Archive for the 'Guns' Category

It was Austin, and now in Denver.

CBS4 has learned that an employee at Denver International Airport has been fired and charged with rifling through passengers’ checked bags on three occasions, and stealing guns out of their luggage.

The worker, Melvin Deandre Lewis, 24, worked for Air Serv, a vendor that handles bags and other services for airlines. According to court documents and interviews, Denver police believe Lewis opened United Airlines passengers checked bags and stole firearms in April and on two occasions in May.

But he looks like such a nice young man, full of promise for the future, just like Ja’Quan Johnson.

I guess they’re underprivileged and need more assistance.

Miguel Faria, writing at The Telegraph:

In 2005, at the time of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans police used the excuse of enforcing compliance with the mandatory evacuation order to confiscate firearms. They went door-to-door seizing guns from the people who stayed behind hoping to ride out the storm. These were the same firearms the citizens expected to have available to protect their lives and property in the aftermath of the disaster.

In fact history has repeatedly shown that firearms, including assault weapons, can be very useful and life-saving tools following natural disasters, such as Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and during times of civil unrest, as during the Rodney King L.A. riots of 1992.

In New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin’s police superintendent said that the only guns allowed would be “in the hands of law enforcement.” Moreover, Stacy Washington, a decorated Air Force veteran, writing for the NRA Americas’ 1st Freedom, pointed out: “Guns were confiscated with disastrous results: Utter lawlessness ensued, and the police were spread too thin to respond to all the mayhem. Before total gun removal was completed, the NRA stepped in — first gaining a preliminary injunction and then an order putting a stop to the ill-conceived plan. The sheriff had to return more than 1,000 firearms to their respective owners.”

Gun-grabbing superintendent should have known that confiscation of firearms from persons, who have not committed a crime, is a violation of the Second Amendment — and under the dire circumstances of a natural catastrophe, an inexcusable and unforgivable misjudgment, as well as an affront to the people of New Orleans.

Gun confiscation at the time of the Katrina disaster—when they are most needed by citizens to protect their families and property—was such an outrage that several states and the federal government passed laws to prevent that egregious constitutional infringement from ever taking place again during natural disasters.

In 2006 Congress passed the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act that became incorporated as an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007. It was signed into law on October 4, 2006. This federal legislation prevents the government from confiscating legally-owned firearms during times of major disasters or state of emergency. Following the example of the federal government, most state legislatures adopted similar versions of this law.

But be that as it may, on Sept 5, 2017, in preparation for contending with Hurricane Irma, the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Kenneth Mapp, contrary to U.S. law, ordered the National Guard to confiscate firearms and ammunition from the people of the islands. Confiscation was supposedly necessary so the authorities “could carry out their mission.” Whatever that may be, we are left to wonder. Nevertheless, the islands are ruled by federal law approved by Congress in 1954, “Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands” and subject to U.S laws. Fortunately, the government of the Islands’ plans for gun confiscation seem to have been put on hold after the NRA threatened to file a lawsuit.

Washington further wrote: “Time after time during natural disasters, reports of looting and increased armed criminal action have been reported. The primary reason for firearms purchases is to protect self and loved ones, and this is especially important at times when the police are overtaxed and crimes of opportunity are more likely to occur. Natural disasters offer criminals an opening too sweet to resist — and once an individual or group of marauders is at your door, it’s too late to ask the National Guard for your guns back.” Exactly.

Well, this may answer my question.  According to the writer, gun confiscations never actually occurred in the US Virgin Islands, and I’ll say it again.  I suspect that it’s irrelevant anyway.  When the gun control laws are so onerous that no one owns a weapon, there is no need for confiscations.  In effect, guns have already been confiscated.  Take note.  If you allow these gun control laws, you are acquiescing to gun confiscations, albeit slowly, like a frog in boiling water.

The author does a nice job of outlining why you need firearms in times of emergency.  The problem as you know is that you don’t know when an emergency will present itself.  A home invasion is just as much of an emergency as a hurricane.  A church shooting is just as much of an emergency as an earthquake or any other natural disaster.  So you need your firearms all of the time.  All of the time.

ABC News:

Police say a man charged in a mass shooting at a Tennessee church was armed with two semi-automatic handguns and had two more firearms in his car.

Emanuel Kidega Samson is charged with the fatal shooting of one woman and is expected to face several more charges following the rampage at the Burnett Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville that left six others wounded.

Police spokesman Don Aaron said Monday that Samson fired 12 rounds from a .40-caliber handgun and had another clip attached to a tactical vest. He was also allegedly carrying a loaded 9 mm in the church and had a .22 caliber pistol and military-style AR-15 in the car he had left running outside the church.

But Aaron says police found no AR-15 ammunition on the scene.

This church is very blessed that the shooting wasn’t much, much worse than it was.  My counsel stands.  Keep your head on a swivel, and your hand ready to present.

And is it too much to ask that folks be as armed as their possible assailants could be?  Is it too much to ask that church security teams all around the country think through this issue, and that they demand that the men of the church be ready to defend themselves, their families and other congregants?

Washington Post:

NASHVILLE — A gunman wearing a ski mask stormed into a Nashville-area church on Sunday, shooting seven people, including the pastor, before attacking a church usher who ultimately subdued him with a personal weapon, Nashville police said.

The shooting — which left a 39-year-old woman dead — occurred shortly before noon at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tenn., about 12 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. Police identified the shooter as Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, of Tennessee, a Sudanese native who they said is a legal resident of the United States and apparently had attended worship services at the church in recent years. Police said Samson will be charged with murder and attempted murder.

Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said Samson drove up to the church and shot and killed a woman who was standing near her vehicle in the parking lot. The shooter — who police said was armed with two handguns — then entered the church through a rear door, shooting and wounding six people inside.

At some point, the gunman also pistol-whipped a church usher, causing “significant injuries” to the man, Aaron said. The usher, 22-year-old Robert “Caleb” Engle, confronted the gunman, police said, and during a struggle, Samson was wounded by a shot from his own gun. The usher then ran to his car and retrieved a handgun, police said.

Aaron said the usher ensured the gunman did not make any more movements until officers arrived. “It would appear he was not expecting to encounter a brave individual like the church usher,” Aaron said.

Police Chief Steve Anderson praised Engle for intervening: “We believe he is the hero today.”

Authorities on Sunday did not release a motive for the Antioch attack. But in a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville said it had opened a federal civil rights investigation.

“The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence,” said David W. Boling, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “As this is an ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time.”

If I was the Sheriff I would have told the FBI to get the hell out of my jurisdiction and never come back or else they’ll face immediate arrest by my deputies.  But I’m not, and he won’t.

This is all very sad, and I’ve pointed out before that in church you are in the most vulnerable position you’ll likely ever face.  Your attention is focused in one place, likely with your back to the sole points of ingress and egress, you’re pinned in by physical features and people, you’re sitting (most of the time), and there is a significant volume of sound occurring that would mask any threats.

Don’t ever go to a worship service unarmed.  Don’t ever do that.  Please.  I don’t.  One of the saddest parts of the report involves the usher who had to go to his car to retrieve his handgun.  I don’t know the details and they may have been blessed in this particular instance that more people didn’t die.

It could have been that going to fisticuffs with the shooter stopped the gun fight and thus no more people died.  In that case, it was indeed a blessing.  It may not have occurred that way on another day, and it may not occur that way in your church.  The shooter should have been met with guns in his face as soon as he presented his weapon.  Going to the car to retrieve your gun isn’t the way to keep your family or friends safe.

Keep your head on a swivel and hand ready to present.

Popular Mechanics:

The Army’s program to replace the M4 carbine with a larger, harder-hitting rifle is dead, canceled after just under two months. But now that the Interim Combat Service Rifle is dead, what’s next?

The Interim Combat Service Rifle was proposed as a means of countering the new generation of cheap, highly effective body armors likely to be worn by America’s enemies . Countries such as Russia are now issuing body armors that can allegedly stop a .30-06 armor piercing bullet. Experts inside and outside the Army believed that the Army’s current issue 5.56-millimeter bullet would not be able to penetrate new armor, and that a larger, heavier bullet that transfers more energy to the target is necessary. Like everything else in the domain of military weapons, it’s an arms race between measure and countermeasure.

Seriously folks, who shoots armor piercing .30-06?  No, really.  This isn’t rhetorical.  What army shoots the Springfield round?  And how much body armor would be necessary to stop an armor piercing .30-06?  Think through this for a moment.  They would be like the Pillsbury dough boy, just with York 45 pound steel plates attached to their front and back.  They wouldn’t be able to move, much less fight.

The M4 doesn’t need to be replaced.  Via TCJ, there are good suggestions for making your AR run like a gazelle.  Do it.  Aim for heads and hips.  Make sure you have other kinds of weapons such as .308 or 6.5mm Creedmoor, and remember that when you get something, you always give up something.  Weapon selection is always a balancing act.  Also, for the Army in particular, learn to shoot before considering replacement of your rifle system.

Finally, you do realize that even the arms manufacturers who gave us the AK-47 no longer shoot the 7.62X39, right?  All of those rifles have been replaced by the 5.45X39.  No major land army on earth now shoots the larger bore cartridges except as DM and sniper rifles.

Via SOFREP, I had missed this tip by John Lovell.  I like John and not only does he make useful videos, he seems to be a genuinely nice guy, unlike some of the trainers out there.  At any rate, he makes use of height-over-bore to show you how to zero your carbine when you don’t have access to a 100 yard rifle range at that particular time.

Reuters:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday unveiled a statue of Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle that became by some estimates the most lethal weapon ever made and the best known Russian brand abroad.

Perched atop a pedestal in a tiny square on Moscow’s busy Garden Ring thoroughfare, the statue of Kalashnikov, who died in 2013, has him dressed in a bomber jacket and clutching an AK-47 in both hands.

“I created a weapon for the defense of my fatherland,” runs a Kalashnikov quote hewn on the pedestal. At the unveiling ceremony, a Kremlin guard of honor stood to attention as Russia’s national anthem played.

“This weapon is Russia’s defense. It’s one of Russia’s symbols. Alas, for life to continue, for lovely children to grow up, for beautiful women in Russia, there must be a weapon,” the monument’s sculptor, Salavat Shcherbakov, told reporters.

Kalashnikov actually didn’t work alone, nor did he begin with an unknown cartridge.  His cartridge was already designed, he began with the German Sturmgewehr assault rifle design, and also had features of the M1.  He was aided by Aleksandr Zaitsen.

Eugene Stoner was also the chief engineer over the design of the AR line of rifles, with designers / mechanics Robert Fremont and Jim Sullivan.  It’s mostly Stoner we remember, just like it’s mostly Kalashnikov we remember.  I much prefer the exquisite engineering and tight tolerances of the AR design to the clunkiness and rattling of the AK.  But that’s just my preference.

The U.S. ought to erect monuments to John Moses Browning and Eugene Stoner.  But we won’t.  We aren’t Russia.  Russia has fighters.  We have PowerPoint presentations on workforce diversity and workplace harassment.

So tell me again who won the cold war?  Russia erects monuments to weapons designers, and American universities have professors who fill the minds of idiot-youngsters with poison.  I’m not feeling victorious for some reason.

Via Eugene Volokh.

Like Secretary Clinton, the supporters of the bills put before Congress to repeal PLCAA argue that no other industry enjoys the legal shield that the gun industry does — giving as counter-examples firms such as auto companies, pharmaceutical drug companies and even tobacco companies.

They are right to some extent …. [But] would there be widespread tort liability for gun companies were both PLCAA and state pre-emption laws all repealed?

The central argument I will put forward is that it is not easy to find good examples from other important industries of defendants being held liable for the sorts of cases that gun victim plaintiffs would like to win.

Take the motor vehicle accident problem. It is well understood that car companies make vehicles intended to be sold to ordinary drivers that are capable of going more than 100 miles per hour even though that is well more than the maximum road speed allowed. Surely the car companies know that some owners regularly drive faster than, say, 75 miles per hour and cause accidents because of their speeding. Product liability law today generally requires product makers to take into account foreseeable product misuse.

Does this make cars involved in very high speed crashes defectively designed? Although there is something appealing about this idea, I don’t see successful cases being brought on this theory, and given the record so far I’d be surprised if they were successful.

Next, I imagine that in today’s high-tech world motor vehicles could be engineered so that (perhaps absent an emergency) they could not be driven faster than the posted speed limit on the road on which they are currently travelling (and I assume that self-driving cars currently have and will continue to have this feature). Does the failure to include this speed-control function in all of today’s new motor vehicles make them defective so that the manufacturer would be liable in tort to victims of drivers whose speeding (at any speed) causes accidents? This too is an appealing idea, but I don’t see such cases.

It’s only appealing if you’re a nanny-state control freak.  As for cars engineered with governors, don’t give the progressives any more ideas for things they can regulate.

I’ll just remark one more time that the free-for-all hippie culture –love, peace and feel-good – which made its living complaining about signs and other such rules, believed in absolutely nothing and held to no morals or scruples.  Their empty minds became vessels for the poison fed to them, and within short order (one generation), the generation of free wheeling liberty became the cabal of controllers.

The sons and daughters of hippies are nanny-state, government-worshipping control freaks searching for the next thing to regulate so they can bring ubiquitous sameness and monolithic utopia to the world.

Would The Alaskan say this is enough 12 gauge for a grizzly?

Dean Weingarten at Ammoland.

On May 6th, 2017, an armed man was sitting on his front porch in the 400 block of Glenburnie Drive in Houston, Texas. He had a concealed carry permit. His brother says that he goes to the range often. He was on his porch and had another firearm with him. An AR-15 type rifle.

Three men attacked him in a drive-by shooting at about 2:15 a.m. He fired back, hitting all three. They car they were in crashed, and all three left the vehicle to continue the attack.

The homeowner kept up his defense, shooting back and hitting all three men again. Two died, one at the scene, one at the hospital. One of them was in critical condition.

Over 40 shots were fired, but the home defender was not hit. Not once.

Those who wish a disarmed population tell us that AR-15 rifles and other modern sporting rifles are not useful for self-defense.

Here is the report.  No one actually believes that use of an AR-15 is unnecessary or ineffective for self defense.  They’re lying if they say that (unless the conversation is buried in details of long range threats where you need something like an AR-10).  When a person says that, he means that he doesn’t believe that you should have access to AR-15s and that only the state has a righteous monopoly on the use of force, even if you’re defending your life or the lives of loved ones.

Just as we saw in the case of Mr. Stephen Bayazes, who killed one home invader and sent two others to the hospital, he found a reliable semiautomatic rifle with a standard capacity magazine an indispensable tool of self defense.

In another episode of semiautomatic rifle use, an attacker in Hawaii found that no one was capable of effecting self defense.

Hawaii police officers are continuing their search for a suspect who fired an assault rifle at a group of people standing outside a club in Waikiki, killing one and seriously injuring others.

Hawaii News Now reports (http://bit.ly/2xrcAAB ) the shooting happened Saturday morning near Club Alley Cat. Police say a man fired about 10 rounds at the group. A 22-year-old man was taken to the hospital in critical condition and later died. Two other victims, a 27-year-old man and a 31-year-old man, were taken to a hospital in serious condition.

The report says “assault rifle,” and of course it wasn’t a legitimate assault rifle with select fire, and perhaps it was an AK design rather than an AR design.  Who knows, certainly not the reporter?  Either way, the people he attacked didn’t even have a pistol for self defense, or if they did, it was being carried legally.  Not in Hawaii.

Hey, how’s that gun control stuff working out for you, Hawaiians?