Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

By now you’ve seen at least some of the details of Obama’s executive orders on gun control.  You know what I think about all of this, so I won’t repeat what we all know.  But I do want to make some specific observations.

The little boys and girls at Daily Kos are just giddy that they saw Obama cry.  They’re in full celebratory mode.  Crocodile tears on tap for just such an occasion.  That none of this accomplishes what he said he wanted to do doesn’t even move the needle on the bullshit-o-meter for the Kos kids.  That he’s a liar and this was all staged to occur at this point in his tenure escapes them.  He wanted to do all of this by executive order rather than by law-making.  It has been his design all along.

Regarding the details of things, first of all concerning mental health.  Via Uncle, your doctor can report you for what he or she perceives as mental illness.  I suppose that means that your name makes its way into the NICS as prohibited.  Next, the Social Security Administration can also put you on the prohibited list.  Seriously.

Current law prohibits individuals from buying a gun if, because of a mental health issue, they are either a danger to themselves or others or are unable to manage their own affairs.  The Social Security Administration (SSA) has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to ensure that appropriate information in its records is reported to NICS.  The reporting that SSA, in consultation with the Department of Justice, is expected to require will cover appropriate records of the approximately 75,000 people each year who have a documented mental health issue, receive disability benefits, and are unable to manage those benefits because of their mental impairment, or who have been found by a state or federal court to be legally incompetent

As for the mental health issue, that may mean, for example, that anyone who has ever taken a neuromodulator is now prohibited from ever owning a weapon.  And once these regulations get published in the federal register and codified in the federal code, it becomes very difficult to remove them.  One thing working against their removal is that the progressives blame guns for violence, while the so-called conservatives blame mental health.  Neither is responsible, and they know it.

As for the elderly, this might mean that if a child has power of attorney because a couple cannot run TurboTax, they are considered to be incompetent to manage their own affairs.  The Holy Scriptures say, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man” (Leviticus 19:32).  The very ones who are the weakest and least able to defend themselves, who may need the protection afforded by a weapon more than anyone else, are the ones attacked by Obama.

What a worm.  What … a … worm.  He is a hateful, sorry, miserable, awful, terrible servant of the evil one.  But the most interesting reaction to Obama’s actions comes from Mike Vanderboegh, who observes that Obama has instantly nationalized the armed civil disobedience movement.  That’s the takeaway.  He has done what we could never do.

Fusion.net:

Texas is starting off the new year with a bang: A statewide gun law that doesn’t make much sense.

“Unfortunately, this law was not written very well. It’s not very clear…I can read it one way, I can read it another way,” said Donna Edmundson, the city attorney for Houston, at a town hall meeting two months ago. The law—which will make Texas the 45th and largest state to allow citizens with permits to openly carry handguns—goes into effect on January 1.

But by the end of that hour-and-a-half session, which was also attended by the police chief and district attorney, very little had been resolved.

Now, as they anticipate anticipate an uptick in 911 calls reporting people walking the streets with guns, police departments across the state are still trying to figure out how—and if—they can enforce the law, which legal experts say is marked with gaping loopholes and ambiguities.

For one thing, legal experts say, it’s not clear if the law allows police to detain someone who they suspect is open carrying without a license. Some districts are training police to ask to see a license only if an individual is engaging in otherwise suspicious activity. Others say they are free to ask because there is reasonable suspicion that the person may be committing a crime—unlawfully carrying a gun without a license.

Even trickier for police officers is what happens when a citizen is asked and refuses to show proof of an open-carry license. According to the Dallas Morning News, there is no penalty in the law for license holders who refuse to do so:

[C]ase law in Texas could prohibit police from arresting that person, since the action has no penalty.

But if the person isn’t a license holder, the officer can arrest him for unlawfully carrying a gun. So at what point does an officer know enough — like the person’s identity and whether he’s a license holder — to determine whether to make an arrest?

In other words, as it is written, the new open carry law is nearly impossible to enforce, said Geoffrey Corn, a professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. “It’s kind of like a Catch-22,” he told Fusion. Carrying without a license is illegal, but there’s no clear way for police to investigate if the person does indeed have a license to open carry or not.

“The way it’s gonna end up is that police are gonna have encounters with people who are open carrying that are going to escalate, and that are going to lead to an arrest,” Corn said. “And then that’s going to lead to defense attorneys saying the whole thing was tainted, and that the seizure was illegal because he had right to carry.”

Originally, the bill had a “no stop” provision, which barred police from asking anyone for their open carry license. Law enforcement groups fought it, saying it would prevent police from doing their jobs, while endangering the public. In response to that pressure, the bill was rewritten in its current form.

“Traditionally, the way legislatures tackle hard problems is to leave it to the courts,” George Dix, a professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law, told Fusion. “In this case, I suspect there was no politically acceptable language they could agree on, so they left it up to others to decide.”

The officials who pushed the bill through saw it as mostly a symbolic measure, he speculated. They weren’t necessarily concerned with how it would be enforced.

For all its problems, there is one thing abundantly clear with the new law: seeing someone on the street with a gun is not enough of a reason to detain them and ask for their license. Seeing someone with a firearm no longer makes them suspicious in the eyes of the law, even as regular citizens might be alarmed at the sight.

“What a lot of police are worried about is not that there’s gonna be open carry, but that there’s going to be a deliberate effort to exercise that right in what I might characterize as an ‘unusually zealous’ way,” said Corn. “And there can be a lot of chaos in those circumstances.”

Deliberate, mind you.  Not accidental, but someone exercising a right deliberately.  Deliberately!  And not only that, but in an “unusually zealous” way!

So tell us Mr. Corn.  What does it mean to deliberately exercise a right in an “unusually zealous” way?  Be precise, please.  Legally precise.  And explain how that can be chaotic.

Or perhaps this is just some bullshit term made up for some bullshit article over something that won’t end up mattering a hill of beans to most people?  Which is it, Mr. Corn?

Indystar.com:

A veteran was wounded Wednesday at Richard L. Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center when a handgun he brought into the Indianapolis hospital accidentally discharged in his pocket while he was in a procedure room — possibly an MRI suite.

Hospital officials confirmed the accidental shooting in a statement issued Thursday and reported the victim, whose name was not released, received immediate medical attention. The statement added the man’s wound did not threaten his life.

A hospital spokesman initially confirmed in a telephone call from The Indianapolis Star that the incident involved an MRI, but the subsequent statement said only that the incident occurred “in a procedure room.” When asked for clarification about the involvement of the MRI, the spokesman said in an email that the statement “is our response at this time.”

The statement noted it is a violation of federal and state law to bring a firearm into the hospital and “notification of this law is posted at every entrance.”

Having a gun or other metal object in the vicinity of an MRI machine would also be a violation of widely accepted medical and safety protocol, according to American Journal of Roentgenology, and could have fatal consequences. It was unclear Thursday if criminal charges would be pursued. The Marion County prosecutor’s office was closed Thursday.

The accident at Roudebush may be the first time in the U.S. that a patient was wounded when a gun discharged in an MRI unit.

It also is at least the second instance of a handgun accidentally firing in the suite of one powerful imagining machines which, according to WebMD, use “a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of organs and structures inside the body.”

In the other case, according to a 2002 report in the American Journal of Roentgenology, a gun discharged in an MRI after it was pulled from the hand of an off-duty police officer as he attempted to place the weapon on a cabinet about 3 feet away from the MRI’s magnet bore. No one was injured in that case.

In 2009, another off-duty police officer in Florida sustained a minor hand injury when her department-issued gun was pulled inside an MRI machine. Jacksonville TV station WJTX reported the injury occurred when her hand became trapped between the gun and magnet.

Another MRI accident — which involved a metal object, but not a gun — claimed the life of a 6-year-old New York boy in 2001.

The deadly accident at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., occurred when a metal oxygen tank about the size of a fire extinguisher was pulled into the MRI and fractured the boy’s skull, according to the New York Times.

In a report on the 2002 incident in New York involving a handgun, the Journal of Roentgenology found, the police officer’s “gun was immediately pulled into the bore, where it struck the left side and spontaneously discharged a round into the wall of the room at the rear of the magnet.”

At the time the .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol fired, the report said, “it was reportedly in a cocked and locked position; that is, the hammer was cocked and the thumb safety was engaged to prevent the hammer from striking the firing pin.” There also was a live round in the chamber.

“Many people who choose this weapon for personal protection will carry it in this manner because it allows them to quickly fire the weapon if needed,” the report noted.

The discharge was likely “a result of the effect of the magnetic field on the firing pin block,” the report said.

“The firing pin block was probably drawn into its uppermost position by force of the magnetic field. The firing pin block has to overcome only light pressure from a relatively small spring to release the firing pin. The pistol was likely drawn into the magnetic field so that the muzzle struck the magnet’s bore first. With the firing pin allowed to move freely in its channel, the force of the impact on the muzzle end was sufficient to cause the firing pin to overcome its spring pressure and move forward to strike the primer of the chambered round.”

From a wonkish standpoint, I find this quite interesting.  I would have liked a picture (or set of pictures) to go along with the explanation, though.  Do we have any gunsmiths who can elaborate and clarify for us?

CSM:

At least in popular culture, Texas has always been synonymous with gun-totin’ cowboys, but until midnight on New Year’s Eve, the reality has been far different. Texas, in fact, has been one of the most restrictive gun-rights states in America.

Thanks to a new law, however, the state will be one of the most relaxed.

How relaxed? Police are discouraged from even asking about someone’s holstered gun. And if they do, they may not have much power to do anything if the person refuses to show a license.

The upshot is that the sight of civilians carrying visible weapons is about to become commonplace in the Lone Star State.

The lawmakers who crafted the legislation passed it in part as a symbolic measure at an unusual time in the United States. Even as gun control groups link America’s obsession with firearms to a slight rise in the number of mass shootings, the US public seems more enamored than ever with weaponry and the power it conveys. Black Friday this year saw the biggest gun cache ever purchased in one day – enough to arm a new military the size of the Marine Corps, as Bob Owens points out on the “Bearing Arms” blog.

Indeed, with notable exceptions in New York, Connecticut, and Colorado, the bulk of states have steadily expanded gun rights since the sunsetting of a 10-year assault weapons ban in 2004. But the new Texas law is Texas-size, given that more than 800,000 Texans are already licensed to carry concealed weapons. Their rights now extend to carrying openly in the halls of the state Capitol.

Given those trends, there’s a fervent debate about whether the new Texas law is a model piece of legislation for a changing America – or a walking disaster just begging for trouble.

To be sure, the law is strict in its own way, offering a model for regulation. Under the law, open-carry folks have to be licensed, a process that includes safety and shooting tests. They also have to show no prior psychological problems, and they have to be at least 21 years old.

But a major sticking point is how the law will affect policing in one of the nation’s most populous expanses. The fact that the law doesn’t provide any sanctions against those who refuse to show a license to a police officer has critics fearing that officers may be handcuffed in their ability to respond to volatile and potentially deadly situations.

Oooo … boogey man gonna getcha!  Hold me Uncle Bob!  I askeerd!  “Walking disaster.”  “Trouble.”  “Volatile and deadly situations.” Oooo …

Again, as a citizen of a traditional open carry state, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen here.  Nothing.  That’s right, nothing.  Life will continue in the lone star state unabated, and the doomsday predictions of law enforcement and the progressives will go down as a monument to their hatred of the common man.

And no, it’s not a model for open carry law.  It’s a half way measure that still recognizes the state’s right to permit the carry of weapons, an illegitimate and bastard right that has no place in a free society.

News from South Carolina:

CHEROKEE COUNTY, S.C. — A Gaffney man was killed while playing with a gun at his house New Year’s Eve.

Witnesses say Tezlar Wayne Ross, 20, and three other people were in his bedroom looking at a .380 handgun when he reportedly took the clip out of the gun and placed it to his head joking with the others when it discharged.

Ross was pronounced dead at the scene.

“This is certainly a tragic way to end the year.  Guns are not toys and this is an example of what happens when they are treated as such and not respected.  My heart breaks for this family,” Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said.

Please don’t ever do anything like that.  Please.  Always observe the rules of gun safety.  Just like car, or the presence of prescription drugs in the home, bad things can happen when the rules aren’t followed.

Washington Post:

Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced Tuesday that the commonwealth will no longer recognize out-of-state concealed handgun permits, part of a national push to circumvent legislatures opposed to tightening gun laws.

[ … ]

But Herring’s office could not say how many people are suspected of crossing into Virginia with concealed weapons to commit crimes …

[ … ]

The states losing reciprocity are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The Washington Post article comes via Mike Vanderboegh.  As for Mr. Herring, he can’t prove that any crime has ever been committed in Virginia by an out-of-state concealed handgun permit holder, and he knows it.  This is raw politics, progressive statist tactics to deprive men of their right to self defense.  And as we’ve seen before, it’s more than a matter of mere politics, and even more than a matter of rights.  It’s a matter of moral duty.

God expects men to defend themselves and their loved ones as a corollary to being created in His image.  Second amendment or not, men must act to preserve life, their own and that of others.  It is an obligation that attends being servants of the most high God, the only potentate and eternal ruler of the universe.  Your actions, Mr. Herring, go to the heart of God’s expectations for man, and thus there is a deeply moral element to your seemingly political actions.

As I said, we’ve studied this time and time again, and so there is absolutely no question that Mr. Herring is interfering with man’s duty before God and thus has become a stumbling block for God’s chosen people.  There is a whole host of questions and things to consider from this point forward.

For instance, what is the NRA going to do?  If they’re worth two cents, they will go to war over this.  What will Virginia LEOs do?  If they enforce this sinful and unconstitutional law, they are no better than the current Governor and Attorney General Mr. Herring.  I don’t care that those in power want this enforced.  I don’t care that those in power were elected to that office.

Breaking covenant with God’s law means illegitimacy before mankind, and thus their laws must be disobeyed.  I don’t want to hear from LEOs that the people of Virginia should elect better men, different men.  The majority doesn’t have a right to decide when God’s laws are to be dishonored.  If LEOs can’t stand the moral heat, it’s time to get out of the kitchen.  These are weighty questions for weighty times.  What will LEOs do?  Seriously.  LEOs should ponder hard on these words.

But one thing I can do about this is appeal to the most high King over these sinful actions.  In the Christian faith there is a rich tradition of imprecatory prayers, and it’s a tool we don’t use often enough.  It isn’t a substitute for action on our parts, but we must bath everything in prayer.  The last time I prayed an imprecatory prayer it was over Arlen Specter and his support for abortion rights and another candidate who supported abortion rights.  Soon after that prayer, Mr. Specter was diagnosed with cancer and left the senate.  I don’t do this lightly.  But Mr. Herring has forced my hand, and I feel led by the spirit to do this.

“Dear Lord of heaven and earth, whereas Mr. Herring has made it impossible for many of your servants, your children, those for whom your only begotten Son died on a rugged cross, to preserve their lives and the lives of those whom you love, Mr. Herring has declared himself to be your enemy.  Tyrants need willing lieutenants to carry out their evil plans, and Mr. Herring has decided to align himself with the forces of darkness.  This is no small matter to you.

I am hereby constrained by your spirit to pray for his demise.  Bring desolation, destitution and disrepute on the house of Mr. Herring to the fourth and fifth generations.  May his very children and children’s children disavow his beliefs and actions to the fourth and fifth generations.  May Mr. Herring live in shame for what he has done, and I pray that you, oh sovereign Lord, would bring all of his actions to naught and render him impotent and powerless, with the reputation of a worm.”

In the interest of educational videos, I am posting dynamic techniques using a pistol with Louis Awerbuck, and then using a carbine with Travis Haley.  Not all tactical training has to be shooting, and some of it is intensely focused on physical adaptability and dexterity, moving with and against the threat.

Boston Globe:

One of the features described in the legal bans as “military,” and by the gun industry as “cosmetic,” is a pistol grip on rifles — a handle beneath the trigger. This makes it easier to hold the rifle steady while firing repeatedly, a desired feature to shooting enthusiasts.

But Horwitz, of the gun-control coalition, sees the feature differently.

“Traditional hunting rifles are very accurate on the first shot,” he said, which is usually all one gets when hunting game. “The pistol grip allows the same accuracy on rounds two to 100, a very helpful addition when the shooter is aiming at people.”

You never knew that Howwitz was a tactical expert, did you?  Well, to be precise, the design of the AR-15/M-16/M-4 (or in other words, the Stoner family of arms) places the recoil along the axis of the firearm, as opposed to there being a couple about the firing hand because of the off-axis recoil and the buttstock being lower than the axis of recoil.

The pistol grip is a function of the rifle design, not vice versa or for some unrelated reason.  In other words, one couldn’t hold and shoot the firearm without it because the hand would be turned 90 degrees.  Round 1 versus rounds 2 to 100 is irrelevant, and Josh doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

As for forend grip, if that’s what he’s referring to, some folks would dispute the notion that holding a forend grip (as opposed to using it as a point of reference and a spring loaded bipod) assists the shooter at all.  Specifically, the thumb-over-bore grip or otherwise termed the C-clamp grip has become popular among some shooters.  It started in the gaming community, was adopted by some special operations guys, and is now commonly seen at ranges, and certainly in training videos by folks like Chris Costa and Travis Haley.

In this picture, Chris Costa is using a reflex sight and a flip-to-side magnifier like I do, although not the reflex sight I use (EOTech), along with (what looks like) a Surefire M600 tactical light system.  My forend grip isn’t as high as his.

Some operators don’t even run a forend grip if the mission exclusively involves rapid target acquisition.  As for the main pistol grip, aside from the idea that it is necessary given the weapon design, there is no evidence that use of a pistol grip ipso facto ensures better accuracy or precision on any particular sequences of rounds (on the other hand, the recoil being directed along an axis is intended to aid in rapid target re-acquisition, but Josh didn’t say that).  So again, Josh Horwitz doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  But you knew that already.

Practice, test, be an engineer and mechanic.  Use whatever weapon design and particular set of additions to your weapon that works best for you.  They’ll never get our ARs.  The modularity of the AR-15 is one of its best features.  Josh Horwitz can trust the police to protect him.  As for you, trust God, and use your guns.

David Codrea:

Internet trolls have learned to exploit our over-militarized police. It’s a crime that’s hard to stop — and hard to prosecute

Read the rest of it for context and the Dallas PD’s response.

Texas Monthly also has a long article dedicated to preparations for open carry.

The law passed without the provision as it should have.

Honestly, I enjoy shooting handguns more than I do long guns, except distance shooting with bolties and glass.  What I know about handgun tactics and techniques I have learned from the NRA, my oldest son Joshua who worked security at some very rough places, my youngest son Daniel (who despite not having had much handgun training in the Marine Corps, still had some), reddit/r/guns, gun forums, range rules for the many ranges at which I’ve shot, YouTube videos with Jerry Miculek, Travis Haley, Chris Costa, Hickok45 and others, and years and years of doing it and seeing what works and what doesn’t, and what’s safe and what isn’t.  This is something I would never do unless I was in the process of discharging my weapon (and by that I mean I’m in process, and the process is going to be completed because my life is in danger, as opposed to preparing to do it or stand down depending upon the circumstances). [As a sidebar, Daniel jaw-jacked a USMC officer when he was in the Corps when an idiot officer muzzle flagged others with his finger on the trigger, Daniel being range officer that particular day.  Daniel, a Lance Corporal, was supported by other officers for doing what he did and ended the day with accolades – the officer, not so much].

Despite efforts to address the problem, the risk associated with the new Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm “remains substantial,” according to the report by Los Angeles County Inspector General Max Huntsman.

“There is a continued risk that either LASD employees or civilians may be seriously wounded or killed by an unintended discharge,” Huntsman wrote.

He said further study and steps to mitigate the problem are needed “before a tragedy occurs.”

A handful of deputies have been injured in accidental shootings in recent years, according to the report. No suspects or bystanders have been hurt in the incidents.

We’ve dealt with weapon-mounted lights before, noting that the real problem isn’t a switch or trigger for the light, but officers thinking that they are operating the light rather than the gun.  The solution isn’t to remove the light.

I once was responsible for a relative’s home before we could work on it and sell it – the story is long and too involved to discuss, and it would bore you.  At any rate, I [only one time] used the pistol over forearm with left hand holding the light method to clear the house as I entered.  Here I must tell you that because the house was unoccupied during the week and given the fact that on the weekends I had to do work in the house alone, I cleared the domicile room-to-room the first time I entered the structure on the weekends, and carried a weapon on my person my entire time in the home, often with my Doberman Heidi with me (this is the gun sitting near her, not what I used for room clearing but great gun-porn nonetheless).  Partly this had to do with where the house was located and when I had to do the work, which was mainly at night, but I promised not to tell you the story so I won’t.

I say I used that method only one time.  I will never do it again.  It may look cool in the TV shows, but by the time you’ve done your last room, you’re exhausted.  Only once did I do this.  Then I got a weapon-mounted light.  It worked wonders for my attention to detail.  As I said above, the solution isn’t to jettison the weapon-mounted light.  It’s to train and ensure you don’t make the kind of errors that cops are making with weapon-mounted lights.  With my time in that house, it’s likely that I’ve had more time in training than most cops doing that drill, and I’m a nobody.

So leaving aside the issue of weapon-mounted lights, what does the report tell you about police handgun tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP)?  Note well.  This isn’t a cop-bashing post.  This is intended to elicit thought and pondering and mental labor concerning what cops in that neck of the woods are being taught versus how you [hopefully] are practicing handgun tactics.

Think about this.  A handgun is being blamed because of a light trigger pull, while doing police work.  Be educated.  Ponder on this a bit.  What does this tell you versus what you should be doing and how you should be training?  And ponder the fact that the first shot you will ever fire in self defense will probably be from a handgun.

Prior: Gun-Mounted Flashlights Linked To Accidental Shootings