Category: Rights

Actually I don’t think we do need more research on gun control (unless perhaps it’s about which stance;  Isosceles, Weaver, Chapman, Center Axis Relock really works) .
Just me but “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” works fine.
If I recall correctly, someone once observed that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were purposely written in the common language of the day without all the flowery legalese so loved by the Lawyer class.

Maybe it’s not what guns people should or shouldn’t have. Maybe it’s what people do with the guns they have that we be concerned about

We need honest debate and rigorous research on gun control

a “time bomb under President-elect Biden’s doormat.” The time-bomb wasn’t a bogus dossier, FBI agents lying in order to spy on Biden’s campaign, or a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden. It was, rather, the appointment of renowned but controversial researcher John R. Lott Jr. as a senior advisor for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice.

Lott has had a long career as a researcher at some of America’s most respected universities: from Yale to UCLA to Wharton to the University of Chicago and until recently, he was the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, which I now lead. But he is best known for his controversial thesis on a hot button issue, encapsulated well in his University of Chicago Press book: “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Dix wrote that the news of Lott’s appointment made his “blood run cold” because Lott’s thesis had been “found to be false” by Stanford Law Professor John Donohue and his colleagues. But whether or not he realized it, Dix’s citation actually showcases the need for much more credible and robust research into the effect of gun control policies.

Dix noted that Donahue and his colleagues concluded that Lott’s thesis was “without credible statistical support,” and that — contrary to Lott — right-to-carry gun laws were actually associated with higher rates of murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, etc.

If that were the final word, we could leave it at that. But it’s not. Continue reading “”

3D-Printed Freedom – Part 2

What is the actual material you are printing with? Filament. It comes in a roll, usually 1 kg, and is 1.75mm thick. It is what is extruded out of the nozzle onto the print bed and makes your object. Filament comes in many different materials.

The most common and inexpensive filament is poly lactic acid (PLA). Better yet is PLA+. Both of these are made from corn as a feedstock, and do not use petroleum as an input. So if supporting corn growers of America as opposed to oil companies is something that resonates with you, so much the better.

Of note, PLA is easy to work with on a printer, does not give off dangerous fumes when heated, and can actually be composted as a waste product, if done so in an industrial composting type facility (needs the high heat to break down). As a downside, it does degrade over time in direct sun, and can deform in high heat. Don’t go shooting a PLA printed firearm full auto, or leave it on the dash in your car in the summer with the windows up, as it may warp. PLA also comes from a variety of manufacturers with other materials incorporated, such as wood, ceramic, copper, glow-in-the-dark materials, and more. These other materials can contribute useful or aesthetic characteristics depending on what you are printing. There are also magnetic iron PLA filaments, and electrically-conductive PLA filaments. Nearly all of the firearm components I refer to have been developed and tested with PLA or PLA+, and those that are not will be noted in the print instructions when you download the file. Continue reading “”

3D-Printed Freedom – Part 1

The following article is intended for educational purposes only. It is not legal advice. State and local laws vary widely, so be sure to consult them before you buy, print, or build!

“The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.” – Karl Marx

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Marxist, I just love the confused look that I get from my more “progressive” friends when I quote a little Marx at ’em, as they know I tend toward the libertarian perspective, but at least when it comes to the means of production, perhaps we can find some common ground. To wit, 3D Printing!

I admit, my concept of 3D printing was pretty hazy up until about a year ago, when a friend introduced me. I had imagined it to be strictly the province of movies and high tech prototyping labs and industry. I was wrong. At the consumer level, the price and quality of 3D printers has evolved to a level where even a cheapskate Luddite like me can afford a printer and, just as important, is capable of harnessing and possessing the means of production for less than $300 ready to go. This article is meant to give you the same introduction I benefited from, and the background and resources to investigate further whether this capability is something you can benefit from (of course it is!)

Production of what you may ask? Darn near anything you can imagine! During these days of pandemic and the associated disruption to supply chains, the ability to get desperately needed items from factories across the country and across the world has been demonstrated as fragile indeed. Hospitals and companies have turned to 3D printers to produce their needed components for ventilator circuit connectors, lab testing materials, PPE, and more. Continue reading “”

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

I’ll take: Why do lawyers always seem to find ways for their fellow lawyers to make a living?

Why Does the ABA Have a Standing Committee on ‘Gun Violence’?

Darin Scheer is a general commercial litigation attorney in rural Casper, Wyoming, where he lives on a small cattle farm with his wife. As a volunteer firefighter, he has responded to suicides and accidental shootings.

He is an [American Bar Association] delegate for his state. At the 2020 midyear meeting in Austin, Texas, he objected to a resolution in favor of stricter rules for gun permits.

“I don’t think that the ABA should be in the business of recommending one-size-fits-all, top-down requirements for an issue like this that is constitutional,” Scheer said before the House passed the resolution.

What’s often lost in the decades-long fight over gun rights and laws is that Americans’ relationship to guns differs depending on where they live, Scheer says. He says people in his community do not buy guns just for self-defense. There is a tradition of fathers passing rifles down to their sons and teaching them how to hunt. Scheer says it sometimes appears to gun owners that constitutional rights are trampled because of the “irresponsible behavior of the few.”

Is there space in the middle to meet? J. Adam Skaggs, a special advisor to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence and chief counsel and policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, says it is hard to find common ground when the gun rights side is pushing “an extremist agenda in the courts.” On the other hand, he says gun control advocates have much in common with Americans who support reasonable regulations.

“I think the central argument is that like all other rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited and has always coexisted with strong regulations and laws,” Skaggs says. “That’s no different today than it was at any other point in history.”

Read on down to the Progressive’s ideas on RKBA and note that there’s a link to each group’s ‘ideal’ Constitution.

Constitutional Visions for the Arms Right

The National Constitution Center’s recent Constitution Drafting Project convened scholars and practitioners from three different camps to draft and define their own revisions to the U.S. Constitution: the Libertarian Constitution, Conservative Constitution, and Progressive Constitution. Of course, there are many things that separate these three visions of what a more ideal Constitution would look like, but one notable fact is that all of them retain a fundamental, protected right to private gun possession, though none keep the wording of the current Second Amendment. Continue reading “”

More from the Justice’s speech

BLUF:
If you’ve got an hour or so and you’re a legal geek like me, go watch Alito’s entire speech and read the brief that I linked above. Obviously Alito wasn’t going to say anything unbecoming of a Supreme Court justice, but I was struck by his quiet indignation over the NYC gun case, the second-class status of the Second Amendment, and the threats of “restructuring” the Court by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and four other Democratic senators. I get the feeling that Justice Alito is itching to take another Second Amendment case soon, and Lord knows there are plenty in the pipeline for him and his colleagues to accept in the months ahead.

Alito: Senators’ Threats In 2A Case “Affront To The Constitution”

Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s address to the Federalist Society on Thursday night is making headlines today largely for his comments about COVID-19 and the threat that the pandemic poses to individual liberties, but I’m surprised that more people aren’t talking about Alito’s reserved smackdown of five Democratic senator who threatened the Court with “restructuring” if it didn’t drop a challenge to a New York City gun law. The case, known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, ultimately was mooted by the Court earlier this year after New York City changed the law being challenged after SCOTUS agreed to hear the case.

Reason has a full transcript and video of Justice Alito’s remarks, but I want to focus on what he had to say about our right to keep and bear arms.

Of course, the ultimate second tier constitutional right in the minds of some is the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. From 2010, when we decided McDonald v. Chicago, until last term; the supreme court denied every single petition asking us to review a lower court decision that rejected the Second Amendment claim. Last year, we finally took another second amendment case. And what happened after that is interesting.

This isn’t the first time that Alito has complained about the Second Amendment being treated as second-class right. Alito penned the majority opinion in the McDonald case, and a decade ago he warned that the right to keep and bear arms rests on the same footing as the rest of our individual rights. Continue reading “”