Category: Guns

Range Visit: Elsy Pearson

Last weekend I took part in a Fark Party, an event where members of the website Fark.com get together in person.
In this case, we decided to visit the Elsy Pearson range in Casa Grande, AZ. The aerial photograph is a little old, as there is now a range in the upper left where there appears to be cars parked, as well as a range in the lower-right. There’s also a chain-link fence. According to the range description on file with the NRA, it has a 250 yard rifle and pistol line. I eyeballed our range at 150 yards, but I could be mistaken. There was a few other ranges in the complex that may have been longer, but we left to get food before I could investigate further. There was also a shorter (maybe 50 yard) range where a bunch of NFA folks were shooting.
It’s an unsupervised range, with no safety officers. The rules are printed on a big metal sign — there was about six rules, all basically saying “be safe, don’t be an idiot”.
The range is run by the Casa Grande Parks & Recreation Department and is free for public use (having grown up in the San Francisco suburbs, this is nearly unheard of for me!). There’s a nearby range for police use only, but it was much the same as the public range. There is also the Casa Grande Trap Club about a quarter-mile north, for those who prefer shotguns.
The public rifle range is simple and spartan (metal roof, concrete benches, and not much else), but well-maintained. Large berms serve as backstops, and there’s a Big Honking Hill beyond the berms to catch any stray bullets. Unfortunately, air moving down the hill created some gusty winds at times, but not much cross breezes, so it didn’t really affect accuracy.
I didn’t look closely, but the range doesn’t seem to have any “facilities” — no bathrooms, no soda machines, etc. I don’t know if the range even has electricity running to it, but I doubt it.
There doesn’t appear to be any restrictions on the type of firearms used (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they restricted tracers and incendiary rounds for obvious fire safety reasons) — there was a bunch of folks with full-auto at range just north of us. From the look of things, it was a bunch of NFA owners having fun on a Sunday afternoon, rather than a match. No police cars were evident and a variety of guns (from heavy machine guns to MP5SDs) were being fired, so it didn’t seem to be cops either. It was refreshing to see so many NFA owners out there.
It’s a bit out of the way, but if you go South on South Isom Road from the intersection of West Arcia Road for about a half mile, it’ll be on your left. The Google Maps are accurate, as was the GPS (Garmin StreetPilot c330 — a device worth its weight in gold!) directions taking me to that intersection. Both Isom and Arcia are unpaved roads, but are smooth and well-maintained. My Toyota Camry had no trouble, nor did the Toyota Yaris and Hyundai Tiburon belonging to other members of the party.
If you find yourself in the vicinity of Casa Grande, the Elsy Pearson range is a well-maintained, clean, and free place to shoot. It’s nothing fancy, but ranges don’t need to be.

NRA and Brady Finances

Sebastian analyzes the difference in donations and spending between the NRA Political Victory Fund and Brady Campaign “Voter Education Fund”.
Here’s a brief summary:
Total Receipts
Brady: $73
NRA: $8.4 million
Total Spent
Brady: $3,000
NRA: $3.7 million
Total Contributed to Federal Candidates
Brady: $500
NRA: $413,000
Total Received From Individual Donors >$200
Brady: $0
NRA: $205,000
It sure looks like the pro-rights side is actually composed of real people.
And people why the NRA (and by extension the pro-rights side) has so much clout with legislators…

PA Gov. Rendell Stays Classy

From KYW Radio:

Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell made another pitch for gun control legislation outside the state capitol on Monday, during the annual ceremony honoring falling police officers.
Rendell says the gun that cut down Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski (see related story) was a Chinese assault weapon, and he says that there used to be a ban on importing assault weapons:
?And yet in 2004, the Congress of the United States — often some of the very same congressmen who would come and attend ceremonies like this — let the assault weapons ban lapse.?

The governor acknowledged that the gun that killed Liczbinski was brought into the country ?well before that action,? but says it?s symptomatic of the refusal of lawmakers to provide ?maximum protection? to law enforcement:

Emphasis mine. Basically, he’s saying that the 1994-2004 “assault weapons ban” would have had no effect whatsoever on this particular incident.

?If we really want to pay honor and tribute to the memory of those 703 police officers who have given their lives, we will suck it in, do the right thing, and pass laws that would give our police officers out on the street, protecting us every day, the maximum amount of protection we can.?

I know several police officers, and have nothing but the highest respect for officers who risk their lives each day to keep the peace and maintain public order.
I want them to to have the resources they need to stay safe and be able to do their job, and for the most part, the public has agreed: modern police have high-quality firearms and ammunition, body armor, tasers, batons, pepper spray, radios, in-car wireless data terminals, and a whole host of other equipment, training, and resources to help them be safer and more effective.
Even so, police work is not risk-free. When your job requires that you interact with the scum of the earth on a daily basis, there’s a not-insignificant probability that you will be involved in a violent confrontation. It’s just part of the job — no amount of laws or equipment can remove that risk entirely.
So-called “assault weapons” are common firearms that have simple cosmetic differences from more “traditional” looking, non-banned firearms. They are identical in nearly all functional aspects, and differ only in appearance. Many features on such guns exist for ergonomics and safety, but have no effect on lethality. Restricting guns with such features from ownership by lawful citizenry from 1994-2004 had essentially no effect on crime or their use in police shootings. Their use in crime is statistically insignificant.
Renewing an ineffective law is foolish. Doing so when it significantly restricts the rights of law-abiding, honest folks is malicious. Dancing in the blood of a murdered cop to push for such a renewal is abhorrent.
Hat tip to Sebastian for the link to the news article.

An Example of PSH

I think this pretty much falls in with the definition of PSH:

The 60-year-old Vietnam veteran and former Marine was arrested at his home Tuesday and charged with two counts of disorderly conduct after two village trustees complained that, during a heated meeting, Kachka pointed his finger at them while wearing a shirt with a Marine Corps insignia that said, “Don’t Move. If You Run, You’ll Only Die Tired.”
Trustees allege Kachka’s thumb was raised and his index finger extended, as though he were firing a gun.

The meeting at which this occurred was on a Thursday, and Mr. Kachka was arrested the following Tuesday.
It’d be one thing to arrest someone immediately if they were being disorderly, but to wait five days? That seems silly in the extreme, considering all he was doing was pointing.
Hopefully the absurdity of this situation is evident to the court, and they promptly dismiss the case against Mr. Kachka.

Open Invitation to the Public

Much like Kevin at The Smallest Minority, I extend the following invitation to the general public (including members of the media):

If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ and/or Phoenix, AZ metropolitan areas, I invite you to go shooting for a day.
I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction.

Simply contact me and we can (hopefully) find a mutually-agreeable time and location.

National Park Carry Update

The National Park Service has proposed a new rule to allow for concealed carry in National Parks. Nifty. I suggest that my Gentle Readers follow the link to the federal register to post comments. Please be civil, as comments will reflect upon the entire shooting community.

XD Spare Parts Now Available

PistolGear.com is now selling Springfield XD spare parts. While not everything (like the extractor) is available, a considerable amount of stuff is.
If Springfield allows for all non-regulated OEM parts to be sold online like how GLOCK has parts available from Lone Wolf, this will clear up my last roadblock to fully supporting the platform as a full-fledged competitor to GLOCK.
Yes, Springfield has a lifetime warranty which is fantastic, but if a tiny part breaks on the day of a match, you don’t want to have to wait a month for them to fix it when you could have replaced it with a $2 part on the spot. The availability of spare parts is one advantage that GLOCK has over the XD, and one that keeps me from recommending it as a SHTF gun. If OEM parts become widely available, I will not hesitate to recommend the XD to anyone.

Followup: UA-SCCC Empty Holster Protest Mentioned In Newspaper

Today’s Arizona Daily Wildcat contained this gem:

Guns on campus ‘ridiculous!’

This is ridiculous! Why would anyone want guns legalized on campus? Say a concealed-carry law did get passed, and people started carrying guns. Realistically, what do you think is going to happen? That your safety will increase and you will be able to feel less defenseless!? What about the safety of everyone else? Are you going to protect everyone around you if something happens? Are you so full of yourself that you believe you can? What training will you undertake? What kind of training is possible for college kids to handle a classroom shootout? How will you know what’s sufficient? A couple seminars where you sit at a desk and listen to some dude tell you about how responsible you are for having a gun? A few months at the range? Police or military training? If you want gun safety, wear kevlar!

Knut Norstog
senior majoring in molecular and cellular biology

Normally, I’d attempt to write a response to this, but one of my Gentle Readers and fellow blogger Ben Kalafut response more eloquently and concisely than I thusly:

If Norstog wants to know “realistically” what will happen if CCW is allowed on campus, he should look to the State of Arizona’s 14 years of shall-issue CCW, or perhaps Colorado State University’s several years of experience with campus CCW.

These problems he brings up are the product of a hyperactive imagination, someone who gets his ideas of firearms more from television and fancy than from real life. The hypothesis that the CCW permit holder is a danger to others is not borne out by the facts.

Chicago Tribue Wonders Why We Keep Winning

The Chicago Tribune editorial staff wonders why the anti-rights side keeps losing:

Gun-control advocates are weak. Whether they’re badly outnumbered by gun-rights advocates, lazier than gun-rights advocates or simply don’t have the statistical or philosophical ammunition to keep up with gun-rights advocates I’m not totally sure.

Is there a choice for “all of the above”?
Somehow, I suspect they keep losing because:

  • We have over hundreds of years of precedent (both in terms of the Second Amendment, but also simply the fact that We, The People have owned arms continuiously for that period).
  • We, The People genuinely believe that we have a right to arms.
  • We have repeated court rulings in our favor.
  • We have common sense on our side. (How can people be expected to defend their rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness if they don’t have the means to defend their lives?)
  • We have The United States Constitution on our side. That is, or should be, the “nuclear option” that trumps any argument short of a Constitutional Amendment.

I’m not really sure what sort of person can reasonably think that individuals don’t have the right to arms when there are nearly 100 million gun owners in the US, with hundreds of millions of guns in private possession.
How can one argue that individuals can’t own guns when there are gun stores in essentially every village, town, and city in the country?
Hat tip to Jeff, both for letting me know about the editorial, but also for linking to this blog. Thanks Jeff!