A lot of cops are liars, and the media is their willing partners in that enterprise (or too stupid to call them out).

Referring to statistics released by SLED in June and confirmed by the FBI this month, Keel cited a 51% increase in homicides statewide the past five years, including a 25% surge in 2020.

“It’s important that our legislative priorities reflect this, and we take immediate legislative steps to stem the violence,” Keel said, noting state and local law enforcement agencies said the measure would allow them to arrest more felons illegally carrying firearms.

Keel’s comments echo Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook’s letter to legislators in February that suggested “commonsense solutions” to reconcile variations in state and federal code.

For instance, Holbrook wrote, a conviction for strong arm robbery doesn’t preclude a South Carolinian from legally owning a firearm although the individual cannot legally purchase one under federal law.

Felons who violate South Carolina’s 2010 law can be charged with illegal possession with a maximum punishment of a $2,000 fine and/or up to five years in prison. Law enforcement officials want escalator tiers to increase penalties for repeated violations.

This information is just not true.

SECTION 16-23-500. Unlawful possession of a firearm by a person convicted of violent offense; confiscation; return of firearm to innocent owner.

(A) It is unlawful for a person who has been convicted of a violent crime, as defined by Section 16-1-60, that is classified as a felony offense, to possess a firearm or ammunition within this State.

(B) A person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than two thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

And the chief of SLED worded his speechery to neatly avoid telling lies overt like Holbrook did.  He’s just not telling the whole truth – and your mother would have called that a lie too.

You see, he uses words like “the measure would allow them to arrest more felons illegally carrying firearms.”  What does he mean by this, that it would be more illegal to be a violent felon in possession of a firearm?  No, that’s not a rational position to take.  There is no such thing as more illegal.  He just made that up.

What he means is that SLED can go on boy’s outings with FedGov (ATF, FBI) to make arrests, bust down doors, etc., and feel all manly while they “get some,” if there is a hint from an AFT agent that there may be a firearm in the hands of a felon which SLED didn’t know about.

You see how he did that?  “Arrest more felons.”

The chief of SLED wants to partner with FedGov, the entire point of which second amendment sanctuary laws are in place to prevent.

Because illegal firearms may one day be a rifle with a brace, or an AR-15, or a pistol with a magazine capacity of more than ten rounds, or any semiautomatic firearm.

Constitutionalists in South Carolina have a problem on their hands, namely, law enforcement.

And rather than focus on anything South Carolina law enforcement says, the legislature should go ahead and pass second amendment sanctuary laws that prevents their own LEOs from working with FedGov, and maybe even give it more teeth, where their own LEOs arrest FedGov agents for infringements on the 2A.

Law enforcement should be your servants, not your rulers.

I clean my muzzle loader every time I shoot it.  I’ll let an AR-15 go several hundred rounds before I even ponder whether I should maybe think about planning to plan to clean it some time in the future (but not today).

I know a guy who proudly stated to me that “The sun won’t got down on me before I clean a gun I shot that day.”  The only reason I didn’t tell him he’s wasting his time is that he shoots CommBloc guns with corrosive ammunition.

Ammoland

I had always wondered how easy or difficult this would be.  It looks like it just requires some basic tools and a little patience.

I especially like that they got a gunsmith to explain it, and he provided pictures.

So I have a suggestion to the cops.  If you don’t want to be hated, and if you don’t want to be on the receiving end of things like this, then don’t be a tyrant.

That’s simple enough.

Ammoland.

Now, let me just preface this by saying that I am a proud NRA member, a benefactor member, and have helped do many things for NRA. I am not anti-NRA at all. But what I’m going to tell you is, in effect, a painful history of things that occurred early on in the NRA. As the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue, removing this painful history is not a good idea. We need to know and understand it. It is generally not known out there, but by recognizing it, we can look at the mistakes that were made, and mistakes were made. I am not talking about the modern situation now with the attack by the New York State Attorney General and all the politics going on here. Questions about whether Wayne LaPierre should stay in leadership or not. None of that. I am not going to get into that, and it is not about that. I want to look at the actual history of the NRA when it comes to gun control and gun laws.

You may be surprised to know that back in the 1920s and into the 30s, NRA was a proponent of gun control, and actually aggressively pursued the enactment of gun control laws. Laws that to this day, we are fighting. Laws to this day that the NRA is now fighting and has been fighting for many years to repeal and get rid of. But we need to know and understand what mistakes NRA made, and it was really done out of those folks being naive. If you want to read more about this, there is a really interesting article, believe it or not, in The Atlantic, which is a magazine that is generally considered, you know, left-wing, liberal without a doubt. But they had an article called The Secret History of Guns by Adam Winkler in the September 2011 issue.

It is a very interesting article to read. As much as I do not care for the politics of The Atlantic, and there, of course, is an agenda behind everything they do, this article does have many things in it that are factually true and surprising about guns and the history of guns. The fact that is put out by a liberal, left-wing magazine, and there is an agenda to it, does not mean that the history there is necessarily untrue or that we should reject it, want to close our eyes to it, and remove the statue. No, no, not a good idea. Instead, we should embrace it, understand it, and learn from it.

So, let me tell you that in the 1920s, NRA was actually a champion of enacting gun control. Because at that time, it had come over from England where there was gun control being pushed, and it came across the pond. It was after World War One, and there was this kind of a naive concept that gun laws could maybe work and go at crime and other concerns. The President of the NRA at the time was Karl T. Frederick. Karl Frederick was a Princeton and Harvard-educated lawyer. He was known as the best shot in America because he won three gold medals in handgun shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympics. So, he was a good shooter, obviously, a skilled shooter, and he was President of the NRA at the time. He was made a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on uniform state laws.

In this role and during his NRA presidency, Frederick drafted what was called the Uniform Firearm Act. The Uniform Firearm Act was model legislation that was pushed in the States at the time throughout America with the NRA and Frederick pushing these uniform firearm laws because they wanted to see gun laws in all the states. It is shocking even say it, but what did these gun laws, these model firearm laws, what did they promote? Back in the 20s? I will tell you what they did. Number one, they required anyone that wanted to carry a concealed handgun in public must have a permit from the local police. Advocating permits. When what we had prior to that was constitutional carry. We had constitutional carry, and the NRA under Frederick pushed to not have constitutional carry and in fact have permits.

And he goes on but leaves the list woefully incomplete.  There’s support for the NFA (and Hughes Amendment) and GCA, support for the original assault weapons ban, support for universal background checks, and the idea for the bump stock ban, and Trump was too stupid to be able to figure out that the NRA doesn’t have the support of modern gun owners but instead represents gun controllers.

A commenter posts this about the NRA National Firearms Museum.

“I’m the former senior curator for the NRA National Firearms Museum. Forced to retire after more than a year on furlough. Most NRA furloughed employees received no information on what was happening to the association.  The designated staff chosen to “operate” various NRA functions were pretty much ones pledged to LaPierre. No matter what happens – I fear the NRA National Firearms Museum is toast.  Believe they may have already sent part of the collection off for auction.  When I went in to pick up my personal belongings (which was one heck of a process) – they would not let me, our museum registrar, or our FFL person into the galleries for even a goodbye photo.  Interesting that they wouldn’t let an employee of 35 years (and the individual entrusted with the keys to every vault in the HQ) enter the galleries, but had allowed some VIP tours through previously.

“Millions of dollars are represented in the collection – just the Petersen Gallery held over $30 million and that was just the first gallery as you entered. The state of the HQ building is very bad presently – roof falling apart – they had to move the legal library from the 6th floor to another building next door because the roof collapsed in that area. Heard they believe it may take three more months to fully repair.”

That’s not from some outsider, but from the Senior Curator of the National Firearms Museum. And what will the board do? The board that has a legal obligation to protect the NRA as an organization? To protect the donations of those who support it? We can watch them re-elect the CEO LaPierre, continue his $1 million-plus salary, and give his cronies another year to complete their looting. This organization has endured 150 years. Founded by Civil War veterans, had 3-4 presidents who earned the Medal of Honor. It is now being ruined by a board too frightened of nasty words to do their duty.

This post is updated.

Update — a person affiliated with headquarters in the 1990s said there were many rumors back then that, while the museum itself was honest, some of the others who dealt with it were not. It would regularly receive collections, sometimes very big and fine ones, but not of museum-display quality. These would be given to an auction house to sell. There were rumors of insiders getting “first pick.” Also the possibility of kickbacks from the auction house to insiders who steered it business. At one point a staffer stumbled across a different firearm auction house that would offer NRA a better deal, and suggested that to Treasurer Woody Phillips’ staff. The person to whom he made the suggestion responded by going frantic and screaming at him until he left.

So even now they can’t stop their thievery.  They (I assume LaPierre and his cronies) are looting the NRA National Firearms Museum for personal gain and financial protection.

Wayne LaPierre, Marion Hammer, Tom King and the rest of that ilk are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad people.  But most readers, I think, see this piece for what it is.

Yes, go ahead and admit that the old NRA made mistakes.  I’m a proud NRA member, and we can all learn from this and move forward to make the new NRA.  In other words, please send us your hard earned money and we can make it all better.

Here’s a one word answer: NO.

News from Springfield, with some running commentary.

SPRINGFIELD — Smith & Wesson president and CEO Mark Smith says the company doesn’t want to make an enemy of the state of Massachusetts.

But he feels at least some lawmakers have made an enemy of Smith & Wesson with legislation that would ban the manufacture in Massachusetts of firearms that are unlawful to sell here.

The legislation is a response to mass shootings involving semiautomatic rifles made by Smith & Wesson and other companies. Advocates say high-capacity magazines and high rates of fire make the guns too dangerous for civilian hands.

Whether you have enemies is sometimes not up to you.

“We are under attack by the state of Massachusetts,” Smith said Friday.

CEO for two years and operations director for a decade before that, Smith gave a tour of the bustling, half-million-square-foot factory a day after announcing the company would move its headquarters and 550 jobs in production and management to gun-friendly Maryville, Tennessee. It’s not a move the company wanted to make, he said.

It will cost $125 milli million “that I didn’t want to spend,” Smith said.

Riding a wave of brisk gun sales, mostly to first time-buyers, Smith & Wesson said revenue hit $1.1 billion in the most recent fiscal year, up from $529.6 million a year earlier.

“Why would I disrupt that?” he said.

Smith & Wesson said it is relocating a total of 750 jobs to Tennessee from Springfield and its other sites. The company is also closing a plastics factory in Connecticut and a Missouri distribution center it opened in 2019.

Construction in Maryville is expected to begin later in 2021 and be substantially complete by the summer of 2023. No employees will move for two years.

A substantial operation will stay in Springfield, including the forge, machine shop and revolver assembly. There will still be 1,000 jobs here, many of them highly skilled and high-paying, the company said.

I understand the felt need to keep highly skilled revolver mechanics on staff rather than lose them due to a forced move, but this may not be up to S&W.  More on that later.

In just more than three years when the transition is complete, Smith & Wesson’s revolvers will still be manufactured here and stamped “Springfield, Massachusetts.” But the company’s semiautomatic rifles — the industry calls them modern sporting rifles while opponents say assault rifles — and semiautomatic pistols will be made in Tennessee.

News reports from Tennessee said Smith & Wesson may buy the land for only $1. It is part of a larger incentive package that includes seven-year tax abatement that could result in about $8 million in company savings, according to sources The Daily Times granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the deal.

That’s corporate welfare, and in I’m opposed to it.  The move should have been made a very long time ago, and the market should dictate where they move, not incentives.

Smith & Wesson said its move was prompted by legislation proposed earlier this year by Springfield state Rep. Bud L. Williams and others that would outlaw part of its manufacturing business. That includes feeding devices capable of containing 10 or more rounds, trigger pulls requiring pressure less than 10 pounds, threaded barrels that accept silencers and other military-looking hardware.

“They are moving their headquarters. That’s what corporate does. We are trying to save lives,” Williams said this week.

John Rosenthal, a co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence, which backs the bill, said Thursday’s announcement came the same day as the fourth-anniversary of the Las Vegas shooting where a gunman fired on a concert crowd. Fifty-eight people were killed that night, and two others died later. More than 850 were injured.

If that’s what really happened in Las Vegas, then release and honest and true report explaining how the room was spotless after thousands of rounds had been discharged in that room, rather than covered in soot, carbon and powder residue.

Smith said Friday that it was the proposed law that prompted the move. The products the legislation singles out are what consumers want, and they make up 60% percent of Smith & Wesson’s sales, he said. Limiting those products for sale to the military or law enforcement isn’t feasible because Smith & Wesson’s share of those markets is too small.

Be sure to understand that it’s not just the AR-15 suite of products that the communists don’t like in our hands, it’s the M&P pistols too.

Smith — no relation to the company co-founder — said it doesn’t matter that the proposal is just a bill, one of dozens filed each year that often don’t get a hearing, much less a vote on Beacon Hill.

“Honestly, we know we could have defeated it this session,” Smith said. “But it will be back the next session and the session after that.”

It will take years to move the operation, he said. So if the company waited for the bill to pass, it’d be too late.

“I just can’t operate with that big a risk hanging over the company,” he said. “We only started this process once the bill was filed. Then and only then.”

Once Smith and his executives decided they had to move, they found it made sense to close the Missouri and Connecticut plants as well and consolidate some operations in Tennessee.

The plastic parts from Deep River, Connecticut, go into the rifles and pistols, so that needs to be near the assembly lines. The distribution system needed to move from Missouri.

“But it was the need to move from this law that triggered all the other discussions,” Smith said. “We didn’t want to do this.”

The forges, giant steel hammers that shape aluminum or carbon steel, pounding parts out of metal blocks, are hard to move. So are hundreds of computer numerical control milling machines used to shape the metal. That’s why they’ll stay in Springfield.

Revolvers don’t have attributes targeted by the proposed law, so work assembling them will also stay here. It’s painstaking work that takes a great deal of training and experience. Assemblers dry-fire the weapons and adjust them based on the sound of the metallic click until they get it just right. It’s why the jobs that are staying are so highly paid.

You should move everything, excepting nothing at all, not even the heavy equipment.  Oh, and rather than “Revolvers don’t have attributes targeted by the proposed law,” you should have said “Revolvers don’t have attributes targeted by the proposed law at the moment.”  Try, try to understand.  It isn’t just semi-automatics they communists don’t like.  It’s any firearm in the hands of anyone but a state actor.  Semiautomatics are just in line first.  They’ll eventually have the bolt action deer hunting rights locked up tight at a state armory to be checked out only by state-approved hunters for the duration of the hunt.  Anything else that fires a projectile will be anathema in the hands of anyone who isn’t functioning on behalf of the state.

“If I was doing this to save a dime, why would I leave the highest-paid jobs behind?” Smith said. “We love Springfield. We love Mayor (Domenic J.) Sarno. We didn’t want to leave.”

You shouldn’t love him.  He hates you and wants to see you out of business.  And you shouldn’t want to stay in a place like that.

Some workers whose jobs are not moving have asked to relocate anyway. That’ll open up a Springfield position for someone on the relocation list who wants to stay.

“We want to take as many of our workers with us as we can,” he said.

Good.  You should take all of them, and if some don’t want to leave and they happen to be revolver mechanics, then make them understand that they won’t have a job in two years and in the mean time it’s their responsibility to train other revolver mechanics.

“The message is to highlight the area,” he said. “We are going to be talking about what it’s like to raise your family here. We are going to talk about residential prospects, what housing is like.”

Muir said the region sells itself as an outdoor recreation hub close to Knoxville, with the University of Tennessee, and to Nashville.

“Our pitch, at least in Blount County, is that we are the peaceful side of the Smokies,” he said. “Get a cabin and enjoy the mountains peacefully. It’s just a way to get away and relax in a calm area.”

Get out of communist areas like Massachusetts, and towards more liberty.  You won’t regret it.

Whether a product is worth the price, recall from Mike Vanderboegh, depends upon what it can demand on the market.  DD can demand this kind of money, and thus, they are worth the money – to a least enough buyers to keep them in business, and expand their business to become one of the largest AR-15 manufacturers in the game.