Guns – Page 425 – Shall Not Be Questioned

We’re Winning, Part 248

Gun wary reporter from the Boston Globe, Kevin Paul Dupont, takes a look at shooting scholarships being offered by schools, and manages to do a good article on the topic.

According to Hammond, college shooters are typically a cerebral lot. His current coed squad of 10 includes eight shooters who are pursuing engineering degrees. Over the years, he said, his athletes in arms have come from various cultures, including city kids and some from small-town hunting communities. By and large, the students are bright, disciplined, goal-driven athletes who have the requisite endurance and patience to squeeze off 60 shots at a target, needing to remain on their spot for 1 3/4 hours.

Read the whole thing. A big problem our opponents face, despite being trounced in the new media space, is the traditional media has been more willing to take our issue seriously, and cover it more fairly. I think a few things are driving this. One, most online articles now include e-mails to the reporters. While there are a lot of bozos on the Internet, there are still plenty of our people who are willing to engage with folks on the other side in a reasonable way. I think this has come a long way to helping the media take us seriously.

The other is the rise of alternative media, which through interacting with traditional media has provided a source of information, and more importantly correction, when the traditional media has gotten it wrong. Despite the fact that I’ve had only a handful of reporters ever comment on a link of mine to a story of theirs, I’m sure a lot more at least notice when new media sources are talking.

This is, of course, bad news for advocates of gun control, which have always relied on emotions rather than facts to make their case, and who engaged in a campaign of vilification and mischaracterization of gun ownership and Second Amendment advocacy, depersonalizing us with terms like the “gun lobby,” or by suggesting that our whole issue is driven by “gun industry profits,” rather than by individual citizens who value our shooting heritage and value the right to keep and bear arms.

New York Times Article on the Freedom Group

The New York Times has an interesting article on the Freedom Group, including a link to this blog pointing to an article we did a few years ago when George Kollitides ran for the NRA Board. I think they are suggesting there is more controversy here than there actually is. We’re not really all that worried about what the Freedom Group is busy doing with the firearms industry, so much as we just had concerns as to what exactly George Kollitides was going to bring to the NRA Board.

I’ve never really been able to figure out what Freedom Group’s strategy is, short of being able to take advantage of economies of scale by consolidating what has generally been an inefficient cottage industry into something more lean and profitable. But what innovation has Freedom Group really bought to the industry? I think some of the biggest factors holding the industry back, namely marketing to younger shooters, is just as bad as it’s even been.

Fairly Detailed Article in Arizona Republic on F&F

Well worth a read, as it covers just about everything involved in the scandal.

Shopping for the Gunnies on Your List

The Outdoor Wire ran a holiday gift ideas list for outdoor enthusiasts last week, and it featured at least a couple of items for gun nuts. Two mentions are guns – both Smith & Wessons at that. Their first mention is the M&P22 pistol because you really can’t go wrong with a .22 to shoot cheaply all day long. The next recommendation is the M&P15 Sport.

Regardless, neither one of these is easy to pick up for the family member of said gun nut. On that front, his only other recommendation is the EoTech XPS3 Holographic Weapon Sight. The Outdoor Wire cites the battery life as a big plus to this sight. The only review on Amazon is low, but that’s because the guy got a defective one that was promptly replaced with a perfect one.

Perhaps the most amusing thing I find on his list would also work for a gunnie out at the range on a cold morning. A Coleman Portable Propane Coffeemaker. I can’t tell you why I find this so amusing, but I do. I think it speaks to the fact that I am not a hardcore coffee person, so I can’t imagine being in such dire need to own this. However, from the way I have seen some coffee addicts search out their next cup of java, I could totally see a market for it – complete with twitching hands trying to replace the propane cylinders when they realize it emptied just before making their next batch of brew.

Obama Administration Backs Down Officially

Salazar has issued a statement, which can be found here, saying that shooting on BLM land won’t be interfered with. They unofficially backed down earlier, but this makes it official.

Sometimes You Really Have to Wonder …

… if the other side really is on the side of the criminal. I think it’s at least true that they have a deep and abiding hatred of gun owners who stand up for their rights, and refuse to be complicit in the disarmament of others.

Natural Selection

SayUncle notes that The City (his The City) has been having Coyote problems, and that shooting them should be an acceptable solution. I’ve never understood why this is considered unacceptable by the modern PC establishment, but then again, I’ve never really viewed humans to be apart from nature. We are the apex predator on this planet, and I don’t think that ought to be denied.

In nature, predators don’t usually tolerate the presence of other predators, so they all learn to stay out of each others way. This is a basic survival mechanism, since animals that learn to tolerate the presence of things that would like to eat it, or their young, typically aren’t going to last long. Nature just won’t select for those traits.

It’s not surprising then, that when humans start tolerating the presence of other predators, or even encouraging it, those predators will tend to lose their natural fear over time, and spread those fearless genes onto their offspring. Pretty soon you can’t leave rover out, or leave the kids out to play, without having to worry. When predators who tolerate the presence of humans are shot, they are removed from the gene pool. Nature selects only for predators that fear humans as a fellow predator, and steer clear. When you’re dealing with an animal like a Coyote, which is not endangered and adapts very well to new environments, it’s difficult for me to see why this is an issue for anyone. The Coyote is very fit for survival. Sometimes I wonder whether we are.

Better Than Nothing

Joe Huffman notes a case of a kid who fended up an attacker with a BB gun. Hey, if it works for Clark W. Griswold and little Ralphie, why not?

SAF/Calguns Suit Against California Assault Weapons Ban

It’s interesting to see SAF and CalGuns Foundation announcing they are going after the Assault Weapons Ban in California. While I’m wary of AWB suits in general, they have a unique angle. I’ve had this case in my tabs for a few weeks now, meaning to write something on it, but hadn’t taken the time to do the research. The case has an Iraq war veteran at the center of it, an individual who has repeatedly been unjustly arrested several times because California cops don’t know what an assault weapon is (which is understandable, considering no one else really does either). The case is also narrow, rather than being a kitchen sink of issues.

The argument, as best I can tell, is that the California AWB can’t survive constitutional scrutiny due to vagueness, and due to the fact that it’s interfering with the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. The interesting thing about the vagueness angle, is that it’s already been tried before, and prevailed in a case in Ohio in the Sixth Circuit, and as best as I’ve found, none have outright failed either. These cases were pre-Heller, and I would think Heller should change the dynamic a good deal.

Given the Heller II case has upheld an Assault Weapons Ban as constitutional, at this point a circuit split is likely on the matter, which makes it likely the Supreme Court will take a case to resolve the split. This lawsuit looks interesting enough, and the plaintiffs well selected, that this would be something we’d want before the Court if they choose to resolve the conflict. They might be more open to a constitutional argument that includes a strong element of vagueness.

That said vagueness challenges are tough to win, though this area of gun control seems particularly ripe for it. When you regulate by cosmetics rather than function, it necessarily is going to include a large degree of vagueness. This centers around things like prohibiting barrel shrouds, which even Carolyn McCarthy will tell you is a “shoulder thing that goes up,” or prohibiting flash suppressors, but not muzzle brakes, and how is law enforcement to know the difference? There’s also, in California, the issue of the bullet button, which has effectively neutered their assault weapons ban for all practical purposes. Essentially as long as it takes a tool (and a bullet has been determined to be a tool) to drop the magazine, it’s not considered “detachable,” and therefore none of the assault weapon characteristics apply. The problem is that police in California haven’t been well trained to know the difference.

What Drugs Are They Taking at the Brady Campaign?

I’m not even really sure what to make of this, but the outright bizarreness emanating from the Brady Center these days continues:

Umm, in 1963, Jack Kennedy was President, and given the choice, I’m pretty sure he’d rather have had the White House randomly sprayed by gunfire from a whack job with an SKS while he wasn’t home, than having his brains blown out in Dallas by a Castro-sympathizing sniper from a sixth floor window using a scoped Italian bolt action rifle.

And you have even more ridiculous nonsense from our opponents about the gun shooting two footballs fields! You’d think no one ever killed anyone before Simonov and Kalashnikov came along. Just be happy Hollywood movies have taught most random nuts to spray and pray. There was a time when they aimed. I worry more about the nut that aims, regardless of what type of firearm he has.