Articles by Herschel Smith

This is just an awful argument for open carry from Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms, but the objections of law enforcement are even worse.

If given my druthers, I’d probably never open carry a firearm outside of some form of pro-gun demonstration. I don’t see any advantage to it besides politics and even then, I personally believe that only goes so far.

That said, the right to do it should be unquestioned. I may not believe in doing it myself, but I’ll fight to my last breath to defend some else’s right to make a different decision.

[ … ]

After all, while I don’t agree with open carry from a more tactical standpoint, I do believe that such actions fall within the plain wording of the Second Amendment. Further, let’s not delude ourselves, there are already people carrying at all of these events Keel cites. The difference is whether clothing is hiding it or not.

Look, I get the concern. Even if you trust the guy with the permit, you may not trust the guy who goes for his gun due to obvious reasons, but thus far, it’s been a non-factor in every other state. Is Keel saying that South Carolinians are especially unstable, that they’re even less likely to obey the law in the presence of a firearm?

What is he even talking about in this last paragraph?  He’s contrasting people with a permit to people who “go for their gun.”  What?  What does that even mean?  Does Tom even know?

Anyway, beyond the awful and confusing rhetoric, I don’t get his “concern” nor the concern he apparently thinks is obvious and to which he is referring.

What Tom might have meant earlier in the commentary is that he doesn’t practice open carry and doesn’t choose to do it himself.  Whatever.  What he said is that he doesn’t “believe in it.”  What does that mean?  What does it mean to not believe in something but then to believe in it enough to be willing to fight to your last breath to defend it?

As to his alleged tactical advantage, I can prove that Tom “believes” in open carry regardless of what he claims.  So here it is, Tom.  Strap on a backpack for a three or four day trip, and make a trek through Jocassee Gorges in South Carolina, where hundreds of bears roam freely.  Do it alone.  Tell me that you want to have your firearm concealed rather than carried openly where you can get to it quickly if needed.

That’s what I thought.  See, I proved that Tom “believes” in open carry.  Don’t tell me to purchase a Hill People Chest Rig to carry it in.  Been there, done that.  When you spend all that money getting good gear to take the weight off of your shoulders and put in on your hips, that chest rig is okay for a day, but after two or three it begins work your neck and shoulders pretty hard.

There is a difference between open carry among, say, a concert of 30,000 people, and in the hills of upper South Carolina.  Or walking along the road at dusk versus walking in for a business meeting.

But even this is going to far for my tastes.  The last comment to Tom’s commentary shows what I mean.

I believe that the decision(s) for the state should not be to “allow” concealed or open carry, but instead, should be limited to background, to use of thought affecting medications, and access to or use of alcohol. When it comes to alcohol for instance, I see no problem with a firearm on site, with management, but I’ve read about open carry by employees of some ‘themed’ establishments.  The problem I see with the latter is an inebriated customer may decide to be playful and ‘take’ the firearm from the waitperson. I also see a new situation that has happened. The amount of new firearm owners with concealed carry permits has exploded. I think it may be time to look closer at the training permit holders have. I know that is anti-NRA and anti-2A but having so many millions of people carrying concealed firearms with a modest amount of training is an accident waiting to happen. I have been shooting for 62yrs. I began carrying before a permit was required. I still take a training course every year. I’m not saying that is what should be done, I know I’m doing more than needed, it’s a requirement of the club I belong to. I just think trying should be looked at, and a minimum should be required before a permit should be issued.

You see, this commenter believes in state permission as a precondition for the exercise of God-given rights, and his pretext is public safety, the same pretext cited by the state when they speak out against open carry.  Witness chief Mark Keel of S.C. SLED.

Chief Mark Keel of the State Law Enforcement Division put these concerns in perspective in addressing a proposed expansion of gun rights. The S.C. House measure (H. 3094) “would allow trained concealed weapons permit holders to carry those guns in the open,” he said in an article by Maayan Schechter and John Monk of The State newspaper.

“I’m a Second Amendment guy. Nobody believes any stronger than I do in the right to bear arms,” Keel said. In South Carolina and other Second Amendment Central places, it is necessary to establish one’s bona fide on rights. The Sun News Editorial Board is there, make no mistake.

Keel has “great concerns” about public safety: “I wonder how it will be in the summer time when people are strolling down Ocean Boulevard on peak weekends wearing guns openly, not to mention people openly carrying during Harley Week or Memorial Week and crowded country music festivals where there’s alcohol involved.”

He expressed his bona fides, and the only thing missing is his love for apple pie, puppies and the American flag.

The problem is that none of this matters.

Not tactical issues (Tom), not public safety (Mark), not anything.  None … of … this … matters.

Anything that can be done with an openly carried firearm can be done with a concealed firearm.  It’s an amazing thing that we actually have to cover this ground again, but the fact that someone cannot visually ascertain the presence of a firearm doesn’t mean it’s not there.  Any confusion on this fact points to a second-grader level psychological problem.

Some people choose to carry a firearm openly because they hate to sweat their weapon in the summer months, or because it’s just uncomfortable.  Some people choose to conceal their weapons because they think that there is some sort of tactical advantage.  Some people choose to openly carry their weapons because of appearances, others (mostly men) don’t care because we can use our girth to hide our weapons.

Others choose to openly carry because of the rapid access to the weapon (the example of hiking in Jocassee Gorges).  Still others choose to conceal because of what others might think.  The point is that people make their own choices, and it should be up to them how they carry their weapons, not the state.

As to these and all of the other objections, caveats, and qualifiers:

None of them matter.

None of them matter.

None of them matter.

None of them matter.

None of them matter.

Did you get that?  None of them matter.  The state has no business dictating to a man or woman how to carry a weapon.  And Tom, you do us no favors by telling our opponents that you think there is a tactical disadvantage to open carry.  Maybe there is in some circumstances, maybe there isn’t, and it may depend upon the person, place, time and surroundings.  That, too, is none of your business.

As for the chief of SLED, he further states the following.

Keel said that open carry could cause issues for law enforcement officers responding to calls of a person brandishing a gun.

“Our (concealed weapon’s permit) law is one of the best in the country, and we have not had problems with concealed weapons holders,” Keel said. “But open carry creates a whole new dynamic.”

That’s a lie.  The South Carolina concealed weapons permit would only be one of the best in the country if it didn’t exist at all and there was permitless carry.  There should be no permission to be sought for the exercise of God-given rights.

And as to causing issues for law enforcement officers, you’re wrong about that.  So went the objection every other state (e.g., Texas, Arkansas, etc.) had to open carry.  None of these revisions to the code caused blood running in the streets.  You would think that opponents of open carry would have researched where this has been done before (46 other states) and been embarrassed to offer up such pablum for consumption by the ignorant and intellectually challenged legacy media.

As for making it easy for LEOs, I couldn’t possibly care less.  Teach them to holster their weapons until they know what’s going on.  Then we’ll all be safer from the copious law enforcement shootings that have become a scourge to the land.  Shootings of dogs, shootings of innocent people through their own front doors, and on and on.

I hate disinformation, lies, and pretend allies.  The SLED chief is no friend of the 2A.  And if Tom is, he needs to get better at his advocacy.

Prior: South Carolina Open Carry Tag

Dogs explain the internet from r/PublicFreakout

It proceeds apace.  This can be seen in recent movements towards gun control, or away from it.

Consider first the case of Utah.

Friday, February 12^th, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed HB 60 into law … House Bill 60, sponsored by Representative Walt Brooks (R-75), allows a law-abiding adult to carry a concealed firearm in the State of Utah, without first needing to obtain government permission. This ensures that citizens have their right to self-defense without government red tape or delays. Additionally, this legislation maintains the existing Concealed Firearm Permit (CFP) system, so citizens who still wish to obtain a permit may do so.

Next up, consider the cases of Wyoming and Missouri.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Feb. 4, 2021) – A bill introduced in the Wyoming Senate would take on federal gun control; past, present and future. Passage into law would represent a major step toward ending federal acts that infringe on the right to keep and bear arms within the state.

A coalition of 19 Republicans and a Libertarian introduced Senate Bill 81 (SF81) on Feb. 3. Titled the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” the legislation would ban any person, including any public officer or employee of the state and its political subdivisions, from enforcing any past, present or future federal “acts, laws, executive orders, administrative orders, court orders, rules, and regulations that infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.

SF81 is similar to a bill moving forward in Missouri.

The bill includes a detailed definition of actions that qualify as “infringement,” including but not limited to:

• taxes and fees on firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition not common to all other goods and services that would have a chilling effect on the purchase or ownership of those items by law-abiding citizens;
• registration and tracking schemes applied to firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition that would have a chilling effect;
• any act forbidding the possession, ownership, or use or transfer of a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition by law-abiding citizens;
• any act ordering the confiscation of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition from law-abiding citizens.

As we’ve noted before, the state must be serious about it, serious enough to dispatch local and state law enforcement to arrest federal agents enforcing federal laws, with provision in the code to prosecute them.

There is also a permitless carry bill before the legislature in Tennessee.  Finally, South Carolina is considering open carry again.  It should be shameful to South Carolinians that the last holdout state on the last vote on dissolution of relations with Britain in the continental congress, their very own state, is also one of the final few states who disallows open carry.

If they’re able to hold the communists in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville in check, they may have a chance.  It’s died in committee before many times, and at least this time it’s getting a hearing.  We’ll see just how serious South Carolina is about driving a stake in the ground and saying, “Here I make my stand.”

Contrast that now with Rhode Island.

In our last email we referenced upcoming bills we knew were coming since some legislators had given us a heads-up. After their release we can confirm they are worse than anyone could have imagined and are, at this point, the most restrictive proposals in the country.

What’s so egregious about these bills? Just a single bill, their so-called high capacity magazine ban, would ban almost every single firearm on the market in addition to the ones you already own. Any magazine with a “removeable floorplate and the ability to be extended” will be illegal. This encompasses all semiautomatic handguns, rifles and some manually operated firearms. No purchasing, transferring nor grandfathering. It would require less effort to list the firearms you CAN own rather than the restrictions themselves.

Additional bills call for the removal of shall-issue gun permitting, a ban on most semi auto rifles and full medical release forms when purchasing a firearm.

And in California they can’t let a session go by without more anti-gun bills.  These are only a few of the examples we could cite.

These actions aren’t by accident, of course.  State and local governments know exactly what’s coming, and the resistance can be organized or chaotic, with bite, or without any, meaningful or meaningless.

Polarization is occurring, the pace has quickened, and the stakes for the future of liberty are very high.  It will all happen on the state and local level.  But make no mistake about it, sides are organizing and preparing the field.

The answer to the question is yes, regardless of what Brownells says.  I believe much of what they say is just wrong.

There are two types of telescopes (and a rifle scope is a telescope): refracting and reflecting.  A rifle scope is a refracting telescope.  He was misled by the analogy he drew, and the amount of the light let in by the scope is certainly a function of the diameter of the objective lens.  If the tube diameter is small, the degree of convexity of the lens must be more extreme, but that’s the point with an objective lens with a different diameter than the tube.

In fact, in theory it’s possible to capture enough light with a very large objective diameter and highly convex lens that it would blind you regardless of the diameter of the tube.

The diameter of the objective lens affects more than just the field of view.  It also affects the amount of light captured.

I had seen other analyses of the tunnel rats, but this expose does even better at outlining the extent of the networks.

Dean Weingarten has a discussion up at Ammoland of South Carolina open carry, something we’ve pushed for years as regular readers know.

There are only five states which currently ban the open carry of handguns in most public areas, most of the time. They are: Illinois, New York, California, Florida, and South Carolina. New Jersey and Hawaii ban open carry in practice, but legally, anyone with a permit can open carry. It is just extremely difficult to obtain a permit.

South Carolina is moving toward restoring the right to openly carry handguns in public with House Bill 3094, labeled “Open Carry with Training”.

They’ve been moving for years, only to get torpedoed by the controllers who appear to control the controllers in South Carolina.

I’ve sent blast emails to every legislator in South Carolina before, but it has limited utility compared to communications a South Carolina resident would send.

To my readers in South Carolina: you’re on top of this, aren’t you?  You’re involved, aren’t you? Unless you’re involved, don’t complain when your state looks just like New York.

I can complain when I drive into South Carolina because my rights are not honored, but I don’t live there and they won’t listen to me.  They’ll listen to you, maybe, if you speak forcefully enough.

So you can’t complain.

Prior: South Carolina Open Carry Tag

We recently discussed the Primary Arms 5x Prismatic Optic and how its weight can be offputting.  Vortex recently released their 5x Prism optic, and Brownells reviews it, followed by the Vortex introduction of it.

It appears to be small, compact and light. I also like the plate for a miniaturized red dot on top of the optic.

Shooting Illustrated.

As the velocities of metallic cartridges increased and as rifle cartridges become significantly more powerful than handgun cartridges, things begin to change. If a shooter wanted a rifle, they generally wanted a rifle cartridge that would drastically extend the reach and hit harder than a handgun. Still, some revolver cartridges continued to be popular in rifles. With modern munitions, however, a popular revolver cartridge like the .357 Mag.—delivering about 1,200 to 1,400 fps out of a 4-inch revolver—will push the same bullet as much as 400 fps or faster out of a 16- or 18-inch-barrel rifle.

This created a problem for bullets. Modern projectile technology would allow ballistic engineers to create a bullet for .357 Mag. that could perform quite well at handgun or rifle velocities. What was challenging was to create something that would deliver expansion, maintain its weight and deliver decent penetration when fired from a short-barreled handgun as well as a rifle. You see, velocity is the driving force behind terminal performance, and bullets are typically designed to work within a certain velocity range. Extending that performance range so acceptable terminal performance can be had at impact velocities as low as 1,000 fps and as high as 1,800 fps has, at least until now, been similar to the search for Bigfoot.

I found myself trying to solve this conundrum of ammunition selection when I began working with a Ruger 77/357 bolt-action rifle I wanted to set up as a general-purpose rifle and as my companion to a concealed-carry and a general-purpose revolver.

[ … ]

Out of a snubnose revolver, the HammerDown load penetrated 15.5 inches and deformed with a frontal diameter 1.5X caliber. Out of the 4-inch revolver, the bullet penetrated 20 inches and across the front it measured 1.6X the unfired bullet diameter. And, out of the 18-inch barrel of the rifle, the 170-grain bonded bullet pushed to 22 inches and had a recovered frontal diameter that measuring 1.3X its original diameter. Unlike Critical Duty, which only showed a 400 fps (38 percent) velocity increase between the 2- and 18-inch barrels, the HammerDown load jumped from 1,102 fps out of the snubby to 1,773 fps out of the rifle, a 61-percent increase in velocity.

The point of all this is that if you’re a fan of the .357 Mag., and if you would like a single load suitable for hunting, predator defense and personal protection—a general-purpose or Bigfoot-capable load—you now have a fantastic option.

Left unmentioned are two things.  The first may be just an editorial preference, and that is that the ammunition design also incorporates certain features like chamfering at key parts of the cartridge to reduce misfeeds.

The second is the important one.  This is a designer, boutique ammunition, and the difficulty at the moment is finding ammunition at all.

Finally, just try to located a Ruger 77/357 or for that matter a Ruger 77/44 today.  They’ve been discontinued.

Oh, so then look for a Henry X Model in 357 magnum or 44 magnum.  Nope.  Cannot be found either.