An AI Goes Insane, Emails FBI Over $2

We need to revive the Luddite movement since computers truly will never replace humans, unless companies want to lose customers due to poor customer service. And we can't forget how bad AI and the blockchain are to the environment.

I would add that businesses need to take responsibility and not try to push it off on machines.

Then again, I would love to see the tech bubble burst bigtime. And it sounds like its coming soon:

AI is scaring both sides of the political spectrum. Both JD Vance and Cenk Cygur are pointing out how AI can go out of control.

Just remember that a market economy requires a market, which are customers. Businesses exist for customers, not customers for businesses. The Jevins paradox meets the Ai paradox.

#AngryVeteran Rants About Cheering The Burning Plantation

 I don't totally agree with what he says, but I agree for the most part of what he says.

And not having the plantation around makes it a whole lot easier to deny what happened.

Yes, they do have weddings in concentration camps

I mentioned in my last post that getting married in a plantation would be the perfect form of revenge given marriage and family life was not allowed.  Actually, this is a subject for debate, but I don't want to get into it.

I object to any comparison of plantations to concentration camps since I see a lot of ignorance even from historians in the US about this topic. 

Number one and most importantly, the only people who wanted to see these destroyed were the people who committed the crimes. Everyone else is aware that the destruction of concentration camps will erase their memory. I used the example of Belzec. It was one of the operation Reinhard camps where between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews (I would say more but cannot prove it) are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Bełżec . It was the third-deadliest extermination camp, exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only seven members of the Sonderkommando Survived.

Not many people have heard about it because it was destroyed. But that is an aside.

The second reason is that like under slavery, Jews were discouraged from getting married in the camps. Marriage was an act of resistance:

“They got married in the ghetto and gave birth there. The “Death Machine” didn’t break the main thing – the human spirit and the will to live. After all, they wouldn’t let them die, otherwise, it was the ultimate surrender”, – says Alexander Boroda, the President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.

After the war, people found themselves in Displaced Persons camps, some of which were on the site of former concentration camps. They got married in those camps.

But to answer the question:

Historic military compound the Seventh Fort in Vilnius, Lithuania has become a popular site for weeding parties and children summer camps, but, according to Israeli press, a Nazi German concentration camp had once stood there.

Belgian new portal New Europe reports citing The Jerusalem Post that the 18-acre red-brick bunker complex built in 1880s was also the site of a concentration camp in 1941. The Israeli newspaper wrote that thousands of Jews were imprisoned, treated inhumanely, killed and buried at the Seventh Fort.

from https://bnn-news.com/weddings-in-vilnius-held-near-wwii-concentration-camp-148244 

The weddings are not held on the area where the Holocaust victims are buried, which is only 2% of the camp area.

So, if you are going to use the concentration camp example, then the descendants of formerly enslaved people should be "jumping" at the chance to get married on a plantation since it was something denied to their ancestors.

And descendants of people killed in concentration camps show their defiance and love for life by doing exactly that.

Supreme Court Can’t Hear Case Because Majority Had To Be Recused

People are upset about the mention of "court packing", but the founders didn't put judicial review into the Constitution. Toss in that the Supreme Court didn't have ethics rules until 2023!

And when they did adopt ethics rules (from NPR):

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday adopted its first-ever ethics code, bowing to pressure from Congress and the public. All nine justices signed onto the new code, which was instantly criticized for lack of an enforcement mechanism.

In an unsigned statement, the justices said though there has been no formal code, they have long abided by certain standards.

"The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules," they wrote. "To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct."

Public trust in the court has fallen amid revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas received gifts and travel from Harlan Crow, a Republican donor. Justice Samuel Alito has also been criticized for failing to disclose a fishing trip with Paul Singer, a big Republican donor with cases before the Supreme Court.

This gets better

With the release of the code Monday, the court is trying to be somewhat specific about what justices can and cannot do. But, there is a lot they can do and no enforcement mechanism as to what they are supposed not to do.

For example, the code is quite specific about financial transactions: Justices can make a real estate transaction, as long as it's not before the court. But the code simply reaffirms the commitment to the disclosure provisions that are in the existing code for all federal judges.

The code is also specific about recusal if family members, such as spouses, children or grandchildren, have a case before the court or is a lawyer before the court.

But the code also makes exceptions for justices that may not apply to lower court judges. For instance, a justice doesn't have to recuse if his or her relative files a friend of the court brief because the court receives so many of these briefs, sometimes over 100 in a single case, and it has loosened the rules on these briefs being filed.

In recent months, critics have raised concerns about Justice Thomas' wife, Virginia Thomas, and her activities to promote political causes that end up before the court. The code says that if a spouse or child living with the justice has a substantial interest in the outcome of a case — financial or any other interest — the justice is supposed to recuse. That would have meant, for example, that Justice Thomas would have to recuse in cases in which his wife has played a major role. Last year, Thomas did not recuse, and was the sole dissenter, in a case about whether former President Trump's White House records had to be turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, despite Ginni Thomas' texts to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urging him to take steps to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

 I'm sorry, but I have not had respect for the US Supreme Court for a long time. Serious ethics rules would be a start.

Jumping the broom

James Catnach - The Marriage Act Displayed in Cuts and Verse (British Library)

I'm not going to go into the history of this tradition other than to repeat something said in one article about it:

Parry writes that despite the racial animus which characterized the US South during the nineteenth century, poor white Southerners (many of whom were descendants of people who had irregular forms of matrimony in Britain) and enslaved African Americans had more cultural exchange than is commonly acknowledged.

But the reason I bring it up is that one of the institutions which was prohibited to slaves was marriage and a stable family life. A lot of the criticism about Nottoway is that it was used for weddings, which was something prohibited to slaves. On the other hand, no one has mentioned if blacks were prohibited from celebrating their marriages there in recent times. I'm not going to get into a discussion of "jumping the broom" or the institution of marriage during slavery since it would take a lot more than a blog post.

On the other hand, what would be a better form of revenge than for black people to get married on a place where it was prohibited to their ancestors?

I see way too much boohooing and handwringing that "slavery was bad" without too much introspection on what has been lost to future generations. The concentration camps have been kept as memorials. The only people who wanted them destroyed were the people who committed the crimes to hide the evidence. 

Have you ever heard of Belzec? No, it was destroyed to hide the evidence. If you are going to mention concentration camps--then you should mention that.

This place was up for sale not too long ago: why didn't people buy it to turn it into another Whitney Plantation where slavery is addressed honestly?

To be honest if reparations are going to happen, they probably won't monetary, or just focused on one race: they will only come from an honest and open discussion of race in America.

And destroying the places which are painful really isn't the answer.

Nottoway Plantation--Those who forget the past may repeat its mistakes

I'm rather surprised by black people rejoicing at the destruction of this plantation since it seems to me that they would want to preserve this. They seem to ignore that the destruction of this historic structure erases it from the collective memory. It's like destroying native American heritage wipes it from the mental landscape.

While blacks know about it, I thought I would try to find an unbiased account of this place. The US media is sharply divided on the issue with blacks being disgusted by the house being used for weddings. This is despite areas where the slaves were kept being present. Also, this plantation was a sugar plantation, which made far more money than cotton did.

I am one who believes in trying to stay historically accurate. I agree with this comment by Redacted on the Independent.co.uk website. Perhaps more deference should have been given to the slaves, but I didn't hear anyone who has commented about how happy they are to see the destruction of this plantation say that the current owners discriminated in anyway.

And it would be ironic if black people had weddings and visited the plantation, which they can't do for the time being.

Anyway, I tried to find some coverage about Nottoway in the French media and only found articles about it as a tourist destination.

So, maybe the joy is merited.

On the other hand, one of the youtube posts rejoicing in the destruction was followed by a very complimentary post about Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The French have a saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."

I'm with Michael Twitty, the person who wrote the screencapped article at the top of this page:

Coming to terms with what these plantations have meant is a process that takes time and generational commitment. Plantations and sites related to slavery have to have foot traffic and human and financial investment to preserve the evidence of African and African American labor, craft and resistance. Still, they shouldn’t exist as mere resorts.

Trump has found Gödel's Loophole in the US Constitution which allows the US to become a dictatorship.

Kurt Gödel was an Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and analytic philosopher. He was born in Austria and emmigrated to the United States

When Gödel was studying to take his American citizenship test in 1947, he came across what he called an "inner contradiction" in the U.S. Constitution. At the time, he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was good friends with Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern. Gödel told Morgenstern about the flaw in the constitution, which, he said, would allow the U.S. to legally become a fascist state. Morgenstern tried to convince Gödel that this was very unlikely, but Gödel remained very concerned about it. He was an Austrian by birth and, having lived through the 1933 coup d'état and escaped from Nazi Germany after the Anschluss, had reason to be concerned about living in a fascist dictatorship. Morgenstern had secret discussions with Gödel about his concerns and told Einstein about them.

Since the exact nature of Gödel's Loophole has never been published, what it is, precisely, is not known. In his 2012 paper "Gödel's Loophole" F. E. Guerra-Pujol speculates that the problem involves Article V, which describes the process by which the Constitution can be amended. The loophole is that Article V's procedures can be applied to Article V itself. It can therefore be altered in a "downward" direction, making it easier to alter the article again in the future. So even if, as is now the case, amending the Constitution is difficult to bring about, once Article V is downwardly amended, the next attempt to do so will be easier, and the one after that easier still.  Other writers have speculated that Gödel may have had other aspects of the Constitution in mind as well, including the abuse of gerrymandering, prorogation of Congress, the Electoral College, and the presidential pardon.

In any case, the Gödel story is at least plausible. He spent a great deal of time thinking about systems of rules (axiom systems in mathematics), and looking for their limits and what such systems can say about themselves.

It should come as no surprise that when encouraged to look at the US constitution (which is, after all, just a set of rules), Gödel was enthusiastic and his thoughts turned immediately to what the system said about itself – and its limitations. It should also come as no surprise then that when he looked, he found some.

So, maybe the loophole isn't what is written in the US Constitution, but is something which has come about through tradition?  Although, I have come to realise the US Constitution is basically poorly written bumpf. A piece of shit written by a committee. Which is why he couldn't put his finger on one thing. Since as the speculation has pointed out, there are more than enough problems with it.

But Donald Trump pushed the envelope with his attack on birthright citizenship. Which is something I agree about and there is a simple solution which requires an amendment to the Constitution that at least one parent needs to have some legal connection to the United States (Ireland uses this). But instead of following tradition and protocol, Trump has chosen to use the nuclear option.

He's challenging the Supreme Court and its power.

So much for checks and balances.

So, I am going to quote myself on the biggest problem, which is one which custom has allowed to stand.

In fact, those decisions (Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment) should be laughed at. And any academic or practising lawyer who is shit for brains enough to give them the slightest credence should be barred from the practise of law since they ignore a fundamental basis of US Constitutional law.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

It's one of the first cases any constitutional law class covers, which is why anyone who gives Heller and McDonald a shred of legitimacy should be barred from the practise of law. Why? First off.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, was a U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that contravene the U.S. Constitution.

Judicial review for constitutionality is not a power granted by the US Constitution: it comes from this case.

More importantly it centred around a clause in the US Constitution (hint, hint, for those shit for brains who want to call themselves "Constitutional Scholars").

My question when Heller came down was how does the system handle an out of control Judiciary? The obvious answer is that it defers to tradition. On the other hand, Trump is pointing out that the emperor is naked. Does the Supreme Court, or the Judiciary, have any real power to enforce its decisions? 

So, maybe the reason Gödel didn't tell anyone what this loophole happened to be was because it is that the entire constitution is a house of cards. Gödel could see this since English wasn't his first language and he was a logician. The loophole isn't something which is written into the constitution, it is something which was attributed to the constitution.

And as I have pointed out, proper legal method requires that something needs to be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution for it to be constitutional. Gödel's loophole is the deference given to concepts which are not explicitly written into the Constitution. Assumptions made by the founders which can be exploited by those with malicious intent. And the fact that language changes meaning.

The Second Amendment was the perfect example of this.

So, two people whose mother tongue is not English can agree on this. It's not what is written, it is what ISN'T written. Or is subject to misinterpretation.

Scalia was very wrong when he said: "Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

That is precisely what he needed to do before he set in motion the destruction of the United States.

And the "scholars", politicians, and lawyers who allowed this should resign their positions for someone who is competent.

Politics and appearance: Mangione's supporters explained

OK, the US political system is broken. I doubt it was ever functional from 1759 onward. Benjamin Franklin suggested a plan for unifying the thirteen colonies the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. The Albany Plan of Union was rejected. Franklin wrote about the rejection of his proposals: "The colonial assemblies and most of the people were narrowly provincial in outlook, mutually jealous, and suspicious of any central taxing authority."

Joseph Galloway suggested a similar proposal at the First Continental Congress of 1774 but was also rejected. The Articles of Confederation were proposed at the Second Continental Congress and finally accepted in 1781! Of course, the Articles of Confederation were a failure, and its replacement is nearly as bad.

Anyway, the US has had a culture of violence and disunity from the start.

I'm sorry the founders didn't just admit they messed up.

'America Could Not Have Won The War Without France'

Tant pis pour vous, car ces singes mangeurs de fromage sont la seule véritable raison pour laquelle vous avez votre indépendance. Auriez-vous pu continuer à voler des provisions pour poursuivre votre révolte si les Européens n'étaient pas intervenus ? Pas de tout!

Loyalist Networks and the Coming of the American Revolution in New York ...

As I said in an earlier post: British North America isn't that hard an alternative reality since it's called Canada. The British North America Acts, 1867–1975, are a series of acts of Parliament that were at the core of the Constitution of Canada. Most were enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and some by the Parliament of Canada. So, being a tory didn't mean one was against "independence", it just meant that any change in status had to come through a lawful process. Rebellion is not a lawful means. 

I agree with Christopher Minty that the Loyalist side of the story needs to be told.

After all, this person was a Boston tory who said that he would prefer to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away than three thousand tyrants a mile away.

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!

The US is too soft on unlawfully present people

 The less politically correct term is illegal immigrant, but the issue is their immigration status. One of the reasons for the laxness is that it is not a crime to be unlawfully present in the US, which it is in most other countries.

Anyway, this video is someone trying to get into Canada to work without proper authorisation.

I support stronger immigration controls since there definitely needs to be some sort of background check performed on people who want to come here. But it shouldn't be difficult for those who want to do it legally.

Would You Have Joined the American Revolution?

You might be surprised! And that's not my tory speaking. 

You don't understand natural rights if you think they give you a right to own a weapon

 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I will admit I have a lot of problems with the concept of "natural rights" with the major one being that they don't exist. The reason I started this post with the quote from the Declaration of Independence is that is says "liberty" would be a natural right. As an extension, so would slavery, yet the person who wrote that owned slaves and raped one of them: Saslly Hemmings.

And if we are getting into that they are "god given", shouldn't they be somewhat in line with the ten commandments?  Establishing natural rights seems a rather straightforward thing to sort out amongst citizens, but even the most basic natural right, the right to life, is fraught with potential pitfalls such as 'does that right include or exclude the right to an abortion or the right to euthanasia?' But more in line with this is the ability to use deadly force despite the commandment "thou shalt not kill". 

As I point out for one of my arguments that the Heller decision is wrong is that the use of deadly force in common law at the time of the drafting of the constitution was a last resort. The common law scholar, Blackstone, wrote concerning this the law of self-defence:

THE defence of one’s self, or the mutual and reciprocal defence of such as stand in the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. In these cases, if the party himself, or any of these his relations, be forcibly attacked in his person or property, it is lawful for him to repel force by force; and the breach of the peace, which happens, is chargeable upon him only who began the affrayd . For the law, in this case, respects the passions of the human mind; and (when external violence is offered to a man himself, or those to whom he bears a near connection) makes it lawful in him to do himself that immediate justice, to which he is prompted by nature, and which no prudential motives are strong enough to restrain. It considers that the future process of law is by no means an adequate remedy for injuries accompanied with force; since it is impossible to say, to what wanton lenghs of reapine or cruelty outrages of this sort might be carried, unless it were permitted a man immediately to oppose one violence with another. Self-defence therefore as it is justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away be the law of society. In the English law particularly it is held an excuse for breaches of the peace, nay even for homicide itself: but care must be taken that the resistance does not exceed the bounds of mere defence and prevention; for then the defender would himself become an aggressor.

Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the Third, Chapter the First: Of the Redress of Private Wrongs by the Mere Act of Parties p.3

In the Enlightenment, some of the greatest minds in history set themselves the formidable task of thrashing out just what should be considered natural rights. In fact, there is quite a debate as to what exactly these rights would be and how they come about. I've already said that anyone can claim anything as a right, but whether your claimed right is accepted is another matter.

I would also add that this is a much more complex philosophical issue than most of the people who talk about it realise.  It's not the libertarian state of nature, but an acceptance of a social contract. And even the state of nature has its rules. And the rules come from the use of reason which makes everyone equal and by necessity must respect other's rights. Expecially in ways that would harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

The motivation behind the individual’s leaving the state of nature—the state of liberty—lies in the uncertainty and insecurity of enjoying life, liberty, and physical goods.  Locke recognized in his Second Treatise of Government  that individuals would perceive themselves in the following way: “For all being kings as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state [of nature] is very unsafe, very unsecure.” Individuals, therefore, must remain in a state of vigilance against others who do not properly use their reason to recognize the truth of natural rights. Instead of living peacefully, acquiring property, and pursuing their own conception of happiness, individuals must stay vigilant against those who are willing to violate another’s life, liberty, or property, thus presenting a barrier for others from enjoying any or all of them. Hence, it is rational to consent to a social contract, even for those who would not follow the natural law in the state of nature, and establish a government that quells this state of “continual danger.” The end—or purpose and final cause—of “uniting into [a] commonwealth” and erecting a government, therefore, is “the preservation of property”—where property is understood to include life, liberty, and property.

Citizens relinquish some of their powers from the state of nature; more specifically, these include the powers of “doing whatsoever he [thinks] fit for the preservation of himself” and “punishing others” whom he thinks committed injustices against him. Locke believed that citizens should first establish general and promulgated law “received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all controversies between them.”

The reality is that even if you want to claim a "natural right", there needs to be some consensus from society about that right. The problem with the Second Amendment is that there is so much misinformation about it out there and very little fact.  I found an interesting abstract on this which pretty much sums up what I am saying:

A growing body of scholarship claims that the Second Amendment was intended to enable individuals to exercise their natural right to self-defense against violence. In this Article, Heyman shows that this view is based on a misunderstanding of the natural rights tradition, as reflected in the works of Locke and Blackstone, the post-Revolutionary state declarations of rights, and the debates over the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Natural rights theory held that, when individuals entered society, they largely gave up their right to use force against others in return for the protection that they received under the law. And while the people retained a right to resist and over- throw governmental tyranny, this was a right that belonged not to private individuals but to the community as a whole. In this way, Heyman argues, the natural rights tradition provides more support for a collective right than for an individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Steven J. Heyman, Natural Rights and the Second Amendment, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 237 (2000).
Available at: https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol76/iss1/8

And if we are going down the path of it being a natural right, it has fallen victim to absurdity: not reason. The concept of natural rights does indeed mean that people have given up their "individual rights" to be members of society. And to claim that something which is detrimental to society is a "right" is absurd.

Britain's Forgotten Riflemen: Deadly Sharpshooters of the Revolution

Another myth about the war for independence bites the dust.

I'm not sure how to title this post about "assault weapons"...

For some reason, some "Democrats" have decided to revive the proposal about banning "assault weapons". Let's start with the obvious: it's the same old shit rehashed. That is "Cosmetic features" and a list of firearms which is one of the reasons the first was a failure. The manufacturers went out and reworked their firearms into "sporter versions" and some were grandfathered in.

I like that the HK94 was being sold prior to the ban. The HK94 was a carbine version of the H&K MP5 but it had a long barrel. That meant it wasn't short barreled rifle. Anyway, these were grandfathered in. I've heard that they command a high price since people buy them and are able to convert them to fully automatic! Of course, as far as I know there has been no NFA item which has been used in a crime.

But this is a good segue to the 26 USC 5845 definition of a Machine gun:

Machine guns, defined as any firearm which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.

 I copied this from another post where I talk about the M1 carbine being banned. Using this definition there is the M2 variant is designed to be capable of fully automatic fire, therefore, the M1 is a machinegun using that defintion.

I strongly suggest that people read the case law 26 USC 5845 in particular the law relating to “designed to shoot” and “readily restored to shoot”:

“There were two welds in the gun which obviously was, when manufactured, ‘designed to shoot.’ The barrel of the gun was welded closed at the breech and was also welded to the receiver on the outside under the handguard. Scroggie testified that there are two possible ways by which the firearm could be made to function as such. The most feasible method would be to cut the barrel off, drill a hole in the forward end of the receiver and then rethread the hole so that the same or another barrel could be inserted. To do so would take about an 8-hour working day in a properly equipped machine shop. Another method which would be more difficult because of the possibility of bending or breaking the barrel would be to drill the weld out of the breech of the barrel. United States v. Smith, 477 F.2d 399(8th Cir.1973)

In the context of the NFA and its use as a modifier describing the manner of firearm restoration, “readily” has been read to encompass several elements of restoration: (1) time, i.e., how long it takes to restore the weapon; (2) ease, i.e., how difficult it is to restore the weapon; (3) expertise, i.e., what knowledge and skills are required to restore the weapon; (4) necessary equipment, i.e., what tools are required to restore the weapon; (5) availability, i.e., where additional parts are required, how easily they can be obtained; (6) expense, i.e., how much it costs to restore the weapon; (7) scope, i.e., the extent to which the weapon has to be changed to allow it to shoot automatically; (8) feasability, i.e., whether the restoration would damage or destroy the weapon or cause it to malfunction. See S.W. Daniel, Inc. v. United States, 831 F.2d 253, 254-55 (11th Cir. 1987) (ease and scope); United States v. Alverson, 666 F.2d 341, 345 (9th Cir.1982) (expertise, ease, and scope); United States v. Smith, 477 F.2d 399, 400 (8th Cir.1973) (time and equipment); United States v. Aguilar-Espinosa, 57 F.Supp.2d 1359, 1362 (M.D.Fla.1999) (time, ease, expertise, and equipment); United States v. Seven Misc. Firearms, 503 F.Supp. 565, 573-75 (D.D.C.1980) (time, ease, expertise, equipment, availability, expense, and feasibility); United States v. Cook, No. 92-1467, 1993 WL 243823, at *3-4 (6th Cir. July 6, 1993) (availability)…
The decisions of several other courts make clear that the Defendant weapon, which would require, according to Alverson’s own expert, a maximum of six hours to convert to fire automatically, “can be readily restored” under the NFA. The Eighth Circuit held that a semiautomatic rifle that would take an eight-hour working day in a properly equipped machine shop to convert to shoot automatically qualified as a “machinegun” under the NFA.10 Smith, 477 F.2d at 400; cf. United States v. Shilling, 826 F.2d 1365, 1367 (4th Cir.1987) (holding that disassembled guns that could be made to shoot automatically were “readily restor[able]”); S.W. Daniel, Inc., 831 F.2d at 254-55 (upholding the use of a jury instruction defining a machinegun as “those weapons which have not previously functioned as machine guns but possess design features which facilitate full automatic fire by simple modification or elimination of existing component parts”); Alverson, 666 F.2d at 345 (concluding that an automatic weapon that was converted to fire semiautomatically prior to its sale to defendant could be “readily restored” where it could be modified to shoot automatically by filing down one of its parts); United States v. Lauchli, 371 F.2d 303, 312-13 (7th Cir.1966) (in a case prior to the addition of the “can be readily restored” language to the NFA, deciding that weapons requiring assembly to shoot automatically were machineguns under the NFA). U.S. v. One TRW, Model M14, 7.62 Caliber Rifle, 441 F.3d 416(2006)

There’s readily restorable for you!

 Anyway, there are enough manuals out there on how to turn semi-automatic weapons into full auto that it should be a no-brainer that these firearms fit the above description of readily restorable.

Let's throw in things like bump fire and other mods that turn these weapons into fully automatic fire without making an actual conversion.

So, there is a law on the books which has been on the books for some time which would have prevented the sale of these firearms, but nobody bothered with enforcing it.

Let's toss in that getting all the semi-automatic firearms off the street now would require one very large buyback, which would be at fair market value, as well as an amnesty period. Probably any serious ban would require periodic amnesties as well and the type of turn ins that follow the discovery of "inherited" NFA items.

And the political climate is really unfavourable for this type of law. It has been since the Heller decision came out. But like anything political in this country: no one (in power) had the fortitude to address the issue.

Bottom line: too much talk has been about gun rights, rights come with responsibilities.  It's time we start factoring in that too many people are not responsible gun owners. But they are the loud crowd.

Nice idea, but...

The history of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

The problem with the US supreme court is that it has become political and not impartial. If anything, it has become a joke.

Scalia was the wrong person to judicially amend the Second Amendment. Heller and its progeny need to be relegated to the dustbin of judicial decisions because it is not supported by reality, but is a "justice" promoting his beliefs over the law.

There were authorities which should have taken precedence, especially if that clown wanted to claim to be "an originalist".

As I have pointed out many times self-defence is not mentioned in the US Constitution. would also add that the Constitution makes clear that it deals with matters of the common defence in the preamble and is silent on self-defence. Any first year law student knows that when a legal document is silent on an issue that that issue is not covered. There are a few other accepted rules of statutory interpretation which pretty much rule out that self-defence is addressed in the US Constitution and that the Second Amendment should be extended to allow for deadly weapons to be used for that purpose.

This adds in that the concept of self-defence in traditional common law is a mitigation, not an excuse. The black letter common law for this is:

Self-defence is a legal doctrine which says that a person may use reasonable force in the defence of themself or another.

Reasonable force is not in the mind of the person claiming self-defence, but in the finder of fact's (jury or judge) opinion. But the rule is pretty much that deadly force is NOT allowed unless there are extreme circumstances.

This might be the time to push this issue. No matter what, I would like an answer on the matter of how an "originalist" can somehow rule on constitutionality since that is not found in the text of the Constitution.

Even more importantly, an Originalist should not go against precedent and the Constitution as written. I am not sure how one would handle overturning a law for unconstitutionality since that is not a role given to the Supreme Court in the Constitution. Instead, it is found in custom.

Having a power which could strike down improper, and I should say unconstitutional since the concept of judicial review also is not found in the US Constitution, 

It comes from the case of Marbury v Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). Marbury also says that no clause in the Constitution is without meaning, which means that Heller and McDonald are BS since they ignore a clause in the Second Amendment.

The rule of law requires deference to precedent and legal method, which is something anyone wishing to bear the title of Supreme Court Justice should follow.