Ten year old arrested, fingerprinted for bringing a toy gun to school.

Texas lawmakers look to end campus gun ban.

Donald Sensing looks at whether or not armed citizens can effectively deal with terror attacks. He’s not optimistic, as a function of numbers:

The notion that America is comprised of an armed citizenry is just not true. Only about a third of households have a firearm (most more than one) and most of them are rifles and shotguns. In Tennessee, for example, only three percent of the population has a carry permit. In no state does the percentage of carry-permit holders come close to 10 percent.

Clearly, we need more armed citizens.

It looks like someone else thinks more armed citizens wouldn’t be a bad idea. In London, even.

Reader Tim’s Remington 722. And more.

Cowboy Up.

Crystal clear.

Matching pistol and rifle set from Sig Sauer.

Off to the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation match here in a bit. Will report about later.

Via David, HS Precision has issued a statement. Not much of one, really.

It will happen.

Just ask a simple question about why vegetarians are so widely ridiculed/marginalized. Holy cow. Four pages of comments, and growing!

Also, an unrelated bonus flame:

One larger point here is that, while “rising stars” like Sanford and Jindal may be individually compelling, they must operate within a Republican Party that has enthusiastically embraced ignorance on a whole host of subjects, economics included. The issue is whether they can escape these constraints.

Via Southern Beale in comments here, comes this:

Last month, voters across the country took a cue from the late Charlton Heston and pried the assault weapon from the NRA’s cold, dead hands.

Although the gun group unleashed everything in its arsenal to defeat Barack Obama and dozens of down ticket gun-control candidates, it lost by a margin as historic as the war chest it opened in an attempt to convince voters that Democrats were mortal enemies of the Second Amendment. Despite expending nearly $7 million in a national fear campaign, NRA-endorsed candidates lost 80 percent of their races against gun-control candidates. More than 90 percent of candidates endorsed by the NRA’s nemesis, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, won their races.

Anyone find a cite for that tidbit? It’s not consistent with numbers I have seen and, well, it is AlterNet.

Update: Yup, not consistent with the numbers I have seen. A summary of those can be found here.

Update: Here’s the cite. Brady Camp, surprise.

I see a flaw in the system. I was checking out Rich’s pics of his new XDm 40 cal. Looks like it comes complete with holster, magazine carrier, paperweight err safety lock, magazine loader, and cleaning brush. One thing, though. The magazine carrier holds two mags. So, if you put one in the gun, you have an extra slot. Or do they come with three magazines? If not, they should. Pretty cool that it comes as a complete package.

It’s easy when they come pre-debunked. Is that pre-bunked?

And, of course, those NY crime guns tend to come from NY.

Katie has more. I offered to take her shooting. She declined. Done all I can do.

Or You see what kind of shit we gun nuts have to put up with?

Remember those birds I mentioned yesterday? They that kept flying into the window? Yeah, those birds. It never once occurred to me to walk outside and say ‘Hey birds, knock it off. That’s your reflection and you’re just hurting yourself.” Followed by me giving a lengthy explanation to the birds about wavefronts and refraction and what not. You know why that didn’t occur to me? Because they don’t get it. And they never will. They will continue to fly into the window, pointlessly attacking their imagined opposition.

This brings me to Mike Vanderboegh’s merry band of keyboard commandos. Mostly, I’ve been ignoring these guys and not engaging them for the same reason I did not engage the bird. It’s pointless. The trend is the same:

1 Crazy talk about shooting the bastards

2 followed by attacking those folks who think maybe shooting the bastards is a bit much

3 ending with righteous indignation about how those of us who may disagree with them are, well, pick your favorite insulting term.

After, it gets repeated elsewhere. Second verse, same as the first. I would try to engage them and point out that maybe scaring the white people isn’t the best policy decision. That their efforts are better spent being politically active instead of engaging in mental masturbation all over their keyboards. Or, as Sebastian said: If 3% of gun owners were as involved in political activism as they supposedly are at preparing for civil war, we’d be an unstoppable political force.

But, like reasoning with the birds, it’s a fruitless endeavor. It will waste my time and probably annoy the birds. After all, these are guys who accuse other bloggers of cowardice for not drawing a clear line in the sand, while pointing out their own lines have been crossed while they do nothing but engage in a New World Order induced circle jerk. But other gun bloggers do engage them (most recently here, here, and here).

And that’s the other rub. In addition to a complete unwillingness to think that maybe their strategies aren’t helpful, a lot of these guys are complete assholes. I mean, zero attempt at convincing someone of their point without inflammatory rhetoric. One of the comments made recently in an offline discussion was that some of the gun bloggers were part of the three percenters these guys were counting. And they were even turning us crazy gun nuts off.

So, can there be peace between our people? Not until they stop acting like douchebags. Until then, I’ll continue my policy of not engaging them.

I mean, at least the birds aren’t douchebags.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Update: And to be clear, Mike has been personable to in our few online exchanges. I’m not calling him a douchebag. Rather, the inevitable stream of other commenters who tend to show up.

Model 700.

Barack Obama is running from his campaign platforms faster than he ran from his anti-gun past during the campaign. The latest is that he now opposes windfall profit tax. Roughly translated, this means: I just said that during the election to get stupid people to vote for me.

The current trend from the anti-gunner and the press (but I repeat myself) is that the gun lobby is a paper tiger, guns don’t matter, and take that you bitter clingy gun nuts. This is all based on Obama’s election. Based on this one election, they cry that we don’t matter politically and politicians don’t need us. This is amusing for a few reasons.

One is that Obama obviously ran from his anti-gun past and spend his time trying to convince folks he was not opposed to gun ownership.

The second is that in the majority of political races, NRA endorsed candidates won. And my s00per seekrit sources are telling me there is evidence that membership in NRA is up since the election.

Also, the press likes to paint this as NRA being against Democrats. NRA endorses quite a few pro-gun Democrats. Shills the AHSA or Brady Camp tend to favor only one party.

But let the press keep crowing and the politicians try to push gun controls. It will be 1996 allover again.

Spread the Holiday Cheer with NRA Memberships!

David notes a case incorporating the second amendment into the 14th. In Chicago.

That’s a lot of AKs.

Kevin and Robb point out their surprise that I wrote a post longer than two lines. Ya know, I used to write longer posts. But once I started writing shorter aggregating type posts, traffic shot up. I think my readers have short attention span. Less is more, and all that. And if you think ab . . . . look, a monkey.

Remington issues a statement regarding HS Precision’s questionable judgment. And here’s an email from their CEO at arfcom.

This is the second time that Remington responded to calls for action. You’ll recall they dropped Zumbo after he called AR-15s terrorist rifles and we gunnies took offense at that. And they have once again responded positively to their customer base. So, listen up: go buy Remington stuff. For me, I’ll be buying their ammo. I’ve used their Golden Sabers for a while now. This voting with our dollars stuff needs to work both ways.

Mr. C. is back home. Get some rest!

Makarov.

CavArms lower AR-15.

Breda has a range report featuring a Ruger P345.

In Afghanistan.

KAG emails a link to her bit on moms and guns. The original piece here notes that:

At a recent pediatrician’s visit, the nurse asked me — as part of a series of standard questions — if we had any guns in our house. Like I always do, I answered with a quick, emphatic “no.” I’m not sure why I lie, because we do, in fact, have a gun. My husband keeps one safely stored in a closet. It’s unloaded and completely inaccessible to our daughters. Yet even though we are responsible gun owners, I guess admitting the truth makes me feel like a bad mother.

First of all, it’s not their business. Second, you’re not doing yourself favors by lying and staying in the closet. I think gun owners should out themselves so that we can show the world that we’re not crazy survivalists with black helicopter fantasies and that we are normal people with normal lives who do normal things. If you make your case and they’re still afraid of your cooties, they’re beyond logical reach anyway. I would be curious what impact an affirmative answer would have had. And would answer as such and then, if told it was bad, proceed to school said nurse to 1) mind her own business and 2) that (foreshadowing) what she or the doc were about to say to me was bunk. The author continues (remember I said foreshadowing):

I understand the implication behind the question: owning a gun may pose a danger to my child’s health and safety. The American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that although one may feel safer by owning a gun, it’s actually safer to maintain a gun-free home. In their official policy statement regarding firearms, the AAP points to some pretty compelling research against gun ownership. They state, “Guns kept in the home are forty-three times more likely to be used to kill someone known to the family than to be used to kill in self-defense.” I understand this, but nevertheless I’ll still keep a firearm.

Complete and utter crap. Though it’s mostly said to be 42 times, it is a long discredited assertion by one Dr. Arthur Kellerman who rather conveniently left suicides and criminals who kill other criminals with which they share residence and other such factors, like only counting self-defense if it resulted in death, in the alleged study. Controlling for those factors, Don Kates pretty much completely dispelled this myth yet the medical community and others parrot it as gospel. You can read about that here. A very good friend and poker buddy of mine is a pediatrician. He owns guns. I asked him about this policy and he said that it rarely happened in these parts. And he advised telling other pediatricians who asked this to mind their own business and then to find another pediatrician.

Anyway, this propaganda has worked. Ms. Granju in the original post says:

I totally get that “mother bear” instinct. If anyone threatened one of my children, I would be on them like a crazed spider monkey. And if I thought that having a gun in my house would help me protect and defend my family, I would have one. But I know myself too well to believe that a gun would help, rather than hurt..I don’t know that I could handle a gun competently in the adrenalin rush that would come with a threatening situation – no matter what kind of training I had had. In fact, I would probably be one of those people who end up having their own gun turned on them.

Katie, victim of of many gun ownership myths. Let’s review:

I totally get that “mother bear” instinct. If anyone threatened one of my children, I would be on them like a crazed spider monkey.

First, I’m uncertain what a crazed spider monkey is capable of. But I’m guessing that 230 grains of jacketed lead could probably dispatch of one fairly easily. Second, I’ve met Katie. And whether or not she was in crazed spider monkey mode, I could totally take her in a fight. I guess what I’m saying is that if your plan is to become a monkey, it’s not a good plan. Glock or brawn beats monkey.

But I know myself too well to believe that a gun would help, rather than hurt..I don’t know that I could handle a gun competently in the adrenalin rush that would come with a threatening situation – no matter what kind of training I had had.

You know yourself too well? Are you irretrievably irresponsible? If so, don’t drive a vehicle, own pointy things, or go near a bathtub. You might hurt someone, ferrchrissakes. No one knows for certain what they would do. But there are steps you can take to adequately prepare yourself should you need to defend yourself. If you can’t handle a gun on an adrenaline rush, what makes you think you can handle your spider monkey-fu? That, and the inherent implication that you lack the confidence and competence to operate a tool effectively is right out of the anti-gun playbook, particularly as a woman. And that leads right in to:

In fact, I would probably be one of those people who end up having their own gun turned on them

Ah, the old women getting the gun turned on them meme perpetuated by the anti-gun lobby. Doubly ironic given Ms. Granju’s penchant to get bent out of shape over sexism. It is, of course, also completely bunk. And, with training, darn near impossible. And, of course, active resistance (preferably while armed) is simply the most effective way to reduce the risk of injuries with respect to violent crimes.

Now, all that said, am I trying to get Katie to buy a gun? Not for me to decide as it is a personal matter and not a choice many folks are comfortable making. And one reason people tend to err on the side of caution is that there simply is so much misinformation about guns out there fed to you by people under color of authority, as illustrated. Our side does it too. After all, owning a gun will not make her Wonder Woman. It will, however, give her the most effective tool when it comes to personal defense. And, if she owned a gun, it would really annoy Bob Ricker, who also thinks you shouldn’t own one. And, who thinks if you do, it is a sign of criminal activity.

And any time you want to go the range, Katie, ammo and range time is on me.

And ACK says: Katie Allison Granju lets us (and criminals, potential stalkers, etc.) know that there are no guns in her house

I’m away at an office at a secure and undisclosed location. I have a large window. All day, two stupid birds are repeatedly flying into said window. Every 8 seconds or so there are two thuds.

It’s kinda SKSy around here.

The merits of CCW v. terrorist attacks.

Update: Related: Don’t train in vain.

Interesting post at subguns.

Your favorite gun sucks. Updated.