The Truth About Guns

By Mr_B_

As a public school teacher I try to remain wholly unbiased in my instruction. Not only is this a position that I have taken professionally, but also on a personal level. I feel it is my duty to remain as impartial as possible when discussing contentious issues. Given the current political climate, one of the more controversial matters to discuss is firearms laws and regulations. My favorite course to teach is Contemporary World Issues. The curriculum in this class lends itself to being incredibly topical . . .

Since school started in August there have been countless news stories concerning firearms leading to many class discussions and debates. The students in my class are very diverse in both background and personality – the best thing a teacher could ask for in a current events course. Here is a breakdown of the eight students in my class:

Student A: 17-year-old female. Very bright and an

“An anonymous caller told police his roommate was headed to Yale University in New Haven, Conn., to shoot people, and witnesses spotted a man with a shotgun or rifle in the area, prompting Monday’s campus shutdown,” latimes.com reports. “In a phone call that lasted only a few seconds, a male caller told a 911 operator that ‘his roommate was on his way to the university, to Yale University, to shoot people,’ said New Haven Police Department spokesman David Hartman in a televised news conference. No shots or injuries have been reported as police swarmed the Ivy League campus, and Hartman could not confirm any arrests or detentions, nor provide a description of the suspect.” The

The number of companies making AR-15 style rifles has exploded in the last couple years. Even some of the bigger names in the industry who had previously avoided the platform are getting in on the action, like Smith & Wesson and Ruger. Now that those companies have an established foothold in the market, it’s only natural that they would want to expand. We saw S&W’s M&P-10 in 7.62 NATO come online at the SHOT Show and now Ruger has gotten into the AR-10 game with their SR-762 offering . . .

Ruger makes some amazing products. Their 10/22, for example, is t

It’s kinda obvious what could go wrong with the forthcoming Sure-Draw GLOCK safety: you draw your gun and forget to turn off the safety. Like you might do with every other handgun equipped with an external safety. Only not. ‘Cause the Sure-Draw safety is a press n’ hold affair. Unless you push in the safety and hold it the gun is hot. So what’s the point? It’s not a final precaution.It’s designed to prevent Tex Grebnerization. You press the button with your thumb as you draw the gun and then release it as you bring it to bear on the bad guy (or paper target). Same deal when you return the gun to the holster. [Click

“Yale University ordered students and staff to ‘shelter in place’ Monday because of a ‘confirmed report’ of a person with a gun on or near the Old Campus,” usatoday.com reports. The following statement appears on the Connecticut University’s website: “New Haven Police have received an anonymous call from a phone booth in the 300 block of Columbus Avenue (between Howard Avenue and Hallock Street) reporting a person on the Yale campus with a gun. There have been NO confirmations or sightings of this person. Yale and New Haven Police are in the area. If you have information, please call 911 immediately. The Yale Police Department advises those on campus to remain in their current location until there is additional information.”

The response to our content contest has been, well, overwhelming. So much so that we haven’t been able to get to – let alone post – all of the worthy entries we’ve received so far. But this isn’t Nam, Smokey, there are rules here. We said we’d announce a winner today, and so we will. But given the fact that we still have a passel of entries to read and publish, we tend to agree with Marilyn Monroe: if we’d observed all the rules along the way, we never would have gotten anywhere. So the winner of the entries we’ve received and read so far is…Michael Stephenson for his heart-tugger about getting a gun for Mr. Lee. If you haven’t read it yet, yo

“It is a shame that anyone would think it makes you look cool if you get a gun tattoo. Promoting guns in fashion could lead to gun violence and we certainly don’t need any more of that.” - Ray Nelson, president of Guitars Not Guns, quoted in Zayn Malik gets controversial gun tattoo as ink-artist brags: “Made sure my homey was strapped” [via mirror.co.uk]

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy reckons The Constitution State’s new gun registration laws make it safer for police responding to domestic disturbance calls because they’ll know what guns or “large capacity magazines” are in the house. Note: I didn’t write “what guns if any are in the house” because it’s entirely possible that a CT resident might have a *gasp* unregistered gun in their abode. Which means that any cop who assumes that CT’s multi-agency registry is accurate or comprehensive is an idiot. Which also makes Malloy’s argument for registration equally idiotic. As for Malloy’s “long term approach to regaining our safety in the United States,” maybe someone should tell the Gov that violent crime has been decreasing for decades even without his “gun safety” laws. Interviews like this make me I wonder what Nazi functionaries sounded like back in the day . . .

Trick shot artist Kirsten Joy Weiss recently journeyed to Red’s Indoor Range in Pflugerville (a.k.a., “the toilet”) to test three Henry rifles. The 2012 NRA Women’s shooting champ is looking to apply her mad shooting skillz to a traditional lever gun. The experience gave KJW some insight into Annie Oakley’s accomplishments. “That woman was good,” Kirsten pronounced afterwards over a glass of Alan Brooks’ much-appreciated mead. Speaking of appreciation, is this the same gun that sold in

Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the eponymous Kalashnikov assault rifle, is in an Izhevsk hospital with undisclosed health problems. The 94-year-old engineer has been hospitalized at least three times in the last year and spent most of the brief Russian summer in a Moscow clinic before being released in August . . .

Russian President Vladimir Putin is shown here meeting with Kalashnikov earlier this month just prior to the designer’s 94th birthday. When and if Mikhail Timofeyovich shuffles off to the Great Arms Factory In The Sky, we can expect a flood of misinformed media coverage. W

By Kyle in CT

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum . . . more specifically the Harvard Injury Control Research Center website. I figured out why no one can seem to agree on “The Facts” about guns and gun violence; most of the analysis done on gun control (pro or anti) is probably wrong. Or at least runs afoul of Mark Twain’s feelings on math . . .

First of all, let’s do some housekeeping. In researching this topic, I ran across a few posts by Brad Kozak that went down a similar path Twain-wise; I guess it’s tough to beat the Great American Novelist when it comes to quotation.  More importantly though, this piece aims to do something a bit different than a normal statistics piece on TTAG. I’m not going to go after the most recent survey showing gun ownership is falling, or people’s changing

Robert,

There have been some recent posts on your site about mental health, including yesterday’s Quote of the Day (Certain Kinds of People Edition) that finally inspired me to write to you and tell you my story. There has to be some attention brought to this subject. It seems that many “pro gunners” are willing to compromise our 2nd amendment rights away in regard to mental health laws. Its an attitude of we’ll let you do this if only you don’t pass more gun laws. I’m extremely disappointed that even the NRA are among those pursuing this . . .

I live in Pennsylvania and 12 years ago my 2nd amendment rights were stripped from me. I was going through a break up with a woman I’d been seeing for about 2 years. To get the last shot on her way out,

By data venia

New York Governor Cuomo Jan 2013: “Forget the extremists. It’s very simple. No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer!”

Hardly a sympathetic figure to gun owners, and even the sheriffs of NY had/have issue with the legislation, but that sentiment took off. I heard it on news programs. I heard it in face to face conversations with my mother in law. I read it in virtual discussions with friends from different countries. “Why do you NEED it?” . . .

There were attempts to show why we did need large magazines, but to the honestly unconvinced they rang hollow. It simply seems excessive or paranoid to most people. Our neighbors and friends. Good people whose only crime is ignorance. Not stupidity. Not anything but honest ignorance that we

I tried to fill out an eForm 4 yesterday to transfer my silencer into my trust. I originally registered the can as an individual, but with proposed rule changes coming down the pike I don’t want to take any chances. But when I got to the first page of the form, I couldn’t fill out a single thing. It didn’t work. Since I’m not an FFL, it wouldn’t let me transfer something I already own into my own trust. While I found the website useless, one of my favorite merchants of awesomeness has been using the new eForm system since it first rolled out. According to him, he’s now getting approved Form 4s back in exactly 2.5 months . . .

Some caveats here. Each section of the country is assigned an examiner, so the time to approval will vary depending on where you live (this guy is in Florida). And as more people flood the eForm system, the wait

By de facto

Good afternoon fellow citizen, allow me to introduce myself. I’m your local representative for the Committee of Public Safety, or CPS, and I am committed to creating a safe environment for all members of our community. In light of that, I’m here to talk about your guns. I’ve received reports from concerned citizens indicating that you have an extensive gun collection. As much as I respect the Second Amendment, I need you to turn in your “sporting rifles” . . .

Our government can only allow private ownership of guns used for legitimate sporting purposes – not weapons of mass murder. It’s too dangerous for these weapons to be out there. You can appreciate that, can’t you? Besides, if you work with us and voluntarily turn in your military grade weapons

We used to get a lot of ARs to review around here. At one point in 2012 I had three of them in my gun safe (only one of them my own) and then Sandy Hook happened and the flow of T&E guns went dry for a while. Well, let the floodgates open again: I just picked up Del Ton’s Evolution carbine from my FFL guy . . .

I should have said “it doesn’t feel like a heavy two-stage trigger.” It’s definitely a two-stager, but it feels like a good one. The rest of the Evolution has all the good gubbins you want on an AR: a chrome-lined 16″ barrel, midlength gas system, Samson

“(I)t’s good, at least, to hear someone arguing the details and filling out the fact-picture, good to be reminded that the cultures and rituals of the gun, however irrational in nature, are still felt to be essential by the people who engage in them. Curing the irrationalities of human culture later depends on understanding them now.” – Adam Gopnik, How A Gun Dealer Sees It [at newyorker.com]

NBC news in Dania Beach, Florida spreads FUD about ammunition in a house fire. (“[It] could have fired off wildly!”) The deceased resident was a collector and had more than 100 guns, some dating back to World War I (More FUD: “…and even a grenade launcher!”). But oh, those guns. Those poor guns. Someone forgot to tell the poor reporter (“Each individual bullet could have gone off?”) about the instructional video that SAAMI did (and apparently the fire chief, as well). Also this: “Propane tanks were also found around the home, but firefighters say those weren’t as big of a threat as the bullets, that were seconds away from shooting off.” The stupid, it burns, and is likely more dangerous than that ammo. . .

Today’s

There are a ton of media outlets reporting that Philadelphia has passed a ban on the manufacture of firearms using a 3D printer within city limits, but according to

Edge Arms has hit the Interwebs hard in the last few days, trying to build some blogosphere buzz around their forthcoming four-banger ‘Reliant’ derringer. I try not to badmouth new gun ideas until I can actually try them–or at least watch some YouTube videos of their catastrophic failures–but there’s really not much ‘new’ about this gun at all.

Nonetheless, I shall reserve judgment while we retrace the phylogeny of the four-barreled rimfire derringer.

Riverboat Gamblers Loved Them