Great Satan, Inc.

Time is almost up for you to win one, or more, (nearly) free guns at the 2013 Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno, NV this week.   Just register for Gun Blogger Rendezvous, take a trip to the Silver Legacy Hotel in Reno, and buy raffle tickets, comfortable in the knowledge that the proceeds will go to Soldiers Angels.

What can you win if you participate?

True Blue Sam put together this little video to show you.

What about the guns? 

Yes, you could win a stainless Ruger .357 Magnum Blackhawk donated by True Blue Sam.

You could win this pre-WWII Stevens “Little Scout 14-1/2” rifle, restored and donated by Engineering Johnson.

You could also win a Hipoint.  Last year, Hipoint donated a 9mm Carbine, and I believe they have generously donated another.

You could also win a lot of other great products, generously donated by Gun Blogger Rendezvous sponsors.

Last year, Mz. VRWC won an awesome stainless steel Ruger Single-Ten (donated by Ruger) along with a custom tooled holster made by Engineering Johnson.  We also brought home a wheelbarrow full of other great prizes, including a Crimson Trace LightGuard, a Leupold Mark AR scope, AR-15 magazines from Brownells, and many other great prizes from numerous event sponsors.

What are you waiting for?  Get signed up and attend the 2013 Gun Blogger Rendezvous!

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You may be familiar with the idiom, Fast, Good, or Cheap, pick any two.  In the current firearms and accessories market, you may not get any of those choices.

While much of the U.S. has been experiencing a gun, magazine, ammo, and reloading component shortage, there’s been a secret among shooters at Arizona ranges.  Quietly whispered among shooters, “Psst, you can still get all the gun powder, primers, and bullets you need at normal prices from Bruno Shooters Supply in Phoenix.”  Pretty soon, the secret was out and Bruno was slammed with orders, just like every other company in the firearms industry.  On an Arizona shooting forum, Amy Bruno explained why prices are skyrocketing, phone calls go unanswered, and orders are taking much longer to ship:

Hello All,
I do need to clear the air.  The reason that our prices keep going up is because the manufacturers are rarely shipping anyone product.  We need to buy it from whomever has it in stock.  Because of this, we have to pay shipping charges and Haz-mat fee just like you.  This is what is raising the prices.  It has nothing to do with manufacturers’ price increases. It has to do with the increase in our true COST.  We try to at least have stock for you to buy.

In regards to Jason (my brother), he is there. He took time for a honeymoon, but he is still there.  In regards to heating and cooling, we do not own the building. We rent. We have only the swamp coolers that they provide. These do not work in the summer. In the winter, we have one little heater.  I am sorry that the climate is unbearable. It is for us too.  Also, we never accept your payment without giving you a total first.

In regards to our hours, we are open from 8am-5pm Monday thru Friday.  Sometimes we leave 5 minutes early.  Sometimes we stay 4 hours late.  We do not have the staff to be open all day every day.

Now onto the phone situation.  As many of you know there are only 4 of us there. We have chosen to leave the door open to walk in customers and not accept calls.

As of today, we have over 2000 orders (we now measure in reams of paper). We are at least 2 weeks behind in even looking at your order.  Once we get to it, if we are out of something, we will call or I will email you. Assuming most of you are local, this will not apply to you but I will say it anyway.  Orders for non HAZ-MAT (powder and/or primers) orders will ship in about a week as long as everything is in stock.  Orders for primers and anything else BESIDES powder will ship in about 3 weeks.  Orders with Powder and any other item will ship in about 6 weeks.  The reason for this is because no vehicle can have more than 100 pounds of smokeless powder on it.  This means UPS. We have already 2 trucks coming daily.  This means we can ship 200 pounds of powder a day.  Considering the circumstances, this is a drop in the bucket.

We are not accepting calls because we cannot get to our orders if we do.  We would be unable to wait on customers if we do.  Next to go is the website and as a last resort, we will lock the door to walk-in customers until we can get caught up.  We are trying to avoid both of these situations and are doing the very best that we can.  We ask that you do not call or come in or email to check order status until at least 3 weeks have passed.  We will contact you, we promise.  We also have chosen not to ration or hit you with limits like the other stores.  We may not be well-lit, or temperature controlled.  We may not have a public restroom or lots of parking.  But at least we have things that you need (most of the time) in stock so you can shoot.

Thanks for understanding,
Amy Bruno
Bruno Shooters Supply

I think Ms. Bruno’s honest explanation applies to the current industry-wide shortages of firearms and components.  Major national dealers have also struggled with providing accurate inventory availability online, responding to customer inquiries, backorders, and prompt shipping.  The order systems are under a severe stress test and seemingly minor system limitations are showing up as major weaknesses.  The demand for these goods is unprecedented and overwhelming!   Even industry heavyweight Brownells has had to revise their order tracking system in attempt to keep up with the  avalanche of orders.

Hopefully, manufacturers are not running their production lines beyond their capabilities too.

Local gun stores here, even large dealers, are placing ads essentially begging to buy guns from the general public.  Dealers are trying to stock their shelves for customers, but when those dealers have to buy at inflated street prices, then add their margin, the retail prices have to go up and the cycle repeats.  Eventually, supplies will return to normal, prices will come back down, and the industry will make their customer service / ordering systems more robust to handle surges in demand.

Until then, we’ll all need to be patient.

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President Obama’s OFA campaign machine, recently renamed Organizing For Action, called for a National Day of Action in support of laws that would limit your right to self-defense, ban guns and magazines, and devote your tax dollars to the creation of anti-gun propaganda.  I was curious what an anti-gun rally looked like, so I headed over to a planned location today for a better look.

From the Arizonan’s For Gun Safety mailer:

a number of rallies at local Congressional offices to promote the President’s Plan to Reduce Gun Violence, including Universal Background Checks, a Ban on Assault Weapons and High Capacity Ammunition Magazines, a National Gun Trafficking Law, and Research on Gun Violence by the Centers for Disease Control.

Here’s a photo outside of Congressman Matt Salmon’s Gilbert, AZ office, 15 minutes into the big protest.

I kept looking around for this protest, because surely it would be a large gathering, based on the amount of time the media provides to anti-rights groups and their anti-gun agenda.  Surely, the balance in viewpoints the media claims to strive for would indicate that this should be a big rally, dwarfing the turnout for the pro-Second Amendment rally held at the state capitol last weekend.

I counted six police officers outside watching the building, which is five more than I saw at last weekend’s pro-gun rally, so I had to be at the right place.  The officers were keeping a close eye on me, probably because of my snazzy GUTNTAG seasonings T-shirt.  As I was leaving, I finally spotted a group of people gathered on a balcony at the same building where Congressman Salmon’s Arizona office is located.  I can’t be certain these six to ten people were protesters, or just office workers outside on a smoke break, as they didn’t have any signs.  If they were exercising their right to petition an elected official, I wasn’t about to interfere with their rights.

So there you have it, that’s what an anti-rights/anti-gun rally looks like in Arizona.   Keep this in mind when the news media gives equal, or greater, amounts of airtime to anti-gun groups in the name of “balance”.

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The 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by Senator Dianne Feinstein:

A well regulated Militia collective, being necessary to the security of a free State Aristocracy, the right of the people to keep and bear registered Arms, shall not be infringed only be tolerated if approved for peasant possession under 18 U.S.C. § 922, section…until we dry up the supply of these weapons over time.

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This is a reprint of Dr. Paul Quinnett’s thoughts on how to effectively deal with the disturbed, before they commit murder, reprinted with his permission. I don’t agree with all of his statements, but he actually is willing to have a conversation that focuses on the real issues we face, rather than just latching onto intentionally deceptive, focus group tested, “Demand a Plan” slogans.

Dr. Quinnett noted in his preface:  The shooter in Newtown was suicidal first, homicidal second.  This is true of most mass murderers and about 30% of domestic violence related murder-suicides.
To keep the debate from veering off into the size of AR-15 magazines and pumping vast sums of money into broad mental health reform, what we need is a targeted, proven, and effective way to address firearms access by persons suffering from suicidal self-directed violence, a few of whom are also homicidal.

Mass murderers never ask themselves, “And after I kill all these innocent people, how will I escape?”

The “escape” is a pre-planned suicide – whether delivered by one’s own hand or by a police sharpshooter.

Reducing access to firearms will surely save lives, but such measures fail to address the source code in all these terrible tragedies: the disordered brain of an utterly hopeless mentally ill suicidal person whose reasons for releasing hell on others die with him.

The vast majority of the mentally ill are not violent, but those who become suicidal represent a special threat to themselves, and sometimes others. The so-called suicide “contagion effect” travels like a virus from one suicidal mind to another suicidal mind via the media, and most mass murders follow another event previously publicized where a “like me” suicidal, rage-filled young man kills others and then himself.

Yes, our culture of violence aids and abets the suicidal mind. Yes, too many guns and large capacity magazines increase the body count. Yes, the contagion effect is real and media exposure of mass murderers inspires copycats.

But let’s be real, while some measures will help on each of these fronts, these genies are out of the bottle and they are not going back in.

Only by preventing the development of his suicidal desire, ideation, intent, capacity, planning and, yes, frustrating his attempt to acquire the firearms that his rage requires to express itself can we hope to find a compassionate and sustainable solution. Early detection, assessment, and treatment of emergent suicidal behavior in known at-risk populations will at least give us a chance for reducing violence in our nation.

The debate on gun control will produce mostly heat, not light. Gun safety is another matter and excellent light on this subject can be found at www.meansmatter.org – one of Harvard’s wonderful School of Public Health’s web sites. Gun owners who are alert to signs of crisis in a family member and temporarily store guns away from home if a family member is at risk of harming themselves or others will avert some disasters.

To understand the prime source code of violence – the suicidal mind – we must first understand that persistent suicidal thoughts and feelings are markers for unremitting, unendurable psychological pain and suffering. If we are thinking about killing ourselves or others, something is terribly wrong and something needs immediate attention and balm.

Psychological pain is one term that covers distress, despair, depression, rage, anxiety, isolation or hopelessness. More than 90% of suicide deaths are by people suffering from serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems, the majority of which remain untreated, but all of which can cause what may become unbearable psychological pain.

According to a 2008 federal survey, in one year the adult American psychological pain index was as follows:

•   8.3 million of us seriously considered suicide
•   2.2 million of us made a plan to kill ourselves
•   1 million of us made an actual suicide attempt

For 2010, unbearable psychological pain contributed to 38,364 completed suicides. That’s 105 Americans a day. Imagine what Congress and the President would do if a commercial airplane loaded with 100+ Americans crashed not once a year, not once a month, not once a week, but every single day, day after day after day?

Yet because suicidal people usually die alone and devastate only their family and friends, it is only when suicidal people commit mass murder that Congress rises from its lethargy.  But it is not just broad mental health reform; it is bringing a laser focus to the prevention of suicide – the source code to violent injury death.

We who work to prevent suicide for a living strongly support this statement by former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. David Satcher, “Suicide is our most preventable death.”  Rather than arming our teachers, we should ask:  What actionable public health knowledge do we have to reduce suicide and, with it, collateral violence toward others?

Unknown to the vast majority of the public, we actually have a lot of actionable knowledge. Published only this past September, the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention 2012 represents our best scientific thinking on how to prevent suicide and its related violence toward others. The plan includes achievable goals, objectives, and action steps.

Will it help?

Yes!

Need proof?

In 2003 our own US Air Force published a multi-year study in the prestigious British Medical Journal clearly demonstrating that a robust, mandatory, suicide prevention/mental health promotion program dramatically reduced violence of all kinds. Findings:

• 33% drop in suicides
• 18% drop in homicides
• 54% drop in serious family violence
• 30% drop in moderate family violence.
• 18% drop in accidental deaths (some of which were likely disguised suicides)

Several large means restriction efforts to prevent suicide have proven successful in other countries, and in the Air Force study reductions in other-directed violence were a happy and unexpected byproduct.

So let’s focus on what will work. Let’s implement our new National Strategy for Suicide Prevention 2012 now.

Implementing the National Strategy will have a wide, generalized harm-reduction effect through the improvement of the mental health of an entire nation. Remember calm, happy, mentally healthy people – including millions of America gun owners – do not kill themselves or others.

So as the gun debate unfolds let’s not get lost in the bushes of how many bullets a Bushmaster holds, but view it through this lens:

• Almost all mass murderers die by suicide.
• Suicide is preventable.
• Prevent suicide and you prevent violence.

An estimated 39,000 Americans will die by suicide in 2013. Among them will be our children, our teenagers, our working brothers and sisters, and hundreds of doctors, police officers, firemen, and veterans. Since each 1% rise in unemployment drives up the suicide rate by 1%, America’s psychological pain index stands at an all time high. Thanks to improved safety engineering and fewer motor vehicle accident fatalities, suicide deaths now exceed those from car crashes.

So, let’s recalibrate and resource safety-focused interventions that will not only lower our nation’s psychological pain index, but lead to broad reductions in self and other-directed violence, including the risk of mass murders.

When our national grief work is done, let us memorialize our collective loss by taking bold, science-based positive actions. We have a plan. America, it is time!

Paul Quinnett, Ph.D. is President and CEO of the QPR Institute, Inc., an educational organization dedicated to the prevention of suicide @ www.qprinstitute.com. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. A free e-book on preventing suicide is available from the Institute’s web site.

Hat tip to Deb Ferns at The WOMA, whose thoughts are well-worth reading too.

Paul Quinnett’s Contact information:
Paul Quinnett, Ph.D.
S 14115 Merriney Road
Cheney, WA 99004
509-235-8823
pquinnett@mindspring.com
© Paul Quinnett, Ph.D. 2013

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Robb Allen has a great post about citizen engagement in legislation and how you need to be involved to get good laws, specifically good gun laws.  He notes that legislators aren’t experts on the issues they legislate.  That’s where you, the engaged and informed citizen, have a duty to write, call, or visit your elected officials.  Deeply flawed bills can be derailed by investing a little of your time in the process.  Stopping bad bills from becoming law is cheaper, easier, and safer than trying to overturn a bad law in our court system.

For instance, a politician trying to “do something” might be extremely uninformed about the standard magazine capacity for a firearm.  For the ambitious legislator, limiting magazine capacity might sound like a great way to “do something” about crime.  Making it a felony to possess a magazine that can hold more than ten rounds will prove that the politician is really serious when he/she/it is trying to do something about crime.  A courteous meeting with your politicritters could educate them about the range of standard capacities available, how the law will unjustly criminalize their voting base, negatively impact the poor, minorities, and women.

The alternative is; bad laws, a loss of rights, and hours wasted on internet forums complaining about how NRA let you down because they didn’t airdrop a team of lawyers and lobbyists in to rescue you from the city council/legislature/Governor your fellow citizens elected.  At the local and state level, it’s your job to engage your representatives!

Even if NRA has a lobbyist in your state, that lobbyist doesn’t have as much influence as large numbers of constituents calling a state senator, flooding a representative’s inbox with email, or overloading the governor’s phone system.

The NRA is the 800 pound gorilla for Federal gun legislation and elections.  At the state level in Arizona, the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL) and the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association (ASRPA) are our 800 pound gorillas when it comes to gun rights.  If your state has an NRA affiliate like ASRPA, or a comparable Citizens Defense League, you should join immediately.  In California there is CalGuns and Florida has Florida Carry.  Just about every state has a group fighting for their resident’s rights.

After you’ve joined a group that protects your rights, you need to participate as well.  These groups get a reputation as 800 pound gorillas because their members demonstrate that they are watching, voting, and dethroning bad politicians.

If you don’t interact in the process, you are dependent on a few dedicated volunteers and a generous individual or two to protect your rights and interests.  If you aren’t gaining ground in your state, it’s probably time for you to get involved.

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As noted in Tyler Montague’s post on Sonoran Alliance, there is quite a bit of debate about Arizona Senate Bill 1474.  SB1474 would allow Arizona concealed weapons permit holders to carry on state college campuses, rather than leaving their weapons in their cars, where the risk of weapons theft is high. The bill even allows campuses to prohibit firearms in buildings. If colleges wish to prohibit carry by law abiding citizens, they must provide a safe storage locker and appropriate signage.

ASU President Michael Crow, who opposes the bill, has threatened to waste millions of dollars on needless lockers, signs, and additional security if SB 1474 is passed. Wasting $13 million for a false sense of security might be a good reason to replace the president of a university, but Arizona should not allow itself to be blackmailed by threats of retaliatory wasteful spending.

A Warped Imagination

President Crow wants people to, “imagine a crowded college lecture hall in which one student pulls a handgun and fires a shot, then a dozen more students untrained in the use of firearms and how to handle potentially deadly situations all pull out their guns.”

Mr. Crow asks you to imagine, because such a tragic event has never happened. He also wants you to suspend reality and imagine that training is not required in order to qualify for a concealed carry permit. Despite Mr. Crow’s imagination, Arizona requires permit holders to have a minimum amount of training in weapons use and how to respond to, or avoid deadly encounters.

Mr. Crow also wants people to imagine that police SWAT teams will be shooting innocent students in order to “take out everyone with a gun.” This is an extremely absurd scenario! Arizona Department of Public Safety officers, Phoenix Police officers, Arizona Game and Fish officers, and virtually every law enforcement department in the state of Arizona regularly deals with armed, law abiding, Arizona citizens without killing “everyone with a gun.”

Campus Police Chiefs

Campus Police Chiefs were even willing to denigrate their own officers during testimony before an Arizona Senate committee. Some chiefs explained that studies show that 85% of shots fired during officer involved shootings miss their intended targets, while reinforcing the view that officers will recklessly kill innocents. I hope those Campus Police Chiefs were merely supporting their campus management’s hyperbolic opposition. Otherwise, those chiefs should be replaced and funds should immediately be allocated for training campus police so they have the same level of competency as the rest of Arizona’s Peace Officers.

Nationwide, more than 26 colleges with more than 70 campuses already allow concealed carry on campus. None have reported the problems that the opponents of SB1474 imagine.

Imagine Reality

Police cannot be everywhere, you are your own first responder.

Even ASU has noted a Department of Justice study that found: “About 3% of coeds are raped during each academic year. Over the course of 5 calendar years, including summers and vacations, 20-25% may be raped.” Even with this level of victimization, ASU President Michael Crow lobbies to keep students defenseless. Surely, rape disrupts the educational process more than a law-abiding gun owner ever could.

During the most recent school shooting at Chardon High School, an hour elapsed before the Lake County SWAT even arrived on scene.

At the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, the murderer’s spree went unchallenged for two and a half hours. As a result of “gun free zone” policies on the Virginia Tech campus, the murderer was able to kill students for 2.5 hours. He even had time to return to his room to reload, then go across campus to continue his spree completely unchallenged.

In December 2011, the first call to police about the most recent Virginia Tech shootings was made at around 12:30 PM. The SWAT team deployed to the student center at 2:34 PM and the campus was declared clear and safe at about 4:40 PM. Helpless and defenseless students waited fearfully for over four hours.

As Virginia Tech English Professor, Lucinda Roy noted after the December 2001 shootings in VT’s gun free zone:

“I feel our campuses are still vulnerable. Anyone can wander onto our campus at any time. I’ve had people wander into my classes I have no idea who they are, even since 2007.”

Is a Concealed Weapons Permit Good Enough?

DPS data shows that there are currently 163,425 concealed weapons permit holders in Arizona. From September 8, 1994 to February 26, 2012 only 1,115 permits have been revoked for any reason. Even if those revocations were just for the last year, the revocations would only amount to 0.68 percent of current permits. These revocations do not represent actual mishaps, and in some cases, a revoked permit may be reinstated.

When traveling outside of Arizona, an Arizona concealed weapons permit is recognized and accepted by 35 other states. This level of concealed weapons permit reciprocity suggests that our current permit training requirements are more than adequate to address public safety concerns, while allowing the individual the choice to pursue additional firearms training that fits their time, financial constraints, and training needs.

Clarity

President Crow’s imagination is unsupported by facts, which is why he cannot provide any incidents that substantiate his fears. Despite the claims to the contrary, Senate Bill 1474 allows people to protect themselves while addressing legitimate safety concerns.

People have a right to self-defense and a right to bear arms. Imaginary events are a completely inadequate reason to deprive law abiding adults of their constitutional rights. In this bill, Senator Ron Gould has addressed the concerns that were expressed about similar legislation last year. Senate Bill 1474 merely allows adult citizens, over 21, who have had firearms training, submitted to fingerprinting, and passed a criminal background check to qualify for, and obtain, a valid concealed weapons permit to lawfully carry when they set foot on the soil of a college campus. The same right they already have elsewhere in the state.

I hope you will join me in supporting S.B. 1474.

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