Archive for the 'Guns' Category

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.

Michael Brown at WND:

Good Lord.  There are so many confused thoughts, sentiments and alleged doctrines strung together in haphazard fashion that it’s hard to know where to begin.

First of all, let’s stipulate that Islam is a political religion whose main tenet is the implementation of Sharia, by force if necessary.  Warfare is the way of things, and it’s easy to become a Muslim since it involves the mere citation of a few doctrines out loud regardless of belief.  Islam is a religion only for simpletons, amenable to barbaric and bloody conflict.  It was never designed to be anything else.  It was fabricated to keep Muhammad’s band of fighters from splintering and wandering off.

On the other hand, Christianity, true doctrine, includes the robust doctrine of the Holy Spirit who persuades, convinces, and changes the heart of man, regenerating his mind, volition and desires.  We need no such thing as forcible implementation of Christianity, for that would be to usurp the role of the Holy Spirit, who, as the wind, blows wherever He wants as His sovereign will dictates.  It would be obscene to attempt to force conversion since no one but the Holy Spirit can do that.

That must not be confused, as this writer does, with the fact that Christianity doesn’t have to be the pacifist, beatnik, long haired hippie flower child faith that people in America seem to think.  They’ve believe that because they have been taught it by ne’er-do-wells and idiots who don’t know anything about Christian doctrine.  True enough, Christians have been persecuted around the world, from Mesopotamia to the Coptic Christians in Egypt, in Armenia with the genocide at the hands of the Muslim Turks, and on and on the sad, sorry list goes.

But there is a different example for us, namely, the Crusades, where we saw Christian warriors who fought to save the Christian world from extinction.  God preserved the true faith, as He always will, but He used the hands of warriors as secondary causes.  It is this example we should follow, not that of passive Christianity who willingly allows women to be raped, children to be killed or converted, and men to be beheaded, all in the name of love for Christ.  Love for Christ doesn’t mean hatred for fellow men such that we are willing to see them perish at the hands of barbaric mobs.

The author, Michael Brown, doesn’t give much attention to the very important notion that defense of self and others is not only a right, but a duty if one is going to be faithful to the Decalogue.  Furthermore, he isn’t studied in the concept of Good Wars, which is a logical and Biblical extension of the Decalogue.  Christ was crucified for the sins of His people (Matthew 1:21).  Christ also had to take the cup that was before Him because of the will of His father.

Our deaths will provide vicarious atonement for no one, including ourselves.  Christ’s instructions in the sermon on the mount involved personal relationships, not state interactions, covenants, or tyranny.  More to the point, tyranny is an abomination to God’s authority over mankind in all of its aspects.  It violates the warp and woof of the entirety of the Holy Scriptures.

Weapons were sanctioned by God as a consequence of evil in the world, and so it will be until the end.  Simpleton commentaries that assume that Jesus was a Bohemian hippie flower child do nothing to further men’s understanding of true doctrine, or how they should then live.

Shooting Illustrated:

Wilson Combat improved the design of its high-capacity 1911 magazines, bringing new technology and innovation into the company’s extended design that enhances the capabilities of any standard 1911 pistol.

The magazine redesign includes a new high-strength magazine spring that’s made entirely from stainless steel, which enhances the corrosion resistance and performance of the magazine, extending its service life and enhancing the reliability of the already-dependable design. The heavy-duty magazine spring also brings with it the added benefit of ensuring positive engagement of the slide stop, as well as retaining spring tension under load for extended periods of time, allowing owners to keep their pistol magazines loaded without fear of weakening the magazine spring.

The Wilson Combat 10-round 1911 magazines also include an ETM-style nylon follower that self-lubricates for enhanced operation, as well as a totally new wraparound base pad that is made from polymer and allows for a secure, extended grip as well as quick and easy reloading. The base pad also includes dimpled areas that allow for easy marking, ensuring that shooters can keep track of their magazines with simple numbered markings. The baseplate is also easily removed for maintenance and is designed to withstand repeated impacts often sustained by dropped magazines.

I agree with one of the commenters on this piece.  This is an advertisement for Wilson Combat.  I’d much prefer that they do some testing and report the results to us.  On the other hand, I’ve heard very good things about Wilson Combat 1911 magazines, and their work to bring us a higher capacity magazine is smart.

I would also like to know how this stacks up against Chip McCormick magazines, especially with their newer feed rail technology.

Any comments from folks who have used both (or either) is appreciated.  I’d like to benefit from your insights before I spend my money.  Or … Wilson Combat and Chip McCormick could just send me some to review over the web site.

Outdoor Life:

Gunsite Academy teaches that once you’ve reloaded your handgun, you should point your thumb toward your chest and grasp the slide between your thumb and all four fingers. Then you should forcefully pull the slide to the rear and release. This will disengage the slide stop, and as the slide goes forward, it will chamber a cartridge from the new and fully loaded magazine you’ve just inserted. Instructors who advocate using the slide stop as a slide release argue that it’s faster. It probably is. Others, like those at Gunsite, who teach releasing the slide by pulling it to the rear, suggest that pushing down on the slide stop with your thumb is a fine motor skill, and that fine motor skills can deteriorate when you’re under stress. They can and do.

I’m sure it depends upon what you’ve learned and practiced your whole life.  That said, when I first began shooting pistols I used the slide stop / slide release to chamber the new round.  I found that I didn’t like the movement of the pistol when I did that, and that in order to move my thumb around to get good contact with the slide stop, I had to change my grip ever so slightly, loosing “purchase” on the gun.

I almost never use the slide stop now.  I grab the slide and cycle it.  And for whatever reason, I hate the phrase “rack the slide.”  I prefer the phrase “cycle the slide,” although it’s not a complete cycle when it’s merely released from the stop.  So maybe I should use the term “release the slide” if it’s not a full cycle.

What do readers do?

As always, John is a nice guy and knowledgeable to boot.  I do have two comments about the video though.

First of all, I’ve run pistols with fiber optic sights for a long time, and I’ve never once seen them crack, fall out or break.  I give them much more credit than he seems to.  Plus, I really do like the way the optics jump out at you when you present.  And I couldn’t really care less what police in America use.

Second, I’ve also presented in the dark with use of a weapon-mounted light before, and the argument that “if you have enough light to properly identify the target, you can see you pistol sights,” doesn’t hold water with me.  The pistol sights are behind the light.  You can always point-and-shoot, but that’s an inferior option to aiming.

I have no experience with red dot pistol sights.  If some company wanted to send me one (Trijicon?), I would be more than happy to give it a review.

Kitup at Military.com.

The U.S. Army’s chief of staff recently made a bold promise that future soldiers will be armed with weapons capable of delivering far greater lethality than any existing small arms.

[ … ]

As Milley was speaking, Textron Systems officials were showing off their new Intermediate Case-Telescoped Carbine, chambered for 6.5mm on the AUSA exhibition floor.

Textron’s cased-telescoped ammunition relies on a plastic case rather than a brass one to hold the propellant and the projectile, like a conventional shotgun shell.

The ICTC is a closed bolt, forward feed, gas piston operated weapon, weighing 8.3 pounds. The 6.5mm case-telescoped ammunition weighs 35 percent less and offers 30 percent more lethality than 7.62mm x 51mm brass ammunition, Textron officials maintain.

“I think the most important thing is what we have been able to do with the intermediate caliber, the 6.5mm in this case,” Wayne Prender, vice president of Textron’s Control & Surface Systems Unmanned Systems told Military.com. “We are able to not only provide a weight reduction … and all the things that come with it – we are also able to provide increased lethality because of the ability to use a more appropriate round.”

Textron officials maintain they are using a low-drag “representative” 6.5mm bullet while U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, or ARDEC, is developing the actual projectile.

“We actually used three different bullet shapes and we scaled it,” said Paul Shipley, program manager for of Unmanned Systems. “We scaled 5.56mm up, we scaled 7.62mm down and took a low-drag shape and ran that between the two” to create the 125 grain 6.5mm bullet that’s slightly longer than the Army’s new 130 grain M80A1 Enhanced Performance Round.

Textron officials maintain that the new round retains more energy at 1,200 meters than the M80A1. At that distance, the 6.5mm has an impact-energy of 300 foot pounds compared to the M80A1 which comes in at about 230 foot pounds of energy, Textron officials maintain.

“The increased lethality we are referring to has to do with the energy down range,” Shipley said. “You can take whatever kind of bullet you want, compare them and it’s going to have increased energy down range.”

Okay, so let me get this straight.  The Army doesn’t know how to shoot as it is, and while focusing on racial diversity, gender issues, gays in the military, women in combat arms, and declining physical standards, are going to teach young boys and girls in the “Big Army” how to shoot 1200 meters with a battle rifle that will have a larger punch (to the shooter), be more physically demanding to shoot, and have no civilian analogue?

Consider.  Most of the real advancements to weapons design are made in the civilian market.  PMags came from the civilian market.  The 6.5mm Creedmoor came from the civilian market.  Less weighty rails and barrel shrouds came from the civilian market.  I could go on, but you get the point.  The military is the beneficiary of what happens in the civilian world, no vice versa (this is one reason I think that the limitation on civilian ownership of machine guns will eventually weaken the military, because no one is designing an open bolt system that gets vetted by the civilian market).

If you’re in the military, you use what you’re given.  If you are not, you get to spend your money however you want, and you do the research necessary to find the best product that meets your needs.   Innovation is driven in the market, not by the military.  If a company designs a poor product for the civilian market, it gets called crap ten thousand times over the forums and people don’t buy it.  The company goes out of business.

I see much pain if big army goes down this road.  They will have recoil issues, parts breakage, no one to whom they can turn for counsel who has actually shot this thing before, ammunition problems, accuracy problems, and on and on it goes.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.  If the military wanted this to work, they would have to vet it in the civilian market first.

But it all looks like a solution in search of a problem to me.

Here is a broad ranging discussion thread where the commenters throw down with each other, referencing an AR-15 discussion thread where Mark LaRue apparently hinted at the willingness to accept gun control.  Some commenters at reddit think not, but here is what he apparently said.

“Like I said, if I come up with a way to use a waterhose to shoot up all your ammo faster, does that mean waterhoses are protected by the second amendment?”

He also apparently said this in support of the NRA.  Now, I have to admit that the comment makes no sense and seems to me to be nonsensical.  It could have been clear and made sense if it just included a typographical error, and should have read … “does that mean waterhoses aren’t protected by the second amendment?”  It would make sense because it would be using a superlative to make a point, or arguing a fortiori, from the lesser to the greater [why stop with bump stocks, ban waterhoses too], or even reduction ad absurdum.

But what he may be doing is lampooning gun owners’ reflexive tendency, as he sees it, to defend anything under the rubric of the second amendment.  In fact, I think this is close to the truth.  Mark LaRue goes on to release a statement correcting himself, but it may be too little, too late.  He also uses obscenity against a member of the AR-15 forum later on in the discussion thread.

What is the matter with these guys?  Seriously, what’s wrong with their thinking?  Why not say nothing at all, and do your best to serve the gun community with high quality products for as cheaply as you can sell them?

Well, I may be in the market for a high end AR-15 first quarter of next year.  I think LaRue Tactical is off my short list.

Men and women enjoying their God-given RKBA.

The comments on TCJ are far more interesting than the commentary by the owner, and it’s appropriate to survey a few, as well as survey as few from other sources.

MadMagyar:

“Live and let live” is an iffy proposition with a big cat. I lived at the end of a dirt road 16 miles outside Sedona back in the 80’s. There were no phone lines out that far. My nearest neighbors were an old couple in their 90’s (about 2 miles down the road), so yelling for help if I were in trouble was out of the question. Not long after I moved there, a healthy female started nosing around, but kept her distance – about 200 – 300 yards. Not long after that, I also noticed a smaller cub following her. At first all I saw was their tails between bushes in the distance, but soon I got the “feeling” (hairs literally stood up on the back of my neck) when they were around and I saw more and more of their bodies as they jumped from one part of their trail to another, eventually catching a full view of each of them. But they didn’t come any closer for a long time – months passing by with only their voices occasionally breaking the silence.

I made an almost fatal mistake one time about 6 months after I moved there, when I went for a long hike up a nearby canyon, late in Summer. Coming back down around sunset, I lost the trail and went too far along the creek that formed the small canyon. Doubling back to a familiar place kept me out until well past dark, and the late phase of the moon and cloud cover made it pitch back, so I opted to climb down into the creek bed where I could pick up the trail back to the cabin. Before I could climb back out, I got “the feeling”, and within seconds I heard the lion’s short, sharp call (I described it as a mix between a growl and scream – not at all like the calls dubbed into TV travelogues of the 50’s – 60’s). She was above me up on the creek bank, probably not more than 20 feet from where I stood frozen. I was totally defenseless, armed with only a folding pocket knife, which I pulled out in the hopes it wouldn’t be my last use of it. She called a few more times and all I could think to do was sound more menacing and dangerous than some tasty tidbit – so I yelled and screamed as loud as I could back at her. Apparently she decided I was more trouble than it was worth, and decided to let me live that night, stalking off along the path, her occasional call telling me that she’d finally gone away. It was a long time before I got the courage to climb up and out of there to very cautiously make my way back home.

Later that year, before the snows got too thick, a wildlife videographer came to the ranch and stopped by asking if I minded him passing through with his pack horses and dogs, as he was tracking the lion to film her for a TV show. He promised to stop back by and loan me any videotape he shot for viewing, which I appreciated. The film was well worth watching, as the best footage of my big cat neighbor showed her gracefully jumping from one rock jutting out from the escarpment they were on to another, attempting to get away from the bothersome dogs. They followed her up to a point where the distance between them was about as far as she could reach with her front paw – which she did after tiring of the incessantly barking hound who’d dared to get too close. Smack! went one lightning quick swipe at the poor dog’s nose and he turned and ran yelping back down the rock path, leaving the rest to continue their taunting. Then she turned and leapt about 20 feet from one ledge to another as if it were no effort at all – a distance far too much for the dogs to continue their chase.

I’d acquired a .22 that year, just in case I had to use it, and was glad, as a friend and her young son had moved up there with me by then. About a year later the cat began gradually coming closer and closer to the cabin where we lived. My thought was that if she decided a smaller version of the two-leggeds might be an easy catch, she’d probably try it. Over a period of weeks I heard (and saw) her coming closer and closer, to the point where she was within a few dozen yards of our makeshift outhouse, where we might visit at night if necessary. I was torn between my Cherokee grandmother’s blood in me and respect for all animals and basic survival instincts, but decided this beautiful, majestic lady was coming a little too close. One day I took careful aim and put just one shot at the rock wall directly over her head, sending shards scattering all around her. That was all the warning she needed and we never saw her anywhere near the cabin again, though we would still hear her calling once in a while – way off in the distance.

While I’d never kill one unless absolutely necessary, I agree with the actions of the man in the story above – that cat was getting just a little too close for comfort, and could’ve just as easily taken down a slow-moving elder as one of the house cats it had killed (probably seeing them as a territorial threat to its meager hunting ground). As far out in the wilderness as Westfir is, I’d carry any time I went outside. There are many more wild things than just big cats out there. I still live in Northern Arizona and although I’ve never seen or heard any of the lighter-colored cats around here, I did catch a black one in my headlights as it leaped across a two-lane road in one bound back in 2001, beautiful but disconcerting at the same time.

Paul P:

Sorry , I will not cache my guns . I will speak to my reps , I will explain what OUR rights are , I will act according to the rights bestowed upon me by my creator . Not a keyboard warrior by any means , but I am not going to go quietly into the night so that those in power can gain even more than they have .

If the time comes that I need to hide my guns , then it is the time that our own gov has become that which our founders fought to keep from controlling them as well as future citizens . We then become the resistance to the very people that would enslave us .

My simple answer to all of it is , NO! I will not comply .

At Brushbeater there is an extremely good post on rifles and calibers.  This is a must read.  He argues for the 5.56mm and concludes in the end that if you could only take a single battle rifle with you, it would be an AR-15.  And he speaks with authority on the subject.  There are also some other interesting comments at his place.

jbryan314:

Mark me down as another Afghanistan vet who would start with the 5.56. I have witnessed this round do damage to enemy fighters (and one unfortunate friendly soldier) on numerous occasions and it does not disappoint. The velocity is the key with this one. I also now work on a trauma floor at a hospital in a mid-sized city. Currently have a patient who was recently shot four times with 7.62×39. I firmly believe (and the trauma surgeon agreed) that the patient may not be alive (or in nearly as good a shape) if they had been hit with 5.56 instead. They took two projectiles out of this patient. That was it. But 5.56? They’d have had to call in the vascular surgeon to assist in picking fragments of multiple projectiles out of this patient, many of which would be found nowhere near the entrance or exit wounds. We’d have been caring for horrendous temporary cavitation injuries even aside from the actual wound channels themselves.

All of the trauma surgeons and vascular surgeons I work with have said the same thing to me, because I asked the question. They hate dealing with 5.56 wounds more than the others, because the damage is bad and it’s hard to repair and clean up.

This is a really interesting comment and it certainly comports with what we already know about the ballistics and lethality of the 5.56mm.  However, I wonder whether the trauma doctors and vascular surgeons he works with have seen wounds inflicted by the 5.56mm.  I doubt that AR-15s are used that much in crimes in America.  Or perhaps some of the trauma doctors and vascular surgeons worked in the military before working at whatever hospital he works at.  I also don’t know the commenter or the context of his statement.  I would like to hear more detail on his experiences.

CB:

There is wisdom in your article….as usual.

Thanks.

I grew up with the Garand, shifted to NM M1A, but thought I would like an AR platform in 308. Bought one of good quality and good reputation. It beat the piss out of me. Not fun to shoot. Went back to the M1A. Pleasure to shoot.
Still wanted an AR platform but bumped to the lower caliber 556. Pleasure to shoot.

Still like my one holer .308 bolt guns the best.

I’ve heard that before as well.  For those who have a large bore weapon, it simply “beats the piss” out of them.  I know when I shoot my .270 rifle, it isn’t fun any more after 60-80 rounds – not that I would want to shoot more than that anyway, since the ammunition is so expensive.  Any practice with a rifle must consider the cost of the ammunition, as well as its weight in battle.