Tag Archives: 2nd amendment

Nothing to see here

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The term “gun buyback” is kind of a misnomer as it implies that the people purchasing said unwanted firearms “off the streets” owned them in the first place. Nonetheless, they sometimes turn up interesting items for which those involved pay a song. In recent years this has included a revolver stolen from Teddy Roosevelt and a vintage museum-quality StG44, both of which were saved from the torch.

Sadly, a beautiful M1911 owned by Sammy Davis Jr. was not.

Well, speaking of odd catches at buybacks, the Marin County District Attorney’s Office hosted one earlier this month which was covered by the local paper and I picked up at Guns.com. Why would I pick up such a normally pedestrian news story?

Because they garnered a cherry HK MP5 with a side-folding factory marked stock and four-positon ambi Navy fire control pack lower, as well as a host of mags and a couple of suppressors for $200. At the very least it is a SP89 conversion Sterling VA marked H&K with nice laser on the front.

hk-mp5-with-a-side-folding-factory-marked-stock-and-four-positon-ambi-navy-fire-control-pack-lower
As California frowns on suppressor ownership altogether for civilians and you have to get special permission from DOJ besides your regular NFA hoops for full-autos, the MP5 combo likely came in from out of state, was illegal (say it ain’t possible), a prop house gun, or is a Post-86 dealer sample or LE gun. In any of these cases, there are likely some questions.

When things are so bad that you have to send it to the people

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So in California, which has had an assault weapon ban going all the way back to 1989 and yet still have mass-shootings with California-compliant firearms, lawmakers tried to pass over 20 legislative actions on increased gun control this session.

A baker’s dozen of these made it through the legislature in Dem-heavy votes of which Gov. Jerry Brown signed 7 into law and returned five with vetoes.

Since gun rights groups and Republican lawmakers couldn’t derail these, a group of gun owners on a gun forum (Calguns) got together and decided, “Let’s try for a ballot referendum to repeal these…”

And that’s exactly what they are doing.

With a pressing deadline of Sept.29, they are trying to get 450,000 signatures on 7 different propositions. Of course, California has 13 million gun owners, which by definition should all be capable of registering to vote, so it’s not far-fetched.

I’ve spoken with the man behind the effort, a San Diego tech company executive, and it’s a hail Mary play with a lot of spunk behind it.

More over in my column at Guns.com here and here.

We’re from the government. We’re here to help

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FBI_Badge_&_gun glock

At one point Greg Ledet made a minor mistake. Back in 1997 he was found guilty of a misdemeanor crime (theft under $100) and got 18 months probation for it under threat of a six-month jail term. Other than that minor (and petty) stain on his record, he has kept his nose clean and is by all accounts a law-abiding citizen. A stand-up guy.

According to U.S. law, there are a number of things that can make it illegal for you to be a prohibited firearms possessor (renouncing your citizenship, being convicted of a felony, of domestic violence, of serious misdemeanors that result in more than two years in the klink, serious mental illness, dishonorable discharges, et. al). If so adjudicated, the FBI’s NICS program will blackball you from being able to get a gun. None of these things Ledet did.

Well the feds for some reason have Ledet listed as a prohibited possessor, although they got his records from his home state in 2003 showing he was not. This led to him not being able to buy a gun legally in 2010. Somehow in seven years they didn’t update their files.

Trying again this year to buy a simple .22LR rifle, he was still denied.

He filed a color of law suit this year and suddenly the FBI was able to– just three weeks after they received notice to appear– approve his apparently forgotten appeals.

Kinda

More in my column over at Guns.com

An innovative (and probably effective) way to ban ‘assault weapons’

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"Kanarejka” (Canary) system, mounted below the AKS-74U assault rifle.

“Kanarejka” (Canary) system, mounted below the AKS-74U assault rifle. Now this is a real assault rifle. An “assault weapon” is a political term.

“Assault weapons bans” go back a quarter century with California implementing the first such restrictions in 1989. The the California Department of Justice’s assault weapon list has some registered 145,253 firearms  as of last year when I did an in-depth report on them. However, the AWB, although tweaked continually, focuses on named models and arbitrary cosmetic features such as hand grips, barrel shrouds, and threaded muzzles, deeming such guns “assaulty” while they accidentally wind up making such innocent models as the Marlin Model 60, a tubular magazine .22LR popgun, illegal in some states.

Such bans aren’t very efficient, nor do they reduce crime, as witnesses a decade after in a postmortem on the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which sunsetted in 2004.

Even the sometimes left-leaning New York Times noted that, “The continuing focus on assault weapons stems from the media’s obsessive focus on mass shootings, which disproportionately involve weapons like the AR-15, a civilian version of the military M16 rifle.”

Further, manufacturers can just rename their guns and delete cosmetic features, selling state-compliant models. As such, you can still very much buy modified AR-15-ish rifles in California legally over the counter. Sure, they have bullet buttons and look funny, but at their heart they are still ARs.

A state-compliant AR

A state-compliant AR. Even these abominations are banned in Massachusetts, at least for now.

However, Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Maura Healey last week flipped the script and decided to re-interpret the state’s 1998 ban to include an interchangeability test on the gun’s action, as ruling whether it is banned under state law. For instance, if Mass-compliant 5.56mm semi-auto rifle accepts the same bolt carrier group and magazine of the banned AR-15, it is banned as well.

So now components, such as the bolt carrier group and charging handle, define what make up an "assault rifle" under Healy's interpretation of Mass law....not the gun itself.

So now components, such as the bolt carrier group and charging handle, define what make up an “assault rifle” under Healy’s interpretation of Mass law….not the gun itself.

Gun grabbing genius this is. Because of the extremely broad strokes used to issue her office’s new guidance, most semi-auto centerfire rifles with the exception of a few (Ruger Mini-14, Remington 7400, Winchester 1910, etc), can be outlawed.

The thing is, Healy may have overstepped her authority and there has been a run on stores by gun owners fearing it will stick and some are promising legislation and litigation to short circuit her effort.

Either way, you can bet it is a blueprint for future moves by lawmakers to place a much more restrictive gun prohibition in the works.

Bringing the Second Amendment to the hood

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The Black Lives Matter movement has embraced gun control and allied with anti-gun groups while their leadership has very publicly painted the group as non-violent and non-confrontational.

Not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, 29-year-old community leader Maj Toure is a gun owner and a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association and believes that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental. And he is bringing that message, without any outside support, to the black community through outreach and free firearms training conducted by certified instructors.

I had a chance to talk with Toure this month about his Black Guns Matter group, his vision, and why it’s needed. In short, he wants to replace more gun regulations, buybacks and rhetoric with firearms training, education, and concealed carry permits.

black guns matter

“Charlton Heston said it – you basically got to pry this out of my cold, dead hand. I’m not going down that way because we are citizens, Americans,” Toure told me. “We are citizens. We have the right to exercise the Second Amendment and anyone that’s tryin’ to infringe on that is not only in violation of the Constitution but they’re also just a dick.”

I told him he needed to put that remark on a T-shirt.

More in my column at Guns.com

The Army’s surplus gun pipeline may be fixing to run dry

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m1_lede

Last week the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the 2017 defense authorization act– but hidden inside its pages is a section that could destroy the military’s current stock of surplus rifles and pistols.

The Senate’s version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes some $602 billion in spending and despite President Obama’s threat to veto the annual policy measure over issues including a ban on closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison, saw widespread support, passing 85-13 last Tuesday.

While many have noted the measure includes such items as requiring females to register for the draft beginning in 2018, others have been lost in the almost kafkaesque layers of the bill.

In short, within 90 days of the bill becoming law, the Army would transfer almost all of the surplus guns it held at Anniston to Rock Island for meltdown. The only exceptions would be for up to 2,000 M1911 pistols and 2,000 M14 rifles that could be donated to military museums for preservation.

This could mean the death knell for surplus guns for CMP, the 1033 Program which supports some 8,000 local police agencies, and the Ceremonial Rifle Program which provides guns for veterans’ groups such as the VFW and DAV.

More in my column at Guns.com

Of suppressor deregulation and upcoming ATF changes

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At SHOT Show this year I had a chance to throw some knives and hawks on range day and did so like shit. They were SOGs and, while I can make the excuse I wasn’t used to them and prefer my own edged weapons which I do throw much better, I still did miserably.

sog knives and hawks

However, I also did it right behind Josh Waldron, the co-founder and CEO of SilencerCo, the company that is like the Glock of suppressors. How big are they? They ship 10,000 cans a month, which is more than most suppressor makers ship in a year.

I had a chance last week to catch back to up him without the tomahawks and talk about various states dropping prohibitions against private suppressor ownership (42 states now allow it), hunting with suppressors (39 now allow it, up from 22 in 2011), potential deregulation of suppressors from NFA requirements via the Hearing Protection Act, and the impact that ATF 41F is going to have on trusts and CLEO requirements.

SilencerCo.founder.believes.in_.creating.a.lifestyle.to_.mainstream.suppressors
“We’re trying to make guns sexy again because they always really have been in this country,” Waldron said. “It’s been part of the fabric of the culture here but we want to make sure that that continues and so we’re trying to revive that.”

You can read the interview over at Guns.com.

A gal, a huge rifle, a passion for Curios and Relics

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I had a really interesting interview last week with Mae from C&Rsenal, primarily about their massive Mauser M1918 T-Geweher anti-tank rifle, but also about curios and relics in general.

T-gewehr-shoot-3-

Photo by C&Rsenal

Check it out over at Guns.com

Vale, SOF

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The last time you'll see this on the newsstand is this month...

The last time you’ll see this on the newsstand is this month…

I’ve met and spoken at length with “The Colonel” so this came as a blow of sorts.

Long the beacon in the newsstand for those who yearned to meet interesting people in far off lands– and maybe get into a firefight with them, will fade away to digital only starting in April.

Founded by renowned international man of mystery, Vietnam-era Green Beret Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, “The Journal of Professional Adventurers” based in Boulder, Colorado will no longer appear in print form moving forward

“Yes we are now an online magazine with much more content including current events and updates and industry news. And now we have a much larger and broader audience,” reads a post on their Facebook page.

Since 1975, SOF provided an outlet for legitimate and would-be mercenaries professional military contractors and assisted with filling hard-to-find positions in Africa, the Middle East and South America as well as fueling untold Walter Mitty fantasies in the more chairborne commando.

Noted contributors over the past four decades have included Col. David Hackworth, Lt. Col. Oliver North and sniper guru Maj. John Plaster.

SOF pulled a number of coups for the good guys over the years including effectively grounding Sandinista Mi-24 Hind helicopters during the Contra years after Brown published an offer of a $1,000,000 reward for the defection of a Nicaraguan pilot with his gunship. Brown also spirited out the first bulk caches of the then-new Soviet 5.45x45mm round seen in the West as well as other equipment from Afghanistan in the 1980s.

At least six correspondents from the magazine have been killed while on assignment in such third world hotspots as Burma, Angola, and Sierra Leone, going that extra mile for the story.

As noted by the Wall Street Journal, SOF has declined from its peak readership of over 150,000 a month in the 1980s, but its Facebook page remains active with nearly a million followers.

Brown remains a power in the gun rights community and has long sat on the board of the National Rifle Association.

Because flamethrowers are used in crime so often…

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The $1,200 XM42, able to ship to your door in 48 states without a license, will send flame over 25 feet away and last for about 38 seconds, but has earned frowns from lawmakers seeking to regulate it over what “could” happen. (Photo: Ion Productions)

The $1,200 XM42, able to ship to your door in 48 states without a license, will send flame over 25 feet away and last for about 38 seconds, but has earned frowns from lawmakers seeking to regulate it over what “could” happen. (Photo: Ion Productions)

In the absence of documented flamethrower attacks, I had a chance to speak with the head of a company that makes the devices about pending legislation that seeks to regulate the items.

Detroit-based Ion Productions has been working on the XM42 flamethrower concept since 2008 and last year raised $50,000 overnight through crowd-sourcing to move what they billed as the “world’s first commercial handheld flamethrower” forward into production.

Moreover, they did their homework beforehand.

“During the development and funding of the XM42 project, we were in contact with numerous fire departments and controlled burn workers in regards to its utility for them,” Chris Byars, Ion’s president and founder told Guns.com. “Farmers, firefighters, controlled burn prescribers have used devices that emit streams of fire for many years.”

Laws governing the devices are few, with only California and Maryland having codified their use while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have no mandate to restrict them.

However, just months after the X42 gained national media attention, lawmakers sought to step up regulation.

More in my column at Guns.com

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