Archive for the 'Guns' Category

NBC4, Washington:

Police say a 17-year-old boy has been arrested for shooting at a group of fellow teens who approached him in an attempt to rob him.

According to the Mason Police District in Fairfax County, a group of five 17 and 18-year-old teens approached a 17-year-old boy they knew and demanded his cell phone in the 9300 block of Tovito Drive.

The five teens then confronted another 17-year-old they knew. However, that teen had a handgun he fired at the group. One 18-year-old was struck and transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The 17-year-old who fired the weapon was arrested and charged with malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

The report is short on details.  One possible course of action during a scenario like this is what I’ve discussed before, i.e., evasion, egress and escape.  Backing away and thus changing the circumstances is better than getting shot or shooting someone.  However, this isn’t always possible, and in fact a decision to evade can be foolish and life threatening if you are outnumbered, outgunned or even simply naive and overestimate your abilities.  In most cases I would treat an aggressive approach like this as life threatening and I would defend myself accordingly.

Interestingly, the police seem to concede the point by saying that the gang attempted to rob him.  As far as anyone knows, including the police, the gang never intended to stop at demanding loot.  It must be assumed that they intended to harm or kill him, or that it could have evolved into such a situation.  And given that knowledge, this report is beautiful in its simplicity.  The gang threatened the life of this young man, he defended his life, and now he is under arrest for it.  I suppose that the police would rather he have perished at the hands of the gang.

Welcome to Amerika, comrade!

From reader Michael:

I found you via Sipsey Street links and have been reading intermittently.   I had some free time this weekend, so after going to the range both days (yay), I was catching up on some articles I missed and when I saw some of the articles about abuse by police it reminded me of a recent encounter with our county sheriff’s deputies.

I went to the courthouse to renew an expired passport.   When I got to the metal detector, I started to empty my pockets.  I told the deputy manning the walk-through that I had a pistol and reached to unholster it, something I have done several times at this courthouse without incident (they have lockers to check any weapons).  The pistol was pointed toward the floor the instant it cleared the holster.  As soon as he saw it, he started screaming at me to give him the pistol.  He was quite abrupt, unneccesarily I thought since I was the one holding a pistol.  I told him I was going to clear the chamber before I handed it to him, but he continued to scream so I just handed it to him hot.  Once through the metal detector, the sheriff approached and asked if I was law enforcement.   He did not recognize me, disappointing since I take care of his wife, daughter and son-in-law, as well as having taken care of his late mother.  He was polite, but clearly of a superior attitude. When I came back, Seargant Schultz was on break and another deputy retrieved my pistol, but refused to return it to me until we had reached the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, about 100′.  During the entire walk, he kept asking “Why do you carry a pistol? (because I can), “Don’t you have a locked compartment in your car? (I have had several cars broken into, and I can’t protect myself with a pistol that is locked in my car), “Maybe you shouldn’t bring a gun to the courthouse” (your rule to not have it inside, so you should provide a place to check it).

This sheriff is new, currently serving his first term, but he apparently runs a rather loose-cannon department with disrespect for the people he allegedly serves.   Never had any problems like this with the prior sheriff, who retired after about 25 years.   Guess I know what campaign I will be working on the next time a sheriff election is held here.

Thanks for the writings.   Being a physician in this day and age is especially distressing, as I have a better idea than most (I think) of the mayhem that lies ahead in our already collapsing “health-care” system.  Your take on events (as well as that of Mike Vanderbough, David Codrea, and WRSA) is a reassuring boost to a flagging spirit.

The Kansas City Star:

Some 30,000 people in the U.S. die each year by gunshot, and one reason there aren’t more effective efforts to stop the carnage is that “the faith community has been asleep — fast asleep,” says a pastor who has worked for decades to reduce gun violence.

PTR Industries released a statement not long ago that read in part:

With a heavy heart but a clear mind, we have been forced to decide that our business can no longer survive in Connecticut – the former Constitution state.

Furthermore, we feel that our industry as a whole will continue to be threatened so long as it remains in a state where its elected leaders have no regard for the rights of those who produce and manufacture its wealth. We are making a call to all involved in our industry to leave this state, close your doors and show our politicians the true consequences of their hasty and uninformed actions. We encourage those in our industry to abandon this state as its leaders have abandoned the proud heritage that forged our freedom.

This is a strong statement, and pertains not only to what PTR Industries intends to do with their own business, but their admonition to other manufacturers in Connecticut (are you listening, Colt and Mossberg?).  But now we know where they are headed.

Michael Bane:

So I’m in charge of taking care of the menagerie tonight and the television is on to keep me company. I’m listening to a Republican — let me restate that…Republican — analyst state how excited he is about a 2016 Presidential match-up between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie. Because, see, Chris Christie is the bestest conservative Republican candidate in the whole wide world!

I have to say that Chris Christie would be the final straw…I have been as pragmatic as anyone on wading through this political cesspool…sucked it up for McCain…sucked it up for Romney…but I will be damned if I’ll cast a vote for an antigun floating…well, whatever it is that floats in cesspools…like Chris Christie.

Right.  Chris Christie is a gun-grabber, and take careful note that he appointed a Senator who is the same thing.  His record speaks volumes.

David Codrea notes that the NYPD was rebuffed concerning purchase of a sniper rifle (see WRSA too).

The Survivalist Blog publishes a piece on why one writer got his concealed carry permit.  David Codrea notes why he didn’t.

The Yankee Gunner has a nice piece on open carrying in Connecticut at Newtown.  Yes, Newtown.  You heard that right.

Finally, The Charlotte Observer has a piece on Police Chief Rodney Monroe on his support for gun controls.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe called for a national assault weapons ban on Tuesday, joining a growing number of police chiefs across the country who have said the assault-style weapons should be outlawed.

Monroe said he feels strongest about restrictions on guns with high-capacity magazines, like the one used in the Newtown, Conn., shootings that left 20 children dead.

“We should not be seeing those kinds of weapons on our city streets,” Monroe said. “Back in the early ’90s, when we had the assault weapons ban, we saw a significant decrease in multiple shootings, multiple gun violence, so it only makes sense that we consider that again.”

Monroe called for the assault weapons ban during a meeting of the Business Leaders of Charlotte, a group that brings high-profile Charlotteans in as speakers every month to discuss issues of the day.

“I hope today that we can take away an honest understanding of the gun-control debate in the country,” said Michael Barney, the group’s president.

Monroe also told the group he thinks everyone who buys a gun should be subjected to a background checks.

You know, it’s really a shame.  Years ago the functions of Sheriff and Police were separated in order to stop politics within the functions of police – because the police ought to be policing, not politicking.  Guess it didn’t work out so well.

Via David Codrea, N.C. Sheriffs on purchasing weapons:

The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association (NCSA) is pressuring both House Speaker Thom Tillis (R, Mecklenburg, GRNC ****)  and NC Governor Pat McCrory (R, GRNC-***) to oppose GRNC’s repeal of the antiquated pistol purchase permit system that has been in place since 1919. As part of omnibus gun bill HB 937, which contains restaurant and limited campus carry, the purchase permit law would be repealed IF the House votes to concur with Senate improvements to the bill and IF Gov. McCrory doesn’t veto it.

The purchase permit law slated for elimination through HB 937 was designed to grant discriminatory power to NC Sheriffs and enable them to subjectively deny handguns whoever they consider “undesirable.” To this day, several counties abuse the permit system in ways that make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to rightfully obtain handguns.

Ironically, as documented by The Charlotte Observer, the law sheriffs defend is  letting untold numbers of felons bypass background checks to buy guns. Why? Because the untrackable slips of paper issued by sheriffs after background checks can’t be repealed and are good for 5 years. Eliminating the system would mean that checks using the National Instant Background Check System (NICS) would be done at the point of sale.

I don’t want to turn this conversation into one on open carry of firearms, but it’s relevant.  I’ve discussed before that I openly carry a weapon from time to time, mostly when I am trying to avoid sweating my weapon and don’t want to carry IWB.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police respect that choice, and smile and wave when they see me.

But it isn’t like that everywhere.  Even the CMPD has to be reminded of our rights.

Sean Sorrentino notes an instance where the 4th Circuit had to reprimand the Charlotte Police for using openly carrying a weapon as a reason to stop an individual, even someone who later turned out to have been guilty of a crime.  Even worse, I know individuals who live around the Lake Norman / Huntersville area (North of Charlotte) who openly carry, and one particular individual has been stopped by both local and state police.  Both times the law enforcement officer unholstered his weapon and pointed at my friend for doing nothing more than walking on the sidewalk.

Note to law enforcement in North Carolina.  The answer above by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police (“not breaking any laws …”) is the right one.  You cannot lawfully detain or arrest someone for openly carrying a weapon.  It is legal in North Carolina, as North Carolina is a traditional open carry state.  LEOs need to know and understand the law.  If you continue to unholster and point your weapons at someone who is behaving legally, an innocent person will eventually be harmed or killed and you will be responsible for it.  Don’t be ignorant.  Be thinking men and women.

Isn’t it ironic that the only ones who want final say over who can carry a weapon are some of the very ones who will unholster their weapons and point them at law abiding citizens?  I would be arrested and charged with brandishing a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon (assault can mean perceived intent), and a host of other things if I did that.  But then again, I don’t get to argue in front of the court that I wanted to make sure that I “went home at the end of the day.”  Only LEOs get to do that.

Local LEO approval of firearms purchases is a throwback to Jim Crow laws, plain and simple.  Their approval does nothing that form 4473 doesn’t accomplish.  And LEOs who point their weapons at law abiding open carriers should be prosecuted for crimes in court.

David Codrea:

An elementary school toy gun “buyback” conducted Saturday in Hayward, Calif. offered children a chance to win bicycles in exchange for violating a school policy that does not authorize exceptions.

“Playing with toys guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real gun,” Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill maintained in a Mercury Daily News report, with absolutely nothing to substantiate his ignorant, offensive and absurd claim.

“If we want older kids to not think guns are cool, we need to start early,” Hill proclaimed, revealing his interest is manipulating the way children entrusted to his care perceive and react to issues, that is, by adopting the beliefs that agree with his. In other contexts, this would rightfully be perceived as educational malpractice and psychological child abuse.

I am proud to report that my two year old grandson already knows that papa has guns, and he wants to look at them.  We are already teaching him that guns are cool.  As soon as he is able to handle it, he will be the proud recipient of a .22 rifle and he will learn all about the rules for gun safety.

Because guns are cool.

Read the rest at Examiner.

According to one doctor, this becomes something more than you and your children.  Listen carefully.

In the middle of a routine well-child visit, my 4-year-old patient started creating a ruckus in the exam room. Johnny systematically opened all the cabinets, pulled out any loose bits of paper he could find, and tore them up. He then got on the exam table, picked up my expensive ophthalmoscope, and almost took a dive to the floor before his dad stopped him.

Knowing that unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death among children, I used this opportunity to educate Johnny’s parents about safety at home.

Do you have your medicine cabinet locked? Are detergent bottles kept in the top shelf? Do you have working fire alarms? Do you have guns in your home?

While a routine part of well-child checkups, that last question has come under scrutiny lately. Why do I ask?

The data are clear: Gun violence is a public-health threat to children.

Now, it occurs to me that gun owners must consider what they might say when asked by their doctor about guns.  I could say something like the following.

“Well doctor, I’ll answer your questions about guns, but first you must give me verbal and written agreement that you’ll also respond to my questionnaire, and that I can publish the data (if you refuse to answer any specific question the answer reverts to the default answer in the data bank).  I have a web site with a page rank of 5, and after I publish your name and the Q&A session, I’ll own the Google search results on your name within 20 minutes of the page being indexed.  Yes I own guns.  Now for your questions.  First, do you still sexually abuse your wife?”

But I don’t have to do that.  I am good friends with my doctor, and I would respond (I’ll assume that his name is Michael), “Why yes, Michael, you know that I do.  You’ve been shooting with me before.  Why would you ask me?  How much pressure is the new Obamacare paperwork putting on you, and how late do you stay up doing it?  Is there something you need to tell me?  Why are you being forgetful like this?”

But take note of the reasons for the doctor’s questions.  Guns are a “public health concern.”  Doctors have been trained to treat “social ills” for the collective.  This mentality is alive and well among the totalitarians in the most recent attempt to encroach on firearms and related information.

Experts laid out a broad plan for firearms research on Wednesday, saying data is needed on who owns guns, where they keep them, how likely a gun is to be used to hurt someone else, whether having a gun keeps you safer, and whether there are ways to make guns any safer.

“There is no question that this is a public health issue,” says Dr. Alan Leshner, who chaired the Institute of Medicine panel that issued the report. “We have no political agenda.”

[ … ]

“Basic information about gun possession, acquisition, and storage is lacking. No single database captures the total number, locations, and types of firearms and firearm owners in the United States,” the report notes.

This work was commissioned by the totalitarian in chief, Mr. Obama himself.  And of course they’re “experts.”  And of course they want more information.  And of course they want to know everything about all people who own firearms.  And of course they intend to push so-called smart guns.

And if Mr. Obama cannot get the Senate to pass his gun legislation, maybe he can convince everyone that guns are a public health concern worthy of engagement by physicians who need to know everything about you and your guns.  This is the argument du jour.

It’s just totalitarianism masquerading as public health, and there is no doubt that state universities all over America teach it to doctors and in MPH courses.  There is nothing new under the sun.

Paul Markel writes a fawning piece at AmmoLand on the AR-15 being the king of home defense.

What is the most effective tool to engage and defeat these vermin as rapidly as possible? Handguns are carried for convenience, not power. No handgun, regardless of caliber or configuration, can produce the same effect as a centerfire rifle.

This is not opinion, this is physics. Crunch the numbers and even the mighty .44 Magnum pales in comparison to the 5.56x45mm or 7.62x39mm. Many years ago an instructor friend of mine offered that “a handgun is simply a rifle waiting to grow up”.

Also, it cannot be denied that a long gun (rifle or shotgun) as a tool is much easier to aim and index on a target than a handgun. Again, this is simply physics. A rifle has four points of contact with the body and a long sight radius. By comparison, a handgun has only two points of contact, the left and right hand, and a short sight radius. Rifles are infinitely more forgiving of slight errors in sight alignment and body movement than are handguns.

As a practical matter, during the panic and adrenaline dump of a life threatening attack, the rifle will be inherently easier to index on target and as an added benefit transition to additional targets more quickly than will any pistol, regardless of make, model, or caliber. While you might desire to argue this point, your energy might be better served elsewhere.

Here is a quick number crunch for the doubting Thomases in the audience. The following numbers come directly from Hornady. The Hornady .44 Magnum 180grain FTX load generates 610 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle. By comparison, the 5.56mm 75g. BTHP generates 1410 FPE and the 6.8mmSPCII cartridge with a 110g. BTHP bullet produced 1588 FPE.

To be sure, I like the AR-15 for home defense, and I’ve written so before.  But it’s more complicated than Paul makes it out to be.  I recommend (as I have before) that you send your wife and children to the movies one night, turn the lights out, and practice turning corners and developing your sight picture in rooms with a rifle and tactical light.  I have.

I also carry my weapon from room to room with me at night.  One of my handguns isn’t sitting too far from me as I write.  So I recommend that in order to get the full effect of using a rifle exclusively for home defense, you tote your AR-15 from room to room with you at night.

You see, there are legitimate reasons for handguns, portability being one, maneuverability being another.  No one argues that a rifle will deliver more punch due entirely to muzzle velocity.  But don’t tell me that a .45 caliber 230 grain fat boy won’t deliver enough punch to handle most situations.  And don’t tell that to John Basilone.  Toward the dawn of the battle, Basilone fought Japanese soldiers using only a .45 pistol.

Via WRSA, Max Velocity has an interesting article up on the inability to obtain fire superiority.  The whole article is worth reading, but this part struck me.

So back to the bolt action rifles in the original question: there is no reason why such weapons cannot be used to suppress the enemy, particularly if their very nature means you have to be more accurate with them. This exposes the weakness of automatic weapons: if you face someone with uncontrolled automatic weapons, they could be hosing down your general area but not effectively, while you can put one through their eye with your bolt action rifle. That does not mean all automatic weapons are bad, it depends on the operator: a good operator with a SAW firing short controlled burst will kill/suppress well.

Similarly with semi-automatic weapons with thirty round magazines, like AK or ARs, these can be devastatingly effective but in the wrong untrained hands can be next to useless. So a lot of this comes back to quality of the individual and the level of training and experience they have. Once the adrenalin stacks up in a contact situation it is very easy to look over your sights and fire into or towards the enemy, rapidly pumping rounds downrange in the excitement of the contact. You have to mentally get a grip of yourself, re-focus to get a sight picture and get more accurate.

So far I have basically said that you can use a lot of different types of rifles to be effective so long as you are trained to do so, and conversely even if you have the best equipment none of that will help you if you are just a tacticool goon. Yes, a well-trained team will be more effective if they have better equipment, but I am telling you not to give up hope if you have just bolt action hunting rifles. The advancing German Army at the beginning of the First World War thought they were up against machine gun battalions as they pushed the British Expeditionary Force back to the English Channel. No, it was the fire power generated by the British infantryman with his bolt action Lee-Enfield rifle.

Shotguns are a different matter in my opinion, (mentioned in the original question). At least with bolt action rifles you can try and adapt your tactics to take advantage of range and accuracy if terrain allows, but with shotguns you lose range, volume of fire and also accuracy. Useful for close range contacts in close country, historically carried by point men in the Jungle; I’d prefer an AR.

In many of the scenarios we have discussed here I would never even think to equate having a bolt action rifle as being inferior to having an AR, except for CQB.  Recall also what Travis Haley accomplished with the use of an AR at long distances.

So even using an AR, a scope, deliberate, methodical fire, and a trained shooter is superior to “tacticool” operators.  Furthermore, it seems to me that if concealment didn’t work and you find yourself potentially facing CQB, my 3-e’s are always important if you want to stay alive: egress, evasion and escape.  In any of the scenarios we have discussed over the pages of this web site, a bolt action rifle and a good revolver might be more valuable than any other commodity.