Oops!

What was it the anti’s were saying about guns only being in the hands of law enforcement and the military? After all, they’re the Only Ones professional enough to handle a gun, dontcha know… I’m surprised all of us Gun Nuts haven’t managed to “accidentally” kill each other and ourselves by now, being as stupid and bumbling as we are. Everyone knows that a gun is way too complicated for us mere peons to properly handle. I could go on, but I think you get the point. I don’t buy the “bump AD” either. Someone didn’t follow the four rules and had their booger hook on the bang switch.

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Gun range accident: Cop kills fellow officer

September 30, 2007
BY TOM WYATT Post-Tribune

A Gary auxiliary police officer was killed Saturday afternoon when a fellow volunteer officer’s gun accidentally discharged a bullet into the man’s chest. (How the hell does this happen? -Yuri)

Kevin Weaver, 49, died at St. Margaret Mercy Hospital in Dyer. He and two other reserve officers were training at Deb’s Gun Range in Hammond, Hammond Police Chief Brian Miller said.

About 3 p.m., Gary police said Reserve Officer Gerald Horton, 52, was attempting to clear his weapon when Weaver accidentally bumped into Horton, causing Horton’s gun to fire a .45-caliber round. (Again, how does this happen? -Yuri)

‘A real tragedy’ for Gary

“He was a good officer, a veteran, and a good man,” Terry Smith, head of Gary’s auxiliary police program, said of Weaver, a Merrillville resident who leaves behind a wife and three children.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay, who returned from Washington, D.C., on Saturday afternoon, learned of the shooting after exiting his airplane at Midway Airport.

“This is just a real tragedy here,” Clay said.

“He was a good man and did some good deeds for a lot of people. His good deeds will live forever.”

Weaver, a reservist since 1990, was a longtime custodian for the Gary School Corp. and owned a cleaning company.

“He was a hardworking man,” Gary police Cmdr. Samuel Roberts said.

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Sharpshooter Shootout Match Results

Well, I did okay in the match, 6th in a field of 14 (154 of 260 possible points). I was the only one shooting a Ruger 10/22, in fact I was the only one shooting .22lr period. Most of the other shooters used .308’s and I saw two or three .22-250’s there as well, plus a .17 or two… Let me tell you, getting a slow moving (1000 FPS), light weight (40gn) projectile to impact a 1.5″ target from 100 yards isn’t easy.

The match was held in three rounds of ten shots each, plus as many sighters as we wanted. The first target I got five shots in the black circles and kept improving until the third and final target I had most of them in the black. At that point though it was over and my score reflected the low scoring targets. I’m not whining, don’t get me wrong. My misses seemed to hover around the two inch mark, which is fine for small game, but bad for paper.

Oh well, I had fun. Winning would have been great, but that’s not why I shoot matches. In fact, if I’m not having fun shooting, I can’t see much point in it.

I’m thinking perhaps if I switched to a caliber with a little more “umph” behind it I might fare a little better. My suspicion is that the wind may have been playing havoc with my POI. *shrug* Well, I have some time to think about it until the next match.

One thought I had was perhaps scoping one of my milsurp rifles like my Mosin Nagant M91/30, or perhaps saving up the cash and getting an AR-15. The problem with that though is I’m not a rich guy and saving up that kind of money is hard for me to do.

Anyway, I’ll think of something!

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Sharpshooter Match Today

Later on today, in about…six hours, I will shoot in my second “Sharpshooter Shootout” match at my gun club. The targets consist of ten 1.5″ diameter bullseyes around the perimeter with two sighter’s in the middle. In practice yesterday I was able to put at least put nine out of ten shots in the black at 100 yards with my customized 10/22. I drilled the X out of one and broke the same ring in another, so I’m confident if I do my part, I’ll do okay tomorrow. As far as winning, that’s another story, but I’ll give it my best shot. Hitting a 1.5″ circle at 100 yards with a 40gn, round nose .22lr bullet, traveling at just over 1000 FPS is not as easy as it sounds…

Wish me luck!

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Another Case of PSH

A recent posting at Silicon Valley Moms Blog exposes an intense case of hopolophobia. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised (this is California after all), but it still amazes me how irrational some people get when exposed to guns, even toy guns. Go read her posting and be amazed… There’s some priceless nuggets of irrational fear in the comments section too, don’t miss them!

Here’s my response to her, in case it disappears, as happens most of the time on hopolophobic’s websites.

“I own several guns. I practice safe gun handling and have never killed anyone, let alone shot anything living. I have a permit and carry a concealed weapon all the time. I lock up my guns in a safe and teach my children gun safety. My son has a cap gun which he treats as if it were real, i.e. not pointing it at people. He must ask to touch any of my guns and is supervised while doing so.

So, are you going to call me a bad parent too?

I happen to agree that it was irresponsible to allow their child to point a toy gun at people, but I feel you’re way overreacting.

Also, calling real cops with real guns in to deal with a child holding a toy is the height of irresponsibility. Are you, nuts?

Just the other day, some hopolophobic idiot on a freeway in Florida called the cops because the car beside her had a child playing with a toy gun. The cops tracked down the license plate number and early the next morning they busted down the door and stormed the house. In the resulting confusion it would have been easy for a cop with an itchy trigger finger to have made a mistake and killed someone. Just because some idiot let their irrational fear get the better of them.

In this world, there are three classes of people, Wolves, Sheep and Sheepdogs. Which one are you? As for me, I choose to be a sheepdog. Everyone is responsible for their own safety.

Because when seconds count, the cops are minutes away. Remember that.”

Thanks to Ride Fast & Shoot Straight for the link and Robb Allen for the icon.

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NICS Bill Stalled

Senate gun bill tied to Va. Tech shootings stalls

Bill, bogged down by funding concerns, aims to improve background checks

WASHINGTON - A bill inspired by the Virginia Tech shootings is bogged down by objections over funding and who should be barred from buying a firearm.

The bill would tighten requirements for states to share gun purchasers’ mental health information with the federal government.

Majority Democrats in the Senate were poised as early as this past Monday to bring the bill to a vote until Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., objected.

Coburn says he has concerns that billions of dollars of new spending in the bill is not paid for by cuts in other programs. And he says the bill does not pay for appeals by veterans or other Americans who feel they have been wrongly barred from buying a gun.

“As Congress prepares to raise the debt limit once again, it is not too much to ask politicians to do the job they were elected to do and make choices,” Coburn said Wednesday. “Veterans, or any other American, should not lose their Second Amendment rights if they have been unfairly tagged as having mental health concerns.”

Propelled by a rare alliance between the National Rifle Association and majority Democrats, the legislation was passed in similar form by the House and would be the first major gun control law in more than a decade.

“Nothing can bring back the lives tragically lost at Virginia Tech, but this amendment will begin to repair and restore our faith in the (national background check) system and help prevent similar tragedies in the future,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is sponsoring the bill with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“When the NRA and Chuck Schumer agree, that tells you it’s something worth doing,” Schumer said. (Yeah, right… -Yuri)

Mental health gap in gun law?
The legislation aims to fix flaws in the national background check system that allowed Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally ill Virginia Tech student, to buy guns and kill 32 people April 16 in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he used in the rampage. However, the commonwealth of Virginia never forwarded the information to the national background check system.

The legislation clarifies what mental health records should be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and gives states financial incentives for compliance.

The Senate version of the bill is very similar to the House version, with a few changes.

The Senate authorizes up to $400 million a year over five years in new grant funding for improvements to the information technology and state compliance programs, an increase over the House version’s $250 million a year over three years. The Senate version would begin appropriations in 2009, rather than 2008 as in the House-passed version.

It also gives the attorney general discretion to penalize states beginning after three years if they do not meet compliance targets.

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Sticker Shock

I know most of you have read about the price of ammo increasing, I know I have, but it didn’t really hit home for me until I went to Sportsmans Wharehouse last night to pick up some Federal Premium Gold Medal Target ammo for this weekends “Sharpshooter Shootout” at my gun club. There in the isle I spotted a Federal bulk pack, 525 round .22lr brick selling for $14.99. Egads! This is the same brick that sold just a few months ago for $11. I walked around and checked the price on virgin .357 Magnum brass. It was $15.99, where earlier the same product sold for $10.99. Unless my math is faulty, that’s a 50% increase in price for both items! It’s a good thing I have plenty of .357 Magnum and .38 Special brass here at the bunker, so I don’t have to buy more. I will have to buy some more projectiles next month though, and that I’m dreading!

Oddly, the price on the Federal Premium Gold Medal Target .22lr was still the same, $3.50 per box of 50 rounds. I tried to get a case of it (5% discount that way), but there were out, so I settled for the last eight boxes they had on the shelf. That together with the three (and change) boxes I had stored in the ammo locker made a full case plus.

It’s not that I’m hurting for .22lr, really, it’s just that my rifle is sighted in for this ammo and I’ve had good, consistent results at 100 yards with it. Plus, my gun doesn’t like the Remington ammo, and the CCI Blazer .22lr I have is inconsistent. In other words, “Stick with what works” or “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

Oh, and this is what I’ll be shooting the Federal target ammo out of this Saturday:

Sweet huh? It started out life as a Wal-mart special, Ruger 10/22 with the 22″ stainless barrel. It’s been modified with an Adams & Bennett target BBL, Fajen thumb hole stock, a complete Volquartsen trigger group (including recoil buffer) and a Bushnell 3-9×42 scope. If I do my part, it’ll group under an inch at 100 yards, with groups at 50 yards well under a quarter. With the factory barrel I was lucky to get “minute of paper plate” at 100 yards. As it is, the rifle is much more accurate than I am at this point.

I’m so glad I have some ammo stored up, but there are other calibers I need. Looks like I’ll be placing an order with one of the online ammo companies come payday. Let’s face it, if ammo prices keep going up, I’d better get what I can afford before they go any higher.

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Why Would Anyone Need to CCW?

Robb over at Sharp as a Marble posted a link to this video yesterday, and I think it clearly illustrates a very convincing argument for CCW. In it, an ex-con walks up to an off duty corrections officer outside his home and starts shooting. The victim gets shot in the ankle, but manages to get his own gun out and fires three shots at the perp, two of which hit him, and he goes down permanently. By having a concealed handgun, the victim managed to turn the tables on the bad guy and save not only himself, but his female friend as well. Have a look at the video and see for yourself.

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Hey Laura…

Pry this from my cold, dead, hands…

Yuri Orlov and his Mosin Nagant M91/30, sans bayonet.

Made in 1938 at the Izhevsk Arsenal, it still shoots as good as when it was new. It’s perfectly suited for dispatching Nazi’s and Tyrant’s of every stripe, then and now.

I urge everyone to visit the following two sites:

http://www.wallsofthecity.net/2007/09/people_of_the_gun.html

http://www.peopleofthegun.com

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Why Did it Have to be…Guns?

Over the past 30 years, I’ve been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I’ve thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn’t true. What I’ve chosen, in a world where there’s never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

Make no mistake: all politicians—even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership—hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician—or political philosophy—can be put.

If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash—for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn’t genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody’s permission, he’s a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn’t trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn’t want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he’s sworn to uphold and defend—the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights—do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil—like “Constitutionalist”—when you insist that he account for himself, hasn’t he betrayed his oath, isn’t he unfit to hold office, and doesn’t he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They’re the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician—or political philosophy—is really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn’t have a gun—but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn’t you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school—or the military? Isn’t it an essentially European notion, anyway—Prussian, maybe—and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won’t trust you, why should you trust him? If he’s a man—and you’re not—what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If “he” happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she’s eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn’t want you to have?

On the other hand—or the other party—should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn’t it? You don’t have to study every issue—health care, international trade—all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

And that’s why I’m accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter.

But it isn’t true, is it?

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People of the Gun Unite!

Laura Washington has issues:

“The People of the Gun are beating their drums on websites from Keepandbeararms.com in Washington State, to alphecca.com in Vermont. Every time a plea for gun restrictions surfaces on the Internet, the gun stalwarts furiously post hundreds of missives in homage to the Second Amendment.

Through organizing, the Internet, and plunking down plenty of cold hard cash, the gun lobby has proven it is ready for primetime. Meanwhile, its opponents are languishing in the wee-hours of late-night local cable.”

Just to set the record straight, I do this because I want to, not because the NRA or anyone else is paying me. Now, if someone were willing to pay me to do this, I wouldn’t turn them down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a rich man after all.

The problem with the anti’s is they’ve been sucking at George Soros’s teat for so long, they think that’s how everyone else does it. They cannot grasp a true “Grassroots” effort put together by concerned citizens of their own volition, banding together to halt the destruction of their civil rights.

The good news is that we’re winning and they know it. And this is what has them so panicked. Keep up the good work guys (I mean that in the generic sense)!

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