I covered this earlier when it was argued before the Delaware Supreme Court.  Of course, the legal system in Delaware was arguing before the court that they couldn’t carry firearms.  This exchange followed in deliberations, and then I asked a pointed question.

Valihura also pressed Durstein about an individual’s right to carry a gun for self-defense, which he argued is less acute in a park tent or cabin than in a person’s home. Durstein said the trade-off for banning guns is a commitment by the state to provide law enforcement in state parks.

“Your own regs state that camping is at your own risk, state forests are a public use area and there are no after-hours, nighttime or weekend security,” Valihura noted.

With no evidentiary record to draw on, Justice James Vaughn also wondered about the protection being afforded park visitors.

“We have no idea how much police security is actually provided in these state parks, do we?” Vaughn asked. “I’ve been in them. Occasionally you’ll see a ranger go by, something like that, but I don’t seen any police presence in there.”

I posed this.

Why the hell does the legal system keep promulgating this idiotic myth that the police are there to protect anyone?  They aren’t, and they know it.  And the police know it.  The only people who don’t know it are the peasants who think the police will come to their rescue.

Remember.  In the 1981 decision in Warren v. District of Columbia the D.C. Court of Appeals concluded that it is a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”  In Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), the Supreme Court declined to expand any requirements for protection and ruled that the police cannot be sued for failure to protect individuals, even when restraining orders were in place.

Maybe the Supreme Court listened.

Delaware Supreme Court justices have ruled that a weapons ban in Delaware’s state parks and forests is unconstitutional.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, it is now legal to bring firearms into state parks and forests. Since the 1960s, a ban on firearms has prohibited people, even those with a permit, to carry a concealed, deadly weapon on thousands of acres of state-owned parks.

A similar ban concerning state forests followed in the 1970s. Those rules did include exceptions for hunting, which did not apply to people carrying concealed weapons for self-defense.

Gun advocates who fought the ban are applauding the decision, which they say upholds a God-given right to bear arms.

“They did the right thing,” said Jeff Hague, one of several plaintiffs named in the lawsuit originally filed in Chancery Court in 2015. “This reaffirms the constitutional right that Delawareans have … to self-defense and the right to keep and bear arms, not just in hunting and fishing and sporting, but in defense of their family and home.”

Who knows.  If I didn’t persuade them, I’m glad somebody did.

Via David.  Posted under “gun control,” because that’s what it is, plain and simple.

I had covered this act (H.R. 38 and H.R. 4477) here, albeit briefly.  I was skeptical.  Now I’ve read the bill, and I’m even more skeptical and I have begun to trust my initial inclinations on things like this.  I’ve covered gun rights and politics long enough to know a turd pile when I smell it.

This opinion will place be squarely out of accord with 99% of gun writers and analysts, and much of the gun community, but I’m okay with that.  We’ll see who was right, and if I’m wrong I’ll say so when proven so.

Reddit/r/firearms is simply giddy over this, as are most in the gun community as best as I can tell.  The active thread is here.  I actually read the bill before recent amendments, and the bill as passed can be located here.  Not much has changed with the amendments.

The first thing I’ll observe is that meeting the stipulations of the alleged “fix” of the NICS will be onerous and detailed, and will absolutely required a huge bureaucracy along with a permanent electronic system of prohibited persons managed and adjudicated by bureaucrats.  The details are too numerous to outline here, but go read the bill for yourself and make your own decisions.  I don’t like this aspect of the bill.

NOTE: [David Codrea sent me a note and asked me, “Where is the bump stock wording?”  My answer: It was apparently removed by amendment.  It is in the draft bill.  Thanks to David for the correction.  I missed its removal.  I’m trying.  It’s difficult to keep up.]

The second thing I’ll observe is that they throw bump stocks under the bus.  I neither have a bump stock nor am I inclined to purchase one, but if I did want one in the future, bump stocks will (I suspect) either be illegal or an NFA item.  The bill requires the attorney general’s office (he’ll assign it to lawyers in the DoJ) to study bump stocks and report back on why they shouldn’t be controlled like machine guns.

I said earlier that “I do not support any bill, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason whatsoever, that includes more gun laws.  I do not believe in compromise.”  I maintain my position, and I oppose “throwing anything under the bus” or sacrificing anything else to the god of the state like pagans sacrificed children to Baal.

Perhaps the most problematic thing to me about this whole effort is the way it reads straight out of the gate.  Consider the following language.

‘‘(a) Notwithstanding any provision of the law of any State or political subdivision thereof (except as provided in subsection (b)) and subject only to the requirements of this section, a person who is not prohibited by Federal law from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm, who is carrying a valid identification document containing a photograph of the person, and who is carrying a valid license or permit which is issued pursuant to the law of a State and which permits the person to carry a concealed firearm or is entitled to carry a concealed firearm in the State in which the person resides, may possess or carry a concealed handgun (other than a machinegun or destructive device) that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, in any State that—

(1) has a statute under which residents of the State may apply for a license or permit to carry a concealed firearm

Think hard about this.  Why is it necessary to include the language stipulating that this is for states that have a statute under which residents of the state may apply for a license or permit to carry a concealed firearm?

The answer of course is that it isn’t necessary.  They could have stopped without even including that stipulation.  You mark my words on this.  This will be the subject of endless court deliberations, endless contradictory bureaucratic rulings, endless AG interpretations, and endless arrests of concealed carriers across state lines.

So how many permits to carry have been issued in Hawaii?  How many permits to carry have been issued in New York, Connecticut or Massachusetts to holders who weren’t retired LEOs?  Is it possible for Maura Healey to decide that if her state doesn’t really do that sort of thing for regular people, you know, the peasants like you and me, then her state isn’t subject to this law?

You bet it is, and it will happen.  But the language is there, right up front, and it didn’t have to be.  It could have been omitted entirely and still have accomplished everything it needed.  And it will go through endless appeals, and the SCOTUS will not – I repeat, WILL NOT – take up the cases.  This will all lead to endless fund raising emails and flyers from the NRA to fight the good fight in endless court battles.  Speaking of the NRA, they have really staked out an awful position with their name calling and the ugliness with which they are treating fellow gun groups.

“We are in the thick of the legislative process and a so-called ‘pro-gun group,’ which is nothing more than a fundraising entity, is spreading lies about the FIX NICS legislation that was attached to the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act,” Lars Dalseide, a spokesperson for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Their talking points are nothing but lies. Unfortunately, they are misleading well-meaning members of Congress with these false and inaccurate talking points.”

Differences of opinion and different interpretations aren’t lies, sir.  Are you calling me a liar?  Or stupid?  I have very strong opinions on this piece of legislation, and I’m willing to say I’m wrong if proven so in the future.  I’ve never once heard that from the NRA.

I suspect that no one who is permitted to carry in North Carolina or Texas will ever legally carry in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut or Hawaii under this bill.  That is, if the Senate passes such a bill, which I doubt.  It may pass something worse, and deliberations in committee may even water down what little good is there about the right to carry on federally controlled lands.

The Sacramento Bee:

Blood stains at the end of the Crawford County, Georgia driveway had been covered up with sand Monday in the spot where a dog was beheaded with a kitchen knife early evening Friday.

Clumps of dog hair were still visible on the blood-soaked blue collar nearby.

Joe Nate Goodwin says he decapitated his 2-year-old dog at the behest of the sheriff’s deputies, who had been called out to the house earlier in the day after a neighbor was bitten on the leg.

Goodwin said he wasn’t home when a deputy came by the house. The dog lunged toward the deputy, who shot it dead near the mailbox, he said.

I appreciate your visits to this post.

I’m glad that you got a chance to hear me say that “I do not support any bill, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason whatsoever, that includes more gun laws.  I do not believe in compromise.”

As for my readers, it helps to make comments.  HoR and other readers got a chance to hear Fred say this.

Violating the 2A to fix ‘smaller’ state violations of the 2A is retarded.

Maybe burning DC to ground and hanging everyone from the neck until dead isn’t the way to go. Maybe, we need to start with the ‘gun rights’ groups.

Weigh in with robust opinions in the comments section.

National Interest:

Why would U.S. special forces want to manufacture Russian machine guns?

Just watch any video of a conflict such as Iraq and Syria, and the answer becomes clear. Many of the combatants are using Russian or Soviet weapons, or local copies thereof, from rifles to rocket launchers to heavy machine guns mounted on pickups. Which means that when U.S. special forces provide some of these groups with weapons, they have to scrounge through the global arms market to buy Russian hardware as well as spare parts.

So U.S. Special Forces Command, which oversees America’s various commando units, has an idea: instead of buying Russian weapons, why not build their own? That’s why USSOCOM is asking U.S. companies to come up with a plan to manufacture Russian and other foreign weapons.

The goal is to “develop an innovative domestic capability to produce fully functioning facsimiles of foreign-made weapons that are equal to or better than what is currently being produced internationally,” according to the USSOCOM Small Business Innovation Research proposal.

More specifically, USSOCOM wants American companies to explore whether it is feasible to “reverse engineer or reengineer and domestically produce the following foreign-like weapons: 7.62×54R belt fed light machine gun that resembles a PKM (Pulemyot Kalashnikova Modernizirovany), and a 12.7×108mm heavy machine gun that resembles a Russian-designed NSV (Nikitin, Sokolov, Volkov).”

Applicants for the research project must produce “five fully functional prototypes, to include firing of live ammunition, of a foreign-like weapon that resembles the form, fit, and function of a Russian-designed NSV 12.7×108mm heavy machine gun.”

However, USSOCOM won’t make the process easy by providing assistance such as technical drawings. Interested companies will have to make their own drawings of foreign weapons, acquire the appropriate parts and raw materials, and create a manufacturing capability.

Companies will also have to “address the manufacture of spare parts to support fielded weapons.” In addition, they must be prepared to start up and shut down production as needed, as well as provide varying quantities of weapons.

USSOCOM also emphasizes that foreign weapons must be strictly made in America. Manufacturers “will employ only domestic labor, acquire domestically produced material and parts, and ensure weapon manufacture and assembly in domestic facilities.”

Though USSOCOM is starting with a pair of Russian machine guns, the research proposal speaks of foreign-made weapons in general. “Developing a domestic production capability for foreign-like weapons addresses these issues while being cost effective as well as strengthens the nation’s military-industrial complex, ensures a reliable and secure supply chain, and reduces acquisition lead times.”

Of course, one unstated solution to this problem is for the problem not to exist at all, which would mean minding our own damn business and not arming everyone on earth with weapons.  America has become Imperialists, meddlers, bilkers of armaments, precious metals, money, children and oil.  Basically, anything worth something on the open market interests Washington, most of all the deep state (including Senators, the FBI and the CIA).

The second thing that should be pointed out is that the world would prefer American weapons if we made them better.  The Stoner system of arms (in particular today that means mostly the AR-15) is ubiquitous, but for machine guns, both light and heavy, or basically anything that needs to operate open bolt rather than closed bolt for heat dissipation, the rest of the world leads the way, including with the M249 SAW (not so for the M2, which as best as I know, is still the best heavy machine gun in the world).

Without the NFA and gun control act, civilians would be able to manufacture and innovate in order to field the very best armaments on the planet.  We have the best engineers, the best machinists, the best gunsmiths and the best mechanics on the planet, so there isn’t any reason we can’t field the best armaments on the planet.

But machines are vetted on the open civilian market, not within the closed circles of the military industrial apparatus.  We will always lag behind, as we should, because the rulers want to rule, and they fear the American public.

Too bad.  Suck it up, American military.  You get machines built by the lowest cost bidder, and innovation isn’t in the game plan.  The government is out of money, and civilians have been excluded from the process.  We are doing our own thing.

USA Today:

Federal authorities sought to take back guns from thousands of people the background check system should have blocked from buying weapons because they had criminal records, mental health issues or other problems that would disqualify them.

A USA TODAY review found that the FBI issued more than 4,000 requests last year for agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to retrieve guns from prohibited buyers.

It’s the largest number of such retrieval requests in 10 years, according to FBI records – an especially striking statistic after revelations that a breakdown in the background check system allowed a troubled Air Force veteran to buy a rifle later used to kill 26 worshipers at a Texas church last month.

The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) vets millions of gun purchase transactions every year. But the thousands of gun seizure requests highlight persistent problems in a system where analysts must complete background checks within three days of the proposed purchase. If the background check is not complete within the 72-hour time limit, federal law allows the sale to go forward. ATF agents are asked to take back the guns if the FBI later finds these sales should have been denied.

In addition to the public safety risks, the ATF agents tasked with retrievingthe banned weapons from unauthorized gun owners across the country are exposed to potentially dangerous confrontations.

“These are people who shouldn’t have weapons in the first place, and it just takes one to do something that could have tragic consequences,” said David Chipman, a former ATF official who helped oversee the firearm retrieval program. “You don’t want ATF to stand for ‘after the fact.'”

No, I don’t.  I’d rather the ATF didn’t exist at all since they are an unconstitutional entity based on unconstitutional laws and regulations.

There.  Fixed it.

AllOutdoor:

A recent article in a second-class gun magazine reviewed several handguns that were introduced at the 2017 SHOT Show in Las Vegas. The author called revolvers “antiquated technology on par with the manual typewriter,” but went on to state that despite this, American gun consumers simply cannot get enough of them. He was certainly correct on that account.

If anything, revolvers are just as popular today as ever, if not moreso given the introductions of new, exciting models from major gun manufacturers. If these wheel guns did not sell, why would gun makers continue to produce them? In fact, they cannot keep up with demand for new revolvers.

Now, to be fair, that author is just another millennial type who was not raised on wheel guns. These guys grew up on cable TV, tofu, sushi, MTV, X-Boxes, and sports drinks. They go all goo-goo for pistols. The more switches and buttons to push, the better. Just the sound of a racking slide makes them break out in goose bumps.

Trying to describe the practical aspects of a revolver, the fun and beauty of the timing of a hammer cocking to align with a loaded cylinder chamber is like trying to talk about a 1955 Ford Thunderbird or a Chevy SS with a 396 under the hood. That guy probably drives an electric car.

I recently spoke to a gun store employee who said the same thing.  There has been a rediscovery of revolvers within the past year to two.  I hope I’ve been in some small way responsible for that in my own little circle of readers.  I commented to him that there is no reason that the revolver should ever become obsolete.

He shrugged and said, “And they’re a ton of fun to shoot!”  Well, yes, more fun than pistols, but I agree with the author.  It’s more than that.  It’s the beauty of the machine, the precision of the action, the gorgeous build of the gun, the feel of the “purchase,” and the sweet, light trigger in single action.

And don’t discount the reliability factor either.  Finally, the small gap between the cylinder and forcing cone means that rounds that cannot be handled in most pistols (excepting the VERY large and heavy Desert Eagle) can be handled in revolvers, up to and including 500 S&W.  You cannot achieve 1400 FPS with a 9mm pistol because of chamber pressure, but you can with a .357 magnum wheel gun.

I did the plastic (polymer) gun scene, and sold them all for 1911s and revolvers.  Revolvers are only passé to immature, pea brain millennials who have no appreciation for the finer things.

Philly.com:

Sixteen of the nation’s top retired military commanders are urging Congress to pass gun control legislation, arguing that there are many steps that can be taken to curb gun deaths that do not violate the Second Amendment.

In a letter they plan to send to Congressional leaders, the retired commanders, including Army Gens. Wesley Clark and Michael Hayden, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip and Marine Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney, argue that Congress is “no longer speaking or voting for the majority of Americans, including gun owners” when it comes to the issue of firearms.

“There is no acceptable excuse for our elected leaders to avoid addressing this as a national crisis,” they write.

The group is part of the veterans coalition of a gun control group founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly. They laid out their arguments in a letter they plan to send to Congressional leaders.

[ … ]

The letter comes as a House panel this week voted to advance a measure that would expand the ability to carry concealed firearms across state lines. Under the bill, known as concealed carry reciprocity, a person with a concealed-carry permit and a photo identification would be able to have a concealed weapon in any state that allows them. The gun owner would still have to follow state and local laws regarding where and what type of weapons can be carried. The National Rifle Association has called the bill its “highest legislative priority in Congress.”

The legislation is scheduled for a House vote next week. Its sponsor, Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said in a statement that the bill is extremely popular and “momentum, common sense, and the facts are on our side.”

Giffords said the bill weakens public safety, and Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he agrees.

“In the aftermath of two of the country’s worst mass shootings, it’s an affront to both our safety as a nation and the common sense of its citizens that Congress would consider actually weakening our gun laws,” McChrystal said. “Untrained and potentially dangerous people have no business carrying guns in our communities, but the concealed carry bill in the House would allow exactly that.”

Well isn’t this special?  A list of traitors self identifies – again.  We knew this about some of these men, such as Petraeus and McChrysytal.  We also knew that Petraeus is an adulterer and McChrystal is a murderer (of the men at Ganjgal).  I’m not certain whether we also knew that about the other signatories to this abomination, but if not, then welcome to the party.  You’re on our very own list now.

At least with people who haven’t sworn to uphold and defend the constitution (some people grow up hating liberty and never once utter words of commitment to anyone or anything but themselves), urging gun control wouldn’t be out of character, even though still contrary to duty and righteousness.

But these are men who have taken the oaths they have, and then behave contrary to everything to which they have agreed.  Oh well, Petraeus did that with his wife too, and McChrystal did that to the men at Ganjgal.  Men who can’t be trusted … can’t be trusted, ever.  They prove it in all of their ways, in all of their words, and in all of their actions.

The military is rife with such men just as is law enforcement.  You cannot use exterior accoutrements as an indication of quality of character.