Month: August 2022

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2023 NRA Board Nominations Released

August 31, 2022 by 1 Comment

The list of people nominated by the Nominations Committee for the 2023 Board of Directors election has been released. Comparing the list below to the candidates who ran in 2020, you find 21 of the 2023 nominees are repeats. A couple more – James Chapman and Isaac Demerest – are board members elected in subsequent years.

It goes without saying that Frank Tait was not nominated. He has indicated he will not be running by petition this time. Also not nominated were Judge Phil Journey and Graham Hill. Given that Journey has been treated as a persona non grata since the bankruptcy filing, his not being re-nominated is not a surprise. It is surprising that Graham Hill who finished 8th in 2020 was not re-nominated as he had served on the board for 15 years and had been an Executive Committee member in the past. One rumor that I heard is that the NRA’s outside counsel didn’t want any attorneys on the board other than NRA President Charles Cotton.

Included as new nominees are Rick Ector and Amanda Suffecool who have done great work at the grass roots level. With the exception of Charles Beers III, I don’t know anything about the rest.

As to Beers, he was the person who offered the resolution at the Meeting of Members that declared “profound support for the past, present, and future leadership of its Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.” If you read the review of the Annual Meeting in either the American Rifleman or Shooting Illustrated (page 57 in both), that is the only mention of the Meeting of Members. Call me a cynic, but it seems that if you suck up to Wayne big time and publicly then you will get your reward. That really is kind of pathetic.

As of now, I know of no one who plans to run as a petition candidate. If I do hear of anyone, I will post on it.

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USPSA Match To Benefit Grass Roots North Carolina

August 28, 2022 by

The Sir Walter Gun Club in Creedmoor, North Carolina is sponsoring an USPSA 8-stage match to benefit Grass Roots North Carolina. The range is located north of both Durham and Raleigh just off of Interstate 85 and US Hwy 15.

More details on the match and how to register are below:

SIR WALTER GUN CLUB- USPSA PISTOL MATCH TO BENEFIT GRNC
Once again the good people at Sir Walter Gun Club are providing their facilities and hosting a USPSA match to help and benefit GRNC. – Which we all know is especially needed at this time. 

Registration link

Registration opens August 26th at 7am
Registration ends September 1st at 8:30pm

Match starts: September 03, 2022 @ 10:00 AM  Match ends: September 03, 2022 @ 5:00 PMMany thanks to the fine folks at Sir Walter Gun Club for their support of GRNC and our 2nd Amendment rights… Sir Walter Gun Club  2507 Hester RoadCreedmoor, NC 27522

USPSA Pistol Match to Benefit GRNC – 8 Stages $30.00 minimum donation. Jr. shooters are $20.00 NOTE: If you withdraw from the match before midnight on the Thursday before the match, you will be refunded your match fee less $1.00 to cover the credit card fees. No refunds will be given for withdrawals after that time or no shows at the match. USPSA level I match, with the following divisions: Limited, Limited 10, Open, Production, Single Stack, Revolver, Carry Optics, PCC
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ATF Training Simulator

August 25, 2022 by 1 Comment

As you may be aware, the new rules regarding the definition of frames and receivers went into effect yesterday. Also in the news is that BATFE Special Agents are now showing up on the doorstep of people that bought the forced reset triggers from Rare Breed to confiscate those triggers. These “visits” are without warrants with the implied threat that if you don’t cooperate, they will be back with a search warrant and tear your house to pieces.

With this as a background, I found the Firearms Policy Coalition tweet a very good spoof and effective fundraising. Their social media manager is on top of his or her game!

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Hey, I Support Commonsense Gun Laws

August 21, 2022 by 4 Comments

The cult of personality known as Giffords is making an effort to get gun owners onboard with their organization. They are calling it Gun Owners for Safety. I think you even get a fancy t-shirt like the one below.

I think when you get down to it that I and most of my readers do actually support commonsense gun laws.

Here are some of the commonsense gun laws I could and would support:

Removal of suppressors from the NFA.

Unlike with the Hearing Protection Act, I would make them available over the counter without any Form 4473 or NICS check. Protecting a person’s hearing is about safety which is why OSHA has so many rules for business and industry about hearing protection.

Removal of short barrel rifles and short barrel shotguns from the NFA.

These firearms were included in the NFA only by accident as the original intention was to ban handguns and the Roosevelt Administration wanted to make sure you could not claim your handgun was a rifle. From a safety aspect, it makes use of either more ergonomic within the confines of a home.

Overturning the Hughes Amendment

Modern firearms are made with better materials, can withstand higher pressures, and have more safety features than many of the old firearms. It only makes sense from that standpoint to allow the registration of machine guns made after 1986. While collectors stand to lose some residual value of their existing pre-1986 machine guns, the rest of us would now have access to modern firearms.

Federal tax credit for gun safes and safe rooms

If I can get a tax credit for buying an electric vehicle due to “climate change”, I don’t see why a similar tax credit should not be given for purchasing a gun safe or building a safe room in my house. The gun prohibitionists want “safe storage” laws so make them pay for it. This Federal tax credit would be funded with a 20% excise tax on all donations to any gun control group or related PACs.

Nationwide Reciprocity

This is a no-brainer. If you have a carry permit in your home state or your home state has permitless carry, then all other states would have to recognize your status while carrying in their state. They give full faith and credit to your driver’s license so why not your carry status. Ideally, all states would allow permitless carry but I’ll leave that for another day.

Federal Support for FASTER type programs nationwide

The states of Ohio and Colorado have excellent firearms training programs for teachers and other school personnel. An armed and trained teacher, administrator, custodian, or other school employee is going to be on the scene immediately unlike an outside police force. It should be noted the shooting qualification standards to pass these programs is higher than for sworn law enforcement. Funding to pay for this program would come from shifting money already allocated to support red flag programs in the states to the Department of Education.

Firearms Safety Training for all students

Just as some states have hunter safety training as part of the middle and/or high school curriculum, so too should states implement firearms safety training. The goal would not be to make the student into a shooter but rather to train them how to properly handle a loaded firearm.

I could keep going and going. Feel free to offer your own suggestions on commonsense gun laws in the comments. I’d love to read them.

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Ten Days Of Freedom In New York City

August 21, 2022 by

If you are a gun owner in New York City and you want a carry permit, you have 10 days under an emergency rule adopted Friday by the NYPD to apply before the onerous New York State rules apply. The rule (see below) gives those with a pending application guidance as well as new applicants. Even more importantly, it applies to anyone who applied for a permit within the last three years but was denied for failing to show “proper cause”. Those who were denied can reopen their applications without paying any additional fees.

Perhaps I am being optimistic but I see this as the New York City equivalent of “freedom week” in California when Judge Benitez ruled the ban on standard capacity mags unconstitutional.

According to the emergency rule, so long as an application is pending before September 1, 2022 when the New York State law goes into effect, the standards will be those in the emergency rule. This means no searching of your social media among other things.

Here are the key items in the emergency rule:

  • No letter of necessity required
  • A statement saying you have read and are familiar with the law regarding deadly force, carry requirements, and responsibilities of a handgun owner
  • A statement saying how you plan to store your handgun when not being carried
  • A statement saying you have or will get training

Contrast the above with news that the Sheriff’s Department of Orange County (NY) has stopped scheduling appointments for gun permit fingerprints and will stop all fingerprinting after August 31st. This is in response to the requirements that New York State has imposed for a permit beginning September 1st. According to the FAQ issued by the Sheriff’s Department, they are the only place you can get fingerprints taken for a permit. Reading between the lines, it appears that the sheriff is hoping an injunction will stay the new law.

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1944 – Highly Recommended

August 20, 2022 by 2 Comments

I stumbled across an Estonian made movie called 1944. It is the story of Estonians fighting Estonians during WW II and not necessarily by choice.

Estonia was annexed by the USSR in 1940 and over 50,000 Estonian men were conscripted into the Red Army. Come 1941 and Operation Barbarossa, the Germans have pushed out the Red Army and now conscripts about 70,000 Estonian men into their army. Only, because they are not German citizens, they are forced into the Waffen-SS and not the Wehrmacht.

It is now 1944 and the tide of the war has changed again. The Red Army is on the move through Estonia and that is where this story is set.

The movie has action mixed with sadness or pathos. It shows the humanity of the men in the trenches and on the battlefield while illustrating the corrupt evil of the political officers.

The movie is free to watch (with ads) on Freevee and is still free (for now) on Amazon Prime Video.

As I said, highly recommended.

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“The New Rifle”

August 18, 2022 by 3 Comments

I came across this British newsreel from 1954. It talks about the replacement of the SMLE bolt action rifle used by the British Army in the Great War (WWI), World War II, and the Korean Way. The replacement was the British variant (L1A1) of the Belgian FAL and obviously it was big news if it made the newsreels of the day.

You do have to wonder if the US Army had adopted the FAL or its British variant, would they have kept it in service longer than the M14. As it was, the “not invented here” syndrome was still strong in the Army’s Ordnance branch in the late 1940s and early 50s.

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Dell’Aquila Lawsuit Against NRA Revived

August 18, 2022 by 2 Comments

The fraud lawsuit against the National Rifle Association by donor David Dell’Aquila for the misuse of donations has now been revived. The NRA’s filing for bankruptcy and (deleted under threat of lawsuit) had put the case on hold for over a year and a half. Dell’Aquila was given until yesterday to get new attorneys or the case would be dismissed. Fortunately, new attorneys were appointed on Monday and the NRA’s Motion to Dismiss was removed meaning the case can move forward.

Bloomberg Law (the news site and not the gun control group) reported this about the new set of attorneys:

Jonathan Loevy and Michael Kanovitz, two partners at Chicago-based Loevy & Loevy, are now representing the donors alongside Stites & Harbison member John Wingo, who’s based in Nashville, and Louisville-based members T. Morgan Ward Jr. and Chadwick McTighe.

Loevy & Loevy handles complex litigation and commercial matters but is best known in Chicago for representing wrongfully convicted defendants seeking compensation from the state. The firm found out about the case when Bloomberg Law asked Kanovitz this month to review court documents and provide an independent expert opinion. He told Bloomberg Law the case was “absolutely a viable lawsuit” and days later approached Dell’Aquila and offered to represent him.

“This suit offers a unique opportunity to demand transparency from the NRA and reform the organization,” Kanovitz said in a statement. “We will conduct a fulsome investigation and follow the money. Our goal is to correct the misconduct that has been going on behind closed doors and obtain compensation for the people the NRA defrauded.”

The Loevy & Loevy firm and Michael Kanovitz appear to have both experience and success in class action lawsuits according to their website. Stites & Harbison is a large (185 attorney) Southeastern law firm with 11 offices across the South with the majority being in Tennessee and Kentucky. The three attorneys from this firm – Wingo, Ward, and McTighe – are all partners within the firm’s Business Litigation Service Group.

Dell’Aquila is quoted as saying he feels as though he just won the $1.5 billion lottery when these attorneys came on-board.

I think it just got a lot tougher for the NRA on this case.

UPDATE: I received an email today (12/21/2022) from an attorney. This attorney demanded that I remove all reference to the attorney or else the attorney would file suit for “libel, intrusion, and false light”.

While I think I would have been justified in telling this attorney, “No, I’m not changing it”, I don’t need the headache nor the potential expense defending it.

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S&W CEO Hits Back At Anti-Gun Politicians

August 17, 2022 by 2 Comments

Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. CEO Mark Smith has had it with the anti-gun politicians in Congress like Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). He noted that they are trying to blame firearm manufacturers like his for the surge in crime. Rather, Smith notes, it is their own policies that are to blame.

To be clear, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never broken into a home; a Smith & Wesson firearm has never assaulted a woman out for a late-night run in the city; a Smith & Wesson firearm has never carjacked an unsuspecting driver stopped at a traffic light.
Instead, Smith & Wesson provides these citizens with the means to protect themselves and their families.

I like the cut of this guy’s jib!

You can read the whole response which I have embedded below. He takes no prisoners and nor should he.

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A freaking one-day fishing license, really?

August 17, 2022 by

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) wants you to believe he is a fisherman, outdoorsman, and conservationist. That is why he posted a campaign commercial of himself fly fishing in Colorado with a guide. The guide, a supposed independent but in reality a county commissioner who has voted Democratic in several election cycles, endorses Bennet. Commissioner Greg Felt asserts that Bennet is always focused on Colorado.

Interestingly, the video of his commercial on YouTube doesn’t allow any comments.

According to Axios, Bennet only bought a Colorado resident one-day fishing license for the filming of the ad. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, that license costs $14.46. I am a great believer in frugality but I also believe in supporting wildlife and fisheries conservation.

I am not a multi-millionaire with a large campaign budget but I am certain I could have afforded to pay $36.71 to get a resident’s annual license. That money would have gone to help support that which he says he supports. I guess he believes it is better to support it with your money and not his own personal money.

Years ago, I served multiyear terms as both treasurer and president of the Land O’ Sky Chapter of Trout Unlimited. One of the service projects many of us volunteered to help with was Casting for Recovery. Their events were meant to assist survivors of breast cancer in their recovery. Most of these women had never held a fly rod nor cast a fly before that weekend. Nonetheless, they were more skillful in casting a fly than the good senator in this ad.

This ad is the 2022 equivalent of John Kerry going pheasant hunting when he was running for president.

I hate politicians and their damn photo ops!