NY Daily News:

He just had to show off his gun.

Police arrested an off-duty city correction officer who brandished his gun in a Hell’s Kitchen restaurant to impress two women – then accidentally shot himself in the finger and one of his companions in her right foot, officials said Wednesday.

Correction Officer Mario Carrillo was charged with assault and reckless endangerment for the boneheaded move inside the Mamasita Bar & Grill on 10th Ave. near W. 54th St. on Tuesday night.
The 56-year-old guard, a five-year employee of the Department of Correction, had joined two women at the restaurant at about 8 p.m. and was talking about his job when he pulled out his off-duty Glock to show them how it worked, officials said.

A moment later, the pistol went off.

“It appears he may have been displaying it,” a police source said.

Well gosh.  I just hate it when that happens to me.  We always laugh, and laugh, and laugh if the wounded ones are willing to laugh about it and shrug it off.

Notice the third person the author applies in the article, as if the gun has a personality of its own and does things volitionally.  “A moment later, the pistol went off.”

Remember boys and girls.  Only authorized journalists can be considered professional writers.  And only LEOs are tactically well trained enough to handle guns.

Robert Farago at TTAG writes about Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook’s invective against open carry.  Two days after I did.  One commenter writes:

“Open-carry law or not, when citizens see someone with a gun, they will call the police. When responding to “person with a gun” calls…”

When someone calls 911 to report a ‘man with a gun’ ask what he was doing. Unless the answer establishes reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, tell the person that open carrying is lawful and end the call.

Hey look, I solved the problem.

Um, except that I solved it two days earlier when I said this.

It would be a good opportunity for 911 services to educate people on the new state law.  “Ma’am, what was he doing with the gun?  Was he brandishing it or pointing it at someone?”  No.  “Well then, he wasn’t breaking any laws.  Open carry is legal in South Carolina.”

Well, he was acting erratically.  “Hmmm … what do you mean by that?”  Well, I don’t know, he just seemed shifty.  “Ma’am, seeming shifty isn’t illegal.  Please hang up and call us when there is a law or regulation being broken.  Otherwise, you are wasting our time.”

This conversation is entirely plausible.  Don’t discount it as an example to follow for 911 operators, or classroom material.

Or more than a year ago when I dealt with Texas open carry and LEOs objected the same thing.  Or even longer ago than that whenever open carry comes up in whatever state it does.

But Robert’s readers wouldn’t know anything about what other gun rights bloggers say because Robert doesn’t link other gun rights bloggers.  Or if they do know anything about what other people are saying, they’re not getting it from Robert.

The State:

Columbia, SC – Although law enforcement has always been a challenging, difficult and dangerous job, the past few years have been some of the most challenging ever.

Guns.com:

A federal judged ruled against Remington Arms in a personal injury case despite arguments that the gun maker is protected under Louisiana law.

Judge Ivan Lemelle ruled that the case has merit under the Louisiana Products Liability Act, saying the law protects gun makers from lawsuits except in cases involving a defective firearm. He awarded $500,000 to the plaintiff, Precious Seguin, for her claim holding Remington liable for producing a defective product.

According to court documents, Seguin was injured during a hunting excursion in October 2013. As she tracked the blood trail of a wounded deer with her father, brother and a family friend, her father’s Remington 710 bolt-action rifle discharged as they made their way through the brush. The bullet struck her right buttock, traveled through her hip and exited through her right elbow.

The lawsuit argues the rifle’s trigger design, the infamous Walker Fire Control, a mechanism that has been linked to almost a dozen deaths and numerous injuries, allowed the gun to discharge without the pull of a trigger. In Seguin’s case, her father had the rifle strapped over his shoulder and pointed upward until a branch knocked it up and backward, at which time the safety moved to the fire position and unintentionally discharged. Before Seguin was injured, they had not experienced an unintentional discharge with the rifle.

So this is more on the Walker Fire Control System.  Good grief, people.  I was among the most vocal critics of Remington on the gun blogs, using my engineering credentials to advocate that Remington had misled their constituency and gun buyers, and in fact they’re still lying.  The Remington 700 has indeed been tested to fire when the trigger isn’t being pulled.  Their own test data shows it.  Good Lord!  Their own test data shows it.

But how far do we take this?  Now that Remington has settled the issue in court, it’s finished.  Let it go.  Everyone who knows anything about guns – and you shouldn’t be a hunter if you don’t know anything about guns – knows what Remington has been charged with, and knows that Remington settled.

Legal settlements mean something or they don’t.  Besides, I don’t know what really happened on that day Seguin was injured since I wasn’t there, and neither do any of my readers, and neither does the idiot judge who ordered this payout.

It’s time to put this to bed.  It’s finished.  Buy Remington, or don’t.  It matters not to me.  But this issue is closed as far as I’m concerned.  I hope Remington’s lawyers end this swiftly and surely.  If they don’t, let me make it clear.  At this point I have no compassion left for people who want to sue Remington for damages from a trigger system that has been recalled.  Do your homework, people.

David Codrea:

“So please, Congressman Culberson, make the right choice and delete the Schumer amendment from this year’s Commerce-Justice-Science ‘chairman’s mark,’” GOA asks in a representative message intended for members to amplify.

I’d go a step further. I’d let Culberson know that with an “A”-rating from GOA and with an “A+” and endorsement from NRA, I shouldn’t have to be sending polite form mailers asking him to “please” do his job. He’s happy to accept gun owners support and to represent himself as a Second Amendment leader and champion.  It’s not too much to expect him to act like one and to vocally lead the charge on this, especially since it’s taking place in his wheelhouse.

Yea.  I’m damn sick and tired of good ratings for senate gargoyles and congresscritters who undercut their constituency.  Things like this are easily fixed if we just have the guts to hold our representatives accountable.

It’s also a crying shame, I might add, that a single man has this kind of power.  What an awful place, this den of pit vipers.

We always try to stay physically active.  You never know when you’ll need to be in shape.  This past weekend we mountain biked at James Lake State Park.  As we stepped out of the truck to hit the trails, we heard an almost deafening sound coming from the forest.  For those of you who know this sound, it’s a bit like listening to an admixture of a dying calf and a cavitating pump.

It happened to be Cicadas – tens of thousands of them.  This was their year, and I suppose their week, to come up in this region.

It was a good day to mountain bike, but it reminds me of an event several years ago where I once lived.  I saw Heidi with a live Cicada caught between her paws, licking the innards and juice out of the insect.  I said to her, “Things like this are why I have to deworm you, bitch.”  She briefly looked up at me and then returned to lapping up her delicacy.

That reminds me of an event a number of years ago when my oldest son, Josh, sold me a bill of goods.  We were chopping wood and came up on a bunch of tree grubs.  He popped a small one in his mouth and ate it.  Then he dared me to, and of course I couldn’t let my oldest son show me up.  After all, Les Stroud eats tree grubs.

Then Josh handed me a tree grub that dwarfed the one he ate.  I dutifully ate the thing.  It tasted like wood, just wet and squishy.  But I don’t think I’ll be eating any more tree grubs unless I’m in the wilderness in a survival situation.

Forbes:

Since American citizens have the right to keep and bear arms (not just law enforcement officials, as gun control advocates maintain), it would seem to follow that they’re entitled to use their weapons when they are threatened.

More than a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that in Beard v. United States, where the first Justice Harlan wrote that the defendant, who had been convicted of manslaughter for killing a man in a violent dispute,

was not obliged to retreat, not to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was     entitled to stand his ground, and meet any attack upon him with a deadly weapon, in such a way and with such force as, under all the circumstances, he, at the moment honestly believed, and had reasonable grounds to believe, were necessary to save his own life, or to protect himself from great bodily injury.

To codify that right and prevent people from being put on trial for reasonable, defensive gun use when a prosecutor thinks they might instead have retreated or fled, 24 states have enacted “stand your ground” statutes. Among them is North Carolina, but a recent case there shows that when prosecutors and judges want to convict a man for using his gun, the “stand your ground” law can be trampled upon.

Gyrell Lee had been celebrating New Year’s Eve with his cousin Jamiel Walker in the latter’s home. Throughout the evening, a known troublemaker, Quinton Epps, came by and argued with Walker. When Epps returned with friends and became increasingly belligerent, Lee decided that he should get his gun from his car just in case matters got worse. Lee had completed his concealed carry class and was familiar with the law on gun use.

Epps returned once more and a shouting match between himself and Walker ensued in the street. Walker lost his temper and punched Epps, at which point Epps drew a pistol and shot Walker in the stomach. Walker fell and Epps then turned his gun on Lee, who had his gun out. Lee fired and killed Epps.

Lee was subsequently arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was a bystander who had acted in self-defense, but nevertheless local officials wanted to make an example of him.

At trial, Lee’s attorney argued that he had acted in self-defense. But in charging the jury, the judge failed to make any mention of the state’s “stand your ground” law or the defendant’s right to use force in the defense of his cousin (who had died of his wounds). The jury returned a verdict of guilty.

On appeal, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, holding that the trial judge had not committed “plain error” in charging the jury without bringing up the state’s “stand your ground” statute. In pertinent part, that law reads “A person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat in any place he or she has the lawful right to be if …he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.” The Court of Appeals wasn’t convinced that the judge had made an error because it wasn’t sure that the statute applied in Lee’s case due to its uncertainty that a public street outside his home counted as “a place he had the lawful right to be.”

Good grief …

Good grief indeed.  George Leef has done a good job with this article, and I appreciate his having followed and written on this issue.  We are reminded of a number of important things in this report.

First of all, we always encounter the opposition of statists when we advocate justified and righteous laws like stand your ground.  This is the first hurdle to overcome, as it is with proposed open carry laws, constitutional carry bill, and so on.

But if we get past the gaggle of gargoyles and demons in the houses of perdition that is the Senates of most states and the U.S. Senate, we face prosecutors.  The laws may say that we are recognized as having a right to self defense, but you must understand that these lawyers have been trained in the philosophy and legal theory of Stanley Fish and Jacques Derrida.  They don’t care about your God given rights or even what the law says.  If they want to, they will prosecute you if they think they can win.  Just because.  Shut up.

Then if you get past the hurdle of what the law says or how some recent law school graduate feels that day, you have the jury with which to contend.  Remember folks.  Juries are comprised by people who, on average, voted for Hillary Clinton, or had a hard time making up their minds, or who, if they didn’t vote for Hillary and Obama before her, couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag or hold attention long enough to listen to legal arguments in defense of someone like Mr. Lee.

Most jury members are too caught up thinking about their favorite night time sitcom to worry over things like putting someone away for life who simply shot in self defense.  Besides, that smartly dressed lawyer said he was guilty.  We’re law and order people.  He must be guilty.

When you entrust your life to a jury, it’s usually no better than entrusting it to a crooked judge.  That’s the sad state of the American system of “justice” today.  Stay away from crowds.  Think carefully about your actions.

Task & Purpose:

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales hates the M16 family of rifles, and he won’t stop until everyone knows it.

Scales has spent the last few years railing against the standard-issue infantry rifle as little more than a lighter but less effective version of the infamous M16 model that left so many American troops dead in the jungles of Vietnam (In response to Scales’ condemnation of the M4 in the pages of The Atlantic in January 2015, Task & Purpose’s Christian Beekman mounted a vocal defense of the rifle).

Wednesday was no different. Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Scales decried the Department of Defense’s post-World War II small-arms programs as “inferior.” Thousands of American troops “have died because the Army’s weapon buying bureaucracy has consistently denied that a soldier’s individual weapon is important enough to gain their serious attention,” said Scales in his prepared testimony.

“A soldier in basic training is told that his rifle is his best friend and his ticket home,” he told assembled lawmakers. “If the lives of so many depend on a rifle why can’t the richest country in the world give it to them?”

[ … ]

To their credit, DoD officials are moving slowly but surely to outfit ground forces with new weaponry. In November, the Marine Corps’ 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines began conducting pre-deployment exercises to evaluate the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle as a replacement for the M4, which replaced the M16A4 in infantry battalions in 2015.

“It is the best infantry rifle in the world, hands down,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Christian Wade told Military.com of the IAR at the time. “Better than anything Russia has, it’s better than anything we have, it’s better than anything China has. It’s world-class.”

This is a weird article.  As soon as the author is done with Scales, he launches into a discussion about how the DoD gets it with the USMC work on the IAC – which I would point out, is a 5.56 mm gun.

This is the same, tired old rhetoric we saw half century ago, and the alleged problems Scales likes to cite have all gone away.  McThag summarizes.

The M16A1 and its M193 ammunition stopped being the standard more than thirty years ago and was replaced with the M16A2 and M855.

The M16A2, where almost every part was revised, isn’t even the standard today; that’d be the M4A1.

M855, even, is on its way out with the advent of M855A1.

In a nutshell, everything that was causing problems in 1969 has been revised and replaced.  The bore diameter didn’t cause those three guys you constantly cite to die with broken rifles.

It’s far more likely the lackluster quality control from the mighty UAW workforce at Colt had more to do with it than the design.

To former Major Ehrhart; the infantry half kilometer was “lost” to artillery.

Remember combined arms?

Well, the max effective range of the small arms overlaps the normal range of artillery.  So, yes, the infantry half kilometer demands a larger bore size, I suggest 60mm for starters.  Willard even posits that the reason we’re having problems in Afghanistan is the enemy has figured out where our small arms peter out and won’t close; because to close is to die.  If to close is to die, then it means our weapons do work.

Don’t use logic on Scales.  He won’t listen, or he’ll cite the battle of Wanat, where we ensconced a platoon of soldiers in a valley after letting enemy fighters prepare for a total of one year to attack them with a battalion size force.  Scales blamed that one on the M4 too.

And don’t tell Scales that the Army doesn’t teach soldiers to shoot anymore.  He won’t listen.  Because shut up.

If you want to have a larger bore weapon, then buy one.  I have a larger bore rifle than the 5.56 mm too.  But remember that you always give up something to get something, and that all decisions concerning weapons selection are a compromise.

As for Scales, who exactly pays this guy to continue to work the Stoner system over with false rhetoric?

KTTS.com:

City officials in Ozark are discussing a possible ban on concealed weapons in certain places.

People in Missouri can carry a concealed weapon without a permit in most places. Police departments and a few other places are still off limits.

“However, you can carry a concealed weapon in city hall if it’s not posted,” says Ozark city attorney Dave Collignon.

One city official asked someone with a concealed weapon to leave Finley River Park. Guns are allowed at the park though. That’s what started the discussion amongst city council members.

The plan is to further limit where concealed weapons are allowed and to make a list for people of places having a concealed weapon is not allowed.

When men and women get charge of someone else, there is virtually no limit to what they are willing to dictate.  I’ve seen church elders and deacons want to dictate what people wear, what they say, how they act, how they address them, and on and on the list goes.  Rulers reflexively turn into tyrants.  That’s why in my own view of church government I’ve become a Congregationalist.  I’ve never seen the “rulership” form(s) of church government function well or become anything other than a laughingstock or tyranny.  Not ever.  Not even once.

The same is true concerning civil government.  It doesn’t matter that these people aren’t national leadership, or weren’t elected at the state level.  They want the power to tax, determine matters for the local schools, signage, roads, utilities, and tell you when and where you can effect life-saving self defense or defense of someone else.

Tyrants, one and all.  In case you ever wondered, this is why we need preemption laws.  Right here.  And the next town full of little communists, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one.  No town, city, or municipality has ever relaxed laws or regulations compared to state law.  They are all more restrictive.  If you find an example to the contrary, tell us about it and I’ll retract this statement.

Breitbart.com:

Enter Marty Daniel of Daniel Defense. Marty told Breitbart News that the Second Amendment must be protected because it is sourced in our Creator. He juxtaposed Second Amendment rights with the gospel and said that he views it as his job to protect both because both flow to us from God.

Marty said, “We are in business, we believe, to be a supporter of the gospel. And, therefore, a supporter of the Second Amendment. In other words, not only do we have these Second Amendment rights because God gives them to us but also the gospel.” Marty went on to stress his conviction that Daniel Defense “[supports] the freedom of the gospel by supporting the Second Amendment.”

I like this a lot.  This sounds like things I’ve said before, and I said them because I believe them very deeply.  I appreciate someone going public with a statement such as this one.  Mr. Daniel didn’t have to do this – he chose to do it of his own volition.

But for me there’s a problem.  There is another Biblical requirement that bears on his guns.  It is the requirement to be wise with your wealth and how it’s used.  Money is wealth, and wealth is time off of your life.  Quite literally, when you purchase something you are giving part of your life away that could be given to your children.

For Mr. Daniel, this is a requirement on me, the customer, not you.  As for me, I would recommend that you get your costs a little better under control before I can purchase a Daniel Defense firearm.  There are a lot of carbine makers out there, and the numbers are increasing virtually weekly.  I was talking with my oldest son Josh just the other day and we were remarking that the choices seem unlimited at the moment.  The bad ones will be weeded out, but the good ones will be your competition.  Spending $2000 – $3000 for a carbine is out of the question when I can purchase one for less that works reliably and won’t fail when I really need it to function, and shoots 1 MOA.

I think you’ve got the attitude right, but you still need to work on the nuts and bolts of the price point.