Call me Ahab

posted by Caleb on Jul 31

The mindset behind editorials like this. The author is concerned about her and her husband’s safety. She asks if they should buy and gun, and eventually comes to the conclusion that they shouldn’t, out of fear for the safety of their granddaughters.

She then relates her personal story of how she was almost shot with an “unloaded” gun. Unfortunately, it seems that she took the entirely wrong lesson away from that long past incident. Instead of taking to heart the tremendously important value in teaching your children the dangers of firearms and safe firearms handling, she came to the usual “guns am bad” conclusion.

The op-ed concludes with the following mind boggling quote.

In our house, we’ll remain unarmed.

Defenseless is better than discovering someone we love dead.

Seriously? The concept of being defenseless actually leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach. I have a home alarm. I use it, as well. But I certainly don’t bet my life, or the life of my family on the hope that Brinks will get the law to my house in time.

People. If you have guns in your house, and children, you need to teach your children to not play with them. And especially, to not ever point them at another person. Ever. To counter the personal story from the op-ed, allow me to share my personal experience.

My father had guns in the house. I knew where the guns were, and where the ammo was. Sometimes, if I was home alone, I’d go and look at them. The thought of picking one up and pulling the trigger? Never even crossed my mind. Sure, I thought they were cool; but I also knew that you didn’t go around playing with guns. By the time I was eight I knew to treat all guns like they were loaded.

One of things I’ve been meaning to do is write the partner series to the Self-Defense articles (Part 1 and Part 2) - the partner articles being about home defense. I’ll start on those tomorrow, part one will focus on non-firearms related options for securing the safety of your home.
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posted by Caleb on Jul 31

You already couldn’t buy or sell firearms on EBay, and now they’ve added even more things to the list of prohibited items.

eBay currently bans guns and other weapons from its site (see its “Prohibited and Restricted Items list), and is now adding any firearm part that is required for the firing of a gun.
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Once these changes take effect in mid-August, sellers will be prohibited from listing on eBay.com and eBay.ca such items as bullet tips, brass casings and shells, barrels, slides, cylinders, magazines, firing pins, trigger assemblies.

Apparently, this is in response to the VA Tech shooting; as “some” of the parts (maybe the magazines?) may have been purchased on eBay. My general reaction to this is “whatever” - I don’t use eBay anyway, and I generally avoid Paypal like the plague. Since eBay is a private company, they’re free to ban whomever and whatever they wish from their website.

Losing this business probably won’t hurt eBay, I’d imagine that the percentage they took from sales of gun parts wasn’t a significant portion of their revenue. However, it will have the effect of driving those customers to the firearms friendly auction sites, such as Gunbroker or Auction Arms. So, if eBay wants to lose those customers, that’s fine with me. I’ll just continue to not use them for anything, and I’ll encourage my four readers to do the same.
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posted by Caleb on Jul 31

The title of today’s blog is the actual headline from an article in the Detroit Free Press. Honestly, I’m confused. So you didn’t shoot a bunch of kids with airsoft guns, what, do you want a cookie or something? I understand that it was a “charged” situation, and the police were responding to a “man with a gun” call; however I’ve never been big on congratulating people for doing their job. However, this article does continue to illuminate a fascinating new aspect of hoplophobia, specifically the fear of toy guns. Airsoft Hysteria might be another good phrase for it.

I’ve seen several articles in the news from our neighbors to the north about SWAT teams being called because kids were playing in their front yard with airsoft guns. These are paralleled by articles from across the pond where houses have been raided due to a Lara Croft cutout being seen in a house. I’m honestly tremendously interested in such stories - they’re all usually the same as well. It starts with some kids playing, the kids are observed by an adult who calls the Five-Oh all in a tizzy, and the cops show up en masse, the kids smartly put their toys down, and the whole mess concludes with an article in the local rag about the dangers of toy guns.

This particular article is studded with gems, however the last paragraph in particular stands out to me.

“If they’re playing on their own property, we can’t regulate that,” Carroll said. “But, in the public, just being in a situation where we don’t know where the fantasy begins and ends … parents don’t know the danger they’re (sic) kids are putting themselves in.

“We just know there are people out there with guns so realistic it’s downright scary.”

There are two parts of that quote that I don’t like. The first is the “we can’t regulate” if they’re playing on their own property. From the tone of the article, the Chief sounds almost disappointed that they can’t tell citizens what to do on their own property. The second part is the last line, about how “it’s scary” how realistic some of the toy guns have become. I understand that no cop wants to shoot an innocent person, I’m just questioning his choice of words.

I remember when I was growing up, an LAPD officer shot a kid who turned out to have a toy gun. This sparked the California law that mandates the orange tip on toy guns. Additionally, with my father being a deputy sheriff, we were very strongly lecture to never, ever, point toy guns at police officers, or even other people. If we were playing with toy guns, we had to be responsible with them.

That’s the point of all this - behind the Airsoft Hysteria is the message that these items are dangerous, because a cop might accidentally shoot a kid. That’s a problem, because it removes the burden of responsibility from the parents and the police and places it on an inanimate object. The “for the children” saw is very familiar to 2nd Amendment activists, as it’s often used as an excuse to ban real firearms. Of course, it doesn’t address the real issue with gun bans; nor does it address the issue of toy guns.

I can tell you how to solve the toy gun “problem”, and eliminate all the perceived dangers of these “scary looking” toys. The process involves both the police, and parents. Parents need to teach their children to be responsible with their toys - the kids in this article are actually a good example. When confronted by police, they immediately dropped their airsoft guns, and didn’t do anything stupid that might involve catching a bullet. If you’re going to play with airsoft, you have to be responsible. That’s step one. Step two involves the police. Why not have cops have an open meeting with teenagers - seriously. Have them all come to the YMCA or something, give them donuts, and talk about what to do if you’re playing with a toy gun and confronted by a police officer. No scare tactics, no “you shouldn’t ever play with toy guns.” Offer them honest education on the dangers of the situation. A lot of teenagers honestly have no idea how charged up a “man with a gun call” can be - why not educate them?
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posted by Caleb on Jul 30

A company called “Real Action Paintball” has released their newest gun marker, which looks just like an AK47, right down to the wood handguards. You can see pictures right here.

I’m not a big fan of paintball, as I’m generally opposed to shooting people with guns (pretend or otherwise) for fun. That being said, I love stuff like this. Aside from it’s very obvious training uses, it also looks soooo scawwy that I expect it to be banned in California any minute now. If paintball is your bag, and you’re tired of using guns markers that look like they came out of a Buck Rodgers movie, try this. It looks really cool.
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posted by Caleb on Jul 30

The LA Times favors a collectivist view of the 2nd Amendment! Now, I know that may come as an absolute shock to most of you - the concept of a mainstream paper favoring a collectivist/socialist interpretation of the right to keep and bear arms. Now, for the most part this editorial is typical “big paper” fodder, the usual ramblings about how DC is just defending their laws, etc. However, there is one line that is rather ironic, even if it was unintentional.

But in striking down the district’s law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia embraced the Bush administration’s view that the 2nd Amendment, like the 1st Amendment, refers to an individual right.

They say that like it’s surprising. I always thought it was weird that people actually believed that the Bill of Rights guaranteed individual rights…except for the 2nd Amendment. It just doesn’t seem consistent; but then again very little about the other side makes much sense to me.

Honestly, debunking this editorial is a complete waste of time - it is literally the “same old, same old” that you and I have heard hundreds of times before. I wonder if maybe the anti-gunners could get some new material?
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posted by Caleb on Jul 30

The Brazilian Contract Smith & Wesson I talked about here arrived while I was in Michigan. I got home yesterday and dinked around with it a bit. I’d like to thank the GunBroker seller who tossed in some half-moon clips for free as well; I’d hate to be at the range punching the empties out with a little dowel.

The gun itself looks great; the blue is still pretty well intact, the stampings are are clear. It has the S&W logo on the left side of the gun, and the Brazilian stamp on the right side. On the barrel, it just says “Smith & Wesson .45″. One of the neat features about this gun is that one of the previous owners removed the original grips (decreasing the collector value to be sure) and replaced them with a really gorgeous set of stag grips. I had been thinking before the gun arrived that I would replace the stag grips with a replica of the original grips. However, when I actually held it yesterday, the stag grips fit my hand perfectly, and I’ve got to admit that they look really sharp on the gun.

I’m going to take it out to the range this weekend and see how it shoots. This gun has done something that none of my other guns have - I am excited to shoot it based entirely on the trigger pull. My Ruger GP100 has a good DA trigger pull. My Taurus Tracker has a good SA trigger pull. The DA pull on this Smith is so crisp and smooth it’s unreal. The DA pull is so good that it feels better than the SA pull on my ‘35 Beretta. The Single Action pull on the Smith is…well…it’s amazing. I have never been excited to shoot a gun based entirely on the trigger pull during dry-fire until now. I have visions of ragged one hole groups dancing in my head.

Like I said, I’ll take it to the range on Saturday - I’ll post some pictures and a full breakdown then.
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posted by Caleb on Jul 27

And good enough for me. Of course, I’m speaking of the venerable .32 Automatic Colt Pistol cartridge, known in Europe as 7.65mm.

I just watched the film “Dr. No” the other day, I was struck by the scene in which 007 is instructed to turn over his Beretta in favor of the Walther PPK, which in the words of their weapons expert has a “delivery like a brick through a window”. Now, I don’t think that the .32 ACP (or 7.65mm Browning) has quite that delivery; but that’s neither here nor there. For years, it was considered perfectly acceptable as a police cartridge in Europe. Obviously, that time has passed, as everyone in Europe is now carrying various 9mm pistols.

Here in the states, the .32 ACP is currently in the midst of something of a comeback; brought on primarily by teeny little pocket pistols such as the Seecamp and the Kel-Tec P32. I can think of at least a half dozen of my gunnie friends that stick a little Kel-Tec in their pocket when they can’t pack a bigger gun.

The .32 ACP’s most notable impact on history was most likely the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which as you no doubt know set the whole of Europe to shooting one another. Additionally, it’s been issued in various types of pistols to the German military, the Italian Navy, and (I believe) in the form of a Savage pistol was a sidearm issued to US Army flag officers during World War II.

I have one .32 ACP in my collection, a 1935 Beretta, which was a substitute standard pistol for the Italian Air Force and Navy during WWII. Mine was manufactured in the mid 50’s, so it’s too old to have seen service during the war. While it doesn’t have a “delivery like a brick”, it’s quite accurate if I do my part. As I grew uncomfortable with carrying a .22 (my P22), I have started carrying the Beretta when a bigger gun is impractical. The Beretta is light, accurate, and conceals well under summer clothing.

While I don’t recommend the .32 ACP for your primary weapon, it certainly is better than a pocket full of rock, or a sharp stick. If you’re uncomfortable with such a light caliber but enjoy the light weight and easy concealability of a pocket pistol such as a .32, I’d suggest you look to the derringer type weapons for more hitting power.

posted by Caleb on Jul 27

The ultimate anti-personnel weapon, the Rocket Propelled Chainsaw!

Now, if that doesn’t provide you with 32 flavors of awesome to get your day started, I don’t know what will.
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posted by Caleb on Jul 26

that my parents read my blog. Sorry about the language, there. My dad does make the excellent point that while it can be effective in reaching certain demographics, the use of profanity certainly is not a “language skill”; and with my vocabulary really shouldn’t be something that I resort to on any sort of regular basis.

And don’t worry, Dad. Despite my aspirations to be a Purveyor of Innovative Profanity, I really do need to find a better way to say things. Otherwise I’ll never get that thrice-damned Thinking Blogger Award.

-Ahab

posted by Caleb on Jul 26

Have you ever heard the one from the gun store commando? It goes “shoot ‘em outside and drag ‘em inside”, the idiotic logic behind that being that the fuzz aren’t going to prosecute you if the body is inside the house. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together and make a spark should know why that’s a dumb idea. Unfortunately for her, a woman in Michigan was apparently lacking the brain cells, and is now learning why moving the bodies is a bad idea.

Gardner and Johnson said it was then that the woman forced the second robbery suspect to drag the gravely wounded man onto her enclosed porch and then kick in the door to make it appear the robbers were trying to break into her home. She held the second suspect for police. Only then did she call 911 to report a break-in and a shooting, Gardner said.But after police arrived, they found “drag marks” leading to her front porch and other evidence that indicated she likely wasn’t telling the truth, according to Gardner.

In the end, investigators got acknowledgment that the incident occurred in the driveway and that the two men were allegedly robbing her because “she is a drug dealer and she was supposed to have had a large amount of money with her,” Gardner said.

The story previously mentions that the woman is being charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and possession with intent to distribute. I have a couple of thoughts on this particular incident

Thought One - Don’t shoot people outside and drag them inside. Cops are not stupid and will probably figure that one out. This woman’s shooting probably would have been completely justified otherwise, but she had to go and screw around with the scene and lie to the cops about it.

Thought Two - This is actual gun crime - two scumbags decide to rob another scumbag and one of them ends up shot. I would be very surprised if the drug dealer that did the shooting had obtained her firearm legally. I would be equally surprised if her would-be assailants were legally in possession of their firearms.

Thought Three - Nice shooting. A small caliber in the right place will get the job done; one round to the forehead and attacker number one was out of the fight.

The most important thought I’d like to take away from this wonderful little object lesson is that if you are ever in a self defense situation and are forced to plug someone, do not lie to the cops. Don’t plant a knife on the guy, don’t alter the scene, and don’t lie to the cops. I suppose the corollary lesson would be “don’t be a drug dealer”.
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