Concealed Carry Backlog

 My current permit was due to expire on March 18. I took my training and submitted the renewal application on February 10, which I thought would be adequate time to process it. The state sent me the fee request and I paid it on March 9. This was all done on line so documents were sent electronically and the mail was not an issue. 

I just received notification that the new permit was approved on March 31. 

I can only assume that there are so many applications that the LSP cannot keep up.

Gun Store Shootout

 There was a big shoot out at a local gun store last week. A man walked into the store with a loaded weapon. He was politely asked to leave and unload. He started to leave but then turned and started shooting, killing 2 people in the process. As you can imagine, all the guns carried by the staff came out and the shooter became the 3rd victim. In the melee, 2 other people were wounded.

It has become very difficult to find out any more information. There has been nothing about the motivation or mental state of the shooter and you only get crickets when you try to find out how many rounds were fired and which rounds hit which people. 

It seems to me that if you wanted to commit suicide, opening fire in a gun store would be a good way to do it.

Concealed Carry Requalification

 

After 8 hours of lectures I was in a hurry to get done. That's my excuse for the fliers. 

Gun Confiscation Hysteria

Given recent events and the typical calls from the liberals, I post this link to an older post. As with most things, you have to do the math.

https://peripateticengineer.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-confiscation-even-possible.html

Cutting Off One's Nose......

The news feed was full today listing the companies that cut "partnerships" with the NRA and the left was crowing "That'll teach 'em." Well, exactly what will it teach them?

Most of these "partnerships" were marketing schemes where the listed companies offered discounts to NRA Members. Obviously, they recognized that the NRA members could be a pool of money if they were marketed to correctly.  So, what they are doing is giving the finger to the entire membership or the NRA and telling them that they will no longer get discounts for flying Delta, renting from Hertz, or using Symantic.

I predict that the companies severing ties with the NRA will themselves experience a backlash as NRA supporters decide to boycott them.

NRA members should each buy 1 share of stock from each of those companies and then vote against the management at the next shareholders meeting.

15th and 16th Century German Firearms

Note the carved ivory powder flasks and inlay work. Guns were pretty then.

These are in the Musee de Beaux Arts in Dijon, France.

Re Qual

Saturday morning was spent in class and the range in order to submit my renewal for my concealed carry permit. The local gun shop has a good system where they provide a notary and a fingerprint guy for first timers so that you can get all the paper work done at once. None of that was required for renewals so after a couple of hours lecture on safety and a re-education on the concealed carry laws, I went to the range to demonstrate my "proficiency" with the weapon (my .38 S&W Airweight). All I can say is that all rounds fired hit the back stop. But that's OK. I don't use it for long range sniping. Now I'm good for another 5 years.

Boston Bomber Shootout

Information is finally starting to come out about the night the Boston Police Department had the shootout with the Tsarnaev brothers. If you followed some bloggers that witnessed the incident, you know that several rounds entered houses and could have injured civilians. NBC has a story about the shootout and it is worth reading.

Boston Police Rule 303A gives the actions to be followed after the use of lethal force. Section 11 covers the requirements for a Firearm Discharge Investigation Team. As far as I can tell, if a report was made, no information about it has been made public.

If you google the streets where the shootout happened, you can see that the brothers route of escape was limited and it should have been a simple matter to contain them. Instead, there was a mad minute with hundreds of rounds being fired. Most of the injuries to police were from friendly fire. I think the lesson here is that if you should find yourself in the vicinity of similar action, get cover and stay down and when you do break cover, do it carefully.

As a final comment, as someone who went to college in Boston during the Vietnam Era and saw several student riots, I can tell you that you did not mess with the Boston Tactical Police Force.

Packing in Church

Middle grandson's school had a Grandparents mass last Saturday evening. While his school is not in the worst of areas, it is in an area that could be described as "sketchy". It's a bad enough area that restaurants within a couple of blocks pay to have uniformed police officers on guard duty. I debated whether to leave the Airweight in the car while we went to mass or to carry it into church. The decision was made for me when I found out that we would have to park on the street and walk about 200 yards to the school chapel - it went into my pocket and went to communion with me.

I'm not sure why I had this aversion to carrying in church. Anyone have any thoughts about this?

Another One Gone

I just learned that a friend of mine was killed last weekend. Details are sketchy, but evidently his death was the result of a negligent discharge at a corporate hunting event. Reports are that the round hit a rock and the ricochet struck him behind the ear.

He was in marketing and was always involved in some golf tournament, fishing rodeo or some other oil field/pipeline event. He once convinced me to be a judge at an industry sponsored chili cookoff. I ate some strange chili that day, I can tell you. He was a part of the old oilfield that worked hard and had a good time doing it, when things were done on the basis of mutual respect and trust. He'll be missed.

Welcome to Louisiana

The Boston Bombers, The Constitution, and You

I have a Canadian friend who crossed our northern border and became a citizen. During the Clinton administration a census taker knocked on his door and wanted to ask him the myriad of questions that the Democrats wanted answered. He responded by telling the hapless government employee that he had studied the Constitution in order to become a citizen (unlike most Americans) and the only thing he had to tell the government was how many people lived there....and nothing else.

I remembered that story as I watched SWAT teams searching houses in Watertown. I understand the need to find the bombers, but under what authority do the police enter and search your house? I believe that we should have an answer to that question. I thought it was just me until I saw this post by the Bayou Renaissance Man.

What if the government had a registry of all gun owners? You can bet that the database would have been used to identify houses with guns. What if the police decided they needed to secure those guns to keep them out of the hands of the bombers? Never happen you say? Well, that's what happened during Katrina, and even though the police lost their legal case, as far as I know, no guns confiscated during Katrina have been returned.

So, if you want to give up your constitutional rights and voluntarily allow the police into your home, that's up to you. Me, I'd try to limit their incursion to no more than 2 officers instead of the entire SWAT team and I'd go with them. What you do is up to you, but you should put some thought into your reaction because it very well might happen in your neighborhood.

New Hampshire Shenanigans Follow Up

The NH House narrowly voted (189 to 184) to pass HB 135 which repeals New Hampshire's stand your ground law. The bill will now go to the Senate where the GOP has a slight majority.

To me, as a 6 decades plus old male with an artificial knee, I will not be able to retreat from ANY confrontation. This law will only embolden criminals who will now think they can confront you with impunity and not worry about the threat of immediate gun fire.

More NH Shenanigans

New Hampshire leges will vote on HB 135 on Wednesday, March 20. HB 135 is a bill that eliminates the 2011 provision allowing a person to use deadly force anywhere he or she has a right to be, (negatively) amends the definition of non-deadly force, and repeals the provision granting civil immunity for the use of force in certain circumstances. If you live in NH and want to keep your right to live free, you need to contact your representative.

I'm afraid this is a result of good intentions that will have unintended consequences. But, as Daniel Webster said, "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

Chicago of the South

There were five people shot shortly after the MLK parade yesterday. One of them is now dead. It's ironic because Louisiana law makes it illegal to carry a firearm (even if you have a concealed carry permit) on the route of a parade permitted by the city. Of course, that little legal item doesn't deter the criminally minded from doing just that. Parades, after all, are where you can find your rivasl and gun them down. These guys were planning to murder someone, do you think violating a state gun law will make them think twice?

Kabuki Theater

If you look at almost any news agency - right, left, or Martian - they all have headlines about Obama's "Executive Orders" on gun control. The interesting thing is that none of them, zero, are Executive Orders.

An Executive Order is numbered and published in the Federal Register. You can look them up. What Obama did was issue three (3) "Executive Memorandums" and a bunch of other non binding "notes". The Executive Memorandums are considered to have the same weight as an Executive Order but they are not published in the Federal Register. That probably makes it more difficult to find in the public record and therefore not easy to find and track progress. For example, you can't reference it when making regulations like you can an Executive Order. ("pursuant to Executive Order xxxxx......") Those other things were basically a Presidential "to do" list and have no legal standing.

If you read carefully, you will see that they always talked about Obama taking "executive action". Everyone just jumped to the conclusion that he intended to issue "Executive Orders". He didn't.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that he wants to ban guns, but this last bit of theater was strictly Kabuki and didn't come close to overturning the Constitution. I think he was sending a recon party out on gun control. He wanted to test public (and party) reaction without putting himself at risk of being overturned by the Supremes.

In short, he was bluffing. Why didn't he get called on it?

More New Hampshire

In an earlier post, I told about a state representative who wanted to change the state laws so it became less attractive for people to move to NH for personal freedom. Now another representative wants to change the rules for use of deadly force.

NH House Bill 135 will "Eliminate the provision allowing a person to use deadly force anywhere he or she has a right to be." In other words, it requires you to retreat unless you are in your own home. The perpetrator of this is Stephen Shurtleff from the Merrimac 10th District.

If this keeps up, I'll have to renounce the state of my birth.

Is Confiscation Even Possible?

Some of our politicos are talking about the outright confiscation of guns. Ignoring the legal issues for the moment, is that even remotely feasible?

There are some 300 million guns in the United States. What would be required to confiscate them? Well, lets assume that each gun owning household has, on the average, 10 guns. That means that authorities would have to physically go to 30 million houses to collect their guns. Lets assume you send 2 guys (because the confiscating officer will need a backup) to each house and that it takes about 1 hour to collect the guns. That is a 60 million man-hour task - or about 30,000 man-years. If you are going to be effective, the confiscation has to be done quickly. So lets further assume that those 30,000 man-years must be expended in 1 month! That means you have to recruit an army of 360,000 officers to confiscate guns. Somehow, given the competency of our government, I can't see this happening.

And then there is civil disobedience. Once people see confiscation taking place, they will hide their guns. Only a very few will voluntarily turn in their guns. Remember the lessons of Nazi Germany. When Jewish citizens turned in their private guns, they were typically arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

Guns are private property and the government cannot take private property from you unless you are compensated. Sure, the government can afford it, but think of the organization they would have to build to process the payments. Their track record in Katrina, Rita and Sandy demonstrate what a poor job they do in handing out emergency money. Why would gun compensation be any different?

Finally, go back and read the law suits stemming from gun confiscation during Katrina. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this is clear case law that the politicians should study before they start talking about confiscation. It was tried and the courts slammed them hard.

A Resolution

One of my resolutions is to acquire an M1 Garand via the Civilian Marksmanship Program. I'm not interested in a collector grade model and don't really care if it has been repaired as long as it is serviceable and can shoot straight. I'd appreciate any comments from folks who have had experience purchasing an M1 through the CMP. For example, what grade rifle would you suggest if all I want is to take it to the range a few times a year?

Early Voting

I voted yesterday. Early voting opened in Louisiana last Tuesday. As I may have to be in Houston on Nov 6, I took advantage and voted early.

One item on the ballot was a state constitutional amendment that would make it more difficult to enact gun laws. While I'm driving home from work I hear the New Orleans DA, Leon Cannizzaro, on the radio saying he is urging a vote against it. He doesn't want it to interfere with the legislators ability to enact gun laws. Sorry, Mr. Cannizzaro, gun ownership is a constitutional right. Gun legislation has not stopped the killing spree that goes on every day in NOLa. When you get a handle on the crime, we can talk more. Until then, keep your pie hole shut.