Here’s a YT short on the Marlin .444, although I have to say that my .444 doesn’t have problematic feeding like his seems to. Maybe it’s a “Remlin,” although I don’t know if they ever made one after Remington took over.

The Marlin .444 is an absolutely awesome cartridge.

The 30-30 is still a great hunting rifle.

Savage is now making lever action guns, but a quick visit to their web site shows that it’s available only up to 22 WMR.

Via David Codrea, this report.

Officers from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) routinely trespass onto private land—without consent, a warrant, or any reason to suspect a hunting violation has occurred—to conduct exploratory searches. They ignore fences, gates, and “no trespassing” signs, treating private land like public property. And all of this is purportedly authorized by an Alabama statute.

The open fields doctrine is an end run around the fourth amendment and everybody knows it. Alabama doesn’t look so hot here, and I continue to be disappointed in that state.

In Pennsylvania too. And in many other states.

David Codrea.

This is where our “gun rights leaders” may have painted us into a corner, by seizing on the criteria of being “in common use at the time” as the standard to determine if a gun ban violates the Second Amendment. It was never intended as a popularity contest.

Since no innovation ever begins “in common use,” a government with the power to do so can ban all new weapon developments from those they would rule, retaining them exclusively for itself. Remember the core purpose of the Second Amendment. To argue the Founders thought sending an outmatched yeomanry to their slaughter would be “necessary to the security of a free State” is insane.

I know that David has had problems with it when Mark Smith uses the “in common use” argument, and properly so, although Mark would say that we need to win the fights we can when we can and tackle the next one using another scheme, or something along those lines.

I wish there was another way to argue this, and in fact, David has suggested it. The government knew that the yeomanry had “weapons of war” and always has and never had a problem with it. I agree, and have pointed out the obvious, to wit, the notion that the founders would have wanted their fellow freedom fighters limited by weapon is ridiculous. Since the founders were the ones who were alive at the time of the BoR, they certainly wouldn’t have read the 2A that way.

I have also pointed out before that Heller – the genesis of the in common use argument – was a weak ruling. This hasn’t won me any friends over the years, but I stand by my position. Citing David Williams, Indiana University Maurer School of Law …

Heller offers a Second Amendment cleaned up so that it can safely be brought into the homes of affluent Washington suburbanites who would never dream of resistance-they have too much sunk into the system–but who might own a gun to protect themselves from the private dangers that, they believe, stalk around their doors at night. Scalia commonly touts his own judicial courage, his willingness to read the Constitution as it stands and let the chips fall where they may. But Heller is noteworthy for its cowardice.

Those are strong words, but he’s right on with every one of them.

Josh Blackman.

Justice Sotomayor is pretty predictable. She walks into oral argument with a set of questions she wants to ask, and she will keep asking them, whether or not she gets the answer she wants. I imagine advocates get frustated, but that is part of the game.

During the birthright citizenship cases, Justice Sotomayor asked the same line of questions several times–apparently she thought it was clever. To illustrate the limits of the government’s position concerning nationwide injunction, she would change the hypo: what would happen if the government sought to confiscate every gun in America; would every gunowner have to bring an individual law suit to seek relief?

Page 13: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: –so, when a new president orders that because there’s so much gun violence going on in the country and he comes in and he says, I have the right to take away the guns from everyone, then people –and he sends out the military to seize everyone’s guns –we and the courts have to sit back and wait until every named plaintiff gets –or every plaintiff whose gun is taken comes into court?

Page 41: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: If we’re afraid that this is or even have a thought that this is unlawful executive action, that it is Congress who decides citizenship, not the executive, if we believe, some of us were to believe that, why should we permit those countless others to be subject to what we think is an unlawful executive action, as unlawful as an executive taking the guns away from every citizen?

Page 44: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: –it got rejected repeatedly. We can go into the history of citizenship, but I still go back to my question. You claim that there is absolutely no constitutional way to stop, put this aside, to stop a president from an unconstitutional act, a clearly, indisputably unconstitutional act, taking every gun from every citizen, we couldn’t stop that.

Does Justice Sotomayor really want to know what the remedy would be if the government confiscated everyone’s gun? This remedy would not involve Rule 23.

Nearly 250 years ago, King George III and General Gage tried to confiscate the firearms from the Americans. What happened next? Lexington and Concord, the Shot Heard Round the World. As best as I can recall, the patriots did not go to a Court of Chancery to seek an equitable remedy.

I said at the time (over X) that it was supremely hypocritical to the point of gas lighting to ask about gun confiscations when the SCOTUS didn’t step in and immediately stop gun confiscations in New Orleans after Katrina. She had no concern about that.

And yes, if nationwide gun confiscations were to ever try to be enforced, first of all, the military wouldn’t cooperate. Second, there would be war.

As for the hoax of birthright citizenship, we’ve already seen how that was destroyed in a recent friend of the court brief.

Sotomayor is supremely unqualified to sit on any court, much less the supreme court. She is mentally defective.

This is the single best takedown of anything I have ever heard.

Source.

I’m the only gun owning liberal in my general friend/acquaintance group and the proposal to drop the $200 stamp for cans has some of them seriously worked up about how Republicans are making mass shootings easier this way, making quietly killing someone more affordable, etc. The usual.

It doesn’t seem to get through that they’re pretty much never used in crimes and that if that was your goal, you’d be far better off just 3D printing/garage building a cheap illegal one. Seriously. There are well over a million cans in this country and they’re involved in like 40+ crimes a year. And I’m not even sure that’s limited to legal ones.

There’s so much bad shit in this bill, but removing a tax on things that are seen as nothing more than safety devices in other countries is not one of them and the fixation on it is really frustrating.

I guess it just reminds me how effectively a huge number of left leaning voters have been lied to about guns and how they work (as well as gun owners, for that matter) and it’s hard to know how to start undoing that damage. How do I effectively explain that I just wanna giggle when my gun goes whump instead of boom sometimes when that thing is clearly built to spec for kid killing?

Here’s the first thing you do. You explain to them that suppressors are safety equipment, as important as any other safety equipment such as hard hats or safety glasses. And if you need to, you cite the relevant parts of the federal code where OSHA is concerned about hearing loss. You explain to them that this has to do with the proper function of the human body.

Next, you don’t use words like giggle. You insist that “shall not be infringed means shall not be infringed.” Period.

Finally, you get yourself a new set of friends. Your friends are controllers and you shouldn’t be around them.

That’s the headline from Washington Post.

When Robert Leider became chief counsel at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in March, agency employees briefed him about a controversial device known as a “forced reset trigger,” according to people familiar with the discussions. The device allows semiautomatic weapons to fire more rapidly, and ATF had classified them as machine guns, effectively making them illegal.

That classification was challenged in court, with gun owners and manufacturers represented by legal teams that included David Warrington, who has since become President Donald Trump’s White House counsel. Now the Trump administration was considering reversing the Biden-era classification.

In a bid to explain the classification, ATF workers took Leider to a shooting range to see how the triggers operate, according to people familiar with the outing, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution. At the end of the process, Leider, an Antonin Scalia Law School professor and gun rights attorney, agreed: The devices were dangerous, and the classification as machine guns should stand, the people said.

But Leider’s opinion did not prevail. After tense conversations between Leider and powerful Justice Department officials, including Emil Bove, principal associate deputy attorney general, the department announced late Friday that it was settling the litigation, clearing the way for the items to be sold and used.

Under the terms of the settlement, “forced reset triggers” will remain legal so long as their manufacturer refrains from developing similar devices for pistols and enforces its patents to stop copycats, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

“This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” Bondi said. “And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety.”

It’s funny how the WaPo titled this missive. “Pro gun lawyer.” Pro gun indeed.

We should be able to own machine guns without having to go through the trouble of using FRTs. I think the author and I have a different definition of pro gun. That he graduated from the Antonin Scalia school of law is irrelevant to me.

Here is Tom Grieve explaining the details of the settlement.

a

I sent this note to S&W support.

I’m just wondering for the hundredth time if y’all are going to come out with a lever gun in 460 or 500 S&W magnum? I would be happy to do a review of it without any cost to you (I would purchase the gun outright).

This is the first time I have ever gotten a response to my many notes.

Thank you for contacting Smith & Wesson.

I would be glad to relay your interest to our Marketing & Product Development department for review.

If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us at 1-800-331-0852

Thank you and Have a Great Day!

Regards,

Daniel

Back to Daniel (and I tried to locate the email for the S&W CEO, perhaps I got it right), I responded this.

Daniel,

Thank you for the offer to forward my request. This is the first time in all of my inquiries that I have actually gotten a response.

I would love to talk to your folks about a walnut lever action rifle in 500 S&W magnum. I’m certain that the S&W engineers can handle the development, and I’m also certain that the Performance Center would take an interest in such a project.

As I said, I would be happy not only to buy the rifle outright, but also do a review of it.

Your engineers might say that the cartridge I am requesting (500 S&W magnum) is a high pressure cartridge and as such might have “sticky extraction” issues, but Rossi has proven that they can handle the .454 Casull and Big Horn Armory can certainly make rifles chambered in 500 S&W magnum. They do so every day.

Frankly, it should bother you more than a little that Big Horn Armory is the only manufacturer that makes a rifle chambered in your very own cartridge (500 S&W magnum). Shouldn’t S&W make a rifle chambered in that round too?

Herschel Smith, PE

We’ll see if this becomes a chance to get a lever gun in S&W 500 magnum. I have my doubts.

Big Country Expat observes the following about Crye Precision.

Me and Lil Country went ‘all in’ so to speak on the equipment back in 2004/2005 as contractors.
After all, we wanted to stay alive amiright?

It (Crye) was, according to our SF and SEAL contacts ‘the best of the best of the best’
So, of course we bought into it…………plus we had the $$$ that Crye costs.

More the fool sez I

Bro………..
Within 4 months we sought NEW gear as the CC (CryeCrap) as we’d found it was worthless

The stuff fell apart… stitching sucked… it rotted away… Our plate carriers wore out… plates falling out…it was shit… it fell apart under summer and heat related (i.e. HEAVY sweat related times) I ended up with (and you’re going to laugh your ass off) with a fucking airsoft level plate carrier that I paid what? Like $200 for as opposed to the $600 plus for the utterly worthless CryeCrap we’d bought. That Airsoft ‘crap’ lasted for 4 years, and NEVER let me down… in fact THAT gear is now the WIFE’S gear as she’s NOT supposed to be ‘first line defense/offense’ but have gear I know I cant trust…

The f*cking airsoft ‘grade’ plate carrier outperformed the Crye gear for two f’n years
After that experience, I never want to hear from ANY guntoober or gear reviewer who has not had to use the gear they’re reviewing online EVER. It’s waaaaaaaaaaaaay different when you depend on your gear keeping you alive donchaknow?
And as another thing? My primary backpack?
The same Condor 3 day, and I’ve had it since 2007. I STILL use it
This’s a IRL experience with “CryeCrap”

And Joe observes this.

condor makes some good stuff and they have an “elite” line and it’s just as good as any of those top brand names…they have a battle/range belt with a real cobra buckle that was cheap 2 years ago…it’s now almost $100 but still worth it in my opinion…only draw back is velcro is backwards so you can’t use another brand under belt…but overall, they make decent/good stuff…

Something about Crye Precision turned me off when I looked at them years ago.

I embedded a video about Condor 3-Day Assault Packs in that video (good advertising for Condor) and also stumbled across this video (funny how YT does that isn’t it?).

This is so much advertising for Condor they should send me a 3-Day Assault Pack for review.

First up, SilencerCo’s view of the hearing protection act. I like it when people honestly answer questions.

Fully support the HPA

— SilencerCo (@silencerco) May 16, 2025

Second, David asks why anyone would care about this because he sees it as unlikely that it will ever make it to the president’s desk. That may be true, but if nothing else, I want to call out traitors for who they are and try my best to prevent them from claiming success if all they do is decrease the tax stamp fee. And if they want me to grovel for crumbs that fall from the master’s table, I’ll throw the crumbs back in their face.

On that front, it looks like maybe we’ve been successful. I send X posts out virtually every day reminding members of the ways and means committee that they need to pass the HPA in full.

Because Friday’s vote failed to pass the bill through the House, the budget committee will reconvene on Sunday to hash out a bill that will most likely pass. Hopes are high due to the outpouring from the gun community that Section 2 of the HPA will be included. This change would mean that suppressors would be removed from the NFA. Those at AmmoLand News have spoken to in the House are confident that the HPA will be included in the new text. The SHORT Act also has a shot of being included, but that is far from certain.

As for Silencer Central’s view, I think it’s abundantly clear where they stand.