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

Category: Guns

  • Hillbilly Hunt Club Saturday antics (more photos added)

    So, Old Trooper invited us to his Hillbilly Hunt Club’s shootout this weekend. After driving way out in the boondocks in Minnesota, this was part of our selection to rain death and destruction on the targets;

    This was the range:

    We even let TSO try his hand at marksmanship;

    Many thanks to the good old boys who invited us, paid for the ammo and then cleaned the weapons up when we left. And thanks to B5’s The Mr. Wolf for the photos.

    Old Trooper sent some more pictures that I added below the jump;

    (more…)

  • Disgruntled sailor arrested in CT

    The Associated Press reports that a “Navy sailor” (as opposed to an Army sailor, I suppose) was arrested in Connecticut for possessing a scary-looking weapon they called an AK47. They said he was disgruntled. I’m sure if they start arresting sailors for being disgruntled, the jails will fill up fairly quickly;

    Cory Dion Caldwell, 24, kept the rifle under his bed in the barracks at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, according to an arrest warrant. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service opened an investigation after an informant told them about the weapon and said Caldwell made statements that were anti-government and anti-military.

    Yeah, I’m sure I can count on one finger the number of people I’ve known who were in the military and didn’t make anti-government and anti-military statements.

    DePasquale said that authorities who searched Caldwell’s home in Waterford found the assault rifle along with a gas mask, a .50-caliber handgun, two .45-caliber handguns and high-capacity ammunition clips for the AK-47 that could hold up to 50 rounds apiece.

    “It makes you wonder,” [Waterford police Sgt. Joseph] DePasquale said. “Finding stuff like that obviously increased our concern. Our concern is whatever’s motivating him to stockpile stuff like this.”

    In West Virginia that’s called “what you get for your 14th birthday”. And I didn’t know that they made “clips” for AK47s.

    …DePasquale said Caldwell was “very disgruntled and anti-military” and there was concern of potential violence, but there was no evidence that Caldwell planned to harm anyone.

    Yet they had him in court in shackles and put a $200k bail on him. He shouldn’t have had the weapon in CT where scary-looking guns are illegal, but the reaction of this particular police officer is irrational. What “makes you wonder”? I like scary-looking weapons with high capacity magazines. I have no intention of ever shooting anyone, but it’s comforting to know that if I have to take on a roving band of zombies, i can hold my own.

    But Cory Caldwell shouldn’t have smuggled the scary-looking rifle into back-ass-wards Connecticut and certainly not brought it to the barracks. And if that puny arsenal frightened police sergeant Joseph DePasquale, he probably shouldn’t look in my gun safe.

  • More “Fast and Furious” weapons found at violent crime scenes

    According to the Washington Times the Justice Department admitted that at least a dozen more weapons that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) allowed to transfer to illegal users have been found to be involved in violent crimes across the Southwest US;

    In a letter to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Justice Department confirmed that the illegally purchased weapons recently were found at the sites of at least 11 violent crimes.

    The department did not specifically identify any of the locations, but congressional sources and others said the weapons were located at crime sites in Arizona and Texas. More than 40 weapons, the sources said, were recovered near El Paso, Texas, alone, all of which were traced back to the Fast and Furious operation.

    Gun owners and gun dealers have been set up by the government to take the fall for their incompetent handling of the illegal weapons trade.

    The BATFE hasn’t been able to account for more than a thousand of the weapons;

    Asked how many guns from all the suspects in the Fast and Furious operation had not been recovered, the department wrote that “the total number of firearms purchased by all of the suspects [indicted and unindicted] after they were entered in this investigation that have not yet been recovered and traced in Mexico or the U.S. is one thousand forty-eight [1,048].”

    Feel safer?

  • Who is “The Lone Wolf”?

    I’m certain many of you have seen this story?

    WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that a “lone wolf” terror attack in the U.S. is more likely than a major coordinated effort like the Sept. 11 attacks nearly a decade ago.

    With the nation preparing to observe the 10th anniversary of hijacked airliners crashing in New York and Washington and along the Pennsylvania countryside, Obama said the government is in a state of heightened awareness.

    “The biggest concern we have right now is not the launching of a major terrorist operation, although that risk is always there,” the president said in an interview with CNN.

    “The risk that we’re especially concerned over right now is the lone wolf terrorist, somebody with a single weapon being able to carry out wide-scale massacres of the sort that we saw in Norway recently,” he said. “You know, when you’ve got one person who is deranged or driven by a hateful ideology, they can do a lot of damage, and it’s a lot harder to trace those lone wolf operators.”

    He opted to cite a loon who shot up a foreign country rather than folks named Nidal Malik Hasan,  Naser Jason Abdo, or Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, etc. I suppose that is understandable?

    But the phrase “driven by a hateful ideology” troubles me some.  Is that intentionally too broad, or too convenient?  The Tea Party has been called terrorists. Veterans have been singled out as risks.

    It just seems to me the word “hateful” has been used all too frequently to describe folks who simply disagree with the government… about pretty much anything.

    I dunno about his broader point concerning potential threats either.  Our porous boarders, folks who call us The Great Satan, and those with lengthy track records would seem to be good starting points.  Addressing those elements would do far  more good overall than trying to find a Lone  Wolf who hates you.

  • Brian Terry’s family denied victim status in trial

    Fox News reports that the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has been denied their request to intervene in the case against Jamie Avila, the Pheonix man who purchased the weapon that eventually killed Agent Terry.

    …U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke argues because the family was not “directly or proximately harmed” by the illegal purchase of the murder weapon, it does not meet the definition of “crime victim” in the Avila case. Burke claims the victim of the Avila’s gun purchases, “is not any particular person, but society in general.”

    Prominent litigator and the former U.S. Attorney in Florida, Kendall Coffey disagrees.

    “The government apparently is saying they’re not victims, even though it was a federal crime that put the murder weapon in the hands of the killer of Brian Terry,” says Coffey. “They are simply rights of respect, rights of communication and the right to be heard.”

    Obviously, the feds are trying to absolve themselves of any culpability because they allowed that gun to be put in the hands of the criminal who killed Agent Terry in their “Fast and Furious” project which forced United States gun dealers to sell weapons to people the gun dealers knew were supplying Mexican cartels.

  • Shrinking The Gene Pool – Sorta?

    Okay, this is via Drudge so you’ve all probably seen it, but I needed a laugh…
    Police urge holster use after man shoots his own penis

    As Chandler residents Joshua Seto, 27, and his fiancée, Cara Christopher, walked over to a Fry’s Food Store for refreshments, he tried securing her pink handgun in the front waistband of his pants.

    The gun fired, striking Seto’s penis and continuing through his left thigh. The bleeding started immediately and was heavy, according to police dispatch recordings released Sunday.

    “He is still conscious, there is just a lot of blood,” Christopher , 26, told 9-1-1 operators and dispatchers.

    I’m sincerely NOT laughing at this guy’s pain and suffering. It’s just the images that flashed thru MY mind that cracked me up. Pink pistol – the look on his face just before the pain hit – the look on his face when he realized just where he’d been hit, I could go on… For some reason I kept thinking of The Three Stooges?

    As usual with a Geezer post; YMMV.

    ETA: An accidental discharge simply ain’t as rare as we ALL would like to think.  I’ve been handling firearms since I was about 10 or so. I’ve had some great teachers over the years and am careful enough to be annoying, but Murphy’s Law says I will have an AD sooner or later.  Exit question: Ever been to a range where someone swept you with an ’empty’ gun?

  • Man scatters attackers

    In New Haven, CT, Brandon Kruse, really didn’t think he needed a CCW license, but he got one anyway, just so he could buy guns without a hassle. The other night, when he went out for sushi, Kruse was glad he had it;

    At State and Wall, three young men walked toward him. He stepped to the left. One of the young men punched him in the head; the two others surrounded him.

    The initial attacker punched him again with a closed fist.

    Kruse was able to push him back. Then Kruse reached for his waistband. He pointed the gun at them. He didn’t speak.

    “I just pulled the gun. They all scattered,” Kruse said in an interview Monday.

    When two of the men returned to retrieve their shopping bags which they’d dropped at the sight of the handgun, Kruse detained them until police arrived.

    Thanks to Old Trooper for the link.

  • HuffPo: Ruger is the mass-murderer

    Josh Sugarmann, the executive director of the Violence Policy Center writes in the Huffington Post that it was the Sturm, Ruger & Company that has been committing mass murders, most recently in Norway;

    The attack in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, apparently involving a Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle, is only the most horrific of the mass shootings involving the company’s products.

    Founded in 1949, the “corporate motto” of Sturm, Ruger & Co. is “Arms Makers for Responsible Citizens.” But Sturm, Ruger firearms are also often found in the hands of mass shooters: last year’s attack at a Connecticut beer distributor, leaving eight victims dead and two wounded; the 1999 shooting at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Texas, leaving seven victims dead and seven wounded; Oregon’s Thurston High School in 1998, leaving four dead and 22 wounded; the 1993 Long Island Railroad shooting, leaving six dead and 19 wounded; the 1991 Luby’s massacre, leaving 23 victims dead and 20 wounded; and, a 1987 shootout at a Florida shopping center, leaving six dead, including two police officers.

    Ya know, that’s funny because I have a Ruger Mini-14, with several high capacity magazines. I bought the rifle in 1984, and to the best of my knowledge, it’s never shot anyone. I also have three Ruger handguns, none of them have ever shot at anyone either. So, somehow, I must’ve got the duds – the weapons that don’t work because they haven’t shot anyone like Ruger apparently designed and programmed the guns to do.

    If you go to Violence Policy Center’s website, they also have a report that tells how mass murderers prefer Glocks (.pdf). Oh, goodness, I own a Glock that hasn’t shot anyone, either. What are the odds that I would have five guns all known for committing mass murders and none of mine have shot even a single person in almost thirty years in my possession? I even owned the Mini-14 though the “scary-looking rifle ban” of the ’90s and it didn’t even point itself at anyone. And it has a pistol grip AND a flash suppressor!!!