Carl Z. December 31, 2014 [This was part of the note which Carl sent to me with his check for Boomershoot 2015.
It’s true. Many of the people who go to Boomershoot have been attending for many years and it’s the only time they see each other. It’s a very friendly and happy place. No real competition, just everyone turning money into noise, laughter, and smiles.
Five of Idaho’s universities and community colleges have spent more than $1.5 million to beef up security after the law allowing concealed weapons on campuses was approved, and the schools expect total costs to top $3.7 million for the year.
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The concealed carry law, passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor last year, took effect July 1. It permits retired law enforcement officers and those people holding the state’s enhanced concealed-carry permit to bring firearms to campus, but bans weapons in dormitories and buildings that can hold more than 1,000 people, such as sports or concert venues.
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The bill sponsored by Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Boise, passed by better than 2-1 margins in the House and Senate. A fiscal note accompanying the legislation predicted minimal “fiscal impact associated with posting signage at public entertainment facilities.”
But the schools say they have had to add new staff, provide for training and purchase new equipment.
How did the concealed carry law change their security requirements? The only way this makes sense is if one were to believe that retired cops and people with enhanced, as opposed to standard, concealed weapons licenses are more of a threat than people with no license to carry or standard CWLs.
I think it is very telling that the article doesn’t allow comments.
This like a public restaurant complaining about the costs of segregating their customers after being forced to serve non-whites. These people are either idiots or emulating the KKK on principle.
When I held my own gun for the first time in my life in this country, I felt empowered and for the first time, I felt free.
If the Communist government took my gun rights away, why are you limiting my gun rights in Colorado? Are you becoming communists? I hope not. I lived under tyranny for 24 years, I do not want to ever live under it again.
The message is embedded three times in the song. Even if you don’t know Morse Code if you know to be listening for something you will recognize the spots.
Essentially the vast majority of the existing population is already suffering to one degree or another under the present day rule. And they are doing nothing to free themselves from their oppressed condition. Other than the very small minority who will join the rebellion when hope surfaces with the insurgency, the majority will remain either neutral (meaning frozen in fear glued to their propaganda mind control devices) or will rise to defend their shepherd……or at the very least their meal ticket. The ultimate enemy of a revolution is not the oppressive government it is attempting to overthrow, but the general population it is trying to ‘free’.
Cognitive Dissonance February 8, 2015 The Paradox Inherent in Any Slave Nation Revolution — Even When the Sociopaths Lose They Win [This post has some interesting insights for those who yearn for a rapid revolution. A case can be made that successful revolutions (those that actually change things as opposed to merely substituting one tyrant for another) must occur in the cultural rather than at the point of a gun.—Joe]
Even though I was just commenting for laughs, and don’t really think all gun enthusiasts have tiny pee-pees (actually, they’re sociopaths), I was happy to be of service.
Good to know. Keep that in mind because it will be just one of the many justifications they would use as they herd you into the “education” camps.—Joe]
I think I did okay for not having shot one in a year and a half. I also had at least three malfunctions in stage 1.
I think there is an error in my score for stage 3. I remember the first two times being in the 7’s and the last three all in the fives once I had it figured out. But they have one of my times as 8.35. I think it should have been 5.35. It doesn’t matter that much. It wouldn’t have changed my placement if that is what really happened.
I have a new part on my bench for my gun that I hope will fix the malfunctions when I try to shoot really fast. I should have it installed and tested by tonight.
Universities are signal places for idleness, looseness, profaneness, prodigality, and gross ignorance. We are at pains to make them scholars but not men. To talk rather than to know which is true canting. We pursue false knowledge and mistake education extremely.
As I mentioned in the QOTD this morning last night I attended a presentation entitled Active Shooter Preparation by the Bellevue Washington Police department at the Newport High School.
The presenter was Officer Scott Montgomery who usually is a traffic cop but is also on the SWAT team and is a “certified active shooter instructor”.
It was a relatively small group attending. I was fairly close to the front making it difficult to see everyone and didn’t take a close inventory but I expect it was about 30 people.
At the time the Columbine massacre happened police training was that the police should secure the area and wait for the SWAT team to arrive and possibly enter the building. Of course the shooters had long since run their course by the time SWAT entered the building. This was a wakeup call and police training changed in response.
The training now has long been that the school should go into “lockdown”, people hide wherever they can, and they wait for the police to arrive. Upon the arrival of three or four police officers they would form a team and enter the building to engage the shooter. No active shooter incident has ever been stopped by such a multiple officer team.
At the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting there were students on the football field when the shooting started in the cafeteria. The school went into “lockdown”. The people on the football field went back into the school toward the shooter because that is what you do in a lockdown situation. They were following their training.
Active shooters evolved their tactics and so both the police and private citizens need to evolve as well. The Virginia Tech shooter took advantage of the lockdown and upped it one. He brought his own lock and chain. He went into a classroom, locked the doors shut, and started shooting them.
He had practiced this. We know this because people at the gun range where he practiced reported, when interviewed after the Virginia Tech event, they he did something very odd when he was at the range. He put his targets on the ground in rows. He then walked down the “aisles” with a gun in each hand and shot the targets as he walked by.
Montgomery told us they train using Simunitions in actual schools that are about to be remodeled or torn down. He stressed that even though they train for active shooter situations in a school they cannot be there in time to prevent horrific outcomes. “You are the first responders.” he said. If you do nothing, that is wrong. Fight, flight, and freeze are very natural responses. If you have children under your care you will probably not leave them. It is against our nature to fight. Almost no one practices fighting. Hence, if you have not thought about the situation you almost for certain will freeze. You just won’t know what to do.
You need to think about these things now, frequently, and prepare yourself mentally to do something other than freeze.
What private citizens need to do is think about all the “What if?” cases and plan for them ahead of time. What will you do? What are your options? How many exits are there in your situation? Don’t just think of the doors. Windows can be broken and dropping from a second story window is probably going to result in fewer injuries than waiting for a bullet to find you as you hide under a desk.
Teachers of younger students are particularly resistant to “losing track of a child”. “What if they get lost out on the street?” He response to this is, paraphrasing, “Which would you rather have, a lost kid on the street with every cop in the state converging on the site or the kid at immediate risk of being shot? We can find the kid on the street in the next hour. We can’t protect them from a bullet in the next minute.”
He told us that in police academy they were taught there are three types of people, “Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs”. Most people are sheep. The police are clearly the sheepdogs. But you don’t have to have a uniform to protect your flock.
An active shooter is a dynamic event. Things change rapidly and the police cannot tell you what is going to be the best action to take. The people on the scene right then and there have to adapt to the situation and take appropriate action based upon the information available to them:
Know your situation
Do what is necessary to survive
Remember your responsibilities
People need to develop a survival mindset: Awareness and preparation are key:
Be familiar with your surroundings and environment BEFORE an emergency occurs.
Entry and exit points?
Areas where you can hide
Objects that can be used as weapons
Make a decision:
Run
Hide
Fight
This is the new mindset people must develop. It is not a static decision. Adapt to the changing situation.
If you have to fight allow yourself to have a “righteous anger”. You can be a “mother bear”. If you attack do it with a full commitment until the threat no longer exists. You may have to take their life.
He was generally okay with it but with some minor issues. The two issues I remember were that it portrays women, but not men, as inclined to freeze. Men freeze too. Women can and will fight. This is particularly true when defending children.
The first police to arrive will be extremely single minded. They will not be friendly. They will not help you. They may yell at you and/or push you aside. Their mission will be to engage the shooter as quickly as they can so the total number of victims can be minimized.
When you encounter the police show your hands. Don’t worry about having a cell phone in it. It is very unlikely they are going to mistake your cell phone for a gun and your cell phone may come in handy later.
They will be doing active shooter response training, similar to fire drills, with the schools. It’s not quite the same thing and the results will never be as good, but keep in mind that in the last 50 years they have been doing fire drills no student has ever died in a school fire. Training works.
Much of the presentation seemed to presume there was a single shooter. I asked something like the following, “I realize Columbine was a somewhat unique event but there were two shooters and they used explosives as an significant component of their attack. Does this change your training?”
Montgomery said 67% of the active shooters in this country have been a single person. But they train for multiple shooters and even well planned team attacks such as a terrorist group might implement. It doesn’t change the mindset of the private citizen much. Events are dynamic and you won’t have perfect information. Yes, you may be running away from a shooter into an ambush but you are running away from a known threat. Be prepared to change your actions based on new information.
I then pointed out, paraphrasing, “I think was in Arkansas in the late 1990s where two shooters pulled the fire alarm and then waited in the tree line with rifles for when the students came out into the open. A similar attack at Newport might look inviting.”
Mills also addressed this. He said that during fire drills he is not responsible for evacuation of the students. He immediately exits in that direction and looks for “anything out of place”. He said, paraphrasing, “I might be the first one shot, but we are aware of that risk and try to address it.”
I was tempted to ask about private citizens with firearms because strictly speaking the presentation wasn’t just about active shooters in schools. But I decided not to. First off it is illegal for private citizens to have a firearm on school property and this was primarily a presentation for parents and students. Secondly this is a tremendous change in attitude from cowering and waiting for the police. If this new mindset takes hold then private citizens with guns to defend themselves and their children will come naturally. The culture is changing and the law will follow.
We all knew why the infamous H&K catalog depicted cartridges loaded backwards in a pistol magazine – photographers are not necessarily knowledgeable in the fields of their client’s businesses. In the gun industry however, we have Oleg.
I only bring this up to point out, once again, that a cartridge is not a bullet, any more than a tank of gasoline is an automobile.
The bullets shown on the catalog cover were not backwards. They were seated in the cases in the proper orientation. The cartridges however were inserted backwards into the magazine. Some people have loaded bullets backwards so as to achieve some desired terminal effect, as was explained in John Ross’ book for example.
If you walk into a gun store and ask for bullets, they’ll show you the bullets. If you ask for cartridges, they’ll bring you to the shelves of loaded ammunition. The standard, “Well you know what I mean so quit yer damn nitpicking” only comes after you’ve cleared up the misunderstanding that will certainly ensue when you use the wrong words.
Later I’ll post a story about my using one wrong letter in one word in a correspondence with a customer, and what happened because of it.
Anyway; many years ago we hired a sketch artist to depict a saxophone in a humorous cartoon advertisement. It was going to be an ad by a music instrument dealer, directed at musicians, so we wanted it to be accurate (we wanted our humor to be taken seriously). Since we knew the artist was not a sax player, we brought her in, showed her the various signature features of a sax, and then gave her one to study before doing the artwork. The ad also involved a dinosaur, so we had her look up that particular species of dinosaur and study it. That’s the kind of thing Walt Disney did for his cartoonists, and so it’s far from being a new concept. He brought a live fawn into the studio for his artists to study before doing the movie “Bambi”.
This court victory is not on the scale of Heller or McDonald but it is still huge.
Firearm Policy describes it in a rather obscure manner:
The Court issued its order granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment. It is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. The Court DECLARES that 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3), 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3), and 27 C.F.R. § 478.99(a) are UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing these provisions.
SO ORDERED on this 11th day of February, 2015.
For reference purposes 18 U.S.C 922 is here* and 27 C.F.R. § 478.99 is here**.
But as Sebastian elaborates:
This case challenged the ban on interstate transfers of handguns through an FFL.
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The court applied strict scrutiny, and despite the government’s attempts to argue they needed the restriction in order to prevent criminals from circumventing state guns laws, the judge wasn’t buying it. What’s also very interesting is that he argues that the Brady Act changed the game for the GCA ’68 restrictions, with the idea that in an era of instant background checks, some GCA requirements cannot stand up to strict scrutiny.
Furthermore, the court said the interstate sale of handguns would not pass intermediate scrutiny either.
GCA ‘68 is under attack and just lost on a major issue. This has huge implications to Washington State residents and other suffering from repressive regulation in their home state. If you can go to a more free state and buy a handgun then you can bypass home state registration by keeping the gun out of state. You also avoid the expensive and difficult to obtain permission to purchase a gun as you thumb your nose at the local tyrants. All those guns banned by California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York will now become extremely difficult to enforce.
Assuming this is upheld upon appeal and applied nationwide it will be interesting to see what sort of response the state legislators come up with. Will they attempt to make it illegal for you to purchase a gun in another state? In my case I can easily, and correctly, claim I keep any gun purchased in Idaho in Idaho and don’t “import” it back to Washington state. Then what? How is this different from someone visiting Washington or Colorado and purchasing some Marijuana?
Other GCA ‘68 restrictions that I suspect will soon be subject to attack is the restriction upon imports and the “sporting purpose” restrictions.
Can the government legally prevent you from importing a book when similar books, perhaps differing only in the edition or type of cover, are available for sale in the U.S.? Of course not. It makes no sense. The same with importing of firearms. I could see there being legal grounds for the government to impose taxes on such imports but they couldn’t be exorbitant.
The “sport purpose” test has to be almost in imminent jeopardy of falling. What constitutionally protected right can be dependent upon it having a “sporting purpose”. Constitutionally protected rights are not for sport.
* 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3):
It shall be unlawful … for any person, other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to transport into or receive in the State where he resides (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, the State where it maintains a place of business) any firearm purchased or otherwise obtained by such person outside that State, except that this paragraph (A) shall not preclude any person who lawfully acquires a firearm by bequest or intestate succession in a State other than his State of residence from transporting the firearm into or receiving it in that State, if it is lawful for such person to purchase or possess such firearm in that State, (B) shall not apply to the transportation or receipt of a firearm obtained in conformity with subsection (b)(3) of this section, and (C) shall not apply to the transportation of any firearm acquired in any State prior to the effective date of this chapter;
18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3):
It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver – … any firearm to any person who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the licensee’s place of business is located, except that this paragraph (A) shall not apply to the sale or delivery of any rifle or shotgun to a resident of a State other than a State in which the licensee’s place of business is located if the transferee meets in person with the transferor to accomplish the transfer, and the sale, delivery, and receipt fully comply with the legal conditions of sale in both such States (and any licensed manufacturer, importer or dealer shall be presumed, for purposes of this subparagraph, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to have had actual knowledge of the State laws and published ordinances of both States), and (B) shall not apply to the loan or rental of a firearm to any person for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes;
(a) Interstate sales or deliveries. A licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector shall not sell or deliver any firearm to any person not licensed under this part and who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the licensee’s place of business or activity is located: Provided, That the foregoing provisions of this paragraph (1) shall not apply to the sale or delivery of a rifle or shotgun (curio or relic, in the case of a licensed collector) to a resident of a State other than the State in which the licensee’s place of business or collection premises is located if the requirements of § 478.96(c) are fully met, and (2) shall not apply to the loan or rental of a firearm to any person for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes (see § 478.97).
I’m not going to give my life for someone else. Someone else is going to have to take my life.
Scott Montgomery@BvuePD Bellevue Washington Police Officer February 10, 2015 Said during the presentation of Active Shooter Preparation at Newport High School in Bellevue Washington [I went to this presentation half, maybe even three quarters, expecting the presentation to urge people to lockdown the building and hide under desks. This tactic was explicitly rejected.
I will have a full write up later today but the short version is that I was very pleased with what the police are now advising people to do in an active shooter situation.
They have explicitly rejected the concept of people acting like “sheep” and wait for the paid “sheepdog” to arrive and save them. Yes, he used “sheep”, “wolves”, and “sheepdogs” as labels. They are advising people think for themselves and mentally prepare to do what is best for themselves and other innocent life.
The above quote was given in the context of his mindset and that of his fellow officers when engaging an active shooter. And that should a private citizen have to fight they should have the same mindset.—Joe]
The other day I was unpacking some boxes with targets in them. Some people might say I have a problem with collecting targets but I know that I can quit any time I want.
I sorted them and stored most of them in a cabinet. A bunch of random stuff went in a pile to for my next trip to the range. but there was one from JPFO I just couldn’t take to the range. And as near as I can tell they don’t sell it anymore. But Barb correctly says, “You don’t get to be your own museum.” And since I don’t really have a good place to store it anyway I scanned it:
There are predatory people around, and if we don’t kill them, they will kill, rape, rob and do anything else to us that they feel like. I know. I’ve dealt with them. There IS no education or reform package that works on them short of death. The recidivism rate for sociopaths after death is given is 0%.
The counter arguments include that there are sociopaths who are socially functional and don’t break the law any more than the population at large. And putting predators in prison reduces their predatory scope even doesn’t “reform” them.
That said when said predators are in the act of a violent crime using lethal force to defend against them, even if it results in the death of the predator, is a praiseworthy act. And a good argument can be made such an outcome is preferable to the predator going through the legal system.—Joe]
I was doing some reloading and came across something I have never seen before. One of these is not like the others:
These are Winchester Small Pistol primers (WSP). Lot number YAL201G.
I found this primer without an anvil in the first 1000 of a case of 5000. I’ll be watching for this sort of anomaly in the future. But it’s not something I have seen before in reloading over 60,000 rounds so the odds of it being of critical importance is a little low. Not that I would necessarily have caught it before, but I’m going to do my best to make sure I catch flaws like this from now on. I just never imagined I should inspect the primers before using them.
These are primers I purchased five to ten years ago so I doubt there are many, if any, from this lot still “in the wild”.
Sometimes you know a blog post or tweet will get some attention. I expected the days of effort I put into the Smart Gun stuff would get some attention and it did. Other times something I put a few seconds into gets attention which I didn’t expect it all.
Interesting. There were three people that made it a favorite and two retweeted it. The combined followers of the people that retweeted is over 40,000 people.
You just never know how must attention something you say or do is going to get.
…[O]ne thing for sure is that this country needs to disarm along with the rest of the world. And, I do not mean just the citizenry, but the police and the military as well. Impossible, you say? No, but it would be difficult and will never happen unless people are willing to give up their greed, their lust for more than they need, their envy, their covetousness, and their gluttony.
In my view of reality there is no moral justification for the possession of firearms and I for one am sick of meaningless diatribes as: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” It is a meaningless phrase because the truth has always been: “People with guns kill people.”
Samuel Thomas Nichols January 26, 2015 Blowing in the Wind [Via email from Bob S.
Wow! Even the military! And how is the military supposed to function without guns? Just explosives, biological, and chemical weapons?
While his view of reality is almost for certain distorted by his nephew being shot multiple times by the police you still should never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]