A Year In Bearing Arms:

I typically spend some time during each week reading articles from  .   I consider it a 'must read' website, because these folks often address Second Amendment issues which are important to me.

As an annual Review, these good folks have provided a skimming of the stories they considered important to many of us.

A Year In Bearing Arms: 10 Stories About Protecting Your Firearm Freedom:

A lot has happened in 2016; there were more police-related shootings, terrorist attacks and attempted robberies; liberals continued to push gun control; news of gun violence was twisted by the media; and Second Amendment advocates were given hope when Donald Trump was elected president. If you feel like you’ve missed something, here are ten of this year’s most compelling stories.

Limousine Lawyers vs 2nd Amendment

A Pro Bono Dream Team Takes On the N.R.A. - The New York Times:
(NY Times Editorial . 12/17/2016)

A promising new force in the fight for gun control has arrived on the scene. A coalition that includes corporate litigators from seven of the nation’s leading law firms is taking aim at some of the most glaring flaws in gun safety. One is Congress’s restriction of the government’s ability to conduct basic public health research on gun deaths. The lawyers will also seek ways to challenge state lawmakers who have invited millions of citizens to pack guns in public buildings and businesses.

The Coalition of Liberal Lawyers have a head start in their initial announcement to the Egregiously Liberal New York Times.

The article takes a preliminary poke at "...  Congress’s decision in 2005 to shield the arms industry from damage suits — an outrageous protection no other industry has."

 It's no surprise that they came out swinging for the low blows.  This is an obvious First Strike at the PLCAA  (Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act).

The legal fight has been made difficult by Congress’s decision in 2005 to shield the arms industry from damage suits — an outrageous protection no other industry has. But the coalition is considering new approaches, drawing upon public safety, antitrust and property laws to tackle problems like the widespread legalization of guns in public places and commercial establishments. Another concern is the pre-emption of local gun ordinances by state laws approved by politicians in the sway of the gun lobby.

I warned about this on my December 15, 2016 article  which initially noted the support of National Public Radio for anti-Second Amendment movements.  

What do 'they' have on their side?

Untold numbers of Limousine Lawyers looking to make a name for themselves.

What do 'we' have on our side?

Not much.

Only the Constitution of the United States of America.

Oh. And Bette Davis:



(H/T: David Codrea at Ammoland)

The .25-06

Hat-Tip: Paw-Paw's House

It is my personal opinion that the .25-06 is the finest all-around rifle caliber in the world today.
There are those who think that the .270 deserves that accolade, but my experience with the "Bastard Ought-Six" ... while it may not put the lie to that accolade, certainly challenges it.

I inherited my .25-06 from my father, who was a "stock maker" and whose brother (my uncle "Shorty") was a machinist.

My father's favorite rifle was the 1903-A3 Springfield rifle, and between the two of them they built many fine rifles in variant calibers, based on that platform.

They got rid of everything except the action, and from that point they combined their various skills (Uncle Shorty, the machinist; Pop, the stock-maker) to build some of the most beautiful and functional rifles the world has ever seen.

For under $500, including their time.

But the .25-06 was perhaps their finest creation.

My father ("POP") was the imagination.  He conceived of many bizarre configurations of caliber, stock, barrel and accoutrements.  Uncle Shorty did the machining and always worked to spec.

Between them, the most disappointing creation was a .22-250 (obviously not using the 1903-A3 Springfield as a platform .. it was a "spec" creation) which my father built for me for varmint shooting.   I had demanded that they use the entire barrel-blank, to keep the most metal on the barrel so that I could shoot ground-hogs all day from 300 yards to 500 yards and  not warp the barrel.
Pop and Shorty decided it just looked ... ugly.  So they tapered the barrel by 1/8" over the 30" length of the barrel.   Yes, it looked better, and it never wavered from zero at 500 yard ground-hog shooting, all day long.

But I digress ... we're talking about the .25-06.

Pop bought a new .25 caliber barrel (after 50 years, I disremember the well-known barrel maker ... "Black" something?), Shorty tapered the barrel, bored the chamber to .25-06 and fitted it to the action.

Pop fitted it with a "Birds-Eye Maple" stock, with a Pachmeyer Recoil pad (that .25-06 was soft shooting, but after 100 rounds during an afternoon of Ground-Hog shooting in a prone-over-a-shooting-stick position, I was grateful for the padding!)

The stock was a full cheek-piece that lapped over to the over side ... dense wood, lots of it, and it looked as if it had tailfins and a V8 engine it would  rip up a dragstrip and still take "Best In Show" at a vanity car show.

Better yet, I could shoot Jack Rabbits, Mule Deer or Antelope (with the 10x Leopold scope) at distances from 70 yards to 500 yards ... and did!

Okay, I wasn't shooting Jacks at 500 yards.

Deer and Antelope ... yes, after I learned the right "hold".

I initially sighted the gun in at 200 yards,  It was still dead on at "Hopping-Jackrabbit" distances, and close enough at 100-yard "Startled Deer: distances.

But how did it perform at long distances?

I once (nineteen-seventy something) shot an Antelope which was just disappearing over a knoll at 500 yards, from a supported kneeling position.  I held one-body-thickness over the horns, to allow for the time-to target. After a second or three, I heard the distinctive "THUMP" of a solid hit.

Pop and  my uncles, and our host at the private ranch, disbelieved the hit; but when we fetched the trucks and drove over the hill, there was a DRT antelope with a chest shot.

I named him "Fred", and paid $300 to mount the  14-1/2"trophy head.  He hangs over my stairwell today.

It wasn't me; it was the .25-06 shooting 117-grain Nosler Boat-tail bullets during an atypical windless moment in the Rawlins, Wyoming hunt area.

And yes, I have posted this information before, and I'm still waiting for someone to call me 'lair' on it.
It doesn't matter.  I know it was a million-to-one shot, but it worked.  I saved the head and I ate the meat, and the meat was delicious stir-fried in a hot pan with grease and some fried potatoes.\

I also have a very nice .30-06, but I could not have made the shot with that calibre;  I tried hunting with a .30-06  using 130 grain hollow point bullets, but they ruined the meet a close * (under 100 yards distance) * and they were erratic at longer distances.

I love the .25-06 because the ballistics are very easy to dope at various distances, it accommodates a variety of bullet weights, and the ballistics are a gentle arch which allows you to guestimate the proper hold over a wide variety of distances.

And it's a killer of jack-rabbits!

Chicago: "Old News"

Chicago's grim murder trend blamed on light sentencing, misguided reforms | Fox News:

The cycle of violence has resulted in more than 800 shootings so far this year, including seven shootings and one murder on April 4 alone. Escalante’s successor, former Chicago Police Department Chief of Patrol Eddie Johnson, says the rate of murders and shootings can’t be reversed until the criminal justice system begins to hold offenders accountable.

This is "Old News".

I recall an article I wrote a few years ago (2014?) about Rahm Emanuel as Mayor of Chicago (elected 2011) and he wanted to keep the statistics of Firearms Deaths under the Magic Number of 500 deaths.

He and his political machine used every tactic possible to define "death by firearms" out of that official category.

This statement was based on a 2014 The Guardian article, which links to a "Chicago Magazine" article:

Stung by a 16% spike in killings in 2012 that led Moody’s, the ratings agency, to downgrade the city’s debt due to its "unrelenting public safety demands", Emanuel promised a tough response. Amid spending cuts, the former White House chief of staff to Barack Obama has ploughed tens of millions more taxpayer dollars into policing. Sure enough, in January he proudly announced that 2013 had seen the city’s fewest homicides since 1965 and lowest crime rate since 1972.
Yet a startling 7,000-word investigation [The Truth About Chicago's crime Rates] earlier this month by Chicago Magazine cast serious doubt over the crime-busting miracle of Emanuel and his superintendent, Garry McCarthy. It identified at least 18 apparent murders in 2013 that had either been quietly redefined as “non-criminal deaths” or shunted off the city’s books by other statistical sleights of hand..

Mayor Rahm has never lost his emphasis on "Looking Good" even though his record so far doesn't excel above the level of competency demonstrated by the corrupt   incompetent earlier Democrats who preceded him in the honorable office of Mayor of Chicago, Illinois.

Hey, Chicago!

Have you ever thought about voting for a different political party?

USA TODAY is worried about firearms accidents over the Christmas Season.

This is the season for gun accidents. Deaths spike during the holidays.:

The happiest of seasons is also among the deadliest: Unintentional shootings spike during the holidays, and are more likely to occur than any other time of the year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and the USA TODAY Network. 

The newsmag points out that firearms are often gifts, and the recipients are often untrained.

That's probably true ... and who is responsible for that?

The victims were mostly male and young, with a median age of 19. Nearly half the shootings were self-inflicted, and most occurred in their own homes. The victims are people like Tezlar Wayne Ross, a 20-year-old from Gaffney, South Carolina, who killed himself while playing with a handgun at his home last New Year’s Eve.

It's easy to dismiss this as "Darwinian", but one wonders who buys guns for untrained adolescents and/or "young adults"?

The article also mentions "unsecured guns at their homes" and "alcohol" may be involved.

Ultimately, it's not so much a problem with the activity of immature males as it is a problem with irresponsible parents.

Responsible Parents Don't:

• Give their child a firearm until they know he/she respects the gun, and he/she is sufficiently well-trained in firearms safety to always handle the gun safety;
• Give their child ammunition at the same time;
• Allow their child to 'play' with guns;
• Allow their child access to firearms except under direct parental supervision;
• Assume that their child is less of an idiot than his/her parent!
• Note that a pistol might not be the best "first gun".

Articles such as this one might serve as a warning to others, but unfortunately there are enough irresponsible parents to make it unlikely that their children will have learned to be better than they have been taught.