Articles by Herschel Smith

Surprising news:

In 1993, the San Francisco 49ers shocked the world when they traded future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Earlier this year, a similar situation occurred when Ruger announced that 18-time NRA Bianchi Cup National Action Pistol Champion Doug Koenig was joining them to become their new shooting team’s captain—it stunned the competitive shooting world.

So how did it happen? Earlier this year we talked to Koenig about his big move to Team Ruger, his passion for accuracy, and the future home of the Sportsman’s Team Challenge National Championship.

A pro shooter’s goals may change over the course of a career. Sometimes a change of scenery is necessary and proper. Occasionally, the stars align and opportunities arise.

“When Paul Pluff went to Ruger, we stayed in touch,” said Koenig (Pluff is Ruger’s public relations manager). “He shared his thoughts with me about getting a shooting team together, and I looked at the move as a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor with a great company.”

The combination of Koenig maturing as a professional shooter, whose still-fresh career has reached lofty heights, and Smith & Wesson’s evolving needs as a company, brought on the split. Additionally, the wide range of Ruger’s firearms lineup matches his desire to branch out into other disciplines.

“Ruger has some fantastic products I can compete with, but there are also opportunities to be involved with new products,” said Koenig. “When I started out with Smith & Wesson 14 years ago, I was heavily involved with product design, working with their engineers and product managers. They have their own thoughts and they do it a different way now, which is okay, but they haven’t utilized the team under those parameters in the last several years.”

Koenig goes on to explain that he intends to do some competitive precision rifle shooting too.  It will be rather odd to see Doug in rifle competitions.  He has been such a staple on the competitive pistol shooting circuit that it will be a huge change to see him with a rifle in his hands.

This would seem to be a huge loss for S&W.  Other than S&W not making him happy with product oversight anymore, or perhaps more money offered by Ruger, I wonder how this happened?

I also wonder what’s become of the other notable S&W shooter, Jerry Miculek?  I haven’t seen a video by him in more than a year.

It’s a video and I don’t want to embed it, so go watch.  It’s short.

He shot down the stairway of his home when he thought someone had broken in.  Someone did break in – a SWAT team.  The report doesn’t say why they were there.

He says he stopped shooting when he realized they were police officers.  The good news is that a jury can actually find that a man has a right to defend his home regardless of the identity of the invaders.

The bad news: they did find him guilty of aggravated assault on a police officer.  They can’t just let a man shoot a “hero of the community” and get away with it, can they?

And now for more bad news.  Prosecutors are out there everywhere who want you to lay down and let home invaders ransack your home, rape your women and kill you.  Just in case the home invaders happen to be cops, we need to consider their health and safety above yours.  So, capital murder.

Prosecutors.  I’m beginning to think that what @WRSA told me was true.  The evil starts and ends with prosecutors.

Reason:

Following the Waco stand-off of 1993, where 82 members of the Branch Davidian sect were killed following a failed attempt to serve a warrant on the group’s leader, David Koresh, on weapons charges, North offered a full-throated defense of the feds, criticizing “arm-chair critics…second-guessing law enforcement officers on the scene.”

Wayne and Chris run things.  Until they are out, it’s the same old compromising, statist NRA.  North will toe the line.

Via WRSA, Chateau Heartiste:

A few years ago, I struck up a conversation with a white guy from Zimbabwe — in the Wal Mart checkout line, of all places. Fair number of blacks around, but the guy was totally relaxed. It was a comparative matter, you see. Back home, he explained, there was just just no way his car would still be in the lot when he exited the store, since in the present case he had left no one armed to watch it. Just having that luxury — not leaving an armed person and believing his car would be present —   was like heaven.

And Americans may look back on years gone by as like heaven compared to what’s coming.  What’s coming won’t exempt military or LEOs because they carry guns or a badge.  Everyone will get swept up in it.

As for Christians in California, let’s take a look at where they are right now.

According to its website, Summit Ministries, an organization devoted to advising Christian youths on how to live out a Christian worldview, has canceled its scheduled appearances at Biola University in Los Angeles “due to concerns that California will forbid some of what it teaches.”

Summit’s concern is real.

The fact is that California is about to make into law A.B. 2943, a bill recently passed by the state Assembly and probably soon to be ratified by the state Senate.  The proposed law seeks to punish by fines and penalties any goods and services and services “offering to engage in or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual,” claiming that such efforts constitute deceptive business practices.

[ … ]

The reluctance to fight is in some ways understandable because of the high-profile examples of the Christians whose businesses and lives have been destroyed by radicals of the LGBT movement.  Even big fish like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A have been threatened because their managers have dared to stand up for the Christian view of marriage.

Moreover, many times, fellow Christians do not come to the support of other Christians who are attacked.

Well, they’re too busy watching football and worrying over racial reparations while they’re at worship.  It only goes downhill from here.  Diversity means submission, Sharia law means for your women too, and MS-13 had better be appeased or they’ll hack you to pieces with machetes.  They clearly want to do something like that to Mr. Trump.

In the mean time, you’d better purchase some good firearms and ammunition and learn to fight if you haven’t already done that.  Make sure not to forget PT.  It means everything.  Without PT you will be too winded and weak to defend yourselves or your families.

David Corn writing at Mother Jones:

In late 2016, the US Army released a report noting that the Russian military, through experience gained during fighting in Ukraine, was undergoing a transformation and becoming a more potent battlefield threat to American forces. One troublesome development identified by the report’s authors was the increased proficiency of Russian snipers. “The capabilities of a sniper in a Russian contingent is far more advanced than the precision shooters U.S. formations have encountered over the last 15 years,” the study noted. One reason for this was the Russian military’s recent adoption of the ORSIS T-5000, a relatively new Russian-made firearm that the report called “one of the most capable bolt action sniper rifles in the world.” As one military technology expert noted, after reviewing this report, the US Army faced “being outgunned” by foes armed with the T-5000—which can be accurate at a distance of 2,000 yards—and these Russian rifles were showing up in Iraq and Ukraine. That is, this weapon posed a threat to US troops and those of its allies. Yet the National Rifle Association—which boasts it is identified with American patriotism—has helped promote Moscow-based ORSIS and its sniper rifle.

Corn goes on and on in breathtaking and dramatic fashion over this highly lethal rifle, which happens to be a .338 bolt action gun.

I guess the U.S. doesn’t have .338 bolt action guns.  Oops, never mind.  Guess we don’t have .50 BMG rifles.  Oops, never mind, the Marine Corps Scout Snipers use them all the time.  Guess the .338 is an innovative round never before seen on the battlefields of the world.  Oops, never mind.

Guess David Corn bought the Pentagon picture-book hook, line and sinker.  David, this report is a request for money.  Do you get that, son?

By the way, nice job, Army-folks.  Lots of nice, pretty, action-pictures to keep the brass and politicians interested as they turn the pages.

George Block at Observer-Reporter:

There is little doubt but that the name Winchester increases the value of any rifle. There are many lever action models that have jumped in value. An 1888 in good shape is worth quite a bit as is the ugly and awkward to carry 1895. Even the most popular Winchester of all the 1894 holds its value well. The 1894 later became the model 94 that most of us have shot at some time.

Earlier I misstated in a reply back to Georgiaboy that Winchester Rifles are now made in Portugal.  Actually, Winchester rifles were made in Japan for a number of years, and at that point the quality deteriorated to near nothing.

FN purchased the brand, and now the parts are made in Columbia, S.C., while being assembled in Portugal.  It’s still difficult to get a Winchester Model 70 because FN tools their line in Columbia to make a certain gun, retools for the next one, and so on and around it goes.  I question whether this is a good business model, but it’s what they do.

Few people outside FN know when a new release of gun models is going to become available.  I’ve sent FN customer service notes before on other subjects only to be ignored.  I also don’t know anything about the quality of the Model 70s being made today.

Tell me if you would your interest in these subjects.

I’ll give you equal time to explain why you’re interested in these subjects.  Is that a deal?

As seen on Facebook:

This is why Facebook is stupid.  Yes, I know the hazard of saying something like that is that there are so many reasons Facebook is stupid that someone may point out the reductionism of the assertion This is why Facebook is stupid.  Nonetheless, this is why Facebook is stupid.

No one has apparently asked her to change the subject to something like automobiles.  ” … You’re already stating that having car insurance and ambulances means that cars are dangerous and a threat to those nearby.”  Consistency is only the Hobgoblin of small minds in American schools.

About the only thing you can say to something like that (because she’s not teachable) is “Shut up, go to the kitchen and make me a sandwich.”

If you have a Facebook account, delete it.  You’re stupider every day you have it.  It’s amazing that Zuckerberg actually makes a living with this crap, a testimony to the stupidity of the American people.

Trump spoke at the NRA convention in Dallas to a hero’s welcome.  David Codrea has other thoughts.

No one is expecting the president to exceed his authority or the proper bounds of federalism, but the office does come with a bully pulpit and, depending on your point of view, the man is either famous or notorious for issuing public statements through Twitter. If we’re to believe the “assault on [our] Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end,” what kind of statements would it be reasonable to expect when states are infringing on a right articulated in “the supreme Law of the Land”?

Donald “Ban the bump stocks take the guns first” Trump was heralded at the NRA convention, but by my calculus he has given us (a) a progressive Ninth Circuit judge, (b) a bump stock ban, (c) Fix-NICS, (d) more funding for the CDC to pump out anti-gun garbage.

Tim Harmsen, whom I like and whose videos I enjoy, was interviewed by NPR.  Normally I’d say as I always do, “The first rule of gun club is don’t talk about gun club.”  But NPR did a fair job.

The National Rifle Association’s annual meeting begins Friday in Dallas, and some members of the organization plan to voice their discontent with the positions the NRA has taken in the past year.

Lifetime member Tim Harmsen, the owner of Copper Custom Gun Shop in Valparaiso, Ind., and the creator and host of the Military Arms Channel on YouTube, says he’s bringing boxes of T-shirts that reflect his disappointment.

“The shirts say ‘NRA: Not Real Activists.’ So, we’re not happy with the direction that [NRA leaders] Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox have taken,” Harmsen says. “They think that the resolution to all that ails the country is constant compromise on our constitutional rights, and there’s a growing number of us who are dissatisfied with that.”

They constantly negotiate our rights away. And my opinion is this — that in a compromise, it’s assumed that both parties will get something of equal value, and that’s not what happens. We don’t really compromise — we surrender our rights, endlessly trying to appease the factions that simply want to erase the Second Amendment as though it never existed….

Two issues that they’ve recently pushed through with the assistance of Trump is their NICS fix, which is an expansion of the NICS background check system, which has about a 97 percent false positive rate. … The NRA originally wrote the bill during the Clinton administration, and then they had President Trump expand it, which is a de facto waiting period for most Americans. It inaccurately flags most people.

Then, the second thing that they did is bump stock regulation. It’s really poorly written, and it goes so far as to tell you how to get around the regulations change.

I’m going for two reasons: First of all, I’m a voting member, and I plan to vote — and we keep trying to vote in a board that more reflects the opinions of the membership, which is myself and a large number of NRA members. If you get online and look, go through the discussion forms (sic) and the pro-Second Amendment forms (sic), you’ll see what I’m saying is true….

You’d think that NPR could at least get the word forum right.  As I said, I like Tim, but I don’t believe in compromise.  The problem is not just that we don’t really compromise and the other side gets everything.  The fundamental problem is that when God has spoken and decreed rights, man has no business stepping in to intercede in that right.  Man usurps the position of God, and it makes Him angry.  It also makes men who love God angry.

The problem with the bump stock ban isn’t that it is poorly written, or that it’s a slippery slope, or that we didn’t get anything in the compromise.  If it was well written and we got something in the give-and-take, it’s still wrong.

All gun control is wicked.  Compromise is evil when God has spoken and dictated the terms and conditions of our existence.  But always remember what Trump said in the debates, and what I’ve rehearsed here on these pages many times.

“Everything is negotiable.”

Reuters:

Bank of America Corp is preparing to provide critical financing to Remington Outdoor Co, which makes assault-type rifles, just weeks after the U.S. bank said it would stop financing “military-style” firearms for civilians.

The bank is contributing $43.2 million to a $193 million lending package funded by seven banks, according to court documents, which will help put Remington back on stable footing as it emerges from bankruptcy later this month into an uncertain environment for gun makers.

The package replaces a similar credit facility the banks committed to providing Remington. Both were agreed in late March, before Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, changed its policy to stop financing companies that make military-style guns for civilian use.

Anne Finucane, Bank of America’s vice chair, said in April that the bank had decided on its pledge to help reduce mass shootings, saying in an interview with Bloomberg TV that “it is not our intent to underwrite or finance military-style firearms on a go-forward basis.”

[ … ]

But withdrawing from the deal would hurt the bank’s reputation for standing by its lending agreements and could undermine Remington’s survival, according to one person familiar with the bank’s thinking.

Surely BoA knew about this loan package before it’s stupid announcement on other firearms manufacturers.

That means one of two things.  Either BoA is full of liars and crooks who were only trying to make an appearance of cooperating with the gun controllers, or Remington has been strong armed and is preparing to jettison its Bushmaster line of guns.

If the first is true, it doesn’t mean BoA will lend in the future to firearms manufacturers.  It just means that they are liars.  If the second is true, this is the end for Remington.  There will be no recovery.  Tikka can easily supplant the Remington 700 because it’s a better gun.