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Category Archives: Gun Grabbers

Quote of the Day–Adam Kline (10/3/2012)

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The NRA thrives on weak challenges; it sees them as fundraising opportunities. Its supporters are ready to believe that any gun bill — no matter how rational its purpose or how minor its scope — is a threat to God-given and constitutionally protected rights, and will contribute generously, giving the organization not only the psychological momentum of a win, but likely a surplus as well. It is up to us to choose our battles wisely.

(Emphasis mine)

Adam Kline – Sen. Kline: Democrats haven’t wimped out on guns

October 2, 2012

[h/t to Joe for the article. First, side rant. Adam Kline also said the following:

The way it works in this democracy is that we legislators represent our constituents. We can get a majority of our colleagues on an issue when enough of us sense that the people are there, or almost there, or at least going there, and that we may have to push them there, but at the end of the day our risk will not have been wasted. The work of moving public opinion on an issue cannot be done by legislators alone, whose work makes us generalists, but must be done by the activists who care particularly about that issue.

We don’t live in a democracy Mr. Kline.  We live in a constitutional republic.  I realize though that a majority of those who now work in the legislative bodies are ignorant of how the system was actually designed to work and prefer to twist and manipulate it to destroy the rights of the minority.  For you see a democracy is nothing more than mob-rule.  If the mob wants to take your property, they can.  If the mob wants to kill you, they can.  If the mob decides they would rather bleed you dry like a slave, they can.  The point of a constitutional republic is that both the majority and minority are protected equally.

Now back to the quote at hand, more specifically the part emphasized.  There is a reason we view it as a threat to a natural and enumerated right.  Because it IS! I grew up in the age of the 1994 assault weapons ban.  I remember it quite well and it’s goal was down right obvious.  Don’t believe me?  The most popular rifle in America would still be banned if it wasn’t for the expiration of the AWB.

That was claimed by supporters as being rational and the only way to curb gun violence.  The thing is, statistically gun control has been proven to be ineffective over and over again.  Further when you compare nations with strong gun controls it becomes obvious it creates a world that is less safe for the law abiding. 

That is the crux Mr. Kline.  The American public no longer likes being criminalized by the government for merely having and effective tool of self defense.  The American public sees what you’re doing and claiming for exactly what it is.  You’re issue is that you can no longer control the narrative.  Not only can you not control the narrative but you’re upset because the people on your side of the debate are crazy and violent.  Because of this your side of the debate is left standing still every time you attempt to infringe on that natural and enumerated right.

It is however unsurprising that you find your home the Peoples Republic of Puget Sound and you feel your “majority” other wise known merely as Seattle is a right for you to dictate life throughout the rest of the state.  I doubt this will make any difference given the 37th Legislative district is the equivalent of Communist China, but if you live there, please send that tyrant home.

So in closing Mr. Kline, in the words of Melvin Udall, “Where did they teach you to talk like this, some Panama City sailor wanna hump hump bar, or is this get-a-way day and your last shot at his whiskey, sell crazy some place else, we’re all stocked up here.”  -B]

Where’s the Kaboom!?

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I swear I’m beginning to feel like Marvin the Martian.

Now I know there won’t be a Kaboom, but our opponents keep on promising an equivalent and it never happens.

Almost no incidents have been reported involving concealed-carry permit holders, and there has been no spike in violence as predicted by some opponents concerned about the volatile mix of alcohol and guns.

What do  you mean there wasn’t a sudden increase in crime.  Our opponents promised blood in the streets, where is it!?  You mean that when the law was passed it followed the historical example of the past 20+ years where nothing happened?

Our opponents continue to bring the same old tired and false arguments to the table and are wondering why they are loosing so badly in their fight to infringe on the rights of people.  It’s obvious that they’re loosing because many of their supporters are descending into the second stage of grief.

After I went through 16 of the steps to register a gun earlier this year, I had to endure the 10-day waiting period to “cool off.” During that time, I received a terrifying call one evening. The stranger, whose number was blocked, left a minute-long voicemail.

“I know everything about you,” said the caller in a high-pitched voice. “I’ve been watching you. Your every step. I’m coming for you Emily.” Also, “I’m a crazy mother f–er. This is not a game. This is not for some f–ing scary f–ing movie. This is real business.” Finally the caller ended with, “Don’t you think of going to the police.”

This is the way our opponents behave when they’re loosing.  They say that we are the violent ones, yet they are the ones who regularly devolve into threats and violence.  Some have devolved into the third stage and are attempting to bargain, bargaining for an extra few minutes of life for their beloved cause.

They will get no sympathy from me. We bargained with them in the past and they took that inch and made it a mile.  We learned then and there they have no will to actually compromise or work together, their sole goal is the complete destruction of the right to keep and bear arms.

They can merely move on to depression and finally acceptance.  Our opponents must ultimately accept the fact that their bigoted view on rights was on the wrong side of history.

I wish the day that they finally implode would have an “earth shattering kaboom”, but alas I think they will just slowly fade into the dust bin of history.  Even once that happens it’s going to be a long road to undo the damage they have done and regain the full respect this right deserves.  I will fight tirelessly until that goal is achieved.

I suppose that when their irrelevance is sealed up, I can head out and make my own Kaboom!  I’ll make it a Bada-Big-Boom.

h/t David Hardy

Knife vs. Gun

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Yeah, sometimes violence shows up on your doorstep unprovoked.  Our opponents would have preferred to just be unarmed and give them what the aggressor wanted.  Except in this case all he wanted with their lives.

If someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back.  I’m glad that it appears that the victims in this case all survived.

h/t David Hardy

Police Qualification Standards, Debunking the Myth

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So Joe talked about it at the beginning of the month.  I did as Ry suggested and put some extra effort into the video this time around.  It isn’t professional quality by any means though my skills are improving.  It was new unfamiliar software and there were tons of little features I wanted to play with.  I’m getting better with Adobe Premiere, next is After Effects.

So let me start off with a rehash of what we did and why we did it.

Last January a reader on Joe’s blog commented about the LAPD qualification being exceptional and that since they have to qualify every month it’s stringent.

Joe and I weren’t able to find a detailed description however she did and linked us to it. Joe then set about making stages.  You can find the stages here and here.  At this point we had everything we needed to run “a bunch of beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies“, many of them were the same as before, through the course and see how they did.

Now Joe noted earlier that we had a 90% pass rate for those who scored above 60% and he’s right.  We did have a 90% pass rate at that score level, which is for qualifying in the dark.

Three people were just under the 70% mark, which is the LAPD pass requirement for daylight.  There however is another difference I couldn’t easily cover in the video.  You see the LAPD uses automatic turning targets for their qualification course.  For them it is impossible to have a scoring hit after the time limit is exceeded.

We didn’t have that option, instead we had to fall back on USPSA rules and penalties for shooting a fixed time course of fire.  What this means is that any shot fired after the second buzzer carries with it a penalty of -10 points.  Note the highest possible score for a single shot is 5 points.  So if you make up that shot the best you can do is be down 5 points if you hit an A.

This becomes a serious issue with single shot strings because most likely you will only fire one shot after the buzzer.  You have no extra shots to even out the debt and you just continue to decrease the score.  To give you an idea of how quickly this adds up, 5 penalties will result in a failing score.  So if you have trouble with the 2 shots in 2 seconds and are right on the edge, there’s three penalties.  Couple that with 4 misses on top of that and congrats you have failed.  It doesn’t even need to be full misses, just the aggregate non Alpha hits can add up and shove you under, especially if you’re shooting a minor caliber instead of major.

I know that at least 2 of the three failures had penalties for exceeding time limits, I would need to get the raw score sheets to see exactly how many there were for each shooter.  Though I suspect given their scores, if you change the penalty to -5 from -10, IE subtract just the best possible hit and just turn that shot into a mike, the three in the 60% region would most likely pass.

I think this quote from Tam puts it better than I could.

 I have yet to run across a standard LE qual course that couldn’t be passed by anybody who could stand flat-footed, aim at the ground, and hit it.

In twenty years of being in the firearms industry, I have had the opportunity to see LOTS of police officers shoot. Those that are good are generally good because they are also firearms enthusiasts and sport shooters in their spare time. Most cops aren’t.

In other words they are good shots in spite of being trained and certified by their department, not because of it.

Yup, that’s about how I felt about the LAPD course after I shot it.  Next on the list though is shooting the bonus course.  I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be able to do that but I’ll draw up the stages and may do it over a couple matches.  Doing it all in a single match makes for a lot of “standards” and much less puzzle solving.

The 2nd Amendment Foundation and You

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So I got an email from my friend Ray Carter at the Second Amendment Foundation this morning.

Unbeknownst to me there was a Kick Starter drive started for a film that is dear to our cause.

There’s 14 days left in their drive with a goal of $65,000 dollars.  Yeah times are tough on wallets, but you know what it’s also only going to get tougher for our right to keep an bear arms.

There is no question that California is dead center in the fight to keep an bear arms.  Every time I’m around other gun owners and the subject turns to our rights, inevitably the subject of California’s draconian laws comes into play.

If you have 10 bucks, kick into the bucket and you’ll get a digital copy of the film.  Hell, at just 50 you get a DVD and a crew T-Shirt.

How serious does the Second Amendment Foundation and Calguns Foundation consider this project?

The Second Amendment Foundation and the Calguns Foundation have each contributed $5,000.00 to get this project off the ground. 

Let’s get this project completely airborne and complete their goal.  This is something that definitely needs to be spread around.  Tell your friends, tell your relatives, make this happen, it isn’t just California in trouble.  California is merely the front line. 

Quote of the Day – A Girl and Her Gun (9/19/2012)

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The most dangerous thing about these people is that they want to affect our minds. They want to convince us that we do not matter. That we have no value. That if we were truly decent and caring people we would care more about the man trying to shove parts of his body into you or me by force than our right not to have that happen.

A Girl and Her Gun – You Have Worth

September 19th, 2012

[I find it interesting that our opponents arguments are exactly as A Girl points out more and more.  There is little to question about the way our opponents view criminals and the law-abiding.  Their views are that the life of the criminal is worth more than the person who is being violated.

How sad is it when their position in the argument is that you should let the criminal violate you and then the state will give him “due process”.  I don’t think he really understands how the legal system works.  Due process isn’t a method to argue against self-defense.  Due process is a legal term to protect the innocent from the force of the state.  Due process only applies within the realm of the state.  A criminal does not get entitled to have a jury vote thumbs up or down before their victim can fight back.  The victim is a one man jury and the state will apply due process on that one man jury.

What does this mean for criminals?  It means that if a criminal tries to kill someone, the victim can try to kill them right back.  In the eyes of the law and due process, the victim will be justified in their actions while the criminal will not.

Never mind that the particular individual who brought about this argument failed reading comprehension 101.  As I told A Girl yesterday regarding his commentary on “due process”:

WTFO? I think I just killed brain cells trying to make that supposedly logical leap…

It is unbelievable how willfully our opponents voice their distaste for the law-abiding while embracing, defending, and supporting criminals. -B]

Quote of the Day – NGAC (9/16/2012)

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Criminals are interested in getting money and goods, not in killing people.  2/3 of U.S. gun homicides are due to arguments not criminals.

National Gun Victims Action Council – Gun Fact #2: If Only The Criminals Had Guns, U.S. Gun Homicides Would Plummet.

September 14, 2012

[First off, criminals are only interested in money and goods unless they aren’t.

Secondly NGAC is saying is it is better to be a victim than to defend yourself.  Because if you defend yourself effectively you will be committing a gun homicide.  Because in their world, there is no such thing as justifiable homicide.

They’re right, criminals don’t like having armed victims, it makes their chosen profession dangerous.  Our opponents can only argue that it’s better to be a victim, raped, beaten, and broke in an alley than standing over their cooling dead body.

Why is it our opponents are so desperate in seeing honest people criminalized, victimized, and otherwise abused by the criminal elements?

As I have said before our opponents are not working to better the safety of the law-abiding but are actively working to protect the criminal element.  They are the equivalent of OSHA for violent criminals.

Who bothers to listen to these fools anymore? -B]

h/t Uncle.

In which I take advice and set the bar higher

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So as Joe mentioned while we were in Reno we ran the LAPD qualification stage.  I passed, not as comfortably as I would have liked but was no slouch either.

I followed through on my word since I knew when these stages would be coming and practiced less and less as the day approached.  Prior to this shoot the last time I had shot was the beginning of August at that USPSA match.  I hadn’t shot any steel either since March and hadn’t done any extra practice either.

So for all intents and purposes I went into this thing pretty damn cold since I only really shoot about 150 rounds at a USPSA match at most.  Overall my opinion of the stages was that it wasn’t hard or difficult.  Doubly so since we made the stages harder than what actually required by the LAPD.

Ry suggested I try using Adobe Premiere and step up my game in production quality for the video.  I happen to think on this it’s probably a good idea.  So I spent this morning playing with Premiere and could actually cut a raw video that looks decent of Joe and I both shooting the qualifier from multiple angles.  That however isn’t the type of video I’m looking for.

I started writing up a script tonight and am intending to spend a decent amount of time editing to provide the maximum punch possible from this video.  There are some serious notes that and things that need to be emphasized regarding many of the stages and that needs to be done correctly.  Further, as I am evidently a beer swilling redneck, I figure I might as well act like one and start surpassing the CSGV’s and Brady Campaign’s production values for their videos.

The end goal is to get down to a short 3 to 4 minute video to educate people on the truth behind these “standards”.  Some have said we were self-selecting and I could see that if this was a National or Area level match, but not for a local match.  Local matches give you a wide variety of shooters, including multiple new shooters, with new and unfamiliar equipment.  The details on how and why that matters will be clearly illustrated in the video.

In the mean time enjoy this instead: