For a few of my old classmates

Have any of you people pushing for an assault rifle ban opened your eyes and looked around? Or are you still being naive.

Remember, there are consequences and while you may be foolish enough to think that a ban will make something go away the unintended consequences of your actions may become something you have not bargained for.

Ever since Sandy Hook the American public has been on the biggest arms buying binge I have ever seen in my life.

I have shot competitive rifle of some sort or another since 1975 and I swear that I have never seen anything like this in shooting circles since Day One. A trip to any gun store will tell you that.

There isn't an AR, and AK or a Ranch rifle to be had anywhere and the few that are still out there for sale are going for insane prices. To be honest, I took advantage of the buying panic to sell off a couple of my unused rifles. They sold like hotcakes.

I have decided that I am going to go back and shoot some competition this year after taking a break for a year or two. It's good exercise and I could use a little. I can also use the social end of it as I have been somewhat of a hermit for a while.

Several trips to several reloading outlets have proved fruitless and the proprietors have all told me the same story. The powder I want is not available as is any ammunition to speak of except for a few odd obsolete sporting calibers.

Why is that?

Because Barak Obama has decided to become gun salesman of the century and I have to give him credit and say he's done one hell of a job. Sales were up to 3.8 million, according to the NICS system but that does not include sales that have been made in states that have their own firearms ID system in place.

People have been paying very inflated prices as the panic has hit the streets and it should be mentioned that a lot of these people are first time gun buyers.

In January the numbers were down about 10% and that is simply attributed to the plain and simple fact that firearms dealers have nothing left to sell. Gunmakers are running at full tilt to meet the incredible demand.

Ammunition shelves are also bare now and while I saw some of this happen before the Clinton ban went into effect, there has never been anything like it. At the height of the Clinton pre-ban panic there were still reloading supplies readily available. Now these are gone.

I'm preparing for a simple match season and I am playing hell trying to get ready and have taken to driving an hour or more for a lousy pound of powder. On top of that, I am paying through the nose for it.

I have met quite a number of professional people that are arming themselves and you can pretty much bet the farm that there are not a whole lot of people that are going to turn in the firearm they paid $1500 to $2500 a couple months after they bought it. Just because some fat guys in Washington tell them to doesn't mean the laws will be obeyed.

The truth of the matter is that there are a growing number of members that are arming themselves to the teeth for what looks like a civil war in the offing. My visits to gun stores last December left me with a knot in my stomach.

In anticipation of a firearms ban as I last counted five states have enacted legislation that anyone trying to enforce a federal assault weapon of magazine ban is subject to arrest.

Twenty more states have these laws pending.

In some of these states the crime is a heavy felony.

Of course, the feds will trump these laws, but what remains clear is that a number of the states have told the Feds to leave them alone.

Recently in Albany the governor managed to get the draconian SAFE act passed by rushing it through the state assembly. The legislators were given 20 minutes to read it and it got voted on and passed. I wonder how many arms were twisted by Cuomo but that's immateriel.

While I suppose that the residents of New York City had no objections, the law didn't sit well with the people in upperstate New York. Orange County for one has refused to enforce it.

Another thing I've noticed is that quite a number of county sherrifs have said that they will refuse to enforce any federal assault weapon or magazine laws.

Which makes a person wonder who WILL enforce any federal legislation that goes through. Most local and county level law enforcement agencies have other responsibilities to tend to. Having the feds dump something else on their plate isn't going to be received with open arms.

Even those that claim they will enforce the federal law regarding these weapons are not very likely to make enforcement of them a priority.

When you talk to the owners of various gun shops and find out that a lot of individual police officers have stocked up on ammunition and purchased weapons you can be assured that there are a lot of officers that are not going to be too willing to go along with a ban.

In New York a number of organizations are taking the SAFE act to court. Things are not going to end up well there. If the state starts trying to enforce things there eventually they will end up running into someone that has decided to fight.

Judging from what I have seen there it is likely.

I watched a 'town meeting' where a state trooper was sent to explain the new law and how it effects everyone. It was, in a cowardly way, scheduled for when most people were at work and was atended by a bunch of retired people and a handful that could get time off of work.

What truly surprised me about this meeting is that the policeman that was giving the explaination along with the accompanying suits were not tarred and feathered. Resentment was incredibly high. I do believe they would have been had the meeting been scheduled for later when more could attend.

It was made pretty clear that there wasn't going to be a whole lot of compliance on the part of rural New Yorkers.

Likely this will result in casualties on both sides.

If you get a handful of younger combat veterans that draw their line in the sand then the police are going to have their hands full. Expect heavy casualties.

Trying to get the National Guard interested in this isn't going to prove very fruitful, either because there are not too many guardsmen that are particularly keen on shooting their friends and neighbors. Besides, many Guardsmen likely have an AR15 in their own closet.

Someone has suggested that the people that should enforce things in upper New York should come from the city so as to have law enforcement unbiased because the local police. Someone suggested using NYC officers.

If they do decide to use NYC cops, expect to see scenes out of 'Crocodile Dundee II'. City cops seldom if ever leave the pavement. While it is unlikely that any of New York's Finest will be killed while snooping around, I would not be surprised to find a number of them turn up mysteriously missing.

Another aspect should be looked at and that is that if certain firearms are banned there will still be a demand for them and the demand will be filled, as usual, by the same old group that has kept the public supplied with illegal drugs for the past century.

A black market for banned weapons is sure to sprout up and like all black markets, there is no legal recourse for deals gone sour. Most black market deals that turn up sour are settled out of court with force. Expect more violence to accompany non-compliance.

This seems like nothing more than feel-good legislation when you consider that a sheriffs department in New York's Saratoga county has pointed out that so-called assault rifles are were used in 5 out of 769 murders, or less than .007%.

Swimming pools kill more kids than assault rifles do. An old classmate recently told me that my comparison was rubbish but it isn't. It is a cold hard fact. Semi-automatic rifles in this country outnumber swimming pools several times over yet swimming pools kill several times more children than these rifles do.

Swimming pools are far more deadly. How come there is no hue and cry to eliminate a danger that kills several times over the number of children all firearms combined do? Answer me that one.

Of course, most areas require pool areas to be fenced in, but that rarely stops anybody. I'm an old pool-hopper from way back, most recently last Labor Day. ( I went for an after-hours dip in a pool I am welcome in during the day) Fences haven't seemed to stop me or for that matter, much of anybody else that wants to take a dip in someone else's pool.

While enjoying my after-hours swim I was joined by a couple of fence-hopping kids that wanted to swim. So much for fences.

I guess we'll just have to ban pools. Do it for the children.

The truth is that pools are far more dangerous than rifles are for children.

While we are on the subject of children, let's look at another number. Like to admit it or not, the biggest danger to school children is still going to and coming home from school. It may be sad to say, but it is the truth. The most dangerous part of school for a kid is coming and going.

A lot of people like to use the dopey argument 'that if it saves the life of one child it's worth it'. If that's so, why do we not ban pools and automobiles?

Another thing that we do that is entirely stupid is declare schools to be gun free zones. We send our children off to school and place them in killing zones. Gun free zones draw whackos to them like the moon draws water. After all, there is no chance of getting shot there because all of the law abiding citizens are disarmed.

Whackos and criminals love gun free zones because they can act out their sick fantasies with impunity. There is nobody there to stop them.

At one school meeting someone suggested the teachers charge an active shooter with scissors. That's a joke. First of all, teachers for years have told everyone never to run with scissors and now administrators tell teachers to run down a gunman with them. Anyone that has seen the first Indianna Jones movie knows you don't bring a sword to a gunfight. Scissors are definitly out of the question.

Let me ask you this. How many lives of police officers is inforcing something of questional constitutionality worth?

Meanwhile America is stocking up for a long, protracted war and arms and ammunition are selling so fast now that the makers are running full tilt to keep up with orders they have no hope of keeping up with.

Most are behind almost a year, and the one that seems to be keeping up is reporting that orders are running 60 to 90 days.

Bill Clinton has repeatedly told the Democrats to stay away from gun laws as the ban he passed cost him a Republican congress to deal with and did nothing to make the public any safer.

When the Clinton gun ban sunsetted a few years ago it was generally conceded that it had made no difference whatsoever. People still killed each other with whatever they had at hand. The Colombine tragedy happened during the ban offering additional evidence that the ban was pretty lame.

You don't need an assault weapon to mow down people. In 1966 a man named Charles Whitman managed to murder 12 people quite nicely at the University of Texas. He climbed a tower and shot people with a regular bolt action hunting rifle.

What you don't know about that little incident is who supplied the covering fire that enabled police officers to enter the building. The covering fire was laid down quite nicely by members of the student body that had fled to their dorm rooms and returned with various rifles they kept there.

Nobody mentions that part.

The truth is that while nothing could stop Whitman from committing suicide by policeman, if the campus had been a gun-free zone the casualties would have been a lot higher.

Most hunting rifles are accurate at distances far greater than so-called assault rifle. They are generally more deadly as they are specifically designed to kill game sized animals. Military firearms are simply designed to inflict casualties.

I suppose hunting rifles are to be villified next with a new name. They will next be called 'deadly sniper rifles'.

A while ago I wrote a post on where the Marine Corps got their sniper rifles from the hunting community. It's a fact. To this day the current 7.62mm long distance sniper rifle is nothing more than a hunting rifle that has been restocked in fiberglass and the parts machined to Marine Corps specifications.

Truth is the Marines still send their scouts off to war armed with their daddy's hunting rifles.

The Corps purchases basic Remington model 700 actions and builds their own. The model 700 is one of the most popular hunting rifles in the country today.

If I recall, it was Jefferson that said that the only time he expected to see the Second Amendment used is when the government tries to take it away from them.

We very well may see this happen sooner than later.

If this happens, remember this. You voted for it.



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