TL;DR: Talking about saying goodbye to my parents. This is train of thought babbling.
(2500 words)
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Mom was never a quiet woman. She could look at a handsome man and say as much, without offending dad. Years ago, we were able to give her a life-size cardboard cutout of her favorite football star telling kids to drink their milk. She took laughed, and we took photos of her pretending to be there with him.

When one of Kris Kristopherson’s albums came out, she told everybody, “He’s sexy.”

From mom’s playlist.

(Part 1 is under construction).

Last week I was TDY to visit my parents. Mom had been in failing health for several years. She had dementia. I’ve been avoiding talking to her because she had gotten mean in her dementia. She was the most loving of mothers and I needed to remember her that way.

On March 3rd, 2024, she passed. I received the news about 5 minutes before writing this.

I got to say goodbye. I got my pictures. She was pleasant to be around. She didn’t remember me as her child. She didn’t remember having children. She remembered her husband. She trusted him for her memory. She remembered her stories when I told them to her.

Goodbye mom. I love you.

(800 Words)

In May 1939, the Supreme Court issued their opinion in United States v. Miller et al.

The Western District Court of Arkansas had heard the case earlier. The defendant (bad guy, 2A side) was a no-good, evil, bad man. He was a criminal doing criminal things.

The cops had been unable to catch Mr. Miller doing criminal things but knew he liked to travel. They waited until he crossed state lines so that a new federal law could be used.

The National Firearms Act was new and untested.

When they stopped Mr. Miller, they found that he was in possession of a short barreled shotgun and did not have a tax stamp for the shotgun.

At trial, Mr. Miller’s lawyer argued that The National Firearms Act was not a revenue measure, but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the State. And oh, by the way, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. —United States V. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)

The District court found that the NFA violated the Second Amendment. It sustained the demurrer —id. which is to say the district court nullified the NFA.

The Miller Court cited past Supreme Court opinions to say, “This usurping of the state’s police powers doesn’t fly.”

They then went on to evaluate the Second Amendment challenge.

The big takeaway is “judicial notice” and “absence of any evidence”. Courts have evidence presented to them, the jury then decides on facts from that evidence. If it is a bench trial, the judge determines the facts from the evidence presented.

The other way is for the Court to know something that is “common knowledge”. Nobody has to present evidence that water is wet or that fire burns. Nobody has to present evidence that a firearm is an arm.

Those are “facts” that are commonly known, or which are documented in judicial references.

The remark about “firearms being arms” is documented in Heller

Since the Miller Court had no facts that said that short barreled shotguns were useful to the militia/military, they found that they were not within the scope of the Second Amendment.

In other words, the Miller court said that military and military style weapons were protected by the Second Amendment.

The court went on to differentiate the “Militia” from “Troops.” Troops were controlled by the Federal Government in the Armed Forces. Militia was under the control of the state.

The court went on to say that These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. —id. The key here being “physical capable”. There was no requirement to be in an actual functional militia.

The court held that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right because the individual was expected to bring their personal weapons to muster.

The Miller Court found that weapons that are exclusively or predominantly useful in military service—Robert Bevis V. City of Naperville, No. 23-1353, slip op. at 1182 (7th Cir. Nov. 3, 2023) were protected under the Second Amendment. Those that were not useful in military service could be infringed.

The Heller Court was in balance. How the case would be decided was in question. We didn’t know if it would be the death of private firearm ownership or if it would affirm our protected rights.

It is my opinion that the originalists on the court had to negotiate to win over some agenda-driven justices.

For the most part, cases are staying away from the NFA. It could be the third rail that gets a case moved from a win to a case law in favor of gun control. Some current cases are sneaking in little jabs at the NFA. And we see many challenges of the GCA.

Because of this balancing act, Heller explicitly left the NFA untouched. They left the GCA untouched. Those were battles for later.

Those battles are happening now.

Heller affirmed Miller. McDonald affirmed Heller. Bruen affirmed Heller.

These are the stepping stones to our victory.

Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer for the Northern District of Illinois just issued her memorandum opinion and order.

The gist of this is that she has ruled that grants the states motion for summary judgement.

I.e., the state wins.

Because the Seventh Circuit court affirmed that Friedman was still good law, the inferior court, the district court, could then rule for the state based on the Seventh Circuit’s opinion.

The Seventh Circuit says that it never did means-end, therefore its methodology and reasoning is just as good as Bruen.

Since both courts used “text, history, and tradition”, Friedman survives Bruen.

The Seventh Circuit used “two successive” inquires. Not Bruen‘s two-step, nor pre-Bruen means-end, two successive inquires.

The first inquiry is if the weapons regulated by the laws are “Arms” within the meaning of the Second Amendment. The second inquiry is if the regulation matches history and tradition.

This is an interesting twist of Bruen. Heller, as affirmed by Bruen says that if the regulated conduct is within the scope of the Second Amendment, the conduct is presumptively protected. This means that the conduct must be keeping or bearing arms and the regulation must infringe or hinder that conduct. This includes ancillary rights.

Just as —United States V. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) found that taxing ink was a first amendment infringement, so does regulating parts of firearms or ammunition.

So here is the supposed logic of the Seventh Circuit Court. The plain text should not be interpreted as “arms” but of “bearable arms”. “Bearable arms” in turn are weapons in common use for lawful purposes. “Lawful purposes” is the right to individual self-defense” “Individual self-defense” only includes arms that ordinary people would keep at home for the purpose of self-defense, not weapons predominantly useful in military service. “Predominantly useful in military service” means anything that the military uses or is likely to use, or which looks like or might function like a military issue weapon.

Thus, only non-scary weapons are protected by the Second Amendment.

The plaintiffs (good guys) must prove that the “arm” is not like a military arm.

Is it a firearm? Then it is an arm. Do the plaintiffs wish to keep or bear that arm? Then it is presumptively protected by the Second Amendment, and the burden shifts to the government to prove a history and tradition of regulations that are a close match to the current regulation.

One of the interesting things that comes out of these rogue inferior courts is the claim that using text, history, and tradition as the Supreme Court would cause other gun control legislation to fall. Since that can’t be the intention of the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court, in Heller didn’t tear down the GCA of 1968.

Ignoring Heller, where the court found that having other means of self-defense did not allow an infringement of handguns, the Seventh explicitly said that if a subject wanted a 30 round magazine, they could just buy 3 10 round magazines.

The District Court wrote The court follows Seventh Circuit precedent even if it believes those decisions are wrong or mistaken. that might be true, but I do not, for one second, believe that the district court actually cares if the Circuit got it right, as long as she can side with the state.

This order granting a win for the state is a big nothingburger. The District court was not going to issue an opinion that wasn’t appealed. I believe that this case is already on its way to the Supreme Court. One of the cases that is attempting to skip the Circuit courts.

The only thing that might happen is the case is forced through the Seventh Circuit again. Only this time, because this case has a summary judgement which is final, the Seventh cannot vacate and remand unless they find for the plaintiffs.

This judge was a coward. They added nothing. All that happened is that they said, “The boss told me to do it!” and then attempted to wash their hands of repsonsiblity.

It has been a long week for the family. I have not had much time for the blog.

Leave us some feedback in the comments.

I was traveling recently with family when I ran into a couple of issues with my WiFi.

There first was at a Days Inn. Free WiFi which I connected to so I could checkup on things.

I could not login or even see postings on the site.

I then checked a few other sites. All of them found via google search.

GunsSaveLife.com, GunFreeZone.net, Nation Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, Firearms Policy Coalition, and maybe a few others.

All except for Second Amendment Foundation were blocked.

Of course I just setup proxies or a VPN to get connections outside of the playpen they had attempted to lock me into.

It turns out that his is Spectrum’s “content filtering”.

I tested again at a different public WiFi, same results, service also provided by Spectrum.

My opinion is that this is Spectrum’s default.

So when you are wondering why people don’t know history or other opinions, know that the censorship is real.