Saturday, July 11, 2026

Carrying on Public Transit

Certain governments seek to maximize terror and murders. One strategy is to prohibit concealed carry licensees from carrying on public transit systems.  Angelo v. District of Columbia challenged this ban. The district court denied that these licensees had standing to challenge the district's law. The D.C. Court of Appeals reversed that decision:

Otherwise, because the pistol owners have alleged a pocketbook injury that is caused by their compliance with an allegedly unconstitutional criminal statute, we reverse and remand the case for additional proceedings.

Most of this decision is about decisions concerning whether the economic injuries suffered by the ban qualify them to sue. At district court, the plaintiffs also need to raise a Second Amendment challenge. In the Framing Era "sensitive places" did not include either public transit (there was none) or private transit. In various cases in which I have worked, their side has attempted to argue that post-Civil War railroads prohibited private possession of firearms. Their evidence has been either weak or non-existent. Railroads often required long guns to be checked. (People were going west to hunt.)

Friday, July 10, 2026

Memories of Being a Cool Kid

Remember these?
All the cool kids listened to these after 8-track went the way of the buffalo.  There were pre-recorded ones made very cheaply and short-lived. Or if you had the most minimal of technical know-how, you recorded from your turntable onto a cassette tape deck for your car. 

I had one of the highly hyped Pioneer AM/FM/Cassette decks in several of my silly cars as a young adult: 1977 Chevy Nova; 1978 Camaro Z28; 1979 Pontiac Grand Am.

The case was 1970s cool also:
Making a 1970s period piece? Let me know or in the trash it goes.


Thursday, July 9, 2026

When They Are Not Banging the Drum for Fascism, The Old Gray Lady Can Do Journalism

 7/8/26 New York Times (behind a paywall; use Open in Private Window):

They told him that he was “the guy.”

Last July, in a small town in coastal Maine, a couple of progressive, self-styled recruiters of economic populists showed up at the blue-shingled house of Graham Platner, a little-known oyster farmer and Marine veteran who lived largely off government benefits.

They knew his name from local labor organizers and activists, and they had watched a video on the internet of him talking about oysters. Struck by his left-leaning ideology, his working-class affect and his gravelly voice, they became convinced that he could win a Senate seat in Maine — and quickly persuaded Mr. Platner of the same.

The initial headhunters, Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, and then a third out-of-state operative they called up to Maine — Morris Katz — told Mr. Platner he was “the one,” a “hero of the movement,” “a historical figure” who could be “leading a revolution,” according to half a dozen people with knowledge of their conversations.

But a clutch of people who cared about Mr. Platner were telling him something else. They worried about his mental health, amid his ongoing efforts to heal from post-traumatic stress disorder after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They feared this trio of out-of-state operatives was a dangerous combination of inexperienced and overconfident. The worst-case scenario, they thought, wasn’t running for Senate and losing — it was destroying the life he worked hard to build.

It is a very detailed, pull-no-punches account of the left picked and then stood by a Nazi-tattooed, misogynist, kinky (discussing how he would rape an intruder in a dominant, "not gay sort of way"), alleged rapist when any rational political party would have backed away and insisted that he was a Republican dirty trick.

Packing Ourselves

Trying to find a company to pack our stuff in a professional manner was too hard. We have enough time to pack ourselves. I have started on the telescopes. The 17.5"v Dobsonian looks impossible but is a half-Serrurier truss design so it can be broken down to four 24x24 boxes.


My wife is helping me get everything bubble wrapped for safe transit.

Monday, July 6, 2026

Sunday, July 5, 2026

Court Grants Cert on Assault Weapons Cases

6/30/26 Guardian:

The US supreme court will consider whether bans on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms are constitutional.

The justices said on Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area in the next term.

There have been enough statements by both pro- and anti-gun justices to expect these laws to collapse.