The Threadless Nut

As you may know, there are several firearms related bills going before the NY state legislature this week. You can see details about them, as well as get contact info from the NRA-ILA site. If you are concerned I urge you to contact your representatives ASAP. Here is my letter, feel free to plagiarize.

I’m writing today to share my opinions on several firearms related bills that are up for your consideration this week. I’ll be as brief as possible.

A01093/S01715: While this bill speaks to prevention of illegal sales, it has a provision requiring dealers to obtain liability insurance for the damage the firearms they sell could cause. This clause makes no mention of whether this insurance should cover illegal or legally sold firearms. Having a dealer carry insurance for what a customer who legally purchases a firearm may do is simply ridiculous. This will add an undue financial burden and put local dealers out of business driving more jobs out of NY state.

A00801A/S01598: This bill adds a 5 year expiration to all firearms licenses and adds a training requirement. While I certainly support the idea of firearms training, I am a certified NRA instructor, the criteria for this training is not specified. Who will decide what the training includes and what are the standards? What will the cost be? How often and where will this be offered? These details can turn a seemingly positive bill into a gun ban. The reasons cited for the 5 year renewal include the fact that firearms licenses are not automatically revoked when a person loses the right to own firearm. That is an administrative problem and does not require new legislation that will further restrict the right, as affirmed by the Supreme Court, of law abiding citizens to own firearms for self defense.

A01326: This bill would require that individual handguns be made “child-safe” through one of several means. Any of these means either compromise the handguns use for self defense, or introduces mechanical complexities that will reduce reliability.

A05844/S03098: This bill requires “safe storage” of firearms. The primary issue I have with this is that it requires ammunition to be separately stored from the firearms. This makes it nearly impossible to keep a firearm in a reasonable state of readiness for defense within my own home. Having to retrieve the firearm from a locked box or device and then having to retrieve the ammunition from yet another locked box and then load the firearm will make that firearm all but useless in a stressful and time sensitive situation.

A02881/S02379: This bill attempts to ban “frangible ammunition”. The primary purpose of frangible ammunition is safety as it disintegrates immediately upon hitting any hard surface. It is useful for training to prevent ricochet and in self defense to prevent over penetration. There is no reason why this should be banned.

A02882: This further expands the use of the COBIS system. This system has been shown to be completely ineffective and a waste of state funds.

A03211: This bill bans the possession of .50 caliber firearms. Overall this is poorly written as it is never specified what .50 caliber firearms are being regulated. .50 caliber is simply a statement of bore diameter. As written this would ban most muzzle loading hunting rifles, almost all shotguns, several handguns, several .50 caliber rifles, and the .50BMG rifle. The .50BMG rifle is used for long range target competition throughout the country. It is just another lawful firearm and should not be singled out.

A06157: This bill expands the existing “Assault Weapons Ban”. The federal government did not renew a similar ban on the information that the ban did not affect crime rates. The bill promotes several fallacies such as “spray fire” and generally prays on fear. This bill includes a provision for confiscation of current legally possessed firearms from NY citizens. This would simply be a disaster. Once again this is an attempt to control crime by managing law abiding citizens.

A06468/S04397: This bill requires handguns to “micro stamp” ammunition. This will simply cause manufacturers to not make NY compliant pistols, and put the manufactures in NY state at a severe disadvantage, encouraging them to relocate to another state. This technology is also completely ineffective as it is easily defeated within minutes.

In summary, I urge you to OPPOSE these bills:
A01093/S01715, A00801A/S01598, A01326, A05844/S03098, A02881/S02379, A02882, A03211, A06157 and A06468/S04397.

Thank you for your attention,

It appears that all the kerfuffle about the military brass destruction was either a mistake,  or the response was so strong that those involved reversed the policy. Not sure which, but it’s good news. Georgia Arms has updated their site and it appears that the mutilation order only applies to shells larger than .50 caliber.

Now I’m off to buy a 25mm rifle.

I recently caught wind of this little gem via a post on Michael Bane’s blog. It seems that somewhere it was decided that the government will no longer be releasing it’s fired shell casings to the commercial reloading market. Currently the homepage of Georgia Arms, whom I’ve purchased ammo from before, talks about how they can no longer supply .223 and .308 ammo at all. Here is the notification they received:

Effective immediately DOD Surplus, LLC, will be implementing new requirements for mutilation of fired shell casings.  The new DRMS requirement calls for DOD Surplus personnel to witness the mutilation of the property and sign the Certificate of Destruction.  Mutilation of the property can be done at the DRMO, if permitted by the Government, or it may be mutilated at a site chosen by the buyer.  Mutilation means that the property will be destroyed to the extent prevents its reuse or reconstruction.  DOD Surplus personnel will determine when property has been sufficiently mutilated to meet the requirements of the Government.

Not only does this have a significant impact on ammunition availability and prices, which are already bad enough, but it will also incur additional financial penalties. The value of quality shell casings is much higher than the value of the brass as scrap. That’s additional income that will be lost. There is also additional expense as the casings have to be “mutilated” and that process needs to be approved and inspected by someone. So not only is it an anti-shooter move, it just doesn’t make any financial sense. It’s like busting your house up to sell off the wood.

What really sticks in my craw about this is that it’s a sneaky and underhanded way to discourage firearms ownership and hurt existing shooters. These “policies” and “regulations” don’t go through any legislative process and can have huge impacts on the firearms community. It’s certainly not a new tactic, but it’s one that really irks me.

If you are upset about this, please do as Georgia Arms suggests and contact your representatives.

One of the greatest things about the AR15 weapons platform is its modularity. You can take a standard AR lower receiver and slap a huge variety of upper receivers onto it. With a 30 second change, you can completely change the function of the weapon. You can go from a 10″ barreled close combat carbine, to a 16″ all purpose carbine, to a 24″ sniper or varmint rifle. You can even change the caliber from a .22 long rifle plinker/trainer all the way up to a .50 BMG long range “concrete is no longer considered cover” monster.

Well at this year’s Shot Show, PSE introduced something that really breaks the paradigm of what the AR can do. They’ve announced the TAC-15 AR crossbow upper. Yes you read that right, and here’s a pic to prove it.

Much like the spray pancake batter, I’m not sure if this is incredibly awesome or incredibly stupid. It seems to be quite long compared to a normal crossbow, though with the limb design, it’s narrower. I’m just not sure there’s  much advantage to slapping a crossbow on top of an AR lower. A crossbow isn’t considered a firearm, so it’s not like you have to go through the 4473 dance to get one and given it’s relative size, it just doesn’t seem that much smaller than just having a whole crossbow ready to go. At $1299 it’s no cheaper than a standard crossbow either.

Still, it’s neat and I want one.

I believe that everyone has a right to defend themselves, and the right to the access to the tools to be effective at that goal.

New Palm Pistol

To that end, Constitution Arms has developed a palm pistol designed to be used by the elderly and disabled, or anyone who is unable to use a standard handgun. As you can see from the rendering here, its ergonomics are quite different from a standard handgun. I can see how this would be easier to use by someone with limited hand dexterity or strength. It has even been approved as a medical device, so it can actually be prescribed by a doctor and is eligible for insurance coverage, that’s certainly interesting. I applaud Constitution Arms for taking on this challenge and developing this firearm.

Old Palm Pistol

Now, the concept of the palm pistol isn’t really a new one. Here’s one example from France in the late 1800’s. There were several other designs along these lines. The primary purpose was as a hide-away gun to stick in your vest or hat for dire situations, but as you can see, it resembles the new one quite closely in basic form. This particular example is in the, quite anemic, .32 rimfire caliber with a 10 round capacity, but as they say, “Any gun is better than no gun“.

So why am I writing this? Is it really to laud Constitution Arms for their vision and civic responsibility? No, it’s not. While I still do commend them for taking this on, I think there’s a rather large problem with their design. Unlike the 1800’s version above, the new model is in an acceptable defensive caliber, 9mm, which is good. However, also unlike the 1800’s version the new model is single shot. While still keeping the “Any gun is better than no gun” axiom in mind, this is a severe limitation. Given that this is targeted to people who are already at a defensive disadavantage, giving them only one round of 9mm (or any caliber) is simply not enough. 1 shot, even if well placed is not a reliable attack ending response, and gives you no recourse for multiple assailants.

So, I’m challenging Constitution Arms to build upon this first step and develop a handgun that will provide those that really need it, an effective defensive tool. Please feel free to send one to me for testing.