Chris Kyle

Recently I came across a blog post regarding Chris Kyle and his mythology.  It's quite the convincing piece.  My feeling was that Jesse Ventura was in the right, simply based on the way that part of Kyle's book was written: it smacked of self-aggrandizing.

In any case, he still wasn't the deadliest sniper in the world: that honor still belongs to Simo Häyhä, who had 505 kills in the Russo-Finnish Winter War, and with a bolt-action rifle and no optics!  Sounds like he didn't have a spotter, either.

MLK & Guns

I'd posted a link on FB about Obama's recent EO banning importation of AKs.  As always, E.W. argued that it doesn't affect the average American, and I made the argument that gun rights are civil rights, and not caring just because it doesn't affect you is like a white person in the '60s saying they don't care about black voting rights, etc.

One of E.W.'s friends posted:

"I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house. When I decided that I couldn't keep a gun, I came face-to-face with the question of death and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors." --Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (From his writings, compiled by Clayborne Carson) [source]

To which I replied:

T.F.: MLK did undergo something of a transformation in the late '50s to the early '60s, completely adopting the notion of non-violent protest. This was part of the power of his message; if he were all about an eye-for-an-eye, then it'd be too easy for his antagonists to provoke a confrontation to solidify support against him. I think he was trying to avoid the Middle East syndrome, where they've been trading blows for centuries. And indeed, the Black Panthers' blatant display of weapons freaked out the timid whites and arguably precipitated California's draconian gun laws and contributed to the 1968 Gun Control Act.

Dr. King also, in response to activists trying to get him to join sit-ins in the early '60s, said, "I think I should choose the time and place of my Golgatha"--with the implication seemingly that he realized that he was at some point going to be killed for his work. That he did it anyway was heroic. (Further, it's not clear that those around Dr. King didn't keep their weapons for his defense--I couldn't find good sources on that after his conversion to non-violence.)

However, this is non-violence to affect political change, and it seems like Dr. King had an idea where it was going to lead. In his 1967 book, he wrote:

"Finally, I contended that the debate over the question of self-defense was unnecessary since few people suggested that Negroes should not defend themselves as individuals when attacked. The question was not whether one should use his gun when his home was attacked, but whether it was tactically wise to use a gun while participating in an organized demonstration." (Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?)

The point he was making, as I interpret it, is that he wasn't against self-defense or guns; rather, he advised that when marching for political purposes, the potential for a protest to devolve when arms are present overshadows the potential advantages. Of course, the risk is that one will be defenseless, and the personal choice one must make--which Dr. King made--was whether to put the cause or one's self-preservation first. I believe that the quote that you put forth doesn't contradict that interpretation.

In those same papers, Dr. King said he only owned one gun in '56; however, some of his advisers noted that there were firearms all over the house. This would imply that perhaps Dr. King distanced himself from the image of firearms ownership, but his crew didn't necessarily.

Other related pieces:
When MLK gave up his guns [Salon]
Civil Rights Leader and Gun-Owner MLK [Guns.com]
The Secret History of Guns [The Atlantic]

The Big Government Religion

Response to a FB post, which I shan't link to here....

This might've been addressed in the prior 462 comments, but my understanding is that LDS hasn't allowed polygamy for a long time; it's just the "fundies" (fundamentalists) who won't drop it.

Religion prescribes a moral code, and people can't seem to stop applying it to others. Kind of like how many Christians still judge others even though that's supposedly reserved for the man upstairs. ("Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and all that.) This is also why libertarians are so few, because not many people can keep their opinions in their respective pockets; and why we have Big Government: to force the majority's judgments on everyone else. Personally, I believe that Big Government is worse for the human condition than even religion, although I'm not sure I'd get many who agree with me on that. We're conditioned now to condemn old-time religion and worship the capricious god of majority rule.

Smash!! I'm an agnostic of sorts, myself, but sometimes atheists and hardcore anti-religion people really piss me off.

So Much Ignorance in One Article

One of my unfortunately liberal friends posted a link to an article making stupid anti-gun suggestions.  A retort:

It's hard to fit so much ignorance into one article! From the top:

- While I haven't fact-checked the statistic on deaths, these numbers typically include self-defense shootings and cops shooting bad guys, which I'd argue are good things. It'd also include suicides, which isn't good, but someone who really wants to kill himself will use the most efficient and available tool for the job.

- No license is needed for driving a motor vehicle on private property. (Permits are currently required to carry weapons in public.)

- My Minnesota license is good for concealed (and open) carry of pistols. It also allows for open carry of long guns. I'd get a license to carry a sawed-off shotgun if they made one (although it'd have to be an AOW since SBSes are illegal in MN).

- No title is needed for a transaction between private parties for use on private property. States use titling as a chance to rape the seller for sales tax on used property, which is unethical.

- Most states don't have smog testing. Besides, a malfunctioning pistol is primarily dangerous to the shooter (it could blow up in his face).

- The author confuses a magazine with ammunition to put in the magazine--7.62x39mm ammunition used to be found for under $0.20/rd (before the gun ban insanity), so a full 40-rd magazine would be $8. And taxing ammo is a stupid idea. Well, gas taxes go to roads, so ammo taxes could go to building more shooting ranges, right?

- Flammable materials most definitely can be shipped. Gasoline isn't economical relative to pumping stations due to the weight and hazmat charge, but you can order propane online and have the truck come to your house.

- All handguns are required by law to be shipped with a lock. Some newer models have integral locks. However, there's no law that says you have to lock a car door.

- A gun that shoots is functioning properly. A car that kills people in an accident is not functioning properly. The negligent discharges last Saturday were at gun shows, not at the rallies, where tens of thousands of people across the country carried loaded firearms without incident, me being one of them.

Wow, the author of that article is dumb. How about requiring licenses for publishing stuff, because otherwise you could spread ignorance too easily, which is damaging to readers' minds. Oh wait, that'd be prohibited by the 1st Amendment. Oh wait, all of the author's idiotic suggestions are prohibited by the 2nd Amendment.

It's exasperating having to deal with this crap. Why can't more people be logical?

Random Comment

GCA68 was partly racially motivated: the Black Panthers were unabashedly armed. The cover for passing that law was the assassinations of JFK and MLK, and people supported it based on emotion alone.

Never mind that anyone with basic handyman skills could build a black-powder zip gun and knock off any politician he can get within 10 yds of. Knocking off one person with a homemade gun is easy; resisting Brownshirts is another matter. And like most laws, the GCA only applies to people who follow the law, unless you enforce it with the threat of deadly force.

Political Commentary

My response to a WSJ article on FB:

Anyone voting for Obama is either naive (if voting for the first time) or stupid (if voting for him again): look at the debt numbers, the unemployment numbers, the death toll in Afghanistan, the ongoing "drug war" despite Obama's admitted use in his youth (he was the Joint Interceptor, after all), his two-faced, volatile rhetoric despite his calls for bipartisanship, etc. The smartest thing Obama's done was to keep Biden around as insurance!

Even so, anyone voting for Romney is either naive (if they think this leopard has changed his spots) or deluded (thinking that voting against Obama instead of for someone is the right way to go). Paul Ryan was tapped to try to shore up "gun votes", but he's got other baggage, like his support for bailouts.

And anyone voting for Gary Johnson knows the score and refuses to play the game--but they'll still lose to the banks' influence and crony capitalism. Even so, at least pulling the lever for someone who doesn't suck affords one a clear conscience when things continue to go to hell in a handbasket in 2013.

Proof

After the shooting incident in NYC where there was more collateral damage from the police than there was from the bad guy, the gunblogs were atwitter with ridicule, as is proper.  After all, the media always claims that police are "highly trained" and so are the "only ones" who should be able to carry guns.  Never mind that cops qualify once or twice a year, whereas people who like to shoot hit the range much more often and are more likely to have taken better training.

Anyhow, Say Uncle linked to another gunblog that has a course of fire based on the LAPD qualification course, except he made it harder.  That'd be a fun test for USPSA shooters--to see if they can shoot well enough to be a major metropolitan police officer! *wink*

Amazon

Made a comment on SayUncle's blog regarding Amazon Prime...(linked so that I remember that I did).

Spring Link Dump!!

Some of these have been in my reader for a while.

Email from the Koch Institute regarding the Kochs' dispute with Cato: At first I was highly disappointed at the notice of the "takeover bid", but to be honest, I wasn't even aware of the history that Cato was originally the Charles Koch Foundation.  Now I'm not sure what to think.  It seems to be a trend that some of these advocacy organizations turn out to be driven primarily by the egos of their executives, e.g. Wayne LaPierre at the NRA.

So it turns out that extreme liberals don't really understand their opponents positions on the issues.  Surprise, surprise.  I've found empirically that they tend to not spend the time to educate themselves, preferring to wallow in their own poorly-formed, ill-considered ideology.  The study referred to is interesting.

From WSJ:

• Gardening tips for beginners.  I have dirt and seeds.  Now what?
• The end of the sophisticated playboy era.  The nouveau rich don't know how to live.
• How to tell when it's just another fight, and when it's over.  One can always make it work—it just depends on how much one is willing to sacrifice.  If both people are willing to sacrifice, that's a relationship that will survive.

Regarding the Trayvon Martin case:

• Thomas Sowell's Race and Rhetoric and some more commentary on "race hustlers".  Headline from the early '90s: "White-Black Disparity in Income Narrowed in 80’s, Census Shows"—what happened since the Reagan Era?
• John Lott's opinion on the relevance of Stand Your Ground to the case, and follow-up piece on Fox.

An opinion on the use of the term "gun culture": I disagree, because the extreme left has made this a culture war.  Nonetheless, it's an interesting point.

PTR Commentary

My remarks on a link to an article posted by SayUncle:

I like mine: from sandbags I was getting 3" at 200yds (1.5 MOA) with old Australian surplus using a Hensoldt 4x scope (with temps in the 30s, so I was probably getting a cold-bore shot every string...). The recoil is heavier than an AR-15, but you get used to it. Especially if you put the wide handguard and Magpul PRS stock on there, which makes it really heavy!

Downsides to the HK91-style rifle are two: it beats the hell out of brass, and it doesn't have a last round hold open. The former is only an issue if you reload (which is why I only feed mine surplus). The latter is a serious demerit, IMO, as I'm not going to stick tracers in for my last couple rounds. Still, as Boston T. Party opines in his "Gun Bible", it'll pretty much always work, which is what you want in an SHTF rifle.

CDNN has the best price on the gun. RTG has good prices on surplus accessories; buy new at HKParts if you're rich ;-)

I still despise CTD, though....

Self-Defense

An old friend (who happens to have become a Democrat) messaged me the following link on Facebook: What Everyone Should Know About Trayvon Martin (1995-2012)

From those details, it doesn't sound like the shooting was justified.  Permit-to-carry holders, in MN anyway, are required to retreat (unless in one's home).  Chasing down a suspect isn't acceptable, also because it doesn't demonstrate a reluctance to participate in a confrontation.  Neither is shooting someone who doesn't exhibit immediate intent to inflict great bodily harm or death.

It's hard to tell from the news who the victim is.  The novel Bonfire of the Vanities comes to mind.  (Where the outraged community and leaders twist the facts to make one of the perps out to be a victim.)

I also came across a forum thread on Minnesota Carry where a permit-holder shot a guy who'd robbed another woman, and according to some accounts was pistol-whipping her, after he was fired upon.  Again, it's hard to tell from the news, but it sounds like the bad guy was really a baddie, as he was a felon who had been freed on a catch-and-release program.  (A felon possessing a firearm is also illegal.)  The guy's mother and sister claimed injustice, but they too have criminal records: the mother for drug possession and the sister for receiving stolen property.

The really fucked up thing is that the judge, Toddrick Barnette, who released the dead perp, is the same asshole who stuck the late MN gun-rights icon Joel Rosenberg with $100k bail after Joel was arrested on a technicality (apparently there was an unused courtroom in the building that allowed them to claim he carried in a prohibited place).  Hmm.  I'm guessing the judge is a Democrat.

Link Dump

Some links that have been sitting in my tabs since last November....

• An opinion piece regarding the decision to bomb Japan in WWII.
• Detail on presidential candidate spending.
• How to browse securely on public WiFi.
• An opinion piece on why Ron Paul can't win; I don't agree, but the perceptions about his foreign policy seem to be a real issue with people who would otherwise support him.
• Harvey Golub's response to Obama's and Buffet's tax the "rich" stupidity.
• The "Jews in the Attic" Test for public policy.  (This one is actually very important, even though it sounds silly or perhaps even racist.  It's not either of those.)
• Supposed Libertarian Bob Barr is a dickhead, I mean, is anti-gun.
• The Secret Panel that can put Americans on a kill list.
• Democrats introduce a bill to seal up Obama's presidential records?!  No shame at all.
• Are we losing the grassroots vote to anti-gunners?
• "Learned Hand" is a screwed up name for anyone, must less a judge.  He should've had a son and named him "Hired".  He was mentioned in an intro to law book I was reading.  Sounds like he has some innovative ideas, but from his Wikipedia bio, he sounds like a statist.

My commentary on Robb Allen's blog post on top 5 guns to own if price were no object:

1. Anzio Ironworks mag-fed 20mm rifle with suppressor: the coolest two-stamp gun around...the only way it could be cooler is if it were semi-auto!
2. Solothurn S-18/1000 20mm rifle: classic
3. Browning M2: well, make it four of 'em in an anti-aircraft mount
4. MP5SD: the 2nd coolest two-stamp gun; well, if you had a Fleming auto sear then you could just get a clone HK91 and a clone MP5SD and swap the sear between the two...
5. McBros 95 chambered in .950 JDJ: just because it's a monster and would break you in half if you tried to shoot it from the shoulder

The AA12 is a close 6th place, but you really need the little mini grenades to push that into the top 5.

By the way, Robb, I'd favor a Ferret-50 or ALS over a Tactilite, because you should have a firing pin safety to prevent OOBD. (Tactilite doesn't have a cam, only a spring. Supposedly ALS fixed their bolt after the reported OOBD.) A Barret M82A1 (NOT the A2--I don't care if the A1's 5 ft long, having a .50 going off on your cheek is not cool) or AR-50 would be even better.

FFLs in Rochester

By chance, I found a list of FFLs in Minnesota, by way of Google linking to the ATF website.  Actually, the search result was for October 2011, but by substituting January 2012 I got the latest list.

See, this is a big part of why I don't have a Type 01 FFL yet.  If my licensed premises were my home address, then it'd be listed for any random miscreant to find.  While ostensibly an FFL would be well-armed, that still means a higher likelihood of being accosted when least expecting it.  Plus, the ATF has free reign to search licensed premises, which, if one's house, frees them from a need for a search warrant.  Not like the government pays attention to those anymore, anyway....

Guerena

More on the Guerena raid (previous link):

Here's the report from the county attorney describing the incident and saying that it was justified.  Dirty sons of bitches.  Hey, their names are all in the report.  Hmm....

SWAT Team Mania: The War Against the American Citizen

Bad Shit

This is some bad shit.  Apparently a guy needs body armor when going after thugs breaking into his house. From the commentary:

Line up those psychopath SWAT bastards and give them "something".

If someone's at my door and claims to be the cops, they'd best give me time to call 911 to confirm. Otherwise they're going to get shot when they break down my door, because I don't know if they're the police or just some ballsy scumbags yelling "police!" And of course, the no-knock variety of warrant is just an excuse for the police to murder someone: if the house belongs to a gun owner, damn right he's going to shoot at whoever kicked down his door.

The homeowner who was murdered probably realized when they kicked in the door that they were SWAT and didn't shoot, but he was pointing a gun at him so they lit him up.

Why don't cops with a search warrant just knock on the door like a civilized person would? I mean, seriously, WTF! Jackbooted thugs, indeed!

Damn, I'd better go buy me some body armor.

Update 1: Tamara K.'s take on this:

The only people skulking in my bushes and forcing my locks in the middle of the night should be soon-to-be-shot bad guys, not cops with Clouseau-like map-reading skills; I shouldn't need a scorecard to tell the masked players apart.

Then there's one anonymous comment from VftP:

It's after 5pm, you're face is blacked out, you're armed, you're kicking in my door; you're dead. If you have a badge and you enter that way...you're still dead. We'll sort all that badge shit out at the morgue.

Did Col. Cooper say this?—'cause it's awesome: "It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view."

Update 2: There's helmet-cam video from the outside, with interesting analysis from an ex-military, ex-police blogger.

This article is from over a month ago, but here it's languished in my reader. The article itself was crappy, since it's from Time magazine's left-biased crew, but there was one comment that I liked, reposted below for the two salient links.

Yih-Chau Chang
Reading through this Time Magazine article, it appears that Alex Altman has heavily quoted many noted gun control advocates but left the gun rights side of this debate largely underrepresented. Perhaps presenting a more balanced approach to the issue of gun rights/gun control would serve Time magazine's readership more effectively.

If additional gun control laws could somehow manage to curb the violent crime rate in society, then we would have seen dramatic reductions in violent crime in Washington DC, Chicago, or England, just to name off a few real-life examples. However, instead of the reductions in violent crime that were expected, the violent crime rates in all of these areas have increased dramatically after their handgun bans were put in place. It wasn't until the US Supreme Court struck down the unconstitutional handgun ban laws in DC and Chicago that the violent crime rates have started to come back down. The results were so dramatic in Washington DC that the violent crime rate dropped 36% in just two years after the US Supreme Court's Heller decision in 2008.

I am certain that everyone has the same interest in preserving public safety during these very difficult economic times. Let's take a proven method of reducing violent crime--common, law-abiding citizens being armed in a public setting, and allow this practice to help keep criminals at bay. For a look at the phenomenon of an armed general populace and its effect on violent crime from the academics, take a look at this video.

http://www.responsiblecitizensofcalifornia.org/video/john-lott-more-guns-less-crime-2

For independent confirmation of Dr. John R. Lott, Jr.'s findings, one has to look no further than the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

The Mauser-Kates Study, "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence", was academically peer reviewed and then published on Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694).

http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7212&context=expresso

Hopefully, this information sheds some light on the facts regarding the emotionally charged topic of gun control during a time of national tragedy and helps to foster a calm and level-headed discussion moving forward.

The last link is pretty good.

Hughes Amendment

David Codrea has a GRE article on the Hughes Amendment to the FOPA of 1986.  In it, he links to a YouTube video of the Congressional session where the vote was taken.  A transcript is available, but it's unknown if it's official.

My commentary on the War on Guns blog post:

My reading of Heller's reply: He says that many have discussed the possibility of repealing the Hughes amendment, and that he will vote to protect the Second Amendment, which implies that he would support legislation to strike down the machinegun ban. However, Heller doesn't say he will push such a bill himself. It's interesting that he mentions the amendment was passed under questionable circumstances, however.

With regard to the YouTube video on the vote, my interpretation is that the 6:25 recorded vote is on "the motion for the committee to rise", which I believe is to close discussion on amendments. This fails, and Hughes asks for five minutes to explain the bill. Then, despite the motion failing, Rangel calls for a vote on the Hughes amendment at 8:16. Only a voice vote is recorded. In the background you can hear someone telling Hughes, "let it go, let it go, let it go, you got it!" Obviously not even Hughes realized what the hell was going on. At 8:43 someone asks for the ayes and nays, i.e. for a recorded vote, and Rangel just smiles at him and proceeds. Subsequently, there's a vote on the Volkmer substitute as amended: the voice vote fails at 9:10, but the recorded vote passes at 9:45.

A transcript of the session (unknown if it's considered official) can be found here:
http://www.iwilldefendtheconstitution.com/Congressional_Transcript.pdf
Based on the transcript, some footage was omitted, such as the diatribe by Weiss after the recorded vote on the motion to rise but before the vote on the Hughes amendment.

::G

It's crazy that it took 25 years for the video footage to come to light.

Low-tech Magazine

I posted this to my other blog (or should I say blag), but via the Woodpile Report I came across Low-tech Magazine and an article on historic electric cars.

My response to a Facebook comment on my post:

My beef isn't with car companies per se. It's with our mentality in general that says "oh this is new and glorious" when it's really older than grandma. And technology evolves quickly in some ways and unexpectedly slowly in others, usually determined by our focus as a society.

The rest of my response degenerated into a rant against unions, but I suppose I can't help from veering off when all the subjects are interrelated.

Much Ado

I'd commented on a post by David Codrea regarding the ATF open-bolt decision and the recent semi-furor that one of the "Threepers" is trying to stir up.  To be honest, I still don't get what the big deal is all of a sudden, as we've lived with this ruling for like 20 years.  Well, other than as Mr. Codrea states, the discussion of "shall not be infringed" being chucked out the window.  But I felt special that Mr. Codrea responded to my scrawl!

Hi, I also commented on Mr. Vanderboegh's blog post in a similar vein to note that it seems that the critical distinction is that the disconnector and "trip" must be modified. From the ATF ruling that you quote:

"The disconnector and trip are designed in the SM10 and SM11A1 pistols and in the SAC carbine (firearms) in such a way that a simple modification to them, such as cutting, filing, or grinding, allows the firearms to operate automatically. Thus, this simple modification to the disconnector or trip together with the configuration of the above design features (blowback operation, firing from the open bolt position, and fixed firing pin) in the SM10 and SM11A1pistols and in the SAC carbine, permits the firearms to shoot automatically, more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The above combination of design features as employed in the SM10 and SM11A1 pistols and the SAC carbine are normally not found in the typical sporting firearm."

So the guns in question aren't MGs out of the box any more than an AR-15. I mean, I can easily REMOVE the disconnector from my AR-15 and I'd have an unregistered MG according to the ATF: with one pull of the trigger, it'd dump the mag. (And poor engagement surfaces on the disconnector is what screwed David Olofson and landed him in the pen.) Now I'm not one of the prags arguing for compromise or restraint. However, with regard to the last statement of the ruling ("The above combination of design features as employed...are normally not found in the typical sporting firearm."), I could see the Brady bunch using the existing ATF ruling to attack semi-automatic weapons of any kind, particularly "evil" black rifles. Or is forcing their hand what Mr. Vanderboegh had in mind?

Someone else had posted this excellent quote from Frederick Douglass. The dude knew what he was talking about.

"FIND OUT JUST WHAT THE PEOPLE WILL SUBMIT TO AND YOU HAVE FOUND OUT THE EXACT AMOUNT OF INJUSTICE AND WRONG WHICH WILL BE IMPOSED UPON THEM; AND THESE WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THEY ARE RESISTED WITH EITHER WORDS OR BLOWS, OR WITH BOTH. THE LIMITS OF TYRANTS ARE PRESCRIBED BY THE ENDURANCE OF THOSE WHOM THEY OPPRESS." — FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AUG. 4, 1857