Month: September 2009

Marko asks what you would do as a parent in this situation.  I’m not a parent, but as soon as the threat was made I would have shoved him away from my kid and sprayed him.  I would assume that would stop your average 61 year old child slapper.  It’s a low enough level of force you don’t have to wait for him to follow through.  He announced his intention to commit and assault, a felony assault in most states, since it’s against a child.  Anyone who grabs my kid is getting a gun drawn on them.  I’m not going to wait to figure out what their intent is.

Another Gun Guy posts his self-defense experience.  Certainly not a perfect DGU, but self-defense is seldom pretty or clean.  If it were, we wouldn’t need lawyers.

High school student, unarmed, saves a bus full of his peers in Mississippi from a girl who boards the bus wielding a .380 caliber pistol.  This is the exact kind of behavior the powers that be discourage, but quick thinking and quick action on his part saved the day.  When it comes to self-defense, the things we carry are just tools.  The real weapon is you.

If you were to listen to Brady Campaign material, National Parks are the safest places in the world.  Well, yes, they are generally pretty safe.  Just like most places in the United States, save maybe places like Detroit.  But the problem in National Parks is there’s no recourse to the authorities, or to good samaritans.  If you find yourself in trouble in a National Park, you’re largely on your own.

That’s why the trend toward larger illicit marijuana grow operations on federal land is should be disturbing:

Each camp is typically tended around the clock by guards who may be equipped with assault rifles, night-vision goggles, walkie-talkies and radios to monitor law-enforcement chatter.

I’ll be honest, considering when I’ve hiked out west, I’ve enjoyed traveling a bit off the beaten path, this makes me wonder if just having a pistol is enough, or whether an AR-15 might be a better option.  You end up getting into it with drug gangs, you’re effectively on your own.  Law enforcement help is going to be hours away.  I’m going to suggest if you’re going hiking on federal land that have been found to have grow operations, you need to carry thinking more along the lines of combat rather than a street confrontation.   If you think that’s paranoid, consider this:

So far this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, federal agents have raided 487 pot farms on forest-service land, where they destroyed 2.6 million marijuana plants, seized 138 firearms and made 369 arrests on felony drug charges.

That’s not a small problem, when you consider the how few federal lands are involved.

Bloomberg is looking to crack down on drinking while carrying a firearm.  I wouldn’t have too much issue if there was a legal limit for carrying, much like there is driving, but I take exception to the mayor’s claim that:

“Carrying while intoxicated is just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated and should be just as illegal,” Bloomberg said at a Wednesday campaign announcement discussing three anti-gun law proposals. Alaska, Missouri and other states already have laws prohibiting carrying a firearm while drunk.

Is it though?  In 2006, 13,470 people were killed in alcohol related motor vehicle accidents. If you factor in other drugs, that number increases by about 7600 to 21,047. In 2006, there were a total of about 642 accidental deaths from guns.  Even if you include intentional deaths from guns, that number only rises to the same level as the number of alcohol related traffic fatalities.  That’s without even controlling for alcohol or other impairing substances being a factor.  Clearly this is not as large a public safety issue.

So while I would have little objection to carrying a firearm over some legal limit being a minor misdemeanor, and cause for revoking a license to carry, I have a big issue with it being treated as more dangerous than drunken driving.  It is clearly not.  The punishment should fit the crime, and Bloomberg’s proposal, of a year in jail and 10,000 fine, does not.

What I think Bloomberg is doing is attempting to create more legal hazards, in anticipation of the Courts gutting a lot of New York City’s gun laws.   Facing the possibility of no longer being able to make gun possession largely illegal in the Big Apple, Bloomberg will do the next best thing; make it so outrageously hazardous legally that no one bothers.  I would call that the New Jersey method.  It’s very effective, and difficult to take to court.