Archive for the 'Guns' Category

NYT:

In Idaho’s graceful, striated-marble Capitol, home to one of the more ardent and adamant state legislatures in the nation in standing up for the Second Amendment, lawmakers from both parties say that a torrent of public passion, even panic, about new proposed federal gun rules is pushing in only one direction: toward more guns, not fewer.

If Idahoans, like Americans in many states, have rushed to buy guns out of fear for personal safety in the aftermath of recent mass shootings, or out of fear of tighter legal controls, then democracy has already spoken, many lawmakers said. People have voted with their pocketbooks.

[ … ]

The speaker of the House, Scott Bedke, a Republican, said that he would not guess what might come from the session, but that the will of the people was clear.

“Idaho will push back,” he said, referring to federal gun control proposals. “A question that is rolling around in most Idahoan’s heads right now is, What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ don’t they get?”

Yea, this voting with the pocketbook has been happening all over America.  I had placed my M1 Carbine on layaway several months before Christmas with Allen Arms in Greenville, S.C.  In September, Allen Arms had a copious stock of guns.  When I went to pay off my gun at Christmas there were no AR-15s, no M1 Carbines, no tactical shotguns, very few polymer frame pistols, and just a few revolvers left.  It looked like a tornado had come through the store.

I have also noted before that Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte was reported to have done more than one million dollars worth of business the Saturday before Christmas.  That’s one million dollars in a single day – on guns.  I went back to Hyatt just a few days ago to place another firearm on layaway with them (and buy some ammunition), and the store was as crowded as I have ever seen it.  There is no slowdown.  And this sort of thing is happening (and has happened) all over America.

Do you want another example, a little less anecdotal?

And it won’t do much good to go direct to the manufacturer for an AR type rifle. Top companies like Bushmaster, and Rock River Arms report wait times up to two years for the guns. Stag Arms, which bills itself as the “Worldwide Leader in AR Manufacturing” is so backlogged they’ve stopped answering the phone: “Please know that we are currently experiencing exceptionally high call volume due to increased demand. Current response time is anywhere from five to seven business days for all voicemail inquiries.”

Note again – a two year wait time for a Rock River Arms rifle.  These folks who have voted with their pocketbook will learn to cherish their gun collection, and they will want to bequeath it to their children and children’s children without the involvement of the federal government.

So listen, Eric and Paul.  It might be that you are listening to the “polls” in your support for universal background checks.  But I assure you, America is voting with it’s pocketbook.  The vote is overwhelming, and it is fixed.  We won’t change our minds.  You need to get with the popular crowd and drop the support for gun control as fast as you can.

Gun control is an artifact of self-serving, crusty, old rich white men, angry feminists and effeminate inner city dwellers who have never ridden a horse across a snowy mountain, sat up all night with a dog who has been bitten by a Copperhead, or plowed a row in a garden on a sunny day.  You’ll never reach the young people that way.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David for the attention.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to Glenn for the attention.

UPDATE #4: More voting on gun control with money.

Specialized gun shops, super sporting goods stores and even big-box retailers are enduring a big-time demand for firearms ammunition as First Coast gun owners are buying up most of the bullets they can find.

“There’s a complete run on ammo and guns,” said Paul Rukab, who has owned St. Nicholas Gun & Sporting Goods on Jacksonville’s Blanding Boulevard for 22 years.

Bullets are leaving the store as soon as trucks arrive with new stock at local Walmarts and stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Academy Sports. Ammunition for long rifles and handguns is in highest demand.

It’s the same everywhere.

Sun Journal:

According to gun writer Chuck Hawks, the .270 made its debut in 1925 and was created to challenge the popular .30-06. (The .270 is a necked down 30-06). Famous Outdoor writer Jack O’Connor helped make the .270 popular when he recounted the .270’s lightning-quick kills at 300 yards! At that time the .270 was considered to be the flattest shooting big-game round in the world, according to Hawks. The .30-06 spits a 180 grain bullet at 2,700 feet per second. The .270 releases a 130-grain bullet at 3,140 feet per second. Equally impressive, according to the ballistics students, is the .270’s capacity to sustain its velocity down range: 130 grain bullet registers 2,320 feet per second at 300 yards!

[ … ]

I also like the .270’s relative civility when it comes to recoil. A fellow elk hunter, who hunts with a Winchester .300 Magnum, always leaves the shooting range with a bruised, tender shoulder after zeroing his cannon. He also rations his rounds due to the cost. Granted, I’ll stick with him during a grizzly-bear charge, but the rest of the time give me the .270.

I have to say that I like the “relative civility” when it comes to recoil as well (as I have written before).  The 0.270 is a sweet round.  I can shoot a 12 gauge shotgun for hours (here substitute a large game round), but then my shoulder and chest complain to me for days.

I don’t know if anyone else has problems with this, but I lift weights, and with a somewhat enlarged chest there is little real “shoulder” left in which to fit the butt of the rifle (or shotgun).  It simply sits across my chest / deltoids.  The last time I shot clays I had a bruise as straight as a board down my right pectoral (I am right handed but left eye dominant, which is yet another problem in that I still shoot with my right eye).

I like moderate recoil, which is one reason I like carbine rounds.  I consider the 0.270 to be a large game round without the kick.

Greenville News:

A New York firearms company should move to South Carolina because the Southern state is more sympathetic to gun rights, according to an Upstate congressman.

Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan of Laurens is urging the parent company of Remington Arms to move its Ilion, N.Y., plant to South Carolina to avoid “enemies” of the Second Amendment.

“In South Carolina, we believe in the right to keep and bear arms,” Duncan wrote to the chief executive officer of the Freedom Group, a North Carolina company with firearms divisions in 14 states and more than 3,000 employees.

[ … ]

He said he’s also encouraging South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to contact gun-manufacturing facilities in other states where gun control legislation is likely.

But dislodging Remington from New York may be an uphill battle. The company’s history there goes back nearly two centuries, according to its website.

And the Republican congressman who represents Ilion says he’ll fight to keep the Remington plant where it is. The plant employs more than 1,000 people.

“Generations of expertise is in the DNA of all those who work for Remington and live in upstate New York,” Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., said Tuesday. “The Ilion plant remains highly competitive and its workers and the community are committed to the success of Remington. I look forward to working with New York state leaders to see that Remington stays here for generations to come and thrives right where it began almost 200 years ago.”

This isn’t enough.  Governor Haley is going to have to get deeply involved if she wants this industry in S.C.  As for Remington, it doesn’t matter that they have been in New York for two centuries.  The South is better.  The employees may gripe and moan, but given a few months, they’ll see the benefit themselves.  Their griping won’t last long.

Prior: It’s Time For Gun Industry To Move South

Bless her heart.  An elderly woman uses a gun for self defense.

An 86-year-old woman grabbed a gun in self-defense when police say an intruder broke into her home. News 5 sat down with this woman today and listened to her tell about the experience.

Louise Howard lives just off a busy highway in Bulls Gap.  

She told us she’s been the victim of theft many times before, and she’s had enough and it was time to take a stand.

“I told different people if I ever catch them, I mean to kill them,” said Louise Howard.

Louise Howard may be 86 years old, but she isn’t afraid to defend her home or her life.

On Friday afternoon she was forced to do that. Howard said a young woman broke the glass on her door and forced her way inside.

“I was in shock. I didn’t know what she was going to do to me!” Howard said.

Howard immediately grabbed her gun, but the two started to struggle down the hall.

“I already had my gun in my hand, and I wouldn’t turn it loose for anything,” she explained.

Howard’s hands are proof she wasn’t letting go.

“She stuck a fingernail in there,” said Howard. “She moved her hands sort of released me a bit. I moved over like that, and I was going to shoot her in the stomach, but she took her knee and hit my elbow.”

The bullet ended up inside the wall where it still hides.

Sheriff Ronnie Lawson told us Howard was in her rights to use her gun for protection.

“All indications [were] the intruder, the female, has a wrench. It was what she used to break the window of the door so she could’ve defended herself,” Sheriff Lawson explained.

Gun = 1, Assault Wrench = 0.  The folks who suffer abuse from hammers needs to get guns too.

I have been watching carefully as more Southern states engage in courtships with the various gun manufacturers over location.  There are too many articles to link and discuss.  But this report does a good job of summarizing what’s at stake.

Every year, New York state gives out millions in tax incentives, loans and economic development grants to the private sector. Every state does it, and New York has little choice if it wants to prevent companies from leaving, but additional attention is now being paid to the incentives going to the state’s gun industry.

In a letter sent Jan. 3 to Empire State Development President Kenneth Adams, State Senator Liz Krueger urged an end to incentives for the firearms industry. 

“I’m still awaiting a formal letter of response, but I have been assured that this was a grant made in a previous administration, not in Governor Cuomo’s administration, and the moneys that were committed have been spent,” says Krueger.

She is referring to $5.5 million that went to Remington Arms in the last five years. The incentives to Remington in New York are among $19.9 million given by nine states to makers of assault weapons in the last decade and were revealed in a list compiled by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

The $5.5 million that went to Remington and its parent company, Freedom Group, led to the consolidation of manufacturing plants in Massachusetts and Connecticut to Ilion, N.Y., where Remington has manufactured firearms for nearly 200 years.

“They were down to close to 600 jobs and now they’ve more than doubled that,” says Sen. Jim Seward, Ilion’s representative in the legislature. “These are good manufacturing jobs and obviously we want them to stay.”

Seward says as many as 40 of the guns manufactured in Ilion can no longer be sold to civilians in New York.

The state’s new gun control law, known as the SAFE Act, bans semiautomatic weapons with certain design features deemed military-style, like detachable magazines or folding stocks. 

The company can still manufacture the banned guns in New York for export, but Seward says cutting off Remington from future incentives would make it even harder to keep the operation in Ilion.

“I must point out that they are being constantly recruited by other states,” says Seward. “And at some point, we hope this day does not come, but at some point, the company could say, ‘hey, well why should we remain in a state that is perceived by many as being hostile to law-abiding gun ownership?’”

Politicians in Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina are reportedly all trying to convince Remington to relocate.

Another manufacturer called Kimber, which makes guns that are not classified as assault weapons, received $700,000 from Empire State Development in 2009.

The move South makes sense for the gun manufacturers.  First of all, living in the upstate South Carolina area means that you’re always within one hour of some of the most beautiful mountains East of the Mississippi, and within three hours of some of’ the best beachfront on the East coast.  Second, the gun manufacturers can always rely on workers who wouldn’t be caught dead paying money to a labor union.  Third, they would be located in a state that wanted them, had laws that were amenable to their needs, and rewarded them handsomely for their industry.  Continued time spent in the Northeast is time wasted.

I think this is true of Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms in Illinois too.  Their time is limited in the North, and the move is inevitable.  As for the states from which the manufacturers relocate, I think the figure of speech is called “chickens coming home to roost.”  If New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and other Northern states decide that the jobs are too important to lose, then we have the delicious irony that these states care enough about their own citizens to protect them from these “evil” guns, but not the citizens of other states.  Making money is more important than the lives of other people.

How rich is that?

In the ongoing silliness that is gun control in Illinois, the Lt. Governor is meeting with a gaggle of politicians to talk over more issues in gun control.  Yes, even after being battered by the recent appeals court ruling, they’re not giving up the ghost.  They are statists until the bitter end – being bitter clingers as they are.

Anyway, this report on the meeting has an awful photograph.

Gun owners.  Do not ever, ever do this.  This is bad.  This is very bad.  He has his index finger inside the trigger guard while he is cycling the slide.  If he continues to do this, he should sell his gun.

This is better.

The Washington Post is all sanctimonius and proud of themselves.  Anthony Faiola has penned a piece discussing British gun control measures since 1997, and this blog post enumerates some key takeaway points from the article.  Read either one, or read both just to be sure to capture everything the Post wants you to know.  It’s a veritible wet dream for statists, with at least a starting point for a laundry list of the onerous controls with which the government can saddle its subjects.

It’s a proud day indeed, when the British make the Washington Post as the paragon of peaceful civilization with their tyranny.  I’m certain that the editors were giddy over the prospect of assisting the proposed gun control measures currently before the Senate.  However, the list of benefits doesn’t really include very much except a reduction in so-called “mass shootings.”  It doesn’t go beyond this cursory analysis to the underbelly of crime in the U.K.

Listen to a different take written before this breathless piece at the Post:

When it comes to the question of violent crime, the British are fairly smug. Why? Because, well, there’s less of it in Britain than in America. Bunch of cowboys over there, right?

Wrong. Per the Daily Mail:

Britain’s violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa – widely considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries.

The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.

In the decade following the party’s election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million – or more than two every minute.

According to the Mail, Britons suffer 1,158,957 violent crimes per year, which works out at 2,034 per 100,000 residents. By contrast the number in notoriously violent South Africa is 1,609 per 100,000.

The U.S., meanwhile, has a rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, which is lower than France’s, at 504; Finland’s, at 738; Sweden’s, at 1123; and Canada’s at 935.

As a result of both the different ways in which these statistics are collected and of varying definitions of “violent crime,” there will naturally be some discrepancies between countries. Enough to account for a 5:1 difference between Britain and the United States, though? I rather think not.

You see, it’s easy when you queue the case up based on your own predispositions and biases.  If you want to see the effectiveness of gun control, you consider the single metric that shows it to be effective.  Otherwise, you look at all of the other data too – but only if you’re an objective journalist.

I have long claimed that there isn’t any validity in the strict comparison of numbers between countries.  The U.S. has a non-existent Southern border (to every President in the past several decades, America is an idea rather than a place, and the Democrats want the votes while the business owners want the cheap labor – cheap until taxes and medical costs come due).  We have gangs, and at least some of those gangs exist as a testament to the highly interracial nature of our population.  There are all sorts of specifics to consider when discussing the metrics of U.S. crime.

But you don’t have to trot out excuses when the case is so easy.  The British crime metrics don’t demonstrate what the Washington Post wants it to.  Pity.  Wasted ink.

From CNN:

The NRA changed its position on background checks. Tonight, Anderson Cooper got NRA board member Sandy Froman,  to address this during tonight’s town hall.
Transcript of he exchange –

Anderson Cooper: has the NRA changed their position on this? Because Wayne LaPierre is now saying universal background checks don’t work. I saw this testimony he gave in 1999 to the House Judiciary Committee and he said, quote, “We think its reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at gun show. No loopholes for anyone”

Sandy Froman: the answer is yes, the NRA has changed their position. The reason it’s changed their position is because the system doesn’t work. The system is not working now. We have to get that working before we can add any more checks to that system. It’s already overburdened. In Colorado, it takes ten days to do an instant check.

AC: you’re saying if it got working, if the existing laws started to be improved, you might support the imposition?

SF: I don’t know. Let’s get it working. Let’s make sure the 23 states that aren’t reporting the names of people who are mentally ill and have violent tendencies, let’s get them reported into the system.

Has the NRA actually heard us?  I have been harping on this issue, as has David Codrea, Kurt Hofmann and others.  Is this a case of the NRA actually having some backbone?  Are they going to man-up (sorry Sandy) and stick to their guns (and our guns)?

By the way, you have read me say that universal background checks are the way to develop a national gun registry, that a national gun registry (and in fact, all gun control) is the action of a wicked government, and that it is only a pretext for and necessary prerequisite condition for gun confiscations.  Want to see a statist say the same thing? (via Mike).

It’s nice that we’re finally talking about gun control. It’s very sad that it took such a terrible tragedy to talk about it, but I’m glad the conversation is happening. I hear a lot about assault weapon and large magazine bans, and whilst I’m supportive of that, it won’t solve the problem. The vast majority of firearm deaths occur with handguns. Only about 5% of people killed by guns are killed by guns which would be banned in any foreseeable AWB.

Furthermore, there seems to be no talk about high powered rifles. What gun nuts don’t want you to know is many target and hunting rifles are chambered in the same round (.223/5.56mm) that Lanza’s assault weapon was. Even more guns are chambered for more powerful rounds, like the .30-06 or (my personal “favorite”) 7.62x54R. Even a .22, the smallest round manufactured on a large scale, can kill easily. In fact, some say the .22 kills more people than any other round out there.

Again, I like that we’re talking about assault weapons, machine guns, and high capacity clips. But it only takes one bullet out of one gun to kill a person. Remember the beltway sniper back in 2002? The one who killed a dozen odd people? Even though he used a bushmaster assault rifle, he only fired one round at a time before moving. He could have used literally any rifle sold in the US for his attacks.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

Prior:

The ATF Doesn’t Know Who Has Guns

Mixed Signals From NRA On Universal Background Check

Universal Background Check And National Gun Registry

David Codrea:

Because that’s true, and it is, you know, looking at quick fix kneejerk ‘solutions’ such as changing state and federal information loop protocols on recorded mental health incidents may not produce any appreciable public safety improvements, and may in fact, endanger not only rights, but people disabled by ‘law’ who have been denied full due process.

Um, yes.  Of course a system like this is highly vulnerable to abuse and negligence.  It’s the government.  My God.  When is the last time you witnessed a government program work the way it should?  Besides, mental health professionals will tell you that their science isn’t as accurate as you think it is and isn’t amenable to such neat categories, that they cannot really predict with any confidence who will become violent, that their science won’t sustain such a burden, that such reporting will intefere with the doctor-patient relationship, and that they don’t want that kind of legal and regulatory pressure on their profession.  They have already told you so.  It’s like asking your Volkswagen Beetle to hit the curves at Daytona International Speedway and race with the big boys.  Man is too complex, and “doctors” don’t know as much about his psyche as this system would demand.  Because, you know, it’s his psyche … his soul … his spirit.  It’s not his big toe.

Finish reading Codrea’s piece at Examiner.  Mental health checks are not the answer to gun violence.  Move on to the real solutions, like abolishing gun free zones as an intrusion on our God-given right of self defense.

My buddy John Bernard went off on a tear concerning guns, accoutrements and the idiots who currently rule us.  I would like to think that the following articles set him off:

Duck Hunting With Bullets

High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up

Automatic Bullets In Rapid-Fire Magazine Clips

But I don’t know.  Here is a taste of his prose.

I have had just about enough of the queue of lambasting idiots whose sole desire is to control every aspect of American’s lives. Their bloated exhortations about things they obviously know nothing about has risen to the level of epidemic. What is more troublesome is that there seems to be an unending assortment and number of mixed nuts fully prepared to accept any edict these windbags hand down from their lofty “thrones” in the City of the Dead (DC) while the combined knowledge of both exhorter and audience, if melted down and strained couldn’t fill a thimble!

I am sick to the point of retching of listening to the absolute nonsensical sputtering about firearms by those who can’t differentiate between a butt stock and a flash suppressor so here is a short lesson in nomenclature to make you sound less stupid.

Go to his place and read the rest.  Let a senior Marine Corps NCO explain the facts for you.