Local Sheriff Resignation

I forgot to blog this over the holidays, but a local sheriff resigned her position to accept a job at a local university. I’m sure the pay is comfortable, and she doesn’t have to run a re-election campaign. However, this is relevant to Montgomery County, PA gun owners because she did actually announce at public events that she “signed licenses,” something he predecessor did not do.

What kind of licenses did she mean while talking about the kind that her predecessor wouldn’t sign? Form 4.

The replacement sheriff has to be a Republican, according to this article, and will be appointed by the Governor. Hopefully, law abiding gun owners will be able to continue to count on the successor to keep the policy of approving Form 4s. Even local elections matter when it comes to your rights, though they are often overlooked by many voters.

Monday Pre-Freeze News Links

This winter is really shaping up to be a bear. We got stuck out at my dad’s in central Pennsylvania with freezing rain, waiting for the predicted temperature increase that didn’t come until well after midnight. I stopped by the office in the way back, but we only have a few hours until it goes from warm and rainy to arctic cold. So until I get home, here’s some news links:

Only government officials are responsible enough to possess and carry firearms.

Detroit’s police chief is calling BS on the whole gun control fraud. If more inner city chiefs decide to stop parroting the lies from their political overlords, it’ll be over for the gun control movement.

Gun control is another job killing program from the left. These are manufacturing jobs that require skilled labor. It’s good for the economy to keep them.

Why are anti-gun advocates so violent? Notice they don’t delete this stuff, only calmed and reasoned disagreement from our side gets deleted.

In some states, carrying a concealed firearm is reason for the cops to check your papers.

Uncle also notes that Tennessee could use some better preemption. I noticed a park when I was visiting over the holidays that was off limits. I didn’t realize that hadn’t been totally preempted.

When seconds count, the police are only 74 minutes away.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible.

Getting guns right at the New York Times. The problem is, their mistakes which are pointed out don’t even make math sense. I know a lot of firearms knowledge is pretty esoteric, but but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know .9mm is an awfully small hole.

Strategery!

A look at the 2013 ammo stats from Lucky Gunner.

Tam shakes the ant farm with an open carry post that I kept in my tabs because I thought I had more to say, but I don’t really. The takeaway is this: “There’s a difference between just carrying a gun, and carrying a gun at people.” And here’s another thing: when you find yourself questioning whether Tam is pro-gun, it’s time to ask another question.

A look at the Glock 41 and the Glock 42.

New Executive Orders on Background Checks

So far it’s not looking like anything worth getting upset about:

One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit “the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands,” without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.

I believe it’s already the case that HIPPA doesn’t apply to records reported for the purposes of NICS compliance.

The other proposal would clarify that those who are involuntarily committed to a mental institution — both inpatient and outpatient — count under the law as “committed to a mental institution.”

I believe most states are already counting OITs and reporting them to NICS. Outpatient Involuntary Treatment is still an adjudication, it’s just that instead of institutionalizing the person so adjudicated, they are put on medication and supervised on an outpatient basis. So far I don’t think either of these EOs does anything that wasn’t already existing practice. It basically only makes the existing practice “official.”

Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on. The Clinton Administration did quite a lot of damage in this area by reporting a lot of veterans records to NICS, with those individuals having no further recourse, and many of whom were not any danger to themselves or anyone else.

Want!

Just when I think there’s no new gun that could hit the market that would get me buying again, Remington comes along and proves me wrong. I’d have to put it through the paces before deciding whether it’s worth carrying or not, but something about it speaks to the lizard part of my brain that makes me want to add it to the collection.

The Science is In: More Guns Really Does Equal Less Crime

You’d think this should shut up the anti-gunners once and for all, but both you and I know that will never happen:

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed weapons laws on state-level murder rates. Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level. The results of this study are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997).

You can’t argue with science!

Liberals Who Don’t Care About Their Gun Rights

I can completely understand why folks like this wouldn’t really appreciate the GOP:

It’s the Liberal Gun Club, the left-leaning version of the National Rifle Association.

The group’s members share the same fascination with guns that many assign to NRA members, but Liberal Gun Clubs members eschew the NRA’s notoriously right-leaning politics.

I don’t care how sick you are of hearing about the “Kenyan Muslim socialist,” the fact is that this Administration is outrightly hostile to your right to keep and bear arms. That is an unarguable fact just a year into his second term. NRA endorsed quite a number of Democrats in the 2010 elections, a number of whom were facing tea party backed Republicans. Where were all of you liberal gun owners then?

The group, like the NRA, supports the right of American citizens to own and carry a wide array of firearms. Most members of the Liberal Gun Club even think recent calls for expanded background checks on gun owners go too far.

Great. I agree with you. But if you’re going to vote for people who are against every single one of those concepts, what use are you? Give me a list of anti-gun Democrats you’re going to try to primary with pro-gun Democrats. Let me know how you’re going to work for gun rights within the Democratic party. Forming a shooting club doesn’t mean jack. If you’re not voting your gun rights, to be blunt, you don’t really care abut gun rights, and no one will ever give a crap about what you think on this topic. If all you’re doing is saying you love guns, but keep voting for people like Obama, DiFi and Boxer, you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

“It’s Working”

I think Miguel gets credit for the picture that speaks 1000 words for 2014. That’s a snap of Moms Demand Action Facebook page, where they note that their plans are coming together. Gun owners are lined up in compliance to their tyranny, and registering, as they properly should.

IT’S WORKING: Hundreds of gun owners lined up to register their assault rifles and high-capacity magazines with Connecticut state authorities before a Jan. 1 deadline.

I’m fairly certain they’d say the same thing if it were cattle cars we were lining up for. I’m not going to discuss my plans for “if this comes to my doorstep,” but I will say that lining up like the compliant fool they want everyone to be is not part of my plan.

First News Links of the Year

Happy 2014 everyone. Let us hope that 2014 is more pleasant for us than 2013 was. If you had told me this time last year that by this time the following year, that our only substantive losses would be New York, Maryland, Connecticut and Colorado, well, Colorado would still have confounded me, but I would have been surprised as hell. We all thought we were going to have to bend over for something federally. Our opponents got greedy and overcommitted. I feel like none of the gun control groups want to admit that gun bans are dead, and the best they can hope for is a modest background check bill. More importantly, I doubt they want to admit that to their donors.

Here is the news:

This photo is sending chills up and down people’s spines. It should. Especially for those of us in Pennsylvania, because this is our future if gun owners don’t get their shit together. This has never been about crime.

This is a bunch of self-gratifying nonsense. They don’t propose anything the anti-gunners haven’t already tried and failed at. The only difference now is they have a boatload of money from a moralizing crusading billionaire. But hey, self-gratification is one thing anti-gunners are good at.

Gun laws at work. I think Uncle is correct. Prohibited is prohibited. There’s no LEO exception to the federal prohibition on the mentally ill possessing firearms, except for the “look the other way” exception that you know none of us would be given.

Lowest police officer shooting death rate since 1887. I’d like to know whether accidental shootings by police is going up or down as well.

America’s Internal Checkpoints. Well worth reading. I’d like to believe if more Americans knew about this stuff, they’d be outraged, but I’m not really sure about that anymore.

FL crime v. concealed carry.

PA Game Commission wants to reel in more students to hunting.

Chris Christie declines to defend gun laws. He must be serious about 2016 then.

Where’s the coalition to stop ax violence?

Someone turns an STG-44 into a gun buyback. It makes one cringe.

Why Newtown didn’t change America.

Magpul’s Going to Texas

Magpul announces a move to Texas and Wyoming. The corporate HQ will be in TX, and manufacturing Wyoming. A lot of people have been upset with Magpul for not moving fast enough, but anyone who’s ever been involved in a corporate move knows that you can’t pick a company up and move it on a dime. I expect it’ll take another year or so before they execute on their decision. The left has made it abundantly clear they are more concerned about fighting cultural crusades than keeping jobs in the states they control.

Legal Victory Celebrations for Anti-Gunners

I had to take a look at the list of 13 “Victories” for the Brady Campaign of 2013, and I do find their standards of declaring victory to be somewhat entertaining.

In one case, they celebrate not being forced to own guns. In another situation, victory is filing a lawsuit. In several cited cases, it’s they didn’t file anything other an amicus brief. In another, they call a case they lost a victory because they are trying appeal.

While I won’t pretend that all of their victories aren’t actually victories for their cause, I will say that I hope we can make their 14 victories in 2014 look a little more like the examples I highlighted. “We showed up for work – Victory!” “The computer to type the fundraising email still works – Victory!” “We lost a case that can scare our supporters into giving money – Victory!”