When the title of an article tells you how they are going to combat “gun violence” you know that it is another attempt at banning guns. Or a crime gun purchase/scam the ignorant effort.

The standard response to anything gun related by government is to ban it.

The assassin of Shinzo Abe used a home made gun. In Japan it is illegal to posses that gun. It is illegal to make a gun. It is almost impossible to get government permission to own a gun.

The assassin made what would have been called a “zip gun” and seems to have used black powder.

The president of these United States in his belated statement blamed gun violence. A one track record that is skipping in the first groove.

The City of Cincinnati is going to spend $1 million on programs to reduce violence

The city will spend $1 million to increase employment among youth and will work along side other nonprofits, such as the Urban League.
…
“This violence protection collaborative brings residents and organizations together to disrupt the pathways to violence through youth mentoring, advocacy and character building programming,” said Mayor Pureval.
— WKRC Local 2 Cincinnati city leaders announce new measures to combat rising gun violence

Some behind the scenes information and the results.

Miguel has been paying for a number of features for the blog, above and beyond just the cost of hosting. One of these was the “jetpack” WordPress plugin.

As part of his retirement plan he passed that cost off to J.Kb and AWA. When the blog lost the ability to add comments and likes, that was the old license expiring. A new license was put in place. Unfortunately that cost the site a bunch of history as it did not connect to the old license information.

The admins lost a bunch of statistics but that’s not a big deal.

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The difference between an M-16 and an AR-15 are the “6 magic parts”. In 1990’s having an AR-15 along with any of those magic parts was enough to get you charged with a felony under the “intent” to make a machine gun.

Those parts are:

1. Bolt Carrier
2. Hammer
3. Trigger
4. Disconnector
5. Selector
6. Auto sear

The seriously magic part is the auto sear. THis part catches a hook on the back of the hammer and holds the hammer back until the bolt has locked up. Only then does the auto sear allow the hammer to drop, firing the weapon.

The auto sear fits above the selector. The difference between an AR-15 and a “machine gun” is the hole in the lower receiver for the auto sear pin. It is no longer the 6 magic pieces.

In addition to the actual auto sear there are drop in auto sears. They are very hard to find today (legally) because they were dirt cheap prior to 1986 and nobody was going to pay the ATF $200 on a $30 part. Today a DIAS goes for north of $30K. M-16A1s are going for around $35k. A modern M-16 that is not transferable can be purchased for $500-$750 on the cheap side. A full auto lower parts kit runs about $80.

Regardless, DIAS are a thing. They are a machined part with specification tolerances similar to that of an AR-15.

But there is another way. A “Lighting Link” is a thin piece of metal or bent up coat hanger that is suppose to perform the same function as the auto sear or DIAS. Reports say it is not as reliable as the actual part but it does work.

A company in Wisconsin or Florida, it is not clear where the company is located, created a laser engraved sheet of thin metal which outlined all the parts required to make a lighting link. The end user would have to cut out the parts and file them to the line, assemble the parts and then maybe it would work.

This was obviously done to get around the NFA by claiming 1st amendment protection of the printed/engraved item.

This was done successfully in the 1980’s in regards to PGP. Pretty Good Privacy used strong encryption. Encryption algorithms were considered “arms” under the ITAR regulations. Thus the government block the publication of PGP because it would be exporting arms. The work around was simple, they printed the code on an OCR font then sent the printed, 1st amendment protected, document to a country in Europe where they turned it back into code. Thus everybody gained access to strong personal encryption.

In the case of Matthew Hoover of Wisconsin and Kristopher Ervin of Florida the ATF raided them and accused them of all sorts of nasty violations of the NFA. Matthew and Kristopher have been slowly losing their cases.

On July 1st, 2022 Mathew Hoover filed to have the case dismissed based on Second Amendment grounds. They are claiming that the NFA is unconstitutional.

The Government may attempt to argue that machineguns are beyond the scope of the Second Amendment by attempting to characterize them as “dangerous and unusual,” as it has in other cases, but this is not the test. The court’s invocation of “dangerous and unusual” weapons in Heller and subsequently Bruen was for the purpose of discussion of what might be a constitutionally acceptable law, rather than the endorsement of any particular extant policy. Bruen, 597 U.S. at *12 (Clarifying that the Court was not undertaking “an exhaustive historical analysis…of the full scope of the Second Amendment”) (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 627). Rather, the only way a court may conclude Defendant’s conduct falls outside the scope of the Second Amendment’s unqualified command remains clear: the Government must prove the particular regime in question is consistent with the history and tradition of the United States. Id at *15. Furthermore, the question of whether a weapon is “in common use at the time,” necessarily pins the analysis to the time before the prohibition. To consider otherwise would incentivize the Government to legislate wantonly and aggressively, seizing arms, then later evade constitutional scrutiny by suggesting that the arms cannot be in common use, because the Government prohibited them. Such circular logic would be inconsistent with any fundamental rights jurisprudence. Thus, the Government has the burden to prove that the regime in question is consistent with the history and tradition of firearms regulation in this country around the founding era.
— Machine Gun — USA v Matthew Hoover — Supplement to Motion to Dismiss070122

There will be more lawsuits against the NFA. This case might actually be strong enough given its first and second amendment defenses. It would not surprise me to see the courts dismiss this case on first amendment grounds, or the government, so that the NFA survives.

Edited: Fixed date from January 1st to July 1st

Previous I wrote about how the proposed NY concealed carry bill would be so restrictive that it would make practical concealed carry impossible.

No carry on public transportation, no carry in Times Square, no carry in parks (especially Central Park), no carry in stores or businesses that didn’t explicitly welcome concealed carry, etc.

But there was something that I was forgetting.

If, somehow, you managed to get a permit and carry in a place where it was legal for you to do so, if you were attacked and were to defend yourself, you will go to jail.

Murder charge against NYC bodega worker Jose Alba is DA Bragg’s latest controversy https://t.co/N6DVydF3Gy pic.twitter.com/FVXrZte6SK

— New York Post (@nypost) July 8, 2022

From the article linked in the Tweet:

The murder charge that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed against bodega worker Jose Alba is the latest outrage to result from the progressive agenda the top prosecutor unveiled after taking office in January, current and former city cops said Thursday.

Ex-cop Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the case amounted to “an agenda crime” being pursued by Bragg — noting that Alba “was given little alternative” when ex-con Austin Simon attacked him behind the counter of his Hamilton Heights store Friday night.

“This is an office that is chock-a-block full of screwy interpretations and bizarre agendas,” O’Donnell said.

“The DA himself is surrounded by people who think, ‘Behind every profitable business is a crime.’”

A veteran city cop fumed, “So, the guy who was defending himself is in Rikers and the guys who repeatedly do the crimes are on the street?”

This is clearly a political prosecution.

The video of the attack makes that clear.

61-year-old bodega worker Jose Alba was attacked by an enraged career criminal, Austin Simon, who went behind the counter and choked him over a bag of chips. Alba defended himself, and Simon died. DA Alvin Bragg has charged him with murder. https://t.co/FIfL1O1q7X

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 7, 2022

The Daily Mail provides more details.

On Friday night, Alba stabbed Austin Simon to death after Simon attacked him in the Bluemoon Convenient Store in Harlem.

Alba, who is beloved in the local community, has worked there for decades and has no criminal record.

The row began in the store on Friday night when Simon’s girlfriend, who has not been named, tried to buy a bag of potato chips for her daughter.

Her debit card was declined as she tried to make the purchase and Alba insisted that she hand the chips back over.

According to police, the woman then produced her own knife from her handbag. There was a scuffle and she ran out of the store to call on Simon for help.

Simon was on parole for attacking a police officer at the time of the incident on Friday night.

State records show he spent time in both Elmira and Five Points, two New York corrections facilities.

Simon’s girlfriend, who allegedly produced a knife and stabbed him in the arm, has not been charged.

Alba was attacked ked by a woman with a knife.

She got her boyfriend to come back and fight Alba behind the counter.

The boyfriend had previously attacked a police officer and has a criminal record.

The elderly Alba, clearly fearing for his life from a much younger attacker, defended himself and got in a lucky shot to to Simon’s neck with a knife.

The woman who initiated the attack has not been charged.

She should be charged with felony murder since she was the accomplice.

Alba defended himself.

However, in NYC, criminals are a politically preferred group, so killing one in self-defense is treated like a crime while a criminal accomplice goes un-charged.

The lesson here is clear.  When a criminal attacks a productive member of society, the productive person must acquiesce and take the beating.  If they defend themselves against the criminal, the state will destroy them.

Self-defense is not allowed in NYC, even if the Supreme Court recognizes you right to it and to carry the tools for it.

The biggest news of the day:

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinobu Abe was assassinated while giving a campaign speech.

Shinzo Abe: Japan ex-leader assassinated while giving speech

Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died in hospital after he was shot at a political campaign event.

Abe was shot at twice while he was giving a speech on a street in the city of Nara on Friday morning.

Security officials at the scene tackled the gunman and a 41-year-old suspect is now in police custody.

The suspect, named as Tetsuya Yamagami, admitted shooting Abe with a homemade gun, and said he had a grudge against a “specific organisation”, police said.

Several other handmade weapons, similar to those used in the attack, had been confiscated after a search of the suspect’s house, police officers told a news conference.

Explosives were also found at the home and police said they had advised residents to evacuate the area.

The assassin used a homemade double barrel pistol.

Guns are very difficult to obtain in Japan.

The amount of smoke from the time of the shooting leads me to believe the weapon used black powder from fireworks or some other legal recreational source.

I have two thoughts.

One: Abe was an ally of Trump and a Japanese nationalist.

I’m deeply suspicious that his assassination was supported by China, which does not want a Japan aligned with America.

Two: We will see this used in the US to ramp up attacks on homemade guns and “ghost guns.”  They will not let this crisis go to waste.

Elon Musk made news a few weeks ago by tweeting out an image of the left moving more and more left.

pic.twitter.com/Q9OjlJhi7f

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2022

While this describes the left moving more and more left it covers many different aspects of our lives.

The court – said to be more pro-religion than at any time since the 1950s – wrapped up one of its most consequential and divisive terms this week. Critics lamented a string of decisions that they say undermine legal traditions that prevent government officials from promoting any particular faith.

Moira Donegan is correct, the court is more pro-religion than anytime since the 1950s. Not because they are particularly pro-religion, but because the court was seriously anti-religion for the last 50+ years. The establishment clause was intended to stop the federal government from imposing a state religion on the country. It was not about hiding religion.

There is a little white cross, or was, just inside the tree line off of I95 somewhere in Maryland. It has a name on it. The name of a man that died on I95. He was a Christian. He wasn’t a church going sort of man. He grew up in the church.

There are groups that routinely search out those little white crosses on public property to have them removed. They are insisting on freedom from religion. For this small minority seeing a religious symbol on public land is the same as the government establishing a state church.

This is what got prayer pulled from school. Freedom from religion. Now it could be strongly argued that morning prayer was going to far. There are people that aren’t Christians in the school system and forcing them to say the lords prayer is going to far.

Unfortunately, the pendulum swung away from supporting religion to the point where people in authority are not allowed to show any religious leanings. Pride flag on the wall? Check, approved. Trans people safe poster in the hallways? Check, approved. Cross in the classroom ? Not approved.

Freedom from religion also lead to lawsuits trying to get the 10 Commandments removed from a federal court house. To war memorials being destroyed. In one case a private group came together to purchase the land where the war memorial was but a lawsuit was filed to stop the purchase.

And no matter how hard they try to remove God from the schools, I promise you that prayer is going on all the time, it just wasn’t formalized.

The Moira doesn’t seem to believe in a higher power. When a republican say “The Lord was with me.” or anything religious, she appears to be triggered. Again, her faith in her own beliefs is so weak that she fears that hearing somebody else’s utterances will force religion on her.

Earlier I was trying to read an article in a national news organization and the author referred to the court as “controlled by right-wingnut extremists”. For her and the rest of the left any decisions that doesn’t go their way must be because of political bias on the part of the justices.

Robert P Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute thinktank in Washington, said: “What we’re seeing is a desperate power grab as the sun is setting on white Christian America. In the courts, instead of moving slowly and systematically, it’s a lurch.”

Jones added: “In the meantime we’re going to be left with essentially an apartheid situation in the US where we’re going to have minority rule by this shrinking group that’s been able to seize the levers of power, even as their cultural democratic representation in the country shrinks.”

How do you reach a person such as this? How do you begin a conversation when she can’t even see us as people? How do we bring our country back together before the blood flows?