Month: July 2013

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Safe Restaurants Project

July 31, 2013 by 2 Comments

In response to anticipated efforts by the gun prohibitionists, Grass Roots North Carolina is launching the Safe Restaurants Project. As the release below makes clear, it is an effort to encourage restaurant owners to NOT post their restaurants against concealed carry.

From the GRNC release:

Gun Group Targets Restaurants

GRNC ‘Safe Restaurants Project’ will admonish gun rights supporters to report restaurants which post against concealed handguns

Recently signed by Governor Pat McCrory, on October 1st House Bill 937 will expand North Carolina’s concealed handgun law into restaurants. Under the statute, restaurants may still elect to post signs prohibiting firearms.

Although concealed handgun permit-holders will still be prohibited from imbibing alcohol, gun control advocates are already planning to pressure restaurants to prohibit concealed carry.

Accordingly, and with great reluctance, GRNC is responding with its “GRNC Safe Restaurants Project,” to ensure the new law will provide its intended deterrent to violent crime.

The 3 objectives of the “GRNC Safe Restaurants Project”:

  • Provide education for concealed handgun permit-holders to avoid accidental violations;

  • Provide “Protection Preferred” signage enabling supporting restaurants to subtly identify their support to permit-holders and supporters; and

  • Create a “Restaurant “Don’t Buy List” which:

  • Allows thousands of gun owners to report posted restaurants;


  • Sends restaurants notification they have been reported and requests them to remove signs or inform GRNC that a mistake has been made;

  • Provides contact information for posted restaurants, enabling thousands of supporters to contact those restaurants to explain that they will not patronize posted establishments.

GRNC will distribute Restaurant Don’t Buy lists and relevant materials to tens of thousands of gun owners via:

  • GRNC’s email alert network, comprising 87,000 supporters;


  • Gun shows in Asheville, Hickory, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Lexington, Concord, Greensboro, Raleigh, Fayetteville and Jacksonville;

  • GRNC’s distribution network of nearly 50 gun shops;

  • Concealed handgun permit classes statewide; and

  • GRNC’s highly popular website.

Said GRNC president Paul Valone:

“It’s unfortunate GRNC must counter gun control activists’ attempts to undermine a law intended to deter restaurant crime and save lives. We fully sympathize with restaurant owners caught in the middle of a battle we’d rather not fight, but they should understand that, according to the Pew Research Center, gun rights supporters donate four times more and are more politically involved than gun control advocates. They should ask themselves whether they want to alienate the 399,268 North Carolinians who have applied for concealed handgun permits.”

This brings to mind a suggestion made many times by Tom Gresham when coming across a store or restaurant that is posted against concealed carry. Tom calls the establishment and says to the manager, “I wanted to shop (or eat) at your store (restaurant) but it was unsafe.”  When they ask what you mean, you tell them they have posted against concealed carry and you won’t subject your family to the risk. Then you tell them what you spent at their competitors. To really get the point across, you fax them a copy of your receipt from their competitor. Done often enough, it will get the message across.

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One Of The Pro-Gun Extremists Behind The Recall? Not Quite

July 30, 2013 by 2 Comments

Given that the gun prohibitionists don’t know astroturf from the real grassroots, it is not surprising that the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is proclaiming Dudley Brown as “one of the pro-gun extremists behind the recall of CO State Senate President John Morse.” The Dudley Brown in question is the head of the National Association for Gun Rights and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

One of the men behind the recall of Morse and Giron? Not quite.

From the Denver Post in April when talk of a recall first surfaced:

Dudley Brown, director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, thinks the time and money would be better spent taking out Democrats in swing districts in the 2014 election.

From the Colorado politics website, Colorado Peak Politics, which posted this yesterday:

Neither the NRA nor Rocky Mountain Gun Owners did diddly squat to get the recalls on the ballot. These recalls, and most especially the Giron effort, were grassroots at their most raw.

 From the Denver Post’s The Spot blog which said this of Brown yesterday:

In April, as two recall efforts were already underway and there was talk of recalling Gov. John Hickenlooper and other Democrats, Brown said he wasn’t so sure recalling the politicians was the best strategy. He told The Denver Post then he thought the money would be better spent taking out Democrats in swing districts in the 2014 election.

From The Gazette of Colorado Springs in a feature on the grassroots organizers behind the recalls:

The four men behind the Colorado State Senate recalls on Friday laughed sardonically at the suggestion that outside interests – namely the GOP and NRA – are driving their campaigns to unseat four Democratic lawmakers.

“I think some people clamored for some help at the beginning,” said Victor Head, who led the successful campaign to force a recall election of Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo. “They said ‘where’s the heavy hitters, where is the big interest in this, this has national implications’ and they never showed up.”

 Have Dudley Brown and NAGR finally stepped up for the recall fight? Yes, they have as of late yesterday when they began running a 30 second spot seen here in the Colorado Springs TV market.

I’m glad to see Dudley Brown finally step up to the plate. However, to call him one of the people behind the recall is to totally diminish the hard work done on the ground by the actual grassroots activists like Victor Head of Pueblo, Tim Knight of Durango, Anthony Garcia of Brighton and Grand Junction attorney Erik Groves who organized the Basic Freedom Defense Fund.

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Welcome To The Party, Guys!

July 30, 2013 by 6 Comments

The average Californian who wants to own a firearm especially a handgun has to deal with a whole host of rules and regulations that are enough to make your head swim. Now, in what can only be termed schadenfreude, so too must Federal law enforcement officers stationed in the state of California.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris, deemed by Obama to be “the best looking attorney general in the country”, has changed the policy of the Department of Justice that previously exempted Federal law enforcement officers from Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale. She determined California law had not carved out an exemption for them.

California gun law attorney Chuck Michel has this to say about the issue:

California citizens are just as frustrated as federal law enforcement officers with the situation. When the roster of available pistols they can purchase dwindles down to a limited few – because manufacturers are refusing to implement “microstamping” – federal law enforcement’s objections will grow louder. And if pending legislation (SB 293) concerning “smart guns” passes and is signed by the Governor, federal law enforcement will also be forced to choose from an even more limited number of models … just like civilians.

Forgive us mere civilians if we aren’t completely sympathetic to the plight of the feds.

The Feds predicament stems from a recent (and correct) change in the Attorney General’s interpretation of existing California law. While California law restricts the sale of “unsafe handguns” by dealers, there are some exceptions to the restriction. The exception used by most law enforcement agencies and officers, and the one used until recently by federal law enforcement officers, was the following:

The sale or purchase of any pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person, if the pistol, revolver, or other firearm is sold to, or purchased by, the Department of Justice, any police department, any sheriff’s official, any marshal’s office, the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, the California Highway Patrol, any district attorney’s office, or the military or naval forces of this state or of the United States for use in the discharge of their official duties. Nor shall anything in this section prohibit the sale to, or purchase by, sworn members of these agencies of any pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person.

Pen. Code, § 32000(b)(4)

You might notice, as did the California’s Attorney General, that federal law enforcement officers are not mentioned in this exception! The “Department of Justice” referred to in this section is the California Department of Justice, not a federal agency. So the AG’s analysis is correct: federal law enforcement is not exempt from the “unsafe handgun” restriction.

 He has much more on the issue here.

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GRNC On HB 937 Being Signed Into Law

July 30, 2013 by

Grass Roots North Carolina released a statement last night thanking Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) for signing HB 937 into law. While they are more generous towards the governor than I was in the last post, it is probably because they are better at this political stuff than I am.

They are also asking people to send a note of thanks to McCrory, Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Mecklenburg), and Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham). I think that is a smart idea. Politicians too often hear from us when they’ve screwed up or done something to piss us off. They need to hear from us with the attaboys as well. It will help reinforce their “proper behavior” when it comes to gun rights.

From GRNC:

HB 937 Finally Becomes Law!

Governor signs HB 937 just minutes ago…

GRNC has learned that Governor McCrory has just signed HB 937 into law. After a long and sometimes hard fight to push HB 937 through the North Carolina General Assembly (NCGA) and onto the Governor’s desk, victory is finally at hand. More information concerning this issue will follow in future GRNC alerts, but for now we can take a collective breath and celebrate by thanking those who have worked hard to move HB 937 from the House and Senate all the way to the Governor’s desk.

Below, you will see contact information for many of the key legislators involved. Please take a moment to thank them for their hard work and dedication. Above all, GRNC would like to thank all of YOU for your tireless efforts through this process! Without your dedication and steadfast resolve, HB 937 would have been left on the shelf or buried in yet another obscure committee to die a low death. Despite efforts to derail HB 937 at several points in its journey, Grass Roots North Carolina worked hard to claim victory and that victory would not have been possible without YOUR help!

Thank you to all of our members and volunteers!

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

  • Contact legislators: Using the contact info below, contact those legislators that worked hard to pass HB 937 and thank them for their resolve.


  • Support GRNC: GRNC needs your support to help combat the efforts against your rights as gun owners. Join or renew your membership! http://www.grnc.org/join-grnc/join-grnc-online

CONTACT INFO

Speaker Thom Tillis: Thom.Tillis@ncleg.net

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger: Phil.Berger@ncleg.net

Gov. Pat McCrory: Email using webpage at http://www.governor.state.nc.us/contact/email-pat

Use the following cut-and-paste email list to contact NC House Republicans and Senators:
Justin.Burr@ncleg.net Tim.Moore@ncleg.net Larry.Pittman@ncleg.net Jacqueline.Schaffer@ncleg.net Tom.Apodaca@ncleg.net Buck.Newton@ncleg.net

DELIVER THIS MESSAGE

Suggested Subject: “Thank you for passing HB 937!”

Dear Speaker Tillis/President Pro Tem Phil Berger/Governor Pat McCrory/Representative/Senator:

I wanted to take a moment and thank you for all of your hard work and effort in passing HB 937 and getting it to the Governor’s desk in a timely manner. This bill will undoubtedly enable safe and sane gun owners in North Carolina to better protect themselves and their families and it will also provide stiffer penalties for those who commit crimes with guns.

Again, thank you for your hard work and diligence!

Respectfully,

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Gov. McCrory Signs HB 937 Into Law

July 30, 2013 by 9 Comments

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) signed HB 937 into law today. In a release regarding the signing of many bills, he said in reference to this bill:

HB 937 (Reps. Schaffer, Burr, Faircloth and Cleveland) Amend Various Firearms Laws – This legislation amends state firearms laws.

“This legislation prohibits guns in classrooms, dorms, and administrative buildings on college campuses. Additionally, this legislation gives bar owners the authority to prohibit guns in their establishments. Following my threat of a veto, we worked closely with law enforcement officials across the state so that changes were made to the original legislation. This ensured that permitting is still required for a concealed carry permit and is implemented at the local level.” – Governor Pat McCrory

“Like many North Carolinians, I am a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. As a 34-year veteran of law enforcement here in North Carolina, I believe it’s important that Sherriff’s offices continue to administer the certification process for concealed carry permits. I would like to thank Governor Pat McCrory for his efforts on behalf of public safety in ensuring this common sense provision remained in HB 937.” – Guilford County Sherriff BJ Barnes

I’m glad that McCrory signed the bill but his and Barnes’ description of what was left out of the bill is as full of crap as the drivel from the gun prohibitionists regarding guns in restaurants and bars.

As much as I would have liked it, no version of the bill ever proposed having concealed carry within classrooms, dorms, or other university buildings. The bill only addressed employees living on campus and permit holder storing firearms in their locked vehicles – and this was left in the bill despite the objections of the University of North Carolina System and its administration.

Even worse is the suggestion that the Concealed Handgun Permit was going to be taken from the state’s sheriffs. What was going to be dropped with the Jim Crow-era law that allowed sheriffs to deny African-Americans handguns. This was the pistol purchase permit system which still is administered in disparate ways county to county. This bill will correct some of that.

To say I’m not pleased by the comments of either the governor or Sheriff Barnes is an understatement.

UPDATE: To answer a question posed in the comments as to when the law becomes effective, for the most part, it will be October 1, 2013.

The only section that specifically goes into effect immediately is Section 17.3. This section instructs sheriffs to go through the outstanding pistol purchase permits that have been issued to see if any of them need to be revoked because the holder has become a prohibited person under the standards set forth in GS 14-404(h).

GS 14-404(h) was established by Section 17.2(a) of the bill. Subsection (h) states:

the occurrence of any event or condition subsequent to the issuance of the permit, or the applicant’s subsequent inability to meet a
requirement under this Article, which would have resulted in a denial of the application submitted to obtain the permit if the event,
condition, or the applicant’s current inability to meet a statutory requirement had existed at the time of the application and prior to the issuance of the permit
.

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Gun Owners Put Their Money And Votes Where Their Mouth Is

July 29, 2013 by 1 Comment

The Pew Research Center released a poll on views about gun control this past weekend. The survey itself was taken at the beginning of May.

When asked whether it was more important to control guns or to preserve the right of Americans to own guns, the response was virtually a dead heat. 50% said it was more important to control guns while 48% said it was more important to preserve the right of American to own guns. This is a change from last December when Pew surveyed Americans after the Newtown shooting and found greater support for gun control. The overall margin of error in the poll is 2.9 percentage points which puts these results within the margin of error.

The survey also asked respondents about whether they had contributed to a gun rights or gun control organization as well as questions on civic involvement on the issue. In what should be no surprise to those of us who support gun rights, we put our money and our efforts where our mouth is.


From a US News and World Report on the survey published today:

Gun rights supporters donate four times more and are more politically involved than gun control advocates, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center published this weekend.

In May 2013, six months after the Newtown school shooting that sparked a national conversation on guns – and a month after the Senate failed to pass a major gun bill – Pew found that 25 percent of people who support gun rights had contributed money to a second amendment group, while just 6 percent of people who support gun control had donated on the issue.

Just as important as donating, gun rights supporters are more likely to have contacted a public official about gun rights issues. Moreover, they are more likely to have expressed their views regarding gun rights on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as having signed a petition on gun rights. Perhaps most importantly, gun rights supporters are more likely to have more than one of these activities by a 3 to 2 margin within the last 6 months and a 2 to 1 margin lifetime.

Even with the White House using the bully pulpit to push their gun control agenda and the media acting as propaganda agents for gun prohibitionists, we who support gun rights are still the ones who are more willing to put our money where our mouth is and are more politically involved.

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A Good Reason Not To Have A Firearms Registry

July 29, 2013 by 2 Comments

Any database or registry can be abused. It doesn’t matter if it a database of new born babies or a registry of guns. Unethical and unscrupulous people can and will abuse it especially if it isn’t protected.

The police in New South Wales, Australia maintain a registry of all firearms owned by those with firearms licenses or permits. They also require safe storage of firearms. The firearms registry keeps a record of all firearms registered in NSW, the details about the firearm, the owner, and where the firearm is stored in accordance with the safe storage requirements. This information is kept by the police on their computers and accessible through an intranet.

Imagine what could happen if someone got unauthorized access to this registry. Unfortunately, according to a police whistleblower this isn’t a hypothetical situation. Sgt. David Good of the NSW Police says that the records and locations on over 700,000 firearms was kept on an unsecured server until the end of 2010.

Sgt Good said that he had become concerned for the safety of gun owners when the single-file database, containing gun owner addresses, was moved from a high-security storage system to an unsecure intranet accessed by 16,000 police and civilian staff for at least 18 months to December 2010.

“The information contained within that single database included a schedule of firearms owned, and the storage address for the state’s licenced firearms owners, in the order of 700,000 firearms,” he said in correspondence with senior police that was made available to Sporting Shooter.

“(The database) would be considered an extremely valuable resource to the criminal element, who would no doubt offer lucrative inducements for the corrupt release of same.”

Sgt Good would not speculate on any direct link between gun theft and the unlawful release of gun owner details, however, anecdotal evidence shows that thefts had occurred shortly after police had carried out an audit at a gun storage location.

This has led to speculation that gun owner details are already in criminal hands, and the recent case of a police impersonator demanding to inspect a gun owner’s firearms safe prompted Sgt Good to speak out.

“I have been attempting to have this situation corrected since December 2010,” he said and added that he had been dissatisfied with the level of accountability or even acknowledgement of the situation by NSW Police.

“I want to see that the NSW Police Force is brought to account for creating a very significant risk to licenced firearms owners and the wider community, and this risk would have been avoided through sensible security and practices in regard to the very sensitive nature of the information at risk.”

Sgt. Good goes on to add that the system does not create any audit trail of who accessed it and it doesn’t prevent copying of the database on to mobile devices such as a thumbnail drive. I’m no computer security expert but that seems extremely lax to me.

The media and the gun prohibitionists cry foul when personal data on firearm ownership and concealed carry permits is made non-public. We have already seen the consequences of newspapers publishing lists and maps to pistol owners in New York State. Imagine if those papers had published a list of just what gun was owned by whom, where they stored it, etc. If criminals can take orders for certain models of cars to steal as in the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds”, they can just as easily take orders to steal a Colt 1911 in .38 Super.

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Heckler Kitty?

July 29, 2013 by 1 Comment

The Complementary Spouse and I were in Target this weekend just strolling around. With back-to-school starting to pick up steam, school supplies including notebooks were everywhere. Look at the one that I came across.

I thought, oh my, they are using the Heckler & Koch logo on a Hello Kitty spiral notebook. Unfortunately, after I got home and checked, it was not to be.

Little girls were not going to be drawn into the gun world by a subliminal message on their Hello Kitty notebooks. There would be no wailing and gnashing of teeth by the gun prohibitionists and their lapdogs in the media about how the evil gun industry was indoctrinating children.

Too bad.

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Ruger Plant Damaged By The Rain

July 28, 2013 by 1 Comment

It isn’t only the East getting torrential rains. Prescott, Arizona received about 1.5 inches of rain from late Thursday afternoon through Friday morning of this past week. For an area that averages less than 18 inches in a year, that’s a heck of a lot of rain. So much rain in fact that it caused part of the roof of the Ruger factory to collapse.

Sturm Ruger issued a news release via Business Wire Friday stating heavy rainfall caused a portion of the roof to collapse Thursday at its plant near the Prescott Airport. No one was injured.

“The company is in the process of undertaking repairs and expects to be back in production soon,” the news release stated.

Mark Lang, group vice president for Sturm Ruger, was unavailable for comment. However, a person at the scene who wished to remain anonymous left a voicemail message: “It was terrifying. They evacuated the whole building. The ceiling opened up. A flood of water came in. … It went everywhere, all over the machine, all over everybody. The roof caved in.”

 The collapse of the roof was significant enough that they had to make an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission as it was “material” which included their press release. The release said:

SOUTHPORT, CONNECTICUT, July 26, 2013 – Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE-RGR) announced today that during a severe thunderstorm on July 25, 2013, heavy precipitation caused a portion of the roof to collapse at our Prescott, Arizona manufacturing facility. No one was injured. The Company is in the process of undertaking repairs and expects to be back in production soon.

This temporary disruption may have a material impact on the Company’s results of operations for the third quarter of 2013, but is not expected to have a material impact on the financial position of the Company.

I guess the new manufacturing plant in Mayodan, North Carolina can’t come soon enough.

H/T Defensive Use of Firearms list

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Cheerwine Cocktails

July 28, 2013 by

Cheerwine is a cherry soda that originated here in North Carolina. The flavor is sort of like cherry Dr. Pepper. It is sweeter and more cherry flavored than regular Dr. Pepper. While it is now expanding its distribution, it is still more a Southern drink found in the Carolinas. The company even used to run ads about New Yorkers smuggling “our Cheerwine” to the North.

Seeing a can of Cheerwine in the refrigerator got the Complementary Spouse and I to thinking about cocktails using it. Lo and behold, there are a number of them on the Internet. So we did a taste test on a couple of them last night and I think we can give them both two thumbs up.

From the Tempered Spirits website, we found Cheerwine Cocktail No. 1. It is a mixture of gin, lime juice, and Cheerwine that tastes a lot like a cherry limeade with a kick. It was really tasty and was the Complementary Spouse’s favorite.

The recipe is simple. Mix 1 oz. of gin (I used Plymouth’s) with the juice of a half lime in a tall ice-filled glass. Top off with 6 oz. of Cheerwine. Tempered Spirits say you can also add 1 1/2 oz. of soda water to this but I think it would just dilute it. If using a dry London gin, they suggest using 1 1/2 oz.

The second cocktail was simply Bourbon and Cheerwine. Lisa Frame writing in Southern Spark calls it the “cocktail of Southerners”. She first came across it at one of our local restaurants Tupelo Honey. Here’s how she described her first taste of it.

The first sip was a burst of flavor, a sensation of icy cold, sweet, along with slight hint of cypress and an oakey finish….

Had Scarlett O’Hara had Cheerwine and Bourbon, she’d have been the one looking at Rhett and telling him she didn’t give a damn. But, she wasn’t.

I suggest you get yourself to the local ABC store, pick up a bottle of Maker”s Mark and then hie yourself over to the nearest Piggly Wiggly and grab a 2 liter Cheerwine.

Head home, grab a Highball and fill it half full of ice. Everything is always half full in the South. Always.

Now, open your Maker’s Mark and pour a healthy splash in the Highball. No, that piddly splash isn’t going to do it, halfway full is more like it. Now, top it off with some fresh, highly carbonated Cheerwine. Grab your sterling cocktail stirrer and give it a quick whirl.

I made mine with 1 1/2 oz. of Marker’s 46 and 6 oz. of Cheerwine. I squeezed a little bit of fresh lime in it as well.

All I can say is that Bourbon and Cheerwine puts Bourbon and Coke to shame. It is light years ahead of it in my opinion.  I can see myself sipping this on the porch in the summer when I don’t want bourbon on the rocks. I might not use my Woodford Reserve or Blanton’s in this concoction but it would be a good use of bottom to middle shelf bourbon.

I do have one warning. Be careful. Both cocktails are so easy to drink you might get carried away. Literally.