Sebastian – Page 951 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Lamenting The Inaction

The Washington Post is sounding curiously like the Brady Campaign this morning:

Progress has been stifled thanks to the outsize power of the gun lobby and its lawmaker allies. Equally disturbing is Capitol Hill’s failure to revive the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 or to defeat the Tiahrt amendment, which limits public disclosure regarding where and when guns used in crimes were sold.

As a candidate, President Obama campaigned on a promise to push for the closing of the gun show loophole and a revival of the assault weapons ban. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said during his confirmation hearing that he supports both actions. How many more people must be killed, and how many more families and communities devastated, before they and the Congress act?

Yeah, Tiahrt is all about stopping mass killers.Â Got to stop those gun shows too, even though it’s not been said any of the killers ever used one.Â Assault weapons ban?Â Â Far better if they use far more deadly shotguns and rifles. Or gasoline and a match.

20/20 Segment – How Would You Do?

Here’s the segment 20/20 ran on the shooting incident:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MX3QtumSuE[/youtube]

Raise you hand if you carry a retention holster concealed at 1:00?Â No takers?Â But even with a good holster, from an active shooter point of view, that lecture hall is a death trap.

Guns aren’t magic devices that allow you to prevail against another armed person 100% of the time. Even a well trained police officer would have a difficult time drawing from concealment and firing in this situation, without taking a hit himself.Â I don’t feel too confident I would do all that much better than these kids.Â It’s a small, intimate lecture hall, some concealment but no good cover, and no way to easily move.Â 20/20s implication is that because there are some situations where a gun isn’t going to do you any good that there are no situations where a gun will do you any good.Â Let’s look back at the event that 20/20 exploited for this piece of journalistic garbage:

About halfway through class we heard the noises. Someone said something like, “It’s probably just construction.” The noises didn’t stop. The teacher stiffened up and said “That’s not what I think it is, is it?” That’s when I remember going into panic. I pointed at the teacher and said, “put that desk in front of the door, now.” She did it, and then said “someone call 911.” Colin to my right stood up and called 911.

At that point, the door was nudged open aggressively, and I saw a gun emerge into view. It was surreal. Following the gun was a man. He was Asian and had a lot of ammunition and gun gear on â€” like a big utility belt or something for ammo. That was the only glimpse I got. I quickly dove under a desk â€” that was the desk I chose to die under. He then began methodically and calmly shooting people down. It sounded rhythmic â€” like he took his time in between each shot and kept up the pace, moving from person to person. After every shot I thought, “OK, the next one is me.” Shot after shot went off and I never felt anything. I played dead and tried to look as lifeless as possible. Sometimes after a shot, I would hear a quick moan, or a slow one, or a grunt, or a quiet, reserved yell from one of the girls.

Let me ask you this, if you were in this situation, would you rather have a gun, or would you rather imagine yourself too stupid to use one, like 20/20 says you are?Â Would you rather be under a desk waiting to die?Â Would you feel safe with a cell phone in your hand, as 20/20 recommends, rather than a Glock?

I can’t help anyone who says they would rather be a sheep waiting for the slaughter, though I have no doubt some would, but I suspect most sensible people can see 20/20s assertion for the bullshit that is, and would see the utility of a gun in this situation.

UPDATE: Brillianter has more.

Bloomberg Starts a New Anti-Gun Group

We might be able to get somewhere in this issue if it wasn’t for arrogant rich New Yorkers.Â Michael Bloomberg is financing another gun group, called Americans United for Safe Streets.Â Who could be against safe streets?Â Here’s a write-up in the Washington Post about their inaugural effort:

On Monday, Bloomberg, whose gun control campaigns in Virginia have roiled gun rights groups, will join Omar Samaha at an Arlington hotel to unveil a 30-second commercial that will air statewide next week. Their campaign calls for the General Assembly to close the so-called gun-show loophole in Virginia law that allows private sellers to sell firearms without conducting background checks. The commercial, which will be previewed at the Crystal City Marriott at 11:30 a.m., was paid for by Americans United for Safe Streets, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that counts Bloomberg as a financial contributor.

It gets interesting when you start looking at who’s behind this new group.Â If you look at the AUSS web page, you see that the contact is Alex Howe, who is a Senior Account Executive at Fenton Communications.Â If you take a look at Fenton, you will notice who they provide services for:

Alex Howe provides publicity support and strategy for a broad range of public interest issues and political clients, including MoveOn.org, the ONE Campaign, Avaaz.org and Win Without War.

This is the left-wing new media machine involved with a lot of this effort.Â Right now, if you look at their domain records, they are registered to an address above a deli in New York City.Â To a William Swenson, who is Advisor to the Criminal Justice Coordinator at the Office of the Mayor.Â This guy works in Bloomberg’s office.

This also looks like a 527 organization, rather than a 501(c)(3) or a 501(c)(4) non-profit, along the lines of NRA or the Brady Campaign.Â You can see where their money is coming from, as well as who they are spending money with.Â They got a million-five from Bloomberg himself, and not a small amount from people who work for the City of New York.

I’ve worried about the possibility of a well-funded, new media savvy anti-gun group springing on to the scene.Â The Brady Campaign is still largely interested in re-fighting the battles of the 1990s, and relies increasingly on a dying media establishment to get their message out.Â A new group would come with new ideas, and come at us from unexpected directions, and through mediums that have until now been entirely dominated by us.Â These people might be the real deal.

Ultimately the left needs a counter to the NRA if they are to be successful long term.Â One way to counter NRA is the old “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” strategy.Â While that might be acceptable to a lot of moderate rural and suburban Democrats, it’s not acceptable to the urban progressive left.Â They need an answer to NRA that brings the twin pillars of influence to the table in the form of money and votes.Â This folks have a track record of bringing that, so I wouldn’t laugh this group off.

Helmke vs. Feldman, Part III

In the LA Times.

UPDATE: Feldman says:

Finally, Paul, I never said I favored background checks on all gun transfers. It’s no wonder the NRA leadership doesn’t want to meet with you — it could cost them their jobs. I stated very clearly that I support instant criminal background checks at gun shows where sellers do not know who the buyer is — and only at gun shows. Last year, I sold an AR-15 rifle to my buddy in Vermont; he’s a former Chittenden County prosecutor. I know who he is. There are four kinds of people to whom I might ever sell guns outside a gun show: a friend, a neighbor, a relative or a co-worker. In each case, I know the person, period. If your “gun show loophole bill” overreaches to everyone at all times, I’m dead-set against it. It wouldn’t work, would create another bureaucracy and would put off those already suspicious of your real motives because you aren’t limiting the solution to the actual problem: sellers who don’t know the buyers.

The only guns I’ve ever sold are to people I know.Â Regardless, I don’t agree that a “gun show only” bill is acceptable, because gun shows have never been shown to be a serious problem in terms of availability of firearms for criminal purposes.Â I don’t think that is a smart trade.

If the Brady Campaign wants a compromise on the issue, they can work on making the NICS system more available to people other than FFLs.Â Anti-Gun folks would probably do a lot more than bellowing nonsense if they set up booth at guns shows, and ran free NICS checks for anyone who asked, no questions asked.Â No gun owner wants to sell a gun to a criminal or a whack job, but we don’t want to be forced to go through the FFL dance either.Â We’d use a free system voluntarily, if it just gave a thumbs up or thumbs down.Â If the Brady Campaign is really concerned, what could be the objection to a system like this?

Smallbore Shooting is For Everyone

Local Montana papers promote the shooting sports while the rest of the media is busy trying to destroy them:

Unless you are actually involved in the sport of shooting, you mayÂ not realize that there are five smallbore shooting clubs in the area; Pondera Valley, Brady, Ledger, Valier and one in Shelby.

The are made up of men, women, and students that thrive and participate in a lifetime sport. The sport is also handicap accessible, especially when the new Shooting Club building is complete just north of town.

What you’ll really love is where they have some of their competitions:

Right now the local shooters use the basement of the Brady Community Center, which has five lanes for firing. Ledger Community Hall has five lanes as well, Valier has six and the Shelby Club has eight lanes.

Shooting in the Brady Community Center?Â I think I knew where I’m moving when I retire!

Boston Globe Highlights Preserve Hunting

One of HSUS’s big targets is preserve hunting, where they try to make it sound like you’re shooting these caged up animals.Â The sad thing is, other hunters join in condemning this.Â Â The Boston Globe article actually manages to be pretty balanced:

abral shot a hairy Russian boar inside the Hillside Game Ranch, 400 acres enclosed by a 6-foot wire fence in this speck of a town between Bangor and Calais. It is one of 11 big-game shooting preserves that operate with little notice in northern New England, drawing people with the promise of killing a European red stag, say, or American buffalo, held within the compound.

Four hundred acres is hardly what I’d call confined.Â If you look at the descriptions of how people are hunting in these preserves, it looks an awful lot like hunting outside of these preserves:

The camouflage-clad Cabrals climbed into a tree hunting stand, knelt down, and silently waited. Mulgrew climbed into one a few hundred feet away.

And now, you have hunters who are siding with the animal rights whack jobs:

Nuse is president of Orion – The Hunter’s Institute, a Montana-based group dedicated to the preservation of ethical hunting. The group supported a 2000 ban on captive hunting in that state.

“Is it the same as wild hunting? Absolutely not,” said William Hart of Pembroke, an avid hunter in the wild and in game parks. “But there are people who have huge mortgages and not a lot of time, but they want to hunt . . . so they go to the game preserves.”

HSUS is using the same tactics on hunting that the anti-gun groups used on assault weapons.Â Divide one politically weak portion of the community away from the main body, destroy it, and then go back and do the same.Â Repeat until you have what you want: total prohibition.Â Unless hunters bind together, and stand up for all lawful hunting, they are finished.Â HSUS will succeed in what they are trying to do.

I don’t think there is anything unethical about hunting on a large game preserve, provided the animals are free to move about, and the hunts are in accordance with standard practices.Â If we can raise animals on a farm for slaughter, I don’t see the problem with raising animals to be hunted.Â If you outlaw one, how long before HSUS begins questioning the other?

Jack Weaver Dead at 80

From Today’s Outdoor Wire:

On a completely unrelated note, the shooting world lost one of its best-known names last week. Former Los Angeles County Deputy Jack Weaver, 80, died Tuesday in Carson City. Weaver, for those of you not familiar with the name, is the man for whom the Weaver Shooting Stance is named.

A Very Special Reminder

For the next week or so, reminders will be popping up to make sure people mail in their NRA Board Election ballots.Â These reminders come from some of our favorite people. We do hope everyone will consider our endorsements for the NRA Board Election, and check out our interviews with the candidates that can be found at the link above.Â Your vote only counts if the ballot arrives by April 26th, so get them in the mail.

More Details on the Rescue

It looks like there really was some fantastic marksmanship at work in this incident with the Somali Pirates.Â Â I have to share Dave Kopel’s sentiment that President Obama deserves kudos for ordering the Navy to do what they had to do, and get the captain back by whatever means were prudent, even if it meant dead pirates.Â When he does something right, I will praise him.Â Let’s look at the marksmanship though:

U.S. Navy snipers fatally shot three pirates holding an American cargo-ship captain hostage after seeing that one of the pirates “had an AK-47 leveled at the captain’s back,” a military official said Sunday.

The captain, who’d been held in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean since Wednesday, was rescued uninjured, Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney told reporters.

[…]

U.S. forces moved to rescue Phillips after seeing him in imminent danger on the lifeboat, Gortney said. A fourth pirate was negotiating Phillips’ fate aboard the nearby USS Bainbridge.

“While working through the negotiations process tonight, the on-scene commander from the Bainbridge made the decision that the captain’s life was in immediate danger, and the three pirates were killed,” Gortney said. “The pirate who surrendered earlier today is being treated humanely; his counterparts who continued to fight paid with their lives.”

Now imagine the shot they had to take.Â You’re on the deck of a ship that’s pitching in the high seas, and shooting at targets who are also pitching in the same seas.Â You not only have to be able to aim to where the targets are right now, but where they will be by the time the bullet finds it way to the target.Â The distances involved are probably on the order of hundreds of yards, if not more.Â The pirates “was shot in the head.” according to a defense official.

We should thank God we have such skilled men and women defending our country.Â I’m going to bet future pirates are going to avoid American flagged vessels from this point forward.

UPDATE: Blackfive is reporting the distance was about 25 meters.Â I’m surprised the pirates allowed themselves to be reeled in that close.Â Either way, there’s no such thing as a fair gunfight.

And Now It’s 60 Minutes

I just watched 60 minutes short segment on the Great Obama Gun Rush.Â It’s pretty clear to me at this point that the media is doing everything it possibly can to bring gun control back into the public spotlight, and create a favorable environment for the Democratic Congress to pass it.Â Gun Geek Rants has a pretty good run down of the show.

It featured Philip Van Cleave, President of Virginia Citizens Defense Leauge.Â I thought he handled himself well, for it being a hostile interview.Â The only problems I saw with his performance was nit picky stuff like using “guns” in the context of “These politicians are good for guns” rather than “These politicians are good on Second Amendment Rights.”Â We should be careful to remind people that this issue isn’t about guns, it’s about freedom.Â It’s about the Bill of Rights.Â These are things that everyone generally agrees it’s important to preserve.

UPDATE: Michael Bane notes that Newsweek is in on the gun control game too.