In late July 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit issued
an opinion that effectively made D.C. issue
concealed-carry permits on a “shall-issue”
basis.

Thanks to that ruling, and the District’s
reluctance to take the case to the Supreme
Court, thousands of law-abiding Americans
are now able to exercise their right to bear
arms in our nation’s capital.
The story of how concealed carry came
to D.C. starts, of course, with District of
Columbia v. Heller. After losing that case in
2008, D.C. amended its laws to only allow for
possession of a handgun in a resident’s home
or place of business. Since those changes left
in place a complete ban on carrying a gun
outside the home for personal protection,
D.C. again found itself in court defending an
unconstitutional law.
And, in 2014, when the District’s ban on
carry was held unconstitutional, D.C. changed
from a “no-issue” carry regime to “mayissue.”
While a permit to carry a firearm was
technically available, D.C.’s requirement that
an applicant show a “good reason” to carry a
firearm meant that the District could continue
to deny nearly all applications for a license.
“May-issue” regimes like the one
instituted in D.C. give unfettered discretion
to the government to decide who can and
cannot carry a firearm for self-defense.
These arbitrary and discriminatory laws are
completely incompatible with our Right to
Keep and Bear Arms. We’ve repeatedly
witnessed how these laws play out. The
wealthy elite and the politically connected
are the only Americans who can lawfully carry
a firearm under such a system.
In New York City, which has one of the
most restrictive “may-issue” carry laws in
the country, the licensing unit has been
repeatedly plagued with corruption scandals.
In the Big Apple, law-abiding Americans
must pay “fixers” to help them navigate the
byzantine process required to exercise their
right to bear arms. Beyond the over $400 in
licensing fees, applicants pay “gun-license
expeditors” thousands of dollars to simply
exercise their fundamental rights. This isn’t
a system that’s consistent with our Second
Amendment, and it isn’t necessary.
In 42 states, law-abiding Americans
are able to exercise their right to bear
arms without the arbitrariness and official
corruption that accompanies “may-issue”
carry laws. That’s why shortly after D.C.
amended its law to become “may-issue,” the
NRA filed a legal challenge in federal court.
That case, Grace v. D.C., and its companion case,
Wrenn v. D.C., eventually led to the 2017 ruling mentioned at the
beginning of this article. To avoid a repeat
of the Heller case in which D.C.’s attempt
to defend its unconstitutional law led
to a Supreme Court precedent clearly
recognizing the individual right to keep
and bear arms, D.C. chose not to appeal
the decision. Some D.C. officials even
admitted that their decision not to appeal
was influenced by the eight states that still
retain “may-issue” laws.
These states and D.C. seem to recognize that
there is no chance for “may-issue” to succeed
at the Supreme Court. They know that a system
that allows the government to discriminate in
choosing who can and cannot exercise their
constitutional rights is incompatible with our
system of ordered liberty.
Thanks to that ruling, D.C. has now
issued thousands of permits to law-abiding
gun owners. In the first month under the
new “shall-issue” system alone, the District
issued almost as many permits as it had in
the prior nine months. And, the number of
permits issued each month has continued
to climb since.
Despite our victory in D.C., we still have
a long way to go. While it’s now possible
for law-abiding applicants to exercise their
right to carry in D.C., millions of Americans
live in the eight remaining states that give
governments complete discretion in issuing
carry permits.

The Supreme Court has already decided
to hear an NRA-backed challenge to a
New York City law that makes it all but
impossible for gun owners to travel with a
handgun. New York is now doing its best to
change the law, at the 11th hour, to avoid an
adverse decision from the Supreme Court.
Whether or not it is successful in avoiding
a ruling from our highest court in this case,
the NRA will continue to fight for the right of
all law-abiding Americans to carry the firearm
of their choosing to defend themselves, their
loved ones and their fellow citizens.

‘The Harley Of Rifles’

A series of Space Force-themed hand guards at Unique ARs, an Idaho company that specializes in custom AR rifles. An estimated 16 million AR rifles are in civilian hands in America.

There’s no more beloved gun in the country than the AR. Dubbed “America’s Rifle” by the NRA, it’s inexpensive, easy to use, deadly accurate and, perhaps most importantly, customizable.

Corbet likens the AR to a Harley Davidson – the first thing people do when they get one is start adding and swapping accessories to make it their own. Each piece of an AR-15 — the magazine, the upper, the lower, the receiver, the stock — can be swapped out or given a new paint job. He said he gets requests for homages to dead friends, dead pets, even one design that incorporated knitting needles.

“Every time I think, ‘This is the most ridiculous thing,’ somebody ups the ante,” he said.

AR owners seem eager to keep pushing the boundaries of wild designs.

A trip down the rabbit hole of Instagram’s #ar15build hashtag reveals some wild designs, from a rainbow hued He-Man skin to a magazine painted with a Gatorade logo that reads “Haterade” and clips into a skull.


Jerry Frederick shows off one of two personalized AR rifles he had built by Unique ARs, an Idaho company that specializes in custom AR rifles. The AR has become the most popular rifle in America and one of the most controversial.


Idahoan Jerry Frederick owns two custom rifles from Unique ARs that are unlike any others in the world. The former drill sergeant and retired police officer points to a pair of black rifles, an AR-15 and an AR-10, with similar designs featuring Frederick’s last name engraved on the handguard in a classic, stylized font.

“This is one I designed,” Frederick explained. Pointing to an image of a torch and a breastplate on the barrel, he continued “There’s only a few people in the United States Army that get issued that patch. That’s a drill sergeant patch.”

Each one of Frederick’s rifles has a serial number ending in “01” — meaning it’s one of very few made — a fact he’s quick to point out. They’re engraved with a waving American flag design and a gold oval seal with the drill sergeant’s symbol etched into the metal.

Even the grip is special – it forms to Frederick’s hand and can instantly be reshaped to form to another hand. One gun dealer told Frederick the set could be worth $100,000 because of all of the customizations, but he says he’s not in the market to sell.

“It’s the only one like this. I’m really proud of that and obviously I’m not going to sell them,” Frederick said. “It will go to someone in my family.”
‘America’s Gun’

Luis Melgar, Guns & AmericaDavid Yamane is a sociology professor at Wake Forest University who studies American gun culture. Speaking from the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the gun industry’s largest annual showcase, he said the AR’s impact was clear.

“I don’t think there’s any single product category that is more represented at the SHOT Show,” he said. “So when people say it’s ‘America’s gun’ at least [from] what’s represented at the gun industry’s trade show, that seems to be clearly the case.”

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents the gun industry, Americans own up to 16 million ARs and similar “modern sporting rifles,” as the foundation calls that class of gun. Production has exploded in the past few years, hitting an estimated 2.1 million in 2016, excluding exports.

And while gun sales often spike during election years, 2016 sales represented nearly a two-fold increase over the year before.

Contrary to popular belief, AR stands for Armalite Rifle, not “assault rifle.” The Armalite company first developed the rifle in the 1950s to sell to the military but eventually sold the design to Colt. The 15 stands for model 15. There are also AR-10s, which are essentially the same gun with a different caliber.

The AR-15 as we know it, developed as the semi-automatic version of the military’s automatic M16.

It’s the most popular civilian rifle in America. That is partly due to its accuracy and lack of recoil; the rifle barely moves when you pull the trigger, unlike many other rifles that kick back hard against a shooter’s shoulder.

But what really sets it apart from other guns is that owners can add just about anything to it: a flashlight, a suppressor, custom grips. Even AR pistols are popular, though there are specific modifications needed to keep them legal. Add custom engraving, a specialty of Corbet’s company, and the guns start to resemble a fashion statement as much as a weapon.

“We wanted it to be so custom that you can have your name on it, your logo on it, your tattoo that you have on your arm, we can do that,” he said. “That’s what we set out to do, to make it as personal as you want it.”......

Want to customise something? Buy a car.

Panther wrote on Jul 25^th, 2019 at 11:06am:




Really, you must be driving the wrong cars.

Jasin wrote on Jul 25^th, 2019 at 11:18am:




Not sure what that has to do with guns and cars, but please feel free to continue on this bizarre rant