Texans for Accountable Government and a number of private citizens decided that they would have a counter-gun buy-back when the Austin Police Department held a recent gun buy-back program. The APD was offering a grocery card worth $100 for each firearm turned into them which would be destroyed. TAG offered $110 cash and plans to give the firearms purchased to needy individuals (who are lawful to own them) for self-protection.
More on the story can be found here at Buckeye Firearms Association.
Today is the centennial of the War Department’s adoption of the the Caliber .45, Colt Model 1911 automatic pistol. It replaced the Colt, Model 1901, Caliber .38 Revolver and the Colt, Model 1909, Caliber .45 Revolver shown below.
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| Colt Model 1901 |
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| Colt Model 1909 |
The semi-automatic pistol submitted by Colt and designed by John M. Browning bested the design submitted by Savage Arms and was adopted on March 29, 1911. The rest, as they say, is history.
UPDATE: To read about the Model 1911 that wasn’t – in other words, the Savage submission, go here. There is an excellent article about it.
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) is making a big deal out of a letter to The Oregonian purported to be from “a former Army officer, gunsmith, member of the NRA and a competitive marksman”. Their tweet on this – sent both last week and today – says “A gunsmith takes on the extreme, militia-based ideology of the NRA in a memorable piece.”
The only problem with this “memorable piece” is that it does not read like anything a modern-day gunsmith might write. It refers to “extended clips” as one example. Excuse me but I don’t think a gunsmith would call a magazine an “extended clip”.
I have searched all gunsmiths in the Portland area that hold an FFL and I don’t find any “Charles Ford”. I have also Googled Mr. Ford and again, I don’t find any gunsmith in Portland by the name of “Charles Ford”. Finally, I asked the members of the Oregon Hometown Forum on ar15.com if anyone had ever heard of a gunsmith in the Portland area by this name. No luck there either.
I believe a Charles Ford might exist but I doubt he is a real gunsmith. Real gunsmiths know the difference between a magazine and a clip. Moreover, real gunsmiths and actual NRA members don’t usually go spouting off about a “1,000 armed hate groups” – a number more usually associated with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Here is the letter. Go to the link above to read the comments. They don’t think much of Mr. Ford either.
Regarding Mayor Adams’ proposals for gun control, I must add my perspective. As a former Army officer, gunsmith, member of the NRA and a competitive marksman, I see no reason why citizens, other than law enforcement, should have free access to armor-piercing rounds, military or automatic weapons, extended clips or undocumented purchases at gun shows.
Is this about hunting rights and self-protection or homegrown militias? There are currently more than 1,000 armed hate groups with their own agendas in the United States, all claiming the Constitution for their protection.
The creators of this magnificent document that protects us all never envisioned the effects of slavery, homegrown terrorists or crazies with a checkbook. So much of the rhetoric from the National Rifle Association sounds like “keep your hand off my junk,” testosterone-fueled hysteria, as if they’re about to be neutered by some tree-huggers.
The NRA has put its position forward that it is the last bastion of protection for America, as if an army that defeated the U.S. military would wither under fire from the unlicensed Uzis flooding our neighborhoods and taking the lives of thousands of young Americans. This might have made sense back in Colonial or Old West days, but now it’s just an anachronistic leftover, like chamber pots and the horseshoe smith on the corner.
When the U.S. faced the most egregious assault on our constitutional rights in its modern history, the NRA sat silently while George W. Bush emasculated the rights of us all. The NRA offers only the empty promise of protection and irrational justification for rendering us the most lethal country on Earth. It’s time to put reason back in the saddle.
CHARLES FORD
Southeast Portland
UPDATE: Sebastian at Snow Flakes in Hell has checked the list of all FFL’s in the state of Oregon and there is no one by the name of Ford listed.
And according to BATFE, a person must be licensed if one holds him or herself out to be a gunsmith:
Q: Is a license needed to engage in the business of engraving, customizing, refinishing or repairing firearms?
Yes. A person conducting such activities as a business is considered to be a gunsmith within the definition of a dealer.[27 CFR 478.11]
I wonder if Mr. Smith is one of those “unlicensed dealers” that gun control advocates love to talk about.
Bitter and Sebastian at Snow Flakes in Hell have been following Minnesota Public Radio reporter Brandt Williams and his “work” on gun violence. Williams is a Joyce Foundation Fellow and his pro-gun control reporting is based upon a grant from the Joyce Foundation.
Bitter nails it when she writes:
There’s no way that Williams and any other reporters involved can claim that their work is free of bias since a stipulation of taking the $5,000 was that their work be written in order to “have a major public policy impact.” In addition to Williams, Joyce was willing to fund up to six other writers or broadcasters who were based “in midwest and northeast region with priority given to journalists in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” Since Joyce doesn’t appear to list them, the coordinating organization doesn’t list them, and no results turn up on media sites for titles and terms such as “Joyce Journalism Fellow,” it could be hard to figure out exactly who was paid for these planted stories.
The Joyce Foundation has tried to influence courts on Second Amendment issues by paying for law review articles that pushed the collective right theory. Now it appears that they think they can “buy” stories in the media in the Upper Midwest through $5,000 fellowships to compliant anti-gun journalists.
Read both the postings from Bitter and Sebastian to get a better feel for how the Joyce Foundation is working to plant stories on “gun violence.”
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News has just posted another video on Operation Fast and Furious (aka Project Gunwalker). It ask the most pertinent question in this whole scandal – who knew?
Dave Hardy of Arms and The Law blog asked the same thing on Friday. Obama has insisted that he and Eric Holder did not approve Operation Fast and Furious.
And now it appears knowledge got as high as an Assistant Attorney General, an appointee. If it got that high, odds are good it would have gotten to the AG. And if it got to him, odds are decent that it got to the White House. I note the official denials are that anyone high up “approved” it. You can of course know of something, decide to let it run its course, and still deny having “approved” it. CYA and all that. “They told me about it, I just assumed they knew what they were doing.”
The Complementary Spouse is a graduate of Virgina Commonwealth University’s School of Nursing so we watched the VCU Rams run to the Final Four with great interest. Today with their 71-61 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks, they are going to the Final Four for the first time. Congratulations to 2nd-year Head Coach Shaka Smart and his team for their accomplishment.
I also think the students at VCU are a little excited about their team going to Houston!
As to my Tar Heels, I am sad that they lost to Kentucky but am pleased that such a young team went that far. Only last year, they weren’t even in the NCAA Tournament and had to settle for the NIT. The Heels went much further than I ever expected and they should feel proud of how far they went.
Juliet Leftwich is the Executive Director of Legal Community Against Violence or LCAV. LCAV is a San Francisco-based group that promotes gun control and which has received over $2.3 million from the Joyce Foundation. One of their bigger initiatives is their promotion of their Model Laws to state and local governments. This is especially true in California where they have been particularly active and many communities have adopted their Model Laws.
In the video clip below, Leftwich is being interviewed by Omar Samaha. He is with MAIG’s National Initiative to Fix Gun Checks. Samaha’s sister was one of the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Samaha is something of a media darling like Colin Goddard and has done “undercover buys” for ABC’s 20/20.
Samaha asks Leftwich if she has seen a change in “gun violence” since California has adopted its restrictive gun control laws. Leftwich responds that “unfortunately there is not a lot of great data out there.” However, she does try to put a good spin on it saying that the rate of “gun violence” in California has gone down more than in the rest of the country. And then she makes this admission, “But it is always hard to prove causation because gun laws are a very complicated issue.”
To recap, she says there is not good data, there are only a few studies, and that causation is hard to prove from the studies that do exist. This is a bit of a startling admission from a leading gun control advocate.
H/T J.D. Berger
H/T TacticalFanboy
The Star-Ledger of Newark is the largest newspaper in the state of New Jersey. It calls itself “The Voice of New Jersey”. It has traditionally been very pro-gun control.
I wrote a few days ago about the denial of a concealed carry permit for Jeff Muller by Judge David Ironson. Judge Ironson found that Mr. Muller failed to provide proof “of justifiable need”. This despite Mr. Muller being a kidnapping victim who still fears violence from his kidnappers or their families.
I thought Judge Ironson’s decision was ridiculous. I am not alone. The Star-Ledger Editorial Board agrees. In an editorial entitled In this case, a well-earned gun permit, the Star-Ledger said:
Even the staunchest proponents of gun control must admit Jeffrey Muller has a good reason for wanting to pack a handgun.
After describing the ordeal that Mr. Muller endured, they noted he felt unsafe.
Now, lo and behold, the man feels unsafe. He wants a gun permit, because he fears avenging family members of the arrested kidnappers may attack him again. But a Superior Court judge in Morristown this week denied his second request for the permit, saying he provided “no proof of justifiable need” to carry a weapon.
Come again? This guy has more reason than anyone to take advantage of his Second Amendment rights. For God’s sake, give this poor Muller his gun.
If even the Star-Ledger Editorial Board can see that Mr. Muller has a good reason for a concealed carry permit, then what is wrong with the judges in the state of New Jersey that they fail to comprehend that Jeff Muller still faces danger? Does living in a world where their own security is provided for by the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey in the form of armed court bailiffs blind these judges to the real dangers faced by ordinary people? The answer is unfortunately but obviously yes.
And make way for Irish Setter Dads!
P. J. O’Rourke says he is an Irish Setter Dad in The Weekly Standard.
I just wasn’t cut out to be a Chinese Tiger Mom. I’m more of an Irish Setter Dad. Here are some of the things my daughters, Muffin and Poppet, and my son, Buster, were never allowed to do:
• go to Mass naked
• attend a sleepover at Charlie Sheen’s house
• mix Daddy a martini using sweet vermouth
• play the violin within earshot of me
Have you ever heard a kid learning to play the violin? A cat in the microwave is nothing to it. And let me add an addendum to the things my children were never allowed to do—put a cat in the microwave. I’m not saying it didn’t happen; I’m just saying they weren’t allowed to do it.
If you are a parent and feeling you’ll never measure up to Amy Chua’s Tiger Mom, just read O’Rourke and you’ll feel better. Or have your spouse and kids rolling their eyes because you are laughing at the computer again.
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