Articles by Herschel Smith

It behooves you to watch all of this video.

The Atlantic:

There are hundreds of millions of guns in the United States—enough, according to several estimates, for every American civilian adult to own more than one.

But actual gun ownership is far more lopsided than that.

A sweeping new survey by researchers at Harvard University and Northeastern University finds that roughly half of the nearly 300 million firearms in the United States are concentrated in the hands of a tiny sliver of the U.S. population: Just 3 percent of American adults own some 130 million guns, according to The Trace and Guardian US, two news organizations that first reported on the survey. (The full survey has not yet been released; Guardian US and The Trace reported plans to publish a series of stories about the findings throughout the week.)

This portrait of gun ownership represents the equivalent of about 17 guns per person among a group of “super-owners,” the 7.7 million Americans who own between eight and 140 guns each.

Surveys also show that The Trace and Guardian are full of crap.  Here is a tip for all of you aspiring “gun researchers.”  Are you listening?  No, I mean really listening closely?

Fifty years ago someone might have been honest with you about their gun ownership.  Maybe.  And just maybe you could have demonstrated that you met the requirements to be taken seriously for legitimate statistics.  I would have to review the data.  Or better, I would have had to review the data.  That was then, this is now.

Today, very few gun owners are going to be honest with you about their gun ownership, if you can even get them to talk to you.  Your data is meaningless.  All of it.  Every last bit of it.  It’s worthless.  Have a nice day.

It’s a serious question.  What happened?  He was standing still with his hands on the vehicle.

OutdoorHub:

Back to the second portion my original point: What constitutes an effective defensive handgun? A firearm designed for self-defense (either military, law enforcement or civilian) needs to meet a minimum of four criteria to be considered effective:

• Function reliability even without lubrication or regular maintenance
• Able to consistently hit a 6-inch target within self-defense range (typically within 25 feet)
• Fire a round proven to reliably stop an attacker with reasonable shot placement
• Carry at least five rounds of ammo and be easily reloadable

The 1911 barely meets the first criteria. Not because the design isn’t capable – I’ve seen 1911s that rattle like an old toolbox that run like a scalded dog – but because its magazines can be a total crap shoot. The overwhelming majority of 1911s that suffer from reliability issues can be traced back to faulty magazines.

Shooters should stick with new-production magazines from companies with solid reputations like Chip McCormick Customs. These guys have been working on, running and building 1911 magazines for 3 decades. So I called the owner, Chip, and asked him about the importance of magazines.

“Magazines lie at the heart of (the M1911’s) reliability,” Chip explained. “Browning never intended 1911 magazines to be extended, or be run as hard as competitors tend to these days.”

[ … ]

Because the 1911 meets or exceeds all the aforementioned criteria, it’s not only a solid choice for serious self-defense use, but also on par with more modern designs, right?

Yes and no.

[ … ]

The 1911’s design could certainly benefit from higher magazine capacity, like something on par with the Springfield XDm in .45 ACP or the Glock 21 in the same caliber. Higher capacity frames like those from Infinity and STI exist, but are vastly more expensive than standard capacity 1911s. But it’s safe to say, as the 1911 continues to evolve, it’s far from obsolete.

No, the 1911 couldn’t benefit from a lot more rounds in the magazine if that means giving up the single stack design.  And as for what Chip McCormick said, while I have been intending on purchasing some of his higher capacity magazines for the 1911 (I have not yet), the ones I have work just fine, and I have never had a FTF or FTE with my 1911.  Not even once.  I don’t know what they’re talking about.

I’ve said it before, but I like the grip angle (11 degrees), the slim single stack design (and resulting narrow frame profile), and the push of the .45 compared to the snap of the 9 mm.  What’s works best for you is the best choice for you.  What doesn’t is not.  There is also an article at Cheaper Than Dirt entitled Every Man’s Defensive Caliber – The 9 mm.

The only legitimate point the author makes, in my opinion, is that the 9 mm is cheaper than the .45.  True that.  But you get what you pay for.  The 9 mm isn’t every man’s defensive round if every man doesn’t like it and use it.  I don’t use 9 mm.  I use .45 because I like it.  If you use 9 mm, do so because you like it and shoot it well, not because somebody said something on the internet about it.

These debates are stupid, and anyway, why would someone feel that it’s necessary to talk someone else into liking something he doesn’t use well?  The only time this debate becomes important is for something like an entire department that issues a standard service weapon.  I guess in this case if you don’t like what they issue, you need to practice with it until you do or find another job.

Finally, I wonder what it would have been like for John Basilone if he used had the 9 mm instead of the .45?  I wonder if perchance we would have been able to win at Guadalcanal if John hadn’t lost the battle for Henderson Field?  Oh, wait.  Nevermind.

The Age:

The notion that a military-grade weapon could be in the hands of local criminals is shocking, but police have already seized at least five machine guns and assault rifles in the past 18 months. The AK-47 was not among them.

Only a fortnight ago, law enforcement authorities announced they were hunting another seven assault rifles recently smuggled into the country. Weapons from the shipment have been used in armed robberies and drive-by shootings.

[ … ]

Despite Australia’s strict gun control regime, criminals are now better armed than at any time since then-Prime Minister John Howard introduced a nationwide firearm buyback scheme in response to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

Shootings have become almost a weekly occurrence, with more than 125 people, mostly young men, wounded in the past five years.

[ … ]

Crimes associated with firearm possession have also more than doubled, driven by the easy availability of handguns, semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and, increasingly, machine guns, that are smuggled into the country or stolen from licensed owners.

These weapons have been used in dozens of recent drive-by shootings of homes and businesses, as well as targeted and random attacks in parks, shopping centres and roads.

“They’re young, dumb and armed,” said one former underworld associate, who survived a shooting attempt in the western suburbs several years ago.

“It used to be that if you were involved in something bad you might have to worry about [being shot]. Now people get shot over nothing – unprovoked.”

Sounds rather like Chicago, yes?  But wait.  I predict that they’ll try to make a new set of laws that makes it illegal to disobey laws already on the books.

In response to the violence, it can be revealed the state government is planning to introduce new criminal offences for drive-by shootings, manufacturing of firearms with new technologies such as 3D printers, and more police powers to keep weapons out of the hands of known criminals.

They’re all the same everywhere, these collectivists.  The law abiding citizens turned in their weapons, and so now they are defenseless against the criminals.  What they need is to rearm peaceable men and women to shoot the criminals and Melbourne will regain a sense of peace.  The police can’t stop this.  No police anywhere can stop this.  Since that’s the only option that will work, they will studiously avoid it.

Denver Post:

SWAT officers raided a Mesa County home they believed to be full of methamphetamine early Wednesday, breaching its front door and breaking several windows, only to find inside an innocent family with five children.

Authorities from several agencies are now apologizing to the family, saying they had out-of-date information from an informant. The suspects sought by investigators had at one time lived at the house in Clifton near the intersection of 32 and E roads, officials said, but had since moved away.

“We are deeply regretful of the experience to which this family was subjected,” Grand Junction police and the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said in a joint statement. “We have met with the family, including the children, to explain in detail how such a mistake was made.”

The kids range in age from 3 to 12 years old.

[ … ]

Heidi Davidson, spokeswoman for Grand Junction police, said investigators are still working to determine which agency will pay how much for the repairs.

“It should have been vetted better,” Davidson said. “We should have done a better job from the beginning.”

Davidson explained that investigators believe their informant, a woman, was not lying about the suspects she believed lived in the home and that an investigation into the alleged criminals remains ongoing.

“We don’t have any information at this time that the information was made up or fabricated,” Davidson said.

And there’s the problem right there, or at least one of the problems.  An individual – a single individual – can say something and dispatch an armed home invasion team supported by the officers of the court.  One individual.

The police sound more like a drug gang retaliating for some offense in the organized crime world than “peace officers,” yes?

I want one.

Jim Wilson writing for American Rifleman:

In some circles the pistol-mounted light has become quite popular as a personal-defense tool. The theory in the use of such lights is, of course, that you need to be able to identify the person as an actual threat before you employ deadly force. Further, we find that when we light up the target at night or in poor light, we can deliver our hits with much greater accuracy. However, there are some problems that can arise with the use of pistol-mounted lights that the defensive shooter should consider before making the transition.

Armed citizens often have two problems when considering carrying the defensive handgun. The first is that a suitable pistol, in a substantial caliber, often seems heavy, especially when one has been wearing it all day long. The other is that this same pistol can be more difficult to conceal. Unfortunately, mounting a light on the defensive handgun makes it even heavier. And it makes it more difficult to properly conceal the handgun.

Another potential problem that occurs when a person is using a pistol-mounted light is that he is tempted to use the pistol as a flashlight. I know of several cases in which the defensive shooter shined his light—and loaded pistol—on people and things that he had no intention of shooting.

We’ve dealt with this issue before of a light on the front of your handgun, and the lack of police officer discipline causing negligent discharges because of the trigger-like actuation of the light (pressure switch near the trigger guard, along with the fact that officers stupidly go around with their finger on the trigger of their weapons while pointing them at people and things).

Don’t do it this way, and keep your finger off the trigger.  Simple discipline solves that problem.  Lack of time, discipline and training also causes sympathetic muscle reflex responses like it did with poor Eurie Stamps (Jesus was that my rifle?).  But in general I am a huge fan of pistol-mounted lights for the right reason and under the right circumstances.

I think I’ve told the story about my purchase of one, but it bears repeating.  Before my wife’s grandmother passed away, I had to work on her house, oftentimes late into the evening on the weekends, and oftentimes not getting started until after dark.  The home was once in a great neighborhood, but it had turned for the worse because of gang activity, and it was in another town so we couldn’t be there except for me on the weekends.

There were also reports of ne’er-do-wells hanging around, and visual evidence of home entry when we weren’t there (along with electronic evidence such as unexplained power bills).  The home was left dark in order to minimize power bills, and every time I had to begin work after dark, I had to perform a sweep of the entire home.  Sometimes I had my Doberman, Heidi, and I was always safer and happier to have her.

But sometimes I didn’t have her with me.  The first time I ever did entry and sweep of the home, I did so using the hand over wrist method for holding a weapon in one hand and light in another.  The home had many rooms, many closets, multiple bathrooms and a garage as well as exterior structures.  I swore I would never use that method again.  It led to exhaustion and loss of fine motor skills associated with use of my hands and arms.

Before the next time I got a weapon mounted light and haven’t looked back.  I did entry, sweeping and room clearing using proper grip technique and without exhaustion.  I’ll grant the point that the handgun is unable to be concealed, and it’s a bit too heavy to carry without a rigger’s belt.  With a rigger’s belt and the proper holster it isn’t a problem, but you don’t usually carry a rigger’s belt, holster, firearm and weapon-mounted light to the grocery store (I wish we could all do that without people freaking out).

So my gun with the weapon-mounted light sits under my bed.  I’ll carry it in the car on trips, and sometimes I’ll carry it backpacking.  Otherwise, I do the classic routine of carrying a gun and tactical light (separately) with my other weapons.  You get something, you give up something.  No solution is perfect, and one size fits all doesn’t work with firearms.

I use this exact grip, but I find it natural and comfortable.  Others may not.  I also find .45 1911 natural and comfortable, while I do not find 9mm natural or comfortable (nor do I find double-stack magazine guns natural or comfortable compared to the 1911).  It may come down to choice if a shooter doesn’t come to terms with this grip, but it isn’t trivial that all the top competition shooters use this grip.  It does have a number of advantages.