21-1255 Bianchi v. Frosh was heard by the fourth circuit court of appeals on Tuesday Dec. 6th, 2022. As of today, the 7th, I have not been able to find a transcript of the oral arguments. Once I find a transcript I’ll have more to say. I really don’t want to transcript it myself nor pay somebody else to do so.

Nothing was decided. One of the pundits I follow, a 2A lawyer, seems to feel like things will go our way but that there were issues in the line of questioning.

The gist, as he tells it, is that the judges on the panel wanted the plaintiffs (good guys) to prove that AR-15s are covered within the scope of the second amendment. The argument should have been Heller “common use means it is covered.” Caetano says that greater than 200,000 is “in common use”

The path that the state is taking is to turn Bruen upside down and force the good guys to prove that the thing is covered and that there are no laws that are analogous to the law being challenged. Bruen specifically says that it is the Government’s task to prove that a law that is analogous existed in 1791. It is upto the Government to prove that an arm is not within the scope.

The state’s argument is that there should still be means-end to determine if an arm is just to evil/nasty/lethal/black to be covered by the second amendment.

In better news, parts of measure 114 out of Oregon have been stopped temporarily. The state is saying they need more time to get the permitting/training/registration system in place and the people arguing that it should never happen. So the judge put a delay on it for the time being.

This should mean that people in Oregon can still buy firearms.

I didn’t see the PSA warning about shipping to Oregon before and I had not looked for it. I don’t see it today either when I did look for it. I don’t know if it was removed but there is nothing in their “firearm shipments” section that indicates a ban on shipping to Oregon.

Many people had an irrational fear of clowns.

The trope of the creepy, murderous clowns permeated the popular culture.

There was even a 1988 horror B movie cult classic about killer aliens that looked like clowns.

In the early 2020s, it seemed like every dystopian sci-fi horror movie of the 90s was coming true.    But in nobody’s wildest imagination did anyone forsee this.

To be fair, the clowns were not alien sociopaths on a comet.

They were a proud people.

A culture of warriors.

And we provoked them.

Many warrior cultures on earth had displays of power to intimidate their enemies.

The Maori had their famous Haka dance.

The Scottish would stand on hilltops in the fog and scare the shit out of the English with bagpipes.

Native tribes of North and South America wore face paint and elaborate head dresses.

The Samuari of Japan wore scary armored masks.

But yellow polkadot jumpsuits, frills, and big red wigs and bulbous noses were not in the repertoire of warriors on earth.

To us, those were funny, or maybe creepy, but not intimidating.

And so we blasted radio waves into space carrying videos of clowns getting hit with pies and mallets and making fools of themselves for our children’s entertainment.

Such insults could not be ignored by warriors whose reputation for ferocity in battle spanned countless planets throughout the galaxy.

And so they came to earth.

Lead by a general who looked more like he should be selling forty-nine cent cheeseburgers than decimating our militaries.

The war was over in a matter of days.

Their victory stunning and complete.

Their tactics and technology perfected over the centuries, spanning millions of parsecs, and billions of enemies subjugated or destroyed.

We never stood a chance.

Nobody has an irrational fear of clowns anymore.

That fear is now entirely justified.

The big goofy red wig and bulbous nose is the face of death.

So J.Kb. thinks it was crazy for me to shoot a racoon with a 30-30. Maybe… (So people without a warped sense of humor get it, this is all in fun. Both J.Kb. and myself are having fun with this topic.)

The first time I went out on the porch because my wife was hearing “sounds out there” I didn’t think it was a human but it could have been anything from a chipmunk to bear. I wanted something with me that would stop it, whatever it was. That means I’m not picking up the 5.56 nor a .22LR.

That takes me to pistol calibers. Again, not enough stopping power for a bear. This lead to a compromise, 30-30 Winchester. I’m pretty sure that I can put multiple rounds on target with any of the 30-30s I own and if it was a bear of the size we have around here, I am positive it would be stopped with that 30-30.

Other choices are 7.62×39. Nothing but FMJ for that. 7.62×51. Big ass rifle with a scope, bolt action. About the same stopping power as the 30-30 at shorter ranges. 30-06 (M1), it would be nice but again a very long heavy rifle and it is currently set for two legged mode. FMJ.

This takes us up to the big boy, 45-70. Now I have a lever action at that size and it would be the right round for bear. But here’s the thing. It wasn’t handy. It is at the other end of the house with some of the other lever actions. I’d have to take a few extra minutes to go get it and make sure it was the right one.

In the meantime there is something on the porch and we have an injured chicken on the porch being cared for by my daughter.

So it was grab the 30-30.

Now after the first Racoon was dead and I saw there was another, I switched to a bolt action .22LR. It took 3 rounds to kill that Racoon. All three were kill shots but only the last was to the head causing it to cease to feel or function.

This is compared to the 30-30 which put the critter down with just one shot and instantly.

Now this lead to some discussion and the .357 that was on my wish list suddenly got a slightly higher priority.

And then a beautiful Rossi R92 in 0.357Mag followed me home. That is a story for tomorrow, but for today, it is the ready gun for small/medium critter work. I did a little gunsmithing on it yesterday and it is now running at 100%. It hits where I am.

Only thing happening on that front right now is working up a better 0.357Mag load. Currently I’m using hollow point cast bullets making a 115gr projectile sitting on top of a hefty load of TiteGroup. It works but isn’t a load I’m happy with.

Today I went to the LGS/sporting goods store and was happy to buy a pack of small pistol primers off them (9mm reloads) and they had 2400 there! Amazing. So that came home and when I have some brass I’ll be working up a load for .357Mag.

I do use a chronograph when working up loads.

⚠️My story last night: this is what things have come to for one North Philly gas station…armed security guards in tactical gear to keep customers safe ⚠️@NBCPhiladelphia #Philadelphia #crime #news #report pic.twitter.com/h0Ij4Edt1u

— Johnny Archer (@JohnnyNBC10) December 3, 2022

I did thus job before.

I worked as armed (although not with a long gun) security at a gas station liquor store.

Simply having one person there watching over the merchandise significantly reduced theft.

I completely support thus.

If anyone should be criticized for it, it’s the Philadelphia city government for turning thr city into the kind of shithole that forces businesses to hire guys with rifles to protect them.

I thought AWA was crazy for shooting a racoon with a 30-30.

I was wrong.

When it comes you dangerous game, there us no such thing as too much gun.

An aggressive raccoon latched onto a young girl in Ashford, Conn. on Dec. 2. The child’s mother responds & hurls the raccoon across the yard. pic.twitter.com/LMXhigESLt

— Andy Ngô ?️‍? (@MrAndyNgo) December 6, 2022

Based on a comment, besides my tongue abd cheek humor, there is a legitimate advantage to shooting an animal like this.

You have the body to test for rabies.

It’s always better to have the animal and do a post mortem then have to go through the rabies vaccines.

On Saturday night in Moore County, North Carolina, power was interrupted by the deliberate damage of power transfer stations.

Roughly 40,000 people are without power and law enforcement has no suspects or motive.

Tens of thousands still in the dark after ‘targeted’ attacks on North Carolina power substations

With no suspects or motive announced, the FBI is joining the investigation into power outages in a North Carolina county believed to have been caused by “intentional” and “targeted” attacks on substations that left around 40,000 customers in the dark Saturday night, prompting a curfew and emergency declaration.

The mass outage in Moore County turned into a criminal investigation when responding utility crews found signs of potential vandalism of equipment at different sites — including two substations that had been damaged by gunfire, according to the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.

“The person, or persons, who did this knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said during a Sunday news conference. “We don’t have a clue why Moore County.”

Regardless of the lack of suspects, the radical Left on the internet has their own pet theory as to the cause.

LGBT hatred and Transphobia.

On social media, a theory persists about North Carolina power outage

While police have not identified suspects nor provided a motive for the “targeted attacks” on two energy substations in North Carolina over the weekend, one theory has quickly taken hold on social media: The outages were intended to shut down a drag performance.

The theory, which sprouted up almost immediately after the power went out in Moore County around 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, came after weeks of threats and hours of protests from far-right activists against the “Downtown Divas” drag show set to take place at Sunrise Theater that night. And it was seemingly buoyed by a cryptic post from a vehement opponent of drag performances.

Now the Left is working overtime to make that narrative the reality.

Perhaps you haven't heard over the weekend, MAGA terrorists urged to violence via Republican rhetoric about "grooming" blew up a power transistor to prevent a drag show from taking place in NC and the reason you haven't heard is because our media is failing our democracy.

— Rachel Bitecofer ???? (@RachelBitecofer) December 5, 2022

Weeks after falsely predicting the Club Q attack was an anti-LGBT hate crime, MSNBC is now claiming — again w/o a scintilla of evidence — that the hacking of a North Carolina electrical substation was orchestrated by anti-trans activists pic.twitter.com/XbgbqGeaze

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 5, 2022

Now, let’s say you have spent a good deal of your spare time studying the tactics of irregular warfare.

For entirely honest, law abiding, academic reasons, of course.

From an irregular warfare standpoint, this attack makes no sense of the target was a drag show.

Looking at attacks carried out by groups like the IRA, they were specific in the locations they targeted to damage their enemies.

The point was to send a message.

When they caused collateral damage, such as in the Shankill Road bombing, popular support turned against them.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, he targeted the federal government in retribution for Ruby Ridge.  That was a specific target to send a specific message.

Radical Leftist environmentalists burn cars in dealerships or attack logging equipment.

Antifa seized the Portland Federal Courthouse because they were mad at Trump and the Federal Government.

There is a pattern to politically motivated violence.

If your goal is to shut down a drag show abd send the message that you don’t tolerate kid friendly drag shows, taking out the power for 40,000 people for several days isn’t a direct message to the supporters of drag shows and turns the popular opinion of the people who lost power against you.

My suspicion is that this was either vandalism to cause havoc or a false flag that inconvenienced a lot of people but didn’t actually cause casualties to the LGBT community.

Either way, I don’t believe the motivation the Left is pushing is accurate.

I believe this is a crisis that they won’t let go to waste and will use to get the government to censor Twitter now that Musk uncensored it.

There is this a class of fiction called “FanFic.”  It can be good, it can be bad, it can be awful.  The concept is that you take your favorite TV or Movie characters and write a story about them.

I believe it was Alan Dean Foster that wrote a bunch of Star Wars novels.  James Blish wrote Star Trek novels.  These novels extended the universe for these characters.

There are lots of stories written by random fans about their favorite characters.  Just be careful if you go looking because you will find every type of story imaginable.  Many of them Pornagraphic.  If you have a favorite TV or Movie character it is almost a certainty that somebody has written a story about them doing the dirty in the dirtiest possible way with all sorts of different characters.

In the same way there are singer/songwriters that write and perform songs about their favorite TV or Movie characters.  This is called “Filk”  A play on the word “folk”.

In addition there are a number of songs that are written and performed at Ren Faires and SCA events which are modern takes done in older styles.

Note, this group has lots of NSFW songs.

This is a Ren song. If you are part of the cast and make it to the after hours party this is the sort of song you might here.

Hope you all enjoy.

Postscript: There is a song done to “Roll The Chariot” or “Drop of Nelson’s Blood” set in the Firefly Universe. If you happen to know the title or have a link, please let me know.