Harrel v. Raoul Illinois semi-auto ban: Scheduled for second conference!
Bianchi v. Brown Maryland semi-auto ban: Cert denied. Likely because this is pre-judgement. Fourth Circuit has heard this case en banc but has not issued their opinion.
Harrel is a good case to be heard by the Supreme Court. This is great news!
I said that my brain was mostly dead. I couldn’t even copy and paste correctly.
The brain is mostly dead. I marked this article back in December 2023 for reading and writing about.
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Yesterday I completed that thread protector.
This was required to finish the alignment spigot, which is required to mount the backplate to the rotary table, which is required to mount the chuck to the rotary table which is required to hold the mandrel to hold gear blanks, which is required to make gears, which are required to make the Casinator.
See, this is firearms related.
This was the first time I used an internal grooving tool. It was the first time I’ve run the lathe in reverse to do any cutting.
While there were no precision requirements for the thread protector, I still treated it as if I were making a backplate for a chuck to be mounted on the lathe. This gave me practice in measuring bores correctly, and hitting my numbers.
I am going to decide if I coat it in LPS-3 or if I give it a bluing treatment.
When we are dealing with political “stuff”, there are three different things at play.
Rights. A right pre-exists us. Everybody has the right to be armed. Everybody has the right to speak freely. Everybody has the right to seek happiness. These rights are endowed by their Creator
Authority. Authority is permission to exercise some power.
Power. Power is the ability to do something.
As an example, the state has the power to imprison you. They do not have the right to do so. They may have been granted the authority, by The People, to do so.
Our Constitution does not grant us any rights. It does not give any power to the state. It authorizes the state to do some things. As part of that authorization, the state has gathered power to itself.
People are greedy. Anybody who claims we are not is likely lying to you or themselves, or both. Greed is not bad.
I want toys for the safe. I want toys for the shop. I want toys for the house. I want good food. I want good water.
There are 1000s of things I want. There are things that I need.
My greed makes me want to get the things I want.
I need to decide on what is the best way to get the things I want. I could decide to steal these things. This does not have a long term positive outcome.
Because I want, and because I need, I have to find a way to get money. I have decided that the best way for me to get money is to marry well, sell my skills to others, and sell things that I make.
When I am selling things that I make, I need to sell them at a price that will earn me a profit. The size of that profit is set by greed. If the price is too high, I will not be able to sell very many. If the price is too low, I will not be able to make enough profit. I want to find the price that generates enough profit and enough sales to make an overall profit that I’m happy with.
That is greed at work.
Unfortunately, greed also causes people to look for advantages. One of the easiest methods of getting an advantage is to change the rules such that you have some sort of advantage over others.
You are making a widget. You have been making widgets for years. You have a strong customer base and many return customers.
A new player comes into town and starts to manufacture widgets in competition with you. They are not making much headway, as your long-term efforts and excellent product keep people coming to you to purchase.
The new player decides that they need an advantage. They know there are potential safety issues with the widgets that they are making. It is easily mitigated by using a known procedure.
They go to the government and lobby to “Make Widgets Safer.” “Protect The Children From Bad Widgets!”. They get a new regulation passed which requires a compliance report on using the particular procedure in making widgets.
The government is now using a power they may not have the authority to use. Regardless, they do have the power. They have more power than you do.
You now have to hire a person to perform compliance reporting along with compliance testing. Your costs have now gone up to the point where your competitor’s price/quality is closer to yours, and they start to take customers from you.
The question then becomes, by what authority did the state impose that compliance regulation on you?
The state always has the power. When some purple haired whale yells that your penis replacement AR-15 isn’t going to stop the state, they are explicitly saying that the state has more power than you.
Their opinion is that the state should exercise that power to force you to do whatever it is they want you to do.
Save for your retirement? Yep, the state has the power to force that on you.
Pay for illegal aliens to have an education? Yep, the state has the power to force you to do that.
Buy car insurance? Yes, some individual states have forced you to purchase car insurance.
Buy health insurance? In a bill, we had to pass to know what was in it, the state did exactly that, they forced you to buy health insurance.
That is the exercise of power.
Does the state have the authority to do so? That is an entirely different question. You need to look at what the Constitution authorizes the state to do. What you find is that the lawyers have twisted small things to make it look like an authorization.
If you look at the original NFA, it was based on a tax. The state is authorized by Article I, Section 8, Clause 1:
This is the first of the enumerated authorizations. The state can tax just about anything they want.
But, their authorization to tax “just about anything” was modified in 1791 to exclude taxes on arms. …, the right of The People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The word “infringed” means to “hinder”, thus a tax on keeping or bearing arms is an infringement and unconstitutional.
To conclude, we, The People, have rights and powers. The state has power but no rights.
Our rights are protected by different parts of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. The state is authorized by the Constitution to exercise some of its powers.
If the federal government is not authorized to exercise a power, that authorization goes back to the individual states and The People.
Do NOT let anybody claim that the state has “rights”, it does not. It has power. It is either exercising the power under the authority of the Constitution or it is abusing its powers.
The weekend is nearly here! I’m actually looking forward to it.
We’ve had a win out in the Ninth Circuit. Stand-bye to have the merits panel’s opinion stayed and the en banc panel decided for the state.
We are expecting to hear from the Supreme Court on Rahimi in June.
The Supreme Court had conference yesterday, the 16th. In that conference, they discussed a number of 2A cases. I’m keeping an eye on that. What we want to see is cases bound over for another conference.
If they are going to deny the case, they will just do it. If they are not going to hear the case but will hold it pending some other case, it will not be scheduled for another conference.
On the other hand, if they schedule for another conference, that means that multiple law clerks and justices will be taking a hard look at the case to see if there is a good reason to NOT hear it.
We should know that later today or Monday.
I’m pretty sure you are all tired of hearing me talk about shop work. Shop work is part of my health plan. I spend about 12 hours per day sitting. Either in front of my computer or with family or driving. This is not good. I’m currently spending 3 to 6 hours per day in the shop.
This time in the shop is time on my feet. I’m starting the process of recovering the shop from my leftover mess. It is getting better.
Those hours on my feet moving is causing pain in the evenings, but it is the pain I’ve earned.
I’ve noticed several new people commenting. WECLOME! Please tell us a little bit about what you are looking for with GFZ.
The rotary table arrived the other day. Monday the dividing plates arrived.
The plates look great. The package was not so great. Amazon slapped a mailing label on the box and dropped it in the mail. It arrived with pieces missing.
There are supposed to be three screws and a handle/indexing plunger. These were missing.
But, that is ok, there is lots to do before the replacement parts arrive.
The rotary table needs one modification and one change. The worm shaft is keyed for the dial handle. Which is wonderful.
You can’t use a keyed shaft in the adjustment arm. The adjustment arm is a slot and a hole. The hole has a set screw to hold the handle at the right distance from the dividing plate. The slot fits over the worm shaft over two flats. It is held in place by a center screw. The same screw that holds the handle on.
The worm shaft is missing those flats. I will need to mill the flats in place to make it all work correctly.
The dividing plate mounts to a collar with three screws. The collar exists and is held to the elliptic housing with two set screws. The collar has the 0 index as well as a 10-second vernier scale. The collar does not have the three drilled and tapped holes to mount the dividing plates.
I’ve manufactured a replacement collar. I still need to drill and tap the holes for the set screws. Then I’ll drill and tape for the screws that are on the way to hold the dividing plate to the collar.
All good!
Making that collar was interesting. It is the first time I’ve used a sacrificial mandrel, and the first time I’ve used the superglue trick. That’s where you superglue the part to something you can hold on the lathe. When you are done, you heat the part and the superglue will release.
This worked much better than I expected.
I faced off both sides of an 8.0 by 1.25 disk of aluminum for the backing plate. I then made the registration boss. That boss is oversized. Once the backplate is mounted to the rotary table, which is centered, I can mill the registration boss to final dimension on the rotary table, this will maintain concentricity. I.e. the center of the rotary table will be the center of the chuck.
The plate needs to be drilled and counter sinks done to mount to the rotary table.
The rotary table does NOT have drilled and tapped holes. Instead, it has T-Slots. I am making the T-Nut blanks. They need to be cut apart, squared up, and then drilled and tapped 3/8 16. The T-Nut blanks have been tested, and they are a snug sliding fit into the T-Slots of the rotary table.
If I get lucky, I will finish making the backplate today. The only question I still have is the mounting holes for the chuck. I will hit up my local hardware store to buy the 3 screws I need to make it all work.
Hopefully, I will be cutting gears next week.
With the rotary table, some Casinator operations become easier. I’m excited about a productive week, working on the Casinator.