Happy Birthday Knife Rights

Today is the 10th birthday for Knife Rights. We owe a debt of gratitude to Doug Ritter for taking the initiative to form the organization. The post below tells about the article that inspired him to take action and the successes that they have had over the last 10 years.

July 25, 2016: Knife Rights was born ten years ago today after I read an outrageous and highly inflammatory article headlining the Wall Street Journal, entitled “How New, Deadly Pocketknives Became a $1 Billion Business” demonizing so-called “tactical knives.” A discredit to the Journal, the overwrought and sensationalist article was filled with distortions, misrepresentations, innuendo, outright lies and cherry-picked quotes pushing a transparent rabid anti-weapon and anti-freedom agenda. But, the story didn’t quite spark the anti-knife response the reporter probably hoped for — in fact, it had precisely the opposite effect.

Reading that article I became incensed at the blatant, misguided attack on our everyday tools. I realized that there was no NRA for knife owners. There was no aggressive, proactive grassroots organization working to stop the U.S. from sinking into the anti-knife, anti-freedom pit that already exists in Europe and the U.K.


That article ignited a new civil rights movement. Over the past decade Knife Rights has literally rewritten knife law in America. More knives and more freedom couldn’t have been further from his objective, but that’s exactly what he got. Thank you, Wall Street Journal.


One wonders what the editors were thinking when they chose to illustrate that fateful article with their poster child for evil and dangerous “tactical knives” – a diminutive Buck Knives “Metro” lock-blade keychain folding knife / bottle opener with a 1.125-inch one-hand opening blade. In any case, it demonstrates the absurd idiocy of assigning malevolence to an inanimate object based on physical characteristics. No knife is inherently “deadly” — that’s an irrational and nonsensical label.


A cornerstone of Knife Rights’ principles is that inanimate objects like knives must be used by someone against another in order to become deadly weapons. Even then, often they are used for self-defense, not offensively. Knives are simply essential everyday tools used by millions of Americans at home, at work and at play and occasionally they are “arms” used to protect a life. Removing knives from statutory lists of per se (intrinsically) “deadly weapons” is an ongoing goal of Knife Rights.


We formally founded Knife Rights in December of 2006, adopting the slogan “A Sharper Future™ as our objective. The foundation for Knife Rights was expressed as “Essential Tools – Essential Rights™.”


It took a few years to get our legs under us, but in 2009 Knife Rights provided the key grassroots knife owner’s component of a coalition of groups that opposed U.S. Customs’ efforts to redefine a switchblade to include these same one-hand opening knives. The end result was that Congress passed a fifth exception to the Federal Switchblade Act that protected one-hand opening and assisted-opening folding knives.


Springboarding off that success, in 2010 we began our efforts to rewrite knife law at the state level. Knife Rights passed the nation’s first ever outright repeal of a state knife ban (switchblades, dirks, daggers and stilettos) in New Hampshire and the nation’s first ever Knife Law Preemption bill in Arizona, ridding the state of its inconsistent patchwork of local knife restrictions. This proved all the naysayers wrong; those who said it couldn’t be done.


It was, indeed, possible to repeal switchblade and other knife bans. Having proved those defeatists wrong, we have never looked back. Since 2010 we have been going gangbusters, proving again and again that Knife Rights can do what was once though impossible:

21 PRO-KNIFE BILLS PASSED IN 15 STATES!

Alaska ● Arizona ● Georgia ● Indiana ● Kansas ● Maine ● Missouri ● Nevada
New Hampshire ● Oklahoma ● Tennessee ● Texas ● Utah ● Washington ● Wisconsin

8 ANTI-KNIFE BILLS STOPPED!

Florida ● Maryland ● New Jersey ● New York ● Nevada ● Washington



Knife Rights has also been active in federal and state courts protecting and advancing knife owners’ rights. Never backing down from a challenge, our first lawsuit filed five years ago took on New York City’s persecution of retailers and tens of thousands of knife owners carrying common pocketknives. While that lawsuit is still ongoing, we’ve been involved in one way or another with a dozen other lawsuits or trials where knife owners’ rights were imperiled. We have been on the prevailing side in every one!


Knife Rights is The One Getting It Done™ for knife owners in America. With the generous support of many of you reading this, our success is unprecedented, unparalleled and unrivaled.


However, we cannot rest on our past wins. The fight continues and it takes money to accomplish what we do. Your donations are the engine that drives us forward.

Good Little Statists

I saw this tweet from the Violence Policy Center applauding the moves yesterday by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D-MA) to rule by edict regarding AWB state-compliant firearms.

When you consider that their founder and executive director Josh Sugarmann was the person who popularized the term “assault weapons”, it all begins to make sense. He meant for the term to be used to confuse the general public into supporting bans under the guise of “anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun”.

Healey and Sugarmann are the people that George Orwell warned us about in 1984. They are the good little statists from the Ministry of Love intent on making us submit to their will. The term “assault weapon” is nothing but Newspeak – the controlled language meant to limit freedom of thought. Those earnest men who assembled on Lexington Green in April 1775 must be rolling in their graves to see what has become of their state.

Governing By Edict In Massachusetts

The gun prohibitionists and anti-rights forces just love the word “loophole”. They love it so much in Massachusetts that the attorney general has decided to arbitrarily reinterpret the commonwealth’s assault weapons (sic) ban.

Attorney General Maura Healey (D-MA) announced her edict in the Boston Globe today. She says that as of today, if a firearm has either components that are interchangeable with AR-15s and AKs from the free states or an “operating system” that is essentially the same, it is banned.

From the Boston Globe:

The gun industry has found a way to exploit our laws, a loophole of potentially horrific proportions. And it’s time we act.

The Massachusetts assault weapons ban mirrors the federal ban Congress allowed to expire in 2004. It prohibits the sale of specific weapons like the Colt AR-15 and AK-47 and explicitly bans “copies or duplicates” of those weapons. But gun manufacturers have taken it upon themselves to define what a “copy” or “duplicate” weapon is. They market “state compliant” copycat versions of their assault weapons to Massachusetts buyers. They sell guns without a flash suppressor or folding or telescoping stock, for example, small tweaks that do nothing to limit the lethalness of the weapon.

That will end now. On Wednesday, we are sending a directive to all gun manufacturers and dealers that makes clear that the sale of these copycat assault weapons is illegal in Massachusetts. With this directive, we will ensure we get the full protection intended when lawmakers enacted our assault weapons ban, not the watered-down version of those protections offered by gun manufacturers.

The directive specifically outlines two tests to determine what constitutes a “copy” or “duplicate” of a prohibited weapon. If a gun’s operating system is essentially the same as that of a banned weapon, or if the gun has components that are interchangeable with those of a banned weapon, it’s a “copy” or “duplicate,” and it is illegal. Assault weapons prohibited under our laws cannot be altered in any way to make their sale or possession legal in Massachusetts.

We recognize that most residents who purchased these guns in the past believed they were doing so legally, so this directive will not apply to possession of guns purchased before Wednesday. In the dozen years since the federal assault weapons ban lapsed, only seven states have instituted their own assault weapons ban. Many of those bans have been challenged (unsuccessfully) by the gun industry, and we anticipate our directive may be too. But our job is to enforce state laws and to keep people safe. This directive does both.

Healey claims a “moral obligation” to come out with this edict. Methinks it more political grandstanding that any sort of moral obligation.

It will be interesting to see what is meant in real life terms by having an “operating system (which) is essentially the same as that of a banned weapon.” Does that mean any and all semiautomatic rifles that use direct gas impingement are banned? Or, in the case of an AK, does this mean all firearms with short stroke gas systems are banned?

You have to wonder if Remington will restart their production of their Model 7615P pump action .223 that took AR15 magazines. It would be a nice in your face workaround to Healey’s edict.

Going Old School

Ian from Forgotten Weapons blog goes old school at this run and gun steel match in Arizona. Who am I kidding. Ian always goes old school!

In this video, Ian uses a Roth Steyr 1907 made in 1910 to run the match. He said this about the pistol:

The 1907 was used by the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, and is in my opinion one of the best pistols of World War I. It is a solid and durable design firing a reasonably powerful cartridge (for the time, at least – 8mm Steyr is a 113gr projectile at about 1070fps) and with reasonable sights and good handling. It is mechanically innovative, with a firing mechanism functionally identical to today’s “safe-action” systems. The striker is halfway cocked by the action of the gun cycling, and the remaining half is done by the trigger press. The 1907 uses a proprietary stripper clip holding 10 rounds, with a movable follower built in. Pressing down on the clip’s follower puts an even pressure on the cartridges, helping to make it a very smooth design to use – I would rate it as equal or better than any other type of stripper clip I have used.

Even with an antique gun using an antique cartridge Ian still comes in 17th out of 21. Considering he was using stripper clips to reload and not magazines, that is pretty damn good.

So What Is Long Range?

Long range can have a lot of meaning to shooters. If you live in the East and deer hunt in heavily forested areas, it might be 50 yards. Out West, it might mean 4-500 yards.

Brian Litz of Applie Ballistics does a good job of explaining long range and extended long range in this new video released by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Brian will be holding one of his 2-day Advanced Ballistics seminars in Sophia, North Carolina this November. Sophia is a farming community just south of Greensboro. The cost of his seminar is $500. However, if you use the promo code ABSEM100 at checkout, the price falls to $400. For two full days plus all of his books, DVDs, and software, that’s quite a deal.

Trying To Decide Between #NeverTrump Or #NeverHillary? Ponder This.

This presidential election may be historic if for no other reason than both presumptive nominees are grossly unpopular. Now if you like Donald Trump or you like Hillary Clinton and you object to that statement, then you are probably in the minority. Both candidates had unfavorability ratings of over 50% as of late June. Frankly, I don’t see that changing.

I’ll admit right up front that Donald Trump was not my first choice. Heck, he wasn’t even my fourth choice. At the start of the primary season, I considered Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz as potential recipients of my vote. I added Carly Fiorina to that list after I saw how she handled the press.

As to Hillary Clinton, oh, please. Her primary qualification to me seems that she married the right guy to have pulled her along with him to national prominence. Without Bill Clinton, she’d be just another Yale educated lawyer with political ambitions. It is doubtful that she would have ever been elected a US Senator from any state especially given she had held no prior elected offices. She would never have been Secretary of State as she wasn’t one of the “wise old men” like a Warren Christoper, a college professor specializing in foreign policy like  Kissinger or Madeleine Albright, or a general like George Marshall.

To those who would say I’m forgetting about Gary Johnson, I’m not. While he has gathered more support than prior Libertarian candidates, his role in this election is that of a spoiler. He will either take just enough #NeverTrump Republican votes from Donald Trump for Hillary to win or he will take just enough Bernie supporting Millennials from Hillary for Trump to win. I’ve participated in every election since 1976 and have studied American presidential politics at the graduate level. Gary Johnson being elected President just isn’t going to happen.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was interviewed by the New York Times on Friday. What she said should clarify for any gun owner or any Second Amendment supporter what this race for President is really about. This holds true for both the deer hunters in Gun Culture 1.0 with their .30-06 Remington 700s and the non-hunting concealed carriers in Gun Culture 2.0 with their Glock 19s.

This election is about the Supreme Court which now stands in a four to four split between conservatives and liberals. Another way of putting it is that neither the Originalists nor the Living Constitutionalists hold a majority.

Justice Ginsburg was asked whether there were any cases of recent memory that she would like to see overturned. Here is what she said:

Asked if there were cases she would like to see the court overturn before she leaves it, she named one.


“It won’t happen,” she said. “It would be an impossible dream. But I’d love to see Citizens United overruled.”


She mulled whether the court could revisit its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act. She said she did not see how that could be done.


The court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, establishing an individual right to own guns, may be another matter, she said.


“I thought Heller was “a very bad decision,” she said, adding that a chance to reconsider it could arise whenever the court considers a challenge to a gun control law.


Should Judge Garland or another Democratic appointee join the court, Justice Ginsburg will find herself in a new position, and the thought seemed to please her.


“It means that I’ll be among five more often than among four,” she said.

Rest assured that Michael Bloomberg would spend big bucks to get a gun control case before a Supreme Court in which Justice Ginsburg was now among the five who believe there is no individual right to own a weapon of any sort (firearm, knife, sharp stick). The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday in an editorial that Justice Ginsburg thinks the Second Amendment obsolete and that there isn’t even a need for the militia anymore.

So unless something untoward happens this week or next at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump, warts and all, will be the nominee. He is on record as supporting the Second Amendment as an individual right and is on record as opposing gun-free zones.

The coronation of Hillary Clinton will take place in Philadephia the following week. She is on record as saying she’d “change the gun culture”. To think that a President Hillary Clinton would appoint anyone to replace Justice Scalia that believed as he did that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right is ludicrous.

I still don’t really like Donald Trump. However, I am adult enough to realize that stomping my feet and saying I’m not going to vote or that I’ll vote for Gary Johnson is giving aid and comfort to Hillary. This election has become a zero-sum game for the Second Amendment. If Hillary wins, we lose.

I’ll boil it down to the essentials:  If you are #NeverTrump, then you are #NeverGuns.

Amazon Prime Day

I don’t push the affiliate links that much. However, I would like to remind you that all (as in 100%) commissions earned are donated to gun rights organizations such as the Second Amendment Foundation, the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund, Grass Roots North Carolina, and others. If you have a favorite non-profit gun rights group that you’d like me to consider supporting, let me know in the comments section.

Today is Amazon Prime Day with special offers throughout the day for members of Amazon Prime. I use Amazon Prime and like it. It’s nice ordering something and having it here in a couple of days. Just as nice are the movies and videos that are available through it such as the the original TV run of Firefly, all six seasons of Justified, the Amazon Originals like The Man in the High Castle, and much more. You can also pick up an 8 GB Kindle Fire Tablet for $33.33. Think of it as a mini iPad that costs a whole lot less.

You can click on the banner below if you are an Amazon Prime member and be linked to the deals. If you aren’t a member, click where it says “free trial” which will get you the deals and a month to try it out. For every person who is not already a member of Amazon Prime who does try it out, that means $3 will go to support our Second Amendment rights. Think about that.

Colion Noir Calls Out The Media

The media has been trying to use the shooting of Philandro Castile in Minnesota as a wedge between the African-American community and the National Rifle Association. They are saying that the NRA doesn’t care about black gun owners. Moreover, as this article in Inquisitr makes clear, they continue to try and make this a wedge issue because in the NRA’s call for an investigation in Minnesota they did not mention Mr. Castile by name. They are saying the NRA is facing an internal split. I don’t see it.

Colion Noir calls out the media and commentators who pushing the meme that the NRA doesn’t care about black gun owners. He notes that just like Philandro Castile he is a 32 year old black man with a carry permit that was stopped for a traffic infraction just two weeks ago.

Colion Noir is usually somewhat laid back and cool. Here he is not. He’s angry and he’s tired of putting up with the crap that the media and other critics have spewed towards him personally and to the NRA.

Ah Yes Except The NRA Did Issue A Statement

I picked up a story this morning from a website called .Mic. It is a website devoted to, among other things, bashing the NRA and gun owners. I guess this plays well with their intended audience of “educated Millennials”. In a story written Friday by Emily Cahn for their “Policy.Mic” section headlined, “NRA Responds To Dallas Police Sniper Shootings, But Completely Ignores Philando Castile”, she noted the NRA release regarding the Dallas murders. Ms. Cahn then wrote:

But missing from the NRA’s response was any reaction to the death of Philando Castile, a black man who was killed by police officers during a traffic stop in Minnesota, after he informed them he legally had a gun in his car.

The lack of response to Castile’s death is perplexing, given that the NRA staunchly defends Americans’ right to lawfully own and carry firearms.

The group has even helped defeat gun control legislation in the wake of the Orlando shootings that would prevent suspected terrorists on the FBI’s “no-fly” list from purchasing guns.

I would be troubled if the NRA ignored the shooting of Mr. Castile in Minneapolis. However, they didn’t. While not mentioning Mr. Castile by name, they issued the following statement on Friday.

As the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization, the NRA proudly supports the right of law-abiding Americans to carry firearms for defense of themselves and others regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.


The reports from Minnesota are troubling and must be thoroughly investigated. In the meantime, it is important for the NRA not to comment while the investigation is ongoing.


Rest assured, the NRA will have more to say once all the facts are known.

Given that the NRA statement and the Cahn article were both published on Friday, I don’t know which came first. Even assuming the Cahn article was published before the NRA released their statement, journalistic ethics demand that a correction or clarification be released acknowledging the NRA statement on the Castile shooting.

Ms. Cahn is a graduate of George Washington University and has worked for papers including the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post, The Hill, and CQ Roll Call. She is currently .Mic’s Senior Political Reporter. Given that background one would have hoped she learned something about journalistic ethics along the way. Sadly, it appears she hasn’t.

Really?!

Miguel at Gun Free Zone pointed out this Facebook post from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (sic) from just soon after the murders in Dallas. As Miguel said on Facebook, even vultures will wait before they start feeding on the corpses.

I downloaded this screenshot at about 8:30am EDT. That means it was posted somewhere around 11:30 EDT last night. According to a timeline of the attack in Dallas, the first reports of gunfire was around 9pm CDT or 10pm EDT. Thus, within two hours of the first notice of the attack, the posting below appeared on the Law Center’s Facebook page. Notice that it is gun laws that are being blamed. The top commenters are also blaming the NRA and, believe it or not, libertarians and the Koch brothers.

As things stand now, we know the Dallas PD have some suspects in custody, that one potential shooter was killed last night by the DPD bomb squad, and that is about it. We don’t know if the murderers were white, black, brown, or purple. We don’t know if they were Baptist, Catholic, or Muslim. We don’t know if they were affiliated with ISIS, Black Lives Matter, the NRA, or the Boys and Girls Club of Dallas. We don’t know if the firearms used were purchased at Billy Bob’s Gun Emporium, at the local gun show, out of the back of a car, or smuggled into the country by a drug cartel

The lone exception of the one suspect killed by the bomb squad who justified the attack as retribution for the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile. Other than that, we just don’t know because the details have not been made public. This, however, did not stop LCPGV aka LCAV from making the post below.

If you want to keep informed about really what is going on with the investigation in Dallas, I suggest the Dallas News. They are not the cable news stations bringing in “experts”. They are the local folks on the ground who work the police beat.