Articles by Herschel Smith

Mark analyzes the decision, which can be found here.  Mark feels that he used an unnecessary approach, but ended up with the right decision.

Ducks.org.

For airline travel, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) requires that guns be transported in hard-sided, lockable cases. One way to maximize luggage space is to buy one of the top-quality bulkier cases, like a Pelican or Explorer, then remove the foam interior and pack your hunting clothes in the case. The clothes serve as padding for your shotgun while freeing up room in your checked bag for waders and other items. Gun cases commonly come in one- and two-gun models. The best field repair kit is an extra gun, and if you’re going on a long-anticipated trip, consider packing two guns. To maximize luggage space, many traveling waterfowlers wear their hunting coats and use a field backpack or blind bag as a carry-on. That’s a practical idea, but make sure that you don’t have any loose shotgun shells in your pockets or bags before you pass through security.

Interesting tips.  The article is oriented towards water fowlers, but this could just as easily go for travelling to Kansas to shoot upland birds (in that case, Pheasants), or Minnesota (for Grouse).  I can carry a Beretta A400 in the truck to do Quail hunting in S.C. or N.C., but that brings up another point.

Reader xtphreak made these remarks not long ago on another article.

MrGunsandgear also made a statement about 6:04 re: a “rule” requiring FedEx & UPS to mark packages containing firearms for shipping.

I posted a comment there asking for specifics on this “Rule”.

Their “Rule” doesn’t override 18 U.S.C. § 922 – U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 922. Unlawful acts.

Specifically (e) which reads:

“…(e) It shall be unlawful for any person ….  No common or contract carrier shall require or cause any label, tag, or other written notice to be placed on the outside of any package, luggage, or other container that such package, luggage, or other container contains a firearm. …”.

Can you specify the Rules that require common carriers to mark packages that contain firearms?

I personally used this against airline policy (Piedmont Airlines) to tag luggage with a bright orange CONTAINS FIREARM tag prior to 911.

[ … ]

I listen to MrGunsandgear, but on this he is wrong.

I posted the following to his youtube under my previous comment:

the UPS site states: “The labeling and outer box markings on all Firearm Products shipments must not identify the contents as containing Firearm Products. Labeling, including the shipper’s and consignee’s abbreviated names on the shipping label or air shipping document, must be non-descriptive.”

https://www.ups.com/us/en/support/shipping-support/shipping-special-care-regulated-items/prohibited-items/firearms.page

FedEx site says: “Re-package the firearm case in an outer box with no identifying markers”

https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/how-to-ship-firearms.html

I think this is important because I think we need to know if carriers, including airlines, can legally put labels on our firearms cases?

On a final note, say you are carrying a shotgun for upland bird hunting on an airline.  Let’s say that it’s a really nice one, like a Beretta DT11.  What do you do?  Purchase travel insurance for $12,000 to cover the gun?  Perhaps the answer to this is don’t carry a DT11 on an airline.  But then, how do the competition shooters do it?  Maybe we can carry a cheaper gun on the airlines (good upland bird guns go for > $2000 though), but a competition shooter will carry his expensive weapon.

Totally and completely out of control, second grader reasoning skills, away from the farm, and off the rails.  Trying to make things up as they go and feeling constrained by the SCOTUS.

J. Lee asks about "designation" of "sensitive places" and how to figure this out. J. Lynch notes that very few of these places existed in 1791. "Were there even zoos" J. Lynch asks. J. Lynch notes SCOTUS not "giving us much to work with here." #bruenresistance

— Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar (@fourboxesdiner) March 20, 2023

“SCOTUS not giving us much to work with here.”

Good Lord. And these people are judges.

I didn’t listen to the arguments, but I did read all of Mark’s Twitter entries. Here is what this apparently looked like today.

GM 🌞

It’s Monday!!! pic.twitter.com/WEqcgDO844

— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) March 20, 2023

And here is Mark’s more formal analysis of the arguments today.

Medical malpractice kills more people than all AR-15s combined. https://t.co/qhYdZVtR3G

— 🔫UR a Smart Ass, Carl🔫 (@Ur_a_Smartass_C) March 20, 2023

Here’s a puffy HufPo piece on how courts are impeding the efforts of the controllers.  Here’s the bit that captured my attention.

“It’s a completely crazy standard,” University of Chicago legal scholar Albert Alschuler said. “They have turned the interpretation of the Second Amendment completely upside down.”

[ … ]

The application of strict scrutiny allowed state governments to claim that gun laws served an important safety interest. This allowed some laws to remain standing despite Heller’s assertion of an individual right to own firearms.

The new historical test, however, provides sweeping power to judges to interpret history as they see fit to strike down gun laws they oppose.

“The revolution has been going on at least since Heller,” Alschuler said. “But it took an enormous step with this Bruen decision.”

I’ll agree with him insofar as he points out that Heller was a weak decision.  It left doubt in place as to the right to carry outside the home.  In spite of the fact that the founders of the nation literally carried rifles to school in order to shoot critters for meals or other reasons, and despite the fact that men were required to carry rifles to church on Sunday for protection of the congregation, the controllers began putting more and more burdensome regulations in place.

They know better because they’re lawyers and have been trained that Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, Warren v. DC, and DeShaney v. Winnebago County all demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that the police aren’t there to protect anyone.

They have all allowed their politics to interfere with being good historians and lawyers.  But Bruen did do what Heller and McDonald didn’t – it recognized the right to self defense outside the home.

It upended their cart.  Thus, the highly emotional and charged language coming from alleged scholars, who cannot fathom why there even exists such a right to begin with.

Oh, and that part about “sweeping power to judges to interpret history as they see fit to strike down gun laws they oppose” is just him making things up out of whole cloth.

Mark Smith has been very clear with his analysis of Bruen, and the SCOTUS was clear before that.  Laws that were in place at the time the 2A was written are fair game.  As are laws in place before that generation perished.  Laws subsequent to that are not, unless they confirm the laws in place at the time of the founding.  Subsequent (later in time) examples can NEVER deny the understanding of the 2A when it was penned.  Another way of saying it is that gun control laws that have burdened the public subsequent to the 2A don’t get to count in our understanding of the 2A, and that makes perfect sense to any reasonable man (and any good historian).

This test is simple.  There is no lack of clarity.  There is no sweeping power granted to judges, in fact, just the opposite.  Judges have been shackled, as they should have been, and as have legislators.

I’ll tell you what.  There is so much to say about this topic that I’ll write Prof. Albert Alschuler (facultysupport@law.uchicago.edu) and offer to debate him on the 2A.  We can use these pages to do that, and I’ll promise to publish his prose without editorializing, and then respond in separate posts.

How does that sound, professor?

Several remarks before you view the report.

First, there shouldn’t be any such thing as SWAT teams.  They aren’t constitutional – there is no basis whatsoever for busting in another man’s home, law enforcement or not.

Cops should not have machine guns.  Any need for machine guns implies a need to call out the local militia.

Cops should not have rifles.  Any need for a rifle should be reason to call out local militia.

Cops should not have semiautomatic pistols.  They should only be allowed to carry .38 special revolvers, and only when they have proven that they can be trusted with them.

Cops should always wear uniforms, including shirts, ties, slacks, and badges, along with name and rank.

Cops should NEVER be allowed to cover their faces for any reason whatsoever.

Cops should never even knock at doors at night time hours unless there is a clear and present danger inside the home from which the residents of that home need to be protected or for which they need to be warned (such as fire).

It should be a felony for a cop to interact with or engage with the population without a body camera.

All body camera video should be immediately made available to the public over web sites, virtually in real time.

Judges should not approve warrants for raids on homes.  Those who do should be removed from their post.

Yes, I’m an uncompromising constitutionalist.

All Outdoor.

Ideal twist rates produce a gyroscopic factor between 1.5 and 2.0.

Factors between 1.0 and 1.3 are marginally stable, but they’re generally considered too slow. Factors between 2.1 and 2.9 are fast, but stable and accurate. Factors above 3.0 are suitable, but not ideal. Climbing above 4.0 may cause over-stabilization of the round being fired, which can harm accuracy. The optimal twist rates for 5.56 and .223 loads are:

• 45-gr Varminter: 1:12 twist
• 55-gr (M193): 1:9 twist
• 62-gr (M855): 1:8 twist
• 77-gr (Mk262): 1:8 twist
• 80-gr Sierra Match: 1:7 twist
• 90-gr Sierra Match: 1:7 twist

The way I read the table, 1:9 twist rate is good for just about anything up to 77 grains.  I wouldn’t shoot anything above that in 5.56mm anyway.  Heavier bullets than that need to be .224 Valkyrie, 6mm ARC or 6.5 Grendel.  I once thought that .224 Valkyrie was a flash in the pan, but occasionally I do see it at Academy and Cabella’s.  It’s also possible to pick it up via Ammoseek.

I don’t have anything in that caliber and would not.  I like the 6mm ARC too much to switch to something less effective and versatile.

Via David Codrea, this piece from Bearing Arms.

I am an immigrant and a Second Amendment advocate myself, and two, I have also written about long-term threats posed to our right to keep and bear arms (shameless plug ahead!) in a book co-authored with Greg Camp: “Each One, Teach One: Preserving and protecting the Second Amendment in the 21st century and beyond.”

In the above work, I touched upon how immigration plays into the various threats to the Second Amendment, not because immigration per se is dangerous, but as a factor that compounds the mass ignorance which is the real threat. Most immigrants, unless they’re naturalized citizens, cannot vote. So, the unrelenting attacks on the Second Amendment cannot be attributed to immigrants because the mass ignorance lies in the body politic of natural-born American citizens, who are the absolute majority of voters in this country.

As expected, the comments in reaction to Smith’s video have their fair share of people who think that immigration itself is a problem. From my vantage point, I find it totally ironic because every single vocal gun control activist that I know is a white progressive and an umpteenth-generation American, some even being descendants of American revolutionaries. On the flip side, some of the most ardent supporters of the Second Amendment are immigrants, who have taken it upon themselves to do a job that many natural-born American citizens refuse to do: unapologetically defending the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

My religious roots, cultural background, and upbringing are all contrary to gun ownership. I grew up in India and was raised vegetarian in a religious Hindu family. People from my caste background historically have been academics and priests who don’t wield weapons. My grandfather is a Gandhian who was part of the nonviolent independence struggle against the British. Yet not only do I own guns, but I am also an evangelist for gun rights. How did that come to pass?

The gist of what I wrote in my book is that immigration, along with other factors, is a threat only if you let it be a threat. The core of my prescription for preserving and protecting the Second Amendment is outreach to groups that have historically not been associated with gun ownership, and included prominently in that are immigrants and new Americans.

This commentary has the unfortunate feel of something that would be published at Bearing Arms.

To begin with, he exaggerates the case when he implies that immigrants constitute some of the most ardent 2A supporters.  I’ve pointed out many times before that immigrants from south of the border – which comprises most of our immigration, both legal and illegal – oppose gun rights by some 75%, and vote that way when they have the chance.

Second, he exaggerates the case that it’s even possible to conduct the outreach he claims is our responsibility.  How?  Media?  Church?  Pamphlets?  Books?  Someone else owns the media.  Churches have gone to the dogs.  Pamphlets and books are for people who will take the time to read them.

Next, he misses the point (and exaggerates again) when he insinuates that any of the above is a good remedy for a world and life view contrary to the Christian world and life view.  Only an understanding of being designed in God’s image supports the notion of firearms ownership and covenant responsibility, blessings and curses.  Seeing the relationship between people and their government as a covenant that can be nullified is broken is unique and solely a Christian belief and doctrine.  No other world and life view has such a concept.  Not … a … single … one.  And I’ve studied them.  If the writer believes in the RKBA, he does so in spite of his Hindu upbringing, not because of it.

Finally, he implies that it’s my responsibility to educate and indoctrinate new immigrants in the virtues of firearms ownership, when in fact it’s safer, tidier, and has a much better chance of success to carefully husband our borders and allow only those in who already believe in the American system.

Why would someone claim anything different?  This is analogous to someone claiming that it’s our duty to marry unbelievers and then try to convert them.  But then there’s that whole issue of being “unequally yoked.”

This is a bad commentary from a very questionable source, and I remain disappointed in the quality of analysis coming out of Bearing Arms, from their disdain for open carry to [apparent] support for unfettered immigration.

In short, “is immigration bad for the second amendment?”  Short answer: yes.

Surprisingly, PJM has a piece on J. Gresham Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalism.”  It’s a quick read but a good piece to start the day.  Thie gem appears.

Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.

A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument for tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective.

True, all of that.  I’m proud and pleased to say that I own a copy of Machen’s “The Origin of Paul’s Religion.”  At the time Machen taught, the liberal school of theology was promulgating the idiotic notion that Paul’s theology was at odds with, or an addition to, Christ’s theology.  Red Letter Christians, they are called.  You get to accept the words of Christ, but ignore everything else, especially all of Paul’s difficult teachings.

It makes a mockery of the unity of the Holy Writ, and Machen addresses the issue in the book.

By the way, Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism can be found in PDF version without even having to purchase it, if you don’t happen to have the small bit of money to get a hard back copy.  Nearing the conclusion of this brief book, he observes the following.

“The present is a time not for ease or pleasure, but for earnest and prayerful work. A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith. And now there are some indications that the fiction of conformity to the past is to be thrown off, and the real meaning of what has been taking place is to be allowed to appear. The Church, it is now apparently supposed, has almost been educated up to the point where the shackles of the Bible can openly be cast away and the doctrine of the Cross of Christ can be relegated to the limbo of discarded subtleties.”

Maybe so (via David Codrea).

“In passing Senate Bill 41, today was a great victory for the Second Amendment. GRNC wishes to thank Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, as well as sponsors and “main movers” of the bill including Sens. Danny Britt; Warren Daniel; and Jim Perry; and Reps. Destin Hall; Jay Adams; Hugh Blackwell; Allen Chesser; Kyle Hall; Bobby Hanig; Kelly Hastings; Neal Jackson; Keith Kidwell; Jeff, McNeely; Ben Moss; Mark Pless; Jason Saine; Carson Smith; plus Democrats who stood courageously: Marvin Lucas, Michael Wray, and Shelly Willingham, and finally the many others whose co-sponsorship and votes who made the victory possible. GRNC particularly thanks our members and supporters, whose thousands of emails and phone calls made this victory inevitable. We are confident that we will over-ride the inevitable veto by anti-freedom Governor Roy Cooper. Very soon, we will release more details of the vicious floor fight waged by Democrats to stop the bill, and the well-managed efforts Republican leadership used to stop it.”

Here’s another report.

And veto it [s]he will.  Roy Cooper (to whom I customarily refer to as “Goober Cooper”) is this administration’s boy toy.  After all, what would it look like to follow in Biden’s footsteps, only to get clocked in the head with repeal of permits for pistol purchases?

If you’ll recall, we’ve followed this for a while now, and while it was always going to pass, there was a question whether it could pass with a veto-proof majority.  According to Paul Valone, we’ve got a veto-proof majority.  So there, goober.  I’m glad to see the end of this ridiculous scheme.