Category: Guns

The Washington Times reports that Thomas McCrossin, the CEO of RWC, announced that his company is licensed to make US-manufactured Kalashnikov rifles, because the Obama Administration, just last year, forbade the import of the Russian variety;

“We are not permitted to pick up the phone and to talk to [Kalashnikov Concern],” Mr. McCrossin told CNN Tuesday. “In the second quarter of this year we are going to start manufacturing here in the U.S. What I’m manufacturing are our own AK-47s and shotguns under the Kalashnikov brand,” he added.

From CNN;

CNNMoney has reached out to Kalashnikov Concern in Moscow for comment, but hasn’t heard back.

McCrossin said he’s shopping around for a location for the factory. He said that he plans to hire people, but he wouldn’t say how many.

He made the announcement at the Kalashnikov USA booth at the SHOT Show. The booth carried the slogans “Russian heritage” and “Made in USA.”

I’m not a fan, but I figured some of you folks are.

John sends us a link to the Detroit News which reports that the murder rate in that city is on track to it’s lowest rate in 47 years;

As of Tuesday, 298 criminal homicides were recorded, a decline from 318 at the same point last year, according to Detroit Police. That’s a 6 percent drop from last year and marks the second straight year of declines.

The lowest number of homicides in Detroit in any of the past 47 years was in 2010: 308. Before that, the lowest total was 281 in 1967, the year of the Detroit summer riots.

Taking population into consideration, the murder rate per 100,000 residents is on pace to drop for the third straight year, from 55 in 2012, to 47.5 last year, to 42.6 so far in 2014.

Of course, you might remember that we’ve talked about the new police chief, James Craig, of that who city encourages citizens to protect their homes and families with their own firearms. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with it, though.

Most other violent crimes, including carjackings and robberies were also on pace to drop in 2014, although justifiable homicides are up, from 16 year-to-date in 2013 to 22.

“People feel the need to protect themselves,” Craig said. “Maybe that’s helping drive down robberies: Maybe the criminals are afraid they’ll be confronted by someone who has a gun.”

Maybe so.

Todd sends us a link to the Orlando’s WTSP about a new attraction opening tomorrow in Orlando called Machine Gun America;

The 13,000-square-foot facility sits directly across from Kissimmee’s Old Town attraction which is a nostalgic tourist mecca aimed at family fun. But instead of roller coasters and go carts, Machine Gun America offers live ammunition automatic weapons, including high-powered machine guns.

[…]

Machine gun America is itself coming under fire from critics who say the Orlando region was built on a history of child and family-friendly entertainment, and is no place for this concept.

“You’ve got Holy Land right there in Orlando. You’ve got Disney World, and Epcot,” said Lucia Kay McBath, a member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, “All places for family fun where they should feel protected.”

Ya know what? If I was a parent and didn’t want my kids to go there and shoot weapons, I wouldn’t take them. I also wouldn’t go to the local news and lose my shit over something that has nothing to do with me or my kids. Ms. McBath (odd name for a stank-ass hippie, don’t you think?) should concern herself with what her children are doing instead of telling other people what to do with their kids. You know, given the name of her organization she should be applauding the “gun sense” this particular business is showing by providing a safe, supervised and secure environment for using guns.

But we all know that, to Ms. McBath, “gun sense” means “gun ban”. While she lives in Florida, she should be wearing a Kevlar helmet and body armor every time she leaves the house, so should her kids, if she has any of the unfortunate little things.

Clifford Charles Tyler, now 73-years-old, had emotional problems in 1986 following a divorce and the court ordered him to get treatment. He complied and was released from treatment a month later.

Fast-forward 28 years and he’s not allowed to buy a firearm because of that one month out of his life. So he took it to court. He lives in Michigan which hasn’t taken advantage of a federal program to form a “relief from disabilities” system so Cliff can prove that he is no longer emotionally disturbed. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to prevent Mr. Tyler from buying a gun according to the Wall Street Journal;

In other words, wrote Judge Boggs: “[W]hether Tyler may exercise his right to bear arms depends on whether his state of residence has chosen to accept the carrot of federal grant money and has implemented a relief program.… An individual’s ability to exercise a fundamental right necessary to our system of ordered liberty cannot turn on such a distinction.”

In the article, one 2d Amendment expert expects that this will open up other portions of federal gun control laws to judicial scrutiny.

While I agree that there should be relief for folks that are no longer troubled, I also think that there are too many escape hatches for people who are unbalanced. We’ve seen the results countless times in the last few years in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut and just this week in Pennsylvania to name a few.

The problem, of course, isn’t the Cliff Tylers of this country, it’s the people who need to be banned from buying weapons and their names aren’t placed in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System because local police and prosecutors aren’t willing to make the system an effective tool. That’s why politicians are more willing to ban guns outright because that’s easier than making the government do it’s job. It takes less thought and makes the issue emotional.

Reuters reports that some of the families of the victims of Adam Lanza in the Newtown shootings two years ago are planning lawsuits for wrongful deaths;

The parents of eight of the children killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, carnage, which 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza ended by shooting himself dead as he heard police sirens approach, have notified Connecticut courts that they may file wrongful death lawsuits in state or federal court.

Their initial court filings, related to legal entities created in memory of their children, do not indicate who the families could target in their lawsuits, according to a chief court clerk for North Fairfield County Probate Court.

While the parents could not be reached for comment, a spokesman for Bridgeport law firm Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder said that a lawyer at the firm had recently met with some of the Newtown parents about potential suits.

I sympathize with them, and I understand their feeling that they need to strike out at someone, but whoever they end up filing these lawsuits against are not the people responsible for the deaths of their children. The two people responsible, Adam Lanza and his mother, are dead.

I know that they think that they can force the government to write new laws, but the truth is that Adam Lanza broke a number of laws when he committed his horrendous crime. Laws won’t prevent these shootings. Connecticut passed a number of new laws in the wake of the shootings, none of which would have prevented Lanza, or any future gun man, from circumventing existing statutes.

When existing laws prevented Lanza from buying a gun, he killed his mother and took her guns. I guess murdering your mother isn’t illegal enough. Then he took those stolen guns into a school, which is illegal by newly written federal laws, but not enough. Then he started murdering people, again, illegal but not enough.

But I guess we all feel the need to do something, anything, whether it’s effective or not.