Good grief!  CCRKBA has turned to the dark side (h/t David Codrea).

One of Washington state’s largest gun-rights groups is negotiating with lawmakers on a deal that would simultaneously boost a controversial gun-control proposal and remove one of gun owners’ biggest fears.

Alan Gottlieb, of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said Tuesday night he has offered to support mandatory background checks for all firearm purchases if state lawmakers agree to end what some see as a de facto database of handgun owners.

“I need to see the final version, but we’re working with the sponsors of the bill to try to get one that’s workable,” said Gottlieb, who also runs the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation. “If we can accomplish that, it’s a win for all sides.”

No.  It is not a win for all sides.  It’s a win for the totalitarians and a loss for law abiding citizens.  I don’t want to hear another damn thing about how the NRA waffles and turns against our interests.  At least – so far – Wayne hasn’t turned to this kind of pandering.

Good grief!

Poor Bob Bettilyon tries but doesn’t get it quite right.

Since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, and many believe in the original-intent interpretation of the Constitution, perhaps only guns with the technology that existed in 1791 should be allowed, i.e., muskets.

I would be OK with a “concealed musket law” or a “stand your ground musket law.”

Carrying gun powder and 30 lead balls for a musket seems more reasonable than 30-round magazines. Drive-by musket shootouts, or lunatics going to a school armed with a musket and 30 lead balls, don’t seem quite as scary.

The National Rifle Association could say “only a good guy with a musket can stop a bad guy with a musket.”

So, I propose banning all guns not originally available in 1791, except for real militias such as a police department.

The first paragraph quoted sets the stage for the misadventure since it contains false assumptions.  The argument ends in disaster, when he says that police departments are the real militia.

Using the colonialists as a reference point, they couldn’t have been referring to police departments as the militia, because the constabulary existed in colonial times.

… the constabulary in North Carolina resembled the office of petty constable in the mother country, though in the colony it lacked the “almost infinite variations of methods [found] in [the] shires and hundreds and parishes” of England that emanated from centuries of “custom and practice.” Fundamentally distinguishing the English petty constable from his colonial counterpart was the former’s role as a spokesman for his village. In the hierarchical schema of English polity and society, the petty constable served as an intermediary between local inhabitants and politico-judicial authority. In North Carolina, however, local justices of the peace and sheriffs stayed more closely attuned to the people, obviating a mediatory role for the colonial constable.

And do you notice one of the differences pointed out between British and American constables?  We don’t need or want an intermediary.  In fact, we don’t want a “hierarchical schema” at all.

Don’t tread on me.

Frum again.

He says he’s working on a full response to my earlier post, but he provides an “appetizer portion” here. He offers a new anecdote of a gun accident, the statistic that there are more than 600 fatal gun accidents per year in the U.S., and an assertion that guns are not regulated like other consumer products.

First of all, the anecdote is a little bizarre. According to the story released by the police department — and I called to confirm — an old man tossed his coat on top of a gun while it was on a dresser, and the gun went off. The sergeant I spoke with said he didn’t think the gun fell to floor; it just went off when the coat hit it. The sergeant said the gun was “not an antique,” but an older-style revolver. Older revolvers are often not designed to be dropped without firing, but they usually have pretty heavy trigger pulls. If this is the way events really unfolded, it’s a one-in-a-million occurrence.

Earlier this week on Twitter, Frum said that people who say guns are safer than cars must not know what a denominator is. So let’s do the math on these 600 fatal accidents. Somewhere between 35 percent and 47 percent of Americans have a gun in the home; to be generous let’s go with the low number and say 100 percent have a car. Back-of-the-envelope math indicates that 600 fatal gun accidents would be the equivalent of 1,700 car fatalities if we’re assessing the average risk of owning one versus the other. There have been more than 30,000 car fatalities almost every year since the mid-1930s.

This is becoming boring.  So let’s grant the fact that older revolvers didn’t have something like the transfer bar in modern day Rugers.  Fine.  Still, unless the hammer was cocked, I don’t believe this story.  It’s a tall tale.  I don’t care that it was “confirmed” by a phone call.  Without the hammer being cocked, there is no mechanism to make this happen.

However, let’s go ahead and set the framework for Frum.  It is a gun.  It is not safe.  Got it?  That’s why we have rules like knowing your backstop, observing muzzle discipline, observing trigger discipline, securring it from children, and so forth.

It is not safe similar to the fact that automobiles aren’t safe, operating power equipment isn’t safe, and any of a host of activities in which we engage daily aren’t safe.  It isn’t safe to cross the street in my city on foot, even when you have the right-of-way.

Any activity can be made safer by observing the rules and having proper discipline.  The fact that Frum keeps trotting out anecdotal evidence of people who do not observe these rules only means that he thinks we’re stupid.  Rather, it is Frum who embarrasses himself because he can’t understand the ameliorative effects of good behavior.  Or he doesn’t want to because of his long, dark experiment into progressive ideology.

Prior: Further Proof That David Frum Is An Idiot

The Washington Times:

Gun-control and gun-rights advocates are locked in a fierce dispute over what rank-and-file National Rifle Association members and average gun owners think about President Obama’s gun-control proposals, with the NRA sharply rebutting numbers purporting to show that its members and gun owners are largely receptive to new laws.

According to polling conducted by the gun-control advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, whose co-chairman is New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, 74 percent of NRA members support requiring a criminal background check on anyone purchasing a gun.

But the NRA says that is not the case.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s claims that gun owners are divided are totally false,” said Chris Cox, the group’s chief lobbyist. “It is nothing more than an attempt by anti-gun activists to further their long-standing political agenda.”

In response to such figures, the NRA recently released its own survey — touting it as “the only legitimate survey of NRA members in existence.” The gun-rights group noted that the mayors’ group and other recent surveys did not have access to NRA membership rolls and thus their polls could not reliably sample its membership.

The poll of 1,000 NRA members shows that 89 percent oppose a ban on military-style, semi-automatic weapons and 92 percent oppose a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The group says the numbers prove that members are “united in their desire for Washington to focus on keeping firearms from the mentally ill and to reject unconstitutional gun control measures that infringe on Second Amendment rights.”

But Sen. Christopher Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said gun owners and NRA members generally agree that strengthening background checks is a good idea …

“The NRA and its lobby — especially when it comes to the debate we’re having right now in Washington — is badly out of step with the people that the NRA claims to represent,” Mr. Murphy said on a conference call Monday.

The polls showing that NRA members want universal background checks are lies.  All of them.  They are fabricated by gun-grabbers who have no problem coloring the truth, making up things or saying things they know to be outright lies.

However, Chris is trying to persuade his buddies to come join him in his quest for totalitarianism.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy is trying to convince his former colleagues in the House and his new colleagues in the Senate that there won’t be any retribution from gun owners at the polls, if they do the right thing and vote in favor of common sense gun control legislation.

Chris is a naive simpleton if he believes that.  If he doesn’t, he is willing to throw his colleagues under the bus.  We gun owners never forget, and we do and will take retribution.

Be wise and cautious.  Don’t do things from which there is no return.

Crazy uncle Joe in his own words.

“You don’t need an AR-15, it’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use,” he stressed.

Biden indicated that he has given his own wife the same advice. “I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, put that double-barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,’” he said, and urged viewers, in closing, “Buy a shotgun, buy a shotgun!”

Right.  Hand a double-barrel (I assume, 12 gauge) shotgun to a potentially small frame woman, tell her to shoot both barrels into the air, wasting her shots and leaving her defenseless, and dispense with actually aiming a weapon.

My dumb-ass dog is smarter than him.  Seriously.  Folks, do … not … ever … take an approach like this in situations of threat to your person.  Ever.  There are so many things wrong with this it’s hard to know where to begin.  First of all, do not ever leave yourself no means of egress if you are under threat, and do not ever approach the person who is threatening you.  In Castle-doctrine states you don’t have to retreat in your own home, but that’s different than recommending that someone walk out of their home.

Second, the choice of weapons should be up to the shooter, but a 12 gauge shotgun has some kick, and she may not be able to handle it.  The 5.56 mm round has much less recoil, aided by the buffer spring in the AR which absorbs much of the recoil.  Finally, no self defense expert recommends warning shots.  In fact, forget self defense experts.  No serious person anywhere recommends warning shots.

Just please.  Seriously.  Do not ever do what he is recommending.  He’s just crazy uncle Joe being himself.

Believe it or not.

Manufacturers are looking into new sensor and biometric technology to restrict gun use to the owner.

They’re called smart guns. When placing a sensor ring on the gun, it shoots. Without it, it can’t.

It’s part of technology designed so only the authorized user can fire the weapon.
Another design uses biometric technology that recognizes your grip.

“One of the major designs is where it accepts either a fingerprint or a thumb print so it will release the firing pin or the trigger area so that it can fire, so if it doesn’t recognize it, it won’t allow the gun to fire,” says Santa Maria gun shop manager Joe Degeus.

Making it useless, if the gun were to fall into the hands of a child or a criminal.

“It is kind of like James Bond,” says Degeus. “But you got to remember, with technology comes the opportunity for more mistakes.”

Gun owners say it sounds good in theory but argue the technology is lacking.

“If that system jams up or if we have a problem with it, I’m in a bad situation,” says gun owner Joshua Miller. “Because the criminal that’s coming at me…he’s not going to have any limitations so his gun’s going to fire every time.”

Take it from a registered professional engineer.  You see that picture above with the solid state electronics inside the gun?  It is obscene.  Not only that, it’s stupid.

There are even old school shooters who don’t believe in such a thing as the grip safety (Beaver tail) on my XDm.  I am not among that crowd, but the notion that I would rely on a gun with solid state electronics for my own protection is absurd, leaving aside the problems I have with it being amenable to governmental control.

Every gun you have should be capable of personal defense.  Some guns (and cartridges) are better for concealment, some better for target shooting, some better for more sophisticated and formal competition such as 3-gun or IDPA, some are better for hunting, and some are best for personal defense.

But whether .17 HMR, 5.6 mm or .338, every gun you have should be at least minimally capable of use in some sort of defensive situation, even if not the best suited for that purpose.  This is true because you might be in a position where you have to pick it up and use it for that very purpose in a crisis.

Having solid state electronics as yet another failure mode in any of those guns is not an option for me, and I suspect, for 99% of all other shooters.  So here’s a note to manufacturers.  You go right ahead and “dabble” in smart gun technology.  I will purchase such a gun when hell freezes over.

We’ve discussed the ongoing attempt to hold states accountable via a boycott and also relocation of gun and ammunition companies from inhospitable states.  But amidst the hubris of New York’s response, this sentiment was almost missed.

“To tell you the truth, Dave, we’re not worried about it,” John Grebert says. He is the executive director of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, a group that supported the new gun law in New York State.

But, he adds, “I think it’s pretty unfortunate that any business thinks they can bully us.”

Because people in law enforcement deal with criminals every days, Grebert thinks they have, “a greater right” to weapons, “to deal with potentially violent situations.” And Grebert says he’s confident police will still have access to the equipment they need “to get the job done right.”

He could be discussing the popular progressive notion that the militia doesn’t exist today because it’s an antiquated idea, or if it does, it consists of law enforcement.  Thus, the second amendment gives them rights that it doesn’t give us, or a “greater right,” if you will.

But even though this takes on the trappings of erudition, it’s still ignorant and illogical.  There were constabulary officers in the eighteenth century America that produced the constitution.  And besides, if the second amendment applied only to constables, then we would have no right at all, not less right to weapons.

The reason he did give was that they deal with violence.  You don’t, or if you do, it isn’t as necessary for you to be capable of dealing with it.  Don’t ever forget this sentiment, and how it leads to an “us versus them” mentality in law enforcement.  This is rich and wonderful because of its honesty.  I’m thankful that he brought it up.

Bob Owens discusses the fact that a growing number of companies are refusing to do business with New York and other states over unconstitutional gun laws.  More specifically, if a citizen cannot have a particular weapon, then law enforcement doesn’t get it either.

Mountain Guerrilla also weighs in with some direct contact e-mail addresses with the gun companies.  I also have some (one for Rock River Arms), and I intend to send notes around on this issue.

I have strongly advocated that Remington relocate to South Carolina (and that other firearms manufacturers relocate to different states, such as Kimber, Rock River Arms, Springfield Armory, etc.), and CBS News did a segment that showed that this kind of thing might be making a difference.

I realize that this is slightly off subject if we’re discussing manufacturers holding the states accountable for double standards, but this isn’t really that far off subject.  Most good people are hard workers, and I have put in my share of time for my company, including unpaid time.

But I once worked with a man whom I respect who held that this can and often does turn counterproductive in work, family and church.  The more we fill in the gaps for people, the less people feel the effects of their actions and decisions.  It keeps people from learning.  When we work hard to undo bad managerial decisions, management makes the same decisions again.  When we block consequences from our children, they don’t grow up.  I have begun to take my friend’s view in almost every walk of life.

When states abuse its citizens, they should lose business, respect and revenue.  States like New York, with its new assault weapons ban, and Illinois with the continued fight against even concealed carry anywhere in the state, don’t deserve the gun companies, and their states’ law enforcement agencies don’t deserve the best firearms.  Bad actions are needful of consequences in order to rectify those actions.

Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out before, the hypocrisy is just rich and a remarkable thing to behold.  States that ban weapons because they are “evil and inflict damage to innocent lives” but allow their manufacture because of revenue just aren’t worthy to be taken seriously.  This is happening in Colorado as we speak.

At Guns For Everyone, we learn that Colorado wants the ban Magpul’s magazines, but wants their money.

As Colorado state legislators debate HB 13-1224 – a bill that would ban magazines over 15 rounds – an issue arose around Magpul and its base of operations here in Colorado.

Magpul has vowed to leave the state if a magazine restriction is passed in any form.

To appease Magpul, and presumably to keep it’s reported 600 jobs and $85 million in taxable revenue in the state, Representative Joe Salazar announced an amendment to HB 13-1224, L.0.14, that would specifically exempt Magpul from this legislation in as far as they would still be welcome to manufacture and sell these black high capacity ammunition clip death machines to civilians, just not to Coloradans.

When House Republicans pointed out the obvious and blatant hypocrisy of this amendment, House Democrat Rhonda Fields insisted that the amendment was intended to allow Magpul to continue to sell these magazines to law enforcement and to the military because “the military protects the company…Country” (check the record, her slip of the tongue was real and darkly accurate).

This is a preposterous excuse for wanting Magpul to stay in Colorado and we know that she is lying.  Selling magazines to law enforcement and the military wouldn’t even come close to the business they do for the civilian market.

Kimber and Remington moving from New York, and Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory moving from Illinois, and Magpul moving from Colorado, is best for the citizens of those states, as well as the country as a whole, even if it causes pain for a while (or otherwise, if they don’t relocate, the laws need to be reversed as a precondition for their staying).  Likewise, firearms and ammunition companies shouldn’t be doing business with such states.  A principled stand like this also causes increased respect within the firearms community.  And we are a paying bunch of people.  We put our money where our mouth is.

UPDATE: Magpul is threatening to leave if the Colorado bill is passed into law.  I have sent e-mails to Rock River Arms, Smith and Wesson, Springfield Armory, Glock, Remington and Magpul about their positions regarding the state boycott.  I have yet to receive any responses.

Saturday was raw, cold and mixed frozen precipitation.  That didn’t matter, as the lines to get into the Metrolina Expo Center were long, approximately a three hour wait.  I saw cars from at least North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Jersey.  I’ve been to this gun show for years and I’ve never seen it this crowded.

Feeling were rather raw along with the weather, and there were many angry comments in line about the administration and their enablers in the Congress and Senate.

By the time we all got inside (they were letting people go in at the same rate people were coming out), we all made a bee-line for the bathroom (coffee + three hours).  As a note to planners, it might pay to put a Porta-jon or two near the line.  It would make for less irate patrons.

Inside there were plenty of ARs for sale, other semi-automatics, plenty of pistols, revolvers, and shotguns (and one very nice Springfield Armory M1A Super Match for $2700).  Tactical shotguns were in shorter supply than anything else.  I did notice that there is a plethora of new tactical flashlights, seemingly good ones, with high lumen output.  It’s nice to see competition, and flashlights seem to be the area that has sustained the most competition.  It might be some time before all of those brands have been stress tested and compared against one another.

ARs were selling for 1.5 – 2 times what I paid.  PMAGs (which I bought) were plentiful even though there is a long waiting list when ordering directly over the web.  Unfortunately, they were going for twice what I paid several years ago.  I went primarily for the ammunition though, and this is where it gets sad.

5.56 mm cartridges are going for $1 per round.  You just cannot find it for less, at least not right now.  I fear that the days of $.50 per round are gone forever.  M1 Carbine ammunition is very scarce, although I did find some.  .45, .40, .38 and all of the standard caliber handgun ammunition seemed plentiful enough to meet the demand, at least early in the show, both in target (FMJ and MC) and personal defense rounds.  Within hours supplies were noticeably diminished.

The one standout was 9 mm.  What was once the most ubiquitous round in America cannot be found.  There were a few boxes of personal defense rounds, but no target rounds.  There were stories from the dealers about selling 9 mm handguns to customers back at their stores and then getting complaints that the customers bought guns for which there was no ammunition.

The best deal at the show was the going price for XDm .40.  My own opinion, being both an XDm owner and S&W M&P owner, is that the XDm is a tighter, more well balanced weapon.  It’s all a matter of personal opinion, but when they’re selling XDms for $530, there is no debate.

The most common opinion at the gun show?  To a man and woman, everyone blames the administration and its enablers for this high-gun-price and ammunition shortage situation.  Like most other crises on the planet, this one is entirely man-made.  The self-proclaimed ruling class should take note.  The peasants are angry.  Really angry.  At all of you.  And they don’t consider themselves peasants.  They would use the term sovereign citizens.

Mike Vanderboegh:

William Diamond’s drum is sounding the long roll once again, and it doesn’t take much imagination to hear it … The enforcement of these various odious, unconstitutional laws — whether state or federal — will be resisted, flaunted and then Leviathan, which can’t afford to look silly, will come to kill us for our temerity.

What’s Mike talking about?  You’ll have to visit his place to read the rest.  In this article, Mike waxes philosophical and even poetic in places.  His call isn’t a funeral dirge, or a panic.  It is a solemn call to duty.  It’s absolutely worth the time to study it and study it again.