NRA AM 2018 Begins

My first impressions of the NRA Annual Meeting is that there are a lot of people here. Moreover, there are more press and media here than normal. I had to wait about 45 minutes to get my media credentials this morning. In all the years since 2011 when I first got media credentials, I’ve never, ever had to wait to pick up my credentials.

I was in line with gun bloggers, a reporter from HuffPo, and lots of local media outlets. I don’t know whether it is because of President Trump being here or because of the potential for demonstrators post-Parkland but they are here.

Learning Patience

This week is teaching me patience.

We had intended this week to be one of having fun with family out in St. Louis. While we have had a small graduation party for my nephew Grant and introduced Olivia Grace to another wing of her family, most of the week has been spent at Missouri Baptist Medical Center.

My mother-in-law fell on Saturday while getting out of bed at her memory-care center. She got a nasty bruise on the chin and she had trouble putting weight on her leg. This was the second fall in as many weeks. A mobile X-Ray was inconclusive so her doctor suggested a short in-patient stay to allow her to get an MRI and CT Scan. So she was transferred to the hospital on Monday afternoon. The doc said that my mother in law would probably get the MRI quickly and the doc could evaluate the results shortly after that.

It took over 24 hours to get that MRI done. The results were that she had two fractures in her pelvis and would need rehab.

Her nurses, patient techs, and rehab people have been great at MoBap.

Her case managers, or whatever they call them here, not so much. To be honest, and I'm biting my tongue so I don't say anything worse, they need lessons in how to communicate. I have gotten to the point where I just have to bury my head in a book or the computer so I don't lash out at them. The Complementary Spouse has been a great advocate for her Mom and as a nurse she can speak the language. She has been patient to the extreme and has finally gotten them working for her Mom.

Medicare rules must vary from state to state. My mother-in-law was admitted for observation. One would think that after a diagnosis of a fractured pelvis, a BP spike, AND going into afib, she would have been reclassified to in-patient status. According to the case managers this was not the case. She only got reclassified to in-patient status due to her chin bruise becoming infected and that was only yesterday. The case managers and utilization review say that can't go back and reclassify her. Color me skeptical on that claim.

The reason that status matters is because under Medicare guidelines a person needs three days in the hospital as an in-patient (three midnight rule) in order to have Medicare to pay for rehab at a skilled nursing facility (nursing home). Fortunately, in our case, my mother-in-law will be admitted to an acute rehab facility where the three midnight rule isn't needed. Hopefully, it will happen this afternoon.

To top things off, the hospital somehow, somewhere have lost my mother-in-law's eyeglasses. What next?

The week has had some bright spots. I got to meet Charlie Foxtrot who has been helping us on The Polite Society Podcast. We had a great lunch on Wednesday and a great time meeting one another. The other bright spot is that I've found some really good bourbon that I can't get at home as well as a great place to buy it. Imagine a liquor store in a former Best Buy location with many select barrel offerings and you have Lukas Wine and Spirits. I will be patient and wait until I get home before cracking the seal on the bourbon I purchased.

Keep your fingers crossed for my mother-in-law that she gets moved to her new location sooner than later. A prayer or two would be welcome as well.

UPDATE: My mother-in-law was moved to SSM St. Mary's Rehab on Friday afternoon. I knew things were starting to look up when we were talking to the transfer EMTs. One was a North Carolinian and the other a South Carolinian. Moreover, the lead EMT was a graduate of Western Carolina University where I just so happen to teach a class each semester. Perfect!

The difference between the two facilities was like night and day. The room was bigger, the staff was more devoted to the patient than to the computer, and everyone was just a quantum leap more friendlier. I think this is going to work out just fine.

She'll be in acute rehab for at least 2 weeks so long as she shows improvement. Our goal is to get her on her feet again and walking. She was walking without any assistance prior to the fall.

Keep your fingers crossed and prayer wouldn't hurt.

GRNC Reports HB 562 May Be Weakened On The Floor (UPDATE)

As I reported earlier, HB 562 is scheduled to be debated on the floor of the NC House of Representatives this evening. Grass Roots North Carolina sent out an alert late yesterday saying that Rep. Allen McNeill (R-Randolph) intends to offer a floor amendment that would remove the phased-in elimination of pistol purchase permits from the bill. As I read their alert, Rep. McNeill was one of the people responsible for the phase-in of the elimination as opposed to an outright elimination of it.

They are requesting people email and call the House Republicans to remind them just which group helped them get their super-majority. If the Republicans who are supposed to be our friends are so willing to sell us down the river, how could we do any worse with Democrats? At least then, instead of being stabbed in the back, it would be a face to face fight where you knew what was coming at you.

Paul Iadonisi at Arms are the Mark of a Freeman has been doing some research into prosecutions for selling a pistol in a private sale without a pistol purchase permit. He has not been able to find a single prosecution for selling a pistol without the permit.

But what was interesting is that, through a few phone calls to DAs and court clerks, it’s been discovered that selling a pistol in a private sale without a PPP (or a Concealed Handgun Permit, which suffices according to statute as well) isn’t something that is ever used in any prosecution. I.e.: it is never enforced and is likely ignored by most private sellers and buyers.

Technically, the seller is not even required to take possession of the PPP or ask to see the CHP. And even if you do, you can put it in the circular file or shred it and not be in violation of the law. And the way the law is written, even an FFL dealer is not required to take possession of the PPP, though you’d be hard pressed to find one that wouldn’t. Both the CHP and PPP are good for five years. And therein lies the problem for our sheriffs: they can issue a PPP and a year later, the recipient could commit a crime that makes him ‘prohibited person’. Yet he can go buy a gun without a background check *at an FFL*, because the NICS check was already done. There is a mechanism for the CHP to be revoked, but not the PPP.

One of the arguments that I heard from a gun owner was that he wanted to know the person to whom he was selling a handgun was not a criminal or someone who would misuse it. I think it is called commonsense. If you don't know the person and you don't have a good feeling about that person, then don't sell it to them. It's that simple.

UPDATE: Rep. Jacqueline Schaffer (R-Mecklenburg), the principal sponsor of HB 562, made a motion at approximately 7:20pm to have the bill removed back to the Rules Committee. She said there were still a lot of amendments and too many pieces still in motion.

Something I Missed Last Week

A couple of weeks ago, the North Carolina General Assembly voted unanimously to overturn Durham County's gun registration requirement. It was the only county in the state to have this requirement and it had been in place long before state preemption.

I missed it when it came out. Fortunately, Mississippi Rebel did not.

You can read his post on the overturning of this Jim Crow-era law here.

Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right

The rest of that song by Stealers Wheel goes "here I am stuck in the middle with you."

That is how I'm feeling about the whole open carry fiasco in Texas. I doubt that there are many readers of this blog that don't support the extension of open carry in Texas to include handguns. Many states including my own North Carolina have unlicensed open carry.

What is incredibly frustrating is watching Shannon Watts and her fellow gun prohibitionists at Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors making hay out of the bumbling ineptitude of groups like Open Carry Texas. Sonic, Chipotle, and god knows who's next have issued "Starbucks-style" statement asking the open carry activists to leave them out of the argument.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has done yeoman's work in examining the folly of their actions. You can read some of those posts here, here, and here. There are more.

The attention whoring of these OC activists has caused such backlash that the NRA issued a statement last Thursday which said, in part,

Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms.

Let's not mince words, not only is it rare, it's downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

As a result of these hijinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises (more information can be found here and here). In other words, the freedom and goodwill these businesses had previously extended to gun owners has been curtailed because of the actions of an attention-hungry few who thought only of themselves and not of those who might be affected by their behavior. To state the obvious, that's counterproductive for the gun owning community.

More to the point, it's just not neighborly, which is out of character for the big-hearted residents of Texas. Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That's not the Texas way. And that's certainly not the NRA way.

Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA backed away from that statement yesterday saying it was the personal opinion of some unnamed staffer and not the NRA's official position. He apologized for any confusion it caused. Others such as Charles Cooke of National Review disagreed saying that it was what needed to be said. I think I and the majority of the gun blogging and gun podcast community would agree that it needed to said.

Bob Owens had an interesting observation on this at BearingArms.com. He noted that often in cases like this where a statement is retracted that it is the original statement which reflects the internal thinking of the organization. In other words, it was what we called back in my political science days "signalling".

As Michael Bane emphasized today in his Downrange Radio podcast, our goal in the gun rights community needs to be winning. We no more win hearts and minds with these open carry demonstrations in restaurants than the US Air Force did with carpet bombing in South Vietnam. I would send a copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People to everyone in the Texas open carry leadership if I could.

I can't, so in the meantime I will implore them to cut out the narcissistic displays, clean up their websites and Facebook pages, and, as Michael suggested, think before you do stupid. Those of us stuck in the middle would appreciate it.

A Couple Of Blog Meets Of Note

A few days ago Kevin of Misfires and Lightstrikes wrote me about a blogger meet-up at the 2013 SHOT Show. One of these days, I'll get there again but not this coming year. Here are the details as sent by Kevin who asked that I post this:

As another SHOT Show approaches, (is it REALLY only 60 days away?!!), it's time for another SHOT Show gunblogger meetup!

As the evenings during SHOT are dedicated to awards dinners and the like, this year, we'll be meeting on Thursday, January 17th at 11:30 am for lunch at the Grand Café Lux restaurant in the Venetian Hotel and Casino.

If you can't make it, I'd appreciate a post letting people know that it's not just for bloggers; Vloggers, podcasters and blog visitors are all invited, too.

Please RSVP via email  (Kevin AT Exurbanleague.com) or join the event on Facebook.

Sean Sorrentino of An NC Gun Blog and Borepatch are trying to set up blogger shoot in the Raleigh-Durham area of central North Carolina either before or after Christmas.

From Borepatch:

Who's up for a Christmas blogshoot in the Carolinas?

Some of us have been emailing for a bit, and so let me toss out a question to the gunblogging community: who would be willing to get together for a meet 'n shoot sometime around the Christmas holiday?

I know that there are a bunch of folks in the Washington DC area, and there are a surprising number of us here in Atlanta.  It seems like Charlotte/Raleigh/Durham NC is about splitting the driving distance.

Please leave a comment if you're interested, along with preferred date and location.  Also, if anyone knows a range in any of those areas that could accommodate a decent size group, please leave that info as well.

Since All The Cool Kids Are Doing It..

Since all the cool kids are posting either their Top 20 from their iPod or a screen cap of their desktop, I thought I'd play as well. I tend to use my iPod Classic for listening to podcasts more than anything else. When I checked my top played songs, the list was dominated by Christmas music! Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper was number one so it wasn't all bad.

I think I'll just go with the screen cap instead. My wallpaper is from the FX show Justified. As you can tell, I'm a fan of the show.

GRPC 2012 - Who's Going?

The 2012 Gun Rights Policy Conference kicks off this coming Friday evening in Orlando.

I am trying organize a little get-together for gun bloggers and podcasters. It will probably be Saturday evening after the reception. I've contacted a few bloggers that I knew were going to attend the conference but I'm sure I've missed others.

So, if you are going to GRPC 2012 and are a gun blogger or podcaster, either leave a comment or contact me at jpr9 AT earthlink DOT net. I'll be back in touch with you with more details.

Zombies Beware!

I'm in the middle of reading Mad Ogre's Uprising USA and then I see this!





A great job by Oleg, Linoge, and WizardPC! I don't know which is cooler - the Saiga Shorty or Linoge's sideburns.

A Disturbance In The Force

To paraphrase Darth Vader, "I detect a disturbance in the gun blogger force."

That disturbance in the force is because Frank W. James - Farmer Frank - of Corn, Beans, Spent Brass, An Empty Page and A Deadline has decided to hang it up after four years. The frustrations he felt with the constraints of Blogger and some of their new "features" was too much for him. He made the announcement on Tuesday in his final post.

I've never made a dime off this blog, so by my father's estimation it has had zero commercial value and my time was wasted......UNLESS I enjoyed it.

And I did for a long time, for over 4 years in fact, but due to the changes being made in the software that Blogger is now putting forth, I no longer enjoy it. In fact, this damn thing has become work.

Work that has zero value because Dad was right, I'm not getting paid anything for it, so it has had no value.

The alternatives in my view are worse because in just about all the acceptable (to me in terms of usage rules) cases I will have to spend money to do this nonsense which means by Dad's reasoning my 'work' would have less than 'zero' value. It would have a negative value solely for 'vanity' purposes. That's pretty lame and it's not going to happen.

So, after approximately 480,000 visits and 626,000 page views over just 4 years of duration, this blog experiment has come to an end.

I'm glad I got to meet Frank at the recent NRA Annual Meeting. I know I will miss his blog. He promises to do guest blogging in the future for movie and book reviews. I plan to take him up on that offer as I am sure will a number of other bloggers.

It is a damn shame that in the effort to make things "better", technology companies often ruin a decent product. I still can do more with MS Word 2003 than their 2007 version, I'm still not enamored with the Facebook timeline, and, like Frank, I don't really care for the "new" version of Blogger. As my grandma used to muse, "Such as life."

I Just Love Parody

In the last couple of weeks, a supposed gun blog appeared out of nowhere saying it was going to be the new paradigm. I think it was called Choke and Blunder or something like that. Part of the marketing campaign for this blog included insulting well-known bloggers, setting up "profiles" for nonexistent (and unwilling) participants, and posting many over-the-top comments when criticized. Suspicion has grown that this is a false-flag operation run by one of the gun prohibitionist organizations.

Thanks to some enterprising souls who shall remain nameless, a parody of this suspect blog has now appeared.

The parody blog, Smoking Blunder, can be found here. Share this link with your friends.

The Mainstream Media Notices Gun Bloggers

This weekend, the New York Times and the Arizona Republic, two papers on opposite ends of the country, featured stories in which gun bloggers played a role. To see this much recognition paid to gun bloggers by major newspapers is frankly amazing. I don't think I'd be overstating things if I said that most in the media consider us gun bloggers as crazy fringe types ranting about gun rights, the Constitution, and the Second Amendment or posting about arcane topics such as the difference between .308 Winchester and 7.62 NATO.

The New York Times's lead story in their Sunday Business section was about Cerberus and the Freedom Group. In a rather straightforward story, Times reporter Natasha Singer described how financier Stephen Feinberg, CEO of Cerberus, created what has become the Freedom Group of companies starting with Bushmaster and then adding icons such as Remington, Marlin, and Harrington and Richardson to the mix. The story details their place in the market, the relative lack of handguns in their product mix, and how this last factor could impact Freedom Group's growth as concealed carry expands.

It is in the discussion of the growth of Freedom Group that gun bloggers are mentioned.

Still, the Freedom Group has ingested so many well-known brands so quickly that some gun owners are uneasy about what it might do next. Two years ago, a Cerberus managing director, George Kollitides, ran for the board of the N.R.A. Despite an endorsement from Remington, and the fact that he was a director of the Freedom Group and Remington, he lost. His campaign didn’t sit well with some gun bloggers, who viewed him as an industry interloper.

Andrew Arulanandam, the N.R.A.’s director for public affairs, declined to speculate about why Mr. Kollitides lost. “It’s a great question to ask our four million members,” he said.

The gun bloggers mentioned in the story are Sebastian and Bitter of Shall Not Be Questioned. It links to their 2009 endorsements for the NRA Board of Directors where they discussed why they were not endorsing George Kollitides.

The Arizona Republic featured a front page story today entitled "ATF gun probe: Behind the fall of Operation Fast and Furious." The story by Dennis Wagner is one of the better overviews of Operation Fast and Furious and does a good job at outlining the scandal. It is even better at bringing to light the behind-the scenes moves that brought this scandal to public consciousness. As Wagner notes,

The initial story line of Fast and Furious was about outrage -- anger that guns, let out of sight, had been used in crimes. But the backstory of the investigation is one of hidden motives, curious contradictions and strange allegiances, both among those who organized the effort and those who exposed it.

It goes into detail on how Senior Agent John Dodson sought out the advice of ATF veterans Jay Dobyns and Vincent Cefalu who eventually began to network with bloggers David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh.

Dobyns and Cefalu began networking with two of the most prominent and prolific Second Amendment bloggers in America.

David Codrea, an Ohio-based writer, is field editor for GUNS Magazine and an author on a website known as "The War on Guns: Notes From the Resistance."

Mike Vanderboegh runs a website, Sipsey Street Irregulars, which he identifies as a gathering place for the 3 percent of Americans willing to fight for the right to bear arms.

Vanderboegh and Codrea, longtime friends, this year received Soldier of Fortune Magazine's Second Amendment Freedom Award and the David and Goliath Award from Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

Dobyns says he turned to the bloggers because of a shared animus toward ATF administrators. "Do they have an agenda? Of course they do," he said. "But it's my experience that they're not anti-ATF; they're anti-bad ATF."

Codrea and Vanderboegh began churning out essays on Fast and Furious, even giving the operation its sardonic nickname, "Project Gunwalker." They joined forces with other bloggers, government employees and gun dealers in what Vanderboegh calls "a coalition of willing Lilliputians."

The story recognizes the role that Codrea and Vanderboegh played as intermediaries between the whistleblowers and Congressional staffers. Indeed, it was their pressure that got people like Sen. Chuck Grassley to pay attention to the whistleblowers and give them protection. It also makes note of how improbable it was that a pair of Threepers got together with the ATF whistleblowers.

In interviews, Vanderbeogh and Codrea chuckle at the irony of government agents relying on their critics to find a congressional audience.

"It's so improbable that ATF guys would come to us, the Second Amendment advocates," Vanderbeogh says. "But we realized we did have common enemies in the ATF hierarchy."

I am glad to see gun bloggers get their due in both stories. It is about time.

North Carolina Gun Blogs

Thanks to the efforts of Sean Sorrentino, six North Carolina gun bloggers (and four other fine folks) got together for a day of pistol training at the TigerSwan Training Collaboration Center near Fayetteville, North Carolina. More about that in later posts.

One of the important things that came out of Saturday is the realization that there is a growing gun blogger community within North Carolina. In addition to Sean, whom I had met before, I got to meet George (Newbie Shooter), Paul (Arms are the Mark of a Free Man), Larry (Last Refuge of a Scoundrel), and Rich (Knitebane Manor). And with the exception of George, we all attended an open carry dinner in Garner afterwards.

In addition, I just corresponded with Ron at When the Balloon Goes Up! which is a new gun blog that is off to a well-deserved fast start. Of course, I had to find out about a North Carolina blog by reading a blog in Pennsylvania!

If you look in my sidebar, you will notice a new addition. Just below my Blog Archives you will find a new section entitled NC Gun Blogs. I want to bring attention to the growing and vital North Carolina gun blogging community. While this list is not complete, it does include those bloggers with whom I have either corresponded or met in person. I fully expect this list to grow. Indeed, if you are a gun blogger and you reside in North Carolina, let me know and I'll add you to the list.

Mini-Blogger Meet In St. Louis

Kurt Hofmann, the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, and I had our own little "blogger meet" today in southern Illinois. We met for lunch in Edwardsville which is home to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. It is also the county seat of Madison County which is also famous - or infamous depending on your inclinations - for the number of class-action lawsuits that have been filed in its courts.

It was nice to finally meet Kurt in person as we had corresponded for many months and I have been reading his columns for a while now. He arrived wearing his brand-new Project Gunwalker T-shirt which will make his fellow 82nd Airborne alumnus Sean Sorrentino very happy. Mine is waiting for me at the Post Office.

We talked about a number of things including deer hunting in Illinois versus North Carolina, shooting, politics, families, the prospects for concealed carry in Illinois, etc. And, of course, we discussed the latest House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings on Operation Fast and Furious (aka Project Gunwalker). I think we were both amazed at how poorly William Newell presented himself in the hearings drawing even exasperated comments from Ranking Minority Member Elijah Cummings.

While discussing the region's indoor shooting ranges, Kurt told me an amusing story of how he took out a target pulley system with his .500 S&W Magnum snubby(damn!). Kurt shoots from a lower position due to being in a wheelchair. The angle this time turned out just right for his bullet to clip the cable and sever it. Ooops! Still, anyone who can handle a .500 S&W Magnum snubby is more than OK in my book.

As long as Kurt is up for it, I think these lunches will be a regular thing when I come out to the St. Louis area. If there are other gun bloggers who would like to join us, please let me know. We may even be able to arrange a blogger shoot on the other side of the river in the free state of Missouri.

Miguel On Tactical Metrosexuals

Having reached the age where I need reading glasses to read this page as well as to see my front sights, I was very amused by Miguel's latest at the Gun Free Zone about the Tactical Metrosexual.

You have seen the type: Dressed in Under Armour Black T-Shirts one size too small so the biceps (with the duty tribal tattoo) and other muscle groups are tightly defined. Oakley wraparound ballistic sunglasses that they never remove unless they are going to bed (But I bet they keep during sex), cargo pants…er… excuse me “tactical” pants in black or khaki and scuffed tan boots that scream “I was there” referring to their time as supply clerks in Iraq. At the range they’ll be carrying every piece of gear they can attach with MOLLE and more guns than a Latin Kings meeting in South Central LA. Their ultimate wet dream is to make the cover of SWAT magazine but they will settle for an insert in Soldier of Fortune.

It was written in reference to this post on another blog. Make sure to read Miguel's full post.

I am solidly in Miguel's camp on this one. I will admit to wearing Woolrich Covert Khakis. I find they are more comfortable than jeans and I'll be damned if I'm going to wear "mom jeans". I'll leave those to the President.

UPDATE: I just saw this post on Tactical Fanboy. I think this is the appropriate camo for the well-dressed Tactical Metrosexual so they don't have to wear old fat white guy BDU Woodland.

Glenn Reynolds And PJTV Cover Bloggers In Pittsburgh

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and PJTV fame interviewed a number of gun bloggers and others in the gun rights media at the 2011 NRA Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh. They make for some interesting viewing.

Sebastian

SayUncle

Dave Hardy

Cam Edwards

And Alexis Garcia of PJTV gets to interview Ted Nugent.