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Category: All About Guns
In all states of which I am aware, a person may not use deadly force in self-defense, if they provoked the attack with the intent of using deadly force.
It is not legal to start a fight so the person who started the fight can kill someone who they provoked.
Mere possession of an openly carried weapon is not a legal provocation to attack.
The Left has been floating the idea that mere possession of a weapon is a provocation. They contend the sight of someone in possession of a weapon is sufficient provocation for a person to attack the person who possesses the weapon.
This creates a bizarre world where mere open possession of a weapon is sufficient to justify a deadly attack on the possessor. Apply this to the police. They almost always carry a deadly weapon, openly.
This concept is contrary to common sense and the experience of thousands of years. If a person has a weapon, people see a reason to leave the armed person alone. In the Kyle Rittenhouse incident, the prosecutor, ADA Binger, during a pre-trial hearing, said this:
“He was running around with a assault rifle type weapon, a very threatening, aggressive weapon. One that deters people, it is designed to deter people. It is designed to threaten others; to let them know, don’t mess with me, look what I’ve got.”
During the trial. Binger did not claim mere possession of a firearm was a provocation to be attacked, although he hinted at it. He claimed, on the basis of very fuzzy drone footage, that Kyle had momentarily pointed his rifle at two other people, and that was a provocation for a third person, Rosenbaum, to attack Kyle. The jury did not accept this theory.
In a sane world, carrying a weapon is not a provocation to be attacked. The Left has worked hard to make it a provocation, in law. In an editorial about open carry in 2012, there was this; from usnews.com:
It is appropriate for law enforcement officers and the public to treat these situations as extremely dangerous. Open carry advocates claim they need a gun for self-defense. However, if the Trayvon Martin case has taught us anything, it is that an individual carrying a gun may misjudge a situation, think self-defense is called for, and erroneously—and often tragically—reach for the gun.
A jury decided the usnews.com editorial writer’s portrayal of the Trayvon Martin case was erroneous. It was Martin who attacked George Zimmerman. It was Martin’s judgment that was faulty, not Zimmerman’s.
Here is an opinion published in The Hill, in November of 2019, before the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. The opinion is discussing the Wisconsin disorderly conduct law. From thehill.com:
The text of its disorderly conduct law criminally bans “violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance.” But absent a showing of “criminal or malicious intent,” a person may not be charged with disorderly conduct “for carrying or going armed with a firearm . . . without regard to whether the firearm is loaded or the firearm . . . is concealed or openly carried.”
Think about that. Being publicly “violent” or “abusive” is a potential crime in Wisconsin — unless it entails waiving around a loaded firearm.
The argument is false. The law does not allow being publicly “violent” or “abusive” simply because a person has a firearm. It states a person may not be charged with disorderly conduct for merely carrying or possessing a firearm or knife. Here is the relevant passage:
Unless other facts and circumstances that indicate a criminal or malicious intent on the part of the person apply, a person is not in violation of, and may not be charged with a violation of, this section for loading a firearm, or for carrying or going armed with a firearm or a knife, without regard to whether the firearm is loaded or the firearm or the knife is concealed or openly carried.
This correspondent followed what led to the passage of this Wisconsin law. In 2008 Brad Krause was planting a tree in his yard. He had a holstered pistol on his hip. He was charged, in Wisconsin, by West Allis police, with disorderly conduct. He fought the case. He won. From jsonline.com:
West Allis – As Brad Krause planted a tree in his yard last summer, a neighbor noticed that in addition to a shovel, Krause had a tool not usually required for yard work – a gun in a holster.
Police arrived and gave Krause a ticket alleging disorderly conduct, launching a case that a national gun-rights group has been watching for months.
On Tuesday, Krause won acquittal in what some advocates say is one of the first so-called open-carry gun cases heard in a Wisconsin court.
Municipal Judge Paul Murphy said he had reviewed several state statutes and court cases related to the right to keep and bear arms. ‘There being no law whatsoever dealing with the issue of an unconcealed weapon or the so-called open carry is why we’re here today,’ Murphy said.
In the end, he determined Krause’s actions did not rise to disorderly conduct and found him not guilty.
Milwaukee Police had been charging people with disorderly conduct for the mere carry of firearms, for decades. The legislature finally had enough and reformed the law to stop the abuse.
Here is a later opinion published on September 10, 2020, from Bloomberg, written by Noah Feldman a former Harvard Law editor:
The trouble begins when you start applying the legal rules to someone in Rittenhouse’s situation, namely, someone who has carried an AR-15-style weapon to what is intended to be a peaceful protest. In a commonsense universe, this act itself would appear to be a provocation.
Yet under Wisconsin law, adults are entitled to carry around their licensed firearms in public places. An open-carry law means that prosecutors would have a tough time convincing a jury that simply carrying an assault rifle counts as a provocation.
As a lawyer, Feldman should have known Wisconsin law does not require a license to openly carry firearms. It never has. Wisconsin law has never forbidden people 16 years old and older, from carrying long guns.
To paraphrase Noah Feldman with a more commonsense observation; the trouble is when you start defining the peaceful carry of a firearm as a provocation. Hundreds of people saw Rittenhouse and many others carrying firearms. Initially, only Rosenbaum decided to attack Kyle Rittenhouse. The person who was supposedly “provoked” was mentally ill Rosenbaum, who was suicidal and who had spent many years in prison.
Rosenbaum had threatened to kill Rittenhouse repeatedly. If there was a provocation, it appears the provocation was Rosenbaum attempting to provoke Rittenhouse to aid in another Rosenbaum suicide attempt.
Three others decided to attack Rittenhouse as he ran to turn himself into the police after he shot Rosenbaum. According to testimony under oath during the trial, the mob was urged to attack Rittenhouse by the same man who had urged Rosenbaum to attack Rittenhouse.
The man who urged the mob to go after Rittenhouse had a checkered police record. The three attackers had multiple police histories and problems with authority. Two of the those attacked Rittenhouse with weapons and were shot by him. One was killed, and the other was wounded. It was all recorded on video, from multiple angles.
The jury did not accept the prosecutor’s theory that Rittenhouse had “provoked” Rosenbaum.
Analysis:
The concept that an openly armed person is a provocation to attack appears to flow from a simple premise on the left: A person doing something a leftist does not like is a provocation to attack them. It is part of the broader philosophical abandonment of the rule of law.
Evidence for this theory exists in the left’s theory of speech from any opponent. Speech from an opponent is considered to be violent, and worthy of attack. Violence, from the left, on the other hand, is considered to be speech.
When leftists surround a car and beat on it; that is not provocation; when leftists shoot at people; it is not provocation; when people the left does not agree with, display weapons; that is considered a provocation by the left.
This is a retreat to tribalism by the Left: Those who agree with us are people; those who disagree with us are the enemy.
Pundit and radio personality Dan Bongino put it this way: Conservatives think leftists are people with bad ideas; Leftists think Conservatives are bad people.
Part of this attitude toward the open carry of weapons by people other than government agents comes from the Left’s worship of government as god. A private person openly carrying a firearm is a direct and obvious statement:
The Constitution means something; the Bill of Rights means something; the power of government is limited.
The Left hates the idea of limits on government. For that reason, gun control is in Progressivism’s DNA.
Defining open carry of weapons as a legal provocation is Orwellian word manipulation.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
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When I was in the Gulf during Desert Storm, I had gone into a Bunker in Iraq and found a draganov and had every intention of taking the rifle home as a “War Prize” because it was semiauto and I figured it wouldn’t be an issue, but when we were trying to clear customs in the Gulf to return back to Germany despite having documentation, damm MP’s confiscated the rifle and I had no recourse, my unit wanted to return and if I stirred up a hornets nest, my unit would have been pushed back on the rotation so I ate my pride and to this day it still galls me, I think some asshole took my rifle home for himself.
I snagged this off “SOFREP”
Oh well…..*Mutters*
Soldier firing a standard-issue SVD Dragunov (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Thomas Stubblefield/DVIDS).
Whether you’ve encountered the Dragunov in the field, a documentary, or even in the Call of Duty videogame franchise, it’s no secret that the semi-automatic Soviet-era rifle is one of the best firearms ever to be designed and produced by the Russians. From its natural appeal and aesthetic in its wooden stock to its reliable long-range accuracy, today, we’re going to discuss a bit of the historical context that went into designing this rifle!
In response to the rising usage of submachine guns on the battlefield, the Red Army thought they were losing important high ground leverage in engaging enemies long-range. While these submachine guns (SMGs) were definitely effective in close-range, trench combat, SMGs do not offer the same long-range cover fire infantry soldiers needed to push forward with gaining objectives.
Some of these SMGs included the infamous World War II PPsh-41 using the 7.62x25mm known as the “papasha” (daddy) gun, which uses the same rounds as the Tokarev pistol. Machine guns like the DP-28 and DS-39 were also standard, high rate firearms that could lay sufficient covering fire, however sacrificing accuracy for the rapid-fire rate.
The armies of the West had rifles that could shoot at ranges exceeding Soviet weapons, which meant Russian troops would have to advance over several hundred yards under accurate fire before their own weapons could be employed. In a close-in fight, like an urban environment, the AK had a distinct advantage in house-to-house fighting, but in closing in on that town or city, they faced getting shot to pieces by longer-ranged Western small arms.
So then, the Soviets faced a dilemma. How do they equip their infantry troops with both battle rifles and sufficient long-range cover fire to cover the advance of their troops across open ground? This is where the development of the Dragunov comes in.
From 1957 to 1963, a competition was held to develop a rifle that designated marksmen in the Soviet Army could use, that was cost-effective (meaning it was cheap enough to mass-produce), and could engage enemy targets faster than enemy riflers.
The answer to this problem was the first Dragunov rifle model 1963, designed by Yevgeny Dragunov, a man whose family line comprises gunsmiths. Mainly a sporting rifle designer, he was not a stranger to military service as he had served in the military in 1939. He defeated Sergey Simonov, the designer of the SKS carbine, and Aleksandr Konstantinov for the rifle competition. Mark the irony of a Communist country like the USSR holding a “competition” like free-market Capitalists.
The Dragunov rifle has a striking similarity to the AK47 cosmetically in its furniture placement and the pistol grip housing the trigger group, but, the AK-47 is a rugged, cheap to produce and operate assault rifle not meant to be a marksman’s rifle, while the Dragunov was made for precision(As the Soviets viewed it) marksmanship. You see, the average Russian soldier was not really trained as a marksman, he was expected to shower the enemy with rounds from his AK47 while pushing in as close to the enemy as possible. In contrast, the U.S. Army and especially the Marine Corps trained on and prized marksmanship at range. So in a sense, the Dragonuv was intended to give a Soviet soldier a rifle as capable as the M-1 Garand or M-14 was in the hands of Marine or Army GI trained to hit targets at distances of 600-800 yards
The U.S. and USSR looked at snipers in the post-WWII era very differently. America did not have specially trained snipers until after the Vietnam War. Believe it or not, snipers were widely disdained in both militaries because they killed at range and without warning to the other side. There was something about it that seemed unsporting somehow in war. In WWII, German snipers were especially hated by American GIs and were generally executed upon being captured. During the Normandy campaign, quite a few German paratroopers were executed by our troops because their camouflage smocks and unusual helmets marked them as snipers to American soldiers. Word was passed down to stop shooting paratroopers who surrendered to them, but they were not told to stop shooting snipers they caught red-handed. General Omar Bradley himself said that he didn’t mind if snipers were treated a bit more roughly than other prisoners were.
So while the Dragonuv is often called a Sniper Rifle, it really wasn’t designed to be one and Soviet units equipped with them did not employ them as such either. In the 1970s a Soviet rifleman equipped with the Dragunov would often find himself firing tracer and armor-piercing ammunition rather than the more precise 7N1 round. If you still doubt me, consider that the Dragonuv was equipped with a fitting for a bayonet and you wouldn’t expect a sniper in a carefully prepared concealed position to break cover to participate in a bayonet charge, would you? In proxy conflicts during the Cold War, it was used by troops in third world countries as a sniper rifle, not by design but by necessity as it was the only thing offered for sale by the Soviets that could come close to fulfilling that role.
The Dragunov was built to extend the range of an infantry squad or platoon on the assault and to serve as a defensive element when static. As a matter of standardization, it used the 7.62x54mmR rounds leftover from World War II but was pretty revolutionary in its design as a purpose build precision rifle. The Dragunov was semi-automatic rather than a bolt action and held 10 rounds with a bolt hold-open feature on the last round to make reloading faster. It was equipped with PSO-1 optical sights with an illuminated reticle with a rangefinder and could be adjusted for windage and elevation. Perhaps most innovative was the IR filter on the sights which could detect early versions of American infrared lanterns used on its own sniper rifles. The barrel at 620mm allows the cartridge propellant to burn properly, thus increasing projectile velocity and accuracy. It was found that the Dragonuv was actually a much better rifle than the standard ammunition it was made to shoot, so the Soviets created a special match-grade version of the 7.62.x54mm round in the 7N1 cartridge in 1967, the Dragunov could be very precise in the hands of a trained shooter who had the right ammunition for it,
The Dragunov could deliver accuracy out to 800 yards, the AK was good out to 330 yards to 350 yards.
Ever since the Warsaw Pact, the Dragunov has seen multiple wars wielded by different nationalities, mostly by former Soviet countries even till today. In fact, over the years, the Dragunov rifle has been subject to numerous upgrades as it is considered lightweight and highly effective in combat. It is also relatively cheap to make and care for in the field. In contrast to Western rifles that have to be kept spotlessly clean to shoot well, the Dragunov seemed made to be abused. The shooter could even select how much gas was used to cycle the piston with a setting for a dirty rifle, using low-powered rounds in very cold weather.
You may have seen the rifle in recent memory when it was fielded by the Afghan National Army and more notoriously by the Taliban. Saddam’s forces and Iraqi insurgents in the early 2000s saw a clone model of the gun named “Al-Qadissiya” heavily based on the Dragunov SVD and the Romanian designed PSL-54C. In fact, Saddam owned a gold-plated version of the cloned Dragunov. From 1955 to 1975, it was used by the Vietnamese People’s Army, and more so used by various nations today, including the Philippines, Russia, Senegal, and even China.
Few changes have been made to the original Dragunov of the 1950s. However, this doesn’t mean that countries have not been trying to improve it. The 2020 Russian upgrade, The SVDM is otherwise known as Snáyperskaya Vintóvka sistém’y Dragunóva Modernizirovannaya, features new muzzles and chrome-fitted barrels. The stock, handguard, and grips are now made with polymer, making it more lightweight than its original counterpart. Lastly, it also features a Picatinny rail and an adjustable rail to improve its sights.
Other weapon variants include the 1990 Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova Skladnaya (SVDS), also known as the sniper rifle version despite the fact that the Dragunov is not a sniper rifle. This version has a folding stock, synthetic pistol grip, and a heavier barrel for more durability. Alongside this version is the SVDSN, or the night vision version for paratroopers.
The Russian SVU rifle is a shortened version of the Dragunov equipped especially for the Special Forces of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Another Russian variant would be the SVDK, which uses 9.3x64mm Brenneke cartridges.
Since 2016, there has been a talk of replacing the Dragunov rifle with the Chukavin SVCh or the SVK. Interestingly, the firearm is also designed by Kalashnikov Concern. How does it pose a threat to the legendary Dragunov? Well, for starters, it has a range of 1,600 yards and uses 7.62×51mm NATO, 7.62×54mmR, and .338 Lapua Magnum making it more versatile than the traditional Dragunov.
With various sight options, and multiple weight reductions, will this mark the end for the Dragunov, the weapon of choice for designated marksmen in the Red Army?