Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

I’ve had a Kel-Tec PMR-30 for a while now, and wanted to do a review of it.  But I had decided that I wouldn’t publish on this gun until I felt that I had a feel for what it did, why it did it, and how to operate it properly.  This is a unique gun for a number of reasons, and proper operation and maintenance isn’t intuitively obvious, even to an experienced gun owner like me.

The Kel-Tec PMR-30 is a .22 WMR (or .22 magnum) pistol that fits 30 rounds into the magazine.  It is light, very narrow framed, and odd in its parts and manipulation.

Below I show the Kel-Tec alongside a Smith & Wesson 1911 E Series pistol in order to show that the PMR-30 has a long barrel (both of these guns have a five inch barrel).  But in spite of the double stack magazine loading, the frame is still so narrow that the form and fit is different, requiring time at the range in order to accustom yourself to it.

It disassembles into an assortment of parts that looks different than any other polymer frame pistol (e.g., my XDm or my M&P), and certainly different than the 1911 pictured above.

But the PMR-30 is a finicky weapon, and one of the parts that failed on me after about two years of shooting is what I’ll call the slide retaining pin, pictured below.  The one that failed is pictured alongside the replacement from Kel-Tec, and as you can see, there is a stress concentration point in the design of the pin half way across the width of the slide.  This pin goes through the slide and holds it in place.  You can see the residual gun oil on my wife’s antique furniture, so perhaps she isn’t reading this article.

Another failure occurred about a year and a half ago with what Kel-Tec calls the “recoil spring guide lock ring.”  Once after shooting I attempted to disassemble the gun for cleaning and ended up having to force the slide off of the frame, with the result being that this ring elongated and became essentially a straight pin sitting on my kitchen floor somewhere (this happened because the ring had seized between the recoil spring guide rod and springs for some reason unknown to me).

After sweeping the kitchen, finding what was once the lock ring, and doing my own gunsmithing and reforming and reinstalling the ring, it worked fine and has worked ever since then.  The lock ring is shown below in what is admittedly a poor picture.

The PMR-30 has both a good and bad reputation within the gun community, good because it is a remarkably fun gun to shoot, and bad because it is remarkably finicky and picky.  I have suffered my share of failures to feed, failures to eject, and strange little parts failures with this gun.

That said, I have landed on what for me has made the difference in a horrible little bitch to shoot and a delightful partner at the range.  It all comes down to ammunition and magazine maintenance.

Pictured at the very top is nothing but personal defense ammunition in .22WMR.  I don’t shoot common .22 magnum ammunition any more in the gun, and I have had no failures since shooting high quality ammunition.  Rimfire ammunition is notoriously unreliable and dirty ammunition anyway and requires careful cleaning of the weapon after use.  Use of high quality ammunition makes the experience much more reliable with the PMR-30.

As for the magazine, it has a polymer follower combined with a polymer magazine frame, and the two don’t slide against each other very reliably unless I use a little oil in between the follower and magazine just prior to shooting.  I have not had any so-called “rimlock” failures, and I find that it’s relatively easy to load the ammunition.

I don’t want to repeat the other PMR-30 reviews out there, and there are a lot of them.  I also don’t want to repeat the ballistics gelatin tests of .22WMR ammunition (and there are plenty of them).  You don’t need me to perform Google and YouTube searches for you.

Basically, the .22WMR goes a full 14 inches or more into ballistics gelatin, and cavitates along the way.  The PMR-30 has a reputation for extreme muzzle flash, and I can vouch for this.  The round leaves energy in the barrel because of the slower burning rimfire load, but it still manages to achieve some 1375-1400 FPS muzzle velocity.

Readers know that I am a fan of .45 ACP, and this is my choice of personal defense weapons and ammunition.  Would I recommend carrying .22WMR for personal defense?  You’ll have to wait a moment to find that out.

The negatives of the PMR-30 include the polymer magazine, and I would willingly give up a little weight to have more reliable feeding of ammunition with a stainless steel magazine.  Also, if you are going to have reliable rimfire ammunition, you need to purchase high quality round, these being expensive enough to roughly compare to 9mm.  So if you’re going to shoot for training or carry a smaller defensive round, why would you choose .22WMR rather than 9mm?

The positives of this weapon and .22WMR are numerous.  First of all, I like the fiber optics sights.  Next, the .22WMR round has so little recoil that I can shoot it and retain or regain my sight picture with no effort.  This allows me to lay rounds on target much faster than I can with say .45 ACP or .40S&W.  I always end my range time with rapid fire of at least a couple of magazines, and no matter how much range time I put in, .45 is a hairy chested, big boy round, with a lot of powder pushing 230 grain fat boys.  That’s why I like it.  But it is difficult to maintain accuracy with rapid fire.  With the .22WMR it is effortless.  This means that for every two rounds of .45 I can put on target, I can put five or more .22WMR on target.  This means something, including in personal defense situations.

The magazine is long, and can hold up to 30 rounds.  I rarely put 30 rounds in, but whether it’s 20 or 25, this is a lot of rounds before reloading.  Would I carry .22WMR for personal defense?  I consider that to be an illegitimate question.  Hypotheticals don’t matter in personal defense.  The question is, “Have I carried the PMR-30 .22WMR for personal defense before?”  The answer is yes.

I carry different firearms at different times for different purposes and under different circumstances.  I would also recommend this round as a good backup round (say in an ankle holster).  Is it what I consider the premier personal defense round?  Of course not.  My choice for premier personal defense round would be a tossup between .357 magnum and .45 (both of which I have shot extensively).

But you may not have access to your premier round when you want it, or you may find it uncomfortable or unwieldy to carry.  I would certainly rather have this gun than not, especially given that I can lay so many rounds down range so quickly and accurately.

This gun is not a good recommendation for a single personal defense firearm for those who can only afford one weapon.  This gun is an extremely fun range toy, good for training purposes, capable of accurate rapid fire, and acceptable for personal defense in the absence of whatever you consider your premier personal defense round or as a backup weapon.

David Codrea:

Such an assumption is not backed by a ruling or determination that so-called “80 percent receivers,” heretofore acknowledged by ATF not to be firearms, are now considered unregistered guns.

EP Armory and Ares Armor is doing yeoman’s work in this struggle against the forces of darkness, and you have to respect them for their position.  Visit David’s article for the latest.

Kurt Hofmann:

Without manufacturing or selling anything that can be considered a firearm under the law, one must, according to the BATFE, still be licensed as a gun dealer before offering access to the tools, and providing instruction in the process of completing an 80% receiver. There is, of course, precisely nothing in any federal statute that would impose such a requirement–the BATFE is making it up from whole cloth.

This is what happens when a lawless man like Eric Holder supervises a lawless organization like the DOJ under Obama which manages yet another lawless sub-part like the ATF.  Laws are for little people.  And the judges are in the administration’s pocket.

Via Uncle, Only Guns and Money has endorsements for NRA board.  By the way, I recently renewed my NRA membership (yearly renewal), as I figure that it justifies my right to complain when they don’t do what I want them to do.

Mike Vanderboegh is out of surgery.  He thanks all those who prayed for him.  I did.

Finally, via the Professor, there is this:

“Given that there are tens of thousands of substations on the national grid, PG&E’s experience may not seem so alarming. But according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission study disclosed by the Journal, a few dozen of the substations are so important to the flow of energy that knocking out just nine of them would cause a metastasizing blackout that stretched from coast to coast. And replacement transformers for these substations can take more than a year to build, deliver and install, in part because most are made overseas.”

And of course, my readers already knew this.  And knew it some more.  And some more.  And more still.  I’m not bragging.  I’m just sayin’.

Reader Michael Gilson sends this along from Charles C.W. Cooke:

… holding that municipalities are in fact the very best places for laws to be made, tested, and obeyed; and that keeping as much as possible as local as possible is the best way of ensuring that dissenters can choose somewhere else to live without having to leave the country.

The trouble with this view in the modern area, though, is that even in a reasonably small-government place such as Arizona, the sheer size of the state has ruined much of the virtue of local variation. If we lived under only a few laws, the live-and-let-live ideal inherent to localism would be infinitely more profitable. Phoenix could have stricter smoking laws while Tempe boasted looser ones; Boston could have a sales or hotel tax while Springfield politely declined; Boise could try out a certain school curriculum and compare it to the diametrically opposed one in Meridian. But there are an awful lot of rules now, and this has effectively made local control a tool that is only truly useful in the hands of the authoritarian.

Why? Well, the reason that “lawmakers often complain that the federal government oversteps its boundaries in state matters” is that the rules that are set by the federal government ultimately afford lawmakers in the states only one option: to add to them. Which is to say that in our hyper-governed and overly centralized age, regulation works only one way. No state is able to tell Washington that it will be operating with a minimum wage that is lower than the federal one; many, however, may elect to pass higher thresholds. No state is permitted to opt out of federal regulations; every legislature, however, is free to make them stricter. And when it comes to guns, the story is no different at the state level: “municipalities’ rights” always means that the progressive town in Idaho gets to prevents its citizens from carrying firearms in the manner to which the state’s other citizens are accustomed and never means that the conservative town in Massachusetts gets to opt out of that state’s stricter rules.

Well, it depends upon a whole lot of things, including whether states have preemption laws that stop cities and townships from imposing regulations on gun carriers that would prevent them from carrying in, for example, city parks.  My state of North Carolina has just such a law.  If we didn’t my city of Charlotte (progressive as it is) would have imposed such a regulation.

My reaction to Charles’ commentary is several-fold.  First, note that I have commented that the best place for lawmaking is the state, because in order to prevent local hicks, ne’er-do-wells and criminals from acting out their Napoleon fantasies upon other men, association with the state means that … local municipalities and townships shouldn’t be able to preempt state laws.

Second, this still leave a lot of room for the state.  States can allow liberal rules for concealed carry, ensure shall-issue statutes are passed and enforced, pass open carry laws, court gun manufacturing businesses (witness South Carolina), and citizens can elect (and Governors can appoint) judges who are amenable to expunging of criminal records for crimes that would otherwise prevent ownership of firearms per form 4473.

Finally, Charles is correct on state preemption of federal laws inasmuch as states willingly comply with them.  Here I return to the issue of nullification, and point out what I have so many times before.  States have as much power over the expanding federal government as they want to have.  If they refuse to stop it, the federal leviathan will continue to grow.

SFGate:

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to halt Sunnyvale’s enforcement of a voter-approved ban on high-capacity gun magazines. The order signaled that San Francisco will also be allowed to enforce a virtually identical ordinance during court challenges.

Sunnyvale’s measure, approved by 66 percent of its voters in November, prohibits possession of magazines carrying more than 10 cartridges.

A group of gun owners sued to overturn the Sunnyvale ordinance and asked a federal judge to block its enforcement, arguing that tens of millions of Americans legally own guns with high-capacity magazines and may sometimes need them to repel criminal attacks.

But U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose rejected the request March 5, the day before the ordinance took effect, saying the ban would have little impact on the constitutional right to bear arms in self-defense.

A federal appeals court refused to intervene, and on Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who handles emergency appeals from California and eight other Western states, denied a stay without comment.

More often than not, when the SCOTUS refuses to hear a case, they know full well how it will turn out and conclude that the outcome wouldn’t be any different than the way it is before review.

Occasionally I like the decisions made at the appeals court level.  But more often than not I don’t.  But one thing I do not do is rely on the federal court system to protect my rights.

I am a second amendment and gun rights writer, but I only loosely call myself that.  Readers know that I don’t believe that I have a right to own firearms because the constitution says so.  I also don’t believe in so-called “natural law” or “natural rights.”

Ever since my seminary training in apologetics and philosophy, having seen John Locke thoroughly dissembled with logic, I don’t reference his views for anything.  No respectable philosopher today does.  Even among the legal community, John Whitehead is an exception.  In order for something to be “natural,” it has to be binding upon all men and capable of epistemic certainty.  To me, the concept of a natural right to own guns is no better than the notion of the new head of a pride killing the young lions so that the lionesses will come into estrus again – or the lioness trying to defend her young one.  What’s natural to one won’t be natural to another.

So why do I have a right to own guns, or high capacity magazines?  Because God says so.  That settles it for me, whether the constitution recognizes it or not, whether a judge certifies it or not.  You may not have my world view, and I’m okay with that.  But every man must come to his own conclusions and ascertain the ultimate foundation for what he does and what he believes.

You live on the Serengeti desert in a Machiavellian world of eat or be eaten, with no concept of right and wrong, or you know whereof you act, and you know why what you do and what you believe is morally righteous.  And If you were relying on a federal judge to warranty your rights, you’ve been disavowed of that mistaken belief as we speak.  Is that clear enough?

Kurt Hofmann:

I literally asked him if a law was passed to put Jews in the Ghettos, would you? He literally said “Now you are being silly…but if its the law, I enforce it; I don’t make them.”

It’s difficult to imagine a more Machiavellian statement than that.  This is the sign of a man who’s lost his way, one who has lost any sense of morality and has replaced the concept of right and wrong with dictates by the state.  There you have it.  The framework for values of some LEOs in America today.

David Codrea:

“Ares Armor is under immediate threat of having their customers’ personal information and its legal goods being seized by the ATF …”

So it doesn’t end with just overreach by the ATF into areas where they have no business, confiscating parts that legally meet the stipulations set out by the government.  It goes to the personal information of customers.  Because, you know, the ATF has a compelling interest in knowing the personal information of people doing things legally.

And in that same vein, Mike Vandeboegh reports on the case of James Kaleda.

I seen random reports of New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification card applicants being advised that one or more of their answers to the ten specific questions asked on the Firearms Purchaser Identification card application were “wrong” ( also known as false). The applicants were permitted to come in and make the necessary correction with no reprisals.  Other applicants reported having their New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification card application denied, forcing the applicant to appeal that denial to the County Superior Court and having the denial overturned. I have found no other instance where the New Jersey State Police has detained an Individual Firearms Purchaser Identification card applicant for a clerical error.

They don’t like to be criticized.  Ever.  At all.  It’s called retribution.

Uncle sends us to this.

So it is that the days of the great gun writers are gone. There will never be another Cooper, Keith, O’Connor, Aagaard, Sitton, Skelton or Jordon. The world of communication has changed. The Internet and the plethora of gun blogs, gun magazines, gun television, gun DVDs and those who write about guns (including me) have, in a way, polluted the water.

The good thing is that now, no matter how you believe or what you think, you can find a writer who reflects your sentiments. That bad thing is that, no matter how you believe or what you think, you can find a writer that reflects your sentiments. With the modern world of outdoor communication its no longer about the message it’s more about the character the communicator plays. Good actors always seem to draw a crowd which is why no one is standing in line at my front gate.

Yea, that’s the problem.  That’s exactly the way I feel when I watch a Travis Haley instructional video.  I lament the loss of prominence of folks like Jerry Tsai, David Petzal and Jim Zumbo.

Look, I don’t need them.  There are plenty of good magazines where guns are reviewed for hunting prowess, and online forums are sometimes great, sometimes not, when it comes to gun reviews.  But I’d rather read a review of a real gun buyer than not before I spend my hard earned money.

You can find good and bad over the internet.  You just have to be able to sort it out.  Do your homework guys.  We still have great gun writers around.

David Codrea:

In spite of that, one “A-rated” Democrat, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, joined with confirmed anti-gunners Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin and others.

This is Tester’s second vote for administration interests over those of his gun owner constituents in a little over a month.

I just renewed my NRA membership for another year because I figure it seals and ensures my right to complain to them.  David is right to complain, and I do my fair share.  But it’s really a shame, this degree to which NRA rating has fallen in stature.

I pay little to no attention to it for just the reasons David laments.  There is also the issue that politicians will make claims concerning NRA ratings that are outdated and old, when new ratings have been issued, or when no ratings have been issued at all.  I’ve discussed this with NRA folks by phone.  If the NRA wants its ratings to be taken seriously, it will begin to husband them with diligence.  Otherwise, it’s an irrelevant feature of what could otherwise be a powerful lobby for our interests.

Kurt Hofmann:

In other words, to refer to his earlier opposition as “an act” is perhaps giving him too much credit–perhaps “a lie” would be a more accurate assessment.

Hey, they’re politicians.  It’s what they do.  Sort of like pictures of  Lindsey Graham holding an AR-15 while he secretly conspires with Senator Cornyn to infringe on gun rights, right?

What do cartoons, guns and Obama have to do with each other?  No, it’s not that our president is a cartoon and is scared of guns.  Uncle tells us.  And yes, I know what you’re thinking.  What a dumb ass!  No, not Uncle.  The other guy(s).

Mike told us about the idiot cop who wanted to donate his left nut to the cause of gun control.  He will probably lose a lot more than his left nut.  And if I’m not mistaken, there is further action on this front.

Eugene Volokh:

A gun with a larger than usual capacity magazine is in theory somewhat more lethal than a gun with a 10-round magazine (a common size for most semiautomatic handguns), but in practice nearly all shootings, including criminal ones, use many fewer rounds than that. And mass shootings, in which more rounds are fired, usually progress over the span of several minutes or more. Given that removing a magazine and inserting a new one takes only a few seconds, a mass murderer — especially one armed with a backup gun — would hardly be stymied by the magazine size limit. It’s thus hard to see large magazines as materially more dangerous than magazines of normal size.

[ … ]

Still, these same reasons probably mean that the magazine size cap would not materially interfere with self-defense, if the cap is set at 10 rather than materially lower. First, recall that until recently even police officers would routinely carry revolvers, which tended to hold only six rounds. Those revolvers were generally seen as adequate for officers’ defensive needs, though of course there were times when more rounds are needed.

[ … ]

… even if bans on magazines with more than 10 rounds are unwise, not all unwise restrictions are unconstitutional. That’s true for speech restrictions. It’s true for abortion restrictions. And I think it’s true for gun restrictions as well.

This is an oddball commentary by Eugene.  I don’t think the issue is whether, as the judges tried to adjudicate, a magazine capacity restriction burdens the second amendment, but whether those who are protected are burdened by the restriction.  It’s not a trivial distinction.

I’m not really sure why he drew on the issue of abortion rights to create the analogue.  It isn’t a very good one.  The wording of the second amendment is clear, including the phrase “shall not be infringed.”  The Supreme Court created a right to abortion ex nihilo.

Even if you believe that such a right exists, the analogous wording isn’t there in the constitution to protect it.  Thus, restrictions on abortion have no equivalency to restrictions on firearms.

Furthermore, there is a case to be made that restrictions on abortion and lack of restrictions on firearms have the same goal, i.e., the preservation of life.  Eugene provides the defeater argument for his own case, and states a contradictory conclusion anyway.  But firearms are used for more than just personal defense.  They are also necessary for the amelioration of tyranny.  Both of these are life preserving things, just as restrictions on abortion are life preserving restrictions.

Why Eugene didn’t choose to work on this angle and why he chose the opposite, is anyone’s guess.  All in all, this isn’t one of Eugene’s better pieces of work.  I think he missed the mark, and widely so.

For magazine capacity and what it may do for you, see also my analysis of Mr. Stephen Bayezes.

David Codrea:

In a related development, this column has been following up on what should be a larger concern for gun owners, and that is how the Armatix pistol made it on to California’s “safe handgun roster” without incorporating microstamping technology months after the state certified it was a requirement for all new semi-automatic handguns listed.

Because laws are for little people.  I suspect that regardless of what the law says, gun haters in California were able to slip this one in because they consider it a good trade.  They give up microstamping, and in return they get the ability to control forevermore the ability to sell or gift a firearm.  David will eventually find out and tell us.

Also see David’s article for the information on Armatix support for global disarmament efforts.  You should never purchase anything from this company.  They are in bed with the totalitarians.

Finally concerning California, I am reminding you that I still haven’t heard anything back from Smith & Wesson on whether they will continue to supply handguns that have not been microstamped to California LEOs while they don’t sell at all to California residents.

It gripes my ass that this double standard exists.  Laws aren’t for the little people.  Smith & Wesson shouldn’t sell at all in California, including to LEOs.

Speaking of double standards, were you aware that LEOs are exempt in Connecticut from its newest gun bans, and can have AR-15s along with standard capacity magazines – for their personal use?  No, not for on-duty use, but for personal use and protection?

Well, you know now.  This was the bribe that the Connecticut legislature made to the LEOs to get their cooperation in enforcing the law.

Prior: Smart Guns Tag

Following the pattern set by Ms. Catey Hill writing at WSJ, it seemed prudent to address at least ten things that we’ve tried to tell you.  Whether you’re listening is usually evident by whether you write things like Catey or say stupid things like, say Michael Bloomberg.  At any rate, here are the ten things.

1. Concerning Gun Safety

Catey says of the “gun industry” (whatever that is) that “Owning our product may be hazardous to your health.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking that we’ve tried to tell everyone that guns, like automobiles, like ladders (50% of falls from ladders kill), can be unsafe when treated that way.  Online forums repeat the rules for gun safety to the point that it is almost excruciating, and yet I know them by heart and practice them everywhere I go.  I’ve never had an accident or so-called “negligent discharge” with a gun.  Because, you know, I’m responsible.  I wish I could say the same thing about those idiot kids driving down my road in hot rods, far too fast for neighborhood safety.

2. Concerning Guns and Fear

Catey says of the gun industry, “Fear is good for our bottom line.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking that just like the industry surrounding door locks, being prepared is a good thing.  It usually involves patience, study and a little bit of money.  For some reason I’m reminded of a story.  An older lady is stopped by a Highway Patrol Officer, and like a responsible gun owner she informs him that she has three handguns in the car, a .45 1911, a .357 Magnum S&W revolver and yet another revolver (perhaps it’s another S&W revolver, this time a .38).  The officer asks what she’s so afraid of, and she replies, “Not a damn thing officer.”

3. Guns & The Law

Catey says that “Guns get special treatment under the law.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking that we’ve tried to tell you that guns are in that special category of being specifically mentioned in the constitution, just like free speech and the right not to quarter troops in your home or the right to refuse to testify against yourself.  It’s a fundamental God-given right, and recognized as such in the constitution.  Hence, you must tread carefully on this terrain.

4. Children & Guns

Catey says of the gun industry, “We want your kids to play with guns.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking that we’re tried to tell you our stories of learning to shoot when we were children (I learned on my father’s 10/22 in my back yard), our stories of learning gun safety as youngsters, and learning to listen carefully to our parents and mentors.  For this reason – and others – those lessons are burned into our memories.  What we learn as children is difficult to forget as adults.

5. Gun Control

Catey says of the gun industry that “Gun control may work.  We still think it’s a bad idea.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  Except for willful disobedience to clearly obscene laws (like what is going on in Connecticut right now), gun control absolutely works.  We’ve tried to tell you that it works for its intended purpose, i.e., control of the citizens (gun control is all about control).  We’ve tried to tell you it has nothing whatsoever to do with crime or violence.  We’ve tried to tell you that the proponents of gun control know this as well, and routinely set up a straw man to hide their real intentions.  Let me demonstrate for a moment.  At Daily Kos, this bit of honesty appeared one day.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

Yea, I know what you’re thinking.  It seems invasive and creepy to me too, sort of like a fat uncle who can’t stop staring at little girls during family reunions.  That’s the way anti-gunners are.

6. Guns & Politics

Catey says of the gun industry, “Politically, we’re practically unbeatable.”  This was exactly what I was thinking, except substitute gun owners for gun industry.  And I don’t know why you’re not listening.  If you were you wouldn’t have enacted those obscene laws in New York and Connecticut.

7. Guns & Obama

Catey says of the gun industry, “Under ‘Gun Ban Obama,’ we’re doing just fine.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking that in spite of gun ban Obama, we’re doing just fine.

8. Guns & Advocacy

Catey says, “Sometimes we aren’t ‘pro-gun’ enough.”  To add insult to injury, she brings up the S&W boycott.  Sheesh!  I do hate to rehearse that bit of pain because I love S&W so much, but I have indeed pointed out that we reward those who are friendly to us and punish those who aren’t.  So this is sort of what I was thinking along with Catey.  I’m glad we could agree on something.

9. Guns and Gun Sales

Catey says of the gun industry, “We sell guns to people you might not want us to.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking that I’ve tried to tell you that I know your real intentions.  I am on this list of people “you might not want” to have guns, along with every other law-abiding citizen.  I know this, and you know this.  Now it’s just a matter of telling everyone else the truth.

10. Ammunition Availability

Catey say of the gun industry, “Ammo is our secret weapon.”  That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.  I was thinking just today that if I didn’t have my truck, I wouldn’t have to buy so much gasoline.

There are many more things, but that covers it for now.

WaPo:

The California gun store that put the nation’s first smart gun on sale is facing a furious backlash from customers and gun rights advocates who fear the new technology will encroach on their Second Amendment rights if it becomes mandated.

Attacks in online forums and social networks against the Oak Tree Gun Club have prompted the store to back away from any association with the Armatix iP1 smart gun. The protests threaten the nascent smart gun industry, which received a jolt of support recently when a group of Silicon Valley investors offered a $1 million prize for promising new technology.

The vitriol began almost immediately after The Washington Post reported last month that the Armatix iP1 smart gun was for sale at the pro shop. Electronic chips inside the gun communicate with a watch that can be purchased with the gun, making it impossible to fire without the watch. Gun control advocates, who believe smart guns could reduce gun violence, suicides and accidental shootings, marked the moment as a milestone.

“These people are anti-gunners,” someone said of Oak Tree on the store’s Facebook page, adding, “I will never step foot in this dump.” On Yelp, a user wrote, “If you care about the ability to exercise your [Second Amendment] rights, I would suggest that you do not continue to frequent this place.”

[ … ]

Gun rights advocates and Armatix executives have been mystified by the store’s response, which has been to deny ever offering the gun and apologizing for any confusion in several places online, including to a gun rights advocate at Examiner.com.

The denials come despite Oak Tree owner James Mitchell’s extensive comments about why the gun was put on sale there. Armatix executives also provided The Post with two photos of the gun for sale in a gun cabinet at the facility, as well as multiple photos of customers shooting the iP1 at an event in a specially designed firing range with large Armatix signs.

Like I’ve said before, spend all the money you want on “smart guns,” advertise it until your heart is content, and talk it up big.  The gun owner market will determine how it does.  Bring your wallet and join the fray, if you dare.

And it doesn’t.  That’s the end of the story.  Wasted money.  Wasted because no one who understands anything about machinery – and I do because I’m a registered professional engineer – will pay one cent for a monstrosity like that.

That doesn’t even touch on the issue of inhibiting the ability to resell, becoming a de facto universal background check for gun owners (which is itself evil), and being able to identify to the .gov where you are at any given time.

And like I’ve said before, gun owners rarely forgive and rarely forget.  We reward those who are friendly to us, and punish those who aren’t.

See also Kurt Hofmann’s latest article on this, Backlash against gun shop shows gun owners smarter than ‘smart gun’ pushers, where he says “gun owners, and more specifically, gun buyers, wield enormous power over the gun industry, and thus enormous capacity to punish collaboration with the forces of “gun control.”

Prior: Smart Guns Tag