The Truth About Guns
Exploring the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns
Updated: 4 weeks 3 hours ago
Ruger Adds Three Non-Entries to Its 10/22 Contest
Ruger reads TTAG. But I bet we weren’t the only gun guys disappointed by the lackluster quality of the 10 finalists for their design a 10/22 contest. Why else would the company send an email blast linking to three non-entries with the words “vote for me” underneath the pics? “Your feedback could influence another future Ruger product” the email teases. So it’s a contest within a contest without a prize. Go figure. Checking out the three also-rans, I reckon they’re at least as good if not better than the ones Ruger chose for the final vote. Orville from Texas’s modded 10/22 [above] uses after-market parts to create a “tack driver” of a rifle with which he “nailed
Cops Probe Salisbury MD Rappers for Music Video Guns
For some strange reason—the first Amendment?—the video above has not [yet] been pulled from YouTube. This despite: “Wicomico County State’s Attorney Matt Maciarello raised concern about the video and said multiple law-enforcement agencies are investigating if any laws were broken. Salisbury [Maryland] TV stations WMDT-47 and WBOC-TV 16 did news reports on those concerns Thursday. County Administrator Wayne Strausburg on Thursday evening also emailed a link to the YouTube video, titled ‘Jungle,’ to The Daily Times. Maciarello on Friday said once law enforcement has knowledge of something like the video, it would be irresponsible not to investigate.” Riiiight. ‘Cause they’s using guns! More specifically (for those who can’t watch the above in their cubicle) . . .
In the video, several people have guns and there are people in ski masks. Some of the rap group’s members are holding s
Not-Yet-New from Ochoco Arms: Multi-Laser Shotgun Sight
Sam Harris’s staff aren’t at the beard-pulling celebratory stage yet. Ochoco Arms’ patented multi-laser shotgun sight doesn’t have a military or law enforcement buyer and it’s not available to you, Joe Q. Public. But it’s a pretty good idea: using a lot o’ lasers to see where all the pellets will go when you unleash the dogs of war via scattergun. And it’s starting to pay off. “On Oct. 18, Ochoco Arms won the concept-stage competition at the Bend Venture Conference and received a $10,000 prize,”
Gun Rights Mole Exposes Moms Demand Action Leader’s Hypocrisy
Over at georgiapacking.org commentator debbiedowner went undercover and “joined” [via Twitter] Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Three Days in the Shoes of a Gun Activist chronicles her journey into the heart of darkness. First, this is how she did it: “Going in headfirst would get me blocked, so I had to come up with a strategy. I decided I would assume the role of a “
Obscure Object of Desire: $2,000+ Suppressed SUB-2000 SBR
Some ideas are just too good to pass up, no matter how much the taxes are to get it done. Today’s 0bscure object of desire definitely falls into that category. A firearms genius in Florida has designed this $2,000+ Kel-Tec SUB-2000 rifle to be a suppressed SBR that not only folds in half, but also has a rotating, free-floating rail to allow you to mount optics on it and still fold the gun. This isn’t just a one-off project gun, either. It’s going into production with a little help from some Sunshine State firms . . .
Trayvon’s Mom: Oppose Stand Your Ground Laws Because Guns
Having Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, testify before a Senate committee on stand your ground laws is like asking Meryl Streep to testify about pesticides. Neither one knows the first thing about their subject, but it’s sure to grab a few headlines. And there you have the reason for Ms. Fulton’s appearance today before Tricky Dicky Durbin’s dog and pony show on Capitol Hill this morning. “Fulton will argue at the 10 a.m. hearing that the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting of her 17-year-old son and the acquittal of George Zimmerman over the summer shows that the laws are confusing.” Of course, anyo
Henry Shuns NJ for WI, ATI Leaves NY for SC
Last November TTAG reported that Hurricane Sandy hammered Henry Repeating Arms’ New Jersey factory; the natural disaster ripped the roof off their Garden State digs and flooded their factory floor. The following April, TTAG reported that Henry was back in a big way. Production returned to normal. Guns were going out the door in record numbers. Even as Henry recovered its economic equilibrium, lever gun impresario Anthony Imperato shared his resolve to build guns in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Et voila!
Daily Digest: Backups To Your Backups Edition
So @GabbyGiffords & @ShuttleCDRKelly, can you provide us an exact list of the "16 mass shootings" since Sandy Hook? http://t.co/qaQ3e88lg7
— Bearing Arms (@BearingArmsCom) October 25, 2013
A few days back, Ammoland reported that Space Cadet Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords sent yet another tiresome open letter to Congress in which they made the claim that since Sandy Hook, “there have been 16 more mass shootings in communities across America.” Though they declined to actually list those incidents specifically, the Civilian Disarmament Move
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms [With Less Than 10 Rounds] Shall Not Be Infringed
Over at Ammoland.com AWR Hawkins writes:
The momentum in the gun debate has clearly shifted toward gun rights proponents as the NRA continues to stand on the clear language of the Second Amendment. Whereas 2012 ended with Democrats working their constituents up into an emotional fervor to ban entire classes of guns, expand background checks, and ban “extended magazines,” now nothing sounds sillier than the suggestion “The right of the people to kee
Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Melissa Ann Ringhardt
“According to a news release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, [Melissa Ann] Ringhardt [above] had been living in the Read family home for the past few months,” 12newsnow.com reports. “On Monday, Ringhardt was left in the home with 5-year-old John Read and another 6-month-old child belonging to Kayla and Joe Read. Ringhardt told investigators that she was carrying a handgun on her person in the home that day because she was scared being at home alone. The handgun was a semi-automatic .40 caliber pistol. Ringhardt left the handgun on a coffee table in the living room and went to the bedr
St. Helens, OR OK’s Teachers to Carry Concealed—Just Like Parents!
“A school board in St. Helens, Ore., voted to allow teachers and staff to pack heat on school grounds. St. Helens School Board chairman Marshall Porter told ABCNews.com that the board lifted a ban that prevented school employees from carrying guns on campus with concealed weapons permits [last] Wednesday.” Teachers with a concealed handgun license can pack heat in the District’s two elementary schools, one middle school, one high school and three alternative schools. They now have the same rights as parents with a concealed handgun license, who are exempt from both Beaver State prohibitions and the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990–which really needs to go away. If there’s a school shooting during a Repu
How Much Fun Can You Have For $140? Airguns On TTAG!
With all the heated discussion of gun-grabbing politics, CCW ergonomics and wound ballistics that goes on around here, you’ll have to forgive us if we’ve overlooked some of the most popular shooting sports equipment in the world. Our Armed Intelligentsia may find it unnatural to use ‘ballistics’ in the same sentence as ‘pneumatics,’ but airguns are a huge business. They can be a great low-cost practice aid for powder-burning gun guys or a great sport in their own right. Modern break-barrel airguns can spit out .177 pellets with enough velocity to beat a .357 Magnum slug to the target, and a handful of monstrously expensive airguns can toss huge .357 and .45 slugs with enough grunt to drop a small whitetail in its tracks. We’ve recently hooked up with Pyramyd Air to begin bringing you the straight dope from the world of air-powered shooting . . .
Man Accidentally Tries to Rob Bank Thanks to Concern over Concealed Carry Holder
It’s a Saturday afternoon in Connecticut and you’re out running errands when you decide to pop into the bank. You walk in and notice that there’s a guy with a gun hanging around the place. Being in Connecticut, you’ve been conditioned to see “gun” and think “criminal,” so you decide to tip off the teller to what you think is an imminent robbery attempt. Now, there’s a right way and a wrong way to let the teller know. It seems safe to say that handing the person behind the counter a piece of paper where the only word on it is “GUN” constitutes the wrong way . . .
From ArcaMax:
The holder of the gun had no ill intent and was legally permitted to carry it, and Robert Gursky, 50, was arrested after alarming the staff of the town’s TD Bank branch, police said.
“He (Gursky) was trying to relay to the teller (tha
TTAG Ammo Contest Winner: Tom in Oregon
Matt in FL was kind/bored enough to keep track of all the entries in our How Much Did RF Pay for His Ammo? contest. And the winner is . . . Tom in Oregon. I paid $1413.64 at Red’s Indoor Range in Pfleugerville, Texas. “Tom was only $5.83 off your final price,” Matt reveals, “and he didn’t go over. The next closest post-tax person was at $1421—$7.36 away and he went over. (You didn’t specify ‘without going over’ but Tom would still win if you had.) The closest person who specified pretax was more than $30 away, at $1270. So Tom in Or
TTAG Exclusive: Brandy Vega Asks “What Is An Assault Weapon?”
So Gun Nation News host Brandy Vega told me that she was heading out into the real world to do some woman-on-the-street interviews. I suggested she ask the great unwashed to define an assault weapon. Regular readers will remember we posted a list of definitions from a Reason-Rupe Public Opinion Survey on gun control. Those who’ve perused this fantastic farrago of firearms fail will not be surprised at Ms. Vega’s edited result. Suffice it to say, support for gun control comes from people who have only a vague idea what that term means, both in general and in specific. In other words, no one ever lost support for gun rights by underestimating the intelligence of the average American. Just sayin’ . . .
TTAG Exclusive: ShootingTheBull410 Tests DoubleTap Equalizer in .45 ACP +P
DoubleTap Ammunition offers the Equalizer, a round that actually packs two bullets in each cartridge. For example, in the .45 ACP +P version, they stack a big 185-grain hollowpoint on top of a smaller 70-grain hardcast disc. This promises a true “double tap” with each press of the trigger. Sounds intriguing, but does it deliver the goods? Watch as our resident ammo tester ShootingTheBull410 puts it to the test. Click here to checkout his YouTube channel.
New From Fobus: CH Rapid Release Retention Holster
If you’re reading a post here about a new value-priced holster, you’re probably a regular reader. Or maybe you were just misdirected to TTAG while browsing insurance options at healthcare.gov by their laughably kludgy code – who the hell knows? However you got here, you can probably see the utility, at least for some people, in a retention holster. Preventing someone else from grabbing your heater away from you is what Martha Stewart calls a good thing. Of course, attention must be paid to design and ergonomics, Tex. From their press release (after the jump), Fobus seems to have taken digit placement to heart, going out of their way to point out that their new wonder rig keeps your trigger finger safely along the frame when you draw. WeR
It Should Have Been A Defensive Gun Use: Face Facts Edition
“At 1:30 a.m. on Valentine’s Day this year, Carmen Tarleton left her rural home here and drove through the frigid dark to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston,” nytimes,com reports. “Her doctor had called hours earlier with the news she had been waiting for: a suitable donor had been found. She would get a new face. Almost six years had passed since her estranged husband broke into her house one spring night, beat her with a baseball bat and soaked her with industrial lye that he squirted from a dish-soap bottle . . .
Gun Review: M+M Inc. M10-762 Rifle
The M+M M10-762 rifle for this review was provided by the Kentucky Gun Company.
Thanks to Century Arms and their crappy-ass 2005-2008 era WASRs, conventional wisdom is that Romania generally takes the prize for making the worst AKs in the history of the world ever. Well, maybe not as crappy as those homemade Pakki Darra models that GIs sometimes encounter in the ‘Stan, but pretty crappy nonetheless. So when I heard that the M+M M10-762 was a Romanian-made rifle, I was prepared to be unimpressed. But after six range visits and well over 1000 rounds downrange, on the whole I’ve been very pleasantly surprised . . .