Lots of sad clowns among the "We don't want to take your guns

(as long as you're paying attention) boobs, as Sebastian notes.

“People do not want to be on the wrong side of this particular cultural divide,” said Rep. David Price, D-N.C., who supports tougher gun controls. “It’s too bad there’s not a more responsible national organization” to counteract the NRA, he said.

Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. Even I wouldn’t be that harsh. The Brady’s were worthy opponents in their heyday, it’s just that once the grass roots gun owners got pissed off and fired up, they had nothing to counter it.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California is another Democrat frustrated by the gun debate. When she asks colleagues why they don’t support tougher restrictions, she said, they reply, “You just don’t get it, Woolsey. You don’t have our districts.”

Now, as someone in comments points out, that "You don't have our districts" comment could be taken one of two ways:
It could mean they understand the people who elected them don't like the idea, or
It could mean they're standard "I want to stay in this office no matter what" politicians who won't vote for gun bans and restrictions unless they think it won't affect their future election chances to do so.
If it's the latter, those Democrats need to be watched closely, and reminded at every opportunity that voting for personal disarmament/restriction laws will get their fat ass thrown out of that office at the first opportunity.


Uncle points to this article on more women buying firearms and taking carry classes, which fits right in with the above: when women realize that a gun can be the best self-defense tool they can have, and they want them, they won't look kindly on politicians who want to take them away.


On a personal note, a while back I mentioned my daughter is going to New Orleans this summer on vacation, causing various people to enter comments along the lines of "You're letting her go THERE?!?" Well, a few days ago at the range I was speaking with one of the staff who used to be with the U.S. Marshall's Service. I mentioned it to her, and she told me the 'suggestions' her group had been given a couple of years back when they had a meeting down there: "Stay on brightly-lit streets, and stay in groups of at least three if possible" among others. And her first question: "Does she have a gun?" When I said yes, gun and a carry permit, she looked relieved. And yes, I did report this to daughter.

Clayton Cramer has two posts I'll point to: first, on the idiotic reaction of a bunch of locals to an armed robber being killed:
About 10 minutes before 6 p.m., Ersland said, two robbers wearing ski masks waited for someone to leave the pharmacy and then grabbed the open door and threw down a board to stop the door from closing.

The robbers went in cursing and yelling, ordering employees to give them money and drugs, Ersland said.

Two women who were working behind the counter ran for a back room where they would be safe, but Ersland said he couldn’t run. Ersland said he’s a veteran with disabilities from wounds he received in Operation Desert Storm, wears a cumbersome back brace and just had his latest back surgery six weeks ago.

"All of a sudden, they started shooting,” he said. "They were attempting to kill me, but they didn’t know I had a gun. They said, ‘You’re gonna die.’ That’s when one of them shot at me, and that’s when he got my hand.”
Ersland managed to shoot one goblin, who expired from wounds received, and ran the other off. Also their driver:
Outside the pharmacy, he said he saw what he thought was a third black male in a car with the engine running and reaching for what appeared to be a shotgun.

"I pulled out my ‘Judge’ and pointed it right between his eyes and he floored it,” Ersland said.
So you've got three people planning an armed robbery for money and drugs, and when people didn't cooperate(i.e., cower and plead) started trying to kill everyone; good guy fights back and wins. So what's the downside?
He also recalls the angry voices of people who gathered outside the pharmacy Tuesday night, shouting that he was a racist who unnecessarily took a life of the Seeworth Academy charter school student, Antwun Parker.

"There were a lot of black people gathered out there yelling and everything at my boss,” Ersland said.
These people are, to put it bluntly, a bunch of fucking idiots, semi-pro race warlord poverty pimps. Never mind the robbery, never mind trying to kill everyone in the store, a nasty white man had the nerve to defend himself and his employees and, because the dirtbags were black, that makes him a 'racist'. I'll bet you that if someone of his staff had been injured or killed and he decided to move the pharmacy, these same bastards would be calling him a racist for moving. Kind of like the idiots after the King riots in LA who burned and looted all the stores, and then whined and bitched because there was no place left to cash their welfare checks.

On the off-chance that one of you morons happens to run across this, I'll spell it out: when you offer violence to someone, they don't really care what color your skin is; they care about protecting themselves and those who depend on them. So screw you, you miserable bigots.


Next, he notes more on the sad clowns in the gun-ban movement:
A majority of Democrats in the House and Senate still typically come down on the side of gun control. But the fact that they have been outmaneuvered by Republicans on gun issues is rooted in the fact that recently swollen Democratic ranks include senators and House members who represent Western states and more rural areas where gun ownership is popular and deemed sacrosanct.

When those Democrats team up with Republicans, they constitute a clear majority in the House and Senate.
Translation: those Democrats ran saying they would, among other things, not strike at the 2nd Amendment, and they know damn well what'll happen if they do. Plus, a lot of those western and rural area Reps and Senators probably do strongly support the 2nd; some probably only got support from the national level Evil Party because they desperately wanted more 'D' labels in Congress, and right now I bet some of the Evil Party bigshots are regretting it.

I'll throw in another thought: a lot of those first-time Reps and Sens are catching hell over the bullcrap Obama & Co. have pushed on the budget, and the tea parties clued them in to just how pissed-off people are; you think they want to piss them off even more just to make Pelosi and Reid and Obama happy?


Ok, there's a third: he notes some information on the sideshow of 'stopping southbound guns at the border:
The findings? Wads of U.S. currency headed for Mexico, wedged into car doors, stuffed under mattresses, taped onto torsos, were sniffed out by dogs, seized by agents and locked away for possible investigations. No guns were found as the reporters watched; they rarely are.

"I do not believe we can even make a dent in [southbound smuggling] because that assumes the cartels are complete idiots, which they're not. Why in the world would they try to smuggle weapons and currency through a checkpoint when there are so many other options?" said Border Patrol Agent T.J. Bonner, president of the agents' union.
Why, indeed.

Also, note this on things seized March 12 to April 30:
• Fifty-one pieces of ammunition, weapons parts and guns, a fraction of the 2,000 weapons the Mexican government estimates are smuggled south every day.
We already know the Mexican government is full of crap. And 'pieces of ammunition, weapons parts', that sounds suspicious as hell. It's been noted that having a fired .22 casing in your vehicle will cause the Mexicans to arrest you; are they counting things like that, or a loose cartridge in this? Wouldn't surprise me. And 'weapons parts', that's an awful wide possible category; that could include a spring someone claims is a recoil or mag spring, for instance. These may be legitimate seizures, but until I know more I'd be very suspicious of wording like this.


Another personal note: for most practice I use handloads, with a mag or so of carry-equivalent ammo each session; keeps costs down and is easier on my hands. For quite a while I was using Hodgedon Clays powder, but I was running into a problem: I'd get some cartridges that had obviously gotten less powder, causing problems. I don't blame the press, it's that powder, I ran into the same thing using my Hornady powder measure and the single-stage press. With the single-stage, as charging preceeded setting a bullet in each case before seating you could hold the loading block up and look at powder levels to see if any looked a touch low, with the Dillon that's not an option. It did give some failure-drill practice when something didn't eject fully, but it was a pain. So I looked in the book and decided to try AA#5; it's a ball powder, which usually meters much more smoothly. About 150 rounds later, problem solved.

I'll note that other powders are as bad or worse than Clays. Unique, the powder I use for the factory-equivalent carry loads, is about as bad. I load those on the single-stage specifically so I can look at the cases and spot any low charges and re-throw them.

I think that about wraps it up for tonight.