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HR 822 – What It Does And Doesn’t Do

October 26, 2011 by 1 Comment

With HR 822 having passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on a 19-11 vote, it is important to understand what it does and doesn’t do. Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors are leading the charge against it from the anti-gun side. Moreover, there are some pro-gun activists such as the National Association for Gun Rights that claim it is a stealth bill for more Federal control. Finally, there is the false accusation in some quarters that the NRA-ILA was coming down on bloggers about the bill.

The impact of HR 822 on North Carolina will be minimal as Sean Sorrentino has pointed out. Effective December 1st, we have universal reciprocity and will recognize the permits from any other state.

In the video below, Cam Edwards interviews John Frazier, Research Director for NRA-ILA, on what the bill does and doesn’t do.

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Ball And Dummy Drill

October 25, 2011 by 3 Comments

Saturday was spent at the TigerSwan Training Collaboration Center taking an Introductory Pistol class with five other NC gun bloggers and a few other folks. I didn’t believe it was possible to learn so much in one day!

One of the drills we learned was called the Ball and Dummy Drill. A quick Google search shows that there are many variations of this drill. While some have criticized it, I found it a very helpful drill. The goal is to have the shooter stop anticipating the recoil or to stop jerking the trigger.

The variation we used did not involve using dummy rounds. Instead we paired off with one person shooting and the other person loading one round. With his or her back to the shooter, one person would either load or not load a magazine and then insert it into the shooter’s pistol. The pistol would then be handed to the shooter to take the shot.



Sean* acting as coach and loader



I found that you could go a number of shots/non-shots and then screw up out of the blue. Then you had to make a mental note to concentrate on a smooth trigger pull and do it again and again.

I should note here that we did this drill while shooting at 25 yards at a B-8 target. Other variations of the drill suggest doing it at 3 yards.


Lynell being coached by George while instructor Brian Searcy watches.

 One of the other things instructor Brian Searcy added to the mix was to have the coach/loader put his hand in front of your face every so often and have you call the shot after you just took it. This helped up build awareness of where our shot went.

The only downside to not using dummy rounds involves pistols that have a loaded chamber indicator. If, like my Ruger SR9, the pistol has a loaded chamber indicator, then the loader and shooter have to make a conscious effort to hide that fact from the shooter. I know both I and Sean did make this effort.

This is a drill you can practice at any range whether indoor or outdoor. As I said earlier, I found it really valuable in helping develop a smooth trigger pull and in stopping anticipation.

*This Sean is not Sean Sorrentino but the other Sean in the class. We had two Georges and two Seans in the class.

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NSSF To File Amicus Brief In Jennings v BATFE Appeal

October 25, 2011 by

In their Bullet Points newsletter, the National Shooting Sports Foundation announced plans to file an amicus brief in support of the NRA’s appeal of Jennings et al v. BATFE. This was the NRA’s challenge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on the prohibition of the sale of handguns to 18-20 year old adults by Federal Firearm Licensees.

In response to a ruling by a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas in favor of the federal government in a case brought by the NRA challenging the federal restriction on the purchase of handguns by 18-20 year old adults, NSSF plans to file a friend-of-the-court brief in support of NRA’s appeal of the ruling. In the case, Jennings v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the NRA and a group of responsible young adults argued that since 18-20 year olds are considered adults for virtually every other purpose, such as voting and military service, adults in this age group should also be able to purchase handguns from licensed retailers. A similar case, in which many of the same plaintiffs challenge the state of Texas’ ban on issuance of right-to-carry permits to adults under 21, remains pending in the same court

Attorneys for the plaintiffs filed their appeal on October 7th and the case was assigned a docket number last week on the 19th. No briefs have yet been filed.

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North Carolina Gun Blogs

October 24, 2011 by

Thanks to the efforts of Sean Sorrentino, six North Carolina gun bloggers (and four other fine folks) got together for a day of pistol training at the TigerSwan Training Collaboration Center near Fayetteville, North Carolina. More about that in later posts.

One of the important things that came out of Saturday is the realization that there is a growing gun blogger community within North Carolina. In addition to Sean, whom I had met before, I got to meet George (Newbie Shooter), Paul (Arms are the Mark of a Free Man), Larry (Last Refuge of a Scoundrel), and Rich (Knitebane Manor). And with the exception of George, we all attended an open carry dinner in Garner afterwards.

In addition, I just corresponded with Ron at When the Balloon Goes Up! which is a new gun blog that is off to a well-deserved fast start. Of course, I had to find out about a North Carolina blog by reading a blog in Pennsylvania!

If you look in my sidebar, you will notice a new addition. Just below my Blog Archives you will find a new section entitled NC Gun Blogs. I want to bring attention to the growing and vital North Carolina gun blogging community. While this list is not complete, it does include those bloggers with whom I have either corresponded or met in person. I fully expect this list to grow. Indeed, if you are a gun blogger and you reside in North Carolina, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.

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Who Would Have Thought It?

October 21, 2011 by 2 Comments

Who would have thought that the dead Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gaddafi was a devotee of John Moses Browning? In the picture is his gold-plated Browning Hi-Power which was found on him when rebels captured him hiding out in a culvert.

Given that Libya once was ruled by Italy, you would have thought he would have a Beretta 92 or something similar. Conversely, given the close relationship over the years between Libya and the former Soviet Union, it would seem reasonable that he might have carried one of the Eastern Bloc pistols like a Makarov or a Tokarev.

As it is, I can’t fault his taste in pistols however gaudy this specimen might be. He might have been an evil dictator and wacked in the head about a lot of things but this is one thing in my opinion he got right.

The British newspaper,  The Telegraph has a full story on Gaddafi and his golden guns. In addition to the golden Hi-Power, he had a golden AK-74 and a golden Dragunov. Like that other guy with the golden AK, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi is dead. I guess it could be called the Curse of the Golden AK.

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Off To A Pistol Class This Weekend!

October 21, 2011 by

Thanks to the efforts of Sean Sorrentino, I will be joining a handful of bloggers and some others for a Basic Pistol class offered by TigerSwan this weekend. The class will be held near Fayetteville, NC at the TigerSwan Training Collaboration Center and School.

The class will be taught be Sgt Major Brian Searcy, US Army (Ret).

Brian is a 23 year Army Special Operations veteran who culminated 16 years with Delta Force (1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta) as the unit’s Operations Sergeant Major. His leadership experience ranges from serving as a military advisor in Central and South America to serving as the Command Sergeant Major (senior enlisted advisor) for a 1700 person Special Operations Task Force in Iraq. A decorated combat leader, his awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.

As an instructor in Delta, Brian wrote and taught classes in assault planning, VIP protection, rifle and pistol marksmanship, explosive and mechanical breaching, close quarters battle, vehicle assaults and hand to hand combat. He served as the program manager and primary instructor for the Unit’s shooting and hand to hand programs.

A competitive shooter for over 20 years, Brian has competed at the top levels of competition in both precision and action shooting. Brian is a U.S. Army Distinguished Pistol Shot and has been awarded the President’s Hundred Tab. His other marksmanship accolades include: Overall Winner- 2005 Joint Special Operations Command Small Arms Championships and the 2003 North Carolina Indoor Conventional Pistol Champion.

I’ve got my ammo packed, my Ruger SR9 cleaned, a new heavy-duty gun belt, and, if the USPS cooperates tomorrow, my new Kydex holster. I will have a full after-action report next week. Sean has said that TigerSwan will be providing a photographer to take pictures so we can concentrate on learning. I think they may be as excited about our coming as we are to be taking the class.

There will be light to no blogging tomorrow through the weekend.

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600 Mayors! Oh, My!

October 20, 2011 by 6 Comments

Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors are pulling out all the stops to try and derail HR 822 – the National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011. They placed a full page ad in USAToday asking people to call their Senators to oppose the bill. They are saying “This federal mandate would threaten the safety of our communities by putting loaded guns in the hands of people who are too dangerous to qualify for a local permit.” (Sebastian does a good job examining this in the context of Philadelphia.)  Moreover, this ad was signed by 600 mayors from around the country.

That many mayors sounds impressive until you start digging deeper. There are six mayors from North Carolina that signed the ad. They include:

Mark Chilton, Carrboro, North Carolina
Mark Kleinschmidt, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Bill Bell, Durham, North Carolina
John L. Cowan, East Spencer, North Carolina
Charles Meeker, Raleigh, North Carolina
Victor Varela, Ronda, North Carolina

The mayors of Carrboro and Chapel Hill would sign anything that was liberal or anti-gun. Their voters are either college professors, university staff, or college students with a smattering of well-to-do retirees tossed into the mix.

I will grant that Raleigh and Durham are the second and fourth largest North Carolina cities. They have also had a very large influx of migrants from New York and New Jersey who have brought their anti-gun biases with them.

This leaves us with East Spencer and Ronda.

East Spencer has a population of 1,534 and is over 80% African-American. Contrast that with the adjoining town of Spencer which has a similar population but is over 70% white. It is unfortunately obvious that these two towns were separately incorporated due to racial considerations. Unfortunate, too, is that many African-American politicians purposely ignore the racist roots of gun control.

Then there is the town of Ronda in Wilkes County which has all of 455 people living within its town limits.

All told, these mayors represent 7.5% of the population of North Carolina and only two of its major cities. Why should either Richard Burr or Kay Hagan pay any attention to these six mayors given how few people they actually represent?

The slogan of this campaign – “Stop the Washington gun lobby and their allies in Congress from taking away your state’s right to decide who can carry a concealed gun” is reminiscent of what the racial segregationists were saying in the 1940s and 50s. It could just as easily be rewritten to read “stop the Washington civil rights lobby and their allies in Congress from taking away your state’s right to decide if black people should be allowed to eat at whites-only lunch counters”. We are dealing with civil rights in both instances. The Second Amendment is an enumerated civil right and includes the right to self-protection and self-defense. It is a shame that so many mayors want to keep their citizens disarmed and servile just like the segregationist mayors of the Jim Crow South.

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Quote Of The Day

October 20, 2011 by

The gun prohibitionists would have you think that the influence of the NRA and other gun rights organizations extends to the enforcement of gun laws. In a thread on CleanUpATF.org, ATF whistle-blower Vincent Cefalu says it ain’t so.

Stop whining about the big bad NRA wont let us do our job, and go do it. I don’t care what the NRA, GOA or any other partisan group thinks or doesn’t think about the laws we enforce. They are the law of the land until Congress changes it. Its a convenient excuse that they wont let us do our job. I have NEVER been hindered, and that statement is supported by an ATF 100% conviction rate over 24 years.

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The Nightline Whitewash

October 19, 2011 by 2 Comments

Jake Tapper devoted all of one question to Operation Fast and Furious in his “exclusive” interview with President Obama. Frankly it was a softball question asking Obama’s response when he learned of it. You could have gotten a tougher question coming out of a group of Obama supporters at townhall meeting.

ABC has made the transcripts available and the question and answer is below:

Tapper: Just to change the subject from the economy, the “Fast and Furious” controversy. Aside from some of the more wild charges out there, this is a big scandal. The Justice Department, the ATF was moving guns and some of them were tied to crime scenes. what was your response when you first heard about it?

Obama: Well I heard about it from the news reports. This is not something we were aware of in the White House and the Attorney General it turns out wasn’t aware of either. Obviously Eric Holder has launched a full investigation of this, it is not acceptable for us to allow guns to go into Mexico. Our whole goal has been to interdict aggressively in the flow of weapons and cash flowing south into Mexico because the Mexican president, President Calderon, has done a heroic job of trying to take on these transnational drug cartels. So this investigation will be complete, people who have screwed up will be held accountable but our overarching goal consistently has been to say we’ve got a responsibility not only to stop drugs from flowing north, we’ve also got a responsibility to make sure we are not helping to either arm or finance these drug cartels in Mexico. So it’s very upsetting to me to think that somebody showed such bad judgment that they would allow something like that to happen and we will find out who and what happened in this situation and make sure it gets corrected.

I’ll let you make your own judgement as to the truthfulness and adequacy of that answer.

UPDATE: Mike Vanderboegh has an interesting post on the whole whitewash attempt here on his blog. It makes interesting reading.