Entries by Sailorcurt

From VSSA:

The Sussex County Board of Supervisors will consider an ordinance that would require pistol and shotgun ranges in A-1 zoning areas to apply for a conditional use permit to operate. The meeting is Thursday, November 19. This is becoming an all to familiar story. Gun owners in Sussex County need to turnout in big numbers at this meeting to show their opposition to this proposal. It should be noted that this is an idea of the Planning Commission and was not instigated by the Board of Supervisors.

There are a couple of good shooting clubs in Sussex County that this would affect and there is a long history of using these types of conditional use permits to harass and close down ranges after some urbanite moves out into the country and then realizes that "GASP! They're shooting GUNS over there!"

Gun Rights supporters need to show up in force and let them know that this is not acceptable.

The media, gun grabbers and hoplophobes (but I repeat myself), in the process of joyfully dancing in the blood of the innocent victims of Fort Hood to push their agenda, are excitedly dragging out the old canard about the glorified .22 magnum pistol called the FN Five Seven (5.7x28mm) being a "cop killer" gun.

It's important that we not allow their promulgation of falsehoods in their attempt to exploit this tragedy for political gain to go unchallenged.  The FN Five Seven is not an incredibly powerful handgun:

No rational person would ever wish for our soldiers to be attacked, but the simple fact of the matter is that Hasan’s reliance on a gun the uneducated media told him was a powerful “cop killer” quite possibly saved lives at Fort Hood. If the same victims had been hit with 155-180 grain .40 S&W or 185-230 grain .45ACP hollow points, their wounds would likely have been far more severe than the wounds they suffered from even a fragmenting 40 grain VMAX bullet in the most commonly available 5.7 cartridge.

The FN Five Seven is not an unusually dangerous design:

That said, it doesn’t seem quite accurate to call the Five-Seven a pocket-sized assault rifle. Its barrel would give it a lower muzzle velocity than a PN90; likewise, it strikes me as unlikely that it would give a shooter much more accuracy and effective range than a standard pistol. And plain-vanilla pistol round can be devastating enough: Think of the Virginia Tech shooter, who used a Glock 9mm and Walther .22.

And the ATF has tested and specifically precluded this firearm, with standard ammunition available on the civilian market from being classified as "armor piercing":

The FN 5.7 (Fabrique Nationale) pistol is a semiautomatic pistol in 5.7 X 28 mm caliber approved for importation as a sporting firearm.

...

FTB has also examined a 5.7 X 28 mm projectile that FN Herstal has designated the "SS196." The SS196 is loaded with a Hornady 40 grain, jacketed lead bullet. FTB classified SS196 ammunition as not armor piercing ammunition under Federal firearms statutes. [emphasis added -ed]

The fact is, no matter what type of weapon the perpetrator used, the anti-freedom coalition listed at the beginning of this post would have found some angle to exploit for their purposes. The Virginia Tech incident had absolutely nothing to do with private sales of firearms, but witness how they continue to try to exploit that tragedy to push their completely unrelated political agenda to this day.  Heck, even when the blood of the victims they are dancing in wasn't even spilled by perpetrators with guns, they try to turn it into a gun issue for them to exploit.  It's sickening.

The fact is that the media is an active participant in this exploitation effort and simply will not report the truth, it is up to us to make sure that truth gets out, even if we have to do it face to face and inform one citizen at a time.

...in Norfolk reported on over at Ocean View Follies:

Mike, a fellow CCW holder, lifted his 380 auto to the window and said "If you do it will be the last move you ever make." The youth smartly sped away in a cloud of dust.

But you won't read about it in the papers and the anti-freedom lobby will contend that it just doesn't count, because no one was shot or killed in the incident.

As the world's most dangerous librarian likes to say "A gun is a much lighter burden to carry than regret."

...want to carry a gun for self defense in an urban environment in broad daylight?

Richmond police charged a man with murder last night in the fatal daylight stabbing of another man on a busy commercial strip in downtown Richmond.

They identified the suspect as Desean Q. Trent, 27, who, they said, has no permanent address. The victim was identified as Javis J. Turner, 20, of the 2400 block of Semmes Avenue.

Police say Turner was stabbed multiple times during a confrontation about 4 p.m. on the north side of the 300 block of East Broad Street beside a bus stop and several businesses, including a Foot Locker store.

In a related story that I didn't report on at the time because it wasn't in Virginia, One of my fellow Gun Bloggers, Caleb of "Gun Nuts Media", was forced to defend himself in broad daylight against an attacker armed with a knife in Indianapolis last weekend.

His story turned out a little differently.

The short version of the story is that on Saturday leaving my office, I was the subject of an attempted mugging by a member of the Indianapolis Choir Boy School of Good Men Who are Only Down on Their Luck. As I was leaving my office, said altar boy came around the corner of my building to the left into the side parking lot, and as I turned to face him noticed the knife in his right hand. The Chaplain’s Assistant demanded that we engage in an abbreviated barter process, wherein I would provide my wallet and car keys in exchange for not getting shanktified, which to him probably seemed like a reasonable exchange.

I politely demurred by hurling a cup of hot Starbucks at him while fishing my Beretta Jetfire out of the stupid pocket holster it was riding in. After taking a face full of Columbia’s most popular legal export and confronted with a counter offer of bullets to his previous barter exchange concept, the young gentlemen decided that discretion was the better part of valor and made all due haste in a westerly direction. For my part, I locked myself in my office, called 911 and waited for the cops to arrive to take my report.

No shots were fired so you won't read about it in the papers and, as far as the anti-gun lobby is concerned, this doesn't count as Self defense because no one died in the encounter.

The difference in outcome of these two incidents is striking and is a story that is played out millions of times every year in this country...ordinary people defending themselves, their families and others against the vicious predators among us.

But, hey...according to the anti's, guns have no place in urban environments. Because big cities are so safe and everything I guess.

About 40 or so VCDL members attended the Norfolk City Council meeting last night to express our displeasure with Mayor Fraim's membership in Bloomberg's Mayors Against illegal Guns group.

I was actually planning to speak, but due to work, I ended up getting to the meeting late and so didn't have the opportunity.


After the normal city business, Phillip spoke eloquently about the fact that several members of MAiG have recently dropped out after realizing that the organization is not anti-illegal gun, but anti-gun period. He raised excellent points about Bloomberg's activities and the group's penchant for filing nuisance lawsuits to harass legitimate businesses out of existence.

Two different anti-gun speakers spoke...one representing "The Virginia Center for Public Safety" which strangely seems uninterested in anything relating to public safety unless it involves gun control; also interestingly, the group was formerly known as "Virginians Against Handgun Violence".

To refresh your memory, The Virginia Center for Public Safety is that class act that recently accused Bob McDonnell of being "content to let felons, terrorists, buy firearms at gun shows" regardless of the basic fact that those acts are already federal felonies. I guess they think felons and terrorists buying guns should be...um...illegaler. Yea, that'll stop it.

Another interesting point: look at the byline at the bottom of that piece. Josh Horwitz? Where do I know that name? Hmmmm....Isn't he involved in another anti-gun organization called "Coalition to Stop Gun Violence?" Why yes...yes he is.

Hmmm. The Virginia Center for Public safety, formerly Virginians Against Handgun Violence, who is in cahoots with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence...anti-gun organizations all...support the anti-gun Mayors Against illegal Guns.

But MAiG isn't REALLY anti-gun, right?

Never mind the fact that MAiG opposed the recent bill that would allow vetted, background checked and permitted Concealed Handgun Permit holders...the single most law abiding demographic in the United States...from exercising their natural right of self defense across state lines. Because, they only oppose ILLEGAL guns...or something.

Never mind the fact that Bloomberg's minions AGAIN recently went "undercover" and filmed activity that they FREELY ADMIT in their own video is already illegal, and, rather than turning the evidence of criminal behavior over the the proper authorities and demanding that the current laws be enforced, they publicized the video of criminal behavior as propaganda in support of criminalizing currently LAWFUL activities.

"See: those people are breaking the law, so what we obviously need is....another law."

I guess the MAiG's statement is actually true in a certain sense: They only oppose illegal guns...they just want ALL guns to be illegal.

But I digress.

The anti's were up to their same old "astrotruf" tricks and the two ladies who spoke were ostensibly representing two different groups of "concerned citizens" who I'm sure spontaneously and independently arrived at the meeting to speak without even realizing the other was going to be there. As is customary, after each of the women spoke, they asked their supporters stand up. Strangely, the same ten or so people stood up after both speakers.

Typical tactics of the anti's. They can't garner support for their positions by telling the truth, so they lie...as the VACPS representative did throughout her presentation...and they can't come close to matching our numbers of activists, so they form multitudes of tiny astroturf groups consisting of the same handful of people so that they can count the members over and over to inflate their numbers.

And, as usual, I digress again.

Getting back to the meeting, I was unsurprised when Mayor Fraim unabashedly declared his support for the MAiG mission. Of course he couched it in terms of denying that the group is anti-gun, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mayor Fraim has a long and storied history of anti-gun policies...while at the same time mouthing platitudes about how he supports the Second Amendment. He is just as anti-gun as Bloomberg so it is no surprise that he supports the anti-gun policies of MAiG. And, being a cowardly politician, it is no surprise that he vehemently insists that he doesn't REALLY believe what his policies clearly demonstrate that he does.

UPDATE:Although the shooting tip below is still valid, apparently Field and Stream magazine (and myself as a result) have been had. The video embedded is a fake. It's a PR campaign by the NFL that uses special effects to create the illusion of their players doing improbable things. I'm a bit embarrassed that I took it at face value just because the source was a "reputable" magazine. Should have known better./UPDATE

One of the most difficult things to teach a rifle or pistol shooter about shotgun shooting is that you don't really aim in the same sense as aiming a rifle or pistol.

There are no "sights" (other than a bead) on a typical shotgun for a reason.

Shotgun "aiming" with moving targets is the exact opposite of rifle and pistol shooting in that you don't focus your vision on the sights, you focus your vision on the target.

Allowing for the relative motion between the target and the shot pattern so that they meet in the middle requires practice and experience. After a while, you just kind of get a "feel" for it. It's no different than hitting a moving baseball with a bat, or a tennis ball with a racket, or a running receiver with a football, as Joe Flacco ably demonstrates in this video:



When shooting moving targets with a shotgun, keep your eye on the target and let your instincts find your "lead". And Practice, practice practice.

Hat tip to Airfield Shooting Club senior instructor and accomplished shotgunner Dale Mullin, via e-mail, and by way of Field and Stream magazine.

Crossposted on Captain of a Crew of One.

An editorial in a legacy media outlet that admits:

We confess to harboring some reservations about the concealed carry law. Our fear was an increase in guns in public would result in more guns being displayed prematurely and/or more accidents.

White said recently: “All the fears over conceal and carry have never manifested.”

We concede the point.

Anecdotal evidence does not suggest an increase in accidents or unprovoked gunplay.

The evidence, however, does show people defending themselves from harm.

The message being sent to felons is don't bring a weapon to a crime unless you're prepared to accept the risk.

What the.....?????

The only conclusion that i can draw from this is that the world is obviously coming to an end.  "...dogs and cats living together...human sacrifice...mass hysteria!"

Seriously though...kudos to an editorial staff that is capable of putting away their biases long enough to objectively look at the facts and reach the obviously correct conclusion.  That's a trait that's as rare as hen's teeth in their industry.

Hat tip to Two Cats and a Hornet.

The Freedom Rally held outside of Richmond Saturday went well.  It was hard to get an accurate count because we were so spread out and people were coming and going throughout the course of the afternoon and evening, but, from my wanderings and taking counts of knots of people standing here and there, I'd say somewhere about 250 people at any given time were lined up along the road to the Republican Roundup site.

We did get a little press coverage, Richmond's CBS affiliate, WTVR Channel 6 reported on it. 

Note Mr. Cantor's evasion of the issue (at about the 1:45 mark):

"This is private property; the Innsbrook management company has made their policies and I think these people have a problem with the Innsbrook management folks."

Sorry, Mr. Cantor...but our problem is with you and the Republican leadership.  Innsbrook has every right to set their policies on their private property, and you have the right...nay, the RESPONSIBILITY to hold an event like this in a venue that respects the rights that you supposedly support.

Innsbrook can control the policies on their property, but they cannot control the decision to hold your event on their property. 

A typical politician, you avoided addressing the issue by passing the buck. I would submit that your refusal to accept responsibility for your own decisions and actions calls into question your suitability to serve as a representative and servant of the people.

Mr. McDonnell's response wasn't much better:

"Eric and I are both very strong supporters of the Second Amendment, as are all my ticket mates."

So they support the Second Amendment, just not the people who exercise the right protected by it?

Hmmm.

Also, here is a youtube video of the correspondent talking to Phillip.

We also made the front page of the Community News section of "Downtown Short Pump", who reported an attendance of "several hundred" VCDL members.

A couple of the political bloggers at the "roundup" took note of the protest.  Rick Sincere posted video of the speeches, including Linwood Cobb's trite and condescending dismissal of our protest "Don't pay any attention to that".

I suppose that Mr Cobb won't mind, then, if we gun owners don't pay any attention to the Republican Party come election time.

As a lowly blogger, I don't claim to speak for VCDL leadership, but here's my take on it:

The Virginia Citizen's Defense League is a non-partisan organization that supports those who support our rights.  Many of the people present at the Republican Roundup do have a history of supporting gun rights and I appreciate that and support them as a result.  But that very support for gun owners is what makes the hypocrisy of this issue all the more distasteful.  If they can dismiss the position of people with whom they ostensibly AGREE with such elitist, condescending disdain, how well can we expect them to represent the interests of their constituents on other issues?  Issues we may not see completely eye to eye on?

As far as I'm concerned, actions speak much louder than words.  Mr. Cantor and Mr. McDonnell can mouth platitudes in support of the Second Amendment all they want, but if this is any indication of how they will actually act toward gun owners...

Better to be stabbed in the front by a known enemy than stabbed in the back by a supposed ally.

If you weren't able to attend and want to see what you missed, there's more on the freedom rally (with pictures) below the fold.

Continue reading "Freedom Rally Report" »

As usual, when facts give lie to the talking points of the anti-freedom lobby, they simply ignore those facts and pretend like the talking points never existed to begin with.

When the US Supreme Court upheld the the already well established right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms in their own homes at a minimum, the Brady campaign seems to have scrubbed their web site of all references to the "collective right" they claimed was the intent of the Second Amendment.  Versus facing the fact that they were proven wrong, they simply pretend like they never made the claim in the first place.

In a more recent instance, most readers are probably aware of the Brady's gun right suppression scorecard that they've done every year since 2001.  In it, they score all 50 states (notably excluding the District of Columbia) based on how severely they infringe upon the ability of law abiding citizens to obtain and use firearms.

Fairly recently, Austin Gun Rights Examiner, long time gun rights advocate and author Howard Nemerov has put those Brady scorecards to the test, evaluating the relationship between Brady scores and crime rates over the years.

Unsurprisingly, he has found that states that score higher on the Brady's scale of rights suppression, inevitably average higher murder, violent crime and overall crime rates than those who do not sufficiently abridge the Second Amendment to meet Brady approval.

The result?  The Brady's scrub their web site of all of their score cards going all the way back to the first one in 2001.

Almost immediately after this last article, readers reported that the link to Brady’s 2008 scorecard was dead. Searches performed since have indicated that all the Brady report cards dating back to 2001 (the first) have been removed from their site. (Is this because every year’s report card showed the same results as those found in 2008?)

So...as usual...when the facts prove to be too inconvenient for the anti-freedom lobby's agenda...down the memory hole they go.

I'm sure they'll think of a new tack to take soon enough but how telling is it that they have to repeatedly abandon their talking points when they are inevitably and repeatedly shot down in flames?

How detached from reality do you have to be to stubbornly hold onto a position that is proven undeniably and repeatedly to be so wrong, so blatantly and so often? Surely there's medication for that these days?

Even though the entire premise has been pummeled to within an inch of its life, they're still at it:

MEXICO CITY -- The United States should reinstate a Clinton-era ban on assault weapons to prevent such guns from reaching Mexican drug cartels, former officials from both countries said in a report released Tuesday.

...

U.S. and Mexican officials say drug cartels frequently use assault rifles, which are banned in Mexico but easily purchased in the United States.

"...assault rifles...are...easily purchased in the United States."

um...no they're not.

Assault rifles have been strictly regulated in the US since passage of the National Firearms act of 1934. As has been pointed out many times before in many venues, the drug cartels are not getting automatic weapons, grenades, rocket launchers and mines from US gun shows. If anything, the people most likely to be trying to get guns from the US are the citizens caught in the middle of a war, desperate to defend themselves and their families, but disarmed by their own corrupt government.

Hat tip to qahawa via e-mail.

Alternate title:  It's a good thing no one had a gun...someone might have gotten hurt.

Students in the UCLA science lab described the horrifying moments this afternoon when a male classmate slashed the throat of a female student, who was critically injured.

One student who was inside the lab when the attack occurred shortly after noon told The Times that he looked up as the assailant appeared to repeatedly punch the victim. Then the man calmly turned and walked away as the victim lay bleeding profusely.

Submitted via contact form by a reader who added:

Here at VCU we start our medical school gross anatomy lab in two weeks. There's going to be 200 people running around with scalpels, knives, bonesaws, scissors, and drills!

Oh wait.

One of the claims made in the Mayors Against Guns video of criminal activity posted yesterday was that 30% of trafficked guns come from gun shows...the implication, of course, being that private sales cause a large part, if not all, of that 30%.

How can that be?  According to several past studies, gun shows simply are not a significant source of guns used in crimes.

So, where does their claim come from?  It comes from the same blatant misrepresentation of this 2000 ATF study that the Brady Campaign employs.

Both Brady and MAG, claim that the ATF report indicates a large number of crime guns come from gun shows and that, as a result, private sales at gun shows should be banned (implying, of course, that this large number of trafficked guns are a result of the faux "gun show loophole").  The Brady Campaign just uses a general claim, MAG provides a hard number...but the claim is basically the same and is based on the same ATF report.

Problem 1:  This report involved trafficking INVESTIGATIONS, not convictions, or even prosecutions.  In other words, it is quite possible that in at least some of these instances there was no criminal intent and the firearms never entered the criminal market.

Problem 2: The numbers used for gun shows includes ALL investigations...not just private sales. 

Page 13 of the report, which the Brady Campaign specifically cites as evidence of their claims, pointedly notes "Sum may exceed 100 percent since investigations may be included in more than one category..."

In other words, it is simply impossible to say from this report how many of the investigations were solely a result of private sellers "trafficking" guns because any of the reported investigations could have involved Federally Licensed dealers, straw purchasers, private individuals, thefts, or any combination of those avenues.

Furthermore, the Brady's and MAG, in making their claims, make much of the fact that, according to this report, gun shows ranked second in the numbers of trafficked guns per investigation.

What they fail to note is that the highest number of guns per investigation, by a factor of three, was FFL licensed dealers (page 13, table 3).

Now...since investigations involving FFL's had the highest number of trafficked guns per investigation; and since the investigations involving gun shows included investigations of FFL's in their numbers...doesn't it stand to reason that the majority of those "high volume" trafficking cases at gun shows were not as a result of private sellers, but as a result of FFL's trafficking guns?

I mean, who has large quantities of guns on hand at any given time to traffic?  Who would be more likely to be able to bring large volumes of guns into a gun show without causing suspicion?

There is no way to really know because the report doesn't break it down that way, but claims by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership and Mayors Against Guns that this report conclusively demonstrates that private sales at gun shows are a significant source of crime guns is simply false.  It is a blatant lie created by intentionally misrepresenting the contents and conclusions of this report.

As if that were a surprise to anyone.

Bloomberg's latest anti-gun propaganda tactic is the subject of a full-court press in the media today.

My google news alerts popped with story after story after story of Bloomberg sanctioned illegal activity...some of which included this video.

Interestingly, none of these media outlets seem to notice that the producers of the video themselves acknowledge that the activities depicted are ALREADY ILLEGAL.

There was no loophole on display.  What was on display was video evidence of criminal activity.  Evidence that the current laws are not being enforced.  Evidence that law enforcement is not doing its job.

Also lacking was any critical evaluation of that fact; to wit:  if the current laws are not being enforced in even a rudimentary way, what would possibly possess us to believe that just passing one more law will make a difference?

This is nothing more than kabuki theater and is being used as propaganda by anti-freedom forces throughout the media.  

As an aside.  Anyone notice that Virginia was notably absent from the list of states in which Bloomberg's illegal activities were conducted this time?

I wonder why. 

That's what the anti-gunners are becoming.

Summary:

"OK...you're right, the guns we call "assault weapons" are really only semi-automatic rifles that have aesthetic features that make them appear military.

But...um...that's BAD...OK?  Just take my word for it."

If only we could get rid of the guns in the world, all the violence would end and there would be unicorns and rainbows for everyone.

Don't you wish your city could be safe and violence free just like that?

Click the video for the full, horrific story.

Hat tip to 3 boxes of bs