Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

LA Times:

The gun lobby certainly is adept at promoting counterintuitive (and probably counterproductive) policy positions, such as that the answer to gun violence in America is more guns. Politicians certainly are adept at giving their bills titles that conceal their purpose, like calling a bill that narrows privacy rights and constrains civil liberties the “Patriot Act.”

Put these proclivities together, and you get the “Hearing Protection Act,” introduced Monday by Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and John Carter (R-Texas). From the title alone, you’d have no idea that it’s about deregulating the sale of gun silencers.

Stiff federal regulations on silencers date back to 1934, when they were enacted as part of a crackdown on machine guns and other instruments of mobster violence. (Thanks to the Washington Post’s Michael Rosenwald for some of this history.) In recent years, they’ve stuck in the gun lobby’s craw, as do most restrictions on the sale of firearms and related equipment.

But treating the use of silencers as a public health issue is a relatively new twist. It was first tried in connection with a precursor bill to the Duncan-Carter measure that was introduced in 2015 and died in committee.

[ … ]

Gun control advocates don’t buy these pro-silencer arguments and neither should you. The argument that silencer sales promote public health by protecting hearing is a smokescreen, they say, for a deregulatory initiative that would largely benefit the firearms industry while increasing the dangers of firearm violence.

“There’s no evidence of a public health issue associated with hearing loss from gunfire,” says Kristin Brown of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “There is evidence of a public health crisis from gun violence, and we think that’s where legislative efforts should be directed.”

[ … ]

The real flaw in the silencer lobby’s efforts, however, may be the patent obviousness of their fakery. Calling the Duncan-Carter bill the “Hearing Protection Act” is so absurdly transparent an effort to deceive that voters may be prompted to ask an obvious question: “What are they hiding?”

Okay.  Your insightful analysis has got me.  I have to admit it.  I have to confess, and I expect it will be good for the soul.

No, I don’t want to be a mobster.  I’m just fed up as hell with having to take off my ear muffs when I need to communicate something to a fellow shooter, only to have to sustain damage to my hearing if I don’t move back while I’m at a range.  I’m just fed up as hell with having ear muffs interfere with my cheek weld when I’m shooting a rifle.

As for the notion that you won’t be able to hear gunfire if people actually purchase suppressors, I wouldn’t worry about that too much.  I think you’ll still have time to “run, hide and fight” in the case of an attacker.  I don’t really take you for the kind of guy who would run to the sound of gunfire to assist others anyway.  And I’m sure you wouldn’t have the means to stop a shooter if you did do so.

You can just wait that precious 12 -15 minutes for the LEOs to get there and another 30 for them to assess the situation and send in a SWAT team.  Whether you or your loved ones perish will be a function of a number of things, but hey, take heart!  California has that awesome law that limits the number of folks he can kill to ten at a time until he slaps the next magazine in (about a second or so).  I’m sure a criminal won’t have access to those terrible 30 round mags.

CBS:

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Monday he was uncertain whether support exists in the Legislature for so-called “constitutional carry,” which would give all Texans the right to openly carry a firearm — with or without a permit.

In a radio interview, Patrick noted that last session lawmakers passed legislation allowing the open carry of handguns, a proposal whose support he had also questioned at the start of the session.

“On constitutional carry, I’ll say the same thing: I don’t know if the votes are there,” Patrick told San Antonio host Trey Ware.

Patrick did express some wariness about constitutional carry, citing law enforcement concerns. Patrick has made championing police a priority, especially after a shooting last year in Dallas that killed five officers and wounded seven others.

Let’s deal with the second issue first.  I would lay good money down that Dan Patrick has been listening to communist Art Acevedo, who is leaving Austin and going to Houston, who opposed open carry, and who enabled the federal government to come into his county and take forced blood draws during random traffic stops in violation of the constitution.

Or he has been talking to someone equally as communist as Art.  So the strategy he has chosen is a common one and is designed to protect his boys in the Texas Senate and House from exposure.

He simply says that he doesn’t know if there are enough votes.  That way, it gets killed in committee and the anti-gun politicians never out themselves with a formal vote on a bill.

I hate the idea of committees anyway because they are a good way to formulate compromise legislation that ends up bilking people for money, sending that money to constituents and then ultimately doing no good with meaningless legislation.

The solution for this is to call out his strategy as the ruse and lie that it is, bring a bill to a vote, and then use that information to destroy the political careers of the gun controllers.  It’s what Dan doesn’t want to happen, but it must happen.

Fox59:

BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY, Ind. – A 29-year-old woman fought off intruders by firing a gun. On Wednesday afternoon, deputies received a 911 call from the victim reporting there were just two masked men inside her Bartholomew County home.

“I mean it’s pretty quiet out here. You don’t hear of anything like that going on that often,” said Elliot Keen, a neighbor.

The victim told detectives she confronted the intruders, pulled out a gun, and fired one shot as they took off.  It’s unclear if the bullet hit one of the intruders.

“Being a woman, as young as she is, I’m very proud of her and pleased to know that she was gutsy enough to do what she did,” said Kaye Coffman, a witness.

Just yesterday we discussed the fact that two other women in different locations and under different circumstances were under threat and used guns to defend themselves, neither of them trained in all of those super stress management ninja warrior tactical techniques.  Not that I recommend not getting training, because I recommended then and I recommend now training as much as you can reasonably afford.

But the notion that people cannot effect self defense with a firearm is so foolish it’s not even worthy of serious discussion or consideration.  Progressives know that, and they know that when they throw up these objections they’re just throwing up a smoke screen.

Reasonable people see through the smoke.  But shhhh … don’t tell the progs that their smoke isn’t effective.  We want them to continue to claim that no one can use a gun to defend themselves while reports continue to come out where people do.  It makes the progs look stupid.

Tallahassee Democrat:

Gun advocates in Florida didn’t take a break over the holiday weekend. Florida Open Carry Inc. began rallying its troops New Year’s Eve with a mass email in support of “the most important pro-Second Amendment rights bill of the 2017 legislative session.”

SB 140 repeals laws forbidding guns on college campuses, in airports terminals, and at government meetings.  Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, will introduce the measure to the Judiciary Committee Tuesday.  Florida Open Carry Inc. urged its members to call lawmakers and tell them to line up behind Steube’s proposal.

Campus carry and open carry measures have died in the committee the past two years when the chair failed to schedule it for a vote. Advocates believe 2017 will be different because Steube is the committee’s new chair. He served the past six years in the Florida House where he was one of the Legislature’s fiercest opponents to gun-free zones.

“If you want to kill as many people as possible before the cops arrive then you are likely to go to a place where law-abiding citizens can’t carry,” Steube explained when he filed the bill last month.  “That’s what we’ve seen, time and time again and why I think we shouldn’t have them.”

After the ouster of Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, over this very issue, it ought to be clear that gun owners are serious.  Also, I admire how they know this is going to be a fight and are gearing up for the battle.  If they don’t succeed this time, I advocate ousting the committee chair who doesn’t allow it to come up for vote, and try again next time.  Never give up.

Say, what’s going on with South Carolina open carry?  I don’t even see a proposed bill on that.  How sad.  It’s sort of like gun owners in South Carolina have given up, satisfied with being second class citizens if they want to be comfortable in their carry options or quicker with their weapon presentation in a crisis.

It’s not just a fantasy, it really happens, and it happens all of the time, contrary to what you might be led to believe by the main stream media.

First up, there is this report from Texas.

Rebbie Roberson wasn’t having it.

A man wearing a mask and gloves was standing in her house after he broke in Sunday night.

“When I started to get up, he was in here on me with a gun facing me right to my face,” she told CNN affiliate KSLA.

But the 74-year-old grandmother from Bowie County, Texas, had something for him.

“I reached over there (a nearby table) and grabbed this gun. And when I swerved around, I pointed it at him and he ran.”

As the intruder hightailed it out of her house, Roberson gave chase, firing her .38-caliber revolver at the fleeing man.

“I tried to kill him,” she said. “Anybody break in on me, I’m going to kill them. He’s going to kill me or I’m going to kill him.”

It was the first time — and she hopes the last — that Roberson ever had to use her weapon.

Next, there is this report from North Carolina.

Kay Dickinson kept her gun in the bedroom of her Wilmington, North Carolina, apartment — right on top of a Bible on her headboard, WWAY-TV reported.

But the StarNews reported that over the course of the year that she’d owned her gun, she’d never fired it.

What happened to Dickinson Monday night changed all of that.

She came home around 11 p.m. after work, turned the key to her door and then a man she’d passed turned around, grabbed her from behind and forced her inside her apartment, the StarNews reported. And he had a gun, Dickinson said.

“We had a tussle, and he choked me and gagged me, and I dropped everything right there in the kitchen,” she told the StarNews. “He knew my name, he knew my boyfriend’s name, and he was like, ‘Give me the money.’”

[ … ]

In the bedroom, he tied Dickinson’s hands behind her back with a belt and wrapped a cellphone charger cord around her mouth, the StarNews said. But while the intruder searched her apartment, the paper said Dickinson managed to wriggle her hands free.

“I got loose from the belt,” she told WWAY. “And I had a gun sitting on a Bible on my headboard. I jumped up on the bed, grabbed the gun, turned around and just pulled the trigger.”

Dickinson fired one shot, and it hit the intruder in the chest, the StarNews said. He headed down the hall but fell down in her doorway where he soon died.

She had never fired the gun, and it was sitting atop a Bible.  Pardon me while I smile and chuckle, but that is absolutely rich.

So much for the notion that people who haven’t been trained in all of those super secret stress management ninja warrior techniques can’t use weapons to defend themselves and that only LEOs are capable of self defense.  We know that’s not right.

To be sure, I don’t recommend that you purchase a gun and never use it.  You need to be at the range and practiced with it to the extent you can afford, but that’s my personal counsel, and it shouldn’t be legally mandated.

If we’ve not learned anything else from these and other examples, we know that people who are defending their lives use what’s at their disposal and are oftentimes very successful.

David Codrea:

… the text of the bill, available as a pdf file on Rep. Hudson’s official House website, will codify that a person “carrying a valid license or permit which is issued pursuant to the law of a State and which permits the person to carry a concealed firearm or is entitled to carry a concealed firearm in the State in which the person resides, may possess or carry a concealed handgun … in any State that …. has a statute under which residents of the State may apply for a license or permit to carry a concealed firearm; or … does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms by residents of the State for lawful purposes.

Read the full text of the bill here.  The first time I read the bill it seemed weak to me.  It took me twice through to recognize its strength.

The operative phrase is “has a statute under which residents of the State may apply for a license or permit to carry a concealed firearm.”

I would like legal minds to weigh in on this, but to me that means that I can carry virtually anywhere except Hawaii (which has no permitting system at all).  Every other state to the best of my knowledge has a permitting system, whether it’s a shall issue system or may issue system (where only the rich and politically connected are allowed to carry).

Now I see that the comments already forming on the issue of constitutional carry.  No, this law would require a permit from your state, and likely your CLEO.  It’s not perfect.  Remember folks.  I’m not a pragmatist, but I recognize the value of incrementalism in our battle.  The progs use it to their advantage.  We must learn to use it to ours.

David Codrea:

What Trump can do is urge Congress to get the ball rolling, and be a constant voice not to let them drag their feet and drop it. And it can’t just be a halt to prosecutions or repeal of the Gun Free Schools Act, because states have edicts of their own. Withholding federal funds could also come into play (and where fedgov has legitimate authority to disburse such funds in the first place is another matter).

There are certain actions he can take, but honestly, I would recommend the following for him.  He should turn to his strong suit, his strength, his best attribute.  The power of persuasion.

He should return to the people.  Take trips, talk to the people, continue tweeting and avoiding going through the dead MSM and letting them craft their version of your story, make speeches, and above all else, convince the people themselves to take action.

It will take time and effort to unwind decades of bad policy.  Trump isn’t perfect.  Set your sights on the achievable, and remember, we go at this thing little by little, bite by bite.

Reader and commenter Fred sends this report.

A large bear attacked and wounded a North Carolina hunter who says he’s lucky to have survived the encounter.

Mike Wilson was hunting on a hill in Mitchell County, in the mountains of western North Carolina, when he came face-to-face with the 390-pound bear, WLOS-TV in Asheville reported Wednesday.

“The bear was coming up the hill, and I was coming down the hill,” Wilson told the station.

Wilson said he did what any hunter would do in that situation.

“Shoot it, of course. And I did,” he said. “But trying to get another shell in my gun, it just overrun me and knocked me down the hill.”

The bear also attacked three of Wilson’s hunting dogs, killing one.

WLOS reports the bear slashed Wilson in the face and neck with its paw. He said the animal came close to severing his jugular vein.

Doctors stopped the bleeding with 30 stitches.

The bear ran off after the attack and hid in a hole. Another hunter later shot and killed the bear, the station reported.”

They were hunting with dogs.  “The bear got him and got away. It hid in a hole, but not before injuring two dogs and killing another,” according to WLOS.

“A person with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission advised when you see a bear, face it and slowly walk away. You don’t want to turn your back to a bear.”

Hey, I have a different suggestion.  Always carry a side arm when you’re in the bush.  I know that brown bear is especially dangerous on the West coast and Northern states, but black bear can be quite dangerous too.  In addition to whatever long gun you’re carrying, care a pistol or revolver with you, capable of being reached very quickly.  If you carry a pistol rather than a revolver, make sure that you have confidence in it, and that it’s not prone to stovepipes, FTF and FTE.  And make sure you are well schooled in clearing weapon malfunctions under pressure.

One of the most surprising things about this report is that dogs are used to run deer, black bear, mountain lion (in Colorado and other states in the West), and feral hogs, among other animals.  Most animals in North America will run from a pack of dogs.  Not a single dog, but a pack of dogs.  In this particular case, three dogs didn’t constitute a pack.  Mike’s inability to get off another shot probably cost him a very expensive hunting dog.

One particularly amusing things about this report is found in the comments.

I’m not against hunting for food or carrying a weapon for protection, but for the life of me I will NEVER understand hunting for sport.  I cannot understand a mindset that finds pleasure in killing an animal just for fun.  To me, that’s demented.

Well, to each his own view, but let’s be clear here.  As we’ve chronicled before, modern game management techniques have increased herd sizes to vastly larger than they were 100 years ago or even more.  There are too many deer, too many Coyotes, and way too many feral pigs.  Feral pigs have closed down farms in Georgia due to the ecological carnage wrought on the land, and lethal removal isn’t enough.  It’s not even nearly enough.

There are Coyotes in inner city Chicago, and there are wolf-dog-coyote DNA admixtures all throughout the East and Southeast.  As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had Coyotes jogging down the road towards me in my own neighborhood.  The modern Coyote mixture, being a hybrid, is much more aggressive than it once was, and it’s much harder to turn them back.

Hunters will tell you that they can deal with one Coyote.  And they will tell you if they’re hiking to a tree stand in dusk and see multiple eyes on them (Coyotes also travel in packs), hunters will get out as quickly as possible.  If you are ever confronted by a pack of Coyotes, you’d better have means of egress or a good semi-automatic rifle.  An AR-15 would be perfect.  It wouldn’t for bear, black or brown.  Even carry a gun with you while you’re walking your dog.

Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

A man walking his dog Tuesday night near his home shot two people who tried to rob him, killing one and wounding the other.

Deonte M. Thomas, 17, of Milwaukee was shot to death and his 18-year-old companion was wounded, police said. The 36-year-old man had a concealed-carry permit.

The incident happened about 10 p.m. in the 6500 block of W. Euclid Ave. when the two robbers were driving around looking for a possible victim, Ald. Mark Borkowski said.

“Obviously these people picked the wrong person, but not everyone has concealed carry,” Borkowski said Wednesday. “We all get a sense of security because it’s our neighborhood, but we have to be diligent.”

The attempted robbery happened two blocks from St. Gregory the Great parish on Milwaukee’s south side in Borkowski’s 11th aldermanic district, an area that’s normally a quiet neighborhood, he said, but “I think it’s anywhere in our community.

“It’s my understanding these kids were looking for trouble. They had been involved in trouble prior to this incident,” Borkowski said. “To pick a guy who can defend himself has showed that regardless of whether you’re going to engage in this kind of criminal activity, you really don’t know. You may meet your match.”

Milwaukee Police Sgt. Timothy Gauerke said the two suspects may be responsible for an armed robbery about 8:55 p.m. Tuesday, about an hour before the incident on W. Euclid, in the 2200 block of E. Park Place.

Thomas was arrested as a juvenile for criminal trespassing and armed robbery in 2014 while the 18-year-old man, whose name was not released, was arrested in 2014 for auto theft. The 18-year-old man is facing charges of party to the crime of armed robbery and homicide in connection with the incident on W. Euclid Ave.

Gauerke declined to release information about the number of wounds the robbery suspects sustained nor the type of handgun used. The 18-year-old was still hospitalized Wednesday afternoon. Thomas died at the scene.

The 36-year-old man stayed at the scene following the shooting and was interviewed by police. The case will be reviewed by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office to determine whether any charges will be filed against the 36-year-old man.

This man only made one mistake.  You get one guess as to what it is.