John Lott’s research suggests it’s a lot more often than either government or the media want you to think.

“The FBI dataset is missing so many defensive gun uses that it’s hard to believe it isn’t intentional and the fact that they never correct mistakes that are brought to their attention is even more damning. All the while, the news media unquestioningly reports the FBI’s numbers, actively distorting the truth regarding the pivotal rule responsible gun owners have played in preventing crime and limiting casualties during mass public shootings.”
Continue Reading How often does "a good guy with a gun stop a bad guy with a gun"

Story here. How his people even mounted the scope backwards, let alone giving it to their commander, let alone him shooting it and not noticing, is beyond me.

The Navy has come a long ways since the days of Admiral Willis Lee, who won five gold medals for shooting events in the 1920 Olympics, and in 1942 blew a Japanese battleship to bits using radar-aided gunnery. I can’t find the source just now, but he went ashore at Vera Cruz in 1914 and swapped fire with some opponents. In later years he was up for promotion but some…
Continue Reading Navy relieves ship commander who was photographed firing M-4 with scope mounted backwards

I haven’t made an entry in weeks due to health issues (my own and my older son), but just now feeling enough energy for a few.

Here is a preliminary report by the House Bipartisan Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of former President Donald Trump. It seems very thorough. I like:

“The 9th shot fired on J13 was from a Butler SWAT operator from the ground about 100 yards away from the AGR building. Shot 9 hit Crooks’ rifle stock and fragged his face/neck/right shoulder area from the stock breaking up. The SWAT operator who took this shot was…
Continue Reading Report on Trump sniper incident

Right here. They make some mistakes about the firearms, but it’s otherwise good. One question I’ve had: what were the two Secret Service counter-snipers doing without spotters? Each should have had a spotter with binoculars looking at the big picture.
Continue Reading Good video on attempted assassination

Matt Taibi has some useful thoughts. I’ll add some.

Scott Adams (who in addition to being a great cartoonist, is a student of persuasion) wrote about the rhetoric (in its real term, persuasive communication) of the Trump v. Hillary campaign. On Hillary’s side, it initially tried to make fun of Trump, or portray him as a bumbling character. That didn’t succeed. Usually, it was low-grade to boot.

Then, he suspects, one of the true experts in persuasion joined her campaign. He’d been with Bernie Sanders, but when Sanders dropped out he became a free agent.

And suddenly, her campaign’s…
Continue Reading The assassination attempt

At Volokh Conspiracy, discussion of a case holding unconstitutional the federal ban on private “stills.” Part of the reasoning is that the taxing power is limited to, well, taxes, and a prohibition on private stills raises no taxes. Nor is it “necessary and proper,” since it does not punish non-payment of a tax, but imposes a penalty on people before the tax is due (i.e. liquor has been distilled).
Continue Reading Wondering about the impact of this on 18 USC §922(o)

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Prof. Volokh discusses a recent Ohio ruling. The plaintiff is the county coroner, the defendant someone who wanted some records, and got quite obsessive and obnoxious about it. The trial court issued a protective order forbidding the defendant to mention the coroner’s name online, and forbidding him to possess firearms. The Court of Appeals held that the first restriction violated freedom of speech, and the second violated the right to arms.

The Supreme Court recently upheld 18 USC §922(g)(1), which forbids firearms possession by those subject to a restraining order issued after a finding that the…
Continue Reading Ruling on restraining order

I like the dissent by Justice Thomas (how often, in any field of law, have you seen the author of an opinion (Bruen) wind up in the very next case applying it as the dissenter in an 8-1 decision?). It’s quite a stretch to take surety to keep the peace statutes and affray statutes and use them to uphold the law at issue.

Why are framing era statutes relevant, anyway? Because they can be evidence of what the people understood the words “right to keep and bear arms” meant when they ratified the amendment containing them. If there was some…
Continue Reading Further thoughts on Rahimi

Opinion here. I’m still reading. It’s by Roberts and 8-1, Thomas dissenting.
Continue Reading Rahimi decided

Opinion here. You can find a very good analysis at SCOTUSBlog, here.

It isn’t a 2A case, but one of statutory construction. The majority holds that a bump stock equipped rifle neither fires more than one shot per trigger function, nor does so “automatically,” both of which are required for a firearm to be a machine-gun under the NFA. Alito concurs to stress that Congress can fix the statute if it likes.
Continue Reading Bump stock Supreme Court opinion

Antigun group has negligent discharge during gun “buy back.” I guess neither they, nor police, nor the company scrapping the guns, knew how to check whether a muzzleloader is loaded. If the company doing the scrapping begins it by cutting down the barrel, I hope they check out the National Firearms Act, as well.
Continue Reading Ironic

From PJ Media:

“Just a couple hours after his son Hunter was found guilty on three federal gun charges, Joe Biden is set to speak at Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund’s “Gun Sense University” conference.”

Strange that they don’t mention this presidential visit and address on their Facebook page.
Continue Reading Now, that's awkward timing

NRA v. Vullo, handed down this morning. 9-0, no less!

Not that the good guys are entirely out of the woods — the Second Circuit had ruled that the suit must be dismissed because (1) there was no First Amendment violation and (2) even if there was the defendant was protected by qualified immunity. The Supreme Court only granted cert. as to (1), and will now remand to the 2nd Circuit, which is free to say, “aha, we rule in NY’s favor anyway, on argument (2)!” See slip op. at 7-8, n. 3.
Continue Reading Supreme Court win on 1st Amendment