Congratulations, Northern Arizona! Shooting enthusiasts and law enforcement in Northern Arizona are one giant step closer to having the shooting range they deserve.
On Saturday, May 15th, The Arizona Game and Fish Commission unanimously voted to approve the purchase of the 160 acre Foster Ranch property for the development of a Northern Arizona shooting range.
AZ Game and Fish’s efforts to establish a range in the Flagstaff area began way back in 1998, and the approval is great news to all the people and organizations that have worked tirelessly for almost a decade to make this happen.
Flagstaff is the largest city in Arizona without a public shooting range, which leaves recreational shooters with few options, and forces law enforcement in Flagstaff to train at a makeshift range at a cinder pit in Winona, Arizona.
The Foster Ranch site is about 10 miles southeast of Flagstaff, and meets the Arizona Game and Fish’s objective of developing a shooting range located within 30 minutes of downtown Flagstaff by the year 2013. The purchase price of the land is 1.1 million dollars, which is entirely funded through a user pay, user benefit model (read – ZERO Arizona general fund tax dollars).
A request for the purchase of the land now goes to the Arizona Governor’s office for approval (the state doesn’t fund shooting ranges, they merely approve, or disapprove, the budget plan created by the AZ Game and Fish Commission). We are very hopeful that their approval will be swift in order to reach the 2013 goal.
Fed Ex was kind enough to drop off a shiny CMP Special Springfield M1 Garand today. The ‘born on’ date for this rifle is somewhere in October/November of 1943. It looks great at 66 years old and I’m sure it will be fun to shoot.
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It should do the job until I can afford a Dillon Aero.
Dillon Aero M134
UPDATE: If you’ve arrived looking for M1 Garand care and maintenance information, just about everything you need to know is at the CMP M1 Garand page. M1 Garand Armory has detailed information on heat lots, serial numbers, and more.
Sebastian over at Snow Flakes in Hell notes that Arizona has a slew of pro gun rights legislation in the pipeline this year. The proposed laws include the Firearms Freedom Act, legalizing defensive display of a firearm, allowing university professors to carry guns on school grounds, and eliminating the requirement for a permit to carry a concealed weapon (HB 2347 and SB 1102).
There would still be an advantage to obtaining a permit; carrying a gun into a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol would require one, and the permit would be valid in some other states. Permit holders can also buy new guns without a background check.
Permit reciprocity between states, restaurant carry, and an easier process for gun purchases would still make it advantageous to obtain a Concealed Carry Weapons Permit. Under the proposed law, a CCW permit would also prevent law enforcement from confiscating a weapon possessed lawfully by a CCW permit holder. As expected, the sky is falling for gun banning, anti-civil rights groups like the Violence Policy Center and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
“That’s sheer insanity,” said M. Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center. “If you remove the background check requirement, you’re literally writing a death sentence for law enforcement officers, family members, just people in the street.”
No, Ms. Rand, criminals won’t be affected by any changes to our gun laws. Stricter gun laws never encumber criminals, just law abiding citizens. If you could get criminals to comply with laws, then we wouldn’t call them criminals.
“You have no laws meant to reduce gun violence and protect the public, and you have an active gun lobby there that wants to do away with even the bare threshold of laws you do have,” said Ladd Everitt of the Washington, D.C.-based national Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Contrary to what Everitt believes, we have a plethora of laws intended to reduce all types of violence, including violent crimes involving firearms. I’m sure that Everitt would be comforted to know that we still have capital punishment in Arizona. If the death penalty isn’t a good enough deterrent against gun violence, a background check surely isn’t going to stop it. Perhaps, these groups should campaign against violent people, instead of inanimate objects.
As a lifelong Arizona resident and a CCW permit holder, I support the passage of all of these bills, with one exception. I have reservations about Senate Bill 1102 allowing concealed carry without a permit. Arizona is a battleground against human and drug trafficking through our Southern border with Mexico. Phoenix has the second highest rate of kidnapping in the world, human smugglers often have running gun battles on our freeways, and home invasions have become routine.
We have a systematic failure to enforce several existing laws, due to vote pandering policies that circumvent the rule of law. These corrupt policies prevent law enforcement officers in many municipalities from arresting human smugglers and criminals, unless they have solid proof a serious crime has occurred. Allowing police to enforce all laws would solve this problem. Otherwise, our carry laws are one of the few ways law enforcement officers have to easily distinguish law abiding citizens from criminals.
Law abiding citizens open carry weapons, or carry with a CCW permit and notify an officer when encountered under current laws. A criminal won’t have a permit and can be easily removed from the streets for the weapons violation alone. If the bill allowing concealed carry without a permit passes, we will take away an effective tool for removing criminals from the streets.
I know my position puts me at odds with AzCDL, but I believe that passage of this bill will provide effective ammunition for the anti-civil rights groups. As an unintended consequence, these groups will be able to disingenuously point to any crime involving a firearm and claim that the crime is due to our “lax laws”, when the lack of enforcement our existing laws and borders would be the true cause. I believe passage of SB 1102 could cause the pendulum to swing against lawful gun owners, undoing much of the headway made on fully restoring our 2nd Amendment rights.
Yep, that’s my purple 10/22. She’s a beaut, ain’t she?
This was my first gun, and I’ve loved my Ruger 10/22 from the minute I took it out of the box. I had no plans to make any modifications to it when I bought it (I figured it was more important to learn how to shoot it first).
My plans changed when we visited the Tactical Solutions booth at the NRA Annual Meeting in May, and I immediately fell in love with their impressive selection of add-ons for the 10/22. I suddenly found myself becoming very emotionally attached to the idea of turning my modest 10/22 into a purple race gun. The guys and gals at Tactical Solutions took great care of me, and I ended up ordering a Predator Raptor stock in purple haze, an anodized purple extended magazine release, and an anodized purple threaded barrel. Why threaded? Because I plan to do my part to save the environment from the evils of noise pollution by adding a suppressor in the future.
I found out a few days later that the purple raptor stock wouldn’t be in for a few months, and Tactical Solutions was great about letting me cancel that part of the order so I could try to find one in stock somewhere else. I think we made it up to them by ordering another barrel and mag release in silver for Capitalist Pig’s mother.
DM Firearms came through for me on the purple raptor stock – they didn’t have the purple in stock, so they called the factory, located one, and had it shipped to them so I could pick it up at their location in Phoenix. Thanks guys, you rock!
So, how does it shoot?
Fantastic! I meant to hit the 5 and 6. No, really, I did. I was trying out a different brand of ammo, and I needed something else to aim at. Anyway, I think the 10/22 is a great rifle, and with the changes we made, it’s an absolute pleasure to shoot.
Update – Thanks to Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell for his post on my Purple Menace, and how it would be classified as an evil assault rifle under Mayor Bloomberg’s lack of common sense gun laws. I uploaded two new pictures (see below) that include my high-capacity, 30 round magazine and a close-up of the threaded barrel.
I am still searching for the right words to describe the Babes With Bullets Ladies Action Shooting Camp I just completed. The word Phenomenal comes to mind, but a single word doesn’t seem to do it justice. This class was worth every penny and then some.
The instructors, Kay Clark Miculek, Lisa Munson, Annette Aysen, Deb Keehart, and camp founder Deb Ferns were all incredible, and worked with all 20 of us to significantly improve our shooting, regardless of skill level. There were Women there that had never touched a gun, and Women that had been shooting and competing for years. Everyone got a great deal out of the class and no one felt left out.
Anyone that can get a group of 20 females to simmer down and pay attention for two and a half days deserves an award just for that accomplishment, in my book.
Within the first 24 hours of the class I went from having very limited pistol experience (less than 10 times at the range shooting bullseye) to comfortably and confidently drawing a 9mm handgun from a holster, loading and making ready (inserting a loaded magazine, engaging the slide to put a round in the chamber and returning the pistol to the holster) and drawing and firing at the desired target. The next 24 hours brought me to shooting (and hitting) 8 inch steel plates, shooting while moving and actually shooting through a practical pistol match stage. By the end of the course, I had competed in and completed a 3 stage practical pistol match. I don’t have the results from the match back, but I am very satisfied with my performance.
If you had told me last week that I would be able to do all of the above in a matter of a few days, I would have told you to seek professional mental health assistance.
I would also like to give a quick shout out to Mother Nature and thank her for blowing over the entire third stage as I was shooting it so I could get a second chance to run it.
I have to give a big THANK YOU in to Lisa, Annette, Debbie and Kay for taking the time to work with me one-on-one to get rid of my bad habits. Somehow, I had already developed a slight flinch and a bit of a trigger slap. Each of these wonderful instructors took me aside and gave me tips on how to break these habits. I was able to take each piece of information that the ladies gave me and put it all together – which has almost eliminated both issues. They even taught me some exercises that I can do at home to ensure that I am rid of these bad habits for good.
If you are female and thinking about taking this class, DO IT. If you have never touched a gun and want to learn, TAKE THIS CLASS. If you shoot all the time and want to get better, SIGN UP FOR THIS CLASS.
I’ll be getting practical pistol training from the top Women shooters in the country – Deb Ferns (founder of BWB), Kay Clark Miculek, Lisa Munson, Annette Aysen, and Deb Keehart. Words can’t describe how fortunate I feel to be getting instruction from these amazing Women.
The number is in, and it’s big. While not an all-time record for an NRA Annual Meeting, the total attendance for the Phoenix NRA Meeting was 64,324.
Phoenix may have fallen just short of the annual NRA Meeting attendance record which was set last year, but there was no shortage of records set this past weekend. The following records have already been recorded for the 2009 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits:
The biggest convention in Phoenix EVER
The largest dinner ever held in the state of Arizona – Over 6,000 paid attendees for the Banquet held on Saturday featuring speakers Oliver North and John Stossel (both were incredible).
The largest attendance for the NRA-ILA Grassroots Workshop – 375 attendees.
We’re sure this list will continue to grow as the numbers come in. Tune in later, as we’ll be posting some more records and interesting statistics that we are working on confirming now.
UPDATE: We’ve found the video of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s speech at NRA Annual Meeting in Phoenix, AZ on Armed Forces Day, May 16, 2009. Please enjoy Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s tribute to our troops.
Yep, that’s my purple 10/22. She’s a beaut, ain’t she?
