Archive for the 'Guns' Category

BoingBoing:

Appears the new open carry laws in Texas, which have expressly allowed guns onto College campuses and into psychiatric hospitals, are back firing against open and concealed carry enthusiasts. Private business and property owners can ban firearms from their property by either posting signs, or verbally informing armed people they are not welcome to carry their weapons. Firearms enthusiasts are finding a lot of new signs around Texas.

Ooo …, “backfiring.”  Sounds serious, yes?  Their source is The Trace.

“Got an email from work telling us that not only are 30.07 signs going up over the weekend on our office building but 30.06 as well. What makes this even more frustrating is I have yet to see a single open carry,” wrote a user with the handle LTUME1978, before predicting in a subsequent comment that, at least in Houston, “Once the signs are up, they are not ever going to come down.”

That original post generated more than 100 replies, and numerous theories. Some Texas CHL users speculated that the increase in notices barring concealed weapons may be due to a revision to the existing 30.06 sign that was ushered in by the new open carry legislation. Older 30.06 signage was rendered obsolete by the change — and signage is something that Texas gun rights advocates actively police.

“Just as easy to have both 30.06 and 30.07 signs made at the same time,” a user named Distinguished Rick replied. “We have lost more than we gained,” he added. “I have had my CHL 20 years this year and I hardly ran into any legal signs back then. This has woken up the anti-crowd in a big way. So now the genie is out of the bottle and I don’t see a way to put it back.”

A user with the handle bmwrdr echoed his concerns: “Before the OC [open carry] movement started everything went smooth, now we see more and more 30.06 signs erected.”

Another user, posting as flowrie, theorized that the backlash generated by the open carry movement, which was itself driven by the gun rights group Open Carry Texas (OCT), was so spectacular that it may as well have been an opposition plot. “OCT has hurt much more than helped. I insist on carrying when taking my young son and wife to the movies, but that is now becoming more difficult. I do not really oppose OC, but the way they went about it was unwise and just down right ignorant. I too wonder if some of them are anti-2A [Second Amendment]. If I were anti-2A, that’s how I would do it.”

“We were free to carry concealed at far more places before than now. You have the exact same ability to be safe carrying concealed as openly. Except that now you can’t do either in many places. So you’re not safer at all. Open carry is not a right. It’s a dress code and comfort issue. You were already freely bearing arms before 1 Jan. You’ve given up safety for comfort and lost and freedom [sic] for all of us.”

“The immature, selfish actions and the loud, belligerent mouths of a few have hurt many,” Oldgringo concluded. “It’s true, all that glitters is not gold.”

What a bunch of whiny little bitches.  If it takes some time to work through the details of this, then so be it.  If you have to continue to work through concealed and open carry rights issues, then so be it.  If you have to petition businesses or otherwise withhold your patronage in order to persuade businesses to honor your rights, then so be it.  A business who indiscriminately posts signs prohibiting both open and concealed carry isn’t worth my patronage anyway.

Shouting down the advocates of open carry is turning your criticism on the wrong people when you’ve got culpable establishments to target.  Open carry advocates didn’t force businesses to put up signs prohibiting concealed carry.  Other states have learned to deal with this, and Texas will too.  Settle down.  Mind your manners, grow up and stop being little girls over this.

Mother Jones:

The cartels’ weapons of choice are high-caliber rifles, including AR-15 and AK-47-type semiautomatic rifles, which can be easily converted into fully automatic machine guns. The cartel’s gunrunners often buy firearms legally in the United States, either at gun shops, gun shows, or in private sales. The firearms are then illegally shipped across the border.

But it gets better.  Commenter Aquarian Dreamer said:

usually ‘High-Caliber’ is used to reference impact power, which until the late 19th usually meant larger ammunition. that changed as aerodynamics became better defined, and rifle power became less about bigger ammo with more gunpowder packed behind.

“Impact Power.”  “Aerodynamics became better defined.”  It’s sort of like that little puppy who is just learning to walk but still bumps into things, vomits and shits on the rug.  Maddening, but in some weird, freakish way, adorable nonetheless.

Prior:

High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up

High Ammo Clips

Automatic Bullets In Rapid-Fire Magazine Clips

Duck Hunting With Bullets

Fully Loaded Ammunition Cartridge

High Magazine Round

Jackson Hole News & Guide:

In an effort to bring the town of Jackson in line with Wyoming law, the Town Council is on track to repeal a decades-old ordinance that bans concealed weapons.

The law dates back to the 1970s and outlaws people from having any kind of hidden weapon, including pistols and knives, but also dirks, daggers and “swords-in-canes.”

The potential change is part of an effort by the town to update older parts of the municipal code, but some town officials have paused on the concealed carry ordinance.

Councilor Jim Stanford pointed out that this is a rare instance in which the state has moved to take away local control.

“I disagree vigorously with the Wyoming Legislature usurping local authority to regulate guns within our municipal boundaries,” Stanford said. “And I believe that if this faced a court test it wouldn’t stand up.”

Generally, state statute allows local laws to be more restrictive but not less so than state law. As an example, law enforcement officials said that means that a town can reduce the speed limit on a state road, but can’t raise it.

Stanford said the state’s moves, which are contrary to that concept and came in the form of the Wyoming Firearms Freedom Act, are attempting to force “extremist ideology” on localities. Through the act, instituted several years ago, the state is essentially taking over regulation of concealed weapons, he said.

Other town officials didn’t totally disagree with his thinking.

“I do find it interesting how we’re for local authority until we’re not,” said Mayor Sara Flitner.

But, practically speaking, she and other town officials said they had to update the municipal code to keep it in line with Wyoming’s laws.

Last winter my wife and I took an extended trip to Jackson, Wyoming, in part to ski, in part to visit the surrounding area.  We visited your wonderful restaurants, from the exquisite cuisine at The Gun Barrel, to Bubba’s Barbecue.  I have eaten barbecue from North Carolina to Texas, and I have said to others that I have never had it so good as Bubba’s in Jackson.  In fact, I have recommended that others go to Jackson Hole as well, the visit being so good and relaxing.  It was indeed a memorable time for us.

But there is a problem.  I noticed bus drivers open carrying, and as an open carrier myself and my home state being a traditional open carry state, I fully support that.  But being new to the area, I didn’t want to do that, and concealed while we were in Jackson.  That’s right.  I am proud to announce that I violated your stupid ordinance.  I didn’t know about it, to be sure.  But violate it I did.  It would have been easy to fix.  I could have just switched to open carry if I had only know.  And therein lies the problem, don’t you think?  The mere act of switching where I was carrying my weapon would have made the difference between being approved and not in Jackson.  But I’m glad I carried concealed if for no other reason than to prove a point, because you are the ones who are in violation of the law.  God’s providence is good and sometimes humorous and amusing, don’t you think?

Your ordinance is underhanded, illegal and immoral all at the same time.  It is underhanded in that unsuspecting, peaceable men like me could get caught up in your idiotic, pompous belligerence towards your own state.  It is immoral in that you could cause peaceable men like me to run afoul of your ordinances.  It is illegal because it violates Wyoming Code 6-8-401(c), which reads “no city, town, county, political subdivision or any other entity shall authorize, regulate or prohibit the sale, transfer, purchase, delivery, taxation, manufacture, ownership, transportation, storage, use, carrying or possession of firearms, weapons, accessories, components or ammunition.”

It’s called state preemption, and you know all about it.  You hate it.  I’ve observed about your kind before that “It’s an odious thing when local yokels (who are usually elected in elections that aren’t well attended and who are usually unknown until they act out their Napoleon fantasies upon others) presume to tell their townships what to do about everything under the sun.  Totalitarianism doesn’t just happen inside the beltway.”

And again, “I am a long standing and diehard advocate of State’s rights, even to the extent that I don’t think the federal court system should be invoked when local gun control is concerned.  All gun politics is local, I have said.  The corollary is that 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 – assuming robust gun rights laws already exist – local municipalities and townships shouldn’t be able to preempt state laws.  The state is the right size for law-making and control.  Our founding fathers were wise.”

The councilman who said “if this faced a court test it wouldn’t stand up” – Mr. Stanford – is an idiot.  State preemption is tried, tested, proven, and legal.  Towns and cities cannot override state law unless explicitly stated so in state law.

The only “extremist ideology” here is being expressed by Mr. Stanford.  Shame on you, and a thousand times shame on you.  The carry of weapons is a God-given right, and protection of human life is a God-given duty.  As for the city council, you are in violation of state law, placing at risk peaceable men who don’t know about your stupid ordinance, and wasting valuable time and resources sticking your nose up in the air and being offended that you can’t override state law.

The whole episode is unseemly, obscene and [should be] embarrassing to you.  You’re acting out in a tantrum as if you were little children.  This needs to end, and you need to bring Jackson into full compliance with State law in a timely manner.  And then you need to move on about the business of the city without so much smugness, condescension, pomp and arrogance.  You aren’t a board of kings, and you don’t get to fabricate just any law you wish.  If my readers want to send you notes saying the same thing, I’ll list your web site.

German Women Had To Run The Gauntlet:

Several media outlets on Thursday published an internal report by German police describing how women had to run through mobs of drunken men outside Cologne train station.

The report compiled by an unidentified senior federal police officer recounts how “several thousand male persons with a migrant background” hurled fireworks and bottles into the crowds of revelers who had gathered in front of Cologne Cathedral to celebrate New Year.

“Women had to literally ‘run the gauntlet’ of very drunk men,” the report said. “In the course of the operation numerous crying and shocked women/girls approached officers and told them of sexual assaults by male migrants/groups. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to identify them anymore.”

Those who are prepared shouldn’t be too worried about this coming to America with the increased immigration.  Remember Herschel’s dictum: “There aren’t too many human interaction problems that can’t be fixed with a .45 ACP 230-grain fat-boy.”

Comment:

I’m a legal handgun permit owner in Australia. Owning a firearm in Australia is no longer a right, but is a privilege. I am a member of a local firearms range where I compete in pistol shooting (the only permissible reason to own a handgun). My handgun permit only lasts one year, is a privilege, dependent on my competing in at least 6 competitions a year and being a member of a gun club. The police firearms branch review my license every year and have the right to terminate it if they feel I am not a “fit and reasonable person”. I cannot discharge my firearm outside of a designated firing range. I cannot store ammunition or the handgun in the same part of my gun safe. I cannot transport or store my gun with rounds loaded in the magazine, or a loaded magazine within the firearm. I cannot own a magazine with more than a 10 round capacity. I cannot use my handgun for personal protection, even when within my own home- as this is illegal and would result in a firearms act violation and the termination of my license as well as legal proceedings against me. My firearm is registered by law. The possession of a firearm means that the police have the right to search my entire house and inspect my safe and firearm on any day- so long as they have a “reasonable” cause to do so and arrive at a reasonable hour. So there……..

Never trust wicked men to honor your liberties.  It will be like this in America unless you are willing to shoot back to ensure that it’s not.

Guns.com:

Political commentator, Dana Loesch, was recently featured in an NRA News Commentary, titled, “The Godless Left,”  wherein viewers are treated to a diatribe against what is claimed to be a monolithic left wing of the American political spectrum.  These evil people supposedly have contempt for history and rights, are lacking in values, but will use shaming and silencing to achieve their goals.  They even hate Christmas.

There is so much here that needs addressed.  I hear frequently that the United States is a Christian nation, but we can’t just leave the claim as is.  What, exactly, does it mean?  The majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian—three out of every four, more or less—but that number has been declining lately.  But in legal terms, this country is secular.  Contrary to Loesch’s implication, though, secular doesn’t mean “Godless.”  It simply means that our government has to be neutral with regard to religion, including the constitutional ban on establishment.  In fact, the only mentions of religion are to be found in the Sixth Article barring a religious test for holding public office and in the First Amendment, which as I said, requires government and religion to keep hands off the other.

This fact about the United States is reinforced by a couple of documents, one a letter and the other a treaty, written in our early days.  Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions.”  This was in response to the concerns of the Baptists over the then established denomination of Congregationalism.  Someone may say that this was only a letter, though it expresses the opinion of the sitting president.  A treaty, however holds legal standing.  The Treaty of Tripoli between the United States and Tripolitania in an effort to stop piracy in the Mediterranean, and in doing so, in Article XI it assures the North African nation that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”  The point here was to make plain the fact that any time we involved ourselves in conflict, that action did not come from a religious motivation—that what we did to defend our sailors was not a new crusade.

But a nation is more than its laws.  One of my main themes is that we gun owners need to embrace people of all beliefs and backgrounds, so long as they accept the principle that each of us has the right to make choices about our own lives.  This isn’t about empathy or political correctness.  It’s basic marketing and survival.  The more people we have on our side, the more secure our rights will be.  Loesch’s attack on what she calls the “Godless left” only encourages undecided people to believe the stereotype of the white, Christian, male gun owner.

The author, Greg Camp, assumes that it’s possible to hold to secularism without veering off into a worship of anarchy or statism.  I claim it’s not, and my claim holds up in the light of history.  As philosopher R.J. Rushdoony explains in his book “The One and the Many,” orthodox Christianity is the only thought system that sustains the tripartite designation of power of the state, church and family.

I have no intention of embracing people of all beliefs and backgrounds, because America is a Christian nation at its core and inception.  Again, read “The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World” by my professor Douglas Kelly, or “The Foundations of Social Order” or “This Independent Republic” by Rousas J. Rushdoony.  Or start with my own brief assessment.  Either way, it you place your trust in embracing people of all beliefs and backgrounds, you’ll be ground into dust right after your wife and daughter are raped and beheaded, or put to work for the state.  Tell me how it goes when they inform you that your children belong to the state.  Take the temperature of your faith in mankind after that happens and let me know how you feel.

Greg can stick with his appeal to the inherent goodness of all men, and be disappointed as time waxes on in his life.  As for me, I and my household will follow the Lord.  The only successful antidote to statism is Christianity.  The Lord tells me in no uncertain terms that my rights don’t come from the second amendment.  They come from God himself.  This is my axiomatic irreducible.  It is my belief, and it is incorrigible.  I will not change.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Codrea:

Something else marked by its conspicuous absence from media reports: Any statement from Ako Abdul-Samad condemning his former aide following the guilty plea. Instead, we’re treated to “faith leader” Samad “call[ing] for unity to battle ‘Islamophobia.’”

Um, no.  I’d rather focus on fake terror attacks for the purpose of pressing gun control.

“You know less than you think about guns: the misleading uses, flagrant abuses and shoddy statistics of social science about gun violence.”  Well, to be fair, there is nothing science about social science.  Those two words don’t belong together.

Note to HEB on open carry.  “As a retailer of alcohol, long guns and unlicensed guns are prohibited on our property under the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission rules. H-E-B maintains the same policy we have for years, only concealed licensed handguns are allowed on our property,” reads a statement from H-E-B.”  Hey, I think that’s made up.  That’s not the story you told at first.  At first you just said you didn’t want open carry because you didn’t want open carry.  Now you’re blaming it on the ABC.  Which is it?  I’d prefer you just be honest about this.

Fusion.net:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indystar.com:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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