American Defense Enterprises

When local stations needed relevant community commentary on the 2nd amendment ruling, KTTV and KCOP interviewed ADE president, Bill Beasley.

Full clip from Ch13 Here: ch13.mp4

In the final court decision for the term, the Supreme Court has ruled (in a scarily close 5-4 decision) that the 2nd amendment is an individual right to gun ownership and not some right tied to a concept of a state run militia. This ruling strikes down the DC law that prevented handgun ownership and required long guns to be kept in a non-operational state at home.

From the Supreme Court Blog:

The opinion can be downloaded here. Relevant quotes from the majority opinion can be found here, and a replay of our LiveBlog can be found here. Tom’s commentary is here.

Let me stress… 4 judges thought the DC laws were reasonable under the 2nd amendment… This decision was surprisingly close — 1 vote to a different outcome.

USA Today has a nice collection of reactions to the ruling.

Before getting excited, it is worthwhile to realize the exact scope of this ruling.  Essentially, the court has ruled (very closely) that it is not allowed to create a law that prohibits an individual from owning a gun in their home for self-defense.  This ruling obviously affects DC, Chicago and SF and not much beyond that.  So for you and me, this ruling came at great effort and doesn’t change very much.

On the other hand, if the ruling had gone the other way (it would only have taken 1 vote), the right to gun ownership would have been removed entirely.  How soon would CA implement a state wide ban if it were constitutionally legal to do so?

Please consider this lesson well — for those that want to take away your rights… they only have to win once.  For you trying to protect your rights, you have to fight hard every time and have to win every time or you have lost that right forever — certainly for the rest of your lifetime.

This vicious animal attacked one of our ADE instructors last week. While this dog appears to be older, slow and friendly, do not be deceived. After a long stare-down, this dog proceeded to run down and attempt to kill the ADE instructor. The ADE instructor was forced to draw his firearm in self-defense.

Thankfully, the incident ended with no injuries as the instructor was able to escape to safe-location before the dog was able to close within striking distance. Using his battle cry (“ahhhhhhh!”), the instructor was able to get help and the dog was apprehended and charged with battery.

fourwinds10.com had two stories recently that were of interest.

In the first story, the beginnings of a world food shortage are noticed and some the signs and implications are explor.ed

In the second story,  it is mentioned that the US strategic grain reserve is essentially gone.  While this was a planned elimination, it was expected that a new program was going to be installed to take over the role of having a strategic food reserve.  This has not happened.

We have all seeing the rising food rates.  The number of people on this planet is not getting smaller.  Food is grown in specific places and needs to be transported.  This year transportation costs have doubled.  It is not hard to imagine some very serious scenarios, but, I will keep from being a doomsayer at the moment and recommend people just consider this in the backs of their minds…

Smart handguns are an interesting concept. The idea that a gun can only work for the owner and not for anybody else.  I like this as a feature and I may even buy a gun that has this feature for certain circumstances.  But, overall, it has a lot of drawbacks.  The goal is obvious — criminals cannot use a stolen gun.  My Thoughts:

• Guns for defense need to be reliable.  This sounds like a complicated system that can fail — mechanically (broken biometric reader?, bad battery?) or in practice (dirty hands?, forgotten password?).  Wristwatches have trouble standing up to constant firearm discharges — how is some complex technology going to stand up?
• Guns are often likely to be used by an owners friend/family.  No longer would you be able to just hand a gun over to your wife (or friend or neighbor) in a time of emergency.  If your partner gets shot and your gun is dry, you cannot pickup and use his.
• If it was super simple and reliable, I may consider one on a personal firearm I leave unlocked in my home.  That way an intruder, if they find it, won’t be able to use it against me.  But(!) it would have to be SUPER reliable and I would probably only have one and it be because I want a firearm in a place where it would be difficult to put it in a simple to operate safe.

Mandated?  Seems like an expensive joke that the lawmakers are trying to play on the citizens of CA.

AB 2235 requires the attorney general to monitor “smart-gun” technology and force these technologies, as they are developed, to be mandated on all firearms.  So, if a small firearms company comes up with a crappy system for “smart-guns”, it will get mandated and all manufacturers will have to comply.

The worst part of this law is that it presupposes that limiting gun use to its owner is a desired characteristic.

• Loaded chamber indicators?  Probably an all around good idea.
• Magazine disconnects?  I’ve had to fire with the magazine out of my gun, seems like this makes the gun less predictable and less reliable and is a feature I do not want on my firearms — All of us in CA have had to demonstrate that we know that we have to clear the chamber of a semi-automatic as well as remove the magazine.
• Smart guns?  Might have their place, but, depending on the use, probably an all around bad idea.

This bill has moved from the assembly to the senate, please act.

NRA Action page is here.

Leave town for a bit, come back to find CA has gone even more crazy. AB 2062 has passed the state assembly and has moved on to the state senate.

By way of review, AB 2062, as passed:

• Requires you to have a license if you sell/give away more than 50 rounds of ammunition per month.
• Requires you to present a valid ID when you purchase your ammunition (“registration of purchase”)
• Bans internet/mail order ammunition purchases.
• includes some other more minor clauses (e.g., security display cases)

IF you do not have the desire to have the CA government have a list of every round of ammunition you purchase. If you think this really won’t reduce crime and will just add additional expense and hassle to the lives of law abiding citizens I URGE you to please act now.

NRA Action Page here.

Senate public safety committee will be reviewing this on 17-Jun-2008. Here is the contact information for the members:

Name, D/R, District, Sac. Phone, Local Phone, Sac. Fax
Gilbert Cedillo D 22 (916) 651-4022 (213) 612-9566 (916) 327-8817
Dave Cogdill R 14 (916) 651-4014 (559) 253-7122 (916) 327-3523
Bob Margett R 29 (916) 651-4029 (626) 914-5046 (916) 324-0922
Mark Ridley-Thomas D 26 (916) 651-4026 (213) 745-6656 (916) 445-8899
Gloria Romero D 24 (916) 651-4024 (323) 881-0100 (916) 445-0485

By the way…. This passed IN SPITE of the fact that this violates the house rules on introducing the same failed legislation more than 2 years in a row.  Gun control people have it easy… They only need to win in the legislation 1x for law abiding gun owners to fail forever… And they can keep trying, year after year after year after year….