Believe it or not.

Manufacturers are looking into new sensor and biometric technology to restrict gun use to the owner.

They’re called smart guns. When placing a sensor ring on the gun, it shoots. Without it, it can’t.

It’s part of technology designed so only the authorized user can fire the weapon.
Another design uses biometric technology that recognizes your grip.

“One of the major designs is where it accepts either a fingerprint or a thumb print so it will release the firing pin or the trigger area so that it can fire, so if it doesn’t recognize it, it won’t allow the gun to fire,” says Santa Maria gun shop manager Joe Degeus.

Making it useless, if the gun were to fall into the hands of a child or a criminal.

“It is kind of like James Bond,” says Degeus. “But you got to remember, with technology comes the opportunity for more mistakes.”

Gun owners say it sounds good in theory but argue the technology is lacking.

“If that system jams up or if we have a problem with it, I’m in a bad situation,” says gun owner Joshua Miller. “Because the criminal that’s coming at me…he’s not going to have any limitations so his gun’s going to fire every time.”

Take it from a registered professional engineer.  You see that picture above with the solid state electronics inside the gun?  It is obscene.  Not only that, it’s stupid.

There are even old school shooters who don’t believe in such a thing as the grip safety (Beaver tail) on my XDm.  I am not among that crowd, but the notion that I would rely on a gun with solid state electronics for my own protection is absurd, leaving aside the problems I have with it being amenable to governmental control.

Every gun you have should be capable of personal defense.  Some guns (and cartridges) are better for concealment, some better for target shooting, some better for more sophisticated and formal competition such as 3-gun or IDPA, some are better for hunting, and some are best for personal defense.

But whether .17 HMR, 5.6 mm or .338, every gun you have should be at least minimally capable of use in some sort of defensive situation, even if not the best suited for that purpose.  This is true because you might be in a position where you have to pick it up and use it for that very purpose in a crisis.

Having solid state electronics as yet another failure mode in any of those guns is not an option for me, and I suspect, for 99% of all other shooters.  So here’s a note to manufacturers.  You go right ahead and “dabble” in smart gun technology.  I will purchase such a gun when hell freezes over.

We’ve discussed the ongoing attempt to hold states accountable via a boycott and also relocation of gun and ammunition companies from inhospitable states.  But amidst the hubris of New York’s response, this sentiment was almost missed.

“To tell you the truth, Dave, we’re not worried about it,” John Grebert says. He is the executive director of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, a group that supported the new gun law in New York State.

But, he adds, “I think it’s pretty unfortunate that any business thinks they can bully us.”

Because people in law enforcement deal with criminals every days, Grebert thinks they have, “a greater right” to weapons, “to deal with potentially violent situations.” And Grebert says he’s confident police will still have access to the equipment they need “to get the job done right.”

He could be discussing the popular progressive notion that the militia doesn’t exist today because it’s an antiquated idea, or if it does, it consists of law enforcement.  Thus, the second amendment gives them rights that it doesn’t give us, or a “greater right,” if you will.

But even though this takes on the trappings of erudition, it’s still ignorant and illogical.  There were constabulary officers in the eighteenth century America that produced the constitution.  And besides, if the second amendment applied only to constables, then we would have no right at all, not less right to weapons.

The reason he did give was that they deal with violence.  You don’t, or if you do, it isn’t as necessary for you to be capable of dealing with it.  Don’t ever forget this sentiment, and how it leads to an “us versus them” mentality in law enforcement.  This is rich and wonderful because of its honesty.  I’m thankful that he brought it up.

Bob Owens discusses the fact that a growing number of companies are refusing to do business with New York and other states over unconstitutional gun laws.  More specifically, if a citizen cannot have a particular weapon, then law enforcement doesn’t get it either.

Mountain Guerrilla also weighs in with some direct contact e-mail addresses with the gun companies.  I also have some (one for Rock River Arms), and I intend to send notes around on this issue.

I have strongly advocated that Remington relocate to South Carolina (and that other firearms manufacturers relocate to different states, such as Kimber, Rock River Arms, Springfield Armory, etc.), and CBS News did a segment that showed that this kind of thing might be making a difference.

I realize that this is slightly off subject if we’re discussing manufacturers holding the states accountable for double standards, but this isn’t really that far off subject.  Most good people are hard workers, and I have put in my share of time for my company, including unpaid time.

But I once worked with a man whom I respect who held that this can and often does turn counterproductive in work, family and church.  The more we fill in the gaps for people, the less people feel the effects of their actions and decisions.  It keeps people from learning.  When we work hard to undo bad managerial decisions, management makes the same decisions again.  When we block consequences from our children, they don’t grow up.  I have begun to take my friend’s view in almost every walk of life.

When states abuse its citizens, they should lose business, respect and revenue.  States like New York, with its new assault weapons ban, and Illinois with the continued fight against even concealed carry anywhere in the state, don’t deserve the gun companies, and their states’ law enforcement agencies don’t deserve the best firearms.  Bad actions are needful of consequences in order to rectify those actions.

Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out before, the hypocrisy is just rich and a remarkable thing to behold.  States that ban weapons because they are “evil and inflict damage to innocent lives” but allow their manufacture because of revenue just aren’t worthy to be taken seriously.  This is happening in Colorado as we speak.

At Guns For Everyone, we learn that Colorado wants the ban Magpul’s magazines, but wants their money.

As Colorado state legislators debate HB 13-1224 – a bill that would ban magazines over 15 rounds – an issue arose around Magpul and its base of operations here in Colorado.

Magpul has vowed to leave the state if a magazine restriction is passed in any form.

To appease Magpul, and presumably to keep it’s reported 600 jobs and $85 million in taxable revenue in the state, Representative Joe Salazar announced an amendment to HB 13-1224, L.0.14, that would specifically exempt Magpul from this legislation in as far as they would still be welcome to manufacture and sell these black high capacity ammunition clip death machines to civilians, just not to Coloradans.

When House Republicans pointed out the obvious and blatant hypocrisy of this amendment, House Democrat Rhonda Fields insisted that the amendment was intended to allow Magpul to continue to sell these magazines to law enforcement and to the military because “the military protects the company…Country” (check the record, her slip of the tongue was real and darkly accurate).

This is a preposterous excuse for wanting Magpul to stay in Colorado and we know that she is lying.  Selling magazines to law enforcement and the military wouldn’t even come close to the business they do for the civilian market.

Kimber and Remington moving from New York, and Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory moving from Illinois, and Magpul moving from Colorado, is best for the citizens of those states, as well as the country as a whole, even if it causes pain for a while (or otherwise, if they don’t relocate, the laws need to be reversed as a precondition for their staying).  Likewise, firearms and ammunition companies shouldn’t be doing business with such states.  A principled stand like this also causes increased respect within the firearms community.  And we are a paying bunch of people.  We put our money where our mouth is.

UPDATE: Magpul is threatening to leave if the Colorado bill is passed into law.  I have sent e-mails to Rock River Arms, Smith and Wesson, Springfield Armory, Glock, Remington and Magpul about their positions regarding the state boycott.  I have yet to receive any responses.

Saturday was raw, cold and mixed frozen precipitation.  That didn’t matter, as the lines to get into the Metrolina Expo Center were long, approximately a three hour wait.  I saw cars from at least North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Jersey.  I’ve been to this gun show for years and I’ve never seen it this crowded.

Feeling were rather raw along with the weather, and there were many angry comments in line about the administration and their enablers in the Congress and Senate.

By the time we all got inside (they were letting people go in at the same rate people were coming out), we all made a bee-line for the bathroom (coffee + three hours).  As a note to planners, it might pay to put a Porta-jon or two near the line.  It would make for less irate patrons.

Inside there were plenty of ARs for sale, other semi-automatics, plenty of pistols, revolvers, and shotguns (and one very nice Springfield Armory M1A Super Match for $2700).  Tactical shotguns were in shorter supply than anything else.  I did notice that there is a plethora of new tactical flashlights, seemingly good ones, with high lumen output.  It’s nice to see competition, and flashlights seem to be the area that has sustained the most competition.  It might be some time before all of those brands have been stress tested and compared against one another.

ARs were selling for 1.5 – 2 times what I paid.  PMAGs (which I bought) were plentiful even though there is a long waiting list when ordering directly over the web.  Unfortunately, they were going for twice what I paid several years ago.  I went primarily for the ammunition though, and this is where it gets sad.

5.56 mm cartridges are going for $1 per round.  You just cannot find it for less, at least not right now.  I fear that the days of $.50 per round are gone forever.  M1 Carbine ammunition is very scarce, although I did find some.  .45, .40, .38 and all of the standard caliber handgun ammunition seemed plentiful enough to meet the demand, at least early in the show, both in target (FMJ and MC) and personal defense rounds.  Within hours supplies were noticeably diminished.

The one standout was 9 mm.  What was once the most ubiquitous round in America cannot be found.  There were a few boxes of personal defense rounds, but no target rounds.  There were stories from the dealers about selling 9 mm handguns to customers back at their stores and then getting complaints that the customers bought guns for which there was no ammunition.

The best deal at the show was the going price for XDm .40.  My own opinion, being both an XDm owner and S&W M&P owner, is that the XDm is a tighter, more well balanced weapon.  It’s all a matter of personal opinion, but when they’re selling XDms for $530, there is no debate.

The most common opinion at the gun show?  To a man and woman, everyone blames the administration and its enablers for this high-gun-price and ammunition shortage situation.  Like most other crises on the planet, this one is entirely man-made.  The self-proclaimed ruling class should take note.  The peasants are angry.  Really angry.  At all of you.  And they don’t consider themselves peasants.  They would use the term sovereign citizens.

Mike Vanderboegh:

William Diamond’s drum is sounding the long roll once again, and it doesn’t take much imagination to hear it … The enforcement of these various odious, unconstitutional laws — whether state or federal — will be resisted, flaunted and then Leviathan, which can’t afford to look silly, will come to kill us for our temerity.

What’s Mike talking about?  You’ll have to visit his place to read the rest.  In this article, Mike waxes philosophical and even poetic in places.  His call isn’t a funeral dirge, or a panic.  It is a solemn call to duty.  It’s absolutely worth the time to study it and study it again.

In response to Wayne Lapierre And The Apocalypse, Dave Hardy writes as follows:

Here are my own thoughts. A ban on private sales will be unenforceable in the near future, since guns being found will have been initially sold before its effective date, and thus a lawful private transfer before the ban went into effect cannot be ruled out.

But even after, say, ten years pass, the ban will still be unenforceable in practice unless Congress also either:

1) Enacts national firearm registration, requiting FFLs to report all sales so they can be placed in a national database, and requires such reporting backdated to the effective date of the private sales ban, or

2) Makes firearm possession illegal, period, providing for a defense if the gun owner can prove they bought the gun before before the effective date of the ban, or bought it from an FFL after the ban.

Visit Dave’s site for the rest.  He is making a legal and technical point, one that I have seen before.  Perhaps he’s right, but be warned.  First of all, I am concerned about prosecutorial overreach and discretion.  But second, holes in any universal background check law can be plugged in the future once the basic framework is constructed.

Finally, here is the most serious warning.  I work with the federal government on at least a semi-regular basis, and when not, I am doing things that follow federal regulation, even though highly technical (the specific nature of what I do is not the subject and won’t be discussed).

For most people who never work with federal agencies and departments, ignorance is bliss.  But for those who do, they know that the nasty little secret about the federal government has to do with lawmaking by regulation.

Laws are passed by the Senate and Congress.  But after laws pass, thousands of lawyers inside the beltway go to work writing regulations based on those laws, or not, using the law as a pretext for further regulation that Congress didn’t specifically intend.  At times, Congress has even had to pass laws undoing regulations because the regulations don’t meet the intent of the law, and yet the executive branch won’t stop enforcing that regulation (or class of regulations).

Regulation is passed merely by entering them into the federal register, allowing a waiting time for public comments (which are nothing but a chance afforded to the authors of the regulations to ignore them or write sarcastic rebuttals), and then after the waiting period, it takes on the force of law including prosecution, fines and imprisonment for failure to follow them.

This happens every day, all over the nation, and in the DOT, NRC, EPA, DOJ, ATF, DHS, and other departments and agencies that the reader cannot even name and didn’t know existed.  Any law giving the executive branch the authority to further regulate firearms will be an opportunity for abuse, overreach and exploitation.

Take it from someone who has seen it.  Don’t trust the Leviathan.  It is a monster and it has monstrous intentions.

David Codrea:

The “progressive” activist group MoveOn.org posted a television commercial to You Tube yesterday featuring a self-proclaimed gun rights proponent warning politicians of electoral consequences if they don’t support more “gun control” laws.

“The six-figure ad buy is running for a week on national cable and will air during the Sunday morning political talk shows,” The Hill reported.

“I’m a gun owner and a proud defender of the Second Amendment, but for years I’ve watched Congress take money from the NRA and then oppose any kind of reform that helps keep us safe,” a man identified in the video as Ohio gun owner Jerry Thompson declares.

“After the Newtown massacre and the NRA’s disgusting response, I’ve had enough, Thompson growls, warning members of Congress if they “take money from the NRA, and then continue to do their bidding, we’re gonna remember that come election time.”

Read the rest at Examiner.  Mr. Thompson isn’t a proud defender of the second amendment any more than I’m a defender of MoveOn.org.  It’s the same story with Congressional candidates and Senators who claim that they’re NRA members or hunters.  The hair on my neck stands up when I hear a candidate for any office claim that he’s a hunter.  There’s nothing wrong with hunting.  I’ve done it before.  But that has nothing whatsoever to do with the second amendment.

And as for Mr. Thompson, the second amendment pertains to resistance to tyranny.  That’s why we know he’s lying.  On the one hand he claims to support resistance to tyranny, and on the other wants to impose tyrannical laws.

Consistency isn’t the hobgoblin of little minds.  It’s the stuff of life, and when you’re not, you’re irrelevant.

This guy finds it “disturbing that people feel they need to be armed against the government.”

He tore up his AR (Armalite Rifle, not “assault rifle”) in order to prevent nut jobs from getting hold of it.  He’s a nut job alright.  I’d say he succeeded in his goal.  One less nut with a gun.

Kurt Hofmann has a must-read article on the connection between gun confiscations and gun registration (or so-called universal background check).  It’s an issue I have been discussing for some time.  Kurt begins his article this way.

St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner is a frequent and vocal critic of the NRA (see here and here for recent examples), often wondering if the organization’s leadership is merely naively optimistic, à la Neville Chamberlain, in its dealings with the forcible citizen disarmament extremists, or actively collaborationist, à la Vidkun Quisling. Honesty requires, however, acknowledgement of effective steps the NRA does take in defense of gun rights.

Read the rest at Examiner.  Taking off on this honesty though, I have also been a critic of the NRA before, begging, as it were, the NRA to put its full force behind educating the public to the dangers of universal background checks as a pretext for and necessary precondition to a national gun registry, which is itself a precondition for gun confiscations.

Today I received a flyer in the mail from the NRA where they said exactly that.  The NRA might be frustrating at times, but they are still the largest and most powerful gun rights organization in America, and it matters what they say.  I don’t partake in pitting one organization against another.  That’s a loser’s proposition, and it’s what the enemy wants us to do.  I sincerely appreciate each organization that protects gun rights and stands against the totalitarian state.  I will correct them when they wander, and praise them when they do well.

Moving on to Wayne, he is under criticism these days, most notably for his belief in a coming apocalypse and the prudence of guns to address it at a personal level.

National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre is again under fire after penning an op-ed that claimed Americans need guns to fight off rampant gangs, terrorists and psychotics.

LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, claimed the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy showed what the future would hold, and why every law-abiding citizen needs to arm themselves.

“We saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia,” he wrote in the Daily Caller. “Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

Immediately LaPierre was attacked. Former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough said, “He has lost his mind,” on his MSNBC show Morning Joe, while President Barack Obama’s strategist David Plouffe called the NRA head “delusional.”

In his argument against new gun control laws, LaPierre described a world where Americans would be defenseless without guns and fall prey to everything from terrorists and Latin American drug gangs to civil unrest and looters in the wake of natural disasters. He said Americans would, in effect, be crazy not to arm themselves against the coming calamity and to rise up in protection of their Second Amendment rights.

Well, Joe Scarborough is a moron and so the balance of what he said is unimportant, but let’s consider the state of the union for a moment.

Pakistan is now our enemy.  We are withdrawing forces from Afghanistan after having lost the campaign because we wanted to wage nation-building instead of war.  Libya is now a disaster, and we left our men to perish in Benghazi with forces available to respond to their need.  Iran is headed towards a nuclear weapon and Israel is alone in her quest for self preservation.  War is coming to the Middle East, and we won’t be energy independent when it happens mostly because of the EPA.

Russia is reasserting itself unopposed in its “near abroad,” and China owns 1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities.  Our Southern border may as well not exist, and MS-13 is in every major city in the U.S., and most smaller cities, while some in the border patrol and law enforcement across America are bought off with drug money.  The cartels South of the border have morphed into transnational warlords who kidnap, extort, murder, traffic, and torture, and they’re moving North.

We’re in horrible national debt, and our unfunded liabilities reach a staggering $87 trillion.  Within ten years, the interest on the national debt will reach $10 trillion per year, the unemployment rate is still hovering around 8% or higher, the under-employment rate is still around 18% or higher, a recovery is nowhere in sight and won’t be until we get spending and entitlements under control, half of the American people don’t pay federal taxes, 47 million people rely on food stamps and that roll is growing at the rate of 11,000 per day, and the U.S. Marines are set to lose 20,000 men.

We are too broke to refuel our aircraft carriers, the administration has – for now – gotten away with walking guns across the Southern border in an effort to bolster support for gun control in America, food prices may soon soar, and amidst it all, the administration is working hard on that currently critical need to take guns away from the American people, which would of course be the catalyst for fourth generation warfare in America.

I think Wayne is on solid ground here.  In short, good flyer in the mail, good call on a former ally turned enemy, and keep it up.  As for the apocalypse, I don’t have to be told by anyone.  I’m doing my best to prepare for it.  Are you?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the link.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David Codrea for the link.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to David Hardy for the link.

David Codrea scoops the story (before the MSM) on a lawsuit just filed by the parents on behalf of deceased Immigration And Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata.  I don’t blame them.  I wouldn’t let this go either.  It’s because of corruption that guns were walked across the border in the failed U.S. attempt to side with drug lords in their war against each other while also giving the state an excuse to enact new gun laws.

The corruption might be exposed by this lawsuit, although whether this brings it about won’t effect long term probabilities.  Long term, I just don’t believe that it’s possible to hide the truth.  The sooner everyone confesses, the better it will be, but everyone’s role will ultimately be made known.  It’s just a matter of time and light.