Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

Tom Nichols writing at L.A. Times:

Every disaster brings out human irrationality. When there’s a plane crash, we fear flying; when a rare disease emerges, we fear we will be infected. And when there’s a mass shooting in a church, we think we should bring more guns into churches. Or at least some people think so. This is a completely irrational response to the tragedy in Texas this week, but it’s being pushed by people for whom “more guns” is always the right answer to gun violence.

Incompetency in assessing risk is something displayed in the very article Nichols wrote, but more on that in a minute.

It’s amusing and even sad that he brought up the shooting in Walmart in Denver.  We’ve already discussed that, and in no way, shape or form did anyone interfere with anything except causing the need for the police to watch a few additional hours of video.  It’s as ridiculous to say that self defense is interfering as it was to say that the open carrier during the Dallas shooting caused police response to be delayed or impeded.  It did no such thing, as the Dallas Police Department chased the actual perpetrator until the end.  No one on scene was confused or misdirected – it was only cops watching videos hours after the event who were temporarily confused, and that was their own fault, not that of the open carrier.

Now back to the issue of risk.  Nichols conflates the concept of probability and risk.  They most certainly are not the same thing.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission explains risk as a product of probability and consequences, and this is usually determined using fault trees and Boolean Logic.  Sophomoric explanations where the likelihood of occurrence of an event is equated with risk are not helpful, and certainly don’t rise to the level of good engineering.

Similarly, the food and agricultural industries use the same model for risk.  Risk is the product of probability and consequences.  An event can be a high likelihood and yet low consequences, and involve moderate to high risk, depending upon the magnitude of the consequences.  An event can involve low likelihood and low consequences, and thus low risk.  See the risk matrix linked above.

In my line of work, we have argued upon being backfitted or told to implement some set of modifications that the risk is low.  When we argue in this manner we’ve always done our homework to substantiate those claims.  At times we’re told to implement those modifications anyway because of public perception.  But we never implement modifications without informing everyone of the cost.  For example, “Implementing that set of modifications and backfits will cost $600 million.”  Since we don’t grow money on trees, someone will pay for all of it.  The cost doesn’t disappear – it will be borne by someone.

In the case Nichols discusses above, i.e., carrying a weapon to a worship service, it might have been moderately more compelling if he had argued that probability of the event is low, consequences are low, thus risk is low, and besides, the cost is extremely high (e.g., weapons cost $100,000 each).  You always assess risk in terms of cost because if everything is free then there is no practical limit to the reduction of risk.

In his case he has argued for nothing.  He has argued that he believes risk to be low (while conflating probability with risk), and thus carrying to worship is apparently a bad thing (while ignoring the high consequences of said event).  But he hasn’t assessed the cost of this choice.  For gun owners and carriers such as myself and many of my readers, there is minimal cost to this endeavor.  Allow me to convey my personal observations.

I hate carrying things on my body.  I don’t wear jewelry (rings, etc.), watches, or anything else that weighs me down.  I even hate to carry a phone in my pocket.  So when I made the decision to carry a number of years ago, it had to become a discipline or else it wouldn’t obtain.  I had to consciously practice and rehearse the rules of gun safety, look for good belt support and holsters, spend time at the range, and on and on the carousel goes.  Many readers can identify with my travails.

Over time it becomes habit such that conducting yourself in a safe and efficient manner becomes second nature.  Now let’s suppose that I spend my whole life attending worship services carrying a weapon and no such awful event ever occurs.  I hope this is indeed the case.  If so, then I have lost nothing.  The cost to me has been minimal (the cost of a good firearm), and the time spend developing self discipline.  On the other hand, I have been prepared for an event of unknown probability but high consequence, with at least moderate and perhaps high risk.

It makes perfect sense to conduct myself in this manner.  But the strained argument Nichols put forward offers no compelling reason to adopt his approach.  One gains absolutely nothing by following his counsel, and you stand to lose big due to moderate to high risk.

Nichols is a professor at the Naval War College.  This makes the third article within one week from persons within the defense apparatus – or loosely affiliated with the defense apparatus – taking a gun controller viewpoint.  First it was Adam Routh with CNAS hyperventilating about North Korea getting night vision equipment (so we needed to put it on the prohibited list for American civilians).

Next, Phillip Carter weighed in with this formal fallacy: (1) Pistols are ineffective against vehicular attacks, (2) Vehicular attacks is terrorism, therefore, (3) Pistols are ineffective against terrorism.  It’s almost as if someone makes the call to the next Kamikaze pilot: “You’re next.  It doesn’t matter how stupid you look or how bad your case is, it’s your turn to be the controller of the day.”

Who does this?  Everytown?  Former president Obama?  Who makes these calls, and how does this go down?  There must be some sort of outside pressure to do this sort of thing in order to go public with such a knuckleheaded commentary as this.

We may never know, but for the future, Mr. Nichols, research your concepts, be precise in your definitions, and be a critic of your own work before it goes out in order to find and fix its weaknesses.  Obviously, the editors aren’t going to do it.

DFW CBS:

About 20 other people were wounded. Investigators collected at least 15 empty magazines that held 30 rounds each at the scene, suggesting the assailant fired at least 450 rounds.

Many more details emerge from this report and others.  It’s easy to second guess people in time of distress, and we certainly must feel sympathy for those poor people and keep them in our prayers.

But I simply don’t understand why some of the men of the church didn’t attack the shooter when he stopped to reload.  Were there men in the congregation or was it all women and children?

This shooter should have been met with the barrels of 50 pistols in his face the minute he walked in with a rifle.  Thankfully, a good man was on the outside and exchanged fire with him immediately outside the church as he was retrieving a pistol from his running vehicle to continue the carnage.

If you haven’t spent the time to watch and listen to all of this video, you should.  It will be the most important 30 minutes you’ll spend this month.  He said he believes that the “Holy Spirit was on him.”  I have no doubt that is true, and Steve Willeford was used by God to stop the carnage that awful morning.  Christians need to make sure this doesn’t happen again by waking from their national coma.

Via reader Richard Fuher.  Watch it all.  There are real men left in America.

After discussing the S&W 686 several days ago, the thought occurred to me that there must be a newer Performance Center 686.  Sure enough, there is.  This one is a beautiful firearm, unfluted cylinders, 7-round capacity, and an interesting speed release thumbpiece for the cylinder.  Let me know if any readers happen to have this model.  I find it very interesting.  I’ll also remark that this isn’t a bad price for a Performance Center gun.

By now you’ve heard of the horrible shooting at the small church in Texas.  Take careful note that the perpetrator was done in by an armed citizen.

Another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who had witnessed the gun battle, said both he and the unnamed neighbor had jumped in his truck and gave chase.

In a Facebook post, Langendorff’s girlfriend Summer Caddel described how the pair had ‘jumped in my boyfriend’s truck and they chased that sick b*****d down in pursuit until the cops could catch up. He was able to run the shooter off of the road on 539!’

Langendorff told ABC 12 that he’d been speeding at 95mph, while on the phone to dispatch, while the neighbor kept his rifle trained on the gunman’s car.

As they approached a sharp curve in the road, near the 307 and 539, he said Kelley appeared to lose control and his car swerved off the road.

‘That’s when I put the truck in park,’ he said. ‘The other gentleman jumped out, and had his rifle on him. He didn’t move after that.’

Within minutes of the reports of this hitting the air, I had two questions: (1) Why are the FBI and ATF involved, and (2) Why haven’t we heard of a motive?

There is this report discussing the shooter being a member of Antifa, and how according to his own words he intended to start a civil war by “targeting white conservative churches.”  If this report is true – and you likely won’t ever hear that in the MSM nor will the FBI or even local law enforcement ever tell you this – it would answer both of my questions.

But let’s assume for the moment that it’s not true.  It doesn’t matter why he did it for purposes of my point.  It could have been Antifa, Muslim fascists or a belligerent worker who had been fired.

I heard over the national news how some churches had even gotten “permission” to allow a concealed carrier into the facilities.  What?  Permission?  To carry a weapon for self defense?  Permission?

Listen to me, Christians everywhere.  I’ve harped on this and will continue to until Christians wake up.  If you don’t emerge from your slumber, you’ll be run over like a train hit you.  You’d better arm up and prepared to defend yourselves.  No matter what you have been taught, you are not safe in your places of worship.  Make it so.  Make it safe for yourselves, your families and your congregants.  God expects you to.  He demands it.

Reddit/r/firearms:

My cat stole a part of my revolver, Ruger replaced it free of charge, paid for shipping both ways, improved the trigger and sent me a pretty nice oiled up cleaning rag free of charge.

Here’s the rundown, after going out shooting I came home and disassembled by revolver – besides the cats I was the only one home. After I disassembled it I went to the bathroom, came back and found my cat on the table – tossed her off and then did a thorough cleaning.

My hammer dog mysteriously disappeared. I searched for that thing for an hour. It even got the point where I tried to shake it out of my cat. GONE. VAPORIZED. F***.

Well, I had heard some great things about Ruger’s customer so I gave them a call. The lady I spoke to on the phone was polite as I embarrassingly explained the situation.

What I expected: 25$ shipping there, 25$ shipping back, 25$-50$ for labor/parts.

What I got: A free of charge shipping label from ruger to send the Revolver in, no charge for labor, no charge for parts and no charge for them to send it back and a sweet cleaning rag to boot.

F***ing wow. To make things better the trigger is better than it was before, and it was pretty nice to begin with for a GP100.

I want to reiterate what just happened, because I’m still pretty stunned by how great the company treated me.

I f***ed up and they fixed it for me free of charge.

Easily one of the best customer service experiences of my life.

Now, some folks would say that this is a good way for Ruger to go out of business.  Those people have probably never run a successful business either.  I had a similar experience with my GP100.  It’s a beautiful firearm, and it’s trigger is as good as any S&W Performance Center trigger I’ve ever shot, in both single and double action.

Well, I’m not going to tell you what I did because it’s embarrassing, but Ruger handled it free of charge and I will never, ever get rid of that GP100.  I’ll keep it the rest of my life, I’ll recommend that other people buy the GP100, and I’m more inclined to get another Ruger product because of the great customer experience from them with the GP100.

So here’s a note to Ruger.  You know how to run a successful business.  Don’t ever change.

Shooting Illustrated:

High-pressure symptoms are probably the most commonly encountered stop signs our rifles provide. Inspecting spent cases whenever you try new ammo, changing a handload recipe or shooting in drastically different atmospheric conditions can help you spot potential issues. Primers warn us in the form of “blowing” completely out of the brass, cratering (a slightly raised lip around the firing pin indention), flattening out or being pierced by the firing pin. Minor flattening or cratering is not uncommon, especially when firing heavy bullets. Either condition needs to be watched, but neither is cause for alarm so long as it is minor and limited to one ammo type.

But, when multiple factory loads are showing these signs consistently, it is time to have the rifle looked at by a qualified gunsmith or the firearm’s manufacturer. The same goes for blown primers, damage to the case head with semi-automatic rifles or brass flow into a bolt’s ejector-pin hole on any gun: A minor amount is not abnormal for heavy loads, but excessive or consistent damage is cause for concern.

Consistently pierced primers warrant more immediate action. Checking your brass will reveal piercing, but sometimes you get an earlier warning from a blast of gas in your face and the contents of an external magazine littering the ground under your rifle. This is your cue that it is time to stop and find the source of the problem. Piercing can force small discs of primer material into a bolt’s firing-pin hole, eventually causing other problems. A jammed up firing-pin bore can stop pin movement and possibly fix the firing pin in the forward position. That may lead to a “runaway” machine gun, firing every time the bolt slams forward on a fresh round or worse, firing out of battery. A full-auto surprise is bad enough, but a gun that fires out of battery can be catastrophic for the shooter and anyone nearby.

At any sign of primer piercing, stop using the suspect ammunition and ensure the firing pin and bolt are closely inspected for proper function or damage. Just a few pierced primers can erode a firing-pin tip, leading to greater primer-piercing frequency, leading to more firing-pin damage, and so on.

Other harbingers of pressure trouble include bent firing-pin-retaining pins, broken extractor pins, bent or broken extractors, a sudden increase in recoil/muzzle blast/gas without a change in ammo, case-head separation or spent cases that are split or ruptured. In each case, it makes more sense to stop what you are doing and look for the source of the problem(s) than it does to just keep banging away.

Read the rest at Shooting Illustrated.  I would have thought most of this is common sense, but perhaps not.  There are the harder to find issues as well.  I once went shooting where the Range Officer was a gunsmith, and he took interest in the brass my pistol was ejecting.  Close inspection of it, along with me, showed that it was heavily charred on one side, while the rest was clean.  It turned out that my barrel was out of round and had to be replaced.  To this day I thank that man for his attention to detail (if he happens to be reading this).

The point of this is that we all have to be mechanics if we’re going to be good shooters and sportsmen.

Shooting Illustrated:

Using a barrel bushing wrench or comparable tool, depress the recoil spring plug. The plug is located directly below the barrel bushing. After depressing the plug, rotate the barrel bushing to one side. Take care with this step because the recoil spring plug holds the recoil spring back tightly. If you are not careful, the spring will eject the plug into whatever dark, impenetrable corner exists in the room you are working in. When the spring is loose, the recoil spring plug can be removed from the end of the spring and set aside. The spring itself will still be held in place within the slide.

Turn the gun right-side down. Hook your thumb against the front of the trigger guard – without touching the trigger – and wrap the fingers of the same hand over the slide. (Hooking your thumb inside the front of the trigger guard rather than around the grip safety allows you better access to the slide for the remainder of this step.)

Push the slide back and align the rearward, raised portion of the takedown lever with the disassembly notch in the slide (the first notch is the slide stop notch and the second, smaller one is the disassembly notch). Holding the slide in this position, use the fingers of your other hand to begin pushing the takedown lever pin free from the receiver. If you need a visual aid, simply continue to hold the slide back and rotate the gun so you’re looking at its right-hand side. You will see the circular, raised pin located centrally above the trigger guard.

Once the takedown lever pin has been pushed partially free of the receiver, you should be able to remove it entirely from the left-hand side of the receiver. Set the takedown lever aside and slowly release the slide.

Re-assembly tip: When replacing the takedown lever, be sure the barrel link is upright and lined up with the corresponding hole in the slide. Otherwise, the pin will not fit.

The barrel bushing is the most hazardous part for me.  If you’re not careful, you’ll put your eye out or put a hole in your ceiling.

This is a keeper along with the firearm manuals themselves for my 1911s.  It’s a good companion article to Revolver Disassembly and Cleaning.

Editorial at Toledo Blade:

Police officers in Ohio already face too many threats to their safety when they take to the streets to protect their communities. They should be able to know whether someone they are approaching is armed.

But the Ohio House approved a measure last week that would weaken the state’s concealed-carry laws. It would ease penalties on motorists who fail to promptly alert officers during traffic stops that they have a weapon in their car. The bill is now headed to the Ohio Senate.

What is proposed instead is that a person stopped by authorities could simply hand over his concealed-carry permit with his driver’s license.

The bill also would reduce the severity of the charge for failing to notify the officer from a first-degree misdemeanor to a minor misdemeanor.

The original version of the bill would have eliminated entirely the responsibility for concealed-carry permit holders to notify officers that they were armed, which is disrespectful to law enforcement, and simply reckless.

The bill’s proponents say that law-abiding concealed-carry permit holders should not have to alert anyone to the fact that they are armed. That is also disrespectful, and arrogant.

Advocates for the bill say it would only clean up ambiguous language by removing “promptly,” which can be arbitrarily interpreted. But why not define the term instead of removing a reasonable requirement?

Considering how quickly an interaction between law enforcement and any armed civilian can escalate, it seems more logical that the law-abiding permit-holders would want to immediately alert officers to the presence of a weapon.

Many gun owners who seek out concealed-carry permits do so because they believe carrying a weapon makes them safer. But no one is safer in a situation when police are surprised by a gun.

What the editorial should have said is “We advocate informing cops about weapons because we like to see goober cops shoot weapons carriers.  We like to see that because we have weapons carriers.”

It’s simply insulting to claim that criminals or someone bent on danger to someone else would inform cops of their weapon.  “Why yes, officer, I have a concealed firearm, and I intend to use it to ensure you don’t get home safely at the end of your shift.”

Anyone who informs a LEO about weapons cannot possibly be the real concern, and LEOs know that, and so does the editorial board of the Toledo Blade.  And since the criminal won’t inform a LEO about weapons, everyone really knows that informing LEOs is not relevant to anything at all.

This is really all about being, as the editorial put it, “disrespectful” to LEOs.  Because statists will be statists, and they will always have their armed enablers.

The Ohio Senate should pass this bill.  Why would anyone carrying a firearm want to voluntarily put himself or family in danger from some trigger happy buffoon?

From the “I carry” series.  It’s a nice presentation, but I do have a few nits after you watch the video.

First of all, I don’t like Kydex holsters.  Like you, I have a box full of holsters, and none of them are Kydex.  I don’t even like Kydex knife sheaths.  I much prefer leather or Cordura.

I like the tactical light, and I really like the speed loader.  I have a different belt (Black Hawk Rigger’s Belt), but like the video I recommend a good belt as the foundation.  I’m not much on short fixed blade knives.  If I’m going to carry a fixed blade knife it’s going to he a large one.  Otherwise, I like a rugged folder, and it MUST have serrations.

Here’s an equally interesting video on ten things you didn’t know about the S&W 686.