Continuing…

Smart guns sound like a good idea, especially for a home where there are kids.

How on earth is a smart gun stripping anyone of their 2A rights? It doesn’t. The NRA is once again, full of it.

I would leave any establishment where assault weapons were visible.  Jon Stewart is correct.  We don’t know who the good guys are.

I assume that if there is an assault weapon present, I don’t want to be there.  Something is going down.

55 Thoughts to “Guns a’blazing at Chipotle”

  1. Cargosquid

    Smart guns are a horrible idea.
    They fail 10% of the time. Require extraneous gear to work. Take time to operate. And limit users.
    The technology cannot hold up to repeated shocks and the caliber is limited to .22.
    It sounds good in theory, but does not work in reality.
    That said….if someone wants to spend 1500 bucks or more to buy it…. its their money.

    What strips the rights is not the smart gun technology, but the restrictive and idiotic New Jersey law mandating that ALL guns sold in New Jersey must have such technology 3 years after such a gun hits the market. Of course, all law enforcement is exempt.

    As for the Texas Open Carry…… even the gun bloggers are coming down on the rifle carriers. The problem is that only rifles can be open carried in Texas. They are making a point, however clumsily. They are hurting more than helping their cause.

    It could be solved if Texas would go to reasonable carry laws like Virginia.

    1. The woman said she would rescind her own law if the NRA would cooperate.

      Don’t you think the technology will improve? Its a starting place for those who want to restrict gun use to certain individuals.

      I guess someone could steal your gun bracelet.

  2. Cargosquid

    I forgot to add

    If you have small kids….keep the ammo and guns separated. Lock the guns up or make them inaccessible in other ways. And most of all, train your kids and satisfy their curiosity. Make them BORED with the guns.

    Heh…making them clean the guns works pretty well in doing that.

  3. Censored bybvbl

    Only a nutter would walk into any ordinary suburban restaurant or fast food joint carrying an assault weapon. Miss Manners would probably say that it’s rude to cause the other diners to panic or become anxious. Um, earth to Freud, take a look at the guys in the pic – penis envy isn’t just a female problem… (If it’s a female problem at all.)

    1. BWAAAAAhahahahahahahahaha! You go girl. I agree with your assessment.

  4. Check out second video. I put the first one up twice by mistake. DUH!!!!!

  5. Censored bybvbl

    To all the peeps who are afraid that they may not be able to shoot some intruder quickly enough if he/she breaks in at night: wear the damn bracelet to bed if you’re such a scaredy-cat! And… turn off Faux News. You’ll sleep sounder at night.

  6. Cargosquid

    @Censored bybvbl

    OR they can use current modern technology and store their weapons as they desire.

    How about all the people that wear the bracelet and the damn thing doesn’t work? Or are forced to rely on a meager .22 cal weapon?
    Why are you so disdainful of people that actually might need a weapon to defend themselves just because YOU haven’t?
    The technology is not reliable. The caliber is weak.

    1. It’s the “as they desire” that I have a serious problem with, especially if there are children in the home. All the people I kjnow who have had near fatalities all swore their kids knew not to touch guns, knew to go get an adult, knew how to use a gun safely…blah blah blah.

      Kids do the unpredictable, regardless of what their parents think, say or do. Just is.

  7. Scout

    How much of a throw weight do you find you need for your gun uses, CS? If, for example, you have been plagued with home invasions by elephants, I would think you might need a fairly large calibre weapon. And it probably goes down from there. How many times have you had to kill a large animal in your house? If the technology can be made workable and reliable for .22 rounds, is there any reason that it would not work for larger calibres? My guess is that the reliability of the electronics is probably not dependent on the size of the round.

    Am I safe to assume that you do not need any firearm at all for your day-to-day outside the house activities?

    1. I am howling over the home invasion by elephants remark. Thanks for starting off my day on a good note, Scout.

  8. Censored bybvbl

    @Cargosquid

    Excluding, perhaps, having to carry a weapon as a job requirement, how often have you ever had to carry a weapon for safety? I’ve lived in some pretty rough neighborhoods and travelled to rough neighborhoods while gallery hopping and never had to take a weapon outside of my home. My husband held an unpopular position – prior to caller ID – and despite crank calls and pinned tires, neither of us felt that we had to sleep with a gun – ha ha, except symbolically.

    My concern is that too many people stay in a state of perpetual angst over everything Faux News trumpets. Time indeed passes quickly and soon we end up at death’s door. I wonder how many people will rue having spent so much energy worried about threats that never materialize and wish they had spent their time more constructively.

    1. I think some people collect guns with as much fervor as I collect turquoise.

      She who has the most turquoise in the end, wins.

      Maybe there is a similar slogan for gun owners?

      I can understand owning a handgun, a rifle and a shot gun. Not sure I understand owning 40. But someone might also say that about my purse collection I rarely carry. I mean how many do you have to own? I just don’t have to justify owning purses because they don’t have the potential to harm anyone but my bank account.

  9. Censored bybvbl

    Ha ha. I can understand – I collect gaudy costume jewelry which I seldom wear. There are a few clunky heavy pieces that could probably be used as weapons. But I’m currently ridding myself of my darkroom equipment and going totally digital. That’s the hardest hobby to give up. I suppose I could have thrown stopbath on an intruder. Now I’ll have to hit him with my scanner.

    1. I don’t even have a film camera now. Do your lenses fit your digital camera?

      We need to do a fall trip along the skyline drive with our camera weapons.

  10. Censored bybvbl

    No. They don’t fit. I’m thinking about getting a digital back for my Nikon lens or simply a better camera.

    My cousin from NYC was here recently and spent a lot of time photographing in my house. She uses her Samsung phone and is satisfied with it. I’ll probably get one too. I find iPhones too small and don’t want to wait until fall or winter to get the supposed larger one.

    1. I have Samsung 3. The camera is ok. The new one is much better.

      I don’t think I would ever be satisfied with a phone camera. Not enough bells and whistles.

  11. Censored bybvbl

    I spent a couple decades with an old Minolta. Except for its light meter it was totally manual. I even had the shutter rebuilt once. I’ve never used all the extras on my later cameras. I’ll plead guilty to being a Luddite.

    1. So how do you like digital?

  12. Cargosquid

    @Scout
    “The Armatix had to have a 99% reliability rate to be sold in California.
    Robert Spitzer, a SUNY Cortland political science professor and author of The Politics of Gun Control (whom Hayes brought in after Pratt to talk about the issue), said in order for the Armatix iP1 gun to be sold in California, it had to pass a reliability test.”

    “The standard was a 99 percent successful fire rate, which it met (fire 600 times with 6 or fewer failed discharges),” Spitzer said.

    6 failures out of 600 rounds? I’ve gone through about 500 rounds through my Glock with zero failures. I know people that put thousands of rounds through their pistols with zero failures. If I had that many failures I’d have the gun looked at or I’d return it.

    Furthermore, the gun cost $1800. For a .22.
    And the system relies on batteries, electronics, etc.
    The gun cannot handle heavier loads without damage to the delicate electronics.

    As for needing a heavier round….yes. .22 cal is a horrible self defense round. 9mm, .38, .40, .45 are considered to be the standard defense load with modern ammo. Perhaps .380. A good rule of thumb is to use what the local cops like.

    There are reasons for using smaller rounds. Desire to carry a smaller pistol. Inability to handle recoil. Being recoil sensitive. But the rounds are less effective.

    @Censored bybvbl
    Each person is different. I don’t carry often because where I travel, I cannot carry.
    I know of three people that have defended themselves with guns…..without having to fire.
    I’ve answered my door at midnight with a gun in my pocket because two strange girls were knocking on my door. Long story short…the cops brought one girl home….runaway…and I called a cab for the other and paid for it.

    You don’t carry a gun because you think you will be in a dangerous environment. It is an emergency tool, like a fire extinguisher.

    The citizens in Aurora could have used a few guns in the crowd. But they were in a “safe” place, behind a “no guns” sign. You cannot anticipate where something bad might happen.

    Because you haven’t had to use one does not negate the fact that hundreds of thousands of people HAVE used one to defend themselves and loved ones.

    1. I suppose one simply has to ask one’s self, how paranoid do I go? If I wouldn’t leave home without one, under normal circumstances, then something is wrong.

      I have a lot more sympathy for people who just say they like guns like they like grown up toys rather than those who spout all the bs and rhetoric about safety, etc. I can understand liking toys. I probably would never bet enough cameras, computers, or cross-body leather purses or turquoise if money were no object, storage weren’t a problem, or in general, if left to my own devices. I couldn’t ever use them all, its having them. Being acquisitive I understand.

      @Cargo, You are training to become a teacher. Do you really feel guns have any place in schools other thaN on law enforcement? Please tell me you want all your colleagues carrying. I will be speechless.

  13. Cargosquid

    @Moon-howler
    Collecting?
    Here ya go. THIS is collecting. Most of the firearms probably work. The explosives don’t. And that’s just one room.

    http://www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/detailfs?userid={DB329DA3-317F-453E-BAEE-D4B69D57BC58}&ndx=131&slideshow=0&AlbumId={3AC4A331-CB60-4034-9CE6-6E606C63422E}&GroupId=&screenheight=864

    and

    http://www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/detailfs?userid={DB329DA3-317F-453E-BAEE-D4B69D57BC58}&ndx=133&slideshow=0&AlbumId={3AC4A331-CB60-4034-9CE6-6E606C63422E}&GroupId=&screenheight=864

    Heck..that’s just small arms.
    Don’t forget the tank owner in NOVA. His tanks CAN fire.

    1. I will roll my eyes at the tank owner. He wants the county to take his junk pile on still I guess. I would take to the streets over that one.

      Holy cow. That is extreme.

      🙄

  14. Cargosquid

    Well..the links don’t work unless you select then right click “open link.”

    The owner is a blogger. http://thedonovan.com/

  15. Cargosquid

    By the way….back on topic….

    Open Carry Texas has announced new rules for their organization to better control how their members interact with the public.

  16. Scout

    CS: I guess my question went to what are your particular “defensive” needs. I f you have a problem with large mammals, it may be one thing. Varmints another. I have never, since the unpleasantness of the late 1960s in SE Asia, ever had to deal with anything that required a firearm to dispatch it. Is there any reason to believe that the so-called “smart” firearms have to be limited to a .22 round?

  17. Scout

    PS: the biggest problems I have in Northern Virginia can be dealt with relatively easily with a plastic container of RoundUp.

  18. Scout

    PPS: Is your experience different?

  19. Wolve

    Mine is. I was taking a break from Neighborhood Watch foot patrols one night very late. Sitting on the darkened front stoop. Looked down and thought that Mrs. Wolverine must have planted some new hostas beside the stoop. Picked up a big stick and idly poked at the hostas. Turned out I was poking that stick up the ass of a big skunk. No problem. I took off in one direction, and he took off in the other.

    1. You are very lucky or Mrs. Wolverine would have been bathing you in tomato juice for a few weeks. It sounds like you were dealing with the business end of that skunk.

      My daughter came home late one night and thought the cat was out. turns out she nearly pet the pet possum of the neighborhood. That woman HATES possoms now.

  20. Cargosquid

    @Scout
    I have not had to use a firearm to dispatch a problem, no….

    However, living across from a former commander of the Sheriff’s dept is informative. We have “crime areas” within a few blocks of my house. He, himself, chased a person down the street…officially. We’ve had a guy held prone at gun point by the cops down the street.
    As I said….a gun is an emergency tool, much like a fire extinguisher….if you need one….that is exactly the tool that you need.

    As for animal varmints…not so much. Round Up is my go to weapon of choice for everything else. The poison ivy is growing. We’re actually thinking of hiring organic lawn mowers….goats..to eat all that assorted weeds, ivies, and other noxious things.

  21. Scout

    The PI seems to have be fortified by the hard winter. Still not to the point where I feel a need to shoot it.

  22. Censored bybvbl

    I had a recent experience with a gun. A neighbor – possibly a felon because of the frequent appearance of a parole officer – was walking in front of my house with his girlfriend and a long gun (rifle or bb, I didn’t check) pointed at my bird feeder which is located on a lot I own across from my house. I didn’t race downstairs to grab a gun but opened the front door and asked him what he was doing pointing a gun at my bird feeder on my property. He said he was after a squirrel. I said “not on my property”. He apologized and left. I don’t think he wanted to piss me off enough that I’d call the police and they’d send the SWAT team out after him again. (I hadn’t called the police to initiate that search. They were there when I came home one day.)

    1. Censored, you are definitely a squirrel saver!

      I think you were brave.

  23. Cargosquid

    @Censored bybvbl
    Speaking as a gun owner…..even if that was a pellet gun…he was in the wrong. If your neighborhood is like mine…..it is illegal to shoot a pellet gun.

    I will admit to shooting BB’s on MY property in the backyard with proper backstops…but wandering a neighborhood with some sort of long gun, pointing it at things…… I probably would have called the cops.

    1. Has Cargo been abducted? Bring back our Cargosquid!!!!! Aliens, damn you! This dude is too reasonable to be OUR Cargo.

  24. Cargosquid

    @Scout
    Shooting it won’t work.

    That’s why I’m calling the goat herders today.

    1. What are you all talking about? What is PL?

  25. Censored bybvbl

    @Cargosquid

    If he had missed my feeder, he had a direct line on a neighbor’s house. And, yes, it’s illegal to shoot in my neighborhood. We’re a suburban community – wooded but still a subdivision.

    This isn’t the first time some yahoo with a gun has lived in this particular house and prompted a police search for both the gun and the yahoo. And I know a couple of these gun owners are felons. There needs to be a better method of keeping track of guns so that we can know who supplies these idiots with them.

  26. Cargosquid

    @Censored bybvbl
    If you see a known felon with a gun…call the cops.

    My objections to a “better method” is that it only affects law abiding people and is subject to abuse by government.

    1. I have owned a gun for many years and have never been abused by the government over it. I think it depends on what you call abuse.

  27. Censored bybvbl

    @Cargosquid

    If law abiding people had to report the theft or sale of every gun, that would help. If a national registry were kept of sales -private or otherwise – it might cut down on straw buyers as well.

    I’m simply not going to waste my time fretting about the government coming to take the guns I have. I don’t take them into the local burger joints to draw attention to myself and I don’t walk around concealing them for fear that someone will know I have them. It seems a vicious cycle. Fear drives carrying one and fear drives having someone know that you’re carrying it so it must be hidden. Life is just simpler if one can drive to Harris Teeters or attend the Big Flea or garden without a gun.

  28. Scout

    @ Moon (no. 38): “PI” is poison ivy.

  29. Cargosquid

    @Censored bybvbl
    So far, the states that have registries have not been able to cut “straw purchases.” Also, registries give the government too much power to control over private gun ownership, allowing easy confiscation.

    You seem to be projecting your fear. Its not about fear, but preparedness.
    I don’t conceal out of fear. If the gun becomes visible, I don’t mind. I simply conceal it again. I’ve also open carried….with no problems. Also, remember, open carry was mandatory if I ate in a restaurant that served alcohol.

    But carry is optional. Its not for everyone.
    I carry concealed out of convenience for myself and those around me and for tactical reasons….since carrying openly can mark you as a target as well as a deterrence.

    @Moon-howler
    You haven’t felt abused because you live in a pro-gun state.
    Live in DC and you can be arrested for having a shell casing or single firearm round in your car.

  30. Censored bybvbl

    @Cargosquid
    I don’t have a problem with having to run every purchase through a state office – with fingerprinting and other ID mandatory. That would cut down on most straw purchases if the seller or buyer thought he might be caught. Some crackhead who thought he could make a quick $50 for buying for someone might think twice about going into a state office (similar to the DMV) and faking the purchase.

    I’m not afraid or I would have hidden behind my door and called the police during the recent incident. It’s because of these incidents that I’ve witnessed that I think there are too many loonies who are armed – and they all think that they’re perfectly normal.

    1. That’s the problem, they think they are normal when in fact, some of them are , well, certified crazies.

  31. Scout

    Re Censored’s last point: It really is incredibly easy for people to get and carry guns. In Virginia at least, there are no meaningful standards of instruction, competency, or re-certification. For purposes of discussion, we can stipulate that our colleagues at this site who are strong advocates for little control over these things are sterling examples of good judgement, marksmanship, caution in use and storage etc. The problem is that these traits are completely internally imposed by them and there’s nothing that prevents someone who has never touched a gun before in his life, has all kinds or anger issues, severe physical problems, mental problems that did not result in commitment, no knowledge of how to maintain and secure a firearm, from not only carrying a gun openly (which I guess I can live with, because at least then I know to steer clear if I detect some of these other problems), but also (incredibly) to be authorized by the State to hide a deadly weapon on his person and go about daily activities armed with a capability to kill or maim (the latter decision in itself raising at least a threshold question as to how sound their judgement is). And, as Censored says, a lot of these people think they are normal.

    1. Standing ovation for my friend, Scout.

  32. Cargosquid

    Scout has a good point. However if this was such a problem, with Virginia’s laws as they are, if this was an accurate description, then Virginia would have a huge problem. But the opposite is true.

    Gun ownership and carry has expanded greatly while gun crime has dropped.

    Also, I just read a interesting take on “smart guns” that use electronics. One EMP and they don’t work.

    1. what are you calling gun crime? I think that is what we need to be asking ourselves.

      30,000 gun deaths a year is what we should be looking at.

      7 dead in California. The manifesto says it all. Nuts.

      We have to do more to keep guns out of the hands of crazies. Right now we are asking gun dealers to be psychologists. There has to be a better way.

  33. Scout

    My thought on that subject is that Virginia does have a huge problem. It may manifest itself only sporadically, but when it does, the result can be fatal.

    That last point is interesting, Cargo. There are EMPs and there are EMPs. Are we talking about something catastrophic, like being within the blast radius of nuclear detonation, or a power surge from a night light?

  34. Cargosquid

    @Moon-howler
    Most of those “gun deaths” are suicides. The rest include murder, accidents, and justified homicide.

    You do realize that the shooter went through the strict California gun control system, right? He had a background check.

    Unfortunately, the shooter’s family was unable to get him committed without the man proving himself to be a danger by committing a crime.

    @Scout
    The EMP that I read about in this context was one that caused national or regional disaster.

    1. Define “most.” Murder, accidents, justified homicide really isn’t making it a lot better.

      Not sure that the California gun control system is all that strict. What is supposed to be strict about it?

      I pretty much agree with Chris Martinez’s father. He blames craven politicians and the NRA.

      When is enough enough? I am really tired of reading about these crazed assholes having unlimited use of guns just so someone else can have their effen rights. Sorry. We have just gone too far. I am tired of hearing justification every time 7 people are massacred. This time y7, next time 3, and then other next times 20….

      No, the answer is not arming the UCSB campus. Crazy AHs need to lose some rights and so do gun owners. Anyone can buy a guy without any assurances that they know how to use it or that they are sane. We are asking gun dealers to perform the function of psychologist–psychologists who make money from sales (which they should).

  35. Scout

    EMP of that magnitude would only be a nuclear blast.

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