Gun Free Zone

This is a follow-up to my post Even if they charged him, they wouldn’t get a conviction.

Texas stolen car owner is a ‘vigilante, not a hero’ after he tracked down and shot dead the man who allegedly took his vehicle – claims the suspected thief’s brother

The brother of a suspected car thief shot dead by the man whose car he allegedly stole has slammed his sibling’s killer, arguing he is a ‘vigilante’, not a hero, for his actions.

The robbery victim discovered his car had been stolen from a Texas shopping center parking lot, but managed to track the vehicle down to a second lot nearby.

He walked up to the vehicle to find a man and a woman sat in the cab, and drew his weapon, ordering the pair to get out of the car and wait for police to arrive.

But the stolen car victim was hit with a bullet when the male thief took a gun of his own out from his waistband and opened fire.

Avoiding serious injury, the vehicle’s owner returned fire, shooting the car thief dead.

But now the car thief’s brother has expressed his anger, arguing that the car owner should never have drawn his gun in the first place and complained ‘my mum, my family, we all have to suffer now’.

‘Whether my brother was wrong or right, he had a gun pointed at him. I guess he took it upon himself to defend himself. The guy who shot him is a vigilante, not a hero.

‘A vehicle is not worth taking someone’s life, I don’t care what kind of car it is. You don’t take the law into your own hands. Now my mom, my family, we all have to suffer and just deal with it.’

Police meanwhile put the shooting down to a simple case of self-defense, arguing that robbery victims have every right to try to find their stolen property and that the car’s owner only shot the thief after he himself was subjected to gunfire.

In every one of these cases, where some criminal gets killed by a CCW, the family cries over the loss of their kin, the family can go fuck themselves.

The family here overlooks the fact that their brother was willing to and trued to kill a man to steal his truck.

The thief shot the truck owner to avoid being arrested.  He was being held for the police.

That’s why the police determined it was the truck owner, not the thief, who acted in self defense.

The family can suffer, because their brother almost made another family suffer.

These people are human garbage.

With a title of Over half of both Second Amendment supporters and Republicans favor universal background checks and gun licensing provisions—Poll: A majority of Americans support universal background checks, gun licensing and an assault weapons ban, APM Research Lab, (last visited Jul. 30, 2023) I had to look deeper. The first thing to know is that this was conducted by a group associated with the U. Penn. It could be a left leaning entity, I’ve not done the research.

YouGov is a site where you can sign up to be paid to take surveys. This means that the bias for the survey is internet savvy. Not a bad bias.

So let’s look at the questions that were asked:

What we see isn’t horrible. Unfortunately, it lacks context.

Consider the question of background checks. The people giving this survey do not get to explain. When I hear “background checks for all firearm sales and transfers” it might mean universal background checks. Or it could mean “transfers at the time of sale” and I might even think of it as when buying from an FFL.

Given that the only reason that there is a background check is the GCA as amended, a background check is not constitutional.

Question B is at least attempting to be honest. They have explicitly stated that they are talking about the banning of semi-automatic firearms. They didn’t just say “Assault Weapons.”

C is just plain scary. I know that most of us want gun owners to train and learn what they are doing. To be good members of the community. Requiring tests and licenses for both firearm and person is bull shit.

Let’s take a look at two categories.

81% of males support universal background checks, 66% support test, license and registration, 55% support “assault weapon ban” and 48% support eliminating most gun laws.

The sample size is 1000. 468 of which were male. They fudge those numbers to make it 487 to match the actual percentage of men and women in the country. 394 of 487 support UBC. 321 of 487 support Test, License, Registration. 267 of 487 support “assault weapons ban”, and 234 of 487 support eliminating most gun laws.

Ok, the takeaway on this survey eludes me. It looks like there is good support for the Second Amendment, but there is also support for infringements. This feels like people avoiding absolutism. Hagar answers, “What part of shall not infringe, don’t you understand?”

I am also an absolutist, I just am not as vocal about it. I don’t know.

Regardless, my rights, and yours, do not come from surveys or opinions. Our rights are protected by the Bill of Rights. We are endowed with them by our creator.

I often travel with large numbers of guns.

How do I do it safely, legally, and with the security of my guns in mind.

Let me show you my invention.

It’s a Lund, steel, underbody truck tool box.  The kind that is supposed to hang under a semi trailer or a flat bed.

It’s mounted near the tailgate.

It has a key lock just for the box.

This is it with the tailgate down and the box open.

I drilled two holes, one on each side to attach it to the bed tie-down points with 3/8-inch stainless J-bolts.

I used a sandwich of nuts, rubber washers, and fender washers to seal the hole where I drilled through to make it waterproof.  I’ve never had a leak.

Here a mounting point in the bed.

Those are tucked up under the bed rails which makes it difficult to get at with a bolt cutter.

Here is the gap between the door and the tailgate.

This provides double security.  With the tailgate locked, the door can’t be opened.  The tailgate locks when the truck locks, and if a window is broken to unlock the truck from the inside, the alarm will go off.

With guns locked in cases in the box, they are locked outside of the passenger compartment, so covers safe passage requirements.

It’s 48 inches wide, 18 inches deep, and 18 inches high.  It will hold my largest Pelican pistol and rifle boxes.

The door can’t be pried open with the tailgate closed.

I recognize that the J-bolt are a weak point.  I did consider drilling through the box into the bed, but I decided against that.  I really didn’t want to drill into a $50K truck. Any place you drill through becomes a location where rust can start.

Additionally, if I did want to remove this box and go back to stock, I can without a problem.  No permanent holes to worry about.

My other crossover tool box is also held down withJ-hookss for the same reason.

If I did improve the design, I would probably order specialty lifting eye bolts, which are hardened steel and even more difficult to cut through.  I bought these off the shelf at Fastensal.

When not hauling guns, it makes a convenient place to put groceries and other shopping, acting like a trunk, so stuff isn’t sloshing around the bed.  I still have several feet of space between the two boxes for large items.  I also have a second, long bed pickup, so…

Every time I post about gun security, I’d get (or used to before the membership change) countless comments from readers fantasizing about how they would Ocean’s Eleven my guns away with a bolt cutter, angle grinder, fork truck, etc.

Please don’t.

This truck was broken into once already by people looking for guns. They never touched the toolboxes in the bed.  They were defeated by a $30 Liberty pistol box attached to the seat frame by a cable.

They weren’t carrying bolt cutters or angle grinders and they weren’t taking the time to start fucking around with tools.

Besides, the box itself is heavy, and I have tow chain and trailer equipment in there to make it heavier. Without the tailgate down, lifting the whole box out was not something I was able to do.

Would I leave guns in it for a week parked some place rough?  No, absolutely not.

Is it much more effective than some gun cases in the cab or a trunk where a broken window gives easy access in a matter of seconds?  Absolutely.

Reader Archer was letting his mind wonder:

— Archer.

The first step in analyzing a Second Amendment Challenge is to determine if the proposed conduct implicates the Second Amendment.

For conduct to be implicated, the object must be an arm and the conduct must be “keep and bear”.

If it is an arm and the conduct has anything to do with “keep and bear” then the conduct is presumptively protected under the Second Amendment.

We define the conduct, “I wish to keep and bear ammunition feed devices that have an arbitrary capacity.” The state wants to limit that capacity to ten or less.

Before Bruen the court would presume that this conduct was protected. They would then move to the second stage of the analysis: How much does this infringe the core right of armed self-defense?

Since you can use smaller magazines, different guns, and the state has presented evidence that self-defense events involving civilians rarely use more than three rounds, the infringement is trivial.

The state has also presented compelling “evidence” that big ass magazines allow for more harm when used in mass shooting events.

The court balances how much raping is being done to you verse how much the state really really wants to infringe. The courts almost always came down in favor of the State.

Today, we don’t get that presumption of protected conduct. Instead, we have to prove the conduct does implicate the Second Amendment.

When dealing with a gun ban, Heller controls. If it is a ban and the object is in “common use for lawful purposes, today”, then it is protected under the Second Amendment.

Therefore, the state wants to make the object “not an arm” or they wish to make it “dangerous and unusual”. The state is arguing from both sides in the LCM bans.

On the one hand, they argue it is not an arm. Since it is just a box and there are many differently shaped boxes of different sizes, you don’t need to have this particular size and shape. Further, they argue that a magazine is not an arm because it doesn’t really do anything. It is exactly like a cartridge box, or the box of ammo you buy from the LGS.

Since it is not an “arm” it is not protected under the Second Amendment.

If it is not an arm, it can be banned.

Because the state knows this is a weak argument, they move to the second step, “Even if it is an arm, which it isn’t, it isn’t in common use for self-defense”.

The state is acknowledging that magazines are in common use as defined by Heller and made concrete in Caetano. Heller said possessed. Caetano said that “hundreds of thousands in lawful possession” made it common.

The state knows that if a court rules, correctly, “dangerous and unusual,” then they lose. They can’t make an argument about “dangerous” that has any bearing because it is common. It doesn’t matter if it is the deadliest weapon ever invented by man, if it is in common use for lawful purposes, then it is protected under the Second Amendment.

But back to Archer’s idea. If you only fire 3 shots out of a LCM, then you didn’t really have an LCM because use is …

It doesn’t work.

Having gone through the magic above, the court decides to go rogue. They rule that the LCM is NOT a protected arm. Either they say it isn’t an arm or they say it isn’t in common use, it doesn’t matter, they have allowed the ban to go into effect.

At that point, the state makes it illegal to have an ammunition feed device which holds more than 10 rounds.

The law doesn’t say anything about use, it is mere possession.

The cops show up at your self-defense event. They slap you on the back and congratulate you on surviving the encounter. They take your fire arm, drop the mag and count the rounds in the mag.

You only fired 3 rounds, just like the statistics say you should, there are 5 rounds left in the magazine, this means you had less than 8 rounds in the magazine. Your golden!

Nope. The law isn’t like New York’s (old?) law. The LCM ban said you had to down load your magazines. You could still have your 15 round Glock mag, but you could only put 7 rounds in it, or some such nonsense. In this ban, it is a ban on the possession of LCMs.

So you tell the cop you only fired 3 rounds. He and the CSI folks see three holes in the perp and no others. The witnesses agree that it was only three rounds, and there are only three casings on the ground. Your golden!

Nope, the law does ban using more than 10 rounds, it bans possessing a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

To wrap this up, consider the cops searching your home with a warrant. They locate a tarball of heroin. It doesn’t matter if you used it, it doesn’t matter if it is pure or cut a thousand times. The mere possession of that tarball is the crime.

Only seven state lawmakers publicly support a controversial proposal from Gov. Bill Lee to remove guns from those who pose a threat to themselves or others, a proposal the Republican governor plans to push forward during a special legislative session next month.

Lee has repeatedly said he plans to move forward with his proposal, first made during the waning hours of the regular legislative session in April, when he calls lawmakers back for a public safety-focused special session on Aug. 21. Within hours of his proposal, Republicans bristled at the governor’s timing, as he called for a vote less than 72 hours before the Tennessee General Assembly was set to adjourn.

But now, after having months to review, digest, and discuss the plan at length with the governor, it seems opposition to the measure has only grown.

For this story, The Tennessean reached out to all 132 lawmakers on whether they support, oppose, or will wait to hear testimony on Lee’s proposal, as circulated in April. The Tennessean also identified other public statements made by members on the proposal. Only seven members were willing to publicly share support.

Tennessee gun reform proposal: Who backs, opposes Gov. Bill Lee’s plan (tennessean.com)

Obviously, you cannot count on the backbone of most politicians and the possibility of secret dealings plus simple lies.

Here is something interesting: The Senate is composed of 27 Republicans and 6 Democrats and the House of Representatives is composed of 75 Republicans and 24 Democrats which all gives us the 132 members that the paper reached. And although a handful of Republicans have admitted they want to hear the proposal, the staunchest supporters of the Red Flag law session are Democrats, but there are 30 Legislature members who are Democrats and only 7 legislators willing to openly voice their opposition?

It seems they are clear they do not gain anything by supporting Red Flag laws and it can come back to chew them in the nether regions.

Still, let’s keep the pressure, shall we?

MOUNT JULIET, Tenn. (WSMV) – A suspect’s gun discharged while Mount Juliet Police officers were attempting to arrest him on Friday, police said.

Police said while officers were attempting to gain control of the armed suspect’s hands, the suspect’s handgun fired from his waistband, causing a lower leg injury to the suspect. The incident happened around 5:30 p.m. at the Willow Creek apartment’s parking lot after an officer initiated a stop on a man who ignored a stop sign in a vehicle without a license plate. During the interaction, officers discovered that the suspect was wanted in Humphreys and Shelby counties.

Officers saw and told the suspect they could see a handgun in his waistband and instructed him not to reach for it. As officers attempted to arrest the man, he began to reach towards the handgun, which led to a struggle in the parking lot as officers worked to gain control of the man’s hands. The handgun discharged during the struggle, which led to an injury to the man’s leg. After the shot, officers found the handgun still inside the man’s pants. An officer applied a tourniquet. The suspect was taken to a hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

Suspect shot during struggle with officers after traffic stop (wsmv.com)

Live a life of crime, make every mistake possible so you get noticed by cops on the street, resist arrest while reaching for a gun. Yup, dumbass.

And one more example why we must carry in a holster.

This is a very Texas headline:

Texas shooting over stolen car leaves suspected thief dead, accomplice injured and robbery victim in the hospital

A man whose car had been stolen tracked down his vehicle to a Texas shopping center lot – before shooting dead one of the alleged thieves and wounding the other.

Gunfire erupted in the parking lot outside South Park Mall, San Antonio, just before 1pm Thursday after the man figured out where his stolen car was located.

The owner of the stolen car had ordered the driver and his female companion out of the vehicle – and sat them down by the tire at gunpoint while they waited for police.

But the stolen car victim was hit with a bullet when one of the suspected thieves, a male, took a gun out from his waistband and opened fire.

The owner then returned fire – which killed the suspected robber.

The woman, who was the passenger in the stolen vehicle, was also shot, and is in critical condition at the hospital.

Police said that the owner of the stolen vehicle is in stable condition.

No charges have been filed yet.

The names of the people involved have not been released.

‘Certainly a case of self-defense, is what we have,’ San Antonio Police Department Chief William McManus said. ‘We would prefer that they call the police before taking that into your own hands, but he did what he felt he needed to do.’

I am not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure this was a good shoot.

Texas is a citizen arrest state, so this man holding the two people he caught stealing his truck at gunpoint for the police, as I understand, is completely legal.

He only shot and killed one thief and wounded the other when they shot first.  That makes it good self defense.

The police seem to have come to that conclusion as well.

Besides, they stole a man’s truck in Texas.

That’s a state that used to hang horse thieves.

Even if they did prosecute this man, the likelihood they would find a jury to convict would be impossible.

Just one guy with a lifted pickup and a gun on the jury and it’s hung.