Election

• During Donald Trump’s term as president, he nominated nearly 300 constitutional judges to the federal bench. No other president in almost 100 years – including Reagan – so consistently appointed judges who take the US Bill of Rights seriously.

Litigation

• US District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby of the Northern District of New York issued a permanent injunction against the Cortland Housing Authority (CHA) – a government entity – prohibiting any sort of firearms ban against CHA tenants. He also ordered the defendants – CHA and Executive Director Ella M. Diiorio – to pay plaintiffs’ counsel $150,000 for attorneys’ fees and costs. The case is Hunter v. Cortland Housing Authority.
• The Michigan Supreme Court let stand a campus-carry ban. The case is Wade v. Univ. of Mich. But the Court of Appeals disregarded the analysis required by the US Supreme Court for Second Amendment disputes and invented a confusing four-factor test that bears almost no resemblance to the Supreme Court’s test. Once again the made-up “sensitive places” doctrine rears its head. I challenge you to find anything related to “sensitive places” in the US Constitution.
• Mississippi DGU Litigation: “The jury could find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder, her original charge, or guilty of imperfect self-defense manslaughter or not guilty of either. Imperfect self-defense is when someone kills another person due to an honest but unreasonable belief that they or someone close to them was in danger of death or great bodily injury.” (She was in fact convicted of imperfect self-defense manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)
  • I was unaware there was such a thing as formal “imperfect self-defense” convictions and always thought there were only failed self-defense legal strategies resulting in a homicide conviction. In fact, I found no such “imperfect” language in state criminal codes. (I am not a lawyer.) It appears though, that if the jury believes the defendant actually was in fear but not due to a reasonable belief of danger, that takes murder off the table and the offense becomes manslaughter under the statute defining manslaughter as “every other killing of a human being, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, and without authority of law, not provided for in this title, shall be manslaughter.”
• In a legal debate before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Connecticut state attorneys are arguing that hunting rifles, particularly semi-automatic ones, are not protected by the Constitution. According to attorney Joshua Perry, representing the Connecticut Attorney General’s office, the Second Amendment protects guns commonly used for self-defense, but not hunting rifles. Well, disregarding the fact that the government has never had the authority to ban private gun possession, one could – and I have – argued that the Second Amendment only protects weapons useful for militia purposes, i.e., not sporting arms. In fact, in the Miller decision, SCOTUS says that. The case is Flanagin v. Lamont, Jr.
• Grassroots Judicial Report

Language matters

• Why we should stop calling AR-15s and similar rifles “modern sporting rifles” and instead refer to them as semiautomatic rifles. They’re singing my song. Also see the Connecticut case above.

The Only Ones

• Former FBI agent Scott Chiang has been charged with 242 criminal counts including multiple weapons possession charges.
• FBI and DEA gun parts slated for destruction ended up in a “ghost gun” seized during a criminal investigation. More Gunwalker, anyone?

Department of Idiocy

• Missouri Democrat Lucas Kunce, who is challenging GOP US Sen. Josh Hawley, accidentally shot a reporter with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle ricochet at a political stunt range event. I see no safe backstops at that range either. Is he trying to prove that the guns he wants to ban are bad, or that he is bad?

DGUs

• Defensive Gun Use Statistics: America’s Life-Saving Gun Incidents (2024)
• Nobody wins a gunfight.
• A Pennsylvania woman’s “boyfriend” pinned to the ground with a knife to her throat in front of both of her children at one point, and that is when the juvenile is believed to have shot the deceased in defense of his mother.
• Armed Citizen Stops A Man Trying To Run Over Three People
• The Armed Citizen – American Rifleman:
  • October 18, 2024 (I would not rely on being able to retrieve a gun from a safe after the bad guy is already in my bedroom with me. – JP)
  • October 21, 2024

NRA

• NRA National Matches Venue Changes For 2025
• NRA announces the National High Power, Pistol and Smallbore Championships – the NRA National Matches – are exiting Camp Atterbury, Ind., and will be held at different clubs around the country in 2025.
• NRA Board Candidates Report

Handgun Sights

• Best Sights? “After firing and timing a bunch of shots with each setup, I did find that the XS DXT2 big dot sights were the fastest overall—for me. Compared to the red dot configuration, I shot exactly 20% faster…” – Tom McHale
  • But glaringly obvious in this study is the fact that the three different sights were on three different model guns. Do you think that just might influence the results?
• Handgun Optics Lessons from the Police. Ayoob.
• XS pre-drilled revolver front sights.

Tactics & Stuff

• Light fight
• “… A backup gun should be in reality the biggest gun you own…” – Clint Smith
• Rifles of the Professionals (This may be a re-post.)
• The .425 Westley Richards “Rifle System”

Fearless

Industry News

• D&M Holding Company, an ammunition and energetics engineering firm, is investing $70 million to build a single-base, smokeless propellant factory and expand its current White River Energetics ammunition primer and energetics facility in Des Arc, Ark.

Products

• Savage Arms is now offering three MARK II models and one B Series model rimfire rifles in the new 21 Sharp chambering.
• Bear Creek Arsenal has a new AR pistol chambered in 5.56 NATO with a compact 4.5″ barrel. I bet that’ll bust your ears. $500.
• Heritage Manufacturing’s Coachwhip is a traditional old-school SxS shotgun comes in 12-gauge with 18.5″ black chromed stainless steel barrels, color case-hardened frame, Turkish walnut stock, exposed hammers, double triggers and tang safety. $985.
• Realtree continues its collaboration with Ole Miss Football as the Rebels take on Oklahoma on October 26th in Oxford, MS. This year’s game will feature a special edition, one-of-a-kind Realtree camouflage pattern on the team’s helmets. Fans can also gear up with Realtree branded apparel and accessories at their usual outlets.

• Hornady’s new Backcountry Defense handgun ammo lineup is optimized for putting down four-legged predators (bears). This ammo is loaded with the new Hornady jacketed, protected point, heavy-for-caliber Dangerous Game Handgun (DGH) bullet.
• Beretta’s new top-end SL2 O/U shotgun will be available in three models, trap, skeet, and sporting.