I guess this lawsuit against Bushmaster has really gotten people curious.  Below are some of the search terms and the number of requests for each that came in to my site yesterday.

I think I may add some commentary and a link to the previous entry on my XM15 page.

A lot of people have covered this already, but those scummy suckweasels at the Brady Center (nee Hangun Control Inc.) and the VPC (*spit*) are suing Bushmaster over the DC-area sniper incident.  Not being brain-fried like the Brady Bunch, I seem to recall a little something about personal responsibility.  Maybe instead of stupidly blaming an inanimate object we might instead realize that evil people do evil things and concentrate on putting the evil people away (preferably 6 feet under).

I sent Bushmaster an email offering my support and I also posted comments on Acidman’s entry as well as that of Mrs. du Toit.  Acidman emailed me this morning to point out Kim du Toit’s suggestion of a buycott.  I’d been considering the same thing, although I already own a Bushmaster XM15-E2S.  Kim pointed out the M17S Bullpup Rifle, which immediately got my attention.  I was going to stop buying guns for a while, but I think I can make room in my safe for one of these. 

I don’t generally use much profanity on this site, but I think Kim’s thoughts on this mirror my own:

Note to the Brady Bunch: Congratulations, fuckwits. Thanks to you, yet another Bushmaster is going to end up in private hands, and moreover, in hands that were not ever likely to own one. So fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, you bastards.

This post by Steven Den Beste has a well thought-out response to a misguided fool who thinks that it’s wrong to kill an armed robber.  It’s long, but well worth the time.

These are issues which have long been of interest to me, given my own decision to refuse to be a victim.  The commenter who emailed Den Beste appeared to be from Europe (big surprise!), and Den Beste naturally extended the self-reliance of American individuals to our response to terrorism:

Europe wants us to act as a passive and fearful citizen of the world, and to wait for the world’s policemen to save us. They want us to absorb our damage and not fight back, and we aren’t doing so. America is self-reliant. As individuals and as a group we won’t stand passively and let others attack us. We’ll defend ourselves; we won’t sit and hope someone else takes care of it.

Adams represents the finest strain of America in his act yesterday, and I’m deeply proud of him. For all I know he may well be vile in other ways, but at the deepest level he demonstrated a nobility I’m glad to see. I feel not the slightest twinge of shame in saying that.

Yesterday I said this:

Our overseas friends would do well to contemplate this example. What’s remarkable about Adams is that he isn’t remarkable. There are millions of Americans who would do exactly the same thing in the same circumstances. We don’t give up what’s ours just because someone else demands it, whether at gunpoint, or via crashed jetliners, or through diplomatic denunciations and accusations of unilateralism.

I want to emphasize this. If you don’t understand why Americans are willing to act like this, and why we’re proud to act like this, and why we are not going to stop acting like this, then you’ll never understand anything we do and your international rhetoric will continue to be ineffective. This taps into the deepest strain of our character.

You’re not going to get anywhere by treating this as cultural pathology. We think it’s healthy, and quite frankly we’ve got good reason to believe that. You had better learn about this, and accept it as an essential part of the American character, and deal with it in your diplomacy. The only thing you’re going to accomplish by trying to shame us about this is to alienate us, because we’re not going to change.

Which has been the actual result since September of 2001, as the politicians and chattering heads of Europe have indeed been attempting to make us ashamed of this attitude. Americans are not interested in hearing “Let the attackers beat you up and kill you; sit passively and let the police take care of it.” We’re also not interested in hearing “Let the terrorists kill you; sit passively and let the UN take care of it.” The only thing this has done is to increasingly convince us that Europe’s chatterers are effete cowards.

Everything which is truly important is worth fighting to defend.

That last line says it all for me.  Not only my own life, but more importantly, the lives of my friends and family are important and worth defending.  Others may disagree, but I will not allow them to make the decision for me.

I went to the gun show at Dallas Market Hall yesterday.  I didn’t have any particular goal in mind and I almost made it out without buying anything.  However, on the far side of the hall, on the last row, I came across the Arsenal USA/Global Trades Company table.  I picked up a couple of their guns and immediately liked them.  However, I decided to go back to a few tables I’d seen earlier to give myself time to think.  But it didn’t take long before I made my way back to their table.

I’d been contemplating an AK-47 for a while, and I guess the episode of Tales of The Gun from a week or so ago was still fresh on my mind (they spent the whole hour profiling Kalishnikov and his guns).  I just wish I could get my hands on a real AK-47, but there are all these pesky laws that will have to be repealed first (and if they ever are, I’ll also acquire a Thompson submachine gun).

So, here’s the new addition to my collection: Arsenal USA SSR-85B

Alas, this will probably be my last gun purchase for a while (people who know me are probably saying, “We’ll believe it when we see it”).  One of my promises to myself is that I don’t want to be living in this place at the end of the year (I’m currently renting a place that I’ve outgrown).  It’s time to get serious about buying a house (especially given the current interest rates), which means some descretionary items may have to be postponed.  However, that may be for the best since if I acquire any more guns I’ll need a bigger safe, and I just don’t have room for one in this place.

The latest issue of Shotgun News came today.  As I was browsing through it I came across this little thing, which is the Stinger Pen Pistol:

(Click for Stinger website)

According to their website it is legal to own since it has been classified as a handgun by BATF.  It is a single shot .22LR with a 2 inch barrel.  It weighs 5 ozs (unloaded) and is 5.6 inches long and 5/8 inch in diameter (at its largest).  It lists for $275.00 in stainless (and $399 in 24K gold).

I think I’d be afraid to fire something that small.  It may only be a .22 but it only weighs 5 ounces so I imagine recoil would be substantial.  According to the ad in Shotgun News they will soon make it available in .22 Mag and .17 HMR, which I imagine would be even worse.  When it comes to some of these tiny little guns I have to admit that I’m kind of a wuss.  I worry about something that’s so small that you can’t get a good grip on it.  I had that problem when I tried a friend’s Jennings .22.  The entire gun was so small that I couldn’t get my little finger on the grip.  It made me paranoid firing something that small, which had me flinching.  That was really a weird experience, considering that I picked up my Kimber and didn’t have any trouble.  Maybe it was just having more experience with the Kimber, but that Jennings didn’t leave me all warm and fuzzy.

I don’t think I’ll be giving up my Kimber anytime soon.

I took my new Browning to the range last night.  The range report is in the
notes section of the Browning’s page.

I’ve created a page that brings together all of the gun shows that I could find for the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in 2003.  In addition to this link, I’ve added it to my links in the left column under the heading “Shooting Supplies/Etc”.

Here’s the link:
Dallas/Ft. Worth gun shows in 2003.

There are currently 114 comments to the Guns And Freedom article over at RachelLucas.com.  Bill Whittle made some very moving arguments about the real reason for gun ownership in the article.  The comments were generally positive until Angel Shamaya (the Director of KeepAndBearArms.com) chimed in with a horrible statement that since Mr. Whittle didn’t own a gun he was a sub-citizen:

While I admire, greatly, your clarity on the issues of which you so eloquently speak, I still think you a sub-citizen and a sub-American for shirking your responsibility and yea duty to stand in preparation for the possible eventualities of which you are so clearly familiar. Until you are armed, you are cannon fodder; but worse yet, you’re cannon fodder who wouldn’t do what you knew long ago must be done in a “gestapo kicks your door in” scenario—resist, and take out aggressors so they don’t do it to your neighbor. This, to me, suggests that you were wiser at 6 years old than you are today, about the foundations of your above subject matter. In other words, nice speech.

I may rail against the evils of gun control and those who disingenously hawk it as a snake-oil cure for all the ills of our civilization, but I also recognize the right of each person to make his or her own decision regarding the ownership of guns.  I also recognize when someone “gets it” and is on “our side” in this fight.  It seems pretty crappy to me to then attack someone who agrees with you.  What good will come of this?  Will Mr. Whittle somehow be more inclined to purchase a gun now?  What business is it of yours if he does own one?  Who the hell are you to tell him how to live his life?

The decision to own a gun is a personal one.  Each person must weigh his or her own circumstances to make the decision.  As Col. Cooper said, “Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.”

In my dealings with those who may be on the fence or against gun ownership, I try to present myself as an anti-example of the stereotypical gun owner and try to engage them and show them the true nature of the shooting sports.  I’ve read several articles by Micheal Cloud (a libertarian from Massachusetts) on political persuasion.  He points out that each person has different areas of interest, which can provide openings for them to be receptive to arguments for liberty.  Immediately jumping into harsh moral judgements (which may be quite pursuasive to us) can do more harm than good by turning off someone before they ever have a chance to hear the benefits that would accrue to them. 

I think where I’m trying to go here is that while there are times for thunderous rants, harsh moral judgements, and namecalling, there are many times where they will do more harm than good.  I’ve said some pretty harsh things on this site about anti-gunners (specifically the unrepentant hardcases), and I truly believe the things I’ve said, but I keep these things to myself when dealing with someone in person until I know them well enough to judge their reaction.  I don’t see it as a compromise or being a sell-out to try to tailor my message to be effective with my audience.  When dealing with those who are not so gung ho on the topic, but may be on our side or are at least open to discussion, it’s best to engage them on their own terms in a friendly manner.  If someone’s open to the argument, then let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to see that we’re not a bunch of raving lunatics.  As I mentioned earlier, humanizing gun owners could go a long way towards combating the negative stereotypes foisted upon people by a biased media on a near daily basis.  Most people understand that the media gets things wrong all the time, but for some reason they still buy into what the media says in areas where they have no experience.  Let’s give them good experiences to use as a comparison against the negative reporting.

Update: Fixed typo (”:s/weight/weigh/”).
Update 2:  Clarified my take on harsh comments against anti-gunners.
Update 3: (3:00pm)  The debate rages on.  There are now 173 comments on the article.

Rachel Lucas has a great article that consists mainly of responses written by Bill Whittle in the comments section of her original article asking for input on the “gun control” debate.  I won’t do it the injustice of quoting only portions of it.  It’s long, but well worth your time.

Dillon Precision sells a wide variety of products for shooters and reloaders.  While I don’t reload, I look forward to their catalogs each month.

Maybe this is why:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a better image than this.  This is from the online catalog entry for one of their poster sets.  The poster business came about because of their catalog, which features a different picture like these on the cover each month.  The January issue features the young woman shown here in pictures 1 and 6.  You can thank her for this blog entry.

Politically correct?  No, and I thank them for it.