[NOTE: Post edited to remove alcohol fatigue-induced inattention to detail and inaccurate factual assumptions.] “It’s unfortunate that hundreds of guns purchased in the weeks before Maryland’s stricter firearms regulations went into effect last year ended up in the hands of people who should never have been allowed to own them,” baltimoresun.com opines. Wait. What? Is the Sun saying that the Free State’s statists should have prevented a significant percentage of Marylanders from exercising their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms in the run-up to Maryland’s post-Newtown civilian disarmament regulations? Yup. Whyzzat? Start with this . . .
A Sun investigative report Sunday by Timothy B. Wheeler and Erin Cox highlighted the consumer fears that spurred record firearms sales last year and the flood of background check requests that created a huge bottleneck in the processing of permit applications. The backlog of cases peaked at 60,000 in October, which would have required some buyers to wait months for their checks to be completed. With police stymied by the sheer volume of applications, some dealers began distributing firearms to customers after waiting only seven days, the minimum required under state law. Eventually, more than 50,000 guns were released to customers before background checks on them were completed, including to some people who were legally barred from owning them.
So how many of these buyers missed the federal filtration system (as administered by the po-po? “Dealers and individual sellers released at least 220 guns to 213 people who ultimately failed background checks,” perfectly trustworthy state police spokesman Gregory Shipley told the Sun’s crack [smoking] investigative unit. And how many of them went on to do bad, bad things? One!
One gun was sold to a man later accused of using it in a carjacking in Prince George’s County, police acknowledged in response to queries from The Baltimore Sun . . .
The victim in the carjacking Oct. 9 in Lanham was unhurt, a Prince George’s County police spokeswoman said. The next day, police arrested Davion Lavonta Ballinger of Upper Marlboro, who they said was 21, and charged him in the incident. Police recovered a pistol that state police spokesman Gregory Shipley said had been released by the seller before the agency could carry out a background check that would have revealed that the recipient was legally disqualified from owning a gun.
Apparently, the courts convicted Mr. Ballinger of an armed robbery back in 2009. The Sun extrapolates the anecdote to conclude that the “hysteria” (their word) that created the bottleneck was a danger to public safety caused by . . . wait for it . . . the gun lobby!
Now the gun lobby wants to blame state officials for the mess its dire predictions of curtailed Second Amendment rights created — and to use it as an excuse to further water down Maryland’s gun laws. But the state acted responsibly in this case. During the worst of the run on gun shops, the state police department moved quickly, assigning extra officers to whittle down the backlog of background checks and even enlisting personnel from other state agencies to help with the paperwork. It has also subsequently employed new technology to streamline the process.
And now, the money shot:
By contrast, some gun store owners acted irresponsibly when they released firearms without waiting for the checks. The fact that they were legally entitled to doesn’t make what they did right. And the suggestion that their customers should be presumed to have a right to gun ownership unless proven otherwise is absurd. By the same logic people wouldn’t have to earn a drivers license unless it was proven they were incompetent behind the wheel.
I know: you’re getting fed-up with the right to keep and bear arms being compared to the privilege to drive an automobile on public roads. But what other arrow of outrageous logic do they have in their self-righteous rhetorical quiver, after waving the carjacked bloody shirt? Why the reasonable, common sense card!
Given Congress’ inability to enact rational gun policy, Maryland is right to go its own way. In doing so, the state has sought a balance between public safety and the rights of gun owners. It’s a shame that not all gun dealers have acted with similar concern.
It’s an even greater shame that Americans have to live in a state where their gun rights are treated with such obvious, unjustifiable contempt. You might even say it’s absurd.
I enjoy the reliability and concealability of the Diamondback DB380. It’s 6 inch accuracy at 25 yards is amazing. Try that with a Walther PPK or NAA .32! I have shot the DB9, but too much recoil for my arthritic hands. Diamondback customer service is great, too!
The groups that I shoot with my P226 as compared to those with my brother’s G19 tell me that I must be a high bore axis kinda guy. I look forward to handling one of these 320s. Multical platforms make sense to me in these days of limited ammo. Would be nice to see them come out with a .22LR upper and mags for it.
Marylanders come to nevada we need pro 2a reinforcements to finally drive the antis back into California
I am sick of states being allowed to infringe on a Constitutionally protected right. Why is it that this one Amendment seems to be immune from the Supremecy Clause?
Everything about the state of Maryland is onerous and corrupt. I get my car worked on in MD sometimes and they always joke that I won’t have to worry about getting it inspected.
The Freemasons of Maryland advertise on the radio for people to join them. Cal Ripken’s mom has been kidnapped from her home in Aberdeen, presumably for ransom, at least twice. They call that place an “All America City.” I think it is because you can get your creepy banjo and loud hip hop at the same time.
Dear Mr. Metcalf. I dare you, no I TRIPLE DOG DARE you to spend 1 year in a Massachusetts town, and then tell me how we need to “compromise”. You might even get your government issued photo and fingerprint ID by the end of that year, since the delays now are only at 6-9 months. Till then, you cannot own any rifle, shotgun, handgun, ammo, or even pepper spray. Feel free to complain, I am sure our AG and governor and legislature will help. You also cannot buy any “assault weapon”, about 85% of handguns, and would have to register each and every gun you own. Make sure you lock everything up when you leave the house, cause if you leave so much as a single piece of ammo out, it is a felony. Also, individual primers, powder, bullets, and cases are all considered ammo BTW. In the meantime, you can compromise all year long with Rep. Linskey, who wants all medical records of gun owners released to the police. You can compromise all year long with Sen. Chang-Diaz, who wants one gun a month and dealers limited to 15 sales per year. You can compromise all year with Governor Patrick, who wants 7 round limits in a magazine even in your own house! Or you can STFU until you have a clue what you are talking about and what the opposition is really after.
Quote – “The fact that they were legally entitled to doesn’t make what they did right. And the suggestion that their customers should be presumed to have a right to gun ownership unless proven otherwise is absurd.”
This must be right out of the gun grabbers secret playbook. These 2 statements explain EVERYTHING.
Not mentioned in the article is the fact that the State Police, which is said to have acted “responsibly,” was VIOLATING MARYLAND LAW by taking over 100 days to do a background check that the law REQUIRES the police to do in 7 days. Thus, the article blames the gun shops that fully complied with the law for the issues created by the Maryland State Police breaking the law… priceless.
“Apparently, the courts convicted Mr. Ballinger of an armed robbery back in 2009. Why was this [I’m thinking] felony not reported to the FBI’s NICS database? Again, the Sun doesn’t go there. It simply extrapolates the anecdote to conclude that the “hysteria” (their word) that created the bottleneck was a danger to public safety caused by . . . wait for it . . . the gun lobby!”
Well, let’s go there. If this guy was 21 when he committed his recent crime in late 2013, that means he was, gast, 17 or so when he was convicted of armed robbery. This also means he was a juvenile and given the liberal bend of Maryland, he probably got his record sealed or he got put into some diversionary program and the people in the courts screwed up by not reporting this. There is the crime. A bloated bureacracy that cannot even perform routine safety tasks despite high taxes.
Typical Alynski: Create a problem, blame the problem on someone else and demand that freedoms be abolished to “solve” the problem you originally created
Many of the most ardent Nazis were highly educated professionals who endorsed reasonable restrictions on German citizens, for the betterment of all. As a “History Professor” Dicky should be well aware of what he is endorsing
Yeah, that’s what I want in a gunfight – A can of pepper spray suspended two feet from my face. *facepalm*
Being a MD resident and gun owner who just went through that prelaw buying frenzy. I can shed some light on this. The wait time for the MD back round check (BRC) got as high as 5 months. I stopped checking, but I bet people are still waiting for BRC to come back for purchases prior to 10/1, the date the law took affect. As for the NICS check, they were not done at the point of purchase. They are done when the state police gets around to doing the MD BRC. When they initiated this enhanced BRC in MD, the state police was made the designated POC for NICS checks by the ATF for regulated weapons(handguns and scary black guns). So with the back log of BRCs, it was proposed to let the local gun shop run the NICS check and then let the firearm go after the require 7 days “cooling off” period. Regardless of whether the MD BRC came back. The state police refused. So some local gun shops started releasing guns after the 7 days, to the consternation of the Sun paper and local gun control Nazis. Oh and one other thing, the state police would not officially say that it was legal to release guns after 7 days, they had to be taken to court to come out with a mealy mouthed admission that it was legal.
You are correct. Here in MD, FFL’s are not allowed to run the NICS check on a purchase of a regulated firearm (handguns and most rifles). Only the almighty Maryland State Police can do this. I am one of the lucky ones in that I only had to wait 3 months for my background checks to come back. If I’d been in a free (haha) state, the check would’ve been completed in 3 minutes. Friends of mine waited even longer than 5 months for theirs to come back.
I would not be surprised to see MD go full retard in this next General Assembly. Time to look at property in VA.
HEY!!! Wake the f*** up gun grabbers!! WE are the gun lobby. Tens of millions of FREE Americans who own guns. NOT the manufacturers. NOT the NRA. It is US. THE PEOPLE. Free-thinking, freedom-loving people who reject the premise that government is the solution to most domestic problems.
We are not pawns in some gun-industry-driven chess match. We do not need the NRA to whip us into a frenzy. Nothing more is needed besides simply living where we live, seeing the abuses of those with power, and having family and friends who have been the victims of violence.
It is time for you to get a freaking grip and recognize that it is we THE PEOPLE who are your enemies, and we deserve the credit for throwing the wrench into your statist, progressive machine.
This, and truth in general, does not serve their agenda; the physical destruction of America.
Could not help thinking of Family Guy episode where Quagmire is reincarnated as a condom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIV71isgbLo
It now appears that as swiftly as the plastic overpriced bump fire stock appeared on the scene it is now on its way out the door. Soon to go into production is the Tac-con drop-in trigger for the AR 15 and the AR 10. This new trigger assembly which drops in and replaces the hammer and the trigger as one unit will be the death of the conventional bump fire stock. The three mode drop-in trigger is made in-house with EDM and CNC components are coated with MP3 and it is BATFFE compliant comes with a three mode billet selector switch. Third mode has a positive reset characteristic semi auto is match grade 4 1/2 pound pull rate center zero take up with no over travel.
What articles like this tell me is that, while there is still a huge threat to our right to keep and bear arms, our right to freedom of movement is under serious attack. Thinking driving a privilege is similar to thinking that owning a firearm (or any deadly weapon) is a privilege in that it’s wrong.
Robert, keep of the good fight for our 2nd amendment rights, but how about not doing a disservice to our other (lesser fought for) rights as well.
Boy oh boy… if there is a piece of propaganda out there that felates the state (all while eagerly swallowing) better than this one, I have yet to read it.
Eight years ago I didn’t hunt. But a friend hunting our land gave me a used ATR100 270 in appreciation. I knew it was a cheap gun but appreciated the gift and felt obligated to go out and try finding a deer. I have taken nearly 50 deer with this gun with only one miss and 3 unretrieved (poorly placed shots). I have taken deer at 25 yards and at 150 yards; made no difference to my ATR. The mag. does fail to reload a shell sometimes (very few), but I haven’t needed a second shot or there was simply no time for it, so it has not been a significant issue for me. If the second shell does not load I simply push down on the top shell and release, then the bolt picks up the next shell just fine. I have new rifles now but am not hesitant to take my old ATR into the stand. It’s been filling my freezer for seven years.
Comment #8 at the link below sums it up well…
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=39307#comments
Makes sense.
Why should a company incur the capital expense of producing obsolete versions of current products for ONE state? California may have a lot of gun buyers , but not enough to offset the cost of building two separate versions of each gun , one ‘grandfathered’ on the CA roster and the ‘updated’ version for every other state.
The sketchy thing is, even if Ruger produced a model compliant with the microstamping requirement, theyd STILL have to make a non-equipped version for the rest of America-because there’s no way in Eruebus and damnation I’m spending a cent for a gun equipped that way in South Dakota-and I doubt I’m alone in that attitude.I won’t even buy a ten round magazine version of a gun which is otherwise out of stock , to say nothing of obscene microstamping .
So, the choices for Ruger are to either sink hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital expenses to make duplicates of every gun they sell ….or, do what Kanye West didn’t manage with Kim Kardashian and pull out.
I don’t want to hear from CA residents that this somehow helps the antis, either. This is a business decision brought about by the choices CA voters made regarding their political attitudes. If Apple were somehow legally prohibited from selling any iPhone made after the 4s in California, they’d say “bye bye” too.
I’m still reading the post, but Toby looks baked in that first photo.
That is not a criticism of Toby, or of the photographer, really. Just thought it was funny.
With an MSRP of $400, a street price of $1200, wait times of 3+ years and 6 a month made available to dealers nationwide it is promised to be a hit!
So now instead of getting carbon fiber into just your hands and forearms, you can get it into your face as well.
Yep, that sounds like a whole lot of ‘win’ right there.
I wish colt would actually do something new. Maybe a bullpup with a good trigger, or some knew handguns. Or a magazine fed shotgun. Just something different other than regurgitating the same platform with slightly different details. They have the resources and the money. They just don’t have the will.
I’m with Ralph. I’m thinking that Ruger is posturing, which is fine by me. I don’t believe that retooling the entire semiautomatic handgun production is in the works. If I’m wrong, I apologize in advance. California’s demands on Industry have been many, but never have they exceeded what the Industry can bear. Ruger ain’t goin’ nowhere.
I feel like I’ve seen that rifle a bunch lately.
Ten round magazine? ….hmmmm….”YOU DON’T NEED 10 ROUNDS TO KILL A DEER !”….just keeps echoing in my head….
Looks like the bastard love child of a Glock and a Steyr.
This I like. What caliber was the demo model you were ringing the 800 yard gong with?
The Baltimore Sun isn’t good for anything other than starting a fire.
I was born in Maryland and lived there for a few decades before moving out. While I still visit fairly often for personal reasons, I will never live there again. The anti-gun bigotry is way too strong there. It’s also not just with the guns … the mentality of too many people there is just flat-out warped.
All of that, combined with ever-rising taxes, massive corruption, and utter disrespect for the idea that anyone should be allowed to make choices for themselves, makes Maryland a bad place to live. The only reason its idiotic government hasn’t turned it into Detroit is that there is such a strong federal presence in the state, so they suck in dollars from elsewhere to feed the economy. So much of Maryland’s economy is directly or indirectly related to the federal government (both military and civilian employees, government contractors, and other businesses that rely on those employees as their customers).
There are good folks in Maryland fighting for gun rights, but they are woefully outnumbered. Some folks in the western counties in Maryland want to secede and form a new state, it’s so bad. I think there’s a similar sentiment on the eastern shore. They’d be better off.
There is nothing really to prevent western Maryland and the Eastern Shore’s ten counties from forming a new, non-contiguous state. It may look a little like the Caucasus, but so what?
Normalizing suppressors for average citizens – hearing is a terrible thing to waste!
And the beat goes on!
Make it in .22 mag and get rid of the see-through window and I’d be interested.
I think Ruger pretty much announced when that microstamping thing came out they would tell Kommiefornia to shove it.
Lightening it and making it shorter makes it jumpable for Airborne operations. Unfortunately, we already have this…….it’s called a MK 48. And it’s a better weapon overall.
Remember to seek prompt medical attention for any effects lasting longer longer than four hours.
No, I support the First Amendment as much as I do the Second Amendment. The media should report everything. The media should also be honest and report that nearly every one of these mass shooters were registered Democrats, were self proclaimed liberals and some even worked on Democrat election campaigns (i.e. Lanza, Loughner, Holmes, Bishop, Stack, Cho, etc.). Of course not much is said that most of these shooters were taking Prozac and other so called “anti-depressant” drugs. Also of note is the “media” stopped reporting actual unbiased and editorialized “news” years ago.
Manufacturers should refuse to sell firearms to law enforcement agencies in CA if they otherwise cannot sell them to the civilian market. I bet police departments would love to have to explain in court why only casings with their department stamps show up at shootouts or have guns with mag disconnects and LCIs. (The CA law exempts LEO)
One of the best reviews, along with the responses, that I’ve seen so far on the
K-31. I agree that the GP-11 ammo is great stuff; when shot over the chrono, it was showing a bit over 2,700fps. Don’t want to sound wimpish, but when combined with the steel buttplate, the recoil will really get your attention.
Note that the Swiss rounds are actually .307″, not .308, but there’s no problem in using the latter when reloading. One thing to be pointed out, however, is that the cartridge head is fully supported in the K-31, but isn’t in the earlier model of 1911, so care must be taken if loading for the earlier guns. Most of the reloading manuals I have mostly use IMR powders. I called the Sierra 800 number for the ballistics support guys, and worked up really nice load using Varget, which has been the best powder I’ve used for the cartridge so far.
If the media is not going to give mass murderers the celebrity treatment, how about making sure they give self-defense heroes that celebrity treatment, instead.
Yeah right.
When was the last time the lame-stream media reported an incident where an armed citizen stopped a crime in public.
I don’t even want to think about another unavailable 9mm Carbine.
Please KT, get off the X and build some Sub2K’s before I go and but a CX4!
The fold up is just so hard to beat.
The Timney reps (and their PR rep) at SHOT told me their Tavor trigger wouldn’t be available until February or March. Did that change since Wednesday, or by “now shipping” do you mean that TTAG is getting one to test?
well in the wonderful liberal bastion of Oregon I had to submit to a background check to buy a shotgun as well as handguns. oh yes we in Oregon can get Concealed Handgun Licences if you pass the county sheriff requirments so not anybody can buy a firearm. So again the libs are full of crap because a lot of states and the federal government do have laws and requirements on firearms ownership but no uniformity on the laws.
Miami cops fire hundreds of round, killing two unarmed suspects, and injuring LEOs:
http://rt.com/usa/158960-miami-police-fired-hundreds-rounds/
From that photo, the MPD had capped their IQ requirements at 90.
No half-smarties need apply.
Obviously, we have to severely restrict cops’ and Fed agents’ authority to use deadly force.
Give each cop one bullet, a la Barney Fife, and prohibit anyone who receives any money from the taxpayers (i.e., alphabet soup agencies, mayors, etc.) from possessing anything more powerful than a stapler.
Oh, OK, as a sop to the Constitutionalists, I’ll add, ‘while on duty.’ 😉
USDA to acquire machine guns:
http://www.infowars.com/usda-to-purchase-submachine-guns/