Tam alerts us to an gun store and range, Tactical Firearms, in Katy, Texas who is perfectly willing to throw your freedom under the bus to make a buck at the expense of his online competitors. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
Month: August 2012
NYPD Selling Brass
A lot of gun owners seem to be reacting to this like some kind of gotcha against Bloomberg. I think it’s correct and proper for the NYPD to do this:
But on Wednesday Mayor Bloomberg’s position on gun control looked shakier as it was revealed that his police department, the NYPD, had sold 28,000lbs of spent bullet casings to a store which reloads them and sells them cheaply to customers.
I think that’s fine. We ought to be defending this practice, and not trying to use it as a club to beat Bloomberg over the head. It saves the NYPD money, helps keep the cases from being melted down and sold for scrap (at less economic value) and shooters get cheap, reloaded ammunition. I’ll give New York City and Bloomberg credit when they do something right.
Of course, I’ll leave it to your amusement that the Telegraph doesn’t know the difference between a bullet and a casing.
Details on Governor Quinn’s New Assault Weapons Ban
Thirdpower has the details. Apparently it’ll ban Glock pistols, and you’ll be required to register all your magazines over 10 rounds. One wonders how the mechanics of that work, given they don’t stamp serial numbers on magazines. Either way, Governor Quinn said in his statement vetoing important pro-gun legislation regarding ammunition:
I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution– the right to bear arms.
The last refuge of scoundrels, is that statement. They’re all supporters of the Second Amendment in their own minds. Even Bloomberg. Theyare no such thing. Not when banning Glocks and numerous common shotguns. I’d note, because of this, it would also ban the Beretta 92. Not to mention all the jobs that will be cost downstate when companies like Armalite are forced to leave the state. Don’t you love how these bills also have language that just happens, you know, to ban hundreds of commonly owned firearms no one in their right mind has ever considered assault weapons? You’d almost think the assault weapons issue was just a ruse to ban as many guns as these cretins can get away with.
4th Circuit Grants Maryland a Stay
According to Dave Hardy, they’ve granted a stay, meaning Maryland will still be permitted to consider “good and substantial” reason for permit applicants, until the case is decided on appeal. But as Dave mentions, they’ve accelerated the schedule for hearing the case, and it’ll be heard late October.
Everyone Shooting Better
According to gold medal-winner Vince Hancock, he believes that more people are taking the shooting sports seriously here in the U.S.:
So why is the U.S. so dominant in the sport over the last several years?
“I really think it’s because we want it more. And we’ve been bringing the youth along with us,” Hancock said. …
Hancock said the elite American shooters set a standard that brings up the competitive level of all shooters. “I’ve been shooting high scores for eight or nine years now. When I first started out, a 192 out of 200 in a local competition would win it. Now, it’s barely making the final,” he said.
“With Kim and I shooting these extremely high scores, it’s making everyone else shoot harder, and be more proficient and hit more targets. And that’s making us shoot even harder. Kim and I know that if we slip up, we’re going to lose.”
He also had a message that will hopefully convince some more folks to give shooting a try:
“There is nothing dangerous about what we do here, at any level. The biggest thing that we preach is safety first.”
Hancock believes shooting is one of the safest sports for competitors of any responsible age.
“I always tell a joke out there that we have less injuries than table tennis,” he said.
And if you think his outreach for the sport doesn’t help win us a few more hearts and (eventually, hopefully, minds), then you’re wrong:
Sometimes, that message is as simple as exposure to the sport. Hancock recalled one journalist about five years ago whose opinion was quickly altered after a day on the range.
“She was extremely anti-gun. But I talked her into trying it,” he said. “And once she hit some targets, you couldn’t take her off the field.”
We’re winning. We just need to keep up the work to expose more people to the positive aspects of gun ownership. We need to keep showing them why the gun range is a cool place to be instead of the non-existent and far less cool “anti-gun range.”
More Attacks on Sport Shooters & Hunters
I already highlighted the Twitter and blog attacks on U.S. Olympic shooter Corey Cogdell last night, but reader TS pointed out one of the Facebook groups organizing the attacks. Here’s just a sampling of comments I caught with screenshots this morning before we lost power.
I know that Shootin’ Buddy was noting that many of the threatening comments on Twitter were coming from people in other countries, but several of these folks are Americans.
I also thought it was worth highlighting because one of the comments relates to something I posted about recently – when someone who disagrees with gun owners or hunters on a matter of public policy, they try to define said disagreement of sign of a mental illness.
Blog Will Be Going Down
We’ve lost power in a major neighborhood calamity. All the pole pigs were showering sparks like it was PECO’s own personal 4th of July. We don’t have all that much battery left on the UPS. I will try to arrange alternate power generation.
UPDATE: We now have a 5500W Portable Generator. Ran it for about an hour before the power came back. Now when we lose power (and I’m home) the blog will remain running, along with my Internet, and probably most importantly, the fridge and air conditioner for my office :)