2ndAmendment – Page 4

Beards, Tattoos and Other Tactical Crap

It’s long been known by shooting industry insiders that certain personal attributes give you a distinct tactical edge over your opponent. These items in combination can turn someone with even minimal skills into a full-fledged operator. At the top of the list are tactical beards and tactical tattoos, followed closely by a whole litany of tactical kit. As we explore these secrets in greater detail, please note this is for tactical operating only. Competitive shooters have a whole different list of crap to make them shoot better.

Take a look at some of the biggest and baddest in the tactical industry and you’ll start to notice some subtle differences about these uber-badass shooters. It’s not just that they can shoot the eyes out of an ISIS terrorist at 100 yards, one handed, while riding a Harley down a cobblestone street, that’s a given. It’s those secret personal pluses they bring to the game.

Starting with the most obvious, it’s the tactical beard. A full and glorious beard, the fuller the better is a key element for tactical operations. Note that mustaches only, unkempt stubble and those little strands that dangle delicately from the bottom of the chin provide no tactical advantages, even if it did take you a lifetime to grow it. On the other end of the spectrum, tactical beards do NOT flow to your beltline or resemble anyone in ZZ Top. If you hide your jug or store your lunch in it, it’s not a tactical beard.

Next in line are tattoos. Generally the more the better, but it’s got to be the right kind of ink to make you a better shooter. Teddy bears, unicorns and Disney characters are out. Weaponry, gun logos (except Hi-Point, that’ll just get you fragged) and anything Spartan are good. These tactical tattoos don’t have to be completely visible, but they have to show enough in public to be effective. Unless you only plan on fighting on a nude beach, keep the good stuff out of the crotch region. Face tattoos while very visible only help if you’re shooting gangsta style. Hey, I don’t make up the rules.

Then there’s the other stuff, most commonly know as “kit”. Having the right kit is critical for tactical superiority. Leather used to be in, but scientific research has proven it only beneficial to cowboy action shooters now. Kydex is good, but it will only get you so far. To reach the highest level, you’ve got to have heavy-duty nylon and molle gear, lots & lots of molle gear. And on that molle gear you’ve got to mount everything in your armory. Yea, that’s right, you have an armory and you carry it with you as your EDC.

So what if you can’t quite pull off the tactical trifecta of beard-tattoo-kit for some reason. Maybe you just can’t grow a beard, are allergic to ink or can’t afford the right kit. Is there any hope for you or are you just going to be a sucker waiting to get picked off drinking a Unicorn Frappuccino? Well good news! There’s one last chance to make you a better shooter.

GET YOUR ASS TO THE RANGE AND PRACTICE!!!

Seriously, did we have to go through all of that to get your attention? Facial hair, tattoos and accessories may get you extra tacti-cool points, but beyond that mean diddly-squat. Stop looking for shortcuts!! What you really need is practice, practice, and more damn practice.

Go shoot already!

Bob

#oddstuffing, #tacticalbeard, #tacticaltattoo, #tacticalkit, # tacticaltrifecta, #SecondAmendment, #RightToBearArms, #PRACTICE, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

A Tale Of Two Guns

Two unassuming firearms start out their lives together, one right after the other on the assembly line. They are nearly identical, but they are very, very different. The first one, serial number Nug667, is a good gun, destined for a life of service and protection. The other one, serial number Nug666, is a bad gun. It is pure evil and desires only to cause pain to innocent lives. Their lives take very different paths until the night they come back together again.

It is a day like most others at the factory. Firearms coming together from the various pieces and parts until they take their final functional form. At the end of the line, they are test fired and boxed, awaiting shipment to a distributor, then retailer and their new owners. Nug667 performed admirably in all the tests, as did Nug666. But even the highly experienced assembly and test workers couldn’t figure out what was off about it, so it was readied for shipping.

Once at the gun shop, Nug667 is pulled aside for a new hire at the local police department. They chose it because the serial number would match the new recruit’s badge number, 667. It would be a good omen. The recruit takes his new service weapon and attends the police academy. He is taught marksmanship, use of force and maintenance with it. He excels in all the shooting courses and takes impeccable care of his new firearm. Upon graduation, officer 667 and Nug667 hit the streets together.

Like most officers’ firearms, they are rarely fired in the course of their work. This was the case of Nug667. While it was drawn on a number of felony stops and arrests, the offenders chose to surrender instead of shooting it out with the police. Still Nug667 saw plenty of use during required police training and officer 667’s own practice. As it was in the academy, it was well cared for, dutifully cleaned and parts replaced when needed.

Nug666 was different. Customers at the gun shop could tell something wasn’t right with it and all passed it over. It sat for months and months, far longer than any like it. When it was finally bought, the purchaser ‘looked’ normal, but had other intentions. All of the forms were filled out and the questions answered correctly. Identification presented was genuine and the background check on the purchaser came back clear. By outward appearance and demeanor, the purchaser did everything right. Nug666 was packaged up and delivered, nobody realizing it had committed its first crime. For this was a straw purchase, someone with a clean record buying a firearm for someone else. In this case, the “someone else” was a convicted felon who would not be able to legally buy or possess a firearm. Later that evening Nug666 was handed over to the felon in exchange for a quantity of drugs, the felon’s preferred method of commerce. With the exchange, Nug666 commits more crimes and becomes involved in the community’s drug trade.

Over the next several years, Nug666 accompanies its felon owner on many drug purchases and deliveries. It is carried into numerous burglaries and used to rob several stores, being aimed at defenseless clerks. Beyond the initial few rounds the felon took to the woods and fired into the trees, Nug666 wasn’t fired at all. Still, it amassed a huge list of crimes where it was used for intimidation. It looked much older since it was never cleaned and often times stored loose under car seats, in trucks and even for a while in a ditch when the felon thought he was going to be stopped.

Then late one night, a store in this city was robbed at gunpoint. The frightened clerk doesn’t move fast enough and is shot. Nug666 now adds murder to its long list of crimes. The felon jumps in his car and takes off. A short distance away Officer 667 pulls the car over and orders the felon out of the car, Nug667 pointing at the driver. The felon jumps out of the car and pulls Nug666 out of his waistband as he charges towards the officer. A single shot rings out.

Of course all of the above is nothing but a fable. Not because of the actions; these play out every day in cities and towns across our country. It is fiction because there is no such thing as a good or evil gun. Every firearm ever made is nothing more than a mechanical object. It has no soul, no will and no intent of its own. It is simply a tool to be used by a human. It can be used by an officer or law-abiding citizen to protect and preserve life, or it can be used by a criminal to take an innocent one.

Many in our society blame the gun, the inanimate object, for the crime, violence and death. They say if it weren’t for availability of guns, these things would go away. What they forget is evil intent will always find a way as it always has. In areas where guns are not allowed, criminals can always get and use them. And when they can’t, they use knives, hammers, bats, vehicles, bombs or their own fists and feet to commit those crimes, violence and death.

Guns are not the problem; criminals are the problem. Until we stop blaming an object and hold criminals fully accountable for their actions; crime, violence and death will never go away.

Bob

#oddstuffing, #SecondAmendment, #RightToBearArms, #CrimeAndViolence, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

Is California Too Far Gone To Save?

I met up with a very good friend a short time ago and we began discussing the current state of affairs in California as it relates to firearms. As optimistic as we tried to be, the outlook for law-abiding firearms owners here is dismal. Even with the shift in leadership at the national level and a new Associate Supreme Court Justice, can we reasonably expect anything to change here?

California, better known to us behind enemy lines as Kalifornistan, is infamous for infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens while simultaneously granting more rights to those who break the law. For firearm owners and Second Amendment supporters, it’s the worst of the worst. New laws targeting “dangerous loopholes” in public safety inexplicably impact only the law-abiding and do absolutely nothing to reduce crime or punish criminals.

Perhaps you’ve seen the latest NRA ad for the West coast: Don’t Give Up On California—The NRA Hasn’t. The accompanying photo shows a massive NRA banner strung across the Golden Gate Bridge. Photoshop of course since this state would literally explode if that ever happened. The point of the promotion is that the NRA is fighting to restore our Second Amendment rights in the state. Sadly, the key word here is “restore”. So many of our firearm rights are already gone, whittled away bit by bit by fringe politicians, gun grabbing elitists and activist jurists who have no regard for the rule of law or the Constitution.

Many Californians are justifiably upset with the NRA and other national advocacy groups for seemingly abandoning the state in the run-up to the 2016 elections. Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely understand the need to focus on national races for the good of the entire country. It’s just a little hard for us living in occupied territory to feel the joy when nothing seems to trickle into our state. We see strong Second Amendment support all over the country including more states adopting constitutional carry and fortifying firearm ownership rights. Meanwhile, we can’t buy the latest and safest firearms, use or keep our standard capacity magazines and will have to surrender our modern sporting rifles or bastardize them beyond recognition in order to not register them on the pre-confiscation list. Never mind that soon we’ll need an ammunition-purchasing license for in-state only ammo purchases and point-of-sale background checks.

We are at a severe disadvantage in this state since we as firearm owners can’t seem to come together as a group to stop the laws before they are created. Those who wish to see every California resident disarmed (except the government, the elitists’ bodyguards and the criminals) own a super majority in the both the chambers of the state legislature as well as the Governor’s mansion. Opposition to any measure of gun control/gun elimination is dealt with swiftly and decisively. Rules and procedures are changed as needed to keep dissent – and accountability – out and ensure the party platform is enacted.

Our only recourse now is through the courts. As history has shown us, fighting a law AFTER the fact is always going to be more difficult, more time consuming, more expensive and far less certain than stopping a bad idea before it becomes law. Even the most egregious, Constitutionally infringing law is going to take years to wind its way through the state and federal courts. Each appeal costs more and more with no guarantee of even being granted a hearing much less a favorable outcome with the Supreme Court, no matter who sits on it.

The result is what you would expect. Just as more companies are leaving this state due to the unfavorable tax and regulatory environment here, Second Amendment supporters are leaving as well. And quite honestly, who can blame them? Why live in a state that treats you like the next mass killer in waiting – while apparently rewarding criminals for breaking the law? Even worse than losing their vote, we’re losing their ability to be a positive Second Amendment supporter role model in their community.

Is California too far gone to save? I certainly hope not. This isn’t some theoretical ideology from a bygone era we are fighting for; it’s about our ability to protect our lives and the lives of our loved ones, in a state that doesn’t care about our rights or our lives.

Bob

#oddstuffing, #2A, #SecondAmendment, #RightToBearArms, #GunRights, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

Twenty-Seven Words of Freedom

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution is a mere 27 words long, yet it is unquestionably the most intensely debated, contested, misinterpreted and abused of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Recklessly maligned as being out of date in our modern times, it remains one of the fundamental protections for our nation, now as it was then.

Adopted on December 15, 1791 with the other nine initial Amendments, the Second Amendment reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

One of the most widespread misconceptions about the Second Amendment is that it grants the right to bear arms. In reality, it does nothing of the kind. It merely protects that right. The right to bear arms is considered a natural right, one that is not dependent on the laws or customs of any culture or government. Rights of this kind are also called inalienable or even god given rights, inherent to all persons.

If you read the text of the Bill of Rights, you will find that all of the Amendments are there to protect the individual rights, not to grant them. And, just as critical is who they protect these rights from; the government. The Bill of Rights are not a limitation on what the “people” can do, but on what the government cannot do.

The concept of the protection applying to the “people” is where the Second Amendment is often attacked. Since the prefatory clause says “A well regulated Militia”, it is argued the operative clause protecting the right only applies to the militia. However, as with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the rights protected are all individual – the people – rights.

It is also said that the Founding Fathers could never have foreseen the power of modern weaponry and that they only intended individuals to own muskets for hunting. In reality, muskets were the modern ‘weapons of war’ issued to the military and far more advanced firearms were already available. And just as our First Amendment protected rights today are not limited to what is expressed with a quill and inkwell or a hand-operated press, the Second Amendment is not limited to what was available at the time it was written.

My argument for the Second Amendment in modern times centers on the context of when it was written. Otherwise known as originalism or textualism, it is that the interpretation should be based on what the common understanding of the text to be at the time it was written. Naturally this view is hotly debated. Judges, lawyers, politicians, professors, legal scholars and even our own Supreme Court are not united on this view, much less how the Second Amendment protections should be applied.

I at least choose to believe the Founding Father’s vision for the nation and that for over 225 years, the Second Amendment protection of the right to bear arms, whether or not formally recognized by a court ruling, has applied to the individual, to the people.

The debate and the struggle over the Second Amendment will likely go on long after I am dead and buried. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. As each new generation comes forward, it’s important to have a contemporary recap of the principles that brought us to this point as well as a reminder of how protecting these rights is essential in modern society.

We cannot take for granted the rights that our ancestors fought and died for. We cannot let our rights be stripped away by politically correct thinking or by the elite who are willing to sacrifice the populous so that they can have more power and control. We cannot let our lives or the lives of our families to be offered up to those who would do us harm without a fight.

This is why I fight for those twenty-seven words of freedom known as the Second Amendment.

Bob

#oddstuffing, #secondamendment, #2A, #Constitution, #BillOfRights, #27wordsoffreedom, #gunright, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

Law Abiding Victims

As law-abiding firearm owners, we relentlessly monitor the law in order to keep ourselves on the legal of the fence. That’s no easy feat in places like California where the steady influx of new laws, updated old laws, and changing administrative rules flow faster than our tax dollars down the drain. But what happens to our law-abiding status when the laws specifically target us instead of the criminals?

The political types like to say they are tough on crime and are all about “public safety”. The problem is, what they SAY is completely opposite from what they DO. While espousing public safety, California has decreased the penalties for breaking the law. Proposition 47 reclassified many crimes as misdemeanors and as a result put more criminals back on the streets and increased the crime rate in every city and town in the state. Proposition 57 redefined crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon, rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving sex act with minors, drive-by shootings and assault with a deadly weapon on peace officer as “non-violent” felonies eligible for early release.

So that’s how the State treats criminals. How do they treat the law-abiding citizenry? Proposition 63 makes it a crime to import ammunition into the state, creates a licensing and background check system for every ammo purchase and takes away grandfathered standard capacity magazines, all perfectly legal today. The 2016 Gunmageddon Laws also redefined currently legal firearms as so-called “assault weapons” that must be registered or disposed of.

What impact will these laws have on criminals? To people who don’t obey the law, the new laws will have zero negative impact. It will only make it harder for the law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from criminals who aren’t following the law anyway.

Since the government is taking away your ability to defend yourself, they will protect you, right? Not exactly. While many police departments have a motto similar to the Los Angeles Police’s “To Protect and To Serve”, the truth of the matter is they have no duty to protect you.

In 2005 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm. This case involved a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband, making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

Now I can tell you as a former law enforcement officer, I most certainly considered it my solemn duty to protect the public and I did absolutely everything in my power to do so. Of the officers I worked with over the years, I am confident they would say the same. However the harsh reality of the police work is that but for the one in a million fluke of incredible luck, you will not have an officer there to protect you when you need one. There simply can never be enough law enforcement presence to accomplish that. The absolute best the police can do is respond AFTER the fact.

See the previous Odd Stuffing post on law enforcement response times: When Seconds Count at: http://oddstuffing.com/archives/53

So where does that leave us? If the police can not be there to protect you, and have no legal duty to provide protection to you – the very same agencies who will not grant you a concealed carry permit because they deem your need for self protection to not be greater than what is met by current police services – the law-abiding become a by-product of gun control with no means of redress.

Gun control’s inevitable end result is just one thing, law-abiding victims.

Bob

#oddstuffing, #secondamendment, #righttobeararms, #guncontrolvictims, #lawabidingvictims, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

What Have YOU Done Lately To Support The Second Amendment?

The 2016 General Election let us all give a little sigh of relief. With a House, Senate and White House who are NOT actively trying to destroy law-abiding citizens right to own and bear arms, we are feeling a lot more secure about the Second Amendment’s survival. But this isn’t the time to stop our efforts. Every day around the nation there are those who would strip your rights away and it’s up to YOU to stop it.

Please note I’m not suggesting anyone drop everything in his or her life and become a full time lobbyist. That’s not even remotely possible for most of us . But just because we don’t advocate Second Amendment rights as our full time profession doesn’t mean we can’t make a meaningful impact.

Making a difference can be as simple as calling or writing a letter to your elected officials. Yes, some of us live in highly non-firearm permissive states where our elected officials are doing everything in their power to strip our rights away, but they still need to hear our voices. The NRA and most of the affiliated state organizations and advocacy groups make it as easy for you as can be. Just go to their website, fill out your information and hit send. It’s that easy.

Now, if you still think that writing a letter or placing a call will get you on a ‘list’, I’ve got some bad news for you. You’re already on that list. If you’ve ever bought a firearm, ammunition, a firearm related magazine, book, etc. etc. etc., no doubt you are on someone’s ‘list’. Among the approximately 320 million people in the United States, there are an estimated 350 million legally owned firearms, so embrace the ‘list’, you are in good company. And unless your last name is LaPierre or Nugent, writing a letter or calling your elected official to tell them to support the Second Amendment isn’t going to move you up.

No matter what, the most positive thing we can all do is to lead by example. For law-abiding firearms owners, that means acting responsibly with our firearms. Every stupid or inconsiderate incident a firearm owner is involved in becomes fodder for the gun-grabbing elitists. They use it as part of their false “no guns are safe” narrative and advocate for more gun control and ultimately gun elimination.

Be responsible and live the Four Rules of Gun Safety every day.

Treat all firearms as if they were loaded.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
Never place your finger on the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to fire.
Know your target, what is in front of it and what is beyond it.

If you haven’t taught your children about firearm safety, now is a good time. The NRA’s Eddie Eagle program (https://eddieeagle.nra.org) is great for Pre-K through 4th graders. The National Shooting Shorts Foundation’s (NSSF) Project ChildSafe Video on Talking to Kids about Gun Safety (http://www.nssfblog.com/new-project-childsafe-video-on-talking-to-kids-about-gun-safety/) is also a great resource.

Many of us live in a community or work in a job where even discussing firearms is taboo and could get you ostracized or fired. It’s not right, but it happens. If that’s your situation, you can still make a difference. You can donate to an advocacy organization or do something as simple as taking a friend to the range and showing them what a law-abiding firearm owner is all about. This simple demonstration of responsibility may be all it takes to change someone’s mind.

So I ask, what have YOU done lately to support the Second Amendment?

Bob

#oddstuffing, #2ndAmendment, #2A, #billofrights, #nra, #nssf, #gunrights, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

The Future of Gun Control in California

Like many who support the Second Amendment and live in an anti-Constitution / anti-firearm state, I tend to keep an eye on what is happening in the state capitol. Every little bit of gun control legislation brings us closer to their goal of complete civilian disarmament. So why I wondered are there so few gun control bills pending this year? The answer to what will be enacted in the future is what was proposed in the past.

Sure, there are a few pending slaps in the face like expanding the ‘one handgun per month’ limitation to ‘one firearm per month’ – which would include party-to-party transfers. I’m sure we’ll also see a few “gut and amend” surprises towards the end of the legislative session. Just enough to keep the pro-rights groups engaged in the here and now. But compared to past years, there seems to be very few new bills. Why? Remember, California is in this for the long haul, whittling rights away one-by-one. Last year’s Gunmageddon was only the setup for what is to come.

One previously proposed bill was for all center-fire, semi-automatic magazine fed long guns to be classified as so-called “assault weapons”. Why isn’t it being pushed now? Simple, the new bullet-button assault weapon law doesn’t go into full effect until the beginning of 2018. At that time, all bullet button firearms must be registered as “assault weapons”, have their evil features removed, be removed from the state or turned in to law enforcement. Since they have not published the administrative rules for this yet, law-abiding firearm owners are trying to decide whether to register their evil featured firearms or go featureless without the regulations to guide them.

My prediction is that in 2018 this dilemma will be solved for us. After the deadline for registering all bullet button firearms has passed, all center-fire, semi-automatic magazine fed long guns will then be classified as “assault weapons”, with the same mandatory registration or remove rules. As horrific as that sounds, rimfire will most likely be added to the “assault weapon” category following that like they are in other states. Only when the most comprehensive list of registered “assault weapons” is compiled will the final step be taken – the outright ban of all registered “assault weapons”.

What, did you expect they’d keep their promise that if you registered them you’d be able to keep them? Did you forget about all those pre-ban standard capacity magazines they said you could keep – and you now need to get rid of by July 1, 2017?

And if you thought Proposition 63’s and / or SB 1235’s ammunition buying license and background checks were bad, what it enables is worse. Previous proposals to limit the amount of ammunition you could purchase would have been impossible to enforce before. With a new central database of all ammo purchases, adding a limit will be a breeze and just another “common sense” restriction. These laws also enable limiting you to purchase ammunition for only those firearm calibers you have registered with the State. This helps to achieve the full gun registry the State wants AND limits the ammo you can buy to only what the State knows about.

California and other anti-firearm states have learned from their mistakes and are systematically restricting and eliminating our rights one piece at a time. Every law, every regulation, every rule is now designed to be built upon by the next level of Constitutional infringements.

Welcome to the future of gun control in California.

Bob

#oddstuffing, #guncontrol, #secondamendment, #constitution, #gunrights, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

Of Governments & Guns

I’ve never quite understood government’s fascination with gun control. Having lived most of my pre-California life in Vermont and Texas, the People’s Republik of Kalifornistan’s obsession with eliminating personally owned firearms confounded me. Under the notion that understanding the problem is the first step to solving it, I’ve developed my theory of governments and guns.

Big governments don’t just dislike guns; they hate them. They hate them so much, they don’t want you to have them. But it is a contradictory opposition. They don’t completely oppose guns, only the ones they don’t have. It is of course all about power and control.

To understand this relationship, I needed to step back and look at the goal of big government. From what I’ve seen, the goal is simply to be bigger, the bigger the better.

Why have a 10-person department when you can have 100? If a one million dollar budget is good, a 10 million dollar one is even better. If there is something you can do that isn’t being done now, do it! It doesn’t matter if the actual need isn’t there, is duplicated, triplicated or more elsewhere. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t actually work or people don’t want it. It doesn’t matter if it can be done cheaper and better by someone else. And it certainly doesn’t matter if doing it causes more problems than it creates, you can always create a new solution to the problem you just created! The more budget and personnel you have, the more power you have.

But that is only half the equation. The other half is controlling as much of peoples lives as possible. How does a government do that? Easy, you try to solve any problem you can think of, even if it’s not really a problem or – and this one is key – if you were the one who caused the problem in the first place. The more “solutions” you can provide services for, the more control of lives you can achieve. Every aspect of your waking life can be subjected to the state’s control. Once you get a hook in somewhere, it’s easy to increase or adjust the control to your desired effect through additional administrative regulations. The devil is always in the details.

So where do guns come into this equation? Simply put, firearms allow individuals to control one of the most basic elements of their lives; their own personal safety and the safety of their families. Eliminate the ability of individuals to defend themselves, and they become more reliant on the state.

If you want to see what happens when you eliminate lawfully owned firearms, look no further than the failed social experiments in the United Kingdom and Australia. After declaring virtually every lawfully owned firearm an unacceptable public safety risk – since everyone with a firearm is on the verge of a shooting spree at any time – and regulating the remaining ones nearly out of existence, defending yourself from violence was essentially outlawed. What was the result? Increases in violent crime and more helpless victims. And what of the guns? The criminals still have them; they never bought into this whole disarmament thing. And being criminals, they can always get more. Don’t believe it? Take a look at how many firearms are recovered from criminals by the police in the UK and Australia every single day.

So where does a disarmed public turn to for help? Since personally owned firearms are no longer an option, remember – every firearm owner is a threat to public safety in the eyes of the state; they turn to the government. As crime goes up, the public demands safety. This means more taxes for more police, more courts, more prisons, more victims programs, more rehabilitation programs, more drug programs, more education programs, more administrators, more regulators… more government.

The government will never and can never be there to protect you, only scoop up the pieces into to a long plastic bag. Disarming law-abiding citizens only turns them into law-abiding victims. When we allow our right to defend ourselves and our families to be stripped away, relying solely on the government to provide for us in every situation, we give up more than our safety and security, we give up our freedom.

Bob

#oddstuffing, #secondamendment, #guncontrol, #biggovernment, #safetyandsecurity, #mewe, #medium, #instagram, #oddstuffing.com

More Gun Control, Cali Style

As if last year’s Gunmageddon laws and Prop 63 weren’t enough for California, they are back at it this year proposing even more draconian gun control measures which do nothing to fight crime or increase public safety, only punish the law abiding. As evidence, I give you Senator Anthony Portantino’s SB 497 changing the limit of one handgun a month to one firearm a month.

The Senator’s rational is this will close a so-called “loophole” by including long guns in a monthly buying limit. He argues there is no reason why someone would need to buy more than one long gun each month. The direct quote: “This is not the Wild West,” he said. “California’s in the 21st century, and you shouldn’t be able to walk into a gun store and come out with an arsenal.”

Here is my very personal reason why I oppose this.

My wife is the director for our county’s Women on Target program. For those of you who don’t know about NRA’s Women on Target, it is a program dedicated to providing women with a safe, friendly and fun introduction to recreational shooting. The program here is a small one; this will be its third year with three to four events per year. It is a 100% volunteer, bootstrapped effort. With materials from the Women of the NRA and together with a training company that offers its resources, our local range providing the facility and a local restaurant providing lunch for the participants and the many volunteers – oh yes, the wonderful volunteers! Men and women from the community who provide their time, expertise and kindness to help local women of all ages learn about firearms and safety.

Previously the program was able to borrow the firearms needed to run the clinics from friends and families. Now California says the only way you can loan a firearm to anyone other than a small list of immediate family members is for the loaner and loanee to go to the local gun shop, pay $35, the state mandated fee for a party-to-party transfer, and wait ten days just like a normal firearm purchase. Getting it back to the original loaner is $35 and ten more days.

Since borrowing under these circumstances is cost prohibitive and time consuming, and having a hodgepodge of whatever the instructors and volunteers can bring isn’t effective for education, it means acquiring them. The good news in this situation is a very generous grant pending from the Northern California Friends of the NRA. However since firearms in California must be registered to an individual, not a company, trust or non-profit, the plan for the program is for firearms to be registered to my wife. That way if she is ill, traveling or otherwise unable to attend a clinic, as one of the volunteers I can still ‘borrow’ them for the event using the family loaning exception.

On the list of pending purchases are 13 firearms, eight of them handguns. Under the current one handgun a month law, even splitting registration between the two of us will take four months, eight months if they are all in her name. Under the proposed one firearm a month law, seven months split, 13 months if they all are registered to her.

This Women On Target program isn’t the only one impacted. Even long running training and educational programs that have enough firearms still need to be sure the registered owner is with the firearms during training to not run afoul of the new loaning laws. Acquiring replacements or additional firearms puts them in the same position of having to wait months to years to replace or expand inventory.

It is already illegal to buy a firearm for someone else. It is already illegal to give someone a firearm without doing a legal transfer. It is already illegal to use a firearm in the commission of a crime, to say nothing about committing the crime in the first place and the host of other crimes that come along with it. How is making legal purchases illegal, going to make anyone safer?

If California spent their time and money enforcing the laws already in place, punishing those who break those laws and keeping them incarcerated instead of letting them out early to prey on the public, instead of creating new laws targeting law abiding citizens, the crime rate would actually go down.

What California is doing is obvious and inevitable. Each incremental, “common sense” gun control law that further restricts only the activity of law abiding citizens is another step towards the eventual goal of no firearms in private hands in California.

So congratulations California! You’ve made it more difficult to teach women in our county about safety and responsible firearms usage, as well as categorizing my wife’s volunteer educational activity as amassing an “arsenal”.

Welcome to Gun Control, Cali Style.

Bob

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Firearm or Tomahawk?

A news story from my former home state of Vermont last week highlighted how a homeowner successfully used a tomahawk to fight back against a homeless man armed with a rifle who broke into his house. Major kudus to the homeowner for using the tools at his immediate disposal. However, I question the media outlets that choose to publish this story, but never report on successful, law-abiding citizens using firearms to defend themselves.

Granted this was an interesting story due to the unusual choice of self-defense weapon. There are scattered stories every year from around the country of people defending themselves with everything from a katana to a frying pan. Again, major kudos for anyone who takes care of business with whatever they have at hand. The problem I have with these unique news stories is they are used by the anti-gun extremists to prove the point that the average citizen does not need firearms.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for using improvised weaponry in a pinch when your life is on the line. But is that really what you want to bet your life on? Sure, some very highly trained people can slay their enemy with a MRE spoon, but there aren’t a lot of instructors training the proper use of a modern tomahawk for self-defense.

For many law-abiding citizens in this country, the home defensive weapon of choice is a firearm. The right choice between a handgun, rifle and shotgun depends on a number of factors, but a firearm allows even someone with a very small stature to effectively defend themselves from the largest home invader or invaders.

There are an estimated 350 million legally owned firearms in the United States. With record sales in 2015 and 2016, that number continues to grow. And while the number of criminal uses of firearms is closely tracked and often exaggerated by the media and gun control lobby, the number of defensive uses of firearms barely gets a mention. The gun banners contend defensive firearms use does not happen at all or the incidents are statistically insignificant. However, the best estimates indicate there are between one to two million lawful defensive uses of firearms – outnumbering felonious uses by 30 to 80 to one. In the majority of lawful defensive firearms uses, the firearm is not even discharged.

I will admit that a firearm is not always going to be the best defensive choice for everyone. While I have seen men, women and children (yes, under adult supervision) of all sizes, in all physical conditions, from professional athletes to those confined to wheelchairs, use firearms effectively, there are some who simply may not have the physical strength or agility to use one safely.

There are also those who do not wish to use firearms because they do not want to take a life. They would prefer to use a “less deadly” option such as a knife or bat. While I would never criticize or disparage anyone who does not wish to take another human life, I would also point out that knives or baseball bats are considered deadly weapons and are just as capable of taking a life as a firearm. In fact, they are used far more often to kill in this country than the so-called “assault weapons” the gun banners are trying to outlaw.

My point for all this is simple. Your choice of what you defend your home and family with, or what you use to defend your life and the lives of your family outside your home, should be yours and yours alone. You should be able to choose the tool that best meets your needs, which you can train with and be confident in using in every situation.

Your choice should NOT be made for you by someone who believes you should use a tomahawk instead of a firearm.

Bob

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