So this has popped up over and over again. There is another study from KFF saying that 1 in 5 (19%) of people say that a family member was killed by a gun. These number are scary scary numbers. Has something happened?

Well I started digging through the CDC and NEJM letter and numbers and it is just to much work for me right now. I’ve got paying clients that need that time. Instead I’ll give you a YouTube video that covers much of what I was planning on saying:

The current population of the United States is around 331,900,000. If 19% of those people have had a family member killed by a gun that means 63,061,000 people have had somebody in their family killed by a gun. Given that there are around 45,000 gun related deaths per year, this number seems a little high.

The average family size in the US is currently around 3.1. That doesn’t really help. Looking at household size by city shows that doesn’t make a real difference either. It looks like race doesn’t really make that much difference either.

So let’s extend that from immediate family to extended family. We move to two generates, that gives us 4 + 3 + 3 or 10. If we go to three generations that takes use to 10 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 22. So we will use 22 as our base number for extended family.

That gives us 15,086,363 extended families in the US. If 19% of those families had a gun related death that would mean that
2,866,408 families had a gun related death in that family.

Again 45,000 deaths per year. It would take 63+ years to reach that number of deaths.

Given what they asked and how they asked it, my guess is that they are polling urban black neighborhoods at a rate that is over represented. In urban black centers there are often 100% rates of families having had somebody in their family shot.

The poll looks to be legit but the numbers they give just do not pass the sniff test.

In 10 years I hope the Second Amendment community can look back at the Bruen decision and celebrate all that it did for us.

After Heller we all looked at there being a huge wave of getting our rights back. Unfortunately after McDonald it all stopped. The state found a way.

That two step process of means-end was horrific. It allowed any infringement to stand as long as the state said “it will promote the public good.” Yep, that’s good enough.

I keep using the phrase “Just how much were you raped, Mrs. Jones, we have to balance that against…”

The state has lost on the history and tradition front. You can see it in their filings. Over and over again the same regulations are presented and time after time they are discounted. The fact is that there were no gun control laws in the 1700’s. Gun control didn’t really get started until post civil war when it was used to disarm the newly freed and former freedmen.

This leads to what the state is attempting to do at this time.

First, they are attempting to change the era from which they pull regulations. If they can get the court to accept reconstruction era regulations then they will win in the infringing states/courts.

Next they are attempting to get the courts to accept regulations that are not a match but could be twisted with enough leverage to match their current infringement. To do this they have to get the court to accept that their infringement is there because of something new. This is likely to make some headway but not a lot. With Bruen behind us and enough judges with good moral conscious on the circuit courts it is unlikely to prevail.

The state is also trying to hide in the weeds by saying that certain infringements are acceptable because the Supreme Court didn’t directly say anything about it. This is SCOTUS saying that things are presumptively allowed. Presumptively allowed means that the court didn’t rule on that thing so is just going to allow it to stand, for now.

This is the argument that the state is using about “Good moral character”. Since the Supreme Court ONLY ruled against showing cause and used the term “lawful user” this means that “good moral character” is also allowed. Which the state will now define in such a way as to make it so painful that it is almost impossible to get through.

We are seeing sensitive places as expected. That is going to die. Not because the states will stop using it, but it is not a long term winning strategy for the state.

The thing that Bruen really did is that it leveled the playing field for the first time in over a decade. The state hates playing fair. They know they will lose.

The biggest argument that the state is pushing is that it is the plaintiff’s burden to prove. Over and over again in these filings the state says things like “The plaintiffs have failed to prove” or “The plaintiffs have offered no evidence.”

Everything that seems to be holding for the state right now is based on trying to flip the burden back on the plaintiffs.

We live in interesting times. We are winning.

I stumbled across this the other day, I hope you enjoy.

This case was held at the Ninth Circuit court pending the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bruen. The Supreme Court then Granted certiorari to Duncan v. Bonta, vacated the opinion of the Ninth Circuit Court, then Remanded it back to the Ninth Circuit court to do the right thing. The Ninth Circuit Court, instead of making an opinion themselves vacated and remanded the District Court’s opinion (which found FOR Duncan on text, history, and tradition) with instructions to have the parties re-argue the case.

At the same time, the Ninth Circuit Court vacated and remanded Rupp v. Bonta back to the district court for for further proceedings consistent with” Bruen. — Defendant’s Combined Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motions to Exclude Testimony Under Federal Rule of Evidence 702

Rupp v. Bonta is still in progress. The state submitted testimony from 12 different “expert” witnesses. The plaintiffs(good guys) have filed motions under Federal Rules Of Evidence 702 to exclude the testimony of 5 of those “experts”. Of course the state objects.

The state is manipulating the question in front of the court. In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. — New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 – Supreme Court 2022 at 2126 The state restates this as i.e., that the challenged regulation prevents law-abiding citizens from “keep[ing]” or “bear[ing]” protected “Arms,” — Id. Opposition to exclude at 10.

I don’t remember the word “protected” in the Second Amendment. The actual text of Bruen affirming and quoting Heller says that if the plain text covers the conduct, it is protected conduct. Noting about “protected arms”.

The concept of the Second Amendment only covering “protected arms” is a new argument. It is designed to allow the inferior courts to make a determination if a particular arm is protected, if it is not then the conduct is not protected.

The state continues their argument that they should be allowed a “more nuanced” approach to matching historical regulations because there is an “unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technology changes.” Here the state is claiming that semi-automatic firearms with detachable magazines and scary looks is “dramatic technology changes”. Dramatic is something new that happened rapidly. Semi-automatic firearms, or “self loading” firearms have existed for at least a 100 years. It wasn’t dramatic. It was a simple progression.

Maybe Star Trek’s phasors would be dramatic technology change but even that is not clear. We are already working on laser weapons.

There is no “unprecedented societal concerns”. The busy-bodies have always had their noses in other peoples business for years. Murder has been around since before recorded history. Mass murder has been going on for a very long time.

And the media has told us that “mass shootings” aren’t a real concern because the media is making more of two state representatives being expelled for obstructing of an official proceeding. The President of the United States has been more upset that people might be angry with transgenders than of the shooting. So it must not be a big deal.

Thus, contemporary public-safety concerns remain relevant to determining whether a challenged law warrants a “more nuanced” historical analysis and is comparably justified. — Id. at 13 The state so wants a multi-step process back. Means-end is the only way they can continue to infringe.

The state is saying that as long as you get a barrel and the ability to load and fire it you don’t need any of those fancy things like a pistol grip. There is NOTHING in this guys testimony that has anything to do with whether or not this is conduct protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment. There is nothing in his testimony that has anything to do with historical regulation.

What this all comes down to is that the state recognizes that there are no historical regulations that match an AWB or a magazine ban or a “unsafe” handgun ban. Since they haven’t been able to find those historical regulations, they have to attack the question of “is it an arm?” and “is there something that allows us to bring up things other than historical regulations to support our infringement.”

Hawaii has been one of the most horrible locations for gun rights for decades. After McDonald they were suppose to be a “May Issue” state but when the records were checked they had not issued a single CCW permit in years and years and years.

They are worse than California, New York, New Jersey, or Massachusetts.

After almost a year they were proud to announce that they had issued 34(?) CCWs.

Of course infringers have to infringer.

So they are following in the footsteps of NY, NJ and all the other states that have decided that they will issue a you a CCW but only after you prove you are good enough and then you’ll only be able to do so if you can avoid all the “legal gun free zones”.

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B.L.U.F. A win in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Case challenging the MA handgun roster.

The FPC scored a win in a notoriously anti-gun rights First Circuit Court of Appeals. They heard oral arguments on the Tuesday the 4th and vacated the district court’s opinion yesterday, Friday 2023-04-07.

The case was first decided in May of 2022, before Bruen and we see the same standard path. The court first said that it assumed without deciding that the conduct was protected by the Second Amendment.

At that point the District Court moved on to decide the level of scrutiny required. Being the district court of Massachusetts of course the court decided to use intermediate scrutiny which of course allowed them to find the infringement “constitutional”

The date of dismissal is sort of interesting, it looks almost as if the court was rushing to get its decision out before the Bruen decision was published.

The FPC appealed to the First Circuit Court on June 15th, 2022. This was still before Bruen.

The Circuit Court had all of the documents in place by middle of July, less than a month after the District Court’s decision.
It wasn’t until August that a briefing schedule was set.

Another interesting case to follow because it shows just how many cases are being overturned due to Bruen