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Chris Christie courtesy digitaltrends.com

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, acting as counsel for Wyoming and 18 other states, filed an amicus brief on Wednesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a hearing in the case of Drake v. Jerejian, a New Jersey case which has at issue “(1) Whether the Second Amendment secures a right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense; and (2) whether state officials violate the Second Amendment by requiring that individuals wishing to exercise their right to carry a handgun for self-defense first prove a “justifiable need” for doing so.” The Wyoming brief says that the 19 states are concerned . . .

that if the appeals court ruling stands, it could threaten their less restrictive concealed carry laws.” The NRA has also filed a brief in support of the case. The other states joining in the brief are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.

Your non-Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Jonesboro, Arkansas where sanity prevailed, against the odds. A 17-year-old student was pulled from class Wednesday and questioned about a video of him posing with a gun in his truck before school. A search of his truck turned up a BB gun, a 12-gauge shotgun, a .22-caliber rifle, a .243-caliber rifle, and some loose ammunition. When asked why he had them, he said they were for hunting. [Duh.] The guns were given to the kid’s grandfather, and student was disciplined by the school. No mention was made in any of the five stories I read of a lockdown, an arrest, or any hyperventilating panic attacks.

I know Valentine’s Day was yesterday, but what better way to say you care than by giving your sweetheart the gift of armed self-defense. Impact Guns, an online gun retailer based out of Utah, is holding a Valentine’s day giveaway, offering the winner a free Smith & Wesson Shield 9mm and two dozen roses. No purchase necessary to enter, contest not valid in New York, Rhode Island, Colorado, and Florida [!!!], contest runs from Valentine’s Day through 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time on February 21st. Go here to enter.

The Mississippi House on Tuesday passed three gun-rights bills, one by a more than 2:1 majority, one nearly unanimously, and one unanimously. The first of those, passed 85-33, says that city and county governments “may not interfere with the right of citizens to possess firearms” and that state law preempts local ordinances. The second one, pass 112-2, prohibits confiscation of personal firearms by local governments after emergencies (a la Katrina) or under a declaration of martial law. The third bill, passed unanimously, says that cities and counties that hold gun buy-ups must offer the recovered guns for sale to licensed dealers, and can only destroy them after proving they are valueless.

If you live in Florida or have spent much (gun) time here, the name Suncoast Gun Shows will be familiar to you. They’re the big fish down here, running large, well-attended shows from one end of the state to the other. Lately though, they’ve been feeling the pinch, and their reaction to that is drawing some heat from dealers and customers alike. They’re threatening to ban any exhibitors from their shows who also attend another promoter’s show. “If any exhibitor sets up at another promoter’s show within the same metropolitan area and within a four-week time period, before or after our show, we will not accept any future reservation for you.” This isn’t the first time Suncoast has been accused of questionable practices. There are stories of Suncoast banning some smaller dealers in the past for selling firearms cheaper than the larger competitors (who buy more tables, hence have more pull). Maybe that’s why it seems impossible to get a deal at the show anymore.

I’m building up a backlog of videos again; so many good ones. I’m curious, because I have no way to track it: Are there any videos that I feature regularly that you absolutely hate and never watch? I don’t really care why, but if there appears to be a consensus on what doesn’t get watched, I’ll stop doing it. Be warned, after I note your answer, I may delete or edit the comment to avoid starting fights. Or not.

Anyway, in the interests of shortening the list, I’m gonna do three shorties instead of a single long-form video like I usually do on the weekends. First up, mattv2099 liquid cools an AK with vodka in memory of Mikhail Kalashnikov…

Next, Demolition Ranch hits a plastic 55-gallon drum full of water with a .50BMG round. You’ll probably guess that it doesn’t hold up too well, but the cinder block is neat.

And finally, always a favorite, Jerry Miculek has “Ugly Gun Day” with an RPK. Some of you may disagree with him on that score, but you may want to do it from behind a bulletproof screen, as he’s about to dump 30 rounds out of that ugly gun in just under 5 seconds.

Sometimes ugly works. That’s what tell people about myself, anyway.

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101 COMMENTS

    • Um, that wasn’t my take.

      Seems that the idea is that Wyoming and others – regrettably even my beloved Kansas – don’t want to see “excessive” freedom prevail.

        • ?!?!?

          Okay here’s the thing: constitutional carry ain’t happening in NJ until it’s happening EVERYWHERE else. They’re not siding against constitutional carry, they’re siding against the state of new jersey being ‘may-issue’ (i.e. non-issue unless you’re connected). It’s kind of odd that a bunch of other states are trying to get in on a NJ case which is why it’s interesting.

        • Why do you think that the NRA is arguing for shall issue, rather than constitutional carry?

          For the same reason that you try to get a waitress’s number, but you don’t ask to have sex with her on the restaurant table.

        • I thought the idea was that a court told New Jersey that they had to permit constitutional carry, which New Jersey is appealing, that the NRA filed a brief in favour of the ruling and that Wyoming and others filed a brief against it as they fear a precedent that threatens shall-issue, believing CC to be problematic.

          Not a pretty sentence, but there it is.

          Am I mistaken?

        • Did you guys ALL leave the house without your common sense today??

          Why would the Attorney General of Wyoming, the same person who supported and helped usher through Wyoming’s Constitutional Carry law, now be fighting AGAINST it? Try to do a little reading next time. Here’s the NON knee-jerk analysis…

          There is a lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s requirement that a citizen show a “reasonable, justifiable need” before receiving a permit to carry. 19 Attorneys General have joined that case, filing the amicus brief as stated above to try and get the Supreme Court to hear the case, for the reasons listed. And because they need “standing” in order to become a plaintiff in the case, their “standing” is that they are afraid that if the Supreme Court rules that “demonstrating justifiable need” falls within the parameters of the Constitution, then Constitutional Carry in their states will be threatened by people trying to pass laws like what New Jersey has. The NRA has joined the case as well.

          God DAMN, try reading.

          EDIT: Mr. Bixby, you are sorely mistaken. The Attorneys General of states with Constitutional Carry, who incidentally SUPPORT such freedom, are most definitely not the ones who feel CC is “problematic.”

        • Um, yes – I was mistaken. Too many negatives and inversions in the article.

          It didn’t make sense that Wyoming or Kansas would be doing anti-carry stuff, but that was my initial take. Guess that’s what I get for chopping wood all day: tired people shouldn’t blog.

          My bad, and yay Wyoming! And Kansas!

        • Not sure what “cutting wood all day” has to do with it…

          I figured it out after swinging a hammer all day…

          Guess tired people should blog..?

        • Then you’re a better or younger man than I.

          Swinging an axe for six hours takes it out of me, and I blame my state of exhaustion for my lack of mental acuity – in this instance.

          New excuse tomorrow…

        • I don’t understand this then:

          “if the appeals court ruling stands, it could threaten their less restrictive concealed carry laws.”

          How would NJ gun control laws being upheld would in any way threaten the more liberal gun laws in Wyoming etc? I’d understand if we were talking about some federal law, but Wyoming should not care in the slightest about what laws NJ writes for itself; states are separate for a reason.

        • int19h –

          They care because of a little thing called “legal precedent.” If the restrictions New Jersey is imposing on its citizens are deemed constitutional, then some liberal fruitcake in Wyoming or Alaska or Arizona or wherever can try to pass a law with those same restrictions, and when the legislators say “no” he can point to this case and say “But the Supreme Court ruled that these restrictions are constitutional!” That’s why they care.

          On the other hand, they also care because if the Supreme Court rules it UNconstitutional, then conservatives in liberal states can and will say “The Supreme Court ruled that these restrictions are unconstitutional, so you can’t have them in your state either!” and that’s a win for the pro-gun movement.

        • The legal precedent would only apply in the same circuit. And the legislature doesn’t have to vote for such a law, whether it is deemed constitutional or not on federal level. Besides which, don’t they have a 2A equivalent in Wyoming state constitution? Those things actually have more teeth on state level, and usually they are more verbose and have more protections written in.

          Actually, I went ahead and looked it up, and sure enough:

          “The right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and of the state shall not be denied.”

          So long as that is not amended, they cannot ban both open and concealed carry in Wyoming. The same goes for many other states that have similar provisions in their state constitutions. I wish people wouldn’t forget about this – too often, people get focused on the US Constitution, and completely ignore the fact that the states still retain a great deal of sovereignty.

        • Czech Republic?
          demonstrate you can operate a weapon, its yours. Full auto, suppressed, sbr/s AOW. I think only explosives are off the table.

        • Correct me if I’m wrong here. But don’t the Czechs require a clearance from a medical professional along with their other hoops to jump thru? And don’t they restrict citizens to fmj for self defense?

          They’re still leagues ahead of England or the rest of the EU.

        • JWM is right.

          First there are 6 categories of licenses (collection, sporting, hunting, profession, self-defense, pyhrotechnic)

          And 4 categories of guns. A- Restricted. Hollow points in pistols, AP, incendiary rounds. Suppressors, laser pointers, night vision scopes

          None of the licenses allow ownership of any of these. You can apply for an exemption to own restricted arms for a specified need. Generally only professional armories, trainers for police and military etc

          B- Handguns, autoloading rifles and autoloading shotguns with a detachable magazine or that hold more than 3 rds. Rimfires and shotguns beneath certain lengthes. And flareguns above a certain size

          You need a permit to buy, own or carry a B firearm. Or to own a category C weapon (most other rifles, shotguns, and black-powder repeaters). Written test, medical exam, qualifications. Good for 10 yrs for citizens, one year for foreigners. ~$25. You must list a justifiable need on the application. Self-defense counts. Shall issue. But self defense counts only for 21 yr olds and older. 18 can only get hunting and sport. Health exam is by general practice. No psychological exam required, though your doctor could make it part of your exam.

          The only guns not requiring a license and registration are D. Air guns, non repeating blackpowder, antiques, and .22 CB

        • In the Czech Republic you still need to be licensed, and we all know the effects of having to be licensed.. so I wonder how good they really have it over there?

  2. Well no more Suncoast sponsored shows for me. I hate anti-competitive tactics that attempt to suppress the free market. If their shows were lucrative vendors wouldn’t be going to other venues.

    • Last I knew, the magazine is intended to slide off that gun, rather than being bendy-wiggle-pulled.

      Is the gun damaged, the magazine flimsy, or both?

      I’ll stick with steel, thanks. As Conan’s daddy said, steel will never let you down.

      • I bought a bunch of the new PMAGs to try out. They all fit my AKs without any issues and are as easy to lock into place or smack out of place with another mag when reloading as the steel mags. I have no clue why he had some much trouble loading the mag into place.

        • Well, loading he did wrong at first. It helps to have the bolt in the correct position.

          It was the taking-off part at 1:26-1:29 that gave me pause; it should slide, but not be all bendy-wiggly. That was just weird.

        • Why would the bolt need to be in the “correct position”, and what would it be? I mean, an AK does not have bolt hold open, so the bolt can only be in one position, that being closed, unless you hold the charging handle back…

        • I was wisecracking.

          Whatever the difficulty was, it apparently cleared when he pulled the charging handle.

          I like Miculek, but have to wonder about his picking up and attempting to operate a weapon with which he had no familiarity at all, had never operated since he purchased it used, and which had possibly been abused.

          Try that with a STEN, and you might have to get a finger or two reattached.

        • I’m sticking with good old “tried and true” steel mags, I dumped all my plastic magazines for my AR and am using metal magazines, exclusively, again.

          To each his own.

      • Jerry made it clear he is unfamiliar with the AK style platform, and loading it takes a bit of getting used to, particularly when you are used to being an awesome speed loader with the AR15 platform, as Jerry is. That’s the only reason he had problems getting the mag in.

  6. The Miculek clip made me shudder.

    I’ll just hope that while he admits to not having fired that beast at all, he at least verified that there was no debris in the barrel that might turn it into a grenade with a 3 millisecond delay.

    Yowza!

  10. Hey Matt. While I find mattv’s videos entertaining, I think there are much better videos to post from good gun guys on YouTube. I’m not saying you should stop posting his vids because they are fun, but there is some more meaty stuff out there on YouTube that actually has educational value. I love almost everything iraqveteran8888 does. I watch all james yeager’s stuff, even though some find him controversial, I respect his opinion because of his experience actually hard training with gear. Military arms channel is superb for information. Colion noir is awesome. Tnoutdoors for ballistics. Sooch. There is really a great community out there. Keep up the great work with the daily digests.

      • I’ve seen a couple of bigshooterist vids just browsing. I’ll definitely watch more. The amount of NFA gear that guys has or has access too is wholly impressive.

    • I watch a lot of IV8888’s stuff but a good portion of it just feels like advertising and there’s also bad info mixed in with the good disguised as ‘fact’.

      Plus now that Barry’s fired and about to go to the clink for dui\stolen property etc it’s just not as interesting.

      • I like IV8888, but I also have found occasional issues with accuracy. They’re gun guys in a gun store, and that’s kinda the feeling I get. Sometimes gun guys in a gun store will tell you something even if they’re not 100% sure it’s correct. To some degree that’s OK when you’re in the gun store, but if you’re taking the time to make a video, you should research what you’re going to say before you turn the camera on.

        My only other real problem with them is though their videos are good (like the Finnish M39 one I had yesterday was awesome), they’re also generally pretty long, 10+ minutes and often 15 or 20, and I’ve found that a lot of times people don’t have the time or attention span for that during the week, so I save them for the weekends. If I’m wrong about that time thing, let me know.

        I don’t currently have MAC on my sub list for whatever reason; I’ll have to remedy that. I’ll look at Bigshooterist. Colion Noir is on my list, but his talking head videos often get picked up for full posts so I don’t bother with them, generally. I do feature his shorter gun reviews, but he doesn’t do many of those.

        • I stopped watching IraqVet8888 when I saw a video with Barry advocating for carrying with an empty chamber, completely lost me after that one… The redneck shenanigans is strong with them.

    • I tend to agree about the mattv2099 vids. They can be entertaining, but he’s kind of a one-trick pony. Once you’ve seen one video of a gun with some kind of gunk smeared all over it, you’ve kind of seen his whole schtick.

      How about the occasional 22plinkster vid? Dude’s a dang good trick shooter.

    • I used to like Sootch, but lately he seems to be one big commercial for companies. I have yet to see critical analysis of anything he ‘reviews’, beyond making excuses for the company paying him to show off their product.

  11. While Mr Miculek is impressive, I’ve heard of a California politician who clams to be able to do that in POINT five seconds.

    Jus’ sayin’

  15. The good thing about videos is that they’re easy to skip if you have no interest. They don’t autoplay or any of that crap, so all is well. I pick and choose, myself. Not really into the trick shooting stuff, although I do tend to watch Kirsten’s stuff because… Well, it’s Kirsten.

  16. Damn straight, Ugly works. I retired for a while. Decided I wasn’t ready for the full retirement so I went back to work. So Ugly works, at least part time.

    • it isn’t even an RPK. he’s shooting an AES-10, which was a long-barreled WASR-10 variant imported by Century, before they finally got Cugir in Romania to start remanufacturing surplused Romanian military RPKs (with new barrels, as all are post barrel-ban) as the AES-10B, which is a 100% genuine RPK

    • As I’ve said before, guns with infrastructure are for serious people.

      On a serious note, wondering how they keep the water jacket attached on a short recoil barrel? If it’s bolted down, then it seems like it would affect cycling by significantly increasing the mass of the recoiling parts, but if it’s fixed and the barrel still moves inside, then there should be serious leaks at both ends. Unless it’s held on with flexible rubber gaskets and the water keeps the barrel cool enough to avoid burning the rubber? Even worse on the M2, where the barrel turns to adjust headspace, I would think.

      This might be something where a Google search would clear it up in a few seconds, but its more entertaining sometimes to try and figure it out.

  19. Something tells me that Khaled’s operation won’t be affected by this threat of a “Banning”. Suncoast shows have gotten worse and worse in the last year. From the awful Plant City show experiment, to going back to Lakeland where it is now nearly $20 to park and get into the show, to trying to running a show in Tampa when the other “big” show is going on in Orlando the same weekend next month, and hiking the price of admission when there was the great gun panic. It’s nearly to the point that you might as well just go to the local shoot straight and buy w/o a cover charge than go to the Suncoast gun show, brought to you by Shoot Straight. Also even with the “improvements” to their Tampa range it’s still a dump compared to Shooters World.

    • I haven’t been to the last one or two Orlando shows, because I didn’t have the disposable income, so why tease myself. I’ve heard they changed buildings. It has always been one BIG building and one small one, and I heard they got rid of the small one for another big one. Shoot Straight usually has at least six rows of tables, maybe eight, which is a lot, but even at that many, they’re less than 10% of the show. It sure doesn’t seem like it keeps the other places from doing business.

      • The Orlando show is a much better mix of dealers than any of the Suncoast shows. They have reorganized it again so now you enter in what was the old small building and then was the changed to the CCW classroom. Then you come out the back of that and it T’s with the big building on the right and the “reptile” building on the left with the meat on a stick vendors just to the left. Don’t think that the Suncoast shows are the only show with drama though. If you haven’t gone to the last two you wouldn’t know that Victor kicked “The Arms Room” out of the show for telling him how he should run his show along with the complaining about the way they were having everyone enter in the “reptile” building first, even though everyone used to go to the small building first for years. This is what I figured resulted in the new entry pattern that was used in the last show. I’ve actually had many people buy from the table that I work for a friend BECAUSE he isn’t Shoot Straight. People have and will pay up not to deal with them. Me personally, I only shop their used stuff, anything new that isn’t allocated I can just get through my friend from RSR.

        • Do you know that I completely forgot that the Orlando show wasn’t a Suncoast? Not that it makes any difference to the thrust of the post or my comment, but yeah, totally forgot that the one here is a Florida Gun Show. Do you know who runs the “new Orlando gun show” that I’ve heard about recently? I think there’s been two of them so far. The last one was the weekend prior to the Orlando Gun Show, if I recall correctly.

      • reply button is messed up on your reply. I believe you are talking about the show that the owners of The Arms Room started when they got booted from Victor’s Florida Gun Show. Shark Coast Tactical is doing that one now because he got into it with Victor about the room change when they moved to the current layout and got the boot too. It’ll be interesting with Suncoast and FGS going on the same weekend next month. I’m thinking it’s gonna be awful shows for both, splitting the crowd 50/50 and probably only “gaining” an extra 15-20% of people that wouldn’t go to the other is gonna burn the promoters for the gate, the dealers fighting for a smaller pot of money to be spent, and then overall people tapped out money wise. I’ll be working the Orlando show if you wanna stop by and say hi.

  20. I stopped attending suncoast shows awhile back. They should just rename it Shoot Straight and be done with it. The Lakeland gun club has a fairly decent show and the 2 Guys shows offer more of the smaller venders and occasionally decent deals. . I wonder if 2 Guys is who Suncoast feels so threatened about.

  21. I know a local fellow who is a popular t-shirt seller. He told me that he recently made the mistake of attending other-sponsored shows in FL and Suncoast gave him a “warning”. He later missed one Suncoast show, which he says he paid for, but was unable to attend due to an emergency, resulting in the show having an empty table. Suncoast informed him that he no longer is welcome at their events.

  22. You do understand N.J. is a mob run state , run for the New World Order and the GOP is total one world government too.. and now you know where the governor stands too… He turned down all FREE non-Union help after the storm ,, he is for more money in his and the Mobs pockets ONLY>>>>>>>>>>>………No 2A support at all.

  23. “Are there any videos that I feature regularly that you absolutely hate and never watch?”

    KJW.

    Sorry. I mean she’s cute, but other than that, I just don’t get it. It’s not enough to interest me, and the fawning over her videos is really excessive, if not borderline creepy.

  24. “Are there any videos that I feature regularly that you absolutely hate and never watch?”

    I very seldom watch any video. Even porn. Most are too long and take too long to get to the point. Just freakin’ TELL me and get it over with.

  25. Some one forgot to add the “TRANSLATE” button I’m starting to feel left out. And my Russian is so bad it may as well have been written in martian.

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