Sebastian – Page 169 – Shall Not Be Questioned

NRA’s “Dom & Jerry” on Militarization of Law Enforcement

I’m not really pleased with NRA taking a position on this issue, so I’ll join the chorus of gun bloggers who have been condemning it. Bob Owens notes:

Weâ€™re giving real, selective-fire assault rifles and submachine guns to officers that mean well, but who were never trained to the point of competence, and law enforcement leaders are increasingly using these units in a wider range of operations in order to justify their expense.

I donâ€™t know of anyone would would deny law enforcement officers the use of body armor, sidearms, or patrol rifles as needed in the course of their duties, as long as those officers are adequately trained. Unfortunately, many agencies are using military tactics and weapons in routine operations, where they are contributing to the risk of innocent people being hurt or killed, instead of serving and protecting.

Read the whole thing, because I think Bob hits the nail on the head here. On a humorous note, I had to add a like to the top-rated comment when NRA shared this on their Facebook page:

I’m sure if I talked to someone there about this, they’d stress the importance of not alienating law enforcement. It is unfortunately true that we depend on law enforcement acquiescence in order to maintain our political power (politicians might be OK with going against the IACOP, but when the FOP has turned on us we’ve traditionally lost). Also, a decent portion of NRA’s membership are LEOs and former military. Despite that, I don’t think NRA needed to take a position on this issue. It may help with the cops, but probably a decent portion of NRA’s membership believes they are on the wrong side of this issue.

Stroller Jammin’

Moms Demand Action is still keeping the heat on Target. They planned a stroller jam. Normally I’d suggest that a tactic highlighting their weakness (the ability to turn out crowds) would be a problem, but in this case, OCT has handed Shannon Watts enough juice I’m expecting the media will be compliant lapdogs and turn out to cover this ordinarily non-story out the wazoo.

We’re sincerely hoping that everyone has called. This could be her first serious, non-BS victory if we don’t act. Understand that corporations are like lemmings. If one goes off the cliff, you can bet others will follow. This goes double if people keeping OCing long guns around in businesses.

UPDATE:

@SebastianSNBQ One sad little mom showed up for stroller jam. Ouch!

— Liberty Arms MN (@LibertyArmsMN) June 11, 2014

Who Gabby is Giving Money To

Gabby Giffords is focusing on a local (to me) politician:

Aiming to spend as much as $20 million, the group also will weigh in for Democratic House Reps. Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire and Ron Barber of Arizona. Barber has a special meaning for Giffords because he used to work in her congressional office and was also wounded in the 2011 Tucson shooting that gravely wounded Giffords.

Emphasis mine. Fitzpatrick is actually a Republican, but those of you who live here might get a little giggle out of that. One thing we’ve been wondering is whether Fitzpatrick will hold on to his NRA endorsement. By all rights he ought to lose it, because he signed on to the House version of Manchin-Toomey, but his voting record has generally been good otherwise.

The last Democrat we had in Congress supported bans on semi-autos. The last few challenger to Fitzpatrick returned a favorable questionnaire.

Obama Praises Gun Confiscation in Australia

Apparently Obama did a Tumblr presentation today where he praised Australia’s forced confiscation of all semi-automatic rifles as a model that the United States should follow. But remember kids, the left and the media tell us that we’re lunatics for believing anyone is coming for our guns. This is yet another example of gaslighting from the left. They tell us they aren’t after our guns, and that we are paranoid about it, but then Obama says something like this:

Couple of decades ago, Australia had a mass shooting, similar to Columbine or Newtown. And Australia just said, well, thatâ€™s it, weâ€™re not doing, weâ€™re not seeing that again, and basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws, and they havenâ€™t had a mass shooting since.

Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. Thereâ€™s no advanced, developed country that would put up with this. This is what Australia did, and this is what Obama wants to bring to America. This is not hyperbole. This is not paranoia. This is what he advocated!

Just a reminder of exactly what President Obama is endorsing, from this rather old segment from NRA News…

Tuesday News Links 06-10-2014

My time is short and is only going to get shorter in the next few weeks, but I have some news items piled up that I need to get rid of:

Las Vegas Shootings & Other Spree Killers:

Tam has some commentary on the Las Vegas shooting, or more accurately, the media reaction to it. They couldn’t have asked for a better narrative making couple than those two.

Brady is trying to make hay of the fact that they were looking for guns on Facebook.

Dave Kopel: The history of magazines holding 11 or more rounds.

More jerks blaming me (and you) for what other bozos do. The same jerk notes the mass shooting stopped with pepper spray. OK, then why don’t we take guns away from cops then? I advocate carrying pepper spray, but it’s a terrible risk depending on spray to stop an active shooter.

Bearing Arms: The Humility of a Hero. Pepper spray is probably your next best thing, but it should be kept in mind that a) it takes a bit to start really affecting the attacker, and in these situations seconds count, b) it doesn’t affect everyone the same way and c) a sprayed person is still capable of employing deadly force even after the spray takes effect, if that person is sufficiently determined.

Again, this is an argument for taking guns away from the police too.

Clayton wants to know why their neighbors just didn’t call the police.

The shooters were apparently kicked off the Bundy Ranch, but you’ll probably be reading in the media that they were at the Bundy Ranch, so of course are connected.

The male shooter in the Las Vegas incident was already a prohibited person.

Not Really News:

Bill Maher is still a jackass.

The Clintons never supported the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

SAFE Act not making New York any safer.

Seattle shooter had mental health problemsÂ that were noticed, but no one did anything.

Those Crazy Anti-Gunners:

Obama’s nominee for Surgeon General has seemingly gone silent. Of course, CSGV tries to play the race card.

Brady to tap Hollywood in a continuing search for relevance.

Idaho professors looking to OC rifles to class to protest the law which allows firearms in schools. Knock yourselves out. No skin off my back. You’re the ones who look ridiculous.

Same ideas, different decade. If the media has enough reason to write about gun policy the probability approaches near certainty that some moron will write that the gun control movement just needs to try something new, and then propose a bunch of ideas that have already been tried and failed.

Chuck Schumer doesn’t even know who wrote the Bill of Rights. To be fair, most university graduates probably don’t either, but they also aren’t using the Bill of Rights for toilet paper in the Senate bathroom.

General Gun News:

Century lays off 41 employees because Obama isn’t allowing reimportation of M1s.

NPR:Â Guns kept people alive during the Civil Rights Movement.

Shannon Watts is pushing a petition to bring down on Target. If our side can’t out noise them, I think they’ll win. And unlike their other wins, which never included a policy change, this one will. Once she gets one retailer to bite, how long before another does? She’s claiming 10,000 signatures.

The son of Kermit Gosnell, the infamous abortion doctor, was shot when he invaded the home of two students one of whom was armed.

Judge tells ATF to stop making it up as they go along.

Are Companies Really Changing their Policies?

A reader e-mailed yesterday about something very interesting:

I saw you post about you eating at Chili’s and I was concerned that Brinker the parent of Chili’s would apply their policy change to Maggiano’s Little Italy which they also own. So I called their corporate office today, and the woman I spoke to in customer service said that they did not change their policy and if I am in compliance with the laws of where the Chili’s or Maggiano’s is than I am good to go. Seems like this is a lie being pushed my MDA. I asked about franchise locations of Chili’s and she told me they need to follow corporate policies.

So as many had suspected, there has been no actual policy change. I suspect what Watts has been doing is shaking these companies down for a press release, and then using that to declare victory to her supporters and to the media.

But before people start arguing then this is all much ado about nothing, it’s still:

A huge cultural loss, because companies are more than willing to hand Watts talking points to make the rifle OC issues go away.
Still being used by Watts to energize and grow her organization and reputation.
Being used by the media to bring shame down upon all gun owners because of the actions of a small handful of attention grabbers.

Watts would also love, I’m sure, to get an actual policy change. She would no doubt also love to convince one of these companies to post. Even if we’re not talking disaster of epic proportions yet, if the nonsense continues, that will be the result at some point. We already have the wrong kind of media becoming enamored with Watt’s organization, to the point of writing glowing puff pieces about it.

A lot of the currency of our movement is the demoralization of theirs. There are plenty of people in this country that wouldn’t let you even own a rifle for hunting. What’s kept the gun control movement down since the 1990s is most of those people thought it was a lost cause, because everyone was telling them it was. Even the Clinton’s acknowledged what the NRA cost Democrats in the 1990s.

With every victory they attain, they are convincing a lot of those people that gun control is possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fabrication. It doesn’t matter if policy is not actually being changed. Perception is everything, and Watts is very good at managing perceptions. There will always be an enthusiasm gap between our side and theirs, but they have immediate and friendly access to the media, the entertainment industry, and academia. Our sideÂ starts off out of the gate at a disadvantage, because we don’t have any of that. All we have is each other.

Making an AR-15 Bolt in 9 Minutes

With a Swistek AB42 CNC Mill. It’s edited down to three minutes, but pretty cool nonetheless. This is definitely more sophisticated the Taig mill Jason used to make his CNC’d firearms:

How are the Anti Gun Groups Really Doing?

Despite concerns I have about the anti-gun groups looking like they may actually be building momentum, Stephen E. Wright writing at “The Bluff” has taken a detailed analysis of the statistics, which show that the anti-gun groups actually aren’t doing as well as you might think:

1. Anti 2nd amendment FB groups are much smaller than pro 2nd amendment groups (like 10x)
2. Anti 2nd amdment FB groups are growing much slower than pro 2nd amendment groups (like 4x)
3. Anti 2nd amendment FB groups have an older following than pro 2nd amendment groups (like 25-44 for the NRA and 55+ for Bloombergâ€™s Everytown)

Go read the whole thing. Of course, it’s depressing that NAGR has so many Facebook followers, given my very low opinion of that group and its proprietor. But as Bitter mentioned, Brown is very good at creating the kinds of graphics that people share and that go viral. Either way, it does show that as much as they might be gaining media juice, we are too, and faster than they are. And with the more favorable demographics.

Gun Safety Issues with OCT Events

Noticing a picture displayed by OCT at Smashburger, Lagniappe’s Lair notes:

Now aside from the fact that about half of those unattended long guns appear to be “leaning with intent to fall”, A zoom on the AR to the far left, closest to the bald bozo in the Cabela’s shirt, reveals that the safety selector is vertical to the rifle, meaning that it’s set to FIRE. Two of the other ARs have their safeties obstructed by slings or camera angle, but I’m willing to bet that at least one of them has it’s safety disengaged, too; that’s just the sort of half-assed idiots that these half-assed idiots are.

Go have a look for the close up shot. A reader mentioned today that if OCT didn’t exist, Bloomberg would have to invent them. This is truth, so God help us. I can’t imagine what an ND would do to the movement if it happened in one of these “educational” events. These folks have demonstrated they are fundamentally without good judgement. My concern is that poor judgement will be exercised in more areas than just public relations. Just look at the photo from Lagniappe’s Lair; if you were intent on making off with a gun, how much would you bet you’d be out the door with one of those ARs before the people not paying attention to what’s going on behind them even notices?

Bob Ownes of Bearing Arms also looks at the safety violations committed by this group. HeÂ correctly notes that muzzle down on a concrete floor is NOT a safe direction. If a firearm discharges, the bullet will likely ricochet off the floor, while also simultaneously sending fragments of concrete out in random directions with enough force to seriously injure people nearby. The safe direction is up in this circumstance.

All this has me thinking I need to start a new category “Clown Show.” I hate putting this stuff in Gun Rights, or even Gun Rights Organizations. That gives them too much credit. Even “How not to Win” is generous.

Quote of the Day: Second Amendment Addition

This comes to us via NRA’s Civil Rights Defense Fund:

Believing that the [second] amendment does not authorize an individual’s right to keep and bear arms is wrong. The right to bear arms is an individual right. The military connotation of bearing arms does not necessarily determine the meaning of a right to bear arms. If all it meant was the right to be a soldier or serve in the military, whether in the militia or the army, it would hardly be a cherished right and would never have reached constitutional status in the Bill of Rights. The “right” to be a soldier does not make much sense. Life in the military is dangerous and lonely, and a constitutionally protected claim or entitlement to serve in uniform does not have to exist in order for individuals to enlist if they so choose. Moreover, the right to bear arms does not necessarily have a military connotation, because Pennsylvania, whose constitution of 1776 first used the phrase “the right to bear arms,” did not even have a state militia. In Pennsylvania, therefore, the right to bear arms was devoid of military significance. Moreover, such significance need not necessarily be inferred even with respect to states that had militias. Bearing arms could mean having arms. Indeed, Blackstone’s Commentaries spoke expressly of the “right to have arms.” An individual could bear arms without being a soldier or militiaman.

Leonard W. Levy, ORIGINS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS 134-35 (Yale Univ. Press 1999).