Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Report from Kabul.

Taliban fighters on Monday reportedly began collecting weapons from civilians in Kabul as the insurgent group cements its swift takeover of Afghanistan.

“We understand people kept weapons for personal safety. They can now feel safe. We are not here to harm innocent civilians,” a Taliban official told Reuters.

ISIS did it too.

“ISIS was telling everyone, ‘We’re all brothers,’ ” Abu Malik said. “They let people smoke and drink. At the checkpoints, they distributed presents to the kids. They ate with people, drank tea with people. They were very nice—they didn’t bother anyone. Then, a week or so after they arrived, they started confiscating weapons. They told us it didn’t matter if we’d been with the Awakening or the Army or the police—if we gave up our weapons, we’d be forgiven. Ten days later, they started taking people. Everything changed. They took my cousin. My brothers dug holes in the fields and hid. I was at my house when they came for me. It was afternoon. I saw two Hyundai Santa Fes pull up outside, and I ran out the back and jumped over the wall. That was the last time I saw my family.”

Guns were confiscated prior to the Armenian genocide in Turkey, prior to the Nazi reign in Germany, prior to Idi Amin’s reign of terror in Uganda, and on the list could go.

And to repeat, gun control is never about confiscation of all guns, the usual rejoinder to these instances by the left.  In fact, claiming so undermines the main point.

Gun control is always about leaving them in the hands of state-sanctioned actors and outlawing gun ownership by those not approved by the state.

Shooting Illustrated.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has selected FN America’s FN509 MRD-LE as its new duty pistol. The trials included a variety of performance evaluations, including accuracy, ergonomics and a 20,000-round-count endurance qualification in which the FN 509 MRD-LE surpassed with zero malfunctions.

“Exceeding all of the requirements LAPD sought in their new duty pistol was a high-performance standard to meet,” said Chris Cole, vice president of Sales and Marketing at FN America. “With over a million rounds fired in development, the FN 509’s reputation for durability is proven here again, giving LAPD officers a superior handgun they can depend on in the most demanding policing environments.”

The double-action, 9 mm-chambered pistol features FN’s patented Low-Profile Optics-Mounting System. Adapted from the original development for the U.S. Army’s handgun trials, it provides officers added precision and sighting versatility.

“LAPD needed the ability to quickly and securely mount a variety of duty-rated micro red dots to their service pistols to improve the accuracy potential of their handguns and their officers,” said Charles “Bucky” Mills Sr., director of Law Enforcement Sales for FN America. “FN pioneered the MRD mounting technology the LAPD required, enabling precision shot placement and immediate target engagement no matter the environment.”

The pistol features a precision, hammer-forged, 4-inch barrel with recessed target crown, high-performance, conical striker and flat-faced, duty-rated trigger. The FN Low-Profile Optics-Mounting System with co-witness tritium 3-dot iron sights, delivers rapid sight acquisition and consistent shot placement. Magazine capacity is 17 cartridges.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is one of the largest and most elite law enforcement agencies in the country, with roughly 10,000 uniformed officers, and we are proud that they have chosen the FN 509 MRD-LE as their next duty pistol,” said Mark Cherpes, president and CEO of FN America.

Nice.

Except it isn’t legal for residents of California to own it.

See, that’s what I’ve been talking about.  Manufacturers are going to have to do better than that.  The first question Mr. Cherpes should have asked when the LAPD approached them is this: “Can California residents legally own this gun?”  If the answer was no, which it would have been, he should have told the LAPD to stuff it.

News and views from Iowa.

As Iowa lawmakers debated a gun rights bill this past legislative session, critics issued some dire warnings. Without requiring Iowans to get government permission to buy and carry firearms, they said, the state would devolve into lawlessness.

Under consideration was a proposal to modernize Iowa’s gun permit system, making permits to carry or acquire guns optional.

“This bill bans or kills background checks in this state, there’s no doubt about it,” state Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said on the Iowa House floor this spring.

The Legislature passed the bill — known as “constitutional carry” or “permitless carry” — along party lines and it took effect July 1. Iowans now may purchase and carry weapons without a permission slip from the state.

“The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”

” … the state would devolve into lawlessness.”

In other words, if there is no law by which the controllers could govern something, then the people are free to engage in something out from under the control of the controllers.

That, my friend, is what’s called a tautology.

Via David Codrea, at TTAG.

Last year, then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal subpoenaed Smith & Wesson, trying to force the manufacturer to hand over internal information regarding its marketing practices. The Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex’s is conducting a coordinated effort to try to skirt the PLCAA’s protections by claiming gun makers are engaging in allegedly false and deceptive advertising.

Smith & Wesson refused to cough up the documents and sued the Garden State to block them. That suit was tossed out and the state filed their own suit to enforce the subpoena. This week, the New Jersey Supreme Court denied Smith & Wesson’s request to stay a lower court’s order to produce the documents, in effect ruling the manufacturer has to produce the documents.

Said the NJ AG, “Getting access to Smith & Wesson’s internal documents was a way “to hold manufacturers liable.”

The problem here is that this is still just about money to the manufacturers, rather than an existential war for survival.  They still want it both ways.  They want to sell firearms in communist states like New Jersey, and they still want to outfit the police state with weaponry, but they don’t like what follows.

When you dance with the devil …

The solution is to refuse to do business in any state like that, whether New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or wherever.  Not even selling weapons to the police.

Manufacturers are going to have to stay out of such states, and the longer they wait, the better the chance that they end up like Remington.

They have been warned.

TTAG.

New gun owners are filling up gun ranges and classrooms to learn to use their firearms. It’s a rebuke of David Chipman’s portrayal of them. Chipman, of course, is President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and he reduced new gun buyers to rubes who are clueless about the responsibilities of gun ownership.

David Chipman mocked first-time gun buyers in 2020, likening them to Joe Exotic, the “Tiger King,” and saying they more closely resemble zombie apocalypse preppers.

During his U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Chipman was drilled about his statements bemoaning new gun owners who, “went out to the gun store and bought a gun with no training whatsoever.” He said they were likely to “hide their guns behind the cans of tuna and beef jerky that you’ve stored in the cabinet, and only bring that out if the zombies start to appear.” When pushed by senators, he sheepishly walked it back.

That’s because he’s a coward who’s afraid to say what he really thinks – and we all know what he really thinks.

But let’s dismiss the stupidity for a moment.  No gun will fit inside a can of tuna or a bag of beef jerky.  It’s a good thing to get training, and to be capable of use of the tool you’ve purchased.  As regular readers know, I’ve recommended range, training, pulling the machine apart to see how it works and to perform maintenance on it, and on and on.

But here’s the problem with all of that.  I don’t really care about stereotypes or especially what Chipman thinks.  So let’s say that some elderly couple did purchase a firearm and stuff it in a bag of jerky.

So what?  It’s their God-given right.  They spent their money on it, it’s there machine to do with as they see fit, and Chipman cannot tell them what to do.

The gun community doesn’t owe Chipman or anyone else an explanation of how we spend our time or whether we’re getting enough range time.

Because.  And that’s the end of that.

From several of you, it isn’t good enough that they have to send us their poor – whom they cannot care for because of corruption – and their gangs.  Mexico is saber rattling over guns.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government sued United States gun manufacturers and distributors Wednesday in U.S. federal court, arguing that their negligent and illegal commercial practices have unleashed tremendous bloodshed in Mexico.

The unusual lawsuit was filed in U.S. federal court in Boston. Among those being sued are some of the biggest names in guns, including: Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta U.S.A. Corp.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC, and Glock Inc. Another defendant is Interstate Arms, a Boston-area wholesaler that sells guns from all but one of the named manufacturers to dealers around the U.S …

The Mexican government argues that the companies know that their practices contribute to the trafficking of guns to Mexico and facilitate it. Mexico wants compensation for the havoc the guns have wrought in its country.

The Mexican government “brings this action to put an end to the massive damage that the Defendants cause by actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico,” the lawsuit said.

It’s not that the police are owned by the cartels.  It’s guns.  Sure thing.

But it may be more than saber rattling if the current administration or some pagan, collectivist judge gets her way.

This sort of thing is bound to increase as time goes by.

News from S.C.

Openly carrying a firearm will be legal in South Carolina starting Aug. 15, and the State Law Enforcement Division is trying to make sure gun owners and law enforcement officers understand this upcoming change.

[ … ]

“Anything as far as protecting our Second Amendment rights, I’m all for any time it comes up,” said state Rep. Cal Forrest, R-Saluda, one of the bill’s early sponsors. “I think what is lost on most people is that it makes South Carolina a Second Amendment sanctuary state.”

Deescalation techniques?  Why would they need to learn about deescalation techniques?  Do they intend to harass open carriers?  In spite of the fact that S.C. isn’t a stop and identify state, and the fact that the open carry bill contains no proviso for being stopped by LEOs while openly carrying, do they intend to making unlawful demands of open carriers?

If so, then there will be problems, and they’ll end up in court.

GOA.

Appropriations contained within H.R. 4502 and H.R. 4505 are at odds with the Bill of Rights. The House of Representatives has no business appropriating funds for programs that directly infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. Gun licensing, so-called “red flag” gun confiscation orders (GCOs), and gun buybacks have nothing to do with “State and Local Justice Assistance” and have everything to do with undermining the Bill of Rights. Further, it appears this legislation goes out of its way to stigmatize mental illness. H.R. 4505 appropriates $100,000,000 to bribe states to upgrade “mental health records” in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) using the gun control laws known as the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 and the Fix NICS Act of 2018. In conjunction with the unabashed inclusion of the Schumer Amendment—which prohibits ATF from removing records from NICS even if individuals are adjudicated “not […] likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety”—this effort will certainly lead to more innocent Americans losing their gun rights.

The controllers never sleep.  Ecclesiastes 9:3, Jeremiah 17:9.

ZeroHedge.

Remington and the families of nine victims from the Sandy Hook school massacre, the second-deadliest school shooting in US history, have reached a settlement that was years in the making: the gun-maker and manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15 used by shooter Adam Lanza will pay a total of $33MM. Divided up among the families, that comes to $3.66MM each (before the lawyer’s cut). The families insist the money is no substitute for the brutal killing of their loved one.

According to Reuters, the settlement must still be approved by the Alabama judge overseeing the Remington bankruptcy case. The plaintiffs allege that Remington’s marketing contributed to the shooting. In a February court filing, the plaintiff’s legal team  argued that the value of their claims could exceed $1 billion, including punitive damage – a pretty obvious negotiating tactic.

Sickening.  Why didn’t Remington fight this all the way?  There is a federal law in place to prevent this sort of thing.  Why did they cave?

And tell me why I should ever buy a Remington product again?

Via WiscoDave.

The Regulatory Review.

It is doubtful that state courts outside of New York would enforce New York State court judgments, especially in the 34 states with laws shielding gun sellers from lawsuits arising out of criminal misuse of weapons—many of which are precisely where the out-of-state sales that concern New York take place.

There are good things that could come out of New York’s attempt to hold firearms manufacturers liable for misuse of gun (like, say, holding Ford liable for someone using a truck to run over people).

The more difficult and less incentivized it becomes for firearms manufacturers to do business in New York, the better.

The end goal wouldn’t just be the complete end of firearms manufacturing in New York.  It would be for the atmospherics of firearms liability to be so bad in New York that manufacturers refuse to sell even to law enforcement in New York.

But where there is $$$ involved, there will always be some manufacturer who’s willing to sell to LEOs even if it means confiscation of firearms from peaceable men.

Still, the option is out there – a splintering of states and laws such that states once again become the laboratories of democracy as envisioned by the founders.