NRA Foundation Helps North Carolina Students

Catching up on emails that arrived while I was out of town, I came across this one from the NRA. It discusses the substantial donations made by the NRA Foundation to Montgomery Community College to fund scholarships for gunsmithing students.

NRA Foundation Funds Montgomery Community College Scholarships

TROY, N.C. – Nearly $100,000 in NRA Foundation grants have funded Montgomery Community College scholarships for its gunsmithing program since 1994. These merit-based scholarships help spur high academic achievement and pristine attendance records while providing students with the freedom and flexibility to undertake notably challenging projects.

Throughout their time in MCC’s gunsmithing program, students develop skills tooling and blueprinting, metal finishing, firearm diagnostics and repair, and custom firearms manufacturing. More than two-thirds of class time is spent hands-on in the college’s 5,400 square feet of shop workspace.

"Friends of NRA and the NRA Foundation are both great proponents of Montgomery Community College’s gunsmithing program," said Mark Dye, gunsmithing program director at Montgomery Community College. "In their biggest show of support yet, the NRA Foundation granted us funds to award 12 gunsmithing scholarships this year. We are truly grateful for the NRA’s unwavering commitment to our focus on this great American tradition."

Both the East and West Friends of NRA State Fund Committees in North Carolina award grants to the program each year. In 2014, nearly half of all scholarships awarded to MCC gunsmithing students came from The NRA Foundation.

I am especially gratified by these donations as my family connections to Montgomery County go back to before the Civil War. My father was born in Troy and I still have cousins living there.

If you need a tax deduction for 2015, a donation to the NRA Foundation is tax deductible. You have until midnight tomorrow to make one if you use a credit card.

The Live 'Possum Returns To Brasstown

Clay Logan puts on a New Year's Eve show every year that is appreciated by all. All, that is, except the so-called animal rights activists at PETA. I've written about the Possum Drop in the past and PETA's legal machinations to prevent the use of a live opossum. With New Year's Eve almost upon us, I thought it was time for an update.

It appears that PETA is finally being stymied in its efforts to prevent a live opossum from being used in the Possum Drop. A bill that was passed this year by the North Carolina General Assembly removed the opossum from state wildlife laws and regulations during the period between December 29th and January 2nd. The bill sponsored by Rep. Roger West (R-Cherokee) was signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) back in June.

PETA went to Superior Court in Wake County to seek a preliminary injunction to stop the event. Judge James Roberson turned down their request in an order issued on December 14th.

From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

Organizers of this year's New Year's Eve 'possum drop in Brasstown can use a live animal, a judge has ruled.

Superior Court Judge James Roberson this week turned down a request for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented use of a real opossum for the annual event in western Clay County.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is suing over a law the General Assembly passed earlier this year that suspends enforcement of state wildlife rules regarding opossums a few days before and after New Year's Eve. PETA says the law, sponsored by Rep. Roger West, R-Cherokee, is unconstitutional because it is special treatment for 'possum drop organizers and makes it unclear what laws apply to people who work to return injured wildlife to their natural habitat.

Roberson wrote in an order filed Dec. 14 in Wake County, where the case is being heard, that PETA and other plaintiffs "have not shown the likelihood of success on the merits of the claims asserted in" their lawsuit so the request for an injunction should be denied. The decision still allows the lawsuit to go forward.

Undoubtedly this ruling will be appealed by PETA. They have another appeal pending before the NC Court of Appeals on the constitutionality of a previous law that exempted only Clay County from wildlife regulations during the period before and after New Year's Eve.

Nonetheless, baring any last minute court orders, the event is on and Clay Logan is happy about it.

“I’m tickled. My plan’s just to have a live possum, carry on like we used to and have a good time,” said Clay Logan, event organizer and owner of Clay’s Corner store, in Clay County.

Despite all the claims of cruelty by PETA, I think if I were an opossum, I'd prefer to be in that plexiglass container being feed treats when you consider the alternative. The alternative being where most people see opossums - squished dead on the road.

Evidently Money Talks In Virginia

There has been a lot written about the ad hoc decision of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D-VA) to drop the recognition of out of state CCW permits from 25 states. The move impacts approximately 6.3 million Americans. I am one of those as Americans as North Carolina's permit will no longer be recognized in Virginia. However, I can assure my friends in the commonwealth that their permit will be recognized in North Carolina as we have universal recognition of out of state permits.

The non-partisan Virginia Public Access Project takes as its mission the goal of making government data regarding campaign finance disclosure understandable and accessible to the general public. From what I can see, they do a good job of it.

Given how much money Michael Bloomberg has funneled into Virginia both directly and indirectly I thought it would be interesting to see if Attorney General Herring was a recipient of his generosity. As Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein, "Follow the money".

Lo and behold the top donor to his campaign for Attorney General was none other than Independence USA PAC. They gave $1,292,417 of in-kind donations to his campaign. The money went for media production and advertising buys. To put this into perspective, the next two highest donors gave approximately half this amount each. The only candidate to get more money from that PAC was Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA).

Independence USA PAC is Bloomberg's personal super-PAC. FactCheck said this about it:

Independence USA is a super PAC that focuses largely on helping to elect candidates who support stricter gun-control laws. It was founded in October 2012 by Michael Bloomberg, and, so far, has been entirely funded by the former New York City mayor.

The race for Attorney General between Herring and Republican St. Senator Mark Obershain was exceedingly close. The final vote tally left Herring winning by little more than 900 votes. Indeed, up until the last poll, Obershain was either in the lead or tied with Herring.

When you owe your elected position to Michael Bloomberg, when he says jump, you say how high. Evidently now was the time that Bloomberg said jump and jump is what Herring did in response.

Ocean Triggerfish (Repost)

NOTE: I am reposting this 2011 post in memory of Bill who was killed in a car wreck in Texas on Tuesday. He was on his way home from work when a truck crossed the center line and hit his pickup. He leaves behind his wonderful wife Annie and dog LB. Tight lines, Billy. I know Heaven must have fish as Christ built his church using fishermen.



The name Ocean Triggerfish sounds pretty gunnie to me.

A new Texas state record and body of water (Gulf of Mexico) record Ocean Triggerfish was recently caught. It weighed 11.2 lbs compared to the previous record of 8.8 lbs. The average for the Ocean Triggerfish in the Gulf of Mexico is in the 3-5 lb range. More from the website rodnreel.com:

Other Names : Ocean Tally, Great Trigger, Ocean Triggerfish

Range & Habitat : This fish is more common in the southern Gulf of Mexico, but is scattered in all offshore waters. It is an open-water species, less likely to be found near reefs, rocks, and offshore oil and gas platforms.

Identification & Biology : This fish is bulkier than other Gulf of Mexico triggerfish, but it still has a deep, laterally compressed body. Its body is longer than the gray triggerfish and the anal and second dorsal fins are longer. Body color is brownish-gray to dark gray, almost black. Little is known of its biology.

Size : Ocean triggerfish average 3-5 pounds, often larger

Food Value : Good, but difficult to clean

The reason I care about this is because the angler that caught the new Texas state record Ocean Triggerfish is my first cousin Billy Sheridan of Brazoria County, Texas. He caught the Ocean Triggerfish while out fishing for yellowfin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico. He caught a few of those, too.

Billy is a hardcore angler and would rather fish than eat or sleep. I remember going fishing with him many a time when we were kids growing up. So congratulations to my cousin Billy on a fishing record that is well-deserved.

Ummm - Not Exactly Correct, Ms. US Attorney For Connecticut

While reading the Book of the Face I was stunned to learn that Stag Arms had just lost their Federal Firearms License for a variety of violations including having 62 machine guns (actually just the receivers) that were registered to another entity or not registered at all. More on this in another post.

What I found very interesting was this paragraph from the joint press release from US Attorney for Connecticut Deidre M. Daly and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

A receiver is the key regulated part that is considered a machine gun. All other parts necessary to transform a receiver to a fully functional semi-automatic or automatic machine gun can be purchased over the Internet.

On the face of it, this is true. The receiver is the key regulated product of machine guns as well as any other firearm manufactured in the United States. It is the part that is serialized. It is also true that you can get all the normal trigger parts including the auto sear over the Internet to go into a registered machine gun receiver.

However, thanks to ATF Ruling 81-4, drop-in auto sears which allow some semi-automatic AR15s to become fully automatic if they have the other M16 parts are considered machine guns and are regulated under the National Firearms Act.

Regardless of the date of manufacture of a drop in auto sear (i.e., before or after November 1, 1981) the possession or transfer of an unregistered drop in auto sear (a machinegun as defined) is prohibited by the National Firearms Act (NFA), 26 U.S.C. § 5861, and the Gun Control Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(o).

This may be a niggly, little quibble but it was the BATFE's own ruling that decreed the drop in auto sear a NFA item. Since they wrote the regulation they should be held to a higher standard when it comes to the verbiage used in a press release. (Alinsky's Rule No. 4) A drop in auto sear is not just something that you can buy off the Internet to make a receiver into a fully automatic firearm.

Deconstructing An "Appalling" New York Times Editorial

The New York Times ran an editorial yesterday castigating the Republican presidential candidates for not talking about gun control in their recent debate. They titled it "An Appalling Silence on Gun Control". After reading the editorial, the best thing about it is that they don't hide their intentions behind the "gun safety" euphemism.

Now to deconstructing the editorial:

It was remarkable that the Republican presidential candidates’ debate this week, supposedly focused on keeping Americans safe, was devoid of questions and comments about the public health issue of gun violence.

First off, gun violence is an inaccuracy. The gun is a tool and an inanimate object. The gun itself cannot jump up and shoot someone. The gun doesn't pull the trigger; a human finger pulls that trigger. The gun cannot commit violence.

Second, it is not a public health issue. Violence committed by urban gangs in turf battles, violence committed during the commission of a home invasion or burglary, and violence committed by minorities on fellow minorities is not a public health issue. It is a crime issue. No amount of research by pet academics at Harvard or Johns Hopkins can change this fact.

That would have complicated their pitch, and more important, would mean thinking about gun violence in ways that would displease the gun industry and its political lobby. Those forces demand unquestioning allegiance from politicians fearful for their careers — outspoken candidates who retreat into shameful timidity when serious ideas on gun safety are needed. Strangely, the debate moderators didn’t care to touch the gun issue either, thereby burying a public health challenge that is a lethal, daily threat.

It is not the firearms industry nor the NRA that is calling the shots here. It is the voters. Specifically, it is the single issue gun rights voter that is demanding no more gun control. The Times is so used to top-down organizations and astroturfing that they can't recognize real grassroots movements when they see it at work. The gun industry dances to the tune of the consumer and not the other way around when it comes to gun rights. That is why Ruger is pledging to donate up to $2 million to the NRA-ILA and why Smith & Wesson almost went under as a result of an agreement with the Clinton Administration.

The majority of Americans have said that they don't want what the Times considers serious ideas. The most recent polls say that people reject assault weapons (sic) bans and actually think carrying a firearm is a better way to fight terrorism than "gun safety".

As Jeff Knox always points out, we are the gun lobby.

It’s easier for these candidates to engage in eerie discussions of whether the next president should be free to bomb civilians in Syria or shoot down Russian bombers in a no-fly zone. They are experts at stoking fears about terrorism and great at wringing their hands about the unfounded bomb scare that shut down the Los Angeles school district on Tuesday, but actually facing up to gun violence — which kills more than 33,000 Americans a year — is beyond their capacity or courage. Far from offering any ideas, their statements on the campaign trail are a national embarrassment.

According to official CDC mortality statistics for 2013, 11,208 people died as a result of homicides involving firearms. An additional 516 people died as a result of "legal intervention". This is a far cry from the 33,000 that the Times claims die as a result of "gun violence".

The larger number comes from aggregating the number of suicides involving the discharge of a firearm with homicides. However, only little more than half of the 41,149 suicides in 2013 involved a firearm. The Times ignores the other 19,974 Americans who died as a result of suicide.

Suicide is a mental health issue. When a person feels so desperate that they feel taking their own life is the only course of action left to them, it is a tragedy as well as a profoundly sad event. However the Times and their allies do not call it razor blade violence when someone slits their wrists nor Tylenol violence when someone swallows a whole bottle of pills and kills their liver. They don't demand politicians close the "razor blade loophole" or demand "universal background checks" for those purchasing Tylenol.

The Times and their readers would consider the following statistics on homicides either racist or a microaggression. Either way, it needs to be said. 73% of the homicide victims in 2013 were either black or Hispanic. To put this into perspective the combined percentage of the United States population that were either black or Hispanic was 30.6%. Moreover, these homicide victims were overwhelmingly male - 90% male for black victims and 83% male for Hispanic victims.

“I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” Dr. Ben Carson declared in October.

Dr. Carson is right. Taking away the right of self defense is more horrible and devastating.

“You get rid of the bad guys by using our guns,” Senator Ted Cruz passionately declared early this month. He likes to make light of the issue, too: “We define gun control real simple — that’s hitting what you aim at.”

Ted is correct. People do protect themselves and often kill the bad guys when they use their own firearms in defensive gun uses. This is a regular feature of The Polite Society Podcast. Clayton Cramer has resumed his postings on Civilian Gun Self-Defense as well.

“Gun laws fail everywhere they’re tried,” Senator Marco Rubio flatly insisted last month. That claim is plain wrong, contradicted by major studies as well as experience in other countries where politicians have enacted sensible controls that helped to reduce rates of gun deaths.

No, the Times is plain wrong. France had all the "sensible controls" you would want.

Donald Trump favored an assault weapons ban in 2000, but this year he pledged to veto gun controls, making the death toll from firearms sound like the inescapable result of fate: “You’re going to have these things happen and it’s a horrible thing to behold.”

The Donald is correct. They are horrible to behold and, yes, they are going to happen. Homicides have trended down as gun sales and possession have increased. If the Times wants to blame anything for mass shootings, I suggest that they look at the increase in radical Muslims and the de-institutionalization of mental patients.

Jeb Bush may be trying to run as a moderate against Mr. Trump, but he concedes nothing when it comes to pure fatalism about guns. “Look, stuff happens,” Mr. Bush said in October, bizarrely trying to make the case that the impulse to do something constructive may not be the right course after mass shootings. He could have been speaking for any of his current rivals when he addressed the National Rifle Association convention in 2003 and exuberantly declared, “The sound of our guns is the sound of freedom!” This week, the sound of the guns from San Bernardino, Colorado Springs and a dozen earlier scenes of American carnage never penetrated the debate.

The impulse is always to "do something". I don't support Jeb and wish he'd drop out of the race but in this case he is correct. It isn't bizarre that Jeb said that following impulses to do something may not be the right course of action. What the Times forgets to add here is that the murderers in Tucson, Aurora, and many other places all did pass a background check. Banning magazines or firearms of "distasteful cosmetics" would not have stopped these killings. What might, and I'll only say might, have stopped some of these murders would have been for people close to the murderers to have intervened before they went over the deep end. That is hindsight and mental illness is hard for a layperson to recognize.

Really the only thing appalling is not the Republican candidates' silence but the narrative put out by the Times. They may think they know better than thee and me but they are mistaken.

US Appeals Court Tosses Out DC Concealed Carry Ruling On Procedural Grounds

In a decision today, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia invalidated the ruling in Wrenn v. DC.  Sr. US District Court Judge Frederick Scullin, Jr. had issued a preliminary injunction against the new "may-issue" carry law adopted by the District. That ruling had been stayed while the Court of Appeals considered DC's appeal of the injunction.

Senior Circuit Judge David Sentelle writing for the Court of Appeals said that the case must be overturned on jurisdictional grounds and that they Court was not ruling on the merits of the case. He said based upon a 1937 Supreme Court ruling in Frad v. Kelly that a ruling where the judge did not have jurisdiction was null.

The controlling fact in this case is the identity of the judge who decided it in the district court – The Honorable Senior United States District Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., of the Northern District of New York. The difficulty in this case is evident from the office of the deciding judge. Judge Scullin is a Judge of the Northern District of New York, not of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Under the Constitution and the statutes, the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a judge to the district court of a particular district, where he exercises the jurisdiction of the court.

It is possible for a district judge, including a senior judge, to lawfully adjudicate matters in another district. However, in order for a judge to exercise this judicial authority in a district located outside the circuit of his home district, the judge must be “designated and assigned by the Chief Justice.” 28 U.S.C. § 294(c)-(d). See also 28 U.S.C. § 294(e) (“No retired [i.e., senior] . . . judge shall perform judicial duties except when designated and assigned.”).

Before the visiting judge may be designated and assigned by the Chief Justice, the chief judge of the receiving district must “present[] . . . a certificate of necessity.” 28 U.S.C. § 294(d). Then, and only then, may the Chief Justice of the United States “designate[] and assign[]” the judge duties in the receiving district. Id. Although Judge Scullin had served under a properly issued designation, the difficulty in the present case is that designation was limited to specific and enumerated cases. The present litigation is not one of those cases.

The error in this case is quite understandable. The calendar committee of the district court assigned the matter to Judge Scullin because it deemed the case to be related to another case over which Judge Scullin presided. The difficulty is, while the earlier case was within the Chief Justice’s designation, the present one is not.

What this means in practical terms is that the Wrenn case must start over from scratch. A new judge must be appointed for the case and briefs submitted. If there is a good thing coming out of the Court of Appeals ruling, it is that no precedent involving the substance of the case was established.

Setting The Hook

Watching Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) questioning a governmental official is a thing of beauty. It is like watching a master angler letting the fish nibble the bait and then suddenly setting the hook. The fish is hooked and wondering just what the heck just happened.

This past Thursday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security held a hearing on "Terrorism and the Visa Waiver Program". The lead witness was Kelli Ann Burriesci, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She heads the Screening Coordination Office. Part of her office's job is to facilitate transfer of information from the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database to the TSA's No-Fly List.

The video below shows Gowdy questioning Burriesci. The first two minutes are setting the stage for Gowdy's question where he sets the hook. That question is at 2:50 in the video. While excerpts of this questioning are out there, I think it is instructional to watch Gowdy's questioning before he begins to set the hook.





Gowdy's key question is “Let me ask you another question about the terrorism list, what process is afforded a U.S. citizen before they go on that list?”

Burriesci's answer is that there is no process afforded a citizen before they are put on the list but only a process after they get on the list. This is just the answer Gowdy wanted and as a prosecutor in a prior life he knew he was going to get it.

It only gets better after that.

Gowdy's point, of course, is that the denial of due process with regard to an enumerated right such as the Second Amendment is, by its very nature, unconstitutional.

Those who would use the No-Fly list, the Terror Watch List, or the FBI's omnibus Terrorist Screening Database as the basis to deny a citizen's rights under the Second Amendment - or any civil right for that matter - are playing a dangerous game. That many Democrats and gun prohibitionists are doing it to score political points makes it unconscionable.

An Oldie But Goodie On The Terror Watch List

A 2008 story from the Washington Post regarding the terror watch list and death penalty opponents illustrates the danger of taking names on that list at face value. The Maryland State Police acknowledged before a Maryland Senate Judicial committee that they had added 53 non-violent activists to both state and Federal terror watch lists.

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said.

"The names don't belong in there," he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "It's as simple as that."

The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists "fringe people."

The people singled out in this case were death penalty opponents and anti-war protesters. According to logs obtained by the ACLU, the "primary crime" of some of these activists was "terrorism - anti-government." MD Police Superintendent Sheridan said these names were added to the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database (which tracks terrorists and that they may have been shared with the National Security Agency and other Federal agencies. He added, however, that they were not on the Federal terrorist watch list which is a statement that I seriously doubt.

People considered anti-government terrorists during a Republican administration were peace activists and death penalty opponents. You have to wonder who the Obama Administration would consider anti-government terrorists today. We know that neither of the San Bernadino killers were on the list and they were actual terrorists. Could it be that gun rights activists, Tea Party activists, anti-ObamaCare activists, and anti-Common Core activists are considered anti-government terrorists?

I would hope more rational minds would reject this but gun rights activists have certainly been labeled that by Media Matters, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic). This is all the more reason to fight the inclusion of names on some ephemeral government "terrorist" list into the NICS system.

Say It Ain't So

News stories are linking one of the firearms used by ISIS in their Paris terror attacks to Century International Arms. The serial number of a Zastava M92 pistol recovered by French police matches that of one that Serbia-based Zastava Arms Factory exported to Century International in 2013.

From the Boston Herald:

Milojko Brzakovic of the Zastava arms factory told The Associated Press that the M92 semi-automatic pistol's serial number matched one his company delivered to an American online arms dealer in May 2013. It was not clear how the gun got back to Europe.

At least seven of the weapons used or discovered after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris have been identified as being produced by the Serbian factory located in Kragujevac, in central Serbia. Most were manufactured before Yugoslavia broke up in a civil war in the 1990s and most of those are modified versions of the Soviet AK-47, or Kalashnikov.

Brzakovic said all the guns were delivered legally but could have later found their way into illegal channels.

"One was delivered to Bosnia in 1983, one to Skopje, Macedonia in December 1987, one to Golubici, near Knin (Croatia) in 1988, one to Zagreb (Croatia) 1987," he said.

He said the M92 pistol "is a semi-automatic weapon, a hunting and sporting weapon ... it cannot fire barrage fire, only single shots ... which are legal in America."

Century International can't confirm whether or not the weapon in question was sold by them to a FFL.

A Delray Beach-based arms importer can't confirm whether one of its guns was used in the Paris terror attacks, but it is cooperating with investigators, company officials said in a statement released Friday.

Century Arms officials say they are unable to confirm that an M92 semi-automatic pistol it sold was found at the scene of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

"Century has an active and vibrant training and compliance program," the statement read that was posted on the company's website. "The company abides by all federal, state and local laws and regulations. Century expects the firearms it ships to licensed firearms dealers in the United States to be sold in strict compliance with the law."

While Zastava says their records are accurate and that they have records going back 50 years where each and every firearm they produced was sent, all I'll say is that it is still the Balkans. Gun running is a national hobby.

Imported firearms sold by Century International will have a mark somewhere on that firearm stating it was imported by them. I have a few older surplus rifles that came by way of Century and they all have Century's markings on them. One of the frequent criticisms made by crufflers about Century is that their markings are too distinct and too visible. I would imagine modern arms imported by Century are no different. 

To paraphrase Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Jerry Maguire, show me the mark!

One thing we know for sure if it was actually shipped in 2013 then it couldn't have been part of Operation Fast and Furious. Thank goodness for small favors.

The Thing I Like About Small Town Papers

Unlike the editors of big city newspapers, the editors of small town newspapers have a modicum of common sense when it comes to guns. Perhaps it is because they are part of the community in which they live. In other words, they talk to real people down at the diner, shop at Walmart and Lowes, have kids that don't go to prestigious prep schools, and are themselves not graduates of Harvard, Yale, or the Columbia School of Journalism.

Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina has one such newspaper. Yesterday, the editors of The Daily Herald ran an unsigned editorial headlined, "Our View: Guns not to blame for shootings". What a distinct contrast from the New York Times which ran the front page, above the fold, editorial entitled, "The Gun Epidemic".

The editorial starts out:

At some point in your life you’ve probably had to deal with someone who never accepted blame for their actions.

We all know the type. They externalize everything so that someone or something is always at fault – never themselves.

Right away you know that the people who wrote this editorial are ordinary folks. They aren't invited to fancy cocktail parties nor do they live in penthouses. They may know some millionaires but they are probably farmers who are land rich and cash poor. They live in what would be called "flyover country" if it were not on the fall line between the Piedmont and the coastal plains of North Carolina.

The editorial continues:

As usual a cry went out immediately from disarmament activists for the government to enact stiffer gun laws or ban guns altogether. But it’s still an over-simplified solution to a complex national problem.

Blaming guns for these heinous shootings is as ridiculous as blaming a fork and spoon for obesity and needles for drug abuse.

The killing sprees in California, Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina and far too many other places were tragedies that cost this country dearly. Not only in terms of the loss of human life but also in the growing shadow of disgrace.

Claims that implementing gun control will put an end to these horrific mass shootings are as shallow and baseless as claiming prohibition stopped people from consuming alcohol.

No law can guarantee preventing a determined killer. That’s been proven in countries with strict gun laws like France, England and Norway where killers have obtained weapons illegally.

"Over-simplified solution" and "shallow and baseless" are not how journalists nowadays usually refer to gun control. These journalists actually have real common sense and reject the siren call that we "must do something".

It concludes:

The very fabric of our country was woven with fundamental rights that include owning guns. The words of our Founding Fathers, “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” are clear, precise and unequivocal.

The arms we bear are in fact our most important militia weapons. It was the specific intent of our Founding Fathers that our civilian populace be armed on an equal footing with any standing army to keep our homes and land safe.

With hundreds of millions of guns in private hands in this country, any attempt to take them away from law-abiding citizens will be met with strong resistance and certain failure.

Wow. Just wow. Reading something in a newspaper that refers to our firearms as "militia weapons" in a good way and not as something toted by mouth-breathing, Tea Party, right-wing, neo-Ku Kluxers is kind of shocking. Shocking in a good way, of course.

The people responsible for this editorial were Publisher Titus Workman, Managing Editor Matt Lindberg and News Editor Tia Bedwell. Two are from flyover country and the third is a local girl who worked her way up in the paper - and she has a Dachshund! The Daily Herald has a YouTube page and they put out a daily video called the Herald Bulldog Report highlighting the stories of the day. Here is the one from December 9th which features both Lindberg and Bedwell.

Why do I think I'd never see the editors of the New York Times or the Washington Post doing something like this? I think the answer is that they'd think it beneath them and therein lies the difference.

Something To Think About

There has been much talk in recent days on whether persons on the FBI's terrorist watch list, the Terrorist Screening Database, or the TSA's No-Fly list should be allowed to purchase firearms.

The day after the terrorist attack in San Bernadino, Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed Sen. Amendment 2910 to HR 3762 (a budget bill), which would have granted the attorney general the discretion to deny the right to purchase a firearm to anyone known or suspected of having been involved in any way with domestic or international terrorism. The Senate voted down this amendment 45-54.

Then this past Sunday in a televised speech to the nation from the Oval Office, President Obama said this:

To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.

There have been many who have taken exception to using this no-fly list as means to deny someone the right to purchase a firearm. Prof. Eugene Volokh, among others, has objected to it on the basis of denial of due process noting that we don't deny rights based upon mere suspicion. The New York Times was against them before they were for them. (My friend Prof. David Yamane has two very well-reasoned responses to the Times on this.) The NRA has long opposed using terrorist watch lists to deny firearm rights. Charles C. W. Cooke, a Brit who has a better appreciation for the Bill of Rights than many American politicians, says those who would use terror to subvert the Second Amendment should be tarred and feathered. That sounds appropriate to me.

Legal and philosophical arguments are fine and are needed. However, the most practical reason for not including those on any watch list on the NICS denied list is that it aids the terrorist.

What!? Aids the terrorist? The hell you say.

Larry Keane, General Counsel of the NSSF, explained his opposition to using these list to deny gun rights in a conversation with Jim Shepherd of the Gun/Outdoor/Tactical Wires.

His answer wasn't based on individual gun rights.

Instead, it focused on the fact that adding a person who might be under suspicion for a criminal activity to the prohibited persons list wouldn't keep them from getting firearms illegally, but it would create a de facto "terrorist notification system.

"If someone suspected they were being surveilled -or they were doing something illegal and wanted to know if they'd done something to alert authorities," Keane said, "they could go to a gun store and try to make a legal purchase. If they were denied, well.there's their answer."

In essence, smart terrorists (and we better get used to the idea that our enemies are pretty smart) would use the NICS denial process as the on-line equivalent of a storefront's glass windows. Spies, terrorists, and anyone being followed is trained to use the windows as a way to spot a tail. Terrorists could easily use the NICS system in much the same manner.

Moreover, by the time the NICS Center in Parkersburg, WV notifies a FBI Special Agent in eastern nowhere North Carolina that Mohammed al Mohammed was denied while trying to buy an AK at Bubba's Bait, Tackle, Guns, and Beer in Chocowinity, old Mohammed will have gone underground. Furthermore, that overworked FBI Special Agent is probably working 10 MediCare fraud cases, 2 bank robberies, and a kiddie porn case and this will be just one more thing on his or her plate.

Forewarned is forearmed and that is the last thing you want to do when dealing with a terrorist. You want the terrorists rolled up with their guns and explosives in hand long before they've perpetrated this act of jihad. You absolutely don't want them to accelerate their plans because authorities are on to them.

As I said, this is something to think about.

NC Attorney General Roy Cooper Jumps On The "No-Fly, No-Gun" Bandwagon

Roy Cooper has been the Attorney General of North Carolina for the last 15 plus years. You'd think that in that time he'd have learned a little bit about protecting civil liberties. While he refused to sign on to the multi-state attorney general amicus brief in the Heller case, he did sign on to the one for McDonald v. Chicago. Cooper also intervened in the Duke lacrosse case which ultimately dismissed all the (false) charges against the three Duke University lacrosse players.

Now that Cooper, a Democrat, is running for governor he is going all out to look tough on crime and secure the votes of those who are feeling insecure during these times of Islamofascist terrorist attacks. To that end, he has proposed that the North Carolina General Assembly preempt Congress and prohibit those in the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database from purchasing firearms. It should be noted that neither of the San Bernadino killers was on the list.

Attorney General Roy Cooper on Monday called on state lawmakers to approve legislation that would prevent anyone being monitored by the FBI as a terror suspect from purchasing firearms in North Carolina.

"Stopping terror suspects from getting weapons that could harm our state and its people makes common sense," Cooper said in a statement. "Even if Washington won't act, we can."

In the wake of last week's mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., the U.S. Senate voted down a measure that would have curtailed the gun rights of people on the government's no-fly list and other FBI databases of terror suspects.

Hasan Harnett, Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, immediately fired back at Cooper.

“It’s shameful that Roy Cooper has chosen once again to side with Washington, D.C. and follow President Obama’s lead, using the recent terrorist attack as a bait-and-switch to push for more gun control in North Carolina. Considering anyone can be placed on the terror watch list for any number of reasons arbitrarily, it is equally as scary that our state’s elected attorney general and top law enforcement officer is for stripping our citizens of their constitutional rights and denying them due process in order to score points with the far-left elements of his party.”

 Roy Cooper has finally come out of the closet on gun control. For years he has been rather wishy-washy on gun rights. I'm actually glad that he has decided to ally himself with the national Democrat Party on gun control issues. Given that Michael Bloomberg spent millions to make sure the state kept it racist Jim Crow-era pistol purchase permit system, I would fully expect Cooper to get Bloomberg's monetary support.

Grass Roots North Carolina is not taking Cooper's proposal lying down. They have issued an alert and are asking people to both email and call Cooper regarding his proposal. They refer to it as "modern-day McCarthyism". I would suggest everyone who is reading this to cut and paste the message and flood "No Fly" Roy's mailbox.

NC's Attorney General to Bring Modern Day McCarthyism to North Carolina

Parroting Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper recently demanded state legislation to deny gun purchases for anyone on the Terrorist Watch List, saying: "Stopping terror suspects from getting weapons that could harm our state and its people makes common sense. Even if Washington won't act, we can." By barring gun purchases to 1,000,000 people on the Terrorist Watch List, Cooper surpasses even Barack Obama's proposal to deny roughly 50,000 people on the No Fly List. Fret not that tens of thousands of lawful citizens - including Senator Ted Kennedy - have been denied airline transportation thanks to misidentification. Never mind the Terrorist Watch List is so inaccurate it includes 72 Department of Homeland Security employees. Forget that stringent gun control in both France and California failed to stop terrorists from getting weapons. And don't bother to read the Huff Post's "7 Ways You (Yes, You) Could End Up On A Terrorist Watch List". Why not? Because all that is trivial compared to having the state's top cop and would-be governor proposing to flout the Constitution by denying you due process under both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. You have no "right" to fly, but as affirmed by the Supreme Court in DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, you definitely have a right to keep and bear arms. America has traveled this road before, and the landscape wasn't pretty. Widespread violations of Constitutional rights and civil liberties in the late 1950s against "subversives" on secret blacklists compiled by the FBI were so shockingly un-American, they earned their own moniker: McCarthyism. Where will Cooper's modern McCarthyism end? Once government is free to deny a fundamental, enumerated Constitutional right for merely being included on a secret list, are our other cherished freedoms far behind? Free speech? Freedom of religion? History demonstrates that when governments are free to use the full powers of the state against those on secret lists, the first casualty is liberty. Due process - notice, an opportunity to be heard, the right to face one's accuser - has been America's bulwark against tyranny since the Founders penned the Constitution.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!
EMAIL ATTORNEY GENERAL ROY COOPER. Use this contact form on the NC DOJ website: http://ncdoj.com/Home/ContactNCDOJ.aspx and use the copy/paste message provided below, under 'Deliver This Message.' PHONE ROY COOPER at this number: (919) 716-6400 Tell him that you've read about his proposed scheme to suspend the Second Amendment rights of North Carolinians using the arbitrary and secret "Terrorist Watch List." This would suspend the rights of certain citizens absent any proper due process. Suppressing the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is clearly illegal, and would be an example of modern day McCarthyism. It will not be tolerated.
DELIVER THIS MESSAGE
Suggested Subject: "'Watch List:' No McCarthyism in North Carolina!"   Dear Attorney General Cooper: I have just read of your proposal to use the "Terrorist Watch List" to deny Second Amendment rights to North Carolinians. I am absolutely mortified to hear this, and I demand that you immediately cease any effort to establish what can only be called modern day McCarthyism. The "watch list" is an arbitrary and secret government list. Citizens who are placed on this list usually have no knowledge of the fact that they are on it, have had no hearing, and no opportunity to face their accusers. There are also numerous examples of innocent civilians being placed on this list in error. The "watch list" sidesteps due process, and denying citizens their Constitutional rights outside of proper due process is a clear violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. There is no Constitutional right to "fly commercial," but there is a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Do not attempt to use an arbitrary and secret government list to deny human rights to this state's citizens. It would be a huge mistake. I will be monitoring this issue through alerts from Grass Roots North Carolina. Respectfully,

About Those CMP 1911s

The Firearm Blog has done some excellent work on estimating the potential prices for the 10,000 Army-surplus 1911s that will be sold be the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Steve estimates that the price will probably be about 30% less than the going retail rate for a WWII milsurp 1911. He comes up with that figure by looking at the going rate for a M1 Garand from the CMP and the prices you will find on sites like Gunbroker.com. You can read his analysis here.

The Firearm Blog TV has produced a good little video explaining how it will all work.





One of the must-do things if you want to purchase any firearm or ammunition from the CMP is membership in an affiliated club. They have a search page to find a club in your area.

But what do you do if there are no clubs nearby or the club in your area is so stuck in a 1950s mindset that it just isn't worth the injury from banging your head into the wall over their stupid rules? There are alternatives. For example, if you are a member of the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation, then you belong to an affiliated organization. Likewise if you joined the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) so as to support their litigation in Chicago, you are a member of an affiliated organization.

Another alternative is the Garand Collectors Association. A membership there costs $25, qualifies you to buy from the CMP, and gets you a very nice quarterly journal with all things M1 Garand. Moreover, they have a close relationship with the CMP and they send membership rolls to the CMP on a regular basis. This is the direction that I plan to head.

"From Infamy To Victory"

This video which is part of the NRA's Frontline Series does an excellent job in showing how the United States went from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the signing of the surrender in Tokyo Bay. It is hosted by Ollie North.

Particularly poignant is the interview with Jiro Yakimura. Mr. Yakimura was a Nisei. That is, Mr. Yakimura was a natural born US citizen whose parents had immigrated from Japan. When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Mr. Yakimura was a college student in Hawaii and was a member of ROTC. In the days that followed, he and his fellow ROTC students were given a 1903 Springfield and sent to guard various spots on Oahu. Then, due to his Japanese ancestry, his services to his country were no longer needed. The story has a somewhat happy ending as Mr. Yakimura was finally able to serve his country as an officer in Army Intelligence in the Pacific.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy - 74th Anniversary

74 years ago today, on December 7th, 1941, fighters and bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US Pacific Fleet in their home port of Pearl Harbor at 7:55am local time. IJN fighters and bombers also attacked US Army Air Force installations at Hickham, Wheeler, Bellows, and other air fields destroying most of the aircraft on the ground.

Most of the veterans on both sides have now passed away due to age. The National Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, in fact, disbanded at the end of 2011 due to the advanced age of the remaining survivors.

One of the few live broadcasts of the attack was from KGU Radio in Honolulu.



A list of the ships of the Pacific Fleet in port on December 7th can be found here along with the damage suffered. As bad as the attack was, most of the battleships went on to fight again later in the war.

The battle for Wake Island began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The IJN and the Japanese Imperial Army launched widespread attacks beginning December 8th on the British in Malaya , the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Americans and Filipinos in the Philipines and Guam.

One immediate impact of the attack was that the industrial base of the United States shifted from a peacetime to a wartime footing. The propaganda poster below was meant to urge workers on.

Quote Of The Day

The quote of the day comes from Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal. It is in response to an editorial by Josie Duffy at DailyKos. It should be noted that Duffy's bio says she is an attorney.

Duffy said in her (fact challenged) editorial that our opinion on gun control doesn't matter. That if we oppose gun control then we are saying that peoples' lives matter less than our guns. Duffy has no clear understanding of the concept of self-defense nor of the role that firearms provide in securing.

Hershel said in response:

As for the disagreeable ones over at Kos, I would respond that if you bristle at the idea of gun rights, fine. But what you are really saying is that while evil men hunt down the innocent in places of work, worship and play to kill them, what you really want to see is those innocent men perish rather than have access to a means of self defense.

You would rather see women hiding and cowering under desks than be able to live another day for their children, and you would rather see blood in the streets for the sake of government control than free men who won’t allow their families to be harmed.

The hatred of police that your hippie fathers and mothers cherished, has turned into a love of government control. The love of guns owned and operated by the Black Panthers, The Weather Underground and others, turned into a hatred of anything that could threaten the power of the state – once your ilk was in charge. What you once loved you now hate because it gives someone else that same freedom and power. Admit it. Go ahead and admit it. Is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?

I could go on about Duffy's editorial but I think Herschel does a better job of it.

Happy Repeal Day!

On this date in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment. The Great Experiment was called to a close when the state of Utah ratified the 21st Amendment at 5:32pm.

At the same time as he signed the proclamation officially ending Prohibition, FDR asked that saloons be prohibited and he "enjoined all citizens to cooperate with the government in its endeavor to restore a greater respect for law and order, especially by confining their purchases of liquor to duly licensed agencies."

Governmental control of substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and coffee (yes, coffee!) have a long history as an article in today's Weekend Wall Street Journal makes clear.

Although the U.S. is indelibly associated with Prohibition, authorities the world over have long regarded the pleasures (or vices) of alcohol, tobacco and coffee with deep suspicion. Concerns about these habit-forming substances’ potential health hazards didn’t provoke the official hostility. Instead it often came from paranoia over what the masses might get up to if allowed to let off a little steam without supervision.

What "the masses" might get up to including overthrowing their masters' yoke. It was in the coffeehouses and taverns of Boston and Philadelphia that men such John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others gathered to discuss the idea of an independent nation.

So whether it is alcoholic beverage control or gun control, the key word is always going to be control. Government, you see, just doesn't trust us.

Sneak Attack By Dems Fails

If it hadn't been for an alert from the National Shooting Sports Foundation this afternoon, I would not have known that the Democrats were planning to bring up gun control amendments to H.R.3762 - Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015. That bill would repeal parts of ObamaCare so it was near and dear to the Republicans' heart.

The two major anti-gun amendments were brought up by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Feinstein's amendment would have made anyone listed on the FBI's secret Terrorist Screening Database a prohibited person for NICS checks. The Manchin amendment was a repeat of 2013's Manchin-Toomey universal background check bill.

Both amendments needed 60 votes to pass. Fortunately, neither even got a majority.

Feinstein's amendment failed 45 Aye to 54 Nay. Meanwhile, Manchin-Toomey failed by a vote of 47 Aye to 50 Nay as reported live on the Senate's livestream. It seems that an additional vote was added to the Aye column in the final reprot.

As NSSF General Counsel Larry Keane pointed out on Twitter, Manchin-Toomey got 7 fewer votes in 2015 than in 2013. (Actually, 6 but still...)

Both of these votes were cynical efforts on the part of Democrats to play off on yesterday's terrorist attack in San Bernadino, California. I think we can come to expect to see this come up with every major vote or after any mass shooting that doesn't involve JJ, Pookie, Ice Dog, or Ray-Ray.

The roll call vote on Feinstein's amendment breaks down like this:

YEAs ---45
Baldwin (D-WI) Bennet (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Booker (D-NJ) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Coons (D-DE) Donnelly (D-IN) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN)	Gillibrand (D-NY) Heinrich (D-NM) Hirono (D-HI) Kaine (D-VA) King (I-ME) Kirk (R-IL) Klobuchar (D-MN) Leahy (D-VT) Manchin (D-WV) Markey (D-MA) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murphy (D-CT)	Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Peters (D-MI) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sanders (I-VT) Schatz (D-HI) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-NM) Warren (D-MA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---54
Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Capito (R-WV) Cassidy (R-LA) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Cotton (R-AR) Crapo (R-ID) Cruz (R-TX) Daines (R-MT) Enzi (R-WY)	Ernst (R-IA) Fischer (R-NE) Flake (R-AZ) Gardner (R-CO) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Heitkamp (D-ND) Heller (R-NV) Hoeven (R-ND) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johnson (R-WI) Lankford (R-OK) Lee (R-UT) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Moran (R-KS)	Murkowski (R-AK) Paul (R-KY) Perdue (R-GA) Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Rounds (R-SD) Rubio (R-FL) Sasse (R-NE) Scott (R-SC) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Sullivan (R-AK) Thune (R-SD) Tillis (R-NC) Toomey (R-PA) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 1

Warner (D-VA)

And the roll call vote on this year's Manchin-Toomey universal background check amendment is as follows:

YEAs ---48
Baldwin (D-WI) Bennet (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Booker (D-NJ) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Coons (D-DE) Donnelly (D-IN) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN)	Gillibrand (D-NY) Heinrich (D-NM) Hirono (D-HI) Kaine (D-VA) King (I-ME) Kirk (R-IL) Klobuchar (D-MN) Leahy (D-VT) Manchin (D-WV) Markey (D-MA) McCain (R-AZ) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murphy (D-CT)	Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Peters (D-MI) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sanders (I-VT) Schatz (D-HI) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Toomey (R-PA) Udall (D-NM) Warren (D-MA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---50
Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Capito (R-WV) Cassidy (R-LA) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Cotton (R-AR) Crapo (R-ID) Cruz (R-TX) Daines (R-MT) Enzi (R-WY)	Ernst (R-IA) Fischer (R-NE) Flake (R-AZ) Gardner (R-CO) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Heitkamp (D-ND) Heller (R-NV) Hoeven (R-ND) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Lankford (R-OK) Lee (R-UT) McConnell (R-KY) Moran (R-KS) Murkowski (R-AK)	Paul (R-KY) Perdue (R-GA) Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Rounds (R-SD) Rubio (R-FL) Sasse (R-NE) Scott (R-SC) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Sullivan (R-AK) Thune (R-SD) Tillis (R-NC) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 2
Johnson (R-WI)	Warner (D-VA)

Just like in 2013 the only Republicans voted for Manchin-Toomey were Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and, of course, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). (Corrected to add Collins who I missed when I first scanned the list)

I Didn't Know That ISIS Had Attacked Paris, Maine

Sometimes you just have to shake your head in wonder about the things that come out of the mouth of Barack Obama. The video clip below is a case in point.




Obama made these comments while in Paris, France. You know where on November 13th, eight ISIS terrorists killed 132 people in a set of coordinated shootings across the City of Lights.

I'm guessing he must have confused Paris, France with Paris, Maine. The former is the French capital while the later is a small town in western foothills region of Maine near Sebago Lake.

Likewise, he must have confused the Norway where 69 were killed and 110 wounded at a youth camp in 2011 with Norway, Maine. I mean, it is right next door to Paris, Maine. Besides that area of Maine has a slew of summer camps for kids. Any reasonable person could see how he got confused by this especially since Denmark, Maine is just about 25 miles away.

January 20, 2016 cannot get here soon enough.

A NICS Check Two-Fer

The FBI's NICS checks marked two milestones on Black Friday, November 27th. First, it had the highest recorded number of NICS checks on record for the day after Thanksgiving which is otherwise known as Black Friday. Second, and more importantly, it surpassed the previous one day record total for NICS background checks set on December 21, 2012.

From the NSSF's Bullet Points:

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reports that it processed 185,345 transactions on Nov. 27, Black Friday, making the day the highest Black Friday ever and the highest day in NICS history. The highest previous day was Dec. 21, 2012 with 177,170 background checks. For the entire Nov. 26-29 2015 four-day Black Friday period 368,774 checks were completed, a 9.9 percent increase over the 335,555 checks conducted over the corresponding 2014 4-day period.

While the number of NICS checks are indicative of the number of firearm sales transactions, they are not perfectly correlated. For example, concealed carry permits in many states are taken as a substitute for the NICS background check. Thus, the actual number of firearms sold could be even greater than the number of checks reported.

Many factors probably are coming into play here. First, the ISIS attacks in Paris are still fresh in the minds of many people. I know my fellow Polite Society Podcast co-host Gary Daugherty has reported a significant rise in the number of people contacting him to take the Illinois concealed carry class. Second, the Democrats have decided the gun control is a winning issue for them and have gone all in on it. Finally, President Obama has said he wants to make gun control one of his primary focuses in his last year in office.

Malfeasance Rewarded

Imagine if you will that you worked for a large company and were issued both a company car and company-provided credit card. Then imagine what would happen if you decided to use that company car to drive to a casino, to use that company-provided credit card to get a cash advance to buy chips, and you did it all on company time.

You would likely be fired and perhaps even prosecuted for stealing from your employer. Or, at least, that is how it should work in the real world.

However, if you were a BATFE Special Agent and you did this, then you just might get promoted to Special Agent in Charge of a Field Division and move into the Senior Executive Service. According to the summary report from the DOJ's Office of Inspector General posted to CleanUpATF.org, that is exactly what happened.

Investigative Summary:
Findings Concerning On-Duty Gambling and Related Misconduct by an ATF Special Agent in Charge While in a Prior Position

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) initiated this investigation based on information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) alleging that a current Special Agent in Charge (SAC) gambled on duty and engaged in related misconduct while in a position with ATF prior to being promoted. The OIG investigation determined that the SAC gambled on duty, misused his government travel card to facilitate his gambling, and misused his assigned government vehicle by using it to travel to casinos. By gambling while on duty, the SAC violated federal regulations that prohibit federal employees from gambling while on duty. In addition, the SAC violated ATF policy by, among other things, misusing his government travel card to obtain cash advances to gamble, and using his assigned government vehicle to travel to casinos to gamble, which is not an “official purpose” for which use of the government vehicle is authorized. Prosecution was declined. The OIG provided a report of investigation to ATF for appropriate action.

So the question remains, which one of the 25 Special Agents in Charge (SAC) on this list is the culprit? Was it Eric Harden in LA, Delano Reid in NYC, Carl Walker in Atlanta, or someone else?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Do Mag Bans Reduce Casualties In Mass Shootings?

Bans on standard capacity magazines, that is, magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds, are supposed to have an impact on the number of casualties in mass shootings. The question is do they?

The simple answer is no.

As David Yamane reports in his Gun Culture 2.0 blog, criminologist Gary Kleck presented research at the recent American Society of Criminologists annual meeting that studied this question. Kleck’s research looked at mass shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded. He went with six because that is the capacity of most revolvers and thus no standard capacity magazine would have been needed.

Even with this restrictive definition of a mass shooting, Kleck found that large capacity magazines – defined as holding over 10 rounds – were used in only 21 of the 88 incidents (24%). So, in 76% of the incidents, a large-capacity magazine ban would have made no difference in any event.

Kleck then goes on to analyze further the 21 incidents in which a large-capacity magazine was used. In every case, the shooters carried either multiple guns or multiple magazines. Therefore, even without a large-capacity magazine, the shooters could easily switch guns or magazines.

Kleck also marshals evidence to show that the rate of fire of most mass shooters is so slow that having to change guns or magazines more frequently would not diminish their casualty counts.

The bottom line to Kleck's research, as David notes, is that it isn't the tool but the desire of the evil doer to kill as many people as possible.  However, this conflicts with the desire of politicians and gun prohibitionists to "do something".