by Jeff Knox

(September 28, 2016) I just returned from the Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) in Tampa.  As always, it was energizing to hear the latest updates and meet fellow activists from around the country.  One highlight of the conference was a conversation with author and Colorado activist, Laura Carno. Although I had followed the 2013 recalls in Colorado that Laura worked on, she and I had not met. Her name came to my attention again through her article Keeping Kids Safe In A Broken World and we had a chance to talk at the conference.

Laura is looking to bring FASTER to Colorado.  FASTER stands for Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response.  The program trains teachers and administrators to be first responders in their schools. I’m familiar with the training due to my connection with the program’s creators in Ohio. The Buckeye Firearms Foundation (BFF) created FASTER in the wake of the Sandy Hook horror.  History shows that “active shooters” and other rampage attackers regardless of the tool – whether a gun, a machete, or even a truck – have one goal: to slaughter as many innocents as possible before they are stopped. The faster someone can stop the killer, the faster someone can administer first aid, the more lives will be saved.

This responsibility includes medical training. Lives can be saved when personnel in schools are taught to stop bleeding, apply chest seals and apply tourniquets. Because they can’t administer medical aid while they are under attack, they are also trained to stop the attacker directly.

BFF is anxious to export FASTER to any state that can get the appropriate laws passed to allow school personnel to be armed on campus, and that will stay true to the FASTER curriculum. Jim Irvine, President of BFF said, “We have four years of FASTER training under our belts. The instructors at Tactical Defense Institute in Ohio are world class, and they are willing to train instructors in other states in the methodology. We know that FASTER saves lives.  Every child —regardless of geography— deserves this level of protection.”

To date, BFF has raised money privately to train over 650 teachers and administrators in this life saving, 3-day course. All of this has been at no cost to teachers, schools or school districts.

After observing a FASTER training class in Ohio this summer, Laura is looking to bring the training to Colorado. “We are the state that had the tragedy at Columbine. Law enforcement has changed its protocols since then, but even when response time is just a few minutes, those are the crucial minutes,” she said. “The faster that an active shooter can be stopped and medical aid can be administered, the smaller the loss of life. Colorado families deserve this.”

I asked Laura what it was about the FASTER experience that made her want to import the training to Colorado sooner rather than later. She said, “During the three days of training, I was able to interact with teachers, principals and other school employees. These are people who would place their bodies between bullets and your kids. Not their kids, your kids. They just want a chance to survive.”

I learned that it’s also important to have the right trainers. This FASTER training goes far beyond the training one would take to obtain a concealed carry license – a concealed carry license is just an entry requirement.  In addition to medical and firearms training, the course includes mindset training, hand-to-hand combat and force-on-force scenarios. Laura was impressed with the intensity with which the class was taught. “It was as if the instructors knew that this one skill,” she said emphasizing each word, “that they taught to this one teacher was going to save a life.” And it just might.

I was interested to know who joined the classes.  Who were they? What made them decide to be an armed first responder on campus?  In Ohio, the school employees applying to the program have to have a concealed carry permit, have their district’s permission and be a volunteer. Those Laura spoke with had no hesitation when they volunteered. They are people who were already familiar with firearms and wanted to be able to defend the kids in their school, just as they had been accustomed to defending themselves and their families.

Jim Irvine from BFF spoke at the GRPC and invited a conversation with anyone who wanted to bring FASTER to their state. I wasn’t surprised to see a crowd around Jim when he finished.  “It’s a pretty compelling case,” he told me. “When we started FASTER in 2012, they laughed at us. They told us no one would sign up for the class.” But they had 2500 applicants for the first class of 24.

If you are interested in FASTER, you can visit their website here. For more on what Laura Carno is doing to bring FASTER to Colorado, you can reach her here.

By Jeff Knox

(September 20, 2016) The Crossroads Center Mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota is a “gun-free” establishment, so when a Somali immigrant, apparently intent on striking a blow for the “religion of peace,” started slashing and stabbing shoppers in the mall, he had a reasonable expectation that he would meet little in the way of effective resistance, at least until the police could get there.  It’s clear that the attacker was intent on killing and injuring as many people as possible, and also appears that he was determined not to survive the rampage himself. What this “suspected” terrorist coward apparently didn’t count on was that one of the nearby mall shoppers, Jason Falconer, was a competitive shooter, NRA certified firearms and self-defense instructor, and part-time police officer from a nearby town – and that in Minnesota “gun-free zones” don’t apply to law enforcement officers, even if they are only part-time cops and off-duty.

The terrorist coward – whose name I will not repeat because I refuse to give these cowards the publicity – was expecting to stab fish in a barrel, and that’s what he was doing until Falconer showed up, bringing a gun to a knife fight.  When Falconer moved from safety into the danger zone, he ordered the slasher to drop his weapon, but instead of complying, the “suspected” terrorist charged at Falconer, forcing him to fire. Down, but not out, the scumbag got up and attempted to lunge again, resulting in another shot from Falconer, then repeated the sequence at least once more, until he wasn’t getting up ever again.  That determination to keep attacking, even when it was clear he couldn’t win, suggests that this low-life was looking to be “martyred” so he would be guaranteed a place in Paradise.

A Middle-Eastern news outlet with ties to Daesh, the Muslim, terrorist organization and would-be caliphate based in Syria that Barack Obama insists on calling ISIL, has claimed that the attacker was acting on their behalf when he tried to slaughter helpless innocents, and witnesses reported that he asked at least one person if they were Muslim, and invoked the name of Allah during the attack, leading the FBI to investigate the incident as a “Suspected act of terrorism.”

The media has focused a lot of attention on Jason Falconer’s status as a police officer and police firearm trainer, but they have glossed over the fact that Falconer doesn’t just train police, he trains civilians as well, and while his actions were heroic and extremely competent, there was nothing particularly impressive about his firearm handling skills in this incident.  The biggest factor in Falconer being able to do what he did was that he had a gun when no one else did.

I don’t mean to diminish Falconer’s actions in any way.  The heroic part of what he did was facing the trouble rather than running away, and that’s no small thing.  But I want to point out that there are millions of other Americans with the skills needed to safely and effectively neutralize this sort of threat.  There are some 13 million Americans licensed by their states to discreetly carry firearms. There are untold millions more who choose to discreetly carry in the 11 states where no license is required, or who carry openly, without any special licensing, in the 30 states where that is not prohibited.

While not all of these folks have the level of training and experience that Falconer does, most of Falconer’s training and experience wasn’t really a factor in this particular incident.  Like the traffic cop in Texas who dispatched the two Jihadis who attacked the Draw Mohammad contest, Falconer is a competitor in “Action Shooting Sports.” Falconer is a member of the U.S. Practical Shooting Association, which boasts around 30,000 members, but USPSA is only one of several national and international organizations that put shooters’ skills to the test under pressure.

The International Defensive Pistol Association, the National 3-gun Association, NRA Action Pistol, the Glock Sport Shooting Foundation, the Single-Action Shooting Society, and others sponsor and sanction thousands of challenging matches every year all over the country.  USPSA alone has some 400 affiliated clubs across the U.S. hosting thousands of events each year. On top of that are the thousands of local clubs and ranges that host training and formal and informal competitions, all designed to test and improve shooters’ gun handling skills.

Then there are the training establishments and independent instructors who offer basic to advanced training in all sorts of shooting disciplines.  Front Sight Firearms Training Institute in Nevada trains some 50,000 students a year.  The grandaddy of handgun training schools, Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Arizona has been offering top-quality training since the mid 1970s, with hundreds of their students and instructors subsequently striking out on their own to offer individual and group training all over the country.

As a long-time USPSA member and competitor myself, and a contributor to their magazine, Front Sight, I’ve met thousands of people with the skills and mindset needed to handle emergencies like the attack in Minnesota.  Of course no one ever knows exactly how they will react in a given situation, but training, competition, and the practice they demand help ingrain habits that ensure safety and enhance performance under stressful conditions.  Many experienced law enforcement officers participate in action shooting sports, but they do not dominate the sport by any means. In fact, only a relatively small percentage of top competitors have law enforcement experience.

All of this leads up to the one burning question that the media and politicians just can’t seem to wrap their heads around: In this age of “lone wolf,” random terrorist attacks and pervasive threats, why do some in our society demand that millions of competent gun owners, who safely and responsibly carry every day, disarm when shopping, sipping coffee, or watching a movie?

So-called “Gun-Free Zones” don’t prevent violence, they only reduce the likelihood that a hero will be equipped to stop the violence when it starts.

By Jeff Knox

(September 15, 2016) With less than 8 weeks left until the critical November elections, both sides are pulling out all the stops to try and get their supporters to the polls.  One of the big topics has been potential Supreme Court appointments, but there is much more than just the Supreme Court at stake in November.

With the vacancy on the Court due to the death of Antonin Scalia, we know that the next President will, at a minimum, have that appointment to make, which will either maintain the Court at a slight lean to the “right,” or lean it far to the “left.”  Since Scalia was a conservative leader on the Court, it will be close to impossible to find anyone who could effectively fill his shoes, or possibly take the Court any further to the right. That means that regardless of who wins the election, at best, the Court will probably be a bit to the “left” of where it was a year ago with Scalia on the bench.  If Hillary Clinton wins though, Scalia’s replacement would be something between a “moderate liberal” like Obama’s pick, Merrick Garland, and a “radical liberal” like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her pick will depend on the make-up of the Senate after the election. Whoever she appoints, when added to the current 4 liberal justices, would mean a solid liberal majority that would completely dominate the Court.  There is also a likelihood of 83-year old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retiring if Hillary wins the presidency, meaning the liberal wing of the Court would have only one member over 60-years of age, all but guaranteeing “liberal” dominance for at least the next 20 to 30 years.

But the Supreme Court is only the tip of the judicial iceberg, and the next President will have a significant impact on the rest of the judiciary as well.  Over the past 8 years, Obama has shifted the balance of power in most of the circuits of the Federal Courts of Appeals, along with the Federal District Courts.  In all he has appointed over 300 judges to lifetime seats on federal benches, resulting in Democrat majorities in 9 of the 13 Courts of Appeal, with at least 2 of the remaining 4 poised to topple with the next appointments.  While most of those appointees have been considered “moderates” by the current yardstick of the pundit class, their decisions have been anything but moderate. Another 4 years of Democrat control will seal all of the circuits in “liberal activist” mode for decades.  The Supreme Court is certainly important, but SCOTUS only hears about 80 cases each year, while Federal District Courts hear something in the neighborhood of 200,000 cases each year, and Federal Appeals Courts review approximately 40,000 of those.

Though Congress writes the laws, with the executive branch crafting regulations and enforcing the laws, it is the courts that decide what the laws mean and how they can or must be enforced.  They can rule a law null and void by declaring it unconstitutional, or can, in effect, overrule the Constitution by ruling that a law or regulation either doesn’t violate it, or that it only violates it in a minor way which is acceptable as a “reasonable burden” on people’s rights.

For instance, the 9th Circuit recently ruled that federal prosecutors could not prosecute people who violate federal laws against growing, using, or selling marijuana, as long as those people only did so in accordance with state laws regarding marijuana for medical purposes.  But in a separate case, the same court ruled that a person who has a state-issued card authorizing them to use marijuana for medicinal purposes can have their right to purchase a firearm denied on the basis that if they have the card, it is a reasonable assumption that they are a user of illegal drugs.  Even though the court acknowledged that this is a violation of Second Amendment rights, they concluded that the government’s interest in trying to keep guns away from illegal drug users outweighs individual rights to purchase firearms.

In that particular case, the plaintiff, who holds a medical marijuana card in Nevada, claimed that she did not actually use marijuana, but got the card as a way to show support for the concept.  Under that circumstance, the court said, she is not prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition, but can be prohibited from purchasing them, because it is reasonable for a gun seller who knows that a person has a medical marijuana card to assume that the person is a user of illegal drugs.

In this decision the court applied what is known as “intermediate scrutiny” to reach their conclusion that the infringement of the plaintiff’s Second Amendment rights was acceptable.  This level of scrutiny is the middle-ground between “rational basis” and “strict scrutiny,” and is based on a determination that the government has a “compelling interest” for its infringing laws, and that the laws substantially relate to satisfying that interest.  The use of “intermediate scrutiny” has become the standard method for courts to ignore the protections of the Second Amendment. Even though the Supreme Court, in their McDonald decision, declared that the right to arms is a fundamental right, and court procedures dictate that the higher standard of “strict scrutiny” should be applied to cases dealing with fundamental rights, liberal-dominated courts routinely ignore this standard and opt to go with “intermediate scrutiny” so they can justify ruling in favor of laws that restrict gun rights.

The only way this trend of abuse will ever be corrected is for the Supreme Court to step in and reverse some of these bad decisions.  But that will not happen if Hillary Clinton gets to name the next justice to the Supreme Court, and the abuse will continue to get worse as more liberal judges are added to District and Circuit Courts.

The November elections might not be our last chance to save the Constitution, but they are our best hope for doing so.

by Jeff Knox

(August 17, 2016) Donald Trump was widely criticized by media, Democrats, and even some Republicans after he made a joke regarding Second Amendment remedies to Hillary Clinton’s plan to “essentially abolish” the Second Amendment. As if “reporters,” commentators, and politicians were all reading from the same script, they consistently pointed out that Clinton had no such intentions – in spite of the fact that this is exactly what she intends to do.

Clinton has repeatedly criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Heller case, calling it a “bad decision.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, along with four other justices dissented in the Heller case, has also called it a bad decision and suggested that the Court might revisit that ruling at some future point, but reversing Heller is not necessary to “essentially abolish” the Second Amendment. Heller was actually a very narrow and limited decision. While it did resolve the question of the right to arms being an individual right, rather than some sort of “collective” right, beyond that it only established that an individual had the right to possess a functional handgun within the confines of their own home. While the decision suggested that the right was broader, the Court did not officially rule beyond the issue of self defense within the home. Their followup decision in McDonald was also a 5-4 decision, with Ginsburg and her three compatriots dissenting, which recognized the Second Amendment as dealing with a “fundamental right” which could not be ignored by the states.

Since those decisions, a number of cases dealing with questions of just how far the right to arms extends, and what sorts of restrictions on the right are permissible, have made their way to the Court, but virtually all of them have been turned away without a hearing, and in each of those cases, the Federal Court of Appeals had ruled in support of government limits and against individual rights.

All that is necessary for the Second Amendment to be “essentially abolished,” is for the Supreme Court to rule on one or two of these cases and deliver decisions that support those very bad lower court decisions. By officially limiting Heller to only apply to the keeping of a self-defense handgun in the home, setting the level of “scrutiny” at the lowest threshold, and approving all manner of state and local restrictions, the Supreme Court could thoroughly neuter the Second Amendment without reversing Heller, and without having to amend the Constitution – essentially abolishing the meaning, intent, and application of the Second Amendment for all practical purposes.

There is no doubt that this is exactly what the Court would do if Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer had one more vote on their side. That’s why Donald Trump was absolutely correct in his assertion that Hillary Clinton would “essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” and that’s why it is so critical that she not be given the opportunity to accomplish that goal.

Barack Obama has nominated Judge Merick Garland to fill the vacancy created by Scalia’s death, but Republicans in the Senate have insisted that they will not even consider the Garland nomination. They say the new president should be the one to nominate Scalia’s replacement. If Clinton is elected, not only is her pick likely to be much more radical than Garland, but Republicans will be obligated to consider the appointment and they are likely to have a slimmer majority in Congress, and quite possibly be in the minority, making it very difficult to reject a radical pick.

Meanwhile in California, a very significant Second Amendment lawsuit is waiting in the wings for possible petition to the Supreme Court. The Peruta case has been bouncing around the courts since 2009. It challenged San Diego County’s policy of only issuing concealed carry licenses to individuals who could demonstrate a specific need to carry a concealed firearm for self-defense, above and beyond that of the public at large. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying that the “needs requirement” was a violation of the Second Amendment, but the court then called for an en banc hearing of the case and reversed the ruling of the panel. That ruling was about as disingenuous and convoluted as could be imagined. What the court basically said was that while the Second Amendment might guarantee a right to carry a firearm for self-defense, it does not guarantee a right to carry a gun concealed, therefore the San Diego county policy is not at odds with it. What is so egregious about this decision is that California forbids the open carry of firearms, leaving licensed concealed carry as the only legal alternative, so the court has decided to make this a Catch-22. A suit has now been filed challenging the ban on open carry, but at best we are looking at years more litigation, and it will all be for naught if Clinton names Scalia’s replacement.

The attorneys in the Peruta case are now in a difficult position. They don’t want their case to be the one the Supreme Court uses to eviscerate the Second Amendment, but they have only a limited window in which to petition the Court for a hearing.

And of course, in the midst of these legal wranglings, California has adopted a half-dozen new, harsh gun control laws and has an even harsher initiative on the ballot for November. A group of activists have started a petition to force removal of the offending new laws, but it is a “Hail Marry” effort, and will be meaningless if the anti-rights initiative passes. Californians must stop the anti-rights initiative, and the rest of us must stop Hillary Clinton. Anything less will most assuredly be disastrous.

(August 10, 2016) It’s amazing watching the media going nuts over Donald Trump’s recent comment about the Second Amendment. The comment that stirred up the firestorm was this uttered at a Trump rally in North Carolina on August 9. What Trump said was:

“Hillary wants to abolish – essentially abolish the Second Amendment. And by the way, if she gets to pick her judges…(shrugs shoulders, shakes head) Nothing you can do folks… Although, the Second Amendment people, maybe there is… I don’t know. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”

Taking their cue from Clinton staffers and radical anti-rights extremist groups like Bloomberg’s Demanding Moms, the media has painted Trump’s comment as a suggestion that gun rights supporters should take up arms against the government if Hillary is elected. Shannon Watts, the PR flak who heads up Mom’s Demand Action for Gun Sense in America – the Demanding Moms – sent out an outrageous email fundraiser claiming that Trump’s comment was a call to assassinate Hillary Clinton. In the email, titled “Ballots vs. Bullets,” Watts echoed the Clinton camp, declaring; “This is dangerous,” and claimed that, “the media quickly reported Americans’ widespread shock at the idea that Trump was encouraging the assassination of a U.S. president.” She even included footnotes to support this assertion. The three articles in the footnote were:

1. An editorial from rabid Trump-basher, Philip Bump at the Washington Post, who parsed the statement down to suggest that it was a threat against Clinton, but said nothing about “widespread shock,”
2. An editorial report by Trump-basher Andrew Prokop at Vox, a “progressive” news service aimed at millennials, which mainly consisted of some speculation about what Trump might have meant and reprints of some comments made by other “progressive” pundits on Twitter.
3. An article by Louis Nelson at Politico suggesting that Trump was in trouble for making the remarks, and supporting that contention by quoting a variety of Clinton and Democrat functionaries who were hyperventilating about it.

None of these suggested anything resembling “widespread shock” among Americans, just typical attempts to exploit an opening from an opponent. The suggestion that Trump was actually encouraging revolt or suggesting assassination is silly. He was talking about the damage Hillary Clinton could do to the country and the Constitution if she is elected, and one of the points was that if she were to make appointments to the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment would be virtually abolished – which is absolutely true.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently stated that she, like Hillary Clinton, believes the Court’s decision in DC v. Heller was “bad” and that a future Court would have the opportunity to revisit the issue when a case challenging a gun control law comes up. Since Heller was decided 5-4 with the now deceased Antonin Scalia leading the 5, it is no stretch to assume that a “progressive” replacement to fill Scalia’s empty seat at the bench would mean that the next case to arrive in the Court concerning gun laws would be decided 5-4 in the opposite direction. By ruling that only “intermediate scrutiny” or “rational basis” need be applied to such questions, the Court could effectively nullify Heller, and thus make the Second Amendment hollow.

Trump was offering a dire warning in an effort to rally GunVoters to his cause and against Clinton. His follow-up comment that perhaps “Second Amendment people” might not be helpless, was obviously a joke, but it was a joke with historical teeth.

The Second Amendment itself is a warning against overreaching government. Those who suggest that pointing out this fact is a threat and insurrection, are ignoring the other side of that coin. The threat of the Second Amendment is not that gun owners should will resort to armed violence to get our way. Rather it is that the people can and should resist unjust force with force of our own.

This is right and just, and is in full harmony with the writings and beliefs of the founders and the legal scholars who followed them. Famed Supreme Court Justice and constitutional historian, Joseph Story, in his highly respected tome Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States phrased it like this:

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” (emphasis added)

That “strong moral check” is in fact a warning. The idea is that as long as the American people are armed, and thus have the ability to physically resist overreaching government, they will never have a need to physically resist the government, because the government would be foolish to try and oppress a citizenry that is well-armed.

If I take a new shooter to the range and caution them not to let the gun point at any part of their body, and to keep their finger away from the trigger, would that be considered a threat?

Reminding those in power that We the People are potentially dangerous and should be handled with respect, is not a threat, it’s a courtesy.

Don’t tread on me.

Appeals Court places feelings over Constitution

By Jeff Knox 

(April 29, 2015) A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, has upheld a lower court ruling that an Illinois community’s ordinance banning possession of “assault weapons,” and “high-capacity” magazines is not a violation of the Second Amendment rights of their citizens.  In the two to one decision, the prevailing judges concluded that “If a ban on semi‐automatic guns and large‐capacity magazines reduces the perceived risk from a mass shooting, and makes the public feel safer as a result, that’s a substantial benefit.” 

They stated this outrageous conclusion right after admitting that the “perception” of risk was exaggerated and that the actual risk is extremely low.  (After all, so-called “assault weapons” are involved in something less than 2% of violent assaults and murders.)  In order to reach their conclusion, the judges had to completely dismiss the perceived risks and concerns of the plaintiffs, who choose to have the capability to defend themselves and their families in the event of criminal assault by multiple assailants.  While this too is a low-probability scenario, many people in Baltimore might say it is much more likely than the stated rationale for banning the guns and magazines which was concerns about a Sandy Hook-style mass murder.

Continue reading Nothing More than Feelings →

Guns Save Lives, but Media Agenda Uber Alles

By Jeff Knox

(April 22, 2015) Did you see the story about the Uber driver who shot a man in Chicago’s Logan Square on Friday evening, April 17.  The story blipped across newspapers and TV screens on Monday, but little has been heard about it since.  The unidentified driver of an Uber rideshare car was parked when he saw a young man across the street open fire on a group of pedestrians.  The Uber driver jumped from his car and fired at the attacker, hitting him in the legs and back.  No one else was injured.

This is exactly the sort of story that Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America founder Shannon Watts keeps insisting never happens.  That it happened in Chicago, where until recently, thanks to multiple lawsuits from citizens and rights organizations, possession of a handgun in one’s own home, much less out on the street, was totally prohibited, adds another interesting angle to the story.  The fact that the hero in this story was one of the few who have successfully gone through the complex, expensive, and invasive process of acquiring the necessary government permission slips to legally carry the gun, and that he actually had it when and where he needed it, should be particularly newsworthy.  If this story had happened in Phoenix, where concealed carry is routine, and where citizens aren’t required to have any sort of permission slip to exercise their right to arms, it probably wouldn’t have been reported nationally at all.  Even so, the short shrift given the story by local and national news media reveals why the public is so misinformed about defensive gun use.

Continue reading Uber Driver Saves Lives – Media Yawns →

The day before the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook atrocity, another demented little coward decided to do something so vile and outrageous that he would be remembered forever and get payback on all of those people who had made his miserable little life unbearable.  As has been my longstanding policy, I will not mention the worm’s name.  I refuse to give him the publicity.  The Sheriff of Arapahoe County took a similar position, but unfortunately, the “legitimate media” insisted on repeating the attacker’s name, showing his picture, and talking about his motives – all things which sociologists and criminologists have said fuel rampage killers and encourage copy-cats.

The person whose name should be on everyone’s lips after this outrage is Claire Davis, a beautiful young woman who was shot in the face at point-blank range for no reason except that a petulant scumbag wanted attention, and she happened to be in front of him.  Both sides in the political argument over guns should respect and pray for the victims of these types of atrocities, not try to use the tragedies to promote a political agenda.  The initial center of attention for reporters and commenters in this case should have been Clair and her family, and they should remain in our thoughts.

The Arapahoe HS attack demonstrates once again that when these cowards are challenged, they fold.  Some psychologists suggest, correctly I suspect, that a rampage killing is a suicidal act, but with a weird scorekeeping component.  In the case of the Sandy Hook fiend, evidence suggests that he was playing out a bizarre video game fantasy in competition with previous mass murderers and that he killed himself to keep anyone else from capturing his “score.”  I suspect that the suicide upon challenge phenomenon also has something to do with plans meeting harsh realities.  The rampagers tend to put a great deal of thought and planning into their weapons, entrance, and “exit,” but the middle part tends to remain rather generic; “kill a bunch of people.”   Once they accomplish the first steps of their plan and are into the hazy phase, a challenge from a cop or other armed defender seems to trigger the next planned step – suicide. 

Continue reading If Only there were No Guns… →

In a fully expected turn of events, Congress reauthorized the Undetectable Firearms Act, or UFA, of 1988 on Monday and it was signed into law by a signature machine at the White House since the President was out of the country.  It seems appropriate that a bill banning imaginary firearms should receive a fake signature, but it is frustrating and disappointing nonetheless, especially in light of the fact that the bill was supported by the firearm industry’s trade association, the NSSF, and unopposed by the NRA. 

While it is theoretically possible to make a working firearm from materials other than metal, it would be a stretch to call such firearms “functional.”  The energy produced when an ammunition cartridge is ignited is significant.  If the cartridge is not fully supported in a way that will contain and direct the pressure, the result is catastrophic failure – in other words, the gun blows up in the shooter’s hand.  A cartridge is like a powerful firecracker.  The chamber and barrel of a gun are designed to contain the energy and direct it down the barrel, propelling the bullet in front of it. 

Recent experiments in 3D printed plastic firearms are an example of proving that a concept works while simultaneously demonstrating that it is impractical – even while throwing the mainstream media into a panic over the “new threat” to public safety.  In order for the plastic gun to be strong enough to contain the energy of a fired cartridge, the plastic must be so thick that the gun is extremely bulky, about the size of a typical hairdryer, and the barrel must be very short – almost non-existent – in order to let the pressure out quickly.  That makes the guns very inaccurate.  Unlike steel, the plastic withstands the pressure by flexing – like a balloon inflating and then returning to close to its original size.   To reload, the barrel must be removed and either a new barrel installed, or the spent case must be knocked out with a dowel and a new cartridge forced into the chamber.  Then the barrel can be reinstalled and the gun fired again, but each firing stretches and weakens the plastic, increasing the odds that it will fail and explode in the shooter’s hand.

Continue reading No More Wooden Cannons →