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About Those CMP 1911s

December 8, 2015 by 4 Comments

The Firearm Blog has done some excellent work on estimating the potential prices for the 10,000 Army-surplus 1911s that will be sold be the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Steve estimates that the price will probably be about 30% less than the going retail rate for a WWII milsurp 1911. He comes up with that figure by looking at the going rate for a M1 Garand from the CMP and the prices you will find on sites like Gunbroker.com. You can read his analysis here.

The Firearm Blog TV has produced a good little video explaining how it will all work.

One of the must-do things if you want to purchase any firearm or ammunition from the CMP is membership in an affiliated club. They have a search page to find a club in your area.

But what do you do if there are no clubs nearby or the club in your area is so stuck in a 1950s mindset that it just isn’t worth the injury from banging your head into the wall over their stupid rules? There are alternatives. For example, if you are a member of the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation, then you belong to an affiliated organization. Likewise if you joined the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) so as to support their litigation in Chicago, you are a member of an affiliated organization.

Another alternative is the Garand Collectors Association. A membership there costs $25, qualifies you to buy from the CMP, and gets you a very nice quarterly journal with all things M1 Garand. Moreover, they have a close relationship with the CMP and they send membership rolls to the CMP on a regular basis. This is the direction that I plan to head.

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“From Infamy To Victory”

December 8, 2015 by

This video which is part of the NRA’s Frontline Series does an excellent job in showing how the United States went from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the signing of the surrender in Tokyo Bay. It is hosted by Ollie North.

Particularly poignant is the interview with Jiro Yakimura. Mr. Yakimura was a Nisei. That is, Mr. Yakimura was a natural born US citizen whose parents had immigrated from Japan. When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Mr. Yakimura was a college student in Hawaii and was a member of ROTC. In the days that followed, he and his fellow ROTC students were given a 1903 Springfield and sent to guard various spots on Oahu. Then, due to his Japanese ancestry, his services to his country were no longer needed. The story has a somewhat happy ending as Mr. Yakimura was finally able to serve his country as an officer in Army Intelligence in the Pacific.

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A Day That Will Live In Infamy – 74th Anniversary

December 7, 2015 by 2 Comments

74 years ago today, on December 7th, 1941, fighters and bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US Pacific Fleet in their home port of Pearl Harbor at 7:55am local time. IJN fighters and bombers also attacked US Army Air Force installations at Hickham, Wheeler, Bellows, and other air fields destroying most of the aircraft on the ground.

Most of the veterans on both sides have now passed away due to age. The National Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, in fact, disbanded at the end of 2011 due to the advanced age of the remaining survivors.

One of the few live broadcasts of the attack was from KGU Radio in Honolulu.

A list of the ships of the Pacific Fleet in port on December 7th can be found here along with the damage suffered. As bad as the attack was, most of the battleships went on to fight again later in the war.

The battle for Wake Island began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The IJN and the Japanese Imperial Army launched widespread attacks beginning December 8th on the British in Malaya , the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Americans and Filipinos in the Philipines and Guam.

One immediate impact of the attack was that the industrial base of the United States shifted from a peacetime to a wartime footing. The propaganda poster below was meant to urge workers on.

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Quote Of The Day

December 6, 2015 by 1 Comment

The quote of the day comes from Herschel Smith at The Captain’s Journal. It is in response to an editorial by Josie Duffy at DailyKos. It should be noted that Duffy’s bio says she is an attorney.

Duffy said in her (fact challenged) editorial that our opinion on gun control doesn’t matter. That if we oppose gun control then we are saying that peoples’ lives matter less than our guns. Duffy has no clear understanding of the concept of self-defense nor of the role that firearms provide in securing.

Hershel said in response:

As for the disagreeable ones over at Kos, I would respond that if you bristle at the idea of gun rights, fine. But what you are really saying is that while evil men hunt down the innocent in places of work, worship and play to kill them, what you really want to see is those innocent men perish rather than have access to a means of self defense.

You would rather see women hiding and cowering under desks than be able to live another day for their children, and you would rather see blood in the streets for the sake of government control than free men who won’t allow their families to be harmed.

The hatred of police that your hippie fathers and mothers cherished, has turned into a love of government control. The love of guns owned and operated by the Black Panthers, The Weather Underground and others, turned into a hatred of anything that could threaten the power of the state – once your ilk was in charge. What you once loved you now hate because it gives someone else that same freedom and power. Admit it. Go ahead and admit it. Is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?

I could go on about Duffy’s editorial but I think Herschel does a better job of it.

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Happy Repeal Day!

December 5, 2015 by

On this date in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment. The Great Experiment was called to a close when the state of Utah ratified the 21st Amendment at 5:32pm.

At the same time as he signed the proclamation officially ending Prohibition, FDR asked that saloons be prohibited and he “enjoined all citizens to cooperate with the government in its endeavor to restore a greater respect for law and order, especially by confining their purchases of liquor to duly licensed agencies.”

Governmental control of substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and coffee (yes, coffee!) have a long history as an article in today’s Weekend Wall Street Journal makes clear.

Although the U.S. is indelibly associated with Prohibition, authorities the world over have long regarded the pleasures (or vices) of alcohol, tobacco and coffee with deep suspicion. Concerns about these habit-forming substances’ potential health hazards didn’t provoke the official hostility. Instead it often came from paranoia over what the masses might get up to if allowed to let off a little steam without supervision.

What “the masses” might get up to including overthrowing their masters’ yoke. It was in the coffeehouses and taverns of Boston and Philadelphia that men such John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others gathered to discuss the idea of an independent nation.

So whether it is alcoholic beverage control or gun control, the key word is always going to be control. Government, you see, just doesn’t trust us.

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Sneak Attack By Dems Fails

December 3, 2015 by 5 Comments

If it hadn’t been for an alert from the National Shooting Sports Foundation this afternoon, I would not have known that the Democrats were planning to bring up gun control amendments to H.R.3762 – Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015. That bill would repeal parts of ObamaCare so it was near and dear to the Republicans’ heart.

The two major anti-gun amendments were brought up by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Feinstein’s amendment would have made anyone listed on the FBI’s secret Terrorist Screening Database a prohibited person for NICS checks. The Manchin amendment was a repeat of 2013’s Manchin-Toomey universal background check bill.

Both amendments needed 60 votes to pass. Fortunately, neither even got a majority.

Feinstein’s amendment failed 45 Aye to 54 Nay. Meanwhile, Manchin-Toomey failed by a vote of 47 Aye to 50 Nay as reported live on the Senate’s livestream. It seems that an additional vote was added to the Aye column in the final reprot.

As NSSF General Counsel Larry Keane pointed out on Twitter, Manchin-Toomey got 7 fewer votes in 2015 than in 2013. (Actually, 6 but still…)

Both of these votes were cynical efforts on the part of Democrats to play off on yesterday’s terrorist attack in San Bernadino, California. I think we can come to expect to see this come up with every major vote or after any mass shooting that doesn’t involve JJ, Pookie, Ice Dog, or Ray-Ray.

The roll call vote on Feinstein’s amendment breaks down like this:

YEAs —45
Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN)		 Gillibrand (D-NY)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Hirono (D-HI)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Manchin (D-WV)
Markey (D-MA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT)		 Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Peters (D-MI)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
NAYs —54
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Capito (R-WV)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cotton (R-AR)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Enzi (R-WY)		 Ernst (R-IA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lankford (R-OK)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)		 Murkowski (R-AK)
Paul (R-KY)
Perdue (R-GA)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)


Not Voting – 1
Warner (D-VA)

And the roll call vote on this year’s Manchin-Toomey universal background check amendment is as follows:

YEAs —48
Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN)		 Gillibrand (D-NY)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Hirono (D-HI)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Manchin (D-WV)
Markey (D-MA)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT)		 Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Peters (D-MI)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Toomey (R-PA)
Udall (D-NM)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
NAYs —50
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Capito (R-WV)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cotton (R-AR)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Enzi (R-WY)		 Ernst (R-IA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Lankford (R-OK)
Lee (R-UT)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Murkowski (R-AK)		 Paul (R-KY)
Perdue (R-GA)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)


Not Voting – 2
Johnson (R-WI) Warner (D-VA)

Just like in 2013 the only Republicans voted for Manchin-Toomey were Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and, of course, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). (Corrected to add Collins who I missed when I first scanned the list)

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I Didn’t Know That ISIS Had Attacked Paris, Maine

December 2, 2015 by 3 Comments

Sometimes you just have to shake your head in wonder about the things that come out of the mouth of Barack Obama. The video clip below is a case in point.

Obama made these comments while in Paris, France. You know where on November 13th, eight ISIS terrorists killed 132 people in a set of coordinated shootings across the City of Lights.

I’m guessing he must have confused Paris, France with Paris, Maine. The former is the French capital while the later is a small town in western foothills region of Maine near Sebago Lake.

Likewise, he must have confused the Norway where 69 were killed and 110 wounded at a youth camp in 2011 with Norway, Maine. I mean, it is right next door to Paris, Maine. Besides that area of Maine has a slew of summer camps for kids. Any reasonable person could see how he got confused by this especially since Denmark, Maine is just about 25 miles away.

January 20, 2016 cannot get here soon enough.

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A NICS Check Two-Fer

December 2, 2015 by 2 Comments
The FBI’s NICS checks marked two milestones on Black Friday, November 27th. First, it had the highest recorded number of NICS checks on record for the day after Thanksgiving which is otherwise known as Black Friday. Second, and more importantly, it surpassed the previous one day record total for NICS background checks set on December 21, 2012.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reports that it processed 185,345 transactions on Nov. 27, Black Friday, making the day the highest Black Friday ever and the highest day in NICS history. The highest previous day was Dec. 21, 2012 with 177,170 background checks. For the entire Nov. 26-29 2015 four-day Black Friday period 368,774 checks were completed, a 9.9 percent increase over the 335,555 checks conducted over the corresponding 2014 4-day period.

While the number of NICS checks are indicative of the number of firearm sales transactions, they are not perfectly correlated. For example, concealed carry permits in many states are taken as a substitute for the NICS background check. Thus, the actual number of firearms sold could be even greater than the number of checks reported.

Many factors probably are coming into play here. First, the ISIS attacks in Paris are still fresh in the minds of many people. I know my fellow Polite Society Podcast co-host Gary Daugherty has reported a significant rise in the number of people contacting him to take the Illinois concealed carry class. Second, the Democrats have decided the gun control is a winning issue for them and have gone all in on it. Finally, President Obama has said he wants to make gun control one of his primary focuses in his last year in office.

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Malfeasance Rewarded

November 30, 2015 by 5 Comments

Imagine if you will that you worked for a large company and were issued both a company car and company-provided credit card. Then imagine what would happen if you decided to use that company car to drive to a casino, to use that company-provided credit card to get a cash advance to buy chips, and you did it all on company time.

You would likely be fired and perhaps even prosecuted for stealing from your employer. Or, at least, that is how it should work in the real world.

However, if you were a BATFE Special Agent and you did this, then you just might get promoted to Special Agent in Charge of a Field Division and move into the Senior Executive Service. According to the summary report from the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General posted to CleanUpATF.org, that is exactly what happened.

Investigative Summary:
Findings Concerning On-Duty Gambling and Related Misconduct by an ATF Special Agent in
Charge While in a Prior Position


The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) initiated this investigation based on information from
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) alleging that a current Special
Agent in Charge (SAC) gambled on duty and engaged in related misconduct while in a position
with ATF prior to being promoted. The OIG investigation determined that the SAC gambled on
duty, misused his government travel card to facilitate his gambling, and misused his assigned
government vehicle by using it to travel to casinos. By gambling while on duty, the SAC violated
federal regulations that prohibit federal employees from gambling while on duty. In addition,
the SAC violated ATF policy by, among other things, misusing his government travel card to
obtain cash advances to gamble, and using his assigned government vehicle to travel to casinos
to gamble, which is not an “official purpose” for which use of the government vehicle is
authorized. Prosecution was declined. The OIG provided a report of investigation to ATF for
appropriate action.

So the question remains, which one of the 25 Special Agents in Charge (SAC) on this list is the culprit? Was it Eric Harden in LA, Delano Reid in NYC, Carl Walker in Atlanta, or someone else?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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Do Mag Bans Reduce Casualties In Mass Shootings?

November 30, 2015 by 1 Comment

Bans on standard capacity magazines, that is, magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds, are supposed to have an impact on the number of casualties in mass shootings. The question is do they?

The simple answer is no.

As David Yamane reports in his Gun Culture 2.0 blog, criminologist Gary Kleck presented research at the recent American Society of Criminologists annual meeting that studied this question. Kleck’s research looked at mass shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded. He went with six because that is the capacity of most revolvers and thus no standard capacity magazine would have been needed.

Even with this restrictive definition of a mass shooting, Kleck found that large capacity magazines – defined as holding over 10 rounds – were used in only 21 of the 88 incidents (24%). So, in 76% of the incidents, a large-capacity magazine ban would have made no difference in any event.


Kleck then goes on to analyze further the 21 incidents in which a large-capacity magazine was used. In every case, the shooters carried either multiple guns or multiple magazines. Therefore, even without a large-capacity magazine, the shooters could easily switch guns or magazines.


Kleck also marshals evidence to show that the rate of fire of most mass shooters is so slow that having to change guns or magazines more frequently would not diminish their casualty counts.

The bottom line to Kleck’s research, as David notes, is that it isn’t the tool but the desire of the evil doer to kill as many people as possible.  However, this conflicts with the desire of politicians and gun prohibitionists to “do something”.