Second Amendment Foundation

Alan wants a wider web presence.  I’m here to help.

Kudos to All the Strikeforce Fighters

But OMG – third-rate doesn’t even begin to describe these fights.  There is a reason UFC dominates in the  ratings. The commentators and referees  for StrikeForce ( all apologies to Pat Miletich, a paying gig is a paying gig – the Shamrock brothers can pound sand and die hungry) suck major ass.   Waste. Of. My. Time.

First Traffic Stop While Carrying

We’re on our way home from dinner and we go past a local LEO speed trap doing 15-ish miles over the speed limit (in a silver BMW convertible, which I’m pretty sure got his attention *g*). Wife gives him her license and registration. I have no legal obligation to tell him I’m carrying unless he asks, but my opinion is that if I don’t tell him and it comes up later he will be…less than sympathetic towards us. So I tell him I’m a CCW permit holder and I have a handgun in the bag on the back seat. He goes to run  her license/registration and thanks me for informing him. Doesn’t insist on securing the gun, in fact doesn’t mention it again

LEO comes back, does the usual “Where are you going? Where are you coming from?  How do you like AZ (our MVD record shows we traded in our licenses from our previous state when we moved)?”  battery of questions to determine if we’re drunk, or nervous. And then gives her a warning (written, so there’s a formal record that she caught a break which would no doubt be used to bludgeon her if she gets stopped again) and we’re on our way home.

All in all a positive interaction. I’ve heard plenty of stories about guns being ‘secured’ and then fumbled with by officers who don’t know how to take them down but want it disassembled and returned after the stop in a pile of parts and the rounds in a plastic bag (not from this department specifically), guns getting scratched, CCWer’s getting given large doses of grief and the like. This was as simple as pie and I was pleased. I have no way of knowing if informing him I had a gun made any difference but it seemed to be taken positively.

I’m  a little torn on this. I believe in offering as little information to the police as possible, especially after the first time I saw this. But traffic stops here give LEO’s some additional statutory powers and meet the definition of a detention so I don’t have the options I would during a casual interaction, simple stop or Terry stop. So, I waffle. 

Now I’m just waiting for the first time I run into an LEO while OCing. Local PD should be good, the big city guys have been known to be a problem sometimes.

IRC is alive and Unchanged

So I wandered into the GunBlogger Conspiracy IRC channel yesterday. IRC chat hasn’t changed substantially since 1990 *g* except for the client interface. Ah, MUCK’s and MUSHS’s and MUD’s and MOO’s – we miss you. Sort of. Or not.

Good time, some interesting conversation takes place. As always very stream-of-consciouness and lots of insider talk.

Thanks to JayG for vouching for me when I signed on.

Judge rules Wisconsin Concealed Carry Ban Unconstitutional

This could be interesting.

Quote:

A Clark County judge says Wisconsin’s ban on carrying concealed weapons is unconstitutional. In the case, authorities charged a Sauk City man with carrying a concealed weapon, after he admitted he had a knife in his waistband. He never threatened anyone. In light of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago, attorney William Poss filed a motion to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds. Judge Jon Counsell obliged Wednesday, ruling the law is overly broad and violates both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. “The government has to have a compelling state interest to do so (restrict the right to carry) and they have to have the least restrictive means of doing that,” said Poss. “Public safety obviously is a state interest, but there’s all kinds of ways to do that in this regard.” In his decision, Counsell states the law forces citizens to “go unarmed (thus not able to act in self defense), violate the law or carry openly,” but notes displaying weapon’s openly isn’t a “realistic alternative.” As of now, the decision only sets a precedent in Counsell’s court, but Poss expects the case will be appealed. “It’s ultimately going to get to either the Wisconsin Supreme Court and or the United States Supreme Court one way or another,” he predicted. The decision was disseminated around the state Wednesday, and Poss already had 50 congratulatory phone messages or e-mails from colleagues by Wednesday afternoon. “There’s a lot of interest in this obviously,” he said. “It’s not a left or right type of thing quite frankly. It’s a liberty thing.” Clark County Assistant District Attorney Dick Lewis said he has 20 days to appeal the ruling, and no decision has been made. Wisconsin is one of only two states which completely ban carrying concealed weapons.

I have to disagree with his description of open carry as unrealistic. I’m also still waiting to see if Madison loses the lawsuit filed by several individuals cited for disorderly conduct because they were open carrying (which is perfectly legal in WI).

Took A Friend Shooting Today

A friend of mine asked me a while back to take her to the range and let her shoot a bunch of different guns to narrow down what she would be comfortable with and teach her basic gun handling and safety. She’s been shooting with us before but never had any systematic instruction and mostly shot a .22LR revolver.

I had given her several of the NRA training/informational materials to read beforehand so she’d have a good conceptual idea of how guns work and the safety rules and we could get straight on to where the rubber meets the road.

So, off we went. After a brief lecture/Q&A on the 4 rules (and how if I get swept more than once, things become tense quickly – she did fine though) and gun range etiquette she tried in no particular order :

• a S&W Model 10 4″ HBAR I picked up used last week
• a SA XD-9mm subcompact
• a Ruger SP101, shooting .38 instead of .357
• a S&W Model 12 Airweight 4″ I bought dirt cheap a number of years ago
• a Sig P239

She had issues with the semi’s, both working the slide and dropping it via the slide lock lever, and she limp-wristed them and generally didn’t like them. No big deal, that was about what I expected.

She did quite well with all the revolvers, preferring the Model 10 overall. Her last couple dozen rounds were close to being good enough tor the AZ CCW qualifier – she improved quite a bit once she got comfortable with the gun and started relaxing and having fun. It’s nice to see someone settle in and try to improve their shot placement *g*.

I had her run a bunch of extra cylinders through the SP101 since her husband owns one and she should be familiar with it. Now it’s just a matter of  getting her a Model 10 of her very own :-). We talked a bit about defensive gun use and storage possibilities (they have 2 adorable daughters whom we just happen to be godparents to) and she’s going to give it all some thought and discuss it with her husband.

 

We win Because, Well They Suck

A couple of absolutely adorable undergrads(sophomore poli sci and art majors, and the pres. and veep of the campus College Democrats which makes them even more darling) at UNH Durham publish a poorly reasoned and poorly written screed against gun rights. I won’t link to it, in keeping with my stand on not linking to material that I don’t agree with unless I think it will add to the discussion and this is small-time, but you can find it “The New Hampshire” in their “From the Left” Op-Ed column.

Political science majors, especially ones who are only a couple or three years into it and really just beginning to A: discover the historical record of this great world of ours and B: are rapidly absorbing it throught the lens of “…some Marxian historian…” (i.e. the majority of faculty at most universities) are just the cutest little things; I know, I was one once though I had the good fortune to be influenced by a Goldwater-era conservative professor – an animal that still existed in the mid-80’s.  Art majors in my experience lack touch with reality.

A pro-gun…jackanapes, for lack of a better term, who appears to be a regular poster on the UNH blog writes a rebuttal. Hilarity ensues.

H/T to The Man W/O Pants