Local Connecticut News:

NEW BRITAIN, CT (WFSB) – One Connecticut gun maker said it would move out of the state if lawmakers expanded the ban on assault weapons, but now that same company is taking a look at modifying the AR-15.

Before some of the toughest gun laws in the country were passed, officials with the Stag Arms in New Britain said further modifications to the AR-15 would make it impossible to sell in Connecticut.

Eyewitness News has learned that the company is working on making a modified assault weapon to fit the ban.

“We are carefully looking at the new law and there are some things we interpret to be legal,” said Stag Arms owner Mark Malkowski. “We have gotten a lot of feedback from our customers and they have given us ideas for changes.”

Malkowski said the company is putting together a prototype, which they plan to show the weapons unit at the state police on Friday.

Officials with Stag Arms sells AR-15s, the only product it produces, all over the United States and to other countries, but less than 5 percent of its sales are made in Connecticut.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy supported the ban, but did met with the gun manufacturers because he does not want them to leave, especially since the industry creates hundreds of jobs.

“It says gun companies will do anything to sell guns,” Malloy said when recently asked about the topic. “I can’t prejudge something that I haven’t seen or analyze. People make things to sell them.”

As for leaving Connecticut, officials with Stag Arms said it is still an option. Last week, Malkowski said he met with the governor of Texas and next week, the governor of Kansas.

I’m surprised that Stag Arms got anyone in the gun owner community to contribute to this bastard firearm.  And by the way, it doesn’t comport with the notion of peaceful law breaking and smuggling to defy unconstitutional laws.

I’m not sure what will happen to Stag Arms.  If they stay in Connecticut they will waste away as a viable firearms manufacturer.  But I’m certain what will happen to this ridiculous, bastard firearm.  It will be a laughingstock, the embarrassment of the gun range.  No one who has it will be a proud owner of this long gun.  Why do it?  Why not smuggle and get real AR-15s?  Why acquiesce to the totalitarians when you can do better?

Watch.  Learn.  Think tactically.  Why would we practice a drill like this?  Spend time.  Practice.  Get good like Jerry.  Be like Jerry.

I’ll only note one thing that pops out to me. Jerry doesn’t use a forend grip. Also consider Travis Haley’s advice concerning forend grips (“Art Of The Tactical Carbine”), for guys who grip it like a broomstick. It lends itself to over-sweeping the target rather than landing on it, as well as rocking of the carbine.

Haley recommends use of the magwell-style grip, where the hand is firmly on the firearm and using the forend grip as a brace. Jerry avoids use of the forend grip altogether. I’m not recommending anything – merely observing and taking notes for my own drills to see what works best for me.

After the draconian gun laws that the Connecticut Legislature and Governor just enacted, even though firearms manufacturers are threatening to leave Connecticut, it’s still an open question what will come of the gun makers.  Only a small part of Colt has left for greener pastures in Texas.  After showing their hand on both the state and national stage, two Connecticut Democrats have put an interesting twist into gun politics.

In a move that an antigun group calls “lousy timing” and “bizarre,” Connecticut lawmakers are pushing to create a national park out of the historic former site of the Colt firearms plant in Hartford, just 50 miles from the site of the school shooting massacre in Newtown.

“If you want to glorify a gun maker, there’s other ways to do it, other than to create a new national park,” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a group made up of 47 organizations and associations.

Two Connecticut Democrats, Rep. John Larson and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, reintroduced the legislation this year to create the “Coltsville” National Historical Park on the site, which includes the Colt Armory and other buildings that were part of the 19th-century industrial enterprise founded by Samuel Colt. The entire congressional delegation supports the legislation.

But while some might say the effort is inappropriate in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting on Dec. 14–and perhaps out of step with gun-control efforts in Congress that both Larson and Blumenthal have supported–the lawmakers say they see nothing untoward.

“The senator does not see a connection” between his efforts to get the national historic park established and his efforts at gun control, said a Blumenthal spokeswoman.

Rather, both he and Larson argue that the Coltsville complex is a “historic treasure” that they say enshrines Colt’s role in advancing the industrial revolution and manufacturing in Connecticut and nationwide.

Indeed, there is no disputing the role that Colt played in the history of Connecticut and the United States. Samuel Colt founded his Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in the mid-19th century. It wasn’t long before its Peacemaker six-shot revolver revolutionized personal firearms.

[ … ]

While family members of victims of the Newtown shootings have remained quiet on the park issue, Ron Pinciaro, executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, said that it has crossed his mind that one motivation for elected officials to rally behind the national park effort could be to show that Connecticut values and wants to retain major companies in the firearms industry.

This is just rich – American politics at its best, or worst.  We know that there have been untold number of Connecticut citizens who have told the political authorities that they intend to ignore the most recent Connecticut gun laws.  We know that Colt has threatened to leave Connecticut.  And we now know that gun control fizzled at the national level, so political alignments of convenience in supporting gun control don’t look like such a good plan in retrospect.  Is this Blumenthal’s attempt to stay relevant in Connecticut?  Is he simply trying to prevent manufacturing from leaving and taking jobs and revenue with them?  Does he really believe that there is a distinction between the legendary single-action revolver and an AR-15 in the recent violence in Connecticut, given that the shooter had no opposition due to schools being gun free zones?  Does he really believe that others will believe such a thing?

Ah.  The questions are so promising, the potential discussion so pregnant, textured and rich.  And I welcome the remarkable hypocrisy with open arms and a joyful heart.

David Codrea:

Citing an observation in Politico that “Immigration reform could be a bonanza for Democrats [and] cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily,” Gun Owners of America warned members and supporters yesterday against S. 744. The bill, introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, prompted GOA to predict that if it passes, “by 2035, the American electorate will have changed so fundamentally that California-style gun control could become a very real possibility in this country!”

Read it all at Examiner, and then return here for some additional analysis.  There are reasons why amnesty has always been pushed by the progressives and crony capitalists, and reasons why amnesty empowers the progressives in perpetuity.

Regarding the issue of crony capitalists, I have explained that before.

The use of illegal immigrants (migrant workers) is a form of price supports for the agri-industry.  The employers who “hire” them do not supply them with medical insurance or pay them enough to afford automobile insurance.  When these workers become sick or injured, they do not forgo medical care – they go to the local hospital.  Our medical bills and insurance coverage premiums pay for these services to the illegals.  Similarly, our uninsured motorist coverage pays for the insurance that the illegals should be purchasing.  These are merely two examples (a legion of examples could be given) that show that the employer is receiving a form of corporate welfare at the expense of the middle class in America.  The employer is in favor of the use of illegals to do work because it is beneficial to their purse, not because it benefits America.  The employer will always favor the reassignment of financial burden to someone else in order to help the “bottom line.”  But the bottom line for the employer and the bottom line for the taxpayer and ratepayer is not necessarily the same bottom line.  The free market argument to support the hiring of illegals is a smokescreen.  America had a free market before the advent of illegal immigrants and migrant workers.  The existence of illegals is not essential to the existence of the free market.

The reason that progressives want open borders should be clear enough, although I have also discussed this issue.  … “for historical reasons to do with the nationalisation of the land under Lázaro Cárdenas and the predominant form of peasant land tenure, which was “village cooperative” rather than based on individual plots, the demand for “land to the tiller” in Mexico does not imply an individual plot for every peasant or rural worker or family. In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition … one consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology. Sometimes this outlook is expressed in support for guerilla organisations; but struggle movements of the rural population are widespread, and they spontaneously ally with the most militant city-based leftist organisations.”

One of the reasons for this reflexive alignment with leftism has to do with the the mid-twentieth century and what the Sovient Union and allied ideologies accomplished.  South and Central America was the recipient or receptacle for socialism draped in religious clothing, or in other words, liberation theology.  Its purveyors were Roman Catholic priests who had been trained in Marxism, and they were very successful in giving the leftists a moral platform upon which to build.  This ideology spread North from South and Central America into Mexico, and thus the common folk in Mexico are quite steeped in collectivist ideology from battles that were fought decades ago.

GOA is correct.  Open borders would cause (and has already caused) a tilt towards collectivist ideology in America, and it is a tilt from which there is no return.  Grandparents teach it to parents, parents teach it to children, and those children grow up to teach it to their children.  Collectivist ideology is inimical to freedom and gun ownership.  Take whatever position you wish, but realize that the politics of control doesn’t want you to know the truth.

There is one other player I should mention in this debacle, and that is the American church, both Roman Catholic and Protestant.  My readers know about my lamentations over the ignorance and stupidity of the church.  The ignorance of the church doesn’t stop with pacifism, but extends as well to advocacy for broken borders in the name of compassion.  This compassion conflates personal morality with national identify and security, but don’t try to explain that to the pacifists.  Just know that this problem exists.

If you care about freedom and liberty for your family, you should care about firearms and preparing for the coming national difficulties.  In order to understand the context for the difficulties, you should assume that politics isn’t ever really about compassion.  It’s always about control.

Prior:

Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment

Mexican Cartels: Warlords

Changes In The Mexican Border Strategy

Counterinsurgency On The U.S, Southern Border

The Baltimore Sun:

Besides drinking beer, there are two other pastimes that Bavarians love: driving and sport-shooting, including hunting. Bavarians build BMW’s “Ultimate Driving Machines.” Bavarians’ national dress is hunter green. No one who visits Munich is likely to miss the German Hunting and Fishing Museum in the middle of the main shopping street. When in Munich, I saw the world’s best-known opera devoted to shooting and hunting, Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischütz” (“The Marksman”), with its unforgettable Hunters’ Chorus singing, “What on earth can equal the pleasure of hunting?”

Nationwide in Germany, there are hundreds of Schützenvereins (shooting clubs) with thousands of members. At fairs and festivals, members march through village streets sporting their weapons. In the 19th century, German immigrants brought Schuetzenvereins to the United States, including one in Baltimore in the 1850s; some of the descendants of those immigrants are core supporters of shooting and hunting. At brewing beer, driving cars and shooting guns, Bavarians are world class.

When individual Bavarians want to own and operate Ultimate Driving Machines, they don’t think twice about getting licenses to drive and registrations to own these vehicles. They don’t think twice that they have to be of the legal age to drive, have to show that they know the traffic laws, have to show that they know how to operate these machines safely and have to present liability insurance in case their Ultimate Driving Machines injure anyone.

It’s no different in America. Those who want to own and operate a car are not troubled that they must show that they are of legal age, must demonstrate that they know the traffic laws, must show that they can operate cars safely and must maintain liability insurance on the cars they own. They do not think of licensing as a limitation on their freedom but as a protection for us all against potentially dangerous use of driving machines.

Just as Bavarians accept that they must be licensed to own and operate their Ultimate Driving Machines, so too do they accept, without objection, that they must be licensed to own and shoot firearms. What are these requirements? They are similar to those for cars.

Applicants must show that they are of legal age. They must show that they are “reliable,” i.e., that they have not recently been convicted of certain crimes. A background check is required. Applicants must have “personal aptitude” — they are not mentally ill or substance abusers. They must pass a test that shows that they have “specialized knowledge.” They must maintain liability insurance.

Sounds oh so reasonable, right?  Wait for the next part.

Yahoo:

“The AR-15 now is probably the Number 1 economic engine in the gun industry,” said Larry Hyatt, owner of Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte, N.C. “We sell every one we get, almost as quick as they come in. We’ve never seen the demand that’s here today.”

Gun store owners and analysts alike say it’s one of the bestselling guns in the country; roughly $1 billion of the estimated $4 billion firearms industry is made up of sales of AR-15 rifles and their accessories.

“These are expensive guns that people think about a lot before they buy them,” said Hyatt. “They’re not protesting on the street against the government, they’re buying AR-15s and ammunition. It’s not advertising, it’s not marketing, it’s political.”

Larry is a quiet, unassuming man who walks about Hyatt Gun Shop looking for ways to help his employees and move guns and other equipment.  I have bought several guns from Hyatt Gun Shop.  I think what Larry is saying is that you can forget about the silly notions of firearms manufacturers or the NRA spinning up the population (the same point I have made multiple times).

Nor is this about going on silent marches through the streets to “send a message.”  This is about freedom and politics, and if a message needs to be sent, it will be in a much different way.  After all, people have to spend big money on well-made weapons today.

NRO:

More of that “90 percent” nonsense debunked, this time in the Washington Post. Did Republicans really end up on the wrong side of a landslide issue?

Not so much, according to a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. Yes, a plurality (47 percent) describe themselves as either “angry” or “disappointed” about the failure of the gun legislation but 39 percent call themselves “relieved” or  ”happy” about what happened. That’s a far cry from the 90-ish percent support that expanding background checks – the centerpiece of the proposed legislation — enjoyed.

Some percentage of people can’t name the President or Vice President.  Frankly, I’m surprised that the numbers don’t overlap (for example, 60% of all people are pissed off about the failure of gun control, 60% of the people are relieved about its failure).

The polls don’t mean anything, and the 90%+ meme was always a lie told to bolster support for their plans.  I’ve told you before.  The only poll that matters is the one where people have to open their wallets.  It gets serious when people have to spend money.

Kurt Hofmann and David Codrea both note the huge effect that a relatively small group of individuals can have on societal stability.  And make no mistake about it – law enforcement in and around Boston believed that they were performing “stability operations” (counterinsurgency) after the Boston bombing.  Their operations had all of the hallmarks of stability operations the U.S. performed in Iraq, including signals intelligence, humint and forcible home invasions, in spite of the fact that Americans have the constitution to “protect” us from these tacics.

But most interesting isn’t this evolution in tactics, but that it is defended and even begged for by the collectivists, and not just the rulers.

If the tragedy in Boston proves anything, it’s that it really does take a village.

Investigators now are trying to figure out what happened leading up to the attack – how two brothers could become radicalized, how they managed to build the bombs and set them off without being noticed, and whether they were part of some broader violent mission. But the impressive response of Massachusetts – from the locals who followed directions to stay indoors to the police who hunted down and caught the suspects, one of them alive, to the elected officials who not only maintained public calm but managed to stay remarkably focused and clear-headed themselves – shows that we must act together to maintain our very lives.

[ … ]

And what would an individual do with an AR-15? Go door-to-door, ferreting out a man who might well have another bomb on him? That’s one way to wind up dead, perhaps taking a lot of other people with you. A single individual with a gun is no match for a suicide bomber. Trained teams of bomb squad technicians and well-protected professional law enforcement officers are a better bet. This, actually, is what the framers of the constitution had in mind when they wrote a Second Amendment referring to “a well-regulated militia.”

Note the fear that grips this pitiful woman, and the reflexive (and incorrect) reaction to equate law enforcement with the militia of the second amendment.  I recall having this discussion with my son Daniel concerning his service in the Marine Corps.  Granted that was older than was he at the time I said this, but it holds true regardless.  Son, I said, there are things worse than perishing, such as perishing without honor.

No man lives forever, but we will have a hand in turning over a country to our children in which they are free or enslaved.  This will be the legacy of our horrible generation.  Which will we choose?

As for what we would do with an AR-15?  I am much more concerned about law enforcement than I am a bomber.

UPDATE: Mike Vanderboegh notes another collectivist arguing for collectivist solutions to collectivist problems.

The New Yorker in a piece on The Tsarnaevs and Their Guns:

At nineteen years old, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t old enough to legally own most guns. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, at twenty-six, was, but he reportedly didn’t hold the permit that Massachusetts requires of gun owners. But according to published reports, there were at least four on the scene in Watertown: an M4 carbine rifle, which is, the Times notes, “similar to ones used by American forces in Afghanistan,” along with two handguns and a BB gun (the only one that Dzhokhar could have legally owned). If nothing else, these facts ensure that the Tsarnaevs’ names won’t just come up in relation to the discussion about immigration reform that is taking place in Washington right now, but in the ongoing debate about gun control as well.

 Some on the right have already begun arguing that the fact that the Tsarnaevs apparently owned their guns illegally is evidence that gun laws simply don’t work. “Since they didn’t obey the laws already on the books, maybe more laws for them to ignore would have helped,” Doug Powers wrote for Michelle Malkin’s Web site. “Maybe a separate law with slightly different wording that had ‘seriously, pay attention to this one – we’re not kidding’ written in bold would have gotten their attention.” Many other conservative bloggers have expressed similar sentiments over the past day.

That the Tsarnaevs had guns doesn’t “prove” that criminals disobey the law and that guns laws don’t work.  We knew that anyway.  Violation of laws is a function of the fact that someone is a criminal.  Furthermore, the problem isn’t that the author of this petty piece doesn’t know “how the Tsarnaevs got their guns.” He doesn’t know this information any more than he knows my favorite color or what I ate for lunch today, and none of it is any of his business.

The real problem is the way this article has been framed, and the stated assumption that any of this has a part in the “ongoing debate about gun control.”  That they had guns may be analogous to the fact that they may have had parking tickets, but it just isn’t related to the use of bombs to kill and maim innocent people.  Only the left could turn this event on its head like this, and rather than debating and discussing the religious motivations for the action, debate how inanimate objects sitting in their clauset at home should affect the rest of us because of something completely unrelated to those objects.