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

Category: Guns

  • Concealed carry in the news

    Reading your comments in the post below about Illinois’ problems sent me to the news and I turned up these links all from the last few days;

    In Oklahoma; Students supporting concealed-carry laws on campus to wear empty gun holsters

    More Oklahoma;; Bill would let Oklahomans vote on open carrying of handguns

    In Texas; Students for Concealed Carry on Campus host CHL class

    In South Carolina, someone is not happy that SC will allow anyone to carry concealed

    In Colorado; Concealed weapon measure receives preliminary approval

    In Ohio: Someone thinks Obamaphobia sends CCW license apps soaring.

    In North Carolina; LaRoque introduces concealed carry bill

    In Illinois; Concealed-carry proposals still alive in House

    Wyoming; Wyoming takes step forward for the Second Amendment

  • IL AG wants a public list of gun owners

    It looks like a battle is heating up in Illinois about whether the State’s registered gun owners should be considered public information. The Illinois attorney general is trying to force the state police to give up the information according to Fox News;

    Critics questioned what public interest it would serve to let neighbors look up each other’s potential weapons cache — further, they warned that publicizing the information could put both gun owners and those who don’t own guns at risk.

    If the state publishes a list of gun owners, Republican Rep. Ron Stephens said, “You are by design also publishing a list of everyone who doesn’t” carry a firearm.

    That could be comparable to publishing a list of everyone who has, or doesn’t have, a car alarm or home-security system, at least in the eyes of those who want to keep the records private.

    So actually, the AG wants a list of potential crime victims. That sure would make it easier for burglars and home invaders. Instead of wasting their time observing homeowners, criminals can just get a FOIA and plot out their crimes in the comfort of their own homes.

  • Help needed….to piss off some liberals.

    Tonight I attended an anti-gun event at ASU put on by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Freedom..err I mean Gun Violence. The purpose of the event was to organize opposition to Senate Bill 1467, which would allow students and faculty with concealed carry permits to carry firearms on campus. There was the typical anti-gun rhetoric which isn’t even worth repeating. Of course, the opponents of concealed carry on campus can still not name one violent incident involving firearms on one of the thirty campuses that allow  concealed carry.

    Anyways, one particularly vile professor was encouraging people to vote in a poll to support or oppose concealed carry on campus in order to show that students and faculty don’t support allowing guns on campus. The problem is that the majority of the people attending the event were not students or faculty at ASU, yet they were still being encouraged to vote in the poll. Very well… two can play that game. Accordingly I ask that you all literally take seconds to vote in these two polls:

    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GunCharter Alternate: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H26L35L

    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GunZMT25LG Alternate: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GunSafeCampus

    Normally, I find these unscientific polls a little silly. However there was a State Senator and several members of the Arizona Board of Regents that were using the results of these poll to bolster their arguments against concealed carry on campus. So please, my fine young TAH readers, help Operator Dan piss off some liberals and vote in those two polls.

  • “Gunrunning” ATF style

    Old Trooper sends us a link from CBS News about a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation named “Project Gunrunner” which focuses on preventing firearms from getting to the cartels in Mexico from the US. They have real funny way of going about it, though;

    In late 2009, ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic “weapons of choice” used by Mexican drug traffickers – semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols.

    Sources tell CBS News several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but ATF encouraged them to continue.

    Jaime Avila was one of the suspicious buyers. ATF put him in its suspect database in January of 2010. For the next year, ATF watched as Avila and other suspects bought huge quantities of weapons supposedly for “personal use.” They included 575 AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles.

    ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it’s a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, “walk.”

    Dangerous enough that CBS speculates that 2500 weapons were allowed to cross the border into Mexico…despite gun dealers’ warnings. CBS also tells us that one of those weapons was used in the murder of ICE agentBrian Terry in a gun fight on the border.

    The assault rifles found at the murder were traced back to a U.S. gun shop. Where they came from and how they got there is a scandal so large, some insiders say it surpasses the shoot-out at Ruby Ridge and the deadly siege at Waco.

    ATF’s own agents argued against allowing the large number of weapons to go to Mexico. Reportedly, the discussions degenerated into shouting matches, to no avail.

    So when Janet Napolitano says that most of the weapons in the border drug war came from the US, she knows what she’s talking about.

  • Feds bust gun running ring in Arizona

    US prosecutors are indicting twenty people on gun smuggling charges, including two “straw purchasers”.

    Authorities said the ring is believed to have supplied the Sinaloa cartel with guns, and that some of the weapons bought by the group were used in shootings in Mexico. In all, 560 guns were recovered, a third in Mexico and the rest mostly in Arizona.

    Many guns recovered in Mexico come from America’s four southern border states. Drug smugglers seek out guns in America because gun laws in Mexico are more restrictive than in the United States.

    Apparently, the gun dealers were within the law since they haven’t been indicted.

    While I’m glad that the Feds can stop gun smugglers across the border, I’d appreciate it if they’d put the same kind of effort into stopping people from crossing the same border.

  • Center mass

    Pittsburgh teen Lairy James-Watson was visiting his mom when he noticed an amputee wheeling around inside his apartment. Why James-Watson was taking his .22 caliber rifle to visit his mother is beyond me, but witnesses report the following

    Scott said Bombara, his two sons and three of their friends were in the living room when they heard a noise at the window. Several minutes later, he said, the window opened and the six reported seeing a rifle barrel protruding from slats of a blind.

    James-Watson fired two shots, Scott said. Bombara, who told police he typically keeps his pistol underneath the seat of his wheelchair, fired one time, hitting James-Watson in the chest. No one else was injured.

    Aiming center mass works every time. Police speculate that it was a case of self-defense, but ultimately the prosecutor will decide if charges are to be brought against 51-year-old double amputee Rocco Bombara.

    Thanks to Old Trooper for the link.

  • A Ruger which kicked my ass

    I was looking for a perfect concealed carry weapon for my shrinking frame, especially for warmers months. I already have a Glock 30 for the winter months (a ten plus one shot .45 with a 3 and a half-inch barrel) but it’s a little bulky for a summer jaunt to the store. I thought I’d found a good one when I found the Ruger LCR – a double action revolver with five rounds of .357 Magnum and a 1.88″ barrel. Weighing in at 17 ounces with it’s polymer frame, it disappears in my waist band.

    So I took it out to my friend’s house yesterday. He’d spotted a black bear on his property and decided he needed some protection while he’s out on his walks on his country manor with his wife, so he wanted to try out my Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 Magnum with a ten and a half inch barrel. I brought the .357 to try it out, too.

    We happily blasted away with the .44 and my friend was surprised at how easily the hog’s leg handled despite it’s reputation. Then I pulled out the .357. I’ve never had a weapon hurt so much when I fired it. With the full loads of .357, it felt like it broke my right wrist every time I fired. My partners verified it, so it’s not because I’m some kind of sissy. I suspect it’s because of the extremely light weight of the gun, but even the Hogue rubberized grips don’t help much absorbing the shock of Magnum loads.

    The thirty-eight special rounds were much easier to take, but I audibly repeated “Ow” with every Magnum shot. We were shooting at paper targets that were over 50 meters away, and the snubbed nosed barrel was much more accurate than I expected, hitting the paper almost every time, not the target but the paper. So, I’ll still carry the revolver, but I think target practice will mostly be with .38. The relative accuracy and concealability save it. Well, that and the fact that it probably hurts more to get shot by the revolver than it does to fire it.