Shooting wire (
www.shootingwire.com) For 03-13
Noises from around the country
Last Friday, we listed several pro-gun, anti-gun control events taking place across the country. At that time, we had no way of knowing that more than two-dozen people would be dead from gun violence in a pair of horrible incidents.
On Sunday, a deranged gunman walked into a church in Illinois and gunned down the pastor. When his gun jammed, he was attacked by two worshippers and subdued - after cutting both of them and being very seriously injured himself in the ensuing struggle.
On Tuesday, Michael McClendon, 28, went on a shooting rampage in Geneva, Alabama, killing ten people before a 24-mile assault on his family and former workers ended with him killing himself after a shootout with police.
Wednesday, a Germany boy scarcely out of high school in Winnenden took a handgun and killed fifteen people, including 12 former schoolmates, before killing himself after a gunfight with police.
These three incidents, 25 innocent people were killed with firearms. Surprisingly, there are not mass demonstrations across America for an immediate ban on guns because of these acts of violence.
Is it a sign of some long overdue common sense regarding firearms?
Don't bet on it. Instead, it seems to be a recognition by the far-left that a frontal assault on firearms is a bad idea. Today, it seems, they're far more focused on making it tough on ammunition. After all, without ammo a firearm is a pretty poor excuse for any other sort of tool.
Also this week, National Park Service announced it was going to ban lead ammunition and fishing sinkers from its lands. That ban would include National Preserves, National Recreation Areas, and National Rivers, more than 20 million acres of land.
As you can imagine, sportsmen across the country are hopping mad about the proposed ban. And they're working to make their displeasure known. The National Shooting Sports Foundation issued a critical statement, with NSSF President Steve Sanetti calling the NPS decision "arbitrary, over-reactive and not based on science."
It was. But it was also another unleaded shot across the bow of the firearms industry. As has been reported a number of times by The Shooting Wire, anti gun forces have realized that the firearms they so much want to ban represent one of the areas where average citizens are more than willing to push-back at encroachments on their freedom.
In response, they have changed their tactics, moving against ammunition. Unfortunately, while they have very thin scientific proofs to back their claims of lead from spent ammunition being responsible for the death of all sorts of wildlife, they have, once again, taken the perceptual high ground. After all, no one is going to argue that lead - in significant quantities - is a bad thing. Disregard the fact that there must be "significant quantities" ingested for serious damage. That's lost in the emotional rhetoric that banning lead is "to protect the future of wildlife and human beings."
If the anti-gun advocates were really trying to protect the future, they'd be better served trying to do something to get the country back on its economic feet. Instead, they're once again stepping up their attacks on guns and gun owners. This time, however, they're putting their many setbacks to good use -battling from a moral high ground that makes gun owners and anglers battling for lead appear to be something less than rational, reasonable or caring with their insistence that "there's no concrete proof."
There isn't. But that doesn't matter. It is, as per the norm, a battle of perceptions. Emotion trumps logic in all but a very few situations - and this isn't one of them.
In the meantime, we're seeing hoarding of ammunition continue across the country. Despite assurances from the ammunition makers that they are making ammo as rapidly as is possible, several calibers remain tough to find nationally.
Our unscientific research says that the ammo isn't being used for increased police training as has been claimed. Training, unfortunately, has been curtailed because of budget cuts and short supplies of ammo to law enforcement agencies.
Instead, we're hearing more and more anecdotal reports that make it seem that some ammunition buyers are treating it like an appreciating commodity. Believing the supplies may continue to be short - or outlawed entirely, speculators are snapping ammo - in some instances, before it can even be put onto the shelves.
If that's accurate, the shortage of ammo might be a self-perpetuating condition - at least as long as people continue to hoard certain calibers. If that turns out to be the case, these speculators would do well to remember that there are powerful politicians out there who are seeking to have lead ammo banned. Not to have the manufacturing of lead ammo controlled - or stopped, but to try and get lead in ammunition and fishing sinkers outlawed.
If that's allowed to happen, it will be yet another example of the government killing an industry in order to make a political point.
That is becoming a bit tiresome to many Americans. It may be a complication to our lives in the short-term, but it may represent yet another of those acts of governmental incursion into private lives that will eventually reach the point that the too-silent majority will tell the government "enough".
From largely symbolic protest gestures like sending tea bags to Washington to a planned Second Amendment March on Washington to protest government intrusions into our lives, it could be a very short leap to civil disobedience.
Already there are a number of groups forming to mobilize citizens and at least one movement has been formed in the military to inform leaders that soldiers will uphold their oath of office to protect the country from threats "foreign and domestic" -including government officials ordering soldiers into actions of any sort against citizens.
If the financial turmoil continues, the downward economic spiral will continue, further depressing industry and agitating law-abiding citizens already resentful of the federal government's insistence on trying to spend the nation out of its economic doldrums.
We appear to be hurtling toward one of those defining moments in American history, and the country seems to be deeply divided philosophically. If that's true, it wouldn't take too-large a spark to ignite a powder keg of resentment.
How an administration listens to the people over the next few weeks may have a lot to do beginning an economic recovery - or completely cratering the economy - and our country.
If they're going to make the right decision, it Is up to each of us to help send them a crystal-clear message that we're done with being ignored.
More on that ahead. In the meantime, maintain your situational awareness.
--Jim Shepherd
MBTV
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