Dean Weingarten has a good find at Ammoland.
Judge Eduardo Ramos, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, has issued an Opinion & Order that a ban on stun guns is constitutional. A New York State law prohibits the private possession of stun guns and tasers; a New York City law prohibits the possession and selling of stun guns. Judge Ramos has ruled these laws do not infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Let's briefly…… [read more]
The internet is swirling with possible scenarios for things that could have happened. I’ve seen a lot of them and won’t rehearse them here. It isn’t necessary to rehearse what might have been, what could have been, what’s possible, and what is feasible, in order to understand that the government narrative is infeasible.
For me there are two pieces of evidence that point conclusively to the fact that this didn’t go down the way the FBI says it went down. Everyone who has operated guns for a long while, like I have, had to ask themselves the following question: “If God forbid I decided to perpetrate something evil like this, what would that room have looked like when I was finished?”
The answer for most knowledgeable and sensible people is this: “Not like that.” Not at all like that. After firing so many rounds from rifles, the curtains, my face, my clothing, the carpet, the bedding, and just about everything else, would have been so covered with carbon and lead deposits that the dominant colors would have been black and grey in any photograph. I know this from range time, and you do too.
Moreover, I probably would have been wearing eye protection, as I know what it’s like to shoot with brass, lead, carbon and other such things flying around. That room looked like the maid had just been there and cleaned everything but the body lying on the floor. No carbon, very little brass (there would have been a mountain of brass, along with spent casings everywhere), and no flesh from the head penetration to the shooter when he was killed.
The second piece of evidence for me is even more convincing. Watch this video, and listen and watch extra carefully at about the 12:00 mark.
While I don’t agree that the video demonstrates that any of these firearms are belt-fed or crew serve weapons, or suppressed, there is no mistaking one fact. He points out a moment in the video where two or more shooters must be shooting. There is no other way to interpret that video. Many of the suppositions in other posts, entries, discussion forums and threads have multiple explanations or plausible alternative possibilities. This one doesn’t. There are at least two shooters at that moment.
This all means one thing. Fedgov is lying to you about what happened. I don’t know what happened that night, and as I said I would need to be wrapped into the process to know (autopsy reports, crime scene access, time to study all of the videos, opportunity to interview the eyewitnesses, and so on). But I don’t have to tell you what happened in order to tell you that the government account didn’t happen.
It didn’t go down the way they said it went down, with one lone shooter firing bump fire stock AR-15s from one vantage point for no reason under the sun except that he lost gambling money (or whatever). Their story is a lie. Hopefully the truth will come out, but I’m not holding my breath.
The National Rifle Association on Thursday endorsed tighter restrictions on devices that allow a rifle to fire bullets as fast as a machine gun — a rare, if small, step for a group that for years has vehemently opposed any new gun controls.
Twelve of the rifles the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock, had in a high-rise hotel suite when he opened fire on a crowd on Sunday were outfitted with “bump stocks,” devices that allow a semiautomatic rifle to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which may explain how he was able to shoot so quickly, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds of others. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has ruled that bump stocks do not violate laws that tightly limit ownership of machine guns, and some lawmakers have called for them to be banned.
The bureau should revisit the issue and “immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law,” the N.R.A. said in a statement released Thursday. “The N.R.A. believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”
Ignoring the small issues of “shall not be infringed,” the NRA caves on bump fire stocks, as surely as most of the senators and congresscritters will cave, many of whom will have high marks from the NRA.
The NRA is still conflicted as to whether it wants to be a hunter and sportsman organization of a second amendment and gun rights organization. As I mentioned, I don’t have one, and consider them to be mostly a novelty and range toy. I would never put one on a personal defense weapon, accuracy and control being too important for such things for me to consider a high rate of fire as more important, especially near or around other people.
That said, I cannot be convinced that the shooter who landed all of this crap in our lap would have been less effective if he had aimed and fired in a controlled manner than with the bump fire stock, if in fact such a device was used.
The point to be taken here is not that of the bump fire stocks (the senate and congress is always looking for ways to further regulate your rights, even if not constitutionally allowed). Bump fire stocks are merely the latest incarnation of the boogeyman. Tomorrow it will be something else. The point is that there is a world of difference between knowing that you’ll lose a fight, and actually going on record stating that you agree with your enemy.
The NRA. Always squishy, never completely fulfilling their stated purpose, and always disappointing.
An elderly Delaware man stopped a home invasion when he wrestled with four burglars and ultimately grabbed his rifle and fired a single shot.
Tyson B. Beckett, 26, Anthony Long, 18, Brandon D. Satchell, 25, and Joshua T. Walker, 29, have all been arrested after they were confronted by an elderly man as they attempted to enter his home, according to the Milford Beacon.
The elderly man fought off one of the home invaders, but eventually found his rifle and fired a round into the floor, which was just enough to scare off the four alleged burglars.
They were eventually caught. I’m no fan of shooting warning shots, and it would have been tactically better for him had he discharged the firearm at them.
Either way, it’s always nice to see reports of guns being used for their intended purpose.
On Sunday night on the Las Vegas Strip, a gunman rained bullets on a crowd enjoying a country music concert from his hotel room hundreds of feet above. At least 58 people were killed in the barrage, and an estimated 515 other victims were rushed to local hospitals for treatment, making it the worst mass shooting in American history.
If the carnage in Las Vegas ultimately alters the gun debate, it won’t be just because of the casualty count, staggering though it is. It will be because the circumstances of the shooting nullify the central animating argument that the National Rifle Association has deployed throughout the numbing succession of public mass shootings—there have been 28 of them, by one count, since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Our good friend Alex wins the idiot-argument of the week award. To say that a pistol couldn’t have stopped this is effectively the observation that a long gun has a longer range than a handgun. The missing piece in the argument is that all shootings for which self defense is necessary occur from stand-off distances where a pistol is ineffective.
We all know this is false, and Alex doesn’t believe it either, else he would be arguing for the disarming of police. I would suggest that even Alex knows that he’s being dishonest.
This is a horrible try, Alex. Next time don’t mix apples and oranges.
Days after a dozen modified rapid-fire guns were found in the Las Vegas gunman’s hotel room, Democrats introduced a bill on Wednesday to ban such changes to weapons — and dared Republicans to ignore it.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said her legislation would bar the sale, manufacture and possession of so-called bump stocks and other devices — all currently legal — that drastically increase a firearm’s rate of fire.
“The only reason to modify a gun like this is to kill as many people as possible in as short of a time as possible,” Feinstein said …
“I own a lot of guns, and as a hunter and sportsman, I think that’s our right as Americans, but I don’t understand the use of this bump stock,” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said, adding, “It seems like it’s an obvious area we ought to explore and see if it’s something Congress needs to act on.”
Mr. Cornyn said the continuing legality of the conversion kits was “a legitimate question,” and told reporters he had asked Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman, to convene a hearing on that issue and any others that arise out of the Las Vegas investigation.
Other Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida, said they would be open to considering legislation on bump stocks.
As a long time gun owner, I have never seen fit to purchase a slide-fire stock. In fact, to break the narrative just a bit, uninterrupted fire from the shooter’s weapons without allowing the gun to cool in between bursts would have caused the barrel to droop and eventually the gas block to explode into pieces. I see no purpose for his having used such a device to begin with.
But if you want this device, get it now. Chances are that it will be illegal in the not too distant future.
It’s easy to call acts of horror “evil.” It’s comforting to ascribe an external, unknowable motive to events so terrible we can’t imagine a motivation.
The human mind is incapable of imagining what would drive a man to haul an arsenal of high-powered weapons into a hotel room, knock out a couple windows, murder dozens of people and injure hundreds more by spraying them with gunfire. So we call it evil. That settles that.
All the author does in this article is display a lack of understanding of my world view and display his own confusion over current events.
The Scriptures are quite clear, and evil can be understood. The Westminster Confession of Faith is clear: “Sin is any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.” Man does this because he fell in sin through the federal headship of Adam, and the only redemption from this fallen nature is the only begotten Son of God, Jesus, whose death, burial and resurrection vicariously atoned for the sins of His people. Without Christ, America is bound for more of the same as you saw in Las Vegas.
You may not like it. The author at Rolling Stone may not like it. But your dislike doesn’t change facts one iota. Mankind attempting to regulate his way to utopia is akin to building the tower of Babel. It’s doomed to fail.
There now. I hate giving a Sunday School lecture to a Rolling Stone author, since we have so many more important things to discuss, but he apparently needed that. I don’t apologize one bit for my views, and I see nothing “unknowable” about this, as some sort of worshiper of Immanuel Kant. He can lampoon it all he wants, and I’ll lampoon the fact that none of his laws and regulations succeed in bringing utopia.
On behalf of MGV, we are deeply saddened for the victims and families affected by last night’s activities and absolutely sickened by the behavior of the individual who committed a sheer act of violence on our community. We realize there will be many sensitivities to firearms and their misuse, and we would like to address a few points as a business that offers firearms experiences in a safe, controlled environment in Las Vegas. We believe, as we always have, that there should absolutely be more stringent control on the types of firearms private individuals can own and the processes they must go through in order to own those firearms. There were many factors contributing to this tragic event, but there is no doubt that the shooter’s ability to inflict so many casualties was heavily due to the types of weapons he had access to. MGV agrees that the NRA, Federal Government and individual states have a responsibility to continue to maximize efforts to keep these firearms out of the hands of the wrong people.
We believe that responsible gun ownership is attainable through the application of common sense, more stringent vetting and background checks, dramatically increased mandatory sentencing for gun offences and increased testing standards for gun owners.
I hope their few moments of fame with the collectivists felt good, because gun owners never forget. If you want to get a taste of the venom coming their way, visit this reddit link.
I can’t find the original post. If they have any sense at all, they took it down. But that may be too little, too late. The gun community now knows what they’re made of.
Too bad for them. But it’s best that we know, and the community will act accordingly, I assure you.
Nick Gillespie, bless his heart, is fighting the good fight, with a very good article at Reason arguing that now is the time for less gun control, not more. I agree.
Paul Ryan, known to us as the communist shill who hates gun rights, has said that the SHARE act is dead for the time being.
Someone named Andrea Ruth, writing at Red State, argues for more involvement of the community witch doctors we know as Psychiatrists. I suppose she wants mental health “professionals” to approve all gun purchases. Perhaps she would think differently is a mental health professional had to approve her raising a child, or driving a car.
The White House punts on suppressors, saying essentially there is no love for the SHARE act.
And Trump himself has said “we’ll be talking about gun laws.” Great. I wouldn’t be so concerned about that if I thought he held to any doctrine on anything at all.
My brief assessment. The shooter had an awful lot of guns and magazines, more than he could ever shoot in several days of being in that room. These were magazines that hold more than 30 rounds. He spent an awful lot of money on weapons, more than I find feasible in a short amount of time (like months or even several years). These were pricey weapons, not low-end guns.
Something is very wrong with this picture. I don’t like it at all, but it’s going to take time to cipher all of this. Something feels very rotten, and as if on queue, the controllers started spewing forth their gun control bullshit as soon as this happened.
AR-15s, AR-10s, high capacity magazines and slide fire (or bump fire) stocks will be the boogeyman. I expect a reassessment of slide fire stocks very soon by the ATF, or an executive order challenged by no one, that places them on the NFA list.
I expect the introduction of new gun control bills in Congress, and all it takes is the democrats and a few republicans (along with Trump), and we have a brand new assault weapons ban. Perhaps this is intended in all of this.
Times are going to get dicey for us. Hold on to your breeches. The ride is liable to get rough.
Former FBI agent Manny Gomez claimed on MSNBC on Monday that hunters use suppressors so that deer cannot hear the gunshots.
Firearm owners actually use suppressors to prevent hearing loss, and even with a suppressor, a firearm would still be loud enough to spook a deer or other wild game.
“Sportsmen, hunters would make an argument that they need that so that their target, whether it’s a deer, etc. don’t hear the shot,” Gomez claimed, “but numerous other sportsmen have shot from muskets–when the founding fathers started the Second Amendment–up until now successfully killed game animals without the use of a silencer.”
So here’s a news flash for “Agent” Gomez and MSNBC. The rounds most hunters use for deer are supersonic (I can conceive of the use of a subsonic round like a suppressed .300 Blackout, but most hunters would consider than an unethical kill).
That means … hold on to your breeches … the round gets there before the sound does. I know physics is hard to the uninitiated, but please do try to keep up.
