Articles by Herschel Smith

NYT:

A strange thing happened after 45 senators killed a bill to expand background checks for gun buyers five weeks ago: many of those same senators suddenly discovered a profound affection for background checks. They had been for them all along, it turns out, and wanted nothing more than to keep guns out of the hands of felons.

“Knowing your interest in gun control, I wanted to give you an update on legislation I have co-sponsored and supported recently,” Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, wrote to his constituents earlier this month. “I have been adamant from the beginning of the gun control debate that our current background check system needs strengthening and improving.”

[ … ]

This kind of dissembling by gun control opponents has been rampant for years, but rarely have the National Rifle Association’s most captive lawmakers been so nakedly deceptive as in the weeks since public rage grew over the gun vote. Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, also voted against the Manchin-Toomey measure, and she immediately suffered the backlash of angry voters in her state. So she issued a statement saying “I support effective background checks” and reminding voters that she had backed the misleadingly named Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act — a measure that does nothing to close the loopholes for Internet or gun-show sales and that was, in fact, supported by the N.R.A. because it actually makes it easier to transport guns across state lines.

But triangulating and equivocating is what politicians do these days.  It doesn’t mean that the universal background check will end up law.  However, let’s suppose that the NYT editorial board is right (later on in the editorial), and this issue isn’t going away.

Very well.  Bring it.  We defeated you once, and we’ll do it again.  Word to everyone who has been entrusted with a stewardship of a vote in the House or Senate.  This won’t make it past the Senate, but even if it does, it will go down in remarkable and inglorious flames in the House.

When it does, support for this bastard proposal will haunt you for the rest of your lives.  Gun owners never forgive, and never forget.  Don’t believe the hype about public support for universal background checks.  It’s all a lie.

Tread carefully.

The Telegraph:

So let’s run down the facts.  Two men armed with knives and a gun hack another man to death, the police respond no sooner than twenty minutes after the attack, and laws in England virtually prohibit carrying of weapons or owning of weapons beyond firearms used for hunting (which cannot be carried on your person).

So to repeat.  Man prohibited from owning a gun gets killed by criminals who were prohibited from owning a gun but who didn’t have any regard for the law since they were criminals.  People who witnessed the crime could only shout at them since they didn’t have guns either.

Got it.

Via WRSA, Max Velocity has an interesting article up on the inability to obtain fire superiority.  The whole article is worth reading, but this part struck me.

So back to the bolt action rifles in the original question: there is no reason why such weapons cannot be used to suppress the enemy, particularly if their very nature means you have to be more accurate with them. This exposes the weakness of automatic weapons: if you face someone with uncontrolled automatic weapons, they could be hosing down your general area but not effectively, while you can put one through their eye with your bolt action rifle. That does not mean all automatic weapons are bad, it depends on the operator: a good operator with a SAW firing short controlled burst will kill/suppress well.

Similarly with semi-automatic weapons with thirty round magazines, like AK or ARs, these can be devastatingly effective but in the wrong untrained hands can be next to useless. So a lot of this comes back to quality of the individual and the level of training and experience they have. Once the adrenalin stacks up in a contact situation it is very easy to look over your sights and fire into or towards the enemy, rapidly pumping rounds downrange in the excitement of the contact. You have to mentally get a grip of yourself, re-focus to get a sight picture and get more accurate.

So far I have basically said that you can use a lot of different types of rifles to be effective so long as you are trained to do so, and conversely even if you have the best equipment none of that will help you if you are just a tacticool goon. Yes, a well-trained team will be more effective if they have better equipment, but I am telling you not to give up hope if you have just bolt action hunting rifles. The advancing German Army at the beginning of the First World War thought they were up against machine gun battalions as they pushed the British Expeditionary Force back to the English Channel. No, it was the fire power generated by the British infantryman with his bolt action Lee-Enfield rifle.

Shotguns are a different matter in my opinion, (mentioned in the original question). At least with bolt action rifles you can try and adapt your tactics to take advantage of range and accuracy if terrain allows, but with shotguns you lose range, volume of fire and also accuracy. Useful for close range contacts in close country, historically carried by point men in the Jungle; I’d prefer an AR.

In many of the scenarios we have discussed here I would never even think to equate having a bolt action rifle as being inferior to having an AR, except for CQB.  Recall also what Travis Haley accomplished with the use of an AR at long distances.

So even using an AR, a scope, deliberate, methodical fire, and a trained shooter is superior to “tacticool” operators.  Furthermore, it seems to me that if concealment didn’t work and you find yourself potentially facing CQB, my 3-e’s are always important if you want to stay alive: egress, evasion and escape.  In any of the scenarios we have discussed over the pages of this web site, a bolt action rifle and a good revolver might be more valuable than any other commodity.

In a slight twist of the SWAT team raids the wrong home theme, Austin American-Statesman has this report.

Driving in the early morning hours to his job at a metal shop in Buda, Miguel Montanez at first thought the approaching lights were a school bus or a tow truck.

But Montanez says it was a Hays County SWAT truck that rammed his car head-on. As they collided, another police vehicle pinned him from behind, he says.

He heard a shot.

“I saw my windshield crack, and I ducked down as low as possible,” Montanez said. “I really thought I was going to die.”

Seconds later, he says, three deputies were pointing assault rifles at him. “That’s when I heard one of the officers say, ‘Oh, (expletive), we got the wrong guy,’ ” Montanez said.

Montanez, 39, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on May 6 against Hays County, the city of San Marcos and nine law enforcement agents for injuries he says he sustained that morning last summer, July 13.

Even after officers realized that he was not the suspect, he said, they kept him in handcuffs for half an hour while they questioned him and ran a warrant check that came up with nothing. Then they let him go.

Montanez, who lives in Guadalupe County, said that one of the officers told him they were looking for one of hisbrothers, who lives at a different address.

Sheriff’s officials in Hays County and San Marcos police declined to comment.

The county’s insurance company paid about $3,700 for the damage to the car, which was totaled, but has never offered an apology or to cover his medical bills. Montanez said he suffered a herniated disc in his back …

Out of control.  These are the only words that I can think of to express the situation and supply some analysis, albeit brief.  This SWAT team is completely out of control and off the chain.

When we have SWAT teams ramming cars and shooting at innocent people, it’s way past time for the concept of SWAT teams to come to a timely end or at least focus on the much less frequent instance of active shooters or kidnappings.

But no court anywhere will hold the police accountable.  Welcome to Amerika!

UPDATE:

Instapundit

War On Guns

From NPR.  None of this is a surprise to any of my readers, but the main thing to recognize is that when they refer to trace, they mean trace it to a gun dealer.  So a serial number gets traced to a wholesaler, who then can trace it to an FFL, who then (unfortunately) has the form 4473 on file.

What they don’t say, and what they can’t do, is tell whether a gun has been privately sold to another individual.  This happens often, and it’s legal as it should be.

I’m fine with this being low-tech, and I’m fine with the ATF being unable to trace it to the actual owner in a large number of cases.  Being not okay with this means belief in a national gun registry, and that would be anathema to believers in liberty, and a function of a wicked government since all gun control is evil.

I was working in South Carolina this week and staying with my son and his family in upstate S.C.  I attended worship this Sunday at his church (I won’t mention the name of the church), and there he was.  Mr. Tacticool (if I am not mistaken, Mauldin Police Department).

He was awesome, with fatigues, Kevlar vest, patches and insignia, thigh holster, and on and on the equipment went.  Cool, he was.  But that’s all he accomplished today.  Being cool.

If the church was addressing a specific threat, plainclothes officers carrying concealed would have been more effective at catching a perpetrator, which is ultimately the goal of any long term safety and security program.

A skilled shooter, bent on harming the most people and practiced at reloads, could have killed a hundred people before Mr. Tacticool ever made his way into the building (Mr. Tacticool stood on the sidewalk outside the church looking cool, while 2000 people worshiped inside).

The best approach to safety and security for the congregants would have been for as many of them to carry concealed as possible.  The Church authorities should endeavor to make that happen.  As for the police, they were just irrelevant today.  But Mr. Tacticool looked cool.

David Codrea:

Daniele Perazzi, president of the Italian Perazzi Shotguns firm, was taken into custody yesterday by Adams County Deputies [see update, below] along with several prototype shotguns. The executive was picked up in the parking lot of the Denver Merchandise Mart, hosting the high-end Colorado Gun Collectors show this weekend, after a taxi driver, likely reacting to a suspicious activity reporting outreach program conducted by law enforcement, told authorities he thought he could be transporting an armed “foreign speaking” terror suspect.

Continue reading to find out why the Sheriff asked him to leave town despite the fact that he had done nothing wrong.

Kurt Hofmann:

… the Personalized Handgun Safety Act of 2013, mandates within two years that newly manufactured handguns be equipped with the technology that allows the guns to only work in the hands of their owners or other authorized users. Manufacturers that do not meet the standards could be held liable. And individuals or businesses selling older handguns must have them retrofitted with personalization technology within three years after the bill is enacted, at the expense of the federal government.

This bill has little chance of passing, but even if it did, the author isn’t even smart enough to exempt LEOs, who won’t endorse it without that exemption.  Kurt discusses the law enforcement take on such laws.

Both of these issues fall into the category where I advocate letting the market decide who wins.  Colorado has made their bed and must now lie in it.  They will eventually repudiate their onerous laws when enough industry leaves, enough industry won’t consider coming, and enough gangs begin to terrorize the state, but the rich part is that they will learn by doing rather than by being told what to do.  If I was Mr. Perazzi I wouldn’t waste one more dime or second on Colorado.  I’d never return, and I’d do my best to ensure that my wares were never sold in that state.  We need not fill in the gap for the intentional failures of others.  It interferes with the learning process.

As for smart guns, as I said before, I advocate at least one manufacturer investing significant resources to develop the technology and see how the market treats their brainchild.  Will it be alive and kicking, or stillborn?  Perhaps the Obama administration should spend a billion dollars on such technology.  Will we be able to track another Solyndra in the making?

I’ve already inveighed against smart guns, saying that I’ll buy one when hell freezes over.  Are there enough people out there to make this a worthwhile investment?  In particular, I strongly recommend that H&K be the first one out of the gate.

Prior:

Manufacturers Dabble In Smart Guns

More On Smart Guns

Pushing Smart Guns

I had been looking for a while for a good range and field bag for more than one Carbine, and I’m very pleased with my new Drago double gun case.

It’s made of a heavy fabric with heavy duty zippers, and it seems to hold up very well.  It has molle straps on the outside of the case for attachment of other gear.  It has a good look and multiple pockets.

It’s outermost pocket is perfectly sized for the height of 30 round magazines, and it would carry many more than I have shown in this picture.

It has two inner compartments separated by padding, each with a pocket for the rifle ends and velcro straps for holddown.  That’s an AR-15 with a 16″ barrel.

That’s an M1 Carbine.

This is a compartment between the case and the outermost magazine or tool pockets.  It has multiple compartments as you can see.

This may be the best feature of the bag.  The heavy duty backpack straps allow for hands-free carry in the field, and I especially like the large straps as opposed to the thin straps that typically come even with good backpacks.  The shoulder straps puts most backpacks to shame.

There is one qualifier.  It is a 36″ bag, so don’t expect to put longer barrel rifles in it.  The bag is made for Carbines.  It’s a bit pricey but overall I’m very pleased with it.  Disclaimer.  I haven’t received any gear or a single penny for this review.

I predicted it.  Now, the L.A. Police have found a sniper rifle in the city.

Thanks to a push from local faith-based organizations and an assist from the Pasadena Police Department, 135 guns were taken off the streets Saturday at the Pasadena Area Gun Buyback and Peace-source Fair.

Likely it was a bolt action rifle with a nice scope, 5.56 mm, or .243, or .270, or .308, or .338.  And rather than it being considered a hunting rifle, or a target shooting rifle, it was a “sniper rifle.”

Make no mistake about it.  The press doesn’t know the difference between a magnifying glass and a rifle scope, or a detachable magazine and a flash suppressor.  They got this stuff from the LAPD, who “repurposed” the weapon to something they wanted.  The LAPD told the press that they bought a “sniper rifle” in the buyback.  Unfortunately, the police are still controlling the narrative.

I had previously asked the question of a purchase at Walmart, “If someone had purchased a really nice bolt action .308 with expensive glass, what would the press have done if this had gotten into criminal hands?  Perhaps call it a “sniper rifle?”

No.  It doesn’t have to be in criminal hands at all.  It just has to be a bolt action rifle with a scope.  But make no mistake.  The only time it will really be a sniper rifle to most civilians is if the police ever try to confiscate such firearms.  If they do that, millions of people will “repurpose” their guns just like the police did.

David Codrea:

“Apparently Square is joining several other payment processors and financial institutions and are now refusing to do business with anyone who has anything to do with guns, ammo or other weapons,” the Guns Save Lives blog observed, adding “Paypal has long had a standing policy of refusing to business with any gun related business, including for things as innocuous as gun magazines. GE Capital, one of the largest lenders in the US recently announced they would no longer work with the gun industry as well.”

“We may decide not to authorize or settle any transaction that you submit to us if we believe that the transaction is in violation of this Agreement,” Square warns its users.

David is covering financial companies who refuse to do business with firearms buyers and sellers.  This is one reason we have tried to close out our bank account with Bank of America.  We’re about there.

Kurt Hofmann:

At the state level, exploiters of murdered children have over the last few months parlayed the Sandy Hook Elementary atrocity into magazine and “assault weapon” bans–in some cases confiscatory bans–and have castigated Congress for not following the same unconstitutional path at the federal level. 3-D printing has already spelled the doom for the effectiveness of such bans, as well as background check requirements and other restrictions on “assault weapon” sales.

We will ultimately win, and I think that’s Kurt’s point.  As for this whole 3D printing issue, I am thus far not impressed enough to do anything more than distribute the files if someone sends them to me.  I’ll stick to what I’ve got and what I plan to get until further advancements in technology (and those advancements will come).  But the paranoia made me more interested than I otherwise would have been.  If the government forbids having the files, I want them.  If you can’t distribute them, I want to be a clearinghouse for them.

Via Say Uncle, another New Yorker will be prosecuted for the ridiculous law.

An upstate man was arrested under the state’s new gun law when troopers found him with a legally registered pistol that had a magazine that held nine bullets – two more than the new statute allows, state police said.

Troopers from the New Lebanon barracks in Columbia County stopped a car driven by Gregory D. Dean Jr., 31, of Hopewell Junction, around 9:45 p.m. Sunday on Route 22 because the vehicle’s license-plate lamp was not working.

While interviewing Dean, troopers noticed a handgun on the front seat, partially covered by a sweatshirt.

The troopers determined the gun, a .40-caliber pistol, was legally registered and possessed. However, when the troopers inspected the pistol, its magazine contained the nine bullets – New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Actonly allows seven bullets per magazine.

Police charged Dean with unlawful possession of certain ammunition feeding devices, third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation,both misdemeanors, plus vehicle infractions, police said.

Ah, there we go again calling a cartridge a bullet, and New York’s finest spending time shutting down violent gangs on tax money … er uh … harassing gun owners on tax money.

Dave Hardy:

Maryland Shall Issue has filed a lawsuit against the State Police. The gist of it is that the police are taking an average of 55 days to issue permits, while the statutory command is that they do so within 7 days.

But Dave.  They’re the police.  They can do what they want to.  If they can shoot innocent people in SWAT raids, no one will care if they don’t issue carry permits when the law says they must.  By the way, Maryland is one of those states through which I will not drive, and over which I will not fly.