Classic

Gun dealer allegedly allowed a civilian (security guard, employed by a public institution, paid by the Sheriff's Department) to buy firearms and ammunition magazines using an exemption meant for police officers".

Oh horrors. The City of Los Angeles has the complete vapours over this. I guess even the Only Ones aren't exclusive enough to own guns there. Especially if it's in an ugly building blighting up "an up-and-coming business district trying to rebuild its reputation as a hub of African American arts and culture." that is "poised for revival, with a new Metro stop". (Seriously, is that anything like "he was just starting to get his life back together after prison"?).

And remember, the "improper sale" that could cause him to "face as much as a year and a half in county jail and up to $1,000 in fines" is because he gave her "an exemption that should only be available to sworn law enforcement personnel." This is because even though "Suarez was employed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to serve West Los Angeles College as a security officer, she was working at the department as a civilian and was not a sworn officer."

"{C}ity lawyers said the charges were rare and serious." So serious that it's only a city ordinance. "Under city rules, Suarez shouldn’t have been allowed to buy more than one handgun within a 30-day period" because you can't do any damage with just one.

I mean, obviously, you wouldn't want "an online retailer of police and military equipment" operating "a cluster of warehouses" in "a community that had suffered high rates of gun violence" (but is simultaneously up and coming with a new metro stop) even though "its facilities are not open to the general public, only to active law enforcement or military personnel." {/sarcasm}

We certainly wouldn't want any local jobs interfering with building a reputation for arts and culture. (I started to cut and paste, but I'm deliberately making a distinction in not using the "African American Arts and Culture quote because A: I don't care what kind of arts & culture you're trying to promote; you don't accomplish it by excluding businesses from your community and B: I will just be accused that jab being about African Americans being lazy or having a lack of culture. As a white male, there's no winning that victim-claiming game for me, even with a black fiancee.)

And I never realized that lack of an attractive building facade was a reason to unconstitutionally bar a person from their right to free assembly and to conduct legitimate, legal business in your(their) neighborhood, especially a business which is an enabler of basic civil rights. We are probably not encouraged to speculate that "blocked windows and barren walls" may be that way to discourage crime in an "up and coming neighborhood" that had "suffered high rates of gun violence" in the recent past.

Folks, these are the kinds of barriers to small business, especially local gun stores, that are reducing consumer choice in your neighborhoods while even marijuana stores are increasingly hanging up their shingles all over the place. Don't stand for it.

Training Philosophy

I joined a professional association last year that is relatively small and obscure, but I believe in their tenets:

1. I am committed to the safety of my students, and hold that the expected benefit of any training activity must significantly outweigh any known or perceived risk of that activity.

2. I believe that it is my responsibility to understand not just what I’m teaching, but WHY I’m teaching any technique or concept, or offering specific advice.

3. I recognize that defensive shooting skills, along with the drills and gear used, are inherently specialized and usually distinct from those of target shooting, competition and hunting endeavors.

4. I will encourage my students to ask questions about course material, and I will answer them with thorough and objective explanations.

5. I understand that Integrity and Professionalism are subjective traits and I strive to maintain high levels of both. I am capable of, and willing to, articulate the reasons for the way I conduct my courses and how I interact with students & peers.

6. I believe that it is valuable to engage my peers in constructive conversation about differences in technique and concept, with the goal of mutual education and evolution.

7. I believe that the best instructor is an avid student, and I will strive to continually upgrade my own skills and knowledge. As part of this belief, I understand that my own teachings need to be subject to critique and open to evolution.

This is a good place to start. Numbers 1, 2, and 4 are especially important.

Authoritarian Bureaucracy

So, sneaky tricks are afoot once again.

 Last year the Washington State Legislature accidentally knocked their heads against a piece of common sense and came into line with most other states on their position on Short-Barreled Rifles (SBRs).

Then they turned right around and in a major cranio-rectal inversion said that you can't make your own. Let's be clear- this is like saying you can buy a race car, but you can't build or maintain it yourself.

Washington Representative from the 19th District, Brian Blake has been working with the ATF to correct this fiasco, but when the Mandarins of the Bureaucracy don't want you to have something, despite no substantive reason they can always find a million procedural reasons why you can't have it.

Here's the thing. The National Firearms Act of 1934 didn't ban these firearms outright because it would be clearly unconstitutional, so they did the next best thing (also unconstitutional) and put a huge barrier in place to discourage and deter people from having these firearms. $200 was a huge amount of money in 1934, over $3500 in current dollars. It STILL didn't stop gangsters from using them while bootlegging, because the monetary incentive provided by prohibition basically creates an inescapable impulse to criminal activity. The only people who no longer had these firearms were the non-LE good guys.

If it's not illegal to do something, then it's not the government's place to put artificial barriers in place to doing it. The only thing you do by prohibiting someone from building their own SBR in our state as opposed to buying it, is make sure more Washingtonians are spending money outside our state where it's not stupidly illegal to build the damned things.

And then there's also the minor matter that there is zero practical difference between owning a SBS and an SBR, but our legislature failed to make the latter legal at the same time.

What part of "Shall not be infringed" is hard to understand?

Write your legislators.

Ramifications

Whenever one examines a proposal to make a law, there should be a certain amount of diligent thought put into it.

Some easy things to ask oneself are:

-Is the bill complete in examining possible scenarios?
-Does the bill violate other established principles of the law, law enforcement, or the Constitution?
-Is the proposed law physically possible to enforce evenly and equally?
-Does the law disproportionately affect some group that happens to be out of favour at the moment?
-Does the law have a reasonably good chance of being effective, or is it just a fig leaf?

If a law cannot be effectively enforced, it undermines (bit by bit) the entire concept of law. Much like a principle of military leadership is "never give an order you KNOW will not be obeyed" because it makes you look weak and ineffective, and undermines belief in your leadership, a law that has no chance of being enforced more than sporadically undermines respect for the law and the rational and consistent culture of being "law-abiding".

Consider Virginia Senator Kaine's “Responsible Transfer of Firearms Act.” Here's a proposal that ignores existing laws and their problems, is only selectively enforceable, and has no clear definitions or metrics, which makes it easily subject to abuse by people who simply don't want you to have guns. This is not accidental. It's a deliberate tool used by both sides of the major political parties to ratchet up control. If the goalpost is vague, it's much easier to move it later.

Write your legislator. 

Quick like a heart attack

How many of us have responded to an emergency? How did you find out about it? Most of us probably just stumbled onto a scene. After all, we don't have a Dispatch Operator talking us through the day.

But we could have a head's-up, thanks to modern, ubiquitous technology: your smartphone.

Pulse Point is an application that can direct amateur first responders in the local area of a heart attack to quickly respond, perhaps before the professionals can get there. Minutes and seconds count, when a person is not getting enough oxygen into their bloodstream. They need immediate CPR to sustain them until equipment and professional medical attention can be directed.

Alternately, you might be the one in need of assistance or equipment. Pulse Point can also direct you to the nearest AED being maintained by a public agency or private organization.

Check out the app today and maybe it'll save your life or that of someone you care about.

Hello again for the first time...

Welcome to the newly established blog for Southwest Washington Surplus (Security & Defense Consulting LLC), our employees, and trainers. This blog will have a handful of contributors, and will provide a bit of opinion, news, a lot of analysis, most likely some funny or interesting stories, as well as tales of stupidity and ignorance, some observations about our experiences and tests of equipment, and occasionally product or service recommendations (we are a gun and gear store, after all.)

The idea here is that we're using this channel to consolidate some communications among the firearms owners, first responders, and emergency preparedness communities, mostly in our local region but also open to commentary and contribution from across the nation and around the world.

The owner of our store (Larry Good, USAF Veteran) will be a primary contributor, as our Chief Trainer, NRA Training Counselor, and FEMA/Homeland Security Certified Instructor. It's been a while since I had time to blog regularly, we'll see how it goes.