November 10, 2017 Newsletter by Jeff Pittman
Housekeeping
Due to the holiday seasons and erratic schedules, delivery of the 2A News may be sporadic until January.
Veterans
Tomorrow is Veterans Day. Thank you, veterans.
Texas church massacre
You’ve heard all about the massacre last Sunday at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, a tiny town near San Antonio, TX. 20 wounded, 26+ dead, ages 18 months to 77 years. Apparently the killer (who will not be named here) drove up, got out with a rifle, and went in shooting during the morning service. Neighbor Stephen Willeford, 55, a proverbial “good guy with a gun” and former NRA instructor who witnessed the event, responded first and got his own rifle and returned fire, apparently hitting the perpetrator and then enlisted the help of Johnnie Langendorff, another passer-by, to chase the escaping killer down by car, eventually leading police to the perpetrator. Responding police arrived 5-7 minutes later at the location where the killer ran into a ditch and was found deceased apparently from a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police also arrrived at the church perhaps 5 minutes after the massacre.
Texas Rangers Major Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, says the suspect dropped his rifle and fled after being engaged by Mr. Willeford. Multiple law enforcement officials confirmed that Willeford saved lives with his heroic actions. Apparently no other victims were shot after Mr. Willeford intervened. We have no reports of unarmed gun-banners helping out.
How many more victims would there have been if not for the neighbor with the rifle? An evil, black, semiautomatic “assault” rifle.
Re-evaluate your church security plan. Then do it again.
- http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/church-safety
- http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/forming-a-church-safety-team
- http://www.precisionshootingcenter.com/church-security-team-course.html
- https://www.boondocksfta.com/church-security.html
According to concealedcarry.com, there are only two states that ban concealed carry in churches, Nebraska and Louisiana, but they allow churches to authorize an armed security team with conditions. Seven states and D.C. that require the permission of a church leader to conceal carry firearms in church, and 41 states where carry in churches is treated the same as any other private property. Other sources may give other or conflicting information. Texas appears to allow only licensed CCW and then only if the church isn’t posted with a “30.06” gun ban sign.
In Mississippi churches, state law allows open carry, CCW with an enhanced permit, or carry by members of a designated armed church security team (with or without a permit). “Purse carry” without an enhanced permit by a person not on a church security team is not legal.
Notes:
Police arrived within minutes, and 26 people died.
The left immediately and literally blamed the NRA, Republicans, President Trump, God, the gun industry, and TX Gov. Greg Abbott, in no particular order. US Senate Democrats immediately introduced a bill to ban the same gun that Mr. Willeford used to stop the massacrist.
“If I had run out of the house with a pistol and faced a bulletproof vest and kevlar and helmets, it might have been futile. I ran out with an AR-15 and that’s what he was shooting the place up with. I hate to politicize that, but that’s reality.” — Stephen Willeford
Or maybe it’s the Democrats’ fault.
Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said “This is going to happen again. All I can say is in Texas at least we have the opportunity to have conceal carry. And so … there’s always the opportunity that gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many people.”
Not only the left and the lamestream media, but even some in law enforcement are erroneously referring to the killer’s rifle as an “assault weapon” or “assault rifle.”
One commenter states that nearly every story about the killer talked about the type of gun he used, in particular describing his rifle as “military style” and an “assault weapon.” But the citizen defender, who used the same AR-style rifle as the killer, just used a gun. Or a rifle.
A panel on MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily on Tuesday lied about the event, claiming that Mr. Willeford did not shoot at the Texas church shooter and did not stop his rampage.
Willeford, a former “NRA instructor,” probably had not been instructing on self defense, but on gun safety or marksmanship, as that is the huge majority of the content in citizen NRA courses.
The Pentagon has known for at least two decades about failures to give military criminal history information to the FBI, including the type the Air Force didn’t report about this killer who assaulted his then-wife and stepson while serving as an enlisted airman.
Frankly, even if the missed opportunities to deny the killer from buying guns had not been missed, it is foolish to believe that anything short of having him already incarcerated would likely have prevented the massacre. Making it illegal for a violent nutcase to have a gun hardly prevents him from getting one. Which of course brings us back from prevention to defense. You should assume that our best preventive measures have failed, and the government has failed.
Church attendees were required by law to come armed in colonial America. From Colonial Firearms Regulation:
A. Guns in Church
The statute that most clearly states the intent of “bring your guns to church” laws is a 1643 Connecticut order, “To prevent or withstand such sudden assaults as may be made by Indeans upon the Sabboth or lecture dayes, It is Ordered, that one person in every several howse wherein is any souldear or souldears, shall bring a musket, pystoll or some peece, with powder and shott to e[a]ch meeting….” Connecticut found within a month that, “Whereas it is obsearved that the late Order for on[e] in a Family to bring his Arms to the meeting house every Sabboth and lecture day, hath not bine attended by divers persons” there was now a fine for failing to do so.
Study: gun violence NOT an “epidemic,” NOT contagious, NOT a public health crisis
These results suggest that a disease model for the spread of gun violence in space and time may not be a good fit for most of the geographically stable and temporally stochastic process observed. And that existing space/time tests may not be adequate tests for spatiotemporal gun violence diffusion models.”
NYC truck attack follow-up
“The question is what do we do when we can’t stop killers from getting weapons.
If New York City politicians are serious about stopping terrorist attacks, they should take a page from Israel and the vast majority of the U.S. and let citizens defend themselves. Unlike a huge increase in policing, it would come at no expense to taxpayers. And yet, it would likely be more effective. ‘See something, say something’ is useful, but sometimes it simply isn’t fast enough.” — John Lott (source)
Cops, CCW and traffic stops
Enemies
Col. Dean Winslow (USAF-Ret.), a psychotic professor at Stanford University, is President Trump’s nominee for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. Winslow said last week during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Service committee that he thinks it is “insane” for civilians to be able to purchase semi-automatic rifles. You might wanna take a look at that oath again, “Colonel.” The Committee declined to move forward with Winslow’s confirmation because lawmakers still “have a number of questions” due to his comments on gun control and military abortion policy.
The US Senate has confirmed Randy Reeves of Madison, MS to be the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs in the US Department of Veterans Affairs, leading the National Cemetery Administration, which maintains 131 national cemeteries and provides burial services for veterans and eligible family members. Reeves, a decorated combat veteran, is currently the executive director of the Mississippi Veterans Affairs Board. If memory serves, that is the same board responsible for Mississippi’s veterans’ homes, which have prohibited the donation of gun-related magazines (the kind you read) for their residents.
Bishop Edward Burns of the diocese of Dallas is responding to the Sutherland Springs church massacre by telling Catholics in his diocese they don’t have permission to carry guns for self-protection in church. Ironically, Burns also requests that parishes “consider appropriate safety measures” by removing signs forbidding concealed carry in churches in order to “eliminate any perception that any of our parishes would be an easy target for terror.”
I have a response to that but am too polite to print it.
The Only Ones
A 49-year-old unidentified former NYPD officer had his Glock stolen as he tried to stop a robbery outside a Manhattan corner grocery store early last Saturday morning.
FBI counterterrorism supervisor Robert Manson is under investigation after he apparently got drunk with an “exotic dancer” at a North Carolina hotel, passed out and proceeded to get robbed of his Glock 27 40-caliber handgun along with a $6,000 Rolex watch and $60 in cash while he stayed at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte back in July. Manson is a “unit chief” assigned to FBI headquarters who oversees all terrorism investigations in the Midwest and the Carolinas, and was in Charlotte with other agents for training. I’d say he needs some.
Judicial idiots and regular idiots
Bloomberg Politics reports that on their first full day of jury deliberations at the bribery trial of Senator Robert Menendez, a juror asked U.S. District Judge William Walls a basic question: What is a senator?
Judge Walls declined to answer the question, and he refused that juror’s request for a transcript of the closing argument by Menendez’s attorney, Abbe Lowell. Walls told jurors that they should rely on their individual and collective memories to determine how to define a senator.
Somehow I doubt that this is a jury of Senator Menendez’s peers, and I doubt that Judge Walls is competent.
Too funny to not report
Actual headline: “Man Shoots Himself In Wiener Following Wiener Stand Robbery”
Record
Aaron Gould has killed 8 clay targets, hand thrown at the same time, with 8 shots, while holding the shotgun upside down over his head.
Recall
Maverick Arms (Mossberg) has recalled some 12 ga. Hunter over/under shotguns because they are erroneously marked for 3½” shells, not 3″. All Maverick Hunter shotguns are 3″. If your shotgun marking reads “12 Ga 3½” Maverick Hunter,” then your shotgun IS affected by this recall. They want you to send it back for a new gun. Or you can just scratch out the “½.”
Products
Slide Fire continues its “on again, off again” supply/ordering availability for its Slide Fire stocks.
RKGuns.com and Bass Pro Shops have Remington RM380 pistols (the Rohrbaugh design) for just $166-170 after Remington’s $100 rebate.
European American Armory has some polymer-framed 1911 pistols.
Lyman/Tacstar has carbon fiber shotgun magazine extension tubes that weigh about 1/4 what steel ones weigh. Very limited applications. $73-100.
Hill Billy Brass is offering “80%” WSSM (Winchester Super Short Magnum) cases, which are halfway formed from new factory Winchester WSM brass. They form the shoulders and leave the necks’ outside diameters to be .300″. This allows the customers to final form the neck to whichever WSSM caliber or a wildcat cartridge based on a WSSM case they want to. Cheaper than fully formed brass.
Big Horn Armory’s new AR500 is an AR-10 platform rifle chambered in the .500 Auto Mag, a rimless version of the .500 S&W cartridge. Claimed to be well in excess of the .458 SOCOM, and in the .50 BMG class from a short (18″) barrel. $2000.
Hodgdon’s new IMR Enduron 8133 is a new magnum powder in the IMR Enduron line designed specifically for magnum calibers and has the slowest burn rate among the Enduron powders and compares in burn rate to Hodgdon Retumbo.
Quote of the Week
“You are destroying evidence in your own defense if you consent to a search of something that’s not in a search warrant.” — Don Kilmer
