The Truth About Guns

As a volunteer lunch lady at my daughter’s elementary school, I’ve had a good look at the security arrangements. Simply put, I’m not comfortable with the level of active shooter prevention. I’m taking a softly softly approach, waiting until I’ve established credibility with the principal before raising the subject. Meanwhile, my daughter and I have discussed her options during an active shooter scenario and let’s just say Sandy Hook proved that “shelter in place” has its limits. For our reproductive or adoptive readers, what’s the active shooter security situation at your sprog’s school? Have you discussed prevention or response with the school, other parents and/or your kids? How did you broach the subject?

Yeah, you know it’s coming. The “A” word. “Police say a student drove to his Franklin County school with an arsenal of weapons, but he is not facing any criminal charges,” wcax.com reports. “The 17-year-old had guns, knives and ammunition in his car, but police say they have no proof that he had any intentions to cause harm. The weapons were discovered when the Northwest Technical Center student brought his car in to be worked on by other students there. Police sa

Tiger McKee of tacticalwire.com writes:

For the first AR I built, back in the mid 80′s, I used a mil-type barrel wrench, torque wrench, and some old punches and hammer. This can be done, but to get it “right” – assembling a reliable, accurate, and long lasting rifle – requires knowledge and specific tools. There are books on building AR’s, or videos for the visually oriented; Brownells carries good ones. Having the p

Comedian Ricky Gervais demonstrates just how popular the pompous CNN demagogue still is with most of his former countrymen. Assuming Ricky’s cockatiel cage is already well covered and depending on the funnyman’s diet and fiber intake, those 337 pages of daft dreck should keep him from having to make a TP run for quite some time. If you’re the unfortunate one in the office who snags one of these works of fiction from your secret Santa this year, what will you do with it?

There are guns, and then there are grenade launchers. Technically the same concepts apply, but one is exponentially more awesome than the other. So when Kevin pulled a pair of M79 grenade launchers and a case of practice grenades from his stockpile and declared that we were going to have a grenade lobbing contest, I knew the day was going to be epic. . .

In the beginning, there was the rifle grenade. The idea was simple: take a grenade, strap it to the end of a rifle, and then fire a blank. The force of the gasses from the blank round would send the grenade flying, much further than any soldier could lob it. It was the poor man’s mortar, but it had issues. It took time to swap from a live round to a blank, still more time to place the grenade on the gun, and even then it was notoriously inaccurate. And God forbid you forgot to change from a live round to a blank cartridge, your day would get pretty shitty in a hurry. The armed forces used this pro

We’ve reported on the Remington 2020 line before. Apparently, Remington decided to post the website weeks in advance on the down low, planning to write the press release later — which they have now done [see: below]. We reported on it when that happened, and we were even the first on the net to have a confirmed price point for the guns. But that still doesn’t answer the big question. Aesthetics aside—and I mean WAY aside—the question becomes why? Why spend five-and-a-half grand for this collaboration bet

Apparently not [make the jump for a shot of the whole bike sans shotguns]:

WEAPONS SYSTEMS: 

PLEASE NOTE: Although the flamethrowers and cannons are in a fully authentic & operable state as pictured, the cannon trigger breach blocks and flamethrower pressure release valves are NOT INCLUDED as part of this sale listing. Without

“In all the years since the shooting, I have never come face-to-face with Franklin. I would love an hour in a room with him and a pair of wire-cutters and pliers, so I could inflict the same damage on him that he inflicted on me. But, I do not want to kill him, nor do I want to see him die.” – Larry Flynt, Don’t Execute the Man Who Paralyzed Me [at hollywoodreporter.com]

Ithaca Gun Company, currently located in Ohio, has announced they will be expanding to a new facility in Horry County, SC (near Myrtle Beach) in the next few months. The new factory will create 120 new jobs, and will nearly double Ithaca’s production capacity. The Cool Springs Business Park that they’re building in will also shortly be home to PTR Industries, when they’re done remodeling their new home, and Stag Arms is currently deciding whether to relocate from their current home in Connecticut to either Horry County or Houston, TX. . .

A New Hampshire gas station clerk has been fired from his job of 10 years

“Chicago police officers are trained to use firearms to save lives and defend law-abiding citizens,” Chicago Fraternal Order of Police Prez Mike Shield told chicago.cbs.local. “It is an insult that a state certified law-enforcement officer cannot carry his duty weapon at an NFL event.” Does that mean that the existing ban against concealed carry for the general public now in effect at all NFL games throughout the country is not an insult against law-abiding citizens who want to defend themselves? The news org also quotes “two veteran Chicago police officers” who disagree with the policy. “If you don’t have someone that could respond to a deadly-force incident tha

We’ve been given access to some radical self-defense ammo specifically engineered for shotguns. Well, a shotgun. The Remington 870. According to our man Potterfield, it’s “top of the class” for stopping power. Then again, he said the exact same thing about the Marlin .30-30. Anyway, I could go out and buy an 870 but I already own three tactical scatterguns. Equally, I just blew the budget on $600 worth of police gear for an upcoming series. So if there’s anyone in the Austin area who has a Remmy 870 with which we can play, please send an email to guntruth@me.com with REMINGTON 870 in the subject bar. Oh, and if you have a high speed camera, a watermelon and a dead pig, that would be excellent too.

New information suggests that Mayor Bloomberg and his personally-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns national gun control organization have teamed up with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and are indeed the people behind the new proposal in Illinois to slap anyone with a gun with a 3-year mandatory minimum prison sentence. Under this new proposal, people like Scotty Pippen and State Senator Donnie Trotter, both caught in recent years carrying firearms for personal defense, would be sent to the Illinois Department

Your humble correspondent was there on the fateful night when the Exeter Town Council shirked its responsibility to issue concealed carry permits to residents and punted the job to the RI Attorney General. This they did in front of dozens of townies and an equal amount of concerned NRA members. All of whom were pissed off because RI cities and towns are “shall issue” for the CCW permitting process, whereas the Attorney General’s office operates on a “may issue” basis—despite the RI Constitution’s crystal clarity on gun rights (“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”) The council’s excuse: they didn’t have the resources for the job. In other words, they wanted residents to jump through lots of hoops for their permit and didn’t want to be responsible for the hoopla. The

I’m not allowed to tool up in my workplace thanks to the big, bold 30.06 sign on the front door. A policy that I’ve questioned multiple times with my site leader to no avail. Subsequently, when I leave the building for lunch, I generally stop by my truck to grab my XD(m). If a coworker is driving, this makes for a conversation starter. One of my coworkers has repeatedly chided me for carrying. He’s also 6′ 6″ and a former collegiate athlete. I tried the usual approaches to change his mind, and while he was accepting of my decision to carry, he still felt it was unnecessary. Felt it was unnecessary . . .

This afternoon he relayed a story to me about a urban outdoorsmen [ED: homeless guy] physically threatening him as he got in his car at Starbucks yesterday. He managed

DoubleTap Defense pocket pistol didn’t get a lot of love in our latest grab-off competition with the Kahr PM9. It might have something to do with the masochistic pleasures of firing the .45 derringer. As Jeremy S. pointed out in his three-star review of the DoubleTap, shooting the entry-level .45 caliber version is a bit like shaking hands with a sea anemone. Diehard DoubleTap fans can solve the problem in two ways: buy the ported .45 or the the 9mm version (ported or non-ported). But what if you’ve already bought the non-ported .45

Brandy Vega wasn’t exactly thrilled with the Armed Intelligentsia’s response to her last video on off-body carry. So, in the great tradition of Margaret Thatcher, Ms. Vega is back, handbagging her on-body armed antagonists. Sure, Brandy repeats a lot of the points from the first video, but she also took the opportunity to re-enact her purse draw (after I pointed out that it was a bit, uh, hesitant). As Lola is wont to say, BA-BAM! As for me, nope. I reckon the downside of losing control of your firearm with off-body carry is greater than the downside of a slower draw. Once again, your thoughts?

Yes, Brandy’s video is :15 stem to stern. But the challenge remains: tell us why you carry a gun in a comment below using ten words or less. If you’re feeling slightly more ambitious, upload a ten second or less clip to YouTube and send the link to guntruth@me with the words “WHY I CARRY A GUN” (all caps) in the subject bar. We’ll post the good ones on our Facebook page. Meanwhile, Brandy’s in the studio today. I asked her to counter the antis’ argument that owning a gun puts you at more risk than not owning one.

There are people in the world who have an encyclopedic knowledge of firearms, ammunition and all things that go bang. They can tell you, down to the exact hour, when Maxim first figured out the mechanism behind his famous machine gun. As for me, I’m not quite that good — I still need to rely on Wikipedia from time to time. And even then, there are some obscure guns that even I can’t remember, much less know how they work and can’t find any schematics for. For those in need of a refresher, the Firearms Guide comes to the rescue — now available on DVD for PC and Mac . . .