Where Intermediate Scrutiny Takes You

Bauer v. Becerra (9th Cir. 2017) upheld California's allocation of $5 of the $19 Dealer Record of Sale fee to the Armed Prohibited Persons System, which looks for people who legally purchased a firearm, but have since ended up in a firearms prohibition category.  The 9th Circuit agreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, but applied intermediate scrutiny.  The purpose was tied to a legitimate governmental interest (public safety) and the portion of the DROS fee allocated was not a burden on buyers of firearms.

No question that the interest is a legitimate government concern and unless are buying a $20 gun (tell me when you see one), it is hard to see the $5 as much of a burden.  The real flaw is that the various standards of scrutiny are largely made up by 1960s judges as a way of striking down laws they did not like (strict scrutiny), while upholding laws they like (rational basis, intermediate scrutiny).

Does Anyone Live Near Jacobsburg State Historical Park in Pennsylvania?

They have a very nice museum devoted to the Henry gunmaking family.  There is a picture I took there some years ago, that is not high enough resolution for my publisher.

Can I persuade someone to go and photograph this display with a high resolution (8 megapixel or better) camera?  Turn off the flash, and use a polarizing filter, if you have one to reduce reflection.

It is about two hours north of Philly.

Why Was 1950s American Culture and Film So Perversely Believing in Right and Wrong?

I have been watching many US government made films from World War II.  Some are very impressive; others are a little embarrassing.  I am watching Nazi Concentration Camps on Netflix right now.  The names on the affidavits at the start of the film are signed by John Ford and George Stevens, both major directors and screenwriters before and after World War II.  If I ever teach modern world history, this is on the list.  This film is absolutely heartwrenching.

The sequence where the German citizens have to walk through a concentration camp are overpowering.  They walk to the camp all smiles, unaware of what they will see.  The smiles vanish pretty quickly as they what their government (which many had elected) had done.

Never again!

Epigenetics: Lamarckianism for SJWs?

Somewhere in biology classes you learned about Lamarck, a predecessor to Darwin in evolutionary thought.  Lamarck explained the long necks of giraffes as the result of their distant ancestors stretching their necks for the tops of trees, and passing those long necks to their offspring.  Obviously impossible because those are acquired traits after the DNA has set.

So imagine my surprise to find out that the trauma of the Holocaust causes survivors to have genetic predisposition to stress and nightmares.

Some children of Holocaust survivors have terrible nightmares in which they are chased, persecuted, tortured or annihilated, as if they were re-living the Second World War over and over again. At these times, they suffer from debilitating anxiety and depression which reduce their ability to cope with stress and adversely impact their occupational and social function. It seems that these individuals, who are now adults, somehow have absorbed the repressed and insufficiently worked-through Holocaust trauma of their parents, as if they have actually inherited the unconscious minds of their parents.

Now it can't be that their parents have told them of their trauma or exposure to films and literature about the Holocaust, can it?  This modern Lamarckianism is explicitly acknowledged by the author:

More than two centuries ago, the founder of evolution, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, suggested that acquired characteristics may be transmitted from one generation to another. Ever since, evolutionary developmental biology has continued to study this assumption. Recent advances in the field of epigenetics are now revealing a molecular basis for how heritable information other than DNA sequence can influence gene function...

Epigenetics is typically defined as the study of heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in the underlying DNA sequence. Such heritable changes in gene expression often occur as a result of environmental stress or major emotional trauma and would then leave certain marks on the chemical coating, or methylation, of the chromosomes (13). The coating becomes a sort of “memory” of the cell and since all cells in our body carry this kind of memory, it becomes a constant physical reminder of past events, our own and those of our parents, grandparents and beyond. “The body keeps the score” (14), not only in the first generation of trauma survivors, but possibly also in subsequent ones. Because of their neurobiological susceptibility to stress, children of Holocaust survivors may thus easily imagine the physical suffering of their parents and almost “remember” the hunger, the frozen limbs, the smell of burned bodies and the sounds that made them scared.

 Now, it should be obvious that this isn't about the Jews, but about how slavery (150 years later) is still the cause of the problems in black ghetto culture today, not the devastating effects of the Great Society in destroying incentives for family stability.  This 4/30/17 Haaretz  article acnowledges:

Children of Holocaust survivors may suffer depression and anxiety: but its source cannot be ascertained. In theory, hearing horrific stories in childhood could influence the development of anxiety and depression in adulthood. How do we know if horrific stories or epigenetics caused the anxiety or depression? There is no way to tease out the influence of either.

Indeed, some leading researchers in the field of epigenetics have grave reservations about Yehuda’s interpretation of her data. Foremost among them is John Greally, professor of genetics and pediatrics at the Center for Epigenomics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. In a blog post published a few days after the Guardian story, Greally termed Yehuda’s research the “over-interpreted epigenetics study of the week.”
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/.premium-1.786465

Interesting Films on Netflix

"Die Suche Nach Hitlers Bombe": The Search for Hitler's Atom Bomb collects evidence from French and Russian intelligence files that suggests Hitler was either very close to having a nuclear weapon, or may have actually tested a small, Kim Jong Un sized one in Thuringia.  Interesting interviews with children of people who investigated it at the end of the war.

Hence the pressure to get our bomb ready in early 1945.

Gunsmiths

Want to know how I spend my time?  Here's a spreadsheet of every American gunsmith or gun maker before 1840.

Early Telescopic Sight

I saw this once before, and fortunately found it again:

Mr. Owen Biddle is desired to procure a Rifle that will carry a half pound Ball, with a Telescope sight…. [Pennsylvania State, Colonial Records of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Penn.: 1852), 10:332]

Telescopic sight in 1775?  1/2 pound ball is 227 grams.  I'm told this is about a 1 1/4" bullet.  No, it's .66 caliber. V=4/3*pi*r^3 and lead is 11.3 g/cc.  r=0.66, so 1.32 caliber.

A Wonderful Doctoral Dissertation in Popular Culture Will Be (or Already Has Been) Written

If you've heard the song and didn't understand some of the slang, watch the video.  I fear the first draft of that dissertation will be trying to understand the environmental concerns about bears and ducks.  The final title: "Populist and Libertarian Responses to New Electronic Media."  Former CB owner.

Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Test Videos

Here.

Looking Up Historical Re-enactor Groups

Civil War everyone knows.  But World War II, I, War of 1812, Revolutionary War, Mexican War?  And Wikipedia lists all these other groups in Europe.  Roman Army, medieval wars, and many others.

The Splintering of the Common Culture

I know that somewhere I have seen reference to the mainstream American popular culture splintering in the 1960s into a vast swarm of separate subcultures, causing the death of "mainstream" non-news magazines like Life, Look, and Saturday Evening Post.  Any books you can point to?

Great Fun Reading

I am re-reading Captain Frederick Marryat's Diary in America (1839) for that pinpoint citation purpose previously mentioned.  Marryat was a Royal Navy officer who wrote some very popular novels and decided to visit America where his novels turned out to be more popular than the author.  Canada had a rebellion while he was in America, and being a patriotic Briton, offered his services to help suppress the rebellion at a time when Americans were very supportive of the rebellion.  Nonetheless, I thought you might enjoy his account of the 4th of July in New York City:

THE¹ 4th of July, the sixty-first anniversary of American Independence!

Pop-pop-bang-pop-pop-bang-bang-bang! Mercy on us!  How fortunate it is that anniversaries come only once a year. Well, the Americans may have great reason to be proud of this day, and for the deeds of their forefathers, but why do they get so confoundedly drunk? why, on this day of independence, should they become so dependent upon posts and rails for support?-The day is at last over; my head aches, but there will be many more aching heads to-morrow morning!

What a combination of vowels and consonants have been put together! what strings of tropes, metaphors, and allegories, have been, used on this day! what varieties and gradations of eloquence!  There are at least fifty thousand cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, spread over the surface of America--in each the Declaration of · Independence has been read; in all one, and in some two or three orations have been delivered, with as much gunpowder as in the squibs and crackers. But let me describe what I actually saw.

The commemoration commenced, if the day did not, on evening of the 3d, by the municipal police going round and pasting up placrds, informing the citizens of New York, that all persons letting off fireworks would be taken into custody, which notice was immediately followed up by the little boys proving their inde­pendence of the authorities, by letting off squibs, crackers, and bombs; and cannons, made out of shin bones, which flew in the face of every passenger, in the exact ratio that the little boys flew in the face of the authorities. This continued the whole night, and thus was ushered in the great and glorious day, illumined by a bright and glaring sun (as if bespoken on purpose by the mayor and corporation), with the thermometer at 90° in the shade. The first sight which met the eye after sunrise, was the precipitate escape, from a city visited with the plague of gunpowder, of respectable or timorous people in coaches, carriages, waggons, and every variety of vehicle. "My kingdom for a horse!" was the general cry of all those who could not stand fire. In the meanwhile, the whole atmosphere was filled with independence. Such was the quantity of American flags which were hoisted on board of the vessels, hung out of windows, or carried about by little boys, that you saw more stars at noon-day than ever could be counted on the brightest night. On each side of the whole length of Broadway, were ranged booths and stands, similar to those at an English fair, and on which were displayed small plates of oysters, with a fork stuck in the board opposite to each plate; clams sweltering in the hot sun; pine­apples, boiled hams, pies, puddings, barley-sugar, and many other indescribables. But what was the most remarkable, Broadway being three miles long, and the booths lining each side of it, in every booth there was a roast pig, large or small, as the centre attraction. Six miles of roast pig! and that in New York city alone; and roast pig in every other city, town, hamlet, and village, in the Union. What association can there be between roast pig and independence? Let it not be supposed that there was any deficiency in the very necessary articles of potation on this auspicious day: no! the booths were loaded with porter, ale, cyder, mead, brandy, wine, ginger-beer, pop, soda-water, whiskey, rum, punch, gin slings, cocktails, mint julips, besides many other compounds, to name which nothing but the luxuriance of American-English could invent a word. Certainly the preparations in the refreshment way were most imposing, and gave you some idea of what had to be gone through on this auspicious day. Martial music sounded from a dozen quarters at once; and as you turned your head, you tacked ~the first bars of a march from one band, the concluding bars of Yankee Doodle from another. At last the troops of militia and volunteers, who had been gathering in the park and other squares, .de their appearance, well dressed and well equipped, and, in honor of the day, marching as independently as they well could. I did not see them go through many manoeuvres, but there was one which they appeared to excel in, and that was grounding arms and: eating pies. I found that the current went towards Castle Garden, and away I went with it. There the troops were all collected on the green, shaded by the trees, and the effect was very beautiful. The artillery and infantry were drawn up in a line pointing to the water. The officers in their regimental dresses and long white feathers, generals and aides-de-camp, colonels, commandants, majors, all galloping up and down in front of the line,---white horses and long tails appearing the most fashionable and correct.- The crowds assembled were, as American crowds usually are qiuiet and well behaved. I recognised many of my literary ·friends turned into generals, and flourishing their swords instead –their pens. The scene was very animating; the shipping at the wharfs were loaded with star-spangled banners; steamers paddling in every direction, were covered with flags; the whole beautiful Sound was alive with boats and sailing vessels, all flaunting ... pennants and streamers. It was, as Ducrow would call it, a "Grand Military and Aquatic Spectacle."
-:·Then the troops marched up into town again, and so did I follow them as I used to do the reviews in England, when a boy. All creation appeared to be independent on this day; some of the horses particularly so, for they would not keep "in no line not now how." Some preferred going sideways like crabs, others went backwards, some would not go at all, others went a great deal too fast, not a few parted company with their riders, whom they kicked off just to shew their independence; but let them go which way would, they could not avoid the squibs and crackers. And the women were in the same predicament: they might dance right, or dance left, it was only out of the frying-pan into the fire, for it was pop, pop; hang, hang; fiz, pop, bang, so that you literally trod upon gunpowder.
When the troops marched up Broadway, louder even than the music were to be heard the screams of delight from the children at the crowded windows on each side. "Ma! ma! there's pa!" "Oh! there's John." "Look at uncle on his big horse."

The troops did not march in very good order, because, independently of their not knowing how, there was a great deal of independence to contend with. At one time an omnibus and four would drive in and cut off the general and his staff from his division; at another, a cart would roll in and insist upon following close upon the band of music; so that it was a mixed procession--Generals, omnibus and four, music, cartloads of bricks, troops, omnibus and pair, artillery, hackney-coach, &c. &c. Notwithstanding all this, they at last arrived at the City Hall, when those who were old enough heard the Declaration of Independence read for the sixty-first time; and then it was-"Begone, brave army, and don't kick up a row."

I was invited to dine with the mayor and corporation at the City Hall. We sat down in the Hall of Justice, and certainly, great justice was done to the dinner, which, ( as the wife says to her husband after a party, where the second course follows the first with unusual celerity) "went off remarkably well." The crackers popped outside, and the champagne popped in. The celerity of the Americans at a public dinner is very commendable; they speak only now and then; and the toasts follow so fast, that you have just time to empty your glass, before you are requested to fill again. Thus the arranged toasts went off rapidly, and after them, any one might withdraw. I waited till the thirteenth toast, the last on the paper, to wit, the ladies of America; and, having previously, in a speech from the recorder, bolted Bunker's Hill and New Orleans, I thought I might as well bolt myself, as I wished to see the fireworks, which were to be very splendid.

Unless you are an amateur, there is no occasion to go to the various places of public amusement where the fireworks are let off, for they are sent up every where in such quantities that you .hardly know which way to turn your eyes. It is, however, adviseable to go into some place of safety, for the little boys and the big boys have all got their supply of rockets, which they fire off in the streets--some running horizontally up the pavement, and sticking onto the back of a passenger; and others mounting slantingdicularly and Paul-Prying into the bed-room windows on the third floor or attics, just to see how things are going on there. Look in any point of the compass, and you will see a shower of rockets in the sky: turn from New York to Jersey City, from Jersey City to Brooklyn, .and shower is answered by shower on either side of the water. Hoboken repeats the signal: and thus it is carried on to the east, the west, the north, and the south, from Rhode Island to the Missouri, from the Canada frontier to the Gulf of Mexico. At the various gardens the combinations were very beautiful, and exceeded .anything that I had witnessed in London or Paris. What with sea-serpents, giant rockets scaling heaven, Bengal lights, Chinese fires, Italian suns, fairy bowers, crowns of Jupiter, exeranthemums, Tartar temples, Vesta's diadems, magic circles, morning glories, stars of Columbia, and temples of liberty, all America was in a blaze; and, in addition to this mode of manifesting its joy, all America was tipsy.

There is something grand in the idea of national intoxication. ·In this world, vices on a grand scale dilate into virtues; he who murders one man, is strung up with ignominy; but he who murders twenty thousand has a statue to his memory, and is handed down posterity as a hero. A staggering individual is a laughable and, sometimes, a disgusting spectacle; but the whole of a vast continent reeling, offering a holocaust of its brains for mercies vouchsafed, is an appropriate tribute of gratitude for the rights of equality and the levelling spirit of their institutions. 

Research Assistance Request

I need photocopies of pp. 61, 65-68 of Daniel D. Hartzler, Arms Makers of Maryland for a law review article that is preparing for publication.  Unfortunately, my local library can't seem to interlibrary loan books from outside Idaho. It seems silly to fly somewhere to get 5 pages copied.  I'm more than happy to pay someone to go and get these for me.  The following libraries have copies:

Family History Library 

Salt Lake City, UT 84150 United States

McCracken Research Library - BBHC 

Cody, WY 82414 United States

Northern Arizona University
Cline Library

Flagstaff, AZ 86001 United States

University of Alberta 

Edmonton, AB T6G 2J8 Canada

Arizona State University Libraries 

Tempe, AZ 85287 United States

University of Texas at Arlington
Central Library

Arlington, TX 76019 United States

Saint Louis County Library
Headquarters

St Louis, MO 63131 United States

University of Illinois Springfield
Brookens Library

Springfield, IL 62703 United States

Washington University in St. Louis
.

St. Louis, MO 63130 United States

Wisconsin Historical Society 

Madison, WI 53706 United States

Newberry Library 

Chicago, IL 60610 United States

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign 

Urbana, IL 61801 United States

Allen County Public Library
ACPL

Fort Wayne, IN 46802 United States

Indiana State Library - ISL 

Indianapolis, IN 46202 United States

Miami University Libraries
King Library

Oxford, OH 45056 United States

The Henry Ford
Benson Ford Research Center

Dearborn, MI 48124 United States

Cleveland Public Library
Main Library

Cleveland, OH 44114 United States

Juliette Hampton Morgan Memorial Library 

Montgomery, AL 36108 United States

Ohio State University Libraries 

Columbus, OH 43210 United States

Buffalo and Erie County Public Library
Central (downtown Buffalo)

Buffalo, NY 14203 United States

Thanks.  One of my loyal readers has taken this on.

Reader in Chicago, Dayton, OH or Cleveland, OH

I need a book pulled.

Annals of Cleveland, 1818-1935 : [a digest and index of the newspaper record of events and opinions in two hundred volumes]

Newberry Library 

Chicago, IL 60610 United States

University of Dayton
Roesch Library

Dayton, OH 45469 United States

Hiram College Library 

Hiram, OH 44234 United States

Western Reserve Historical Society
Research Library

Cleveland, OH 44106 United States

This may be in book or microform.

There are two articles I need copies of:

“Gun Factory,” October 30, 1821, Cleaveland [Ohio] Herald, 3; “New Goods,” Ibid., 4

Never mind.  Found the ads in my stockpile of images.

Cutting Off Immigration

2/4/17 New York Times:

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina is so used to celebrating immigration as a cornerstone of society that a 19th-century saying — to govern is to populate — remains in use to this day.

But in an abrupt shift coinciding with the immigration restrictions put in place by the Trump administration, President Mauricio Macri has issued a decree curbing immigration to Argentina, with his government declaring that newcomers from poorer countries in Latin America bring crime.

The measures announced by Mr. Macri in recent days made it much easier to deport immigrants and restrict their entry, prompting irate comparisons to President Trump and igniting a fierce debate over immigration.

Keep in mind that most South American countries were long very welcoming of immigrants, partly because they were underpopulated (if you ignore the Indians) and sought larger populations to spread costs across: there are fixed costs to operating a government regardless of population.  Spreading those costs over 10x as many taxpayers is thus a win.

In some cases, they were making up for catastrophic historical mistakes.  Paraguay's 19th century strongman "El Supremo,"  started wars with three neighbors at once.  By the time he was done, 90% of the adult male population was dead.  Hence Paraguay's willingness to accept German Jews fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s, and then Nazis after World War II.

I have read that Argentina until the 1940s was at about the same economic development level as Canada.  Argentina also liked to imagine itself as the only white republic south of the Rio Grande.

Suggestions on Wild West Magazines?

I am looking for popular magazines about the Wild West era or generally about early American history to which to submit articles about Haag's bogus book.  (I have given up on scholarly history journals.)  I have already submitted to True West.

Remember This 1960s TV Ad

The vehicle goes through the streets with a sign that says "Show Us Your [Cigarette brand name]" to the William Tell Overture.  Can't remember the brand now.  It so typifies the madness of 1960s advertising.

A Wealth of Data

One of the insane tasks that I took on when writing Armed America (2006) was compiling a spreadsheet of all the gunsmiths that I found in primary and secondary sources, working  before 1840, at least in part to refute the Bellesiles/Haag claim of a lack of early gun culture.  I ended up with 2445 entries for which I could establish dates and location.  I started searching a resource that was not available in the 2000s: books.google.com and what an overwhelming wealth.

While revising this chapter, I took advantage of the dramatic expansion of searchable online books and soon realized that examples such as the following have expanded the available data to a level that would enlarge this book dramatically were I to include all: An 1831 request from the War Department to Maj. F.W. Armstrong requests that he repair all the old rifles belonging to the Choctaws, authorizing him to hire “an additional gun-smith” if needed.[1]  Similarly, War Department instructions to Lewis Cass specify maximum wages to be paid to gunsmiths providing repair services to the Indians.[2]

---

[1] Commissary General of Subsistence, Correspondence on the Subject of the Emigration of Indians, Washington: Duff Green, 1835), 2:372-3.

[2] Ibid., 2:848.

The Social Justice of Mass Production

I have seen SJW criticism of mass production as dehumanizing because it reduces operatives to cogs.  While researching my book on gun manufacturing, I found a discussion of Colt's Hartford factory implemented Adam Smith's explanation of division of labor and its economic benefits.  But also this:

A panegyric to Colt published in 1866, explaining the advantages of division of labor, pointed out along with the many efficiencies articulated in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) adds yet another: a job for everyone, regardless of skill level. “One man is too ignorant to manage a machine for stocking, but he can oil that machine, or at least sweep away its chips, a service for which two men are paid each a dollar a day.”[1]

---

[1] Henry Barnard, Armsmear: The Home, the Arm, and the Armory of Samuel Colt. A Memorial, (New York, n.p., 1866), 218.

Even people who might otherwise be unemployable could have some job; always better than dependence or poverty.

Robotic Rifles in the Nineteenth Century

At one point, Haag makes the bizarre claim that Winchester rifles developed a will of their own; or perhaps this Yale Ph.D. does not know what “volition” is.  “Speed (not power) and accuracy from a distance were the mechanical soul of all Winchesters.  With each design advance, the volition of the rifle became more volitional.”  “Volition” refers to “making a choice”[1]; was Winchester making the earliest intelligent robotic gun?  No.  Haag clearly believes that the finger doesn’t pull the trigger; the trigger pulls the finger.

“Small, mortal operations of armed conflict occurred through the technological ingenuity of the mechanical hand, and the confrontation became less intimate or physically immediate.  The gun ‘did’ more of the motions and actions of the killing.”[2]  “Instead, people and animals were shot faster, at greater distances, with a more mechanically volitional weapon.”[3]

Again, human agency has been replaced by gun agency.  While this may make Haag feel better, blaming the gun and thus the gun maker, not the shooter; it is pretty clearly delusional thinking.

---

[1] “Volition” definition; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/volition, last accessed December 29. 2016.

[2] Haag, The Gunning of America, at 181.

[3] Id., at 203.