A Sign Of The TImes

Pol to seek bill requiring city to post signs on gun possession - NY Daily News:
(May 04, 2016)

 Councilman Dan Garodnick will introduce legislation this week to require the city to post signs on roads entering the five boroughs saying that it’s illegal to have a gun without a license from the city. Garodnick said the signs will send a message to would-be gun traffickers — as well as clueless tourists who have gotten busted for bringing their guns into New York. 

 Tourists ... maybe.  "Gun traffickers" ... not so much

But HEY!    This guy might be on to something.

Getting his name in the news.

Politicians:  "The scrabbling, scheming rabble in both houses who would foul their own nests for a line of good press or an edge in the next election"   (David Drake)

I thought I was The Only One ...

Clayton Cramer.: Foreign Policy Is A Pretty Straight-Laced Establishment Journal:

Rhodes and others around Obama keep on talking about doing all this novel thinking, playing from a new playbook, bucking the establishment thinking. 

But if that is the case, why have they given so much foreign policy power to two career hacks who never have had an original thought?
I mean, of course, Joe Biden and John Kerry. 

I guess the answer can only be that those two are puppets, and (as in Biden’s case) are given losing propositions like Iraq to handle.

I thought I was "The Only One" who recognized Joe and John  ... The Sock Puppet Twins ...as total clueless losers who never had a rational thought between them which was not handed down to them from their betters.

BTW: Joe ... in case none of your non-existent friends ever told you: letting loose a shotgun-charge of double-ought buckshot is NOT the best was to protect your home.

... when all you really need to protect your home is a pack of fire-crackers!
(They have the same effect, and they're a lot cheaper!)


And John .. you can take your thrown-away (unearned) medals from Viet Nam and find a place for them where the sun never shines.  Nobody thinks you were a war hero;  we all know you were a REMF!  Why don't you admit that you were fragged by your own crew?

Oh, this is GREAT Police Work!

Cops deploy StingRay anti-terror tech against $50 chicken-wing thief • The Register:

Annapolis police never found the thief but he represented just one of 17 occasions on which the city of 40,000 people used the device in 2011. Its use is far more prevalent in larger cities.
,,,
. New York City has used its StingRay more than 1,000 times since 2008.

There's a great meme which is never spoken of:

"If you have a tool, you will use it, even if you don't need it!"

(I just made it up.  Like it?)

Okay, here's a more familiar one:

"If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

I'm all for solving crime, and all that.
What I'm not all for is creating intrusive devices and techniques which intrude on our Constitutional "Right To Privacy" (I made that up, too)

All kidding aside, I'm concerned about the increasing encroachment of governments on the privacy rights of their individual citizens.

THIS IS HAUNTINGLY FAMILIAR!

Hatchet House

Hatchet range | WWOR: A hatchet throwing range is open in New Jersey.


Which reminds me ....

Channel your Inner Ed Ames




(Friday Night is the loneliest night of the week)

Mossberg and "Smart Gun" Technology

Yeah, right.

New Gun Technology Weds You to Your Gun | Digital Trends:
(May 03, 2016)

 Mossberg knows he faces an uphill battle when it comes to changing the negative opinions of both law enforcement and consumers regarding gun lock solutions. That battle will be won or lost in the long term, but in the immediate future, Mossberg is working on improving the firearm circuitry with the goal of shrinking it to fit inside the handgun. An internal board will restore the seamless appearance of the gun and will hide the technology from potential thieves who will of course be surprised when their stolen gun fails to operate.

... and the gun owner will be surprised when his gun fails to operate, for any of several reasons.

I'll accept Smart Gun Technology when it meets any number of 'technical' criteria:

• When the U.S. Army accepts it as the standard
• When all American Police Departments accept it as the standard
• When both these governmental groups have proved it in 10 years of on-the-job usage
• When the price of a 'smart gun' is the same as a "Stupid Gun" (or preferably less than)
• When you've proven that the technology can not be circumvented by an 'outside' influence (including the Feds with their Smart Gun Shut Down Technology) @TM
• When it's available in guns which are within my range of purchase price
• When the gun works every time, all the time, no matter whether I'm wearing the Ring of Fate or the Bracelet From Hell, and it can be made to reliably work for every member of my family

It's my life you're talking about.   It's a LOT more important to me than field-testing your flawed technology ... which you can't even figure how to fit it into a handgun!

So go back to the drawing board, Mister Mossberg, and think about not how what you can sell it, but what works for your prospective customers.

My guess is that you will never, ever, come up with a design which works for all of your customers.

In the meantime, do us (your prospective customers) the courtesy of no longer making bold, unfounded promises of "We'll make this work Real Soon Now", because we do not believe you.  

So STFU and go do your job.

So far, all we have is unfounded expectations and promises that "we really, REALLY want this to happen, real soon now"!

It's not going to happen in your life time.  Nor mine. 

 And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you're going to quit sinking your family fortune in pie-in-the-sky baloney and go back to making very, very good shotguns.

Which you're very, very good at.

Is "Gun Nuts" the new "N-Word"?

LETTER: Calling gun owners ‘gun nuts’ ill-informed:

I'm a Gun Nut.

My father was a Gun Nut, and so were most of his brothers.

I've been a Gun Nut for over half a century.

Thinking about it, I've devised an ad hoc definition of the term:

• I don't know, for sure, exactly how many guns I own
• I don't care to count them.  I just shoot them, and keep them clean  That's my job.
• I own guns I haven't fired for years
• I own guns I haven't ever fired (grandfathered)
• I shoot guns hunting, in competition, and sometimes I just go shoot them because I want to
• I reload my own ammunition
• There have been years when I have fired over 10,000 rounds in competition
• I introduced my  Significant Other to shooting 'for fun', after she realized that she would never see me on a Saturday if she didn't go to matches with me
• There have been years when I've spent over $3000 a year in shooting expenses; aa an Amateur
• I have a full gun safe, and extraneous guns tucked away in most rooms in my home
• I've given guns to my children, because I am not using them ... and maybe they will
• ... and I think they should
• If they don't use the guns, I don't care; I've done MY job!
• I buy primers by the sleeve, not by the 100-count flat
• I currently have 100 pounds of gunpowder in my loading-bench area
• I spent over $1500 on reloading tools
• I have four reloading presses
• I have a reloading press semi-permanently set up in my front room (I say "semi-permanently because it has been there for less than five years)
• When I vacuum my living-room rug, I pick pick up spilled powder and expended primers
• I got my first CHL license 50 years ago
• My garage is a mess, except I keep the area around my MAIN loading press (Dillon 650) clear
• I don't object to use of the word "gun" when referring to firearms.  I know what I mean, and I HAVE seen the movie "Full Metal Jacket"  .. in fact, I own a copy of the DVD
• Most of my friends are "Gun Nuts"
• I teach a class in "Introduction to USPSA" every month; have done so for the past 5 years

So when someone says that the term "Gun Nut" is "Ill-Informed", I say "Look at the source".

The term is only "ill-informed" if someone else says it.  

I don't have to apologize to anyone for who and what I am.  

The people who don't understand ... their opinion is not important to me.

Kansas U's reluctantly accept new Concealed Carry Laws. Miami, too!

Students voice concerns over concealed carry on college campuses | Myinforms:

 On Jan. 20, the Kansas Board Regents approved a revised policy that states, “Beginning July 1, 2017, any individual who is 21 years of age or older and who is lawfully eligible to carry a concealed handgun in Kansas shall not be precluded from doing so on state university campuses except in buildings and areas of buildings for which adequate security measures are provided, and except as otherwise prohibited by law.”
 [paraphrased]: This policy will still prohibit the open carry of firearms "anywhere on campus".

Also, the liberal professors/staff aren't comfortable with using their didactic teaching styles on armed citizens:

This debate isn't specific to Kansas. After Texas recently passed a similar law, Fritz Steiner, the dean of the architecture school at the University of Texas at Austin, announced he was leaving for a similar post at the University of Pennsylvania. His reason: the new law allowing guns in his classroom.

Texas is the eighth state to allow concealed weapons on its public, post-secondary campuses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The other states are Mississippi, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Wisconsin, Utah and Kansas. [sic]

It's hard to force draconian solutions on free citizens.

Perhaps the Universities may end up learning more from their students, than their students learn from them.


[MIAMI]

GUN-WALK PROMPTS COUNTER PROTESTS:

“I have no clue why they would want to carry a gun through our campus,” said Froehlich. “Maybe to somehow make us safe.”

Maybe these folks have something going for them.  

The key may be common courtesy.

California Dreaming ... MEDIUM

California All Rifles and; Shotguns Will Be Rationed - Fight Back:

Ever hear the story about the frog in the cook-pot?

You put a frog in a pot, and put the pot on the stove.  The frog is comfortable, and paddles around as if nothing has changed ... because it has not.
After a while, you turn the burner on to "LOW".  The frog is kewl with that.
Later, you turn it up to "MED".  Happy Frog sweats, but it's no big deal.
Finally, you turn the burner up to "HIGH", and you've got a stewed frog who was perfectly happy with being stewed because .. hey, it didn't seem like such a big deal at first!

Well, California is the Frog.  You're getting burned, and you don't even notice it because it's so GRADUAL!

You're The Stewed Frog

You live in California, and you're an elected official, and you really want to get re-elected for the rest of your life.  (the following criteria doesn't count if  your  first name is "jerry" or "alan".)

The first thing the politicians do is to vote to infringe upon the Civil Rights of your voters..

The first thing you, the voters,  do is to re-elect Democratic State Senators after they are dead.

If you stopped doing that .. that would help, don't you think?

(Geez, I've seen some clue-less electorates, but don't you agree that this is embarrassing?  In this state, if you're a DEMOCRAT, you don't even have to .... not only campaign, but BE ALIVE to be re-elected!  And you wonder why your Elected Democratic Representatives don't seem to stand up for your civil rights in California???)

Okay, let's talk about Firearms Ownership and the Second Amendment in California:

The Guantlet

2 Times I Was Glad I Had A Gun:

It was around 4:30pm and I walked to the bathroom and noticed a car in the parking lot. It was a white Honda accord with no plates and 5 people in hoods sitting in the car. I instantly thought something was off and heightened my awareness but went about my business. Around 4:45 I was starting to lock everything up and I went and peaked out a window to see if the car was still there, it was.

Dealing with a Perceived Threat: 

Peter had a problem.  Working at the office in an otherwise empty building, he saw some people loitering in the parking lot.  His was the only car in the lot.  He felt intimidated, and probably a little frightened.

He finished his work, and the group was still there.  Waiting, it seemed to him, for the owner of the lone car to come out.

He had several choices; he chose to leave the building and, on the way to his car, contrived to 'casually' display his concealed handgun in a way which was just barely "Brandishing".  He did not draw his weapon.

That worked.  The five men got into their car and left.

The comments on Peter's story lean heavily to the "Why Didn't You Call The Police?" side.

Perhaps he should have.  Maybe he just got lucky.  Possibly, potential attackers are inclined to fade away when they discover that their 'soft target' wasn't so soft, after all.

And maybe the five strangers finished their cigarettes and decided it was time to get back on the road if they wanted to get to Disneyland before it closed for the night.

EWWWWWWWW ...

Perhaps he should have have chosen the option which the comments are full of ("Why didn't you call the police?").   Maybe they're right; maybe it was a dumb stunt for Peter to actually go about his business without seeming to be intimidated.  Maybe he DID risk his life, for no good reason.

KORWIN: The Progressive’s Gun Myths

Alan Korwin says a lot of things I wish I could express so concisely.   So this week I'll be providing links to some of his commentary:  Here's the first one:

KORWIN: America’s Real Gun Problem - The Progressive’s Gun Myths - GunsAmerica Digest:

 Hillary keeps saying it, the “news” media hammers it, too many democrats apparently believe it like the gospel (though a lot don’t seem to believe in that): “We’ve got to defeat the big bad powerful evil gun lobby, namely the NRA.”

Priorities

from Dad's Deadpool Blog:

BATF hires Arizona to do their dirty work for them

David Codrea at "THE WAR ON GUNS" reported this:

Glendale, Ariz., Police Become Enforcers of ATF Gun Control:

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has entered into an agreement with the Glendale, Arizona, Police Department that makes the latter the unpaid enforcers of the former’s regulations, the Tenth Amendment Center reports.

Apparently, the feds are tired of catching all the heat for murdering citizens and burning down homes.

This must be cheaper than trying to hire agents with scruples.

Beyond the Bullet: The Cost of Gun Violence in Detroit

Beyond the Bullet: The Cost of Gun Violence in Detroit: A child's fight after becoming a shooting victim Little 9-year-old India Williams was shot while riding her bike two years ago. Her family hangs out with us for an afternoon, talking about…

(This documentary can be found here.)
The video expose starts with an opening statement by the reporter.  He speaks to how hard it is to cover this kind of story:

I've been on the streets for about 14 years, working nighst, going to a lot of these scenes.   And the same question keeps coming up:  "How do you do what you do?  Don't you bring this stuff home with you???"   Looking at the crying mothers, the crying brothers and sisters, those violent crime scenes throughout the city.  The answer is, 'of course I do. I'm human like everyone else, I try to bury it in my subconscious, but it still eats at me and bothers me every day.   I may go home and think about it for two or three days, but .. .unfortunately, it's 'on to the next story'.

Through the story, there are references  to brothers mothers and sisters.  But there are no references to fathers.  At all.