Archive for the 'Guns' Category

Washington Times:

A competing rifle outperformed the Army’s favored M4A1 carbine in key firings during a competition last year before the service abruptly called off the tests and stuck with its gun, according to a new confidential report.

The probable takeaway from all of this is that the Army is in a sloppy love affair with Colt, and nothing will ever replace it.  Colt lost the contract for M4s almost two years ago, and due to pressure from various lawyers, government entities (GAO) and others, they reopened the bidding and testing process.

Then it closed, with no selection of a new firearm.  You know what I think about H&K (their attitude to customers, “you suck and we hate you“).  I really don’t care much for who won the competition because I think it was badly framed to begin with.

Phase one has had nothing to do with evaluating test prototypes, but instead has focused on weeding out companies that may not have the production capacity to make thousands of weapons per month. This has become a bitter point of contention that has driven away some companies with credible names in the gun business.

“I’m not going to dump half a million to a million dollars for them never to review my rifle,” said Steve Mayer of Rock River Arms, standing amid his racks of M4-style carbines at Shot Show, the massive small-arms show here that draws gun makers from all over the world.

But you, dear reader, can have whatever you want for the right price.  The government doesn’t (yet) have the authority to tell you not to buy a Rock River Arms AR-15, or LaRue Tactical, or whatever you want.

And let’s try to keep it that way.  Weapons are best vetted and tested in the civilian market anyway.  The Army and Marine Corps uses what they’re given.  We have the right to use what we want.  We are the most picky users who give the best feedback.

If some reader wants to pick at this issue until he gets hold of this report, we would all be interested to read it.

Mike Vanderboegh: Police shoot and kill an Ohio dad, 22, holding a BB gun in Walmart.  I say prosecute them for murder.  If I did that I would be in the state penitentiary.  They should be too.  One long term solution is to legalize open carry everywhere, at all times.

Matt Bracken has an outstanding piece up at WRSA on The Islamic Jihad Conquest Formula.  Matt hits the nail on the head.

David Codrea:

“A citizen will lose his appeal if the Attorney General can prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, not that the individual poses a risk, or that the person is a terrorist, or even that the person is under investigation; rather, the Attorney General must only demonstrate that the person has been placed on a terror watch list,” Titus continued.

“Once that has been proven, a process which affords the citizen no due process, no right to appeal, nor guarantees any reasonable notice or information to the actual fact that the citizen is on a terror watch list, the appeal is over and the citizen loses his Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms,” Titus elaborated. “The individual will not have a chance to introduce evidence of mistaken identity, abuse of Executive discretion or mount any other meaningful defense.”

Oh my.  This seems like more inside-the-beltway rulemaking gone awry.  Perhaps they put this in the federal register, perhaps not.  Perhaps they kept it out with approval of the rubber-stamp FISA courts.  Either way, you can bet that this is more infringement.

And speaking of David, he says he doesn’t like to go around link-whoring his articles.  He isn’t posting to Facebook anymore, but that’s fine with me because I make WoG a stop several times a day to see what David is saying.  David is a nice guy so he doesn’t like to link-whore.  I’m not, and I don’t mind it at all.  Traffic means that even if it is a poor article, my Google page rank increases, sending more traffic and increasing my voice of advocacy.  I do this for advocacy, not for ego (or at least, so I say).  I don’t really care what you think about me, but I want you to listen to my views because I want to change your mind.  But for David, he deserves to make a living at this, and I ask that you stop by every day to see what you can do to send him traffic.

Kurt Hofmann:

Frum notes that about 42 percent of police deaths this year were by gunfire. Whether that statistic is intended to justify the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown, or the outrageously heavy-handed efforts to quell the unrest (a task now being handed off by the heavily militarized police to the actual military, as the National Guard is brought in), we can only guess.

Frum also asks if anyone thinks that “things [would] be better in Ferguson if the demonstrators were armed.” Well, some of the brutalized demonstrators might.

Perhaps the most chilling of this series of tweets was his observation about the supposed law enforcement need for heavy body armor:

Fewer guns in hands of the policed ==> less need for body armor on those who do the policing …

Oh good grief.  We just can’t get away from Frum can we?  Visit Kurt’s piece to see his full analysis.  As for my comments, I think that David Frum is an idiot.  And I think he’s chicken little.  And I think he should feel bad about himself.

Even the NYT is asking Who Will Stand Up For Christians?  Well, not the Christian church.  As I have pointed out, they don’t give a damn.

Remember when I said this?

The judge should be impeached, and as for the claim that Mississippi would turn into the Wild, Wild West, I think that the fear is exactly the opposite.  I think that everyone knows that nothing untoward will occur, and thus Mississippi will become an example to the rest of the states (e.g., Texas, South Carolina, etc.) that have not been traditional open carry states but choose to change that …

In the end, this stolid judge’s day in the sun will soon go away, guns will be openly carried in Mississippi, the Wild, Wild West will not obtain, and LEOs like Chief John Miller will be ridiculed for their fear mongering.

And everything will be made right.

There is this report from the Clarion-Ledger:

About this time last year, there was furor about state House Bill 2, the “open carry” bill.

HB 2 allows someone to openly carry a firearm. It caused an uproar, and litigation to block it, even though the state constitution already had given Mississippians such a right since 1890.

In late August last year, with opponents warning it would bring “chaos” and “the wild West” and with no-guns-allowed signs popping up everywhere, the state Supreme Court upheld the law.

Since then, I’ve noticed … nothing. I’ve seen two people who I suspected were just citizens and not law enforcement wearing holstered pistols. Neither caused an uproar, and neither of their pistols jumped out of their holsters and committed a crime.

“A year later, we don’t have the wild, wild West,” said HB 2’s author, Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton.

Ken Winter, director of the Mississippi police chiefs’ association, last year had voiced serious concern about HB 2. Last week he noted he still has concerns but, “It’s kind of been a non-issue.”

“Personally, I haven’t seen anybody carrying,” Winter said. “I live just outside a small town here in north Mississippi, so I figure if people would be swinging hoglegs anywhere it would be here.”

So it would appear gun-owning Mississippians were granted a right (again, one they already had) and — lo and behold — the vast majority appeared to be sensible and law-abiding about it.

Anyone over about 30 might remember when Mississippians practiced this right years ago, with gun racks in most every pickup. That stopped because criminals were stealing them, even though there were laws against auto burglary and larceny.

That’s the thing about gun laws and restrictions. Short of total bans, they’re not effective. They apply to and restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens.

And thus am I ridiculing Chief John Miller, Judge Winston Kidd, Jody Owens of the Southern Preposterous Lie Center (who said “We’re looking at a Wild West scenario”) and all the other fear mongers.  And everything has been made right on this issue in Mississippi.

Now the next step is to end the machinations of communist South Carolina State Senator Larry Martin and bring constitutional carry to South Carolina.

LA Times:

The department has posted the list, complete with pictures, on its SPD Blotter website. It includes floatation vests and binoculars, signage and gloves, pistol holders, a radiation detector and rifle sights “used by the approximately 130 officers who have passed the department’s rifle-certification program.”

“We have equipment that we feel is necessary for a city of our size,” Whitcomb told The Times. “The equipment we have serves a police purpose. Our No. 1 priorities are protecting people’s lives and looking after their well-being. Our second most important is looking after possessions and property.

“The gear that our department employees use … is primarily defensive in nature,” Whitcomb said. “Our equipment is police specific. We don’t have any military weaponry. The weapons we do own are specific to our profession. … No rockets, no predator drones, no cannons, no tanks.”

The department’s SWAT team does use a BearCat – an armored truck for situations where there may be gunfire, Whitcomb said, but such a vehicle is standard operating procedure for modern police departments.

“It’s used to get our personnel in and out safely, so we can rescue people and evacuate if necessary,” Whitcomb said. “You cannot do that in a sedan. Though we have put some armored plating on the doors in our cars. We also have purchased ballistic shields. It all goes back to the problem of gun violence in our country. … But ultimately we are a police service. We are not the military.”

This is a red herring.  Only seven percent of all SWAT deployments are for hostage, barricades or active shooter situations.

So here’s the deal.  To the Seattle Police Department, you are liars.  I don’t believe you since you invoked a rarely used justification for having SWAT.

What you really want to do is use SWAT to save evidence by busting in doors and invading homes.  Frankly, I don’t give a damn about your evidence collection.  Find another way, including the old fashioned use of detective work.  Or in other words, be thinking men and women rather than knuckle draggers.

You promise me that you’ll never use SWAT in incidents unless it involves hostages or active shooters, and I’ll take back my charge that you’re liars.

Any takers among the PDs who read these pages?  I’m waiting.

And by the way, that picture of the police “sniper” shows it to be absolutely the goofiest setup on a rifle I’ve ever seen.  I certainly wouldn’t use that setup.  You can read more here if you wish.  I’m just not interested enough to elucidate the details for you.  Readers may wish to weigh in.  And I wonder how the U.S. Marine Corps feels about this jerk wearing MARPAT?

David Codrea:

“Suppose, for example, that a new, unregulated and highly lethal weapon were developed before a statute was enacted,” the Center speculated, arguing “the weapon would not be protected because it would not be in common use.”

In other words, every new development in personal weapons technology will, by default, be denied to We the People by the very body charged with facilitating a citizen militia and expressly forbidden from infringing with the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That the authorities have it in common use won’t matter. So much for Founding intent. So much for freedom.

So no new weapons developments are included under the rubric of the second amendment?  Do these judges give their decisions even the slightest review for logic, constitutionality and feasibility (new weapons developments are often vetted and proven in the civilian market, or in other words, where the money is, before it ever gets to the standing army (which the constitution said nothing about).

Kurt Hofmann:

Surprisingly, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) counts itself among those who believe the brutal suppression of Ferguson is grossly excessive, according to their press release:

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) is closely watching the situation in Ferguson, Missouri and we are deeply disturbed by what we see unfolding there. Our hearts go out to the family of Michael Brown, Jr. as they deal with an unimaginable loss.

What makes this surprising is that CSGV has long defended virtually unlimited power of government, to the point of denying the legitimacy of armed resistance against a government rounding up citizens for the concentration camps.

Don’t bother them with issues of logic.  To them, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, whereas for most normal people, it’s the way life must be lived.

Mike Vanderboegh:

A leaked document from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis predicts increased “anti-government violence over the next year.” The document says the inspiration for violence is Cliven Bundy’s Bunkerville standoff with the Bureau of Land Management from earlier in the year.

I would have rather thought that the standoff at Bundy’s ranch was a symptom rather than the inspiration or catalyst?  I guess it goes to show how detached the elites are.

Politicus USA:

The Three Percenter Club’s imagination is as vivid as the Oathkeepers, and claims its make-believe army is made up of members who have been given “the capabilities and resources necessary to execute Military Strategies to defend against foreign and domestic enemies;” like child refugees and the United States government. Apparently, the Three Percenter club devised its name from “the 3% of colonist (sic) who refused orders by the British Crown to surrender their firearms in the American Revolution.” Apparently, Three Percenters are too childish to understand that no-one has asked any American to “surrender their firearms.” That is a major problem with people that are convinced they live in revolution-era America; they lust to wage war on the United States government as part of their defense of the Constitution they likely never read. The Three Percenter Club’s founder, Mike Vanderboegh, claims the “movement’s core belief is a willingness to offer violent resistance to the United States government,” something definitely NOT in the U.S. Constitution they support.

[ … ]

A child’s imagination, fantasies, and make believe is a wonder to behold, but when grown men that should be holding down a real job instead of fantasizing they are in a revolutionary war against the United States government and use firearms to confront refugee children, their fantasy makes the traitors against America and cowards for laying in wait for child refugees fleeing violence in Central America.

The real money quotes come from the comments.

But what is the government waiting for? Are they waiting for people to be murdered before they act? This has already gone to far.

…

If anything like starts happening they need to be crushed with tanks and gunships. You can’t let these anti-American domestic terrorists get away with anything.

…

These folks are completely delusional if they think for one moment that they can successfully go up against a government with the ability to squash them like the roaches they are with all its firepower.

What?  Never heard of fourth generation warfare?  Without thinking clearly about it, the readers demonstrate first of all why such a movement is necessary (they would just as soon see their countrymen crushed under tanks and gunships), second that they have no conception whatsoever of what such a civil war would look like (how bitter it would be and how it would affect their own lives), and finally that it isn’t guns they oppose – it is guns in the wrong hands, or in other words, hands of those with whom they disagree.

I’ve always said that liberals and progressives (this web site advertizes that they are all about “real liberal politics”) aren’t libertarian or enlightened in the least.  All progressives are collectivists and totalitarians.  This is the sad and contemptible offspring of relativism.

For readers at Politicus USA, I won’t try to educated you on the finer points of the foundations for civil society, but I will simply say to you the following: You have no idea what’s coming, how bad it’s going to be, or how to stop it once it begins.  And there is nothing make-believe about men who are morally committed, called by God, and dedicated to the very end to ideals you treat as a mere punchline.

Washington Times:

A federal judge has upheld a package of strict firearms regulations that went into effect in Maryland last year.

In a 47-page opinion issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake said the law “seeks to address a serious risk of harm to law enforcement officers and the public from the greater power to injure and kill presented by assault weapons and large capacity magazines.”

[ … ]

Judge Blake, appointed by President Clinton, agreed with lawyers for the state, who held that assault weapons and large-capacity magazines “fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms.” She also pointed out that the plaintiffs could not produce a single example in which an assault weapon or more than 10 rounds of ammunition were “used or useful” in an instance of self-defense in Maryland.

The opinion cites statistics showing that ownership of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is comparatively rare and yet they are “disproportionately represented in mass shootings” as well as the murders of law-enforcement personnel.

“Upon review of all the parties’ evidence, the court seriously doubts that the banned assault long guns are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense in the home, which is at the core of the Second Amendment right, and is inclined to find the weapons fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual,” Judge Blake wrote.

These things simply aren’t true.  See my mass shootings research.  These incidents are primarily done with guys toting multiple firearms (usually handguns, but shotguns have also been used) and multiple magazines.  Reloading is quick and easy, as mass shooters know.

Furthermore, I can point to Mr. Stephen Bayezes for an incident where an AR-15 and multiple magazines had to be used in self defense.  This was South Carolina, but if the judge had turned to the pages of American Rifleman every month, she would have seen the multiple reports of people defending themselves using all sorts of firearms.  There are many examples in Maryland.

But this isn’t about self defense.  It’s just a continuation of the same sort of fabricated reasoning that grips our judicial system on guns.  The second amendment has to do with self defense only insofar as it pertains to amelioration of tyranny.

These are scary words for collectivist judges like her.  None of this matters.  She won’t get any of our guns, and if you are an owner of a weapon capable of holding more than ten rounds in the magazine, keep it.  If you turn it in, you are siding with the collectivists.  Maryland will pay for their sins.

Glenn Reynolds recently linked an article at World Net Daily where Christians are being told to weapon up and fight back against jihadist fighters in Nigeria because the government won’t protect them against Boko Haram and others who intend them harm.  This kicked off a conversation between me and my son over the response of the Christian church worldwide, a church I have variously called weak, pathetic, pitiful, disgusting and repulsive (I have that right because I’m a Christian).

I have [previously] asked when is the last time a reader had even heard a prayer in worship for Christians being slaughtered across the globe? (This week was the first indication that anyone cares, with a note from Leith Anderson, head of the National Association of Evangelicals, to pray for Iraq, after Christians have been slaughtered and driven from their homes for more than three years (and the church in Mesopotamia having disintegrated).  What?  No imprecatory prayers at all?  We’re too busy trying to disarm each other to pay attention to the suffering of Christians rather than our own comfort.  My son, in disagreement (of course) with the anemia of the global church, demands to know why we aren’t arming Christians across the world from the offering plate.

To this I explained that there are a number of complicating factors in such a proposal.  First of all, arming Christians in Iraq or Nigeria involves export of firearms which falls under a whole gaggle of federal laws.  To avoid that the church would have to find a weapons trafficker to get the arms to the Christians under attack.  In the unlikely event that a pastor anywhere had the stomach for this, the weapons cannot be gotten to the Christians now anyway.  They are surrounded and cut off, or scattered to the four winds as they run for their very lives.

A good summary statement of where the Christians are at the moment might be this: they waited too late to think about self defense.  They waited too late not because of the mistaken notion that the jihadists would have mercy on them, but because there is a basic sickness in the worldwide church.  This sickness, which is the root cause of the problem, is anti-intellectualism and bad hermeneutics.

Christians justifiably hold high regard for what the Scriptures teach.  But failing proper interpretation and application, unlearned Christians are at the mercy of teachers and pastors who have been brainwashed at liberal seminaries in the art of form, source and redaction criticism, and deconstruction.  Many seminary professors no more believe what the Bible teaches than my dog believes in Newtonian physics.

The Bible gets (intentionally) conflated with social action and a thousand other things, and one consequence of this, just to bring this around to the main subject, is that Christians the world over are in large part pacifists.  The honorific title of “Prince of peace” governs the interpretation of words like “My kingdom is not of this world,” “turn the other check,” and “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”  That He can become angry and jealous and full of wrath are seldom discussed.  It’s what theologian John Frame calls an “exclusive reduction” of God to one characteristic, like “God is love” (which is poor hermeneutics) versus an “emphasizing reduction” (which can be temporarily useful for teaching).  Passages are ripped out of context without regard to the rules of hermeneutics or other passages of the Bible and the need for logical consistency.

But despite bad hermeneutics, there is no unmitigated promise from God to protect His people without regard to their foolishness, if they will only trust Him for their provisions.  In order to prove this notion false all one must do is find a single example where Christians were killed en masse.  Such an example isn’t hard to find, as it is estimated that Hitler killed some three million Christians during his evil reign in addition to the millions of Jews, including some half a million clergy.  Another instance of Christians perishing at the hands of evil men can be taken from Stalin’s starvation of the Ukraine, what may be called the holocaust by hunger.  Christians were certainly among the seven million souls who perished in the Ukraine in the 1930’s.  So David’s comment that he has never seen the children of the righteous “begging for bread” (Ps 37:25) must be a normative statement rather than a promise.  In fact, the entire approach to interpretation of the so-called “wisdom literature” in the Bible is different from say, didactic (Romans and Ephesians) or apocalyptic (Revelation) literature.

I am afraid there have been too many centuries of bad teaching endured by the church, but it makes sense to keep trying.  As I’ve explained before, the simplest and most compelling case for self defense lies in the decalogue.  Thou shall not murder means thou shall protect life.

God’s law requires [us] to be able to defend the children and helpless.  “Relying on Matthew Henry, John Calvin and the Westminster standards, we’ve observed that all Biblical law forbids the contrary of what it enjoins, and enjoins the contrary of what it forbids.”  I’ve tried to put this in the most visceral terms I can find.

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers. Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

This same sort of thinking can be applied on a larger scale to states and nations as so expertly done by professor Darrell Cole in Good Wars (First Things), relying on the theology of both Calvin and Aquinas.  But this is a bridge too far for some Christians who are just now dealing with the notion that they might be in danger.

And danger it is.  If it isn’t out of control SWAT teams in wrong address raids or home invasions by felons, Christians might begin to think about the possibility that jihad will show up on our own shores (jihad version 4.0 includes mass executions, burying people alive and beheading of children).  And if it isn’t that, consider that illegal immigrants have been seen walking armed and in military fatigues in tactical formation (“Ranger file”) across Texas farmland.

But the most pressing danger isn’t ISIS, or felons, or illegal immigrants.  The most pressing danger is the intransigence of the global Christian church in refusing to weapon up and defend themselves.  The Christians in Iraq waited too late, have lost their homes and all of their belongings, and are on the run or sitting on a mountain top thirsting to death (and thirst is a bad way to perish).  I just don’t how to say it any clearer than my favorite actor, Sam Elliot.  If you won’t listen to me, listen to him.

Prior: Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

Arizona Daily Sun:

Police cannot frisk someone they stop and question absent some “reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot,” the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In their unanimous decision affirming the right to carry a gun without interference, the justices rejected arguments by prosecutors that a simple belief someone is armed and dangerous is enough to justify a frisk, even without any evidence of criminal activity. They said the U.S. Constitution dictates otherwise.

“The Fourth Amendment protects the right of people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,” wrote Justice Rebecca Berch.

“When officers consensually engage citizens on the street without having any evidence of wrongdoing, the mere presence of a weapon does not afford officers constitutional permission to search weapons-carrying individuals,” she said. “To conclude otherwise would potentially subject countless law-abiding persons solely for exercising their right to carry a firearm.”

Berch said police still can ask people if they are carrying a weapon. And they remain free to ask that person to hand it over while they are talking.

But she also said those individuals remain free to walk away.

Good for them.  There is no prima facie reason that police should be any more concerned about their own safety than ordinary citizens should be about theirs, and no one has given the right to citizens to demand that police give up their weapons during conversations (although something like that would have saved many lives).

It also doesn’t surprise me one bit that the police and state argued otherwise.  I would expect them to.  To someone who knows more about the law than I do, please weigh in if you can explain this to me.  But it seems that we’ve covered this ground before, and to at least some extent this (warrantless searches) is a recapitulation of things decided in Arizona versus Gant.

David Codrea:

A former lieutenant and a current sheriff, each implying the other is lying, doesn’t cut it. Whichever way it falls, the public deserves to know the truth.

You mean to tell me that a LEO is lying?  Say it ain’t so!  Actually, while this idea is not popular among the “only ones” and their gun control advocates who talk incessantly about them being trained to handle firearms and react under pressure, a friend (former captain of a large PD) tells me that most officers pull their weapons once per year at qualification and no more.

Mike Vanderboegh on the men we left behind in North Vietnam.  I had always suspected that.

Mike Vanderboegh on Kevlar helmets and their capabilities.  Worth reading this post.

This incident shows that you should always be ready for a gun battle in situations of self defense.

Vega was armed and tried to defend his family. There was a dramatic gun battle that reportedly involved the mortally wounded agent telling his father, “Keep shooting, Dad.” At one point Vega’s mother grabbed an AR-15 and fired away at the killers’ fleeing car.

Two million new Latino voters will swamp the GOP.  And now you understand again why Obama is doing what he’s doing.