With all the talk in the media being on coronavirus, canceled events, and even season cancellations, I thought it would be appropriate to present something different. It’s a good way to start your weekend.
Outdoor writer and big game hunter Ron Spomer discusses one of the more unusual and interesting rifles that I’ve ever seen. It is the Hoenig round action double rifle. This example is in 9.3×62 which is quite popular in Europe.
The creator, George Hoenig, has retired from gunsmithing so if you want one of these beauties, it will come from the secondary market. According to what he said in the interview, the last ones he sold new went for $27,500.
That’s a bit rich for my blood but I can still appreciate his expertise and craftsmanship.
As an aside, I got to chat with Ron at the SHOT Show. What a nice guy!
The release from NRA President Carolyn Meadows stated:
With our 149th Annual Meeting scheduled for next month in Nashville, we realize many NRA members and meeting guests have questions about the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the potential impact on our convention.
We have been closely monitoring updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Tennessee Department of Health. In fact, earlier today, a state of emergency was declared in Tennessee.
Therefore, we have reluctantly decided to cancel this year’s NRA Annual Meeting, planned for April 16 – 19 in Nashville. This applies to all events and scheduled programs, including the NRA-ILA Forum. We sincerely regret the need for this action, particularly for our many loyal members who join us for this annual celebration of the NRA and our constitutional freedoms. Details regarding the NRA Member’s Meeting will be forthcoming.
Under the direction of NRA President Carolyn Meadows, the NRA Board of Directors is working with the Office of the Secretary in relation to board elections, meetings, and the like.
Please know that we did not reach this decision lightly. We were ultimately guided by our responsibility to help ensure the safety and well-being of our NRA members, guests, and surrounding community.
Please coordinate directly with any hotels, airlines or others who have assisted with your travel arrangements. Most companies have announced plans to accommodate travelers dealing with event cancellations.
Please visit www.nraam.org for additional news and information regarding NRA activities. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
The message that accompanied this release noted that the Annual Meeting of Members will be rescheduled.
To be honest, with the impact of the tornado on Nashville plus the uncertainty over COVID-19 it was inevitable that this was going to happen. If they didn’t do it and just one person got sick or died after contact with an infected person, there would have been hell to pay.
If you have made plane or hotel reservations, most, if not all, companies are allowing them to be canceled with no cancellation fees, etc.
Speaking of coronavirus, this would be a good time to read or re-read Grant Cunningham’s compilation of suggestions and advice on dealing with the pandemic. I do think many people are overreacting as evidenced by the run on toilet paper. An elderly friend today told me the local Walmart not only had a run on toilet paper but on his Pet Ice Cream.
If you have made plane or hotel reservations, most are allowing them to be canceled with no cancellation fees, etc.
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) today declared a state of emergency that covers all of North Carolina. It was declared in response to the spread of COVID-19 or the coronavirus. As of Monday, there have been seven confirmed cases of it with six of those in Wake County and the seventh in Chatham County. For non-North Carolinians, that is Raleigh and the Pittsboro/Siler City areas.
Governor Roy Cooper took the next step in the state’s coronavirus COVID-19 preparedness plan today and issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency. The declaration activates the Emergency Operations Center to help agencies coordinate from one location and makes it easier to purchase needed medical supplies, protect consumers from price gouging, and increase county health departments’ access to state funds…
Key provisions in the order are similar to those enacted in a natural disaster. The order will help with the cost burdens and supplies that may be difficult for providers and public health to access due to increased demand. It also increases the state public health department’s role in supporting local health departments, which have been tasked with monitoring quarantines, tracing exposure and administering testing.
Executive Order No. 116 in its entirety is found here.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane back to January 2010 when there was a heavy snow storm in the Piedmont of North Carolina. The City of King and Stokes County were particularly hard hit. In response, Gov. Beverly Perdue and both locales declared states of emergency. This automatically triggered then NC General Statute § 14-288.7(a) which provided, in part,:
“it is unlawful for any person to transport or possess off his own premises any dangerous weapon or substance in any area: (1) In which a declared state of emergency exists; or (2) Within the immediate vicinity of which a riot is occurring.”
The City of King went further and invoked their powers under NC General Statute § 14-288.12(b). This “forbade the sale or purchase of firearms and ammunition, as well as the possession of firearms and ammunition off an individual’s premises.” It also banned the sale of alcoholic beverages.
Thus, any time a state of emergency covering all of North Carolina or any time a city or county declared a state of emergency, § 14-288.7(a) kicked in and you could not carry a firearm outside your own home. There were no exceptions made for those of us who hold a Concealed Handgun Permit.
Fast forward a few months to June and the US Supreme Court handled down a monumental Second Amendment ruling. That was, of course, McDonald v. Chicago which applied the Second Amendment as an individual right to the states under the 14th Amendment. That was on the morning of June 28, 2010.
The problem here is that the emergency declaration statutes, are not narrowly tailored to serve the government’s interest in public safety. They do not target dangerous individuals or dangerous conduct. Nor do they seek to impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions by, for example, imposing a curfew to allow the exercise of Second Amendment rights during circumscribed times. Rather, the statutes here excessively intrude upon plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights by effectively banning them (and the public at large) from engaging in conduct that is at the very core of the Second Amendment at a time when the need for self-defense may be at its very greatest. See Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2799 (” [A] mericans understood the ‘right of self-preservation’ as permitting a citizen to ‘repe[l] force by force’ when ‘the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury. ‘ ” (quoting 1 Blackstone’s Commentaries 145-146, n.42 (1803) ) (second alteration in original)) . Consequently, the emergency declaration laws are invalid as applied to plaintiffs.
Thanks to Alan Gura, the Second Amendment Foundation, and Grass Roots North Carolina just because seven people have COVID-19 and the governor has declared a state of emergency you can no longer be disarmed. We owe them and the individual plaintiffs a debt of gratitude.
I helped manage the Grass Roots North Carolina booth at the Asheville Gun Show yesterday. I wasn’t there the whole day but here are some quick takes on it.
The fear of coronavirus did not stop people from attending. The crowds seemed to be every bit as big as from the January show. As I noted then, we hadn’t seen crowds like this since 2014.
I did notice booths selling MREs, Mountain House freeze-dry packs, and other emergency foods. No toilet paper sellers that I noticed.
Insofar as people wearing face masks, I only saw two older gentlemen wearing N95 masks.
There were a lot of MAGA red hats in evidence. Then there was the guy wearing the t-shirt saying, “Only Trump Can Prevent Socialism”. It was similar to this one. The difference was that it replaced “you” with “Trump” and had the bear pointing.
The guy wearing the shirt commented that the gun show was probably the only place he could wear it without being hassled. Given the progressive/liberal/radical proclivities of Asheville, I fear he was correct.
Russia’s Education Ministry has released methodological guidelines for schoolteachers to use on November 10, the 100th anniversary of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s birth. The guidelines call for a nationwide lesson on the inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, arguing that such a class will foster patriotism, help schoolchildren form a Russian identity, allow them to understand the value of defending their fatherland, and facilitate interest in military service down the line.
Imagine if American schools – other than places like Trinidad Junior College or Montgomery Community College – had similar programs like that commemorating the contributions of John Moses Browning, John C. Garand, or Eugene Stoner to the American military and American history.
Mike Bloomberg ended his quest for the Democrat presidential nomination yesterday. He found that his “Super Tuesday Strategy” didn’t work and that his ubiquitous ads were not enough to convince primary voters to support him.
As it was, Bloomberg only won American Samoa. The big winner on Tuesday was “Slow Joe” Biden followed closely by Bernie Sanders. Between them, they split the majority of the delegates up for grabs.
Perhaps the best comment on Bloomberg’s huge expenditures for his campaign came from Kyle Kashuv on Twitter.
Trump got Bloomberg to infuse 700 million into the economy..
Bloomberg has now endorsed Joe Biden. I think it will be reasonable to expect to see Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC plus the Everytown Action Fund spending heavily in support of Biden and other Democrats throughout the rest of the election cycle.
The bottom line is that Bloomberg and his money will continue to remain a threat to our freedoms and our rights.
So to end, here is a little Beatles to brighten up your Thursday.
Justice Neil Gorsuch agreed with the decision to deny certiorari in the case given it had not been fully briefed and argued on the merits. He did think the Court of Appeals made an error in relying on Chevron deference in this case because it involves a criminal penalty. He also noted that both the plaintiffs and the government had expressly argued that any decision should not rely on Chevron deference.
Gorsuch referred to the BATFE’s actions on reclassifying bump stocks as “bureaucratic pirouetting”.
Chevron’s application in this case may be doubtful for other reasons too. The agency used to tell everyone that bump stocks don’t qualify as “machineguns.” Now it says the opposite. The law hasn’t changed, only an agency’s interpretation of it. And these days it sometimes seems agencies change their statutory interpretations almost as often as elections change administrations. How, in all this, can ordinary citizens be expected to keep up—required not only to conform their conduct to the fairest reading of the law they might expect from a neutral judge, but forced to guess whether the statute will be declared ambiguous; to guess again whether the agency’s initial interpretation of the law will be declared “reasonable”; and to guess again whether a later and opposing agency interpretation will also be held “reasonable”? And why should courts, charged with the independent and neutral interpretation of the laws Congress has enacted, defer to such bureaucratic pirouetting?
If I had to hazard a guess, when this or one of the sister cases involving the reinterpretation of the NFA to ban bump stocks does come before the Supreme Court fully briefed on the merits, Gorsuch will most definitely be in favor of hearing the case. Moreover, I would go further and say he would not find in favor of BATFE.
Thanks to court-ordered redistricting, I will now be back in the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina starting with this election. I was looking forward to having Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC-11) as my congressman again. Unfortunately, he decided to retire and that set off a free-for-all, both Republican and Democrat, to succeed him.
We have been inundated with mailers, TV ads, and robocalls. You can’t drive past any corner without seeing a number of yard signs. The common theme in all the ads for the Republicans is that they are rock ribbed conservatives who are pro-gun and need to be sent to DC to fight for President Trump and his agenda.
The majority of the TV ads are for Republicans Chuck Archerd, Jim Davis, Dan Driscoll, and Lynda Bennett. It seems negative ads and mailers have been aimed specifically at Lynda Bennett accusing her of being a “never Trumper”.
When I started hearing some of the anti-Bennett ads, I started to pay attention to who sponsored them. They were coming from a super-PAC called Fix Congress Now. They accused her of being “a Never Trumper” which I found odd given her endorsement by Meadows. At the same time, this same group has been funding pro-Dan Driscoll ads.
First off, we have a group that claims to be ‘non partisan’ but is pushing more leftist pablum than Bernie Sanders ordering a nonfat latte. Stuff like open primaries, vote by mail, and “unity” candidates. You know those candidates who would sell out your Second Amendment rights in a heartbeat.
Seems like they wanted to besmirch liberty advocate Lynda Bennett in the primary for the 11th District with the proven false ‘NeverTrumper’ smear. The mailing against Bennett was from ‘Fix Congress Now’ connected to Jeffrey Carson of ‘Unite America’ from Colorado, of all places, so much for the hometown touch. They even share the same suite of offices in Denver.
Federal Election Commission records show that Fix Congress Now has gotten 100% of their funding from Colorado-based Unite America. Moreover, Fix Congress Now has spent a combined $424,000 as of this week to either oppose Lynda Bennett or to support Dan Driscoll.
Unite America has Everytown-endorsed former Congressman Carlos Curbelo of Florida and “independent” Greg Orman of Kansas as advisors. Orman, running on an anti-constitutional carry platform, sabotaged pro-gun Kris Kobach in the race for governor of Kansas allowing an anti-gun Democrat to win that red state.
Just Wednesday, Dan Driscoll even received a $5,600 maximum contribution directly from Unite America.
You have to ask yourself why would, Fix Congress Now and Unite America spend so much money to defeat a candidate endorsed by Congressman Mark Meadows. And why would they support a guy who only moved to the 11th District in the last month or so? Did they see in Driscoll a RINO who would say anything to get elected and who would support their leftist agenda?
Lynda Bennett has promised to replace Mark Meadows in the Freedom Caucus.
We should note that the only reason centrist Republicans in Colorado would spend $277,000 against a member of their own party would be to break up the Freedom Caucus by electing a more controllable Moderate, specifically Dan Driscoll.
Given super PAC Fix Congress Now has received 100% of their funding from Unite America, it is interesting to see what is their agenda. They list their goals as:
Independent Redistricting
Open Primaries
Ranked Choice Voting
Vote By Mail
“Unity” Candidates
This list of goals is not something any conservative candidate would support. Independent redistricting has been shown to favor Democrats as been shown by the California experience. Open primaries allow one side or the other to nominate the weakest candidate for the preferred candidate to face. Ranked choice voting is why Maine has two Democrats in Congress instead of a Democrat and a Republican. Vote by mail is just asking for fraud. Finally, unity candidates are rarely, if ever, pro-2A when push comes to shove.
Coming back to the race in the 11th District, I find it the height of hypocrisy for Fix Congress Now/Unite America to castigate Bennett as anti-Trump and then push their preferred candidate Dan Driscoll as being pro-Trump. While Driscoll might actually be pro-Trump, that would tend to go against everything Fix Congress Now/Unite America has stood for since their founding.
Tuesday we will find out if people in North Carolina and California were swayed by their fallacious advertising. I hope now. I wasn’t.
It seems I was not the only one to have issues with AK magazines fitting my AK47/74s.
Switchpod did a review of what fit and didn’t fit his Palmetto State Armory GF3 AK-47 pistol. It looks like he had similar issues to what I was having to deal with.
I saw that PSA pistol at the SHOT Show and kind of fell in love with it. The GF3 AK-P pistol with the triangular folding stock is almost a clone of the AKU-74 except that it isn’t in 5.45×39 and it isn’t a NFA short barrel rifle. It probably is as close to a Krinkov as I’ll ever get without jumping through all the hoops.
While looking at that video, I came across one from Ian of Forgotten Weapons in which he discusses the history of the Russian AK47, AKM, and AK74 magazines in all their glory.
The NRA Annual Meeting will be here before we know it. I made hotel reservations for the Complementary Spouse and myself a week ago. We’ll be out near the Nashville International Airport. This means a little bit of a drive in on I-40 but it shouldn’t be too bad. We are staying over until Monday so as to attend the Board of Directors meeting which will be a first for me.
It turns out we will be staying near a contingent of my Minnesota friends who have an Airbnb rental. I last some of them at a wedding in Las Vegas during the SHOT Show officiated by the Rev. Elvis Presley (or a facsimile thereof). This should be fun.
With all the fears of coronavirus, you do have to wonder if it will have an impact on the meeting and show. Given my experience coming home from the SHOT Show, it makes me quite glad that I’ll be driving.
Speaking of coronavirus, wash your hands! My friend Grant Gallagher from the Polite Society Podcast is a PhD immunologist and sent us this article on the persistence of coronavirus on “inanimate surfaces”. I can’t begin to understand most of the science. However, thanks to Grant’s translation from science-speak, it means that your average antibacterial soap won’t be that effective but alcohol based hand sanitizers like Purel and the like will be.
Grant calls this the key line in the abstract:
The analysis of 22 studies reveals that human coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus or endemic human coronaviruses (HCoV) can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to NINE DAYS.
Returning to a discussion of the NRA Annual Meeting, ballots for the Board of Directors election must be received by March 29th. That is a fraction more than a month away. As always, any NRA member is eligible to vote for the 76th Director if they are attending the NRA Annual Meeting. It has to be done in person.
You can review my recommendations for the Board election here. To reiterate, I only voted for Frank Tait and Graham Hill. You could vote for up to 31 candidates but why would you.
The bottom line is you need to vote if you are an eligible member. Too few people vote in these elections and you know the result by now. The average local election for dog catcher and coroner has a higher turnout than the NRA board election. That is a shame!
If you are headed to Nashville in April, I hope to see you there.
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