MacGyver

Folks would love for him to retire to make another Supreme Court appointment a midterm issue - getting out some who are likely to stay home otherwise. Kennedy more or less dismissed it earlier this year. That’s not to say he couldn’t change his mind - or you could have another older justice pass away or retire.

Democracy favors participation. Nice job.

The PD35 is a known good light. It would be tough to beat it.

I'm afraid rationality is probably out when it comes to a discussion with them - or at least most of them. Most of them are just as entrenched as most of us. Therein lies the problem.

Stevens wrote the primary dissenting opinion in Heller. It's worth noting however that Stevens was a Republican, who was first nominated to the bench by a Republican (Richard Nixon), and was later nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican (Gerald Ford).

What I wouldn't give for a few manufacturers to go back to salt bluing and Grade A walnut...

You're probably not too far off. Cerberus had been trying since Sandy Hook to find someone to buy it and couldn't. Private equity can be really dangerous. As an old mentor told me once, "debt magnifies the consequences of bad decisions." A lot of money came into the gun business for a while thinking gun owners were an easy sell. And for the most part, for a while they were right. How many shops did we have open in middle Tennessee that weren't owned by gun people at all - rather they were owned by bankers. But then times changed - and your business fundamentals actually had to prove sound. At least now we know that this experiment didn't work any better with the giant companies than it did the little gun shops.

Wall Street doubled down on this one. Cerberus has been trying to get out of this for a couple of years. JP Morgan and Franklin Templeton Investments basically took this on for .25 on the dollar. They had already negotiated a haircut with lenders. Basically the billion dollars of debt the hedge fund saddled them with in the various buyouts sank them when revenues sank over the last few years. But note, that the billion dollars didn’t just vaporize - it went into someone’s pockets. Some brands could go away here. Bushmaster and DPMS are at risk. AAC and Tapco are owned by the brand as well. They own Marlin, too.

Seems like they could have the convention somewhere nearby headquarters in Virginia and supply a steady stream of buses down to the mall. Ask vendors to support water stations / hot dog tents / whatever in addition to their booth at the show. Provide firearm literacy, education, talk with some representatives. Plus, you’d get to see some memorials to boot...

The thing about democracy is - and you learn this very quickly in Washington - is that participation matters. Theres a reason that Congress passed the omnibus spending bill without debate and then got the heck out of town - because not a one of them wanted to be there yesterday. Those kids weren’t just protesting Republicans. They were angry at all of them. Regardless, participation matters. And, you better believe Congress was watching. Heck, Marco Rubio is already touting that he voted to fund the CDC doing research on gun violence (snuck into the omnibus bill.) I’m increasingly convinced that there has to be another path aside from this zero sum proxy fight in the culture wars that could lead to another civil war. But, the opposition is looking increasingly united in a way that they haven’t in a long time. And, politicians respond to united - especially when that group can potentially vote for a lot more years than a bunch of us angry old white guys. We’ve got some work ahead of us.

It’s probably worth noting that the folks in pictures like this aren’t spending a lot of time arguing about the ideological purity of the others in the group. I’m supportive of a bunch of different advocacy organizations - and encourage folks to find one that fits them. But we’ve got to stop eating our own. We’re about to need as many people as we can get.

Dick Heller talks about the NRA’s support when he speaks about the case. He certainly wasn’t the plaintiff the NRA or Cato or anyone else wanted - but he had standing. The Supreme Court only hears arguments in so many cases. It makes for interesting bedfellows sometimes.

The NRA may be far from perfect. And, I question whether or not they’re ready for this next fight. But have no doubt. If you carry a concealed firearm in the United States today, you owe the NRA a debt of gratitude. They’ve been involved in every piece of carry legislation that’s passed in a statehouse in the last 30 years Without their financial backing in cases like Dick Heller’s - we wouldn’t have the rights we do. And, a lot of those victories set precedents that will be hard to overturn. They’re far from perfect. But they’ve moved the ball a long way down the field.

The sad part of it is, they don’t have to give it up. When you look at the average American’s spending habits - if they have money they’re going to spend it. So, the banks look at it as potentially delayed income that they’re still going to get sooner or later. Sure, a few people are going to save it or bury it in their backyard or whatever. Most people will just buy something else.

We're a lot more worried - because we're hearing a lot more chatter upstream from the Citi's of the world - with Visa, MasterCard and Amex all talking about the logistics of refusing the transactions associated with ARs. They've already generally decided the optics of it are okay. Basically, they're looking at it and saying, "if Congress is unwilling to act, we are going to use our clout to do something about it." There would of course be a ton of lawsuits - but it takes a bunch of money to litigate - especially against groups that have as much money as the card networks have. The pragmatic reality of the matter is that places like Palmetto State Armory and Primary Arms - and even higher end boutique shops like Daniel Defense, Larue, Noveske, etc. are dead in the water in about 45 days if sales go away. Yes, there will be groups that try to bring alternative payments to the front - but if the cannabis industry offers any lesson - that's a hard problem for a variety of reasons - and you've got to have banks willing to deposit your money at the end of the day. Were I ranking threats to the second amendment, right now I rank Congressional Republicans number one, active state legislatures number two, and this would be a close third.

Good to see you back on!

Boy do we need scouting...

AR sales will go down 99% the moment VISA decides not to process those transactions anymore.

Empire is hard. I’d love it if as families, communities, and as society we could turn out 17.5 year olds that we have full confidence will go on to be healthy, well adjusted, productive members of society.

Welcome back!

I know a student who made a shirt that expressed both her solidarity with the victims and her support for the second amendment. She's a brave kid. Even within the protest it would seem there are diverse opinions. I know a few kids who really had to think about why stuff like the second amendment matters. If you're putting them in a school, you're automatically putting them under the influence of multiple people with authority - and generally telling them to respect that authority. If you only want your kid to hear things you agree with, you really only have one choice - home school and quarantine. Even the private parochial schools are likely to upset you sooner or later. We made a choice to put our kids in public school for now - and we regularly get to have conversations about what they're learning/being exposed to/dealing with. For us, the pros outweigh the cons - but that's a personal choice.

welcome back!

You know, I guess I'm of the opinion that we're better as a society when more of us take the liberty to exercise our rights - whether the first or second - and hopefully not often requiring most of the rest. I'm all for states exercising the tenth as much as possible. Our system of government is an adversarial one - from the two party system basically enshrined in our founding documents - to our judicial system with opposing sides. As was put to me well by a former Solicitor General, "for democracy to prevail, both sides require vigorous, competent representation." We're better off in the long term when both sides have competent representation. Yes, we as gun owners will have to do a better job of making our case. And yes, we will likely need to work in good faith when it comes to finding solutions to mass violence. But, I'm convinced we're going to either find ourselves working in good faith, making a case for gun ownership and maybe actually bringing some underrepresented groups into the fold - or we're going to watch while our legislators give in.

In my youngest two's school (Elementary) - there were no walkouts - it was a normal class day. In my oldest's middle school - it was uncoordinated (and largely uncommunicated). From what I can tell, the admin had a conversation about how to allow for it while still keeping students safe. Teachers communicated that plan to students who were inclined to participate. For those that did (and didn't) - at least in my child's class they did a writing exercise on protest and their experience afterwards to turn the experience into a learning opportunity. To my knowledge, a school would be in legal gray areas at both ends of the spectrum - either requiring students to participate in political speech - or restricting them from such. I'm sure one can find examples of less informed administrations going both ways.

For those who are interested in this topic, I cannot recommend The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt enough: https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521639584&sr=8-1&keywords=the+righteous+mind It's a pretty heavy read, but worth it. My favorite comment on this book was by a friend who said that it was the best book they've ever read - and that they hope to never pick it up again. It's got a lot of data - and is pretty illustrative when looking at our political discourse today.