We had to revise the figures for new NRA members recruited, because Dustin of Dustin’s Gun Blog managed to recruit a whopping 44 NRA members on his own that he didn’t know about until he checked his recruiting stats with NRA. That’s great work. Justin increased his voice in the gun rights movement 44 times!
Category: Guns
NAGV Protests Possible Clinton Replacement
Rumor has it that Patterson is considering a pro-gun state senator to replace Hillary Clinton in the US Senate:
However, Gillibrand, a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights, is still on the radar screen, and that worries Jackie Hilly, NYAGV’s executive director.
“I don’t think she represents most New Yorkers on gun-control issues,” Hilly said Wednesday.
Gillibrand, a Democrat who easily won a second term last year, has received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, which opposes many gun-control measures. Hilly said the rating shows Gillibrand is out of step with most New Yorkers.
I think she represents far more New Yorkers than you do, Jackie Hilly. I’m willing to bet the number of NRA members in New York State far exceeds the members of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.
Brownells Will Be the Ruin of Me
I spent a good deal of time last night playing with their AR builder, and I have to say, it’s a great idea. Brownells should really take time to make a better web site too, which has been one of the reasons I’m not a more loyal customer. MidwayUSA’s web site is just a lot easier to use, and more useful. Nonetheless, Brownells will end up getting some of my money for this, maybe a lot of my money. Here’s what I configured last night:
You can click to get a bigger picture. This assumes I can either buy through an FFL, or make my own AR-15 Lower Receiver. I didn’t include that in the price, though I put a lower on there just to make it look OK. It’s not included in the price tally. My only complaint about the configurator, other than the fact that it will quickly drain my wallet, is that when choosing a barrel band for the front sight, it won’t put itself in the right spot, and I think the picture showing on there is upside down. I also wish you had links in the inventory list, so you could easily review your list to make sure you know what you are getting. Other than that, this is a highly innovative idea on the part of Brownells, and I have to commend them for it.
More Heroic Concealed Carry Holders
In Texas, several people with a concealed handgun license stopped a rampage in progress. You can tell it was Texas because the guy had no less than three people returning fire. God Bless Texas. So much for the claim that the good guys will just end up confusedly shooting each other.
AR-15 Builder
Via SayUncle, is look as if Brownells is looking to cash in on the built-it-yourself market
. There’s even an option for building your own from a partially completed lower. I consider it your patriotic duty as a concerned American to learn how to build your own lowers. If the new administration has designs on outlawing certain semi-automatic rifles, or outlawing private sales, we owe it to future generations to create as many off-paper guns as possible.
It is lawful to build your own rifle for your own use, you just can’t build it for commercial gain (i.e. you can’t build it sell it, that requires an FFL). So make yourself an AR, AK or two. You’ll learn something, and create something you can pass on to the kids.
Take That President Obama!
Between thirteen bloggers who participated, we managed to mint 57 new or upgraded NRA members. I personally have now upgraded to an Endowment member, and I signed on 3 other people as life members. Signing up new NRA members is critical at this point. Membership is the primary source of NRA’s political capital. At the last Grassroots Seminar, Chris Cox told the room “They don’t fear me, they fear you,” in reference to when NRA goes into a politicians office to lobby on behalf of gun owners. The more of us there are, the greater the fear, and the more the influence. For those who want to see the NRA fight more, and fight harder, membership is the primary tool they will need to do it.
Is It Really Just the Die Hards?
If the Great Obama Gun Rush were just a phenomena of us die-hard gun owners stocking up on a few extra AR-15s to tuck away, you wouldn’t see stories like this:
Instead of waiting, more people are exercising their right to personal protection.
“I know Obama said he wouldn’t take away any of our gun rights but that remains to be seen,” said Glen Hirsch, who was buying a gun on a recent day.
In Springfield, concealed carry courses are booked full through April.
“I want to be able to have it when I need it,” said Kevin Hale of Aurora.
Instructors even added Sunday sessions.
“The demand for this course has pretty much tripled over what it was a year ago,” said Randy Gibson, a concealed-carry weapons class instructor.
The demand increased from 381 applications in 2006 to more than 1,100 last year; 12 percent of the applicants are women.
We die-hards already have our concealed carry licenses. This means Obama is minting new gun owners. That stands to reason. Before Bill Clinton, I expressed passing support of the Second Amendment, but I was not a die hard, nor an activist, had little exposure to firearms, and did not own one. Bill Clinton made me a gun owner, and an activist for the cause. Obama will make the next generation if he’s not careful. It’s already happening.
Sticking up for Colosimo’s
Stu Bykofsky, who deserves our thanks for getting the other side of this story out to the newspaper reading public, has a column in the Philadelphia Daily News defending Colosimo’s Gun Shop:
Colosimo; his wife, Mary Elizabeth; and his lawyer, Daniel Del Collo Jr., had two four-hour meetings with the group at Colosimo’s shooting range.
Mary Elizabeth baked cookies and the protesters cooked up a “10-point voluntary code” that they wanted Colosimo to sign. Gathering’s laudable goal is to reduce “straw” purchases, by which guns are bought legally by someone with a clean record, then illegally sold or bartered to criminals.
At the first meeting, Gathering brought along someone from CeaseFire New Jersey. At the second meeting, it brought along a couple of lawyers from the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Colosimo says that the group portrayed itself as “faith-based,” and that he felt backstabbed when it dragged in out-of-town lawyers.
Well, a while ago, I said that no good would come of any gun shop meeting with this group. Now you know. It’s not a negotiation, it’s a shakedown. Colosimo already did 9 out of their 10 points. But he refused to sign on to a database to track his customers.
The number is high, Colosimo says, not because he has done anything wrong, but because he has sold “hundreds of thousands” of guns over the decades. An infinitesimal fraction were used in crimes.
Blaming Colosimo for gun crime is like blaming Mayor Nutter for more murderers in Philadelphia than in Narberth. The larger the pool, the more likely you’ll find bad people in it.
Gathering, which picketed Colosimo’s for several days, boasts that Wal-Mart, the mammoth merchandiser that sells more guns than anyone, signed the 10-point code. That’s a red herring because Wal-Mart sells no handguns, except in Alaska. Everywhere else it sells rifles and shotguns, which are not the problem firearms.
If you want to know why I called for a Zumboing of Wal-Mart and any other gun shop that caves to these thugs, this is why. Wal-Mart will be used as the stick to beat other gun shops into submission. “You will submit, because Wal-Mart did.”  Colosimo is principled enough to tell them to get lost, but not all gun shop owners are so willing. A warning to any gun shop owner: do not meet with these people. Direct all correspondence from them to your attorney. They are not out to negotiate, they are out to shut you down.
Just in Time
We got the National Park concealed carry rule in just in the nick of time. The Obama Administration, as one of its first official acts, has put a halt to any pending rule changes that have not yet been published in the Federal Register.
Helping Snipers?
The media wets itself over what it does not understand. I’ve been thinking of getting a chrony for my air pistol so I can figure out what regulator setting gives me the trajectory that’s most ideal for air pistol silhouette. You can’t figure crap like that out without doing the math, or having a computer doing the math. It never occurs to these people that there are uses for ballistics charts other than shooting people.