First Rounds

So I spent all day yesterday, well, most of the afternoon anyway, tinkering with my turret press to figure it out. Made some dry runs with the primer feeding system seating dead primers back in to get a feel for how it worked, got the powder dispenser set up, and at about 5:15 yesterday afternoon, I made my first five rounds.








155-grain Hornady XTPs, loaded behind 14.3 grains of Accurate Arms No. 9 and a CCI large pistol primer for a muzzle velocity of 1,244 fps. I don't have a chrony yet, but I am going to take care of that this week.
I suppose some people might have called it work, but I thought it was fun. I gotta admit, it really gave me a sense of pride that I could do that. I can't wait to shoot them....it's gonna have to wait, though, because I have work all this week, and I'd rather get a chronograph first so I can drive them across it and see how my handiwork is. There was only one deviation from the Accurate info, a CCI primer instead of Winchester. I'll be going out Sunday or Monday, probably. More info to come.
:-)

Baby Steps

Hey, I figure I'd be better served by taking it a little at a time here...better to screw up earlier than later. ;-)
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been slowly but surely wading into the reloading pool, and little by little I've been finding out that it seems pretty straightforward. Last weekend I tumbled & de-primed about 200 cases, then day before yesterday I tumbled them again to see how effective that ground walnut would be at cleaning the primer pockets. It actually worked pretty well, but those little granules get stuck in the primer pocket sometimes and they're a real pain in the arse to get out. I've pretty much gotten the priming and sizing figured out as well, and the case mouth expansion. I did pretty good on that one, only screwed up one casing. ;-) I had the die too far in, and well, you know what happens with that. Yesterday I was on THR and saw a post there that said you could seat the bullet without belling the case mouth, so I am gonna try that and see how it works with the crimp. I should have some loaded by this afternoon. Stay tuned, more to come...

Whittle Alert!

Check it out.

The Evidence Was Right There On The Cover...

...and still, a disgruntled Jimmy Buffett fan had this to say about Live At Texas Stadium...

I was really looking forward to this album after hearing all the hype about it on Radio Margaritaville. I ran out to buy it the first day it was available and have tried hard to like it ever since. I must say that I feel it was a complete waste of my money. I think the old saw about trying to be a "jack of all trades but master of none" is fitting here.

Many people are fans of pure "country music". I am not. The hype leading up to the release didn't say who was singing what. I was under the impression that all three artists were performing all the songs on the album. I liked the collaboration that Jimmy and Alan did on 5 O'clock and enjoyed the License to Chill CD release and expected this release to be similar. It certainly was not. I think I enjoyed License to Chill because Jimmy had a few new gems of his own sprinkled in. Nothing new here however.

...This whole event is akin to "litte Jimmy goes to space camp"...

The hype leading up to the release might well not have said who was singing what, but all the information on the cd was out there for anyone with the intelligence and inquisitiveness to type Live At Texas Stadium into their favorite search engine. There was even a website dedicated solely to the project; in fact, it's the third result on the Google search for Live At Texas Stadium. And to boot, it even had a song list complete with who was singing the songs.
If you're not a fan of pure country music, well, considering two-thirds of the cd was from the "pure country" artists on the bill that day, well, I think a detective might call that a clue that you would not like it. And I don't mean any offense here, but what kind of music fan buys something largely based on the hype anyway? I remember well the hype leading up to -- just as an example -- the last couple of releases from Shania Twain, but when the release dates came, I left them on the shelf. Why? Because I can't stand Shania Twain as an artist. That was the beginning and the end of it. Every now and then I get the feeling that some people bitch just for the sake of bitching. This is one of those times.
Incidentally, if you're a fan of those three gentlemen, it's worth every penny. Would I recommend it? Yes, indeed.

More Reading: Funny But True!

Just for grins when I was over at David Codrea's place, I clicked through the other posts that linked to his guest editorial from Mike Vanderboegh, and at ...a republic if you can keep it, I found this gem (from "Amazing Beliefs" author Michael Z. Williamson). Another snippet:

The GLOCK is feared by liberals. It's called "plastic" and "ceramic" and "capable of going through airport metal detectors." If this were true, it would be the coolest gun on Earth. But these things are total lies, and serve to point out that liberals are not men, and have no honor. The GLOCK has a plastic frame molded over a kilogram of metal (84% of the weight is metal), and will in fact, show up on any metal detector. So will the dense plastic.

Yes, the correct spelling is GLOCK. GLOCK insists so. As they are men and wish to loudly announce themselves, this should always be respected.

Funny stuff. Read it all! And yes, the 1911 ranked higher. ;-)

Brilliant Reading Material

Via David Codrea, we have this from Mike Vanderboegh, a personal email to "scholar" Benjamin Wittes in response to his call in The New Republic to repeal the Second Amendment. A snippet:

I have no doubt, Ben, that you have been inundated with all manner of disputatious email, some likely obscene and/or incoherent with anger. The passion this issue excites is understandable, touching as it does upon the bedrock of the Founder's Republic and the future of our children's liberty. But beyond the sneering and the anger, no matter how contemptible and silly it may seem to you, these people, MY people, the people who believe in the Founder's Republic and the plain language of the Constitution, ARE willing to die for their principles. And a man who is willing to die for his country is most often willing to kill for it too.

Read it all, every word, for it's pure brilliance. And while you're at it, also take a look at Vanderboegh's excellent essay "The Window War." I read this some time ago but had forgotten about it until David mentioned it. It's also worth every moment of your time.

Random Thought on a Saturday Morning: Doonesbury and Mitt Romney

Yes, God help me, I actually read that horrid strip now and then...Garry Trudeau's work is just like a car wreck, in that you just can't help but look on occasion. This week he's poking fun at Mitt Romney for his flip-flops on certain issues, and I'm sure he's grinding his teeth as he's drawing those strips, because what he's saying mirrors the beefs that more than a few conservatives have with him. Bad as I hate to say it, Trudeau actually gets it right for once, but I guess that's basically the broken clock being right twice a day. The smart money says he's doing it just because Mr. Romney's one of those mentioned as a favorite to win the GOP nomination. I really don't see him holding somebody like Ron Paul up as an example to be set, though Dr. Paul is arguably the most principled individual to walk the halls of Congress in I don't know how long.
For what has to be the best takedown of Trudeau I've ever seen, though, click here.

I Get Referrals

So I was looking at ye olde Site Meter a few moments ago and found someone was sent this way by a search for Springfield Armory Parkerized care.
Once upon a time I wondered about that as well, if it needed specialized care compared to other types of finishes. I asked my friendly local FFL if it needed any kind of different care compared to a stainless finish and he told me it didn't, so each time after I shoot my parkerized pistols, I strip them down and clean them just as I would any of my other guns, topping it all off with a good rubdown of oil, and the finish has held up very well, so well I would go so far as to say the finishes on my two parkerized 1911s are as good as they were the day I got them. Granted, they're range guns more than anything else, but Xavier had an interesting post on the maintenance of parked pistols here. I don't know how much of the oil and such has been stripped from my guns, considering I do use Hoppe's on it but re-apply oil after I am done cleaning, but as I say, the finishes have held up well. If I were to carry a parked pistol the way he describes, in the coastal Texas humidity, though, I would not hesitate to apply the treatment he lays out. No doubt I will before it's all said and done.

Weekend Gun Fun

It rained like the proverbial cow leaking on the flat rock most of yesterday, and sprinkled a bit this morning, but I finally got out to the range later this morning with my Kimber 10mm Stainless Target II and 100 rounds of 180-grain American Eagle full-metal-jacket. I did it more than anything to get more brass for the upcoming venture into reloading, but I hadn't taken the Kimber out in a while and thought it'd be fun to pull her out and see how she was doing. Granted, the AE is a real pussycat of a load at 1060 fps, but still I wouldn't want to get hit with it, and the Kimber handles it like a champ. I was doing failure drills more than anything else to get a feel again for how she handled with that load, and I was quite amazed at how fast I was getting the sights lined back up...it seems a little harder to do with the .45 than the 10mm, though the real tale is going to be told as I work up warmer loads and start driving them through her. I guess it was more of a time-killer than anything else, but I had a blast. The Federal AE makes for a fine plinking load, though to be honest I'd rather they load it a little hotter -- what the hell's the use of making 10mm ammo if you're gonna load it down to .40Short&Weak levels? I wanted some more of the Remington UMC in the green & white box (same bullet slightly hotter @ 1150 fps), but they didn't have any of that at Gander Mountain...and the Federal was $25 a box! One of the reasons I am getting into reloading...I bet I could shoot those same 180-grain bullets at about 1200-1250 fps all day long with a 20-lb. recoil spring and a Shok-Buff.
Went back to Gander Mountain today to see what all they had in the way of reloading supplies, and it didn't look like much...I saw bullets, lots of them, but mostly they were hollow-points, and the only thing they had in the way of propellant was blackpowder. I guess I'll be off to the gun show they have every month in Pasadena to see what they have, or off to one of the local Kimber master dealers in Mid-County someone was telling me about that could get powder for me. I'd love to get my hands on some 800X or AA #9 to see what that 10mm feels like when it's loaded to its potential.
And last, but not least...while I was at Gander Mountain, at the counter in the gun department I ran into one of the guys who worked at Shooters Supply before it closed down. I never made it back up there before it closed to find out what was going on, but I got to chew the fat with him for a few and asked him what happened. He said the shop was doing fine, that it wasn't the competition from GM that got it...it was the shop owner's decision to sell the business and retire. I suppose he earned it, but still I was sad to see them go...they had some good people up there in my experience. Counter guy at Gander Mountain was the only one from Shooters who stayed in the gun business; I was surprised to see that. I figured they'd all have gone into other gun stores around the area, but I guess there are only so many gun-store jobs to go around. Whatever they're doing, I hope they're well...

Interesting Contrast...

in today's issue of one of the local newspapers, the Port Arthur News...(emphasis mine --ed.)

...Castle Doctrine, a law upheld in 14 other states, gives Texans a stronger legal right to defend themselves with deadly force in their homes, cars and workplaces.
...Someone who is against Castle Doctrine, however, is Peter Hamm, communications director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

“There is no one in jail in Texas or anywhere else charged with using deadly force illegally for self defense,” Hamm said via telephone Wednesday. “We don’t understand what this new law is trying to solve and we fear the law, and others like it, will be used by people who should be in jail.”

The law, he said, takes the ball out of the hands of the criminal justice system.

NRA, authorities support new law

Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist, said he applauded Perry for signing the bill into law.

“Gov. Perry is the first governor in the country to sign Castle Doctrine legislation into law in 2007 and I’d like to thank him for his support” Cox said. “This is a victim’s rights measure. Crime victims don’t have the luxury of time when confronted by a criminal. This law gives victims the option of defending themselves and removes any mandate of forcible retreat set either in state statute or in case law.”

“The Castle Doctrine bill is about putting the law back on the side of the victim, the way it’s supposed to be.”

Port Arthur Police Chief Mark Blanton agrees with both Cox and Perry.

“I think the governor’s statement says it all, ‘the right to defend oneself from an imminent act of harm should not only be clearly defined in Texas law, but is intuitive to human nature,” Blanton said. “If you are in your home with your wife or by yourself why should you have to retreat for self defense? Or if you are carjacked why should you have to retreat?”

What does it say about the Brady Bunch and their ilk when they disagree with the police on an issue like this? They're always claiming to be on the side of law enforcement and public safety. How interesting it is than on an issue which at least Southeast Texas law enforcement officials are going on record as supporting, the Bradys oppose them. To what extent Chief Blanton's remarks represent law enforcement as a whole is indeed arguable, but considering he is an appointed official -- even if he did come from the rank-and-file -- it's quite refreshing to see that someone in his position would stand up and be counted on this issue as supporting the rights of the people to defend themselves. Good on him.

A New Adventure on the Horizon

Yes, the last few days have been busy, but actually pretty productive on the gun front.
I love shooting the 10mm, but it's absolute hell on the wallet, as is the .45, at least with my meager income. So I thought a while back that perhaps I would take the plunge and get into the handloading game, to save money and customize my ammo to my guns.
So last week, I took the plunge and ordered the RCBS turret press kit from MidwayUSA; it comes with the press, a beam scale, powder dispenser & funnel, case lube kit& loading block, hex key wrench set, deburring tool, case loading block and the Speer Manual No. 13. A couple of more things I'm gonna have to get before I get started, specifically a charging die to simplify things a little bit and I am not 100% sure what else. I've heard reloading is just as much fun as shooting...and I am about to find out for myself!

Random Ramblings on Referrals: Kimber vs. Ruger?

It would seem that I am the No. 1 result for this search.
Kimber vs. Ruger P89? I'd have to say that one's like, well, I don't know. Why anyone would want to compare those two is completely beyond me. They're both great pistols, no doubt about it, but it's like comparing a Ford Super Duty to maybe a Mustang, or even a GT. Two completely different pistols, with two completely different personalities, but again, both great. I can honestly say it'd hurt less for a cop to take my P89 after a good shoot, if only for the fact that for the price of probably even the most basic Kimber Custom I could get two P89s. The trigger on that P89 certainly is no 1911 trigger, but I can say it's better than the Glock's water-gun trigger. Which would I rather have, if money was no object? Probably the Kimber, if for no other reason than that the 1911 is my favorite autopistol platform, but I wouldn't turn up my nose at a Springfield or Smith & Wesson 1911 either.
Kimber vs. Ruger P89?
If you have the money, why not both?

Giuliani Singing Same Song as Michael Bloomberg

...or, at least he was, at one point.
Via THR, we have this, from Human Events:

The new Giuliani of states’ rights simply does not square with the mayor of the ’90s.

In 1993, Giuliani met with then-President Clinton to discuss national gun registration and supported the Brady bill, which had recently passed, but Rudy argued that it didn’t go far enough. Clinton, largely crediting Giuliani for the idea, enthusiastically sent Atty. Gen. Janet Reno off to develop a gun-licensing and registration system.

In May 1994, as the battle over the ban on certain semi-automatic firearms reached its height, Giuliani threw his support behind the ban. On the eve of the final vote, he noted that so-called assault weapons “have no legitimate purpose.” When the ban passed, Giuliani commented that “this is an important step toward curtailing the indiscriminate proliferation of guns across the nation.”

When a lunatic attacked innocent civilians at the Empire State Building in 1997, Giuliani used the tragedy to again push for gun control beyond his city’s limits: “We need a federal law that bans all assault weapons, and if in fact you do need a handgun, you should be subjected to at least the same restrictions—and really stronger ones—that exist for driving an automobile. ... Congress needs to pass uniform licensing for everyone carrying a gun.”

RTWT...

I knew he believed these things, but I never knew the context in which he said them. As they say, it's deja vu all over again. The fact that the national movers and shakers in the Republican Party are pushing Giuliani as the Great Hope for 2008 is a sad commentary indeed. He's not any better than Bill Clinton, and we all know what Clinton did on the gun front...and the frightening thing is, Clinton did his dirty work in only two years. Only the voters throwing the Democrats out in '94 stopped it from going any further...and it's not at all certain that the GOP will be back in the driver's seat in Congress after the 2008 elections. We are indeed experiencing the Chinese curse of living in interesting times, but I for one would go for a little more boring right about now.

My Saturday Pawn Shop Adventure

Saturday morning I took a little ride up to Beaumont, to one of the local pawnshops. They had a bunch of rifles, but not so many pistols. A Ruger P94 .40S&W, a couple of Glocks, some old blued Smith & Wesson .38 Specials, and several 1911s -- which was what I was on the lookout for, anyway -- a Para and one of the highly-sought-after Taurus 1911s, and a nickel-plated Remington-Rand from 1943. I'd never seen one of those...all the 1911s I'd seen from that era were either blued or parkerized, but the guy at the counter said something about it going through the custom shop, I think. The Rem-Rand went right about for what I thought it might, though I'd rather have had a blued or parked pistol. One of the guys at the counter said the Taurus had maybe 50 rounds through it...the pistol had a price tag right about what I expected it to be -- a little more than Shooters Supply, but still a pretty good deal if the Taurus is indeed everything everyone says it is.
But I went in there more than anything else to inquire about a Dan Wesson Razorback. I thought for a long time that Dan Wesson was like Kimber in that they sold directly to dealers and that to be a stocking dealer you had to place an order for a certain amount of guns. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that was not the case, that Dan Wesson sold through the distribution network; I had not seen a wide selection of DWs at Davidson's, so I was thinking that maybe they only sold through stocking dealers. As it turned out, though, the fella there at the counter looked up the Razorback and found it through another distributor for just shy of a grand after tax. Which is just about what I was expecting. They used to be cheaper, but apparently Dan Wesson is the dark horse of the 1911 market. I hadn't heard much about them for a while, but I started digging and found out they got a hell of a (good) reputation, especially after CZ bought them out. Everybody I'd talked to was always talking up either Kimber or Springfield; I didn't even know Dan Wesson was in the 1911 business until I found out about the Razorback. The pawnshop guy, who knew his stuff pretty well, it sounded like, was quite vocal with his opinion, too. He said that he wasn't going to pony up $20,000 to be a Kimber stocking dealer, that the Kimbers were overrated and that the Dan Wessons were much better guns. I can't really argue with the "overrated" remark, with the way some people have talked about them, even though my experience with them has been quite good. As I've said before and as I'm sure more than a few people will say as well, there are folks out there who think Kimber is the end-all and be-all of 1911s. He also had an issue with Kimber's methods in that if the gun was bad, you had to send it back to Kimber instead of the distributor. I think what he was saying was that if the distributor sent them a malfunctioning gun, they'd take it back and send the customer another one, and with Kimber being a dealer-direct manufacturer they more or less precluded that option. As for my erroneous thought that Dan Wesson only sold dealer-direct, pawnshop guy basically told me that he was selling Dan Wesson 1911s before Dan Wesson 1911s were cool -- although not in those exact words. If I remember right, he told me he had a Pointman Seven and it was a great gun. Needless to say I was quite thrilled. The next closest Dan Wesson dealer is Carter's Country in Houston, and while I always have fun in Houston and wouldn't have minded going over there, I just preferred to keep my dollars here. Plus, I am not exactly rollin' in 'em. ;-) As of yet I am not sure when, but a Razorback will be mine, oh yes, it will...

A Blast From The Not-Too-Distant Past: The Murder On Music Row Controversy

If you will, indulge me this one-time rambling.
Driving home from work tonight, I heard this not-so-old tune from George Strait and Alan Jackson:

Nobody saw him running, from Sixteenth Avenue
They never found a fingerprint, or the weapon that was used
But someone killed country music, cut out its heart and soul
They got away with murder, down on Music Row

The almighty dollar, and the lust for worldwide fame
Slowly killed tradition, and for that, someone should hang
They all say "Not Guilty!", but the evidence will show
That murder was committed down on Music Row

For the steel guitars no longer cry, and fiddles barely play
But drums and rock 'n' roll guitars are mixed up in your face
Ol' Hank wouldn't have a chance on today's radio
Since they committed murder down on Music Row

They thought no one would miss it once it was dead and gone
They said no one would buy them ol' drinkin' and cheatin' songs
Well there ain't no justice in it, and the hard facts are cold
Murder's been committed down on Music Row

For the steel guitars no longer cry, and you can't hear fiddles play
With drums and rock 'n' roll guitars mixed right up in your face
Why the Hag wouldn't have a chance on today's radio
Since they committed murder down on Music Row

Why they even tell the Possum to pack up and go back home
There's been an awful murder down on music row

It was right about this time seven years ago the controversy was raging in the country music community, as pop-masquerading-as-country singers like Tim McGraw, Martina McBride and Shania Twain were ruling the country music airwaves, and Rascal Flatts, country's answer to N-Sync, was just getting started. Larry Cordle and Larry Shell's biting commentary on the state of modern country music had started making the rounds late in 1999 and causing quite a stir in some corners. I remember I was thrilled when I found out Alan and George were going to record this song and even more so when I actually heard it, as I thought it was a drop-dead perfect indictment of modern country music, both lyrically and instrumentally. Tim McGraw, aka Mr. Faith Hill was the most outspoken about the song, as I recall him saying "anyone who has a problem with crossover can go jump in the lake." I thought that was quite asinine of him, considering he was touring with George Strait at the time, and while I did and do like a lot of his music, that just jumped all over me. I thought even less of him as he got the nerve to actually record an answer song of sorts, "Things Change." Granted, he had a right to speak his mind, but still I just didn't like it. I remember thinking at the time that he was more or less biting the hand that fed him, with those comments and the recording of that song. He wasn't hurting for money, but I have no doubt that the exposure he got on the George Strait festival tour surely didn't hurt him any either. And I also remember being ecstatic when I found out Alan Jackson was going to be taking Tim's slot on the festival tour in 2001, in the wake of the infamous horse incident in Buffalo, New York the weekend before the 2000 tour's June finale in Texas. That seems like several lifetimes ago now...and things have indeed changed the last seven years, with people like Craig Morgan, Dierks Bentley and Josh Turner taking country back to its more traditional sounds. It'll be interesting to see how things are in the coming years, but I for one hope to never again see the likes of Shania Twain in country music. We'll see...

One More RCOB Moment: Roanoke Times Publishes VA CCW Permit List

Every now and then, I see something so breathtakingly arrogant that I almost, almost want to put my fist through the computer screen. This is one of those times.
Via THR we have this, from the Roanoke (VA) Times (no linky from me to that rag!):

Today is the start of Sunshine Week, the annual week in which we reflect on the importance of open government and public records. To mark the occasion, I want to take you on an excursion into freedom of information land. We're going to find out who in the New River Valley has a concealed handgun permit.

I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It's nobody's business but mine if I want to pack heat.

Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone's business.

There are good reasons the records are open to public scrutiny. People might like to know if their neighbors carry. Parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box. Employers might like to know if employees are bringing weapons to the office.

And all Virginians have a stake in checking that their government is not making mistakes, for example, by issuing permits to convicted felons. Open records allow the media or any private citizen to check.

Actually, I would argue right off the top of my head that there is only reason the CHL permit records were open to the public: compromise with those who don't think the public can be trusted to carry guns. And this idiot journalist apparently didn't stop to think that the mistake the government made was letting the felon out of jail in the first place -- if said convicted felon can't be trusted to carry a gun, then why the hell is he walking free? Said idiot journo also conveniently forgot to mention that, "Abusive ex-husbands/boyfriends might like to know if the objects of their spurned affections are packing as well. They have a right to that information. It's public record, you see." Whether any licensed carriers will suffer any repercussions from their privacy being invaded remains to be seen, but there's no doubt that the chances of such have been increased dramatically because of the reckless actions of the Roanoke paper.
Looks like, though, from the reactions on the Roanoke Times blog, that a few of those who had their privacy invaded are rightly angry about it.

Thanks for upsetting my wife. She has a concealed weapon permit to protect herself, not so you could publish it online for criminals to see.
Concealed handgun permit holders and sex offenders???? Your a class act, way to abuse the first amendment while trying to strip us of the second.

The problem with the mainstream media today is that they have forgotten the difference between "can" and "should". There are a great many things we can do that are legal but just not right. The Roanoke Times has with this article proven that they are no better than the rest of the mainstream media.

I for one will no longer spend my money on a publication with such low ethical standards. In addition, the company where I am employed has advertised in the Roanoke Times in the past, I am in a position to see that this will not happen again. Clearly 3,826 concealed carry permit holders in the New River Valley mean nothing to the Roanoke Times as newspaper buyers, maybe advertising dollars mean more.

I found that last thing quite gratifying. I don't know how well a lawsuit against the Times would fare in court, but as the Zumbo affair showed, if enough wronged people raise enough hell about the wrong done to them, the advertisers will sit up and take notice. Let's hope Virginia gun owners make enough noise for the newspaper's advertisers to see that maybe the paper didn't do the right thing. The Roanoke Times deserves to pay, and pay dearly, for their sanctimonious reporter's reckless disregard for Virginia gun owners' privacy and safety. To the extent Trejbal's action was about open government, it shows the dangers of letting the government say we can't carry the most effective implements for self-defense unless they give us permission. If that wasn't the case, then this would be a moot issue, but in any event, if we recklessly pulled out our guns and indiscriminantly pointed them at passers by, we would rightly be punished for our actions. Trejbal and the Roanoke Times should face no less for their reckless actions here, whether it be by their advertisers or the courts.

10,000 Visitors!

How 'bout that. One day shy of my one-year blogiversary, I got my 10,000th visitor! One year ago yesterday evening, my blog was born, and at 9:25 last night, I rolled past the mark with a referral from Firehand. I thank him and all the others who have blogrolled me as well.
And a special thanks to all of you who make Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast a part of your day. Y'all come back now, y'hear?
;-)

Hell Freezeth Over: DC Handgun Ban Goes Down

I was busy at work today, so I am just now seeing this, but via just about everybody, comes the wonderful news that Washington D.C.'s handgun ban has gone down in flames, ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the Second Amendment.

T]he phrase ‘the right of the people,’ when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.” The majority opinion sums up its holding on this point as follows:
To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

The majority opinion also rejects the argument that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a State. And the majority opinion concludes, “Section 7-2507.02, like the bar on carrying a pistol within the home, amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional.

Let us all hope that this is the beginning of the end of the collective-rights interpretation -- or, as SayUncle calls it, the no-rights interpretation. And, of course, the victim-disarmament advocates, as Tam so eloquently called them once, are up in arms, so to speak.
Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center, at the Huffington Post:

While today's decision is a dream come true for America's gun lobby and gunmakers, it may mark the beginning of a long, national nightmare from which we will never recover as a nation.

And just for those who still think Sarah Brady and her evil minions don't support the same goals as Josh Sugarmann, consider Paul Helmke's comments from the Washington Post:

The 2-1 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Parker v. District of Columbia striking down the District of Columbia's handgun law is judicial activism at its worst. By disregarding nearly seventy years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent, two Federal judges have negated the democratically-expressed will of the people of the District of Columbia and deprived this community of a gun law it enacted thirty years ago and still strongly supports.

I'd argue that as opposed to disregarding precedent, the court, as Alex Kozinski might put it, found the courage to oppose a blatantly unconstitutional law and create new, better precedent. And as a commenter at Homeland Stupididy said:

The “democratically-expressed will of the people” was to make blacks drink out of separate water fountains, sit on the back of the bus, and go to substandard schools. The “democratically-expressed will of the people” elected Hitler to power for god’s sake.

Thank god for the court ruling that an INDIVIDUAL has a right (EXPRESSED in the Constitution) that can’t be taken away by the ‘democratically-expressed will of the people”.

A-yep. And once upon a time, that sort of thing was sanctioned by longstanding court precedent, too. (Plessy v. Ferguson stood for almost 60 years before it was struck down by Brown v. Board of Education.) I'd say court precedent is a very poor argument for making new laws or not striking down old ones. As I said here,

Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution in and of themselves, in the context of history, don't carry nearly as much moral weight (but, of course, far too much legal weight) as some people seem to think they might...off the top of my head, Plessy v. Ferguson, Kelo v. New London, U.S. v. Cruikshank, and Dred Scott v. Sanford all come to mind (yes, I know Plessy was overturned), and without opening up the abortion can o' beans, there are those out there who think Roe v. Wade, in the words of pro-choice Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley, was a "muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching." (If you really wanted to, I suppose you could go all the way back to Marbury v. Madison (1803) for an example of judicial usurpation...)

Today was a great day for individual liberty in our nation. Let us hope we can advance further.

Apparently It Was NOT A Joke...

Kathleen Parker in today's Chronicle...

...In Selma, Ala., last weekend at the "Bloody Sunday" commemoration, Hillary auditioned for a dual role — not just Southerner, but Southern preacher in the style of a Martin Luther King Jr.

That dry rustling you hear is the sound of millions of people cringing.

It was clear that Hillary was trying to imitate the oratorical style of her black predecessors to the pulpit — something no white person should ever attempt. But what she must have imagined sounded like passion was to mere mortals the screech of an angry woman.

Her audience, nevertheless, was polite and affirming (Southerners are like that), even as she turned on the worst fake accent since Kevin Costner played Robin Hood.

Shouting the words from a gospel hymn, Clinton was so off-key that anyone tuning in would have assumed it was a joke — a parody of a politician speaking in native tongues, Granny Clampett auditioning on American Idol.

"I DON'T FEEL NO WAYS TIRED," she said with the robotic twang of a computer generated Southerner. "I COME TOO FARRRR FRUM WHERE I STARTED FRUM. NOBODY TOLD ME THAT THE ROAD WOULD BE EASY."

Somewhere deep in the brains of every man listening was a little lizard shouting: Somebody hit the mute button, for God's sake, hit the mute!

In politics, we're not supposed to talk about style over substance, especially when it comes to women. But no male politician would get away with what Hillary pulled in Selma. Moreover, speaking style is not irrelevant to leadership, as Americans have noted the past six years.
...

What was Clinton thinking when she hijacked a gospel hymn and effectively mocked her audience? Her speech exposed not just an incompetent ear, but disrespect for the people gathered....

Parker wasn't kidding about the lizard and the mute button. I heard the clip of this on the Walton and Johnson show earlier this week and I just couldn't help but think this had to be some sort of joke, or that someone took a tape recording into some kind of top-secret invitation-only Democratic gathering...but apparently it wasn't, and worse than that, the audience seemed to be eating it up. I just have to ask what the reaction would have been had George W. Bush been the one standing up there trying to ape that oratorical style. My money says he would have been roundly condemned by the audience and the national media jackals alike, and for good reason. Had it been any other speaker, it would have been spun nine ways to Sunday that the speaker was making fun of the audience. Speaking of the audience, I also have to wonder if any of them thought they were being made fun of; after all, it's been said that the Southerner is pretty much the last demographic in America that it still remains politically correct to ridicule.

But I guess it's ok since Hillary's a Democrat and spent time in the South. Sigh...

IL AWB: Call Me Torn On This One

Via Jeff at Alphecca, once again, comes this from CNSNews:

A proposal to ban "assault weapons" is advancing in the Illinois Senate, much to the dismay of "freedom-loving Illinoisans," the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) warned on Tuesday.

Sponsored by Senate President Emil Jones, SB16 -- the Assault Weapons Ban Act of 2007 -- would prohibit the manufacture, sale and possession of hundreds of models of rifles and shotguns.

As the title says, call me torn on this one.
While I hate it for Illinois gun owners -- after all, this is yet one more violation of their rights -- if this is what it takes for the lion's share of Illinois gun manufacturers to leave the statist hellhole the Land of Lincoln has become, then at least some good will have come of it. This "assault weapons ban" is indeed wrong, but it's not exactly right that manufacturers like Springfield and ArmaLite remain in Illinois to pay the salaries of the very legislators that would ban civilian possession of their products altogether if said legislators could get away with it. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's frightening to think of how much gunnie money has gone to finance schemes that take ever more guns out of the hands of the people in Illinois -- and one could probably say the same for New York (where you'll find Kimber and Dan Wesson), Massachusetts (S&W) and Connecticut (Ruger and Colt). Why exactly those companies choose to position themselves in places so hostile to their products, I'll never know, but it looks like that situation just might be ameliorated a bit.

No Surprises Here, But Still Infuriating: NJ Proposes Ban on .50BMGs

Via Jeff comes this, from the Philadelphia Inquirer...

Democratic lawmakers and Ceasefire NJ, an antigun group, released a plan yesterday to make it illegal to sell .50-caliber weapons in New Jersey. If the legislation is passed, the state would become the second after California to have such a law.
Supporters say the guns are inappropriate for civilian use because they can fire armor-piercing rounds that could penetrate and ignite chemical plants, refineries and rail tank cars. The guns, which resemble hunting rifles, are accurate up to 11/2 miles.

Wow, VPC lies find their way into the article before we even get out of the second paragraph.
The Truth?

...Army testing...stated that a 20mm cannon, which dwarfs the lowly .50cal, was required to break the weakest item on a tank’s exterior – a thermal lens cover. (U.S. Army Worldwide Equipment Guide, 7 Nov 2000) Tank armor is designed to stand up to high-explosive anti-tank missiles with warheads the size of footballs, the very reason that modern soldiers are equipped with rocket launchers. A .50cal cannot penetrate that armor from five feet away, much less the ridiculous assertion that it can do this from a mile away....
...
Tom Darymple, (is) Senior Vice President of Engineering for the prestigious Trinity Rail Group, which designs and manufactures many of the chemical railcars running today. When asked about the alleged threat of .50cal rifles to his railcars, Mr. Darymple said that they have long tested their cars against almost every form of firearm, to include .50BMG and larger. When asked what happenes when a .50 hits one of his tanks he said with a shrug “It bounces off.” He went on to point out that railcars are designed to survive the force of derailing, and collision with other railcars at travel speeds. By comparison the impact of a bullet, any bullet, is like a mosquito bite.

Call fiftycal.org a biased source if you wish, and I don't think I have any choice but to concede that point, but it's been shown more than once that very few antis have any substantive knowledge of guns beyond the fact that they're loud and they make rounded bits of lead and copper go very fast; it's been shown that most of the knowledge about the real power of guns resides on the pro-gun side. In short, I'd say the .50 Caliber Institute is a much more reliable source than the VPC, notwithstanding whatever knowledge Tom Diaz, Josh Sugarmann and the rest of those professional manipulators possess. I seem to remember that when the 1994 "assault weapons" ban was drafted, congresscritters got ahold of something like an AR-15 or AK-47 and just picked out certain features at random, or picked said features off a list. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that NJ legislators unquestioningly swallowed the lies of the Violence Policy Center, but it's still quite infuriating. I can only hope and pray that level of governmental malfeasance vis-a-vis firearm laws never takes hold in Texas or nationwide.

So I bought a new toy yesterday...

Not a gun, but still a nifty little gadget, one that a lot of people have.
I had a Gerber multi-tool for a long time, but it seems I lost it on a road trip a few months back. Really liked it too, it came in handy more than once for me. I've been meaning to get a new one but one thing led to another and life more or less got in the way.
It wormed its way back into the forefront of my mind via L'Affaire de Zumbo, when it was revealed that Gerber was one of Zumbo's sponsors. About the time Gerber dropped him, I got my tax refund and thought, hey, maybe I'll go shopping. So yesterday I did, and I picked up one of these, a Diesel Multi-Plier. It has needlenose pliers, a wire cutter and crimper, a partially serrated knife blade, a cross point screwdriver, small, medium and large flat blade screwdrivers (via an add-on toolkit), can opener, bottle opener, file, saw and scissors. I got the bead-blasted model, and it's a beauty -- actually a pretty good step up from the one I had before, with the only trade-off being that it won't fit in my pocket nearly as well as the one I had before. But that's where the belt loop on the sheath comes in. ;-) I think I did pretty good.

In Belated Honor of Texas Independence Day

To the People of Texas & all Americans in the world --

Fellow citizens & compatriots -- I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna -- I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man -- The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken -- I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls -- I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch -- The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never
forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country --
Victory or Death.
William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.
.......

In the southern part of Texas, in the town of San Antone,
There's a fortress all in ruin that the weeds have overgrown.
You may look in vain for crosses and you'll never see a one,
But sometime between the setting and the rising of the sun,
You can hear a ghostly bugle as the men go marching by;
You can hear them as they answer to that roll call in the sky:
Colonel Travis, Davy Crockett and a hundred eighty more;
Captain Dickenson, Jim Bowie, present and accounted for.

Back in 1836, Houston said to Travis:
"Get some volunteers and go fortify the Alamo."
Well, the men came from Texas and from old Tennessee,
And they joined up with Travis just to fight for the right to be free.

Indian scouts with squirrel guns, men with muzzle loaders,
Stood together heel and toe to defend the Alamo.
"You may never see your loved ones," Travis told them that day.
"Those that want to can leave now, those who'll fight to the death, let 'em stay."

In the sand he drew a line with his army sabre,
Out of a hundred eighty five, not a soldier crossed the line.
With his banners a-dancin' in the dawn's golden light,
Santa Anna came prancin' on a horse that was black as the night.

He sent an officer to tell Travis to surrender.
Travis answered with a shell and a rousin' rebel yell.
Santa Anna turned scarlet: "Play Degüello," he roared.
"I will show them no quarter, everyone will be put to the sword."

One hundred and eighty five holdin' back five thousand.
Five days, six days, eight days, ten; Travis held and held again.
Then he sent for replacements for his wounded and lame,
But the troops that were comin' never came, never came, never came.

Twice he charged, then blew recall. On the fatal third time,
Santa Anna breached the wall and he killed them one and all.
Now the bugles are silent and there's rust on each sword,
And the small band of soldiers lie asleep in the arms of The Lord.

In the southern part of Texas, near the town of San Antone,
Like a statue on his Pinto rides a cowboy all alone.
And he sees the cattle grazin' where a century before,
Santa Anna's guns were blazin' and the cannons used to roar.
And his eyes turn sort of misty, and his heart begins to glow,
And he takes his hat off slowly to the men of Alamo.
To the thirteen days of glory at the siege of Alamo.

Exciting Music News

All I can say is, it's about time...

Alan Jackson, George Strait and Jimmy Buffett's May 29, 2004, concert bash at Dallas' Texas Stadium is the source for a 15-track live album due April 3 via MCA Nashville. The aptly named "Live at Texas Stadium" features each man performing five tracks, both on his own and in collaboration with the other two artists.

...


Here is the track list for "Live at Texas Stadium:"

George Strait:
"Honk if You Honky Tonk"
"Murder on Music Row" (with Alan Jackson)
"Milk Cow Blues"
"Cowboys Like Us"
"All My Ex's Live in Texas" (with Jimmy Buffett)

Jimmy Buffett:
"Hey Good Lookin'" (with George Strait)
"Sea of Heartbreak" (with George Strait)
"Northeast Texas Women"
"Boats To Build" (with Alan Jackson)
"Margaritaville" (with Alan Jackson)

Alan Jackson:
"It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" (with Jimmy Buffett)
"Designated Drinker" (with George Strait)
"Texas Woman"
"Seven Bridges Road"
"Where I Come From"

I can't even say how excited I am about this..this CD is going to be awesome beyond verbal description. I was at that show, and it was the same -- I remember well the rumors after the show that it was going to be on some kind of live recording and needless to say, the news of this recording finally making its way to the stores is long, LONG overdue. As a Strait fan, I've longed for a live recording of "Milk Cow Blues" for years (even if we can't have a live cut of "There Stands The Glass" this is every bit as good), and the duet of "Designated Drinker" is a keeper too, as it was (I believe) the first time George and Alan ever sang it together live. And this was the first time in years that Strait has done "All My Ex's" live, as far as I know (I've seen Strait 13 times since 1996, with the most recent being at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo Tuesday night). I can say it was a hell of a surprise to see Buffett come out on stage and sing it with him as well. That was also the first time I ever heard Alan's rendition of the old bluegrass tune "Seven Bridges Road," and he did a hell of a job on it. (Incidentally, the Hank Jr. song is "Texas Women.") And Buffett's show was quite an experience, with his selected songs being high points of the show as well. "Margaritaville" was the first song on his encore, if I remember correctly, and you could barely hear him, George and Alan because of the crowd. It was, for lack of a better word, rockin'. ;-)
Come on, April 3....

Another Fuddite Steps Up to His Petard...

...and, as Josh so eloquently put it, says, "Please, martyr me next."
(emphasis mine -- ed.)

The speed with which Zumbomania spread, the number of comments it drew, and the rabid nature of same were a revelation. Overnight, this thing became as big as Janet Jackson’s clothing failure or—dare I say it?—Britney Spears’ shaved head. Jim Zumbo is now as employable as the Unabomber, and Sarah Brady will no doubt adopt his comments to her own gun-control purposes.

For the last several days I’ve been visiting all manner of blogs and chatrooms, which has reminded me of when I used to deliver used clothing to the local mental hospital. I’ve tried to make some sense of it all, but because the waters are still full of blood and body parts continue to rain from the sky, I haven’t come up with any Great Truths. Lacking that, here are some Lesser Truths.

What Jim said was ill-considered. He’s entitled to his beliefs, but when a writer of his stature comes out against black guns, it sure as hell does not help our cause.

Even so, Jim made an immediate apology. He did not equivocate, or qualify, or make excuses. He acted like a gentleman and said he was wrong, and he was sorry. Apparently this is not enough anymore. We now live in the era of one strike and you're out.

For 40 years, Jim has been a spokesman and ambassador of good will for hunting. Through his tireless efforts as a teacher and lecturer on hunting and hunting skills, he has done more for the sport than any 250 of the yahoos who called for his blood.

Jim has paid dearly for what he said. He has lost his blog and his association with Remington. Cabela’s has suspended its sponsorship of his TV show; and Outdoor Life has accepted his offer to sever ties. To all the chatroom heroes who made him unemployable, I have a word of warning: You’ve been swinging a two-edged sword. A United States in which someone can be ruined for voicing an unpopular opinion is a dangerous place. Today it was Jim’s turn. Tomorrow it may be yours.

If Sarah Brady is smart—and she is very smart—she will comb through the same blogs and chatrooms I’ve been reading, excerpt some of the most vicious and foul-mouthed entries, print them up, and distribute them to Congress. Then it will be interesting to see how the men and women who wrote that stuff enjoy seeing their efforts being put to use by every anti-gunner in America.

How nice. Zumbo called the black rifle owners terrorists, and now David Petzal's likening those who rightfully called for his sacking to mental patients. To be fair, he's not characterizing all those who disagree with Zumbo as such, but I've said it before and I'll say it again -- when you propose to limit people's rights, for whatever reason, for good or bad that's basically the kind of reaction you get. The persecution of the American gun owner didn't start yesterday; it's been a low-level but sustained campaign over the last several decades, since at least 1934. First they clamped down on full-auto, then they threw a tangled web of federal regulation down on the gun business as a whole, then they tangled it more with background checks and waiting periods, then came that odious ban on semi-autos, and all the while none of that, none of that has accomplished the goal the gun-haters claim they want -- crime reduction. (We all know what they want away from the cameras & microphones, though...)
It seems to me that we're screwed either way as far as the antis' reactions are concerned, though. My money says Sarah Brady would be using our reaction against us no matter what it was. If we were silent, she'd say we pretty much agree that the black rifles have no legitimate sporting purpose (or she and her evil minions will at least try to spin it that way).
Some will say that the negative reaction could have been a little more mild, but I don't agree. This was basically one of our own selling us out. He can claim ignorance all he wants, but I said this in earlier comments and I'll say it now:

I'm sure hunters are a fine lot, and I don't begrudge them their sport, but I do fully expect them to know that owning any firearm is in and of itself a political statement and that we're all in this together -- especially after more than 40 years of being involved in an industry of which firearms have been such a big part. There was no excuse whatsoever for what Jim Zumbo said. Not one. "Fine and great things which Mr. Zumbo and his sponsors and publishers have brought to the hunting fraternity" be damned.

And that's where this comment comes in: "A United States in which someone can be ruined for voicing an unpopular opinion is a dangerous place. Today it was Jim’s turn. Tomorrow it may be yours."
An unpopular opinion. Zumbo basically called millions of black rifle owners terrorists, and Petzal boils that down to an "unpopular opinion." But it's bigger than that, even. One more time, no gun is safe, even the All-American deer rifle that sits in the gun rack. And whoever hasn't figured that out is just, flatly, willfully blind, and has no business being within ten miles of any business involving firearms. We can only hope that Michael Bane is right when he says "for the first time in years, hunters and shooters are on the same page." There's no excuse by now for us not being. There never has been. We should have been hanging together all along.

Zumbo's Favor to Gunnies and the Industry, and Other Observations

Via AlanDP comes this, from The Shooting Wire. Read it all, and you might want to do it today, for as Alan says, they probably don't archive past articles....

...we might find that we owe Jim Zumbo.

We don't owe him our loyalty, our support, or our forgiveness, but we owe him for motivating us to tell the industry they'd better start paying attention to the silent majority.

...
Even if you call us "shooters" or "paper punchers" or "plinkers" or whatever, there are many more of us than there are hunters. And we're neither terrorists nor fools.

When I made the decision to begin The Shooting Wire, some outdoor writers questioned why I would start a "shooting" wire instead of a "hunting" wire.

Today, they know why.

The in the firearms industry, is not in hunting rifles. It is in those "terrorist" black guns (in a growing variety of calibers, further reflecting the platform's many useful applications) and the military-style handguns that accompany them. Ditto ammo and accessories. There are many, many manufacturers in the "black rifle" space - and more of them are coming.
...

So what have we learned, I asked Doug Painter of the National Shooting Sports Foundation?

"The important perspective from our side of the street," Painter said, "is that whether you hunt or shoot in competition or for sport with a primitive muzzleloader or the latest high-tech rifle, what links us is more important that what divides us. We may shoot cowboy, skeet, practical or whatever, but our common belief has to be the Second Amendment - everything else is just a matter of style."

He also had a sobering reminder.

"The flip side," he said, "is to remember our opponents have all of us in their crosshairs."

And he's right. Long after the Jim Zumbo controversy is over (it will probably never be forgotten - or forgiven), we will still face the ongoing assaults on our Second Amendment rights.

Now that we've discovered our voice - we must continue to apply it to our opponents.

--Jim Shepherd

Here's hoping he's right about the discovery of our common voice and thread. They are indeed after all of us, and after some 42 years of writing, Zumbo should have figured that out by now. The writing was on the wall long ago, with NFA '34 and GCA '68, and if Zumbo didn't see that, he had absolutely no business being in any kind of industry having anything to do with firearms. It's bad enough there are still people out there who think their hunting guns are safe from the insidious spin the antis use to demonize private firearm ownership, but for someone in his position to spout such malevolent rhetoric is absolutely inexcusable. He deserves exactly what he's getting.

A Good Idea

Yes, friends, Lady Tam has the right idea...

I may have mentioned that I buy a box of .22LR ammunition pretty much every day.

I think that today I'll be buying some Remington.

I can't do it till later in the week, but one o' them big ole 250-round value packs of .45acp is in my immediate future. Remington deserves to be rewarded; they stepped up in a big way for gun owners today.
And as Fits reports, it looks like Mr. Zumbo might just lose yet another sponsorship:

While we fully support Mr. Zumbo’s First Amendment right of free speech, we believe his opinions on this matter are counter to those shared by Cabela’s and many of our customers. Cabela’s Legal Department is currently reviewing contractual obligations and commitments regarding our sponsorship of the Jim Zumbo Outdoors television show.

No doubt it's been a hell of a Monday for Mr. Zumbo. It'll be interesting to see how long he stays in the Outdoor Life stable. Anybody wanna put a wager? By the end of the week, maybe even next?

Monday Morning Levity

Via SayUncle & NK, comes this...funny stuff!

Zumbo Goes Down: Assorted Thoughts

Looks like Jim Zumbo has already taken at least one huge hit, on a holiday weekend, no less!
David Codrea requested & received confirmation that Remington Arms was terminating its business relationship with Zumbo due to his outrageous remarks, notwithstanding the pathetic attempt to cover his tail after the firestorm of criticism his remarks generated. He has more business relationships as well, all of which are arguably in an equal amount of danger.
It just goes to show, you better watch what you say -- especially when you have such a bully pulpit as Zumbo did. Some would no doubt cast the urged boycotts as an infringement on Zumbo's free speech rights, but to me that shows quite a short-sighted perspective, because the fact is Zumbo did more or less the same thing Charlie Meyers did -- and Zumbo works for an outlet that is largely dependent on our continued right to keep and bear arms for any and all legal purposes! You can't separate the hunters from the shooters, no matter how much the traditionalists like Zumbo would like to think you could, because once again the fact is that the antis ultimately want ALL our guns -- not just the defensive sidearms & homeland defense ("assault") rifles.
I don't know how many more hunters recognize that this fine sunny morning, but I do know that what's happened here is quite a testament to the power of the shooting community. To an extent once upon a time it was a bit harder to mobilize in a timely manner when it came to situations like this, but with the practically instantaneous nature of the Internet, our power has been magnified perhaps immeasurably -- as evidenced, once again, by the fact that the wheels were already turning before this morning at Remington.
A proud moment for us, indeed -- and if we'd direct that power towards Congress as we did this hidebound hunting scribe, all sorts of good things could happen. Something to ponder...

UPDATE: Via Tam, we have this e-mail from Tommy Millner, the CEO of Remington Arms, to the site administrator of GlockTalk:

You may feel free to advise your people of the following.

Remington is shocked and dissappointed by the comments of Jim zumbo which have been widely circulated on the web. These comments do not reflect either my own feelings or those of my company!

Accordingly we are severing all business ties with Mr zumbo and any of his companies effective immediately and will make a formal release tomorrow to this effect.

We appreciate the passionate support of our right to bear arm arms by all in the shooting sports.

Sincerely

Tommy millner
CEO

Heh. Cobra in the sleeping bag, indeed. ;-)

Well, That Didn't Take Long...But Oh, the Damage Is Done

Looks like The Fuddite of the Year, Jim Zumbo, recognized the hornet's nest he stepped in and is now backtracking...

I was hunting coyotes, and after the hunt was over and being beat up by 60 mph winds all day, I was discussing hunting with one of the young guides. I was tired and exhausted, and I should have gone to bed early. When the guide told me that there was a "huge" following of hunters who use AR 15's and similar weapons to hunt prairies dogs, I was amazed. At that point I wrote the blog, and never thought it through.

Maybe not, and he might well be sorry, but it seems to me like he was saying he was sorry for speaking his mind on something he knew nothing about, as opposed to insulting and alienating millions of black rifle owners with his commentary -- which is only furthered by his whine about being insulted himself and his half-hearted attempt to establish his pro-liberty bona fides:

I never intended to be devisive, and I certainly believe in United we Stand, Divided we Fall. I've been an NRA member for 40 years, have attended 8 national NRA conventions in the last 10 years, and I'm an advisory board member for the United States Sportsmen's Alliance which actively fights anti-hunters and animal rights groups for hunter's rights.

What really bothers me are some of the unpatriotic comments leveled at me. I fly the flag 365 days a year in my front yard. Last year, through an essay contest, I hosted a soldier wounded in Iraq to a free hunt in Botswana. This year, through another essay contest, I'm taking two more soldiers on a free moose and elk hunt.

As some others have said, what does it matter what he did yesterday if he stabs other gun owners in the back today, as he did? He might well fly that flag, but he seems to be perfectly content to take a big, steaming crap on what it stands for, which speaks a hell of a lot louder than any kind of symbolic gesture. More hollow words follow:

Believe it or not, I'm your best friend if you're a hunter or shooter, though it might not seem that way. I simply screwed up.

Not hardly. A best friend wouldn't throw you under the bus in a short-sighted attempt to protect his own interests, which is what Zumbo did. I agree completely with Xavier:

You have shown unequivocally who you are. You cannot drop enough names, attend enough conferences or pay enough dues to the NRA to change your words. These were your words. They were spoken when you thought you were unopposed, and you thought your Elmer Fudd readership would fawn over your elder gun writer wisdom. Wake up Zumbo! It's a new world! The internet ain't a damned gun rag!

When you said "I'll go so far as to call them 'terrorist' rifles", you called every American serviceman a terrorist. Now I don't care if you fly a thousand flags in your yard, paint your whole damned house red, white and blue, and take the entire 82nd Airborne to a free hunt in Botswana, you cannot change that. Those are your words, and they reflect your thoughts and character.

Abso-freakin-lutely. This clown has potentially set the movement to regain our rights back for years, if not decades. And he should be canned. Pronto.

(More thoughts from Michael Bane, Kevin Baker, and Yosemite Sam.)

Fuddite Alert

Via THR and a few other places, we have yet another camo-clad anti-gunner -- Jim Zumbo, who apparently is the hunting editor for Outdoor Life magazine spouting off the same old anti-anything-but-hunting crap:

The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters. I had no clue. Only once in my life have I ever seen anyone using one of these firearms.

I call them "assault" rifles, which may upset some people. Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I'll go so far as to call them "terrorist" rifles. They tell me that some companies are producing assault rifles that are "tackdrivers."

Sorry, folks, in my humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I've always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don't use assault rifles. We've always been proud of our "sporting firearms."

I wouldn't call him a traditionalist. I'd call him an enemy of freedom.

...hunters don't use assault rifles.

How about sniper rifles? Do they use those? Mr. Zumbo might not want to call them that, but I guaran-damn-tee you, that's exactly what those who would ban, confiscate and/or otherwise restrict the use of AKs and ARs are going to cast his precious deer rifle as before they come after them. No doubt the hacks at the Brady Center & the VPC are reading this and thinking, "that whole divide-and-conquer strategy of ours is working like a charm..."
I absolutely do not think any free person deserves to be disarmed -- but there are fleeting moments, such as when I read missives like this from the hook-and-bullet writers, when I think that if the people were disarmed who thought like this character does, that they'd be getting exactly what they deserved for throwing all the other gunnies under the anti-freedom bus. It's encouraging to see so many of the commenters to the piece upbraiding him for his craven, hidebound perspective, but I shudder to think of how many hunters agree with him. It'll be interesting to see how many subscriptions and sponsors Outdoor Life loses for it, though -- not to mention the potential losses that at this point I'd say will be taken by various companies Zumbo's affilliated with, such as Polaris & Remington, and others.
UPDATE:
As I said at JR's place, I was looking through Zumbo's Outdoor Life blog, and it seems this particular post has generated more feedback from readers than any of his other recent blog posts -- almost 1,400 reader comments as of 11:01 am East Texas time, with at least 100 of those in the last 30 minutes alone. The second-most-commented on post from Zumbo got 45 comments. If this is any indication, the shite has definitely hit the fan here.

Comment count as I check in...
Sunday, 2-17-07, 12:00 pm East Texas time: 1,552
Sunday, 2-17-07, 1:01 pm East Texas time: 1,748 -- and with that, for right now I'm gonna go enjoy the beautiful, sunny Texas day!
Sunday, 2-17-07, 7:50 pm East Texas time: 2,816

(More commentary from Xavier, David Codrea, Kim du Toit, the Layabout Sailor, the GeekWithA.45, AlanDP, Kevin Baker, JR, Fits , 45superman , Civis Proeliator, Joe Lemire @ Cold Fury The Freeholder, Dave Markowitz, LawDog , Michael Bane, SayUncle, Shooter , Porta's Cat & Tam; more links to come as I find them)

In Defense of the "Gun Lobby"

Cruising The High Road the other day, I found this statement attributed to New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy on her introduction of the renewal of the Federal Ban On Scary-Looking Weapons (emphasis mine -- ed):

In Philadelphia, a gunman opened fire on his colleagues using an AK-47 assault rifle he legally purchased....
...The unfortunate situation in Philadelphia could have been avoided if Congress stood up to the gun lobby in 2004.

It seems we hear rantings about the eeevil "gun lobby" all the time from anti-gun politicians at pretty much every level of government. The antis rant about the "gun lobby" almost like certain anti-Semitic figures and organizations rant on about how they think the Jews supposedly run the world through various organizations like the media, the banks or what-have-you. And Lord knows it's gotten quite long in the tooth. I've thought about this now and then, and the more I think about it, the more angry I get as a gun owner.
Why? Because I AM the "gun lobby." I buy as many guns as I can, I am a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association and unequivocally support the right of all Americans to bear arms (from the smallest to the largest, from single-shot boltie to full-auto) in defense of themselves and this great nation. And the same could be said for anyone who reads the above and nods his or her head in agreement. The antis act like we're some massively funded organization that lurks mysteriously in the shadows when really, that applies a lot more to the antis than it does the so-called "gun lobby".
Who is The Evil Gun Lobby? It's (in all likelihood) you, me, and everybody else who owns, buys, and shoots guns on a regular basis and votes for those who would not abrogate our natural right of self-defense. We are not a bunch of Mafioso types who throw cash or goodies to those who would further our interests and send those who wouldn't to sleep with the fishes.
Who is the Evil Gun Lobby composed of? It's composed of all the hard-working, tax-paying, moral, upstanding, armed citizens who just want to be left the hell alone to our own devices to protect our familes and our society in good times and bad, as opposed to leaving it up to certain governmental organizations who, the courts have ruled on numerous occasions, have no obligation to protect us as individuals (which, I would argue, drastically undermines the concept of collective (societal) protection, but that's another post entirely).
I can only speak for myself, but I'm tired of being demonized by leftist asshats like Carolyn McCarthy, Teddy Kennedy and Chuck Schumer. A pox on all their houses. It's been said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and that is true, but it irks me immensely that certain politicians can get away with so vehemently demonizing us...

She Almost Got It...

Every Sunday, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell's column runs in the Beaumont Enterprise. She seems pretty reasonable and evenhanded, but she really missed the target in her most recent column...

First they asked the 17-year-old rider his name. Next they asked about his high school. Then the three teenagers jumped him on a crowded CTA Red Line train in the heart of afternoon rush hour, causing injuries serious enough for him to be taken away by an ambulance.

But apparently, no one pushed the emergency button to alert the conductor of the assault.

*snip*

the mother of the 17-year-old beating victim, is afraid her son's case will fall through the cracks.

"We thought his nose and jawbone were broken, but he doesn't have any broken bones. His face is swollen and his eye is closed shut and there is a lot of bruising. I haven't been able to send him back to school," she said.

Whether the police find her son's attackers, the incident has sparked a fire within Trussell.

"I've called Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) to make a report, and I called Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) since the school my son was coming from is in her ward," Trussell said. "And I just got off the phone talking to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's office."

I asked, "What do you expect these people to do?" <

"We should feel secure," she said. "We should feel that we are not at risk when we ride the train. There is no sort of security. The driver is the only person on the train. That is ridiculous. He doesn't see anything. He doesn't hear anything," Trussell said. "When we step on a train, there should at least be a warning: 'Enter at your own risk.' "

*snip*

...at what point do we begin to fight back?

The decent, law-abiding people in the black community outnumber the thugs, but the same thugs are allowed to victimize the community over and over.

Maybe it would help if we got off the cell phones, unplugged the iPods, took our noses out of the books and paid attention to what is going on. Police should have been at 47th Street waiting for the train to pull in.

CTA did what it could. It gave riders an emergency cal button.

Riders had better learn how to use it.

Given Mitchell's earlier admissions that the police can't be everywhere at once, and that the Chicago police are not going to put the case on the front burner, I'd argue that was not the best solution. What the riders should be doing is calling their legislators and raising hell about the fact that they're being denied the most basic right, that of self-defense. Maybe if those thugs had known they might be facing lethal force if they started beating up on innocent people, then maybe they'd give their plans a second or third thought, and as Dr. Gary Kleck's studies showed, many times the threat of lethal force is just as good as the lethal force itself. (Can you see something like that happening on one of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit trains?) And it didn't even have to be a gun that people use to fight the thugs off with...could be a pencil, a knife, anything sharp...or heavy, for that matter. Granted, situational awareness will go a long way, but as has been proven in Britain, when you deny people the means, and basically the right, of self-defense, they more or less turn into cowering sheep, and this was on display on that Chicago subway train. And until the Illinois people rise up and assert that they are indeed citizens and not subjects, until they get reacquainted with the combat mindset and defending themselves (and their fellow citizens), this sort of thing will continue to happen.

Any Port In A Storm...

From the Boston Globe :

The music-business insiders who gave the Dixie Chicks five Grammy Awards Sunday night -- including three for their song "Not Ready to Make Nice" -- aren't the same people who shunned the Texas trio four years back. But the Chicks' resurgence, coupled with other rumblings of discontent within the world of country music, shows how much the nation's mood has shifted since March 2003.

I have to wonder, just how these folks would define "resurgence." The Chicks' album sales did indeed fall off after Natalie's remark, although they did remain respectable, and their airplay on country radio pretty much ceased to exist. The latest album has gone platinum, which is nothing to turn up one's nose at, but compared to the pace at which the Chicks' last studio album, Home, flew off the shelves in the 7 months after it was released, that's pretty anemic. I would say the Globe (or the Glob, as Bruce and others have called it) is really reaching here. Only in the insulated world of the Northeastern establishment media would the opinions of a bunch of music industry executives -- whose world is arguably as insulated -- represent the opinions of the American people as a whole. No big surprise, I guess, considering this is the same newspaper that employs a columnist who compares global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers, but rather vexing nonetheless. More reaching follows:

Meanwhile, (Trace) Adkins, who describes himself as a conservative, recently told the San Bernardino Sun that Republicans deserved to lose last fall's midterm elections.

This is probably news to those Northeastern elitists too, but there are a hell of a lot of conservatives who feel the same way. I hope we don't have to find out how much more dissatisfied the Republican base is going to be if Giuliani is the candidate in 2008. God only knows how they'd spin that.

A Leopard Can't Change His Spots

You know, I really don't think this horse is gonna be dead till Rudy Giuliani's candidacy is...

Rudy Giuliani addressed a potentially troublesome issue with conservative voters, saying his policies as mayor to get handguns off the street helped reduce crime in New York.

"I used gun control as mayor," he said at a news conference Saturday during a swing through California. But "I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms."

He said what he did as mayor would have no effect on hunting.

Really now, I could give a damn about hunting...
In all seriousness, I'd love to get back into hunting. I haven't done it in ages, and I know very well that it sharpens valuable skills and teaches all sorts of valuable lessons. And Lord knows I love any kind of game prepared any kind of way. But there's not much argument in my mind that the surest sign that a politician is going to go after the people's guns, or at least look the other way when others go after them at the lower levels of government, is when said politician trots out the whole "not gonna take yer deer rifle" bit. The GOP had nigh well better wake up to the truth of the matter. No matter what Rudy says about our natural right to arms -- and "I used gun control...(but) I understand the Second Amendment" is a contradiction if ever I heard one -- he understands the Second Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms about as well as the average toddler understands nuclear physics. What I for one would love to see is one of those front-runners get up there and defend things like shall-issue CCW laws (or, better yet, Vermont & Alaska-style open carry), civilian full-auto possession, potmetal poodle-poppers (aka "Saturday Night Specials"), ARs, AKs and .50BMGs. That would, I think, be a hell of a much better sign of understanding what the Second Amendment protects, as opposed to muttering platitudes about deer hunting. Sadly, figuratively speaking, that would take balls of solid steel, and that criterion has weeded out all but a precious few when one gets to national-level politics.
Jim Kenefick over at Right Thoughts had this to say, though:

Yes, he’s flawed on gun control, but he’s also learning how guns and gun politics work on a national stage as opposed to the second most liberal state in the union.

He also said this over at Right Thinking:

Rudy is already changing his tune from the hard-line gun control stance he used to have. The NRA is hard at work teaching him why NYC gun policy doesn’t fly in the rest of the country. he’s already moderated his views - the more he’s exposed to good, honest gun owners without being inundated - and responsible for as mayor - the worst parts of gun culture the more he learns how we feel and the more he understands us.

No offense to Jim, but I think that's a crock. I honestly don't think the NRA is going to teach Rudy Giuliani a damn thing. I applaud them for at least trying, but I think it's also an indisputable fact that Giuliani believes in more gun control -- prohibition, even -- just as ardently as the Bradys, the Violence Policy Center, IANSA and all the rest of the national and international gun prohibitionists. Evidence of this lies in his feeble attempt to cover his arse with the hunting remark, and his record as mayor, even going so far as to file one of those frivolous suits against firearm manufacturers in 2000 (press release here, video here).
And there's another reason I think the NRA is wasting its time. The lessons of gun control as a political failure have already been taught, at least twice -- in the 1994 midterms, and in the 2000 presidential election, when Southern Democrat Al Gore failed to carry a single Southern state due in part to his radically anti-gun views. One would think people like him and Bill Clinton (who, of course, started out as governor of another Southern state) would have known or figured out the gun control bird wouldn't fly outside the coasts and the major metro areas, yet still they pushed ahead with their nefarious agendas. (And Gore did so after the Dems took their '94 thumping!) I shudder to think of what Clinton could have gotten passed in the way of gun control if he'd had a Democratic Congress for any more of his term.
If Rudy had not believed in gun control, he wouldn't have pursued it as he did while he was mayor of New York City. He does, though, and I for one don't have any doubt that he'd advocate it just as ferociously as he did in the Big Apple. This latest story is nothing but a display of Giuliani just being a pandering politician. May enough figure that out before it's too late.

More Double-talk from the Antis

Via Firehand and David Hardy comes this excellent rebuttal from Dr. Stephen Halbrook to what has to be the most asinine tactic I've seen yet from academia:

A revisionist view now has been boldly asserted that Hitler was
friendly to perhaps the most dangerous freedom in the Bill of
Rights. The Fordham Law Review recently published a provocative
Second Amendment Symposium issue which included three
articles suggesting that Nazi Germany had liberal policies toward
firearm owners and that the National Rifle Association (NRA)
promotes a myth of Nazi repression of firearms owners as part of
a cultural war.

One of the aforementioned articles' authors, a Bernard E. Harcourt, apparently tried to say that the Nazi regime was more pro-gun than the Weimar Republic, "as evidenced by the overall relaxation of the laws regulating the acquisition, transfer and carrying of firearms
reflected in the 1938 Nazi gun laws." As Dr. Halbrook points out, the Nazis were "pro-gun" for everyone they agreed with and everyone who was helping to carry out their evil agenda, but of course they were anti-gun for "Jews, political opponents, and any and every person who might not march lock step with the National Socialist program." (Not to cause the invocation of Godwin's Law here, but it would seem to me upon reading all this, that one could use the same lines of reasoning to say that people like Dianne Feinstein, Richard Daley and Rosie O'Donnell were pro-gun as well. Sure they are, if you define pro-gun as favoring armed self-defense for yourself but leaving everyone else up the creek.) Some choice passages:

Recognition of a right such as this anywhere in the world in any historical epoch must acknowledge that "the people" must mean the peaceable populace at large without regard to race, religion, or creed. However, Professor Harcourt embraces American neo-Nazi William L. Pierce, who asserts, "German firearms legislation under Hitler, far from banning private ownership, actually facilitated the keeping and bearing of arms by German citizens . . . ." Harcourt asks, “How is it, you may ask, that I . . . would end up agreeing with a white supremacist leader of the National Alliance and National Vanguard?" Harcourt further concluded that "the Nazis were relatively more pro-gun than the predecessor Weimar Republic . . . ." If the Second Amendment’s "right of the people to keep and bear Arms" is the postulate, the above reference to the "German citizen," or more accurately under the Third Reich, the incredibly shrinking "German citizen," has little bearing on the meaning of "the people" at large.
...
A regime that would disarm and murder an entire segment of the population hardly could be said to support, if the language of the Second Amendment can be
applied, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms." Indeed,
that is the very kind of regime this right is meant to provide the
means to resist.
...
Professor Harcourt’s suggestion that the Nazis supported
Second Amendment-type values assumes as insignificant that the
Nazis disarmed, intimidated, threw into concentration camps, or
exterminated all of "the people" they identified as inferior by
reason of race or religion, or as otherwise untrustworthy by
reason of politics or any other reason whatsoever. Other than
that, Professor Harcourt surmises, Hitler was a disciple of a
liberal arms policy.

As they say, read the whole thing.