When I see an animal that looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and lays eggs like a duck…

…I see a duck-billed platypus. Cf. Garland v. Cargill (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) ("When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."). Alas, a platypus does not quack.

But it is not pleasant when a duck meets the single function of a trigger.

Comments

[Martinned2]

Alas, a platypus does not quack.

To state the obvious, it also doesn't walk like a duck or swim like one.

[Armchair]

It kinda of does.

Like how if one takes a firearm, flexes their finger around the trigger, then manually moves the entire firearm back and forth (without unflexing the finger), you can say it's a "single" trigger pull.

In that way, you can turn any semiautomatic weapon into a "machine gun". You might only fire 1 round a minute, and need a second person to move the gun back and forth against your trigger finger. But it's still just a "single" trigger pull.

Just like a platypus walks like a duck. If you physically pick it up, so it only has two feet on the ground, and make it waddle like a duck.

[Nige]

The platypus, like the gun, would kill you, or cause you the most excruciating pain.

[grb]

It was Patrick O'Brian who taught me platypi have poisonous spurs. (Book Fourteen, I think)

[Nige]

Finished that very one earlier this year, allowing me to look ever so knowledgable.

[grb]

More so than Stephen Maturin, to be sure.

The audiobooks with Patrick Tull are also good. I didn’t like the movie way, way, back when. Besides its jumbling mash-up of multiple books, I thought it missed-out on the comedy-of-manners aspect of the series – which is much of its appeal.

(That and learning what a “cunt-splice” is – though God alone knows which book that’s from. Someone noted these ships were the most advanced & complicated machines of their day. That’s probably open to challenge, but interesting to mull over regardless)

[Nige]

I really like the movie, it's a shame we didn't get a whole series of them, and I also like the audio books.

[grb]

My reaction to the movie was probably a fanboy's querulous nitpicking.

[Scooter]

And yet, neither is a machine gun.

[Nige]

Neither a platypus nor a duck is a machine gun. Finally got that sorted out, thanks.

[grb]

Whew! Now I have that one resolved, I can finally learn the difference between a magazine and clip. Nothing makes your average gun-nutter beam with radiant pride than the certainty of that distinction clear in his mind.

Me? I was pretty decent qualifying with an M16 back in the day: excellent from the fox hole, good from the prone, a little less so kneeling. I also rated expert with the M203 Genade Launcher – but all five or six of us on the range did. Close counts in grenades.

Yet for all that, I still hang my head in shame when confronted by a nutter’s smug assurance on magazine/clips!

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

What do you think about motors vs engines?

[Krayt]

It does, in the sense they both walk and both swim, but that doesn’t narrow it down much with animals, even if we ignore the vast majority only capable of dog paddling under duress.

Which would include humans, as real swimming is a learned behavior. People who "can't swim" dog paddle, trying to climb out of the water, tucker themselves out quickly, and drown. Relax and let the water level go around your lower head, you'll last a lot longer.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As I understand it, Australian animals share common roots with animals elsewhere, but differ because when the continents broke apart, Australia was so far away that animals evolved differently there.

[Martinned2]

They both walk and both swim, but the platypus doesn't walk in the manner of a duck, nor does it swim in the manner of a duck. It has four legs, after all.

[grb]

To be fair, both animals lay eggs. And scoring one of three is pretty exceptional, Blackman-wise! The South Texas Sage is really upping his game. Given his normal rate of irrelevance, you might accuse him of padding his stats.

[apedad]

Just to be clear, Justice Sotomayor did not mention the platypus in her dissent.

Prof. Blackman did (for some reason I'm not sure of).

[Brett Bellmore]

That was the point. She called a platypus a "duck" in her dissent, figuratively.

[Nige]

That's Blackman's conceit and it's pure cringe, as the kids say.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Justice Sotomayor’s point is that when something has all the key characteristics of a duck, we treat it as a duck, and that likewise because a bump-stock-equipped rifle has all the key characteristics of a machinegun, we should treat it as a machinegun. Prof. Blackman is trying to rebut that by noting that a platypus has many characteristics of a duck, but obviously should be treated differently.

The obvious weakness in the argument is that rifles with bump stocks are far more similar to machineguns than ducks are to platypoi (as illustrated by the fact that Prof. Blackman couldn’t even use the actual characteristics that Justice Sotomayor used).

The better response is that bump stock do differ in the one characteristic that congress chose to use to define machinegun, so it really doesn’t matter how many other similarities they share.

[Lee Moore]

The better response is that bump stock do differ in the one characteristic that congress chose to use to define machinegun, so it really doesn’t matter how many other similarities they share.

Indeed. The case was not about machine guns, it was about "machine guns." Likewise if Congress wrote a statute defining, for some purpose, "duck" as "any egg laying creature", then a platypus would indeed be a "duck." As would a crocodile.

The legal question is - is there any way of drafting definitions in a statute - of whose effects she does not approve - that would make Sotomayor pay attention to them ?

[Randal]

I think that’s a little harsh. It’s not that much of a stretch to think “single function of the trigger” is ambiguous as to whether flexing the trigger finger is part of said function. After all, if triggers pulled themselves, then guns would kill people.

I can't wait till someone does a murder with a bump stock and then claims innocence because according to the Supreme Court, the trigger was pulled unintentionally by the bump stock, not intentionally by the murderer's finger.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You're going to be waiting for a while.

[Randal]

Just picture some Rittenhouse-style asswipe. "I didn't mean to kill all those people, the gun just kept firing! I couldn't control it!"

[GreenLanternCorps]

Madame Justice Sotomayor has now updated her opinion with the below addition:

“Curse you Perry the Platypus!”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_the_Platypus

[Longtobefree]

When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird dinner.

[grb]

Ducks are hard to get right though (cooking-wise).

[Brett Bellmore]

I cut the breasts off, and grill them like steak, and just do the rest as a confit or toss it in the stock pot. Trying to roast a whole duck is a fool's game, so far as I'm concerned.

Though I gather if you want to spatchcock it, cook it rare sou vide, and then briefly crisp the skin in a very high oven, you can get nice results.

[bernard11]

For the breasts, prick the skin all over and cook skin side down over low/medium heat, to render the fat out. Save it for frying potatoes - amazing.

After 12-15 minutes turn the heat up briefly, then flip and cook a minute or three - depends on doneness desired. Take them out, deglaze with white wine until almost dry, then chicken stock until thick.

[hobie]

roasted. served with port demi

[Goju]

Have a BIL that deep fries them also geese. He's a waterfowler so these would all be wild birds and that would make a difference.

[grb]

On the bright side, this post wasn’t by Calabresi. That would have involved more platypus-related hysteria, a lot of tin-foil-hat platypus conspiracy theories, and random capitalization.

Still, we’re probably due a Kirkland-style sneer on how low this forum sinks.

[Armchair]

Don't forget the "bigoted" "White" "men" comments

[Scooter]

Yep. Like a dog returning to it's own vomit.

Regular as clockwork.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I doubt former professor Volokh appreciates your evocation of vomit to describe his white, male, bigot-hugging, right-wing blog.

[Dan Schiavetta]

When seeing an animal, the big joy is to shoot it. Make-believe, of course, with a gun that looks about ten inches long.

[Mr. Bumble]

?

[Bob from Ohio]

Off his meds again.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Try pointing a broomstick at seagulls sometime, holding it like you would a gun. They know what a gun is and that it is much harder to hit them when they are flying -- they will all take to flight. It's amazing.

[Martinned2]

American seagulls, maybe.

[Goju]

Try hunting crows or ravens. If you are unarmed they will let you approach almost close enough to hit with a rock. If they see a firearm, they take off. Very smart birds. But they still don't understand the concept of long range rifle fire.

[Alan Vanneman]

The good justice said "When I see a bird ...." A DBP is not a bird. Professor Blackman should know this, but I guess he does not.

[hobie]

Knowledge was never his strong suit

[John F. Carr]

"I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus than end up like poor Oedipus Rex." – Tom Lehrer

[grb]

And to think Leo's money pays for this!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It's not Leo's money. Did that guy ever earn a cent through honest work?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Pass.

[Orbital Mechanic]

It might be worth noting that Sotomayor is not the originator of that bromide. She was quoting it, and the meaning is very well known.

But of course we know that literary minutiae and allegorical purity is what is important here. In the face of that why would anyone have the slightest interest in how many extra people can get murdered at the next concert or elementary school?

[Bob from Ohio]

"might be worth noting"

In fact it is not. We all realize she hasn't the wit to coin anything pithy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You prefer the deft literary stylings of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Current Supreme Court justices by writing ability:

1. Roberts
2. Kagan
[Big gap]
3. Barrett
4. Kavanaugh
5. Alito
6. Jackson
7. Thomas
[Much bigger gap]
8. Sotomayor
9. Gorsuch

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The listing (I would leave out the "big gap") is reasonable.

I think Kagan is a better writer than Roberts. I won't bet my nonexistent farm on it.

I think Jackson is too low. Barrett has written some good opinions. Putting her third is reasonable. I think Jackson is "to be determined" at this point. Gorsuch's writing has improved.

Sotomayor is no wordsmith. This is true. Her dissents do sometimes have power.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, and I thought Josh's OP was a reasonable response to that bromide; You can't just pay attention to commonalities and completely ignore differences, especially when the difference is explicitly embodied in the text of legislation.

"In the face of that why would anyone have the slightest interest in how many extra people can get murdered at the next concert or elementary school?"

Bump stocks have been around for 22 years. How many of them have been used in those rare school shootings, again? Are you perhaps hoping that if they're publicly associated with school shootings enough, some nutcase will decide to use one in a school shooting, aiding the cause of getting them banned?

[Goju]

How many were murdered in Las Vegas by bump stock equipped firearms?

[markm23]

Unknown, possibly zero. The shooter had bump stocks, but I've never heard it was proven that he ever used one to kill anyone - possibly because the bump stock makes holding the gun on target impossible.

From what I've heard, the bump stock allows making noise and missing the target at a much higher rate than a semi-auto rifle fired conventionally, although with considerably worse reliability than without the bump stock. Some people find that fun, but in any situation where the shooter is aiming at individual targets, the bump stock is going to reduce the rate of hits.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Ogden Nash:

Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.

It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.

[Letters_Triumverate]

A platypus really doesn't look like a duck, and doesn't swim the way a duck swims, and the eggs it lays look nothing like the eggs a duck lays, and are laid in underground burrows instead of ground-level nests.

It does, however, have a bill, and webbed digits - albeit a different number of digits.

Speaking more broadly, I'm not sure what this post was supposed to accomplish.

[markm23]

IMHO, the real problem with the BATFE's decision is that it was an ex-post-facto change in the regulations. It might be different if they had banned bump stocks from the beginning, but they allowed them for years, then changed their mind and are now ready to put people in jail for possessing one that was purchased legally. Congress could not do that without some provision for the ones purchased earlier, and they certainly cannot authorize the BATFE to do what Congress cannot.