Resolution Against Civil Rights In California

First, it was about guns for Native Americans. Then, it was to prevent Latinos and Chinese from obtaining firearms. Now, it is about carry for the rest of us. I won't begin to even mention the Berkeley police standing down and letting domestic terrorists (Antifa) beat free speech advocates.

That's a nice record you got going there California.

From the Firearms Policy Coalition on a new Assembly resolution that would oppose national carry reciprocity:

SACRAMENTO, CA (August 28, 2017) — Asm. Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) is asking the California State Legislature once again express their contempt for civil rights with the introduction of Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 24.

AJR 24 voices the Legislature’s opposition to current efforts in congress to pass “concealed carry reciprocity” legislation (S. 446 and H.R. 38) and any other similar legislation because it would require all states to recognize the concealed carry licenses of other states, creating equity for all when it comes to exercising the constitutional right to bear arms.

“This is not the first time the California Legislature has expressed their complete and utter disregard civil rights” stated Craig DeLuz, Spokesman for the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC). “California has a long and tortured history with using gun laws to pick winners and losers instead of supporting equality and civil rights for all.”

The first gun control law passed in California, AB 80 was enacted in 1854. It was, “An Act to prevent the sale of firearms and ammunition to the Indians in this State.” In 1924 the Hawes Act was enacted to prevent Hispanics and Chinese from obtaining firearms. It also modified California’s concealed carry permit program to allow local law enforcement to subjectively discriminate in the issuance of permits under the guise of “discretion”, a practice that continues to this day.

Under California law, even if a law abiding resident passes thorough federal, state and local background checks, successfully completes specified training, which includes the law relating to use of force, and demonstrates competency with their firearm, they can still be turned down by the local sheriff or police chief for absolutely no objective reason at all.

Then there was the Mulford Act of 1967, which banned the right to openly carry a loaded firearm. This measure was meant to disarm civil rights activists groups like the Black Panthers.

“Gun control in California has always seemed to be about keeping unfavored groups of people from owning, possessing or bearing firearms”, said DeLuz. “ In AJR 24, the unfavored group of people are those who visit here from states that actually respect the second amendment rights of their residents.”

AJR 24 has been referred to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, where FPC plans to vigorously oppose it. “California is not an island and needs to respect the rights of all Americans.” said DeLuz, “We understand that they don’t respect the rights of their own residents. But now they want to export their discriminatory policies to all 50 states.”

No hearing date has been set for either the Congressional bills or AJR 24.

Greensboro Gun Show AAR

This past Saturday I attended the Greensboro (NC) Gun Show with my son-in-law Jeremy and his dad Jeff. The show is held twice yearly at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex. It had been a year since we'd last gone to this gun show. The show is an 800 table show which puts it about twice as large as the Asheville (400) and Winston-Salem (300) gun shows.

Much has changed in the year since we last attended this gun show. The largest change is in the political landscape which in turn has impacted the gun world and attendant sales. When it looked like vehemently anti-gun Hillary Clinton would win the presidency, gun sales stayed extremely strong and broke previous records. Many had a "better get it now" mentality. Then Donald Trump surprised both Hillary and the world by taking the presidency. While there are still threats on the state and local level, the pressure on the federal level is now off. Sales are down and so are the prices on certain firearms.

Along with that it seems so is the attendance at gun shows. The last time I attended the Greensboro show there were lines to buy tickets. This year, you could just walk up to one of the four ticket sellers and buy a ticket. Parking was easy and we got a good spot not that far from the entrance.

My experience in Greensboro is similar to what I've seen in Asheville. Aisles are not crowded. There are some tables going unsold and some vendors are missing. I spoke with one vendor who sold knives who said this was their last show at Greensboro unless they saw sales improve. They had an end of the row location with tables covering both sides and the end. In other words, a prime location to attract plenty of attention.

I didn't see too many people wandering the aisles with guns or ammo for sale. That may just have been a Greensboro Gun Show thing as I often see it in Asheville. I did see a handful of tables with people conducting private sales of a limited number of firearms. These tended to be either older bolt action guns or double barrel shotguns.

In terms of prices, gun shows have never seemed to me to be the place to get the best prices on new guns. That said, I was more than a little surprised to see Ruger AR-556s selling for under $500. Indeed one vendor had them marked down to $445. That is as telling an indicator of the state of the AR market as anything. Of course, you had other vendors trying to sell these same carbines in the mid-$600 range. As many others have said or written, now is the time to buy an AR-15 if you don't have one. I almost bought one to put away but I already have enough ARs as well as enough parts to build three or so more.

The one firearm category attracting the most attention are the new 12-gauge,14" barreled not-shotguns, not-pistols, but merely firearms from Remington and Mossberg. I spoke to one vendor who had at least 8-10 Mossberg Shockwaves on his table and he said they were selling very well.

So what did I come home with? A set of AR handguards, a molle mag pouch to use as a knife pouch, a RCBS shellholder, and a Fenix mini-keychain flashlight. My best deal was on the handguard which were the old M16A1/Colt SP1 triangular handguards. While they can sell for as much as $200 for new old stock and in the $35-40 range (or more) used, I picked mine up for $15. I felt like I got a steal!

We ended our visit to the Greensboro Gun Show with a late lunch at Stamey's BBQ which is across the street from the Coliseum. I know my friends from Texas and from eastern North Carolina will disagree but there is nothing finer than a sandwich of Lexington-style chopped pork BBQ topped with tangy BBQ slaw and some dip sauce. It was a great way to end the day.

If you have been to a local gun show recently, I'd love to hear your experiences so please leave them in the comments.

DC Asks For En Banc Hearing In Wrenn Case

In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, we draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of gun violence, and we say gun control now, gun control tomorrow, gun control forever.

The quote above is actually a paraphrase of a line in the 1963 inaugural address of the late Alabama Gov. George Corley Wallace (D-AL). Wallace was talking about the segregation of the races. The absolutism shown by the District of Columbia on the matter of the right to keep and bear arms is strikingly similar to that of Wallace on race. However, unlike Wallace who publicly recanted his racist and segregationist positions, the District of Columbia Council shows no such inclination towards the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, it was no surprise that DC filed for an en banc hearing of the Wrenn decision which invalidated their "good reason" requirement for a carry permit.

The brief filed yesterday requesting an en banc rehearing attacks the majority decision on two fronts. First, they argue that they are a special place that is entirely urban and that contains many sensitive places like foreign embassies. They argue that the majority ignored the special needs of such a locale and then contend that their "good reason" may-issue carry law helps reduce crime and save lives. They cite a pantheon of anti-Second Amendment academics ranging from Saul Cornell to John Donohue as their evidence for this contention. They especially rely on the latter and ignore the criticism of his work due to "synthetic statistics".

The second front of their attack on the majority decision is to say that it ignored historical precedent and the two-step process established in Heller I.

Rather than follow this well-worn path, the panel majority failed to conduct its own historical analysis at the first step, instead drawing assumptions from Heller I’s historical analysis. Op. 14-17. And then the panel majority did not even proceed to the second step of the Second Amendment inquiry, mistakenly finding the District’s law categorically unconstitutional. Op. 25-29. These missteps departed from established precedent and warrant en banc review.

In this second front they also point out binding precedents in other circuits such as Kachalsky in the 2nd and Peruta in the 9th which ruled against shall-issue carry in the former or any carry in the latter. As to the 7th Circuit and the twin cases of Moore v. Madigan and Shepard v. Madigan which did find a right to carry outside the home, they cherry-picked from that decision.

They conclude:

Even if Heller I’s historical analysis did imply something about the scope of public carry in general, it did not hold anything about whether the pre-existing right codified in the Second Amendment included a right to publicly carry firearms on crowded city streets in the nation’s capital with no particularized self-defense reason―let alone do so clearly enough to warrant the entry of judgment on appeal from a preliminary-injunction ruling. This Court should grant en banc review to correct the error and consider the District’s law using the appropriate analysis dictated by Heller I, II, and III.

It is a toss-up to whether they will be granted the rehearing and also a toss-up on what the full panel of judges on the DC Circuit might decide. Given former President Obama's stacking of the DC Circuit, we could very well see a decision like that of the 9th Circuit in Peruta where a win was nullified.

The Second Amendment Foundation, which is an organization plaintiff in the case, released a statement yesterday regarding the petition for an en banc rehearing. Quoting Alan Gottlieb, it said, in part:

“The Second Amendment Foundation expected the City of Washington, DC to file this appeal in an attempt to try to overturn our court victory that said their virtual ban on the right to carry a firearm for self-protection was unconstitutional,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.

SAF has been battling the city over this issue for some time. The city has strenuously resisted these legal efforts, arguing in its latest petition that the city is “unique” because of its dense population that includes “thousands of high-ranking federal officials and international diplomats.” But earlier this summer, the District Court of Appeals majority opinion is that the “good reason” restriction violates the Second Amendment rights of citizens living in the district.

“They have no intention of complying with any court decision that supports the right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb said. “It took the Heller decision to force them to allow a gun in your own home for self-defense. It took the Palmer decision, another SAF case, to force them to repeal their total ban on carry and now they are kicking and screaming about losing the Wrenn decision.”

Gottlieb maintains that even if the District is “unique,” the citizens living there still retain their right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. The city’s “good reason” requirement makes it far too easy to deny all but a few people their rights on the flimsy grounds that average citizens never have a good enough reason. The court recognized this problem and ruled against the District’s requirement, he noted.

“Municipal stubbornness cannot be allowed to outweigh the constitution,” Gottlieb said. “A civil right should not be subject to bureaucratic neurosis.”

I like that last line - a civil right should not be subject to bureaucratic neurosis.

Sierra Bullets Bought By Clarus Corporation

Sierra Bullets of Sedalia, Missouri has been acquired by Clarus Corporation. The announcement was made on Tuesday. This makes the second bullet manufacturer to be owned by a publicly traded company with Speer being the other. According to the release below, Clarus paid $79 million for Sierra. Clarus plan to invest in expanding Sierra's marketing efforts, distribution, and product development. All the senior leadership of Sierra will remain in place.

Black Diamond climbing equipment is the other major brand owned by Clarus Corporation. If I am not mistaken, Black Diamond was founded by Yvon Chouinard and spun off from Patagonia.

This is an interesting combination. The only synergies that readily come to mind involve the engineering behind metal coatings and cladding.

From the release (in part):

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 22, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clarus Corporation (CLAR) (“Clarus” or the “Company”), a diversified holding company which seeks opportunities to acquire and grow businesses that can generate attractive shareholder returns, has completed the acquisition of Sierra Bullets, L.L.C. (“Sierra”) for $79 million, subject to a post-closing working capital adjustment. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Clarus’ earnings per share.

Since 1947, Sierra has been dedicated to manufacturing the highest-quality, most accurate bullets in the world. From local and international shooting competitions to sport and hunting, Sierra offers best-in-class accuracy and precision that hunting and sport shooting enthusiasts have come to depend on. This performance is born from a proprietary manufacturing process that enables the achievement of the tightest tolerances in the industry.

Sierra’s products have cultivated a significant consumer following recognized by its iconic “green box” packaging and include globally recognized brands such as Sierra MatchKing, Sierra GameKing, and Sierra BlitzKing...

“The team at Sierra has continued building on a 70-year legacy dedicated to the highest-level of precision in design, world-class manufacturing and quality control,” said Warren B. Kanders, executive chairman of Clarus. “These attributes have cultivated a diverse customer base of enthusiasts and industry OEMs that drive high recurring revenue and strong cash flow, which we expect to maximize through the utilization of our net operating loss carryforwards.”

Clarus expects to leverage its various strategic and financial resources to accelerate Sierra’s growth. This includes investments to enhance marketing and digital capabilities, improve distribution, forge new customer accounts, and develop new products.

Sierra is led by a seasoned senior management team with decades of combined manufacturing and industry expertise that is dedicated to the long-term growth of the brand. All senior management are expected to remain with Sierra under Clarus’ ownership.

Sierra’s President Pat Daly commented: “Our team takes great pride in developing and manufacturing the most precise and accurate bullets in the world. This is supported by our deep institutional knowledge of highly-specialized manufacturing processes that have produced leading products and created a significant competitive advantage. As the only pure-play bullet brand, it was important for us to partner with a team that shares our values and commitment to excellence, and we are excited to join the Clarus family. I look forward to staying on to continue driving our brand growth.”...

Kanders concluded: “We remain committed to seeking to acquire additional companies in industries potentially unrelated to outdoor that satisfy our investment criteria as we found in Sierra. In addition, the minimal leverage incorporated in this transaction and Sierra’s free cash flow dynamics are expected to provide capacity for future acquisitions utilizing our structure.”

"Purge Begins: Cloudflare Terminates Service To Cody Wilson’s GhostGunner Website"

If the name Cody Wilson rings a bell, it should. Cody is the person who developed a 3-D printed firearm and then put the plans on the Internet. His company, Defense Distributed, is now in a court battle with the State Department over another of his 3-D printing plans which they have, for now, forced off the Internet. I met Cody at the 2016 Gun Rights Policy Conference when the Polite Society Podcast interviewed him. Cody is what I call a hard-core libertarian. However, what Cody is not is an alt-right, white supremacist, racist, fill-in-the-blank.

According to Wikipedia, Cloudfare is a " content delivery network, Internet security services and distributed domain name server services, sitting between the visitor and the Cloudflare user's hosting provider, acting as a reverse proxy for websites." They supposedly hold free speech is sacred and that includes what is posted on a website. That said, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince kicked off the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer from his service after Charlottesville on August 16th. He attributed his change of mind about free speech for all to waking up grumpy that morning.

Back to Cody Wilson. On Friday, Cloudfare abruptly terminated service to his GhostGunner.net site which sold 80% AR lowers and the machine tools to complete finishing these lowers. This began a war of words on Twitter between Cody Wilson and Matthew Prince. Cloudfare is insisting that GhostGunner.net had left on their own and that it had nothing to do with Wilson's tongue in cheek "Hatreon" alternative to Patreon. Wilson is saying Prince is a liar.

Who is right and who is wrong I am not sure. However, it does seem awfully suspicious that service was terminated so soon after that of the Daily Stormer. I don't know if it was retribution for Hatreon which has no "hate speech" restrictions or not.

As of this morning, GhostGunner.net and Hatreon.net are back up on the Internet. I am not tech-savvy enough to know where these sites are being hosted or who is providing all the Internet services. All I know is that Cody Wilson is a hard-core free speech activist and I'm glad to see he is back on the Internet.

Bloomberg's Gun Control "PR Whiz" Aligns Herself With Communists

Those arrested in Durham, North Carolina for pulling down a Confederate monument all belong to the World Workers Party. It is a Communist party off-shoot. They broke away from the Socialist Workers Party in 1959 over doctrinal differences. It seems they considered themselves more Trotskyist than the SWP. The WWP later absorbed the Spartacist League which was itself a leading Trotskyist-influenced Communist party.

The main thing to understand is that they are Communists regardless of whether they follow Stalin or Trotsky or whether they are 3rd Internationalists or 4th Internationalists. The other thing to know about the World Workers Party is that they are very much supporters of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea. Indeed, they strongly believe Kim Jong-Un and North Korea need "The Bomb".

You can read their tirade about the "freedom fighters" pulling down the monument here.

Thus when I saw this tweet, I wondered if the PR whiz behind understands just who she is promoting and/or aligning herself with.

"I am Spartacus!" https://t.co/SLlj35dpeE

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 17, 2017

The Spartacist League was also known as the Spartacus League. It eventually became the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands or the German Communist Party of pre-WWII Germany.

The irony of it is delicious.

The ignorance of that tweet is even more delicious.

"Gun Violence" Tax Receipts Prove People Vote With Their Feet

When the City of Seattle city council passed their "gun violence" (sic) tax in 2015 the proponent of the measure, Councilman Tim Burgess, projected tax revenues from it to be between $300,000 and $500,000 annually. Opponents of the measure suggested at the time that gun buyers would just avoid the $25 tax on firearms by purchasing their firearms outside the city limits. As we suspected all along the opponents were correct.

Thanks to a lawsuit originally brought by Dave Workman, senior editor of TheGunMag, Seattle was forced to divulge the real collection numbers. The real numbers differ from those projected by Councilman Burgess.

The real number is $103,766.22. Of that amount, $86,410 comes from Sodo's Outdoor Emporium whose owner has indicated that he might just shift his gun sales entirely to his other store outside of Seattle.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Councilman Burgess isn't fazed by the numbers.

"I'm neither disappointed or pleased," he said Tuesday, adding that he knew the $300,ooo to $500,000 was just a guess. "It is what it is."

The tax charges $25 for every firearm sold in the city and 5 cents for every round of ammunition of .22 caliber or greater.

Harborview's take from the tax was always supposed to be about $130,000. The 2016 tax revenue falls short of that, but while the tax was contested in courts, the city allocated $275,000 from the general fund toward the study.

Money generated by the "gun violence" (sic) tax was supposed to go to fund "gun violence" (sic) research at Harborview Medical Center.

Burgess goes on to say about the tax collections:

Burgess defended the tax as a means of making gun sellers part of the solution to the effects of gun violence.

"The fundamental principle behind the tax is that the firearms industry should contribute to mitigating the harms caused by their products," he said. "That remains the primary motivation for the tax. That's what we set out to do, that's what we passed and that's what the state Supreme Court has validated."

The law was not written to specify where the tax revenue would go, but it was always intended to go toward programs like Harborview's, Burgess explained. So if the city had collected an amount beyond the agreed-upon $130,000, the excess would have gone to other education and public safety causes, he said.

But should the tax continue to generate less than $130,000 or progressively shrink, "then I'm sure my colleagues would continue to fund the program with other sources," Burgess said.

I guess in liberal paradises like Seattle the voters don't really care if their councilmen and women take a cavalier attitude towards taxes. That is just a price to pay to live in a city where the wealthy hire off-duty cops to give them extra protection from the criminal class.

NRA ≠ Nazi

I was reading Prof. William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection this morning. He had a post about the clash in Charlottesville this past weekend. He had a link to this tweet by Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos.

NRA and American conservatives/Nazis are one and the same. https://t.co/Jl0cnkimoZ

— Markos Moulitsas (@markos) August 13, 2017

I hate to disappoint Mr. Moulitsas but he is wrong in so many ways.

First, it has to be pointed out that conservatives and Nazis are not one and the same. In fact their beliefs are antithetical to one another. A conservative generally believes in smaller government while Nazis (from their origin in German) believe in a strong national government that pervades all aspects of life.

Second, while the NRA is generally a conservative organization, they are accepting of people from all walks of life. They have liberals and conservatives as members. They have gays and straights as members. They have Democrats and Republicans as members. Indeed, when the president of the NRA Pete Brownell has a scheduled phone conversation with Erin Palette of Operation Blazing Sword and asks how they can work together, I think that says it all in terms of acceptance.

I will grant you that there might be a member of the NRA who holds Nazi and/or fascist beliefs. But I would say that any mass organization of 5 million members with open membership is liable to have a few outliers within its membership rolls.

Some Tab Clearing

It's summer and I've gotten a little lazy when it has come to blogging. Sometimes it is just preferable to sit out on the front porch, sipping a drink, and reading a bit of this and bit of that. There have been some things I've been meaning to comment on but never got around to it.

First, regarding Charlottesville, "white nationalists", the Klan, Nazis, Antifa, and the violence that happened yesterday:  when two groups filled full of hateful, violent people that I disdain go at hammer and tong, I say a pox on both their houses. It was the same feeling I had after the "Greensboro Massacre" back in 1979 when the Klan and American Nazis shot it out with the Communist Workers' Party at a "Death to the Klan" rally. I'm with Miguel on this when he says he doesn't care much about what happens to either group.

Leaving the sensationalism of the mass media behind, one of the bigger stories in the gun community has been the issue of Sig P320s accidentally firing when dropped in a certain way. Sig has issued a voluntary "upgrade" to fix this. If I owned one of these pistols, I'd send it in for the retrofit with the military trigger. It only makes sense from a civil liability standpoint. You can just imagine the questions that a plaintiffs' attorney would be asking if you dropped your firearm and someone was injured. It wouldn't be pretty. This post in The Firearm Blog has more on the story along with a ton of links.

While on the subject of recalls, Ruger has issued a recall on some of their Ruger Precision Rifles with the aluminum bolt shroud. The issue is the potential for interference between the bolt shroud and the cocking piece. This safety recall only pertains to those rifles with an aluminum bolt shroud and within serial number ranges of 1800-26274 to 1800-78345 and 1801-00506 to 1801-30461.

In legal news, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on Thursday that the Seattle "gun violence" tax did not violate that state's firearms preemption law. The lawsuit against the tax was a joint effort of the Second Amendment Foundation, the National Rifle Association, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation along with two businesses, Philip Watson, and the late Ray Carter aka GayCynic. Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation called the decision a "slap in the face to the Washington Legislature." He also correctly noted that gun owners need to get more involved in Supreme Court races (where the justices are elected).

Dave Workman, editor of The GunMag, has done superb reporting on the issue at Liberty Park Press and Conservative Firing Line. His posts on the court decision can be found here, here, here, and here. I think Dave is correct when he says that the Washington State Supreme Court may have opened a Pandora's box. I can see these sort of taxes being implemented up and down the West Coast as well in other gun control paradises.

Sebastian had a very thought provoking post on his blog regarding suicide and the unintended consequences of universal background checks. Research conducted at Oregon State University-Cascades found that gun owners were more receptive to suicide-prevention messages if they respected gun rights than if they were neutral. However, as Sebastian notes, universal background checks make it harder for a person to have their family hold their guns if they experience a mental health crisis.

Except Bloomberg has been going state-to-state trying to make that a crime. I have a standing order with family to remove my access to firearms if I ever have that kind of mental health crisis, but in states like Washington, where Bloomberg has been successful, that is a crime if you don’t first get the person in crisis to an FFL to pay hundreds of dollars to transfer the collection to the “trusted individual,” and then pay hundreds more once the crisis ends. The Oregon legislature was smarter, and made an exception to its laws, but there is a factor of “imminence” in the exception. Generally speaking, transferring a firearm to a “trusted individual” in Oregon is a crime. In Pennsylvania, this is also the case for handguns, unless the “trusted individual” has an LTC.

So don’t give me this bleeding heart shit. If gun control people gave a crap about suicide they wouldn’t be pushing for laws that criminalized gun owners for helping out friends.

Hat tip to my friend and podcasting co-host Rob Morse for pointing me to a success in court by NY gun rights attorney Paloma Capanna. Her case, Robinson v. Sessions, is on appeal to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuit involves the sharing of information on the Form 4473 for purposes other than purchasing a firearm. The issue before the 2nd Circuit is whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue. In an answering brief, the Department of Justice lawyers acknowledged that the FBI has been running all NICS checks through the Terrorist Screening Database since 2004.

The error below arises from more than 15 years of litigation conducted by the ACLU, Amnesty International, and other groups, seeking to halt civil rights violations for those who are interrupted during travel because of a suspected match of the passenger to the “No-Fly List.” (The “No-Fly List” is a subset of the TSDB.) In those cases, the unlawful search and the invasion of privacy doesn’t begin until the person is pulled out of line and treated differently than other airline passengers going through open and obvious TSA screening procedures.

Plaintiffs in the Robinson case state that the violation of their civil rights begins the moment the FBI secretly uses their personal information from the ATF Form 4473 for the unauthorized purpose of checking them against the TSDB. Yes, a person who gets matched to the TSDB during a gun purchase at an FFL might have greater damages, but the harm hits every American attempting to make a lawful purchase at an FFL.

My friend Laura Carno has brought the FASTER training program to Colorado. The program involves intensive firearms, defensive, and medical training for school personnel in an effort to protect the students in the case of an active shooter event. FASTER was the brainchild of Buckeye Firearms Association and Tactical Defense Institute. She was interviewed about the program and their successes by Cam Edwards of NRA TV this week.

Is firearms training a religion? Regardless of whether it is or isn't, Kevin Creighton thinks it should be.  Looking at the great martial arts, they tend to include an element of religion in them according to Kevin. They helps inspire practitioners to rise about themselves in extraordinary situations. Situations like a gun fight which is definitely an extraordinary situation. Kevin concludes, "A religion of CCW isn’t going to save your soul, but it just might save your life."

Finally, attorney and Second Amendment scholar Dave Hardy has a new book coming out. The book entitled, I'm from the Government and I'm Here to Kill You: The True Human Cost of Official Negligence, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I have pre-ordered my copy and would suggest that you might want to do so as well. Dave reports that the official release date is October 10th but it could actually ship earlier. Some of the events covered in the book include Waco, Ruby Ridge, Operation Fast and Furious, and the fallout from atomic testing. As Dave notes in the introduction which is available online:

One might have thought the premise “the King can do no wrong” would have no application in a nation with no king, but that is not how things turned out. Indeed, by the time our courts finished, they had immunized government officials high and low from liability for any wrongful injuries they inflicted upon the citizens who paid their salaries....

Federal officials have, as we shall see, blown up hundreds of people, spread radioactive waste over enormous areas, and ordered their subordinates to commit murder, all with legal impunity. When the government’s misdeeds were challenged in court, attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice did not hesitate to conduct cover-ups, defraud the courts, and intimidate witnesses—all without worries about disbarment or other discipline. (In this book’s concluding chapter, we’ll examine how we can deal with these problems.)

When federal civilian employment was small, the risk of being injured by a negligent governmental employee was trifling. Today, there are over two million federal civilian employees, a workforce that dwarfs those of our largest corporations. This enormous workforce has almost complete legal immunity, no matter how lethal its transgressions.

The Proper Response To GOP Requests For Money Is No

I received a plea for money today from Phil Berger who is the President Pro Tem of the North Carolina Senate. He was one of the politicians visited in Raleigh last week in GRNC's Squish the Magic RINO demonstration. He was targeted because HR 746 which would allow permitless concealed carry is still bottled up in the North Carolina Senate.

The proper response to any of these supposedly pro-gun Republicans asking for money is NO. As I said in my response to Sen. Berger, I wanted to see action and that means both bringing bills to a vote and an affirmative vote.

Any damn fool in Congress or a state house can introduce a bill. It doesn't mean it has a chance in hell of being passed. That is just a means of appeasement.

HB 746 is languishing in the North Carolina Senate waiting to be sent to the floor. Meanwhile, both national reciprocity and the Hearing Protection Act (or its variants) have not made it to the floor of either chamber of Congress. It is long past time for the state and national GOP to reward some of their most faithful supporters with passage of pro-gun legislation. Until I start to see some action, my checkbook stays closed.

"Only Cowards Carry" - Anti-Knife Campaign In The UK

The Essex Police Department in the United Kingdom is partnering with a group called Only Cowards Carry. Part of this partnership includes placing "knife bins" around the area where you can anonymously dump knives and, it appears, other sharp objects. They are calling it knife amnesty and the object is to reduce "knife crime" (sic). They had a post about it up on their Facebook page but it has been taken down according to KnifeNews.com.

Picture captured from Facebook by www.knifenews.com

According to the Essex Police Department's website, the bin is in Southend and is part of that town's knife amnesty campaign.

From their website:

In a move to tackle knife crime, Sergeant Kayleigh Webster from Southend’s Local Policing Team sought to have the bin donated to Essex Police by Only Cowards Carry, it will enable the safe disposal of all bladed items handed in as part of the amnesty.

The introduction of the knife amnesty bin in Southend follows bins being placed across the county. Since a trial of a knife amnesty in Tendring in 2014, more than 7,000 knives have been surrendered safely.

Since the launch of the bin, Southend’s Local Policing Team has opened the bin to discover over 30 knives and weapons have been surrendered.

The amnesty is being supported by Essex Police, the Essex Police and Crime Commissioner, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council and the Only Cowards Carry charity set up by Caroline Shearer in memory of her son Jay Whiston who was stabbed to death at a party in Colchester in September 2012.

Sergeant Kayleigh Webster from Southend’s Local Policing Team and her team have been working tirelessly over the past few months to carry out a number of operations around the clock to reduce weapon related crimes and violent crimes in Southend.

In a number of dedicated operations, Sgt Webster’s team have carried out over 50 stop and searches which led to police finding and seizing over 200 knives in Southend. A total of 40 people have been charged for being in possession of an offensive weapon.

Along with continued operations, Sgt Webster believes the knife amnesty bin will take more knives off of the streets of Southend. She said: “Knife crime has a devastating impact on the victim’s family, friends and the community. Having served Essex Police for nearly ten years, I’ve seen first-hand the impact that knife crime can have.

Only Cowards Carry Weapons Awareness is a registered charity - the UK version of a non-profit - located in eastern England. They have five of these knife bins in place and have plans for nine more. They put on a number of workshops in the area.

I feel for any mother who lost her child to a violent crime. However, blaming the tool instead of the actions of the violent offender is misplaced. You see that here in America with the various gun control groups. Moreover, terms like "knife crime" and "gun violence" are oxymorons. The knife didn't commit the crime anymore than the gun perpetrated the violence. They are both inanimate objects incapable of independent actions. It is the violent person who decides to act that is the problem and not the tool. If we are to blame all objects that are used in the commission of a violent act, then we also have steel-toed boot crime and stick on the ground violence. I doubt we'll see any organizations devoted to the outlawing of steel-toed boots or limbs that have fallen on the ground anytime soon.

Dave Workman And SAF Win Against City Of Seattle (Updated)

The City of Seattle thought adding a "gun violence tax" of $25 for every firearm sold within the city limits would raise between $300,000 and half a million dollars. They forgot to factor in that buyers can vote with their feet and patronize gun stores outside the city limits. Thanks to a lawsuit under the state of Washington's Public Records Act by Dave Workman and the Second Amendment Foundation, we now know the real amount collected. It was just a bit over $100,000 and most of that comes from one gun store that publicized its own figures.

It is not surprising that Seattle wanted to keep this embarrassing amount quiet. No politician wants the public to know that his or her pet program is an abject failure

According to the press release from the Second Amendment Foundation, they will be awarded a $377  fine plus their attorneys' fees. The fine is a dollar a day for each day the City of Seattle drug its feet in bad faith on releasing the requested information. The unfortunate part is that city taxpayers and not the politicians are the ones footing the bill.

Congratulations to Dave, Alan, and everyone else at SAF for their win on this First Amendment case with Second Amendment overtones.

UPDATE: More on the win by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Mike Coombs, owner of the Outdoor Emporium, was the store owner whose collections constituted about 80% of the collections. Given his comments in the interview, I think the real aim of Seattle City Council is to make the city the next San Francisco. That is, no gun stores within the city limits.

Coombs sought to force the city's hand by releasing his own pay-ins to the tax. He wrote in a memo to the court that he paid $86,410.63 last year.

The city has only said it collected less than $200,000 and that one business has paid more than 80 percent of the total tax revenue -- by that math, Coombs believe he is that big fish, and estimates the city only brought in about $108,000 total.

Coombs also laid out additional devastating statistics for his business: Outdoor Emporium's firearm sales dropped about 20 percent last year from 2015 and its ammunition sales were cut in half. Overall sales were cut 15 percent because customers who bought guns and bullets also bought other supplies at the store.

His store in Fife has not suffered the same losses.

"Many of our customers have told me that they stopped shopping at our store because of the firearm and ammunition tax, and that has meant that they have started shopping at stores outside Seattle for all their sporting goods needs," Coombs wrote to the court. "I believe most of Outdoor Emporium's loss of sales is directly linked to the firearm and ammunition tax."

What's more: Coombs laid off some staff and collected $183,747 less in sales tax last year. Deducting the portion of the sales tax that goes to the city from the amount it collected with the gun safety tax, Coombs estimated that Seattle gained only $25,000 from Outdoor Emporium as a result of the ordinance.

 Given the city pulled $275,000 from its general fund to help fund the "gun violence" (sic) prevention pilot program at Harborview General Hospital, the tax was never about raising money. It was about control.

Well, It's Not A Sten But It Would Work

When some of the politicians in California were railing on about 80% lowers and "ghost guns" (sic), if I remember correctly Tam said in response that you could get a 90% Sten at your local Lowe's. That comment stuck with me. Thus, when I saw Ian McCullom's video on the homemade full auto firearms made by Philip A. Luty which were in the Royal Armouries' National Firearms Centre collection, I was reminded of it.

Mr. Luty was a man of conscience who objected to the British firearms laws. He designed a 9mm submachine gun from scratch and published the plans to it in his book "Expedient Homemade Firearms" (which is available on Amazon). With a quick Google search you will find PDFs of many of his plans and blueprints around the Internet. I might even suggest that you download these to a thumb drive just because you can. I'm not saying to build one of them but in a TEOTWAWKI situation it might prove useful.

Unlike the US where the receiver is the restricted part, in much of the rest of the world it is the parts like a barrel which must take pressure that is the restricted part. By restricted, I mean subject to government regulation. As Ian notes, Mr. Luty wanted to show the foolishness of British firearms laws and paid for it with his freedom. The British police eventually caught him test-firing one of his submachine guns for which he was convicted and imprisoned.

Mr. Luty passed away in 2011 from cancer while he was facing charges related to his gun rights activism. May he rest in peace.

Meet Squish The Magic RINO

While I may have hated what Saul Alinsky stood for, I must admit his Rules for Radicals does come in handy when pushing for gun rights. Grass Roots North Carolina has learned this lesson and plans to unveil their version of Rule No. 5 tomorrow. That rule states "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon" and GRNC plans to make the most of it. They will have a new mascot to go along with their bulldog. The new mascot is named Squish the Magic RINO. You can guess where that name came from.

To protest the failure of the North Carolina Senate to bring HB 746 which included permitless concealed carry to the floor for a vote as well as to highlight those Republicans in the House who voted against the bill, they plan to have a rally in Raleigh against these Republicans in name only. Given that the Republicans achieved a super-majority in both house of the General Assembly through the hard work, efforts, and votes of gun owners, they need to be reminded that they should be dancing those that brung them. It seems that some of these Republicans would rather be beholden to Michael Bloomberg than to the voters of their own districts.

I think Squish makes a perfectly fine addition to the roster of mascots. Perhaps, in addition to Squish, there needs to be one called Squirmy because that is what I want to see these Rino guys and gals squirm.

Gun group to lampoon GOP RINOs

Failure of Senate to pass HB 746 will be topic of demonstration at NC General Assembly

At 11:00 am on Thursday, August 3, Grass Roots North Carolina will hold NC Senate Republicans accountable for the Senate’s failure to pass House Bill 746 (“Omnibus Gun Changes”) which would, among other things, bring North Carolina on board with the 13 states which have already passed permitless carry of concealed handguns. The event will be held at the Halifax Mall at the NC General Assembly.

Meet “Squish the Magic R.I.N.O." & Friends!

To highlight the fact that some GOP senators (including Senator Phil Berger?) seem to be behaving like “Republicans in Name Only” (R.I.N.O.s), GRNC will be introducing a new mascot, “Squish the Magic R.I.N.O.” and friends. If Republicans fail to pass HB 746 during or before the 2018 short session of the General Assembly, “Squish” could become a regular feature at GOP campaign events.

Take advantage of this highly photogenic event!

Squish and his friends will be cavorting under a highly photogenic banner proclaiming:

“NC Senate R.I.N.Os:
Giving Gun Voters ‘The Horn’ Since…?”

Event details:
When: August 3 at 11:00 AM EDT
Where: Halifax Mall, NC General Assembly, 16 West Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601