Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

These are must see videos.  If you don’t do anything else today, watch these. Act accordingly.

Time.com.

On the issue of gun control or reform, there should be some middle ground. Gun owners and 2nd Amendment supporters need to give some, as do anti-gun folks. Civilians should not be able to own military-style weapons. I do believe Americans should have the right to own weapons for home self-defense and for hunting, but there are too many weapons available to civilians that were originally designed for the battlefield. And as Las Vegas shows, once again, there are too many Americans willing to turn civilian life into a battlefield. I think what worries some gun owners is who decides what is military, and what is for sp ort. I am deciding for myself.

My action may not change anything, but the truth is, if my semi-automatic battle rifle were stolen, or fell into the wrong hands, it would be devastating. So to put my money where my mouth is, I am getting rid of mine and donating it to a law enforcement agency.

The gun I’m getting rid of is called an M1A Springfield Scout, or Civilian M14. It shoots a 308 or 7.62-51 NATO. It is a semi-automatic and can send bullets 1,000 yards (700, accurately) as fast as I can pull the trigger. It has a 10- and 20-round clip. You could probably get an even bigger one.

It was designed for the military in the mid-1950s and is still used by special forces. It is much more powerful and accurate than an AR-15 or an AK47. I purchased it because it is a great gun and the truth is I’m still a boy at heart (and mind, too). I convinced myself I needed it because — Hey, there a lot of crazy people with weapons out there that I may need to defend myself from. I also told myself I needed to kill wild hogs. I’ve only seen wild hogs once. I have used the rifle to hunt deer but I have a bolt-action rifle for the same purpose, which is all anyone needs for deer hunting.

After the shooting happened in Las Vegas and the details began to come out, I knew this man had to have a weapon like mine. I know I don’t need this rifle, and neither does anyone else. Selling it would be hypocritical because it would go back into gun circulation. I plan to give mine to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks — the game wardens in my state. It is a very expensive gun — it cost me $1,300, not counting the scope — so this is not a particularly easy thing to do. But it will mean I’m not a part of the problem, at least in my mind. My plan is to put any tax write-off towards charitable giving.

I will keep my other guns for hunting and self-defense. Some people will say I’ve overreacted, others will say I have not gone far enough. Getting rid of and eventually banning assault rifles and other military-style guns will not end the violence, but it will help.

No it won’t.  All this means is that you’ve decided to rid yourself of the best means of defending your family.  In the event of multiple home invaders, you’ve made the decision to let your family perish because of emotional distress you sustain caused by watching the television.

Oh, and here’s a suggestion, Fudd.  Call it a magazine, not a clip.  At least you’ll sound like a pseudo-educated Fudd.

This stupid article with disconnected thoughts and poor composition was the occasion of my reading today, and nothing stood out as important to me except this tweet from Marc Thiessen (former Bush speech writer and sometimes TV commentator).

My twitter feed is filled with NRA members saying they agree on bump stock ban. Time for Congressional Republicans to lead on this.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Tom Brokaw at NBC:

I am a gun owner and have been since I was 12, growing up in South Dakota. I still have an assortment of shotguns and rifles, all used for sporting purposes.

My son-in-law, a New Yorker, loves to come to our Montana ranch and with Doug (our expert marksman manager) target shoot a variety of legal weapons.

During the hunting season Doug provides a wide variety of game for the ranch menus.

But, in recent years, my favorite gun store in Big Timber, Montana, began stockpiling the ever-more-popular military-inspired weapons alongside those used to hunt game and defend livestock. They sell the AR-15, modeled on the military version — except that it is configured for semi-, not full, automatic fire.

But Google “convert AR-15 to automatic” and you’ll find all kinds of ways of altering a semi-automatic weapon to fire more rapidly — and it appears that’s exactly what Stephen Paddock did in Las Vegas by purchasing and using “bump-stock” devices.

And while Congress is now considering whether to make bump-stocks illegal, it’s not enough to make the conversion illegal. Who will catch the change artists?

The larger question we need to be asking ourselves is: Why do we have all-but-military-grade weaponry available to civilians in the first place?

Yeah, Yeah: The Second Amendment. But the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to bear any arms you please. Fully automatic weapons have long been illegal to buy, as have bazookas and artillery pieces our troops take to war.

All of our rights have conditions. That’s how we maintain a civil society.

I am a journalist, protected by the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law,” it says, except that all journalists know they cannot, among other acts, deliberately libel a person or falsely shout fire in a crowded theater without legal consequences.

It is time for civility to reign — and madness to be snuffed out.

It isn’t enough for these statists to go after bump stocks, which action I oppose, by the way (i.e., making them illegal).  They have to go after “military grade” weapons as well, meaning modern sporting rifles.

Did you catch the reference to “sporting,” and hunting, and supporting the second amendment with limitations?  The only thing he left out was being a life NRA member.

How disconnected can these guys get?  Doesn’t he know that the gun rights folks will lampoon his idiotic essay as written by a Fudd?  Instead of Googling “convert AR-15 to automatic,” why don’t you Google “Fudd,” Tom.

And you can come after our modern sporting rifles and all-but-military-grade weaponry whenever you feel froggy.  I’m waiting.  We’ll see how civil your society is when you try that.

TPM:

“You said earlier that you would be willing to allow a clean bill in Congress that bans or regulates bump stocks without requiring more, broader gun control to be attached to the bill,” Jake Tapper said. “Is universal background checks, closing the so-called gun show loophole, requiring background checks for private sales, is that the next step for people in your philosophical camp and Senate?”

“It should be the next step, in large part because it is the most popularly accepted change. And it has the biggest effect,” Murphy said. “So yes, that would be the clear next step. That should be our North Star as we try to figure out how to proceed.”

Never forget they want you in a registry.  It’s their “North Star,” their “touchstone,” the penultimate inflection of their control desires.  Just before illegality.

David Codrea:

“We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. . . . [W]e’ll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. . . . The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.  — Richard Harris, A Reporter at Large: Handguns, New Yorker, July 26, 1976, at 53, 58 (quoting Pete Shields, founder of Handgun Control, Inc.)…”

It’s what they want, it’s part of who they are.  This is from a write at Daily Kos, cited by me over four years ago.

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.

Which is why we opposed universal background checks.  It’s easy to say, “Come and get my guns when you’re feeling froggy.  I’m waiting.”

It’s another thing entirely to work hard to oppose the incremental changes the progressives want to make.  But incrementalism is their game, a game they’ve played successfully for a very long time.  We need to be better at our game, and adopting incrementalism ourselves would mean supporting removal of suppressors from the NFA items list, even if the NFA is left basically intact.  We would like to dismantle the NFA, but the absence of that doesn’t mean we can’t support incremental changes that make things better.

However, it doesn’t mean we have to support things like national reciprocity if that means we give the FedGov power over permitting, training requirements, or national lists of any kind.  We have to be smart about this.

Fox45:

Ohio (WKEF/WRGT) – The Buckeye Firearms Association has come out against a potential ban of bump stock devices that investigators in Las Vegas say Stephen Paddock used to modify the semi-automatic rifles to fire rapidly into the crowd.

The device fell under scrutiny after videos of the mass shooting started a debate about the rapid gunfire heard.

An association spokesperson said because they don’t change the actual functionality of the gun, they should not be banned.

“With a bump stock or a slide fire you hold your finger still and you move the rifle back and forth to fire it,” said Joe Eaton, region leader for the Buckeye Firearms Association. “So it really is the same thing each press of the trigger results in one bullet being fired, does not change any of the mechanics.”

The announced stance from Buckeye Firearms came one day after the National Rifle Association (NRA) said bump stocks should be “subject to additional regulations,” after lawmakers proposed a ban of the device.

“Since they don’t change the function of the firearm it is still a semi-automatic, one bullet with one press of the trigger, there would be no reason to have them outlawed,” Eaton said.

Semi-automatic weapons are legal to sell and buy.

Eaton said while the bump stock changes the action it takes to fire a bullet, it remains a semi-automatic weapon.

“I guess the only advantage I could see is by moving your finger a bunch of times it could get fatigued after a while, where the bump fire stock would eliminate that fatigue,” Eaton said.

Eaton also said he doesn’t think a bump stock ban wouldprevent a similar attack.

“The fact that this time he chose a semi-automatic rifle and he happened to choose another accessory for it again, unfortunately is just more noise in the talk about what needs to be the talk in why is there this much violence out there,” Eaton said.

Good for Buckeye Firearms Association.  I agree that this introduced more noise, and it’s not noise that we need to coddle by stipulating agreement with it.  The NRA chose poorly.

As I’ve also said, “I cannot be convinced that the shooter who landed all of this crap in our lap would have been less effective if he had aimed and fired in a controlled manner than with the bump fire stock, if in fact such a device was used.”

Reddit/r/firearms has a discussion thread on Hickok45 coming out in defense of the NRA in their apparent statement that bump fire stocks need further regulation.

I’ve seen a precipitous drop in prices for both Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms products since their apparent siding with the gun controllers in Illinois.  Gun owners never forget, and seldom forgive (S&W might be an exception, but even then not for some).

Hickok45 talks about potential haters who won’t like his defense of the NRA, and I’m no hater.  I will continue to check his videos every now and then.  But I’ll remark that it would have been just as easy for him to have stayed silent on the matter and let this blow over.  The redittors don’t like the fact that they came to his defense when Google tried to demonetize and even ban Hickok45 from YouTube, and they feel that he let them down on this one.

NYT:

The National Rifle Association on Thursday endorsed tighter restrictions on devices that allow a rifle to fire bullets as fast as a machine gun — a rare, if small, step for a group that for years has vehemently opposed any new gun controls.

Twelve of the rifles the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock, had in a high-rise hotel suite when he opened fire on a crowd on Sunday were outfitted with “bump stocks,” devices that allow a semiautomatic rifle to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which may explain how he was able to shoot so quickly, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds of others. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has ruled that bump stocks do not violate laws that tightly limit ownership of machine guns, and some lawmakers have called for them to be banned.

The bureau should revisit the issue and “immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law,” the N.R.A. said in a statement released Thursday. “The N.R.A. believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”

Ignoring the small issues of “shall not be infringed,” the NRA caves on bump fire stocks, as surely as most of the senators and congresscritters will cave, many of whom will have high marks from the NRA.

The NRA is still conflicted as to whether it wants to be a hunter and sportsman organization of a second amendment and gun rights organization.  As I mentioned, I don’t have one, and consider them to be mostly a novelty and range toy.  I would never put one on a personal defense weapon, accuracy and control being too important for such things for me to consider a high rate of fire as more important, especially near or around other people.

That said, I cannot be convinced that the shooter who landed all of this crap in our lap would have been less effective if he had aimed and fired in a controlled manner than with the bump fire stock, if in fact such a device was used.

The point to be taken here is not that of the bump fire stocks (the senate and congress is always looking for ways to further regulate your rights, even if not constitutionally allowed).  Bump fire stocks are merely the latest incarnation of the boogeyman.  Tomorrow it will be something else.  The point is that there is a world of difference between knowing that you’ll lose a fight, and actually going on record stating that you agree with your enemy.

The NRA.  Always squishy, never completely fulfilling their stated purpose, and always disappointing.

Alex Yablon:

On Sunday night on the Las Vegas Strip, a gunman rained bullets on a crowd enjoying a country music concert from his hotel room hundreds of feet above. At least 58 people were killed in the barrage, and an estimated 515 other victims were rushed to local hospitals for treatment, making it the worst mass shooting in American history.

Our good friend Alex wins the idiot-argument of the week award.  To say that a pistol couldn’t have stopped this is effectively the observation that a long gun has a longer range than a handgun.  The missing piece in the argument is that all shootings for which self defense is necessary occur from stand-off distances where a pistol is ineffective.

We all know this is false, and Alex doesn’t believe it either, else he would be arguing for the disarming of police.  I would suggest that even Alex knows that he’s being dishonest.

This is a horrible try, Alex.  Next time don’t mix apples and oranges.