The Truth About Guns
Exploring the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns
Updated: 4 weeks 1 day ago
New from Nesika: Some Awesome Looking Bolt Action Rifles
I love my Remington 700 AAC-SD, but it has its limitations. The Hogue stock is grippy, but that means the barrel isn’t free floating. And the hinged floorplate magazine is nice, but I’d really prefer a box mag. Other finnicky things come to mind too, but I can just cut to the chase by saying that the new Nesika Tactical rifle in .308 (or .338 for those with too much money in their wallets) is quite possibly my idea of bolt action heaven . . .
Sturgis, SD – Nesika proudly announces a new line of precision, custom rifles – Sporter, Long Range and Tactical.
The new Nesika custom rifles feature the legendary Nesika actions and include top quality features such as Douglas air-gauged barrels, hand laid-up composite stocks and Timney TriggersTM sporting ri
Quote of the Day: Before and After Edition
“It still had people who were nice to each other, working together and no one was talking about guns. Then (the attack) happened and it became either you have guns or you don’t have guns.” – Newtown resident Carla Barzetti, A Year After Newtown, Rift Over Guns Deepens [at abcnews.go.com]
Weekend Digest: Mixed Bag Edition
Because it’s the weekend, I’m leading off with a video. Just a quick one of 22Plinkster neatly severing a piece of swinging dental floss, with slow-mo. We loves the slow-mo, don’t we precious?
Several months back we told you about Liberty Safe’s SafElert system, a small wifi-enabled box that you could install in your safe that would notify you if your safe (any safe) is jarred, hit, pried, moved, opened, over heated, the handle is jostled or most anything else out of the ordinary, as well as sending you weekly humidity reports from inside the safe. Now from The Tactical Wire comes an announcement that Liberty Safe is doing away with the monthly monitoring fee (fo
Gun Grabbers Sliding Down Slippery Slope Marked Mental Health
The Firearms Coalition writes [via ammoland.com]:
Gun rights advocates around the country need to be on the lookout for an insidious new tactic being launched by Mike Bloomberg and his mercenary minions. The strategy: use the wide acceptance of the idea that the mentally ill should not have access to firearms, as a front for prohibiting a broad array of “normal” people from possessing guns or ammunition. As with most things, the devil is in the details. What is mental illness? Who is mentally ill? How mentally ill must one be to warrant revocation of a fundamental human right? Who makes that determination? Who is “normal,” and how “normal” do they have to be to own g
Dan Baum’s Gun Guys Now in Paperback
Dan Baum is one of those “I support the Second Amendment but—” guys. Where he differs from the other gun rights appeasers: Dan is a master wordsmith. As I said in my review of Gun Guys, A Road Trip, is “one of the best-written books about firearms enthusiasts I’ve ever read. To shun Gun Guys simply because its author fails to understand the true meaning of his subject would to be miss out on some wonderful literature.” And now you can delight and aggravate yourself in equal measure with the dramatically cheaper paperback versi
How US v. Miller Subverted the Second Amendment
In 2008, Brian L. Frye published the seminal paper on the history of United States v. Miller, the single most important second amendment case before U.S. V. Heller. While Miller no longer holds as much significance in second amendment cases as it used to, the way in which the government manipulated the case in order to deprive American citizens of their Second Amendment rights deserves detailed study. In The Peculiar Story of the United States v. Miller, Professor Frye’s meticulous scholarship shows that much of what went on behind the scenes differs sharply from what we have been told . . .
Frye’s essay consists of 34 pages, packed with footnotes documenting original sources. He summarizes his conclusions in this early paragraph:
This essay sug
OMG! Another Hunter Walking! In Wisconsin! OMG!
Remember that University of Wisconsin student who was recently tracked down by the Madison PD after they received frantic calls about a camo-clad man with a gun? Yeah, he was only a hunter returning from a less than fruitful day in the woods. It was probably easy to write that incident off, though, given that Madison is really just a big, hippie-infested college town best known for its lefty politics and being the birthplace of The Onion. That kind of crazitude could never happen elsewhere in the Eat Cheese or Die State…other than maybe Milwaukee, right? Au contraire, mon frere . . .
About 40 miles southeast of the capitol, in New Richmond, hunter Nathan Pieters was similarly ambulating his way home from an unproductive
Question of the Day: Armed Revolution? Really?
I would hate to see a day when Americans decided to take up arms against their own government. It seems preposterous. If not that, ill-advised. If not that, really really scary. But I sense a sea change in both the government’s actions on guns and gun owners’ reactions to those actions. For example (as we predicted) gun owners are ignoring/disobeying the post-Newtown gun registration laws in New York and Connecticut. This is creating a negative feedback loop. Threats to gun owners (e.g., the warning letters sent by the NYPD to Big Apple gun owners) followed by anger by gun owners followed by . . . raids on gun owners’ houses/apartments to confiscate illegal firearms. Followed by . . . ? Of course it’s not all about guns. Not yet. Hopefully never. Your thoughts?
Firearm Sound Library Kickstarter Project $234 From Goal
“The sound you hear in the main video was an actual recording of the suppressed firearm system you see in the video,” Ben Jaszczak writes at kickstarter.com. “It gives you an idea of just how great the real deal is even with not-so-great recording equipment. In 192kHz with a seven microphone setup and a high-quality field recorder these sound effects will be a dream! Interspersed throughout the page are pictures taken during the demo recording session.” I gotta say it doesn’t sound like much—the narrator’s accent is far more more interesting—but authenticity is its own reward. And the guys raising money to create The Firearm Sound Library appear to be motivated by love, not financial liquidity . . .
We had a long, drawn-out discussion as to what prices we would set, which rewards to have, etc. In the end we realized something: we’re all po
Quote of the Day: Wishful Thinking Edition
“My feelings about guns are that they are scary and dangerous. When I make one of my pieces, I create a background and then I camouflage the gun to make it almost invisible. The gun is still there but it’s hard to see it or you don’t see it for what it really is. Hopefully my art will get people talking about guns, gun safety and gun violence. I wish guns were only in an art gallery.” – Charles Gitnick, 11-year-old Charles Gitnick wows Miami Art Basel with gun art [at latimes.com]
Daily Digest: Advance Warning Edition
“If we have to get a warrant, we’re going to come back when you’re not expecting it, we’re going to park in front of your house, where all your neighbors can see, we’re gonna bust in your door with a battering ram, we’re gonna shoot and kill your dogs, who are my family, and then we’re going to ransack your house looking for these people.” — Allegedly said to Eric Crinnian after police asked to search his house and he refused, multiple times, saying they needed a warrant. So. There’s no way to tell if that statement is accurate or Mr. Crinnian is embellishing a bit, but…
…that’s not the point, really, is it? For my part, at least, the point is that I can’t read that and immediately dismiss it. The point is that I can read that and say, “Yeah, I can totally see that happening.” That is a problem.
Why Good People Should Be Armed
I’m no triskaidekaphobe but thirteen minutes of Ms. Outlaw’s rant is a bit much, green screen or no. Still, full marks for a comprehensive tour of all the political reasons why guns are a good thing, not a bad thing, in good hands (with a free lesson on the four rules of gun safety). I’ll add a simple justification to Josie Outlaw’s list: shooting is a lot of fun. Which is just as well, really. [h/t hesgonefishing]
Guns, Girls, Glamour and Boat Loads of Cash. Good for the Cause?
“My greatest fear is that someone will break in and I won’t be able to decide what gun to shoot them with.” Dan Bilzerian has a good time. And he has quite the gun collection. And cars, women, boats, planes and money. Oh, and a great face of hair. The pic and quote above are from his Instagram machine (NSFW) . . .
If you aren’t familiar with the professional poker player and firearms enthusiast, there’s some light reading here and here to help. ”When I was a kid I never wanted to be classy, I just wanted to be rich.&#
What Iceland Can Teach Us About American “Gun Violence”: Nothing
Gun control advocates love to compare United States’s stats to other countries. Well of course they do. Firearms-related fatalities are relatively rare in the U.S. Remove suicides and gang-related incidents from the total and “gun violence” is a bit of a non-issue. Yes, I know; it’s a big deal for the friends and families affected. Anyway, the antis need a BIG problem to move the needle on civilian disarmament. Comparing the U.S. to other “industrialized” countries makes us look like the proverbial Wild West, which allows liberals to indulge their national self-hatred and argue that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. Normally, “gun free” U.K. is the preferred comparo partner. Over at
It Should Have Been a Defensive Gun Use: Oh Deer Edition
“Keith Mohr was in the shower last Friday morning when he heard a loud crash and his wife screaming that a deer was running through their townhouse near Sugar Grove,” Illinois’ dailyherald.com reports. The 71-year-old homeowner grabbed a golf club (caliber unknown) and took a bash at the unwelcome visitor. He knocked off an antler and broke the club. “Mohr [then] opened the garage door to give the buck an escape route, but it didn’t exit there. It kept running around, bleeding on the carpet, destroying furniture, punching holes in walls and pawing at closed windows to escape. ‘He did a lot of damage …
Is Drake the Next Heller?
Over at reason.com, scribe Brian Doherty ID three firearms-related legal cases that could make it to the Supreme Court. NRA v. BATFE deals with handgun sales to Americans under 18. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association [NYSRPA] v. City of New York deals with The Big Apple’s “asininely picayune restricti
Ask Foghorn: What’s The Difference Between a Muzzle Brake, a Compensator and a Flash Hider?
I was sitting around with Kevin Brittingham and Reed Knight talking about gun stuff and one of the things they agreed on was a mutual annoyance at how people don’t use the right word to describe the thing on the end of their muzzle. Heck, even some gun guys don’t really know the difference. So, at their request, I figured I would write a quick article trying to explain the difference between the three main muzzle devices in use today . . .
Flash Hider
When you buy an AR-15, or any modern rifle with a threaded
Suit Up! Like A Bulletproof Barney Stinson With Carbon Nanotube Business Suit
If high school proms are any guide, males are generally immune to clothing envy. I know I’m making gender-based generalizations here, but nobody ever saw two jocks throwing down in front of the punch bowl while yelling “I picked that tux first, you b*tch!” Having said that, I will now confess to some clothing envy myself because a Toronto custom tailor can build you a carbon nanotube business suit with Level III-A protection that’s almost indistinguishable from a typical wool suit . . .
Oil executives wear them in the Middle East, our Presidents are rumored to wear them on Inauguration Day, and you can have one too if you’ve got $20,000 and a lot of patience. (If only Ambassador Christopher Stevens had had one in Benghazi…) Each Garrison Bespoke bulletproof suit is handmade of a proprietary armor-grade carbon nanotube fabric (simila
Question of the Day: Are You A Geardo?
Over at npr.org (of all places), Ben Brody offers The (Almost) Definitive Guide to U.S. Military Lingo. We learn the definition of “geardo,” which rhymes with “weirdo.” It’s a soldier who spends an inordinate amount of their personal money to buy fancy military gear, such as weapon lights, GPS watches, custom rucksacks, etc. Generally refers to a soldier with little tactical need for such equipment.” So are you now or have you ever been a geardo? And if so, do you/did you enjoy drinking the tacticoolaid? [h/t SS]