God bless mikeb30200. Sometimes I don’t know what I’d write about if he wasn’t such a frequent and ardent contributor. I recently did a piece on how quiet revolutions in manufacturing and materials will allow people to make their own guns at home. As is his way, mike commented:
Bruce, You write this stuff and then wonder why I conflate you so-called lawful gun owners with the criminal variety.
I’m not exactly sure how making firearms in your home could be considered any more illegal than, say, baking a cake or making a knife, but mike seems to believe that such activities are grounds to 1) refer to us as so-called lawful gun owners and 2) smear us as being no different from criminal gun owners . . .
First of all, the United States Supreme Court ruled (a 9-0 decision no less) in Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual right and then ruled (5-4) in McDonald that this right is incorporated against the states through the 14th Amendment.
So I could make the Marbury v. Madison argument that “[a] law repugnant to the Constitution is void” therefore any sort of AWB (Assault Weapons Ban) is void, but let’s bypass the Constitutional argument for a moment and address the actual mechanics of federal gun-control laws.
All such laws depend on Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 (the grossly distorted “interstate commerce” clause), and specify that they apply to items which have traveled in, or substantially affect, interstate commerce. Making something in your own home for your own personal use does not fall under either of these provisions.
After conflating law-abiding people enjoying perfectly legal activities with criminals, mike then reveals his (and by proxy, all antis’) true intentions:
What you’re propagating is a nightmare. The more guns and gun parts that DO NOT come from legitimate sources the harder it will be to regulate them properly.
So apparently a gun owner who makes his own weapon while complying with all applicable laws and regulations does not qualify as a legitimate source in the eyes of mike and his fellow gun grabbers. And yes, I am calling him a gun grabber because who else would be opposed to hobbyists making their own weapons free from “proper regulation”?
I think what really bothers mike here, though, is that DIY guns will leave no paper trail. So when the jack-boots come marching down the street to start the confiscations, they won’t know who has all the guns.
And mike, don’t try and tell me that your concern is for criminals making guns. Why should they when they have no problems getting their “illegal” guns, well, illegally? mike meant was that my proposal for propagating guns is a nightmare.
He finishes with a soupçon of sarcasm:
Bravo, Bruce, you are a regular humanitarian.
Given that (according to Cook and Ludwig) there are about 1.4 million DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) each year, and given that 15.6% of the people defending themselves believe that they “almost certainly” would have been killed had they not used their weapon, assuming that 9 out of 10 of those people were mistaken, we have about 22,000 lives saved by guns each year.
Now according to the CDC, between 1999 and 2007 there were an average of 11,792 firearm related homicides annually. This means that, at a minimum, almost twice as many people’s lives were saved by the defensive use of guns as were lost by the criminal use of guns.
So I would say that yes, increasing the number of guns in the hands of the law-abiding does qualify me as a humanitarian. So thanks.