The Gun Blogs

It really PAINS me to find myself leaning towards agreement with the state of New York in anything, much less when it comes to banning of firearms. New York is considering a ban on "brightly painted guns", you know, the bright reds, blues, and worst in my opinion, orange. I'm not a guy who believes that the looks of a firearm should be a factor in determination use, but at the same time, I work in the law enforcement area and know that a orange gun (if they do become more prevailant) will cause either a officer to hesitate when he/she shouldn't or to not hesitate when they should. Either way, it's a screwed up situation. I can understand those who wish to personalize their property, I get it, but can we justify giving the drive-by media and the statistically challenged anti-gunners ammunition of a tragedy waiting to happen and we didn't "nip it in the bud" sort of speak? If I'm way off base please tell me. I just don't see it as a big deal.

What scares me the most is the total disregard of empirical evidence that abounds in our government, schools, places of business, and those whose opinions (for whatever reason) seem to matter to people. I cannot believe that the "data" can be misconstrued to point to more gun control as the answer; therefore it must be that the "data" is being purposely ignored or vilified so the average person can't morally defend what they know is right. I have run into this problem repeatedly, where I'm put into the emotional "evil" slot. People just don't want to hear that it is about a lot more than hunting. That it is a defining aspect of being American. They don't have the intellectual honesty or capacity to understand a abstract (to them) concept when a emotional travesty has occurred. It is sad to think that we, our society, is in decline and in not to many years from now we, all of us, will be as Rome or Athens......
Great....I just depressed myself. See ya'll.

Okay. What now? As I see it, McCain is going to be the Republican nominee and he "Aint our kind of people" as my Great Grandma use to say. What can we do to turn this to our favor? I for one don't have any ideas other than having the NRA and other pro-rights groups put pressure on him which I don't see as having any effect (if it hasn't happened yet, why would it happen now?). I'm open to ideas.

Well guess who is acting like they know how to write again? Yes, Jayne Lyn Stahl is at it again and just like last time, we are "graced" by her stunning lack of facts and reason. I tried. I really did try to understand her point or at least find some vestige of logic in her statements but alas, there was none to be found. I will leave you with a exerpt of this poorly researched drivel and let you see for your selfs what a......I think you know where I was going.
I'm off to find a aspirin. she made my head hurt.

Indeed, the gun lobby has never been in better shape in Washington than it has been under the tutelage of President George W. Bush, so not a peep has been heard from those whose custom it is to speak out against guns, and the rash of violence in our nation's public schools; schools like Columbine, Virginia Tech, in our nation's inner cities, cities like Compton, East Los Angeles, in our nation's workplaces. We've not heard a peep from the usual suspects who would be active in speaking up for more stringent laws to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of our youngsters.

Increasingly, in a world in which the American flag has become synonymous with another four letter word "duck," and yet another "bomb," this is not time to mince words. These folks who equate what they think of as their constitutional empowerment have, for the past several years, had a free ride, but now that a changing of the guard is in sight, they cling to their illusions of entitlement like a leper clings to what little skin he has left. And, to parody the Dylan Thomas poem, it's as if every gun-toting Tom, Dick, and Harry decided not to go "gentle into that night," but to "rage, rage, against the dying of the might."

We need a large billboard like the one in Boston! One that states the facts and nothing but the facts. It should read:

GUN CONTROL KILLS 15 CHILDREN EVERY DAY IN BOSTON!
PROTECT YOUR FAMILY AND YOURSELF.
LEGALLY OWN A FIREARM!
FOR YOUR DEFENSE AND THEIRS.

Brought to you by people with brains.
A non-profit organization.

Or even better:

Philadelphia- 208 homicides
Chicago- 446 homicides
Los Angeles- 487 homicides
Detroit- 374 homicides

What do these cities have in common?

STRICT GUN CONTROL!

SAVE A LIVE! BUY A HANDGUN!

Brought to you by PWTHITA
(people without their heads in their !@#)

Let me know if we can rent ad space.

I don't know about you, but I hear from guys all the time saying that they want to have a "________"(insert type of firearm) but the the wife/girlfriend doesn't want them in the house.
Now, I'll be the first to say that a person has the right to associate them selfs any way they want and to control their property, but I just don't get it.
In what way is a person safer with the guns outside in the hands of criminals and none inside with you to protect yourself?
It's time such as these that remind me that I have the most awesome wife on the planet.
No, she's not a big gun nut like me. She doesn't even go shooting with me very much (once a year or so) but she does insist that if I bring in a new firearm that she must be trained on it totally! From field stripping to loading to firing, she wants to know how.
She says that "if its going to be here, then she refuses to be ignorant of the paticulars."
To me this is the best outcome possible. Not only do I have a understanding wife but I also get to keep MY firearms without fear that she will like one to much and claim it as her own. Although there was that "Kimber" incident last year.
I have yet to get it back from her.
That being said, it's the only one she got her grubby little hands on.....so far.
The thing is that she knew me before she married me and accepted that I wasn't going to balk on this particular point (Just for the record, I did balk on a lot of other points, like no drinking and no pool table in the dining room etc.).
I just don't get guys who sat that they want a firearm for defense or even just for plinking but a relationship is in the way. It just seems like lying to change who you are for another person. They should love you because you're you.
I'll leave the rest for Dr. Phil.
Maybe this post would be "Sucking up" enough to get my Kimber back.......Probably not though.

For those of you who don't want a lot of saliva flung on them, I suggest you pass this little rant of mine.........Okay, fair warning delivered. Here we go.
What in the name of all that is good and holy is going on in the "Free World"?
When politicos can vote them selfs immunity in the guise of state sovernerty, when the courts find new and interesting ways to interpret the laws to benefit the state, and where the people are gullible enough to swallow any damn thing the media decides to spew, we cannot survive as a nation.
My god! Thomas Payne would gouge his eyes out if he saw what has been done to the idea of America!
The sad and undeniable fact of the matter is that WE THE PEOPLE are to blame for this mess. The question is "can we fix it?". I don't think we can, not really.
The government isn't the problem. It's the system. The bureaucracy that makes the this work from day to day. It's the people who have learned that they can vote them selfs anything they want out of the treasury.
How do we fix it? I, for one try to teach my children to be self sufficient, to rely on their brains and muscles to make a better life for them selfs (and to pick a NICE old folks home for me). A huge part of that is passing on the traditions of shooting, hunting and protection of family, home, and country.
Thats all I can think of doing. I vote and am failed by my representatives over and over, yet I keep trying.
How can one person make a difference? He can't. Not in this case, but if every person who can actually feel the idea of America in their bones and the words of the Founding Fathers echo in their heads would look beyond their short sighted political parties and put the idea of America first, then maybe, just maybe, we can avoid the fate of Rome and all the other great civilizations.

Okay. Rant done. Thanks for the time.

"Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn't mean that we're not going to walk into that home and check to see if you're being responsible and safe in the way that you conduct your affairs," Harris said.

District Attorney Kamala Harris

Yes, yes, we can and will come into your LOCKED HOME and make sure you're being responsible!
Where in h#@$ does she think she lives? San FranNAZIville?

You come into a locked home in the dead of the night your just asking for someone to get killed. The officer and civilian live would be at risk just so these Wack-jobs can say they're doing something.
I would be willing to bet that no rich or connected people would be searched.

It freeking insane!

You know, I have made it a personal policy to never take financial advice from a 35 year old guy living in his mothers basement. I do not take marital advice from guys who had 5 failed marriages. It baffles me that anyone would consider some wack-job journalist or politician who has never even held a firearm much less fired it a creditable authority on the subject. If I wanted to know the legal process to rewrite the U.S. tax code I'll go to a politician. If I wanted to know what happened when said politician brought that legislation up for a vote I'll go to the journalist. These people couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag. Or as my father was fond of saying "They're talking out of the sides of their necks!" Like the adult living at home or the five time divorced, journalist and politicos should shut up and listen. They just might learn something.

Ever notice whenever some anti-gunning air-bag spews the "numbers" of deaths from firearms they always include suicide? Now why is that included? I'm not advocating suicide or anything, it just seems that a person willing to do that to them selfs, ARE going to find a way to do it with or without firearms. Then these yahoos use that to pad the "numbers" to make the U.S. seem much more violent than it really is.
Sorry.
End of RANT!

I'm getting to technical for my own good. Maybe it was the military training where you memorize the firearm nomenclature before you learn to march in a straight line. Or maybe it comes from my father who always said "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right". Either way, I have a problem that my shooting buddies think is funny as heck. I just can't stand it when I hear someone refer to a magazine as a clip. I know, I know, these days they are pretty mush interchangeable. I just can't brake from what I was taught over and over again.
A "clip" holds the rounds at the base of the cases and is inserted into the internal magazine of a weapon (like th M1 Garand) while a "magazine" completely encompasses the rounds and is inserted into a well.
It's a source of amusement for my buddies (I'm happy that I make them happy.) and a source of angst for me. I know it doesn't really matter, but dang it, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

I admit I’m a Johnny come lately to the Jim Zumbo controversy. I freely admit I didn’t pay that much attention to his article, primarily because I make it a rule to ignore people that offend me by way of stereotyping me with terrorists. That is how he came across and I think that is the reason the gun community had such a backlash on him.
I respect the man and his opinions but it did hurt to think that just because I choose to use a type of firearm, he thinks of me as a terrorist. To say that hunters (which I am) have no business with these riffles is like saying that the modern riffle shouldn’t be used as compared to say a black powder percussion riffle.
It was personal and I took it as such because I am also “that gun guy”.
Although it wasn’t asked for he has my forgiveness. We are a community and like any community we can’t expect to get along all the time. Unfortunately, I can see this as a dividing line between the hunters who have their sport and the shooters. This is the time when we all have to be aware of the attacks that our way of life is coming under. Hunters are loosing lands that they can hunt on while shooters are having a hard time finding ranges due to closures. Why is this continuing to be an issue? Mr. Zumbo has apologized. Time to move on. Mr. Zumbo should take another chance and make himself heard again and his prior sponsors should give him the opportunity to do so.
Maybe the fact that a firearm is a firearm regardless of its shape will become the lesson of the moment. We can hope.
If it operates as a semi automatic, it is a semi automatic. Shape is irrelevant to the issues of privately owned firearms.
Holding a grudge against Mr. Zumbo only drives a wedge between hunters and shooters that we can ill afford.
So, with that in mind I would like all shooters to forgive and rally around Mr. Zumbo and remind hunters; that shooters issues ARE hunters issues. Don’t kid yourselves on that point. We are a community. We need to act like one and show a relatively united front or everything can be lost.