Quote of the Indeterminate Time Interval – Wikipedia

Apropos of David Gregory’s violation of Washington, D.C.’s  strict liability standard capacity magazine ban, and the D.C. attorney general’s decision to forego prosecution:

Historically, selective enforcement is recognized as a sign of tyranny, and an abuse of power, because it violates rule of law, allowing men to apply justice only when they choose. Aside from this being inherently unjust, it almost inevitably must lead to favoritism and extortion, with those empowered to choose being able to help their friends, take bribes, and threaten those from they desire favors.

Of course, if you’re not David Gregory, and don’t have David Gregory’s connections, the D.C. attorney general is not nearly so understanding.

image via Patriot Outfitters

Tens–likely hundreds–of millions of such magazines are lawfully possessed in the United States by law-abiding gun owners. More than 1 million PMAGs are backordered from Magpul. Brownells sold through three-and-a-half years worth of magazines in three days.

Magazines like the one Gregory displayed on Meet the Press, and Magpul’s PMAG, are not complicated; they are made up of a box and a spring. Given the sheer number of standard capacity magazines in the United States, and the infrequency of mass shootings (they are not becoming more common, and your chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about the same as your chances of being struck by lightning), these magazines, as well as the AR-15 rifle (and all semi-automatic weapons) are in common use for lawful purposes.

If in common use is to mean anything at all, it must cover the AR-15–America’s most popular rifle–and standard capacity magazines.

 

While the rest of the gunblogosphere is at the SHOT Show…

I’m sitting in my apartment preparing for the second day of my second semester of law school. What the hell was I thinking, applying for law school?

Say Uncle has a bunch of SHOT stuff, as does The Firearm Blog (my favorite piece so far: Sig’s ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ 1911).

And for all you anti-gun people, I hope you have lots of fun at your anti-gun trade show.

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You want ’em?  Come and take ’em.

No potential for abuse here at all!  I certainly couldn’t imagine someone painting their political opponents as terrorists; if this push by Lieberman and Bloomberg succeeds, that would be enough to deny them their 2nd amendment rights.

In fact, this could be disastrous for people who are accidentally on theses lists; after all, if one guy named John Smith is on the watch list, then every John Smith who tries to do fly, or buy a gun, will find himself stymied by the federal government.

If the prohibited person category (which included felons, domestic violence offenders, the mentally unstable, and illegal drug users) were expanded to include those on the no-fly or terrorist watch lists, the number of people affected would skyrocket.

If one John Smith has ties to terrorists and is legitimately on the watch list, and some other John Smith (who has no idea that the other John Smith even exists) is pulled over while legally carrying a concealed weapon, the police will find that he is on the terrorist watch list and is thus a prohibited person.  This will result in felony charges and an expensive uphill court battle for the unfortunate non-terrorist John Smith.

Living in a free society means that sometimes people will choose to do terrible things.  That is the price we pay every time we go to the store, or get on a plane to go on vacation, or walk through Times Square.  People can only be punished for what they have actually done; this is not Minority Report, there is no department of pre-crime, and you can’t be denied your right to keep and bear arms because a bunch of panicky politicians are afraid of what you might do with them.