Archive for the 'Guns' Category

Kurt Hofmann:

The ongoing, and evidently accelerating, militarization of law enforcement has for a while now been of real concern to those of us who realize that the Posse Comitatus Act is of little value when state, and even local, police departments are allowed to arm themselves as if going to war (war with whom?). That’s fine with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, who caution us to “not pile too much on the militarization of law enforcement,” but more than a little alarming to those of us who have vowed not to permit a “government monopoly on force.”

Stop by and read Kurt’s transcription of comments by Josh Horwitz (follow the links).  How rich.  Gun control for thee, but not for me and my army.

It just goes to show, gun control isn’t about guns.  It’s about collectivist visions of state control.  It always has been from the time of Adolf Hitler and even well before (e.g., in ancient times, Philistine control over the manufacture of metal and other instances).

MSNBC:

When I launched Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, I understood I would encounter opposition from those who took issue with my view – the same held by most gun owners – that firearm safety and responsibility go hand-in-hand with our Second Amendment rights.

I knew that sometimes these debates would get heated. In fact, I’ve always welcomed and embraced debate. That said, I’ve also always vowed to remain civil and to avoid cruel, ad hominem attacks in my work as a gun violence prevention advocate.

Unfortunately, as several recent incidents chronicled in Mother Jones make clear, a number of people on the extreme other side of this debate have shown they have no interest in adhering to a similar pledge.

[ … ]

When it comes to protecting our children, our families and our communities from gun violence – moms will never give up.

Yea.  We won’t either.  And we have the guns.

Star Tribune:

The families of four New York state firefighters are suing St. Paul-based Gander Mountain, alleging that the retailer could have prevented a “straw buyer” from purchasing a rifle used in a deadly Christmas Eve 2012 ambush.

The suit, which has the support of prominent gun control advocates, said the rifle used in the bloody predawn incident should never have been sold to a woman who came to a Rochester, N.Y., store in June 2010 with the eventual shooter at her side.

The families said in a joint statement that they originally believed the four had been shot in “yet another random act of violence. … But as time went by, new and very troubling facts emerged. These facts suggest that the loss we have endured could have been avoided. If only the store had acted responsibly.”

A spokesman for Gander Mountain, the nation’s largest outdoors outfitter, said the company had been forthcoming in the investigation and is committed to safety.

“We will vigorously defend ourselves in this matter,” spokesman Jess Myers added.

Shelley Leeson, who heads the Twin Cities Gun Owners & Carry Forum, said trying to hold Gander responsible for the incident was “bogus.” She accused the advocates behind the suit of “playing the emotions of the victims’ families to further their gun control agenda to punish manufacturers and retailers.”

She added that it appears Gander Mountain followed the legally required procedures for the sale and “cannot be held responsible for second-guessing the intentions or future actions of every purchaser.”

To be fair I don’t know the facts of the case, but no gun seller can reasonably be held responsible for lying on form 4473.

Is it any wonder that this lawsuit is ensconced firmly in New York?  And is it any wonder that Remington is moving much of their operations to Huntsville, Alabama?

As for Remington, I’ll purchase a Remington shotgun when they move their operations out of New York for good and never return to that communist state.

UPDATE: Quite obviously, I had a bad misspelling in the subject line.  That’s rare for me, but it does happen when posts are made late at night.  I’ve corrected the title, but for those who use URL names sent via e-mail to read these links, I apologize for the correction, which will change the URL.

Lake News Online:

Shades of the Wild West on the Strip in Lake Ozark have prompted the Lake Ozark Police Chief and other city officials to tighten the rules on openly carrying firearms.

Chief Mark Maples told the board of aldermen Tuesday night he has received complaints that individuals are openly carrying firearms as they move from business to business. Maples said he recognizes that people who have conceal and carry permits have the right to carry weapons, but the open display of guns is causing some alarm.

“I don’t see why someone would want to carry a firearm in the open,” Maples said. “If a weapon is concealed it doesn’t cause any issues.”

The LOPD has had to send an officer more than once to investigate the complaint.

“It’s a real safety concern,” he explained.

As a result, the board gave first reading to an ordinance that prohibits people from openly carrying a firearm “readily capable of lethal use in a public place.” A public place is defined as any indoor or outdoor area ― whether publicly or privately owned ― to which the public has access. Exempt is a location used exclusively for a private gathering or personal use.

City Attorney Roger Gibbons said a city can regulate the use of firearms.

“We don’t want people to carry open firearms in the city,” he said.

Missouri is generally an open carry state, but the only allowable preemption is open carry.

Of course, Mark Maples is lying.  He certainly does understand why someone would want to carry a gun openly.  If he claims otherwise, tell him to order his officers to carry concealed.  And when he tries to explain that they are law enforcement officers, remind him that the Supreme Court decided in Tennessee Versus Garner that law enforcement officers carry their weapons for exactly the same reason that we do, i.e., self defense, which is the only legitimate use of a weapon by LEOs.

As for open carry being a “safety issue,” he’s just making things up.  Open carry is no more a safety issue than concealed carry, and if he has a problem with open carry because of “safety,” then he is lying about his alleged support for concealed carry.

As for the city attorney, his job is to represent the city in legal problems without prejudice.  Whether the city allows open carry is none of his damn business.

Folks, I know that there are those who prefer to carry concealed, and honestly I would prefer not to carry at all.  I don’t wear rings, necklaces, or jewelry of any kind, and it highly annoys me even to carry a wallet or my car keys.  I don’t like things on me, around me or weighing me down.  It’s a wonder I am able to go backpacking without throwing all of my gear down somewhere on the trail.  Staying alive is the only reason I don’t get rid of all of my gear.

And speaking of staying alive, I carry despite my desires, not because of them.  Tucking a gun into my waistband is about the most hideous thing I’ve ever tried to do.  It digs into my hip and I sweat the weapon.  It’s bad for me, and bad for my gun.  I much prefer concealed carry some other way (than IWB) if I must conceal.  But I don’t like to conceal, and find open carry somewhat less irritating than concealed carry.  Note that I didn’t say I like it.  I find it less annoying.

Since my desires in this matter are in line with our wise founders (who expected men to carry weapons to church with them and practice on Sunday), I feel that it’s my detractors who bear the weight of burden, not me.  My practices are in line with our history.

One writer from Michigan weighs in this way.

When a man was seen carrying a rifle down Cork Street recently, people called the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety.

There is a national movement among some gun-rights advocates to carry their guns openly in public, arguing they are exercising their Second Amendment rights.

But at what point do those rights supersede the average citizen’s right to feel safe while also walking down the street?

Where is that “right to feel safe” written in the constitution?  Tell me, chapter and verse.  I’ve told you about the historical and constitutional basis for what I do.  Now tell me about your “right to feel safe.”  And stop complaining about seeing a gun on my hip.

David Codrea:

The same whistleblower source contacted this correspondent yesterday evening to express the opinion that questions raised in this column’s May 9 report have influenced this latest congressional inquiry. What remains to be seen now is how much stonewalling in response to the letter, which requests a response by June 2, will occur, and how much information Jones will withhold under a claim of “Privacy Act” provisions against disclosing personnel matters.

It’s always nice to see that David is making a difference with highly placed readers.  I have no indication at all that I’ve had such an effect.

David at JPFO:

“[C]ivilians are not allowed to possess machine-guns, military rifles and handguns … private possession of semi-automatic assault weapons [and] private possession of handguns (pistols and revolvers) is prohibited,” the site advises. Add to that licensing, background checks and registration for what they are allowed to own, a prohibition on concealed carry and stiff criminal penalties for gun law violations, and Nigeria is one of those places where the “law-abiding” are at extreme disadvantage.

Boko Haram, which doesn’t let such details slow them down a beat, finds such conditions enabling.

Recall also that we discussed Nigeria and gun control just a few days ago.  David prefaces his remarks by pointing out other problems associated with assistance to Niger.  I had also noted over the weekend that Nigeria is corrupt, with Army generals under investigation for providing weapons to Boko Haram.

Kurt Hofmann:

… the Bureau seems to have painted itself into something of an awkward corner when someone applies for a new machine gun on behalf of a trust.

I’ve seen that among other agencies and bureaus too when the combination of the law, regulation (which isn’t law no matter what you’ve been led to believe), interpretations of regulation, and filed federal register notices and discussions create such a confused entanglement and web of requirements that they are bound to be self contradictory somewhere.  The sad part is that this has never stopped any federal regulator from doing exactly what he wanted to do, in my experience.

Mike Vanderboegh has an interesting discussion on Wayned Hage and his battle with the BLM.  As the situation evolved between the BLM and Mr. Bundy, I also couldn’t help but think of Wayne Hage.

Jerry Miculek discusses and demonstrates a number of good pistol shooting techniques, including why he uses the isosceles stance.

As a perfect followup to Concerning The Nigerian Christian Girls (albeit coincidental), a Nigerian named Emmanuel Onwubiko weighs in on the issue of gun control in Nigeria.

Section 33[1] of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 [as amended]clearly says that every Nigerian has the inalienable right to life. How then do you safeguard this sacred constitutional right to life in a situation of near-anarchy which has exacerbated with the arrival, over four years now, of armed Islamic terrorists  known as Boko Haram? These terrorists invade towns and villages killing, maiming and destroying innocent lives and property of Nigerians and the security forces seem clearly unable to provide security for all people.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, told the British Broadcasting Corpo­ration (BBC) television in an interview con­ducted on May 9, 2014 that North-East Nigeria was such a large expanse of land. This is interpreted to mean that the soldiers should not be expected to be everywhere in the three states under emergency rule in the terrorism-prone Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States. If the states that are under partial emergency are not sufficiently protected, do you expect that other states would be protected?

Little wonder then that in the North-West and North-Central, armed hoodlums suspected to be Fulani herdsmen have been on the rampage, killing people and destroying many villages.

May 8, 2014, the online version of The Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom reported that of as many as 300 people were killed close to Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, while the Islamist group continued to hold more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

The writer continues with an analysis of other countries which allow the ownership of guns, concluding that the crime rate is much lower than in Nigeria.  He concludes with this.

In these jurisdictions, there are evidence that crime rates are minimal but in Nigeria where government disallows people from bearing firearms except the useless hunting Dane guns for the village hunters, armed hoodlums have wasted hundreds of thou­sands of innocent lives and these lives would have been saved if Nigerians of sound men­tal state with clean criminal records were li­censed to carry firearms.

Will the Nigerian Government stand idly and watch as armed hoodlums decimate Ni­gerians in their thousands before it can do the needful to legalize individual firearms own­ership under certain regulations? My take is that the Nigerian Government must liberal­ize firearms ownership in Nigeria as one way of safeguarding right to life since the armed forces and police have proved seriously chal­lenged and unable to be everywhere to pro­tect the lives of Nigerians and the constitu­tion makes it imperative that the security and welfare of every citizen is the primary duty of government. A stitch in time saves nine.

What do Nigerian genocide and gun control have in common?  One enabled the other as a catalyst or at least a contributing cause, if not the root cause.  And thus the solution is simple.

John McCain says this concerning the kidnapped Christian girls in Nigeria.

“If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country,” McCain told The Daily Beast Tuesday. “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan,” he added, referring to the president of Nigeria.

Of course, that’s not the solution for Christians anywhere.  U.S. special operations (McCain probably meant “operations,” not “forces”), cannot and should not be the moral conscience of the world.

Christians have been run out of Mesopotamia, killed and tortured in Egypt, and are being brutalized all over the world.  And the evil leader of this Islamic group in Nigeria claims that he has converted the girls to Islam.

He can “convert” the girls because all he has to do is force them under threat of death to say a few things and wear a few more clothes.  Islam has no Holy Spirit who moves as He will and does what he wishes, converting the hearts of His people.  Rather, it is a man-made religion, concocted by a violent and self serving seventh century warlord, child abuser, pedophile and murderer for the purpose of keeping his roving bad of hoodlums and ne’er-do-wells together.  It’s pronouncements are ad hoc groupings of ridiculous assertions, and the only thing not illogical in all it its literature was stolen from other faiths.  The seeds of violent subjugation are within the texts of Islam itself.  It isn’t a religion of peace.  It’s a religion of perverts and totalitarians.

Christians can preachy preach the gospel of pacifism if they want to.  They can conflate the Bible to mean that Christians must be a doormat for the world.  But it was preachers who supplied the moral underpinnings of the American war for independence.  There is nothing necessary in the modern  squishy Christianity we hear and see today.  It’s a choice because at the moment it’s convenient to make that choice and feel morally superior to everyone else.

But children are dying all over the world.  As long as Christians want to mouth silly platitudes to parishioners and congregants, Christian children will continue to die, and Christians will have to flee for their lives.  The solution lies in arming themselves and waging the good fight against Islamists everywhere.  A well placed .308 to the whole body, or several rounds of 5.56 to the head and chest, or a 230 grain .45 fat boy through the stomach should do just fine at stopping the Islamists in Nigeria.

Christians.  Buy guns and ammunition.  Learn to use them.  The Islamists are closer than you think, and sooner or later calls to prayer will be heard in places other than Detroit, Michigan.  Americans aren’t immune to this problem.  We’re just the final conquest.

See WRSA for some well placed ridicule of McCain.

See also Christians, The Second Amendment, And The Duty Of Self Defense.

ABC11:

VANCE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) — A homeowner in Vance County opened fire on a man who kicked in his door Monday morning.

It happened about 9:45 a.m. as the homeowner, Jonathan Haith, was sleeping in his home in the 2200 block of Thomas Lane.

“Somebody was you know knocking on the door at 9:15, 9:30 in the morning,” said Haith. “I wanted to roll over and stay in the air conditioning, and I just ignored it.”

When the door knocks lasting 15 minutes were followed by a boom and a thud, Haith grabbed his AR-15 semi-automatic from under his bed and slowly crept into the hallway.

“I peeked around the corner, saw a tall, slender black gentleman standing over me with a pistol,” said Haith.

When the intruder shot at Haith with a 9mm and missed, he fired back. The bullet pierced the suspect’s stomach and shoulder.

“That was my round,” said Haith. “Evidently, it went through his body and struck the wall.”

Pandemonium followed, and the intruder scurried out. An apparent getaway vehicle spun out of Haith’s yard to pick up the intruder, who had collapsed outside of a day care up the street.

By that time, Haith had dialed 911.

“Once-in-a-lifetime incident that I hope doesn’t happen again,” said Haith.

The Vance County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t officially released any details of the incident.

According to Haith, both the driver and the shooter were taken into custody. He says the intruder who he shot was last listed in critical condition at the hospital.

Yea.  Once in a lifetime.  That’s may be what Mr. Stephen Bayezes thought too, but I guess it’s nice to have the accuracy of a rifle combined with the capability of repeat fire when your life is at stake – once in a lifetime or not.

And I thought those awful “military-style” weapons had no place in the home?

David Codrea:

That’s the culmination of a series of “musical chairs” personnel moves involving Zapor that, per a whistleblower source, have been unwarranted, needlessly expensive, and ultimately, politically protective of management.

The relationship at this level of politics is incestuous.  None of this is surprising, but it’s a good read nonetheless.  And no wonder ATF morale is in the toilet.

Kurt Hofmann:

But back to the original question of bazookas. Why shouldn’t their possession by private citizens be protected? It’s not as if governments never use tanks against private citizens (see attached video), and nor can it be denied that enormous, heavily armored vehicles are becoming more and more routinely part of civilian police agencies’ equipment in the U.S.

We should.  And I should be able to own and M1A1 tank if I can afford it.

Via Mike Vanderboegh, this from The Salt Lake Tribune:

With anti-government sentiments roiling in the aftermath of Cliven Bundy’s Nevada standoff, government workers in western Utah are stripping BLM logos from their vehicles after two motorists brandished a gun and displayed a threatening sign at a federal wrangler who was driving Tuesday in Juab County.

The wrangler was driving a load of horses and burros north on Interstate 15 about 11 a.m. near Mills when a dark blue Dodge 1500 extended-cab pickup pulled up alongside the wrangler. The two occupants “told him he was No. 1 with that certain gesture,” said Eric Reid, the wrangler’s supervisor at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Fillmore Field Office.

It’s insulting to wranglers everywhere to call anyone who works for the BLM a “wrangler.”  As a former wrangler I’d kick the crap out of anyone with the BLM taking such a title.

WRSA has more on the Miami-Dade shooting frenzy by cops.  For the best analysis of what should be done about this, see my commenter Archer.

I’d charge all of them with first-degree murder (one count for each of the two people in the car) with the included lesser offenses of second-degree murder and manslaughter, conspiracy to commit the same (one count for each of the two people in the car), willful negligence/disregard for safety (one count for every bullet fired and another for the chase), endangering the public (one count for every bullet fired and another for the chase), assaulting a police officer (one count for each of the two officers hit by friendly fire), assault with a deadly weapon (one count for each of the two officers hit by friendly fire)…. I could go on. Under Florida’s “10/20/Life” statute, they’d all get 20 years, minimum, EVEN IF the shooting of the two in the car is ruled justified – which would be a stretch given the totally disproportionate amount of force present/used. Watch the media clamor to find a “Stand Your Ground” defense for the “public safety” officers.

After this event, it’s apparent once again that we need controls on assault hammers.