Terrifying testimony

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Rising from his seat at the witness stand in a New Orleans courtroom, Michael Hunter lifted a model AK-47 assault rifle to demonstrate on Wednesday how a fellow police officer blasted five civilians during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Hunter, in the most detailed account to date of the shooting on the Danziger Bridge, said the officer stood above three men and two women and sprayed them with bullets at close range as they lay terrified on a sidewalk on September 4, 2005.

There are multiple things to be outraged about in this accounting of how New Orleans police shot and killed unarmed people on the bridge; and even if you don't believe everything that was testified in court, any one allegation is damning on its face; you can't dismiss everything. It's accounts like this one or the one posted yesterday that are the reason for the current rift between Americans and law enforcement.

Fortunately, in Virginia, we don't get the crushing effects of mother nature like in other parts of the country, so the scenario of an apocalyptic SHTF situation in the wake of a storm or earthquake is highly unlikely, but that doesn't mean that "high risk" situations are not created out of whole cloth.

I have some friends in my local Sheriff's Departments, and with the exception of them specifically, I fear the rest of them. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate what they do or the dangers that they face, but while they have nothing to fear from me - any interaction that they have with me will be peaceful on my part - I don't trust them to not completely trample on my rights and/or escalate things when they interact with me. It's a shame that that's how my feelings are, but I know that I'm not alone.

4th Generation GLOCK

I'm leaning towards the Glock 19 for my new foray into AIWB, and I've been catching up on the differences between the 3rd and 4th generation models that Glock has come out with. I'm getting mixed results, with a large number of problems being reported from the 4th generation. Someone on GLOCK Talk posted this video that made me laugh my ass off. Funny stuff!

Negligent discharge caught on video

Nasty. ***NSFW Language***

I have to disagree with the self inflicted victim -- negligent discharges do not happen. It is not something a gun owner should expect or believe will happen to them at any point in time. You do not practice gun safety with the expectation that it will happen to you; you practice gun safety with the expectation that you will not be the one on a YouTube video expaining how you shot yourself. Also, the blame does not lie with the safety being inadvertantly disengaged when you draw from the holster because your finger should not have been inside the trigger guard until the sights were on target.

That being said, I don't like holsters with doodads on them. This includes the Blackhawk! Serpa holsters, of which I have several and use them. I see the Serpa as being a safer alternative in a retention holster when you re-holster, as there are no flaps to worry about finding their way into the trigger guard like with a snap holster.

Finger is only authorized to be on the trigger when you are ready to shoot.

Rule #3 - "Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire."

Need a suit and tie for CCW?

Check out these 10 helpful tips if you ever have to have a suit taylored around your carry piece. There's some really good advice in there, things I had never thought of.

AIWB Litmus test

Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to give Appendix Carry (AIWB) a shot this weekend. Since I don't have a hoster made specifically for AIWB, I had to improvise adapt and overcome using what I had on hand. I decided to use this BladeTech IWB holster with a Glock 17, and I experimented around a bit with concealment and drawing.



The BladeTech had to be set up for a straight draw, as it has been used previously with an FBI can't for IWB at the 4 - 5 o'clock position on my hip. Holsters designed specifically for AIWB carry are made to angle the grip of the gun in toward your abdomen, which the BladeTech does not; and in order for me to make this happen in the short term with this holster meant I had to get creative. A plastic clip from a BlackBerry holster served just fine for the weekend. Clipping it onto my pants so that it was sandwiched between my belt and the holster at the trigger guard made sure the gun's grip was torqued in towards my man-fat so that it wouldn't print.

Bonus points for me using the words sandwich and man-fat in the same sentence!

Here I have the holster stuffed down my britches at the 2 o'clock 12:30 position on my beltline. You can't tell, but I'm sucking in my gut. A picture of my beer belly consuming kydex is not family friendly, let me tell you.



Here's the same shot with the gun resting in the holster. Notice the black plastic clip against the holster at the trigger guard, and that the grip is somewhat flat against my abdomen:




Without that clip there the Glock's grip sticks out. AIWB holsters will probably do a better job at this than the clip, mind you; I had to use something though in the interim or I wouldn't have been very successful this weekend.

This is what it all looks like from the front:






Once you get the gun in the right spot, it's very comfortable, even while sitting or driving. As Terry pointed out in comments, having a gun with a decent sized muzzle (not a sub-compact) is better for AIWB because it provides leverage against your body's tendency to have your belly push the top of the gun out. Also, keep the gun vertical, and make sure nothing gets between the belt and the grip of the gun where it meets the trigger guard. I had to make sure the plastic BlackBerry clip didn't do that as it would screw up my draw.

Speaking of the draw, this is the best part about AIWB carry. After clearing the Glock, I did a couple of hours worth of drawing and dry firing using empty magazines. I'm going to make a bold statement: there is no faster way to draw a gun from concealment. The only method of carry that I can think of that is as fast is competition rig carried openly on your belt at 3 o'clock. For one thing, you don't have to rip your shirt up high with your support hand, which means your support hand is not reaching all the way across your body and is much closer to the grip when the gun clears the holster. Your hands rest naturally near the gun, and it takes only a moment to get your shirt pulled up the six inches needed for your gun hand to get the gun out.

I was simply astonished how fast that I could get the Glock out and have the sights on target from concealment. This has to be why criminals often carry here; although I would not place a loaded firearm in my waistband without a holster. After my practice session with draws, I have to carry AIWB. That's all there is to it. Hip carry is practical and all, but you lose the natural draw that you get with AIWB. I can't stress it enough though that when you RE-HOLSTER your pistol that you do it very slowly and deliberately. If you're one of those who is accustomed to speed holstering after a string of fire, than chose a different method of carry.

As far as driving while using AIWB carry, I never understood how it could be comfortable until I tried it. Once I got the holster placed right while standing and drawing, I didn't have to re-adjust when I sat down; the holster kind of went away. It's also way more accessible when sitting than with hip carry. For all day comfort, that one I'm going to have to wait out. AIWB does favor the svelt folks who don't have a gut, and I noticed that if my pants sagged down to where my belly fat could hang over the top of the gun I would end up with a sore spot there. Placing my pants snuggly on top of my hips alleviates the problem though. An undershirt is a must - if you don't have an undershirt the holster will try to grab skin while you move, especially if the holster has a sweat guard.

I'll have more once I get some real AIWB holsters. A range report will certainly follow, as snapping in on random objects in the home is well enough, but actual live fire will reveal more.

Crowd Control

This news report was posted on YouTube in December of last year and is the first I heard of the incident. A US Marine home on R&R from Afghanistan was at a movie theater with his wife and was attacked afterwords in the parking lot by a group of teens numbering about twenty. They took him to the ground and beat him, and one of the attackers punched his wife in the face and knocked her out cold.

This sort of attack is one that I find to be the most relevant to where I live. There's not a whole lot of gang activity, at least not like what there is in a major city, but there are large groups of aggressive teens that beat people and rob them. About a year ago a man and his girlfriend were jumped at the local movie theater by a group of Hispanic teens while crossing the street, and they hurt him badly.

Twenty attackers is a huge disparity of force, and constitutes a deadly threat in any scenario I can think of. The chances of getting kicked or stomped in the head or falling and busting your dome piece after getting knocked out is very serious. Such numbers of scumbags may not need double stack capacity to be addressed as they will probably scatter in all directions on the first shot, but the comfort of a having 15+ rounds on station with a couple more magazines in reserve seem to be a good idea.

Sometimes gun owners impress me

The other day I was pointing out how gun owners can be complete fuckwads and eat their own, but today I was pleased to see that less judgmental gun owners can be extremely generous.

The gun owner I was defending in the first link carries a Smith & Wesson Sigma pistol, which some folks commented was a giant piece of shit and that he should just not carry it. The more logical commenters defended his pistol choice, and several have even gone as far as to provide the capitol for the OP's (Assault-Rifle-City) choice of handgun from a local FFL. Mr. Assault-Rifle-City is currently on active duty protecting our country, so the offer is especially warranted. Others are chipping in to provide ammo and holsters and stuff.

A success story, if you ask me. Good hearted gun owners not only came to his defense, they helped him overcome a major financial hurdle in the acquisition of a new handgun.

Thanks for your service, Assault-Rifle-City!

The Sum of its Parts: Part 2

The barrel, bolt, and upper receiver for my ongoing MK12 Mod 0 build came in yesterday from Les Baer. What a beauty the barrel is; it's a shame I'm going to have to have it turned down. It really isn't as heavy as I thought it would be. If you can't see what the cartridge it's chambered in is from the pictures, it's the .264 LBC AR.





The barrel extension fits very snug in the upper receiver, which I suspected would be the case considering that Les Baer rifles are reported to shoot so well. Normally when you slide the barrel into the upper, there is some notable play because the inside diameter of the upper can not be of the exact same size as the outside diameter of the barrel extension. I have an AR with a .004" difference between barrel and receiver that I seated with a bed of Locktight to help with point-of-aim shift when the barrel gets hot. To do that, you literally coat the extension with Blue Locktight and bolt it onto the receiver. Another remedy is to measure the difference betweem the two like I did, and then buy the appropriate sized shim stock to fit the pieces together snug; this I learned from reading tips and tricks from Highpower shooters. I won't have to do any of that with these parts.

Weird thing is that the Les Baer receiver needs to be modified slightly in order for it to fit onto the DPMS lower receiver. The front take-down pin goes through the upper just fine, but I have to put a good amount of downward pressure on it to get the rear take-down pin to fit. I don't necessarily have a problem with this because it makes the upper and lower fit together like a vice; I just hope that there's no issue with the bolt carrier binding.





For fun, I tried to bolt the barrel up as it is so that I could shoot a few rounds downrange and have the once fired cases. Using these cases that have been stretched to the inside dimentions of the chamber, I would then fill them with water and note the difference between the empty weight and water weight. The figure you get from that gets entered into QuickLoad, and you can predict what a bullet/powder combo will do before you even make it. Too bad though that the barrel nut from the PRI handguard will not fit over the barrel, so it's off to ADCO for some turning on their lathe. Once I get the barrel back from them it's getting a coat of parkerized-black Alumahyde from Brownells -- can't have the Tangoes (groudhogs) spotting my shiny barrel, now can we? I'll also coat the Les Baer upper with the same dark earth Alumahyde coating as the rest of the rifle.

I expect a range report in the next three weeks or so.

Youth gun violence

They apparently start them out early these days in Prince George's County.

Sometimes gun owners depress me

A Soldier (call him OP) posted in the ARCOM General Discussion thread about a run in he had with law enforcement while open carrying a handgun with his wife at a restaurant. The cop obviously did not know the law, or that OP was open carrying because that is the only lawful means he has to carry a firearm, and threatened to charge him with brandishing. This happened in Kentucky, which allows for open carry, and from some of the commenters on the thread has no known statute for brandishing.

The result of the encounter ended well enough, with the cop going on his merry way when OP stood on his rights. The result in posting the encounter on a pro-gun forum ended up attracting some of the most ignorant so-called gun owners who not only gave the OP shit about open carrying, and also attacked his equipment and gun choice, they go on to suggest that he break the law and carry concealed. This is out of the belief that open carrying takes away your element of surprise, and offers nothing in return.

It should be said that the OP was open carrying because he is not yet 21, and cannot apply for a concealed handgun permit. He followed the letter of the law and carried his gun the only way he could, but that is lost to many who commented on his post. There is one particular commenter who openly admits to breaking laws that he does not agree with, and then tries to ply the OP to do the same based on a belief that open carry shouldn't be allowed because. . . . well, that's not at all clear.

Sometimes gun owners are our own worst enemy. We see that from time to time.

Getting more and more deadly

The Marine Corps has decided to have new recruits shoot their M16s with optics. To me, this is good news. From all that I have read, Marines are shooting far better in combat using optics than they ever did with irons. This decision is a pilot program to find out if the Corps will have better shooting Marines because of the optics, and could be reversed if the data comes back unfavorable. Also, new recruits will still be taught how to use iron sights, so it's not like they will be going anywhere anytime soon.

Found at Ace of Spades.

What could possibly go wrong?

On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament.

Well, it is for only four weeks, and it's not like they were the first pick; it works via alphabetical order, and Madagascar or some other country already got their shot (My pun, can you feel it?). It still makes me wonder why the rest of the U.N. conference can't just skip over North Korea like short people get skipped to play basketball and maybe pick a country that is not so insane, like Nigeria.

In other news, Mayors Against Guns has picked Lee Boyd Malvo to be the next spokesman against gun violence.

Appendix Carry

I've been intrigued with appendix carry for quite some time, especially so after I saw a man open carrying a Glock 17 in Home Despot that way over a year ago. Why in the world would I want to carry a gun on the front of my hip? Speed. Appendix carry uses the body's natural mechanics to minimize movement during the draw, and the end result is a natural and fast draw.

But how fast?

This fast:


Yes, I know that Jim Zubiena is a badass with a 1911, but it still shows how fast the draw can be when there is little distance between your hand and your gun.

If you want to know more about appendix carry, check out this Pistol-Training.com thread on the subject.

There is a downside to this form of carry, and that is that if you botch the reholstering of your pistol, you could blow a big gaping hole in your satchel or femoral artery, as the gun will be aimed at your crotch. Speed reholstering is stupid to begin with, and even more so when your holster is strapped to the front of your britches at the 2:30 position. Naturally, you would slow down and think carefully when you reholster, and you could also use a pistol with a hammer and keep some thumb pressure on that baby. If you have a Glock, which doesn't have a hammer, the folks at Pistol-Training.com are in the process of getting a patent on The Gadget, which is like adding a hammer to the Glock, but without the hammer. You will have to go there and see what it is because it really can't be explained. The Gadget will work well for appendix carry, and probably won't add any major cost to your pistol. Also, the benefit of not killing yourself or turning your balls into a pink mist when holstering your firearm is priceless, so there's that.

These days there are holsters expressly made for appendix carry. I do not have any holsters that are made for it, but that will be remedied in the near future. From everything I have read, if you try to use a regular holster for appendix carry, it will be very uncomfortable, which is what my limited experience has told me as well. Also, this mode of carry favors the svelte individual, which I am slowly becoming the opposite of. That means I will have to drastically cut back on the number of Stellas that I consume, with that being a good idea anyways. I'll ring back in with the results in the next couple of months with a holster review.

More mob attacks

There was a big street brawl in DC, a mob of 75+ teens in Cleveland, Ohio were running around punching people, and in Philadelphia, PA a group of people numbering approximately 100 were running around town assaulting people, breaking one woman's leg.

At some point or another, a youthful mob attack is going to be stopped by someone with an AR fresh out of a Magpul training course, and this behaviour will hopefully be a thing of the past. Considering these attacks have been all over the news in the past few weeks and are well known to be incredibly violent, folks should know what to expect if they're caught up in one. I'm not interested in being the guy on the news who got head-stomped by a bunch of excited kids, and I don't know anybody else who is. The savages need to stop pounding the war drums.

Whammo ammo

This weekend I made a point to go out and do some handgunnery considering I have neglected my mental health for a good while now. I had some ammo given to me by a coworker who somehow or another ended up with it, but doesn't own any firearms to shoot it with. Among the free stuff was 120 or so 200 grain semi wadcutters that were handloaded with W231, as well as a box of 185 grain Hornady HP and 200 grain Gold Dots, all in .45 ACP of course.

Shooting the handloads while doing draws was a lot of fun. With a government sized 1911, a Kimber TLE RLII, I could click off rounds very fast, getting quick follow up shots rapidly as there was not a whole lot of recoil. The slide chugga chugged along slowly making things easy on the gun. Later on that night, my brother put a bug in my head about upgrading my carry ammo - 230 grain standard pressure Remington Golden Sabers.

There's nothing wrong with Golden Sabers; they've been around for a long time now and have a proven pedigree, but the bullet design is a bit dated, and they are known for core/jacket separation. I have personally witnessed this from shooting them into 5 gallon buckets full of moist dirt. About two out of every ten will have the jacket come off, but the hollow point bullet does expand every time, which I rate second to reliable cycling in my gun. I've run a couple of hundred Golden Sabers without a hiccup through my blaster, and they hit to point-of-aim and are damned accurate.

Once I find a load that works, I'm generally reluctant to change as the cost of one to two hundred rounds for function testing is not in my budget, but I have thought about trying some new loads for the hell of it. I'm not the only one to think about updating my trusted Golden Sabers - Tam came to the same conclusion about the same time I did, and my brother convinced me to check out some modern CCW fodder in the way of Federal HST and/or Winchester Ranger Ts. To further that, the details from a shooting at a gas station in Dayton, Ohio have come to light, and it got me thinking that I needed to be using the best ammo that I can.

In the Ohio shooting incident, two drunk and high scumbags attacked a man at the gas pump and tried to drag him from his vehicle to do who knows what. The victim pulled a Glock 36 and fired two rounds into the guts of one scumbag, the first round being a 230 grain FMJ, and the second being 165 grain Cor-Bon Powerball. The shootee immediately ceased his attack and took up the fetal position on the deck, while the other scumbag poked at him probably saying something along the lines of "you ok bruh?" The shooter took off and dialed 911. Despite all the talk of the incident and the things that went wrong, the ammo did its job and stopped the attack cold. The shootee did survive the two rounds to the center of his abdomen, which has generated some talk about ammo effectiveness.

With all this in mind, I hit the local funshow this weekend looking for some of that Federal HST. I didn't find it, but I did see a whole lot of the Winchester Ranger Ts in 230 grain +P, which use the "Black Talon" design bullet of doom, without the black lubaloy coating. Taking it as divine encouragement, I picked up three boxes of it for function checking in the Kimber. As it turns out, my gun does not like the ammo at all, and I don't blame it.

The recoil was tremendous from my gun. I have shot a great deal of .44 magnum in my time, as well as 10mm, and none of those were as unpleasant as this stuff. The web of my hand was swollen afterwords where the beavertail grip was smashing into it. From a rest, I did manage a 2" 25 yard group minus the first round, which went low, but firing off pairs was a disaster in the making, as there was no way to manage the recoil effectively. I couldn't keep a pair of shots on a paper plate at 15 yards unless I slowed down considerably. In the 70 rounds I fired, I had six or seven malfunctions, four of them being when the slidestop became partially engaged. That could have been from my thumbs hitting it inadvertently, which doesn't happen when I use ammo that doesn't go off like a hand grenade in the chamber. The other malfunction was a nosedive type feeding issue where the round is still in the magazine and the bullet nose is jammed against the barrel hood. Years ago I swore that I would not shoot +P ammo in a 1911, as I don't think it's warranted for the cartridge, and yesterday I relearned that lesson. None of these malfunctions gave me confidence in the ammo, so I am back to the Golden Sabers for the time being.

All in all, I would be better served shooting the 200 grain wadcutters over the Ranger Ts. The Ranger Ts do come in a standard pressure loading, so I'll look for those. I don't know if the Federal HSTs come in standard pressure, but I'm going to look for those as well. I've looked at the Gold Dots and various loadings from Cor-Bon, but I don't see me taking out a loan to buy one box of ammo, so those are out. I'll be studying ammo pretty hard for the next week or so, and maybe next payday I'll find something that works.

Interesting revelations in Project Gunwalker

There is more and more evidence coming out that the ATF was using Project Fast and Furious as a means for fluffing up the numbers of weapons going to Mexico in order to give US lawmakers a chance to push more gun control. If you notice, there's a name of an ATF Special Agent that keeps popping up - Agent Bill Newell, whom I've mentioned a few times before as one who is on the front lines to convince the US public that we're the cause of the cartels having weapons.

Reportercreature: "It doesn't seem like it's that difficult for them to get these guns."

ATF Special Agent Bill Newell Mangan: "It's uh, it's as easy as crossing the border."

With the help of our government, apparently.

This is going to be a major scandal, with or without the help of our shit media organizations. Good on the ATF agents and other ABC agents who have come out against Project Fast and Furious, and shame on agents like Newell who carry the water for gun controllers through lies and deceit.

**Update: A letter from Senator Grassley to ATF Director Kenneth Melson. All I can say about that is OUCH!! If you read nothing else on this page or from the links I have provided, check out Senator Grassley's questions at the bottom of his letter. They are covered from point to hilt in barbs.

***Update: The video I posted above was not Special Agent Newell. You can see him here in the video on this page talking about straw buyers, concealing the fact that he had a large hand in allowing those very guns be sold to criminals.

No fighting chance

In the hallways of police headquarters, some police officials were struggling to understand the incident, saying it didn’t sound right.

Even Mayor Francis Slay reacted to the news with skepticism, wondering how three Marines, one of whom was carrying a knife, would lose their knife and a wallet to two un-armed men.

There is this idea perpetuated that Marines are always armed and itching for a fight. While this may be true in combat, and sometimes not even then (ask me how I know), the reality of the situation is closer to what the Marine Corps Spokeswoman said, that Marines are encouraged not to get into an altercation over anything other than a fight for your life. To neck that down to something less official to give to a media weeny, Marines are flatly told that getting into a fight out in public will lead to an end in your career, or a severe demotion, oftentimes being the exact same thing.

You think that the Marine Corps would trust their Marines, but there is no trust. They are not allowed to resist the criminal element, and are denied the means to do so, even on a base.

This was noted during the Fort Hood shooting, where the media was scratching their head in disbelief that a single man armed with a handgun could kill so many Soldiers armed with M16s, when they didn't know that military bases are very strictly kept Gun Free Zones. Paul Helmke even pointed out how the shooting went down at a "heavily fortified Army base", when it isn't very fortified at all, and is filled to the brim with unarmed Soldiers.

Back to the article, here you have two men who swore an oath to protect this nation and are willing to bet their life to uphold that oath, and they are barred from preventing their own robbery on their own soil by a threat of being kicked out of their Service with dishonor. Those Marines did exactly what they were instructed to do, and now the nation will read this article over a cup of coffee this morning and wonder why two highly trained warriors are such pussies. I guess that's better than a lawsuit. Frickin' blood sucking lawyers.

This is a tangent, but I say it again - behind every problem in this country is a battalion of scumbag lawyers. Every stupid "zero tolerance" policy ever imagined can ultimately be traced to its genesis, which is some team of attorneys who only know how to attorn. I complain about that, but I guess every ecosystem has to have maggots to pick the flesh from the bones.

St Louis is a beautiful city, and it's a blast to be there as a Marine. I highly recommend donning a toga during a weekend bar hopping tour while downtown. Not that I've ever done that. That said, there are some very very dangerous parts there, and combine that with a Marine's penchant for strong drink, and some bad policy making it a shameful crime to prevent some scumbags from taking your stuff, and you have yourself a clown show. It's a disgusting shame that the Marine Corps doesn't trust its own to carry a modern self defense tool, but they should at least give them a fighting chance by not barring them from breaking a few noses if threatened by criminals. Marines do know the difference between right and wrong, or they wouldn't be sent into another country with a terrifying arsenal designed to allow them to kill every bad guy in sight while not killing any innocent civilians. Have a little trust.

Dis-Sworderly conduct

In Maryland, an edgy fellow with a grudge and a sword threatens people with the steel, including children!!!Gasp!! Fortunately he sheathed the beast before the cops showed up and forced him onto the path to righteousness.

I do wonder about the charge of carrying a weapon with an intent to injure; I would bet that if he had threatened the responding police officers, they would have shot him very dead, with the investigation and AAR stating that the maniac with the sword represented a deadly threat that had to be stopped with a hail of gunfire. And right they would have been.

One trench at a time

A small town victory in Fairfax, Virginia where air gun legislation was addressed in order to bring it down to something less insane. It appears that despite media hype, there was no opposition to my fellow Virginians who stood in front of the Board of Stupervisors and supported the bill. VCDL President Phillip Van Cleave gives a down to earth statement about what it all means here in this video, and the reporter does a balanced job of covering the issue without butchering the facts.

Wish I had been there.

To catch a predator

Two and four legged predators have become a serious threat to the people of DC. No doubt the black bear was innocently looking for a quick snack, like a jogger or unattended stroller or something, while the scumbag is looking for self gratification at the expense of his victims. Both nuisances could be remedied swiftly by a responsible individual using a modern self defense tool, but such things are not permitted to the citizens. Until they are, it looks like personal safety of DCians is in the super capable hands of the uniformed division.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.