Joan really is losing it. I haven’t been fisking her much because frankly her recent posts have been so loony and unhinged that there isn’t much to talk about.
In a recent post she was talking about how .22 LR ammo is no where to be found. When I bought my pair of Ruger LCRs the shop was nice enough to dig up a few boxes of .22 to go with my purchases that weren’t on the shelf. It wasn’t great ammo, or stuff I’d normally buy, but A) Any port in a storm, and B) I have two .22 Revolvers that will eat any crap I feed them without concern.
She likes to portray the lack of .22 for sinister reasons, but the reality is new shooters NEED .22. Its cheap, and its easy to shoot and train with. We have more new shooters in America ever before, and they’re hitting the range, and they’re bringing .22 to practice with. This is GREAT! better shooters mean a safer America, and the anti-gun cult HATES that.
Still she left this money quote in her comments:
Not everyone has good intentions with all of that ammo. That was my point, of course. It may not be unusual to you but you are in the minority of people who believe this.
This response was to Bryan Strawser who mentioned that competitive shooters buy and shoot tens-of-thousands of rounds on a regular basis. Joan thinks they’re up to no good.
Still we HAVE people who are up to no good in custody. How much ammo do they use?
James Holmes of the Aurora shooting did indeed buy a few thousand rounds…but I don’t think he shot more than 100 rounds, most of them missing in his spree. Probably much less as most victims were wounded with birdshot from a shotgun. How often did he shoot before he was apprehended?
Sung Cho visited a Virginia shooting range a few times before he killed himself and 32 others at Virginia tech. But how many rounds did he shoot there? He had lots of unused ammo in his bag at the time of his death.
Adam Lanza, may have gone shooting with his mother, but those details are scarce.
Jared Laughner may have never fired his Glock before he expended one magazine in the Arizona Mall.
The list could go on, but frankly I don’t see much evidence that these honest-to-god spree killers did much as far as training or shooting, either before, or during their crimes.
Frankly I suspect I shoot more rounds in a single range session than these criminals did in their entire lives. Certainly a month of ammo for me covers most of them…and I’m not a competitive shooter. A pro shooter probably covers all the spree shooters lifetime of ammo AND their local police department.
Yeah, sounds like the people buying all the ammo are “Up to no good”. Joan Peterson is obviously crazy.
Weerd-
I appreciate the work you go through in filtering her madness for us. I have tried to follow her posts myself from time to time, but like Lovecraftian mythos I felt it making me more and more irate and irrational.
I think it’s only a matter of time before she becomes completely unhinged and starts foaming at the mouth.
She goes ballistic at the thought of private citizens buying tons of ammo, yet doesn’t bat an eye when the DHS buys a crapton of hollowpoint ammo, not surprising.
Not everyone has good intentions with all of that ammo.
Absolutely True ! Sorry but that is the fact, not everyone out there has decent and honorable intentions Joan — your solution though doesn’t make any sense.
Because there are bad people willing to do bad things; you want to make it harder for good people to buy firearms and ammunition. Make it harder to carry firearms for protection.
How is that common sense?
The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates that 10-12 billion rounds of ammunition are produced domestically each year, while billions more are imported.
http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets /2012/federalammunitionregulation2012.aspx
Let’s just go with 10,000,000 rounds for this, eh.
And let’s over inflate the number of firearm related crimes to 500,000.
And let’s wildly exaggerate the number of rounds fired on average (remember most ‘firearm related crimes’ don’t involve a single shot being fired) at 10
That gives us 5,000,000 rounds used each year in crimes.
(5,000,000 divided by 10,000,000) times 100 to express as a percentage = 0.05%
5 hundredths of a percent of all ammunition produced domestically and for that you want to make everyone else jump through hoops ?
Common sense, I think not.
Wait. She’s upset that .22 LR is hard to find? She’s against self-defense; she should be ecstatic.
Well, she might have a point. SOME of the people who are buy Ammo are saving it for a Rainy Day “Just in Case” She and her Ilk ever get their wish and try to come after all the Gun Owners.
But I would not call that being up to “No Good”. I would call it being prepared just in case they have to go up against those who are REALLY up to No Good: Japete and Friends.
So Pot, meet Kettle.
She might have a point (I know, I know, but bear with me a moment – also, do some mental calisthenics to warm your brain up for some stretching) in one aspect only.
I believe this is her train of thought: The people who buy guns with intent to learn to shoot them, and buy ammo to practice shooting, will be more familiar with their operation and quirks, and will therefore be more dangerous if they ever pull off a mass shooting.
HOWEVER, name ONE case where this has actually happened.
[crickets]
She can’t, because it doesn’t. This train of thought goes right along with her firm (yet false) belief that “All law-abiding gun owners are law-abiding citizens … until they’re not,” or “A gun owner is a criminal who just hasn’t been caught yet.” So even the otherwise almost-reasonable not-quite-logic can be disregarded, as it’s based on preconceived notions and feelings rather than facts and evidence.
I can see where she might have gotten her conclusion, but it’s still completely wrong.
She is indeed become more and more unhinged lately. I shouldn’t really pay any attention to her, but it is like a bad train wreck. You shouldn’t watch, but you do.
Well, while she still draws a Joyce paycheck and speaks for the Brady campaign we NEED to watch.
They go after Ted Nugent, yet they have far worse in their ranks.
On my blog, she is known as BSC Joan*
*Bat Shit Crazy.
I have noticed that in every one of her rant, she manages to work in “the evil NRA” at least once.