The Truth About Guns

“Why should anyone have to retreat or take an ass-whipping if a criminal attacks them?” – Chuck LaRosa (not pictured above), Protesters rally against ‘stand your ground’ gun bill [at dispatch.com]

Connecticut Carry President Richard Burgess press release:

In a letter dated September 10th, 2013, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) admitted to ‘mistakes’ in sending threatening letters to citizens that were the subject of ex parte restraining orders and unlawfully demanding the surrender of their firearms under the threat of arrest. The letter comes as an apparent response to Attorney Rachel M. Baird’s criminal complaint sent to the FBI against the DESPP for deprivation of civil rights . . .

While the DESPP assures us that these kin

In our photo galleries “Guns of the Capitol Hill Shooting” (click here and here) we saw a whole lotta ARs goin’ on. And HK 416s. But this guy was rockin’ it old school. Name that gun and discuss why it’s still a fine choice for taking out an assault Infiniti and/or its driver (but not the passenger). [h/t Dylan]

I’m not entirely sure that holding a bad guy at gunpoint is a good idea. I’m definitely sure that re-enacting a defensive gun use (DGU) for the media is a bad idea. Anything you say or do is admissible as evidence and there’s no lawyer there to tell you—or the jobbing journo—to cease and desist. But hey, it worked-out for George Zimmerman and it makes for great DGU material here. And there’s one less [humiliated] bad guy on the streets, thanks to Betty Collins. Wait. Did you see the paper that Ms. Collins holds up at :54? Thomas Lee Johnson is back on the streets. I bet Mr. Johnson’s friends and family watch TV. What does that tell you?

By B.R.

Being from a Mid-Western state, I grew up around guns. I was one heck of a crack shot, judging Kentucky windage and “bullet drop” with my single shot BB gun, nailing those empty soft drink cans off the wooden stump in the back yard. I eventually grew up, went to college, and didn’t think much more about shooting those BB guns, rifles, or pistols that I used to when I was a kid. But there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ve been “lucky” in any one of the following situations . . .

• An unfamiliar man sees me getting into my car, opens the door, gets in and says “I’m gonna ride with ya”
• An unfamiliar man walks up to the passenger door of my car and knocks on it asking for money while I was ordering at the drive through at a local fast food restaurant
• An unfamiliar man walks up to me face-to-face at bad-breath-distance at a gas station

Thanks to a lack of baby-sitter coverage I was unable to join TTAG writer Alan Brooks at Asgard Training to secure my Texas Concealed Handgun License. Bummer. It could have been even more of a bummer; Alan couldn’t source the required 100 rounds .45 caliber ammo. Nor could he find 100 rounds of .38 for his GF. Luckily, I had a supply. His near-miss illustrates a sad fact: popular pistol caliber ammo is still is short supply here in The Lone Star State. How’re things in your neck of the woods?

The RI GOP is RIP. If Rhode Island Republicans held a baby-eating contest to raise money, it would barely ding their election chances. That said, the baby-eating thing would be far more acceptable to the New York Times editorial board than the current fundraiser: an AR-15 rifle raffle. “The Republican Party of Rhode Island is attracting well-deserved scorn for its plan to raise money Sunday by raffling an

*California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey or New York restrict or prohibit ownership of “high capacity” ammunition magazines. If you’re a terrorist living in Somalia, no problem. You can own as many ammunition magazines of whatever type you like. As they say, whatever you can get. Like a MagPul EMAG (fits an HK416) and a standard issues magazine for an MP7. And where did the terrorist group Shabab get these examples? From . . .

a more than reasonably successful

“I don’t want to shoot him but if somebody comes here, sure I will shoot him. I’ll shoot him and I will kill him. If I’ve got to shoot my gun, you’re not going to believe it, these bullets will go all over his body. So next time, the people won’t do that to anybody else.” - Van Dyke Liquor Market owner Steve Bahoura quoted in Detroiter Sleeps In Liquor Store With Shotgun To Prevent Robberies [via detroit.cbslocal.com]

“My son, trying to defend his home and himself, he discharged my firearm, striking one of the suspects.” Suspects? Why the cop-speak? Well, because Ken Patmon is a Houston cop himself. His 18-year-old son was home alone Wednesday afternoon. After a knock at the front door went unanswered, two doods decided to let themselves in through the back door. The kid got on the phone with his father, then he got a gun . . .

“‘This is our home, and he’s my son,’ Patmon said. ‘If I’m not there to protect him, we try to teach our children to do what’s right, and I just thank God that he’s OK.’” That’s more than can be said for one of the two home invaders who’s now certifiably dead. The other lit out for parts unknown.

The sheriff’s tre

By ST

Being a prior service college student is a strange experience sometimes. In some respects it’s like being a character on the Twilight Zone: you see things others do not. I had the occasion to visit a university office which shared its building with a four-story dormitory. As I waited in the office, a cable installer visited the twenty-something receptionist. She handed over the log, let the guy sign the binder and gave him a master key without verifying a single piece of ID. Sure he was wearing a company jacket with the company logo, but that didn’t mean squat . . .

A bad guy with planning skills, a credit card and time could gain access to any building on campus they wish with only a cable company blazer and a smile. That’s just one security hole I noticed, but hardly the only one.

This university makes a big deal about key card access and locked doors at their  residence halls. Unfortunately,

TTAG reader BE notes:

Gotta love the hipster checklist:

Less bangable (as if possible) clone of Janeane Garofalo? Check!
Crappy two-chord guitar work? Check!
Weak chorus? Check!
Hipster glasses? Check!
Hipster derby hat? Check!
Beta male hipsters with ironic old-timey beards in the background? Check!
Cheesy symbolism that an eighth grader could whip up? Check!

All we need now is a MacBook and a messenger bag for this video to be even more cliche.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a number of conversations about guns, gun rights, and gun restrictions. Invariably, I’ve found those with whom I was conversing to be misinformed on one or another detail and had formed their opinions based on this bad information. I’m going to kick off a mini series here in which I take some of the more egregious myths that are being propagated and expose them to the light of research and reason.  The first such myth that I’d like to address is the one about how the number of people who own guns in the U.S. is on a decline . . .

One of the first techniques that political operators learn is the divide and conquer method or the “us versus them” approach.  If you can get your prospective audience to identify with the “us”, you can usually get them to look down on the “thems”. One of the foundational principles of the the gun control movement is that the stronger gun laws favored by a sizable majority of Americans are being b

I am constantly amazed at the amount of gun stuff that I don’t know about. You know, when I know about it. After not knowing about it. Who knew that that the caps-lock-and-a-spear-to-boot folks at BLACKHAWK! (who totally stole my redesign of the SERPA holster) had produced a high-cost testosterone fest with plenty of bang-bang and a few FPS-like BANGS! Maximum worrier that I am I’ve put Maximum Warrior in my not-great iOS7 reminder app. Is there anything else gun-related that I should know about? Press release after the jump . . .

NORFOLK, Va. –(Ammoland.com)- “Maximum Warrior 4,” produced by Maxim, and sponsored by BLACKHAWK! for the second consecutive year, is live at 

“A college student from Lebanon has been arrested on weapons charges after local and federal authorities discovered two assault rifles, high capacity ammunition clips and a handgun in his bedroom in this Boston suburb,” eagletribune.com reminds us. ”Authorities said they were tipped to the weapons cache when the student’s father called a gun store to ask how to modify an assault rifle to fire a 30-round clip. They said the father also inquired about purchasing a silencer for the rifle. Detective Charles Dejesus of the Methuen Police Department said the person w

“Federal agents trying to stop the black Infiniti speeding between the White House and the U.S. Capitol fired seven shots at an unarmed driver with a toddler in the car as it rushed away from them, an uncommon tactic that occurred during a highly unusual chase,” washingtonpost.com reports. “A total of at least 17 shots were fired at two locations Thursday afternoon by two law enforcement agencies — the U.S. Capitol Police and the U.S. Secret Service. The final shots, near the Hart Senate Office Building, killed 34-year-old Miriam Carey of Connecticut, who police said had tried to ram t

“Maryland is armed to the teeth. We caused this rush, this stampede really, to purchase guns….It’ll be a generation before the effects of this bill will be felt.” – Maryland Delegate Luiz Simmons, Record gun sales soar higher in Maryland [at baltimoresun.com]

There have been a string of a half dozen robberies in D.C. in the last 10 days where the perpetrators (not shown) threatened their victims with stun guns before relieving them of their belongings. Luckily in the most recent incident, after giving up their bikes, the victims were able to flag down nearby MPD officers, who scooped up the misbehaving miscreants. Whether the two arrestees were responsible for the other recent robberies is still unknown. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and in the land of the (legally) disarmed, the law-abiding are the losers . . .

The Second Amendment as a tourist attraction… Forbes contributor Susannah Breslin (“I cover the business of sin”)

The Omnibus Appropriations Bill of 1997 (actually passed in 1996, back when Congress was in the business of passing budgets) contained the much-despised Lautenberg Amendment. This rider made it a felony for a person to possess firearms if they had ever been convicted of even a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence involving physical force. James Alvin Castleman of Tennessee was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend under Tennessee law and SCOTUS has recently granted certiorari in his appeal. The Nine have agreed to review the Lautenberg Amendment as it applies to certain domestic violence misdemeanors. It’s about f–ing time; let’s just pray they get it right . . .

The Lautenberg Amendment has been roundly criticized as violating the 2nd Amendment and for being an ex post facto law. Hundreds of thousands of people have been convicted of DV misdemeanors, and those convicted before 1996 were never warned that their guilty plea for pouring a beer over their girlfriend’s (or brother’s, uncle’s or college roommate’s) head wou