Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

I notice that Kyle doesn’t shoot his rifle with the “aggressive plates forward” stance that seems to be popular these days. I’m not saying you have to, but that’s how I was taught and I find it comfortable with AR-15s. Of course, not so with bolt action hunting rifles or shotguns.

I’ve shot thousands and thousands and thousands of rounds through pistols, and I’ve never had this malfunction (perhaps because I only try to shoot higher quality firearms and ammunition). I’m very down on low quality ammunition, and I look on it sort of like putting cheap oil in your engine. Also, I’m very observant of my magazines, and try to keep them clean. But if you are subject to this failure, he gives you a way out.

PJ Media:

One of John Podesta’s emails released by WikiLeaks this week exposes how progressive elites seek to exploit the unwashed masses. The email features one of Podesta’s colleagues from the Center for American Progress admitting that the institutional left “conspires to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry,” ostensibly to impose their radical agenda on us without much resistance.

The correspondent is Bill Ivey of Global Cultural Strategies, “the online representation of the ideas, writings, and affiliations of author/consultant Bill Ivey.” He is an author trained in folklore and history, a trustee of the Center for American Progress, a former team leader in the Barack Obama presidential transition in 2008, and the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in the Clinton administration.

In the email from March of 2016, Ivey expresses concern about the rise of “opinionated blowhard” Trump and frets because the “citizenry” seems to be awakening.

Well, we all thought the big problem for our US democracy was Citizens United/Koch Brothers big money in politics. Silly us; turns out that money isn’t all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the electoral process.

Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas, free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and we’re off and running. JFK, Jr would be delighted by all this as his “George” magazine saw celebrity politics coming. The magazine struggled as it was ahead of its time but now looks prescient. George, of course, played the development pretty lightly, basically for charm and gossip, like People, but what we are dealing with now is dead serious.

How does this get handled in the general? Secretary Clinton is not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump, Kardashian mold; what can she do to offset this? I’m certain the poll-directed insiders are sure things will default to policy as soon as the conventions are over, but I think not.

And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking – and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging.

I’m not insulted.  I actually feel a bit sorry for your ignorance.  Mr. Ivey, you make the same mistake that most other progressives make.  Oh, there’s a lot of couch potatoes around who like to watch night time sitcoms, wear stupid clothing and cheer for their favorite band of criminals on Sunday.

But you’re missing the larger point.  The NRA is blamed for rousting the masses of gun owners, for telling them what to think, and for getting in the way of “common sense” gun regulations.  You see the world this way because progressives need their leaders to tell them how to think and what to do.  To the extent that the NRA fights the Senate, Congress and President, they’re doing what we tell them to do.  To the extent that they don’t, they are being recalcitrant.  In the total absence of the NRA, our views wouldn’t change one iota.  We don’t look to them for our world view.

Similarly, messaging won’t change things for us.  When I say “us,” I mean more people than you know.  Donald Trump is a symptom, not the disease.  The only other candidate who had any chance of winning was Ted Cruz, and he was as hated by the establishment as Trump is.  Trump didn’t ascend to the top because of his television persona, but because it’s all being burned down by the people.  Trump is the vessel.  The people threw gasoline and lit the match.

As for the goal of conspiring to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry, you’re far too late for that.  America is the most heavily armed nation in the world.  I’ve seen your plans.

The legislation has already been written. H.R. 4269 would enact a national, permanent ban on the manufacture and sale of so-called “assault weapons” and all firearm magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. The bill, introduced last December, already has149 Democratic co-sponsors (218 are needed to pass the House).

H.R. 4269 would ban all AR-15 and AK-type rifles and all civilian versions of military rifles produced anywhere in the word within the past 60 years or so. The bill would also ban all parts kits, stripped receivers, “bump-fire” stocks, thumbhole stocks, trigger cranks, so-called “compliant” rifles, and “any… characteristic that can function as a [pistol] grip.” Law enforcement is exempt from the bill’s provisions.

H.R. 4269 is not a “kick down the door and confiscate ‘em” bill. Existing rifles and magazines are “grandfathered” (but the transfer of existing magazines is permanently prohibited). Gun banners know that it is literally impossible to perform a door-to-door gun confiscation in a nation of 300 million people, and that any attempt to do so would certainly be met with violence. Consequently, they have pre-empted the “Come and take it” crowd by employing a long-term strategy. Once the manufacture and sale of certain weapons is prohibited, it is only a matter of time before the legislation would be amended to outlaw the transfer of “grandfathered” rifles as well as magazines, thus enacting a de facto confiscation within a generation.

This won’t work.  No one will comply.  You don’t honestly think we’re going to spend our hard earned money on guns and ammunition, teach our sons to shoot and fend for themselves, and then turn the guns over to you in our wills, do you?

As I said.  It’s too late.  There is an inevitable split coming to America.  Your plans for collectivism can’t control the American spirit.  Every turn of the screw by you will only make matters worse and the people more ungovernable.  But since your world view works from the top down, I don’t expect you to understand this.  That bodes darkness for the near term.

Informative video.  In the end, if you make it that far, I think they reach the right conclusion.  AR-15s (and their parts) have become so reliable that it makes little difference now.  The point of diminishing returns is reached very soon (the sweet spot is < $1500).

Bearing Arms:

Uniformed security guards are hired by stores to provide peace of mind and serve as a deterrent to casual criminals, such as petty shoplifters and aggressive panhandlers. They are not law enforcement officers, do not generally have good training, and the physical and mental screening for security guards isn’t that high (which is perhaps why we’ve had two security guards go on terrorist killing sprees this year alone).

Aggressive predators are not deterred by either unarmed or armed security guards, but it is relatively rare to seen a criminal so callous that he would murder a guard just to acquire an additional handgun.

A man who would murder someone for a handgun would presumably have no problem doing the same with an open carrier who typically has even less training and general awareness than armed security guards.

We’ve noticed that there are generally only four kinds of open carry stories.

1. a group of people open carry as a form of political protest (generally without law enforcement involvement)
2. an individual open carries as a form of political protest (often with law enforcement involvement, including occasional arrests)
3. an individual open carrier who is oblivious to his surroundings has his/her picture posted to gun forums pointing out his/her utter lack of awareness and generally poor choice of gun and holster.
4. an open carrier is attacked for his weapon, with the criminal generally being successful.

We would love to report that open carry deters crime, but there is simply no data suggesting that this is a true statement. Folks, criminals laugh at open carriers. They view them as targets, no different than someone with a cash-filled wallet hanging out of their back pocket as they stand in the checkout line, nose buried in a smart phone and oblivious to the world.

I’ve seen Bob hate on open carriers before, but this is ridiculous.  This commentary is completely out of control (I hesitate to call it an “analysis” because nothing is being analyzed).

Bob doesn’t really know that all uniformed security is poorly trained.  He doesn’t know that open carriers are even more poorly trained than uniformed security.  He also doesn’t know that open carriers have poor situational awareness.

He doesn’t know that open carriers fall into only the four categories he lists.  He’s just referring (anecdotally, not analytically) to news accounts he believes he has read.

He especially doesn’t know that criminals laugh at open carriers.  In fact, I challenge Bob to supply me with one verifiable instance in public where a known criminal laughed at an open carrier.  I’ve open carried many times, and I’ve also been around people I knew to be gang members when doing so.  No one – no one – has ever laughed at me.  In one particular instance when multiple gang members were heading my direction on the sidewalk (it was four or five of them), they saw me open carrying and decided to cross the road, walk past me, and cross back over when they were clear of me.  They kept their heads down and studiously avoided making eye contact with me while walking on the other side of the road.

As I said, this commentary is completely out of control, and I simply have no earthly idea what Bob’s problem is with open carry.  There is no law requiring him to do it, so why the negative attention?  It’s legal, so what business is it of his to bash the practice?  How does a crime against uniformed security turn into open carry bashing?  I’m beginning to think this is a psychological issue that Bob has.

What is your malfunction, Bob?

News Miner:

“At least it’s sunny out,” Dybdahl recalled telling his hunting partner while the pair were waiting for a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to find them.

Dybdahl, 30, knew he was losing a lot of blood, he knew that there was a chance the helicopter might not find him and he also knew there were more bears in the brush circling them. But none of that mattered. He had already made up his mind that he was going to live.

Sitting up in his hospital bed Tuesday, Hoonah resident Dybdahl went over the surreal mauling he had suffered just three days prior while on a hunting trip near Port Frederick bay with his friend Anthony Lindoff, 36. The two had taken a boat out to an area just 10 miles southwest of Hoonah to look for deer. As they were getting ready to make deer calls, Lindoff said, he heard something. He hoped it was a deer, but then he turned and locked eyes with a sow brown bear running straight toward him.

“It didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to bluff charge, this was serious,” Lindoff said. “It chased me first, and as I was running, backing away, I was trying to swing at it with my trekking poll because my rifle was in my sling on my backpack. I immediately thought that was the biggest mistake I could have made. . I felt like the worst hunting partner.”

Dybdahl threw off his pack and headed farther down the hill, trying to get his rifle in position to help out his friend. Unfortunately, Dybdahl didn’t know that the same direction he was moving in was where the sow bear had left two of her cubs behind. In what Dybdahl said seemed like a single moment, the bear changed direction and Dybdahl was on the ground. His rifle no longer in his hands, he screamed for his friend to shoot the bear as it pinned him down, and had its teeth in his flesh.

Dybdahl said he had never been more “in the moment,” able to see, hear, and smell everything so intensely. Everything he knew about bears went racing through his head. He realized quickly he was angering the bear more by moving and screaming. His body went limp and he was silent. But even though he made himself appear harmless, the sow didn’t stop. For the next 10 seconds, he said, his whole body could feel the bear’s ferocity and rage.

“When she bit down on my leg, my thigh, she ripped so hard. . I could hear everything,” Dybdahl said. “It sounded like paper ripping and she pulled my thigh. I felt my whole thigh muscle move away from my leg bone.”

[ … ]

Although he flinched when Dybdahl recreated the sound of flesh tearing, Lindoff was not as unsettled on Saturday. When he saw the bear on Dybdahl, he went through six motions in approximately 10 seconds, never skipping a beat. He slung his rifle in front of him, took the gun sleeve off, took off the scope cover, chambered a round, aimed and fired.

“I’ve never de-slinged my rifle that quickly,” Lindoff said.

Josh was very blessed.  If you’re going to be in the bush, carry your rifle in hand, regardless of whether it’s comfortable or not.  Or if you don’t want to do that, carry a sidearm for self defense.  I think most Alaskan’s will tell you to carry a wheel gun, .44 Magnum or .454 Casull.  That’s probably good counsel for the entire Northwest.  Down South here, carrying .45 ACP is just fine.

Kyle does a nice job with this.  I saw that Count Dracula concealed carry draw and thought it was rather goofy.

Bearing Arms:

Around 3 a.m. Wednesday, 73-year-old Abraham Venson woke up to an alarm company alerting him to someone breaking into his shed, the same shed that had been broken into months ago.

Venson went outside his home with a gun in hand. As the two robbers ran from his home, Venson saw the second man reach for his waistband. That’s when Venson fired his weapon, striking the man.

Although someone was breaking into his shed, Venson was arrested for the shooting. Under Louisiana law, it is unlawful for you to fire a weapon at someone if  your life is not at risk. It doesn’t matter if they’re stealing personal property or not.

[ … ]

“Jail ain’t no place for anybody,” said neighbor Alvin Campbell, who feels the arrest against Venson was unjust.

If this report is accurate, [a] I don’t see the problem, and [b] Bob’s analysis is incomplete and perhaps flat wrong.  Sure, it may have been wiser for him not to have followed the robber.  That’s water over the dam at this point.

The way I read the report, he didn’t shoot at the robber for his crime of larceny.  He shot because he feared for his life.  This is his defense, and any good lawyer would set it up that way.

But I suspect the problem here runs deeper.  I suspect that he talked to the police and said something inaccurate or damning, and thus the prosecutor has charged him with a crime, whether his report to the police was accurate or not.

Folks, do not ever talk to the police.  Ever.  His first action should have been to call 911 and tell the dispatcher that a shooting had occurred.  The second should have been to tell the police that they can talk to his lawyer and he has nothing to say.

Please … please … learn this.  Please.  And watch this video one more time for good measure.

Via Daily Caller, KHOU:

HOUSTON- A good Samaritan with a gun stopped three suspects whom held Auto Zone employees at gunpoint during an attempted robbery on Friday night.

According to authorities, three males entered the Auto Zone on Jones Road around 9:00 p.m. demanding cash from the register. A customer who happened to be pulling up saw the men holding the employees at gunpoint.

The customer, a “LTC” permit carrier, pulled his gun and went inside the store. He made the suspects get down on the ground and drop their weapons.

Deputies said he held the suspects until they arrived. All three suspects were arrested.

Wait!  Ridiculous and impossible.  When anyone other than a trained law enforcement officer (all of whom are experts in super secret ninja warrior stress management techniques and operating tactically during tactical operations) tries to stop crime or engage in self defense or defense of others, guns take on a life of their own and rotate as if a windmill, firing uncontrollably and randomly, killing innocent women and children everywhere.  How could this happen?

But there is more.

Although deputies commended the customer for his actions, they don’t recommend this because they say it could have ended in a shootout and someone getting hurt.

Of course.  Could this have ended any other way than law enforcement telling others not to do this sort of thing and to leave it to the “experts?”

Green Bay Press-Gazette:

“I fell backward from 20 feet onto a log. I spoke to God and knew I was injured terribly. I asked for and received the strength to crawl out. I spent a week in (a Green Bay hospital’s) intensive care unit, and nearly a full month in the hospital. A surgeon fused my lower 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 vertebrae.

“They taught me how to walk again. I have seven more months of rehab ahead, and am happy with how things are going. I’m in sales and have three to five years left of full-time work. I hope people understand that what happened to me could happen to anyone. At some point when climbing trees, no matter how careful you might be, you’re vulnerable.”

Read the whole article.  For my readers, this is serious business folks.  Don’t climb ladders without the proper restraint and safety gear.  Especially don’t do it in trees.  Check your equipment before using.  Replace your equipment periodically.  Take the condition of your ropes as seriously as guys who climb and rappel.  Most of those guys replace their ropes frequently because grains of sand get in between the fibers and cut them.

Wear fall restraints while climbing, and have redundancy in your platforms and fall restraints.  If you don’t want to do all of this, then go on deer drives or stalk deer rather than climb into stands.  Your life and health isn’t worth the next hunt.  My daughter is involved in trauma care and trauma surgery, and she tells me it’s sad and devastating the injuries she sees during deer hunting season.