San Francisco Repeats Gun Buy-Back: San Francisco officials are handing
out gift cards in exchange for guns in an effort to reduce the number of
illegal firearms on city streets. The city's second "Gifts for Guns"
event is being held today at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco. A
first event in July brought in 117 handguns and 2 shotguns. People don't
need to show identification to participate, and officials promise not to
ask any questions about the guns' origins. Participants will receive
$100 gift cards for rifles or shotguns, $150 cards for revolvers or
semiautomatic pistols and $200 cards for assault-type weapons like AK-47s.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-guns2dec02,1,3837791.story?coll=la-headlines-california
---
From John Farnam:
26 Nov 07
New stuff!
Microtec, a company who makes knives, is now the one producing a
domestic AUG in 223! I handled one this afternoon at Jensen's, and it
is pretty much an exact copy of the original, right down to the
integral, optical sight. Retailing for $2,000.00, it is on the high end
price-wise, but will surely garner a following.
Arsenal, another domestic manufacturer, is producing a wonderful
Kalashnikov in 7.62X39/Soviet. As nice an example as I've seen, nearly
equal in quality to those produced by Krebs. At $1,200.00, it is a very
acceptable, utility, military rifle.
Red Rock Arms, formally known as Bobcat, is producing an FAL in 223! It
takes AR-15 magazines, but looks, for all the world, like an FAL
otherwise. At $1,300.00/copy, they are moving out briskly.
DSA's excellent FAL in 308 is perennially popular, starting at $1,400.00
At a retail price of $650.00, Kahr's M1 Carbine is a nice gun and is
also selling well. Hard to beat as a car-gun. Fulton Armory's version
is nice also, but retails at $1,200.00.
Robinson Arms XCR in 223 retails for $1,500.00 and relentlessly moves
out the door! I now have a copy of the RA/XCR in 6.8mm/SPC and will be
testing it shortly.
One can buy a perfectly serviceable AR-15 in 223 from DPMS, DSA, and
RRA, starting at $700.00, and it will run just fine. You're probably
not going to get into an acceptable military 308 for under $1,000.00.
Consistently strong sales of all the foregoing indicate to me that, at
least here in CO, people (many who never thought about owning a serious
gun until now) are heavily arming themselves with serious weapons.
Apparently, government's dubious "we-have-everything-under-control"
message is getting lost in the translation!
/John
(Note the implication that a "military rifle" is chambered for a larger
caliber than M1 Carbine or .223. Bullpups, such as the AUG, are
generally limited in their flexibility to shift from shoulder to
shoulder without ejcting hot brass into the shooter's face when fired
from the "wrong" shoulder.)
27 Nov 07
Sage advice from Doc Gunn:
"Apparently, football player, Sean Taylor, died yesterday as a result of
at least one close-range gunshot (pistol) wound to his upper thigh. The
bullet(s) struck his femoral artery. By the time he got to the ER,
blood loss was catastrophic. This is a classic example of a death that
was probably preventable via the simple/aggressive application of an
IBD, as we teach in our Tactical Treatment of Gunshot Wounds Course."
Comment: Unfortunately, no one at the scene knew what to do, nor did
they have a legitimate trauma kit handy. These are life-saving skills
that should be well known to every Operator. Some GSW deaths are not
preventable, but most are!
/John
(TangoDown offers a Guardian Trauma Kit, which includes an instructional
video -
http://tangodown.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=60)
28 Nov 07
Mismatch! This from one of our instructors in WI.
"During regional, in-service training, a local PD showed up with EOTech
sights, mounted atop the fixed, carrying-handles of their AR-15/A2 rifles.
Officers did their level best to make this set-up work, but with such
large bore-line/sight-line span, a consistent cheek weld (or any
cheek-contact with the stock for that matter) is nearly impossible. I
saw heads aimlessly wobbling in space at all kinds of weird angles!
Results were disappointing, as officers could hit (eventually), but too
much valuable time was squandered just trying to get a sight picture.
The chief of this department did not show up, so he did not have the
opportunity to see for himself the problems associated
with this flawed set-up."
Comment: When the brass don't show up for training, they don't know what
is being presented, how it is being presented, and, without the
experience of personally participating, they tend to have only a
cursory, shallow understanding of critical training and equipment
issues, such as described in the foregoing.
Effective leaders have mud on their shoes!
/John
(The carrying handle of an AR-15 is mated in height with the front-sight
tower, affording most users a decent cheek weld on the stock while using
the iron sights. People who intend to use some sort of electronic or
optical sight on an AR-15 are better served to purchase a flat-top version.)
28 Nov 07
From a friend at Glock:
"The first copies of Glock's 30SF are in country. Will hit retail
shelves soon. ambidextrous magazine release buttons are an option.
Default is the normal, left-side magazine release."
Comment: Manufacturers will, of course, supply customers with what
customers think they want. However, a magazine-release button facing to
the outside as the pistol is carried is an invitation to a missing
magazine at a painfully inconvenient moment! Again, this button should
only face to the inside where an inadvertent release of the magazine is
much less likely.
/John
(This may be largely a matter of how well the holster is mated to the
pistol and something to be considered when replacing stock
magazine-release buttons with extended ones.)
---
From Gun Week:
Feldman's Insider's Memoir Getting Deserved Attention
by Joseph P. Tartaro, Executive Editor
December 1, 2007
I first heard the adjective "Byzantine" used to describe the inner
machinations of the National Rifle Association (NRA) some 40 years ago,
and I thought it very apt. So I was not surprised to find it on Page 5
of a new book by Richard Feldman who noted that "...beyond the Byzantine
inner sanctum of the senior association executives, the NRA still has
its share of decent human beings with whom I had worked closely for
almost two decades."
This is near the opening of Feldman's new book, Ricochet: Confessions of
a Gun Lobbyist. The book is a very personal memoir of a high-voltage,
charismatic and creative policy wonk who became, for a while, a go-to
guy for the NRA and the industry before making a career-altering deal
with Bill Clinton's White House.
The reference to the complex, devious and intrigue-laced Byzantium comes
near the book's opening when Feldman comes in from the cold to attend an
NRA function to honor the late Harlon B. Carter, years after he had been
ostracized by NRA leaders and some in the gun industry for cutting a
voluntary gun-lock deal with the Clinton gang.
Feldman's story offers a brief history of the NRA as well as a personal
biography that takes him from his liberal, gun-free Long Island
upbringing through college-life and political action in New England to a
minor job with the Reagan Administration and then to a "dream job" with
the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (ILA). From his "dream job"
at NRA-ILA, Feldman was an eyewitness to the NRA's handling of the
Bernard Goetz affair, the Waco fiasco and other historic events.
I first met Feldman in the early days of his career at the NRA-ILA when
he was assigned as liaison to volunteer grassroots activists and
firearms civil rights organizations in the northeastern states. As a
representative of the NRA he dealt with elected officials and their
staffs in the state capitals of his territory. His 24/7 job was a lot
like herding cats. He was required to be a constant go-between in a
varied field of interested parties: his superiors at NRA; the executive
and legislative branches of state governments; the media; organized
grassroots gun organizations that had diverging agendas, and the general
public. His job involved expressing official NRA positions on gun and
hunting legislation, negotiating with officials when necessary, and
establishing close working relations with a large gunowner base in each
state which is the most powerful arm of what some people like to call
the "gun lobby."
Feldman was then and still is a high-energy guy with a breezy,
fast-passed way of speaking and writing--a style that permeates his
"Confessions."
I not only worked with him during his years at NRA-ILA but also when
later he wore other hats, including as head of the now defunct American
Shooting Sports Council (ASSC). Our most recent association was as
co-panelists at the Oct. 5-7 Gun Rights Policy Conference near
Cincinnati, OH. (That panel is one of several summarized by Dave Workman
in this issue as the second part of his post-GRPC report.)
Feldman has always been a bright, innovative and energetic force on the
gun rights landscape and was forced out of the mainstream of the
movement after his "gun lock" Rose Garden episode pageant involving many
top leaders of the gun industry. But that is just one of many episodes
recounted in Feldman's Odyssey.
Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist, published by John Wiley & Sons
(phone: 800-762-2974; on-line: www.wiley.com) hit store front and
Internet book outlets at the end of October. It immediately scored with
anti-gun reviewers, most of whom misunderstood a very personal, backroom
look at the entire pro-gun movement as an attack on the NRA. Many of
these reviewers focused on only a small portion of Feldman's book, which
by the way is dedicated to Mister NRA himself, the late Harlon B.
Carter. How anyone could interpret a pro-gunner's book dedicated to
Carter as being an insider's attack on the Association is mystifying. I
can only assume that having long ago solidified their own hatred for
anything having to do with guns and gunowners--and especially the NRA,
they interpreted parts of the book as new fuel to keep their anti-gun,
anti-NRA zeal at fever temperature.
Some NRA officials and some of their most devout followers will not like
Ricochet. The NRA has dodged queries by officially saying they do not
comment on "fiction." Feldman's assessment of Wayne LaPierre and the
association's focus on increasing membership numbers and fund-raising
are likely to inspire some indigestion among NRA insiders and their less
knowledgeable acolytes. However, most members would be well served by
reading the book.
However, Ricochet is not fiction; far from it. Having been involved in
the movement and close to its center for many years, I can assure
readers that Ricochet accurately recounts factual incidents over about a
quarter of a century. However, it is also subjective in its
observations, especially about some of the key players. It is one
gunowner's--an NRA-endowment member's--view of how he first got into
guns and the gun rights battle while hailing from an unlikely New York
liberal background. He tells with a chuckle in his prose that even his
liberal, professional-class parents overcame their original anti-gun
position as they were immersed in the pro-gun milieu.
Most of all, Feldman's breezy, easy-reading style conveys his subjective
observations of what has gone on and is going on at the gun movement's
largest and oldest rights organization and many of the key people in the
NRA, the gun industry and politics. Wayne LaPierre, NRA's current EVP,
who has survived in that job longer than Harlon Carter or anyone else,
does not fare well in Feldman's book. Neither do a number of other
people who played key roles in gun rights history. I think Feldman's
characterizations of some may be colored too much by his own personal
experiences. But then I might not like some of the people he does.
Taking potshots at the NRA is nothing new, but that isn't what Feldman
is doing in Ricochet. The anti-gunners will keep doing that, and Feldman
is far from an anti-gunner. He's as pro-gun today as ever and still
advising gunowners to join the NRA or other gun organizations. In
Ricochet, I think he's holding up a lamp to some things about the
pro-gun movement and the industry that all gunowners and NRA members
need to know.
If you are interesting in an important perspective on what goes on
behind the scenes in the long struggle to preserve the right to keep and
bear arms in America--one that is much more candid and historically
accurate than commonly found in gun activists' libraries--Ricochet is a
fascinating and illuminative purchase. If you can't afford to buy many
new books these days, ask for it at your local library.
Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist by Richard Feldman is a 296-page
hard cover book, including an excellent 10-page index. The retail list
is $24.95, although some outlets, such as Amazon, may discount it.
Anyone who wants an autographed copy at full retail can order direct
from Feldman on his website: www.gunlobbyist.com.
This article is provided free by GunWeek.com.
For more great gun news, subscribe to our print edition.
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
