Archive for the 'Guns' Category

Kurt Hofmann:

That means, of course, that there is no vitriol too foul, to his way of thinking, to fling at groups like Open Carry Texas, for their campaign of openly carrying rifles and shotguns into places like restaurants and retail stores (although he may not have made the comparison between such activists and child rapist/murderers–yet). Of rather greater concern than the vitriol, though, is Malloy’s stated intention to try to get open carry activists shot and killed. Ah–another “non-violence” advocate.

It’s yet another installment on the logical inconsistency of the gun control movement, like claims that guns don’t save lives or that they create more danger than they abate – which they cannot truly believe because they never advocate taking guns away from the police.

David Codrea:

It’s part of a long-standing and not particularly successful attempt by the “progressives” to chill dissent by making gun owners fear to speak out lest they be tarred with the brush of extremist. Perversely, those who want them to feel that way have been known to come up with extremist advocacy positions like ‘Isn’t it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill?”

David and Mike have already been painted with that brush.  So have I.  Care to join the club?  And speaking of extremist, Mike explains just what he really believes.

It is for this reason that the collectivists — the domestic enemies of the Founders’ Republic — are made somewhat angered, if not deranged, by the Gadsden flag. Its sentiment is plain — it cannot be polluted or corrupted or co-opted. They must therefore do their best to demonize it, to discredit it, to profane it, and to lie about those who fly it. We have seen that very clearly in their reaction to the Miller meth-head murderers’ misuse of the Gadsden flag in their Nevada rampage. The flag is itself “anti-government” they proclaim and proof that the Millers represent the rest of us “anti-government types.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not “anti-government,” although the Southern Poverty Law Center has been calling me that for two decades now. I am in fact pro-government of the kind the Founders would recognize. I am pro small government, safe government — a government of limited powers — a government that supports the rule of law AND OPERATES WITHIN IT.

It’s important to distinguish between advocates of constitutional government and anarchy, the brush our opponents would choose for us.

And finally, Mike asks the question, has the Department of Homeland Security become America’s standing army?  Yes.  Next question.

I won’t wade into the recent debate over rifle-toting folks going into stores and restaurants, except to say that I’ve never done it and don’t intend on doing it.  I don’t buy the explanation that there is no safe way to observe muzzle discipline with a rifle, but I also don’t buy the notion that a rifle is the preferred weapon (and I don’t buy other things, like the notion that I’m safe when I get on the road in an automobile).  If your state doesn’t allow open carry, then replace the legislators until they do.

But there was a moment of honesty about open carry (of any weapon) displayed in a recent dustup over the issue that deserves your ponderance.

“We’ve had a tough time over the years promoting Lake Ozark as a family area,” said Alderman Larry Buschjost, who voted for the ban. “We want you on the Strip with families, everywhere in Lake Ozark with families. We want you to bring your kids down here and let them loose. For the life of me, I don’t understand why I would have to carry any type of gun, concealed or otherwise. “

As with collectivist South Carolina Senator Larry Martin (who needs to be replaced and defanged as soon as possible), when a legislator objects to open carry, he or she is rarely objecting solely to open carry.  It’s the very idea that you would have a weapon at all that they don’t like.  The good part is that if you let them talk long enough, they’ll often tell you exactly that.

David Codrea:

I see some people don’t like it. Well gosh. Others don’t like my writing for Examiner because they refuse to learn how to navigate the internet with a reliable and easy to activate pop-up blocker. Still others don’t like my other outlet of gun magazines, because they’re perceived as beholden to their advertisers. I notice no one is providing alternative options. Most never even share my GRE links.

Well, I certainly do.  Many people hate me.  I have never let it bother me.  Go by and congratulate David on the new gig at CheaperThanDirt.  I criticize the NRA almost with out ceasing, but I’m still a member.  Listen, folks.  If you wait to find an organization that agrees fully with every one of your views, you’ve found yourself.  Not even your spouse agrees with you 100% of the time (perhaps not even 50%).  It’s similar to church attendance or membership.  You have to learn to get along and accept it when you disagree with folks, or you’ll be alone.  I have criticized Smith & Wesson repeatedly on their refusal to stop the supply of firearms to California LEOs in light of the most recent gun laws.  I am still unhappy with the response.  Yet my most recent gun purchase (no more than two weeks ago) was a S&W.  You know, because they make good stuff.  We all have to get along, I’ll just pull the plug if, say, S&W begins to flirt with gun control, for example, or compromises with the evil masters in the White House.

Mike Vanderboegh:

A new bartering economy has emerged with ammunition rather than dollar bills as the currency.

I’m buying as much as I can, as quickly as I can.  Time.  We need more time.

Kurt Hofmann:

But wait a second. Who would these people be? Technically, of course, that depends on what one judges to be “just unbelievable damage,” but if he is concerned about guns in the hands of people who can do such damage, rather than those who will do it, then he just announced that his “biggest frustration” is his inability to disarm just about everyone.

Never, ever get into a logical debate with Kurt.  And as for what Obama meant, he isn’t as good a lawyer as Kurt.  He wouldn’t for example, disarm SWAT teams (even those who shoot innocent people) because he is a collectivist.  Obama’s communication problem is that he says too little and says too much.  We all know what he really thinks.

USA Today:

President Obama said Tuesday the nation should do “some soul-searching”: over its epidemic of deadly gun violence and “should be ashamed” it has been unable to address it.

“We’re the only developed country on Earth where this happens,” Obama said during a question-and-answer session on the social media website Tumblr.

“And it happens now once a week,” Obama added. “And it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this.”

[ … ]

His “biggest frustration” as president, Obama said, has been that “this society has not been willing to take some basic steps” to keep guns away from people who “can do just unbelievable damage.”

The president again criticized Congress for blocking a proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers and said too many lawmakers are “terrified” of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

While “our levels of gun violence are off the charts,” Obama said, the American people themselves have to demand new laws: “If public opinion does not demand change in Congress, it will not change.”

Opponents of various gun control proposals said they would be ineffective, and some threaten Second Amendment ownership rights. They also said shootings are a mental health issue, an argument that Obama disputed.

“The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people,” Obama said.

We’ve discussed this before at length, how the mentally ill are no more prone to violence than those who are not mentally ill, and how crime is a moral choice.  Again, those killings where idiot commentators talk about how “crazy” or “mentally ill” a person is are pointers to evil, not sickness.

Obama either knows better or actually believes that there is no such thing as evil except as created by society.  He is a liar, but in purveying his lie, he managed to lump mentally ill people, most of whom are peaceable, loving folk, into the same category as mass killers.

As a reminder to all those who were in the sandbox doing the bidding of the country, do not ever allow yourself to be diagnosed as PTSD.  And this goes for any reader anywhere, not just Soldiers and Marines.  Do not be lumped into the category of mentally ill.  You’ll never get off the list.

But in spite of his stupid insult to the mentally ill, there is (in the words of C. S. Lewis), a deeper magic that we who are watchers and learners know.  The witch Obama couldn’t care less about mass shootings, or crime in Chicago, or anything of the sort.  He wants to confiscate guns because he is a totalitarian.  Totalitarians must destroy the will and ability to resist.

And God hates totalitarians.

Mike Vanderboegh:

Chicago Police and ATF Form Intelligence Center To Fight “Three Percenters”

Right.  Like the three percenters are the problem in Chicago as opposed to say, the gangs and black-on-black violence.  I’ll tell you what.  Drop by, you Chicago police officer (“Dr. Suess”) who argued with me over e-mail about how I was going to beg for your help one day to “protect me,” and tell me who commits crime in Chicago?  And tell me why you aren’t out running down the gangs, you coward?  This is all a ruse, a smokescreen to send money to Chicago, the home of criminal Eric Holder.

David Codrea:

True to form and right on cue, “progressive” pundits who feed themselves pushing citizen disarmament and other ways of subverting true egalitarian power sharing are out in force, blaming everyone outside their collectivist echo chamber for the actions of two misfit killers.

Of course they do.  And be sure to read David’s rundown of the couple’s ejection from the Bundy Ranch.  As for the “pundit,” he doesn’t bother me a bit.  Only people who don’t believe in anything need the government to tell them what to think.

Kurt Hofmann:

Sunday evening, Nia Sanchez went from being Miss Nevada to accepting the crown for Miss USA … Ms. Sanchez, who has a fourth degree black belt in taekwondo, recommended that women learn how to defend themselves.

You mean someone has been named to this position who didn’t give the answers common to a sophomore in international studies at Dartmouth or American University?

I see that Eric Cantor has lost.  It isn’t just his treason concerning immigration and amnesty that concerned the people of Virginia.  Remember is gun control schemes.  Gun owners never forget.  Never.  And watch out, Paul Ryan.  You guys are two peas in a pod.  And perhaps you will suffer the same fate one day.

The Denver Post:

Ronny Flanagan took pride in his record as a police officer in Plano, Texas. He had an incident-free career. He took safety training regularly. He was known at the range as a very good shot.

Yet he killed a man when he was simply trying to press a flashlight switch mounted beneath the trigger on his pistol.

In a deposition, Flanagan expressed his remorse and made a prediction.

“I don’t want anyone to ever sit in a chair I’m in right now,” he said. “Think about the officers that aren’t as well trained, officers that don’t take it as seriously, and you put them in a pressure situation, another accident will happen. Not if, but will.”

Here’s what’s happening.  In order to depress the pressure switch, shooters (in this case, cops) are squeezing their third finger, and because they have no control over their sympathetic muscle reflexes, they are also squeezing their trigger finger at the same time.  Suing the manufacturers of flashlights is about as nonsensical as I can imagine.  That’s like suing a hammer manufacturer because I may choose to hit someone over the head with it.

But what does this also show us?  The astute reader says, “that cops are (a) using their weapon mounted light as a tactical light to see things in the dark, violating requirements for muzzle discipline, and (b) they have their finger on the trigger of their weapon, showing that they are violating requirements for trigger discipline.

Recall what I said about this?

My son was a SAW gunner in the 2/6 infantry, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, during the 2007 combat tour of Fallujah and the pre-deployment workup.  The senior Marines had experienced a tour of Iraq, and wanted their SAW gunners to have a round in the chamber, bolt open (the SAW is an open bolt weapon anyway), and finger on the trigger.  They had seen combat and they wanted their SAW gunners with zero steps to shooting.  Their lives depended on it.  They also did CQB drills with live rounds, along with squad rushes.

My son had an ID (if I’m not mistaken it was during training at Mohave Viper).  He tripped and had a sympathetic muscle reflex, squeezing the trigger of his SAW.  He spent an extended period of time in the “room of pain.”  They wanted him trained to overcome that sympathetic muscle reflex (which can be done, but it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of drills).  He spent the time learning to overcome that reflex, and performed well during his tour.  He also tried to teach his “boot” Marines the same way he was trained, but the Marines had begun to change and focus more on cultural sensitivity training and other COIN tools.  He got out of the Marine Corps.

Why am I discussing this?  Because no matter who you are, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how earnestly you wish it, no matter how many directives you write, if you are a SWAT team member, you will never be trained in such a manner.  Never.  You will never be trained like a U.S. Marine who has spent every day for a year and a half in pre-deployment workup to do a combat tour of Iraq.  Because you will never be trained in this manner, your tactics are dangerous, all of the time, and in all situations.  I don’t care how many times you have inexperienced Soldiers spend a week with you doing CQB drills.

As for cops, if they obey the same rules as we do, this kind of thing won’t happen.  And I don’t care how sad Ronny Flanagan is over this.  The shooting is his fault.  Period.

If you keep your booger hook off of the bang switch, the gun won’t go boom.  And for the sake of everything that is sensible, good and righteous, don’t use your weapon mounted tactical light as a flashlight so that you can see things in the dark.

David Codrea:

As I asked many years back, during the reign of another president who rivaled our current one in his fear and despising of an armed citizenry, has not despotism and mass destruction plagued every civilization that preceded ours? Is it not, in fact, still commonplace throughout the globe? By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe? Are we certain, from our brief and privileged vantage point, that such things will ever remain headline curiosities? Is it not just plain stupid to proclaim that our familiar way of life will forever be the norm, when everything that has gone before us shows we are, instead, the extremely lucky beneficiaries of a rare and fortunate convergence of circumstances; and one, by the way, that has only been preserved under force of arms?

This is poetic prose worthy of the best authors.  And while I don’t believe in luck, I agree with David (who is speaking tongue in cheek here).  “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  The heart of man is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).  And that’s why we should expect totalitarianism.  Because it’s the state to which evil man aspires.

Kurt Hofmann:

There cannot fail to be consequences from the discovery on the part of every parent in America that the government’s hired muscle can kick down their doors, set their children on fire, and the official response will be a shrug, and maybe an “oops.”

Inevitably, some parents will refuse to tolerate the intolerable. Some, even knowing the vanishingly small likelihood of their own survival, will fight back with every weapon they possess. Private citizens defending their homes and families will doubtless do the bulk of the dying, but they will not do all of it.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a vital law, but as the police themselves morph more and more aggressively into an occupying army, it is quickly losing relevance.

Kurt is saying what I’ve said before.  The militarization of police is a work-around of the law.  And don’t think for a minute that the founders would have any more approved of it than they did of the requirement to quarter troops.

Mike Vanderboegh:

So we know who this outdated move is pointed at, don’t we? And it has nothing to do with Jihadis, “homegrown” or otherwise. A cynic might say that given the Bergdahl swap and the unilateral disengagement from any pretense of fighting the Jihadis overseas that you are simply trying to assure full employment for armed federal bureaucrats, much as the repeal of Prohibition led to the transfer of Treasury agents to enforce the subsequent National Firearms Act. Dragon slayers need dragons to frighten the villagers into paying them for the privilege of full employment, no matter how obvious, ridiculous and hackneyed the lies are.

This is also poetic writing by Mike.  He is much more patient with his official letters than I seem to be able to pull off.  I just utter that “Holder is a servant of Satan” and leave it at that.  But you need to see just how Holder is a servant of Satan, and so visit Mike’s place and study his letter.

Via WRSA, Tyler Durden:

The masses are being plundered on a scale which is inconceivable and unmatched in history; it is the source of the middle classes dying in the developed world. The developed world has become a well-disguised plantation of serfs and slaves. They are given nothing to store and save their labor in as the currency they hold are printed endlessly and have no reserves to back them and are redeemable in NOTHING, contrary to every sound currency in history. Modern day money is nothing less than a wealth confiscation scheme run by morally and fiscally bankrupt central banks and governments against their own citizens.

And thus does God disapprove of it, and thus will it fail.  Be prepared.

Offbeat:

Steve Maloney, OffBeat’s web editor, texted me a photo that his uncle took in the French Quarter on Tuesday. Note the handgun on this young man’s right hip. My jaw dropped.

Did you know that the state of Louisiana recognizes “open carry,” which is apparently what this guy is practicing as he strolls down a street in the Quarter. “Concealed” guns require a special permit.

Scary.

In my personal opinion, New Orleans should be a gun-free zone, period. Politically, no one locally has the moxie to stand up for this concept. What you’ll hear is if we get rid of guns, “then only criminals will have guns.” Yeah, like this young man. Why does he need to carry a firearm with him in the French Quarter? Are we in the Wild, Wild West or something?

It make take a couple of decades, but there’s no reason why we need guns in our society for “protection.”

What are you going to do over that two decades to ensure that we don’t need or have guns, Jan?  Are you going to send the police after folks with guns?  Because if you are, then your entire philosophy is a lie.  You just want only certain people to have guns.

But if the police aren’t going to confiscate guns, then how are you going to get them?  We won’t willingly give them up, Jan.  And what are you going to do about the criminals who want to use theirs for untoward things, Jan, like raping you or harming you in other ways?  The police can’t take care of you.

As for open carry, do you carry all of your belongings – purse, credit cards, car keys, cell phone – inside your waist band?  Why do you expect me to do that with my gun?

You do understand, don’t you, that making New Orleans a “gun free zone” won’t do anything to ensure that there aren’t guns in New Orleans?  You do understand that rapists, thieves, robbers and muggers will still carry weapons, don’t you?

And you understand that folks who conceal carry consists of two groups: those who do so legally (like me), and those who do not do so illegally.  You do understand that there are folks who carry concealed illegally, don’t you Jan?  And you do understand that the whole notion that the gun being concealed makes you feel safer is entirely a false psychological construct, don’t you Jan?

Or perhaps not.  Perhaps you haven’t thought through any of this.  And perhaps you should.

Bloomberg Businessweek:

In the 1970s, Colt and other American gunmakers, following the bad example of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, grew smug and lazy. Like Japanese and German car companies, more nimble foreign gunmakers grabbed market share. By the 1980s, Smith & Wesson had lost the U.S. police to Austria’s Glock, while Colt saw Italy’s Beretta snatch its main U.S. Army sidearm contract. In 1985, Colt plant employees who belonged to the United Auto Workers launched a protracted strike for higher pay. Replacement employees weren’t up to the task, and “quality suffered badly,” says Feldman, then an organizer for the National Rifle Association. In 1988 the Pentagon gave Colt’s M16 contract to FN Herstal of Belgium. Four years later, Colt filed for bankruptcy court protection from its creditors. “With the end of the Cold War,” says Hopkins, the firearms marketer, “it seemed like the company might never recover.”

[ … ]

Complicating matters, Colt then blundered into the vortex of American gun-control politics. In a December 1997 editorial in American Firearms Industry magazine, Zilkha’s handpicked CEO, Ron Stewart, made a pair of proposals that set off alarms in Second Amendment circles. He urged “the creation of a research and development program to further firearm technology toward more advanced methods that promote safety (such as personalized firearms).” And he recommended that Congress require gun owners to obtain a federal permit. “All hell broke loose,” says Feldman …

Zilkha relieved Stewart of his CEO duties in late 1998; by the following year the Colt smart gun was dead …

The withered commercial handgun business—by now reduced almost exclusively to producing copies of classic handguns—was left behind under the name Colt’s Manufacturing. The two companies shared the West Hartford factory. To the consternation of workers, a metal fence was erected to denote the corporate split …

Among other failings, the severed halves of Colt somehow missed the post-2008 “Obama surge” as much as other U.S. gun manufacturers. Whipped up by NRA warnings that the Democratic president intended to toughen gun control, consumers cleared gun store shelves of ammunition and weapons. Better-prepared manufacturers such as Glock saw sales rise sharply. Under the terms of the Colt split, however, Colt Defense could reach the booming civilian market only by first selling its rifles to Colt’s Manufacturing, a debilitated company with sclerotic lines of distribution. Colt’s Manufacturing, for its part, offered only a limited selection of the handguns so much in demand. …

S&P projects that company revenue will fall by 5 percent to 15 percent in 2014. It cites “declining commercial rifle sales as demand returns to more normalized levels following a surge in recent years” and a sharp reduction in Pentagon demand for new M4 rifles following the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The government’s plan to shrink the size of the Army also poses a threat to long-term demand for the rifle,” S&P notes. On May 14, Colt reported that revenue for its first quarter of 2014 slumped 22 percent, to $50 million. The company suffered a loss of $7.8 million for the period. During an investor conference call, CEO Dennis Veilleux said, “I’m not pleased with these results.”

Ignoring the source (Bloomberg), this is actually good reporting and analysis and a good rundown of the troubles that have plagued Colt.

Colt got fat from military contracts, lost control over good QA, and lost interest in the civilian firearms market.  This happens often to manufacturers for the military, since making milspec parts means that there is very little innovation and contracts aren’t as flexible to customer feedback as in the civilian market.  Soldiers and Marines have to use what they’ve been issued.  I get to choose my guns, and hence I have a Rock River Arms AR-15 instead of a Colt.  I have always said that a gun isn’t truly tested until it hits the civilian market.

There is one aspect of Colt’s demise that isn’t mentioned here, and that is the role of labor unions.  All gun manufacturers in Northern states (which are not “right to work” states) have suffered from the same erosion of quality and cost problems or they will in the future.

The lessons for all gun manufacturers should be clear.  First, labor unions kill companies.  The future of industry is in right-to-work states.  Second, any flirtation with gun control is death to a gun manufacturer.  Gun owners punish cooperation with gun controllers.  Third, fat-ass government contracts tends to corrupt a company.  The most healthy market for guns is the civilian market.  It also happens to be the least fickle and most reliable.

Finally, overseas production (in Japan, for instance) is a loser proposition.  I turned down the chance to buy a Browning bolt action rifle because of that very thing (made in Japan stamped on the barrel), and thought that Winchester rifles were now made exclusively in Columbia, S.C.  I later found out that parts are now made in Columbia, while assembly is done in Portugal.  Instead I purchased a Tikka T3 Hunter 0.270.  In other words, I went with a foreign manufacturer who actually knows how to make guns.  The Remington and Ruger bolts were so loose they flopped like dog ears.  The Tikka was tight and is a tack driver.

Bottom line: move South to right-to-work states, make guns for the civilian market, make them well, and avoid the corruption that goes along with being in bed with the government.  It’s too late for Colt.  They will go belly up before long.  It isn’t too late for others – you know who you are.

David Codrea:

“You’ve got a friend,” the subject line of an email purportedly from singer James Taylor, but actually from info@barackobama.com, an email address for Organizing for Action (formerly Organizing for Obama) assures me.

“Really?” I wonder. Not only does OFA act as the online community organizer for “the most anti-gun president ever to occupy the Oval Office,” but James Taylor himself is on record advocating “We need to make some sacrifice[s] to our freedoms,” meaning enact citizen disarmament “in order to safeguard our children.”

This is all really too bad.  I like James Taylor’s music.  But what business does a musician have thinking that he is any better to judge on my freedoms than me?

Kurt Hofmann:

Apparently, in other words, he has edited the Second Amendment to state that, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed, except by a federal government that maintains a sound fiscal policy.”

He can’t help himself.  “Can a Leopard change its spots?”  I never thought I could trust the guy anyway.  Moreover, I want to know just how many people really believe the claptrap about Chris Christie potentially giving up his chance at a run at the Presidency if he signs the magazine ban in New Jersey (as if to say, “I had considered voting for you but now that you did this you lost my vote”).  Chris Christie is a gun grabber from way back.  Once a gun grabber, always a gun grabber.  It’s how most folks in the Northern states think.

Recall the toddler blown up by a grenade at the hands of the police?  You have to see the update from Mike Vanderboegh on this.  This Sheriff has history – ugly history.  There isn’t a single bit of difference between this law enforcement community and the lawless drug cartels.  None.