Long time no post!

Lots of busy. Lots of other bloggers covering stuff that’s already been covered 7 times over, so haven’t had a lot to post.

I just got an email from a fellow in Kalifornia in search of a concealed firearm permit from my wonderful state of Utah.  Thanks!  For those that are interested, I live in the Salt Lake City area and I am a Concealed Firearm Permit Instructor for the state of Utah.  Our permit is recognized in 32 other states because every single day our entire database of permit holders is ran against the FBI’s NICs check system for wants/warrants.

I charge $50 for the class if you are near to Utah or if it is taught in my home.

I charge $75 if you are more than 30 minutes away and I come to you.

I charge $80 if it’s “I have 4 hours TONIGHT RIGHT NOW and I want you to teach me, so be here ASAP.” and if you live within close proximity to myself or if it is taught in my home.

I charge $100 if you are outside of that radius and want it immediately.

If you schedule it ahead of time and are within an hour, I will gladly drive to your home for the class or teach the class in my home.  The charge is $50 or $75 depending on proximity to me (see above).

Please email me if you have any questions.

If you will be attending Boomershoot, email me and we can set something up there.

And then there were 5…

While most states, and our nation itself, are restricting carry in ever larger numbers because of the Newtown tragedy, Utah bucks the trend and thumbs its nose.  It looks like the United States is climbing to 5 for the number of states that do not require a permit for concealing a firearm in public.  Utah appears to have passed HB0076 by a significant margin.  So significant that it’s veto proof!  In the House, 50 Yeas are required to avoid a veto by the governor.  We got 51 yeas.  In the Senate, 20 yeas are required and we got 22.

I’m still hesitant to call it Constitutional Carry because the law still prevents you from carrying loaded until you have your permit or are not on a public street, but this does qualify under the criteria on permitless concealment.

We do still offer a Concealed Firearm Permit, of which I’m an instructor, but it now gets you loaded carry and avoidance of school zones.

The governor still has to sign the bill, but if he refuses to sign it, it merely goes back for a final reading.

Make this their last Huzzah!

I had the below post submitted to a friend’s FB post where he’s very much in favor of limiting our 2A rights “for the children”.  I just thought it was worth reiterating here, after the break:

Protect Your Children

In this world, you have but one purpose.  Your sole job is to protect your progeny.  What happened today in Connecticut was a disgusting, vile act.  Lives were WINKED out of existence by a monster.

Obviously, the world wants to prevent this.  I think that’s a wonderful idea.

Let’s look at what happened.  Someone who appears to have had no criminal background went nuts.  I haven’t seen tales of mental history, yet so I’m going with the assumption that he had a clean bill of health upstairs.  It should be illegal to take a gun onto school grounds.  Oh, it is in most cases.  It should be illegal to kill people.  Check.

So, it’s illegal to do what he did, but it didn’t stop him.  Already the cries for more gun control are deafening.  The idea is that if you make it more illegaler, it can’t possibly happen.  I think that’s wonderful.  Let’s make meth illegal, then nobody can smoke it.

No.  You protect your children.  It’s what you do.  Step up to the damned plate and take some responsibility for your charge(s).  You will not prevent a tragedy by telling him he’s not allowed to use a specific implement.  You prevent a tragedy of this magnitude by TRUSTING your teachers.

Teachers already go through background checks.  In fact, it’s the same FBI background check that firearms purchasers go through.  Train them.  Teach them viable tactics.  If they so desire, ARM THEM!  Teach them to be teachers and not just people that repeat a text book.  Give them the freedom to raise your child.  Your child already spends over 6 hours a day with this person.  You are trusting your child’s life with them.  That’s a HUGE responsibility!  If you are going to trust them, TRUST THEM.

It may not have stopped this tragedy, but it sure as hell would not have hurt to put the odds against the gun man.

Fedex lost a gun

Personally, I like UPS, but not by a large margin.  Fedex is convenient in that there’s one that lives right next door to my employer.

When you need a firearm repaired, you are legally able to ship it to the manufacturer and they manufacturer can legally ship it back without involving an intermediary FFL.  One of the guys over on UtahConcealedCarry.com utilized Fedex’s services to send and receive their firearm so Taurus could repair it.

I am extremely upset at the moment. I sent my Taurus 94 revolver in for a repair. The barrel needed to be replaced, and Taurus said to send it in and they’d fix it.
I never received any contact from Taurus, but was tracking the status online. A week or so ago I checked up on it and it was marked as “shipped”. Having not had it arrive yet (or receive a tracking number) I decided to call them today…..

Turns out the gun was delivered by Fedex on Nov. 23 and LEFT ON MY DOORSTEP. The guy from Taurus said that they ship everything signature required and does not know how it got left like that. Taurus said they will file a complaint with Fedex, and try to track it down, but beyond that I’m not sure what they will do. I was too upset to ask.

The way I see it either a Fedex employee decided he wanted a new gun, or they really did leave it on my front door and one of my neighbors walked away with it.

(Emphasis mine)

Obviously he must have screwed up.  He’s just someone that probably shouldn’t be able to ship guns, being an average Joe.  Right?

Utah CFP instructor ~ NRA Pistol Instructor

So he’s a RESPONSIBLE average Joe.

So who screwed up?  I dunno…  you tell me.

So FedEx says they delivered it to the front door.  Taurus specifically demanded an adult signature be required.  According to the tracking receipt, either the FedEx driver was cutting corners to save time and changed the delivery type to not require a signature, as indicated by the top most annotation, or FedEx as a whole cut corners to save the driver some time.  It looks to me that a person named “Signature not required” signed for this and was written in by the driver.  Thoughts?

There’s one thing that seems odd with this, though.  The section that says “Hold at FedEx Location service is not available for this shipment.” seems odd.  There should be a colon in here.  Either it should say “Hold at FedEx Location: service is not available for this shipment” or “Hold at FedEx: Location service not available for this shipment.”

Now, if I had to ship some firearms, Id think very carefully which service I’d use.

Harvard: Gun Control is counterproductive

I think Linoge would approve!

The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.” Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is “no.” And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The PDF is linked below.  Most excellent read!

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf (PDF warning)

A second misconception about the relationship between firearms and violence attributes Europe’s generally low homicide rates to stringent gun control. That attribution cannot be accurate since murder in Europe was at an all‐time low before the gun controls were introduced.13 For instance, virtually the only English gun control during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the practice that police patrolled without guns.  During this period gun control prevailed far less in England or Europe than in certain American states which nevertheless had—and continue to have—murder rates that were and are comparatively very high.

Oh, this is juicy.

H/T to Joe Huffman for pointing out that this is *NOT* a recent article, but was published on May 5, 2007.

The problem with Open Carry

I’ve noticed that the problem with open carry…  are the anti-open carry crowd.

What’s interesting, and rather quite telling, is that the only reason that open carry is in the media and being argued about…  is that the anti-open carry crowd are the ones bringing it up or trying to teach lessons to the OCers.

I think the latest boutstarted with a loudmouthed jackass bashing everybody who OCs with one huge blanket statement.  His beef was over the folks in Cali who OC’ed shotguns and then claimed that the only reason that Cali banned OC was because of them.  No, they just reminded Cali that it was legal.  Can’t have that.  If not them, then someone else.  You can’t fight the laws until you fall victim to them.

The ONLY public backlash that might arguably not have happened was the Michigan library incident with the fellow OCing a shotgun.  I say arguably because the guy OCing had no choice.  If he was going to carry an implement with which to defend himself, it was going to be a shotgun due to the guy’s age.  It was not legally permissible for him to carry a handgun to begin with.

I’ve only seen 1 story that told of a guy having his open carry gun stolen by a criminal.  The other stories were of pro-gun people teaching a lesson.

If you want to OC, then OC.  If you don’t, then don’t, but shut your suck instead of bashing those that do.  The benefits that the Open Carry movement have provided have been 100 fold over the few negative instances about Open Carry.

(Edited fer bad grammers)

Alton Brown carries a 1911!?

One of my favorite TV personalities is sometimes called the “Bill Nye” of the Food Network.  If you watch the Food Network at all, you know who I am talking about.  He showed a side today that I never would have expected had I not seen it from his own virtual mouth!

I have lived my whole life on Bond films. I may crack before Skyfall releases. I mean…I’m carrying a PPK. #not kidding. by @altonbrown

@altonbrown .380 or 9mm? by @FallsJ

@FallsJ .32 ACP Actually. I think the frame’s just to bitey in .38. by @altonbrown

@altonbrown I hear ya. Better something in .32 that you’ll carry than something in .38 that you won’t. by @FallsJ and it’s a comment that I wholeheartedly agree with!

@guntruth @altonbrown Carries? Would not have guessed. by @novasbre

@novasbre not every day…but most days.  it’s a dangerous world. by @altonbrown

and seemingly answering back to the same fellow as though for clarification:

@novasbre at home we like to say the house is protected by mossberg, but the Mossberg is protected by H&K. by @altonbrown

He’s not shy about this, either.  Below is another branched conversati0n with another fellow from the initial PPK comment that started it all.  It seems to me that not only is he talking guns, he actually appears to know what he’s talking about and not just trying to flub his way through it!

@altonbrown which is your favorite? by @BigO2493

@BigO2493 for carry? Kimber ultra-carry 2. I like the 1911 frame best. by @altonbrown

And finally, one last bit of conversation with another person:

@altonbrown nice choice… firing pin safety and de-cocker. #responsible by @abumgardner

@abumgardner exactly by @altonbrown

Edit: One last conversation.  Not sure if the guy is trying to bait Alton or what…  (Edit: Lokidude from #gbc pointed out that this isn’t a jab, but a reference to a recent episode of “Next Food Network Star” where Alton is one of the team leads.  A high-five of sorts?)

@altonbrown If you can’t cook & talk at the same time, shut up.  Oh & Beretta 92FS all the way. by @DobbinPitch

@DobbinPitch nice choice by @altonbrown (It doesn’t look like Mr. Brown was going to take the bait.)

I never would have thought that he would carry and I’m really digging the fact that he is!  The more people that carry, the more our goblins won’t know which victims are safe targets!  Carry on, Mr. Brown.  Carry on!

Forever a fan.

Tales of a really crappy Boomershoot drive

Boomershoot was amazing…  the drive to and fro, not so much.

I believe in taking care of my gear.  I drive a ’95 Blazer.  It’s not going to win any awards.  I figure if I take care of my stuff, even my ’95 Blazer, it will take care of me.

Sometimes I’m wrong…

Tuesday

I went to Boomershoot with a coworker who we will call Kurtis.  Kurtis is not his real name.  Duh.  The plan was to finish up work at 3pm on Tuesday, Apr 24th and head out.  From Northern Utah, we were planning on stopping somewhere around Boise or one of the small towns just north of there.  That gave us until about 11pm to drive, giving us plenty of time the following day to finish the trip.

About 3 hours later, we were very close to the junction of I-84 and I-86 towards Boise.  I started feeling a distinct lack of power in the engine when I would give it gas.  It got worse and worse to the point where it started stalling if I let it get to idle speeds.  We tried some basic fixes at Autozone like Fuel Injector cleaner, stuff like that.  When that didn’t work, we set up the camper at a Walmart parking lot in Burley, ID.  By pure luck, we were close enough to the Jack in the Box to leech off of their public Wifi.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we called around trying to find an auto shop that could get the work done for us.  NONE of the smaller shops could do it.  The Chevy dealer (Kim Hensen Chevrolet) was more than willing to help out.  We literally coasted into the parking lot since once we started it, it wouldn’t go for more than 5 seconds at a pop.  This was at about 8:30am or so.  This took us until about 3pm until they got back to us.  Their waiting room wasn’t too bad.  8 seats, an unplugged TV, and intermittent wifi.  On the good side, they had a sandwich girl that came in to sell foodstuffs and a constant flow of veterans, proudly sporting their vet hats, pins, etc to chat it up with.

Nearest the service center could figure out is that when they redid some wiring near the engine that was feeding the injectors, they got a response.  They tried swapping the distributor cap, the fuel pump, the fuel filter, and the fuel lines and they were getting good fuel pressure.  This led them to believe that the wires to the injectors were corroded since the wiring was done piss-poorly.  Problem fixed!

Let me tell ya….  the drive north out of Boise is amazing.  It’s going through forests and canyons while stone-stepping through tiny towns.  We stopped in Cascade, ID for the night and just got a motel room since it was pissing rain, cold, and I really did not want to set up the camper in that stuff.

Thursday

The next morning, ‘Kurtis’ sent a text to Joe (AT&T has reception about as well as a quadriplegic can clap) telling him we’d be getting there around 11-12.  We got to the Mecca on around noon amid rain.  Trudged up the hill (wasn’t about to try to leave the gravel road since my 4WD doesn’t engage) and met with Joe.  Since the rain was showing no signs of letting up and it was proving to be a bit cold, I went back down to the Blazer to get my snow pants.  While I was down there, I turned the blazer around…  and got 1 tire stuck on the mud.  I’m glad I keep the e-tool my brother bought me nearby!  15 minutes of self-help and I was good to go.  However…  by that point, I was mud to my knees and soaked, so the snow pants were pretty pointless.

Good thing I was to be inside the Mecca folding boxes.

Now, there’s my trip to Boomershoot.  The return trip in a later post.

On to Part Deux (pronounced ducks)!

QOTD: Sheriff Joe Guy

Quote of the Day: Sheriff Joe Guy

“I feel like it’s my responsibility to make them available for sale,” Guy said. “We take them from lawbreakers and make them available for law-abiding citizens. … A well-armed, law-abiding populace makes my job easier.”

This was said in regards to a firearms auction in TN where the law was recently modified to make it illegal to destroy evidenced guns when no longer needed.  They’re now required to auction them off to the law-abiding public!  I’m GLAD more and more law enforcement officers are understanding this.