The Truth About Guns

RF kept me pretty busy scouting for gun gear at the SHOT Show, but I played hooky long enough to scope out at least a few fantastic new knives. Spyderco’s brand-new Domino is at or near the top of that list, but it isn’t the kind of knife we expect to see coming from Golden, Colorado: a frame-lock flipper. It’s no traditional Spidey, but it’s definitely Spinelli-worthy totally bitchin’. And pretty expensive. And almost certainly worth it if you’ve got the budget.

Jump over to The Truth About Knives for the details.

“Mexico has long suffered blistering violence and crime at the hands of its homegrown drug cartels,”

SIG/SAUER had some big product launches this week, and the factory flat dark earth version of the P2022 wasn’t really one of them. The polymer P226-alike gets only a mild makeover this year with a factory FDE treatment and SIGLITE night sights. The 2022 is a much better gun than its lowly place in the SIG/SAUER catalog would suggest . . .

SIG doesn’t show it much love, but it’s actually an outstanding full-size pistol. (Read Nick’s 2012 review here.) We hope this mild makeover shows that SIG plans to keep it around for a while unlike the superseded P250, which (despite SIG’s repeated denials) probably has a remaining shelf like of less than two years.

Shotguns are incredibly versatile firearms, excellent for hunting, self-defense, planting seeds and reducing the number of unwed mothers. We can now add opening a beer to that list. Or not. Yeah, let’s go with not. Putting your hand anywhere near the end of a shotgun as bits of lead exit the barrel at 1100 to 1200 feet per second may not be the stupidest thing you can do, but it’s close. Damn close. Close enough to make Elvis’ infamous ballistic reaction to Robert Goulet’s TV performance seem sensible. And earn our unidentified sud quaffer IGOTD hardware. Let’s hope he doesn’t drink to that. [h/t Tyler Kee]

“Gun owners in Connecticut registered about 50,000 assault rifles before the Jan. 1 deadline, state public safety officials reported Friday as they drew close to completing the task of processing reams of related paperwork,” ctnewsjunkie.com reports. “That rough estimate comes more than two weeks after the deadline to register banned rifles and ammunition magazines — steps required by last year’s gun control legislation passed in response to the Sandy Hook shooting.” Reader CTsheepdog wonders . . .

“How is that there were 50,000 rifles registered versus less than 40,000 LCM’s [large capacity magazines] declared? Second, how do we reconcile 50,000 rifles against an official state analyst group suggesting over 370,000 rifles back in April 2011?

“The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” – Governor Andrew Cuomo, Cuomo: Extreme Conservatives…have no place in the state of New York [at capitol timesunion.com]

Harvey Weinstein appeared on CNN Chat Shows host Piers Morgan’s program this evening to address accusations of hypocrisy. Critics of the Hollywood movie producer – who recently announced his decision to green light a film that would “make the NRA wish they’d never been born” – have pointed out that Weinstein’s previous movies relied heavily on “gun violence” to put bums on seats. While not exactly owning the contradiction, Harvey acknowledged it and swore off gratuitous gun violence in future productions. “The change starts here,” he told Morgan. “I’m not going to make some crazy action movie just to blow up people and exploit people and make some crazy action movie.” Pinkie swear promise?

“An Iraq War veteran who filmed himself loading a shotgun in the nation’s capital was given two years of probation—but has no plans to stop his gun rights activism,” nydailynews.com reports. “Adam Kokesh told Judge Patricia A. Broderick during his sentencing on Friday that he would ‘refrain from civil disobedience.’” This from the man who said (in the aforementioned video) “we will not obey.” And so . . . ”Hours after the hearing, he uploaded a YouTube video [above] and pledged to continue vlogging about gun rights . . . All of the charges against him amounted to more than seven years in prison. But Broderick suspended Kokesh’s one-year jail sentence in favor of two years of probation after noting that the man had followed all her order

January 11th marked the one year anniversary of the passage of the NY SAFE Act, and Second Amendment advocates across New York marked the anniversary with a “Shot Heard ‘Round New York.” Opponents of the SAFE Act gathered at multiple locations around the state and fired a single shot in unison to protest the law and send a message to Albany. WHEC Rochester did a surprisingly evenhanded job of reporting the story, however, I got a decidedly FUDD-ish vibe off the man interviewed that left me with a bad taste. What possible points could he be referring to?

Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Henrico, Virginia, where Glen Allen High School was placed on a two hour lockdown on January 7th and searched room-to-room by SWAT for a student who was r

Here at TTAG, we cover optics exactly to the extent that they enhance or enable your shooting. Redfield’s new $200 ‘Battlefield’ binoculars promise to do exactly that. Especially if you’ve got a spotter . . .

These 10×42 binocs give your spotter an edge in calling your corrections, because they’ve got the same MOA reticule that Redfield ‘Battlezone’ scopes have. Having a reticule on your spotting scope is extremely helpful; I know this because the longest shot I ever took (1140 yards) was spotted in by a former Delta sniper with a reticule spotting scope.

The Redfield Battlefield binoculars have an MSRP of $199, which is pretty good for a full-warranty optic from an American manufacturer.

Have you ever shot a North American Arms mini-revolver? Neither have I, but when I strolled past their booth the other day I saw something I frankly haven’t seen from their designs before: elegance. They call it “The Earl” . . .

Like all NAA mini-revolvers, the Earl is a single-action rimfire with a spur trigger and a hammer notch safety. Unlike most NAAs, the Earl has a sight radius that’s longer than a Bic lighter. It’s available in barrel lengths from 2.5″ to 6″, and it has a lovely wooden grip that you can actually hold with an average-sized hand.

Can you say “snake gun?” It only holds five shots, but with a loaded extra cylinder in your pocket you can do a Josey Wales-style speedload in less than ten seconds. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.

MSRP for this tiny Remingto

When this rifle first came into the public eye, we were less than enthusiastic about the gun. It seemed like a gimmick, and to be honest that’s how it started — they needed a “show stopper” for a military trade show. But instead of just being an interesting engineering product, Gilboa is going into full production right here in the United States to put these on the shelves and in the hands of American shooters.

The ATF defines a “machine gun” as any firearm that fires multiple rounds with the pull of a single

[h/t Closet Gun Nut]

“Despite impassioned pleas from family and friends of former Marcus Hook Mayor James Schiliro, a Delaware County Court judge on Monday sent him to jail,” philly.com reports. “Schiliro was sentenced to 10 to 20 months for an alcohol-fueled episode last February in which he had a police car bring a former neighbor – a 20-year-old [male] to whom he said he was attracted – to his home, made him drink wine, and refused to let him leave for 3 1/2 hours. During the encounter, Schiliro threatened to kill himself and fired a gun into a stack of papers. The man eventually left and later called police.” . . .<

One of the main issues with the AR-15 platform is that the rail on the top of the upper receiver is simply too short for most optics. You can cheat and use a cantilever mount to shoehorn your glass on there, but it sn’t an ideal solution. Now, Coronado Arms is coming out with an extended upper receiver that gives you enough rail to mount your optics firmly and seperately. They’re planning on shipping shortly, and we’ll have one of the first ones off the line to test out.

“In yesterday’s Senate drone hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) got personal, describing a rally held outside her home earlier this year,” theverge.com reports. ‘I went to the window to peek out, and there was a drone right there looking in. Obviously the drone’s pilot was surprised, because the drone wheeled around and crashed,” she told 

Two students are injured after a couple rounds were fired at their school from outside today, that’s the story from CNN. Their condition is not currently known to the press, but they are still being listed as “injured” and not “killed” so that’s good news. The bigger story here is the incessant definition creep were seeing with the media. Any time more than two people are involved, a “murder” becomes a “mass shooting.” If it happens anywhere near a school it’s a “school shooting.” And God forbid someone has more than one firearm, because that gets re-branded as an “arsenal.” It’s a war of words, and it’s escalating. More on this story as it develops.

As everydaynodaysoff.com points out, the gun lover above is about as emo as you can get without listening to My Chemical Romance. But I share the bullet maker’s philosophical approach to firearms. For me, shooting is about mastering that sometimes infinite space between firing and not firing. The moment between the bullet laying in the gun, inert, and the moment the bullet flies out of the gun at superhuman speeds. In terms of self-defense, I’m fascinated by the leap from life before you pull the trigger to life after you pull the trigger. As for firearms themselves, I never get tired of coming to grips with the transformative power of their highly evolved, continually evolving forms. I love guns not as a lover loves a lover. I love guns as a man who savors the inc

Seeing a row full of Schmidt & Bender PM II scopes lined up with typical German military precision almost brought a tear to my eye. Be still my beating heart.  Sigh. Well, its been a busy year for S&B:  nine new scope offerings are being shown at SHOT this year. Included in this release are two new long range “compact” scopes from the PM II series of scopes: the 3 x 20 x 50 PM II Ultra Short and the 5 x 20 x 50 PM II Ultra Short. The smaller of the two, the 5 x 20, is just under 30cm long (11.7 inches)  and weighs only 870 grams (30 ounces) . . .

“The Security Industry Association (SIA) supports the inclusion of a new school safety initiative in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 (H.R. 3547) cleared by Congress on Thursday and poised for enactment by President Barack Obama,” an email blast from the industry lobby group proclaims. “Of the $75 million in the bill, $50 million would go toward pilot projects at schools to test technologies to improve school safety, training for school personnel and other initiatives. Another $25 million would go