Month: September 2017

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GRNC Rally For Constitutional Rights

September 18, 2017 by

Squish the Magic Rino returns to Raleigh!

The North Carolina General Assembly returns to Raleigh on October 11th and Squish and his friends at Grass Roots North Carolina will be there to welcome them back. HB 746, which would allow permitless concealed carry among other things, is still stuck in the State Senate. While it has passed the House, Senate leaders seem to think bowing down to a certain wealthy ex-mayor and his hired minions is preferable to listening to those that got them elected.

More details in this release put out by GRNC:

RALLY FOR YOUR RIGHTS

Squish the Magic RINO returns to Raleigh for your
Constitutional rights…

Do you remember all of the speeches
during the last election cycle, how the Republican candidates couldn’t
say
enough about how pro-Second Amendment they are? Unfortunately, it seems
that Republicans have since become complacent, and they are taking gun
owners
like you for granted.

We know this because House Bill 746 is still stuck
in the Senate, a bill that gives NC Republicans a perfect opportunity to
follow through on their campaign rhetoric. Yet, “stuck” is the key term
here, not “follow through.” 

Worse yet, we
know that Michael Bloomberg’s out-of-state money has been hard at work
in North Carolina, with a few well-paid operatives whispering fear and
doubt
into the ears of our elected leaders. This isn’t a new game for them,
since they prognosticate doom about every pro-Second Amendment measure
that
comes up … and when these pro-gun bills are passed into law, their
fears of doom are proven to be completely unfounded. Still, we want to
make sure
that responsible, law-abiding gun owners are being seen and heard by
their elected leaders. Let’s remind them that rich New Yorkers and a few
paid
minions don’t speak for us in our state legislature.

 

Attend the Rally in
Raleigh

As it stands, the
General Assembly is scheduled to return for a special session on
*Wednesday, October 11th, and GRNC has planned a gun rights rally for the mall area between the Legislature and the Legislative
Office Building. However, if we are to effectively remind Republicans about you… we need YOU there. Together, we can
encourage our leaders to live up to their promises and move House Bill 746 in this special session.

If you can
attend, please click here to RSVP. See below,
under ‘Immediate Action Required,’ for more details.

Barring a
schedule change, which is entirely in the hands of the politicians in
Raleigh, the
demonstration will take place on *Wednesday, October 11th at 11:00 AM. 

And, just to ensure Republicans don’t miss
the message:

Squish the Magic RINO
will be
there!

*
A
legislative session is currently
scheduled to open October 11. Technically speaking, this is subject to
change, and is ultimately up to the legislators themselves. Should the
date
change, GRNC will keep you apprised, and do its best to hold an
effective rally on the appropriate date. As possible and if required,
your flexibility
is requested and greatly appreciated.


IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!
  • RSVP ON THE GRNC WEBSITE
    and let us know that you
    can attend the rally (or go to: https://www.grnc.org/october-11-demonstration)

  • ATTEND THE
    RALLY    ! It will be located on the grass mall just north of the Legislative building at 16 W. Jones St., Raleigh,
    NC    . The rally will begin at 11:00 AM, *Wednesday, October 11, but it’s wise to get there early to alleviate parking concerns.

  • PLEASE DRESS FOR THE PRESS. We encourage professional attire. Please, no inflammatory slogans on clothing or signs. We
    want to show everyone that North Carolina’s gun owners are the most civil, respectful, law-abiding citizens! 
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Friday Afternoon Dreaming

September 15, 2017 by 6 Comments

Every now and then you come across something that makes you say, “If I only had the money” or “When I win the lottery”. I came across something like that today. I was getting a pop-up ad in Facebook for various pieces of property on www.landandfarm.com.

After looking at a couple of things in Tennessee, I put “Randolph County, NC” into the search function. It is in the central Piedmont of North Carolina and would put me closer to my granddaughter Olivia Grace. It is also the county in which I was born all those many years ago.

What I found was stunning to say the least. The “Ponderosa” has a 3 BR, 2 BA house on 131 acres and is located in Denton bordering on the Davidson County line.

Well, OK, that’s nice. But what if I said it also had a pistol/shotgun range, a 100 yard rifle range, and a 600 yard rifle range?

Pistol Range

600 Yard Range

Indoor Bench for 100 Yard Range

The property which is a mix of loblolly pine and hardwoods is home to deer, turkey, dove, waterfowl, small game, and predators. There are four deer stands on the property. As you can see in second photo from the top, there are a number of fire and/or shooting lanes cut in the property. In addition to the workshop building, there is a walk-in cooler for aging your deer. There are also a number of springs plus the 6 acre pond.

The bottom line for all of this is $749,000. This is less than $6,000 per acre. It is almost like you are getting the house, workshop, and game cooler as an add-on bonus if you buy the land.

The listing is handled by Ben Wolfe of Wolfe Specialty Real Estate and Consulting. I don’t know anything about this company nor the owner. The link to his website gives more details on the property.

Having my your own place to shoot with multiple ranges along with a place to hunt and fish whenever would be considered priceless to many including myself. That said, $749,000 is out of my price range if I ever want to retire.

But hey, a guy can dream on a Friday afternoon, can’t he?

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Another Of Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors Bites The Dust

September 14, 2017 by 1 Comment

Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors has gained another member. Mayor Ed Murray of Seattle resigned effective as of 5 pm PDT today. He has been accused of child molestation by at least five men.

From Oregon Public Radio:

The resignation comes after a younger cousin accused him of sexual abuse in the 1970s.

The Seattle Times reports that Joseph Dyer, 54, accuses Murray of repeatedly molesting him when he was a teenager.

Dyer is the fifth man to accuse the mayor of such abuse.

Murray has repeatedly denied allegations of sexual abuse. He has said in the past that accusations from four men were part of a right-wing political agenda to take him down. According to the Times, Murray said the latest accusation is false and is likely because of a family rift.

Dyer says Murray forced him into sex while they shared a bedroom in Dyer’s childhood home, according to the Times. Dyer says he was 13 years old at the time. Murray lived with Dyer’s family in New York after his mother passed away.

Dyer has provided a signed declaration to a Seattle lawyer representing Delvonn Heckard, the man who sued Murray earlier this year for repeatedly raping him in the 1980s. The lawsuit has since been withdrawn but Heckard has filed a claim for damages against the city of Seattle.

Murray denies the claims of molestation but nonetheless has resigned. I hate to say it but you don’t publicly accuse someone of child molestation over a mere family rift. Dyer, Murray’s cousin, provided a signed declaration to the attorney representing Delvonn Heckard who had also accused Murray of molestation.

I don’t know if the statute of limitations has passed or not. However, child molestation is one of the most sordid of crimes especially when done by either a family member or someone in a position of authority. Murray was a family member of Dyer and a counselor to the other men. Resignation from his mayoral post and deciding not to run for re-election seems to me an effort on the part of Murray to hide as much of these incidents as possible.

I hope these men get the justice that they deserve. Three years ago the headline in the Seattle Times read, “Big winners: gun control and Mayor Ed Murray.” How times have changed in Seattle for at least one of these two.

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Well There Goes Her Rationale For Keeping Gun Free Zones

September 12, 2017 by

Shannon Watts, potential congressional candidate from Colorado and Bloomberg’s gift that keeps on giving, put up this tweet yesterday about the murders in Plano, Texas over the weekend. She is never one to let a family tragedy go to waste.

Watts and her minions have consistently argued against arming teachers and in favor of more gun free zones. Their argument is that a gun free zone is safer which people reading this blog know only creates a target rich environment for psychopaths.

Her whole supposed rationale for keeping schools, university campuses, and other public places “gun free” is to prevent mass shootings and “gun violence” (sic). Her Moms Demand Action was supposedly created in response to the murders in Newtown. (Actually, I think it was merely a vehicle to reinvent her moribund career.)

But if she is correct in stating that the majority of mass shootings take place in private residences, doesn’t that shoot down her rationale for more supposed gun free zones? Private residences will never be legally gun free. It will only be on an ad hoc basis at the whims of the individual residents. The Heller decision saw to that.

Shannon Watts is nothing if not consistently inconsistent. Her only consistencies seem to be guns are bad (unless they are used to protect me), “hey, look at me”, and how can I make a family tragedy into a PR gain for me.

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“Not Made of Cotton Candy”

September 11, 2017 by 2 Comments

It is somewhat hard to believe that September 11, 2001 was sixteen years ago. It still seems so clear in my memory that I feel like it was only yesterday that those four airplanes filled with mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, were hijacked and made into weapons. I guess this is the way all seminal events in our lives feel.

I listened to the speech given by Secretary of Defense James Mattis today. He said, “But we Americans are not made of cotton candy, we are not seaweed drifting in the current, we are not intimidated by our enemies.” He was right. It filled our nation with a terrible resolve to use Admiral Yamamoto’s words after the Pearl Harbor surprise attack. We struck back and we struck hard.

While today is officially known as Patriot Day, I will continue to use the old term of September 11th. I will remember those lost that day and those that died in the conflicts that followed.

Secretary Mattis’ full speech is below. His quote used in the headline comes at about the 1:45 mark.

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Verrit.Com Isn’t Reliable No Matter What They Or Hillary Says

September 7, 2017 by 3 Comments

Verrit.com is a new website founded by Peter Daou. They call themselves the media for the 65.8 million. That is a play on the popular vote received by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election. Daou was an advisor to Clinton in her 2008 run for the presidency.

The website claims to have verified all the political nuggets that they put into little digestible bites. They even put a verification number of that little nugget of wisdom.

Verrit collects and contextualizes noteworthy facts, stats, and quotes for politically engaged citizens. Each “verrit” is a verified item of information marked with a 7-digit identification code. To authenticate a verrit, enter the code in the search bar and match it to our database.

The website and its “service” has been endorsed by Clinton. That said, it is getting grief from both the left and the right. Politico says it looks like “North Korean Agitprop.” The Washington Examiner calls it, in an opinion piece, “a leftist partisan blunder.” Finally, even the Washington Post – Pravda on the Potomac – calls it a media platform that “is looking worse and worse.”

Let’s look at one of their cards dealing with “gun violence” (sic).

You know that old saying about how figures lie and liars figure? This is one of them.

First, who in their right mind would use Newsweek as your source for anything authoritative? Really?

Second, it also depends on how you define children. To see what the real numbers showed, I went to the authoritative source on mortality statistics in the United States:  the Center for Disease Control and their WISQARS database.

The database has a tool where you can generate charts showing deaths by age and by cause. I broke down the age groups into less than one, 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, and 15-19. While it generated numbers for all age groups I don’t consider anyone over 19 to be a “child”. If I could have specified less than 18 only, I would have done that as 18 is the age of majority in virtually all the states.

Here are the top five leading causes of death for those under the age of 20 in the United States in 2015:

  1. Unintentional Injuries (minus firearm related) —- 7,863
  2. Congenital Anomolies —- 5,792
  3. Short Gestation —- 4,084
  4. All Firearm Related Deaths Combined —- 2,761
  5. Malignant Neoplasms (cancer) —- 1,802
So obviously, Newsweek and Verrit.com are wrong. Guns are NOT the third leading cause of death for children in America. To give you a better idea about firearm related deaths, I broke it down by age, type of death, and whether it involved a firearm in the chart below. All the data comes directly from the CDC database mentioned above. I would encourage everyone to run their own chart as they allow you to drill down.

Age Group Total Deaths Homicide w Firearms Suicide w Firearms Unintentional  w Firearms
Under 1 23455 263 8 0 0 1291 1
1-4 3965 369 50 0 0 1235 25
5-9 2402 140 69 0 0 755 7
10-14 3009 158 121 409 139 763 15
15-19 10186 1587 1397 2061 877 3919 52
Total 43017 2517 1645 2470 1016 7963 100
Total
Deaths 		 2761
Involving
a Firearm

I have underlined the deaths involving a firearm. All of these numbers are from 2015 which are the latest available.

What struck me about these numbers is that below the age of 15, the number of homicides and suicides involving a firearm are rather low. However, it is the cohort between the ages of 15 and 19 that are of concern. Without having the ICD-10 data that would allow me to drill down even further, I can only surmise what is behind the number of homicides in the later teen years. I would speculate that much of it is drug and gang related but I can’t say that for sure.

Suicides for this cohort are almost evenly divided between those involving a firearm and those that involve suffocation. Suicides in the younger 10-14 age range are more likely to involve suffocation while in the adult cohorts firearms are more likely to be used.

The bottom line here is that those opposed to the Second Amendment will fudge their numbers and that Verrit can put out as much “fake news” as anyone else even if it has a gimmicky verification number. If you want reliable data, you have to go to reliable sources. Even then, you have to dig to get it.

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Hmmm. Very Interesting. Trouble In (Gun Control) Paradise?

September 6, 2017 by 4 Comments

There is that old saying that says keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

In that spirit, I read with interest that Dan Gross has stepped down as the president of the Brady Campaign. He was the ad executive brought in to replace Paul Helmke as president back in early 2012 after a long search. Gross will be replaced by Co-Presidents Kristin Brown and Avery Gardiner.

Historically, the presidents of the Brady Campaign have been men since its formation in 1974 as the National Council to Control Handguns. Sarah Brady’s role was as chair of the organization from 1989 until her death in 2015.

I wonder if the switch to female co-presidents has something to do with what seems to be the female centric nature of the gun prohibitionists. Even beyond Moms Demand Action, any rally, protest, gathering, etc. seems to be composed primarily of women. I don’t know but it seems to have some logic to it.

Here is the press release from the Brady Campaign announcing the changes.

Board of The Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence Appoints Two Internal Executives to Lead Organization

Board Chair says “Mission to cut gun deaths has never been more urgent.”

WASHINGTON, DC – September 6, 2017 — The Board of Trustees of The Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence announced today it has appointed Kristin Brown and Avery Gardiner, as Co-Presidents of the Washington, D.C., nonprofit.

“The Brady Campaign and Center’s mission to cut gun deaths in half by 2025 has never been more urgent,” said Kevin Quinn, Chairman of the Board. “Brady has a focused strategy to prevent gun violence, and we need strong leaders with exceptional strategic and operational skills to achieve our goals. We have those leaders in Kristin and Avery. We are confident in the appointment of these two executives to lead this great community of Brady advocates and our organization.”

Brown and Gardiner will lead the organization from Washington, with a renewed focus on Brady’s three strategic campaigns to: (i) expand Brady background checks to all gun sales; (ii) change the cultural perception that a gun in the home makes you safer; and (iii) shut down or reform the small number of bad apple gun dealers that supply the vast majority of our nation’s crime guns. The new leadership brings extensive experience in law, policy, and public health, all of which are critical to leading these three campaigns, which have a core focus in each of those areas.

Kristin Brown was previously the Brady Campaign’s Chief Strategy Officer. She began her tenure at Brady as the National Policy Director and has a corporate, policy and legal background, having worked on Capitol Hill for more than 8 years where violence prevention and public health were two of her chief policy issues. Brown served for many years as a member of the Executive Management Board and Chief Legal Officer to a global logistics/airline services company based in Switzerland and, prior to that, represented companies in complex litigation and restructuring cases at the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Avery Gardiner was previously the Brady Center’s Chief Legal Officer. She has been responsible for shaping and driving the organization’s legal strategy, as well as providing legal advice to all of the organization’s departments. She brings extensive litigation and strategic experience to the Brady Center, having litigated and provided strategic advice as a lawyer for a Fortune 15 telecommunications company and at the United States Department of Justice in addition to past roles at major national law firms.

Both Brown and Gardiner already served on Brady’s Executive Management Team.

The Board accepted the resignation of Brady’s immediate past president, Dan Gross, who will remain with the organization to assist with the transition. According to the Chair of the Board, “Mr. Gross has been an important and influential leader in the gun violence prevention movement for many years, has led Brady, and leaves the organization poised for even greater success. We are grateful for Mr. Gross’s service to this issue and organization and wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

The appointment is effective immediately.

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Appeal To The Supreme Court Filed In The Silvester Case

September 5, 2017 by 1 Comment

Silvester et al v. Becerra (formerly v. Harris) is a California case that involves a challenge to the 10-day waiting period for those individuals in classes where a waiting or cooling off period makes no rational sense. It was a win at the US District Court level. However, the 9th Circuit bizarrely ruled – but I repeat myself – that even those who owned a firearm and who held a concealed carry permit from California needed that cooling off period.

The Calguns Foundation, the Second Amendment Foundation, Jeff Silvester, and Brandon Combs are the plaintiffs in this case. This past Friday, they have appealed to the US Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. Their petition can be found here.

More on the case in the Calguns Foundation’s release:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 1, 2017)­­­­­­ – Today, two individuals and two Second Amendment civil rights advocacy groups filed a petition for certiorari in the case of Silvester, et al. v. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra asking the United States Supreme Court to review and overturn a wrongly-decided Ninth Circuit decision about the State of California’s 10-day waiting period laws, noted The Calguns Foundation, one of the petitioners.

A copy of the petition to the Supreme Court and other relevant case documents can be viewed or downloaded at https://www.calgunsfoundation.org/silvester.

In 2014, Federal District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii—nominated to the bench by then-President Clinton—held that the waiting period laws were unconstitutional as applied to three categories of gun purchasers after undertaking significant discovery, depositions, and a three-day bench trial.

But in 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit bizarrely ruled that even a person legally carrying a concealed handgun as he buys another gun at retail, and who passes a further background check, needs to be “cooled off” for another 10 days before exercising his Second Amendment rights and taking possession of a constitutionally-protected firearm.

“I passed a rigorous state and federal background check and have a license to carry a handgun in public throughout the State of California,” explained individual plaintiff Jeffrey Silvester, an insurance broker in Hanford, California. “The DOJ knows that I am a law-abiding person, and I’m even in their Rap Back system. What possible reason does the State have in denying me my Second Amendment right to take possession of a firearm after I pass yet another background check?”

The petition, authored by Supreme Court and appellate attorney Erik. S. Jaffe of Washington, D.C., noted that it “is no secret that various lower courts, and the Ninth Circuit especially, are engaged in systematic resistance to” the Court’s landmark Heller and McDonald decisions. In doing so, the petitioners argue, the Ninth Circuit ignored important legal rules that govern how infringements on constitutional rights are to be scrutinized and that govern review of a trial court determinations of the facts in a case. Petitioners maintain that the Ninth Circuit’s decision represents one of the clearest example yet of open circumvention of Second Amendment rights, when even the results of a trial cannot survive the hostile appellate review often applied in Second Amendment cases.

The petition notes that the lax legal standard applied by the Ninth Circuit in this case conflicts with the more protective legal standard applied by the Supreme Court, “poses a threat not merely to Second Amendment rights, but to First and Fourteenth Amendment rights as well, and that review should be granted “to correct that conflict” and enforce the proper standard of constitutional scrutiny of laws that burden Second Amendment rights.

Brandon Combs, an individual plaintiff in the case as well as the executive director of organizational plaintiff The Calguns Foundation, believes that fundamental, individual Second Amendment rights are being treated like second-class rights.

“In its decision to ignore the trial court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law as well as longstanding principles of appellate review,” said Combs, “the Ninth Circuit has made it crystal clear that it has no intention of following the Supreme Court’s precedents no matter how unconstitutional, arbitrary, or irrational the law. This case and the Ninth Circuit’s treatment of fundamental rights are beyond ripe for review.”

“We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will use t

he extensive record here to further develop its Second Amendment precedent and place the right to keep and bear arms on an equal footing with First Amendment rights, such as freedom of speech.”

Silvester, Combs, and The Calguns Foundation are joined in the petition by Second Amendment Foundation of Bellevue, WA, which also partially funded the case.

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The Remington Model 10 Goes To War

September 1, 2017 by 1 Comment

I stumbled across a video on the John Pedersen designed Remington Model 10 pump shotgun. The model featured in the video was the trench shotgun made for the American Expeditionary Force in WWI. Remington made approximately 3,500 of these shotguns equipped with a 23-inch barrel, a bayonet lug, and a wooden handguard or heat shield on top of the barrel. This shotgun was the lesser known trench gun used in that war. The Winchester Model 1897 was the shotgun that is more widely thought of when you say trench gun.

A copy of the original owner’s manual for the civilian version of the Model 10 is here. While only 3,500 of the military trench guns were made, Remington made approximately 275,000 of these shotguns from 1908 until 1929.

What makes this shotgun so interesting in my opinion is that it is a bottom ejecting shotgun like the more well-known Ithaca Model 37 or the Browning BPS. That combined with a simple, Garand-style safety, and you have a shotgun that can be used by everyone regardless of dominant hand. Add the long “pig sticker” bayonet and you have a very potent and deadly firearm for defending or attaching trenches.

Given that so few of these shotguns were made as trench shotguns and given that many of those were converted to riot guns, I’d hesitate to say what one of these would be worth nowadays except to say “a lot”.

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Product Safety Warning For Canik 9mm Pistols

September 1, 2017 by

Century Arms sent out a product safety warning regarding the Canik pistols that they import from Turkey. They note while these pistols meet current industry and military abusive handling standards, abusive testing can damage them and cause safety issues.

I can’t say that I’ve ever fired a Canik pistol but I did get to dry-fire the Canik TP9SFx at the SHOT Show in 2015. I would consider getting one of those if the price came down as it fit my hand nicely and the trigger seemed pretty decent.

Here is the release that Century Arms sent out this morning by email:

Product Safety Warning and Severe Duty Upgrade

 
Century
Arms, North America’s premier AK manufacturer, announced today the
Canik Product Safety Warning and Severe Duty Upgrade Notice. This notice
applies to Canik’s 9×19 mm pistols: TP9SA, TP9SF, TP9SFx, TP9SF Elite,
TP9SF Elite-S. Canik’s other products are not subject to this notice.
All Canik pistols comply with and exceed current industry and military
abusive handling standards. There are no safety concerns with the
pistols when used under ordinary conditions.

Canik is committed to continuously improving its product’s performance. Evaluations and tests have shown that repeated abusive dropping of pistols may result in damage to safety features and unintentional discharge.
DANGER: IF ANY FIREARM IS DROPPED INTERNAL PARTS MAY HAVE BEEN DEFORMED, DAMAGED OR DISABLED. The product must be inspected by a qualified gunsmith or returned for inspection after any significant impact.
WARNING: REPEATED IMPACTS TO YOUR PISTOL TO TEST ITS SAFETY FUNCTIONS WILL DAMAGE INTERNAL PARTS, AND VOID ITS WARRANTY. Firearm
abusive handling tests can be dangerous and should only be conducted by
qualified individuals in controlled environments with proper safety
precautions in place. Canik does not recommend that any customer conduct
drop tests or other endurance tests before or after this Severe Duty
Upgrade.
WARNING: CONSUMERS SHOULD ONLY USE CANIK PARTS IN OUR PISTOLS. AFTERMARKET PARTS COULD DECREASE OR DISABLE SAFETY FEATURES OF YOUR CANIK PISTOL. 
Canik is committed to manufacturing safe, reliable, innovative and affordable firearms. We are offering a voluntary
upgrade to the trigger safety spring and firing pin block spring on the
Canik models noted above. This is to further increase the safety of
Canik pistols for enhanced drop discharge prevention in heavy/severe
duty conditions that are beyond
industry standards. The Severe Duty Upgrade does not alter any feature
or design of the pistols. Canik will provide all parts and workmanship
at no charge, but customers will be responsible for shipping costs.
Steps for upgrading your pistol? Our goal is to have the Severe Duty Upgrade process in place by Friday, September 8, 2017. After this date, please visit www.CanikUSA.com for complete instructions on how to receive your Severe Duty Upgrade.