August 2012 – Page 2 – Shall Not Be Questioned

On Gun People

There are a lot of different gun rights advocates that I’ve run into in my life, but if there’s one thing that I’ve found that’s absolutely true is that there are a lot of jackasses in this issue, and they are loud. Here’s an example:

Ready to defend the Second Amendmentâ€™s guarantee of the right to bear arms, gun lovers packed the council meeting, only to find a different tradition they didnâ€™t like. Corrales, a 300-plus-year-old village, pays tribute to its roots by saying the Pledge of Allegiance in both Spanish and English before each meeting. Itâ€™s been an unremarked-upon custom until the gun restriction meeting earlier this month. At that point, crowd members in love with the Second Amendment went to town to upend the First Amendment. According to news reports, the crowd began drowning out the Spanish pledge, shouting the words in English. The mayor stopped and invited people to use the language of their choosing, and the Spanish pledge began again. The shouting continued. No Spanish could be heard.

Personally, if a village whose history predates New Mexico as part of the United States wants to say the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish as well as English, what’s it to you? But even if you want to object to the practice, the polite way to do it would be to take it up with the Town Council, in addition to your other issues, not to engage in jackassery and just drown out the Spanish speaking people. Because, you know, that just might make gun owners come off as xenophobic boobs. The fundamental truth is that if we do not convince our new immigrants into this country the importance of the Second Amendment, and other American values, we will lose them. If they are easier to reach in Spanish as opposed to English, so be it. They certainly aren’t the first group of immigrants, and certainly won’t be the last, to prefer their native language, and want to celebrate their ethnic heritage.

If these people had responded to a GOA alert, it would be one thing, but behavior like this makes me ashamed that they might also call themselves NRA members.

Anyone Else Tired of This Editorial Meme?

You see this a lot from vacuous editorial writersÂ that basically state, “Something Must Be Done!” No details, no policy prescriptions, just that we clearly have to do something, America, because before this editorial, pretty clearly we’ve done nothing.

It is time to do something. The hard fact is that too many guns land in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Each case is different, we know. Each one can somehow be explained away: He got the gun illegally; he stole it from his father; the weapon is legal but the shooter is crazy, and on and on.

Wait, wait… I have an idea… Maybe we should make it illegal for certain kinds of people to own guns, like felons and crazy people. We could also make stealing guns a serious crime. Hell, let’s just go whole hog here and suggest stiff federal sentences of up to 10 years for committing gun crimes. Juveniles should likewise be banned from possessing guns, and it should be a federal crime for them to take guns to school, with stiff penalties. You know what else might help? Background checks for people buying guns from a retail dealer. All that should clear this problem right up!

Campus Carry: The Horror

The New York Times has found a policy on segregated housing that it’s willing to endorse, it seems:

Gun-toting students 21 or older will be assigned to special housing on the Boulder and Colorado Springs campuses, where they must have safes to store their weapons when they are not carrying them. Or they can check them with the local police, Dodge City style.

I’m not OK with public universities interfering with the Second Amendment rights of adults, but I’m fine with requiring students who will keep firearms in a dorm to have a locking safe or cabinet. I think it would also be reasonable to mandate some kind of clearing station, even if it’s just a bucket of sand. The segregation is not OK. If a dorm mate objects to the presence of a firearm, then reassign them, and find them someone who doesn’t object. It’s not a hard solution.

Anyone Watching the Convention?

I’m a cable cutter, so it’s hard for me, but I found Fox had the best HD feed over the Internet. The conventions are pure political theater, and they are meant to be, but political theater can have its place as long as you’re putting on a good show. I only saw part of Ann Romney’s speech, which was pretty good. She’s pretty polished as a public speaker, and the speech was well written. Chris Christie is better off the cuff, I think, than he is scripted. For a while I was concerned they put him up there to give a fluff speech with no meat in it. There was some meat, but more fluff than I think was suitable for his personality.

One thing is for sure, with the convention going on, there’s not going to be as much happening on the gun news front, but we’ll try to cover. Especially if the Republican manage to say something about guns at their convention. For once, all I really want from the GOP is a good Supreme Court justice to make the votes 6-3, so we can afford to lose a justice and still win.

NY Police Officer on NYPD Training

A reader sent this along, from a NY cop detailing how much training the typical New York Cop receives. Someone in the comment section brought up citizen concealed carry holders, and he remarks:

Any average CCW citizen who practices more then twice a year pretty much has most of the department beat in terms of training.

That’s scary. I’m also struck by this admission:

The NYPD offers once a month training for members to use, on their own time. However, all that is done during these sessions are the same basic dumbed down qualification exercises. You will only receive real help if you outright fail. Missed 12 out of fifty @ 7 yards? GOOD ENOUGH!

MOST NYPD officers fire their FIRST gun, ever in their entire lives, at the police academy, some as young as 21 to as old as 35 shooting for their very first time, and on a DAO pistol.

As I mentioned, when you destroy your civilian gun culture, you have nothing to draw from when you need a cadre of men proficient at arms, and bureaucracies are very very bad at providing this kind of training. This is merely dangerous when you can’t hire competent gunmen to be police, when you can’t find them for military purposes, it represents an existential threat to national security.

This would have been no surprise to William Church, New Yorker, Civil War veteran, founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Journalist for the New York Times, and founder of the National Rifle Association. Nor would it have been any great revelation to General George Wingate, New Yorker, Civil War veteran, and also a founder of the National Rifle Association. These men started the NRA to address the very problem Bloomberg now faces today, who believed the solution was a healthy civilian shooting culture, even in New York City. Indeed, the NRA’s first range wasn’t far:

The first President of the “National Rifle Association,” as it was called, wasÂ General Ambrose E. BURNSIDE, who made a very good figure-head, but under whose leadershipÂ nothing was accomplished. It was not till the second year of its existence that any realÂ progress was made. Then, by the efforts of the new President, Colonel CHURCH of theÂ “Army and Navy Journal,” and the Secretary, Mr. George W. WINGATE, the New York LegislatureÂ of 1872 was induced to appropriate $25,000 for the purchase of a range near New York city,Â the Association agreeing to raise $5,000 on its part.

Can you imagine the State of New York helping NRA build a range near New York City today, and allocating money for its construction? Witness Chicago doing everything it possibly can to keep ranges out of its city. Witness New York City, whose Mayor goes into fits any time we dare to speak of restoring the Second Amendment for New Yorkers, including for its police officers. Other, more sensible New Yorkers, from an earlier time when people did not recoil at the thought of firearms, knew the solution. It’s a pity Bloomberg never will.

French Army and the FAMAS

A guest post by someone who has been in the French Army detailing the issues surrounding the FAMAS and its eventual replacement. Personally, if I were calling the shots for the French Army, I’d go with the French made AR variant, rather than buying replacements from the Austrians or Germans. It’s kind of amazing how some of the world’s major militaries are fielding assault rifles that are less than stellar. I understand the SA-80 used by her Majesty’s armed forces is less than wonderful, the FAMAS has it’s set of known problems. The Italians field the AR70/90, which I don’t know much about function wise, but it’s a heavy beast at close to 9 lbs, not much lighter than an M1 Garand. The Styer AUG is popular, adopted by several armed forces around the world, but I just don’t think the ergonomics of it have ever looked that great to me (not really a huge fan of bullpups).

For all the faults the AR platform may have, compared to what some other NATO countries are fielding, I’m not sure I’d want to trade.

Quote of the Day

Tam’s comment on the FAA reviewing policies on electronics use on planes:

While I’m sure it’s possible that playing with your vaccuum tube tester in the smoking section of a Convair 600 would mess with the LORAN-A receiver something fierce, it’s getting harder to buy into the whole idea that the tiniest electrical impulse in the cabin will send a modern jetliner veering wildly out of control to crash into the nearest orphanage or oil refinery when the pilot’s approach plates are on a frickin’ iPad.

We’d almoset have enough to run this experiment here at SNBQ. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a LORAN receiver in Jason’s basement, and he probably has a vacuum tube tester somewhere down there too. Unfortunately, the smoking section on a Convair 600 is probably not to be found even sunning itself in a desert somewhere.

Government Ammo Purchases

Both NRA and NSSF seem to be trying to quash rumors about the government preparing for civil unrest (the charitable rumor) or building Obama’s army for him to seize permanent power after the election (the less charitable rumor). NRA’s fact sheet on ammo purchases can be found here, which is also echoed in NSSF’s release. The summary is that the ammo purchases are not that unusual, and aren’t ridiculous if you actually want your agents to do live fire training, which after seeing the NYPD shoot up midtown, I think we can all agree is important. The message here would seem to be that we want our people preparing for an election, not for a civil war.

Small Arms Survey 2012

They note two growth markets:

An expansion in the arms trade is partly responsible for the upward revision. Two important sources of growth are increased spending by US civilians on small arms and their ammunition, and large-scale government purchases of military firearms and light weapons for international and national armed forces involved in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Better information and more nuanced research methodologies have also played a role in refining the estimate.

The indicators are all there, yet the gun control proponents keep insisting this is a small number of hard core insurrectionist gun nuts fueling this by filling their underground bunkers with AK-47s and thousands of rounds of ammunition. That’s easier for them to accept that there has been a debate over gun control, and their side lost. Now we’re seeing the cultural implications of that loss.

UPDATE: Another story reporting the same thing.

Most Pro-Gun GOP Platform Ever?

That’s what Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner says. Party Platforms are basically a means to pay off supporters, and it’s worth nothing that just because the planks are there doesn’t mean they’ll follow through. That’ll largely depend on what we’re willing to do.