economics
An Open Letter to Credit Card Companies
I have a way that I save money. My wife and I have four different cashback credit cards that we use on a daily basis. Each one gives us great terms. One gives us 5% cashback on fuel and groceries. Another, 5% cashback on Amazon. A third is 5% on dining out, and the fourth is 5% on travel and hotel stays. There are other deals. All in all, we probably spend $50k a year on those cards. We pay the cards off every month. It’s like giving yourself a raise. I get money, the issuing bank for the credit card makes money, the processor makes money.
Why is this important? Because Giffords is pressuring banks to flag and prevent credit cards from being used to buy guns and ammunition. That kind of shit has been tried before. When Citibank did a similar thing back in 2018, I immediately canceled by credit card with them. The company that the card was for was Best Buy. I haven’t bought anything from them since, nor have I done any business with Citibank.
So here is my announcement: You aren’t going to stop me from buying guns and ammo. You are just going to stop yourself from making money on the deal. I won’t hesitate to cancel every credit card that I have with your company. Someone will make money on the deal, it just won’t be you, and I will still have my guns and ammo. So die on that hill, and see what happens.
I know that $50k a year doesn’t seem like a lot, but there are millions of people who buy guns every year. Now imagine that you not only lose the processing fees from those sales, but losing the fees from every purchase those people would have made. Now it’s billions of dollars in lost business. Every. Single. Year.
Go ahead, FAFO.
Guns
Caliber wars? Not here.
The point of my post on stopping power isn’t to engage in caliber wars. Nope. I think that the suitability of a handgun caliber for self defense (against human sized opponents) is, like many things, a bell curve. On the left side of the curve, a caliber is unsuitable because it is underpowered, and on the right side of the curve handgun cartridges are so powerful that they are unsuitable because the handguns that fire it are just too large for practical carry.
In the center of the bell curve, the differences between one cartridge and the other are small and not really significant from a self defense standpoint. At that point, the features of the handgun itself overshadow the effectiveness of the cartridge to everyone except the writers of shooting magazines (the publications, not the feeding devices).
For the reasons above, I don’t get into caliber wars. My criteria is this: the left side of the curve for a self defense begins at the .380 level and progresses through .38 Special, 9mm, .40S&W, .357Sig, .44Special, .45ACP, and on to the right side of the curve with .357Magnum, .44Magnum, and 10mm. Mixed in there are the less popular calibers of similar capabilities. Outside of the ends of the curve are calibers like .22lr, .32ACP, and the .500 S&W.
The trick is to locate your handgun on that curve. Do you need a smaller caliber handgun like a .380 for concealability or control reasons? Or can you make a large from handgun like a 10mm work for you? I have a large selection of handguns, in most of the above calibers. (I don’t have a .44 or a 10mm- yet) I have guns by Beretta, CZ, Glock, Sig, Smith & Wesson, Taurus, and others. I have owned pistols by Colt and Kimber. I have revolvers and Semi Autos. I have each for a reason. Some I carry, others are only range guns.
Don’t become too much of a fanboi of one gun, brand, or caliber. Guns are tools. Buy quality. Learn to use them. I’m a gun guy. I, like many gun guys, have heard from my wife about how many guns I own. She thinks that it’s overkill. I just like guns.
Antigun
Court Win
The Federal Court in Texas sided with the plaintiff in their lawsuit against the ATF. Declaring that they are likely to prevail and that the ban on 80 percent lowers is likely unconstitutional, the law has been stayed for the remainder of the trial.
Criminals
Teacher Arrested with Gun in Car
A Levy county teacher was arrested for having a gun in her car on school property. I think that the cops may have screwed up on the charges. She has been charged with a violation of 790.115 2b, possession of a weapon on school property, and two counts of 827.03 2d, willfully or through neglect endangering a child. The first charge might not fly. Granted I am not a lawyer, but the law reads:
A person shall not possess any firearm, electric weapon or device, destructive device, or other weapon as defined in s. 790.001(13), including a razor blade or box cutter, except as authorized in support of school-sanctioned activities, at a school-sponsored event or on the property of any school, school bus, or school bus stop; however, a person may carry a firearm:
<snip irrelevant parts>
3. In a vehicle pursuant to s. 790.25(5); except that school districts may adopt written and published policies that waive the exception in this subparagraph for purposes of student and campus parking privileges.
The question here is whether or not the school board has published a policy that states that no one may park on campus with a firearm in their vehicles. Most school districts in Florida don’t publish rules like that. A sharp lawyer might be able to beat this.
The child endangerment charges though, those are likely to stick. I mean, she gave two 4th grade children the keys to her car, knowing that there was a loaded handgun in it. She deserves to go down for that.
I would certainly suggest a plea deal.
Crime
Good Guys with Guns
So it turns out that, when a mass shooting takes place or is attempted in a location that allows concealed carry, a good guy with a gun stops the shooter 51% of the time.
In fact, concealed carriers thwart active shooters more than a third of the time. If there were fewer gun free zones, that number would likely be much, much higher.
Guns
Dishonest or stupid?
The same Congressman who deliberately or stupidly conflated pistol braces and bump stocks by claiming that pistol braces turn pistols into automatic weapons is now pushing the ATF to force anyone who owns a pistol brace to register the weapon as an SBR.
Of course it’s deliberate. Our government is evil.
Guns
When is it a Firearm?
When does a piece of raw material become a firearm? Is this a firearm?
Most people would say that it isn’t. It requires some work and machining to become a firearm. Is this a firearm?
It still requires a good amount of machine work to make it a functional firearm. What about this? Is this a firearm?
Even the ATF told the company that it wasn’t a firearm. (pdf warning) Until they changed their minds and decided that it was. Now a judge did as well. So now the company has to pay $4 million in damages for defrauding customers by “lying” and saying that their product wasn’t a firearm.
How about this? Is it a firearm?
By the same rules that were just applied to Polymer80 by the ATF and the judge, they are. I have the plans right here. (pdf warning) Anyone can build a full auto SMG with less than $100 in parts from Home Depot.
Guns
In Common Use
The AR-15 is the most popular hunting rifle in America. So much for the theory that “assault weapons are only good for killing humans.” Also, since there are approximately 20 million Ar-15s owned in the US, making that rifle the single most popular firearm in America. The AR-15 is in common use, meaning that banning it would be unconstitutional under the Heller decision.
One thing I take from the article:
Of that total, around 741,000 are fully automatic machine guns registered in the US, up from almost 457,000 in 2010, per ATF reports.
Since the registry has been closed to privately held machine guns since 1986, that entire increase has to be dealer samples and police machine guns. I can’t see more than 300,000 dealer samples, so that must mean cops have greatly increased their inventories.
Guns
Good Guy with a Gun
The press is making a big deal out of the Indiana mall shooting and how one first victim shot was carrying a gun that he never got to use. They are, of course, claiming that this is proof that carrying a gun won’t do you any good, because a mass shooter will just shoot you before you can use it.
We all know that this is bullshit. The fact that the first victim was carrying a firearm was just happenstance. After all, it was concealed to the point that police didn’t know the decedent was armed until they moved the body.
The guy who took the shooter down made a hit with a handgun from 40 yards. If I were that guy, I would be cutting a deal with the maker of my firearm to do some paid advertising: “When I have to hit a mass shooter in a crowded shopping mall from 40 yards away without hitting a bystander, the only gun I trust is my Blastomatic M6.”
All fun aside, this shooting and the Texas school shooting where the CCW holder made a headshot across a crowded church have given me pause. In both cases, the first person shot by the killer was armed. The guy who wound up taking the killer out did so at distance using some pretty good marksmanship.
In Florida during the summer months, I frequently have to wear clothes that make concealing a large handgun very difficult. For that reason, I usually carry a Smith and Wesson 642. Taking an accurate shot at distance with a snub nosed revolver just isn’t practical.
So I need to be able to make rapid, accurate hits from distance. That means carrying one of the pistols that I have that is equipped with a microdot. Now one of those two is an M&P 9c. The 9c is still a little bit too large for carrying in clothing that is comfortable in Florida’s July and August heat.
My other option is to carry my performance center Shield Plus. The only problem is finding comfortable leather for it. The only holster I have that will fit is my custom Milt Sparks. I am going to have to work on some more holster options.