gun culture

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I’m Back On The Road Again

August 9, 2019 by 3 Comments

If you tried to reach this blog starting on early Wednesday morning you would have gotten an error message. Something along the lines that this blog was locked and not available for future use or some such verbiage. I was alerted to this by SAF’s Dave Workman who asked me around 7am what was going on.

Checking my email I saw this from 3am:

Hello, Your blog at http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: REGULATED. In accordance to these terms, we’ve removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible. For more information, please review the following resources: Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms Blogger Content Policy: https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy -The Blogger Team

Checking the terms of service for “regulated” I find that it is defined as this:

Do not use Blogger to promote or sell regulated goods and services, such as alcohol, gambling, pharmaceuticals and unapproved supplements, tobacco, fireworks, weapons, or health/medical devices.

I immediately appealed the locking of the blog as I knew I never sold any firearms. All I could think was that it was the www.Luckygunner.com banner ad. They were gracious enough to check and let me know that I was the only Blogger based blog that had this happen to them.

The worst part about all of this was that I could not even access my own content from over nine years. I will never, ever be slack about backups again.

This morning I got this message from the Blogger team:

Hello, We have received your appeal regarding your blog http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/. Upon further review we have determined that your blog was mistakenly marked as a TOS violator by our automated system and, as such, we have reinstated your blog. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused in the meantime and thank you for your patience as we completed our review process. Thank you for understanding. Sincerely, The Blogger Team

In other words, I was out of jail.

I credit this to the publicity that the blocking of my blog has gotten on Facebook, Twitter, and in the online press. I especially want to thank Dave Workman for his article here and Tom Knighton of Bearingarms.com for his article on it.

I also want to thank Erin Palette of Operation Blazing Swords/Pink Pistols who put me in touch with attorneys in California and offered to help subsidize the legal bills if need be. I have had offers to help host the blog from a number of sources including Miggy at Gun Free Zone, Brandon Combs of the Firearms Policy Coalition, Bill Chachkes and his friend Kyle plus others. Then there are all the tech gurus out there like Sebastian, Tiffany Johnson, David Yamane, Harold Ancell, Baron B., Jacqui Janes, and many more. If I omitted your name, I do apologize. Please just know I appreciate all the support I’ve received as it really shows that we in the gun culture are a community.

In the past two days I have registered the domain www.onlygunsandmoney.com and have registered an account with WordPress. I have looked at dozens of WordPress themes. I will be revamping the look and feel of my blog and it will be migrated to WordPress. Where I actually host it is up in the air for the moment. There is nothing like a near tragedy to spur one into action!

So in closing, to everyone who asked what was going on, to everyone who reposted my Facebook or Twitter messages, to everyone who gave helpful advice, and especially to everyone who just cared, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate more than you can imagine.

I’ll let Willie have the last word here.

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Quote On The Gun Culture

August 22, 2018 by 2 Comments

I just finished re-reading John Ross’ Unintended Consequences for the third or fourth time. I came across this quote about the gun culture that really hit home.

We have a specific culture. Guns and shooting are very important to us, just like living
as nomads and hunting buffalo was important to the Indians. We are willing to work hard and have the
government confiscate half our money and use it for things we never get any benefit out of, if only we can
continue to buy our guns and our ammo and our components, and shoot a lot.


“Our culture is important, and we’re willing to pay for it. We have above -average educations, above –
average incomes, and almost nonexistent criminal involvement. We pay far more in taxes and receive
virtually no subsidy payments. You’d think Washington would be happy, but instead they are doing
everything they can to destroy our culture.

“Thomas Fleming” – attorney friend of “Henry Bowman”, p. 480

The soliloquy goes on but this is the meat of it. The only amendment that I’d make to his statement is to expand it to include more than just Washington and the Federal government. I’d add in the anti-civil rights billionaires like Bloomberg, Allen, and Gates who are protected by armed guards, the organizations they support with their wealth, and all the state and local politicians that have bought into their scheme to keep honest, hard-working citizens disarmed.

Copies of Unintended Consequences are very expensive on Amazon. While there are unauthorized PDFs of the book to be found on the Internet, I suggest contacting the publisher Accurate Press to see if they still have the paperback version available.

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We Forget The Lessons Of Lexington And Concord At Our Peril

April 19, 2018 by 1 Comment

Today marks the 243rd anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The impetus for the battle was the attempt by the military governor of Massachusetts, Gen. Thomas Gage, to seize the arms and ammunition of the militia. Gage had been ordered by Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to disarm the militia.

As I noted on the 242nd anniversary, the colonists were fighting to preserve the right to keep and bear arms that was one of their rights as Englishmen since at least 1689. Since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, our right to keep and bear arms has been under continual attack. Moreover, some of these attacks have been led by our ostensible friends such as Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT) and Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL).

It doesn’t matter if it is raising the age to 21 to purchase a firearm, bump stock bans, restrictions on standard capacity magazines, extreme violence protection orders, universal background checks, or what not, these laws and regulations are intended to destroy our rights and to destroy the gun culture in America.

Ensign Robert Munroe, Issac Muzzy, Samuel Hadley, John Brown, Jonas Parker, Jonathan Harrington, Caleb Harrington, and Asahel Porter did not die on or near Lexington Green to see modern day Americans just toss their rights away.

Nor did John Robbins, Solomon Pierce, John Tidd, Joseph Comee, Ebenezer Munroe Jr., Thomas Winship, Nathaniel Farmer, Prince Estabrook, and Jedediah Munroe suffer grievous gunshot and bayonet wounds to have modern day American politicians push safety over freedom.

I imagine the men of Captain Parker’s Company of Militia were scared as they assembled on Lexington Green. There were only 80-some of them facing about 700 or so British regulars and Royal Marines. Nonetheless, they were willing to face off against the greatest army of its day. If we can’t stand up to a coterie of freedom-despising billionaires, their PR flacks, their media allies, and their trained-bear-act teens, it is a sad day for America.

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The Gun Collective Responds To YouTube

March 22, 2018 by 2 Comments

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The Gun Collective is a YouTube channel devoted to all things firearms including firearms law. Adam Kraut, whom I have endorsed for the NRA Board of Directors, is part of The Gun Collective. I ran into these guys at Industry Day at the Range while at the SHOT Show. They were creating video content for their YouTube channel.

As you might expect, they will be massively impacted by the new YouTube policy singling out firearms for special rules. In response, they made this video which has been viewed over 255,000 times on Facebook and over 58,000 times on YouTube. Their YouTube channel has over 125,000 subscribers.

One thing I’ve started doing is reporting pro-gun control videos as offensive. For example, Everytown had a video pushing North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit system. I reported it as supporting Jim Crow laws conceived by white surpremacist Democrats which is totally correct. You might find other videos from Brady, Giffords, the Demanding Mommies, or Everytown which you find incorrect or offensive. Report them. It may seem trite but it is time we went on the offensive and started calling them on their lies. Their goal is nothing less than the destruction of the gun culture and I’m not going to stand by and do nothing.

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YouTube’s New Policy Is Aimed At The Gun Culture

March 21, 2018 by 1 Comment

A day or so ago YouTube changed their policies regarding firearms. This is in addition to earlier changes to policy that banned the showing of bump fire stocks as well as the demonetization of many firearms-related YouTube channels.

Here is the new official policy:

Policies on content featuring firearms


YouTube prohibits certain kinds of content featuring firearms. Specifically, we don’t allow content that:

  • Intends to sell firearms or certain firearms accessories through direct sales (e.g., private sales by individuals) or links to sites that sell these items. These accessories include but may not be limited to accessories that enable a firearm to simulate automatic fire or convert a firearm to automatic fire (e.g., bump stocks, gatling triggers, drop-in auto sears, conversion kits), and high capacity magazines (i.e., magazines or belts carrying more than 30 rounds).
  • Provides instructions on manufacturing a firearm, ammunition, high capacity magazine, homemade silencers/suppressors, or certain firearms accessories such as those listed above. This also includes instructions on how to convert a firearm to automatic or simulated automatic firing capabilities.
  • Shows users how to install the above-mentioned accessories or modifications.

Report content that violates this policy
You can report videos that you believe violate this policy by flagging the video.

Instructions on manufacturing ammunition? That is called reloading and has been a part of the shooting sports since time immemorial.

Instruction on manufacturing homemade silencers/suppressors? Those would be legally called Form 1 suppressors or silencers and are perfectly legal provided the $200 tax is paid along with the requisite background check. I currently have two Form 1’s approved and am deciding on how I want to proceed.

Insofar as reporting inappropriate videos, the gun prohibitionists have been trying to sabotage some of the more successful firearms-related YouTube channels. It has happened to Hickok45 and to others.

YouTube is a subsidiary of Google. Both are private companies entitled to set their own policies and discriminate against the gun culture if they so wish. This is not a constitutional issue as the First Amendment concerns only governmental abridgement of free speech. In the days of bulletin board systems (BBS) and private forums, this was not a real major issue. However, as social media has been increasingly aggregated into a few major corporate players – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google – their censorship is a problem. Unfortunately, there are not currently many viable alternatives. Full30 is great but it is limited. MeWe hasn’t really taken off as a Facebook alternative. The list goes on.

I suggest downloading those YouTube instructional videos that you like. There are plenty of ways to do it and I’m sure you can find them on the Internet. Content creators would be advised to back up their channels.

Probably the best comment on backing up a channel was this by Othais of C&R Arsenal.

Or you can go full bore like Ian and Karl.

UPDATE: Bloomberg Technology is covering this and included this comment from InRange TV aka Ian and Karl.

InRange TV, another channel devoted to firearms, wrote on its Facebook page that it would begin uploading videos to PornHub, an adult content website.

“YouTube’s newly released released vague and one-sided firearms policy makes it abundantly clear that YouTube cannot be counted upon to be a safe harbor for a wide variety of views and subject matter,” InRange TV wrote. “PornHub has a history of being a proactive voice in the online community, as well as operating a resilient and robust video streaming platform.”

If anyone knows about streaming video it is the porn industry!

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Links For Your Weekend Reading

March 11, 2018 by

I spent three days this week in the gun control paradise known as Chicago. So I’m doing a little catch-up on my reading and I’ve come across a few blog posts that I think are must reads.

Since the murders at Majory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Florida, we have subjected to a non-stop assault on our civil rights from the gun control industry and their media allies. As the late Professor Brian Anse Patrick showed in his research, the NRA and gun rights groups in general actually benefit from this assault. My friend and Polite Society Podcast co-host Rob Morse has a post up about how NRA and SAF memberships have been rising with this assault. If you want to go into more depth on this, I highly recommend Prof. Patrick’s The National Rifle Association and the Media: The Motivating Force of Negative Coverage. The Kindle edition is $9.99 or about half the cost of the paperback version.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has two posts up that I would encourage you to read. The first, Dear NRA, says we and the NRA need to up our grassroots game. In particular, we need to convert those who believe in the Second Amendment from being passive observers to active participants. Our opponents have upped their game and are becoming much more effective. It will not be merely enough to watch a NRA-TV video with Dana Loesch or Colion Noir and nod your head in agreement. It will entail getting our rear ends out to city council meetings and hearings when they impact our gun rights.

In his second post, Sebastian has a lexicon of gun terms that the media has thrown out there to confuse non-gun owners. He addresses them and how we should in turn address them when a non-gun owner asks us questions. In one sense – and this is me saying it and not Sebastian – we need to listen to the immortal words of Crash Davis in Bull Durham, “You’re gonna have to learn your cliches. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to learn them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends.” In other words, we need to know the gun prohibitionists’ argument better than they do. You should also read Tam’s post on Magical Thinking which also addresses this.

Kevin Creighton has a short post saying we need to get back into the game. He’s right. We need to get back into the cultural game because we are in a cultural war. Two things he suggests is reaching out to motorcycle riders as we have a shared interest in freedom and to videogamers to encourage them to get into competitive shooting.

Finally, Erin Palette looks at SB 7026 which was signed in Florida on Friday by Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL). She analyzes it in depth and the implications of many of the things in the bill are horrendous. Insofar as creating “school guardians”, it will be dependent upon a county’s sheriff to approve it there. Moreover, it will require 132 hours of training to become qualified as well as another 12 hours in a “certified nationally recognized diversity training program”. Diversity training for stopping an armed attacker? Who the f*&k came up with that nonsense.

So now you have your weekend reading in nice, digestible nuggets. My other suggestion is if there is a gun show in your area, go to it.  Spend some quality time with your cultural brothers and sisters. And, if you are in the Asheville area, go to the Asheville Gun Show at the WNC Ag Center. While there, stop at the Grass Roots North Carolina booth and say hello. I’ll be working it from 10am until 5pm.

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The BBC Discovers North Carolina Kids Who Shoot

December 23, 2017 by 5 Comments

As part of a story about gun sales in the United States during the holiday season, the BBC included the following kids in North Carolina. These kids tell why they enjoy shooting guns. In this case, the video appears to have been taken at a Scholastic Clays shooting event.

Surprising perhaps, given the anti-gun sentiment in the UK, but the BBC seems to do a better job covering the American gun culture than the American mainstream media.

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How Did My Ancestors’ Homeland Fall So Low

July 15, 2015 by 2 Comments

Facts. appears to be an Irish YouTube channel. This video by them features three Irish hipsters who are going shooting for the first time. They are shooting trap and sporting clays. It’s called, “Irish People Use Guns For First Time”.

They seem to have enjoyed themselves. That said, their conclusions are negative. One guy said he’s changed his view on guns. Now he just thinks that they are crazy. The only woman piously says that they are designed to cause damage.

If these kids were around in 1916, there would have been no Easter Rising. There would have been no Michael Collins and the Irish Volunteers. It still would have been the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and not the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

This is the end result of being constantly told guns are bad by the education system and the media combined with onerous restrictions on firearms from the government.

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It’s All Part Of The Plan To Destroy The Gun Culture

November 20, 2014 by 8 Comments

Jay Leno was supposed to be the headliner at the NSSF’s State of the Industry Dinner at the SHOT Show. Under intense pressure from the gun prohibitionists, he cancelled his appearance. See the statement from the NSSF below:

We are clearly disappointed by Jay Leno’s decision not to perform at the 2015 SHOT Show State of the Industry Dinner. He unilaterally cancelled his promised appearance due to pressure from the anti-gun lobby, which included false statements about our industry and its commitment to genuine firearms safety, which we attempted to personally correct with him, but to no avail.

We are not deterred by their publicity seeking nor are we unfamiliar with the bullying political tactics of the gun control groups that seem to have as little respect for the First Amendment as they continually demonstrate with regard to the Second Amendment.

We are proud of the many programs that we run that meaningfully contribute to public safety including our long standing Project ChildSafe and Don’t Lie for the Other Guy initiatives in addition to our members everyday work in compliance with comprehensive federal and state laws. We will not allow the lawful commerce in firearms nor our industry to be demonized and we will continue to speak out for the Second Amendment rights of the millions of law-abiding citizens who are our customers.

Despite Mr. Leno’s cancellation, we look forward to having our biggest and best State of the Industry Dinner to date with a performer that respects the contributions of our industry and the customers it supports.

I originally was going to title this post, “The Spine of a Jellyfish”. In other words, the man has no spine if he can’t stand up to the shrill Mommies and the ne’er do wells at CSGV.  Saying it was a mistake to have signed on to do the gig just compounds it in my eyes.

While I still believe that, I also understand this is not about one aging comedian. Rather it is part of a coordinated effort to destroy the gun culture by making it an anathema. That is part of the long game behind so-called universal background checks given how it restricts transfers and not just sales.

How do we counter this?

In my opinion, the best way to do it is the grow the grass-roots and with it the gun culture. We need to make personal outreach efforts to friends and family and take them shooting. We have to stop whispering about our gun ownership. We need to take a page from gay rights activists and their “We’re Here – We’re Queer – Get Over It” movement. I can’t think of something with a nice alliteration right now but you get the idea. We have an enumerated civil right to keep and bear arms and we should never forget that. We also have an enumerated civil right to free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government to redress grievances. We need to start doing more of all of that and it needs to start today.

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Why I Love People In The Gun Culture

October 3, 2014 by 4 Comments

Despite the stereotypes propagated by the gun prohibitionists, people in the gun culture are some of the nicest, most inviting people around.

My case in point. I had mentioned in a post early (very early!) Monday morning that I was headed to Phoenix for a business training conference. On Monday afternoon I got this Facebook message from Jaci J of Team Gunblogger.

Hey, I just read your post about the Gun Rights Conference. Will you still be in Phoenix tomorrow? If so, would you like to shoot IDPA with us? We can scrounge up a gun and equipment for you. It’s at 5:30 at Phoenix Rod and Gun Club.

 While I couldn’t take her and Robert up on that invitation as my conference extended into the evening, I was really touched by her invitation. It goes to show that the gun culture is full of really nice people.

And next time, I’ll skip the steak dinner for a chance to go shooting!