Beto shoots gun control efforts in the foot
Photo: Gage Skidmore
The NRA has anointed him AR-15 salesman of the year and liberals are horrified when he gave away the game plan. Of course, we’re talking about democratic presidential hopeful Robert (Beto) Francis O’Rourke, who proclaimed, “Hell yes, we’re taking away your AR-15s and AK-47s.”
He was trying to generate attention for his faltering campaign but managed to not only fire up gun owners, he also enraged his “progressive” co-conspirators. I’ve been reading with great glee all of the online wailing and gnashing of teeth from lefties over his pronouncement. The basic feeling seems to be, “Beto, you weren’t supposed to tell anyone!”
I’ll take this moment to beat the drum again so gun owners understand very plainly (just like Beto) — if any of the current crop of Democrats is elected to the White House in November, there is a very good chance the government will eventually attempt to take away your firearms. And, if you think “It’s not my problem” because you don’t own an AR-15 or AK-47, you’re wrong — you’re just a little farther back in the line. If you doubt me, ask anyone from California.
One Key To Corporate Virtue-Signaling
I got an email from minuteKEY, one of those do-it-yourself key-making kiosks at a big “box” hardware store. The product worked, the process was quick and I’m happy with the result. As typical, my email address was added to their newsletter rolls and I recently received a message. It said — “The first six weeks of school are when the most sexual assaults occur on campus. And for too long, women have been taught to use their keys for self-defense on a walk home alone. This cannot be.”
As a retired cop, I’m not sure they’re correct on the yearly timing of assaults but what really drew my eye was the apparent sentiment saying keys shouldn’t be used as a weapon. I have a mother, a wife, a daughter and six granddaughters and tell all of them to fight back against any assault using whatever they have on hand — gun, backpack, passing stray cat or house keys.
Hey minuteKey: Whether you like it or not, your product makes a moderately useful weapon and I highly encourage anyone to use as such! One can only guess what they’re smoking in the company’s Colorado headquarters.
They Are Watching You
Second Amendment advocates often sound an alarm about government overreach and civil rights being abridged, then the other side scoffs and says, “Oh, you’re just being paranoid.” I usually respond by saying, “It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you.”
If you own a night vision scope by American Technologies Network (ATN) Co., the government is out to get you, or at least your information. They want your personal identifiers, not because you’ve committed any crime but because a few people might have.
On September 5, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency requested Apple and Google share information on who downloaded Obsidian 4, an app which allows users to control their ATN Night Vision scope via a cell phone. The apparent reason was to investigate violations of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), i.e. people taking ATN scopes to other countries. The problem here is the vast majority of people who own an ATN scope or downloaded the app have done nothing wrong, so the government’s request amounts to a “fishing expedition” to see if they can figure out who might have committed a crime based on the fact they downloaded software to their phone. Not cool.
Beautiful downtown San Francisco. Photo: “Mid-Market Blight” by spotreporting
Yep, We’re All Tangos!
By now, you’ve heard the 11-member San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution declaring the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist group. This board is, politically-speaking, more leftist than Chairman Mao and utterly clueless about things (or the people) outside their feces-contaminated, trash- and homeless-filled socialist paradise by the bay. Fortunately, no one outside of gun control advocates and their pals in the mainstream media care at all.
Personally, I’d much rather have neighbors who were NRA members than a San Francisco Supervisor.
While I’m a big believer in the idea of, “ignore stupid people and they eventually go away,” we must give a shout-out to firearm manufacturer Honor Defense who combined capitalism with Second Amendment support. As a response to San Francisco’s exercise in group ignorance, during September the company offered an 11 percent discount on USA-built, veteran-assembled pistols if you used the special code “Cluesless11inFrisco.” Yeah, that’s what they said.
Postcards From The Edge
I’ve got to hand it to our readers — they are an inventive bunch! As you probably can guess, we receive bushels of cards as entries in our monthly gun giveaways. GUNS Associate Editor Jazz Jimenez takes care of all the inbound mail so the editor doesn’t chap his precious fingertips.
Recently, Jazz shared some of the incredible array of “postcards” we receive as entries. My personal favorite was a section of the box from what used to be called a “TV Dinner,” though a recycled son-in-law birthday card was a close second. I thought our readers are really resourceful. Someone did point out postcards are now difficult to find.
As a side note, even though we receive a good number of entries each month, the overall number is small compared to some big national sweepstakes, or certainly any lottery. Therefore, statistically speaking, you stand a much better chance of winning a gun from GUNS than nearly any other such contest. Keep those Salisbury Steak boxes coming!
Talk About Fake News!
Last month many social media users and media outlets, including GUNS Magazine, received an official-looking press release announcing Swiss arms and ammunition manufacturer RUAG was closing down. The only problem — it was literally fake news.
RUAG issued a press release saying, “Earlier today, a hoax press release was circulated claiming that RUAG would close its Ammotec division and cease making weapons for export. That announcement was entirely false. RUAG will continue to supply the world with arms, and we will pursue legal action against the perpetrators of this awful hoax.”
Apparently, the disinformation was circulated by someone or some group who would like to see the company stop making weapons and ammunition. The release also included some strange claims such as RUAG bankrolling the Zurich-based Neumarkt Theater’s production of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”
RUAG had a great comeback: “We do appreciate a joke, although this one is in very poor taste. But, if you must put a horse down, RUAG makes frangible rounds that minimize danger for the shooter while maximizing stopping power to the horse.”
One correction
Our Condolences
There was a typo in the last Insider concerning Janelle Cooper, wife of Gunsite Founder Col. Jeff Cooper. We stated Janelle died Sunday, June 28 when in fact it was Sunday, July 28, 2019.
