B.L.U.F.
A look at the research into the number of guns in America and who owns them. Why the state so desperately wants to shutdown real research into gun ownership and use.
(2800 words)

In 2008, the Supreme Court established the Heller methodology for handling Second Amendment challenges.

The methodology is: Does the proposed conduct implicate the Second Amendment? If so, the burden shifts to the government to establish a history and tradition of analogous arms regulations.

The rogue inferior courts immediately took this to heart. They found that almost all modern-day arms infringements were presumptively unconstitutional. They did this by assuming, without finding. That is to say, the did a “for the sake of argument, we will assume the infringement is unconstitutional”

Once they had made that decision, they then went to a second step, was the government need/want of more importance than the right of the individuals. In other words, was the rape hard enough to be important?

This called “means-end” balancing. The courts would first decide on the level of scrutiny, then they would determine if the state met the level of scrutiny they were using. This meant, that in the rogue courts, The People always lost.

The Heller Court also did a complete analysis of the history and tradition of gun bans in the founding era. They found that there were no analogous regulations. Since the Heller question was regarding a gun ban, that is what they looked at.

They found that there were NO analogous regulations from the founding era. Since there were no such regulations, the modern infringement was unconstitutional.

They expressed this by saying that an arm in common use for lawful purposes could not be banned.

The Supreme Court needed no outside experts, nor did they need briefings on “in common use for lawful purposes.” They used Judicial Notice.

Judicial Notice

Consider the case of a murder. The state comes before the court and says “He murdered his wife, his hands were covered in blood, the knife had his fingerprints on it. You must find him guilty!”

Just because the state says all these things, it does not mean that those are the facts. To prove those facts, evidence must be given. The jury must weigh the evidence that is presented, the person who presented it, the totality of what is happening to determine if the evidence presented proves a fact.

The first step is to look at what facts are in evidence and what facts are needed to prove who committed the crime, if indeed a crime has been committed.

We’ll only cover one fact. Was there blood on his hands?

The prosecution must present evidence that there was blood on his hands, at the time it was claimed that it was.

Witness one says, “I saw him running down the street, his hands were red with blood!”

This is not proof!

The prosecution must establish that the witness was in a position to observe what they claim to have observed. They have to establish that the person they observed was indeed the accused. They have to establish that what they saw on the observed could have been blood.

This is why most trials are boring and long. Everything has to be proven.

Well almost.

When I post a design draft and somebody says, “you need good tolerances,” they are using their general knowledge. If they were on a jury, and they observed that a blueprint did not have the correct GD&T markings, and they know it should, they can use that general knowledge in assessing the level of proof that blueprint provides.

If, on the other hand, they know the person who made that blueprint, and they know the person is a hack, they can’t assume that the blueprint is also bad.

General knowledge is acceptable to use, personal knowledge is not.

The Supreme Court used Judicial Notice, their general knowledge, to make their finds in Heller. They did not need somebody to present evidence to prove that handguns are in common use for lawful purposes.

In Common Use

The state of Massachusetts doesn’t like armed citizens. They have laws against many arms. They used to have a law against tasers and stun guns.

The courts in Massachusetts and the First Circuit court have a history of finding for the state over The People in Second Amendment challenges.

The same people who are very upset that the Supreme Court is hearing the case of Rahimi because he’s a bad man that abuses women, were just as upset that Jaime Caetano brandished a stun gun at her ex-boyfriend, who had a history of beating the crap out of her. It seemed that the multiple restraining orders she had didn’t scare her ex- off. The stun gun did.

Of course, it was illegal for Jaime to even possess a stun gun in the people’s republic of Massachusetts. All violence is reserved to the state and criminals in the peoples’ republic. She was taken to court and lost.

She appealed to the state Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court found that stun guns were not arms under the Second Amendment. Lots of profoundly ignorant reasoning to get there.

Jaime Caetano then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. They granted her case certiorari. In 2016, they issued their opinion.

The gist of the decision was that Tasers and stun guns are in common use. The important phrase is:

This means that the Supreme Court of the United States has found that:

• Conduct that implicates the Second Amendment is presumptively protected
• If it is protected, the state must show a history and tradition of matching regulations
• That there were no bans of arms in common use during the founding era. (No history, no tradition)
• That if there are at least 200,000 of the type of arm in common use, it cannot be banned
• If it is not a ban, then the state most show a history and tradition.

Current Status of Cases

Bruen established that there are two steps. Does the proposed conduct implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment? And the state must prove a history and tradition.

The Heller opinion gives us a shortcut, “in common use for lawful purposes”.

The states have been attempting to turn this on its head. They are trying to push the burden on to the plaintiffs in the first stage.

The argument goes something like: We know that if it is protected under the plain text of the Second Amendment, then we have the burden to show history and tradition, which is easy if you will just allow use nuanced comparisons. Before we have that burden, you have to prove that the conduct is protected.

They then claim that if the arm is particularly dangerous, it is not protected unless it is in common use for lawful purposes. This means that the plaintiffs must prove that it is in common use before the burden shifts to the state.

This argument is in direct conflict with the Heller decision as affirmed by Bruen.

“The” Historical Survey

In 1996, the Police Foundation published Guns in America, Results of a Comprehensive National Survey on Firearms Ownership and use The survey was performed in 1994.

This survey was not friendly to The People. The gist was that those people you interact with might be armed and harm you.

In 1994, they used a telephone survey. 40% of the calls could not be completed or resulted in a refusal. The larger the group of refusers in comparison with cooperators, the larger is the likely magnitude of “nonresponse bias.” The response rate was quite low in the NSPOF, and hence a matter of concern.—id. at 6

The study used 29,917 randomly selected telephone numbers. Of that, only 20,302 were working residential numbers. Of that reduced number, 6,333 contacts were dropped by the survey company because they did not meet some criteria. This left 13,969 that could be used.

Of that, 2,568 interviews were completed.

This means that we have been using that 200,000 million firearm number based on a survey done in 1994 of 2,500 households.

—Cook & Ludwig, supra, at 7

Of course, they have a high opinion of their numbers.

Regardless, there is still a boat load of guns out there, in common use for lawful purposes.

A More Current Survey

I have been looking into the question of why the state is attempting to subpoena William English, PhD. His work was cited in passing in a case in Washington State. The amount of effort the state put into trying to subpoena Professor English didn’t make sense.

I was able to contact somebody who is a bit more knowledgeable about the situation. What I learned makes a great deal of sense.

It appears that Professor English is one of those men of principal. This subpoena was interpreted as an intimidation tactic, designed to intimidate him and others that might want to do research into firearms related facts.

When John Lott started publishing numbers that didn’t support the narrative, he was attacked. The rumors say that some very important people contacted his University to get him fired. It looks like the infringement crowd is recycling that game plan. Professor English ain’t playing that game.

What is so scary about his survey?

The survey was an online survey conducted by Sentiment. The survey was administered to 54,000 U.S. residents 18 and over. Of that 54,000 respondents, 16,700 were identified as gun owners.

According to my sources, the filtering process was designed to hide that it was a gun survey. Nothing as crude as “Hey, I’m with the government, how many guns do you own? How many of those are Assault Weapons®?”

Have you ever defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed? Please do not include military service, police work, or work as a security guard, How many times have you defended yourself or your property with a firearm, even if it was not fired or displayed? —English, supra

This survey blows up any arguments that the state has that firearms are not in common use. That magazines are not in common use. That Assault Weapons® are in common use. It gives a good example of how often guns are used defensively.

The state wants this survey discredited and gone.

The document demands they gave are invasive and chilling. The demands were so open, that any email requesting remarks about the survey could have been part of the document production request.

According to my source, this survey wasn’t funded by anybody of interest. It was just an academic deciding, “hey, maybe we should get some updated information.”

It isn’t like this is another anti-gun survey, asking loaded questions of people that don’t know what they are being asked, funded by Bloomberg and his harpies.

The Survey is easy to read, take the time to give it a look.