TGO David

But if your legs or feet are in the way using position SUL, you're carrying it wrong and aren't controlling the muzzle properly. No worries. I actually have far less of a tolerance for a negligent or accidental discharge, being muzzle raked, etc. than some people do. Most people seem to think that having an ND is sort of like having a wreck if you ride a motorcycle. They view it as being statistically inevitable. I view it as being the product of carelessness and complacency involving implements (firearms) that have a zero-degree margin of error.If the OHCG feel that muzzle-up is safer than muzzle-down, then it is accurate to say that I even have less of a tolerance for it than they do since I prefer to mitigate the potential for collateral damage by ensuring an ND goes into the ground immediately before me instead of: up into the sky where it will return God knows where, off into the trees, into a bystander, into my own body, etc. Of course, I was in kindargarten when most of those guys were shaping their blackpowder rifles on anvils and scrimshawing mastadon tusks for decorative butt-stocks, so what the hell do I know.

Are these the forums in question? http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8

Source: National Review Online October 21, 2008, 0:20 p.m. American Gun Owner = Trained Jihadist The Uighur saga provides a window on Obama-style counterterrorism. By Andrew C. McCarthy Are you a bitter clinger? One of those American gun owners belittled by Sen. Barack Obama, filled with antipathy for people who aren’t like you? You know, people like foreign Muslims whose idea of a few weeks’ vacation is a course of paramilitary training at an al-Qaeda-affiliated camp? Well, if you are, you’ll be pleased to know that an appellate judge — one of the Obama philosophical bent that will be seeded throughout the federal courts if the Senator is elected president two weeks from now — thinks you are every bit as dangerous as those trained terrorists. Such is the latest lesson in the saga of the 17 Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The good news is that a divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington has, at least for the moment, stayed district judge Ricardo Urbina’s order that these trained jihadists be released into the United States. The bad news is that the panel was divided, 2-1. And, to put it mildly, the reasoning of the dissenting judge, Clinton appointee Judith W. Rogers, is astounding. The case will be argued to the appeals court on November 24. Some quick background: The Uighurs are Chinese Muslims captured by coalition forces after the American invasion of Afghanistan. The men are jihadist trainees, all of whom received instruction in the paramilitary camps of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement — a designated terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda. The military has taken an incoherent position on the Uighurs, the sum of its haste to empty the much maligned Gitmo plus its stubborn, politically correct disregard for the tenets of jihadist ideology. Thus, these detainees are deemed not to be a threat to the United States, only to China, yet somehow still to be “enemy combatants.” Meanwhile, the State Department is desperately trying to find a country willing to accept the men. (State has previously persuaded Albania to take five other Uighur detainees.) Though China would gladly take the Uighurs, U.S. treaty obligations forbid such repatriation because we have reason to think they’d be persecuted there. Moreover, because no other country wants trouble with the Chicoms, none is willing to step up to the plate to relieve our quandary. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit told the government in June that it needed to come up with a better rationale for branding the Uighurs enemy combatants. Judge Urbina then dramatically upped the ante, not only concluding the detainees were not combatants but ordering them released into the United States. The government sought an emergency stay of that order so that the D.C. Circuit could hear its appeal. That was the occasion for yesterday’s ruling, and for Judge Rogers to share her very interesting views. As the Washington Post reports (italics mine): Justice Department lawyers have argued that only the president or Congress has the legal authority to order the Uighurs’ release into the United States. They have also said that immigration laws would preclude them from entering the country because they received weapons training at a camp operated by a designated terror organization. Rogers rejected those arguments, writing that courts have the power to order the release under habeas corpus, a centuries-old legal doctrine that allows prisoners or detainees to challenge their confinement in federal court. The judge also rejected the argument that immigration laws would bar the Uighurs' entry, writing that such an interpretation would "rob" the men's rights of meaning. Even if the men had received weapons training, she wrote, that "cannot alone show they are dangerous, unless millions of United States resident citizens who have received fire arms training are deemed to be dangerous as well." Remarkable. To begin with, the political branches are supreme in matters of border control. This is why, for example, even American citizens can be searched without warrant when entering or leaving the United States. The Supreme Court has long held that border control is a key aspect of sovereignty; it is for Congress to set conditions regarding who gets to come into our country, and for the president to execute those limitations as well as guard against the entry of people (or materials) who may be threatening. As NR’s editors observed last week, Congress has included in the conditions it has set proscriptions against the entry of aliens who have had paramilitary training in terrorist camps or are members of terrorist organizations. The Uighurs are disqualified under both categories. Step back for a second and note the contrast. We endured three years of commentariat teeth-gnashing when it became known that President Bush violated the FISA statute by conducting surveillance without warrants. This is not the occasion for rehearsing the merits of that debate (for anyone who cares, I've already had plenty to say about it — for example, here). But one can only marvel at how the minds of our intelligentsia work. Why do they assume it is an imperious affront (some said an impeachable offense) for a president trying to defend the lives of Americans to run afoul of statutes, but it’s just peachy for a judge to violate statutes for the purpose of allowing trained jihadists to move into our country and live among our citizens? Let’s leave aside the obvious fact that a judge, with no institutional competence in security matters, is more apt to make a bad decision. The judge is politically unaccountable: We can get rid of a president who endangers us; what do we do about the judge? Judge Rogers claimed that continued detention would deprive the Uighurs of their rights. Of course, alien detainees now have constitutional rights thanks to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Boumediene case at the end of last term. Against history, precedent and common sense, the Court’s liberal bloc held that aliens are vested with Article I’s habeas corpus guarantee — the right to challenge one’s detention in court. That was the feature of the ruling applauded by Sen. Obama. He says all this chitter-chatter about tension “between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus” is a “false choice.” Really? So we can fight terrorist paramilitary training that threatens our citizens and respect habeas corpus by moving the trained terrorists into our citizens’ neighborhoods? No choice there, right? In fact, habeas corpus is just a right of access to court. It doesn’t tell a judge what she is authorized to do. That is Congress’s job. If it is to be the case that “habeas corpus” means the judge can ignore Congress and do whatever she subjectively thinks “justice” requires, how is that anything other than a blank check? Again, our legal elites told us the sky would fall and the Constitution lay in tatters if the president’s war powers were construed as a blank check to run roughshod over congressional enactments and judicial oversight. Fine, but then how do we rein in the imperial judiciary? Given their lack of accountability, aren’t judges the last officials who ought to be getting a blank check in a democratic society? Most unbelievable of all, though, is Judge Rogers’s take on guns. Can you imagine drawing a moral and factual equivalence between United States citizens who own firearms and alien terrorist trainees who have gone to jihadist camps and received instruction in explosives, close-combat, assassination tactics, and jihadist ideology? The mind reels. Sen. Obama has indicated that, if elected, he will return us to his vision of the “rule of law”: The pre-9/11 days when counterterrorism was the province of the federal courts. How reassuring that, as Colin Powell assures us, Obama is possessed of such “intellectual rigor.” After all, that’s what enables him to shun the simplistic Bush approach of regarding terrorists as wartime enemies . . . and all its attendant false choices. Sure, the Uighurs may move in next door to you. But not to worry: Obama promises you’ll have the enormous satisfaction of knowing your reputation in the international community — in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan — is now markedly improved. And you can sleep well at night knowing jurists just like Judith Rogers could soon be filling vacancies on federal courts throughout the country. — National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy chairs the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’s Center for Law & Counterterrorism and is the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books 2008).

I tried to make it more Commie-like with the krink brake, though.

Please clarify the problem you are having, with specific reference to whichever sub-forums you are unable to post in.

With some 300mph tape, I bet it could.

I'm moving this thread to the General Off-Topic forum considering the direction it has taken.

Quad rail with primer dispenser?

To his defense, I see where he was headed with that statement. I've shot black powder before and it is more challenging in a hunting or combat (Revolutionary War, Civil War) setting because you seriously have to make every shot count. There is no rapid follow-up, so if you miss your shot, you have a relatively large window of opportunity while reloading during which your quarry can escape or your adversary can shoot back. As for attention to detail, unless you reload your own ammo, you're not paying as much attention to powder load on the firing line as the muzzle loader is. So yes, he has a point albeit one that was being made rather derisively at the expense of the mil-spec, modern arms shooter. Definitely not an attitude becoming the Vice President of a shooting club and not something I'd want my elected or appointed leadership saying about other members of the shooting community. Considering that OHGC presently has a flyer that they want members to download and distribute to attract new membership, this is not the sort of comment that helps an outreach campaign. It seems to me that there is a deep divide among the membership of OHGC. On one hand, you have the primitive arms enthusiast who enjoys his "craft" and prefers the slower pace and simpler design of his firearm. I can respect that. On the other hand, you have the modern arms enthusiast who either enjoys the practical / tactical aspects of his firearm or maybe just fell in love with the smell of cordite back in boot camp. I can respect that too. But these two factions appear to be opposed to one another for some reason rather than finding a common bond in the fact that we're all firearms enthusiasts and that we're all out there doing something that we truly love. Rather than being snide and closed-minded toward one another, it would be much better if both camps would treat each other with mutual respect. *shrugs sadly* PS: For what it's worth, I copied this comment over there. Sometimes the leadership needs to be taken to task for their actions. God knows I've had it done to me here on TGO plenty of times.

Furthermore...

I would welcome an alliance with GGC if such a thing is possible. But I would also have to remind everyone that any time we are on someone else's property, their rules are the law of the land. Wherever we shoot, we must be respectful of the rules otherwise we risk leaving a bad impression of TGO. That being said, respect is a two way street so it will be expected of the hosting organization to be courteous and fair to our members as well. That is the crux of the problem from this past Sunday as far as I am concerned.

I would agree with that statement.

In light of the way that the TGO members as guests of OHGC members were treated by one of the Range Officers on Sunday, October 19th 2008, I am going to respectfully decline to host further shoots at the OHGC range until I have had a discussion in person with that organization's leadership. I noticed, as did other OHGC / TGO members, that we were being inordinately bulldogged or harassed by one of the Range Officers, prior to the rapid-fire incident much later in the day. Therefore it is my conclusion that our presence was unwanted well before the rapid-fire incident and that said incident only served to further exacerbate the issue. As a member of OHGC, I do intend to enjoy the facilities personally and privately until such time that I am asked to stop doing so. I would encourage other TGO members who are likewise members of OHGC to enjoy the facilities as well. You paid your $50 like everyone else and should not let one bad experience ruin your enjoyment of such a wonderful place to shoot. Understand, then, that I am not calling for any sort of boycott of the OHGC range or organization. Every group has it's bad apples and no group of people should be penalized as a whole because of that. However until we can assure that our members (and guests) are not treated unfairly, I will have to seek out another venue for future middle-Tennessee TGO shoots. I hope that you understand. Thanks. --David

Guys, let's remain as respectful as possible. Marshall is a former OHGC president and is the sitting-VP right now in light of the fact that their former VP recently resigned his post. Marshall was on the scene on Sunday and was the calmer, more even-keeled voice during the situation that resulted in Dan being ejected from the range. I believe that it's likely that Marshall may be the reason why we were not all ejected following that incident, given his calm demeanor. I'd welcome the opportunity to sit down and talk casually with him, OHGC's president and any of the OHGC / TGO members who were present on Sunday to review the situation as a whole (including the treatment we received from their Range Officer "George") as well as the full-auto firing incident. I hope that we can maintain a mutually beneficial relationship between the two groups, despite the fact that George flatly told me that our guest fees weren't wanted if we were going to bring "people like that" with us. And I still maintain that their idea of transporting a rifle with the muzzle in the air is incredibly unsafe in comparison to Positon SUL. It is the old way of doing things and gives no credence to a more progressive thought process regarding carbine safety.

My reply...

This morning, I had a reply from the acting VP of OHGC regarding my inquiry. I shall repost it here for the benefit of all.

http://www.obamawillbetheundoingofthiscountry.net http://www.preparetokissoursovereigntygoodbye.org http://www.giveusyourgunscomradeandnoonegetshurt.com

Just as an aside... I carried my Wilson Combat 1911 in my Milt Sparks VM2 on Saturday. It was comfortable but I found myself wishing that I had carried it in my MTAC instead every time I went to re-holster the weapon. The Kydex shell on the MTAC makes it far easier to reholster the weapon than the all-leather VM2 does.

If you've been fingerprinted and paid your fee at the Dept of Safety and been photographed at the DOS, you're now in the infamous holding pattern. Just sit back and try to wait it out for the next two months.

I'm not surprised. The media would have been all over the USAF for dropping a GBU into the middle of an Obama '08 campaign HQ.

Glad to hear it worked out well for you. I've always been pleased with his stuff.

Sorry, I mistyped. What I meant to say is that they lose about 90% of their muzzle velocity when fired straight up and return straight down, according to the Myth Busters report. Again, that's assuming a 90* trajectory for both launch and return.

Tower, I'll be upset if I don't see a pumpkin post-impact from a tower fall.

Bring that girl to the range someone, man. WWOD (What Would Oprah Do?) isn't the sort of thing she needs to be thinking about.

Replace whatever parts may be worn internally to make it a safely operable firearm again. Wipe it down with oil to a light sheen, then shadow-box it.