American Rifleman:

Heckler & Koch (H&K) is gearing up to deliver between 5,000 and 6,000 complete rifle weapon systems to the U.S. Amy, which plans to deploy them as M110A1 Squad Designated Marksman Rifles (SDMR). The rifle will be a variant of the 7.62×51 mm NATO G28/HK417, and will be manufactured by H&K in Oberndorf, Germany, before arriving at the H&K-U.S.A. facility in Columbus, Ga., in early 2020. There, scopes and mounts purchased under a separate agreement will be installed, as well as accessories from 12 other U.S.-based manufacturers. H&K will additionally provide spare parts, support and training.

Because presumably there aren’t any manufacturers in American that know anything about building firearms.

NYT:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — More than 150 gun owners turned in semiautomatic weapons and gun parts to the police in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday, the first day of nationwide gun buyback events after the government banned most such firearms in the wake of a terrorist attack on mosques in the city.

Mike Johnson, the commander of the district’s police department, told reporters that gun owners would be paid a total of close to $300,000 for the 224 now-illegal weapons handed over during the five-hour event.

[ … ]

“They were surprised that they were not able to leave with their firearms when they heard the prices and were not happy with them,” she said.

The most amusing thing about this is that it is reported as a success, but it involved only a few hundred gun owners.  What do you reckon word of pissed off gun owners will do to the coming swarms of people ready to turn in guns?  In related news, changes have come to New Zealand.  A national Islamic call to prayer was issued back in March.

What?  They couldn’t trust the government?

Resolve never to be disarmed.

To The Supreme Court.

There are, after all, substantial reasons to doubt that these ever-evolving developments will actually moot this case, as it is not at all clear that the City has foresworn the power to control where its residents may transport their duly licensed handguns or that there are no continuing effects from past violations of licensing restrictions that the City has consistently maintained are consistent with the Second Amendment. As for the state legislation to which respondents point, it is not even clear that it will ever take effect, rendering the question of what effect, if any, it will have on petitioners’ claims manifestly unripe.

Moreover, a party asserting that its own actions have mooted a case has “the ‘heavy burden of persua[ding]’ the court that the challenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to start up again.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Slater, 528 U.S. 216, 222 (2000) (alteration in original) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000)). That heavy burden should be heavier still where, as here, a defendant’s about-face is unabashedly motivated by a desire to deprive this Court of jurisdiction to review the defendant’s actions. See Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307 (2012) (“Such postcertiorari maneuvers designed to insulate a decision from review by this Court must be viewed with a critical eye.”). There are particularly strong reasons to doubt the sincerity of any claim that the City has forever changed its errant ways here given respondents’ declaration that they have no intention of taking any position before this Court on the constitutionality of the rules that they have changed. Indeed, the procedural irregularity of respondents’ actions to date makes plain that their goal is not just to try to moot this case, but to do everything they can to avoid ever having to take a definitive position on those issues. It is hard to understand why respondents are so reluctant to take any position on the questions on which this Court granted certiorari if they have no intention of resuming the challenged conduct or materially similar conduct in the future.

I have in on good authority that in legal circles, they call that the “slamma-jamma body-cramma.”

Prior: New York City Lawyers Argue To The Supreme Court That It Should Dismiss Case Against City’s Weapon Transportation Ban.

Via Codrea, this absurdity.

However, despite the case between Timbs and Indiana making it to the United States Supreme Court last year — and the SCOTUS unanimously ruling with Timbs — the state of Indiana is still trying to argue that even the most petty instances of breaking the law can result in civil asset forfeiture.

According to Reason, that includes a situation involving a vehicle that was stopped for going five miles per hour over the speed limit, if you ask Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher.

“This is the position that we already staked out in the Supreme Court when I was asked by Justice [Stephen] Breyer whether a Bugatti can be forfeited for going over five miles over the speed limit,” Fisher said last week during oral arguments before the Indiana Supreme Court.

“Historically, the answer to that question is yes, and we’re sticking with that position here.”

Ooooo … a lawyer “staked out a position.”  So I guess we’re all supposed to genuflect.  Even though it’s morally and legally wrong, if he’s staked out the position, well then, it must be enforceable even though the highest court in the land said no.

Because progs like the courts when it suits them, and they ignore the courts when it doesn’t.  So put that in your ecumenical pipe and smoke it, Justice Roberts.  Or stick it somewhere else.  He doesn’t give a rat’s ass what your court said.

David Kopel.

Early in the 18th century, rifle-makers from Germany and Switzerland began settling in Pennsylvania, in the Lancaster area. America was attracting skilled craftsmen immigrants who wanted to set up their own businesses, free from the repressive controls of the homeland.

In the UK or Germany, gunmakers usually had to belong to a trade guild. Entry into the guild was constricted. Guilds, as with other limits on suppliers, create oligopolies that reduce supply to consumers and increase profits to the limited number of suppliers. But in guild-free America, gunmakers could manufacture affordable arms for as many customers as they could find. The absence of guilds was one reason for the prevalence of guns in the American colonies.

It’s interesting to learn of the role liberty itself played in the proliferation of firearms in America due to the absence of oppressive guilds.  David continues in an explanation on when fighters preferred smooth bore guns versus rifled guns.  Then there is this interesting bit.

While European rifles generally had a caliber (interior bore diameter) of .60 or .75 inches, Americans preferred a smaller caliber, usually around .40 to .46, and sometimes as low as .32. A smaller caliber meant smaller bullets. One pound of lead will make 16 bullets for a .70 caliber gun, and 46 bullets for a .45 caliber. With the smaller caliber, a person on a hunting expedition that might last for weeks or months could carry a greater quantity of ammunition.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, yes?  Today the M-16 family of guns continues to be the staple of American fighting because of the smaller, lighter, higher velocity round it shoots.

I truly learn something every time I read Kopel.

Prince Law.

Late yesterday, I received an email from an individual containing a letter from ATF which was a response to a correspondence requesting the correct method to “measure a firearm with a ‘stabilizing brace’ and folding adaptor.” It was explained that the correspondence was sent in the form of an email over a year ago and that the person had received a response via email shortly after it was sent. This letter was unsolicited and came over a year after the original request and response.

[ … ]

Based on the letter, ATF is taking the position that because a stabilizing brace is not an integral part of the firearm, it is not relevant to the overall length measurement. Why does this matter? A number of individuals have been building AR pistols or other similar pistols that have utilized a stabilizing brace. Some have opted to add a vertical foregrip. However, based on this interpretation, those people may find that they have manufactured an “AOW”, which is subject to the restrictions of the National Firearms Act (“NFA”).

[ … ]

ATF has taken the position that once a vertical foregrip has been added to a firearm, it is no longer designed to be fired when held in one hand, removing it from the definition of a pistol, even though ATF previously lost this argument before the Ninth Circuit in U.S. v. Fix, 4 Fed. Appx. 324 (9th Cir. 2001).

Further, ATF has consistently held that the overall length of 26 inches is the breaking point for concealability. Put another way, if the firearm has an overall length of less than 26 inches, it places it into a category of arms that could be considered to be regulated by the NFA depending on their other characteristics. If it has an overall length greater than 26 inches, it could remove it from those class of firearms, again, depending on their characteristics.

Law-making by memorandum.  Any time you change your mind, just write a new note.

Related.

Daily Caller:

The Supreme Court should dismiss a challenge to New York City’s gun transportation ban because a new ordinance will moot the case, city lawyers told the justices Wednesday.

The ordinance and a newly enacted state law will give the plaintiffs who challenged the transportation ban everything they have sought in court, making dismissal the appropriate course, city lawyers wrote in a letter to the high court.

The new city regulation gives petitioners everything they have sought in this lawsuit,” assistant corporation counsel Richard Dearing wrote. “The new state law, upon signature by the governor, will make the case doubly moot.”

If the case is not dismissed, the city will continue arguing the dispute is moot in a legal brief due Aug. 5. They will not address the merits of the controversy, Dearing wrote.

If, however, this Court prefers to allow briefing (and potentially oral argument) to play out, respondents will file a brief on the designated due date maintaining in greater detail that the case is moot,” the letter reads.

Respondents do not intend to address whether the Constitution entitles petitioners (or any other residents of New York City with premises licenses) to transport their handguns from their homes in the city to second homes, or to firing ranges or shooting competitions beyond municipal borders, where they have a legal right to possess them. Respondents no longer have any stake in that legal question,” it adds.

It’s men like this who give other lawyers a bad name and reputation.

Essentially, they have presumed to boss the Supreme Court around, and told them that the case should be dismissed because it is moot, but if the case isn’t dismissed, they’ll just argue extensively in front of the court, attempting to embarrass everyone there, that the case is moot.

Not only that, they’ve conceded absolutely nothing, except what the petitioners ask for.  They didn’t concede that the constitution has any bearing on this, and they won’t argue the case on those merits.

Take note of the legal tricks and shenanigans here.  If the Supreme Court decides that the constitution does have bearing, and that they do in fact have a right under the constitution to what they asked for in their petition, New York lawyers can respond by saying that the Supreme Court case is and was un-argued.  The Supreme Court decided something that wasn’t asked, something the SCOTUS really doesn’t like to do.  Now, the court can do just that, but my bet is that they won’t, not with Roberts at the helm.

They’re taking their ball and going home because they’re bitches.

General Cornwallis had as his strategy to conduct war in South Carolina, taking and holding the important port city of Charleston, and then move north through North Carolina, meeting up with General Howe to end the campaign.  It was a bold plan, and he had dealt a blow to the continental forces on the field of battle on a number of occasions.

But the size of the continent and the temperament of the people made it impossible to prosecute a war of this kind with the forces and lines of logistics he had at his disposal.  The linchpin of his plan called for the utilization of loyalist forces to do battle with patriots.

Enter Major Patrick Ferguson, who was tasked by Cornwallis with leading loyalist forces, whom he had no difficulty recruiting in his sweep through South Carolina.  He sent a message to the patriots: “If you do not desist your opposition to the British Arms, I shall march this army over the mountains, hang your leaders, and lay waste your country with fire and sword.”

Not dissuaded from battle, the patriot forces, enhanced mainly by the “Overmountain men,” decided to give chase to Major Patrick Ferguson and the loyalists.  The loyalist forces heard of the plan because of a couple of deserters from the patriot forces, and decided to retreat to the protection of Cornwallis and his forces.

The Overmountain Men had ridden horseback for a protracted period to convene with other forces, much of it sleeping in the day and riding at night.  But now they had to move quickly.  After convening, they had to ride horseback through the night, and much of the day, and prosecuted battle in the afternoon hours with no sleep.  Yet they dealt a decisive blow to the loyalist forces.

Many of the Overmountain Men were under the age of 18, raised hard and experienced in the American bush and hills.  In the small townships in the Appalachian mountains, the men had to stay and tend crops, tend livestock, and protect the family.  Sons had to be dispatched to fight the campaign.  Women and men, mothers and fathers, lined the roads and sang hymns as their sons rode by and they dispatched their sons to war.  They saw it as a religious quest.

The patriot victory at King’s Mountain had great significance.  Cornwallis, who had planned to use a victory over the patriots there, held his plans in abatement.  His plans to use loyalists completely shattered and abandoned, he got bogged down in a guerrilla campaign in South Carolina in the bush and swamps.  He finally set out through North Carolina, but his forces were so depleted, sick and without logistics that all he could manage was a retreat to the coast to ensconce until surrender.  His lines of logistics had effectively been cut by the patriots.

This marked the turning point of the campaign.  Cornwallis won conventional victories, but was never able to manage the insurgency in South Carolina.  The British lost, and General Howe wasn’t far behind the surrender of Cornwallis.

This fourth of July, celebrate the lives of the great men who brought you what liberty you enjoy.

News from Virginia.

Vincent Smith wasn’t in the office when a fellow Virginia Beach city employee opened fire there, ultimately killing 12 and wounding five in the carnage five weeks ago.

After getting notice of the shooting that afternoon in Building 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, Smith, 49, raced to the nearby emergency operations center, where he helped out until late in the night.

It was soon clear that although law enforcement arrived within two minutes of the report May 31 of an active shooter, the gunman had been able to move through offices and fire at fellow city employees without being confronted by another firearm.

Now, Smith, the city’s division manager for construction services, is taking action in hopes of preventing such a situation from occurring again.

“Their policy failed, and it failed their employees, and we’ve got to do something different,” Smith said of Virginia Beach officials in a phone interview Monday with The Daily Signal. “I’ll take it all the way to the Legislature if I have to.”

Bringing back a petition he started over three years ago to allow city employees to carry a concealed firearm at work, Smith so far has garnered support from almost 5,000 of Virginia Beach’s estimated 450,000 residents, many of them fellow city employees.

Among the petition’s original 260 signees was construction project manager Herbert Snelling, the only person to lose his life in the shooting who wasn’t a city worker. His family described Snelling, 57, as a gun rights activist and a man “who loved Jesus deeply.”

Smith’s petition seeks to overturn a policy that prevents the resort city’s 6,000 employees from carrying a concealed handgun in the workplace.

Good.  This is just the way God intended it to be.  This is good for city workers.  Now, what about everyone else?

Shooting Illustrated.

In the late 1980s, gunwriter Dean Grennell took .451 Detonics Mag. brass and trimmed it to the same overall length as the .45 ACP cartridge case, thus creating the .45 Super. Grennell wrote an article for the February 1988 issue of Gun World Magazine, discussing his new version of the .45 ACP, which was capable of pushing a 185-grain bullet to 1,300 fps. In the August 1988 issue of Gun World Magazine, a second article about the .45 Super—written by Tom Ferguson—appeared. Ferguson was interested in Grennell’s concept cartridge, but he wanted to take things a step further. He took a handful of .451 Detonics Mag. brass and a 1911 pistol to Ace Hindman of Ace Custom 45s. Hindman came up with the idea of heavier springs in the 1911 to make it more suited to the higher-pressure cartridge.

In 1994, Fernando Coelho—owner of Triton Cartridge—reached out to Garey Hindman, Ace’s son, who was still converting 1911s and even some Smith & Wesson Model 4506 pistols to accommodate the.45 Super. The problem with the cartridge was a lack of suitable brass. Coelho had recently started Triton Cartridge and felt that with his background in load development, coupled with actual in-house pressure testing, he would be able to come up with reliable, factory-loaded, .45 Super ammunition. A deal was struck and Coelho reached out to Starline Brass to get the ball rolling. The folks at Starline worked with Coelho to establish correct internal case-wall dimensions, web-area thickness and overall hardness of the cartridge case.

But, just like the .300 BLK found fame because of its name, the.45 Super—as a commercial cartridge—was doomed because of what it was called. You see, when Ace Hindman passed away, his son trademarked “.45 Super.” When Triton made factory-loaded .45 Super ammo, Garey Hindman would get a royalty, which was something a bit unusual in the ammunition business. Because of this, no major firearm or ammunition manufacturer would offer .45 Super guns or ammunition. There was also the concern that a shooter might load and fire .45 Super ammo in a vintage .45 ACP revolver or an old 1911 and get an unpleasant surprise.

All this led to the birth of the .450 SMC. Coelho was fed up with the inherent issues of the .45 ACP/.45 Super cartridge case and the damage being done to the potential growth of the .45 Super. One of the case problems was primer flow; you could experiment with different brands of primers and powder, but most of the time primers would flow back around the tip of the firing pin. The solution: switch to a small-primer pocket and utilize a small-rifle primer. Coelho reached out to Starline again, asking the company to make .45 Super brass with a small-primer pocket. That solved the primer-flow problem and Triton Cartridge soon began offering factory-loaded .450 SMC ammunition. It was loaded to a maximum average pressure (MAP) of 32,000 psi, which is slightly higher than .45 Super pressures, but still less than the 37,500 psi pressure of the 10 mm. The new name—.450 SMC—solved the trade-mark problem, and Triton had two loads: a 165-grain bullet at 1,450 fps and a 230-grain bullet at 1,150 fps.

When Triton went out of business in 2003, it looked like the .450 SMC was doomed. But, another new ammunition company stepped up to offer one of the most potent and practical magnum-category, .45-caliber, defensive-handgun cartridges ever created. Mike McNett of DoubleTap Ammunition recognized the usefulness of the .450 SMC and his Cedar City, UT-based company now offers six .450 SMC loads.

Comparatively speaking, the hottest factory 185-grain .45 ACP load you can buy will generate only about 1,140 fps, and the fastest 230-grain offering only about 1,000 fps. Essentially, what you get with the .450 SMC are 10 mm velocities with a .45-caliber instead of a .40-caliber bullet.

Of course, since no one is manufacturing .450 SMC handguns, what you’re probably wondering is what you have to do to shoot .450 SMC in your .45 ACP. Well, a .450 SMC cartridge can be fired in any .45 ACP handgun. However—and this is a big however—it should only be fired in full-size .45 ACP handguns that have a +P rating. (A 20- to 22-pound recoil spring in your favorite 5-inch 1911, or a 21- to 23-pound spring in a Glock.)

This is a great article.  I was unaware of all of that history, and as I said, I have 450 SMC and carried it recently.

I’m not really sympathetic to getting “nasty surprises” because the burden to do what’s smart should rest squarely on the shoulders of the user.  In other words, don’t be an idiot.  However, I do understand issues of legal liability.  They haven’t completely gone away with the 450 SMC design.

Then there is this: “A 230-grain load fired from the .450 SMC cartridge out of a 5-inch 1911 will generate about 78 percent more recoil than a 230-grain load fired from a .45 ACP.”

With the .450 SMC (Short Magnum Cartridge) you get > 10mm velocity with a heavier bullet.  What you have to accept is the heavier recoil.