Why firearms training is important.

Nice shirt too.

The shoot was held at Coal Creek Armory (gratuitous plug due to their holding a time slot for us – so, go buy something)

One of the highlights of the range time was shooting Tam’s 44. Cool little revolver. Even if you miss the target, the fireball from it will set the target on fire.

Everyone likes the 9mm AR-15.

Tam has a write up here. And I’d like to thank Tam for pointing out that my pending procedure can be referred to as installing a blank-firing adapter.

Glenn Reynolds is a fine shot.

I tried to teach Dr. Helen not to flinch by using the old no round in the camber see what happened trick. I find this method effective because it shows the shooter at exactly what point they flinch and they tend to compensate for that. It seemed to work for the next couple of magazines but we soon had to leave the range so the handgun carry class people could qualify.

Speaking of, the handgun carry class was packed. And there were a lot of women in the class.

Over at Atomic Nerds, a former vet tech talks about breed tendencies.

Looks like the city government of Knoxville is looking to start a blog.

More pink guns:

A Hello Kitty AR that is California legal.

Pink lady.

Regular reader Blackfork has some videos up on youtube. Here’s on on using a hasty sling to improve your shooting:

Spot the domestic terrorist!

Had a good time last night shooting away with some local bloggers and our out of town guests. Dr. Helen has a pic in which she’s shooting my 9MM AR. And Glenn, I prefer the term regular capacity magazine.

WATE gets in on the PSH:

Knoxville police are coming across more high-capacity weapons.

Lt. Greg Hoskins says he finds one last week particularly disturbing.

“On December 23rd we stopped a car with four teens inside, one just 15 years old. They had a semi automatic assault rifle, they had several handguns and magazines for those handguns,” said Hoskins.

He says there have been several similar situations.

“We have traffic stops and find rounds or magazines or weapons in cars where there is a group of people in the car.”

In the past, he says police would find someone with a handgun that might hold 8 to 10 rounds, now they are facing assault weapons capable of holding 100 rounds in a single magazine.

“The guys that shoot these high capacity weapons just spray them in all directions and that is obviously an extreme danger wherever this happens,” said Hoskins.

We do? I disagree:

Hoskins says people who carry such weapons are a major threat to police and the public.

I am? I carried a full size 9mm for years. Now, I carry a compact 45. Does it make me less dangerous?

I realize, of course, the cops are talking about potential criminals and not average CCW holders. But they should at least say that.

Via SIH.

Says AC:

It would seem that Say Uncle’s concerns about a new gun law taking effect in January may be well founded.

He notes that attorney Nathan Moore has done an analysis of the law. Nathan concludes:

One aspect of the proposed change in the gun laws puzzles me, however, In amending TCA 39-17-1307, possessing a deadly weapon that is not a firearm in the commission of a “dangerous felony” as listed in the Crooks with Guns law is a standard Class E felony. That part makes sense, and would apply to knives, pool cues, baseball bats, etc. However, possessing a firearm in the commission, attempt to commit or escape from a non-dangerous “offense” (note, not felony) is a Class E felony. A Class E felony entails a one (1) to two (2) year sentence for a Range I offender. So, in essence, if you possess a firearm while committing the least serious misdemeanor, you could suffer a felony conviction (think Driving on a Suspended License because of unpaid tickets, or Criminal Trespass, both Class C Misdemeanors – and the way it is written, possessing a valid concealed carry permit wouldn’t matter a lick).

Another anti-gun blog goes down the memory hole. Of course, I’d be embarrassed by those racist antics anyway as would any organizations I belonged to. Seems to be a trend (not the racism part but the sock puppet part).

Update: More here.

Speaking of felonies, Adam Groves says:

A new law effective Jan 1 will make criminals who use guns in the commission of a crime serve mandatory jail time without parole. According to the legislation, on Jan. 1 anyone employing a firearm during the commission of a felony will face a charge punishable by “the service of 10 years in the penitentiary at 100 percent,” meaning the defendant shall be required to serve the entire sentence and the sentence shall not be reduced for any reason.

Any felony or violent ones? You see, I’d hate to see someone get ten years for selling orchids. In celebration, I’ll make sure that the last time I go tear off mattress labels while armed will be on 12/31/2007.

As you were.

Update: AC: Are all gun owners really in favor of taking desecration (sic) away from the judges and parole boards or do they just recognize that as a PR move “getting tough” on crimes committed with guns helps insure (sic) citizens get to keep their guns.

Well, really getting tough on crime involves money, people and resources. It’s hard to do. Symbolically getting tough on crime requires but a few idiots to vote and a signature.

Abstinence only gun safety

So, we’ve gone a round or two here on that issue. My basic position is that if you can’t be trusted with a gun, you also can’t be trusted with pointy things and cars; and should likely still be in prison. That said, a felon in NY is addressing that issue:

With the U.S. Supreme Court set to decide whether the Second Amendment gives law-abiding citizens the right to keep a handgun at home, a convicted felon in New York decided to test his luck.

The inmate, Damon Lucky, isn’t law-abiding. Nor did the gun he was convicted of possessing stay in his home. Still, Lucky decided to “see how far we can ride this pony,” his lawyer, Harry Batchelder Jr., said, referring to the federal judiciary’s apparent willingness to examine gun control laws critically.

Codrea says:

Those who avoided a Second Amendment challenge all these years because they were waiting for the “just right” Goldilocks case, or wanted to avoid it altogether because of the risk of losing, practically ensured that the wrong case, with a repulsive central character, would come to the fore.

Maybe I’m misreading that but I know David has heard of Heller.

Jeff disagrees with me: My own feelings are that if you are convicted of a violent crime, you should lose the right to own a firearm.

The issue with that is that felony convictions no longer represent truly heinous crimes. It’s a felony, for instance, to import lobsters in plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes. But turning small crimes into felonies is what politicos do to appear tough on crime.

Sebastian notes: we’re going to see a lot of cases of criminals challenging their conviction on gun charges by asserting their second amendment rights, and Jeff is absolutely correct to point out the Brady’s will be happy to point to all of this as an example of what will happen if second amendment rights are taken seriously.

The police state that, in NO, they took only guns that had been stolen or found in abandoned homes. Really? Patricia Konie disagrees.

What could possibly go wrong?

70,000 guns destroyed. But only 50,000 rounds of ammo? Hmmm.

It’s dehumanizing to not rape our women.

To reduce law enforcement deaths, put two officers in each car. Where will these extra officers come from? Well, from the SWAT teams that are busy raiding the wrong house or the local home poker game.

So, is it the policy of ATF to repeat anti-gun misinformation in the press in an effort to expand gun control? I think so. Seems it would add to job security.

Semi-autos are not what soldiers carry.

Seems the form was having technical issues. And the NRA has given the most direct means of contacting them. Go blogs.

Rustmeister of The Gun Blogs fame now has his own blog: Rustmeister’s Alehouse. Gun stuff and Cthulhu.

Red’s Trading Post is the subject of a news article:

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has long been the target of whimsical heckles and opinionated challenges on a local gun shop dealer’s Web site.

Now the agency can go there to find heightened criticism from a different posse: politicians, including some Republican presidential candidates.

Ryan Horsley, manager of Red’s Trading Post, checks who visits his Web site daily. He also knows ATF agents do the same.

Horsley, who is fighting the ATF over his store’s gun-selling license in federal court, has taken his battle over Second Amendment rights to another arena – the U.S. Senate.

“I don’t want people thinking they’re just doing it to Red’s Trading Post,” Horsley said about the ATF’s practices against small shop owners. “It’s what they’re doing to gun dealers in general.”

Horsley enlisted many Idahoans to protest the ATF to their senators, both of whom now say the bureau may be too aggressively pursuing gun dealers. As a result, Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig put a hold on the president’s nominee for ATF director. A third senator, David Vitter, R-La., has added a third hold on federal prosecutor Michael Sullivan, giving more fodder to Horsley’s Web site.

As Les said: Sure, he believes that global warming may ravage the planet, but if it kills just 1 million red staters won’t it all be worth it?

Now, I’m no expert on climate and global warming. But doesn’t this religion* believe that the seas will rise? And, if so, don’t you think that coastal areas would be hardest hit? Which could likely mean that those of us in fly-over country won’t be in that bad of shape?

In other news, beach party at my house.

* note: by using the term religion, I’m referencing the rather hysterical brand of global warming alarmists and not the more sane folks. Yes, there is evidence indicating the Earth is warming. But not all of it says ZOMFG we’re all gonna die.

Yesterday, in Pakistan, a person your average American had probably never heard of was assassinated. Now, the talking heads and pundits are convincing Americans that the murder of this person they’d likely never heard of could be a catalyst to an even bigger war. What kind of war? No one really says. Civil war in Pakistan? Maybe. All out war in the region? Dunno. I’m not trying to minimize the impact of the event at all. The world just got more scary and your average American probably doesn’t really understand why.

Sig 556. I handled one at Coal Creek Armory the other day. I said to the manager So, Sig made a polymer AR?

Some serious Risk. Via Jon.

A case of racial injustice:

I can’t believe this. A bunch of drunken hoodlums show up at a man’s house, hollering “nigger,” obviously looking for a fight, the man defends himself and his son, and a jury convicts him? Of what?

Update: As is always the case in these things, there’s another side to the story that makes it unclear (in comments from original link):

I read the account in Newsday. White and his son walked out in the driveway carrying a pistol and shotgun, apparently going right up to the teenagers (according to the account, the dead boy was ‘inches away’. The son was shouting racial insults and slurs of his own.

The prosecutor said he should have stayed inside, locked the doors, and called police.

Escalating the situation is never good. But no one should be forced to rely on waiting for the police who, when seconds count, are only minutes away.

Conversely, I wonder what the result would have been were races reversed.

Other than Junior getting a double ear infection and rupturing an ear drum, Christmas was a blast. She’s OK and is on antibiotics.

Les got his kids some bean bag chairs and reports the kids like them. We got some for our kids too and they seem to enjoy them.

Our kids had so many presents that they got bored of opening presents before even getting through 1/3rd of the gifts they had. I told The Mrs. that next year we may want to get them fewer gifts.

And, for all you folks looking for Wiis, Target in Maryville has them (or rather had about 20 of them yesterday). Of course, they didn’t get them until the day after Christmas. And the Mrs. picked me one up yesterday. It’s a lot of fun. All I have is the sports game. Any recommendations?

So, Christmas is over and the new holiday season starts, like, next week?

It was reported over and over that Jeanne Assam, the lady who stopped Matthew Murray at the Colorado church shooting, was a security guard. This despite evidence to the contrary.

Turns out, we were right, she was not:

In Colorado Springs, where a troubled young man brought an assault rifle, two semiautomatic handguns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition to a church, security guards aren’t allowed to carry anything more powerful than a revolver.

That could change early next year, when the city will consider a proposal to permit licensed security officers to carry semiautomatic weapons.

First, revolvers are generally more powerful than semi-automatics. Second, Assam (IIRC) carried a Beretta 92, which would be illegal, apparently, if she was a security guard.

The NRA is looking for you:

A powerful gun lobby organization has hired private investigators to track down hundreds of gun owners whose firearms were seized by New Orleans police after Hurricane Katrina, according to court papers filed this week.

The National Rifle Association is trying to locate gun owners for a federal lawsuit that the lobbying group filed against Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley over the city’s seizure of firearms after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.

Good. Though, it’s funny how the NRA is always the powerful gun lobby.

I love when a newbie starts building AR-15s.