Articles by Herschel Smith

FPC.

FORT WORTH, TX (June 30, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and FPC Action Foundation (FPCAF) announced that a federal judge has granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs in VanDerStok v. Garland, vacating the ATF’s “frame or receiver” rule and preventing the federal government from enforcing it. The opinion can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“This case presents the question of whether the federal government may lawfully regulate partially manufactured firearm components, related firearm products, and other tools and materials in keeping with the Gun Control Act of 1968,” wrote Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor in his Order. “Because the Court concludes that the government cannot regulate those items without violating federal law, the Court holds that the government’s recently enacted Final Rule… is unlawful agency action taken in excess of the ATF’s statutory jurisdiction. On this basis, the Court vacates the Final Rule.”

“We’re thrilled to see the Court agree that ATF’s Frame or Receiver Rule exceeds the agency’s congressionally limited authority,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation and FPC’s counsel in this case. “With this decision, the Court has properly struck down ATF’s Rule and ensured that it cannot enforce that which it never had the authority to publish in the first place.”

“This is a monumental victory against the tyrannical ATF. Firearms Policy Coalition and FPC Law have argued that this rogue agency has unlawfully attacked gun owners in this latest round of ‘rulemaking’ and we are grateful to see the Court agree,” said Richard Thomson, FPC’s Vice President of Communications. “We will not stop, however, with this latest victory. FPC and FPC Law will continue to bring these cases to put a stop to the immoral and unconstitutional actions of the disarmament regime.”

Winning is fun!

Source.

“Even though (Wagner leader Yevgeny) Prigozhin acted out, yelling give me ammo, give me ammo, there was no actual ammo hunger,” says Ocherkhadzhiev. “The problem was, they used six times more ammo than is tactically and academically called for. They just buried the Ukrainians in shells. And in these conditions, the Ukrainians still defended.”

I don’t want the discussion thread to turn into a political one.  That’s not the point of the post.

But I find this remark utterly fascinating.  I know that when the Marines first joined the fight in Afghanistan, the Taliban were surprised at the fact that they (the Marines) could carry a half dozen magazines in a tactical vest and stretch the ammo out to cover a 24-hour fire fight under the supervision of good NCOs (the NCO corps in the U.S. military is entirely a product of Western culture and Eastern and Middle Eastern armies completely lack such a structure, focusing instead on commissioned officers, in the end making them less capable or efficient, something I’ve written on extensively).  The disciple of targeting, fire control, etc., surprised the enemy combatants.

Similarly, the practice of the Taliban was to bury U.S. troops in fire.  Seldom would they take the attack straight to U.S. forces except en masse (Battalion versus Company).  I’ve also written extensively on that subject in Massing of Forces.

Shooting Illustrated.

It’s not quick to load. Its range is miniscule. It’s not very accurate. It’s difficult to master and it kicks like hell. Even so, the shotgun is universally feared and respected.

Why? Because when it’s in trained hands, it is unlikely to miss. Its bowling-ball-size swath of destruction allows more leeway for error than a single bullet. And, when those .33-caliber, solid-lead balls smash into something at close range, there’s not much short of a world-class trauma team that can repair such damage. Dangerous men who tangle with dangerous men for a living know this, and if the other team has brought a shotgun to the fight, it commands all the attention of a rattlesnake in the outhouse. More than 100 years ago, in the Great War, Winchester’s 1897 pump-action shotgun was so devastating on the battlefield, our enemies petitioned to have it banned.

Academically, the shotgun’s power is easily defined. The standard, nine-pellet, 00-buckshot load features a collective 1.21-ounce payload that’s fired at 1,200 fps to produce roughly 1,700 ft.-lbs. of muzzle energy and 30 ft.-lbs. of free-recoil energy. Or, you can choose a 3-inch, 12-pellet magnum load fired at 1,425 fps to produce 3,295 ft.-lbs. of energy—if you are prepared for its 55 ft.-lbs. of recoil that will soon wind up on your cheek and shoulder. Either way, it’s vastly favorable to be on the butt end of that punch rather than the muzzle.

[ … ]

Yet, the shotgun’s power shouldn’t be overhyped, even by so-called experts such as this writer who have a vested interest in the arm’s worth, for it is irresponsible and dishonest to do so. Fact is, the combat shotgun is a specialized tool—requiring extensive training and practice—for certain close-range scenarios, but it shouldn’t be the end-all choice in arms for everything. After 35 yards it’s not great, and after 75 it’s terrible regardless of the load. If your hands are untrained, you’re better off with a rifle. The shotgun is heavy, takes an eternity to load compared to a detachable-magazine-fed firearm and mastering it so its pattern strikes where the shooter looks, without the use of sights, takes years to accomplish.

Some of this seems to me to be a dated viewpoint.  We’ve already shown that with the right choke, 00 buck can be put inside a five inch group at 50 yards.  By way of information, the choke used in that video the URL embeds is now available and I have one.  I have not used it yet.

Also, shooting the Beretta A400 with its gas operation and kickoff stock recoil control, I’d have to remark that it doesn’t feel much different than shooting an AR, and I could hunt Quail with it all day with ease and comfort.  And I’m not sure it’s correct or even wise to say that if you can’t shoot a shotgun accurately your “better off with a rifle.”

I do know that 00 buck will travel through walls like handgun or even rifle rounds, and that the discerning shooting will consider other loads for homes in neighborhoods like Turkey shot (#4 or #5).  Finally, I’m not sure it’s correct to focus on the difficulty of reloading when magazine tube extensions can give you seven rounds.

First up is professor Smith, and then we go on to pistol braces in Texas.

Source.

A jury has acquitted on all counts the former school resource officer who stayed outside during the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida – absolving him of wrongdoing in the rare trial of a law enforcement officer for his response to a mass shooting.

Scot Peterson, 60, took off his glasses and wept in court as the judge read off the verdict, finding him not guilty of seven counts of felony child neglect, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury.

“I’ve got my life back,” Peterson, a former deputy for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters outside court, describing the years since the shooting as “an emotional roller coaster.”

I couldn’t care less what sort of emotional roller coaster he’s been on nor how he feels about any of this.  He’s a coward.  Regardless of what the law requires, he should have been a righteous man and, if necessary, given his life for the children.

Having said that, this is the right legal decision.  Holding police responsible for the protection of life runs afoul of court decisions in the following cases.

Castle Rock v. Gonzalez

Warren v. District of Columbia

DeShaney v. Winnebago County

Progressives hate the police except for when they enforce laws they want (that means against everybody but them as was the case with Antifa), and the traditional conservatives are the only ones left who believe the myth that the police are there to serve and protect.  They are not, nor have they ever been.  They are agents of the state and will behave that way at every opportunity.  No court ruling has ever said police are there to protect citizens.

It is the responsibility of every good man to defend his family, and thus should men be armed and capable of doing so.  As for schools, if you want them to be safe, hire people who are under contract to do that, harden the entrances, and give teachers weapons.  Better yet, get your children out of public schools and home school them to learn math, physics, chemistry, rhetoric and logic, and theology.

Don’t conflate the fact that this man was a coward with the notion that the police are there to protect you or your children.  That’s what you and your weapons are for.

AllOutdoor.

This image is from the Montana Knife Company (so that we don’t get accused of poaching a picture from AllOutdoor).  They also have green and black and other color patterns.

It appeals to me.  I love good knives as well as well-made firearms.

Two comments.  They’re going to have to do a bit better than “Restocking Soon.”  Also, the price of $350 seems rather steep (although well-made knives go for a lot these days).  For that price, it had better function well and stand up to abuse.

Professor Smith breaks this down for us.  It’s a lengthy but very good review.

Now, if we could just get Marlin to come out with a new model 444. Maybe Ruger needs to hire me to tell them what to do. It seems like I keep running into them a lot.

Outdoor Life.

A few remarks of my own.  First of all, it seems like every company now, in order to compete, has to offer a 1000 lumen flashlight.  Whether one needs that or not is a different story.  Inside a home for regular tasks, it’s blinding.  But blinding would be a good thing for a home invader, so there’s that going for it.

Second, weight matters.  In front of me I have two lights, one a very old SureFire, model 6P using two 123 Batteries, and the other a very high lumen Streamlight, ProTac HL3, using three 123 batteries.

For weight shavers and gram counters, it matters which one you choose if you’re hiking 10 miles up 3- or 4-thousand feet in two days.  Grams turn into Kg, Kg converts to more water you have to carry to stay hydrated, and on the vicious cycle goes.  Carrying more weight because it means more lumens is not a good decision for hikers and backpackers who care about weight.

Third, I won’t have a flashlight that is rechargeable-only.  In grid-down, whether more extended or simply for a few days because of storms, that matters more to me than anything else.  It can be rechargeable, only as long as it can take batteries too.

Fourth, some of these considerations are malleable depending upon whether you intend on carrying a weapon-mounted light.