Category: Guns

Chief Tango sends us a link from Nashville which announced that the Tennessee legislature has named a “state rifle” – the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle;

The vote was 27-1 for House Joint Resolution 231, which designates the recoil-operated, 50-caliber semi-automatic rifle developed by Ronnie Barrett, a Tennessee native and owner of the Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Co.

Barrett, a National Rifle Association board member, was 27 when he invented the rifle. The weapon is manufactured in Christiana, Tenn., outside Murfreesboro.

This comes while California and New Jersey have outlawed the sale and possession of .50 caliber rifles, a favorite of long-range shooters. I can’t think of a single crime that has been committed with the rifle which usually sell for more than $5,000 – out of most criminals’ price range. Ammunition is about $5/round.

But they are scary-looking aren’t they?

Country Singer sends us a link to the UK’s Daily Mail whose editors wets their panties over James Arnold’s 500 guns of his collection in his home in Wyverstone, Suffolk.

Three months after the discovery and the 49-year-old’s arrest in April 2014, Arnold died of pancreatic cancer, meaning he could never face prosecution.

But as firearms dealer Anthony Buckland, 65, was jailed for at Norwich Crown Court for supplying some of the weapons, Suffolk Police opened up its armoury to journalists to highlight the massive scale of the find.

Reportedly, he had 200,000 rounds of ammo, too. But, he never hurt a soul with this “terrifying arsenal” of weaponry. And I hope that those expended rounds of linked ammunition aren’t in the count. On closer examination, some of the linked brass appears to be blank ammo, too. I’m just trying to figure out what was “terrifying” about it. A man can only fire one weapon at a time, two if he’s Wyatt Earp or John Wayne, so it doesn’t matter how many he has, really. Besides, I know people with much more.

Collectors aren’t terrifying. Terrorists are terrifying.

Remember when Maryland’s former governor, Marty O’Malley, currently one of the Democrat presidential candidates (in case you forgot), rammed his “Firearms Safety Act” through the legislature in the middle of the night? It banned a number of modern sporting rifles (scary black gun) and magazines for weapons that stored more than ten rounds. Well, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck that down yesterday. The court said;

“In our view, Maryland law implicates the core protection of the Second Amendment—’the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,’ District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008), and we are compelled by Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), as well as our own precedent in the wake of these decisions, to conclude that the burden is substantial and strict scrutiny is the applicable standard of review for Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claim.

It could go to the Supreme Court, I suppose, but I don’t see the current governor, Larry Hogan, appealing the 4th Circuit’s opinion. He’s been looking for a way to get rid of the FSA since he took office last year and this is a good way for him to get out of it.

Here’s the whole 90-page (.pdf) decision for you legal eagles;

Kolbe-v.-Hogan_Opinion

That dang Constitution-thingie is always getting in the way.

I know the Washington Post wants their money back for conducting this poll. It seems that, if you believe poll results, Americans think that more guns in the hands of private citizens will do more to prevent terrorism than the government.

Among the roughly three-quarters of Americans who doubt the government’s ability to prevent a lone-wolf attack, 57 percent oppose banning assault weapons, vs. 41 percent in support. Those numbers are reversed among those who are more confident in government counterterrorism –- 56 percent favor banning such weapons, while 42 percent are opposed.

The split is even more striking between those who see stricter gun control as the better way to fight terrorism, vs. “encouraging more people to carry guns legally.”

Of course, it’s all mental masturbation, anyway. The 2d Amendment protects Americans from the government taking our guns away. Even if the poll went the other way, the Bill of Rights protects a minority from a tyrannical majority. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is pretty specific.

The Washington Post conducted a poll of the residents of the District of Columbia in regards to the current state of gun ownership, or, rather, the lack thereof, in the District. Their poll says that 51% of the people polled want the gun ban to return and 47% oppose that. However, the margin of error in their poll is +/-4% meaning that the difference is statistically insignificant, but you wouldn’t think that from the article.

With a solid half in support of a total gun ban, the poll’s findings will probably embolden D.C. politicians and gun-control advocates, who are fighting to keep intact lesser firearm restrictions that gun-rights advocates are contesting in federal courts.

Yeah, well, there’s a solid half in the other direction, too. Besides, this is a good example of why there is a Bill of Rights. Those amendments were added to the Constitution in order to protect a minority of citizens from the tyranny of majority, you know, even though there’s not a majority supporting a gun ban in DC, anyway. If the majority wanted Congress to establish a national religion, or if a majority wanted to muzzle the press, they can’t, because of the Bill of Rights. The same goes for gun ownership.

To their credit, the Post did interview some rational people for their article;

“Isn’t that in the…the 2nd Amendment, no they shouldn’t ban guns,” said Idriis Bilaal, 88, who spent two decades in the Army and lives in an area of D.C. north of Capitol Hill where robberies have been on the rise. “Guns don’t kill nobody, they just lay there. A man should be able to own a gun if he wants to. It doesn’t mean he has to use it wrongly.”

“This is America, you’ve always had a right to own a gun, and I think you should,” said a poll respondent who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is among the few who have gone through the process to legally register a gun in the District and considers that decision a private one.

A retiree who lives in a neighborhood north of Capitol Hill, the respondent said he obviously disagrees with a ban.

“You should have some protection, I’m 70 and that’s the way it used to be. Why shouldn’t you when all those criminals have guns? They don’t care about a ban on guns.”

But, they interviewed some irrational people, too;

Pearley Harmon, 76, a retired engineer who lives in Takoma Park, said he thinks that gun violence has increased since the Supreme Court struck down the city’s ban on handguns, and, if it were possible, he would like to see the ban restored.

For the record, none of the crimes committed with firearms in the District since the total ban was lifted were committed with a registered firearm or by a registered gun owner. So, restoring the ban would have no impact on crime in the District. There have been 144 murders committed with firearms this year, the were 91 at this time last year. But you know, gun registration was allowed last year, too. Since the gun ban was enacted in 1974, the Metro PD confiscated about 2,000 illegal guns every year in spite of the law. Criminals don’t care about laws, apparently.

My question to those folks who want the ban restored is “What part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?”