The Truth About Guns

We called it. Mother Jones just published their story about gun sales on Reddit, and the entire “scoop” boils down to a couple snarky quotes from TTAG contributor FirearmConcierge and a heaping helping of the same thoroughly debunked anti-gun propaganda that we’ve seen time and time again. Hoary old gems like “40% of sales happen without a background check” (despite that being from 1994 before NICS was even in place). I love that we even correctly identified the quote from FC that they used. As for the meat and potatoes of the article, plan on going hungry . . .

There was no smoking gun of a transaction on Reddit that was illegal. There was no sto

You’ve heard me say it before. If there’s one complaint I have about the otherwise excellent SCAR series rifles, it’s the charging handle. In this day and age, to have a gun with a reciprocating charging handle for purposes other than nostalgia is lazy design work. Thankfully there are industrious companies like GG&G out there who see the opportunity to improve on an existing design and make a little money for themselves in the process. Enter GG&G’s latest creation, the SCAR Non-Reciprocating Charging Mechanism . . .

GG&G’s device (I’m not typing that whole name out every time) is a bolt-on addition to any SCAR series rifle that gives you a non-reciprocating charging handle without any destructive modificat

[h/t DrVino]

A lot of the fun in designing firearms is just making a gun that looks cool. And in places like New York and California, that’s damn near impossible thanks to their ludicrously restrictive laws (which don’t stop crime and don’t save lives). Now, though, Plinker Arms is looking to solve that situation by introducing a 10-round magazine that looks like a 30-rounder. It’s the magazine equivalent of putting a fake silencer on your rifle, but there’s no doubt that it’ll look cool in the process. Presser after the break . . .

CORNELIUS, NC (January 2014) – Plinker Arms, LLC, makers of American-made firearms magazines, accessories and components, answers the call for firearms enthusiasts everywhere with the new Response Magazine; a magazine with the look and performanc

“If we thought the antigun side of the debate were interested in good-faith compromise, we’d be all for it. The dishonesty of their debating tactics, their ghoulish and opportunistic use of horrific crimes like the Newtown massacre to advance their agenda, and the onerous (and likely unconstitutional) regulations that exist in places where they hold political sway–such as New York City, where we live–persuade us otherwise.” – James Taranto, The Extreme ‘Centrist’ [at wsj.com]

“An officer stopped [Tyrone] Watson’s vehicle on Water Street at 1:25 a.m. Sunday, because the officer felt that Watson was tailgating him,” thehour.com reports. “The officer let Watson’s car pass, then pulled him over. While trying to find his license and registration, Watson took out his pistol permit and quickly put it back, according to police. The officer asked if Watson had a weapon on him, and Watson replied that he was carrying a gun, police said. The officer secured the handgun for the duration of the motor vehicle stop and w

The Indian army recovered 40+ weapons and a whole pile of ammunition a few days back in a place most of you have never heard of. It doesn’t really matter. Just look at that artistic layout. Our cops are really behind the times with their “toss it on the table” photo ops. . .

A clerk at a Seattle convenience store was ringing up a customer when two men entered the store wearing masks. One approached the counter and demanded money, pulling a gun. The clerk thought the gun “didn’t look real,” so he told the guy, “I have a

In our first look at the Hera Arms magazines, things didn’t turn out so well. The feed lips went all French revolution on me liberated themselves from the rest of the magazine, leaving me with a useless piece of plastic. Turns out Hera Arms heard the many, many customers reporting similar crappy performance with their magazines and came out with an updated version that they claim actually works. Our source sent us two fresh new magazines, and testing began again.

Good news first: the magazines didn’t explode. They actually functioned in a real firearm, running both 5.56 and 300 AAC Blackout rounds without an issue. I only was able to run about 500 rounds through the magazine thanks to limited supplies at the secret Top Gear test track TTAG testing range (just west of Austin on highwa

New York’s SAFE Act was crafted in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, It was passed in the dead-of-night, 20-minutes after it landed on legislators desks. Governor Cuomo signed the bill that same day, bypassing the usual three-day waiting period by claiming that the Act was an “emergency measure.” The result is an egregious an infringement on Empire Staters’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Amongst its Second Amendment-defiling provisions: a law prohibiting legal gun owners from loading more than seven rounds in their handgun – unless they’re at a state-approved gun range. That particular stipulation was so obviously arbitrary and unjustifiable that the bone-headed federal judge that upheld the rest of the SAFE Act tossed the seven-round limit. On this, Governor Cuomo will not yield – and for good reason . . .

“Nobody needs weapons of war on America’s streets. Nobody needs more than fifteen (ten? eight? seven? six? two?) rounds for self-defense.” Bullsh*t. A California restaurant employee is alive today because he had enough rounds in his gun when two men stormed his Vista eatery with bandanas over their faces and guns in their hands. If he’d only been armed with a revolver or mouse gun, he’d have been outgunned . . .

The employee, who hasn’t been named by police, was holding down the fort at Uncle Tony’s Italian Cuisine on the night of January 3rd. When the two gunmen tried to rob the restaurant, the employee drew his own pistol and opened fire. His combat shooting was better than that of most police officers: he fired eight times and managed to hit each of the gunmen at least once.

Police were dispatched to the scene at about 9:40 p.m., but the gunmen had already fled. The employee gave police a good descriptio

Remington is coming out with their 20/20 line of rifles at the show, which includes an AR-15 or two as well as the usual bolt action rifles. Not to be out-done, TrackingPoint has just announced that they’ll be rolling out three AR-15 rifles in 5.56, 7.62 (x39 presumably, but they didn’t say) and my favorite 300 BLK. The rifles will run about $9,500, which is nearly half the price of an original TrackingPoint rifle. The original plan was to introduce a way to track and shoot at multiple targets when the AR-15 was introduced, but that seems to have been canned as the video only shows one tag and one firing. We’ll see more at SHOT Show, but make the jump for the bumf.

Three new precision guided firearms allow the novice shooter to engage long range targets with semi-automatic rifle speed.

TrackingPoint™, creator of the world’s first  Precision Guided Firearm (PGF) system, today announced the debut of

I’m a relative noob to the world of smallish objective, 1-4X scopes. You’re never going to find me clearing a house in my mall ninja clothes. Despite Foghorn’s best guilt trips, I still haven’t competed in a 2 (or 3) gun competition. But I did sign up for a 7 mile run through the desert next year, and in doing so kicked off a quest for a new kind of scope. Something that could help me engage targets from 25 to 400 yards, but not get in the way doing it. I knew I’d have to slim down. Have I mentioned I’m a cheap bastard too? Enter the Traditions Tactical AR Patrolman 1-4 x 24. And uhhh… I’ll be damned if it isn’t pretty awesome . . .

Seems these days, everyone is jumping on the high speed, low magnification bandwagon. Burris, Nikon, and Leupold all have offerings along with about a dozen other

“My wife goes to Communist New York to watch the plays.” “You guys are going to need a barf bag. This book was written at the height of women’s lib.” “Politicians are lily-livered people who will sell you down the toilet for a vote.” “Blue states (in this map)  are the real United States. The rest are hero-free Communist states.” “These laws were made when criminals had all the rights and you had none.” I agree with everything my Texas Concealed Handgun License instructor had to say about corrupt politicians, scumbag criminals, bone-headed laws and liberty-sucking liberals. But that kind of talk has no place in a course designed to teach the general public how to safely and legally use a handgun for self-defense. Righ

If you’ve recently taken the required class for your Texas CHL as RF and I did on Saturday, you may have heard about the latest health scourge afflicting the nation’s gun owners. No, it’s not the elevated blood pressure, self-inflicted hair loss and accelerated wallet bleed-out associated with the ObamaCare enrollment process. Instead, the malady is known as Post Defensive Gun Use Respiratory Distress. This acute condition strikes individuals in the immediate aftermath of a defensive gun use who’d rather not take the more hard-line approach with inquisitive members of the 5-O (“I feared for my life. I want to talk to my lawyer before I say anything else.”) advocated by many . . .

If you believe our instructor, that kind of Dragnet-style, just-the-facts-ma’am approach can put off the responding officer, forcing him to cuff you, stuff you in a squad car and ship you downt

So Dan and I survived the Texas Concealed Handgun License class. The most interesting part of the seemingly endless endeavor: the instructor’s collection of bad ammunition. Cartridges with protruding primers, missing primers, cartridges with no powder, improperly seated bullets, a bullet inserted backwards and more. (Gallery of God-awful ammo after the jump.) We’ve know that the ammunition shortage has manufacturers cranking out ammunition like Stevie Ray Vaughan cranking out guitar licks. And we’ve heard rumors that quality control was a little, uh, lacking. But this was out first close encounter with bad ammo. It’s at the point where you should physically in

Everyone and their brother is looking for the most bang for their buck when it comes to handguns, and on the lower end of that scale things tend to look pretty bleak. Your options are pretty much limited to either the Hi-Point C9, which compares unfavorably with a masonry brick, and a wide assortment of military surplus handguns that either use calibers that come in boxes with foreign languages on them or look like they were picked up after a particularly nasty battle. So when I saw that Zastava had a new production handgun that retailed for under $240, I was intrigued. Century Arms International (who imports them into the United States) was nice enough to lend me one to review, and… well…

It’s a Tokarev. Well, an M57 version of the Tokarev TT-33, which was the first handgun I ever fired, and was also manufactured by Zastava… in the 1960s. I actually have video from that event.

Texas is gun friendly. But it’s not gun rights friendly. They’ve been improved, but they’re still plenty damn restrictive. You can’t carry in hospitals, schools or racetracks. Texas cops can arrest a citizen with a concealed handgun license (CHL) for any amount of alcohol in their system (if considered impaired). That said, the laws are better than they were, and they’re getting better all the time. As always, open carry is the ultimate litmus test for gun rights. Texas ain’t got it (for handguns). Fortunately, there’s plenty of political momentum in the Lone Star State to get it done. Texas Attorney General a

Come back Benelli! We love you! Kirsten Joy Weiss’ toilet-paper shredding infatuation with my M3 is only our most recent ode to your well-deserved reputation for scattergun excellence. Besides, the MR1 rifle review that raised your hackles is more than three years old now. (Dudes, you don’t even sell the gun anymore!) Our ethos is truth telling. Yours is a new 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun. According to your press release (after the jump), the ETHOS contains your best bits (Inertia Driven action, Progressive Comfort recoil reduction) in a gun wit

“My only comment would be that the gun industry and its mouthpiece organizations seem to be able to drum up fear endlessly even though, as time passes, none of the predictions on which they base their fear mongering come to pass. At what point will gun owners realize that they are being duped into artificially boosting gun sales for no valid reason?” – Virginia Center for Public Safety  president Andrew Goddard, Virginia gun transactions set record in 2013 [at dailypress.com]