Connecticut Dodges a Bullet on a Magazine Ban

Senate Bil 1094, that would have banned the possession and manufacture of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds, died in committee on Friday when the Judiciary Committee declined to vote on the bill. Bills like this are most certainly an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms, and do nothing to stop crime. I'm glad to see that the senators on the Connecticut Judiciary Committee see it that way. You only have to look at other countries that have enacted various types of gun bans to see the consequences. In Britain, restrictions on firearms have led to an increase in burglaries and home invasions, because criminals are no longer afraid of being shot if they break into someone's home. And as guns have become increasingly difficult to own, the increase in violent crimes involving knives has skyrocketed to the point where the stupid british politicians want to severely restrict ownership of knives and police actively request members of the public to turn in their friends who own a knife. Has anybody read George Orwell lately?
I personally have seen refrigerator magnets in a London police station that read, "If you know someone who has a knife ..." and then gives a phone number for a crime hotline.

We have to remember that gun control (and in some cases, knife control) is not about reducing crime, it's about politicians and governments making it harder for the people to protect themselves from crime (so that they become more dependent on government), and harder for the people to overthrow a tyrannical government. Every dictator in modern history has disarmed the population so that he could control them.

The Dangers of Gun Bill H.R. 308

Following on the heels of the shootings in Arizona, congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY, 4 District) has introduced federal bill H.R. 308 The Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act. Unlike many previous gun ban bills that were an attempt to ban everything imaginable, this bill is very short. It is intended to "Prohibit the transfer or possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices, and for other purposes"

In other words, it is designed to reinstate the provision in the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban (1994 - 2004) that banned the sale of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds.

The H.R. 308 McCarthy bill, "magazine, belt, drum, feed strip or similar device that has a capacity of ... more than ten rounds of ammunition." and goes on to say that under the bill, it "... shall be unlawful for a person to transfer or possess a large capacity ammunition feeding device."

The bill does include a provision that keeps it legal for anyone who already owns any of the above mentioned feeding devices before the bill becomes law, to keep them.

This law is bad for a number of reasons:

First, this country is at war with radical Islamists. The troops who have been deployed since 2002 in the Middle-east use the same thirty-round capacity magazines in their M4/M16 assault rifles as civilians and law enforcement officers use in their AR-15 rifles. The troops use the same high-capacity magazines in their 9mm M11 pistols as civilians police officers use in their 9mm Beretta pistols. The sad fact is that the firearms industry that manufactures weapons for our military cannot survive on military contracts alone.

Without the money spent by civilians on these items, the firearms industry could not keep its doors open, and would not be able to supply our troops and our police officers.

Unless, of course, you want each magazine to cost the Pentagon ten times what it costs now.

Second, it isn't like we haven't already tried this legislation. The Clinton magazine ban was around for ten years. Did we see any reduction in crime because of it? NO. But one thing we did see was that pistols designed to run with higher capacity magazines were not always as reliable when running the hastily-redesigned ten-round magazines. Don't home-owners and the nine million people in this country who hold a concealed carry permit deserve to have a reliable pistol for their defense?

Representative McCarthy's passion for more gun control stems from the murder of her husband on the Long Island Railroad Commuter Train shootings in 1993 when a nutcase with a pistol murdered six people and wounded nineteen others. My heart goes out to her for her loss. But the answer to making the world a safer place is not to disarm law abiding citizens and put them at the mercy of those who wantonly and violently break the law. The answer lies in accepting the constitutional right of those citizens to arm themselves, if they choose, in order to successfully defend themselves and those for whom they care and are responsible.

And if that means carrying a pistol with one or more high capacity magazines, then so be it.

It's the violent nut cases of this world we have to curtail, defeat, and whose rights we should infringe upon, not those who already respect and obey the law.

Gun Rights Restored to U.S. National Parks

On February 22, a new federal credit card bill became law. The law included a rider that restores the right to carry concealed firearms in most of the nation's national parks by people who have a permit to Carry a Concealed Weapon (CCW) for the state in which the park is located. This is good news for law-abiding citizens who have had to risk attacks by violent criminals or aggressive animals while visiting the nation's parks. The gist of the law is that if the state in which the national park is located allows for citizens to carry firearms, then that same right is extended into the park.

Not all parks are included in the list; The Statue of Liberty, for example is exempted by the law, although it would have been exempted anyway for all regular people, because although New York City allows for concealed carry with a permit, only a few wealthy or politically connected people actually have them.

Is the law important? Yes, in 2006, there were 11 murders, 35 rapes, 61 aggravated assaults in national parks. it may seem a low number compared to some cities, but if you are one of the victims, then your statistic is 100 percent.

Who Really Wants to Disarm Gunowners?

Despite victories by pro-individual freedom groups in the United States to promote laws allowing carrying of concealed weapons for self defense, and lawsuits like D.C. v. Heller that reaffirmed the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms, as declared by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the forces of darkness are gathering here and overseas to ban gun ownership by "mere" citizens around the world. Here's an interesting video about the international efforts to severely limit or ban private ownership of firearms. Just click here to watch it.

Throughout the world, throughout history, kings and governments that have held superior firepower over their citizenry have become less benevolent and more dictatorial, simply because they could. The Founding Fathers recognized this fact when they wrote the United States Constitution and made sure that the right of the people of the USA to own guns would always be there (along with other safeguards) to keep a balance of power between the people and the government.

If you don't think that totalitarian government is a possibility in the 21st century, consider the British parliament's decision to hand power over to the bureaucrats in the European Union. These people have done to Britain what the Nazis failed to do. Click here for the story. But of course, the government had already almost completely disarmed the population through a series of restrictive gun laws that date back to the early 1920s.

"God, Guns, Guts, and American Made Pickup Trucks"

Here's an interesting piece of video from CNN. The reporter is interviewing a car dealer in a rural part of the United States, where they are giving away a free AK-47 with every purchase of a new vehicle. The car buyer must still obtain the rifle through a local gun dealer, and go through the usual criminal background check, etc. before actually taking possession and ownership of the firearm.

The interview is interesting because it highlights the difference in cultural attitudes between urban and rural people. It's worth noting that the CNN reporter is unable to clearly articulate her concerns about this gun giveaway, while the car dealer has no problems explaining why a legally-owned, semi-auto AK is a viable option for people who live 15 minutes away from the closest police response want to defend their homes from violent criminals. Click here to watch the interview.

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Forget Hello Kitty, Meet Cornershot Kitty

The Cornershot is basically a rifle stock with a hinge halfway. The back half of the stock fits into the shoulder like a rifle, while the front half allows a pistol and a video camera to be mounted. This means that the operator can not only see around corners, while staying behind cover, he can also film what he sees, and he can also shoot what he sees. I examined one of these devices at the SHOT show a couple of years back. It's a good tool for a law enforcement officer or a soldier because he doesn't have to stick his head out from cover to see what is going on around the corner. This is an Israeli product, but the idea seems to have originated with the Nazis during WWII, when they bent the barrels on some of their rifles and machine pistols (see photo).

Well now, the Cornershot comes with a fake cat (think glove puppet) that is hollow, and fits over the pistol. The back legs of the fake cat cover the legs of a bipod, if one is fitted. The purpose of the cat is to camouflage the pistol, so that a bad guy who spots it simply thinks there is a cat standing by the corner, watching him. By the time the bad guy figures out what is going on, he's probably been shot a couple of times. Click here to watch the video.

British Soldiers plus German Rifles equals Neutralized Terrorists

The London Daily Telegraph reports that troopers of Britain's Special Air Service (SAS) made a nighttime High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachute jump on the outskirts of Baghdad recently. The covert insertion was part of a mission to locate insurgent leaders and bomb-making factories.

It's interesting that even with all the talk about U.S. forces pulling out of Iraq, there still seems to be an active terrorist presence almost on the doorstep of the Green Zone. But enough of armchair strategy.

Here's the interesting part of the story: The SAS has now added Heckler & Koch's new battle rifle to its armory, the HK417. So now you have British soldiers using German rifles. Sir Winston Churchill might have been shocked, but actually it's nothing new. Everybody from the SAS to the british Metropolitan Police Force has used the German-built HK MP5 submachine guns for more than twenty years.

You may be familiar with H&K's 416, a M16 clone chambered in 556NATO, but the 417 is the big brother. It's chambered in 762NATO, has the same controls in the same places as the ubiquitous M16 (so it's easy for troops trained on the M16/M4/AR-15 platform to switch to the 417) but is also capable of being used as either a Close Quarters Battle (CQB) weapon, or as a precision rifle for long distance engagements (okay, so it's also a sniper rifle). Simply change the barrel from the 12 or 16-inch versions to the 20-inch barrel, and add a long-range scope. Voila!

When the M16 rifle was first fielded in Vietnam in the mid-sixties, the idea was that the 5.56mm cartridge was lighter than the 7.62 cartridge, so more of it could be carried into battle. While this was considered a good thing, it did not take into account a couple of other important factors: The 5.56 mm bullet does not fly as far as its heavier 7.62 mm counterpart, and the 55-70 grain projectile doesn't always put the other guy down as effectively as the 147 grain bullet in the 762NATO round. Arguably, this did not matter too much in the jungles of Vietnam, where enemy soldiers weighed about 110 LBS, wore only light uniforms, and were most likely engaged from zero to maybe a hundred yards or a bit more. And don't get me wrong, the 556NATO cartridge does put the bad guys down. It's just that the devil is in the details: does it do it at long distance? Does it take more than one solid hit?

However, the 762NATO round does a much better job than the 556NATO of penetrating barriers and unarmored vehicles like cars and trucks. During the U.S invasion of Panama in 1989 to arrest Manuel Noriega, the U.S. forces used the standard M16 rifle almost exclusively. However, when they came across heavily barracaded villas owned by Noriega's henchmen, they found that the 556NATO round was unable to shoot through the barriers. There were a few urgent calls placed stateside to fly down some mothballed, M14 rifles (chambered in 762NATO) to fix the problem. Ironically, the M14 was the standard U.S. service rifle early on in the Vietnam war (and was replaced by the M16) but with it's wooden stock, 7.62 caliber, and twenty-round magazine, was considered by some to be outdated when compared to the sleek little M16 with plastic stock and pistol grip, aluminum frame, and smaller 556NATO chambering.

So in the deserts of the middle east, where distances to targets can go from zero to a thousand yards (and those targets are a bit heavier built than Vietnamese people) it makes sense to use a cartridge that performs at extended distances. Particularly when, like the SAS on their Baghdad mission, you infil by parachute and don't have to hump a lot of ammo all day like the guys in Vietnam did on patrol.

Different strokes for different wars, I guess.

Free NRA Membership

The NRA is offering a free, one-year trial membership. Now, even in these tough economic times, there is really no excuse for any gunowner, or anyone who values the freedoms bestowed upon us in the Bill of Rights to not join the gun lobby's nine-hundred pound gorilla.

Just go to: https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp

If ever there was a time since the Clinton administration for gunowners to unite to defend the Second Amendment, this is it! The assault weapons ban is hanging around out there, and so is Congressman Bobby Rush's bill H.R.45 that would put severe restrictions on handgun ownership.

But Ben Franklin said it best: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

The Taurus Judge revolver

I recently had a chance to evaluate the "Judge" revolver, made by Taurus. This is a five-shot revolver with a short barrel, chambered for both .45 Long Colt and .410 shotgun ammunition. At first glance, I was sceptical. With its three-inch barrel, it is a rather large snubnose revolver to carry only five rounds of .45 ammo. I'm sure the sub-compact .45 caliber semi-auto pistols are slimmer, with a slightly higher capacity. So what's the big deal with the Judge?

The big deal is that you have the firepower of a .410 pump action shotgun in something the size of a pistol. When we loaded it up with .410 buckshot rounds, we found that it put a pattern of buckshout about 3-4 inches wide on paper at about twelve yards. I shot it on eight-inch diameter falling steel plate targets at about the same distance, and had one of the fastest runs on steel I can remember! The large red fiber optic front sight was very quick to pick up and place over the target.

This gun is touted by Taurus as being a good choice for close quarters self-defense, particularly in a bedroom in case of home invasion, or in a car, in case of a car jacking. I'd also add that I think it would very good for people who sail small boats where piracy is a threat.

Al I can say is, I want one!