Startbucks Protestors Encourage Fake Journalism

Another gun grabber group (likely an octopus like arm of the Joyce Foundation, but hey, who's looking) is now encouraging their members to film fake interviews and post them on YouTube.

2) ASSERTIVE APPROACH: JOIN THE NATIONWIDE BOYCOTT ON FEBRUARY 14 by texting/e-mailing your/face booking your friends to meet you at your local Starbucks (perhaps invite the local media too). When you arrive have a few nice big lettered signs to hold outside in front of the Café’ ( Signs might read, “Boycott Starbucks/No Guns”, “Danger, Guns Allowed”, etc)

(b) a couple of you might want to write up a 45 second script that could involve your protesters in a video smart phone production done right there in front of that local Starbucks, then put on you tube.

“ Excuse me, but I thought I should tell you before you go in, that Starbucks lets people with guns inside. (crowd shouts –“They let people with guns in Starbucks? – We’re outta here!”) Yes, it’s true and we’re hoping people will boycott Starbucks until they do what other responsible businesses do and keep the guns out. (patron replies- “Thanks for letting me know. Guns in Starbucks is Nuts! I’ll come back when its safe and relaxing again.”) (crowd shouts- “ Us too! – No Guns , Boycott Starbucks!!”). “

YOU CAN DO IT! Then post your videos and share them on your social network, through e-mails and with family and friends.

It looks like the antis have realized that they can never draw a crowd to this things. However, even a husband and wife team can film fake interviews and make it look like regular people notice or care about Starbuck's non-policy policy of following local law on the issue of firearms on their property.

I wonder if this is a new tactic to mitigate the fact that they can't get turnout at their events.

You're Doing It Wrong

As we all know, traditional print media has been struggling of late. Being an avid consumer of online information, one of the first things I do when I move to a new place is check out the local newspaper online.  This has worked fine up until now.  At our new digs, the local paper does have an online version, but you cannot view much more than headlines without buying a subscription.  Okay, I figured I'd check to see how much they wanted, it couldn't be much, right?  Hah.  For 12 months of online only access, they want me to pay $144.  Yeah, right.  Sorry, I know it's becoming financially difficult to run a paper, but requiring me to pay $144 for local news is not a solution to that problem.

Latest Gun Grabbers and Authoritarianism

The latest Gun Grabber group to show up on the radar, the so called "National Gun Victims Action Council" (itself a lifeboat for Brady Board Members), shares the authoritarianism that seems so common in other gun grabber groups.

I found myself at their site after following some links and found this page:
Rand Paul and Guns Stall Extension of the Patriot Act

Are you serious? Do they not realize that their core constituency is aging hippies who hate Israel, loathe corporations, and want to protest against the man?

Just try clicking on the profiles of some of the public supporters of the Starbucks Boycott and checking out their political views. This is not a neocon crowd here. Even Facebook knows this. When I linked to their facebook page (which, by the way, is overrun with pro-2A spam) I got an ad for what looks like something sold at the local hippie hemp store:

Talk about audience analysis fail. With the limited crowd of supporters that their facebook page seems to draw you think these gun control nuts would be making arguments about disarming people to further social justice and how Israelis carry firearms for personal protection and thus firearms are bad and so on, not agitating for a renewal of the civil-liberties crushing Patriot Act with mouth-frothing enthusiasm. I really have to question the professionalism and marketing acumen of the gun control lobby these days.

Prep Status

Having finished our move, Heather and I started reassessing our emergency preparedness status. As usual, our goal is to be self-sufficient for about 72 hours on short notice.

I'm not getting ready for the apocalypse but we like being prepared for a reasonable regional type disaster that may lead to a disruption of services for a few weeks (for example, a severe storm, hurricane, earthquake type deal). Due to our jobs, we have pretty limited ability to be part of the horde picking the shelves at wal-mart clean or waiting in line at the gas station, so it is nice to have the essentials on hand.

Medical Kits: Trauma kits in each car. Good camping/backpacking kit with our camping gear. We have lots of first aid stuff around the house but could probably use to organize it better, as well as toss old meds that might be expired. We also both need more training. It's been years since I certified on first responder-level or wilderness first aid-style training. We could both rehack our basic CPR.

Water: I stocked up on quality 5 gallon jugs for water and we currently have about 50 gallons laid in, plus our water heater. Water is cheap and easy. No reason not to have it. We also have plenty of Polar Pure for purification and our camping hand pump for backpacking.

Fuel: I also stocked up on this and have about 30 gallons squirreled away, with a dollop of sta-bil in each container to preserve it. I figure that is enough to top off both cars, and then about one tank of refill for each. I'll rotate it through the cars in the fall and then get some more. We need to get some white gas for the camping stoves, though.

Personal Security: I feel pretty good here. We both have a decent level of training, high quality service-handguns, and armor. I am feeling comfortable with my AR platform. I do need to rig up my "oh no!" pants again (a set of pants with flashlight, cell phone, belt/holster, etc) again for beside the bed, but other than that we're good. We are still looking at getting a security system for the house and maybe some security lighting too.

Food: We currently have about 45 person-days of food on hand. This includes about 10 person-days of ready to go food like MREs, camping meals, etc. We are pretty good about using what we store as well. That sounds like a lot but even if it is just the two of us that's only a few weeks of stored food. If we have some relatives, neighbors, or friends joining us then 45 person-days of food is much more modest.

Identity and Documents: We have started storing some government issued ID in a seperate location so that if we lose our wallets we're not hosed. I really want to improve our preparation in this regard. For example, if the house burned down tomorrow, I'd want to have an encrypted thumb drive or disk with all of our key documents backed up on it stored at the bank, at work, in a car or with family or something. Having a check book, $300, and a credit/debit card off site would probably also be a good idea.

Finances: We have a solid emergency fund and are on good footing. Cash on hand in an emergency is really comforting. With cash you can get a hotel room or plane ticket.

Transport: Both cars have trailer hitches and we've got a cargo tray. I am thinking of getting a trailer. One of the lessons from "Listening to Katrina" is that you want to bring as much stuff as you can.

Shelter: Due to our camping hobby we have plenty of good tents, sleeping bags, and so on.

Training: Heather completed the CERT class and learned a lot of useful skills that can help the community. I've had similar disaster-response training.

Overall, I think for the next year, the primary focus is on getting our medical and identity preparations improved. I feel good about the basic logistics, which is nice.

We're Winning: NPR Edition

How The Glock Became America's Weapon Of Choice

Honesty

I've been successfully avoiding Joan's blog for a while now, but last night I just had to make a comment.  The "terror loophole" came up again and since this is something that has affected our family personally, I felt I had to comment.  So, I asked Joan:

"I have a family member who was put on the list. They were NOT able to get off of the list. They repeatedly have to jump through hoops when trying to fly. They have not been accused of, arrested, convicted, or committed a crime. Do you think it is okay for American citizens to be treated in this fashion?

This is a yes or no question. Either you think it is okay, or you do not.""

Her answer:  

"I've said what I am going to say about the terror watch list. I have gone around about that with you folks before. My beliefs have not changed. I know you don't like them and that you disagree."

That sounds like a "yes" to me.  There you have it, folks, her honest opinion on the matter.

Stop! I've got a light!

New Jersey has built a fairly considerable surveillance state with a network of cameras to monitor the population. Apparently, the NJ cops are enabling a spotlight feature on the cameras that will highlight suspicious individuals with a reddish light.

Now, if they put Crimson Trace laser dots on there, then maybe perps might be intimidated. But otherwise, it seems like NJ is creating mood lighting for violent crime rather than actually doing something useful.

Not Addressing the Real Problem

A Michigan teacher reportedly poured hot tea on two teenage boys (15 and 18) to stop them from fighting.  The teacher was, of course, placed on administrative leave and no consequences are mentioned for either student.

Now what, I ask, was the teacher supposed to do?  Let them duke it out?  You'd probably get fired for that.  Physically intervene?  The latter might be possible for a male teacher, but not really an option for most female teachers (I, at least, tend to be out-massed by even sixth graders).  Besides, if you do intervene physically as a teacher, you'll probably get sued by the parents.  I'm not saying that dumping hot tea on them is necessarily the right choice, but we've come to a place where we are giving teachers no real options to deal with these situations.

Superintendent says “We are always very concerned for the safety of our students and staff."  But apparently not concerned enough to give teachers a way to stop students from assaulting each other.  I speak from experience when I say that this creates an unsafe atmosphere that inhibits both students abilities to learn and teachers abilities to teach.

Counting Down...

We're getting closer and closer to our Kodiak trip and I am getting more and more excited every day.  I need to get the garage cleaned up so that there is enough empty space to start laying things out to pack for the trip!  And just to add to the excitement, our puppy ought to be ready to come home just after the Kodiak hunt.  Can I just fast forward to April already?

Also, a bit of "you know you're in the South when..." I was at rehearsal last night and had to tell the director that I would not be able to make it to the May concert due to Kodiak.  If I'd told anyone in the northeast that, they probably would have freaked out.  Even some of the Alaska musicians I've played with would have given me a look.  This guy?  He said "Hey, I'll ditch the concert too and tag along!"

House Design Flaws

Having just moved into a new place, we're getting a fresh view of "how not to design a house."

1.  If you plan on renting your house, NO BUILT-INS.  Seriously, we have our own furniture.  It's nicer than your built-in.
1a.  If you do have a built-in entertainment unit, make sure that the cord pass-throughs are big enough to pass a cord through.  Just sayin'.
1b.  If you must have built-ins, make sure they are built IN, not OUT.  If it's built IN, I can at least put something better in front of it.
2.  Light switches should be the closest switch to a doorway.  Not the fan switch.
3.  There should be a fire alarm in the kitchen.  If there is not, there should at least be one closer than half the house away.  I get as annoyed as the next person when the fire alarm goes off while I'm cooking dinner, but I get much more annoyed when my house burns down.
4.  Think very hard about where you put such useful items as outlets, cable and phone hook-ups.  Hint: hiding the cable jack inside the closet is not very useful.

Range Day!

Yesterday, I finally got the chance to shoot the 30.06 I've had for about nine or ten months.  Yes, it took that long.

I picked up the gun, a Savage left-handed bolt for cheap from a pawn shop in Eagle River.  We'd just drawn our Kodiak tags and I needed more fire power.  The gun needed a bit of work done, so I took it in to Wild West Guns for some repairs and to have the stock cut down.  They also tossed in a recoil pad for next to nothing.  The gun came back just a few days before the movers arrived to pack up our things.    Chris was able to take it out to the range briefly but I was line coaching that day and so I didn't get a chance to shoot it before it was packed up and sent away to storage.  I finally got it back last week.

So, out to the range!  We started in with iron sights at 25 yards and my first three shots made a beautiful group, dead center and just a bit low.  A little adjustment and my next two groups were centered vertically but a little right, which certainly could have been user error.  So we moved out to 100 yards.  Out that far, I was definitely right and spread out a bit.  Still, they were all good enough shots to hit the vital area of a bear.  Not bad with iron sights, and I figure Appleseed will help me out a bit with the user-error stuff.  All this had been with recoil reduced loads, so we then pulled out the big stuff.  Not quite the same stuff I'll be using on the Kodiak hunt, but pretty close.  I lined up my first shot and... wow.  I felt like I'd been kicked in the shoulder by a mule!  The shot was good, though! I went through six rounds of the "good stuff" until I was too bruised to continue.  It definitely hurt, but it was still a lot of fun - and it's not like I'm going to get a chance to get six rounds off at a bear this spring.  I'm the backup shooter, so I'll consider myself lucky if I get two off.  I left the rifle range feeling pretty good.

The handgun side was a different story.  I was trying out two things today: my new Taurus TCP and the 9mm conversion kit for the M&P.

The Taurus was quite accurate and was actually pretty fun to shoot.  I did have some trouble with failure to fires, particularly the first round of a mag.  I'm hoping that this is something that will be fixed with a good cleaning and a couple hundred rounds through the gun.  If not, it's a significant enough problem that I will be sending the gun back to Taurus.

The 9mm conversion kit was interesting.  On the positive side, it was a really quick conversion, two minutes tops.  I definitely had less muzzle flip when shooting the 9mm than I do when I shoot 40.  I wasn't too pleased with my accuracy - not that it was bad, just not as good as it should have been - but that would, I suspect, be resolved with practice.  I've put a lot of time into the 40 this year, after all.  The big problem with the conversion kit was that there frequently wasn't enough energy left to properly chamber a round after ejecting the casing.  This resulted in the occasional type two malfunction and type threes practically every shot.  It got very frustrating!  I think this problem is easily solved with a new spring, but it still put me in a bad mood.  I want to get back out ASAP - I hate ending on a bad note!

Unpossible! Guns in Prisons

One might think that a high security prison would be an ideal model for testing whether prohibitory measures to prevent contraband (weapons, drugs, whatever) can be effective. Prisoners have no fourth amendment rights, you can strip search them at will, and the environment is highly controlled.

In North Carolina a murder suspect allegedly smuggled a 38 caliber revolver into prison in his rectum.

Is this the logical end of gun control? This guy managed to evade a strip search by sticking a firearm in his rectum. Are we as a society really willing to go through a strip search, cavity probe ("sir/ma'am, we'll need you to bend over and cough?"), and then a Rapiscan Backscatter Bodyscanner every time we enter a public place or leave our homes? That's what it would take to ensure that there are "no guns in public places" as the Brady's want. And even that would likely be evaded -- we have that setup at our supermax prison facilities and still you hear about contraband making it inside.

Or, perhaps the gun control zealots merely want mala prohibitum laws put in place that prevent the law-abiding from carrying weapons in public places but do nothing to affect the criminal class.

I'm not sure what's worse: a vision that embraces an Orwellian security state, or a dream to enable a massive thugocracy where the lawless and strong rule the streets.

District Court Upholds Long Gun Registry

A district court judge upheld ATF's questionable multiple-sales reporting requirement in the Southwest.

The decision is a quick read. The judge evaluated two major factors.

1) Did ATF exceed their statutory authority?

On one hand, the Attorney General (and thus ATF) has the authority to issue a demand letter for just about anything, anytime. On the other hand, congress has specifically forbid multiple times in several ways any creation of a nationwide registry.

The court looked at other cases where judges had ruled demand letters legit; the most extravagent of such targeted 450 FFLs (1% of the nation's total per the brief). This one targets 16%. The judge felt that was not a "significant" step towards a nationwide registry and thus ATF was not exceeding their authority.

My thought -- How would a judge rule, if, say, 16% of the states decided to ignore the Voting Rights Act and the Attorney General allowed it? I mean, its only the deep south, right? What could go wrong? I'd say that any new interpretation that affects nearly a fifth of the country is pretty significant, especially when specific enumerated rights are involved.

2) Did ATF act capriciously?

Here, the judge has to presume that the ATF is acting "with regularity" and determine only if the agency acted reasonably. Based on the brief I'd compare the standard of review to Rational Basis, which is a very low test.

Because ATF has stated that long guns are preferred by Mexican Cartels, their reporting requirement is logical and thus reasonable and not capriciously. The fact that a substantial percentage of the long guns were provided by the ATF (and State department!) is not mentioned in the judgement.

My thought -- This is a good reason why higher courts need to establish a standard of review for 2A cases. Heller implied that Intermediate or Strict Scrutiny was most appropriate. Rational Basis needs to be smacked down when this specific enumerated right is involved. This is why the composition of higher courts (especially the supremes) is so important. This is also why pursuing tactics that involve the executive and legislative branches are so important.

T-Rex Arms

I did a crossfit workout this afternoon, and I now have t-rex arms. Raising my arms above chest height is not really a viable option at this moment.

It was a good workout though.

"Hi, I'd like a Gunrunner Combo"

The Mexican magazine Emeequis published portions of documents that describe how Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a Colombian trafficker-turned-informant and Mexican federal police officers in 2007 infiltrated the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and a cell of money launderers for Colombia's Valle del Norte cartel in Mexico.

The group of officials conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China and smuggled and laundered about $2.5 million in the United States. They lost track of much of that money.

Oops! So, do the cartels get a package deal discount when ordering these sorts of services from the US Government? "Hi, I'd like 2000 assault rifles, $2.5 million bucks laundered, and yeah, maybe a few semis of coke trucked across the border... Oh, there's a discount? Yeah, sure, I'll take the Gun Runner Combo... Yes, I'll need that order to go... Actually, let's supersize it."

I mean, really -- we're giving the cartels firearms, we're permitting them to run tons of coke into the country, and now we're processing what amounts to 10-20% of their annual laundered funds?

Looking for Something...

I happen to be incredibly awful at finding what I'm looking for on the net.  Seriously, Chris will ask me to look something up and I'll sit there ALL DAY searching, and he'll come home and within five minutes have found it.  So the fact that I haven't been able to find what I'm looking for definitely doesn't mean it doesn't exist!

Now that we're 1) in a hot climate and 2) getting a dog, I need a solution to the "carry-while-jogging" issue.  I will be getting a pocket .380, possibly as soon as this weekend, and have been looking into fanny-pack type holsters or anything else that will allow me to conceal the little thing while jogging (pocket holsters are out - my shorts either don't have pockets or have tiny little girl pockets).  The problem is that every fanny-pack I've looked at just seems to have straps to hold the gun in.  Some of them don't even look like they cover the trigger!  While it might work perfectly well, I'm a little nervous about carrying in condition one while jogging in something that isn't well molded to my gun, trigger exposed, etc.

So, I am trying to find a fanny pack holster (or something along those lines) that will carry my .380 in a manner that I feel is both comfortable and safe.  Any ideas?

On a related note, I'm fairly sure that I will be picking up the Taurus TCP for my .380.  I was leaning fairly strongly towards the Taurus just from how it looked on paper, but I also got the chance to shoot one at the range the other day, thanks to a friendly stranger.  The sights suck but it certainly seemed able to do what I need it to do.

Fudds at the Range and Safety Tradeoffs

We just checked out one of our local public shooting ranges. The rules are kind of crazy. Here's a sampling.

• No open carry holsters allowed on the range except by the Range Safety Officers. Heather had her CCW holster on, but took off her concealing garment. Of course, the holster was empty, and we were just using the shooting tables, in deference to the range rules. Still, this was apparently a no-no. I understand not allowing drawing from the holster to shoot as a safety thing; but just forbidding the wear of holsters altogether seems odd to me. I definitely got the vibe that the RSO's were really enjoying Displaying Their Authori-Tay to Open Carry (especially as Open Carry is not really an option for most people in this area), which is NOT a good reason to forbid others from having holsters.
• No more than 10 rounds per magazine. At the rifle range, the RSO was definitely up in my chili when he saw my standard 30-round AR PMAGs come out of the bag. I was being a good camper and downloaded the mags entirely and was fastidiously reloading them with only 10 rounds, and he gosh darn supervised me to ensure that an extra round didn't sneak in there.
• No Magazine Changes. This wasn't written down as a rule, but I got scolded for doing tactical and emergency reloads. It is kind of funny that they forbid more than 10 rounds per mag, which necessitates more frequent mag changes, but then also forbid mag changes.
• No Extreme Rapid Fire, described as more than one shot per second. Double taps are definitely not kosher. Apparently double shots are not "family friendly" (neither are mag changes).
• Only one weapon visible on the bench at a time. Heather was shooting her full size and compact M&P so had both out, clearly out there with actions open and unloaded. That was not allowed, but the RSO said it would be fine if she had one concealed in a range bag on the bench. So hang on... Instead of leaving firearms out in the open where the RSO can verify that they are safe, clear and locked open, you want those firearms stuffed into range bags where you have no idea what condition they're in? What could go wrong?

Meanwhile, there were some significant safety gaps, in my opinion.

• The range required ear pro but did not require eye pro. I'd say about half of folks had some sort of shooting glasses but many did not.
• There were some "fingers on trigger" that made me feel a bit edgy. I'm a bit of a nazi about FOT as it is a terrible safety habit to get into, even if the gun is pointed down range at all times.
• Guns in and out of bags on the line is also a terrible idea--you have no idea what condition they are in, and unlike a holster, there is nothing controlling the trigger.
• The RSO was also not verifying that all actions were open and guns unloaded before cease fires.
• The RSO wasn't making positive contact with both ends of the line at the start and end of cease fires. I've always seen both sides of the line step back, flash thumbs up, and make eye contact on this sort of range. The RSO wasn't even making eye contact, and we got looked at funny for flashing a thumbs up when we were clear.
• The RSO was shouting things like "CEASE FIRE!!!! In a few minutes..." In my opinion, the only time you should say the words "CEASE FIRE" are when you need all firing on the line to stop immediately. If you want to convey the thought that there will be a pause in firing soon, why not shout, "TWO MINUTES TO THE BREAK!" When you over-use "CEASE FIRE" or use an important command like that to mean things other than "STOP FIRING RIGHT NOW" then people get confused and start ignoring it.

The stupid fudd rules wouldn't bother me as much if the range was otherwise tight. However, there is a tradeoff to the fudd rules. If the RSO is busy watching me load magazines to ensure that I don't put 11 rounds in there, he is NOT watching people's fingers on triggers or checking to see if actions are clear and unloaded. The fudd rules do nothing to enhance safety in many cases -- they just take up time and attention that keeps the RSO from focusing on the really important things.

The place isn't the greatest range. However, it is close to home, and it is cheap. If nothing else it is a decent place to go do slow fire accuracy drills, zero rifles, and so on.

Cheaper than Dirt: "Bank Error in Your Favor!"

I just ordered some rifle ammo from cheaper than dirt. To my surprise I opened the package and found a half dozen or so boxes of 10mm. I don't have any 10mm firearms. Luckily it looks like my card was not charged for the ammo. I've emailed CTD customer service and informed them of the mix-up, we'll see what happens.

Appleseed Bloggerparty

Now that we are no longer in Alaska, we find ourselves in close proximity to a bunch of other gun bloggers.  Obviously, this calls for a Bloggerparty!

The Setting:  Ramseur, NC, the "Mecca" of Appleseed
The Dates:  March 24th and 25th
The Adventure: Two days of learning traditional rifle marksmanship skills, plus a chance to hang out with some supercool gun bloggers

So far we have people from the following blogs attending:
Arma Borealis (of course!)
An NC Gun Blog
Arms Are the Mark of a Free Man
Bob-Owens.com
Newbie Shooter
A Girl and Her Gun
Knitebane Manor

And, of course, we're welcoming anyone else who wants to attend!

More information about Appleseed

Will a Candle Stop a Bullet?

Thanks to Weer'd for the idea.

Candles to remember.  Guns to prevent.

Other people have already been far more eloquent than I could be. 

Our preferred methods of self defense: my M&P and Chris' AR.

Resolutions

Last year Chris blogged about some resolutions we had.  Looking back, I think we did pretty well.  While I'm not necessarily eating a piece of fruit per day, I'm definitely eating healthier.  Among other things, I've discovered the joy of roasted brussel sprouts and could eat them by the bowlful!  We both finished hunters ed and took a defensive pistol class (I took two!).  Chris got his CWP and I'm pretty sure he knocked out his masters credits.  We didn't get as much snow-play in as we wanted to, thanks in part to low snow levels on the Kenai, but we did do some.  And even though we didn't get a bear, we did do a bear hunt last spring.

Onto 2012!

1.  Get a job.  Having just moved multiple times for Chris' job, I haven't been gainfully employed for almost nine months now, which is driving me nuts.  I have a few potentials already lined up, including some range jobs.
2.  Teach at least one NRA class.  I've got my certification, better use it!
3.  Get certified in RSO, Refuse to Be a Victim, and Shotgun.  Among other things, this will only help with numbers 1 and 2!
4.  Pup.  Not getting specific here, but I would like to be a good dog owner and trainer.  This is a brand new thing for us!  I've been speaking with the breeder and we should be getting a pup from the next litter which is anticipated in late spring.  Going along with this, I definitely need to improve my shotgun skills!
5.  Less-than-black-thumb.  I'm trying my hand at gardening this year and will be content if I manage to not kill everything by simply looking at it.  Bonus points if I actually get veggies out of it!

On the hunting front, we've got some awesome stuff lined up this year.  We're planning to jump right in to this new scene with hogs in February and turkey in April, building up to our planned Kodiak hunt in the spring.  We might not be living in Alaska at the moment, but I'm going to try to make the best of it.

You're Doing it Wrong: 1911 in Cali

Cali law maker gets busted for trying to carry his 1911 onto an airplane.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks had a Colt .45 with four rounds in it inside his carry-on luggage at Ontario International Airport. He says another magazine with five rounds also was in Donnelly's carry-on bag.

I'm not a 1911 fanboy, but last time I checked, aren't you supposed to have 7+1 in a 1911? Who carries a half full mag in the gun and another half full mag as a backup? Also, unpossible, because California's strict gun control measures should prevent crimes like this, right?

GASG: Innkeeper Shooting

Gwen has started up her antics again with a flood of posts for the holidays, oft verging on being offensive and bigoted.

In this post, she blames gun owners for violence and makes it clear that firearms ownership is, in her opinion, a bad decision. She links a story about an innkeep who got into a fight with three drunk patrons. After denying the trio a room, the dispute spilled out into the parking lot. The innkeep pulled a pistol after two men started beating on him.

At first, I'd say this may be a valid DGU. However, its worth remembering that the defensive shooter must be innocent and can't escalate the argument. There was probably no reason to follow the trio of people outside and continue the altercation in the parking lot.

Furthermore, the shooter has an extensive criminal record. I just looked at the offenses that are linked to the 1957 birthdate and found several disabling offenses, including violent felonies, domestic violence, and other records that would make him a prohibited person. His most recent parole violation occurred about a year ago.

I fail to understand why Gwen thinks that more gun control is the answer, when the gun control we have now was absolutely ineffective at preventing this crime. Maybe if we kept violent criminals who violate their parole in jail, then they couldn't cause this kind of mayhem.

Front Site: Admin, Logistics, and Facilities

This post continues my thoughts about Front Site, a firearms training facility out in NV. I want to open up with a discussion of logistics and administrative issues as well as the physical facilities available out at Front Site.

Drive. The facility itself is about 20-30 minutes outside of Pahrump, NV and perhaps an hour from Vegas. These times vary depending on your driving habits, traffic, and weather. The roads are all paved until you get to the facility itself, where they are gravel, so a typical rental car/sedan should fare just fine. The gate doesn't open earlier than the advertised start time so there's no reason to show up crazy early.

Lodging. We chose to get a hotel room at the Saddle West hotel/casino. Saddle West offers a Front Site discount; be sure to ask for the "first family" rate if you're a lifetime member, but even if you're just attending a class they'll throw you a bone. They are semi firearms friendly; they'll have you sign a dry practice waiver and ask you not to carry in the public areas of the hotel. Front Site has camping but it looks pretty bare bones; I'm not even sure if they have water available.

Food. Saddle West has a good breakfast buffet that they threw in for us as a promo so that worked great. For lunch, you have a few options. First, Saddle West will do a box nasty for you. Next, Front Sight has an arrangement to get a box nasty delivered. Both box lunches are ok; nothing really to write home about, but filling and fairly reasonably priced. There's also a truck (like you'd see at a fair) with burgers, dogs, and so on.

Some folks "rolled their own" lunches from groceries at the store. We ate leftovers from dinner a few days; there's no fridge available for students but it was winter so it was fine to leave leftovers in the car during the day. For dinner, Front Site will give you a list of suggested restaurants where you can get a good discount. We tried the Italian place and were pleased. There's also all your standard small to mid-size town places available in Pahrump. As a note, Front Site makes coffee, tea, and water available; the coffee was pretty good (and I'm a snob), and they had premium Stash Tea, so this was nice.

Check In. Check in was smooth and efficient. You park in the large lot and go to a conex conspicuously marked with a "1" (one). Here they check your ID against a roster and verify what class you're enrolled for. You then go to station "2" for weapons inspection. They briefly check your weapon to ensure it is safe and run a magnet over your ammo. Like many ranges, they don't want steel core ammo that will damage their targets, and they don't want you using cheap steel cased ammo that might malfunction and create liability issues for them. There's then a quick admin brief in the main classroom building then off to your ranges!

Facilities. The center of the facility is a large classroom that can hold, say, a couple hundred folks. It is climate controlled and has a decent AV system. They also have a "comfort station" (washroom with flush toilets, sinks with hot running water, etc). The ranges themselves have port a johns so the comfort station is nice to have. The roads are generally covered in gravel, but they do have a water truck that wets it down to keep the dust down.

There's one nice, landscaped walkway with palm trees and nice facades on the walls. This is probably what you'll see in advertising copy. The rest of the place is more utilitarian. Still, don't let the conex boxes and rough landscaping turn you off. Heather and I concluded that the facility was pretty impressive overall.

Some of the facility highlights include "M16 Canyon" (a walking course for live-fire carbine engagement of steel and paper targets in a "popup" setting; they cleverly used a canyon to avoid building too many berms), a thousand yard precision rifle course set up on a scenic lookout point, a cool looking ropes course and zipline (again making use of a canyon for additional elevation), and a pair of "shoot houses" set up in conexes. There are numerous pistol ranges out to 25-50 yards and rifle ranges to 400 yards.

Conclusions. At first, Heather and I were kind of underwhelmed and didn't think that the place qualified as a "world class" shooting faciliy. Then, we realized that we were really spoiled with Birchwood up in Alaska. Many of the other folks at Front Site had not been to rifle ranges with areas longer than 100 yards to shoot, or pistol ranges with multiple bays. One visitor from the UK remarked about the horrid conditions of the few remaining ranges in his home country. So, ok, I guess in contrast the Pahrump facility is pretty good. The logistics are smooth and efficient and there are reasonable options for food and accommodations conveniently nearby.