Are you a member of an organization that uses your dues to promote gun laws and won’t even let any business dealing with guns advertise in their magazine? If you are a member of American Association of Retired Persons you do.

In a 12/10/04 press release AARP states “AARP supported the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which went into law in 1994 with bi-partisan support, but was allowed to expire this year.” On their website under advertising guidelines they state: “Unacceptable Ad Messages – AARP deems some industry sectors as unacceptable for its publications. These include: Guns, Firearms, Weapons.”

Would you donate to a charity that refuses to allow anything dealing with guns or hunting? If you donate to the “Make A Wish Foundation” you do. This group claims to grant wishes to dying children and they do – as long as the wish does not involve guns or hunting. Some other groups have stepped in to grant hunting and shooting wishes, but if you donate to Make A Wish your money will not be used to grant the dying wish of a child wanting to go hunting or shooting.
Would you join a group at work and pay annual dues to them if they wanted to take your guns away from you? If you are a member of the National Education Association or the AFL/CIO you have. Both groups are listed as supporters of gun control laws by the NRA at http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=15. They say “The following organizations have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations..”

Check the list and see if you give money to any of them and how many you belong to. You will find the usual suspect groups like the ACLU, American Federation of Teachers and Common Cause but you might be surprised to also find the American Medical Association, American Bar Association, and the Episcopal Church, Washington Office. Be careful which groups you pay money to. They might be fighting against your right to own a gun and your right to defend yourself.
What action can you take if you do? In February 2000 Citibank turned down a business account because the business dealt with guns. In a 2/23/00 report the following quote sums up Citibank’s policy at that time: “Citibank spokesman Mark Rodgers told WorldNetDaily, “Citibank’s consumer business has a longstanding policy of not engaging in financial relationships with businesses that manufacture or sell military weapons, military munitions or firearms.”

Gun owners groups publicized this policy and called for a boycott. Within two months Citibank announced it eliminated that policy. I am not sure I want to do business with a bank that had that policy just seven short years ago and with bankers that started it who probably still work there, but the boycott worked there and it will work in other places.
Be especially careful of gun friendly “sounding” groups like the American Hunters and Shooters Association. They claim to support gun ownership but this is from there no2w defunct web site under Who we are : “an overwhelming majority of hunters support proposals like background checks to purchase guns, keeping military style assault weapons off our streets and the elimination of cop killer bullets.”

So this group would support banning guns that have a certain look, make you jump through hoops to buy a gun and outlaw ammo like the 30-30 and 30-06 bullets. Their name sounds good and they might support some gun rights but they support way too much of the same things the gun ban fanatics support.
Apparently some deaf dumb and blind kid at Field and |Stream magazine wrote this: “If you haven’t heard of the American Hunters and Shooters Association let me introduce you. The AHSA is an organization in its formative stages, and claims to be a viable alternative to the NRA which, it says, has alienated hunters and shooters by its boorish political tactics, unwillingness to compromise, and refusal to support conservation in any meaningful way.”

AHSA is defunct even with Field and Stream shilling for them and the founder is dead yet the NRA still works to protect ALL gun rights.
Even more troubling, the NRA says AHSA Executive Director Bob Ricker worked as a paid shill for the anti-gun lobby and its lawyers. Board member John Rosenthal is founder of the anti-gun Massachusetts state group “Stop Handgun Violence.” Now they want our support.
Not from me!

 A popular meme on social media says “The Founding Fathers had not just returned from a hunting trip when they wrote the 2^nd Amendment.” 

    That immediately came to my mind when reading Mona Charen’s emotional ”we gotta do something about guns” editorial in the June 8^th Griffin Daily News.  I think was the fourth or fifth such editorial in the past two weeks. 

    Charen says “less than 4% of the population hunts.”  She uses that figure to call for eliminating a right in the Bill of Rights.  I wonder what other minorities she would restrict just because of low numbers. 

It’s ironic that the same folks that say hunters don’t need 30 bullets to hunt now try to say hunters guns should not be considered when gun bans are brought up. 

Among other proposed restrictions are so called “red flag laws” where someone can report a gun owner, claiming they have some kind of mental problem, and get the police to confiscate their guns.   

None other than a California congressman, Eric Swalwell, immediately claimed that would be great, he could report anyone he didn’t like and get their guns taken away. He was specifically talking about a conservative writer, but the same scheme would apply to any gun owner.  Most proposed red flag laws have no due process in them. 

Charen lists many mass shootings and shows all were committed by individuals that either met all the laws about guns to get one or broke current gun laws to get one.   

How rational is it to call for more of the same things that are not working?  If gun laws worked there would be no need for additional laws. 

As always, convince me new gun laws would help by showing facts on how they would have stopped any of the shootings. 

If folks wanting to take our guns and destroy the 2^nd Amendment could be honest and factual they might have more influence. But with the garbage they put out they become laughable.  Dick Polman and John Micek proved this in their June 20 columns.

    Poleman wants to “play ball” with civil rights and Micek is mad that other matters are more important to people than his desire to end our civil rights.  As usual, like vultures circling road kill, both use the shooting at the ball field of a congressman and other Republicans to push their agenda.

    Poleman is upset that congress may ease the restrictions on guns suppressors, calling them silencers.  He “knows” that suppressors make guns as quiet as what he sees in movies and does not have a clue how much noise a “silenced” gun makes.  In his imagination guns with suppressors make no sound so a shooter could spray bullets forever without being heard.

    Guns are loud.  Shooters at matches at the Griffin Gun Club and other places are required to wear hearing protection.  They are so loud they can damage hearing, especially if you shoot a lot, but even if you shoot only while hunting. It is impractical to wear hearing protection while hunting, so suppressors would be a big help.

    Even with a suppressor a gun is louder than any other sound you are likely to hear at a ballfield or anywhere else in daily life, unless a power transformer explodes, a jet breaks the sound barrier or cars hit head on at high speed.

    He also uses the attempted murder by an insane liberal to call for more background checks, although the shooter went through an FBI background check to get his gun.  If something does not work it is not rational to call for more of it.

    Poleman is incensed that there is an effort to allow citizens with a state weapon license to use that license in other states.  As it is now, my drivers license allows me to drive in all states, but if I go to some states with high crime rates but strict gun control laws, things that seem to go together, I must be unable to protect myself. 

    He also talks about “automatic assault weapons,” something almost no citizen owns due to the high license costs, but he also wants to ban semiautomatic guns based on their looks.  He says bad guys can “spray” bullets with them.  The ball park shooter fired fifty shots in about five minutes and wounded five people.  I am not surprised a liberal would “spray” bullets rather than fire effectively.

    Thank goodness the Bernie Sanders supporter that tried to kill Republicans didn’t know enough about guns to use a bolt action deer rifle.  A normal person could shoot 50 rounds effectively, hitting the target, in five minutes with no problem.

    And of course, he blames me, an NRA member, for the shooting.

    Micek uses the same shooting to show his ignorance, spouting the same silly claims about “silencers.”  He is further upset Republicans are doing the same thing with their improvement on health care that the democrats did with the Obamacare disaster.   And he laughably says, “but Russia, Russia, Russia” repeatedly.

    Change the 2^nd Amendment protection to the 1^st Amendment protections in their rants to see how silly they look. Anytime you read an opinion piece on guns or anything else, including this one, don’t believe it without checking facts.

from 6/25/17

Now we know some of the “somethings” the democrats and Biden administration are demanding. From VOX, here are the proposals in the current democrat gun ban wish list legislation and my thoughts on them:

• The Raise the Age Act: This bill raises the age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.  Two 18-year-olds commit horrific murders so let restrict all 18- to 21-year-olds. I got a semiautomatic rifle for Christmas when I was 8 years old.  These same folks want to lower the voting age to 16 and let five-year-olds choose their “gender.”

• Prevent Gun Trafficking Act: Already illegal, so the “coulds” and “mights” in this act are irrelevant.  They are trying to stop gun sales by individuals. Same folks that sent guns to the Mexican drug cartels during the Obama administration.
•  
• The Untraceable Firearms Act: The ridiculous “ghost gun” law – it is already illegal to remove the serial number from a gun. But this tries to make it illegal to use a 3D printer to make gun parts.

• Ethan’s Law, the Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act, and the Kimberly Vaughn Firearm Safety Act: Also known as “Lock up your guns so you can’t get to them when you need them” act.  If you are so irresponsible as to leave guns where kids can get to them, no law will make a difference.
•  
• Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act: Former President Donald Trump banned bump stocks – so lets do something already done?

The Keep Americans Safe Act: – by banning “high-capacity magazines.”  Already been tried, from 1994 to 2004 such magazines were banned, as were a laundry list of “assault weapons.”  Contrary to the lies, there is no evidence that ten-year ban made any difference, the Columbine school shooting, the worst at that time, was committed in 1999, right in the middle of it, and it was allowed to expire after 10 years because it did nothing to help.

From the same VOX article, here is the real goal: Democrats could still think bigger

“The House’s expedited consideration of the gun control bills would likely help reduce gun violence if the bills became law, but as German Lopez ecplained for VOX, the policies that could have the most impact are ones that reduce the number of guns that people have. These include proposals like gun licensing, which would curb the number of guns that are sold because it makes it more difficult to obtain them.”

    Reduce the number of guns law-abiding citizens can get and own.  That is their goal and they will not be happy until it is zero.

I will ask my usual request.  Give me factual information, not emotional “mights and maybes,” showing how your proposal would have made a difference in any of the recent shootings.

    “We have got to do something.”

    Any shooting like the one in Uvalde, Texas where innocent children are killed is horrible, but do not blame me and other law-abiding gun owners.  Blame the low-life evildoer that did it.

    Unlike the gun ban vultures that started circling and crying the “do something” mantra before the first body was recovered from the school in Texas, I tried to listen to all the conflicting reports and wait for valid information.

    The “something” gun banners always demand is “common sense” gun bans.  There is nothing “common” about their demands and if they made “sense” they would not have to exaggerate and tell half-truths to outright lies.

    I have been disappointed and amazed, but not surprised, by the bald face lies and stupid comments to uninformed babbling from everyone from personal friends to the president. 

    Biden’s comments have been weird.  First, he said something about the 2^nd Amendment not really meaning “shall not be infringed” because citizens could not own cannons when it was passed.  When he was told by constitutional scholars like John Turley that he was wrong, in fact you can still own a cannon today, he continued to tell that lie.

He then began babbling about how a .22 caliber bullet would lodge in the lungs, but a 9 mm “big caliber” bullet would blow the lungs out.  That is an inane comment by anyone familiar with guns and bullets. 

But somehow it relates to banning “assault” weapons, meaning the AR-15.  AR stands for the company that developed the gun, Armalite, is in no way an “assault” weapon, no military in the world uses it.  And the most common caliber for it is .223, apparently less dangerous to Biden than the dreaded 9 mm.

One TV commentator said it was ridiculous an 18-year-old could go buy an automatic rifle and more than 300 round of ammo without a background check.  Fortunately, a guest on the show pointed out the rifle was not automatic, he went through a background check and it is not uncommon, especially in that area to buy large amounts of ammo. 

Personally, I have purchased more than 1000 rounds of 7.62×39 ammo at one time for target practice to save money.  Shooting more than 100 rounds in one target shooting session is not uncommon.  And common .22 long rifle bullets I shoot in my semiautomatic squirrel gun I have owned since I was eight years old come in boxes of 525 rounds.

Calls for extended background checks are another “common sense” waste.  The background check in place for years did not work this time so let’s make you get one on your child before giving them a gun for Christmas with an “extended” background?

All guns bought from licensed gun dealers must go through the current background check. The proposed “extended” check would have made no difference since the shooter in Texas bought his gun from a licensed dealer, already covered in the current law.

The sale of over 100 brands of rifles defined as “assault” guns were banned for ten years, from 1994 through 2004. One liberal commentator told this lie: “Mass shootings dropped by 40 percent during the ‘assault weapons’ ban.” 

Here is what Factcheck.org says: “A RAND review of gun studies, updated in 2020, concluded there is “inconclusive evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings.”  Seems a 40 percent drop would be pretty “conclusive” evidence, if it was true.

It didn’t work the first time, lets lie about it and do it again.

I keep hearing “Nobody needs an assault weapon.”  Yet they can’t define what they consider an “assault weapon,” it is a constitutional right and there are many reasons to own one. That is why there are somewhere between 10 and 20 million correctly called “modern sporting rifles” in the US.

One senseless murder is too many, but if these guns were the problem such shootings would be much more common.

Confiscation of all guns is the ultimate goal of some.  But if you confiscate all rifles, from my old .22 through all deer rifles to modern sporting rifles, you might somehow eliminate guns that are used in 2.9 percent of all homicides in the US. 

The most recent data I can find from the FBI shows homicides by all rifles in 2019 was 364, compared to 1476 by knives, 1591 by blunt objects and 600 by fists and feet.

If you want to have a rational discussion on gun control, don’t exaggerated, tell lies and make up numbers to try to push your agenda.  I will rely on facts, not emotions.

If you just have got to do “something,” go spit on the insane murderer’s grave. It may make you feel better and it will be just as effective as all the proposed gun control laws put together.

Till next time – Gone fishing!

Mail order guns. Zip guns. Saturday night specials.  Automatic (semiautomatic) weapons.  Assault weapons.  Those are just a few of the buzzwords used by gun banners to scare folks over my lifetime, demanding they be banned to stop crime. Now the buzzword is “ghost gun.”

    I watched Biden talk about guns and his planned bans last week with disgust but not surprise.  From the stupid claim that the 2nd Amendment has something to do with deer hunting to the flat out lie that gun manufacturers are the only ones protected from libility lawsuits, he was either totally ill-informed or intentionally making “stuff” up.
    A few years ago gun banners started suing gun manufacturers and businesses selling guns when a gun was used in a crime, trying to sue them out of business. If you believe in that tactic you believe if someone buys a gallon of gasoline and burns their house down, the gas station selling it and the corporation producing it should be sued.

    It got so bad a bipartisan congress passed a law against frivolous lawsuits suing gun manufactures when their product was misused. That makes them equal to and have exactly the same liability as every other manufacturer in the US.

    Liability laws apply to defects in products, not when they work but are misused.  If a gun malfunctions due to a defect and hurts someone, the manufacturer can be sued.  Now the tactic is to sue gun businesses for advertising, saying they are promoting a dangerous item to unstable people.

    That worked, Remington Arms is bankrupt due to this underhanded tactic. Unfortunately, Remington’s insurance companies settled out of court although the suers had no proof and it never got a hearing.

    Supposedly, some ghost guns are guns put together by individuals from parts and do not have a serial number.  It is nothing but a ploy to draw attention from and not face the real problem.  As long as you blame an inanimate object for a problem, you are deflecting and fooling folks, not doing anything to help.

    It is ironic the day after Biden hyped his gun ban agenda, a regular handgun was used in a mass shooting on the subway in New York City. They media did try to hype the pistol as a dangerous either 380 or 9mm handgun and claimed it had an “extended” magazine.” 

No ghost gun used. 

The term “ghost gun” can apparently mean any gun without a serial number.  Guns manufactured since 1968 had been required to have one.  If I want a ghost gun I am going to file the serial number off one of my numerous guns, not go to the trouble of putting together a kit.

Maybe the Biden administration should ban files?

Focusing on a hunk of metal and plastic, rather than the criminal misusing a tool, is idiotic. Currently a felon caught with a gun is often let go, usually within a few days at most, and they are free to steal a gun and file the number off or make their own from a kit. Which do you think they would find easier? 

The criminal shooting homeless in New York and Chicago recently was three-time felon.  Less than two years before his shooting spree, he was arrested for another felony but released after serving only five months of a one-year sentence after his last arrest because a liberal prosecutor would not charge him with a felony but reduced his charge. 

That is the problem, not guns.

 “Available 0 – 60 Approx. 3 seconds. GM Estimates” On-line ad for the new electric GMC Hummer.

    As soon as someone is injured or killed in wreck caused by a speeding Hummer, I expect GMC to have to pay millions to the survivors, based on a recent court settlement by Remington Arms.

    In that court case that sets a precedent, the judge allowed plaintiffs to sue based on advertising by Remington.  The case said Remington attracted an unhinged individual that bought one of their guns and shot students at a school.

    I have several Remington guns, including a 12-gauge semiautomatic I have shot doves with since I was 14 years old. I also have a .223 semiautomatic, a so-called “assault style weapon,” set up for deer hunting. Those guns are only as dangerous as the person using them.

    Holding a business responsible for actions of fools that buy their products is ridiculous, no matter how much you hate that business.  Dick Poleman in his weekend Griffin Daily News editorial crowed “Sandy Hook Parents Beat the Gun Merchants.”  No doubt he feels all manufacturers should be “beat“ by the same standards. NOT. Well, maybe he does since his editorials indicate he hates capitalism.

    So many gun hating groups tried to sue gun manufacturers out of business a few years ago Congress had to protect them from such suits.  Those lawsuits tried to hold gun manufacturers liable for the way their products were used. And many of the groups admitted their goal was to end gun manufacturing in the US.

    Now they have another tactic, go after them for advertising.  Any fair person would ask if all manufacturers will be held to the same standards.  Or was this just one liberal judge making a legal decision based on his prejudices against guns.

    Remington settled for many millions of dollars to end this suit. Of course, the lawyers will probably get at least half, encouraging them to file more such suits.  I wish Remington had kept fighting. Our legal system is stupid when it means it cost a business more to fight for what is right rather than giving lawyers a pile of money.

    What business will be sued next for their advertising? Someone burns down a building using charcoal lighter fluid that advertise “fast lighting?”  A shoe company after someone steps off building wearing their shoes that “make it feel like you are walking on air?”

    This is similar to holding tobacco companies liable for people smoking and drug companies for people getting addicted to drugs.  Seems like there is no personal responsibility for anything in our modern society.

    How sad. And how dangerous.

 I watched a video on the news showing a homeless person with a baseball bat come up from behind and hit in the head a woman walking down the street, knocking her out. The next several videos showed criminals looting stores as workers, owners and even the police watched helplessly.

    Then a democrat congressman came on and said we had to do something about the gun violence in the US, and that the Republicans had no plan to stop it. He then said voters are paying attention.

    Online, a paid ad from a group “Stop Gun Violence Now” promised to bring gun owners and victims together to stop gun violence. When I asked “Why just gun violence, do you now care about other kinds of violence?” I got no answer.

    Time after time in the crime and arrest articles in the Griffin Daily News you see the line “charged with possession of a firearm by a felon,” and “on probation for a previous crime.”

    Voters are paying attention – to the numbers of criminals given a slap on the wrist at most and released after being arrested.  That has got to be frustrating to law enforcement officers trying to get them off the street and prevent them from committing additional crimes.

    Currently there is a bill to allow “permitless carry,” also called “Constitutional Carry,” in Georgia. It would mean citizens could carry a concealed gun without buying a weapons license from the state to get permission to follow a constitutional right.

    The usual whine from liberal gun banners is ”crime will go up” and “Georgia will become Dodge City.” Problem with this cry of “Wolf” by them is it has never come true no matter how many times it is used.

One liberal group called for elimination of the Constitutional Carry law passed in Wisconsin in 2011, claiming murders went up after it was passed based on a “study” they did. Their own graph shows one year the “rate of gun homicides excluding justifiable killings of felons by citizens” went up ONE (1) per year maximum since then, and every year is still below the number from 2005.

To show their bias, their graph uses a solid thick red line showing all gun homicides, but a tiny, dotted line including justifiable killings of felons. Of course, those kinds of groups abhor killing felons or holding them accountable for their crimes in any way.

Don’t believe me, look up the “stuff” from and goals of “Center for American Progress” yourself.

To show the weakness of the anti-gunners arguments, only three states with permitless carry are in the top ten in homicides, the other seven with high homicide rates do not allow it.  There are currently 19 states with permitless carry and several more, including Georgia, are considering relaxing restrictions on this constitutional right.

Guns are tools.  I have dozens, each has its use. When I carry my pistol (and I do have a Georgi Weapons License, just renewed it this month, and carry everywhere I go) I am no threat to any law-abiding citizen.  The ones that are a threat carry their guns no matter what the law.

 Its amazing how fast liberals change their mantra pushing their agenda to the latest crisis. They went from “Russia, Russia, Russia” to “Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico” to “Gun Ban, Gun Ban, Gun Ban” in record time.

    In response to the reprehensible murders in Las Vegas a few years ago, the usual suspects have become completely unhinged. As usual, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, aka the Brady Bunch, sent out no less than four fund-raising emails within a few hours. They also called for passing new gun control laws that would have had no effect at all on the Las Vegas shooting even if they had been in effect and actually enforced.

    Nancy Sinatra, who used to sing better than she thinks now, tweeted that NRA members, like me and the other 5,000,000 in that civil right organization, should face a firing squad. Rejected politician Hillary Clinton showed that all she knows about guns is from movies when she condemned the effort to allow devices that somewhat lower the sound of a gun, called “silencers” by those that know nothing about guns, saying it was a dangerous idea.

    One insane madman did the shooting in Las Vegas. But all gun owners are condemned for his evil actions, and an inanimate object, the gun, is blamed.  

    The NRA has called for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco and Firearms to reexamine their approval of the “Bump Stock” device they approved under the Obama Administration. But the demand for bans on bigger magazines, semiautomatic guns and longer waiting periods, things that would have no effect, are common. The ultimate goal of those calling for “doing something” is to ban all guns.

    I was surprised at a CBS News commentator defining the difference between a “semiautomatic” gun and a fully “automatic” gun.  He proved that gun banners actually know the difference and have been lying all these year they have called everything from revolvers to single shot rifles “automatic” weapons.

    To paraphrase a quote, “its not the gun or law-abiding gun owners, its the evil in men’s souls” that result in horrible actions like this murderous rampage.

    I’m sure some law will be passed to do “something” as so many are demanding.  As usual, whatever is done will affect only people like me and you, those of us that follow the law and harm no one unless threatened. That is if I am not put before a firing squad for supporting the US constitution.

  I always try to read John Micek’s liberal opinion column in the Griffin Daily News, partly to try to understand the extremely liberal mindset but also to make fun of it and see how silly it is.  His support of gun control and justifications for his bias always amaze me.

    In his November 30 column, he decries the trouble with the FBI database used for the background check for buying a gun.  He points out the problems with government agencies not adding names of prohibited people to it.  He is also upset the FBI and other agencies sometimes change their definitions of criminal acts so some don’t get added that he thinks should.

    He says the database system should be improved.  I agree. But then he goes off on a strange liberal tangent that every gun purchase should have to be run through it, the so called Universal Background Check that gun banners constantly demand.  Although he admits the background check really does not do any good, he wants to make more people go through it.

    That may sound good, but, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.  What their scheme would include would be things like parents giving guns to their children for Christmas and a gun club member selling a gun to another club member.

    Can you imagine having to pay for a background check if you want to give your child a single shot .410 for Christmas? Or a gun club member selling a skeet gun to a fellow club member they have been shooting with for years? 

    When you look into gun ban groups demands, nothing they call for would have any effect on crime. They even admit this, or ignore the question when asked what their proposal would do to prevent crime.

—