As a firearms instructor, I encourage my students to train regularly and as a Second Amendment activist I urge the same for all gun owners. I train regularly as do most of the firearms instructors I know. There are a number of great firearms training organizations around the country and Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Arizona is certainly one of the best. I try to attend at least one Gunsite class annually and this year’s choice was B.R.A.V.E. otherwise known as Ballistic Response Against Violent Encounters. B.R.A.V.E. covers skills that should be considered essential for all concealed carriers an ..read more

From time to time I like to share a book recommendation with my readers, it’s time again. The last one was Triggernometry, a great book for those interested in the gunfighters of the old American west and the guns they used. Today I offer The Power of Awareness by Dan Schilling. Schilling has an exceptional history of service to the country with a decades-long career in special forces which includes fighting in the Blackhawk Down battle in Mogadishu in 1993. Schilling draws on the training and experience from that career to create a book full of information to help civilians stay safe in our i ..read more

It’s not surprising that a man who is arguably the worst president in the country’s history would appoint inarguably the most incompetent vice president in the country’s history to execute another harmful policy of the most anti-Second Amendment administration in the country’s history. The Office of Gun Violence Prevention was established by the administration in September 2023 as another way to undermine the Second Amendment and attack the rights of law-abiding Americans. The Office of Gun Violence Prevention was established under the guise of fighting the mythical scourge of the public healt ..read more

Grab your formula sheet and your TI-84 Plus; it’s time to learn! This week’s blog post reviews what I can best describe as a preparatory text from a parallel reality in which major universities offer “firearms” as a bachelor’s degree program. Although not as comprehensive as dedicated textbooks on the subject, Understanding Firearm Ballistics: Basic to Advanced Ballistics Simplified, Illustrated, & Explained serves as a decent introduction to ballistic science for the otherwise uneducated shooter. The inner workings of even the simplest firearm involve a complex interplay between chemistry ..read more

On Wednesday, February 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court began to hear oral arguments in the case of Michael Cargill v. Merrick Garland, et al., commonly abbreviated to Cargill v. Garland or just Cargill. This case has its roots more than six years ago with then-President Trump directing the DOJ to crack down on the legal, ATF-approved accessories popularly known as “bump stocks.” As it has worked its way through the courts, the Cargill case has inspired well-deserved support from the rest of the Second Amendment community and increasingly unfriendly coverage from media outlets. Much of the reporti ..read more

By now, most readers have probably heard of the Hawai’i Supreme Court’s February 7th decision in State of Hawai’i vs. Christopher L. Wilson. In its 53-page ruling, the court declares that the right to carry a firearm for self-defense, guaranteed by the Second Amendment and reinforced by SCOTUS rulings in Heller and Bruen, is overridden by the “spirit of aloha,” whatever that means. Legal scholars and Second Amendment pundits have already written ad nauseam about the bizarreness of the ruling, so in this blog post, I aim to discuss its greater implications for those of us living in the rest of ..read more

On Tuesday, February 6th, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to move forward with 18 suggestions to reduce “gun violence.” The 18 suggestions came from a report produced after Supervisors Nathan Fletcher and Terra Lawson-Remer forced the county to pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to hire a biased anti-gun firm to analyze what they described at the time as an epidemic of gun violence. The study showed that San Diego trails many other similar cities and the state of California when it comes to deaths where a gun is involved. Around 70% of deaths where a gun was i ..read more

We in the Second Amendment community are always on high alert for new infringements on our right to keep and bear arms. Whenever anti-gun politicians trot out a new law to ban scary-looking features, or a new tax aimed at placing firearm ownership out of reach for society’s most vulnerable, or any of a host of other plainly unreasonable restrictions, we rightfully take to the streets and the airwaves to explain why these laws do more harm than good. It’s not often, however, that our points receive broader support from outside our own community. Our most recent cause célèbre in California is SB ..read more

On Saturday the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made a correct and just ruling by reinstating the injunction barring the implementation of the “sensitive areas” part of SB2. This ruling is very surprising to say the least. The 9thCircuit Court usually rules incorrectly and is the most reversed court in the United States. Based on data from 2007 thru the 2022 term, the US Supreme Court reversed 80.3% of the cases heard that originated in the 9thCircuit. Many of the judges serving in the 9th Circuit are activist judges meaning they often rule based on some misguided social justice theory rather on ..read more

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states, “A well regulated [sic] Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Few other sentences in the English language have been subject to such political controversy and aggressive misinterpretation as this one. Just about every one of those twenty-seven words has been picked apart and scrutinized by legions of lawyers, lawmakers, and lobbyists across the country. What constitutes an infringement? What exactly is a “bearable arm” and who are “the people ..read more