The Truth About Guns

Cook County doesn’t like legal firearms ownership. The Chicago machine is doing everything it can to make it as difficult as possible for law-abiding residents to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms under the new statewide concealed carry law. Put another way, “Cook County officials are concerned people who are not qualified to carry firearms will inadvertently be issued state permits allowing them to carry weapons for self-defense.” That’s nwitimes.com‘s take on the matter. Specifically . . .

“Still uncomfortable with the idea of gun play? Try setting and enforcing some common sense limits. Some parents establish a ‘no pointing or shooting at other people’ rule. I insist that all orange plastic tips remain on toy guns and restrict gun play to private areas outside of public sight. My boys also know that the play must stop immediately if someone expresses discomfort with the play, or if an adult or authority figure asks them to stop.” – Jennifer L.W. Fink, Is Gun Play OK? [via parade.com]

What’s this? Fan mail from some flounder? Nope. An apology from Michael Christensen, the Superintendent of Schools, Orange County Unified School District, to Haley Bullwinkle, the student forced to change out of her NRA shirt because “it depicted violence.”

“Canyon High School has a policy prohibiting clothing depicting or promoting violence.  In this incident, a student was referred to the counseling office by a security officer because she was wearing a shirt with a logo that included a rifle.  The student was instructed by a staff member to change her shirt and was

This Rolls-Royce Phantom I, once owned by an Indian Maharajah, failed to sell at Barrett-Jackson over the weekend. It had quite a long list of value increasing characteristics, such as the original build sheet and original factory tool set, the Howdah gun (double-barreled shotgun pistol) in the passenger compartment, and the hand-cranked .450-caliber machine gun towed behind, as well as factory installed gun racks and a hidden safe. Despite all that, nobody wanted it badly enough to bid up over the $450,000 reserve price.

Colin Powell eulogizes Tom Clancy. “Tom’s books were incredibly accurate. He didn’t invent impossible schemes. He i

The People of the Gun know what a real assault weapon is. Everyone else, not so much. Or, in fact, at all. Check out these answers to the question “In just a few words, how would you describe an assault weapon?” from a recent Reason-Rupe Public Opinion Survey:

• A SEMI AUTOMATIC
• ONE THAT HAS MULTIPLE BULLETS
• FULLY AUTOMATIC FUNCTIONING MILITARY WEAPON SPECIFICALLY USED FOR MILITARY FUNCTION
• A MACHINE GUN
• A WAY TO TAKE OUT A LOT OF PEOPLE WITHOUT HAVING TO RELO

In a last ditch effort to appeal to Jerry Brown’s less statist, gun-grabbing side (assuming there actually is one) the Firearms Policy Coalition and the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees today delivered 65,000 letters from Californians urging Governor Moonbeam to veto the fourteen gun control bills stacked on a corner of his desk. As the cool kids say – and we mean this sincerely – good luck with that . . .

SACRAMENTO, CA — Earlier this morning, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) Managing Director Brandon Combs, joined by California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAL-FFL) Legislative Advocate Craig DeLuz, delivered 65,000 letters from individuals urging California Governor Jerry Brown to veto the 14 gun control bills currently on his desk.

The gun bills include SB 374, a massive new ban on common semi-automatic rif

Nick saw TrackingPoint’s promo vid envisioning some future (or maybe current) sandbox, one with TP-enabled ballistics. Let’s say Nick was, well, skeptical and hoped TrackingPoint’s Oren Schauble would cut loose with some more deets. Or at least their whole vision thing for where they see the technology going. Well it didn’t take Oren long to crack back, directing Nick to a microsite they’ve set up, shotmade.com, along with the following excerpt:

We live in a time of disruptive technologies, where frequent advances change the world so fast we barely remember what it was like before.  As TrackingPoint has disrupted traditional small arms and optics technologies with the smart rifle by combining target tracking, sensor arrays, and ball

The first three stages of the competition went exceptionally well. The key in a match this size is to focus on a single competitor, one on your same skill level, and try to beat them – rather than gunning for Daniel Horner. In my case, I was using Jayson Smith as my yardstick and so far things were looking pretty peachy. The next three stages, though, would have me holding on by the skin of my teeth . . .

Stage 6 was a nifty setup that incorporated the natural terrain of Peacemaker National training Center into its design, using a hilltop and some trees as props for the stage. It was on this very site two years earlier that I had started the first FNH U

Or is that just a bunch of airy-fairy clap-trap spouted by those more comfortable donning a cloak of progressiveness and self-righteous narcissism? The lulz-worthy intro applying gun-grabby “logic” to the First Amendment to illustrate his point is dead-on. We’ll give you three guesses where Colion comes down as far the Second is concerned.

Timex started the whole torture test marketing misegos. The watchmaker’s “It Takes a Licking and Keeps On Ticking” commercials were an enormous success. According to Wikipedia, “By 1962, the Timex brand held the number one market share position in the United States where one out of every three watches sold was a Timex.” Hi-Point has never marketed its products as “cheap and indestructible.” The video above is not an official Hi-Point product demo. But it proves a point: even the least expensive modern gun is pretty damn tough. Quick aside: given

“A woman suspected of being involved in a car chase across central Washington was shot and killed by police outside the U.S. Capitol building this afternoon,” chicagotribune.com reports. “The incident, which sparked a lockdown of Congress, began when the woman tried to ram through security barricades outside the White House. An official said a Capitol policeman was injured when the car driven by the suspect crashed outside the Capitol.”

“U.S. Capitol Police announced on their emergency radio system that there have been reports of gunfire on Capitol Hill,” politico.com reports. “People in the many Capitol Hill office buildings have been asked to shelter in place, and move away from doors and windows.” They’ve received the following email: “Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows. Take annunciators, Go Kits and escape hoods; and move to the innermost part of the office away from external doors or windows. If you are not in your office, take shelter in the nearest office, check in with your OEC and wait for USCP to clear the incident. No one w

“Mexican federal and state police have rescued 73 kidnapped migrants being held in a house on the border with Texas,” the AP reports. Let’s think about that. How do you hold 73 people hostage? With guns. How do you rescue 73 people being held by people with guns? With guns. How do you prevent someone from kidnapping 73 people? With guns. As in a person with a gun isn’t as easy to kidnap (not to mention rape and torture) as someone who’s been disarmed by their own governments. “The agenc

I remember watching United Airlines Flight 75 plow into the second World Trade Tower. I’m sorry if this offends anyone but my first thought was “clever bastards.” I was stunned by the terrorist’s audacity. While there were some people who predicted a deliberate air crash (including recently deceased author Tm Clancy and Morgan Stanley’s head of security), it was still an enormously surprising event. Obviously, there wasn’t anything the victims of this heinous crime could do to forestall their fate. But I’ve never forgotten the fact that . . .

9/11 was perpetrated by murderers with imagination, patience, intelligence and determination.

So when I heard of Kenya’s Westgate attack, I knew it wasn’t a simple a matter of a bunch of madmen d

In retrospect, I should have gotten some slow-mo video of the MP7A1 as well. But that’s something that can be rectified the next time I visit El Dorado.

“Sophomore Haley Bullwinkle said when she wore her NRA shirt to Canyon High School last month, she landed in the principal’s office for violating the school’s dress code that forbids offensive, violent or divisive clothing. ‘They were treating me like I was a criminal,’ she said. ‘I was not allowed to wear that at school because it promoted gun violence.’” Today’s tale of government school anti-gun thuggery comes from Anaheim Hills, California via cbslocal.com . . .

Canyon High’s (“preparing our students for the globa

Naturally, their vision for the future has their scopes on every single firearm. But how useful would a massive, computerized optic be on a standard carbine, especially when the trend is toward lightweight guns and gear? And what about mounting night vision on those things? How about getting a battery runtime longer than a few hours, preferably approaching Aimpoint’s recommendation of replacing their batteries “every few years?” Many questions and hopefully Oren “Silver Medallion” Schauble will be forthcoming with some answers. Yes that really is TP’s marketing director in that video and yes he doesn’t seem to understand that acceleration and gravity are two different forces. Anyway, there’s no doubt that TrackingPoint has a nifty product. But ready for the military? We’ll have to wait and see.

“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat. Gun holders can, at any moment, kill the people around them, and college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death. In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is in the holster of a trained police officer.” – The Duke Chronicle’s editorial board in No guns at Duke [at dukechronicle.com]