Open letter to Senators RE: S. 649

Dear Senators

Have any of you read S. 649? Specifically the background check requirements. Under the proposed bill, the following innocent activity would be a felony if the transfer is not done through a federal firearms licensed dealer:

• If you go to a party and hand your firearm to the homeowner for safe storage.
• If you are in a self defense situation and you hand your firearm to someone to protect himself.
• If you go to your friend’s house and hand him your firearm for him to inspect your new purchase.
• If you give a firearm as a gift to your uncle, that raised you.
• If you store your firearm collection at someone’s home for safe keeping while you are out of town. You will also have to go through an FFL and background check in order to get your firearms back.
• If you and a non related roommate share a gun safe and either one of you leave for more than seven days.
• If you give a firearm, that has been a family heirloom, to a nephew that you raised.
• If you let someone on a private shooting range inspect your firearm.
• While you may gift a firearm to certain family members, you cannot receive anything of value in return.
• While you may gift a firearm to certain family members, you can't loan those certain family members a firearm

There are many more scenarios where I can see someone unintentionally breaking the law including, if you hand your firearm over to, or otherwise allow the transfer of your firearm to a police officer. While the bill contains the exemption “by operation of law”, as it’s written, it appears to apply only to estate owned firearms being transferred to the legal heirs.

There are no exemptions for law enforcement departments to issue firearms without first having to go through an FFL. While I am no fan of exemptions to firearm laws for law enforcement personnel, lacking this exemption may harm community safety

There are no exemptions for security companies that issue firearms to their personnel.

There are no exemptions for firearm instructors that operate on private shooting ranges.

This bill is a legal disaster looking for a victim, compliance would still be voluntary, albeit illegal and still won’t affect already illegal transfers, such as those between prohibited persons. What would compel a criminal seller to conduct a background check on his criminal buyer anyway? Telling a criminal seller he has to make a firearms transfer through an FFL is like telling a crack dealer he has to sell his crack at a pharmacy, it won't happen.

If the Senate wants to address background checks, open up NCIS to the public, it would still be voluntary but it would still get the same compliance rate.

Respectfully,
Bill Baldwin

Suicide, 2nd leading cause of death in jail

Bob Costas, last night, during Sunday Night Football, made the comment during half time (and quoting Jason Whitlock) if Jovan Belcher 'didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.'" Jovan Belcher, if you didn't know, was a professional football player that killed the mother of his child, and then drove to a gun free facility and shot and killed himself in front of his coach.

The anti-rights cultist bigots scream from the rooftops "30,000 people a year die from gun violence". We all know that more than half of those 'gun deaths' are suicide. The anti-rights cultist bigots often claim that if a person didn't have a gun, or access to a gun, they would kill themselves. Oh really? I have made several comparisons on this blog of gun ownership and suicide rates, I have also compared U.S. suicide rates with other countries that have higher suicide rates, but lower gun ownership rates. All of the comparisons that have been done regarding guns and suicide show that with or without guns, people will intentionally harm and kill themselves.

Imagine the most secure place you can be, you have an armed security detail. This is a palace, your food is prepare and brought to you, your laundry is cleaned for you, if you wish to read, the library comes to you, you don't have to leave, because everything that you need is provided for you. This a secure place, so weapons are not allowed, but you don't need a weapon, because you have your armed security detail. Your palace is so secure, that even your armed security detail doesn't carry a firearm, but they do have other weapons and they do, in fact, protect you. Don't worry about your palace being invaded, there is a high wall protecting you from outside forces. Just outside of your palace, in the courtyard, there are snipers with rifles to protect the palace from invasion, and these snipers are so good at their job, together with the walls, no one has ever invaded your prison or courtyard. Yeah, I'm talking about prisons and jails. Pop quiz hot shot, what's the leading cause of death in prisons? Illness, what's the second leading cause of death in prisons? SUICIDE!

Number of guns owned in the U.S.

The number of guns in the hands of the American citizens is often reported to be anywhere from 270 million to 300 million. I was curious and was going to start digging round a little bit, and then I saw in one of  David Codrea's articles.

November 14, 2012 Congressional Research Service report on “Gun Control Legislation”  (pdf)

From that report:

2009, the estimated total number of firearms available to civilians in the United States had increased to approximately 310 million: 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles, and 86 million shotguns.

That's a good place to start counting the number of firearms available to the American people.

Louisiana Sheriff's Chief Deputy says gun ownership a privilege

Nola.com ran a news piece about car burglaries and thefts. When they contacted the Jefferson Parish  Sheriff's Office, this was the quote from the Chief Only One.

"Owning a gun [...] is a privilege" - Chief Deputy Tom Gorman of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. 

This is just weeks after a majority of Louisiana Voters overwhelmingly approved a Constitutional amendment that says any gun control law must meet "Strict Scrutiny" and removed language from the State Constitution that gave authority to the legislators to make laws against concealed carrying of firearms.

How to remote detonate your fireworks

So, you've followed Kurt Hofmann's advice and downloaded the Army Technical Manual 31-201, the Improvised Munitions Handbook. You've followed the instructions in the manual and now you have your umm fireworks, but now you're wondering, "How do I detonate these things?" The manual gives clear instructions on using blasting caps, detonation cord, and even tells you how to make a fuse, but you don't have blasting caps and want to set them off remotely.

If (when) the tyrants of the government come to confiscate your guns, and you shoot the first one in the head because, well, he's an agent of a tyrannical government, you can expect another visit from other tyrants. I'm sure that by this time, you're already prepared, and by prepared I mean that you've already planted and hidden your fireworks. Certainly you can't run out into the yard, light a fuse, and then run back to the safety of your home. This is where a remote detonation system would be very handy.

Predator Pyro makes a Remote Firework Ignition System and for 20 bucks, you can have a remote ignition system and enough clips to detonate 15 devices. The major drawbacks to this system is you have to use fuses in your devices (they may get wet) and it uses an infrared remote, so you have to have line of sight with the devices. You'll also have to have one of these remote ignition systems for each one of your umm, fireworks.

Cobra Firing Systems makes a very nice, wireless fire control system, but it also uses the firing clips that must be clipped onto a fuse.

Infrared remotes are out and you don't want to use fuses, so you need to find something that uses radio waves and e-matches instead, here is where RF Remote Tech comes in. RF Remote Tech makes a wireless firing system that ignites from one device up to 32 and costs from $20 for the single system up to $120 for the 32 device system. The shipping charges are very reasonable as well.

Now comes the problem with E-matches. E-matches (electric matches) are lengths of wire with a piece of nichrome wire wrapped around the ends or a nichrome chip soldered on to the ends and dipped in a pyrogen. E-matches are regulated by the ATF and you must have a license to purchase them. You can, however, make your own e-match, legally. The folks over at PyroCreations sells a kit that comes complete with everything you need to make 50 e-matches for about $50. The only thing that you have to do in your shop to complete the e-matches is mix the pyrogen, dip the wire leads (that already have the nichrome bridges soldered on) and let dry. Their website says that the kit will coat up to 300 e-matches but only 50 blanks comes with the kit, luckily, they offer 25 blanks for $13.

There you have it, folks. A book that tells you how to make your own fireworks and how to detonate them from the safety of inside your home.

Pro tip: don't make pipe bombs and use this remote system to detonate them, it's illegal and may be harmful to your health. This information is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Breaking! Mass shooting at private gun range

It is with a heavy heart that I must report, out of all fairness to the gun control anti-rights cultists, that there has been a mass shooting at the Baldwin Family private gun range.

There were about 14 family members in attendance on Saturday, November 24, 2012. Of course these people were all related and knew each other, several of them live in separate households on the family ranch. The gun table, a table set up to rest the guns on, looked like a mock up for a Mexican press conference. This table included rifles, shotguns and pistols. Some of the rifles were high power sniper style rifles, although it's reported that the owner refers to one of them as a Remington 700 30.06.

how to hide your cache during a gun Confiscation

Pop quiz hot shot, you see the gun confiscation coming, what do you do chump, what..do..you..do? Quick, search online for hiding spots. Look, there's a post about using an old soda vending machine, yeah, that's brilliant, except, what if ATF put that online so they can easily find you cache of weaponry? Damn the government!

Yeah, searching online for ideas on where to hide things brings up some pretty good results. You'll find hidden drawers in drawers, hidden rooms behind book cases, even book cases right out of a 007 movie with hidden doors and drawers. These are all great ideas, except, the Gun Sniffing Canine. Yeah, he's a rat bastard for taking that job. You can hide things in the ground, but ground penetrating radar. You can hide things in the wall, but wall penetrating radar. Dammit, what do you do? That's what I'm about to tell you.

Is there a gun confiscation on the horizon? gun confiscation, meh, I don't see it, but for your educational entertainment, or would that be edutainment? Here's the plan, the government has all kinds of toys to find things, and those toys are pretty good, unless you confuse the toy or the operator.

Gun sniffing dogs. You can't run from a dog, you can't hide from a dog, until you confuse the dog, or it's handler. I'm sure you're wondering how a dog knows what a gun smells like, and Imagonna tell you. It's not the metal, or plastic that the gun is made out of, it's what the gun shoots. Gun sniffing dogs were first trained to sniff out burnt gun powder. Every firearm is test fired at the manufacturer, so now it smells like burnt gun powder, eventually, that smell could be cleaned off, so now dogs are trained to sniff out the combination of things that are used on guns. Burnt gun powder, cleaners, solvents, oils, etc. as a whole. It's the overall smell of firearms that dogs are trained to detect. Some dogs are good at it, some dogs are great at it, some dogs are just stupid and follow their handlers lead. The Fed Gov used to have a drug dog that had a affection for cheese. During searches, if you had a cheese sandwich in your automobile, the dog would alert and your automobile would be searched for drugs. Yeah, that's nasty, dirty, rotten cheating right there. There was another dog that liked the smell of gasoline and would alert to the gas cap. Both dogs would alert to drugs as well, but cheesy and gassy (that's not their real names) would also give false alerts. The handlers finally realized the error of the ways of the canines. I don't know what happened to those dogs, hopefully they retired early and are someone's pet.
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