SayUncle had one with a Walther P22. Nobody was injured.

This is exactly why magazine disconnect safeties bother me. I could see myself doing the same thing, but I’ve found that holding the P22 upside down lets you decock it without a magazine inserted.

The other night I got a phone call out of the blue from somebody I know. They wanted to buy a handgun, never owned one before, never really shot one before.

I gave a quick run-down of the issues on the phone, asked for their email address, and rifles off a 4 page poorly written primer on the subject.

It wasn’t until this morning that I realized this might be an “Oh shit, Obama’s going to be President” decision.

I’m a little slow sometimes, and there is a chance this is purely coincidental, but I doubt it.

The latest from the Obama camp on fixing America is that the power of Executive Order (EO) will be exercised quite strongly.

I don’t have a fundamental problem with EOs. They simply direct the Executive branch when the Legislature left something in the law that’s rather ambiguous and the Judicial branch hasn’t had a reason to help clarify the matter.

That said, although I consider the chances of another another AWB to be rather remote, President Elect Obama, if he wants to, can certainly jack with our access to firearms via EO, and he’d be doing the exact same thing Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43 did.

The worst part is hardly anybody notice when a President does this. Hell, I’m pretty well versed in this nation’s gun laws and even I’m fuzzy on the details of EOs in recent history related to this matter.

Let’s rewind the clock a bit. Back in 1968 Congress passed the Gun Control Act (GCA) which, among other things, put a “sporting purposes” clause on the importation of firearms.

No further definition as to what “sporting purposes” means has come from Congress, and to the best of my knowledge the Judicial branch hasn’t set any limits either. That means it’s entirely up to the Executive branch.

Now, fast forward to 1989 when Bush 41 is in office.

He banned importation of something or another related to semi-automatic weapons. In my 8 minutes of research I haven’t nailed it down but I’m pretty sure it’s why MAK-90′s from China were forced to have a thumbhole stock. You could think of it like a precursor to the 1994 AWB.

During the Clinton years Bubba locked us out of any semi-automatic firearms coming from China. Today we can still import their Remington 870 and Winchester 1897 clones but the Norinco M1A’s and 1911′s among others are forbidden.

So far we’re mostly fucking with China and depriving their arms manufacturing company of American dollars so I’m still mixed on the matter.

Roll ahead a few years and now we’ve got Bush 43 in office. He pens an EO that forbids importation of certain foreign barrels, the details of which I’m not clear on, but I do know that it directly affects folks looking to buy an AK parts kit. They can’t import the barrels to these anymore, which really really jacks with the final price point on building an AK clone off a parts kit when you’ve got to find a US barrel for the thing.

Obama will have the ability to stop the importation of any firearm that might possibly not meet the undefined meaning of “sporting purposes” when he ascends to office in glorious fashion next January. If you’re lusting after a particular semi-automatic firearm that doesn’t say “Made in USA” on the side you’d probably be best off buying it now.

Today I figured I’d shoot up all my JHP .40S&W loads as one should try and keep all their defensive ammo fairly fresh. Well, this stuff I’ve been loading up for social purposes thankfully hasn’t ever been needed and now it’s over 4 years old.

Yeah, long overdue.

So, I went to the range and dumped all 40 rounds though my Glock 23 and headed over to the gun store forgetting that they’re closed on Sunday.

Damnit.

In related news, ammo that’s been exposed to KY personal lubricant and sat in it for a few hours works perfectly fine. So, if you ever wondered about THAT particular issue, now you know.

Yeah, that gun owner that couldn’t figure out why people need assault weapons? He emailed me back.

He thought the whole “assault weapon” thing was about fully-automatic weapons.

I watched a little gun debating going on in a dark corner of the web today on “assault weapons” and returned to it tonight. Toward the end a gun owner demanded that folks provide a reason for owning an “assault weapon” because he can’t see any reason to have one.

At the very end to prove his “pro-gun” stance he gave a list of the firearms he owned with a note that he used to own a Taurus PT92 9mm pistol with a 15 round “clip”. He wishes he never sold it.

Well, well, well, Mr. You Don’t Need That used to own an assault weapon and wants it back!

Yeah, he got an email. I have no idea if he’ll ever see my response.

I kinda doubt it.

A lot of gunnies are freaking out right now what with Obama winning the election. He’s stated that he’s all for another assault weapons ban and he’s going to have a Democrat controlled House and Senate behind him.

Looks a lot like 1992. Of course, it’s also almost identical to 2006.

In 2003 when the 1994 AWB was going to sunset Bush came out and said he’d sign one if it hit his desk. He knew that there was no way that the House was going to pass one, but he got behind it anyway. I never did really understand that one.

In 2006 the Democrats took control of the House and Senate again and we still had a president in the Oval Office on record as willing to sign another AWB, but it didn’t go anywhere. HR 1022 is sitting there languishing with 67 cosponsors. It’s not moving out of committee. It’s dead.

Adding 25 more Democrats to the House shouldn’t change much. Even if every single one was a virulent anti-gun politician they probably still don’t have the votes as far as I can tell. Second, unless there are pro-gun guys losing spots on the Judiciary Committee getting replaced with anti-gun guys we’re safe there too.

Third, and most importantly: Barack Obama is one hell of an election winner. This dude is off the fucking chain! He rose up in the ranks incredibly fast. He knows what it takes to win elections. There is no way he’s going to let Democrats in the legislature do something as stupid as pass another AWB. He won’t want them losing their positions to Republicans. He has a vested interest in keeping them in office. He can do the same thing Bush did in 2003: Support the AWB but make sure the legislature doesn’t actually do anything about it, and he’s going to do exactly that.