This weekend I managed to get shooting again. I’m slowly getting back into IHMSA competition. At this point we’re the last club standing in Pennsylvania that’s still running matches. Handgun metallic silhouette is a tough discipline. The closest target for small bore (which is what I mostly shoot) is chickens at 25 yards, and about the size post card. Pigs are at 50yd, Turkeys 75yds, and Rams at 100yds. I shoot standing, so I started back getting only 17 out of 40. Then 21 out of 40. This match our Mule ran out of gas and had to be pushed back from the 100 yard line, which got my heart rate up, so I bombed a few ranks of animals after that. Back to 17 this match. Maybe December will be better. But enough about that, now for the news:
There was no news from the Supreme Court as to whether they’ll grant cert in the Highland Park Assault Weapons Ban case. My prediction is that they will not take the case.
John Richardson takes a look at a recent 60 Minutes segment on smart guns.
Virginia Elections: Great kid, but don’t get cocky. The other side is feeling pretty jazzed too, and they have reason to be with Bloomberg dumping millions into these races. The right people have to turn out in the right places for all this to work for us, so be sure to turn out if you live in Virginia.
Lies about guns and children. Sometimes I wish they’d come up with new arguments so I’d have something different to talk about. I keep reading how rejuvenated the gun control movement is, but I’m not seeing new or novel arguments. It’s the same bullshit they’ve been trying to fool everyone with for decades.
You don’t say: Gun owners don’t always fit the stereotypes.
SayUncle: “I pondered if [the Dems going full gun control] was because big money guys like Bloomberg had them convinced it was a popular thing or they were just whoring for the money.” I think it’s a combination of the two. Obama convinced them it was popular, and Bloomberg is promising to spend big.
Gun headline of the week: “Prosecutor Who Went After Student For NRA Shirt Pulls Gun Over Fake Spiders.”
Suing to protect the gun rights of the Amish.
Media bias: reporting mass shootings when there was no mass shooting.
I think it’s fair to say one would be a fool to take self-defense advise from the New York Times, especially when they get offer VPC’s Googling the title of legitimate research. Fortunately, the public doesn’t seem to be listening.
Joe Huffman has some interesting observations about new media, “The online world has returned to the day of yellow journalism of 100 years ago.” I’ve been thinking this for a while now. Read the whole thing.
NRA still enjoys majority support in the US.
The real problem our opposition has is that shooting is a fun and safe activity.
Apparently male domestic violence victims are shockingly high. Probably also very underreported.
Also from Dave Kopel: English legal history and the right to carry arms.
The Center for American Progress is joining Bloomberg to attempt to turn Virginia into an anti-gun state, like neighboring Maryland. Baltimore must surely be a crime-free paradise!
The Democrats are working hard to ensure that they can shut down all gun sales by taking NICS offline. In this day in age, if the FBI can’t complete a background check in 72 hours, that’s not the fault of our community, that’s incompetence on the part of the NICS examiners.
There was a threat of Loyalsock Township passing a gun ordinance, but fortunately, it looks like they decided to let it die. A lot of times all it takes is grabbing a few friends and showing up. Local government aren’t used to actual participation, except for the people who show up every week to complain about something or other.
Joshua Prince and Allen Thompson: The Inalienable Right to Stand Your Ground.
Also from Josh Prince: It’s legal to carry a firearm while voting in Pennsylvania. My polling place is an elementary school, which is a legal grey area in Pennsylvania. I would not advise carrying if your polling place is a school.
Looks like the Dems are trying an old trick that stands little chance of working: making demands on government arms suppliers to implement gun control. Any handgun maker who cuts a deal with Chuck Schumer will be out of business in a year. That’s a promise.
Derp sells, part MCMXVII.
A pretty balanced article about Maine’s new suppressor hunting law.
Obama and Hillary both praise confiscation schemes of other countries, then drone on about how we might want to try it here, and there are still people with their heads in the sand about the real end goal in all this.
SCOTUS might take that AWB or a hypothetical SAFE ACT case – those lower court’s ruling is basically daring SCOTUS to come down and make them take Heller seriously; which is something that might get Roberts to take notice. Just because he (apparently) believes that the court should exercise restraint, doesn’t mean he will let the subordinate courts be insubordinate.
At some point Roberts is going to have to come down on what sort of scrutiny should be applied to gun control; if nothing else, by letting the lower courts get away with weak scrutiny. I don’t think he wants to gut the power of SCOTUS over the lower courts.
The Highland Park ruling is so resolutely asinine it’s begging for a remand with instructions if nothing else. As near as I can tell that ruling pulls a hat trick, violating heller, McDonald and Miller all in one fell swoop
(Trying again, maybe too many links [2] in the last comment attempt.)
Any handgun maker who cuts a deal with Chuck Schumer will be out of business in a year. That’s a promise.
Case in point: Pierce Munitions, formerly of Buffalo, NY.
Case in point: Smith & Wesson
Why in the world should any company currently selling to the US non-governmental market even consider giving that up to go after the much smaller and less lucrative police/military small-arms market? That strategy is one of the factors in Colt’s decline and recent implosion (among others, admittedly). Cop shops are going to buy, what, a couple of handguns per officer and run them till they fall apart (which could take a while). IIRC, there’s more guns sold EVERY YEAR in the US than there are LEOs.
Another problem for manufacturers is also that going after the government market doesn’t even necessarily guarantee securing business. So when word gets out that (insert manufacturer here) is going for government contracts and shunning private owners, uproar among our community could be created while the company slogs through the never-ending procurement process, only to lose the contract in the end, dealing them a double-blow.
Not to mention the revolt if officers are told they’re going to carry Smart Guns.
For the near term the technology is just not robust enough.
And it doesn’t help if, as is often the case, the Company is told they can sell cops regular guns but have to sell smart guns to everyone else.
They’re being forced to massively retool to sell something that will result in mass boycotts…
And for what? Municipal contracts?
With regard to the Center for American Progress press release: it has occurred to me that we should develop a simple test for gun laws.
Virginia should adopt Maryland’s gun laws when Maryland shows, over a period of at least ten years (to demonstrate stability), that they have a lower rate of murder and mayhem than Virginia.
Currently, according to the “Gun Violence in the United States” Wikipedia page, it seems that Maryland has both a significantly greater gun violence problem, and a significantly greater problem with murder in general. About twice as much, actually.
Complaining that Marylandians are getting guns from Virginia is a moot point. Why are Marylandians so much more violent than Virginians? And if guns are the cause of murder, why don’t they cause any mayhem before leaving Virginia’s borders into Maryland? Does the murder-aura of guns only work in Maryland?