All posts by Carl Bussjaeger

Firearms Policy & Law Analyst at The Zelman Partisans Personal Blog: https://www.bussjaeger.us/blog/
defense of others, gun control

[Updated] Assorted Observations: First Baptist Church Shooting

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Much remains unknown about the First Baptist Church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas this early in the investigation, but a few things are being reported with surprising consistency in the media. Like: Victim disarming gun controllers using it to call for more gun control. What about the laws already in place?

Background checks: Reports have it that the asshole purchased his Ruger AR-556 from a dealer, which means he passed a background check. The problem with that is multiple, consistent reports that he had been convicted of domestic violence (assault on spouse and child). That makes him a “prohibited person” thanks to the Lautenberg Amendment. So NICS, along with its 94% false positive rate, has lethal false negatives. Perhaps the system has it in for churches since the Charleston church shooter also passed a NICS check despite being a prohibited person. No wonder background checks don’t reduce firearms homicides. I expect we’ll learn that, since he received a Bad Conduct Discharge rather than the automatically disqualifying Dishonorable, the Air Force never bothered to report his conviction; although this is an inconsistent point of reporting (both versions from the same network). If it was a DD, there is no reason whatsoever for the Air Force to fail to report him to NICS.

That never happens: Victim disarmers tell us only police need guns because ordinary civilians never stop bad guys. Except when they do, as multiple reports have it that a local resident shot back, causing the asshole to drop his weapon, and ran the asshole away from the church. How, exactly, the shooter died hasn’t been released yet, but it’s possible the civilian killed him.

Laws don’t stop killers; honest folks armed for defense do.

Added: It’s now being reported that Stephen Willeford shot the asshole, apparently in a gap in the body armor. He and Johnnie Langendorff pursued the asshole in Langendorff’s truck, caught up with when he went off the road, and held him at gun point. It appears the shooter bled out from the wound Willeford inflicted. Well done, sirs.

Deadliest church shooting in America: I saw this claim several times. The Branch Davidians — the survivors — would beg to differ. Or doesn’t it count when the Only Ones are the shooters?

Updated: The asshole had been denied a Texas carry license: “So how was it that he was able to get a gun? By all the facts that we seem to know, he was not supposed to have access to a gun,” [Texas Gov.] Abbott told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “So how did this happen?”

As I read Texas law, Texas specifies that anyone separated from the military with anything lower than an Honorable Discharge is ineligible for a license, while federal law only specifies a DD as disqualifying. Also, Texas law allows application fees to be waived or lowered for veterans. If the shooter showed them his DD214 to get a discount, they would have evidence that he was disqualified from a Texas license. But the domestic violence conviction still should have made him a prohibited person.

Also, the sheriff is now saying he died of a self-inflicted wound.

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gun control

Damned weak gun laws

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Home Depot’s truck rental policy is tougher than gun restrictions in many states
According to its website, Home Depot requires that truck renters be at least 21 years old, possess a current American or Canadian driver’s license and leave a $50 deposit. Additionally, proof of automobile insurance is required for Home Depot’s “Load ‘N Go” rentals.

Many gun laws in the U.S. are laxer than these three simple requirements, The Independent reports.

Laxer? Let’s see…

To lawfully purchase/rent from a dealer in my state:

  • Clean criminal record: Guns, check. Automobiles, nope. (For the record, it’s a felony even in a private sale to knowingly sell a gun to a prohibited person.)
  • Clean mental health record: Guns, check. Automobiles, nope.
  • License to operate: Guns, check. Automobiles, check. Whoa! A point of convergence.
  • Fingerprints to get license: Guns, check. Automobiles, nope. Oops.
  • Background check to get license: Guns, check. Automobiles, nope again. Hmm…
  • Background check to purchase/rent from dealer: Guns, check. Automobiles, nope. I’m seeing a pattern.
  • Unlawful to sell to underage person: Guns, check. Automobiles, nope.
  • Insurance required by law: Guns, nope. Automobiles, check only to operate on public roads. Meh.

The insurance aspect is amusing in a sick, twisted way. For years, victim disarming gun control freaks have pushed mandatory liability insurance for gun owners (even though lawful gun owners kill fewer people than drivers), as a means of making gun ownership financially difficult. But when they realized people were voluntarily getting insurance, they freaked out.

When car dealers and rental agencies have to be federally licensed, maintain bound books, are subject to federal compliance inspections, run NICS checks on buyers and block sales to prohibited persons; and mufflers require more background checks, taxes, permissions, and separate registration; and car insurance is viewed as “murder insurance” and regulators try to shut it down then these clowns can start the guns vs. automobiles comparisons.

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gun control, So Much Stupid!, You can't fix stupid

Gun control works!

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Or so says NYT’s Nicholas Kristof.


That is, of course, in reference to yesterday’s terrorist truck attack.

Rumor has it that the rented truck, obtained without a NICS check, was equipped with a engine silencer that prevented his victims hearing him come. It was fitted with an after-market high-capacity bed, too. Nobody needs more than a quarter-ton capacity vehicle except the police and military.

The alleged attacker was quoted by witnesses as yelling, “Allahu Akbar,” which is Arabic for “My motive may never be known!”.

Oh. Wait. This time time they are considering terrorism.

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gun control

Disingenuous Doctor

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For new arrivals, I’ve been writing to “news” outlets and the writers of published gun-related misinformation. Call it education or calling them out on lies, I’m trying to correct bad reporting. Mostly, I an simply ignored, which indicates they know they’re wrong, and are disseminating BS deliberately. Once it’s clear that the outlet/writer is not interested in allowing facts to run, I’ve been posting my attempts here.

Today’s entry is a little bit different.

A focus on gun safety – not control – leaves 2nd Amendment intact
Our civil rights are under attack, and have been for some time. The freedom to assemble etched out in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is under attack by the Second Amendment — and it shouldn’t be. Jason Aldean’s concert was a peaceful assembly ravaged by a lone gunman who, for all intents and purposes, had the right of gun ownership.

What is it with doctors lying about firearms issues lately? 744 words of misdirection and falsehoods. I sent a proposed guest column of 721 words to rebut. To the Orlando Sentinel’s partial credit, they didn’t ignore me completely, as usually happens.

They told me to pare it down to 250 words or less and they’d consider it for a Letter to the Editor.

I couldn’t do it. There were too many Levy lies for 250 words. I got it down to 444 (remember, even my original column was shorter than Levy’s offering), by leaving out some specific references, and using more abbreviations and… not-so-great grammar.

They turned it down. So here it is.

Disingenuous Doctor

Doctor Marc Levy’s October 27, 2017 column, “A focus on gun safety – not control – leaves 2nd Amendment intact,” is as lacking in candor as the very column title, suggesting that delaying and infringing on rights somehow protects them.

In bringing up the Dickey Amendment and tying it to research, Dr. Levy implies that the amendment stopped federal funding of firearms-related violence. Just to be clear, this is false. The federal government funds much firearms-related violence research. As one recent example, there is “In-State and Interstate Associations Between Gun Shows and Firearm Deaths and Injuries: A Quasi-experimental Study,” primarily funded by the NIH.

Levy attempts another bit of misdirection in noting that Obamacare has a provision that prevents the collection of information on firearms. I’m sure that a doctor in Florida is well aware that Medicare/Medicaid sidestepped the law by implementing a rule requiring doctors to use Electronic Medical Records software, produced by nongovernmental agencies, which include questions on patient access to firearms in the intake questionnaire. Any doctor with Medicare/Medicaid patients will be asking that, while the CMS innocently proclaims, “WE aren’t requiring it.”

Dr. Levy also appears to be a fan of “universal background checks” (more accurately called preemptively-prove-your-innocence”), so that criminals and other prohibited persons could not obtain guns. He avoids the little problem that most firearm-equipped criminals already obtain their weapons unlawfully, and that the Supreme Court’s HAYNES decision upholds
criminals’ Fifth Amendment rights to not self-incriminate by reporting their unlawful activity; i.e.- criminals cannot be required to undergo background checks.

Levy mentions “assault rifles” as he wonders why we don’t track firearms purchases. Either he is unaware that assault rifles are heavily restricted, regulated, taxed, and registered; or he doesn’t want readers to realize that he’s talking about semiautomatic sporting and defense tools. Perhaps he meant to say “assault weapons,” a term with no legal meaning in Florida or federal law; only a handful of states use the entirely subjective term.

The doctor claims that all “responsible” gun owners approve of his restrictions: registration, taxation, limits on ownership, prior restraint on the exercise of a right, and more. Since I do not, that is demonstrably false, unless Levy has invented his own bizarre definition of “responsible.”

Similar claims that “90% of Americans favor Universal Background Checks” don’t hold water. A few years ago in Washington state, polls alleged that 90% of Washingtonians wanted UBCs; but when it went to an actual vote (Initiative 594), fewer than 60% voted in favor, missing the claim by over thirty points, and more than 40% opposed.

Since recent research shows that background checks do not reduce firearms-related homicide rates (“Do gun laws reduce gun homicide rates?,”), the 40% had a valid point.

Levy sidesteps other questions. Estimates of American gun owners range from a ridiculous fifty-five million to a possibly overly optimistic one hundred-twenty million. Estimates of firearms range from two hundred sixty-five million to a three quarters of a billion. Given the lack of knowledge demonstrated by that remarkable uncertainty, how does Levy propose to determine who has what? How does he propose to pry “extra” firearms out of the homes of those with “too many?” Does he expect dubious owners, who won’t tell a telephone poller what arms he possesses, to self-report to a government intent on registration and confiscation? Or does he advocate searching every single, individual domicile in the country? That’s a lot of doors to kick in, and when the California legislature first proposed mass confiscations of “assault weapons” several years ago, a police union spokesman announced they’d see the largest outbreak of “blue flu” in history if implemented.

Perhaps Dr. Levy and the other estimated one million doctors in America will volunteer to do the door-kicking; they outnumber the FBI’s estimate of fewer than 700,000 law enforcement officers anyway.

Consider those fifty-five to one hundred-twenty million gun owners; then consider the roughly thirteen thousand firearms-related homicides. If each homicide represented an individual shooter and gun, that’s 0.01-0.02% of all firearm owners and 0.001-0.005% of firearms. While personal tragedies, statistically homicides are “black swan” events.

Those tiny fractions of a single percentage point do not point to a gun problem or gun owner problem. There is a criminal problem. Perhaps Dr. Levy should lobby for a gangbanger tax to fund criminal violence research.

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gun control, So Much Stupid!

Boundary Violation? Doctor against hearing protection

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Dr. Herring is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon in Dallas who thinks hearing protection is a bad thing, and really likes gun bans and confiscations.

I have a new definition of ‘gun silencer’
A silencer is a device that is attached to a gun in order to virtually eliminate the sound of the gun and the “muzzle flash” that accompanies the bullet. If the Las Vegas shooter had used a silencer, people would have just continued to fall over with no evident cause for heaven knows how long. No one would have known in which direction to look, and no flash would have been seen.

Now that we’ve established that Herring is an ignorant twit, let’s determine the extent of that lack of knowledge. As I mentioned earlier this week, I’ve been indulging my hobby of calling out published idiots.  Since the Dallas News helpfully published the not-so-good doctor’s email address, I sent him a letter. He hasn’t responded, so here it is. Enjoy.

Dear Dr. Herring,

I must say, I’m glad you aren’t my doctor. I prefer medical professionals who take the time to gather facts.

1. “A silencer is a device that is attached to a gun in order to virtually eliminate the sound of the gun and the “muzzle flash” that accompanies the bullet.”

Incorrect. Suppressors (the preferred accurate term) generally reduce the muzzle blast sonic signature by 20-30 decibels, from a level that instantly damages hearing to a level that is still loud but doesn’t result in immediate hearing loss. I’d expect a doctor writing on the subject to know that.

You want to know how suppressors work outside of Hollywood and your imagination? Here’s a video in which a suppressed AR-15 is clearly audible at 500 yards.

A doctor advocating against hearing protection is, at best, committing a boundary violation, verging on malpractice. Cheap ear muffs or ear plugs work, but reduce situational awareness; a bad thing when handling guns. Electronic muffs help with that but are a lot more expensive. Electronic muffs that give 360 degree awareness can cost more than a suppressor. A group of people shooting a rifle can spend a thousand dollars or more on electronic muffs, or one guy can spend a couple of hundred on a single suppressor (pre-$200 tax) and protect everyone.

2. “In reaction to the mass shooting, Congress quickly pulled a bill that would have made silencers legal.”

Suppressors are already legal (federally, and in nearly all states). The SHARE Act would simply remove a $200 tax.

3. “The NRA has blocked any epidemiological studies of the effect of unrestricted weapon ownership relative to murder, accidental shooting, suicides, carjacking and home intrusion.”

Wrong again. Type “firearms research” into any search engine and you’ll find lots of research. The CDC was blocked from advocating and promoting gun control, not studying firearms death/injury. The federal government pours millions of dollars in grants to such research.

4. “No civilian needs a high-powered repeating rifle like the AK-47.”

The AK-47 — a select-fire assault rifle — is extremely difficult to lawfully obtain. And it is not “high-powered,” being chambered for an intermediate power cartridge with ballistics very similar to the venerable .30-30.

5. “Australia, a country with as high a percentage of gun owners as the U.S., was able to implement effective and fair gun laws that dramatically reduced gun violence.”

It was so effective that they just had to run another amnesty to convince people to turn in gun they failed to turn in back then. Their government’s estimate of compliance — including this year’s amnesty — is around 15-20%. And arbitrarily declaring lawfully owned and used property illegal, and taking it without compensation, was hardly “fair.”

6. “The number of homicides dropped 23 percent in 2013 compared to 2007, the lowest rate in 25 years.”

The Australian homicide rate was dropping before the confiscation, and merely continued. If you look at a graph of the rates, you’ll see a surprising smooth decline with no discontinuity at the time of the confiscation.

7. “Prior to the Australian law there had been 13 massacres (defined as killing of 4 or more people). In the 14 years following the new regulations, none.”

Untrue. By the “4+ killed” definition there has been at least one mass shooting (ed: knife and rifle, technically), and at least two more with seven victims (2 dead, 5 wounded; 3 dead, 4 wounded). (ed: and in 2014, another mass shooting with 5 dead.)

There have also been numerous knife, vehicle, club, and fire attacks that killed far more people than firearms murders, but I suppose you think those don’t count.

If you are truly interested in educating yourself on the subject of firearms, let me recommend The Zelman Partisans’ (a Jewish pro-RKBA organization) “Gun Culture Primer” as a starting point.

You are entitled to an opinion, but if you know something about a topic before publicly pontificating, it will boost your — currently lacking — credibility.

8. “I have patients who have committed suicide with guns.”

That seems extremely unlikely. Perhaps your grasp of English matches your knowledge of firearms and you meant that you had patients who committed suicide, or that you have patients who attempted it.

9. “There are people who are known threats who should not own guns.”

And those are called — in federal law — “prohibited persons,” and are ALREADY… prohibited from possessing firearms. And they are a tiny minority.

Consider that estimates of US gun ownership ranges from a laughable 60 million people to an optimistic 120 million. There are roughly 11,000 firearms homicides per year (and a decades-long downward trend). If each individual homicide was committed by a separate individual (which Mandalay Bay shows isn’t the case, as well as all the repeat murder offenders in cities like Chicago), then that’s 0.009% to 0.018% of all gun owners. At most, less than two hundredths of one percent. But you want laws restricting human rights of the 99.982% who didn’t do it?

Perhaps we should ban doctors: Recent research indicates that medical errors kill 200,000 to 400,000 people per year. With approximately one million doctors in America, it appears that doctors are roughly 2,200 times more likely to kill someone than is a lawful gun owner.

But wait! You might say that number doesn’t reflect the lives doctors save. Your numbers also don’t reflect the number of lives saved by gun owners; even the anti-gun Violence Policy Center says there are 338,700 defensive gun uses in 2007-2011, 11,690/year. Other researchers think the number could be as high as 2.5 million (based on the assumption that most never get reported to police, which my own experience suggests may be accurate).

I’ll leave you with a final thought. A particular incident stands out in my memory from my law enforcement days. A group of convicted felons was watching a news program about a push for gun control. The criminal group consensus was that gun control was good, because as one violent felon (assault with a deadly weapon, as I recall), “Yeah, pass it! Then I’ll know they ain’t got nothing, and I can always get a gun.”

Sincerely,

Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger
Author: Net Assets, Bargaining Position, The Anarchy Belt, and more
www.bussjaeger.org
NRA delenda est

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gun control

Trolling for sensible fishing laws.*

Apparently the old “regulate guns like cars” argument has worn out. Now…

Fishing for sensible gun laws
As the West’s elected officials wrestle with how to protect us from gun violence in the aftermath of the Las Vegas nightmare, two things come to mind. First, these leaders are not actually wrestling with the issue of how to protect us from gun violence. If they were, the solution would be as clear as a mountain stream: Treat people more like fish.

Marty Jones is somehow under the impression that firearms are less regulated than fishing.

Perhaps he should take a little time to educate himself on the subject of firearm lest he continue to sound like a foolish kook. The Zelman Partisans “Gun Culture Primer” is a good place for him to start.

If Jones believes fishing and firearms should be subject to the same laws, then let’s try applying gun laws to fishing and its gear.

Manufacturers of fishing gear would require federal licensing, and would be subject to no-notice compliance inspections. All equipment would be individually serial numbered and otherwise marked under standards right down to the font size and stamping depth. Failure to so mark equipment early enough in the manufacturing process could be punished as a felony and the company could lose its license and be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Retailers would also be federally licensed (this is in addition to any state or local licensing, of course). All fishing gear inventory would be tracked in a bound book. That book and inventory would also be subject to no-notice inspections. Misprints in the book could result in fines, loss of license, and even prison time.

Thanks to special tackle store zoning restrictions, you may do some traveling to find one. Exposure to fishing implements would be damaging to youth psyches, so tackle stores can’t be within 1,000 feet of any school or daycare facility (even Miss Sally’s after-school place in her house next door to you). They probably can’t be near churches either. Nor any place selling alcohol.

When selling a fishing pole, the retailer would have to guess if the buyer might be a prohibited person (we’ll get to that in a moment), or if he’s making a straw purchase for another person.

The buyer would be required to fill out a multi-page form in which he discloses various legal and health conditions. He’d have to tell his race. He has to have a government issued photo ID, which the retailer will photocopy for his records (the ones subject to no-notice inspection and copying by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fishing. I wonder why they need to know what race you are?

The retailer would then request a background check through NICS. If a “proceed” is not given immediately, the buyer would have to wait days before taking possession of the fishing pole. If the transaction is denied, the sale cannot complete. Roughly 95% of denials are in error, and those that are correct almost never result in prosecution — much less conviction — which may make the fisherman wonder why they bother with the check.

That form the buyer and retailer fill out? The retailer better check it closely, because if you or he makes a typo (or mark “Y” instead of “Yes” in full he can lose his license and be fined.

The check is to make sure the buyer is not a prohibited person. There is a long list of disqualifying conditions, but basically no more fishing for anyone convicted of a crime potentially punishable by 24 or more months in prison, even if you got off with a fine and no jail time. Some misdemeanors will render you fish-free for life, too. Unlawful use of drug, or alcoholism make you a prohibited person. Being adjudicated mentally deficient also does the trick.

You’d have to be at least 18 years of age to buy a long pole, and at least 21yo to buy a short pole.

If a former buddy’s widow wanted to sell you her hubbie’s old fishing pole, you’d both have to go to a Federal Fishing Licensee to go through the background checks.

Want to buy a fishing pole from mail order company? The seller will have to ship it to your local FFL, where you go through a background check. If you travel to another state, you can buy long pole but not short ones.

Reels capable of holding more than 15 feet of line would be banned.

Denver would ban reels altogether, and limit you to 15 feet of line tied to the end of a pole.

Unless licensed to possess a fishing pole, it would be a felony to posses a pole within 1,000 feet of a school. Using the pole inside city limits would be at least a misdemeanor, possibly a felony. Oh, and there would be no more youth fishing licenses.

When setting off on a fishing trip, you’ll need to store your pole in a locked container, separately from you line and hooks. If passing through certain states (and look it up before leaving because state laws on fishing poles will vary, and may ban your possession outright- instant felony i New Jersey), you may have to disassemble your pole, rendering it inoperative. (And for folks that think guns and cars should be regulated the same, consider taking your car apart for a road trip.)

Jones claims there is no bag limit on people, unlike fish. That’s because with the exception of self defense, bagging humans at all is illegal. And even a self defense shooting is likely to get you prosecuted. So even having jumped through all the other hoops, if you attempt to use your fishing pole, you’d better be able to prove in a court of law that a fish was necessary to your survival.

As it happens, contrary to Jones’ assertion, there are caliber limits on firearms. Anything over .50 caliber — half inch, as measured from rifling groove to rifling groove — is a “destructive device” and requires special law enforcement approvals, licensing, and taxes; and the owner is subject to no-notice inspections. I think a similar half inch hook restriction for fishing is in order; right, Jones? Unlicensed DD hook possession would be a major federal felony.

Want to practice casting? Not in town, nor in built-up county areas. You may be restricted to a dedicated “casting range” which will require membership in the National Fishing Association to use.

Jones should join Fishing Pole Owners of America, to help protect himself against further fishing control regulations and bans on reels, and evil black assault poles; and limits on how many poles or hooks he can own; not merely how many he can use simultaneously on a fishing expedition- how many he can own. “Nobody needs more than two poles, without reels.”

Aside from laws and regulations, Jones can expect to be demonized in the media. Columnists who clearly know nothing about his sport and equipment, nor the laws and regulations in place, will write ridiculous articles making nonsensical comparisons to make fishermen look like unreasonable jerks opposing commonsense fishing safety laws. He’ll be called a racist for wanting to own poles. People will make disparaging remarks on his Facebook page saying that he only needs that long pole to compensate for a short penis. Irrationally, those fishing control advocates will make the same penis-compensation argument against female anglers, making Jones wonder if they’ve ever gotten laid and know the anatomical differences between men and women.

So, sure. Let’s regulate fishing and shooting the same way.

* This was sent to the Denver Post in rebuttal to Jones’ silly column. They declined to publish it, so I’m posting it here as I will be doing with other rebuttal attempts.

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gun control

Training Wheels

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In my recent spare time, I’ve been amusing myself by sending rebuttals to various columns by confused writers. For some strange reason, outlets that print ignorant rants don’t seem to want to run my responses. So I’ll take advantage of my position with The Zelman Partisans to post here.

First up, we have a young Virginia Tech college student who probably wasn’t ready for college.

Ambiguous gun laws trigger grave consequences for public safety
“You have to know something really well to hate it, and guns haven’t been much of a part of my life”

Mr. Redman should have stopped right there, and gone to someone who knows a little about firearms, because…

“That might be scary enough, but he had also obtained 12 bump-fire stocks to make his semi-automatic weapons function more like automatic weapons.”

That is incorrect. An automatic weapon — a machinegun — is designed to fire multiple rounds per trigger operation. Bump-fire stocks in no way affect that operation/rounds relationship. If you put a bump-fire stock on a semiautomatic rifle, you still individually operate the trigger for each round fired. Bump-fire stocks don’t make the weapon fire faster. The theoretical rate of fire of the rifle is determined by the physics of the internal parts.

Now, some people often say that bump-fire stocks help the shooter pull the trigger faster. No; that isn’t the case.

“However, bump-fire stocks existed neither when the law was initially passed, nor when it was updated in 1986;”

Bump-fire stocks are a relatively recent innovation, but bump fire has been around as long as there have been semiautomatic rifles. I have bump fired rifles (when I had a safe location and the ammunition to waste) but I’ve never even seen a dedicated bump-fire stock in person.

Redman has admitted that he don’t know firearms very well, so allow me to explain that, and elaborate on my comment that such stocks don’t help you shoot faster.

To fire a rifle with reasonable expectation that the round will hit the target, you normally hold the rifle firmly with both hands, and pull it against your shoulder. This provides a stable shooting stance.

A rifle has recoil. When fired, it pushes against your shoulder.

But let’s trying hold that rifle a little differently. With your off hand (the hand you don’t use to pull the trigger) grip the rifle. Your trigger hand does not grip the rifle. Nor do you pull the rifle butt snug against your shoulder. It isn’t a stable stance, and accuracy will suffer.

When your rifle is on target, extend your trigger finger into the guard. Now, with your off hand grip, push the rifle forward until your trigger finger pulls the trigger.

The rifle fires. Recoil pushes the rifle back so your finger disengages the trigger. Your rifle-gripping off hand acts like a spring and pulls the rifle forward again. If your shooting finger was held steady, the trigger is pushed against the finger again, firing.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

A silly way to waste ammunition because, as I’ve mentioned, accuracy suffers due to the unstable shooting platform. Personally, I prefer to use a normal stance and just pull the trigger rapidly.

But some folks feel otherwise. Enter the bump-fire (or slide-fire) stock.

The bump-fire stock is simply a device that can be pulled snugly to the shoulder, and provides a grip to help keep the trigger finger in position. The rifle proper just recoils back in a channel into the stock. It is training wheels for folks who have trouble bump-firing. And since it’s a bit more stable, it helps with accuracy compared to normal bump-fire. However, accuracy even with the stock is poor compared to conventional stance with conventional stock. Folks who don’t want to bother with silly, expensive bump-fire stocks also hook the rifle to belt loops on their pants to the same effect.

Training wheels. A bump-fire stock no more makes a rifle work like a machinegun than training wheels turn a child’s bicycle into a high performance motorcycle.

Note the subtle differences.
Note the subtle differences.

 

If you want to see fast shooting, go to a 3-gun match. You’ll see people who can make a pump-action shotgun sound like full auto, much less a semiautomatic rifle. In 3-gun, speed matters. But you won’t see a competitor using a bump-fire stock because accuracy matters, as well.

The alleged use of bump-fire stocks in the Mandalay Bay shooting is one of the most perplexing aspect of a puzzling case. The shooter, a multimillionaire who could certainly afford several real machineguns — and had the clean record to obtain such — who, based on the timeline of weapon purchases, began planning this at least a year prior didn’t use those resources to obtain automatic weapons or spend the range time learning to pull the trigger quickly? Instead, he bought and used a novelty toy that would degrade his accuracy?

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authoritarian swine, gun control

Hawaii

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Hawaii gun laws hit target
“I believe Hawaii is a model for the rest of the country,” said state Rep. Nadine Nakamura. “We have one of the lowest gun-related deaths (rates) among all 50 states due to many factors.”

Well, I’m glad to here that your state is such a crime-free paradise. And how did you manage that?

Those factors include the low rate of gun ownership, strong gun control laws and firearm permit issuing, a gun safety education requirement, and mental health affidavit with medical record accessibility being required at the time of registration.

“Hawaii also has a 14- to 20-day waiting period, (and) bans handgun magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and semi-automatic handguns with certain features,” Nakamura said.
[…]
Fully automatic firearms, shotguns with barrels less than 18 inches long, and rifles with barrels less than 16 inches long are prohibited by state law.
[…]
Permits are valid in the issuing county only, and Hawaii does not recognize concealed carry permits issued by other states.

“Currently, all firearm buyers must undergo a criminal background check, a mental health background check and subject themselves to active monitoring on an FBI-sponsored crime database,” Bryant said.
[…]
All firearms, including those brought into the state by new residents, must be registered.

That’s… draconian. Still, they say it paid off.

Sort of.

Let’s compare darned gun-free Hawaii to another state. Hawaii has a population of 1,428,557, so I’ll run with New Hampshire, which is close at 1,334,795 (2016 numbers). New Hampshire is also a good test of the effectiveness of those victim disarmament laws because it’s the virtual polar opposite of Hawaii: high rate of firearms ownership, CCW licenses available (shall issue) but not required to concealed or open carry, background checks only when purchasing from an FFL, no registration, NFA items are allowed, no weapon-type bans, no magazine limits, no waiting periods, CCW reciprocity is moot because visitors don’t need licenses either, no specific mental health check, and the cops don’t get to read your medical records without a warrant.

New Hampshire must be a crime-infested hell, right?

Well…

Crime Rates per 100K (2016)
Violent Crime Property Crime Murder
Hawaii 309.2 2992.7 2.5
New Hampshire 197.6 1512.9 1.3

Oops.

Hawaii ranks 30th in violent crime. New Hampshire ranks… 48th.

Hawaii ranks 8th(!) in property crime. New Hampshire ranks… 50th.

Hawaii ranks 41st in murder. New Hampshire ranks… 50th again; go figure.

I’ve never been to Hawaii, and don’t want to. I used to live in New Hampshire. Other than winter, it’s a nice place. The road I lived on had several shooting ranges; roughly 1 in 3 houses had a range, possibly more.

Everybody didn’t open carry, but it wasn’t all that unusual. I often did, and offhand I only recall three times someone said something. 1) A woman from Taxachusettswas  outraged that I carried a gun in the grocery store. I told her that based on the statistics, I was more worried about her killing someone with her car, than me having to shoot someone. She rushed to the front of the store, presumably to warn the manager that an armed man was in there. Since I’m not the only person who open carried in there I was unsurprised when nothing happened.

2) A little boy whose family moved in down the road asked why I had a gun. I started listing the wildlife in the area — starting with the ubiquitous bears. I told him that I’d probably never need it, but it’s like a fire extinguisher.

3) I was headed to the mailbox when the guy running the local police department drove by. He stopped to chat. He glanced at my gun and said, “I’m glad to see that. I wish more people would carry.”

Hawaii regulates the heck out of what firearms they even allow, yet has significantly higher crimes rates than heavily armed New Hampshire.

I think the real difference is the people, not the laws. And if all those laws are holding down crime rates in Hawaii, what the heck are the people like?

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, resistance, spirit of rebellion

Belling the cat

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As seen at Slate:

Two Guns Per Person
Why is this legal? I’m not talking about why we don’t require reporting multiple sales of long guns to federal authorities (which we don’t). I’m not talking about the bump stocks the shooter used to make his semi-automatic weapons fire like machine guns. I’m talking about why people are allowed to own more than, say, two firearms without a really good reason.

TL;DR: The Second Amendment doesn’t say how many guns you can have. Nobody needs more than two guns. If someone wants a third gun, it’s full NFA procedures and taxes.

Doug Pennington notably does not address how to figure who might have more than two firearms. Nor does he explain how the powers that be will go about collecting the extant extras. Certainly he isn’t volunteering to collect them; possibly he’s seen my observation regarding the wisdom of kicking in millions of door because the occupants are well-armed.

Perhaps he believes all the government has to do is pass a law and everyone will meekly “turn them all in”.

That doesn’t seem to be working in Chicago where repeat felons — prohibited persons who lawfully shouldn’t have any guns — are found with… guns. It’s almost as if they don’t obey laws.

In 1990, California instituted “assault weapon” registration and got a whopping 2.33% compliance rate.

The NY SAFE Act yielded a slightly better 4.45% compliance rate.

Connecticut gun owners are a little more obedient. That state saw a huge “assault weapon” registration 13.44% compliance rate, although they must have been disappointed with the “high capacity magazine registration 4% compliance rate.

Come on, Pennington; you can’t even get people to comply with universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks.

“Conclusions The enactment of CBC policies was associated with an overall increase in firearm background checks only in Delaware. Data external to the study suggest that Washington experienced a modest, but consistent, increase in background checks for private party sales, and Colorado experienced a similar increase in checks for sales not at gun shows. Non-compliance may explain the lack of an overall increase in background checks in Washington and Colorado.”

(That was funded in part by the anti-rights Joyce Foundation and they still couldn’t show compliance.)

If blue states like California, New York, and Connecticut have such poor participation rates with simple registration, imagine how places like Georgia will respond to door to door confiscation.

So, Mr. Pennington; who is going to bell your cat? You haven’t volunteered. When California toyed with the idea, a police union spokesman declared that if confiscation were ordered they’d see the largest outbreak of blue flu in history. And we bloody well won’t kick in our doors.

Let’s pretend law enforcement will play. Consider:

  • The FBI estimates a total of 698,460 law enforcement officers in America (federal, state, local).
  • Estimates of gun owners range from 60 million to 120 million.

Let’s use the conservative gun owners number: 60,000,000. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that The Pennington Edict magically reverses the usual compliance ratios and only 10% don’t turn in their extra guns.

6,000,000 vs. 698,460

The cops are going after heavily armed Americans, so they’ll use SWAT teams. This suggests a typical team size of 12, for 58,205 teams (sure, we’ll also pretend every cop is put on this, ignoring all real crime).

Each team will have to conduct 103 raids. Figure 8 hours for the standoff (remember, you’re going after cantankerous curmudgeons already proven to be uncooperative), and another shift to do the paperwork: 16 hours per raid. 16 x 6,000,000 = 96,000,000 man hours. Better give the guys time to sleep, another 8 hours. So each team runs a one raid per day

Assuming 58,205 teams (-giggle-), the snatch and grab is going to run well over three months. With 8 hours of overtime per day per 698,460 officers. This not only going to take a while, it going to be expensive.

And that doesn’t even factor in attrition, funeral costs, and death benefits. In reality the Pennington Patrols are kicking in doors of heavily armed, noncompliant SOBs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an average of one officer lost per raid. Which means Pennington runs out of suckers before the HANSOBS run out of people and guns.

Fewer door-kickers, fewer teams, more raids per team… Suddenly this is taking longer than projected. Oh, well. At least there’ll be fewer officer drawing expensive overtime. Those pensions and death benefits though…

Maybe Pennington can bring in the military, too. Activate the Reserves alongside the active duty folks, add them to the cops…

And they’re still outnumbered by HANSOBs by more than 2 to 1.

I wonder how many of those LEOs and mil-folk are multiple gun owners. And how compliant they are.

That’s a best case scenario for the Pennington Proposal. What if there are 100 million gun gun owners, and they have a compliance rate closer to historical rates of 10%?

Now the 2,791,360 police and military are outnumbered by 90 million pissed off, noncompliant heroes. They’ll be outnumbered 32 to 1.

Sure, a lot of hold-outs will fold when the cops show up. But a lot won’t. The average won’t be pretty, or conducive to long-term police survival. Blue flu, Pennington; try to keep up.

If even one-half of one percent of the noncompliant shoot back, that’s 30,000 to 450,000 shooters (depending on the scenarios above).

Please recall that Pennington’s little trip down Tyranny Lane started with — as of latest claims — a single shooter killing 58 and wounding hundreds — in approximately ten minutes.

So tell us: How will you achieve your two-gun goal?

Who will bell the cat?

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

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authoritarian swine, gun control, Sellouts and traitors, You can't fix stupid

NRA delenda est

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The National Rifle Association was once a good thing. Back in the 19th century it encouraged firearms ownership and marksmanship. For a long time it was the place to go for high quality training.

I used to be an NRA member. I quit a couple of decades ago.

While the NRA was still good on training, I finally noticed other things. Well, thing; fundraising. To fight “gun control.” A lot of fundraising. I could get 3-4 mailings a week.

Yet somehow we got the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act (“assault weapons ban”), Brady waiting periods followed by (replaced with at federal level) preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks, “gun-free” school zones, Project Exile (shifting unconstitutional firearms cases to federal court for more severe penalties), and more.

And well before that, the NRA went along with the NFA ’34 (registration/taxation), GCA ’68 (no more mail order), and FOPA ’86 (no more new NFA items for you).

Like I say, I quit back in the ’90s when I realized that the NRA just used the fear of gun control as a money-making tool. The NRA needs gun control to “fight.”

They need it so much that they helped write an “assault weapons” ban for a city in which I lived; my ten-round-fixed-magazine SKS was illegal. The NRA said they had to do that or someone else would have written a worse law. As was, that law was so bad the state supreme court tossed it in its entirety.

When I lived in New Hampshire, RKBA activists spent years working for Constitutional carry. We finally lined up enough — too often reluctant — votes to pass it and a governor who said he’d sign it.

Lo and behold, the NRA sent in a lobbyist for the first time in a decade who told the reluctant Republicans that the NRA did not support the bill. That gave the weasels the necessary wiggle room to render the bill “Inexpedient To Legislate;” they killed it in an after hours session after the bill’s backers went home to sleep, believing it was passing, unknowing of the NRA’s backstabbing. (The NRA later claimed that never happened; that they merely told the law-makers that the bill needed to duplicate federal law language regarding prohibited persons. Legislators explaining themselves to pissed off constituents gave my version of the story.)

The NRA watched the concealed carry insurance industry grow, and decided to try it, too. Among their first actions was to ban their competition from their annual gathering.

The NRA is even having trouble with training these days.

Skipping plenty of other despicable NRA actions and inactions, Some Asshole shoots up a Las Vegas country music festival in a “gun-free” zone. Even as early police statements said the shooter used at least one fully automatic rifle and two “bump-fire” stocks, the NRA sharpened its knife and taped targets to honest gun owners’ backs.

The National Rifle Association preemptively surrendered by calling for the ATF to reevaluate bump/slide-fire stocks and regulate them as NFA items. Because they help shooters pull the trigger a bunch of times pretty fast.

The Zelman Partisans objected to further regulation, as did Gun Owners of America.

The NRA went into CYA mode with the red herring that they never called for a ban on any firearm. We know that.

We also know that what they did was signal to victim disarming scum like Dianne Feinstein that deep pockets NRA was cool with regulation.

Feinstein offered a bill banning bump-fire stocks and anything else that would help a semiautomatic firearm faster, effectively redefining “machine gun” as anything that shoots arbitrarily fast regardless of actual operation.

The NRA said, “Nah, we want bureaucratic regulation, not legislation.”

Feinstein said, “Nope.”

Pro-RKBA people were still noting the NRA’s surrender signaling to gun control-inclined Republicans. The NRA said, “No, we didn’t.”

Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo Introduces Gun Control Bill for Bump Stocks.

Gee, we never saw that coming. Oh, wait…

We did. We told the NRA. They blew us off.

I expect a flurry of fundraiser flyers in the mail: “Help the NRA/ILA fight the DC Bump Ban.”

Set aside the surrender-signaling for a few moments. Go back to the part where the NRA said they want the ATF to regulate stocks. Think on that.

Way back when, the original National Firearms Act draft called for hand guns to be regulated just like machine guns, suppressors, short-barrel shotguns, yadda yadda. It was unpassable that way, so hand guns were stripped out. We were left with — still unconstitutional — restrictions set by Congress, which at least pretends to be answerable to the people.

The NRA, in contrast, is calling for the ATF to have the power to arbitrarily add stuff to the NFA. You know, the guys who brought us Fast & Furious resulting in deaths in Mexico, the United States, and France. The folks who are apparently answerable to nobody.

Raise your hands: Who thinks the ATF wouldn’t abuse such power? (No, not you, LaPierre and Cox; we know you’re moronic quislings. And you, too, Gottlieb.) Anyone else?

Next question: Are you going to scribble down your credit card number or write a check to the NRA/ILA when you get those inevitable flyers to “Help the NRA/ILA Fight the ATF”?

For a long time after I quit the NRA, I said they’d never get another penny from me until they learned to respect the Second Amendment. More recently I said they have proven themselves an unredeemable deadly enemy and will never get another penny, period.

That is not enough. I am tired of the NRA presenting itself as speaking for all gun owners. They don’t speak for me, and likely not you.

The NRA claims 5 million members (the numbers are questionable). Estimates of American gun owners range from 60 million to as many as 120 million. So best case scenario for the NRA is that they actually speak for 8.3% of gun owners. Maybe a mere 4%.

I know of people who’ve “joined” the NRA only because it was a requirement to use a specific shooting range, or other facility.

So here’s this big money group representing a tiny fraction of gun owners using its resources to screw us all over, trampling rights, and begging for more.

It is no longer enough just to stop supporting the bastards. The NRA/ILA have hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. Every principled member could (and should) quit today, and they can continue to fund human/civil rights violations for years.

The NRA, as an organization, must die. I suggest civil suits under 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights. Those who have donated to the NRA Foundation can sue for return of their donations on the grounds that the NRA misrepresented how donations would be used.

NRA delenda est

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