This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Guns

  • Fast and Furious smuggler get less than 5 years

    The Washington Times reports that Jaime Avila Jr., who pleaded guilty to buying $60,000 worth of guns and smuggling them to Mexico was sentenced to 57 months in prisons. Two of his guns were discovered at the scene of border agent Brian Terry’s murder.

    Avila’s attorney, Candice Shoemaker, said her client’s “significant substance abuse problem” led to his involvement in the smuggling operation and added that Avila was “shocked and dismayed and hurt in a way that he had no idea his behavior … would lead to such great lengths.” She said he was recruited to participate in the smuggling scheme and added that he was “not a gentleman who grew up in gangs.”

    Terry’s cousin, Robert Heyer, who runs the Brian Terry Foundation, had asked the judge to impose the maximum 10-year sentence.

    Five years for the murder of a border agent is a pretty good deal. Ten years would have been a good deal, too. It must be the spirit of the season that made the judge give the little creep a present like this.

  • Up to no good

    Up to no good
    So I’m going to the range this afternoon. I’m dressed in Multicam (in CONUS, Sergeant Major), I have my scary-looking assault rifles, one of which I modified to add a pistol grip and flash suppressor during the Clinton-era assault weapon ban, the other I bought at a gun show. All of my ammunition was bought on the internet and it’s high capacity ammunition, too, just like the magazines (that’s “clips” for you media guys). I have a Glock with a 27-round magazine with me, too. And I’m not wearing a PT belt or Eye-Pro. I plan on shooting targets that are the silhouette of people.

    So, are there any anti-gun nuts or Sergeant Majors I haven’t pissed off? Just want to cover all of my bases.

  • Reimer and Chiarelli on the troops’ guns and suicide

    For some reason, retired generals Dennis J. Reimer and Peter W. Chiarelli thought they had something important to say today in the Washington Post. They decided that we wanted to hear from them on the subject of the troops’ guns and disguised it as concern about the suicide rate;

    One of the most effective measures of suicide prevention is to ask those perceived to be under duress: “Do you have a gun in your home?” If the answer is yes, we might then suggest that the individual put locks on the weapon or store it in a safe place during periods of high stress — things that any responsible gun owner should do.

    Unfortunately, that potentially lifesaving action is no longer available to the military. A little-noticed provision in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has had the unintended consequence of tying the hands of commanders and noncommissioned officers by preventing them from being able to talk to service members about their private weapons, even in cases where a leader believes that a service member may be suicidal.

    Why would a commander need to know if a soldier had a gun in their home unless it was that commander’s intention to relieve that soldier of his weapon? Because, instead of asking a soldier if he owns a gun, a commander would simply need to tell that soldier that “if” he owned a gun, perhaps he should lock it up away safely. Asking me if I own a gun would only force me to lie.

    How many hypothetical circumstances do commanders present to their units in weekly safety briefings? Why not just tell the entire unit to lock their guns away safely – if safety briefings work, like commanders seem to think they do, that should be sufficient.

    As we’ve discovered here, less than half of suicides committed with a gun are committed with a personal weapon. So it seems that commanders would do well to keep soldiers at risk away from their service weapons. In fact, if the statistics are to be believed, they could cut suicides in half by doing that. So why aren’t these two generals advocating for that action rather than pursuing privately owned weapons – if all that needs to be done to prevent suicides is to take weapons from the troops.

    Will commanders also be asking the troops if they have a length of rope or razor blades at home? If the soldiers reply in the affirmative, will they be advised to lock their ropes and razor blades somewhere safe?

    I guess it’s just easier to blame the troops’ guns than it is to just get them the treatment they deserve.

  • Appeals court strikes down IL’s ban on concealed carry

    Ex-PH2 sends us a WGN link to the announcement that a Federal appeals court has struck down Illinois’ ban on concealed carry;

    Justices said the right to bear arms for self-defense is as important outside the home as inside.

    The court gave Illinois lawmakers six months to put its own version of the law in place.

    Illinois is the only state in the nation not to have some form of conceal carry.

    Added From ABCNews;

    Richard Posner wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “The theoretical and empirical evidence (which overall is inconclusive) is consistent with concluding that a right to carry firearms in public may promote self-defense.”

    He continued: “Illinois had to provide us with more than merely a rational basis for believing that its uniquely sweeping ban is justified by an increase in public safety. It has failed to meet this burden.”

    The court ordered its ruling stayed “to allow the Illinois legislature to craft a new gun law that will impose reasonable limitations, consistent with the public safety and the Second Amendment as interpreted in this opinion, on the carrying of guns in public,” Posner said.

    I guess the thugs, both the public and private variety, are shaking in their respective boots.

  • Burglar calls 911 on armed homeowner

    My Fox DFW tells the tale of Christopher Lance Moore who broke into the home of James Gerow who happened to be armed. Gerow held Moore at bay while awaiting the arrival of the police, but not before Moore made his own 911 call to tell police that “some guy” was pointing a gun at him.

    With gun in hand, Gerow convinced the man to drop his keys. Then told his wife to call 911 and waited for deputies to arrive.

    “Yeah, hurry up now. He says my husband’s fixing to shoot him,” she said on the call.

    Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said the suspect, later identified as 41-year-old Christopher Lance Moore, also called for help while sitting in his pickup truck.

    “I’m not sure. I’m out in the country somewhere and some guy’s got a gun on me,” he said on the call.

    When deputies arrived they arrested Moore for burglary of habitation, a second-degree felony.

    I’m guessin’ Moore didn’t know that he was in Texas.

  • Minnesota man charged with murder

    According to NBC, Byron David Smith of Little Falls, Minnesota killed two people who broke into his house on Thanksgiving Day;

    In the criminal complaint, Smith said he was in the basement of his remote home about 10 miles southwest of Little Falls when he heard a window breaking upstairs, followed by footsteps that eventually approached the basement stairwell. Fearful after several break-ins, according to the complaint, Smith said he fired when Brady came into view from the waist down.

    After the teen fell down the stairs, Smith said he shot him in the face as he lay on the floor.

    Smith then dragged Brady into his basement, then Brady’s accomplice, Haile Kifer, 18, came into the basement and Smith shot her. He tried to administer the coup de grâce to Kifer, but his Mini-14 jammed. She laughed at him, so he retrieve another weapon and placed the barrel in her chin and fired.

    According to Fox News, Smith is being charged with murder and is being held on $2 million bail. Smith says he’s been robbed by burglars in the past and lost a considerable amount of property. And, oh, he waited a day before he called police.

    While I sympathize with Smith and agree that he had good reason to shoot the first time, but when the threat was neutralized, he became responsible for the subsequent rounds. And it looks like Minnesota intends to make him responsible. I’ll probably get criticized for it, and that’s never happened before here, has it? I don’t think he had a right to execute the two teens. They probably deserved it, though.

  • Sunday feel good news

    Old Trooper sends us a link to the glorious news that a gun owner in Orlando has made the world a safer place when he was at his local ATM and two people with knives tried to relive him of his withdrawal. Unluckily for them, he had his firearm with him which he employed in the most expeditious manner, killing one thug (who I’m sure we’ll read later “never did nuthin’ to no one”) and frightening the other;

    He shot Slivinski twice. Slivinski was taken to Florida Hospital Altamonte, where he died.

    Harvey took off on foot after the shooting but a tipster led deputies to him. He was arrested Saturday afternoon and faces attempted armed robbery and murder charges. Deputies said the murder charge was added because the attempted robbery contributed to Slivinski’s death.

    The name of the ATM customer who shot Slivinski has not been released but deputies say he will not face charges in the shooting.

    Both Harvey and Slivinski had lengthy criminal histories.

    So the news that Orlando is a little safer today thanks to a vigilant, trained and armed citizen is a great way to start our Thanksgiving week.

  • Copycat theater shooter foiled by mom

    Ex-PH2 sends us a link from MSN News which reports that a dingus from Missouri had planned to shoot up a theater during the movie “Twilight”, similar to the shootings in the Aurora, Colorado theater, until his mom called the cops and relayed her suspicions;

    Blaec Lammers, 20, of Bolivar, is charged with first-degree assault, making a terroristic threat and armed criminal action. He was jailed in Polk County on $500,000 bond.

    “Thankfully we had a responsible family member or we might have had a different outcome,” Bolivar Police Chief Steve Hamilton told The Associated Press. He said Lammers is under a doctor’s care for mental illness, and court documents said he was “off of his medication.”

    Yeaah, well, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. If you see something, say something.

    Police said Lammers bought one firearm Monday and another Tuesday. He then went to the Missouri town of Aldrich to practice shooting because he “had never shot a gun before and wanted to make sure he knew how they shot and how they functioned,” the probable cause statement said.

    Hamilton said it appeared that Lammers obtained the firearms legally but that police were continuing to investigate “to determine how in fact he was able to obtain a permit.”

    They really need to plug that hole.