I came across this post by Kim du Toit, which proposes that everyone buy at least 100 rounds of your favorite ammunition on November 19th.

If the country is awash in ammunition, it makes the prospect of punitive sales taxes a moot issue—no point in hoping that people will run out of ammunition when everyone has a huge supply of it.

So I’m making a personal appeal to all gun owners and Second Amendment supporters in the United States:

Please buy 100 rounds of your favorite ammunition on November 19, 2002.

Why November 19th?  Well, the best thing about November 19th is that it’s just an ordinary day, this year a Tuesday, falling during the week before Thanksgiving week.  There’s no conflict with any holiday or other event—it’s just an ordinary day.

Actually, there’s one thing about November 19th that does make it special.

It’s my birthday.

And the very best birthday present I can think of would be a poke in the eye for all gun-grabbers, gun-fearing wussies and their media lickspittles.  Just once, I’d like millions of ordinary, law-abiding people to stand up and make a defiant, and legal, gesture at the face of authority.

This is not being sponsored by anyone, and has no official anything.  It’s just plain old popular defiance— and it’s perfectly legal, requires no one to do anything out of the ordinary.

One hundred rounds.  More if you can afford it.  November 19, 2002.

We’ll call it National Ammo Day.

One billion rounds of ammunition into private ownership, in one day.

(Emphasis Mine)

Damn, I like it!  In fact, I may just buy more than 100 rounds.  Given all the different guns that I have, maybe I should buy 100 rounds for each one (i.e. 9mm, .380ACP, .45ACP, .357Mag, .223Rem, 12 Ga, .22LR).  Or maybe I should buy a case for one of them.  Heck, I never buy just 100 rounds anyway (I shoot that much in .45ACP alone each week).  Although I usually order my ammo online, I may just go down to Cheaper Than Dirt‘s retail store after work on the 19th, since it’s open until 8:00pm.

Now where to put all that ammo?  I usually keep 500-1000 rounds of each caliber around at all times.  Maybe I should pick up some more ammo cans, too, while I’m there.

At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Les Kinsolving, a reporter for WorldNetDaily, asked Ari Fleisher about the outrageous estimate put forth by Norman Mineta for arming pilots ($1 billion to start with $250 million per year in ongoing costs).

Let’s dissect Fleisher’s response:

FLEISCHER: You raise a complicated and important issue about how to protect the safety of passengers. And this is not a black or white issue. This is a very complicated issue about how to arm pilots in a way that actually promotes safety, so mistakes don’t happen from people who are not trained in the arts of security, particularly security in the confined spaces of an airliner traveling in an area where a stray bullet could actually bring the plane down itself.

Any time a political hack starts talking about an issue being complicated it means that he can’t address the issue, so obfuscation is needed.  The idea that a stray bullet could bring down an airliner has been thoroughly debunked (see info below), and it’s quite disingenuous at this point.

And so the secretary’s focus and the president’s focus all along have been on the best way to do this while maintaining safety. And it’s not a simple question, and that’s why the secretary is focused on training aspects and what the costs of training would be, the effect of taking pilots out of the cockpit so they will not be able to fly and putting them in a training program, what the effect that would be on air travel. There are a host of issues that come into play with this, and those are all being worked together with the Congress.

Quite frankly, this is a scheduling issue that the pilots and the airlines can work out on their own.  If I was a pilot, I’d be willing to spend part of my vacation time to attend training classes, so I don’t see “taking pilots out of the cockpit” to put them into a training class as a legitimate problem.  Once again, obfuscation over substance.

As for costs, Frontsight Training Institute has already offered to provide training for free.  Further, pilots could provide their own firearms, with ammunition of a type similar to that used by the Air Marshalls (or some other spec to be decided by the TSA).  The only costs here are for the TSA to establish the training standard, although I think some derivative of the Air Marshall training could be used to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Now I suspect that Frontsight can’t physically handle all the pilots that would want to be trained.  But since the proposal is for a volunteer program (no pilot would be forced to carry a gun), why not let the pilots or the airlines pay for the training at a facility that follows the TSA standards?  There are a number of reputable firearms training facilities in this country that could put together a rigorous program for pilot training.  These facilities already train many police and government “law enforcement” agents in marksmanship and the use of deadly force.

If government would just get out of the way, this program could be done quickly and efficiently.

I’m out of patience for this administration’s wrong-headed, obstinate refusal to get out of the way of pilots arming themselves as a last line of defense.  There are no credible objections left at this point.  As long as the United States government says that it will shoot down hijacked airliners to protect people on the ground, then it’s the height of stupidity to stop the pilots from defending the plane.  If I was more cynical, I’d say it’s almost like they want to have to shoot down a plane.

Well they’ll be doing it without me as long as airplanes are victim disarmament zones.  I’m not going to go out like a good little sheep.  I want to have a fighting chance.  The bare minimum, for me, is to have armed pilots.  I’d prefer that passengers be armed as well, but that’s not likely to happen as long as the nanny state is in control.

Some background material:

• Can a bullet bring down an airliner?
• On Depressurization
• Airplanes & Guns: Myths and Reality
• Pilots offered free firearms training
• Frontsight Training Institute

Rachel Lucas delivers a righteous fisking to the latest drivel coming from the Brady Center (nee Handgun Control Inc).  Someone really made a mistake when they put her on the Brady Center’s mailing list.  The latest fundraising letter tries to link their odious agenda with terrorism.  It’s amazing the depths these people will sink to in their war against our civil rights. 

Some choice quotes from Rachel:

Did I miss something? Have I just been ignorant of the apparent fact that terrorists are exploiting loopholes in order to obtain guns? Do I need to start watching the news 24 hours a day? Because I was REALLY under the impression that every single terrorist who attacked America on 9/11 used some weapon other than a gun to murder 3,000 people.

There still exists a terrible and deadly loophole. It’s called “the gun show loophole.” Because of this loophole, it’s still possible for a criminal to buy a gun without a background check. The same for a terrorist!

Oh, no!!! The horror! The drama! How can this be? Oh, wait, sorry. Almost fell for the B.S. rhetoric.

Once again, Jim: The. Terrorists. Did. Not. Use. Guns. To. Kill. Three thousand. People.
…
I have news for the Brady Campaign. Not all of us are so stupid that we believe your rhetoric. In fact, many of us are quite insulted that you would even TRY to convince us that the “gun show loophole” had anything whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.

Go, Rachel!

Eugene Volokh has more on the people behind RegulateGuns.org (I’m not giving these idiots a link).  It turns out that the site is owned by the “Violence Policy Center” and he’s caught them in their slimy, back-door attempt to ban guns through consumer regulation.  Check the quote from Tom Diaz.

Some people may think that gun owners and civil rights activists¹ are paranoid and quick to jump on the slippery slope argument.  It’s not paranoid if they’re really out to get you.  And we’ve just been perceptive enough to see through these bastards.

And right beneath this article, there’s another on the NRA standing up for both the First and Second amendments against an idiotic school district policy at Jack Jouett Middle School in Albermarle County, VA.  See the press release here.

¹ Yes, this includes the right to keep and bear arms.  Any elected official who creates or enforces any gun control (more appropriately known as victim disarmament) law should be tried for violating people’s civil rights (and for violation of the oath of office for failing to uphold the Constitution).

Capt. Tracy Price of the Airline Pilots’ Security Alliance had this to say today on the issue of arming pilots.

“The concept of arming pilots with firearms to prevent or stop a hijacking is viewed by some as an extreme and intrusive measure, but we think they’ve got it exactly backwards,” he continued. “The policy of sacrificing a civilian airliner with innocent Americans on board to keep terrorists from using it as a weapon – while at the same time refusing to allow the pilots an opportunity to offer a last resort, final line of defense – is the extremist view that should be ridiculed and dismissed.”

To which I say we need more people like him and fewer anti-gun idiots.

I’ve been wanting to put together a set of pages for the guns that I own for quite a while now.  I finally did it and the page can be seen here.

After hearing about the EAA Witness series from L. Neil Smith and from other sources, the bug finally bit me and I picked up a Compact 9mm EAA Witness at the Big Town Gun Show in Mesquite on 5/4.

I took it to the range last week and put 150 rounds through it.  There were no failures of any kind.  My coworker put another 50 rounds through it after me and had no problems either.

I was impressed at how good the gun feels in your hand and how well it shoots (although I did everything in single-action mode—I didn’t try double).  The trigger pull was smooth and the gun was quite accurate (more accurate than me, anyway).  Felt recoil with the 115-grain FMJ Wolf was quite mild (although I must confess I had been using my 45ACP Kimber Ultra CDP-II before hand, which might bias me a bit).

All in all, this is a nice gun.  The fit and finish were good and it shoots well.

Impressive, given the gun only cost $335.00 (with tax) NIB.

This article by Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen in NationalReview online highlights the sheer folly of attempting to ban guns.  The tiny island of Bougainville was blockaded in an attempt to deprive the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) of arms.  Instead of bringing the revolution to an end, the blockade ended up killing 10% of the island’s population through starvation and disease.  Meanwhile, the BRA have resorted to building their own firearms.  They started simple, with single-shot arms, using parts and ammunition from left-over WWII-era supplies and from WWII-era wrecks.  The BRA is now producing its own copy of the full-auto M16 (the basic infantry rifle of the United States armed forces, which is not available to civilans in the U.S.).

See the story for the full background on these tenacious islanders.