Monthly Archives: April 2014
Shooting Fundamentals – Long-Range Rifle Shooting Technique
Shooting Fundamentals – Long-Range Rifle Shooting Technique
Ryan Cleckner reviews proper shooting technique. A stable platform, sight alignment, sight picture and trigger control are key fundamentals to shooting properly. (NSSF Video)
AR-15 Cleaning and Maintenance
AR-15 Cleaning and Maintenance – NSSF Shooting Sportscast
Gunsite Academy instructor and gunsmith Cory Trapp discusses the proper way to clean and maintain the AR-15 carbine. (NSSF Video)
Bloomberg to mount $50 million NRA challenge
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to spend $50 million this year through his new group Everytown for Gun Safety to counter the influence of the National Rifle Association, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Women, and more particularly moms, will be the key demographic in the outreach to curb gun violence, Everytown for Gun Safety spokeswoman Erika Soto Lamb told CNN.
The news was first reported by The New York Times.
“You’ve got to work at it piece by piece,” Bloomberg told the newspaper. “One mom and another mom. You’ve got to wear them down until they finally say, ‘Enough.’ “
The organization will mimic tactics used by the NRA that have influenced elected officials, from local city councils to Washington.
Everytown has a goal of enrolling an additional 2.5 million members across the country to implement its grass-roots education efforts. The group will focus on 15 states that have liberal gun laws, including Texas, Montana and Indiana. States that have advanced gun control initiatives will also receive attention, including Colorado and Washington.
But influencing those in charge of writing gun policy will be the ultimate goal of the organization, which is also creating a political action committee to elect gun safety candidates to office.
Like the NRA, the organization will submit a candidates questionnaire and keep a score card of how elected officials vote on gun-related issues. They aim to motivate a million pro-gun safety voters to go to the polls in November.
The real goal will be to match the NRA’s financial heft. The organization has spent more than $30 million in lobbying since 1998, and its political action committee has spent nearly $150 million on campaigns since 1990. Already in the first two months of 2014, which is an election year, the powerful gun group has raised $14 million, according to public data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
“I don’t want to lay blame anywhere, but it is a reality that the gun lobby has an incredible amount of political influence with members of Congress in Washington,” Mark Kelly, a prominent gun control advocate, told CNN in December. Kelly’s wife is former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely wounded in a shooting in Arizona in 2011.
“I mean, it’s very clear that many members take their cues on this issue from the gun lobby,” he said.
The NRA has little to say about Bloomberg’s pledge, for now.
“See you in Indianapolis next week. We’ll have a lot more to say then,” spokesman Andrew Arulanandam told CNN. He was referring to the group’s annual conference, which takes place next week in Indianapolis.
Everytown for Gun Safety will serve as an umbrella organization for Bloomberg’s two gun control groups: Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
Bloomberg’s activism for gun safety increased after repeated mass shootings. His efforts to expand background checks after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School failed to pass either the House or the Senate, despite pressure from the Obama administration.
The organization wants to expand background checks, keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, crack down on gun trafficking and educate parents about the safe storage of guns.
Read more: http://www.kcra.com/national/Bloomberg-to-mount-50-million-NRA-challenge/25505842#ixzz2z4A1JngJ
John Browning Revolutionized The Firearms Industry
John M. Browning was a man who knew how to deliver.
When Winchester Repeating Arms wanted new firearms, he worked intensively for two years starting in October 1884 and produced 11 innovative designs. Other inventors would take two years to develop a single gun.
“If there was ever a man who was focused and remained that way until a project was completed, it was John,” Scott Grange, director of public relations and shooting promotions for Browning/Winchester Repeating Arms, told IBD.
“His creativity and focus was superhuman, and nothing could seem to distract him.”
Browning eventually held 128 patents covering 80 guns, including the legendary Model 1892 lever-action repeating rifle (Annie Oakley’s favorite), the Colt .45 automatic pistol (which became the standard U.S. military sidearm) and the .50 Browning machine gun that armed millions of Allied infantry, tanks and aircraft in World War II.
Utah Rise
Browning (1855-1926) grew up in the pioneer town of Ogden in northern Utah. His father was a gunsmith, and young John was able to take a rifle apart and put it back together by age 6.
A year later he started working in the family shop, and at 10 he made his first rifle from scraps.
Browning’s Keys
- Called by some the No. 1 firearms inventor.
- Overcame: Resistance to innovation.
- Lesson: Everything can be improved.
- “Browning was the Leonardo da Vinci of firearms, responsible for many of the big breakthroughs,” said Bill Doyle, co-author of “American Gun.”
When John was 13, a customer came in with a damaged rifle and left it after buying a reconditioned one. “I decided to take the gun apart down to the last small screw, even though the parts were mashed and twisted together,” Browning recalled. “I examined each and discovered that there wasn’t one I couldn’t make myself.”
He attended school until 15, then worked full time in the family business doing repairs and producing custom firearms. When his father died, 23-year-old John took charge and a year later received his first patent, for a superior single-shot rifle. With his younger brother, Matthew, as a partner, he set up a factory where they could turn out two a day. They were on the way to building Browning Arms Co.
In 1883, a salesman for Winchester Repeating Arms of New Haven, Conn., bought a secondhand rifle from a gun shop in the area and gave it to the vice president, T.G. Bennett.
Bennett was so impressed, he went all the way to Ogden and offered $10,000 — worth $236,000 today — for the gun rights.
Deal. “John established a two-decade-long business relationship with the largest firearms manufacturer in the country on a handshake,” said Grange.
Browning’s .45-caliber gun was a crucial sidearm for the U.S. Army. View Enlarged Image
The Browning Model 1885 single-shot rifle was in production for 35 years (model numbers were based on the year introduced). It was popular with hunters because of its accuracy and reliability and caused the demise of all competitors.
While that was in process, Browning showed Bennett his new repeating rifle, for which Winchester paid an astounding $50,000, worth $2 million now. This became the Model 1886 that was made for 70 years and appeared in countless Western movies.
Then came Browning’s 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun that became a favorite of lawmen and outlaws in the Wild West.
“He was a hands-on manager of the entire process of gunmaking, field-testing every experimental gun as a hunter and skilled marksman and supervising the manufacturing,” said David Miller, author of “The History of Browning Firearms.” “He was the complete man: inventor, engineer, entrepreneur.”
Then in 1887, Browning did the unusual at age 32: He agreed to become a missionary for his church in the South, leaving his wife and son home for two years. When he returned, he turned day-to-day management of the business over to his brothers so he could concentrate on new designs.
Among the most important:
• 1890 pump-action .22-caliber rifle, which sold 2 million.
• 1893 pump-action shotgun, which was used by U.S. soldiers in close combat during World WarI.
• 1894 lever-action repeating rifle, ahead in using smokeless powder cartridges and the most popular hunting rifle, selling 7 million.
• 1895 lever-action repeating rifle, which was Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite for hunting big game and used by the U.S. in the Spanish-American War and by the Russians in World War I.
Good Move
On the eve of the 20th century, Browning noticed that when a friend fired a rifle, tall weeds near the muzzle were moved by the energy released. He thought he could harness that energy to automate loading the next round. He worked on this for the next decade, collecting patents.
“In 1899, Browning showed Bennett a prototype of his most daring innovation, an automatically self-loading shotgun,” wrote Curt Gentry and John Browning (the inventor’s son) in “John M. Browning: American Gunmaker.” “After countless obstacles mastering the principles of automatic arms, his patents for this would give him a monopoly longer than any other popular gun in history. No sporting arm ever made a more sensational entry into the market.”
Knowing he had a major winner, Browning for the first time demanded a royalty. That meant Bennett had to manufacture it — and since he thought it was too radical, he wouldn’t take the risk.
Furious, Browning took his revolutionary gun to Belgium’s Fabrique Nationale, which began marketing the automatic shotgun in 1904 for the overseas market. Remington Arms Co. of Ilion, N.Y., made it for the U.S. starting in 1906.
Winning Grip
A few years later, Browning made a deal with Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Co. (now Colt’s Manufacturing Co.) of Hartford, Conn., for his most important pistol: the Colt .45 automatic.
“This became the M1911, the official sidearm of the U.S. military until 1985, when it was replaced by the M9 Beretta,” said Bill Doyle, co-author with the late Chris Kyle of “American Gun.” “It is powerful, as well as simple, reliable and easy to manufacture. Sgt. Alvin York used one to capture 132 Germans in World War I. It armed our soldiers during the assault on Guadalcanal and on D-Day in World War II and stopped human wave attacks in Korea. Many special ops warriors continue to prefer it.”
R.L. Wilson, author of “Colt: An American Legend” and “Winchester: An American Legend,” the company histories, said, “Without the unique input of John Browning, both Colt and Winchester would not have been able to exercise their remarkable dominance of the firearms field for so many decades.”
At the top of the list of his many feats in the ensuing years was his M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun. For this and the rights to make the .45-caliber automatic pistol and the Browning automatic rife, he patriotically accepted $750,000 from the U.S. government in 1917 in lieu of royalties.
During World War II, such royalties would have amounted to $13 million (worth $166 million today).
He would not live to see the M2’s impact. Two million were produced in America, and the placement of the .303 version on Hurricane fighters helped determine the outcome of the Battle of Britain.
George Chinn wrote in “The Machine Gun”: “Students of warfare are generally in agreement that this was the most far-reaching single military decision made in the 20th century.”
Browning made 61 trips to Liege, Belgium, to oversee production and develop new products. He died at his workbench there at age 71, and his body was escorted by military guard to Ogden, where the secretary of war gave the eulogy.
Miller estimates that 40 million firearms have been sold that originated with Browning’s designs, many of which can be seen at the John M. Browning Arms Museum in Ogden.
Today, Browning Arms is a subsidiary of the Belgian outfit now called FN Herstal and makes the Winchester brand by license after the firm went bankrupt in 1992.
Can you shoulder an AR pistol? The ATF say ‘Yes’
Can you shoulder an AR pistol? The ATF say ‘Yes’
Can you shoulder an AR pistol? That’s the question everyone has asked following the introduction of the SIG pistol brace, a device that allows shooters to strap an AR pistol to their arm for increased stability while shooting one-handed.
The arm brace was developed specifically for shooters with disabilities, soldiers and veterans specifically, although some users have reported a potentially serious flaw that allows people to use it like a padded rubber buttstock.
The SB-15 “Stabilizing Brace” is made to look like a rifle stock and users have found that it works pretty well as one. The critical aspect of this is that the ATF makes a distinction between pistols and short-barreled rifles, with AR pistol being relatively un-regulated and short-barreled rifles, or SBRs, requiring registration, fingerprinting and a $200 tax stamp.
SIG includes an ATF letter with every arm brace that states that the device is not a buttstock and using in conjunction with a rifle-based pistol does not make it an SBR. But that left users asking the question, “If the SB-15 is used as a buttstock, is that illegal?”
Unlawful possession of an SBR is a federal offense and even possessing the materials to create one is a crime, it constitutes “constructive intent.”
Which is why Sgt. Joe Bradley of the Greenwood, Colorado, police department contacted the ATF. Bradley wanted to know if “firing an AR-15-type pistol from the shoulder … would cause the pistol to be reclassified as a Short-Barreled Rifle.” The ATF’s Firearms Technology Branch responded clearly. You can shoulder an AR pistol all day long; using a SB-15 or similar device does like a buttstock does not make a rifle-based pistol into an SBR.
“For the following reasons, we have determined that firing a pistol from the shoulder would not cause the pistol to be reclassified as an SBR,” the ATF writes in its reply.
“[The] FTB classifies weapons based on their physical design characteristics. While usage/functionality of the weapon does influence the intended design, it is not the sole criterion for determining the classification of a weapon. Generally speaking, we do not classify weapons based on how an individual uses a weapon.
“[The] FTB has previously determined that the firing of a weapon from a particular position, such as placing the receiver extension of an AR-15-type pistol on the user’s shoulder, does not change the classification of a weapon. Further, certain firearm accessories such as the SIG Stability Brace have not been classified by [the] FTB as shoulder stocks and, therefore, using the brace improperly does not constitute a design change.”
And that is that.
Using a firearm not as intended does not constitute manufacturing a different class of weapon. So sayeth the ATF, on official stationary and everything.
Users should have no fear of shouldering a firearm equipped with an arm brace, at least for the foreseeable future.
This is the very same criteria that the ATF used to classify the Innovative Enterprises muzzle brake as a silencer, in a case that was recently thrown out of court.
In that decision, a federal judge ruled that the ATF has no grounds to regulate firearms based solely on their “physical design characteristics,” and that the agency must use some real-world, functional standards in its decision-making.
It seems unlikely that the ruling will affect the SB-15 and other arm braces, for a couple of reasons. First, the ATF has decided to approve braces, they aren’t trying to restrict them, so there’s no company trying to prevent the ATF from regulating them. And secondly, they really are arm braces.
The SB-15 at its core is a medical device, designed to make it possible for one-handed users to easily point an AR-15 pistol. A percentage of each sale is donated to Honored American Veterans Afield; it does its job and it does its job well.
However, the Firearms Technology Branch of the ATF has stated on-record, the “FTB cannot recommend using a weapon (or weapon accessory) in a manner not intended by the manufacturer.”
You might hurt your shoulder.
Smart Guns Are Dumb
Smart Guns Are Dumb
Addressing the assembled congressmen in his inimitable style last Friday, Attorney General Holder told a House appropriations subcommittee that he wished to “explore” the opportunities that might arise were he to be given millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money and a copy of the movie Skyfall:
I think that one of the things that we learned when we were trying to get passed those common sense reforms last year, Vice President Biden and I had a meeting with a group of technology people and we talked about how guns can be made more safe.
By making them either through fingerprint identification, the gun talks to a bracelet or something that you might wear, how guns can be used only by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon.
It’s those kinds of things that I think we want to try to explore so that we can make sure that people have the ability to enjoy their Second Amendment rights, but at the same time decreasing the misuse of weapons that lead to the kinds of things that we see on a daily basis.
There is much that is remarkable about this rather ugly little disquisition, not least of which is Holder’s apparent inability to construct coherent, intelligible, and appropriate trains of thought. Eccentric syntax notwithstanding, the request is absolutely dripping with noblesse oblige, the clear implication being that the government remains prepared to indulge the exercise of basic liberties providing that it can find a way to ensure that the nation’s dilettantes don’t hurt themselves in the process.
As is sadly typical of his approach, Holder approaches his subject as one might if one believed that the Second Amendment outlined a privilege and not an unassailable right — that is, that the purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect a hobby that can be “enjoyed” as one might enjoy gardening. Those who are dismayed at the administration’s prevailing attitude toward privacy, religious liberty, and freedom of expression will presumably recognize the mien.
The Second Amendment existing primarily as a last-chance check against the state, there is no reason whatsoever for Holder to be concerning himself with this question in the first place. “Governments” in Europe, James Madison wrote in Federalist 46, “are afraid to trust the people with arms.” But not so America, in which country the hands of the powerful were virtuously handcuffed to the wall. As the Philadelphia Federal Gazette made explicit in 1789, when outlining the purpose of the proposed amendments, “whereas civil-rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
James Burgh, an English Whig who empathized with the American project and whose writings were widely disseminated in the new country, put it more bluntly. “Most attractive to Americans,” Burgh wrote, “the possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave, it being the ultimate means by which freedom was to be preserved.” Which is to say that, beyond a limited role in interstate regulation, the nature of the firearms that the public owns is none of the government’s damned business, and the suggestion that the citizenry might install GPS trackers and functionality disablers in their weapons is so self-evidently absurd as to inspire sardonic laughter and little else besides.
Holder’s faith in technology is touching. There currently exists a grand total of one “smart” gun — an expensive German product that comes only in a weak caliber that is wholly unsuitable for self-defense. Indeed, as Guns.com’s Max Slowik observes, the very idea of magically “safe” firearms remains something of a “myth”:
Smart guns introduce a layer of complexity that brings along with it several points of failure. They are battery-operated and generally default to safe. They are not water resistant. Biometric scanners require a clean scanner and a clean scan, and cannot be used with gloves. Radio-based scanners can be spoofed or jammed, and because they’re linked to a ring or bracelet, can be used by anyone with access to the key. Both systems are not instantaneous; it takes time for the controller to disengage the safety.
And they just don’t work 100 percent of the time. Which is precisely why both New Jersey and Maryland have enacted legislation that exempts them from being forced to issue smart guns to their police officers. For a target or recreational shooter, this might be OK. But for anyone who may want to use their gun for self-defense, police or otherwise, the failure rate inherent to smart guns — about one percent with the latest generation of smart safeties — is unacceptable. Smart guns aren’t.
The attorney general, in other words, has his work cut out. Even if smart guns did live up their moniker, the “common use” standard outlined in the D.C. v. Heller decision would put paid to any legislation that might seek to back up the government’s enthusiasm with legal force. Put crudely: Unless the public wants it, this isn’t going anywhere, Eric. And, at the moment, at least, they do not.
By: Charles C.W. Cooke, National Review
Feds: Calif. pol Leland Yee schemed to trade arms for campaign cash
Feds: Calif. pol Leland Yee schemed to trade arms for campaign cash
San Francisco (CNN) — Leland Yee needed cash.
First, the ambitious California state senator had to fund his 2011 race for mayor of San Francisco. When he came in fifth, he was stuck with $70,000 in campaign debt that he had to retire before he could mount his next run, for secretary of state — a costly statewide venture.
And that’s how prosecutors say Yee ended up sitting across from an undercover federal agent in a coffee shop in early March, brokering what he was told was a $2 million arms deal that would include the purchase of shoulder-fired missiles from Islamic rebels in the Philippines.
“Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make some money,” Yee told the agent in a conversation recounted in a 137-page arrest affidavit. “Do I think we can get the goods? I think we can get the goods.”
The veteran Democrat, an advocate for gun control and campaign finance reform in Sacramento, is now one of about two dozen people charged in a sprawling racketeering case brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco. His co-defendants include a former San Francisco school board president and a previously-convicted Chinatown mobster dubbed “Shrimp Boy.”
He’s accused of putting his public office up for sale, and promising to push donors’ agendas in Sacramento and in his district in exchange for contributions. The allegations have stunned his constituents in San Francisco and its suburbs and cast a shadow over his state Senate colleagues, who have suspended Yee and two other Democrats who have run afoul of the law in recent months.
Yee has been free on $500,000 bond since his arrest. Though neither he nor his lawyer have commented to CNN on the allegations, the senator pleaded not guilty in a court appearance Tuesday morning. And he got a sort of backhanded defense from longtime California powerbroker Willie Brown.
“I don’t think any of the allegations are anyplace close to any reality,” Brown told CNN — but he said that’s because Yee lacked the clout to fulfill any of the pledges he made.
“There’s no way anyone who is seriously trying to influence government by way of money would do it with Leland. Period. He couldn’t deliver anything,” said Brown, San Francisco’s former mayor and onetime speaker of the State Assembly.
‘Careful and cautious’
The 65-year-old Yee came to the feds’ attention during a five-year probe of the Chee Kung Tong, a Chinatown social club that agents describe as the hub of a coast-to-coast criminal enterprise. The original focus of the probe was the club’s “dragonhead,” or leader, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow — a man the affidavit puts at the head of a racketeering ring that had its hands in money laundering, drug dealing, gunrunning, murder-for-hire plots and trafficking in stolen liquor and contraband cigarettes.
Chow’s lawyer, Tony Serra, proclaimed his client’s innocence to reporters outside the courtroom Tuesday.
Chow had pleaded guilty to racketeering in 2000, got a lighter sentence for cooperating with the government and still wears an ankle monitoring bracelet, court documents say. In this case, he fell victim to “agent provocateurs” who tried to lure him into a crime, Serra, said after Tuesday’s hearing.
“It’s a case where ultimately the government created the crime, the government financed the crime and the government ensnared my client, tantamount to entrapment,” Serra said.
But according to the court documents, Chow had taken two undercover FBI agents into his confidence. He introduced one, who was posing as a Mafia member from the East Coast, to Keith Jackson, a San Francisco political consultant and former school board president. Jackson started hitting up the agent for contributions for Yee, according to the charges.
The agent refused at first. But then he introduced another undercover agent to meet with Yee, who offered to “perform certain official acts” in exchange for contributions to pay off his mayoral campaign debt, the affidavit recounts.
Over the course of the next three years, prosecutors say Yee raked in about $50,000 from undercover agents, with Jackson acting as an intermediary. In exchange, according to the charges, Yee lobbied officials in suburban San Mateo County on behalf of a fake software company represented by one of the federal agents; promised to lobby colleagues on behalf of a medical marijuana bill that would have benefited the supposed interest of another donor; and for $6,800, secured a state Senate proclamation honoring the Chee Kung Tong.
Though Yee periodically said he wasn’t doing anything for his own benefit and raised concerns about crossing the line into unlawful “pay-to-play” tactics, he “never walked away from any quid pro quo requests,” according to the affidavit.
And eventually, the agents’ relationships with Yee led to the coffeehouse last month, where prosecutors say he introduced the supposed East Coast mobster to a man he said could provide guns and rockets. It had taken more than three months of cajoling and another $6,000 to get to this point, according to the arrest affidavit.
The document recounts how Jackson, who served with Yee on the city school board in the 1990s, promised Yee’s associate could supply “cargo containers full of weapons” from Philippine insurgents. In taking the money, Jackson told the agent that Yee “fully understood” the money was for being introduced to arms dealer: “We just talked about that today,” the affidavit quotes Jackson as saying.
Jackson is accused not only of being Yee’s bagman but of taking part in other Chee Kung Tong schemes, including a murder-for-hire plot. But in court papers seeking to continue his release on bail, his attorneys argue that the crimes he’s accused of committing “were all driven by government agents.”
“The government, despite having apparently targeted Mr. Jackson since 2011, has not charged Mr. Jackson with one dangerous offense that was not inspired by a government agent,” attorney James Brosnahan wrote. “In short, the government agents created the purported danger that the government now seeks to use to incarcerate Mr. Jackson.”
Yee suspected something was up in the weeks before his arrest. In February, he said he believed one of his fellow senators “was wearing a ‘wire’ for the FBI.'”
“Senator Yee attributed his long career in public office to being careful and cautious,” the arrest affidavit recounts.
His partner in that conversation? An FBI agent.
A ‘sense of entitlement’
Yee has been in public office since 1988, when he won a seat on the school board. He moved on from there to the city’s Board of Supervisors, then the Assembly and finally, in 2006, to the Senate. The son of immigrants who had brought him from China at age 3, he grew up to attend the University of California at Berkeley and earn a Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Hawaii.
But despite his longevity, Lee was a “loner,” Brown said — and that limited his effectiveness as a legislator.
“That’s why it’s such a shock to me,” said Brown, who once endorsed and later fired the aspiring politico. From a “practical, intellectual standpoint,” he said, “You don’t bribe or you don’t launder money or you don’t do things with people who can’t deliver on public policy.”
The allegations have rattled many in the city, particularly its ethnic Chinese community, said David Lee, the executive director of the Chinese-American Voters Education Committee.
“It’s really out of the line of imagination for somebody who is in public service to be trading arms for campaign donations,” Lee said. But he said the charges against Yee highlight what Lee called the “arms race” that campaign finance has become in California, where it can cost millions to run for even a low-level office.
“It also demonstrates the sense of entitlement that many of our elected officials feel they have to hold power,” he said. Yee “wanted at all costs to hold onto power, and I think voters are tired of it.”
Doreen Silk, a constituent and Yee supporter, said the news of his arrest “surprised all of us.”
“I mean, he’s living in my neighborhood,” she said. “We all backed him. It’s so surprising.” Silk said she thought his actions were “an isolated instance” — one that may prompt a second look at some other local politicians, “but I don’t think it’s an epidemic.”
Yee is the third Democrat in the state Senate to face criminal charges in the past year. Rod Wright was found guilty of perjury and fraudulent voting in January after a jury concluded he was living outside his Los Angeles-area district when elected in 2008. Another Southern California senator, Ronald Calderon, was charged with taking bribes from undercover FBI agents in February.
Lee called himself a “lifelong Democrat.” But in the wake of those scandals, he said, Californians “are watching the Democratic Party in this state and what is going to be done.” He urged Yee to resign and allow his constituents to have an untainted voice in the state Senate.
“What purpose does it serve to stay in that position while all this is going on?” Lee asked.
CNN Correspondent Jason Carroll reported from San Francisco; Matt Smith reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN’s Augie Martin and Jim Castel contributed to this report.
By CNN.com
California: Assembly Appropriations Committee to Hear Gun-Related Bills Tomorrow
|
California: Assembly Appropriations Committee to Hear Gun-Related Bills Tomorrow |
Please contact members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Immediately
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Assembly Appropriations Committee is scheduled to hear anti-gun bills, Assembly Bill 1609, Assembly Bill 1964 and Assembly Bill 2310 and pro-hunting bill, Assembly Bill 2105. Please immediately contact members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and urge them to OPPOSE AB 1609, AB 1964 and AB 2310 and SUPPORT AB 2105. Reasons to OPPOSE AB 1609: AB 1609 imposes unnecessary limitations on the transfer of firearms by law-abiding citizens, requiring that all transfers be completed through a California gun dealer, regardless of the circumstances. Contrary to its author’s claims, this bill does not simply bring California law in line with federal law, nor is it limited to “direct ship” scenarios. Instead, AB 1609 will deprive law-abiding citizens with dual residency in two or more states of the ability to bring their firearms into California and register them with the state Department of Justice. This practice is currently lawful under both state and federal law. AB 1609 will also improperly remove current protections for intra-familial firearms transfers via bequest or interstate succession between siblings, aunts and uncles. This is also currently lawful under both state and federal law. If enacted, AB 1609 would strip these protections for all intra-familial transfers other than those between a parent/child or grandparent/grandchild. This bill should also be opposed because it fails to include additional conforming exemptions under federal law, including protections for lawful firearms repairs. It is important that you explain to their state Assemblyman that AB 1609 is a counter-productive bill that will criminalize common firearm transactions that are now authorized under federal law. Rather than targeting violent criminals, this bill is overbroad and unnecessary will result in inadvertent violations by otherwise law-abiding citizens. This bill will further exacerbate California’s already severe prison overcrowding problems. AB 1609 is another misguided step that will further alienate California gun owners, driving them out of California along with the important tax revenues and jobs generated by the shooting sports industry. Reasons to OPPOSE AB 1964: AB 1964 will remove existing exemptions for all single-shot pistols, other than those with a break top or bolt action, from California’s roster of “not safe” handguns. Remind members of this committee know that AB 1964 does not address any legitimate public safety problems. Criminals are not buying single shot handguns from firearms dealers to commit their crimes. Instead, AB 1964 will only target law-abiding gun owners by effectively eliminating the only options for Californians to purchase numerous handguns that that are commonly owned throughout the rest of the country. By further banning common handguns from civilian use, AB 1964 violates the Second Amendment, and is likely to add to the litigation for which the State is already embroiled. AB 1964 will also result in lost fee and tax revenues for the state by prohibiting the otherwise lawful sale of many handguns. Explain to your Assemblyman that this counter-productive attack on law-abiding gun owners will continue to drive firearms businesses, gun owners and the revenues they generate, out of California and into other states. Reasons to OPPOSE AB 2310: AB 2310 reenacts provisions authorizing a city prosecutor or city attorney in specified counties to file an action for unlawful detainer to abate a nuisance caused by any illegal conduct involving firearms or ammunition. Gun owners that are already tasked with deciphering California’s confusing regulatory scheme may find themselves facing not only criminal liability, but removal from their residence. If a gun owner is in possession of a firearm that is mistaken for an unlawful firearm by law enforcement, they may be subject to an unlawful detainer action. AB 2310 should be opposed because it fails to focus on true criminal conduct, and instead places law-abiding gun owners in jeopardy of losing their residence for unwitting violations of virtually any of the thousands of state, local, and firearm regulations that gun owners must navigate. Reasons to SUPPORT AB 2105: AB 2105 requires the Department of Fish and Game to authorize a non-profit organization designated by the department to assist in the sale of Nelson bighorn ram tags and to retain 5% of the amount of the sale price of the tag, plus any applicable credit card fees, as a reasonable vendor fee. This bill sets a Nelson bighorn ram tag at $400 for residents and requires the commission, on or before July 1, 2015, by regulation, to fix the fee for a non-resident of the state at not less than $1,500 for the same tag. This bill will bring non-resident fee tags for bighorn sheep in line with the fees charged to non-residents in other states. AB 2105 will also allow non-profits to assist the state in auctioning these tags at fundraising events to recover administrative costs. Using the contact information provided below, please CALL members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and urge them to OPPOSE AB 1609, AB 1964 and AB 2310 and SUPPORT AB 2105. We ask that you call these state legislators, because we have found that legislators are now “screening” their e-mails. With this being said, we have found that calling is the most effective way to reach members of the California Legislature. We have included the e-mail addresses if you would like to contact committee members through both calling and e-mailing. Assembly Appropriations Committee: Franklin Bigelow (R-5), Vice-Chairman Raul Bocanegra (D-39) Steven Bradford (D-62) Ian Calderon (D-57) Nora Campos (R-27) Tim Donnelly (R-33) Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-13) Jimmy Gomez (D-51) Chris Holden (D-41) Eric Linder (R-60) Richard Pan (D-9) Bill Quirk (D-20) Sebastien Ridley-Thomas (D-54) Donald Wagner (R-68) Shirley Weber (D-79) |
HOME INVADER SHOT – BY ENTIRE FAMILY
HOME INVADER SHOT – BY ENTIRE FAMILY
WINTER HAVEN, Florida – When a stranger tried to break into the Pena family home, the Penas were ready for him. “If this guy would’ve stayed home, he’d have been alive right now,” a neighbor told Fox 13 Orlando. Early Monday morning, the Penas woke to the sound of 40-year-old Mitchell Large trying to break into their Winter Haven home through a porch door. Undeterred by a warning shot, Large burst into the kitchen.
There, three family members – a father, a mother, and their son – were waiting for Large. All three of them were armed.
The family then opened fire on the intruder. “It appears at least two of the family members fired in defense of themselves and their property,” said Police Chief Gary Hester.
A fourth family member, the Penas’ 20-year-old daughter, was also in the home but did not witness the shooting. Investigators say that, while Large does not appear to have been armed, the Penas had every right to defend themselves. Pass this along if you agree with the right to defend your home from an intruder!
Quote of the day by Dianne Feinstein……..
LA Times Quote of the day – priceless
Quote of the day by Dianne Feinstein……..
Dianne Feinstein: “All vets are mentally ill in some way and government should prevent them from owning firearms.”
Yep, – she really said it on Thursday in a meeting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee… and the quote below from the LA Times is priceless. Sometimes even the L.A. Times gets it right.
Kurt Nimmo: “Senator Feinstein insults all U.S. Veterans as she flays about in a vain attempt to save her anti-firearms bill.”
Quote of the Day from the Los Angeles Times:
“Frankly, I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I’m not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re Number One. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on ‘Macbeth’. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.”
Columnist Burt Prelutsky,
Los Angeles Times
Be sure to forward this to all of the “mentally ill” vets you know.
Especially the ones with guns…=
Shooters Warehouse Blog 