I-594, the Political War and Educating Outsiders…

I had a request come in last week to be a guest host on 2AToday to talk about I-594 and I-591, Washington political history, and basically provide a solid overview to educate people on the situation, especially those outside of Washington.

The creator worked his tail off and got it posted at BF 30 this morning.

There will be a part 2 follow on episode for after the election where fallout and the political horizon will be discussed.

While you may not live in Washington so you have no ability to vote on the initiatives I highly recommend you listen. I didn’t do this  just because of Washington politics. There is more going on that many people realize and we’re already seeing the glow of smoke on the horizon. We’re in a fight whether you like it or not and I suggest finding out what’s going on from people currently on the front lines before you find yourself in a middle of a political war zone with no clue what’s going on.

You will notice I broke out the “It Can’t Happen Here” category, because I suspect we will be hearing a lot of it in the near future.

On today’s mass shooting…

As usual twitter erupted into a bunch of people yelling and screaming for gun control, because well that’s what you do instead of nothing.

I sat and patiently waited until I could find the name of the shooter, with held for obvious reasons.  What is significant though is the following:

Authorities said they believed the shooting was related to a domestic dispute. The man they identified as the suspect, *redacted*, 45, of Brown Deer, had a restraining order against him.

So lets see here, restraining order and a serious domestic dispute.  Hmm, there’s some amendment I remember that says those with Protective Restraining Orders against them cannot have firearms. What is it called again, oh yeah the Lautenberg Amendment.

The act bans shipment, transport, ownership and use of guns or ammunition by individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, or who are under a restraining (protection) order for domestic abuse in all 50 states. The act also makes it unlawful to knowingly sell or give a firearm or ammunition to such persons.

So what’s the score on this one.  Gun control didn’t stop this murderer set on his mission.  It could have very well prevented people from defending themselves depending on the policies of the spa and mall.  It could have also prevented the victim from effectively seeking arms from the waiting period.  Ultimately though we won’t know the true effect of either of those items.

What is know, for a fact, that this man was a prohibited person, and as oh so often occurs, gun control failed.  Also of worthy note:

After the shooting, police said an improvised explosive device was found at the spa and a bomb squad is investigating, but they did not indicate whether the suspect ever tried to set the device off.

Personally I prefer these nut bags go use firearms.  There is a decent chance of survival and overall they are much less effective than explosives or fire.  The bottom line is all the clamoring for gun control is yet another example of the failure of people to comprehend how to properly cope with tragedy.

Gun control only does one thing really well.  It ensures that the law-abiding victims are disarmed so the criminals can have their way without fear of failure.

*I will not aid in giving this monster his 15 minutes of fame.

A Compare and Contrast Exercise

Lets look at exhibit A:

The results?  15 rounds, 9 innocent bystanders wounded.

Exhibit B:

Result, no innocent bystanders shot, 2 perps wounded and found in the hospital.

So can someone please explain to me again why concealed carriers are so dangerous?  Especially given the following information:

–You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

I really should spend some time aggregating the stats for the number of innocent people shot by officers during an engagement versus the number of innocents shot by a concealed carrier while defending themselves.  I hate spending my time doing that because I already know the answer and I know there was a study on it, my Google fu just can’t find it again.  I have a feeling though it may be buried and I will probably end up doing it.

Intrepid readers, if you find it, please let me know!

Denial – It’s their current state…

Via Tango I came across this wonderful study done by Harvard in 2007.  Lately I have reiterated more and more that our opponents are living in a serious state of denial and this is yet another nail in their coffin.

The money shot from the conclusion:

This Article has reviewed a significant amount of  evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra.  To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

(Emphasis mine.)  Even more entertaining though was this comment after that shot.

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by [our] finding[s],  so [are we]. [We] did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” hand‐guns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.

Are you grinning yet?  If not you should be because remember this is coming out the liberal bastion of Harvard.  Not to mention the comment made about a study done by the University of Washington, another liberal bastion out of the Peoples’ Republic of Puget Sound.  Back to Harvard though, this is the same Harvard who said the following about the 4th of July in 2011.

 “Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party,” said the report from Harvard.

Even 5 years ago Harvard saw the writing on the wall and indicated the burden of proof is on the anti-rights cultists.  Further often as of late we see the following across twitter from our opponents how gun ownership is at its lowest rate ever.  That guns are not being bought in record numbers, yet the facts clearly state otherwise.  Again, some of it comes right out of their own back yard such as this piece out of a New York CBS affiliate:

Statistics show a new trend — an increasing number of gun owners are now women.

For reasons ranging from sport to protection, the number of females buying guns has seen a spike in the last few years, CBS 2′s Ann Mercogliano reported.

Yet remember, gun ownership is at an all time low.

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) is on pace to beat its own record of 1,114,700 firearms produced in one year, set in 2011. On August 15, 2012 Ruger produced its one millionth firearm of the year, a Ruger® SR1911™ pistol which will be hand-engraved by Baron Technology, Inc. and auctioned off to support the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action.

Yet remember, gun ownership is at an all time low.  Not to mention “fewer and fewer people are interested in owning firearms”.

So I have a question.  If ownership and interest is at an all time low, who pray-tell is buying all these firearms?  Where are all these firearms going.  I know the ATF bought bunches of them and were sending them over the border to Mexico, but that little hole has been plugged up for a while now.

Our opponents do not understand their logical fallacies.  They cannot grasp that just because there are fewer gun deaths they’re not actually safer.  They cannot comprehend that violence is violence no matter the tool.  The honestly believe that you’re safer with more crime as long as guns are used less often.

Denial is a stage of grief and honestly this abundance of Peterson Syndrome is a symptom of their grief.  They have lost and not just by a bit either.  We dropped a 105mm Howitzer in the middle of their happy parade and have exposed them for the evil bigots that they are.  The worst part about those evil bigots though is they prey upon the fact that many people honestly want to do good and help people.  They then spread their lies, misinformation, and logical fallacies corrupting good people.

Honestly though, I wouldn’t mind if a majority of our opponents forever remained in the first stage.  If they do progress I want them to rapidly progress to bargaining and skipping over anger.  Given their propensity towards violence, especially when on the losing side, it would be a very bad and dangerous thing.  Doubly so if they started trying to engineer failure in an attempt to “aid” their cause.

Denial, it’s not just a river in Egypt.  It is the current home of our opponents and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  I can live with that.

Repeat After Me…

If I carry a concealed weapon, I will not be a dumbass and will use a holster unlike this individual.

A Flagstaff man accidentally fired his gun inside a crowded McDonald’s into a wall, which ended with debris hitting fellow customers, police said.

The 24-year-old man had the firearm in his waist band, the police report states, and when he leaned against the back wall, the weapon discharged.

Young man, tell me you aren’t a sports fan because you should have learned from Plaxico’s mistake.  This is not how responsible people carry firearms.  We use a good sturdy holster.  Not that cheap nylon crap from Uncle Mike either.  It should be in a real freaking holster.

You were aware of the mass shooting and you did not want people freaking out about your gun, yet you couldn’t be bothered with using a real holster?  Tell me, how did that negligent discharge work for keeping it all on the down low?

I would like to point out however this is yet another example of the hole in “training requirements” assuming boy wonder here had a CCW, which he probably is, obviously satisfied the training requirement but evidently he skipped class on buy a holster day.*  The bottom line is there are many people that live in states that have no training requirement and they don’t do this type of crap.  Then within states with the training requirement you still have people who do.  Maybe it isn’t as much the training but the attitude of the person carrying the gun.  You can lead a horse to water but you can not make him drink.

My guess on what happened given the description is that clothing got within the trigger guard and when he leaned back it applied pressure and went bang.  The other option is he violated rule 5 but I don’t think he would have put a hole through his jeans without also penetrating himself.

*Though it seems that military service satisfies the requirement, maybe they never told him to use a holster for sidearms.  About the best alternative option is participation in organized shooting sports.  I do not know specifically what sports they consider acceptable, however if it’s IDPA or USPSA they don’t let you do Mexican carry.  They tell you to use a freaking holster and what happened is exactly why.  Small-bore rifle and bullseye on the other hand, that just means you can hit the broad side of a barn, not that you know how to carry.

In Which I Lead By Example

Yesterday was the USPSA match in which I was the Match Director.  I designed all the stages and picked out the qualifier.  Overall I was looking forward to it.  Mainly because one of the stages was going to be the first stage I ever designed.

We got a bit of video of me shooting that stage.

I laugh because someone was glad that I was pissed for “forcing them to shoot this monstrosity” except everyone I talked to loved it and wanted to shoot it again. In hindsight I should have thought of a way to run it backwards.  If you’re wondering about the outburst at the end I looked at the target and saw I broke the perf on a no shoot at the end of the course.

However I’m saddened we didn’t get video of probably the most important thing that happened on that stage.  It happened while the RO was scoring my stage and I was standing right there.  I’m sad I didn’t even take a picture of it.

image

You see that white guy in the middle.  Yeah I shot the little bastard because he wasn’t smart enough to get out-of-the-way.  I drilled two A’s into T2, 2 A’s in to T1, and barely nicked the perf on the No Shoot.  When the RO came through he called Alpha Charlie on the target.  He thought I was outside the perf.  I promptly stopped him and said, “Name redacted, That should be 2 Alpha, 1 No Shoot.”  He looked at the target again and said, “holy crap you’re right.”  The funniest thing is, I didn’t even think twice about it, it was immediate and without thought.

Now I know some of you will think that some how that was in my favor, it was not.  Here’s how the score for that breaks down, if it had been an Alpha-Charlie, I would have gotten 7 points.  With a 2-Alpha, No shoot I get 0 points.  The No Shoot is –10 points, each A is a 5.  If I was a little less ethically inclined I could have taken a 7 point boost on my score for that stage.

It’s not worth it at all.  I’m in this for fun and you know what, if I have to cheat to have fun I’m doing it all wrong.  If I want to stand up on the top of the hill and say I won, by god I want to be proud of how I got there.

I was really sad when I had to call a FTE for the RO I caught as a shooter ran through.  I had actually hoped he was the first guy to just skip the body and take the head shots at an earlier position.  He shot the steel and forgot to hit the other target.

Here’s the match stages, both the descriptions and the Google Sketch Up files.  If you want to use them at your local club feel free to do so.  Just give me credit and I’ll be happy.

That particular stage is 30 Minutes or Less.  It started off being just 30 shots but when I redesigned it to fit in our bays and equipment list I ended up adding a target.

Another interesting story was from the standard I created 4×3.  I designed it specifically so the shooter would have a choice between which hand to use at which distance.  I ended up walking up just after they finished reading the stage description and two of the main shooters shot it strong hand closest, then weak hand when further away.  I promptly recheck the stage description which says the following:

String 1.  Upon start signal from behind F1 engage targets T1-T4 freestyle with one shot each.  Perform a mandatory reload and reengage T1-T4 one hand only.

String 2.  Upon start signal from behind F2 engage targets T1-T4 freestyle with one shot each.  Perform a mandatory reload and reengage T1-T4 with one shot each with the opposite hand.

I thought about it for a minute and promptly talked to the two guys who read the briefing and had shot.  In the back of my head I kind of chuckled at the thought of shooting the course of fire weak hand forward, strong hand rear, but I knew it would immediately cause an uproar.  So I clarified it for everyone and we re-shot those shooters at the end.

I still kind of wanted to hear the collective groan after I shot the course and then read the description for everyone.  If you are into USPSA, learn this now, pick up the description yourself and read it before shooting.  Others may have misinterpreted the rules.

I will say I guess Jigsaw was right when she said I was an honest shooter.

Surviving An Active Shooter – A commentary

So I saw this in passing last week but didn’t really have time to watch it or talk about it.  Alan posted it today and well it gave me the urge to comment.  So to start off with watch the video.

First off is with its emphasis on running and hiding the immediate thought was of Bert the Turtle and if you don’t know what I’m talking about.  Here is an educational video from on how to survive a nuclear attack, like the above, this one is made by your government.

At least with Bert it made a little bit of sense because you couldn’t do anything to change or alter the damage from a nuclear weapon.

Amazingly though this video does give some insight that we can all take home. The first notable item is that the attacker plainly and clearly ignored a gun free zone declaration on the door, this can be seen at 1:00. Attackers do this to know their victims cannot fight back.  Attacks frequently happen within gun-free zones, including the most recent one.  Secondly it guarantees the outcome discussed and noted at 4:20, specifically:

Improvise Weapons

It’s pretty hard to improvise a weapon equivalent to firearm, doubly so when you know the attacker has one.

Even the agency which put this video together admits what the pro-rights side of the argument has said from the beginning.  A criminal intent on doing harm will not be effected or restrained by law.  The intended victims of the attacker however will be left without the most effective means of self-defense.

Next up are the comments about first responders at 4:40.  Let this be a lesson to everyone because it is correct.  They are not there to evacuate you, they are not there to give you medical aid, they are there to stop the threat and secure the area so that medics and other emergency personal can do that.  Just because the Johnny Law has shown up doesn’t mean you are safe, that you are clear, or will receive immediate medical attention.  Let me translate this for people who still may not understand.

You are still on your own!

Emergency services will arrive on scene when they can, there is no guarantee for the response time for either medical personal or police to show up with their guns since this particular location wouldn’t let you have yours.

Hopefully the gun grabbers are crying in their beer because even the educational videos on surviving mass shootings emphasize the lack of rationality in their logic.  Can you say “Winning?”

*Overall I think the video was actually well done and decently educational.  I am not going to go running through an area looking for the shooter, but if I see him and have an opportunity I will fight, I will not run.  Running just serves to allow others to become victims or allow him a chance to shoot me in the back.

Sometimes it’s a 4 Legged Varmint…

Carry your gun, it isn’t just two-legged varmints that go bump in the night.

The unidentified 30-year-old man was sleeping at 5 a.m. when the black bear attacked him at Ponderosa Campground in the Tonto National Forest just off Arizona 260 about 12 miles northeast of Payson.

The man’s fiance escaped from the tent with her child.  During her escape the bear left and wondered into another campsite.  This time Yogi chose poorly.

The bear went to a nearby campsite, where a camper shot the animal several times with a 9mm handgun, and the bear disappeared.

Certainly not ideal for a bear but I would take that over a sharp stick without a doubt.  Evidently within the area this is the third attack within a month.

This should serve as a strong reminder that we enjoy our place at the top of the food chain not because of strength or agility, but because of our tools.  Firearms are a tool that levels the playing field quite well, especially with regards to an animal that can quite easily kill you without trying.

Also, remember while in bear country use bear boxes or bear bags and remove all foods and things could attract bears.  Also a suggestion, when in bear country where bears might be more prevalent due to wild-fire, don’t use the garbage cans in an actual campsite.  Yogi is more than happy to knock them over to get at the soda bottle tossed inside.  Even if it’s relatively close to your tents.  I speak from experience on that later incident… Thankfully it was just a yearling and a solid “Ya bear Ya. We don’t want you here” scared him off and we didn’t see him again.

Be careful out there and the life you save could just very well be your own, so carry your damn guns!