Articles by Herschel Smith

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.

What I read in this Ammoland article struck me as plausible prior to reading the article as I thought about this.

Sources also tell AmmoLand News that Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson, another career bureaucrat, has an ax-to-grind against pistol braces and belives they violate the NFA but doesn’t think that they have the political capital to make a move against the millions of accessories under a Trump presidency. Those inside ATF with knowledge of the situation told AmmoLand News that higher-ups at the ATF believe that they will have the political capital and cover to go after braces under an anti-gun Biden administration.

The same unnamed sources feel that the ATF agency heads are preparing for a Biden victory. They have inferred from conversations with ATF leaders that they are actively working to defeat Trump, and this move was to designed to disenfranchise gun owners just ahead of the election. Although the heads did not say this directly, three independent sources who work closely with the agency heads have verified this interference to be the unspoken truth within the highest halls of the ATF.

It’s possible that the ATF is actively trying to undermine Trump with the gun rights crowd (that has effectively already been accomplished with the bump stock ban and support for red flag laws).  This would be icing on the cake.

On the one hand, this administration is getting hit in all quarters.  On the other hand, it’s Trump’s job to appoint good people who understand tricks like this, and we’ve already seen his lack of good judgment in the people he appoints with whom he surrounds himself (e.g., Sessions, Comey, McCabe, Barr, McMaster, Kelly, much of his white house staff, etc.).

David Codrea has more on the history of the recent kerfuffle over the “Honey Badger.”

Instead of contacting DOJ, GOA asks members to “contact President Trump and let him know that you are counting on him to put a stop to this new ATF overreach and order them to reinstate the Honey Badger Pistol’s status as a pistol equipped with a brace. Then, contact your member of Congress and insist that they cosponsor H.R. 5289, The Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act.

I understand the sentiment, but I’m not sanguine about its chances of success.  David continues.

That GOA asks members to contact Trump instead of the DOJ is an effort to remind the president that his continued lip service about “our beautiful Second Amendment” followed by his deliberate indifference and even support for outright infringements serves only to demoralize gun owners, which in turn serves the purposes of ban-whatever-he-can Joe Biden. But the fact is, rumblings on this brace nonsense started over a year ago, and the buck for it stops squarely at the president’s desk. We know he’s not a “gun guy,” but he needs to listen to those who are, and I’m not talking about prop marriages of political convenience or do-nothing “advisory boards” designed to pander to the gun vote, but a genuine “cabinet” of serious advocates who will actually have his ear and who he will subordinate his presumptions for and listen to.

“I’m going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people. We want top of the line professionals,” Trump famously pledged in his first campaign. We’re certainly not seeing it at ATF, where the bureaucrats have either taken it on themselves to act like their inconsistent rulings are immutable law subject to no oversight.

“Unbeknownst to the general public, ATF has ordained in private determination letters that it considers ‘any firearm with a length of pull over 13-1/2 inches to be designed to be fired from the shoulder,’ thereby making it a short-barreled rifle,” the Gaetz letter observed. “However, ATF has also privately proclaimed that even firearms under this length of pull can be classified as a short-barreled rifle, if ATF identifies other (and often unspecified) applicable ‘indicators.’”

“Even more troubling are reports that these non-public standards are being used to criminally prosecute unsuspecting gun owners. Given ATF’s refusal to explain these standards, it is impossible for the public to comply with ATF’s ever-changing body of secret law,” Gaetz continued.

I think it’s generally safe to carry your pistol brace firearm to most ranges today (this does not constitute legal advice).  Depending upon the outcome of the election, this may change.  Furthermore, if Trump doesn’t hold the ATF in check, it may change anyway.

Some half a million bump stocks had been sold before the diktat to declare firearms using them to be machine guns.  Many millions more firearms sporting a pistol brace have been sold.

This is a clever strategy to undermine Trump and make gun owners smart where it really hurts.  Remove half a million votes from Trump in the upcoming election (because they were declared felons overnight) and that could swing the election given that his margin of victory was smaller than that in the last election (in spite of his electoral victory).

As for pistol braces, if even a small fraction of owners see Trump doing nothing about the ATF, the deep state has successfully undermined one of his core constituents.

Forrest Cooper writing at Recoil.

Aimpoint Micro

The T1 was later replaced by the T2 with a redesign including an even more protective body, and an improvement to the glass, reducing the blue-tint common across led-reflecting sights. While the cost of the Aimpoint T-2 Micro rides higher than similarly designed red dots, they bring with them not only the reputation of being the trend-setter, but also considerable aftermarket support. Featuring night vision settings and a 5-year battery life, the Micro Series by Aimpoint isn’t going away any time soon.

Holosun 403/503/515/530

The Holosun lineup continues to impress with a variety of options, and confuse with difficult to remember naming conventions. Early to adopt the implementation of a small solar panel into some of their designs, a Holosun can still run batteries down, but sells itself on sporting multiple reticle options that can be selected by the user. Options in dot color or to have an EOtech-like ring, Holosun has effectively found their way onto more than one professional rifle.

Trijicon MRO

Breaking the pattern of straight-tube optics, the Trijicon MRO is a red dot sight that bears a larger front aperture that turns the body of the optic into a funnel facing outward to minimize the tunnel-vision feeling of many alternatives. Ruggedized just like we expect from Trijicon, the MRO entered into the tight market and has since retained a place complete with various mounting options. Bearing similar size and weight to that of an Aimpoint T-2 Micro, but with a larger field of view and a variety of reticles and dot colors, the MRO sacrifices some durability while retaining the excellent glass quality typical to MRO.

There’s more at the link.  If readers want to supply comments or observations, fill them out in comments.

WSJ.

WASHINGTON—Attorney General William Barr has told top Republicans that the results of a wide-ranging inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation won’t be made public before the election, according to people familiar with the matter.

President Trump and his allies in Congress and his campaign had hoped the findings would be released before Nov. 3, potentially shedding new light on the underpinnings of the investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Because it might demonstrate that the entirety of the Obama administration was crooked, including the VP.  Or it might show that the Barr/Durham effort was as much of a white wash as we expect it to be, showing that they too are part of the deep state.

In other words, it will show the truth, one way or the other.  It’s the job of Washington bureaucrats to bury the truth.  The people need to make decisions based on what the FedGov tells them – not the truth.