LA: Suspect Pulls Gun on Clerk, Clerk Shoots Suspect

Roderick Bennett got more than he bargained for when he pulled a gun on a clerk at a Central City retail store, judging from documents that New Orleans police filed in court.

Not only did the clerk also produce a firearm and shoot him, Bennett, in trying to drive to a hospital for treatment, crashed his car. And on Thursday, police arrested him on a charge of threatening the clerk in the first place.

They booked Bennett, 49, with aggravated assault with a gun and possession of a gun by a convicted felon.

More Here

PA: Homeowner Shoots, Kills 1 of 2 Home Invasion Suspects

An 18-year-old was shot and killed following a home invasion in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood, according to news reports.

The incident occurred along the 7500 block of Bennett Street at around 10:09 a.m., according to reports from WPXI and WTAE.

Police said a homeowner fired a gun at two intruders in his house. One of them was shot while the other person fled.

More Here

MI: Home Invasion, Activist Shot to Death

Acworth police said a 19-year-old man was shot to death inside an apartment in an apparent home invasion Wednesday morning.

Officers arrived at an apartment in building #5 on the 3000 block of Cobb Parkway in reference to a shooting call, when they found someone dead from gunshot wounds.

Channel 2′s Michele Newell was at the Walden Ridge Apartment Homes Tuesday, where the victim has been identified as Aiden Kane Shaw.

More Here

Polar Bear Stopped with a .44 Magnum on Arey Island, Alaska, August 16, 2014

 

 image of Arey island by Eric Mckittrick 23 August, 2003 link to license cc 2.5

Arey Island is a seven mile long barrier island in the Southern Beaufort Sea off the coast of the North Slope of Alaska. It is a flat, barren island, which is mostly privately owned.

During August of 2014 two United States Fish and Wildlife personnel were on duty on the west end of Arey Island recorded as off the mouth of the Hula Hula and Okpilak Rivers, 8.5 miles WSW of Kaktovik. 70 deg 05'23.67" N, 144 deg. 00'43.12"W. One of them defended themselves against a polar bear on August 16, at about 9 a.m. The incident was recorded as number 549 in the freedom of information act (FOIA) response AmmoLand received. 

What happened is reconstructed from the sparse reporting in the FOIA response. 

The Fish and Wildlive personnel did not have any dogs with them. The food was in a bear resistant container, outside of the tent. The Fish and Wildlife pair did not have bear spray with them, nor was bear spray used. In Kaktovik, the temperature was recorded as 39 degrees F, with a 20 mph wind from the East. Earlier, at 5 am, the wind had been 30 mph. For those of you who have not slept in a tent, 20 to 30 mph winds are significant. A tent has to be strong and well anchored to remain in place with a 30 mph wind. If the wind was averaging 20 mph, there were almost certainly gusts to 30 mph. When the wind was averaging 30 mph, there were almost certainly gusts to 45 mph.

One of the Fish and Wildlife personnel was sleeping in a tent. They had a .44 magnum. A fat and healthy boar polar bear arrived on the scene and attempted to enter the tent. The sleeper woke up, detected the polar bear, shot and killed the polar bear with the .44 magnum. The shooter was not injured, except perhaps, for some lost hearing ability. 

Some people might believe the boar polar bear was just looking for a little interspecies companionship in the bleak landscape. Polar bears are, most of the time, at the top of the food chain. They are opportunistic hunters. They live by killing and eating other living things. It seems unlikely the bear was there to cuddle.

Even at the relatively warm temperature of 39 degrees, shelter is essential to survival in a place such as Arey Island. With Kaktovik only 8.5 miles away, a healthy person could probably find shelter there. There is not much to make shelter from on a windswept barrier island such as Arey Island. If a polar bear forces its way into your tent, there may not be much tent left over.

In the reporting recovered in the FOIA, a person reviewing the incident made this comment:

Fat, curious  bear. If had had bear spray, this would have been a good time to use it. The individual did not carry ANY deterrents. Only a .44.

This reporter suspects the after the fact commentator did not bother to consider what the weather was when the incident happened. Weather was not mentioned in the abbreviated facts given in the information from the FOIA request. As a meteorologist in a previous career, this correspondent only took a few keystrokes to determine what the weather was on that day and time, from a reporting station in Kaktovik, only a few miles away. 

Bear spray with a 20 mph wind is useless. Even a slight breeze has major effects on bear spray. Bear spray inside a tent is more likely to debilitate a person in the tent than a bear outside of it. Waiting for a bear to enter the tent with you, in order to spray it, is not a wise option. How much damage the tent sustained in the fight for survival with a healthy polar bear, was not mentioned. The bear was killed.

The incident was recorded as a Defense of Life and Property report (DLP) in Alaska. 

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

TX: Disarm, Homeowner Takes Gun from Suspect, Suspect Killed

HARRISON COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) - A shooting near Hallsville on Friday that left one person dead may be a case of home protection, according to law enforcement.

Harrison County Sheriff B.J. Fletcher said the incident went from “borrowing some money to aggravated robbery gone wrong.” When deputies responded to the shooting call around 12:30 a.m. on Friday, the homeowner was standing out front of the house and cooperated fully, according to the sheriff.

The deceased, William Joseph Feazell, 40, was found in the kitchen, where the preliminary investigation revealed that he had been the instigator. Fletcher said that only one gun was involved, which belonged to Feazell. The homeowner was able to take control of the gun during the attempted robbery, which resulted in Feazell’s death.

More Here

NC: Repeal of Handgun Purchase Permit Demonstrates Chilling Effect on Exercise of Rights Protected by Second Amendment

North Carolina Capitol
 

On March 29, 2023, the North Carolina legislature overrode Governor (D) Roy Cooper's veto, eliminating the unconstitutional state requirement to obtain a permit to purchase a pistol. The permit system was put into operation in 1919, with a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and racism, during the Woodrow Wilson presidency. It was in place for 103 years. It is a classic example of a statute which effectively chills the exercise of a Constitutionally protected right. To see how effective the statute was in chilling rights protected by the Second Amendment, consider handgun sales, as measured by the NICS system, in April of 2022, and April of 2023. The Bill, SB41, became law when the veto was overridden on 29 March, 2023. The law's potential chilling effect was removed for the entire month of April, 2023.  If there was a significant chilling effect on the exercise of rights protected by the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, there should be an increase of handgun sales in April of 2023.

The handgun and long gun sales, as measured by the NICS system, in April of 2022, were:

handguns   1,655

long guns  12,435

The handgun and long gun sales, as measured by the NICS system, in April of 2023, were:

Handguns  46,040

Long guns 11,984

This is significant proof of an enormous chilling effect on the exercise of rights protected by the Second Amendment.  Handgun sales increased more than 27 fold after the law producing the chilling effect was repealed.  The total handgun sales in North Carolina were only 22,109 in 2022. After the law was repealed, in one month, handgun sales more than doubled over the entire previous year.

In the Bruen decision, the Supreme Court declared the Second Amendment is not a second class right. The Supreme Court has held laws which chill the exercise of a right enumerated in the Constitution are unconstitutional. From the mtsu.edu:

In Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965), the Court struck down a postal regulation requiring individuals who
wished to receive communist literature to sign up at the post office. Although the program included no sanctions against recipients, the Court said it would chill individuals who wanted the material but were afraid to make their wishes known to the government.

The purpose of those who seek our disarmament is to reduce the number of guns and the number of gun owners. Their unproven claim is: fewer firearms will reduce illegitimate violence. However, most illegitimate violence happens in countries with few legitimate firearms. Rebecca Peters headed up the successful George Soros funded drive in Australia, to emplace draconian gun control laws. She is now the director of  International Action Network on Small Arms (www.iansa.org). She published an article at the UN Chronicle, explaining the strategy. This is an excerpt.  From un.org:

Reducing the domestic supply of new weapons. While most countries permit civilian ownership of small arms, they are at the same time seeking to contain it to moderate levels. What is considered a moderate or acceptable level of gun ownership in society is coming increasingly under scrutiny as governments recognize the need to strengthen their gun laws. Driven by regional and international agreements, popular pressure and expert advice, gun laws around the world are growing tighter and more uniform. The emerging norms include integrated renewable licensing and registration of firearms and owners, based on proof of a legitimate reason for possession, limits on the types and number of weapons a civilian can possess, minimum age limits, checks of criminal record and other personal information, safe storage requirements etc. As the new laws reduce the proportion of the population legally entitled to buy or possess arms, as well as the number each licensee can own, the flow of new weapons into the country will slow.

In 2022, the last year we have full statistics, there were National Instant background Check Systems (NICS) checks for about 8.78 million handguns and 5.63 million long guns in the United States of America. Other sales and multiple sales are relatively minor and not included in those numbers. Using the same measure, in North Carolina in 2022, there were 22,109 NICS checks for handguns and 172,574 NICS checks for long guns. While the national total shows a preference for handguns over long guns of 1.56 handguns per long gun, the North Carolina total shows an enormously chilled preference of .128 handguns per each long gun, or  1/12 of the national average. This confirms the chilling effect of the now repealed North Carolina law. Laws in other states, which place burdens on the exercise of Second Amendment rights, are equally suspect. Some of those laws are already being challenged in the courts, such as California's handgun roster law.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

 

 

MD: Charges dropped for Cody Allen Hammond - Video shows no Firearm Possession

Cecil County Circuit Court Judge Brenda A. Sexton acquitted the defendant — Cody Allen Hammond, 21, of Elkton — of all charges at mid-trial on Friday in response to a defense motion made by Elkton-based lawyer C. Thomas Brown. The defense attorney made his motion for directed verdict after the state had rested its case. Prosecutors had presented witness testimony for about a day and a half, after both sides had spent one day on jury selection, before resting their case on Friday.

During his mid-trial motion, Brown argued that the state had failed to meet its burden of proof to convict his client. Specifically, he maintained that Hammond is unarmed every time he appears on security-camera video of the incident, which prosecutors had presented as part of their case against him.

More Here

SC: Cheap Gun Opportunity in Spartanburg on May 13, 2023, 8 am to 1 pm.

Update: the event occurred on Saturday. It appears mostly long guns were collected.

There will be a gun "turn in event" on Saturday, May 13, 2023 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. These events are commonly labelled with the Orwellian term "buyback".  The guns were never owned by people attempting to obtain them, so they cannot be bought back. This is a propaganda event to make it appear as if guns are illicit items.

Guns have enormous utility and are sought after possessions. The people who turn in guns at these events  either do not know the value of their guns, want to make a political statement, or turn in guns which have a value less than the money offered by the gun turn in organizers. From WYFF:

The city of Spartanburg in South Carolina is offering gift cards in exchange for working guns.

The gun buyback will take place from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday, May 13 at City Hall on West Broad Street.

Participants will receive $100 in gift cards for handguns, and $150 in gift cards for high-powered weapons.

The address for the Spartanburg City Hall parking lot is 145 W Broad Street. When Second Amendment supporters attend these events to purchase undervalued firearms from those who do not know their value, the propaganda effect of the event is diminished or destroyed. Instead of the message "Guns are bad, turn them in to the police", the message becomes "Guns are valuable, we pay cash."

This correspondent has been at a number of similar events. One in Phoenix, Arizona turned into a rolling gun show.

Gift cards tend to run out quickly. It is best to show up early. People who bring guns to the event
after the gift cards run out are usually willing to deal.  This correspondent obtained some nice, if inexpensive guns, at the Phoenix event.

Some Police are hostile to private buyers, others are indifferent or positive. It is a good idea to do some research before setting up a table and holding up a sign saying with "Cash for Guns" sign.

Private sales are legal in South Carolina.

Second Amendment supporters can help make the turn-in in your area more effective by standing on the curb with your "Cash for Guns" sign, or at a folding table, willing to offer more than the gift card for firearms that are more valuable. If several private parties are available, they can support each other and help to prevent false accusations.

This action serves many useful purposes. It stretches the turn-in budget so that more guns can be taken off the street. It helps prevent fearful widows from being defrauded of most of the market value of the gun they are turning in. It prevents valuable assets from being destroyed by bureaucratic inflexibility. It is a win-win-win situation.

Proponents of gun turn-in events know they are not really useful for preventing crime. Academics agree the events do not accomplish much, except as propaganda. The best academic study indicates they are likely counterproductive.  Very few gun turn-in events occur where private sales are legal. Most events now happen where private sales are banned, such as in California, New York, Massachusetts or New Jersey.

Those who plot for a disarmed public have learned to limit advertisement of their events to reduce participation by Second Amendment supporters. They give only a few days notice. Second Amendment supporters who attend should take pictures and be ready to video or audio record events. Some very interesting information has been obtained in this way.

It is particularly useful to see what guns are being turned in to be destroyed. Many valuable guns have been turned in at these events, some worth thousands of dollars.

The event at Spartanburg is to take place at City Hall. Event organizers will likely attempt to prevent photographs of what is going on. Police are likely to attempt to prevent Second Amendment supporter from offering cash for valuable guns.  On public right of way, this is almost certainly a violation of First Amendment rights.

If a reader decides to be a citizen reporter and attend this event, please contact Dean Weingarten via AmmoLand after you have attended, with an after action report. Pictures are always useful. Several events have been noted where private purchasers were present, but were ignored by the biased media.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

 

NV: Armed Victim Shoots, Kills Carjacking Suspect

When he entered traffic on Paradise Road, he immediately began pointing a gun at passing cars, stopping a silver vehicle. He pointed his gun at the person who was driving the vehicle, a man in his 50s. That driver was armed and shot the suspect.  

The driver appears to be the victim of a possible carjacking, and at this time is not facing any charges, Johansson said.

More Here

KY: Louiseville Mass Murderer: Killing was to Promote Gun Control Agenda

 While mass murderers are as likely to be mentally deranged environmentalists as they are to be Muslims (most do not show political affiliation), some have made clear they favored keeping guns from the general public. It is the ultimate in logic-defying irrationality of those who promote disarmament.

From the Daily Mail:

[the mass murderer] made three key points in the manifesto, which is in the hands of the police: he wanted to kill himself, he wanted to prove how easy it was to buy a gun in Kentucky and he wanted to highlight a mental health crisis in America.

The mass-murderer legally purchased an AR-15 assault rifle on April 4, six days before he entered the bank at 8:33am where he was met by a friendly woman colleague at the entrance. He told her 'you need to get out of here' before he tried to shoot her.

But the weapon was unloaded and the safety catch was on. He then loaded the rifle, flicked off the safety and blasted the fleeing woman in the back.

Two things stand out from the paragraph above.

First, The murderer could see the way to media fame was to promote gun control by murdering many people with an AR15 type rifle..

Second, if they bank employee had been armed, she could have stopped the mass murder before it happened, because of the incompetence of the murderer.

From the Crime Prevention Research Center, about Columbine:

 The Majority leader of the state House at the time, Doug Dean, told John Lott that Klebold had written his state legislators opposing the legislation.  The bill would have allowed people to carry permitted concealed handguns on school property.  The killers timed their attack for the very day that final passage of the law was planned for in the legislature.

It is not surprising that mass murderers favor keeping potential victims unarmed. Many of them made clear in their writings they go to considerable lengths to conduct the attacks where the potential victims are required by law to be disarmed. This brings the second point above into question. If the bank in Louisville had allowed people to have the means to defend themselves, he would likely have chosen a different target.  From the CPRC:

Updated March 28, 2023: At some point, you would think that the empirical evidence would be overwhelming. When the Aurora, Colorado Batman movie theater shooter attacked, there were seven movie theaters showing “The Dark Knight Rises” on July 20th within 20 minutes of the killer’s apartment at 1690 Paris St, Aurora, Colorado, but the killer picked the only theater that had signs posted that it was a gun-free zone. His first target had been an airport but he worried about their “substantial security.” Similar stories have occurred at malls such as in Omaha and Salt Lake City or the Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater. Despite teachers carrying guns in schools in 20 states, all the shooting attacks at schools have occurred in schools that ban teachers from having guns.

Many mass murderers have mental problems. They also take considerable time and effort to plan their attacks and to chose targets. They are subject to deterrence. The Old National Bank specifically banned employees from being armed. From the Team Member Handbook:

•Possession of dangerous or unauthorized materials, such as explosives, firearms, or any type of weapons inside the workplace or on company premises. In some states, there are additional laws about this subject; when applicable, state law takes precedence over these guidelines.

Opinion:

Mass public murder can be reduced in at least two ways which would cost very little. Both are opposed by America's de-facto ruling class in the Media, bureaucracies, intelligence services, academia. They are:

Reduce the incentive for mass public murder by reducing the payoff of media fame. The mass media did this with celebrity suicides. They have chosen not to do it with mass public murder.

Increase the deterrence to mass public murder by allowing the public to defend itself with armed force.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

 

TX: Jarrell Homeowner Shot, Killed Suspected Home Invader

JARRELL, Texas (KXAN) — A homeowner shot a suspected burglar Thursday morning in Jarrell after he forced his way into the home, according to a Williamson County Sheriff’s Office release.

The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Juan Sanchez Palafox, was found dead by WCSO deputies after they were called to the home on County Road 239, the release said.

 

More Here

Two Progressive Activists in Gunfight. Legal gun Owner Shoots Illegal Gun possessor, Kills Same

From inquirer.com: 

Jane Roh, a spokesperson for District Attorney Larry Krasner, said Friday that both their office and the Police Department were in agreement about what happened between two paid canvassers for the progressive group One PA.

“This is nonetheless a tragic loss of life,” Roh said. “We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the decedent.”

Meanwhile, family members of the victim, Eddie Brokenbough, were distraught to learn the father of 10 had been shot, and doubted police accounts of the shooting.

Reports spread that Brokenbough, who was shot once in the armpit and rushed from the 2000 block of Church Lane to a nearby hospital, had pulled a gun on the 22-year-old canvasser, causing the younger man to shoot in what he told police was self-defense.

One PA has said guns are not permitted in its offices or during canvassing, and it has temporarily suspended its canvassing efforts.

The group is an independent expenditure committee that can raise and spend money to boost candidates but is prohibited from directly coordinating with them. This year, the group knocked on doors to promote mayoral candidate Helen Gym and a slate of left-leaning City Council candidates.

Brokenbough was not legally permitted to carry a firearm because of charges in a 2012 shooting, court records show. He was a paid temporary canvasser for OnePA on and off since 2021, the group said. The 22-year-old shooter has been employed by the group since last year.

A spokesperson for OnePA said Tuesday that it complies with laws prohibiting background checks on employees and wouldn’t discuss Brokenbough’s background during the investigation.

One PA Executive Director Steve Paul said following the shooting that the organization was “heartbroken, and our condolences and sympathy are with their family.”

Both men knew each other, police said, and the shooting stemmed from an “argument,” possibly over an existing dispute.

 

 

 

New York Government Attempts to Moot Second Amendment Case. Again.

The State of New York Office of the Attorney General has issued a letter to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to moot some of the challenges to the infringements on Second Amendment rights. Those challenges are now before the Second Circuit.

When the Supreme Court published the seminal Second Amendment case in Bruen, re-enforcing the Heller opinion from 2008, in 2022, some states rebelled and defied the Supreme Court. One of these was New York. In New York, Governor Hochel, convened a special emergency session to create new law to infringe on the rights protected by the Second Amendment. The new law made it nearly impossible for an ordinary person to carry a firearm for self defense in public.

The law was immediately challenged in several court cases. Judges issued injunctions against the enforcement of the new law, on the grounds that it causes immediate harm and was likely to be overturned by the courts. Those cases were consolidated before the Second Circuit, and the Second Circuit put a stay on the injunctions.  The stay allowed the law to be enforced while the case was being adjudicated.

On May 5, 2023, the State of New York Office of the Attorney General, lead by the infamous Letitia James, sent a letter to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming some of the claims before the court were now moot, because of last minute changes to the concealed carry law passed in emergency session in 2022. The changes were inserted into the state budget bill, which became law on May 3, and went into effect immediately. The case is known as Hardaway v. Nigrelli. From the Letter:

But, under the amended statute, Hardaway and Boyd—who, as their churches ’ leaders, both retain the authority to grant “permission to [themselves] to carry for purposes of keeping the peace in [their] church[es]” (J.A. 71-72)—are permitted to carry firearms at their church. Plaintiffs do not purport to raise Second Amendment claims on behalf of their congregants, and there is no authority for third-party standing in such circumstances. Thus, plaintiffs’ action challenging the place-of-worship provision is now moot.

Included in the changes were changes which allowed a person to carry on private property inside a public park, which applies  to another challenge of the law. The public park change was made in an amendment to the budget bill sometime after the S4005B version was proposed on March 14 of 2023. The budget bill was passed on May 1 2023, and signed into law on May 3, 2023. The prompt action by the State of New York Office of the Attorney General indicates this change was a priority.

In 2020, the State of New York applied nearly the same tactic to moot the New York Rifle & Pistol Association case then pending before the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court accepted the tactic and mooted the case, only to deliver a delayed and improved decision in the Bruen case two years later.

The Supreme Court may not be as willing to accept this tactic as they were in 2020. The case is not before the Supreme Court. Hardaway v. Nigrelli is before the United State Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit has been notoriously lax in enforcing rights protected by the Second Amendment.

Analysis:

This is more lawfare practiced by the State of New York to delay and obstruct the ability to exercise rights protected by the Second Amendment as long as possible. The letter gives cover to the Judges on the Second Circuit to moot challenges to the unconstitutional law passed in emergency session. By placing the amendments in the budget bill, the Governor, Attorney General, and their allies in the legislature ensured there would be little or no debate on the measures.

If the Second Circuit moots the challenges to the New York Law, the decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court, thus taking more time and delaying the exercise of Second Amendment rights even more.  Two justices of the Supreme Court recognize this delaying tactic and exhorted the Second Circuit to act in a reasonable amount of time.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

 

TX: Armed Victim Shoots Carjacking Suspects, 1 Killed, 1 Wounded

DALLAS — A man is dead after an attempted carjacking ended with a shooting Wednesday at an Oak Cliff gas station

The incident happened outside the Quick Trip on S. R. L. Thornton Freeway at Glen Oaks Crossing in Oak Cliff. Police say three suspects attempted to rob a man at gunpoint, who then shot two of them in self-defense. 

More Here

MD: Domestic Defense, Armed Samaritan Shoots, Kills man who Allegedly Assaulted Girlfriend, threatened Him

A 30-year-old off-duty firefighter who was allegedly assaulting his girlfriend was shot and killed by an armed pedestrian walking his dog after the girlfriend was able to flee from their Maryland townhouse and ask the man for his help.

(skip)

 “According to witnesses, Braxton approached and threatened to harm the man,” the sheriff’s office wrote in the press release. “Braxton continued walking aggressively toward the man, at which time the man, who has a permit to carry a firearm, produced a gun and shot Braxton.”

 

More Here

Rossi New: RB 22 Compact with Threaded Muzzle at NRA Annual Meeting

The Rossi booth at the NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, 2023, had a new product this correspondent had been hoping to see. It is the RB 22 Compact, a bolt action .22LR with a 10 shot magazine, 16 1/2  inch barrel, with muzzle threaded to 1/2x28, and a composite stock. It is sized to be child friendly, has the very good fiber optic Rossi open sights, and is grooved for mounting optics.

It weighs (unloaded) 3 lbs, 4 ounces. It comes, as seen, in a variety of colors, with one magazine. The overall length is 31 1/2 inches.  Take down to minimum length for transport is easily done with the removal of the two action machine screws. This brings the minimum length to less than 25 inches, which will fit in most full sized luggage, without the tell-tale "gun case" look.

The trigger on the floor model felt very usable to this correspondent. Add a suppressor to this rifle, and it makes a nearly ideal rifle to start young shooters with. It would be a wonderful camp rifle for summer camp rifle introductory courses.

In the picture above, notice the stock has been changed to allow easier access to the crossbolt safety.  The manufacturer's (MSRP) suggested retail price is $185.99. The MSRP for the RS 22, the popular Rossi semi-auto, is $159.99. This correspondent has purchased RS 22 rifles on sale for as low as $97. If the new RB 22 compact eventually follows the trend, expect street prices to be in the neighborhood of $150, or less on sale.

The RB 22 practically begs for a lightweight red dot sight and a silencer/suppressor. It will be a wonderful lightweight hunting platform, and a great camp/woods-running gun. With the smooth bolt action, there is nearly no action noise to accompany a shot with sub-sonic ammunition. It would make a wonderful "truck" gun as well. It is small, easy to use, tough and inexpensive.

The RB 22 action has it's own magazines, which are not made to activate the hold-open feature of the RS 22. However, the RB 22 will work fine with the RS 22 magazines. The only difference is: the bolt will not close with an empty RS 22 magazine fully inserted into the magazine well. Some would say this is a feature, not a bug, which signals the operator - the rifle is empty!

This correspondent likes the option to go either way, and has several spare magazines for the RS 22.

The RB 22 Compact is a bolt action, light weight, compact, threaded muzzle rifle at a very reasonable price. It was difficult to find anything to complain about with the new RB 22 compact.

This correspondent's experience with the RS 22, is the trigger pull can be improved with a little gun plumbing. There are several videos online to show the tinkerer how to do so. The directions are not difficult to follow, and good results may be had with a little effort. As noted, the floor display model examined had a good trigger already.  Your mileage may vary.

Perhaps the most important feature to this correspondent is the inclusion of the threaded, accessory ready muzzle, with included thread protector.  Add a suppressor, flash hider, forward sound director, or reverse paradox tube. With a 20 inch reverse paradox tube, an easy to handle garden gun with .22 shot shells. The bolt action handles them with ease, the rifle is still easy to handle, and you have increased the effective range to at least 10 yards, over the usual range out of a rifle of 10 feet. 

This correspondent would like to see a manufacturer offer aluminum reverse paradox tubes for the price of an spare magazine. 

It is difficult to surpass the versatility, economy, and durability of a .22 LR bolt action. With minimal care, it is expected the RB 22 should give decades, perhaps centuries of service. This correspondent predicts several hundred thousand rounds would go downrange before mechanical wear becomes a problem. 

 

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

NC: Gunfight, Pharmacist drives off Robbery Suspects, is Grazed by Bullet

LEXINGTON, N.C. (WGHP) — Police say suspects fired shots inside a Lexington pharmacy during an attempted robbery on Tuesday afternoon, and two people have been arrested.

FOX8 is told that around 2 p.m., a pharmacist was grazed by a bullet and then fired back with his own gun. 

Steve Koontz is the pharmacy manager at the Lexington Family Pharmacy. He said two masked men came to rob the pharmacy and shot at him. Koontz legally carries at the pharmacy and fired back.

More Here

Book Review: On the Hunt: The History of Deer Hunting in Wisconsin

On the Hunt: The History of Deer Hunting in Wisconsin. 224 pages, 100 illustrations, by Robert C. Willging, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2008.

On the Hunt is a well written and comprehensive history of deer hunting in Wisconsin. It is that rare treat, a factual, scholarly history combined with numerous anecdotal accounts and local histories integrated to make an easily readable, smooth flowing and factually loaded book. It has about a hundred illustrations.  The illustrations and stories will appeal to a broad range of ages and interests. The book opens with a recounting of Robert C. Willging's, transformation from a Chicago city kid to a full fledged Wisconsin deer hunter.

This writer purchased On the Hunt  for his brother as an adjunct to the long term family tradition of deer hunting in northern Wisconsin.  The book is available from the Wisconsin Historical Society in oversized softcover for $25. Hardcover copies show up online from time to time.

On the Hunt portrays pre-historical hunters as they populate the Great Lakes area with its retreating glaciers, thousands of years ago. The Paleo-Indians were armed with the atlatl, or spear thrower, a device which significantly increased the range of a hunter's reach. The atlatl stayed in use up to the discovery of the new world by early renaissance Europeans. It's use by Aztec warriors was noted in the first hand account of Bernal Diaz in his seminal work, the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico.

The atlatl is limited in effective range to about 30-40 yards. It requires a fairly open space to work. The next advance in hunting hardware was the bow and arrow, which became common in the Americas a few hundred years before the Europeans arrived in significant numbers. As an aside, the bow and arrow were not used, at least to any appreciable extent, in Australia, where the atlatl is known as the womera.  The bow became the principle device for hunting deer in the Americas until the introduction of firearms.

This correspondent grew up in the Wisconsin northwoods, and experienced a significant number of the events Willging writes about.  The book appears accurate in every significant detail. By necessity, the work concentrates on history from about 1850 onward, although the pre-history from the discovery of the area by humans until the 1600's is as well done as can be expected.

Th history from 1850 onward is the history of the enormous success of the European immigrants in taming the land, and increasing agricultural productivity.  As the European immigrants did this, they realized whitetail deer were a resource which was being lost, and required management. Starting in the late 1800's, management of the whitetail deer gradually changed from prohibitions on hunting during spring and early summer, to the sophisticated system of licenses, permits, quotas, and limited hunting methods modern hunters are familiar with.

The number of whitetail deer in Wisconsin is much greater than it ever was before the entrance of Europeans on the scene.  Today the whitetail herd in Wisconsin is over one and a half million animals. Hundreds of thousands must be harvested every year to stave off overuse of the range, and the inevitable winter starvation which follows. The management of the deer herd has been an incredible success of the wildlife conservation movement. The book is highly recommended for anyone who desires to understand the complex interaction of modern man and game animals.

Opinion: The reason Wisconsin can support such an enormous increase in whitetail deer is the Europeans immigrants and their technology made the land far, far more productive than it was previously. Virgin forest is not very productive. It produces a heavy biomass of wood, which few animals can use for food. Whitetail deer profited enormously from the cutting of the virgin forest in the north-woods of Wisconsin.

The largest population and concentration of whitetail deer today is in the southern part of the state. In the petroleum age, fertilizers have made the land many times as productive as it used to be. The whitetail deer living in woodlots and feeding on the edges of cornfields benefit tremendously from the existence of this largess.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

 

 

TN: Homeowner Shoots 2 Home Invasions Suspects, 1 Killed, 1 Wounded

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- A suspect in a Murfreesboro home invasion is shot and killed by the homeowner.

The homeowner shot and killed one man in the home invasion on January Street Friday night, and shot a second suspect multiple times, according to Murfreesboro police. Kevin Ford, 52, is identified as the person who died at the scene.

Police found the second intruder, 42-year-old Clifford Wright, at the Salvation Army. He went to the hospital for treatment of his gunshot wounds, before heading to jail.

According to police, the homeowner was able to get his gun after the two masked men broke into his home, used a Taser on a his dog and held his teenage son at gunpoint.

More Here

CA: Waiting Period Law Challenged Under Supreme Court Bruen Decision

 

On May 1, in the Federal District Court for the District of Southern California, a number of plaintiffs, including: San Diego County Gun Owners PAC; California Gun Rights Foundation; Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc.; and Second Amendment Foundation, filed a lawsuit challenging the California statute requiring a ten day waiting period before a person may purchase a firearm in California. The case is Richards v Bonta.  A previous lawsuit, Silvester v Harris had failed. The Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of certiorari in 2018, with Justice Thomas dissenting. From the dissent:

Because the right to keep and bear arms is enumerated in the Constitution, courts cannot subject laws that burden it to mere rational-basis review. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 628, n. 27 (2008). But the decision below did just that. Purporting to apply intermediate scrutiny, the Court of Appeals upheld California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms based solely on its own “common sense.”

A complicated two step system, with its "ways/means" rational basis test, disguised as intermediate scrutiny, was instituted and and used by the Ninth Circuit and others to disfavor rights protected by the Second Amendment. This was done in Silvester v Harris and other cases. Justice Thomas repudiated that process in the Bruen decision on June 22, 2022. The Bruen decision makes another challenge to the California waiting period law ripe for review. In Richards v Bonta, the plaintiffs explain how this is so. From the plaintiffs' brief:

6. As explained in Bruen, the government bears the burden of “affirmatively prov[ing] that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” 142 S.Ct. at 2127. Here, Defendants cannot possibly carry that burden. No waiting period or any analogous laws existed in the constitutionally relevant period of history. Rather, no form of a waiting period law was enacted for any jurisdiction until 1923, well beyond the relevant time period the Supreme Court permits to be considered—after all, the law held unconstitutional in Bruen was enacted in 1911.

7. Adding insult to injury, Defendants broadly discriminate against the
average person by allowing nearly two dozen categories of favored individuals to take possession of firearms and ammunition without being subject to those same delays and burdens. This case is thus also brought on the premise that Defendants’ enforcement of California law violates the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating among its citizens in their exercise of the fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

The case has been assigned to Judge Larry Allen Burns.

Analysis: The case is another of the dozens which are ongoing as the result of the clarification of the process, required by the Supreme Court, on how to handle cases which involve infringements on the rights protected by the Second Amendment. Justice Clarence Thomas, perceiving the way the lower courts were ignoring the plain words of the Second Amendment, made clear in the opinion published in Bruen, the Second Amendment is to be treated with the same respect as other enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights. With Bruen, the complicated scheme to disfavor Second Amendment rights, concocted in the Ninth Circuit and others, was discredited and dismantled.

Preventing people from obtaining the means to exercise their rights as protected by the Second Amendment is a clear infringement.  If the exercise of the rights can be delayed for 10 days, why not 20? Why not 100? Why not 1,000 days.  There is a legal maxim: Justice delayed is justice denied. The idea of waiting periods to obtain arms protected by the Second Amendment was created in California in 1923, explicitly for racist purposes. There does not appear to be any historical precedent for waiting periods to obtain  firearms, before 1923.   Clayton Cramer published a paper on the racist origins of the California gun law in 2015.

 

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch