Archive for the 'Guns' Category

David Codrea:

While massive spending appears to have paid off against Parrish, but not against Sturtevant, Republicans holding on to all of their seats in the Senate is a major disappointment for both Bloomberg, who saw that out-of-state money isn’t everything, and McAuliffe, who will not be able to establish a “progressive” legacy in Old Dominion much beyond the destruction he’s already done there. But there are also lessons to be learned for Republicans in general and gun owners in particular …

Read the rest of David’s analysis.  Clever and well-researched, concerning who won and who lost, and what role gun rights played.  As a sidebar comment, I know good folks from Virginia, and their only answer to Terry McAuliffe is that it was those folks from Northern Virginia who elected him to begin with.  If Virginia doesn’t watch it, you’re in danger of becoming too bifurcated to continue when the times get rough, as they doubtless will in the future.  How can two men walk together unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3)

Via Mike Vanderboegh, an interesting history of the M1 Carbine.

“It was an easier gun to carry than the Garand,” Wicklund said. “It was shorter, it was lighter, it was reliable, it was easier to shoot and easier to clean and it had a 15-round magazine. It was easy to tape two magazines together and get 30 rounds to fire. Stopping power was not there with the carbine, but you could fire it more times.”

Well, I’ve got mine.  If you don’t have one, you should get one – soon.  But I will offer the caveat that the reliability is a function of the ammunition you feed it.  Feed it crappy ammunition, you get crappy performance.  Feed it good ammunition, it’ll function as long as you can.  Of course, it’s like that for all guns isn’t it?

Mike also notices this: “Of course this got a top-of-the-page link on Drudge. Now I am the leader of an “anti-Muslim militia” and my rhetoric “overlaps” with “white supremacist groups” that I have fought all my life.”

Hey, it’s from rawstory.com.  What do you expect from a gaggle of gargoyles?  I wouldn’t worry too much about it.  Attention is good, and those who spend ten minutes trying to understand any of this will know the truth much better than explained by Raw Story.

Jacksonville.com:

Count Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams among the overwhelming majority of county sheriffs who said they oppose a measure that would allow concealed carry permit holders to openly carry firearms in Florida.

The Florida Sheriffs Association provided results of an email vote on the issue, as reported by the News Service of Florida, that resulted in 47 sheriffs saying they oppose the proposal, 10 saying they support it, five abstaining from a vote and five couldn’t be reached.

A spokeswoman for Williams confirmed today that he voted with the majority.

A majority of the Florida Sheriffs Association opposes measures (SB 300 and HB 163) that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to openly carry guns. In an email vote between Friday and Monday afternoons, 47 of the state’s sheriffs opposed the bills, 10 were in favor, five abstained and five others could not be contacted. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, representing the association, said Thursday that a number of sheriffs are against the measures because of philosophical reasons or simply the concept. Gualtieri added that other opponents would prefer changes, such as a need for additional training of permit holders, a better definition of where people couldn’t openly carry guns and a requirement that openly displayed firearms are secured. “There is absolutely no requirement that it be carried in a holster,” Gualtieri said. “If someone is walking down the street, open-carry, with his .45(-caliber handgun) stuck in their back pocket, somebody could just come up and take it out of their pocket. That’s not safe.”

Bob Owens states:

A person acting in an otherwise normal, rational and law-abiding way should not be stopped merely because his shirt rode up, or was too tight, or she simply felt more comfortable carrying a firearm outside the waistband instead of concealed.

Perhaps if Florida law enforcement hadn’t abused existing laws to punish law-abiding concealed carriers who accidentally exposed their firearms I’d feel more sympathy for them, but they have… and so I don’t.

45 of the 50 states allow some form of open carry.

It is absurd that Florida does not.

Yes, it is absurd, but given Bob’s opposition to Texas open carry, frankly I’m not sure where he stands on the issue.  But abuse of concealed carriers isn’t the reason to support open carry, and I wouldn’t be more supportive of the Sheriff’s opposition to the proposed law under any circumstances.  Bob wants them to develop a more coherent case for their opposition, and I don’t think there is one to be developed.

So the Sheriffs are concerned about people taking guns from unsecure holsters (non-retention holsters or those not in positive control of their firearms, I guess)?  Well, this is a stupid concern and doesn’t represent a coherent case for opposition to the law.

It’s a concern for folks openly carrying, but not LEOs.  Since when does anyone oppose a proposed law that recognizes use and carry of a piece of property because a thief, larcenist or petty crook can steal your property?  That makes no sense.

Do we also oppose ownership of automobiles because criminals can steal them?  Sometimes people are responsible with their cars, and they still get stolen.  Sometimes they drop their keys in a parking lot and thus they get stolen.  We don’t change automobile ownership and use laws because someone drops their keys.  And to be sure, the easiest way to perpetrate a mass killing is with a car, instantaneously and without LEO intervention.

I think Bob should clarify his position on open carry.  I support it without reservation, and there is no coherent argument against its legality.  If Bob wants to clarify what this “coherent” opposition to the legality of open carry is, I’ll assess it.  As for the Florida Sheriffs, I don’t really care what they think.

David Codrea:

“Demographic Death’ of NRA Just Another Big Media Myth,” economist, author and Crime Prevention Research Center Founder and President John Lott writes in a “Perspective” piece for Investors Business Daily.

He’s addressing a Washington Post analysis by UCLA School of Law Professor and author Adam Winkler, which claims changing demographics will diminish the National Rifle Associations’ political influence.

We don’t know true gun ownership rates and how they have changed because we can’t rely on people admitting true gun ownership to pollsters, Lott argues.  What we do know is “concealed handgun permits and gun sales have soared.”

We also see support for “gun control” has fallen in spite of currently experienced demographic changes, more people believing they are safer with a gun in the home, and a rise in urban gun ownership, including among blacks, Lott tells us.

[ … ]

The question Lott could have addressed, but did not, is how are all these people he and Winkler are talking about voting?

Good Lord!  What kind of dope is John Lott smoking?  Regular readers know I soured on John Lott from way back, and then his argument with me over open carry in Texas (along with his chicken little “the sky is falling” attitude about what we might lose in Texas if we support open carry), put me over the edge.  He’s as much of a negative influence on the gun rights community and a sellout as Alan Gottlieb.

Bet you didn’t know there was such a thing as a .9 mm gun, did you?  Honestly, you would think respectable outfits would require that their writers know at least a little bit about their subject.  But this is Salon, not a respectable outfit.

This is an awesome thing, but you need to get yourself a serious fighting rifle, ma’am.  An AR-15 will do just fine.

Rush Limbaugh comes along in his thinking, but he’s not quite there yet.  He should have articulated that the reason we don’t like Hispanic laborers paid low wages isn’t because hard workers deserve more, it’s because we don’t want to fund their health care, SNAP and welfare for the benefit of corporations (which is nothing more than corporate welfare).  Furthermore, Rush hints at it, but doesn’t say it and may not see it as clearly as we do.  Our attitude is one of scorched earth.  Burn it all down.  If the GOP is as much of a sellout this cycle as it has been lately, then end the pain and suffering now and burn it all down.

Courthouse News Service:

(CN) – The Eighth Circuit revived a wrongful death claim against the Remington Arms Company stemming from a 2008 hunting accident in which a South Dakota man died.

The man’s wife, Carol O’Neal, sued Remington in December 2011, claiming a defect in a bolt action rifle the company manufactured caused it to misfire, killing her husband.

On November 9, 2008, O’Neal’s husband, Lanny, loaned a Remington Model 700 .243 caliber bolt action rifle to his friend, Mark Ritter.

Ritter later told investors that after spotting a deer, he moved the safety lever to the fire position and without his pulling the trigger, the rifle discharged. The bullet hit Lanny O’Neal, traveling through his stomach, spleen and left lung.

Despite their immediately calling 911 and getting O’Neal taken to a hospital, he died later that afternoon.

His widow claimed that Remington was aware a defect in that particular model rifle would cause it to fire without pulling the trigger once the safety lever was released.

She cited that minutes from a 1979 Remington safety subcommittee meeting, at which the defect in certain guns manufactured before 1975 was discussed and a possible recall considered. However, that meeting ended with attendees deciding against a recall because it would have required Remington to gather some 2 million guns ,when only 20,000 were known to be susceptible to the condition.

Remington argued that O’Neal couldn’t prove that the defect that caused the rifle to misfire was present at the time of it being manufactured. According to the gun maker, an alteration to the gun after purchase could have caused the misfire.

Complicating matters was that O’Neal, after being denied by two lawyers in her quest to pursue a wrongful death claim, had the gun destroyed because it reminded her of the tragedy. It wasn’t until several months later that she learned of the possible defect.

A federal court granted Remington’s motion for summary judgment, but the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday overturned that ruling, sending the case back to federal court.

In a 2-1 decision, the three-judge panel found that since South Dakota law allows a plaintiff to prove a defect through circumstantial evidence, O’Neal had presented enough circumstantial evidence to prove the defect was present at the time of manufacture.

“The fact that the subject rifle was used many times without incident from the mid-1980s through November 2008, and then suddenly inadvertently discharged, is consistent with the unpredictable manifestation of the inherent design defect in the Walker trigger,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Bye wrote for the majority.

“In sharp contrast, if the subject rifle had been modified or altered prior to the mid-1980s in a way which would cause it to discharge when the safety lever was moved from the safe position to the fire position without the trigger being pulled, it is highly unlikely the rifle could have been used as many times as it was over the span of the next twenty-plus years without incident,” Bye said.

Oh dear.  This just gets worse and worse.  I’m not commenting on the gunsmithing accuracy of the court’s decision.  The problem is that Remington didn’t come clean on the Walker Fire Control System when they knew about it, they hid it, denied it, and sent their lawyers to argue with victims.

This was their destiny, and they chose it when they decided to be lawyers rather than engineers and gun manufacturers.  It was their destiny.

Other Resources:

Belk_Certification

Belk_Objection

Belk_Supplemental_Report

Prior:

Poking The Dragon

Update On The Remington 700 Settlement

Things You May Not Have Known About The Remington Walker Fire Control System

HNGN.com:

Legal firearm owners in Maine are now allowed to carry concealed handguns without a permit in the state thanks to a new law effective Thursday.

The statute, referred to by Second Amendment rights advocates as a “constitutional concealed carry,” applies to both residents and non-residents who are 21 or older, or military members age 18 or older, reported the Associated Press. That means that anyone who is not otherwise banned from possessing a firearm can now carry a concealed handgun in the state without a permit.

The law also authorizes a person to possess a loaded pistol or revolver while in a motor vehicle, trailer or other vehicle being hauled by a motor vehicle.

[ … ]

The police chief of Portland, the state’s largest city, issued a warning Thursday, saying that police officers and the community are now much less safe due to the law.

“This is a poor piece of legislation that we’re all about to suffer through,” Portland Police Chief Mike Sauschuck said, according to local news station CSH6 Portland.

Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming and Kansas have passed similar laws, while Vermont has never required a concealed carry permit. New Hampshire also passed a similar law to the one enacted in Maine, but it was vetoed by Gov. Maggie Hassan.

Butt-hurt, the police chief is.  It’s simply appalling in his mind that “the only ones” might not be the only ones recognized to carry a weapon, and they get no control over it, except insofar as the state issues permits to purchase.  But small steps are better than no steps at all.

Here’s a prediction (and the wonderful thing about predictions is that people remember them and those making the predictions can be held to account).  There is no suffering about to happen.  The Portland police chief is telling fairy tales and make-believe.  And he should be the one held to task when I’m proven to be right.

The Remington dragon, that is.  Jack Belk, whom I have discussed before, sends this note concerning his most recent interactions with Remington.

Remington served a subpoena on me Tuesday night that demands I show up for a video taped deposition in Twin Falls on Oct 21st.  My Supplemental Report tuned them up really bad and now they’re striking back in a big way.  The Dragon is fully awake now.  I’ve attached all my filings to the Court.

I bought six triggers so I’d have foundation parts to design and build a new trigger on plentifully available parts.   Of the six triggers, one  was found  defective and dangerous in a heretofore unknown way and the another is suspect. I saved those and tore  the other four apart for the pieces and have made two new triggers that I’m not ready to show anybody.

My lawyer friend-advisor in Wis. says  BS!! the subpoena  is harassment, a fishing expedition for Remington and unnecessary and un-needed and un-called for and is meant to intimidate a simple member of the ‘class’.

My position is this— I found a fault with the Walker in 1969 and told Remington about it then.  They did nothing.   Am I supposed to ignore a recently mass produced trigger that doesn’t work now?   No way.  I made damn sure they knew about it and can’t hide it.  Of course I’m willing to let them see the two triggers that I found fault with anytime they like.  Write me a nice letter and send me a plane ticket and I’ll be right there…..with a lawyer, but when they push me in a corner I have no choice but to fight back out of it.

The subpoena is a REAL problem.   The ‘plaintiff’s attorneys’ are charged with representing the entire class of people victimized by having a Walker trigger.  That includes me.   I’ve approached the Court as a member of the class, not as a lawyer, engineer, expert or hired gun for anybody.  I was also the expert for the plaintiffs that refused to tell a lie on their behalf so they fired me.   The lawyers that should be present as my legal advisors in the deposition are the same ones that fired me.  That would leave me to have to hire a lawyer to be my ‘second’ in the sword fight that would be that deposition.  That is burdensome to one just pointing out a mistake and the judge is not likely to be happy about it.  I think Remington has over-stepped enough the judge has no reason not to knock them down big-time.  I’ve taken on the mantle of ‘whistle-blower’ to the Court….I hope.

In the mean time, I found a stash of Remington triggers and bought 37 of them last night.  There’s another 500 or so for sale and I’m likely to buy them all but I think I have the one that will finally show that Remington has more trouble than what they have been caught at.

Background— Last April 14th everybody in the gun world was blindsided by a voluntary RECALL (unheard of!!) of the new X-Mark Pro trigger.    The problem was said to be excess sealant that could cause the gun to fire at a certain low temperature when the safe was pushed to OFF.  It was hard to deny,  a guy posted a youtube video of his rifle doing it several times.  It made waves in the gun world and was widely publicized, but the word on the ‘internet street’ is that rifles sent to New York months ago are still there and hunting season is coming.  Most that know of the ‘recall’ just have an aftermarket trigger installed.  Thats where I get the ones I find.

THIS CLASS ACTION CASE is totally different and covers 7.83 million Walker triggers, not 380,000 XPM triggers of the recall,  but people that hear of the class action suit assume it’s the same one.   Remington has told the judge they have heard of no opposition to the deal so that means its a good one.   Then I showed up and Pennington came in late with good legal arguments that supports my position.   Now, the  Remington team is on the defensive and so are the plaintiffs.  The two objections threaten a $12 million payday for one and the relief (and total confusion) of over seven million bad triggers for Remington and Dupont.

The  “F Trigger” exhibits a fault at room temperature and has nothing to do with the safety and it’s also made out of a different material.  How many of those were made?  Nobody has said anything about such a model of XMP, who specified that material?  Was it tested? Where are the findings, they’re under court order to be produced?  If it works so well, why not use that material now? (too expensive? By how much?)  When was this trigger made?  How many of them were bought?  Where are the rest of them?  Do they work or are they as broken as this one?

It’s strange to think a trigger I paid $25 for will be responsible for many millions of dollars changing hands….and I have no way of grabbing any of it except to rent it out to lawyers!   ….UPDATE—those triggers!!.  I’ve been going through the sack full of ‘new’ triggers and have found two more defective ones.   This explains why Remington refused to let me see their returns.   I think this case is about to be blown wide open.  Remington has been keeping a LOT of secrets since 2006 and it’s catching up with them in a big way in the largest Court they’re subject to.

I got a call from my lawyer on vacation.  I told him I used his money to buy these triggers so how much did he want to defend what I found?  He’s hiring a lawyer to write a motion to bar the deposition.  He  (name witheld)  has  my back and he’s a good guy that I can trust.  He’s just catching up to speed on ‘The Remington mess’ and is in awe of the misbehavior over the years.   He has downloaded the entire case file for this class action because it has so much background information in it (300,000 pages).

I think the Dragon is not feeling well, but he’s still dangerous.

There is no safe direction to point an unsafe gun.

I’ll have more to say about this later, and I also have court documents (in PDF) I simply don’t have time to attach now.  This isn’t over yet.

In Note To EOTech, I mentioned the issue of thermally induced setpoint drift in EOTech holo sights, relying on the post at Soldier Systems.

While there is a great deal of information in the SOUM, two glaring issues stick out. The first is the reliability of the HWS in extreme temperatures, referred to as “Thermal Drift”. The PMO has noted a +/- 4 MOA shift at -40 Deg F and 122 Deg F. Second, is the concern over the claim by EOTech that their HWS are parallax free which was the subject of a previous Safety of Use Message from the same office issued 16 March, 2015. In this case they noted between 4 and 6 MOA parallax error depending on temperature conditions. Despite the PMO working with EOTech to rectify the issues, they still have not been resolved.

I sent my article to EOTech and have yet to hear back.  Commenter Lina Inverse said:

This isn’t Amy’s fault or anyone else for that matter.  It’s the fault of EOTech management for failing to educate the gun-buying public on simple things.  And there is nothing wrong with the EOTech.  Let me explain.

Something seemed weird about the article when I went back and thought a bit about it, and I should have done my thinking before hitting publish.  Occasionally I screw up.  I asked Daniel, who used plenty of weapons sights in the Marines, including night vision, EOTech, scopes for DM rifles, and so on (as well as got certified in the sighting school for Scout Snipers), if thermally induced setpoint drift was a known issue with EOTech holo sights.  “Of course.  And not only that, you carry your rifle around on hikes and bang it, mounts come loose and things happen.  And we shot hundreds of thousands of rounds (recoil impact).  We were constantly re-zeroing our weapons.”

While I am a nuclear/mechanical engineer and not an electronics and computer engineer, they make all of us take courses in rival disciplines so that we will be minimally educated know-it-alls on most disciplines.  I recalled my course work, as well as what I know from ECEs where I work.  When electronics get hot, strange things happen.  Pumps can start and stop, and valves can change position without anyone taking action.  That’s why you keep electronics cool.

And that’s why you re-zero holo sights.  There’s a thermally induced current with diodes, and an EOTech holo sight is a two-wire, PN-junction LED.  As for that matter, so is an Aimpoint, and whatever thermally induced setpoint drift there is with an EOTech, there will be with an Aimpoint as well.  I don’t have to go into the field to prove the point.  I know what’s in the component, and I know that a diode controlling a setpoint will sustain drift with temperature increase.  Period.  No one has invented a diode that can sustain temperature increase without setpoint drift.  It’s impossible for there not to be setpoint drift.

As for EOTech, they need to explain this to their customers.  They need to make their literature match reality, and they need to update their web site with salient information.  As for those of us who have an EOTech, and I do, as well as a flip-to-side magnifier, we need to understand that our weapons are never maintenance-free.  We need to understand them, work them, maintain them, practice with them, and care for them.  You don’t do things once.  You do them again, and again, and again, and again.

Soldier Systems:

Over the past few weeks, three separate issues have come to our attention regarding EOTech’s line of Holographic Weapon Sights (HWS). While we initially thought they weren’t related as they came up one by one, we realized they were all connected once we had looked into all three. Consequently, we believe they should be presented together, along with the source documentation.

Although it’s the last one we uncovered, we’ll begin with the most glaring piece of information. On 14 September, the SOF Weapons Program Management Office at NSWC Crane released a Safety of Use Message regarding issues with EOTech’s Enhanced Combat Optical Sights (ECOS), which is how they refer to HWS. This certainly caught our attention as the PMO is responsible for USSOCOM weapons. That message ultimately serves as the linchpin, tying together the other two issues we’ll soon address.

This critical bit of information would have been a stand-alone article, but it added credence to the others and offered coherence to some otherwise inexplicable issues. It also allowed us to concentrate on the facts presented in the various documentation. We will introduce the other issues after you get a chance to read the SOUM, which was obtained by Soldier Systems Daily. The Message has no date-time-group but was transmitted via official email traffic to SOF units on 14 September, 2015 and there are no markings limiting distribution.

Click to view PDF

While there is a great deal of information in the SOUM, two glaring issues stick out. The first is the reliability of the HWS in extreme temperatures, referred to as “Thermal Drift”. The PMO has noted a +/- 4 MOA shift at -40 Deg F and 122 Deg F. Second, is the concern over the claim by EOTech that their HWS are parallax free which was the subject of a previous Safety of Use Message from the same office issued 16 March, 2015. In this case they noted between 4 and 6 MOA parallax error depending on temperature conditions. Despite the PMO working with EOTech to rectify the issues, they still have not been resolved.

Listen to me, EOTech.  Just like we have noted with Remington and the Walker Fire Control System, it would have been better, cheaper and easier for Remington had they noted the problems up front, fixed them, recalled the parts, or refunded the clients.  Instead, the lawyers and corporate executives got involved and things went down hill.  Now, Remington is a shell of what it once was.  And for good reason.  I’ll be surprised if they survive except for government contracts.

Fix the problem.  Come clean about it, explain it, recall it, refund the parts, or do whatever you have to do.  Otherwise, you will lose market share, and permanently so.  You’ve been warned.

DoD Press Release:

Colt Defense LLC, West Hartford, Connecticut (15QKN-15-D-0102); and FN America LLC, Columbia, South Carolina (W15QKN-15-D-0072), were awarded a $212,000,000 firm-fixed-price multi-year contract for M4 and M4A1 carbines for the Army and others, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 24, 2020.  Bids were solicited via the Internet with six received.  Funding and work location will be determined with each order. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, is the contracting activity.

I’m not sure what this means, except that for the Army, it will be Colt for the foreseeable future for M4s.