The Truth About Guns
Exploring the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns
Updated: 1 week 22 hours ago
Self-Defense Tip: Think the Unthinkable
I remember watching United Airlines Flight 75 plow into the second World Trade Tower. I’m sorry if this offends anyone but my first thought was “clever bastards.” I was stunned by the terrorist’s audacity. While there were some people who predicted a deliberate air crash (including recently deceased author Tm Clancy and Morgan Stanley’s head of security), it was still an enormously surprising event. Obviously, there wasn’t anything the victims of this heinous crime could do to forestall their fate. But I’ve never forgotten the fact that . . .
9/11 was perpetrated by murderers with imagination, patience, intelligence and determination.
So when I heard of Kenya’s Westgate attack, I knew it wasn’t a simple a matter of a bunch of madmen d
Thursday Moment of Zen: Slow Motion Machine Guns
In retrospect, I should have gotten some slow-mo video of the MP7A1 as well. But that’s something that can be rectified the next time I visit El Dorado.
CA High School Sophomore’s NRA Shirt “Promotes Gun Violence”
“Sophomore Haley Bullwinkle said when she wore her NRA shirt to Canyon High School last month, she landed in the principal’s office for violating the school’s dress code that forbids offensive, violent or divisive clothing. ‘They were treating me like I was a criminal,’ she said. ‘I was not allowed to wear that at school because it promoted gun violence.’” Today’s tale of government school anti-gun thuggery comes from Anaheim Hills, California via cbslocal.com . . .
Canyon High’s (“preparing our students for the globa
Video: TrackingPoint Predicts the Future of War
Naturally, their vision for the future has their scopes on every single firearm. But how useful would a massive, computerized optic be on a standard carbine, especially when the trend is toward lightweight guns and gear? And what about mounting night vision on those things? How about getting a battery runtime longer than a few hours, preferably approaching Aimpoint’s recommendation of replacing their batteries “every few years?” Many questions and hopefully Oren “Silver Medallion” Schauble will be forthcoming with some answers. Yes that really is TP’s marketing director in that video and yes he doesn’t seem to understand that acceleration and gravity are two different forces. Anyway, there’s no doubt that TrackingPoint has a nifty product. But ready for the military? We’ll have to wait and see.
Quote of the Day: Ivory Tower Edition
“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat. Gun holders can, at any moment, kill the people around them, and college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death. In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is in the holster of a trained police officer.” – The Duke Chronicle’s editorial board in No guns at Duke [at dukechronicle.com]
Daily Digest: Fountain of Brass Edition
Lake Mary, Florida police officer Zach Hudson is running classes to teach teachers how to deal with potential school attack scenarios in ways that don’t involve using guns. He urges them to “tap into that anger” and do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of their students. With the exception of the HSLD interaction at 1:55, it’s all about taking the initiative to give resistance to the bad guy. Since most of these pathetic individuals give up as soon as they hit any real resistance at all, that can’t be anything but good. Click here for the video . . .
Elliot Fineman, president of the National Gun Victims Action Council, on economic pressure: “We would target a couple of these states — Wyoming for example, where both senators voted against the background check law,” Mr. Fineman
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Reid Interrogation Technique
Second Call Defense writes:
West Chester, OH - -(Ammoland.com)- If you’ve ever been involved in a traffic accident with another driver, you know that responding police have one primary task: to assign blame. One way or another, either you or the other driver is going to get nailed for the accident. Shooting investigations are similar. Once police show up, their task is to find someone who is most likely to be guilty of a crime and gather evidence to prove it. This is fine as long as the police investigate someone who has done something wrong. But when you have justifiably used a firearm to defend yourself, and the police suspect you of
New Yorker Offers A Few Stupid Ideas on Gun Control
You gotta love intellectual gun control advocates. They’re so . . . intellectual. Eggheads like New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik [above] would like nothing better than to sit you down and calmly explain gun control—so you can see that he’s right and you’re a brainless inbred racist redneck. I mean, wrong. Here you are, Mr. Gun Owner: A Few Simple Ideas About Gun Control that you, even you, can understand. If you try really really hard. So, idea number one . . .
No one disputes that there are sane reasons for ordinary people to need a rifle. But there is no imaginable, meaningful sense in which Canadians, or Australians, are “less free” when it comes to gun
Men Demand Action for Automobile Control [Almost] Punks Post-Dispatch
TTAG reader Rich Weatherby read a comment about the need for a group to counter Moms Demand Action for Common Sense Gun Control. I mean, Gun Sense in America. Anyway, it inspired him to Onion-up a letter to the editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They posted it, revealing the fact that they “got it” with their headline: ‘If we need gun control, then we need car control, too.’ Which reminds me of the immortal line, I’ll disarm you, my pretty. And your little dog, too! Nice work Rich.
As I was driving home from work today, I
Texas Armoring Re: Range Rover Running Over Bikers in NYC
From texasarmoring.com:
Many of you have probably seen the new shocking Live Leak video of a motorist driving a Range Rover in New York City. In the video, the driver has a frightening confrontation with a large group of motorcyclists who create a road block by surrounding the vehicle, repeatedly try to force open the car doors, and spawn a chase that lasts several minutes. The chase ends as the driver is violently pulled out of his vehicle and is severely beaten in the street in front of his wife and five-month-old child. Although we don’t have all the facts (
CNN Pulling the Trigger On Piers Morgan?
The British people rejoiced when noted criminologist and renowned firearms expert Piers Morgan left their shores for the new world. The good news: we here in the United States may be doing the same thing shortly. Following months of plummeting ratings and negative press, CNN may be about to kill Piers’s prime time talk show in favor of, well, just about anything else in the world, really. The show hasn’t been doing CNN any favors in terms of drawing viewers and the powers that be seem to be coming over to Jeremy Clarkson’s way of thinking . . .
From FTVLive.com:
Sources tell FTVLive that CNN Boss Jeff Zucker is “actively looking for a replacement for Piers
Shooting the 2013 FNH USA 3-Gun Championship, Part 1
For the average 3-gun competitor, things run pretty seamlessly at matches. You show up, you run through the stages with the help of the range officers and then, at some point, you see the final scores and go home loaded with prizes. But for those working the event, if you want to shoot in the match you need to do it during the “staff shoot” during the days preceding the competition. And while it’s the same basic outline, it’s a whole different beast . . .
The staff match is kinda like the beta test of the competition. The match staff is supposed to find any faults or flaws with the stage design and hammer out the final details before the competitors show up. As a result, the stages have a tendency to be a bit flawed.
It’s a massive pain in the ass for the staff since any major design changes that come out of it will trigger a re-shoot, and as we know re-shoots are a fickle mistress. But it’s a necessary evil and I’m fairly proud to say that thanks
BREAKING: Tom Clancy [Not Shown] Dead at 66
“Spy thriller writer Tom Clancy, whose best-selling books became blockbuster films, has died, his publisher said Wednesday. He was 66.” CNN and the other news orgs are highlighting Clancy’s firearm-free thriller The Hunt for Red October. Most his 28 novels were far more gun-intensive—to say the least. [Click here for imfdb.org's database of films and video games based on Clancy's books.] The best-selling author’s
Question of the Day: What’s The Worst Gun You’ve Ever Owned?
I like the TTAG two-star Kel-Tec PF9. It’s a sweet shooting little pistol. Except when it isn’t. And? And then you fix it or dump it. I reckon there’s a big problem in play here: a lot of people buy carry guns and then never shoot them. So if they’ve got a bad one—a firearm that doesn’t feed properly or doesn’t like certain ammo (cough Kimber SOLO cough)—they don’t know it’s unreliable. They rely on someone else’s opinion of whether or not a handgun is reliable. Which is unreliable. Of course, some guns are justifiably known for their reliability. Even then, a sensible armed self-defender should run a couple of hundred rounds (including at least 50 self-defense rounds) through the gun before holstering it. So . . . what’s the worst POS firearm you’ve ever owned?
Why the Beretta M9 Gets No Respect
By ST
You poor non-military gun owners must be frightfully confused regarding the Beretta M9/92FS handgun. On the one hand law enforcement and many civil gun owners all but love their examples. On the other, it’s the rare vet who echoes those sentiments, as many military members seen to all but run from the M9 and anything associated with Beretta. Stories of malfunctions, accidentally engaging safeties and weak stopping power associated with 9mm FMJ NATO seem to paint a less than flattering picture. Who’s right? Ironically enough, both parties . . .
I write this as just another prior service gun owner who just happened to be in a position to learn a thing or two about the maligned M9. Back when I was active duty I acquired my CCW permit as a bachelor enlisted member. That meant I legally had to store my carry pistol at the Air Force Base MP armory. So,when I left post and returned, I ha
Eat Cheese or Die State (WI) Reaches 200k Concealed Carry Permits
“[Wisconsin] Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Tuesday that permit number 200,000 was printed Monday at the Department of Justice’s secure processing center in downtown Madison,” jsonline.com reports. “Wisconsin became the 49th state to license people to carry concealed weapons in 2011 with the passage of Act 35. The law took effect Nov. 1 that year and Van Hollen announced extra staffing to handle the expected rush of applicants. Van Hollen said the DOJ continues to receive 500 to 1,000 applications a week. ‘The dedicated staff is able to process the majority of these applications in less than a week’” he said in a news release. As TTAG commentator CJD observes, “If Wisconsin has 4,000,000 adults,
Quote of the Day: Getting In Under the Wire
“It’s unfortunate. I think people have been scared into feeling they have to buy guns now, and having another 100,000 guns in Maryland is not necessarily a good thing. But ultimately the law will make people safer.” – Maryland Senator Brian Frosh in In Maryland, gun buyers busy before new law kicks in [at washingtonpost.com]
Daily Digest: Lethalized Ladies Panties Edition
Two men got into a scuffle inside a Tigard, OR movie theater recently, during which a nearby woman thought she heard the word “gun.” The woman, who has PTSD, shouted “gun,” starting a panic inside the theater and causing theatergoers to flee, and instigating a lockdown of businesses in the mall. Police responded, and say there was never a weapon. Tigard Police Department spokesman Jim Wolf said “This was a good dry run for a real theater shooting.” [h/t: Tom in Oregon] . . .
David B. asks: “Is the NICS system shut down for the shut down? It’s a federal agency, but doesn’t it fall under police jurisdiction and is technically funded?” The NSSF answered this yesterday in their weekly Bullet Points email: “In the event of a government shutdown on Tuesday, the FBI’s NICS Section would remain fully operational and maintain normal business