More Lies And Half-Truths From Journos About Firearms And NRAAM

Journalists continue to repeat the false statement that attendees at the NRA Annual Meeting are not allowed to carry at the convention.

This is false, they know or darn well should know by now it's false, yet they keep running this falsehood every year and each year they get called out for lying about it yet again.

The Detroit News: Juggling Act: If lawmakers don't act on gun laws now, then when?

The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, will hold its annual convention this weekend 4 ½  hours east of Ulvade in Houston. Attendees, ironically, won't be permitted to carry firearms during the convention, according to USA Today.

This is simply false, and this journo is simply passing along the falsehood from USA Today when she could, you know, fact check it herself assuming she doesn't already know she's lying.

The fact is, Attendees and NRA members can and do carry at the NRA Annual meeting.  

The only limitations to carry at NRA Annual Meeting events is when the US Secret Service declares an area of the convention a gun-free zone due to a dignitary being present such as former President Trump or others, and then it is only for a defined area and not the entire convention hall.   Or, it for example if it is for an ancillary concert at a facility separate from the convention hall that does not permit firearms, then you can;t break the rules of that facility. 

Otherwise, you absolutely can carry at the NRA Annual Meeting and convention.

Would be nice if journos stopped lying about that, as well as so many other things they lie about or tell half-truths when it comes to firearms.

NRAAM - Honor Guard Pistols

Wandering around first with DaddyBear and Drang, I soon met up with some attorney friends and we then unfortunately got separated from DB and Drang.

Moving around the show floor, we met and chatted with Michael Bane by the Honor Defense booth and chatted with him and the Honor Defense rep.

Honor Defense is a US company located in Alabama making a nice compact Shield-like pistol, the Honor Guard.

Some differences from the Shield include a modular chassis approach similar to the Sig 320, so you can change grips and slides on the same firearm and customize it to your own preferences, including adding a manual safety. Honor Defense also claims the pistol is more accurate than the Shield and comparable compacts such as the Walther PPS and Glock 43.

Overall, the operation is very Shield like and it is of comparable size, while the grip feels a little thinner and fits better in the hand and the trigger felt nicer, but that's rather subjective wihtout taking ti to the range and trying it out. Seems like a nice pistol if you're looking for a compact carry 9mm.

It's at a price point comparable to the Shield and Walther PPS. You can also customize one direct from the factory for shipping to your FFL.

The Honor Defense rep noted the market in compact handguns is rather soft currently, but he expects the market is going to heat up come election time in 2020.

NRAAM - Trijicon - The MRO And The SRO

I wanted to checkout Trijicon's MRO and the new SRO.

The MRO is a very nice, lightweight rifle red dot

Lined up for comparison with other Trijicon scopes, the MRO has the green label on top. Darn nice dot in both red and green varieties, its very easy to acquire and it has good battery life.

Next, I looked at the new SRO.

The SRO is an update to the Trijicon RMR. The Trijicon rep told me that with the gaining popularity of red dots on handguns they wanted to make one that was easier to acclimate to compared to their RMR.

Trying it out, I believe they succeeded. The dot is acquired a lot faster when you bring the pistol up to the eyes compared to the RMR.

It seems well built, and the rep noted it has a battery life of a year when left active on the "4" setting and it then varies depending on the dot brightens chosen.

The SRO would be a solid choice if you want to mount a red dot onto your pistol or SBR.

NRAAM - IWI

I met up with Daddybear and met Drang for the first time (now added to my blogroll accordingly), and we headed out on the floor.

First stop: IWI.

I had to handle the Tavor X95 SBR.

To say it fits me like a glove is an understatement. It balances very well, comes up very instinctively for me and has a 13 inch barrel in a very compact package smaller than AR pistols with much smaller barrels. The trigger is very nice for a bullpup, not a match trigger by any means, but very off-the-shelf good AR like, and definitely serviceable and smooth.

I will be ordering one forthwith. Unfortunately, I expect the Form 4 processing will be long and tedious but such is the current state of affairs.

Daddybear was also successfully marketed to, and his awesome Irish Woman has granted her conditional approval for him to buy one as well. There was much rejoicing.

Meanwhile, Drang decided that 5.56 was potentially insufficient and handled the Tavor 7 in 7.62 with aplomb.

It's heavier than the standard 5.56 Tavor by a noticeable amount but again it handles very well and is well-balanced.

He also admired the IWI Galil Ace pistol with shoulder brace.

Lots of great products at IWI.

Morning At The NRAAM

Met up with the usual esteemed cast of characters.

Old NFO

Ambulance Driver

Daddybear

Tam

EMS Artifact

Check their pages for Indy NRAAM 2019 Goodness.

Off to walk till I drop on the convention floor.

A Hero Seen At The Firearms Law Seminar

I had the honor to run into this gentleman at the firearms law seminar:

The gentleman in the red hat is Dick Heller.

Yes, The Dick Heller of District of Columbia v Heller fame.

It was an honor to meet and chat with him. A very nice guy indeed, and in the firearms community we all owe a lot to his stepping up as plaintiff in that vital case.

NRA Firearms Law Seminar - Range Legal Issues

Ranges are often attacked on nuisance grounds, and some laws have been adapted to protect them.

Michael Jean Associate counsel at NRA gave a solid presentation o the issues ranges face.

Attacking ranges is a great way to attack the gun culture, if you have no where to shoot your shooting culture won't be lasting very long.

Many states adopted the NRA range sourcebook as a standard but that has problems as the standards are 627 pages long and is advisory and discretionary with no absolute set standards.

Environmental standards is another avenue of attack, and he gave a good overview of them and how they are used against ranges. Clean Water Act and RCRA is often used against ranges via lead entering wetlands. Lots of the statutes are poorly worded and difficult to push through with lots of different application on a circuit to circuit court basis.

EPA has a manual for ranges and record keeping is a necessity.

In short, lots of complex info was delivered in this presentation.

NRA Firearms Law Seminar - On Making And Gunsmithing Firearms

If you're interested in 80% firearms, this was the presentation to watch.

Stephen Halbrook gave a great presentation.

He gave good definition of firearm, manufacture, dealer, all of which definitions interrelate to this issue.

ATF position can lead to absurd results defining far too wide a set of manufacturers,for example they held bluing a gun built by another manufacturer would make the bluer a manufacturer and required to have a manufacturer license and all requirements likely including adding a serial number, place and name of manufacture or have to get a variance to do so. On the other hand, cerakoting is not considered manufacturing. Not very clear, is it?

There's no actual legal standard and definition as to what is an 80% receiver. He hasn't seen indictments on unfinished receivers where fire control parts cannot be placed into them and it would be a decent defense to the claim, as it does not fit the definition of a receiver. No trial on that issue to date, so no law is really set on it, partly because its very easy to get a manufacturer's license to avoid the entire problem.

He notes not a single person has ever been charged with the 1984 undetectable gun law, and that law would cover 3D printed guns.

He noted you can do a Form 10 to donate unregistered Class 3 items if found in someone's estate for example, to a state museum without having to identify the transferor, which would be a good way to preserve items found that were not registered in time before the NFA registry closed for machineguns.

NRA Firearms Law Seminar - Terminal Ballistics

Dr. Paul Maurer gave a great presentation on terminal ballistics - the study of interface between physics and the projectile moving in space and the impact with biologic tissue.

He noted biologic tissue is incredibly random and variable as compared to physics of how the projectile move up until it hits biological tissue.

He has quite a fun sense of humor as a surgeon, he notes forensic pathologists tend to be a day late when assessing a shooting subject. To say he had everyone's attention was an understatement.

He also knows Martin Fackler very well and worked with him in the army.

From a surgeon's perspective he noted much of what people believe about terminal ballistics is myths not science.

Goal is incapacitation in a lethal force encounter.

Incapacitation is achieved by a hit to the Central Nervous System - the brain or spinal cord hit which is a small surface area; or Exsanguination - namely blood loss.

Even a shot to the heart the person can still act for about 3 seconds.

He gave some great case studies on incapacitation.

He notes gelatin is useful to scientifically reproduce results.

He addressed the bigger hole more blood loss noted the 9mm or 45 ACP when you put a hole in the fluid container it does similar damage, and once you hit a certain threshold its all about real estate- location, location, location, and bullet design as there is no perfect answer when dealing with biologic tissue.

You do get a stretch cavity with a handgun bullet, and tissue does become dysfunctional even if later it looks ok at an autopsy. Question becomes where did the stretch cavity go if it causes any significant damage and hits tissue where it is used to stretch like a lung or intestine. Rifles on the other hand bring a lot more energy to the party.

stretch cavity is figured out by the kinetic energy calculation Ke=1/2 mass x velocity squared.

Any projectile penetrating the body 7-8 inches will get to the heart. Nipple to bottom rib on right side is a high fatality injury. When you hit 30% blood loss you're incapacitated. In short if you do your job with shot placement, the bullet will do its job.

Absolutely outstanding presentation.

NRA Firearms Law Seminar - Gun Rights And The VA

If you're adjudicated as mental defective by a federal agency it gets reported to NICS as a prohibited person.

If any PTSD or mental health issue then VA investigates and sees if there is alack of capacity, which to them includes anyone who lacks capacity to manage own affairs including disbursement of funds.

So even if only applies to inability to manage own funds or assigned a fiduciary, VA takes it as making the person a prohibited person and unable to purchase a firearm, and they tend to over-report including people who are not truly incompetent.

The VA is the biggest source of prohibited purchaser records from federal agencies to NICS for such mental capacity disabilities.

The VA does have a NICS relief program and can keep fiduciary and takes considerable evidence, or can seek to reconsider the incompetency determination and then would not have a fiduciary.

He then went through the steps to seek relief from the VA and it is very involved. Expect lots of delays in the process but firearm rights restoration can be possible.

Firearms Law Seminar - Derek DeBrosse On NICS Checks And Appeals

This presentation had lots of interesting stuff and I tend to deal with NICS appeals and firearms rights restoration so it was a good presentation.

Pleading to even simple assault can still violate Lautenberg, so you need to be careful how you plead any domestic-related misdemeanor charge.

Since 2018 NICSis getting more records and details on assault and similar convictions to see if there is a domestic violence nexus and thus the person my be classified as prohibited when they were not before.

He noted from 1994-2014 of the performed 197 million NICS checks in that time period, 1.5% were denied.

3 databases are hit in the NICS check, and states may have more stringent rule on transfer.

NICS proceed records are supposed to be destroyed the next day after the proceed is given.

If you're buying a firearm for your trust or other entity such as a on a Form 4, there is a certification you should do when completing the 4473.

2018 Act was done to encourage completing records and make sure federal agencies report disqualifiers to NICS to prevent the recurrence of cases where for example a Department of Defense conviction was not reported, letting the fellow to buy a gun and shoot up the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

He noted the Voluntary Appeal File processing time for NICS appeals is around 3 years currently but highly variable without rhyme nor reason for why some is quicker and others slower.

NRA Firearms Law Speaker - David Yamane

A sociologist, Professor Yamane gave his keynote speech on how a liberal sociologist became a member of gun culture 2.0.

His main point: Guns are normal and normal people use gun.

Growing up in a liberal bubble, he only shot a gun for the first time when he was over 40 years old.

He takes an interesting sociological approach to Gun culture 2.0 which is interesting.

His studies found that Gun Culture 2.0 is more abut protection and carry than the older approach of hunting and collection and that GC 2.0 is becoming more diverse but with an interesting look at what is being owned:
Women twice are likely as men to own only a handgun
Blacks and Hispanics also 3 times as likely to own only handguns
Liberals twice as likely as conservatives to only own handguns.

He stated we as a culture need to resist efforts to stigmatize gun owners by showing the positive face of gun ownership and we need to promote the act of shooting whenever possible to introduce people to it as it is fun and challenging.

He also noted that gun culture is inclusive, after all, he describes himself as a liberal card-carrying snowflake gun owner.

His website GunCulture2point0 is worth checking out.

NRA Firearms Law Seminar Part 3

Next, Sarah Gervase presented on the topic: Another Arrow in the Quiver: State Constitutions as Independent Guarantors of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Most litigators and others have focused on the US Supreme Court as the arbitrator of civil rights.

State Constitutions have largely been ignored as a source of firearms rights.

6 states lack any right to keep and bear arms in their state constitutions.

Left wing is already moving to use state constitutions to further their goals.

States can provide higher levels of protection than the floor of the US Constitution.

She noted under the Delaware constitution there's been good movement for the firearms rights movement.

In Vermont the state right to bear arms section of the state constitution predates the Bill of Rights, nut has been ging very blue with some new gun control laws that are currently being challenged.

She noted you will need legislative history as to the state constitutional right to keep and bear arms and show how state history is favorable to your position, and be careful about combining state and federal claims. She noted you also need to know your state supreme court as some are distinctly hostile to firearms rights claim.

NRA Firearms Law Seminar Part 2

Contrary to popular belief, lawyers do have ethics.

Good lawyers have ethics anyways.

Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven H. David gave a great presentation on ethics. To say he's a very accomplished justice is an understatement.

He gave a great talk on professionalism, civility and ethics. He presented with an interesting analogy of firearm safety to Legal practice with caution that use of either skill set should be used carefully, and in accordance with standards of professionalism, ethics and civility.

Certainly one of the more engaging ethics CLEs that I've heard. The Justice has good humor and engaging manner and he presented with an excellent style and quite a way to get a point across.

NRAAM Firearms Law Seminar Part 1

To start the 22nd Annual Firearms law seminar, Professor George Mocsary gave a presentation on Perceiving and Measuring Judicial Defiance of Heller

In short, Heller is being underenforced if not ignored by the lower courts.

Notes that revocation of CPLs nationwide is around 1 in 10,000 so CPL holders are extremely law abiding.

Massachusetts is particularly bad with a one year mandatory minimum for carrying an unlicensed firearm for an otherwise law abiding citizen while at the same time the courts there regularly give rapists probation and suspended sentences.

Assault weapons term created by Josh Sugarman when Americans were not interested in banning handguns and take advantage of the general publics ignorance.

Notes that there are tens of millions of AR15s in existence not being involved in crime.

A Duke Law Journal study looked at 997 opinions on 2nd Amendment challenges and found that intermediate scrutiny challenges were somewhat working, and the typical 2-part test was adopted in a minority of challenges. 2nd, 4th, and 9th Circuits saw higher success rates for challengers of gun regulations which may indicate gun laws in these areas are often so indefensible, such as in the 2nd Circuit the defining of a pump-action shotgun as a semi-automatic weapon - really. Otherwise more substantive challenges on less facially insane laws tended not to succeed.

His study statistically shows Heller is being under-enforced by the courts.

Lower court decisions in Drake and Caetano cases were outright defiance of Heller.

He noted to expect judges to start masking their defiance and dislike of the Second Amendment in their analysis with lots of pretextual arguments. Lots of cases claim to apply heightened scrutiny but then applies a rational basis test against the requirements of Heller. Courts are also improperly reversing the burden onto the Plaitniffs rather than the government which is required under heightened scrutiny.

In short, the courts are still not taking Heller and the 2nd Amendment seriously.

David Thompson went next with a presentation titled A Survey of Current Second Amendment Litigation - including the new U.S. Supreme Court Case, NYSRPA v. City of New York

He noted far too many courts have rubber-stamped bans on carry and semi-automatic firearms, taxes, bans on 18-21 year olds purchasing.

He stated Carriage is a critical issue. There are 250,000 Americans attacked every year by 4 or more individuals and carrying is the only effective defense.

Gave an example of a 71 year old female Mary Sheppard who had moved from Pennsylvania and was armed and trained there but moved to Illinois and was there attacked by a 230lb criminal in a church when she was unarmed. Illinois then lost in court and the absolute ban was finally lifted but other states still effectively completely ban carry under may-issue regimes such as California.

No other right is so predicated on having a good reason, but courts do uphold the bans by ignoring the 2ndAmendment and Heller by arguing there is a public safety exception.

Guns went from 140 million to 300 million while the homicide rate dropped 80%. So the antis claim of more guns more crime is not valid at all. 2.5 times greater risk of injury to women who are unarmed compared to those who are armed per Kleck's study.

There is no study at all that shows allowing law abiding citizens to carry increases crime and no causal link between carry laws and crime rates. There are no public safety consequences from shall issue laws per the CDC of all places.

Unfortunately most 2nd, 4th, 9th circuits have upheld may issue under intermediate scrutiny. But they're not even faithfully applying intermediate scrutiny such as should have been done such as in the VMI case, instead we get public safety is important and the courts will defer to the legislature which does not meet an actual intermediate scrutiny test. Fails as there are plenty of less restrictive requirements.

Rogers case Supreme Court will decide if they will take it up as there is a Circuit Split on carriage so it might be taen up and we'll finally get a decent answer.

On assault weapons , the courts have been unable to explain how a thumbhole stock or adjustable stock has done anything to increase an actual crime, meanwhile if they applied Heller the result would be they're in popular use with over 8 million plus in circulation, also their claim its a small percentage of 3% of all guns in circulation and thus not in common use doesn't matter - after all Honda Accords are 3% of the car stock but certainly not unusual.

He also noted that magazine bans have not reduced crime at all and as such are ineffective, does not reduce them in the hands of criminals, nor of the substitution effect where criminals obtain them anyways and are not effective. Meanwhile it harms public safety.

Antis are switching focus to mass shootings, even Everytown has stated that in 89% of all mass shootings have no evidence of any high capacity being used. They don't even believe it themselves as continue to allow manufacture of the magazines in their jurisdictions.

Courts have upheld the bans on strange reasoning, ban even if it won't doing any good it will reduce the perceived risk of crime as the public will feel safer per the 7th Circuit - without any actual evidence of such. Simply would not fly for any other right. the magazine and assault weapons bans are screaming for Supreme Court review and application of Heller or at least real intermediate scrutiny.

Ban on 18-21 year olds from having firearms is an attack on the gun culture and leads to absurd results. After all 18 year olds have always been of military age and should be able to purchase firearms. 18-21 year olds are not children under the history of the 2nd Amendment and under the Militia act they were supposed to bring their own firearms.

He stated the Supreme Court will need to deal with this sooner rather than later.

NYSRPA case: Only was a typical New Yorker can get a handgun is via a premise license to keep it in their home with exception to go hunting or to maintain proficiency to a licensed shooting range in city limits - there's only one such range in all of NYC. For example you cannot transport that same handgun to a second residence outside of NYC. Hoping is Court will apply Heller to it and strike it down and city is now trying to moot the case via a proposed regulation to avoid Supreme Court review.

In short, we need Supreme Court review to articulate the propoer standard and get the Circuit Courts to properly apply Heller.

On The Way To The NRAAM

Now heading out on the road to Indy.

Looking forward to the firearms law seminar, which I will live-blog.

I'm also looking forward to running into friends and bloggers I know while I'm there.

Axelson Tactical - Premium AR15s

Old NFO told us we should go visit the Axelson Tactical booth. If you're smart, you'll know Old NFO's recommendations are good, and verily, we were not disappointed.

Axelson Tactical will be offering their line of AR15s and tuned-up handguns through Cabelas. Very nice, enthusiastic, and informative people they gave us the rundown on their products.

They offer AR15s with great triggers, carbon fiber parts for lightweight and high quality throughout for a premium product.

They have quite a patriotic line of AR15s.

They also have a drop in trigger unit for your AR-15 that makes for one of the best AR triggers I've ever shot.

If you're looking for high-end AR15s with an impressive pedigree behind them, Axelson Tactical will fit the bill nicely.

They also have customized AR15s in 6.5 Creedmore which do not yet appear on their product list. Talking with them, it's one impressive accurate rifle and with all the carbon fiber parts it's lightweight and match accurate to boot. To say its an impressive rifle would be an understatement. Charlie Melton of Charlie Mike Precision uses their 6.5 Creedmore rifle and we got a chance to meet and talk with him as well. First off, Charlie Melton is one heckuva nice and smart guy. This is good because he's not only a former SEAL, but he's also huge and sure as heck hasn't gotten out of shape at all. He's the real deal who as a SEAL trained some notable SEALs how to shoot - SEALs like Marcus Luttrell and Chris Kyle.

Now Murph wants something in 6.5 Creedmore and I'm gonna have to go along and maintain my side of the arms race....and then we need to go get some training in shooting it from Charlie Mike Precision.

NRAAM: IWI

A trip to NRAAM requires a visit to the IWI booth.

There were Tavor SARs aplenty (the one in the foreground is setup in 9mm):

And Tavor X95s:

The X95 has conversion kits available to easily convert the rifle to 9mm and 300 Blackout, and an SBR kit should be out soon, making a very compact rifle even more compact.

Rebecca, one of IWI's representatives, gave Murph, Mr. Garabaldi, and I an excellent run down on the X95's features and capabilities. The rifle is even handier than the SAR with a magazine release by the firing hand rather than at the butt of the rifle as with the SAR. There are built in rails covered with quick-detach covers, the pistol grip can be reconfigured, and it's a darn nice compact rifle even with a 16.5", 17" (9mm) or 18" barrel options. The stock trigger on the X095 is improved over the SAR and drop in aftermarket trigger packs are avaialble to improve it even more.

Murph definitely needs one, and I'm leaning to pickup an X95 at some point in the future.

NRAAM: The 411 On FN's New 509

FN was heavily promoting their new 509 pistol at NRAAM. The 509 is a striker-fired 9mm pistol with an MSRP of $649.00

The stippling molded into the grip is very aggressive, almost painfully so. It is not going to slip out of your grip, but keep on gripping it hard long enough and it may make you wish it did.

Yes, the rear of the slide looks very Glock-like indeed. Meanwhile the trigger looks somewhat like an M&P with the smooth jointed trigger face and had a better feel than a Glock.

17 rounds of 9mm in standard capacity, changeable backstraps, ambidextrous magazine release, and very nice solid sights - either luminescent or tritium - come on it, and a mil standard rail is molded on the frame. The FN 509 weighs 26.9 oz.

The 509 was FN's entry into the Army's Modular Handgun Competition and apparently had over a million rounds of testing so it's likely had all possible bugs worked out of it.

It's not a bad choice for a full sized striker-fired handgun, but it's a newcomer in a market teeming with full-sized striker-fired handguns.

Signs The AR15 Market Is Flooded

Yes, Taurus has a line of AR-15s out.

When Taurus launches an AR line, you know everyone is fully into production of the modern American Rifle. It sounds like Taurus amongst many others had (quite reasonably) anticipated Donald Trump not winning the presidency and a gun control push to end all pushes so they ramped up to be ready and now the market is saturated in AR15s.

Springfield Armory's SAINT ARs were out in force

There were even glow-in-the-dark ARs from DPMS.

Ok, not really but the DPMS booth was certainly heavy into the neon green look.

You can get a decent Del-Ton AR15s for under $499, which is a nice rifle for cheaper than you can build them yourself.

While the AR15 market may be flooded, this is in one way a good thing: Anti-gunners certainly cannot argue with a straight face that AR15s are not "in common use" in America.

The Common Use test, adapted in Dc v. Heller and applied to the states via MacDonald is that the sorts of weapons protected from banning are those “in common use at the time.” As stated in Heller, and while the Court in Heller was referring to handguns but certainly also applicable to AR15s - “[the ban of] the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster."

AR-15s are certainly in common use in America today, are without a doubt a class of rifles being the most preferred rifles in America and banning them would fly in the face of the Heller decision - god luck with any ban on ARs there Antis so long as Heller remains in force. With Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and a likely further replacement by Trump of a liberal justice to get the court to a Conservative bent, I can forsee some very valid challenges (I'm looking at you California) to assault weapons bans across the country being brought and being won under the Common Use test.