Archive for the 'Guns' Category

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So we know who this outdated move is pointed at, don’t we?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.

David Kopel has a nicely argued brief filed with the Ninth Circuit on the history of magazines holding 11 or more rounds.  The context is the case of Fyock v. Sunnyvale, where the district court upheld the California ban on standard capacity magazines because “magazines did not exist at the time the Second Amendment was ratified.”

Some of the history I knew, and some of it I didn’t.  In Either case, the brief is very interesting, filled with both facts and analysis, and much better than Eugene Volokh’s ill-advised (and unripe) commentary on magazines.

Kopel colors outside the lines when he says this:

If the firing of several shots has wounded one attacker, and has resulted in the other attacker putting up his hands, the defender needs to control the situation until the police arrive. That is why reserve capacity is so important for law enforcement and for citizens. Reloading is very difficult when the second hand is holding a cell phone. Even a two-handed reload will likely make the gun temporarily inoperable and cause the gun to move off target for at least a few seconds, giving the criminal(s) a new window of opportunity. Citizens do not carry police radios, and police response to a cell phone call about citizen in trouble is often slower than the response to a radio call about an officer in trouble. The reasons why magazines for greater than 10 rounds are the overwhelming choice for law enforcement officers for lawful defense of self and others apply a fortiori to citizens, who rightly  look to law enforcement officers as good models for gun safety practices.

The point is fundamentally sound, but I have never in the past, do not currently, and will never in the future look to law enforcement for gun safety practices.

News from Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh police are reviewing an incident in which they say an officer accidentally fired a gun while chasing a suspect in Crafton Heights, an official said on Tuesday.

Public safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler said Detective Martin Kail accidentally fired his gun when he fell while pursuing a suspect on foot about 9:40 p.m. May 21 in the 1400 block of Crucible Street.

No one was hurt.

“No one was shot, no one was injured,” Toler said.

She did not know what prompted Kail, a member of the narcotics and vice squad, to chase after the suspect.

Toler said the suspect was not apprehended.

Supervisors were notified of the incident and arrived at the scene, she said.

Kail was hired in 2007, records show.

Officer Howard McQuillan, president of Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1, the labor union that represents city police officers, declined to comment.

Yea, I’ll bet he “declined to comment.”  Notice the term accidental.  I suspect another example of negligent discharge because someone stumbled with their finger on the trigger, squeezing due to sympathetic muscle reflex, which I discussed here again.

Can’t they at least train these guys at the same level as we civilians?

David Codrea:

A New York television station’s news programming has dropped all pretenses of unbiased reporting and relegated itself to being a purveyor of anti-gun propaganda.

“PIX11 is taking a stand against gun violence,” the station announced in a commercial promoting its involvement “teaming up with local leaders and the families of victims to make June gun violence awareness month.”

David invokes what the administration says about “authorized journalists.”  I think it’s a good thing when so-called journalists finally drop the pretense.  At least this is a bit of honesty about things we all knew.  And as for authorized journalists, that just goes to show that they think about the first amendment what they think about the second: some pigs are more equal than others.

Kurt Hofmann:

Speaking of their desire to disarm people, that of course serves their purpose in more than one way. Not only is citizen disarmament their desired end, it’s also a means to that end, because the more “gun free” zones, there are, the fewer people permitted the means to effective self-defense, and the more they can be limited in whatever firepower they are permitted to have, the less likely it is that the next killer will be stopped before he racks up a big, exploitable body count.

Hey.  To make an omelet a few eggs must be broken.  It’s the cost of doing the king’s business.

Mike Vanderboegh:

Game and fish belong to the king.

And what did commenter Josh say about the notion of New York SWAT teams culling deer in that sorry state? “Only the King’s men may hunt the King’s deer in the royal forest.”

Anastasia Basil:

Yes, I am a Godless American and a devoted mother of two who believes that the highest form of love doesn’t come from a supernatural being but from human beings. I make ethical decisions based on empathy and a deep appeal for fairness. So if you’ve ever wondered what a Godless American might be like, here’s an opportunity to know one. I like to bake birthday cakes from scratch and take in stray dogs. I am a Girl Scout leader.

As citizens, you openly prize two things: Jesus and the Second Amendment. Your cries for more God and more guns ring from sea to shining sea. We hear you. Believe me. But here’s the thing: As an American citizen of equal value, I can’t let you claim this country as a gun-loving Christian nation. I live a life of moral decency, as I’m sure you do too. But I do it gunless. This makes me indisputably more Christ-like than you.

In response, you will say I’m stifling your right to religion. Quite the opposite: I’m encouraging you to pick up your Bibles and live more in accordance with your religion. I’m asking you to choose between the right to bear arms and the right to quote Jesus. If you won’t give up your guns, then give up your identity as a Christian. Be disciples of Wayne LaPierre. Make your mantra “From My Cold, Dead Hands,” not “Turn the Other Cheek.”

Personally, I would love to stifle your right to the Second Amendment … I’m going to pray to Christian pro-gun senators like Tim Scott — a man with real power to intervene.

Dear Anastasia,

None of this works like you think it does.  I know what you’re thinking.  You think that Jesus was some long haired hippie peacenik who traveled Israel waving peace signs and singing Kumbaya.  The reality is much more complex and difficult for people like you to deal with.  Passages like this one:

Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” Matthew 10:34-35

Make no more sense to you than the notion that Jesus told his disciples to get swords for their self defense.  You say that “As an American citizen of equal value, I can’t let you claim this country as a gun-loving Christian nation.”  But see, you cannot stop me.  I can claim what I wish, and the real test of endurance is whether I am telling the truth.

God doesn’t regard your prayer since you don’t believe in Him (Proverbs 28:9, Psalm 66:18, Isaiah 59:2, and so many other passages).  And as for your prayer to Mr. Scott, he doesn’t hear you either.  And Mr. Scott isn’t omniscient.  But God says:

Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’ (Isaiah 46:10).

But since you don’t believe in God, you have no means to effect anything.  God doesn’t hear you, and Mr. Scott doesn’t control anything.  It wouldn’t matter.  You wouldn’t change God’s law with your prayers anyway, you would only be asking God to change your own heart.  It seems to me that you don’t want your views to be changed, so your heart is hardened.  You’re at a dead end, Anastasia.

As for me, you cannot possibly do anything to my views of the Bible and guns.  I see things through the eyes of the holy Scriptures.  I’ve pointed out that God’s law requires me 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.

So while you claim to be a lover of the children, you actually advocate abuse of children because you would disarm the very people with the sworn duty to protect, nurture and provide for them.

I know, Anastasia, this is difficult to hear.  It’s a world view to which you aren’t accustomed because, as we’ve discussed, you think Jesus was a hippie peacenik rather than the Son of the living God.  But the truth scatters the darkness, and if I must be the one to purvey the truth so that it can trouble your soul, then so be it.

Oh, there is one final thing for you to ponder.  As for Christians and their guns, you were never taught this in your schools because public schools are incubators of communism who specialize in telling lies.  But the war for American independence would never have been fought had it not been for the sermons preached by preachers in pulpits who taught the folk about covenant theology in the best tradition of continental and Scottish Calvinism.

America would never have been America had it not been for Christians and their guns.  Now, it may be that you would rather be a subject of the Queen.  I hear that gun laws are stringent in her country.  But be careful.  If you move there, you might have to convert to Islam and wear a burqa, and your husband might beat you for the slightest thing.  If anyone ever tries to do that to my women or children, I’ll shoot them.  Because as a Christian, I care about women and children.

Eugene Volokh:

I don’t support laws that mandate smart guns, chiefly because there’s no reason to think that such guns will be reliable enough any time soon. But I certainly see the advantage of such guns, as a means of preventing the 100 or so fatal gun accidents and the greater number of nonfatal gun accidents involving kids that happen each year in the U.S.

If I had a child, and smart guns were reliable enough, I might well be willing to spend some extra money to get a smart gun instead of my current gun. And if (as I asked you to assume) such smart guns became generally about as reliable and about as costly as ordinary guns, I think smart gun mandates might be constitutional under the theory that they do not materially interfere with the right to keep and bear arms in self-defense.

Only a lawyer could make a set of statements like this.  I take the view that all federal laws concerning firearms are unconstitutional because of the second amendment.  But even if you don’t take my view, the case of so-called “smart guns” should be easy to dispose.

First of all, Eugene has posed a false hypothetical.  “Reliable enough” is a matter of judgment, and it seems manifestly unconstitutional and even immoral for a government to make the decision to sacrifice any reliability at all in matters of self defense because of a felt social need (that the courts have not been asked and have no authority to address and the Congress has no business addressing).  Furthermore, electronic gadgetry as a means to prevent a firearm from functioning will never be as reliable as ordinary weapons today.

Don’t take my word for it.  Ask any engineer who has experience in the airline, space or commercial nuclear power industry and knows anything about fault trees and failure mode and effects analysis.  Use the NRC fault tree handbook for starters.  Construct a fault tree with all of the right logic gates, and if you end up assigning a failure probability of anything other than zero (0) to any electronic component and that component can prevent the proper function of the weapon, then you have just proven to yourself that smart guns won’t be as reliable as ordinary guns of today.  Case closed.

Second, smart guns will cost more.  Glenn Reynolds makes the point that “punitive controls on ammunition, designed to make gun ownership or shooting prohibitively expensive or difficult, would be unlikely to pass constitutional muster” (Second Amendment Penumbras).  It isn’t clear why Glenn restricted this to controls “designed” to make gun ownership prohibitively expensive.  Intentionality would appear to be immaterial.  With a result that certain classes of people could not afford to own firearms because of the cost, laws mandating smart guns are discriminatory.

Third, smart guns will be more complex, necessitating more in maintenance costs, inability to do basic gunsmithing yourself, and large down time with your weapon should it ever need maintenance (due to a smaller subset of technicians who are capable of working on the guns).  In part one can ascribe the popularity of AR-15s to the modularity, simplicity of operation and ease of maintenance and basic gunsmithing.

Finally, electronic gadgetry will be vulnerable to interference, including governmental interference.  This interference could take the form of violation of due process, and more to the point, Eugene truncates the intent and scope of the second amendment by limiting it to self defense (which is nowhere to be found in the constitution or contextual documents).

For these (and other) reasons, smart guns will never be a vital, meaningful, or trusted part of American life and heritage.  No man will pass down a “smart gun” to his children or grandchildren.  They will forever be good for nothing more than a gun controller’s wet dream.  But for obvious reasons, I’ve recommended that billions of dollars be invested in development of the “technology” by gun controllers, just don’t ever think you can force them on me or take away the ones I’ve got.

Prior: Smart Guns tag

David Codrea:

Misplacing blame for the killing of his son in the Isla Vista murders, the father of one of the victims issued a grief-stricken attack on the National Rifle Association Saturday … they clearly offer proof that no amount of “gun control,” for which California has been hailed as a leader by citizen disarmament groups, will ever be enough for them.

That’s why there can be no compromise with them.  And as for the NRA, it’s the same confusion that blames the NRA for our opposition to funding of gun “studies” by the CDC, or mandated “smart gun” technology.  To the extent that the NRA doesn’t compromise, they are doing what we told them to do.  To the extent that they do compromise, they are doing it in spite of what we told them to do.

Kurt Hofmann:

… but when he mentions the “[s]ix dead,” he does not bother to mention that half of them were stabbed to death) to segue into his call for more “gun control.”

Eh, doesn’t fit the narrative.  And there’s this: “Ah, so that’s his standard–as long as the government’s recognition of the right to keep and bear arms does not “vanish altogether,” we’re golden. In an instant, shall not be infringed has become “shall not vanish altogether,” and that’s supposed to be good enough for us.”

Not for me, not for Kurt, and shouldn’t be for any of my readers.

Mike Vanderboegh:

The movie is, like all such mass murder historical dramas (Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda, etc.) difficult to watch. It also reminded me of something I wrote fifteen years ago now (hard to believe it’s been that long) but wich still retains its relevance: What I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century

And boy this is a tutorial in necessary lessons.  And finally there is this piece that Mike links:

So far, Toys for Totalitarians hasn’t gotten the media coverage Mike hoped for—not in the scandalized mainstream press and (surprisingly) not in the online pro-gun media.

Perhaps not the MSM, but the pro-gun media?  That’s just dead wrong.  David Codrea has covered it, Kurt Hofmann has covered it, and I’ve covered it.  Perhaps she’s talking about the prags?