Mark – President Trump has made it crystal clear: he’s committed to restoring and defending your Second Amendment rights. But the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, is actively IGNORING the president, betraying gun owners, and trampling your rights.

While Bondi’s DOJ has taken some positive steps for Second Amendment rights, the department is now acting on its own—defying President Trump’s directives and letting gun owners down in the process.

The idea of Pam Bondi defying Donald Trump’s wishes is absurd. She’s been in his pocket ever since Trump gave $25,000 to support her campaign for Florida Attorney General. She vocally supported his campaign, represented him through the first impeachment, and backed him at every turn. She’s not going to oppose his policy on guns.

The GOA letter lists some anti-gun things the DOJ has done:

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE’S TERRIBLE SECOND AMENDMENT STANCES

A rogue ATF employee declared pinned-and-welded barrels “not permanent” after destroying a sample with a vise. ATF has refused to reverse this Biden-era reinterpretation, threatening millions of legally configured rifles.

The concern here is that it is (effectively) illegal to have a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches, but many rifles are sold with barrels slightly shorter than that, to which they permanently attach a muzzle device, such a flash suppressor or compensator, using the pin-and-weld method. This has long been recognized as bringing the gun into legal compliance.

The GOA says that an ATF employee claimed a muzzle device was not permanent because they could tear it off with enough force, even though that damaged the barrel enough to render the gun unusable. It’s questionable whether this actually changes anything, and rifles with pinned and welded muzzle devices are still being sold by major manufacturers.

Here are a few other complaints:

After a pro-gun Supreme Court victory in Garland v. Cargill crushed the bump stock ban, Bondi’s DOJ refused to pay GOA’s legal fees, punishing grassroots defenders and discouraging pro-gun litigation.

The bump stock ban was enacted by an Executive Order that Trump signed in 2018. You folks at GOA fought him on it, so he’s not about to pay your bills. Not paying bills is kind of his brand.

ATF weaponized background checks, spying on lawful sales, and leaving loopholes to expand this unconstitutional surveillance in the future.

DOJ is using Biden’s anti-gun playbook to attack Missouri’s Second Amendment Protection Act, making arguments nearly identical to those used under the Biden regime.

Missouri’s Second Amendment Protection Act aims to prevent local police from helping enforce federal gun laws. Of course Trump’s Attorney General doesn’t like it: It mirrors the logic of sanctuary cities, which Trump hates, and it takes power away from Trump’s federal government, which he hates even more.

Bondi’s DOJ is defending unconstitutional suppressor bans, parroting the failed arguments of California’s anti-gun politicians.

I don’t like them either, but they haven’t been found unconstitutional.

In case after case, DOJ drags its feet, blocks legal fee recovery, and argues to keep Biden’s anti-gun rules alive for a future anti-gun president.

The DOJ supported warrantless home searches in Montana, putting your Fourth Amendment rights at risk.

The DOJ is even defending gag orders that prevent GOA from sharing FOIA documents.

Pratt then goes on to say:

Mark, President Trump is standing up for our rights. But the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi are BLOCKING his pro-2A agenda and ignoring orders from the top. This is an outright betrayal.

Oh, it may very well be a betrayal, but not by Pam Bondi.

Trump has done very little to help gun owners. He managed to eliminate the fee for a National Firearms Act tax stamp, which is required for suppressors and short-barreled rifles, but he didn’t get rid of the requirement for registration and ATF approval. Nor did he do anything about state laws banning such weapons.

Trump has pardoned multiple drug dealers and kingpins, and he even sprang George Santos from prison, but he hasn’t done a thing for people arrested by the ATF for ridiculous paperwork crimes.

Trump is no friend to the right to keep and bear arms. Blaming it on Bondi is just Pratt’s transparent attempt to avoid angering Trump supporters who donate to pro-gun organizations.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at GOA on Trump

Wait, what? A middle-aged white cishet male has advice for trans people?

Fair point. I’m sure I don’t know enough about transgender issues to give much in the way of useful advice — certainly not about transgender-specific issues. But I do know a bit about the subject of this post, so I think this advice may be useful nonetheless. So here it is:

Please give serious consideration to arming yourselves.

I mean with a gun. I think you should give serious thought to preparing to use a gun to defend yourself or your loved ones. Think about getting training and keeping a gun in your home or on your person. If that sounds extreme, I understand. But I’m worried that we may be entering a time when transgender folks may find such extremes to be necessary.

(Of course, most of this advice is not specific to trans people, or even LGBTQIA+ people. I’m really talking to any vulnerable person who is worried that the current cultural/political climate may bring life-threatening violence into their lives, and who is willing to consider armed self defense to counter the danger.)

Let me stop right here to address one common objection to this kind of advice: The trans haters are causing the problem, so shouldn’t they be the ones to change their behavior? Rather than telling trans people to protect themselves, shouldn’t I be telling trans haters to not hurt trans people?

In a word, no. Because that would leave the initiative in the hands of the trans haters. The trans haters don’t have to take my advice, so telling them not to hurt trans people would leave it up to trans haters to decide whether trans people will be safe. I would rather that the safety of trans people was under their own control.

Trans people might not take my advice either, but that is rightly their choice to make. On the other hand, no amount of educating, yelling, or pleading on my part will change the behavior of violent trans haters. But you know what will change their behavior? Getting shot by the victims of their hate.

Lest that sound too bloodthirsty, it’s important to clarify the meaning of armed self-defense.

It’s never about killing. You have no right to kill someone. But you do have a right to stop someone from killing you. ^[1]Or causing you great bodily harm, although that is more legally complex. In short, you have to be afraid you’re going to die. More than that, your fear has to be reasonable, which basically means that other people in your situation would have felt the same way. Then, and only then, are you allowed to stop someone by using a degree of force — lethal force — that might kill them. You’re not shooting to end a life, you’re shooting to save a life.

It’s not about revenge. Punishment is best left to police and prosecutors. Having a gun is not a license to be a vigilante. You can’t shoot someone for evil they did in the past, no matter how bad it was or how recently it occurred. The classic example is that if someone throws a knife at you, you shouldn’t shoot back because it’s too late to stop the knife and they are now unarmed. You are only allowed to shoot to prevent violent acts against you or another innocent person. So if the knife thrower draws another knife, you can now shoot to keep him from killing you with it.^[2]None of this is legal advice. The rules for how you determine whether someone is a threat to your life are fairly simple, but applying them to specific confrontations can be tricky, and they vary from state to state, so I’m not going to go into any more detail here.

It’s not about catching bad guys. That’s what cops do. That’s their job. Your job is simply to get away unharmed. You don’t chase bad guys, and you certainly don’t shoot them for running away. For you, breaking contact counts as a win.

It’s not about scaring people with your gun. Using a gun in a threatening manner is a crime. Even something as simple as placing your hand on your holstered weapon can get you in trouble. Of course, if someone is a legitimate threat and you draw your gun in preparation for self defense, that’s a completely different story. If they run away instead of attacking, all the better. But your reason for brandishing your weapon has to be legitimate self defense.

It’s not about standing up for yourself. If someone is giving you shit, having a gun is not a reason to be bold and give them shit in return. Quite the opposite: As an armed person you have a moral, and often legal, obligation to try to de-escalate and avoid conflicts that have the potential to end in deadly violence. If you ramp up the intensity of the confrontation, the police might accuse you of intentionally provoking the fight as an excuse to shoot

The basic rule is that the only time you are allowed to shoot someone is when you have to shoot someone. And the truth is, it would be best if you never have to. Shooting someone is bad for you on so many levels, and it’s worse if you kill them. Even if you are completely justified in shooting an attacker, the police will at the very least cuff you up and take you into custody while they investigate what happened. Depending what witnesses tell them — including the attacker’s friends — you may even be charged with crimes. Furthermore, you may get sued by the attacker or their family, which will be expensive even if you win. Finally, killing someone can be bad for your mental health. The guilt of having killed can be crushing, even if the shooting was completely justified. Except for getting shot or killed yourself, shooting or killing someone is the worst possible outcome.

Whether armed self-defense is a route you want to follow is an intensely personal decision. You might not be ready for it. Then again, you might be more ready than you think. Here are a few things to consider:

• Do you meet the legal requirements to own a gun? The Federal requirements are here. You’ll also need to check the requirements for your state, which can vary quite widely. Some states require paperwork and a background check just to get permission to buy a gun. Other states will allow you to carry a concealed handgun as a natural right.^[3]The good news (sort of) is that the more likely a state is to have lots of anti-trans sentiment, the more likely it is to make it easy to own guns..
• Are you sufficiently mentally healthy? If you know you have a problem with impulse control, for example, then you may not want to risk the possibility that you will shoot somebody in anger. On the other hand, if you’ve had severe depression or suicidal ideation, then maybe you shouldn’t give yourself easy access to a gun. You probably also shouldn’t use a gun if you have trouble dealing with reality, such as if you are schizophrenic or having hallucinations.
• Are drugs and alcohol a problem? You shouldn’t carry a gun if you have a substance abuse problem. If you don’t abuse substances, but like to indulge on occasion, then just don’t have your gun with you on those occasions.^[4]The legal requirements at the federal and state level may be more stringent than how I am characterizing them. Please don’t take this as legal advice. Guns and drugs, including alcohol, don’t mix.
• Can you handle the responsibility? Are you capable of handling a gun safely and responsibly? Can you keep a gun safely in your home? Do you trust yourself to carry a concealed weapon in public on a regular basis? Would you be able to shoot someone if you had to?

You should be able to address those first three items with a little thought and introspection. That last one, however, will be difficult for you to reach answers about if you are unfamiliar with guns and how they are used in self-defense. The only solution for that is education.

Learning the basics of shooting a gun safely is no more difficult than learning to use a moderately complex tool, like a compound miter saw, MIG welder, or sewing machine. You start with the basics, and then get better the more you do it.

Learning to use a gun in self-defense is more difficult, because you have to learn law and tactics, but it’s not as daunting as you might think. Here in Illinois, the standard for sworn police officers is only 40 hours of firearms training, and police operate in a more complex legal and tactical environment than someone engaged purely in self-defense. Even if you have no interest in guns, you can treat armed self-defense like a skill that you have to learn to get a job, such as using a computer, driving a truck, or operating specialized equipment.

So if you think you might want to arm yourself for self defense, but you don’t know enough to be sure, perhaps a good first step is to take a basic pistol course. The course will explain the types and parts of pistols and how they work, introduce you to the safety rules, explain ammunition choices, teach you the basics of modern safe and accurate pistol fire, and give you a chance to try several different guns. It may also discuss local laws for transporting and carrying a pistol. You’ll come out of this course with a better understanding of guns, and a better idea of how comfortable you feel around them.

Given the general right-wing tilt of gun owners, you may be understandably concerned about how you will be treated by firearms instructors, range operators, and other shooters. Perhaps the simplest way to deal that concern is to see if there’s a Pink Pistols chapter in your area. The Pink Pistols are the most well known LGBT gun training group in the country. Alternatively, if you can’t find a chapter nearby, you can try searching the list of LGBT-friendly firearms instructors at Operation Blazing Sword.

If you can’t find explicitly LGBT-friendly instruction, you’ll have to find a regular nearby gun range. My gut feeling is that it will be fine.^[5]But perhaps my cishet white male gut feelings aren’t very accurate. I can’t promise that you’ll be welcomed with open arms, but I will say that gun people are no more a monolithic culture than trans people. Some instructors despise intolerance and would welcome a chance to undermine the stereotype. And even if an instructor doesn’t like you, that doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to teach you. Spend enough time around gun ranges, and I guarantee you’ll meet that guy who (1) thinks your “lifestyle” is sinful, and (2) supports your “God-given right” to carry a gun.

Moreover, gun ranges tend to foster a culture of civil respect between shooters. So while some people there may not like you, they’re unlikely to give you much trouble. After all, you’ve got a gun.

Speaking of gun culture, one thing you should expect to find with a good instructor or at a good shooting range is a very serious safety culture. There are rules to gun safety, and you should expect to have them explained to you and enforced at all times.^[6]Yeah, the gun safety rules link to the NRA. I know they’re controversial and run by nutcases these days, but you’ll need to get used to their presence. The National Rifle Association was founded in 1871 as an instructional organization and has been at the core of gun training for decades. Your pistol instructor will likely be NRA certified. Most ranges have specialized rules of their own as well. If you ever don’t feel like the rules are being taken seriously, or if you feel unsafe for any reason, leave and go find someplace else to train.

Another thing to look for at a gun range is a good selection of rental guns. If you do decide to get a gun for self defense, you’ll be spending $500 – $800 on it, so you want to be able to try a variety of pistols to see which ones you like best before you invest your money.

I’m assuming you’ll end up getting a pistol and not some other kind of firearm because pistols are good general-purpose defensive weapons. If you live in a rural area, you may find that a rifle or shotgun has a place in your home defense plan, but pistols are easier to maneuver through tight doorways and around corners than a yard-long rifle or shotgun, and they are the only weapon you can reasonably carry concealed when out in public.

If you develop a genuine interest in guns, you may end up getting multiple guns for various reasons including different kinds of defense situations. But if you know nothing about guns but are nevertheless considering arming yourself — i.e. if you’re reading this post for advice — you probably don’t want to have to buy, learn, and practice with more than one type of gun. You’ll probably end up getting a pistol.

Beyond that, I can’t give you much more advice about what to get. First of all, I don’t know nearly enough about guns to give you more than the most basic advice. Second, that’s a personal decision you’ll want to make based on your defense needs, your level of gun handling skills, and your personal preferences. You should get advice from your instructor and other experienced shooters about which gun to buy, but always keep in mind that you’ll be the one who has to live with it, carry it, and train with it.

After your basic pistol course, some personal practice on the range, and some discussion with your instructor and fellow students, you’ll probably have a good idea if armed self defense is something you want to do. If not, well, at least you got to try something new and different.

If you do decide to go ahead, you may have to qualify to carry a concealed weapon in your state. In some states, this may require you to take mandatory classes, pass tests, and pass a background check. Other states follow a policy, sometimes called “constitutional carry,” where as long is you are not legally prohibited from carrying a gun (e.g. because of a felony conviction or drug addiction) you have an inherent right to carry a gun, no permit required. Be sure to follow whatever rules your state requires.

If your state has mandatory classes, they will most likely cover basic safety and legal issues related to armed self-defense and concealed carry. Even if you aren’t required to take such classes, it’s probably a good idea to take one anyway, because even in states with constitutional carry there are laws affecting how and where you can carry. For example, most states prohibit concealed carry in places like schools, banks, bars, and government buildings. There are also protocols for what to do if stopped and questioned by a police officer while carrying a gun.^[7]Pro tip: Don’t just blurt out “I have a gun!”

If you only plan to use your gun for home defense, qualifying for concealed carry is not strictly necessary. However there seems to be a consensus among self defense gun owners that having a carry permit reduces the risk that you’ll accidentally do something illegal with the gun.

Having the right to carry a gun doesn’t prepare you to actually defend yourself effectively with a gun. Even if you’ve had mandatory training, those courses tend to focus on law and safety, not tactics. You should take additional courses and do some more practice shooting on your own.

Your additional training will likely consist of at least three areas of education:

• Additional training on practical applications of self defense law. Basically, applying the legal rules to specific examples to help you think through situations you are likely to encounter.
• Tactics. How to use a flashlight or gun light. How to buy yourself more time during an encounter. How to take cover. When to shoot. What parts of the body to shoot at. How to respond to an intruder. How to handle multiple opponents. How to safely break contact and get away.
• Shooting skills. How to draw quickly and shoot accurately. This is practice on a shooting range.

Successful self defense with a gun means shooting your attacker in an important part of their body before they can harm you. You’ll need to practice quite a bit at first to build up the skill to draw quickly and shoot accurately, and then you’ll need periodic practice sessions to maintain your skill. There are ways to practice some of this safely in your home, but you’ll need to hit the gun range a few times per year.

That’s it. Get the initial training, practice occasionally, and you’ll be good to go should you ever need to defend yourself with a gun.

On the other hand, there’s a very good chance you will go your entire life and never need to use your gun. Most people don’t. Even most police officers don’t ever fire their guns in the line of duty. It may be you will buy a gun and holster and get training and practice for hours at the range without ever having to put your skills to use.

That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad idea. I’ve owned fire extinguishers for 40 years and never had to put out a fire. But if I ever do need a fire extinguisher, I’ll probably need it very urgently, and it will be good to have one handy.

One more thing you should consider: Carry a first aid kit. A serious one. Not just a pouch full of band-aids and antibiotic creams. I mean a small military-style IFAK or a civilian Stop-the-Bleed kit.

If you really believe you need to carry a gun because you might someday find yourself in a fight for your life, then you also might someday find yourself badly injured in an attack, and having the right gear, such as a tourniquet that you can apply to yourself with one hand, could save your life. And even if you are never the target of a deadly attack, there are other ways that you or a friend or family member could be injured badly enough to benefit from immediate stop-the-bleed treatment. So even if you never get yourself a gun, it might still be a good idea to get Stop-the-Bleed training and keep a kit with you.

As I said before, it’s quite possible that none of this will ever be necessary, and the effort and expense of being prepared will remain a burden that never pays off. That’s why I’m not going so far as to tell you to get a gun for self defense. But I do want you to give it some serious thought.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Some advice for my transgender readers in the new year

Unfortunately, the actual exchange wasn’t very helpful, and there’s no point in to reviewing it here.^[1]If you really want to know, see https://twitter.com/windypundit/status/1648536711532539904. It’s enough to say that the word “grooming” came up, at which point I realized I had better ways to spend my time.

But something about that still puzzles me…

In normal times, the term “grooming” refers to a set of social tactics used by pedophiles to prepare a child to participate in sexual acts to which they cannot possibly consent. In blunter terms, grooming is how child rapists discourage their intended victims from resisting rape.

Child abusers start by being friendly, and getting the child used to their presence. They make themselves interesting. They join in the child’s activities, and invite the child to join in theirs. Then they start pushing the boundaries of physical contact, and testing the child’s willingness to keep secrets from parents… and it only gets uglier from there.

But since grooming almost always starts with establishing familiarity, that allows anti-trans activists to smear transgender people as “groomers” for doing literally anything where children are involved. Lately, they’ve been complaining about Drag Queen Story Hour, in which performers in drag read stories to children. The implication was that this was a way for transgender pedophiles to insinuate themselves into children’s lives as a prelude to sexual exploitation.

The big lie here is that all transgender people want to hurt children. While there almost certainly must be some transgender people who have harmed a child,^[2]Personally, I’m not aware of any specific examples of transgender people abusing children, but given any sufficiently large group, a few of them will turn out to be dirtbags. it’s pretty clear that the vast majority of trans folks present no danger to children.

Granted, to those not involved in the culture, transgender people can seem a bit strange, perhaps even upsetting, but that’s no excuse for using the crimes of a few to smear the entire community.

Now here’s the thing that’s been puzzling me: Shouldn’t that be an easy concept for gun owners to understand?

I mean, let’s just replace a few words in that last paragraph: “Granted, to those not involved in the culture, gun owners can seem a bit strange, perhaps even upsetting, but that’s no excuse for using the crimes of a few to smear the entire community.

The vast majority of peaceful, law-abiding gun owners have been taking shit for the crimes of the few for as long as I can remember. And the things they say about gun owners are just as stupid as the things people are saying about trans people. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard BS like “You’re more likely to kill a family member with that gun than an intruder,” or that civilians shouldn’t have “weapons of war.”

The stupid things they say wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t also pass stupid laws. For example, you can have a gun with a long barrel and a shoulder stock, and you can have a gun with a short barrel and no shoulder stock, but if you have a gun with a short barrel and a shoulder stock, you’re a criminal.^[3]I’m over-simplifying my descriptions of gun laws to avoid getting bogged down in the details. Please don’t take any of this as legal advice.

And depending on which state, county, or city you’re in, you can be a criminal for having funny parts on your gun. I’ve already mentioned that having a rifle stock on a pistol can make you a criminal. But what about putting a pistol grip on a rifle? Also a criminal. Add an extra grip to the front of the gun? Criminal. A folding or removable shoulder stock? Criminal. A flash suppressor on the front of the barrel. Criminal. Merely thread the front of the barrel? Criminal. How about a barrel shroud that makes it safer to hold the barrel without getting burned? Yup, still a criminal.

Eighty million gun owners have to obey stupid laws like this because of a handful of criminals. So you’d think gun owners, of all people, would understand the stupidity that comes from scapegoating an entire community because of the crimes of a small number of evil people. You’d think they’d have some sympathy for transgender people.

And yet here we are.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Of Guns and Groomers

One thing that’s important to understand is that the Supreme Court did not overturn the National Firearms Act. They did not rule that any part of it was unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment. This was not a ruling about the Constitution. The opinion is purely about statutory interpretation. From the Court majority’s point of view, what the Supreme Court did was uphold the National Firearms Act by throwing out the incorrect interpretation of the NFA by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

The Court’s reasoning seems to have turned on the phrase from the law defining a machinegun as a gun capable of firing “automatically more than one shot…by a single function of the trigger.” I’m going to try to explain what that has to do with what a bump stock does.

To understand how a bump stock works, imagine holding a rifle in a normal firing position, with the back of the stock against your shoulder, your strong hand gripping the gun just behind the trigger and your weak hand gripping the forward part of the gun (the forestock, barrel shroud, attached grip, etc).

Now imagine that someone next to you reaches over and sticks their index finger into the hole in the trigger guard, just in front of the trigger, and holds it there firmly. If you then pushed your hands forward, bringing the stock away from your shoulder, you would push the trigger against the other person’s finger, firing the rifle. The recoil from firing would shove the gun backwards toward your shoulder pulling it back away from the other person’s finger, releasing the trigger. If you continued to push forward the whole time, you would quickly overcome the recoil momentum of the gun and push it forward into the other person’s finger, starting the whole firing process again. With a little practice, you could fire bullets very rapidly using this method.

A bump stock eliminates the need for a second person’s finger. It replaces the regular stock and/or rear grip and slides forward and backward an inch or so. You start by pulling the bump stock back with your strong hand and shoving the front of the gun forward with your weak hand. Then to fire the gun, you place your index finger inside the trigger guard and pull back on the trigger until your finger presses against the tab on the bump stock on the opposite side of the gun. This finger motion will also press the trigger and fire the gun.

With a normal stock, the recoil would push your strong hand back, bringing your index finger with it, still pressed against the trigger. Using a bump stock, however, your finger on the bump stock tab doesn’t move, and the backwards recoil of the gun slides it back into the bump stock, pulling the trigger away from your finger. The trigger then resets for the next shot. If you continue shoving the front of the gun forward with your weak hand, you’ll slide it forward away from the bump stock, in the process pulling the trigger forward into your finger, starting the firing cycle again. This produces the machinegun-like effect that is causing so much concern.

The majority of the Supreme Court ruled that this process does not fit the NFA’s definition of a machinegun as a gun capable of firing “automatically more than one shot…by a single function of the trigger” because the trigger is still being pulled once per shot. The dissent basically argues that the finger on the bump stock tab is part of the function of the trigger: The shooter pulls the trigger once and then the gun fires multiple shots, therefore it’s doing what Congress described machineguns as doing.

I originally planned to summarize the rationale behind each position, but I couldn’t figure out how without paraphrasing large portions of the opinion. If you really want the details, I recommend reading the full opinion. Personally, I think the majority’s interpretation makes more sense, given the precise language of the statute. On the other hand, I don’t think the dissenting opinion is unreasonable nonsense, and I can understand why some people might sincerely favor it.

But even if we feel that both interpretations are equally plausible, I still think the majority reached the correct opinion. The NFA doesn’t just make it illegal to possess a machinegun, it sends people to prison for up to 10 years. I think a penalty that harsh carries with it the burden of making the law clear enough for people to understand what acts would violate it. If the law is instead ambiguous, then a legal principle called the rule of lenity says we should interpret the law in the least restrictive way, because otherwise we end up punishing people for committing acts that are not clearly identified as crimes. If people are going to be punished for breaking the law, they have a right to be informed what the law forbids.

Given the failure of the National Firearms Act to squarely address the issue of bump stocks — to the point where even Supreme Court Justices have differing opinions — the rule of lenity comes down on the side of treating them as legal. At least until Congress speaks more clearly to the matter.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at A Brief Bump Stock Explainer

Then in January, much to my surprise, Illinois passed an assault weapons ban. Advocates of such bans like to say that guns like my fun-to-shoot AR-15 are weapons of war that are only good for killing people, so they do not belong in civilian hands.

(I can’t resist pointing out the hypocrisy involved in making this claim, given that the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA)^[2]I’m referencing Public Act 102-1116, which adds 720 ILCS 5/24-1.9 to the code, like all such bans, does not prohibit police officers from using assault weapons. I mean, if an AR-15 really is a weapon of war, only good for killing, why the heck are we letting the police use them? After all, police are civilians too. And it’s not just on-duty police officers who are allowed to own assault weapons. The law also exempts retired police officers, prison guards, private security guards, Olympic shooting competitors, and anyone shooting at the World Shooting and Recreational Complex in downstate Illinois.)

The laws against “assault weapons”^[3]When gun control advocates first began talking about banning these kinds of guns, they used the term “assault rifle.” But “assault rifle” has a specific prior definition, and none of the guns they wanted to ban were actual assault rifles. Consequently, gun control advocates began to speak in terms of “assault weapons,” which could mean whatever they wanted it to mean. I’m using “assault weapon” here to refer to whatever types of guns … Continue reading are a good example of what happens when the lack of gun knowledge is crossed with a desire to legislate. There are a lot of problems with these laws, but I think the fundamental misconception is thinking that “assault weapons” are some distinct, special kind of gun. To illustrate what I mean, let’s talk more about the AR-15, one of the most common rifles in the United States.

The most important thing to understand is that despite all the talk about it being a “weapon of war” that “doesn’t belong in civilian hands,” the features of an AR-15 are nothing more than what you get when you decide to build a modern rifle. It simply combines many of the most important advances in firearms technology since the invention of gunpowder:

• Rifled barrels — the spiral grooves in a barrel that impart spin to a bullet to make it fly more accurately, and which give the rifle its name.
• Advances in ignition, from the touch hole to matchlock to flintlock to percussion cap.
• Breach loading (instead of pushing everything down the barrel).
• Pre-assembled ammunition cartridges.
• Bolt-action rifles.
• Repeating guns, that allow the shooter — with the flip of a lever — to load the chamber with a cartridge from the magazine.
• Lever-action repeaters, that load the chamber via an easy-to use lever.
• Detachable magazines that can be reloaded separately from the gun.
• Modern metal alloys.
• Metal treatments to protect against corrosion.
• Wooden parts replaced with modern material like polymers and carbon fiber.
• Pistol grips, because they fit the hand better.
• Autoloading technology that uses the energy of firing the cartridge to reload the chamber from the magazine.
• Gas-operated autoloading for operating with higher pressures.
• Barrel shrouds.
• Adjustable stocks and grips.
• Standard rails for attaching accessories.
• Muzzle treatments that reduce flash or compensate for recoil.

Many of the earliest rifles had few of these features, and opponents of “assault weapons” will argue that the founders wrote the 2nd Amendment for those weapons, not modern rifles like the AR-15. But at the time the 2nd Amendment was written, those guns were in fact real weapons of war, used to drive off the British army. Yet they were also the common firearms of the American people. And as rifle technology advanced, the new innovations were adopted into common use by both the military and civilians, not necessarily in that order.

For example, civilians were using rifled barrels long before they came into common military use because hunters needed accuracy more than armies did. And percussion ignition was invented to make bird hunting easier, while militaries were reluctant to replace their flintlock inventories and retrain their troops to use the new technology. During the American Civil War, soldiers used their own money to buy civilian lever-action rifles that were better than their army-issued weapons.

Of all the innovations that go into the AR-15, perhaps the most important innovation is the one I left for last: Modularity.

The AR-15 isn’t just a particular rifle, it’s a platform for building a large variety of rifles. In part because it was adopted by the military and subject to the military contracting process, all of the parts have well-specified dimensions and material qualities. That’s especially important where the specifications describe how the parts fit together, because it allows for some parts to be replaced by newer designs that improve the firearm while still working with the other parts.

Every major component of an AR-15 is available from more than one manufacturer, and you can mix and match them to build a variety of weapons. Some of the major AR-15 manufacturers seem to build all the parts themselves, but a lot of manufactures build a few key parts that give their particular weapons their unique characteristics, and then buy the rest of the parts from other manufacturers. Still other AR-15 vendors don’t make any parts at all — they just pick and choose parts from other manufacturers to achieve the desired characteristics.

This adds up to hundreds of variations on the AR-15 available to consumers, even before considering the many serious AR-15 enthusiasts who build their own highly-customized guns by picking and choosing parts from different manufacturers. There are even gunsmiths and websites that can help you pick the parts or put them together.^[4]I particularly enjoy Meridian Ordnance’s $75 fee to “Entirely rebuild your…home-brew DIY project that has shit the bed“

And once you’ve bought your AR-15, you can add, remove, or replace almost any part with a variety of aftermarket alternatives, changing the sighting system, the stock and grip, the trigger, or the barrel shroud. Want a laser sight? A barrel-mounted flashlight? A bipod? No problem. You can even change the caliber of the bullets by replacing the barrel (and a few related components).

This versatility is one of the main reasons why AR-15s are so popular. The military can get them configured for combat, and they make for great combat weapons. Civilians can get them configured for self-defense, and they make good self-defense weapons. Long-range competitive target shooters can get them configured for long-range shooting, and they are good long-range guns. Competitive speed shooters can get them configured as race guns, and they are excellent race guns. Farmers can get them configured as varmint rifles, and they are excellent varmint rifles. Deer hunters can get them configured for deer hunting, and they are great for hunting deer.

Granted, AR-15’s may not be the ideal perfect gun for any of these things, but they are good enough for most of them. And however you want to use an AR-15, you usually get to choose among several different price levels, depending what trade-offs you want to make. Some enthusiasts just own one or two AR-15s plus enough swappable parts to build whatever they need whenever they need it.

Those who want to ban AR-15’s often characterize them as “weapons of war” which don’t belong in civilian hands. There’s a bit of a logic problem in that statement, because why would a gun’s suitability for civilian use depend on whether it has been adopted by a military organization? Should rifled barrels have been outlawed from civilian use when the military eventually got around to using them? If the U.S. military switched to some non-AR-15 weapons platform, would opponents stop classifying AR-15s as “assault weapons”?

Besides, there are a couple of pretty good arguments that the AR-15 isn’t really a weapon of war. For one thing, there’s one bit of modern rifle technology that isn’t in civilian use: Selective fire. Modern military weapons are almost universally capable of being fired in full-auto mode, where the weapon keeps firing bullets while you hold the trigger. None of the AR-15s sold to civilians can do that.^[5]Some full-auto weapons sold to civilians before 1986 are still in circulation, but no new full-auto weapons can be sold to civilians. So there’s a pretty clear distinction between military and civilian AR-15’s.

We can also look at the numbers: If I’m reading this document on U.S. military force structure correctly, there are about 186,000 soldiers fighting in ground units.^[6]That’s counting 12 Armored Brigade Combat Teams, 7 Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, 14 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams, and 24 Marine Corp Infantry Battalions. Even if every single one of them has been issued an AR-15-based combat weapon (i.e. an M4), that’s less than 1% of the estimated 20 million AR-15’s that are in civilian hands. Every year, Americans buy about 4 million AR-15s, enough to equip the entire armed forces 20 times over.^[7]Some people dispute these numbers. For example, the Illinois Supreme Court brief claims only 6.4 million civilian owners. But even if we accept that number (which seems low given sales figures) and assume every single member of the military, including National Guard and Reserves, is carrying an assault weapon, that still amounts to 2.1 million military users vs. 6.4 million civilian users. Meaning there are at least three times as many civilian users as military users. By the numbers, the AR-15 is overwhelmingly a civilian firearm.

Contrary to the claims of those who oppose civilian ownership of guns like the AR-15, millions of people own them without committing horrific crimes, and they don’t have fantasies of being Rambo. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate, sensible reasons for wanting to own one of these guns. Modern rifles like the AR-15 are versatile, fun, useful, and important.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at America’s Rifle

The instruments regulated by the Act are best suited for offensive combat: their defining characteristics are unnecessary (and often counterproductive) for self defense, with the result that handguns and shotguns are preferred for self-defense scenarios.

This is brazen misdirection. Maybe even a pack of lies.

The Act in question is the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA) of 2023, and many of the characteristics of rifles that it outlaws — pistol grips, forward grips, adjustable stocks, barrel shrouds — are things that would make a rifle ergonomically easier to use, which obviously makes it more effective for self-defense.

(The Act also calls out and names a whole bunch of guns which are banned as de jure assault weapons, regardless of what features they have. It’s hard to argue with the justification for this, since Notz offers no justification for this.)

Furthermore, Notz’s argument that PICA outlaws certain rifles because handguns and shotguns are better for self-defense would make sense if PICA was only about rifles. But PICA also restricts handguns and shotguns. And again, many of the features listed are the kinds of improvements that would help with self defense:

On pistols, the Act forbids forward grips, barrel shrouds, and any feature which could be used to fire the gun from the shoulder position, all of which make the gun easier to handle for more accurate fire, which is obviously helpful for a self-defense situation where there may be innocent people around. The act also bans flash suppressors, which reduce the risk of being dazzled by your own gunfire, and threaded barrels, which could be used to attach a recoil compensator, which would make the gun more controllable and therefore safer.

(Threaded barrels could be used to attach a suppressor (a.k.a. “silencer”), but of course suppressors are already illegal in Illinois. And come to think of it, a suppressor is an excellent feature for self defense, because it would protect the hearing of both the shooter and their family members during a gunfight.)

As for shotguns, the Act bans forward grips, thumbhole stocks, and folding stocks, all features that would make a shotgun more ergonomic and therefore easier and safer to use for self-defense.

Furthermore, for all three types of weapons — pistols, shotguns, and rifles — PICA bans large magazines, defined as more than 15 for a pistol, 10 for a rifle, or five for a shotgun. Obviously, all other things being equal, the more shots you can fire in a gunfight, the better your chances of willing. Notz cites research indicating that most self defense shootings use only a few bullets, but that doesn’t mean that every instance of self-defense uses only a few bullets, and certainly running out of ammunition in a self-defense scenario is one of the worst possible things that could happen.

Gun owners have long complained about gun control laws based on a poor understanding of guns, and this is yet another example. It’s hard to come up with a logical justification for banning assault weapons when your definition of “assault weapon” is so stupid.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Jane Notz is Fibbing

Harm reduction for guns would start by acknowledging the blunt reality that we’re not going to eliminate guns any more than we have eliminated vehicles or tobacco, not in a country that already has more guns than people. We are destined to live in a sea of guns. And just as some kids will always sneak cigarettes or people will inevitably drive drunk, some criminals will get firearms — but one lesson learned is that if we can’t eliminate a dangerous product, we can reduce the toll by regulating who gets access to it.

I’m normally skeptical of things like this (especially given the source) but Kristof surprised me with an unexpected example: Machine guns.^[1]Yes, I am using “machine gun” as a colloquial term for all fully-automatic weapons, even though machine guns are technically a subset of fully-automatic weapons. The National Firearms Act of 1934 didn’t actually outlaw fully-automatic weapons, it just placed a lot of strict requirements on owning one, including hefty taxes and lots of paperwork. Even the 1986 amendment didn’t ban machine guns, although it did prevent the introduction of new ones to the civilian market. But the older fully-automatic firearms remained available to people who met the licensing requirements.

According to Kristoff, there are 700,000 legally owned fully-automatic weapons in the United States, and they are almost never used in crimes. The nation-wide death rate from legal machine guns is well below 1 per year, even including suicides. This is gun control that works, and Kristoff surmises that if we can solve machine guns we can solve other gun problems.

Kristof argues that it the machine gun laws work because rather than trying to ban guns, the laws keep guns out of the hands of bad people. He even sort of acknowledges the NRA’s familiar refrain:

It’s not that the N.R.A. was exactly right when it said that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” But the person matters at least as much as the gun, and the person may be somewhat easier to regulate.

Kristof then goes on to list his proposals, which I’ll just summarize:

• Set the minimum age to possess firearms to 21.^[2]He says “buy” but in context he seems to mean “possess.”
• Extend the ban on felon ownership of guns to include those convicted of violent misdemeanors, including domestic violence and maybe stalking.
• Also maybe those who abuse alcohol.
• Universal background checks to buy guns.
• Universal background checks to buy ammunition.
• Licensing to own a gun.

Compared to the gun restrictions that we already have in many places, most of these proposals don’t seem too outrageous. People with a more absolutist attitude toward the Second Amendment will undoubtedly disagree, but I’m just trying to deal with the reality that the Supreme Court is not absolutist and seems to be adopting a level of scrutiny tending toward “reasonable.” E.g. if convicted felons are not allowed to buy guns, it’s not unreasonable for somebody to check your criminal record before you buy a gun to ensure you are not a convicted felon. The courts have allowed a lot worse restrictions than any of these.

Still, I do have a few objections. Why do you need a background check to buy a gun when you already have a license, given that getting the license will already include a background check? Just verify that the license is still valid and be done with it.

Also, people who commit felonies are prohibited from owning guns forever, but maybe the prohibition for violent misdemeanors and alcohol abuse doesn’t need to be forever. Forever is a long time.

Some of Kristof’s other ideas are more objectionable:

Waiting periods and limits on how many guns one can purchase at a time may also help.

What’s the point of a waiting period? To keep someone from buying a gun to commit murder? That will only work for their first gun, and even then they will have waited for the license.

Red flag laws are also promising, particularly for reducing gun suicides — which get less attention than homicides but are more common. Red flag laws allow the authorities to remove a gun temporarily from those who appear to be a threat to themselves or others.

Allowing the authorities to restrict people’s rights because of bad things they might do is a license for abuse. Granted, it makes sense to take guns away from clearly dangerous people, but any such law needs clear definitions, evidence requirements, a real judicial process, the right to appeal, and a clear way to bring the restrictions to an end. We don’t want a rubber stamp system by which the authorities can disarm anyone they don’t like, and we would need to keep the process of taking the guns from turning into one of those police “knock and announce” raids with flashbang grenades and dead dogs.

Eventually Kristof abandons his original pretense of only wanting to limit who has access to guns and just starts throwing out random gun control ideas:

I still believe in tightly restricting AR-15-style weapons and large-capacity magazines, because they play a significant role in mass shootings,

I’ve explained before why I think most assault weapon laws are dumb.

Another harm reduction approach is graphic warning labels for guns and ammunition. “Health warning labels on tobacco products constitute the most cost-effective tool for educating smokers and nonsmokers alike about the health risks of tobacco use,” the World Health Organization said, so let’s apply the lessons to firearms. One proposed ammunition label has a photo of a bloody face and states that a gun increases the risk of someone in a home being killed.

Some of the proposed labels show the bloody face of a gunshot victim, to “educate gun owners about the dangers associated with gun ownership.” I’m not convinced this will change much. We are all exposed to tons of simulated gunshot injuries in TV shows and movies. Also, cigarette warning labels show the consequences of normal use of cigarettes. Since most gun owners fire nearly all their ammunition at things other than people, the disturbing warning images seem irrelevant. On the other hand, it’s just a picture, so it’s not the worst gun control idea I’ve heard.

A lot of Kristof’s ideas revolve around raising the cost of acquiring a gun:

Cigarette taxes reduced demand for tobacco, especially among young people, so how about gun taxes, particularly for 9-millimeter Glocks and other deadly handguns?

That would maybe work in the sense of reducing civilian gun ownership. Or it could create a black market of untaxed guns for criminals. Definitely at least one of those two things. Maybe both.

Or what about insurance? Automobile owners must buy insurance, and pool owners and trampoline owners may pay higher premiums, so why shouldn’t gun owners pay higher rates for higher risks?

This one mystifies me. People who propose insurance requirements for gun ownership seem to think it will be expensive enough to discourage gun ownership. Given that I can get a $1 million in umbrella liability coverage for a couple of hundred dollars that covers firearm injuries and practically every possible way someone could get hurt, why would I even want standalone gun insurance? Gun ownership isn’t much of a risk, either, given that the insurance company never even asked if I have a gun.

All I can think of is that these people believe firearm liability insurance would allow shooting victims or their survivors to recover full damages from the shooter. The problem is that insurance never works that way. Yes, if you accidentally run someone over in your car, your insurance will pay damages for your liability. But if you deliberately run someone over, that’s not covered. Intentional crimes are never covered by insurance. I think it might even be illegal to provide insurance coverage for the insured person’s criminal acts.

Then Kristof really goes off the rails:

Economists have proposed one clever idea to raise firearms prices that gun manufacturers might applaud: Impose heavy duties on imported guns and simultaneously give domestic manufacturers immunity from antitrust liability so they can collude and set prices. All this would enable American gun manufacturers to engage in monopolistic price gouging that would reduce sales — and deaths.

This is just sick. There’s something seriously wrong with anyone who wants to put their fellow Americans under the thumb of monopolist producers. The article Kristof cites as the source of this idea sells it as a blatant effort to buy the political support of gun manufacturers in reducing the availability of guns. The authors compare it to the anti-trust immunity given to major league baseball — which they’ve used to ruthlessly dominate the minor leagues and suppress player salaries — and to the horrendous 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement which rewarded cigarette makers with a highly profitable cartel so that part of the profits could be siphoned off to feed government budgets. And of course giving gun companies lots of money means they can afford more and better lobbyists.

Finally, note how Kristof’s goals have drifted, and how his prejudices have been revealed: At the start of the article, he explained that he wants to focus on keeping guns away from the wrong people. But by the end of the article, it’s clear that when he says “wrong people,” he means people too poor to afford his expensive guns.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Smarter Gun Control?

I took a quick look at the new law, and it seems like a pretty typical example of anti-gun political theater: It’s unlikely to actually achieve its goal of preventing mass shootings, but it will allow politicians to say “We did something about assault weapons!” in their campaigns for re-election. Unfortunately, this theater is painful for those who wanted one of the now-banned weapons.

The theatrics are obvious if you look at how assault weapons are defined within the act.

Amazingly, part of the language of the statute ^[2]I’m looking at Public Act 102-1116, which adds 720 ILCS 5/24-1.9 to the code. defines assault weapons by name, specifically listing about 150 different models of rifle, pistol, and shotgun. (You didn’t think they’d stick to just rifles, did you?) Here’s a sample:

(J) All of the following rifles, copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon:
(i) All AK types, including the following:
(I) AK, AK47, AK47S, AK–74, AKM, AKS, ARM, MAK90, MISR, NHM90, NHM91, SA85, SA93, Vector Arms AK–47, VEPR, WASR–10, and WUM.
(II) IZHMASH Saiga AK.
(III) MAADI AK47 and ARM.

[…]
(ii) all AR types, including the following:
(I) AR–10.
(II) AR–15.

[…]
(K) All of the following pistols, copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon thereof:
(i) All AK types, including the following:
(I) Centurion 39 AK pistol.
(II) CZ Scorpion pistol.
(III) Draco AK-47 pistol.
(IV) HCR AK-47 pistol.

[…]
(L) All of the following shotguns, copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon thereof:
(i) DERYA Anakon MC-1980, Anakon SD12.
(ii) Doruk Lethal shotguns.
(iii) Franchi LAW-12 and SPAS 12.

And so on, listing dozens and dozens of firearms.

I can’t think of any other time we’ve criminalized something by name rather than by some property or feature that makes it bad. Chicago’s spray paint ban lists the types of paint or chemicals you’re not allowed to have, but it doesn’t name any specific brands of spray paint. Anti-porn laws don’t list prohibited books and films by name. This is just not how you write sensible laws.

This lack of focus is a dead giveaway that the authors of the law aren’t really reacting to a problem they’ve bothered to define. They’re just doing something to say they’re doing something. They were mad at scary-looking guns, but couldn’t actually come up with a clear definition of the distinction between guns they liked and guns that made them mad, so they just named the ones they don’ t like.

As it turns out, the authors of this bill decided to have it both ways, because the bill also includes a section that prohibits firearms with certain properties. In particular, it defines an “assault weapon”^[3]They used to talk about banning “assault rifles,” but an assault rifle is a particular type of weapon that has a fairly well understood definition, and the weapons they wanted to ban aren’t actually assault rifles (which were effectively banned from civilian use long ago), so to avoid confusion laws now talk about “assault weapons.” according to a list of features that they find objectionable.

You might think this would satisfy my earlier objection that they have no principled reason for doing this, but it doesn’t, because their choice of features that define an “assault weapon” is pretty unprincipled.

Let’s take a look…

(A) A semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine or that may be readily modified to accept a detachable magazine, if the firearm has one or more of the following:

This is typical of “assault weapon” laws: Many provisions only apply to guns with detachable magazines. The magazine is the part of the gun that stores the ammunition that will be shot when the gun’s mechanisms move it into the firing position. The detachable magazine allows you to reload the gun by swapping in a full magazine rather than forcing you to refill a built-in magazine.

Detachable magazines allow the user to avoid the delay of reloading a magazine by carrying several preloaded magazines and swapping them in when the magazine in the gun runs out. This makes the gun a lot easier to load. It also makes the gun a lot easier to unload — just remove the magazine and eject any round in the chamber — way easier than extracting bullets one at a time from a fixed magazine. Because of this convenience, most modern semi-automatic pistols and rifles have detachable magazines.

In any case, according to this law, if a semiautomatic rifle has a detachable magazine, it becomes an “assault weapon” if it also has one of the features on the list that follows:

(i) a pistol grip or thumbhole stock;

This is great start, because it illustrates just how dumb most “assault weapon” laws are. Pistol grips don’t make a rifle more deadly. The reason so many modern rifles have pistol grips is because that’s just how human hands work. There’s nothing nefarious about it. Lots of tools have pistol grips, from power drills to blow dryers to grocery store UPC code scanners. And of course the law does not prohibit pistol grips if they are on actual pistols.

(ii) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand;

A fore-grip just makes a gun easier to control, so it points where you want to and not where you don’t. Again, nothing nefarious, since accurate rifle shooting has always required a two-handed grip. In this example, the shooter has chosen to avoid the fore-grip and just grab the barrel shroud (more about those in a moment).

(iii) a folding, telescoping, thumbhole, or detachable stock, or a stock that is otherwise foldable or adjustable in a manner that operates to reduce the length, size, or any other dimension, or otherwise enhances the concealability of, the weapon;

This brings us to a weird and frustrating area of gun law. The stock on a rifle is the piece at the back of the rifle that you can brace against your shoulder. Some of them are fixed size, some can be adjusted, and some fold away completely:

There’s already a whole body of law defining the allowable shapes and sizes of firearms. For rifles, the barrel has to be at least 16 inches long, and the whole rifle has to be at least 26 inches long. Buy a gun with a shorter barrel, and you now have a short-barreled rifle. Under federal law, short-barreled rifles are merely specially regulated, and you can own one if you’ve jumped through the appropriate legal hoops, but here in Illinois they are illegal. And having the wrong equipment on your gun is a lot more serious than an equipment violation on your car. Possessing a short-barreled rifle is a serious crime.

Strangely, however, almost all handguns have short barrels, often under 6 inches, and yet they are completely legal. But if you try attaching a stock to a handgun, that turns it into a rifle, and it then has an illegally short barrel under federal law^[4]I think. Maybe. It’s complicated, and they keep changing how it works….

The reason for this is…there is no reason. Some people say it was just a mistake in the way the 1934 National Firearms Act was passed. So now tiny guns with tiny barrels are legal handguns, and long guns with long barrels are legal rifles, but if you mix and match, you go to jail. And with the “assault weapon” ban, Illinois has added a new twist: If you can fold the long gun into a shorter gun, you also go to jail.

If this doesn’t make any sense to you, then you understand it correctly. It certainly does nothing to stop mass shootings. But it’s provisions like this that turn gun laws into a legal minefield for gun owners.

(iv) a flash suppressor;

A flash suppressor is a little gadget at the end of the barrel that reshapes the way flaming gasses escape when the gun is fired to make them a bit less dazzling to the shooter, and perhaps harder for the enemy to see. This is not a real important feature in civilian shooting, but it can be important for military use during a nighttime firefight. On the other hand, it’s hard to see how a flash suppressor could make a difference during a mass shooting.

(v) a grenade launcher;

Aha! This is the first genuine “military weapon of war” feature on the list. A grenade launcher is basically a really big low-power shotgun that attaches under the barrel, except that instead of firing loads of shot, it lobs grenades. And certainly launching a string of grenades into a crowd would make any mass shooting much worse.

Of course, you need the actual grenades to make it dangerous, and those are heavily regulated. Also, I don’t think anyone has used a grenade launcher in a mass shooting. But I’ll grant that there’s not much civilian use for having one of these. Setting aside the rest of the “assault weapons” law, I’m willing to let the gun grabbers have this one…

(vi) a shroud attached to the barrel or that partially or completely encircles the barrel, allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the non-trigger hand without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel.

This is a variation on the “protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand” from earlier. Rifles are best fired with a two-handed grip, with one hand gripping the rifle near the rear, within finger-reach of the trigger, and the other hand gripping the forward end of the rifle to stabilize it. So every rifle has to have someplace in front of the trigger where you can grip it.

You can’t just grip the barrel. Not only is it too small in diameter to get a good firm grip, but it’s also going to get uncomfortably hot because it is filled with explosions. Early guns solved this problem with a piece of wood firmly mounted under the barrel to provide a good grip. This likely extended all the way back to form into the shoulder stock.^[5]That was just the obvious way to do it, because the earliest long guns were basically tiny cannon barrels mounted on pieces of wood to make them easier to handle. When plastics came along, gun makers started using them instead of wood, for all the reasons we use plastics.

Anyway, it’s hard to see how this makes a gun substantially worse for mass shootings.

The parts of the law for pistols and shotguns are similar. I do just want to mention a couple of pistol features that have implications for rifles:

(v) the capacity to accept a detachable magazine at some location outside of the pistol grip;

It’s hard to see how this makes a gun more dangerous, or easier to use in a mass shooting, than a magazine in the pistol grip. I think it’s possibly because this is a typical characteristic of a rifle design, so you’ve got a rifle-like pistol, which violates the long-gun/short-gun principle.

(vi) a buffer tube, arm brace, or other part that protrudes horizontally behind the pistol grip and is designed or redesigned to allow or facilitate a firearm to be fired from the shoulder.

This is yet another version of the long-gun/short-gun issue. Added something behind the pistol grip so you can brace it against your shoulder breaks the long guns must have long barrels rule.

As you can see, the “assault weapon” features listed in the assault weapons bill are a hodge-podge of random gun features. Because of that, gun makers have had no problem coming up with “featureless” rifles that operate the same way as any rifle with the prohibited features. Just eliminate the pistol grip, fore-grip, flash suppressor, and so on, and the weapon is legal. Alternatively, gun makers can eliminate the removable magazine — while still allowing the magazine to be replaced as long as you disassemble the rifle to get at it (basically one extra step) — and leave on all the other parts.

That the assault weapon laws can be so easily circumvented is likely the reason lawmakers resorted to listing rifles by name. Leave all the prohibited parts off an AR-15, and you can still argue it’s an AR-15.

That the assault weapon laws can be so easily circumvented is also a solid indication that they are not rationally tied to any goal or any clear meaningful definition of “assault weapon.” As far as I can tell, the unifying principle (if there is one) is that these parts are popular with people who buy modern rifles. And in the unlikely event that one of those modern rifles is used in a crime, it is likely to have some of these features, which is why lawmakers decided to ban them in their legislative theater.

It’s a bit like noticing that a lot of people who speed on the expressway are driving red cars, and then outlawing red cars in the hope of ending speeding.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Assault Weapon Ban Theater

Join me in a whirlwind tour:

The inalienable right of a free people to be kept safe from gun violence and the fear thereof must not be infringed and shall be protected by the Congress and the States. This Amendment thus repeals and replaces the Second Amendment.

The first sentence is pretty unusual in that it creates a positive right — specifying something the government must do instead of something it’s not allowed to do. That’s not the sort of thing we generally have in the Constitution. We usually let Congress and the President decide what the government should do. It’s also not very clear what the first sentence is accomplishing. I’m pretty sure Moore put it there just so he can use the 2nd Amendment’s “not be infringed” phrasing as some kind of childish dig at gun owners.

The second sentence contains the actual repeal of the 2nd Amendment, and that’s all it would take to get the job done: Repealing the 2nd Amendment would return control over the right to keep and bear arms to legislatures at the federal and state legislatures, much as the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision returned control over abortion rights to Congress and the states. Little else is needed.

Unfortunately, that was only Section 1 of the amendment. There are seven more to come, and they consist mostly of Moore’s gun-grabbing fantasies.

SECTION 2.

Congress shall create a mandatory system of firearm registration and licensing for the following limited purposes: (a) licensed hunters of game; (b) licensed ranges for the sport of target shooting; and (c) for the few who can demonstrate a special need for personal protection.

Anybody who has ever actually read the U.S. Constitution knows it isn’t usually written this way. Except in some of the procedural sections, the Constitution rarely gets into the details. A better approach would be to grant or acknowledge the power of Congress and/or the states and let the legislatures work out the details. Perhaps something like “Congress shall have the power to create a mandatory system of firearms registration and licensing…”

But Michael Moore doesn’t want that. He wants a new constitutional amendment that will impose his vision of gun control in a way that can’t be changed by the normal democratic process. The problem with that is you can’t easily fix problems with the language in an Amendment either. For example, the restrictions of this section seem like they could be easily circumvented by everyone getting a hunting license.

All who seek a firearm will undergo a strict vetting process with a thorough background check, including the written and confidential approval of family members, spouses and ex-spouses and/or partners and ex-partners, co-workers and neighbors. A mental health check will also be required. There will be a waiting period of one month to complete the full background check.

Again, there is way too much detail here. And the details bring their own problems: Who will perform the vetting process? And what will happen if they don’t? This is no way to write Constitutional text.

More importantly, these requirements are ripe for abuse — your ability to own a gun can be blocked by any ex-spouse, co-worker, or even neighbor who is willing to withhold their approval. One anti-gun zealot per block could deprive an entire city of the ability to own firearms. I assume this was the point.

There’s a lot more of that kind of nonsense:

SECTION 3.
Those who meet all the requirements for the restricted gun owners groups and successfully pass the background check must take a firearms safety class and pass a written test on an annual basis.

As with so much of Moore’s amendment, this is simultaneously too specific and too vague. It’s too specific for a constitutional provision — specifying the requirement for classes and tests — but too vague to actually implement: What should be checked for in the applicant’s background? Who administers the test? How are they funded? Can people retake the test twice a day, every day, until they pass?

If this mess ever actually became part of the constitution, you could expect a lot of litigation over what it takes to pass a background check, and what must be in the firearms safety class and on the test. (Expect that Florida’s test will consist of one test item consisting of a picture of a gun and a true/false question “Is this a gun?”) This is why you normally have legislatures work out the details.

SECTION 4.
The minimum age for the restricted groups who can own a firearm is 25 years old. Renewal and review of the firearms license will occur on an annual basis.

In addition to the usual problems, we’re now starting to see clauses that take on a whole new meaning once you realize that Mr. Moore’s constitutional draftsmanship has an interesting omission: There are no exceptions for police.

It’s plausible that a police officer might be able to get a gun license under 2.c. as someone with “a special need for personal protection,” but the plain language of the statute would prevent them receiving a license until they are 25 years old. No more 19-year-old cops. I doubt this is what he had in mind, but it’s the plain meaning.

(Presumably the Army would be exempt because it is specifically authorized by the Constitution.)

SECTION 5.
Congress will stipulate and continually update the limited list of approved firearms for civilian use, including weapons in the future that are not yet invented.

Finally, Moore has delegated something to Congress! Although if Congress must list a firearm for it to be approved, that is a system ripe for abuse, since Congress could refuse to list anything. Moore is basically outlawing all guns unless Congress acts to allow them. I was going to say that I assume this was his intent, but I’m beginning to think he’s not that smart.

The following firearms are heretofore banned:

• All automatic and semi-automatic weapons and all devices which can enable a single-shot gun to fire automatically or semi-automatically;

Just as an aside here, I’m always surprised by how some people are outraged at semi-automatic weapons. We’ve had semi-automatic firearms for over a century, and suddenly we’re supposed to be alarmed about the technology? It feels a lot like either a moral panic or manufactured outrage.

• Any weapon that can hold more than six bullets or rounds at a time or any magazine that holds more than six bullets;

Again, this is just Michael Moore being abusive to gun owners. I mean, why have a tiny magazine limit and a semi-auto prohibition? If you’ve only got 6 rounds, does it matter if it’s semi-automatic?

And what are we to make of the shotguns? Many shotgun shells contain dozens or hundreds of projectiles. And some shotguns are autoloading. It’s basically the same principle as semi-automatic rifles and handguns, but it’s not the same word. I’m pretty sure that this clause alone would lead to decades of original intent divination…

• All guns made of plastic or any homemade equipment and machinery or a 3D printer that can make a gun or weapon that can take a human life.

(This doesn’t really fit the frame set up the introductory phrase “The following firearms are heretofore banned” since “homemade equipment and machinery or a 3D printer” aren’t firearms. Moore is getting increasingly sloppy with his writing.)

This is a bizarre provision to try to understand. On the one hand, most common consumer-grade 3D printers use plastic substrates, which are just not strong enough to make a complete gun (no matter what anybody tells you about “plastic guns”). On the other hand, this would outlaw every industrial 3D printer that is capable of using metal substrates. And on the other other hand, if “weapon that can take a human life” includes sharp objects, this will outlaw all 3D printing, since you could probably make some kind of stabbing weapon if you picked the right plastic.

The only thing I like about this section is that Moore continues to provide no exceptions for law enforcement. It always seemed telling to me that police are exempt from what are supposed to be “common sense” gun laws. Under Moore’s amendment, cops will not be allowed to carry a gun until they are 25-years old, and it will have to be a “six-shooter” revolver.

SECTION 6.
Congress shall regulate all ammunition, capacity of ammunition, the storage of guns, gun locks, gun sights, body armor and the sale and distribution of such items. No weapons of any kind whose sole intention is the premeditated elimination of human life are considered legal. Congress may create future restrictions as this amendment specifically does not grant any American the “right” to own any weapon.

This seems like a good place to point out that a lot of the provisions in Michael Moore’s proposed amendment seem to create crimes. E.g. “No weapons…are considered legal” in the above section. That’s not common in the Constitution or the Amendments.

While the Constitution does define a single crime, Treason, it was included in the constitution as a defensive measure, to guard against the oppressive use of treason accusations. For the most part, definitions of crimes are left to legislatures, because criminal statutes are hard to write, and they often have to be tweaked once courts start hearing cases. That’s hard to do with Constitutional amendments.

(The only exception I can think of is the 18th Amendment banning booze, and that turned into a real mess that had to be repealed later.)

SECTION 7.
Police who are trained and vetted to use firearms shall be subject to comprehensive and continuous monitoring and shall be dismissed if found to exhibit any racist or violent behavior.

I’m sympathetic to the intent here, but it’s totally unrelated to any other provision in the amendment. Moore probably just threw it in as a feel-good gesture. And like the rest of this mess, it is filled with magnificently vague words like “comprehensive” and “racist.” And because Moore doesn’t understand even the basic principles of governance, he again neglects to spell out who exactly will do this monitoring, or what happens if they don’t.

After that detour, Moore takes one last swipe at gun owners:

SECTION 8.
Persons already owning any of the above banned firearms, and who do not fall into the legal groups of restricted firearms owners, will have one month from the ratification of this Amendment to turn in their firearms for destruction by local law enforcement. These local authorities may organize a gun buy-back program to assist in this effort.

Or what? What if they don’t turn in their firearms? Or what if local law enforcement refuses to accept them? Or gives them back? Moore’s attempt to specify crimes at the constitutional level fails in so many ways, but especially because he neglects to specify any punishment. And how would that even be carried out? Which agencies would act? Which courts would hear the disputes? It’s just stupid to think you can do all this at the constitutional level. Even the 18th Amendment provided for Congress to specify the details.

Basically, Michael Moore is an idiot who didn’t give more than a moment’s thought to writing a constitutional amendment. Heck, I’ve probably spent more time thinking about Moore’s amendment than he did.

I guess that makes me an idiot too.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Michael Moore Tries to Rescue Us From Guns

This arose out of a criminal case decided by the Supreme Court a few months ago, where Bruce Abramski bought a gun on behalf of his uncle, but filled in the paperwork with his own identifying information instead of his uncle’s. This is, of course, against the rules. Abramaski, with a little help from the NRA, managed to take this all the way to the Supreme Court:

Arbramski’s argument was basically that since his uncle would have passed the background check, and is legally allowed to own a gun, the question of whether the firearm was for him or for his uncle is irrelevant. However, if he had indicated that he was purchasing the gun for someone else, the sale would not have been completed, though, until that person completed the background check paperwork.

That was not a winning argument, which pleases Jameson Parker, because Jameson Parker hates gun owners.

Bruce Abramski bought a gun, which he was legally eligible to own. He then sold it to his uncle, who was also legally allowed to own a gun. What makes this a crime is that the paperwork was filled out wrong: It had Abramski’s name on it instead of his uncle’s. Had the uncle come in and filled out the paperwork in his own name and purchased the gun directly, it would have been entirely legal, even though the end result — the uncle owning a gun, which he is legally allowed to do — would have been exactly the same.

Actually, it’s worse than that. One of the keys facts in the case against Abramski is that when he bought the gun he checked a box indicating that he was the actual buyer. Now if he had gone into that gun shop intending to buy a gun for himself, then he would have truly been the actual buyer, and everything would have been completely legal. And then if he happened to run into his uncle, who admired the gun, then Abramski could have sold his uncle the gun as a private sale, which also would have been legal.

The problem for Abramski is that at the time he was filling out the paperwork at the dealer and checking the box that said he was the buyer, he was actually planning to sell the gun to his uncle, and having that thought in his head is the thing that turns out to be a federal crime.

On the other hand, if the thought he had in his head was that he would sell the gun to someone, but he didn’t have a particular someone in mind — maybe he just figured he could sell it to someone in his gun-loving family  — that would have been legal too. It would also have been legal if he was thinking of transferring the gun to his uncle as a gift instead of a sale.

It’s easy to understand why Abramski fought his criminal charges – he had gotten in trouble and wanted to get out of trouble. It’s harder to justify the NRA’s role in this. …the gun group is turning towards unthinking fanaticism at an alarming rate. No longer does it represent sensible gun legislation which supports gun rights, instead it has a knee-jerk reaction to oppose any limits to guns at all.

Making it illegal to think about selling a gun when you’re buying it is not sensible gun legislation. This is, in fact, an excellent example of why gun owners and the NRA oppose legislation that often appears sensible on the surface (especially as reported in the not-terribly-gun-friendly media). The craziness doesn’t become apparent until you look at the details and think about how they could be abused by people acting in bad faith. And when it comes to gun ownership, a lot of people in authority have proven themselves willing to act in bad faith.

There are many rules – big and small – that people find annoyingly hard to follow, but inconvenience isn’t an excuse to disobey them. In this case, the rule isn’t even a minor one, it’s a massive public safety issue.

No, it’s not. It’s purely a paperwork thing. I assume that the goal of these paperwork rules is to prevent someone who’s not allowed to own a gun from getting someone else to buy one for them. That sounds like it’s probably a pretty good thing to outlaw. But Abramski didn’t do that. He didn’t sell the gun to someone who’s not allowed to have one. He just broke the rules for filling out the paperwork.

Knowing who is buying guns is really important. The background check isn’t an arbitrary invasion of privacy as some conservatives claim, it is one of the biggest tools we have to preventing guns from getting into the wrong hands. It also allows police officers the ability to trace guns after they’ve been used in crimes.

According to the Daily Kos, which is not exactly a right wing mouthpiece, when Abramski transferred the gun to his uncle, they went to a gun dealer and filled out paperwork for the transfer, so they didn’t even break the paper trail for the gun.

I’m not arguing that Abramski didn’t break the law. (The legal issues are far too convoluted for me to untangle.) And I’m not arguing that he did nothing wrong in filling out the paperwork in his own name. (Although in this case it’s hard to see the harm.) What I am arguing is that he did nothing terribly wrong. I certainly don’t think he did anything so wrong that it deserves the potential pair of 5-year sentences that Abramski could have received. Nobody else appears to have thought so either, since Abramski’s actual sentence was 5 years of probation.

Parker characterizes this as the NRA saying it was OK to lie when buying a gun, which is probably technically accurate, but it misses the point that the lie seems to have been of little practical significance. As far as I can tell (and I am not a lawyer, so don’t use this as a guide), Abramski wouldn’t have been convicted if he had

• made his uncle buy the gun directly,
• bought the gun for the purpose of giving it to his uncle as a gift,
• bought the gun for himself but then changed his mind and sold it to his uncle later, or
• bought the gun intending to resell it to someone else for a profit.

Note that all four scenarios have one thing in common with each other and with what actually happened: The uncle ended up with the gun. In other words, the only difference between legal and illegal is the paperwork, and how important is the paperwork, really? This is basically just a gun-specific variant on the false statements law, which makes it a serious crime to tell a lie, even if the lie itself has no serious consequences.

It serves little public purpose to punish people severely for trivial and harmless lies. It also serves little public purpose to punish people severely for filling out paperwork incorrectly when there’s no real-world harm. It becomes just another way for law enforcement and prosecutors to get an easy notch on their belts, or to harass people they don’t like.

Gun laws are not the only legal area that’s full of landmines where filling out some paperwork incorrectly or breaking some obscure minor rule can land you in a world of hurt, which is why it would be a good thing if Jameson Parker and other anti-gun pundits didn’t cheer on this kind of nonsense because it’s happening to people they don’t like. Because what goes around, comes around.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at If Only the Paperwork

For example, I saw this the other day:

Then why don’t we have waiting lists for any of the other rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights? Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to remain silent, the right to counsel…hell, that last one, if you can’t afford a lawyer, the government pays for one for you.

In an earlier era, some states required literacy or citizenship tests in order for people to vote, supposedly to ensure that voters had some minimal level of intelligence and were able to understand the issues. In reality, this was a way to stop African Americans from voting, sometimes by blatantly requiring them to take more difficult tests. And today, whenever some Republican proposes stricter voter registration–requiring say, bringing ID to a voter registration office–progressives point out that this will tend to suppress the vote of poor people, mostly minorities, who don’t have the easy ability to take time off from work, or don’t have a car to drive 30 miles to the registration office.

Gun owners have similar concerns about background checks — that they will create an excessive burden on gun owners, or that government officials will abuse them to deny gun transfers arbitrarily. For example, when gun control advocates were pushing the Brady Bill to require waiting periods and background checks, opponents pointed out a curious thing about the bill: It required gun stores to get a background check on potential buyers before selling them a gun, but it did not require any government agency to perform a background check and produce a result in a timely manner. Governments could have denied otherwise lawful purchases by simply not fulfilling background check requests.

(Think that’s paranoid? It doesn’t seem that way from here in Chicago. A few decades ago, the city passed a law requiring handgun registration, and then shortly thereafter the city stopped accepting new handgun registrations, effectively banning residents from acquiring handguns.)

And speaking of the Brady Bill…it’s now the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. It passed. It’s the law of the land. All federally licensed gun dealers are required to conduct background checks on buyers through NICS. So don’t think that just because the “background checks” bill didn’t pass that there are no background checks.

You may not find any of these arguments convincing, but you wouldn’t have to be crazy, insane, or an NRA lobbyist to believe there’s something to them.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at A Few Reasons for Opposing Background Checks For Gun Purchases

Chris suggests that these people (supposedly 29 percent of Americans) would be too busy getting ready to avoid or run from such a rebellion if they really believed it was coming soon. And I see his point. There are, after all, currently more than a million refugees fleeing Syria’s rebellion.

I’m certainly not in that 29 percent who thinks we will need (or be in) an armed rebellion any time soon (or, indeed, in my lifetime), but I would be one who would take up arms if needed rather than try to hide from the rebellion. Maybe that’s just my age talking. Rebellions tend to involve the young and the old. Those in the middle often have too much to lose.

Hmm, I guess that makes me quite selfish. I’d be pushing the rebellion along, dragging the young with me, who don’t realize the value of their own lives, while putting everyone else who doesn’t want to be involved in mortal danger. All for my high-minded ideals.

And if we win, the surviving young would build statues to assholes like me.

Yeah, that sounds nice. Just be sure to get my beard right.

Seriously, though, that’s my point. I’ve always supported the Second Amendment on the principle that, someday, citizens may need it to defend themselves from the government. I don’t own a gun, nor do I want to own a gun. In case you didn’t know, those things are dangerous!

Still, if the situation arose where I thought we needed to rebel against our government, that danger is a useful trait.

Yet in every rebellion I’ve ever studied, the vast majority of the population just wants to get away, or simply survive. It’s a small minority of the people actually fighting on either side of such a conflict. Most are just like Chris Hallquist, simply looking for a way to lay low until the conflict blows over one way or another.

Studying the American Revolution has made me realize how few people carried the population along towards war and how they used questionable morality and ethics to do so. Nelson Mandela, on the other hand, turned away from violent rebellion and successfully overthrew a well established and armed government using peaceful methods.

Is defending the Second Amendment just the selfish act of a minority of old assholes like me with grand notions of a just armed rebellion? Have I now lost so much of my libertarian ideals that I can’t even muster the strength to defend the Second Amendment anymore?

Come on. The readers on this site should be able to reason some sense back into me. Give it a shot. Or maybe I just need to dig out some of the Heinlein books I read too often as a kid. I just have to avoid picking up that copy of Forever War from the same box.

This post by Ken Gibson at Windypundit was originally published at Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship!

In a 2-1 decision that is a major victory for the National Rifle Association, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said the state’s ban on carrying a weapon in public is unconstitutional.

“We are disinclined to engage in another round of historical analysis to determine whether eighteenth-century America understood the Second Amendment to include a right to bear guns outside the home. The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside,” the judges ruled.

“The theoretical and empirical evidence (which overall is inconclusive) is consistent with concluding that a right to carry firearms in public may promote self-defense. Illinois had to provide us with more than merely a rational basis for believing that its uniquely sweeping ban is justified by an increase in public safety. It has failed to meet this burden.

This doesn’t mean Illinois residents can start packing heat. The current law will remain in effect for at least 180 days, during which the Illinois legislature will have to come up with a way to allow law abiding citizens to carry guns.

I think there are probably some concealed carry classes in my future.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at The right to keep and bear arms may be coming to Illinois

(I should inject here that Laden isn’t making an anti-semitic remark. JewWithAGun.com is one of Joel’s many web sites.)

Look, I know that Joel is a bit odd at times, but I don’t get a creepy vibe from him at all. He’s just eccentric. Now, I admit I’ve never met Joel, so I could be wrong, but neither has Greg Laden. In fact, Laden seems to creeped out by gun ownership in general, and it causes him to miss a few points.

For example, in an unsourced quote (apparently pulled from this WCCO news story), Laden chooses to emphasize one aspect in particular:

Palmer then disarmed Rosenberg, removed the loaded magazine from the gun and the live round that was in the chamber. Palmer then returned the unloaded weapon to Rosenberg and asked him to leave, police said.

[emphasis Laden’s]

There’s nothing wrong or unusual about carrying a semi-automatic pistol with a round in the chamber. It’s called “condition one” readiness, and police departments all over the world train their officers to carry this way. All modern self-defense pistols are designed to be carried this way. They have a safety mechanism (or two) to prevent the gun from going off accidentally.

The point is to be able to draw and fire quickly, and with only one hand if necessary. If the chamber was unloaded, you’d have to take time and use both hands to ready the gun for firing by cycling the slide. In a self-defense situation, that could mean a dangerous delay, and it might not even be possible if an assailant grabbed your other hand.

In an open letter to the officer who disarmed him, Joel sarcastically presents him with a list of options for how he can handle Joel the next time they meet, including chilling out, arresting him, beating him, or killing him. I won’t reproduce the whole thing, but Laden misinterprets this passage:

3. Arrest me at gunpoint. Draw your service weapon, point it at me, after announcing that you’re going to arrest me. Call for backup to secure me. I won’t resist — you have my word, Bill — them or you. Keep your finger off the fucking trigger. You don’t want my blood on your hands, and I won’t have yours on mine.

About which Laden comments:

The list is embedded within and includes lots of phrases that say things like “don’t worry, I’ll never hurt you” but also includes what I like to think of as a “rule trigger” that in this case literally involves a trigger … in item number 3. Palmer is invited to arrest Rosenberg at gunpoint …. putting it another way, Rosenberg is giving Palmer permission to do his job … but embeds in this permission a specific threat: If Palmer touches his own trigger finger, then … then what? It’s a little unclear, but it seems to involve some fantasy that Palmer has of grabbing a police officer’s gun so that it goes off and shoots him (Rosenberg). Yeah, this threat of suicide by cop is probably enough to bring him in and have him committed.

Joel isn’t threatening to do anything, and Joel isn’t talking about Sgt. Palmer touching “his own trigger finger,” he’s talking about Palmer touching his finger to the trigger of his own service weapon–which is unsafe gun handling that could result in an accidental discharge. That’s the spilled blood that Joel is referring to.

I’m not sure why Joel brings this up. I can’t see whether Palmer has his finger on the trigger of Joel’s gun when he takes it from Joel, but if you watch the first minute of the video, Sgt. Palmer does appear to sweep the barrel of Joel’s gun across Joel and across the other two people in the room. It’s not the worst gun handling mistake–I’ve had people sweep me on the gun range–but it is a mistake. Joel teaches firearms safety, so maybe he was chiding Palmer a bit.

Later, Laden has this to say:

If you look on the web for books, classes, and information about this, you will find web resources put together by various pro-gun organizations and individuals. Mr. Rosenberg is, it turns out, one of the main go-to guys if you want to pursue a carry permit in the Twin Cities. You can buy his book, too.

So I see this incident as proof positive that the line between gun advocates and gun safety related resources and teachers on one hand, and threatening and dangerous gun nuts on the other hand, to be either very thin or simply non existent. Assuming that Joel Rosenberg is a dangerous crazy gun nut. Which I tend to think he is.

There’s not much evidence of that, especially if you understand what Joel was talking about. In fact, Joel goes out of his way to emphasize that he’s not making any kind of threat, a fact which Laden acknowledged in the quote above. Besides, if Joel’s so dangerous, how has he gone 56 years without ever doing anything antisocial enough to prevent the state of Minnesota from issuing him a permit to carry a concealed firearm?

Finally, this last bit has nothing to do with Laden, but one of his commenters with a handle of “Albatross” explains how dangerously crazy Joel is in a 500-word rant that also includes the tale of how he use used to like Joel’s novels but threw them away after Joel insulted his wife, speculation about Joel’s penis size, and this wonderful tale:

This was VERY amusing to me when I sat behind him for a play in one of the Rarig Center’s theaters. I enjoyed the performance a lot more than I should have, imagining myself kicking him really hard in base of the skull, and then shouting “How’s the chambered round in your goddamned handgun working for you now, asshole?!” at his twitching corpse. Likewise slitting his throat with my pocketknife.

Yeah, Joel’s the crazy one alright.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at On Joel Rosenberg’s Sanity, Safe Gun Handling, and Why You Should Always Check Who’s Sitting Behind You in the Rarig Center Theater

When I brought Joel Rosenberg in to Windypundit as a co-blogger, I wanted him to cover firearms issues, especially the right to keep and bear arms. And he did, rather rabidly, with some of the longest posts on the blog. Even though his last post was over a year ago, he’s still on the masthead, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s still on the team.

And now he’s also in jail. The Minneapolis police arrested him for…go ahead see if you can guess…yeah, illegal possession of a gun. In a courthouse. Which is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail. (They also got him for contempt of court, but that’s just a misdemeanor.)

It all stems from an incident a month ago in which Joel dropped by police headquarters to pick up some papers. As is his way, he was wearing his gun, for which he has a carry permit. One of the cops, Sergeant William Palmer, told him he wasn’t allowed to have it in the building (apparently because it was also a courthouse) and took it away from him.

Joel filed a complaint against Palmer and then, being Joel, proceeded to post videos taunting the cops. Needless to say, when I got the news of his arrest, it wasn’t a total surprise.

One of the more curious aspects of this whole mess is that, at the time of the alleged incident, the police didn’t bother to arrest him, even though, if you believe the arrest warrant, they had just witnessed the commission of a felony. There could be an innocent explanation for that, but given that they only arrested him after he filed a complaint, and after he spoke to the press, it sounds a bit like retaliation.

Currently, Joel is being held on $100,000 bond, with arraignment scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at 25% of Windypundit Blog Team Now In Jail

An attorney involved in the case advised against Chicagoans running out and purchasing handguns until a lower court rules on the matter later this summer.

“Obviously I’m elated by the court’s decision, said attorney David Sigale. “(But) I think it would be prudent to wait.”

Sigale said he expects the U.S. District Court to take up the case again in the coming weeks and issue the city directives on the handgun ban and a number of specific ordinances regarding re-registration and pre-registration.

Naturally, Mayor Daley is planning to fight this:

Daley has scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. today to discuss the ruling.  The City Council could consider new gun control measures as soon as Wednesday, Daley said last week.

City Hall has been drawing up plans after the justices heard arguments in the case in early March and appeared to indicate they would rule against the city.

In an interview with the Tribune, the mayor said his primary goal would be to protect police officers, paramedics and emergency workers from being shot when responding to an incident at a home.

It’s nonsense to think that the loss of Chicago’s handgun is going to endanger cops or any other first responders. Illinois will almost certainly keep its background check requirement, which means that only people with no significant criminal record will be able to possess a handgun legally. The aren’t likely to suddenly commence a life of crime.

Let me put it another way: Last weekend in Chicago, 54 people were wounded by gunfire, 10 of them fatally. Since ordinary Chicago residents can’t own handguns legally, most of those shots must have been fired by people who had guns in violation of Chicago’s tough handgun ban. It’s hard to imagine that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens would have made things any worse.

“If the ban is overturned, we will see a lot of common-sense approaches in the city aimed at protecting first responders,” Daley said. “We have to have some type of registry. If a first responder goes to an apartment, they need to know if that individual has a gun.”

It sounds like the usual obstructive behavior. If the mayor can’t make it illegal to own guns, he’ll figure out a way to harass people who own guns legally. There will probably be lots of paperwork. As Scott Greenfield points out, this could drag on for decades, because the Supreme Court’s ruling was remarkably lazy:

McDonald did one thing only, holding that the right enunciated in Heller applies to the states.  As with the mystery paragraph of Heller, the Court reiterated that the decision doesn’t preclude regulation and limitation.  This leaves open the next hundred years of piecemeal litigation over each and every inch of imaginative legislation to see where the line is drawn.  We’re so far away right now that we can’t even see the line, no less know what the line precludes.

Heck, as Eugene Volokh points out, the Court hasn’t even cleared up whether the right is truly fundamental, and whether limitations are subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny.  While these legal issues aren’t particularly interesting to non-lawyers, they play a huge role in framing laws to restrict the applicability of Heller and its progeny.  More decisions needed to flesh out the right mean more years before anybody really understands what can and can’t be done.

…

And if anybody doubts that McDonald is merely another baby step in a very, very long journey, consider that it took 214 pages to conclude that the right is incorporated.  Just wait until the Supremes have to struggle with some of the tougher questions, like whether children under the age of 6 months living in a home for which an application to possess a firearm has been made will have to pass a physical examination to demonstrate competency in firearms handling.  Yes, the possibilities are endless.

Meanwhile, getting back to Mayor Daley’s rantings, this sentence gives pause for thought:

He said he also wants to save taxpayers from the financial cost of lawsuits if police shoot someone in the house because the officer felt threatened.

This is absurd. The courts know how to handle lawsuits over police shootings, and police officers have always been allowed to shoot when they reasonably feel their life is in danger. If the handgun ban is struck down, threatening a police officer with a gun will still be a crime, even if the gun is legally owned, and the police rules for use of force won’t change, just has they haven’t changed anywhere else in the country where people can own handguns.

What Mayor Daley is really worried about is that the City of Chicago has been paying out millions of dollars in damages for the illegal or dangerous conduct of its police officers, and Mayor Daley sees the impending fall of the handgun ban as an excuse to drum up some sort tort protection. It’s incredibly cynical.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at More About the Chicago Gun Ruling

Court rules for gun rights, strikes Chicago handgun ban.

In another dramatic victory for firearm owners, the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional Chicago, Illinois’ 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons.

So, anyone know how soon I’ll be able to buy that pair of Desert Eagle 50s I’ve been wanting? They’re so pretty.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Where Can I Get Me a Gun?

The key problem is that there’s no time for practice. So advice like “don’t pull the trigger, squeeze it” isn’t much good because it takes time to learn the technique. It has to be something she has a chance of learning during the first few minutes of the game.

Here’s what I came up with on short notice:

• Isosoles stance—Hold the gun with both hands, throw your arms forward and lock your elbows so the gun is straight out in front. Pivot from the hips to place the gunsight on the target. Pull the trigger until they light up.
• Keep the gun in shooting position all the time—Walk through the course with the gun pointed wherever you expect the threat, turning to face doorways or windows. Never lower it, never raise it. You’ll look like a dork, but you’ll get more kills than if you try to look cool.
• Take cover first—When someone shoots at you unexpectedly, get out of the kill zone to someplace they can’t shoot you. Only then should you try to figure out how to pop out and shoot back.

I thought of one more piece of advice, but it was too late:

• Handle corners by moving sideways before advancing—rather than walk right up to a corner or a doorway, stand back a bit and move sideways to give you a better view around the edge. If there’s a threat, it will be easier to duck back sideways than to back up suddenly.

So, was that good advice or bad advice? Anybody out there have better ideas?

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Tips For a Gunfight?

He took some time threading his belt through the dual magazine carrier that he carries on his left hip — never can have too much ammo, you know, and, besides, if you have to clear a stoppage with a semiauto, you probably will need to do a mag change — and then through the CTAC holster that his Wilson Combat CQB Tactical LE rides in. A quick finger-check to make sure that a round was still chambered — it was — and he was, well, not ready yet. Still had to clip the Surefire KROMA flashlight to his belt. Great flashlight; $299, and worth every penny. If you’re going to carry a gun, lots of the gunwriters say, you’ve got to carry pepper spray and a baton — wouldn’t want some prosecutor to argue that you didn’t even have a lesser-force option available — so he clipped the can of pepper foam behind the gun on his right side, and the ASP 16″ baton to his belt on the left side. Oops. He had almost forgotten the knife — the Masters of Defense Dieter CQD went into his right pocket. And, suitcoat concealing everything, he was ready to go to work. Hoped he didn’t clank too much if he bumped into a doorframe at the office; wouldn’t want to scare the other accountants.

That was him.  Me? 

I just opened the gun box, took out the snubby still in its pocket holster — checked to make sure it was loaded; best to keep up the good habits — closed and locked the gunbox, made sure that my pocket knife was, well, in my pocket, grabbed my car keys and headed for the door. 

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at The White Knight and Me: A Very Short Parable, With Gun Porn

Let me give you a little bit of background, first.  Early in the month, the Department of Interior announced new rules around carrying of firearms in National Parks. 

Not a big deal, although poor Lloyd Garver got his LA knickers in a twist over at the HuffPo, almost as much as the time he visited Minnesota and didn’t get shot.

Basically, the Interior Department aligned the rules for the national parks with those of the state in which they’re located.  In Minnesota, for example, where I live, people with valid carry permits can carry their handguns in state parks; now, when they’re up at Voyageuers National Park, the same rule will apply.  Similarly for Utah, Montana, both Dakotas — and the vast majority of states; handgun carry permits are easily available in more than forty of the fifty states.

No effect, of course, in Wisconsin and Illinois — the two states that, just like the District of Columbia, only allow cops and criminals to carry handguns — and no practical effect in states like New York and New Jersey, not just because of the paucity of National Parks — heck, the Statue of Liberty is run by the Park Service, and while Morristown is no Yellowstone, it’s kinda cool — but because, in states like that, carry permits are as rare as honest Chicago  politicians are in Chicago.

Now, over to Sarah; I’ll be back in a bit.

MORE GUNS IN NATIONAL PARKS PUT VISITORS AT RISK 

Dear [Redacted],

The Bush Administration has given the gun lobby a special last-minute gift — a very expensive one, … one that puts public safety at risk.

The Brady Center is taking action to stop it.  We need your help.

The Brady Center has filed a suit asking a federal court to strike down the Administration’s last-minute rule change to allow concealed, loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. 

Please give a tax-deductible gift now to help us stop this unnecessary and dangerous ruling.  It will allow guns in rural and urban national park areas around the country …

     … from Wyoming’s Yellowstone and California’s Yosemite to Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell.

The Brady Center filed the suit on behalf of our Brady Campaign members, including school teachers in the New York  and Washington, D.C. areas who are canceling or curtailing school trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. now that the Bush Administration will allow guns in these national parks.

Click here to give today to support our efforts to keep our parks and wildlife refuges safe, to stop the gun lobby and the Bush Administration from enacting this last-minute ruling.

Sincerely,

Sarah Brady, Chair

Forward this email to everyone you know.

Yup.  Sarah’s scaring teachers into avoiding the National Mall and the Statue of Liberty out of her panic that when some of us are visiting, say, Rushmore we might have lawfully-carried handgun on us, just like we’d have down the road at Custer State Park.

Sheesh, Sarah.  And I’ve been complaining about some folks on my side worrying about the sky falling.

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at Sarah Brady Scares the Teachers

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at Happy Chanukah

For those who came in late, let’s go back to the Assault Weapons Ban.  Passed in 1994, the feature of it that drew most attention from people who don’t own guns was the ban on the importation, and manufacture of some scary-looking (to some) kinda sorta military-looking rifles, like this one. 

Understandable, really, given all the mass killings by pretty Wiccan girl — oh, nevermind.

Less remarked upon, outside the gun community, was the ban on the sale of new standard capacity magazines — that’s the black, boxlike thingee that the cartridges go into. The theory was that since nobody — other than a cop — needs a magazine with more than ten rounds, and since magazines with more than ten rounds are bad if you don’t need them, much — or, at least some — goodness would ensue. Now, yeah, I know that’s silly.  Granted few people can switch mags as fast as this guy, but realistically, it wasn’t much of a muchness to most people.  A bad guy who wanted to murder a bunch of people with his Glock would, instead of carrying a couple of spare 15-round mags, would carry three ten-round mags. 

A good — or, at least, okay — guy, who thought that he might need more than ten rounds would just carry a spare mag, or buy one of the “pre-ban” mags which were still available, to those who had the cash.

But something did happen.  Since manufacturers could no long make guns for the noncop market that were designed around, say, fifteen-round magazines, they started designing more guns around ten-round or lower-capacity mags. 

The Assault Weapons Ban inspired a new class of smaller guns — pocket pistols with ten rounds in fairly large calibers, like, say, these: (Two of the above are in 9mm; one’s in .45.  Perfectly reasonable self-defense calibers.)

Which, naturally, made the folks in the anti-gun industry happy?  Nah.  They decided that the relatively new, smaller guns — largely a response to their own sponsored legislation — were evil:  “Pocket Rockets“. 

Well, the Assault Weapons Ban has been dead for four years, and people can, if and when they want to, buy new, standard-capacity magazines, even if the mags happen to hold fifteen or sixteen rounds, but the “pocket rockets” remain.  (And for good reason; pocket carry, while not a cop thing, is often a very useful way for somebody who doesn’t want to draw attention to himself to keep a self-defense tool handy.)

Now, it would be untrue to say that the gun manufacturers are terribly sympathetic to the hysterical shouts from the antigun industry, but they do listen.  Smith and Wesson, after some years of development, came up with a brand new handgun, developed around a brand-new round:  the .500 Magnum:

As a carry gun — for either good or bad purposes — it would be pretty hard to imagine a worse choice.  For one thing, it’s a great, big, heavy sucker — even empty, the lightest variant weighs three and a half pounds.  It’s hideously expensive to practice with — each trigger pull is going to throw almost three bucks downrange.

Basically, it’s designed for folks for whom dealing with humongous recoil is a lot of fun, who are maybe going to be hunting something like grizzly bears with a handgun, and who have definitely have lots of money — forgetting ammo, the gun itself is going to run around a grand.

Surely, it’s something that even the hysterics at the Brady Center and the VPC couldn’t complain about.  Heck, if Plaxico Burress had been trying to hide .500 Magnum in his shorts —

No, I’m not going to go there.  Never mind.  Back to the antgun folks.  Having nothing real to complain about, they decide that the .500 is a “big boomer” (yeah, it is; I’ve been around one going off, once; it is kind of loud) and a “vest buster”.

There’s just no pleasing some people.

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at “Big Boomers” and “Vest Busters”

]]> https://windypundit.com/2008/12/big_boomers_and_vest_busters/feed/ 4 1449 https://windypundit.com/2008/12/of_shooting_galleries_and_gun/ https://windypundit.com/2008/12/of_shooting_galleries_and_gun/#respond Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:06:53 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=1445 Jennifer Abel is a brilliant libertarian writer and master of the devastating observation: You know those amusement-park shooting galleries where you use an air rifle to knock down multiple rows of moving mechanical ducks? The way they work is, you shoot at the targets all you want, and none of the targets can shoot back. […]

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Of Shooting Galleries And Gun-Free Zones

]]> Jennifer Abel is a brilliant libertarian writer and master of the devastating observation:

You know those amusement-park shooting galleries where you use an air rifle to knock down multiple rows of moving mechanical ducks? The way they work is, you shoot at the targets all you want, and none of the targets can shoot back.

Most schools and workplaces operate on the same principle.

You can find the whole thing through Jennifer’s blog, Ravings of a Feral Genius.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Of Shooting Galleries And Gun-Free Zones

]]> https://windypundit.com/2008/12/of_shooting_galleries_and_gun/feed/ 0 1445 https://windypundit.com/2008/11/nothing_to_see_move_along_now/ https://windypundit.com/2008/11/nothing_to_see_move_along_now/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:25:35 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=1419 Step one: Walk into any gun shop, and take a look at the empty spaces on the shelves where EBRs/Evil Black Rifles/Semiauto Assault Weapons/Scary-looking long guns used to be.  Watch the remaining ones fly off the shelves, and people place backorders.  Or just read reports by folks who have done just that.  There’s plenty; here’s […]

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at “Nothing to see; move along now,” in four steps

]]> Step one: Walk into any gun shop, and take a look at the empty spaces on the shelves where EBRs/Evil Black Rifles/Semiauto Assault Weapons/Scary-looking long guns used to be.  Watch the remaining ones fly off the shelves, and people place backorders.  Or just read reports by folks who have done just that.  There’s plenty; here’s one.

Step two:  browse over the the Joyce-funded “the gun guys” antigun website to see the latest reprint of an editorial by another Joyce-funded astroturf antigun group telling you that there’s no boom in gun sales going on in the wake of the Obamalection.

Step three:  browse over the the Joyce-funded “the gun guys” antigun website to see the previous reprint of a remarakably similar editorial by yet another Joyce-funded astroturf antigun group telling you that there’s no boom in gun sales going on in the wake of the Obamalection.

Step three:  decide for yourself — who are you going to believe?  The Joyce Foundation, or your lying eyes?

Step four:  Nothing to see; move along now.

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at “Nothing to see; move along now,” in four steps

]]> https://windypundit.com/2008/11/nothing_to_see_move_along_now/feed/ 0 1419 https://windypundit.com/2008/11/living_in_a_chinese_curse_rkba/ https://windypundit.com/2008/11/living_in_a_chinese_curse_rkba/#comments Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:22:26 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=1390 There’s an old Chinese curse that goes, roughly, “may you live in interesting times.” The Obama years are clearly going to be interesting times, in many ways — perhaps some good; certainly many bad. Let’s take a look at how . . . interesting they’re probably going to be, at least in terms of issues […]

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at Living in a Chinese Curse: RKBA Edition, Part One

]]> There’s an old Chinese curse that goes, roughly, “may you live in interesting times.” The Obama years are clearly going to be interesting times, in many ways — perhaps some good; certainly many bad.

Let’s take a look at how . . . interesting they’re probably going to be, at least in terms of issues around the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms. I’d rather talk about Heller, but let’s save something fun for the future.

This won’t be fun. Except for right now, for some.

The election returns are in: the coming Presidency of Barack Obama has been a boost to the firearms industry the likes of which has never been seen before. Cheaper Than Dirt, the online purveyor of ammo and accessories, had their biggest sales day ever, the day after the election. Here in Minneapolis, as elsewhere, guns — particularly Evil Black Rifles — are not so much moving as flying off the shelves. A salesmen at the Rogers MN Cabellas who might, in a good month, sell as many as half a dozen such reported that he sold seven in the week after — and would have sold more, if they hadn’t run out.

In Minnesota — and all over the country — carry permit classes, including mine, are filling up, fueled by both panic (“Get grandfathered in now!”) and by folks more sensibly wanting to combine getting around to something that they really intended to do anyway with a bit of fear.

Which is understandable. Whatever else can be said about Barack Obama, he’s the first President-elect to have served on the board of a major funder of astroturf anti-gun groups.

While there’s issues much, much nearer and dearer to my heart, I’m going to focus, this time around, on the one I personally care least about.

And am going to fight like hell for. It’s the ugly guns.

It’s right in the Obamanifesto, right here, and that’s not a bad place to start, stripping out the vaguenesses and weaselry, and leaving what Obama says he wants to do:

…. mak[e] the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

Probably the most iconic representation of “gun violence” are those guns that look kind of like the ones that soldiers carry. EBRs — Evil Black Rifles — or “assault weapons” or “semi-automatic military-style rifles” were one of the whipping boys of the Clinton Era “Assault Weapons Ban”. The notion was, as I understand it, that since nobody has a need for a firearm that looks sorta militaryish, there’s no real problem in banning them, and some benefits to be gained.

Except, of course, there aren’t — except as an argument for more gun control. It seems that somebody intent on Doing Bad Stuff With Guns is vanishingly unlikely to give up the idea if they find it more difficult to do said Bad Stuff with a gun that they probably weren’t going to use anyway; an almost preposterously small proportion of crimes are committed with large, kind of military-looking semiautomatic rifles.

After ten years, the ban expired with, as even Josh Sugarman, one of the honchos de tutti honchi of the gun control movement observed, not much impact; large, military-looking weapons aren’t often terribly appealing to criminals, as walking into a stop-n-rob with one tends to draw a lot of attention, as does walking out.

So, who would want one?

Which one? you ask. An “assault weapon” or an “assault weapon” ban?

Well,manifestly: lots of people, for both. The .223 caliber AR15 (the single-shot-per-trigger-pull, civilianized version of the military’s M16) and its clones dominate certain kinds of target-shooting competitions, and while they’re not my cuppa tea, particularly, are useful for some hunting; in the variants that shoot the .308 round, instead, they are reliable, relatively low-recoil big-game guns. The Chinese and Soviet SKS makes a terrific, low-recoil deer rifle at a terrific price — my hunting partner’s daughter got her first deer with an SKS. And for plinking — recreational shooting at things like targets and tin cans and such — they’re a whole lot of fun.

But they are, well, scary-looking, and the first few steps along the path from “gun control” commonsense gun safety laws to UK/Chicago/DC type bans start with prohibiting scary-looking things, and cries of, “Why would anybody need . . . ?” Obama will, as he’s promised, push a toward reinstituting of the Clinton-era gun ban . . . except, of course, it’ll go further.

And it’s going to be a tough fight. EBRs just aren’t particularly useful poster children for the RKBA, despite the efforts of folks like Oleg Volk.

This will be at least among first major antigun initiative to come from the Obama White House; it won’t be the last.

Beyond that, we can expect the institution of a stealth, nationwide gun registration scheme via combination of the repeal of the Tiahrt amendment and the closing of the “gun show loophole” , followed by an an assault on the right of the people, in at least forty states, to keep and bear arms for their own protection. You can’t blame Obama for that; he comes from Chicago, where only the police, the criminals, and the political fixers can have guns, and thinks that ugly situation is natural.

And if you think that’s ugly, wait until you see the fight.

This post by Joel Rosenberg at Windypundit was originally published at Living in a Chinese Curse: RKBA Edition, Part One

]]> https://windypundit.com/2008/11/living_in_a_chinese_curse_rkba/feed/ 2 1390 https://windypundit.com/2008/06/heller_gun_owners_get_a_cookie/ https://windypundit.com/2008/06/heller_gun_owners_get_a_cookie/#comments Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:23:20 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=1187 The Supreme Court finally released their long-awaited 2nd Amendment decision in Heller, and it seems to support an individual right to bear arms…in your own home, in D.C., if your name is Dick Heller, and all you want is a city gun permit. That’s according to Scott Greenfield’s analysis of Heller. They announced a fundamental individual right, […]

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Heller: Gun Owners Get a Cookie

]]> The Supreme Court finally released their long-awaited 2nd Amendment decision in Heller, and it seems to support an individual right to bear arms…in your own home, in D.C., if your name is Dick Heller, and all you want is a city gun permit.

That’s according to Scott Greenfield’s analysis of Heller.

They announced a fundamental individual right, yet also allowed all standing regulations to remain intact without explanation, and left 99% of the questions arising from this right unanswered.

Orin Kerr says essentially the same thing:

It recognizes the individual right…, but does not resolve the degrees of scrutiny, does not address incorporation, and indicates (without establishing) that traditional gun restriction laws are valid.

That’s a lot of important things to leave out.

I guess today the Supreme Court was doing the work of an administrative judge in the D.C. gun permit office. It’s kind of disappointing.

Any lawyers out there want to help me try to register a handgun in Chicago and see what happens?

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Heller: Gun Owners Get a Cookie

]]> https://windypundit.com/2008/06/heller_gun_owners_get_a_cookie/feed/ 2 1187 https://windypundit.com/2007/04/victims_of_the_virginia_tech_m/ https://windypundit.com/2007/04/victims_of_the_virginia_tech_m/#respond Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:47:00 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=816 The murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech yesterday has reignited the gun control debate. I don’t feel like writing about it now, so I’ll just say one thing that keeps going through my mind: I don’t know anything about the killer, but I do know something about every one of his victims. I know […]

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre

]]> The murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech yesterday has reignited the gun control debate. I don’t feel like writing about it now, so I’ll just say one thing that keeps going through my mind:

I don’t know anything about the killer, but I do know something about every one of his victims. I know it because it’s been true of the victims of every mass shooting we’ve had in this country.

They were unarmed.

Update: Law Professor Glenn Reynolds echos my feelings in a New York Daily News editorial:

On Monday, as the news of the Virginia Tech shootings was unfolding, I went into my advanced constitutional law seminar to find one of my students upset. My student, Tara Wyllie, has a permit to carry a gun in Tennessee, but she isn’t allowed to have a weapon on campus. That left her feeling unsafe. “Why couldn’t we meet off campus today?” she asked.

Virginia Tech graduate student Bradford Wiles also has a permit to carry a gun, in Virginia. But on the day of the shootings, he would have been unarmed for the same reason: Like the University of Tennessee, where I teach, Virginia Tech bans guns on campus.

In The Roanoke Times last year – after another campus incident, when a dangerous escaped inmate was roaming the campus – Wiles wrote that, when his class was evacuated, “Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness. That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself.”

Wiles reported that when he told a professor how he felt, the professor responded that she would have felt safer if he had had a gun, too.

What’s more, she would have been safer. That’s how I feel about my student (one of a few I know who have gun carry permits), as well. She’s a responsible adult; I trust her not to use her gun improperly, and if something bad happened, I’d want her to be armed because I trust her to respond appropriately, making the rest of us safer.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre

]]> https://windypundit.com/2007/04/victims_of_the_virginia_tech_m/feed/ 0 816 https://windypundit.com/2006/02/cheney_shooting_now_less_funny/ https://windypundit.com/2006/02/cheney_shooting_now_less_funny/#respond Wed, 15 Feb 2006 05:34:56 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=348 Harry Whittington, the guy shot by Vice President Dick Cheney, has had a mild heart attack caused by a pellet that nudged up next to his heart. That’s a heck of a lot worse than would seem to be indicated by those who say Whittington got “peppered” by Cheney’s shot. I don’t know if the […]

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Cheney Shooting Now Less Funny

]]> Harry Whittington, the guy shot by Vice President Dick Cheney, has had a mild heart attack caused by a pellet that nudged up next to his heart.

That’s a heck of a lot worse than would seem to be indicated by those who say Whittington got “peppered” by Cheney’s shot. I don’t know if the term “peppered” has a proper definition, but I always assumed that when someone was peppered by a shotgun blast, it meant a few pellets broke the skin and maybe hit some exterior muscle tissues. When a pellet reaches the victim’s heart, that’s a hell of a lot more serious.

I am simply amazed that if Whittington’s health takes a turn for the worst, the Vice President of the United States could be the target of a homicide investigation.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Cheney Shooting Now Less Funny

]]> https://windypundit.com/2006/02/cheney_shooting_now_less_funny/feed/ 0 362 https://windypundit.com/2006/02/hunting_safety_at_hitrun/ https://windypundit.com/2006/02/hunting_safety_at_hitrun/#respond Tue, 14 Feb 2006 01:15:20 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=347 After my post about Dick Cheney’s little hunting mishap, I posted a question in the comments to a Hit&Run post, asking about the rules for safe hunting. With as many libertarians as read that site, I figured they had to know a lot about guns. A regular calling himself Hakluyt responded, When it comes to […]

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Hunting Safety at Hit&Run

]]> After my post about Dick Cheney’s little hunting mishap, I posted a question in the comments to a Hit&Run post, asking about the rules for safe hunting. With as many libertarians as read that site, I figured they had to know a lot about guns.

A regular calling himself Hakluyt responded,

When it comes to gun injuries, etc. I was taught from NRA classes as kid forward that the decision is always with the person that pulls the trigger. Obviously folks can do stupid stuff that makes it more likely that they’ll get shot, but the decision-maker is the guy with the gun, not vice-versa. So make sure you want to shoot that you are aiming at, etc. I’ve only been deer hunting though, but I’d imagine that bird hunters have a similar attitude.

Another poster named Pine says,

– Yeah, standard gun safety responsiblities apply, but there’s some “special case” stuff, too.

– When you’re quail shooting in a group like this, you stay conscious of who’s where. Before flushing a covey, you have a mental “safe zone” where you can shoot without anybody being there. Knowing that is the shooter’s responsibility.

– When you’re moving around, you have to let your friends know where you are. This is usually verbal. The point is that you don’t want to accidentally (or negligently) move into somebody’s “safe zone”.

And someone called rmark says,

When bird hunting, the hunters usually walk in a line abreat so none are in front of the others. The center hunter knows he can’t swing too far left or right, and the end hunters only go for bird straight ahead or to their side. To get shot requires someone being out of place or someone shooting in a direction they aren’t supposed too.

R C Dean sees it a little different:

[…]staying clear out of other hunter’s safe zones is everyone’s responsibility.

Getting peppered is not unusual when quail hunting. The birds fly unpredictably and at low levels, the terrain is often brushy, etc.

Plus, when wingshooting it is not possible to throughly scrutinize everything in the line of fire. That is why you establish zones of fire, and why the nonshooters have a responsibility to stay clear of it and shooters have a responsibility to make sure they are where they belong.

Jeff responds:

The whole idea that by “coming up behind” Cheney the victim somehow caused the shooting is just absurd. Given a choice, whether at a range or on a hunt, “behind the shooter” is where you want to be, for obvious reasons. For equally obvious reasons, panning and scanning with your gun at shoulder level, approximately 180 degrees, and then firing, is frowned upon. The description of the guy merely “getting peppered” is not consistent with getting knocked down and ending up in the ICU for three days. It is not uncommon to feel a few pellets as they come down when you are bird hunting, but getting a blast to the head and neck ending in a hospital visit is called “getting shot.”

This all adds up to about what I’d concluded from doing a little reading on the web: For his own safety, Harry Whittington—the guy who got shot—would have been wise to announce his movement as he approached the hunting group, so that the hunters would know where their safe zones were. Nevertheless, it was Dick Cheney who pointed his gun in an unsafe direction and pulled the trigger.

Blogger alkali left this bit:

Overheard at the phone bank at RNC HQ:

“… No, Mr. Abramoff’s skybox is no longer available, but at that contribution level we could arrange to have you shot in the face by Vice President Cheney … no, I’m pretty sure it’s not fatal … well, I’ll just put you down for the Reagan commemorative totebag then …”

Heh. Just 165 minutes until Jon Stewart gets a shot at this story.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Hunting Safety at Hit&Run

]]> https://windypundit.com/2006/02/hunting_safety_at_hitrun/feed/ 0 361 https://windypundit.com/2006/02/butterfingers_cheney/ https://windypundit.com/2006/02/butterfingers_cheney/#respond Mon, 13 Feb 2006 06:35:02 +0000 http://www.windypundit.com/?p=345 So the Vice President shoots this guy… WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally wounded a companion with shotgun pellets on a weekend quail hunt in Texas, his office said on Sunday. Jon Stewart must be beside himself right now. I’m counting the minutes until the Daily Show. A few pellets of bird shot […]

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Butterfingers Cheney

]]> So the Vice President shoots this guy…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally wounded a companion with shotgun pellets on a weekend quail hunt in Texas, his office said on Sunday.

Jon Stewart must be beside himself right now. I’m counting the minutes until the Daily Show.

A few pellets of bird shot hit his right side, including his face, but fortunately not his eyes. Dick Cheney’s medical team was standing by (because Cheney’s had about 75 heart attacks) and they took care of the wounded hunter. He’s in the hospital, but seems to be doing well.

Then there’s this bit, where the owner of the hunting ground seems to be blaming the guy who got shot for returning to the hunting party without letting anyone know:

Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch, was a member of the hunting party and witnessed the accident.

She said Cheney, an experienced hunter, did not realize Whittington had rejoined the group without announcing himself, which is proper protocol among hunters.

…

“The person who is not doing the shooting at the point is just as responsible and, should be, as the person actually shooting,” Armstrong said.

I’m pretty sure that’s not true. It sounds like a blatant attempt to cover Cheney’s ass.

However, I don’t know much about hunting safety. All my shooting is done at the range, where it’s safe to say that all gunshot wounds are the fault of the guy holding the gun. Any bird hunters out there that can clarify this?

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Butterfingers Cheney

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