Luma 7-4 (01:41)

Condensed (00:19)

Some folks may remember last summer's dust-up over this. There was a bill before Congress to get the District of Columbia a seat in the House. John Ensign tacked the Second Amendment Enforcement Act onto it, and it became something of a poison pill. Democrats were unable to excise his amendment, and if the District was to get a house seat, they'd have to comply with the Heller ruling.

Rather than risk abandoning the District's unconstitutional and disastrous regulations, Congress chose to simply drop the whole matter completely.

Well, history repeats itself, though rarely this quickly. …

There's an area around Lake Erie where several commercial radio stations share the same frequency.  On a clear night, you can hear straight across to Canada as the signals bleed together.   For some people, it makes for annoying interference.  For others, the result ends up being something far more interesting than the sum of its parts.

Crosstalk over I-94  (02:10)

My order from El Paso Saddlery arrived Friday, and here's their Tom Threepersons holster for the 3" Model 65:

I was pleasantly surprised by their turnaround time: just over four weeks.

In other news, Leonard Embody, Cassidy Nicosia and Kurk Kirby have a new compatriot in David Walters.

It turns out that this will be Justice Stevens' last term on the Supreme Court.  Even if we see one liberal Justice replaced with another, the ideological balance of the Court is unlikely to change.

At least, on the surface.

One of Stevens' strengths was building across-the-aisle consensus among dissenting Justices.  He was often able to corral or curtail Justice Kennedy's traditional swing vote, but a younger Justice will not have the ability to do so.  As such, Kennedy's role on the Court is about to become much more important.

His vote with the majority in the Heller decision showed a …

This 65-3 was produced in 1987.  Other notable events from that year include Gary Hart dropping out of the Presidential race, Sonny Bono running for the office of Mayor of Palm Springs, and Ronald Reagan delivering what was possibly his most important speech.  U2 released The Joshua Tree, and Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up" reached #1 on both sides of the Atlantic, long before anybody with taste found it the least bit ironic.

The Model 65 was produced from 1972 until 2004.  It was the fixed-sight counterpart to the 66, and was carried by the Customs Service, as well as several state police agencies.

A common misconception is that the 65 was a stainless version of the Model 13.  This isn't entirely true, as the 13 was not introduced until 1974.  Prior to that, the blued counterpart to the 65 was the 10-6, which had been upgraded to .357.  While the 19 and 66 were referred to as the Combat Magnums, the 65 and 13 were never explicitly named.  Given their heritage, they could be referred to as the Military & Police Magnums.

Both the 13 and 65 share the distinction of being among the last standard-issue revolvers in law enforcement. There's some confusion as to which was the last issue revolver for the F.B.I.  As far as I can tell, it varied by field office and starting date, but agents were carrying both well into the 1980's.