Policemen Who Didn't Shoot

Interesting sidelight on the terrorists' attacks in India...the case of the policemen who didn't shoot back...this from Neoneocon:

Photographer Sebastian D’Souza, who was able to take a photo of one of the armed terrorists in the train station in Mumbai, also described the events he witnessed there. One puzzling—not to mention profoundly troubling—aspect of his report was the following [emphasis mine]:

But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much [as the terrorists’ rampage] were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

…The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit…Mr D’Souza added: “I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.”

Neoneo does a nice job of analysis, but it's worth noting that this is consistent with David Grossman's theses from ON KILLING. Police...even paramilitary police special units...don't have or should have the same conditioning (for lack of a better word) as military troops. Police also have, quite correctly, a huge, huge aversion to civilian casualties. Still, as seen in Mumbai, it's a weakenss that terrorists didn't hesitate to exploit.

A Few Thoughts on Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Not the Matthew Bracken books, which I really liked, but on the terrorists attacks in India. Interesting paradigm, as described extremely lucidly by Mark Steyn on NRO:

They launched a multiple indiscriminate assault on soft targets, and then in the confusion began singling out A-list prey: Not just wealthy Western tourists, but local orthodox Jews, and municipal law enforcement. They drew prominent officials to selected sites, and then gunned down the head of the antiterrorism squad and two of his most senior lieutenants. They attacked a hospital, the place you’re supposed to take the victims to, thereby destabilizing the city’s emergency-response system.

And, aside from dozens of corpses, they were rewarded with instant, tangible, economic damage to India: the Bombay Stock Exchange was still closed on Friday, and the England cricket team canceled their tour (a shameful act).

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower. Given the numbers of gunmen, clearly there was a significant local component. On the other hand, whether or not Pakistan’s deeply sinister ISI had their fingerprints all over it, it would seem unlikely that there was no external involvement. After all, if you look at every jihad front from the London Tube bombings to the Iraqi insurgency, you’ll find local lads and wily outsiders: That’s pretty much a given.

There's some other good analysis on the Web (like this from the Canadian National Post), but the short form is that the India attacks are a new paradigm — low-cost, low-tech, high effectiveness.

I've been rereading The Prince, the compendium of Jerry Pournelle's Falkenberg Legion saga sliced, diced and repackaged by Pournelle and S. M. Stirling, maybe the best SF writer currently working. It is a wonderful lesson in Terrorism 101, how and why it works and how it might be fought. Obviously, the basic premise — the U.S. and Russia combine forces to rule the earth and colony star systems as the CoDominium — has been overcome by events, but much of the military writing, as updated in 2002 by Pournelle and Stirling, read like headlines. If times produce the man, these times call for John Christian Falkenberg!

Midway USA AR mags...

...on sale!

Midway's AR-Stoner mag are on sale for $9.99 a pop. They have 20 rounders in stock, with a shipment of 30 rounders due on 12/07.

Midway sent me 2 20 rounders for T&E last week. I just bought 10 more. Says it all...


-- Post From My iPhone

Another Reason to Ask Santa for an iPhone

A full-featured ballistics calculator, titled (appropriately) iSnipe!:

iSnipe is the first and only ballistics calculator for the iPhone and iPod touch. Based on the excellent GNU Exterior Ballistics Library, iSnipe generates accurate 3-DOF solutions for small arms trajectories, including corrections for pitch, yaw and wind conditions.

Simply put; a ballistics computer is a calculator used to predict any bullets path/energy/wind-drift/etc… For shooting enthusiasts, this means the ability to pre-determine how, where and at what speeds your bullets will fly, before you even load your gun.

Created with ease of use in mind, iSnipe is the perfect companion for any gun aficionado, competition shooter, or even law-enforcement officer... It's just that accurate. With all the ingredients you'd expect from a portable ballistics calculator, including the ability to save and load ballistic profiles, automatic save of form values and all the other features you'd expect from an integrated iPhone app, there is no better way to get on target every time. Finally there is a portable desktop quality application that we can all take along with us to the range.

Of course, you've already downloaded SureFire's free shot timer ap!

Amazing! You can calculate bullet drop while listening to Chinese Democracy!

Chicago & the Second Amendment

This from the Chicago Tribune:

When it comes to firearms, Mayor Richard Daley is no slave to rationality. "Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society?" he asked after the ruling came down. "Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, where you have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle it in the streets?"

From listening to him, you might assume that the only places in North America that don't have firefights on a daily basis are cities that outlaw handguns. You might also assume that Chicago is an oasis of concord, rather than the site of 443 homicides last year.

So it's no surprise that Daley refuses to make the slightest change to the handgun ordinance, preferring to fight the lawsuits filed by the National Rifle Association. He is not impressed that 1) the law almost certainly violates the Constitution, which elected officials are supposed to uphold, and 2) it would cost taxpayers a lot of money to fight lawsuits the city is bound to lose.

The Chicago ban dates back to 1983, when no one had to worry about the forgotten 2nd Amendment. The ordinance prohibited the possession of all handguns (except those acquired before the law took effect).

It had no obvious benefits: Homicides climbed in the ensuing years and by 1992 were 41 percent higher than before. But the policy rested undisturbed until last summer, when the Supreme Court ruled that Washington's ban on handguns violated the individual right to use arms for self-defense in the home.

Read the whole thing!

HAPPY T-DAY & Michael's Menu

Much to give thanks for today...for those men and women in uniform, whether in the deserts of Iraq, the mountains of Afghanistan or Places Elsewhere, a profound thank you for your service. We can never thank you enough, and be assured that you are never far from our thoughts and prayers. Stay safe out there!

Me, I'm just glad I've been able to keep my karmic surfboard off the rocks for another year...I gotta say, every year the waves get bigger and bigger, and every year I get older and older...thank god for guile, stealth and blind luck!

Small Thanksgiving dinner this year, and I sort of themed it around food that triggered a favorite memory, although I didn't tell my Sweetie since she thinks I'm crazy enough as it is. Here's the menu:

• Poached salmon with dill sauce, cooked in a clay pot.
• Two styles of dressing, including traditional Southern cornbread/biscuit sage dressing and a second that is more of a spicy homage to the oyster roasts I used ot like when I lived in New York City and traveled around New England. I used the stale, toasted cornbread and biscuit mix as the base for the oyster roast.
• Key West Apples, a dish I concocted to remind me about boat drinks down in the Keys...the tangy local apples are marinated, then cooked in a rum-Key West lime juice-melted butter liquid mix seasoned with cinnamon, ginger and a tiny bit of allspice. Take the liquid left over, add equal parts seltzer and that nasty dark rum from Barbados, toss in a little umbrellas and, viola!, wait for the sunset at Mallory Pier.
• Horseradish mashed potatoes.
• Fresh local asparagus
• Homemade rolls from my Sweetie.
• A fresh plum pie from my pal Tom Judd, who co-founded with me Rocky Mountain IDPA back when we were younger and dumber.

So, a turkeyless Thanksgiving, although I am assured by my fishmonger that the salmon was, indeed, free range!

BTW, beverages include Heller Estates Chenin Blanc, Benziger Family Winery Merlot (both are wineries we've visited, Heller in Monterey and Benziger in Sonoma...both are organic wines, since we live in Boulder County and risk execution if we drink Night Train Express) and/or Arrogant Bastard Oaked Ale from Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, CA.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Y'ALL!

HAPPY PRE-THANKSGIVING

Well, the newspaper this AM — remember newspapers? I do...I have parrots whose cages need lining — had a recipe for creamed Brussel sprouts and bacon. Yum! Reminds me of when my Mom, who was one of the 3 worst cooks on earth, sent a whole Thanksgiving party to the emergency room with a casserole of canned English peas, Velvetta and 2-day-old warm mayonaise. I, of course, fed my portion to the dog, who threw up.



Watched THE SHIELD series finale last night, and it was everything the SOPRANOS series finale wasn't. Michael Chiklis's brilliantly acted amoral antihero Vic Mackey did indeed get what he deserved — a Dilbert-sized cubicle for him to ponder the destruction of all he had hoped, the betrayal of friends, the loss of family, etc. Walton Goggins breathtaking high-wire act as the desinigrating Shane Vendrell, groping his way to the only kind of nightmarish redemption he could imagine, kept me on the edge of my seat...CCH Pounder closing out the role of a lifetime.

If you like great acting, download the episode when you can.

Delayed Podcast! SORRY!

All day filming Monday...tied up in meetings all day Tuesday...pocast delayed slightly until tomorrow AM...SORRY!!!

Also visit new TBD BLOG...From yesterday's shoot...





-- Post From My iPhone

IMPORTANT! Vote for Randy Luth!

OUTDOOR LIFE is choosing their OL Sportsperson of the Year, and Randy Luth, head of DPMS, is one of the choices.

Aside from the fact that Randy is a good friend of mine, a sportsman's sportsman and for years a solid defender of our RKBA, I think choosing the head of a "black rifle" company as OL's top guy would send a very good message to our industry and to our enemies.

Clink on the link above and VOTE!

Obama's Jack-Booted Thug

New Attorney General Designate Eric Holder is the real fascist deal...this from Volokh Conspiracy:

At the oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson, the Assistant U.S. Attorney told the panel that the Second Amendment was no barrier to gun confiscation, not even of the confiscation of guns from on-duty National Guardsmen.

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called "assault weapons" (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that "Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence"--a statistic is true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as "children."(Sources: Holder testimony before House Judiciary Committee, Subcommitee on Crime, May 27,1999; Holder Weekly Briefing, May 20, 2000. One of the bills that Holder endorsed is detailed in my 1999 Issue Paper "Unfair and Unconstitutional.")

After 9/11, he penned a Washington Post op-ed, "Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists" arguing that a new law should give "the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale." He also stated that prospective gun buyers should be checked against the secret "watch lists" compiled by various government entities. (In an Issue Paper on the watch list proposal, I quote a FBI spokesman stating that there is no cause to deny gun ownership to someone simply because she is on the FBI list.)

After the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the D.C. handgun ban and self-defense ban were unconstitutional in 2007, Holder complained that the decision "opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets."

Holder played a key role in the gunpoint, night-time kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez. The pretext for the paramilitary invasion of the six-year-old's home was that someone in his family might have been licensed to carry a handgun under Florida law. Although a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showed a federal agent dressed like a soldier and pointing a machine gun at the man who was holding the terrified child, Holder claimed that Gonzalez "was not taken at the point of a gun" and that the federal agents whom Holder had sent to capture Gonzalez had acted "very sensitively." If Mr. Holder believes that breaking down a door with a battering ram, pointing guns at children (not just Elian), and yelling "Get down, get down, we'll shoot" is example of acting "very sensitively," his judgment about the responsible use of firearms is not as acute as would be desirable for a cabinet officer who would be in charge of thousands and thousands of armed federal agents, many of them paramilitary agents with machine guns.

Here's what the editors at NRO had to say about the Thug-Designate:

He is convinced justice in America needs to be “established” rather than enforced; he’s excited about hate crimes and enthusiastic about the constitutionally dubious Violence Against Women Act; he’s a supporter of affirmative action and a practitioner of the statistical voodoo that makes it possible to burden police departments with accusations of racial profiling and the states with charges of racially skewed death-penalty enforcement; he’s more likely to be animated by a touchy-feely Reno-esque agenda than traditional enforcement against crimes; he’s in favor of ending the detentions of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and favors income redistribution to address the supposed root causes of crime.

In any other time, Holder would simply be an uninspired choice. But these are not ordinary times — we face a serious, persistent threat from Islamist terrorists. At the same time, Democrats have expressed outrage over both the alleged politicization of the Justice Department and the reckless disregard of its storied traditions. For these times, it is difficult to imagine a worse choice for AG than Eric Holder.

Scary! This is starting to play out like the plot of Matthew Bracken's Enemies Foreign and Domestic...

Yes, This Is Stupid...

From WRAL.com:

Pair arrested at RDU with gun silencers

MORRISVILLE, N.C. — Two men have been charged with carrying gun silencers in their luggage on an international flight, authorities said.

George Hope and Garry Latcham, two United Kingdom residents, flew to the Triangle last week aboard American Airlines' flight from London to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. They reported one of their bags as missing, according to an affidavit filed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

When airline workers located the bag, a customs agent examined it and found two silencers inside, the affidavit said.

Silencers are strictly regulated in the U.S.

Hope and Latcham were arrested Friday when they returned to RDU to pick up the bag. They told investigators they had bought the silencers in England and planned to give them to a friend in Roxboro whom they were visiting, according to the affidavit.

Yes sir...available at hardware stores worldwide but good for 10 years apiece in the Federal slam in the US of A!

AR Mag Update!

Some good news on AR magazines this morning. My pals at Midway USA still have two flavors of standard capacity AR mags in stock, the Lancer L5 Polymer and the AR-Stoner. I've never used either one of them, but here's the scoop.

My friend Rich Grassi at The Tactical Wire had this report on the L5 — amazingly enough — this morning:

Autumn Miscellany: We have several items to discuss around the water cooler today.

One is that a major purveyor of AR-type carbines to law enforcement and non-sworn users is pending a magazine change. To date using the GI-style aluminum with the current green follower, this high-output AR-manufacturer is looking to polymer. The carbine I saw on Wednesday had the Lancer Systems L5 Translucent Magazine. That was interesting timing, as I just came into receipt of some samples for testing. The L5 was tested and is recommended by the National Tactical Officers' Association.

The skinny on the Stoner is that it is manufactured by C-Products, your basic military supplier, and features a Mag-Pul antitilt follower and chrome silicon springs. While I don't have any Stoners, I do have a ton of C-Products mags with updated followers and no complaints whatsoever, and some are pretty beat up. Also, the Internet forum spins on the AR-Stoners are excellent.

The Stoners are $17.99 and the plastic Lancers $18.99...doesn't it make you wish you'd bought magazines when I first told you to???

New Attorney General = Janet Reno Lite

From the Second Amendment Foundation:

The nomination of Eric Holder for the post of attorney general of the United States sends an "alarming signal" to gun owners about how the Barack Obama administration will view individual gun rights, as affirmed this year by the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

"Eric Holder signed an amicus brief in the Heller case that supported the District of Columbia's handgun ban, and also argued that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right," noted SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. "He has supported national handgun licensing and mandatory trigger locks. As deputy attorney general under Janet Reno, he lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would have curtailed legitimate gun shows.

"This is not the record of a man who will come to office as the nation's top law enforcement officer with the rights and concerns of gun owners in mind," he observed.

Holder's nomination, like the appointment of anti-gun Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, tells American gun owners that Obama's campaign claims supporting the Second Amendment were "empty rhetoric," Gottlieb stated.

Today's the Day to Load Up!

Happy National Ammo Day! Yes, it's going to cost you a couple of dollars, but buy ammo today...especially since you might not be able to buy it later. This from the MSNBC Red Star this AM:

THE AGENDA: GUN CONTROL

Put gun control advocates on the list of interest groups measuring Obama's issue coattails and hoping to sew up a legislative victory. In a new Penn/Schoen post-election poll passed along to First Read by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, two out of three respondents said that they believed that "common sense" gun regulations -- like background checks, waiting periods, and a renewal of the assault weapons ban -- should be enacted in the first year of the Obama administration. The pollsters, who asked 1083 voters in a nationwide internet-based survey for their opinions on gun control measures and on the National Rifle Association, found that even majorities of voters who supported McCain, as well as rural voters and those who identify themselves as conservative, are in favor of some increased regulations on the sale and use of firearms.

Yeah right...ask people who can't readily identify the capital of the state they live in whether "more should be done to protect us against gun violence," and — viola! — a predictable poll result!

Later this afternoon I'm going to attempt to buy some 5.56 and 9mm...I'll let you know how it goes!

Brother Ted & Dr. Helen on Speaking up

This from Dr. Helen's blog:

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2008

Speak Up!
I read with interest this good advice from Ted Nugent on speaking up in California and the rest of the country:

You don't need tough love in America, you need tougher love. Around the water cooler, at the church, at school. At the work place, at the picnic, and the bowling alley. You should be pounding the desk with your fist, raising hell, and take this beautiful state back from the pimps, and the whores, and the welfare brats, and the gang-bangers who seems to have all the rights in the world while the good people, the productive, law abiding people don't have jack squat -- and I think I am going to throw up.

So many people who do not support Barack Obama and are downright sick of the creeping socialism in our country are not speaking up. It is imperative to do so, even in small ways. The other day, I was at a drugstore and the clerk was talking to what looked like a Baby Boomer who was discussing how he voted for Obama. They both scoffed that not many in Tennessee voted for him, "what do you expect?" said the older guy, "this is Tennessee we're talking about." They both chuckled in agreement. I looked at the clerk and said in a loud voice, "So what you're saying is those of us here in Tennessee who voted for McCain are rednecks, is that right?!!!!" There were several people milling around in line at this point and the clerk turned red and stammered, "No, ma'am," and went on to give some lame explanation about what he meant. But I knew I had him. He was visibly shaken and I hope the next time he decides to diss Tennesseans while at work, he'll think twice.

Please remember that most people are cowards, if you speak up, they will often back down or stammer. Too many times, we let liberals get away with making fun of Republicans and those of us who do not agree with them politically. This needs to stop and the only way to do it is to speak up in the classrooms, public and at work. Remember that we are 56 million strong--those of us who did not vote for Obama. We are hardly alone.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

I'm not even going to list the links, but the Great Gun Rush of 2008 is holding steady. If there are AR-15 lower receivers out there, I can't find them. Last week in Colorado, according to the FFL dealer who handles all my transfers, there were waits as long as 16 hours for approval. Yesterday, my approval took 3 hours.

The best line is from Curtis Lowe: "It's like when your dog senses an earthquake is coming..."

My advice? KEEP BUYING! An earthquake is coming. Don't forget standard capacity magazines, either. If you look around there are mil-surp AR magazines available. Brownell's, my personal choice, is still showing out of stock on everything, and Magpul P-Mags are as rare as hen's teeth. Check AIM Surplus...they're swamped, but product is coming in. They have some 5.56 ammo still in stock...check out the Prvi Partizan. J&G is still showing Colt A2s in stock (at a soon-to-be-not-overpriced $1600) but S&W M&Ps, an AR I recommend, is backordered. On mags, your best bet looks like the used Colts at $19.95. CDNN's online catalog is showing a good selection of AR mags, including the steel English Imperial Defense mags ($14.95) that I have seen spoken of very highly, although I don't have any myself.

Here's the Battleground, Kids

From John Rosenthal on HuffPO:

President-elect Obama should implement seven tested and proven initiatives that will have an immediate impact on reducing gun related violence, accidents and suicides without affecting the Second Amendment or having any negative impact on responsible and law abiding gun owners.

Of the average 34,000 gun deaths in the US every year approximately 11,000 are homicides, 18,000 are suicides and 5,000 are unintentional accidents. We can change these horrific numbers.

If I were President Obama, one of my first acts would be the immediate implementation the following gun violence prevention initiatives to reduce gun access by children, criminals and terrorists without any undue restrictions on responsible gun owners like myself.

#1 Mandatory criminal background checks for all gun sales

Current Federal law only requires Licensed gun dealers to perform criminal background checks. Consequently in 32 States "private dealers"/individuals can legally sell guns at thousands of annual gun shows, countless flea markets and yard sales, and out of homes, backpacks, car trunks or on street corners without running a background check or asking to see an ID. Only the first gun sale from a "Federally Licensed" gun dealer requires documentation and all "secondary" gun sales are legally allowed to take place without any paperwork or record keeping. As a result, convicted felons and suspected terrorists can and do buy guns simply because there is no background check required or conducted.

#2 Require responsible and safe gun storage for all firearms unless they are in the owners direct control

Approximately 40% of American homes have at least one firearm. Most guns used in child accidental gun injuries and deaths and teenage suicides come from within the home. Responsible guns owners safely secure their guns -unloaded and locked unless they are in their direct control. Seventeen States have such a safe-storage/Child Access Prevention requirement and all such states have a lower incidence of gun injuries and deaths among children compared to states without such a requirement.

#3 Allow Law Enforcement to maintain and share critical "crime-gun" trace data

Current Federal law prohibits the BATF from sharing crime gun trace data even among law enforcement agencies. In 2000 the BATF used crime-gun trace data to determine that just 1% of licensed gun dealers provided 57% of guns used in crime. Instead of supporting law enforcement efforts to identify and arrest illegal gun dealers, the Bush administration made police the enemy of "gun rights", requiring prison sentences for any police official that shares crime-gun trace data with even other law enforcement.

#4 Restore and improve the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons

The 10 year Federal ban on 19 specific military style assault weapons beginning in 1994 was supported by every major US law enforcement organization representing over 450,000 police officers. Although so called assault weapons make up approximately 1% of the US gun stock, statistics clearly show that they are the weapon of choice by gangs, career criminals and terrorist organizations and disproportionately show up in crimes. The Bush administration let the ban expire in 2004 even though the ban resulted in a dramatic 66% reduction in these weapons used in crime over the 10 year period.

#5 Repeal the Federal law giving Immunity to the gun industry

In 2007 Congress and the Bush administration enacted legislation prohibiting the ability to sue the gun industry even for negligence and blatantly marketing to criminals. For instance, the Tech 9 semi-automatic pistol, one of the guns used at the Columbine High School massacre, was marketed as "having a finish resistant to fingerprints", the Hertzel 22 cal handgun is marketed as "capable of penetrating 48 layers of soft body armor" and the Barrett 50 cal sniper rifle with a 2 mile range and designed to penetrate steel, is touted as being able to "take down an aircraft with one shot" and they tell you where to put it. Osama bin Laden bought a dozen of these US made Barrett's when fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan! The gun industry makes, markets and sells inherently dangerous product (like automobiles, knives and drugs- all regulated) and they should be held accountable for their actions.

#6 Enact National Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations for firearms

Congress has prohibited the National Consumer Product Safety Commission from oversight of the gun industry. Therefore guns have NO consumer safety, manufacturing or marketing standards for how they are sold. Consequently toy guns and teddy bears have more regulations on how they're made than real guns that result in an average of 34,000 deaths a year in the US. The gun industry flaunts their "freedom" from regulation and continues to make and sell guns without minimal safety features and in some cases knowingly market their deadly products directly to criminals and terrorists without any accountability. Massachusetts, which is home to Smith and Wesson, the nation's largest handgun manufacturer, enacted the first in the nation Consumer Protection regulations for firearms and such oversight had no negative impacts on legitimate gun makers, dealers or buyers in the State.


#7 Create incentives for the gun industry to make "personalized guns"

According to gun maker Smith and Wesson, guns could be made with personal recognition technology such that only the intended user could fire the gun. This practical technological solution would save the lives of countless victims of gun violence, accidents and suicides each year. It could also help save the lives of the 17% of police officers killed in the line of duty by a criminal accessing the officer's gun. In fact, in an agreement with the Clinton administration, Smith and Wesson promised to invest a portion of net profits into "personalized gun technology".

If President Obama and Congress were to enact just these 7 national gun violence prevention initiates, the 34,000 annual gun deaths and 80,000 injuries would be reduced to a fraction without any undue hardship on responsible gun owners like myself. I'm hopeful. President-elect Obama knows all too well that 70-80 percent of the 80 or more gun deaths every day in the US are non-white, urban Americans. He also knows that an overwhelming majority of Americans, including gun owners and law enforcement officers, support criminal background checks for all gun sales, the Ban on assault weapons and responsible safety standards and regulations for gun makers, dealers and owners that do not infringe upon Second Amendment rights.

Now all that is needed is a loud public outcry and the political will for sensible and responsible domestic gun policy.

The Long Run...

...is over. We wrapped principal filming on THE BEST DEFENSE last night; SHOOTING GALLERY last week. Still a huge amount of work to be done, but all the basics are now in place.

TBD looks amazing. The Winnercomm team of producer/director Tim Cremins and director of photography Brandon Green have done a superb job under staggering time pressure. The show is going to be everything I hoped.

BTW, planning under way for series 4, a show I guarantee you'll all love. Did I mention 5???


-- Post From My iPhone

Pincus Goes to Skool...

Almost terrifying, isn't it?




-- Post From My iPhone

The Tragic Aftermath...

...of another BEST DEFENSE filming...


-- Post From My iPhone

Thugs Are Us...

More from THE BEST DEFENSE...



-- Post From My iPhone

My Favorite Headline of the Week...so far...

Sea Turtle Attacked by Wild Dogs in Virgin Islands Brought to Florida for Treatment

That's from Fox. Well, okay...said headline would be the legal definition of "Slow News Day." I guess our new President-Elect hasn't cured cancer or performed a thousand same-sex marriages this week, although it is only Wednesday. Maybe He can cure the sea turtle, or at least talk the wild dogs into napping with some lamby-pies.

I'm definitely going for an SBR for my election commemorative AR...hopefully with that 7-inch gas piston upper I handled last week. Luckily I had a standing order at Spike's, so I've got three lower receivers — one dedicated pistol lower and two rifle. Have I mentioned how much I liked the Tactical Solutions .22 LR AR upper? I haven't had so much fun in ages....last week we ran through thousands of rounds of .22 ostensibly filming a SG episode on .22s.

Day at the Office II

-- Post From My iPhone

Oh Joy! "Objectivity" At Last!

So Jake Tapper is going to be ABC's White House correspondent. Glenn Reynolds at InstaPundit thinks it's a good thing, since Tapper was harder than most on Obama during the campaign.

I think Tapper was a lobbyist for Handgun Control Inc. When I braced him on the issue of journalistc ethics a few year back
- he was writing "objective" articles on firearms issues - he told me it wasn't important for people to know he was a paid shill for the antigun lobby.

As Ben Bradlee of the Wash Post once noted that he didn't care if his reporters had sex with elephants as long as they didn't cover the circus.

I leave it to you to decide on Mr. Tapper...

-- Post From My iPhone

Another day at the office!

-- Post From My iPhone

Brutal filming skef...

So low blog output ... Sorry! Should be able to post tonite... Janich & Pincus in Conestoga wagon at REALLY weird restaurant!


-- Post From My iPhone

Get Ready!

From David Hardy at Arms & the Law:

Supporting it is an insider DC tip that his people are seriously considering a federal ban or restriction on "right to carry" laws. Exactly where the constitutional power to enact such a measure is to be found is less than clear to me. But so are a lot of other things like that.

Here's the Keene material from NewsMax.

Here also is the Brady press release.

Moving On

Split milk, morning after, harsh recriminations aside, I woke up this morning thinking that if we're smart and focused, we can move forward and minimize our losses. This may be a bit Pollyanna-ish on my part, but here's my reasoning:

• There are a lot of other big ticket issues on the table for the new President.
• While we didn't prevail in this election — and in retrospect I doubt that there was any way to stop this landslide while saddled with Bush, the tanking economy, an upopular war, etc. — we're still a prickly cactus to swallow. With the big ticket items in play, does the new administration either want or need a nasty sideshow on guns?
• We have, as I stated in my podcast last Wednesday, Democratic and Republican allies.
• We also have an uncommitted middle, recently elected politicians — mostly Democratic — pols who would like to have an on-going career and who are not deeply in the antigun camp. Again, do you stick your hand into a hornets' nest if you don't have to?

Part of our moving forward battle plan depends on how things play out in Washington. In light of the challenges out there, the most logicial thing would be for guns to be back-burnered, which would be a best-case for us because it gives us more time to prepare. In case you missed it, here's the President's antigun agenda, from his own President-Elect website:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

That defines our battlefield, which gives us a blueprint for preparation. For example, in the very near future an ad hoc group put other by me and several other media experts I've worked with will present a plan to the industry on fighting a new AWB. A large portion of that plan will be an education program, aimed at the uncommitted middle, that puts lie to the statement that such guns "belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets." One of the concepts that we pioneered a decade ago in the white heat battles of the Clinton Presidency was what I termed "reasonable doubt" — we weren't trying to convert people to our side; rather, we wanted to instill a "reasonable doubt" about the other sides' arguments, facts, legislation, etc. That reasonable doubt, coupled with the "soft and unstated" carrot/stick of support or opposition in future elections, can sway the uncommitted middle.

We must think asymmetrically as we move forward. We need to have response programs in place before the shoe falls, and — note to me! — we have to shun feel-good absolutism and focus on the new world political realities.

In the meantime, what do we personally need to be doing?

• Join the NRA...right now!
• Buy an AR and become a person who has a personal stake in the outcome of the coming battle.
• If you already own an AR, buy another one. The more "black rifles" in general circulation, the better.
• Buy standard capacity magazines.
• Take a deep breath and get ready for the fight!

BTW, here's a pretty good commenatry on what the next four years may look like from ShrinkWrapped, who recommends relaxed vigilance:

The idea that Barack Obama's election is going to usher in the long, dark night of fascism in America is troubling. I have no doubt that there are groups and individuals on the far left who would like nothing more than to form the nidus of an American brown shirted militia, but we are a very long way away from such an eventuality. Vigilance by the loyal opposition will be necessary int he next four years but I would like to echo Glenn Reynold's comment, in reaction tot he formation of an "Impeach Obama" group on Facebook:

Really, can't people at least wait until he's sworn in and, you know, actually done something to merit impeachment? Sigh.

It may well be true that Barack Obama is the most liberal President we have ever elected, but reality always supersedes ideology in America. One of the great strengths of our system is that it tolerates perturbations and because of our dynamic equilibrium has much more flexibility and error tolerance than any other political system. This does not mean that a powerful enough perturbation could not break the system, but it does mean that we have far more resiliency than a great many people imagine.

If Barack Obama institutes the full panoply of promised liberal and quasi-socialist policies in the face of the economic and geopolitical realities of our time, one of two outcomes is most likely. Either those of us who opposed him will prove to be correct and various setbacks large and small will accrue or we will find that we were wrong and liberal/quasi-socialist policies, although having never before worked anywhere, will prove to work and we will all benefit. If the former is closer to the reality, no amountof MSM biasand slanting would protect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress (with approval ratings hovering somewhere south of President Bush's numbers) from an electoral correction in 2010 and 2012. If the latter is the case, we will have eight years of PresidentObama, the country will prosper, international relations will improve and I will happily admit my Conservative beliefs have been superseded by reality.

In fact, I doubt either of these outcomes are in store. Barack Obama is a very smart man and I would presume he has no desire to be a failed, one term President. Further, I do not think he is surrounded by economic illiterates. Just as the old military adage suggests that "no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy", in America no ideology has ever survived contact with an inimical reality.

Random Thoughts on Voting

Hmmmmm...have been pounded for being a single issue voter apparently unconcerned with being "divisive."

I've written this before, but "single issue voters" actually see their specific issue as a bellweather... That is, if you are, say, pro-choice, that issue so defines a candidate for you that you know what you need to know about the candidate. Not that complicated.

I am and have been a libertarian...I tend to trust the free market, even in times like these. I am very much a social liberal...I don't actually care who and/or what you marry, what intoxicants you consume as long as you don't crash into me, etc.

All 2A questions aside, our new President is an empty suit, Jimmy Carter Redux. His economic policies are old news, tried numerous times and always failed.

Divisive? Try true to my own beliefs!


-- Post From My iPhone

"Long time coming..."

And gonna be a long time gone...AR sales, especially lower receivers, through the ceiling. Can't even get through to some suppliers because they're so swamped.

Companies building everything they can, blowing through inventory...


-- Post From My iPhone

The Morning After

You know, I'm too depressed to write much. I would ask that you listen to my DRTV podcast that will go up Wednesday AM.

Jim Shepherd and I have been exchanging emails all night, and we plan to have some proactive ideas for the industry to consider later this month.

In the meantime, BUY ARs and STANDARD CAPACITY MAGAZINES!!! Take RUGER up on their "Inagural Special" on Mini 14 20-round mags (good on you, Ruger!).

-- Post From My iPhone

God Bless America!

It was a hard-fought fight and we lost.

The fight begins again tomorrow.

We are up to the fight.

Sent from my iPhone

Oh Please...

From U.S. News right now...

11:30 AM ET | James Pethokoukis | Permanent Link | Print
I just talked to one of my best Team McCain sources who told me that heading into today all the key battleground polls were moving hard and fast in their direction. The source, hardly a perma-optimist, thinks it will be a long night, but that McCain is going to win. So add this with the new Battleground poll (Obama +1.9 only) and the rising stock market...

Summing the Whole Damn Mess Up!

"There will be an election, followed by rioting, the complete unraveling of society, and, I assume, a zombie problem. And everyone will agree it’s an improvement."

— Scott Adams; Dilbert

One Last Summary Article on Obama and Guns...

...from my friend (and NRA President) John Sigler:

The bait-and-switch gimmick of employing rhetorical tricks to hide very real gun control agendas, and to create a fraudulent history to assure that “your gun record does not define your candidacy” are the central lessons offered in a political/propaganda playbook or script proffered by something called the Third Way.

Titled, “Taking back the Second Amendment,” the script is built around a central public opinion finding: “Voters overwhelmingly support the Second Amendment and believe that it confers an individual’s right to own firearms” – a finding confirmed long ago by NRA’s own polling of American public opinion.

The Third Way’s propaganda manual is co-authored by Jim Kessler – who as then-U.S. Rep. Chuck Schumer’s policy director husbanded legislation that became the 1994 Clinton gun ban. This political playbook is a stark study in duplicity and is word-for-word the blueprint for both Barack Obama’s stunningly empty embrace of the Second Amendment, and of the media’s total participation in this intellectually dishonest campaign of deception and obfuscation.

“Don’t let your opponent define you by your record.”

In this case, Barack Obama’s opponent is the National Rifle Association and the millions of individual citizens we represent.

Indeed, we have defined Obama’s record with a gold-standard analysis of his words and deeds. He has earned his “F” rating, just as he’s earned the endorsement of the Brady Campaign (formerly Handgun Control Inc.) which universally supports registration and licensing as precursors for outright gun bans.

Yet Obama makes such statements as, “I take a back seat to no one in support of Second Amendment rights, but I also support… continuing the ban on assault weapons… Our gun rights come with the responsibility to keep them out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and children.”

My mistake - that’s a direct line from Kessler’s script to be memorized by poseur anti-gun candidates.

Here is a real Obama quote from an appearance in South Dakota as reported by the Boston Globe: “As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen…. We can work together to enact common-sense laws … so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.”

And here is what appears on Obama’s campaign website:

“Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals…” Even Kessler’s former boss, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, is now talking the Third Way talk, while still walking the gun-ban walk. But while Kessler was Policy Director and gun control point-man to the then-New York Congressman, Schumer testified before an April 5, 1995 Judiciary Committee hearing on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Schumer sputtered: “There is no constitutional question here… If anyone tried to sell the baloney we’ll hear today, they would be arrested for consumer fraud. The NRA’s Second Amendment is an empty cereal box in the marketplace of ideas…”

Further, Schumer said the belief that the Second Amendment was an individual right “is poisoning our political dialogue… The sickening fruit of this poisonous lie are obvious in our society…. Like flat earth fanatics, Second Amendment fanatics just don’t get it… It does not guarantee the mythical individual right to bear arms…”

That extraordinary rant notwithstanding, Schumer said in a May 8, 2002 press release: “The broad principle that there is an individual right to bear arms is shared by many Americans, including myself.”

Please, read the whole thing...then VOTE!

2-D vs. 3-D

...in a great column by Mark Steyn in NRO:

In Tokyo last week, over a thousand people signed a new petition asking the Japanese government to permit marriages between human beings and cartoon characters. “I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” explained Taichi Takashita. “Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?”

Get back to me on that Tuesday night. We’ll know by then whether an entire constitutional republic has decided to contract marriage with a two-dimensional character and to attempt to take up residence in the two-dimensional world. For many of his supporters, Barack Obama is an idea. He offers “hope, not fear”. “Hope” of what? “Hope” of “change.” Okay, but “change” to what? Ah, well, there you go again, getting all hung up on three-dimensional reality, when we’ve moved way beyond that. I don’t know which cartoon character Taichi Takashita is eyeing as his betrothed, but up in the sky Obamaman is flying high, fighting for Hope, Change, and a kind of Post-Modern America.
[...]
The problem is we’re not electing a symbol, a logo, a two-dimensional image. Long before he emerged on the national stage as Barack the Hope-Giver and Bringer of Change, there was a three-dimensional Barack Obama, a real man who lives in the real world. And that’s where the problem lies.

The Senator and his doting Obots in the media have gone to great lengths to obscure what Barack Obama does when he’s not being a symbol: his voting record, his friends, his patrons, his life outside the soft-focus memoirs is deemed non-relevant to the general hopey-changey vibe. But occasionally we get a glimpse. The offhand aside to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around” was revealing because it suggests a crude redistributive view of “social justice.” Yet the nimble Hope-a-Dope sidestepper brushed it aside, telling a crowd in Raleigh that next John McCain will be “accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

Read the whole thing.

Worsham is Right...

..as per his comment on my last post...I'm not keeping his mind off the election...hell, I'm not even keeping my mind off the election! So I'll keep feeding the ole election jones with this superb piece from Thomas Sowell:

After the big gamble on subprime mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise-- whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team-- is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.


The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges-- very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

"This is our time!" he proclaimed. And "I will change the world." But ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon.

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of "spreading the wealth," is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

The equally casual ease with which Barack Obama has talked about appointing judges on the basis of their empathies with various segments of the population makes a mockery of the very concept of law.

After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can cripple the military and gamble America's future on his ability to sit down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble.

Happy Dia De Los Muertos!

Forgot to mention that this AM! While I'm perfectly aware of what the Days of the Dead stand for — and, of couse, a politically incorrect tip of the ole blood-filled skull to Mictecacihauti, that rollicking Aztec Queen of the Underworld — I also like to think that it's an ideal day for zombie affcionados everywhere!

Thoughts for Next Week...

...from Jerry Pournelle, who said it far better than I can:

Despair is a sin, and often a mistake. The polls do not record the "refused to respond" which in my judgment is a much larger category than any admit -- it includes me, five times so far this year since I'm home to answer the phone more than many people are -- and I suspect that more McCain people refuse to respond than the trendier Obama enthusiasts.

Few Republicans are enthusiastic. I wish there were a safe recipient for the Turn The Rascals Out! vote. There isn't. Electing a junior senator whose political positions are indistinguishable from McGovern except on the checkoff unionization which even McGovern opposes cannot be a good thing for the future of the nation. If the Democratic candidate were Colin Powell, who has fairly traditional liberal views but is primarily a centrist with some military (including political military, but who has led troops in combat) experience, I'd very likely vote for him on the grounds that he would be a good restraining influence on Rangel, Franks, Dodd, Pelosi, and the weak Reid. Alas, Obama isn't likely to stand up to much of anything; his political experience has been Chicago machine go along to get along.

But the election is not over. There are more decline to answer voters than it takes to change the election.

One vote per precinct in California delivered the nation to Woodrow Wilson.

The way to win elections is to get those who intend to vote for your candidate to go vote. Few readers here are not capable of getting two or three voters to the polls. That's well over a million votes. Think on it.

Jerry Pournelle's classic sci-fi book The Mercenary had a profound effect on my thinking early on, adn for decades I've been awed by his far-ranging intelligence. So do, indeed, think on it...

Nut Cuttin' Time

As I've mentioned, I've already early voted for McCain/Palin, as I'll be traveling Tuesday — not a situation I relish, but given the series' filming schedule you do what you must.

All the words have been said, all the cards played. I've done what I could with the blog and the podcast, and based on outside observers, they have had an effect — at least forcing b-HO to answer uncomfortable questions about his personal war on guns.

I won't make any predictions...you all know we're betting on a "perfect storm" to salvage the White House. If we in the gun culture turn out big; if the "youth vote" does what it always does and stays home; if...if...if...if...

And if the worst comes to pass, we will rally our forces and fight for the Second Amendment as we have always done.

Roger Simon of Politico made some interesting points on the McCain campaign and the gun issue:

Guns are a potent force in American politics. As I have pointed out before, had Al Gore won Tennessee, Arkansas or West Virginia — all winnable states — in 2000, he would not have had to win Florida, and he would have become president.

But Gore lost all three states, and guns had a lot to do with it. Gun owners simply didn’t believe Gore when he said he was not going to take their guns away. (They did believe Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 when he said the same thing, but Clinton sold his “Bubba” image effectively and was far more trusted in small-town and rural America.)

This year, gun ownership seemed like a ripe issue for McCain to exploit.

Obama opened up the door in April, when he made his now famous comments at a private fundraiser in San Francisco about how when small town people “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion …as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And, at her acceptance speech at the Republican Convention, Palin, widened the issue to one of elitism and trust. (Yeah, yeah, I know she didn’t write the speech. But she delivered it well. Give her some credit.)

“I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening,” Palin said. “We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.”

And considering that the McCain/Palin ticket is now battling for its life in small town and rural America, you would think the McCain campaign would be out there talking about guns every day.

So VOTE...and join the NRA!