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54% Of People Surveyed Don’t Have A Clue

August 11, 2012 by 3 Comments

Gallup recently polled 1,014 Americans over age 18 living in the United States on their view of how good a job TSA is doing. Unbelievably, 54% of those polled think TSA is doing either an excellent or good job.

I knew there were a lot of stupid people but I never realized the numbers were that high.

It gets worse. Of those who have flown at least once in the last 12 months, 57% think they are doing a good or excellent job.

If there is anything encouraging about this poll is that less than half of all those surveyed – 41% –  believe that the screening procedures are either extremely or very effective. That said, only 13% of those surveyed don’t think the TSA is “not too effective” or “not effective at all”. I guess I should be happy that at least 13% of those surveyed have a grasp on reality.

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MAIG Doesn’t Like The Light Shone On Their Activities

August 10, 2012 by 6 Comments

It looks like blogger Sean Caranna of All Nine Yards and Florida Carry has struck a nerve with Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors. They seem to be scurrying around like cockroaches when the light is turned on.

The Daily Caller has the details.

Two days before Media Trackers Ohio requested an interview with Coleman, Bloomberg staffer Christopher Kocher emailed a story by a Florida blogger to Glaze, Roberts and several other MAIG regional coordinators. Kocher warned MAIG leaders that Sean Caranna, the president of Florida Carry Inc. — a pro-Second Amendment organization — had published a story criticizing Orlando MAIG coordinator Linda Vaughn.

Caranna found that a grant from the left-wing Joyce Foundation — which is managed by Bloomberg’s office — was insufficient to cover Vaughn’s salary. He reported that MAIG was leveraging taxpayer funds to reduce its overhead costs, by installing MAIG lobbyists in mayors’ offices nationwide — effectively using public dollars to lobby for gun control.

Kocher preceded Caranna’s story with a note instructing MAIG coordinators: “if anyone contacts you about the article or if anything like this has come up previously for you, please let us know.”

What I find most interesting about this story is the interconnections between MAIG, Bloomberg’s office, MAIG Executive Director Mark Glaze, and Media Matters for America. When you add in the known connections between the White House and Media Matters, these linkages between the so-called progressive groups gets very interesting. If one was an expert in social network analysis, I’m sure he or she would have a heyday mapping all these linkages.

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Monthly Gun Giveaways!

August 9, 2012 by 6 Comments

Aaron at the Weapon-Blog has posted his monthly list of gun contests. It can be found here.

I count at least 7 AR-15s or AR uppers, a 1911 in .22LR with a suppressor, the new Springfield XD-S, a couple of Glocks, and the Colt Mustang Pocketlite. And that’s just a start.

If you take advantage of this, I’d suggest thanking Aaron for providing this excellent service.

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Editorial Stupidity

August 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot published an editorial today entitled “Don’t surrender to such violence”. While there were things I could agree with in it such as increased funding for mental health and substance abuse programs, there were some parts that just were beyond the pale. I certainly disagree with their support for the Southern Poverty Law Center which, to be frank, exists primarily to keep founder Morris Dees living in the style to which he has become accustomed.

However, the really egregious part of the editorial was this:

And we should be talking about how to shape gun-control measures to limit access to weapons and ammunition for people not sane enough or civil enough to possess them.

The intent of the Second Amendment has been interpreted historically as a right to self-protection. It has been proved, of late, to be a license to kill innocents – and as many as possible.

You have to wonder how they would react if this was applied to the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. There are plenty of journalists who’s sanity I’ve questioned and who are barely civil. The famous journalist H. L. Menchen comes to mind with regard to civility. Moreover, for many journalists, freedom of speech and of the press has become a license to publish stories with their own slant and, in all too many cases, knowingly based on lies.

I believe in all the Bill of Rights including the First Amendment. I just wish those in the media felt the same way towards the Second Amendment as I do towards the First Amendment.

H/T Josh Horwitz who approvingly pointed out this editorial.

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A Welcome Home The Way It Should Be

August 9, 2012 by 3 Comments

Jamie Gray won the Olympic Gold Medal in Women’s 3-Position Rifle and was welcomed home to Columbus, Georgia yesterday. The contrast to Jamie’s welcome home to the outrageous treatment afforded fellow shooter Corey Cogdell is remarkable.

Jamie is an assistant rifle coach for the rifle team at Columbus State University and they declared it Jamie Gray Day. The faculty welcomed her back with a standing ovation.

As an aside, it warms the heart to see a Pennsylvania native as a fellow Braves fan. During the interview with WRBL Channel 3’s anchor, she confessed to Chipper Jones being her favorite athlete and that she has always been a Braves fan despite the rest of her family being Phillies’ fans.

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Bloomberg Declines An Invitation

August 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is almost as big a media whore as the senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer. Given half a chance he’ll pontificate about salt and sugar and guns and breast milk ad nauseum.

That is why I agree with Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation and CCRKBA that it is strange that Bloomberg declined an invitation to speak at the 2012 Gun Rights Policy Conference. He would look brave for going before a group of gun rights activists and he’d get tons of publicity out of it. Moreover, while in Orlando, he could check on how his taxpayer paid MAIG regional coordinator is doing.

Alan sent out a notice about Bloomberg’s declining his invitation this afternoon.

BELLEVUE, WA – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been challenging President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to speak out about gun control, but Bloomberg declined a chance to do it himself at the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in September, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms noted.

According to CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, Bloomberg was invited to the 27th annual event, scheduled Sept. 28-30 in Orlando, Fla., but he turned it down.

“What does it say about someone who demands that others shill for his agenda, but when given the chance to take his fight to the gun rights community, he retreats,” Gottlieb wondered. “Mayor Bloomberg is always quick with his tongue in front of a friendly media audience, or in the confines of a broadcast studio, but when he has an opportunity to meet with people who have differing viewpoints about a fundamental civil right, he takes a powder.”

This will be the first time in its history that the GRPC is held in the Sunshine State. Among the anticipated speakers will be Mark O’Mara, defense attorney representing George Zimmerman, the man now charged in the death of Trayvon Martin. The announcement has stirred considerable media attention for the upcoming event.

“It seems odd for a guy like Michael Bloomberg, who rushes to every television news camera and microphone, to avoid what could be a major media event,” Gottlieb mused. “He’s been complaining about the ‘deafening silence’ from Romney and Obama, but when he is offered the chance to confront gun owners, whose rights he wants to see trampled, he voluntarily puts on a muzzle.

“Mayor Bloomberg has spent the past several months,” he said, “establishing himself as a Nanny State monarch, telling people give up their guns, to drink less soda, eat fewer fries and forego giving baby formula to newborns. He’s good at criticizing people he calls gun ‘nuts,’ but lately he seems a few cashews short of a full can, himself.

“Perhaps he’s worried that a trip to Orlando might end with a sunburn,” Gottlieb concluded. “From all indications, he’s had a little too much sun already.”

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SB249 Gets Even Worse

August 8, 2012 by 5 Comments

California State Sen. Leland Yee’s SB 249 has been through many iterations. As you may remember, the bill was introduced in response to a San Francisco TV station’s breathless report about “bullet buttons”. The bill originally banned all “bullet buttons” and then was changed to only ban the use of the MagLock. Now it has been amended again and would ban the possession of all bullet button and/or MagLocked firearms.

The CalGuns Foundations and CalFFL are fighting this tooth and nail. They sent out an update late last night which I’ve put below. It looks like all the major anti-gun politicians in California are piling on as co-sponsors of this terrible bill.

SAN CARLOS, CA, AND MADERA, CA – In an egregious and deliberate move to ban hundreds of thousands of legal firearms and harm law-abiding California gun owners, California Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has amended his bill SB 249 to make possession of all Bullet Button, or “maglocked”, firearms a criminal act as of July 1, 2013. Sen. Yee’s chief-of-staff, Adam Keigwin, has said that California should ban all guns, even bolt-action hunting rifles.

Joining Senator Yee in his effort to take away hundreds of millions of dollars of currently-legal guns are co-authors Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), Senator Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrence), Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), and Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles).

Explaining his support for the gun ban, Senator Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee that “no one will convince me it’s anything other than a joke to say that having multiple clips and semi-automatic weapons that can shoot 100 or more bullets at a time is necessary in this state or in this country. It’s ridiculous.”

Also on record as supporting SB 249, the Los Angeles Times reports Attorney General Kamala Harris as saying, “I applaud the Legislature’s interest in addressing this problem and support efforts to pass legislation needed to” [ban Bullet Button firearms].

SB 249, if it were to become law, would categorically ban all “maglocked” semi-automatic firearms that are in common use, such as those which use the Bullet Button device. SB 249 does not provide for any grandfathering of existing firearms nor does it have a method of compensating gun owners for the firearms the proposed law would require to be destroyed or removed from California. The net effect would be what is perhaps the single largest unconstitutional government taking in California history.

More, SB 249 would subject gun owners to criminal liability as of July 1, 2013, for the mere possession of firearms that Senator Yee and Attorney General Harris have both said are legal under current law. Ex post facto laws, such as SB 249 would create if passed, are expressly unconstitutional.

Interestingly, however, SB 249 would create a de facto requirement that gun owners , hunters, and competitors in California use only “featureless” firearms, such as AR and AK-style guns employing compliance parts like the Solar Tactical KYDEX Grip Wraps, MonsterMan Grips, or Exile Machine’s Hammerhead Grip, which not only allow for the lawful use of factory magazine releases but large-capacity magazines as well. California does not ban the possession of large-capacity magazines. Wes Morris, owner of Ten Percent Firearms, demonstrates this is an excellent YouTube video you can view at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhC8LpHPbRQ.

Senator Yee’s bill is currently before the Assembly Appropriations Committee and is expected to be heard on August 15, though it could be heard as soon as August 8. The bill must pass both the Assembly and the Senate by August 31.

The Calguns Foundation and Cal-FFL, through their pathbreaking grassroots initiative platform StopSB249.org, have created many free, easy-to-use tools for you to help combat this massive gun ban. Please forward this message to your friends, family, favorite gun dealers and manufacturers, and your social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Working together, we can Stop SB 249 – but we need you to TAKE ACTION NOW!

The SB 249 Fact Sheet is available for download at http://stopsb249.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sb249_fact_sheet1.pdf.

Donate to The Calguns Foundation and help Stop SB 249.

Stop SB 249’s Take Action page with many free tools to fight SB 249 can be found at http://stopsb249.org/take-action.

Crap like SB 249 is not only a California problem. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens in California doesn’t always stay in California. This is especially true when it comes to gun control initiatives such as microstamping which almost passed again in New York State and has been introduced in other states. It is all too easy to say “I live in a free state” or that California gun owners ought to just move.

It is best to think of SB 249 as a festering sore that could infect the rest of the body. It needs to be stopped and stopped hard before it spreads to impact all of us.

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There Are Media Experts And Then There Are Real Experts

August 8, 2012 by 4 Comments

In this world, there are experts and then there are those that the mainstream media considers an expert. Sometimes they are one and the same but that usually is not the case. When it comes to guns it most assuredly is not the case.

Gene McCune of Reuters considers this man an expert on firearms.

That is Josh Sugarmann. He is the executive director of the Violence Policy Center which is an advocacy group pushing for the prohibition of firearms. Mr. Sugarmann has two other claims to fame: he coined the misleading term “assault weapon” and held a FFL for “research purposes”.

In an article by McCune published in the Chicago Tribune, Sugarmann is referred to as a firearms expert.

Semiautomatic handguns are the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they are light and easy to conceal, and adaptable to using high-capacity magazines, experts say. This allows the shooter to fire the maximum number of bullets in a short period of time, said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group that advocates to reduce gun violence.

Josh Sugarmann, like Ladd Everitt of CSGV, is an expert – an expert in providing misleading quotes to clueless reporters.

The man below is a real firearms expert. He is the one that McCune should have interviewed but didn’t.

He is Massad Ayoob. Mas has written numerous books on firearms, self-defense, and law enforcement topics including the seminal In the Gravest Extreme. For over 30 years, he has been a  recognized expert witness in court cases involving shootings and firearms.

As to why Mr. McCune went to Josh Sugarmann for his “expert” advice is open to debate. That Sugarmann is by no means an expert on firearms really isn’t open to debate.

As a final aside, Dave Workman has an interesting take on Sugarmann’s comments in his Seattle Gun Rights Examiner column.

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And The Beat Goes On

August 7, 2012 by 4 Comments

The NSSF-adjusted NICS figures for July were released yesterday and the beat goes on. July 2012 marks the 26th straight month in which the NICs figures have increased over the same period in the previous year.

The July 2012 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 853,355 is an increase of 25.5 percent over the NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 680,258 in July 2011. For comparison, the unadjusted July 2012 NICS figure of 1,289,585 reflects an 12.4 percent increase from the unadjusted NICS figure of 1,147,355 in July 2011.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation adjusts the raw numbers to take out the uses of the NICS for CCW permit checks. States such as Kentucky, Iowa, and Michigan use the NICS system for the background check before they issue their concealed carry permits.

NSSF is always careful to note that there is not a perfect correlation between NICS figures and firearms sales. However, they do provide a useful indication of the direction of the market. In this case, as it has been for the past 26 months, the direction is up.

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Too Cool For An AR?

August 7, 2012 by 2 Comments

Richard Stengel, Princeton ’77 and Rhodes Scholar, is too cool for an AR. He also thinks you don’t need one either.

Stengel’s profile picture from Time Magazine

Stengel is the Managing Editor of Time Magazine and penned a blurb for the Aug. 6th issue entitled “Talking Common Sense About Guns”. In the blurb, Stengel said, “And gun owners know better than anyone else that an AR-15 has little or no sporting purpose.”

Even if one accepts – and I don’t – the ATF’s interpretation of the sporting purpose language of the Gun Control Act of 1968 which they use to say that 3-Gun competitions are not “sporting”, AR-15s in a variety of calibers are used to hunt everything from ground squirrels to whitetail deer and everything in between. Firearm manufacturers ranging from the venerable Remington to the newer Daniel Defense are now making ARs for the hunting market.

Stengel’s comment brought a swift reaction from Steve Sanetti of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Sanetti sent a letter which said, in part,

It never ceases to amaze recreational shooters and hunters when persons who wouldn’t touch a firearm on a bet presume to tell us that certain firearms “have no sporting purpose”…

People fear what they don’t know, and that’s perfectly understandable. But to presume to know what kind of equipment many millions of other law-abiding Americans use for legitimate recreational pursuits in the face of the facts is just wrong.

I don’t know whether Stengel’s comment comes from ignorance or willfulness but I do find him to be as arrogant and out of touch as the magazine he edits. Sorry Mr. Stengel, that is just not cool.