The Gun Owner’s Guide to Critical Court Cases

SUPREME_COURT_DC_GUN_LAWIt’s the absolute truth that most people who favor tighter gun laws are completely clueless when it comes to guns. When you hear statist politicians and people in the media talking about “assault ammunition,” when they describe an AR-15 as a “high-powered rifle” and can’t tell you what a “barrel shroud” is, they demonstrate their profound ignorance about a subject that matters very much to many Americans.

Many people, both those who support the Second Amendment and those who want to subvert it, are also highly uninformed when it comes to gun laws in the United States. Part of the reason is that, when it comes down to it, the Second Amendment is gun law in this country: “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.” This basic statement has been shaped and chipped away by laws passed on the local, state and federal level. The ability of various jurisdictions to put limits on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms has been guided by some very important case law—cases that should be familiar to all Americans who care about the right to self-protection.

If you know these cases, you can easily counter the arguments of those who want to disarm you. “The right to have a gun is not a civil right.” Wrong: Johnson v. Eisentrager, 1950. “The Second Amendment doesn’t mean you can have a military weapon.” Wrong: U.S. v. Miller, 1939, and D.C. v. Heller, 2008. “The police are supposed to protect us.” Wrong: Warren v. District of Columbia, 1981.

Supporters of the  right to keep and bear arms should be armed with the information needed to counter the ignorance of those who would take away their rights and make this a much more dangerous country. Learn the names and dates, study the cases, and be ready with the facts when you need them.

Please note: unlike our president, I am not a formal constitutional scholar. (I’m also not a smoker or a socialist.) But I’m a firm believer in the Constitution and the right to keep and bear arms, and I think I have my facts straight here. Please let me know in the comments if you think I got anything wrong (or missed any crucial points) in my summaries. Continue reading “The Gun Owner’s Guide to Critical Court Cases”

Prepping for Spring

war-pointingI just finished a lunch meeting with Jayce discussing upcoming posts, some potential new authors, work (real job kinda work) and several other things.  One of the topics we discussed is that most of us (your authors) have posted few to no posts in the last month or two.  I told him I would write a quick post explaining that :)

Continue reading “Prepping for Spring”

Rahms Gun Denial List

It’s no secret that the current administration does not approve of gun ownership by American citizens. So overall it came as no surprise when I found a video on a blog of the white house chief of staff, Rahm Emmanual, speaking to a conference for the Brady campaign about one of his ways of preventing firearm ownership.

Continue reading “Rahms Gun Denial List”

Beginning Bee Keeping Class in Orem

Beginning Beekeeper’s Class

When:

March 20th (6pm-10pm) and March 21st (10am-4pm). Friday’s class is all instruction, Saturday’s class is instruction plus the possibility of an in apiary portion.

Where:

1206 South 1680 West, Orem, UT.

Cost:

$20 per person; $30 for couples.

Description of Class:

This class is aimed towards the first year beekeeper who is looking gain basic knowledge about bees, the problems, swarming, honey harvests etc.
Continue reading “Beginning Bee Keeping Class in Orem”

Glenn Beck on the Worst Case

Glenn Beck had a show on Friday that is making quite the rounds among the preparedness blogs (among other places) for very good reasons.  He started out by bringing on several “experts” on various topics, after giving each one a potential “doomsday” type of scenario.  As he states, at time we need to think about what we are preparing for.  What is the worst that we think *could* happen, and what can we do to avoid it, or be prepared for it in our own lives.

These three videos give some of the highlights of the discussion (wish the whole show was up there).

Continue reading “Glenn Beck on the Worst Case”

DHS Preparedness Certification

Does anybody besides me get a bad feeling about this? DHS to push ‘certification’ of private sector preparedness effortsgag-manThat’s right, the Federal government creating another ANSI spec for us to follow, and the management of which will be driven by the same people that helped rescue folks after Katrina.  Of course at first the certification will be completely voluntary, and have various degrees to which you can claim certification.  But what happens afterwards?  Just like any other federal program, it will grow until even simple blogs like this must somehow guard what we say, and be guarded by lawyers lest somebody disagree with our practices.

Now, I’m all for the concept of the government encouraging us to prepare, and to help people know how to prepare.  But in looking at tools such as the DHS’s ready.gov compared to blogs such as us, or those in our blogroll, I know I can get a lot more practical information from the personal experience on the web.  And it hasn’t been sanitized by every scared lawyer, by beuracracies such as the FDA.  So speak up, and make sure this doesn’t become just another overarching act that limits peoples ability to share information.

The British called, they want their guns back.

Real world modern and historic data have shown that government efforts to suppress gun ownership negatively affects law abiding citizens while having little to no affect on criminals or the criminal use of firearms.  Citizens of England and Australia have come to that realization, perhaps too late.

Listening to these people talk about the incremental way that their rights were first infringed upon, then completely taken away reminds me of a famous quote by Martin Niemöller:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.”

As liberty loving Americans we need to stand up for not only our Rights but the Rights of others.

Friend in need.

When I lived in Southern California, I began to get into long range target shooting. Through this hobby I met Tom Miller and Don Anderson, two of the nicest people you will ever meet. Tom is a retired ATF agent and FFL dealer. I bought my EDM Arms Windrunner through Tom as well as both of the Nightforce scopes that I own. His prices and most of all his friendly service are second to none.

Don was his right hand man, helping out at gun shows, but more than this, he was a regular at the monthly .50 cal shoot at Angeles Ranges. He allowed anyone interested to shoot his .50 cal, .408 CheyTac or .338 Lapua for free, just to promote interest in the sport. He invested in all the best equipment to reload .50 cal ammunition and would sell it to anyone at his cost to shoot in their own rifles. This of course represented a considerable amount of time he was giving away, just to help promote the sport.

Picture from ShootingTimes.com
Picture from ShootingTimes.com

About 2 years ago, a while after I left California, I found out that Don’s house had been raided by SWAT teams, the ATF and LA County Sheriffs. All his semi-automatic firearms were taken away. This was followed by two years of silence. Don had done nothing illegal and we all assumed that the DA and others were hoping they would be able to let it die without admitting they were wrong. Continue reading “Friend in need.”

The post where we go all Doom and Gloom

I suspect that most readers of this blog are more intelligent than the average reality show addicted, talking head worshiping American that thinks that everything going on in the world and economy right now is just a hiccup that will go away in the spring. You know, the ones that we preppers are pretty sure we’re going to have to fight off from killing us and stealing our preps WTSHTF. But, just in case any of you are slightly toeing the line with the popular hero-worshiping of the Socialistic head of the ‘Office of the President Elect’ thinking somehow he’s going to Change anything but his mind, or that somehow he’s going to bring Hope to the country – I bring you this.

There are very few mainstream articles being published right now that are presenting a realistic top-down view of the entire situation with the economy. The quotes I’m going to present to you here are from mainstream publications but the key point of them is that these are quotes from high level analysts and executives in widely respected financial companies who are remarking that things are bad, very bad and they are going to get much worse.

The following snippets are from this excellent article from Bloomberg:

Continue reading “The post where we go all Doom and Gloom”