Joseph Greenlee.

Since the earliest colonial days, Americans have been busily manufacturing and repairing arms. In the colonies, the ability to defend one’s home and community, hunt, fight wars, and ultimately win American independence depended largely on the ability to produce arms. For the newly independent nation, arms production was critical to repel invasions and insurrections, and eventually, to western expansion. The skill was always valued and in demand, and many Americans made their own arms rather than depend on others. Americans continued producing their own arms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to some of the greatest technological breakthroughs in the history of firearms and ammunition. The freedom to build personal arms enabled innovations that allowed Americans to better defend themselves and their country than ever before. Meanwhile, restrictions on self-made arms have been rare throughout American history. All restrictions on arms built for personal use have emerged within the last decade, and from only a few states. While still uncommon, legislatures are increasingly targeting homemade arms due to the growing popularity of unfinished receivers and 3D-printed firearms.

[ … ]

Heller established several principles that support the right to build arms for personal use. First, under Heller, any analysis must start with the Second Amendment’s text, which protects the right to keep and bear arms and provides no reason to believe that people must buy the arms they wish to keep and bear. Second, Heller held that the Second Amendment protects the types of weapons that are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, regardless of how those arms are acquired. Third, Heller suggested, as lower courts have recognized, that the Second Amendment also protects the right to acquire arms, which includes building them personally. Fourth, history and tradition—which is used to inform the Amendment’s text under Heller—reveals that Americans have long enjoyed and depended on the unregulated right to build arms since the colonial days. In sum, the right to build arms for personal use is a right protected by the Second Amendment.

There’s a lot between the introduction and the conclusion statements and you’re welcome to read it at your leisure.  The founders would be appalled at the notion that the federal government has the right to regulate the making of arms.  They fought and some perished for the sake of living as free men, and that included the right to lack of interference in things that occupied them daily.

They would be even more appalled at the notion that unaccountable bureaucracies would have the authority to regulate such matters.  They said something about that, yes?  “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

They only have that authority based on police powers, the power of confiscation, and the power of taxation, also all things the founder opposed for the federal authority, and things they do not because they have that right, but because no one has stopped them.

Witness this first incident.  It was clear from the beginning that the man wasn’t carrying a firearm.  I’ll also make another observation.  This is one good reason why open carry should have been passed by the controller pols in Florida – return the right to openly carry a firearm and the idiot wouldn’t have had a reason to conduct the stop to begin with.

But on to the incident.  Fat boy got upset that the female cop didn’t get what she wanted out of the man, and so fabricated some unreasonable justification out of whole cloth to arrest him.  It was a capricious arrest, and they lacked the authority to do it.

The female cop, on the other hand, was a “mean girl,” or got bullied by mean girls in school, and takes it out on everyone she meets, I estimate.  She is carried away with her authority.

But here is the problem.  They will be retrained, they lost a few days without pay, and fat boy was demoted.  But other than that, there is nothing learned from this.  The Sheriff said they didn’t rely on their training.  That’s of course incorrect, as they know the law and where the lines are.  They just don’t care.  Without a change in hiring practices to emphasize moral virtue above all else, this will continue across the country, which means no one will have any respect for cops by the time this is all over.

Also witness in the second incident that the cops lied under oath.  You know that’s what happened.  There isn’t a cop in America who doesn’t understand “Terry Stop” and the limits on their authority to detain and arrest.  They just both lied and got away with it, again pointing to the lack of moral virtue in these people.

F&S.

Before getting into how to buy a suppressor, you need to understand the difference in types of ownership. You can own a suppressor either as an individual or as a trust. As an individual owner, you can use the suppressor and you can let others use the suppressor, but you must be with anyone else anytime they have the suppressor or are using it. If you don’t have any friends—and some of you don’t, I’ve seen your Facebook profiles—individual ownership is fine. Well, except when you die, because then your estate is left in possession of an unregistered NFA item. That’s a problem for whoever executes your will.

If you purchase a suppressor as a trust, any co-trustee can be in procession of and use the suppressor just as you would. Also, if you’re smart enough to designate a “beneficiary” then that person simply assumes the trust when you go to the great shooting range in the sky.

The article goes on to explain the relative ease of filling out paperwork these days.  Around here I know there are FFLs with kiosks which assist the buyer, and there are ways to get assistance with setting up trusts.  Every gun show has cards for lawyers in the area who want to charge money for setting up firearms trusts.

Do any readers own suppressors, and if so, what have you fund to be the best way to purchase and own them?

I find it difficult to dump that much money into something when that something could be a relatively nice firearm instead, and with use of electronic hearing protection, the noise problem goes away (for the most part, except for interference with your cheek weld).

Watch the video for yourself, but here’s what I think.  The officer turned around so quickly and charged back to the man (who said nothing but ‘God’), that I can conclude only one thing.  The cop got pissed off that someone didn’t bow down and lick his bootsand obey even unlawful orders.

He’s nothing but a bully.

Older video but interesting.

All three articles are available here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The articles are detailed with graphics and data, providing excellent information for use in AR-related training if you can apply it. Each has a short related video. Video to Part One below.

The best way “we” can protect “our” children is not to give them to the government. Or, put another way, avoid crowds; schools are crowds. But for those who can’t or won’t, this information may be valuable.

What does it mean to protect our children at school? For the past decade, I’ve been following a program that protects school children from celebrity-seeking mass-murderers. This program teaches school staff to be first responders who provide both armed defense and medical first aid. We’ve learned a lot over the past decade, but there are still unanswered questions.

Protecting our children at school actually covers a lot of ground. Being “at school” is really a shorthand way of saying we want to protect the children when they are out of their parents care. That includes when they are off campus and on the school bus before school starts. It includes the school events after the last class period ends. We want to protect our children from the ball field to the classroom and into the parking lot.

Once you see the scope of the problem, you realize why a single uniformed School Resource Officer is only the beginning of a safety plan. One defender, no matter how well-trained or effective, can’t be everywhere all the time.

First responders must be near the children because we don’t want to give a murderer time to kill. That means an armed defender has to be within a few hundred feet of every child. The number of defenders that we want depends on the size of the campus and the layout of the buildings. A one-room school house takes fewer defenders than a sprawling K-12 campus.

More at the link.

One in .44 Magnum please.  As soon as possible please.  I’ll buy one. Ruger, are you listening?

Source:

In a recent article, one of our writers addressed the use of the eyes in regards to shooting with both eyes open and he advised we all should. An interested reader then inquired as to whether or not he should shoot off the weak shoulder with his strong eye or weak eyed or crossover. Having dealt with this on a regular basis, I thought to give some insight into what we find works and the why’s, as in why we care, why we should train to the task and why it might make a difference.

Although it sounds a bit edgy, have you ever been in a bar or the like and seen somebody sucker punched? As in our about-to-be-thumped dude was looking in one place and someone from another direction zaps him? The use of both eyes open helps eliminate the proverbial tactical sucker punch. Simply close one eye and see what part of the room or your environment you lose visual contact with.

The simple equation is two eyes open allows for more information to be gathered by the eyes — and remember this isn’t always for direct movement. The peripheral visual is one of the few places where true instincts are at play with guns, shooting and fighting as the peripheral vision picks up movement to which the shooter can shift his eyes directly to confirm potential threats and apply sighted fire according to need. Contrary to some beliefs, we can’t shoot instinctively, but we can in fact use instincts in the form of this “hunter’s eye” which catches or gathers movement if you will. You can then address it as needed.

[…]

This is actually not a big deal, as many people are right handed and have a left master eye or vice versa. Probably the biggest eye problem could evolve around a new shooter who might be cross dominant and often sees two or more images. This is most common in handguns. In the use of a handgun, the new shooter may need to feather or shut down an eye until he acquires more skill or simply more exposure to shooting in general with the idea in mind he ultimately will shoot with both eyes open.

More at the link discussing both handguns and rifles.

It’s unlikely that you’ll be attacked by a bear in the ocean, but apparently, it’s a possibility.

I have questions.

June 12 (UPI) — Visitors to a Florida beach were in for a surprise when a black bear was spotted swimming side-by-side with their fellow beachgoers.

Multiple visitors to the crowded beach in Destin captured video when the bear emerged from the ocean and swam next to human beachgoers before making its way to shore.

“The bear was out pretty far,” Chris Barron, who recorded footage of the bear, told WTVT-TV. “A lot of people started swimming in. I was worried it was a shark. I walked over and thought it was a dog.”

Barron said the bear was swimming right by his brother and 12-year-old son.

“At this point I realized it was a bear and started videoing. It kept swimming in. He got to shore, shook off, and ran into the brush in the sand dunes,” Barron said. “I think most people were shocked instead of being scared. No one expected to see a bear in the Gulf of Mexico.”