by One of the things mentioned at Everyday, No Days Off is that the holster is a Raven Concealment which has been featured in Magpul Dynamics videos. Travis Haley, who was a founder of Magpul Dynamics and interim CEO of Magpul Industries, left Magpul this week to start another company, Haley Strategic Partners. He “starred” with Chris Costa in the Magpul videos. This is from a report in GearScout. The parting of ways is reported to be friendly.
Uncategorized
Another By-Product Of The Tucson Shootings
Beyond the call for more gun control, another by-product of the shootings by the madman in Tucson is an upsurge in the media calling for the confirmation of Andrew Traver.
Helping to push this is Mayor Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns. They are calling for “common sense” measures. Number three on their list released on January 11th is this:
Fill the Leadership Gap and Appoint an ATF Director – The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for fighting gun crime, has operated without a Director for four and a half years. President Obama has nominated Andrew Traver, a career law enforcement officer, to fill the position. The nomination has the strong support of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and the Senate should give Mr. Traver a careful and prompt review to help ATF spearhead the fight against gun crime.
From Jonathan Alter in Newsweek comes this from a piece entitled Can Obama Turn Tragedy Into Triumph? Saturday’s shooting spree could prove a turning point in the Obama presidency. How the White House should talk about the tragedy:
Finally, the president should speak out forthrightly for better enforcement of existing gun control laws, which the gun lobby is always fighting to undermine. He should re-state his support of Andrew Traver to be head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF). The NRA is currently blocking the nomination because Traver once had the temerity to serve as an adviser to a police association on its gun violence reduction program. Obama can reiterate his (and Giffords’) support for the 2nd Amendment while using this chance to make a case for common sense gun control.
Alter is hoping that Obama could turn the shootings in Tucson into an Oklahoma City bombing sort of event and use Jared Loughner just like Bill Clinton used Timothy McVeigh.
The New York Daily News devoted an entire editorial to the Traver nomination accusing “NRA toadies in the Senate” of keeping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives without a permanent Director. In typical, over-the-top, Daily News fashion they said:
The truth is, the National Rifle Association and its puppets in Congress push just as hard to hogtie enforcement as they do to gut the nation’s all-too-feeble statutes.
And the prime example is their blockade against confirming a permanent chief for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – the federal front-line force against gun trafficking.
In the editorial they also try to link the shootings at Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and Tucson to the lack of an ATF Director. They conclude by urging Senators to confirm Traver saying “As bodies pile up, it’s the least they can do.” Obviously, they haven’t heard Obama’s call for civility in political discourse.
In California, the Sacramento Bee has picked up the call for Traver saying that we shouldn’t let the NRA dictate who should be “the top gun cop.” After dismissing Traver’s cozy relations with the gun ban lobby, they say:
The bureau responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws has not had a permanent director since 2006. Senate Republicans even held up the Bush administration’s appointee to the post at the behest of gun-rights groups. The bureau is under siege by the powerful gun lobby as illegal gun trafficking within the United States and abroad is rife. Our neighbor, Mexico, is being held hostage by vicious and well-armed drug cartels that buy their weapons in the United States.
The NRA is pushing so-called reform legislation that would make it even harder for law enforcement agencies to prosecute illegal gun dealers. In the face of relentless pressure from the gun lobby, Congress and even the president have shown themselves unwilling and unable to support even the most common-sense gun-safety laws.
Traver’s nomination is a test for the nation and its lawmakers. If a cop with an exemplary record of going after illegal gun sales can’t win confirmation as ATF director following last Saturday’s rampage, we are likely to see more Tucsons, more Columbines and more Virginia Techs.
These incendiary editorials have just begun as well as the push for more gun control – ineffective though it would have been in preventing Jared Loughner from doing this deranged act. We can expect more calls and more pressure on Senators to approve Andrew Traver.
If you haven’t called, written, emailed, or faxed your two Senators, what the hell are your waiting for? Do it and do it now.
UPDATE: In what should be no surprise, NPR is the latest media outlet reporting that ATF has been without a permanent Director and asking why Traver hasn’t been approved.
The Senate has yet to hold a hearing on Traver. A Judiciary Committee aide says the panel is waiting for the administration to submit the necessary paperwork.
Cavanaugh says the lack of a Senate-confirmed director with the backing of the president is disconcerting.
“The agency goes on because law enforcement people are ‘can do’ people and they’re mission people, but nevertheless there’s not an agency in government that has to face that kind of problem,” he says. “Can you imagine a big city police force not having a chief for 4 1/2 years?”
And while that might suit the gun lobby, gun control advocates hope the shootings in Tucson will spur the administration to push for Traver’s confirmation.
For some reason, James “Waco Jim” Cavanaugh must be the only former ATF person in the mainstream media’s Rolodex. Rachel Maddow had him on within the last week and now NPR uses him to push their story. Heck, even the SPLC has used Waco Jim.
Pushing Obama On Gun Control
Gun control groups are pushing hard to have Obama not only mention, but push for gun control in the State of the Union speech on Tuesday, January 25th.
The Brady Campaign is one of the main groups pushing it. From a story yesterday by Michael Isikoff of NBC News:
“There’s a major push to get [Obama] to say something on this,” said Chad Ramsey, legislative director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun control group. “We’ve been told he will say something, but we’re not sure how strong it will be.”
There have been a number of different gun control ideas put forward since the Jan. 8 Tucson shooting. But gun control groups most of all want Obama’s endorsement of the bill introduced this week by Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York (with more than 40 co-sponsors so far). That bill would ban the sale or transfer of high-capacity gun magazines such as the one allegedly used by Jared L. Loughner to fire off more than 30 rounds. So far, the proposal (and a companion bill to be introduced next week by Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey) has yet to pick up a single Republican co-sponsor.
The Brady Campaign and their congressional backers are also campaigning to get big Democratic donors to prod Obama on gun control according to that story. What is giving them some hope are the comments made by Dick Cheney who said maybe it was time to enact restrictions on standard capacity magazines.
Sarah Brady in a commentary for CNN has this to say:
We feel it’s our duty, and we’re asking President Barack Obama to help lead the way. As he so eloquently put it in his remarks at the memorial service in Tucson, Arizona, if we want our democracy to be as good as Christina Taylor Green and other children imagine it, we have to be able to come to that proverbial table of brotherhood and work on solutions to gun violence.
He is the only political leader who has the capital, the conscience and the competence to gather us. On Thursday, press secretary Robert Gibbs affirmed the president’s commitment to banning assault weapons, and with them those high-capacity-killing magazines.
Obama is our best hope, because he is surely aware that much of the resistance to common-sense changes to our gun laws is meant to shut us down and shut us up. It is meant to allow the guys with the guns — instead of ordinary Americans like us with the ideas — and men and women of good conscience, like Gabby and Jim — to make the rules.
The bullies have succeeded too often. They have made cowardly lions out of too many members of Congress. This moment, as grievous as it is, presents a new opportunity for the president and other elected leaders to demonstrate political courage — the way President Bill Clinton did when he stood by the side of victims and fought with all he had to pass the Brady Bill.
I love all the buzz words in that statement by the sainted Sarah. High-capacity-killing magazines, gun violence, common-sense changes, the guns with guns, ordinary Americans. Of course, despite all the calls for civil discourse, we who disagree with her are “bullies.”
The online political website Politico ran an article this morning entitled “Barack Obama’s conspicuous silence on guns”. The article notes that despite his longtime and unambiguous record on gun control he has been relatively quiet on the issue since becoming President. It goes on to say despite the efforts of gun control groups and liberal Democrats the White House has been noncommittal about using the State of the Union speech to push gun control and McCarthy’s magazine ban. The article goes on to say that gun control groups are saying that Obama has “a moral responsibility” to push for it. They quote Paul Helmke who says:
“If the president could address the issue in the State of the Union that would be really important,” says Paul Helmke, president of the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a major gun control group.
“If he could announce his support for the high-capacity clip legislation, that would be the best thing. The next best thing would be for him to support a presidential commission to study gun violence,” adds Helmke, the former mayor of Ft. Wayne, Ind. “But he can’t stay silent. Either way, he’s just got to do something.”
There is always that refrain that we must “do something” when often the best course to take is to do nothing.
And this evening, Peggy Noonan, who seemingly has been Obama’s biggest cheerleader on the Wall Street Journal editorial page despite her time in the Reagan and Bush 1 White Houses, suggests that one idea Obama should embrace in the State of the Union speech is a “ban on extended ammo clips.”
What civilian needs a pistol with a magazine that loads 33 bullets and allows you to kill that many people without even stopping to reload? No one but people with bad intent. Those clips were banned once; the president should call for reimposing the ban. The Republican Party will not go to the wall to defend extended clips. The problem is the Democratic Party, which overreached after the assassinations of the 1960s, talked about banning all handguns, and suffered a lasting political setback. Now Democrats are so spooked they won’t even move forward on small and obvious things like this. The president should seize the moment and come out strong for a ban.
Noonan seems to believe that such a ban is a “centrist” position. I’m sure in her milieu that might be a centrist position but then again I bet she has a doorman to guard access to her apartment building.
Another NC Representative Plans To Carry Concealed
Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC 11) made news when he announced after the Tucson shootings that he had a Concealed Handgun Permit (NC’s version of CCW) and planned to carry concealed at public events.
According to WRAL – Raleigh, Shuler will now be joined by freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC 2) who defeated incumbent Bob “Who Are You” Etheridge in November. Ellmers obtained her CHP after taking the required training back in February 2010. She never hid the fact that she had a CHP during her campaign and even spoke of it with regard to belief in Second Amendment rights.
“We have to protect ourselves. We know that. That is something we have always been cognizant of,” Ellmers said. “There have been times in the past I have carried my weapon, and I will probably continue to do so. Some days I might have it. Some days I might not.”…“I feel safe with it, and I think we should all be able to defend ourselves as we need to,” Ellmers said.
WRAL also reported that in addition to Shuler and Ellmers, Rep. Sue Myrick “told The Charlotte Observer that she’s a good shot and likely would carry a gun when she felt the need to do so.”
While I am glad that Representatives Shuler, Ellmers, and Myrick plan to take their protection into their own hands, North Carolina may be problematic. As Sean point out in his blog, NC law forbids carrying concealed at certain public events.
§ 14‑277.2. Weapons at parades, etc., prohibited.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person participating in, affiliated with, or present as a spectator at any parade, funeral procession, picket line, or demonstration upon any private health care facility or upon any public place owned or under the control of the State or any of its political subdivisions to willfully or intentionally possess or have immediate access to any dangerous weapon. Violation of this subsection shall be a Class 1 misdemeanor. It shall be presumed that any rifle or gun carried on a rack in a pickup truck at a holiday parade or in a funeral procession does not violate the terms of this act.(b) For the purposes of this section the term “dangerous weapon” shall include those weapons specified in G.S. 14‑269, 14‑269.2, 14‑284.1, or 14‑288.8 or any other object capable of inflicting serious bodily injury or death when used as a weapon.
(c) The provisions of this section shall not apply to a person exempted by the provisions of G.S. 14‑269(b) or to persons authorized by State or federal law to carry dangerous weapons in the performance of their duties or to any person who obtains a permit to carry a dangerous weapon at a parade, funeral procession, picket line, or demonstration from the sheriff or police chief, whichever is appropriate, of the locality where such parade, funeral procession, picket line, or demonstration is to take place.
Subsection C does provide for obtaining a permit to carry a dangerous weapon at those events. Frankly, after Tucson, I don’t see any sheriff or police chief turning down a permit for a sitting Congressman who plans to carry concealed.
Jim Shepherd On Cam And Company
Cam Edwards interviewed Jim Shepherd at the SHOT Show on a number of topics. Jim is the publisher of the Outdoor Wire, the Shooting Wire, and the Tactical Wire among other things. He also was involved in the founding of CNN with Ted Turner. He is a very astute observer of the gun industry and of politics.
The entire interview is worth listening to. At the 3:45 mark he describes an encounter he had with an anti-gunner who was at SHOT incognito and what he said to him after the anti said no one needs an assault rifle.
You are all emotion and no fact. You don’t understand history. You don’t have perspective on what you’re doing. It is all about what I feel and not what I know. You don’t know enough to have the discussion.
What a wonderful thumbnail description of the problem we face when we try to discuss, debate, or argue guns and gun rights with the gun banners and their fellow travelers. We have fact and they have emotion.
Magul For FN-FAL?
ITS Tactical posted this picture from SHOT. It is a FN-FAL with a Magpul angled fore-grip. The picture was taken at the Magpul booth. I wonder if this is an adaption or purpose-built for the FN-FAL. Hmmm?
SHOT Show Day Two – Downrange.tv
Day Two of SHOT has a 1911 flavor to it.
Backpedaling A Bit
Well, that didn’t take long. Senator Dick Lugar is now backpedaling from statements he made in an interview with Al Hunt on Bloomberg TV saying he would support a renewed Assault Weapons Ban.
As reported in the Indianapolis Star, he is now saying that he isn’t pushing for a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004.
“I was innocently trying to say that I voted for this in the past and probably would do so again,” the Indiana Republican said. “But there was absolutely no chance, zero, that we’re going to have such debate.”
Let me be blunt – a politician who has been in Washington as long as Lugar never innocently says anything.
He goes on to say that discussing it now when it has no chance of passing will only spur people to go on a buying spree.
OK, so he isn’t pushing for a renewal and he doesn’t think there will be a debate will happen BUT he would vote for it if it came up again. Somehow that doesn’t inspire me and I hope it doesn’t inspire the voters of the Hoosier State to reward him with a seventh term.