Uncategorized

Carrying at NRA Meetings

Posted on by Caleb

Just got this email from NRA regarding security for John McCain’s speech at Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum on Friday the 16:

By mandate of the U. S. Secret Service, no firearms will be  allowed in Hall A of the Kentucky Exposition Center, the location of the  Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum, on Friday, May  16.        Please be prepared  to go through security screening to enter the venue. We look forward to  seeing you at this outstanding event!

This wasn’t NRA’s decision, or Sen. McCain’s decision – it seems that the Secret Service is pretty intractable on this issue.

You can still carry on the convention hall floor, just not if you’re going to be attending the Leadership Forum on May 16th.

 

gun control

H.R. 1022 picking up steam

Posted on by Caleb

In the last couple of weeks, HR 1022 (The McCarthy Super-Dooper gun ban) has picked up 6 additional co-sponsors, brining the total to 66.  You can view the entire list of members of the House that have co-sponsored the bill by clicking on this link.  If you don’t see your local rep on the list, contact them and urge them to continue to not support or co-sponsor this awful piece of legislation.  If you do see your rep on the list, you’re probably from California – seriously, half the co-sponsors of that thing are from The People’s Republic.

It seems like the anti-gun faction in Congress is growing more and more bold, which means it’s time for all of you who voted for so-called “Blue Dog” democrats to call them and remind them that your support for them only goes so far as they don’t start signing onto crazy anti-gun legislation.  Even if Republican’s numbers shrink in the ’08 Election, and god forbid we lose the Presidential race, we need to keep the pressure on the Democrat reps who ran on more “conservative” platforms.

Beretta/handguns/self defense

Beretta 950 Jetfire

Posted on by Caleb

I mentioned yesterday that I had picked up a Beretta 950 Jetfire from Gander Mountain, it’s a little pocket sized .25 ACP. Beretta has been making pocket pistols in .25 ACP since the early 1900s, in fact, I have one of their early 1919 models – sort of the great grandfather to the Beretta 950.

The Beretta 950 is a single action, semi-automatic magazine fed pistol; like most pocket guns it’s blowback operated. Because it’s chambered for .25 ACP, it lacks an extractor, although the Beretta style open slide usually allows for positive ejection of spent cases. While pre-1968 models lack an external safety, mine does the safety which allows me to carry the little pistol cocked-and-locked.

Of course, you want pictures. Click for a fullsize picture.

With the pocket holster, it just drops right into a jeans or trouser pocket, and can basically go anywhere that there aren’t metal detectors or pat searches. Sure, the .25 ACP isn’t a manly super-blaster of a cartridge, but when I can’t carry the 9mm or the .45, it certainly beats going around unarmed. Sort of by way of compensation for the tiny, tiny bullets, the 950 does have an eight round magazine, plus one round in the tip-up barrel/chamber – giving you nine rounds of .25 ACP.

The biggest appeal of this gun to me, aside from the fact that it says “Beretta” on the gun, is that it really is a spectacular deep concealment piece in terms of ease of carry. I’ve never made any bones about the fact that I’m a small of stature, and being able to be carrying a 9 round pistol plus an 8 round reload without even a hint of a “print” is a nice feeling.

gun control/news

ATF throwing Adventure Outdoors under the bus

Posted on by Caleb

The entire pro-gun community is aware of Mayor Bloomberg of New York City’s lawsuit against licensed FFLs – the lawsuit that was a result of his sending private investigators to their stores to break the law and then try and sue them for it.

You may or may not know that as of right now, there is basically one last shop standing that is refusing to give into the bullying by Mayor Bloomberg and his cronies. Adventure Outdoors is still fighting the original lawsuit, as well as having filed a counter-suit, suing Mayor Bloomberg for defamation.

The ATF throwing Adventure Outdoors under the bus pertains to the original case, which is still being fought in court. Earlier in the year, Adventure Outdoors had subpoenaed three BATFE agents to be deposed in regards to the case pending against Adventure Outdoors. After the initial subpoenas were withdrawn, the BATFE “agreed” to allow the agents to be deposed in written question – now BATFE is going back on that agreement and has filed motions to exempt the agents from their written depositions.

For the particulars, you can read the entire motion as filed by BATFE in pdf format, pay special attention to page 8 of 20, where the lawyers for ATF say the following:

In evaluating the burden to ATF, the Court should consider the “cumulative” impact on ATF, i.e., the likelihood that ATF would be burdened with request for deposition testimony in other cases.

Slightly further down that same page, you find this:

ATF properly determined that the burdens to ATF from having the ATF employees respond to written questions outweighs any benefit to Adventure Outdoors.

Essentially, ATF is saying to Adventure Outdoors (and all FFLs in general) that our time is more important that your livelihood. Because that’s what we’re talking about here – the method that the owners and employees of this gun shop use to put food on the table is at stake, but ATF thinks that the cost of losing two special agents for a day “outweighs any benefit to Adventure Outdoors”.

That would be bad enough in and of itself – but to add more wood to the fire, Adventure Outdoors isn’t just any old gun shop. According to sources, Adventure Outdoors has on at least 11 different occasions gone above and beyond the letter of the law, and gone out of their way to work with and provide ATF with information on possible straw purchases. AO could have just refused the sale, and simply obeyed the letter of the law – but instead they have gone beyond their legal commitment and actively aided the ATF in the past. So now when all Adventure Outdoors wants to do is depose ATF agents and get factual statements out of them, ATF doesn’t have the time to testify. It sends a bad message to FFLs – ATF is basically saying that “even if you help us, we’re still not going to lift a finger to help you”.

The “cherry on the sundae” ultimately is that Mayor Bloomberg has been trashing the ATF in his press conferences – saying that “ATF needs assistance from the City of New York…to monitor or supervise Adventure Outdoors in its sale of firearms”, implying that ATF can’t do its job. Being deposed by Adventure Outdoors would have given ATF an opportunity to do a couple of things: 1) Defend themselves from Bloomberg’s baseless accusations, and 2) establish some good credit with FFLs.

With regards to number 2, it’s no secret that there are lot of people who feel like the ATF is out to get law-abiding dealers with ticky-tac violations and legal harassment techniques. By refusing to allow their special agents to be deposed, ATF is sending another bad message to the law-abiding firearms dealers: “Even if you help us, we’re not going to help you.” Adventure Outdoors had in the past gone above and beyond their legal obligation and assisted ATF, and this is the “thanks” they receive.

With behavior like this, it’s no wonder that more and more, FFLs and gun owners are assuming that the ATF isn’t interested in enforcing the law, but rather in shutting down licensees across the country. That’s essentially what’s at stake here for Adventure Outdoors – their business and livelihood. I don’t run a gun shop – but if I did, I’d think twice about going above and beyond to help them. I’d stick to the letter of the law, stay perfectly legal, but I wouldn’t do any extra work to help out ATF. Not if this is how they treat law-abiding firearms dealers.

Contact your Congressional representative and urge them to co-sponsor HR 4900, the BATFE Reform Bill.

Uncategorized

Podcast: Guns and games

Posted on by Caleb

Video games are a hobby of mine, not quite as near and dear to my heart as the shooting sports, but something I enjoy nonetheless.  That’s why today’s podcast talks about the often concerning convergence between the shooting sports and gamer culture.

[display_podcast]

If the embedded flash player doesn’t play the audio correctly, just hit the link labeled “download” to listen, or you can click this link to download it on iTunes. The embedded flash player doesn’t always like Internet Explorer 6, however audio should play fine in Firefox or Internet Explorer 7.

Uncategorized

Coyotes in the trees

Posted on by Caleb

It appears that coyotes are getting more and more comfortable around people, apparently having attacked some more kids in California.

Coyotes are starting to turn into a problem out here in Indiana as well; in an odd coincidence I saw one loping through the woods behind my house just this morning. There are running trails in those woods, and a lot of kids play back there as well. The comfortable nature of coyotes with people is one of the reasons that I carry when I go for walks with Mrs. Ahab – while I’m concerned about 2 legged predators, the reality of the thing is that I’m much more likely to confront a dangerous animal than I am a dangerous person.

I do agree with Uncle though; a 40 grain .22 in the head of a coyote is a lot less likely to upset the neighbors than a .204 Ruger or a .223 Remington R-15 VTR.  If you’re really cool, you could use a suppressed 9mm AR at short ranges to do the same job.

Uncategorized

Ready for Louisville?

Posted on by Caleb

The 2ABlogBash and NRA Annual Meetings start this week.  Because I have a Real Job(tm) and no one pays me 60k a year to blog about guns (yet), I’ll be leaving early Friday, Mrs. Ahab in tow to head down to Louisville for the Bash and Meetings.

My only regret is that I couldn’t get down there in time for the NRA-ILA Grassroots Workshop on Friday, unless I leave at like 0600 which I’ll never be able to convince Mrs. Ahab to do.  However, I will be in attendance when Sebastian is part of the “In their own words” Special session on Saturday.

handguns

Curse you Gander Mountain

Posted on by Caleb

You know, I’ve always wanted to say that – cackling super-villain style and shouting “Curse you Super-Guy!” always seemed like a lot of fun.

Of course, I’m not actually mad at Gander Mountain per se, it’s more that because of Gander Mountain I took an unplanned dig in to my firearms finances.  I had gone to the range to shoot this month’s e-postal match, and figured that a stop at Gander Mountain would be completely harmless.  Little did I know how wrong I was.

I was browsing the used gun case, when my eyes fell upon a used Beretta 950 Jetfire, the single-action .25 ACP pocket pistol that Beretta has made since the early 1950’s (1953, I think was the first year).  For the low, low sum of $169.99 plus tax, I could take this little pocket pistol home plus 4 magazines and a pocket holster.  With my known enjoyment of Beretta pocket guns (I own a 1919 .25 ACP and a 1935 .32 ACP), I figured “what the hell” and plunked down the plastic-fantastic.  A quick NICS check and some paperwork later, I was the proud papa of a brand-new-to-me Beretta.

The moral of the story is of course to never, ever go to Gander Mountain.  Or something like that.  You know, at the rate that I’m accumulating Berettas, you’d think I was collecting them or something.

blogs/news

Criminal Records

Posted on by Caleb

Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has had some excellent coverage of the situation around the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, and the predictable reaction of the local “leadership” and the media to use it as a rallying cry for gun control.

Today, he touches on a topic which neither the media nor the mayor’s office seem to be willing to bring to light, namely the extensive criminal records of the three scumbags who murdered the police officer.

Howard Cain was the trigger man in the Liczbinski murder.

…

On weapons charges alone, he could have done 12 years in prison, in which case he would not have been on the streets to kill a police officer.

That’s just one of the three, and each and every one of them had committed crimes that should have kept them off the streets permanently – those same crimes had also made it illegal for them to even posses a firearm.

But Mayor Nutter and the media don’t care about that; because despite the utter failing of gun control laws to prevent felons from getting guns they still want to pass more laws to restrict your liberties and your rights. They conveniently gloss over the fact that it was already illegal for any of these three to have a gun, or the fact that if we actually prosecuted people and locked people in jail for committing felonies, none of these animals would have been on the street to kill a police officer anyway.

The link above goes to the post at Sebastian’s – go read it. I must say though that if you’re like me, you’ll get pretty mad when you do. I was repulsed by the fact that the Philly media is putting the blame squarely on the gun, rather than on the shoulders of three career criminals, who were free to wander the streets due the failings of our justice system.