Archive for the 'Guns' Category

Harvard Business Review has a hypothetical case they have posed to readers.  It begins this way.

As the founder and president of a new ethical bank focused on environmental sustainability, Jay McGuane realized that he and his board needed to set guidelines about which loans to approve and which to reject on “values” grounds. In his eagerness to start running the business, he’d put the issue off, but the bank was already confronting two problematic requests, one involving fracking and another concerning guns.

Without clear ethics rules, Jay worried that his already divided directors would fall into bitter squabbling, which could lead to resignations, negative media attention, and a flight of investors.

Take not of the silly way in which this supposed business case has been framed.  Investors are scrambling.  There is a veritable “flight” of investors, an analogue to the way investors are fleeing Cerberus-Freedom Group over the poor performance of gun investments over the past couple of years, I suppose.

It ends much the same way it began.

“Sure, they sell to the military,” Neitha said. “But you can buy the FF286 at gun shows. That’s what makes it one of Field Force’s most profitable products. Our bank’s mission is sustainability. How can we have a sustainable society where military-grade guns are being used to kill children? How can we, in good conscience, do business with that company?”

“It’s a no-brainer,” Clyde said. “Jay was talking about establishing guidelines for decisions. I’m all in favor of weighing the pros and cons—let’s do that when we discuss the shale gas loan. But when it comes to guns, there’s only one guideline we should follow.” He turned to Fred Keeler. “It’s like the Hippocratic Oath, right? First, do no harm. Or how about this: Do no evil.”

It was Fred who had advocated saying no to a loan if there was mere indication of harm, but now he looked confused. He loved his gun collection, from the flintlocks to the Uzis, as Jay well knew. Fred asked, of no one and everyone, “But what is ‘harm’? What is ‘evil’?”

I once worked for a manager whom I liked very much, and he worked extremely hard until his retirement, upon which he had planned to do what he had trained himself to do for years – sail.  He and his wife, together, enjoying their golden years on the sea.  Then a drunk teenage driver killed his wife just after his retirement.  I was heartbroken for him, but of course not as heartbroken as he was.

Notice that the Harvard Business Review didn’t pose the “problem” of loans to purchase automobiles as the dilemma.  Because apparently Harvard School of Business no longer teaches business.  They teach goofy, worthless courses in political correctness and effete, urbanized progressivism.

By now it has become common knowledge that Smith & Wesson has rejected microstamping and will revise they way they distribute in California.  The author of the bill has called their position baloney.

Feuer is the one whose position is baloney.  It would be a profoundly bad idea for any gun maker to engage in such a practice.  First of all, if a manufacturer ever crafts guns that are microstamped, the entire gun community would know within a day what firearm it is, and would never expend the effort necessary to ascertain whether the specific gun they want to purchase has been microstamped.  Sales of used firearms of that make would plummet and the value of the gun would go to about zero.  Second, the gun community would within short order let that manufacturer know exactly where we stand.  Smith & Wesson has been there and done that.  They won’t be going back.

But it isn’t that simple.  Read some of Smith & Wesson’s statement.

Smith & Wesson Corp. announced today that although it continually seeks ways to refine and improve its firearms so that consumers have access to the best possible products, the State of California is making that impossible when it comes to California residents.

Under California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act,” any new semi-automatic pistol introduced into that state must comply with microstamping laws. In addition, California asserts that anything other than a cosmetic change to a handgun already on the California Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale, including performance enhancements and other improvements, requires it to be removed from the roster and retested. For semi-automatic pistols, this means it must comply with the microstamping requirements, as well.

Smith & Wesson does not and will not include microstamping in its firearms. A number of studies have indicated that microstamping is unreliable, serves no safety purpose, is cost prohibitive and, most importantly, is not proven to aid in preventing or solving crimes. The microstamping mandate and the company’s unwillingness to adopt this so-called technology will result in a diminishing number of Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistols available for purchase by California residents.

This is not a problem unique to Smith & Wesson. The microstamping legislation and California’s position regarding performance enhancements and other improvements creates the same challenge for all firearm manufacturers, since presumably all of them refine and improve their products over time.

Smith & Wesson currently produces a California-compliant version of its M&P® Shield and SDVE™ pistols. Both of these new products were launched last week at SHOT Show® in Las Vegas and are expected to begin shipping within 90 days. They are expected to more than offset the impact of those M&P pistol models that will not remain on the Roster. Both the M&P Shield and the SDVE pistols are expected to remain on the California Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale as long as no changes are made to those models and the company does not plan to make changes to them for this reason. All other Smith & Wesson handguns are at risk of eventually falling off the roster over time. The company expects that any current production revolvers that fall off will be re-tested and returned to the roster, since microstamping does not apply to revolvers. Without some change in position by California, however, any semi-automatic pistols (other than the California-compliant models referenced above) that are removed from the roster will not be returned and law-abiding citizens will not be permitted to buy them from a licensed dealer in California.

Absent in this statement is what Smith & Wesson will do about sales to law enforcement of M&P models and any other model that interests LEOs.  Law enforcement is specifically exempted from any microstamping requirements.  It would be an abominble and obscene position to sell to law enforcement what the common citizens cannot legally have.

I have sent a note to Matt Rice for clarification.  I’ll keep readers informed on what Smith & Wesson says about this issue.

David Codrea:

As is typical with such publications, it only looks at (less than) half of the equation, disregarding the substantial number of defensive gun uses that occur each year …

David is on the case of that presumed “study” that concluded you are at risk for suicide if you own weapons, with no increase in personal security.  I’m glad David had the patience to undo the silliness in the report, since I usually skip past reports like this in a few seconds.  Listen folks.  I work engineering and science for a living.  When someone tells you that “science proves …,” or “science demonstratrates …,” take it with a grain of salt (and usually ignore it).  Like I have said before.  If you want me to give a report on science or engineering the time of day, get a registered professional engineer to prepare the calculations, seal the work with his PE seal, and send it to me for review.  Otherwise you’re just wasting my time.

David:

There’s another consideration, a speculation really, as information is sketchy: While ATF is prohibited by law from creating a database of gun owners, it appears federal power can trump state safeguards on medical marijuana records …

Well, you know what I have to say about that!  Federal regulation should NEVER be able to trump state laws on anything.  And oh, by the way, get cancer, and you may lose your guns.  Kurt Hofmann is also covering this issue.

Kurt Hofmann:

That last sentence is where the entire counterargument falls apart. No one seriously asserts a right to “murder, rape, and thieve out of self-defense.” Murder, rape and theft are all intrinsically evil acts, which violate the rights of others, and there is therefore no “right” to commit them–for anyone.

Kurt is dealing with one of the classical objections to our objections to more gun laws.  Kurt’s thinking is my thinking exactly.  But there are already laws against murder rape and kidnapping.  Making more doesn’t change things.

Daniel Greenfield (via WRSA):

Mayor Bloomberg flubbed the snow challenge badly. Instead of preparing road salt, he banned salt in restaurants. Instead of having a snow strategy for the winter, he had a Global Warming strategy for the next fifty years. Instead of doing his job, he kept trying to transform the people.

And his successor is no better.

Bill de Blasio’s focus after his petty and mean-spirited inauguration was a ban on carriage horses in Central Park at the behest of a real estate developer who backed his campaign and has his eye on their stables, a tussle over who will get the credit for Pre-K with Governor Cuomo and the beating of Kang Wong, an 84-year-old man, over a jaywalking ticket.

I think it’s awesome.  New Yorkers elected him.  Now.  Live with the consequences.

Daily Caller reports on Castle Rock repealing their ban on open carry.  Good for them.

Coloradoan.com:

The embattled Berthoud police department bought fully automatic military-grade machine guns, hired officers who showed “glaring” signs of illegal and inappropriate behavior, and then gave them “woefully inadequate” training, Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith says.

In a letter sent to town officials and made public Tuesday night, Smith offers a scathing critique of the department, which has come under fire for child-abuse allegations leveled against one of its officers. That officer was arrested, and Police Chief Glenn Johnson resigned amidst allegations he knew about the accusations against his officer but did nothing.

Since October, Smith’s deputies have been serving as the town’s police force at officials’ request.

In his letter, Smith said the department was rife with mismanagement, from poorly handled evidence, paperwork and personnel files to broken Tasers and in-car laptops. He said problems within the department risked breaking the trust between the public and law enforcement, and risked letting criminals go unprosecuted because court documents weren’t being filed on time.“Most shockingly, fully automatic machine guns (not appropriate for standard police operations) were acquired from the military and were stored in open room with minimal security,” Smith wrote. “At the Berthoud Police Department, we found that the chief has overlooked and neglected many of the things that are absolutely necessary to leading an effective and accountable police operation.”

[ … ]

“The application and hiring process for town officers allowed unqualified individuals to be hired and to maintain employment, despite glaring warning signs of inappropriate and sometimes illegal behavior,” Smith wrote to the town. “Paperwork filing appeared to be haphazard at best. The chief did not maintain appropriate personnel files on his officers, yet he had documents in town filing cabinets from his previous employment. Those files should have never left those agencies.”

[ … ]

Police officer Jeremy Yachik was fired by the town in October after he was arrested on child-abuse charges after video surfaced of Yachick allegedly beating his daughter.

Good grief.  And they say that we’re unqualified to own fully automatic firearms.  Perhaps rather than repealing the Hughes amendment (itself an obscene abomination) as I have advocated, we ought to insist that it be repealed for us and applied exclusively to law enforcement.

These guys were just a dangerous hazard top to bottom.

David Codrea:

While doing some internet searches to support Saturday’s column about Oregon Firearms Federation accusing anti-gun state senator Floyd Prozanski of lying when he promised his bill regarding private transfers would not accomplish registration, I by chance came across a bizarre “tweet” from an unlikely source.

“Oregon Firearms Federation are pigs” …

David also covered this same sort of hate-filled, violent, cruel reaction from the anti-gunners here.  Have you asked yourself why the anti-gunners are so violent?  I have, and I have my own views of the nature of progressives and totalitarians and why they do what they do.

Kurt Hofmann:

Last year, Missouri HB 436. the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” was passed by large, bipartisan majorities, in both chambers of the Missouri legislature, and then vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon (D). The House overrode Nixon’s veto, but the Senate fell one vote short–that failure aided and abetted by a stab in the back from Republican senate “leadership.” This year, Representative Doug Funderburk (R-103rd District) is trying again …

I hope it has better success, and for heaven’s sake, make it a serious effort as we’ve discussed before.

Mike Vanderboegh is covering the new ATF appropriations bill.  Their efforts are likely to be damaging.  You know my view on this.  The second amendment – while I do not believe that it has a limitation to applicability to states or citizens in all of their relationships with all of government – was primarily written as was the balance of the constitution.  It circumscribes the power of the federal government.  The upshot is that all federal laws concerning firearms – each and every one of them – are unconstitutional.  Now there’s a cost savings idea for the administration concerning ATF funding.

WRSA: A nice looking H&K AR-15 to be sure.  I’ll stick with my Rock River Arms AR-15 because I like it.  Very much.  Very much indeed.  And I will just never have an NFA weapon because I’ll never beg the ATF for permission to do or have anything.

Finally, Semper Fee, dude.  My son Josh says, “She’s such an idiot. What kind of person lives as long as she has and never hears those words pronounced?  A raging, tree hugging, urban-spawned progressive.”

Guns.com:

Dash cam footage recently obtained by M Live shows the 14-minute confrontation in March between Grand Rapids Police Officers and 28-year-old Johann Deffert over a legally possessed firearm. An incident which has resulted in a federal lawsuit against the city and the officers involved.

Deffert was simply taking a walk down the street on a Sunday morning after he had finished enjoying breakfast at a nearby restaurant when he was stopped and detained by police because he was openly carrying a holstered handgun, which is legal in the state of Michigan.

Officer William Moe was the first to confront Deffert after a woman called 911 to report that she had seen a man walking on the sidewalk with a gun “strapped to his leg.” The woman was surprised when the 911 operator informed her that open carry was legal in the state.

After asking several questions about what is and is not legal when it comes to carrying firearms in the state, the woman insisted that the man looked “scary” because he was wearing camo and carrying a gun.

I see “scary” looking people every day and I don’t call the police to investigate them.  There is no law against looking scary.

The dispatcher sent an officer out to investigate the report of a “suspicious person.”

As Moe pulled his patrol car to the area where Deffert was walking, he told the dispatcher that the man did appear to have a holstered weapon and claimed that the man was “talking to nobody.”

As Moe exited the car, with his service pistol drawn and trained on Deffert, he ordered the man to get down on the ground and put his hands up. “Do not move,” he instructed Deffert, asking, “Why do you have a handgun on you?”

Deffert remained calm, cooperative and respectful and replied, “It’s my constitutional right to defend myself.”

But apparently that answer was not sufficient for Moe, who continued to probe the man about why he would be walking down the street openly carrying a firearm and eventually said, “I gotta make sure you’re not a felon, right?” Deffert informed the officer that he actually did not have to check on that and even offered to show him the penal code.

I’ve got a big, big problem here.  First of all not only is Michigan an open carry state, it has no stop and identify statute.  As far as the police officer is concerned, the person could have been Mutt or Jeff.  It doesn’t matter.  The officer violated the law by stopping him for the purpose of identifying who he is.  Here is the video.

And of course the second and biggest problem is that he unholstered his weapon and aimed it at Deffert.  This is an obvious lack of muzzle discipline and highly irresponsible and dangerous.  If we do things like that we get arrested on felony charges and go to prison, which is exactly what should happen to this officer.

Deffert has filed a lawsuit against the city.  I hope he wins, but more than that, I hope that God visits his wrath on the police department.  As for their police department response, they have requested that the case be thrown out.  Of course they have.  They should mind their manners a little more.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department was rebuked by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for this very thing.

Communist Cuomo in his own words.

The amusing thing is that he tried to walk this back by quoting his own words which are exactly as recorded above.  I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it again.  I plan my gun purchases around not buying products made in New York if possible.

So Remington, Kimber, and any other gun manufacturers still in New York – I have one question.  Why?  Why haven’t you relocated to another state where I can once again consider doing business with your company?

Orangeburg, S.C.

South Carolina authorities are searching for seven men involved in a bizarre home invasion and kidnapping.

Police were called to an Orangeburg home at approximately 3:55p.m. on Tuesday in reference to an burglary and kidnapping.

Authorities say their investigation indicates seven unknown males with guns forced their way into the residence, forcing three adults and six juveniles to the floor. One of the gunmen struck a 52-year-old woman in the head with a gun while she was protecting her grandson. A 4-month-old was taken from the residence.

According to police, this was a targeted crime.

Renee Gilliard wasn’t home at the time but said she was horrified to learn the only thing the intruders found was her baby girl. The baby was gone for about two hours before she was found in Berkeley County by a passerby who saw the criminals discard the child on the side of the road.

Yea.  A seven-man home invasion.  If you’re toting a 1911 from room to room, you’d better be damned accurate with that thing.  I have carried a rifle from room to room before around the house, but it’s truly obnoxious.  I would carry a 1911 around the house, but in a seven-man home invasion I think I’d be better off with one of my polymer-frame double-stack pistols.

Mike Vanderboegh:

Yet even the so-called “gun rights” media has been ignoring the story, apart from David Codrea, Kurt Hofmann and Anthony Martin.

I wouldn’t have expected the “prags” to cover it, of course. I have always made them nervous and occasionally, apoplectic. But there are others who I would have expected some coverage out of. Nada.

I’m not sure if I’m considered so-called gun rights media, but I’ve tried to send folks Mike’s direction and provide a brief bit of commentary here and here.  Mike is a semi-daily stop for me, as is Codrea, and you should spend a few minutes there every day yourself.

Regarding the “prags,” my experiences is somewhat different.  My article GOP Ready To Cave On Gun Control was linked by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.  Sebastian responded with Is The GOP Preparing To Cave?  The reason I know that it was a response to my article is that it was published after mine, and none of the organic links had any title even approaching “GOP Ready To Cave.”  This is what Sebastian said:

My big fear is that stories like this encourage the fatalistic among us, who will then fail to act because they think this is already a done deal, and nothing they do or say will matter. Let’s be focused on the real threats, and not rumors of threats, created by people who are drawing, to be charitable, questionable conclusions.

I don’t need Sebastian’s charity when I’m right, and I turned out right.  Cantor and Ryan pushed universal background checks, just like two GOP Senators are even now trying to push an unwarranted and intrusive expansion of mental health checks.  I know what Sebastian was thinking.  He wasn’t remembering the Barnhardt axiom (via WRSA).  At any rate, Sebastian responded to me without even linking my article and sending traffic my way, of course, unlike me where I follow proper internet protocol.  Bad form, I thought.  Still do.  The prags ignore Mike.  They respond to me without even linking.

David Codrea:

Running as an independent after being turned down for consideration by NRA’s nominating committee, Colandro promises to be the type of director capable of shaking up paid staff’s heretofore unbreakable grip on the board, paving the way for other candidates who would reform management policies away from an unsettling trend of offering compromises, political deal-making, and questionable political ratings …

David gives me a good reason to renew NRA membership, if for nothing more than to support folks like this.  As a nugget of gold, there is also a brief discussion on national right to carry in David’s article.

Kurt Hofmann:

I have never asked anyone to give my views any more weight because of my stint in the Army, and I will never claim that a person who has never served is therefore less qualified to comment on gun rights and “gun control.” Military service, past or present, plays no role in one’s authority on the issue of the right to keep and bear arms …

Oh, the progressives don’t really believe that as they claim.  They just believe that for cases like Robert Bateman because Bateman agrees with their view of gun control.  They don’t listen to those who have had military service and who disagree with their views, and they would just as soon throw Bateman under the bus when he’s finished pimping for them.  And military service doesn’t any more exclusively qualify one to comment on guns than it does for him to comment on driving a car because he drives away from the base for the weekend.

NSA phone spying is useless in preventing terrorist attacks.  But of course, that isn’t the point or purpose of the phone spying, is it?

On a different note, looks like another booger hook on the bang switch thing.

ABC News:

Having failed in an earlier effort to bar federal agents from enforcing gun regulations in Missouri, conservative lawmakers are trying a new tack this year: banding together with other like-minded states to defy certain federal laws at the same time.

Supporters believe it will be more difficult for the federal government to shrug off such statutes if more states act together.

Missouri’s latest proposal, introduced this past week, would attempt to nullify certain federal gun control regulations from being enforced in the state and subject law enforcement officers to criminal and civil penalties for carrying out such policies.

The state’s Republican-led Legislature came one vote shy of overriding Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of such a measure last year. This year’s bill adds a new twist, delaying the effective date for several years to allow time for other states to join the cause.

“We continue to see the federal government overreach their rightful bounds, and if we can create a situation where we have some unity among states, then I think it puts us in a better position to make that argument,” said Republican Sen. Brian Nieves, who is sponsoring the legislation.

Missouri’s efforts came after President Barack Obama called for expanded federal background checks and a ban on assault weapons following deadly mass shootings at a Colorado theater and a Connecticut elementary school.

Courts have consistently ruled that states cannot nullify federal laws, but that hasn’t stopped states from trying or ignoring them anyway. Last year, a federal appeals court struck down a 2009 Montana law that sought to prohibit federal regulation of guns that were manufactured in the state and remained within its borders.

A similar Kansas law that makes it a felony for a federal agent to attempt to enforce laws on guns made and owned in Kansas earned a rebuke from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

What else would you expect a federal court to decide?  And what else would you expect the communist Eric Holder to say?  We’ve discussed this before.  It is a mistake in strategy to look to the federal courts or any part of the federal government to protect your God-given rights, including your right to own weapons.

And nullification can work, but it has to have the support of the entire legislature and the Governor’s office, since the Governor is the chief law enforcement officer of the state.

These sideline discussions don’t rise to the level of strategy – not yet.  They’re still fumbling around with skirmish tactics.  If you have the full support of the state leaders, the next step is to craft the ensemble of laws for which federal agents will go to the state penitentiary.

Then when the first federal agent of any stripe attempts to enforce any of the laws in the ensemble you have crafted, put his ass in prison among the general population and throw away the key.  And then … use the state National Guard and if need be the unorganized militia to stop any further federal agents or anyone else from coming across state lines to free the federal agents from prison.

Then, and only then, will I believe that anyone is serious about nullification.  Then after other states see the success of the first state, they will learn the tactics and apply them.  And then it will be a strategy.