Gun sales: lies, damned lies and statistics

With Donald Trump about to regain the White House and Republicans in control—barely—of both houses of Congress, gun owners and Americans who think they might want to be gun owners someday can relax, right? Right? Beginning January 20, 2025, the federal government probably won’t be harassing gun dealers or trying to write extra-constitutional rules to turn millions of Americans into instant felons for possession of guns or accessories that were lawful the day before, right? Let’s review the status quo on the way to an answer.

For 65 consecutive months, Americans have bought more than a million guns. That’s measured by NCIC record checks mandatory whenever one buys a gun—or guns—from a federally licensed gun dealer after filling out the standard ATF Form 4473. Private sales surely count for many more, but aren’t recorded.

After 2024 monthly gun sales — as measured by adjusted NICS data — trailing 2023 for most of the year, they started to accelerate in July and jumped even more in August. This may be due, at least in part, to the impending election. Americans tend to hedge their bets every four years by stocking up on firearms and related gear. And then there’s the general state of society that seems to have an increasing number of people concerned about self-defense. 

Graphic: FBI data via NSSF. Public Domain.

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SCOTUS Rejects Multiple Second Amendment Cases, Relists Gun Ban Challenges

On a day when gun-rights advocates hoped that the Supreme Court would announce its next big Second Amendment case, it only informed them which ones it was turning away.

On Monday, the High Court denied petitions for certiorari in Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore and Gray v. Jennings. The cases challenged Maryland’s handgun-purchase licensing requirements and the preliminary injunction standard set in the case against Delaware’s sales ban on “assault weapons” and “large-capacity” ammunition magazines.

None of the justices wrote separately to explain or dissent from the denials.

Monday’s orders list dashes the hopes of gun-rights activists looking to overturn lower court decisions upholding the gun-control laws in question. It continues the Supreme Court’s recent streak of rejecting Second Amendment petitions, even as it agrees to hear government requests for review of decisions striking gun laws down. It could fuel further concern among gun-rights activists about the Court’s resolve to expand on the standard it set in 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and address state-level gun bans or several other of its longest-standing constitutional concerns.

However, the Court left open the possibility it would take some of the highest-profile gun cases still pending before it. The Court relisted two other closely watched Second Amendment cases, Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island, to be considered again at this Friday’s conference. That keeps gun-rights supporters’ hopes alive for a Supreme Court grant of review of state bans on so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.

With no guidance on how the justices feel about those two cases and the possibility that the Court could relist them multiple times before deciding whether to take them up, those wondering about the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence face an uncertain timeline for further clarity. Still, Monday’s order list indicated what areas of gun law the Court won’t expound upon for the foreseeable future.

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Smith & Wesson’s Walnut 1854 Rocks the .45 Colt

Now, the company has shifted back to old-school gear, offering not only the 1854 Walnut, but a new chambering in .45 Colt. We were delighted to get our hands on one, marking the first time we’ve fired .45 Colt from a S&W lever gun.
Table of Contents

Video Review
S&W Model 1854 Traditional Walnut
Range Time
Field Notes
Final Thoughts

Wildfire ActBlue ‘Donation’ Scandal Explodes, Elizabeth Warren Implicated While Obama Bros Go Berserk

Outrage is exploding over a push by numerous Democrats to get people to donate to wildfire “relief funds” facilitated through ActBlue, the party’s scandal-ridden fundraising apparatus.

As RedState reported on Saturday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom made the ill-advised move to go on “Pod Save America,” a far-left show run by former Barack Obama staffers, while large parts of Los Angeles County still burned. His attempt to pass the buck and paint himself as an innocent bystander amid a laundry list of government failures was bad enough, but then came the plea for donations.

Within hours, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put up a similar donation link, again directing people to ActBlue. At the top of the donation screen sits her campaign logo.

Why exactly are Democrats trying to get people to donate relief funds through a partisan fundraising operation? Especially since that operation skims off 3.95 percent, and that’s assuming every single other dime ends up passing through untouched. To put it lightly, that’s hardly a benefit of the doubt ActBlue and these Democrat politicians should be receiving.

But while many suspected these donation links, which require the entry of an email, are being used to build political contact lists, the manipulation may go much deeper than initially expected. According to the DC Reporter, one political laid out how this affects the Super PAC in question, calling it “the most evil **** I have ever seen.”

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We can hope this stick 3 years from now, making the 2028 race much more interesting as Newsom was pretty much considered to be a strong probable.

Palisades Fire Incinerates Future Career of Mayor Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom’s Presidential Aspirations.

have been following the progress of the Palisades fire and several others in the Los Angeles area since my initial post last night.

According to Watch Duty, the blaze charring Pacific Palisades now covers over 15,000 acres and is ZERO percent contained…just as the Santa Ana winds are about to begin peaking.

However, other significant wildfires are burning through the region as well. The Eaton Fire in the Altadena/Pasadena area has already destroyed 10,000 acres and claimed five lives. The Hurst Fire around Sylmar has already hit 700 acres. There is also ZERO percent containment for both of these blazes.

Of course, it is hard for understaffed firefighters to suppress wildfires when there is no water to quench them.

 

The lack of firefighting resources is just one of the long-term problems that contributed to the historic destruction of Los Angeles. The magnitude of destruction is so vast that any of our nation’s terrorist enemies would be delighted to claim responsibility for it.

However, the state and local leaders ultimately created all the conditions that resulted in a disaster that will likely outstrip Maui’s total devastation in our collective memories. I will note many of these problems have been discussed at Legal Insurrection whenever we have reviewed wildfires in California previously.

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