Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

As I’ve discussed before, I have never believed in holding rights hostage to favorable statistics outcomes.  See also Kurt Hofmann on this issue.  However, for the weaker among us who don’t believe in much (i.e., politicians), and for those who reflexively stick their finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing, public opinion seems to matter.  And thus there is utility in information like this.

Less than half of Americans, 47%, say they favor stricter laws covering the sale of firearms, similar to views found last year. But this percentage is significantly below the 58% recorded in 2012 after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, spurred a nationwide debate about the possibility of more stringent gun control laws. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say these laws should be kept as they are now, and 14% say they should be made less strict.

The percentage favoring stricter gun sale laws in the two years since Newtown occurred has declined despite steady and tragic high-profile shootings in the U.S at schools, malls and businesses. This past week, shootings occurred at a Seattle-area school and of police officers in Sacramento and Placer County, California. Amidst events like these in 2014, and the resulting calls for stricter gun sale laws, the 47% who favor stricter laws is just above the historical low of 43% measured in 2011.

Ten years ago, three in five Americans (60%) said they favored stricter laws regulating the sale of firearms, but support fell to 44% in 2009 and remained at that level in polls conducted in the next two years. Days after the Newtown shooting, support for stricter gun sale laws swelled. Since 2012, however, Americans have retreated from those stronger attitudes about the need for more gun control, and the percentage of Americans who say the laws should be less strict — although still low — has edged up.

These findings come from a new Gallup Poll Social Series survey, conducted Oct. 12-15.

Universal background checks and waiting periods have never been associated with “reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates,” and readers know that I’ve never bought the idea that 90+ percent of the American public wants universal background checks.  It’s was a myth before and it’s a myth now.

So I don’t want to hear another damn word about how 90% of the public wants increased gun control at the point of sale, or trying to plug the mythical “gun show loophole” or “internet loophole” which are fabricated phrases for person-to-person sales.  Not another … damn … word.

View from Connecticut:

In 2013, Gov. Dannel Malloy pursued a closed-door legislative agenda to impose strict gun laws on Connecticut’s citizens and to cast an historic state industry, employing thousands here, as a villain. In campaign commercials, he continues the false narrative.

Gov. Malloy either doesn’t know much about an industry with a significant economic presence in his state or is so uneducated about federal and state law, as well as longstanding programs and practices, that it should be embarrassing.

First, the governor and his inner circle decided the people who know the most about firearms would be frozen out of any policy discussions. Then, on April 7, 2013, he decided to attack the industry on CNN.

“What this is about is the ability of the gun industry to sell as many guns to as many people as possible — even if they are deranged, even if they are mentally ill, even if they have a criminal background,” Malloy said. “They don’t care.”

Not one bit of this is true. We sent the governor a letter well over a year ago in an attempt to set the record straight. We are still waiting for a reply.

The governor made the conscious decision to go well beyond arguments about firearms features to castigate an entire industry. He must see a political advantage in using the industry as a straw man. But, this is not leadership and it does not represent responsible and inclusive governance. It is the politics of divisiveness and a lot of Connecticut citizens know it’s wrong.

No one in the firearms industry wants to put guns in the hands of criminals or seriously mental ill individuals. The firearms industry works with local, state and federal law enforcement officials every day to help prevent that from happening. We back that commitment with proven, practical programs.

Police departments across the nation distribute Project ChildSafe gun safety education material and gun locks to help prevent unauthorized access to firearms. Launched more than a decade ago with the assistance of a federal grant, Project ChildSafe is now funded solely by the firearms industry and a small number of public donations. The Connecticut State Police recently passed out Project ChildSafe locks at the Big E.

To help ensure that the appropriate mental health records are in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the industry launched the FixNICS campaign that resulted in 12 states adopting laws so that all the relevant records are submitted to the national database all federally licensed firearms retailers use to stop prohibited persons from buying firearms. One of the governor’s campaign ads says “Tom Foley refuses to support mandatory background checks for people with mental illness.” The charge is insensible, given there is only one check system for both criminals and those with adjudicated mental health records.

Developed in 2000 with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Don’t Lie for the Other Guy program is the industry’s initiative to assist firearms retailers in the identification of would-be illegal straw purchasers. It uses outdoor and radio advertising to inform the public about the serious penalties involved with the crime. We brought the public awareness campaign to Connecticut in 2013. Maybe he missed the huge billboards.

We are the nation’s firearms safety experts. We equip the American military and law enforcement, working cooperatively with law enforcement at all levels. We also make it possible for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights should they decide they want to both exercise that right and assume that responsibility.

We have not and will not quietly accept the role of villain in which Gov. Malloy has cast our industry whether in pursuit of mistaken and ineffective public policy or in search of a second term.

While Gov. Malloy seems to enjoy the sparring, we would prefer to be spending more time on the programs discussed above and on other cooperative ventures with members of our industry and the public. The governor can still call us if he wants our help, but we don’t expect that he will and we’re not holding our breath. Doing so would not seem to square with the style of slashing politics to which he is accustomed.

Joseph H. Bartozzi is senior vice president and general counsel, O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc., North Haven.

Since you sent this open letter to Governor Malloy, I would like to send an open letter to Mossberg & Sons.  This letter disappoints me in numerous ways.  First of all, I couldn’t care less that you supply firearms to law enforcement.  I do care deeply about my rights as recognized by the second amendment.

You wrote to the Governor as if he would behaved differently if he had just had “experts” in his policy discussions.  You know better than that.  You know that his behavior is a function of his collectivist world view, and the Governor would just as soon see you completely out of business (or supplying only to law enforcement so that they could retain their monopoly of violence).

The Governor couldn’t possibly care less about gun locks, the NICS, or the jobs of the good men and women who work at Mossberg & Sons.  We recently saw an example of this kind of thing with the boy-Mayor of Jersey City who recently preened his feathers over spending more taxpayer money than he should have purchasing weapons for the police from a supplier who swore on their mother’s grave that they wouldn’t sell except to law enforcement.  It has to do with value judgments, not facts and figures.  The Governor and many others in Connecticut don’t value you or what you do.

You have ensconced yourselves deeper and deeper in a state that doesn’t respect anything about you, me, fellow firearms owners, or the second amendment.  The real story here, and what you should have said in your letter, is that Governor Malloy campaigns against firearms owners and other American patriots.  To be sure, there are good men in Connecticut, but they are in the minority given that collectivists continue to hold court.  If you really believe the things you said in your letter, you need to do what so many other gun manufacturers have done – move South.

The Montana Standard:

By my count this is at least the second life that has been saved from a bear attack after legalization of firearms in National Parks, the first instance being mid-2010 in Denali.

Of course, Mr. Murphy is now charged with a crime.  There are two problems that could be contributing, the first being that laws are now passed in broad sweeping language that apparently ignores guilty intent, or in other words, Congress is Eroding the Mens Rea Requirement in Federal Criminal Law.

The second problem that could be contributing is that the enforcement in question may be of a regulation rather than a law, which is made via federal register by armies of lawyers sitting inside the beltway who have been (unfortunately) empowered by Congress to do just that.

But the third problem is there  is obviously a prosecutor who wants to take this case to court, otherwise he wouldn’t have a scheduled court appearance and need a lawyer.

The law becomes absolute in contemporary America, regardless of the fact that a man’s life was saved because he discharged a firearm.  But it’s absurd that Congress would have passed a law allowing firearms in National Parks early in 2010, but then refused to allow people to use that firearm to defend their lives.  Since it is absurd, it clearly wasn’t the intent of Congress (or should not have been).  Therefore, the prosecutor is likely to blame for the fact that Mr. Murphy has to defend himself in court for saving his own life.

Via Reason, there is this great report from CCTV America:

Since the Islamic State made its push into northern Iraq, questions of safety have emerged. Some Kurds are preparing to leave their jobs and fight with the peshmerga military, while others simply want to arm themselves for protection. They both can go to the same place: a bazaar tucked away outside the city of Erbil.

I don’t know if the Christian community is among those who intend to “weapon up” like I’ve recommended, but it’s good to see at least some of the folk responding like the situation demands.

As a sidebar comment, I see no revolvers, and what I suspect is a lot of 9mm handguns, along with AK and AK-variants (so probably along with availability of 9mm and 7.62X39 ammunition, but no .45, .38, .308, 7.62X51, or 5.56 mm).  Why these shooters prefer to have long guns with their butt stocks removed is completely beyond me.

Upon watching this report it occurred to me to do a quick search of ISIS and gun control.  Sure enough, this turned up for the rules implemented by ISIS upon capture of new territory.

“No drugs, no alcohol and no cigarettes allowed,” it added.

No public gathering other than those organised by ISIS will be allowed at any stage. No guns will be allowed outside of its ranks.

Statists and totalitarians are the same the world over.  Guns for me, but not for thee.

I ran across this fairly informative podcast late last week.  If you want to listen to it I encourage you to do so.  It is just short of twenty minutes.  If not, I will summarize for you.

The law passed several years ago in California forced all new firearms to be microstamped with laser etching right at the time of firing, with spent cartridge casings showing the serial number of the firearm used – ridiculous technology that no professional engineer would seal (this is my judgment, not that of the podcast).  It would be too expensive, it wouldn’t last, and it would be subject to removal by anyone.

The law stipulated that the law becomes effective when the attorney general deems that the technology exists.  The attorney general of California is a liar because she deems the technology to exist even though it doesn’t.  Therefore, all new firearms sold in California must include this technology which doesn’t exist.

Here is the operative phrase: new firearm.  Gun makers can continue to sell existing firearms if they have previously been approved by California, including the silly limited capacity magazine.  But because a new firearms is defined as any firearm that has had any change at all made (part tolerance, alloy specification, gun color, etc.), and because even small changes routinely made by manufacturers would be included in that list and necessarily involve approval which included microstamping (which doesn’t exist), gun manufacturers are no longer selling guns in California.

We’ve discussed this before in slightly less detail, and noted that Smith & Wesson will continue to sell to law enforcement (or at least, they won’t commit to me that they won’t), thus providing weapons to LEOs that other citizens can’t have.

You can let Smith & Wesson know how you feel about this.  I have.  At the same time, remind them that it is way past time to remove themselves from the communist state in which they are ensconced and come South like most other gun manufacturers.

Their customer base is watching – carefully.

Ms. Elizabeth Sharp, VP of Investor Relations (Lsharp@smith-wesson.com)

Washington Times:

A competing rifle outperformed the Army’s favored M4A1 carbine in key firings during a competition last year before the service abruptly called off the tests and stuck with its gun, according to a new confidential report.

The probable takeaway from all of this is that the Army is in a sloppy love affair with Colt, and nothing will ever replace it.  Colt lost the contract for M4s almost two years ago, and due to pressure from various lawyers, government entities (GAO) and others, they reopened the bidding and testing process.

Then it closed, with no selection of a new firearm.  You know what I think about H&K (their attitude to customers, “you suck and we hate you“).  I really don’t care much for who won the competition because I think it was badly framed to begin with.

Phase one has had nothing to do with evaluating test prototypes, but instead has focused on weeding out companies that may not have the production capacity to make thousands of weapons per month. This has become a bitter point of contention that has driven away some companies with credible names in the gun business.

“I’m not going to dump half a million to a million dollars for them never to review my rifle,” said Steve Mayer of Rock River Arms, standing amid his racks of M4-style carbines at Shot Show, the massive small-arms show here that draws gun makers from all over the world.

But you, dear reader, can have whatever you want for the right price.  The government doesn’t (yet) have the authority to tell you not to buy a Rock River Arms AR-15, or LaRue Tactical, or whatever you want.

And let’s try to keep it that way.  Weapons are best vetted and tested in the civilian market anyway.  The Army and Marine Corps uses what they’re given.  We have the right to use what we want.  We are the most picky users who give the best feedback.

If some reader wants to pick at this issue until he gets hold of this report, we would all be interested to read it.

Remember when I said this?

The judge should be impeached, and as for the claim that Mississippi would turn into the Wild, Wild West, I think that the fear is exactly the opposite.  I think that everyone knows that nothing untoward will occur, and thus Mississippi will become an example to the rest of the states (e.g., Texas, South Carolina, etc.) that have not been traditional open carry states but choose to change that …

In the end, this stolid judge’s day in the sun will soon go away, guns will be openly carried in Mississippi, the Wild, Wild West will not obtain, and LEOs like Chief John Miller will be ridiculed for their fear mongering.

And everything will be made right.

There is this report from the Clarion-Ledger:

About this time last year, there was furor about state House Bill 2, the “open carry” bill.

HB 2 allows someone to openly carry a firearm. It caused an uproar, and litigation to block it, even though the state constitution already had given Mississippians such a right since 1890.

In late August last year, with opponents warning it would bring “chaos” and “the wild West” and with no-guns-allowed signs popping up everywhere, the state Supreme Court upheld the law.

Since then, I’ve noticed … nothing. I’ve seen two people who I suspected were just citizens and not law enforcement wearing holstered pistols. Neither caused an uproar, and neither of their pistols jumped out of their holsters and committed a crime.

“A year later, we don’t have the wild, wild West,” said HB 2’s author, Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton.

Ken Winter, director of the Mississippi police chiefs’ association, last year had voiced serious concern about HB 2. Last week he noted he still has concerns but, “It’s kind of been a non-issue.”

“Personally, I haven’t seen anybody carrying,” Winter said. “I live just outside a small town here in north Mississippi, so I figure if people would be swinging hoglegs anywhere it would be here.”

So it would appear gun-owning Mississippians were granted a right (again, one they already had) and — lo and behold — the vast majority appeared to be sensible and law-abiding about it.

Anyone over about 30 might remember when Mississippians practiced this right years ago, with gun racks in most every pickup. That stopped because criminals were stealing them, even though there were laws against auto burglary and larceny.

That’s the thing about gun laws and restrictions. Short of total bans, they’re not effective. They apply to and restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens.

And thus am I ridiculing Chief John Miller, Judge Winston Kidd, Jody Owens of the Southern Preposterous Lie Center (who said “We’re looking at a Wild West scenario”) and all the other fear mongers.  And everything has been made right on this issue in Mississippi.

Now the next step is to end the machinations of communist South Carolina State Senator Larry Martin and bring constitutional carry to South Carolina.

Washington Times:

A federal judge has upheld a package of strict firearms regulations that went into effect in Maryland last year.

In a 47-page opinion issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake said the law “seeks to address a serious risk of harm to law enforcement officers and the public from the greater power to injure and kill presented by assault weapons and large capacity magazines.”

[ … ]

Judge Blake, appointed by President Clinton, agreed with lawyers for the state, who held that assault weapons and large-capacity magazines “fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms.” She also pointed out that the plaintiffs could not produce a single example in which an assault weapon or more than 10 rounds of ammunition were “used or useful” in an instance of self-defense in Maryland.

The opinion cites statistics showing that ownership of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is comparatively rare and yet they are “disproportionately represented in mass shootings” as well as the murders of law-enforcement personnel.

“Upon review of all the parties’ evidence, the court seriously doubts that the banned assault long guns are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense in the home, which is at the core of the Second Amendment right, and is inclined to find the weapons fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual,” Judge Blake wrote.

These things simply aren’t true.  See my mass shootings research.  These incidents are primarily done with guys toting multiple firearms (usually handguns, but shotguns have also been used) and multiple magazines.  Reloading is quick and easy, as mass shooters know.

Furthermore, I can point to Mr. Stephen Bayezes for an incident where an AR-15 and multiple magazines had to be used in self defense.  This was South Carolina, but if the judge had turned to the pages of American Rifleman every month, she would have seen the multiple reports of people defending themselves using all sorts of firearms.  There are many examples in Maryland.

But this isn’t about self defense.  It’s just a continuation of the same sort of fabricated reasoning that grips our judicial system on guns.  The second amendment has to do with self defense only insofar as it pertains to amelioration of tyranny.

These are scary words for collectivist judges like her.  None of this matters.  She won’t get any of our guns, and if you are an owner of a weapon capable of holding more than ten rounds in the magazine, keep it.  If you turn it in, you are siding with the collectivists.  Maryland will pay for their sins.

Glenn Reynolds recently linked an article at World Net Daily where Christians are being told to weapon up and fight back against jihadist fighters in Nigeria because the government won’t protect them against Boko Haram and others who intend them harm.  This kicked off a conversation between me and my son over the response of the Christian church worldwide, a church I have variously called weak, pathetic, pitiful, disgusting and repulsive (I have that right because I’m a Christian).

I have [previously] asked when is the last time a reader had even heard a prayer in worship for Christians being slaughtered across the globe? (This week was the first indication that anyone cares, with a note from Leith Anderson, head of the National Association of Evangelicals, to pray for Iraq, after Christians have been slaughtered and driven from their homes for more than three years (and the church in Mesopotamia having disintegrated).  What?  No imprecatory prayers at all?  We’re too busy trying to disarm each other to pay attention to the suffering of Christians rather than our own comfort.  My son, in disagreement (of course) with the anemia of the global church, demands to know why we aren’t arming Christians across the world from the offering plate.

To this I explained that there are a number of complicating factors in such a proposal.  First of all, arming Christians in Iraq or Nigeria involves export of firearms which falls under a whole gaggle of federal laws.  To avoid that the church would have to find a weapons trafficker to get the arms to the Christians under attack.  In the unlikely event that a pastor anywhere had the stomach for this, the weapons cannot be gotten to the Christians now anyway.  They are surrounded and cut off, or scattered to the four winds as they run for their very lives.

A good summary statement of where the Christians are at the moment might be this: they waited too late to think about self defense.  They waited too late not because of the mistaken notion that the jihadists would have mercy on them, but because there is a basic sickness in the worldwide church.  This sickness, which is the root cause of the problem, is anti-intellectualism and bad hermeneutics.

Christians justifiably hold high regard for what the Scriptures teach.  But failing proper interpretation and application, unlearned Christians are at the mercy of teachers and pastors who have been brainwashed at liberal seminaries in the art of form, source and redaction criticism, and deconstruction.  Many seminary professors no more believe what the Bible teaches than my dog believes in Newtonian physics.

The Bible gets (intentionally) conflated with social action and a thousand other things, and one consequence of this, just to bring this around to the main subject, is that Christians the world over are in large part pacifists.  The honorific title of “Prince of peace” governs the interpretation of words like “My kingdom is not of this world,” “turn the other check,” and “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”  That He can become angry and jealous and full of wrath are seldom discussed.  It’s what theologian John Frame calls an “exclusive reduction” of God to one characteristic, like “God is love” (which is poor hermeneutics) versus an “emphasizing reduction” (which can be temporarily useful for teaching).  Passages are ripped out of context without regard to the rules of hermeneutics or other passages of the Bible and the need for logical consistency.

But despite bad hermeneutics, there is no unmitigated promise from God to protect His people without regard to their foolishness, if they will only trust Him for their provisions.  In order to prove this notion false all one must do is find a single example where Christians were killed en masse.  Such an example isn’t hard to find, as it is estimated that Hitler killed some three million Christians during his evil reign in addition to the millions of Jews, including some half a million clergy.  Another instance of Christians perishing at the hands of evil men can be taken from Stalin’s starvation of the Ukraine, what may be called the holocaust by hunger.  Christians were certainly among the seven million souls who perished in the Ukraine in the 1930’s.  So David’s comment that he has never seen the children of the righteous “begging for bread” (Ps 37:25) must be a normative statement rather than a promise.  In fact, the entire approach to interpretation of the so-called “wisdom literature” in the Bible is different from say, didactic (Romans and Ephesians) or apocalyptic (Revelation) literature.

I am afraid there have been too many centuries of bad teaching endured by the church, but it makes sense to keep trying.  As I’ve explained before, the simplest and most compelling case for self defense lies in the decalogue.  Thou shall not murder means thou shall protect life.

God’s law requires [us] to be able to defend the children and helpless.  “Relying on Matthew Henry, John Calvin and the Westminster standards, we’ve observed that all Biblical law forbids the contrary of what it enjoins, and enjoins the contrary of what it forbids.”  I’ve tried to put this in the most visceral terms I can find.

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers. Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

This same sort of thinking can be applied on a larger scale to states and nations as so expertly done by professor Darrell Cole in Good Wars (First Things), relying on the theology of both Calvin and Aquinas.  But this is a bridge too far for some Christians who are just now dealing with the notion that they might be in danger.

And danger it is.  If it isn’t out of control SWAT teams in wrong address raids or home invasions by felons, Christians might begin to think about the possibility that jihad will show up on our own shores (jihad version 4.0 includes mass executions, burying people alive and beheading of children).  And if it isn’t that, consider that illegal immigrants have been seen walking armed and in military fatigues in tactical formation (“Ranger file”) across Texas farmland.

But the most pressing danger isn’t ISIS, or felons, or illegal immigrants.  The most pressing danger is the intransigence of the global Christian church in refusing to weapon up and defend themselves.  The Christians in Iraq waited too late, have lost their homes and all of their belongings, and are on the run or sitting on a mountain top thirsting to death (and thirst is a bad way to perish).  I just don’t how to say it any clearer than my favorite actor, Sam Elliot.  If you won’t listen to me, listen to him.

Prior: Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

Fox Carolina:

INMAN, SC (FOX Carolina) –

A Spartanburg County business owner is upset after he says SunTrust Bank closed his business accounts because he runs a pawn shop.

Even as a boy, Morris Williams often had a gun in his hands.

“I grew up hunting with my dad,” Williams said.

And now as an adult he sells them at the Inman Gun and Pawn.

“This business has been here since the early 90s,” Williams said.

Not only are there guns, but there are guitars, movies and chainsaws for sale. But he said SunTrust Bank cut him off and asked him to close two checking accounts he opened for his business.

“We have an excellent relationship. We have ample funds in the account to do anything we needed to do,” he said.

Williams said he’s a target of bank regulations influenced by the federal government because he’s a gun owner.

“We thought everything was just wonderful until we received this letter,” Williams said.

The letter states, “Under the Rules and Regulations for Deposit Accounts, and as a result of our recent decision, we must ask you to close the below listed SunTrust accounts.”

“The only thing that they will tell us is that we have been deemed a prohibited business type,” Williams said.

Some examples of what could be considered prohibited businesses are weapons, porn products, bankruptcy lawyers and psychic services businesses.

Sun Trust is lying through their employees and spokesmen.  Let’s be clear first of all that Operation Choke Point is a brainchild of Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder.  But Sun Trust is doing this voluntarily.  There is no legal prohibition on doing business with any particular gun dealers.  The CEO or the board of directors has made a decision, and a bad one at that.

They lied again when they said that “we must ask you to close the below listed SunTrust accounts.”  They didn’t have to do that.  They chose to do that, so again, the action is entirely voluntary on their behalf.

If the folks at Sun Trust are proven liars, on record saying things that are manifestly untrue, I wouldn’t want to do business with them anyway.  I recommend in the strongest possible terms that gun owners close their accounts with Sun Trust and open them in a more friendly – and honest – bank.  After all, do you want your money to be under the watch and “protection” of liars?