Uncategorized

So Explain To Me The Rationale Behind The Multi-Rifle Reporting Requirement In The Southwest

August 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

Mike Vanderboegh pointed out a story from McAllen, TX this morning.  It featured comments by Special Agent in Charge Robert R. Champion made to the KRGV.com. In it he said:

“You have guys that are money man, one guy is in charge of getting the straw purchasers,” he says.

Champion says the ATF is now seeing a change in the way the cartel operates. Instead of buying weapons locally they’re getting them from all over the country and using the drug routes in reverse to get them back to Mexico.

“The straw purchasers will come back to the guy that gave them the money. He accumulates the firearms. Another individual comes as the transporter to pick up the firearms and move them to different locations,” says Champion.

Champion then adds that “the ATF can’t do much to stop the transport” once it is in the smuggler’s hands.

If the theory behind the new ATF reporting requirement for sales of certain semi-automatic rifles that went into effect on August 14th in the four Southwestern border states was that the straw purchases were happening there and the reporting requirement would let ATF intercept these illegally purchased firearms quicker, then doesn’t what SAC Champion has to say undercut the entire rationale?

I have been told by drug enforcement detectives working here in western North Carolina that most of the meth sold here comes from Mexico by way of Atlanta. They rarely find meth labs anymore. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the same route drug traffickers use to bring the meth to the mountains can also be used to bring a truckload of AKs back to a safe house in McAllen or DelRio or Brownsville. With meth being an equal-opportunity drug, the traffickers could just as easily use Joe Bob or Earl or Bubba instead of one of the local Latinos to make the straw purchase at Pawn World.

Moreover, doesn’t concentrating so-called enforcement in one area or region just encourage the traffickers to spread out and get more discrete about it? In other words, by focusing on McAllen or Phoenix or other Southwestern areas, hasn’t the DOJ and ATF just pushed the crime to other areas of the country?

It would be nice if the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee brought SAC Champion in to testify about trafficking in his neck of the woods. He might have learned a thing or two about gun walking while he was a Group Supervisor earlier in his career in Phoenix. And while they are at it, they might want to ask him about his role in the botched raid in Waco.

Uncategorized

Lead Shot Allowed For Dove Hunting In Iowa

August 17, 2011 by 1 Comment

The NRA-ILA released this message on dove hunting in Iowa this evening. Traditional or lead shotgun ammunition will be allowed for dove hunting in Iowa this season after the legislature’s Administrative Rules Committee overruled the Natural Resources Commission. This is that state’s first dove hunting season in 93 years.

Iowa: Administrative Rules Committee Strips Dove Rule of Traditional Ammunition Ban!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Today, the Administrative Rules Committee met to review the National Resource Commission’s (NRC) final rule for Iowa’s first dove hunting season. In a nine-to-one bipartisan vote, legislators overwhelmingly rejected the NRC’s underhanded attempt to include a traditional ammunition ban in the final dove rule. This vote allows for a “session-delay” of the lead ammunition ban, meaning the legislature will have to act during the next legislative session to remove the ban from the final dove rule. However, Iowa’s first dove season will proceed and will not include a traditional ammunition ban.

During a recent NRC meeting last month scheduled to set bag limits and the length of Iowa’s first dove season in nearly a century, commissioners launched a surprise attack by passing a ban on the use of traditional ammunition while hunting doves. The appointed seven-member, commission flagrantly usurped the authority of the legislators who debated the same ban and overwhelmingly rejected it.

Here are three reasons why the use of traditional ammunition should NOT be banned:

  • No scientific studies regarding traditional ammunition have been shown to have any population-level impacts on doves or other species. In fact, doves are the most popular and abundant game bird hunted in America with population levels at all-time highs.
  • The price of non-traditional ammunition with similar performance characteristics is significantly higher and will keep many hunters from taking part in the historic dove season, especially in these dire economic times.
  • In addition to the lack of sound science, the Commission enacted the lead ammunition ban in an underhanded fashion with no public comment or notice.
Uncategorized

ISSC-Austria Releasing Their M-22 Pistol In New Colors

August 17, 2011 by 1 Comment

I received this press release today about the ISSC-Austria M-22 .22LR pistol today. I haven’t shot it but after seeing Jeff Quinn’s review of it, I think that might change. It is a “Glockish” pistol with a very similar silhouette. The difference is that it is not striker-fired but rather it is hammer-fired. It also has an external safety.

WARE, MA (August 2011) – ISSC-Austria, exclusive importer and distributor of the M22 range pistol and MK22 Modern Sporting Rifle, will commence shipping the M22 pistol in Olive Drab starting the final two weeks in August. The M22 OD will be available in ISSC’s proprietary Ti-clad black and Two Tone finish which protects the pistol from harmful elements and chemicals. The M22 pistol is the ideal range pistol designed to use inexpensive, high-velocity 22LR ammunition, while providing a highly accurate, defensive pistol feel in handling.

The ISSC M22 pistol offers shooters the economical alternative to practicing with high-priced ammunition. Using inexpensive .22LR, the M22 pistol provides the shooter with the same rapid fire performance of a traditional centerfire pistol. Built using the combination of a Lothar Walter match barrel, adjustable sights and a very crisp 4-lb single-action trigger, the M22 is the new standard in training pistols. MSRP starts at $299.95.

Uncategorized

Inconceivable Is Correct

August 17, 2011 by 1 Comment

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who just last week asked for some answers from Eric Holder about Project Gunwalker, blasted the ATF and Justice Department today for promoting three of the ATF officials responsible for Operation Fast and Furious.

Cornyn: ‘Inconceivable’ to Reward Architects of ‘Fast and Furious’
Aug 16 2011

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and former state Attorney General, today responded to reports that key officials who oversaw the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking operation have been promoted to new positions within the Justice Department in Washington:

“Until Attorney General Holder and Justice Department officials come clean on all alleged gun-walking operations, including a detailed response to allegations of a Texas-based scheme, it is inconceivable to reward those who spearheaded this disastrous operation with cushy desks in Washington.”

Last week Sen. Cornyn sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers following recent press reports of alleged Texas-based “gun-walking” programs similar to the “Fast and Furious” operation currently being investigated by Congressional lawmakers.

What irritated Sen. Cornyn is this report from the L.A. Times by Richard Serrano reporting that William McMahon, William Newell, and David Voth had all received promotions by ATF  despite their admitted shortcomings in Operation Fast and Furious.

Howard Nemerov puts it all into perspective in a post at Pajamas Media.

McMahon, who has just been promoted to head the ATF’Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations, said this in his testimony July 26th:

Let me be clear from the outset, as the ATF senior executive in charge of the West region, I share responsibility for mistakes that were made in the Fast and Furious investigation.

Newell, who is now the special assistant to the assistant director of the agency’s Office of Management (and who won’t be going to Mexico City as attache for fear the Mexican government would arrest him), said in his July 26th testimony:

I acknowledge now that we did make some mistakes in this…initiative, in this program.

Voth, who is now slated to become branch chief for the ATF’s tobacco division, reacting to internal criticism by ATF agents under his command about letting guns walk had this to say,

If you don’t think this is fun you’re in the wrong line of work – period! This is the pinnacle of domestic U.S. law enforcement techniques… Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day.

To top all of this off, Richard Serrano of the L.A. Times is reporting this afternoon that firearms that were walked in Operation Fast and Furious have now turned up at least 11 “violent crime” scenes in the U.S. These are in addition to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, the downing of a Mexican Army helicopter, the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico, and an estimated 150 (or more) Mexican soldiers, policemen, and civilians.

Justice officials were asked how many “violent crime” scenes turned up more Fast and Furious weapons besides the two semiautomatics found after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s slaying last December.

They responded that while the “ATF does not have complete information” on the whereabouts of all the lost guns, “it is our understanding that ATF is aware of 11 instances” where a Fast and Furious firearm “was recovered in connection with a crime of violence in the United States.”

ATF Senior Agent John Dodson was all too correct when he said to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson that these guns will keep showing up for years to come.

Uncategorized

Why Concealed Carry In Restaurants Serving Alcohol Is Such A Hard Slog In NC

August 16, 2011 by 1 Comment

Some of the commenters to my post about using the Virginia experience to push for allowing concealed carry in restaurants and eating establishments that serve alcohol have pointed out states where it is both legal to carry in bars and to drink at the same time. That may be. However, I doubt that would be a winning argument here in North Carolina.

The Tar Heel State has or has had an almost puritanical approach to alcohol. It was the first state in the South to adopt prohibition and the first in the nation to do so by popular vote. It was not until 1978 that North Carolina relaxed its laws enough to allow liquor by the drink in restaurants. Even then, unless it was a private club, bars were not allowed to sell mixed drinks. Prior to this, we had the charming custom of “brown bagging” where you would go to a restaurant that had the proper permits and bring your own booze. They would sell you a “set-up” which might be a glass of Coke or ginger ale or merely a glass of ice.

Liquor stores in the state are still governmental entities run by county or municipal alcohol control boards under the overall control of the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. There is even a division of Alcohol Law Enforcement under the state’s Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

North Carolina has changed a lot since the video below was made in 1978. There is only one completely dry county left – Graham – but there are still a number of towns and cities that don’t allow liquor by the drink or even beer and wine sales. That said, the attitudes toward alcohol among many in their mid-40s and up is still imbued with that old puritanical flavor. Indeed, I would not be surprised to find lots of people still agreeing with the sentiments expressed in the video below in all age groups.

Thus, in getting concealed carry allowed in North Carolina’s restaurants that serve alcohol, we are having to take it one step at a time and limit it to non-drinking patrons. The fact that the N.C. House passed HB 111 with a strong majority was a great beginning. Now we have to convince the Senate to do likewise.

Uncategorized

“Spray And Pray” Or Aimed Fire?

August 16, 2011 by 4 Comments

The gun prohibitionists would have you believe that any firearm that can fire full-auto is death incarnate. However, as Greg Hickok – Hickok45 – shows in the short video below, aimed deliberate fire is much more effective than “spray and pray”. This is one of the prime reasons that U.S. military changed from the M-16A1 to the M-16A2 which only allowed 3-shot bursts instead of unlimited full-auto fire.

Uncategorized

Cleaning Brass Shotgun Shells

August 16, 2011 by

When I was out in the St. Louis area a few weeks ago, I came across some brass shotgun shells and what I think was a reloading kit for them. They were in my mother-in-law’s garage. After seeing the video below, I think I’ll get them the next time I’m there and clean them up. Even if they aren’t shot, they will make nice keepsakes.

Uncategorized

Using The News For Gun Rights

August 16, 2011 by 5 Comments

The report published by the Richmond Times Dispatch this weekend analyzing the first year of experience of allowing concealed carry in Virginia establishments that serve alcohol is important. The study found that not only did violent crime not go up but it actually decreased by 5.2 percent. It has gotten a lot of attention within the firearms community and numerous gun blogs have reported on it. Even non-gun blogs like HotAir have noticed it.

Now is the time to make this important news useful.

The bill to allow concealed carry in restaurants and eating establishments that serve alcohol in North Carolina, HB 111, has passed the N.C. House but is stuck in the State Senate. According to Grass Roots North Carolina, Senate leaders purportedly are fearful of polling which shows public sentiment against this measure.

HB 111: “HANDGUN PERMIT VALID IN PARKS & RESTAURANTS”

Sponsored by Rep. Mark Hilton (R-Catawba, GRNC ****), after passing the House by a vote of 76-42 with a weakening amendment allowing municipalities to ban guns in recreational facilities offered by Rep. David Guice (D- , GRNC ), the bill headed to the Senate. There it was first referred to Rules – widely regarded as the graveyard for bills leadership has no intention of hearing. After negotiations with Rules Chair Sen. Tom Apodaca (R-Henderson, ****), HB 111 was re-referred to Judiciary II on the agreement that GRNC would wait for a hearing until after completion of the state budget. Although HB 111 will remain alive for next year, Senate Republicans are running scared from polling which reportedly shows lack of public support for concealed carry in restaurants. Meanwhile, parks carry has passed in HB 650.

If you live in North Carolina I suggest you print out this article and send it along with a polite letter to both your State Senator and the Republican leadership in the State Senate. Point out that an objective analysis conducted by a major statewide paper in an adjoining state found that the change in the law didn’t cause blood to run in the streets as its opponents promised it would. Rather, it actually led to a decrease in violent crime in those restaurants and bars. Point out that North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permit holders are some of the most law-abiding responsible citizens around and much more so than the general public. Then ask them to get moving and pass HB 111 so that you can discretely carry while eating with your family at Applebee’s (and drinking ice tea).

This is fresh news so it is important to hit while it is still fresh. While I think a written letter to a state legislator will have more impact than an email, you could also email this article with a short note as well. If you are not sure who represents you in the N.C. State Senate, go here.

Frankly, I am not sure what other states are considering such measures. I know Ohio did pass such a bill in this session of the General Assembly. If your state is considering such a bill or, better yet, if your state prohibits carry in establishments serving alcohol, I’d suggest you do the same thing as what I plan to do here in North Carolina.

Uncategorized

I Can’t Believe It Took Them This Long

August 15, 2011 by

The Violence Policy Center has finally released a Tweet castigating Glock and the Second Amendment Foundation over Glock’s significant donation to SAF. The donation was announced on Thursday, August 11th. As I said at the time, I wonder what snide comment the VPC will make about it. Now we know.

@VPCinfo
Gunmaker Glock helps fund SAF’s efforts to overturn gun laws to, of course, sell more guns. http://t.co/A8d7bKb

Frankly, I’m surprised that that it took them this long to respond. I expected it the same day. I guess they are not only ineffectual but inept as well. Good!

H/T Kurt

Uncategorized

USAMU To Host ARMY STRONG Collegiate Shooting Championships

August 15, 2011 by

The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit will host the ARMY Strong Collegiate Shooting Championships at Ft. Benning March 13-18, 2012. It pulls together into one venue four collegiate shooting championship events.

The US Army Marksmanship Unit is proud to announce that it will host the first-ever ARMY STRONG Collegiate Shooting Championships from 13-18 March, 2012. This pioneering collegiate and youth shooting sports championship event will consist of the NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Championships, the NRA Intercollegiate Rifle Club Championship, the Scholastic Steel Challenge Collegiate Championship, and the Scholastic Clay Target Program Challenge. ARMY STRONG!

 

Go to the USAMU website for more information on the event.