Apparently there’s a dead Canada Goose at Camp Perry, which happened when a gaggle of geese flew through the line of fire. Shot perfectly through the neck. You couldn’t make that shot at a flying goose with a rifle if you tried.
Category: Guns
What I’ve Learned About Running Matches
Last year I was attending a lot of matches. All our Thursday night silhouette matches, all the air silhouette matches on the 3rd Sunday or 1st Monday (depending on season), CMP at my club, a few practical rifle over at Langhorne, IHMSA on the first Sunday, and I was thinking of trying out more. But this year I’m lucky if I can get out to the weekend air gun matches. Much of it can be blamed on my work schedule, but there probably is such a thing as burning yourself out on something.
- But it’s all been valuable. If I have to run a match or shooting program at some point in the future, I have learned a few things:
- Don’t start your match too early. If you do that, you’re guaranteed not to attract people with demanding jobs who have to catch up on sleep over the weekend. I’ve discovered 10:00AM is a great start time for a match, though I would consider as late as 11AM. You want people to be able to get home for dinner, so you can’t go too late. I think too many clubs want matches early to free up ranges by the afternoon for casual shooting, but that disadvantages the match in terms of attendance.
- Have fun. This is probably the most important rule. If you look like you’re having fun, others are going to have fun. If they are having fun, they’ll keep coming to your match. They’ll tell other people the match is a lot of fun too, and it’ll grow.
- Have lunch. Nothing convinces people to show up to shoot like a free or very low cost meal. Our 3rd Sunday silhouette matches always feature food, and a kitty to donate to the cause of lunch.
- Be welcoming and helpful to newbies. Help them get into your sport. Make sure they know that everyone started out struggling, and that you can become competitive with time and practice.  See previous point about emphasizing fun over the competitive nature.
- Offer time to socialize. What’s good for that? See previous point about lunch. But at the same time a match that’s mostly standing around rather than shooting is no fun either. There has to be a good balance, for people to get to know each other, but still spend most of their time doing what they came there for.
There are obviously more things, but these are what I’ve noticed have been the difference between successful matches and less successful ones.
Looks like Pennsylvania …
… isn’t the only state that leaves authorities with some degree of discretion when it comes to issuing licenses to carry firearms. Leonard Embody is certainly a bozo, but being a bozo ought not be grounds for being denied the right to carry a firearm.
The Face of Gun Ownership
The American Thinker notices that it’s changing:
Two examples of just how respectable gun ownership is today happened to me this last week.  First, I am on my Catholic parish’s finance committee. As we finished setting our budget for the current fiscal year and adjourned Thursday night’s meeting, the topic turned to guns.  Soon four of the seven members, including our pastor, were talking about getting together at the local shooting range. At least one additional member is also a gun owner but doesn’t target shoot as a hobby.   Although the parish is in small town North Carolina, none of us are native to this area. We are big city and suburban folk, active and retired accountants, investment advisors and a former lobbyist for a business association.
Read the whole thing. This big aspect of Heller that I hadn’t anticipated was that Supreme Court validation of the right would do more to legitimize gun ownership in the eyes of ordinary citizens, which I think it has to a very large degree. To be honest, I’m not sure why folks working at gun control groups aren’t looking for jobs in other left-of-center issues at this point. The past few years has minted a lot of new gun owners. It may only be anecdotal evidence, but how often now when you go to gun shows do you hear dealers explaining the process to people?  I’ve noticed quite a bit of it.
Todd Tiahrt Loses his Primary
This is bad news. Very bad news. I keep saying the big problem we face this election is that no one gives a flying rats ass about gun rights because they haven’t been attacked along with everything else. This means we’re going to lose a lot of friends on the issue due to the anti-incumbent sentiment. Tiahrt was one of the good guys. Could the Tiahrt Amendment era be over? The Bradys and MAIG certainly will be hoping so.
See more discussion at PAFOA here.
UPDATE: Didn’t notice this was a Senate primary. He announced he was giving up his House seat a year ago. I can’t recall if I reported on that or not. Still bad news, either way.
More Tree Huggers Pushing Lead Ammo Bans
Apparently the Center for Biological Diversity and the American Bird Conservancy are pressuring EPA to institute a nationwide ban on lead ammunition. If this is such an “incontrovertible fact” then how come California Condors aren’t showing any drop in their lead levels after California instituted such a ban.
Baucus and Tester Will Vote “Yes” on Kagan
I can appreciate that Democrats in this Congress have been pretty pro-gun, and their grades will need to reflect that, but they also need to reflect their votes on Kagan to a large degree. There needs to be an understanding that what we’re fighting in the Courts are for basic, fundamental Second Amendment rights. Basically gun bans, and near gun bans. Sotomayor didn’t even buy into the idea that cities like Chicago and DC couldn’t ban guns, and it’s doubtful Kagan will either.
In other words, the justices Obama is nominating don’t believe in a Second Amendment right at all, despite it presence in the Constitution, and strong level of support for such a right among the population in general. Congress needs to be made to understand we’re serious about this. Republicans in particular need to understand that. It would be one thing if Obama was an enormously popular President, but he is not. There is no political risk involved with going against the White House. Close to 80% of Americans support the Second Amendment. Obama can only dream about approval ratings that high.
US News is the last place I’d expect to find reporting about an NRA memo, but they are. Contact your Senators and let them know to oppose her. Quite a bit is riding on this. At some point, the Heller and McDonald coalition on the Court will break, and that will be as far as we can take the right. I’ll be honest, I think it’s very unlikely we’ll get a pro-Second Amendment Justice out of this President, but we can at least send a message. At the least, he will need to take more a chance himself, on someone who’s record on the issue isn’t clear.
You know it’s going to be a doozie …
… when a rant from a prominent anti-gun group starts out like this:
The National Rifle Association has long perpetuated the myth that Americans are under grave danger from hardened criminals who want to steal their property and exterminate their families.
Yeah, just the other night Wayne came crawling through an open window just to remind me people are out to kill my family, and I should check my gun just in case it’s a real predator.. And naturally, no tale about gun owners would be complete without the anti-gunners mentioning our patron saint, according to them, Timothy McVeigh.
Faced with a movement that is at death’s door, all they have left is anger and lashing out. I almost feel sorry for them. I also really think this passage is fun:
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, only 87 Americans were murdered during burglaries in 2008, despite the fact that only one out of every three American households now has a firearm.
Think maybe those two things might have something to do with each other? Could be, since the US has a much lower rate of burglary while the homeowner is home than most of the rest of the world.
Problems on Kagan
The Hill notes that NRA seems reluctant to put their full weight against Kagan:, quoting from the head of another conservative group:
The group said Kagan’s record shows “nothing to indicate support for the Second Amendment†and promised to count her confirmation vote as a “key vote†when compiling congressional scorecards.
But it has not waged the intensive grassroots campaign some conservative activists had hoped for. These activists believe the NRA is reluctant to strain relations with Democrats, such as Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who often side with gun owners in legislative fights.
From what I’ve seen so far, that full weight is behind it. NRA is urging membership to contact their Senators, and have several times. I’m not sure what kind of “grassroots campaign” that Steve Levey is expecting. This is pretty standard fare for a major vote. I’m also not sure how he can critique their strategy on the Hill, considering that his organization would seem to have no presence on it. The big problem is that 5 Republicans are defecting on the Kagan vote, and a lot of Democrats are sure to defect. Defeating a nomination is hard.
What Democrats are counting on is that NRA won’t be able to mobilize anger on election day over Court nominations. Maybe they are right, but in that case I don’t have a lot of faith we’re going to get broad and robust Second Amendment protections.
A Lie Repeated Often Enough …
Joe Grace and Phil Goldsmith, the two people behind CeaseFire PA, are trying their level best to minimize the damage potential of McDonald:
While support for the reporting of lost or stolen handguns grows, hundreds of Pennsylvania police chiefs have come out in favor of another reasonable reform to close a loophole in state law that allows state residents to sidestep law enforcement and obtain permits from Florida to carry concealed guns, even if their applications were denied in Pennsylvania.
This loophole lets people with criminal backgrounds get out-of-state permits to carry guns in the commonwealth, even after state authorities determine they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.
None of those laws have been upheld on the merits. The suits were dismissed because of standing and ripeness. In other words, they have to prosecute someone for failing to report a gun before the law can be challenged. To date, none of the 45 cities and towns that have passed this law have prosecuted a single person under them — laws they claim are critical for prosecuting criminals.
There’s also not a single state that issues a license to carry a firearm that doesn’t perform a criminal background check on applicants. None. The idea that hardened criminals, with extensive records, are getting permits to carry from other states is just nuts. We could solve much of this problem with universal reciprocity, but you won’t hear them supporting that idea.