Long ago I posted on Jeremy Bryant who hitchhiked with a .357 magnum wheel gun openly carried.  He did it “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”  I respect that. Unfortunately, the URL changed and the link went dead (the embedded video wouldn’t respond).

I quite accidentally stumbled across this video again, and I can’t think of a better way to ring in the new year than to commit to making gun carry commonplace among gentlemen of good character.

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How much power does the government claim on private land?

“Unfettered,” according to a Commonwealth Court decision in a case pitting the Pennsylvania Game Commission against two private gun clubs.

On Sept. 29, a court ruled against two hunting clubs in their lawsuit accusing the Game Commission of private property rights violations. The Institute for Justice represents both clubs and will appeal.

In its ruling, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania noted the government’s absolute power to “roam private land without consent, warrants or probable cause.”

“Private land isn’t public property,” says institute attorney Josh Windham. “That might seem obvious. But all too many officials, at every level of government, disagree. They think they have a blank check to invade private property. We’ll see what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has to say about that.”

On Dec. 16, 2021, Pitch Pine and Punxsutawney hunting clubs sued the Game Commission after game wardens consistently entered club lands without permission or warrant, and secretly monitored club members, including photo collection via installation of a hidden game camera. The wardens’ behavior, the lawsuit asserted, was a direct violation of Pennsylvania’s state constitution, which explicitly protects “persons, houses, papers, and possessions.”

Most Americans assume law enforcement must obtain a warrant to enter or surveil private land, but for roughly a century, the Open Fields doctrine has allowed government officials, at state and federal levels, unqualified access to private land.

In its judgment Sept. 29, the Commonwealth Court detailed the alarming powers and “unfettered discretion” assumed by government via Open Fields:

“The facts of this case are not in dispute. The Hunting Clubs are member-owned hunting clubs that own thousands of acres of private land in Clearfield County. Members use the properties to hunt, vacation, and enjoy nature. To ensure their members’ privacy, the Hunting Clubs have posted their properties with no trespassing signs and have installed gates at all entrances to exclude nonmembers and intruders. However, the Entry Statutes empower game wardens with unfettered discretion to enter upon and roam private land without consent, warrants, or probable cause.”

People believe that DNR officers have more power than any other LEO, and DNR officers certainly act like it. Their claim is that since they are after perishable evidence, they need this access.

But that’s just too bad. Police who bust open doors looking for drugs are also after perishable evidence (the drugs could be flushed down a toilet). I have long held that police raids on homes are a violation of the fourth amendment and therefore unconstitutional. Any good man would believe the same thing.

The so-called “open fields” doctrine should be stricken from the books in every state where they exist. Furthermore, I generally don’t like the power granted by the state to game officers. Every man should obey the game laws. But every man won’t, just like crime will happen all day every day across America. Game laws are no different. Violation of game laws still falls within the purview of constitutional protections regardless of what agents of the state think.

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JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ill. (WSIL) — The January 1st Deadline for Illinois gun owners to register their assault-style weapons is approaching.

This is for Illinoisans who already owned assault weapons before the Protect Illinois Communities Act was passed last January.

Jefferson County’s Sheriff Jeff Bullard says the law is more like a request until the Supreme Court determines if the law is constitutional.

“The fact that 90 sheriffs have declared that it’s unconstitutional, including myself being one of them, uh, and stating we won’t be enforcing it,” Bullard said.

Well that’s funny and nothing makes me happier in this sad affair than to see people refusing to comply.

However, the sheriff may be waiting a very long time. As I’ve said, I see the supreme court running from this issue.

It’s one thing to want to see a full decision tree with evidence gathered before making judgment. But as Professor Mark Smith has pointed out, the Heller decision was made completely without presentation of evidence.  This decision should be easy and quick for the supreme court.

“Since semi-automatic firearms and standard capacity magazines are in common use, according to our decision in Heller they cannot be banned. The law is ruled unconstitutional.”

There.  I did it for them. They don’t need 80 pages of prose to do this. They’re just scared.

Stupid Getty Images.

Get your thumb away from the forcing cone and cylinder gap, lady.

This is a mildly interesting video, but I neither have heroes nor get involved in drama.  The most interesting part to me was this comment.

Hop is spot on about where the RD’s come from. I do have one caveat about the claim about the PCBs however. I’ve worked in the industry as a consultant and the number one question I was getting from CEOs and CMOs was how to make sure they stay legal with “Made in USA” and “Assembled in USA” regulations and how much in fines they can expect to pay when they violate them. And almost everyone violates them. In many countries, including the United States, there are strict regulations governing these labels. To be labeled as “Made in USA,” a product generally must be “all or virtually all” made in the United States. This means that a significant portion of the product’s total manufacturing costs must be incurred in the US, and the final assembly or processing of the product must also occur in the U.S. This is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. The supply chain for everything is global and massive. You’d be shocked if I told you how few things are “honest to God” made here (that actually satisfy FTC compliance). The number of US-located CNC machines, the cornerstone of modern manufacturing, is such a tiny percentage of World’s CNC fleet that I immediately distrust the “Made in USA” certification of origin of some small part (and large parts too). I’m also highly skeptical when manufacturers claim that their PCBs are made here. We’d need to have 20-25x more PCB manufacturing plants for the amount of PCBs that are claimed to be “Made in the USA”. Don’t believe me? Just call up some of the PCB manufactures and try to get some quotes and lead time. You’ll quickly realize that your product will be ready in 2 years time and it will cost 2-3x what your C-suite is asking for. Even the F-35 contractors got into hot water when it was found that most of the PCBs that were “Made in the US” were actually Made in China. Even today, most of the multi-layer, high-speed/high-frequency, PCBs for F-35 are Made in China. A fact that everyone sweeps under the rug now.

This is honestly a very sad thing.  America lost its ability to do large steel construction long ago with the demise of that work in Pennsylvania, the ports in Virginia and a couple of places in Alabama. Thus, today we can no longer fabricate large sea-going vessels such as battleships or carriers. Even the reactor vessels for Catawba Nuclear Station were made in the Rotterdam shipyard.

Optical quality glass is obviously made now only in Germany and Japan.

I guess it’s the same for printed circuit boards. What a shame and a sham that we cannot make our own electronics. You can blame our rulers for that as they whored themselves after globalism.  The whole thing is ridiculous and it’s not only a sad commentary on our competitiveness, but national security as well.

I thought after the Covid scam Ford intended to start up manufacturing of PCBs in America? I don’t know how that’s going.

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(FOX40.COM) — A new California law that would restrict licensed gun holders from carrying their firearms in many public places will not go into full effect on Jan. 1 as scheduled, after a federal judge deemed it unconstitutional.

The law, Senate Bill 2, was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 26 and included an array of gun control measures. On Dec. 20, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued an order to stop one of SB 2’s regulations, the ban on licensed gun carrying in a public place. According to SB 2, it would have been illegal in California for licensed gun carriers to have their firearms at bars, churches, parks, public events, stadiums, casinos, financial institutions, medical facilities, on public transportation, and other places.

“The Second Amendment preserves a fundamental constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense,” Carney said in his ruling. “Increasingly in modern times, with ‘the ubiquity of guns and our country’s high level of gun violence,’ ordinary law-abiding people feel a need to carry handguns in public to protect themselves and their families against violence.”

Carney mentioned that people who legally carry guns are “among the most responsible, reliable law-abiding citizens” and have been through a “vigorous vetting and training process” to carry a handgun. According to Carney, CCW permitholders are not the gun wielders legislators should fear.

“CCW permitholders are not responsible for any of the mass shootings or horrific gun violence that has occurred in California,” Carney said. “SB2 requires that law-abiding citizens open themselves up for slaughter at the hands of people flaunting the law and creates numerous areas ripe for mass murder by ensuring there is no one there to protect people.”

He added that some people who have a concealed weapons permit (CCW) live in high-crime neighborhoods where they reasonably fear being robbed, murdered, and raped. Carney said CCW holders should be able to carry a weapon to protect themselves in those situations.

“SB2 provisions unconstitutionally deprive this group of their constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense,” Carney said. “Therefore, those provisions must be preliminarily enjoined.”

Well, that’s part of the purpose of the second amendment, but not even nearly all of it, the major part having to do with tyranny. It’s the last part that scares the powerful, rich and famous.

But it’s nice to see the occasional win. But it will probably be stayed by the communists on the Ninth Circuit.

Those poor folks just take in on the chin, yes? I’ve exchanged email with the president of the Hawaii rifle and pistol club. Nice guy. I’m sorry for this, but after all, it is a communist state superintended by a communist Ninth Circuit.

Note the horns of a dilemma they impale the supposedly free men on: You can’t have our permission without an approved instructor, and we don’t approve any instructors.

A friend responds, would be great if someone enforced the laws on the books, huh?

18 U.S.C. § 241 (conspiracy against rights)

18 U.S.C. § 242 (deprivation of rights under color of law)

TTAG.

Shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, officers responded to the location for a report of an attempted home invasion robbery. Police spoke to the homeowner, who said three men tried to break down his door but were unsuccessful and fled the scene.

The SPD says the suspects tried a second time at around 12:25 a.m. the next morning.

Authorities say four men returned to the house to try breaking the door down with a sledgehammer.

The homeowner told police he was sleeping and woke up to loud banging at the door. He armed himself with a rifle, and when the suspects tried getting inside, he shot at them.

Most of the time home invasions are conducted by more than one person. The only thing missing here is the common protocol of the criminals to shout “Police, Police …”  Including those who are actually police.

Source.

Gaston Glock, the man responsible for developing the namesake weapon, died on Wednesday at the age of 94.

Glock developed the famous handgun in the 1980s, when the Austrian military was looking for a new, innovative weapon. Until then, the Glock company had made military knives and consumer goods including curtain rods.

Glock assembled a team of firearms experts and came up with the Glock 17, a lightweight semi-automatic gun largely made of plastic. The revolutionary design – with a frame made of a high-strength, nylon-based polymer and only the slide made of metal – beat several other companies’ blueprints and secured his upstart outfit the contract.

The easily assembled weapon became a global hit, with the Austrian winning loyal followings among police and military across the world.

The Glock has been referenced in numerous films and rap songs, including Snoop Dogg’s “Protocol” and Wu-Tang Clan’s “Da Glock.”

U.S. soldiers found toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hiding with a Glock in a hole in the ground in 2003. They later presented that weapon to U.S. President George W. Bush.

Glock faced criticism from gun-control advocates who complained that he popularized powerful guns and made them easy to conceal and hold more ammunition.

Glock himself was reclusive, rarely granting interviews, and shunned public debate. In 2000, he refused to join other weapons manufacturers in signing a voluntary gun control deal with the United States.

At the age of 70, he survived an attempt on his life when an investment broker who managed his assets hired a former wrestler to attack him with a rubber hammer, a court heard.

Glock had grown suspicious of how the broker was managing his affairs and had flown to Luxembourg to confront him, lawyers said. He suffered seven blows to the head but fended off the assault. The broker, Charles Ewert, and the attacker, Jacques Pecheur, were both jailed.

His 49-year-old marriage with Helga Glock ended in divorce in 2011 and the pair embarked on a lengthy legal battle over alimony. Soon after, he married his second wife, Kathrin, more than 50 years his junior.

He owned a lakefront mansion and a state-of-the-art equestrian sports center in the province of Carinthia, where celebrities showed up for parties.

With divorce, alimony disputes, theft and attempted murder, it sounds like he lived a troubled life. But there’s no question as to the fact that his gun is ubiquitous.

I don’t own or shoot Glocks or any other striker fired handgun.

GM…🎄

What last minute things are you adding to your wishlist? pic.twitter.com/CqVzGxQfKD

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) December 24, 2023