Category: Gun Rights

The Need for 30 Round Magazines

For those anti-gunners who keep asking, “Why do you need 30 round magazines” Alan over at SnarkyBytes has your answer:

I have a machine gun that fires 1400 rounds a minute. It can empty a 30 round magazine in less than two seconds. It would empty a ten round magazine in less than half a second.

Also rights have nothing to do with needs. I have a right to keep and bear arms, it shall not be infringed, and there is nowhere in the Constitution that declares any authorization for any restriction to that right. If you can’t get that simple concept through your head then I fear for you, I fear you will forget something really important like how to breathe.

Right to Carry Law Moving in Wyoming

It seems Wyoming is destined to be the next state that “gives” its citizens the right to carry a concealed firearm. The Wyoming Senate committee gave their recommendation on approval at the right to carry bill. It’s nice to see logic can find hold in some places:

Matthew J. Huntington, a Cheyenne-based “freedom lobbyist,” told the committee that an armed citizen was at the scene in Tucson and ready to shoot to stop the violence. The gunman responsible for the shooting was tackled before the armed citizen could act.

“If that tackling didn’t happen, and the shooter loaded that second magazine and continued, that gentleman who was legally carrying would have been able to stop the threat at that point in time,” Huntington said. “The overall point is that when you make it easier for legally armed citizens to carry guns, you make it harder for bad guys to commit violent crime.”

Of course one of “the only ones” doesn’t like the idea and spouts hypothetical situations that haven’t been a problem in Vermont, Alaska, or Arizona so far:

Casper Police Chief Tom Pagel told the committee that any change to the state’s existing concealed carry system demands careful consideration.

Pagel said more than 21,000 people in Wyoming already have state concealed-carry permits. He said only 1 or 2 percent of applications result in denials.

“Where I see the potential risk to this is citizen to citizen,” Pagel said. “Something that might be a fight will end up with gunplay.”

Being the three states with right to carry laws in place don’t have any issue I think we can all just drop this “blood in the streets” argument.

California AB962 Struck Down

For the first time in a long time some good news as emerged from California. The law passed last year that would have made it illegal to mail order ammunition in the state of California has been struck down in the Fresno Superior Court:

The law, passed last year as AB 962, would have banned mail order ammunition sales and required all purchases of so called “handgun ammunition” to be registered. In an unwritten ruling from the bench, Judge Jeffrey Hamilton found the law unconstitutionally vague on its face and issued an injunction against its enforcement. For now, at least, mail order ammunition sales to California residents can continue, and ammunition sales need not be registered under the law.

The lawsuit—funded by the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle and Pistol (CRPA) Foundation as part of a joint Legal Action Project—was prompted in part by the many objections and questions raised by confused police, ammunition purchasers, and sellers about what ammunition is covered by the new law. Plaintiffs in the case include Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker, the CRPA Foundation, Herb Bauer Sporting Goods, ammunition shipper Able’s Ammo, collectible ammunition shipper RTG Sporting Collectibles, and individual Steven Stonecipher. Mendocino Sheriff Tom Allman also supported the lawsuit.

Being California is about as tyrannical of a state as you can get you can bet money this will be appealed. Still score yet another one for the good guys.

Wisconsin Carry

I’ve found some good news via Says Uncle for those of you living in the state east from mine. It seems Illinois will be the last state in the union that disallows any form of carry a concealed handgun as Wisconsin is planning on passing carry legislation:

Wisconsin, one of two states in the nation that prohibits citizens from carrying a concealed weapon, is expected to reverse this law during the upcoming state legislative session, according to a local newspaper.

Only Illinois and Wisconsin forbid carrying concealed weapons. A Republican was elected governor and Republicans won majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature in November, bringing many more supporters of gun rights to the state government.

“You’re going to see a concealed carry bill pass the Legislature, I have no doubt,” Chris Danou, a Democratic legislator from Trempealeau, Wisconsin, told the LaCrosse Tribune newspaper. “The question is what kind of bill it’s going to be.”

Personally I can’t wait. I’m also hoping for reciprocity with Minnesota since Wisconsin is a state I visit with some semblance of frequency and really hate the fact I can’t carry there. It looks like Illinois will be the last holdout for allowing citizens a means of legal self defense.

Ron Paul on Gun Control and Violence

It’s no secret around here that I really hate politicians. I do have an exception to that rule and that exception is Ron Paul because he actually makes sense. He posted a very good writeup on his site about the recent surge in demand for more gun control. I think this sums things up very nicely:

Also troubling are the renewed calls for stricter gun control laws, and for government to “do something” to somehow prevent similar incidents in the future. This always seems to be the knee jerk reaction to any crime committed with a gun. Nonsensical proposals to outlaw guns around federal officials and install bulletproof barriers in the congressional gallery only reinforce the growing perception that politicians view their own lives as far more important than the lives of ordinary citizens. Politicians and a complicit media have conditioned many citizens to view government as our protector, leading to more demands for government action whenever tragedies occur. But this impulse is at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and individualism, and it also leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty.

Remember our government officials are like you and me only better.

McCarthy Going for Full Gun Ban

I’m a little late with this news but Sebastian over at Snowflakes in Hell has posted information regarding McCarthy’s draft bill to ban ammunition feeding devices above an arbitrary size.

The transfer, importation, and manufacture of any ammunition feeding device (not just magazines it seems) would become illegal under this bill. I don’t know how they could enforce who I transfer magazines to as they usually don’t even have serial numbers to identify them and thus can’t really be tracked.

Likewise many firearms would also become illegal to transfer, import, or manufacture under this law. What firearms you ask? Basically any firearm that has a fixed magazine that can store more than 10 cartridges. Spare parts for standard capacity magazines also become verboten under the law.

What is funny though is police, active or retired, are exempt from this because they obviously need to kill as many people as possible (in McCarthy’s words describing standard capacity magazines). This makes sense because when you’re the government’s enforcement body you get special privileges over the peasantry.

Advocacy for NYPD to Boycott Glocks

We all know the true culprit in the Arizona shooting was the Glock pistol with high capacity “clips.” It certainly wasn’t the person wielding the gun and shooting people. That’s why idiots in support of gun control have been attacking Glock so heavily. It seems a new layer of stupidity has arisen with with people advocating the New York Police Department (NYPD) boycott Glock pistols because they sell 30-round magazines to peasants:

“If Glock will not stop selling these magazines to consumers, then the New York City Police Department should start buying the firearms they need from a different company,” Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said.

“The New York Post editorial board has rightly argued that the Glock-manufactured 30-round magazines, like the one used by clearly disturbed Jared Loughner, present an unacceptable risk to human life, and at the same time no justifiable civilian purpose.”

So in a time of budget crisis the NYPD should dump all of their pistols and buy all new guns, parts, retrain officers, and retrain armorers just because Glock does a perfectly legitimate and legal activity of selling magazines of an arbitrary size to peasants (saying civilians isn’t correct as the police are civilians as well).

What I find really stupid is the fact people are blaming the magazine. There are two conflicted reports going around on how the shooting was stopped. Some people are claiming he was tackled when he was in the middle of a reload while others are saying he successfully reloaded but the gun jammed when chambering a new round. Likewise tackling somebody during a reload requires you to already be in very close proximity since reloading a gun is a fast operation. If somebody is more than a few feet away it’s unlikely that they’d be able to close the distance before a shooter was able to get a new magazine into their gun.

If we’re going to blame tools we need to look at other things as well. Has anybody found out what kind of car the Arizona shooter drove? We should probably attack that as well since without it he couldn’t have driven there (if he used public transportation we need to ban that instead). We did the shooter buy his groceries? If he wouldn’t have been able to eat he wouldn’t have been alive and thus couldn’t have performed the shooting, we really should go after his preferred grocery story.

Rachel Maddow Flat Out Lying

I’ve always known Rachel Maddow was a complete fucking moron but I never realized just how stupid she really was until I watched her following clip (you’ll have to copy and paste since I won’t be a referral to this idiot’s site):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/41030180#41030326

It’s Rachel Maddow on guns and it’s even more idiotic than I imagined. First she goes on a little rant about the all plastic gun that Glock was able to make. Yes you heard me right, an all plastic gun that Glock made. She claims Congress then passed a bill banning entirely plastic guns because of this magical undetectable-at-airports gun. What she is referencing (but never tells you) is the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988. Basically they law states any gun that can not be detected by a walk through metal detector is banned from being manufactured or imported into the country. The law also provided an exemption for any firearm that was already in the United States.

If the law was passed and Glock never actually made an entirely plastic gun then what was Congress doing passing any such law? Probably the same thing Wisconsin was doing when they banned electromagnetic weapons for hunting. In other words they were banning something that doesn’t exist. So where did Rachel get her firearm knowledge? Probably from Die Hard 2.

She then moves on to bitch about “cop killer bullets” (and Dick Cheney). There is no such thing as “cop killer bullets.” When people refer to such mystical things they are talking about armor piercing ammunition which is defined very specifically in the United States via the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1985. In the United States armor piercing bullets is defined as handgun bullets (rifle and shotgun ammunition is specifically exempt) constructed from specified material. It also exempts any ammunition that the Secretary of Treasury exempts for hunting purposes.

Next she asks if her audience would like an anti-aircraft weapon. HELL YEAH I would. You know how awesome it would be to own a World War II anti-aircraft cannon? Pretty awesome that’s for sure. Anyways she states that there are federal regulations against having anti-aircraft weapon in airport observation areas. This is another stupid law because I’ve been in airport observation areas and honestly there is no way to wheel and anti-aircraft cannon in there. Have you seen the size of those things? They’re not exactly small rifles.

Funny enough she’s still not done bitch about guns. She goes on to talk about how everybody is stating passing gun control in this country is impossible (which, sadly, it isn’t) but she things differently. The reason passing gun control in this country is difficult is two fold. First we have a right to keep and bear arms codified in the second amendment. Second we’ve seen gun control laws never actual prevent or lower violent crime rates they only make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. If something has been demonstrated not to work time and time again why should anybody take it seriously?

She then follows by making a classic anti-gunner mistake, stating the “assault weapon” ban made purchasing standard capacity magazines illegal. That’s not even close to the case. The “assault weapon” ban made it illegal to manufacture new magazines with a capacity above 10 rounds unless they were meant for military or law enforcement personnel. The Arizona shooter could still have legally purchased a previously manufactured 30 round magazine even with the ban in place. Likewise she keeps calling them clips because she’s a moron who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Then the real bullshit comes up, she claims information on gun control laws are “un-Googleable.” She also tells her audience that they shouldn’t even try to Google gun control laws but instead research them at a library. Yeah, sure. Guess what? I always find my information relating to gun laws using Google, it’s pretty easy. There isn’t some super gun lobby conspiracy to filter the Internet of all things gun law related.

If her staff can’t Google information related to gun laws she needs to fire them and hire new people. Either way that was the absolute worst piece I’ve seen done since the Arizona shooting and honestly don’t know how it could be topped.

Targeting Glock

The blame game is go and Glock is the target. Slate did a write up of Glock as a company and basically tries to make underhanded jibes that demonstrate how “evil” Glock is. They make several negative statements but never really mention anything good. In addition to that they also omit quite a bit of information that would make the article less ominous:

Second, and more important, Glocks held more ammunition than the standard-issue guns usually did at the time. With gang-driven gun violence rising, police departments decided to give the guns with the extra rounds a try. They caught on and then gained popularity in the consumer markets. (They also developed a particular cache among criminals, then broader cultural recognition, including numerous citations in rap lyrics.) By 1996, Sweeney writes, Glock had sold more than 1 million guns in America.

Yes police wanted more ammunition. What this story doesn’t tell you is the police departments weren’t upgrading from some 10 shot pistol but from six shot revolvers. Not only did Glock’s pistols hold more than six shots they were much faster to reload. But the biggest hurdle for Glock’s adoption was reliability, police were still using revolvers because they didn’t have much trouble in the way of jamming up. Glock was chosen not only because of additional ammunition capacity but also because of the reliability of their pistols.

Slate then continues to bring up other accusations made against Glock which have no bearing on the shooting in Arizona whatsoever. Of course they also have to point out how well armed we Americans are:

Several other states showed a significant sales bump. And national sales increased about 5 percent. All in all, Americans—not military or police, mind you, but private citizens—own more than 270 million firearms, about 85 guns per 100 people. No other country has such high rates of gun ownership, or absolute numbers of guns in the general population.

The insinuation is America has a high rate of gun related crimes because of how high our gun ownership is. Of course anybody who has looked into the matter knows this is bullshit as countries such as Switzerland and Finland have high rates of gun ownership and pretty low rates of violent crimes. Gun ownership rates have no correlation to levels of violent crimes in a country no matter how much anti-gunners want to believe it.

They also try to make Glock sound like a bad company because they make money:

So how profitable are companies like Glock? Again, we don’t know, because it keeps such information private. But the BusinessWeek story says Glock estimated its “profit margin per pistol” at 68 percent. And consider a major Glock competitor: Massachusetts-based Smith & Wesson, established back in the 1850s. The company’s last annual report cites a gross margin of 32 percent.

Isn’t making money the whole point of running a company? That’s like accusing a vehicle of somehow being bad because it gets you from point A to point B. You really can’t make something sound evil/bad/wrong when it’s doing the exact thing it’s supposed to. Of course to many out there making a profit is a bad thing that only evil capitalists would dare imagine doing (ironically many of the people making such accusations are rich from profits from capitalism).