The Truth About Guns

By JAS

A very close friend of mine is an attorney living in Puerto Rico. He loves to shoot and has a multitude of expensive rifles, shotguns and pistols. A little local background first. In Puerto Rico, every single firearm and every ammunition transaction must be registered. Firearms and ammunition can only be purchased by holders of a target shooting license, with or without a concealed carry permit. Hunting licenses are a separate matter. You still must have a target license in order to have a concealed carry permit.  The target license is where all the firearms are registered.  The target license also lists the guns you decide to carry separately . . .

You can only buy ammunition in a caliber or gauge fitting one of your registered guns. Applications for target shooting licenses take anywhere from six months to a year. Concealed carry permits can only be issued by a judge. You have to hire an attorn

Paul M. Barrett of Bloomberg Business Week has posted an interesting screed on Georgia’s (presumptive) new gun law, How to Understand Georgia’s ‘Guns Everywhere’ Law: Four Blunt Points[1]. As is customary, he starts out with a little hyperventilation: “Georgia appears poised to enact a so-called guns-everywhere law, making it easier for firearm permit holders to take their weapons into bars, churches, and even airports.“ OMG! You mean that GA is going to join

You shoulder a mop. Your turn! You know you’re a gun nut when . . . [NOTE: it's OK for The People of the Gun to use the term "gun nut" in the same sense that it's OK for black African Americans to use the "n word" when playing the dozens. Whatever that means.]

Tyler Kee is in the process of reviewing a Ruger 22/45 Lite. And while the gun is fun in and of itself, we realized something incredibly important this past weekend: adding a silencer makes the gun about 100 times more fun to shoot. Even something as relatively big and unwieldy as an AAC Ti-Rant 9mm silencer, designed to be used on centerfire handgun ammunition, works amazingly well and damn near eliminates the sound of the gun firing. To illustrate just how quiet the can makes the gun, we recorded shooting CCI Subsonic loads, Federal Suppressor Ready subsonic loads, and Winchester full velocity ammo. Shhhhhhh!

Ares Armor sells EP Armory 80% lower receivers. Well, they sold them. We reported that Ares Armor was raided by the ATF (even after a restraining order was issued against such action) for selling these lowers, and at the time there wasn’t much information available about the reason why the ATF believes that these lowers actually meet the legal definition of a firearm. Now, thanks to one of our buddies, we’ve gotten our hands on the actual letter from the ATF on the subject and it answers a lot of the questions that we’ve been having. . .

It turns out that the ATF believes the

This is one of those stories that I checked the date on, and no, it’s not an April Fool’s joke. Veronica and Betty’s redheaded boy toy Archie Andrews will die from a gunshot wound in July’s LIFE WITH ARCHIE #36,. The guy whose band topped the charts with Sugar Sugar will meet his Maker via gunfire, ending the “flash forward” series and proving that no, there isn’t life after High School. At least not for Archie, who buys the farm saving a pal from a bad guy. No word on whether or not Mayors Against Illegal Guns will include Mr. Andrews in their roll call of victims of “gun violence.” Archie Comics Publisher/Co-CEO Jon Goldwater’s statement after the jump . . .

“Authorities have a suspect in custody after almost two dozen students were stabbed at a high school outside Pittsburgh Wednesday morning. The number of injured keeps climbing: initial reports said five to six students at Franklin Regional High School were injured, then that grew to 10. Now CBS Pittsburgh reports that 20 students sustained various degrees of injuries in the stabbing. Four were seriously injured.” The attack took place at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. As someone once said, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun (or a knife) is a good guy with a gun. Of course, as we all know, our schools are sterile, gun free zones where, with the occasional exception of a resource officer, guns aren’t allowed. Kinda like our military bases

“I appreciate New Yorkers cherish their guns, but we also cherish our marriages, our children, our houses, our cars, ours dogs, and yet all these things have to be registered and are subject to regulation. And we do that because it’s necessary to protect public health safety and welfare. That’s true of our marriages, and our homes, and our children, it’s true of our guns.” – Chair of the Assembly Health Committee Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) quoted in Lawmakers pushing for further gun restrictions [via legislativegazette.com]

About a year ago, outdoor retailer Gander Mountain launched several stores with a new concept. Instead of their typical wide variety of outdoor equipment and clothing, the half dozen new stores would be 30,000 square feet of nothing but guns, gun accessories and gun-related gear. However, with the falloff in gun sales over the past few months, they are backing off that idea, and remodeling at least some of the firearms supercenters to a new “flex” retail concept, bringing back in camping, fishing, boating and seasonal gear, most recently in the grand-reopening of the store in Grandville, Michigan. This follows a similar relaunch of their store in Toledo, Ohio . . .

and will presumably continue throughout the remainder of the new concept stores. The former guns-only stores will still have a heavier focus on guns than a standard Gander Mountain, but clearly there does not yet seem to be a need for the gun

We’ve already posted on the confrontation between Utah cattle rancher (and melon grower) Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Yesterday, Mr. Bundy declared a range war. So far . . . nothing. But reports coming out of the area – including intel from former TTAG contributor and talk show host Bryan Hyde – speak of a huge BLM presence outside the Bundy Ranch. The BLM’s deployed at least 100 agents to round-up Mr Bundy’s cattle from federal lands and ship them off to auction. The feds have called in sharpshooters (not snipers) to aid in their rustling court-sanctioned financial recovery operation. I’m sorry, but that’s insane on all sorts of levels. There are more than a

Following the shooting at Ft. Hood a couple days ago, the Texas Senate Committee on Agricultural Affairs and Homeland Security decided to hold a hearing — even though they were out of session for the year — on the topic of open carry. The usual characters showed up, from anti-gun Austin residents and Moms Demand Action radicals to people like CJ Grisham, whose testimony was sliced out into this YouTube video. The full 8 hour video from the session is available here, but if you listen to any one argument, this would be the one.

The voters of Louisiana approved an amendment to the state constitution strengthening the state’s gun rights back in 2012 with 73 percent of the vote. It also added the requirement that the court use the strongest level of judicial review, strict scrutiny, when reviewing Second Amendment cases. There’s a good discussion of the history behind the Louisiana amendment at the Volokh Conspiracy, by David Kopel. Following enactment of the amendment, courts have upheld bans on the possession of handguns by minors without parental approval and by felons on probation. The case that came up for oral arguments

A TTAG reader forwarded the following:

INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR PRIVATELY OWNED FIREARMS POLICY ABOARD MARINE CORPS INSTALLATIONS

Date Signed: 4/03/2014

MARADMINS Active Number: 176/14

R 031603Z APR 14

UNCLASSIFIED/

MARADMIN 176/14

MSGID/GENADMIN,USMTF,2007/CMC WASHINGTON DC DMCS(UC)/F002//

SUBJ/INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR PRIVATELY OWNED FIREARMS POLICY ABOARD MARINE CORPS INSTALLATIONS// . . .

REF/A/DOC/USD(I) WASHINGTON DC/17APR2012//

REF/B/DOC/CMC WASHINGTON DC PPO PS/05JUN2009//

REF/C/DOC/COMUSFFC AND COMMARFORCOM/31OCT2013//

NARR/REFERENCE

(A) IS DOD MANUAL 5100.76, PHYSICAL SECURITY OF SENSITIVE CONVENTIONAL ARMS, AMMUNITION, AND EXPLOSIVES.  REFERENCE (B) IS MCO 5530.14A, MARINE CO

“The state Senate has passed a bill to allow Tennesseans to openly carry guns without a state-issued permit,” wrcb.com reports. “The chamber voted 25-2 in favor of the bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Mae Beavers of Mt. Juliet. Beavers said the measure would keep the background checks and training requirements in order to carry concealed firearms, but would allow anyone legally allowed to own a gun to carry it openly.” Constitutional carry? Not quite. Concealed carry still requires a permit. Go figure.

Now that it’s officially official that the SIG Brace won’t turn your AR pistol into an SBR no matter how you use it (*wink wink*), PWS has jumped on the good news with a cool freebie announcement: Every MK107 AR pistol will now ship with a SIG SB15 brace at no extra cost . . .

I’ve been playing with the MK107 for several weeks, but testing has been hampered by some really crappy weather and my insane work schedule. Even so, I can report that the SIG brace turns this AR pistol from a top-shelf range novelty into the closest thing to an SBR that you’ll ever own without an NFA tax stamp.

Despite the extremely short length of pull, the SIG brace gives the MK107 the handling of an SBR without the hassle. The Magpul MBUIS aperture sights are all but useless with its 7.75″ barrel, but with a red dot it will shoot as accurately as you can shoot offhand out to 100 yards.

The MK107 isn&#821

“They have my cattle and now they have one of my boys. Range War begins tomorrow.” That’s yesterday’s deeply worrying prediction from one Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who ran afoul of the feds. abcnews.go.com reports that ”Bundy’s beef with federal land management officials dates back to 1993 . . . when Bundy’s allotment for grazing his cattle on public land was modified to include protections for the desert tortoise. Bundy, who told the Associated Press his family has been ranching this part of Nevada since the 1870s, continued to let his cattle graze anyway.” So the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took his cattle. And then, according to mynews3.co

The ATF has released this special advisory:

TEST, EXAMINATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF 7N6 5.45X39 AMMUNITION

On March 5, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) received a  request from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) to conduct a test, examination and classification of Russian-made 7N6 5.45×39 ammunition for purposes of determining whether it is considered  “armor piercing ammunition” as defined by the Gun Control Act (GCA), as amended. Since 1986, the GCA has prohibited the importation of armor piercing ammunition unless it is destined for government use or testing.  The

I understand why someone would want to shoot an iPhone with a 50-caliber rifle. Any product created by any company that calls its sales staff “geniuses” is cruising for a ballistic bruising. But Google Glass? To quote about a thousand movies, “noooooooooooooo!” First, the device is delicate. It’s simply no contest. OK, sure, using a KRISS Vector evens-up the odds somewhat. But no one expects Google Glass to survive much of anything (including the derisive comments sure to be posted below). To me, this video looks like someone shooting an orchid. I like orchids (for strictly Freudian reasons). Second . . .

I reckon wanton destruction of new things people covet – via firearm – sets the wrong tone for The People of the Gun. Yes, I know; I’m contradicting myself, Apple-wise. But just because you can shoot something doesn’t mean you should – any more than just because you can shoot someone doesn&#821

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/life/family/2014/04/07/guns-public-health-issue-even-kids-know/7436459/

Syndicated columnist Tracy Grant [via delewareonline.com] reckons Guns are a public health issue; even kids know that. Her dietribe [sic] starts by tugging on the heartstrings. “Keeping our kids safe becomes a decades-long obsession,” she opines, evoking the long lost spirit of Spandau Ballet. “Car seats and baby monitors; helmets and training wheels; stranger danger discussions, driving lessons and alcohol lectures. And yet what scares parents most is what we can’t possibly protect our children from: the random, inexplicable act of fate. Giving them a kiss on the cheek in the morning and not having them come home that night. Columbine. Sandy Hook. Aurora.” So how can we tell little Johnnie not to make a gun-shaped hand gesture and then stop a civilian disarmament advocate from becoming Surgeon General? How indeed.

Oversight Shooting Technologies in Blackfoot, Idaho — yes, the town boasts more than just the Idaho Potato Museum — is making a new gun sight. More than that, actually; it’s a new kind of sight. The See All Open Sight looks and feels like an advanced optic but it’s really more of a unique lovechild between a red dot-like optic and traditional iron sights. You can’t actually see through it and it doesn’t modify your vision in any way, but it’s much easier to see and to “align” than irons. A little explanation is needed here, so make the jump to learn more about the See All . . .