Liberty Notes

14 October 2005

Kevin L. Jamison

It is a good day for Liberty.

We have two years and one month before Hillary Clinton begins her presidential campaign.

During his confirmation hearing the new Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts was asked about the Second Amendment. He answered that the matter was very much up in the air and that the 1939 Miller case did not resolve the issue. This is good for us. Prohibitionist argument is that the matter is well settled. The cases they cite refer to the perfunctory Miller ruling that the court cannot take judicial notice that a sawed off shotgun is a militia weapon. In nearly every case, the reference is vague citing the case for matters not even discussed. We have always said that all we need is a fair hearing. We may be one step closer to getting one.

The town of Lake St. Louis has banned fake guns. They cannot ban real ones so this little town goes after toys. This proves that the prohibitionists are not settling for “reasonable” restrictions, they want to ban them all; even replicas.

The June 1976 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine celebrated the Centennial of the Custer Fight with a portrait of the battle. Previous paintings had Custer as the central figure; this one has a trooper planting the 7^th Cavalry guidon. A badly wounded Custer is crawling towards the guidon so all the Indians in the Northern Plains could more easily find him. I met a guy who said that the guidon was really a radio antenna and Custer was trying to call in AC 130 gunships. The guy told me he met a guy who was there. Another source, however, tells me that Custer called 911, and was put on hold. The things one learns at gun shows.

Handgun Instruction, an outfit in Maryland Heights, Missouri is selling “official information” regarding Missouri’s License To Carry law and Self-Defense law. I asked about the publication, and it amounts to printouts of the relevant statutes. These can be useful to have, but my book is better.

The person who smeared Tim Oliver and the Legal Defense Fund in retaliation for something I wrote invited Tim Oliver to meet him and discuss the Legal Defense Fund. At the same time this invitation was extended, he sent out another letter smearing Tim and the Legal Defense Fund. There are reports that he has told people that Tim was given an opportunity to meet him, but Tim did not appear. This is not true. Tim has been generous with his time promoting and explaining the LDF. This person also claims that since his slanders have provoked outrage, they must be true. I was recently compared to nazis, and unfavorably so. I expressed some outrage at this comparison. By this person’s reasoning this would prove that I am a nazi. I have frequently been asked what this person’s problem might be. I do not know. I have left phone messages asking to address his concerns to no effect and do not intend to waste any more time trying to resolve his problem.

At one time WMSA disagreed with the rest of the grassroots community over a CCW referendum bill in the legislature. Most believed that the bill was going to pass and the best strategy would be to guide the language of the bill. WMSA believed that our rights should not be up for a popularity contest which could be manipulated by the governor. Both views had some merit. Standing alone on this issue WMSA re-evaluated our position, and decided to stick with our strategy. We continued to communicate and work with the rest of the gun rights community. Gentlemen can disagree and remain gentlemen, and they should.

WMSA has not set up a License To Carry class. We investigated setting up a class when the law passed. However, we found that the cost of insurance to cover all of our instructors was prohibitive. Since that time there have been many LTC classes set up, and we do not wish to compete with people doing this for a living. If the membership feels strongly about this we will re-examine the situation.

Mom complains that every time she flies she is singled out for a search. She doesn’t think she looks like a terrorist. On the other hand us kids were always terrified of her, and she takes notes in shorthand, which looks like Arabic to me.

I was at James Country Mercantile in Liberty. The owner was talking about a re-enactor friend who observed efforts to respond to the hurricanes. The government tried to set up a tent city, but no one knew how to put up a tent. A detachment of re-enactors could have set up a camp and field kitchen while singing a medley of “I’m a Ragged Rebel” and “Marching Through Georgia”. A line of Infantry in Blue and Gray would have done wonders with looters. If that didn’t work a battery of artillery would have gotten the point across.

The Brady Campaign (to take our property) has spread lies about Florida’s new “no retreat” law. They called it the “Shoot First Law”. They claim that the law allows anyone to kill anytime they feel afraid. Actually the law does not change the basis for self-defense, only that one does not have to retreat before responding to a death threat. Brady spread the same kind of lies when Florida adopted License To Carry. They spread these lies in areas where potential tourists live, but with wild-eyed innocence claim that they are not trying to hurt tourism, only to “inform” potential tourists. They are lying.

In my last notes, I placed the New Madrid Earthquake in 1808. I have since seen a reference to it having occurred in 1811. I am not sure of either date. If this mistake has complicated anyone’s life I am sorry; and I want to hear how that happened.

The owner of Guns Unlimited on North Oak went on a safari in Africa. He has returned with photos and stories. Of course this leads to discussions on the best gun for hunting the notoriously ferocious cape buffalo, which I maintain is the battleship New Jersey stationed well off shore with a battalion of Marines manning the rails with fixed bayonets.

Klein’s C.C.W. Handbook advises “Knowing how to shoot is the easy part. Knowing when is the important part.” This is good advice, and a good reason to read Missouri Weapons and Self-Defense Law.

Colonel Cooper reports that a friend found a German MP 40 with loaded magazines which had been hidden for at least fifty years. The gun functioned flawlessly. Of more interest, the magazines, which had been loaded for half a century worked flawlessly. There is much discussion about unloading magazines and allowing the springs to relax periodically. There are also anecdotes of magazines that had been loaded for over two generations feeding without a hitch. One must consider the quality of the materials and workmanship involved and the magazine’s use and misuse. I have a magazine for an Ingles Hi Power which will not feed reliably if more than ten rounds are loaded. It had been made for China during WW II and may not have been stored or maintained properly in the intervening decades. I have a new Argentine Hi Power which jammed badly and was repeatedly returned to the importer and repeatedly returned to me with claims there was nothing wrong with the gun. I then tried a different magazine and it worked perfectly. Magazines are no longer so expensive as to inhibit having extras. I see no harm in having extra magazines left unloaded, and it could provide that extra edge required to go home some night.

All guns kept for serious discussions about crime should be tested with the magazines one intends to use in that gun. I once tested a bag of military surplus .45 magazines, and found that fully a third caused repeated malfunctions. I have seen magazines with dents, rust, crud, and evidence of some lunatic with a grinder and pliers. When I was in the Army I was often assigned to run the rifle and pistol qualification range. I saw many magazines with rusty springs, cracked feed lips, and even broken followers. Many were dirty to the point of being unreliable. Whenever I pulled this assignment, I brought a hatchet or entrenching tool with me. Any magazine that I would not want to go to war with was beaten savagely. The supply sergeant could turn it in for a new one, but it would not get into the supply system for troops on the sharp edge. Beating these magazines into scrap may not have made me popular with supply sergeants, but it made me feel better.

The woman who talked a murderer into surrender writes that she gave him drugs. As I always thought, dope makes criminals easy to catch.

It has been brought up that we have not raised our membership fees since 1989. Costs of mailing and printing for the BULLET have gone up. The costs of maintaining our web site have gone up. The costs of everything we do have gone up. Of course you know where this is going. At the next members meeting we will discuss raising the membership fees. If anyone has any other ideas, this would be the time.

There is a book out which advises how to survive a zombie attack. I have seen this book; I have held it in my hands. There have been an unusual number of movies about zombies of late. This book could be an alternative for the person who prefers to read, or a FEMA effort to prepare for the next disaster.

September 17^th is Constitution Day; the anniversary of the date the Constitution was ratified. It is also the anniversary of the day I joined the Missouri Bar twenty-two years ago. I celebrated the day by dining with the Friends of the NRA in Harrisonville, and a good place to celebrate it was.

At the MVACA Show I discussed the advantage of having used guns over mint examples. For example, it is difficult to tie a mint Lugar to the Battle of the Little Big Horn. I spoke to a guy who owned a Lugar with some unknown writing on the inside of the grips. He is reasonably sure that it is not Sioux.

There is another collector who reports seeing a Polish Radom pistol, with nazi German markings, Soviet markings, Chinese markings, and he captured it along with a North Vietnamese major in Hue City, South Viet Nam. That gun must have a story even without the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

The real problem with Katrina preparations is that no one was in charge. Local authorities were unwilling to make a decision, and FEMA did not have the authority to make decisions. If our President Derek had been there he could have condemned the lot of them. That might not have solved the problem, but they deserved it. Even in our casual cooperation there must be someone in charge; it saves time when we know who to blame.

The Ft. Osage Free Trappers held a shooting contest. Their range is not near Ft. Osage, but is east of Lone Jack. Once one finds the facility the smell of black powder, and the occasional boom leads one to the range. I have some black powder guns, and I have fired smokepoles. However, I do not have the patience for it. The Trappers have a section of tree trunk used for tomahawk practice. The center is chewed out of the target, indicating that practice is good.

A day does not go by that I do not see John Kerry bumperstickers still displayed from the last election. I still fly a Proposition B bumpersticker from 1999, and I fear that the Kerry supporters display theirs for the same reason. In the next election we will face a cadre of opposition who feel angry, feel cheated. They are convinced that if their man had been elected recent disasters, war, hurricanes, and tight underwear would not have happened. We have seen that such a group can be tough to beat.

The Colt Collectors held their convention at the Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City. One man had three Colt Peacemakers that were in the serial number range used by Custer’s command at the Little Big Horn, but he only had official records to prove this, no family stories. The charm of collecting is in the stories. I will put any collector without a good story in touch with some clients who earnestly advance unlikely alibis. For a small fee they will create a good story for your gun; they’re not doing anything else these days.

We shall overcome.