Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Christian Johann Heinrich Heine

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Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

[Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.]

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine
Almansor: A Tragedy (1823)
As translated in True Religion (2003) by Graham Ward, p. 142
[Note that he wrote this nearly 100 years before USSR was created and 110 years before Nazi Germany began burning books and shortly thereafter people.

There is a sound reason why the progression from burning books to burning people occurs. The reason for the book burning is to stop the spread of “dangerous” ideas. When the book burning fail the desired goal then the spread of those ideas “must” be stopped by the “burning” of the people who spread the ideas.

Black Lives Matter and Antifa have taken the first step. Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

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A “substantial burden” on the Second Amendment is viewed not through a policy prism but through the lens of a fundamental and enumerated constitutional right. We would be looking through the wrong end of a sight-glass if we asked whether the government permits the people to retain some of the core fundamental and enumerated right. Instead, Heller counsels us to look at whether the government regulation restricts the core fundamental right from the outset. In other words, we look to what a restriction takes away rather than what it leaves behind. Here, California’s law takes away a substantial swath of the core constitutional right of self-defense because it bans possession of half of all magazines in America today, even though they are common in guns used for self-defense. In short, a law that takes away a substantial portion of arms commonly used by citizens for self-defense imposes a substantial burden on the Second Amendment.

…

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press . . . and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
VIRGINIA DUNCAN; RICHARD LEWIS; PATRICK LOVETTE; DAVID MARGUGLIO; CHRISTOPHER WADDELL; CALIFORNIA RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., a California corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. XAVIER BECERRA, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Defendant-Appellant
August 14, 2020
[Excellent! I had not thought of this argument before.

This addresses the claim made by some (I exaggerated a bit to make the point) that as long as we have single shot 22 rifles available the Second Amendment is not infringed.—Joe]

Joe Biden on Gun Control

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I didn’t have the stomach to look at Biden’s website for his list of proposed infringements so I’m pleased that Ammo.com did the stomach churning work.

Quote of the day—UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

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Commonality is determined largely by statistics. But a pure statistical inquiry may hide as much as it reveals. In the Second Amendment context, protected arms may not be numerically common by virtue of an unchallenged, unconstitutional regulation. Our colleagues in the Third and Seventh Circuits agree. See ANJRPC, 910 F.3d at 116 n.15 (common use alone “is not dispositive” because of an unconstitutional regulation restricting the quantity of protected arms in circulation); Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 409 (7th Cir. 2015) (“[I]t would be absurd to say that the reason why a particular weapon can be banned is that there is a statute banning it, so that it isn’t commonly owned. A law’s existence can’t be the source of its own constitutional validity.”). Thus, “[w]hile common use is an objective and largely statistical inquiry, typical possession requires us to look into both broad patterns of use and the subjective motives of gun owners.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Cuomo, 804 F.3d 242, 256 (2d Cir. 2015) (“NYSRPA”) (internal alterations and quotation marks omitted). As discussed earlier, nearly half of all magazines in the United States today hold more than ten rounds of ammunition. And the record shows that such magazines are overwhelmingly owned and used for lawful purposes. This is the antithesis of unusual. That LCMs are commonly used today for lawful purposes ends the inquiry into unusualness.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
VIRGINIA DUNCAN; RICHARD LEWIS; PATRICK LOVETTE; DAVID MARGUGLIO; CHRISTOPHER WADDELL; CALIFORNIA RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., a California corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. XAVIER BECERRA, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Defendant-Appellant
August 14, 2020
[Emphasis added.

YES!

If upheld this eliminates the concern about machine guns being unprotected via Heller because they have been (essentially) banned since 1986 and hence can’t be considered “in common use”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

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The state of California argues that the district court erred by granting summary judgment for the Owners. We disagree with the government’s position, and we affirm. California Penal Code section 32310 severely burdens the core of the constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. The statute is a poor means to accomplish the state’s interests and cannot survive strict scrutiny. But even if we applied intermediate scrutiny, the law would still fail.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
VIRGINIA DUNCAN; RICHARD LEWIS; PATRICK LOVETTE; DAVID MARGUGLIO; CHRISTOPHER WADDELL; CALIFORNIA RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., a California corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. XAVIER BECERRA, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Defendant-Appellant
August 14, 2020
[Great news out of the ninth circuit. The case is about the constitutionally of bans on normal capacity magazines. This is the second time this case has been decided in our favor. See also these posts about the first time.

This lawsuit was supported by FPC and SAF who I (and my employer) have been donating thousands of dollars to each year. This is a partial return on my investment.

Almost for certain there will be a motion for en banc rehearing. “And as the Hawaii open carry case demonstrates, CTA is perfectly willing to sit on such requests for, quite literally, years.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Norwood Paladin

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One can be displeased by the fact that Americans enjoy a unique right to self-preservation, but to deny the Second Amendment and falsely claim the right to keep and bear arms as “so-called” is intellectually dishonest. Law-abiding gun owners have every right to arm themselves. Thankfully, the Founding Fathers added no provisions in the Bill of Rights protecting the timid from never encountering things that make them uncomfortable or that offend delicate sensibilities. 

Norwood Paladin
August 11, 2020
Gun rights aren’t ‘so-called’
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lori Lightfoot

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Again, No, We DO NOT need federal troops in Chicago.  Period. Full stop.  I’m sure the president will have his way with this incident, but I’m calling upon him to do the things we do need.  We need common sense gun control.

Lori Lightfoot
Chicago Mayor
August 10, 2020
Lori Lightfoot Says Chicago Needs “Common Sense Gun Control” — NO Federal Troops
[Mass looting, with no guns involved, which the police are unable to stop and the Mayor says the solution is gun control.

The lies are now so nonsensical that they are losing their credibility with people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—GOFORBROKE231 @goforbroke231

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Vasily Blokhin. Soviet executioner at Katyn. His count of 7,000 shot in 28 days remains the most organized and protracted mass murder by a single individual on record. Somewhere in Portland, his successor rises.

GOFORBROKE231 @goforbroke231
Tweeted on August 7, 2020
[The conclusion is plausible. It’s the communist way.

I wish Portland law enforcement (this includes the prosecutors and judges) would do their jobs.and put the terrorists away for a decade or so. The more they let the problem fester the more blood that will ultimately be shed. The weak government response is so eerily like the government response to the Nazi brown shirts in the 1930s.

As a side note, just think about those numbers. 7,000 people murdered in 28 days. Assuming eight hours per day that’s more than one person every two minutes.

Be prepared to respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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Fortunately, for the gun rights movement, the strength of the NRA is not only in its leadership but in its members. Its members will not abandon the fight to protect Second Amendment rights.

Alan Gottlieb
August 6, 2020
Is New York’s Attack on the NRA Meant To Punish the Gun Rights Cause for Executive Malfeasance?
[It’s even possible that if the New York AG succeeds what comes back in place of the NRA will be a stronger and more effective fighter for gun owner rights than the NRA.

As hostile as it sometimes is to gun owners I know long time gun rights advocates have told me there were times the ATF was vulnerable enough to be abolished. But the good guys preferred they be kept in a weakened and relatively ineffective state than have the existing laws enforced by a strong and well regarded agency like the FBI (this was nearly 20 years ago).

If the NRA is taken down our side will have recourses that would have gone to the NRA and the memory of a martyr killed by our enemies.

Perhaps the anti-gun people should be careful what they wish for.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Dershowitz

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I’ve never heard of a case where an attorney general’s tried to dissolve a first amendment – and in this case First and Second Amendment protected political organization – that is a bridge too far constitutionally.

If she is selectively prosecuting and selectively investigating the NRA because she disagrees with its politics, that’s wrong,

…

I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe in reasonable gun control. But I would defend the NRA’s right advocate its position without being subject to selective investigation and prosecution if it turns out that the attorney general is looking into this organization because she disagrees with its politics.

Alan Dershowitz
August 5, 2020
Alan Dershowitz to Newsmax TV: NRA Move Political Prosecution
[I’ve known about the NRA’s wasteful use of money since 1997 and have put the vast majority of my 2nd Amendment dollars elsewhere. But I’m with Dershowitz. I strongly suspect New York Attorney General Letitia James is attacking the NRA for political reasons.She openly says this:

Strong gun laws in NY haven’t been enough to stop the gun violence that rips communities of color apart every day. Today, I’m announcing my plans as Attorney General to stop gun violence & take on the NRA, gun manufacturers, retailers & banks that fund these weapons of death

I would like to see NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre out but that can be done without destroying the NRA.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Terri Conley

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If you inch towards suggesting that people who do something other than monogamy might not be miserable or that they might have some advantages, they were just so hostile to that. I found that really fascinating.

Terri Conley
August 4, 2020
How One Psychologist Upended Everything We Know About Women, Sex, & Monogamy
[As well as being fascinating I think making people uncomfortable with clear factual data is great fun! I love doing it with the stupidity of gun laws as well as human psychology.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Maj Toure

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I believe that more Black people would be alive if they were armed. So when I hear ‘unarmed Black man,’ I’m sad because there should be no such thing.

Maj Toure
Founder Black Guns Matter
July 28, 2020
Black gun ownership rises after pandemic and protests
[From the same article:

Phillip Smith, the president of the National African American Gun Association, told Politico he’s getting 2,000 membership requests per day – what used to be the annual numbers. There are now 90,000 members on the organization’s Facebook page.

This could change the voting demographics. Do these seem like people who are going to vote for someone who says things like:

The idea that we don’t have elimination of assault type weapons, magazines that can hold multiple bullets bullets in them, is absolutely mindless. It is no violation of the Second Amendment. It’s just a bow to the special interests, the gun manufacturers, the NRA.

It’s gotta stop.

It’s Biden that just has to be stopped. The dramatic increase in first time gun purchasers, and, in particular, the increased ownership by black Americans will decrease the likelihood that he will win the election.

We live in historic times.—Joe]

Karma

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Via Milo Yiannopoulos @m

YourNext

While I got a chuckle out of this it’s quite misleading. There is a big difference between the gun owner protests which leave the streets cleaner than when they arrived with the most “violent” exchanges are spirited legal briefs compared to the riots, looting, and destruction of the Marxists of the last few weeks.

They can’t honestly believe we would be on their side. You almost have to start looking at elderly nun demographics to find a group of people more law abiding than people who have concealed carry licenses.

The only thing that I know of which we have in common is the skill set and tools to quickly create a lot of damage. It’s just that no one has flipped our switch yet with a valid target. There are a number of scenarios where the rioting Marxist change that. But in all the futures I see the police will give the gun owners a slight nod and turn back to engage the remaining commies.

You don’t need guns

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Via Matthew Bracken @Matt_Bracken:

ThePoliceWillProtect

Common Barrel Thread References

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From Silencer Shop:

One question that has always been a mainstay in our most-questions-asked category is whether a specific silencer will fit a specific gun. With threading looking similar, and acronyms being thrown around like hot tamales, we understand your plight. As the suppressor industry grows, it seems thread pitch options have too.

While some thread pitches are more popular than others due to military use or it being made common by specific firearm manufacturers, the last thing you want to happen is to finally get your suppressor in and realize that it doesn’t match up with your host firearm’s threading.

The list that we are providing you is to serve as a reference for quickly locating how your barrel may be threaded. Remember that factory barrel threadings and after market threadings aren’t always the same.

Details, which are kept up to date, are here.

Interesting demographics

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It’s time for me to renew my Arizona concealed weapons permit (so I can carry in Nevada). While looking for the renewal application I found this:

Chart
last updated: 07/19/2020

  ACTIVE SUSPENDED REVOKED
PERMITS 360666 4834 1259

PERMITS 19-20 21-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80+
ASIAN 0 147 412 548 498 273 95 8
BLACK 0 186 492 651 562 333 105 9
INDIAN 0 97 194 225 266 188 90 14
UNKNOWN 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
WHITE 4 4270 8979 11539 18469 21471 12639 1698
FEMALE TOTAL 4 4700 10077 12963 19795 22265 12930 1729

PERMITS 19-20 21-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80+
ASIAN 3 777 1926 2595 1974 1176 429 79
BLACK 5 903 1888 2415 2399 1650 754 133
INDIAN 1 251 520 522 544 506 326 90
UNKNOWN 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
WHITE 32 15051 31188 39480 52869 62273 52958 13343
MALE TOTAL 41 16982 35522 45012 57786 65605 54468 13645

Notice the peak age category for both female and male?

I would not have guessed that would be the case.

Quote of the day—Rawhide Wraith@olddustyghost

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Democrats want to eliminate the electoral college, the Senate, the 1st amendment, the 2nd amendment for sure, and the rest of the constitution, our borders, citizenship, carbon based fuels, cars, cows.

And the first step in their scheme is to eliminate Trump.

We better fight like hell or those of us who aren’t shot during the disarmament or who don’t starve when fuel and food are eliminated are going to be slaves.

Rawhide Wraith@olddustyghost
Tooted on September 28, 2019
[There’s far too much truth in this.—Joe]

A reasonable idea

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I had read this earlier in the day but it didn’t occur to me to reinforce it with a link from my own blog until it was suggested via email from John H.

No In-Person GRPC But You Can Still Support The Second Amendment Foundation

Why can’t the U.S. be more like England?

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Ever since I can remember anti-gun people have used England as an example of how guns should be regulated/banned. Here is what you get, UK Knife Crime Hits Record High, Murder Surges in Khan’s London

Knife crime in England and Wales reached a historic high in the year leading up to the end of March, as murders climb again in Sadiq Khan’s London.

…

London Assembly Member David Kurten said in response to the surge in crime: “There must be an end to politically correct policing — more stop & search, more arrests of burglars and violent gang members, less hassling people for having the wrong opinions.”

Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney added: “All this while London’s dismal Mayor, Sadiq Khan, orders an urgent review into… ‘racist’ statues.”

The proportion of crimes actually being solved in England and Wales also fell to a record low, with just 7 per cent of criminal acts resulting in a court appearance for a suspect, down from 8 per cent last year and 16 per cent in 2014-15 when such records began to be compiled.

The Home Office report said that the fall represented some 33,460 fewer offences resulting in a criminal charge or court summons compared to the year prior. The number of sexual offences that resulted in charges fell from 5.2 per cent two years ago to just 3.2 per cent last year.

The number of rapes that ended in prosecution was just 1.4 per cent.

This is why we have the Second Amendment.

Just say, “No!” to gun control.

What are the odds?

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The gun owner rights community has been frustrated by SCOTUS not accepting any significant 2nd Amendment cases other than NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK in 10 years. And that case which was declared moot four months ago when the city and the state changed the law once the court accept the case.

I still claim, “We have SCOTUS decisions, they have childish insult.” But that claim has been vigorously disputed:

You talk about SCOTUS decisions. At this point SCOTUS is firmly anti-gun. They stand by idly as the states run all over it.

The courts are NOT on our side Joe. They are either openly hostile at most or do not care. So stop using that fucking excuse. In less than four years they will siding with the government when the government just bans all guns With mandatory buyback or simply door-to-door confiscation.

THEY are the ones that will have court victories. They have far more than we do right now. Banning of private gun sales? Legal. Banning open and concealed carry? Legal. Banning magazine capacity? Legal. Banning entire classifications of firearms? Legal. Banning all semi automatic rifles? Legal. Confiscating all rifles? Legal.

And these are things that have already happened. So no, Joe. They have the court decisions. We have nothing. I will not be surprised when the Supreme Court overturns Heller And McDonald.

There’s some truth to that. But it’s not entirely true. And I’m of the opinion it can be considered mostly false. Let me explain.

First there is the “strictly speaking” definition of words argument. The court refusing to hear as case is not a court decision. It does not make precedent such that they would have to overturn the “decision” as some later time if a substantially similar case was brought to the court. So, “strictly speaking”, I’m pretty certain, we have all the SCOTUS decisions on our side for at least the last 20 years.

Agreed, that’s not at all that comforting when it takes months to buy a gun in D.C, “red flag” laws are showing up all over the country such that your guns can be taken away from you based on a false allegation and you have to prove your innocent to get them back, common firearms and magazine capacities are outlawed, you can’t purchase a handgun in a different state, you and/or your guns have to be registered, you need permission from the FBI to transfer ownership, you have to be 21 years old to purchase a firearm, and hundreds of other infringements which would not be tolerated if you were buying a book or even getting an abortion.

So, with that concession, I’ll go on to the next argument.

What are the odds we will get soon get a SCOTUS which will take a 2nd Amendment case and throw out a bunch of the laws infringing our rights? As nearly everyone in the community knows it’s about Justices Roberts and Ginsberg.

Roberts has long been a point of speculation and even evidence of being subject of outside influence on important cases. If, as some people have suggested, Roberts is impeached due to his poor decisions then a replacement justice with a character similar to Thomas or Kavanaugh would fix the problem. I put those odds at about 2% and dismiss them as unimportant as a stand alone event.

It’s also possible, as has been suggested many times, that there are people with black mail evidence. The one elaborated on at the link is just one of the figurative suggestions. More plausible ones involve a possibly illegal/irregular adoption. Discovery of such a blackmailer could lead to impeachment and/or elimination of that threat and subsequent better alignment with the constitution. I see these odds as a little better, say 5% and also don’t place much hope in it.

But since these two outcomes are essentially independent of each other the odds of one or the other coming true can be estimated at about 7%. It’s not great but I wouldn’t bet my life on a game of Russian Roulette with those odds. And of course you have to take into account that scenario is conditioned on the Roberts removal scenario is resolved while Trump is in office and Republicans hold the Senate. That conditional reduces the likelihood to insignificance again.

We are left with the Ginsberg replacement scenario. For years people have been wishing her a long and healthy retirement starting “tomorrow”. But the reality probably is, as friend Mike B. told me a few weeks ago, “She has made it clear the only way she will leave the court is in a hearse.”

That said, the odds of that happening appear to be noticeably increasing every few months. Again, the significance of her leaving the court is conditioned on Trump being in office and a Republican controlled senate at the time it happens.

Let’s estimate some numbers and see what we come up with for odds of that happening.

There are two scenarios of primary interest for each of two variables. 1) Does Ginsberg leave the court before or after the end of this year? And 2) Does Trump get reelected and do Republican hold the senate or not? I claim Trump and Republicans holding the Senate are correlated strongly enough that they can be considered a single event rather than somewhat independent.

I claim that the Ginsberg variable and the Trump/Senate variable are independent and hence the probabilities calculations are further reducing the complexity of the probability calculation.

If Ginsberg leaves SCOTUS by the end of the year (realistically say, the middle of November) my bet is that Trump will appoint a replacement and the Senate will consent regardless of the election results.

You might protest that that’s too short of time and the Democrats will protest too much. Really? The Democrats have been screaming obscenities at Trump and Republicans since the evening of November 8th, 2016. If Trump and/or the Republican senate lose this election my bet is they will rush the candidate through just as payback for all the abuse they have taken for the last four years. I say that with an estimated probability of 0.75.

My bet is that Ginsberg will take her hearse ride in less than four years from now. I say that with an estimated probability of 0.95. For ease of computation let’s just say it’s a certainty with the slack taken up by the chance Roberts or another “problem” justice is replaced in the next four years.

In order for the anti-gun forces to win SCOTUS Ginsberg has to show a pulse until the end of the year AND they need to defeat Trump. This makes the probability of them winning SCOTUS very easy to compute. It’s the simple multiplication of the two probabilities.

This leads to some very interesting results. Suppose the probabilities are 0.70 that Trump loses and 0.70 that Ginsburg “wins” in 2020. The probability of a gun owner SCOTUS loss is 0.49. Yes, the odds are slightly with us even if the Trump only has a 30% chance of winning the election and there is only a 30% chance of Ginsberg taking her hearse ride.

Just for the sake of more examples, so you can easily follow along at home, if the odds are 0.5 and 0.5 then the gun owner odds of a loss are down to 0.25. If the odds are 0.5 of a Trump loss and 0.7 of a Ginsberg win in 2020 gun owners are at 0.35 chance of a loss. Drop in your estimates and see what you come up with.

My estimates are a 0.25 chance of a Trump/Senate loss. I don’t believe the polls are any more accurate than they were in 2016. The enthusiasm/turnout seen at the political rallies in 2008, 20012, and 2016 were excellent predictors of who would win. I expect the same will be true in 2020. I think Trump has enough enthusiasm he can beat the margin of fraud with a 0.75 chance. Also, every day the riots go on and Democrats don’t lift a finger to stop them, let alone appear to encourage them, the more likely it is that Trump and Republicans will win.

I give Ginsberg a 0.5 chance of holding on through the end of the year.

This results in a 0.13 chance of a gun owner loss of SCOTUS. In other words, I believe we have a 0.87 chance of getting a SCOTUS friendly to gun owners within the next four years.

I have been hesitant to elaborate on this because, and Glenn Reynolds says, “Don’t get cocky kid.” There are things gun owners must do to increase/maintain those odds. But it’s important people not get depressed/demoralized too.

I want this to be a call to help win a fight which is quite winnable. Please find ways to support a continued Republican Senate and a Trump presidency. NRA-ILA can help you support pro-gun candidates even if you don’t want to give money to the NRA.

With the caveat that this is a probability, not a certainty, I still say we have SCOTUS decisions on our side, we will continue to have SCOTUS decisions on our side, and our opposition has childish insults.