MacGyver

It’s such a good feeling when you’re indispensable to a company. I haven’t kept up with the news regarding them like I should have. Are their troubles finally behind them?

Unfortunately they’ve got to have the cases to take up before they can render an opinion. That really didn’t start happening until the Black Panthers started toting around weapons in the ‘60s causing a lot of state legislatures to freak out accordingly. While you can count the cases before Heller regarding the Second Amendment or mentioning the Second Amendment on two hands - some of the decisions are interesting in what they say. For example, while the Dred Scott decision regarded the descendants of slaves inferior when it came to standing with the Court, it did imply in its decision that all free men could "keep and carry arms wherever they went." You get a couple of post Civil War cases regarding the rights of former slaves. Interestingly Presser vs. Illinois in 1886 restricts the right to assemble as a militia while respecting the individual right to bear arms. You get a post-NFA case in 1939. But there's just not a lot before Heller. Here is a decent listing of the cases and summaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_firearm_court_cases_in_the_United_States

An interesting feature of the Roberts Court is how often he drives to unanimous consensus. Last term, the court was unanimous in well over half of its decisions. It was only 5-4 or 6-3 in 14% of its cases. That is pretty damning to the ideological view through which many of us view the court. Yes, many hot button issues are divided along rough party lines - but far fewer than you might think. The Court’s job kind of is to decide issues fractionally in a lot of cases. They don’t write law - they only decide whether what has been written by the Legislative branch and what/how a law is being implemented by the Executive branch is Constitutional. This, they respond as legislatures do (or don’t do) their job. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has written and spoken at length about this - actually regarding the Roe vs. Wade case. Despite the fact that she’s a liberal vote on the court - she’s gone on record saying that she thinks it was a faulty decision - and that legislators would’ve taken it up gradually instead. It’s not to say that she didn’t support abortion rights - rather she thought the decision was “to sweeping.” So, to the thought of wanting the court to issue these giant black and white decisions is out of sync with the modern Court that very much prefers gradual, measured guidance to legislatures. More here for the interested: http://www.scotusblog.com/statistics/ https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-offers-critique-roe-v-wade-during-law-school-visit

A lot of the old .308 semiauto 760s got trashed from overtravel of the bolt peening the rails on the receiver. They were good for about 1000 rounds before he problem usually presented - more than most hunters would ever shoot. If I recall correctly, Remington eventually ended up recalling all of them. One of the fixes was to close of the gas block and trade out the semi parts for pump parts - I forget that model designation. It would be a project, but yeah. It seems like sleeving a .308 barrel and cutting a new chamber for .22 Hornet would be easy enough. Who knows if you could modify the magazine/feeding mechanism appropriately. It’s been a while since I’ve put my hands on a .22 Hornet round. Really this whole thought was predicated on the fact that there are a bunch of junked 760s out there that could probably be had cheap.

The modern car dealership is really three businesses under one roof. The first is the sales side where you go through this dance of selecting a car and agreeing on a price. It’s helpful to understand that he second business is the one that “helps” you find a way to pay for that vehicle. This second business is where a dealer typically makes its money before manufacturer incentives. The third business is the parts/service business. This model breaks down a little bit with Kia because they depend so heavily on manufacturer incentives. There are plenty of dealers that are actually underwater on sales pricing just to move product and make money on financing and incentives.

I agree with Greg on this, but I bet you could find one of the old 760s in 308 that was worn out from the over travel issues that affected most of those for next to nothing. Rebarrel it and trade out for the pump parts on it and you’d have a neat project gun. You could maybe even just close off the gas port on the original barrel and drill and resleeve it.

Once you decide to get over yourself they’re awesome. Playing jokes on your friends never gets old, either.

5 words that my 18 year-old self never thought I’d hear my 43 year-old self say, “these heated seats are amazing.”

This one runs on a 6.8SPC bolt, right? While I can see the appeal, I bet it’s hard on brass.

I’d argue that both parties are just as dependent on Wickard at this point - as they’re two sides of the same coin - both serving their own interests over the people’s Wickard may be one of those rulings that we’ve simply moved too far to go back. It would take justices willing to set the whole system on fire to decide it was wrongly decided in ‘42. As much as we decry the loss of freedom - the states have willingly ceded authority to the federal government. What was originally a few bucks here and there has turned into a lot of states that wouldn’t be able to support basic services for its people if that happened. A lot of states here in the south would be at the top of that list.

In 1942 when Wickard was decided, global GDP was about $3 trillion dollars. Today it’s a little north of $80 trillion dollars. Mind you, there are a lot of things at work here - but the foundation for most of that growth has been built on a stable, predictable American economy. The growth has happened in a short time historically - basically in a few generations. Think about that. Until 1942, the collective value of every effort of man to that point in history was about $3 trillion dollars. In a lifetime, we’ve grown to 25x that. We could go back. But it would mean a global reset. All bets are off if that happened. It would be painful.

In the long run it might work out. But, empire is hard. And so is freedom. We’ve ceded way too much to the federal government. Put another way - all of us depend on the government for too much. It could very well lead to a break up of the Union. In the near to midterm if would be quite painful - likely causing a depressions nationally and globally. It would affect every man, woman, and child in America.

I added the last sentence to add some levity to the first. Since 1789, the federal government has been working to consolidate power. It’s a long game, and each of the three branches have played a part. But, Wickard vs. Filburn is certainly one of the Judicial Branches most significant contributions. If you’ll remember the various firearms freedom acts from a few years ago - arguing that Wickard vs. Filburn was wrongly decided was one of its key arguments.

Wickard vs. Filburn gets overturned and this whole show falls apart. That’s why they offed him

South Korea went from a third world country to a first world economy in a generation. I suspect they became pretty adept at “borrowing” their share of good ideas.

She's 85, so it's certainly a possibility. But, she's had both colon cancer and pancreatic cancer and is still going strong - so she's about as tough as they come. Heller and McDonald would be hard to undue - especially the longer they are on the books. But, the Supreme Court has signaled that it is open to reasonable restrictions. I hate to poke the hornet's nest when it doesn't need poking.

Don't underestimate the Koreans. When Hyundai and Kia first moved over here, they were definitely lower priced budget cars - and that 10 year warranty was a necessary item. But, as they've iterated through their manufacturing process refining as they go, they're turning out some decent competition these days. I've recently driven several rentals more than 1500 miles over a couple of days and was impressed by all of them.

Folks would love for him to retire to make another Supreme Court appointment a midterm issue - getting out some who are likely to stay home otherwise. Kennedy more or less dismissed it earlier this year. That’s not to say he couldn’t change his mind - or you could have another older justice pass away or retire.

Democracy favors participation. Nice job.

The PD35 is a known good light. It would be tough to beat it.

I'm afraid rationality is probably out when it comes to a discussion with them - or at least most of them. Most of them are just as entrenched as most of us. Therein lies the problem.

Stevens wrote the primary dissenting opinion in Heller. It's worth noting however that Stevens was a Republican, who was first nominated to the bench by a Republican (Richard Nixon), and was later nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican (Gerald Ford).

What I wouldn't give for a few manufacturers to go back to salt bluing and Grade A walnut...

You're probably not too far off. Cerberus had been trying since Sandy Hook to find someone to buy it and couldn't. Private equity can be really dangerous. As an old mentor told me once, "debt magnifies the consequences of bad decisions." A lot of money came into the gun business for a while thinking gun owners were an easy sell. And for the most part, for a while they were right. How many shops did we have open in middle Tennessee that weren't owned by gun people at all - rather they were owned by bankers. But then times changed - and your business fundamentals actually had to prove sound. At least now we know that this experiment didn't work any better with the giant companies than it did the little gun shops.

Wall Street doubled down on this one. Cerberus has been trying to get out of this for a couple of years. JP Morgan and Franklin Templeton Investments basically took this on for .25 on the dollar. They had already negotiated a haircut with lenders. Basically the billion dollars of debt the hedge fund saddled them with in the various buyouts sank them when revenues sank over the last few years. But note, that the billion dollars didn’t just vaporize - it went into someone’s pockets. Some brands could go away here. Bushmaster and DPMS are at risk. AAC and Tapco are owned by the brand as well. They own Marlin, too.