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buckeye4rnr
12-27-2012, 14:04
Interesting article...


http://pjmedia.com/blog/for-a-well-regulated-militia-what-firearms-gear-and-skills-should-you-own/?singlepage=true

The brutal murders of 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Newtown, CT, stunned the world last week. A mentally ill young man apparently discovered that his long-suffering mother was going to attempt to have him committed to a psychiatric facility (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/18/fear-being-committed-may-have-caused-connecticut-madman-to-snap/); he took out his rage upon her and then his former elementary school’s faculty, staff, and students.

It was senseless. It was barbaric. As parents, it is difficult for us to cope with the thought of having our youngest beloved ripped from us by any method, much less something as abhorrent as intentional, callous murder. No decent person could feel anything but anguish for their loss.

As Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel warned us (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html), however, there is a mentality among the opportunistic political class that demands they “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

While America recoiled, media vultures first pounced upon the survivors while they were still in shock. Since then, they have attacked America’s lawful gun owners, of which there are roughly 100 million.

We’ve heard calls for “gun control” in recent days, including specific demands for a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Detractors question the need for weapons “designed for war” whose “only purpose is to kill”; they insist that you “don’t need an assault rifle” for hunting deer.

This is ignorance, and further, completely misses the point. To cite something I wrote earlier in the week (http://www.bob-owens.com/2012/12/some-explicit-history-to-explain-why-we-must-keep-military-capable-arms-to-ensure-our-essential-liberty/):


The Second Amendment was not written to protect firearms designed for the taking of game, nor firearms designed for sport or individual personal defense, except that such a purpose proves to be militarily useful.

The explicit purpose that the Second Amendment was written was so that civilians that comprised the militia and alarm list would be armed with military-capable arms to depose would-be tyrants.



I’d amend that slightly to more accurately reflect that the intention was to arm citizens with contemporary arms of military utility. To assert that the right applied merely to flintlock muskets suggests that human rights are superseded by advances in technology, which is on its face a preposterous statement. Could anyone rationally argue that freedom of speech does not apply to modern forms of communication?

The Second Amendment was written to ensure citizens had contemporary rifles of military utility, and no single rifle more accurately fits that description today than AR-15 rifles patterned after the M-16 rifle and M-4 carbine that have been the U.S. military standard for half a century.

If Americans are interested in adhering to the Founders’ intentions for a “well-regulated militia” as envisioned, it is our duty not to just own firearms (with exceptions made for religious, mental, and physical limitations), but to own AR-15 rifles and accessories and to train with them to an agreed upon standard of competency. This competency (and proficiency) is what the Founders meant by the term “well-regulated,” which in the English of the day meant “smoothly functioning.”

An unorganized militia’s military efficiency can be measured a number of ways, but the most easy and logical to measure is to require a certain minimal level of equipment and to judge proficiency with military-capable firearms.

As previous militias were required to maintain a minimal level of stores, a modern contemporary militia would want to be equipped with the following:


an AR-15 rifle or carbine, with iron sights or optics
at least four but preferably seven or more 30-round magazines
a chest rig or bandolier for carrying loaded magazines
a constantly maintained reserve of 1,000 rounds of full-metal jacket (FMJ) ammunition for training and service use if called upon
appropriate seasonal clothing
a first aid kit (preferably an individual first aid kid, or IFAK)
food, water, and temporary shelter for three days


The traditional way to measure weapons proficiency is a marksmanship test such as the Army Rifle Qualification Test or the Marine Rifle Qualification Test. A variant of this test commonly used today is the 25-meter Army Qualification Test (http://www.libertysprice.org/oldsite/aqt.htm) (AQT) as administered during Project Appleseed (http://appleseedinfo.org/) events, which itself is based upon World War I riflemanship standards (disclosure — the author is an Appleseed instructor) but adapted and scaled to fit a 25-meter range.

Ideally, citizens should be able to use AR-15s or comparable arms to demonstrate proficiency at 100 yards, 200 yards, 300 yards, and 400 yards either on the scaled 25-meter range or, where available, an actual known distance (KD) range. Such training does not constitute violations of the law in regards to the establishment of private militias, yet still ensures a level of firearms proficiency among the general population that serves the deterrent effect the Founders intended: to dissuade the undermining of the republic by enemies “foreign and domestic.” The thought of engaging a nation with tens of millions of self-equipped riflemen capable of decimating government forces from nearly a quarter-mile away is chilling to any would-be tyrant.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the last line of defense against tyranny and, far from being a colonial relic, was most recently used in 1946 in several areas as returning GIs took on tyrannical local government machines. The most significant of these, the “McMinn County War,” saw young veterans home from World War II depose a corrupt and tyrannical government using military arms.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote at the time of this morally required insurrection (http://constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen_press.htm):


We in the U.S.A., who have long boasted that, in our political life, freedom in the use of the secret ballot made it possible for us to register the will of the people without the use of force, have had a rude awakening as we read of conditions in McMinn County, Tennessee, which brought about the use of force in the recent primary. If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions.

In this particular case, a group of young veterans organized to oust the local machine and elect their own slate in the primary. We may deplore the use of force but we must also recognize the lesson which this incident points for us all. When the majority of the people know what they want, they will obtain it.

Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered.

This is a lesson which wise political leaders learn young, and you can be pretty sure that, when a boss stays in power, he gives the majority of the people what they think they want. If he is bad and indulges in practices which are dishonest, or if he acts for his own interests alone, the people are unwilling to condone these practices.

When the people decide that conditions in their town, county, state or country must change, they will change them. If the leadership has been wise, they will be able to do it peacefully through a secret ballot which is honestly counted, but if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee.



A former first lady of the United States condoned insurrection to restore constitutional law, and against corrupt local representatives of her own Democratic Party. She knew a history uncorrupted by modern-day revisionism.

In the days after April 19, 1775, Founding Father Samuel Adams trod the road between Lexington and Concord at the carnage wrought when British General Thomas Gage triggered the American Revolutionary War while attempting to impose gun control on the Colonials. Surveying the burned-out buildings, bloody lanes, shot-pocked walls, and bodies awaiting burial, he remarked:


If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.



Now is not a time for those whom Thomas Paine labeled “sunshine patriots.” The republic will stand or fall based upon whether its citizens choose to defend the Constitution. Let us pray that all Americans realize the stakes in play, and act with calm restraint.

Bob Owens blogs at Bob-Owens.com (http://Bob-Owens.com/).

Special Ed
12-27-2012, 14:14
Brilliant read. Thanks for posting that.

Kraven251
12-27-2012, 14:18
This is going to get interesting, and most likely not in a good way.

DeusExMachina
12-27-2012, 14:22
I read recently a simple statement in regard to proposed firearm registration/confiscation that was fairly powerful in it's message: "If it's time to bury your guns, it is time to dig them up."

Ronin13
12-27-2012, 14:36
That was a good read... I've always been an advocate of the theory "buy the gun, get the training on how to properly and safely use it."

Rucker61
12-27-2012, 16:25
I don't know about gear, but I fired over 800 rounds of bolt action ammo this year. That's more than I fired in four years in the Army. That ought to qualify for militia minimums.

Ronin13
12-27-2012, 16:27
I don't know about gear, but I fired over 800 rounds of bolt action ammo this year. That's more than I fired in four years in the Army. That ought to qualify for militia minimums.
Just curious, wth did you do in the Army that you only fired 800 rounds? I qualified on the M2, M240B, M16, M4 and M203... 203 doesn't count, but with the rest I've fired well over 250 per weapon.

cofi
12-27-2012, 18:13
most important thing is to go take cmailliard (http://www.ar-15.co/members/680-cmailliard) casualty care class learn how to patch holes before you go making new ones :)

sabot_round
12-27-2012, 18:18
Just curious, wth did you do in the Army that you only fired 800 rounds? I qualified on the M2, M240B, M16, M4 and M203... 203 doesn't count, but with the rest I've fired well over 250 per weapon.

I'm curious too!! I fired more than that in a week while at the AWG.

Great-Kazoo
12-27-2012, 19:09
Just curious, wth did you do in the Army that you only fired 800 rounds? I qualified on the M2, M240B, M16, M4 and M203... 203 doesn't count, but with the rest I've fired well over 250 per weapon.

He was your CO.

Sharpienads
12-27-2012, 19:20
He was your CO.

[LOL]

NMB2
12-27-2012, 19:28
most important thing is to go take cmailliard (http://www.ar-15.co/members/680-cmailliard) casualty care class learn how to patch holes before you go making new ones :)


I have a couple IFAK's.... don't come to me unless you want me to put a tourniquet on you.... CLS baby!

Rucker61
12-27-2012, 23:00
Just curious, wth did you do in the Army that you only fired 800 rounds? I qualified on the M2, M240B, M16, M4 and M203... 203 doesn't count, but with the rest I've fired well over 250 per weapon.

You were a grunt, right? I was an engineer officer. Qualified once a year on the M16, and sneaked in a .45 qual once as an assistant S3. This was all pre-Gulf War. I would have loved to have qual'd on all the stuff you did. Even our 90mm gunners had to qual using the subcaliber device.

NMB2
12-27-2012, 23:14
I was an engineer officer.

Explains it all [LOL]

Fmedges
12-27-2012, 23:37
Not a bad idea. I have begun training again as well.

josh7328
12-28-2012, 01:24
You've never made a M2 barrel change colors? man... you missed out.

Mick-Boy
12-28-2012, 07:11
I'm a big believer that American Citizens should be armed, trained and equipped to defend themselves and their loved ones. Here are some random thoughts in no particular order towards that objective.

- Get guns that work. - Don't worry about what the latest and greatest bit of kit that Sniper Seal Team Delta is using. Get something you're comfortable with and that you can shoot accurately. I've seen guys that shoot a lot of Cowboy Action use a lever gun to burn down guys shooting the latest and greatest AR with all the bells and whistles. How can this happen? Training. Period. Get a rifle that works. Get a pistol that works. Train with them.

- Have the ability to carry spare ammo. - Again, don't worry about the latest and greatest unless you do this for a living and have money to burn. Just find something that works for you and train with it. Make sure you can reload from your gear standing, kneeling, sitting and prone.

- Learn to shoot your guns. - Going to the range and blasting into a hill side is just ballistic masturbation. It might feel good but it's not making you better. Go to the range with an agenda. I like to shoot drills/quals to reveal weaknesses. Once a weakness is revealed, work that issue. Don't shoot the same drill over and over. You'll just turn it into a range trick. What we want to do is develop the ability to apply the fundamentals on demand. Regardless of weather, lighting, body position, etc.

- Seek outside training. - There's a whole forum dedicated to training so I'll just say this: Be honest with yourself about what you need to work on. If you can't consistently hit your target with the pistol you carry everyday, your time and money might not be best spent jocking up in armor and NODs to do a low-light, helicopter assault, CQB course. There's a fine line between a training course and "space camp with guns".

- Get in shape. Seriously. I'm not saying you need to be ready for the crossfit games but you should be able to move your body without having a coronary. Hiking, jogging, swimming, pushups, pullups, etc. Whatever. But maintain some level of physical activity. The thing is, a lot of combat on a small unit level is going to center around the ability to shoot, move and communicate. Two out of three probably won't cut it if the person/people you're fighting have a basic level of training.

- Train yourself to think. - I've never been in a deadly force encounter in the US (knock on wood), but in the places that I have worked there were only a couple of very short windows (early '03 and mid-late '04 in Iraq) where positive target ID was relaxed. The rest of the time I've been held accountable for the rounds I fired (as it should be). I can't imagine a situation where "spray and pray" or "kill 'em all and let god sort them out" would go over in the US. You need to be able to target discriminate, verbalize commands, shoot accurately, handle your weapon safely and move to a position of advantage. Preferably all at the same time. Train for that, not for standing on the 5yd line and blasting away.

Adam
12-28-2012, 08:13
I read recently a simple statement in regard to proposed firearm registration/confiscation that was fairly powerful in it's message: "If it's time to bury your guns, it is time to dig them up."

+1... going in my signature.

Byte Stryke
12-28-2012, 08:47
I'm a big believer that American Citizens should be armed, trained and equipped to defend themselves and their loved ones. Here are some random thoughts in no particular order towards that objective.

- Get guns that work. - Don't worry about what the latest and greatest bit of kit that Sniper Seal Team Delta is using. Get something you're comfortable with and that you can shoot accurately. I've seen guys that shoot a lot of Cowboy Action use a lever gun to burn down guys shooting the latest and greatest AR with all the bells and whistles. How can this happen? Training. Period. Get a rifle that works. Get a pistol that works. Train with them.

- Have the ability to carry spare ammo. - Again, don't worry about the latest and greatest unless you do this for a living and have money to burn. Just find something that works for you and train with it. Make sure you can reload from your gear standing, kneeling, sitting and prone.

- Learn to shoot your guns. - Going to the range and blasting into a hill side is just ballistic masturbation. It might feel good but it's not making you better. Go to the range with an agenda. I like to shoot drills/quals to reveal weaknesses. Once a weakness is revealed, work that issue. Don't shoot the same drill over and over. You'll just turn it into a range trick. What we want to do is develop the ability to apply the fundamentals on demand. Regardless of weather, lighting, body position, etc.

- Seek outside training. - There's a whole forum dedicated to training so I'll just say this: Be honest with yourself about what you need to work on. If you can't consistently hit your target with the pistol you carry everyday, your time and money might not be best spent jocking up in armor and NODs to do a low-light, helicopter assault, CQB course. There's a fine line between a training course and "space camp with guns".

- Get in shape. Seriously. I'm not saying you need to be ready for the crossfit games but you should be able to move your body without having a coronary. Hiking, jogging, swimming, pushups, pullups, etc. Whatever. But maintain some level of physical activity. The thing is, a lot of combat on a small unit level is going to center around the ability to shoot, move and communicate. Two out of three probably won't cut it if the person/people you're fighting have a basic level of training.

- Train yourself to think. - I've never been in a deadly force encounter in the US (knock on wood), but in the places that I have worked there were only a couple of very short windows (early '03 and mid-late '04 in Iraq) where positive target ID was relaxed. The rest of the time I've been held accountable for the rounds I fired (as it should be). I can't imagine a situation where "spray and pray" or "kill 'em all and let god sort them out" would go over in the US. You need to be able to target discriminate, verbalize commands, shoot accurately, handle your weapon safely and move to a position of advantage. Preferably all at the same time. Train for that, not for standing on the 5yd line and blasting away.

Solid advice

Cman
12-28-2012, 08:56
Excellent read! Thanks for posting!

SuperiorDG
12-28-2012, 09:12
A friend back home posted this on facebook. Virgina's idea of the Militia: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+44-1

Byte Stryke
12-28-2012, 09:53
A friend back home posted this on facebook. Virgina's idea of the Militia: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+44-1



every time a liberal reads that, their head explodes.

Ronin13
12-28-2012, 10:26
You were a grunt, right? I was an engineer officer. Qualified once a year on the M16, and sneaked in a .45 qual once as an assistant S3. This was all pre-Gulf War. I would have loved to have qual'd on all the stuff you did. Even our 90mm gunners had to qual using the subcaliber device.
Actually no, I wasn't a grunt, I was Intel/Security and got PSD qualified... I was a jack of all trades for the most part- I wore a lot of hats and had a schools NCO who loved me like a son- once he found out how much I loved guns he said "Well, let's have you shoot them all!" Except the Mk19- we only had three of those in our BN.

hammer03
12-28-2012, 21:03
A friend back home posted this on facebook. Virgina's idea of the Militia: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+44-1

Colorado State Constitution, Article 17

Militia

Section 1. Persons subject to service. The militia of the state shall consist of all able-bodied male residents of the state between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years; except, such persons as may be exempted by the laws of the United States, or of the state.

275RLTW
12-28-2012, 21:50
Mick is spot on with his advise; I urge everyone to listen to it well. I have only 1 thing to add to it:

Practice, practice, practice.
Something you learned years ago and haven't used since is not a skill. 500 gigs of survival info that you haven't done at all isn't a skill either. You will not have time in the moment to look up how to make a field expedient antenna, build a snow cave, stop arterial bleeding, or what plants/insects you can survuve on. Planning for something requires action other than reaction, meaning you have to get off your ass and do this shit to be PROFICIENT at it and with it. Gear that you don't know how to use is useless as much as knowledge is useless without application. Get out and practice the skills you learded in your last medical class, work on your weaknesses from your last shooting class, go into the mountains and build a small shelter with your field knife & 550 cord bracelet, learn how to construct a snow cave this winter with all that white stuff on your lawn, etc...

Being knowledgeable isn't enough, you have to be able to DO IT and USE IT as well.