The Wandering Minstrel

The NRA Institute for Legislative Analysis announced today that three new amici have been filed in the Chicago Gun Case:

• Bipartisan Majority of Attorneys General File Amicus Brief Supporting NRA’s Stance in Pivotal Supreme Court Case
• State Legislators File Amicus Brief Supporting NRA’s Stance in Pivotal Supreme Court Case
• Bipartisan Majority of U.S. Congress Signs Amicus Brief Supporting NRA’s Position in Pivotal Supreme Court Case

I glanced through one of the three briefs today (the U. S. Congress brief) and found the same arguments being made about the Fourteenth Amendment’s applicability. However, there was this interesting passage regarding the role of the Congress in both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments:

Congress has a long history of protecting the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was Congress, after all, that proposed the Second Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights, to the States in 1789. Congress likewise proposed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, following and to further Congress’ attempts in the Freedmen’s Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act to restore to freed slaves their right to keep and bear arms.

We changed our schedule for going to the shooting range. We were going on Sundays, but decided that we were missing too many NFL games. We’re big football fans, so we changed the shooting day to Friday. Due to a dental appointment, this past week we went on Wednesday instead.

At the range, we sometimes like to play a game with the shotguns, where we try to cut the target in half. This past Wednesday, the Better Half demonstrated her skill by perforating the target with five rounds from the 12 gauge shotgun. She then finished it off with two 20 gauge rounds.

As I said in a previous post, this shooting exercise may not develop any useful techniques, but it sure is fun.

I worked in the back yard today, clearing out some overgrowth. The Better Half snapped this image of some of the tools I always carry when engaged in this outside activity - communication and security tools, that is, in addition to garden shears, shovels hoes and rakes.

Out and about today, we spotted this almost-cherry 1965 Mustang Convertible 289. I’m not sure that this interior is like the original, but it sure looked nice. The only thing about this car that didn’t seem right, was to have the top up on a beautiful day.

Earlier this week, Alan Gura and associates filed the Petitioners “On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit.” I downloaded the Petitioners .pdf document yesterday and started looking through it for a little light reading.

The document contains a ‘Summary of Argument‘ which I have summarized even further here. Disclaimer: this summary in no way intends to profess anything other than a citizen’s interpretation of the contents of the summary.

Section 1 states that the Court has never directly addressed the question of the Fourteenth Amendment’s incorporation of the Second Amendment. It claims confusion is the result of inaction and the Court now has the opportunity to set straight the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment in the context of gun owners civil rights.

Section 2 speaks to the Fourteenth Amendment’s ‘Privileges or Immunities‘ clause which forbids the States from abridging civil rights including, unambiguously, the right to keep and bear arms.

Section 3 brings up The SlaughterHouse Cases of 1873. SlaughterHouse transformed the Framers’ broad protection of individual liberty, commonly understood, into a clause securing only the most obscure rights.

Section 4 speaks about The Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that no person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Accordingly, most of the rights secured in the first eight amendments have been deemed incorporated as against the States.

The States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment during reconstruction. The amendment sought to restore civil rights that some of the states had stripped away from blacks and abolitionists after the Civil War, including the right to keep and bear arms.

Now is the time for SCOTUS to restore those civil rights to the citizens of Chicago and, indeed, to all Americans.

Also, here’s another chance to weigh in on Sonia Sotomayor:

I posted this article on the other website, and thought that I would cross-post it here, since a commenter over there brought up an interesting point about storing ammunition.

It’s been about a year now, that ammunition has been scarce here in California, and, indeed, the entire nation. In particular, handgun calibers are not only difficult to find, but when you do find them, they’re expensive.

We have tried to stockpile enough ammo to be able to take any of our guns to the range. We’re not hoarding the ammo, but keep enough on hand that when a particular caliber is unavailable, we can still shoot some, and restock the pile when the caliber again becomes a available.

The last few months, there has been a greater availability, mostly at our shooting range, but not so much at retail outdoor and sporting stores in the area. Again, the range has some but you pay about 50% more than over a year ago.

In the image (click to enlarge), top left shelf, we have handgun calibers .45 ACP, .357 magnum, .38 special and 9mm. Below that, we store magazines and holsters. The bottom two shelves are where we keep the shotgun ammo, 12 and 20 gauge.

Commenter TheGunGeek said,

Even though I also keep ammo in mine, I wonder about what might happen in case of fire. Is the cook-off point for ammunition low enough that it would go off before the guns would have been damaged otherwise?

I’d feel pretty bad if my guns would have survived just fine if only they hadn’t been ruined by the exploding rounds.

So, I did some research and came up with this data:

In his book “Gunshot Wounds” Vincent Di Maio describes various experiments where ammunition was heated in ovens. He says that .22 long rifle cartridges detonate at an average of 275F, .38 Special at 290F and 12 gauge shotgun shells at 387F. The interesting thing about these furnace experiments was that in all instances the cartridge cases ruptured, but the primers did not detonate. In fact the primers were removed from some of the ruptured cases, reloaded into other brass and fired.

According to the Sentry Safe Model E5251-T manual, the safe can withstand temperatures of up to 1400°F. The spec was silent on the temperature gradient inside the safe, but claimed the contents would be protected while the safe is exposed to the rated temperature for 30 minutes.

I might be interested enough to look at the thermodynamics of this at another time. Meanwhile, I intuitively believe the ammo would be safe enough, even in a fire.

With Senate Democrats about to unleash their health care plan, it will be interesting to see the farce as it emerges. Will it still contain the anti-abortion provision? Will citizens have to go to jail if they fail to purchase a plan? Will it cost taxpayers trillions of dollars?

Those are points of interest, but little else. The real issue is the competence of those designing the bill.

It is hard to imagine that the 220 congressmen and an unknown number of Senators who vote in favor of the legislation know enough about the complex domain of health care to approve and come up with a plan that will work and save us money at the same time. In reality, they can’t. The Government can’t run the Medicare program, Social Security, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and yes, even the Post Office.

You can tell your congresscritter here and your Senators here. Tell them what you think of their collective ‘expertise’ on health care.

Graphic courtesy of The Patriot Post.

Wayne La Pierre, the Executive Vice president of the NRA appeared today on the Glenn Beck Show. Beck and La Pierre discussed the recent Fort Hood Islamic terrorist attack. In that discussion, La Pierre concluded that “Instantaneous Responders are ALWAYS superior to First Responders” and made a statement that inspired the graphic seen here. Beck and La Pierre also talked about the insanity of not having armed soldiers present on all military bases in a time of war. At Fort Hood, it was a coincidence that there were police officers in the area for the graduation ceremonies being held nearby. Had they not been there to hear Hasan’s shots, it would have been much worse.

The Military needs to realize that their soldiers ARE the “Good Guys.” I like the concept of “Instantaneous Responders.”