Guns – Page 893 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Later in the Week

I will be going to the fall meeting of the NRA Board of Directors this Thursday through Saturday, to report on the major themes, or any interesting happenings.Â What I expect will be major topics of discussion are the coming election in November, getting H.R.6691 passed as quickly as possible, and legal strategies post-Heller.Â The board meetings also allow me the opportunity to meet up with fellow bloggers Scott Bach, Tom King (both blogging board members), and usually Dave Hardy and Dave Kopel (not board members, but usually around).

As I’ve said before, NRA is not a closed society.Â Any member is free to attend the board meeting and watch the proceeding.Â If you get to know some of your local board members, they can invite you in to sit in on some of the committee meetings, which are open for observance by members.

Defensive Carbine

Looks like PDB took a defensive carbine class at Defensive Concepts of North Carolina.Â Here’s day two.

Going Progressive

So I have decided that I am in need of a progressive press.Â The main thing keeping me from practicing my shooting more is the fact that for guns other than .22LR, I’m either stuck paying in limbs for ammo, or spending hours at the reloading press.Â I can reload about 50 to 60 rounds per hours with the single stage press.Â What takes me an hour to load, I can shoot in 10 minutes.Â This has to change, especially if I get into action shooting sports.

I know there will be myriads of folks who will say “You just need a Dillon.” but Dillons are expensive, and while I like the idea of a no-nonsense warranty, for all practical purposes, I’m not likely to need unusual warranty service.Â I’ve had a reader who has graciously offered to send me his Lee Pro 1000 that he’s no longer using, and it’s a tempting offer, since I’m already using their stuff, and it’s working fine for me.Â But if I choose Lee, and make an investment in caliber kits, I could be sinking money into something I might just decide to upgrade later.Â Should I go whole hog, and just get a quality press?Â If I go that route, I’m torn between the Hornady Lock-N-Load AP, and the Dillon XL 650

Here’s what I want to reload, in order of volume:

.45ACP
9mm
.44 Spl/Magnum
.223 Remington
6.8 SPC Remington
30-06

Now if I have to do 6.8 and 30-06 on the single stage, I’m not going to be all that broken up.Â Though, the 6.8 would be nice to do on the progressive, if only because I would shoot it more if reloading speed weren’t an issue.Â I’ve been considering this review of all three progressive presses, which says good things about the LNL AP.Â I’ve also been looking at Chris’ review, and also here and here, which is largely favorable to the Hornady.

What to do, what to do.

Bad Idea

Ry Jones reports that the Sportsman Guide is selling a Ruger Charger Kit that converts it into a carbine.Â The problem?Â It’s 10 inch barrel makes it a Short-Barreled-Rifle under the National Firearms Act, which means if you don’t fill out your ATF form to register it and pay for the tax stamp, you’re a felon.Â If Sportsman’s Guide is going to sell these, they need to warn gun owners about the legal requirements.Â Otherwise someone is going to go to prison for a very long time, figuring if they were selling the kit, it must be legal right?

UPDATE: Whoops… looks like what this kit does is convert a 10/22 into a pistol.Â Actually, I think you can legally do this.Â Let me check into it.

UPDATE: Yeah, I’m pretty sure this falls under United States v. Thompson Center Arms.Â This kit should be legal.

UPDATE: Wrong again.Â It seems ATF asserts that you can convert a handgun into a rifle, as long as you add a barrel longer than 16″, but you can’t convert a rifle into a handgun.Â That would be making an NFA item, and you need the registration and tax stamp to do so.

Do the Brady Campaign folks want to come on here and try to tell me these are reasonable gun laws?

UPDATE: See here, here and here.Â Given the case of US v. Thompson Center Arms, I don’t think ATF is likely to prevail in court here, but I wouldn’t risk it.Â You can be arrested and prosecuted.

UPDATE: Looks like they updated it with a warning.Â Good.

On Being a New Jersey Gun Owner

Over at Cemetery’s gun blog.Â A lot of New Jersey gun owners don’t really get how bad they have it, and more than a few are blisfully unaware of how easy it is to end up a felon.Â At a match a few months ago, I was talking to a guy who’s friend was in a lot of trouble because he and a buddy were target shooting on their property, when the police showed up and, at gunpoint, disarmed them and hauled them off to jail.Â He had his kids with him, and there was some worry he’d lose the kids, because they charged him with endangering them too.Â His crime?Â Possession of .22LR hollow point ammunition.Â A whole box of it.Â That’s worth a lot of time in New Jersey.Â You can buy that stuff easily out of state.Â Most folks have no idea it’s illegal.

Latest Hysterics

Carl in Chicago points out a Brady presser that would seem to indicate that if HR 6691 is passed, that the mass of guns flooding into our nations capital will produce such an immense gravitational field that it will collapse into a singularity that will consume the city, followed quickly by the rest of the nation, planet, solar system, and known universe.

In short, they are freaking out because the laws in Washington D.C. will be substantially identical to most of the 50 states, with the exception that carrying a loaded firearm on your person will still be unlawful.Â This is the press release of an organization struggling to find relevance in a political climate that’s not favorable to their message.Â I can’t imagine how much it must worry the Brady’s that the original Republican bill was tabled, because the Democrats wanted to take credit for getting this done.Â And the Democrat bill was more pro-gun than the Republican bill!Â The Brady’s have to find relevance in this election, and they haven’t been able to so far.Â The best they’ve been able to get is “don’t tell me that we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.” from Barack Obama, who also keeps insisting he’s not a gun banner.Â While there’s no doubt Obama is their man, most sensible Democrats are now aware that this is a losing issue for them.

UPDATE: Cam wants to know where the evidence is that this bill would change anything about carrying of firearms?Â Maybe the evidence went back to school with the Brady intern.

Promising Statistics

From a New Jersey media source at that:

According to the research done by the NSSF, 72 percent more women are hunting with firearms today than just five years ago. And 50 percent more women are now target shooting. The statistics, from National Sporting Goods Association surveys spanning 2001 through 2005, show more than 3 million women hunt and over 5 million women enjoy shooting.

[…]

The statistics show that 23 percent of the shooting population in America are now women. Women also own 9 percent of the firearms in America, and this figure is increasing with each passing year.

I’ve also found that women are far better additions to the community than many men.Â This is merely antecdotal evidence, but in my experience women:

Are far more willing to get their kids, families and friends involved in shooting.
Are more likely to take an interest in the issue politically and be activists for the second amendment.
Are more willing to try different shooting sports.
Often improve their shooting faster than men.

This data is good news for us, and not very good news for the anti-gun folks.Â The stereotypical soccer mom is the gun control key demographic.Â What’s going to happen when their key demographic keeps a Glock in the glove compartment?

EVC Activities

I’ve mentioned that I signed up to be NRA’s Election Volunteer Coordinator for my congressional district (PA-08), and we’ve been working on a plan.Â Our job is to gather volunteers to help pro-gun campaigns, and to help get gun owners involved in the political struggle.Â Since I’ve only had the title for a month or so, we’re just getting started, but we have a plan going forward for this election.

We’ve already established a web presence for gun issues in the 8th congressional district.Â We’ve been identifying all the gun clubs and ranges in the district and near (more than a dozen), and have been looking at the gun show schedules.Â We’re scheduled to appear at the Valley Forge Gun Show on September 20th in the morning, where we’ll be working with the EVC for the 6th and 7th congressional districts.Â We’re also now starting to contact all the gun clubs in the area in an attempt to try to get the message out to gun owners in the county that this isn’t an election they want to sit out.Â If all works well, we should have a healthy number of volunteers and involved gun owners to make a difference in November.

Did the Intern Go Back to School?

We bloggers have been noticing more than a few stories of children being the victims of stupid parents evil baby killing guns in the Google Alerts, and yet it’s like crickets over at the Brady Campaign Blog, which has all summer been running all manner of stories highlighting dead or injured children, law abiding gun owners, and concealed carry permit holders engaging in various acts of stupidity.

We speculated that their prolific blogging was perhaps the product of a talented new intern, who may have gone back to school.Â Or perhaps Doug Pennington was on extended vacation.Â Or maybe the Bradys just got tired of paying their staff to produce blog material that was only read by gun bloggers.Â Either way, it seems quite possible we’ve seen another Brady new media effort fall flat on its face.

Does He Want To Take Your Guns?

Everyone by now has heard Barack Obama trying to reassure skeptical Pennsylvanians that he’s not going to take their guns:

â€œIf youâ€™ve got a gun in your house, Iâ€™m not taking it,â€™â€™ Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.

So he tried again. â€œEven if I want to take them away, I donâ€™t have the votes in Congress,â€™â€™ he said. â€œThis canâ€™t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. Iâ€™m not going to take away your guns.â€™â€™

There’s two telling things about this.Â One is that even the most left leaning candidate to serve in recent memory can’t come out explicitly in favor of gun control, and at least has to feign support for the Second Amendment.Â Remember that just eight years ago, presidential candidates were running on national licensing and registration, and renewing the assault weapons ban!

The other thing is, there’s a whole lot of things Obama can do to end gun ownership in this country without going door-to-door.Â I actually believe him when he says he’s not going to take your guns.Â But will he let your children buy guns?Â Will he let you pass your guns along to your children?Â Will he use onerous regulation, to close down every gun shop?Â Will he use environmental regulations to close down shooting ranges?

President Barack Obama can end gun ownership in this country in a generation without he or any of his agents setting a single foot in anyone’s home.Â He might argue that he doesn’t have the votes in Congress to do it, but that’s not comforting.Â There’s a lot of damage an Obama Administratin can do with no help from Congress, and that’s why this guy needs to lose, and lose big.Â Pennsylvanians should not fool themselves.