Revolvers were in the news and commentary this weekend or recently.  Sig Sauer has a new line of revolver ammunition called Sig Elite Performance V-Crown Revolver Ammunition.  It’s nice to see manufacturers not forget about wheel guns.

Sam Hoober writing at Ammoland has a piece up advocating the .45 ACP revolver.  Given the advantages of the revolver, which are: (a) reliability, (b) if enough time is available to run the gun in single action, the trigger pull is very light, (c) double action gun if it is needed, and (d) the pressure escape through the cylinder and forcing cone allows for much hotter loads than can be used inside semi-automatic pistols, thus giving higher muzzle velocity.

I’m not so sure about the idea of a .45 ACP revolver.  I would use something like that only for inside-the-home shooting given its lower muzzle velocity.

Cheaper Than Dirt also has an interesting advocacy piece for wheel guns, where they observe the following.

A further advantage of the revolver is that the revolver can be placed against an opponent’s body and fired repeatedly as a contact weapon. The automatic pistol would jam after the first shot, tying up with blood or clothing material blown into the slide. It may also short cycle due to a less than perfect grip

I just happened to grab one of my wheel guns for shooting at the range this weekend.

I do love a good revolver.

The Austin Chronicle:

In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law two provisions expanding gun rights in Texas. With House Bill 910, Texas joined 14 other states that allow open carry of firearms in public spaces with a valid permit. Senate Bill 11 implemented campus carry. The two laws, widely praised by advocates as extensions of Texans’ liberty, also ushered in a firestorm of opposition in Austin and around the state. Groups like Texas Gun Sense cold-called local businesses to see which ones would allow open carry on their grounds, hoping that economic consequences would affect businesses’ choices – and in many cases it did. Lists, including one compiled in these pages, swelled with names of restaurants and businesses opting out.

Protests against campus carry were particularly robust at UT-Austin, where organizers were dogged in resisting a law that ultimately went into effect Aug. 1, 2016, the 50th anniversary of Charles Whitman’s Tower shooting. On the first day of classes, #CocksNotGlocks protesters set off a fresh round of outrage that reverberated internationally. Gun advocates and Lege regulars scratched their heads at the level of opposition, many of them feeling the two laws functioned as a substitute for constitutional, or permitless, carry, the ultimate goal of many gun rights groups.

Constitutional carry finds itself on the legislative agenda this year. Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, has pledged his support for such a measure via HB 375, which would eliminate the licensing requirement for carrying a handgun, essentially deregulating open carry. Stickland announced his commitment to passing the law at a Jan. 23 press conference hosted by Texans for Accountable Government and Lone Star Gun Rights. “There’s been a lot of education involved,” he said, explaining why he believes the measure faces better odds this session than two years ago, when the pro-gun caucus was more fragmented. “There are a lot of groups that are coming together and saying, ‘You know what? It’s wrong that Texans have to beg for permission for their Second Amendment rights. It’s wrong that we’re forcing people to pay a fee and take a class for their Second Amendment rights.'”

But Stickland may not have as much support as he suggests. Andrea Brauer, execu­tive director of Texas Gun Sense, suggested the conservative representative is very much in the minority on the issue. Rather, she said, the priority among Capitol Republicans remains eliminating the licensing fees for open carry enthusiasts while leaving the class requirement in place, though no lawmaker has filed a bill quite yet. “I’m not hearing people say [permitless carry] is a priority except for Jonathan Stickland,” she continued.

Where are the Texans?  Look folks.  I know it’s a lot of work to stay active in these matters.  But I noticed some gun bills in formation in Arkansas a few days ago, some good some very bad, and I spent the time to get the email addresses of every state senator and a number of pastors of high profile churches in Arkansas to send out blast emails linking articles I intend to write if this begins to go badly for Arkansas.  And I don’t even live in Arkansas.

You guys have got to spend the time to be active or we’ll always be relegated to second or third class, or lower.  Our liberties are at stake.  Fill their ear up with our demands.  They won’t hear it from anyone else, will they?

H&K hates you, or so they say.  It appears they hate America too.

German gunmaker Heckler & Koch said U.S. aerospace and defence company Orbital ATK Inc had filed a suit in the United States seeking damages in excess of $27 million.

In the complaint, filed at the U.S. District court in the district of Minnesota, Orbital said it was seeking damages for breach of contract over the XM25 semi-automatic weapon system which Orbital and Heckler & Koch started developing more than 20 years ago.

“Heckler & Koch GmbH rejects all claims, based on the information we have so far,” the company said in a statement on Thursday.

“Heckler & Koch GmbH did not receive the complaint formally from the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota so far,” the gunmaker also said in its brief statement.

A spokesman for Heckler & Koch declined to comment on the details of the claims.

Orbital said in the filing, seen by Reuters, that Heckler & Koch had failed to deliver twenty additional prototypes of the XM25 weapon systems, as contracted, and that its failure to do so meant the U.S. Army had raised the possibility of terminating its contract with Orbital.

“Even if the Prime Contract is not terminated, Orbital ATK has incurred and will incur additional costs as a direct result of the substantial delay caused by Heckler & Koch’s non-performance and the need to re-procure the twenty weapons from an alternate manufacturer,” it stated in the filing.

Orbital is also asking in the filing that Heckler & Koch transfer certain intellectual property to enable another contractor to carry out the work.

The filing said Heckler & Koch had queried whether the weapons, which target enemies protected by walls or hidden in hard-to-reach places, would violate international laws of war.

The filing also said that after receiving legal opinions, Heckler & Koch had said it would only supply the weapons if the U.S. government provided a special certification, which the government refused to do. Informal mediation failed, and Heckler & Koch refused to engage in formal mediation, the filing stated.

Um … what?  As best as I can determine, H&K decided that the very weapon they were designing for the stated purpose of being an airburst counter defilade weapon isn’t appropriate in anyone’s hands, and decided not to fulfill contractual obligations.

David Codrea:

• What did the Founders mean by “A well regulated militia”?
• What did the Founder mean by “being necessary to the security of a free State”?
• What did the Founders mean by “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”?
• What did the Founders mean by “shall not be infringed”?
• How can past Supreme Court opinion specifying protected arms as those being “in common use at the time” not apply to the types of firearms needed for militia service?

I’ve already made my feelings know about the Gorsuch selection.  He’s got some very good points and he’s certainly not someone HRC would have picked, and thank God for that, but the liberties in the constitution are sacrosanct.  They are inviolable.  They are stipulations in a covenant that shall not be broken.

David recommends tweeting Ted Cruz and recommending these questions for Gorsuch.  I did.  You should find your own way to communicate with your elected representatives, and especially those on the judicial committee.

Oathkeepers has a very interesting, almost riveting, piece up on recent work to infiltrate violent protest organizations.  There is a lot of information on their methods and results.  My general comment is that these oathkeepers are very committed and this cost them a lot of time, money and sleep.  My hat is off to them.  I have more specific questions below.

Here is a snippet, and from this I hope you go on over to Oathkeepers to get the rest of the story.  Thanks to reader Blake for sending this my way.

The liberal socialists are primarily coming out of our higher education system. They are comprised of professors, students and under-employed graduates. They are primarily white with a roughly equal split between male/female. They are not militant. They are willing to conduct blockades, marches and sit-ins.

The communists are a much broader spectrum of society with a strong leaning towards immigration issues. The communists actively recruit from a wide pool of candidates, including liberal socialists, the LBGT community, the environmental activists and the anti-white racist groups (Black Lives Matter, La Raza, Islamic Fundamentalists, etc.). They have a significant number of minorities in their ranks and they are militant in their operations and planning. The communists encourage independent action of their members to assimilate members from groups like Black Lives Matter, La Raza and other less militant organizations like ANSWER Coalition. They have no ethical boundaries. To communists, the ends always justify the means. They will do everything that the liberal socialist do in order to protest an issue and always take it one step further. They are not inclined to conduct direct actions.

The anarchists are by far the most dangerous of these groups. They are organized like militias. They actively train and practice their operations. They have discipline and zero tolerance for weakness. They have a number of former military personnel providing expertise to enhance security, logistics and martial arts capabilities. The majority are physical fit, military age males. They are primarily white with few minority members. Their leadership tends to be either former military, a proven leader from the occupy movement or a highly educated alpha-male. They are far more capable than their recent activities would demonstrate. They have formed community defense organizations and are idolized for their willingness to take action from the other groups discussed above. They are however anarchists that despise communism as much as they despise capitalism. They see patriots and constitutionalists as their primary enemy. To them, everyone is a NAZI or a fascist unless they are an anarchist. There is no debate allowed on these issues, ever. They operate under various names, but the vast majority identify with the anti-fascist movement. With the election of President Trump, their membership has increased exponentially. There are at least 50,000 nationwide. They have been able to assimilate much of the “occupy” and “black-bloc” movements. Most of what these organizations accomplish are classified as direct actions. They will participate in a protest or a march, but they are not big fans of passive resistance.

Ideologically, I think I understand the first two groups very well.  It’s the third group that puzzles me.  I don’t understand anarchists, so maybe in the comments section someone can explain them to me.

Let’s me clear and not whitewash this.  True anarchy isn’t something this group of “anarchists” has ever seen.  No sugar coating, anarchy is going without an electrical power grid – forever.  It’s going without food delivery, it’s going without medical care, it’s having no potable sources of water.

If there is anarchy, that means that workers cannot get to the power stations to generate electricity because the roads have all been torn up and there are thieves and robbers and shooters on the roads everywhere, at least until the ammunition runs out.  If there is anarchy, petrol cannot get to stations and so there is no means to get workers to the hospitals.  You go without medical care – forever.  It means that you had better have a means to remove turbidity from the water and enough chlorine that you can decontaminate it after filtering.  And it means that you will need to ensconce near a water source.

You will need to find your own food sources, and soon enough the deer, feral hogs and black bears will have been culled or gone into hiding.  Sooner or later the survivors will be hunting dogs to eat.  So I think we’ve painted the picture well enough.

Where do these “anarchists” come from?  Is this a group of FPS gamers who think the world is really like that, but who decided that they would be inconsistent with their worldview and ride buses or aircraft to their staging location for their riots?  How will they riot when there is no more fuel for travel?  Where do they eat, the local restaurants?  Do they realize that if they are successful, there will be more places to eat like that?

Seriously.  It occurs to me that they cannot have a consistent or well-crafted world view, and they cannot have peered into the future to see an end state for their rioting.  What do they want?  What are they after?  What is the end state for them?

I do not understand the anarchists.

KTVH:

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected arguments that a Kansas law can shield from federal prosecution anyone owning firearms made, sold and kept in the state — a ruling that casts doubt on the legality of similar laws passed in nine states across the nation.

The decision handed down by U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten allows federal firearms charges against Shane Cox and Jeremy Kettler to stand. The ruling clears the way for their sentencing on Monday.

Jurors in November returned eight guilty verdicts against Cox, the owner of Tough Guys gun store in Chanute, under the National Firearms Act for illegally making and marketing unregistered firearms, including a short-barreled rifle and gun silencers. Kettler was found guilty on one count of possession of an unregistered silencer.

The Kansas Second Amendment Protection Act, which passed in 2013, says firearms, accessories and ammunition manufactured and kept within the borders of Kansas are exempt from federal gun control laws. Kansas modeled its law on a Montana law that an appeals court has found to be invalid, according to court filings.

Similar firearm nullification laws have been signed into law in nine states. In addition to Montana and Kansas, other states having them include Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming, according to Everytown For Gun Safety, which advocates common-sense gun control laws.

Noting the significant interest the case against Cox and Kettler has generated in Kansas and beyond, Marten wrote in his 13-page decision that he is bound to uphold the U.S. Constitution and laws as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The judge then proceeded to cite those earlier rulings in rejecting every constitutional argument raised by the defense in the Kansas gun case.

“As a district court judge, I am not empowered to do what I think is most fair — I am bound to follow the law,” Marten wrote.

Defense attorneys argued that the National Firearms Act — a part of the Internal Revenue code enacted under Congress’ power to levy taxes — is unconstitutional because it amounts to “regulatory punishment” rather than imposition of a valid federal tax. They also contended that the federal law violated the Second Amendment as well as Tenth Amendment state rights protections of the U.S. Constitution.

But Marten was unpersuaded, noting that the nation’s highest court ruled 80 years ago that the National Firearms Act is valid exercise of Congressional taxing power. As such, it supersedes a state law, he said. Marten also rejected the Second Amendment arguments raised.

This has been a horrible disaster for not only the defendants but for the concept of nullification generally.  As we’ve discussed before, state legislators who make nullification laws for the purpose of making a statement of protest before the voters are cowards and are doing no service to anyone except themselves.

Second, the jury had their turn at the wheel as well.  Apparently, they weren’t ready to see the states put the federal government in its place.  But the ideas that this tax would have ever occurred, or that the federal government had the right to legislate anything concerning firearms would have been considered abominable 150 years ago.  Unfortunately, there are too many collectivists among us today to trust that jury nullification would be an effective remedy against federal power.  Again.  Consider this.  A jury of their peers had a shot at this and refused to do anything about it other than kowtow to the federal government.

Finally, the federal judge found that they broke federal laws.  What else do you expect a federal judge to do?  For state lawmakers to have any effect with these laws, much more needs to be done.  An education needs to take place with the people, and laws need to be enacted that essentially prevents federal agents from doing the job of arresting people like the defendants.  Throw a few fedgov agents in the state penitentiary with the general prison population for attempting to arrest the defendants, and you might have a different outcome.

Finally, the state police would have to be on board and ready to conduct whatever operations the governor needs in order to prevent federal policing in this matter, up to and including things like imprisoning federal agents (such as the IRS) if the fedgov attempted to use those employees as punitive agents.  Of course, from here it could go to withholding federal education funds, the state withholding taxes to the fedgov, and on and on it escalates.

Like I said to state lawmakers, unless you’re serious about nullification, don’t bother with the drama shows.  You’re just a preening coward.

Well, Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court.  He is an apt replacement for Scalia, and as best as I can tell is more like him than not, and in fact may have exactly the same jurisprudence.  Scalia had a high view of police powers, and it appears that Neil Gorsuch does too.

I’ve made my views known about his concurrence in Rodriguez.  I don’t like that part of his jurisprudence.  But assuming that his view wins the day and LEOs are determined to have the right to disarm innocent handgun carriers because it makes the LEO “feel” safer, this raises a whole host of questions for LEOs.

When do you ask the driver to present his weapon to you?  Under what circumstances?  Do you do that, or do you put your own hand on his firearm?  If you do, what information do you need to know about the firearm?  What if he is appendix carrying?  Do you risk a negligent discharge that destroys his femoral artery and thus kills him as he bleeds out before help arrives?

Do you sustain any risk by asking the carrier to put his own hands on his weapon?  How do you know intent?  How does he know your intent?  What if the individual doesn’t want to put his hand on his weapon in the presence of a LEO?  What do you do then?  Do you cuff him?  Does that violate his rights against illegal search and seizure?

Listen to me if you’re a LEO.  You had better think about these things.  As I’ve said before, I think it’s profoundly stupid to put your hands on another man’s weapon, and I think it’s profoundly stupid to ask him to do that.  But if you’re hell bent on doing that because it feels good, you’d better think through this thing.  This has the chance to get dicey.

So in this post I discussed teaching by humiliation using the example of Pat Rogers, who apparently used patches to reward shooters who failed to properly seat their magazines.

This started the comments as if on queue about how I had it all wrong, was disrespecting dearly beloved and dearly departed Pat, and so on and so forth.  You can go read the comments for yourself, I won’t delete them.  But I have banned the commenters for a number of reasons that are too numerous and involved to outline here.  For one thing, I don’t write for low information, non-thinking readers.  I write for thinking men and women.

But if you start at the beginning and read the post before the comments, and then start at the beginning of the comment thread, you’ll see several things.  First of all, the article was intended to refer to beginner shooters, or beginner competitors, not those who were well versed and highly experienced as shooters.

I didn’t know Pat and don’t need to.  But the intent of the article was clear.  Giving patches out to beginners to demarcate their failure is bad pedagogical strategy.  One commenter said this.

I’ve been drilled and grilled by Pat, Steve Fisher, Jeff Gonzales, cops in classes, and students that were friends. I’m no gunfighter, but I know I never will be if they don’t take the time to drill in to me what I need to know. I’d rather have that than some gentle “hey buddy, do you need a hug? How can I help you get better, little guy?” bullshit.

When I go in to classes, I know that I better put on my big boy pants and toughen up for the shit storm that’s gonna hit me if I fuck up. This isn’t tennis. People fucking die if they get this shit wrong.

Well aren’t you big shit?  This is stated from the perspective of an experienced shooter, and if he wants to be big shit and get grilled by someone, consider my son when he was a Marine preparing his boots for deployment after he received them from SOI into the fleet.

He didn’t use patches.  No, with the entire chain of command watching, up through Lt. Col., he practiced his boots at the range until they scored “expert” on the range (iron sights, 500 yards).  When they failed, he would take the butt of his gun, slam it into the back of the Marine who failed (still prone), and then tell them to do it again.  If you want punitive encouragement, I doubt you could do much better than that (although there are other times I can’t tell you about).  This process was repeated until every one of the boots under his responsible charge scored expert.

There are no snow flakes in the U.S. Marine Corps.  This is clearly NOT what I am talking about in the linked article.  I’m sure of it.  I was discussing being an evangelist for shooting, and it was clear enough that commenters Fred, Blake and Archer clearly understood what I was saying.  On to be sure, we ridicule all sort of folks around here, most especially cops who have negligent discharges.  I even confess to errors from time to time.  Recently I confessed to sending 200-300 rounds down range, poorly, only to figure out that my EOTech was loose.  I had failed to check my dope before I started – perhaps I’ll use green Loctite before I start next time.

What we were CLEARLY discussing isn’t bravado like “shitstorm” and people “fucking dying if they get this stuff wrong.”  What we were CLEARLY discussing was new shooters and the encouragement and instruction they need.  I’ll tell you what.  You go to public ranges and start throwing your crap around about people dying and “shit storms” if people screw up, and watch (a) all those women take back their pink and purple pistols to the gun store and ask for their money back, and (b) those same women walk into the voting booth and vote to make your guns illegal.

Now to be sure, the fact that my guns suddenly become illegal doesn’t mean that I lose them.  It just means that the bloody civil war we are all trying to avoid is that much closer and maybe even upon us.  The shooting sports are growing, and people who never would have purchased and learned to use a gun (e.g., women) are doing so in huge numbers.

You’ll learn to speak their language, you’ll learn good pedagogical techniques, you’ll figure out how to encourage them, or you’ll lose them because you are stupid.  You act like monkeys and think like idiots, when you need to be thinking men.  To be sure, if you’re taking a class on fire and maneuver and small unit warfare tactics, handgun presentation, rapid target acquisition, and so on, you need to be disciplined.  Patches don’t do it.  And to be sure, we all need to make sure that the issues about gun safety are taught with the utmost diligence and without sugar coating anything.

But that’s a world apart from failing to seat a mag in the mag well for a brand new shooter who is scared even to be out on the range with you or me.  Besides, if you are experienced shooters you shouldn’t need that anyway.  And if you’re cops, you have no business as militarized SWAT teams.  Put on a uniform and act like a peace officer.  Or if you want to play warrior, join up go across the pond and do it for real.  I have no patience for tacticool cops.

In the mean time, I make no apologies for telling my readers they need to consider encouraging instructional methods for new shooters.  This is how we win friends and converts, and if it’s possible to win the political battle before us, this is how we avoid a bloody civil war.  You want hell on earth?  Go without power for two years after the electrical grid has been destroyed.  Watch as the entire city of New York goes without water for a month after the Catskill Aqueduct has been destroyed.  None of us wants that, and I specifically advocate against that.  It’s much cleaner to win the political battle.

For all of the new commenters here from Facebook (God, I hate Facebook), think before you write.  And take a course in literature.  Perhaps if English wasn’t a second language to you it would have been clear that the article was about evangelizing new shooters.  Because … that’s what I said in the article.

We previously discussed the terrible, no good, very bad ruling the Fourth Circuit recently handed down on Robinson and how it differed 180 degrees from their decision in Black.

Neil Gorsuch, who is apparently in consideration for the Supreme Court of the U.S., concurred in a ruling that was just as bad as Robinson and very similar.

The facts of the case are these.  A New Mexico policeman observed Mr. Rodriguez, a convenience store clerk, carrying a concealed handgun.  Carrying a concealed loaded handgun is illegal in New Mexico without a permit but legal if one has a license to do so.  The officer, upon seeing a Rodriguez’s handgun, detained him, then – acting first and asking questions later – forcibly disarmed Rodriguez.  After finding out that Rodriguez did not, in fact, have a license to carry and, indeed, was a convicted felon, the officer placed him under arrest.

Of course, hard cases make bad law.  But the precedent from the Rodriguez opinion will affect police-citizen relations in New Mexico, and possibly elsewhere in the Tenth Circuit, for many years to come.  Not bothering to figure out the legality of Rodriguez’s firearm before detaining and disarming him, the officer’s initial actions would have been the same even if Mr. Rodriguez had been a lawful gun owner.

According to the 10th Circuit’s opinion, the police are justified in forcibly disarming every armed citizen based on nothing more than the presence of a concealed firearm.  This allows the police to treat every law-abiding gun owner like a criminal – which, in many cases we have seen, includes rough treatment such as grabbing him, twisting his arm behind his back, slamming him down on the ground, and handcuffing him.  Far too many police officers do not like anyone to be armed other than themselves and have taken it upon themselves to intimidate those who dare to exercise Second Amendment rights.  Under the Rodriguez decision, only after being forcibly disarmed and detained would a citizen be entitled to demonstrate that he was lawfully exercising his Second Amendment rights.

This is a hideously bad decision, and enables LEOs to forcibly violate constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure whenever they feel like it for their own “protection.”  How innocent citizens get their protection from negligent discharges, beatings by LEOs, and violations of their right to privacy is left unaddressed by the tenth circuit because the tenth circuit doesn’t care.

Any man who believes that LEOs have the right to disarm innocent civilians because they feel like it isn’t fit to be on any bench, much less the Supreme Court of the United States.  Neil Gorsuch should resign his post along with his colleagues on the tenth circuit and be replaced by good men who believe in the constitution.

Now let me address something I’ve mentioned before.  If you are a LEO reading this column, if you stop anyone whom you have no evidence is guilty of a crime and you touch their gun, or ask them to touch it thinking that you are actually decreasing risk, you are an idiot.  You are an idiot and your procedures are written by idiots.

This is about configuration management.  The safest possible configuration for the both of you is to leave your gun alone, and leave his gun alone.  Do … not … touch … them.  Do not risk negligent discharges, do not mistake intentions, do not engender suspicions.  Do not touch the guns.

Do not touch the guns.  Do not play with guns, yours or his.  Do not touch the guns.  Do not engage in high risk behavior.  Do not touch the guns.  Leave them the hell alone.  Do not touch the guns.  Keep your finger off the trigger of the guns, do not depress the grip safety, do not put your damn hand on any gun, his or yours.  Do not touch the guns.  Do not touch the guns.

Damn, people.  Just damn.

After embedding the video below.

Bob Owens says the following:

Dearly departed AR-15 guru Pat Rogers had a special patch he would give out to students who failed to properly seat their AR-15 mags and commenced to shooting, only to watch that loaded but not locked magazine hit the dirt.

In other words, teach by humiliation.  Um … no.  If you’re a U.S. Marine you might get beaten up for not doing something right.  But we American gun owners are in a different category inasmuch as we are evangelists for the cause.

The way to add to the roles of new gun owners is to teach them, encourage them, be patient with them, and gently correct their mistakes.  There is no quicker way to eviscerate the ranks of gun owners than to make it an “us-four-and-no-more” boys club of folks who know everything, or think they do, and those who get ridiculed.  If you want to be on the outside looking in with your rights gradually stripped, do just that.  Ridicule those who don’t understand.

I was watching a video of 3-gun competition once with Rob Leatham [Edit: it might have been IDPA or some other competition] shooting and heard him and others ridiculing some participant (behind his back) who was shooting more slowly, wouldn’t have won, and yet was probably learning and having fun.  The thing to do would have been to befriend him and encourage him, not embarrass him.

I was quite turned off at Rob when I heard that.  Really.  I was completely repulsed.  I will have a hard time ever watching another one of his videos for that reason.  Disciples are made, not born.  Teachers who teach by humiliation aren’t teachers at all.  Our community doesn’t need them.