Articles by Herschel Smith

Carry a big bore sidearm.

I’ve driven into Yellowstone during the winter along the road on a snowmobile. This snow pack looks weak this year, but I might be mistaken.

Source.

Oregon voters have moved one step closer this week to potentially banning hunting, fishing and animal agriculture.

On Thursday, activists submitted a final batch of signatures to state officials for a ballot measure that would effectively criminalize such practices.

The proposal, known as the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, has not officially qualified for the ballot yet. State officials have until August to decide whether it goes to a popular vote in November elections.

The measure, Initiative Petition 28, would remove hunting, fishing and livestock husbandry exceptions from the state’s animal abuse law.

“We want to see the state of Oregon stop killing animals,” David Michelson, who is spearheading the campaign, told KGW of the effort, his third attempt to get such rules on the ballot.

Lol. This not only effects hunting and fishing, this would put an end to cattle ranching or farmers harvesting chickens for meat.

Make no mistake about it. This is about worshiping the creation rather than the creator.

I suppose there is a little bit of good news. “Twenty-two states recognize the right to hunt and fish in their constitution, according to the National Rifle Association, while 11 states have bans on Sunday hunting.”

See SCOTUSBlog.

Whether the Second and 14th Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles … Petition GRANTED. The petition for a writ of certiorari in No. 25-566 is granted as to the question presented by the petition in No. 25-238.

The supreme court order is found here.

I have long advocated that the supreme court take up an AR ban case and decide this issue once and for all. Delaying this has done nothing good for either citizens or jurisprudence.

However, there is no reason to necessarily conclude the supreme court will decide this issue in the affirmative, especially with Barrett and Roberts having to be persuaded. But what it will do is stop this incessant whining in state legislatures over the issue. Either the supreme court judges in the affirmative and the issue of decided, or they don’t and states pick off God-granted rights one by one and citizens have to decide whether to fight the political battle (rather than reflexively lean on that tired platitude that “we aren’t voting our way out of this”), or decide to be ready when the SWAT teams come to the front door in the middle of the night.

This will be an extremely clarifying moment in American history.

The attorneys arguing the case are Cooper and kirk.  They did the Peterson 5^th circuit NFA case and a bunch of others, including Vanderstok, which lost. I don’t know much about them beyond that.

But I do know that if they argue the ridiculous trope about ARs being just some other firearm with extra cosmetic features and that those cosmetic features don’t really have any effect on the use of the weapon, they will lose. It’s not about that. It was never about cosmetic features. It’s about effective firearms for the amelioration of tyranny. “Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of Americans. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” – Tench Coxe, an American political economist and delegate to the Continental Congress, best known for his passionate defense of the right to bear arms. In a 1788 article published in the Pennsylvania Gazette under the pseudonym “A Pennsylvanian.”

This notion of military style weapons is and always has been a misdirect and a bald and stupid emotional appeal. There is no such thing as a non-military style weapon. Every weapon was at one time a military style weapon, from rocks to spears and then to knives and swords and then on to bows and then to muskets, bolt action rifles, and semiautomatic and fully automatic rifles.

The U.S. Marine Corps used Benelli shotguns for room clearing in Now Zad, Afghanistan, and I can prove it.

Door gunners used revolvers in Vietnam, and I can prove it.

MACV-SOG used revolvers and Marlin .444 lever action rifles in Laos, and I can prove it.

And bolt action rifles are still in use today with snipers. Make no mistake about this issue. It’s about disarming the public, not “military style weapons.”

And it’s about far more than just all of the above. A high-powered optic will convert a bolt action deer rifle into a sniper rifle if certain gun controller states get their way.

And I want to be able to carry an Ohio Ordnance HCAR, full auto, 30-06, anywhere I want to go. We all have our "wants."

— CaptainsJournal (@BrutusMaximus50) June 25, 2026

In order to stay abreast of the latest, see Wolford v. Lopez here and here.

In this decision, they held that:

Hawaii’s law prohibiting licensed concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public without the property owner’s express authorization violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

Reversed and remanded, 6-3, in an opinion by Samuel Alito on Jun 25, 2026. Justice Barrett wrote a concurring opinion, which Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined as to Part II-B. Justice Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Sotomayor.

Source.

A federal appeals court’s Thursday ruling could force the Supreme Court to decide if suppressors and magazines fall under the definition of “arms.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Thursday in Comeaux v. United States that suppressors fall under the category of “arms” and are protected under the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment Foundation noted the “circuit split,” when two appellate circuits disagree on similar cases, in a series of posts on X, while SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos Moros specifically mentioned the Ninth Circuit case Duncan v. Bonta.

“There is now a circuit split on whether suppressors are arms,” Moros posted. “This is of critical importance to those of us in states that totally ban them. While everyone else is arguing about whether registration is constitutional, we can’t even register them under the NFA if we wanted to!”

So what? The cowardly SCOTUS will ignore the circuit split just like they’ve ignored trampling 2A rights by failing to grant certiorari to AR ban cases.

Reminder: I still favor a complete 1-for-1 swap between the Fifth Circuit and the supreme court.

David Codrea.

“The Court is currently persuaded that both the history and practice surrounding Sec. 13 establish no individual right to possess military style weapons by members of the unorganized militia,” Glover states.

“The public is entitled to the implementation of laws” created by the representatives and approved by the Governor, Glover concludes. If the ban is struck down later, “the balance between the legislature judiciary is maintained [but] to enjoin the legislature preliminarily is not… in the public interest.”

He’s left the door the chicken coup wide open. All weapons are or were once used in military endeavors and thus have military style at some point, from knives to shotguns (see Marine Corps operations in Now Zad, Afghanistan), pistols, bows, bolt action rifles, high powered scopes, etc., etc.

That’s intended, by the way. The judge wants to leave the door open for the legislature to ban all firearms whether for militia use or not.

Cowboy State Daily.

While investigating a poaching case against a Utah hunting guide, wildlife officials found a video on his cellphone showing him shooting a compound bow at cattle.

In the video, one of the cows jumps after he releases an arrow, as if it might have been struck. The condition of the cattle remains “unknown,” Chase Pili, captain of administrative services for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), told Cowboy State Daily.

Pili said he wasn’t sure when the video — which was released Friday by the DWR — was taken, but charges were filed in the case in February.

[ … ]

The man was under investigation for allegedly poaching a deer, DWR reported. Investigators executed a search warrant on his cellphone and discovered a video of him shooting at cattle.

“In addition to significant legal fees, the suspect now faces a long-term suspension of both his hunting and guiding licenses,” the agency says.

Good grief.

The man is a sociopath.

Source.

A flesh‑eating fly thought eradicated decades ago has been found in Texas, its first return to the United States in generations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the presence of New World screwworm in a 3-week-old calf in Texas on June 3, marking the first known U.S. case in decades and the closest the parasite has come to reestablishing itself north of the Mexico border since its eradication in the 1960s.

The answer to this is clear and the solution easy.

So you kill the cartel boss who’s extorting money for the USDA flights. Then when you try another flight and some cartel big wig tries to extort money from you, you send folks to kill him too. And so on. Until you reach the end of cartel bosses who want to perish because of fly drops.

There is no real problem that can’t be solved in this manner. The other option is to let our cattle herds be eaten alive and forswear ever eating beef again.

Which will it be?

But we won’t do that because the U.S. has become a nation of effeminate cowards.