Ever since my late friend Tony Scalia decided that the 2nd Amendment protected the personal ownership of guns, Gun-nut Nation has been falling over themselves reminding everyone that any attempt to regulate gun ownership is an infringement of their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ Now the fact that a Constitutional Amendment isn’t a ‘right’ of any kind, so what? It still sounds good.
Meanwhile, the Scalia opinion does create some problems for Gun-control Nation because the last thing that any liberal wants to be accused of, is being against the Constitution. After all, wasn’t it a very liberal Constitutional scholar, Sandy Levinson, who reminded us liberals that if we want to use the Constitution to protect free speech, we also have to use it to protect private ownership of guns?
But it occurs to me that in all this talk about what the 2nd Amendment means or doesn’t mean, there’s one thing for sure that it doesn’t cover. Nowhere in the Constitution can we find the slightest mention of ammunition, and since it’s the ammunition which is what really causes all those gun injuries every year, who cares about whether or not everyone can walk around with a gun? Just ban the ammunition for those guns; there’s absolutely no Constitutional protection for ammunition at all.
Hey, wait a minute! How can you have a gun without ammo? How can you use a gun without ammo? I play around and shoot unloaded guns all the time. Last night I was watching one of my favorite movies, The Usual Suspects, and every time that Kevin Pollak (Hockney) or Stephen Baldwin (McManus) stuck his gun in someone’s face, I raised my Sig 226 and shot the guy dead. I have probably pulled the trigger of my Sig or my Colt Python thousands of times sitting on my couch and nobody’s ever gotten hurt. You show me a gun-nut who doesn’t dry fire his guns all the time and I’ll show you a gun-nut whose wife made him sell all the guns.
If you take the trouble to read Scalia’s Heller opinion, you’ll note that he makes a distinction between guns that have always been found in the home, as opposed to ‘unusual’ weapons; i.e., weapons of war. The former are protected by the 2nd Amendment, the latter not. So, in making a somewhat arbitrary definition of civilian versus military arms, his opinion rests on what he and other conservative judges call the ‘originalist’ interpretation of legal texts. But when it comes to the ammunition used by these so-called personally-owned guns, the argument falls flat on its face.
The most popular ammunition caliber currently sold to civilians who own all those self-defense guns is the 9mm caliber, sometimes called 9×19, sometimes called 9mm Luger, but whatever it’s called, it was designed specifically for military use. The inventor of this caliber was Georg Luger, who also happened to be the inventor of the Luger pistol, a.k.a., the P-08. The gun and the ammunition were standard issue to the German Army from 1900 until 1943.
Want the second most popular ammunition caliber? It is probably the 45acp round that was developed by John Browning for his Colt 1911 pistol, the military sidearm for the U.S. Army until 1976. Both the 9mm and 45acp calibers were developed for one reason and one reason only – to give soldiers and other armed forces a highly-lethal round that could be carried in a handgun. Now if anyone out there wants to claim that ammunition developed for the sole purpose of killing human beings is a ‘sporting’ round, go right ahead.
It seems to me that if my friends in Gun-control Nation really want to get serious about reducing gun violence, they might consider coming up with a plan that will strictly regulate the ownership of ammunition because those products don’t have any Constitutional protection at all.
Of course, I can just see my Gun-nut Nation friends starting to yell and scream about ‘threats’ to their ammunition ‘rights.’ Good. Let ‘em yell and scream.
Feb 21, 2020 @ 15:49:15
Did you know that Early firearms (e.g., match and flintlocks) were used as clubs after being fired since they were single shot. That’s one reason bayonets were created: turn the weapon into a pole weapon after discharge.
Still, it’s much harder to hit someone with a gun than shoot them.
Feb 21, 2020 @ 16:36:44
True. And that’s why they were so heavily built.
Feb 21, 2020 @ 17:50:43
I suppose if 5.56×45 is banned, there will be a run on 223 Remington. Same if 7.62×51 is banned, there will be a run on 308 Winchester. Or, I suppose, it will be a good time to buy stock in RCBS.
Feb 22, 2020 @ 09:02:02
Never mind the 12 gauge rounds so beloved by our boys in the trenches of the Great War. Oddly when you buy military surplus 12ga shells it’s loaded with 9 pellets of #00 buckshot.
So Mike, in your expert and unbiased opinion is 12ga buckshot shells “Sporting” or “military”?
Feb 24, 2020 @ 16:29:58
So Mike, in your expert and unbiased opinion is 12ga buckshot shells “Sporting” or “military”?
Depends how they are used and in what type of gun. Used in a 24 or 26-inch shotgun they are sporting shells. Used in what we used to call a ‘riot’ gun and now we call them ‘tactical’ shotguns, they aren’t.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 19:31:40
But if you ban the ammo and not the shotgun like you said above, how will you know what the customer is feeding it into?
Feb 22, 2020 @ 09:17:49
Of course this whole argument falls flat on the “In common use” part of the Heller Decision.
As Khal notes above, so much of all arms have either direct military linage, or have been utilized by soldiers. I mentioned under Khal’s comment that Shotguns (despite what the horrible Miller ruling said) were the very first military arms, and have been used in every conflict I can think of.
Sam Colt is the father of the modern revolver, and the only thing that kept the company afloat was military contracts.
S&W holds the lion share of wheel guns now, and any gun guy worth their salt knows that the current M&P line started out as a branding of the Model 10 .38 K-frame, and that designation means “Military and Police”.
Of course all those bolt-action guns hunters love so dear, and are held above all for their “Sporting Use” over “Military Style Weapons” that they foolishly want banned, has its roots in the Mauser Action that was the right arm of so many militaries for almost a century….and continue to be used by snipers today. The M24 and M40 sniper rifles got their start with commercial hunting guns.
Even guns marketed as civilian guns have been carried in war such as the Winchester, Henry, and Marlin lever guns, as well as the High Standard .22 target pistols.
So it sounds super clever how you typed it, but really its nothing but short-sighted nonsense, and clearly yet another ploy to ban effectively ALL the guns.
I Say “effectively” because you just named the most popular cartridges used for sporting and self defense in America right now.
This is a ploy of the gun-ban movement, they ban virtually all the guns in civilian hands….but they “Support the Second Amendment” by letting people have a few odd crumbs.
With licensing, registration, and “Insurance” that is nothing more than a tax of course.
Mike, this is why you are so reviled by all the Second Amendment supporters who actually know your name.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 16:37:02
I have said and I’ll say it again, that roughly 50 million of the 300+ million guns owned by Americans account for virtually all the guns that are involved in intentional gun injuries. I never said they should be ‘banned.’ I have said again and again that if someone wants to own one of these guns they need to do two things: 1). Demonstrate that they can really use the gun safely and appropriately in an armed confrontation; 2) verify in some way or another that the gun is in their possession. That’s not a ban. And by the way, if you want to say that any gun law becomes a slippery slope leading to all guns being banned, go right ahead.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 19:35:01
I’m talking about the post you wrote about banning or strictly controlling the most common ammunition types in America.
Feb 23, 2020 @ 20:09:02
Tom, I have published over 1,400 columns on my website and 10 books. If you can find one example of where I have ever advocated a single law for reducing gun violence, I will send $100 to the charity of your choice.
But don’t waste your time reading what I have written because you will not find any such statement at all.
What I have said in print again and again is as follows: We are the only country in the entire world which has a gun-control system which doesn’t work at all. Because if it did work, we wouldn’t suffer 90,000 or so intentional gun injuries each year, defined as one person picking up a gun and shooting someone else.
I have further said that almost all of those injuries are caused not by law-abiding gun owners, but by people who cannot, under law, own guns. Indeed I have stated it publicly many times that the work of groups like the Violence Policy Center which claims that many people who hold concealed-carry licenses commit numerous gun assaults is simply wrong. I have also written numerous columns pointing out that the ‘public health approsch’ to gun violence is nonsense because you can’t understand why some people assault others with guns when the data you use only covers the victims and not the perpetrators of gun violence.
At the same time I have been equally critical of much of the narrative which is used by the gun industry to promote the ownership of guns. There is no such thing as gun ‘rights;” anyone who uses such a phrase is demonstrsting a total lack of the most rudimentary knowledge of our legal system. The idea that the AR is a ‘sporting’ gun because it fires in semi-auto mode is a lie. The fantasy that someone is ‘trained’ to use their hsndgun for self-defense by taking the NRA Basich Shooting Pistol course and then popping off 100 rounds at a non-moving target every month or so is errant nonsense, etc.
The bulls#it on both sides of the debate is a continuous event and I enjoy pointing it out. Of course the moment I say anything that departs from the received wisdom on either side I am told that I am a Bloomberg stooge on the one hand or an NRA mole on the other.
But between my website, my Facebook pages, and the Facebook pages of private groups (on both sides of the debate) who re-post my columns, I am going out 3-4 times a week to 8,000 or so subscribers. So if some of your 2nd-Amendment supporters revile me, they can go right ahead.
By the way, I am shortly going to publish a little book that will give readers a 10-minute drill they can do every day without a gun that will help them build and retain the.muscle memory they need to use a gun for self-defense in a proper and effective way.
Of course you won’t buy it because, after all, I’m against the 2nd Amendment, right?
And finally, I should point out that my website is the only gun blog on the entire internet which features content from both pro-gun and gun-control writers. In fact, of the 14 people who contribute content to the website, more than half are not only pro-gun, but enjoy the fact that I always link their content back to their own websites which sell ammunition, optics and guns.
You want to lecture me on how I am reviled by some of your gun friends? You go right ahead. Remember, anyone can say anything they want to say on my website as long as there is no profanity or personal insults involved.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 07:30:23
I noticed you didn’t address any of the points I made. At this point I’ll just assume that was intentional.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 13:21:23
BTW you typed:
“Remember, anyone can say anything they want to say on my website as long as there is no profanity or personal insults involved.”
In a comment that contained both profanity and personal insults. So what is it then?
Feb 24, 2020 @ 07:19:02
” I usually don’t get energetically involved in advocacy efforts of any kind, but there’s an effort just announced in Florida that deserves my support and your support as well. I am referring to a group calling themselves Ban Assault Weapons NOW, which announced a petition drive to get an initiative on the 2020 Florida ballot that would amend the state Constitution and ultimately make Florida assault weapon rein.”
source: https://mikethegunguy.com/2020/02/21/dont-ban-guns-just-ban-the-ammunition/comment-page-1/#comment-23934
Comment: when I first read this back in February I took it literally. But as right-wing Rush says “the best satire is believable”.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 07:34:16
A good find and there are lots of those on this page BUT may I defend Dr. Weisser:
“Tom, I have published over 1,400 columns on my website and 10 books. If you can find one example of where I have ever advocated a single law for reducing gun violence, I will send $100 to the charity of your choice.”
Mike has only endorsed laws that would ban guns, and infringe on the 2nd Amendment.
We all know, and the data further supports it, that none of these laws reduce GUN VIOLENCE.
Hence why I oppose EVERYTHING endorsed by the fraudulently named “Gun Violence Prevention” lobby. Which at this stage can be read as “Michael Bloomberg”.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 14:41:37
‘Ol Mike-O not only ENDORSED it, he also helped Write the proposed amendment which was specifically crafted to BAN ALL SEMIAUTOMATIC FIREARMS with Detachable magazines.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 15:21:28
yuppicide76, that’s interesting, can you cite a source for me?
Feb 24, 2020 @ 15:51:29
Tampa Bay Times…
Headline:
“A lifelong NRA member calls Ashley Moody’s resistance to assault weapons ban ‘nonsense’…”
“….Mike Weisser also helped craft the proposed amendment…..Weisser, who wasn’t paid, spent weeks crafting a definition of “assault weapons” with group members.
On Monday, Moody called his work “deceitful and misleading”. She said the measure would ban “virtually every semi-automatic long gun” now sold in the state, “including those that in no shape of the imagination would one think would be described as an assault weapon.”
During an interview this week with the Times/Herald, Weisser explained why he helped write the assault weapons ban the way he did, and why he believes Moody is misinterpreting it.
Would it ban virtually every semi-automatic long gun?
….It’s not supposed to, Weisser said.”
Feb 24, 2020 @ 19:37:09
Thanks for the scoop!
Anti-gun to the core.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 10:00:32
So, the blog owner keeps bringing up the term ‘Sporting’ when referring to (most commonly) AR platform rifles.
Just where does the term come into play in the Constitution, Bill Of Rights, Federalist Papers or any other bit of scholarship that exposes the thoughts of the very people who drafted the 2nd Amendment?
Feb 24, 2020 @ 13:20:13
Just scroll up where mike says to me: “There is no such thing as gun ‘rights;” anyone who uses such a phrase is demonstrsting a total lack of the most rudimentary knowledge of our legal system.”
So no matter how much you’ve read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist papers, let alone, Heller, McDonald, and Miller Decisions, Mike Understands the law better than all of us!
Feb 24, 2020 @ 16:43:58
Every time someone promotes the idea of gun ‘rights’ they cite the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment isn’t a ‘right.’ It’s an Amendment and the fact that it is contained in a document entitled the Bill of Rights doesn’t change what I said. Every ‘right’ that covers how we live and behave is defined by whatever law or laws were passed to define it. That’s why the ‘right’ to free speech is defined by laws which actually make it illegal to engage in certain kinds of speech, like yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. The Congress abolished slavery with the 13th Amendment which said that everyone was ‘free’ because involuntary servitude was no loner allowed. The Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1865. Know what happened? In 1868 Congress passed the first Civil Rights bill because nobody knew what the word ‘free’ meant in legal terms.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 16:50:16
As I was saying about gun ‘rights.’ In this country gun ‘rights’ are defined by two laws: NFA34 and GCA68. Now if you want to tell me how these two laws come even remotely close to the idea of gun ‘rights’ as usually espoused by pro-gun advocates, you go right ahead.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 20:26:00
Just because you think that doesn’t make it true. I’ll go with actual lawyers and historians, vs the word of the “gun guy” who keeps talking about banning 90% of the guns in America.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 17:00:35
As regards the Florida AR ban, I was contacted by a reporter from the Times/Herald who had been given a list of guns that would be banned under the Florida AR ban, a list that was used by the Florida Attorney General who opposed the ban. The list was given to her by the NRA. This list contained, among other guns, bolt-action Ruger rifles and long-barreled hunting shotguns, neither of which had any connection to the definition of assault rifles that were in the text of the ban. Now if this list has been introduced into the debate by the Florida AG as simply reflecting the views of a private organization, big deal. But this list was introduced as an official government document by the state Attorney General. And when the reporter saw the list he called and asked me to verify whether or not the guns on the list would no longer be allowed to be owned in Florida, I couldn’t believe that an elected official could say something that was so wrong. And by the way, she also went on to say that the ban would have a serious economic impact on the state because nobody who wanted to come into Florida to hunt, particularly hunting fly-overs, would be able to bring their gun into the state because all these long-barreled shotguns were now going to be banned. The Amendment applied only to Florida residents, it had absolutely nothing to do with any non-state resident who wanted to come to Florida, bring huis guns and hunt. I find it interesting that everyone knows that Mike was such a bad guy because he helped draft the language of that ban, but I don’t hear anyone complaining about the fact that the elected AG was saying things that simply were not true.
Feb 24, 2020 @ 19:40:26
We know you’re a bad guy because you write posts like the above one constantly, and you praise “assault weapons” bans like this all the time. Is it such a sin for us to take your word that you want to ban all but specialty sporting guns?
Feb 24, 2020 @ 20:33:33
Theres an interesting article from Politifact called:
“Would Florida proposal ban virtually all guns? Heres what we know…”
The Article contains Moody’s concerns, the list, and quotes from Mike-O playing semantics about what the Ban would actually do…
(SHORT ANSWER: It would BAN ALL SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES AND SHOTGUNS and includes tube magazines and rimfires.)
Feb 25, 2020 @ 06:25:23
Tom – this may come as a great shock to you, but I didn’t write a response to any of your comments because I expect you to agree with me. This isn’t a contest, okay? I write responses so that all the readers of this website, who number more than 8,000, will see both points of view. And I am very pleased at the fact that this is the only gun blog on the internet where a reader can get bith points of view. Which is why I continue to publish columns from writers who take very different positions on these issues. Now you can respond to evrrything I say by accusing me of being against guns, wanting to ban all guns, whatever you want to say. Good for you. It doedn’t change the fact that this website will continue to publish content which reflects a much wider spectrum than what is found anywhere else. And I know what you’re going to say. You’ll say that I’m not a gun guy because what I say isn’t true. Go right ahead and say it if it makes you feel better.
Feb 25, 2020 @ 09:03:05
Nope, I’m just asking how you can ban or heavily restrict 90% of the Ammunition sold in America and NOT be hostile to 90% of the gun owners in America, and against the 2nd Amendment as it stands in US law, not how you personally feel about it.
I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make here as your comment has enough typos that it is VERY confusing.
What I DO see is you’ve written well over 1000 words (certainly more words than the post above) where you have given answers to all sorts of questions that nobody asked…..but never once talked about your proposal of sweeping ammo controls or bans.
Either you’re writing articles that you don’t care about, or you don’t want to clarify some very confusing conflicts in your statements.
I don’t expect you to do this, because that much effort has GOT to be intentional.
Instead I’m pointing out your hypocrisy and letting you show how little credibility you have.
I hope you don’t consider that a “Personal Insult” , certainly I have been less profane and more respectful than you have been.
Feb 25, 2020 @ 10:01:25
I am under no obligation to respond to anything you say, okay? But just for the heck of it, you have now said several times that I want to ban 90% of the ammunition sold in the United States? Would you like to tell me how you arrived at that astonishing figure?
Feb 25, 2020 @ 10:29:36
Watch this, you asked a question, and I’ll give you a direct answer. I’m under no obligation to do so (See 1st Amendment rights) but I will do so out of respect for you and the subject at hand.
” Nowhere in the Constitution can we find the slightest mention of ammunition, and since it’s the ammunition which is what really causes all those gun injuries every year, who cares about whether or not everyone can walk around with a gun? Just ban the ammunition for those guns; there’s absolutely no Constitutional protection for ammunition at all….
….Both the 9mm and 45acp calibers were developed for one reason and one reason only – to give soldiers and other armed forces a highly-lethal round that could be carried in a handgun. Now if anyone out there wants to claim that ammunition developed for the sole purpose of killing human beings is a ‘sporting’ round, go right ahead.
It seems to me that if my friends in Gun-control Nation really want to get serious about reducing gun violence, they might consider coming up with a plan that will strictly regulate the ownership of ammunition because those products don’t have any Constitutional protection at all.”
That’s from your main article, and when I asked you about if 12ga #00 was a “Military Round” you said:
“Depends how they are used and in what type of gun. Used in a 24 or 26-inch shotgun they are sporting shells. Used in what we used to call a ‘riot’ gun and now we call them ‘tactical’ shotguns, they aren’t.”
Which only talks about guns, and not the ammo. But I read that as 12 ga is indeed a military round and needs to be restricted and banned.
Logically we can also extrapolate 5.56/ .223, .308/7.62 NATO, 7.62×39, 5.45×39, .30-06, .30-40 Craig, and .38 Special Also I would assume that .45 Colt, and .30-30 WCF would also be “Military” as they were used in conflicts around the turn of the century.
So going by what you wrote, where am I wrong. I would hate to have painted your position so wrong…but I’m having a hard time seeing it another way.
Could you please clarify anything I have wrong?
Feb 26, 2020 @ 12:27:26
Mike, It’s been over a day, and you’ve left other comments, and written a post. Did I get anything wrong in the above comment on your thought process of banning and/or restricting ammo?
Feb 25, 2020 @ 18:48:49
Just a side note since it was mentioned above.
Florida Initiative 19-01 as found on Ballotopedia, so the actual text.
1) Definitions –
a) Assault Weapons – For purposes of this subsection, any semiautomatic rifle or shotgun capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition at once, either in a fixed or detachable magazine, or any other ammunition feeding device. This subsection does not apply to handguns.
b) Semiautomatic – For purposes of this subsection, any weapon which fires a single projectile or a number of ball shots through a rifled or smooth bore for each single function of the trigger without further manual action required.
c) Ammunition-feeding device – For purposes of this subsection, any magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device for a firearm.
So the amendment would ban all shotguns since any shotgun, even a single barrel break open, can fire a couple dozen balls of #4 buckshot with one trigger pull. Also some rimfire rifles such as the Remington Nylon. I bought a used Ruger 10/22 and it came with an optional 25 rd magazine, of which I have no real use for but I got it with the rifle, so I suppose since it is capable of holding more than ten, its on the list.
This is one of those deals written to have the widest reach or written by someone unfamiliar, to paraphrase Mike, with the difference between a military design such as the AR-15 and a civilian design as remote from the battlefield as the Remington Nylon 66.
I’ll retire to Bedlam.
Feb 26, 2020 @ 10:46:31
Hence why it is an exaggeration, but far short of Hyperbole when I state that anti-gun people want to ban ALL THE GUNS.
Not only would the guns subject to this law be vast in numbers, they are some of the most popular guns in the country.
I don’t have the sales numbers, but I’d bet good money that Ruger sells more 10-22s that would be banned by this law than ALL OTHER GUN COMPANIES sell bolt-action .22s that would not be banned.
Certainly there are more AR-15 and similar rifles sold than bolt actions.
So while this is not a TOTAL gun ban, it is an EFFECTIVE gun ban.
Feb 26, 2020 @ 11:28:20
I was torn on what 22 to buy. I figured most of the time it would be a fun plinking gun. The example has a custom stock and was far less expensive than the bolt action target grade guns I was considering as well. I figured if I really wanted sub minute of angle, I could always go back and get one or see if my stepdad wanted to part with his example that he bought in the sixties. Its some sort of Remington, I think, with a heavy barrel. I put a lot of woodchucks into the Hereafter with that rifle doing head shots at considerable range.
Feb 29, 2020 @ 13:01:52
Scalia was no friend of yours and Miller vs US 1939 specifically protects ammunition and weapons in common use, you turncoat.