Shortly after overturning New York’s handgun carry permit system in the Bruen decision, the Supreme Court vacated the Fourth Circuit’s ruling upholding Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban and remanded that case for retooling in light of Bruen.
Maryland is now arguing that the AR15 is not in common use for self-defense because shots are rarely fired.
Today is opening day of modern firearms season for deer in Maryland. I recommend using a .350 Legend over a 350 Chevy.
This was the ninth episode of Blogsmoke. It first ran nine years ago today.
* * * * *
SOUND: MODEM CONNECTING FADES UP TO FULL MIKE—SINGLE SHOT—RICHOCHET
MUSIC: UP AND UNDER—RECORDED—CUT 1
ANNOUNCER: (VOICE OVER MUSIC) Around Twitter Town and in the territory of the net—there’s just one way to handle the harassers and the stalkers—and that’s with an Internet Sheriff and the smell of “BLOGSMOKE”!
MUSIC: THEME HITS: FULL BROAD SWEEP AND UNDER—RECORDED—CUT 2
ANNOUNCER: “BLOGSMOKE” starring W. J. J. Hoge. The story of the trolling that moved into the young Internet—and the story of a man who moved against it. (MUSIC: OUT)
JOHN: I’m that man, John Hoge, Internet Sheriff—the first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It’s a chancy job—and it makes a man watchful … and a little lonely.
MUSIC: MAIN TITLE—RECORDED—CUT 3 Continue reading
I have a reasonable array of hammers to use if I had to deal with someone breaking into Stately Hoge Manor. The most obvious are three heavy ones, all well-used Craftsman tools—a 2-lb machinist’s, a 4-lb demolition, and a 9-lb sledge.
However, I’d probably use the Wilson stainless Commander hammer on one of my .45s instead.
Really?
My rifle chambered in .17 Remington fires a 25 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity just over 4,000 ft/s. Now, my AR-15 is chambered for 7.62x39mm (It’s a long story), but I doubt that it launches one of the 123 grain bullets in the Hornady ammo I use for deer hunting at 20,000 ft/s. That would result in a muzzle energy over 100,000 ft•lb. which about 8 X the muzzle energy of a round fired from a .50 cal. M2 machine gun. My AR doesn’t seem to kick that hard.
UPDATE—FWIW, the typical muzzle velocity of a bullet fired from an AR-15 chambered for common 5.56x45mm ammunition is about 3,150 ft/s. The only combination of firearms and ammunition that I can find in my gun safe and ammo locker that could produce a muzzle velocity as low as 625 ft/s (1/5 of 3,150) would be a short-barreled revolver loaded with .22 Shorts or a muzzle-loading rifle with a dangerously low powder charge.
Once again, Joe Xiden has threatened to use the regular forces of the U.S. military against citizens who might actively resist one or more of his unconstitutional or illegal acts. Speaking in Pennsylvania today, he called for a federal ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Of course, the Supreme Court has just reversed and remanded the appeals court decision upholding Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban, but that hasn’t dulled Xiden’s lust for unconstitutional federal legislation.
Xiden also said—
You can’t go out and buy an automatic weapon, you can’t go out and buy a cannon, and for those brave right wing Americans who say its all about keeping America independent and safe, if you want to fight against the country you need an F-15. You need something a little more than a gun.
There are so many false statements there. You can go out and buy and automatic weapon. It has to be one that’s in the current registry of such weapons (over 150,000 such weapons are registered), you have to pass a background check, and you have to pay for a $200 tax stamp, but you can buy one. It’s also legal to buy a cannon. The process is similar to buying a machine gun.
IIRC, the last time veteran’s took up arms against a government, it was a local government, and the trigger for that action was a stolen election. You can read about The Battle of Athens here.
And finally, Xiden might want to think about how ragtag group of peasants with small arms handled modern armies and air forces in Afghanistan during the last four decades.
Maryland Shall Issue, et al. have filed their appeal brief with the Fourth Circuit in Maryland Shall Issue v. Hogan, the suit challenging Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License.
The State’s reply is due not later than 2 September.
Maryland has some of the strictest gun control laws, but it seems that criminals are refusing to obey them.
This has appeared on the docket of Bianchi v. Frosh, the Maryland “Assault Weapons” Ban case. The Fourth Circuit had previously upheld the ban; the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of the recent Bruen case.
The court directs supplemental briefing as follows:
Supplemental opening brief due: 08/22/2022
Supplemental response brief due: 09/12/2022
Supplemental reply brief permitted by: 09/22/2022
Stay tuned.
The Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s decision upholding Hawaii’s restrictive carry permit regime in Young v. Hawaii and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Bruen. Young filed a motion for summary reversal with the Ninth Circuit, and Hawaii has filed a motion seeking to delay the inevitable.
It looks as if the Democrats plan to engage in the same sort of massive resistance to the expansion of civil rights as they did in the ’60s.
This is from NPR‘s report on the Abe assassination in Japan this morning—
Public television NHK aired a dramatic video of Abe giving a speech outside a train station in the western city of Nara. He is standing, dressed in a navy blue suit, raising his fist, when two gunshots are heard. The video then shows Abe collapsed on the street, with security guards running toward him. He holds his chest, his shirt smeared with blood.
In the next moment, security guards leap on top of a man in gray shirt who lies face down on the pavement. A double-barreled device that appeared to be a handmade gun is seen on the ground.
Japan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.
Governor Larry Hogan has directed the Maryland State Police to suspend use of the “good and substantial reason” requirement for a “Wear and Carry” permit previously used to suppress most citizens’ ability to exercise Second Amendment rights outside of their homes. This is a good first step in bringing Maryland into compliance with the Second Amendment.
Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Supreme Court has vacated that decision and sent the case back to the Fourth Circuit to be reconsidered in light of Bruen. The Fourth Circuit had previously upheld Maryland’s restrictions on standard capacity magazines, but last week, the Supreme Court overturned California’s and New Jersey’s bans which are more or less the same as Maryland’s
A challenge to Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License (essentially a permit to purchase) is also pending before the Fourth Circuit.
The next few months will bring some interesting decisions at the Fourth Circuit, and I suspect the next session of the Maryland Legislature will bring out campaign of massive resistance to Second Amendment rights from the Democrat majority.
We shall see.
This is from today’s Order List of the Supreme Court—
Bianchi v. Frosh is the challenge to Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban.
The Court also granted certiorari petitions on the New Jersey and California standard capacity magazine ban cases, vacated the lower courts’ judgments, and sent the cases back to the Third and Ninth Circuits, and the Court granted the certiorari petition the challenge to Hawaii’s carry permit system, vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment, returned that case to the circuit court.
Things are proceeding more quickly than I had foreseen.
IANAL, but given Justice Thomas’ references to the Sixth Amendment and the right to confront witnesses and his historical analysis of 19th-century surety laws in the Bruen decision, I don’t understand how red flag laws that allow one’s firearms to be taken based on an ex parte hearing are constitutional.
We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for selfdefense.
—NY State Rifle & Pistol Asso. v. Bruen, 20-843, Slip Op., 62, 63 (S. Ct.).
The obvious objection to most red flag laws is based in the Second Amendment. IANAL, but it seems to me that they also infringe on rights secured by the Fourth Amendment (“The right of the People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated …”) and the Fifth Amendment (“No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …”). Don’t firearms count as “effects” or “property”?
The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
Because we are human beings, we have human rights. Those rights exist regardless of the government we live under. Each of those rights has an associated duty. For example, your right to own property creates a duty for me not to steal it, and my right to life creates a duty for you not to kill me. No government can grant rights, but all governments have a tendency to constrain rights. That tendency to erode rights is why the Constitution takes some of our human rights and places them outside of the reach of government.
The idea of a “living” constitution that could given new meanings by experts was an attempt by Progressives such as Woodrow Wilson to find a workaround to the barriers to whatever scheme they wanted to impose on society for our own good. Most of the past century saw a steady erosion of human rights through legislation, executive action, and judicial decisions with no basis in the actual text of the Constitution, but especially since 2000, there has been increasing pushback.
We now have a couple of cases before the Supreme Court that may help restore the wall between the government (even if it represents a majority point of view) and the right to life. We’ve already seen a leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson that suggests the court will put the question of abortion per se back outside of the Constitution where it lay for almost 200 years. This will allow those states that wish to protect the unborn child’s right to life to do so.
We should see a decision in NY Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen soon. The oral argument suggests that the court will continue in the direction of the Heller and McDonald, and rule that the Second Amendment really means what it says. That would remove the barriers some states have placed in the way their residents’ ability to defend their right to life.
I hope I am not disappointed.
There is a group of people that I think in good faith honestly believe that further curtailing our Second Amendment rights will enhance public safety. But there’s another group that just hates the Second Amendment.
—John Kennedy
… and then—maybe—I’ll listen to your “common sense” proposals, Joe Biden.
And your first step to demonstrate good faith must be the prosecution of Hunter Biden for lying on an ATF Form 4473 when he purchased a .38 Special revolver on 12 October, 2018. Until then, you have no credibility with respect to the matter.
枪杆子里面出政权 Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong
His Frauduency has announced that there is no rational reason to use a “high calibre” 9 mm bullet for self defense. He said—
The .22 caliber bullet will lodge in the lungs and we can get it out. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body. The idea of a high caliber weapon, there is simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting.
FWIW, the nominal diameter of a 9 mm bullet is 0.356 in, while the nominal diameter of a .38 Special bullet is 0.357 in. Of course, semiautomatic pistols chambered in .38 Special are even more rare than 9 mm revolvers, so I suppose that cartridge isn’t as scary.
Oh, and the 5.56 mm NATO round commonly used in AR15 rifles uses .22 calibre bullets.
A woman who was legally carrying a handgun saved lives by returning fire on a shooter who began firing on a graduation party is Charleston, WV. She killed him before he killed anyone.
In the liberal remake of Casablanca, the police captain comes upon the scene of the shooting and orders his men to “round up the usual weapons.” It’s always the weapon and never the shooter.
—Charles Krauthammer
If Massachusetts had had the same gun control laws 247 years ago as it does today, the national anthem would be God Save the Queen.