It’s 1982, you have a deep penetration observation post to set up and sit on. You will be inserted without immediate supply or close support for 72 hours.
Your OpFor is the Argentinian military guarding the air strip that you and your SAS boys are there to render useless. Weather isn’t your friendly friend. Your mission isn’t to get into a firefight, but if you do before mission kick-off the plan is to dig in and wait for the SAS or scrambled Royal Marines to reinforce you and then take the airfield the hard way.
Ideal goal is to take the field when all the installations aircraft are grounded so that all of them can be taken out of commission, they are a far more valuable target for destruction or capture than any ground units. They are the major threat to the Royal Marines and your supporting naval vessels.
So, 9-Hole wants to know do you pack in a heavier FAL variant with 4x optics that is well proven and logistically backed for years, or the newer, lighter, and well proven by the American’s M16A1?
Part of your upcoming mission will be overwatch of the assault force after confirming that all the aircraft, or failing that the majority, are on the ground to be destroyed. You are also space/weight limited because of the hike in and the longer multi-day harsh weather duration.
While the M16A1 has merit, including bringing more ammunition, I believe that the assault element of the SAS would better benefit from the mobility it provides than the overwatch/observation element. That fairly flat terrain and objective key, observing the aircraft, would be aided by the optics. Using the additional range that 7.62 NATO provides to the troopers, as well as that provided by the optics, increases my stand-off distance and the distance the team can provide effective overwatch during the actual attack.
Enemy situation includes the fact that the Argentinian military also uses the 7.62 NATO FAL, metric pattern, but the rifle has a greater effective range than the M16A1 regardless. With an already drastic ground force ratio disparity if the team takes contact, until reinforced, and the terrain able to favor shots at longer distances I will take the rifles that will give me parity or a slight edge in effective range (thanks to optics). I’m not concerned with scavenging ammunition or using enemy rifles, although that is a possible advantage in an extreme circumstance, it has little relevance to this plan. The ability to stand off enemy infantry on the terrain and provide direct fire support at a moderate distance when the assault element hits the airfield, that I am concerned with.
[Ed: Stephen D’Andrilli & Roger Katz are pro-2A Constitutionalist polemicists whom we enjoy reading. In this piece, first published February 6 at The Arbalest Quarrel, they raise important questions about the language and semantics of those who would cancel much of our freedom. Edited (and retitled) for space and clarity. Parts 3 & 4 on Thursday.]
PART ONE . . .
Democrats in Congress and the Administration are using the term ‘equity’ incessantly, without bothering to explain what they mean by it, which begs a person to ask:
WHAT DOES THE WORD ‘EQUITY’ MEAN AND WHAT IS ITS IMPORT? . . .
The word ‘equity’ . . . should mean nothing more than ‘equality,’ a synonym. Okay. But if the two words are synonyms, then why not use the term, ‘equality.’ After all, the word ‘equality’ has historical weight behind it. The word ‘equity,’ by contrast, does not.
Apart from extensive use of the word in politics and in the Press, ‘equality’ is a legal term of art, as is the adjectival form of the word, ‘equal,’ appearing prominently in both the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and in federal legislation, and the import and purport of ‘equality,’ are discussed at length in legal treatises.
So, then, what devious intention or nuance lurks behind the use of the word, ‘equity,’ in lieu of the word, ‘equality,’ by . . . the Left? . . .
Are they using the word ‘equity’ in a novel way? If so, then offer an explanation for it.
If no novel use for the term ‘equity’ is intended, then why use it at all? The word, ‘equality,’ works just fine. But, having thrown the word out in the public domain, and with Democrats excruciatingly mindful of employing and emphasizing the word in their public discourse and when directing that talk especially to the Press, there must be some reason for doing so, and that is itself telling.
“PROGRESSIVE” USE OF NEOLOGISMS AND COMMON WORDS AND PHRASES WITH NEW TWISTS ALLUDE TO A MASSIVE PROPAGANDA EFFORT TO FORM, SHAPE, AND SWAY PUBLIC OPINION
The American public has seen the Radical Left . . . penchant for using common words and phrases in cryptic ways and for inventing new words and phrases, the meaning of which remains confoundingly mysterious. This must all be by design.
How often in the last several months have Democrat politicians and their friends and compatriots in social media and in the Press thrown the expression ‘systemic racism’ around? No one bothers to define it or provide evidence for its existence; why is that?
Even so, in asserting the words ‘systemic racism’ over again, the expression operates as a viral meme, a painful splinter in the public’s psyche, as it was meant to do. The public blithely accepts the existence of this thing, ‘systemic racism’, as it is expected to do, and many Americans obediently comply, accepting the existence of ‘systemic racism’, unskeptically, unconditionally, and uncritically. . . .
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.
If you tell a lie big enough and keeprepeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. . . .
If the Nation cannot return to its roots, irreparable harm, utter catastrophe will befall the it. Division, divisiveness, and suspicion of ‘the other’ have become widespread and are being deliberately fostered by . . . falsely accusing]Trump and his supporters for division, divisiveness in our Country. The Left only desires to unify the Country. . . via uniformity in thought and conformity of behavior, the antithesis of free, critical thought. . . .
Messaging is delivered through old vehicles and new, radio, television, and social media: through the airwaves, digital media, hard copy news media, and even word-of-mouth. The public is visited with the efficacy, effectiveness, of modern propagandistic techniques. The full range, potential, and destructive power of propaganda are visible to those people perceptive enough to look. Unfortunately, many people aren’t cognizant of the onslaught of propaganda on their psyche, and the impact it has had and continues to have on shaping their belief structures.
And, now with the word ‘equity’ bandied about regularly, . . . the propagandists have injected a new viral meme into the public psyche. The full impact and purpose of it have yet to play out, but something is definitely afoot: intimations of something far-reaching that will impact each American. And none of it is good.
Consider the Democrats’ policy positions on guns and on civilian gun ownership and possession, particularly. None of that is good either. Words DO have meaning. And those words that Democrats and the Press use when talking about guns are meant to amplify their abhorrence of them and to enact laws and to inject social policy directives that serve to undermine the very framework of a stable, cohesive society.
The American public had learned the disturbing truth pertaining to Federal and State antigun policy and rhetoric. And that painful truth will shortly be revisited upon them again and with a vengeance. This is a major concern for the forces that dare to crush a free Constitutional Republic, and it is all part of their plan for complete domination over the individual citizen.
PART TWO
ANTIGUN LAWS AND ANTIGUN POLICIES ARE INCONSISTENT WITH THE FOUNDATIONS OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC
Antigun laws and policies aren’t meant—were never meant—to create a cohesive, stable society, to protect public safety and order. They were meant—are meant and were always meant— to hobble the American people, to subordinate the citizenry to Government. This is contrary to the import and purport of the U.S. Constitution. The framers of the Constitution intended for the American people to be sovereign, not Government. . . .
Through the incorporation of the Nation’s Bill of Rights into the Constitution, especially through the exercise of the natural, fundamental right of free speech and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, this armed citizenry would have and was meant to have the ability to keep a powerful, deceitful, jealous Government and a riotous majoritarian mob, operating at the behest of a tyrannical Government, both in check, and thereby maintain its sovereignty over those forces that would dare to usurp the natural sovereignty of the people.
Obviously, the enactment of unlawful, restrictive gun laws and unlawful and, now, unprecedented restrictions onfree speech are designed not to benefit the American citizenry but to harm it, irreparably, by removing from Americans the only effective means by which and through which Americans can maintain their sovereignty over Government: through the exercise of the natural, fundamental right of each individual to speak his or her own mind and through the right of each to own and to possess firearms in defense of self and family and to prevent the unlawful encroaching usurpation of power by and the onset of tyranny by the State. . . .
These laws, policies, and initiatives do nothing beneficial for society. Rather, they sow the seeds of suspicion, discontent, divisiveness, discord, and dissension between and among ethnic groups. In the bargain, these actions do long-lasting if not irreparable harm to the health, safety, and well-being of the populace, and ultimately fracturing and destabilizing society.
We have seen this sad, disturbing scenario played out before and repeatedly, and we have seen and continue to see the lasting harm it has done to our Nation. . . .
What we are seeing in just a few short weeks is a mammoth enterprise underway to rupture and destroy a free Constitutional Republic and to do so quickly.
Dissent as protected speech is not only strongly discouraged; it is systematically attacked, debased, degraded. A coordinated attack against the First Amendment is well underway, and a reciprocal attack on the Second is about to be launched.
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—NYPD veteran Stephen D’Andrilli is President & CMO of Arbalest Group, with masters degrees in Criminal Justice and Public Administration. He is an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor & Training Counselor, and is passionate about the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
–Roger Katz is CEO of Arbalest Quarrel, and an attorney licensed in Ohio & Arizona (formerly New York) focusing on federal and state firearms issues. He has worked in patent, intellectual property, criminal and securities law and has degrees in English, Philosophy, Public Administration & Education. He believes in the sanctity of the Bill of Rights.
Ah, the comparison review one of you asked for: the great mid-sized revolver showdown. Python vs GP100 vs 686 – which manufacturer comes out on top? Join us today as we present a piece of journalism that would have been really relevant in 1987.
How should we judge the epic Python vs GP100 vs 686 showdown? We’ll use five categories, and assign each revolver a score of 1-10 in the category, with 10 being best and 1 worst. At the end we tally up the scores. The five scoring categories are:
Trigger pull
Accuracy
Reliability
Aftermarket
Ease of customization
There will also be another category, a “best out of the box” which indicates the revolver that, right out of the best with zero modifications is the best overall.
Starting our revolver showdown with trigger pull is only natural, because that’s the first thing anyone notices on a revolver. Standing there in the store they’ll dry fire it double action and think “hmm…smooth” or “lord that’s heavy.” The Ruger doesn’t do well here, since of the three it has the worst factory trigger. It’s heavy, it stacks at the end, and isn’t exactly smooth. It’s serviceable, but it’s not good, so 5/10 for the Ruger. The S&W 686 isn’t much better, because its factory trigger is also heavy, but it stacks less and it’s a bit smoother, giving it a 6/10. But then there’s the Colt, which has the best factory double action trigger on the market. It’s smooth, it doesn’t really stack, and it’s light. Our test sample after 2001 rounds measured just over 7 pounds.
Moving on to accuracy, the Python vs GP100 vs 686 challenge is pretty even. I gave the Colt 10/10 on this one, because it showed the best ability to shoot tight groups regardless of the ammo I selected. The S&W was a little bit pickier about ammo, so it gets a 9/10, and the Ruger was very picky about ammo, so it’s on 8/10. When I say “picky” what I mean is that it would only shoot 2ish inch groups with high quality defensive JHP or 148 grain full wadcutters. Meanwhile, the Colt was shooting tiny little groups with everything from lead round nose to FMJ.
Reliability is an interesting question with a revolver. Wheelguns are very tolerant of neglect, but not abuse. When you abuse revolvers, like shooting them 2000 rounds without cleaning, they tend to fail. During each of these guns’ cruise to 2k rounds, the Colt failed zero times and had to be cleaned zero times. The Ruger failed zero times and had to be cleaned zero times, and the S&W 686 failed once and had to be cleaned once. That gives the Ruger and the Colt 10/10, and the S&W a 9/10.
One area where the Ruger GP100 and the S&W 686 absolutely smoke the Colt Python is availability of aftermarket parts. The Python has only two types of speedloaders, and most holsters that work for it also work for Ruger GP100s and S&W 686s. Meanwhile, Rugers have grips, speedloaders, sights, springs, all manner of stuff. And the S&W 686? You can basically build a S&W revolver where the only parts from S&W are the frame/barrel and cylinder assembly. That’s pretty awesome, and it’s why the 686 gets 10/10, the GP100 gets 9/10, and the Colt gets 3/10.
Last, we have ease of customization. Lots of people who buy revolvers like to modify them, especially the trigger pulls. Rugers are relatively easy to work on, unless something goes wrong with the trigger assembly, in which case you need a gunsmith. 7/10. The S&W 686 is harder to work on, but more rewarding if you get it down, so I gave it a 6/10. The Colt Python is still…well it’s not easy to work on like the other two. There aren’t as many parts available, and a lot of the knowledge that makes S&Ws and Rugers easy to work on has disappeared. 5/10 for the Colt.
Who wins? The final scores are: Colt Python, 37/50. S&W 686, 38/50. Ruger GP100, 39/50. You’ll notice all of these are right within a point of each other basically, which should tell you something: these are all great guns and I don’t think you can wrong with buying any of them. That being said, if I was going to buy one revolver out of the box and absolutely leave it alone with no modifications, the choice is clear: the Colt Python. The Ruger GP100 and the S&W 686 both need modification to reach their full potential. Colt on the other hand made the Python nearly perfect right out of the box.
Black Hawk Down, the movie and book that immortalized the events of operation Gothic Serpent, has many poignant events that stick in the discerning minds of the viewers. The difference in attitudes between the casual but mature Delta operators contrasted against the younger Rangers. The Ranger’s own brash elite attitudes in the mix too, a concoction of deployment lethargy, apprehension, and the seeped in opinion that the “skinnies” of Mogadishu weren’t that real of a threat. On an intellectual level, of course, they were. But the actions they had taken up to that point had never put either force in strong prolonged contact with full raw power of war torn Mogadishu.
One of the strongest and most heartfelt moments of the entire movie, a climactic act on its own before the ending events, is when Shugart and Gordon hop off their circling helicopter and run to check on Mike Durant’s downed Blackhawk.
Durant’s was the second helicopter to fall to enemy fire that day, and it was the one that the Ranger’s and Delta were havingthe hardest time pushing support towards. Clifton Wolcott’s Blackhawk had hit the ground first, leaving dead and wounded inside, and the operation had begun pushing Ranger’s and Delta to secure and evac that crash site. That tasking left Durant alone, in a different part of the city, with nobody able to push to the second crash… his crash.
Except Shugart and Gordon.
The Delta operators, assigned to provide sniper cover for the original operation, knew the stakes as well as they knew what was happening around the compound that had been hit, and at the first crash site. They knew that the convoy wasn’t getting there and the ground troops were hard pressed already. They hit the ground anyway, refusing to leave any possible wounded alone in the second downed Blackhawk. They got Mike Durant out. Then they fought off the tide of the Mogadishu militia forces until their last breath.
It is a scene in the film that stands alone, apart, and with a focus and purpose separate from chaos happening at the convoy and crash site. Shugart and Gordon know exactly what they are about, what they must to do, and they do it. Mike Durant was still captured, but he survived. He survived the crash and he survived the on rush of the Somali’s thanks to the actions of Shugart and Gordon.
Iconic to that scene is Randy Shugart’s M14.
Equipped as a rapid close-to-mid distance precision rifle, that M14 is perhaps the M14. One that, like the actions of Shugart and Gordon themselves, defies what was going on around it. It stands apart from the M16A2’s, which were still fairly new in ’93, and the Colt carbines with early RDS’s and taped on flashlights or cranked up rear sights for CQB. The rifle is as part of the scene and sequence as Durant, Gordon, and Shugart are. A powerful, reliable, and potent weapon that dispenses defiance into the riled Somali militants.
I have criticized the very existence of the M14. That is, and always has been, an argument built in hindsight. I once thought the M39 the pinnacle of what a rifle should be…
That attitude was shaped, in part, by that scene of Randy Shugart firing effective shot after effective shot in his last stand with Mike Durant and Gary Gordon.
I was, objectively speaking, mistaken. The M14 is every bit the pricey problem child we know it to be, but one thing it did do was run. When built and maintained, it was every bit the capable 7.62 NATO hammer of righteous fury that 22 inches of barrel allowed it to be. Despite being obsolescent from the day it was produced, that did not stop the M14 from doing work when called upon. Shugart was called upon, he and that M14 answered, and not he nor Gordon nor the M14 I so academically criticize failed Mike Durant. They saved his life.
That is something apart, something removed from logical critique, something entirely unassailable because there is nothing to assail. The M14 was a crucial participant in that selfless act, a fact that will never change.
So, God Bless Shugart and Gordon, and those like them past and present… and God Bless that M14.
As seen by Hackread.com, among other sensitive data, the database includes Guns.com administrator, WordPress, and Cloud log in credentials in plain-text format.
As the domain name indicates, Guns.com is a major Minnesota, US-based platform to buy and sell guns online. It is also home to news and updates for gun owners and enthusiasts around the world. However, on March 9th, 2021, a database apparently belonging to Guns.com was dumped on an infamous hacker forum.
The actor behind the data dump claimed that it includes a complete database of Guns.com along with its source code. They further added that the breach took place somewhere around the end of 2020 and the data was sold privately meaning on Telegram channels or dark web marketplaces.
What data has been leaked?
According to Hackread.com’s analysis, the data contains highly sensitive information of Guns.com’s administrators and customers including: • User IDs • Full names • Almost 400,000 email addresses • Password hashes • Physical addresses • Zipcodes • City • State • Magneto IDs • Phone numbers • Account creation date
One of the folders in the leaked database includes customers’ bank account details including: • Full name • Bank name • Account type • Dwolla IDs
However, credit card numbers or VCC numbers were not leaked.
Guns.com admin login credentials also leaked
Additionally, an Excel file in the database as seen by Hackread.com seems to contain sensitive login details of Guns.com including its administrator’s WordPress, MYSQL, and Cloud (Azure) credentials. However, it is unclear whether these credentials are recent, old, or already changed by the site’s administrators amid the breach.
This can have a devastating effect on the company since all admin credentials including admin emails, passwords, login links, and server addresses are in plain text format.
Guns.com, back in January, did acknowledge a breach occurred but it now sounds like it was worse than originally indicated. At the time, the attack looked to be centered on taking down guns.com and now taking the data.
But the bank data, if shared, and physical addresses along with sales history is all personally identifiable information that needs to now be watched if you did any business with guns.com. Be careful of schemes, false charges, phishing, and other scams linked to breaches of the like. If you used common emails and passwords those should be changed as well.
The Fenix LD30 is an extremely powerful compact flashlight that can blast a maximum 1600 lumens, 673 feet (205 meters). At only 4.3” long, the LD30 is the perfect size everyday carry EDC flashlight. Quickly activate the flashlight with its tactical tail switch and then cycle through the lighting modes with the side switch. The LD30 flashlight is powered by one 18650 li-ion battery or two CR123As. Other features include a two-position body clip, battery level indicator, and it is IP68 rated waterproof/dustproof.
That’s the official line from Fenix.
In the practical it is a small, comfortable, and highly functional little pocket light that is great for the everyday tasks that require a variably practical level of light.
I am not overly fond of strobe lights, but a selectable light for swapping between low light searching for an item and bright light for searching at distance or direct tactical use, that is certainly a desirable product. The control scheme is straight forward and the switch system makes sense.
The light remains at the last setting selected, at that is that. A Red/Green LED for battery levels, button for setting change, plugs into a USB to charge, and anything from low lumen looking about at night in a campsite to a brilliant beam to assess a potential threat in the darkness. Easy.
If I have a single nitpick about the light, it is the one that all high output LED lights share, it gets really stinking hot when set on high and left on. Not a huge problem for short durations, and high is usually a short duration deal, and not a huge problem when not being held… But this is a held light, so limiting the time in the hand on high (especially around the LED head) is highly recommended.
Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Sig Sauer all launched new product this week and the field of the evolved Micro-9’s grows stronger still.
To be fair, Sig’s isn’t that new, just a logical variant of the P365/P365XL that hadn’t hit market yet. Short slide and “full” frame as it were. And that happens to be my favorite.
P320 AXG Scorpion with all the trimmings.
Although generally the larger variants.
G19X
Smith & Wesson launched the Shield Plus
This is a direct competitor to the 43x and 48 model’s from Glock, by capacity 10+1 flush and 13+1 and with the Performance Center model can take a dot.
Then Ruger launches the MAX-9
A 10+1 and 12+1 pistol that clearly grew out of the LC9. Also optics ready.
Optics standard continues and stack-and-half micro high capacity 9’s are the new small 9mm of choice. 3 more options for all that concealed carry convenient goodness.
FromTheGunCounter putting it in the best possible terms.
To be a great fighter, your mind must be sharp and your hands must be skilled. Retired Navy SEAL Master Instructor Chris Sajnog’s instructional book bridges the usual gap between intellect and physical prowess. Is Navy Seal Shooting worth your time or should it stay on the shelf? Read on.
The Mental Game
Sajnog makes it clear that being of sound mind is imperative when trying to be an effective shooter. There can’t be a disconnect between your brain and your trigger finger.
You know he is serious because nearly half the book has a laser focus on mental conditioning, thinking ahead, and setting goals for yourself. He goes over this in depth, suggesting things like meditation to strengthen the connection with your firearm.
With his career as a Navy SEAL shooting instructor, Sajnog fully understands how to prepare your mind for firefights and keeping your cool even in the direst situations.
He even touches on a little bit of philosophy, mentioning that we can have good reasons to fight, with the number one motivation being love. Sajnog displays surprising and not often seen emotional awareness and intelligence as he writes about becoming a more efficient warrior.
All of his points are succinct and effective in making sure the reader understands that one’s intellect is a weapon too and should not be forgotten when learning about physical weapons. His writing is easily digested too. Concepts are easy to grasp and remember.
I was not expecting to learn mental fortitude from this book and it ended up changing my perspective. Shooting is not only a physical game but also one that requires a focused mind beyond firing signals to your fingers and eyes.
He makes the case for starting a training routine and sticking to it, as well as using meditation to refine your focus. I’ve always had these ideas in the back of my head but never really bothered to apply them until I read Sajnog’s words on discipline, motivation, and focus. It is truly eye-opening and I was glad to see such a focus on the mental and emotional aspect of firing a weapon.
The Physical Game
Now we enter the flipside of the skilled shooting equation: the physical mechanics. Sajnog is clear that the mental aspect and physical portion of shooting are intertwined, but I’ll discuss them separately for the sake of clarity. This is where you really start to get the stuff you picked the book up for, and it is extensive.
Of course, Sajnog goes into fundamentals such as safety and basic weapon functions, but the rest of the book makes something very clear: those fundamentals are the key to shooting with “virtuosity.” That being said, most of the book is learning, then refining those fundamentals.
Sajnog doesn’t just provide that information though, he teaches you how to build on those skills to take your shooting beyond average. All the information is in-depth and left no unanswered questions for me.
He then covers more advanced techniques like weapon mounting, pistol and carbine manipulations, and how to shoot and move. Everything I expected in this book was there plus so much more that had never before crossed my mind, and none of it ever felt out of reach. I haven’t read as good a book on shooting in a long time.
Writing Style
Sajnog doesn’t write endless dry verbiage like a textbook. His style is engaging with a casual, yet authoritative tone that tells you he knows what he’s talking about, perfectly fitting for a Navy SEAL Master shooting instructor. All the key elements to becoming a successful shooter are laid out in nearly 650 pages of well-organized information.
The bottom line is that the book kept me interested, continually filling my mind with knowledge as I made my way through this book. It’s thoroughly fascinating and enlightening all the way through.
Should you buy Navy SEAL Shooting by Chris Sajnog?
If I now were to recommend a single book on learning how to shoot, it would be this one. Chris Sajnog does an amazing job breaking down shooting fundamentals in a way that is super easy to understand entertaining to read and highly knowledgeable. So if you want to become a better shooter (and a better student of shooting), I highly recommend picking up Navy SEAL Shooting: Learn How to Shoot from Their Leading Instructor. You won’t regret it.
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—Richard Douglas founded Scopes Field, reviewing different scopes and guns on the market. He’s a strong 2nd Amendment advocate and believes in science-backed gun solutions to our nation’s biggest problems.
The slope is not so slippery, actually: Dems must tackle disinformation about gun control head-on
President Biden’s gun plan includes mandatory registration of “assault weapons” for anyone wishing to keep those they already own. He is the first president to raise the issue of gun registration in more than 50 years since President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He’s the first ever, too, to propose banning new sales of “assault” or tactical, semiautomatic weapons.
I distinctly remember it being until 2004 that an “Assault Weapon Ban” was in place, and more distinctly remember President Obama supporting the renewal of the measure too in so much as was politically convenient or healthy. So Biden does not get to take originality on this one. If we really want to get technical, the National Firearms Act started banning possession of weapons based upon features back in 1934. So Franklin Roosevelt was the original on this. The original ‘assault weapon’ ban, the NFA tax would cost $3,822 today (2019) making ownership prohibitive in the extreme. Considering the average American income in 2019 was just over $31,000, it is a prohibitively steep combined poll/sin tax. Imagine taxing a right at over 10% of your gross income to exercise, because a firearm had a scary feature.
The Biden administration is responding to pressure for gun reform led today by survivors of the Valentine’s Day 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The plan has finally put on the table what gun reform advocates including surviving parents and others have long demanded, seemingly in vain until now. The House just passed major gun control bills on Thursday.
And this directly assaults the rights over 100,000,000 Americans are actively exercising, rights already under dubious pressure in places like New York and California. It continues to baffle me how blindly we trust survivors as experts. David Hogg has found activism lucrative, he may even believe his particular brand of activism, but belief and experiencing the event (there are doubts he was that close to the shooting) do not make him an expert, nor for that matter make him correct.
Victimhood does not absolve one of fallibility.
Gun rights advocates, however, a group that seems to include nearly every leader of the Republican Party, are readying for a fight. If there is one issue that could reunite the GOP, from Sen. Mitch McConnell to former President Trump, not to mention every group from Three Percenters to neo-Nazis who joined in the Jan. 6 Capitol takeover, it is gun registration. Against it, that is.
Way to ‘gently’ imply all gun owners are Nazis and Nazi sympathizers. Newsflash: assholes can have a right opinion or two also, so can idiots. There isn’t one liberal alive that is against registration and restriction of gun rights, right? Not like there aren’t national level omni-partisan, liberal leaning, or non-partisan groups that vehemently oppose gun control. Nope, all Nazis.
It is impossible to imagine how Biden could succeed in healing the nation, as he has promised, and still enact all of his gun plan. Many if not most of the 74 million people who voted for Trump’s reelection would also oppose this plan. Not to mention many elected officials, from governors to constitutional sheriffs, who might refuse to comply. Or the new Roberts Supreme Court, which will one day no doubt rule on gun laws.
You are correct, it is impossible. It was always impossible. Not because of his gun plans, but because of his platform overall. Biden ran, as did Trump, a partisan ticket. When he says ‘the nation needs to come together and heal’ he means the nation needs to think like his platform. Both candidates played to their divided bases and let the middle pick which pile of crap seemed to smell slightly less crappy. Trump won against Clinton, Biden won the same way against Trump. The buyers remorse on Biden is already deepening, souring far faster than Trump in many ways. Syria was highly illustrative of that fact.
Millions of people, today, see gun control itself as an existential threat.
It is, it’s a control measure without a substantial societal benefit that can be easily abused by an authoritarian force under any guise. Every location where it is allegedly successful has to be cherry picked as a stat, like ‘no mass shootings since XXXX year’ or ‘gun-violence has decreased,’ while violent crime in total has not or was not meaningfully influenced downward outside general trends. Gun control can push a moderate change in method of violence. Certain violent acts are conveniently ignored in the calculus, like sexual assaults (see Australia), when gun-violence is the determinate and not violence.
All countries exercise some form of regulation over firearms, with wide variances in results, and their violent crime isn’t tied to their variant of legality or illegality of gun ownership. It is tied to the social and economic make ups of the nation as a whole and how violence is viewed by the culture and subcultures within. Look at the UK systematically banning everything to no effect.
When is violence considered permissible, and in what degree? Is the violence being used as a currency or professional message, or is it a personal/ideological act or response? How violent is the state itself, the recognized government, and how legitimate is that violence seen? These all matter much more in the calculus than, “how easy is a gun to obtain?”
Europe is always dragged out as an example, yet no one ponders how old Europe is and the deep roots culturally its societies have. Nor that it was the center field of Two World Wars within two decades, to say nothing of the preceding centuries. Europe is a violent place with a violent history, just a different one than the much younger United States. Even accounting for the Native American tribes of North, Central, and South America, Europe is the far more violent continent historically archived. Warfare certainly existed in the Americas, but not on the continent spanning scales of Europe and Asia.
We need to cease with the delusions that methods equal motives, that the existence of a convenient method dramatically changes the motive outlay of a given region. You could remove all restrictions upon firearms down to a point of sale background check in Europe tomorrow and in five years track the results. There would not be dramatic change, the European mindset wouldn’t become the American mindset in five years. Ownership would certainly increase, but developing a firearm culture is slower and has never been a European cultural item in the first place. Firearm homicide may increase, but homicide in general likely wouldn’t drift outside the up and down variance of the social and economic trends already.
Remember that the developed world was on a fairly substantial global decline in violent crime, but we (the US) relegalized the AR-15 and its brethren during that time and still continued the decline. Other nations took drastic steps against firearm ownership, with far lower percentages of the population being owners, and saw very little substantive result. They instead point out the lack of rare events like mass shootings, until events like Bataclan happen that is. It has long been seen that while mass attacks happen more frequently in the US, they are less deadly. We cannot use frequency of a single given event type to drive policy, not when there is no effective policy to be driven.
“They call it the slippery slope, and all of a sudden everything gets taken away,” as President Trump said in 2018 when he reversed himself on background checks after the back-to-back weekend shootings in El Paso and Dayton. He did so after speaking with the National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre, who, like the NRA, has long promoted this theory.
It is an apt description, we know and have known the goal of gun control hard liners is total civilian disarmament. It is not theory, it is the stated end state of folks like Diane Feinstein. They understand that attaining that goal must be done piece by piece, and that every piece they get through Congress sets them up for the next, especially since they can spin perceived success or proven failure to advocate going further.
Setting up the various policy layers that they know will not have enough effect on violent crime, and that another disaster will come along to capitalize on, to push for additional policies once again. Never failing to exploit crisis or outrage to push ineffectual policies that can be hooked onto the moral outrage and emotional outpouring to drive the agenda. These are not the arguments of reason, they are not problem solving nor designed to solve the problem. They simply push the agenda that disarmament is morally right.
Biden has yet to address the details of his own gun plan. Throughout his 48-year career, moreover, he is not known to have ever addressed the issue of gun registration. Gun groups have been circulating for months what they call the “Biden plan to destroy the Second Amendment,” filling the vacuum left by his silence with fear. They claim that this is the fateful step, after background checks, that could start the slide to disarmament, and then genocide.
Gun controllers once again…
It is a, sometimes willful, misunderstanding of what 2A proponents mean. It is not saying that the day after confiscation gets passed, its genocide day. It is saying that a population (say like the Uighurs in China) is subject to the whims of whoever can project force against them if they are disarmed. It is also saying that the US Government, like many around the world, has an overall piss poor track record of not using force against people when it was convenient. See the Waco massacre, or the Trail of Tears, or Japanese interment during WWII. The government is not to be trusted as the sole arbiter of force. It is not that the government will immediately abuse the trust in its authority over force, it is that history teaches us that is likely inevitable. Gun control makes them the sole arbiter, and they have proven time and again they cannot be trusted to be. It cannot be relied upon that a benevolent government will always remain so, or that the righteous rule of law will prevail in perpetuity, or even that a righteous and benevolent government can protect you from more mundane assaults on your person.
None of those can be assured you by the government, and gun control further removes your one truly effective individual recourse to protect your person against the unreasonable.
This kind of cowardice has long led reformers astray. The nation has not passed any comprehensive and lasting national gun laws in more than a half-century. In 1994, during the Clinton years, Congress passed the “Assault Weapons Ban,” which outlawed, for just 10 years, select semiautomatic firearms based on their cosmetic features, like both a pistol grip and a flash suppressor. But this only led gun manufacturers to design weapons to bypass the ban, which, since it expired, has resulted in more sales of more AR-15 rifles and other tactical, semiautomatic weapons than ever before.
Thus proving the ban was arbitrary and capricious, crime continued to fall during the ban even as ‘pre-ban’ firearms were still available and it continued to fall after the ban expired even as demand exploded. It had no appreciable influence on violence. And now it never can, the cat is long since out of the bag on personal arms.
The Biden plan would give existing owners of semiautomatic weapons (like me) the choice of either selling their weapons back to the federal government, or registering them under a prior gun law, backed in 1934 by the NRA, along with paying a tax of up to $200 for each weapon. This would put hardship on working-class gun owners, noted the former NRA commentator and independent merchandiser Colion Noir.
I love the ‘like me’ defense. As if owning a thing confers a special level of expertise. I can buy a violin, a musician it does not make me (actually I played Trumpet, bad example). I can own a Helicopter, that does not make me a pilot or an FAA regulations expert. Owning a gun does not make one an expert on crime, suicide, or accidental deaths and does not confer special significance to your opinion on such. Especially when that opinion is shown to be based on spurious logic.
Gun control would work perfectly if everyone behaved, but if everyone behaved there would be no need for gun control in the first place. It’s the Utopian fallacy, that increasingly complex and stringent rules will bring us closer to the ‘perfect society.’ But a perfect society, by its very definition as ‘perfect,’ would need no formal rules, since it would be naturally harmonious. If everyone was guided perpetually by balanced logic, reason, and empathy at all times, and could not ever be angered or driven to greed excessively by their fellows, then everyone could be sitting on a personal suitcase nuke and all would be well.
If you need a harsh negative penalty to enforce ‘good’ behavior then that is a confirmation that not everyone is good. Good people do not require rules to reason and be good. Therefore rules that rely on everyone being good (like a gun ban or UBC’s) to prevent an extreme behavior or event (like a mass killing) cannot work. You are gambling that you will catch the extreme edges of human behavior by controlling the portion that didn’t require the rule in the first place.
And when the repeatedly demonstrated failures instead encourage further restrictions on people who did not need the rule to behave, either the rule maker is a moron or they have an ulterior motive for the rule. The further I get into this, the more I am convinced that most gun controllers are genuinely just abysmally ignorant. I don’t believe they have grand evil designs, for the most part. I believe that the person next after them does, the people who will take advantage of the glaring opportunities to abuse the ruleset for their personal or social gain.
That is the part gun controllers continuously fail to grasp, even if someone they are ideologically opposed to is currently wielding power that terrifies them (justifiably or exaggeratedly, doesn’t matter) they fail to grasp that fear is the very reason the 2A exists, so that if that terrifying abuse of power turns against you there is something you can do about it. Something your community can do about it that the very government that terrifies you with their excesses (whatever they may be) didn’t get to confiscate from you. But there is a lack of self-awareness, a lack of scale and logic to the whole perception where they cannot rationalize outside the zone in which everyone behaves, including the government, despite continuous proof to the contrary.
It takes a genuine lack of imagination to oppose policies you are against ideologically, but cannot fathom the reverse. That you can see the weaknesses in a policy you oppose clear as day, but will not turn that same critical eye to the weaknesses in a policy you support.
An engineer does not design and oversee building a bridge thinking everything will always go right. The weather will always cooperate, the maintenance will always be done on time, nobody will accidentally damage anything, etc. No, they build in tolerances and fail safes for when things go wrong. The worst expected weather for the region, that maintenance may fall behind, that a certain level of damage may be sustained. If there is no way to be reasonably certain the bridge stands, because one inevitable event like a single car speeding across it or one car too many being on it will collapse the bridge, then you don’t build that bridge.
The same goes for lawmaking. Don’t make laws you cannot enforce, they just erode the rule of laws legitimacy. Most gun control laws are written to, allegedly, catch or prevent the extreme events, but they don’t. They influence the general population only, that population was never a serious risk for the extreme event. They then justify it by saying that because they are pressing this rule upon the general population they are somehow ‘reducing the likelihood’ of the extreme event, but this argument is anecdotal at best. It is also undermined by the Government’s lack of credibility, in that they cannot prevent the event and they have on multiple occasions been the perpetrator of the event.
History is written upon example after example and yet gun controllers insist that this time the Utopian rule that only works with 100% total population support, which has never been achieved in human history, will work.
The plan would limit, too, although no one has yet suggested the cap, the number of weapons one may own, along with banning high-capacity magazines. All these steps are opposed by the NRA and others who share the belief that firearms in civilian hands are a necessary check on the power of federal as well as state governments, and that they are also necessary for self-defense against not just lone criminals but also armed mobs. Firearms sales spiked last year after the death in police custody of George Floyd as the uprising began of Black Lives Matter protests.
Actually they spiked in March, during the pandemic where the police said they couldn’t and wouldn’t respond to certain calls so that their officers could avoid infection. Proving, once again, the government cannot protect you nor are they obligated to at the individual level. The sales spiked again as the riots in cities began and were allowed to proceed. Portland literally had part of their city temporarily annexed, into CHAZ. Sales spiked highest when Biden won election, so… was it really George Floyd and BLM driving the concern? Or is that just lowball racebaiting that once again discounts that millions of new gun owners were minted in 2020, and many of them are minorities and women.
Biden said he would also reverse the immunity granted under President George W. Bush to hold gunmakers civilly liable, again, for the potential misuse of their weapons to commit harm. He would eliminate the “gun show loophole” to require background checks on private sales. It remains to be seen whether this proposal might include an exception for, say, the passing down of a firearm heirloom to the next generation.
Unless protection is also removed in the cases of breweries, wineries, distilleries, and vehicle manufacturers whose products also cause serious loss of life every single year, much higher than firearms by the way, I don’t want to hear this argument. It is a weakly veiled attempt to fiscally crush firearms companies, many of whom are small businesses, not a policy of accountability.
The president left out one measure in his recent remarks, on the third anniversary of the Parkland shooting, still posted online: to ban online sales of ammunition. The nation has experienced an unprecedented, ongoing shortage of ammunition from both over-the-counter and online retailers, according to both the trade press and the NRA. It’s been fueled by ever-rising demand, as manufacturers have been producing ammo at “above-normal capacities” throughout the pandemic. Demand spiked again to worsen the shortage after first CNN, and then Fox News, announced that Biden had won the presidency.
This would be an equally asinine attack on small businesses.
No doubt any attempt to end commerce in the firearms industry’s fastest-growing sector would meet opposition. Most of the outrage already smoldering in resistance to the gun plan, however, is based on speculation, not facts. This shows how much the NRA, in particular, has shaped how we as a nation look at guns and their regulations. The NRA wasn’t always like this. The NRA backed gun control from the 1930s into the 1970s, as its leaders long sought to balance the needs of gun owners against public safety.
And it was never enough, there was never enough restriction for the gun controllers. It didn’t stop at the NFA or even the GCA, we had to compromise even further with GOPA and that mixed bag. Then the Federal ‘Assault Weapon Ban’ in 1993. It was never enough, there was never balance. Gun owners could only lose. The NRA was first a training organization, it got into litigation to protect gun rights and started by trying what they thought was give and take, but it was only take because no matter what law was passed it was never the right ‘balance.’ The NRA began taking back ground that had been lost in bad faith to gun banners. It was a necessary change, and despite the faults of the current NRA it continues to serve that purpose.
Nice try though, stating that the NRA making mistakes and compromising for years is proof that they should continue to do so. Bold move.
Despite what today’s NRA may suggest, gun registration is the norm in every other advanced nation, and not one of them has deteriorated into either a totalitarian or genocidal state. Canada, the nations of Western Europe and Japan all control guns by strictly licensing owners and registering each weapon, to the degree that they permit civilian ownership at all.
Nobody mention that Brazil has eight timesas many registered weapons as we do in the US, roughly 2/3 of our population, only 17 million total private firearms to our 400 million (so less than 5%), and yet over five timesour murder rate. They have the second largest number of registered firearms in the world. First is India, whose sheer volume of murders is several times ours (though rate is lower), and then Russia, which also has a much higher murder rate than the US.
A few more, like Australia and New Zealand each confiscated semiautomatic weapons after a mass shooting. Yet, rather than falling into tyranny, each of these two nations still gets the very highest rankings for their political and civil rights on the Freedom Index compiled by the watchdog Freedom House.
I love this example. It again supposes the theory that ‘confiscation leads immediately to genocide,’ is what we are saying as a pro-2A community. It isn’t. But if New Zealand or Australia (neither of which had a comparable gun owning culture to our own) where to ‘fall into tyranny’ tomorrow, or hell just have their own mildly more violent CHAZ set up, what could the population do? What is their recourse since the government took away their personal means of defending themselves?
Await the state’s help?
Hope it isn’t the state doing it?
Six blue states, too, including New York and New Jersey, require mandatory registration of some or all semiautomatic guns. New York also requires registration of all handguns, which must be kept in the home. Most states, today, also issue permits for the concealed carry of handguns. This generates registries of gun permit holders that the NRA and others also conveniently ignore.
Ignore? The NRA actively champions national reciprocity. Licensing for carry, which effectively amounts to a state limiting their own liability, is not the same as licensing every firearm owned or even acknowledging that you own one at all. License to carry doesn’t require that you carry. It doesn’t require you to own a firearm at all. It simply allows it in more public spaces in states that have not passed constitutional carry. The two are not comparable. But nice try, again.
Resistance to gun registration runs deep. During the Reagan years, LaPierre was dubbed the “Captain” by Sen. Orrin Hatch after he guided, on behalf of the NRA, passage of a 1986 law that weakened two prior national gun control laws. The same law also prohibited “any system registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions.”
Fear of gun registration remains strong. In 2013, when a bipartisan pair of senators, Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania, wrote a bill for “universal” background checks after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in two first-grade classrooms, they included language adding criminal penalties to any government official found to have compiled gun registration lists, saying it would make the bill more palatable.
Yet, even with this redundant language, the bill still fell short of garnering the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened filibuster. Today, even though the Democrats now have a slim majority in the Senate, the threat of a filibuster to block gun reform remains. Majority leaders have discussed the possibility of taking the “nuclear option” to eliminate it. But they are hesitant, as it could lead to other ways for the Republican minority to block legislation.
Because the laws are egregious and ineffectual. Supporters continue to cite grossly misrepresentative statistics like the “90% support background checks” claim, which have no relevant contextualization to make the opinion worth considering.
Due to the steady erosion of rights from the NFA through the AWB and bumpstock ban any possible infringement is seen with great suspicion. No longer are proponents of gun control offering even the slimmest guise of compromise either, to do so would undermine their voter support from their base.
A “palatable” exchange for UBC’s might be national concealed carry reciprocity and the ability to buy any firearm in any state, not just long guns. Also removing the onus for understanding every state’s restrictions from the seller and place it on the buyer, who is likely to better know their local laws and could reasonably making some other arrangement, like storing it at a second non-primary residence.
That might make such a bill “palatable” as the word.
I’m tired of debating in bad faith. I’m tired of pushing against the mental blockade that cannot concede, even while they screamed Orange Man BAD, that the government should not be the sole arbiter of this control. Because when they screw it up, which they do regularly, that control will have been misplaced again. Safer to not endow them with that responsibility and have them stick to things they can arbitrate, like an actual homicide, instead of the nebulous potential for one.
The next several paragraphs are about the Third Reich argument, which is especially entertaining because we were already called Nazis at the beginning, but now the piece is defending that the Nazis really didn’t so purposely disarm the Jewish population in Europe. The position has some merit since the Jews were not a well armed, or particularly well regarded, population in Europe at the time anyway. So the “Gun Control in the Third Reich” is “NRA funded propaganda.”
I haven’t read it, but leaving aside how deliberate and thoroughly the Nazis did or did not enforce weapon confiscation against the Jewish population pre-war and early war, it was absolutely a factor in France and Poland where resistances fought and stole weapons to arm themselves against the Nazis while also being armed as available by the allies. The Nazis being one of the more egregious examples of a legitimate government gone bad and getting their mass murder on.
The piece concludes with…
These are the kinds of myths and disinformation that is filling the gap left behind by Biden and his advisers’ silence over their own gun plan. If they and others want to pass meaningful reforms, they need to finally address these tough issues head-on. They might want to pace themselves, though, as anything more than expanded background checks will probably take years, and nothing less than changing the nation’s conversation about guns.
They can’t break their silence, if they do they can only come forward with weak easily defeated arguments. They have to be obtuse about this topic because anything else is too honest a discussion and probably immediately unconstitutional.
The myth we have to bust the absurd amount of faith gun controller proponents put in a government, as long as their team is in power at least, when history has shown time and time again that the most developed nations and most powerful economies on the planet can still fail and oppress their citizenry. “Developed” does not equate to infallibly altruistic and moral. Governments routinely commit heinous acts, especially on a wider historical scale, and we are not far removed from any of these atrocities.
What piece of delusional cognitive dissonance needs to finally fall away? Pro-2A it isn’t a belief that the day after gun control is finally passed, its immediately overnight gestapo. Its knowing that government can neither guarantee your safety, and so they should make no such promise, nor provide a guarantee that the succeeding governing power will not abuse it. Since they can promise neither, it is therefore unreasonable for them to deprive the citizens of the means to respond to unreasonable acts against them.
Dems cannot ‘tackle disinformation’ about gun control head-on because gun control proposals are built on disinformation.
Last week, the House moved two universal background check bills to the Senate for a vote. Those bills, HR 8 and HR 1446, are not designed to prevent crime, but rather designed to increase the amount of work a legal gun buyer has to do when they’re purchasing a gun. Today we’re not talking about the bills specifically, but rather we want to look at “how to talk about universal background checks” to your friends that are politically neutral on the gun issue.
Why are background checks hard to talk about?
This is actually one of the trickiest issues that gun rights advocates face when talking to regular earth people, because the counter arguments against expanded background checks are extremely nuanced and require a complete understanding of how the current background check system works. The anti-gun argument is a simple, effective sound bite: “most gun owners support background checks.” That statement is certainly true from a certain point of view, which is why it’s so effective. Depending on how you phrase the question, most law-abiding gun owners would say “yes” they support background checks. For example, if you said to me “do you support the current NICS background check at point of sale to prevent prohibited persons from buying guns” I’d say “yeah sure, it’s fine.” But if you asked me “do you support background checks on person to person sales between close friends” I’d say “no, that’s nonsense.” But hey, I support background checks, right?
The new bills
The lack of nuance in the question is what makes explaining why HR 8 and HR 1446 are bad so difficult. We, as gun owners, can all broadly agree that we don’t want violent felons, domestic abusers, and other prohibited persons to get access to guns. But we all know that the current system does as well as it can to prevent that. We also realize that the provisions in both these bills will do nothing to prevent prohibited or unauthorized people from getting access to guns. If anti-gun activists were serious about stopping guns from getting into the hands of bad guys, they’d look into legislation that funds improved reporting to NICS, or legislation that looks at reduction of the root causes of violent crimes. For a good breakdown on how the new bills work against law-abiding gun owners, check out the HR 8/HR 1446 breakdown.
How do we talk about universal background checks?
I’ll be blunt. This is a tough conversation to have, as I mentioned above. There are optimal settings to have it where you can greatly increase your chances of influencing someone, however. The optimal setting is face to face with someone you are at least casually acquainted with, and who feels generally positive towards you. The least effective place to have the conversation is on social media vs a complete stranger.
Let’s start with some general rules of engagement for this conversation. The most important is don’t engage with someone who isn’t engaging with you in good faith. If someone is just here to pick a fight, don’t indulge them. The second most important rule is be like Fonzie. How’s Fonzie act? He’s cool. You’re just going to be a little Fonzie, as cool as the other side of the pillow. You don’t make personal attacks, and you stay on message no matter what. Rule 3: start from a place of agreement. For example, you can start with saying “I do support background checks, which is why I like the current system.”
Educational opportunities
The biggest thing you can do is be cool with people so that they don’t think of you as a conversational adversary. Be a resource, so that when your non-gun owning friends ask about universal background checks, you have an opportunity to explain how the current NICS system works, why the gun show loophole isn’t real, and why the new laws would only serve to create new criminals. And definitely don’t waste time arguing on Facebook – no one has ever “won” a FB exchange.
Streamlight is adding a few new options to their already expansive catalog this year. One that caught quite a bit of attention is the Streamlight Wedge. A few years back, Surefire started a little trend with the Stilletto. The idea was to take the EDC light, keep it small, but flatten it out. Make it a little less circular in nature. The Wedge follows that same idea but does it in a very different way.
It’s easy to draw comparisons to the Stilletto, but other than being more flat than round, the Stilletto and Wedge don’t have much in common. Well, they both have cool names, I guess. The Wedge achieves a moderately powered light while being relatively thin. Thinner than most pocket knives, the Wedge is designed to be convenient to carry and easy to use.
At 3.3 ounces, it’s rather light. It is 5.46 inches long and 1 inch wide. It’s small and easy to carry and outfitted with a reversible pocket clip.
The Power of the Wedge
The Wedge packs an internal, rechargeable battery that uses a simple USB C charger to fill it up. iPhone users will need a special cord, but Android Supremacists will continue to be the better people with their standard USB C cables. Wisely, Streamlight waterproofed that charging port. The port appears to be rather robust and inserted with a hard plastic encroachment.
Streamlight designed the Wedge with two modes. The first is a 300 lumen main light backed by 1,200-candela. Our second is the THRO mode. THRO is a clever acronym that stands for Temporarily Heightened Regulated Output. The THRO mode provides 1,000 lumens with a 3000-candela backing. THRO is activated by pressing the toggle a position past on.
For Marine speak, it’s like switching from semi to burst; the difference is that when the toggle is released, the Wedge goes back to the standard 300-lumen mode. It’s not a constant mode and will function for 35-second bursts.
A green light beneath the toggle indicates a full or near full battery, and a red LED indicates a low battery.
Packing the Wedge
What I noticed first about the Wedge was how rarely I noticed I was carrying it. I’m not too fond of things rubbing my pocket or getting in the way when I’m trying to get things out of my pockets. Listen, they wouldn’t make the M&M Mini tube so easy to pocket if I wasn’t supposed to carry it there! Seriously, I often put my keys in my right pants pocket, where I also carry my knife and light.
When I carried a round light, I often found it got in my way. I’d have to remove it to retrieve my keys and other assorted junk. The Wedge only gets in my way a little bit, and that’s as good as it gets when you are loading your pockets down with lights and knives.
Also, the switch is fitted somewhat flush to the body of the light. This protects it from the random light ND and will keep it from draining your battery by accidentally being on. This makes the toggle design worthwhile versus a rear clicky tail cap.
Blasting Light
Tailored expectations are appropriate. The Wedge will not live up to your expectations if you look for a duty light for a tactical role. It’s not priced as such and not advertised as such. It’s a simple EDC light, and in those roles, it shines, no pun intended.
300 lumens is more than enough for your everyday use and will allow you to navigate dark environments. You can search for items lost in the dark abyss of being under furniture. The Wedge is perfect for tackling tasks like changing a tire at night in the middle of nowhere.
The THRO mode makes the Wedge a hair more versatile than most. You more than triple the lumens while more than doubling the candela. Suddenly your EDC light is performing tasks above its pay grade. You’ll be able to see further and better identify things that go bump in the night. This little amped-up is powerful enough to double the light’s effective range.
With the 300 lumen mode, I could identify my various steel targets at 25 yards without issue. Colors and shapes were seen with ease. I could do the same at 50 yards with the THRO mode activated. I couldn’t play a Kim’s Game with the targets, but I could see them.
Form a Wedge
Bouncing around my house and yard in the dark proved the light was capable for a multitude of environments. The THRO also proved itself handy in both foggy and rainy conditions. Both play havoc with the luminosity and range of a light, and both are common to encounter in my part of the world.
I live in the middle of nowhere with no streetlights present, so the Wedge could be tested as the only light source in these rainy and foggy environments. Morning rainfall is greeted with the demeanor of a wet cat normally. However, I was happy it offered a chance to test the light in subpar conditions. I popped the porch light off and fired the Wedge up. The next morning a layer of fog rolled in like a bad horror movie and gave me a second opportunity.
That extra power helped overcome those environmental factors quite well. While I know my backyard like the back of my hand, I only allowed myself to navigate to the things the light showed me. I could easily see most of my backyard and identify my car, barn, camper, etc., through the rain and fog.
Light and Tight
If you’re hankering for a new EDC light, then the Wedge might be the answer for you. It’s light, handy, and most certainly an ergonomic option for those who do not need a duty-style light. It’s pocketable to an excellent degree and delivers a nice, bright beam that will conquer most EDC tasks. The THRO mode allows it to go a little beyond that role. It’s worth a look if you prefer low profile and convenience mixed with exceptional power.
[Ed: SCOPE-NY president Tom Reynolds just sent this plain language explanation of this RKBA-punitive bill via email to members. We felt it gives such a clear picture of the bill’s aims that it is important to share it widely. The bill likely will pass the House next week, and the Senate could be where it might be diluted or even stopped. It is cocked & locked, and pointed at the heads of 100 million citizens. It will not be the last.]
SCOPE recently published a list of gun related bills in the House and Senate, with a brief description of each. HR 8, in the House of Representatives, deserves an expanded explanation.
It is important to note that it covers all firearms, not just handguns.
Under HR8, any transfer, loan or sale of a firearm will have to go through a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) with all the associated paperwork and costs. There are a few exceptions to the bill’s mandate to use an FFL but they fall far short of easing the pain of this bill on gun owners. To the casual reader, the bill might not seem too extreme but to a knowledgeable gun owner it is extreme and includes many paths to making a law-abiding gun owner into a felon.
As might be expected, the bill seems to be written by legislators who are not familiar with firearms and have probably never been hunting. The bill’s authors’ understanding of dangerous situations seems to have come from watching TV shows.
HR8 changes the law, through the backdoor, and no one under 21 will be able to legally possess a handgun. Since 1968, existing federal law says FFL’s cannot sell handguns to people under 21, but younger persons can possess handguns that are borrowed or transferred. Under HR8, all transfers must go through an FFL. That’s the “Catch 22”; FFL’s cannot legally transfer a handgun to people under 21. (Gang members like MS-13 and other youthful criminals exempt themselves from this law.)
Under HR8, you do not have to use an FFL for loans and gifts between HR8 defined close family members*. (Sons in-law or daughters in-law, cousins of any kind, and step brothers or sisters are not HR8 defined close family members* and you cannot loan or gift them a firearm without going through an FFL).
If you trade a firearm to an HR8 defined close family member*, without going through an FFL, you are as much a felon as if you gave the gun to Charles Manson, (and subject to the same level of penalty). For example, you can’t give your adult son a shotgun to thank him for doing some work on your house, that’s a trade.
You do not have to use an FFL to lend a firearm to someone to hunt, but you must accompany them and never leave their side. If you leave their side, you become a felon.
You do not have to use an FFL to lend someone a gun to shoot at a shooting range, but you must never leave their side or you are a felon. If you practice shooting at a non-shooting range, such as a farm, and hand someone a firearm, that transfer would be a felony. (You farmers who want to teach your family to shoot will have to take them to a firing range and not to the “north forty”.)
One constantly overlooked aspect of gun ownership is crime prevention. Do you have any reason to believe your life may be in danger: being stalked; domestic violence victim; live in a dangerous area; lots of burglaries in your area? If so, you might want to borrow a gun, in advance of the crime, for prevention and protection. Under HR8, you cannot borrow a firearm, in advance, from someone other than an HR8 defined close family member*. Once there is imminent threat of death or great bodily harm, you can borrow one from someone else. Unfortunately, criminals don’t schedule their crimes with the victims so you have to wait until the crime is in process to borrow it from a friend. (Good luck with that.)
Suppose you want to legally loan a firearm and you are willing to endure the paperwork and cost to comply with HR8 and go through an FFL. When the gun is returned, you have to go through the same paperwork and cost to return the firearm to its owner. Under HR8, the return of a firearm that was loaned is treated the same as the purchase of a new one.
The gun grabbers have generally not been successful in direct attacks on the 2nd Amendment but they never stop with indirect attacks that make it more difficult to own a gun. One way is to make it unaffordable or overly bureaucratic for most people to own or, in the case of HR8, borrow a gun. Other bills being proposed add costs for insurance policies and mental health exams. Taken as a whole, these bills would make gun ownership and hunting into rich person’s sports – which is exactly their goal.
Contact your Congressperson and tell them to oppose HR8.
Contact your local Rod and Gun Club and also your local Conservation Society and be sure they understand the implications of this bill.
*HR8 defined close family members are: spouses, domestic partners, parents and children, step-parents and step-children, siblings, aunts/uncles and nieces/nephews, grandparents and grandchildren.
We knew it would be. Especially with the House pushing through the ‘Universal Background Check’ bills yesterday, the Congress is primed for gun control in a way that they haven’t been in a long time. And with the most anti-gun administration ever elected, they have a shot at running wild with it.
In short, despite how terrible an idea this is for Congress to do in the long term, they could do it anyway because ‘mUh MorAL OuTRagE!’ and other nonsensical appeals to anything not remotely resembling productive policy.
Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 opens,
A BILL
To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes.
And it just gets worse from there. It is an asinine attack on the Second Amendment rights of the citizens, devoid of reason and built on weak appeals to ‘grandfathering’ in the shade of ‘compromise’.
It uses a full 96 pages of the 125 to uselessly list guns it doesn’t ban, FTGC isn’t kidding there. Almost 80% of the bill is dedicated to guns it doesn’t ban, just in case we couldn’t figure that out because they weren’t on the 8 pages of banned firearms.
Page 25 through 121 are just a bunch of obvious (and many out of production) gun models. This makes it look like the bill isn’t infringing (at least not that badly) because, “look how many guns you get to keep, everyone!”
This is purposefully contrasted against the shorter, by name, list that covers the offending banned firearms in great swaths of ‘all variants.’ In fact, the list is over ten times the matching list of banned firearms, I’m certain purposefully, to make the list look magnanimous.
It’s the equivalent of banning every truck or SUV beyond the year 2021, because all the ones built before that are still technically around. Then all of the SUVs and pickup trucks need special paperwork in order to change hands in the future, because the massive vehicles make them so much more dangerous. Oh and you can’t sell tires for them.
It’s clear nothing will satisfy until they prohibit ownership entirely. The background checks acts that passed the House, H.R. 127, and now this are just taking on firearm ownership piece by piece.
The greatest sin of the whole bill is its wanton misuse of homicide statistics and “massacres” to push it. Citing not a hint that the homicide rate and violent crime rates continued their decline after the ban was removed in 2004. Meaning the ban was not suppressing crime, at all. Firearms demand is magnitudes higher than ever and the “assault weapons” are the most popular category for new and continuing owners alike, especially since handguns have quietly become ‘assault weapons’ thanks to threaded barrels becoming common drop-in parts.
By Feinstein’s version of what passes for logic, we should have seen a spike again to the rates of the early 1990’s starting in 2004. We didn’t. Her claim that “massacres” are more prominent is a combination of fast and loose data combined with the increased fame factor that massacres garner. A mass public killing is generally not the data they restrict themselves too, they gleefully include domestic slayings and organized criminal activity into the mix. They even omit any mention of whether they filtered this information for just confirmed “assault weapons” incidents, thereby allowing any crimes involving handguns or shotguns to be counted among the “massacres” that they do not define in the least.
The cognitive dissonance of what is and is not cited, what counts and what doesn’t matter, what is relevant information and what is not is maddening to anyone who would genuinely like to continue solving the issues of violence in this country.
It’s the lowest type of statistical and emotional manipulation, just like the “90%” claim.
Ever since Joe Biden became the President and Democrats took both houses of Congress, rumors of gun control have been swirling. It’s part and parcel of having a President with D next to his name. Apparently, those rumors are quite true. The House of Representatives just passed a bill calling for universal background checks. That bill will include universal background checks. Universal background checks are corporatism, or if you want to be extremely specific, corporatocracy.
Yep, I said it. In theory, the Democrats should be absolutely against the idea that a Constitutional right would be levied into a means for corporations and companies to discriminate and profit. That is exactly what will happen if Universal Background checks become law.
What Are Universal Background Checks
Just so we are all on the same page, let’s dive into what Universal Background Checks are. States laws vary on the exact definition of a transfer and possession, but let’s look at the high-level view.
In general, a law mandating universal background checks requires an individual looking to sell, gift, or loan a firearm to utilize an FFL to run a background check on the person receiving the firearm. The buyer must complete a 4473 and complete a background check.
When you say it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad, and if I was trying to justify this bill, that’s how I’d sell it. However, when you apply critical thinking, it begins to unravel. First and foremost, it’s a prohibition on selling your private property or gifting a gun. The goal is that this would stop criminals from obtaining guns. It’s a flawed premise already because, as we know, straw purchases will still be a tool to acquire firearms, as is theft, and criminals selling guns to criminals.
How Background Checks Are Conducted
As mentioned, you have to go to a Federal Firearms Licensee, aka a gun store. Most small gun stores are run by great people who most certainly advocate for 2nd Amendment rights; this article does not disenfranchise them. It’s about the potential for abuse these laws create.
An FFL is a private business, unlike many others and more regulated than most. Most already levy a fee mandated by the State to conduct a background check, which they are required to. This is already a poll tax on firearm ownership, that will now be required for private purchases.
FFL’s offer transfer services, and traditionally this service allows someone to purchase a firearm from a different dealer, say online, and have it sent to an FFL. This is a regulated process required by law. Let’s say I order a Glock 19 from an out-of-state dealer. That dealer ships the firearm to my local FFL. When it arrives, I go to the gun store, fill out a 4473, obtain a background check, pay for the background check, and then the gun store’s transfer fee.
This transfer fee is not regulated and is a reasonable request from a gun store. You are using their store, license, and time to obtain a firearm. Charging a fee is reasonable. If Universal Background checks become the law of the land, this transfer fee will be charged every time you decide to sell or gift a piece of private property, not commercial inventory.
This fee will add on an additional cost to the ownership of a firearm. It creates an entirely new revenue stream for companies, and is a legal requirement. Universal background checks will ensure your gun rights are controlled and taxed by a private company.
The Corporate Poll Tax
States with universal background checks seemingly have higher transfer fees as well. There is no law saying this fee cannot be levied, or a cap on the fee. I browsed California-based gun stores and tried to gauge the average transfer fee. It appeared to fall between 75 and 100 dollars, before background check fees, taxes, etc.
Imagine if you will, that when you went to vote you had to pay a cover charge to gain access to the polls. That cover charge is set by the owner of the venue and is not regulated in any way whatsoever. You may have to pay ten bucks, or ten cents, or a thousand dollars. Either way, even a penny is too much to charge. Fees like this most affect the poor, who can least afford to spend that percentage of their income.
The poor, who are more likely to rely on sustenance hunting or are more likely to live in bad neighborhoods and higher crime regions, will be the worst off for this change.
The Power of Discrimination
Additionally, as corporatism and corporatocracy go, Universal Background Checks put massive power into the hands of individual companies. FFL holders are allowed to discriminate and refuse the sale or transfer of firearms at any time. They do not have to provide a reason, and their ability to discriminate is empowered by the ATF. With cancel culture being in full swing, imagine yourself being canceled for a wrong opinion by gun store owners. An FFL, perhaps the only FFL in a reasonable range, could refuse to do private transfers at all, for any reason.
They can refuse to sell you their stock of firearms, and now you cannot obtain a firearm from a private sale, or as a gift from a friend or family member, because those same gun stores refuse to process a transfer and they have no obligation to do so. Your right to own a firearm is effectively nil. It is subject entirely to the personal whims of a private business because they are the mandated point of transfer and are empowered to deny those transfers at their discretion.
Many won’t, most in fact, but that does nothing to curb the fact that they are entirely empowered to do so and you are left with no other way to accept a transfer.
These laws do nothing for crime and simply funnel more money from individuals into the hands of private corporations and companies. It doesn’t just regulate and eliminate private sales of firearms; it allows private businesses to regulate the sale of firearms entirely. Universal background checks are pure corporatism.
Submitted Gun Control Bills
Beyond Corporatism
A very common argument from the Democratic party is that requiring an ID to vote is voter suppression because IDs cost money and could discourage people from voting. I’m not here to argue for or against that law today, but if that is their line of thinking, then surely a transfer fee, background check fee, and the requirement for an ID is too much to ask to practice your 2nd Amendment rights. Hypocrites, the lot of them. I guess I’ll just keep building Polymer 80 Glocks.
The House of Representatives passed both H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Check Act, and H.R. 1446, Enhanced Background Check Act , along mostly partisan lines. 227-203 in the case of H.R. 8 and 219-210 for H.R. 1446.
The bills will now advance to the split Senate but the Senate can pass them 51-50 with Kamala Harris breaking the tie. Especially if your Senators are currently Democrats, let them know they should not pass this useless piece of superfluous window dressing just to say they’re taking a “hard line” on guns.
These aren’t the only bills being pushed, though they are the ones they are most likely to win and get their gun control points. Even if they lose every other bill they can claim they got it done, even if it gets nothing done. Perhaps especially if it gets ‘nothing’ done because they can then push the argument they need to go further.
