...is now available!

Thanks JP!

...is now available!!

(See "NRA Instructor Discounts" link above in header bar)
Thank you to Del for giving us the first one for 2014!

Despite the fact that we have the President, Biden, and countless others parading on TV talking about the importance of passing NEW gun crime legislation it appears that in 2013 we have almost the LOWEST number of gun crime prosecutions since 2005! In fact, there is only 1 year that is lower than 2013. There can only be one reason for this: the lack of "universal background checks" ... "assault weapons"? ... "hicapacity magazines"? Oh wait. That doesn't make sense!

In fact, what is seemingly insane is the logic that making ADDITIONAL gun laws will somehow make any difference when we don't even enforce the ones that we currently have.

Anyway, here is the article: LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/federal-gun-prosecutions-decline-despite-obama-executive-action-233021126.html

I reproduce it here before it gets rewritten/disappears like Biden's comments that Syria isn't a threat:

Federal gun charges decline despite Obama executive action
Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News
By Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News December 3, 2013 9:23 AM

Gun prosecutions [click pic to enlarge]

Federal gun prosecutions since 2005

More than a year after the Sandy Hook school shooting, President Obama’s directive to amp up prosecutions of federal gun laws hasn’t made much difference in how many people are charged with gun crimes.

U.S. attorneys that prosecute such cases charged 11,674 people with breaking federal gun laws in the fiscal year that ended in September, compared to 11,728 people the year before.

“The federal gun charge numbers are not an accurate reflection of the Department's efforts to investigate and prosecute gun violence,” said Allison Price, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, in a statement. “The fact that we may not prosecute a gun case in federal court does not mean the case is not prosecuted at all.”

Many gun cases are handled at the state and local level, she added. "Our priorities are to keep our kids safe, help prevent mass shootings, and reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country,” Price said.

Obama’s directive was one of 23 executive actions on gun violence he released last January, a month after the mass shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children dead. The president’s legislative efforts to limit ammunition magazine sizes and expand background checks to cover more gun sales died in the Senate a few months later.

The Justice Department says it has taken other steps to increase firearms enforcement, including forming a task force that advises federal prosecutors on how to reduce gun violence, and creating a database to allow law enforcement to trace weapons across jurisdictions.

But the figures show how ineffectual the president’s executive action was, at least in the short term, in ginning up prosecutions. Without new legislation or increased resources, U.S. attorneys are unlikely to prosecute more gun crimes, experts say.

The National Rifle Association and some Republican lawmakers have argued that the Justice Department does not adequately enforce gun laws that are already on the books. Even Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, formerly Obama’s chief of staff, said in October that the feds have done a “horrible” job of prosecuting gun crimes in Chicago .

Obama’s directive to the Justice Department to “maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime” was supposed to be an answer to those critics.

“It’s been deplorable and woeful, the lack of prosecutions for criminals who break gun laws,” Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, told Yahoo News.

The powerful gun group helped defeat a bill to expand background checks in April in part by arguing that the Obama administration rarely prosecutes people who claim they are eligible to buy a weapon and then are found by the National Instant Crime Background Check System (NICS) to be felons or otherwise disqualified. In 2010, the Feds prosecuted only 44 people who tried to illegally purchase a weapon — less than 1 percent of all people who failed their background checks. The department has instead focused on prosecuting people who violate more serious federal gun laws.

The Justice Department would not say whether that number has increased since 2010. The department has focused on “complex multi-defendant cases” since 2008, Price said.

Over 10 years, NICS checked 100 million gun purchases, and declined people 700,000 times for being felons or having another disqualifying factor on their records. Increasing prosecutions of those people is a rare patch of common ground between the NRA and gun control groups.

“It’s a complicated problem, and frankly, we’re the ones who first raised it,” said Mark Glaze, the president of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun control group backed by Michael Bloomberg. “Out of tens of thousands of people, only a relative handful are prosecuted.”

Glaze said many of these cases are difficult to prosecute because U.S. attorneys already are overworked, and using them to charge people with a “paperwork violation” can seem wasteful. Glaze wants 50 U.S. attorneys added to prosecute people who didn’t pass background checks but still tried to buy guns.

The organization also has suggested that the Justice Department conduct a study of a random sample of the 700,000 illegal sales that were declined to try to figure out if any factors predict which buyers commit crimes in the future. That way, U.S. attorneys could focus on prosecuting cases that showed those risk factors.

But others have argued that prosecuting people for failing their background checks is a waste of time in a legal landscape littered with gun traffickers and other more serious offenders. Some buyers are declined because they didn’t realize something on their record disqualified them from purchasing a weapon.

“The reason the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] doesn’t make it a high priority to target people who attempt to buy a gun from the gun dealer is they spend the majority of their time targeting violent offenders who use guns illegally,” said Mike Bouchard, the former assistant director for field operations of the ATF. “By taking that person and arresting them, it has little to no impact on violent crime.”

This prioritization of serious offenses predates Obama: The Justice Department under President George W. Bush also prosecuted well under 1 percent of people who attempted to buy a weapon and were declined.

Usually the news articles about active shooter situations or the school "mass slayings" (their words) are useless. In fact, they are filled with rhetoric that equates to gibberish. I have yet to have anyone explain to me how a "universal background check" would have stopped the Newtown Shooting. Forget the fact that such a requirement is volunatary and unenforceable. Or better yet explain to me how an "assault weapons ban" in state which already had one would have? But, I digress. Here is an article from Y! that makes good sense and is well written! I reproduce it here, before it disappears or is changed into something incoherent. LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/spike-in-mass-shootings-creates-demand-for-different-police-approach-132625638.html

I have bolded some of the points that I think are significant. Think about it. Police CAN'T get there fast enough. It is up to you to stop the attacker by any means necessary. Yes, you could try to stop them with a folding chair or fire extinguisher. A pistol would be better (assuming you can't have your rifle).

Article appears below in entirety:

 Spike in mass shootings creates demand for different police approach

The school in Newtown. The Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The movie theater in Aurora. America’s angst over shootings in public places is growing, and for good reason.

According to a study obtained by Yahoo News, rampages like the Washington Navy Yard and Los Angeles airport shootings have tripled in recent years.

The report, written by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University, will be published next week in the “FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,” a training publication for criminal justice professionals.

Researchers considered only active shootings in public settings where the primary motive appeared to be mass murder and at least one of the victims was unrelated to the suspect. Shootings during crimes such as bank robberies, drug deals, and gang violence were excluded.

“The rate at which these events occurred went from approximately one event every other month between 2000 and 2008 (5 per year) to more than one a month between 2009 and 2012 (almost 16 per year),” the researchers wrote. “Our tracking also indicates that this increased rate has continued into 2013.”

Other key findings from the 110 active-shooter attacks indentified by researchers:

Shootings most often take place at businesses (40 percent), followed by schools (29 percent), outdoors (19 percent) and other places (12 percent).

The median number of people shot is five. The median number killed is two.

Shooters are 94 percent male. The youngest was 13 and the oldest 88.

They often use handguns (59 percent), followed by rifles (26 percent), shotguns (8 percent) and unknown weapons (7 percent). In 33 percent of the cases, the gunman used multiple weapons. In 7 percent of the shootings the gunman wore body armor.

The average median time for police to respond to these incidents (where data was available) is three minutes.

Despite the hurried police response time, the study found that almost half of the active shootings are over before officers arrive.

“This points to the phenomenal speed with which these events occur,” the researchers wrote.

Changing police protocols

The FBI formed a team to study active shootings after the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Among other initiatives, the agency has adopted an active-shooter training, which was developed at Texas State University after the 1999 Columbine High School killings in Colorado. The program’s core course prepares first responders to isolate, distract and stop active shooters as fast as possible.

According to the new study, patrol officers, who are usually the first on the scene, had to use force to stop the gunman in nearly a third of the attacks.

“These events unfold very quickly,” said Katherine Schweit, a special agent who heads the FBI’s active shooter team. “We know that if they go to the threat, they save lives.”

The training is a major shift in police protocol. Since the 1970s, many departments conditioned street cops to contain the scene and wait for more skilled tactical officers to arrive.

“You were supposed to call the SWAT team to come handle the problem,” Terry Nichols, a former police officer now an assistant director at ALERRT, told Yahoo News.

That was the accepted strategy in 1999 when two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine. The shooters took only 16 minutes to kill 13 people and wound 21 others. But it took three hours and 14 minutes to find the gunmen, who had committed suicide. The SWAT team’s methodical response was later criticized as being too slow.

“Everything has changed. It’s now, get in there and go,” Nichols said. “Time is absolutely of the essence.”

The new approach proved vital on Dec. 13, 2013, when a heavily armed student carrying a shotgun, machete and three Molotov cocktails stormed into Arapahoe High School in suburban Denver. Police said the gunman, who was looking to harm his debate coach, shot a fellow student but then committed suicide when he realized a deputy assigned to the school and a security guard were closing in.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said the suspect stopped firing on others and turned his weapon on himself 80 seconds after entering the school.

"We believe that the response from the school resource officer and from the unarmed school security officer was absolutely critical to the fact we did not have additional injury and or death," Robinson told reporters.

In addition to tactical maneuvers for swiftly ending the threat, the ALERRT program also teaches police medical skills like how to apply a tourniquet.

“Law enforcement officers must be trained to provide point of injury care, quickly interface with EMS and fire and remove wounded victims to high levels of care,” Nichols said.

Sandy Hook ‘turned the tables’

The gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary committed suicide about a minute before officers reached him, but not before killing 20 first-graders and six adult staffers.

“It just turned the tables for everybody,” said Adam Madsen, a veteran police officer in Roy, Utah. “It opened everyone’s eyes when little kids were attacked.”

Madsen said he knows of at least two dozen departments in northern Utah that are on the waitlist for the ALERRT training, which puts officers through lifelike scenarios with active shooters and mass casualties.

“Before Sandy Hook we had a waitlist of 25 to 30 agencies wanting the training,” Nichols said. “Now we run anywhere from 250 to 300. It’s been overwhelming.”

The course, which is offered to departments at no cost, is funded by grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the FBI and and the state of Texas. More than 100 FBI agents have also undergone advanced instruction so that they can help scale the course across the country.

“The faster and more we can do, the better,” Schweit said. “We feel it is a very urgent matter. Every day I get notices about potential active -hooter situations, it seems.”

What citizens can do

While many attackers commit suicide, the new study states potential victims stopped the attacker in 17 cases that ended before officers arrived.

“This tells us that citizens and bystanders have a very real and active role in stopping these events,” Nichols said. “If we can properly prepare and educate civilians, maybe we can get to where 90 percent are stopped by civilians long before the police arrive.”

The FBI has been busy promoting instructional videos and literature to educate the public on workplace and other scenarios.

“Run, hide and fight are your essential options in a shooting situation,” Schweit said. “The better prepared civilians are, the better they’ll be able to respond themselves.”

My passes are here! Shot Show 2014 here we come. As you may be able to tell I am a little excited! It is our first Shot Show.
Oh, and ...

Happy New Year All!

Be safe!

Did I forget to mention that I will be at Shot Show this year?
We got approved as internet media and will be attending the entire week including Media Day!
There is also a TweetUp on that Monday-ping me if you are going to be there too.

Any requests for booths you would like me to drop by? I will be working out my agenda shortly.
So far I have: NCStarOptics, Glock, and SIG.

Anywhere except for the company that has an "&" in their name. I wouldn't want their lawyers to have to contact me again.

Interested in going to SHOT yourself? I am considering adding additional authors next year. If you have, or are interested in creating, original content please drop me a line!

It has been about 3 months but my two M1 Garands have arrived from CMP! Only one is mine (the other is a gift for someone who deserves one). I am very excited as the M1 Garand is one of the finest weapons ever designed (as someone famous once said). The two that I ordered were H&R Service Grades. I was pleasantly surprised at the nice CMP stamped hard cases that they now come in.

My last Garand was a Springfield Service Grade. To be honest it (at least the wood) was in better shape. However, these two definitely seemed more broken in (smoother) although quite a bit more used. The foreends had a definite darker stain than normal. I am not sure if that is a CMP thing, but I like it.

Anyway, without adieu - some pics...

I am pleased to announce that we are now a proud member of the NSSF (National Shooting Sports Foundation).
We share common goals - the preservation of the shooting sports, encourage safety & training, and promote firearms to our future generations through lobbying and research.

I don't usually criticize other gun bloggers, but I feel that I must when I see something posted that I think is just wrong. The article is titled: "Why Many Agencies are Switching to the 9mm." This set my expectations too high. Maybe I am just grumpy today or just tired of the endless caliber wars/stopping power debates on the internet. Or maybe it is because he calls law enforcement adoption of the 40S&W a conspiracy (read on!)

This article which is actually an opinion piece on why he carries 9mm and feels justified because some law enforcement have switched back to 9mm. For the record, a lot of LE never stopped. I would be surprised if 9mm isn't the #2 carried LE round. Here is the link to the article I am quoting: http://www.usacarry.com/why-agencies-switching-9mm/?utm_source=USA+Carry&utm_campaign=0282c2f3fb-Why+Many+Agencies+are+Switching+to+the+9mm&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2bd92c16fa-0282c2f3fb-47605009.

With the title "Why Many Agencies are Switching to the 9mm" I was expecting an article about the possible shift in law enforcement to 9mm. I have been predicting it for a while due to ammo availability and cost. If you were looking for facts or figures - there aren't any. The law enforcement references are anecdotal at best:

The fact is, law enforcement in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Colorado are just a few of the places switching.

That doesn't really help. That doesn't look like "many" to me. Is there actually a shift. We will never know from this because that's as specific as he gets.

Not quoted, but I do absolutely agree with the logic he gives: more capacity, lower recoil, less expensive ammo. And of course I agree with shot placement being king.

After that he loses me:

I’ve been carrying 9mm for years and have had plenty of “macho” folks comment to me that I carry a “weaker” round. However, my so-called “weaker” round is a 124-grain Speer Gold Dot, which I’m confident will stop any threat I may encounter. So if you’ve been thinking of switching to a 9mm, don’t let others talk you out of it and realize that many law enforcement agencies are now “seeing the light” and coming back to the 9mm too.

Uh, what? I don't care what you carry or what other people think about what you carry. Why do YOU care? Caliber-wars are silly. What happened to this being about law enforcement?? The last sentence is a vague tie-in that I guess we are to presume that if its good enough for some non-identified law enforcement agencies ("many") that it must be good enough for us? Or perhaps vice versa - since I carry it, 9mm is good enough for LEAs? Well, if it makes the author feel better I think he has chosen a very good round.

The article gets even weirder:

"In fact, the only reason that the police switched from 9mm to .40 in the first place was because of the Assault Weapons ban of 1994. The 1994 law banned the production of high capacity magazines, however, you could still sell “pre-ban” magazines. So the gun manufacturers went to police departments and offered big incentives to upgrade to the .40 so they could get the departments to turn in the high capacity 9mm magazines that they could resell for a huge profit.

Really? The "ONLY" reason? Wow.
The company known as "S&W" (a registered trademark which I am not affiliated with) and Winchester designed the 40S&W in 1990. The 40S&W was actually predated by several 40-caliber rounds that didn't meet with commercial success. My favorite is the .41AE (Action Express) designed by Evan Whildin of Action Arms Ltd (former importers of Uzi) back in 1986! And even before that (in the 70s) there was the 40G&A. I guess according to the author that all these folks were psychic to the Assault Weapons Ban that would happen, much later, in 1994.

Anyway, not to get into the "stopping power" debate, let's just say there were other reasons for the 40S&W and its adoption.

A quick one (reason 1), which is not conducive to the author's entire argument, is the famous "Miami FBI Shootout" and its famous "that-should-have-been-fatal" shot. That incident caused the FBI to reevaluate and drop the 9mm as the agency adopted round.

That event ended up giving us the mighty 10mm as the FBI and other agencies official round. Since the FBI 10mm was downloaded anyway folks figured that they could squeeze it into a smaller package and the 40S&W was born. HEY...that's two reasons that the .40S&W came to be! (reason 2)

I am not going to even comment on the magazine statements. Pure conjecture at best. But, if you count it, it makes reason 3! :)

But, for reason #4 the 40 was adopted so rapidly by law enforcement (and my personal belief) is timing. High-capacity semi's were coming of age (and reliable) and revolvers for law enforcement had been on its way out since the mid to late 80's. This spawned the great 9 vs 45 aka light vs fast aka capacity caliber wars. The 40S&W was right smack in the middle - capacity, bullet weight, bullet diameter, and fit into (modified) smaller 9mm framed pistols unlike the 10mm and 45ACP which are built on larger platforms. A superb compromise and a round that works! What you will not find is anyone saying that the 40 is ineffective and that they are switching back to 9mm.

To cement his point the author concludes:

In other words, it wasn’t because the .40 was a miraculous new round, it’s because gun manufacturers wanted to make money and so they made the police departments an offer they couldn’t resist.

Maybe I am too sensitive but to me that reads like he is insulting the firearms industry by claiming a conspiracy, and basically calling law enforcement gullible. You know that law enforcement were exempt from the magazine ban right? They could have kept the 9mm. Manufacturers could have just replaced all their mags with LE stamped ones. No, no, no, it probably was easier, quicker, and cheaper to make entirely new mags for them. Whatever.

My take on this whole 9mm vs 40 vs 45 debate? Simple...
Bullet technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years. Gone are the days of the "picky" auto-loader that wouldn't feed HydraShoks (well, mostly gone)!

With equal quality bullets defensive rounds are pretty much equal. The bulk of ballistic data (take your pick of sources: shootings, cadaver analysis, ballistic gel tests) indicates that 9mm, 40S&W, 357Sig, and 45ACP ALL perform very closely. So, carry what you want! Just don't skimp on the ammo, if you can find it. And goodness, don't care what other people think! Just practice as much as you can. A hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .45, or that 10mm you left at home.

Of course, we are talking about the best defensive ammo. What happens if you only have hardball? As they say in the car motor world: There ain't no replacement for displacement! LOL

Remember when anti-gunners and main stream media mocked the NRA and anyone that supported the belief that armed guards or police at schools or Heaven forbid allowed teachers to arm themselves?

When NRA's Wayne LaPierre held that news conference you would think that the NRA had suggested that all teachers and students be forced to carry a gun.

Well, here we go very quietly people are beginning to agree. In a previous post I cited where the Interpol Chief said that to combat terrorism that an armed citizenry was one of the two solutions (the other was lockdown). Now here is another agreement that won't be covered in the news, but at least they are not attacked as a right wing nut job (RWNJ).

I post it here should it disappear from existence. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/27/nevada-school-shooting-police-review/3281441/

Below are the highlights in case you don't want to read the whole article:

Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said school shootings happen quickly, and an "ideal scenario" would be to have an officer based at every school. But he acknowledged there are financial limitations to that plan.

"It's difficult to be effective when you're patrolling," he said. "The majority of the shootings are over before outside law enforcement can respond. If you're waiting for outside help, the shooting is over, it's such a short time frame.

Yeah, umm...isn't that EXACTLY what the NRA has been saying?????
And funding....wasn't the NRA offering to help setup and fund a national progam????
How outrageous.
That "gun free zone" sign not working? Weird.

RENO — Millions of dollars worth of new security fencing, hundreds of hours of training and dozens of school police officers could not stop the unimaginable at Sparks (Nev.) Middle School last week — a student with a gun who was willing to use it.

For unknown reasons, 12-year-old Jose Reyes arrived at the schoolyard early Monday with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and opened fire at math teacher Michael Landsberry and two students. Landsberry died at the scene, and Reyes fatally shot himself in the head.

By most accounts, the response by school officials and local law enforcement helped to limit the number of injuries and fatalities.

Washoe County (Nev.) School District Police Chief Mike Mieras said they'll review what happened to see whether any changes to protocols are needed for dealing with violence at the district's 93 schools.

"Schools are still the safest place for kids to be," said Mieras. "We had procedures in place, and the teachers stepped up. But every time there's an incident here or anywhere in the nation, we look at what happened and ask ourselves, 'What do we have in place and what should we do differently?'

"You can always improve on everything," he said.

Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said school shootings happen quickly, and an "ideal scenario" would be to have an officer based at every school. But he acknowledged there are financial limitations to that plan.

"It's difficult to be effective when you're patrolling," he said. "The majority of the shootings are over before outside law enforcement can respond. If you're waiting for outside help, the shooting is over, it's such a short time frame.

“We had procedures in place, and the teachers stepped up. But every time there's an incident here or anywhere in the nation, we look at what happened and ask ourselves, 'What do we have in place and what should we do differently?'”
— Police Chief Mike Mieras, Washoe County (Nev.) School District
"When someone has made up their mind that they're going to take someone else's life, that is the most difficult thing for us to stop."

The school district's police force has 38 officers who oversee 118 school sites. One officer is in charge of patrolling five schools in the Sparks Middle School area, Mieras said. The district only has officers on-campus at the high schools, he said. Officers patrol around the elementary and middle schools, he said.

When asked whether his force is understaffed, Mieras said "in an ideal world" he would have more officers, but from his perspective, "we are ahead of the game" in terms of providing a safe environment for children.

Like Washoe County, most school districts across the country have been unable to post an officer at every school, Canady said. The school resource officers' association has counted about 98,000 school buildings in the country, while there are roughly 10,000 to 14,000 school officers, he said.

The Washoe school district has made a list of safety improvements in recent years that, coupled with officers, keep the campuses safe, Mieras said. These include a $4.8 million fencing project and new locks on all doors. They've also implemented regular emergency response training sessions for staff.

STORY: Nevada school shooting victim was 'trained to help'

When shots rang out at the middle school, the reaction began within seconds:

• The Sparks Police dispatchers handled a flood of calls for help while also trying to obtain information about the exact location of the shooter.

• A Sparks police and a school patrol officer arrived at the scene within three minutes of the initial call and were soon aided by Reno police, Washoe County Sheriff's deputies and Nevada Highway Patrol.

• School staff reacted by placing the school in lock down, shuttling the students to a secure location.

GAN NEVADA SCHOOL SHOOTING 102713 2
A police officer stops traffic Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, after the shooting at Sparks Middle School.(Photo: David Calvert, Getty Images)
Math teacher Joe Paraz told a 911 dispatcher that students had run inside the building saying they "had a gun pointed at them, so we locked down the building," according to the emergency response tapes. The dispatcher assured Paraz that police, fire and medical personnel were on the way.

"As long as you guys know (about the shooting), we're happy," Paraz told the dispatcher.

Sparks police Lt. Erick Thomas said the fact that the shooting occurred at 7:16 a.m. meant that more personnel were on duty — the day-shift begins work at 6 a.m. and graveyard shift gets off at 8 a.m.

"It was helpful to have that overlap," he said.

As officers from different agencies arrived, they began communicating on one radio channel as they tried to identify the location of the violence, surround that area and then begin to evacuate those who were trapped in and around the school, he said. All have ongoing "active shooter" training so their response was synchronized.

Agents stationed in Reno, Nev., from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were not on the scene in Sparks, though they have always responded to mass shootings in the region.

Identifying warning signs of potential violence

Signs that a child may be troubled and possibly violent:

• Has a violent past and/or has brought a weapon to school

• Has tantrums and outbursts of anger and makes violent threats when angry

• Exhibits antisocial behaviors from a young age and has few or no close friends

• Is abusive to animals

• Is preoccupied with weapons or violence

• Has been a victim of abuse or neglect, and/or has witnessed domestic abuse or violence

• Lacks proper adult supervision

Sources: Guide for Preventing and Responding to School Violence, International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Bureau of Justice Assistance