Check out Ahab’s post on derringers. Bitter has a Davis Industries .22LR derringer, which makes me feel like buying a pink caddie, a purple suit, and a big foo foo hat every time I shoot it.
Category: Guns
Pot …
… meet kettle. The ATF accusing anyone of intimidation is almost laughable.
UPDATE: I’ve read the whole complaint. It would seem to me that citizens ought to be able to photograph agents of the government pretty much at will, and this should not be treated with suspicion. I sincerely hope that the judge in this case understands the need for citizens to be able to monitor the activities of their government.
When you have the power to ruin people’s lives and livelihoods with a stroke of the pen, then citizens damn well ought to have the right to scrutinize those activities. I’m sorry the agents felt threatened. I might even understand, if they don’t get the context, why they might feel that way. I’ve deleted more than a few threats to law enforcement on here, and I certainly don’t condone anyone advocating violence against anyone, including federal workers and law enforcement. There are boneheads in the pro-gun movement. They are out there. I don’t think Ryan Horsely or the person photographing the agents at work are among them, however.
Perhaps if government workers feel intimidated doing their jobs, they should be allowed to carry firearms if they want to. The second amendment, and one’s right to self-defense don’t go away just because you get a government paycheck.
Questioning an Armed Society
I’ve noticed a lot more blogs lately picking up on the gun control thing. This keeps things interesting, at least, but I wish they’d come up with their own material. When was the last time you saw one of us linking to crap at the NRA? They are usually a week behind us.
 For two examples, 1) keeping guns out of the hands of mentally impaired veterans (who, after all, know how to use them); and 2) letting the ATF track guns used in crimes back to their point of sale. The NRA vigorously opposes both of these controls, for “reasons” that strike us as benefiting absolutely no one, except (in the second case) gun dealers who knowingly traffic with persons buying firearms for criminal purposes.
Many of those veterans added are no longer suffering from mental illness. They were added as a matter of course by the Clinton administration. Veterans still suffering from mental illnesses will still not be eligible to purchase a firearm under this bill.
The ATF can still trace guns used in crimes to their source. The NRA supports that. What they don’t support are people having access to the trace data for matters not relating to criminal investigations. That’s what Tiahrt does. The ATF supports it. So does the Fraternal Order of Police.
Indeed, the NRA thinks that the massacre at Virginia Tech could have been prevented if every student and teacher there had carried a handgun. Perhaps that massacre could have — who knows? — but the notion of arming 18-24 year olds, at the very time that “drugs and alcohol use and suicide and mental health issues all peak” is, well, CRACKPOT CRAZY.
No one thinks that every student or teacher should carry a handgun. I would oppose any effort to hand out guns to students. What we do support is removing legal barriers that prevent people who hold concealed weapons licenses from carrying on college and university campuses. Maybe you think that’s crackpot crazy too, but I have news for you, people over 21 years of age can get a license that allows them to carry most other places. Will it prevent VT tech style incidents? Maybe not.  But if you ban them, then definitely not. VT’s rule against guns on campus didn’t stop Cho.
After all, as the Brady Center schools report observes, on the whole “college campuses are safer than the communities that surround them, precisely because those institutions have barred or tightly controlled firearms.
Or, because like where I went to college, in West Philadelphia, outside of campus is, shall we say, not the nicest of areas. It has nothing to do with campus policy on firearms, and everything to do with most college students not being miscreants. Do you think muggers bother to read the student manual?
Right now, by the way, the Brady Center could use your support to help fight the strong possibility that activist judges –this is rich — will strike down Washington, D. C.’s and eventually every major city’s most effective gun laws.
It’s activism to uphold the Bill of Rights? I’ll remember that next time Congress starts prattling about making more restrictions on speech, and the courts strike it down.
Explore the Brady site to see how you can help in this fight . . . unless, of course, you believe the bumper sticker that greeted me on the rear of a hunter’s pickup when I returned to Pine Mountain from Blacksburg after the shooting spree at Virginia Tech on April 16 took our son Jamie’s life: “Gun Control: Simple Solutions for Simple Minds.”
I prefer SayUncle’s favorite saying: “Gun Control: It’s what you do instead of something”.  I don’t think everyone who supports gun control has a simple mind, I just think they don’t really know much about the issue, and desperately want to believe a lot of things that aren’t true.
Feel free to head over and comment, but please be polite.
Progressive Venom
I’m glad Hillary declared herself a proud modern progressive in last night’s debate, because it brings people like me one step closer to being able to call myself what I really am: a liberal.  Libertarian is, and always has been, a word that should never have existed. Nor do I like calling myself a classical liberal, because no one understands what the hell that means either.
But I digress. I’m always amazed at the level of vitriol on a lot of progressive blogs. Sure, there are plenty of reasonable progressives out there, and some of them are blogging. Certainly there are plenty of loony right wing bloggers that go largely unread, I’m amazed that so many people read this garbage:
The NRA and its friends in the “militia movement†are into the same stock-in-trade: Fear. Their target audience: Those people, generally disenfranchised white males with at most a high-school education and middling to piddling income, who suspect they’re being screwed but either have no clue who’s screwing them — or who know but don’t have the guts to fight the real enemy. The NRA and its allies push fear in general, and fear of non-whites in particular, to these white males, telling them that blacks/liberals/Jews/women/unions/etc. (but never ever ever corrupt corporations or businesses) are the cause of the white guys’ problem (and that the problem is crime, not the hyper-rich bleeding everyone below them) — then promptly sell themselves as the solution.
Wow. I read stuff like this and think maybe someone needs to up their medication, or the voltage. First off, most milita types hate the NRA, and the NRA doesn’t pay any attention to them. The rest of that is just lunacy.  Seriously.  I have a college degree, and probably make enough money that most progressives would think I should pay more in taxes. Some of us have graduate degrees. Many of us are attorneys. My friend Jason, graduate degree in bioengineering, Jewish, and an NRA member, would be quite surprised to find out the NRA is hostile towards Jews. So would my girlfriend, a woman, college educated, and NRA member. I’ve met more than my fair share of African-American NRA members. Union members? NRA’s bread and butter around these parts, which is why this state elects a lot of pro-gun Democrats.
I don’t know if Phoenix Woman is aware of this or not, but what she wrote here is, correct me if you think I’m mistaken here, totally and completely batshit crazy. And this is one of the top blogs in the blogosphere! What’s wrong with you people, seriously? Shouldn’t you guys be paragons of tolerance? Or is that only for activity that you approve of?
The Fawning Audience
To anyone who cheered Joe Biden’s verbally pooping all over gun owners, answer me this:
What is the difference between someone calling a really sweet classic car “his baby” and someone calling his rifle the same thing? Both are items that people in each respective hobby get a lot of enjoyment out of. Both items require a lot of investment in money, care, and time to maintain and keep in good working order. So what makes one person normal and the other mentally deranged?
I suppose it’s because you all fancy yourselves sophisticated, and above that kind of apish and uncivilized behavor, which is why you can all bite me.
Joe Biden Thinks We Have Issues
Joe Biden, who every time I hear speak makes me want to sharpen up a pencil and gouge out my own eardrums, apparently has some issues with gun owners.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3ghj5HSkI[/youtube]
Let me be the first to tell the Senator from the Delaware that he can go to hell.
(Thanks to my friend Jason for the QuickTime. I’ll have to buy him some 5.56×45 NATO as a thank you to him, and as a fuck you to Joe Biden)
Is Jim Zumbo Responsible for Good Press?
Earlier in the year, when the shooting community came down like a ton of bricks on Jim Zumbo over his faux pas, I was pretty worried that his statements could be very damaging to us. Well, they didn’t turn out to be, and I think that’s largely because of how Jim handled himself after the incident. This blogger thinks Jim Zumbo did more for the shooting community than anyone else:
As a direct result of Jim Zumbo’s comments and subsequent fall from grace – Every hunting related magazine, journal, journalist, & tv show is currently pulling out all the stops to ‘prove’ to their sponsors and the NRA that they fully support ‘black rifles’ and their use for hunting. I’m reading article after article about the ‘perfect deer gun’ – a black rifle, etc, etc. Some of my favorite tv shows are featuring the hosts taking game with guess what – yes, you guessed it: black rifles.
Jim Zumbo touched off the spark that has allowed black rifles to go mainstream. My guess is that more and more hunters will begin to use these black rifles as they learn about them and see that they are accepted within the hunting community. This wouldn’t be happening if Jim Zumbo had just kept his opinion to himself.
I can’t really disagree too much with this. While the AR platform’s popularity preceded Jim’s statement, it’s hard to deny that we’ve been getting more favorable media coverage on the topic since the incident.
There was a strong possibility, and indeed I think many of us felt, that his statements would be gobbled up by the press, anti-gun groups, and anti-gun politicians, and used to tar the whole community of AR shooters in the media and in the political sphere. But there was always another side to what Jim Zumbo said. The other side was that hunters were using ARs. He expressed resounding disapproval of this, but the idea was out there. Hunters were using these things, and if ordinary, normal people were using these for sporting purposes, maybe they deserve a second look?
I wouldn’t agree that Jim Zumbo’s statements were entirely responsible, but of all the ways that his statements could have screwed us, I think in the end, it probably did help. That’s a big part of why I think Zumbo ought to be forgiven, welcomed back, and people should feel they can publish his writing and sponsor him again.
Fantastic Weekend
We had some really beautiful weather this weekend in the Philadelphia area. Rightwingprof picked a great time to come. Bitter and I went canoing in New Jersey on Saturday. She had to go back to Virginia after we met up with Wyatt and Rightwingprof, so I decided to spend the rest of the daylight today at the range with the Ruger 10/22. I was shooting an NRA large bore 100yd target at that distance w/optics in bench rest position. Ammo was Remington “Golden Bullet”, those cheap brass plated .22LR rounds they make. I scored 189 out of 200 and 178 out of 200. I noticed most of my hits into the 8 and 9 ring were vertically oriented, rather than horizontally oriented, so I’m wondering if maybe powder charge consistency in the cheap ammo is an issue? I think I should be able to hit 200 out of 200 with optics at that distance. At least that’s my goal!
The 10/22 needs a cleaning now though. It was jamming up on me toward the end, and starting to make weak strikes on the rim.
You know you’re a gun nut…
… when your girlfriend is borrowing guns from you. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: “We’re going to meet a couple of other bloggers at Geno’s in Philly. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. Used to be an ok neighborhood. There was a shooting nearby not too long ago, so I don’t know about now. If parking is tight, we may have to walk a bit.”
Bitter: “I’m leaving straight from the district once work lets out, so I won’t have a gun.”
Me: “Well, if you want, you can borrow my Makarov.”
Bitter: “OK, I’ll do that.”
And that she did, but it’s still an OK neighborhood. I hardly ever carry a backup gun, but it is kind of cool to have a backup girlfriend :)
Federal Law Can’t Apply to Us!
It’s funny how many of the left leaning blogs are astounded about the notion that the ATF is investigating one of their favorite reporters:
I want to address the idiotic notion that Bailey was involved in an illegal “straw purchase,” which at least one Media Nation commenter has fallen for. What straw purchase? Bailey gave money to Walter Belair, a former prison guard, in order to buy a gun. Belair didn’t buy the gun for Bailey; he bought it for himself, and, indeed, kept it until it was confiscated by the feds.
It’s not really such an idiotic notion. As I mentioned yesterday, the fact that the gun went with someone else is not necessarily the relevant fact, but that a straw purchase could still be affected without the actual buyer being in actual possession. While I think it’s unlikely that Mr. Bailey has anything to worry about in terms of actual charges (most of the facts don’t seem to point to a straw man purchase), I can’t exactly blame the ATF for investigating.
It almost seems as if some on the left believe these laws would only affect criminals, and that it was a waste for the ATF to go after people who are generally law abiding. If folks on the left think that, I couldn’t agree more! But you know, the laws don’t only target criminals, who don’t care if they break the law. They target ordinary people too, like Steve Bailey.
That’s why those of us, like me, who are into shooting and collecting, and definitely the folks who are into gunsmithing, are so intimately familiar with these laws. It’s a minefield, and one trip can turn you into a felon. If you don’t like the idea of the ATF investigating Mr. Bailey, then how about helping us repeal some of the more onerous ones?
UPDATE: Kennedy replies in the comments. Â So do I.