Articles by Herschel Smith

I knew it would be a great series.  I wasn’t mistaken.  He uses the Henry X-Model for all tests.

Dean Weingarten.

One source confirmed the AmmoLand article by John Crump on 8 October was “on the money”.  It was claimed Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson was quite upset with John Crump’s AmmoLand article.

In the article, sources inside the ATF state Acting Director Regina Lombardo is “not loyal to the president”.  They state Associate Director Marvin Richardson believes pistol braces “violate the NFA”.

An Acting Director of the ATF is not required to be personally loyal to a President, but they should be expected to follow DOJ directives.

Lombardo was next in line after Acting Director Thomas B. Brandon retired at the end of April of 2019. The simplest thing to do was to make her Acting Director while waiting for approval of a direct appointment by President Trump.

GOA actively worked to prevent the appointment of Chuck Canterbury.  That meant Lombardo continued on as Acting Director, at least through the election.  The Giffords organization, which seeks numerous restrictions on gun ownership and use, approved of Lombardo’s appointment as acting director.

Don’t take at least part of the blame off Trump.  He didn’t have to nominate controller Canterbury.  He also didn’t have to do the “easy” thing and nominate this traitor Lombardo to head the ATF, even in the interim.

Trump could stop listening to his awful aids, Wayne LaPierre, and everyone else who is either (a) ignorant on how a nominee will affect the gun community, or (b) wants ill affects on the gun community and a reduction of liberty.

But give a controller and inch, and she’ll take a mile.  Part of the blame goes to Lombardo, as well as the fact that life bureaucrats cannot be fired.  This is the administrative state at its worst.

The comments are interesting, from people who blame Trump (in which they are at least partially correct) to others who are willing to make concessions (Fudds, we would call them).

Ok, so I have read all the responses and most are ban the ATF and other alphabet organizations. How about this. Lets just make it law that all hand held firearms are legal so long as they are not automatic. If you want auto, get the stamp, pay the fees and make your AR AK auto, no more of this bullshit law about how it has to have been made before a certain date. That was just another ploy to keep them out of the hands of commoners like me. I can’t afford 15,000 for a fully auto and there are so few that they go for more than that and the rich people are the only ones that can afford them.

This is a mind-numbingly daft comment.  So the infringements are what caused the elevated prices he complains about, causing him the complete inability to obtain fully automatic weapons (1986 GCA).

That follows the first part, where he is willing at a moment’s notice to give up (” … all hand held firearms are legal so long as they are not automatic”).  In other words, as long as I have gotten used to the infringements on my liberty, we’ll keep those going forward as long as you spare me a few crumbs of freedom.

How about this.

No.

Eradicate the alphabet agencies, which have no basis or legitimacy in the constitution.

We covered the idea that the recent ATF movements to regulate AR pistol braces as NFA items would have some blowback of Trump support.  There has been further development.

Washington Examiner.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has temporarily backed off criminalizing a type of gun used by 3-4 million people in the United States until after the presidential election, likely stoking the issue of gun control.

The New Hampshire maker of a popular styled AR-15 “pistol” today said that the ATF suspended its surprise decision made last week to outlaw the gun, called the “Honey Badger” pistol.

Q, LLC told customers, “Our attorneys received a letter from ATF Chief Counsel Joel Roessner ‘temporarily suspending the Cease and Desist letter’ associated with the Honey Badger Pistol by Q. The letter states that the suspension, will remain in effect for a period of sixty (60) days … unless withdrawn or extended by ATF.’ The stated purpose of the suspension is to allow the Department of Justice an opportunity, ‘to further review the applicability of the National Firearms Act to the manufacture and transfer of the model Honey Badger Pistol firearm.’”

It said the move will delay, though not reverse, the earlier cease and desist until after the election, a tactic the company decried.

“We believe this 60-day suspension is an effort to put manufacturers, distributors, and consumers at ease, and to postpone the issue past the presidential election in hopes that a new administration will take a different view,” said the company, adding, “using licensees as political pawns is unbecoming of a regulatory agency and ignoring the underlying evaluation in this letter is simply irresponsible. Q will not succumb to this level or irresponsibility. Therefore, without further clarification from ATF on their evaluation, we will not continue manufacturing the Honey Badger Pistol.”

[ … ]

Trump officials had been concerned that it would look like the president’s team was targeting the weapon in a move that could turn the 3-4 million owners into felons unless they dismantled or changed their weapons.

However, it is expected that if Joe Biden wins election, the ATF will move forward, likely targeting all of the makers of AR pistols, and even ban the AR-15, dubbed by liberals as an assault weapon.

Well this is fascinating.  The article clearly says that “Trump officials had been concerned …”

So apparently they took notice, and noted that this would involve millions of gun owners should this interpretation become finalized.

The article also hints at the fact that the ATF believes that pistol braces violate the NFA, and want to push this in a potential upcoming administration.

They’re banking on a specific election outcome, and clearly signaling their intentions.

Trump officials should have divorced themselves from Wayne LaPierre and taken notice much earlier concerning their bump stock ban.  That involves half a million bump stock owners who became felons overnight.

They’re slow to react and have poor character judgment, not to mention poor proclivities regarding the 2A.

But of course, a Biden administration would be worse, and the ATF knows it.  They have the cover they need should the election outcome go their way.

Via reader Matt.

Via reader Ned.

Comments and observations?

He obviously saw the cat while still walking towards it.  Otherwise he wouldn’t have been catching it on video.

I think I would have turned around before he did.

Does Fred want to pet the kitty?

This is either very good LARPing, or he is endangering his very life with this stuff.

It would make a lot of things make better sense.

Dean Weingarten has the scoop.

David Codrea.

Nonetheless, even though they’re “right,” NRA is burying the larger picture by omitting the core purpose of the Second Amendment in its moral and legal arguments. They are ignoring our God-given given right to defend ourselves, our families, and our liberty against tyranny, and our ability to do so with what Continental Congress delegate Tench Coxe called “the sword and every other terrible implement of the soldier.” He and the other Founders considered that “the birthright of an American,” and leaving that contention, and “the Militia of the several States” out of the argument, gives those who would deny our rights all the wiggle room they need to weasel-word their way into whatever infringements they usurp the power to impose.

The second amendment is about the amelioration of tyranny.  It is about defense of home and hearth, both individual and corporate.  For that, we have a God-given right to the sword and every other terrible implement of the soldier.

As an aside, David links this piece entitled “Assault Weapon Lethality.”  The author relies on field reports of soldiers using green tip ammunition (62-gr. steel core), of which it is well known now that while it was deployed because of the tendency for rounds to ricochet off of windshields, having a tendency to ice-pick through targets rather than fragment.

He also relies on a few anecdotes rather than the holistic report of the Stoner system of arms and the 5.56mm (which has killed hundreds of thousands of enemy fighters).  He tries (but fails) to properly engage issues of accuracy, failing to understand that it’s much more difficult to get a semi-automatic rifle to shoot less than about 0.5 – 1 MOA than it is a bolt action rifle.  The comparison he makes between bolt actions and AR-15s is stilted and ill-conceived.

He makes entirely the wrong argument concerning distance shooting, stating that in effect the narrow, light design of the bullet (low sectional density, although he doesn’t use that term) makes it less able to be effected by the air, but in fact the light design also makes it a 400 – 500 meter weapon (because with long distance shooting, it’s effected by air more than heavier bullets).  Then again, it was designed to be a 400 – 500 meter weapon, with crew-served weapons assuming the burden of making some 80 – 90% of kills in previous wars.

He fails to address the fact that some of these many shots on enemy fighters might have been misses, and also fails to address the fact that fully automatic fire has been done away with in favor of 3 round bursts (and my son has told me they never used select fire anyway).  That’s reserved for the M249.  The M4 was never designed to be an area suppression weapon.

I could go on.  I’m a fan of the Stoner system, but whether you are or not isn’t really relevant to this assessment.  Technically, I find the paper to be a poor attempt to engage the technical aspects of shooting, gunsmithing, ballistics, the effect of twist rate in barrel design, the introduction of 75 – 77 grain bullets (or return to 55 gr. and away from the 62 gr.), the effect of barrel length changes (unfortunately, the decrease in length to 10.5″ and even less), the effect of hydrostatic shock, and issues of warfare.

But it’s linked, so read it if you want.  I missed this paper when it came out.  We’ve addressed small caliber lethality before.  It’s probably best if law professors stay way from engineering.

The bottom line is that arguing against the effectiveness of any given gun (even if it’s incorrect) is the wrong way to argue for access to it by the American public.

As to what constitutes a “weapon of war,” everything does.  I can supply documented evidence of the use of bolt action rifles, shotguns (Benelli M4s by the Marine Corps in Now Zad, Afghanistan), explosives, mines, bombs, gas, balloons, pigeons, knives, swords, bows and arrows, pistols, revolvers, sticks, rocks and spears.

What else is there?  I’m sure readers could add to this list.  The argument is retarded.

News from Massachusetts.

SPRINGFIELD — With $2,000 worth of stock, a network of nuns and a Catholic health care organizations are once again asking gunmaker Smith & Wesson to adopt a statement on human rights and to make a public accounting of the cost of gun violence.

Company management — remembering the strong backlash to Smith & Wesson’s Clinton-era overtures to gun safety advocates — said adopting the sort of human rights policy the nuns are looking for would alienate supporters in the “firearms enthusiast community,” according to Smith & Wesson documents filed in the run-up to the vote.

The request for a human rights policy modeled on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights goes before stockholders Tuesday, Oct. 13, at Smith & Wesson’s annual shareholders meeting.

The initiative is backed by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility which includes the Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investments the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary U.S.-Ontario and the Adrian Dominican Sisters and others.

They’re being old biddies and mother hens for the world because they missed their calling in life.

First of all, go pound sand and get lost.

Second, you’re designed to be married, wife of one husband, and mother to children.  Go do what you’ve been designed to do and then maybe you wouldn’t have so much time to be nosy, gossip and meddle in the affairs of others.