Second Amendment

Lying About School Shootings

 

 

It's shocking that people with a political agenda could distort statistics and facts.

β€œMost Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.”

Treating Cars Like Guns – The Truth About Guns

Seems like reasonable restrictions on automobile ownership, especially when you consider how dangerous automobiles are.

I bet you such laws would discourage bad drivers, plus get a lot of cars off the road. It might even save a lot of lives !

Substitute 12 gauge for .22?

The Ammunition Bubble: Substitute 12 gauge for .22?

I still haven't spent my roughly $200 bucks on the .22 I was going to buy a few weeks back. I told myself I would buy myself some ammunition first, because owning a gun without ammunition is, well, pointless. I've been to several Walmarts and a few outdoors shops like DIcks, with no luck -- unless of course I want to come right when they get more ammo in.

.22s are a lot of fun. I've shot one a couple of times and would be great to take up to the Adirondacks for target practice. Also good for shooting squirrels and rabbits. But if I have pay an arm and a leg to get ammo and wait in lines early in the morning, it's just stupid.

I also was looking at getting a shotgun this fall. A shotgun is a totally different tool, for hunting different things. In many ways a shotgun is more versatile, even though shot is more expensive and the range is much less. But with a shotgun shell, you can hit a much wider target, which is good for a moving animal, assuming you don't mind picking all the shot out.

I think I will probably end up picking up a shotgun this week or next, and taking it up to some place fairly remote in the Adirondacks to practice. The local Walmart has almost all the gauges and types of shot in stock, including plain old bird shot. And you can just pick it up off the shelf and take it to cash register just like any other grocery item. Hand gun ammo, yes is behind lock and key, but not shotgun shells at Wally World.

Ken Ballew Raid – June 7, 1971

TheΒ Ken Ballew RaidΒ occurred on this day in 1971.

On June 7, 1971, acting on a tip from a teenage burglary suspect that there were β€œguns and grenades” at an apartment in Silver Spring, MD, ATF Special Agent Marcus J. Davis requested a search warrant for the apartment. Assistant US Attorney Charles Bernstein rejected Davis’ request, citing insufficient evidence for a search warrant. Davis rewrote the request giving Bernstein the suspect’s name and told him that there had been allegations of violent threats in the vicinity of Kenyon Ballew’s address. Bernstein then issued a knock-service daytime search warrant.

The raid was carried out by a task force of ATF and Montgomery County police. All the task force members were dressed in scruffy clothes to β€œblend in” with the neighborhood. They knocked on the back door and allegedly shouted β€œFederal officers with a warrant, open up.” Hearing some movement within the apartment, they took a battering ram to the door. It took them six attempts to break down the door. The two residents within, Ballew and his girlfriend, Saraluise McNeil, had both been in the shower when the attack began. He was naked and she was clad only in her underwear. Not having heard anything but the battering of his rear door, Ballew grabbed an 1847 blackpowder percussion Colt revolver while McNeil grabbed her own revolver.

The ATF agent, William H. Seals, seeing the naked man with the gun, yelled, β€œHe’s got a gun” and fired a shot. The next officer behind Seals was County Police Officer Royce R. Hibbs who came through the door firing several shots. At that time Ballew had not fired a shot and none of the first two officers’ shots hit him.

It was only when Police Officer Louis Camillo came into the room and fired a shot at Ballew’s head that Ballew was hit. As Ballew fell, he dropped the Colt that discharged sending one bullet into the floor at an angle. Upon seeing Ballew bleeding on the floor, Saraluise McNeil became hysterical and surrendered to the police officers. This case, which was followed closely by the Washington Post, became a gunowner rallying point against the ATF during the 1970s. It was also one of the cases that Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) referred to when he called the ATF β€œjack-booted thugs.” This was the same Dingell who, as a member of the NRA board of directors, was later instrumental in the creation of the NRA’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).

Today marks 43 years since the raid of Ken Ballew's house that went badly wrong, and lead in many ways to the modern gun-rights movement.

It's also where the term "jack-booted thugs" comes from after Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) used it to describe the ATF's actions during the raid.