Until recently, if you had a permit to carry a gun in the District of Columbia, local law kept you limited to twenty rounds of ammo on your person.
Dick Heller – the named plaintiff in the historic 2A victory known as Heller v. District of Columbia – has another notch on his gun, so to speak. It was his lawsuit that led to the twenty-round limit being righteously kicked off the books.
The limit had been meaningless, since anyone planning to rob or terrorize (let alone kill) would certainly ignore an ammo limit law. And, if such a criminal was captured alive, the “excess ammo” violation would be the first charge to get tossed during the plea bargain process. By definition, only the law-abiding obey the law.
Outstanding. Wonder when/if someone is going to challenge Richmond, VAs law on limiting 20 round mags to holder of CCW permits? Not to mention throwing out mag capacity limits country wide.
Excellent news. Now, apply this ruling to the remaining ludicrous (and insulting) magazine capacity laws illegally imposed around the country, most recently in DE and my beloved WA state.
i carry a single sack most of the time. spare mag has one round more. if ya can’t stop the threat with 17 rounds, you really need to attend a MAG class…
What I’d learn in a MAG class won’t help when confronted with twenty seven bad guys and I’ve only got twelve rounds total. Hard enough to hit each one once, but to convince them to stand in a line where I can drill two or three with each round, well I don’t think even Mas can teach us how to reliably make that happen.
WHO are gummit to decide for me what car I drive, what boots I wear, what house I live in, what I do for work, or how many magic boolitts I can have on my person?
THIS is a liberty issue, and gummit making MY decisions is looking a whole lot like totalitarianism, what our F’ounders decided the Brits had to cease doing. Besides, if they can tell me I can only carry fifty rounds, then then can also tell me I can onl carry ten, or two. Not gonna happen.
The gun-grabbers delight in passing laws that burden legal gun-owners. Their goal, clearly, is to make firearms ownership as onerous and difficult as possible. Their ultimate goal is firearms-prohibition as a necessary precondition to their seizure of permanent, totalitarian, political power. As I’ve noted before, they can never sit easy on the seat of total government power unless they disarm the People first.
However, firearms-prohibition via outright bans and confiscation is difficult. So, as a preliminary step, they burden ownership, by the honest citizen, as much as is possible.
They pass these laws with no consideration given, at all, as to whether they are constitutional or not. In fact, they are fully aware that most of their imposed legal roadblocks are unconstitutional. They pass them anyway and then dare us to challenge them in court.
Every time we win and knock down one of their unconstitutional burdens, they simply dream up and pass two more new ones. I expect that they have think-tanks and focus-groups that just sit around and do nothing but dream up new firearm burdens to impose on the American People.
It will take years, decades, to flesh out the full scope of the 2nd Amendment and to put a limit on this “train of Abuse” that is chugging down the anti-gun track. The wheels at the Supreme Court turn very slowly indeed.
I expect that the long-term plan of the gun-grabbers is to pack the Supreme Court with Leftist members. Then they can reverse Heller, McDonald and Bruen and hand down a decision that guts the 2nd Amendment.
Once the 2nd Amendment is turned into a “Dead Letter of the Law”, the American Left can then implement their “Final Solution” for bans and confiscation.
So, while this little victory is good, it is but a skirmish in the ultimate battle for the Soul of our Nation. The American Left plays a long game. They have been undermining the American Republic for over a century now. If it takes another century to disarm us and reduce us to being their abject slaves, then so be it. In their eyes, the prize of having the people of the World as their serfs and subjects is worth every effort. The ultimate prize is, in their minds, worth decades, even centuries, of effort. Having all the billions of People in the World as their abject slaves is the “Wet Dream” of the World-wide Left. How they admire the “Chinese Model” where this has already been achieved over the most densely populated nation on Earth! China has long since fallen into their hands along with numerous other nations. They have their sights set on us next.
Left-Wing ideology is the most dangerous and destructive thing ever invented by the mind of man. Compared to this ideology, nuclear weapons are mere fire-crackers!
Mas, I have a question for you. It is a little off-topic but still related to self-defense carry.
I recently read an article in a gun magazine about percussion (black-powder) revolvers. The writer mentioned, as an aside, that he has corresponded with several people who still carry percussion revolvers for self-defense!
One was a long-haul trucker. As you know, this nation is a crazy patchwork of weapon laws. If one carries a normal handgun for self-defense, in their truck, they would be sure to run afoul of some law or ordinance somewhere.
The idea of this trucker was that percussion arms are not, technically, considered to be firearms under Federal Law and under most State Laws. Therefore, if he was caught with a loaded percussion revolver in his truck, he would have a legal loop-hole to argue against any weapon charges.
A percussion revolver might not be the best thing to use for self-defense but it is better than using harsh words and your fists. A big percussion revolver, say in .44 caliber, also might just scare off any threats without having to fire a shot. If you did have to shoot, I expect that a .44 caliber ball (actually .454 caliber) through the chest would still make as great of an impression as it did back in 1860.
Anyway, the above seems to be the thought-pattern as listed in the article.
I am dubious about this plan, myself. I would expect that, if the local prosecutor wanted to get you, he would twist up some law to nail you with irrespective of whatever the firearm’s statutes may say. If you did have to use the revolver in self-defense, I expect that the prosecutor could still bring murder, manslaughter, or assault-with-a-deadly-weapon charges against you.
I am not sure just how much protection would accrue due to the revolver being a percussion model. However, you are far more knowledgeable on firearm laws than I. What do you think about this plan? Would it actually help someone dodge some of the weapon statutes? Or is it likely to be just as problematic as I think?
That trucker is going to be in a lot of trouble in a lot of places.
Thanks, Mas, for your reply. I thought that it was problematic.
On a side note, most handguns are effectively banned in the UK for ordinary people to own and shoot. A lot of people are reduced to using kitchen knives or baseball bats for home defense.
However, it still seems to be legal to own percussion firearms, including percussion revolvers, in the UK. This brings up the speculation about using a percussion revolver for home defense there. It would be better than a baseball bat!
The only downside is that the police would almost certainly arrest you for defending your home with any type of firearm. Even if the criminal was in the act of a savage attack on yourself or your family, you would be almost certain to face charges if you shot the criminal with anything (shotgun or percussion revolver). Even if you managed to beat the criminal charges on grounds of self-defense, you would still likely be sued in civil court by the criminal or his family!
It is a crazy, mixed-up World in which we are living. The sickness is even worse, in the UK than it is here. If you doubt it, try reading the book “Life at the Bottom” by Theodore Dalrymple. He makes it clear how deep the “Rabbit Hole” goes in the UK.
As I understand British law, firearms cannot be kept loaded in the home or place of business. Good luck loading a percussion black powder gun in time for it to do any good. Someone there would have to have invested in an excellent alarm system, and doors difficult to breach. Cracking the safe for a double barrel shotgun — assuming a shotgun license — and getting some shells into it would be faster.
One reason I don’t live there, or even go there anymore…
@ Mas – “…firearms cannot be kept loaded in the home or place of business. Good luck loading a percussion black powder gun in time for it to do any good.”
I can think of a couple of “work-arounds” that might help with this problem.
One approach would be to use one of the reproduction 1858 Remington revolvers as your firearm of choice. With this model percussion revolver, the cylinder can be changed out quickly a la Clint Eastwood in “Pale Rider”.
One could, therefore, have a preloaded cylinder handy along with the cylinderless 1858 Revolver. It would only take the work of a few seconds to drop the ramming lever, pull the pin, insert the loaded cylinder, reinsert the pin and raise the lever to produce a loaded firearm. One could argue that a loaded cylinder, alone, does not constitute a loaded firearm. So, no loaded firearm would exist until the cylinder was inserted and locked into place.
With other models of percussion revolver, the best approach would be to make up some paper cartridges like they did in the old days. Very thin, combustible paper is used. Each cartridge contains both the powder charge and the ball. One could insert a paper cartridge into each chamber, and ram it, pretty fast. With a capping tool preloaded with percussion caps, one could then install the caps pretty fast too. It would take longer than putting the cylinder into a 1858 Remington but, with practice, I bet that I could load a percussion revolver in about a minute or so.
Still, all these make-shifts are just that. They are all less than ideal. It seems that laws, nowadays, are designed to give aid and comfort to the criminals while leaving honest citizens as easy prey for criminal exploitation. All modern laws seem to be part of the Criminal Full Employment Act.
I am reminded of a line from the third Godfather movie (AKA Godfather III):
Quote of the Day:
“Politics and Crime, They are the same thing.” – Michael Corleone
Conical bullets can also be loaded in “cap and ball,” of course. I look back on times as a 10-year-old exploring my local “wilderness” when I might have legally packed an 1860 Colt Army revolver in .44 caliber loaded with 220 grain conicals at 800 feet per second in an over-the-shoulder holster, for encounters with wild animals and suspicious woods loafers. I only had a hickory stick, at best. I met a giant, prepossessing silver badger once, looking as big as two or three boar raccoons combined, and grabbing a very sobering level of attention. A heavy Colt Army .44 replica revolver could justifiably have given me that comforting feel Dr. Watson had in “The Hound of the Baskervilles” that was missing in my own encounter.
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