Articles by Herschel Smith

Via friends David Codrea and Len Savage, nearly 400 million checks since its inception 20 years ago.

That doesn’t include concealed carry checks (where the certification suffices in lieu of the check) or before NICS.

I cannot embed the video.  Go to reddit/Hunting to check it out.

That boar was intent on an attack.  The notion that wild pigs are all “runners” now and won’t charge is clearly false.  A pig tusk can cut a femoral artery and cause death in minutes.

He had an AR pattern rifle shooting 300 BO, with a standard capacity magazine.

But hey, who needs standard capacity magazines anyway?  He could have just let the pig kill him.  PETA would have loved that.  Maybe not so much though when they invade their yards and kill their pets and tear up their lawns and gore their children.

You do the math.  They reach maturity in several years, have three or four litters every year, 12 pigs per litter.

Even if you’re not intent on hunting, carry a large bore handgun when in the bush.

Remember what he says in this idiotic tweet.

Vaccine passports are a good idea. Among other things, it will single out the still large contingent of people who refuse vaccines, who will be foreclosed from doing a lot of things their peers can do. That should help break the resistance down.

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) March 28, 2021

Now watch this video.

Holy shit! LOL https://t.co/Dmqazqu6nE

— James Lindsay, Donald Trump of intellectuals (@ConceptualJames) April 1, 2021

In order to enjoy the liberties and freedom God granted, we need to follow the declarations of the tyrants in charge.

Admitted to by the buffoon and the controller in the video.  And never forget what this – masks, lockdowns, business and school closings – was all about.

Opinions from S.C.

South Carolina Sen. Tom Corbin, R-Travelers Rest, sponsored a measure in anticipation of federal efforts to bolster gun control.

The senator wants to exempt from any new federal gun laws all members of South Carolina’s “unorganized militia,” which consists of all able-bodied citizens older than 17 who aren’t in the National Guard or the organized militia.

I infer from his measure that the senator is relying upon the Second Amendment to support his measure.

Had the senator taken the time to read the very document he swore an oath to support and defend, he would see that the Second Amendment states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

It says “well-regulated militia,” not “unorganized militia.”

How can we abide having a state senator draft laws who doesn’t even understand the seminal document that our free society is predicated upon?

It would seem South Carolina has greater concerns than gun control.

J. BROOKS DAVIS

Attorney

Coleman Boulevard

Mount Pleasant

This confusion occurs a lot and while it’s impossible to correct it every time, some things bear repeating.

First of all, let’s address the 2A again.  The founders didn’t rely exclusively on the notion of militia to honor the RKBA.  Remember, bearing arms was so common in and among the people in the colonies that it would have been unnecessary to stipulate that people had that right given by God.

In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statues comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.” In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.

When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense. One colonial newspaper argued that it was impossible to complain that this act was illegal since they were “British subjects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights” while another argued that this “is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense”. The newspaper cited Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, which had listed the “having and using arms for self preservation and defense” among the “absolute rights of individuals.” The colonists felt they had an absolute right at common law to own firearms.

The concern at the time was that the militia could be federalized and put to uses against the states themselves.  The militia comes from the people, is armed by personal ownership, and serves the interests not of the federal government, but of the people.

All the founders needed to stipulate that the constitution honors the RKBA (not grants it, but recognizes and honors it as pre-existing and axiomatic) was one reason, and the militia serves as that reason.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the notion of well-regulated.  It doesn’t mean what the lawyer says it means.  Standing armies were anathema to the founders.  Calling up the militia was calling up free men, calling them from their labors into battle.  Hence the term “unorganized.”

People also misinterpret the intent when they affirm that the existence of state sponsored armies (like the N.G.) replace the unorganized militia.  They usually use the term “well-regulated” to infer that they must exist under formalized, federally recognized statute, regulation, or federal code.

Let’s cover again what the term means.

“It is also important to note that the Framers’ chose to use the indefinite article “a” to refer to the militia, rather than the definite article “the.” This choice suggests that the Framers were not referring to any particular well regulated militia but, instead, only to the concept that well regulated militias, made up of citizens bearing arms, were necessary to secure a free State. Thus, the Framers chose not to explicitly define who, or what, would regulate the militias, nor what such regulation would consist of, nor how the regulation was to be accomplished.

This comparison of the Framers’ use of the term “well regulated” in the Second Amendment, and the words “regulate” and “regulation” elsewhere in the Constitution, clarifies the meaning of that term in reference to its object, namely, the Militia. There is no doubt the Framers understood that the term “militia” had multiple meanings. First, the Framers understood all of the people to be part of the unorganized militia. The unorganized militia members, “the people,” had the right to keep and bear arms. They could, individually, or in concert, “well regulate” themselves; that is, they could train to shoot accurately and to learn the basics of military tactics.

This interpretation is in keeping with English usage of the time, which included within the meaning of the verb “regulate” the concept of self- regulation or self-control (as it does still to this day). The concept that the people retained the right to self-regulate their local militia groups (or regulate themselves as individual militia members) is entirely consistent with the Framers’ use of the indefinite article “a” in the phrase “A well regulated Militia.”

This concept of the people’s self-regulation, that is, non-governmental regulation, is also in keeping with the limited grant of power to Congress “for calling forth” the militia for only certain, limited purposes, to “provide for” the militia only certain limited control and equipment, and the limited grant of power to the President regarding the militia, who only serves as Commander in Chief of that portion of the militia called into the actual service of the nation. The “well regula[tion]” of the militia set forth in the Second Amendment was apart from that control over the militia exercised by Congress and the President, which extended only to that part of the militia called into actual service of the Union. Thus, “well regula[tion]” referred to something else. Since the fundamental purpose of the militia was to serve as a check upon a standing army, it would seem the words “well regulated” referred to the necessity that the armed citizens making up the militia(s) have the level of equipment and training necessary to be an effective and formidable check upon the national government’s standing army.”

It is quite clear that the Founders used the phrase “well-regulated” to denote that militia forces should be skilled with arms of contemporary military utility and relevant military tactics, so that they can serve in the defense of Republic against both foreign invaders  and the threat of domestic tyrants commanding a national army against the liberty of the citizenry.

A well regulated machine is one that runs correctly.  If a clock doesn’t keep time, it isn’t well regulated.  If your car engine knocks, it isn’t well regulated.  If your scope hasn’t been zeroed, the rifle/scope system isn’t well regulated.

The founders recognized that in order to e effective, free men operating under the axiom of the RKBA need to be drilled, need to know how to shoot, need to have weapons that were zeroed, operating correctly, and in good working order, all operated by men who knew how to do it.

Thus, the lawyer is wrong.  The proposed bill for S.C. is a good start, but still shouldn’t get in the way of either (a) open carry for S.C., or (b) constitutional carry for S.C.

Seen on Reddit.

Via David Codrea, this academic publication co-authored by David Kopel appears very interesting and yet a time-consuming study.

Feel free to download and read it.  Supply comments via email if you wish on important things.

I can’t really think of a single reason they would be.

Outdoor Life.

Ryan Cheney, a 41-year-old competitive ELR shooter from Conway Springs, Kansas, just made a couple of those shots that are going to be tough to top. In a competition last weekend, Cheney put two impacts on steel that were jaw-droppingly impressive.

He hit a plate at 3,592 yards—which itself was a record hit for a .33-caliber projectile—but then managed to drop a shot on a piece of 6-foot by 6-foot steel at 4,134 yards, which is 2.35 miles. Here’s his account of the achievement, which took place at the Spearpoint Ranch in Barnard, Kansas, on March 27.

“The day started off late. We had fog until 10 a.m. and couldn’t shoot until it cleared off. My squad started on targets five and six (T5 and T6) at 2,073 and 2,203 yards. You had to hit T6 at 2,203 to advance to the far plates. I had some elevation issues with target six because of the 17 to 26 mph 4:30 wind. It was squirrely, pushing the bullets high or dropping them low because of the hilly, uneven terrain.  Luckily, I hit it on the fifth and final attempt to be able to engage the bonus target 3,592 yards. The rest of the targets from T1 to T4 went well, and I cleaned T4, going 5-for-5 at 1,942 yards.

“Then came the bonus plates at 3,592 and 4,137. In order to shoot at the 4,137-yard target, you had to hit the 3,592-yard plate first. The first four shots, my spotters and I saw the misses as I got closer and closer to hitting the plate. On the fifth and final shot at 3,592 we didn’t see where it went, so I grabbed my gear and left the firing line thinking I had missed.

“That’s when I was approached by another shooter who said I hit the bottom right portion of the plate, and I looked through his spotter to confirm. I could definitely see a splash from my 300-grain Hornady A-Tip on the steel. I talked to the score keepers watching the target cameras and they confirmed they could see what looked like an impact on the plate as well.

“About 30 minutes later, after the other shooters had cycled through, I was able to get back on my gun and try for the long plate. The sun had just set and it was pretty dark looking through my Nightforce ATACR scope fitted with a Charlie Tarac Macro Charlie optical prism. I had dialed all the elevation in my scope, 33 mils above my zero, and had an extra 35 mils thanks to the prism. Even so, I was holding 10 mils over the target, for a total of 78 mils of elevation. [Editor’s note: At 1,000 yards, this puts the shot more than 200 feet above the ground.] I had to zoom out to about 17x in order to do that, putting the 11-mil mark on my Mil-C reticle right at the bottom of the image. I had also dialed 6 mils of right wind, the max my scope allowed, and had to hold an extra 1.2 mils more into no-man’s land for the 7.2 mil windage correction. [Editor’s note: That’s about 90 feet of wind drift at 4,134 yards.] Luckily, Steve Ream and Rusty Newton worked together to spot for me, and brought me onto the plate to make a fourth-round impact. At that point, I could barely see anything. It was dark and, at 17-power, that 6-foot plate at 4,100 yards was very small.

“After the match we went downrange to check the plates, and sure enough, there was a single, beautiful lead splash on both targets.

With custom rifles and high powered scopes and a lot of practice, combined with very meticulous hand loading, these guys are just getting better and better at putting shots a very long ways down range.

Oooo … sounds awful, yes?  Wiretapping?  Arrested?  Oooo …

A YouTube creator known for posting pro-gun videos faces charges in Brevard County after police say he illegally recorded a phone conversation with the county parks and recreation operations manager.

Michael Taylor, 41, was booked into the Brevard County jail early Thursday morning.

According to investigators, Taylor post videos on his two YouTube pages, Soloyaker and The Armed Fisherman, where he conducts “First Amendment and Second Amendment Audits” around the state — which entails him open carrying a gun and a fishing pole and then filming the response from police.

According to Titusville Police, Taylor was recently asked to leave Parrish Park along A. Max Brewer Memorial Parkway, where he was “fishing” with a rifle. Police included the quotes around the word fishing in their report.

Officers said the man then made multiple calls to the police department and the county parks and recreation department. Police said, during one of these calls Taylor recorded the conversation he had with Jeff Davis, the operations manager for Brevard County Parks and Recreation.

The conversation was included in a video uploaded March 3 on The Armed Fisherman YouTube page titled “Someone is Lying!!! Titusville PD O Board OF Commissioners Or Is It Conspiracy,” according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant.

Police said Davis was never informed that he was being recorded and did not give permission for the call to be recorded. Florida law requires that both parties consent for a conversation to be recorded.

The First Amendment does allow for individuals to record public officials in the course of their duties while they are in public — such as recording a police officer during an arrest — and sometimes in private settings. However, News 6 legal expert Steve Kramer said that Florida’s two-party consent law doesn’t allow an individual to record a private phone call with a public official without their consent, even if that public official is on the job at the time of the recording.

And before you jump to conclusions, the comments point out that “In general, courts have concluded that employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy while they are at work. See Jatar v. Lamaletto, 758 So.2d 1167, 1169 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000).”  And another user writes “Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011).  Public employees can be recorded. I guess Brevard County wants to find that out the hard way, which will likely also be the expensive way.”  And finally there is this.  “Hey I believe the 2 party consent does not apply to public officials, especially if the public official is on the clock (which I believe was the case), as they are paid by the public they loose their expectation of privacy when in the course of their duties, very similar to being able to record police.”

As should be the case.  There should be no stipulation for permission to catch a public employee in the act of lying.

I have watched his videos before, and even linked or embedded a few of them.  He does good work.  Drop by and give him a thumbs up for his hard work.  He is a patriot doing the things necessary for liberty.  Florida, for all the good DeSantis is doing, is too much a collectivist state for my tastes.

There is no reason to deny Floridians open carry.  The governor should make this a focus.  If he did, the issue would be gone in a flash.