Articles by Herschel Smith

No budget scopes were tested.  He does a fine job of explaining the differences in pictures you can understand.  I have to remark that I do not even have the time or facilities to shoot at distances where these effects would be experienced, so the point is moot for me.  I see no need for me to own a $2000 scope where I live.

Source.

A string of mountain lion attacks on dogs in the Nederland area has left many community members concerned about the safety of their pets.

Nederland resident Peter James said the community has lost around 12 to 15 dogs to lion attacks in the past six months. Most of the attacks are logged on a wildlife tracker James said was created by a local designer.

“It’s gotten sort of out of hand and it needs to be addressed,” he said. “It kind of feels like, is the community responsible for maintaining this kind of safety?”

On Monday, a woman in Rollinsville shared in a Nederland Facebook group that she watched her Australian Shepherd get snatched off her porch by a mountain lion. James said group members have also posted about attacks on a Doberman and a Great Pyrenees.

Three weeks ago, James said around 50 people attended a Colorado Parks and Wildlife lecture on mountain lion safety at the Nederland Community Center, with over 70 tuning in remotely. Some residents, he said, are even concerned about kids becoming targets.

“This lion is now coming up on decks, taking dogs that are 100 pounds, and we’re worried about a little kid who weighs maybe 40 pounds,” he said.

Jill Dreves, executive director of Wild Bear Nature Center in Nederland, said she has noticed a pattern of recent lion attacks near Ridge Road and Magnolia Road.

“There is an increase,” she said. “It’s not made up. There’s a big increase in dogs getting taken by mountain lions.”

[ … ]

“I think the most important thing is to understand that we are sharing a habitat with the mountain lions, bears, moose and all the other wildlife,” Dreves said.

In another report, “Since early November, she had been contending with the lions, which she says had been “actively stalking” her mini horse and daughter’s pony. Her tenant, Sarah Bennett, had also encountered them on early-morning runs with her dog, Bagel.

The lions had been around for weeks by that point. Rose had seen them watching the horses from a hillside on her land in the Roosevelt National Forest. Reports of lions attacking dogs in her immediate neighborhood, coupled with their sudden interest in the livestock and Bagel, had put her nervous system in “overdrive,” she says.

The night she texted CPW was a breaking point. A lion had been sitting outside of Bennett’s garden-level door, seemingly waiting for her to bring Bagel outside to pee. Bennett saw it 25 feet away and rushed the dog back inside. “I felt like it knew our patterns,” Rose says. “It knew Bagel lived there, and it was waiting to attack.”

What are the authorities going to do about it?

“As morbid and messed up as it sounds, if we just have a dog getting attacked or killed and no human involvement, then it’s just lions doing lion things and we can’t kill them,” Peterson said. “But if we were responding to every pet that was killed by wildlife with lethal removal, then we would be spending the majority of our time as officers (at least on the Front Range) doing that, and we would have to kill a lot of bears, lions, bobcats and coyotes. Instead, I think the best solution is advocating for responsible pet ownership and being diligent with your pets when living or visiting areas where wildlife are likely to be.”

I agree with everything he said, except the part about “we can’t kill them.”  Maybe he can’t but you sure can, and I sure would if a lion was threatening me or my family.  I find it oddball that people who live in Colorado would be surprised at this sort of thing.  Where do they think they live, anyway?

I did have to read this part several times to get the full force of it.

AJ Koziel’s 90-pound Bernese mountain dog mix, Duke, vanished from his house in the Gamble Gulch neighborhood near Rollinsville on Oct. 27.

Koziel let Duke outside to go to the bathroom. When he didn’t return, Koziel knew something was wrong. It was dark, so Koziel waited for morning to go looking. When he found Duke’s body, on a hillside above his house, he says he saw claw marks on his hips and most of his neck, “one shoulder hanging off to the side, and half of the skin on his face torn off.” As someone who honors the natural life-and-death cycle, Koziel said he left Duke’s body where it lay, “for the raven and his brothers to feast on.”

Astounding.  Men, you are responsible for your beasts, and that means protection too if needed.  Don’t let them out alone.  Carry large bore firearms with you.  Be prepared to shoot invaders, whether two-legged or four-legged.  Be men, not sheep.  I would never have waited to see if my dog came back home, but then I wouldn’t have sent him out alone either.

Better yet, extend the hunting season and send packs of dogs after the lions (or even set up in a deer stand and wait for the lions if you know they are scouting the area).  We’ll see who runs then.  A mountain lion may be fierce but is no match for a 45-70 round.

But I doubt that the hippies who moved in from California would allow something like that.  It’s just like the hippies to move into the bush and expect the .gov to make them safe.

Stephen Halbrook at Reason.

“Not wanting to itself cherry pick the history,” Judge Reeves concludes, “the Court now asks the parties whether it should appoint a historian to serve as a consulting expert in this matter. … This Court is acquainted with the historical record only as it is filtered through decisions of the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals.” Those decisions would be a good start, except that he seems to think that the Supreme Court got it wrong.

[ … ]

Judge Roger Benitez expressed skepticism about “experts” in a hearing on December 12 in Duncan v. Bonta, the California magazine ban case that Bruen remanded for reconsideration. The historical documents that matter are enacted laws, ordinances, regulations, and the like. He ordered the State to prepare an Excel spreadsheet of the laws they consider to be historical analogues to present-day magazine bans, including dates of enactment and repeal and any judicial decisions on their constitutionality. The plaintiffs could then file a rebuttal.

[ … ]

Perhaps we need a reminder from Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison (1803): “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.” Judges may not defer to “experts” to advise what the law is. “Do your job,” as New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick famously said.

Yea, I read that dummy’s statements when he made them.  He sounded like a second grader trying to write coherent sentences.  By contrast, Judge Roger Benitez is both a scholar and historian, but the thing that makes his decisions on the second amendment right is that they are right.

Do we appoint historians as experts in second amendment cases?  No.  Historians are biased too, and many reach the wrong conclusions.  Everyone takes his pre-theoretical commitments to his work, or his axiomatic irreducibles.  I don’t trust historians in general any more than I trust judges, especially as “educated” by modern universities.

We decide second amendment cases per the words of the second amendment, noting the milieu in which it was written, and remembering how idiotic it would have been for them to have just gotten finished fighting a revolution against King George with weapons they owned – risking their lives, families and fortunes – and then turned around and inflicted their own people with gun control laws.

Seen at All Outdoors.

See the source for the rest of the story.

Well, it’s certainly different and might be an interesting addition to a lever action collection, but at an MSRP of $2000, why would anyone do this?

I had never really thought about this.  It makes perfect sense, although if you hunt in the South, the temperatures just don’t get as cold as they do where he is shooting.

Nonetheless, it makes sense to sight your right in with ambient temperature about the same as when you expect to be hunting.  Carrying ammunition close to your body as he suggests would also be an option.

On another note, I like that shooting range with the CCTV monitor there so he could turn around to view his target.  I’d like to shoot there.

Very nice and informative video.

I love it too.  They also bring up what we’ve discussed so many times before, i.e., the virtue of having a handgun and carbine in the same caliber, getting higher muzzle velocity out of the carbine than the handgun.

And by the way, I’m still waiting on that invitation to a hunting trip with Ryan.

Frankly I think I’d rather just stick to a rifle.  But this is useful information if you live in a north midwestern state.

I see someone in the comments posed the question I thought of: what if this test had been done using different wadding, such as Federal Flitecontrol?  Someone ought to send him some ammo to test this question.

I really don’t know much about this whole issue, except that GWACS is an anti-gun organization which serves as a funnel for lawsuits against gun manufacturers.  They apparently paid for some of the information owned by K E Arms some number of years ago, no longer exist, and K E Arms (who didn’t sign a non-compete) is making their polymer lowers as they always have.

Enter the lawyers.  GWACS sued K E Arms, and this source and this source provides some background.

Now, for perhaps the nail in the coffin for GWACS, Ian explains what crowd-sourcing can do to things like this.

Source.

Alabama on Jan. 1 will become the latest state to allow people to carry a concealed handgun without a state permit that requires a background check.

The new state law ends the requirement for a person to get a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun in public. A person can still choose to get a permit if they want to do so.

The proposal had been introduced unsuccessfully for years in Montgomery, before winning approval this year. The legislation was championed by gun rights advocates who call it “constitutional carry,” in reference to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Opponents, including state sheriffs and others in law enforcement, argued the permits help combat crime and enhance public safety.

[ … ]

The Alabama Sheriffs Association had opposed the legislation. “Alabama sheriffs are clear on the law taking effect Jan. 1 and have adjusted accordingly,” said Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones, president of the Alabama Sheriffs’ Association

Jones and Stringer said there are still reasons a person might consider getting a permit. Jones said, “maintaining an Alabama concealed carry permit is wise when traveling out of state; reciprocity applies — other states may require non-residents to have a permit from their state of residence.”

Boss Hogg won’t be happy with the loss of control or the loss of revenue from the permitting scheme.  But there is this dark language in the law.

Lawmakers included language in the new law reiterating an officer’s ability to temporarily take a handgun during a traffic stop or other investigation. An officer with a reasonable suspicion that a person was about to engage in criminal conduct can temporarily take a handgun and run it through databases to see if the gun was stolen.

An officer could also temporarily take a weapon if it is necessary for the safety of the officer or others. The weapon must be returned unless there is an arrest, or the person is posing a safety threat.

If I’m not mistaken, South Carolina also had to include that language to get open carry passed (constitutional carry still awaits further legislative action).

We’ve discussed this before.  It’s the height of stupidity to touch another man’s weapon.  Don’t do it.  Just don’t.

There is the risk of negligent discharge (and Lord knows there have been plenty of those where LEOs were the ones responsible).  There is the risk of dropping the weapon (which is a problem if someone tries to catch it).  And if no one tries to catch it, a weapon gets scratched and banged up, reducing the resale value of the firearm.  There are various and sundry types of handguns, from no safety, to pistols with trigger brush-guards, to 1911s with a classic safety, SA only, DA/SA pistols, pistols that may have been modified by their owner, etc., etc.

No one can know everything, and to assume that a weapon can exchange hands in all cases without unsafe things happening is the height of arrogance and stupidity.

That language is more likely to cause safety problems than make anyone safer.  There are exceptions of course, when all the rules of gun safety have been and are being followed, there isn’t a round in the chamber, no one muzzle flags anyone else, and so forth, as if you were at the range.  But in such a case, why does exchanging control of the weapon make anyone safer?

Do … not … touch … another … man’s … firearm.  Period.  If it’s being left alone, then continue to leave it alone.  That language in the law is idiotic.

Field & Stream has the details.

From my perspective, the new Bushnell scope fills a niche, i.e., a high power FFP scope with a large objective lens for taking in light, at a reasonable price.  The Crimson Trace scope does not.  Who needs a 1-10X28mm tactical scope for a price of $649?

I’m most interested in the German Precision Optics reflex pistol red dot sight.  It’s targeted towards pistols, but would be good for tactical or turkey hunting shotguns as well in my view.

F&S says it has a battery life of 25,000 hours, while GPO says it has 40,000 hours.  The price point is good at $379.  It’s a good competitor to the Trijicon RMR.

But when they says new, they mean new.  I haven’t found availability of this new optic anywhere.

One final question remains, and that is the footprint.  According to GPO it has the Leupold DeltaPoint interface.  This source says that Leupold DeltaPoint is compatible with the RMR footprint, while this site more assertively states that it has the RMR footprint.

If any knowledgeable reader has this optic or the Leupold DeltaPoint optic, and can confirm that it can be installed over the RMR footprint, that would be appreciated.