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]
In the oral argument he presented from the trial, I’m surprised that, when questioned by the judges, the lawyer didn’t bring up the analogy that if a city, county or state chose to tax firearms or ammunition to the point that poor people couldn’t afford them, that would be a violation of the second amendment. Likewise, preventing anyone from being able to practice with firearms also violates the second amendment.
It’s our choice how and when to train, and what to train with, as well as what firears to own.
I have several remarks before you watch this video.
First, I’m neither a S&W fan nor a detractor. I don’t like the gap between the M&P frame and slide, and never have, so I don’t have any. Next, I don’t know the real reason their 10mm models are duds, nor even if they are. I will say, however, that the first video of someone shooting one shows him firing it limp wristed. In fact, he is using almost “cup and saucer,” which will never cycle the firearm correctly, or at least, it reduces the likelihood that it will.
Then finally I’ll observe that I’ve never heard any complaints about the Springfield Armory 10mm handguns, despite how much grief they take over Reddit/Firearms and Reddit/Guns. I simply don’t get why the grief – the only one I ever had was a fine, well-functioning machine. I just don’t use striker-fired pistols. If Springfield Armory sold a hammer-fired option I might consider it. In fact, I think they do in the 1911 model.
But I don’t have a 10mm handgun anyway. I just don’t see the point because it would be so redundant with 450 SMC and .44 magnum.
He answers the legal questions. Here are my problems – or at least, a few of them.
I don’t believe cops should be doing any of this. Entering homes should be verboten, and the fact that our society allows such as this shows its sickness.
Next, the cops use pistol-mounted lights and muzzle flag literally everyone, or if anyone would have been in the domicile, they would have been muzzle flagging them. This violates the ruled of gun safety regardless of how cool you want to be.
Next, many cops are just plain stupid. He explains what it means to make good effort to ensure that you have the right home, including “reliable informants.” There is no such thing as a reliable informant.
Finally, my biggest problem with all of this is that the American citizen simply cannot trust it when someone announces that they are cops, or Federal Marshal, or anything at all. That has become a favorite tactics of criminals. But unholstering or presenting a weapon in order to secure your home from possible invaders is a sure way to get killed if the invaders are police (and I did use the word invaders).
As I said, the fact that we allow this sort of thing to occur is a sign of a very sick society.
If you have the time for it, these are two interesting videos. There are an awful lot of devotees to the 7mm Rem Mag. For those who have a rifle chambered in this cartridge, what are your thoughts on it?
🚨 The federal government has mandated that all vehicles sold after 2026 must have a kill switch that can disable your vehicle based on your driving performance.
My amendment to defund that unconstitutional mandate failed tonight.
A World War II-era AR-15 ammo factory is linked to several mass shootings, the Times found.
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant was built to supply the US military.
But the plant shifted to commercial sales in the last decade.
A World War II-era ammunition factory meant to supply the US military has been linked to more than a dozen mass shootings.
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant shifted to commercial sales in 2011 and is now one of the biggest manufacturers of commercial AR-15 ammunition in the United States. According to The New York Times, it has made “hundreds of millions” of commercial rounds every year since 2011.
The facility was built during World War II and has since been operated by US government contractors to produce ammunition, but its focus has gradually shifted to commercial production as military demand waned, The Times reported.
By 2021, commercial production in the facility was more than two times higher than the rate of production for military ammunition, The Times found.
I see. So we’re putting bullets at the beginning of articles now for idiots to read in two seconds. Alrighty then.
So, here’s another take. The U.S. military should in general avoid foreign entanglements. American citizens should be armed, and in fact, “every terrible implement of the soldier” is the birthright of the American citizen.
Moreover, rather than lay off good men working at the ammo plant, they repurposed the plant to do what they should have been doing all along rather than enabling foreign entanglements, as well as making better American riflemen.
If I went to a junk yard and picked up a piece of metal that used to be part of a truck, no reasonable person would say I’m holding a truck because the metal has been formed beyond primordial ooze and hence could be “completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function” as either a truck or truck frame. Likewise, if I cut a truck into 100 pieces, scattered them on the ground, and then picked up some, no reasonable person would say I’m holding a truck or truck frame because the piece hadn’t been melted down to its primordial state.
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Consider the “cakes that look like food” Internet trend. See, e.g., Chelsweets, Cakes That Look Like Food: 10 Amazing Cakes, YouTube (Jan. 22, 2018), https://perma.cc/UGH6-MXA2. One could make a cake that looks like a hamburger, just as one could make a cake that looks like a gun frame or receiver. One is “clearly identifiable” as a hamburger, just as the other is “clearly identifiable” as a gun part. But that does not make the former taste like a Big Mac, just as it does not make the latter covered by the GCA.
The Fifth Circuit has got some characters. I like them.
And Mark Smith is in the mines digging for nuggets of gold in the fight against the controllers. Honestly, I cannot think of a character as odious to me as AG Garland. I feel like puking every time I hear him speak. The lying, conniving, controlling little weasel.
On November 2, an elk hunter in Oregon reported that he was forced to shoot a wolf in self-defense. The hunter, whose name has not been released, was stalking elk in the eastern part of the state, near Seneca, when a wolf approached him. The animal came out from the woods in front of him at 30 yards and wouldn’t stop coming toward him. After yelling at the wolf and waving his arms in an effort to scare it off, the hunter said he had to shoot it.
The incident is still under investigation, but authorities say that the man self-reported shooting the animal. “Preliminary investigation revealed the hunter acted reasonably in shooting the wolf for personal safety,” the Oregon State Police (OSP) said in a press release. “The hunter stated he feared for his safety and fired one round, striking the wolf and killing it instantly.” Officials found that the man was only 18 yards from the wolf when he fired.
I seem to remember something about mankind being placed in dominion over the animals. Yes, I know I read that somewhere.
Throughout her colloquy with the justices on behalf of the Biden administration, Prelogar spoke to the justices using their own words, missing no opportunity to argue that “historical tradition” actually favors her argument in the case.
For example, when Chief Justice John Roberts asked whether “irresponsible” or “dangerous” are too vague or subjective to be persuasive, Prelogar reminded him that she was not using the words in their colloquial sense. Rather, Prelogar argued, “history and tradition” provide a rich context for what the terms mean.
“Irresponsible” corresponds only to precedent directly related to the specific danger of gun possession, Prelogar explained. She offered that “irresponsible” has historically been used to distinguish a person who may not be legally culpable for reasons of age or mental disability, but in whose hands a firearms would present a particular danger.
The history and tradition of the word “dangerous” also supports labeling a domestic abuser as such, she continued.
“So there’s no daylight at all then between “not responsible” and “dangerous,” pressed Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
An unwavering Prelogar answered, again quoting the justices’ own words: “Yes, that’s what history and tradition said.” She expounded, telling Kavanaugh that in the past, the Supreme Court itself has consistently interpreted those terms in just the way the Biden administration urges it to do now.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the conversation to raise an interpretive question of her own.
“So it’s not a synonym for ‘virtue,’” queried Barrett about the term “responsible.”
Prelogar bluntly rejected Barrett’s suggestion and said the term is clearly linked to dangerousness with firearms, and not to amorphous concepts of responsibility.
In addition to figuratively meeting the conservative justices where they were on the matter of “historical tradition,” Prelogar also offered an alternative take on the framework set out by Thomas in Bruen. Throughout her argument, the solicitor general argued that history and tradition are perhaps not the stalwart beacons of freedom the conservative majority has held them up to be.
Prelogar made a glaring point, beginning with Thomas as her primary audience: A look into the nation’s history and tradition, she argued, reveals that the Second Amendment was meant not to apply to entire groups of people, and slaves and Native Americans were excluded. The theme reemerged several times throughout the nearly two hours of oral arguments. In the founding era, such categories of people were not considered to be “among the people protected by the Second Amendment,” and generally stripped of other rights as well, Prelogar contextualized, denouncing the inequality as “odious.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson later suggested, “Is there a flaw with history and tradition? Are we only considering history of some of the people?”
Prelogar also cleverly worked in a key debate point about “historical tradition” in a round of questions from Thomas. When the conservative justice, often known for skepticism about overreaching administrative power, asked Prelogar whether she would change her position if Rahimi had been the subject of an administrative order, as opposed to a civil order, Prelogar again used some of the justice’s own logic in her argument. She responded that an administrative determination would be different, but that more modern American law supports the distinction — as contrasted with “historical” (or English) legal principles.
When Jackson questioned Prelogar, she raised yet another key point with respect to the role of “historical tradition” in the context of gun rights for domestic abusers. The justice, making a key point to the conservative majority via question to Prelogar, noted that historically, men — including domestic abusers — were not perceived as “dangerous” from a standpoint of disarmament.
“Unwavering.” “Bluntly.” “Cleverly.” Ms. Nanos is engaging in some hero worship and hopeful projection here. That’s not at all what happened in the Rahimi arguments. I think she fails to grok the gravity of what happened during the arguments and Q&A.
I wanted to let the dust settle on this before I weighed in. As for my opinion, briefly, I agree with the Fifth Circuit’s ruling on this. There was nothing incomplete or wrong with it. In fact, it correctly concludes that oftentimes, the claimed offended party is the one who is being placed in a position of increased danger if in fact the claims of abuse or danger are correct and truthful, since many times restraining orders of the kind dealt with in Rahimi apply to both parties. She can’t have a weapon of any kind either. The Fifth Circuit brought that very point up.
But here we are at the supreme court hearing arguments, so it’s better to focus on what happened. Ms. Nanos is likely very wrong about where this will go. Ms. Prelogar, in invoking history and tradition, further endorsed the Heller/Bruen methodology of text first, burden being placed on the government if a case “touches fingers” with the second amendment, and then appeal to the laws at the time of the founding. It may be true that there were such laws in place at the time of the founding – and Rahimi may lose his case on the question of facial unconstitutionality of the statute.
But that’s not even nearly all that happened. She constantly conflated the notions of “dangerous” and “irresponsible,” and repeatedly contradicted herself in her answers. In fact, questions from Roberts and Barrett focused on that very issue, with both of them repeating the question to make sure of her answer (likely speaking to fellow justices in the process). Ms. Prelogar lost both Barrett and Roberts during the arguments as can he detected from the questions. If the DOJ had focused on the facial constitutionality of the statue in question, she would have won and that would be the end of it.
As it currently stands, the supreme court is much more likely to make it clear in their ruling that someone who has been deemed “irresponsible” doesn’t fall under any such statute. And in fact, it makes them much more likely to take up the Range v. Garland case just to make it clear that non-violent felons (and other “irresponsible” people) don’t lose their rights.
The state would love nothing better than to be able to remove second amendment rights of anyone they deem to be irresponsible, e.g., social media bad words, don’t like vaccine mandates, don’t like forcible mask mandates, don’t like tyrannical governments, etc., well then, too bad for you but you lose your rights. That’s what Ms. Prelogar was arguing for. She didn’t get it. No decision which lacks the support of Roberts and Barrett will prevail.
If you don’t believe me, listen to Mark Smith, who analyzes the case better than I can. Right after that, listen to Langley Outdoors Academy where I think he does the best breakdown of the Q&A of anyone I’ve heard. So, listen to Mark for the legal analysis, and Langley for an expose of the Q&A on which Mark’s analysis is based. Then you might want to watch Washington Gun Law where his analysis basically agrees with Mark’s. None of this dovetails with Ms. Nanos’ presentation, but what do you expect from a rag like Law & Crime?
