Both Maryland and Massachusetts have issued statements saying that the “proper cause” parts of their registration requirements are to be ignored or just used for good moral character reasons. So don’t joke about it. Put the right words there. One of the common phrases I’ve heard is “For all lawful purposes”. YMMV

Massachusetts: Office of Attorney General Maura Healey AGO & EOPSS LTC Guidance
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan: Governor Hogan Directs Maryland State Police to Suspend ‘Good and Substantial Reason’ Standard For Wear and Carry Permits

When you go to the store and pick up a box of ammo you are purchasing the ammo, some sort of holder for the rounds and a box. I’ve been throwing out the little red holders from Federal for years and years.

When you open a box of military surplus ammo, there is no holder. At most you might find a couple of thin pieces of paper. The packing is much denser.

When you pack your ammo for storage, you would like it to be as dense as possible. For me this means it needs to fit in an ammo can.

All of this lead me to all the expensive plastic boxes, landing on MTM as my prefered type. But even at the low cost of MTM, it didn’t actually get me anywhere near the density I wanted. Then I stumbled on RepackBox.

These guys are into making boxes but then designed a very good box for ammo. I use it for a number of calibers that I reload in bulk and for which I don’t need fast access. I don’t use them for 5.56×45 because those are kept on stripper clips which these boxes don’t fit.

How about 1600 rounds of 9mm in a single 50 cal can in neat little boxes of 50. That’s 32 boxes. The boxes are around $25/30 boxes or $35/100 boxes.

They also sell the same sort of box for rifle cartridges. Rifle cartridges are either 20 or 30 rounds depending on cartridge size. They include instructions for how to pack 50 Cal cans. I pack 30 cal cans as well with these boxes.

They are kind and send a label sheet with instructions on one side and labels ready to print on the other side. The labels are designed to fit in the little bubble under the caliber. I use it to identify the load in that particular round.

If you want to speed packing up they sell little 3D printed trays that hold all of the rounds that will go into a box. You fill the tray, put the box over the tray, flip the two over and all your rounds are in the box. Fold over the laps, label and pack. You’re done.

These are available [at multiple online sources] or [directly] from REPACKBOX Roger Small (I hope I spelled his name correctly) is the owner, I had a nice conversation with him. About a year ago I spoke to him and asked for packing diagrams for 30 cal cans and they are now on his site, so if you don’t want to lug 1600 9mm rounds in a 50cal can, you can carry 850 rounds in a 30cal can.

Be careful with rimmed cartridges, they are a little harder to pack because of all the wiggle room in the box to account for the rims. According to Rodger, I’ve been doing it wrong and I just need to tilt the box at a diagonal and load from one corner up.

Updated for spelling error
Update2: Removed reference to specific online retailer by request of Roger.

Miguel is now officially in semi-retirement. This means we’ll be getting posts from him less often but they will still be spicy and or interesting.

We are in the process of moving the blog. We will be moving it from a private server to a Troglodite Cluster. This will be happening shortly.

Part of that process is copying everything from the current server to the new cluster. This takes a while. During this time the old blog will be live so you can continue reading but all new content will be on the new server. You will be able to tell you are on the new site when the banner changes to include “REGISTER” in the main menu bar:

Once registration is open we look forward to having people sign up. About 2 or 3 weeks after registration is open we will be closing comments to registered users only.

J.Kb, Miguel and I will be working on how we want to do limited distribution content but that will start showing up in the same time period.

I sit in the passenger seat of a VW Micro bus as my mother drives us home. Father has the duty and won’t be home till Monday. It is wonderful that dad is back. He was over there in Vietnam. But he was safe. He was on a big navy ship.

I’m a big boy now, 3rd grade. I think back to a day not so long ago when we were still in Virginia, not California.

John and I lay on the hill side. He and I were talking about The War.

“What are you going to do when you are drafted?” The kindergardener me asked.

“I don’t know”, John answers, “I might go to Canada.”

“I’m going to enlist in the Navy before I’m drafted.”, I say.

As kindergardeners we know that war is forever. That we will be going to war. And that we will likely die.

A year later my father is on his way to Vietnam. He’ll be safe. They aren’t shooting at ships. (They were)

But today, I am listening to a song on the radio as we drive towards home. Dad is home safe but he’s not here again. He is an Officer in the US Navy and I’m proud of him.

We pull into the drive way and I ask my mom to leave the radio on so I can hear the end of the song. It finishes and I ask her what the name of the song is. She doesn’t know and she tells me to call the radio station to find out. I go inside and find the radio station in the phone book and call.

The D.J. answers and tells me the name of the song. A 3rd grader knows a song that has touched him to his soul. Years later I call and ask the D.J. to play this song. The D.J. scoofs and tells me it is a horrible song and refuses to play it.

I hope you understand as you listen:

We knew that the gun rights infringers would lose their every loving minds if Bruen was decided in favor of gun rights. The decision is great not because it struck down New York State and City “may issue but not likely” permitting scheme but because it reaffirmed that the people have a right to self defense outside of their homes.

It reaffirmed that ordinary people have the right to carry a weapon for self defense.

Most importantly it stated clearly that the second amendment will be treated as a real guarantee of our rights. No more two tier means-end balancing.

Unfortunately the opinion left a few gotchas in place. The first was “sensitive places” and the other was “reasonable permitting regulations.”

While some states have issued guidance that makes the state “shall issue” others are fighting back. Massachusetts issued guidance that the good cause is no longer needed but everything else about getting a permit is still in place. In my opinion this means that the question of why I want a permit is answered with “All lawful purposes”. California did similar and I believe New Jersey did as well.

Unfortunately places like New York have hit on an attack vector that we expected. New Jersey is looking to go down the same path.

In short, they are going to define as many places as possible as “sensitive” and make them gun free zones. In addition, they are making violations of gun free zones felonies. This means that a CCW that is carrying can lose their rights because they happen to enter one of the many many forbidden zones.

The other way they are making it impossible to carry is by creating a default gun free zone for all private property. The wording is a little unclear but it seems to say that it requires both the owner of the property and the lessee to agree to allowing CCW on or in the property. By the wording it implies to me that in the case of the lessee posting a sign allowing and the owner not posting a sign the CCW could still be in violation.

Note the “on or in” clause.

Imagine if you would that you are a CCW carrier and you decide to go for a drive. You glance at your gas gauge and determine you need gas. You pull into your local gas station to pump some gas. As you do you are now on the property. If there is no sign saying your firearm is permitted, you just committed a felony.

On a practical note, they law calls for “clear and conspicuous signage indicating that the carrying of firearms … is permitted…”. It will not surprise me when we find out that the regulations on signage will require the businesses to buy expensive signs. Consider a simple MUTCD compliant STOP sign is $75 dollars, what do you think a NYS or NJ approved sign will cost?

I believe in both our right to self defense and our property rights. I personally have a rule that on our property if we are having a gathering of people that are not all gun people that concealed carry is allowed but open is not. We have some friends that are to scared of firearms to even look at them in person. That’s fine.

If a business wants to limit firearm possession in their place of business to criminals only, that is their choice. I’ll respect it and take my business else where.

There are many challenges dropping right now against all of the laws being put in place to get around the second amendment now that Bruen has been decided. I’m hoping that they move quickly.

New York State’s Gun Control Bill of 2022
Star-Ledger Begging For NJ to do the same

In general media representation of the guns right battle is highly slanted. An “expert” or two will be quoted with their affiliation, but unless you are in the know, it isn’t obvious that these experts are paid shills for gun control groups.

A line I used when talking to my Senator about the ATF nominee was “If you wouldn’t put a lobbyist from the NRA in this position, then you shouldn’t be putting Chapman as the head of the ATF”.

I’ve been diving into the nastier parts of the body politic in order to find good balanced articles for the blog. This one was surprising.

For some, the words “shall not be infringed” mean no laws can be passed that limit a person’s ability to own firearms or ammunition. Others see “a well regulated Militia” as permitting gun control and stating that the right to own a firearm is connected to a military purpose.

Give them the click AMERICA’S GUN CULTURE: Second Amendment interpretation central to national debate over firearms, public safety

20-1507 ASSN. OF NJ RIFLE, ET AL. V. BRUCK, ATT’Y GEN. OF NJ, ET AL.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of appeals for the Third Circuit for further consideration in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. ___ (2022).

This is a standard capacity magazine ban (more than 10)

20-1639 YOUNG, GEORGE K. V. HAWAII, ET AL.
21-1194 DUNCAN, VIRGINIA, ET AL. V. BONTA, ATT’Y GEN. OF CA
The petitions for writs of certiorari are granted. The judgments are vacated, and the cases are remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for further consideration in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. ___ (2022).

Young V. Hawaii is pretty much Bruen all over again except it covers both open and concealed carry
Duncan v. Bonta is a standard capacity magazine ban,

21-902 BIANCHI, DOMINIC, ET AL. V. FROSH, ATT’Y GEN. OF MD, ET AL.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for further consideration in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. ___ (2022).

Bianchi v. Maryland is an assault weapons ban.

These 4 cases have now been granted certiorari (to be judge by SCOTUS). The court has then vacated the original decision of the appellate court. The case has been remanded (sent back) to the court from which it came for them to come to a decision based on Bruen.

The appellate court can then decided to kick it back to a lower court (district?) for them to come to a decision based on Bruen.

This means that these cases should be decided in favor of the second amendment.

It is likely that the 9th circuit court will quickly remand both of their cases. They have already started remanding cases in light of Bruen.

Unfortunately, this will continue to be an issue until these politicians get slapped down. I wish there was a way to send some of them to prison for the way they try and avoid the courts opinions.

Calls have rung out across the nation demanding gun control laws in a bid to curb violent crimes such as the recent series of mass shootings. Data, however, show that in states with higher percentages of households with at least one gun, crimes are not higher than in states with strict gun laws.
— Fox News: States with higher rate of gun ownership do not correlate with more gun murders, data show

While this particular report is very good at balancing numbers John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of More Guns, Less Crime points out that this report has the same failings as the anti-gun statistics. It is the problem of comparing two dissimilar locations with different CCW restrictions.

It is the same problem of comparing the UK to the US. The US is huge as compared to the UK. If you compare the UK to a single state of comparable area or comparable population you can get very different results, depending on which and where. England has a population of 56 million as of 2018, California has a population of 39 million. Comparing England to California is more reasonable than comparing England to these United States.

In addition, these United States have a much more heterogeneous mixture than many European countries. Until the recent influx of refugees most Scandinavian countries were very homogeneous. That is a statement of cultures, not of colors.

Lott’s prefered method of comparison is not to compare two different locations. It is just to easy to cherry pick to get the results you want. Instead he prefers to look at a single place as the laws change.

In addition he and most honest researchers look into controlling outside factors. Consider the situation where a state passes constitutional carry and at the same time decides on a catch and release policy for violent criminals. Or decides to release 100s of criminals from prison in order to keep them safe from a virus.

Which of those factors drives the rate of violence? Is it that there is suddenly more violent criminals on the streets? Is that there is suddenly no punishment for violent crime? Or is it that ordinary people can suddenly defend themselves?

At some point I’ll try and find the statistics on average number of crimes a violent criminal commits before they are incarcerated.

Democrats have to do what Democrats do, cheat.

Right now Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh is on my less liked list. On the Bruen decision he wrote his own concurring opinion. In it he gave the left the anchors to hang gun control on. There are 80 pages in the opinion, most by Thomas. Amy said “We didn’t clarify this and we should have.” Alito said “The judges in disent aren’t practicing law, they’re practicing emotional blackmail.” And Kavanaugh…

First, the Court’s decision does not prohibit States from imposing licensing requirements for carrying a handgun for self-defense. In particular, the Court’s decision does not affect the existing licensing regimes—known as “shall-issue” regimes—that are employed in 43 States.

…or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

Adding to Thomas’s:

Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554 U. S., at 626. Although the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions. See D. Kopel & J. Greenlee, The “Sensitive Places” Doctrine, 13 Charleston L. Rev. 205, 229–236, 244–247 (2018); see also Brief for Independent Institute as Amicus Curiae 11–17. We therefore can assume it settled that these locations were “sensitive places” where arms carrying could be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of “sensitive places” to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.

From this we knew what was going to happen. The second amendment infringers were going to paper cut the right to its death.

And being cheaters they have to cheat.

According to Minority Leader Willam A. Barclay of the New York State Assembly office, the bill that the Governor wants them to vote on has not been given to them as of 1600 on June 30th. They have no idea when they will have a copy of the text of the bill. There is nothing filed at this point.

It sounds more and more like the S.A.F.E. act. It will be passed at midnight before anybody can actually comment on the bill. As normally a politician won’t accept comments on a bill for which there is no text.

First they are going to extend “sensitive” places to include government buildings, hospitals, schools, public transits, and places where children gather, bars. (My original source had more listed). The thing to note about these sorts of sensitive places is that there are likely to be a radius around them which is considered to be part of the sensitive location).

Thus it is likely that “public transport” will mean buses, subways, trains, as well as bus stations, train stations, subway stations, and bus stops. Consider a simple 100ft limit. This means that every bus stop in NYC now has a 100ft no-go zone around it. It might mean that as a bus moves through the streets it also has a 100ft radius. You are driving down the street, minding your own business and drive pass a playground and suddenly you are breaking the law. It could mean that all of central park is a no-go zone.

Without stepping over the line of making all of NYC a sensitive place, it could make it so that there are so many no-go zones that it is impossible to go anywhere without intruding into one of these places.

In addition they are looking at including 15 hours of in-person range time. One version I read had it “Must pass the same training in firearms as law enforcement.” Given that certified instructors are not cheap this will be expensive. In talking to one range owner it will cost you two boxes of ammo plus $100 for an hour of range time with him as an instructor. It looks to me as if the cost for 15 hours of training will run well over $500, not counting ammo.

Side note, I don’t like talking to NYC people. They have an entirely different way of talking to people which starts with not answering the question asked, assuming you are a dolt and then telling you what you have to do. This owner includes instructions on how to clean your gun. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was sitting next to more firepower than anybody outside of criminals and Law Enforcement has in NYC. I.e. I have more than one firearm.

The biggest difference is that NY State is going to declare all private businesses as gun free zones without an explicit concealed carry permitted here signage. In reasonable states an owner can post a No Guns sign. In most states the signage is very explicit as to size, shape and visibility. This is so some nasty can’t put a post-it note up with a hand drawn “no guns allowed” and then bust a legal gun owner that didn’t see the sign.

In some states, such as mine, a No Guns Allowed is not prohibitive. You can still carry in those locations. The business can ask you to leave if they see the firearm but it isn’t a real issue. I’ve yet to see a no guns sign outside of hospitals and clinics. Which is sometimes funny when I forget I’m carrying and they ask me to take my coat off so they can take my blood pressure.

The good news is that most state level second amendment organizations as well as the FPC and other national organizations have a number of lawsuits teed up for these actions. The 9th circuit remanding cases based on Bruen is a good sign. I’m hoping that we’ll see the lower courts just hammering these laws so that we don’t even have to wait for a circuit court to hear the case.

Hochul: NY Lawmakers Hold Special Session, Will Limit Where Guns Can Be Carried plus some personal calls to legislators offices and gun ranges.

The district court’s judgment is vacated, and this case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. ____(2022).

This case is about Ventura County closing gun shops, ammunition shops and firing ranges during the panic. Plaintiffs claimed a violation of their Second Amendment rights.

It also looks like Jones v. Bonta is being remanded as well. This is the California assault weapons ban. I can’t find this on the courts webpage but it seems to have been mentioned in a couple of different trustworth places.

It looks like there are a number of lawsuits that are dropping now that Bruen has been decided. We are living in interesting times.