Arbitrary
So tiredTired of waiting
Tired of waiting for you
--Tired of Waiting, The Kinks
Who can hope to be safe? Who sufficiently cautious?
Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush
--Horace
Ah, this is obviously some strange usage
of the word 'safe" that I wasn't previously aware of
--Douglas Adams
___________________
Yesterday Ranger went to pick up a handgun he had purchased 12 November at a pawn shop, but was denied taking possession of the gun until the 18th because, "weekends don't count toward the cooling off period." Apparently, only weekdays tick that clock.
What sense does this make? There is a 3-day cooling off period before one may possess their handgun purchase, but why the arbitrary interruption of counting for the weekend. The purpose of this period is to hopefully thwart crimes of passion or suicides. Do people withhold thinking about these things on weekends? Is the t.v. schedule that great (Gun Sales Thriving in Uncertain Times)?
What sense does this make? There is a 3-day cooling off period before one may possess their handgun purchase, but why the arbitrary interruption of counting for the weekend. The purpose of this period is to hopefully thwart crimes of passion or suicides. Do people withhold thinking about these things on weekends? Is the t.v. schedule that great (Gun Sales Thriving in Uncertain Times)?
Furthermore, what good are waiting periods for people like Ranger, who already has pistols right outside in his own car? These laws are infringements on my rights.
Another complaint relating to the purchase of handguns deals with the application process. In Florida, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has declared that abbreviations are forbidden when completing a federal firearms purchase form. This despite the fact that the rest of the U.S. Government has a dictionary of authorized abbreviations to be used for such occasions as form completion, a fact totally lost on the B.A.T.F. geek-ass bureaucrats.
There is a fine line between legitimate gun control features and harassment. The latter negates the spirit and intent of the law, and pushes gun trading underground.
Personally, this hoop-jumping bullshit is tiresome. The B.A.T.F. can kiss my G.T.R.A (Gun Toting Ranger Ass.)
Labels: florida gun buying regulations, gun rules arbitrary, gun selling bureaucracy
posted by rangeragainstwar at 7:10 AM
32 Comments:
Okay, first off, I agree, three days is not going to change a dam thing in anyone's mind...if anything, it just gives them more time to refine their plans.
In California, we have a two week period...two whole weeks of signing over your check, and then waiting for the clock to spin around a few dozen times.
However, a pawn shop pistol?
I hope it's S/N has been ran by the shop with law enforcement before sale.
i must confess ranger, that when the king riots were raging through los angeles i was amused by the panic visible on the faces of some of the "gun control" (i'm not talking hitting your target here) folks who came to my place to ask if they could "borrow" a shotgun or some other form of firearm.
i was ready, with the applicable laws, to show them that this was absolutely illegal. by loaning them a weapon i would be putting all my weapons, and the property where i keep them, up for possible seizure.
i also told them that they would be far more likely to shoot somebody who didn't have it coming by mistake than they could anticipate performing a successful defense with firearms.
seeing their puzzled looks i told them "i have never, ever, not once, had an "accident" with a firearm. that's because when i am around those weapons every single thing i do is on. fucking. purpose."
1. You're absolutely right about the freakishly arbitrary nature of the average state's firearm regulations.
2. That said, I sure wish to hell that, as MB points out, that there was some sort of way to either give the average Joe and Jane some training or keep their itchy little paddyfingers off the trigger.
I'd support a mandatory firearms course for everyone who owns a private firearm, to include safety, storage, clearing and cleaning, proper operation and then an actual one- or two-day live fire exercise. (Let's say that someone like those of us who have actually handled these beasts could "test out" by safely loading, firing and clearing the weapon.)
Oh, well. Ain't gonna happen.
ISTM that the problem is not the weapons themselves, but that we live in a society where most of us don't really NEED a weapon to hand. So instead of looking at and treating them as what they are - tools, dangerous tools, to be respected and used with care and deliberation - they become toys. And as any parent knows, once something is a toy some goober is going to misuse it.
The problem isn't so much that the law is an ass. It's many, many people are asses, and in trying to prevent the conjunction of ass and weapon the law gets kinda stupid.
what kind of gun did you buy at the pawn shop Ranger? i know there are a lot of handguns with more modern designs...... but i like the Browning Hipower the best..... really don't like double action..... prefer butterfly lock-cock capablity and single-action first shot..... i doubt if they get sold in pawn shops much......
i guess waiting periods work if somebody is really hot headed and impulsive which happens in crimes of passion......
i don't know if the weekend thing makes a difference though.
they make some nice alloys now that even if your weapon gets soaked in salt water it operates, doesn't corrode or pit.....
i don't know if the hipower is made in an alloy though..... maybe stainless wiki
sheerahkhan,
All police depts have a pawn shop squad OR rrequire a daily report from pawnshops on all transactions.Further all purchases from pawn shops had to sit in the shop for 30 days before sale- this is a checking out period for the authorities.
My best pistols are adopted from pawnshops. Ranger never met a pistol he didn't like.
As an aside - I was in the local sheriffs dept for some reason and they had just arrested a man for having a stolen pistol . It came up on a NACI check.It was a 1911 a1. However the deputy dogs were reading the FSN off the slide instead of the SN on the frame.They were heartbroken when their error was pointed out by yours truly
.I tell this to point out running the SN may be a fools venture. jim
Ghost Dansing
-Waiting periods are garbage and useless.Did you see No Country for old men.?Why buy a pistol with a waiting period- just buy a Mini 14/folding stock AK/Mossberg factory cutdown home defense model and voila- your ready to rock and roll.Without Bruce-you can danse in the dark if you ignore the muzzle flashes.God, i'm getting emotional!!Also if i need to cool off i'll use a knife or baseball bat.I'm sure i can hit a head into center field.Maybe i'd just use my car as a 2 ton bullet.
The Browning HP /1935 is one of the classics. I still have mine and i've given it a declared state of sainthood. It was purcased in 1965 with money from a cashed in college meal ticket.I was less than 21 and i walked in with 103$ cash and out with a fine piece.Gun that is.No waiting period.Ben Franklins picture was my background check.
Gen. cmts.-I view stainless guns and double action autos as a sign of an amature gunman.Stainless guns are crap.The HP is made in stainless to answer your question.
I bought a Model 19 nickel/4in/recessed cylinder and pinned barrel.It'll match my Mod 28/4in all else the same. I prefer the N frame but bought the K frame19 as an instructional piece.I prefer a wheel gun.
My favorite modern semi is the CZ 75 and yes it is DA BUT i have to stick with my genetics and use Czech pieces. I never shoot DA semis in the DA mode , i only use the single action mode.Try it you'll like it.It's old school but really quik and smooth.Like the HP the triggers are always creepy. I always use factory grips but the CZ 75 requires Hogues or Pachmyers as the plastic just doesn't get it.
jim
for sheer out and out gooey gushy slippery pistol love i have a brace of french .32cal flintlocks.
they fit the hand like a lover. they are beautifully appointed. nutwood (not sure which but i suspect hazel) stocks/grips, gold filigree inlays, and best of all, instead of a rear/front sight they have a three wire (outside brass, inside silver) inlay on the top of the barrel that converge to a point about an eight of an inch from the muzzle.
perfectly balanced, insanely accurate (provided of course that you understand the nature of flintlock discharge and hold steady during that long process), and above all, works of art.
beautiful, and deadly. just like diana rig as emma peel. classic.
I think the honorable Representative Henry Waxman(D)Cal. best summed up the reasons behind overreaching bureaucracy regarding weapons ownership by those who choose to comply with the law.
"I support Constitutional rights, buuuuutt... one of those things could shoot right through a limousine!"
for workaday pistols though i have a ruger single action .22 mag wheelgun. numerous baretta tip ups from .22 to .28.
big guy though is classic .45 colt gold cup.
walther ppk in .380
luger 9
i'm also a big ass fan of h&k.
glocks don't interest me. haven't ever found one that shot a decent group from a vise.
thompsons give me chills
so do the big weatherbies (oh, just thinking about the double barrel .475 made me quiver)
still, flintlocks make me happy.
I gotta tell ya, I'm fascinated by the sheer hearts-and-flowers LOVE I'm hearing here - even from the Ranger, who says he doesn't stop and smell the flowers...
I just don't have the same feelings for hand cannons. Rifles, sure. I've hunted with my pop's converted 1903 Springfield and my own Mk1 SMLE .303 and enjoyed the hell out of but hunting and just bench-firing them.
Shotguns? I love my Remington 870 and my old Brazilian over-and-under but I'd sell my firstborn for a Beretta SO10 EELL...
But the pocket pistols? Not so much.
I qualified with the ancient M1911A1 as a medic and always enjoyed it, thought I always doubted whether I could hit a buffalo at ten paces in actual combat with my arm vibrating like a licorice whip. I was unimpressed with the Beretta that replaced it and like MB, I find the Glocks both inaccurate and unwieldy to fire.
But I'm starting to think it's not an issue of practicality, it's emotion pure and simple. You either find something really satisfying about pistol-shooting and just pistol-having...or you don't. I don't.
But I trying to keep on-topic...I'm still with Ranger on the goofy gun control laws. ISTM that our problem has more to do with the world around us, where random nutjobs can walk around strapped and ready to go off, rather than anything the law can do. If we were a smaller nation, more akin to the colonies we were, a place where we knew each other better, we might find that we had more success controlling these whackjobs BEFORE they start firing into the brown rather than trying a one-size-fits-all regulation for gun sales...
Like Prohibition, it's irritating and it doesn't do what it's designed to do...
Chief,
The love IS fascinating, no? I could go all Freudian and say this is an objectification of their self-love, but I will not go so far. How might men feel if women loved guns so well? Probably happy, as it would not be hard then to imagine they enjoy other powerful things that go boom.
The Sgt. Williams "Love My Rifle More than You" persona would probably be seen as a huge challenge for these men. But perhaps all men are not so phallocentric, and simply enjoy a good piece.
Lisa: "But perhaps all men are not so phallocentric, and simply enjoy a good piece."
Don't we all?
But I don't think the love here is the same as luuuuurve, if you get my meaning. It's a craving for a THING, like wanting a cool ride, or a slick set of dress blues. Sure, is has to do with fasthotsexycool, but it's as much about the tactile stuff as having a great big metal woody that shoots 50 meters.
Flat out, it's hella fun to put eight of eight in the ten-ring. Everything about firearms is big boy fun: they're noisy, they're complicated machinery that does cool stuff, and they're dangerous and lethal - to your target if handled right, to yourself and your friends if used improperly.
So, bottom line? I'd love it if my bride enjoyed wingshooting as much as I do - and hell, if she could shoot better than I, all the more duck curry for dinner!
"But perhaps all men are not so phallocentric, and simply enjoy a good piece."
uh...we're still talking firearms, right?
Chief,
Nothing wrong with having stuff you like and fun. . . but if that's all a human's about, is it enough? (I can visualize some of our readers scratching their heads now, thinking, "But, if the 'stuff' we're talking of is guns, . . ."
Sheerahkhan,
Yes, we're talking firearms.
MB,Mossad uses 22 Berettas that are modified.Your choice is classic.
I once had a ppk in 22 and regret trading it.I'd prefer this over a 380 ppk.I'm a BIG fan of the pre warning ruger SA's.
The wood you describe might be Turkish Walnut.
What do you mean when you say that your hand fits you like a lover?:)
jim
Lisa: "but if that's all a human's about, is it enough?"
No, no, of course not. But I didn't think that Jim's post implied that. He was just pissed off about the silly firearms laws, and then went on to wax lyrical about the Happiness in a Warm Gun.
But I don't think he implied that Happiness IS a Warm Gun. There's all sorts of happiness, and the fun that goes with busting some caps is just part of the Big Show. Show me someone whose ambitions and affections end at the butt of a Browning Hipower and I'll show you a very limited person.
I'd hesitate to suggest that the hard men hereabout are into rainbows and snuggles and lazy mornings and buttered sweet rolls, but I'd also suggest that even the hardest of the hard men probably has SOMEthing other than blued steel on his mind, at least some of the time...
Or am I smelling the damn flowers again?
Paul,
The oldies will shoot thru a car also-8mm Mauser/M1 Garrand/O3 Springfield.
Even an AK will penetrate bullet proof glass.There's a tried and true technique that i won't discuss. This technique was used in the Nick Rowe Assasination in the Phillipines. jim
FD Chief
The last flower i smelled was a chrysanthemum on the reciever of an Arisaka rifle.
Ranger apologizes if he seems emotional- it's just my ADHD. jim
MB: "walther ppk in .380
luger 9"
I've never live-fired one, but a buddy of mine who had said that he wasn't all that much about the Luger P.08 as an actual working pistol. Said the toggle action was finicky and tended to be a problem with short recoils with lower-quality loads, and that it tended to be more cranky than most semiautos about getting dirty.
I do love the way it feels in hand, and it is supposed to be a hellaciously accurate weapon. I've always wanted to shoot the "artillery model" complete with long barrel, drum mag and detatchable buttstock. But there I go making a pistol into a rifle...
FD Chief,
I write a Ranger piece and it turns into a Cosmo mind fuck. This is not referring to your cmts. jim
Chief,
Thank you for your last response.
I have actually been quite gratified at the remarkably thoughtful level of many military men which I have had the pleasure to meet (either in person or via print) working around these parts.
At the beginning, I figured they'd all be pretty one-track -- this is billed as a military site, after all. But how unfair a perception I had! While certainly some are, others I now count as friends, even though I cannot discourse about guns with them.
To those brave men who venture beyond the safe shoreline, I salute you (even though I'm not allowed to render an actual salute!) and give you my heartfelt gratitude. You know who you are.
Ranger: "chrysanthemum on the reciever of an Arisaka rifle."
Ahhh...the Gewehr 98...call it what you want; M1899 Serbian, M1902 Mexican, M1903 Turkish, M1904 Portuguese 'Mauser-Vergueiro', M1909 Argentine, Arisaka Type 38 and Type 99, Czech M1922 CZ 98 and M1924 CZ vz.24, FN M1924 and even our own Springfield '03...
What a great fucking rifle.
I found from a collector that those little "mums" are a huge deal to Imperial Japanese weapons buffs, did you know that? I didn't. Seems that the old soldiers filed the imperial flower off before surrendering them to us round-eyes in 1945. So usually if you get you hands on one with the mum intact it's a battle trophy.
Hmmm...
And as for the Cosmo stuff...hey, there's always someone in the platoon that wants to talk your leg off about some goofy shit. FIDO, man. Me n' Lisa're just over here doin' our Oprah thing...
"FIDO, man. Me n' Lisa're just over here doin' our Oprah thing"
Well-said, Chief. I'm delighted to have some expansive correspondents in my corner. Certainly makes life more interesting, n'est-ce pas? :)
FDChief.
Maybe you can get the idea across to Lisa that there are no corners in a defensive perimeter.One is either inside or outside the wire.
The commander is in charge inside and all else outside are enemy.This is pretty basic.
jim
Dear Ranger,
We do hope you're not totally nuts.
You enjoy a gracious group of readers, who respond to your site on a virtual square piece of paper. There is room at the edges to explore arcane thoughts. Your fear of insubordination is unfounded.
Lisa,
We generally implies a mouse in ones pocket or pregnancy.Or possibly you do speak for all our gracious readers.As I've suggested before why not start up an Oprah style weblog and explore feelings, flowers and all the crap that Ranger IS NOT interested in?
This would not require a Ranger Tab for credibility.
Sign this - a crazy ranger.indeed.
I have fired expert on the M14, the M2 carbine, the M1911A1, the Colt .38 and the Browning HiPower. Parenthetically, I agree with Ghost Dansing about that weapon. Only got sharpshooter with the M1. I've also fired the BAR, the .30 and .50 MGs, as well as the Thompson. To disagree with MB here, the Thompson doesn't give me chills: it gives me warm and fuzzies. It was my preferred weapon in Vietnam and I'd love to have one now.
I am not a gun lover, nor am I a target shooter. I do not collect them, nor do I get a stiffy thinking about them. I am, however, a gun owner and an unhesitant gun user in the right circumstances. I'm also responsible enough that no sane government would ever have a problem with me owning weapons.
I believe I'm the sort of guy that the framers of the Constitution were thinking of. Not an NRA member, not a gun collector, none of that, just a trained "militia" member prepared to take up arms to defend family and the state. I'm also the guy who, although he's a so-called liberal on most every count, gives fits to the gun-outlawing community that thinks only active soldiers and cops should have guns. I think our Founders were very well aware of that argument when they wrote the Constitution. I also think our Founders were a lot smarter than most of today's politicians. I have little problem with their 219-year-old document.
Every study I've seen that looks at what happens to violent crimes against persons seems to indicate that such crimes decline precipitously in those states that've passed concealed carry legislation.
I got a chuckle out of MB's description of the gun control folks during the King riots. That's kind of in line with my beliefs about these people: they have no problem with taking care of criminals. They just don't want to get their own hands dirty. They want to rely on the magical, mysterious government to somehow keep them safe. It's not going to happen. They're well-meaning fools, close cousins to what Soviet KGB officers termed "useful idiots" in the Western democracies.
"My best pistols are adopted from pawnshops. Ranger never met a pistol he didn't like."
Lack of experience on my part, but I got burned on a used Ruger Super Blackhawk that was rattly from hot handloads.
Lisa, FYI, some gals are gunaholics, too. The Missus has a bigger gun collection than mine.
JAG,
Re. the missus: You must be a most happy fella :)
JAG,
RE your rattly Redhawk.MY dealings with Ruger have always been cordial- they have excellent customer service.If i were you I'd write and tell them the gun is dangerously loose and i bet they'll rebuild it at the factory.
Having said that- I'll bet that piece went to a gunshow and didn't come back. jim
Ghost,
I've been thinking about your cmts on the P35 Browning Hi Power.
Are you aware that the safety will engage on 1/2 cock ?This makes it safe to carry with a round chambered.I've never liked the 1911A1 system of carrying the piece at full cock with thumb safety on ansd a round in the chamber.I just never trusted arms room clunkers.Yes i'll take the Browning any day.
In the good old days 9mm ammo was hard to get in RVN even for SF. Some issued to us actually came in buckets.My Browning always cycled them reliably. My piece has fired 1000's of rounds of submachine gun rounds and it's still serviceable. jim
"My piece has fired 1000's of rounds of submachine gun rounds and it's still serviceable" . . .
Wow, and it's pretty old.
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