Category: Guns

Thoughts on Dickson City

I’ve been mulling over some thoughts in response to the incident we had in Pennsylvania recently where Dickson City police unlawfully busted up an open carry dinner at an Old Country Buffett.  We’ve covered some of the media coverage of the event before, but now there’s some more news coming out.   For one, a lot of businesses in Dickson City are now banning guns.  My understanding is the police chief there is leading the charge to get business that ban guns by policy to post as much, and in convincing more businesses to ban guns.   You can see some of the local news coverage here, here, and here.

Overall, I think this incident is a public relations disaster for gun folks.  That’s not to say I think we’re wrong, or that Dickson City is right, but that appears to be the hand we’ve been dealt from this situation.  I support open carry being legal, and for people to be able to choose to do it, and not have to worry about being harassed by law enforcement.  To that end, I support people who do it, and educate law enforcement, and the public, about the legality of the practice.  But I think we need to think carefully about how it’s used as a public relations tool.

I’m going to suggest there needs to be a protocol for these kinds of event, because when open carry activists get together in a group, as opposed to doing open carry activism individually, the potential for media attention goes up dramatically.  Here are some suggestions that I would offer:

  1. Have a gun related reason as a cover to use for why you’re having dinner armed.  Take a trip to the range, then have a bit to eat afterward.  You can explain that you also carry a firearm for self-protection, but if the story in the media ends up being “they were having dinner after a trip to the range” that’s more understandable to most people than doing it solely for activist reasons.  You may have had a gun on you for self-protection, but you had another reason to have a gun with you, which makes it easier to be the victim in the media if the event goes south.
  2. It looks like the manager of the Old Country Buffet, in this case, was the one who called the cops.  I’d always be sure to check that out ahead of time.  I think I recall reading that they did, in which case there was just a mix-up, which no doubt can happen.  I know the VCDL guys have their favorite places to go where they know they aren’t going to have problems with the owners.
  3. The message the public needs to see if law enforcement is called and gets involved is a bunch of people were having dinner open carrying, the police came, and the police went.  The absolute last thing you want to happen is for someone to get arrested.  Even if the arrest is unlawful, the public won’t necessarily get that message.  They don’t know the ins and outs of reasonable, articulable suspicion, and they certainly don’t know anything about Commonwealth v. Hawkins.  The media will only report that someone was arrested, which sends the opposite message to the public that we want, which is that there’s nothing wrong with carrying a firearm for self-protection, either concealed or openly.  I suspect a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this, but I think when you’re engaging an activity that’s likely to attract a lot of media attention, you need to do everything you can to deescalate the situation.  It’s not the time to whip out legal technicalities on the officers.  The most important thing is their departure.  The public has to see that, and it’ll avoid a mess in the media that damages the cause.

I think that individual open carry activism is very different from doing it in a group.  An individual can risk standing on the legal details, because an individual who gets unlawfully arrested isn’t likely to make the news, and if he or she does, it’s not likely to generate a high level of hysterics.  We can then deal with that issue in court.  When open carry activists get together in a group, they are a ripe target for the media.  I think we have to keep that in mind.

UPDATE: I’m told from people who have been following the incident closely that very few businesses have actually posted, and the Old Country Buffet in question has actually removed theirs.  Looks like the police chief’s little campaign has fizzled.

UPDATE: Rich also got his gun back.  The grounds in which it was taken was that it wasn’t in the State Police registry-but-not-a-registry, so they claimed it wasn’t “registered” to him.  This is not a lawful reason to seize a firearm in Pennsylvania, as the “registry” is not comprehensive.

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Monday Gun Porn

GunPundit pointing out that the short barreled M249 seems to be becoming more common.  Also pointing out that it would appear the Iraqi Army is starting to sport the M16, which they decided to adopt earlier in the year.

I’m guessing the Iraqis are getting a real deal on surplus M16s, since our own military can’t surplus them to the civilian market thanks to Congressman William Hughes, and the National Firearms Act.  As Gun Pundit points out, the US Marines have stuck with the M16 over the M4.  I think this is a smart move, as the 5.56x45mm gets much better velocity out of a 20″ barrel than out of at 14.5″ barrel.  The bullet, having low mass, is going to be entirely dependent on velocity to damage the enemy, so with any SCHV (Small Caliber High Velocity) round, cutting the barrel will hurt you more than in conventional calibers.

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“Lost and Stolen” Stopped in Illinois

According to Armed and Safe, the bill has gone down in flames.  Demographically, with Chicago and surrounds as big as it is, it’s a testament to gun owners in Illinois that they’ve been defeating the anti-gun agenda as effectively as they have been.  Chicago is one of the few centers of gun hatred in this country, so this is no small accomplishment.

UPDATE: Looks like the magazine ban might fail too.

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New Media Assault

I have to admit, so far the Brady Campaign’s Newswatch is top quality stuff. Worthy of Jadegold, except without the ad-hominems.  I mean, arguing that Montanans are crazy for taking the constitution seriously, and that NRA members are afraid of cows.  Wow.  I look forward to the day when I can be part of this parody.

Just to let you all in on what the Brady’s are likely hoping for here, is that we all link to these outrages, and that it boosts their Google mojo.  That way when people search on certain things, their message gets out there, and maybe they get some followers.  I wonder where they got that idea from?

But seriously folks, the Brady’s are a lot of things, but they aren’t stupid.  They are clearly starting to understand new media, and we have to be ready.  Be so baited as you might be, the best thing is to ignore them.

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It’s Worse Than That

Today’s NRA-ILA Grassroots Alert outrage of the week.

This week’s outrage comes to us from Winchendon, Massachusetts where, in yet another case of “zero-tolerance” enforcement defying common sense, fourth-grader Bradley Geslak was suspended from Toy Town Elementary School for bringing a Memorial Day souvenir to school.

According to a May 29, Telegram.com article, a uniformed veteran gave the 10-year-old two empty rifle shell casings from blanks used during the town’s Memorial Day celebration Monday morning. Bradley gave one of the empty casings to his grandfather and kept the other as a souvenir. The trouble began when he took his souvenir to school the next day.

“He was just playing with it at lunch,” explained Crystal Geslak, Bradley’s mother. “He wasn’t showing it to anyone; he had it in his hand and was playing with it.”

A teacher saw him with the harmless piece of brass and confiscated it. Ms. Geslak was then called at work and told to come and pick up her son, who had been suspended for five days!

Well, the problem is, if you don’t have a license to have a firearm in Massachuetts, you can’t even possess ammunition or ammunition components.   The truth is, this kid and everyone involved in this situation is lucky that it’s only resulting in a five day suspension.  Under Massachusetts law, both the kid, the veteran who gave the kid the empty shell casing, and the teacher to took if from the kid could be looking at two years in prison for having ammunition components without a license.

These are the “reasonable restrictions” that the Brady Campaign wants to impose on the rest of the country.  And they call us “nuts” and “paranoid” for arguing that these regulations are anything but reasonable.   Yet in this case, the following people could be looking at two years in jail:

  1. A 10 year old kid.
  2. One of our nation’s veterans
  3. An elementary school teacher

Sound reasonable to you?  Me neither.

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E-Postal Revisions

Made a few revisions to the e-postal match below.  For one, I said there was a total of forty shots and forty points.  That was incorrect.  That might be true for an actual silhouette match, where there are two banks of animals, but I figured we’d stick to one target, which only has one bank, so twenty shots and twenty animals.  Done in four strings of five.

Secondly, at the suggestion of Mr. C, I added a masochist class, where you can shoot all 20 animals, and your score is however many shots it takes you to hit them all.  In this class, you can hit the animals twice, and it still counts.  Also, if there’s any interest in an air pistol class, I’d be happy to add that.  If I get one person interested in that, I’ll shoot that class with you.

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That Didn’t Take Long

No sooner does Ahab debunk the Brady’s latest post on “God, not Guns” than it disppears down the memory hole.  Turns out a lot of gun people are really into this Jesus thing, and know their stuff.  I guess the Brady’s haven’t been listening much to Barack Obama tell them about people clinging to religion and guns.

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E-Postal Match – Silhuetas Metálicas

This is the June edition of Mr. Completely’s E-Postal Matches.  Many thanks to Manfred for hosting last e-postal.   Due to some confusion on my part as to when the match ended, I didn’t manage to get to the range in time this month.

Metallic Silhouette has its origins among the followers of Pancho Villa, in early twentieth century Mexico, where live animals were originally placed at various distances.  Presumably that got a bit messy, so by the mid-twentieth century they had made the transition to metallic cutouts of the live animals, and Metallic Silhouette was born.  The first match took place in Mexico City in 1952.  The targets were Gallinas (Chickens) at 200 meters, Guajalotes (Turkeys) at 385 Meters, and Borregos (Rams) at 500 meters.  Later on, the Javelina (Pigs) would be added at 300 meters.  The National Rifle Assocation began sanctioning Silhouette competition in 1972.

Since we’re limited in target type and distance in our e-postal matches, our silhouette match has to be roughly approximated.

Tenth Scale Silhouette Animals
The target we will be using is here.

Rules are this:

Place the target at 10 yards or 25 feet, whichever is available at your range. If you want to compete in the rimfire rifle category, targets will be placed at 50 feet, or about 20 yards.

Take one carefully aimed shot at each animal on the sheet, for a total of 20 shots.

Silhouette is generally shot in strings of five.  Put the target out, load the magazine up, and take 5 carefully aimed shot at each of whatever animal you’re on, going from left to right.  Start with the string of five chickens, and work your way down to the rams.

But here’s the catch with this match.  In Metallic Silhouette, if you miss your shot, and hit another animal, you loose the animal you hit, and the animal you were aiming at, so it’s a double loss.  On paper, there’s no good way to simulate animals that have been knocked down, so we’ll make the rule this:

Any animal that has two hits on it counts as a miss.  Any animal that has one shot on the silhouette or touching it, counts as a hit.  Any miss not touching an animal is just a miss.  Each hit counts as one, for a maximum score of 20.

Shooting position for all classes is offhand standing, unsupported, one or two hands allowed.

CLASSES:

CLASS ONE: Rimfire – Iron Sight. Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.

CLASS TWO: Rimfire – Optic Sight. Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.

CLASS THREE: Centerfire – Iron Sight. Any centerfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.

CLASS FOUR: Centerfire – Optic Sight. Any centerfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.

CLASS FIVE: Rimfire Rifle – Iron Sight. Any rimfire rifle. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.  Target to be placed at 50 feet or ~20 yards.

CLASS SIX: Rimfire Rifle – Optic Sight. Any rimfire rifle. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.  Target to be placed at 50 feet or ~20 yards.

BONUS CLASS: Masochist class.  Take as many shots as you need to hit all animals.  In this class, two shots on an animal still count as a hit.  Your score is the number of shots it takes to hit all of them.  No shotguns, please!  But if you want to enter a submachine gun, I’d be game for that :’)  I swear the ammunition manufacturers did not bribe me to create this class!

MULTIPLE ENTRIES: One entry will be taken per gun per class, though you may shoot the match as many times as you like, and submit your highest entry.  You can make multiple entries in a single class as long as you use a different gun.  You can use the same gun in two classes if you add or subtract optics.

Don’t worry if your score is low.  Silhouette is a difficult discipline, and scores aren’t supposed to be high unless you’re an expert shooter and have been doing silhouette for 20 years.  This match is meant to be difficult, and will be especially difficult for centerfire pistol shooters.  In fact, if you’re good, you will probably beat me, as I’m still a beginner.  There’s no embarrassment in scoring low, only in not submitting an entry!

Entries should be mailed to sebastian at snowflakesinhell dot com by midnight on the 30th of June, which is a Monday.   Results will be posted soon after.

UPDATE: I’ll also score anyone who wants to enter with an air pistol.  I shoot open sight with air pistol, so I’ll create a category for that if I get two shooters in the same category.

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