Guns

[Bact PhD]

Jul 11, 2021 16:24:25 GMT goldenvalley said:

Looks like the gun industry is winning.  

All his life, Jabril Battle was anti-gun. Then came the pandemic, the lockdown, the shortages and a feeling that at any moment, things could blow. Battle bought a Beretta.

Drawn to last summer’s protests against police violence, Savannah Grace found herself face-to-face with a camo-clad officer’s long gun. She’d always hated guns, but went out and got a Glock 45.

In blue cities and red suburbs alike, firearms purchases soared last year — to the highest level in half a century, based on federal background checks. A striking portion of those sales went to first-time gun buyers — 40 percent, according to the firearms industry’s trade association. Other studies show first-timers accounting for more like a fifth of sales in 2020, but that’s still unusually high, retailers said.

What will happen when the gun nuts realize that people of color are buying guns?

 Sales to women and people of color rose in 2020. Firearms industry data shows sales jumping 50 percent among Black customers, 47 percent among Hispanics and 43 percent among Asian Americans, though gun ownership remains proportionately lower among those groups compared with Whites.

It's a conversation that's been held in this household, I must confess. The hard-core MAGAt crowd appears to be walking around with increasing, not decreasing boldness these days. The scary thing is it doesn't take many of these people, with firearms, to effectively terrorize a community if they chose to do so. I am also curious to know what proportion of those first-timers consider themselves "left" or "center-left" politically.

[goldenvalley]

Remember the concerns about toy guns looking just like real ones?  Guess what this is:

About a week ago, a company in Utah that makes custom modifications to firearms debuted what it described as a fun new product: a kit that encases Glock handguns in red, yellow and blue Lego blocks, refashioning lethal weapons to look exactly like children’s toys.

“We have been building guns out of blocks for the last 30 years and wanted to flip the script to aggravate Mom,” Provo-based Culper Precision explained on its website. It went on to argue that personal defense is a right granted by God and that gun ownership is protected by the Constitution before getting to the most important reason the company was selling “BLOCK19,” as the design was named, for $549 to $765, depending on the specifics.

“There is a satisfaction that can ONLY be found in the shooting sports and this is just one small way to break the rhetoric from Anti-Gun folks and draw attention to the fact that the shooting sports are SUPER FUN!” the site proclaimed, exuding a bravado that would prove to be short-lived. “Here’s the thing. Guns are fun. Shooting is fun. 30 rounds full auto is fun.”

A deadly weapon should look fun?  

[jackd]

30 rounds full auto is illegal. So is firing a grenade launcher and a 50 caliber machine gun, and a recoilless rifle, and a howitzer and they can also be "fun", as long as noone's shooting back at you.

[LFC]

Jul 13, 2021 20:19:27 GMT goldenvalley said:

It went on to argue that personal defense is a right granted by God...

And the argument concerning "responsible gun owners" continues getting weaker and weaker. "It's just a tool" falls apart when it's built to resemble a toy which is just the thing to tempt a child. And as soon as you couple it with Christianity you've pretty much lost any scrap of credibility.

[pnwguy]

Jul 13, 2021 21:10:41 GMT LFC said:

Jul 13, 2021 20:19:27 GMT goldenvalley said:

It went on to argue that personal defense is a right granted by God...

And the argument concerning "responsible gun owners" continues getting weaker and weaker. "It's just a tool" falls apart when it's built to resemble a toy which is just the thing to tempt a child. And as soon as you couple it with Christianity you've pretty much lost any scrap of credibility.

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."



"Be ye ready for Satanic Democrats, my son"

[indy]

Jul 13, 2021 20:19:27 GMT goldenvalley said:

Remember the concerns about toy guns looking just like real ones?  Guess what this is:

About a week ago, a company in Utah that makes custom modifications to firearms debuted what it described as a fun new product: a kit that encases Glock handguns in red, yellow and blue Lego blocks, refashioning lethal weapons to look exactly like children’s toys.

“We have been building guns out of blocks for the last 30 years and wanted to flip the script to aggravate Mom,” Provo-based Culper Precision explained on its website. It went on to argue that personal defense is a right granted by God and that gun ownership is protected by the Constitution before getting to the most important reason the company was selling “BLOCK19,” as the design was named, for $549 to $765, depending on the specifics.

“There is a satisfaction that can ONLY be found in the shooting sports and this is just one small way to break the rhetoric from Anti-Gun folks and draw attention to the fact that the shooting sports are SUPER FUN!” the site proclaimed, exuding a bravado that would prove to be short-lived. “Here’s the thing. Guns are fun. Shooting is fun. 30 rounds full auto is fun.”

A deadly weapon should look fun?  

When I saw this, I wondered if Lego knew about this? Turns out, no they did not. They sent a cease and desist demand: www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/07/13/lego-gun-glock-controversy/

[andydp]

Jul 14, 2021 16:10:17 GMT indy said:

Jul 13, 2021 20:19:27 GMT goldenvalley said:

Remember the concerns about toy guns looking just like real ones?  Guess what this is:



A deadly weapon should look fun?  

When I saw this, I wondered if Lego knew about this? Turns out, no they did not. They sent a cease and desist demand: www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/07/13/lego-gun-glock-controversy/

Looks like the outrage worked.  I'm sure the excellent chances of a multi million lawsuit from the LEGO Company may have been a factor.

After Outrage, Company Pulls ‘Block19’ Lego Gun From Online Store (Yes, It’s a Real Gun)


www.newsandguts.com/video/after-outrage-company-pulls-block19-lego-gun-from-online-store-yes-its-a-real-gun/?fbclid=IwAR3u3koooL8NVW2m4wWjCx8Zd-Ed4XTQiOHh8tsEEKVRYJU-bCJgbzeJmik

[LFC]

I'm all for prosecution of people who fail to secure firearms they own which end up being used in some tragedy but even I have to admit the death penalty is a bit extreme.

A toddler fatally shot their own mother in the head with an unlocked handgun while she was on a work video call, police in Altamonte Springs, Florida, said.

A co-worker of Shamaya Lynn, 21, who was also on Wednesday’s call, dialed 911 after “they saw a toddler in the background and heard a noise,” Altamonte Springs Police Department said in a statement on Facebook Thursday.

Lynn “fell backward and never returned to the call,” according to police.

Officers and paramedics later found Lynn in her apartment with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.

The injury “was caused by a toddler who found a loaded handgun, which was left unsecured by an adult in the apartment,” police said. Another toddler also was in the apartment at the time, reported Click Orlando.

Detectives are “working closely with the Seminole County State Attorney’s Office concerning any charges which may be appropriate for the owner of the firearm,” said police. Local NBC affiliate WESH-2 reported the weapon belonged to the children’s father.

There have been at least 220 unintentional shootings by children so far in 2021, according to gun safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. They have resulted in 83 deaths.

So not the gun owner which means the question is did they know about the unsecured firearm. If so it was their choice so while I feel for the child I really don't feel much for the parent. Gun owners have been warned about the dangers for decades. This quote sums it up.

[goldenvalley]

Oh that is such a grindingly tragic story. I've also read of children finding loaded handguns in their parents cars and mom's purse. Don't people realize children are curious and will open and poke through any container and pull or push any button (or trigger) they find.

[LFC]

Guns and religion outrank all other rights.

Judy Sherry, a longtime Kansas City advocate against gun violence, founded a volunteer organization to mobilize legislative efforts in Missouri after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Since then, she woefully admits, “nothing meaningful” has changed on the gun reform front in her state. On the contrary, in June, her Republican governor, Mike Parson, passed a new law supposedly meant to protect Second Amendment enthusiasts from “government overreach.” But advocates like Sherry and even law enforcement officials—who normally support gun rights—believe it is a dangerous nod to Parson’s right-wing base.

The Second Amendment Protection Act bars state and local police from working with the feds to enforce any laws, rules, orders or actions that “violate the Second Amendment rights of Missourians.” Any officer who “deprives” Missouri citizens of their right to pack a gun could be liable for $50,000 in damages—including cops. Although it doesn’t go into effect until the end of August, advocates, local police and federal officials have said it’s already hurting shooting investigations in a state where they are rampant.

“It’s hideous,” Sherry said of the law. “They talk so much about the rights of gun owners, as if non-gun owners and the rest of the population have no right to feel safe.”

Although Parson promised that the ability of local police to assist the feds would remain “unchanged” after the bill, Frederic Winston, the special agent-in-charge of the Kansas City ATF, said it has already wreaked havoc on gun crimes investigations as local officers have dropped out of task forces and police departments have cut off sharing vital information to the feds.

In a recent court filing as part of an ongoing lawsuit by the City of St. Louis against the governor and the attorney general, Winston wrote that the bill, known as SAPA, “impedes” his agency’s ability to stem violent gun crimes—an admission that comes a full year after officials in the state were celebrating a partnership with federal officials to reduce gun violence under President Trump.

Rick Walter, former sheriff of the Scott County Sheriff’s Office, told The Daily Beast the bill has also sent shockwaves around local law enforcement circles as many officers and leaders of departments are scared of being fined or sued for the amount of money most make in a yearly salary. “At a small department, you’re talking about a person that could potentially be eliminated,” he said. “You actually would be taking officers off the street because of fines.”

In a state that Trump solidly carried in 2020 and where the idea to defund the police was largely a non-starter, Scott said it is ironic that Parson’s bill effectively advocates for it.

“If you impose these fines,” he said, “you’re effectively defunding law enforcement.”

[Traveler]

Exactly what was intended.

[goldenvalley]

So Missouri is a "sanctuary" state for gun packers.

[pnwguy]

So use a gun to kill an abortion doctor in a church, and it's a Republican tri-fecta. A felon like that would be an instant contender for Republican office.

[goldenvalley]

Remington's lawyers must be taking advice from Alex Jones or those who defend police officers from charges that they killed someone:

Remington, the gunmaker being sued by several families of Sandy Hook victims for wrongful death, has issued a subpoena to get the academic, attendance and discipline records of five first-grade students who were killed during the 2012 mass shooting. The gunmaker also issued a subpoena for the employment files of four educators who were killed.

The subpoena pertaining to the five deceased students specifically requested "application and admission paperwork, attendance records, transcripts, report cards [and] disciplinary records," according to court documents.

Yeah either those kids and teachers weren't really at the school, maybe didn't even exist at all, ... and if they were, they were horrible D students and bad teachers so Remington will escape any civil liability.

[LFC]

Sept 3, 2021 19:53:39 GMT goldenvalley said:

Remington's lawyers must be taking advice from Alex Jones or those who defend police officers from charges that they killed someone:

Remington, the gunmaker being sued by several families of Sandy Hook victims for wrongful death, has issued a subpoena to get the academic, attendance and discipline records of five first-grade students who were killed during the 2012 mass shooting. The gunmaker also issued a subpoena for the employment files of four educators who were killed.

The subpoena pertaining to the five deceased students specifically requested "application and admission paperwork, attendance records, transcripts, report cards [and] disciplinary records," according to court documents.

Yeah either those kids and teachers weren't really at the school, maybe didn't even exist at all, ... and if they were, they were horrible D students and bad teachers so Remington will escape any civil liability.

WTF? Are they planning on smearing murdered children and teachers? I sincerely hope the judge says "no" without extremely well written cause. Attendance records? OK, the kids existed and went to school. The rest? I can even remotely grasp a valid reason for this.

[LFC]

Once again we have a gun rights advocate proving that the most vocal people can't be trusted to properly store, handle, and/or use a firearm. This time it's Lauren Bimbobert (R-COlon Around Her Head).

In a video reviewed by Salon and apparently recorded on July 25, the 8-year-old son of Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., can be seen singing, dancing and playing with cigarette lighters — while left alone in a room a few feet away from a high-capacity rifle. This would appear to violate a new Colorado state law, under which gun owners are required to store their deadly weapons in a gun safe, with a trigger or cable lock, whenever the owner is aware, or should reasonably be aware, that a "juvenile or a resident who is ineligible to possess a firearm can gain access to the firearm."

[LFC]

Interesting view on why NY Attorney General Letitia James went after the NRA with a civil suit rather than a criminal one. Apparently she has enough evidence to press criminal charges.

Like other cases of corruption, this easily could have been framed as a criminal case. Filing false registration and disclosure documents as part of a scheme to defraud can serve as the basis for federal mail or wire fraud, and often does in public corruption cases. When I served as a federal prosecutor, my former office brought public corruption cases on such theories in similar cases in which officials misused funds for personal benefit. Why then, is it left to James, whose office’s oversight over charities is civil in nature, to bring this action? The silence of the U.S. Department of Justice here is deafening.

But the effect of the state attorney general’s civil case might be even more devastating than a criminal case because one of the remedies of her action is dissolution of the NRA itself. She used the same tactics to dissolve the Trump Foundation in November. There, she reached a settlement with President Donald Trump and family members to pay $2 million to resolve allegations of misuse of charitable funds to influence the 2016 presidential primary election and to further his own personal interests. Among the improper use of funds was doling out $500,000 to potential voters at a 2016 campaign rally in Iowa. As part of that settlement, James required Trump to personally admit to misusing the Foundation’s funds. Sometimes, parties to settlements are permitted to publicly state that a resolution is not an admission of wrongdoing. James would not let them off so easily. Her success in the Trump Foundation case puts teeth into her legal quest to dissolve the NRA as well.

[LFC]

Another day, another school shooting.

Police were hunting for an 18-year-old student on Wednesday after he allegedly got into a fight at a north Texas high school, then drew a gun and opened fire.

The Arlington Police Department said that three students and one adult were injured in an incident that forced hundreds of students and staff at Mansfield Timberview High School into lockdown for at least an hour.

“This is not a random act of violence... this is a student that got into a fight and drew a weapon,” Assistant Chief of Arlington Police Kevin Kolbye said during a Wednesday press conference.

[LFC]

The leadership of the NRA clearly has no interest in giving up their fat personal benefits. They just promoted two nutjobs who back LaPierre to the hilt into leadership positions.

The NRA this past weekend promoted two top directors who have a history of making vile racist comments, spreading conspiracy theories, and enabling years of alleged fraud and wrongdoing by embattled leader Wayne LaPierre—who, among other things, has been accused of spending NRA funds on private jets for himself and his family, accepting free African safaris and yacht vacations without reporting them, and handing out no-show contracts to confidants.

At the same time LaPierre was handed a new term, attorney Charles Cotton and Willes Lee, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, were elevated to president and first vice-president of the struggling gun-rights organization.

“The NRA’s decision to re-elect Wayne LaPierre and other top leaders yesterday despite the detailed evidence of repeated fraud and self-dealing we have laid out in our lawsuit and during the bankruptcy trial underscores that board governance is broken and that the rot runs deep at the NRA,” New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement following the announcement. “For years, Mr. LaPierre and his lieutenants used the NRA and its donors as a breeding ground for personal gain and to live a lavish lifestyle, which is why they must be removed. Our fight for transparency and accountability will continue because no one is above the law.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, NRA lawyer William A. Brewer said, “The NYAG continues to wage a fully transparent PR campaign against the NRA—openly leveraging the power of her office to attack her political opponents. Viewed for what it is, it is easy to understand why those who support the First Amendment rights of all citizens have criticized the NYAG’s pursuit to dissolve this 150-year-old organization.”

Although LaPierre usually commands the most ink, his newly-minted deputies are both problematic choices, as well.

Cotton, a lawyer from Houston, Texas, has chaired the NRA’s audit committee since at least 2017. Yet, according to James, Cotton and the committee “failed to perform its statutory, bylaw, and charter responsibilities,” adding that the board “displayed a sustained and systematic failure to exercise their oversight function and stood by as various laws were violated.”

It sounds like these crooks just hope to survive well enough to limp out of NY and go to TX. At that point nobody in that state will touch them and they can crank up the fundraising operations.

[LFC]

If there's a perfect example of a Trump festering skidmark it's Don, Jr. but this really belongs here. Why? Because he and others are so f***ing stupid that they decided to attack and mock Alec Baldwin over the accidental shooting death on the movie set of "Rust."

It’s only been three days since Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, but the Trump family has never been known to hang around when there’s a tawdry buck to make.

The oldest Trump son, Donald Jr., is hawking $27.99 T-shirts on his official site with the mocking slogan: “Guns don’t kill people, Alec Baldwin kills people.” On his Instagram stories, the Trump son also posted a photoshopped pic of the actor wearing one of the Ts.

It’s the latest and possibly most egregious example of Trumpworld’s celebration of Thursday’s fatal accident on the set of Rust. The alt-right has reveled in the shooting due to Baldwin’s previous mockery of ex-President Donald Trump and his advocacy for tighter controls on firearms.

J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy and a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, used Hutchins’ death to suck up to Trump. Hours after news of the shooting broke, Vance tweeted at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: “Dear @jack let Trump back on. We need Alec Baldwin tweets.” Candace Owens said the shooting was “poetic justice” for Baldwin’s Trump mockery.

What they can't grasp in their little lizard brains is that what happened makes the case in staggeringly obvious terms that guns are never safe. They had a professional armorer. They had an entire list of safety precautions. The gun was to have been examined by multiple people who experience in using guns on a movie set. Baldwin was told flat out it was unloaded (a "cold gun"). And it sounds like it didn't have an actual live round in it, it had a blank but with something else that it shot rather than a lead bullet. If after all of that it was still loaded and capable of killing one and wounding another then please, by all means, explain to me why I should trust that Billy Bob and Bubba walking down the street, on storming into a state capitol building, have the brains and care to handle their firearms safely?

[Bact PhD]

Oct 25, 2021 18:26:38 GMT LFC said:

What they can't grasp in their little lizard brains is that what happened makes the case in staggeringly obvious terms that guns are never safe. They had a professional armorer. They had an entire list of safety precautions. The gun was to have been examined by multiple people who experience in using guns on a movie set. Baldwin was told flat out it was unloaded (a "cold gun"). And it sounds like it didn't have an actual live round in it, it had a blank but with something else that it shot rather than a lead bullet. If after all of that it was still loaded and capable of killing one and wounding another then please, by all means, explain to me why I should trust that Billy Bob and Bubba walking down the street, on storming into a state capitol building, have the brains and care to handle their firearms safely?

[/div][/quote]
Dear Daughter & I have been following the Baldwin incident. There are several reports to the effect that, unfortunately, the safety precautions were NOT being followed. The professional armorer is only as good as the most careless underling, and the reports of labor troubles on set, including the use of non-IATSE labor because of a walkout of the union staff over—guess what! safety concerns!—is itself troubling. The chain of custody of the prop gun could well have included a Billy Bob or 2.

The LA Times ran a piece to the effect that, with so much in my he realms of light & sound effects being able to be added in post-production anymore, there’s really no good reason to be shooting an actual firearm on a movie set at all.

[LFC]

Oct 26, 2021 0:49:31 GMT Bact PhD said:

Dear Daughter & I have been following the Baldwin incident. There are several reports to the effect that, unfortunately, the safety precautions were NOT being followed. The professional armorer is only as good as the most careless underling, and the reports of labor troubles on set, including the use of non-IATSE labor because of a walkout of the union staff over—guess what! safety concerns!—is itself troubling. The chain of custody of the prop gun could well have included a Billy Bob or 2.

Here's a supposed firearms instructor waving a .44 magnum around and accidentally discharging a round because he doesn't have a f***ing clue what he's doing. And this is why every time I hear somebody try to make the case that they are safe I don't really believe them. Maybe some of the time. Maybe even most of the time. Doubtfully every single time.

The latest one I've heard, since multiple Oath Keeper / 3-Percenter / moron militia types have been showing up at political protests waving long guns around, is that muzzle discipline isn't that big a deal. Safeties and trigger discipline have apparently magically made that lesson taught by the NRA for many, many decades obsolete. From the NRA in 2015 (bold mine):

When handling a gun, follow these three fundamental rules:

• ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. This is the primary rule of gun safety. ...
• ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. ...
• ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

[LFC]

Thoughts and prayers, douche nozzles.

A ransomware gang believed to have Russian connections claims it just popped the National Rifle Association.

The ransomware gang, known as Grief Gang, posted files on its extortion site Wednesday that it claims to have stolen from the NRA, in an apparent attempt to pressure the NRA to pay them a ransom demand.

The file names suggest that the attackers, while targeting the NRA with ransomware—a malware meant to lock up victim computers until the victim pays a ransom—were able to steal files about “national grants" and minutes from an internal meeting.

After an attempt to reach the NRA’s spokesperson’s email Wednesday, the NRA’s email server reported an error, an indication that their mail server could be down.

“I don’t have any comment,” NRA spokesperson Amy Hunter told The Daily Beast when reached by phone for comment on Wednesday.

[AnBr]

NRA Accuses ‘Rust’ Producers Of Endangering Crew By Not Giving Everyone Guns

[goldenvalley]

Oct 28, 2021 14:43:09 GMT AnBr said:

NRA Accuses ‘Rust’ Producers Of Endangering Crew By Not Giving Everyone Guns

yeah that cinematographer shoulda' been shooting back and the asst director behind her shoulda' been aimin' at Baldwin the whole time!