SCOTUS’ opinion in District of Columbia, et. al. v. Heller, is probably the most welcome official document in memory for gun owners’ rights activists. As such, it bears multiple re-readings.

Savor this, for example, from Justice Scalia’s majority opinion:

“By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. See Malcolm 122-134. Blackstone, whose works, we have said, ‘constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,’ Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 715 (1999), cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen. See 1 Blackstone 136, 139-140 (1765). His description of it cannot possibly be thought to tie it to militia or military service. It was, he said, ‘the natural right of resistance and self preservation,’ id., at 139, and ‘the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence,’ id., at 140;see also 3 id., at 2-4…Thus, the right secured in 1689 as a result of the Stuarts’ abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.” (Pages 20-21 of the Heller decision.)

In his dissent, Justice Stevens wrote, “The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons, and to authorize this Court to use the common-law process of case-by-case judicial lawmaking to define the contours of acceptable gun control policy.”

Yes, Justice Stevens, the Court would have us believe the obvious truth, as confirmed by the vast majority of the substantial body of Constitutional scholarship that exists on the topic…

Editor Dave Duffy tells me this blog is getting a good response.  Being a Luddite who doesn’t know from blogs, I’ll take his word for it. 

            I’ve tried not to be intrusive to reader responses, and let everyone have their say. Lots of good stuff!  A few comments do cry out for response, though.

            Anyone interested in more on the Dillinger matter may find my reconstruction of his shooting death at the Biograph Theater in Chicago in 1934 to be of interest. It’s on the stands now, in the July/August issue of American Handgunner magazine, under the continuing “Ayoob Files” feature..

            I mentioned that I was teaching in Harrisburg when the Heller decision was announced, and Jason the Saj commented that he’s from that area, and he was sorry he missed it. No sweat, Jason, we’ll be doing it there again next year. Stay tuned for date announcement at the Lethal Force Institute website at www.ayoob.com.

            Speaking of Heller, Dex wrote, “Scalia’s trips to the metaphorical woodshed with Stevens and Breyer are the most entertaining part of the opinion.”  I’ll second that!

            In re: the discussion of the Hi-Point pistol, lots of folks made cogent comments about the value of low-price, entry level firearms. Armed Jew remarked, “I’d really like to see Mr. Ayoob put these critters through their paces on the range.”  Been there, done that, bro.  Found the most reliable (100% so) and accurate was Hi-Point’s .380 model. I’ve also noted here already, as did several who commented, that their 9mm carbine is particularly nice.  I can also tell you that, according to dealers I’ve talked to, Hi-Point customer service is second to none.

            When I sent in a dispatch from the Midwestern floods, Brogan was concerned about cops entering homes without warrants under those circumstances. He saw it as “…another Katrina wrapped in a different package.” I hear where you’re coming from, Brogan, but I have to say I didn’t see any trampling of rights here.  In life-threatening disasters, emergency service workers – including police – have not only the right but the duty to check apparently abandoned dwellings to make sure there are no injured or infirm people inside who need to be rescued.

            Lots of folks shared their personal thoughts on “grail guns,” and every one mentioned was a fine and desirable firearm.  I only saw one I could help with: Heavyduty wrote that he’d love to own a round-butt, four-inch barrel specimen of the Model 681, Smith & Wesson’s fixed sight  L-frame (.41-frame) .357 Magnum in stainless. Almost all those revolvers were produced with square butts. There’s hope, though: attached is a photo of one of my 686s, the more common adjustable sight version of the same fine revolver. This one had its grip-frame reconfigured to the round butt shape by ace gunsmith Bob Lloyd. I can’t find Bob’s address, but there are lots of good Smith ‘smiths who can do the same job on the still available (if increasingly hard to find) square butt Model 681. Some 686s in the 4”/round butt configuration were also produced by S&W for US Customs, and surface occasionally on the collectors’ market.

            And finally, darn it, the bobcat never did come back.  L

4” S&W 686 rebuilt to round butt configuration (grips are Hogue) by ace gunsmith Bob Lloyd, who also trimmed the cylinder latch, bobbed the hammer, and did an outstanding action job. This gun won the New Hampshire IDPA Stock Service Revolver state championship a few years ago.

In the Comments section under Part Two of “Reflections on Heller” in this blog, reader azasu writes, “Hey Mas, I was wondering if you were going to do a post or article on the whole Joe Horn thing in Texas. I’d be interested to hear your take.”

Joe Horn of Pasadena, Texas made national news twice. The first time was last year, when he shot and killed two illegal immigrants who were burgling his next-door neighbor’s house. The second was this past week, when he was no-billed by the Grand Jury. Since it was publicized as two unarmed, fleeing men being shot in the back, most of the public expected him to be indicted for Murder or at least Manslaughter. Some were shocked by the Grand Jury’s decision, and some pleasantly surprised. Since both of the deceased had long and ugly criminal records, there was not a great deal of sympathy for them in some quarters.

There are a lot of subtleties that haven’t made it into the mainstream media yet, azasu. Many have heard his 9-1-1 calls, in which the dispatcher advised him to stay inside and he excitedly replied that no, he was going to go outside with his shotgun. The tape picks up Horn saying “Move and you’re dead,” and then three shotgun blasts.

What many do not realize is that one of the burglars was armed with a crowbar, and that they had faced him at fairly close range and were moving toward him – on his property by now, not just the neighbor’s, Horn said – when he opened fire. News reports say both men were shot in the back, but I’ve seen several cases where the suspect broke off his attack in the instant he realized he was going to be fired upon, and his turn came faster than the shooter could react to the change in the threat level. The average adult male can make a quarter turn in a quarter second, and a 180-degree body turn in half a second. Reaction time to an unanticipated stimulus takes longer than that, which means that the initial aggressor is likely to be shot before the defender can react to the turn and halt a trigger finger that is already in action.

Horn was in his sixties, and the two men he shot were much younger and stronger. That constitutes disparity of force. The crowbar one allegedly held constitutes a deadly weapon under these circumstances. Lunging at Horn as if to disarm him, under these circumstances, can also constitute lethal force, and Horn’s unleashing his 12-gauge Magnum could thus be justified three times over by a good defense attorney. In his videotaped walk-through at the shooting scene, recently released by the police department, Horn told the lead investigator, “I thought they were gonna get me…if they got the gun away from me, I knew what they were gonna do.” Moreover, Texas law is the most forgiving in the nation of private citizens who use deadly force in protection of property as well as life. Grand Jury proceedings tend to be super-secret, and we do not know to what degree a backlash against crime (and illegal aliens) may have influenced the Grand Jury’s decision not to render the true bill that would have set the stage for prosecution.

In a great many jurisdictions – including some in Texas – a citizen who went out and shot these guys would be under indictment for Murder or Manslaughter by now. Joe Horn’s willingness to risk his life for his neighbor’s goods is commendable, but not necessarily a role model for the rest of us. He is out substantial legal fees already, and he has received death threats. While many see him as a hero, I doubt that he feels like one. His attorney has stated that if Mr. Horn had it to do over again, he would stay inside and leave his Winchester Defender Model 1300 shotgun silent. I suspect the rest of us can learn from that.

As more information becomes available, azasu, I might be doing a full-length article on this in my continuing feature, “Self Defense and the Law,” in Combat Handguns magazine. If you’re interested in a full-length treatment in my Backwoods Home column, let editor Dave Duffy know. He is very responsive to article suggestions from readers.

Best wishes to all for a safe and meaningful Independence Day.

It is fascinating to watch the many reactions to the Heller decision. Perhaps the most obvious is that various print and electronic media, notably CNN, are now suddenly discussing these matters under the umbrella of “gun rights” when they used to say “gun control.” It’s good to see a more correct term in the headlines.

In Washington, DC, the city has reluctantly begun some foot-dragging compliance. They’ve announced that they’ll begin gun registration for handguns (required by a city law untouched by the decision). Moreover, since the city apparently has another law that bans semiautomatic firearms, only revolvers (and, presumably, single shot pistols and two-shot derringers) will be approved. DC Metro Police are issued 18-shot 9mm Glock 17 semiautomatics to protect the citizenry, but to DC lawmakers, I guess that’s neither here nor there. The fact remains that there is no genuine gun retailer in the District of Columbia where law-abiding citizens of the city can purchase any sort of the handguns now allowed there by the SCOTUS decision.

Word is, there is exactly one FFL (Federal Firearms License, for dealers) in Washington, DC. It was issued to Josh Sugarman, a high-profile gun ban advocate, attached to the Sarah Brady-inspired Violence Policy Center. He may have acquired it to gain entry into the SHOT Show, the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show that is the annual Big Event in firearms retailing. He may have acquired it to make some sort of obscure statement. He may have acquired it to allow his friends in the anti-gun movement to buy guns through him in the city, since that sort of hypocrisy is known to run rampant among those people. I honestly don’t know.

However, since the authority that issues and supervises FFLs, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) reportedly requires FFL holders to do transfers for law-abiding customers, there is a movement afoot among “real” FFL-holders to contact the agency and have Sugarman held to account and required to do so, on pain of losing his license. A “transfer” is what occurs when an individual legally acquires title to a firearm by paying for it in another state, whether in person or through an Internet purchase or auction. The gun is shipped by the seller to an FFL in the purchaser’s jurisdiction, and the individual purchaser then takes possession through the locally licensed dealer, filling out the 4473 form there, and paying a reasonable fee for the transfer. This is required since it is against Federal law for a private individual to purchase a handgun in another state, which is why the newly re-entitled DC residents can’t just drive to a gun shop in Maryland or Virginia and leave with a home defense revolver.

Will stubborn DC officials use such details in hopes of keeping their law-abiding citizenry disarmed? Well, do bears go potty in the woods? It will be interesting to see how this works out.

The Heller decision was certainly long overdue. When Morton Grove, Illinois became the first municipality to pass a law banning handgun possession, gun owners’ rights activists tried to take it to SCOTUS, and failed. Jervis Anderson, in his anti-gun treatise “Guns In American Life” (Random House, 1984) wrote, “The gun-control movement might also draw a measure of comfort from what the Supreme Court eventually decided about the case of Morton Grove…(after the US Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the ban,) The Supreme Court remained silent on the matter, however. In October of 1983, it, in effect, dismissed the N.R.A. petition, by declining to rule on the opinion delivered in March by the United States Court of Appeals in Chicago.”

The Supreme Court of the United States has fixed that now.

Better late than never.