by In another of the NSSF’s training tip videos, Doug Koenig discusses proper trigger control and how to integrate it into your dry fire practice.
Month: August 2011
Quote Of The Day
Speaking about the appearance of impropriety of naming William McMahon as the Deputy Assistant Director in charge of ATF’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations (Internal Affairs) given his testimony in July before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and his previous role in supervising field operations in the western U.S., “Doc Holliday”, a moderator on CleanUpATF.org had this to say:
Isn’t placing McMahon in charge of Internal Affairs after his testimony last week somewhat like placing Tex Watson, Squeeky Fromme and Linda Kasabian on Charles Mansons parole board?
Splitting Hairs
In an article posted yesterday evening, Richard Serrano of the L.A. Times writes that the ATF is denying that William McMahon, William Newell, and David Voth were given promotions.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Wednesday that three supervisors in its controversial Fast and Furious gun-trafficking investigation were transferred to lateral jobs, not promoted.
“They did not receive salary or grade increases, nor did they assume positions with greater responsibility,” the agency said in a short statement.
The Times reported Tuesday that William G. McMahon, William D. Newell and David Voth, three key supervisors in the Phoenix-run investigation that went awry, were promoted to management positions at the ATF’s Washington headquarters.
This is splitting hairs. Both McMahon and Newell have Senior Executive Service status and I’m guessing that Voth is a GS-14 at the minimum. The base pay for SES positions is $119,554 and the bottom rate for a GS-14 is $84,697. This does not take into account the extra amount GS-14s get paid for being located in Washington, D.C. as opposed to the boondocks.
If you or I had so royally screwed up in our jobs that people got killed, we would have been fired if we were lucky. If we weren’t lucky, we’d be looking at either a lawsuit or jail time.
So Explain To Me The Rationale Behind The Multi-Rifle Reporting Requirement In The Southwest
Mike Vanderboegh pointed out a story from McAllen, TX this morning. It featured comments by Special Agent in Charge Robert R. Champion made to the KRGV.com. In it he said:
“You have guys that are money man, one guy is in charge of getting the straw purchasers,” he says.
Champion says the ATF is now seeing a change in the way the cartel operates. Instead of buying weapons locally they’re getting them from all over the country and using the drug routes in reverse to get them back to Mexico.
“The straw purchasers will come back to the guy that gave them the money. He accumulates the firearms. Another individual comes as the transporter to pick up the firearms and move them to different locations,” says Champion.
Champion then adds that “the ATF can’t do much to stop the transport” once it is in the smuggler’s hands.
If the theory behind the new ATF reporting requirement for sales of certain semi-automatic rifles that went into effect on August 14th in the four Southwestern border states was that the straw purchases were happening there and the reporting requirement would let ATF intercept these illegally purchased firearms quicker, then doesn’t what SAC Champion has to say undercut the entire rationale?
I have been told by drug enforcement detectives working here in western North Carolina that most of the meth sold here comes from Mexico by way of Atlanta. They rarely find meth labs anymore. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the same route drug traffickers use to bring the meth to the mountains can also be used to bring a truckload of AKs back to a safe house in McAllen or DelRio or Brownsville. With meth being an equal-opportunity drug, the traffickers could just as easily use Joe Bob or Earl or Bubba instead of one of the local Latinos to make the straw purchase at Pawn World.
Moreover, doesn’t concentrating so-called enforcement in one area or region just encourage the traffickers to spread out and get more discrete about it? In other words, by focusing on McAllen or Phoenix or other Southwestern areas, hasn’t the DOJ and ATF just pushed the crime to other areas of the country?
It would be nice if the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee brought SAC Champion in to testify about trafficking in his neck of the woods. He might have learned a thing or two about gun walking while he was a Group Supervisor earlier in his career in Phoenix. And while they are at it, they might want to ask him about his role in the botched raid in Waco.
Lead Shot Allowed For Dove Hunting In Iowa
The NRA-ILA released this message on dove hunting in Iowa this evening. Traditional or lead shotgun ammunition will be allowed for dove hunting in Iowa this season after the legislature’s Administrative Rules Committee overruled the Natural Resources Commission. This is that state’s first dove hunting season in 93 years.
Iowa: Administrative Rules Committee Strips Dove Rule of Traditional Ammunition Ban!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Today, the Administrative Rules Committee met to review the National Resource Commission’s (NRC) final rule for Iowa’s first dove hunting season. In a nine-to-one bipartisan vote, legislators overwhelmingly rejected the NRC’s underhanded attempt to include a traditional ammunition ban in the final dove rule. This vote allows for a “session-delay” of the lead ammunition ban, meaning the legislature will have to act during the next legislative session to remove the ban from the final dove rule. However, Iowa’s first dove season will proceed and will not include a traditional ammunition ban.
During a recent NRC meeting last month scheduled to set bag limits and the length of Iowa’s first dove season in nearly a century, commissioners launched a surprise attack by passing a ban on the use of traditional ammunition while hunting doves. The appointed seven-member, commission flagrantly usurped the authority of the legislators who debated the same ban and overwhelmingly rejected it.
Here are three reasons why the use of traditional ammunition should NOT be banned:
- No scientific studies regarding traditional ammunition have been shown to have any population-level impacts on doves or other species. In fact, doves are the most popular and abundant game bird hunted in America with population levels at all-time highs.
- The price of non-traditional ammunition with similar performance characteristics is significantly higher and will keep many hunters from taking part in the historic dove season, especially in these dire economic times.
- In addition to the lack of sound science, the Commission enacted the lead ammunition ban in an underhanded fashion with no public comment or notice.
ISSC-Austria Releasing Their M-22 Pistol In New Colors
I received this press release today about the ISSC-Austria M-22 .22LR pistol today. I haven’t shot it but after seeing Jeff Quinn’s review of it, I think that might change. It is a “Glockish” pistol with a very similar silhouette. The difference is that it is not striker-fired but rather it is hammer-fired. It also has an external safety.
WARE, MA (August 2011) – ISSC-Austria, exclusive importer and distributor of the M22 range pistol and MK22 Modern Sporting Rifle, will commence shipping the M22 pistol in Olive Drab starting the final two weeks in August. The M22 OD will be available in ISSC’s proprietary Ti-clad black and Two Tone finish which protects the pistol from harmful elements and chemicals. The M22 pistol is the ideal range pistol designed to use inexpensive, high-velocity 22LR ammunition, while providing a highly accurate, defensive pistol feel in handling.
The ISSC M22 pistol offers shooters the economical alternative to practicing with high-priced ammunition. Using inexpensive .22LR, the M22 pistol provides the shooter with the same rapid fire performance of a traditional centerfire pistol. Built using the combination of a Lothar Walter match barrel, adjustable sights and a very crisp 4-lb single-action trigger, the M22 is the new standard in training pistols. MSRP starts at $299.95.
Inconceivable Is Correct
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who just last week asked for some answers from Eric Holder about Project Gunwalker, blasted the ATF and Justice Department today for promoting three of the ATF officials responsible for Operation Fast and Furious.
Cornyn: ‘Inconceivable’ to Reward Architects of ‘Fast and Furious’
Aug 16 2011WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and former state Attorney General, today responded to reports that key officials who oversaw the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking operation have been promoted to new positions within the Justice Department in Washington:
“Until Attorney General Holder and Justice Department officials come clean on all alleged gun-walking operations, including a detailed response to allegations of a Texas-based scheme, it is inconceivable to reward those who spearheaded this disastrous operation with cushy desks in Washington.”
Last week Sen. Cornyn sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers following recent press reports of alleged Texas-based “gun-walking” programs similar to the “Fast and Furious” operation currently being investigated by Congressional lawmakers.
What irritated Sen. Cornyn is this report from the L.A. Times by Richard Serrano reporting that William McMahon, William Newell, and David Voth had all received promotions by ATF despite their admitted shortcomings in Operation Fast and Furious.
Howard Nemerov puts it all into perspective in a post at Pajamas Media.
McMahon, who has just been promoted to head the ATF’Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations, said this in his testimony July 26th:
Let me be clear from the outset, as the ATF senior executive in charge of the West region, I share responsibility for mistakes that were made in the Fast and Furious investigation.
Newell, who is now the special assistant to the assistant director of the agency’s Office of Management (and who won’t be going to Mexico City as attache for fear the Mexican government would arrest him), said in his July 26th testimony:
I acknowledge now that we did make some mistakes in this…initiative, in this program.
Voth, who is now slated to become branch chief for the ATF’s tobacco division, reacting to internal criticism by ATF agents under his command about letting guns walk had this to say,
If you don’t think this is fun you’re in the wrong line of work – period! This is the pinnacle of domestic U.S. law enforcement techniques… Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day.
To top all of this off, Richard Serrano of the L.A. Times is reporting this afternoon that firearms that were walked in Operation Fast and Furious have now turned up at least 11 “violent crime” scenes in the U.S. These are in addition to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, the downing of a Mexican Army helicopter, the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico, and an estimated 150 (or more) Mexican soldiers, policemen, and civilians.
Justice officials were asked how many “violent crime” scenes turned up more Fast and Furious weapons besides the two semiautomatics found after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s slaying last December.
They responded that while the “ATF does not have complete information” on the whereabouts of all the lost guns, “it is our understanding that ATF is aware of 11 instances” where a Fast and Furious firearm “was recovered in connection with a crime of violence in the United States.”
ATF Senior Agent John Dodson was all too correct when he said to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson that these guns will keep showing up for years to come.
Why Concealed Carry In Restaurants Serving Alcohol Is Such A Hard Slog In NC
Some of the commenters to my post about using the Virginia experience to push for allowing concealed carry in restaurants and eating establishments that serve alcohol have pointed out states where it is both legal to carry in bars and to drink at the same time. That may be. However, I doubt that would be a winning argument here in North Carolina.
The Tar Heel State has or has had an almost puritanical approach to alcohol. It was the first state in the South to adopt prohibition and the first in the nation to do so by popular vote. It was not until 1978 that North Carolina relaxed its laws enough to allow liquor by the drink in restaurants. Even then, unless it was a private club, bars were not allowed to sell mixed drinks. Prior to this, we had the charming custom of “brown bagging” where you would go to a restaurant that had the proper permits and bring your own booze. They would sell you a “set-up” which might be a glass of Coke or ginger ale or merely a glass of ice.
Liquor stores in the state are still governmental entities run by county or municipal alcohol control boards under the overall control of the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. There is even a division of Alcohol Law Enforcement under the state’s Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.
North Carolina has changed a lot since the video below was made in 1978. There is only one completely dry county left – Graham – but there are still a number of towns and cities that don’t allow liquor by the drink or even beer and wine sales. That said, the attitudes toward alcohol among many in their mid-40s and up is still imbued with that old puritanical flavor. Indeed, I would not be surprised to find lots of people still agreeing with the sentiments expressed in the video below in all age groups.
Thus, in getting concealed carry allowed in North Carolina’s restaurants that serve alcohol, we are having to take it one step at a time and limit it to non-drinking patrons. The fact that the N.C. House passed HB 111 with a strong majority was a great beginning. Now we have to convince the Senate to do likewise.
“Spray And Pray” Or Aimed Fire?
The gun prohibitionists would have you believe that any firearm that can fire full-auto is death incarnate. However, as Greg Hickok – Hickok45 – shows in the short video below, aimed deliberate fire is much more effective than “spray and pray”. This is one of the prime reasons that U.S. military changed from the M-16A1 to the M-16A2 which only allowed 3-shot bursts instead of unlimited full-auto fire.
Cleaning Brass Shotgun Shells
When I was out in the St. Louis area a few weeks ago, I came across some brass shotgun shells and what I think was a reloading kit for them. They were in my mother-in-law’s garage. After seeing the video below, I think I’ll get them the next time I’m there and clean them up. Even if they aren’t shot, they will make nice keepsakes.