Defenseless Oil Tankers

Defenseless Oil Tanker Maran Centaurus carrying 275,000 metric tons of crude oil has been captured by pirates. Why was it defenseless? Roger Middleton, a London-based piracy expert said:

"You're sitting on a huge ship filled with flammable liquid. You don't want somebody with a gun on top of that"

I guess Roger Middleton would rather have a group of pirates with guns & rocket propelled grenades be free to do whatever they wish with the oil, the oil tanker, and the 28 helpless crew members on board. I say it would be far better to answer the pirate attack with return fire, that is the only way to protect the crew and the volatile cargo. Bullets speak louder than the empty words of "please don't attack our ship, we're defenseless and flammable." The crew members of the Maersk Alabama and the MSC Melody probably agree.

Merry Christmas!

Not Without a Fight

The Not Without a Fight Documentary that I mentioned earlier is complete and available for purchase. I ordered a copy for myself but had issues with the automated download link after I completed the purchase. I sent an e-mail to the documentary author requesting assistance & received an e-mail the next day with a single use download link that worked. It's a good documentary with interviews with many great gun rights activists working to restore freedom. You can see some snippets of the documentary on the Not Without a Fight youtube channel.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. May you all enjoy this time of giving thanks with those whom we are most thankful for: family and friends. I'm also thankful for our great Country and the freedoms we enjoy.

McDonald v. City of Chicago

Read the NRA's friend of the court brief. Related Press Release from the NRA-ILA:

On November 16, the NRA filed its brief with the U.S. Supreme Court as Respondent in Support of Petitioner in McDonald v. City of Chicago. The NRA brief asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.

The McDonald case is one of several that were filed immediately after last year's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Court upheld the Second Amendment as an individual right and struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun possession, as well as the capital city's ban on keeping loaded, operable firearms for self-defense in the home.

The follow-up cases were filed by NRA and other organizations against Chicago and several of its suburbs. Each of these suits was aimed at the same goal: establishing that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments as well as the federal government.

In September, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the McDonald case, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. That court incorrectly claimed that prior Supreme Court precedent prevented it from holding in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment. As we argued at the time, the Seventh Circuit should have followed the lead of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Nordyke v. King, which found that Supreme Court precedent does not prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.

As a party in McDonald, the NRA is actively involved in this case and we believe our brief makes a clear and strong case in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment (to read the brief, please click here).

The McDonald case will be argued in February 2010. NRA members should be proud of our efforts to bring this issue to the court's attention through the many lawsuits we brought to overturn local bans on gun ownership and self-defense immediately after Heller. We are hopeful that McDonald v. Chicago will achieve another major victory for gun owners' rights.

Interesting Iron Sight System

Timothy Kraft, Ph.D. is testing out an interesting iron sight system at the University of Alabama. I'm curious to find out how the test results end up turning out. It's always fun to try out new sighting concepts.

2nd Pirate Attack: This Time They Fought Back

For the second time in seven months, pirates attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. This time, they fired back and thwarted the assault!

I love happy endings!

Have Your Representatives Signed the Amicus Curiae Brief?

I've called both of my Senators & my Representative. If you don't know who yours are you can look them up.

From the NRA-ILA:

Friday, November 13, 2009

As a critical Second Amendment case goes before the United States Supreme Court, U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Jon Tester (D-MT), and Congressmen Mike Ross (D-AR) and Mark Souder (R-IN) are gathering signatures for an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief by Members of Congress. And we need your support for this important effort next week.

The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago, and it will answer the question of whether the Second Amendment applies to the states as the Congress clearly intended in the 1860s, when it adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to protect constitutional rights against abuse by state and local governments. This brief is an opportunity for today’s Congress to show just as clearly that it respects the Second Amendment’s importance to all Americans not just residents of the District of Columbia and other federal territories.

The brief describes Congress’s debates on the Fourteenth Amendment, and points out the many occasions from 1866 to 2005 when the Congress has spoken in favor of the Second Amendment as protecting a right of all Americans, and taken action to protect that right against actions such as gun confiscation and predatory lawsuits. It also makes the case for Congress’s interest (under its constitutional war powers) in preserving an armed citizenry as part of America’s national defense.

When Congress speaks, the Supreme Court listens. And it did in the historic Heller case last year when 55 Senators and 250 Representatives signed an amicus brief supporting the Second Amendment as an individual right. Now every Senator and Congressman who supports the rights of all Americans should step forward to be heard by signing this brief in the McDonald case.

The brief must be filed within the week, so we need your immediate help! On Monday through Thursday, please call your U.S. Senators and Representative, and urge them to sign on to this critically important brief, which will be a key part of the legal battle to protect the Second Amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court.

You can call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121, and your U.S. Representative at (202) 225-3121.

Copyright 2009, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.
This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.
11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030 800-392-8683

Eric on the Glock 19

As many of you know, I carry a Glock 19 for the defense of myself & my family. There are many excellent handguns available to choose from, but that's the one I ended up selecting for myself after I had completed my research & compared how it felt in my hands while shooting it next to the other top guns I had looked at. Eric Shelton of the Handgun Podcast recently put out a video going over some of the Glock safety features:



In case you missed them, be sure to check out his Glock vs Wolf Ammo, Glock trigger torture test, and his follow-up Glock videos as well. Also see what nutnfancy has to say about the Glock: part 1, part2, part 3, and part 4.

Thanks Veterans!

Thank you for your service!



Music by Toby Keith: American Soldier

SCCC: Defense Education Week

Today is the first day of Defense Education Week (running November 9 – 14) by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). Ken Stanton wrote an article with further details. Below is the related SCCC press release:

SCCC Announces Defense Education Week!

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, the leading advocate for self-defense rights on college campuses, announced Defense Education Week on Monday, the latest in a series of events designed to draw attention to their goal.

The event is intended to educate participants about weapons and self-defense, and includes Empty Holster Protests, free educational courses at shooting ranges, guest speakers, petition drives, legislative lobbying and a new website called Armed or Not? which invites visitors to observe and be quizzed on concealed carry. The group expects participation from college groups across the nation

Our goal has always been to educate the public about who we are and what we’re about, said David Burnett, a spokesman for the group. There are gross misconceptions about what we advocate, and what self-defense on campus is for. People think we want to hand out guns to 18-year-olds, or sacrifice student safety, and that’s not at all the case. We don’t want to change who can carry, we want to change where.

One of the event’s planners, Ken Stanton, is a graduate student at Virginia Tech who lost a friend in the Virginia Tech shooting and who now advocates letting citizens carry guns on campus. It’s about more than just carrying a gun, he said. It’s about protecting your life. No school should ever have to be remembered for what Virginia Tech is.

The group, which has over 41,000 supporters online and affiliated campus groups in nearly every state, has successfully prompted legislation to be considered in more than 20 states in the past two years. Colleges in Arizona, South Carolina and Michigan have loosened restrictions regarding weapons on campus as a result, and some states have already pre-filed similar bills for 2010.

The reality is that this could make campuses a lot safer, said Burnett. The only people we want carrying weapons are the ones who have gone through the rigorous procedures required by state law to get a permit. If you’re a criminal looking for an easy victim, are you really going to pick a spot where you know citizens are empowered to fight back?

Campuses aren’t immune from crime, and if a student faces that kind of situation, we want them to have a fighting chance.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
David Burnett Director of Public Relations
David.Burnett@concealedcampus.org
http://www.ConcealedCampus.com

Why Do Regulations Disarm our Military?

My sincere condolences to the victims and family members impacted by Yesterday's Fort Hood mass shooting. I'm sure I stand with many when I say thank you to brave hero Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley (and her partner) who confronted the killer, shooting him 4 times and bringing an early halt to his attack. Luckily she was close to the incident directing traffic and was able to respond within 3 minutes of the first 911 call.

I believe 3 minutes is the fastest Police response I've ever heard of to a mass shooting incident. Once she arrived she went straight in and confronted the shooter. She didn't waste any time waiting around for a swat team to arrive, which I believe saved many lives.

There remains however an urgent question in my mind: Why does Military policy disarm our trained military men and women while they are on base? I'm sure many of the 13 dead and 30 wounded would have wanted to fight back and defend themselves had they not all been disarmed by bad military base policy.

Did the gun free zone created by base regulations which ban weapon carry by anyone other than on duty Military Police prevent the madman from bringing both of his handguns to his attack? Of course not. Anybody willing to break the law in such a gruesome attack is not going to worry about a gun free zone policy. I imagine that the three minutes, while very fast for a Police response, seemed like an eternity to the defenseless victims who were stuck in the gun free zone while being shot at by the mad man.

I believe that the military gun free zone policy was probably created by a group of brain dead bureaucrats without any basis in fact. It is high time such idiotic policies be stricken down, as it is immoral to victimize the very men and women who have fought and died off shore protecting our freedoms by denying them the fundamental right of self protection while on US soil on our US military bases.

Update 1: Stephanie Gutmann, The Armorer, Dave Workman, Daniel White, Kurt Hofmann, and Howard Nemerov ask the same question. It is also being discussed on defensivecarry.com and glocktalk.com.

Rivoli Revue: USS of A

Ron and Kay Rivoli of Rivoli Revue have a number of great music videos. This one is called USS of A. One of the lines in the song is "we better stand together one & all or our constitution is gonna fall" - I couldn't agree more!

Flawed Study on Guns

David Codrea & Eric Puryear explain a few of the fatal errors in a flawed Study on guns. Another gaping hole in the study that occurs to me is that it only looked at incidents where a gun was fired - often by one criminal at another criminal in gang related incidents. Legitimate Studies have shown that 98% of self defense uses of a gun by law abiding citizens take place where the gun owner doesn't have to fire a single shot - simply aiming their weapon at the thug was enough to stop the attack. By leaving out the single largest portion of self defense uses of a gun the study shot itself in the foot.

Happy Halloween!

Have a fun & safe Halloween!

WA: Students Arm Themselves

After being attacked while defenseless some University of Washington students decided to get concealed carry permits and take responsibility for their own safety. I commend them for taking responsibility for their own safety, but I have a few safety tips for them:

1. I can't really recommend "walking around as bait, fishing for robbers," although if a thug is unlucky enough to attack a student prepared to defend him or herself, too bad for the thug, I'm not going to cry for him or her.
   
2. Don't sweep your friend (or anything else you'd prefer not to destroy) with the muzzle of your gun.
3. Buy a holster, stashing your gun in the front of your pants fails to protect the trigger & is not a secure way to carry it.

Obamacare: Hundreds of Billions in New Taxes

Just for Obama, here's the definition of a tax: "a charge, usually of money, imposed by legislative or other public authority upon persons or property for public purposes."

So yes, forcing everyone to buy insurance for the "public good" is a tax. So much for his promise not to increase any taxes on anyone making less than $250,000.00, although to be honest, I can't say that I ever believed him.



While I'm on the topic of Obama, you should definitely check out this documentary when you have a free moment.

Mike Rogers on Health Care Reform

Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan lays out a few of the issues with the various versions of Health Care Reform Legislation being considered:

MN: Adopt a Highway Program

A group named Minnesota Carry Permit Holders found an excellent way to spread good will while removing trash from the roadside via the Adopt a Highway Program. In addition to promoting good will & beautifying the roadway during their cleanup event yesterday their adopted section of the highway was probably the safest stretch of the road in the entire State.

Arizona has an Adopt a Highway Program as well, I'd love to see my local gun rights groups adopt a section of Arizona Highways.