ABC's 20/20, David Muir, The Armed Citizens Project, and "Amanda"

The Armed Citizens Project will be the focus of a story about guns in America scheduled to air on ABC's 20/20 program sometime in December. Specifically, host David Muir sat down with a group of 12 single mothers who had received 12-gauge shotguns as part of the program.

"Amanda", one of those 12 single moms, describes her participation in both the interview and with the Armed Citizens Project in the most recent episode of The Squirrel Report. She said Muir asked hard questions and she gave him back hard answers. Some of her answers must have been a little too hard for Muir as he changed the subject rather than continue his line of questioning. It will be interesting to see how ABC edits this. Amanda said that Muir's anti-gun bias was quite evident.

The Squirrel Report is a weekly podcast hosted by Alan of Snarky Bytes, Breda of Breda Fallacy fame, JayG, and WeerdBeard.

Rampage Killings And Media Complicity

What the media tends to call "mass shootings" are more appropriately called "rampage shootings" according to a review article by Ari Schulman in the Wall Street Journal. Far from being senseless murders as the media and politicians characterize them, they are a "kind of theater" whose purpose is terrorism minus the political agenda.

Mass shooters aim to tell a story through their actions. They create a narrative about how the world has forced them to act, and then must persuade themselves to believe it. The final step is crafting the story for others and telling it through spoken warnings beforehand, taunting words to victims or manifestos created for public airing.

What these findings suggest is that mass shootings are a kind of theater. Their purpose is essentially terrorism—minus, in most cases, a political agenda. The public spectacle, the mass slaughter of mostly random victims, is meant to be seen as an attack against society itself. The typical consummation of the act in suicide denies the course of justice, giving the shooter ultimate and final control.

We call mass shootings senseless not only because of the gross disregard for life but because they defy the ordinary motives for violence—robbery, envy, personal grievance—reasons we can condemn but at least wrap our minds around. But mass killings seem like a plague dispatched from some inhuman realm. They don't just ignore our most basic ideas of justice but assault them directly.

The perverse truth is that this senselessness is just the point of mass shootings: It is the means by which the perpetrator seeks to make us feel his hatred. Like terrorists, mass shooters can be seen, in a limited sense, as rational actors, who know that if they follow the right steps they will produce the desired effect in the public consciousness.

Moreover, rampage killers tend to be competitive. They want their acts to be more violent and more destructive with more casualties than previous mass shootings.They use as their template for planning their acts the media reports of prior rampage killings according to researchers who have studied it.

Schulman says that rather than try to understand what motivated individual killers in Tucson or Newtown or Aurora, treating it as a contagion or epidemic allows us to find ways to disrupt the spread. Research into suicide and the role of the media in covering it gives some suggestions on how to disrupt it.

The major thing is that the killer needs to be deprived of an audience. They crave the attention that their acts will get from the mass media. It is one of the reasons that I make a conscious effort in this blog to never publish the name of the shooters in mass killings. I may refer to them as "the shooter" or "the murderer" but I refuse to give them the publicity that they craved.

Schulman has a list of suggestions for the media and the police.

• Never publish the shooter's propaganda
• Hide their names and faces
• Don't report on biography or speculate on motive
• Minimize specifics and gory details
• No photos or videos of the event
• Talk about the victims but minimize images of grieving families
• Decrease the saturation
• Tell a different story

While I don't agree with Schulman's conclusions regarding firearms, all in all this is an excellent article that needs to be read. As Schulman concludes, "If we can deprive him of the ability to make his internal psychodrama a shared public reality, if we can break this ritual of violence and our own ritual response, then we might just banish these dreadful and all too frequent acts to the realm of vile fantasy."

The full article can be found here.

Happy 238th Birthday, USMC

On this, the 238th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, I'd like to offer my thanks to all Marines, present or past, for their service.Semper Fi!

And what would be better for Devil Dogs seeking adventure and travel than to ride a leopard jaguar.

And in a more serious vein, here is the Commandant's Birthday Message which salutes the men and women of the US Marine Corps and their service to our nation. I do notice Gen. Amos still uses the knife hand to get his message across.

Freebies

It is that time of the month again. Aaron at the Weapon-Blog has posted his updated list of contests offering firearms and ammunition as prizes.

Checking this month's listing, I see Glocks, 1911s, a Sig, and a Bond derringer. Oh, and how could I forget someone is offering a Hi-Point C9 pistol as a prize.

On the rifle side, there are a number of AR-15s including one from Daniel Defense. There are also some muzzle loaders for those interested in black powder shooting.

You can find all the contests here.

Wall Street Journal - Lead Prices Expected To Rise

As a follow-up to my post on the closing of the Herculaneum, MO primary lead smelter is this article from Friday's Wall Street Journal regarding an anticipated rise in the price of lead.

Bullish investors are hoping for a repeat of last year's rally, when lead prices soared by 17% between late October and early February.

Some money managers say gains could be even bigger this time amid tighter supplies compared with a year ago. Lead production has been under pressure as more smelters around the world are shut down due to environmental concerns. The International Lead and Zinc Study Group estimates global lead supply will total 11.02 million metric tons in 2013, while demand is pegged at 11 million metric tons. The group predicts supply will fall short of demand in 2014 for the first time since 2009.

"The market looks a lot tighter in terms of balance this year and next year," said Joseph Murphy, a senior analyst who helps manage about $2 billion at Hermes Commodities, a unit of Hermes Fund Managers Ltd. in London. Mr. Murphy's fund had recently added bullish wagers on lead futures.

Lead used in batteries for automobiles and trucks account for 80% of the demand. The estimate that I've seen for ammo is about 3% of the total usage. According to the International Lead Association, 98% of lead used in car batteries in the US will be recycled.

While demand for lead has been increasing, the amount of lead obtained from primary metal production has been level or slightly decreasing since 1970 according to this chart from the International Lead Association.

The bottom line is that, with increased demand for lead, ammunition makers will have to pay more for their components to make bullets. One cannot expect the ammo makers to just swallow this cost so we should expect the price of both finished ammo and components to increase.

Glock Steps Up In Challenge To California's Handgun Roster

Glock, Inc. filed a amicus brief last Friday the case challenging California's handgun roster. The case, Pena et al v. Lindley, was originally filed in 2009 in US District Court for the Eastern District of California. Glock's amicus brief was filed in support of the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment.

It is rare to see an individual firearms company take a stance such as this. These briefs are usually filed on behalf of a group like the National Shooting Sports Foundation. That said, it makes good business sense for Glock to support this case as none of their Gen4 pistols can be sold in California as they don't have magazine disconnects and aren't microstamp-ready.

The brief was written by attorney Erik Jaffe and Chapman University School of Law Professor John C. Eastman. Both Jaffe and Eastman served as law clerks for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. They argue that given the ubiquity of the Glock pistol throughout the United States that it meets the Heller decision's common use test. Because of this, banning the sale of the Glock in California runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

They start their argument by attacking the requirements for a magazine disconnect and for microstamping technology. The brief states that a magazine disconnect is a disadvantage in that a chambered round cannot be fired without a magazine in place.

GLOCK pistols can be fired if the magazine is lost or damaged, and a round in the chamber can be fired if necessary while the user is in the process of changing magazines. A pistol with a magazine disconnect mechanism would not be capable of firing under those circumstances. For those reasons and others, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement agencies require pistols that do not have a magazine disconnect mechanism. In addition to GLOCK pistols, the majority of semiautomatic pistols sold today do not include a magazine disconnect mechanism because of its significant disadvantages. Accordingly, the pistols that are in “common use” by “law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” Heller, 554 U.S. at 625, 627, generally do not include a magazine disconnect mechanism.

They attack microstamping as "novel and essentially theoretical" technology which does nothing to enhance the firearm's safety which is the purported purpose of the handgun roster. It is meant to possibly help law enforcement. The absence of a magazine disconnect and microstamping does not make a pistol either unsafe or more dangerous.

Jaffe and Eastman argue that:

California has in essence reversed the Supreme Court’s “common use” test and prohibited the sale and possession of those pistols that are commonly used by “lawabiding citizens for lawful purposes,” Heller, 554 U.S. at 625, 627, and allowed only the sale of those pistols that are not in common use and, in fact, are not even commercially available. The absence of a magazine disconnect mechanism and microstamping technology in the Gen4 GLOCK pistols does not render them the type of “dangerous and unusual weapons” that the government may prohibit, id. at 627, because they are functionally identical to the earlier grandfathered versions of the GLOCK pistols that also lack those features.

They attack California's claim that the burden caused by the handgun roster is minimal. Consumers are not able to buy newer - and presumably safer - handguns while at the same time older handguns on the roster are exempted from the mag disconnect and microstamping requairements. As they note, this serves to weaken California's argument that there is public safety interest in these requirements.

That the government continues to allow sales of numerous handguns lacking these features, and completely exempts law enforcement from regulations designed to exclude the sale of allegedly “unsafe handguns,” shows at best an equivocal interest in the supposed benefits from those technologies, not the type of substantial government interest that would justify restricting an enumerated right.

They continue by saying:

In fact, the largest actual effect from the expanding list of novel technological requirements for new models of guns is to prevent California consumers from being able to obtain the new models of handguns, such as GLOCK’s Gen4 pistols, that incorporate the latest improvements. It makes absolutely no sense to force consumers to purchase older model handguns that lack the same features that the government is relying on to prohibit the sale of newer model handguns. Justifying such a scheme in the name of consumer safety or crime fighting is nonsensical, or simply disingenuous... Indeed, the very absurdity of the scheme suggests that the actual objective of the challenged roster requirements is not safety, but to create increasingly more problematic and expensive hurdles to the sale of handguns in order to make the process more difficult and thereby deter the sale and purchase of new handguns in California, an objective that cannot be squared with the Second Amendment.

They conclude that the burden is substantial and that California has a "minimal government interest inconsistently pursued" in maintaining the restrictions imposed by the handgun roster.

I'm glad to see Glock stepping up in this fight. The California handgun roster is a joke. Any roster such as the one in California that makes a distinction between a pistol based upon whether it is all stainless or all blue and then bans a two-tone version of the same pistol  has just proved this.

The amicus brief can be found here.

Metcalf Responds

The mainstream media has now officially taken notice of the Guns & Ammo/Metcalf controversy. The Complementary Spouse was watching ABC's Gun Good Morning America a few minutes ago and saw a news scroll that read "Editor of Guns & Ammo Magazine Resigns After Publishing Column Pushing For Gun Control". The controversy has also caught the eye of the New York Times, The Atlantic, HuffPo, New York Magazine, CNN, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Media Matters for America. Their articles are full of tut-tutting about the intolerance of gun owners for any dissent. As Miguel points out, Metcalf's article made him the "new darling of the anti gun groups."

Jim Shepherd, publisher of The Outdoor Wire, in a rather classy move asked Dick Metcalf to respond. He did and Jim has published his response. I will leave it to you to read rather than summarizing it.

After reading his response I'm still not clear on what Metcalf hoped to accomplish with his original column. As to why he wrote it, I'm voting for Stockholm Syndrome.

UPDATE:  The Metcalf response has drawn some equally strong counter-responses.

Bitter at Shall Not Be Infringed does an excellent job at taking it apart bit by bit.

It’s as if he doesn’t even comprehend that those “voices” are the very customers and readers of Guns & Ammo and purchasers of the firearms products advertised in the pages. Not everyone may be a subscriber, but they are all part of the target market.

The industry is shifting. The markets are adapting. The audience, as a whole, is more sophisticated. I think the evidence suggests that it’s Metcalf who isn’t ready to have a serious discussion on these topics, not his audience.

Michael Bane terms it lame.

This is not, as Bitter so lucidly notes, a "free speech" issue. Let me go a step farther than that...as I noted in my earlier post, we have been having a "dialog" about the role of firearms in American society at least as long as I've been alive. IMHO, the "dialog" ended when the war began.

Let me say this again...we are at war with a segment of society whose sole goal is total civilian disarmament. We are not in a dialog. We are not in a debate. We are not in a healthy give-and-take in the Cornell University academic lounge. The primary weapon used by our blood enemies is the Big Lie.

Lest it be forgotten, Michael was in the front lines of this war in Colorado. He has seen the Big Lie used against those of us who believe in freedom time and time again.

Bob Owens at Bearing Arms notes that Metcalf's response seems more incoherent than his original column.

NY SAFE Act Helps Elect A Sheriff

Just like opposition to ObamaCare allowed Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to almost win the governor's race, opposition to New York's anti-gun SAFE Act allowed Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard (R) to win his third term.

Four words that he uttered at a news conference last May helped Timothy B. Howard win a third term as Erie County sheriff.

The words were “I won’t enforce it,” and Howard was talking about the SAFE Act, a controversial new state firearms law that has outraged gun owners.

The support of angry firearms owners helped the Republican sheriff to a big win Tuesday over his Democratic Party opponent, retired Sheriff’s Deputy Richard E. Dobson, and Sheriff’s Lt. Bert D. Dunn, a Law and Order Party candidate who lost the Democratic nomination in the September primary.

Erie County is home to Buffalo which is the second largest city in New York State. It is also home to a lot of hunters, shooters, and gun owners. Carl J. Calabrese, a former Erie County deputy county executive, thinks Howard's stance helped him win a lot of Democrats who wouldn't normally vote for a Republican saying, “A lot of Democrats are blue-collar people, union people, hunters and gun owners.”

Gun owners also worked hard to support Howard who supports the suit challenging the SAFE Act.

Howard supports a court challenge to the SAFE Act and has publicly stated that he won’t enforce the law, because in his view, it violates the constitutional rights of gun owners.

Gun owners worked hard to help Howard win, said Harold “Budd” Schroeder of Lancaster, chairman of the board of the Shooters Committee on Political Education. “Don’t you see the signs posted all over Erie County, opposing the SAFE Act? People are very upset about this.”

To be fair, some people did vote against Howard because they supported the SAFE Act but they were a low fewer than those who voted for him due to his opposition to it.