The Wandering Minstrel

As the state of California gets ready to ban open carry, a group of South Bay gun owners plans to stage an open carry event while cleaning up trash in Hermosa Beach. This article from the local news bomb describes the gun owners as ‘activists’ when in fact they are citizens exercising their Second Amendment right to carry.

Gun rights activists will holster unloaded weapons on their belts while they clean up trash in Hermosa Beach next month to educate the public that firearms can be openly carried in California.

During the event, tentatively scheduled for mid-July, up to five members of South Bay Open Carry will carry unloaded guns.

“We plan on openly carrying our guns while picking up trash along 8th Street from Valley to the beach and along Hermosa Avenue or the Strand to Pier/Downtown area, ending at a coffee shop to be determined,” the group’s leader, Harley Green, wrote on his organization’s Web site.

Green, a Hermosa Beach resident, did not respond Monday to a phone call or an e-mail.

Green, however, met this month with Hermosa Beach Police Chief Greg Savelli, who said the group has the right to wear guns openly in California, as long as they are unloaded.

California law allows anybody to carry an unloaded handgun in public with ammunition, as long as the two are carried separately.

The generous state allows us to carry - what part of “Right of the People” and “shall not be infringed” do they not get?

Read the rest of the article here if you must.

The COO of Kimber Manufacturing, Inc. writes the editor of the Yonkers Tribune, Nice letter. COO Karanian blows the hell out of “common sense” while pinning the tail on the jackasses who promote this shit.

Via the NSSF Blog:

To the Editor:

Currently proposed microstamping legislation is not the “common-sense legislation” NYAGV’s Jackie Hilly and other proponents would have you believe.

The truth is that three independent studies have reached the same conclusion – that this sole-sourced technology is unreliable and easily defeated by criminals (Ref: Professor George Krivosta, Suffolk County Crime Laboratory in New York – AFTE Journal; Graduate Student Michael Beddow, Forensic Science Graduate Group – UC Davis; and National Research Council – National Academies Press).

These studies found that repeated firing pin strikes resulted in illegible marks, that the markings wore over time, and that they were easily removed in seconds with common household tools. Moreover, a National Academy of Sciences’ report recommends further study, as does the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law enforcement group. All agreed that further testing, analysis, and evaluation are required.

Rather than being “gun lobby puppets” as NYAGV’s Jackie Hilly suggests in her letter to the Yonkers Tribune dated 6/17/10, Senators Skelos, Golden, Lanza, Hannon, Fuschillo, Valesky, Aubertine, and Stachowski appear to have simply done their homework. Perhaps they understand like many others do, that government mandates of unproven technology will waste tax dollars and put all-important manufacturing jobs at significant risk.

I applaud these Senators well reasoned votes and encourage their colleagues to follow suit. If passed, microstamping legislation will yield little more than a false sense of achievement for our elected officials and likely distract us all from pursuing truly effective solutions.

Ralph E. Karanian, COO
Kimber Mfg., Inc
Yonkers, NY

Free 9mm Ammo

M.D. Creekmore at The Survivalist Blog – a survival blog dedicated to helping others prepare for and survive disaster – with articles on bug out bag contents, survival knife choices and a wealth of other survival information is giving away a 1,000 round case of 9mm – 124 Grain FMJ (a $200 value – donated by LuckyGunner)! To enter, you just have to post about it on your blog. This is my entry. Visit The Survivalist Blog for the details.

It is with regret that we cannot attend this years rendezvous. I informed Mike and KeeWee that we will be busy with the new house in Wickenburg during that time frame. Mr. Completely has a nice post about the GBR and how it all came about (hat tip to Say Uncle who posted the link.) I also read some of the same information Linoge posted on Walls of the City.

You should go if you can. I have to say that it was a lot of fun and The Better Half and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. I made a slide show with some of her photos and posted it last year on the other blog. See for yourself how much fun it was last year and will be again this year for those attending.

Place your cursor on an image to stop the slideshow. All photos credit The Better Half.

UPDATE: It would be a disservice if I didn’t point out a couple of notable attendees. The gentleman in the black T shirt standing among a group of bloggers is none other than Alan Gura of D.C. vs. Heller fame. The gentleman demonstrating the Valour-IT notebook computer is Major Chuck Ziegenfus, an Iranian IED victim and the originator of the Valour-IT program at Soldiers Angels.

I dug this out of the archives on the other blog to re-post because the problem is still there in spite of any new anti-gun laws in California.

Gun control laws only seem to target the legitimate gun owner. These laws place the burden upon those of us who follow the law while failing to address the real problem.

An individual by the name of Yehuda Akerman, brought a truckload of firearms in an RV to sell at a Southern California flea market; he sold 47 of them to ATF undercover agents. When they arrested him last week, they found 44 more firearms in his RV. The arrest came after a year long investigation by the agency.

The agents believed Akerman had been living in his RV while venturing across state lines to purchase guns at swap meets and other places in those other states. He used the local flea market as a base for dealing the illegitimate arms.

ATF opened an investigation in July of 2005. During the undercover operation, agents purchased the 47 firearms, including sawed-off shotguns, assault weapons, stolen firearms and a machine gun. They also purchased a large quantity of methamphetamine, cocaine base and Ecstasy. The agents think Akerman has been dealing for about two years. They do not know how many weapons he sold nor to whom.

Akerman was not alone in the operation. Also arrested were these five accomplices:

• George Dominguez, 23, of Los Angeles on suspicion of distributing controlled substances
• Genaro Castillo Fuentes, 42, of Downey on suspicion of distributing controlled substances
• Jeronimo Guzman Nunez, 41, of Torrance on suspicion of being an alien illegally in the United States in possession of a firearm
• Salvador Uribe, 54, of Gardena on suspicion of dealing firearms without a license
• Guillermo Robles, 22, of Los Angeles on suspicion of distribution of controlled substances

It’s interesting that among those arrested there were a couple of illegal aliens. It makes one wonder how many illegal firearms are in the possession of illegals, drug dealers and other unsavory thugs.

State gun controls, with all their strict provisions, did nothing to prevent this man from illegally importing and selling guns to other criminals. The state’s gun laws that paralyze the legitimate gun owner have no effect on those willing to bring illegal weapons to the black market.

Reference Daily Breeze article Gun seller arrested (link no longer available).

Ace posted about the shifting population to and from Harris County (Houston) TX. In the post an article on the AEI blog about California and Texas population migration trends. The AEI post referred to an interactive feature on Forbes, “Where Americans are Moving.” Having an interest in Maricopa County Arizona, I went to the Forbes site to see the moving trends for the Arizona county where Phoenix is located. Our new place will be located in northwestern Mariposa County.

The data used for this map is from 2008 IRS records, so it’s not exactly up-to-date. The black radials show influx to Maricopa County from various counties around the country. Red radials show influx from Maricopa to other counties around the country. I was surprised to see such a large volume of moves away from the county. It would be interesting to see the demographics of the arrivals versus the departures. Clickable image.

Of course, the chart doesn’t show the huge ingress from south of the international border. If the chart were to show that movement, there would be a fat black line connecting Mexico with Maricopa County.

I have been wearing the new IWB Strike Holster around the house and while we were over in Arizona earlier this month. I’ve had the holster since May 28th and it seems to be fairly broken in at this point in time. I used the break-in method that I found on-line at eHow. The holster fits Little Boy, my Glock 26 like a glove.

If my belt-line were a clock, The belt loop would be at roughly four o’clock over my right butt-cheek. It took me a while to get used to the gun in that position, especially when sitting back in a chair or driving.

Clickable image: belt side (top) and body side.

I am pleased with the concealability if I wear a slightly larger than regular size T shirt or tank top. I have a few shirts that are too tight for me to avoid printing, so they’re not worn out among ‘em if I want to carry.

Today, the new HP G60-630us Notebook PC showed up. I had to replace the old Dell laptop because the display was getting dim on one side and eventually failed in a ’soft’ way - that is the display would start out fairly bright, grow dim on the right side of the screen and eventually would go black. I can restore it by turning it off, letting it rest for a few minutes and reboot it. It’s good for a few minutes after each cycle then goes black again. Using the above method for small windows of data transfer, I was able to backup many files to the 500 gigabyte external drive, mostly photos but some data files as well. There are still more to go.

I chose HP rather than Dell this time because I used them at work before I retired last year. In the last five years of work, I had both desktop and laptop units. I liked them both.

The new unit comes with Windows 7 and has a 2.2GHz Intel Pentium processor, a 320GB hard drive, WiFi, a full-sized keyboard with numeric keypad and a 5-in-1 digital media card reader.

Now the fun begins. I have my work cut out for me the next few days customizing, installing my favorite apps and just getting used to the new stuff.