Archive for the 'Guns' Category

Shooting Illustrated has a good review of the Ruger AR 556 in 450 Bushmaster.

I do find this quite an interesting cartridge.  It’s also informative that Leupold came out with a scope specifically designed for this cartridge, called the VX-Freedom 3-9x40mm Bushmaster.  It’s also reasonably priced.

I’d like to know if any readers have a Ruger AR 556 (the make, form factor, materials and gunsmithing will all be about the same regardless of caliber, so any input is appreciated).

Mr. Guns and Gear thinks the make is nice but they should Melonite the barrel.

We discussed this a bit earlier, and TTAG has an informative update on it.  For a summary, see the picture below, but make sure to read the stupidity at TTAG.

Oh dear.  Am I going to have to teach some ignorant ATF agent and DoJ lawyer, who never studied geometry, the Pythagorean Theorem?  Good Lord.  I guess if you can’t get a job doing anything else, you go to work for the ATF.

Before we get to that, perhaps we ought to teach DoJ lawyers about the second amendment.

This is very interesting.  As if you needed another reason to keep your hands away from the end of the cylinder where it meets the forcing cone, watch until the end when he shoots the revolver.

The Federalist:

“I do not believe like weapons of mass destruction like the AR-15 belong in civilian hands,” she said. “I think it should be prohibited from civilian use. I have shot an AR-15, and I think you probably have too, and while it’s an amazing amount of power, it also is an amazing amount of destruction, and there is very little that can be done to protect vulnerable communities when the AR-15 is present.”

So in other words, the only people who should be able to employ destruction is the authorities.  Okay, I’ve got it.  So much for that pesky little notion of death at the hands of a corrupt state apparatus.

As for that horrible, high powered weapon of war, Charles Whitman called from hell and said you’re full of crap.

The Hill:

David Chipman, a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent, on Monday said AR-15 rifles should be regulated like machine guns.

“What I support is treating them just like machine guns,” Chipman, who is now a senior policy adviser at Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on “Rising.”

“To me, if you want to have a weapon of war, the same gun that was issued to me as a member of [the] ATF SWAT team, it makes sense that you would have to pass a background check, the gun would have to be in your name, and there would be a picture and fingerprints on file,” he continued.

“To me, I don’t mind doing it if I want to buy a gun. These policies just protect the criminal. Like, I don’t think you should be able to anonymously purchase 20 AR-15s at one time, and the government shouldn’t know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all that you have to pass a background check to own a weapon of war.”

Hmm … it’s a short hop and a skip from “weapon of war” to the Winchester Model 70 used by Carlos Hathcock, yes?  Or the Benelli shotguns used by the Marines for room clearing operations in Now Zad.  Or the venerable 1911 pistol used by John Basilone in his famous battle.

I suppose that Chapman doesn’t want people to be able to defend themselves from multiple home invaders as did Zach Peters or Stephen Bayezes.  Well, honestly, you can tack on others in that category.

So now you know what kind of people populate the ATF.  But you knew that already, didn’t you?  Instead of regulating AR-15s, I think we should regulate people who think AR-15s should be regulated.  They are a threat to liberty.

CNBC:

A landmark class action settlement involving some of Remington’s most popular firearms has officially gone into effect, after critics of the agreement declined to take their case to the Supreme Court by a Tuesday deadline, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs.

That means that millions of owners of the iconic Model 700 rifle — and a dozen Remington models with similar designs — have 18 months to file claims for a free replacement of their guns’ allegedly defective triggers. The guns have been linked in lawsuits to dozens of accidental deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, though Remington still maintains they are safe.

“Anyone with one of these guns should take advantage of this opportunity to get the trigger fixed,” said Eric D. Holland, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the class action case. “I’ve encouraged everyone to put these guns away. Don’t use these guns. Make the claims now.”

A special website has been set up with information on how to file a claim, and there is also a toll-free hotline, 1-800-876-5940.

[ … ]

The effective date of the settlement comes almost exactly eight years after CNBC first explored allegations that Remington engaged in a decades-long coverup of a defect that allows the guns to fire without the trigger being pulled.

Remington said the guns have been safe since they were first produced. But the 2010 documentary “Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation” uncovered internal company documents showing engineers warning of a “theoretical unsafe condition” even before the trigger design went on the market in 1948. The company repeatedly decided against modifying the design or launching a recall, even as accidents and customer complaints continued to pile up.

It’s more complicated than simply the rifle firing when the trigger isn’t pulled.  The rifle would discharge at times when the cartridge was sent into battery, and Remington engineers knew it and had data from their own testing that showed it.

How sad.  After all of the pain, suffering, money, lawyers and loss of reputation to the company, this is apparently the end.  All of it could have been avoided by simply doing a recall when the engineers found it.  The world is almost always a worse place when people don’t listen to engineers.

Prior: Remington 700

News from the Northwest:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) – A 48–year–old physician died when his rifle discharged after he returned to Helena from a hunting trip.

Lewis and Clark County Coroner Bryan Backeberg tells the Independent Record that Eugene “Buzz” Walton was retrieving the rifle from the back of a pickup truck in the old Kmart parking lot at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday when it went off.

Lt. Brett Petty says officers responded to a report of shots fired, found Walton outside the truck and began giving him medical aid. He died shortly after being transported to the hospital.

Folks, unload your guns after a trip to the range or hunting.  We want our readers around for the long haul.  I’m sure the gun didn’t “go off” by accident or spuriously.  No offense is intended.  I feel sure he grabbed the trigger.

News from Florida:

A group of open carry gun enthusiasts had a well-armed visit to Miami Beach on Saturday.

The group calling itself “Florida Carry” caused a disturbance when they showed up on the South Pointe Park Pier in June.

At that time, six members of the group startled fishermen and visitors, some of whom notified police.

Officers temporarily detained and disarmed the group, but determined that they were within their rights to carry weapons.

This time, the group announced it’s intention to show up at the pier on a Facebook page, and police were ready and accommodating.

The group walked to the pier and proceeded to fish, gathering several double-takes from other fishermen and tourists.

Open Carry Advocate Steven Merrette said, “This is our statement to come out here and try and educate not only the law enforcement officers but the general public as well. We are not the problem. We’re out here peacefully fishing, we’ve got our wives, our kids with us, we’re out here having a good time, nobody’s causing any problems.”

I support their efforts.  As I’ve said before, the shame must end.  I agree wholeheartedly with the notion of open carry to prove a point.  Other than that, we learn absolutely nothing interesting or actionable from this stupid report, except that the police are criminals.

It’s legal to open carry while fishing, and this wasn’t a Terry stop.  There was no suspicion of a crime, and the police didn’t need to detain the men and verify that they were within their rights.  Here’s a scoop, cops.  There is no law against it, so they were within their rights, just as much as walking down the street is within my rights, and you have no right to detain me for walking down the street.

As for disarming the men, I’ve pointed out before that this is the stupidest, most ridiculous, most unsafe act you can take.  Do … not .. touch .. another … man’s .. weapon.  If you do that, you are an imbecile, and your procedures are faulty.

So here’s a suggestion for the write of this silly article (” … and police were ready and accommodating”).  Find out and report for us what right the police had to detain and disarm the men, and give us the court precedents that support such action, if you can find any.  More to the point.  Give us court precedents that demonstrate that the police can detain you for no reason whatsoever?

Here’s another idea.  Give us the data on whether blood really runs in the streets like the wild, wild west in open carry states.  Or not.  Hey, “journalist.”  Do you even know how many states are open carry states?

Prior: Miami Beach Police Draw Down On, Detain, Disarm, And Throw Around Lawful Open Carriers

It’s not a trick question.  Nothing.

This summer, bassoonist Eric Barga drove to Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Ohio, after a day of teaching at his old school, Kenton Ride High School.

Eric was half an hour early for bell choir practice. To pass the time, he pulled out his custom-made Fox 610 red maple bassoon, sat down on the boot of his car and started playing some scales.

Seven minutes later, Springfield police received a 911 call, saying there was a white male in a jacket and jeans sitting on the back of his car by the church holding what looked like a long rifle.

Five minutes later, two police vehicles arrived on the scene.

“They didn’t immediately approach me,” Eric told Springfield News. “I saw a big police van roll up really slowly. I wasn’t concerned that I was doing anything wrong.”

Eric wondered if someone had made a noise complaint about him. The idea that someone might have mistaken his bassoon for a rifle, he said: “never crossed my mind”.

“In the right kind of light, it looks like a bazooka,” he said, “but I don’t think it was the right kind of light.”

The officers approached him.

“At this point, I realise they’re confronting me. I put on a little dopey smile and said, ‘Did somebody call the cops on me?’

“I didn’t really feel threatened. “I don’t get nervous. Years of music school (performance) beats that out of you.”

By the time the officers got to Eric’s car, they had realised the gun was in fact a musical instrument and were laughing. They even asked Eric: “Is that a bassoon or an oboe?”

Eric treated the officers to a bit of Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto before they left him to his practice.

So has America reached the stage of being worthy of ridicule?  I’m asking.  Readers can weigh in.  I know the country has in the main succumbed to the obscene, but now it looks like the three stooges.  Because I think we’re there.  We’ve finally arrived.

Here are a few observations.

First, he’s right, music performance school beats the nerves out of you.  My son, Joseph, is Concertmaster of the Austin Lyric Opera and a member of the Austin Symphony, has appeared on Austin City Limits (twice), has played with Peter Gabriel, recorded for Christopher Cross and many others.  You have to lasso your nerves to do that sort of thing.  He handled it like a champion.

Second, Americans need to take music lessons.  All Americans.  And no, rap and modern teen pop doesn’t count.  To mistake a Bassoon for a long gun is a sign that someone needs to learn the musical instruments.  You know those piano lessons your mom wanted you to take as a child, and that caused rebellion in the ranks?  Yea, those lessons.  They did you good, and you should have finished them.  And you should learn to play a string or wind instrument too.  It creates an appreciation for art, for the good things in life, for the beautiful, the exquisite, and the majestic.  It also constructs the neural networks to understand math.  Music students have an easier time with math.  My son has his own studio, and many of his students are Asian.  It’s virtually expected that Asian kids will learn music.  American kids are learning teen pop and rap.

Third, Americans need to learn firearms.  A Bassoon doesn’t look like a long gun.  A long gun doesn’t look like a Bassoon.  If I have to say any more about that, it’s time wasted on imbeciles.  And knowing how to handle firearms and being ready to use them is the surest, quickest way to handle active shooter threats, as opposed to hiding under desks and throwing potted plants as suggested by the Department of Homeland Security.

I mean, how cool would it be to do math, play a musical instrument and handle an active shooter in the same day?  You would certainly go to bed that night confident in your station in life.