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About That Arms Trade Treaty

October 16, 2013 by

Controlling your and my rifle is important but brake pads for those grounded Iranian F-14 Tomahawks are not. If a story published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by the lefty journalism group Propublica is correct, then that is the intent of the Obama Administration.

Starting yesterday, a number of items that previously had been controlled by the State Department through its arms control regulations will be transferred to the control of the Commerce Department which has weaker controls on exports of these items.

In the current system, every manufacturer and exporter of military equipment has to register with the State Department and get a license for each planned export. U.S. officials scrutinize each proposed deal to make sure the receiving country isn’t violating human rights and to determine the risk of the shipment winding up with terrorists or another questionable group.

Under the new system, whole categories of equipment encompassing tens of thousands of items will move to the Commerce Department, where they will be under more “flexible” controls. Final rules have been issued for six of 19 categories of equipment and more will roll out in the coming months. Some military equipment, such as fighter jets, drones, and other systems and parts, will stay under the State Department’s tighter oversight.

Commerce will do interagency human rights reviews before allowing exports, but only as a matter of policy, whereas in the State Department it is required by law.

While spare parts that will now be regulated by the Commerce Department may not be exported directly to such rogue nations as Iran and Syria, the controls on re-exports of these spare parts will have much less regulation. Spare parts are the key to keeping aging fleets of jet fighters in the air and not the ground.

The story does note that the one area in which the Obama Administration refused to switch to the Commerce Department was, you guessed it, firearms and ammunition.

In one area, the administration does appear to have temporarily backed off – firearms and ammunition. Any decision to loosen exports for firearms could have conflicted with the president’s call for enhanced domestic gun control.

According to a memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal last spring, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security both opposed draft versions of revisions to the firearms category. (The Justice Department press office is out of operation due to the government shutdown, and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.) Shifting firearms was also likely to be a lightning rod for arms control groups. As the New York Times’ C.J. Chivers has documented, small arms trafficking has been the scourge of conflicts around the world.

Draft rules for firearms and ammunitions were ready in mid-2012, according to Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group for gun manufacturers. The Commerce Department even sent representatives to an industry export conference to preview manufacturers on the new system they might fall under.

But since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., last December, no proposed rule has been published.

Keane thinks the connection is irrelevant. “This has nothing to do with domestic gun control legislation. We’re talking about exports,” he said. “Our products have not moved forward, and we’re disappointed by that.”

Read the whole article to see the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration.

In related news to the Arms Trade Treaty, a number of Senators and Congressmen have come out in opposition to the ratification of the ATT. The treaty needs 67 votes in favor for it to be ratified. So far 50 Senators have come out in opposition to it.

From the NRA on the letter from 50 Senators and 181 Congressmen to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry opposing the ATT:

Fairfax, Va. – Today, a bipartisan group of 50 members of the U.S. Senate and 181 members of the U.S. House sent a clear message to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and the United Nations that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty will not be ratified. Earlier this year, the U.N. adopted and President Obama directed Secretary Kerry to sign this treaty, which does not exclude civilian arms from its scope and therefore directly threatens the Second Amendment.

“The Obama administration has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for our fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “On behalf of our 5 million members, the NRA would like to thank those who signed these letters for their principled stand in defending the Second Amendment freedoms of all law-abiding Americans.”

The Senate effort in opposition to the ATT was led by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). Their letter, signed by 50 senators, states clearly that “as members of the Senate, we pledge to oppose the ratification of this treaty, and we give notice that we do not regard the U.S. as bound to uphold its object and purpose.”

A bipartisan group of 181 members of the U.S. House sent a separate letter of opposition. That effort was led by Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Collin Peterson (D-MN).

“The NRA will continue to fight against ratification of the U.N. ATT, which undermines the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” concluded Cox. “With 67 votes in the U.S. Senate being necessary for ratification, these letters send a clear message to President Obama and Secretary Kerry that this attempt to undermine our Right to Keep and Bear Arms will be met with strong opposition.”

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Supreme Court Decides Not To Hear Carry Case

October 16, 2013 by

The US Supreme Court today denied certiorari to Raymond Woollard in his challenge to the state of Maryland’s “good and substantial reason” requirement for a carry permit. While he had won at the District Court stage in a surprising decision, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Maryland’s favor on their appeal using intermediate scrutiny.

From the Baltimore Sun summation of the chronology of events:

Among the subsequent cases was the challenge to the Maryland permit law, originally brought by Raymond Woollard. The Baltimore County resident had twice been given a handgun permit after his son-in-law broke into his home on Christmas Eve 2002. But when Woollard applied to renew the permit in 2009, state police decided the threat against him had passed and declined the application.

Woollard sued over the denial of his application and a federal district judge struck down the permitting law last year. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, ruling that the law is reasonably adapted” to the state’s “significant interests in protecting public safety and preventing crime.”

In asking the Supreme Court to have the final say, Woollard’s lawyers said the issues at stake were broad and involved questions that were not spelled out in the Heller ruling.

The appeals court that upheld Maryland’s law found that “the Second Amendment has no practical impact beyond the threshold of one’s home,” attorney Alan Gura wrote in a court filing.

But he said other federal courts have reached different conclusions, including a ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that “asserts that the right is equally important outside the home as inside, and should (subject to regulation) be generally accessible to law-abiding individuals.”

Gura urged the Supreme Court to sort out the issue once and for all.

Maryland’s lawyers argued in court filings in response that the case was a simple question of the appropriate state regulation of firearms and did not warrant a look by the high court.

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, who is now running for governor of the state with a running mate who describes herself as “Trayvon Martin’s Mom”, was pleased with the decision of the Supreme Court saying it would make Maryland a safer place.


In related news from little more than a month ago, Kris Lee Abbott was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he had attacked his parents and his estranged wife. Abbott was the son-in-law of Raymond Woollard whose attack led to Maryland initially issuing a carry permit to Woollard.

I quite agree with Bitter’s comment on the denial of cert.

The fact that the Supreme Court is completely unwilling to protect your right to actually bear the arms instead of just keeping them should motivate gun owners to get involved in the political fights. It is absolutely clear that you cannot count on the courts, and elections have consequences.

One need look no further than the potential Democratic nominee for governor and his running mate in Maryland. I doubt you could get two more anti-gun politicians on a ticket together unless you found a way to pair Michael Bloomberg with Dianne Feitnstein.

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Take That, You Red Staters!

October 15, 2013 by 2 Comments

Thanks to the continued hissy fit by the White House and their Democratic allies in Congress, government shutdown theater will now impact deer hunting in east Tennessee according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

CROSSVILLE — The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has been informed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Operations (ORO) that the deer hunts scheduled Oct. 19-20 have been cancelled at the Oak Ridge Wildlife Management Area.

The cancellation comes as a result of an effort to initiate an orderly shutdown in support of obtaining a safe and secure status. The cancellation, at this time, applies to the Oct. 19-20 hunts. A decision on the other hunts, scheduled in November and December, 2013, will be made as this information is received.

I guess the Department of Energy was feeling a little left out by all the attention given to the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service and wanted to get into the act as well. There is nothing like having a politicized bureaucracy when you want to stick it to the red-staters!

H/T The Archery Wire

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Marksmanship Training For Combat

October 14, 2013 by 3 Comments

Traditional marksmanship training in the Army and Marines involves static targets with the occasional moving target. The USMC’s Marine Warfighting Lab in conjuction with the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group are working on marksmanship training methods that are much more realistic.

Back in September, the Marine Warfighting Lab gathered data on different techniques using experts from the Basic School as their guinea pigs.

The Sept. 16-27 experiment had a handful of Marine instructors from The Basic School here practicing a series of techniques for hitting moving targets while shooting from the prone, kneeling and standing positions with M4 carbines and the service’s M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle.

They used the tracking method, which involves leading the target before shooting at it. Marines also practiced using the ambush method, which calls for picking a fixed point in front of a moving target and firing as it moves into it.

The third technique is known as the swing through method. The newer technique has the shooter begin firing at the rear edge of the target, moving the muzzle forward to the front while continuing to fire.

The experiment also involved Marines firing in semiautomatic and three-round burst modes from the M4, and full auto from the M27.

The key to the new training are wheeled robotic targets that can move at a speed of over 8 mph. These robotic targets feature a mannequin that will drop when hit either in the head or the “spine”. Whether these targets are rolled out for training in the rest of the Marine Corps and Army may be problematic due to their cost. Each robotic targets costs $100,000!

The video below shows the training using the robots.

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Still Dangerous In His Old Age

October 14, 2013 by 2 Comments

I came across this interview with Trooper Stan W Scott, No. 3 Army Commando, in which he demonstrates the proper use of a Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife. He was giving a lecture at the National Army Museum in London in connection with a 2011-2012 exhibition. The exhibition was entitled “Draw Your Weapons: The Art of Commando Comics”.  Commando Comics are a military oriented series of comic books dating from the 1960s that are still being published in the UK.

These old WWII veterans fought in a brutal war where both strength and cunning were prized. It shows in his demonstration on how to fight with a knife.

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Camoupedia – A Blog About Camouflage

October 13, 2013 by 1 Comment

Camouflage intrigues me. Thus, when I stumbled across Camoupedia, I was immediately interested.

The blog is the brainchild of Roy Behrens who is a Professor of Art at the University of Northern Iowa. Behren has published a number of books on camouflage including Camoupedia: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage and Ship Shape, a Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook: An Anthology of Writings About Ship Camouflage During World War I.

While Behrens writes about all sorts of camouflage on his blog, he devotes considerable attention to dazzle or disruptive camouflage as used on ships during WWI and, to some extent, WWII. He pays particular attention to the role that artists played in developing camouflage schemes for the various navies and armies of the world. These artists include luminaries such as Grant Wood who briefly served in the US Army near the end of WWI as a camoufleur.

An example of a ship in dazzle camouflage can be seen below.

If you have an interest in camouflage that goes beyond whether Mossy Oak is superior to Realtree or vice-versa, this blog should be on your list of blogs to follow.

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Happy 238th Birthday, US Navy

October 13, 2013 by

Happy birthday to the US Navy which was formed on this day in 1775 when the Continental Congress voted to outfit two sailing vessels. Little did those men know that from the small start the greatest navy in the world would grow.

Also, a big thanks all those who served in the Navy including Old NFO, Bubblehead Les, and Linoge. While I come from an Army family, I did have two uncles and a first cousin who served in the Navy.

Anchors aweigh!

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California – Brown Vetoes Some And Signs Some

October 13, 2013 by

With three days to go, Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed some of the many gun control bills on his desk and vetoed the rest. While vetoing the worst gun control bill (SB 374) that would have banned virtually all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, he did sign AB 711 which mandates a phase-out of all lead ammo for hunting by 2019.

A list of the bills in numerical order and their disposition courtesy of the San Jose Mercury and posted in CalGuns.net is below:

SB 127 by Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin — Requires that reports by a licensed psychotherapist to a local law enforcement agency of someone who has communicated a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim or victims be made within 24 hours; also requires local law enforcement agencies, when they receive such reports, to notify the Department of Justice electronically and within 24 hours. SIGNED

SB 299 by Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord — would require gun owners to report a gun theft or loss to police within seven days of knowing about it. VETOED

SB 363 by Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Los Angeles — expands the crime of “criminal storage” to include keeping a loaded firearm within premises where a prohibited person is likely to gain access and actually accesses and causes injury. SIGNED

SB 374 by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento — would add all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines to the state’s list of banned assault weapons. VETOED

SB 475 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco — would essentially ban gun shows at the Cow Palace by requiring they be approved by San Francisco and San Mateo supervisors. VETOED

SB 567 by Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara — would update the definition of an illegal shotgun to include a shotgun with a revolving cylinder and a rifled bore. VETOED

SB 683 by Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego — would require owners of long guns to earn safety certificates like those already required of handgun owners. SIGNED

SB 755 by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Vacaville — would expand list of convicts who can’t legally own guns to include those with multiple drug or alcohol crimes, street gang members and others. VETOED

AB 48 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley — would ban conversion kits that allow people to turn regular magazines into high-capacity magazines. SIGNED

AB 169 by Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento — would tighten exemptions to the law prohibiting purchase of handguns that haven’t been tested and deemed safe by the state. VETOED

AB 170 by Assemblyman Steven Bradford, D-Gardena — would provides that only an individual person, not an organization, may be issued a permit to possess an assault weapon, .50 BMG rifle, or machine gun. SIGNED

AB 180 by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland — would give Oakland an exemption from state pre-emption so it can pass its own stricter gun registration or licensing statutes. VETOED

AB 231 by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco — would make it a crime to leave a loaded firearm somewhere a child is likely to be able to get it without permission. SIGNED

AB 500 by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco — would tighten gun safety laws on safe storage to include households where someone is prohibited from owning a gun; also allows additional time for Department of Justice background checks. SIGNED

AB 538 by Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento — Requires a licensed firearm dealer to provide copies of the dealer’s record of sale (DROS) to a firearm purchaser at the time of delivery. SIGNED

AB 539 by Pan — lets someone who’s temporarily prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm to transfer firearms in his or her possession or ownership to a licensed firearms dealer for storage. SIGNED

AB 711 by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-South Gate — would ban use of lead ammunition in hunting by mid-2019. SIGNED

AB 1131 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley — would extend from six months to five years the prohibition from owning firearms for those who’ve described a credible violent threat to a psychotherapist. SIGNED

 The National Shooting Sports Foundation had this to say, in part, about Brown’s actions on Friday.

“We are greatly disappointed that Gov. Brown decided to sign AB 711, which as we view things today will effectively end or greatly curtail hunting in California, given the restrictions on the use of non-traditional ammunition.” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “We will have more to say on this important issue, but it is mind boggling that the governor would shut down this American tradition and actually imperil the substantial conservation funding that is provided to California through the federal excise tax on ammunition.”

Keane continued: “We are pleased that Gov. Brown vetoed SB 374 and AB 180, however, as these proposed restrictions on law-abiding Californians would have done nothing to make the state safer.”

From the Firearms Policy Coalition which includes both the CalGuns Foundation and Cal-FFL as founding members.

Last Thursday, Firearms Policy Coalition Managing Director Brandon Combs delivered 65,000 letters from individuals to the Governor’s office urging Gov. Brown to veto the bills and protect the civil rights of law-abiding gun owners.

“We can thank tens of thousands of individuals who rose to the challenge for today’s defeat of Sen. Steinberg’s outrageous SB 374,” said Combs of the Governor’s veto.

In spite of an “all-in” push for new gun control measures led by extremists like Sen. Steinberg and anti-rights special interest groups including Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Brady Campaign, and Moms Demand Action, the gun rights community was able to secure a roughly 80% loss rate for California gun control bills.

“Our Demand Rights campaign ramped very quickly thanks to FPC’s online ‘Take Action’ grassroots activism platform,” explained Combs. “We were able to start up where last year’s successful Stop SB 249 campaign left off. FPC’s unique ability to scale agile grassroots efforts in realtime made the difference in how we were able to pull together such a large, diverse coalition of citizen activists for an unprecedented number of issues.”

Some bills, like Senator Leland Yee’s SB 47 ban on “Bullet Button” firearms, those having a magazine locking device, are likely to return when the Legislature reconvenes.

“We told them ‘not one more inch’ and we meant it,” concluded Combs. ”We’ll celebrate the wins, learn from the losses, and come back stronger than ever to fight for gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.”

So far, I haven’t seen any official response to these bills from the NRA-ILA, GOA, SAF, or CCRKBA.

The gun prohibitionists were not altogether pleased about Brown’s actions. While they got some of what they wanted it was not everything.

The Brady Campaign criticized Brown for not doing more.

“We are disappointed that the Governor vetoed important gun reform bills designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” said Dr. Dallas Stout, President of the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “We know that these gun policies work and would have saved lives.”

Governor Brown did sign other substantial gun reform bills into law. This includes AB 500 that requires safe storage of firearms in homes where a severely mentally ill person, a felon, or other prohibited person resides, and AB 48 that prohibits large-capacity ammunition magazine “conversion kits” that are used to subvert California’s law to restrict massive firepower of certain weapons.

“California did make strides today, but we wish Governor Brown had done more. There is more work to be done when Californians are still in danger of gun violence every day,” added Stout.

The lefty California-based Courage Campaign went much further in their criticism of Brown calling his actions “cowardly”.  They pledge to hold Brown accountable for “kowtowing to the gun lobby” on their fund raising page.

“Today, in vetoing a series of gun safety measures, Governor Brown choose to put craven political considerations above the safety and well-being of California’s more than 38 million residents.

Governor Brown, a former Mayor of Oakland, knows first hand the dangers of gun violence and the need for strong laws to protect California’s residents, which makes his actions all the more inexcusable. With over 1,143 Californians dead from gun violence since the Newtown massacre, next time there is a murder with an assault weapon, the Governor will have blood on his hands and have to answer for his vetoes today. This is the kind of cowardly behavior we expect from out NRA-owned elected officials in Washington, not from a California democrat who should know better.

The anti-hunting organizations, however, were quite pleased with Brown for signing AB 711 which banned lead in hunting ammo. The Humane Society of the US led the charge on this and got their wish.

“California has led the nation in creating humane laws, and today’s action by Governor Brown to eliminate lead from hunting ammunition is an incredible victory for wildlife and humans alike,” said Jennifer Fearing, California senior state director for The Humane Society of the United States. “This common-sense law should serve as an example for the rest of the nation on the urgent need to stop releasing this dangerous toxin into the environment.”

Many in the hunting community in California have been divorced from the fights for gun rights as shotguns and bolt action rifles have not been targeted. By signing AB 711, Brown may have finally pushed California hunters to think more about gun rights in general as they are no longer “safe” from the anti-gunners.

Given the length of this post, I’ll save an analysis of Brown’s signing and veto messages for another time.

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On Colorado’s Shooter Ready Radio Tonight

October 11, 2013 by 1 Comment

I’ve been invited back as a guest on Shooter Ready Radio out of Pueblo, Colorado. I’ll be on during their 6:30 pm Eastern or 4:30 Mountain time slot this evening.

Tonight I’ll be discussing the recall effort against Sen. Evie Hudak (D-Arvada), the NRA’s new young spokeswoman Matti Warren, whether or not Gov. Jerry Brown will veto any of the firearms bills in California, and the recent New York Time editorial comparing the NRA’s position on the Arms Trade Treaty to that of certain rogue nations.

Shooter Ready Radio
is part of the I-25 Talk Radio lineup which airs on 690/1480 AM and 93.9/100.3 FM
out of Pueblo and Colorado Springs. If you aren’t in the those areas, the station
has a live feed over the Internet which you can access here.