The Truth About Guns

On my weekly trip to the gun shop, I happened to peruse the shelves and noticed a few boxes of American Eagle Suppressor ammo in .45. Intrigued, I picked the box up and noticed that it was proudly advertised as “subsonic” and “made for suppressor use.” I turned to the OFWG behind the sales counter with the box in my hand and said, “But isn’t all .45 ACP subsonic?” He said, yes it is. “Okay then,” I said, “so what the heck is this stuff?”  ”Well, that’s even better and quieter than regular .45 ACP.” Mmmmkay. Now, I may have been born at night . . .

But it wasn’t last night. This smelled like a shameless attempt to cash in on the suppressor craze to me, particularly as this ammo had a price tag of $35 for 50 rounds. That’s at least 50% more than regular FMJ .45 ACP was currently going for and nearly twice what I paid for .45 ACP not that long ago.

Since I happen to own a .45 sile

I got my hands on a new GLOCK 42, and two questions came immediately to mind. 1) How much bigger is it than my existing pocket pistol (Taurus TCP), and 2) How does the terminal performance of this gun compare to the little pocket pistol? It turns out that yes, the G42 is a little bigger than the micro-pistol. It’s in the ballpark of being the same thickness and the same basic height, but the 42 is definitely longer front-to-back than the TCP.  The good news is . . .

That extra length is all due to the longer barrel. The Taurus (and its kin, the LCP and DB380 and other pocket micro-380′s) have barrels of about 2.8″ in length, and the GLOCK 42 adds nearly half an inch more barrel to the formula. What would that extra half inch of barrel do to the ammo’s performance?

In order to find out, I decided to run a series of tests. The ammo I chose was the winner of my

“‘It’s the reality of the world we live in,’ Portsmouth Police Chief Bill Raisin told WSAZ. ’Don’t forget there is such a thing as domestic terrorism. This helps us all be prepared.’” Only the domestic terrorism Chief Raisin has in mind isn’t of the typical Nidal Hassan or Tsarnaev brother variety. Accoring to medatracker.org, the Ohio National Guard is training for a much more insidious foe: “Second Amendment supporters with ‘anti-government’ opinions…as domestic terrorists” . . .

Not that this should really surprise anyone. It’s of a pi

Do I really have to justify the selection of Filer, Idaho Police Officer Tarik Hassani as our Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day? Suffice it to say, Office Hussani has no business carrying a firearm, either as a cop-civilian or a civilian-civilian. Let this be a lesson to anyone who believes that it’s OK for law enforcement officer to carry firearms denied non-LEOs because the civil servants are “better trained” than armed taxpayers. [h/t AH]

Starting on 5 February, 2014, the Scott County, Iowa Sheriff’s Department has instituted an innovative and convenient way for Iowa residents to obtain their concealed carry or pistol purchase permits. Under Iowa law, a person must have a permit to carry a firearm, either openly or concealed.  They are also required to obtain a permit to purchase a handgun, either from a dealer or privately. While these requirements are a little unusual (most states don’t require a permit to carry firearms openly, and only a few require a permit to purchase one) the online process seems much more convenient than most, and, compared to most concealed carry permits, is reasonably priced . . .

An Iowa permit to carry costs $54 and is good for five years. It also doubles as a permit to purchase pistols during that same five year period. In addition, the carry permit is

The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran an article last week entitled Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex? Spoiler alert! Yes. Yes it does. Or not. You don’t have to have Nick Leghorn’s analytical skillz to realize that Lori Gottleib’s conclusion is based on extremely dodgy analysis of incomplete data – not to mention anecdotes that challenge a Cosmo mag “exposé” for their lack of authenticity. All you have to do is read this bit: “Correlations don’t establish causation, and especially when it comes to sex, there’s always a risk of reporting bias and selective sampling, not to mention the mood of a subject at the time of the survey.” So pseudo-scientific politically correct titillating B.S. then. Still, what if

The G42 for this review was provided by The Kentucky Gun Company.

With their oh-so-sly teaser ad campaign and the fact that it seemed like GLOCK hadn’t introduced a new gun since late in the first Clinton administration, the company did a marvelous job of whipping up loads of interest and anticipation in their new gun. Firearms folk had been hankering for a slim, single-stack, Tenifer-coated, easily-concealable nine since, well, late in the first Clinton administration. But Smyrna and their Teutonic overlords had other plans. In their judgement, what America really needed was a slim, single-stack, Tenifer-coated, easily-concealable .380. So when word broke that Gaston’s new gun was chambe

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I grew up in a liberal household in a liberal community. My parents were friends with Dr. Potter, a left-leaning physician gunned down by a drug addict in the parking lot of Providence’s Miriam Hospital. His widow formed Handgun Alert, which eventually evolved into The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Which my parents supported. Why wouldn’t they? Save my father’s brief foray into duck hunting and his failed attempt to exorcise Holocaust flashbacks by owning a shotgun, we were an anti-gun household. This much regular readers know. Now I’d like to reveal that I, pe

We’ve been waiting a loooong time for 5.56 ammo prices to fall back down to pre-Newtown levels, but it looks like we’re finally getting close. Case in point: steel-cased 5.56 plinking ammo can now be found at less than $300 per thousand before shipping. AIM Surplus currently has scads of steel-cased Wolf on hand for $.29 a round plus shipping. This isn’t the pre-Newtown cost of $.22 per round, but it will get you back practicing run-and-gun drills without breaking the bank . . .

I’ve shot mountains of Wolf and Tula over the years; it’s not terribly accurate but it’s totally reliable. I can’t recommend it for target or varmint shooting, but for quick offhand shooting out to 100 yards only a pro like Larry Vickers or Jerry Miculek will notice the diminished accuracy.

The be

“The idea that this is about felons is a joke. If this is not a gun registration bill, why are we recording the make, model and serial number of every gun?” – Oregon Firearm Federation director Kevin Starrett in Gun control hearing at Oregon Legislature brings out emotion on both sides [at oregonlive.com]

The abomination above, which likely looks familiar to our embattled brethren in California, is a prototype for a new style of AR-15 that is purported to be NY SAFE Act legal. It has a fixed stock and no pistol grip, which makes it 150,000% less lethal than a conventional AR. Although you can’t see the muzzle, you can be assured that it also doesn’t have a deadly flash hider, the mere presence of which would have rendered the rifle immediately and irreversibly lethal to anyone within a 50-foot radius. Just to put a nice cap on the rank stupidity of this entire exercise, I offer the following, which was at the top of the comment

A California homeowner was alerted by her dog barking in the middle of the night. ‘Carla’ didn’t want to give her last name to reporters, but she grabbed her shotgun and noticed a strange man in her backyard, with another stranger waiting by a car. She charged outside, fired off a Biden blast and the two men fled. So what’s the big deal? . . .

Carla’s account to FOX-11 reporters is a little bit different from the version presented in the chuckling TV love-fest in this video.

From FOX-11:

Carla told us her dog woke her up when he started barking. She looked outside and saw a man in her backyard, another waiting by a car.

Carla wasted no time. Wearing her nightgown, she went outside and fired once toward the ground.  Carla says, it was jus