Gun Nuts Media

You’ve heard that line before from gun control advocates, that only the police are responsible enough to own firearms.

Then tell me exactly why the cowboys special agents at DEA are losing their guns at a record pace?

From 2002 to 2007, DEA lost 91 weapons, the audit found. The DEA isn’t always reporting the losses of weapons or laptop computers to the proper authorities, and when it does, it often comes weeks — even years — after the fact.

A couple of things from the article – first, I don’t want anyone to think that I’m cop bashing, because I’m not.  If you read the article, it lists a lot of the ways that weapons were lost, including weapons that were stolen out of agent’s vehicles – despite a DEA policy which states that agents are to not leave weapons unattended in vehicles.  The ways that agents are losing guns a lot of time is due to simple negligence – they’re not paying attention and leave their weapon in a restaurant or at the gym or something foolish.

While I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that law enforcement officers are being so irresponsible with their firearms, what I want to focus on is the nature of the mistakes.  The vast bulk of them are sheer forgetfulness, agents simply not paying enough attention to their surroundings and they forget their weapon.

As civilians, we can’t afford that level of inattention.  Think about how this article would have been written if CCW holders in, say, Texas were leaving guns in restaurants and theatres.  We don’t have the option to be negligent with our firearms, because the level of scrutiny on CCW holders is much higher.  Take that in light of how apparently easy it is for federal agents to forget their weapons, it is then incumbent on CCW holders to take extra precautions when in public to always be aware of where your carry gun is at all times.

Personal illustration: I was shopping with my wife a while back and she wanted me to try on some jeans.  I was carrying, so into the changing stall I go to try on the pants.  During the entire process, my holster came off my belt only to unwind the belt from my pants, and then immediately went back on the belt when I tried on the new pants.  The reason for this is two-fold: 1) I don’t want to be separated from my gun in a public area like that, 2) I wouldn’t wear pants if they didn’t fit while I was carrying.

We can’t afford to be like the DEA on issues like this; the last thing that the concealed carry movement can afford is an ABC News article about “Concealed carry permit holders leaving guns everywhere”.

Under the sun.  I know I don’t normally lead blog posts with scripture, but in this case it’s particularly applicable to the subject at hand, which is my recent historical fascination with the Mexican-American War.

It started when I was traveling, I was reading Gods and Generals, Jeff Shaara’s book about the Civil War, which had a lot of references to the Mexican-American war, as most of the soldiers were veterans of the earlier conflict.  Then I read Gone for Soldiers, by the same author which is about the Mexican-American conflict.  The alternate explanation for why I got so interested in the that war would be that I was looking for information on Walker Colts.  Either is just as likely.

I could write an entire series of posts on the Mexican-American war, the politics, the tactics, the weapons, and how it set the stage for the Civil War; for whatever reason the US-Mexico war is often overlooked in history, I remember our studies of it at the Academy consisted roughly of “in between the War of 1812 and the Civil War we invaded Mexico and pretty much beat their ass and now we have California”.  Not that I’m slighting LT Whatever-her-name-was’ teaching abilities, but for a war that was as significant as the Mexican War, it does get glossed over a lot.

What has become most fascinating to me, and is also the inspiration for the title of this blog post, is the international and US media coverage of the war in Mexico.  The war with Mexico was relatively unpopular in a lot of circles, and the administration was accused in both US and international papers as waging a “bully’s war” on Mexico, all for the sake of a land grab.  If I were to dumb the language down to modern standards and replace the word “land” with “oil” and “Mexico” with “Iraq”, it would be like reading the New York times from yesterday.  There are even letters to the editor and editorials that essentially say “we support the troops but we hate their mission”.

Of course, the other interesting aspect of the anti-war movement in the 1840s is that it was led primarily by the Whig Party, with the Democrats of the time largely in support of the war and the policy of Manifest Destiny.  Of course, 1840 was a long time before the political landscape of today, but I find it ironic that Democrats were all in favor of prosecuting the war, and the roughly political predecessors of the Republican party where opposed to the war (I know that the Republican party didn’t descend directly from the Whigs, but a good chunk of the Whig voting base formed the eventual Republican base – ed).

Just to give an idea of how nothing really changes, here’s a quote from noted anti-war activist Joshua Giddings regarding the Mexican American conflict:

In the murder of Mexicans upon their own soil, or in robbing them of their country, I can take no part either now or here-after.

Replace “Mexican” with “Iraqi” and “country” with “oil”, and it would sound like Cindy Sheehan, wouldn’t it?  Party alignments may change, but it seems that 200 years later the rhetoric is still the same.

Apparently in Ireland people can’t stand that a shop has opened up which sells airsoft guns, presumably because if it looks like a gun, it must be bad.

A shop selling realistic imitation guns ranging from assault rifles to pistols has opened in Co Wicklow despite local concerns about the growing levels of gun crime.

They do say later in the article that the guns available in the shop are airsoft guns, so they do try (sort of) to clarify that the shop isn’t actually selling “assault rifles”, but still.

Now, this made seem odd in light of the post right under this, but the difference between the posts is that I don’t have a problem with people playing airsoft, but I want it done safely.   I think the kind of hysteria that you’re seeing over a shop that sells airsoft is just ludicrous.

The problem here isn’t the guns, it’s well, it’s the problem with Great Britian at large; there’s no longer any interest in dealing with criminals, they’d rather just slap them on the wrist and “rehabilitate” people than actually take measures to reduce crime.  And of course, because the people seem to have lost the spirit that they were famous for, they’re all on board for this.