I’m officially licensed by the state of Ohio to carry a concealed handgun! Now comes the task of trying to carry the massive Glock 21 concealed.

3:18 pm  •  23 April 2013  •  26 notes

newsaxonvlad:

Texas Soldier Arrested for ‘Rudely Displaying’ Weapon

By  Charles C. W. Cooke

I just got off the phone with Army Master Sergeant. C. J. Grisham, a serving American soldier and veteran of the the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who recently was illegally disarmed by the Temple Police Department while out for a walk with his son.

“We live out in the country in Texas, near Temple,” he told me. “My son and I were on a ten-mile hike so that he could earn his hiking merit badge – it’s the last badge he needs to become an Eagle Scout.” But half way into the hike, Grisham said, “a police officer pulled up.” Initially, he was “cordial” and he “asked what we were doing.” Grisham told him. “Then he looked at my rifle. I carry a rifle any time I walk around because there are feral hogs and cougars and things like that.” 

From here, things took a turn for the worse.

“‘Where you going with that rifle?’ he asked me. I said, ‘does it matter? Am I breaking any laws?’” Then, he says, the officer “grabbed the rifle without telling me – but it was attached to me. My immediate reaction as a combat veteran was to grab it back and then take a step back. I asked him what he was doing. So he pulled his gun on me. Then I thought about my son, so I put my hands off my gun and he told me to move over to the car. Luckily my son had the video camera to document the hike for his merit badge. I told him to turn it on.”

The video of the incident is below. I’d recommend you watch the whole thing. Note the officers’ ignorance of the rules they are there to uphold, the suggestion that the law doesn’t apply in this “day and age,” and the persistent claim that American citzens are presumed to have their weapons illegally unless otherwise demonstrated. Note the officer’s claim that merely owning a gun makes someone dangerous. Note the conflation of a soldier in a war zone with a citizen in rural Texas. Note the presistent refusal to explain what law Grisham has broken.

Particularly chilling is the officer’s telling Grisham that a police officer is “allowed to” carry a weapon, but that Grisham is not — despite Grisham’s having a permit. “We’re exempt from the law” is not a phrase you want to hear from law enforcement in a constitutional republic.

In an interview today, I asked Grisham why he thought the officer behaved in this way. “I don’t know,” he said “It’s not the law. You can’t go around taking guns without probable cause or a reasonable suspicion that someone is about to commit a crime. A lot of what the officers said is illegal, against Texas law, against national precedent, against Supreme Court decisions. I was legally exercising a right, especially in Texas where we have a right to carry weapons openly, and I have a concealed-carry permit. I wasn’t looking to make an issue out of it. I go up to Austin for Second Amendment rallies with my AR [rifle] all the time. But here in the country? Ultimately, it happened because I stood up to a police officer. I support the police. I’m on the public safety committee. But I also know that when I’m stopped by a police officer, I don’t have to say anything unless I’m accused of committing a crime. I’m not being a prick. I don’t think it was the gun initially, I think it was that my reaction hurt his ego.”

I suggest that this creates a Catch-22: If you comply, you’re giving up your rights; if you don’t, you’ll be punished. He agrees.

I ask what ”rudely displaying a firearm” means. ”There’s no such wording,” Grisham tells me. “I couldn’t find the word ‘rude’ in the penal code at all. You can openly carry a rifle as long as it’s not threatening. If it’s slung across your shoulder, it’s not threatening. When you point a gun at somebody then you’re breaking the law. But just walking around with a gun strapped in front of you is not threatening in any manner.”

What happens next? “I still don’t have my guns back and they took my concealed-carry license. I’m not accused of a gun crime, so there’s no reason for them to have my guns right now and the problem is that, what’s happened in the past with other soldiers is that the prosecutors will try and get the soldiers to agree to the police dropping the charges if they confiscate the gun — to have the charges dropped at the expense of their gun. This is a workaround loophole for gun confiscation.”

Does this happen to soldiers a lot? I ask. ”Yes, this has happened several times in this area. To Staff Sergeant Nate Samson, for example. He had to fight these guys for ten months. The charges were dropped, but he has no justice. He doesn’t have a lot of money to fight them. I have a pretrial hearing on May 29. The police are dragging their feet, not releasing the video. They’re waiting as long as they can — playing hard to get… . The reason I’m aggressive on this is that, in the military, if this happens, they initiate a flag that halts your career. You can’t take leave, you can’t be promoted, can’t receive awards or decorations. I am supposed to move to new base in July. I can’t do that. I’ve been on active duty for 18 and a half years and it’s got my career on a hold.”

I ask about his son. “I’ve tried to tell my son that this isn’t normal; that police officers don’t walk around doing this. He’s developed an unrealistic fear of police officers. We were bowling yesterday and he freaked out when a police officer walked in. He’s traumatized by the incident — seeing a gun pulled on his dad. I’m proud of him for his reaction. He’s doing well … we sit down and talk to our kids about the Constitution and guns and safety. My son can use every single weapon I have in the house from the AK-47 to .38 special.”

Is it particularly bad at the moment? ”I think so, yes. All the attention that the media and the politicians are giving to ‘assault weapons’ — I insist that none of my guns are ‘assault’ anything – is causing people to call and complain about seeing one. And instead of saying, ‘hey there’s nothing to be afraid of,’ they go out and hassle legal gun owners. Law enforcement have a duty to recognize that if someone is lawfully carrying a weapon then you should leave them alone. Who cares what somebody complains about?”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345714/free-cj-grisham

(via souliberty)

12:49 pm  •  18 April 2013  •  78 notes

americas-liberty:

At about the 5 mile mark of our hike, a voice behind us asked us to stop and the officer motioned for us to approach him. He got out of his car and met us a few feet later. He asked us what we were doing and I explained that we were hiking for my son’s merit badge. He thenasked me what I’m doing with the rifle, to which I responded in a calm manner, “Does it matter, officer? Am I breaking the law?”

At that point, the officer grabbed my rifle without warning or indication. He didn’t ask for my rifle and he didn’t suggest he would take it from me. He simply grabbed it. This startled me and I instantly pulled back – the rifle was attached to me – and I asked what he thought he was doing because he’s not taking my rifle. He then pulled his service pistol on me and told me to take my hands off the weapon and move to his car, which I complied with. He then slammed me into the hood of his car and I remembered I had a camera on me (one of the requirements of the hiking merit badge is to document your hikes)…Up to this point, I am not told why I am being stopped, why he tried to disarm me, or even that I’m under arrest.

“In this day and age people are alarmed when they see someone with what you have [a rifle],” one of the officers explains, noting that someone had called the police. “They don’t care what the law is.”

“Do ​you​ care what the law is?” Grisham shoots back.

The veteran continues to elicit clarification as his hands are handcuffed behind his back, asking why the officers didn’t ask him to drop the weapon instead of resorting to such drastic action.

“I will not be in the habit of doing that for anybody with a firearm, because it’s dangerous,” one of the officers replies.

“So just because a guy’s got a firearm he’s dangerous?” Grisham responds.

“Yes sir,” the officer says.

The video has even more stunning dialogue, but Grisham says he is the most upset about how his son was treated, and how the incident will shape his view of the police.

“What a bad excuse you guys are showing for [the] police force,” Grisham says at one point.

“Actually, it’s a bad excuse as a dad,” one of the officers replies.

(via coffeeatmidnight)

11:20 am  •  17 April 2013  •  41 notes

“I just don’t see why anyone needs a semi-automatic machine gun.”

8:33 am  •  12 April 2013  •  65 notes

The ATF doesn’t just want a huge database to reveal everything about you with a few keywords. It wants one that can find out who you know. And it won’t even try to friend you on Facebook first.

According to a recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the bureau is looking to buy a “massive online data repository system” for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information (OSII). The system is intended to operate for at least five years, and be able to process automated searches of individuals, and “find connection points between two or more individuals” by linking together “structured and unstructured data.”

Primarily, the ATF states it wants the database to speed-up criminal investigations. Instead of requiring an analyst to manually search around for your personal information, the database should “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches” such as social security numbers (or even just a fragment of one), vehicle serial codes, age range, “phonetic name spelling,” or a general area where your address is located. Input that data, and out comes your identity, while the computer automatically establishes connections you have with others.

In a free country, “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms” would be the name of a convenience store.

5:12 pm  •  6 April 2013  •  35 notes

“Now, over the next couple of months, we’ve got a couple of issues: gun control. (Applause.) I just came from Denver, where the issue of gun violence is something that has haunted families for way too long, and it is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen, but also make sure that we don’t have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon — by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly.”

—

President Obama blatantly lying about the facts of the Sandy Hook elementary shooting to a crowd at a DCCC fundraiser.

For those of you who are still unclear as to the difference between full-auto and semi-auto firearms, watch this video.

8:32 am  •  5 April 2013  •  12 notes

The Connecticut deal includes a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six educators dead. There are also new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines and traveled to the state Capitol on Monday to ask lawmakers for it.

The package also creates what lawmakers said is the nation’s first statewide dangerous weapon offender registry, creates a new “ammunition eligibility certificate,” imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state’s assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms and requires that a weapon have only one of several features in order to be banned.

So as you can see the term “assault weapon” is a continually evolving word that has no legitimate real definition. It’s a scary word that governments can use to generate support for their gun control plans. I don’t know the text of the bill but I would like to know what the 1 defining characteristic a firearm needs in order to be considered an “assault weapon” by Connecticut’s standard.

8:44 am  •  2 April 2013  •  23 notes

I love the media’s vilification of the NRA. And by love I mean hate. They act like the NRA is this enabler of massive gun violence and tragedy. In reality, where most of us live, the NRA is probably the biggest producer of gun safety literature and training practices. You can say that the NRA literally wrote the book on gun safety. In order to get my CCW in Ohio I had to read and pass a 50 point test on the “NRA’s Guide to the Basics of Pistol Shooting.” Not only that, but the class I needed to pass was provided by the NRA and the person who signed me off on my certificate is an NRA certified instructor.

Then we look at Hollywood and see the EXORBITANT amount of gun fallacies all throughout various TV shows and movies. The majority of American’s idea of how guns operate and are handled is from what they see in those programs. My roommates and I play drinking games to gun fallacies whenever we watch something because there’s so many obvious  errors being passed off as reality. I can’t tell you how many times the characters on Lost are muzzle-flashing each other or going far too long without having to reload. We always have a good laugh though when we see Sayid running around with an SKS and only a ten round mag because it was filmed in Hawaii and they have mag capacity limits.

tl;dr The NRA and gun culture itself have done more to mitigate gun violence than the government could ever dream of accomplishing. And they do it with private dollars too.

10:20 am  •  29 March 2013  •  21 notes

President Obama is quietly moving forward on gun control.

The president has used his executive powers to bolster the national background check system, jumpstart government research on the causes of gun violence and create a million-dollar ad campaign aimed at safe gun ownership.

The executive steps will give federal law enforcement officials access to more data about guns and their owners, help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, and lay the groundwork for future legislative efforts.

If the goal is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals then I would say the 100+ gun companies refusing to sell to government agencies are doing more to achieve that end than the President ever could. Remember, this is the same president that attempted to cover up an ATF program that literally put guns (full-autos!) in the hands of criminals (Mexican drug cartels).

10:02 am  •  29 March 2013  •  24 notes

12:27 pm  •  27 March 2013  •  34 notes

Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are threatening to filibuster gun-control legislation, according to a letter they plan to hand-deliver to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office on Tuesday.

“We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions,” the three conservatives wrote in a copy of the signed letter obtained by POLITICO.

8:40 am  •  26 March 2013  •  23 notes

New York residents are having none of your gun control nonsense.

4:55 pm  •  5 March 2013  •  72 notes

“My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it.”

—

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn in response to Wisconsin’s attorney general stating that it is legal to open carry handguns.

Here, Flynn erroneously refers to the city’s peace officers as “troops” and as Radley Balko notes on his Facebook page, this is the “expert” gun control advocates in Congress tapped to promote their side in hearings today.

11:14 pm  •  27 February 2013  •  44 notes

“No law-abiding citizen in the United States of America has any fear that their constitutional rights will be infringed in any way. None. Zero.”

— Joe Biden on opponents to increased gun control.

10:30 am  •  25 February 2013  •  140 notes

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weaponsand high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on “requiring gun registration,” and says gun buybacks would not be effective “unless massive and coupled with a ban.”

10:22 am  •  25 February 2013  •  8 notes