So Congressional anti-gunners now need "assurance" that shall not be infringed allows for infringement at will?

On Wednesday, Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI) introduced H.R. 4269 (text not yet available), titled "To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes." The bill picked up 123 co-sponsors, all Democrats, the first day. As I said, we don't yet have the text, but Cicilline's self-satisfied press release proudly describes some of the most intolerable aspects of his Intolerable Act. Nothing terribly surprising--from the two "military features" that rendered a semi-automatic, detachable magazine-fed rifle verboten in the old federal AWB, Cicilline's atrocity would lower it to one, which would also be enough to make any semi-automatic shotgun illegal, regardless of the shotgun's magazine arrangements; etc., etc.

Like I said, nothing very surprising. The title itself, though, is kinda interesting--specifically, this part: "to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited." Now that's odd. The gun ban zealots have never, to my knowledge, acknowledged any uncertainty in the past about their contention that the Second Amendment's protection of the fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms was quite limited, shall not be infringed notwithstanding. How many times have we all seen the "can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater" trotted out as "proof" that the Second Amendment poses no bar to the current infringement du jour? Now, all of a sudden, they need to see the claimed legitimacy of that argument "ensured"?

But, come to think of it, how could any law provide the "assurance" that Cicilline and friends apparently need, that the Bill of Rights carries no more force than they want it to? The meaning of the Constitution doesn't change just because Congress passes a law that says it means something else now. That's, after all, kinda the point of a Constitution.

Meanwhile, just in time to express my opinion of H.R. 4269, I have this week assembled my reply to Cicilline. It looks like this:

Now first, let's get out of the way the fact that this is indeed legal, even with the 8 1/2" barrel 12 gauge slung underneath like the old "Masterkey" concept. The 12 gauge started as a Black Aces Tactical DTR, which is legal without any NFA paperwork because it never had a shoulder stock (remember, the Sig Brace doesn't count as a stock). Therefore, by the federal definition of "shotgun," which specifies that such arms are "designed to be fired from the shoulder," this is not, legally, technically, a shotgun. It's also not an "Any Other Weapon" (AOW), because the overall length (when the Sig brace is not folded) exceeds 26", and therefore the gun is not considered "concealable," as the AOW definition specifies. This, according to federal law, is simply a "firearm."

I removed the Sig brace, and clamped the top rail of the "firearm" to the bottom rail of an AR pistol (that's vitally important--mounting it on a rifle would magically convert my sweet, innocent little firearm into a wicked, evil short-barreled shotgun--and voilà--a legal, non-NFA Masterkey.

Practical? Nah--but practical isn't really my style. I've actually never tried handling it with the drums full (and actually, since the AR is chambered not for 5.56mm NATO/.223 Remington, but instead for 6.5mm Grendel, it's rather unlikely that the snail drum would feed with any kind of reliability). The double drums are mainly for the benefit of the anti-gun cud-munchers. Also, the optics and laser, mounted where they are, would probably be rather short lived under any quantity of firing. I'm working on a better, (slightly) more practical configuration.

Still, imperfect as it is, I think this build expresses my opinion about H.R. 4269 pretty well. Might even shake Cicilline's "assurance" that he can impose limits on that which shall not be infringed.

JPFO Alert: Sanders' "Middle" Ground on Guns is in Exact Center of Intolerable

Today's JPFO Alert notes that if Bernie Sanders' position in the gun rights/"gun control" debate is the "middle" he claims it to be, there's no room for "extreme" short of mandatory capital punishment for gun ownership.

Sanders' idea of the "middle" would also ban semi-automatic, detachable magazine-fed rifles--popularly, if inaccurately, referred to as "assault weapons"--and the "high capacity" (gun ban zealot-speak for "standard capacity") magazines that feed them. This is the "middle"? Sending people to prison for buying the most popular class of centerfire rifles in America is his idea of respecting the rights of gun owners? Prison time for buying an 11-round magazine is the "compromise" he wants to sell us? Outlawing the most useful arms for defense of one's home, one's life, one's family, and one's liberty is part of the give-and-take he proposes?

JPFO Alert: If Retired Cops Are Safer With Unlocked Guns, Why Aren't the Rest of Us?

Today's JPFO Alert Today's JPFO Alert wonders why "safety" for cops and, and for the rest of us, requires two diametrically opposed solutions.

We are told that we are to lock up our guns, "for safety." We are told that cops (and retired cops) must have unlocked guns . . . "for safety." How does once having worn a badge make what's safe for one person the exact opposite of what's safe for the next?

JPFO Alert: Will Pope Francis Disarm His Guards?

Today's JPFO Alert Today's JPFO Alert wonders if Pope Francis thinks what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

His criticism of those who invest in weapons manufacture is especially puzzling. Anyone, after all, who purchases a weapon could fairly be said to have invested in the manufacture of them. And as it turns out, the Pontifical Swiss Guard, who defend the Vatican and its most famous resident, are lavishly equipped with some pretty hefty investments in Sig-Sauer, Heckler & Koch, Steyr Mannlicher, and Glock semi-automatic handguns, personal defense weapons, assault rifles, and submachine guns, not to mention whoever manufactures the swords, halberds, and other more traditional weapons carried by his guards.

Nothing wrong with 'proudly closed minds on gun control'

Here's the thing: on some issues, there is nothing wrong with a closed mind, nor even with being proud of it. The issue of forcible citizen disarmament is a superb example. When what one is being asked (although "asked" is probably sugarcoating it) to accept is so utterly, inherently wrong that it can never, in any context, ever be anything less than evil, dismissing it out of hand is a real time saver, and closing one's mind to it means that one's mind will never be infected with that evil. With some issues, merely closing one's mind is not enough. Close it, lock it, bolt it, bar it, pile heavy things in front of the door--and wait with at least a 12-gauge ready to blast away at anything that pushes through. And then take pride in having so effectively defended one's mind from the mental affliction of "gun control." [More]

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JPFO Alert: Christie's Efforts to Distance Himself from Gun Ban Zealots Comically Transparent

Today's JPFO Alert notes that Christie has a lot of work to do if he plans to convince gun owners that his career-long campaign against us is over.

Christie is no friend to gun owners, and if he really expects to convince us otherwise, has little regard for our intelligence, as well.

JPFO Alert: Gun Owners Cannot Count on Courts to Right "Gun Control" Wrongs

Today's JPFO Alert notes what most of us have probably already known for quite a while: counting on the courts to protect our rights is a model for failure.

Gun rights advocates must decide how much longer we are willing to play a rigged game, in which all the government's checks and balances have united in favor of government over the people, leaving the government both unchecked and unbalanced. If we grant the black-robed high priests of American "justice" the role of ultimate arbiters of what our rights are, we have surrendered any claim on our own power to tell the government--our servants--what they are.

JPFO Alert: Few Details on Impending Obama Administration Gun Rules, But We Know They're Wrong

Today's JPFO Alert notes that although we know very little about the details of the upcoming new gun restrictions from the Obama administration, we know there's no way they're legitimate.

Still, if the administration feels so emboldened as to not need to bother with even the thin veneer of Constitutional legitimacy lent to it by Congressional approval of its infringements du jour, we as a nation have fallen into a deep pit indeed. And we come to this pass because we allowed it to happen. Shame on us.

JPFO Alert: Discretionary Concealed Carry Permit Systems Value Money Over Lives

Today's JPFO Alert notes that when protecting money is a sufficiently good reason for the government to "allow" you to carry a gun, but protecting your life is not, something is very wrong.

This reflects a sick, twisted, and depraved set of values. The gun ban zealots claim to value each and every human life above all other things, but this policy, and others like it elsewhere, show the real truth. To these people, one's value can be deduced from one's bank statement. This scrofulous outlook must be utterly rejected by all people of decency, and Judge Scullin's ruling is a good step in the right direction.

JPFO Alert: New Federal "Ban" of Combat Gear for Cops is the Kind of "Ban" Gun Owners Could Accept

Today's JPFO Alert notes that a "ban" that only means that the government isn't buying the "banned" item for you is one gun owners could get behind.

A nitpicking, irrelevant distinction? I don't think so. Look at it this way--what if proposals to ban private citizens' ownership of so-called "assault weapons" meant only that the federal government would not be subsidizing all or part of the purchase price? What if attempts to "ban" .50 caliber rifles were only attempting to clarify that it will be the responsibility of the aspiring rifle owner, and of no one else, to pay for it? What if the abandoned (for now) attempt on the part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to "ban" M855 ammunition simply meant that the federal government could not give it to us for nothing?

JPFO Alert: Gun Bans No Longer Enough; Now They Want to Ban Gun Information

Today's JPFO Alert notes that with the statists, crushing fundamental human rights is like eating potato chips--you can't stop with just one.

No, indeed you cannot stop the signal, and the fact that the administration is trying so strenuously to do so shows how desperate it has become.

JPFO Alert: Garland, TX and the Right that Defends All Others

Today's JPFO Alert notes that the right to free speech would not be of much use without the right to an effective means of defending it.

And so it is with all rights. The Constitution of the United States, as brilliant a document as it is, does not, cannot defend the rights it guarantees all by itself. The pen may indeed be mightier than the sword, but the sword is a great deal more effective for hacking people to death. One retains only the rights one can defend.

JPFO Alert: 7th Circuit OKs Gun Bans for the Illusion of Safety

Today's JPFO Alert notes that while disarming decent, peaceable citizens for the "safety" of the public is bad enough, disarming us for the illusion of safety is even more unforgivable.

Benjamin Franklin is widely quoted as having said some variation of "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." How much stronger his contempt would have been for those willing to give up liberty for the illusion of safety.

JPFO Alert: Netanyahu Talks a Good Game About Independence and Self-Defense, But . . .

Today's JPFO Alert notes that defining independence as the ability to defend oneself rings rather hollow when coming from someone who presides over laws that enormously hinder self-defense.

In the wake of several high-profile attacks on Jews in Europe by militant Islamic extremists this past winter, there have been some voices calling for European Jews to arm themselves--to, as Netanyahu might put it, break their dependency on the government's ability to protect them from evil. European gun laws are unlikely to change to allow that any time in the foreseeable future. Inexcusably, prospects for such a change in Israeli gun laws seem rather weak as well.

JPFO Alert: Anti-gun Congresswoman Wants Americans to Sell Their Liberty, Children's Futures

Today's JPFO Alert notes that DeLauro's "voluntary" gun turn in is to be INvoluntarily subsidized by the taxpayers, or, more likely, their children and grandchildren. And great-grandchildren. And great-great-grandchildren. And . . . you get the idea.

If DeLauro wants to buy your "assault weapon," tell her it can only be paid for in blood--and she can't afford it.

JPFO Alert: Columnist's "Modest Proposal" as Offensively Arrogant as Original, and it's Not Satire

Today's JPFO Alert notes the arrogance of yet another "modest proposal" to infringe on that which shall not be infringed.

The first use, or at least the most famous one, of the title "A Modest Proposal," was Jonathan Swift's 18th century treatise by that name. In it, Swift suggested that multiple problems could be solved with a program in which starving, impoverished Irish families would sell their children to the wealthy--as food. Thrasher, by contrast, would prefer to simply ban parents' most effective means of defending their children from those who would prey on and consume them.

Oh--and the other difference is that Swift's "Modest Proposal" was satire. Thrasher, in his modest way, seems really to want his to happen.

JPFO Alert: "Progressive" Writer Blames "Arsenal Owners" for Blocking Onerous Gun Laws

Today's JPFO Alert takes another look to where "progressives" would have us "progress."

In the end, though, it's fair to ask just how relevant the numerical breakdown is. This is a republic, after all, and not a democracy, in which 51% of the people can vote away the rights of the other 49%. Fundamental human rights cannot be legitimately held to the outcome of a popularity contest. And finally, if the supposedly growing number of people who own no guns want to disarm us, in our supposedly shrinking numbers, we shouldn't even need the large and growing numbers of guns we each ostensibly own. When defending one's rights against the unarmed. one gun should be plenty--just be sure to have a good supply of ammunition.

Did departing ATF director's latest escapade pave way to NFL?

Nevertheless, B. Todd Jones threw the yellow flag about a month ago, charging the M855 round with "unsportsmanlike conduct." He, though, intended to impose a penalty of far greater than 15 yards. Perhaps that's just what the NFL needed to see from their prospective new sheriff in town. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Please give it a look, and tell a friend--and Facebook "likes" and "shares" are hugely appreciated.

JPFO Alert: Impending "Armor-Piercing" Ammo Ban Bill Undermines Argument to Ban "Green Tip" Rounds

Today's JPFO Alert notes that the ammo ban zealots (ABZs) can't even decide how to claim to justify the ban.

But a larger point is that in claiming that the current law--banning ammunition by virtue of its construction--is inadequate, because an infinitude of ammo not so constructed is equally capable of penetrating body armor, they are tacitly admitting what gun rights advocates have been saying since the attempt to ban the M855 came to light. That round has no special "armor piercing" capability. Reps. Israel and Speier must know this, but that did not stop them from railing against the decision to shelve the M855 ban proposal.

And as always, if you haven't seen all the great JPFO Alerts written by David, Nicki, Claire, and Mama Liberty, you owe it to yourself to fix that.

CSGV condemns 'insurrectionist imagery' of civilian standing up to Chinese tanks

It's not enough for CSGV to stand with the brutal tyranny of the Chinese government, and against those who dare defy it, despite lacking any effective means to do so--CSGV apparently wants the "insurrectionists" to have hearing damage, too--perhaps to allow the tanks to get closer before they perceive the need to escape. [More]

That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Please give it a look, and tell a friend--and Facebook "likes" and "shares" are hugely appreciated.