A few days while touring around inside Google Analytics I saw a visit from Kimber on an article I wrote where I tried to encourage Kimber to move out of New York to greener pastures, or in other words, right-to-work states.  It would match the move South by many other firearms manufacturers and likely garner more support within the gun community.  After all, one wonders how many guns are being sold in the Northeast compared to Southeast.

Now I understand why this article captured someone’s interest.  Troy, Alabama won a new Kimber facility.

David Codrea points out an article by Alex Yablon that appears on the face of it to be quite fair and impartial, but David points out to me that he is a Bloomberg apparatchik and relishes pointing out dissension in the gun ranks.  Whatever.  There is a lot of dissension and if you haven’t seen it you haven’t been looking.  With friends like we have, who needs enemies?  Hey, here’s a quick note to Alex.  If he really wants to be impartial and fair, I invite him down to my neck of the woods to go shooting at a local range.  Will he take me up on the offer?

At any rate, David has made his remarks on the proposed rulemaking on bump stocks.  I’ll get to it before the deadline, but I’m still expecting some help from readers.  To date there hasn’t been much input.

There is more.

“When I was 18, I was arrested and charged with felony retail theft for theft of $479 worth of clothing at a Chicago mall,” a young man whose name  I’m withholding told me in a recent email. “State law of Illinois says any value of retail goods above $300 is a felony.

That was a bad decision, no way around it. He regrets the hell out of it, and has since striven to learn from his poor choice and to lead a productive and law-abiding life. But now he’s a “prohibited person,” forbidden by law to touch a gun. And unless he can figure out a legal way around that, it’s a life sentence.

Well, he has a God-given right to defend his life like anyone else.  I’ve made known my views on the alleged “debt” criminals have to society.  It’s a myth statists and collectivists like to tell.  There is no debt to society.  If a person steals, he should become the slave of the offended until the debt has been paid threefold.  The debt is to the offended.  If he rapes, kidnaps, or murders anyone, his life should be taken by the community.  This concept would clear out the prisons, yes?  And if someone refuses to become the slave of the offended until his debt is paid, put him into the pit with the murderers and rapists and fill it up with stones, with the first one being tossed in by the offended.  How about some Biblical justice for a change?

Via reader David, Ruger is laying off employees.

Newport — Sturm, Ruger & Co. is in the process of laying off about 50 workers, or about 2.7 percent, of the company’s workforce, a top executive for the gunmaker said on Friday.

Ruger Vice President and General Counsel Kevin Reid Sr. said the layoffs are happening companywide, and he isn’t sure how many of the roughly 1,300 workers at the Newport location would be affected.

“It was for the needs of the business and tied to employee performance,” Reid said of the layoffs. “At Ruger, we routinely adjust our workforce.”

Reid, who is based in Ruger headquarters in Southport, Conn., said the company focused most of the layoffs on “indirect labor positions” such as marketing, sales and engineering, and not on employees directly involved in production.

Ruger employs between 1,800 and 1,900 people around the country.

He declined to comment on the timeline for the layoffs.

Ruger has three manufacturing locations: in Newport; Prescott, Ariz.; and Mayodan, N.C.

It also has a precision metals branch in Earth City, Mo., according to Ruger’s website.

Reid shied away from commenting on whether a third-quarter sales decrease impacted the layoffs, but noted that the company has “been in a fluctuating market, which I don’t think is lost on anybody.”

Well this isn’t a good report.  The gun market is soft right now for obvious reasons and so the work force is a little bloated compared to the purchase frenzy prior to the election.  But if anyone thinks that the softer market will continue they’re badly mistaken.

Let’s say it another way.  If you believe that the election of a pro-gun president is anything but a brief respite, you’re dense.  We need to remember that half of the country voted for gun controllers, and the other half is comprised of a lot of people who don’t care about our rights.

Florida will become a reliable blue state because of immigration from Puerto Rico, and Texas will be in play within a decade due to immigration South of the border.  Alabama just elected a democrat Senator, and Soros and Bloomberg are still dumping money into their candidates.  Except for a few outliers such as Texas open carry, gun rights hasn’t had a victory in a very long time (and no, Heller wasn’t a victory, and Texas open carry is still permitted carry).

This is going to turn around for firearms manufacturers within the next year or two, perhaps right after the 2018 elections, perhaps not, but certainly the year before the next presidential election.  Firearms manufacturers must do what they need to survive until then, but layoffs in marketing, sales, HR and support is one thing.  Layoffs in engineering is quite another.

Layoffs in engineering means that development slows down and competition gets harder to match.  It means that plant problems don’t get addressed as expeditiously as they otherwise might, and it means that just a single unaddressed problem like the Walker Fire Control that almost ruined Remington may end up ruining the next company that doesn’t have the resources to study problems and design remediation.

I think this is all around a very bad idea, and layoffs need to happen elsewhere, or otherwise all employees should take no raise (or even pay cuts) in order to ensure the health of the company.

Washington Post:

A veteran police officer who used his gun to try to smash a window wound up shooting an unarmed driver in a Montgomery County parking lot when the weapon accidentally went off, police officials said Tuesday.

The driver survived the Nov. 5 shooting.

The officer, Todd Archer, will not be criminally charged, according to authorities, but he remains under administrative investigation by the Montgomery Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division.

“Questions remain as to why a firearm was used to try to break the glass, and why the firearm discharged,” the Montgomery department said in a statement.

Archer, who has been an officer for 10 years with the Montgomery force, remains on paid administrative leave. Officials have not identified the man who was shot. They are arranging to have him, his family and their representatives view a video recording of the shooting captured by Archer’s body-worn camera.

Montgomery Police Chief J. Thomas Manger has reviewed the video. “I don’t believe the officer intended to shoot this man,” Manger said, but added that “a number of questions remain about what happened.”

Morgan Blackledge, an attorney for Archer, said her client rendered aid to the SUV driver immediately after the gunshot. But she declined Tuesday to speak in detail about the case until the administrative investigation is complete.

“All I can say is that Officer Archer is a dedicated member of the Montgomery County Police Department and will continue to serve the citizens of Montgomery County,” Blackledge said.

Chuck Drago, a national expert on police use of force, said that, in general, officers should not use guns to smash windows.

“A gun isn’t a tool for hitting or banging or ramming. It’s designed for one thing, to shoot a bullet,” he said.

One particular concern, he said, is that when someone uses a gun to strike something, there is a reflexive reaction: “You tend to clench your fist, which includes your trigger finger,” Drago said.

Hmm … an expert on the use of police force.  Expert.  I’m glad they could find a self proclaimed expert on the use of police force to tell them that this was stupid.  And I’m glad they could find someone to tell them about sympathetic muscle reflexes.  It’s a shame no one else has ever said anything about this before.

What the hell was this guy doing beating on a window to begin with?  The glass could break and blind the person inside.  If he was going to beat on the window, what the hell was he doing using his gun for this task?

Well, at least the dedicated and highly trained cop won’t lose his job.  We’d hate to have to replace someone so qualified as him.

I usually try to leave commenters alone, both on this web site and others.  Occasionally one surfaces that warrants a reply.  David Codrea linked my piece on the continued shootings by cop in Wichita, and this comment was proffered by FedUp.

Smith frequently makes the mistake of presuming the facts of any matter are exactly what the LEOs say they are.

Like this:

Second, the officer went into the domicile with the dog unsecured. The dog did what he’s supposed to do, what he is bred to do, and what he is expected to do. He defended the home from invaders.

Who, besides the shooter, says the dog did a damn thing?

Frequently, says he.  Frequently.  This comment does raise interesting questions on how you formulate good arguments though.

First of all, it’s my intention not only to convey my own thoughts, but to do so in a manner that causes you to think, as well as ponder how you might engage people in conversation on these matters in a manner that is compelling.

It’s rarely wise to concede any point.  So for instance, while I once argued for open carry by simply saying that I hate concealed carry because it’s uncomfortable and it sweats my weapon (and all of that is still true), I now add to it by saying that I open carry “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”  After serious thought about it and being persuaded by other writers, I don’t want to concede the point that the only reason I open carry is because I hate concealed carry.  There are other very legitimate reasons to open carry, the First Amendment being one of them.

I’ve argued in a similar manner with mental health and gun ownership.  Mental health doesn’t have any bearing at all on disposition to violence as we’ve seen from mental health professionals.  But I’m unwilling to concede the point that if it could somehow be proven that it does, I’m willing to use mental health assessments as criteria for gun ownership.

Likewise, in the subject article on the Wichita police home invasion, I wanted to point out two things.  Let’s first assume that the cop is telling the truth since the shooting was what happened chronologically first.  Let’s assume that the dog attacked him.  I’m unwilling to concede the point that the cop was justified in shooting at the dog if the dog attacked him.  That’s why I said he should have taken the bite.  He was a goober for not asking that the dog be secured before entering the home, and thus he should have suffered the consequences for his stupid decisions.  I will not concede that it is justified for cops to shoot dogs.

Only then did I address the possibility that the cop was lying, when I said this: “Finally, it seems questionable to me how much danger he was in anyway, since apparently there was no bite forthcoming.  The report doesn’t say that the officer was taken the hospital to suture wounds.  Remember, he missed.  What happened to that threatening dog?”

The cop probably panicked, and carelessly deployed and discharged his weapon.  He shouldn’t be a cop.  He doesn’t have the disposition for it, and he was likely never in the danger he said he was.

Capisce?  Is that clear enough now?  There is a method to my argument[s], and it’s usually set up the way it is in order to prevent having to concede important points.

But then again, I try to write on something other than a fifth grade level anyway.  I want my readers to have to think when they read my prose.  Perhaps this will help FedUp.

The National Interest:

More than a hundred years after Colt’s successful line of cavalry pistols the company released a new revolver: the Colt Python. One of seven mid-20th century Colt handguns named after snakes, the Python was introduced in 1955. The Python was a beefy, all steel and wood revolver chambered in .357 Magnum. The revolver had a six-shot cylinder and originally came with either a bright nickel or royal blue finish.

The Python was exactly what people imagined a revolver to be. The Python had a slightly oversized, stout .41 caliber frame with beautiful, beveled edges. The trigger well was large and capable of accommodating gloved fingers. The revolver was most commonly sold with a six-inch barrel, although two, three, four, and eight-inch barrels were also available.

The barrel was the Python’s most defining and beautiful feature. A full length ventilated rib ran the length of the barrel, all the way to the muzzle, leading to the front iron sights. This was complemented by a full length underlug with a knurled ejector rod tastefully nestled inside. The result was a barrel that at first glance looked outsized, as though it was a larger caliber than it really was.

Pythons were made the old fashioned way, by hand, when as one gun writer put it, “technology was relatively expensive and labor was comparatively cheap.” Parts were fitted by hand by skilled machinists who could take the time to tweak and polish the fifty-seven parts that made up a Colt Python until it ran like a watch. The Python may have been the last mass-produced handgun built with a nod to Old World craftsmanship.

I don’t know.  The Smith & Wesson Performance Center makes a pretty fine revolver, and I’ve really liked my Ruger GP100.  It’s trigger is as good as any wheel gun made by Smith.

With that said, I’ve never shot a Colt Python.  It’s too rich for my wallet, the lowest starting at just under $3000, and going up to more than $6000 for pristine condition.  I will probably never in my life shoot such a gun.

Here’s an interesting and humorous story for readers.  I have a very dear friend, who had a very dear wife, and we were visiting with them talking and showing guns and grilling steaks one evening.  It was when I did the cheap plastic gun scene and before I threw them all away (traded them in) for nice 1911s and wheel guns.

My dear friend trots out a beautiful Colt Python, SS 6″ barrel, in a beautiful Walnut case, and it had never been shot (except for the obligatory shot by the gunsmith).  It was in pristine condition.  My mouth fell open and I put my cheap plastic gun away.

The humorous part is the story behind it.  One day his wife wanted to kill a snake in their back yard, and he arrived home to find his wife sporting a gun, ready to shoot.  The gun she chose was that Colt Python, and it was a black snake.  My friend managed to stop her by shouting her down.  Don’t ever touch that gun, and don’t shoot black snakes.

And thus he saved several thousand dollars by preventing a single shot.  And that Colt Python is still in pristine condition.  And I’ll still never have one.

Remember when the hurricane came through and the communist who is governor of the U.S. Virgin Island ordered seizure of guns and ammunition?  We discussed it.  Well, he’s at it again.

U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp renewed a highly controversial executive order in January that allows the National Guard to seize arms from everyday civilians.

The executive order Mapp extended on Jan. 2 was first issued in September. The order declares that the U.S. Virgin Islands is in a “state of emergency” and gives the adjunct general power “that may be required by the military forces for the performance of this emergency mission.”

Mapp told The Daily Caller in a December 2017 phone interview that the national guard is “not authorized to take arms and munitions from civilians,” and said those that continue to think the order authorized that power are being “foolish.” While Mapp continues to make the same assertion when questioned about the order, the language of the text explicitly authorizes the seizure of arms and ammunition.

The governor said in the Jan. 2 order that the nation is still in a state of emergency following the devastation brought on from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The order also says that the “state of emergency declared effective 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 5, 2017  is hereby renewed, and such State of Emergency, along with all terms previously declared in the order.” That would include the language authorizing the seizure of arms, ammunition and other property.

And it doesn’t even matter.  As I’ve previously noted, confiscation of guns and ammunition is irrelevant when you’re not allowed to have any to begin with.  Communists gotta’ be communists.  It’s what they do.  Can a leopard change it spots?

Fox News:

A federal judge dismissed all charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and another man on Monday after accusing prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro cited “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct” in her decision to dismiss all charges against the Nevada rancher and three others.

“The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated,” Navarro said.

[ … ]

On Dec. 20, Navarro declared a mistrial in the high-profile Bundy case. It was only the latest, stunning development in the saga of the Nevada rancher, who led a tense, armed standoff with federal officials trying to take over his land. The clash served as a public repudiation of the federal government.

The Brady rule, named after the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case known as Brady vs. Maryland, holds that failure to disclose such evidence violates a defendant’s right to due process.

“In this case the failures to comply with Brady were exquisite, extraordinary,” said Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. “The judge exercised tremendous patience.”

[ … ]

Navarro said Monday it was clear the FBI was involved in the prosecution and it was not a coincidence that most of the evidence that was held back – which would have worked in Bundy’s favor – came from the FBI, AZCentral reported.

With prejudice.  That means it’s over … for now.  The BLM won’t go quietly into the darkness like they need to.  Controllers gotta’ control.  It’s what they do.  Besides, there’s too much land to be taken and given away in the patronage in which Senators and Congresscritters all engage.  This one was just about Senator Harry Reid and his son.  There’s more where this came from.

Not long after the unnecessary and criminal shooting of Mr. Andrew Finch in his own home by a Wichita cop, and about the same time that the mother of Mr. Finch appealed to the city because the police won’t even release her son’s body to her for burial, there is yet another shooting in Wichita (via reader TK).

A Wichita police officer was placed on administrative leave after a girl was injured when the officer tried to shoot a dog inside a home on Saturday.

The officer tried to shoot a dog that charged at him while in a home in the 1500 block of North Gentry, near 13th and Hillside, at around 6:15 p.m., Officer Paul Cruz said in a statement. The shot missed the dog, the round broke into fragments when it hit a hard floor, and a piece of fragment ricocheted and hit a 9-year-old girl in the forehead just above her right eye.

The girl was treated and released from a local hospital that night.

Officers were responding to a 911 call of a domestic dispute and suicidal person with a gun, and they were told a 33-year-old man in the home had held a gun in his mouth and choked a dog, the statement said.

So we have here a number of very serious errors.  First of all, the family apparently called the cops.  Only bad things can happen when you call the cops.  Second, the officer went into the domicile with the dog unsecured.  The dog did what he’s supposed to do, what he is bred to do, and what he is expected to do.  He defended the home from invaders.

Third, the officer didn’t maintain awareness of his backstop.  He violated one of the most basic rules of gun safety because he probably panicked.  Rather than take a chance that he kill innocent people, he should have taken the bite to the arm that was sure to come unless he has very good verbal command skills and depending upon the breed of dog.

Finally, it seems questionable to me how much danger he was in anyway, since apparently there was no bite forthcoming.  The report doesn’t say that the officer was taken the hospital to suture wounds.  Remember, he missed.  What happened to that threatening dog?  No, the only person who was injured was a little girl who should have been safe in her own home.

Next up we have an example David Codrea brought up and a reader sent to me.  A grandfather was shot by police because they (gasp) thought they saw him in his own home with a firearm.

Rossville, GA – A family is heartbroken after their grandfather was shot and killed in his own home by police officers who arrived at the house in the middle of the night, and opened fire 30 seconds after they claim that they saw him in the kitchen with a firearm.

Video has yet to be released and details are still emerging from the Jan. 1 shooting that killed Mark Steven Parkinson, 65. Police have admitted that the beloved grandfather was not the target of the alleged welfare check that was being carried out by the sheriff’s deputies who knocked on his front door.

The deputies were initially dispatched after police received an anonymous 911 call around 3 a.m. that requested a welfare check at the residence. A report from the Walker County Messenger claimed that during the call, “information was provided that stated a female at the residence was threatening to kill herself and her children.”

Greg Ramey, a special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), told WTVC News that the 911 call “did not come from the house itself.” He also confirmed that “there was nothing going on at the residence to substantiate these claims, however, and the threats weren’t true.”

At the time, the deputies arrived at the house knowing that they were being dispatched based on a tip from an anonymous caller who was not at the residence, therefore they were unsure of what kind of scene they would find.

Ramey told the Walker County Messenger that as soon as sheriff’s deputies arrived at the house, they began knocking on the door and they “announced their arrival.” Instead of finding a suicidal woman, Deputy John Chandler claimed that he “observed Parkinson within the residence with a weapon.”

Ramey said that Parkinson was seen “in the kitchen, near a counter, and pointing a gun through a kitchen window at the deputy outside of the house,” claiming that the homeowner was aware someone was outside of his home.

[ … ]

GBI Special Agent Ramey claimed that as soon as Deputy Chandler saw Parkinson, he waited “15-30 seconds” before he fired multiple shots, killing the homeowner. The current information that has been made public does not clarify whether the deputies had entered the home and were in the same room as Parkinson when Chandler opened fire, or whether Chandler shot through the kitchen window.

So here’s the apparent bottom line.  This was a prank call.  None of it was true.  An innocent man heard something outside, and like all responsible men would do, he grabbed a gun.  The cops either shot into the home from outside it, or went into the home uninvited and shot an innocent man who was trying to protect his home.

So there are a number of things to learn from all of this and previous similar events, but one similarity is that police in America no longer respect property rights (if they ever did).  Your property is considered state property if the cops want it to be considered that way.  Your safety is at the bottom of the list when it comes to importance, and the Castle doctrine is salient only up to a point.  If it happens to be the police outside (or inside), they can shoot you with impunity and never be held to account by the “justice” system in America.

There were other nation-states like this in history, but the examples – Nazi Germany, the USSR under Lenin and Stalin – are repulsive.  It’s where we are in the failing nation-state called America.  Understand your risks and act and react accordingly.

Bob Owens and I always disagreed on open carry, and I told him so very plainly.  It looks like the visceral, emotional, irrational hatred for open carriers continues in Bob’s absence with a writer named Tom Knighton.

There’s a lot of debate that takes place around the idea of open carry. Many argue that open carry is tactically stupid as it makes it clear to any potential bad guy who to take out first during a robbery. Others counter with arguments about how open carry initiates conversations about the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms.

Both are good points, but for one open carrier in Fayetteville, NC, open carry isn’t such a grand thing these days.

[ … ]

Officers arrived and discovered that a man had grabbed a gun off another man who was open-carrying the weapon. The man who grabbed the gun then ran off.

Of course, this illustrates one of the main problems with open carry. Besides freaking out the uninitiated citizen, it also makes yourself a target for crap like this.

To be sure, there are things you can do to mitigate this kind of thing. First, look at your holster and see how easily it is to draw from someone else’s hip. I’ve found that some holsters are very easy to draw from when they’re no your hip, but not so much when they’re on someone else’s.

Also, look at learning some weapon retention techniques. These are, in my opinion, a good idea for anyone who is carrying a firearm, whether open or concealed. The last thing you want is for your decision to rely solely on stealth to come back and bite you in the rear should someone figure out you’re packing.

That said, stealth–in other words, carrying concealed–is the best way in which to carry as a general rule. If you want to make a statement, that’s fine, but don’t expect anyone to listen to you when they’re concerned about the heater on your hip. Some will, but a lot more won’t.

But if you’re serious about protecting yourself and others with a firearm, carry it concealed. Doing so means that not only will you minimize your chances of being murder target number one in the event of a robbery, but you’ll also help make sure that you actually have your gun at that key moment, rather than having lost it to some schmuck in a local Walmart who snatched it and ran off.

Folks, if we want to be considered responsible gun owners, we need to act like it. That means not advertising what we have so would-be thieves like this can grab a hold of our weapons and run for the hills. The last thing any of us want is to help arm criminals, but just what do you think happened with this weapon?

This is an idiotic commentary.  First of all, I absolutely hate the words “packing” for carrying (concealed or openly), and “heater” for firearm.  It comes across as fifth grade level writing (or worse, something a MSM “journalist” would say, but maybe I’m being redundant).  It’s language like this that serves to poorly educate the public rather than open carry.  I don’t “pack a heater,” and neither should you.  I carry a firearm.

He states that “Many argue that open carry is tactically stupid as it makes it clear to any potential bad guy who to take out first during a robbery.”  I’ve made it clear what I think about that argument.

I’ve stated before that you get to hide the fact that you’re carrying a gun to a perpetrator is the most hideously awful argument against open carry I can conceive.  It’s tactically absurd, inasmuch as if the perpetrator intends to perpetrate a crime, he’s going to regardless of whether you have a gun.  You will still have an opportunity to prevent it, and it’s more likely that you’ll be the first to engage the perpetrator.

That’s not a bad outcome unless you wish to see women and children perish before you do.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).  I’m not knocking concealed carriers as cowards.  Much of the time I’m a concealed carrier when circumstances prevent me from open carry.  I’m knocking those who knock open carry for the reason that a concealed carrier gets to wait to engage.  I don’t carry a weapon in order to wait to engage.  You don’t hear LEOs making the argument that openly carrying their weapon is a tactical disadvantage.  Let’s don’t look stupid by making that argument for ourselves.

Next, he charges open carriers like me with being irresponsible and unserious.  I’m simply befuddled where he would come up with something like that or why he would make that charge.  He gives no reasons at all, he just reacts like a schoolgirl to something he read in the news.  If he wishes to demonstrate that he can present from a concealed position faster and more reliably than I can present from an open position, I’m waiting and I’ll take the challenge any time.  And while I don’t want to appear “holier than thou,” it’s better for me to engage first and be the one a perpetrator shoots at than some woman or child, even ones I don’t know.

So if you’re an open carrier, use this as a great learning example and do better than the man in the report.  Be more vigilant and aware of circumstances, and wear a retention holster.  I am and I do.  Next, he states unequivocally that more people won’t listen to us than do listen.  He doesn’t really know that, he just made it up.  I’ve had many conversations with folks asking me about it (from the perspective of God-given rights to the laws in my state), and while I initially took the position that I open carry because I simply hate concealed carry and I sweat my weapon, I have morphed to a position of speaking out and trying to educate with my practice of openly carrying.  I think it makes good sense, or otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

I’m guessing it’s been more than a year since I’ve read anything at Bearing Arms, and now I know why.  This is simply awful firearm commentary.  They should be doing a much better job of arguing for and discussing what we see as our God-given rights rather than trying to make sure they run to the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.  At one time open carry was the common practice in America, and it was considered uncouth, crass, ill-bred and even criminal to conceal your weapons.

We should return to that practice, and the only way to do that, other than changes to the law, is educating an ignorant public.  As I’ve said, I open carry “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”  Just so.