If We Regulated Guns and Shooters Like Cars and Drivers

I replied to a fellow who thinks we should regulate guns and gun owners like cars and drivers. As in vastly increasing regulation. My response:

I'm in favor of regulating guns, ammo, and accessories like cars and drivers.

If we did, there would be no federal or state license required to manufacture or deal guns or ammo.

A simple written and practical test would get everyone 16 or over a license to operate aka carry in public, and that license would be good in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. No license or permission would be required to acquire a gun, whether one was a licensed user or not, nor would a user's license be required to operate a gun on private property.

One could transport an unloaded gun on public streets without a license, just as one can trailer or tow a car. No registration or fees would be levied on guns as long as they were kept on private property, or transported unloaded on public property.

If ammunition was for use on private property, there would be no excise tax, just as there is none on agricultural use of gasoline.

There would be no taxes or background checks or prohibitions of fully automatic weapons, just as there are none on fully automatic transmissions.

There would be no prohibition of gun types or calibers, just as there are none on engines sizes. There would be no regulation or prohibition of large capacity magazines, as there are none in gas tanks.

There would be no taxes other than standard sales taxes, nor background checks, nor prohibitions of mufflers aka sound suppressors aka silencers.

With a license to carry aka operate in public and a credit card, anyone could walk into a gun rental company and walk out with any gun she pleased and operate that gun in public.

Getting a gun operators license would be a rite of passage for the vast majority of teenagers.

People would need no licenses to make their own guns, even if they planned to sell them.

So yeah: I agree with you. We should regulate guns and gunners like cars and drivers.

Jerry Miculek On Shooting A Handgun

Don't miss the revolver reload starting at around 57 seconds in.

Federal Ban On Interstate Transfers Of Firearms Unconstitutional

This may well be appealed, but if it stands, it will be a meaningful improvement for would-be handgun buyers. United States District Judge Reed O'Connor ( Northern District Of Texas, Fort Worth Division) has struck down the federal ban of transfers of handguns by Federal Firearms License holders to out of state residents, under both the 2nd Amendment and the 5th Amendment:

the Court concludes that Defendants have not shown that the federal interstate handgun transfer ban is narrowly tailored to be the least restrictive means of achieving the Government’s goals under current law. The federal interstate handgun transfer ban is therefore unconstitutional on its face.

The Court further finds, in the alternative, the federal interstate handgun transfer ban is unconstitutional when applied to the facts of this case....

... the Court finds that the federal interstate handgun transfer ban also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution...

...Accordingly, the Court DECLARES that 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3), 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3), and 27 C.F.R. § 478.99(a) are UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing these provisions.

The 28 page PDF is here. As a practical matter, this will increase competition in states like Hawaii which have few gun dealers, and dramatically cut transfer costs for those who might want to buy a handgun while traveling in another state.

I Don't Think Mark Twain Liked James Fenimore Cooper's Witings

"it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens."

Much more here.


I must have read this in junior high or high school, for I remember his description of the 6 indians leaping from a sapling, but had forgotten it was Twain who wrote of it somewhat critically. Good points on the shooting match, as well.

Why Americans Have Weapons Instead of Guns

I just read a review of a new variant of the AR-15 rifle, which was designed to be legal in all fifty states. It sounds like an interesting response to a bewildering thicket of state level regulations, all of which I believe are prohibited by the Constitution. Big deal: my opinion won't change things.

One of the commentors objected to another's use of the term 'weapon' rather than calling it a gun.

My response:

"should NEVER ever be referred to as weapons(.) they are guns or firearms(,) weapons are what police and military use....we cause problems on ourselves by referring to our gun as weapons"

You have a legitimate point, but I do disagree with it.

My guns are weapons. Every last one of them, from a Belgian Browning 20 gauge A-5, through a Remington pump .22 Model 12A to Mini14s and S&W J-frames, and 1911s.

The Constitution protects arms. Not goose guns, not air rifles, not deer guns, not target pistols, except at they contribute to use and familiarity with military grade weapons or can substitute for them. The Constitution protects militia grade arms precisely for the purpose of killing people. That is demonstrated without any doubt by the 2nd Amendment's explicit tying of the right to keep and bear arms to a well trained militia. The writings of the Founders, published concurrently with the ratification debates and available today, make explicit the role of arms which are protected: they are explicitly for killing tyrants, foreign or domestic.

Anti-gunners freak at the idea, especially at the 'domestic' aspects as they inaccurately associate 'tyrants' with 'politicians', but weapons ownership, use, and the bearing of them should not be controversial in an age where domestic terrorists and ordinary criminals alike can strike anywhere, any time, and the police are incapable of being everywhere, all the time, to protect us.

That it is controversial is in part our fault: For decades we let the anti-gunners frame the debate. It is time to frame that debate ourselves, and force them to respond to us instead of us to them. We can do so only by using terms like 'weapons' and 'shooting people who need shooting right now', and defending those concepts as good and proper. If more people than the LEO at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris had been armed, more might well have survived: Killing murderous assailants is exactly what weapons are for, and that is a good thing. If the observer who videod the killing of the Paris LEO on the sidewalk had had a Mini-14 or AKM at hand instead of a video camera, the LEO might well have been killed anyway, but the murderers might have been stopped right there. They are exactly the kind of domestic tyrants the unorganized militia has a chance of stopping. By shooting them with weapons.

The 2nd Amendment protects 'arms', not just guns, but arms, for the purpose of arming the militia, including the 'unorganized militia', which means us: civilians such as those brave passengers aboard United Flight 93, who gave their lives defending us against the Islamists on 9-11. That means that not only are guns protected, but so are all other militia usable weapons: knives, including bowies, bayonets, and switchblades, cudgels, including billy clubs, and metal or plastic knuckles. Laws prohibiting them are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. That such laws exist and are widespread today is only evidence of our refusal to submit to the Constitution. Rather than submit, even by amending it, we have preferred to pretend that it does not mean what it clearly says. That is our shame.

The Constitution protects weapons which carry a single round, like the Liberator .45 of the Second World War, and it protects AKMs, AR-15s, and M-16s and their 20 & 30 round magazines. It protects sniper rifles and target rifles which may be used by the unorganized militia as sniper rifles. It protects submachine guns and full auto rifles ie actual assault rifles. The Constitution protects all of them for the explicit purpose of shooting those who would do us and our country harm.

Given that a number of the Founders owned ships with cannons, and given that the Constitution explicitly provides for issuing letters of marque and reprisal to privately owned ships, I expect that a plausible argument could be made that the Constitution also protects crew served weapons such as belt fed machine guns and at least light artillery.

We are on firm ground when we say that the Constitution protects military grade arms, and great big scary ones at that. If we refuse to make that point, the other side is on the way to victory.

Instead of allowing the anti-weapons crowd to cow us into refusing to defend weapons ownership, I prefer to make them confront our issue head on: The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to protect our ability to arm ourselves against tyrants, foreign and domestic. Those tyrants may be common criminals or politically/religiously inspired criminals such as disciples of al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, AQAP, and others. In any case, when they strike, the police are almost sure not to be there. The victims are always there, and only armed victims, willing to shoot them with weapons they bear, are capable of shooting people who desperately need to be shot.

The original article, "50 STATE LEGAL AR-15 – ARES DEFENSE SCR" by Sam Trisler in'Guns America', is here.

There Is Hope For America Yet Department

I suspect flour would work as well. Powdered aluminum? Might work too well.

And then there is shooting fish in a barrel:

Old Guy With Gun Whups Young Guys With Guns

Good for him. I suspect it will be the last time these armed criminals decide that people in an Internet cafe are safe prey.



As one of the criminals was quoted later as saying: "It doesn't feel good. It makes you think about life's decisions, and how you should live your life."

One should think about decisions to threaten innocent people with murder.

Yes, this is a couple years old, but still fresh.

Walter Walsh RIP at 106

Walter Walsh was one of the great American handgunners. So great that even the New York Times ran an extensive obituary here.

I bet it galled the Times, though, to have to get the photos from the NRA's American Handgunner magazine.

"The Rifleman"'s Head Count: 120 in Five Years

120, yep, 120, and you can see every one of them here. I particularly like the suicide by pitchfork death.

This is, of course, conclusive scientific evidence that you should bring a rifle to a gun fight, not a revolver.

I can see why the Hollywoodies had to take it off the air, though: Chuck Connors aka Lucas McCain aka The Rifleman never shot a gun out of a bad guy's hand, just gunned them down, and always with multiple shots to save the poor long suffering taxpayers the expense of hospitalization followed by trial and incarceration. Now THAT is social responsibility.*

He should have called that gun "Rehabilitator".


* For any of you of the Humor Impaired persuasion: The above is intended as humor. Humor is an attempt to be funny, whether one succeeds or not. I do in fact believe that it is unacceptable to shoot miscreants more than necessary to stop them doing whatever justifies shooting them at all. "The Rifleman" was a TV show. It was fiction. If you can't distinguish between real life and TV, please stop reading my blog, go away, and fling yourself into a flock of sharks engaging in a feeding frenzy.

And get a life.

America Hates Guns and The NRA

Maybe only part of America:

(The National Rifle Association's) magazine “American Rifleman” has broken into the top 25 magazines in the country, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

The magazine...surged 29 percent to 2.2 million readers in the second half of 2013 over the same period the previous year.

At the same time, circulation for all magazines was down 2 percent during that time frame....

There was a massive increase in NRA membership last year from 4 million to 5 million that mirrored Mr. Obama’s second-term gun grab.

The magazine is one of three publications (“American Hunter” and “America’s First Freedom”) that members can choose when signing up for the pro-Second Amendment organization.

Membership is up only 20% in a year? Amercia must hate guns and the NRA.

A lot more women seem to be shooting these days. It would be interesting to see the membership breakdown by sex, age, and location.

Cowboy Action Shooting on Oahu, Hawaii

These folks really make their lever actions hum.

There actually is a cowboy tradition in Hawaii. The Parker Ranch on the Big Island is several hundred thousand acres. The cowboys were called paniolos, a corruption of Hispaniolo as many of them were Mexicans.

There is even a Paniolo Preservation Society.

Women of the NRA

Rolling Stone on Gun Control

Thanks to PJ Media's story by Patrick Richardson, I came across this remarkable piece of propaganda in Rolling Stone. I find it remarkable because every shred of data cited by author Tim Dickenson refutes his conclusions that the gun industry is collapsing.

Gun sales are at an all time high? The industry is collapsing. Manufacturers are so backlogged that they have stopped taking new orders? The industry is collapsing. Handgun sales up 70% since 2008? The industry is collapsing. "Powerful pistols...have replaced traditional hunting guns as the industry's cash cow"? The industry is collapsing. "Gaudy profit margins have become the norm"? The industry is collapsing. "The FBI background checks that the industry looks to as a proxy for gun sales have been rising year over year for more than 30 months." The industry is collapsing.

"The seduction of youth goes far beyond hunting. Online ammo superstore MidwayUSA is particularly aggressive in promoting youth shooting, sponsoring events like National Take Your Daughter to the Range Day, for "girls six and up." A photo posted on the event's website under the heading "Shoot Like a Girl" shows a dad helping his daughter, perhaps eight years old, aim an AR-15 with a collapsible stock and a monster clip (sic)." So, successfully reaching out to the next generation of customers. I guess the industry is collapsing.

"To target urban and suburban women, gunmakers have adopted a two-pronged marketing strategy. One: Feminizing the weapons by dressing them up in hot pink. Two: Marketing powerful guns to women as the only surefire protection against sexual and violent predators." Changing their product lines to successfully appeal to a new market niche, and point out the obvious? The industry is collapsing.

"Firing ranges now offer zombie-themed hunts. "Shooters must battle their way through a Zombie Assault Course to save us all from these undead people eaters," advertises one." So, adapting competitions to successfully appeal to a new generation of shooters? The industry is collapsing.

Citizens sharing the Founders' concern about tyrannical government? Americans are stocking up on guns like its 1775? The industry is collapsing.

Rolling Stone published a remarkable article.

NY Times on Women With Guns

Erica Goode has a remarkably non-judgmental article in the New York Times, entitled Rising Voice of Gun Ownership Is Female.

I wonder how much longer she'll be allowed to work there.

Here is a link to the merchandise page of one of the women's shooting clubs she links to. Here is the home page of another group.

UPDATE: Erica Goode seems to cover crime and shooting issues pretty regularly.

I see the LA cops fired at least 46 rounds at...

...two innocent Latina women in a pick up truck which was the wrong color, wrong model, with the wrong number of occupants, of the wrong size, wrong sex, and wrong skin color, and still didn't kill either one of them.

Someone should have a little chat with their shooting instructor.

I can see why the LAPD doesn't want mere citizens to carry guns. In some parts of LA the ladies would have shot back.

Interesting picture, though.

"Hawaii's firearm carrying laws do not violate the plaintiff's Second Amendment rights"

"Hawaii's firearm carrying laws do not violate the plaintiff's Second Amendment rights," (Senior U.S. District Judge Helen) Gillmor said in a 40-page decision filed Nov. 29.

"The carrying laws do not restrict the core protection afforded by the Second Amendment."

So Hawaii's laws continue to be firmly on the side of rapists, murderers, and mass murderers.

Good going, People of Hawaii.

"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

More here.

Seems to Me the Proper Response is...

...a loud "Go to Hell!" followed by dropping every magazine and book onto the counter and walking away. Repeat.

Country sports enthusiasts are furious at a decision by Britain's biggest newsagent to ban children from buying shooting magazines after a campaign by animal rights activists.

WH Smith says youngsters under 14 will not be sold shooting titles, even though it is legal to hold a shotgun licence below that age....

Earlier this year, Animal Aid, Britain's largest animal rights organisation, published a report which claimed that the "lurid, pro-violence content" of country sports magazines could have a "corrosive, long-lasting effect on impressionable young minds".

The report, Gunning For Children: How the gun lobby recruits young blood, argued that titles promoting guns should be put on the top shelf alongside pornography, and banned for sale to under-18s.

A spokesman for WH Smith said it did not wish to act as a censor...

As a private company, WH Smith has every right to act like everyone's nanny, and everyone has a right to fire that nanny.

'This Is Cornwall' has more here.

.700 Nitro Express

Possibly these fellers could use some advice from Chuck Norris.



Looks to me like it hurts at both ends.

Concealed Carry Law in MD Struck Down; Hawaii to Follow?

Eugene Volokh writes about a Federal District Court case in Maryland, Woollard v. Sheridan (D. Md. Mar. 2, 2012), which may well have an effect on Hawaii's concealed carry law.

Hawaii's law seems even more constrictive than Maryland's, which requires one to have “good and substantial” reason to be armed outside the home. Hawaii's says:

§134-9 Licenses to carry. (a) In an exceptional case, when an applicant shows reason to fear injury to the applicant's person or property, the chief of police of the appropriate county may grant a license to an applicant who is a citizen of the United States of the age of twenty-one years or more or to a duly accredited official representative of a foreign nation of the age of twenty-one years or more to carry a pistol or revolver and ammunition therefor concealed on the person within the county where the license is granted. Where the urgency or the need has been sufficiently indicated, the respective chief of police may grant to an applicant of good moral character who is a citizen of the United States of the age of twenty-one years or more, is engaged in the protection of life and property, and is not prohibited under section 134-7 from the ownership or possession of a firearm, a license to carry a pistol or revolver and ammunition therefor unconcealed on the person within the county where the license is granted. The chief of police of the appropriate county, or the chief's designated representative, shall perform an inquiry on an applicant by using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, to include a check of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases where the applicant is not a citizen of the United States, before any determination to grant a license is made. Unless renewed, the license shall expire one year from the date of issue.

For minor additions, see here. In real life, there are apparently no concealed carry permits issued in Hawaii, except possibly to retired police - and they have to jump through a lot of hoops.

The Hawaii Defense Foundation has filed a suit against the law.

Emily Gets Her Gun

Washington Times reporter Emily Miller has a long-running series on the trials and tribulations of legally getting a handgun in Washington, DC.

It seems to me that the phrase "shall not be restricted" must have an alternative universe meaning in the capitol of the Land of the Free. DC is controlled by seriously anti-American people.