NRA, you got a LOT of 'splaining to do!

In a recent COUNTERPUNCH article, Ken Levy contends that the National Rifle Association is at fault, in part and in whole, for firearms violence in America.

If You Don’t Support Gun Control, Then You Don’t Support the Police:

The NRA and their Republican supporters’ enthusiastic encouragement and passage of lax gun laws and policies over the past 30 years have sadly enabled hundreds of thousands of senseless, needless deaths and injuries. It’s high time, then, that they atone for their destructive influence by renouncing the same old unproductive, callous platitudes and canards and finally getting on board with a sensible multi-pronged approach that includes gun control. In the end, this is really the only way to honor the Baton Rouge and Dallas police officers who were viciously murdered – and to better protect all of the police officers who are still serving.

Ken Levy is the Holt B. Harrison Associate Professor of Law at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University.

It will be a fine day when Academics contain their lectures to their classrooms, where they are free to brainwash instruct their mallable students on the canons of Liberalism.

Unfortunately, they often feel obliged to lecture grown-ups as well.  In doing so, they demonstrate their Ivory Tower bigotry and flaunt their assumed intellectual superiority.

The good professor might spend some time with real police officers, who have said, recently and emphatically, that they cannot be everywhere; they cannot counter terrorism alone, and they encourage private citizens to arm themselves in order to promote the general wellfare.

(I think I read that last part here in DC, here in Ohio, here in Florida. )

Levy's polemic includes a duty of the citizen to "... protect all of the police officers who are still serving".

Funny, here's another thing I think I read somewhere:

"To Protect, And To Serve"

Oh, yes, now I remember.   It was written on the door of a police car.  

In fact, virtually all of the police cars in America carry that oath.

Levy confuses the roles which Americans assume with roles which Liberals take for granted.

For example, police assume the role of enforcement of the law.  While they claim to "protect", their ability to protect anyone is exceedingly limited.  They can't stop someone from gettting shot, for example ... even their fellow officers.  They would like to but "we can't be everywhere" is just a truth that we all learn to live with.

Levy's assumed role is, apparently, to criticize the people who are trying to make a difference because they don't meet his standards of ... uh ... "difference-making".

No, he won't criticize the police who cannot 'be everywhere'.  

But he WILL criticize American citizens who choose to arm themselves in defense of themselves and others, even though these people CAN  'be everywhere'.

Levy is laboring under the misguided assumption that, if firearms were universally prohibited, America would truly be a land of peace.

He should take a look at Australia and Great Britain,  the Liberals' best exemplar.   Private citizens there aren not often murdered by firearms (although they sometimes are), but they find themselves in a state of aggressiveness against which they have no defense.   The elderly, women, minorities ... all find themselves targets of hoodlums, and the police cannot protect them.   And they cannot protect themselves.   Witness the increased number of rapes and other assaults in England and Europe.  Those victims have no way to protect themselves, because firearms are forbidden ... and only the law-abiding are disarmed.

The assaults suffered there are "just hooliganism" ... victimization by your neighbors.

Compared with terrorism (where people who don't live where you live, but still they wish to murder as many of you as they can) the "unarmed, law abiding citizen" has, literally, no defense at all.  And like the hooligans, the terrorists know that.

In America ... perhaps the only thing which dissuades terrorists from more frequent, more brutal armed attacks is the fact that they may run into a citizen with a gun.

One thing is certain:   terrorist assaults with firearms only occur in "Gun Free Zones".
Such as California.

Firing an AR-15 is horrifying, menacing and very very loud

Firing an AR-15 is horrifying, menacing and very very loud - NY Daily News: It felt to me like a bazooka — and sounded like a cannon.

OKAY .. so today, children, we are going to follow the trail of New York Daily News reporter Gersh Kuntsman as he experiences the (since gone viral) the traumatic Shooting of the Evil AR15!


Let's look at his reportial expose of the shock .. the horror .. the TRAUMA of shooting  Military Assault Rifle!

Quote:   It's " ... horrifying, menacing and very very loud ... ".

Um  .. I've never fired an AR15.

But I've fired an M16 .. a lot.  It was in a little test-firing range in South Viet Nam (children, ask your parent) and frankly .. I thought it was a poodle-shooter.  Suiable only for the murder of small, furry quadrapeds who yap incessently.  
(There have been times since, during which I longed for an M16; most recently, this morning when the neighborhood canines decided to talk to each other during the Dawn Hours, when I longed for either an M16 or an M79 Grenade Launcher;  but that's another story.)

When I was a teenager. I competed in an indoor-range competition rifle  series of matches; I used a .22 "Long Rifle" cartridge, and having fired the M16 in subsequent years I honestly didn't notice any significent difference between the M16 and the .22 LR.

(Well .. the M16 was louder, and had a "select fire" option which I never used ... I considered it to be a "stupid" option because I never saw anyone in a combat situation where Full-Auto was a viable option!)

So I will forgive the author of this original theme for considering the AR-15 "loud".  Having fired REAL "loud" rifles (7mm magnum, .338) I probably have a more ... 'learned' ... opinion about how loud the AR15 is, but I'll give him that.  He has no experiential background to define the word "IS".

Sorry:  He has no experiential background to define the word "LOUD".

Democrat

My uncle was a Taxi Driver in Chicago, and until the day he died, he voted Republican.

Since then, he has voted Democrat.

Catch And Release in Fredrick, MD

7-Eleven clerk disarms shotgun-wielding man | Cops And Crime | fredericknewspost.com:

“[The man] pointed it at my employee and started screaming at my employee, screaming in his face, and [my employee] grabbed [the gun] and took it out of the guy’s hands,” said Abdul Ayub, who owns the store. “And the guy ran out of the store, so now the police have the gun and he didn’t get anything.”

The whole story, and the accompanying video, are available here.

Isn't there some kind of safety rule about "keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot?"

This clerk is happy that his hooded nemesis observed that rule.

Houston, We Have A Problem

Actually, it's not HOUSTON, it's The Liberal Press which has a problem.
They don't get enough opportunities to show how awful gun-owners (and their masters, the NRA) are, so they need to recycle the stories that they find 'elsewhere'.

I wrote about this last Thursday, in response to an article from "Elite Daily";
check for yourself to see if THIS article has anything new to say:

NRA Ad Tells Women to Shoot Rapists, Abusers -- The Cut:

PART 1: "EMPOWERMENT" 

The ad ("NRA Ad" ... see the reference above) —which is less a message aimed at abusers and more a bulletin encouraging women to purchase firearms— goes on to say that "real empowerment" looks like millions of women buying guns to protect themselves and their families from any potential threat. In doing so, it not only transfers blame for assault from the assailant to the victim, but it seriously mischaracterizes both sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Yep ... the "Empowerment" message is there.

PART 2: "EDUCATE THE MALE"

Instead of educating men on the nature of sexual assault — and instead of cultivating a society in which rape and abuse of women is absolutely unacceptable, rather than an offense that's met with leniency — the NRA suggests we arm every single woman.

Yes, the suggestion (and I still can't believe I'm reading this) is that abused women should:
"[educate] men on the nature of sexual assault" .. rather than take positive steps to defend themselves, their family, and their homes.

The image of a woman who is being beaten by her estranged husband  *who is under a domestic violence restraining order* explaining that "sexual assault is a no-no" absolutely boggles the mind.  Apparently, the people who write this crap have no concept of what the word "domestic abuse" means.

And it gets better .. or worse.

PART 3:  NRA THINKS ABUSERS ARE ONLY STRANGERS!

The ad also fundamentally mischaracterizes rape and sexual assault. Rape is almost never, as the NRA seems to suggest here, committed by a stranger in a dark alleyway — ... most victims of sexual violence ... are attacked by someone they know... a spouse, a relative, or a family friend...

NO idea how the authors got that impression.  In the NRA video I saw, it was fairly obvious that the 'intruder' was an (ex) partner who was violating a restraining order.

PART 4:  YOU CAN BE KILLED BY YOUR OWN GUN!

"The presence of a gun in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent," and, "more than half of women murdered with guns are killed by family members or intimate partners." 

This is a two-fer:

(A) 'if there is a gun in they house you are five times more likely to be murdered' is a meme which was originally published in the report of a study by a man named "Kellerman", who cherry picked his community (he only reported on homes in which a homicide had occurred and "... a firearm was present in the house..." whether or not it was involved in the murder); which study has been widely debunked as statistically fallable.  Which means, he made it all up.   Actually, this 'quote' undermines Kellerman's theme, which suggests that ' you are SEVEN times more likely to be killed if you have a gun in your home'.   Never mind whether it was a gun owned by the resident, or was brought into the home by the intruder, it all adds to Kellerman's pre-determined conclusion.

(B) "More than half of women murdered with guns are killed by family members or intimate partners".
Which presupposes husbands or co-habitating partners,    The supposition that this NRA video might apply negatively to a woman who defended herself against a stranger ("home invasion") assault seems to be intuitively obvious: anyone has the right to defend herself against an intruder.  Why this is even suggested to be a 'negative' message from the NRA is beyond me.   However, Kellerman (and the Liberal Press) conclusions make the victim appear to be the author of her own demise.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Oh, hell.  Thanks to "The Gun Mart", we have this direct comparison between a woman at risk, and a woman who is prepared to defend herself, her family and her home.

PS:
Have a nice day.

Just Another Gun-Grabber

Gov. Brown Announces Plan To Curb Gun Violence . News | OPB:

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced an executive order Friday, ordering Oregon State Police to maintain a database of firearms transactions for five years after the sale. She also ordered state police to notify local law enforcement agencies if a person who is prohibited from buying a gun tries to do so.

When Kate Brown was appointed in February of 2015 to replace former governor Kitzenhaber, I commented here that I was relieved:  "She can't be worse than Kitzenhaber!" I proclaimed.

My friends warned me that she was a Democrat, and an appointee, and she was worse.
I should have listened to them, but it took this announcement today for the warnings to finally sink in.

It was bad enough last year when new laws in Oregon required that all firearms transactions, even private sales, be transacted through the firearms database (a clear violation of the Second Amendment), but I planned to either ignore the trash-law or avoid it.  I have no need for another firearm, I thought.

I was wrong.  It's not about me, it's about Oregon.

Background Check on Private Firearms Sales:

I was not happy when new Oregon laws required a background check on private transfers/sales of firearms.  I was especially disappointed to learn that it included the description (including make, model and serial number) of the firearm.  But I was (naively) reassured that the information was not permanently recorded.

As we all know, a registry of firearms transfers is the first step towards confiscation.  California learned that hard lesson several years ago.  (And it was reinforced last year!)

Comparative Acceptance in Baghdad By The Bay

Have I got this right?

In the place where they won't jail a wetback for using a stolen pistol to murder a woman, but they won't allow anyone to sell firearms or ammunition, and they won't turn anyone in for being in the country illegally ... a mob of sunbathers (not that they get sun more than 10 times a year) now beats a man half to death because he's ogling someone's GIRLFRIEND?

Man’s roaming eyes spark mob beat down in SF’s Dolores Park - SFGate:

A mob beat up a man in San Francisco’s Dolores Park for looking at the girlfriend of one of his attackers, police said Thursday. ...The mob then repeatedly kicked him while he was on the ground, police said. 

Can you say "Cognative Disonance", Children?

(I knew you couldn't.)

"Submit or Die": Trial Of The Century

"Trial of the Century" blog writes to demonstrate how some persons may willingly subvert the verbiage of the Second Amendment to 'prove' that it promotes Gun Violence.   Here's part of his reasoned counter to the original "THE NATION" article (which writing he terms "rampant historical revisionism") by Joshua Holland:

Submit or Die |:

On its face this argument is kind of breathtaking, because it implicitly assumes that a maniac murdering a bunch of cops is tantamount to “a heavily armed populace” taking action against “a tyrannical government running amok.” That the two are not in the slightest equivalent never seemed to have crossed Joshua Holland’s mind—he seems to be able to draw no meaningful distinction between Dallas last week and Massachusetts in 1775, between Michah Johnson on the one hand and Henry Knox on the other. Can a writer for a popular magazine—even a writer for the Nation—be so terminally clueless? 

 But maybe this isn’t simply an ahistorical [sic] gaffe: maybe liberals really are incapable of divining the difference between a psychopathic mass shooting and a rebellion against tyranny. Maybe the liberal political impulse has become so degraded that, as far as progressives are concerned, there is no situation—none at all—in which one can ever  be justified in rebelling against any authority anywhere, no matter how tyrannical the authority is, no matter how justified the case for rebellion may be. It’s all illicit, all forbidden not merely by statute but by moral law: government is so final an arbiter of morality and rightness that you can’t ever fight it for any reason, under any circumstances.

You may find that reading the whole thing  is a worthwhile use of your time.

I did.  I read both articles.

I found points with which I am inclined to agree in both articles.

However, I think the point made in 'submit or die' (which, again, is not the WHOLE THOUGHT) deserves to be emphasized, bearing in mind that the quoted verb it doesn't address the whole of the HOLLAND article.

It's a complex issue; the opinions will, of necessity, be equally complex.

NO PLANTS FOR LAWYERS!

Georgia police: Chattanooga attorney shot after breaking into elderly couple's house, throwing plants at them | Times Free Press:

Anybody want to bet me that the lawyer is NOT a Democrat?

Okay, this is a legitimate argument for Plant Control!

(Alternate title:  "Just Because You Say His Gun Isn't Loaded Doesn't Make It So!")

No Guns for Women?

"The risk of death for women increases by 500 percent when a gun is present in domestic violence, even if the woman got the gun for her own safety."

True, if she's not the one with the gun!


I don't know what "Elite Daily" is, but it certainly presents the "elitist" message clearly.

In reponse to the Dana Loesch video message which encourages women in danger to prepare to protect themselves  (ie: "gun-empowered women can fight back"), the elitists seem to ignore the threat to defensless people because it's just .... awful ... to think women might  feel it's necessary to defend themselves.   There are many emotional and physical factors which FORCE women to stay in abusive relationships ... nobody is saying those women must user force to resist force; only that this may be a viable alternative to deadly threats.


This Bizarre New NRA Ad Encourages Women To Murder Rapists And Abusers:

Real empowerment for me looks like men who are empowered to know they don’t need to defend their masculinity and assert their power through violence. It looks like men who understand consent. It looks like men who honor and value both my safety and the safety of other women.

The NRA wants you to think that rapists are strangers in alleys. But three out of four victims of sexual violence are attacked by someone they know, as New York magazine points out.

The NRA wants you to think that domestic abuse can be easily solved by a gun. There are many emotional and physical factors that contribute to why women stay in abusive relationships. Having a gun isn’t a solution.

As New York magazine points out again, having a gun while in an abusive relationship could also threaten your own safety. The risk of death for women increases by 500 percent when a gun is present in domestic violence, even if the woman got the gun for her own safety.

There are many things you can say to potential attackers. “Go ahead” shouldn’t be one of them.

I'm sorry, Elite Magazine, but you got the quote wrong:



There are "many emotional and physical factors" which FORCE women to stay in abusive relationships ... nobody is saying those women must user force to resist force; only that this may be a viable alternative to deadly threats.

Oh, I didn't want to put the whole 90 minute movie "The Burning Bed" up here, but please be aware that this is also another option for abused women in fear of their life.

That is, for women who don't live in your idealistic dream world, you .... elitists.

No Guns For Kids?

No guns for kids?

Latest Gun Control Legislation Takes Aim at Children, and Reveals a Sinister Truth – Bearing Arms:
Posted at 3:05 pm on July 13, 2016 by Jenn Jacques

Senator Edward J. Markey and Congressman Ruben Gallego introduced new legislation that claims will “ensure that powerful, military-style weapons don’t end up in the hands of children”. The Help End Assault Rifle Tragedies (HEART) Act of 2016 as announced by Markey and Gallego claims to protect children by prohibiting anyone under the age of 16 from possessing or firing machine guns and assault weapons, specifying that the law would extend to gun shows and shooting ranges. However, the bill clearly aims to shut down all youth shooting sports and young hunters’ ability to participate in any activity that uses guns.

[emphasis added]
So, how am I going to teach my grandchildren how to shoot?

Brit: "A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One!"

I Was A Cop In A Country With No Guns: 6 Startling Truths:

Over the first eight months of 2015, American police killed 776 people, while British police killed exactly one. American police are eight times as likely to kill a citizen, and ten times as likely to die on the job, as their essentially unarmed British counterparts. We wanted to get an idea of just why this was, so we spoke to Charley Clark, who spent nearly a decade as a police constable and a detective constable in Hackney, one of the most deprived and dangerous boroughs in London. Naturally, as we were writing about how much safer the UK is with its lack of guns, despite having a commensurate percentage of unstable potential criminals, this happened. But the fact that the attacker is alive to face trial is a testament to the police involved and to how long it takes Trojan, the British Police armed response teams, to arrive. The suspect was armed -- the arresting officers were not. Welcome to policing, British-style.

(Actually ... I posted this because this gentleman's story was both amusing and well written; if you have to go up against bad boys with nothing than an empty pocket and a smile, it seems to be good tactics to make the other bloke smaile as well.)


(sigh)

Philando Castile shooting

All I want to know is what was in the pocket.  Was it a Wallet, a Concealed Handgun License, a Driver's License, or a handgun?

Why in the HELL has the MSM not mentioned this in the past WEEK when they have printed thousands of words about it?

Minnesota officer reacted to gun, not race, attorney says:

The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black man in a Minneapolis suburb earlier this week spoke out through his attorney Saturday saying that the shooting had nothing to do with race. The officer, identified as Jeronimo Yanez, shot and killed Philando Castile Wednesday during a routine traffic stop. Castile and his fiance, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, were pulled over for an alleged busted taillight. Authorities told the Associated Press that Yanez approached the vehicle from the driver’s side while his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, came around the passenger side. Yanez eventually opened fire, striking Castile multiple times. Minnesota attorney Thomas Kelly was mum on the exact reason why Yanez shot Castile, simply telling AP the Latino officer reacted to “the presence of that gun and the display of that gun.” Kelly went on to say that the officer, who was placed on administrative leave after the event, is distraught and saddened. The story made headline news after Reynolds live streamed the aftermath of the shooting on social media site Facebook. In the video, Reynolds narrates the scene, stating that the officer shot her fiance as he was reaching for his wallet.

Nice Try: No Cigar!

John McClaughry (Ethan Allen Institute) offers some thoughts about ...
McClaughry: Gun Control Ideas that Won’t Work :Times Argus Online:

" The difficulty the Democrats face is that, stripped of the emotion and politically driven posturing, their legislative demands either flagrantly violate the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens, or are hopelessly ineffective and unenforceable against would-be terrorists and mass murderers."

There's nothing really 'new' about this: you've read it a hundred times and, if you're a legitimate firearms owner, you've thought it a thousand times.

 J.D. Tuccille, writing at Reason.com, points out that a California law to register “assault rifles” (sic) in 1990 resulted in 7,000 registrations, out of an estimated 300,000 semiautomatic rifles in private hands. In New Jersey, out of more than 100,000 firearms affected, a similar law brought in 947 people who were target shooters, 888 who rendered their guns inoperable, and four who surrendered them to the police.

Simply stated, people who own guns Will Not Comply with unconstitutional 'firearms control laws'.   More: historically, they "have not complied" with such laws.

Liberals and other "Gun Control Advocates" (eg: "Gun Grabbers") are grabbing at straws when they think to undermine the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. Barack Obama

These people simply do not understand the determination of Americans to demand the that their constitional rights be not only accepted, but revered!  

The Constitutional Amendments were reluctantaly accepted by The Founding Fathers; at the time, they thought that the Declaration of Independence and the Constition were suffecient: they did not think that the Individual Rights needed to be enumerated, but they were outvoted by those who thought that there needed to be some commentary to specifically point out the 'minutia' which exemplified the constitution.

Thus, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the constitution), which at the time were thought to be almost parenthetical.

After all, they had already made the point of "Don't Tread On Me".  What else needed to be said .. it was obvious!

Thankfully, they took the time to enumerate the issues which were protected for the people 
(EVERYTHING was denied to The State, except for specific duties and powers .. just in case).

And so, we find ourselves engaged in a debate about what each amendment means.

It was not meant to be so complicated;  what's so hard to understand about "SHALL NOT BE ABRIDGED"?

It's so much simpler to say "NO!  UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!" than it is to say "Well, sometimes ... " and go into great detail about exceptions.

There are no exceptions to the Second Amendment.  Even the NSA exceptions are unconstitional, even though nobody cares/dares to argue against it. 

Americans gave up the right to own full-automatic guns.

Then they gave up the right to own .... well, it's a long litany of rights which firearms owners have allowed to be restricted, and what have we received in return?

Nothing.  Someday, it would be nice if the Gun Grabbers among us would seem to be willing to concede that the Second Amendment had some justification, some meaning.  

But unless we fight for it, that will never happen.   Unless we just fall back on the "Will Not Comply" thingie.  And then what well 'they' do about it?  Raid our homes and confiscate our legally owned firearms?

We might as well have Full Automatic guns;  eventually, everything we own will be conflated as 'as dangerous'.

Officer Target

Minnesota officer reacted to gun, not race, attorney says:

The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black man in a Minneapolis suburb earlier this week spoke out through his attorney Saturday saying that the shooting had nothing to do with race. The officer, identified as Jeronimo Yanez, shot and killed Philando Castile Wednesday during a routine traffic stop. Castile and his fiance, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, were pulled over for an alleged busted taillight. Authorities told the Associated Press that Yanez approached the vehicle from the driver’s side while his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, came around the passenger side. Yanez eventually opened fire, striking Castile multiple times.

There are a LOT of things wrong with this story, and I can't believe that either the officer or the driver had so little sense of responsibility that it had to end in the death of the driver.

Ignoring the rumors about the driver, there are ways to handle a normal traffic stop which will help prevent a tragedy.

A lot of people have stories, and questions, about being pulled over during a routine traffic stop when they are armed.  I understand their concerns.   Most people with CHL aren't really conversant with the best way to deal with police; perhaps my own experiences can provide a exemplar.

Antigun Missouri Senator WALKS!

It must be nice to be SPECIAL!

Guilty Conscience?

State lawyer wants legislators’ addresses removed from pro-gun blog | The Sacramento Bee:

Warning of “a grave risk” to elected officials, the California Legislature’s legal arm has asked the blog platform WordPress to take down a post listing the addresses of lawmakers who supported gun control legislation. Gov. Jerry Brown on July 1 signed several gun control measures, fortifying California’s already strong gun restrictions over the objections of those who saw the bills eroding Second Amendment rights. Among other things, the new laws will require background checks to purchase ammunition, broaden the definition of illegal assault weapons, outlaw possession of high-capacity magazines and limit gun lending.

Should legislators, at any level, be held accountable for the laws they adjudicate?

That's the question being asked of the California State Assembly in regards to the recent draconian anti-gun laws they have proposed

Senators should listen to their people BEFORE they cast their votes.

Obviously, the second thoughts of the Elected Officials are driven by their concern that violance might be the result of their legislative efforts.

That reflects poorly on their trust in the citizens of their state.   Do they not trust their constituents?
Why not?   Don't they think they have properly protected the rights of the people who elected them?

The people who elected them, trusted THEM to represent the interests of the people.

Now, these same ligislators want to preserve their anonymity.

One might be wary of politicians who don't want their constituents to know where they live.

If they don't trust the people who voted them into office, why should those voters trust them?

A Modest Proposal for Smart Guns

Allen West has a nifty proposal which may potentially resolve two issues:

1.  What do we do with "Smart Guns"?   It's untested technology; nobody trusts it.
2.  How do we arm our "friendlies" in the Middle East ... who change shirts at will?

EVERYBODY (almost) is touting the benefits of "Smart Guns", which cannot be fired by anyone except the 'registered owner'.  Some folks want Americans to put the lives of their families at risk by depending on this untested technology.

Americans have lined up to say "UH ... I DON'T THINK SO!"

One of the issues is that Americans love their country but fear their government;
"The Feds" can turn off the functionality of a 'Smart Gun' at will, because it's all electronics and NSA has the premier control in this world of electronic data transfer.

At the same time, we are arming our 'friendlies' in the Middle East, but we don't trust them all that much either.

Instead of imposing Smart Guns on the American People, why don't we give them to our allies?

The Real Issue of Gun Control - Allen West:
(July 06, 2016)

Both Afghanistan and Iraqi Defense Forces have difficulty determining the sympathies and loyalties of new recruits. Aware of these concerns, Florida-based Trigger Smart has now developed and patented a smart gun system that can remotely enable and disable weapons using wireless technology on the military field.  

While technology alone cannot replace proper vetting practices, smart-gun technologies can potentially mitigate the risk that our troops face. Equipping our ally soldiers with RFID-secured weapons, paired with wide-area control technology, can ensure that only authorized personnel can operate their assigned weapon. Weapons can be enabled and disabled by U.S. advisors whose military forces will designate safe zones throughout outposts and operating bases.

Tee hee hee

I can only imagine the Middle-Eastern turncoats who point guns at American 'advisers', only to discover that "The Furschlinger Gun Doesn't Work!"

(I don't know how to say that in Farsi.)

This is probably the best idea I've heard in years.

In the words of Andy Rooney: "Hey Kids, I've got an idea ... let's put on a show!"

Cop Killer Jacket?

NYPD checking ammo after knife wielder’s jacket stops cops’ bullets | New York Post:
(May 19, 2016)

Four of the shots that cops fired at a madman waving a knife in Midtown failed to penetrate his jacket — which was not bulletproof — and the NYPD will now check the weapons for malfunction, law enforcement sources told The Post. “The bullets we have may be defective and that’s very disturbing,” one source said. “When we fire our weapons, we want to make damn sure that our bullets hit our target — neutralizing our target.”

That's odd, isn't it?  Maybe the NYPD should interview the 'madman' and get the name of his tailor?
That tailor could make a fortune!

Actually, Lucky Gunner ran a test last year, which they called "The Heavy Clothing Test".   They found that even light clothing might offer significant protection from pistol caliber bullets:

The heavy clothing test simulates a scenario in which the target is wearing four layers of clothing: two cotton shirts, fleece, and denim. The FBI uses this standard not because it’s common for people to actually wear that exact clothing, but because they are common clothing materials, and when combined they represent something close to a worst case scenario for a bullet.
Clothing can present a challenge for some hollow point loads because the opening in the bullet can become clogged with clothing material and fail to expand once it reaches living tissue. This failure to expand gives the bullet a lower probability of striking a vital area, and also leads to the potential for over-penetration. Expanding bullets lose velocity quickly and are more likely to stay inside the target, but a hollow point that fails to expand can maintain enough energy to exit the target and potentially harm bystanders.
We used the same type of fabric specified in the FBI heavy clothing test, which calls for the following:

1. cotton t-shirt material (approximately 5.25 ounces per yard, 48 threads per inch)

1. cotton shirt material (approximately 3.5 ounces per yard, 80 threads per inch)

1. Malden Mills Polartec 200 fleece

1. cotton denim (approximately 14.4 ounces per yard, 50 threads per inch)

The four layers of fabric were stacked together and placed against the front of the gelatin block, secured with clothes pins to a bar suspended above the test block

What they discovered surprised them:  even a 'cotton t-shirt' offered some (and in some ways significant) resistance to penetration, especially by a hollow-point bullet.    Not that any of the ammunition tested failed to penetrate, but their tests showed that penetration of the body cavity, wound channels and expansion of the bullets were all affected by the cloth which which the 'target' (ballistic gel) was 'protected'.

Which is interesting, but still doesn't answer the question of WHY the NYPD's bullets did not (according to the article) even penetrate the clothing!

The cops are blaming "the bullets", by which one assumes they're talking about the ammunition, not necessarily the bullets themselves.  And they might have something there.

How often to they fire to qualify?  How often do they replace their ammuition .. you know, the stuff they actually load in their pistols?  

It's true that ammunition deteriorates over time; and gunpowder deteriorates quicker, if exposed to air and moisture.  

To suggest that these cops were carrying ammunition so old that even factory ammunition would lose effectiveness is ... well, mind-boggling.

I don't know what the NYPD Commissioner of Police is going to do about that, but he might take a few 'first steps' just in case:

(1)  Every cop on the force turns in his current ammunition ... or better yet, is required to shoot it on the practice range, and their scores are recorded;
(2) Every cop on the force is issued brand new ammunition;
(3) Every cop on the force is required to qualify twice a year, using his issued ammunition (ALL OF IT!) and is then issued new, fresh ammunition.
(4) The 'issued ammunition', as soon as it is purchased, is tested (random sample) for penetration of ballistic gel under various items of clothing, and also material such as cardboard, wallboard, and glass.

Because the cops on the beat might very well be correct .... there may be something wrong with their "bullets".   It may simply be that the ammunition is not expended in practice and has not been replaced in years.

Nah .. I don't really believe that.  It takes a long time for sealed ammunition to deteriorate to the point where it won't penetrate a denim jacket!   And police are required to qualify with their issued sidearm annually; surely they use their issued ammunition, and are then issued fresh ammunition.

I'm not about to suggest that the cops gunfire didn't actually hit the target.  That assumes that the cops can't hit what they aim at .. and that would be just silly!

Everybody know, police are the only ones qualified to engage criminals in gunfights, because cops are so well trained and stuff.

.Civilians are the people we don't trust to handle a firearm in a gunfight.  (Except for Criminals, of course!   They always have the best guns, best gear, fresh ammo and they practice ALL THE TIME!)

The staggering myths about gun control

When I'm feeling a little down, or bored, I know I can always get a quick "Pick Me Up" by reading SALON!

I'm coming down from the Independence Day Frenzy, so I'm grateful for this innervating article from Salon:  I'm ready to wrestle grizzly bears!
But I'll have to settle for the pathetic liars who appear on my computer screen.

“A uniquely American tragedy“: The staggering myths about gun control - Salon.com:
(July 02, 2016)

The issue of guns in America causes people in other parts of the developed world to look at our country and shake their heads. They just don’t get it. They don’t understand why so many Americans have such passion for their guns. They don’t understand why gun control is such a contentious issue. Most of all, they don’t understand how America can tolerate its chronic carnage of deaths and injuries from gunfire, particularly among our children and particularly after the horror of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 in which 20 first graders and six adults lost their lives. American children ages five to fourteen are eighteen times more likely to die of a gun homicide and eleven times more likely to die of a gun suicide than children in twenty-two other high-income countries.

May I say this:

"They don’t understand why gun control is such a contentious issue."

Because IT DOESN'T WORK!

In 1994 Congress imposed a Draconian Federal Assault Weapons Ban which only passed because the Republicans insisted that it would be given a ten-year trial, and if it was not found to reduce firearms crime it would be deleted.   It imposed every restrictions the Anti-Gun people could think of, and in 2004 it was deleted by the "Sunset Clause" because it only imposed upon honest gun owners and had little (sometimes a 'negative') effect on firearms crime.

The Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent, non-federal task force, examined an assortment of firearms laws, including the AWB, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence."^[25] A 2004 critical review of firearms research by a National Research Council committee said that an academic study of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence outcomes." The committee noted that the study's authors said the guns were used criminally with relative rarity before the ban and that its maximum potential effect on gun violence outcomes would be very small

In other words, it was a stupid idea then and it's still a stupid idea today ... even though a new generation of politicians have chosen to ignore history in favor of political rhetoric.

But you won't read that in the Salon article.

Instead, you'll read that the NRA STOMPED ALL OVER CONGRESS AND FORCED THEM TO BACK DOWN:

What is truly astounding is that the NRA is able to block the enactment of legislation that is spectacularly popular with the American people. Reinstating the ten-year ban on AK-47s, UZIs, and other military-style assault weapons, enacted in 1994, enjoyed the support of 78 percent of the American people, with only 16 percent opposed, when Congress, under NRA pressure, allowed it to lapse.

No, I'm not going to fisk the entire article, but may I point out that the author devotes the opening paragraph to an entirely emotional approach to "(t)he issue of guns in America"?

You Tube Choices

I always have difficult choices to make when I want to watch YouTube.

I can't decide between:

• Whose Line Is It?
• Congressman Gowdy And Bengazzi/Hillary/Whatever
• Guess who killed their kid in what horrible manner
• Dean Martin Roasts Another Alcoholic Actor
• Bill O'Reily : Why Republicans Don't Like Democrats (or vice versa)
• Insane Person Attacks Family Member With Horrible Consequences
• Bernie Sanders Refuses To Concede .. Just Like Yesterday
• Charges Brought Against Men Seen In Moose Riding Video

Could it be I have too much time on my hands?  Or am I just ... "Too Particular"?

Or has the Internet become as trite as Network Television?

"Competition Will Get You Killed" (Oh, not THIS again!)

Is it that time of the year again?  Already?

Okay, NJT brought it up, so let's look at this misunderstanding again:

New Jovian Thunderbolt: Never understood that:
Never understood that The sentiment that "If you do handgun competitions, that is too much game and will get you killed in real life so don't ever do that!" What? I never understood that worry. Yeah, the whole when to reload and how, &c.and what have you might cement habits not ideal in every 'tactical' situation. I can see that part of the argument. But so what?

I never understood that mind-set either.   The best I can do is go back to an article (under the title I've used) which was published in a gun magazine a decade or two ago.   And people who have little or no understanding of what you can learn from competition 'heard that' from someone, and believed it.

I don't think they're talking about rifle and shotgun competition, not any kind of bulls-eye shooting, but 'action pistol' shooting such as IDPA and USPSA (IPSC).
(If you read the linked NJT article above, there's a link to an article from Lucky Gunner which provides a better detailed description.)

Here's the thing:  Competition isn't possible without training and experience.  Even without training, when you shoot an Action Pistol Match you need to know the rules and you need to be able do demonstrate Good Gun-Handling Techniques.

The rules are important for the match; the techniques are vital for self-defense.

TRAINING IS THE KEY

People who criticize "competition" as being either unrealistic or impractical seem to miss the point.

 Competition provides many opportunities for both training and experience which most shooters are unlikely to garner in any other venue.  Sure, you can spend hundreds of dollars taking 'professional' courses (most of which teach you to react to a combat situation) but does that really provide them the opportunity to PRACTICE their gun-handling techniques under the pressure of time and necessity?

And since when is it necessary to grow a beard and wear green pants to learn to handle your pistol well enough that you can shoot accurately and consistently under pressure?

Lots of people teach courses in competition (I'm one of them) and the virtues of that training is that they teach you practical techniques and practices.   When you go to an IPSC or IDPA match, you get to EXPERIENCE the effect of either knowing the techniques, or not knowing the techniques.  If you don't know how to handle your pistol safely and effectively, the feedback is immediate:
That cute little blonde girl is going to kick your ass in the finals, and your friends will laugh at you.
(And you're going to practice more, and better!)

The pressure of competing under pressure, and comparing your performance against other shooters, is perhaps the best feedback to your training regimen you can find; and it's difficult to imagine a venue which might provide a comparable benefit.

SAFETY IS THE PRIORITY: COMPETENCE IS THE EXPECTATION

People shoot competitively for many reasons:

• learn gun-handling techniques
• learn the rules, practices and procedures of  'action pistol'.competition
• get some range time with good targets and actual, interesting stages
• meet new friends with similar interests, and share experiences

What they discover is that they learn things they never expected.   Training is available, if not in private classes then at least during matches from more 'experienced' competitors.   We correct their grip, and the proper placement of their finger on the trigger. We teach them how to draw from a holster, how to reload from the belt, and how to safely move from one shooting position to another.   When someone violates a safety rule during the Live Fire Exercises, the rest of the class learns from their mistakes.

We learn the three kinds of Immediate Action Drills in response to the three basic kinds of firearms malfunctions:

Stovepipe

Tap/Rack/Bang (failure to feed: didn't seat your magazine properly during load/reload)

The Jam From Hell (another feeding failure)

IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER what kind of 'action pistol shooting' you do, there are always going to be some range safety rules, and some competition rules, which don't seem to apply to a self-defense situation.   IDPA teaches you to use cover and concealment and ammunition retention because these are specific DEFENSIVE PISTOL TECHNIQUES which you need to at least be aware of.  You may lose your head (zone out) in an emergency, but at least you have learned the drills and this is going to be an asset on 'the worst day of your life'.

In USPSA we do fire a lot more rounds per match and that may provide you with more opportunities to practice your reload, refine your grip and trigger-finger placement, and every round you fire for score is probably going to provide more effective training than taking yourself to the range for an hour a month and only practicing the things that you're already 'good at'.  

PRACTICE is an issue with most folks.  We don't know what to do in practice, so we do the things we already do well, because (a) we don't know any better and (b) it's fun.

When you engage in competition, you learn quickly and quite well what you do NOT do well!

Can you reload quickly without taking your eyes off the target?  Can you keep track of the rounds you have expended, and know when you need to reload, without thinking about it?   Can you engage a wide variety of targets at varying ranges?  Can you move laterally, forward, or retreat to a new shooting position ... all without losing situational awareness (and maybe performing a reload on the move)?  

Can you engage targets from a prone, kneeling or standing position, or shoot around a corner from cover or concealment?   Can you hit targets which are moving?   Can you hit targets while YOU are moving? Can you consistently hit small steel targets at 7 yards?  Can you double-tap three targets at 10 yards, perform a reload, and hit them again in under 10 seconds?   Can you accurately engage targets with either hand?

ALL of these techniques are commonly practiced in Action Shooting Competition.

Anyone who thinks that Competition just means standing in only place and plunking round after round into a bullseye target sitting placidly 50 feet downrange does not understand the full concept of Competition Shooting.

You may get killed, but it won't be because you've been honing your skills by competing in pistol matches.

"Arming America" - Bellisles

People who want to undermine your Second Amendment Rights will lie to do it.
Even the best of them.
And I can prove it.
For example, this bit appeared over 8 years ago:
Cogito Ergo Geek: 43:
[March, 2008]

43 That number seems to haunt us, we who own guns and profess that they are a valuable tool for sport, competition, self-defense and other legitimate purposes.. We see it quoted time and again, and yet how many of us are as aware of the significance of that number as are the liberal gun-grabbers . They use that number time and time again as a mantra to define how horrid is the state of owning firearms for self defense.

This is a quote from an article which appeared on this website in 2008.  It was originally intended to debunk the assertions (since disproven) by Arthur Kellerman that :

Guns kept in the home for self-protection are 43 times more likely to kill a family member, friend or acquaintance than to kill an intruder, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine

I won't go into the details of why, how or by whom this assertion was debunked: you can go to my original article here and read the whole thing.  Essentially, Kellerman made up his statistics from whole cloth; he was caught at it and discredited by more honest, reputable historians who were NOT trying to skew historic facts to justify their personal anti-gun bias.

But there are other historians, besides Kellerman, who just cannot resist the temptation to lie to you under the cloth of their scholarly reputation; and when caught in that lie, lose their reputation.

My intention today is to high-light the self-destroyed reputation of a liar named Bellesiles, who claimed that (based on his review of probated wills, etc. from the colonial period), Americans hardly EVER had anything to do with firearms!

Yes, this is another scholar .. an historian ...  (who enjoyed a good reputation before he made up facts to suit his personal political bias) who lied, and was caught at it.

I had written an article referencing Bellesiles in 2003, but thanks to the wonder of BLOGGER that link is no longer available.  I wonder how unkind I was to him then?
I hope I was not as unkind as I will be today.

Here is the story of The Bias of Bellesiles.

POINT:

(From a 2000 GOODREADS review of Bellesiles' book: "The Arming Of America")

In Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, Emory University historian Michael A. Bellesiles leaps to the forefront of a recent move by scholars toward reexamining this mythology of the gun. To every article of the legend, Bellesiles mounts a relentless and eye-opening barrage of counterevidence, gathered over ten years of research in probate records, censuses, government and military documents, and other primary sources.

 From the first settlements up until the Civil War, ordinary Americans were not heavily armed and were generally neglectful of the guns they did own. Guns of the time were expensive, clumsy, unreliable, and hard to maintain. Opposing other historians' claims for nearly universal gun ownership among the settlers, Bellesiles finds that apparently "at no time prior to 1850 did more than a tenth of the people own guns."

During the Revolutionary War, the civilian militias were, again contrary to myth, ineffective on the whole as a fighting force. One basic reason: The great majority of their members had never bothered to arm themselves or attain proficiency in shooting. After the war was won by professionals, the government labored for the next 70 years to arm a surprisingly resistant citizenry.

COUNTERPOINT: Amazing Disgrace

Bellesiles has a certain claim to fame, certainly, but not as “the target of an infamous ‘swiftboating’ campaign.” He is, and will be forever remembered as, a historian whose colleagues found him to have violated his profession's standards of scholarly integrity. Arming America won the Bancroft Prize -- the highest honor for a book on American history. But far more salient is the fact that the Bancroft committee took the unprecedented step of withdrawing the prize.
It is true that he drew the ire of the National Rifle Association, and I have no inclination to give that organization's well-funded demagogy the benefit of any doubt. But gun nuts did not force Bellesiles to do sloppy research or to falsify sources. That his scholarship was grossly incompetent on many points is not a "controversial" notion. Nor is it open to dispute whether or not he falsified sources. That has been exhaustively documented by his peers. To pretend otherwise is itself demagogic.

COUNTERPOINT: WIKIPEDIA

In [two] scholarly articles,^[15][16] law professor James Lindgren of Northwestern University noted that in Arming America, Bellesiles had

• purported to count guns in about a hundred wills from 17th- and 18th-century Providence, Rhode Island, but these did not exist because the decedents had died intestate (i.e., without wills);

• purported to count nineteenth-century San Francisco County probate inventories, but these had been destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire;

• reported a national mean for gun ownership in 18th-century probate inventories that was mathematically impossible;

• misreported the condition of guns described in probate records in a way that accommodated his thesis;

• miscited the counts of guns in nineteenth-century Massachusetts censuses and militia reports,

• had more than a 60% error rate in finding guns listed as part of estates in Vermont records; and

• had a 100% error rate in the cited gun-related homicide cases of seventeenth-century Plymouth, MA.

Critics also identified problems with Bellesiles's methods of citation. Cramer noted that Bellesiles had misrepresented a passage by George Washington about the quality of three poorly prepared militia units as if his criticism applied to the militia in general. (Washington had noted that the three units were exceptions to the rule.)^[17] 

(Note that Clayton Cramer's blog appears regulary today)

ARTICLE (January 06, 2003) by Clayton Cramer on The History NewsNetwork

Michael A. Bellesiles’s Bancroft Prize for Arming America has been revoked—the first time that a Bancroft Prize has ever been taken away from an author.[1] He has also resigned from Emory University after a blistering criticism by a blue-ribbon panel.[2] Is this embarrassing moment for the history profession a fluke, or indicative of deeper problems?
I fear that it isn’t a fluke. Arming America reveals that there are some very serious problems in the history professorate, and they are not confined to just one history professor’s demonstration of hubris.

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1185#sthash.IA7OusWG.dpuf
 Cramer Article continues (in part):

My first reaction after reading the first few chapters was a mixture of “There’s a logical flaw here” and “What? Could this possibly be true?” When I reached chapters that covered periods that I knew well—the early Republic—my incredulity increased. Then I started to find Bellesiles using quotations from travel accounts that I had read—and the quotations didn’t match either my memory of them, or the texts, when I re-read them.
I sat down with a list of bizarre, amazing claims that Bellesiles had made, and started chasing down the citations at Sonoma State University’s library. I found quotations of out of context that completely reversed the author’s original intent. I found dates changed. I found the text of statutes changed—and the changes completely reversed the meaning of the law. It took me twelve hours of hunting before I found a citation that was completely correct. In the intervening two years, I have spent thousands of hours chasing down Bellesiles’s citations, and I have found many hundreds of shockingly gross falsifications.

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1185#sthash.IA7OusWG.dpuf

SUMMARY:   BELLESILES LIED!
When the flurry died down, it had become obvious to researchers that Bellesiles had quoted sources ...  wills and testaments which were patently not available, partly because of widespread flooding which had destroyed a pletohra of historical documents in the basement of the library which he cited as his primary source ,,, and also whole-clothedly misquoted documents which remained available to other historians; if they cared to look!

Fortunately, Cramer cared, and looked, and reported.   Again from the same  HISTORYNEWSNETWORK source:

Clayton Cramer, a historian, software engineer, gun enthusiast and early critic of Bellesiles, later argued that the reason "why historians swallowed Arming America's preposterous claims so readily is that it fit into their political worldview so well... Arming America said things, and created a system of thought so comfortable for the vast majority of historians, that they didn’t even pause to consider the possibility that something wasn’t right."^[4] Historian Peter Charles Hoffer, an advocate of gun control, lent support to Cramer's charge when, in a 2004 examination of the Bellesiles case, he noted that influential members of the historical profession had "taken strong public stands on violence in our society and its relation to gun control."^[5] For instance, the academics solicited for blurbs by Bellesiles’ publisher Alfred A. Knopf "were ecstatic in part because the book knocked the gun lobby."^[6]Bellesiles energized this professional consensus by attempting to play "the professors against the NRA in a high-wire act of arrogant bravado."^[7] For instance, he replied to Heston’s criticism by telling the actor to earn a Ph.D. before criticizing the work of scholars.^[8] He pointed out that Cramer was "a long time advocate of unrestricted gun ownership" while he was a scholar who had "certain obligations of accuracy that transcend current political benefit."^[9] After Bellesiles claimed he had been flooded by hate mail, both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians endorsed a resolution condemning the alleged harassment.^[10] As Hoffer later wrote, Bellesiles was convinced that whether the entire profession agreed with “his stance on gun ownership (and I suspect most did), surely academic historians would not let their expertise be impugned by a rank and partisan amateur like Cramer.” ^[11]

NB personal from this writer: The disappointment of scholars seems not to be so much  that Bellesiles' publications played the professors against the NRA, as it is that he was clumsy at it. Second Amendment Advocates are accustomed to being lied about by academics; professorial knee-jerk reaction against Constitional rights are commonplace. We are accustomed to it, consider the source (academians, insulated from the real world), and we dismiss their "ivory tower" pronouncements ... as is reasonable, logical, right and proper.  I'm amazed that you criticized Bellesiles!

Well, you didn't actually disagree with him, did you?  You merely thought his research was poorly documented.

And so in the end, when he was caught with his professorial pants down, Bellesiles chose not to defend his academic accuracy, but to attack his accuser; Cramer.

JUST LIKE KELLERMAN, Bellesiles used shoddy research techniques, exagerated the results, lied when the data didn't match his thesis, and in the end proved himself indefensible by the ageless schoolyard retort:  

DID NOT!

Unfortunately, Wikipedia provides the death-knell to Bellesiles' career:

Historians who initially admired Arming America ceased to defend Bellesiles. The nationally prominent historian Garry Wills, who had enthusiastically reviewed Arming America for the New York Times,^[25] later said, in a 2005 interview on C-SPAN, "I was took. The book is a fraud." Wills noted that Bellesiles "claimed to have consulted archives he didn't and he misrepresented those archives," although "he didn't have to do that," since "he had a lot of good, solid evidence." Wills added, "People get taken by very good con men."^[26]Historian Roger Lane, who had reviewed the book positively in the Journal of American History,^[27] offered a similar opinion: "It is entirely clear to me that he's made up a lot of these records. He's betrayed us. He's betrayed the cause. It's 100 percent clear that the guy is a liar and a disgrace to my profession. He's breached that trust."^[28] Historian Pauline Maier reflected that it seemed historians had "ceased to read carefully and critically, even in the awarding of book prizes."^[29]

Good Bye,  Michael A. Bellesiles, PHD, Liar.  See ya!  Glad I don't have to Be Ya!
(How's that  job at MacDonald's working out for you?)

Death of the founding fathers - Jul 04, 1826

Death of the founding fathers - Jul 04, 1826 - HISTORY.com:

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, respectively, die on this day, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Both men had been central in the drafting of the historic document; Jefferson had authored it, and Adams, who was known as the “colossus of the debate,” served on the drafting committee and had argued eloquently for the declaration’s passage.

Incidently, I have been watching the Seven-part miniseries "John Adams" (on 3 DVD discs), which was presented by HBO in 2008.   I highly recommend it.  It was based on the book by David McCullough.