The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
The Global Disarmament of the Law Abiding Continues…
First, for your reading displeasure, Rachel Lucas has an excellent post about Australia’s latest exercise in futility idiocy, their second gun “buyback” – done in complete disregard of the documented results of the last “buyback.”
And our neighbors to the North now have a whole lot more criminals in their midst. Their registration deadline ran out Monday, so an estimated 300,000 new criminals exist!
Don’t you feel safer already?
Britain’s Evening Mail provides the following wrenching and earnest op-ed piece, Let’s end gun misery:
The anguished mothers of Birmingham’s New Year party victims will brief a powerful body of MPs on the problems of gun crime in Britain’s inner cities.
Six months to the fateful day their daughters were shot, Beverley Thomas and Marcia Shakespeare are to give evidence to the group.
Pals Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare were gunned down outside a city hair salon when gangsters opened fire on a crowd of partygoers.
Charlene’s twin Sophie and a fourth girl, Cheryl Shaw, were injured in the same incident.
What they don’t tell you is that the shooter used a submachine gun – illegal to possess in England since the 1930’s. But they’re available on the black market along with other goodies like hand grenades.
Now the mothers will tell politicians of the heart-rending and long-lasting impact gun crime has had on them and the community.
Perry Barr MP Khalid Mah-mood told the Evening Mail: “It has taken a lot for both these women to take such a public stand and we should applaud them for that.
“They are standing out, demanding justice and refusing to be silenced.
And apparently risking getting killed for speaking up, since the criminals don’t seem to fear the police very much.
“They are a credit to the community and we will be interested to hear their views on tackling the menace of guns and the gang culture that spawns such violence.
“Also, I want to hear about how they have coped over these past six months, especially with having to bring up young children as well.”
Their appearance comes a week after West Midlands Assistant Chief Constable Nicholas Tofiluk told the same Commons all-party parliamentary group how Birmingham’s image was being soured by gun crime.
He said: “A long-term issue that needs to be addressed is that in some parts of the city there is an emergent culture that sees guns as part of a lifestyle.
“These are issues the police alone cannot affect.” The MPs launched an inquiry following a nationwide “surge” in violence involving firearms over recent years.
Police on London’s Operation Trident, West Midlands’ Operation Ventara and Manchester Gang Strategy Unit have also given evidence.
Now, bear in mind that this is in a country where there are only about 600,000 legal shotgun owners and about 125,000 legal rifle owners, and ZERO legal handgun owners or submachine owners, or “assault rifle” owners outside the government. (The London police did recently upgun to the H&K G36 assault rifle.) And the legal ownership levels are declining each year.
But NOW there’s a SURGE of firearms involved violence. NOW there’s an “emergent gun culture.”
No, they killed the good “gun culture” and are left with the unfettered bad one.
What’s next, really really banning guns?
Let’s really end “gun misery” in England – teach people to defend themselves, and then let them carry and keep guns in the home. Nothing else seems to work. Banning sure as hell proved useless.
Build a Better Mousetrap…
At last Saturday’s AR15.com Casa Grande shoot, one of the guys showed up with his new invention, the SST-870:
His description:
Introducing the SST-870 AR15 buttstock adapter for the Remington 870 shotgun.
Features:
1) Allows the shooter to have proper cheek weld when using red dot optics on the shotgun. Optics can be mounted via the picatinny rail, which runs the length of the 870 receiver, or via other after market scope mounts.
2) Uses any AR15 style stock. The multitude of AR15 style stocks on the market will allow users to fit the shotgun to themselves and to their intended use for the shotgun.
3) Uses any AR15 style pistol grip. The user can switch grips as necessary to meet their personal preference.
4) Attachment point on left and right hand side of the SST-870 for Uncle Mike’s QD sling swivels.
5) Easier cross training for law enforcement and military personnel issued AR15s/M16 rifles, as well as competition shooters who use AR15 style rifles
6) Stock inline with the bore reduces felt recoilConstruction:
1) SST-870 adapter piece is machined from T6 aluminum and mil-spec type III hard coat anodized for wear resistance and long service life
2) Optics mounting rail is machined to M1913 picatinny spec from T6 aluminum for mounting of red dot optics such as the OKO pictured or other sights. The rail is also mil-spec type III hard coat anodized.I found that I couldn’t get proper cheek weld to use the red dot with the existing stock. The OKO sight was very fast to use on the shotgun but the stock hindered its ability to be used effectively…I knew if I could get an inline style AR stock on the 870 it would allow me to use the red dot sight effectively.
When Cavalry Arms started manufacturing AR15 buttstocks the idea became more feasible in my mind, but the thing holding me back was money to get the project going. Cavalry Arms was interested, but because they were bringing other products online R&D money for it was unavailable.
Last fall FN came out with the Police Shotgun and I had one of those “ah the bastards got it done before me” moments…but with a retail price tag of $700-$800 and availability as only a dedicated unit, I knew there was room for improvement. I also thought the A2 AR15 sights on a shotgun were somewhat of an over kill. I believed that an adapter to go on existing shotguns people already own was a better idea.
So I started actively pursuing the idea myself just before SHOT Show 2003. I recently acquired a loan and from the time I had the money in hand to first production article was 6 weeks. I haven’t spoken of the project publicly before because of the uncertainty of when it would be completed, and I did not want to give a heads up to any competition.
The first production run of 50 SST-870 adapters and rails is being machined right now. If everything goes according to plan they should be shipping in at most 3 weeks….I say “should be” because Murphy’s law likes to happen quite frequently in manufacturing. However, I don’t see any problems arising.
Design work on a model for the Mossberg 590/500 will be started at the end of the first production run of SST-870s.
Which is too cool, because I own a 590 myself. Can you say “Patent?”
Here’s the first production run out of the machine shop:
And here it is at the shoot, being test driven:
As you can see, it really relocates the bore centerline lower. Everyone who tried it really liked it. Unfortunately, I was too busy shooting clay pigeons with my Enfield. Maybe next time!
Alphecca Has It
Jeff has the straight skinny on the current status of the amendments to the Constitution as practiced today. Give it a read.
One quibble, Jeff. The 17th Amendment should be REPEALED.
Why Didn’t They Consider This BEFORE?
Say Uncle has the scoop on a new joint Violence Policy Center / Brady Center press release that fixes the whole problem.
Why they couldn’t have done this years ago is beyond me.
(And I have given credit where credit is due for the AWB clock!)
Was Jayson Blair His “Source?”
Larry Wright, Detroit News
Cannot Find Weapons of Mass Destruction
From Clayton Cramer’s blog:
Follow these instructions exactly:
1. Go to http://www.google.com (actual google home page).
2. Type “weapons of mass destruction” as the search string.
3. Hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
4. Check out the resulting web page very carefully (it’s not what it seems).
That’s freaking funny!
“Stroke of the Pen, Law of the Land. Kinda Cool.”
Yeah, that “Constitution thingy” does tend to get in the way, don’t it?
BIG POST ERROR, POST ID 105702478749413506
REPORT IT
You have NO idea just how infuriating this error message is.
A long, involved, link-filled post that I’ve been working on for AN HOUR AND A HALF is GONE!
You think the Incredible Hulk gets pissed?
The expression “going Postal” FITS.
Clayton Cramer Reiterates My Question
In his post Why The NRA May Be Right To Not Rush a Second Amendment Case to the Supreme Court
There are a lot of gun rights activists who are upset with NRA’s reluctance to go to court with a Second Amendment case. These recent decisions by the Supreme Court are strong arguments for why that reluctance is sensible. In the University of Michigan law school case, the Supreme Court decided that even though the Fourteenth Amendment is explicit that there will be no discrimination based on race, discrimination based on race, as long as it’s not made too explicit, is okay. In the other case, the Supreme Court ignored precedent, rewrote some of Colonial America’s sodomy laws, and then used due process and a lot of armwaving to strike down a state law of the sort that has been present for centuries–and then discounted everything more than 50 years old as not particularly relevant to their decision. And you suddenly are going to trust the Supreme Court to make a decision about the meaning of the Second Amendment? All your arguments in favor of an individual right are based on:
1. Historical evidence that will be ignored, just like colonial Connecticut and Plymouth’s homosexual sodomy laws were ignored.
2. Precedents of both federal and state supreme courts that are largely more than 50 years old.
3. Notions of individual rights that are even older.
Against this, the gun control side has the same elites that wanted the sodomy law struck down. I think the NRA may be right not to rush to the Supreme Court of Urban Elitism.
I disagree. I don’t think that waiting will do us any good. I think that the Silviera case is the most cut-and-dried violation of the Second Amendment extant, and I think it’s the perfect one with which to overturn U.S. v Cruikshank and Presser v. Illinois. But he’s right: SCOTUS could very well ignore historical evidence. It very well could ignore older precedents and uphold Cruikshank. It could ignore that the right to arms was held as an individual one since before the ratification of the Constitution. It’s a hard question to consider: Do individual citizens have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear weapons of military usefulness? And are the States restricted by the 14th Amendment from infringing on this right? Yes or no?
SCOTUS might very well answer: “No.” It might (probably would) be a 5-4 decision, and the dissents might be philosophical works of art.
BUT:
That would be, to me, the signal that the system is broken beyond repair.
Right now, I still believe the system can work as designed. I think, though, that if SCOTUS can take it upon itself to render meaningless a part of the Bill of Rights that is explicit, then the Constitution is, for all intents and purposes, null and void.
I’ve often wondered if SCOTUS has denied cert. on Second Amendment cases just because the Justices couldn’t bring themselves to be that blatant in violating the Constitution. Easier to avoid than to do that.
I’m betting about 60-40 that they’ll deny cert. to Silviera, too. THEN where will that put us? In one circuit the right to arms will be legally recognized, but in another (the one where I live) it will not.
UPDATE:
Given the newness of my Comments, I’m going to copy and reply here:
AlphaPatriot responds:
I’m going to quote an earlier post on my website because I think it’s relevant:
The other issue that mitigates against granting cert in the Silveira case is that the issue involved was a state assault weapons ban and Emerson was a Federal statute. Just two different ways of reaching a result. What you need to understand is that the Supreme Court is not in the business of doing justice in an individual case, only if taking the case will affect the law. And that case is not necessarily about whether there is an individual right, rather, about whether it’s a “reasonable regulation.” In other words, if the ban would likely be upheld on other grounds, even if the Supreme Court found an individual right, it is unlikely that it would take the case.
However, the issue that mitigates for granting a writ of certiorari is the fact that two Circuit Courts are in disagreement on a key issue. This often prompts SCOTUS to step in and settle the dispute.
I fully expect them to dodge if they do grant cert. The 5th Circuit certainly did – ruling as narrowly as the could get away with and avoiding addressing anything outside the question at hand. The 9th did not. They stated plainly that the right was not individual, and that individuals had no standing in bringing the question before the Court.
Somehow, I don’t see how SCOTUS can let that slide given the decision in Emerson.
But you might be right – they very well could decide that it’s a “reasonable regulation” of an individual right. That, I think, would be a not-quite-phyrric victory for gun owners. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but I’ve read a LOT of case law concerning the right to arms. Since Silviera appears to hinge on whether or not the right is indivdual (as that’s how it was decided: “The district court dismissed all of the plaintiffs’ claims. Because the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms, we affirm the dismissal of all claims brought pursuant to that constitutional provision” citing Hickman v. Block.) At a minimum it would mean remanding the case to the 9th Circuit for re-hearing on the basis that Hickman was in error. THEN the 9th would just find it a “reasonable regulation.”
Let’s be honest here: I’m not expecting a Brown v. Board of Education-like earth-shattering decision, should they decide to hear it at all.
But I can hope.
Oh, and go read AlphaPatriot’s older post on this topic. Very good.