gun control

Thanks Frank

Posted on by Caleb

Tam does an excellent job of laying out Frank Lautenberg’s “great” idea to not let people on the no-fly list buy firearms.  Remember, this is the same “no-fly list” that is a secret, you don’t know who is on it, and is populated with military vets, small children, congressmen, and basically whomever the government pleases.

Understandably, I’m not in favor of secret government lists…especially when secret government lists are used to deny people their civil rights.  I mean, can you imagine the outrage if the US Census was used to deprive Jews and blacks of their voting rights?  The ACLU would be all over it…but on the issue of taking guns away from law abiding citizens via a secret list…well, the silence is somewhat deafening.

Uncategorized

Gun Nuts tonight: Bringing the hateraede

Posted on by Caleb

Tonight on Gun Nuts Radio at 9pm, Breda and I are going to be unleashing the snark on the American Hunters and Shooters Association.  It seems that recently AHSA has been trying to rehab their image, coming out (sort of) against an AWB, and for a while there offering to come on Gun Nuts and talk about their positions.  Of course, they just sort of delayed and stalled and never actually came on the show, so after a while we’ve decided that we want to investigate this whole “image rehabilitation” thing.  We’ve seen their posts on Facebook, the pressers that their “leadership has changed”, but has AHSA really changed?  Join us tonight for the discussion at 9pm Eastern time – we’re going to bring the good stuff!

shooting/sports

Michael Bane at EoT

Posted on by Caleb

Michael is shooting the Wild Bunch at End of Trail and although he’s having problems with his ’97 pump, his 1911 seems to be running fine.  Remember, Wild Bunch matches are an homage to the great film The Wild Bunch, where the shooters in the game use “classic” 1911 style pistols, major caliber lever rifles, and 12 gauge pump shotguns.

It seems like everyone is going to all these great matches – cleary, I need a bunch of a money and a lot more free time.

gun control

New Zealand gun control

Posted on by Caleb

A few blogs have been talking about how New Zealand has been going towards embracing more and more gun control/assault weapons nonsense.  It’s interesting to see this, because of the “non-USA” countries, New Zealand has a pretty active shooting culture.  ICORE and Bianchi Cup are extremely popular sports down there, and the New Zealand Team that competes at Bianchi every year are 1) a lot of fun, and 2) pretty good at this game.

Now, as a side note, a lot of the Kiwis I’ve met who shoot these games use revolvers, which aren’t in danger of falling under the government’s thumb right now.  However, I hope that my friends down in New Zealand realize that it’s assault weapons, then tomorrow your revolver becomes a dangerous assault revolver, and then it’s your .22 being labeled the gun of choice of assassins.  Welcome to the slippery slope, guys.

gun control

Bill Maher is a sad panda

Posted on by Caleb

I will occasionally watch Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO as a way to test my patience and capacity for serenity. Usually I’m infuriated by 20 minutes in to the show, and I have to turn the channel lest I put a bullet in my TV. However, this weekend I made it through the whole show, thanks in no small part to the little package of awesome that is Megan McCain. But I digress – at the end of the show, Bill Maher pulled put the sad panda routine, when he went on a 5 minute rant about the Democrats are too right wing and how they don’t support gun control. I had to laugh, because it sounded just like Josh Sugarmann and Paul Helmke whining about the same thing.

Bill, I’ll tell why Democrats don’t support gun control: they want to get reelected. I know you think that us gun owners are a bunch of mouth breathing rednecks, but the facts are that gun control continues to be a losing political battle for your side. I would apologize, but that’s a sign of weakness.

news

Hey, I know that guy

Posted on by Caleb

A while ago I did an interview for one of Indiana’s local papers, The Times of Northwest Indiana.  The interview was for an article on the enforcement of state and federal gun laws, and gun owner’s satisfaction with the job that BATFE is doing.  The paper that the article appeared in serves an area of Indiana known as The Region, which in terms of political leanings is essentially “Chicago-lite”; so going in to the discussion with the reporter I was more than a little concerned.

However, my fears were baseless, as the article presents a fair viewpoint of gun owners and of the rather thankless job that ATF has to do – and you can read the article in its entirety here.  One of the two quotes of mine that the reporter used was edited slightly, but the meaning was left intact, so that’s okay with me.  Here’s what was printed:

“In general, I would say that the federal government does as well as any large organization can in enforcing the over 1,000 gun laws on the books”

What I was driving at with that quote was that there are over 1k local, state, and federal gun laws on the books in this country, and I think that for the most ATF does as well as can be expected of a government agency in enforcing those laws.  Of course, just yesterday I was ranting about much I hate the post office (another federal agency) so you may take that in whichever direction you.

All in all though, it’s a fair and balanced article and worth the read.  It’s probably not anything you didn’t already know though, but I personally appreciate that it focuses on “prosecute the criminals” and not “go after law-abiding gun owners”.  It’s refreshing to see that from the media!

handguns

Smith & Wesson 22A Recall

Posted on by Caleb

From S&W: if you have a Model 22A, .22 LR pistol there exists the possibility that the slide was not manufactured to the correct tolerances.  See S&W’s page on the recall for more information. Pistols with the possibility of being defective were manufactured in between August 1, 2008 and February 19th, 2009. If you’ve purchased a new 22-A pistol in that time frame, please contact S&W to get a shipping envelope and send you pistol to the factory for inspection.

shooting/sports

Slide lock

Posted on by Caleb

At Guns and Hunting, Richard Mann is talking about the slide lock function on a semi-automatic pistol.  He is not in favor of it, as he’s seen guns go to premature slide lock at inopportune moments during training, and has adjusted his personal training to work around the slide lock.  He wonders if the slide lock has an actual tactical value, or if its utility is limited to administrative functions.

When you look at the slide lock in terms of competition shooting, you have to think in terms of “speed of reload”.  For example, there are three types of reloads in competition shooting, presented here in order of fastest to slowest:

  1. Speed reload: with a live round in the chamber, eject the magazine regardless of how many rounds it contains, and insert a fresh magazine.  Keep shooting.
  2. Slide lock reload: with the gun at slide lock, eject the empty magazine, insert a fresh magazine, lower the slide.  Resume shooting.
  3. Reload w/retention: Eject the partially empty magazine and stow in a pocket or mag holder, insert a fresh magazine.  Resume shooting.

In 2 out of the 3 reloads, the gun never goes to slide lock; and indeed in the fastest reload the gun going to slide lock is a disadvantage.  However, you can’t dismiss the utility of the slide lock function, because in IDPA competition, the slide lock reload is the preferred reload.  IDPA doesn’t allow the speed reload, so for the purposes of that game, slide lock is an important reload since it’s faster than the retention reload by a long shot.

So to answer the question of whether or not the slide lock is purely administrative or has an actual value, I’d have to go with “actual value”, especially for competition shooting.  If you’re having issues with the going to slide lock prematurely, it can be defeated with training (assuming that the gun itself isn’t defective).