Front Sight, Press

Xavier nails it on the snubnose:

I loaded the snubnose revolver for Frieda, and she aligned the sights. She struggled to pull the trigger back, and when the little revolver finally barked, it almost leapt from her hands. She looked at me in astonishment. She looked back at her target, and trembled as she began to pull off another round. Bam! A look of genuine concern crossed her face.

"You don’t have to keep shooting it," I told her. "We can unload it."

"Good," she replied. All too often when a woman enters a gun store to purchase a gun, they are met with ignorance if not outright condescension. Over and over I have met women who purchased a snubnose revolver as their first handgun. The only reason I can fathom for this is a salesman wanting to make a sale, and him knowing that the female new to shooting, will go for the smaller gun.

Frieda had fallen into that trap. Unfortunately, the snubnose revolver is one of the most difficult handguns to shoot well. The long, often heavy double action trigger combined with the short sight radius make it a challenge for experienced shooters. For a person in the learning stages, the trigger, sight radius and recoil are a recipe for failure and frustration. A cold range was called, and we went out to put up new targets…

Read the Whole Thing Here

You know I love the snubbies. I may have another gun, but I always have my snubnose. Nevertheless,  and I have been saying this for a long time, the snubnose is not the ideal gun for new shooters and it drives me crazy when gun shop clerks automatically put inexperienced women into snubbies. That is a terrible way to start out a new shooter. The snubnose wasn’t my first handgun and it shouldn’t be yours.

However, if you are just dead set on buying a snub gun for your first handgun, I would suggest a nice heavy one like a S&W 640 with a full-sized grip. A good grip on a snubnose revolver makes a huge difference in the level of comfort you will experience when practicing with it.

Three Pittsburgh police officers killed by gun-loving maniac; afraid Obama would limit gun rights

Source: Daily News

If this pathetic maniac did actually care about gun rights (which I doubt seriously, but I can only take the story at face value as reported by his friend), he did the exact thing that will drive the government to institute far more restrictive gun laws than what we have now – an insane, pointless multiple murder of three peace officers who were just trying to do their jobs, just like the four who died in Oakland two weeks ago. And he did his crime with the number one item on the gun banners list: the AK-47. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies!

This has been a particularly bad weekend for mass shootings. In Binghamton, NY, another failed personality walked into his immigrant assistance center and killed 13 innocent people before ending his own life. In Graham, Washington, a father killed his five children and then himself. A week ago we witnessed a massacre at a nursing home in North Carolina. Three weeks ago a kid in Germany killed fifteen people at a high school. At about the same time, another failed personality murdered a dozen innocent people in Alabama… and the hits just keep on coming.

The horrible irony is that these events make the case for both sides of the gun rights debate. They make a compelling case for why guns should simply be banned: “If they didn’t have those AK-47’s, they couldn’t do these things.” I argue against that logic, but it gets harder every day. On the other hand, these tragic incidents are solid proof that more law-abiding citizens should be armed, trained and prepared to defend the innocent against these chaotic psycho-terrorists. They prove once again that “gun free zones” make the best targets.

The horrible irony is that Obama himself seems to be working pretty hard to stay off of gun control, given his background and political orientation. That may change, but so far, he hasn’t actually done anything toward instituting gun control. Yet, these kinds of events will push Obama and the rest of the government to try to do something to put a stop to the mayhem, and the easiest political vector is gun control. In the political world, it pays to be seen as doing something.

The horrible irony is that freedom is a form of slavery, as George Orwell so famously put it. Freedom is slavery to personal responsibility and rational decision-making. Freedom is a slavish commitment to independent living and legal democracy. And, when freedom is abused badly enough, it vanishes. As Texas Fred is fond of saying, “Freedom is not free.”

The horrible irony is that eighty million Americans used their guns responsibly today, but nobody noticed because they didn’t make the news. That won’t matter, though. People won’t stand for this level of mayhem. We’ll be lucky if we get through this with snubbies and double-barrels.

Fairfax, Va. – Today, U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID), Max Baucus (D-MT), Bob Bennett (R-UT), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) introduced legislation to restore the Second Amendment rights of visitors in national parks and wildlife refuges. The current Department of the Interior (DOI) regulations were amended by the Bush Administration in 2008, allowing law-abiding citizens to defend themselves by carrying a concealed firearm in national parks and wildlife refuges. However, early this year, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. granted anti-gun plaintiffs a preliminary injunction against implementation of the new rule. The NRA has been working for the past several years in the regulatory, legal, and legislative arenas to achieve this policy change.

This bill would provide uniformity across our nation’s federal lands and put an end to the patchwork of regulations that governed different lands managed by different federal agencies.  In the past, only Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands allowed the carrying of firearms, while National Parks and Wildlife Refuges did not.

Source: NRA-ILA

The end must surely be near…

Tester, Baucus leading charge against gun control
By MATT GOURAS of the Associated Press

HELENA - Two Montana Democrats are leading the charge against gun control - even helping force the military to continue selling surplus brass to gun aficionados who want cheaper ammunition.

U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester are not simply placating gun advocates with a vague promise to vote against gun control in Congress. They are forcing former political foes to recognize that Democrats could be their strongest allies while the party controls Washington, D.C.

It’s creating uncertain bedfellows on an issue that wins or loses races in places like Montana.

The pair have been taking the lead on issues that only the most ardent gun rights advocates were talking about. Just last week they joined Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana to pressure the Defense Department in a move that is credited with overturning a short-lived brass ban…

…It was also Tester and Baucus who were among the first taking shots at an Obama administration statement in favor of renewing the assault rifle ban, telling their fellow Democrats to expect strong opposition.

The strong pro-gun moves are forcing the gun rights community to recognize that the key Democrats could be their strongest allies. Tester said the gun lobby knows it can trust him and Baucus - and gun-control Democrats know not to even bring up the issue.

“We are going to be an asset to them, no doubt about it,” said Tester. “We are going to do what we think is right, based on what we think is right, not what someone else in the Senate thinks is right or what our party thinks is right.”…

…The alliance is not lost on gun control advocates.

“It’s not like Democrats are automatically on one side and Republicans on the other. It can cut both ways,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “It is still very frustrating to us.”

Just a couple weeks ago, gun advocates who reload their own ammunition were sent into a frenzy over a Defense Department decision to stop selling surplus bullet brass. Just about as quickly as groups such as the National Rifle Association could get involved so did Tester and Baucus - and the ban was quickly lifted.

“It’s about living up to what is in the Constitution. It’s a good document, it’s gotten us to where we’re at,” said Tester. “It would be the same thing if the government came out and limited our right to assemble.”…

Baucus has old wounds in the gun control battle. He voted for gun control back in the early 1990s - and nearly lost his Senate seat in 1996. That campaign was so bitter that the Montana Shooting Sports Association ran an advertisement comparing Baucus to Hitler. Things are different now. The author of that advertisement, MSSA founder Gary Marbut of Missoula, personally attended a ceremony last summer where the National Rifle Association gave Baucus its election year seal of approval….

…“I think it’s very important for us Westerners to be eternally diligent, to not let any daylight between Montanans and the Second Amendment,” Baucus said. “We have strongly held views about the Second Amendment, more so than other states - and we represent Montana and not those other states.”

Source: The Missoulian

Seriously, I think this is an extremely positive trend that should be encouraged. I’m a gun rights partisan, not a Republican partisan or a Democrat partisan. Those who further my cause are my friends and those who work against it are not. I would like to see the day when the Democrats stop writing us off as hopeless and the Republicans stop taking us for granted.

On balances, over the past 16 years, the Republicans have done a better job on gun rights than the Democrats, but the Republican record has not been spotless. George Bush said he would sign a new assault weapons ban if it reached his desk and the Bush Justice Department filed an amicus brief in the Heller case in support of the DC handgun ban. Justice Scalia’s opinion on the Heller case contained enough weasel language that little or nothing really changed except that residents of DC can legally possess a handgun if they are acrobatic enough to jump through the myriad legal hoops required to obtain one – not exactly what I would call a clean reading of the Second Amendment.

We know about Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder. They are Brady Campaign stooges who have never had an original thought in their lives. We know about Frank Lautenberg, Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer. They are enemies of freedom and the Constitution. But with other Democrats who want to come over to our way of thinking and affirm the right to self defense, I’ll welcome them with open arms, even if I disagree with them on other issues.

The gun control and concealed carry debate that has swept over campus recently and has persisted in our nation for so long is, and always will be, fundamentally pointless and stupid. The problem is not whether we should have guns or not; what really matters is whether we can change our society to where gun control becomes a moot point…

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The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott on FOXNews.com

You’ve heard this shocking "fact" before — on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
• CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
• California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors … come from the United States."
• William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There’s just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it’s a big one: It’s just not true.

In fact, it’s not even close. By all accounts, it’s probably around 17 percent.

What’s true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency’s assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced — and of those, 90 percent — 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover — were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

• The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.
• Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.
• South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.
• Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.
• The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.
• Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America’s cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town…

Source: Fox News

So, what can be observed from this disinformation campaign?

• The groundwork is being laid for a new American “assault weapon ban.”
• The Mexican drug gang violence complaint is a stalking horse for the gun grabbers in the United States. This is part of the “case building” for the new AWB.
• There is no limit to to dishonesty of the forces of gun control. They simply do not respect the truth. They operate on the theory that if you just say something long and loud enough, it will eventually become “true” in the minds of the media-hypnotized masses.

See also: Obama administration, Congressional anti-gunners mislead public on guns in Mexico

President Barak Obama has applied for an out-of-state concealed carry permit from the state of Florida.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton purchased a full auto AK-47 on her recent trip to Asia.

Attorney General Eric Holder has resigned and admitted that he got everything wrong.

Vice President Joe Biden apologized to the nation for being a jerk.

The entire House Banking committee admitted that they had been on the payroll of AIG for years.

The State of California passed “Vermont-style” concealed carry today.

Wal-Mart announced that they would begin giving away cases of 9mm ammunition because no one was willing to buy it.

Bill Clinton announced on the Larry King show that he is a transvestite and wants to act in an upcoming reprise of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Osama Bin Laden turned himself in to the FBI today. It was later revealed that he had been living under an assumed name in Dover, Maryland for a decade.

General Motors made money.

…April Fools

The ‘America Is Arming Mexico’s Drug Gangs’ Lie

by Dan Gifford

“There is an iron river of guns that flows South into Mexico [from the United States] to supply criminal organizations on the border,” says Tom Mangan, senior special agent with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Phoenix. “They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles,” he continues. That’s right. The drug gangs can’t buy that and other military stuff like the 40MM grenades (the silver things in the upper left) and the rifles with launchers shown in the photo below in Mexico, so they drive to the United States and purchase them from American gun dealers at retail. Isn’t that the story you’ve been told?  Well, congratulations. America’s First Amendment protected propaganda ministry has punked you on another important issue — this time on behalf of dissembling officials and gun confiscation advocates.

For the benefit of those who may not know, machine guns (not the same thing as the demonized “semi-automatic”), hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other such military items are illegal to possess by US civilians, which means they are not for sale in gun stores. OK, in the interest of extreme accuracy for anyone in need, there are some civilian owned machine-guns in America, but they all have to have been registered with the ATF by 1986 as evidence that a special Treasury tax has been paid and the owner’s residence state has to approve the possession. What’s more, none of these arms has ever been involved in a crime, to my knowledge, and all are considered very pricey collectors items. That means they are not for sale to or in the hands of Mexican drug goons.

That raises some questions:

If Mexican gangsters are not buying military weapons in the United States, why do people like ATF officials, Attorney General Holder, Secretary of State Clinton, gun prohibitionists like Sarah Brady and multitudes of media talking heads claim they are while calling for an American “assault weapon” ban they say will to keep the Mexican drug gangs from buying what they really aren’t buying here because they can’t? …

Read the Whole Thing Here

h/t to David Hardy at Arms and the Law

As gun shoppers are discovering, it’s becoming easier to buy a gun than ammunition

As a growing number of gun shoppers are discovering these days, it’s becoming easier to buy a gun than it is to purchase the ammunition for it. Shortages of popular handgun calibers in particular have dealers and customers fuming, and ammo makers have shifted their production lines into overdrive to keep up with the demand. How long will the "bullet bubble" last? That depends in large part on politics in Washington and in statehouses across the land, and the messages that various legislative efforts convey.

Concerns over what the election of Barack Obama portends for gun owners is the main cause for the inflated demand for ammunition. In fact, since last November’s election ammunition has been flying off store shelves faster than you can say "microstamping," with sales increases topping 100 percent in many areas. Gun sales ramped up by 42 percent last November, but have cooled off slightly since. From Election Day to now, the monthly sales average for firearms has been about 29 percent higher than normal. February sales tailed off a bit, to slightly more than 23 percent over average, according to sales figures compiled by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)…

…"A lot of my guys think that the government is going to tax ammo to the point that it gets ungodly expensive," says Rausher. "So they’re buying ammo and putting it away — 9mm, .380, .38 Special, .40 S&W, .45 — all the popular stuff. I think they’re probably on the right track. Something is coming; something is going to happen. Whether it’s microstamping or non-lead bullets, ammo is going up in cost." Source: ESPN

Of course, my family jokes about my stash of ammo. I have cartridges for guns I don’t even own, so I’m no one to talk, but I will anyway. What good does it do to stockpile a gazillion rounds of ammo for guns that are outlawed? What am I going to do with my 3000 rounds of 7.62×39mm when the guns that fire them suddenly become contraband?

Buy ammo and components before the prices go up? Come on; this is just back door gun control. I can guarantee you that you will run out of money before the Congress runs out of new taxes. And also, if they can push through a punitive ammo tax, they won’t stop there. They will feel emboldened to ban classes of ammunition and the guns that fire them.

Rather than buying a boxcar of ammo that may instantly become worthless tomorrow, wouldn’t it be better to get involved with the struggle for gun rights, and send some money and letters to your favorite gun rights organizations and favorite legislators. The ammo that we really need right now is political muscle.

Pinelake Health and Rehab: More killings in ‘gun free’ zones

On Sunday morning, gunman Robert Stewart barged into Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, North Carolina, and killed seven patients and a nurse, wounding three others. As in previous massacres, the killer picked a so-called “gun free” zone where firearms are officially prohibited. According to an employee of Peak Resources Incorporated, which operates Pinelake and five other health care facilities, all of their facilities are posted against concealed weapons.

Read the whole thing here

I feel compelled to add at this point, that as sympathetic as I am to the point of view expressed above, these crazy shootings are a disaster for our gun rights. I can’t really see a day when workers at nursing homes, day cares, and schools will be armed to the teeth and adequately trained to repel an attack such as this. Consequently, each of these crazy shootings provides ammunition to the gun grabbers and strengthens the political of will of a growing number of Americans who are tired of having their “safe places” turned into shooting galleries. We know that there aren’t any real safe places, but that crystalline logic is not enough to dissuade those who feel a need to “do something” to make their world “safer.” They will do something, even if it’s wrong.

As gun owners, we need to do more than just rely on the old clichés: “See, if everyone had a gun, this wouldn’t have happened,” or “Nobody ever shoots up a gun shop.” When we do this, we are “preaching to the choir” but no one else is listening. I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I do know that our easy answers, as logical as they may be, are wearing thin on a lot of folks.