Guns – Page 1134 – Shall Not Be Questioned

It’s a Sad Statement

It’s kind of sad to me that we’re all rather dumbstruck that a federal circuit court actually ruled that the constitution means what it plainly says to anyone with a basic grasp of the language.Â It would be nice if this wasn’t such, I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise and a shock, it should be expected.

But in a world where judges view that they should increasingly defer to the legislative bodies, and where conservatives rally against “judicial activism” (at least the activism they don’t like), and liberals think that the commerce clause should mean Congress has the power to legislate against assault, I guess we have to take the occasional acts of sanity from the federal courts with the celebratory tone that such rare and welcome acts justly warrant.

A Little Poke at the Antis

You’ll forgive me for a brief lapse in maturity here.Â From the DC court opinion:

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

So, to the Brady folks, Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center, Bryan Miller of New Jersey Ceasefire, The Gun Guys, Joyce Foundation, and all our other fun furry friends in the anti-gun movement who love telling us how the second amendment doesn’t protect an individual right:

TTTTTTBBBBBBBBTTTTTTTT :P

Parker vs. DC

Crap, why does something this big have to happen as I’m about to go on vacation?

SayUncle has all the great details.Â This is fantastic news, really fantastic news. Â But it could have implications. Â Our court strategy has to be very carefully undertaken. Â My worry with the Supreme Court ruling that it’s an individual right is that the courts will be flooded with new second amendment cases, and the circuit courts, as they’ve done with other Court rulings they don’t appreciate, will essentially build lower court precedent to render the second amendment effectively meaningless.

Sure, the government might not be able to outright prohibit firearms, but anything up to that might be just fine by the circuit courts.

Random Conversations About the Trip

Bitter: Did you count the rounds of ammo in your Glock dear? :)
Sebastian: Oh, no.Â I didn’t.
Sebastian: 16 more then :)
Sebastian: So what’s my total and grand total?
Bitter: 5796 rounds for you.
Bitter: 8121 rounds total.
Sebastian: Add 1000 shotgun rounds we’ll pick up on the way to that and it’s 9121 total.
Bittter: We might qualify as insane :)
Sebastian: I think we do

Car Carry in Georgia Article

We’ve come to expect pretty biased coverage on our issue from the media, but I think this article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution is actually pretty balanced, presenting both sides of the issue. I applaud them for seeking out law enforcement opinions that basically say that criminals already hide guns in their car, despite what the law says, and taking time to actually research the issue.

UPDATE: Bitter doesn’t agree, and thinks it’s more anti-gun.Â Given the media market I generally belong to, it’s balanced compared to anything I generally read in the Inquirer, which generally only produces articles not fit to use as toilet paper when it comes to the gun issue.

HR1022 – Twelve Congressworms Who Can Kiss My Ass

Over at Josh’s, he has the list. This is the usual suspects of Congressional gun haters. I would say, given this, it’s time to go to DEFCON 4 on this bill, and write your Congress Critter, but this still isn’t serious co-sponsorship yet.

I notice Chaka Fattah is on the list, as I would expect. He’ll want to play up his gun owner hating credentials for his Mayoral bid.

I guess Carolyn McCarthy, feeling bad about how utterly ineffective she is as a Congressworm, felt the need to tap some of her more friendly colleagues to bail her out of her embarrassment.

Pretty Cool

It’s a slow day. Lots to do at work, and lots of preparation for Bitter and my’s Texas Fun Time Shootout trip. I figured I’d crack open the stuff I’ve meant to blog about, but have kept in reserve for just such an occasion. From Clayton Cramer, we have this totally cool animated diagram of the Glock pistol.

For those of you who think that Austrian Tupperware is an affront to God, Country, and John Moses Browning, you can see a 1911 version of the same thing on this page.

I Can Beat That

You know you’re a gun nut when you read about Blues Traveler’s John Popper getting arrested for doing 110MPH with load of guns and marijuana in his car, see the media spread on the police table and think, “I can do better than that.”

Of course, I won’t be doing 110 down the highway, nor will I have any controlled substances in my vehicle either, and I don’t have a nice gun case built into the back of my vehicle. But seriously, considering what I’m taking to Texas, my police table spread will look far more impressive than this if I got pulled over, searched, and hauled in for questioning.

I bought this for myself as a birthday present. Since I was born in 1974, the year the rifle was adopted by the Red Army, I thought it was only appropriate. Of course, this isn’t a real AK-74, in the sense that it has no select-fire capability, but it’s a copy with a semi-automatic trigger group to keep me from being a menace to society. It’s one of the Arsenal SLR models. I decided to share some pictures of it. Click on the image to see a larger version:

The AK-74 Minus Bayonet. Can anyone make out the book it’s propped up on? I thought it was a nice touch.

Bayonet out of the scabbard posed on the side. The AK-74 has black polymer furniture and a polymer magazine, compared to the wood furniture you get on an AK-47, and its sturdy metal magazine. The 74 is a bit lighter than the AK-47, but not by a whole lot.

Bayonet fixed to the rifle. My AK-47 lacks a bayonet lug, because it is post-ban, and the assault weapons ban forbade this “evil” feature. Also, the flash hider is integral to stabilizing the bayonet, which was another “evil” feature you didn’t see on Kalashnikovs during the ban. I’m not eager to replace my AK-47 with a “no ban” model, because the original AK-47 didn’t have a bayonet lug or flash hider. Those features didn’t come until later revisions.

It shoots pretty nicely, as it doesn’t have quite the kick of the AK-47, taking a much smaller cartridge, 5.45x39mm as opposed to 7.62x39mm. The felt recoil is actually less than the AR-15. I would imagine the AK-74 would be quite controllable on full-auto fire compared to the AK-47. I’ve never shot a Kalashnikov on full-auto, though, so it’s hard to say. My plan is to take this to Texas to get rid of all the 5.45x39mm corrosive ammo I have. I don’t shoot this rifle nearly as much as I like, because with the corrosive ammo, I have to clean everything out every time.

Careful Answering That Cell Phone…

… it might be able to fire 4 .22LR cartridges on you.

That’s pretty neat. This demo is apparently from Europe. If any managed to get into the US, they’d be regulated as NFA items (AOW).