Gun Free Zone

Two weeks ago, I wrote last week’s Friday Feedback. I was about to travel to visit my parents for the first time in years to say goodbye. I knew it was going to be hard, I wrote assuming it would be, scheduled it and planned to correct if I was wrong.

It was a hard week.

This week was harder.

That is at a personal level.

At a more 2A level, I have been thinking about where we are today vs. where we were in years past.

I turned 18 and could have purchased an M-16. The tax stamp would have accounted for 25% of my costs, not counting the other hoops. It wasn’t worth it to me. I wasn’t interested in firearms. I was into stereos, music, and knives.

In 1986, it became prohibitively expensive to purchase a machine gun. All because of an amendment to a bill attempting to protect gun owners. I was pleased that we could not travel throughout the states without being at risk for having a gun in the wrong state.

Little did I understand how that wasn’t really true.

Nor did I understand that machine guns would become so expensive.

When I purchased my first firearms, I was surprised to learn how hard it was to get a permit to carry my firearm with me.

Today, every firearm I own has a holster for it OR a sling if it has sling mounts. At the time, most gun stores in my area didn’t even bother to carry holsters. There were a few, but so few people ever carried a handgun that it wasn’t a good use of shelf space.

I remember listening to the horror stories about how people were having their rights stomped on because they had no standing. Only the militia had standing.

What I remember most vividly was the Heller decision. It was the end to this crap about not having standing. It meant that the rollback of all these infringements was just a few months away.

I believed that the courts would do the right thing.

There was that wonderful few weeks when Washington, D.C. was actually a constitutional carry location. The head of the MPD stated that D.C.’s permitting laws had been declared unconstitutional. Until new, constitutional, regulations were put in place, if you were not a prohibited person, you could carry in D.C.

When Bruen came out, I expected a slew of lawsuits designed to attack the infringements that existed. I did not expect the Bruen tantrum response bills.

I knew that some courts would fight. I wasn’t surprised when the Ninth Circuit kicked the GVR’d cases down to the district level for new briefings in light of Bruen.

I was pleasantly surprised when the Fourth Circuit heard their GVR’d case right away. And then they went radio silent for over a year.

But something different is happening this time. The 2A community started politely, they filed their suits and saw where things went. They got their cases to the circuit courts, and we watched the circuit courts uphold infringements of every sort.

I don’t expect the 2A community to go quietly into the night. But I was not expecting the level of ferocious attacks I’ve been seeing.

There are far too many briefs, orders, motions, and opinions coming out that are more impolite than I’d ever expect to see. Courts are being called out on their shit.

We are taking these cases to the Supreme Court, over and over again. And we are being heard. The Circuit courts are scrambling to find something. They know they are twisting the Supreme Court’s words to infringe when that should not be allowed.

There have been too many times when the Circuit courts have modified their behavior, fearing the Supreme Court intervening in their cases.

Are you feeling positive about the course things are taking?

The comments are open, let’s hear your thoughts.

I have no idea how many years I have been saying Gun Control movements and groups are just ways to line the pockets of a few. And dumbasses everywhere still donate money to people that not only cannot deliver but fail miserably.

Update: 12 of those states now have permitless carry pic.twitter.com/zYiWYQoI9L

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) March 7, 2024

If I ‘buy” a product and it does not deliver, I stop buying it.

But economics does not seem to be the forte of many Liberals.

We exist within the framework of our knowledge base, and this colors how we think of our world.

When I look at a machine and find that all the screws are machine screws and that no screws are “hidden,” this tells me that the item is designed to be taken apart.

This was never clearer to me than when I took apart the automatic down feed of my Bridgeport Mill. I had put it off for months because I feared what I would find inside.

There was a logical sequence to follow, when the control came out of its mounting, it was easy to see how it could be taken apart further.

I did take it apart, I was able to repair it with a little light cleaning. There was only one way for it to go back together, and it all just worked.

My wife can’t tell the difference between a well-built machine and a disposable machine. I had to drive her car the other day. It was making a thumping sound as it went over rough bumps. I told her that the bushings were likely bad, and it needed to be repaired before our trip.

She had not heard the sounds, didn’t recognize them. She did not have the world view to understand what she was hearing/observing.

Our skills and knowledge base modifies what we observe.

One of the justices, in oral arguments, asked something about “800 rounds/second”. We know this is ridiculous, but that’s only because we have that knowledge base.

(for those of you that don’t know, normally we express rate of fire in rounds/minute. The M-16 has a rate of fire of around 600 rounds/minute. The Justice’s 800/s is only 80 times faster than the M-16 actually fires)

There is such a thing as “judicial notice.” It only works when something is known by the court. When it is a single judge, then it is simple, they either know or they don’t know.

When it is a panel, some justices might know and others might not know. If a judge wants everybody on the panel to know a fact, they need to tease it out of the attorneys.

In 1992, the Supreme court heard —United States V. Thompson/Center Arms Co., 119 L. Ed. 2d 308 (1992). The state was attacking Thompson/Center Arms, Co. of selling short barreled rifles.

Thompson made a single-shot pistol called the “Contender”. The frame/receiver could have different barrels attached to it. Thus, you could buy a single pistol and have it in .22LR, .38 SPL, or almost anything else, just by changing the barrel.

Thompson then sold a different package. This consisted of a 21in barrel and a shoulder stock. The stock and barrel could be attached to the Contender frame/receiver, making a single shot carbine.

The state claimed, if the pistol and conversion package were sold to the same person at the same time, that Thompson was selling an SBR. Sounds like the Ghost Gun non-issue the ATF is doing now.

The Supreme Court held that Thompson had not made a firearm; therefore it wasn’t an NFA item. It was the act of putting the stock on the receiver with a short barrel that made an NFA item, not just having the pieces.

It reminds me a little of the ATF claiming that if you had any of the 6 magic M-16 fire control group parts, and you possessed an AR-15, there was constructive intent to have a machine gun, and you were in violation of the NFA.

So what is this all about?

The question came from Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia was well versed in firearms. He was a shooter. He darn well knew what a “rim fire cartridge” was.

What he wanted, was for the attorney to put it in the record.

The Win?

On March 5, 2024, the Fourth Circuit court issued an order.

The Bruen Court stated, Under Heller, when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct, and to justify a firearm regulation the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. —New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. V. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111 (U.S. 2022)

The summary and two other places the Bruen court said this. It is absolutely clear that the first step is to determine if the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the conduct, that the conduct is protected, unless the state can show a history and tradition.

The burden to prove history and tradition rests squarely on the state. Proving the conduct is covered under the plain text of the Second Amendment is the burden of the plaintiffs (good guys).

So why is the court asking about “common use”. The reason is that the state wants to shift as much of the burden as possible onto the plaintiffs. It is that simple.

Nowhere in the Second Amendment does it talk about “in common use”. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Is it an arm? All firearms are arms. The M-16, AR-15, SKS, and Colt SAA are all “arms”. If I want to keep them, that is conduct protected by the Second Amendment.

The plaintiffs do not have to prove it is a protected arm. The state must prove that it is NOT protected.

But the state has a nearly impossible task, I hope it is actually impossible, in arms ban cases. In 2008, the Heller court did the analysis of history and tradition and found that there are NO regulations from the correct era that banned arms in common use.

The only bans the Heller court conceded might exist are bans on arms that are unusual and dangerous. And when they talk about “dangerous” they mean significantly more dangerous than just being a firearm.

If the arm is “in common use”, then it is not unusual. If it is not unusual, then it is not “dangerous and unusual”. If it is not dangerous, or it is not unusual, then it cannot be banned.

The “in common use” argument is a rebuttal to the state saying they have found history and tradition to ban arms.

The state will have a difficult time arguing that “in common use” is part of the plaintiff’s burden. The plaintiffs will have another opportunity to knock these silly state arguments down.

Of course, the New York subway is neither a street nor civil.

NOW – National Guard deployed to subway stations in NYC.pic.twitter.com/HWNqhGISI8

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 6, 2024

TL;DR: Talking about saying goodbye to my parents. This is train of thought babbling.
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Just a morsel of many more:

When Mr. Jennings then tried to inspect the electrical power plant in the district after this, he found that Reedy Creek possesses no power plant of its own (even though a nuclear power plant could have been built therein). All the electricity comes from third parties, according to Jennings. The electrical power plant he wished to see is “there in case of emergency” and while he did not get to speak to any of the utility employees, he states that activating the plant in an actual emergency would take so much time as to be counterproductive. The power plant is apparently an empty building that does nothing, which means that by claiming to have it and collecting taxes to pay for its upkeep, Disney and the Reedy Creek District have committed fraud.

Magic Kingdom or Magic Dungeon? Disney’s Nightmare in Reedy Creek (substack.com)

Not only seems they defrauded the State of Florida but the IRS too. And that is just what they found so far.

He is well known for the great pro rock compositions and performances alongside Greg Lake and Carl Palmer. But I believe he was the best pianist of his era in that realm.