Ya know…looking at the news these days is an exercise in futility because journalism is dead…instead of just reporting the facts the almighty click and the almighty desire of the so called journalists to expound on or promote their political views is the only thing they care about. And that comment not aimed at either side of the political fence…conservative and progressive journalists and outlets on both sides are equally guilty. It’s so hard to figure out the actual facts of anything and filter out all the opinion and political aimed crap and selective words to promote their idea so that one can make a valid judgement on the situation…not to mention the fact that all of them just ignore inconvenient facts.

This was most recently proven true…again…in the courage of the recent SCOTUS decision that disallowed the bump stock ban. Now to be fair…the only reason for a bump stock is to increase the rate of fire of a semi automatic weapon…and they’re pretty much useless as far as directing accurate fire goes due to the muzzle rise of just about every firearm on the planet that after a few rounds you’re shooting at the sky. The problem is that…once again…the Congress doesn’t feel like doing their job, which is to legislate and pass laws. The Executive then enforces those laws and the Judicial decides whether the law is constitutional or not.

So…bump stocks were legal for many years according to the ATF and some 500,000 of them were sold. Of that half million…precisely one that we know of was used in a criminal act, the shooting out in Las Vegas. So…naturally there was a great uproar and demand that the things be banned…and to be honest they should be banned as they provide no useful function except the thrill of going to the range and pretending you have a machine gun. However…they don’t make a semi auto into a machine gun as I’ll discuss in a minute. They’re also absolutely not protected by the 2nd amendment as they are not “arms”.

So, the former President issued an executive order banning them…but then it needed to be turned into a regulation…which is the responsibility of the ATF. Thus…after years of saying that they were legal and did not result in the modification of a semi automatic weapon into a machine guy…the ATF reversed itself and declared that they did result in a machine gun. And as we know…possession of a machine gun without a Federal Firearms License is illegal and has been since 1934 when it was passed because mobsters used Tommy guns to mow down their rivals and in the process mowed down some civilians.

And therein lies the problem. You see…the 1934 Federal Firearms Act has a specific definition of what a machine gun is…because back then the Congress actually wrote legislation that made sense…and while I won’t bore you with the gory technical details…the manner in which a bump stock increases rate of fire specifically does not meet that definition…which means that under the law the ATF is not allowed to ban bump stocks. I’m quite sure that they knew this…but the Trump DoJ and ATF pretty much ignored that because it was politically expedient to ‘ban’ bump stocks. So…a bunch of gun owners sued and eventually the case got to the SCOTUS…but by that time the Biden administration had been inaugurated and the Biden DoJ defended the law at the court.

The court…rightfully…decided that the ATF in the Executive branch does not have the constitutional power to rewrite laws that were passed by the Congress (such rewriting must come via action by Congress)…and tossed out the rule. The vote was 6-3 because the progressive wing of the court decided that the actual definition in the law of a machine gun (or automatic weapon) didn’t matter because they decided that increasing the rate at which a person can pull the trigger of a semi automatic weapon clearly makes it into a machine gun regardless of the legal definition of both of those weapons in the FFA of 1934. Now…I understand the difference between strict and loose construction of the Constitution…and while I think loose construction is legally incorrect I can accept that for its proponents it is a reasonable interpretation on their part. However…how the progressives can vote that the executive branch can write laws…when the constitution clearly states that is the power of Congress and Congress alone…is beyond me.

So the press…well, they went hog wild on this decision. First there were the inevitable accusations of the “biased, activist, corrupt court”, then quickly followed the declaration by pro gun people that this was a vast victory for the 2nd amendment…and even more quickly followed by the anti gun people saying that the court would allow any weapon to be possessed by anyone…despite the fact that in this case the 2nd amendment was not even involved. This case was about the separation of powers and checks and balances as specified in the Constitution. But no matter…both sides decided to try and score political points instead.

I do have to give Congress a little…very little…credit though. In the Senate a bill was introduced…as suggested in the SCOTUS decision…to ban bump stocks but rather than actually ban them (I read the bill as proposed, it’s only 4 pages) it introduced some nebulous requirements that again left it up to the executive to figure out the actual rules. Now I reality…the proposed law had zero chance of actually becoming law because the House (and probably the Senate as well based on the 60 vote rule) was not going to provide the administration with any sort of victory before the election in November. So…instead of actually bringing the bill to the floor in the Senate…Mr. Schumer instead tried to pass it by unanimous consent…which means no roll call vote but if a single Senator object it fails…and sure enough, several Senators objected because it would have given the administration a ‘win’ regardless if it never got taken up (which it would not have) in the House. Pure politics.

Nothing new on the home front to report…we’re starting to get ready for our upcoming Costa Rica trip where Neil will go into the bush and shoot photographs and Connie will…go fishing and lay by the pool as she is his plus 1.

OK, let’s get on to some more photos. There’s only 1 full day and a half day after this so we’re actually getting there…and the last full day has the highlight of the entire trip in it.

Barn Owl…slightly different from the same named owl we have in the US…and are there actually barns in Africa? Who knows.

An elephant with a couple of calves that I forgot to put in last time.

The hosts for the workshop…Steve and Rose lounging around the camp picnic table.

White rumped shrike.

Lioness who decided it was just way too hot and took a dip.

Abdim’s stork…I wondered who Abdim was…and the bird was named in commemoration of the Turkish governor of Wadi Halfa in the Sudan from 1780-1827…Bey El-Arnaut Adbim…so now ya’know. It’s also known as the White Bellied Stork for obvious reasons.

Marabou Stork…these are about 5 feet tall.

A few more shots of the Lilac Breasted Roller in flight…far and away the prettiest bird on the continent. Thank goodness for 20 frames per second and bird subject detection with eye detection autofocus…the entire sequence from takeoff to out of range was maybe 2 seconds. These are among Neil’s favorite shots of the trip.

This one was from before it took flight.

White Browed Coucal…although it seems strangely named to me as the feathers on its brow are only partially white.

Next time…the life and death struggle on the savannah…

Cyas.