Tag Archives: guns

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

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 all-seeing eye (of the networked FFL)

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Go ahead, tell me you wouldn't shop there...

Go ahead, tell me you wouldn’t shop there…

Following the news that the terrorist in the Orlando attack was able to legally purchase his firearms from a local store after he was turned down by one licensed dealer just days before, I spoke a couple weeks ago with software developer and long-time gun owner Seth Banks who came up with an idea that gun shops could help network to keep this from happening in the future.

The idea is simple. A private network for verified Federal Firearms Licensees to share and report incidents they have with suspicious buyers, and communicate with each other. When one shop in the network posts an alert, other dealers within driving distance are alerted via email, in-app notification, and/or text message.

“FFLs deny gun purchases for all sorts of reasons; including mental health, straw sales, intoxication, violent comments in the store, etc. … FFLs are on the front line protecting our community from bad actors already. Why not make their jobs easier?” Banks argued.

And with that Gun Shop Watchlist was formed.

More in my column at Guns.com

One 3-D printer away…

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I’ve been covering the story of a DIY gun maker who goes by derwoodvw, a 47-year-old carpenter, and his very AR-ish/Tec-9 looking Shuty MP 1 semi-auto pistol made almost completely of plastic for a minute over at Guns.com.

His latest version uses an aftermarket Glock 17 barrel along with a 3D printed lower and upper designed to use G17 mags. He says he has gotten 3K rounds out of it without jamming thus far.

A big step from the homemade guns of yesteryear. You can almost picture resistance armorers in occupied wherever peering at their desktop 3D printer in the dim lights of their basement workshops, the hand-rolled cigarette of the 1940s replaced with a vape…

Hessian SEK comes correct

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So last Thursday a “confused” man entered the Kinopolis in the Rhein-Neckar-Zentrum shopping center located in the town of Viernheim around armed with an unidentified weapon from which he fired at least four shots in the air. This initiated a response from Hessian state police Spezialeinsatzkommando (SEK) members from nearby Frankfurt who ended the hostage situation (four workers and 14 visitors held against their will) with judicious use of chemicals (CS) and surgical use of small arms.

At the end of the incident, the gunman was expired but all the movie-goers were fine with the exception of a whiff of CS.

Post-shooting analysis show the 19-year old German at the root of the incident to be a disturbed young man armed with blank firing alarm guns and fake grenades, which is sad and seems leaning towards suicide by cop.

Not to be confused with the smaller and more counter-terror focused federal GSG9, SEKs are more akin to special response/SWAT teams and by looking at the imagery coming from the incident, there are a few uniquely German take-aways.

Beards are definitely in German LE. Something that is frowned upon in the States. Also, check out the Heckler and Koch MP5A5. Very nice.

Beards are definitely in with German LE– something that is frowned upon in the States. Also, check out the Heckler and Koch MP5A5. Very nice. Further, Mechanix and Motorola aren’t just for Yanks…

Turn out gear is tactical need based-- grab it and go-- as noted by this officer's drop leg rig, which is obviously optimized for the use of hard-plate armor if you note the drop leg holsters. As for the extra handguns (note all the HKs), it looks like the Blackhawk SREPA was there before he threw the balaclava and other gear on and he just hasn't taken it off yet.

Turnout gear is tactical need based– grab it and go– as noted by this officer’s drop leg rig, which is obviously optimized for the use of hard-plate armor if you note the drop leg holsters. As for the extra handguns (note all the HKs), it looks like the Blackhawk SREPA was there before he threw the balaclava and other gear on and he just hasn’t taken it off yet. Still the balaclava and shorts combo is suspect…

Finally, it looks like SEK is perfectly fine rolling in short pants and sneaks. Again we have MP5s and HK pistols. Also note the abbreviated expandable baton on the officer to the right, worn cross draw at about the 11 c'clock

Finally, it looks like SEK is perfectly fine rolling in short pants and sneaks in the interest of saving time. The team came from Frankfurt which is about an hour away so they likely just grabbed and ran. Again we have an MP5, what looks to be a very chopped HK33, and HK pistols along with dropleg rigs and beards. Also note the abbreviated expandable baton on the officer to the left, worn cross draw at about the 11 o’clock on an officer that is obviously right-hand dominant.

On a semi-related note, HK is bringing their newest civilian-legal version of the MP5K to the U.S. in coming days.

I fooled around with one last month in Louisville and have to admit it is kinda sweet.

DSC_0137 DSC_0138 DSC_0143 DSC_0141

The good news is, the SP5K is still made at the HK Oberndorf factory in Germany and comes with a STANAG 4694 Profile mounting rail.

Bad news is it’s $2,699 MSRP and if you add the optional folding buttstock you are still looking at the stamp. Still, the closest competition, the Zenith MKE Z-5 series, runs close to that and no matter how nice they are, still don’t say HK on them…

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

Connex loads of quiet headed overseas?

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Back in 1976, the Ford Administration approved the Arms Export Control Act as part of the NDAA which gave the State Department the juice to regulate foreign military weapon sales and transfers. Part of this, under the later International Traffic in Arms Regulations, led State to put the kibosh on commercial sales of things like night vision gear and suppressors , citing they were defense articles.

hk 91 with suppressor and m1 garand silencerco photo
This means that while countries like Norway, Finland, New Zealand and the UK have lax laws on the sale of “silencers” for sporting and target purposes, U.S. firms like SilencerCo, Gemtech and Surefire can sell all they want to the Royal Marines or the Norwegian Army, but not to good old gameskeeper Mr. Thatcher or hunter Mr. Johansson– even though local laws are cool with it.

I did speak to several inside the beltway and the suppressor industry about that last week, and a new legislation, the logically named Suppressor Export Act, to change the regs.

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

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