As I had hoped, Beretta isn’t full of windbags and liars.  They are honest folk.  They said they would leave Maryland, and they are.

New legislation is forcing gun manufacturing company Beretta to uproot and take their business elsewhere.

Established in 1526, Beretta holds the distinction of being the oldest active firearms manufacturer in the world. The U.S. factory is located in Accokeek, Maryland, and has been a staple of the local economy for years.

Beretta warned that stricter gun control laws would push the company outside of state lines, but that didn’t stop Maryland legislators. Jeffrey Reh, a spokesman for Beretta who also serves as the President of Stoeger Industries under Beretta, announced that the company would begrudgingly uproot and take its business elsewhere. He said, “We don’t want to do this, we’re not willing to do this, but obviously this legislation has caused us a serious level of concern within our company.”

He added that Beretta paid approximately $31 million in taxes, employs 400 people, and had invested $73 million in the business over the past several decades. Despite being such a prominent player in the local economy, Beretta was unable to prevent legislators from passing tighter gun control laws. Ironically, Beretta manufactures some firearms that are now banned in Maryland.

Good.  I hope it’s painful and hard for Maryland.  I hope they lose business of all kinds, and I hope they feel it right in the pocketbook.  Take note of the next bit.

One legislator stated: “Other than target shooting, the only other reason [for a semi-automic firearm] would be for self-defense… [Why would you need a] rifle that accommodates 20 rounds semi-automatic for deer hunting? … It’s only very infrequently that someone commits a crime with an assault weapon – why do you need one for self-defense?”

Of course, it’s tempting to respond something like, “Well, if you weren’t such a dumb ass you would know that there have been home owners who had to use just such weapons with high capacity magazines to defend their very lives.  And you know, under duress you might miss.  And you know, multi-man home invasions are becoming the tactic of choice for criminals nowadays.  If you weren’t a dumb ass you would know these things.  Dumb ass.”

But tempting as it is, the best response is also the simplest: “I need all the high powered weapons and high capacity magazines I can get in order to hold tyrants like you accountable.”

Closer every day, inch by inch.

David Codrea links the text of the upcoming Connecticut gun law.  It’s long but I read the majority of it.  Taken as a whole, I must say that it seems to me to be the most restrictive gun law ever devised in American history.  One particularly salient feature is the new ban on magazines (see line 998).

Except as provided in this section and section 24 of this act: (1) Any person who possesses a large capacity magazine on or after January 1, 2014, that was obtained prior to the effective date of this section shall commit an infraction and be fined not more than ninety dollars for a first offense and shall be guilty of a class D felony for any subsequent offense, and (2) any person who possesses a large capacity  magazine on or after January 1, 2014, that was obtained on or after the effective date of this section shall be guilty of a class D felony.

So also with guns.  Read it for yourself.  So now, Connecticut gun owners.  All of those magazines and many of the guns you just purchased in expectation of the upcoming ban will soon be illegal.  Owning them will be a felony.

Tyrants in Connecticut have turned you from a law-abiding, upstanding citizen into a felon.

So what are you going to do about it?

Glenn Reynolds links a Hot Air report on Obama’s recent remarks concerning gun control.  The comment of the day thus far is this:

What a jackass, what an embarrassing, petulant, jackass fool we have as preznit.

If the Founders knew we would eventually reach the point of electing a bugwit like Dog Eater, they probably would have burned the Declaration and said “What’s the point in fighting and sacrificing?”

I don’t want to press this issue of fully automatic weapons too far because I think the Hughes Amendment was unconstitutional.  But the statement is so mind-numbingly stupid and disconnected that it’s easy to pass over a point of logic.

If Obama thinks that a fully automatic weapon was used in the Newtown shooting, then why isn’t he going after machine guns (and then someone can tell him about the “Firearms Owners Protection Act” and make this whole issue go away)?  Why is he targeting magazine capacity, universal background checks and other aspects of firearms features and ownership?  Could it be that, as we’ve discussed before, none of this is really related to making things safer?  It’s all related to increasing state control?

Pathetic rag The Raw Story on Mike Huckabee on Obama and guns:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) declared on Wednesday that President Barack Obama and gun control advocates are possibly planning on confiscating the nation’s privately owned firearms and imposing a Nazi Germany-like “dictatorship” in this country. According to Media Matters, Huckabee made the remarks in response to a caller on his radio show.

“I’m very concerned,” said the caller, “it seems like there’s so many people who have not read and do not understand how quickly Germany was turned into, it was a democracy, then turned into a dictatorship by everyone having to register their guns and then they went door to door and collected them.”

Rather than correct the caller that in 1938, the Nazi Party loosened gun regulations that had been imposed by the Versailles Treaty in the wake of World War One, lowered the age limit for gun ownership and de-regulated the possession of shotguns and rifles for everyone but Jews, Huckabee chose instead to stoke the caller’s fears.

“People do forget that,” said Huckabee. “And by the way, know that when you bring that up you get people who get crazy on us, and they’ll start saying, ‘Oh there you go comparing to the Nazis.’ And I understand the reaction, but it’s the truth. You cannot take people’s rights away if they’re resisting and if they have the means to resist, but once they’re disarmed and the people who are trying to take over have all the power, not just political, not just financial, but they have the physical power to domesticate us and to subjugate us to their will, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it other than just plan to die in the course of resistance.”

I’m delighted that Raw Story brought up this issue about correcting the record.  No, not correcting Mike Huckabee, but correcting this unserious Harcourt study.  The comprehensive study by Stephen Halbrook is much more honest, and points out that at least the following weapons features were banned for everyone: silencers, tactical lights on weapons, detachable high capacity magazines (more than five rounds) and telescoping stocks.  Does this list sound familiar?  Halbrook also remarks concerning Nazi gun control:

… the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was consolidated by massive searches and seizures of firearms from political opponents, who were invariably described as “communists.” After five years of repression and eradication of dissidents, Hitler signed a new gun control law in 1938, which benefitted Nazi party members and entities, but denied firearm ownership to enemies of the state.

As I’ve said before, no one has ever claimed that Nazi gun regulations didn’t benefit the totalitarians in Nazi Germany.  Someone always has the guns.  The issue is who, and under what circumstances, and for what purpose?

That Harcourt would publish such an unserious study is embarrassing for him whether he knows it or not.  It’s probably not possible for The Raw Story to be embarrassed about anything.  But take careful note of the argument that is repeated in the silly article.    It’s not really gun control if it only affected the Jews.  Can you imagine a more racist, bigoted position than that?

Prior:

Obama, Hitler And Gun Control

Hitler Joins The Gun Control Debate

Rifle Shooter has a piece up comparing and contrasting pistol caliber carbines.

James Tarr compares the Colt AR6951, Rock River Arms LAR-9, Lone Wolf Distributors G-9 and JR Carbine.  He finds pros and cons with each, but to me Colt is dead until they move to a free state.  The JR Carbine had forend components come loose under recoil.  Of course, this is fatal in my opinion.

I would select the RRA carbine for lack of any other test, but that’s probably because I have a RRA 5.56 mm rifle and like it.  I have two carbines (5.56 mm AR-15 and M1 Carbine), but no pistol caliber carbine.  I have shot a Colt fully automatic carbine.

At the present I’m not convinced enough in the utility of a pistol caliber carbine to spend a great deal of money on one.  I can see the utility of a SBR in pistol caliber in the AR platform so that one could attach a tactical light and reflex sight for close quarters home defense, but this can also be accomplished with hand guns.  My have polymer frame semi-automatics and perhaps the best CQB weapon ever invented by mankind, a S&W .357 magnum revolver.

Why do I need a pistol caliber carbine?  Perhaps for my wife to shoot to avoid any recoil?  What would other aspects of utility be for the pistol caliber carbine?  Readers can weigh in on this question.

UPDATE: I should have added that I do not and will not have a SBR because I will never register a firearm with the ATF.

WPXI.com:

A homeowner says Pittsburgh SWAT officers mistakenly broke down her door looking for a man who remains at large on charges he fatally shot a man aboard a “party bus” early Saturday.

Police have charged 22-year-old Michael Lyons with fatally shooting 21-year-old Steven Lee Jr., of McKees Rocks, about 3:40 a.m. Police haven’t said what the men were doing aboard the bus or what kind of celebration is was carrying.

But Carla Glover says she feels violated because police SWAT members burst into her home mistakenly believing Lyons was hiding there.

Police didn’t find Lyons, though they still had a warrant for his arrest Monday on charges of criminal homicide and carrying an unlicensed firearm.

Police haven’t explained why they burst into Glover’s home looking for the suspect.

And this will keep happening until the police are held accountable for their actions beyond sums of money paid to victims.  Criminal charges should ensue, as these tactics are highly dangerous for the home owners as I have pointed out.  At a minimum this SWAT raid constituted an endangerment to the home owners.

When escalation of force is used it should only be under the most serious of circumstances.  Getting the wrong home isn’t the most serious of circumstances, and an innocent person might have been shot, as has happened before.

Prior:

Chicago SWAT Raid Gone Terribly Wrong

Jack Booted SWAT Raids

Many more in the SWAT Raids category

I had previously commented on the various names we’re called, from Stone Age Vigilantes, to Tinfoil Hat Bircher NRA Peckerwood With A Long Gun, to the realm of people without much education or any sort of consistent dental care who live in trailers with 30 cats and have an NRA sticker on their $400 car, to finally gun paranoiacs.

But I think I’ve found the one I like the very best in all the world.  Crazy gun-toting insurrectionists.  Well, I’m not crazy, but if believing in the right and duty under the second amendment to prevent tyranny makes you an insurrectionist, then there are a lot of us around.

In the same spirit, panty waist Dominic Tierney thinks he has us in a logical paradox.

In the current debate over gun control, the pro-gun lobby has an ace card up its sleeve: We need weapons to prevent government tyranny, they say. These self-styled champions of liberty see guns as the ultimate insurance policy to protect the Constitution. The problem is that most of those making this argument also strongly support a massive U.S. military — exactly the behemoth we must be armed against. It’s the great gun gobbledygook.

[ … ]

Of course, the American people can always play the Red Dawn card and launch an insurgency. But guerrillas usually need external support to win. Britain could be an option as an ally, except that, last summer, Mitt Romney insulted London’s preparations for the Olympics.

Tierney has no earthly idea what an insurrection in America would look like, and I’m not going to waste time explaining it any more than I already have.  But there is nothing great, or gun, or gobbledygook about his alleged paradox.  Tierney has a small mind.

Military fathers and gun owners like me (and Mike Vanderboegh) might tell Tierney that we have no problem with arming our men in uniform to fight Islamic totalitarians overseas rather than our own soil (if only we would decide to win the campaigns), while also preventing the armed forces from ever taking up arms against the American people.

I would also point out that the Marine Corps was created 10 November 1775 by an act of the Second Continental Congress, who created the Corps before the declaration of independence and after the pattern of the British Marines as an imperial force.  These are the same fathers who gave us the constitution and its bill of rights.

They saw no paradox and neither do I.  But its important to ask the men the important questions just in case we have an evil, totalitarian dictator at the helm.

Michael Bane has canceled his show in Colorado due to the new Colorado gun law Hickenlooper signed (h/t Bob Owens), Magpul is leaving (although I still want to see plans and a schedule), and now, IDPA has canceled their planned competition in Colorado.

Organizers of a Colorado shooting competition have cancelled the event because of the state’s recently passed gun-control laws.

The International Defensive Pistol Association was scheduled to hold its Rocky Mountain regional championship July 4-6 in Montrose. Organizers said an estimated 300 shooters were expected to attend the event.

The cancellation stemmed from a combination of concern about legal liabilities under the new laws, and political opposition, said IDPA spokesman Paul Erhardt.

“The attitude toward Colorado is not very pleasant among firearm owners,” he said.

Gunmaker Ruger cancelled another event, the Ruger Rimfire Challenge World Championship, which was to be held in Byers July 19-21.

The Colorado legislature recently passed three gun-control measures. The laws restrict magazines to no more than 15 rounds, require universal background checks on sales and charge gun buyers for the checks.

Several hunting groups and individuals have said they will boycott hunting in Colorado this fall. Some Colorado-based manufacturers of magazines and their parts said they will relocate operations because of the gun laws.

Good.  As I’ve said, there is no better teacher than consequences.  Wisdom demands experience, and Colorado is getting some experience in the power of gun owners as we speak.

I hope they learn the lesson hard.

David Codrea hasn’t let this issue go, and that’s a good thing.  Like a bulldog with a bone.  First, read his predecessor article.  Next, read the followup article.  He has a DoD memorandum, and apparently without even going for a FOIA request.  At any rate, the Department of Defense claims that they will continue to make expended brass cartridges available for public sale, and then there is this (for me) money quote.

The memorandum includes an “Implementing Guidance” attachment stating “DoD will dispose of ESACC as quickly and effectively as practical, and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations and DoD guidance.”

A PAO developed this response to David, and the memorandum was developed by a JAG.  It has legalese all over it.  The problem is that this isn’t what the law says.  It doesn’t require the DoD to continue to make expended brass available.  It requires that no money be spent on its destruction.  None.

Furthermore, the bit about compliance with regulations and guidance is obfuscatory pandering.  Rehearse for a moment, shall we?  Laws are passed by Congress.  Regulations are written by armies of lawyers sitting inside the beltway who are tasked with applying the laws.  Regulations are not laws.  Regulations in fact are challenged, often successfully.  Guidance is even farther down the food chain than regulations.

Congress passed a law that requires that no monies be used for destruction of expended brass.  What regulations and guidance have to say about the law is irrelevant.

Read it all at Examiner and come to your own conclusions.  But here is the final word for me.  I don’t want to hear another damn thing about how police in America cannot find ammunition.  I don’t care if they ever have another round to carry.

In the spirit of my previous observations, where I commented “there are only two reasons for a national gun registry: taxation and confiscation,” Senator Reid has rammed through proposed legislation to do just that.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to tax your gun rights. His new legislation charges you a fee that is in essence a federal tax on selling or giving away your firearm, and he lets Attorney General Eric Holder decide how big that tax will be.

Senate Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Barbara Boxer of California have introduced a raft of gun control legislation (S. 374, S. 54, and S. 146, respectively). Senator Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, rammed the legislation through committee in record time—not even bothering to issue the customary committee reports to explain the bills—and Reid combined the bills into a single gun control bill (S. 649). Firearms owners across the country and others who care about their right to keep and bear arms should keep a close eye on the Reid legislation. Your rights are under attack.

[ … ]

Title I of the Reid gun control bill purports to “fix gun checks.” The proposed “fix” in section 122 of S. 649 is to take away an individual’s right to sell or give away a firearm to another individual unless, in most cases, the individual (1) uses a licensed importer, dealer, or manufacturer to make the transfer of the firearm and (2) pays a fee to that importer, dealer, or manufacturer to make the transfer. The individual transferring the firearm is not actually receiving a service; the federal government is receiving the service. The service the government gets is a background check on the intended recipient of the firearm, because the law requires the importer, dealer, or manufacturer to run the recipient through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Forcing the individual to pay for the government-mandated service, which is in fact a service to the government, is in essence a federal tax on the individual. And the amount the individual pays as a fee is not limited by the legislation; section 122(a)(4) of the Reid bill enacts a new section 922(t)(4)(B)(i) of title 18 of the U.S. Code to grant to Attorney General Eric Holder the power to set the maximum fee by regulation.

Thus he gets it all – a national gun registry, almost omniscient state knowledge of the whereabouts of firearms for legal owners, and taxation of our property.  And on top of that, Eric Holder gets to set the fee schedule.  Again as I have observed, so-called assault weapons are irrelevant to the progressive.  A national gun registry is the touchstone of success.

What could possibly go wrong?  Their only mistake is in assuming that gun owners will willingly acquiesce to this tyranny.  On that account, this might not turn out like Reid had hoped.