Articles by Herschel Smith

News from Florida:

A false threat made to Jefferson Davis Middle School prompted Jacksonville police to swarm the campus Thursday afternoon, according to a Duval County Public Schools spokeswoman. During the police response, an officer’s gun accidentally discharged outside the school, authorities said.

About 3:50 p.m., according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, 911 dispatch received two calls reporting there had been a shooting at the school. Officers arrived in full force to investigate and then determined the information was false. The incident report shows the calls came from within the school.

Just after 4 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office said, a police officer had an unintentional discharge from his agency-issued weapon and the bullet struck the sidewalk, causing minor surface damage. The Sheriff’s Office is conducting an administrative investigation into the unintentional discharge.

Gosh I just hate it when that happens to me.  Hmm … I recall the last time I did that.  Somebody conducted an internal affairs investigation and made me go home with pay for a week, counseled me when I came back, and then we all laughed and laughed about it.

No harm, no foul.

Fox News:

Democrats this week approved legislation to require background checks for essentially all sales and transfers of firearms — but rejected GOP-led efforts to amend the legislation to alert law enforcement authorities when gun buyers, including illegal immigrants, fail those background checks.

The House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of the bill 23-15, in a strict party-line vote, sending it to the House floor. If approved by the full House, the bill would be the most significant gun-control legislation approved by either chamber of Congress in at least a decade — although it stands little chance of passage in the Senate, where Republicans command a slim majority.

Republicans in the House charged that H.R. 8, known as “The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019,” should have included Florida Rep. Greg Steube’s proposed amendment to require that law enforcement be notified “when an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a federal background check.” (H.R. 8 was numbered in honor of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in Arizona on Jan. 8, 2011 by a mentally ill gunman.)

“Clearly, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee don’t care about preventing gun violence, they simply are playing politics with Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” Steube, a Republican, said after the vote. “The fact that Democrats do not want law enforcement notified if an individual attempting to purchase a firearm fails a background check is truly troubling.”

The democrats want universal background checks, just not if it means that illegals will be deported.  That’s the most important thing.

Troubling, however, is that it’s not clear whether this is a “poison pill” intended to be inserted by the republicans (which they should have known would be rejected), or a capitulation to the forces of gun control?

And what would Trump do if this bill was brought to him to sign?  We all know that the likes of Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn want universal background checks, and that Trump believes in virtually nothing.

Say, what are the chances that the politicians just kill the notion of background checks altogether as being an unrighteous, unconstitutional infringement on God-given rights?  Did anyone bring that up in the hearings?

Like David, I cannot comment on the orientation of the video.  But watch the whole thing and read the comments to which David links.

The first mistake is living in California.  The second mistake is registering guns.  But of course as we all know, the intent of gun control isn’t to reduce crime, it’s to disarm peaceable men before the hordes and mobs, be they criminals or cops, but maybe I’m being redundant.

News from North Carolina:

“Gun violence is a public health crisis,” said Rep. Christy Clark, D-Mecklenburg, a former state director for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

[ … ]

Previous gun control measures have gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled General Assembly in recent years. Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said she has filed bills every legislative session since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, but none has every gotten a committee hearing.

“This state has gone the exact opposite direction we need to be going,” Harrison said, noting the legislature has expanded gun rights in recent years to allow firearms in parks, in locked cars at schools and other locations where they were previously barred.

[ … ]

Other provisions in the bill include the following:

• Not properly storing a firearm in a locked container when not in use would be a misdemeanor

• Gun owners must report a lost or stolen firearm to law enforcement within 48 hours

• Gun owners must carry liability insurance

• Law enforcement agencies would be allowed destroy seized firearms

• Cities and counties would be allowed to set their own rules on where guns are allowed

Nullification is okay with them if a locale ignores rights and protections, as opposed to imposing infringements.

Here’s what I think is a public health crisis.  Horrible women getting involved in things that aren’t any of their business.

Prediction: Just like their efforts to bully Harris Teeter into going anti-gun (which would have been led to their financial ruination), they will fail and this will go away.

But it’s still a sign of the times.

Continuing with the conversation we were having a few days ago on new cartridges that answer questions nobody has asked, this new cartridge may be the next in line to fail.

Nosler was the first company to launch a new super .22 with the release of the 22 Nosler. It boasted “close to .22-250 velocities” in a short case that could fit into a standard AR magazine. This cartridge was soon followed by Federal’s release of the .224 Valkyrie, which took on a bit of a different appeal. You see, the 22 Nosler was designed as a super-fast varmint caliber with 1-in-8-inch twist or 1-in-10-inch twist barrels offered to stabilize bullets closer to those of the .22-250. This provides a distinct advantage over the 5.56 with similar weight bullets. The Valkyrie addressed more of the long-range interest with its attempt to push 70-90 grain bullets past 2,800 fps.

These velocities are respectable, especially considering that neither has an overall length of more than the standard .223 Remington. There will be many who point out that the .220 Swift was the original king of small-bore magnums, but it really needed a fast twist barrel and long action to make it shine. We have finally seen the shooting sports embrace long, heavy-for-caliber bullets. It has been long awaited, but as I am writing this, Hornady Manufacturing is pushing to get yet another super-cartridge through the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute process, just as the sport has been chasing smaller, lighter calibers to perform further down range.

The 22 Creedmoor is the newest of the overbore magnums to hit the market. With the capacity of the now famous 6.5 Creedmoor, the 22 Creedmoor is just a necked down variation on the same cartridge. So, what can it do that the others can’t? To be honest, it is not that much different than, say, the .22-243 or the .22-250 AI, but what all but a few custom builds have lacked, the 22 Creedmoor has embraced. It was never designed to shoot lightweight bullets at 4,000 fps. Though it will do that easily, the 22 Creedmoor was built with long, heavy .224 bullets in mind. The 22 Creedmoor will come standard with a 1-in-7-inch fast-twist barrel, and combined with the increased volume inside its case, you can push those long pills over at 3,450 feet per second! This is a distinct step up in performance.

Oh, I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just the ticket if you want the rifling blown out of your barrel.  I don’t see this as stiff competition for the 224 Valkyrie, but who knows?

Via David Codrea, this dreadful statement.

“Nobody wants dangerous people to have access to firearms, which is why the NRA supports risk protection orders with adequate due process protections and ensure those adjudicated to be dangerously mentally ill receive treatment,” Jennifer Baker, a spokesperson for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said. “The NRA believes that any effort should be structured to fully protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens while preventing truly dangerous individuals from accessing firearms. We will only support an [Emergency Risk Protection Order] process that strongly protects both Second Amendment rights and due process rights at the same time.”

Echoing Mack’s comments, why would bearing arms be a deterrent if folks didn’t think I was dangerous?

The NRA: the most well-funded, well-connected, effective, best-resourced gun control organization on the planet.

I just wish folks would learn to make videos without the head-banger music.

Seattle Times:

County sheriffs who say they won’t enforce Washington’s new, stricter gun laws could be held liable if they refuse to perform enhanced background checks and someone who shouldn’t buy a gun is able to buy one and uses it in a crime, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said on Tuesday.

In an open letter to law enforcement, Ferguson wrote that he was confident the wide-ranging law was constitutional and would withstand court challenges, but that he was concerned about threats — mostly from county sheriffs — to not enforce the new law.

At least 13 county sheriffs have said they won’t enforce the law, Initiative 1639, which voters passed by a wide margin in November.

Are you going to let him talk to you like that?  Oh … probably so.

It is unclear how many of the sheriffs and police chiefs who have vowed not to enforce the law planned to not conduct the background checks.

For instance, Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond called the law unconstitutional and said he wouldn’t enforce it, but said he supported the 10-day waiting period and the enhanced background checks.

“Certainly we’re going to follow all of those type of things,” Raymond said.

If other sheriffs do not, however, Ferguson said they could be held liable if a gun sale that would have been prevented by the new background checks goes through and then someone uses that gun in a crime.

“The taxpayers of your city or county assume the financial risk of your decision to impose your personal views over the law,” he wrote.

Take note that surviving a challenge doesn’t mean that the law is constitutional, it just means that some tyrant, or gaggle of tyrants, lets it go.

So that’s the plan, just as I have said all along.  They will come after your money, your licenses, your reputation, your job, and your ability to do business.

In this case, he’s bullying the citizens of those respective counties to force compliance with the law by the Sheriffs out of fear of financial liability.

It’s almost as if they want to fight, or something.

Reason:

This week a North Carolina mom told the Raleigh City Council that police “terrorized” her parents and her 6-year-old special-needs son.

A Selective Enforcement Unit (SEU) team—Raleigh’s version of SWAT—had a warrant to search Michael and Wanda Clark’s home last November. Michael’s nephew, Brian Clark, was a suspect in a recent armed robbery. Police found a box Brian had left at the scene of the crime with his uncle’s name and address on it, Indy Week reports. So they paid a visit to the Clark home, where Michael and Wanda’s daughter LaDonna had dropped off her son, who has autism and cerebral palsy, before going to work.

Brian Clark did not live at his uncle’s house and was not there at the time. Nonetheless, police forced Michael, Wanda, and their grandson to walk out of the house and sit on the ground. “On a 35-degree and rainy night, my son with autism was forced out of the home with military-style rifles aimed at him and made to sit on the cold, wet ground for over an hour by RPD SWAT,” LaDonna told the city council Tuesday.

“You can sit down there, or I will handcuff you,” an officer told her father, according to a complaint Michael Clark later filed with the department.

“Having guns pointed at a six-year-old was extremely frightening and completely unnecessary,” Wanda Clark wrote in a complaint of her own. “Even now, I still have nightmares about those guns being pointed at me and my grandson.”

“Not only was I not allowed to see the footage of my son being terrorized,” LaDonna told the city council, but the police wouldn’t give her an internal affairs complaint number unless she specifically stated which department policies had been broken and agreed to an in-person interview. At this point, the police already had three written complaints describing the incident.

That’s because you’re not special and they are because they are cops.

Why didn’t they just walk up the sidewalk and knock on the door?

I think the entire unit, including cops who didn’t participate in the raid, should be forced to strip naked and parade through the streets of Raleigh from one side of the town to the other, with the entire city watching, wearing signs that say, “I am a toad.”

Right before they are all fired and hauled into court for breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, and carrying firearms to the terror of the public.

Fox Business:

Alienating firearms backers would “cause the greatest reputational and financial harm” to American Outdoors Brand Corp., the manufacturer disclosed in a federal filing on Friday

“The one overriding factor mitigating the effectiveness of gun control groups to damage the reputations of those in the firearms business is the passion and strength of firearms owners in defending their rights at the ballot box, in the course of legislative debates, and in the marketplace,” Smith & Wesson’s parent company wrote.

The candid remarks encapsulate the difficulty proponents of new gun laws have faced in their quest. While such campaigns often garner intense media attention, the core support among gun owners and the significant political weight the group carries has stymied any significant legislation on the issue.

It also highlights the difficulty firearms producers and retailers face in trying to navigate the intense political landscape on gun control. Dick’s Sporting Goods’ decision in 2018 to ban the sales of AR-15-style rifles helped contribute to a 4.5 percent decline in sales in its hunting business. The backlash among conservatives and others firearms supporters “could affect future results,” the Pittsburgh-based sporting goods retailer disclosed in November.

Friday’s study from American Outdoors Brand Corp. (AOCB) was released following a successful effort by shareholders, including a group of nuns, to force the company to analyze how its products are associated with gun violence and what steps the Springfield, Massachusetts-based firm is taking to make its firearms safer.

In the report, the company disputed the need to direct resources towards developing so-called “smart gun” technology, which includes facial recognition software to only allow an authorized user to fire it. Doing so would “require a significant investment” and the products would come at a cost that could alienate many of its key consumers.

“This pricing difference alone, at best, limits the commercial viability of ‘smart guns’ to a very small niche market. AOBC’s reasonable business judgment is that an investment in such an unknown, niche market is not a sound business decision,” the firm wrote, adding that it will “continue to regularly assess the market.”

Why would they have to make a “federal filing” over a stockholder vote?  The article doesn’t say.

As for what the author said in the article, it isn’t clear if Smith & Wesson really, really want to invest in “smart guns” and just can’t because of the financial damage (which would be very real and potentially deadly to the company), or the author is just making up this supposed conundrum for gun manufacturers.

As for Smith & Wesson, I’ll make the same observation I have for Ruger, Savage and all other manufacturers.  Hedge against this sort of thing by ensuring that if you do go public in order to raise revenue, your employees own a majority of the stock.  Make it an employee-run company.

Most manufacturers won’t have the wisdom to do that.