Permit issuance is apparently up dramatically in Sacramento County, California, largely due to their decision to go shall-issue in response to a lawsuit filed by SAF and the Calguns Foundation. John also reports this is driving the Brady Campaign in California mad. All I have to say is that they better get used to losing. Their little six state party of riding roughshod over our rights will soon be reversing itself, and it’ll be our turn to flip the tables.
Author: Sebastian
Shale Drilling
I will be the first to admit I’m relatively ignorant on the ins and outs of the science behind hydraulic fracturing, and its environmental impact, other than groking the overall basic concept. Generally speaking, I think it’s appropriate for government to regulate externalities, such as river or groundwater contamination caused by industrial processes, provided those regulations are based on science rather than hysteria.
However, I’m wondering how many of these people are going to voluntarily go without natural gas this winter. Speaking only for myself here, but I’m guessing I probably speak for many Pennsylvanians: I like not being cold. I also like hot showers. I’m open to listening to ideas about how natural gas drilling needs to be regulated, but these folks apparently want it stopped. I hate to tell these folks, but natural gas isn’t produced by farting unicorns.
Attack of the Beavers!
There’s apparently a local trend in animal attacks for which I was previously unaware. I better start preparing.
Using Women to Market to Men
I’ll join Bitter here in saying I didn’t have any particular problem with the Lucky Gunner ammo waitresses, speaking as someone who went to fetch his own ammo that weekend. Understand that for most people at the shoot, Lucky Gunner was selling ammo. In order to sell more ammo, you have to keep shooters at the line ripping away at the various targets down range. The ammo waitresses were a way to keep people at the line shooting. That they happened to be good looking women I don’t think reflected badly on Lucky Gunner or the shooting sports. None of them were dressed inappropriately. There’s a world of difference between this, and this, and if LG had decided on the latter, I would have been quick to criticize them.
There’s been some criticism of Heidi as well, which I really don’t understand, since when I clicked on her, she is entirely appropriately dressed, is informative, and does not make me think that Lucky Gunner is explicitly using sex to market their product to men. Subtly yes, but that’s because it works. Most sales people that call IT managers these days are women. For pharmaceutical sales, which are mostly to male physicians, it’s generally a prerequisite to be highly knowledgeable about the business, the products, and also to be smoking hot. It’s not like Big Pharma will send them in dressed like they just got out of their night job at Hooters; they’ll be in business attire, but they will get the job done in ways a man marketing to other men can’t.
I do have issues with turning the shooting sports into a boys club, but I would note the ammo waitresses were just as thrilled with being able to shoot all the toys on the range just as much as the guys were, and they were free to when they weren’t schlepping ammo. Â If they had dressed them like they were sunbathing at the beach, or like Sniper Babes, I would agree it was inappropriate. But I don’t think LG crossed the line in terms of their marketing, at least not any more than many casual dining establishments, or other industries that market primarily to a male audience.
Losing in Every Way Imaginable
Our opponents, with their freshly unsuspended Twitter account, have been busy resisting the temptation to violate Twitter’s terms of use by completely ignoring bloggers. Lesson learned, I guess. Either way, today I noticed this bit come across the old Twitter feed:
I knew nothing of this GoodSearch thing, so I decided to look it up. Turns out it’s a way to generate donations to your favorite charity by doing searches, and they have a LOT of charities listed, including in our issue. So let’s take a look and compare at the totals raised since they signed up with GoodSearch.
- Brady Center: 3,836 Searches, raising a total of $56.87
- Coalition to Stop Gun Violence: 48 total searches, totaling $11.45.
- NRA Foundation: 380,264 Searches, raising a total of $5,324.67
- Second Amendment Foundation: 23,706 searches, totaling $303.99
It must suck to not have any real grassroots. Hell, I would think CSGV staff could generate a better showing than $11.45 cents. With inflation these days, that won’t even pay for a night of take out in DC.
First Gunwalker Hearings
About As Exciting as Root Canal
Rick Santorum launches his Presidential bid. He’s not Mike Huckabee. That’s about the only good thing I can say about him.
A favorite among Republican social conservatives, Santorum, 53, reiterated a stump speech he has delivered for nearly a year in the early voting states. The central theme of his campaign is that God — not government — grants people their rights.
And Rick Santorum will the the first in line to tell you exactly which of those rights God does, and doesn’t grant. This is going to be long primary season. God help us.
Has Been’s Table
MAIG Poster Child is Already Prohibited
The gun blogosphere is ablaze with this video hawked by Mayors Against Illegal Guns showing a one Adam Gadhan, a high ranking American-born Al-Quaeda operative, naively posting that machine guns can be had at US gun shows without background checks. Most people have focused on the ridiculousness of this assertion, but I think more interesting is the fact that Adam Gadhan is a prohibited person under current federal law because he’s currently under indictment for treason against the United States.
While it’s still an open constitutional question as to whether an indictment is sufficient due process to warrant even temporary removal of a the Second Amendment right, the chances are, because of the temporary nature of the prohibition, it very well may be sufficient. For instance, it’s sufficient to keep a person in jail if a Judge perceives they are a threat to the public, are a flight risk, and the crime is sufficiently heinous. Courts would weigh that against a temporary restriction of one specific right. Since indictments are generally only requires for sufficiently infamous crimes, this might be sufficient to remove the right pending trial on the charges.
So I think it’s safe to say MAIG is full of crap when it’s suggested that our current laws are insufficient to stave off the possibility of known terrorists getting their hands on firearms through legal channels (as opposed to black market channels, where they can get them readily — see Mumbai). Personally, I feel safer living in a country where my fellow citizens are ready, willing and able to shoot back, than I would be in a country like India, where the population has neither the ability, inclination, or training to do so (which apparently applies even to the police). I don’t give a Mumbai style attack much chance even in a place like New York City, where emptying the magazine into the suspect seems to be the standard drill. Our cops shoot back, and in most of other other cities, our citizens do too.
Dusting Off the Shooty
Like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz, I found myself having to oil my reloading setup into working condition for the first time in a long time last night. I decided, after a while of shooting air gun silhouette and smallbore silhouette, to try out field pistol again at our monthly IHMSA match. The load was .44 Special, with 8.3 grains of Unique topped off with a 180gr hollow nose bullet. You just want enough to take the animal down, but not too little that you have to aim way over the rams at 100 yards for lack of muzzle velocity.
The only firearm I have that really works for IHMSA field pistol is my Smith & Wesson 629. Smaller caliber pistols are generally preferred for this category, such as ones that shoot .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Magnum, or .22 Hornet. Not being one to spend a lot of money on special purpose guns, I stick with something general purpose. The end result is that I scored 13 out of 40. For air pistol or smallbore, I’d be embarrassed at that score, but for shooting modified isosceles starting at 25 yards and moving out to 100 yards with a factory .44 revolver, I’ll take hitting 13 out of 40. One guy I shoot with got 21 out of 40 with a 4 inch barreled Ruger Blackhawk in .44 Special. He is not a believer in long barrels, and he doesn’t need to be.
Metallic Silhouette is one of those games where your fundamentals have to be pretty much perfect to hit anything. Shooting production category is difficult because most handgun manufacturers that aren’t Thompson Center don’t imagine their customers wanting fine enough sight adjustment for shooting at 50 or 100 yards. On rams, one click can be the difference between missing off its nose, and shooting it in the ass on some pistols. I generally don’t like mucking with my elevation settings, so I tend to just eyeball elevation. With .44 Special, you’re pretty much straight from 25 to 50 yards, a little up on the turkeys at 75 yards, but you have to aim over the backs of the rams at 100 yards. Between 75 and 100 yards, the bullet starts to drop more substantially.
I was thinking a reshoot, because I thought I might be good for 15 or 16 a second time around, but I only loaded 50 .44 Specials. I’d have to do the reshoot with .44 magnum, which would throw my sight settings, and to be honest, my wrist wasn’t up to it. Maybe next time.