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Anti-gun Activism, Arson, Or Both? (Updated with GoFundMe link)

April 8, 2018 by 2 Comments

This past Monday a shooting range in Trinity, North Carolina was hit with arson. The Triad Active Shooters Klub – TASK – had their shooting benches and  three out of five shooting line shelters destroyed by fire. Randolph County Fire Marshal Erik Beard says the fire was intentionally set.

You can see more pictures of the destruction here. There is a $5,000 reward being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. Please contact the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department at (336) 318-6699 if you have any information.

Monty Mendenhall of the club had this to say about the fire:

There was arson at the TASK early Monday morning range. Three of the five covered firing points were completely destroyed. The remaining two had five one-gallon plastic containers of gasoline placed strategically next to the wooden posts that support the roof and under the piled up shooting benches. Two covered firing lines were not burned because the fuses to the gas failed.

We believe that more than one arsonist was involved, maybe several. This belief is because, at a minimum, twenty five individual containers of gasoline were used. We found five at each of the unburned structures and assume that there were at least that many at each of the other three. It would take quite a while for one person to remove 25 one-gallon containers from a vehicle and set them out out beside the posts and under the shooting benches. Moreover, our shooting benches are too heavy for one man to lift. Two men can move one but it would require three or four to stack one upon another.

The TASK members have been great about this Daniel. The BODs and volunteers have already cleaned up the debris and stacked all of the burned tin roof panels. The metal will be taken to a salvage yard and the wood will be placed in a safe place and burned. The ground was swept with a magnetic broom and approximately two gallons of nails and screws were recovered for disposal.

All five firing lines are open now but the burned ones lack everything except the concrete floor.

The contractor who built all of the structures has surveyed the scene and he is working with us. In addition to the cost of reconstructing the covered firing lines, we are looking at an unknown cost for a video/motion-detecting security system.

Six years were required to build the structures and to clear the new 100 yard range. We did it one step at a time as our dues came in. The club lacks enough funds to pay for all of the reconstruction at this moment but construction will begin anyway on a pay-as-you-go basis. We will not allow a group of anti-Second Amendment NAZIs stop us from peaceably assembling to enjoy ours Second Amendment rights.

Any financial help that can be provided will be appreciated. Even if none is though, TASK will rebuild. It will just take a little longer.

If and when a GoFundMe or similar page is set up, I’ll post an update.

UPDATE: A GoFundMe page has been set up. They are seeking to raise $3000. Just to be clear, the donation will not be tax deductible as TASK is a 501(c)(7) organization.

UPDATE II: If would prefer to send a check rather than go through GoFundMe, the address is:

TASK
PO Box 404
Trinity, NC 27370

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Just In Case You Haven’t Seen This

April 6, 2018 by

Mayor Nancy Vaughn of Greensboro, NC announced after the Parkland murders that she would seek to end the Greensboro Gun and Knife Show held semi-annually at the Greensboro Coliseum. The Greensboro City Council was in agreement. The only problem is that they didn’t have the authority to do that.

So they invited citizens to make their voices heard – assuming it would be anti-gun – during the public comment period on the April 3rd meeting. I think they heard more than they expected but not exactly what they wanted. You can see the full hour plus long video of the meeting here.

Andy Stevens of Grass Roots North Carolina spoke. Just as importantly so did Mark Robinson. What the latter had to say has gone viral. You can see both of their comments below.

Mr. Robinson’s comments begin at about the 4:40 mark. His comments have been aired on Fox News, Facebook, and the list goes on. The number of views from various sources now totals in the millions.

Share this video with your friends. Everyone needs to see it.

UPDATE: A.P. Dillon at LadyLiberty1885 blog has more on the Greensboro City Council meeting including video of a couple of the March for Our Lives kids. Dillon notes that they repeated many false claims.

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Deerfield Sued Over Gun Ban By ISRA And SAF

April 5, 2018 by 4 Comments

The Village of Deerfield, Illinois passed an ordinance on Monday, April 2nd, that would ban “assault weapons” (sic) and standard capacity magazines. The ordinance contains a $1,000 a day fine for each day the items remain within the limits of the village. According to the ordinance posted on the village’s website, it becomes effective immediately but gives residents 60 days to remove the firearms and magazines.

As reported by CBS News:

The ordinance states, “The possession, manufacture and sale of assault weapons in the Village of Deerfield is not reasonably necessary to protect an individual’s right of self-defense or the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.”


So, beginning June 13, banned assault weapons in Deerfield will include semiautomatic rifles with a fixed magazine and a capacity to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, shotguns with revolving cylinders, and conversion kits from which assault weapons can be assembled. And those are just a few of the firearm varieties banned. The list is long and includes all the following models or duplicates thereof: AK, AKM, AKS, AK-47, AK-74, ARM, MAK90, Misr, NHM 90, NHM 91, SA 85, SA 93, VEPR, AR-10, AR-15, Bushmaster XM15, Armalite M15, Olympic Arms PCR, AR70, Calico Liberty, Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle, Dragunov SVU, Fabrique NationalFN/FAL, FN/LAR, FNC, Hi-Point Carbine, HK-91, Kel-Tec Sub Rifle, SAR-8, Sturm, Ruger Mini-14, and more.

You will note that the Ruger Mini-14 is included in the ban. Many other earlier bans specifically excluded it.

In response, the Illinois State Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation have filed suit against the Village of Deerfield in state court. According to their email alert:

The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) have filed a lawsuit against the Village of Deerfield this morning, April 5, 2018. This legal action is a challenge to the Defendant’s Ordinance O-18-06, passed on April 2, 2018, which bans assault weapons (used specifically as that term is defined in O-18-06) within the Defendant’s municipal limits.

The suit was filed In the Circuit Court of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Lake County, Illinois, Chancery Division.

If you want to donate to the ISRA Legal Assistance Committee, you can donate here. ISRA’s LAC is a 501(c)(3) so it would be tax deductible.

I will have more up on the suit once I can get a copy of the complaint.

UPDATE: Below is the release from the Second Amendment Foundation on the lawsuit, Easterday et al v. Deerfield.

BELLEVUE, Wash., April 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a lawsuit against the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois seeking an injunction against enforcement of the ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines” adopted by the Village Board of Trustees earlier this week.

Joining SAF in the legal challenge is the Illinois State Rifle Association and a private citizen, Daniel Easterday, who resides in the village and is a gun owner. The lawsuit was filed in the 19th Judicial Circuit Court in Lake County. Plaintiffs are represented by Glen Ellyn attorney David Sigale.

The lawsuit challenges the village ban under a 2013 amended state statute that declared “the regulation of the possession or ownership of assault weapons are exclusive powers and functions of this State. Any ordinance or regulation, or portion of that ordinance or regulation, that purports to regulate the possession or ownership of assault weapons in a manner that is inconsistent with this Act, shall be invalid…”

“We moved swiftly to challenge this gun ban because it flies in the face of state law,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “While the village is trying to disguise this as an amendment to an existing ordinance, it is, in fact, a new law that entirely bans possession of legally-owned semi-auto firearms, with no exception for guns previously owned, or any provision for self-defense.

“The new ordinance also provides for confiscation and destruction of such firearms and their original capacity magazines,” he added. “What is particularly outrageous about this new law is that it levies fines of up to $1,000 a day against anyone who refuses to turn in their gun and magazines or move them out of the village by the time the ordinance takes effect in June. This certainly puts the lie to claims by anti-gunners that ‘nobody is coming to take your guns.'”

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Comment Period Opens On Proposed Bump Stock Ban

April 2, 2018 by

Adam Kraut gives a good thumbnail overview of how to respond to the BATFE proposed rulemaking in the video below. He suggests taking a shotgun approach as the more objections you can raise, the more the BATFE has to work to respond to them. Moreover, if it isn’t brought up now, it can’t be brought up in court later.

Here is the document released by the lawyers of the Department of Justice with their legal rationale (or bullshit, to be more honest about it) saying why they can now define bump fire stocks as machine guns. It is important to note that if this rule is enacted then all existing bump fire stocks become contraband unregistered machine guns and must be destroyed or turned into BATFE. Why? That little amendment to FOPA 1986 called the Hughes Amendment comes into play as bump fire stocks were developed, manufactured, and sold after 1986.

Here is the correct link to the comments page.

I say correct link because www.regulations.gov has two links to the proposed regulations. One is the correct link and the other says comments are closed. Remember, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence or stupidity.

So scan through the DOJ document to find areas on which to make comments. There is nothing to say you can’t make multiple comments on different things. The comment period closes on June 27, 2018 at 11:59pm. So do it now while it is still fresh in your mind.

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Green Mountain Airdrop

April 2, 2018 by 1 Comment

Now that the Vermont House and Senate have approved sweeping gun control legislation, Gov. Phil Scott (RINO-VT) has promised to sign it. While Scott said he was pro-Second Amendment, he is showing no hesitation in signing restrictions on magazine size, banning bump stocks, and raising the purchase age for a firearm to 21.

From the Burlington Free Press:

Scott acknowledged that many Vermonters would be disappointed by the vote and by his support for provisions that he opposed as recently as two months ago.


“I share it. I know why they are disappointed,” Scott said. “But I think at the end of the day, they’ll soon learn that what we have proposed, what’s being passed at this time, doesn’t intrude upon the Second Amendment. It doesn’t take away guns, and I believe that we will get accustomed to the new normal, which is trying to address this underlying violence that we are seeing across the nation.”

Most provisions of the law will go into effect when the Gov. Scott signs the bills into law. This includes the provisions relating to bump stocks and standard capacity magazines. Given that Vermont had been the first state to have constitutional carry and had a good record on protecting gun rights, this is exceedingly disappointing to say the least.

In response to this abridgment of the freedoms of residents of the Green Mountain State, Recoil Magazine in conjunction with Magpul organized the Green Mountain Airdrop. Similar to what they did in Colorado, Magpul provided 1,200 standard capacity magazines to be given away to gun owners in Vermont.

These magazines were distributed on the steps of the State Capitol in Montpelier on Saturday afternoon. Rob Curtis, Executive Editor of Recoil, was on hand to hand out these magazines. As you can see from the Instagram photo below, there was quite a number of people that showed up.

While the gun prohibitionists have not given up on passing legislation in Washington, I think it is safe to say that they have shifted their major focus to the states. It takes less money to make an impact on a state and that is especially true in a small state like Vermont. Moreover, as Tom Gresham noted a couple of weeks ago, Everytown and the other gun prohibitionist organizations have been building a corps of lobbyists and community organizers in the states. By contrast, your average NRA-ILA state representative will cover 3 or more states. In North Carolina, I counted 2 lobbyists for Everytown, 2 for NCAGV, and 1 for Giffords. The NRA has 2.

I think it is imperative that everyone belong to a state level gun rights organization. I will be working on making a directory of state level gun rights groups so that you can help in your state. As for me, I belong to Grass Roots North Carolina. While the NC Rifle and Pistol Club is the NRA affiliate, the heavy lifting in NC is done by GRNC.

The actions of the Vermont Legislature and the duplicitous actions of Gov. Scott are a blow and they hurt. However, I remember something that Gene Hoffman, Chairman of the Calguns Foundation, said at a Gun Rights Policy Conference. Speaking of California, he noted that they had lost their gun rights over a period of 40 years and that they would not be won back quickly. The fight to preserve our gun rights is the long war and we need to remember that.

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Hemispheric Distortions In Long Distance Shooting

April 1, 2018 by

Ryan Cleckner is an attorney. He is also a former sniper who served with the Army Rangers. He has made a series of videos for NSSF and has written an excellent book on long range shooting. In his latest video he explains the impact on hemispheric distortions on shooting. If you are planning a safari to southern Africa – Namibia, Zimbabwe, or South Africa – you should really pay attention.

You should also pay attention to what day it is and I don’t mean Easter.

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There Oughta Be A Law

March 28, 2018 by 4 Comments

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The realists among us realize that no new law and no new prohibition will ever stop the evil, the criminal, and/or the deranged from perpetrating evil, criminal, or deranged acts. Laws only impact the law-abiding among us. Moreover, if you enact enough laws and criminalize enough things, we all become law breakers. Harvey Silverglate covered this in his book Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. Likewise, the Instapundit, Prof. Glenn Reynolds, wrote a paper on this called Ham Sandwich Nation which plays off the remark by Judge Sol Wachter that a grand jury could be convinced to indict a ham sandwich.

Examining this in the context of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, we have seen innumerable calls for new gun control laws along with calls for destruction and confiscation of certain firearms. I wrote yesterday about the introduction of a bill by Sen. Richard “I served in Vietnam (not!) Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) that would close the so-called ammo loophole. None of these proposed laws will or would have stopped a determined person intent on harming school children or anyone else. One need merely look to the recent spate of bombings in Austin wherein an individual using readily available ingredients and information gleaned from the Internet killed and maimed a number of people. Homemade explosive devices are already illegal as is murder.

Science fiction novelist and commentator Sarah Hoyt penned a very interesting piece on PJ Media yesterday entitled Of Laws And Men. She examined this whole notion that a new law will actually change behavior. It is part of the whole fanatical belief in a society organized by the numbers from the top-down. She points out that this is the way that society was organized in Communist countries but yet you still had black markets as people needed to survive.

Looking at all the new laws being proposed post-Parkland, she concluded:

They’re by and large decent people – the followers, not the leaders – who really want everyone to live in harmony, and since they wouldn’t dream of breaking laws, then it must be a matter of finding the right law to fix everything.

Only the world is not full of people who are terrified of breaking laws, and all their piling on of laws against gun owners does is leave the law-abiding defenseless before the lawless.

To have these people learn the error of their ways in a practical fashion will only destroy the world for the rest of us. And besides, judging from Europe, they’ll never learn. They’ll just refuse to admit their plan failed and pile on more laws and more regulatory bodies, till someone’s whole job is regulating the curvature of a banana. (You only wish that were euphemistic.)

So we need to educate them. We need to educate them better when they’re younger. We need to teach them history and psychology. Not the stuff edited by their own luminaries, who are as blinkered as they are, but real history and real psychology. And we need to teach them how humans are now and have always been lawless animals. We can’t be tamed, we can’t be domesticated, and even in the most oppressive regimes devised there will never be enough to make everyone obey. There are dissidents even in places where dissidence costs you your life. There are black markets where the regimes punish them and spend most of their time suppressing them. Because when the alternative is death, humans are really good at breaking the law.

So all laws passed, everywhere affect only the law-abiding. And even the law-abiding stop being so when life is at stake.

The answer to “Your gun is now illegal” is always, in practicality “Says you and whose army?” and “Come and get it!”

She’s right. We need to educate them. I suggest it would be five minutes of your time well spent to read her entire essay.

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SAAMI Approves .224 Valkyrie Specs

March 28, 2018 by 1 Comment

Vista Outdoor announced yesterday that their Federal Premium developed .224 Valkyrie cartridge specifications had been approved by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturer’s Institute aka SAAMI. Standardization of both the cartridge and chamber specifications certainly will help push greater adoption of this new cartridge.

From Vista Outdoor’s release:

Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute Publishes Approved 224 Valkyrie Cartridge Specifications
ANOKA, Minnesota – March 27, 2018 –
The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) voted
to approve the Federal Premium
224 Valkyrie as an official new cartridge during their committee
meeting at the 2018 SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this past January.
224 Valkyrie’s SAAMI standards documents are now published and available
to the industry as a whole, as well as to the public.
“It’s
thrilling to have brought the world’s best MSR 15 cartridge to market.
We’re proud and excited about our new cartridge, and we deeply
appreciate SAAMI’s support with this launch,” said
Federal Premium Ammunition President Jason Vanderbrink. “SAAMI’s
approval of the cartridge was a crucial step in
legitimizing it within the industry. Their work creates standards
for the cartridge, increasing safety, interchangeability, reliability
and quality for the dozens of firearm manufacturers currently building
rifles in our 224 Valkyrie.”
SAAMI
allows free access to technical data and drawings for the cartridge and
chamber designs, which are posted in the Information and Specifications
section of the organization’s website. All
cartridge and chamber drawing documents are contained within the
ANSI/SAAMI Standards and can be found on
www.saami.org. The New SAAMI Cartridge Cartridge/Chamber Designs and Revisions for 224 Valkyrie can be viewed here:
http://www.saami.org/PDF/224-Valkyrie-Introduction.pdf.
SAAMI
was founded in 1926 at the request of the federal government and tasked
with creating and publishing industry standards for safety,
interchangeability, reliability and quality, as well
as coordinating technical data. SAAMI’s Technical Committee, which
consists of firearm and ammunition industry experts, reviewed the 224
Valkyrie submission over a period of about six months. The official
cartridge name, maximum cartridge and minimum chamber
dimensions, pressure limits, test equipment, and other characteristics
are all considered and scrutinized during the process. 
Federal
Premium’s 224 Valkyrie is based on a 6.8 SPC case necked down to 22
caliber. It offers dramatically improved trajectories over all other MSR
15 cartridges, including the 22 Nosler, 223
Rem. and 6.5 Grendel—with roughly half the recoil of larger cartridges
offering comparable ballistics, such as the 6.5 Creedmoor. Shooters can
expect best-in-class ballistics, supersonic flight past 1,300 yards and
extreme long-range accuracy from this exciting
new cartridge.
The
224 Valkyrie is initially available in four loads: 90-grain Gold Medal
Sierra MatchKing, 60-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip Varmint, 90-grain Fusion
MSR and 75-grain American Eagle TMJ. These
proven Federal Premium offerings provide options for long-range
competitors, target shooters and hunters pursuing game from varmints up
to deer-sized animals.
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Loophole Here, Loophole There, Everything’s A Freaking Loophole

March 27, 2018 by 6 Comments

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When dealing with the enemies of freedom everything they don’t approve of is a loophole.

Internet loophole? Check.

Gun show loophole? Check.

Background check loophole? Check.

Sen. Richard “I served in Vietnam (not!)” Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) have come up with a new loophole that MUST be closed. That is the ammunition sale loophole. To that end, they have introduced the Ammunition Background Check Act (S.2627 / HR 5383) The bill would require instant background checks for the purchase of ammunition.

Excerpts from their joint press release:

“Ammunition sales should be subject to the same legal requirements as firearm sales, and that includes instant background checks. The same laws that prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing firearms also prohibit them from amassing arsenals of ammunition, with one major loophole: there are no background checks for ammunition sales to enforce the law. Closing this ludicrous loophole is a common sense component of a comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence,” said Blumenthal.


“This common-sense legislation simply enforces existing federal law, and will make it harder for criminals to amass hundreds of rounds of ammunition without so much as sharing their first name with a gun store clerk,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Closing this absurd loophole will not by itself stop the next mass shooting tragedy. But this popular approach must be part of our larger strategy for ending gun violence. Studies show it can help keep ‘bad guys with guns’ from perpetrating another mass slaughter like the one we witnessed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in my Broward County community, or the thousands of other acts of gun violence that devastate communities across the country. It takes more than just a gun to take an innocent life. It also takes bullets. We need to do all we can to make sure neither of them ends up in the wrong hands.”

There are enough gun control buzzwords in those two paragraphs that you would be an automatic winner in buzzword bingo!

While the bill text is not yet available, their release indicates that the purchase of ammo would be through a FFL who would be required to do a NICS check or, if the seller was not licensed, then the seller would have to have a FFL conduct the NICS check. Since I don’t have the bill text yet, there is no word whether or not components would be require background checks.

If components are not regulated (and they should not be), then the enemies of freedom will have multiple new loopholes to rail about: the smokeless powder loophole, the brass loophole, the primer loophole, etc., etc.

For those not old enough to remember, after the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 all ammunition sales including .22 rimfire ammo were required to be logged into a bound book. The requirement for .22 rimfire ammo sale logging was repealed in 1982. Finally, the Firearms Owner Protection Act of 1986 finally repealed the requirement that ammo sales be logged in a bound book. The repeal of that requirement was supported by the ATF as they said it had little law enforcement value. While Bluementhal and Wasserman-Schultz quote a number of academics in support of their bill, they don’t quote anyone in law enforcement which is telling.

This is a ridiculous bill brought by two ridiculous legislators. It should be relegated to the scrapheap of history just like they should.

H/T  The Captain’s Journal

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Lyman Issues Voluntary Recall On Black Powder Rifles And Pistols

March 27, 2018 by 2 Comments

This safety notice arrived in my mailbox this morning and I thought it wise to pass it on. It concerns the potential for separation of the breech plug on Lyman black powder firearms.

From Lyman:

Lyman® Products Voluntarily Issues Recall on Black Powder Rifles and Pistols
The discovery of a potential for separation in the breech plug has spurred the recall program.

Middletown, Conn. (March 2018) – Lyman® Products
has voluntarily announced a product safety warning and recall notice on
their black powder rifles and pistols due to the potential of
separation in the breech plug. Lyman maintains a safety-first approach,
so despite finding only a few firearms affected and no reported
injuries, Lyman is offering a recall program to have the issue corrected. Lyman regrets the inconvenience but remains committed to the safety of their customers.
The
recall includes black powder rifles and pistols regardless of caliber
including the following brands manufactured between March 1, 2017 to
Dec. 22, 2017. Barrels with the serial number in the range of A595960 –
A599025 are subject to this recall:
  • Deerstalker
  • Great Plains
  • Great Plains Hunter
  • Trade Rifle
  • Plains Pistol
  • Black Powder Kits and replacement barrels
This
recall excludes Percussion Left-Hand Great Plains and Left-Hand Great
Plains Hunter models. If a customer finds his/her product falls within
the recall range, a customer service representative is standing by
Monday through Friday from 9 am to 4:15 pm EST at 800-225-9626. Upon
receipt of the serial number, and either the part number or model, Lyman
will provide further instructions and packaging to ship the product to
Lyman for replacement at NO COST to the customer. Lyman will provide a
replacement barrel and tang with instructions or will replace the barrel
and tang at Lyman and return the firearm. Please follow all Lyman
recall instructions to ensure timely processing and return.
Visit Lyman at https://www.lymanproducts.com/recall/ for more information on the Black Powder Rifles and Pistols Recall program.