Year: 2008

Update on Cooper Firearms Issue

It looks like they are asking Dan Cooper to resign:

The employees, shareholders and board of directors of Cooper Firearms of Montana do not share the personal political views of Dan Cooper.

Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper.  It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms.

The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as President of Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc.

Daily operations will continue with the competent staff currently in place in Stevensville, MT producing the finest, most accurate rifles money can buy.

Dan Cooper has spent all of his working life producing the highest quality rifles built here in the USA.  He started with nothing but the American Dream and built that into firearms company anyone would be proud of.  We firmly believe Dan stands by the 2nd amendment.

We wish him all of the best in his future pursuits.

So Dan has been asked by the board to resign from the company he himself founded.  It’s sad that it has to come to things like this, but he’s supporting a candidate who would disarm us all if he could find a way.  I might buy the notion that Dan Cooper believes in the Second Amendment, I just don’t think it’s very important to him.  It can’t be if you’re voting for a candidate who spent much of his public life trying to destroy it.  Cooper Firearms is doing the right thing here.  If Dan Cooper does indeed step down, I think we should consider that a satisfactory resolution to this situation.

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Bryan Miller Jumps In

I should have figured this kind of thing would be something Bryan Miller would jump in to.  No tragedy too horrible that Bryan Miller won’t exploit to smear gun owners as a whole.  I don’t think it’s possible to have a reasonable discussion on guns with Bryan Miller.  He’s shown himself to be hysterical, and not interested in rational discussion.  Certainly not with those who understand what machine guns are, and what their inherent dangers are and aren’t.  He’d probably be shocked to find out that I agree that someone was dangerously irresponsible in creating the conditions that lead to this accident.  But he can’t have that discussion without bringing the rest of his vile baggage to the table.

UPDATE: I couldn’t resist a comment:

[…] Machine guns are not more inherently dangerous than any other firearm. With proper supervision and a bit of training on use, they are safe to shoot. The reason this accident happened, is because someone supervising had a tragic lapse in judgment. It would be like if pop had handed over the wheel to his high-powered speed boat, and the kid ran it into the pier. Would we condemn speed boating? No. Speed boaters? No. Would we argue that pop has some issues with judgment? Absolutely.

There are about 12 million registered recreational boats in the United States, which caused about 34 accidental deaths of children under the age of 13 in 2005.  There are 200 million guns in the United States, which cause 65 accidental deaths per year of children under 13.  Given there is more than an order of magnitude more firearms, this is a remarkable safety record.  For comparison, the number of cycling deaths in that age group is 94.   Source here.

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Delaware Gun Shennanigans

SayUncle was on top of it while I was busy digging up Dan Cooper’s campaign donating records.  I guess the Pennsylvania State Police are giving free lessons on operating illegal gun databases to neighboring states.

You know, when the “crazy” folks said all this instant check stuff was really a conspiracy to register all gun sales, only to have people tell them “you’re crazy, there are built-in legal protections to make sure that doesn’t happen” — it’s usually not very helpful to make their worst paranoid delusions actually come true.  That destroys credibility, and makes it harder for us pragmatic persons, or “prags” as we are often called, to argue that the political process is a worthwhile outlet to redress their grievances.

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Responsibility in Organized Shoots

There are hundreds of machine gun shoots that happen across the country without incident every year.  It’s a great way for a curious public to come and learn about automatic firearms, and try them out, in a controlled and safe environment.  I’ve never seen someone shoot an automatic weapon that didn’t come away from the shooting line with a big shit-eating-grin on their face.  Done right, I think machine gun shoots are actually a great public relations tool.  But the key to doing it right is “controlled” and “safe”, and pretty clearly what happened in Westfield fell down on both those counts.

Every accident that happens at organized and public shooting events is going to be examined under the microscope of public scrutiny.  All it takes is one tragedy to lose the perception among the public that this is a safe activity.  All it takes is one accident for hysterics and anger to get directed back at the shooting community as a whole.  Other sports get a break.  We don’t.  And on top of all that, there’s a tangled web of legal issues involved, especially when you bring machine guns into the picture.

There is no universe where an eight-year-old kid with little prior firearms experience should be handed a fully loaded machine pistol and told to go to town.  I don’t care if his dad said he had fired guns before.  I don’t care how excited the kid is to try to shoot one.  Machine pistols legitimately are more dangerous in untrained hands than other ordinary firearms.  Most other shoulder fired or mounted automatics are heavy enough that even a novice user can retain control.  Machine pistols are another story.  I once had my friend’s M11, which is similar in size and weight to the Micro Uzi, get away from me while firing it on full automatic.  No rounds were sent in an unsafe direction, but the baffling and armor plating on the range took a hit as a pulled the last round high.  It was embarrassing.  That wasn’t the first time I had ever fired a machine pistol either.  I never fired that gun on automatic again unless I had a death grip on it.  Anyone who’s familiar enough with a machine pistol to instruct with one ought to know that you must use extreme caution in teaching beginners.  There is no way I would let an eight year old handle a machine pistol.

This is a tragedy on multiple fronts.  It’s a tragedy because a child died.  It’s also a tragedy because a family has been ruined.  It’s a tragedy for the father, who is going to have to live with this for the rest of his life.  Finally, it’s a tragedy because there are probably going to be good people, who pose no danger to society, going to prison over this.  There is no way for Justice to prevail here.  There is no wrong that can be righted.  But a child died in a gun accident in Massachusetts, and you can bet that someone is going to be made to pay.  It might not be justice, but it is the law.

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Funny Business & Cooper Firearms of Montana

Dave Hardy notes that contributions are listed for Daniel Cooper in two states, which are high enough to take him over the legal campaign contribution limit:

Egad; looks as if he might be involved in the reports of Obama illicit donations. Go here to see contributions by Dan or Daniel Cooper. $3,100 to Obama from a Dan Cooper in Montana, president/CEO of Cooper Arms. Plus $3,100 to Obama from a Daniel Cooper in Ohio, also president/CEO of Cooper Firearms of Montana. Got to be the same guy. And why use different names, States, and company names, except to conceal the fact that the cumulative donations are illegal? (The limit is $2,300 for the primary and the same for the general).

This just gets better.

UPDATE: Dave notes in the update that the campaign seems to have refunded the overage, so no harm done here.  This kind of thing happens fairly often, since people often don’t know what the contribution limits are, or forgot how much they’ve already given.

UPDATE: It turns out there was nothing illegal or funny going on here.  It was a mistake.  The other accusations of Cooper’s support of Obama’s candidacy still stand.

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Age Limits

This is why I get so pissy at anti-gun groups.  Via Murdoc:

In response to this tragedy, Freedom States Alliance (FSA), a national coalition of gun violence prevention groups along with the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence (NECPGV), are calling for legislation to be passed immediately that would require that no child under the age of 18-years-old be allowed to use or operate any fully automatic machine gun, or semi-automatic assault weapon under any circumstances including at a “machine gun shoot,” shooting competition or firearm demonstration.

That’s absolute bullshit, especially since so-called assault weapons are common in competition shooting, and there’s absolutely nothing dangerous about junior shooters using them.  This tragedy was entirely a function of the firearm in question being a machine pistol.  But these groups are not beyond using a tragedy to try to get whatever they can while people are in hysterics.  Getting to outlaw junior service rifle competition is just icing on the cake to these folks.

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Preemption Case Appealed to Supreme Court

The Philadelphia case challenging statewide preemption is being appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.  It should be noted that The Court is being asked to turn over a decade old ruling, which confirms well established law.  This is merely an appeal, The Court might choose not to hear it, leaving the lower court ruling stand.

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Machine Gun Shooting By Juveniles Illegal in MA?

Peter Hamm, of the Brady Campaign, in the comments suggested it was so, and quoted this section of law.  That section would appear to make furnishing a machine gun to anyone under 21 years of age criminal.  The law makes exceptions for rifles and shotguns, but not for machine guns.

I’ll be honest, I’m not an expert on Massachusetts gun laws.  They are monsterously complicated.  But I will try to find out from an expert whether there’s an exception that’s being overlooked, or whether the definition of “furnish” is something the courts already define.  I’ll be honest, I don’t know.

I do find it odd, though, that some lawmaker would suggest that anyone 18 to 21 weren’t mature enough to handle an automatic weapon, when most of the automatic weapons in use today are wielded by those 18 to 21 when in military service.

UPDATE: Article here.  One other note:

On Monday, Bizilj told The Boston Globe he was about 10 feet behind his son and reaching for his camera when the weapon fired. He said his family avoided larger weapons, but he let his son try the Uzi because it’s a small weapon with little recoil. The family did not return messages for comment Tuesday.

Bizilj is pretty clearly not all that familiar with firearms or Newton’s laws of motion.  A bigger machine gun would have actually been better, because recoil is not a function of the size of the gun.  A Micro Uzi has far more recoil than belt fed heavy machine gun because the Uzi has less mass to absorb the equal and opposite reaction of the bullet being fired out of the barrel.  I believe the boy’s father can probably get away with pleading ignorance, but there are a lot of questions the instructor needs to answer.

UPDATE: Asking an attorney who’s familiar with Massachusetts firearms law, this section could be a real problem for people who run the shoot if the District Attorney tries to proceed with charges.  The law is the law, and if you’re going to run something like a machine gun shoot, you need to know what it is, in intimate detail.

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Hazel Township Allows Open Carry Picnic

Looks like Hazel Township relented on their illegal park ordinance.  Articles here, and here.  The open carry cookout proceeds, but in the cold rain and wind of October, rather than July as originally planned.

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