Gun Free Zone

Where a Redneck Jew, a Hispanic Catholic, and a Computer Geek write about Gun Rights, Self Defense and whatever else we can think about.

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“We need to be more like Europe!”

May 12, 2024 Miguel.GFZ 9 comments

No, we do not.

 

This is why you need at least a 12 pounder Napoleon loaded with grape shot.

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Rotary Table Update – Updated with pics

May 12, 2024 awa 1 comment

I added some nasty pictures of my very messy and dirty shop after the MORE

Yesterday was another cleaning day. I tore the rotary table apart to inspect and clean it.

As expected, there were several areas that were out of sight that needed to be deburred.

Taking it apart was straightforward.

All but one machined surface was nicely done. For a slow speed tool, it is very nice.

That one place was the actual worm. The leading thread, which isn’t in contact with the worm-gear, was buggered to hell and gone, razor sharp and just plain nasty.

A bit of work with a file and that was fixed. The good news is that the shop towel I was using discovered that razor and not my fingers.

I will be redoing parts of the cleaning with some serious degreaser. I wasn’t able to get it entirely clean.

There was nasty grit in places. All the grit has been removed.

I intend to put it back together today. I’ll have to replace one socket head screw because the head stripped while removing the screw. This means I need to find my box of metric socket head screws. It shouldn’t be that difficult.

All said, I’m happy with this purchase.

Tomorrow the dividing plates arrive. I hope that the inner hole matches the shaft they are to go over. If I need to machine a bushing for the two plates, that’s no big deal.

The rotary table is missing the three tapped holes to hold the dividing plates in place.

This is not an issue. The disk where the holes go is a separate casting. It will go in the milling machine with no issues. I’ll either transfer punch the holes or I will do a simple 3 hole pattern using the DRO.

If I was being really cool, I would mount it on the rotary table and drill and tap the holes that way.

P.S. I finished the new chuck key for the old chuck. It looks damn nice. I’m actually proud of my work on it. I might have to polish one handle to make it look a little better, but neither the less, it is pretty.
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Judge Lawrence James Christopher VanDyke (9th Cir.)

May 12, 2024 awa 1 comment

Take the time to read some quotes from Judge VanDyke. It is worth the time.

The panel first held that the Orders’ 48-day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops, and firing ranges burdened conduct protected by the Second Amendment, based on a historical understanding of the scope of the Second Amendment right.

In assessing the appropriate level of scrutiny, the panel held that the district court erred by determining that Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), applied to Appellees’ Second Amendment claim. The panel held that Jacobson, which addressed a substantive due process challenge to a state statute requiring smallpox vaccinations, did not apply here because Jacobson did not concern the specific, constitutionally enumerated right at issue, and essentially applied rational basis review. The panel declined to determine whether the Orders were categorically unconstitutional and instead, because the Orders failed to satisfy any level of heightened scrutiny, based its decision on the traditional tiered scrutiny analysis.
— Judge VanDyke

Reversing the district court’s judgment, the panel vacated Steven Duarte’s conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which makes it a crime for any person to possess a firearm if he has been convicted of an offense punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. On appeal, Duarte challenged his conviction on Second Amendment grounds, which the panel reviewed de novo rather than for plain error because Duarte had good cause for not raising the claim in the district court when United States v. Vongxay, 594 F.3d 1111 (9th Cir. 2010), foreclosed the argument.

The panel held that under New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), § 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment as applied to Duarte, a non-violent offender who has served his time in prison and reentered society; and that Vongxay, which did not apply the mode of analysis that Bruen later established and now requires courts to perform, is clearly irreconcilable with Bruen.
— Judge Carlos T. Bea, joined by Judge Lawrence VanDyke

I largely agree with Judge Bumatay’s excellent dissent. And to paraphrase James Madison, if judges were angels, nothing further would need be said. But unfortunately, however else it might be described, our court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence can hardly be labeled angelic. Possessed maybe—by a single-minded focus on ensuring that any panel opinions actually enforcing the Second Amendment are quickly reversed. The majority of our court distrusts gun owners and thinks the Second Amendment is a vestigial organ of their living constitution. Those views drive this circuit’s caselaw ignoring the original meaning of the Second Amendment and fully exploiting the discretion inherent in the Supreme Court’s cases to make certain that no government regulation ever fails our laughably “heightened” Second Amendment scrutiny.
&mdash: Judge VanDyke, dissenting

Once again, our court flouts the Supreme Court’s exhortation against such “a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach” to the Second Amendment. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 634 (2008). — Judge VanDyke.

I’ve described before how our circuit’s version of Second Amendment “heightened” scrutiny has no height. It is practically indistinguishable from rational basis review. — Judge VanDyke

Judge Hurwitz has penned a short concurrence respectfully characterizing as inappropriate and hyperbolic my observations regarding how my colleague’s personal views influence our court’s Second Amendment cases. I agree that it is a troubling charge to posit personal views as a driving force behind judicial decision-making, and not one I make lightly. But whatever else it may be, my claim is hardly hyperbolic. Here are the facts: We are a monstrosity of a court exercising jurisdiction over 20% of the U.S. population and almost one-fifth of the states—including states pushing the most aggressive gun-control restrictions in the nation. By my count, we have had at least 50 Second Amendment challenges since Heller—significantly more than any other circuit—all of which we have ultimately denied. In those few instances where a panel of our court has granted Second Amendment relief, we have without fail taken the case en banc to reverse that ruling. This is true regardless of the diverse regulations that have come before us—from storage restrictions to waiting periods to ammunition restrictions to conceal carry bans to open carry bans to magazine capacity prohibitions—the common thread is our court’s ready willingness to bless any restriction related to guns. Respectfully, Judge Hurwitz’s claim that our judges’ personal views about the Second Amendment and guns have not affected our jurisprudence is simply not plausible. Res ipsa loquitur.
— Judge VanDyke

Most of this comes from Judge VanDyke’s dissent in —Duncan v. Bonta, 19 F. 4th 1087 (9th Cir. 2021) His dissent is so good, I’m going to grab it, format it, and drop it in an article. It is an easy read. In it, he eviscerates the Ninth Circus.

These are just a few highlights of his frustration with the Ninth.

He is there fighting for our Constitution. He is doing it right. He is making few friends on the Ninth.

He is precisely why the Ninth played so many games to make sure that Duncan was heard en banc and not by a three-judge merits panel.

It is very embarrassing when there is a well reasoned, extremely well argued opinion issued in favor of The People, which the en banc court must then wiggle out of.

By his count, 50 post Heller Second Amendment cases were heard by the Ninth Circuit at this point, and in every one, the Ninth found for the state.

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So you like me?

May 11, 2024 awa 2 comments

Thursday was a driving day. I took Hagar to drop off her stuff for a weekend event. Since it was in the right direction, I stopped at my metal supply shop to pick up some metal.

To understand an interaction with these folks, you have to first understand noob.

13+ years ago, I found them because they were close to where I had a client. It was no issue to stop in and buy from them.

I opened the door and was in their office. Not in an anti-room, but in their office. Bill turns to me and asks, “Can I help you?

“I’d like some 1 inch steel.”

“What type of steel?”

I’m a smart guy. At least that’s what my mom told me. I had no idea, “What type of steel?” Steel is steel. Aluminum is aluminum.

Bill wasn’t interested in teaching a noob. He took enough time to make sure I got what I needed, and I was ready when I came back.

I now know to ask for 6061 when I want aluminum. If I want cheap steel, nasty and ugly, but mostly flat. I ask for that garbage steel, 1018. If I want cheaper still and less flat, A36 steel.

If I want a better steel, I’m likely to ask for 4140 or some other word or number I’ve seen mentioned.

I ask for what I want by name. If I don’t care, I’ll ask them as the steel people. They have always treated me fairly.

Thursday was slightly unusual for me. I had placed the order on Monday. Told them I was picking it up on Thursday. And I specified some sizes specifically.

If you are a production shop, and your end size is 1x3x10, you will get 1.061 by 3.061 by 10.125. You do not get 1.5×3.5×15.

The time it takes to remove that extra material is money. The cost of that extra steel is money.

The cost of material is based on weight, for all intents. That 1x3x10 is 8.520 lbs and that is what you get charged for.

If the material is a little oversized, nobody cares, and you pay would it should weight at the nominal size.

If they are cutting that from a longer stick, you will often get charged a cut charge. This ranges from $5/cut to $10/cut.

On the other hand, drops are a thing. If a client has ordered four 7ft long sticks of 0.25×4 6061, that is what they are paying for. That is a single cut because it will be gang cut. But a stick of 0.25×4 is 10 foot long (Or 20, I do not remember). That means they have 4 pieces that are 4 feet long.

They aren’t going to trash it. They aren’t going to scrap it. They are going to put it on a shelf and how somebody wants to buy a piece of 1/4×4 that is less than 36 inches long.

Which means me. I’m willing to buy those drops. So I get a good deal on most drops.

So I walk into the metal supply shop. “Hello Bill!”

“Hello, AWA, it’s been a while.”

“It sure has Bill. I don’t work around here anymore.”

“You’ve changed your look.”

I stroke my beard, which is starting to look good.

“I didn’t say for the better.”

With that, I knew I was part of the accepted. This is a person I interact with maybe 3 times a year. It has been over 4 years since I purchased from Bill.

He greets me by name. And gives me a gentle insult.

That insult stopped my search for a closer supply house. I’ll stick with Bill and his people.

(Bill is not his name. If he were to read this, he would know I’m talking about him.)

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Never break perimeter. Get cameras.

May 10, 2024 Miguel.GFZ 10 comments
276 views

The important part begins at 2:55

So far what I gathered, it was a case where the wrong information led the officer to the wrong apartment.

The apartment door had a peephole and I have to wonder if Senior Airman Roger Fortson used it. Being an apartment, probably a rental, it may have been fogger or scratched, but replacements run under $10 at your local Orange or Blue Warehouse.

Or just make the investment on a doorbell camera.

If he had qualms about whomever was on the other side (he armed himself), door should not have been opened at all. Call 911.

I believe mistakes were made by all involved.

The only thing that pisses me off is that Race Baiter Benjami Crump is already sinking his fangs on the case, and he will probably make a good chunk of cash out of this tragedy.

 

 

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We need to bring back the death penalty for rape.

May 10, 2024 Miguel.GFZ 6 comments

And I know it can happen, because now even a wolf whistle directed to a good-looking woman is called rape.

But for stuff like this? He needs to be fed to a woodchipper set at 10 RPM.

And dear ladies, fight like there is no tomorrow. You must not believe you are the easily victimized. And carry anything you can (legally or otherwise) to defend yourselves.

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