Former Gun Writer/Editor Parades as “Gun Expert” for Anti-Gun Group

Transfer over Ryan Busse. David Chipman, shuffle on down. Mike “The Gun Man” Weisser – time to make extra room on the bench. Everytown for Gun Security has their latest poster boy.

Meet Greg Lickenbrock. He’s the newest in a string of “I’m a gun proprietor, however…” shills for gun management. Seems that promoting out your Second Modification rules for billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s cash is extra profitable than truly standing up for what you imagine.

Lickenbrock may not be a family title within the firearm-owning neighborhood. Chances are high, although, many have learn his work. He’s the creator of “Protected Gun Possession for Dummies,” and spent almost 10 years as editor for 2 publishers devoted to weapons, gun possession, looking and an out of doors life-style.

He cashed all of it in to pitch gun management for Everytown. His newest enterprise was as a key witness to induce Colorado’s legislature to ban all semiautomatic firearms that may settle for a removable journal. That’s Senate Invoice 3. That’s proper. He desires to ban each Fashionable Sporting Rifle (MSR), conventional rifles, shotguns and pistols that settle for removable magazines. He pitches it as a minor inconvenience to gun house owners and never a complete ban.

“One of many causes these weapons are so efficient on the battlefield and so devastating in mass shootings is as a result of shooters can reload rapidly,” Lickenbrock testified. “By forcing an attacker to pause to reload, victims could have an opportunity to flee.”

That’s fascinating phrasing as a result of this invoice solely impacts those that obey the legislation. Put one other means, it forces a sufferer making an attempt to defend him or herself to pause to reload and the attacker has an opportunity to homicide.

Dangerous Coverage < Good Security

For a man supposedly devoted to security, that’s a fairly dumb concept. He’d reasonably push a gun management narrative as a substitute of advocating for true gun security. In any case, the most secure method to clear – or render any semiautomatic firearm “protected” – is to drop the journal and empty the chamber. If Lickenbrock and the invoice’s authors get their means, Coloradans would solely be capable of purchase semiauto weapons that need to be cycled by way of the motion earlier than it may very well be made protected. Say goodbye the identical Browning BAR that your grandfather purchased within the Fifties as a result of it has a removable journal. Worse, one of these design wouldn’t permit gun house owners to connect a easy cable-style locking machine, the most typical lock that firearm producers embody within the field when a firearm is shipped from the manufacturing unit.

However Lickenbrock presents himself as a firearm “skilled.” That’s doubtful. He was testifying in regards to the means of clearing a jammed firearm when he dropped this madness.

“However let’s say you have got a worse malfunction, most magazines at the moment have a detachable base plate,” Lickenbrock defined. “You merely take that off and the whole lot within the journal will drop out of the gun and also you’ve cleared the malfunction and it’s a really useful method to clear the gun.”

Really, that’s not true in any respect. What somebody has is a pile of cartridges scattered at their toes and doubtlessly a cartridge nonetheless jammed within the chamber. Lickenbrock isn’t a firearm skilled. He’s no battlefield skilled, both. He’s by no means served a day in uniform. What he’s – is harmful.

To this point, Lickenbrock is getting his means. A Colorado Senate committee superior this ill-conceived Senate Invoice 3 after 9 hours of debate in a 3-2 vote. That invoice would ban the manufacture, distribution, switch, sale or buy of a “specified semiautomatic firearm,” together with all of these firearms beforehand talked about.

Gun Management’s ‘Gun Man’

Lickenbrock wasn’t all the time this fashion. For almost 10 years, he thought essentially the most commonly-owned, commonly-possessed semiautomatic rifle in America – the MSR or AR-15-style rifle – was simply nice for law-abiding residents. In case Lickenbrock hasn’t been paying shut consideration currently, there are over 30.7 million of those rifles in circulation at the moment. That’s extra widespread than there are Ford F-150s on the street at the moment – the most-popular promoting pickup truck in America.

However he challenged that too.

“You’ll hear individuals at the moment declare that there are, let’s say, 30 million semiautomatic rifles in circulation,” Lickenbrock answered when requested if MSRs are commonly-owned and commonly-possessed. “The group that places that out has by no means proven their math on that quantity.”

Ummmm… wait a second. That group is us, the NSSF. We do present our math. It’s easy addition. We present the chart. The numbers are derived from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive’s (ATF) personal manufacturing reviews. Lickenbrock isn’t simply harmful. He’s a liar, too.

Lickenbrock was cool with MSRs earlier than he was paid to imagine they have been “icky.” Along with enhancing firearm magazines that prominently function MSRs – the identical ones he now desires to ban – he weighed in on his choice of firearm in a column titled, “The Final Zombie Apocalypse Gun & Weapon Information.” His selection – you guessed it – is the MSR. That is an excerpt from an Oct. 27, 2017, version of Tactical Life:

Greg Lickenbrock (Manufacturing Editor)

Lewis Machine & Device CSW

I stay in Atlanta—floor zero for “The Strolling Lifeless”—so I’d want one thing to assist me get to the countryside instantly with out getting handcuffed to a rooftop pipe. I’d decide the CSW from Lewis Machine & Device as a result of it’s integrally suppressed and straightforward to maneuver with. I’m assuming I’d have a backpack stuffed with 300 Blackout magazines at this level, however I’d truthfully make sure that I solely needed to shoot if obligatory. My Jeep would do a lot of the work for me. And after I made it to greener pastures, I’d change to a suppressed bolt motion.

For these not acquainted with LMT’s CSW, that stands for Confined House Weapon. It’s an MSR – the AR-15-style rifle that Bloomberg’s Everytown desires to ban. It takes these removable magazines that Lickenbrock had no subject possessing when it got here to his zombie bugout fantasy however doesn’t need Coloradans to own in actual life. It’s additionally integrally suppressed and a short-barrel rifle (SBR), that means it requires a Nationwide Firearms Act (NFA) tax stamp to own.

Full Bore Gun Management

Today, Lickenbrock’s apparently disavowed any concept that law-abiding residents ought to personal these kind of firearms. In actual fact, he’s not only a paid Senior Firearms Analyst for Everytown for Gun Security, he’s additionally an creator on their on-line publication, The Smoking Gun. That’s the place he will get paid to smear gun house owners and the firearm business, attacking .22 caliber MSRs and smearing SHOT Present.

When he’s not doing that, he’s the darling of the left by being a witness in Everytown’s frivolous lawsuits. He testified in Chicago v. Westforth Sports activities, the lawsuit that tried responsible a licensed firearm retailer for criminals illegally straw buying firearms that have been later recovered in Chicago. The town blamed the gun retailer for the actions of the criminals committing the crimes. Lickenbrock was joyful to go together with the charade. For his half, he testified that he believed Westforth Sports activities bought as many as 5 firearms to Illinois residents that had a component fabricated from zinc alloy with a melting level under 800 levels Fahrenheit. Chicago’s frivolous lawsuit was finally dismissed.

Lickenbrock’s utility as a “gun man for gun management” doesn’t finish there. He testified in Vermont in April 2024, to scare state lawmakers into supporting S. 209, a invoice banning privately-made firearms with no serial quantity, or as he’d check with them as “ghost weapons.” By no means thoughts that it’s been authorized to make your individual firearm in your personal use in America since earlier than America grew to become America. And by no means thoughts that the invoice didn’t go after criminals misusing firearms. It solely targets law-abiding gun house owners.

“In different phrases, none of S.209’s provisions are notably burdensome,” he testified. “I say that as a gun proprietor who has gone by way of the background test course of quite a few instances.”

See that half? “As a gun proprietor…” Some name {that a} “helpful fool.” That invoice handed into legislation with out the governor’s signature.

His newest was testifying in Colorado to ban the identical rifles he’s written about, shot and presumably possesses.

Even his e-book selling protected gun storage was panned as doubtful. It’s #288,587 on the Amazon greatest vendor checklist and earns a 2.7-star ranking, with 58 p.c of these solely getting one star. The primary evaluate is telling.

I truthfully thought that I used to be studying satire for the primary quarter-hour or so, that’s how surreal it’s.

Not solely is the creator not an skilled, he’s much less educated concerning firearms that most of the novice shooters that I do know. That is nothing however anti-gun propaganda dressed up as a “information”, and is filled with incorrect data that can get you thrown in jail or killed. Purchase one thing else. 

That’s not the one one. One other began, “In the event you’re searching for a e-book stuffed with outright lies and half-truths about weapons, that is your e-book. It took me longer than I’m proud to confess to understand that it was not satire.” And one other begins, “This man doesn’t have very a lot information on firearms. He’s anti 2A and makes some outrageous claims in opposition to individuals which can be within the 2A house.”

The image paints itself. So does this charade. Lickenbrock added in his testimony that the Colorado invoice’s necessities aren’t a burden, and the modification may very well be achieved by producers utilizing an “epoxy-weld” to completely repair magazines to a receiver. He even mentioned that if police wanted to confirm if a firearm was compliant, it wouldn’t be an inconvenience to the lawful gun proprietor.

“There could also be instances the place they [police] have to fireside the gun to see if it’s semiautomatic,” Lickenbrock testified. “They could have to take it to a spread to tug on that journal however I actually don’t assume it might be that a lot of a burden.”

Besides that having your firearm seized and held and your Constitutional rights disadvantaged is a burden.

Lickenbrock isn’t an skilled on something. He’s gun management’s handy idiot.

—Courtesy of NSSF