The Paradox and Absurdities of Carbon-Fretting and Rewilding

Herschel Smith · 28 Jan 2024 · 4 Comments

The Bureau of Land Management is planning a truly boneheaded move, angering some conservationists over the affects to herd populations and migration routes.  From Field & Stream. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently released a draft plan outlining potential solar energy development in the West. The proposal is an update of the BLM’s 2012 Western Solar Plan. It adds five new states—Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming—to a list of 11 western states already earmarked…… [read more]

Intellectually Bankrupt Decision by the Ninth Circuit in Duncan Versus Bonta

BY Herschel Smith
5 months, 2 weeks ago

Don’t ask permission.  Be a magazine smuggler like Mike Vanderboegh.  What they think only matters if you let it.

Now We Know What Happened And How in Duncan Versus Bonta

BY Herschel Smith
5 months, 3 weeks ago

And why the two constitutional judges on the ninth circuit were so outraged.

I suspect this will all be cleared up at the next level.

Judge Roger Benitez Ruling on California Magazine Capacity Ban

BY Herschel Smith
6 months ago

Here is the ruling.  There are still good men left in America.

There is no American tradition of limiting ammunition capacity and the 10-round limit has no historical pedigree and it is arbitrary and capricious. It is extreme. Our federal government and most states impose no limits17 and in the states where limits are imposed, there is no consensus. Delaware landed on a 17-round magazine limit.18 Illinois and Vermont picked limits of 15 rounds for handguns and 10 rounds for a rifles.19 Colorado went with a 15-round limit for handguns and rifles, and a 28-inch tube limit for shotguns.20 New York tried its luck at a 7-round limit; that did not work out.21 New Jersey started with a 15-round limit and then reduced the limit to 10-rounds.22 The fact that there are so many different numerical limits demonstrates the arbitrary nature of magazine capacity limits.

In a stealth return to the interest balancing test rejected by Heller and Bruen, the State ostensibly justifies its magazine limits by deeming the smaller magazines “well-suited” for its citizens.23 Suitability, in turn, is based on concocted statistics about what a hypothetical average person needs to defend against an attacker or attackers in an average self-defense situation. Based on this hypothetical statistically average case scenario, the State permits its citizen to have a gun, but the State decides the number of rounds in the gun that it finds suitable.24

In so doing, the State denies a citizen the federal constitutional right to use common weapons of their own choosing for self-defense. There have been, and there will be, times where many more than 10 rounds are needed to stop attackers.25 Yet, under this statute, the State says “too bad.” It says, if you think you need more than 10 chances to defend yourself against criminal attackers, you must carry more magazines. Or carry more bullets to hand reload and fumble into your small magazine while the attackers take advantage of your pause. On the other hand, you can become a criminal, too. So, the previously law-abiding California citizen who buys and keeps at her bedside a nationally popular Glock 17 (with its standard 17-round magazine) becomes the criminal, because the State dictates that a gun with a 17-round magazine is not well-suited for home defense.

Do you feel the sarcasm dripping from his pen?

Californians Support ‘Amnesty’ For ‘High Capacity’ Magazines

BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 2 months ago

News from PRCa.

A majority of Californians, including gun owners, support an “amnesty” program where high-capacity firearm magazine owners can turn them in, “no questions asked.”

More than 62 percent of Californians surveyed said that they favor such a program, which 51 percent of gun owners also said they supported.

The results, published in JAMA Network Open, come from the Violence Prevention Research Program at University of California, Davis. Researchers interpreted data from an online survey of 2,558 California adults that was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs.

Hmm … an “online survey.”  So the authors of the survey and the article want you to believe that the gun owners of California who own standard capacity magazines don’t want them, and don’t really know what to do with those plastic boxes they have in their closet?  They want to “turn them in” to someone in authority.

They don’t know how to use a hacksaw and cut them into pieces.  They don’t know how to start fires and burn them up, but they don’t want those things at all so they need an amnesty to turn them in.

Right …

New Jersey Magazine Ban

BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 3 months ago

Via WiscoDave, this unfortunate view:

A new magazine capacity restriction goes into effect today in New Jersey. The internet is on fire with cries of people, including many gun owners not in New Jersey, criticizing the law as unjust, unconstitutional, meaningless, unfair and worse. What is missing is much real practical advice for New Jersey Gun Owners. What should they do now? What should they do with magazines that have a capacity of over 10 rounds?

Unfortunately, while the law may eventually be found unjust and overturned, today it is the law. Second Amendment Organization is a staunch advocate of Gun Rights, but those rights are defined by our laws. We believe it is imperative that Responsible Gun Owners follow the law. In this case, that means the New Jersey Gun Owners should comply with the law… and fight it! Part of fighting it involved educating people about why these types of laws have little or no effect in regard to saving lives and why people might want or need large capacity magazines in the first place. 2AO is staunchly against magazine capacity restrictions, as stated in this set of Position Statements. Recommending that New Jersey residents comply with the law is not “compromise,” it is accepting the current reality.

Okay Rob, but what happens when it proves impossible to overturn that restriction?  Then what?  What do you answer to God when you’re incapable of properly defending your family because the criminals bust through your front door carrying standard capacity magazines while you have none?  It’s happened, you know.

This is the only amusing thing from this whole abomination.

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said New Jersey’s newly implemented high capacity magazine ban endangers the lives of officers by also limiting their magazine size when they are off duty.

This week, Breitbart News reported that December 11, 2018, was the effective date for a New Jersey “high capacity” magazine ban that makes it a fourth-degree felony to possess a magazine holding more than ten rounds, even if that magazine was legally acquired.

Kerik is now tweeting a letter from the Bergen County prosecutor that says the ban also applies to off-duty officers …

Of course, he doesn’t answer how the ban can “endanger” the lives of cops while it has no affect on the more ordinary among us.  Nor does anyone say how they are going to enforce this ban.

Then there is also this.

We at 2AO would respect the intention and actions of anyone actually performing true civil disobedience. A group or individual heading to a gun range in New Jersey this afternoon with standard magazines of a capacity greater than 10 rounds and publicly, proudly and overtly using them as a public act of protest, for example. Obviously, those persons would be risking arrest but they would also obviously be following in the footsteps of other great Civil Rights Protesters. Sneakily keeping magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds in your home and hoping you never get caught is not Civil Disobedience, it’s just being a criminal.

I think Rob is tilting at windmills and [Sneakily] forcing a distinction without a difference.

David Codrea has thoughts as well.

The History Of Magazines Holding 11 Or More Rounds

BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 10 months ago

David Kopel has a nicely argued brief filed with the Ninth Circuit on the history of magazines holding 11 or more rounds.  The context is the case of Fyock v. Sunnyvale, where the district court upheld the California ban on standard capacity magazines because “magazines did not exist at the time the Second Amendment was ratified.”

Some of the history I knew, and some of it I didn’t.  In Either case, the brief is very interesting, filled with both facts and analysis, and much better than Eugene Volokh’s ill-advised (and unripe) commentary on magazines.

Kopel colors outside the lines when he says this:

If the firing of several shots has wounded one attacker, and has resulted in the other attacker putting up his hands, the defender needs to control the situation until the police arrive. That is why reserve capacity is so important for law enforcement and for citizens. Reloading is very difficult when the second hand is holding a cell phone. Even a two-handed reload will likely make the gun temporarily inoperable and cause the gun to move off target for at least a few seconds, giving the criminal(s) a new window of opportunity. Citizens do not carry police radios, and police response to a cell phone call about citizen in trouble is often slower than the response to a radio call about an officer in trouble. The reasons why magazines for greater than 10 rounds are the overwhelming choice for law enforcement officers for lawful defense of self and others apply a fortiori to citizens, who rightly  look to law enforcement officers as good models for gun safety practices.

The point is fundamentally sound, but I have never in the past, do not currently, and will never in the future look to law enforcement for gun safety practices.

What Was That About Not Needing A High Capacity Magazine?

BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 3 months ago

In Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?, I noted 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions that had occurred all over America in the span of just a few days.  In recent news:

In Louisiana, a 4-man home invasion.

In Clemson, S.C., a 4-man home invasion.

In Akron, Ohio, a 4-man home invasion.

In Longwood, Florida, a 2-man home invasion.

In York, Pa., a 3-man home invasion.

In Independence, Mo, an 11-man home invasion leading to three deaths.

In Oklahoma, a 3-man home invasion.

In Knoxville, Tn., a 2-man home invasion.

In Tucson, Arizona, a 3-man home invasion.

In Arkansas, a 3-man home invasion.

In Rockford, Ill, a 3-man home invasion.

In Georgia, a 2-man home invasion.

In Texas, a 2-man home invasion with three family members shot.

In Philadelphia, a 2-man home invasion.

Man beaten and intentionally burned in home invasion in Laurel, Montana.

In N.C., a 2-man home invasion.

In Grantville, Pa., a 4-man home invasion.

In St. Petersburg, a 2-man home invasion.

In Georgia, a 2-man home invasion.

When a violent crime is intended, the criminals are increasingly teaming up into multiple-man crews to perpetrate their evil.  Thanks, but I think I’ll keep my high capacity magazines.

Prior: The Wrong Way To Argue About Assault Weapons

Happy Assault Weapons Ban Sunset Provision Day!

BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 6 months ago

On September 13, 1994, the U.S. Congress passed the ridiculous, obscene, ill-conceived, and meddling assault weapons ban.  It had a sunset provision wherein it expired within ten years of passing the law (see also HR 3355).  Enjoy the day as one of the better, more memorable celebrations in America.

I intend to celebrate by enjoying the entertainment and studying the science of the shooting sports, which I have previously defined this way.

While ATF lawyers might disagree, for something to have a “sporting purpose” means nothing more than it can be taken to the range and operated by the owner to his or her entertainment or training.  The shooting skills – whether for official competitions such as IDPA or 3-Gun, or for unofficial activities such as regular range visits for the purpose of betterment at the science of firearms operation – are sports.  All of them.  Period.  This is non-negotiable.  If it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.

Here are some of the weapons we will enjoy and study this weekend.  These would all be considered “assault weapons” under the ban.

In the future, Congress is advised to stay out of our business.

Prior:

No One Needs ARs For Self Defense Or Hunting?

Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?


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