In the latest round of legal actions over Edmonds’ safe gun storage law, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Anita Farris ruled on Friday that while the City of Edmonds cannot tell people how to store their guns, it can levy fines against gun owners whose firearms are possessed or used by unauthorized persons.
Update: Wrong. There was only one case. The second one appears to be an error by the author in thinking that the Edmonds law was the same as the Seattle one. It was my mistake that I didn’t notice the date in the second article. It is also from last week.
Gun confiscation is the goal. Gun confiscation has always been the goal. Thanks to a recent outburst by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Robert (Beto) Francis O’Rourke, potentially millions more Americans are now aware of this fact.
The NRA’s PAC raked in $1.3 million in total contributions throughout September, an increase of nearly $400,000 from its previous month, with an overwhelming majority of its cash haul coming from small donors. Of the $1.3 million, $981,277 was sent from individuals contributing less than $200. September was the fourth month in 2019 that the PAC has collected at least $1 million; it currently has $10 million on hand.
…
FEC documents show the NRA PAC brought in $50,902.20 from itemized donors before Beto’s comments on September 12—about $4,627 per day. After them, the group brought in $276,208.20—about $15,344 per day. That represents a threefold increase in daily giving to the gun-rights group.
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The Giffords PAC, which works to elect gun-control proponents, reported just $11,000 in contributions in September, a major drop from the $195,000 it reported in August. Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund, an independent-expenditures only PAC, does not have to submit its next report until the end of the year. However, its mid-year report showed that the committee was given just $5,000, which was transferred from the group’s action fund. The Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, Inc. PAC has taken in just $18,000 this year from six donors and currently has less than $90,000 cash on hand.
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The more than $10 million in the bank the NRA PAC ended September with is more than three times that of Beto O’Rourke, and even outpaces Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden.
There are multiple ways to spin this:
The NRA loves gun control politicians. If it weren’t for them the NRA would go broke or at least downsize and lay off a bunch of people. But this same logic could lead one to conclude these anti-gun politicians love the NRA and are helping them with their fundraising. Politicians need a bogeyman to scare voters into supporting them.
Americans support gun ownership far more than they support gun confiscation.
Anti-gun groups represent a few rich people. Pro-gun ownership groups represent the little guy. This makes sense because the rich have connections to political power and can, if they wished, run roughshod over the masses using the government. Guns in the hands of the ordinary individuals empowers them and acts as a last ditch defense against the injustices of a corrupted and/or tyrannical political system. As Mao said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
It may be insightful to read the entire Mao quote. Marxism, Socialism, Communism all require a powerful government to enforce the redistribution of food, housing, health care, jobs, etc. to the politically loyal. A government can increase their power in absolute terms by increased spending on the military and/or police. More subtly, they can increase their relative power by reducing the private ownership of guns. The second route is less costly and less likely to alarm the general population. In fact, the second route can be, and is, spun as improving the safety and security of the average person even as it makes them more and vulnerable to the abuse of government power.
It should come as no surprise the Marxists, socialists and communist running for the most powerful political positions in the world want to take your guns. And if you value your freedom, wealth, and health don’t allow these villains access to the power they crave.—Joe]
As I reload almost all my centerfire pistol ammo I have not paid much attention to new ammunition. Hence, even though it has been out for at least three years, I had not heard of Federal Syntech Action Pistol until about 10 days ago when I got this email:
Hi Joe!
My name is McKenzie, I’m a fellow USPSA shooter (though not a very good one — haha!) and I also work for TargetBarn.com. Your post the other day about the Segway shooter had me cracking up and wishing my club had better footing for some Segway shenanigans!
I’m sure you’ve heard about the relatively new Federal Syntech Action Pistol line, which is the USPSA’s official ammo. It is on USPSA’s Certified Match Ammo list, with the .40 and .45 flavors meeting major PF. It’s been a huge hit among our customers so far and there are always shooters using it at my local match.
Now I know you load your own rounds, but I wanted to see if you’d be interested in trying out some of the Syntech Action Pistol. I’ve enjoyed reading your insights on your own loads, and thought it would be interesting to hear how you think this line stacks up, especially since it’s touted as a major PF load.
If you’re interested, I’d be happy to send some out to you. Of course, there’s no pressure and no worries if you’re not interested!
Thank you for your time, and thank you for your work in bringing new shooters to the range!
I was very intrigued with the 205 grain bullets. I had never fired 205 grain bullets in .40 caliber. With a similar margin for making Power Factor the 205 grain bullets would yield a lower velocity than the 180 grain bullets I almost always use. The lower velocity would spread out the recoil impulse and give a more comfortable recoil. I had sort of considered it but another shooter I know said he was never able to get 200 grain bullets to shoot accurately. And here was 205 grain bullets intended for use in matches. And in 20 years I never tried it for myself.
I took it to the range yesterday and shot it through three different STI guns. I fully expected to see some keyholing at more distance ranges. I also expected it to be marginal in Power Factor for one of the guns. One gun, with the same length barrel, consistently gets lower velocities than the other two.
I was wrong.
I shot 20 rounds in each of the three guns. The Power Factors were 175.93, 179.72, and 179.89. The muzzle velocity standard deviation was outstanding: 7.1, 7.6 and 8.4 fps.
These are a little hotter load than what I normally shoot for Major Power Factor. With such consistent velocities I would not run these hotter than a PF of 170. But these guns all had barrels five inches long. If you were using a gun with a shorter barrel you would want the extra powder in these load to make sure you were reaching Major PF velocities. But even with the greater PF there was no significant difference in recoil from a new load I was test with a PF of only 168.5.
There was no keyholing. I put five rounds though each of the guns at a 25 yard target. Here are the results:
The accuracy was as good as my handloads. These are the 20 shots fired for velocity testing at a range of 10 yards. Some, or perhaps all, of the flyers were shooter error. With this many rounds I could feel some fatigue during the strings.
DVC Limited:
Edge:
Eagle:
The Eagle has never been as accurate as the other two and I don’t blame the ammo for the greater dispersion.
Today, I shot several USPSA stages at the Renton Fish and Game Club with the Federal ammo. I was pleased with how the ammo performed. No complaints at all.
Here are some videos from Federal on their ammo:
Target Barn has the ammo for $0.24/round in 9mm and $0.36/round in .40 S&W and .45 ACP.
My tipping point was the clinic’s emergency protocols for what to do in the event someone did enter our clinic with a handgun. The protocols were clear. Immediately notify the psychiatrist on duty. That psychiatrist would approach the gunman and, in a “quiet, non-threatening voice,” ask for his gun. I recalled my medical school classmate who had done that very thing some years earlier at a different mental health clinic. He was shot dead on the spot.
Lawrence H. Climo, MD October 23, 2019 What Do Mass Murderers Have in Common? [The “tipping point” he is referring to is when he decided to get and carry a gun.
Yeah, one would think this would be more than enough to tip people over the edge into the realization that the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But that’s not the way it plays out in a lot of cases. Some people tip in a different direction.
Aside from the tipping point and direction the doctor has an interesting hypothesis. Perhaps instead of mental illness being the common issue with mass shooters it is frustration:
But, what if there is this other commonality, this frustration goad or tipping point? What if the tipping point for those with urges and obsessions about delivering justice, restoring honor, pride, and the natural order, defending America, destroying evil, and serving patriotism, justice and God, or just the desire to end pain, isolation, insignificance, and loneliness and feel at peace—or at least feel safe and in control—is an overpowering and unbearable frustration? What are the implications?
It’s sounds plausible in a lot of cases. If true, then a partial remedy would involve something different than drugs and/or confinement such as might be the case with true mental illness. It would also point at a different indicator of potential danger.
Ignore his suggestion. He lives in Massachusetts and probably doesn’t realize that firearm licenses aren’t a requirement in free America.—Joe]
They locked down 5’s school today because they found ammunition on the ground. She’s in kindergarten. Ban guns. Ban all guns. I don’t care. Ban guns.
Andy Wilczak (@heyDrWil) Tweeted October 23, 2019 [He has since deleted the tweet.
Interesting school response to ammunition. Makes for an easy “denial of service attack”. Some kid wants to be a jerk and they throw a handful of .22 cartridges over the fence into the school yard and the kids have to go into lock down rather than get a recess.
It’s an even more interesting response of Mr. Wilczak. A presence of a few loose rounds of ammunition with no injuries and extremely unlikely potential for injury is enough for him to justify the elimination of 10% of the Bill of Rights. What kind of mental issues, besides Hoplophobia, does he have? One could justify the elimination of the entire Bill of Rights with whatever criteria Wilczak is hallucinating.
Note that in addition noting the crap for brains exhibited by Wilczak you should also never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Kellermans statistics do not prove that guns cause crime. But neither do Kleck’s statistics prove that guns provide protection. Kellerman’s statistics, even if faultless, provide no justification for a decision to own or use a gun. But neither do Kleck’s statistics provide a justification for owning or carrying a gun.
Admittedly, this sounds strange. Gun owners would like to believe the assertions about Kellerman’s statistics, because we believe they are seriously flawed, but disbelieve the assertions about Kleck’s statistics. Yet asserting that Kleck’s statistics justify owning or carrying a gun commits the same error that asserting that Kellerman’s statistics justify not owning or banning guns. Both treat the gun as an agent, with independent power to effect results. In both cases, the gun has become a force, like a chemical, a drug or microbe, with independent power to cause results apart from our decisions, our character and purpose.
People, we are the agents. Guns are inanimate tools that serve our purposes.
Jeff Snyder 2001 Nation of Cowards, You’re Doing This Because of the Numbers? page 97. [He goes on to say, paraphrasing some, that the numbers prove guns are useful for criminal acts and the numbers prove guns are useful for self-defense. They don’t “cause” violence or “result” in self-defense.—Joe]
Credit cards have enabled many of America’s mass shootings in the last decade—and with Washington unwilling to act, they need to cut off the sales of weapons of war today.
Banks and credit card companies must:
1) Refuse to take part in the sale of assault weapons.
2) Stop processing transactions for gun sales online & at gun shows without background checks.
3) Stop doing business with gun & ammo manufacturers who produce or sell assault weapons
Beto O’Rourke @BetoORourke Tweeted (and here) on September 12, 2019 [There are so many opportunities for snark here:
AR-15s are not used by any military so credit cards should be fine.
I guess I’ll have to save up cash for my tank.
Credit cards have enabled mass shooters to drive to their unarmed victims. Are you going to demand credit cards not be used to purchase gasoline, tires, and oil?
His ignorance/stupidity/lying is showing when he claims online sales and gun shows don’t require background checks.
How is this different than making it against the law for a motel to rent a room to a married gay couple?
Note this was over a month ago and I haven’t heard anything about it lately. I wonder if he just moved on to confiscation when it didn’t get the traction he wanted.
His continued political career is asymptotically approaching zero unless he moves out of state or runs for city dog catcher. So all that really matters is that we record the evidence for his trial.—Joe]
Note the price in 1964, $190. It was just about then, perhaps 1965, in our part of the country earning $1000/month was considered really good money. So, the AR-15 Sporter would cost a person about a weeks pay. And so, making a few assumptions, it appears the relative price of an AR has come down some.
But the most important thing to note is that 55 years ago the AR-15 was marketed as a hunting rifle. People claiming it was designed as a weapon of war are ignorant, stupid, and/or lying.
When I took it apart everything looked good. I couldn’t see significant wear like I did with the other trigger that went bad on me. Oh, well.
Last weekend I replace the trigger group with a Timney trigger. I should have read the comments to my previous post before ordering. I have really liked the several other Timney triggers in various guns and so I just ordered another and dropped it in.
A semester’s worth of readings, from John Stuart Mill to selected Facebook posts, as well as speakers representing a multitude of perspectives, and serious and civil class discussion. My students came to see that free speech protects everyone, especially the oppressed, and includes those who share their leftist views.
So it was with all this in mind that I went into a faculty meeting to present the free-expression “pledge” with the idea that we would have a productive discussion. Then reality hit.
As I stepped up to the lectern in one of the college’s elegant Federal-style halls, students marched into the room, bearing a letter naming me an “Enemy of the People.”
In the spirit of liberal openness, I read their letter aloud. This is what it said: “‘Free Speech,’ as a term, has been co-opted by right-wing and liberal parties as a discursive cover for racism, xenophobia, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and classism.” The letter reserved special scorn for liberalism: “Liberal ideology asserts that morality is logical — that dehumanizing ideas can be fixed with logic and therefore need to be debated.” But, it added, “dehumanization cannot be discussed away.”
There is more good stuff in the opinion piece. I especially “liked” (emphasis added):
In response, students sent a letter to the trustees declaring that “We hold the truth of discursive and institutional violence to be self-evident.”
Self-evident. Refusing to consider evidence goes against the tenor of all three previous colleges. (Even the Christian college studied arguments for the existence of God.) We might at first dismiss this as (literal) sophomoric bravado. However, in a meeting for faculty of color called by the dean of the faculty, one professor asked for evidence of “violent practices.” Another professor responded that “to ask for evidence of violent practices is itself a violent practice.”
This reminds me of something Ann Landers once said. These people must be confronted. They are crazy. Allowing this to stand is to invite the destruction of rational thought and civilization.—Joe]
After Mike Vanderboegh died discussion of Threepers pretty much disappeared off my radar until yesterday when there was an article in the Seattle times:
The talk at the Yelm Prairie Christian Center was of frustration and anger — and of what to do about Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
So intense is the distress over new firearms regulations in the state and Ferguson’s support of them that a group of 35 or so came together to discuss what many saw as a constructive next step: Go to court to file citizen complaints against Ferguson or maybe even attempt a citizen’s arrest of him.
Many wore insignia of the Washington Three Percenters — a group whose website says its goal is to “utilize the fail safes put in place by our founders to reign (SIC) in an overreaching government and push back against tyranny.”
I had my say about Threepers a little over 10 years ago and rereading it, and my comments to the post, I don’t see there is anything I would change with the most recent attention from the Times. I would, however, add that I see a citizen’s arrest of Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson as counterproductive.
The only way to meet the challenge of gun control is to meet it with the boldest possible proposal that will save the most lives and that will tell the opposition that we are not backing down on this issue.
You are surrounded by dangerous primates, the single most deadly species on the planet, proven killers; and you’re safe because for nearly all of them, harming you is simply too much bother. You’re in far more danger, orders of magnitude more danger, from the things they do carelessly than any deliberate act.
Roberta X September 27, 2019 Most People Are Basicially Lazy, Which Is Why They’re Good [There’s more than a little truth to this. But I’m a little bit more optimist than what is could be concluded from the truth of Roberta’s insight.
People help other people even with no expectation of the favor being returned or compensation. There is something either in the gene’s or in the socialization, perhaps both, that makes most people feel good about helping others rather than just grabbing their stuff and continuing on when someone else is down.
Perhaps I’m more of an optimist than I should be but it’s hard to know for certain.—Joe]
It’s easy to demonstrate Extinction Rebellion claims are almost for certain in error. But even being 100% correct in your facts, logic, and principles doesn’t guarantee success. If your position is only shared by one out of every 10,000 people your position isn’t getting adopted.
All you have to do is comply and you won’t get hurt by cops. When they tell you to get down, you get down. When they tell you to turn in your guns, you turn in your guns. When they tell you to get in the boxcar, you get in the fucking boxcar. Why in the hell is this so difficult to understand people?
Beto doesn’t expressly say this but it’s implied. And if he doesn’t actually think things through far enough to arrive at this conclusion there are lots of other Democrats who have and wish he wouldn’t have “spilled the beans”.—Joe]
NoAlcohol
@NoGunsNoAlcohol