The history of the NRA is storied. It started as a civil rights organization and stayed that way for a very long time. Sort of like the ACLU. Both have morphed.

The ACLU is now a slave to the left. Where there was a time in their history where freedom of speech and assembly meant they would defend a bunch of self proclaimed Nazi’s marching in a jewish neighborhood, today they are only interested in left leaning causes.

The NRA morphed as well. They became a “sportsmans” organization. As long as there wasn’t a threat to $2000 double barrelled shotguns and deer rifles they were ok with it. Carry laws didn’t really affect what they perceived as their base so they didn’t engage.

That changed in the 70’s with the membership takeover. The members had seen their dues go to pay for weak lobbying. They took over and demanded that the NRA fight for all gun rights. And they did.

They became a one issue organization that would fight to stop any gun control law.

They were also smart about it. If they knew they were going to lose, they did their best to create something that wasn’t a complete shit show. An example of this is the NCIS system. As originally proposed, the “background check” was a full on gun registry with built in wait periods that would become unreasonable.

Consider that a NCIS check will give you a denied, delayed, proceed in less than an hour in most cases and when things are really busy, it might take 3 or 4 hours. Then compare that to how long it takes to get permission to purchase a suppressor.

Is the background check to buy a suppressor really that much more extensive than that to buy a firearm? Not really. But they can extend the process at will. There are many stories of people begging for permission to purchase an NFA item to wait months before they get a “rejected for paperwork”. I.e. they filled out some part of the paperwork incorrectly and now they have to resubmit.

In the case of NICS, the NRA saw what was about to happen and helped to create NICS. While we don’t have to like it, the NRA made the default “proceed” if there was no answer within a given time. This required the government to do its job in a timely fashion. I.e. if they didn’t get a denial to the FFL within that time period, the person was going to be able to take possession of their firearm.

In recent time the NRA has fallen on hard times. Mostly the doing of the board. There appears to be some highly questionable financial going ons. In addition, NY State has taken aim at the NRA and is trying to sue them out of existence.

Which brings us to this article:
Good gun owners unite: A new group could help break the deadlock on firearm-safety laws

Another example of the “strange respect” that conservatives receive for five minutes when they surrender to the left. We see it all the time when some GOP senator or representative sides with the left. The left fawns all over them. Ten minutes after they are no longer needed, the bus comes roaring in to drive over them.

According to the NY Daily News, you become a good gun owner when you support “firearm-safety laws”. When you are interested in “responsible firearm laws”, when you value the right to keep and bear arms but “understand it must have sane limits, then you too can have that strange respect.

The problem with this sort of article is that they use polling data that is extremely misleading.

The overwhelming majority of gun owners are in favor of universal background checks, of raising the minimum age to buy guns to 21 and so-called “red flag” laws to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, a new NPR/Ipsos survey finds.
— npr

The poll in question:

This NPR/Ipsos Poll was conducted June 15-21, 2022, using the probability-based KnowledgePanel®. This poll was based on a nationally-representative probability sample of total American adults 18+ who are gun owners (n=1,022), Republican Americans 18+ who are gun owners (n=445), Democrat Americans 18+ who are gun owners (n=183), and Independent Americans 18+ who are gun owners (n=389).

Translation, they surveyed 1022 self reported gun owners of which 445 reported to be Republican, 183 said they were Democrats and 389 said they were Independent.

The poll can be found at Ipsos site

Q3, part k: “I own firearms because they give me a feeling of power?” is sort of interesting.
Q8: “Do you think it is more important to protect gun rights or control gun violence”

This question tells you that the poll is slanted. Unless they are asking about controlling hammer violence as well, this question is very slanted.

I’m firmly in favor of controlling criminal behaviors. Putting a stop to violent criminals as soon as possible.

Q9: Do you support or oppose Universal background checks for all gun sales, including those at private sales and at gun shows?

Interestingly democrats are at 90%+ for all options that are about restricting the rights of gun owners and are only at 53% for hardening schools (slanted rephrase of the question, by me)

It is worth looking at the original poll. There are results that don’t match what I “feel” are the correct answers.

The take away from all of this is that polls don’t always tell use what we want to hear. The media is still lying.

It seems like the gun haters just got to hate. The more they hate guns, the more the restrict people’s ability to defend themselves. The more people are made helpless the more criminals. The more criminals you have the more prisons and jails fill up causing “humanitarian crisis”

California is a a perfect storm of no ability to defend yourself plus a huge supply of criminals.

Add to that the homeless situation, often with mental illness thrown in (Thank you Ted Kennedy) and you end up with stories like the following.

A Deputy Probation Officer was beaten to death by a homeless man that broke into her home.

In my home if something were to shatter a sliding glass door our response would include having a firearm in hand. Heck, the scrabbles of a racoon on our porch got a 30-30 Winchester ’94 deployed.

This Law Enforcement Officer did not respond with a firearm in hand. Given the situation in California she might not have been allowed to have one. If she did have one the law calls for the gun to be “safely stored” and I believe it calls for the ammunition to be “safely stored” elsewhere.

I’m sure some of the firearms in my house are unloaded, don’t bet on it though.

So a homeless man was able to shatter her sliding glass door and then beat her to death.

He was in the process of raping her when he killed her. So he just finished with her body.

This asshole goes by “Sandro Bladimir Martinez-Marroquin” so I don’t think he is one of those nasty white extremist we keep hearing about. Those most violent of people, cis-white-males. Nope, he’s from one of the protect classes.

And the kicker? When arrested he had a shotgun.

Bets on him being an illegal alien that has been deported multiple times and has a long record?

Hero Down: Los Angeles County Deputy Probation Officer II Paula Lind Murdered During Home Invasion

H/T to pistoleer Z

Having gotten to the point where listening to Joe just makes my blood pressure go through the roof, hearing him spout off about guns just drives me nuts.

His advise as VP of “Just step on to the balcony and fire off two rounds from your shotgun.” was horrible advise. But of course he was thinking of his $2000 double barrel shotgun which he’s shot 4 times. He certainly wasn’t thinking of a “shockwave” or even a tactical shotgun.

Or his great advice of “Just shoot through the door with your shotgun.”

So him talking about 9mm blowing lungs out and every other statement he has made about guns in the last 20 years is just wrong.

J.D. Tuccille has a great article over at Reason that is worth the click.
President Biden Lies About Guns. Again.

You really have to hand it to mayor Lori (Beetlejuice) Lightfoot, she has trained the criminal element of her city to expect no resistance.

On Monday a Chicago animal casually strolled into a convenience store with a shotgun held down by his leg away from the clerk. He looks around before turning back to the clerk to begin his robbery.

And there things go right. The clerk had some situational awareness and had noticed the animal taking the shotgun from his car before entering the store. He armed himself and waited to see what the animal would do.

Sure enough he came inside hoping to redistribute the wealth.

When he noticed that the clerk was armed and willing to use his own firearm he started babbling “I’m from Chicago Bro. I don’t know anybody down here. I’m from Chicago.”

The encounter ended with the would be robber exiting, being extra careful that the muzzle of his shotgun never stopped pointing straight down.

Florida alleged robber armed with gun claims ‘I’m from Chicago, bro,’ leaves when clerk displays own weapon

I heard this and thought about my father. USN Retired.

One of the lines that strongly reminded me of Dad was the line about quitting smoking. Around 1973 dad decided he wasn’t going to smoke anymore. He was smoking 1.5 packs per day. He stopped.

Never smoked another cig. after that.

Of all of the people that are close to me I think my parents are the only parents that weren’t messed up in some way. I’ve heard so many stories from people I care about of bad childhoods.

My parents have always supported me. They were able to give me a drive to succeed and a “can do” attitude.

Delaware has some of the strictest gun laws. They are up there with NJ and Maryland, seeing as they are right there.

The short version:

Judge Maryellen Noreika, a federal judge, issued an injunction barring its “ghost gun” ban. She left some parts in place.

The Attorney General had attempted to have the case dismissed, which would have left the ban in place. Instead of dismissing the judge did a little research and then issued the injunction.

While declining to issue a permanent injunction, Noreika said that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their arguments that a ban on possessing homemade guns violates the Second Amendment, and that the prohibition on manufacturing untraceable firearms is also likely unconstitutional.

This is a big win for us. This is a lower level Federal Judge applying the Bruen opinion the correct way.

An injunction is issued only if the law would unduly burden a person’s rights AND if the person would likely win in court. If the law was not causing undue burden no injunction. The case can then go to trial where it might win.

This is important because it explains why only part of the law was injoined.

The ban does not allow people to sell “ghost guns”. The judge left this in place. She stated that since there are many other sources for those parts and guns with serial numbers. Thus it is not an undue burden.

She also allowed the ban on blocking 3D printer files that are ready to print firearms. This really doesn’t make any sense as anybody that works with 3D printing knows it never is “click and print” There is much more that goes into it. She did make it clear that instructions on 3D printing guns is allowed and it seems that non functional print files (STL files) can be transferred. So it could be that you could send the STL files and then send a patch file. This would technically (IANAL) be acceptable.

When this case gets to court it should be another win for us. These cases are tearing down so many of the gun right infringer’s gun control building blocks. It is good to see.

It is also good to see it happening so rapidly. It seems that as soon as the cases are hitting the courts they are getting positive reviews.

All of which is good for us.
Judge bars enforcement of Delaware ‘ghost gun’ restrictions

I’m sitting at my computer around 2300 doing some work when a message comes in from my wife

“I hear something outside”

This is as meaningful as just about all of her urgent messages. It could have been anything from a car revving its engine to an intruder trying to break in.

“What do you hear?”

“Like an animal rustling”

Ok. This is could be a real threat. It could be anything from a squirrel up to a bear. It could be trying to get at the chickens or the feed. Or it could be a big cat. Worse, it could be a two legged intruder.

I stand up and grab the Winchester ’94 the not weapon weapons light and head to the porch. A quick scan from inside the house shows no movement.

I step out the door and immediately hear something scampering into the mess that lives on the porch. The rifle comes up and I’m looking for the criter.

I poke here and there and I hear it again. It moves to the corner of the porch where the screen is damaged and it can get out. It is a racoon.

“It is a racoon. Do you want it dead?”

“Um….”

There is a three minute discussion before she decides that yes, it should be a dead racoon. Stupid critter hasn’t moved.

“It is going to be loud.”

“Ok”

I pull back the hammer, line up a clean shot. From where I am there is nothing behind the critter for 200 yards at least. The rifle is pointing down so the entire ground is the backstop. If I were to miss the round would go another 10 yards max before it was in the dirt.

Yes, the gun is loaded.
Yes, I want to destroy what I’m pointing at.
I have identified my target and what is beyond it.
Booger hook to the bang stick, and I press the trigger backwards.

There is a very loud bang and the racoon is gone.

Did I miss? I move it off the porch and around the corner. I can see where it went through the tear in the screen. No sounds, no blood trail. Shit, Shit, Shit.

Still looking. Then I spot it. It is dead dead dead. That 30-30 Winchester had pushed that damn critter off the porch. It was dead before it hit the ground.

Good timing, I go put stuff away. My daughter is the one that deals with dead animals. She collects pelts and bones and such. And she has people that buy them from her.

She is pounding down the stairs and shows up ready to go investigate. We head outside.

I move around and shine my light on the racoon.

“is it dead?”

Looking at the pile of fur and bones and looking to see if it is moving. No movement. No change in position since I checked 3 minutes ago.

“It is dead.”

“It just MOVED!”

“It is dead, it didn’t move.”

“Its looking at me!”

I look at her and where she is looking. Following her line of sight there is a second racoon . She can’t see the dead one, it is blocked from her sight by a plant. She can see a very live and very big racoon.

“There’s another racoon out here! Do you want it dead too?”

“Ummmmm.”

Child and I go inside where we go have a conference with wife.

“Do you want it dead?”

It takes wife another 5 minutes to work out if she wants it dead or not. In the end she says “Yes, I want it dead.”

Well the position of that racoon means that I have a backstop but not as good. It is the foundation of the house. I do NOT want to punch a 30-30 through a racoon and into the foundation. It will cause damage. I decide to drop down to a .22LR

So I grab the .22 bolt action then spend a couple of long minutes searching for the magazine. I know it is right here on my desk…. Find it and put it into the rifle.

Daughter and I head back out. I’m hoping the second racoon has left. Nope he’s still there staring at us with his beady little black eyes.

I again confirm with wife that she wants it dead. Line up the shot and press the trigger.

Nice clean break and the critter take the shot.

AND IS STILL FUCKING MOVING!

Grrr!

It starts to move along the foundation so I move to the corner of the house. Line up the second shot. It is definatently wounded. I can see it is limping. I line up the shot and press the trigger. Another good hit.

It scrambles along the foundation and cuts across the yard to the shed. Daughter and I are following.

“It doesn’t look bad. I hate .22”

“It’s bleeding.”

“huh?” I am such a smart dude. “I don’t see any blood”.

“There is a huge blood trail here.”

I go back and sure enough there is a big arse blood trail. I hear the ‘coon scampering so I turn back to follow him. He’s on the wood pile. I line up one more time and press the trigger.

It goes into death throws instantly and shortly after it stops moving.

---

AAR

There is a huge difference in the stopping power of 30-30 v. .22lr.

Racoon are harder to kill then they look. It take better shot placement for a quick one shot kill than I delivered.

The o-light worked great as a hand held weapons light

The .22 left a lot more blood.

This should take care of the critter problem we’ve been having recently.

From one of our readers, a Pistolero.

“The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition.” Colonel Jeff Cooper. Thought of this when I read this morning Startlegram story of the murder conviction of a gangbanger who managed to shoot one of his own side in the head during a firefight on East Berry.

Fort Worth gunman sentenced to 15 years for murder in 2019 shooting caught on video

End Quote

A Fort Worth gunman was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years in prison in the shooting death of a man in a business parking lot that was captured on video in 2019.

As part of a plea agreement, Damorian Allen, 30, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to murder as a Tarrant County jury was deliberating toward a verdict in the May 21, 2019, killing of 28-year-old Tony Austin.

From the article we know that the animals are of a protected class because they don’t give race or physical description. Even when describing the crime. We know the make and model of the cars, the type of license plates but from the written description the asshole could have been a Amish man getting a ride.

Regardless, our reader’s comment indicates this was bad people shooting at other bad people. None of the people in the two cars that were involved were good people and a number of them ended up in jail, likely not for the first time.