Survival Foods in Your Yard

By

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February 24, 2020

Winter turns to Spring. Spring turns to Summer. Summer turns to Fall. Fall turns back to Winter. There is a rhythm to the seasons and the earth. It’s rather comforting in its regularity. It’s so regular, that once you get used to the rhythm you can start paying attention to what’s going on around you in your little corner of the world.

In my little corner of the world when I started paying attention, I noticed plants and foods I didn’t notice before. In a survival situation this can be an invaluable skill. It is a skill I am working on cultivating, and you can too.

We don’t think about it these days when we can skip on down to the Kroger for groceries whenever we feel like it, but spring could be a hungry time for our ancestors. Newly planted crops wouldn’t produce for months. But by spring the winter food stores were almost exhausted, getting monotonous, and/or starting to go bad. People were starving for fresh foods (or just plain literally starving).

Fresh wild spring greens and pot herbs were a welcome treat to break up the monotony, fill empty bellies, and help stave off nutritional deficiencies like scurvy until the new crops came in.

The wild plants our ancestors used for food in the spring were not esoteric deep woods stuff. I’m talking about “weeds” you probably already have growing in your yard (and that you’ve been previously trying to kill off). I live in a subdivision, on a third of an acre lot, in the Appalachian region, at about 1200 feet of elevation, and this free food is in my own yard. So it’s probably in yours too.

It’s important to note that I don’t use herbicides or pesticides in my yard (or fertilizer for that matter). I also don’t have a dog, so whatever grows on my property is unlikely to be contaminated with “stuff” (except around the edges where neighbors walk their own dogs – ARGH) So be careful where you choose to forage for ground-based edibles and be mindful of potential contaminants. Of course in a true survival situation you may not have the luxury of being choosy.

My lawn such as it is, is not a grass monoculture, but rather a mishmash of some grass and some of whatever popped up from the cow pasture that was here 30 years ago. So far the HOA hasn’t complained as long as I keep it mowed. In the early spring, that set of circumstances allows a variety of non-grass edibles to pop-up into my green space.

So, what are some late winter/early spring edibles in this particular environment? And how do we identify them? I started with internet searches and photographs, and then my daughter gave me a wild food book for Christmas last year.

Obligatory Legal Disclaimer:
I am not a professional plant biologist. I am passing on information about identification and edibility from seemingly reliable internet articles and published books. But pick and consume anything at your own risk! I am not your mother or your lawyer (or your doctor for that matter). So let’s all be responsible adults.

Hosta

Let’s start with the most surprising entry. Hosta is a shade-tolerant ornamental that appears in many people’s landscaping. But did you know you can eat it? I didn’t. Well, let’s be specific in that it’s edible for HUMANS. It is toxic for dogs and cats however.

Although they are considered ornamental landscaping in the U.S. , Hostas are purposely grown as food in some parts of Asia. I don’t have any Hostas in my yard, but I may covertly scope out some of the neighbors’ yards.

Apparently if you cut the shoots very young, they will start over and grow back. So you aren’t actually ruining someone’s yard (or your own) by harvesting Hosta and eating it. This article recommended a quick sear of the cut shoots for a taste between lettuce and asparagus. Some Asian recipes do them with tempura. The flowers are edible too, in addition to the early tender shoots.

So even if your neighborhood gets depopulated in the Zombie Apocalypse, you can know that though your neighbors themselves were useless, you can at least survive on your neighbors’ landscaping for awhile.

Purple Dead Nettle

This one gets my vote for most intimidating name. I found this pretty little weed in my own yard last spring, looked it up in my book, and then ate some as a salad garnish just so I could say I did.

The “dead” part of the name just means that its hairs don’t sting (UNlike stinging nettle – although that is edible too). This weedy member of the mint family is actually quite pretty from a distance as it produces tiny purple-pink flowers and the leaves are also dark purple-ish. Purple Dead Nettle can turn a brownish patch of spring lawn into a colorful and interesting display in the early season, and it can also brighten up your window garden salad as a garnish.

Some people also use Purple Dead Nettle as a tea or in smoothies as it is reported to be high in Vitamin C. I didn’t personally find the flavor to be much above dirt (technically described as “earthy”), but if one is starving one eats what one can find. It is free in the yard and it IS a pretty garnish.

If I can stick a finger in the HOA’s eye by calling this survival weed a “decorative ground cover” I’m gonna do it.

Purslane

Purslane is another “weed” that is highly edible. It shows up in lawns, gardens, and disturbed soil by about mid-spring. It has a small, paddle-shaped succulent leaf, grows wild in flat mats, and produces tiny yellow flowers in mid summer. It has been cultivated on purpose as a food crop in past centuries.

Purslane is noted to be high in Vitamin E and Omega-3 fatty acids. It is also rich in beta carotene, Vitamin C, and several other minerals and trace nutrients.

Purslane leaf, stem, and flowers have a slightly tangy flavor and can be eaten raw in salads and cooked in soups. One reference even recommends it blended as part of a wild green goddess salad dressing.

So before you grab the chemicals to kill that weed in your sidewalk – check to make sure it isn’t Purslane. Maybe that weed is really a nutritious survival food that you’ll want to keep around!

Red Clover

Speaking of yard weeds – let’s talk about Red Clover. Most people think of Red Clover as mere animal fodder (if they think of it at all). But Red Clover has been a nutritious “people food” for centuries – if not millennia.

The flowers seem to be the most popular portion of the plant because they are slightly sweet. But young leaves harvested before flowering have a mild green pea-like flavor and seem to be popular in a variety of fresh greens applications, in addition to being cooked in soups and teas.

Red Clover contains vitamin C, niacin, thiamin, calcium, phosphorus, and other trace minerals. It also contains isoflavones. So don’t overlook this “weed” as a source of hard times nutrition, either.

Wild Onion/Wild Garlic

I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t seen these “weeds” pop up in the early spring grass – generally standing taller than the grass at least temporarily. And if you haven’t seen them, you’ve undoubtedly smelled them on the first grass mow of the season. This is Wild Onion and Wild Garlic.

My Wild Onion harvest along with Purple Dead Nettle.

Generally speaking, if it smells like garlic or onion, it IS garlic or onion and is edible. These members of the Allium genus all have that spiky green foliage that is familiar to garlic and onion lovers. There are a few toxic look-alikes, but they don’t have the characteristic smell, so let your nose lead the way.

All parts of the wild onion/garlic plant are edible, so feel free to use it from bulb to tip, in any recipe where you would use the domesticated variety.

Dandelion

Finally, no survival food list would be complete without the much maligned Dandelion.

Believe it or not, Dandelions were actually introduced into North America. They originated in Eurasia and didn’t grow here naturally until Europeans brought them. Dandelions are remarkably tenacious and prolific. Anyone who has blown the seeds away from a mature puffy dandelion flower can see how easily the plant spreads. In addition, individual plants can live for 5-10 years!

But the payback for the longevity and spread is that virtually every single part of the Dandelion is edible.

Greens – In early spring, the greens can be harvested for salads, smoothies, etc. The leaves are best before the plants flowers, after which they become more bitter, but they remain edible even after the flavor deteriorates.

Young Dandelion leaves plus Wild Onion ready to make a spring salad.

My grandmother served spring dandelion greens with a hot bacon dressing, but they can also be used in pesto, soups, frittatas, etc.
Like other dark green leafies, Dandelion leaves are high in Vitamin K, so don’t eat boatloads of it if you on a blood thinner such as Coumadin/warfarin. Other nutrients include Vitamin C, beta carotene, calcium and iron.

Flower heads – Last spring I made dandelion jelly out of the flower heads, and then baked dandelion cookies with the leftovers. Flower heads can also be battered and fried, or even made into wine. Yes – wine. Now I’ve got your attention, don’t I?

Roots – The taproot of the dandelion – when dried, roasted, and ground – has been used as a coffee substitute by numerous of our ancestors. The roots can also be cooked like carrots or parsnips, or added to soups like any other root vegetable.

It’s a bit of work, but given all of that, why not surrender your lawn battles and learn to make friends with the Dandelion?

So – right here on this page are six very good reasons to put away your herbicides and pesticides and get to know the “volunteers” in your own backyard.

When managing your green space, the bottom line lesson is – humans can’t digest grass. So pay attention to what is already around you and prepare accordingly!

Review: “The Morality of Self-Defense & Military Action” by David Kopel

By

DRGO

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February 22, 2020

When this book came out in 2017, I was eager to read and review it. David Kopel is a colleague whose work I have admired for years. This is his magnum opus (so far anyway). No one knows more about the legal aspects and history of the Second Amendment and the natural rights that underpin it. I said I’d review it then, so this is a promise greatly deferred but finally kept.

The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action is a history of moral thought and belief. That may sound esoteric, but these are precisely the factors that most motivate self-defense advocates. DRGO, John Lott, Gary Kleck and many other research experts spend our time refining the scientific case for general civilian self-defense right on outcome bases. But we do that because we believe in the fundamental right of each person to possess the best tools with which to exercise that right.

Most ethical thought in Western civilization has scriptural bases (Old and then New Testament) with strong influence by Classical philosophers. This is what Kopel surveys, in depth, in 400+ pages with surely a thousand footnotes.

There is no doubt that the ancient Hebrews believed in the sanctity of both defense and offense in order to conquer their promised lands. But their might eventually failed to keep those lands, when the Assyrians eliminated the northern Hebrew kingdom of Israel (whose 10 tribes disappeared to history) then the Babylonians captured and removed the two remaining southern tribes of the kingdom of Judea (from which “Jew” derives). The right of defense guarantees nothing in a world with strong enemies.

This principle has been taken up in the Christian world as belief in “just war”, which Kopel thoughtfully analyzes. Generally, offensive wars are condemned while defensive wars are accepted as unavoidable and necessary. Throughout the ages, peoples have migrated and found their place in lands new to them by defeating and displacing previous residents. By the 20^th century, the idea that one’s people deserve more lebensraum at the cost of others’ freedom had passed its prime.

But defining the difference can be tricky. How recent must the provocation be to justify defensive action? The Middle East offers classic examples. The peoples that the Hebrews displaced are long gone, but does their early presence and ethnic continuity validate their displacing Arabic speaking Muslims who established their dominance centuries following the Jewish diaspora? Were the Crusades aggression as depicted by Muslim chroniclers, or were they righteous attempts to recover long Christian lands that were earlier overrun by Mohammed’s followers?

Underlying the degree to which civilizational and national defensive war is moral is the eternal question about when personal, individual self-defense is valid. Again, the ancients found little question about this. The Mosaic Ten Commandments include an injunction to “not murder”, not to “not kill” in accurate translation. The Hebrew Bible and Torah include a number of examples showing when one is not just entitled, but has the duty to defend oneself, one’s home and one’s people. The rules can get complicated (you can kill an intruder at night, though not necessarily during the day) but cover the most salient circumstances.

As Christianity became dominant, with its repeated divisions over the past two millennia, we see more pacifist interpretations of Scripture develop. There seemed to be more support in the New Testament for this than the Old. From Gnostics to Quakers (with their rich contribution to American life) and even Presbyterians and Methodists, “purity pacifism” is a strong tradition influencing significant strains of political thought. Spreading the Gospel was at first a more peaceful program than later conjoined conquests of Christian powers over indigenous and of Arabs carrying Islam through much of the old Roman Empire. Christianity’s many martyrs literally testified to that. Nor did it work out well for non-Christians, for example, the Maororis of the Chatham Islands or the Arawaks versus the Caribs.

“Pragmatic pacifism” has more widespread influence. To “turn the other cheek” to an aggressor is one thing, and forgiving “seventy times seven” is a great deal—yet is still a limit (Matthew 5:38 & 18:21). Taking the Good News to all still may require that the messengers carry a sword” (Luke 22:36)—but for what, if not self-defense? In his introduction, Kopel describes how William Jennings “Bryan asked [famous pacifist] Tolstoy what Tolstoy would do if he saw a criminal about to rape and murder a child.” That is the same question that the slightest curiosity about the parable of the Good Samaritan raises. What should the Samaritan have done if he had come across the victim as he was being assaulted?

Philosophies of non-violence may or may not admit of self-defense, with adherents on both sides. Gandhi was a pacifist through and through, while Martin Luther King, Jr., who was inspired by Gandhi, still found self-defense fully justifiable. Non-violent action has clearly been more effective in achieving societal and political change than individual security.

All this is to say that this is an enormous subject, one that Kopel examines thoroughly, in great detail yet very readably. If you appreciate learning from an expert discussion despite the ultimate ambiguity necessitated in respecting different interpretations of historical premises, you’ll want to read this through. If you want to know everything there is that supports a position in favor of the ideals of principled, pragmatic self-defense, you’ll really value this.

There is nothing else out there as authoritative and extensive as Kopel’s Morality of Self-Defense. It is, simply, without compare. Learn, and enjoy!

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— DRGO Editor Robert B. Young, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY, an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

All DRGO articles by Robert B. Young, MD

Maintaining Warfighting Capability

By

Keith Finch

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February 21, 2020

I saw this article from Popular Mechanics last week and I’ve wanted to swing back to it for awhile. The problem was.. well.. Virginia was happening and we were busy.

But we’re back now so…

The U.S. Military Has a ‘Right to Repair’ Problem

What? You may be asking?

A ‘Right to Repair’. In short: who has the legal rights, through contract, to repair the equipment that soldiers are using.

Maintenance in the Military is a highly highly structured topic. Portions of that structure come from legal agreements with the companies who supply the equipment being used.

These agreements are a double edged sword.

On the one hand. Maintenance support directly from a company that built, say, an M1A2 Abrams tank or an M-ATV patrol vehicle mean that the folks who designed, built, and are looking to upgrade it are always in the loop working on it. That, instead of handing it off to a wide array of techs who all “grew up on” completely different systems and are relying on the accuracy of Technical Manuals (TMs).

The from concept to contract experience does give the company an edge in helping keep the fleet running. However, when certain maintenance tasks must be completed by a maintenance level the users don’t have access to in a timely manner, equipment gets deadlined.

Deadlined equipment isn’t helping complete missions and despite having thousands of people in uniform for the express purpose of maintenance, contracts restrict them from fixing their equipment at a closer level to the active mission than what the contract bound company can get their techs.

Companies make earnest efforts but you end up with situations where fixable pieces are kept deadlined by contract, not by ability. It is something that requires serious addressing as the military gets stuck with equipment lodged at various places in “shipping” for maintenance.

In short, the DoD needs to seriously address how it looks at contracts and add flexibility to help end users keep their equipment on mission at a higher rate. At the same time it needs to keep items that must unequivocally be maintained at the manufacturer level there to do so. They must, on demand, be able to deliver that maintenance. Improperly doing any of these will result in greater delays… hard nut to crack.

I’ve held a maintenance MOS. I spent 3 years looking at this problem from the inside and wondering, in many many instances, why? Why couldn’t competent folks following directions install a part as simple as a trigger? Contracts. The answer is weird contracts.

I see it from the manufacturer side too, though. Imagine, if you will, the number of ultra dumb customer service calls where a rep has to walk through plugging something in… now imagine that on a macro system running all the complex tests, parameters, and checks on a Predator Drone or the aiming components on a Paladin mobile artillery piece. Sometimes it is simply easier to do it yourself, in person.

This is a complex issue. But it’s one that is keeping a lot of equipment offline. The levels within the maintenance hierarchy are supposed to smooth this as much as possible by enabling the lowest levels, down to the end users, to keep their equipment running. There are breakdowns in this system, some are unfortunately contractual.

The Magpul Pro 700 Chassis First Impressions

By

Anna Martinez

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February 21, 2020

Magpul is a company that has always been very close to my heart, due to the military. I try to not let that create any false opinions on pieces of equipment, but be forewarned, there could be bias.

Bias or not though, rounds down range don’t lie. Nor does ease of installation and being able to set a gun up perfectly for my body. I ran the Magpul Fixed ODG Pro 700 Chassis for the first time this past weekend at Isaiah Curtis’s Team match in Atlanta, MO. I set it up the night before with my teammate for the match and shot about 10 rounds down range before running it at the match.

Installation

The installation of the Chassis itself took about two minutes, and the directions that Magpul provides are thought out, but short and simple.

The Chassis uses two of the same size action screws which makes it very easy to not screw up. Be sure that the pistol grip is moved rearward enough to see both action screw housings, there are tick marks if unsure. Follow along in the instructions to be sure the action is placed right, and don’t forget to torque the action screws to 55-60in lbs.

Torque specs are important!

Research and Development was done extensively by Magpul. When any company is creating a product, they will find the best way to install said product and to what spec. Magpul tested 55-60 in lbs and found it to be capable of withstanding the recoil of a rifle in the chassis.

Torquing is important!

The directions also go over left handed action installation. If you look closely at the screws, it will say “MAGPUL USA“. This is a very important detail to me because I’m a sucker for well made parts. When it comes to screws, anything that is made out of country, such as YFS screws, I don’t trust. These screws are coated to prevent rust, yet they still thread in with ease.

The chassis comes with two different pistol grip sizes and 4 screws, 2 for each grip. After installing the chassis, I realized that I forgot to put my Magpul M-LOK Dovetail Adapter-Pro Arca full rail on.

Not a problem. This was an easy fix without taking the action off. We were able to just pull up a bit, putting pressure on the locking attachments, and screw in from outside the rail. I was not able to run my Magpul Bipod for ARMS 17S due to not getting the adapter plate in in time in the mail.

NOTE: Be sure to go over which bipod attachment system you are running, M-LOK, 1913, or ARMS, to make sure you have all the correct pieces, including flathead cap screws if using the ARMS. After installation was done, I then went into the fine tuning of the chassis.

Setup and Tuning

I chose to run the pistol grip that came on the chassis, which is the thinner one. The grip comes in two pieces, so you can try to get the feel of the different size without fully installing it on the chassis, saving time.

I then laid down on the gun to adjust the cheek riser, length of pull, and butt-pad. I really like how easily it is to adjust everything on the chassis. I could adjust it all while still being on the gun.

After adjusting the cheek riser height, make sure to re-tighten the cheek lock knob so it doesn’t move again. I didn’t end up adjusting the cheek riser fore/aft (which it does), but looking back, I may go back and adjust it closer to the optic. Be aware of these positions in regards to spacing for bolt removal.

Lefties don’t worry, everything is adjustable for right and left handed shooters.

Adjusting the length of pull while laying on the gun: The butt pad height has an easy 1/8″ hex key, and you only need to loosen 1 turn for it to move. Once at desired placement, tighten to 10 in-lbs. I didn’t adjust the cant yet, but after this weekend I may. After the chassis was fit adjusted I ran outside to get a few rounds down range before sunset.

First Rounds

I’ve only been shooting precision rifle for about a year. Being a new shooter, I wanted all the stability I could get, so I went for the fixed stock chassis for fewest moving parts. I knew I wasn’t going to be transporting the gun in a way to where I needed the foldable. As a note, I haven’t heard any issues with the folding stock, I just didn’t need it.

I shot a 10 round Magpul AICS Mag through the gun, and it hit a sub MOA group at 100m.

The most important thing I was looking for with the couple of rounds I was able to get off before the match, was recoil acceptance. With this stock, set to my body, I could easily stay on the target after a shot.

I could absorb the transferred recoil well and the rifle didn’t try to get away from me. In short, it felt like a normal chassis, it felt how I want the gun to feel. Strong, solid, rigid, and controlled.

The stock sits balanced on the bag and is easy to manipulate.

The installation and setup are quick, simple, and gave me some good warm fuzzies about the chassis, but like I said before, rounds down range don’t lie. Keep an eye out for the post match article to follow.

This is about as ‘out-of-the-box’ and ‘follow directions’ as it gets.

Offset Sights (35-45 Degree)

By

Keith Finch

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February 20, 2020

Aaron Cowan discusses the role of offset sights on modern rifle systems. The video covers why you might consider adding one to your setup. If you don’t have 10 minutes for the video I’ll give you my .02 on the concept.

Vortex Razor HD Gen III 1-10x with Trijicon RMR HRS in an Arisaka offset mount. The current SCAR 16s set up.

I started running on offset with the Trijicon HRS a few months back and tied it in with my March F 1-8x. The HRS is a Type 2 RMR built for the M17/M18 pistols. It serves equally well in the role of a backup optic and an extreme close range optic for the carbine.

Explain?

LPVO’s like the Razor serve an incredibly versatile role and allow a rifle to take advantage of its full effective range. But to do so the rifle zero has to correspond to those ranges. You are going to zero your primary optic, the LPVO, for 50 or 100 yards and know your trajectory for greater distances either by reading the scale and knowing your holds or following the BDC.

An offset dot gives you the additional flexibility to throw an extremely close zero on your rifle that does not have to be adjusted for. 10 yards is my go to and then I confirm hits at 50 yards. That optic and that zero grant you additional flexibility around your LPVO.

NOTE: An offset optic is going to have your shots arc off the centerline of the rifle since the rifle is canted. They will arc predictably, however. Shots fired through the offset optic (in my case, the HRS) will arc in the direction of the primary optic (in my case, the Razor). Imagine a football thrown that drifts left or right depending upon the direction the primary optic and rifle are angled and you’ll more or less envision the trajectory.

So what you now have with an offset optic is a quick solution for close shots/threats and one for using the rifle from an awkward angle where eye relief becomes a problem. The LPVO can be left dialed up to higher power without detriment to closer target engagements. The offset sight is capable of operating as a backup without removing a failed primary optic.

Unlike backup iron sights, the offset dot is an active part of your sighting systems. Meaning it can be part of an engaged training cycle and maintain active proficiency. Irons, as back up sights, are rarely in a position to be trained with. They require removing the primary sighting systems. Nobody wants to do that.

As a summarized list:

An offset dot gives you a solution for extreme close distance shots that can be zeroed accordingly.
An offset dot gives you a solution that does not have the eye relief requirements of the primary optic.
An offset dot gives you a “no parallax” solution for quickly taking shots at awkward angles.
An offset dot gives you a solution independent of the magnification setting currently on the primary optic.
An offset dot gives you a durable backup that doesn’t require removing the primary optic to use

Bloomberg! Gun Ban! Bingo!!

By

Keith Finch

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February 20, 2020

From our friends at Widener’s

We typically try to keep things fairly apolitical here at the blog. But this week, I know a lot of our fellow staunch 2nd Amendment supporters have an eye fixated on politics. Michael Bloomberg, an outspoken politician supporting his own brand of gun control seems to be gaining traction as a legitimate major party candidate for President of the United States.

While we don’t dare tell you how to vote… if a man painted as a villain by the National Rifle Association for more than 20 years is making a serious run, we figure we might as well have some fun with it.

Bloomberg’s Gun Ban Bingo

Get your markers ready, the Nevada Democratic Primary Debate is our first chance for Gun Ban Bingo!

Get your board at the top.

How do you play? Well, it’s easy. Keep your bingo card and ammo handy during any debate Michael Bloomberg is a part of. When you hear him or one of the other candidates mention any of the topics listed on the Bingo card above, mark the spot with your favorite round of ammo. Complete a row, and you’ve got yourself a bingo! We suggest shouting it from the rooftops.

Bloomberg and the NRA

NRA attack ad against bloomberg — In 2014, the NRA ran an attack ad in several states against Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg’s fight with the NRA goes back nearly two decades. The fight may have taken a turn from petty annoyance to all-out rivalry in the mid-2000s.

New York Lawsuit Against Firearm Manufacturers

In some ways, Bloomberg inherited a lawsuit brought by the City of New York against several gun manufacturers in 2000. Rudy Giuliani was New York City Mayor at the time. He filed the suit seeking no monetary damages. Rather, he insisted that gun manufacturers were marketing their products in ways that helped promote straw purchases.

In 2004, Bloomberg was New York mayor and his office amended that lawsuit. A year later, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the city’s claim. The court granted the firearm manufacturers immunity under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This law prohibits gun makers from being held liable for crimes committed with their products.

While the National Shooting Sports Foundation was also heavily involved in defending the industry in that case, the suit put the PLCAA on national display. Plus, it marks one of the biggest early fights between Bloomberg and the NRA.

Bloomberg’s 2020 Platform on Gun Control

Bloomberg’s gun campaigns didn’t stop once he left the mayor’s office in New York. From funding gun groups seeking tighter regulations to a $10 million Super Bowl ad focused on guns, firearms are still squarely in Bloomberg’s crosshairs.

The candidate often points out he doesn’t feel his plan violates the 2nd Amendment rights of any Americans. However, many gun owners might find points of Bloomberg’s platform goes a little farther than what they’d consider reasonable regulation.

For instance, Bloomberg is calling for the following changes or policies:

Retailers maintaining a sales database for all firearm sales
No private firearm sales/transfers without a background check
A reenactment of the Assault Weapons Ban of the 1990s
Permit or license requirement to purchase a firearm
Installation of a Federal Gun Coordinator Position
A 48-hour waiting period on all firearm purchases
Tight restrictions on U.S. firearm manufacturers and export laws

Everytown for Gun Safety

Everytown for Gun Safety is managed by a million-dollar team of five full-time executives and a handful of part-timers, according to Internal Revenue Service filings.

Several smaller groups fall under the Everytown umbrella. You’ve likely heard of some of them – Moms Demand Action, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Students Demand Action are some examples.

CNBC reported Bloomberg himself donated $38 million to Everytown for Gun Safety in 2018. That’s a little more than half of what the group raised in funds that year. Accordingly, much of that money went toward localized issues and races.

For example, Everytown spent just shy of $3 million in the state of Virginia in 2019. This shaped the state legislature, introduced us to something called “ammo free zones”, helped spur a gun sanctuary movement, and powered a highly-publicized showdown with 2A supporters. (A fight that 2A supporters appear to have won for now.)

Not aware of the animosity between the National Rifle Association and Everytown? A quick Google search analyzing the Everytown website reveals the organization named the NRA on more than one thousand different occasions. Taking the fight further, Everytown filed a complaint with the IRS about the NRA’s tax-exempt status in April 2019. In their complaint, Everytown cited a report done jointly by The New Yorker and an outlet called The Trace. The Trace is a media outlet that was born with seed money from, you guessed it, Everytown for Gun Safety.

So, you may or may not have a vote in the Democratic race this primary season. Despite that, no matter which side of the political aisle you fall, hopefully, you now have a good feel for the background of Bloomberg’s gun policies, his battles with the NRA and maybe even scored yourself a bingo along the way!

Ignoramus Bias

By

Keith Finch

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February 19, 2020

Everyone is biased, my dear readers. Everyone. Period.

We are only able to draw on the knowledge of our experiences, we are limited to our own perspective and can only infer to other perspectives based on what we read, hear, and see of them. Knowing our biases establishes our frame of reference and allows us to “true” our information so that it can be received well and used well despite our irremovable biases.

An anti-gun reporter can produce a good piece on firearms, violence, and legislation. A pro-gun person can ride the logic train and appreciate the positive goals of a piece of anti-gun legislation, even while still emphatically disagreeing with it. These are the marks of actively intellectually engaged folks who want to put their minds to solving problems, and who make every effort to not let their bias hinder them.

But ignorance produces its own biases, and often these are far far larger hurdles.

Take the following example,

Virginia’s ‘amazing moment’: The view from ground zero of U.S. gun debate

This piece from the Christian Science Monitor was published prior to the win we landed in Virginia, when the Senate there shelved HB 961. Take a look through the opening paragraphs.

A seismic shift underway in Virginia has lawmakers asking a question once unthinkable for the home of the NRA: How do you ban “America’s gun”?

As chants of “USA! USA!” poured over him, Jeff Hulbert stood at the ready – a soldier, in his eyes, of democracy. Behind him rose the peak of the Virginia Capitol in the state that has become ground zero in the shifting politics of gun rights across the United States.

On a fence fluttered a “We Will Not Comply” banner. Strapped around his shoulder, an Israeli Tavor rifle, which fires the same ammunition as an AR-15 – a military-style weapon that has become popular as an avatar of armed citizenship on the right and decried as a machine of mass death on the left.

Here in the second paragraph we are immediately corralled into the thought channels that this is a Right Wing/Left Wing issue, that this is therefore an extremist issue. It makes anyone who doesn’t identify as extremist (likely the whole audience) pause and disassociate.

It identifies the Israeli Tavor by only a single feature, the fact it fires the same round as the… AR-15 *gasp*, “…that has become an avatar of armed citizenship…”.

But for anyone reading this with a limited knowledge base the bias of their ignorance isn’t going to latch onto the ‘avatar’ line, they are going to associate with the repeated mass media narrative of the AR-15, “…a machine of mass death.”

Why will they gravitate towards that narrative? It’s the sum of their experiences. Their limited experience has been provided by the broad, detail devoid, and often woefully inaccurate mass consumed media channels.

So now the reader steps back and mentally disassociates with “the wings” then latches onto the the limited experiences their exposure gives them about the AR-15 and the associated Tavor, because they fire the same ammunition. If the reader has a strong opinion, they then decry the article as far right/left, when in reality the article most suffers from being insubstantial.

“We think it’s very symbolic to wear our sidearms, to wear a rifle, because the pictures that are taken from here … can live forever and encourage people to remember our rights,” says Mr. Hulbert, a Maryland resident and founder of Patriot Picket, a gun-rights advocacy group.

Token gun guy saying token gun guy thing.

But Cape Charles resident Laura Kinzinger has an opposite reaction. If she saw someone openly carrying a long rifle, she says she’d call the police and then duck, run, and hide.

“It might be legal. But it’s not normal,” she says. “That person might suddenly use it. I mean, there could be accidents. The thought of walking around with an [assault-style] rifle is just horrific. They are designed to kill people. That’s what they do.”

Token scared anti-gun individual decrying the behavior as deviant and strawmanning up with the ‘what if’s’ of horror and death. Ignoring that 22,000 people gathered in close proximity with those death machines… and no one died. No murders, no accidents.

But limited perview opinion again tends to side with Laura, not Jeff. Laura’s statements and the low information opine mass makes her perspective the ‘reasonable’ one at short glance. We are conditioned to take a side, not observe, look at the duality established with the left wing/right wing language.

Firearm rights should be apolitical, and if you look at the political makeup the whole of the gun industry a multitude of views and backgrounds have active and informed representation. But those are informed views, we are talking about the biases of the uninformed.

As complaints of government overreach still echo from the 22,000-strong show of largely armed force in Richmond late last month, newly elected Democrats are moving forward with a ban on new sales of the assault-style rifles, including misdemeanor penalties for possession of magazines that hold more than seven rounds.

The turn of a historically gun-friendly Southern state toward gun restrictions comes as the U.S. Supreme Court takes its first gun rights case in a decade to determine how far municipalities can go to restrict guns. Given that a conservative majority is unlikely to OK broad new restraints, battles at the state level have come to define an epic shift for Second Amendment reformers.

“It is an amazing moment,” says Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” “A lot of people since [the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre] have expressed disappointment that nothing has changed, but we have actually seen a real shift in American gun politics. Virginia is really the crucible of that.”

Well… that crucible turned into a can. That can got punted into 2021, safely after elections.

The piece steps back and gives us a quick national glimpse of goings on with the Supreme Court reference. We then dive right back to Virginia.

On Monday, the House of Delegates advanced the assault-style ban to its final reading, with Democratic lawmakers contending that it will not infringe on anybody’s Second Amendment rights. Republicans argue otherwise, saying it would criminalize ownership of some magazines, even after Democrats tempered penalties to a misdemeanor. At one point, police escorted protesters out of the chamber. “Whose side are you on?” they shouted at officers.

It was then shelved in the Senate.

But the political fight between blue suburbs and red rural areas over the proposed ban has also bared tensions among gun owners themselves. Does open carry, as Mr. Hulbert hopes, normalize the image of an armed citizenry? Or does it further entrench the idea that the right to carry a long rifle infringes on the freedoms of non-gun owners?

Here we get into the nasty business of defining things. What is a freedom versus what is a courtesy. Does one person carrying a long gun, or a gun period, actually infringe on another person’s rights? Or is it simply discourteous because someone might be made uncomfortable?

Williamsburg, Virginia, resident Josiah Gray says open carry should be restricted to police officers. The parking officer says carrying a gun might make some people feel safer, but others could be intimidated or possibly traumatized, especially if they lost someone they knew to gun violence.

“You never know how it affects other people,” he says. “If you don’t have a uniform, it looks kind of off to the other people that you have a gun.”

Here we see an appeal to power and authority. A uniform makes it okay. We don’t know a thing about the character of the person in the uniform, we truly don’t, but the symbol of monopolized force makes Josiah feel better. Josiah, completely unrelated I’m sure, wears a uniform.

But we have ample proof that a uniform does not a good person guarantee. Michael Dorner of the LAPD and Nidal Hasan, Major of the United States Army, both come to mind. To say little of the myriad other incidents where the government’s near monopoly on “legitimate” use of lethal force was misused and people died.

But, again to the under informed, to the ignorant, Josiah’s argument will ring true and Jeff Hulbert, with his Tavor that shoots AR-15 ammunition (the comparison set earlier), looks again like the deviant.

Some gun owners share those doubts. Few gun owners question the right, but many ask about the “pragmatic aspect of open carry,” says Wake Forest University sociologist David Yamane, founder of the Gun Culture 2.0 blog. “There are many people in the gun community who really dislike open carry as a method of normalizing firearms.”

True, I am one of them. I am not an open carry proponent. Virginia was an exception. Virginia was the necessary statement. 22,000 organized peacefully and armed against an atrociously egregious bill. That bill was making headway from a legislative body willfully ignoring the citizenry. Remember, the sanctuary counties came as a rebuttal before this demonstration.

And now… now the article authors start spewing overly summarized over simplified and erroneous gun nonsense for dramatic effect.

In essence, an open source platform that has sold more than 8 million exemplars on its journey to become “America’s Gun,” the Armalite Rifle, gun owners say, is basically a slick-looking single-fire rifle. Mechanically and caliber-wise, that is correct. But it is also a masterpiece of war. Its military cousin was a replacement for the unreliable M-14; its ability to kill Viet Cong in tight quarters stunned Army researchers.

This paragraph is… it’s mind numbingly hard to read. I am convinced I have to much expertise in this area to appreciate the full effect of it. It’s trying to sound intellectual and it is failing so completely. It goes further over the edge in a bid to make you believe that if you can’t understand it, then you just aren’t intellectually on a high enough level.

In reality, it’s nonsense. Any remotely informed or technically competent individual should be asking questions about the baffling language used.

The AR was first introduced to the civilian population as a hunting rifle, and its advertising slogan belies its appeal: If it is good enough for the military, it is good enough for all of us. The sunsetting of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004 opened an era of gun rights expansion, where three-quarters of states have now loosened regulations on concealed and open carry, and have expanded the rights of lethal self defense.

“…expanded the rights of lethal self defense” is an interesting choice of phrase. It brings to mind the proverbial bloody shirt while expertly squeaking by a few pertinent perspective setting facts.

While ‘defensive use of a firearm’ incidents number in the hundreds of thousands per year, by the lowest estimations, lethal incidents within that group are about 1% of that low estimate with around half being justified police (uniformed, governing authority, assumed just) shootings.

But that arc has been complicated by the gun’s use in a growing number of mass killings, as well as the rise of violent far-right nationalism, members of which law enforcement said posed credible threats as they sought to infiltrate the Richmond rally.

But has not been complicated rise of violent far-left extremism, Antifa for example?

(Warning: You have entered the Tangent Zone)

Possible, I will admit. The foundational makeup of the probable sympathetic demographics of the left and right extreme support counting them as different threats. In short, the people who make up the list of possible radicals come from vastly different backgrounds.

Since the likelihood that those sympathetic to the emerging far-right and those sympathetic to the far-left come from two disparate origin environments, while both are dangerous, those sympathizers on the right have a higher overall likelihood of coming from a background that produces a soldier and who would be familiar with those tools and tasks of soldiering.

We’ve also spent the last two decades fighting insurgency, we’ve raised a generation during this relevant kind of war. We, as a whole population, are more familiar with modern conflict than anyone in 2001 remotely was.

Leftist groups are trying to arm up and prepare, but the right wing politically has a supermajority on the warrior class in this nation. Therefore, if both extremist ends are looking for soldiers, those capable of organized disciplined violence, the right has a far greater chance of finding someone useful among the sympathetic population, who could be radicalized, than the left. The left is looking to balance this but they are fighting years of imbalance and deeply seated attitudes combined with the fact that the ‘new’ left, like Antifa, are very new organizations.

These organizations exist, even as radical or ‘woke’ as they are, in a highly insular first world environment. They did not form in a near perpetual state of warfare like some regional groups have, or within recent warfare/conflict as have others. The extreme right does tap into a pool that has dealt with the decades of warfare, and groups like the Taliban and ISIS are tapping pools of near perpetual warfare. Groups like the Cartels tap similarly experienced and conditioned populations for their soldiers.

The parameters for where these groups can even find sympathetic people to attempt to radicalize are very very different, and there is a lot of truth behind the stereotypes that the radical left is filled with the “fake flannel soy boy” and “*wacky hair color* vegan non-binary SJW” who are used to making their political efforts against “fascists” from their iPhone and not so much like Ukraine 2014.

I’ve gotten off on quite the tangent here, it is just illustrative of just how shallow this article on Virginia gets into a myriad of problems but tries (and fails) to be an accurate synopsis.

The article goes onto cover some more opinions, cite Gallop on 6/10 people wanting an assault weapon ban, cite a professor who feels this is a crusade of the right (not an inaccurate descriptor, but choice language), and finally point out the fact that banning these firearms would have a less than 1% remotely plausible impact on firearms deaths.

The CSM honestly, in my opinion, did a fair job trying to be fair. They just ultimately didn’t know what they didn’t know, and their attempts to generalize spreads more confusion instead of offering a decent base of perspective.

Happy Wednesday People.

Magazines, Weapons & Violence: Words Have Meaning

By

DRGO

-

February 19, 2020

(from relevantmagazine.com)

We are in a culture war in which the enemy is using words in ways that are dishonest. Let’s set at least part of the record straight.

Magazine capacity is a false flag. The arguments against standard capacity magazines that are issued along with police handguns have the same benefit for honest citizens in the same circumstances that police need them. Current statistics reveal that violent home invasions are more frequently perpetrated by larger numbers of assailants than in the past. Honest citizens cannot be expected to defeat multiple attackers without using the same tools that we think the police should use in similar situations.

“Assault rifles”: There is no military definition of an “assault” weapon. There were full automatic firearms that the German Forces of WW 2 called (in translation)“storm guns”. There are semiautomatic and select-fire firearms in various configurations.

The military describes the AR 15 and M16 class of weapons as “minor caliber”. Any firearm projectile can produce damage. The damage is proportional to projectile mass, configuration and velocity for a given target at a given distance. In Washington State .223/5.56 caliber firearms are not allowed for hunting anything larger than coyotes due to lack of effective lethality. Heavier and faster bullets are required to hunt deer and other game animals. There are cartridges for revolvers that have more energy than the .223/5.56, which are actually classified as .22 caliber cartridges.

In all cases, it makes no difference in effect if the cartridge is fired from a break action single shot tool, a manual bolt action tool or a semi-automatic tool which still requires a separate trigger press for every round fired. Thence arises the question: why are semi-automatics needed? The answer is that criminals do not want to prey on victims who are stronger than they are.

Functionally impaired individuals, whether elderly, injured or physically less capable deserve to be able to fulfill their basic human right of self-defense as well as others can. Terrorists, as in San Bernardino, did not hesitate to break laws and murder innocent victims who were forced into defenselessness by California prohibitions.

Only honest citizens obey the law, because laws do not prevent crime. Laws proscribe an activity and provide a penalty if caught and convicted of that activity. SCOTUS has ruled that law enforcement do not have a duty to protect individuals, but rather to serve society after the fact.

Nonetheless, AR-type rifles are issue items for many police departments nationally and internationally. We call them “patrol rifles”. These are the tools brought to the scene when police presence is required. It is intellectually bankrupt to require citizens to call for police assistance and yet deny them the same tools for use in their own self-defense. In a home invasion or a criminal attack outside the home, it is not law enforcement who are the “first responders”; rather it is the intended victims who must respond and then await second responder assistance.

“Gun violence” (like “assault rifle”) is an emotion-laden but semantically invalid, intellectually dishonest, morally corrupt and politically divisive terms used by those who want to disempower honest people to the benefit of criminals and terrorists. Tools do not take actions by themselves.

In Washington State for the latest full year available, more people were killed with hands or feet, as well as by other blunt instruments than by all long guns combined. More people died from injuries in motor vehicle accidents than firearm associated suicide and criminal homicide combined. Yet we do not speak of “hand violence” or “hammer violence” or “car violence”.

It is also intellectually and ethically reprehensible for legislators, executors and jurists to take an oath to . . . support and defend the Constitution of the United States . . .” and pass, execute and validate laws that violate the Second, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, as well as 18USC.

In jurisprudence (stare decisis) precedence is generally given to the most recent rulings. Yet the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states infringing on previously accepted recognition of citizen rights. Such infringing laws cannot reasonably be construed as lawful nor should rulings violating such rights.

In the real world, criminals and terrorists do not obey the laws. Laws limiting legal rights only make life hazardous for honest people.

.

—Robert A. Margulies, MD, MPH, FACEP, FACPM is an emergency medicine specialist, retired Navy Medical Corps captain, sworn peace officer, and firearm trainer with multiple certifications from the NRA and the Massad Ayoob Group.

All DRGO articles by Robert A. Margulies, MD, MPH

One-of-a-kind Vortex® Razor® HD Gen III 1-10x to be auctioned, benefiting Fisher House Foundation

By

Keith Finch

-

February 18, 2020

Since its January 2020 announcement, the Vortex Optics Razor^® HD Gen III 1-10x FFP has been a hot topic of conversation within the shooting industry. While not officially available until April, one generous bidder can get their hands on a Razor^® HD Gen III FFP before the official release, all while benefiting a worthy cause.

vortex razor hd gen III 1-10x lpvo rifle optic — Even me… I didn’t get to keep this one and mine won’t ship until April.

From Monday, February 17 at 3 p.m. central time, to Monday, February 24, at midnight central time, GunsAmerica will host an auction for a one-of-a-kind Razor^® HD Gen III 1-10x FFP with custom packaging, with 100% of the final bid donated to Fisher House Foundation, an organization dedicated to keeping veterans and their families together when it matters most.

Since 1990, Fisher House Foundation has helped more than 400,000 military and veterans’ families, saving them more than $451 million. Dave Coker, President of Fisher House Foundation, said, “Fisher House Foundation thanks Vortex Optics for its continued support. Their support continues to help bring military families together at a critical time – when loved ones are receiving care in VA and military hospitals.”

While Fisher House Foundation’s main mission is to build comfort homes where military and veterans’ families can stay free of charge while a loved one is in the hospital, the Foundation goes even farther, providing more than 12,000 students in military families with more than $24 million in scholarships and giving over 70,000 airline tickets to the families of veterans and active duty military so they can be near their loved ones during medical treatment.

Vortex^® has worked with Fisher House Foundation in the past, and they are thrilled to have the opportunity to try something new in service to the Foundation. “The charity auction format is one we’ve been wanting to do for some time, but needed just the right product – we knew the Razor^® HD Gen III 1-10x FFP was the right choice,” said Jimmy Hamilton, Chief Media Ambassador at Vortex Optics. “This new optic will be capable of accomplishing some amazing things in the hands of recreational, competitive, and professional shooters. But first, we look forward to it doing amazing things for our nation’s veterans and their families.” Check out this quick video to learn more about the auction.

To auction off the one-of-a-kind Razor^® HD Gen III 1-10x FFP, Vortex^® needed a partner they could rely on, and GunsAmerica was the perfect fit. If you’re interested in bidding on the custom Razor® HD Gen III 1-10x FFP, follow this link. Learn more about Fisher House Foundation at www.fisherhouse.org.

About Vortex Optics: American owned, Wisconsin-based Vortex Optics designs, engineers, produces and distributes a complete line of premium binoculars, riflescopes, spotting scopes, tripods, and related accessories. Dedicated to exceptional quality, value, and unrivaled customer service, Vortex backs its products with its unconditional, transferable, lifetime VIP warranty.

Grounded… HB 961 in Virginia Shelved for a Year.

By

Keith Finch

-

February 17, 2020

The Commonwealth has a lot to celebrate today as the onerous HB 961 was shelved by the Senate.

The legislation set to ban ‘Assault Firearms’, suppressors, and magazines of any reasonable capacity was tabled by Senators of both parties who kicked that can down the road with a promise that the State Crime Commission would further study the issue.

That can suspiciously looked a lot like a Molotov or live grenade but we will see.

The 22,000 who showed up to make their displeasure displeasure known clearly struck one of the right cords with the Senate and have bought Virginians time to fix their representation to persons more aligned with the rights of their citizens and not the agenda of a certain 5′ 8″ New York billionaire who bought Virginia’s election.

If you don’t know who I’m talking about watch YouTube for like… 6 seconds, I’m sure he’ll pop up.

The fight is not over though. The issue is shelved.. not rejected.

Your Doctor and Your Guns

By

DRGO

-

February 17, 2020

(from fixthisnation.com)

[Ed: Dr. Edeen delivered this address (as “Education not Intimidation”) at Florida Carry’s 3^rd Annual Camping Event at Rainbow Springs State Park in Dunnellon, Florida on February 8, 2020. We hope to obtain video and post it on our DRGO YouTube channel, too. Slightly edited for clarity.]

What do you do when your doctor asks if you own a gun?

You are at the pediatrician’s office for a routine well child visit. Maybe you just moved to a new town. The nurse hands you the standard paperwork with the questionnaire pertaining to your child’s health. You start filling out the form and right there . . . question number 14 . . . “Do you have a gun in the home?” It’s right after the question about swimming pools and right before the one about household cleaner storage. What do you answer?

First, the presence of this question is no accident. In the 1980s and 1990s professional medical organizations declared a culture war on gun ownership. This includes the American Medical Association, American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatricians.

The incoming AMA president in 2001 stated, “What we don’t know about violence and guns is killing us…researchers do not have the data to tell how kids get guns, if trigger locks work, what the warning signs of violence in schools and at the workplace are and other critical questions due to the lack of research funding”.

The AAP’s 2012 position statement is typical. It advocates removing guns from homes and communities. It advocates for the strictest possible legislative and regulatory approach to prevent firearms injuries and deaths. It recommends counseling patients about the dangers of allowing children and adolescents access to guns in and out of the home. It advocates for safe storage and gun locks but preferentially recommends complete removal of firearms from the home.

They state that the presence of firearms in the home increases the risk of lethal suicidal acts among adolescents. They advise counseling parents to remove or restrict access to guns, especially when children with mood disorders, substance abuse or prior suicide attempts reside in the home. They further advocate consumer product regulation regarding child access, “safety” and firearm design. They also advocate that law enforcement track legally owned firearms.

They further push for regulations aimed at illegal sales to minors. They claim that evidence supports the effectiveness of regulation of firearms that limit the access to children. They also want decreased destructive power of handguns and ammunition, “smart gun” technology and safe storage. They encourage legislative actions including waiting periods, closure of the “gun show loophole”, mental health restrictions and background checks. They also want the “assault weapons” ban restored. The AAP is pushing for the funding of research aimed at prevention of firearms injury. They also encourage the education of physician and professionals interested in the effects of firearms and how to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with their use.

It is important to note that the establishment public health and medical communities fail to account for the up to 2.4 million defensive gun uses annually. They also inflate the number of “gun violence” deaths by 200% by including suicide by firearms. They typically ignore the research of the criminologist and economist community. Also, much of what the AAP is asking for is already law. Unfortunately, the medical community will be unable to answer the question of “gun violence”. Their focus is on the gun and not the violent actor. They can urge passage of all kinds of restrictions and laws that affect law-abiding citizens, but they are naïve to think that the criminals will obey their laws and obtain firearms via supervised legal channels. Thus, the aim of gun control is not the gun but control.

The AMA, ACP and AAP have aggressively campaigned for doctors to advise patients to get rid of guns. We must understand some very important facts:

Doctors receive absolutely no training about firearms safety, mechanics or tactics in medical school or residency.
Gun ownership is a civil right. A doctor’s abuse of his position of trust to pressure you to give up that civil right is professionally and morally wrong. You DO NOT have to tolerate it.
As a consumer, you have great power in the physician-patient relationship. USE IT.

This type of unprofessional behavior by some physicians led to Florida’s Firearm Owners Privacy Act in 2011. This law was enacted to stop physicians from misusing their position to push a political agenda. This abuse of authority is called an “ethical boundary violation”.

The 2011 FOPA forbade physicians from pressing patients to give up their firearms or otherwise propagandizing using the doctor-patient relationship.
It precluded routine documentation of firearm ownership.
It did not preclude inquiring when relevant to patient care, safety concerns or unstable person’s access.
It did not forbid doctors to provide general information.

Unfortunately, the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court overturned the law in February 2016. The only provision upheld was that gun owners cannot be treated differently simply because they are gun owners. Also, no patient can be turned away when seeking medical care because the doctor does not approve of his answers to gun ownership questions.

In response to this, David Codrea, in his February 22, 2017, Ammoland article, “Pro-Gun Owner Physicians Decry ‘Docs vs. Glocks’ Ruling” introduced us to his Firearms Safety Counseling Representation: Physician Qualifications and Liability Form. The form was developed in collaboration with the late Joe Horn, LA County Sheriff’s office, Retired, Risk Management Specialist.

In Part One: Qualifications, it asks physicians to list their specific courses of study and certification/accreditation for giving firearms safety advice in the home. It asks physicians to certify that they have reviewed the applicable scientific literature pertaining to defensive gun use and beneficial results of private gun ownership. They are also asked whether they have reviewed other relevant home safety issues with the patient including: electricity, drains, disposals, compactors, garage doors, driveway safety, gas, broken glass, stored cleaning chemicals, buckets, toilets, sharp objects, garden tools, home tools, power tools, lawn mowers, lawn chemicals, scissors, needles, forks, knives, etc.

The doctor is then asked to state:

“I represent that I have sufficient data and expertise to provide expert and clinically sound advice to patients regarding firearms in the home.

OR

I am knowingly engaging in home/firearms safety counseling without certification, license or formal training in Risk Management, and have NOT reviewed applicable scientific literature pertaining to defensive gun use and beneficial results of private firearms ownership.”

Part II: Liability asks physicians to document whether their malpractice insurance covers such counseling and to accept liability for any injury or death that results from patient following their advice. A “Yes” to either question is highly unlikely.

DRGO’s advice is as follows:

Politely refuse to answer the question.
If the question appears on your health plan questionnaire, file a formal complaint with the health plan.
If the heath plan responds with the excuse that their questions about your guns are standard medical practice that they must follow, file a complaint with the state agency that regulates health plans.
If the doctor persists in asking intrusive questions about guns in your home, you can file a complaint against him or her with the health plan.
You can rate the physician on an internet rating site such as Yelp.com, Healthgrades.com etc.
Medicare and insurance companies will often tie reimbursement rates with patient satisfaction surveys. You may have an impact if you report the unethical behavior regarding your guns to the payor.
If the conduct is especially offensive, you can submit a complaint to the State Medical Board for an ethical boundary violation. This is a serious accusation and will be addressed by the Medical Board.

However, I have some advice myself as well:

You can choose to lie or shade the truth. “I don’t own ‘a’ gun”, Tom Gresham of Gun Talk radio has said numerous times. “It is not a sin to lie to somebody who doesn’t have the right to know the truth.” Remember, in the age of electronic medical records, the government and who knows who else have access to your records. They can and eventually will be used as a backdoor gun registry.
Have David Codrea and Joe Horn’s Liability Questionnaire handy when you go for a medical appointment.
You have the option to fire the doctor and seek care elsewhere. DRGO has a matching service for helping find Second Amendment friendly providers. It is called 2Adoc.com and is free and confidential.
You can report the anti-gun zealots to their State Medical Boards for their Ethical Boundary Violations.
Please visit DRGO.us to find more resources regarding this and other Second Amendment related medical topics.

.

—Dr. John Edeen is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon in San Antonio, TX and is active in seeking the right to carry for qualified hospital staff. He is DRGO’s Membership Director.

All DRGO articles by John Edeen, MD

Binx Reviews: The Beretta Field Patrol Bag

By

Keith Finch

-

February 17, 2020

Hello!

My name is Binx. I am a cat. And I am a Bag Expert.

Naturally of course, as I am feline, bags are of particular note and relevance to my interests.

Ah yes, this is certainly a fantastic bag!

No.. don’t question why. If you do not know then you would not understand.

Anyway, I am here to speak on the account of Beretta.

Among the oldest companies in existence, some 3,458 years in feline reckoning, Beretta is an asset rich and diverse holding with many wondrous things to offer a discerning cat.

Or… you all too, I suppose.

I must give them all the praise in the world for the production of the Field Patrol Bag. An item I have thoroughly tested and found quite satisfactory.

Field Patrol Bag

Why was I asked to complete this review?

I wasn’t, I have deemed that I shall review this thing and so I shall. My person keeps muttering, “…always in the way” and that sounds a lot like that Mandalorian phrase so undoubtedly he appreciates my efforts.

Now, the Field Patrol Bag that Beretta has laid out is a 49L, 13.75″ L x 10.25″ W x 22.5″ H, 600D Nylon setup with velcro, MOLLE, and pockets galore. It’s designed to be a “sling bag” rather than a backpack and definitively catering to integrate into daily life.

beretta field patrol bag ready to go by the door — Grab and go.

“Field Patrol” is ultimately just two buzzwords crammed together and thrown onto the bag to make it sound all bugaloo.. or boogout.. or whatever it is when I zip away when the doorbell rings.

What? It’s scary, okay! Moving on.

The Field Patrol is, more realistically, a superbly designed “3 Day” bag. The MOLLE and velcro patches allow you to add tactical accoutrements and ancillary as you might want but the heart of the bag is a weekend travel/urban “survival” kit. ‘Field’ and ‘Patrol’ are words that will hit well on the Google.

Clothes for 3 days. Secure storage for a computer and ancillary power. Bathroom supplies. Basic warming layers, sweatshirts, jackets. Medkit with easy boosts for pain, mild fever, and exposure. The bag is perfect as a grab and go weekend ready kit for a last minute trip of most varieties, a loss of power or utilities, or any number of other events. What you add to the bag will determine what it can do for you as a base unit.

It is an every day ‘ready bag’. Stocked to go across or out of state on short to no notice and arrive with everything to function comfortably when you get there. An easy grab bag carrying extra supplies from within a vehicle, be they medical, ammunition, restraints, warming layers, or what have you in a known layout.

It is not a bag designed for the rigors of a reconnaissance patrol, raid, movement to contact, or anything else so actively exciting. I know.. I know.. the name says so but it it is not. False advertising? Ha! Hardly, it’s just playing to a name and then it delivers as a useful bag. Just like most useful bags of any catchy name.

Detailed endurance testing in progress… Firebase: Vacation

Anyway, if you’re in the market for travel type ‘go bag‘ then here you go. Just go find it under bags.

What? Don’t give me that look.

Whitmer Appoints Anti-Gun George Heartwell to MI NRC

By

Keith Finch

-

February 17, 2020

Via the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners

In 2013, then Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell founded the Coalition for Gun Control in an attempt to keep legal gun owners from carrying at city meetings and in voting places despite being told that such a move would be illegal. Heartwell passed a city ordinance to that effect but it was blocked by the state. Members of MCRGO, Michigan Open Carry, and other gun owners attended a city council meeting and offered to work with Heartwell to discuss his concerns. He responded that he wasn’t interested in compromise. Heartwell said. “We keep looking (for ways to ban guns).”

In a shock to Michigan’s hunters and without consulting the Michigan Senate, this month Governor Whitmer appointed Heartwell to chair the Natural Resources Commission, the body that oversees the Michigan DNR and determines hunting & fishing rules and other policies regarding state land. Heartwell now claims he supports the Second Amendment but says “I think that people have taken my stand on guns in public meetings and conflated that to assume that I’m opposed to all guns, or that I’m opposed to hunting. I’m not.”

As chair of the Natural Resources Commission, Heartwell could prevent the use of modern sporting rifles and pistols for hunting. He would also be in a leading role to push for a ban on licensed concealed carry on state land overseen by the MDNR including state game areas, state forests, state parks, harbors, & recreation areas. Heartwell has responded “I do not come to this with an anti-gun agenda or an anti-hunting agenda,” he said. “I think that’s a label that’s been unfairly placed on me.”

Under state law, the Michigan Senate has 60 days to turn down Whitmer’s appointment of Heartwell by a majority vote. The Michigan Senate offered Whitmer a chance to pull Heartwell’s appointment in exchange for approving another Whitmer appointment to the commission. Whitmer rejected the Senate’s attempt at compromise. If you believe that the Michigan Senate should dismiss Heartwell from serving on the Natural Resources Commission, you can contact your state senator HERE.

“I do not come at this with an anti-gun agenda”

Forgive this poor Michigander for doubting you, Mr. Heartwell, but you illegally banned firearms on Grand Rapids city premises in defiance of Michigan’s established preemption statutes.

You blatantly violated the law to restrict the rights of Michigan citizens to forward your agenda. It callously violated Article I Section 6 of the Michigan Constitution, which expressly states the defensive nature of bearing arms, and the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Whitmer is a known anti-gunner, as is Heartwell, and their records speak the volumes that their words try to mute. So if you’re a Michigander or if you know a few, get onto telling the Senate to reject Heartwells seat.

9-Hole and the Bren 2 (CZ 806): The Final Czech

By

Keith Finch

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February 14, 2020

Having just completed their account of the 805, the transitional rifle of the Czech Republic’s logistic integration into NATO, Josh and Henry take on the newest service rifle out of CZ.

The Bren 2 (sometimes referred to as the 806, the successor to the 805 project) is essentially the rifle CZ wanted to deliver with the 805 project combined with recommendations from end users of the 805. The Bren 2 rifle system was a ‘blank slate’ development and truly multi-caliber where the 805 was scaled to just 5.56 to simplify logistics.

Better rail system, M-LOK integration, non-reciprocating charging handle, upgraded bolt lock and release system. The Bren 2 is a true modern service rifle and is, in many ways, more advanced than the M4A1 (exceptions being the URGI and other SOCOM variants, which are peer) and the stock FN SCAR Mk. 16/Mk. 17 rifles.

The US is unlikely to surpass many of the smaller nation’s service rifle programs until the NGSW comes to fruition just due to the sheer volume of a service wide adoption on the scale of the U.S. Military. The U.S. will need hundreds of thousands of rifles to even cover most of its combat arms troops, an order larger than most smaller nations entire uniformed service.

The Goofy, the Weird, and The Ugly

By

Travis Pike

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February 14, 2020

Weird guns are a dime a dozen. Weird guns come from odd companies, and that’s fine. What’s a little more interesting is when a standard company makes a weird gun. I’ve gathered five of my favorites that these big companies would rather you forget.

Mossberg 590DA

The late 90s and early 2000s were a weird time for guns. A lot of companies seemed to be experimenting just for the sake of it. We still see that to this day, but nowhere near the level of the Mossberg 590DA. Remember, at the time, striker-fired guns were taking over, but weapons with long double-action triggers like the Beretta 92 were still kicking around.

The Mossberg 590DA was an attempt to make the Mossberg 590s trigger like a double-action trigger. The trigger pull became more substantial and more prolonged. The idea was it would prevent negligent discharges or something like that. It was an apparent training issue someone was trying to solve with a mechanical solution.

Reports vary on the trigger’s quality. Some said it was bad enough to disturb sight picture and tire the hand. Others described it as a smooth, but the long trigger. Forum posts vary descriving it, but official reviews don’t seem to exist. The worst part was while the trigger was longer and heavier, you didn’t get the benefits of a double-action trigger like restrike capability.

The 590DA didn’t last long, and I can only find a single poorly photographed ad and the official manual.

Remington Model 700 EtronX

Continuing our exploration of the weird early 2000s leads us to America’s other shotgun maker, Remington. However, we aren’t talking about shotguns but the Remington Model 700. In 2000 Remington produced the EtronX. This was an electrically primed rifle that replaced the firing mechanism and trigger of a Remington 700 with electronic components.

The firing pin became an insulated cathode, and the gun required a 9V battery to function. The EtronX utilized special ammo with a unique primer that added as a resistor that would heat up and ignite the smokeless powder.

What’s the benefit you ask? Well, you eliminate the time between the trigger being pulled and the round being fired. This is called lock time, and the EtronX eliminated it! However, no one cared. No one wanted the rifle, or to buy specialty ammo, and the gun was quietly pulled from the catalog in 2003.

Marlin M2

If I say, Marlin, you probably picture a fish. If I say Marlin guns, you probably think of the model 336 lever action rifle or the Marlin Model 60 rimfire rifle. You likely don’t picture a submachine gun. However, they produced a wood and metal monstrosity called the M2.

It was designed by George Hyde, and Marlin was contracted to produce the gun for the United States military. The M2 was developed to be a cheaper submachine gun compared to the Thomspon. It was the gun that popped between the M1 Thompson and the eventual M3 Grease Gun. The weapon used Thompson magazines and fired the 45 ACP round.

It weighed only 9 pounds! That’s 2 pounds lighter than the Thompson, which is sad for an SMG. Marlin was a traditional company and still remains one. It was a weird time, man. The M2 was an odd stop along the way for Marlin. If you look hard at it, it looks just like a wooden Hi-Point carbine.

The M2 wasn’t a bad gun, but Marlin had issues producing it, and eventually, the M3 was developed, and the M2 was nothing more than a weird time for Marlin.

USFA ZIP 22

So far, all these guns have been weird entries into long-running companies. These guns were mere speed bumps along with storied legacies. The USFA ZIP 22 actually killed a company. It took USFA out back and gave it the Old Yella treatment.

USFA was known for making excellent Single Action revolver, specifically Colt clones. Their guns were very well made, affordable, and popular with SASS members. The owner of USFA decided to invent the ZIP, a unique 22 LR bullpup handgun that used Ruger magazines and sold for dirt cheap.

USFA threw all their money behind the gun, even selling the machinery that produced the Colt clones to fund the ZIP. The ZIP could’ve been successful. It was weird for sure, wasn’t very ergonomic, but it was cheap, and 22LRs are un. However, the ZIP sucked. It was terribly unreliable, often making it through very few rounds before it jammed.

The company folded, and the ZIP is now a

Colt 2000

How did this gun fail? How? Colt may kind of suck at making anything outside of 1911s or AR 15s, but they didn’t design this gun, Reed Knight and Eugene Stoner did. Reed Knight, as in Knight’s Armory and Eugene Stoner, the inventor of the AR 15. According to Reed, the original aluminum models were good to go when built as he and Eugene designed them.

When Colt took over, they produced polymer frame models of the Colt 2000. Apparently, those polymer frame models are junk. Colt was trying to compete with Glock but failed in just about every way you could.

The Colt 2000 was a wonder 9 with a 15 round magazine that was built between 1992 and 1994. The aluminum models numbered right around 3K, according to Reed Knight, and polymer frames numbered in the tens of thousands.

It was a unique gun with a rotating barrel and roller locking mechanism from old French weapons. The weapon wasn’t reliable, or even accurate and now exists as a collector’s item. It turns out that you can polish a turd if you put a prancing pony on it.

The Weirdly Weird

Weird guns are the most fun guns to me. I love them, own quite a few of them, and will continue to do so. It’s always exciting when a major company brings out something a little weird. Sadly, weird guns rarely last very long, and none of these lasted very long, either. One even killed a company. The one thing about weird weapons is that we never know when a bizarre weapon will become the new standard HK produced the first polymer-framed pistol, and now they’re the standard. The same goes for the Winchester 1897 and pump-action shotguns. We only call it weird when it doesn’t become revolutionary.