CBS News:

California sheriff’s officials and family members say deputies shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a replica assault weapon.

Two Sonoma County deputies saw the boy walking with the replica weapon at about 3 p.m. local time Tuesday in Santa Rosa. Lt. Dennis O’Leary says they repeatedly ordered him to drop what appeared to be a rifle before firing several rounds.

The boy fell to the ground. Deputies handcuffed him and began administering first aid, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Deputies then discovered that the gun the man had been carrying was a replica, and he also had a plastic gun in his waistband, CBS San Francisco reports. O’Leary said the teen is believed to live in the area where he was killed.

The deputies involved have been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted by police from Santa Rosa and Petaluma and the district attorney’s office, CBS San Francisco reports.

This is wicked behavior.  In Colonial times men were expected to carry their weapons to church worship services and practice afterwards with the rest of the community.  Today, LEOs will, at the slightest provocation, properly interpreted or not, gun down little boys where they stand for carrying toys.  The important thing of course is that the LEOs got to “go home at the end of their shift.”

The mother asks, “Why did they kill him? Why?”  Because they can.  Grieve for your lost little boy, Mrs. Cazarez, and we will grieve for the loss of our country to agents of Satan.  Now watch the blue wall close in behind these cops, these child murderers.  Watch it happen, and tell me if a single cop tells the truth or holds anyone accountable.  Tell me if a judge or jury finds these men guilty of anything?  No, the strongest response will be from totalitarian lawmakers who want to make it illegal to have or sell toy guns.

Watch it happen.

David Codrea:

That’s the type of rhetoric anti-gun hive mind “monopoly of violence” zealots like those at the National Coalition to Ban Handguns call “insurrectionist,” sprinkled with words like “treason” and “traitor.” It’s the type of speech that would prompt U.S. News and World report editor and PBS contributor Bonnie Erbe to demand rounding up its practitioners. And citizens like Vanderboegh, and those who cheered and applauded him, are the type of people that “progressive” cartoonist Ted Rall wants declared enemy combatants and bundled off to Bagram, adding “If ever there were a reason for suspending civil rights, this is it.”

And that’s why it’s important to have guns and ammunition.  They can talk all they want.  We get to vote, and my vote won’t happen in a voting booth if any of the preceding obtains.  David is making a very specific point about how America is subdivided along ideological lines, a point with which none of us can argue.  My reaction, of course, is visceral and pedestrian as usual.

David is talking about the reaction to Mike Vanderboegh’s speech at the Alamo.  His speech is entitled One Country?  Or Two?  There is a video of the speech, but I read it – I’m old school.  I recommend that you read it even if you listen to it later.  It’s must reading.

Mike and David both have earned a debt of gratitude from us for the work they do on our behalf.  As a side bar comment, I notice that somebody said to Mike: “After reading a few of your articles, you so self absorbed it has to be shooting out of every opening you have. Change the name of this “blog” to “mikey can’t get enough of himself”. Your a worthless communist, a welfare junkie, and a general waste of human space.”

First of all, I’m reminded of the following comment to me concerning this article: “You are one of the stupidest assholes on the Internet, and Jim Hoft and Bob Owens are on the Internet.”  The commenter goaded me about not letting the comment see the light of day.  Not only did it see light, I put it up in lights.  So if my commenter is right, I’m a bigger asshole than either David or Mike.  Second, as for the two country thing, that issue was settled for me a long time ago.

Update on Magpul:

Magpul Industries Corp., the Boulder County-based maker of gun accessories, threatened to pull out of Colorado if new gun-control laws passed. The laws passed in March, but Magpul is still here.

The Boulder Daily Camera reports that it visited Magpul’s Erie headquarters and found the parking lot full of employees’ cars … According to the Camera, some customers have been leaving comments on Magpul’s Facebook page, criticizing it for not yet leaving Colorado as it vowed.

Well, it takes time, but let me be clear about this.  Magpul had better be about their business.  That’s all I’m going to say right now.

From Michael Bane:

… a local man was attacked by 3 coyotes…he fought them off with a flashlight. As much as I like flashlights, I think there are better anti-coyote strategies … Of course the first recommendation is carry dog/bear spray.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with OC spray.  It works very well.  But, you know, carry a gun.  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Finally, cops are appealing the decision on their not being allowed to carry guns to NFL games if they’re off duty.

The crackdown on firearms concerns Minneapolis Police Federation President John Delmonico. He believes a call for off-duty officers to give up their weapons at the gate violates an officer’s rights, as determined by state law.

The Minneapolis Police Federation sites state law, Chapter 624, which gives police officers full police powers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In other words, they should be allowed to carry their weapons in any public place in the city.

“State law governs the facts that we can carry our guns off-duty in any public facility and any facility in the city of Minneapolis, which encompasses the dome,” Minneapolis Police Federation’s John Delmonico said.

So, Delmonico drafted a letter to Minnesota’s Attorney General.

They’re up in arms because it’s their Ox being gored.  And I have the perfect solution for them.  If they firmly believe that they cannot attend the game unarmed without violating their oath, then don’t attend the game at all.

People sometimes pay good money for counsel like that.  Should I send a bill to the cops?

Emily Miller notes that Washington National Cathedral recently weighed in on gun control.

Once again, the D.C. police are using their resources to provide illegal guns for a public relations stunt intended to pressure politicians to pass federal restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Outside the Washington National Cathedral on Sunday, blacksmiths will “forge firearms into garden tools” as a symbolic enactment of this year’s theme, “Swords into Plowshares.”

The Children’s Defense Fund, which is cosponsoring the event, said in a press release that blacksmiths will be using “illegal guns confiscated by the police.”

The dramatic scene will follows a children’s church service in which the organization’s president Marian Wright Edelman will speak.

It is illegal in the District to possess a firearm that is not registered. When asked about the event, Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s spokesman said that, “These are not firearms. They are scrap parts only, and they are inoperable.”

That’s actually legally irrelevant. According to the District firearms laws written after the Supreme Court’s Heller decision in 2008, even a non-functioning firearm must be registered and can result in criminal liability.

Yea, it may be illegal in more ways than one.  If they take possession of a lower receiver that is technically defined as the part that is controlled by the ATF.  But let’s focus on Washington National Cathedral for a moment.

How very sophisticated of them to beat up guns as part of a worship service.  David Codrea notes – tongue in check – how very hipster Gary Hall is.  Of course, Washington National Cathedral doesn’t believe in any of the classical confessions of the faith (e.g., Westminster Confession of Faith, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort, etc.).  They don’t believe in anything, and so they aren’t a real church.  You may as well have a Potemkin Pastor for your weekly speaker under those circumstances.  After all, it’s no more than a country club that meets once per week.

A few miles away in Indiana, another pastor takes a different view.

A pistol-packing pastor helped foil a stick-up when he pulled his handgun on a man trying to rob an Indiana discount store Friday night, police said.

Pastor Carl Sanders, who has a permit to carry a firearm, managed to hold the suspect at the Dollar General Store in Evansville on the until police arrived.

Evansville Police said Jermaine Dewayne Marshall, 25, walked into the store and, with a bandanna over his face and an unknown object wrapped in plastic in his hand, demanded money from a worker at the register. The employee refused.

“Marshall tells the individual again to open the register and points this object he’s trying to pass off as a firearm at the employee,” said Capt. Andy Chandler of the Evansville Police Department.

When the clerk refused again, Marshall struck him several times in the face.

That’s when Pastor Sanders walked into the store.

Sanders told NBC affiliate WFIE Evansville that Marshall came at him with what appeared to be a gun wrapped in plastic.

“He was telling me to get on the ground,” Sanders told WFIE. “That’s when I pulled my weapon and say, ‘No, you get on the ground.'”

“I laid my life down for some people, knowing they were going to be OK,” Sanders said, adding that Marshall “didn’t deserve to be hurt, I wasn’t going to hurt him, but I wanted him to know you can’t do this.”

Sanders called the police and kept Marshall covered until police arrived, Chandler said. Police discovered that Marshall had been trying to pass off a spoon wrapped in a plastic bag as a firearm.

You see, Carl Sanders cares about people, and Gary Hall doesn’t.  If this sounds harsh, you need to think more deeply about the issue since it is clear that you haven’t considered the ramifications of your views.

In what I noted to myself as one of the best lines I have ever heard, the horrible Think Progress had a piece entitled Who Would Jesus Shoot?  The comments are more important than the silly article, as they demonstrate that most people (falsely) equate Jesus with pacifism.

So in order to answer that question let me wax theological for a moment.  Nothing happened in the birth, life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that wasn’t ordained, controlled by God, and intended for a specific end (He upholds all things by the “Word of His power,” and He “Works all things after the counsel of His own will,” Hebrews 1:3 and Ephesians 1:11).

One must understand the soteriological import of every event in order to understand what happened to Jesus.  Asking the question Who Would Jesus Shoot? demonstrates that the questioner is an idiot.

But let’s pull this thread a little farther if we may.  I have dealt with the issue of guns, violence and Christianity in another extensive article, looking at the Biblical evidence, the historical evidence and the theological positions of the Church fathers.  Very directly, I state that:

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers.

Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

If you believe that it is your Christian duty to allow your children to be harmed by evil-doers (and you actually allow it to happen) because you think Christ was a pacifist, you are no better than a child abuser or pedophile.

Who would Jesus shoot?  He would shoot anyone he had to in order to save life from harm by evil-doers.  Christ had very specific warnings about those who cause the “little ones” to stumble (Luke 17:2), and He made clear His stipulations concerning their place in the Kingdom (Luke 18:16).

Like I said.  If you think this is some sort of doctrinaire, theoretical debate with ethereal platitudes, you’d better rethink your position.  This is the stuff of life and death – literally.

UPDATE: Thanks to David, Mike and Glenn for their attention to this article.

Gene Penaflor of San Francisco made it 19 days in the Northern California wilderness with no help.

The 72-year-old hunter who was lost for more than two weeks in a California forest survived by eating squirrels and other animals he shot with his rifle, and by making fires and packing leaves and grasses around his body to stay warm, his family said Monday.

Gene Penaflor of San Francisco was found Saturday in Mendocino National Forest by other hunters who carried him to safety in a makeshift stretcher, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Penaflor disappeared after heading out with a partner during the first week of deer hunting season in the rugged mountains of Northern California, a trip he takes annually. The forest is about 160 miles north of San Francisco.

“He goes hunting every year, and he comes home every year,” his daughter-in-law Deborah Penaflor said Monday outside Gene Penaflor’s small home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood. “We’d gotten a little complacent that he would always come back.”

Gene Penaflor separated from his hunting partner for a couple of hours as usual to stalk deer. While they were apart, Gene Penaflor fell, hit his head and passed out, Deborah Penaflor said.

He woke up after spending what appeared to be a full day unconscious, with his chin and lip badly gashed. He noticed fog and morning dew and realized he’d been out for a while, Deborah Penaflor said.

Gene Penaflor had a lighter, a knife and water with him when he went hunting. But his daughter-in-law said the knife and water bottle somehow got lost in the fall. She had no further details.

Still, he was able use his rifle to kill squirrels to sustain him while he awaited rescue. He also found water in a nearby drainage.

To stay warm, Gene Penaflor made small fires and packed leaves and grasses around his body. When it rained or snowed, he crawled under a large log and managed to stay dry, authorities said.

“He knew at some point he was going to die, but he figured he’d last as long as he could,” sheriff’s Detective Andrew Porter told the Ukiah Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1ekjENg ).

[ … ]

“I didn’t panic because panic will kill me right away. I knew that,” Gene Penaflor said to a KTVU-TV reporter upon his arrival home.

Mr. Penaflor was in the very large 53,887-acre Yuki Wilderness area (web site here), and was found 19 days after he went missing by a group of hunters.  He also ate snakes and lizards to stay alive, and attempts to signal helicopters by smoke failed.  Finally, a massive search effort with dogs to find him failed.

He fell in steep, rocky, treacherous terrain.  This underscores the risk of solo backpacking as well as the improbability of lone wolf scenarios.

Unfortunately he lost his container and his cutting tool in the fall.  I would have gone back to find them.  At least he had his rifle with him and that likely saved his life by giving him a source of food.

Whether alone or not, I would have never entered a wilderness this large or terrain this difficult without at least the following in a day pack or one day patrol bag: large tactical or fixed-blade knife, tactical flashlight, 50-100 feet of 550 cord, a heavy gauge rubberized rain poncho, stainless steel container for boiling water, fire stating kit, wind/rain parka, gun (if I wasn’t hunting with a rifle I would be carrying at least a handgun) and extra ammunition.

I have discussed this before but it bears repeating.  My fire starting kit would include a lighter and matches, as many pieces of match-light charcoal as nights I expected to be in the wilderness (one briquette per fire), and several balls of cotton soaked in petroleum jelly for rapid ignition.

Surviving this 19 day journey without fire would have been impossible.  It’s remarkable that he was able to find sufficient shelter from the rain and snow to survive.  With a large Poncho and 550 cord one can always build shelter (at least in wooded areas) within one to two minutes.  Assuming that you are using trekking poles you don’t even have to be in a wooded area.

Even with this kit the total weight of your can ruck can be kept to 15-20 pounds, which is a small price to pay for survival.  Kudos to Mr. Penaflor for his survival, and with every report like this we learn more about what it takes to make it in the wilderness with minimal resources.  Plan, purchase, prepare and practice.

Science Daily:

A string of public mass shootings during the past decade-plus have rocked America leaving policymakers and mental health experts alike fishing for solutions to prevent these heinous crimes. A Mayo Clinic physician, however, argues that at least one proposal won’t stop the public massacres: restricting gun access to the mentally ill. J. Michael Bostwick, M.D., a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist and author of the editorial published online in Mayo Clinic Proceedings today, argues several points including that mass shootings are carefully planned — often spanning weeks or months. There is plenty of time for a meticulous planner and determined killer to get a gun somewhere in that time, he argues.

Dr. Bostwick’s editorial is a commentary on an essay in the same issue of Proceedings titled “Guns, Schools, and Mental Illness: Potential Concerns for Physicians and Mental Health Professionals.” The authors focus on recent mass shootings and argue that these actions were not and could not have been prevented by more restrictive gun legislation. They further contend that a diagnosis of mental illness does not justify stripping Second Amendment rights from all who carry such a diagnosis, most of whom will never commit violent acts toward others.

Before reading the essay Dr. Bostwick — who is generally in favor of gun control — expected to disagree with its contents. Instead, he agreed.

“We physicians generally do not know enough about firearms to have an informed conversation with our patients, let alone counsel them about gun safety,” says Dr. Bostwick. “We also tend to ignore the reality that as long as the Second Amendment is the law of the land, the right to bear arms and therefore personal gun ownership, whether of long guns for hunting or handguns for personal protection, will be an integral part of the American scene.”

A few points Dr. Bostwick argues:

• Even if every mentally ill person in the country were registered, the system isn’t prepared to handle them — and only about half of the states require registration.
• Only about 10 percent of mentally ill people are registered — and these are people who have been committed, they’ve come to attention in a way that requires court intervention
• Literature says the vast majority of people who do these kinds of shootings are not mentally ill — or it is recognized after the fact
• The majority of mentally ill people aren’t dangerous
• Mentally ill people in a country with gun rights, still have rights.

So let’s see.  Mental illness isn’t a very good predictor of propensity to violence, especially mass violence.  Even if it were, doctors cannot diagnose it well enough to intrude on the rights of others.  Their record is comparatively poor.  Mental illness isn’t the hallmark of said actions – rather, it is pre-meditation and planning.

This seems rather important.  Someone should have talked about this before.  No, really.  I mean it.  I really mean it.

David Codrea:

“At Nouria Energy, our employees are our most cherished assets,” they unctuously proclaim on their website home page. “Their safety and the safety of our customers is priority number one.”

Somehow, the immortal line spoken by John Vernon in “The Outlaw Josey Wales” comes to mind.

It’s like this for ever company that prohibits its employees from bringing weapons to work, as if security is enough to keep people safe.  And David gets big style-bonus-points for quoting from Outlaw Josey Wales.

Illinois legislators are touring the sites of Rock River Arms, Armalite and Springfield Armory.  What’s going on?  Are we about to see more defections from the North, or are these manufacturers just jumping for all the largesse they can get?  Come to the South, boys, where both the weather and people are more inviting.

Uncle is smoking some strange weed.

Revolvers are obsolete. Oh, they’re fun to shoot. I like shooting them. And they’re fantastic as a hobby gun. I’ve only ever owned two (one was given to me) because auto loaders are just superior.

Uh, you better rethink that one boy.  I have a Springfield Armory and S&W polymer frame pistol, and I’ve never been a fan of the boxy look of Glocks, so I’ll pick on Glocks.  So who out there is thinking, “Boy, I’m sure proud of my scratched up, beaten up, plastic pistol that I can turn over to my sons and he can turn over to his sons?”  If you’re out there, keep it to yourself because it would be embarrassing for you.

On the other hand, as the comments to Uncle’s post point out, if revolvers are so outmoded then they should be cheaper.  They’re not, and for good reason.  I’d rather have a good revolver in my hands when the shots count than anything else.  They are more fun to shoot, they’re prettier, they’re more reliable, and I will indeed turn over my revolvers to my sons and their sons.  My polymer frame pistols are throwaway, even the pricier ones.  They will be outmoded when the revolvers are still working well.

Gabby Giffords is being honored again, this time by the military.

“Gabby continues to be a great inspiration and a role model for her community, her state, the Army, the American people and members of Congress. She cared about soldiers and their families and worked hard on their behalf,” Westphal said during a ceremony at the Pentagon Oct. 10.

As a member of Congress from January 2007 to January 2012, she “was a dynamic leader, tirelessly working to ensure that our men and women in uniform had what they needed to keep our country safe,” states her award citation, said Under Secretary of the Army Joseph W. Westphal.

What about Congressman Walter Jones, who repeatedly called attention to the immoral rules of engagement under which our men labored in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially when McChrystal took over?  Oh, I see.  Jones called attention to something that embarrassed the administration (including the gun grabbing McChrystal), while Giffords is still a shill for the philosopher-kings inside the beltway.

What this tells you is that the conversion to the dark side is almost complete.  The generals, strategists and thinkers in the armed forces have been replaced with political hacks.

So the GOP caved.  Of course they did.

At the last GOP conference meeting of the two-week government shutdown, no lawmakers went to the microphones to give their take.

Instead, after Speaker John Boehner told Republicans they had “fought the good fight,” they all rose up to offer a standing ovation. “It was one of the easiest meetings we’ve ever had,” says Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina.

“I think he has strengthened his position in leadership,” Representative John Fleming says about Boehner. “He hung in there with us. He’s been reluctant to go to these fights and now that we have stood up and fought for our values and he’s been there with us, leading, I think his stock has risen tremendously. He has great security as our leader and our speaker.”

The message from Boehner and majority leader Eric Cantor was unity, with warnings not to point fingers of blame.

“Everyone in this room ran on the Republican ticket,” Cantor told colleagues.

“We all agree Obamacare is an abomination. We all agree taxes are too high. We all agree spending is too high. We all agree Washington is getting in the way of job growth. We all agree we have a real debt crisis that will cripple future generations.

Yes, and they did nothing about it.  Instead, they posed, preened and pretended, and pursued power instead of practiced principle.  It’s what they do.  If every GOP Senator had fallen in line with Ted Cruz and filibustered any spending increase until Obamacare had been defunded, it would have happened.  If the GOP House cared enough they could have stopped it all in its tracks.

But Obama didn’t move one inch because he knew the GOP would.  The GOP is to blame for every bit of this debacle.  If they never intended to finish this out – and they didn’t – they should never have started the “fight.”

As far as I’m concerned, they may as well go ahead and proclaim their fealty to Satan and publicly embrace the witchcraft of Keynesian economics.  The GOP is dead.  America as you knew it is dead.  An entitlement once delivered won’t be turned back, and there is no way to save the economic system.  It is a house of cards that will soon collapse.  And who would fear the “warnings” of Boehner and Cantor?  They’re a couple of cowards who fold like a cheap suit.

Finally, Mike Vanderboegh has a U.N. stamp worthy of its name concerning the proposed U.N. gun controls.

David Codrea:

So how smart is a gun that requires a separate and nearby fingerprint sensor/wristwatch to activate a chip, and has built-in lights to tell an aggressor where a defender in the dark is, and whether or not they that gun is enabled to fire?

Not very smart.  And we’ve discussed this before.

In a very important development, the Supreme Court is going through its backlog of stuff to consider, and rejects an important one.

The Supreme Court won’t review a decision upholding a Maryland gun law that requires residents to demonstrate a “good and substantial reason” to get a permit to carry a handgun outside their own home or business.

Allow me to summarize.  We’ve all noted that Heller and McDonald were weak decisions, and didn’t envelope carrying outside the home.  Many had suspected that the SCOTUS would continue to develop post-Heller case law that fleshed out Second Amendment rights.  This is important in that what the Supreme Court rejects is as important as what they decide.  In this case, they have decided that Heller doesn’t apply outside the home, or at least, they won’t intrude on decisions they will leave to the state.

Folks, if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times.  The Second Amendment frames or boxes in the federal government.  It is a mistake to look to the federal government to delineate your God-given rights at the state and local level.  All gun politics is local.  Marylanders, you must fight the fight where you are, or leave for a free state.

Thomas Sowell discusses the appointment of Janet Yellen to the federal reserve.  She is a true believer in Keynesian witchcraft.  Be careful.  Chicken bones flying around, thrown by Ms. Yellen.  You know, the thing that impressed me most about the article was his quote of Yellen.

Ms. Yellen asks: “Do policy-makers have the knowledge and ability to improve macroeconomic outcomes rather than making matters worse?” And she answers: “Yes.”

For those of you who have read Plato’s Republic, she appears to be a believer in the concept of philosopher-kings, just as is Obama.

Kurt Hofmann:

For one thing, while the supply of legal machine guns in private possession has been capped since 1986, with the (very questionable) passage of the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act, driving the price of the artificially limited supply well out of range of most gun owners, the number of suppressors in private hands has been spiking dramatically, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There is no rational reason to require CLEO approval for purchasing silencers (which Kurt correctly points out should be considered safety equipment).  I have worked in a plant environment all of my working life, as well as operated power equipment outside of work.  I love the fact that I can still hear (albeit less clearly than 35 years ago), and I want to continue being able to hear.  Prohibiting equipment that can protect hearing (part of your set of PPEs) is immoral.

John Jay gives us an update on the armored personnel carriers in Montana.

Finally, see my disapprobation of the federal leviathan from this weekend.

I and some of my family (including grandchildren) rode the Virginia Creeper trail this weekend.  We have done this many times.  Within a couple of miles of the start there is this sign.

Folks, this restroom is a hole in the ground.  Literally, that’s all.  It requires someone to monitor the level of waste on a periodic basis (I would guess once per month) and call out a private contractor to empty it when it’s full.  There has never been any toilet paper in the restroom.

This is me pointing at the sign.

I’m wearing a Marmot rain parka, hauling a three-day ruck bought at the MCX at Camp Lejeune, and carrying a S&W M&P Cerakote flat dark earth .40 with Viking Tactics sights.  I am showing disapprobation towards the federal Leviathan.

NorthJersey.com:

For years, they’ve existed only in science fiction and the archives of the New Jersey Legislature: handguns that fire only in the grip of an authorized user.

And yet these so-called smart guns soon could be the only kind sold legally in New Jersey under a state law that has languished on the books for a decade.

The law, which requires the state’s gun dealers to exclusively sell smart guns within three years after the first one hits the market, has been largely forgotten since the Legislature adopted it in 2002. But it could be dusted off as early as this year as technology finally catches up to the vision of lawmakers at a time when the debate over gun control is more combative and divisive than at any time in recent history.

After years of stalled and inconclusive research — hampered in part by political resistance from groups like the National Rifle Association — a German company called Armatix says it will introduce the first gun equipped with a user-recognition system within 45 days.

It is unclear whether that model, which will fire only within range of a sensor embedded in a wristwatch, will trigger the New Jersey regulations. But advocates predict that the first sale is likely to create a domino effect as other companies and publicly funded groups — including one at the New Jersey Institute of Technology — are spurred to bring their own prototypes to the market.

[ … ]

The NRA did not respond to requests for comment, but Scott L. Bach, the executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, said the technology is flawed, and could put gun owners in danger when it fails. He also questioned why law enforcement officers are exempt.

“New Jersey’s smart-gun law is as dumb as it gets,” Bach, of West Milford, said in a statement. “It forces you to use an unproven technology to defend your life, and then exempts the state from liability when the gun goes ‘click’ instead of ‘bang.’ If it’s such a great idea, then law enforcement shouldn’t be exempt, and the free market should be allowed to determine its viability.”

Oh, the free market will indeed decide what becomes of this ridiculous machine.  It will be laughed off the world stage when the first person attempts to defend his life with it and an electronic gadget interferes and causes someone to die at the hands of an assailant.

And the next time Chris Christie asks for your vote, remind him that he is governor of New Jersey, home of the some of the most draconian gun laws on earth.  Ask him if he is going to force all of his body guards and state police to use this silly piece of equipment?

Prior: Smart Guns Tag

David Codrea:

“So, this is a way to inch things forward on the gun control issue,” she observed. “You go to one of Vermont’s most liberal municipalities and you get a tiny bit, then maybe you inch forward.”

Death by a thousand cuts.  And what have I told you about gun politics being local?

Kurt Hofmann:

Isolate the Insurrectionists by embracing the self-defenders and the sporting gun owners.

Another incremental strategy, similar to the collectivists in Vermont?

John Jay is wondering why anyone associated with the government in Montana (or the feds) would need armored personnel carriers or grenade launchers?

Darryl Cannady in Charlotte, N.C., was pulled by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police because his car matched a profile description of one they were searching for.  The officer unholstered his weapon and held it pointed at Darryl for quite some time.  What’s really interesting about this case is the reaction in the comments, which seem to be on the side of telling this kid that racial profiling had nothing to do with it.  Get over it, kid.  It happens every day.  In reality, the officer had no right to unholster his weapon and point it at anyone unless his life was in danger.  I can’t do that, you can’t do that, and it would be called brandishing a weapon if we did.  Additionally, we would be charged with felony assault for such behavior.  But hey, even if the kid was in danger that day, at least the cop got to go home at the end of his shift, right?