There is an insurrection taking place in our country. There are clear indications of Command and Control structures and a host of other CIA style “how to” markers.

The left wants highly visible incidents. They want people like Goode and Perti to have their stupidity splashed across the nation’s TVs (and the modern equivalent). It hits at a visceral level when you see somebody being killed.

It doesn’t matter whether it is justified or not; watching somebody being killed causes emotional trauma.

So here is something lighter, from my childhood, maybe yours too:

https://youtu.be/RJREOkcRbv4?t=50

We all know that the Left and the media (who, though they often do things together, ARE two separate groups with two separate agendas) are not great at giving us all the facts. They post up stories like how ICE arrested a five year old child (not true; they detained the five year old because the parent was being incarcerated and they couldn’t exactly let a five year old go wandering around alone, which is the same thing DCF does when they have a parent arrested… but I digress). A few days ago, I saw a news report about an “elderly gentleman” (their words, which I find extremely offensive considering I’m 55 in 3 days and I’m not f’ing elderly, thankewvrymuch) being “dragged” out of his home in nothing but crocks, his underwear, and his 8 year old grandson’s blanket. I knew there had to be more to the story (and I was correct), but I couldn’t find anything.

Now, I am a proponent of keeping government small. (No, smaller than that. That’s still too much government. Put more back. More.) I believe the government has reverse Midas touch: everything it touches turns to shit. Therefore, unless it’s really necessary, the government should just back off. ICE is a government agency, and they are a strong-arm group. For what they’re doing, that’s an important skill, and I’m thankful they are doing as good a job as they appear to be. I mean, for all the Left is freaking out over the “deadliest year for ICE in decades” (NPR), that number of people who died over the entire year is 32. Jails lose more people in a year, by far. That number, 32, is for all of ICE detention centers… LA alone lost 22 inmates to death in 2025. You can shout about their numbers, but ICE seems to be doing a pretty good job.

That said, it’s important to watch all people in positions of power. ICE is a powerful place to be. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people working for ICE are morally upright, good people just trying to do a very difficult job, made worse by idiotic protesters and rioters. But there is always the possibility of there being a bad guy in their midst. Just as there are bad cops, there are probably bad ICE agents. It behooves us, especially those of us supporting ICE, to keep an eye on them. I don’t mean in the “citizen monitoring” way, but more in the same way we keep an eye on our politicians.

So when I heard about this elderly gentleman being dragged out of his home after they smashed his door in (in 7*F weather, I might add), I wanted to know more. That sounds bad, and I was worried we’d finally found the one bad apple in the barrel. I did what I usually do: I went looking for actual information, factual stuff.

I didn’t find it.

Read More

It is ICE cold in my office as I write. Our basement is unheated and has zero insulation, and it leaks like a sieve. This makes the floors cold.

My big goal for the coming spring is to get some insulation into the basement.

But that’s not the type of ICE Cold I’m talking about here.

Up in the insurrectionist state of Minnesota, we had another FAFO moment.

A man who was carrying decided to interject himself with ICE agents. He got physical with them. Five agents were trying to detain or arrest him before he was shot and killed.

He was carrying his firearm in the small of his back. The video I’ve seen shows the gun in his hand before shots were fired.

He’s dead because he FA’d and found out.

Our AG and the director of the FBI both made public statements to the effect that bringing a gun to a protest means you are intending violence and is illegal and can get you shot.

I do not give up my Second Amendment protected rights when I choose to exercise my First Amendment protected rights.

Exercising a right does not even rise to “suspicion.” Merely exercising your rights does not ever give the state the authority to detain you. There must be more.

My friend from Canada was talking about guns and mentioned that carrying them into a bank was illegal. That it was a good way to end up in jail.

He was shocked to learn that I carry every time I enter a bank.

In short, Kash and Pam can go to hell for even thinking that The People must forgo their Second Amendment rights before they can exercise their First Amendment rights.

The “want” of a 3D printer was to be able to make foundry patterns. This is quickly becoming the standard for small run castings. It is much easier and faster than traditional pattern making, and you don’t require the same set of specialized tools.

The downside is that most 3D printers don’t have a large enough print volume of interesting castings, requiring printing in parts and then assembling the parts to create a whole.

This want was not enough. There had to be something that was a reasonable fit with our household. It isn’t like I’m going to be printing dragons and dice and hoping to pay for the hobby with that. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people doing that.

My son just showed me a site where he has purchased D&D figures. He and I will see what we can do for him.

One of my issues is organization. If something has a place, it goes back to that place. Most of the stuff in my life lives on a flat surface. And it is time sorted. The oldest stuff is on the bottom.

I want organizational tools.

Enter two 3D solutions. One is a system of displaying things in an organized way for quick access. The other is the worlds fanciest peg board.

I plan to use GridFinity for most of the “flat” storage areas. That means draw and shelf organizers.

The more extensive system if Multiboard. This is much more complex than GridFinity.

Here’s a simple example of what sorts of things can be done. The eco-system consists of MultiBoard, the pegboard, hooks, and simple shelves. MultiBin, containers to hold things that can be attached to the MultiBoard. With MultiPoint me the connection system.

Take the time to watch the introduction video, get some ideas.

Here are three to think about:

1. Is it an assault with a deadly weapon to use a Super Soaker in -7F tempetures?
2. Should Don Lemon be charged for his participation in the invasion of the church in MN?
3. What is the thing your SO will decide they must have once the snow has started?

If you look at the current snow maps and storm maps available, Chris and his family, and me and my family all live within the wibbly red area (in New England) labeled “Armageddon Area.” They are measuring likely snow in feet, not inches. We are ready and prepared for the weather, and have plans in place for if power goes out. If you don’t hear from us for a few days, you know the reason why. We’ll post when we can, and give updates. You update us, too!

If you live in an area about to get hit with ice or snow, and you aren’t used to that, please be prepared. That doesn’t mean bread and milk, although those aren’t a bad idea either. It means making sure you have enough food to last through the worst of the emergency (because having to go out to get eggs or whatever is never a good idea). It means having firewood on hand to make a fire, if you have the means to do so. Have a camp stove ready to go, with extra fuel, so that you can cook if your power goes out and you’re dependent upon an electric stove. Know how you’ll keep warm, should you lose power and heat. Have something to use as a port-a-pottie if you can’t use your bathroom due to frozen pipes.

To generate heat, pick a single room and designate it “the warm room.” Everyone stays in that room unless they have to pee, and trust me, they’ll move quickly to get back to the warmth. Get every blanket, towel, woolen thing, tablecloth, and bring it to that room. Seal that room off so that the heat stays inside it. Cover windows, doors, doorways to halls, anything that might have a draft. If you lose power and must stay at home for a while, drag a mattress into that room so you can sleep there as well. If temps go into the single digits, consider setting up a cheap tent in your warm room, and sleeping inside that to conserve heat.

Ways to make safe heat:

• candles and oil lamps
• fireplaces (though they sometimes let out more heat than the give you)
• wood stoves
• indoor safe (RATED) propane heaters like Little Buddy
• hot water bottles
• hot food
• layers of clothes and blankets

Ways to kill yourself:

• use your stove, outdoor rated gas camp stove, popcorn popper, etc to make heat
• bring your generator inside the house
• leave candles and/or any flame unattended
• putting flames where they could get knocked over by a pet
• eating snow (it lowers your body temp very quickly)

You can use tea candles to cook over, if you’re desperate. Having a camp stove makes it much easier. I prefer propane to butane, because in the temps we’re expecting, the butane won’t work. It’ll fail more often than not. So be aware. You also don’t have to have the fancy folding stove like in this video for the sterno stove. I just have an old wire basket that was once used for doing deep frying, and I turn it over top of my candles. I put my pot on top of that. Voila, stove. You can also put a brick on either side of your heat, then use a baking rack. And remember, you can always go outside and cook, even when it’s cold. Snow is an insulator, so if you dig yourself a snow pit and cook in the center of it, it’ll help keep you warm and keep the breeze off your fire.

Pie crusts in the medieval era were rarely the flaky, buttery confection we are used to today. Instead, they were the ancient version of take-out food containers, only sort of edible, and designed to allow you to eat their delicious innards and then throw the crusts away. This recipe is a more edible but just as solid version of those “hot water crusts” as they were known in later periods of history.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 oz lard
• 3 oz butter/margarine
• 8 oz water

To make a standing paste crust, we’re going to ignore the sort of instructions you may be used to while attempting flaky pastry. There is a reason these crusts were sometimes called “coffins” and you’re about to discover it in person!

Add your flour (by weight, please) to a large bowl, then sprinkle the salt over it. Whisk or otherwise mix the dry ingredients well to distribute the salt as evenly as possible.

In a small pot, add the water and heat it up gently. Add in the butter or margarine, and the lard, and heat until they are all melted together. DO NOT BOIL or even simmer this mixture, if at all possible. You just want it warm enough that the ingredients can combine together.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ones, and then use a spoon or fork to begin mixing the dough together. You should continue using the spoon or fork until the dough has come mostly together, or it’s cool enough for you to knead by hand without burning yourself. Please be careful, and remember that the water you just poured into your flour mixture is HOT. Knead this until the dough has come completely together. It will be a very stiff dough, and that’s fine. You don’t want to over-work this dough.

If you are making a single pie, split off about 1/4 of your dough (this will be turned into a lid for your pie) and set it aside under some parchment paper or in a plastic baggie. On a Formica counter or granite dough surface, sprinkle some flour and then begin to roll out the dough. You want to have a circle of dough large enough to fill an 8″ spring-form pan, and it should be between 1/4″ and 1/8″ thick when it is ready.

To make the pie crust, you are either going to press the dough into a pie pan, or drape it over the outside of the pie pan, in order to get the shape right. Flour the pan well, regardless! While the dough is still on or in the form, refrigerate it for at least one hour. While the pie crust is chilling, roll out the lid for your pie, which should be about one inch larger in diameter than your pie pan. If you look at the pictures in the header, you can see that the crust for a standing paste pie goes inside the outer crust, not over it as you would for a flaky pie. Let the pie lid sit, sandwiched between two pieces of parchment paper, until it’s ready to be used. If it will be more than an hour, consider covering it with plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out. Do NOT put it in the fridge.

If you are making multiple small pies (this recipe should make about 3 individual pies), separate the dough into three equal sized pieces. From each of those, remove about 1/4 of the dough for the lid of that individual pie. To form small pies, flour a glass or mini pie pan and follow the same general directions as for a large pie. Roll out the lids as well, and set aside for use after refrigeration.

When the crusts are well chilled (which allows them to be standing until they bake and become stiff), unmold them from the pie pan or whatever you’re using for a form. Put the pie crust on a parchment paper lined baking sheet (lipped, please), and add in your filling. Please note, fillings can be cooked or raw, as your cooking time will be about 90 minutes, which is enough for most meats to cook. The fillings should be cool when added to the crust, however. Hot fillings would melt the fats in the crust, making them prone to drooping, and you don’t want that! The filling needn’t be cold from the fridge, but make sure it isn’t hot, either. If you can’t stick your finger in it for 30 seconds, it’s too hot.

Once your filling is in, regardless of size of pie, whisk up an egg to use for an egg wash. Brush the edges of the lid and pie with the egg wash, then add the lid to your pie, and crimp the edges closed with your fingers, a pie crimper, or a fork. Cut a small hole in the center of the pie. This is easily achieved by using a sharp knife to cut an X in the center, then peeling back the triangles. Egg wash the entire pie and sprinkle with herbs, if you like.

If you want to decorate your pie, simply use bits of left-over crust rolled out thin to create leaves, vines, or other images. Have some fun with it! Attach them by using egg wash as a “paste”, then egg wash over the decorations as well. You could also press herbs or cracked spices into the lid, if you liked. I would suggest doing that before attaching it to the top of the pie, however.

Bake the pie in a 350°F oven for 80 to 90 minutes. Start checking your pie at the 60 minute mark, and every ten minutes thereafter. When the pie is dark brown and solid when tapped, it’s ready. See the pictures in the header for reference!

Many types of fillings can go into pies like this. In medieval times, they would add chunks of beef, goat, or chicken into standing pastes, and then cook them up. Gravy wouldn’t be added until it was time to serve the pie. The gravy was poured in the hole on the top. Later period pies of this type would have contained ground or minced meats, or mixes of meats and fish. They also had fruit pies made in these types of crusts.

In my opinion, standing paste done this way is much easier than a flaky crust, and more forgiving. It doesn’t require “blind baking” (pre-baking the crust before filling it, in order to keep the crust from being mushy) because it’s so darn solid.

Serve your pies with a side of mashed potatoes or some “bashed neeps and carrots” for an authentic meal that will fill your belly and warm your soul.

My first computer was a Litton Automated Business machine. It used drum memory to store data and had an instruction register and maybe two other registers. I purchased it for $100 my first summer home from college.

It was a remarkable machine. It was fun to work with, but you really couldn’t do much with it. It had dual paper tape readers, a printer, and a paper tape punch. I wrote an inventory control program for my father with just that, in something that looked very much like machine code.

It wasn’t a usable machine for my father.

The computer I told my parents to get was a Macintosh. They just worked out of the box. Plug them in and you had a word processor, a paint program, and I think a spreadsheet. It all just worked.

They got a PC and fought with it for years.

Today I can buy a piece of hardware, load an operating system on it, and have it fully functional as a general purpose computer or acting as an embedded machine in just about an hour.

The biggest time sink is removing and inserting screws to hold everything in place.

3D Printer

10 years ago or so I purchased a 3D printer kit. I’m sure I never got a fully successful printout of that damn thing. I had to do so much to just get it to do something. I spent more time trying to make it work than I did printing. And it was fragile.

Today, I believe that the kit instructions had the count of the number of teeth on one of the drivers wrong. Which meant that cubes were squished.

Today we have Macintosh printers. After 6 months of research, I pulled the trigger and purchased a Bambu Lab’s P2S printer with AMS.

Setup took around 2 hours. Every step was clearly documented. All the tools to do setup were included. Mostly setup consisted of removing packing, tape, and shipping screws.

Thereafter, it was plugging in one cable, 2 tubes, and the power. Turning on the power brought up the screen that forced me through an initial setup process that calibrated everything.

Finally, I pressed a few buttons on the control panel, and it printed a tool.

From there I used the phone app to scan a QR code, which took me to a cloud version of a storage box to print. That’s printing as I write this.

Again, there is no effort on my part to do any of this. It is pick, click, and print.

Calibration

My kit had no bed leveler. That was done by putting a piece of paper on the bed, lowering the nozzle until it just touched, and then clicking the next button to repeat. I think there were 20 or more sample points. And I still don’t know if that was enough.

The automated version required the printer to be working to print a new piece for the printer, which would hold a switch. The switch used a paperclip as a probe. This went much faster, but it still didn’t work.

The motors were noisy, but it was a joy to watch them move the hotend around.

Today’s calibration took around 45 minutes. This included using the built-in lidar to measure the distance to the bed, and then I think it used a pressure sensor to determine when it actually touched the build plate. It took samples every centimeter or so in a grid. That went rapidly.

It then went into a noise tuning calibration. For 20 minutes it ran the hothead around in diagonals, working to find the correct stepper speeds at different head speeds and then tuning them to be quiet.

It worked. These are stepper motors you can’t really hear. It blows my mind.

From there it did vibration calibration. This thing can accelerate so fast that it will cause the printer to move. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This thing figured out, for this printer, on this surface, just how much the printer reacted to head movement to be able to offset that motion during the deceleration stage.

The first print after calibration took only a few minutes to check calibration before it started printing.

Slicers

To create a 3D print, you start with an idea. You build a 3D model. I use FreeCAD; people use many CAD systems; Fusion 360 is a popular one.

Once you have a “solid”, a completely closed volume, you export that solid as an STL or a STEP file.

An STL is a triangulated file; a STEP file still retains geometry. For example, an STL file will represent a cylinder as a mesh of triangles, while STEP represents the same geometry as a cylinder or as a curved surface; regardless, STEP is the cleaner format.

Now that you have a surface representation of your solid, you import that into a slicer. I’m using OrcaSlicer which is a fork of the Bambu Studios.

This allows some manipulation of stl/STEP objects. The important part is to position the object on the build plate with no overlaps. Once that is done, you can slice the volume.

This is where things have come so far.

The solid is sliced into layers, generally 0.2mm high. The slicer then calculates the path of the print head over the object at the same height. It knows where edges are and uses loops to make solid walls, it adds internal fill to keep the print light yet strong.

3D prints can’t print in thin air, sort of. They can span short distances before the plastic droops too much. To print with an overhang, or to put a top on something, the slicer has the hot end create a raft across infill or across supports. Once that layer is completed, it will put a more finished layer, then an actual finished layer.

The slicers are pure magic. It really is easy.

All the hard work remains back in the CAD package, which is the same package I’m using for all my other engineering builds.

If you are interested in 3D printing, decide why you want it. Then pick any of the plug and play printers out there. I strongly suggest getting one with an enclosure. An enclosure will be needed for certain types of filament.

A good set of starting projects are GridFinity, an organizational system for flat surfaces, including shelves and drawers, and MultiBoard, which is a hyped up pegboard system.

In this analysis, I’m not going to be doing as much quoting. There are others that do so. Instead, I’m going to attempt to distill the argument or line of questioning.

Alan A. Beck, lawyer for the good guy

The Second Amendment is implicated. Hawaii has not met its burden to prove there is a historical tradition of firearms regulation that matches this law. This is a presumptive ban on The People’s right to bear arms, even if not stated explicitly.

Thomas: You argue that the law prevents access to about 97% of public areas? how did you arrive at that?

Beck: The entire package of laws is 96.4%, this law is less. We got that value from an architecture firm that went through public records of the County of Maui.

Sotomayor (interrupting Thomas): It’s not really 97%, right? This law is much less than that. People can carry in other places, Right?

All right. So you say that there is a constitutional right to carry a gun on private property?

Beck: Yes.

Sotomayor: I’ve never seen that right. I mean, I understand that there is a right to carry a gun on private property with an owner’s consent, express or implicit, correct?

Me: I did read it in the Constitution: the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And she just said it, she gave it away. You have that right if you have the right to carry on public property if you have the owner’s express or implicit consent. And that is what property open to the public means: you have explicit consent to enter, and you have the implicit consent to carry.

The state of Hawaii removes that implicit consent to carry.

Sotomayor then goes on to try to conflate carrying where you are legally allowed to go with trespass. It is difficult to follow because she wants it to be difficult to follow. She is attempting to make the case about property rights. Which is not at question.

Nobody is arguing that private property owners can forbid trespass and can set rules for entering their property. “No shoes, no shirt, no service” is exactly that. A “No Guns” sign means I’m shopping somewhere else.

She then goes on to yap about the “custom” of carrying on private property with implied consent. She then pulls a quick one by trying to say that since Hawaii has a 200 year custom of forbidding firearms, this is the custom that should stand now. Beck fires back that it is a “custom of the nation”, not the state. Falling into her verbal trap.

There are no laws in this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation that takes away that implied consent.

Sotomayor and Beck get into a back and forth regarding a previous Supreme Court case, McKee. Sotomayor claims it was talking about the customs of just the state of Missouri, while Beck points out that Justice Scalia used the term “Nation” multiple times. I’ll take Beck’s word over the second dumbest justice to sit on the Supreme Court.

She then tries to bring in laws from 1721, 1722. There’s a huge issue with this. The laws of 1721, 1722 are the laws of England, not this Nation.
Even if the laws were applicable, they all dwelt with closed lands. Lands that were not open to the public.

Barrett and Beck agree that Hawaii could pass a law that prohibited carrying on closed lands as a property right.

Dumber (Jackson) now opens her mouth. Justice Thomas takes off his glasses, leans back in his chair and waits for the magpie to stop making noise.

This is just a property right issue. Property rights trump Second Amendment rights.

Beck calls her BS saying the issue implicates the right to keep and bear arms. Jackson says it doesn’t. It is just property rights.

Gorsuch: This law destroys the right to bear arms in Hawaii. Where does this fit into the Bruen framework?

Beck: Carrying is implicated by this law. The burden must shift to state to prove a match with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

Sotomayor: So the 96% doesn’t really matter? There’s no means end scrutiny? Hawaii has a right to regulate a custom. That means the Second Amendment isn’t implicated.

Using a 1763 for the colony of New York, they banned trespass on private land; that means Hawaii can ban carry on public land.

Sotomayor’s method is to talk over, to interrupt the lawyers she disagrees with. She doesn’t listen to what Beck has to say.

She is actually doing performative art. She and Jackson are both saying things that can be quoted later and which they will quote in their dissent about why this was wrongly decided.

Sotomayor ran this guy out of time. And even when Chief Justice Roberts says he is out of time, Sotomayor talks over Roberts for another paragraph or two. Beck tries to answer; Sotomayor cuts him off before Roberts cuts Sotomayor’s line of questioning off.

Roberts uses a gas station and a home on the side of the road to highlight that there is a difference between private property closed to the public and private property open to the public. Beck does a fantastic job of pointing out that all other rights extend to the door. As Roberts says, “A stranger can walk off the sidewalk and go up to the door?” Beck, “Yes, up to the door, Your Honor”

Alito asks if there are any other objects besides guns that a person may not possess when they enter private property open to the public.

Sotomayor goes back to the Hawaii custom of denying rights to prove that they should still be able to deny The People the right to keep and bear arms.

And she is snarky about it; it looks like she yanks some number out of her ass: So 78 percent of Hawaii residents and 64 percent of Hawaii gun owners do not think that loaded concealed weapons should be allowed into businesses at all, correct?

Beck: I’m unaware of that statistic, Your Honor.

Sotomayor: “I wasn’t aware of your 97 — 96 point — percent number”

She would have been aware of his numbers if she had read the fillings. Thomas knew. Thomas mentioned it, not Beck.

Kagan: Hasn’t the state met its burden with the many historical regulations it has cited? And they have multiple references to legislation that flipped the default.

Beck: No. The poaching laws limited carrying on private lands for poaching, not for self-defense. The other laws cited are black code laws. Laws designed to discriminate against blacks. We’ve moved past that.

Kagan: Well, yes, they are anti-pouching laws, and yes, they did allow people to carry for self-defense, but that is close enough to banning armed self-defense on private property, right?

Kagan: You see, the anti-poaching laws were about preventing injuries to private property, and Hawaii’s law is about preventing injuries also.

Me: No, anti-poaching laws were to stop people from stealing food on the hoof.

Beck: This entire line of questioning is irrelevant. The laws you are referring to were closed property; Hawaii’s law is for property open to the public.

Gorsuch: The laws being referenced are a New Jersey 1771 anti-poaching law. The other is an 1865 Louisiana law that a Reconstruction governor explained was aimed at the freedmen. A black code law. Do you think that black codes should inform our decision-making?

Beck: Hell no.

Gorsuch: Well, the state claims it is a dead ringer for this statute.

Beck: The 1865 law was expressly passed to discriminate against African Americans that were newly freed slaves. And I just don’t see how a law like that can be used to be analogized to a modern-day law, this modern-day law, Your Honor.

Barrett asks if Beck agrees with everything the government said in their brief. Beck thinks she is talking about the state of Hawaii. Barrett clarifies that she is speaking of the US federal government, which filed supporting The People and will be arguing next. Beck corrects himself and there is a bunch of laughter.

Barrett: The government that’s on your same side.

Beck: Yes, I understand.

(Laughter.)

Beck: I agree with every —

Barrett: I’m not asking you to throw your case away.

(Laughter.)

Beck: I fully endorse the United States’ brief, Your Honor.

Barrett asks for clarification regarding “open to public” and “closed to public” and the 1865 black code law. Beck replies that there might be something to discuss there, but the fact that it is a black code law means it is not part of this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

Jackson is back for another whiff at bat: Chief Justice Roberts asked about a gas station on the side of the road. We don’t get to enter that gas station because of a Constitutional right but because the owner of the gas station has given us consent. That consent has limits, and the owner can set those limits, and the state can set limits, right?

Beck: You have a constitutional right to carry your firearm onto that specific gas station.

Good going, Mr. Beck. Don’t let Jackson distract you.

Goodness, is Jackson dumb or just incompetent? She is attempting to set a word trap, and she’s nowhere near as good as Sotomayor, and Sotomayor is bad at it. She denies there is a constitutional right to carry on private property. She then says that there is an implied license. Then claims that there is a historical tradition of requiring a license to enter private property.

This is so convoluted. Nowhere do you need a “license” to enter private property. She is using an obsolete definition where “license” is the same as “permission”. She then continues to use the term “license” to say that you require a license to enter. This type of language will be used in the dissent to justify Hawaii’s licensing (permission) scheme.

Cringe warning

Jackson:

(I had to take a break after that.)

She goes on, saying that when Thomas wrote “this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulations” he said that we were bound by history. Since 1865 is part of our history, then that should be part of the Bruen test. Which also means that any law ever passed becomes part of our history and thus becomes justification for all future infringements, even if that law is later struck down.

Ms. Harris is the Principal Deputy Solicitor General for the Federal DOJ. She was acting solicitor general before D. John Sauer was confirmed as solicitor general. She is now the second in command of the office of the solicitor general. John Sauer was presenting on a different case the day this case was argued.

In other words, she’s way the heck up there. Trump->Pam Bondi->John Sauer->Ms. Harris. And she’s arguing for us!

Harris: Hawaii is lying about why they passed this law. It is aimed at only legal gun owners with CCWs. There are no other items these laws affect. Besides, the only law they can use to support their current law is an unconstitutional black code.

There is back and forth regarding pretextual laws. The example given is of English game laws. These laws were to “preserve game” but were designed to prevent commoners from hunting.

The gist is that when looking for an analog firearm regulation, the real reason is looked at, not the pretext. Hawaii says it is protecting property rights for safety reasons. Just because they say it is for safety and property rights doesn’t mean that laws dealing with property rights and safety are a match to this law.

You have to look for the true reason for the law. In this case, the vampire laws are designed to keep people from carrying because there are too many places where it is illegal.

Kagan opines that The Court doesn’t look at the motives a law was passed. Harris fires back that if the stated purpose and the text show a fundamental mismatch, it belies the asserted motive of the legislature.

Kagan says The Court can’t do that because that would be means-ends scrutiny.

It is clear that the three crones of the Supreme Court are trying to neuter Bruen.

Kavanaugh has had enough of this.

Harris: Absolutely!

This is a trap that “smart” people fall into. They get distracted by the details. Instead of focusing on the big picture, they get lost in the weeds, and then instead of deciding based on the big picture, they end in a major fight over details.

Harris is fighting a different battle here, though. She is fighting to make it clear that doing an end run around the limits the Supreme Court sets out is not acceptable to the United States. She is clearly targeting New York, California, and the rest of the states that had Bruen tantrum response bills.

Kavanaugh is say to keep it simple. Hawaii didn’t meet their burden. Done and done.

Gorsuch brings up First Amendment case law that addressed a similar issue. Harris uses Lamont as her example. In Lamont they flipped the script on mail delivery. The rule was that you got mail of all sorts unless you explicitly said “no”. The law in question in Lamont flipped it to require a person to explicitly request mail on a “very easy-to-send postcard”. This was firmly rejected by The Court.

Jackson is back with another attempt to make this only about property rights. Harris gives a perfect example of how stupid this argument is. She points out that today a politician can have somebody come to your door to campaign. But if this law was followed in a First Amendment situation, the homeowner would have to post a large sign on their property before that door knock could take place.

Alito sends a soft pitch asking about why antipoaching laws are not an appropriate analogue. Harris knocks it out of the park. You know why.

Alito then asks what is the purpose of the Second Amendment right is. Harris, self-defense, and other lawful purposes.

Alito focuses on Heller, which he wrote, to point out that the wording was about self-defense but that other lawful purposes also existed. Harris does a good job in the answers.

Sotomayor is back. Still attempting to make it all about property rights and the owner’s consent. She tries to use Hawaii’s tradition of screwing over The People’s right to keep and bear arms over the last 200 years as the tradition that allows Hawaii to pass the vampire laws.

Harris fires back, stating clearly that local customs in a state doesn’t allow that state to have its own Second Amendment. The meaning of the Second Amendment doesn’t change as you move from state to state.

Ok, this is good!

Harris:

It is almost as if Harris had this response lined up before it was asked. Great response.

In an interesting exchange between Kavanaugh and Harris, Kavanaugh asks about sensitive places as mentioned in Heller. He attempts to get Harris to agree with Heller as is. Instead, Harris goes with, We agree with the principle as stated that there are obviously sensitive places. You determine them with respect to the history of firearm regulation.

This is a massive statement by the DoJ. It says they are not arguing that sensitive places do exist, but that it isn’t as easy as saying, “That’s a sensitive place,” to get guns banned. You can’t declare the island of Manhattan a sensitive place. So New York declared Times Square a sensitive place.

Barrett asks about anti-poaching regulations. Harris points out that poaching was and is a problem.

In my state, and most states that I know, you have to post your land to keep hunters out. Hunters are presumed to be able to hunt on any land that is not posted. In my state the limit on where you hunt is 100 yards of an occupied dwelling. And they mean occupied as people living in, not that nobody is home.

JUSTICE JACKSON: So I guess I really don’t understand your response to Justice Gorsuch on the black codes. And here I thought that Jackson had gotten her “I don’t understand” under control. There is so much she doesn’t understand.

She’s arguing that black code laws, laws that have been found unconstitutional, can be used to justify more unconstitutional laws.

More tomorrow.

Folks, my ability to connect with the Left is becoming more and more dicey. The ones that aren’t insane are slowly creeping to the Right (which doesn’t mean they should be Conservatives, but is a relief), and then there’s the insane ones. I would like to say that the insane ones are a loud minority, but I think that’s not entirely true. I think it’s a rigid subset (Leftist women who are/were radical feminists who have been brainwashed by the media and have become radicalized jihadists for so-called Liberal values), and it’s not small. I don’t think it’s a majority, by any means, but it’s certainly the only part of the Left getting any air time.

Y’all know I’m not Christian. I was HORRIFIED at Lemon and his cohorts invading a church service. I don’t have to be Christian to know that’s a no-go. When I visit someone else’s house of worship, I follow *their* rules, not mine. If I’m unwilling to do so, I don’t go. Churches are the one place I consider to actually be a place of sanctuary. That is time-honored and long-standing, and goes far beyond the United States. Watching children cowering in the aisles, it was awful. But those folks, they were true Christians in my personal opinion, because their response to Lemon’s invasion was to pray. That part, at least, was nice to see.

I’ve been watching people on the Left go crazy in Minnesota. Blocking traffic, protesting in roadways, stopping ICE and other LEO vehicles, these things are wrong but I can at least kind of understand them. They’re “normal” protest tactics. I disagree (and for what it’s worth, I have *always* disagreed with any protest that blocks roadways, schools, LEOs, or hospitals, don’t care which side is doing it) but that’s between the protesters and the LEOs. But stopping everyday citizens and demanding papers (the protesters, not ICE who have the right to do so under many circumstances), requiring people to chant slogans (“I hate ICE!” and “I am not a Nazi!” are two I’ve seen on TikTok of late), etc… Why is this being allowed? WTF folks? That is literally what the Gestapo were doing. What ICE is doing is NOT what the Gestapo were doing. I’m aghast.

Mr. Magoo (my name for the heavy set Leftist gentleman who’s “protecting his neighborhood” with a firearm in Minneapolis) originally had my disdain because I thought he was breaking local laws (ie it’s illegal in Minneapolis to open carry a long rifle, which is what I thought he had), but turns out he’s perfectly within his rights to do what he’s doing. Therefore I’m fine with him, even if I think he looks a bit silly “protecting” his very white, very not-bothered-by-ICE neighborhood each day.

Which brings me to 2A stuff. Folks, there’s a lot of Leftists right now going out and purchasing firearms. There’s a LOT of noisy Conservatives complaining and bitching about that. I say to those Conservatives: shut the fuck up. I don’t CARE why the Leftists are finally exercising their right to keep and bear arms. They are doing so, now leave it alone. Encourage them to learn how to use their firearm safely, explain the basic rules to them, offer to take them to a range to practice on the regular. They are new 2A people. It’s none of your business WHY they are new 2A people. Doesn’t fucking matter. They think we’re nuts for the reasons we carry; we think they’re nuts for the reasons they carry. It doesn’t matter; they’re carrying. Time to step up and put your values into action. I am all for everyone carrying who wants to, and if we have new folks doing it, GREAT. At the end of this bullshit in Minnesota, they will still have their guns, and will probably continue to carry, and that makes them one step closer to being rational human beings. They’re also extremely unlikely to be vocally anti-2A while holding a handgun or rifle. The correct answer to, “I’m going to go buy a gun for protection!” is “Great, here’s the name and number of a fantastic trainer who’ll show you the ropes. Use it.”

About Charlie’s Voice: if men want women to be “real women” today, then they need to start being “real men” first. Yes, first. Because that’s LITERALLY the basics about being a man. You get to go first. Do you know when I started wearing skirts and cooking and doing home-bound stuff? When my man stood up and made it safe and comfortable for me to do so. Before that, I was working and trying to keep myself alive and healthy, and I didn’t have time to fuck around with peasant skirts and home cooked food. You want me to be a woman, then start by being a man. I’m really lucky that I have two very manly men in my life, who make it safe for me to be the woman that I am. They also support my decisions about myself, whether I want to exercise or work or stay home and write, or whatever. They make it safe for me to take the softer route, and I’m thankful for that. I was well on my way to being a hard-ass old woman, and instead, I’m a happy, healthy, productive and softer lady.