Category Archives: From the archives

Quote of the day–Neal Knox

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There is a silly notion, fervently adhered to by many gun owners, that if our side of the gun issue would just sit down and talk with the other side, we could work out a “reasonable” compromise that would satisfy “society’s need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” while imposing little inconvenience upon law-abiding gun owners.

…and the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

Neal Knox
July 29, 1988
The Insatiable Thirst To Ban Guns
The Gun Rights War, page 118.
[He goes on to explain that after every infringement concession the anti-gun people immediately propose a further infringement. No concession by the proponents of freedom has ever appeased the anti-freedom forces.

Chris Knox added a note to the article and pointed out:

The single exception to the history of NRA either supporting or acquiescing to every Federal gun law now on the book is the 1994 Clinton ‘assault weapon’ ban. Bill Clinton signed that bill half a decade after this piece was originally written. ILA, under the leadership of hardliners, fought the Clinton ban with everything it had–and lost. The tactical loss turned into a strategic victory. The long-term result was the Democrats losing its lock on the House majority and the first sitting Speaker to be turned out of office in a century.

Today we are still enjoying the benefits of this “strategic victory” that occurred 16 years ago. The AWB is no more, the anti-gun people have significantly scaled back their ambitions, and still congress gives them a cold shoulder.

I found this quote particularly applicable because of a story Dave Hardy told a small group of us at lunch yesterday. He told us that during the debate for the Gun Control Act of 1968 the NRA seriously considered conceding defensive handguns and rallying around hunting rifles and shotguns.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Chris Knox

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Dad often remarked the Providence that led him to the only girl on the Abilene Christian College campus who kept a rifle in her dormitory closet.

Chris Knox
Introduction to Neal Knox–The Gun Rights War

[A gun in the woman’s dormitory!

In the mid-1970s I knew kids that had guns in their dorm rooms too. But not anymore. We still have a lot of work to do to gain back all the ground we lost in the 20th Century. And we have to do it without one of our best fighters–Neal Knox.

I’m just starting the book. I hope I can learn lessons applicable to our present date battles. I met and talked to Neal twice and was extremely impressed both times. I wish he were still with us to share both the triumphs he prepared for us (such as Heller and the upcoming victory in McDonald v. Chicago) and to help in our next fights.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Neal Knox

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The officer displayed a paper describing a Luger pistol, a relic of the Great War, and ordered the father to produce it. That old gun had been lost, stolen, or misplaced sometime after it had been registered, the father explained. He did not know where it was.

The officer told the father that he had exactly fifteen minutes to produce the weapon. The family turned their home upside down. No pistol. They returned to the SS officer empty-handed.

The officer gave an order and soldiers herded the family outside while other troops called the entire town out into the square. There on the town square the SS machine-gunned the entire family-father, mother, Charley’s two friends, their older brother and a baby sister.

I will never forget the moment. We were sitting on the bunk on a Saturday afternoon and Charley was crying, huge tears rolling down his cheeks, making silver dollar size splotches on the dusty barracks floor. That was my conversion from a casual gun owner to one who was determined to prevent such a thing from ever happening in America.

Neal Knox
The Belgium Corporal, prologue to Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War
[I’m proud to have met and talked to Neal Knox on two occasions. He did amazing things for the gun rights movement. He is one of my heros.

Give very careful consideration to a demand to register your guns.

My conversion to gun owner and civil rights activist was Ruby Ridge.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Diane Feinstein

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If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it.

Diane Feinstein
February 5, 1995
CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes
[Don’t forget this. She and many other Democrats have been very consistent on this. This is one of their core principles. All they lack is the votes to do it.–Joe]

Before there was Just One Question

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Despite getting only about three hours of sleep on Wednesday night last night I spent quite a bit of time chatting in IM with Sean and exchanging emails with Jeff Knox (of the Firearms Coalition) until well after midnight. One of the things Jeff told me was that his dad, Neal Knox, had put something similar to my Just One Question on bumper stickers in the late ’70s:

Where has a gun law reduced crime?

It works for me. As usual, we stand on the shoulders of giants whether we realize it or not.

He also told a story from Chris Knox (here just below the Pink Pistol link) similar to some other stuff I have said about Pink Pistols, etc.:

During a water cooler discussion about guns an openly homosexual co-worker of mine was asked whether he held a CCW permit. “I’m a faggot in Phoenix,” he replied. “Do the math!” As with women, the self defense angle gets very close to home for the homosexual community.

Post Heller

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In a few hours my world will change. I’ve been actively involved in gun rights since Bill Clinton (spit, spit) was elected. He was the reason I bought my first gun. My second gun was because of Diana Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and of course Clinton again. A significant part of Boomershoot and the website for Boomershoot was because of a law pushed through by Diane Feinstein.

Ruby Ridge was a motivator for my first gun too. I lived just a few miles from where that went down and know things that were never in the news reports. By the time the Butcher of Waco did her thing I was fully immersed and, as Barb will tell you, very difficult to live with.

Those were very dark days. Many leaders in the gun rights movement believed we had lost and were only fighting a holding action that merely slowed down the inevitable. I remember one prediction in the news group talk.politics.guns that captured the sentiments of many at the time. I didn’t save a copy because I didn’t want that sort of thing on my computer. I just went looking for it in the news groups archive–it took me 45 minutes to find it:

Robert Lewis Glendenning
Sep 4 1994, 10:39 am

Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.batf, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, alt.conspiracy
From: rlgle…@netcom.com (Robert Lewis Glendenning)
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 16:21:41 GMT
Local: Sun, Sep 4 1994 9:21 am
Subject: Re: The Revolution

During the next 3 to 5 years, the Supreme Court will rule on a gun
case. This case will have national media attention, and every gun owner,
libertarian and proto-revolutionary will be watching closely.

If they rule by the plain meaning of the Constitution, it will be a
signal that we are moving back to Constitutional rule.

If they rule for the federal government, it will be a signal that
the gov has permanently escaped the Constitution. In this case,
I expect:

1) That every major federal building in the US outside of WDC and
army bases will be burned in the next 48 hours.

2) That the Federal gov’s ability to enforce laws will be restricted
by the lack of anybody willing to identify themselves as a federal
employee.

3) That many states will pass resolutions demanding return to
Constitutional gov, and opting out of federal control via the 10th.

4) That the US Congress capitulates by passing a revolution
pledging return to the Constitution, and listing a preliminary set
of laws which they intend to repeal. This list will include all
Federal gun laws.

Note that this is as close to a bloodless revolution as one can
imagine.

In preparation for these events, may I suggest that you learn all
about your local federal buildings?

Lew
—
Lew Glendenning rlgle…@netcom.com
The CONSTITUTION, the WHOLE CONSTITUTION, and NOTHING BUT the CONSTITUTION.

We are now hours from that moment Glendenning predicted. What will be the result? The only thing I am certain of is that neither of predicted potential outcomes will come to pass. Even if the Heller decision goes against us all the Federal buildings will be standing 48 hours and even 48 weeks later–barring an severe earthquake someplace. Overturning the D.C. gun ban and declaring the 2nd Amendment is an individual right won’t put the government “back on the path to righteousness” or any such thing.

Some people have been predicting (here and here for example) a favorable ruling on Heller will mean the anti-gun forces will find it difficult to raise money and get people excited if they know they can’t actually ban guns. Sort of like if they can’t win the fight with a knock-out they won’t even bother to stay in the ring and knock all the teeth out of their opponent. I’m not convinced of this.

When the south lost the war of northern aggression and all their slaves were freed did they suddenly start treating blacks as equals? No. They paid little regard to the Federal laws protecting blacks as they discriminated against, scorned, beat, and lynched blacks for 100 years after that decision was made. I believe we could still have a 100 years of political fighting ahead of us still. It could, for all practical purposes, be an eternal fight.

I don’t really think freedom is a natural state of mankind. Some semblance of freedom has only really existed for about 200 hundred years in a relatively small portion of the human population out of the roughly two thousand years that we have any sort of written history. I think the concept of “the tribe” is more important than the individual was a powerful meme that enabled our distant ancestors to be more successful than their individualist neighbors. That concept selected for anti-freedom mindset at a fundamental level in the personality of the human race. It was only in a small subset of the world population that the individual, the smallest minority, was regarded as important as “the tribe”. That resulted in a remarkable burst of economic and personal freedom that, in the big picture, was extremely shocking.

Western culture developed the concept of individual freedom and, in essence, conquered the world. It went against the inherent personality of all the civilizations and tribes before it. We did not breed that out of the human mind as that concept took root and flourished. At best it was suppressed in a sufficient number for a short (on the civilization scale) time. The group that values the individual is less inclined to kill or put the anti-individual person at a serious disadvantage of passing on their genes than the other way around. Hence you can think of the meme of individual freedom as sort of a recessive gene. The “tribe is more important” meme is more like a dominate gene. Hence freedom is likely to always be unfinished business.

So how will a positive Heller ruling affect us? As I said in my first line my world will change. I will be in a better position to claim the anti-gun people are bigots just like those that promoted the Jim Crow laws against blacks. If we are to come close to anything resembling a complete victory I believe that meme will be the key. We have to drive those bigots into political extinction. We can, and probably must, leverage concepts that already resonate with the majority of people. The comparison to minority (non-whites, Jews, gays, women, etc.) rights of all types is the most winning strategy I can think of. Sure the courts and legislatures will need to overthrow the existing repressive laws against us but that only comes after the public opinion has changed. They aren’t leaders. They are servants of the people and only enforce the will of the people. To win we must make the will of the people match our mindset. That is the job ahead of us.

If Heller goes against us my world will change in a different way. I don’t want to contemplate that scenario. That is the stuff of nightmares and dark ages.

I expect we will have some semblance of a win but still I’m sad. It could just be the late hour as I write this but a significant component is the freedom fighters that carried the fight for decades before I ever said a word or donated a single penny to the cause who didn’t make it to see this day. Neal Knox (and here) especially comes to mind. I met and talked to him at two different Gun Rights Policy Conferences. I was very, very impressed by him and I wish he could have seen this day. The best tribute we can pay to him is to win the fight.

Let’s celebrate and analyze the ruling for a few days then–Let’s roll.

Quote of the day–Senator Howard Metzenbaum

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I don’t care about crime,  I just want to get the guns.  No, we’re not looking at how to control criminals  . . .  we’re talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns. Until we can ban all of the firearms,  then we might as well ban none.

Senator Howard Metzenbaum
[Just so you know what most in the gun-rights movement have discovered after only a modest amount of research. It’s not crime control that drives the people that want to ban guns.–Joe]

Update: Due to interest in an accurate citation of this quote I went looking some more. I looked yesterday but wasn’t able to find anything satisfactory. Here are some hints:

If I were to spend more time on this I would look for transcripts of the debate on the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban. But I don’t really have the time.

Quote of the day–Jeff Cooper

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No doubt you have heard that Diane Feinstein, among others, is seeking to abolish the Office of Civilian Marksmanship, on the grounds that civilians ought not to know how to shoot. The leftist elite obviously fears an armed citizenry, which is, of course, the sole barrier to tyranny.

From the opposite point of view, what ought to be abolished is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a rogue organization that was never needed in the first place and which has now developed into an uncontrolled instrument of harassment recruited from the dregs of the federal employment establishment.

Let us by all means economize, but let us get our priorities straight.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 3, No. 8
21 June 1995
[Feinstein is still a threat to liberty and one of the larger stains in the U.S. political system.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Andrew M. Cuomo

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They are not on the side of the patriots. They are on the side of the criminals.

Andrew M. Cuomo
Housing Secretary
July 27, 2000
Regarding gun manufactures advertisements claiming they were supporting American values by manufacturing and selling firearms.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/072800nra-guns.html
[A reminder of how far we have come in the past five years. — Joe]

Quote of the day–Charles E. Schumer

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What is sad is that this Congress is in danger of becoming irrelevant. We are on the verge of ceding responsibility from the legislative branch to the judicial branch because we cannot stand up to [the] gun lobby. It is ironic and fitting that our inability to act in any way that satisfies the American people has spawned a series of lawsuits that could ultimately impose penalties on the gun industry far more severe than even the most ardent gun control supporters in Congress hope to achieve.

Charles E. Schumer
November 4, 1999
http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/PR00067.html
[Could this have been the turning point?  The instant when we held the line and our attackers directed their attention to a perceived weakness in our flank?]

Quote of the day–Bill Clinton

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I think, as I said, what Governor Florio did and what Governor Wilder did, I think will contribute to Americans facing this and trying to reconcile our absolute obligation under the Constitution to give people the right to handle a firearm responsibly and our obligation to try to preserve peace and keep these kids alive in our cities.

Bill Clinton
March 1, 1993
Remarks in discussion with National Service Volunteers

[Florio banned the sale and severely restricting the possession of semi-automatic rifles and pistols in New Jersey.  Wilder implemented gun rationing in Virginia.  Notice that Clinton talks about “giving a right“?  If something is “given“ then it isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.  And then just seven months later he talks about doing weapons sweeps.  A reminder of how far we have come in recent years.]

Quote of the day–Joseph P. Tartaro

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Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. John Chafee (R-RI) made their big anti-gun push after Terry and Florio lost. They are all going to be back in the 104th Congress and they have said nothing to indicate that they will not keep pushing. Schumer and Feinstein got only part of what they wanted. Chafee didn’t get his bill to ban all handguns in the last Congress, so he can be expected to file it again.

Schumer’s agenda still calls for passage of Brady II, which would require, among other things, that all handguns be licensed by the states along federal guidelines on a “needs” basis, that the licenses would have to be shown to buy handgun ammunition for the particular licensed guns, that the licenses would be renewable every two years at high cost, that people who own more than 20 firearms (rifles, shotguns and/or handguns) or 1,000 rounds of ammunition or one box of primers would have to pay for an expensive arsenal license and be subject to home inspection by the police. Brady II will be filed again, in part because Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), who was re-elected also, called for its passage during his election campaign.

Hindsight from The New Gun Week Dec. 9, 1994
Nov. 8 Election Commentaries
by Joseph P. Tartaro
http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/hindsight/hs941209.txt
[A reminder of how far we have come in the last few years.]

Quote of the day–Neal Knox

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Without freedom there will be no firearms among the people; without firearms among the people there will not long be freedom. Certainly there are examples of countries where the people remain relatively free after the people have been disarmed, but there are no examples of a totalitarian state being created or existing where the people have personal arms.

Neal Knox
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 4, No. 7
June 1996

The great bullet debate*

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Stopping power — in the movies and on TV you see humans being shot by handguns and blasted across rooms and through windows.   The bad guys almost always die immediately, and the good guys almost always live long enough to give some final words to a friend or loved one.  It doesn’t happen that way.  If the bullet has enough momentum to slam the person being shot up against the wall or flat on their back then the person shooting the gun would experience the same momentum in the reverse direction.  Handguns do recoil — but it’s manageable.   If the person shooting the gun doesn’t get slammed up against the wall the person getting shot won’t either.

“Stopping Power” is not easily measured and has been highly debated for many years. I have done a bunch of literature research and have answered the question sufficiently for myself.  This page is to help you decide for yourself.

Basically there are two sides to the debate (Greg Hamilton of Insights has a third, which I suspect has a lot of merit).  If you are interested in the great pistol bullet debate take a look at Dale Towert’s Stopping Power Page [the original link is dead but this can be substituted—Joe July 2, 2013] as a starting point. Then get a copy of Duncan MacPherson’s book Bullet Penetration for the other side of the debate.  See also:http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm and http://zeno.chs.du.edu/station/wrong.htm [I have no substitute for this dead link—Joe].

If you are not interested in an overview of the debate, just skip to my conclusions.

Some people select their cartridge on the basis of momentum. In IPSC events momentum is rewarded via what is called Power Factor.   It’s not really power in the physics sense, but that is what they call it.   Power Factor is mass in grains times velocity in feet per second divided by 1000.   IPSC has three classifications for the guns used in matches, Minor is >= 125 PF, Major is >= 175 PF, and “get out of here” is < 125 PF.  Most .45 loads will make Major.  9 x 19,  .38 Special, and many .40 S&W loads only make minor.  This tends to reward heavy but slower moving bullets more than light weight, fast moving bullets.

Some people select their cartridge on the basis of energy.  I’ve seen some States tell hunters their cartridge selected must have a minimum amount of energy in order to take a particular type of game.   This tends to reward the light weight fast moving bullets.

One side says fast (light weight) bullets, if they penetrate “deep enough”, are best. This side thinks that if you get a bullet to hit at > ~1300 fps the temporary cavity causes it’s own damage in the form of blood pressure spikes, and temporary nervous system disruptions in various forms to cause things to happen which will be out of proportion to that which can be explained by blood loss and nerve damage.  The measure of this effect is closely approximated with bullet energy.

The other side says heavy bullets, if they don’t over penetrate, are best. It’s all blood loss and nerve damage (brain and spinal column being target rich environments for nerves). The ‘special’ effects of high speed bullets don’t show up until you get to rifle velocities (~2000 fps).  Hence the heavy bullet people want the largest volume of tissue traversed by the bullet. This is nearly always accomplished by the heaviest bullet your handgun can shoot with maximum weight retention after expanding to approximate double it’s original diameter.   This effect is closely related to bullet momentum (actually it’s roughly proportional to the bullet weight times the velocity to the 0.6 power).

Greg Hamilton’s hypothesis is that tissue is destroyed is the measure of stopping power.  But there is more to tissue being destroyed than just crushing (the “permanent cavity” in the vocabulary of the debaters) as the bullet travels through the tissue. He claims that when the tissue has to move out of the way at a speed faster than the speed of sound in that tissue the cellular membranes will be destroyed by the shock wave. If you remember the speed of sound in water is about 5000 fps and since it’s probably about the same in animal flesh you might wonder how any conventional bullets can manage this. The answer is the flesh must move at least partially perpendicular to the path of the bullet. This can greatly speed up the velocity. To illustrate: A water skier can easily average twice the speed of the boat by skiing from back and forth from side to side, covering twice the total distance the boat does in the same time. A FMJ bullet has a front end that basically doesn’t speed up the flesh as much as a flat nosed or an expanded HP bullet does. The FMJ pushes the flesh aside, the flesh stretches and finally ruptures enough to allow the passage of the bullet. Nearly all at a speed less than that of sound in the tissue.  The flesh then contracts back to nearly it’s original position. A jagged, flattened bullet causes lots of high speed movement of the flesh, destroying nearly everything in it’s path.  Hence Greg hypothesis is that neither energy or momentum is the critical item.  Almost any bullet that expands well and penetrates into the vital organs will work well.

Conclusions

I go with what everyone agrees on, if you are concerned about “stopping power” your efforts should be spent on the range practicing rather than looking for a “magic bullet”. I have heard this expressed many ways, in IPSC they say, “You can’t miss fast enough to win”. Others have said, “A hit from a .22 is more effective than a miss from a .44.” Greg Hamilton (somewhat tangential) says “Do you know how to double the effectiveness of any bullet? Put another round through your target.”  A more to the point quote from Hamilton is:

The entire discussion of “stopping power” is both stupid and irrelevant.   Statistics cannot be applied to individuals. People that need to be shot need to be shot soon and often. They need to be shot until they run out of fluid, brains, or balls.

If during the time you were reading the latest “stopping power” article you were instead practicing to save your life you would be far, far ahead.

Greg Hamilton
May 08, 1998

For self-defense your first criteria in a handgun cartridge should be reliability in your firearm. Next, it should be the largest caliber you can shoot quickly and comfortably.  Next it should be accurate enough to get the job done (two inch groups versus four or six inches groups at 25 yards probably doesn’t matter). Next it should be of expanding technology, rather than FMJ — reliability may be an issue in this trade off. If you really feel the need you can test the expanding characteristics of your bullet very easily. A couple of milk jugs filled with water will closely duplicate the ability of a bullet to expand in flesh — BUT NOT IT’S ABILITY TO PENETRATE. Put a layer or two of clothing (or other material you think you might be shooting through) in front of the first jug. Some HP’s will plug up and act as a FMJ after acting as a cookie cutter going through some materials.  Some types of obstructions will damage and slow bullet down enough to cause it to fail to expand. Car doors and window glass are good examples of this.

*This originally appear on a web page of mine. I am moving it here for better visibility and archival.—Joe July 2, 2013