Fast and Furious

On By Tom LindsayIn ATF

Sometimes I wonder whether to post about things that so many other bloggers are covering. But I would be remiss if I didn’t air my thoughts on the Fast and Furious scandal.

What if the Canadian national drug enforcement agency told pharmacists there to ignore Canadian law, and sell drugs to people they knew were going to smuggle those drugs into the United States? What if hundreds of Americans were killed by people high on this drug, and no one did anything until a Canadian investigator was killed? We would be calling for heads to roll.

For those who don’t know, this happened, only it was guns instead of drugs, and it was the United States instead of Canada. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (the ATF) decided at some point and at some level in its management that it would be okay to allow gun dealers in Arizona to sell guns to people who would have otherwise be prohibited, despite the legitimate protests of the gun dealers involved. The ATF then watched those guns, and tracked them with GPS chips, as they were smuggled into Mexico and used by the drug cartels there.

One of these guns was used to kill a US Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry. After that, some ATF agents decided to break ranks and come clean. After some persistent reporting by a few gun bloggers, the story finally got picked up by the main stream media.

Of course, there is much speculation as to the ATF’s motives. Whatever they were, since they led to the deaths of innocent victims, they are irrelevant. But, those motives are not my point today.

My point today is this: this scandal is a test of the American system. Forgive me if this sounds melodramatic, but if we fail this, my feelings are we are in a decline from which this country may not be able to recover.

Our System – law enforcement, Congress, the media, and the people – must see this through to the end. We have to make sure that those involved are discovered, flushed out, and dealt with. Those who lived through Watergate as I did (or who have studied it) know that this is likely to be a long and painful process. I’m not afraid of the long process, only that we will give up, or give in.

There are those who try to blame this all on lax US gun laws, or gun shows, or any of a dozen reasons. The truth is that Fast and Furious is about an out of control US government agency. My hope is that those who insist otherwise sound as lame and pathetic to the other parts of the System as they do to me, and they won’t be believed.

Granted, it’s sad that those diversionary excuses are brought up, because it exposes those who bring them up for who they are, people who would see the Second Amendment dashed at all costs. And that is the central point of all this.

To me, the Second Amendment is the linchpin of the Constitution, and if it goes, there is really nothing stopping anyone who wants to trample the rest. So, if the System fails, or refuses to work, by one or more parts of the System becoming convinced that the ATF’s reasons were legitimate, or by us accepting a scapegoat, rather than dig for the ultimate culprit – then I mourn for us. In my mind, decline is inevitable.

Time will tell. Meanwhile, I pray for the family of Brian Terry, for Congressman Darrel Issa, Senator Chuck Grassley, and the others involved, as much as I pray for our military and political leaders. They must stand strong, and we, the rest of the System, must stand with them.

Tying Up Loose Ends

On By Tom LindsayIn Lee, Training1 Comment

Well, I didn’t get to shoot any over the Independence Day weekend. There was a Steel Match I had penciled in, but I didn’t get to it. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to do anything with guns.

First, I finished Lee, my Mossberg 500 shotgun. It feels good – I now have a functioning shotgun in the safe. I got a wild hair a couple of years ago, and stripped the bluing off my shotgun, before I read up on how hard it was for a dabbler like me to do a goos job bluing. I will post a more detailed report of the work I did, but overall I am satisfied with the results. I learned a lot about using Duracoat, and I would do it again, just with different spray equipment, Again, more later.

Second, I spent some time dry firing and practicing magazine changes. In particular, I spent some time changing magazines without looking at my gun, to test whether this was a viable reason for the changing my magazine orientation to “bullets forward” in the mag pouches.

My conclusion: after probably 3 dozen repetitions at various speeds, with my magazines oriented so that the bullets faced to the rear, I didn’t find that I had a difficult time changing magazines without looking. In fact, it was easier to do with my eyes closed than it was with my eyes open when I changed the orientation to “bullets forward.” I did find that I needed to slow down a little to make it smooth, but that’s probably not a bad thing.

For me, it is all about muscle memory, and I think that supports my original observation.

However, I think that when the time comes to teach someone else how to change magazines, I will tell them to orient the bullets facing forward. The idea of using the index finger on the nose of the bullet, to guide it to the magazine well, is valid and can be used effectively. No surprise, since much better teachers than I have been teaching it this way for a long time.

Thought for the Day

On By Tom LindsayIn Safety

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

(signed)

John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Podcast of the Week – the Gun Dudes

On By Tom LindsayIn Podcasts, Review

Carl, Stan, Tom, and Travis are four UPS drivers in Utah who share a love of shooting. They get together once a week and share that love with us as the Gun Dudes Podcast. For me, they are my Tuesday drive to work.

Imagine four good friends at a barbecue, eating meat sandwiches, cutting up, and talking about guns. That’s what this show is like, a sometimes irreverent mix of serious talk and general horsing around. Along the way they share some really good information, things they have used and they know work.

Now, I admit that this podcast took a while to grow on me. Sometimes the fooling around almost gets in the way of the real show, but they always come back to the topic. Somebody is almost always fiddle with a gun, and you can hear them racking the slide, working the cylinder, or handling the guns some other way. Sometimes there is a secondary topic going on with a couple of the guys. And there is always sarcasm and endless needling of each other, especially of the one or two of them who aren’t on this week’s show.

Because there are things they always do right, I keep coming back. They all shoot IDPA so there is a recurring focus on competition, training, and practice. Some of them are Glock guys, and they actually published the first Gen4 to Gen3 conversion chart I could find. They are also involved in Scouting so they talk a bit about training new shooters.

The show starts with the question, “What did you do this week with guns?” and each of them tells about their week. Then there are segments with news, emails to the show, and “Missfire Awards,” a round-up of miscues and gaffes, usually ending in a bad guy captured or worse. They always urge listeners to join the NRA, Second Amendment Foundation, and US Concealed Carry Association.

In addition to the regular segments, there is always a topic of the show. Some topics have included dry fire practice, IDPA competition, becoming an IDPA Safety Officer, taking new shooters, and various training classes they’ve taken. They also publish some videos of segments on the podcast, and they maintain a Facebook page as well.

I get a lot out of this podcast, and yes, I find myself laughing at a lot of what happens, and wincing at some of it. But despite the shenanigans, there is a lot of good information in this hour, and it’s time well spent for me.