The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
… have to ambush some fish. This is pretty cool. It’s a Russian assault rifle they designed to shoot into water or from water. It’s called the APS Underwater Assault rifle.
The size of the magazine is a result of having to accomodate cartridges that look like this:
 
Pretty crazy. Â Apparently it can shoot 100 feet underwater, or shoot out of or into water, with lethal effect.
This study is hardly surprising. Gun shows tend to conform to the laws of the state they are hosted in. What a shocker. A pity this study tells us nothing about whether gun control works on criminals, since, according to a 1997 study by the National Institute of Justice, only 2% of crime guns have their origins at gun shows.
As of Today, it has been six months since I inaugurated this blog with my very first post of taking my friend Loretta shooting.  It would seem odd that I started this blog to impress Bitter, but my first post was taking another chick shooting.  But it actually makes sense if you know the context. In the intervening time, I’ve discovered a few things:
It’s good to be passing the six month mark.  Thanks to everyone who reads and comments. You guys are the reason I keep doing it.
I’ve been participating in the e-postal matches. You should too. It’s a lot of fun to compete against other bloggers, even if you come at the end of the pack. You probably won’t beat this guy though, I think he spends more time at the range than I can even dream of.
He added me just as I was about to do a blogroll addition, so I figured I’d reciprocate. He’s another Knoxville blogger. Knoxville seems to be the blogging capital of the world.
In only a few days, he’s really impressed me with his content. Most of us are aware of his problems with the BATFE. I really hope he can manage to get through his ordeal with his business still in tact. You’d swear the ATF were working under somebody like Bill Clinton rather than a “pro-gun” Republican. Bush’s failure to get this agency under control has been a big slap in the face to the gun rights community.
Another Pennsylvania guy. Been an occasional reader for a while, becoming a more regular reader.
More Pennsylvania bloggers. I may have to create a special category for them at some point.
We all owe a lot to John’s research.Â
I’m sure there are others out there I should add. If you feel left out, let me know, and maybe I’ll get you in on the next cycle.
Bitter has two really good posts up about how the anti-gun groups are going to have to spin the Democrat/NRA deal as a victory even if it isn’t really.
I actually disagree. They are in a do or die situation here. If they can’t be seen as getting a win after the PR tragedy that was handed to them on a silver platter, they will start to lose funds and support.
She goes on to document the demise of Americans for Gun Safety, and goes on to mention:
Now with all of that said about AGS, I realize that the Brady Campaign has a much more entrenched status as the leader for anti-gun activism. They solidified that by taking over the Million Mom March. However, most sources of funding for non-profits don’t keep the tap open forever without at least a few results. If the Brady’s allow this to come out as the only gun legislation that can pass and only then because of the NRA getting on board, they are screwed. They will have to spin this as success, only without mentioning all the stuff we got out of the deal.
So expect the Brady’s to ignore that part, and just focus on “We strengthened the background checks to ensure blah blah blah blah”.  Her next post points out that things at the Brady Campaign already aren’t too good:
So we can see that the two major divisions of the Brady Bunch did see a combined loss of $2,310,000 in revenue from 2004 to 2005. With losses like the passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that took several of their big legal challenges off the table, it’s not a shock that they would see a drop in 2005. It will be interesting to see their 2006 numbers, the year that Michael Barnes left and Paul Helmke took over. Of course, he didn’t take over until the first quarter was over, so the 2007 numbers would really be more reflective. If with the Parker case and Virginia Tech, the Brady Bunch doesn’t regain all of the lost revenue and more, I would say they have to start making cuts. They don’t have the assets to support themselves for even a few months if donations take a drastic drop.
And when you’re operating in DC, cutting your staff signals to the people you’re trying to influence that your support is eroding, and that’s the kiss of death.
Also keep in mind folks, that gun owners tend to let their memberships and donations to pro-gun organizations lapse when we start to get too complacent as well. Having gun control off the table as a political issue is great for us, but if we want to keep things that way, we have to keep our pro-gun organizations strong.
Because when it comes to politics:
More details can be found at the linked article. While I think it’s ridiculous an interest group wields such power in Washington that Congressional leadership has to negotiate with them, this is overall a good step and NRA support should ensure its passage.
… it’s far better for liberty and the health of the republic if politicians don’t listen to the interest of constituents and interests groups at all, and rely only on their good and pure instincts on subjects that they, most likely, don’t know much about?
But I suppose what’s really at work with a lot of congressional dems, who just want to stick it to sport shooters and gun owners, is that it really sucks to, you know, actually have to listen to them and take their concerns seriously rather than being able to dismiss them as a bunch of kooks.
We still don’t have a bill yet, so all we have to go on here is the Washington Post’s reporting, which is always a scary prospect when it comes to this issue. We do have some reactions from the blogosphere though, which are interesting.
Jeff Soyer worries about it turning into a bad deal really quickly. This is a real concern. I’m worried about this as well. It’ll be a real litmus test for how serious the Democrats are about ending their habit of screwing gun owners every chance they get.
If someone is so dangerous they can’t be trusted with a gun then I don’t think they can be trusted with a can of gasoline and a book of matches either. Either they can be trusted in public or they should be locked up.
I agree with this sentiment, but the vast majority of the population doesn’t. NICS, without a doubt, is a feel good measure, to make the public think it’s been made difficult for criminals to get guns, but it’s a feel good measure that there doesn’t seem to be much political traction to get rid of. People that think NICS is useless are very much a political minority. I think Joe’s second point is a good one:
Making the least agreeable portions of the infringement on our rights more palatable just means it will be more difficult to justify getting rid of it entirely later on.
I don’t think there’s any way we’re getting rid of NICS through the legislative process, but I do think this is a good point when it comes to the courts; in that the less infringing the background checks are, the less likely the court may be to throw it out. This is a good argument against the bill, I think.
SayUncle sums it up as “NICS deal – hey, lets’ pay for stuff that’s already law“, which I think is accurate if the WaPo’s reporting is correct on this. We’re not adding new classes of prohibited person with this bill. If you’ve been committed, or adjudicated a danger to yourself or others, and you’re not in NICS, that doesn’t change your prohibited status. If the feds care to look, you’re still a “felon-in-possession”. If the Democrats hold true to the deal, it would seem that we’ll actually have a recourse for removing prohibited status for some offenses, and getting corrections made to the NICS database.
It looks like the NICS deal with the Democrats has come to light:
Under the agreement, participating states would be given monetary enticements for the first time to keep the federal background database up to date, as well as penalties for failing to comply.
To sign on to the deal, the powerful gun lobby won significant concessions from Democratic negotiators in weeks of painstaking talks.
It looks like we have won some real concession out of this bill. I’m holding final judgment until I can see the language of the bill itself, but it appears what we’ll get is:
I know we’ll have folks who will say the NRA has sold us out, but I think we’ve won some real concessions over this bill. The ability to remove prohibited status is a big step in the right direction, and something we’ve not had for years.
NICS will have more records, this is true, but a lack of NICS record doesn’t affect actual prohibited status. The Virginia Tech murderer’s absence from NICS did not make him lawfully able to buy a gun. By ATF’s guidelines, he was a prohibited person. This bill seems to allow people to actually challenge and remove prohibited status for minor infarctions.
Like I said, I will reserve judgment until I see some actual language, but I’m prepared to say OK to this deal. If that makes me a sellout, so be it. I see this deal as half a step backwards and a whole step forward, which to me is better than just getting crapped on.
UPDATE:
Captain Ed likes the deal
Bitter does too.
Joe Huffman doesn’t like the sound of it.
Jim Kessler of Third Way is either ignorant of the law, or he’s a lying sack of shit. In this article:
But then one day, one of the litigants against the gun industry obtained this data and used it to show negligence and malfeasance among some in the gun industry. So at the expense of law abiding citizens, Congressman Tiahrt, at the request of the NRA, limited the information supplied to police. Post-Tiahrt, police would still learn the name of the original buyer and the gun store that sold it, but that’s about it. If they ask ATF about suspicious activity, ATF is forbidden by the Tiahrt Amendment to divulge it. If that original buyer is also the original buyer of ten other guns traced to crimes across the country, that information is guarded by ATF as if it were the Holy Grail.
The police are still able to request trace data as part of a bonafide criminal investigation. Both the ATF and the Fraternal Order of Police favor keeping the trace data restricted. All Tiahrt does is prohibit the information from being released to cities so city politicians can’t endanger criminal investigations. That’s why the ATF and FOP are opposing relaxing the restrictions on this material.
Also, trace data doesn’t work this way. Trace data allows law enforcement, given a recovered firearm from a crime scene, to find the trail of legal ownership. It doesn’t allow them to find, Tiahrt amendment or no, what other guns a person might own.
For a Progressive Strategy group, Third Way doesn’t seem to accept that gun control has been a disaster as a political issue. Gun-control supporters aren’t as motivated or organized as we are, and we can hurt a lot more on election day than they can. If guns rank high in someone’s political calculus, there’s an overwhelming likelihood they are pro-gun.
Wow! This is really crazy:
Alcohol is haram, or forbidden, to Muslims. As London is above the national average for alcohol-related deaths in males, with 17.6 per 100,000 people (Camden has 31.6 per 100,000 males), turning all the city’s pubs into juice bars would have a massive positive effect on public health. Forbid alcohol throughout the country, and you’d avoid many of the 22,000 alcohol-related deaths and the £7.3 billion national bill for alcohol-related crime and disorder each year.
I reserve the right to shoot any officer of the Islamic Caliphate who dares come to confiscate my beer tap. And I will too! There are some lines you just don’t cross :)