Month: August 2012

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A Welcome Home The Way It Should Be

August 9, 2012 by 3 Comments

Jamie Gray won the Olympic Gold Medal in Women’s 3-Position Rifle and was welcomed home to Columbus, Georgia yesterday. The contrast to Jamie’s welcome home to the outrageous treatment afforded fellow shooter Corey Cogdell is remarkable.

Jamie is an assistant rifle coach for the rifle team at Columbus State University and they declared it Jamie Gray Day. The faculty welcomed her back with a standing ovation.

As an aside, it warms the heart to see a Pennsylvania native as a fellow Braves fan. During the interview with WRBL Channel 3’s anchor, she confessed to Chipper Jones being her favorite athlete and that she has always been a Braves fan despite the rest of her family being Phillies’ fans.

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Bloomberg Declines An Invitation

August 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is almost as big a media whore as the senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer. Given half a chance he’ll pontificate about salt and sugar and guns and breast milk ad nauseum.

That is why I agree with Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation and CCRKBA that it is strange that Bloomberg declined an invitation to speak at the 2012 Gun Rights Policy Conference. He would look brave for going before a group of gun rights activists and he’d get tons of publicity out of it. Moreover, while in Orlando, he could check on how his taxpayer paid MAIG regional coordinator is doing.

Alan sent out a notice about Bloomberg’s declining his invitation this afternoon.

BELLEVUE, WA – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been challenging President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to speak out about gun control, but Bloomberg declined a chance to do it himself at the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in September, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms noted.

According to CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, Bloomberg was invited to the 27th annual event, scheduled Sept. 28-30 in Orlando, Fla., but he turned it down.

“What does it say about someone who demands that others shill for his agenda, but when given the chance to take his fight to the gun rights community, he retreats,” Gottlieb wondered. “Mayor Bloomberg is always quick with his tongue in front of a friendly media audience, or in the confines of a broadcast studio, but when he has an opportunity to meet with people who have differing viewpoints about a fundamental civil right, he takes a powder.”

This will be the first time in its history that the GRPC is held in the Sunshine State. Among the anticipated speakers will be Mark O’Mara, defense attorney representing George Zimmerman, the man now charged in the death of Trayvon Martin. The announcement has stirred considerable media attention for the upcoming event.

“It seems odd for a guy like Michael Bloomberg, who rushes to every television news camera and microphone, to avoid what could be a major media event,” Gottlieb mused. “He’s been complaining about the ‘deafening silence’ from Romney and Obama, but when he is offered the chance to confront gun owners, whose rights he wants to see trampled, he voluntarily puts on a muzzle.

“Mayor Bloomberg has spent the past several months,” he said, “establishing himself as a Nanny State monarch, telling people give up their guns, to drink less soda, eat fewer fries and forego giving baby formula to newborns. He’s good at criticizing people he calls gun ‘nuts,’ but lately he seems a few cashews short of a full can, himself.

“Perhaps he’s worried that a trip to Orlando might end with a sunburn,” Gottlieb concluded. “From all indications, he’s had a little too much sun already.”

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SB249 Gets Even Worse

August 8, 2012 by 5 Comments

California State Sen. Leland Yee’s SB 249 has been through many iterations. As you may remember, the bill was introduced in response to a San Francisco TV station’s breathless report about “bullet buttons”. The bill originally banned all “bullet buttons” and then was changed to only ban the use of the MagLock. Now it has been amended again and would ban the possession of all bullet button and/or MagLocked firearms.

The CalGuns Foundations and CalFFL are fighting this tooth and nail. They sent out an update late last night which I’ve put below. It looks like all the major anti-gun politicians in California are piling on as co-sponsors of this terrible bill.

SAN CARLOS, CA, AND MADERA, CA – In an egregious and deliberate move to ban hundreds of thousands of legal firearms and harm law-abiding California gun owners, California Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has amended his bill SB 249 to make possession of all Bullet Button, or “maglocked”, firearms a criminal act as of July 1, 2013. Sen. Yee’s chief-of-staff, Adam Keigwin, has said that California should ban all guns, even bolt-action hunting rifles.

Joining Senator Yee in his effort to take away hundreds of millions of dollars of currently-legal guns are co-authors Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), Senator Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrence), Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), and Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles).

Explaining his support for the gun ban, Senator Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee that “no one will convince me it’s anything other than a joke to say that having multiple clips and semi-automatic weapons that can shoot 100 or more bullets at a time is necessary in this state or in this country. It’s ridiculous.”

Also on record as supporting SB 249, the Los Angeles Times reports Attorney General Kamala Harris as saying, “I applaud the Legislature’s interest in addressing this problem and support efforts to pass legislation needed to” [ban Bullet Button firearms].

SB 249, if it were to become law, would categorically ban all “maglocked” semi-automatic firearms that are in common use, such as those which use the Bullet Button device. SB 249 does not provide for any grandfathering of existing firearms nor does it have a method of compensating gun owners for the firearms the proposed law would require to be destroyed or removed from California. The net effect would be what is perhaps the single largest unconstitutional government taking in California history.

More, SB 249 would subject gun owners to criminal liability as of July 1, 2013, for the mere possession of firearms that Senator Yee and Attorney General Harris have both said are legal under current law. Ex post facto laws, such as SB 249 would create if passed, are expressly unconstitutional.

Interestingly, however, SB 249 would create a de facto requirement that gun owners , hunters, and competitors in California use only “featureless” firearms, such as AR and AK-style guns employing compliance parts like the Solar Tactical KYDEX Grip Wraps, MonsterMan Grips, or Exile Machine’s Hammerhead Grip, which not only allow for the lawful use of factory magazine releases but large-capacity magazines as well. California does not ban the possession of large-capacity magazines. Wes Morris, owner of Ten Percent Firearms, demonstrates this is an excellent YouTube video you can view at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhC8LpHPbRQ.

Senator Yee’s bill is currently before the Assembly Appropriations Committee and is expected to be heard on August 15, though it could be heard as soon as August 8. The bill must pass both the Assembly and the Senate by August 31.

The Calguns Foundation and Cal-FFL, through their pathbreaking grassroots initiative platform StopSB249.org, have created many free, easy-to-use tools for you to help combat this massive gun ban. Please forward this message to your friends, family, favorite gun dealers and manufacturers, and your social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Working together, we can Stop SB 249 – but we need you to TAKE ACTION NOW!

The SB 249 Fact Sheet is available for download at http://stopsb249.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sb249_fact_sheet1.pdf.

Donate to The Calguns Foundation and help Stop SB 249.

Stop SB 249’s Take Action page with many free tools to fight SB 249 can be found at http://stopsb249.org/take-action.

Crap like SB 249 is not only a California problem. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens in California doesn’t always stay in California. This is especially true when it comes to gun control initiatives such as microstamping which almost passed again in New York State and has been introduced in other states. It is all too easy to say “I live in a free state” or that California gun owners ought to just move.

It is best to think of SB 249 as a festering sore that could infect the rest of the body. It needs to be stopped and stopped hard before it spreads to impact all of us.

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There Are Media Experts And Then There Are Real Experts

August 8, 2012 by 4 Comments

In this world, there are experts and then there are those that the mainstream media considers an expert. Sometimes they are one and the same but that usually is not the case. When it comes to guns it most assuredly is not the case.

Gene McCune of Reuters considers this man an expert on firearms.

That is Josh Sugarmann. He is the executive director of the Violence Policy Center which is an advocacy group pushing for the prohibition of firearms. Mr. Sugarmann has two other claims to fame: he coined the misleading term “assault weapon” and held a FFL for “research purposes”.

In an article by McCune published in the Chicago Tribune, Sugarmann is referred to as a firearms expert.

Semiautomatic handguns are the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they are light and easy to conceal, and adaptable to using high-capacity magazines, experts say. This allows the shooter to fire the maximum number of bullets in a short period of time, said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group that advocates to reduce gun violence.

Josh Sugarmann, like Ladd Everitt of CSGV, is an expert – an expert in providing misleading quotes to clueless reporters.

The man below is a real firearms expert. He is the one that McCune should have interviewed but didn’t.

He is Massad Ayoob. Mas has written numerous books on firearms, self-defense, and law enforcement topics including the seminal In the Gravest Extreme. For over 30 years, he has been a  recognized expert witness in court cases involving shootings and firearms.

As to why Mr. McCune went to Josh Sugarmann for his “expert” advice is open to debate. That Sugarmann is by no means an expert on firearms really isn’t open to debate.

As a final aside, Dave Workman has an interesting take on Sugarmann’s comments in his Seattle Gun Rights Examiner column.

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And The Beat Goes On

August 7, 2012 by 4 Comments

The NSSF-adjusted NICS figures for July were released yesterday and the beat goes on. July 2012 marks the 26th straight month in which the NICs figures have increased over the same period in the previous year.

The July 2012 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 853,355 is an increase of 25.5 percent over the NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 680,258 in July 2011. For comparison, the unadjusted July 2012 NICS figure of 1,289,585 reflects an 12.4 percent increase from the unadjusted NICS figure of 1,147,355 in July 2011.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation adjusts the raw numbers to take out the uses of the NICS for CCW permit checks. States such as Kentucky, Iowa, and Michigan use the NICS system for the background check before they issue their concealed carry permits.

NSSF is always careful to note that there is not a perfect correlation between NICS figures and firearms sales. However, they do provide a useful indication of the direction of the market. In this case, as it has been for the past 26 months, the direction is up.

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Too Cool For An AR?

August 7, 2012 by 2 Comments

Richard Stengel, Princeton ’77 and Rhodes Scholar, is too cool for an AR. He also thinks you don’t need one either.

Stengel’s profile picture from Time Magazine

Stengel is the Managing Editor of Time Magazine and penned a blurb for the Aug. 6th issue entitled “Talking Common Sense About Guns”. In the blurb, Stengel said, “And gun owners know better than anyone else that an AR-15 has little or no sporting purpose.”

Even if one accepts – and I don’t – the ATF’s interpretation of the sporting purpose language of the Gun Control Act of 1968 which they use to say that 3-Gun competitions are not “sporting”, AR-15s in a variety of calibers are used to hunt everything from ground squirrels to whitetail deer and everything in between. Firearm manufacturers ranging from the venerable Remington to the newer Daniel Defense are now making ARs for the hunting market.

Stengel’s comment brought a swift reaction from Steve Sanetti of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Sanetti sent a letter which said, in part,

It never ceases to amaze recreational shooters and hunters when persons who wouldn’t touch a firearm on a bet presume to tell us that certain firearms “have no sporting purpose”…

People fear what they don’t know, and that’s perfectly understandable. But to presume to know what kind of equipment many millions of other law-abiding Americans use for legitimate recreational pursuits in the face of the facts is just wrong.

I don’t know whether Stengel’s comment comes from ignorance or willfulness but I do find him to be as arrogant and out of touch as the magazine he edits. Sorry Mr. Stengel, that is just not cool.

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The White House Still Dances Around Gun Control

August 7, 2012 by

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who could give the Dancing With The Stars contestants lessons, continues to dance around the issue of gun control. The shootings at the Sikh Temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin led to the obligatory questions from the media at today’s press briefing on whether or not President Obama is going to push for gun control legislation.

On new gun control legislation Carney said:

Q: But does anything — either one of these incidents suggest that there need to be new gun control legislation?

MR. CARNEY: I think the President addressed this at the Urban League, John. And his view is, as I’ve said, that we need to take common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights and make it harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining weapons.

I think he made clear, too, in his speech in New Orleans that violence in America is a problem that is greater than just the issue of gun laws. And he talked very clearly about the prevalence of violence in America, that even as overall statistics show that crime has gone down over these last many years but there is still too much violence. And incidents like the ones you mentioned are horrific, and our hearts go out to the victims of such appalling acts of violence, but we should not forget that there are victims of violence every day in America, and we need to address that problem in a concerted way that deals with education and summer jobs and other ways to help address the violence problem in America.

I must say that anytime I hear a politician or their flacks use the expression “common-sense measures”, I know they are just itching to impose more restrictions.

Of course, in what seems to be a popular refrain in this White House, Carney went on to essentially blame Congress for being the impediment to gun control legislation.

Q: Does the President share Minority Leader Pelosi’s view that even if Democrats controlled Congress, there still wouldn’t be the votes for significant gun legislation? And is that why the White House hasn’t pushed for new or tougher legislation more strongly?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think the President has made his views plain on this, which is that he is for common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights — very important Second Amendment rights that American citizens have, but that make it harder and harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining them.

There is no question that there has been a reluctance to act in Congress on these issues. Whether that will continue to be the case in the future is anyone’s prediction. The President is focused on the progress we can make along the lines I just described.

So again, his positions on various issues I think we’ve talked about. He believes that we can take action within the existing environment that moves the ball forward in terms of enforcement, that enhances background checks, that makes it harder for those who shouldn’t have weapons under existing law — makes it harder for them to obtain weapons, but continues to ensure that Second Amendment rights are protected.

Whether Carney wants to make the prediction for more gun control legislation in the future or not, I think virtually everyone on our side of the issue fully expects more gun control if Obama is re-elected. It may be overt as in legislation or it may be under the radar with how they “interpret” laws and regulations. Without the need to worry about re-election, Obama and his minions won’t be obliged to offer platitudes about “Second Amendment rights” and their protection nor will they feel constrained in their efforts to undercut our freedoms.

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A Big Thank You

August 6, 2012 by

I posted a bleg asking for advice on the purchase of a laptop back in July. One was to be for me and the other for Laura – the Virtual Stepdaughter – who needed a new laptop as she begins grad school. I want to say that I appreciate all the advice I was given.

I can now report that the laptops have been bought and no sales tax has been paid on either purchase! This is the back-to-school tax-free weekend in North Carolina.

I purchased a HP Pavilion G6-2010nr for Laura as she starts her M.A.Ed. in Elementary Education at Gardner-Webb University. She has been teaching first and second graders for the past three years and was named Grade Level Chair for first grade at her school. With her husband having finished his master’s in athletic training last year, it was her turn to start grad school.

The HP has 4GB of RAM, a 640GB harddrive, a 15.6 inch screen, built-in DVD burner, and weighs 5 1/2 pounds. The other thing that was essential was decent battery life. This laptop has almost a 6 hour estimated battery life. Her operating software is a 64-bit version of Windows 7.

As you can tell from the picture below, she is very pleased with it. She’s even keeping the protective plastic on it for now to keep it “nice”.

I was looking for something very lightweight with good battery life to use in traveling and at conferences. I wanted something similar to the MacBook Air. I looked at the specs on a lot of “ultrabooks”, checked some out at Sam’s Club, etc. The advice I kept getting from many people was that if I wanted something like a MacBook, why not just get a MacBook? The more I thought about it I realized they were right.

I bought the 13″ MacBook Air base model (4GB RAM and 128GB Solid State Drive) at the Apple Store in Greensboro yesterday. I got a university discount (that adjunct status is paying off!) plus they kicked in a $100 gift card for apps at the App Store. The store was packed and the line was almost out the door.

I haven’t had time to give it the full workout that it deserves. Nonetheless, I am exceedingly happy with it so far. I haven’t installed OS X Mountain Lion yet but do have the code to get it for free. I did install Office for Mac 2011 this evening along with a series of other software updates. I have much more set-up and customizing work to do but it is coming along.

A special thanks to PT, Bruce, and Sebastian for recommending that I go with the MacBook. It was good advice.

Again, a big thank you to everyone who gave advice.

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Zimmerman’s Attorney Mark O’Meara To Speak At 2012 GRPC

August 3, 2012 by 1 Comment

Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation sent out an email notice last night saying that George Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Meara, is scheduled to be one of the speakers at this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference in Orlando.

From the email:

George Zimmerman’s criminal defense attorney Mark O’Mara in the Trayvon Martin case has just confirmed to speak at the Gun Rights Policy Conference!…

This year GRPC will be action-packed. With over 50 speakers hand-picked from the leadership of the Gun Rights Movement, the topics to be presented promise to have an impact that will help direct the path of our cause for years to come. Invited speakers this year include: myself, Joe Tartaro, Alan Gura, Otis McDonald, John Lott, Alan Korwin, Massad Ayoob, David Kopel, John Snyder, as well as staff from the Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, National Rifle Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation, KeepAndBearArms.com, and Gun Owners of America. A number of elected political leaders have been invited as well.

For more information on the Gun Rights Policy Conference or to register online, go to the SAF’s GRPC page.

I plan to be there and I’d urge you to make it if you can.

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Ruger Has Another Great Quarter

August 3, 2012 by

Ruger released their 2nd quarter 2012 financial results yesterday and held an earnings conference call with investment analysts and those interested this morning. Suffice to say, Ruger had another great quarter.

CEO Mike Fifer reported that Ruger’s earnings were up 63% for the quarter compared to the same quarter in 2011. Earnings growth was driven by a 50% growth in sales as well as some operational efficiencies. Breaking down sales, new products introduced in 2012 accounted for 38% of sales in the first half of 2012. Fifer attributed the following new products for driving this 38% increase:

  • Ruger American rifle
  • SR22 pistol
  • 10/22 Take-down rifle
  • 22/45 Lite pistol

In terms of dollars figures, Ruger reported the following for the 2nd quarter of 2012:

The Company reported net sales of $119.6 million and fully diluted earnings of 91¢ per share, compared with net sales of $79.6 million and fully diluted earnings of 56¢ per share in the second quarter of 2011.

For the six months ended June 30, 2012, net sales were $231.9 million and fully diluted earnings were $1.71 per share. For the corresponding period in 2011, net sales were $155.1 million and fully diluted earnings were 99¢ per share.

Ruger’s unit sales or the number of firearms sold to distributors rose by  55% for the quarter. If one uses the NSSF adjusted NICS checks as a proxy for the industry as a whole, it only rose 18% during the quarter.

During the conference call, one analyst asked if the growth in sales for the LC9 were as a result of cannibalizing the sales of the LCP. Fifer replied, “Not in the slightest.”

Fifer was asked about the $9 million in capital expenditures during the quarter. He replied:

Well, the important thing to know about the capital expenditures as I described is that we recognize them when they are placed in service. Which is — so it’s when I order it, not when I put a deposit on machinery, not when the machinery arrives, not even when I just get the tools up, but when I actually start producing parts. So the fact that I recognize $9 million in the quarter, it means I had a lot of equipment start producing parts in the quarter.

Finally, there was a question about the backlog and whether the orders submitted were firm orders or not. Fifer replied that Ruger had a policy of only accepting firm non-cancelable orders. Part of the rationale behind the suspension of taking new orders this Spring was the company’s desire to maintain this policy. Prior to lifting this suspension, their sales staff worked with distributors reminding them to only order what they could actually sell to gun shops.

Ruger had a great quarter and with all the talk of new gun control measure plus the elections I fully expect them to have a very good 3rd quarter.

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I am a shareholder in Sturm, Ruger and Company and have been for a number of years.