Well, that didn’t take long…

The Obama Administration made it excruciatingly clear since before the election that a reinstatement of the onerous, Draconian – and, in the decade of 1994-2004, already proven useless – Assault Weapons Ban would be reinstated. It was the sound of one shoe dropping.

Some observers felt that the other shoe would never drop, because the new Administration had its hands so full with so many real problems that might actually have legislative solutions. Others of us felt that those factors were merely slowing down the inevitable.

It seems that the latter were the ones who bet the smart money, because the other shoe has just dropped.

Eric Holder, the most documentably and vehemently anti-gun Attorney General in United States history, just said as much. See it here in his own words.

The Administration appears to care nothing for the many jobs that would be lost to the firearms industry if these hugely popular arms were banned. See more here from National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Speaker Pelosi is saying Congress has more important fish to fry but given her on the record stance, I’m finding cold comfort in her words.

One Internet message that’s racing around prefaces the link with the acronym BOHICA. (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.)

In deference to my good friend Jim Supica, a tireless fighter for gun owners’ civil rights, I respectfully suggest that we change that rallying cry to SUPICA.

Stand Up Positively, It’s Coming Again.

We all need to inform our elected officials on Capitol Hill in polite but unequivocal terms that this inexcusable waste of time, money, and effort will not be tolerated by the public…and will be well remembered by that public in its next collective trip to the voting booth.

I just got my March issue of American Rifleman magazine, and notice it has the ballot for this year’s election to the board of directors. If you’re a voting member of the National Rifle Association (Life Member, Benefactor Member, etc.), you’ll be getting the same in your March copy of your chosen NRA subscription periodical, be it the Rifleman, or American Hunter, or First Freedom.

There are many good people running, but there is one I would strongly urge you to vote for. His name is Owen Mills, “Buz” to his friends. He has the organization skills that this group needs now more than ever. I’ve known Buz for many years, and he’s damn sure got my vote.

As some of you reading this know, Buz and I are competitors who both own shooting schools. Why support a competitor? Because I know this man’s absolute honesty, integrity, and commitment to the cause of gun owners’ civil rights.

I urge you to take five and a half minutes out of your life to go to this link and see for yourself what Owen “Buz” Mills is all about. And I urge you to cast your vote for him for the NRA board of directors.

The time between Lincoln’s birthday and Washington’s is called by some “President’s Week.” It’s the perfect time to reflect on the character of our nation’s top leaders.

George W. Bush left the office with grace and dignity. As this comparison shows, he and his whole first family was most gracious to his, and their, successors in the White House.

Our last President made decisions that earned some hatred, but decisions that also earned respect in some surprising quarters, as seen below, in the comments.  Being the grandson of Arab-Americans who immigrated to this country more than 110 years ago doesn’t make me an expert on contemporary Arabic culture or anything, but it does give me a little better handle on such things than your average brie-and-chablis Yuppie. Arabs respect strength and have contempt for weakness, and they prize that subjective thing called “character” very highly. George W. Bush showed them that he had both strength and character.

He showed it to his own countrymen, too. In two elections, Democrats assailed him as a fat cat who would leave a gigantic carbon footprint on the world, and urged us to vote for them instead to preserve “green values.” Yet this gives us an idea who among the contenders actually put his lifestyle where his mouth was in terms of energy conservation.

No general can keep secrets from his valet, it is said, and no President can keep secrets from his bodyguards. When I met George Bush in the picture shown here, he had not yet been elected, or even nominated, and did not have Secret Service protection yet. His bodyguards, since he was Governor of Texas, were Texas Rangers. I spoke with them at length. They told me he was a sincere guy who respected cops and all the people who worked under him, and to a man they would have been honored to take a bullet for him. (Secret Service agents assigned later to the First Family detail seemed unanimous in saying the same thing about Bush.) In speaking with the then-candidate, I found that Bush actually listened, and solicited opinions. When I asked him about certain police issues and, yes, gun owners’ civil rights, he was on top of the issues and answered knowledgeably.

This is the corner of Backwoods Home where we talk about gun stuff. Yes, some gun owners never forgave him when he said he’d sign a renewal of the “Assault Weapons Ban” after its sunset, if it passed. They didn’t know that Bush already knew that it wasn’t going to pass. No harm, no foul, no hurt to us in eight years of his Presidency.

The recent 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln reminded me of my favorite quote from that great President: “We cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”

It was something that George W. Bush understood, lived by, and led by for eight years.

I have to respect that.

Things are tough all over. Municipal, county, and state budgets are facing critical shortfalls that could cause severe limitation of ability to deliver emergency services in a timely fashion. A brother officer recently sent me a whimsical photo that says it all: a police K9 car with a Chihuahua in the back seat.

In Hawthorne, Florida, the police department was disbanded because the community couldn’t afford it anymore. Hawthorne will presumably pay the county for sheriff’s deputies to take up the slack. The same has happened with other municipalities in the area.

The Washington Post reports that “Philadelphia officials are leaving 200 police positions unfilled and cutting back on overtime…And police in Atlanta are shouldering a 10 percent pay cut after all 1,770 employees and the police chief agreed to a furlough of four hours per week.” This gives a broader view of the problem.

Our nation is veering toward an economic depression. Poverty breeds crime. More crime demands more cops, but there are going to be fewer.

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sun-Sentinel offers this story on the current, acute ammunition shortage due to panic buying. True, a lot of that comes from public fear of pending legislation under the new Administration.

But could that simple formula of more poverty, more crime, and fewer law enforcement officers just have a little bit to do with ordinary American citizens feeling a need to be more prepared for crisis than usual?

My significant other/adult supervisor and I were just getting over nasty three-week colds. I was fed up with how depressing the upcoming gun legislation is looking. Much of the week before had been spent working on an officer-involved shooting trial, and most of the week before that had been spent on a murder case. The weekend suddenly loomed free, and the adult supervisor and I decided that some pistol competition would be uplifting.

On Saturday morning, we put half a dozen assorted Glock pistols in the car, along with several hundred rounds of ammo, and hit the road. Our Saturday stop was the First Coast IDPA club at the excellent public range in Jacksonville, FL (www.firstcoastidpa.com). Great bunch of folks, with 100 shooters at that particular event. IDPA, the International Defensive Pistol Association, is basically a “come as you are” party for folks who carry guns. You start most (but not all) stages with your handgun concealed, and it has to be a duty/carry type pistol or revolver. We ran down halls, we ducked behind stuff, and we even had to jump out of a pickup truck to get a gun, all under time. We shot two-hand, and weak hand only, and from all sorts of awkward positions. And of course, we all second-guessed ourselves and analyzed lessons learned. (Me: “Damn, Jon, I dismounted that truck like a sixty-year-old man!” Jon: “Uh, Mas, you are a, uh, you know –“ Me: “Oh, yeah…right…”)

Then it was off to Orlando, and a GSSF (Glock Sport Shooting Foundation) match (www.gssfonline.com), hosted by the excellent Central Florida Rifle & Pistol Club (www.cfrpc.com). Given the sponsorship and all, you can only shoot Glock pistols there, but they have events for every type of handgun that company makes. To simplify logistics, we were using 9mm Glocks for IDPA too, Gail wielding her pet G34 and me, a G17 that I’d shot in the last three prior matches at Jax. In Orlando, we shot Subcompact, she her pet carry gun, a 9mm G26, and me a .40 caliber G27 that has been with me as “traveling iron” from Hawaii to Switzerland in the more than a dozen years I’ve owned it. She shot her Generation 3 Glock 17 9mm in both Competition and Stock categories, and I used my old Gen 2 G17 for Master Stock. I went too fast and crashed and burned on points down with both of those pistols: a point down from perfect costs you twice as much penalty time added to your score in GSSF than it does in IDPA. I did better in the Major Sub category with my favorite Glock, the short barreled .45 caliber G30.

We came home cheerful and refreshed. We’d had a great time with old friends, and meeting new ones. A shooting match is a social event, and you do it as much for the conversation as the competition. At the IDPA event, we both got beat. My fox is the current Florida/Georgia Regional Women’s Champion, but on this day our close friends the Strayers whupped us both. Terri Strayer was top female, shooting a Smith & Wesson Military & Police 9mm, and her husband Jon handed me my butt on a platter, winning the Custom Defense Pistol division and the overall tournament with his fast, accurate handling of his Springfield Armory TGO .45. I wound up winning the Stock Service Pistol Division, and second overall.

Dunno yet how we did at the Glock shoot. The scores haven’t been posted yet. I’m told unofficially that there were some 360 entries over two days, and that’s a lot of tabulating to do. Rob Leatham, perhaps the greatest practical pistol champion of our time, has been known to say that “Winning isn’t any harder than losing, but it’s a lot more fun.” Well, I’ll buy the “winning is more fun” part, but I’ve found that losing is a whole lot easier than winning. Losing only takes one blast of cerebral flatulence.

Which leads us to my personal theory of why people like us find shooting so relaxing. Those who haven’t done it figure we’re burning off steam by imagining a hated boss’s face on the target as we fire. No, not at all. Because we have to focus so intently on safety with the deadly weapons we’re handling, it forces out extraneous thoughts. Mortgage situations, the economy, inimical political parties in office, all gray out into the far background when you focus on safely, accurately, and swiftly discharging firearms. It’s purging, really. I expect those who practice extreme sports such as rock-climbing are getting the same effect.

Sure, winning is better, but playing and not winning beats hell out of not having played.

And always remember, even if you place dead last, you still come in ahead of several thousand people who thought they were cool, but didn’t have the guts you had to stand and test your skills in public.

Which is why, for this curmudgeon at least, shooting a match now and then just rocks.

Several of our readers have commented on House Resolution Number 45. You can read it here. Take the time to read it in detail.

It speaks for itself. Chillingly.

If there was ever anything that called out for each of us to express our views to our Congressional delegation, it is this.

Meanwhile, the anti-gun owner civil rights lobby is crowing that the results of the last election constitute a victory for “gun control” sentiment. Commentator Howard Nemerov vehemently and articulately disagrees, here.