Month: November 2023

B.L.U.F.
Brady’s amici curiae is extremely weak, replaying old, disproved arguments.
(900 words)

It gets tiring reading the same old arguments from the state, state actors, and state supporters.

Heller tells us that if the plain text of the Second Amendment is implicated by the proposed conduct, then it is the burden of the state to prove a history and tradition of analogous regulations.

I propose this simple test to see if the plaint text is implicated: If Everytown, Brady, or Giffords files an amici brief, then the proposed conduct implicates the Second Amendment.

After Bruen we saw the standard infringers jumping in. The state with their sycophants tossed every regulation that they could find that might, possibly, support their argument for civilian disarmament. We’ve seen 1000s of pages of electronic ink spilled telling us the horrors of guns and how this particular infringement requires a nuanced view of history and tradition.
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This!

OldNFO added this as a comment on one of my posts.

It used to be said that what separates us from the animals is our ability to use tools. They no longer say that, as there are some animals that do use tools, it is still a good differentiator.

It is all well and good to have a tool, but if you don’t know how to use it, it is just about worthless.

My mother gave me a reproduction “coffee grinder” many years ago. It was based on a brass coffee grinder from the area of Turkey. It is a brass cylinder about 10 inches tall, 2 inches in diameter. There is a crank on the top with a grind adjustment nut.

The reason it is a reproduction is that they didn’t have coffee bean burrs but instead pepper burrs. At the time, most people either had expensive coffee grinders or electric grinders. Almost nobody was grinding coffee manually.

On the other hand, it was, and is, a beautiful pepper grinder. For the last 20 years ago, it was forced into service as a coffee grinder. About 15 years ago, it was taken out of service because we had some superb manual coffee grinders.

All of which takes us to Thanksgiving. I make a wild rice, sausage, and Cognac soaked raisin dressing. It needed some pepper. We have a nice pepper grinder for the table, but it is slow to use. I had cleaned the “coffee grinder” a year or so ago.

It was time to put the tool back in production. I did, it worked perfectly. The family was informed that it was ready to use.

The next day, my wife went to make breakfast and grabbed the “pepper grinder” and cranked. The pepper doesn’t come out because there is a catch cup in place.

She can’t figure out how to take the catch cup off. She ends up using the black pepper from a can.

She didn’t know how to use the tool.

I’m willing to bet that each and every one of us have tools we don’t know how to use. There is only one way to know that you know how to use a tool. That is, to use it for the purpose for which it is intended.

I have a suture kit. I don’t know how to use. I could learn. That tool isn’t for me, it is for properly trained medical personnel that don’t have gear.

There is a MIG wielder in the shop, as AvE says, “a grinder and paint makes me the wielder I ain’t”. I should run beads for a few hours, but I never take the time to do so.

I have an internal threading tool I’ve never used. I really should, just to prove to myself I can cut internal threads.

Please take the time to put some tool you own that you don’t know how to use (well enough) in the comments. Maybe take a moment to decide to learn how to use some tool.

It is always better to know how to use something and not need to do so, than to need to know how to do something and having to learn when time is tight/short.

Before I was as political as I currently am, I didn’t really care which dancing monkey was performing. I only cared that their dance was good.

In 1994, a movie came out that I took my kids to see. It was fun, it was funny. And there was this club scene… Oh my goodness.

The lead character jumps up on stage and gets the band to play swing. I think this was the first time I heard swing. Or at least recognized it as such.

Here is a good rendition of it, without leading back to the dancing monkey who really needs to keep his mouth shut when not dancing and his ass in Canada.

I got done with my 8mmx57 Mauser reloads yesterday. Moving on to 5.56×45 NATO today. There were over 500 clean cases in the “cleaned 5.56 brass” can.

All of it needed to be sized and checked for max case length. The 10th case squeaked when it went in. It didn’t come out, instead the rim ripped right off. DAMN!!!

I’ve been to this rodeo before. It is not fun. The last time I had to do this, I ended up driving the case out with a custom-built drive rod. And then chucking up the case in the lathe to cut the case and extract the resizing rod.

It was a pain in the ass. Something I would rather not do again.

I remembered that there is a case extraction tool you can buy that drills out the primer pocket, threads it and then pulls the case out with a bolt.

Well, I’ve got a lathe, I’ve got tools, I can do this.

First, I figured out a size to use. I picked 1/4″ 20. I really should have gone with 1/4 28, but I didn’t check my part drawer for 1/4″ 28 bolts/screws, so I went with 20 TPI.

I didn’t worry about “perfect”, just chucked up a number 7 drill and used my hand drill. I have complete sets of drills. 1/64 through 1/2″, #1 through whatever, and a-z, plus metric. Machine shop stuff. I have the taps.

No problems drilling and tapping. I screw the cap screw into the case, and then what? I look at levering it out with the claw on a hammer. That doesn’t seem to be a good idea.

Machine shop! I walk over to the lathe and in the junk cutoffs is a slug of aluminum. I drilled a 1/4″ clearance hole completely through. Then I drilled a 1/2″ hole, about 3/4″ deep. 1/2″ is big enough to handle the 5.56 brass. If I need a larger hole for other brass, I’ll either make a different tool or I’ll just make this hole larger.

Back to the vice with the copper jaws, which has a good grip on the die. The slug is too long. Back to the lathe and I face off about 1/4″. Back to the vice.

I screw the cap head bolt in, and it easily pulls that case out of the die. And then stops. With the case lose in the die it just spins instead of being pulled out.

Take the slug/spacer off, screw the decapping pin back in all the way, then slowly screw the cap head back in. Out pops the casing.

With only a $1 worth of scrap aluminum, I was able to make my own brass extractor tool!

Tools used: 12″x5′ South Bend Lathe, $1500, Quick Change tool post, $250, QC toolholder, $75. Toolholder, $75, insert $20. #7 drill, 1/4 drill, and 1/2in drill, about $10 total. Hand drill, $75. 1/4″ 20 plug tap, $15. Starrett tap handle $100.

This proves to my wife that all of those “expenses” to save $27.79.

Machine shop for the win!

There is 8mmx57 out there. Some of it cheap. Unfortunately, for me, most of it is berdan primed.

For those that don’t understand the importance of that statement, there are two types of primers that are currently used, “berdan” and “boxer”.

Boxer primers are made in two parts, a cup, with primer material, and an anvil. When you seat the primer, the anvil is set further into the cup by a slight amount. When the firing pin strikes the back of the brass cup, the primer material is crushed between the base of the cup and the anvil, causing a spark. I.e., the spark button works.

That spark flashes through a single, “large” hole and ignites the zoom juice, causing the magic powder to go “poof” pushing a freedom seed out the mouth of the cartridge.

A berdan primer is slightly different. It has the same cup and primer material, but it does not have an anvil. Instead, the case that receives the primer has an anvil. There are two holes on either side of that anvil that allows the spark to flash through to the zoom juice.

When we use a boxer primer, we can push the primer out with a pin pushed through the mouth of the case. Easy. There is no central hole to remove the berdan primer.

A common method used to remove berdan primers is hydro-shocking them. You fill the case with water. You push in a small road that fills most of the mouth. You place the case with rod over a small hole. You wack the rod with a hammer. That presses down on the water. Since the water is not compressible, the water in turn presses on the primer and ejects it from the case.

It is a messy process. After which you need berdan primers to prime the case to use again. Or you need to convert the case from berdan to boxer. It can be done. It is not worth the time, most of the time.

Having said all of that, I had around 20 rounds of 8mmx57 Mauser. All of it seems to be berdan primed.

20 rounds is the same as no rounds. I want more. At least one full load.

The other day, the LGS sold me 125 boxer primer cases for a good price. My dies showed up within the week. I had my powder. All I required was bullets. Nobody had any. I spent time looking and didn’t find. I thought I read that the 0.312 would work. I was wrong.

I finally found some at OpticsPlanet. I ordered them because they were in stock.

It seems that sometime between the add to cart and checkout, they sold the last of the Hornady SST, 170gr. They tell me that I’ll have both bullet styles to me in a week. A week turned into 6 before they finally arrived.

I resized 10 cases, verified everything, primed them. I got done with Thanksgiving and loaded them with IMR 4895 today.

Out to the test range. The freedom seeds are flying. The spark buttons are sparking. The targets are NOT ringing nor is the small pumpkin splatting.

WTF!? Hagar is spotting for me. “The height’s good, off the left.”

I aim to the right side of the pumpkin. “Still left of target”.

I’m perplexed. I’m not a great shot, but I’m not this bad.

Maybe it is the rifle? I start by making sure the rear ladder is set correctly, it is. The small notch and fine front post work well. It could be I just need to adjust for windage? No adjustment on the rear sights. Go to check the front sight.

The damn blade has shifted right! It is visibly no longer centered. I shove it back to center with my thumb and take two more shots.

One rings steel. The other sends that pumpkin flying in multiple different directions.

Look at yourself first, but it could be your equipment that is failing.

And I love my Redding Dies.

I watch Mark Smith’s Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel because he explains legal concepts clearly. He often addresses issues that I’m concerned with understanding.

There are more than a few things I’ve picked up from him, as far as language goes.

One of those is “inferior court”. Article III of the US Constitution establishes the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as … When I am speaking of an inferior court, it means that it has a superior court which tells it how to act.

Mark Smith makes this point over and over. I got it from him.

The concept of inferior court makes it very clear that all inferior courts should be taking their marching orders from the Supreme Court.

When a court does not follow the clear instructions of the Supreme court, I label it a rogue court, or a rogue judge.

One of the things I’ve learned, while reading 100s, if not 1000s, of court filings, is that rogue judges spend more time on what wasn’t said in Supreme Court opinions than they do on what was said.

These rogue courts will often latch onto a tiny part of an opinion and fixate on that part. Nothing else matters outside that small safety net of infringement.

They will quote Heller that “no right is absolute” as if that somehow makes this infringement that exception. Every modern regulation requires that nuanced approach.

My son is on the spectrum. We used to tell him, “Stop hunting zebras”. Yes, those hoof prints might be zebra prints, but we aren’t in that part of Africa, we aren’t near a zoo that has misplaced a zebra, it is much more likely that it is a horse.

The Supreme Court says, “When you are looking at a horse, this is how you ‘do it’. There is a small chance it is a zebra, in which case you “do it” this alternative way.” They then spend 99% of their instructions on dealing with horses.

Then an inferior court starts looking for zebras, doesn’t find a zebra, but it could be a zebra, the Supreme Court did mention a zebra in one sentence of one paragraph of a 70-page opinion, so we’ll assume this is a zebra, just like the Supreme Court said.

The other common argument used is the “they didn’t say anything about it, so it must be constitutional”. Heller went through every word of the Second Amendment and explained what each phrase meant. They didn’t bother with “infringe” because that’s straightforward.

All that is needed is to look at Samuel Johnson’s dictionary and you would know.

Too many inferior court judges instead throw up their hands and say, “We don’t know what it means, so it must mean the modern regulation is constitutional.”

The part about all of this that drives me bonkers is that Heller and Bruen clearly state that if the modern regulations touches fingers with the Second Amendment, the regulation is presumptively unconstitutional. To quote Mr. Smith, “When in doubt, throw it out.”

Finally, the actual lying to The People’s face. To look at a modern regulation, to absolutely know it is a gun control law, and then claim it doesn’t touch fingers with the Second Amendment.

Just make the assumption and let the Constitution work as intended. Instead, they are so afraid of following the plain text of the Constitution, as they know it will be the downfall of much of their statist regulatory dream.

B.L.U.F.
Senior Circuit Judge Keene wrote the dissent in this case. She is unhappy with the majority opinion because that opinion would find most, if not all gun-control regulations, unconstitutional.

Because this goes against her agenda, she latches onto footnote 9 of the Bruen opinion to justify why any set of objective hoops placed to hinder a member of The People from keeping and bearing arms is constitutional. It doesn’t matter how long it takes nor how much money it takes, nor what those hoops are. As long as the state must grant permission at the end, that regime is constitutional.

(4200 words)

On November 21, the Fourth Circuit court issued their opinion on Maryland Shall Issue’s challenge to Maryland’s “Handgun Qualification License”.

This is a permit to purchase. Before you can purchase a handgun in Maryland, you must first submit fingerprints, undergo a background investigation, take a four-hour-long firearms safety training course which includes firing at least one round. After that is completed, you can submit your application for your HQL.

The state has 30 days to approve or deny the application, after they receive the application. We know that “the state” has a habit of not “receiving” things they want to receive. If they haven’t “officially” received the application, the clock hasn’t started. In addition, the 30 days is not clearly defined in law. Is that 30 business days or 30 calendar days? And how long do they have to inform the applicant of the determination? Or, as one state is doing, they are granting appointments for fingerprinting 6+ months in advance.

The reality of this egregious infringement is that it is likely three months from the decision to get an HQL before you have one.

The three judge panel reversed the district court’s “contrary decision”.

This means that the case is not going back to the district court. It can only move forward to the Supreme Court. The state has 21 days to appeal, IIRC. Reversing a decision is “You got it wrong, we don’t need you to mess it up again, it is wrong, and we are setting it right.” This is better than vacating and remanding a decision. When a case is vacated and remanded, the case is sent back to the inferior court where they do the case all over again, collecting new arguments and evidence.

So the Fourth Circuit panel did the right thing the right way in a reasonable amount of time.

Of course, there is always the thorn in your side in a case like this. That thorn is Senior Circuit Judge Barbara Milano Keenan. Born in 1950, making her 73 years old. She was nominated by Obama in 2009 and appointed in 2010. She assumed senior status in 2021.

Yes, that type of judge.

The Dissent

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Thank you for all the suggestions I got from people that understand Linux.
Don’t click the more button unless you want to read Linux geek stuff.

(1300 words)
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It has been a good week. A week to be thankful for.

Oregon had a massive win in regard to measure 114 and its follow-on bill. A state court granted a permanent injunction against the entire mess. Measure 114 is currently on life support.

This was at the lowest level in the state courts. Sort of at the “district” level if compared to the federal courts. The final judgement can be appealed to Oregon’s appeals court and from there to the Oregon Supreme court. From the Oregon Supreme court, there is an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

It will be interesting to see what the state does. If they don’t appeal, this is a loss but only takes out the permit to purchase and magazine bans. If they run it up the chain, they could lose and set a precedent for Oregon or the entire country.

The case was decided as a state constitutional challenge, not a Second Amendment challenge. I’ve not read the court’s opinion and might not. One of the lawyers I follow read a part of the opinion that struck me as particularly intriguing. The court applied a plain text, history and tradition test, against the Oregon state constitution. Very cool.

One of the first cases GVR out of the Supreme Court post Bruen was [xCite item=”V9B87K44″ pos=0]. The Fourth Circuit court heard oral arguments shortly after the case was GVR. They still have not issued their opinion on that case.

That case is a direct challenge to [xCite item=”QRND22EY” pos=1] which, is the Fourth Circuit court’s means-end case law.

In an entirely different case [xCite item=”APL6JJ3B” pos=2], the Fourth Circuit issued their opinion supporting The People and upholding the rights protected by the Second Amendment. It was a three—judge panel. The case challenges Maryland’s permit to transfer/purchase a firearm. It is a so-called Universal Background Check.

In addition, Maryland requires a “handgun qualification license” or HQL. It is that HQL that was struck down by the Fourth Circuit. That opinion is in my to-do queue.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you did not participate in this American Tradition, I hope your Thursday was joyful.

On the not fun side of things, Wed. I started the upgrade of my primary computer. In the process of performing that upgrade, my system stopped booting. The system is booted, now, but it required some magic to accomplish.

The gist of which was to boot off an external device, get to the grub menu, escape to the grub command line. Install the GPT partition module. Type the magic incarnations “linux (hd5,gpt1)/ROOT/ubuntu@/boot/vmlinuz-6.5.0-13-generic -root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/ubuntu” with no errors. From memory.

I’m still fixing things, maybe it will get better. If not, I do know how to “fix” it.

Comments are open, I’m eager to hear your feedback.
[xCiteBib]

I grew up in a traditional family. Part of this meant that we ate as a family every night. When we finally got a TV, we didn’t eat in front of it. That was something that was a reserved special treat.

For a long time, I had lost that. When my wife and I got together I reinstated that family meal.

Unless it is something special, we eat at the table. The entire family. If you are feeling anti-social, you still come down and say prayers.

We go around the table and everybody gives thanks for something real to them for that day.

• Thank you to Miguel for letting me write for the blog and for trusting me to take care of his child
• Thank you to J.Kb for putting up with me as a co-blogger.
• Thank you to you, our readers.  Your readership means a great deal to me.
• Thank you to our founding fathers that gave us this great country
• Thank you to all the men, women, and children that have fought to keep this country free
• Thank you for winning the lottery when I was born an American.
• Thank you for the protected right to armed self-defense
• Thank you for the vast wealth our country has
• Thank you for the vast wealth each of us has.
• Thank you for the technology that allows me to work in this great state with people around the world.
• Thank you  to our Creator, who has given us so much.
• Thank you for the joy of bang sticks.
• Thank you for the smiles of my new born children
• Thank you for the smiles, glares, “Oh Dad…” of my children today.
• Thank you for the health care that has allowed my wife to have four knee replacements.
• Thank you for the modern medicines that keep me going.
• Thank you for all the plenty that is on our table, every day.
• Thank you to my friends.  Those that have passed, those that are gone, those that are close, and for all my friends I have yet to meet.

Happy Thanksgiving