement of those laws. There are very few hypothesis consistent with the evidence. Nearly all of them lead one to conclude politicians need to be prosecuted or removed from office via other means.
This will not end well.
I’ve always wanted to get a handgun, But I haven’t really had a reason to get one until now. The main thing I’ve been hearing from people is to keep a firearm or something else for self-defense.
David Scott
November 30, 2022
Armed to The Teeth: University of Idaho Students Packing Heat Following Murder of Four Classmates
[They can thank Mike B. and others who spent years getting the University of Idaho and other Idaho higher education schools to comply with the law of the land.—Joe]
Via email from Rolf.
The 14.9x102mm SOP wildcat cartridge:
.. is made by necking down a 20mm Vulcan autocannon shell casing. It was developed as a collaborative project among members of the Snipers Hide online forum. It has undergone several revisions since 2010.
It’s usually loaded with a hand-crafted low-drag 1,690 grain solid copper bullet, which it fires at roughly 3,350 fps. The projectile itself is roughly 4 inches long, with driving bands and an aggressive rebated boat tail to reduce base drag.
The sectional density is around 0.70, which is an astoundingly high measure of the mass-to-diameter ratio. It’s very heavy for it’s caliber, nearly a quarter pound.
The ballistic coefficient is about 1.85, which is an astoundingly high measure of how aerodynamic the bullet is during flight.
And, of course, because it is more that .50 caliber (for now) it must be registered as a “destructive device.”
Wow. Nice ballistics! But I wouldn’t want to pay the price to feed it.
You can’t understand any significant aspects of the gun-control debate once you eliminate defensive gun use. It becomes inexplicable why so many Americans oppose otherwise perfectly reasonable gun-control measurements. It’s because they think it’s gonna lead to prohibition, and they won’t have a gun for self-defense.
It’s not complicated.
Gary Kleck
December 15, 2022
Emails Show CDC Removed Defensive Gun Use Stats After Gun-Control Advocates Pressured Officials in Private Meeting
[Before you get involved with a debate with someone about the CDC removing defensive gun stats from their website insist they answer a different question first. Why is the Center for Disease Control involved with private gun ownership?
Private gun ownership can be a legal issue. In this case the courts and/or the Department of Justice might have valid reason to weigh in on it.
If you want to push the envelope, gun ownership can related to criminal statistics and the FBI collects the data on that.
But the CDC? They have a long and dirty history of conspiring to deprive citizens of their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They need to stay in their lane or plan on enjoying their trial.—Joe]
“We applaud Texas for doing the right thing and accepting the district court’s ruling against its law prohibiting 18-to-20-year-old adults from carrying firearms in public,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s senior attorney for constitutional litigation. “Not only do young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults, they are also among the reasons we have a Second Amendment, Constitution, and Country in the first place.”
…
Pittman noted the Second Amendment does not contain any mention of age as a restriction, unlike other portions of the Constitution.
“To start, the Second Amendment does not mention any sort of age restriction,” he wrote. “This absence is notable—when the Framers meant to impose age restrictions, they did so expressly.”
This only the Fifth Circuit. I would not be surprised to see the Ninth Circuit tap dance their way into believing they can set the age as 65 and over. Then the next day saying “Red Flags” laws allow confiscation for people over 60 because they are of unfirm mind.
Via Cal Skinner:
And from the comments:
I have 5 daughters that I have furnished rape whistles to… they all go Bang
That works for me. And except for the one in England, all my daughters have their whistles.
A woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about three to four times more than a man doing the same.
And this message is getting across to women. Between 2012 and 2022, in states that provide data by sex, permits for concealed handguns increased 115% more quickly among women than among men. The percentage of women who say that gun ownership protects people from crime has also been growing faster than their male counterparts.
…
The high cost of permits disarms the very people who most need protection, including minorities who live in high-crime urban areas.
John R. Lott Jr. and Holly Sullivan
December 20, 2022
Why aren’t stalked women ever told to get a gun for self-defense?
[To answer the question, my hypothesis is that one or both of the following are the reason:
As pointed out in the above quote, women are getting it figured out and responding appropriately.—Joe]
This no surprise to anyone in the gun rights community, but it is still irritating:
Lamont seems intent on executing his plan to reclassify peaceable Connecticut residents lawfully exercising their constitutional rights as felons. His example illustrates very clearly what the reassurances of gun control advocates are worth and how anyone who thinks its safe to rely on such reassurances will be in for a rude awakening.
Indeed, the month after Lamont announced his intentions, an editorial in the Connecticut Mirror argued that constitutional assurances the right to keep and bear arms will be protected should themselves be repealed. “It is time to talk about repealing the Second Amendment,” the author insisted. But he made it clear that his plan wasn’t necessarily an alternative to incrementalism but a potential aid to it. “[T]he very existence of a loud argument about the larger issue of repeal will make those incremental proposals seem more moderate, and therefore ultimately more achievable,” the editorialist wrote.
Never forget, the only reason for gun registration is confiscation.
Via FOX News:
U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued a permanent injunction on Monday against the “fee-shifting” provisions of the state’s gun law – which empowers private citizens to bring lawsuits against manufacturers of illegal guns – declaring it unconstitutional.
“‘It is cynical. ‘It is an abomination.’ ‘It is outrageous and objectionable.’ ‘There is no dispute that it raises serious constitutional questions.’ ‘It is an unprecedented attempt to thwart judicial review,’”
As Tom Gresham (@Guntalk) said:
This was absolutely critical. A “Must Win.”
Democrats have guns, too.
We just don’t jerk off with them in public.
John Collins @Logically_JC
Tweeted on November 11, 2022
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!
Via In Chains @InChainsInJail.
Citation needed.
You have to wonder what color the sky is in his universe. I have never heard of such a thing happening.
Or, more likely, this just a childish insult because that is the best he can come up with to protect his fragile feelings when confronted with the reality that people exercise rights he does not approve of.—Joe]
There is only one Second Amendment. It means what it meant in 1791. Although analysis of attitudes in 1868 is relevant to determining whether the Second Amendment is incorporated, that does not change the fact that what was incorporated was the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms. Post-1868 evidence cannot be used to contradict that original understanding.
Stephen Halbrook
December 14, 2022
Did the Fourteenth Amendment Alter the Meaning of the Second Amendment?
[Shouldn’t that be “Post-1791 evidence…”?—Joe]
While the wheels of justice do grind slowly, in this case I foresee them crushing the state of California’s gun control ambitions.
LKB
December 15, 2022
Judge Benitez’s Latest Order in Miller v. Bonta Sets the Stage for Taking Down California’s Assault Weapons Ban
[I expect things will be slow for months or perhaps a year or two then speed up. But the chances of gun control being crushed is quite high.
It’s the trials, and/or the threat of prosecution, which will really speed things up… if they actually start happening.—Joe]
We still depend on hundreds of laws that keep guns out of crowded public places, stop teenagers from buying handguns, and prohibit criminals from arming themselves with assault rifles. Now, because of a recent Supreme Court ruling, many of these remaining regulations are in danger of being dismantled.
Ryan Busse
December 14, 2022
One Nation Under Guns
[Who does he think he is fooling? Do bans on recreation drugs (including alcohol and tobacco) stop teenagers from buying them? Have background checks increased public safety? No.
If he is actually alarmed by the “dismantling” of these laws it because his intent of the laws is something other than public safety.—Joe]
I am determined to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines like those used at Sandy Hook and countless mass shootings in America. Enough is enough. Our obligation is clear. We must eliminate these weapons, which serve no purpose other than to kill people in large numbers,
Joe Biden
U.S. President
December 14, 2022
Biden speaks of «societal guilt» for «taking too long» to address the problem of gun regulation in the U.S.
[Ignoring the blatant lie about their sole purpose is the mass killing of people*, I find it very telling that he (and his handlers) express no concern for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is as if those restraints on government do not exist in their minds. This is the mind of a dictator.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.
I hope they enjoy their trials.—Joe]
* I’ve firing over 100,000 rounds with “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines” without killing anyone. Are they going to claim my guns are malfunctioning or admit they lied about only having one purpose?
Nationally, all crime rates except the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–designated firearm homicides decreased as firearm sales increased over the study period. Using a naive national model, increases in firearm sales were associated with significant decreases in multiple crime categories. However, a more robust analysis using generalized estimating equation estimates on state-level data demonstrated increases in firearms sales were not associated with changes in any crime variables examined.
Journal of Surgical Research
Mark E.Hamill MD
Matthew C.Hernandez MD
Kent R.Bailey PhD
Caleb L.Cutherell MD
Martin D.Zielinski MD
Donald H.Jenkins MD
Douglas F.Naylor MD
Miguel A.Matos DO
Bryan R.Collier DO
Henry J.Schiller MD
Legal Firearm Sales at State Level and Rates of Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Homicides
Journal of Surgical Research
Volume 281, January 2023, Pages 143-154
[This may be useful for exposing the lies of the anti-gun people who claim more guns cause more crime. It may also demonstrate benefits in reducing stress in the general population caused by the courts declaring existing gun laws unconstitutional.—Joe]
I ALWAYS bring a knife to a gun fight.
I also bring a gun.
Maj Toure (@MAJTOURE)
Tweeted on December 10, 2022
[I bring two knives. Knives are for when thing end up being at contact distance. A knife on both the left and the right side makes it more likely access to at least one of them is unobstructed.
Learn how to use your defensive knife.—Joe]