2012 – Page 68 – Shall Not Be Questioned

On Organized Ranges

One of the things that bothers me to no end is that my range had enacted a one shot per second rule as well as magazine restrictions. Both of these bother me because they feel like anti gun thinking. The given reason for the one shot per second rule is not that people were firing faster than they could control but that nearby neighbors would call the sheriffs department and complain that the range was â€œtraining murderersâ€

Same boat I’m in too. The problem is, when you sit on a board at a gun club, all you will see is a parade of people who break rules and generally don’t know the first thing about safe shooting. It’s easy to fall in the trap that your club is infested with unsafe people, and then try to tailor rules around that likely false notion. I too get annoyed when clubs adopt the rules of the anti-gun folks, but the solution is to get more involved with the clubs and do your best to change things.

One of my big fears, in the overall big picture, is that a lot of private clubs are going to have severe membership difficulties as their members die off, and younger people don’t want to join them because they tend to think of shooting more as a product they choose to purchase or not, and don’t really have the disposition, patience, and/or time to work with a shooting club from the civic organization perspective. The risk to the shooting community is that when a club fails, and has to close down, either through a lack of interest in people joining, or a lack of interest in people helping to run the club, it’s lost forever. My club is currently in no danger of this, but other clubs I know of struggle, and there’s no guarantee even my club won’t have problems in the future.

“Real Men Don’t Need Guns”

Miguel does a pretty admirable job of taking down this particular meme.

3-D Printing and Making Guns

Going mainstream enough to be featured in Popular Science, who note that “it’s pretty clear that making weapons at home using 3-D printers from commonly available materials is going to become much more commonplace in the near future.” And yet our opponents keep pretending that gun control can work. They don’t think criminals are going to be able to hit print?

Remember, They Aren’t Gun Prohibitionists

At least that’s what they say. When I read hysterical machinations such as this, I can’t be convinced. What has Dan Gross so hysterical is this incident in D.C.Â Basically what seems to have happened was hipster D.C. dude orders a new TV from an Amazon affiliate. Said affiliate must also ship firearms, and had intended a Sig 716 to a Pennsylvania FFL. But instead of shipping the 716 to the FFL, they shipped it to the Hipster in D.C. Hilarity ensues. No word on whether a Pennsylvania FFL was confused about why he received a television. Sounds like someone slapped the TV shipping label on the wrong box to me.

Now, the issue here is, as long as you can legally buy and sell firearms, every once in a while, mistakes like this are going to happen. Anyone who doesn’t wet their pants at the sight of a gun, I think, can understand that. Even common carriers can screw this kind of thing up. It happens. Which brings me to a point: the Brady folks are definitely out of the policy space on this one. This is meant to scare the people who would wet their pants if they opened a package they expected was a TV and turned out to be a Sig 716, and convince them the only possible way to eliminate this frightening and debilitating possibility is to donate money to the Bradys.

We Still Have a Lot of Work to Do

A new poll has some encouraging aspects, but this is not:

For this survey, respondents were shown three pictures of firearms and asked whether they should be available to every American who is eligible to own firearms, or only to the police and other authorized persons. These weapons were reportedly used in last monthâ€™s mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

A majority of respondents believe the .40-calibre Glock handgun (63%) and the Remington 870 shotgun (58%) should remain accessible to every American who is eligible to own firearms. However, 73 per cent of Americansâ€”including sizeable majorities of Republicans (66%) and gun owners (61%)â€”believe the AR-15 rifle should only be used by the police and other authorized persons.

This is the only poll I’m aware of that was done by picture. You can see the methodology here. The people were selected from among this pool of peopleÂ to get a representative sampling, but I’d also note that I don’t think most gun people would be the types that would sign up for something like this. Regardless of how representative the sample actually is or isn’t, there are pretty clearly a lot of gun owners we’re not reaching with facts. How many of them thought they were looking at a machine gun? If any were fooled, we’re clearly not doing our jobs.

Shocking Revelation: NRA Asks for Donations

Bloomberg notes that NRA sent out a fundraising letter three days after the shootings in Colorado. Those of us who are members will laugh at this, since three days is probably about par for the course with NRA mailings:

â€œThe future of your Second Amendment rights will be at stake,â€ the letter said. â€œAnd nothing less than the future of our country and our freedom will be at stake.â€

Sounds like a pretty typical fundraising e-mail to me.

The letter dated July 23, which was sent to NRA supporters including to people inÂ Colorado, doesnâ€™t mention the gunfire during the showing of the new Batman movie July 20 in Aurora, Colorado.

Probably because it was scheduled to go out long before the shooting.

The letter drew criticism from the Denver-based Colorado Ceasefire Capitol Fund, a gun-control advocacy group, whose president Eileen McCarron called it â€œvery insensitive.â€

â€œCouldnâ€™t they have waited at least a week, especially here? Peopleâ€™s souls are really wounded,â€ she said.

Given that NRA had exactly bupkis to do with mass shootings (last I checked, they don’t advocate such things), why is it insensitive? NRA is constantly sending this stuff out to members. This is just another case of anti-gunners playing the victim card, and trying to blame the tragedy on ordinary gun owners.

UPDATE: Extrano’s Alley notes that tragedy hasn’t stopped the anti-gun groups from fundraising. Yeah, we’ve seen that before too. They can get away with it, though. They are victims, and have absolute moral authority when it comes to this issue.

Digging in The Enemy’s Backyard

Every once in a while I like to know where my readers come from, so I take a look. Fortunately, Google tracks this for me quite well:

This is a map by city. If I go by largest metro areas, they are DC, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, in that order. Surprisingly, Boston is in my top ten. We are reaching behind enemy lines here at SNBQ, and that thrills me to no end. I’d also like to report we’re reaching a small number of people in London and Tel Aviv. Welcome.

Weapon of Choice

After any shooting, you’ll inevitably have inane articles like this:

Semiautomatic handguns are the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they are light and easy to conceal, and adaptable to using high-capacity magazines, experts say.

Experts should also say they are the weapon of choice for everyone, police, military, and armed citizens too. Why? They are inordinately useful for self-defense compared to the alternatives.

“There is no valid reason for civilians to have assault rifles, semiautomatic handguns and high-capacity magazines,” he said. “We have to start ratcheting down the firepower in civilian hands in the United States.”

Then why do ordinary citizens and the police overwhelmingly choose these for self-defense purposes? I love the logic that in police hands, suddenly these weapons become useful, even necessary, for self-defense, but me as some ordinary citizen, that I should be hobbled with a revolver, or an unwieldy shotgun or hunting rifle. The scary part is, who Greg McCune, the article’s author, is:

“I provide training for journalists in the Americas ranging from classroom, to online, eLearning, tip sheets, and blogging. I also serve as coordinator within Americas editorial for diversity issues and I run the Americas summer internship program.”

Teaching other journalists how to make one-sided hit pieces on gun ownership while apparently knowing little about firearms or firearm ownership. No wonder journalism as a profession is circling the bowl.

Drinking the Night Before a Match?

Let me just get this out of the way first: there is no circumstance where handling guns while intoxicated is a good idea. But Caleb speaks of whether drinking the night before a match has a detrimental effect on performance. I haven’t been going to matches for about a year now, but when I was shooting Silhouette one or two times a week, I developed some experience with this topic — have a cookout with copious amounts of beer and liquor Saturday night, and at the butt crack of dawn Sunday, you’re out on the range.

Metallic Silhouette is not a run-and-gun game, but precision shooting, in my case with a semi-auto pistol (which of course have no sporting use). I tend to think shooting after having been drinking to excess the night before is highly detrimental to your game. For one, you’re unsteady. For two, your involuntary muscle movements are more erratic. I had difficulty hitting any of the animals, and I’d get impatient and fire when I really shouldn’t have.

That said, I’ve found the worst thing for my performance, even worse than drinking the night before, is showing up to a match having not eaten anything. When I’ve done that, I’ve noticed marked improvement in my scores after the match broke for lunch. I’ve shot an A score in the morning only to turn around and get in a Master score after lunch. I tend to agree with Caleb, that it’s best to follow your normal routine. But I’d add if your normal routine is skipping breakfast, which mine is, I’ve found that it’s important to have a bite before getting on the range.

Now to further this line of discussion, what do you think the effect of caffeine is? I’ve never found it to affect me all that much, but others think it does.

Esquire Article Seeking Feedback from Gun Owners

This Esquire article, which starts off saying the gun control debate is over and gun control lost, suggests the NRA is loony tunes for saying gun control is a threat, then proceeds to call for more gun control. It ends asking Â why gun owners haven’t seized their movement from the fanatical bastards at the NRA:

My question is: Where in the hell are all the “responsible” people today? Where were they two weeks ago? Make no mistake. Without them, this profound problem cannot be solved. If they are the majority â€” and god knows, I hope that’s the case â€” then why don’t they wrest control of their side of the issue, and of the NRA itself, from the crazy mountebanks who are only in it for the buck? I am quite sincere about this, and I’d like any gun owners who read this blog, and especially any members of the NRA, to provide me with an answer. Where are you people?

I suggest folks follow through, and provide him with an answer.

UPDATE: We can see how well a defense of lawful gun owners participating in the political process is taken. As sample so far:

Because it is pointless to engage a debate with someone as transparently nutters as yourself.

Now go do your little end zone dance because I refuse to treat you as an intelligent person worthy of baseline respect.

This came after the commenter discussed how easy it was to refute the arguments made, but refusing to actually refute anything when called out.