"The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced, and I can not omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that His providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual."
     ..Washington's final annual message to congress - december 7, 1796

Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Unfortunately in D.C. that decision was made for you long ago.

Is this a surprise to anybody?

This from CCRKBA, "A new Rasmussen poll reveals that 57 percent of American citizens believe gun sales are up over the past several months because of widespread fears that the government will tighten restrictions on gun ownership.

"The poll results confirm what we've been saying," noted Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. "American citizens are fearful that the Obama administration and a Democrat-controlled Congress will pass new laws to further erode the individual right to own firearms. This concern was further enhanced by yesterday's ruling in Minnesota that far left anti-gunner Al Franken should be seated as a U.S. Senator representing that state, giving Democrats a 60-member majority."

The Rasmussen telephone survey found that only 23 percent of the respondents believe gun sales have risen due to concerns about rising crime. Twenty-one percent are not sure. The poll also revealed that 63 percent of male Americans and 51 percent of women believe gun sales are linked to concerns about new gun control schemes. Another finding is that 65 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of those not affiliated with either major political party think booming gun sales are connected to fears about increased government restrictions.

"Americans realize that despite all of the campaign rhetoric, Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are waiting for the right moment to spring new gun control measures," Gottlieb stated. "There is little doubt they would like to renew the ban on semiautomatic sport-utility rifles, place limits on the number of firearms someone may purchase, and maybe institute some kind of licensing and registration scheme, as Pelosi hinted during an appearance on ABC's Good Morning America. Wherever these measures have been tried on the local level, they have invariably failed to prevent or reduce violent crime. The Clinton gun ban failed. One-gun-a-month schemes have failed.

"How many times do you have to fail at something before you reach the inescapable conclusion that your plan isn't going to work?" he questioned. "The Rasmussen poll affirms that Americans are waking up to the Obama-Pelosi agenda, and they are stocking up for what they think is an inevitable attack on gun rights."

Here are the poll results from Rassmussen.

Clarksdale Store Owner Kills Robber (MS)--"According to Captain Robbie Linley with Clarksdale Police, 31-year old Joey Barron held up a store with a handgun on the 1600-block of N. State Street. Barron took cash and some prescription drugs, and was then shot once by the store's owner."

Guard shoots man during attempted grocery store robbery (MD)--"An exchange of gunfire between a security guard and an alleged robber at the Mars Super Market on Maiden Choice Lane and Westland Boulevard, in Arbutus, Sunday evening left the alleged robber with several gunshot wounds, according to Baltimore County police."

Business owner shoots intruder (NC)--"The man who broke in threatened the store owner with a tire iron, Barnes said. The owner then shot the man in the leg, Barnes said."

Clerk kills would-be robber and critically wounds another, police say (KS)--"The clerk told them two men with long guns entered the store and demanded money ... When one of the suspects fired a shot, the clerk grabbed a handgun from behind the counter and shot both suspects."

Police: Shop Owner Shoots Would-Be Robber (OK)--"Police said they believe the clerk pulled out a gun from behind the counter just after the robbery began. They said the clerk told them they thought he hit the would-be robber at least once. No one else in the store was hurt."

I used to think this guy was weird.

Not anymore.

Via NRA ILA.

Via Gun Nuts Media.

This from Daniel Defense, "Daniel Defense is proud to announce the unveiling of our long anticipated M4 Carbine! This milestone marks the culmination of nearly a decade of dedication by Daniel Defense. Every aspect of this rifle was engineered with the tactical professional and shooting enthusiast in mind. Built to redefine the benchmark in small arms performance, this precision-crafted firearm will perform faithfully in any Military, Law Enforcement, Homeland Security, and Home or Personal Security Environment."

Comes with the following features:

• Standard Mil-Spec upper and lower
• enhanced magazine well
• Daniel Defense AR15 BUIS
• Magpul PMAG
• A2 flash hider

A follow up on the story of the poor women who was being stabbed to death by an ex boyfriend when the police showed up and accidentally shot her.

"A report from the state medical examiner says either the stab wounds or the gunshot could have killed Ulmer."

Really?

Interesting quandary for Second Amendment opponents indeed.

This from the Indy Star, "The Star's June 27 front-page report of the three women recently killed during domestic violence presents an interesting quandary for Second Amendment opponents ("3 wives killed; 3 men charged"). The report documents one woman being stabbed to death, another bludgeoned with a tire iron and hammer, and a third being strangled after being beaten. Protective orders against the perpetrators proved useless.

No firearms were reported present, much less used, during any of the murders. It's pure speculation, of course, but had the women exercised their constitutional right to firearm ownership and been properly trained, might they have been able to protect themselves in a situation where court orders and physical strength failed? To say their firearm might have been used against them is a moot point; they were murdered anyway."

Reminds me of the poor women who was stabbed to death by an ex boyfriend, who was violating a protection order in Fayetteville this week.

No one can know if she would have been able to get to a gun in time even if she was well trained and armed but at least she would have had more of a chance than any protection order or 9/11 call could have provided. In her case the police ultimately contributed to her death.

Heh.

"Got an old TV? Don’t shoot it! That’s the word from federal wilderness officials. The people at the Bureau of Land Management in Utah’s west desert are worried some folks might want to use their old sets for target practice."

Via Gun Pundit.

ATF is in dire need of reform.

This from Congressman Zack Space, "The bipartisan BATFE Reform and Firearms Modernization Act of 2009, which Space introduced with Rep. Steve King (IA-05), would replace the all-or-nothing rules for punishment with a graduated system, remove promotion guidelines that reward agents for the quantity of arrests and citations, and it would require the BATFE to establish intent behind minor violations. BATFE regulations now are so restrictive that if a person writes “y” instead of “yes” on a gun purchase form, the application is frequently rejected. 

• Create a system to provide more flexibility in punishing those who are found to have violated gun sales laws.
• Establish a solid legal requirement for determining the willful violation of the law.
• Create specific sentencing guidelines for dangerous felons convicted of a gun offense.
• Set limitations on the availability of electronic gun owner information to protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens.
• Allow security companies and ammunition manufacturers to purchase machine guns for product testing and international security personnel training.
• Ease the restriction on the importation of replacement parts for semiautomatic rifles.
• Direct that a suspension or fine be vacated if a court determines a licensee did not willfully violate the law with attorney’s fees awarded to cleared defendant.
• Direct that the number of warnings, amount of fines, or suspensions or revocations shall not be a factor in firing, promoting, or transferring agents.

Tell me about it.

This from David Codrea, "And Franken's position on guns?

"See, I've never owned a gun," Franken wrote in a smarmy attack on those who do in Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.

"I won't allow one in the house."

And then there's this, from the same book:

Now again, I’ve just been talking about death from gunshot wounds. Tragic. But not as damn expensive as the pesky four to six non-fatal gunshot injuries that occur for every fatal shooting and crowd our emergency rooms. Maybe that’s why the American Academy of Pediatrics supported the Brady Bill and has called for the ban of handguns and assault weapons.

And let us not forget Franken's attendance at a Brady Campaign/Million Mom March reception to honor Teddy Kennedy's wife for her work in exploiting children to advance citizen disarmament.

312 votes. And now this bad political joke will be played out on the rest of us.

For anyone who takes their right to keep and bear arms seriously, this is no laughing matter."

The pastor, who gun rights advocates like me have championed for his decision to encourage people to carry firearms to his church suddenly say's something that makes me want to wretch.

"Not everyone who owns a firearm is necessarily always responsible or safe with them. I didn’t know everybody who came to the celebration. There were people who were carrying loaded firearms who were not law enforcement. There were people who were legally carrying concealed weapons that were hot and ready to go. We don’t have a problem with that. Just because a person owns a firearm, doesn’t means they’re safe and responsible anymore than a person who owns a vehicle means they’re a safe and responsible driver."

Sweet.

"Pretty sure?"

If you want to take Civil Rights away from people, you better be more than just, "pretty sure."

Via the Firearm Blog.

This from Colt's manufacturing, "Colt's Manufacturing Company LLC has determined that the Slide Lock Safety and the Recoil Spring Guide Pad in certain Colt model pistols were not manufactured to Colt specifications and must be replaced.  All of these Colt models were sold after March 2007 and the range of serial numbers affected by this product recall is as follows:

1918 WWI Replica (O1918) From: 1001WWI To: 3431WWI

New Agent (O7810D) From: GT01001 To: GT04505

Combat Elite (O8011XSE) From: CG10000E To: CG11293E

Defender (O7000D) From: DR33036 To: DR35948

Talo Night Defender (O7000NDF) From: NDF0001 To: NDF0400911

WWI Replica (O1911) From: 4597WMK To: 5414WMK
  

An excellent documentary.

Check it out.

Like I said, "what guns?"

This from the Houston Chronicle, "In front of a run-down shack in north Houston, federal agents step from a government sedan into 102-degree heat and face a critical question: How can the woman living here buy four high-end handguns in one day?

The house is worth $35,000. A screen dangles by a wall-unit air conditioner. Porch swing slats are smashed, the smattering of grass is flattened by cars and burned yellow by sun.

“I’ll do the talking on this one,” agent Tim Sloan, of South Carolina, told partner Brian Tumiel, of New York.

Success on the front lines of a government blitz on gunrunners supplying Mexican drug cartels with Houston weaponry hinges on logging heavy miles and knocking on countless doors. Dozens of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — sent here from around the country — are needed to follow what ATF acting director Kenneth Melson described as a “massive number of investigative leads.”

All told, Mexican officials in 2008 asked federal agents to trace the origins of more than 7,500 firearms recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. Most of them were traced back to Texas, California and Arizona.

Among other things, the agents are combing neighborhoods and asking people about suspicious purchases as well as seeking explanations as to how their guns ended up used in murders, kidnappings and other crimes in Mexico.

“Ever turning up the heat on cartels, our law enforcement and military partners in the government of Mexico have been working more closely with the ATF by sharing information and intelligence,” Melson said Tuesday during a firearms-trafficking summit in New Mexico."

Im all for LE efforts to catch, "gun runners" but we have instruments under the law called, "warrants" for such questioning and searches. Also it seems to me that since most of the guns used in Mexican drug crimes comes from corrupt Mexican officials and members of their armed services they might want to target their investigation there instead of harrasing American gun owners.

This is a tough one.

Sometimes, "helping" a victim can actually hurt them, that's why we have good samaritan laws (so you can't be sued after the fact for trying to help). But these aren't everyday citizens, this was the government, trained LE professionals.

Should they be held to higher standards than we are?

This from 40/29, "Police are reacting to the revelation that their efforts to save 26-year-old Jill Ulmer actually contributed to her death.

Police said when officers arrived at the scene, Ulmer's ex-boyfriend, 41-year-old Ricky Anderson, was making stabbing motions over her body in her apartment. Officers opened fire to try to stop what was happening and save Ulmer's life. But one of the gunshots hit Ulmer and missed Anderson altogether, police said.

"Whenever you see someone with a knife in their hand making stabbing motions to a subject on the ground, it is a life-or-death situation. If they don't act, someone is going to die," said Cpl. Craig Stout with the Fayetteville Police Department.

Stout said a killing was in progress when two officers who got to Ulmer's apartment on Friday night. They broke a window and fired several shots to try to save Ulmer's life. Preliminary reports now indicate that one of the gunshots proved fatal, along with the several fatal stab wounds. The report also confirmed that Ulmer was pregnant.

"They were doing everything that they could, but unfortunately this happened. The stab wounds themselves would have been fatal as well as the gunshot," Stout said.

Police are conducting an investigation to determine if all procedures were followed properly. But Stout said the officers had just a moment to react and try to save a victim from losing her life.

"The split-second decisions that they had to make, under all the pressures that are going on at the scene, adrenaline and everything else -- they made the best determination that they could at the time," Stout said."

I'll remember this story the next time I hear the, "innocent bystander" canard in concealed carry debates.

UPDATE - Police Say Stray Bullet Hit Woman

Update - Dem Gaz has more, suspect was violating a protection order.

An update to the post from yesterday.

Sad, sad story.

This from Today's THV, "Police say after they broke into Clark's home and shot him, the suspects stole his Chevy Cavalier. Within minutes, police arrested four suspects, three are juveniles. They later released one, but are still searching for a fourth suspect. Neighbors say they have never seen the men before and became suspicious when the suspects approached Clark's house. The scene of cop cars shocked Priscilla Huff. She says it's a quiet neighborhood and is even more astonished to learn what happened. "He was a good man. He didn't bother nobody. He stayed to himself," says Huff. Little Rock Police Lieutenant Terry Hastings says four young men broke into the house at Lark Place and Eddy Lane 2 p.m. Tuesday. "The homeowner was at home and he came down the stairs to see what the noise was. They shot the homeowner and killed him," says Hastings. Neighbors say Clark had lived there for decades and was known for keeping an eye out for his neighbors."

Due to improperly reloaded ammunition.

Via The Firearm Blog.

The NSSF throws cold water on the ban on traditional hunting ammo in Kalifornia, in light of report that shows that levels of lead in the blood of California Condors is “inconclusive.”

Tragic.

This from Arkansas Matters, "Little Rock Police are on the scene of a burglary-turned-shooting they say has claimed the life of a homeowner this afternoon.

It happened around two o'clock on Lark Place, just south of Baseline Road on the southwest side of town.

Police say there are several suspects in the incident, and some of them are already in custody.

The homicide apparently ties in to a car found wrecked minutes later near South Wakefield Drive and Sheffield Street.
This is a developing story we will update as more information becomes available"

This from the Globe Investor, "There has been a surge in firearm sales since Barack Obama was elected last fall, apparently buoyed by fears that the new President's administration would launch restrictive gun laws – unthinkable to millions of citizens in a country whose Constitution preserves the right to bear arms.

The two publicly traded U.S. gun manufacturers have been basking in this blossoming market, reporting huge revenue and profit increases despite the recession.

Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. SWHC-Q saw its profit more than double to $7.4-million (U.S.) in the quarter ended April 30, while Sturm Ruger & Co. Inc. RGR-N reported that its first-quarter profit more than tripled from the year-earlier period to $5.8-million.

While several factors contributed to the glowing results, Sturm Ruger chief executive officer Michael Fifer told shareholders in a letter that “a substantial portion of the current demand appears to be based on two concerns: that the change in Federal administrations might lead to a so-called assault weapons ban, and general concerns over personal security and property protection as the economy worsens.”

Racist roots of gun control on display.

Via NRA ILA. 

This from the Black Gun Owners Association of South Africa press release, "Police are intimidating South African gun owners and defrauding citizens of their lawful property, black firearm owners said on Thursday.

Chairperson of the Black Gun Owners Association of South Africa (BGOASA), Abios Khoele, said the police had "legalised" theft and fraud.

"The association is shocked to find that the police are still insisting that they can fine and imprison one million firearm owners and continue to intimidate and defraud citizens of their lawful property," Khoele said in a statement.

He was reacting to the transitional period for the renewal of firearm licences in terms of the new Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000, which would end on June 30.

Discrimination

Khoele said members had been subjected to discriminatory and arbitrary rejections of applications, unacceptable delays and a lack of service delivery by the police in relation to the act.

He said the Ministry of Police had still not entered into discussions with BGOASA on its grievances.

"The SAPS seems not in the least interested in upholding the law or even respecting the constitution."

Khoele said the police must expect little help from the public if this was the way they treated law-abiding citizens.

"The police have deliberately withheld information at all levels about compensation and refused to pay anything whatsoever to those who've applied for it," he said, adding that firearms owners had not been properly notified and advised on all aspects of the law.

The association was planning a rally in Alexandria on Sunday to discuss the situation regarding the new Firearms Control Act."

Plenty of linky goodness and video at the link.

This from Reason Magazine,"Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down Washington, DC's draconian handgun ban for depriving individuals of their Second Amendment right "to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense." In a forceful, tightly argued opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia definitively settled the fact that the amendment protects an individual right, not a collective one.

To celebrate this historic decision, we take a look back at Reason's coverage of both the Heller case and its implications for the future of Second Amendment rights."