Quote of the Day – Joe Biden (2/28/2013)

I said, “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Most people can handle a shotgun a hell of a lot better than they can a semiautomatic weapon in terms of both their aim and in terms of their ability to deter people coming.

Joe Biden – Field and Stream Interview

February 25th, 2013


 

[I don’t know how many times I need to say it, but seriously folks do not take any of the advice this man is offering.  He obviously does not know what he’s talking about and does not have the slightest clue when it comes to the laws around self-defense.

All I have to say is yeah Joe, and then you find out it was your kid running up to the door afraid of the same noise you heard.  How many different times can you give a rule 4 violation as good advice?  Seriously, WTF Joe? -B]

Quote of the Day – RobertaX (2/25/2013)

Defending yourself is not a matter of “punishment.”  You’re not out to correct your assailant’s behavior, you’re wanting to stop it, as quickly and effectively as possible, with the least collateral damage.  Whatever does that is what you should do.

RobertaXPizza Robber Update
February 25, 2013


[I’ve never quite understood the method of thinking that ties self-defense into punishment.  Can I not kill someone until after they’ve killed me?  Is that the new standard now?  When it comes to rape then, can a woman only rape her assailant back after she’s been violated?  Why is she not allowed to stop the threat.  Yes some times stopping the threat does involve the assailant’s body reaching room temperature but that’s the risk of their profession.

You know how the assailant would still be alive?  By not attacking his intended victim.  Why is this so hard for some people to understand?

In the words of Malcolm Reynolds:

“I didn’t kill him, he killed himself. I just carried the bullet for a while.”

The criminal made his choice and in the middle of the crime the victim can, and should, do all that he can to protect himself and family.  Someone is threatening force against them and they are not and should not be required to be mind readers to determine if the threat is real or just words.  If you use something that looks like a gun in a threatening manner, it’s a gun, and I will not fault the individual who defends himself from you.

The criminal takes a risk that someone might defend himself, and if the criminal continues to fight even when presented with force being applied back from the victim,  the onus for the outcome lies squarely with the aggressor.  Stop blaming victims for the outcome of actions and choices made by criminals. -B]

 

A Lesson About Safe Storage Devices

So I have seen this before but I figure it’s a nice refresher.

Note the results, still think those little boxes you see will keep your property safe?  Especially those quick access boxes some end up buying when they’re stuck in one of those states lacking in freedom and pushing tyranny.  Still think the arguments are really about your safety or preventing theft?

If you think curious kids can’t figure out how to pick a lock, you obviously never saw me as a child.  I figured out how to pick locks at first just with paper clips.  Making my own tension fork and rake to pop simple locks.  Eventually I got my hands on a real set.  Yeah, beyond a real safe and educating your children, you’re not going to do much other than increase curiosity.

So consider this a public service announcement and a warning.  If you’re using any of these items, be damn sure of their capabilities and weaknesses.  In so doing, be sure to use them in a manner consistent with their abilities.  I happen to fully agree with the presenters final conclusions.

Quote of the Day – A Girl and Her Gun (2/4/2012)

This giveaway is not about gun ownership (which is cool by itself). It is about trying to help empower a woman to see herself in a new and powerful light and it is about encouraging her to take positive steps in her own life to help her be more free, more in control, more peaceful, more safe.

A Girl and Her GunA New Focus

February 1st, 2013


[That right there in a nutshell is the leading reason I am so willing to fight so hard on this side of the fence.  It is the foundation for Why I Get Angry.

So A Girl is doing another give-away.  The details on the give-away can be found here.  If you qualify and would like to participate, you can also use this handy form.

There’s a reason I love this community and this is a great example of it. -B ]

Why Would You Ever Need a Magazine With More Than 10 Rounds

Lately people have been throwing around the need argument.  It is an argument that honestly doesn’t really matter.  Drunk driving kills how many people every year and does anyone need to drive?  Why not just use public transportation?  Why does anyone need to drive themselves from point A to B?  But again, the argument doesn’t matter, it’s pointless.  Does law enforcement limit themselves to 10 rounds? What about the military?  But they’re different I hear you cry?  Are they?  Do they really need 30 round magazines that turns their guns into mass killing machines?  They should just reload like the rest of us!

1349368116_8392_why30rounders

Image by Oleg Volk.

As I am writing this I am coming down off a serious adrenaline dump.  I had wrapped my knee for the night and was dressed in such a manner as not to rapidly exit my door grabbing my weapon and having nothing more than was on the belt of my pants.

Let me start at the beginning.  My local neighborhood gun shop is a block away.  The owner is quite literally my neighbor.  I wave hi to him and his wife on my way to work every morning, we are literally on the same street.  I am merely an additional 100 yards from his business than he is from his house.  Due to my proximity, my willingness, and the fact I hang out and help because one of his sons is my age and he’s a cool guy I’m basically on the business roster.

Early this month they had to attend their buy show in Vegas along with SHOT show.  The shop owner closed up and he and the regular employees headed down for a “business vacation”.  While gone I was put on the alarm system call list, still am actually.  If any of the sensors goes off, they called the shop followed by my phone.

Tonight the alarm went off.  I missed the call and rolled out after my voicemail buzzed.  The shop owner was ahead of me and I texted his son immediately I heard the voice mail and head out.  They were finishing up clearing the building as I walked in the front door.  I had my side arm and a few other tools but I was brining up the rear so bad I wasn’t too worried.  We met up, did some debugging, notice that some of the sensors use batteries and we replaced all of them.  We reactivated the system and went home.

After the first adventure, I figured my night was over, went to a Robb life style of “Pants Free” and wrapped up my left knee.  Two hours later, my phone rang again.  I was out of the house in under 2 minutes, with my pants on, rifle, side arm, and knife.  I merely had the immediate possessions I was able to grab.  I went flying out of the house and flew down my road at about 60 mph flew into the parking lot and slid to a stop just before the front door.  I slipped past the front door, unlocked it, and proceeded to clear the building carefully and methodically. Nothing was out-of-place, nothing was wrong other than the alarm had gone off again.

oleg-volk-cop-with-rifle-1

Image by Oleg Volk.

I bring all this up because I want to emphasize a point.  I left the house with merely the equipment I could grab.  I wasn’t tossing on magazine carriers.  I wasn’t tossing on multiple weapons.  I grabbed one weapon that total gave me 61 rounds to put on target.  I grabbed one weapon that could I could accurately and easily manipulate in the variety of conditions seen within the shop.  I had my side arm on my belt which gave me an extra 13+1 should my primary weapon fail.  If I had not left my firearm clipped to my belt, it would have been left at home.

Now some would say, I didn’t need to go down there, or go inside.  Police response where I live is 30-45 minutes if we’re lucky.  Further the cost of a false alarm is expensive and best dealt with.  Yes it could be considered a high risk maneuver, so is letting the criminals inside steal firearms and ammunition.  I’m comfortable entering that environment, I’m familiar with it, I know the layout, I know where I can find cover and concealment, and I know the better ways to get around to avoid kill zones.

Even more than that some would say, it isn’t my business so it isn’t my problem.  To them I would say, stay in suburbia, stay in the city, and leave those of us who like rural life to live among our like-minded neighbors in peace.  I would help my neighbor as he would help me.  Our community as a whole would be shamed by an event like this, and I will be damned if I will let the, “Let someone else deal with it” and “Not my problem” attitude take over.  The owner felt bad it interrupted my night, but in the end I told him I don’t care, doubly so because if anything was happening I don’t care if he’s on site first or I’m on site, the bottom line is the security of the business and the weapons inside.  I would rather them call me so I can give immediate support than have him out numbered in a worse situation waiting for the eventual police arrival.

The whole point of this  though is I was limited to what I could grab and head out the door with.  In this case my AR-15 and my side arm.  In the middle of the night someone is limited to what they can easily grab by their nightstand.  Be it a XDm 9 with a 20 round capacity or an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine. The point is any citizen deserves to be able to take as much fight with them as they possibly can at the drop of a hat.  Criminals do not call ahead or provide advanced notice and they will not give you a chance to go get more ammo.  Why do people like normal capacity magazines, because it’s less you have to worry about when something goes bump in the middle of the night.  It’s less you have to fiddle with.  No one has ever come back from a gun fight and said, “Damn, I wish I hadn’t brought so much ammo.”

*I have two 30 round magazines attached together like this in my rifle.  It was this that allowed me to quickly deploy with 61 rounds in hand.  I have a second set that will be taped up in the near future and relocated to quickly grab.

That locked door…

It’s protection works both ways.

As I’ve said numerous times in debates, if don’t want me to shoot you, the solution is simple, don’t bring violence or harm to me and mine. 

That locked door doesn’t just merely exist for my safety but yours.  Enter it without my permission at your own damn risk.  There is a monster that lives within these walls and you might just let him out of his cage.

I do have another post I need to do since we’re on the topic of Gunny.  Maybe I’ll get to that today since I’m stuck at home. More on that later.

h/t Joe.

The Mass Shooting that Wasn’t

Title ripped off from Uncle.

Let me start by saying this was originally a comment to Uncle’s post but eventually I turned it into a post because honestly this needs to be out in front.

Antu says the man headed toward the theater and shot a male in the lot. The age and condition of the victim wasn’t immediately known, but Antu says his injuries did not appear life-threatening.

The gunman entered the theater, Antu says, where he fired a shot but did not hit anyone. An off-duty sheriff’s deputy working security then shot the gunman.

Now why would I make a post out of this?  Because last night on Facebook, god knows where at this point, someone left a comment along the following lines:

That was because it was an off duty officer! They’re tested so such a high standard that no mere citizen could qualify. That’s why this armed individual was able to stop this criminal!

For those who don’t feel like clicking the link, here’s the video shown in that post, which gives more details:

So lets bust this whole thing open shall we?  First up we have statistics showing police vs. civilian response.  14.3 deaths during a police response to 2.3 deaths when armed civilians response.  Admittedly a limited sample pool given you’re more likely to be struck by lightning.  Moving forward though there’s the argument that an armed citizen will more likely hit bystanders than the police.  Lets compare and contrast two videos shall we?

NYPD score, 1 bad guy, 9 innocent civilians.  A block of “highly trained” individuals.

Old guy with a CCW score: 2 injured assailants, no civilian casualties.

Again, why do we want more than 10 rounds in a magazine?  The idea of a one shot stop is a myth.  The idea that police are some how superior is a myth.  The idea that a gun free zone will some how make you safe is a myth.  The idea that an armed citizen cannot take care of themselves is a myth, one easily disproven I might add.

Why is it one side of this debate consistently argues myths instead of facts.  The reason the national news doesn’t cover this is because it doesn’t fit their narrative of myths.

And here come the Fudds…

So already I’ve seen comments and even got an email from a friend about a particular comment that was left, below is what the comment said (emphasis mine, spelling his).

We all here want to feel safe and do what we can to protect our families & loved ones: we are parents to our children, wives to our husbands, true friends to our friends. More than this we are neighbors and members of our community, in church, club, workplace and park.

I honor the Bill Of Rights and welcome the freedom the Second Ammendment gives me. I also recognize that this was written 221 years ago against the backdrop of our emerging nation. At this sad time and remembering past atrocities I will now seek a complete ban on assault riflesI will continue to proudly keep and carry my little Ruger.
While I dont know many of you here I know that you are no different to my own neighbors; good people living in difficult times. We all need to do the right thing and show leadership.

Here’s the thing folks, you either have a right to arms or you don’t.  There is no negotiating on this, we did that in 1994 and look what happened.  Further the current atrocity pulling at everyone’s heart strings happened within a state with an assault weapons ban!

If the ban didn’t stop him there what makes you think it would somehow work in the future?  Please inform me how “just one more law” would have altered the course of events given the litany of laws he broke before he even started shooting children.  Explain to me how the law-abiding gun owners are at fault and the sacrifice of their rights will somehow make the world a safer place.  Even law-makers admit that an assault weapons ban wouldn’t have changed anything, you must know something the rest of us don’t.

But lets destroy your BS regarding 221 years ago shall we?  At the time people owned cannon, artillery, and during the American Revolution the Kentucky Long Rifle was the AR-15 of the era.  Read that again, the Kentucky Long Rifle was the AR-15 of the era.  It was a military arm that was quite excellent at striking targets at long distances.  By todays standard our bolt-action rifles could be compared with muskets.  Muskets, lacking rifling, were less accurate but quicker to reload.  So there’s a trade-off yes, overall the technology was quite similar, however there was a considerable difference between the two.

Lets move forward not even 100 years to the civil war and the advent of the henry repeating rifle as well as the percussion-cap revolver.  Both of which greatly increased the available firepower of a single individual, yet by your argument we should have nothing more than what we had 221 years ago when it was written.  So no revolvers, no repeating rifles, this destroys cartridge firearms, thus kiss your bolt-action rifles and shotguns good-bye seeing as they couldn’t have conceived of this 221 years ago.

Because they couldn’t conceive of the advances in technology 221 years ago, because they didn’t see the immediate benefit of the printing press, you argue for a complete ban on an inanimate object, that you don’t use, thinking that will somehow stop evil. You are however more than happy to continue carrying your “little Ruger” which, by your argument, should be outlawed since we should only take into account what they had at the time.

So if you want to carry a defensive pistol and you want to carry on this argument, you will carry nothing more than a single shot flint-lock pistol.  For you see, you should only ever need one round!  If you need more than one, obviously you need to practice your aim more!  No one needs a 10 shot magazine, the size of the Ruger LCP, or even a six shot revolver, for our fore-fathers survived on 1 shot flint locks and that is what they had in mind when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, at least that’s what you claim.  You cannot have it both ways, you cannot just embrace technology you like and throw away that you dislike.

Our opponents would be happy to take away every semi-automatic pistol, who needs them right?  You can carry a revolver, it has six rounds, more than enough for anything you might encounter!  Then one day someone goes on a spree, reloading while the response takes 20 minutes and you hear cries that we need blanket revolver ban.  It’s a slippery slope my friend and the first assault weapons ban proved that along with another important fact.

The federal assault-weapons ban, scheduled to expire in September, is not responsible for the nation’s steady decline in gun-related violence and its renewal likely will achieve little, according to an independent study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

“We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence,” said the unreleased NIJ report, written by Christopher Koper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Now you could say I’m over stepping and taking this too far to which I would reply, how do you set the bar then?  George Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to his duck blind and by god the Second Amendment was not written with the aspect of hunting in mind.  No, at the time the American public maintained it’s own supply of military arms and while some would say that is no longer necessary, I would point out that to this day the United States has an unorganized militia that can be called upon to defend her.  As well as the fact that our government has committed atrocities against her own people and you wish to give that same government a sole monopoly on force.  Merely ensuring that her own citizens cannot resist if they feel it necessary to do so.

Lastly your argument for an assault weapons ban also completely ignores the fact that the majority of the features banned are purely cosmetic and safety related.  Tell me, what good does it do to ban a collapsible stock?  You know that thing that allows you to adjust the length of pull for different sized shooters.  That thing you adjust to make sure the shooter doesn’t get scoped, or otherwise suffer injury.  The pistol grip, which is quite beneficial for disabled shooters allowing for a more natural grip angle and thus preventing further damage to the wrist because of recoil.  Also my personal favorite, banning a barrel shroud.  Really!? Banning an object who’s sole purpose is to prevent the user from burning themselves.  That’s like banning suppressors, because we all like hearing damage!

Your statement above is nothing but pure hypocrisy no matter how you cut it. You either support the individual right of self-defense, including their right to choose what they think is the best arm for them, or you don’t.  You cannot just say, well I don’t like evil black rifles so their bad but leave my pistols alone.  What happens to the disabled woman who cannot easily deploy a pistol but can a rifle?  Must she be stuck with a bolt-action rifle that she cannot effectively operate the bolt on?  Ok, so you’ve left semi-auto rifles now with the necessary features to aid in ease of use.  Now are you going to limit her to 10 rounds?  That operator as I said lacks normal dexterity so while you can quickly and easily reload a magazine you’ve still limited the disabled shooter.  And for what?  It’s not like the magazine bans really matter to a determined individual:

Remember it was 20 minutes for the police to respond, so short of banning metallic cartridges, people can reload guns, again and again, using them for evil.  The answer is to step up and stop evil when it appears, that is best done by allowing people to retain the best tools for doing so.  That is not done by banning the otherwise law-abiding and turning them into felons overnight.  I find it ironic though that you claim we should do the right thing and show leadership and you do so by blindly following the talking heads.  The right thing is stepping up and doing what needs to be done, even if it seems difficult.  The right thing is protecting the rights of others despite the actions of a lone mad man.  By the way sir, you lead from the front, not from the rear as you kiss the boots of your future masters begging forgiveness for something that wasn’t your fault.

In the words of Samuel Adams:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.

We ask not your counsels or your arms.

Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.

May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.