The Truth About Guns

Few names have the privilege of being mentioned at the pinnacle of exhibition and quick draw shooting. “Little Sure Shot” Annie Oakley is sure to be on the list, along with Bob Munden, Ed McGivern, the Fabulous Topperweins, D.A. “Jelly” Bryce, Herb Parsons, Dr. W.F. Carver, Howard Darby, Arvo Ojala, A.H. Bogardus, and more modern shooters such as Jerry Miculek and even YouTube sensation Kirsten Joy Weiss. However today’s article will be on a shooter whose infectious positive attitude, unmatched ambassadorship, and uncanny marksmanship made him a favorite of many a sportsman and collector: Mr. Tom Knapp . . .

You do NOT want to hide guns around the house. Even if you don’t have children, unauthorized persons can find them (e.g., cleaners, friends’ kids). If cops searching your house (for some reason or another) find an “unsecured firearm” they can make your life miserable. I’m also not a fan of this magnet-activated Tactical Walls solution for reasons that readers will delineate below. [Make sure you watch the "out-take" at the end.] Suffice it to say, home carry people. Home carry.

You remember Dick Metcalf, right? How could you forget? Dick was the Guns & Ammo editor who’s now a former editor as a result of the stance he took on Second Amendment infringement in his now infamous December column (below). And no, we didn’t get Dick fired. G&A cut bait when some (OK, a lot of) advertisers threatened to pull out. Anyway, Dick’s also a founder and president of PASA, one of the great shooting venues in the country. It seems that in the wake of the controversy, some of his fellow members feel the same way those G&A advertisers did. In response, Dick sent the following letter to PASA’s membership. Thanks to one of them for passing it along to us . . .

This is going to be a long letter.

The week before Christmas the PASA club office received t

“If I walk into a gun store with an Obama T-shirt – which I wouldn’t wear, because he’s too conservative – I don’t fit.” – Liberal Gun Club board member Eric Wooten, Liberals find comfort level in ‘NPR of gun clubs’ [at sfgate.com]

You may remember that James Grant’s video entry won K-VAR’s monthly contest for the best customer promo of their commie guns. Yeah, well his better half didn’t take that sitting down. She produced her own short and it’s apparently taken the title for November. Enjoy.

As some of you may remember, TrackingPoint went on a bit of a firing spree about a month back and kicked the CEO (Jason Schauble) out the door along with the CFO and 30 other employees. TrackingPoint wasn’t Jason’s first gun company — he had worked at Remington Defense previously, which explains how the Remington 20/20 project came about. Now it looks like Jason is making the jump into silencer manufacturing, as he has taken a slot on the board for Silencerco.

Press release from Silencerco:

http://youtu.be/PxhmpNfg-M4

Between The Blaze, ARFCOM and various gun enthusiast and gun rights forums Connecticut gun owners have been beaten down by their own for “not doing enough” and “falling down to the man for registering” (not knowing, our guns are de facto registered with a DPS-3 or DPS-3-C at purchase and this new registration is simply a registration of a registration). There’s been no shortage of criticism towards CT gun owners by their own kind. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL) has been actively getting people involved. With all the media coverage going on you’d think that ALL gun owners would know what is going on. Well you would be wrong. [See video above.] To those who say Constitution State gun owners aren’t fighting a few points to consider . . .

1.  Connecticut gun owners are pounding the pavement and getting the word out. They are organized and fully committed to replacing anti-gun politicians.

2. For everyone who believes it is so easy, you should try it sometime

3. Not everyone is as informed as you believe they are. Even with TTAG with

Since I started writing for TTAG I’ve been traveling more and more each year covering gun-related goings-on in the world, and as a result I’ve needed to figure out how to best carry the gear I need to get the job done. For the last year I’ve been using Optics Planet’s OPMOD PAC, and while it worked great for a while, it just didn’t have the capacity I needed to carry all of my day-to-day gear. Then I saw 5.11′s Rush Delivery Messenger Bag, and it looked like a home run in terms of organizing and carrying all of the things I need . . .

On the outside, the bag has all the trappings of the modern military chic look. There’s enough Velcro straps to slather on all

Henry Clay Aalders made this observation, re: Connecticut gun owners lining-up to register their “assault rifles” and “high capacity magazines” ahead of the deadline. Harsh. But fair? Would YOU register your rifle and mag if you lived in the Con

“The gunmaker Mossberg has teamed with Duck Commander, the company owned by ‘Duck Dynasty’s’ Robertson clan, to release nine different shotguns, as well as two semiautomatic rifles and a semiautomatic pistol,” cnn.com reports. “Mossberg has begun shipping some of the shotguns to distributors, according to spokeswoman Linda Powell. She declined to name specific retailers that will carry them.” So what makes these guns different than all the others? Mossie’s Duck Commander guns will all be paint

By Brian P.

There is a natural progression to black rifle disease. It starts, naturally enough, with the rifle, and ends – if it ever really ends at all – with many more rifles and accessories than the infected individual thought (s)he needed. When a new shooter obtains their first AR, if they’re unfamiliar with the malady, they may begin to accumulate accessories of dubious quality. As a shooting community, the most important thing we can do is to push new AR owners towards quality options and upgrades. It’s only too easy to yell at the new guy on the forums, telling him to go buy an Aimpoint or Trijicon. After all, what’s a little more credit card debt? You don’t want to run junk accessories do you? . . .

The problem with that approach is not everyone is at the same level in their shooting career. To cultivate passion in a sport, one must first enjoy it. I want to find and recommend products that let new

Now that 2013 is officially in the rear view mirror, we can take a moment to reflect on the turd sandwich that was last year. It started off on an awful foot, the ripples from Newtown lasting the entire year. It derailed not only the civil rights advocacy that has been going strong for years, but also a major part of a president’s agenda and caused no small amount of sturm und drang in congress. Throughout it all we were there, reporting from the trenches (seen here in the SHOT Show press room in 2013) bringing you the latest firearms news. Here are some of the most read articles of the year, broken out into three categories . . .

General Gun Related Stuff

1. Oops: Red Jacket Firearms Loses Their FFL

“[Jeanne] Doucette said the assault occurred after she and [Marc] Adams, both 39, had met for a drink at Miller’s after Adams finished his shift as chef for a downtown food cart,” c-ville.com reports. “Adams tripped and fell in front of Derriere de Soie lingerie store. As he was getting up, a man approached quickly, said something that Doucette couldn’t make out, and kicked Adams while he was on the ground, before being joined by his friends who beat Adams severely, breaking his ankle, cracking ribs and knocking out one of his teeth.” The assailants also pummeled Doucette, who “suffered bruising to her head and tea

Press release:

MAGPUL INDUSTRIES ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR RELOCATION

Company Is Moving Operations to Wyoming and Texas

Magpul Industries announced today that it is relocating its operations to Wyoming and Texas.

The company is relocating manufacturing, distribution and shipping operations to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Magpul is leasing a 58,000 square foot manufacturing and distribution facility during the construction of a 100,000 square foot build-to-suit facility in the Cheyenne Business Parkway. The Wyoming relocation is being completed with support from Governor Matt Mead, the Wyoming Business Council and Cheyenne LEADS. Magpul is moving its corporate headquarters to Texas. Three North Central Texas sites are under final consideration, and the transition to the Texas headquarters will begin as soon as the facility is selected. The Texas relocation is being accomplished with support from Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Economic Development Corporation . . .

“Magpul made the decision to relocate in March 2013 and has proceeded on an aggressive but deliberate path” says Doug Smith, Chief Operating Officer for Magpul Industries. “These dual moves will be carried out in a manner that ensures our operations and supply chain

We recently reported that the NY SAFE Act’s provision banning the loading of more than 7 rounds of ammunition in a magazine had been found unconstitutionally vague by the state’s Supreme Court, something we all knew but took many months of wrangling to get the anti-gun politicians in New York to understand. However, it now appears that at least one district attorney (Onondaga County, to be specific) thinks that just because the law is unconstitutional doesn’t mean that he won’t enforce it.

From localsyr.com:

Less than a year after New York passed historic legislation regulating guns in the state, a Federal judge has made a ruling saying the controversial laws are constitutional.

The judge in Buf

I love me some tactical shotguns. They’re as close to a one-stop shot as you can get in a firearm. They’re perfect for making solid objects disappear in an explosion of bits. Don’t try that at home. Or in a police patrol car. OK, Austin, Texas police officers Shelly Holmstrom and Vincent Giles didn’t try to blow the bejesus out of their squad cars with their department-issued scatterguns, but by God they managed it. The video above features a rather confused performance in terms of preparing a shotgun for police duty. To be clear, a “cruiser ready” shotgun has a full magazine, an empty chamber and the safety on. “Call ready” means a full mag, chamber loaded, safety on. And “Shoot Ready” means a full magazine magazine with the chamber loaded and safety off. As always, a finger never goes on the trigger until it’s time to shoot. All that said, a one-day suspension for the officers and some TTAG IGOTD hardware o

Mother Jones, Gawker and other sensationalist news sites are preparing to release articles beginning next Monday detailing the “assault weapons trafficking” that goes on through reddit.com. We know it’s coming — we’ve seen the emails, we’ve talked to the contacts that they’ve tried to meet with and we’ve seen the discussions — and this is being spearheaded by a gun control advocacy section of Reddit called /r/gunsarecool that dances with joy every time there’s a mass murder. Truth be told, Reddit’s gun sales sections are no different than any other website that lists firearms for sale on the net, but because Reddit is one of the most popular websites, the suggestion that a beloved site could be the source of &#

“In Operation Fast and Furious, the Mexican drug cartels found an easy way to supplement their own illegal ways. Worse yet, the Obama administration has yet to publicly hold anyone accountable for this disastrous policy. Unfortunately, guns from Fast and Furious will be found in operations like this for years to come.” – Senator Charles Grassley, Fast and Furious guns turn up at Mexican resort shootout [at cnn.com]

[h/t Dirk Diggler]

Cull of the Wild. Geddit? The New York Times headline is a riff on Jack London’s classic shaggy dog story Call of the Wild. In London’s book, Buck goes from domesticated doggie to back woods brawler. In the article about East Hampton’s deer infestation, the editorial board contrasts “privet hedges, gentle dunes and white-seashell paths . . . a vision of a natural world tamed and tailored t