The Liberal's Gun Corner

Oh, we weren’t done with Red Flag laws the last time. Ohhhhh, no! We’re going to give you some concrete examples of why they’re bad news. I know, they look so benign on paper…until you start actually reading the paper. Then you’ll see the danger of them.

That’s what we’re going to be discussing here. No matter what sort of propaganda terms the antis use to try to promote them, they are among the most un-Liberal, un-American things I’ve seen in a while. We cannot support these monstrosities, and I’m going to explain why.

Yeah, I’m gonna get racial here, too. This will, and does, disproportionally affect people of color, and especially Black people. No, “Granny Goodness” does *NOT* know best!

On the contrary, instead of “Red Flag” laws that attack our liberty, we should be advocating for what they’ve got in Vermont, another largely Liberal state. We call it, “Vermont Carry” for very good reason. The other name for it is “Constitutional Carry”. By either name, it’s a good idea that helps to *preserve* our liberty, and we Liberals, especially, should be for it!

A six-year-old little boy brought a loaded gun to school and shot a teacher just this last Friday. I’m sure you heard or read about this on the news. Like probably all of you, I am in shock at how this could happen. That teacher, Abby Zwerner, age 25, is still in the hospital in serious, but stable, condition. I think we all hope for Abby’s swift and complete recovery.

How the hell could this happen? What drives a six-year-old child to take a loaded gun to school and shoot a teacher with it? I know, people are crying out for the blood of the parents, and I get it. We’re going to talk about that. We didn’t have this kind of thing happening when I was in school, and I’m not that old. It wasn’t that long ago. What is happening today where that kind of thing–A SIX YEAR OLD–could do this??

There are also calls for increased “Red Flag” laws in the wake of this horrible event. I’ve been looking up Red Flag laws…and while we need to solve the problems that lead to shootings, this is not a good “solution”. We’re going to discuss why, specifically. Yeah, we’re going to go into some detail.

The advantages of reloading your own cartridges are numerous. Two of the ones that I happen to enjoy are the .308 Winchester and the .30-06 Springfield. Now, any discussion of these two cartridges usually ends up in a holy war of Ford/Chevy/Dodge proportions. That’s not what I’m after here. We will discuss the capabilities of these two cartridges, since they’re so wildly popular. I happen to favor the .30-06 by a bit, but I also reload, shoot, and enjoy the .308 Win as well. The first segment will be .30-06. The second segment will be about the .308 Win.

Then, we get to the ongoing Mosin-Nagant project. This is a Chinese-made barreled receiver (stripped) with essentially a sewer-pipe-like barrel (meaning: there was virtually no rifling left). I took this Mosin and am in the process of saving it, turning into something that I hope will be great. When you run across an old milsurp rifle that hasn’t been treated very well, it’s OK to do a total refurbishment and modernization. It’s not “bubba’ing” a rifle at all in such a situation. In this case, I’m going for sort of a “Finnish M39 with a strong American accent” sort of rebuild. And yes, the rifle is getting *totally* rebuilt. New barrel, new bluing, scope mount, and more.

Censorship…we saw it during the horrible McCarthy era back in the 1950’s and the “House Un-American Activities Committee” (HUAC). I had hoped we’d never see it again. But it appears we have been seeing it for the last couple of years. And at last, it even happened to me.

The Liberal’s Gun Corner got bumped off the Internet, apparently because my provider didn’t like that it was getting popular, at least not with another Liberal promoting the 2A. We’re going to talk about that, because we need to be reminded that this is not Stalin’s Soviet Union, Kim Il Sung’s (or his grandson, Kim Jong Un’s) North Korea, or any other dictatorial regime. This is the United States of America, where ideas are supposed to be freely expressed, even you don’t agree with them! We are having a major problem with that right now, folks…and THAT’S BAD. VERY, VERY BAD. Yeah, we’re gonna talk about this!

We also discuss how to help new shooters so that they might want to continue exploring the sport of marksmanship. It’s important not to inadvertently end up scaring people away from it, even though we’re well-intentioned. We’ll discuss that as well.

And finally, there are new editions of two popular reloading manuals out there, namely Lyman’s Reloading Manual, 51st Edition, and Modern Reloading, Second Edition, 2021 Update. There are some changes in these books that you should be aware of if you’re thinking about reloading, or if you’re an experienced reloader.

But I’ll tell you this…no matter how hard they try, no matter how long it might take me to get this podcast back online…I’m not letting the forces of censorship win; that is definitely not who I am. This is America.

Happy Birthday, United States of America. Today is our 245th birthday as a nation. We declared our independence from Great Britain on this day in the year 1776. I will always love you because you are my nation and also the greatest nation that’s ever existed.

Texas has recently gone Constitutional Carry. That’s a good thing…unless you’re a Democrat who I call “Missy Ann” Johnson…because of something she said about us. She calls Constitutional Carry “Wild West Pimp Style”. Well, as offensive a set of racial dog-whistles as that is…I have decided, as have many other gun owners, to instead revel in it. Constitutional Carry is now hereby referred to as, “Wild West Pimp Style!” Thank you, “Missy Ann” Johnson, for this wonderful Internet meme.

And finally…we go into the benefits of the all-steel handguns. We talked about the more recent “plastic” guns, the Glock-type guns, and they’re very good. So are the traditional wood-and-steel models. Whichever you end up choosing, make sure that it feels comfortable for you. Not your “expert gun buddy”, not the gun magazines…but *YOU*. That’s what we did, and we benefited from that choice.

May the USA continue to prosper and thrive for another 245 years, and beyond….

“Polymer guns” vs. “all steel guns”…Ford/Chevy/Dodge…Jesus, Mohammed, or Buddha…just a few of the various “holy wars” in our world. Well, I cannot speak much to the others, but “polymer” vs. “all-steel”, that one I can help out with! Turns out both are good stuff, so we’re going to talk about the goodness of Glock-style polymer pistols. Next episode, we’ll do the same for the more old-school, all-steel models, ’cause they’re good too.

And in case you haven’t noticed, the NRA is under some serious pressure at the moment. It’s legal pressure from the anti-Second Amendment activists in New York State’s government…and this time, they might actually have a case. The NRA is in serious danger now of being dissolved by the Attorney General of New York State. We will discuss what the NRA needs to do to save itself, and why it should be saved. If they do it right, they can come back stronger than they ever were.

The antis have a new target besides “A-Salt Weppenz”. We always knew they would, and now we know what it is.

It’s the home-built gun, the do-it-yourself gun. The antis want to prevent us from being able to do what many people throughout the history of this country have done: build our own firearms. Yes, this is a time-honored activity in our country, and lots of people do so. People do this with various types of firearms.

But the antis want to demonize that now, by calling our home-builds by a new negative-marketing term. That term is, “ghost guns”. California officials have even home builds effectively illegal, and the antis now want to make that nationwide. Given the anti-2A majorities currently in the Congress, and the anti-2A current Presidential Administration, this could actually happen. We’ve got to make it clear that we’ll be watching in 2022.

What we do this time is deconstruct, dissect, and debunk their pseudo-arguments against home-built guns. We did it with Eric “Fast ‘N’ Furious” Holder. We did it with Hollywood’s “suggestions” for how to portray firearms. And now we do it with the one who first coined the term “ghost gun”…California State Senator Kevin de Leon. The antis at the Federal level are using his pseudo-arguments to try to push a Federal-level ban.

As always, we present a distinct case for our position and argue with facts…and we mean actual facts here at the Liberal’s Gun Corner.

This is a right, not a privilege.

“Cowboy T, you sound a lot like a Libertarian!”

Yep, it’s come up again. It always comes up. Even Mark Levin said it recently, a few weeks ago. Perhaps it’s time to have that discussion, since it’s been a bit over eight years since we touched on it. My Conservative brothers and sisters really don’t seem to like the “L” word…especially when it’s coming out of a pro-Second-Amendment activist such as myself.

The short version: I am in fact a Liberal, not a Libertarian. And here, I will explain why, specifically, that is the case. We’re going to discuss the difference.

With that said, we Liberals most certainly should be collaborating with our Libertarian brothers and sisters far, far more than we do. Turns out we’re natural allies in quite a few areas. We don’t do that right now; matter of fact, we tend to effectively tell ’em, “talk to the hand” and brush them off. We shouldn’t do that. And I will explain why that is the case, as well.

I wish today’s post were just an “April Fools” joke. Sadly, it isn’t. Far from it.

If there’s anything that nobody wants to hear, it’s that their baby has some ugliness.

As Liberals, we believe in the Constitution. We believe in liberty. That’s why the whole LGBTQ+ rights movement resonates so strongly with so many of us. It’s why we chafe–at least, publicly–when we hear of racism. And it’s why we recoil so strongly when someone who’s not part of “us”, especially a Conservative Republican, aims a criticism at us.

It’s just as important for us to recognize problems with our own “house”, or our own “baby”, if you will. And we do have a problem with our “baby” that we need to address. Many of us Liberals did and do vote for the Democrats, for various reasons. Problem: now that they’re in power at the Federal level, they are likewise going after not just the First Amendment, but also the Second Amendment. They’re apparently even willing to seriously consider getting rid of the Senate filibuster, from all accounts, in order to do it. We’ve got to address that.

How does this happen? That’s what we’re going to talk about this time. We’re also going to discuss what to do about it.

Tennessee may become the 19th State to enact “Constitutional Carry”. That means you don’t need a permit from the government to carry a gun. That’s how it used to be before the end of the Civil War and the Black Codes. Constitutional Carry–also known as Vermont Carry since Vermont’s been doing it for 230 years now–is celebrated by some, but it’s got some others concerned. Some of those folks are racial minorities…specifically, Black Americans in Memphis.

I would like to present my case, as a Liberal, for why Constitutional Carry is actually a very good thing, especially for us racial minorities. Especially for Liberals. So, you’re going to get, well, the “Minority Report” here on Constitutional Carry!

We also go into perhaps why so many of us Liberals don’t have much problem voting for those who promote gun control. I think I have a reasonably good understanding of why that happens, so we cover that topic, too.

Closely related to this subject, another Liberal named “Queer Armorer” did a video on why gun control is bad news, especially for racial minorities. I’ve watched it, and it’s actually pretty accurate. Worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpB1km71iw

CNN liked to say, “We Go There!” during President Trump’s Administration. Well, they ain’t the only ones. So do we…rest assured.