Category: All About Guns
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S&W 44 Double Action
In the short time that Bruen has been the law of the land, it is already bearing tangible results. Courts have struck down bans on the carrying of guns by 18 to 21-year-olds and local laws on the possession of firearms. More recently, New York’s petulant legislative response to losing in Bruen is being eviscerated.
Now another shoe has dropped. In United States v. Price, a district court in West Virginia considered whether bans on firearm possession by felons and possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers were constitutional. While finding that the law barring convicted felons from possessing guns was justified under Bruen, the court found that the laws against removing the serial number on a firearm, or possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number were not.
As Judge Joseph R. Goodwin wrote . . .
Firearms with no serial number are just as “bearable” as the same firearm with a serial number, and there is no “common use” issue here as the presence or lack of a serial number makes no difference with respect to whether the type of weapon is commonly used. Finally, I can find no authority for the idea that a firearm without a serial number would meet the historical definition of a dangerous or unusual firearm.
The opinion applies Bruen in a straightforward manner. Noting that serial numbers on firearms were essentially unknown until the era of mass production, and laws requiring them and prohibiting their removal dated only to the 1968 Gun Control Act, the court ruled that 18 U.S.C. § 922(k) unconstitutionally infringes on Second Amendment rights.
While not before the court, the court seems to indicate that requiring a manufacturer to serialize the guns it puts into commerce was acceptable, as such did not infringe any right to keep or bear arms.
The court gave the following examples:
Assume, for example, that a law-abiding citizen purchases a firearm from a sporting goods store. At the time of the sale, that firearm complies with the commercial regulation that it bear a serial number. The law-abiding citizen takes the firearm home and removes the serial number. He has no ill intent and never takes any otherwise unlawful action with the firearm. Contrary to the Government’s argument that Section 922(k) does not amount to an “infringement” on the lawabiding citizen’s Second Amendment right, the practical application is that while the law-abiding citizen’s possession of the firearm was originally legal, it became illegal only because the serial number was removed. He could be prosecuted federally for his possession of it. That is the definition of an infringement on one’s right to possess a firearm.
Now, assume that the law-abiding citizen dies and leaves his gun collection to his law-abiding daughter. The daughter takes the firearms, the one with the removed serial number among them, to her home and displays them in her father’s memory. As it stands, Section 922(k) also makes her possession of the firearm illegal, despite the fact that it was legally purchased by her father and despite the fact that she was not the person who removed the serial number. These scenarios make clear that Section 922(k) is far more than the mere commercial regulation the Government claims it to be. Rather, it is a blatant prohibition on possession. The conduct prohibited by Section 922(k) falls squarely within the Second Amendment’s plain text.
Before you break out your Dremel tool and start de-identifying your gats, remember that this case isn’t over. While the decision may (and should) be upheld, until it is final and the feds formally acknowledge that Section 922(k) is kaput, you must recognize that it might not be – and once you’ve removed a serial number, you can’t put it back on.
Similarly, there are various state laws that prohibit removal of serial numbers or possession of unserialized guns. While these should eventually be struck down for the same reason, until they are, you would be playing with fire.
I read the court’s opinion as potentially blessing laws enhancing the criminal penalties for committing a crime with a firearm that has had its serial number removed . . . which would give a zealous prosecutor additional ammunition were you to use such a firearm in a Zimmerman or Rittenhouse type self-defense situation.
What are the implications of this ruling? If its logic and reasoning are followed by other courts – again, they should be, as it’s a straightforward application of Bruen – then “ghost gun” bans, serialization requirements for homemade firearms, microstamping requirements, “smart gun” laws, and other recent ideas from the Shannon Wattses of the worlds should be toast.
So too should be things like magazine capacity limits and just about everything the California politicians have come up with in the past couple of decades.
Could it similarly be used to invalidate NFA regulations on suppressors, SBR’s, and SBS’s? Perhaps, although the argument will be made that the NFA is just a tax. The NFA was structured that way because FDR’s DOJ was concerned that straightforward bans on those items would violate the Second Amendment. That issue should be addressed soon by Judge Pittman in the test case on the “Made in Texas” suppressor law.
Could the West Virginia ruling be used to attack the Hughes Amendment? Most definitely.
In the mean time, pass the popcorn. The Bruen show is still just getting started.
Disclaimer: While I am a lawyer, I’m not your lawyer. This essay is journalistic, and neither I, my firm, or TTAG is providing legal advice. Consult your own attorney if you have specific questions.
Behold the target of the bigot in modern American society.
There is little tolerance on the political Left for white male gun owners.
Tolerance is the new holy gospel in America. Bigotry is the unforgivable sin of the Information Age. It doesn’t matter what good you might have otherwise accomplished, in the 21st century, if you can be painted as intolerant, you are an irredeemable reprobate.
Given the purported pervasive prevalence of bigotry in our society, I propose that we explore the holy dicta of tolerance as they relate to the traditionally conservative American gun owner. This stuff is important. Microaggressions can evolve into macroaggressions. If we tolerate bigotry, then we begin flirting with fascism. The next thing you know some yahoo will be trying to clone Hitler from a tooth fragment. Literally, nobody wants that.
Start With The Basics
Bigotry is formally defined as “intolerance of those who hold different opinions from oneself.” In the modern age, bigotry is the manifestation of innate animosity toward an individual or people group based upon their unwillingness or inability to conform to the bigot’s expected norms of philosophy, worldview, or behavior. Now, how might we recognize bigotry when confronted by it?
For starters, the offending behavior that drives the bigot must be harmless. I think we can all agree that a little innate disdain for Nazi death camp guards or serial murderers is both warranted and healthy. However, if the target of the bigot’s ire causes no discernible harm, then we must question the underlying motivations. Is the bigot driven by the furtherance of the public good, or is he actually trying to impose his will unfairly upon others? Such imposition reeks of rank imperialism and is obviously a throwback to a darker, more misogynistic and institutionally oppressive age.
The Landscape
Crime rates have been demonstrably falling since the 1970s, whilst rates of private gun ownership have been skyrocketing. Cherry-picking statistics and fixation on isolated tragedy can indeed drive a false narrative. However, statistically speaking, the reality is that America has become steadily safer as we have become ever better armed. It is simply that egregious examples of violence are now pumped into our pockets via our phones where, in decades past, we lacked this capacity.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, America saw a drastic rise in concealed carry. In 2017, there were 17,251,354 concealed carry permit holders in the United States. In a nation with a population of 328 million, that is roughly one in twelve adult Americans. Considering half of the 50 states also now allow some form of permitless carry the absolute number of Americans wandering about armed in public staggers the imagination.
In 1980, the rate of overall property crime in America was 5,400 incidents per 100,000 people. Today, the number is less than half that. These same trends hold true for burglary, larceny, auto theft, and murder. The media will not tell you that because a demonstrably safer world doesn’t earn clicks.
The Very Definition Of Bigotry
With the assistance of biased and complicit media, Leftists control the presidency as well as both houses of Congress. Among their published legislative priorities is the re-enactment of an assault weapons ban, a ban on standard-capacity magazines, and sweeping restrictions on gun ownership. All this is in the face of demonstrable reductions in crime rates since the 1980s.
Thirty-two percent of American adults admit to owning at least one firearm. It follows that 68% of American adults are, therefore, not gun owners. That makes gun owners in America a statistically significant minority. Of those 66,921,246 gun owners, at least 66,910,242 are not criminals. Why then should there be such abject animosity directed toward this one people group by those who do not share their worldview? Is that not the textbook definition of bigotry?
Ruminations
I once heard a CEO pontificate that the only thing she would not tolerate was intolerance. I came to appreciate later that what she actually meant was that the only thing she would not tolerate was anyone who did not conform to her standard of normality. Tolerance is a one-way street in America. You can sleep with road kill and be considered some sort of protected minority. However, in certain circles, if you admit to being a white hetero gun-owning Christian, you are viewed as some kind of malevolent leper. Ask me how I know this.
So the next time someone gives you a hard time about gun ownership, just politely state that you choose not to associate with bigots and move on. The oppression of law-abiding gun owners is the practical manifestation of institutional bigotry. Perhaps as a persecuted minority we could get some kind of special license plates or something. I’m not holding my breath.
Carlos Gove was good at what he did — making guns and shooting.
Gove was born in New Hampshire in 1817 but found himself in Denver, Colo., by the 1860s where he set up business as a gunsmith. Within a few years he developed a feud with a rival gunmaker, Morgan Rood, which grew so hot the men sniped at each other through the local papers of the time, questioning the other’s gun making and shooting prowess.
Gove retired in 1884, by now relatively wealthy and became active in local politics, serving on Denver’s police, fire, and sewer boards. He was the first president of the Denver Rifle Club.
A Half Stock Percussion American Plains rifle made by Gove will be available in Rock Island Auction Company’s June 22-24 Sporting and Collector Auction.
The Plains Rifle
In the early 19th century, the frontier was west of the Appalachian Mountains. Rifles were long-barreled, and weight wasn’t a concern in the woodlands of the eastern United States. As settlers pushed west, the rifle changed. It was less about fancy furniture on the gun and more about its functionality.
“The man on the prairie wanted more of the purchase price put into range and power and less of it into thin patch boxes and curly wood which couldn’t survive a fall from a pitching mustang,” wrote Charles E. Hanson in “The Plains Rifle,” published in 1960.
Settlers wanted a gun with the power to stop a grizzly bear or buffalo, not just a deer or rabbit, bringing about the popularity of the “plains” or “Hawken” rifle that bore the name of famous gunmaker brothers Jacob and Samuel Hawken, who set up shop in St. Louis from 1825-1840.
Samuel Hawken passed on the business to his son William who worked out of the Denver area for a time.
Carlos Gove’s Early Years
Gove left home at 16 and went to Cambridge, Mass., where he worked in a brickyard for a couple of years before becoming an apprentice to a Boston gunsmith. In 1837, he enlisted and became an Indian fighter.
Gove was assigned to the First U.S. Dragoons and saw action in the Seminole campaigns in Florida before transferring to the Second Dragoons on the western frontier, and finally mustered out in 1840 at Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
He took on the job of blacksmith through the Office of Indian Affairs, serving the Chippewa, Ottowa, and Pottowtomie Indians at Council Bluffs. Gove found the work wanting. The Pottowatomie asked that he serve as a private gunsmith for the tribe.
Gove soon became restless, moving to St. Joseph, Mo., where he opened a gunshop in 1852. Two years later he returned to Council Bluffs, Iowa. When the Colorado gold rush hit in 1859, Gove saw an opportunity. He bought 20 tons of supplies and six wagons in 1860 and went west where he sold his goods before returning to his family at Council Bluffs.
He did the same thing the following year but found the grocery business too competitive. Instead, he returned for his wife and children and moved them to Denver. His first shop was on Blake Street between E and F streets in 1862.
Morgan Rood
Morgan Rood, Gove’s Denver rival, also hailed from the east, born in Rochester, N.Y. in 1816. He worked for several area gunsmiths before moving to Michigan in 1841. After moving around Michigan a few times and divorcing two wives, he set out for the California goldfields in 1858. He landed in Denver where he set up shop in 1862, about the same time as Gove.
Gove and Rood were the largest gunsmiths in Denver during the Civil War.
Shooting Feud
Gove didn’t use tobacco or alcohol but he was addicted to trash talking.
Both men were fine shots with Gove perhaps better at short range while Rood excelled at long range. An early shooting match left hard feelings and by 1866 the feud was no longer simmering. It became a war of words in the pages of the “Denver Gazette” and the “Rocky Mountain News.”
Rood wrote in the “News” that he challenged Gove to a match and accused the gunsmith of cheating.
“I am near-sighted, and will acknowledge his eyes and skill in open sight shooting superior to mine, also his nerve, experience, or judgment in a wind, and he is clear ahead of me in skullduggery and foul play,” Rood wrote.
Gove accused Rood of paying a man to throw a shooting match, selling gunpowder to Native Americans, having two wives, and being “not fit to work in a first class shop or to handle a good gun.”
In the newspaper, Rood denied all of the accusations, saying it was a subordinate who made the powder sale while he was out of the shop, that he was properly divorced from his former wives, and “As for my workmanship I can do as fine a job on the outside, and a better job on the inside of a gun than this blowhard.”
Despite their bitter exchange, there was never a direct shooting match between Rood and Gove. The two competed in local fairs and expositions. Rood won first prize at the Colorado Agricultural Society Fair in 1866.
By 1874, Rood lost interest in gunsmithing and was physically affected by a stroke that made it impossible to shoot or hold smithing tools. He died in 1881.
Carlos Gove’s Business
Considered a skillful gun maker who produced super-accurate rifles, Gove partnered in 1872 with another respected gunsmith, John Lower, as well as a son-in-law to make their “Denver Armory” one of the largest firearms makers in the West. The partnership lasted until Lower departed in 1875. Gove made two types of guns, muzzleloaders made entirely by him, and alterations to later cartridge rifles.
Gove’s percussion guns were hunting rifles, target rifles, and shotguns. He made few pistols since the guns needed on the Denver frontier were mostly for hunting and protection. Buffalo Bill Cody was a customer of Gove’s.
Rock Island Auction recently sold a Colt 1871-72 Open Top revolver, the precursor to the Single Action Army, shipped to Gove’s shop in 1874, two years before Colorado statehood.
Characteristics of Gove’s guns included heavy buttstocks with an oval cheek piece on the left, heavy iron “Kentucky” style butt plate, a key fastened fore end with pewter tip, and a hickory ramrod retained by an iron rib and thimbles.
In 1865, Gove’s shop advertised Henry and Spencer rifles, Hawken rifles as well as Colt, Remington and Smith & Wesson for sale and “guns made to order.”
His alterations to other commercially-available guns were adding his style of stock and cleaning rod, mostly to Remington and Sharps models.
Gove’s business also included selling guns made by others including Hawken and Sharps. In the 1870s, Gove’s armory was the largest dealer of Sharps rifles west of the Mississippi River. Before he retired, Gove sold more than 1,000 Sharps, mostly plains hunting and military rifles.
“It is doubtful if any man in the West sold more firearms than Mr. Gove and many of those that he sold were of his own make,” wrote Ned H. Roberts, the author of “The Muzzle-Loading Cap Lock Rifle. “His sole amusement was hunting and rifle-shooting and rest shooting with the heavy muzzleloading rifle.”
At its peak, Gove’s gun shop employed seven full-time gunsmiths as well as 25 to 30 other employees. He sold the business in 1884 and went into municipal politics. Gove died in 1900.
Among the gunsmiths Gove employed were: J. M. Hamilton, C. R. Sieber, George Schoyen, Olaf Schoyen, Patrick Hand, Almon Dibble, and Anslow Buhlmier. Schoyen taught A. W. Peterson, who opened his gun shop in 1886. Peterson sold his store to Leighton Baker in 1953. Baker moved the A.W. Peterson store to Mount Dora, Fla., where it still operates.
Peterson made about 600 to 700 rifle barrels in his career. Around the time of World War I, he spent time in Utah with the Brownings to assist in the development of their 1917 machine gun. Peterson is credited as the inventor of the bottom ejection principal in pump action guns. Remington asked permission to use it in their guns which Peterson gave without requesting anything in return. Like Gove, Peterson was also a competitive shooter.
This half stock American Plains rifle is in parts and requires a number of minor and major replacement parts that should attract someone interested in working on and restoring an historic firearm, just like Gove would’ve wanted.
Made by legendary gunsmith Carlos Gove in his prime from 1862-1884, this American Plains rifle is an opportunity to latch onto a piece of 19th century Americana from the early days of Denver and Colorado and Rocky Mountain fur trade, made by a man who was an Indian fighter, frontiersman, and embodiment of the American entrepreneurial spirit and make it your own. The Carlos Gove made Half Stock Percussion American Plains rifle is available in the June 22-24 Sporting and Collector Auction.
To learn more about the men who made the guns that made the west and the men and women who carried them, subscribe to the RIAC newsletter and YouTube channel.
Sources
“The Feuding Gunsmiths of Denver,” by Frank M. Sellers
“The Muzzleloading Cap Lock Rifle,” by Ned H. Roberts
