Yet another reason why carry "permits" are a bad idea.

This thread at The High Road is about a gentleman's experience during a traffic stop where he was disarmed by a LEO.

This sort of thing is a minor reason why flagging a citizen with a ridiculous card saying "he has a gun," while entering him or her into a state database that can be browsed by the public, or just outright exploited to the whims of some dickhead journalist, is such stupid policy.

I don't understand why we think we're winning the fight for gun rights when we are asking our government to ensure that we're "authorized" to exercise them. When are we gonna learn?

A great point

At Sharp as a Marble. Background checks for firearms purchases is the wrong time to stop a violent felon.

Whew! What a week

Sorry for the light blogging. My work load has increased five fold, and it is about to get much worse. I will be traveling a lot soon, which I anticipate will give me plenty of blogging time as much of the day-to-day things that I normally do will be far away. I also have some great books to get into, such as:

The Gun Digest Book of the 1911 Volume 1 - Patrick Sweeney
The Book of the AR-15 Volume 2 - Patrick Sweeney (I already read Vol 1; excellent!)
Moment of Truth in Iraq - Michael Yon

I also have some others. I don't think I will get through all of them in the next week or so, but certainly within the next few months. I have always been a very fast reader, to the point where I had difficulty in school because I was always so far ahead. These days it takes me a year or more to read a book because I have no time.

I have been spending some time in good ol' "Gun Free" DC, and I am reminded of why I do not belong there. I grew up with miles of trees and fields around me, so venturing through a city full of intricate people makes me feel like a fish out of water. I could never live there, and I'm so thankful to cross the river and get back into Virginia where I get my rights back. The main problem that I have is that I'm used to driving directly to a location and parking my car, which is not easy in DC if you are unfamiliar with where the parking garages are. Last week I paid what I believe to be a drug dealer to watch my car. I didn't have a choice. If you don't pay attention to where you're going, you can easily end up in a bad area where you may never return.

Talking with other folks who grew up in Bumkinville, Virginia, I came to the conclusion that people from DC who may end up down here can end up in the same predicament. Driving down the wrong road down here can lead you into places where you would swear Deliverance was filmed.

I recall a night during my teenage years where a bunch of us were hanging out at a local McDonalds on the side of the highway. A Cadillac with DC plates and three nefarious looking individuals pulled up, obviously drunk, and while one of them was finishing up his beer while pissing into traffic, the other was asking us if we knew where to score some drugs. A friend of mine with a fast car said "follow me." My friend led them about an hour out into the depths of the county where only those who have lived there for years dare to go, and then stopped cold in the road. As the three were looking around trying to figure out where they were, my friend dropped it into first and took off in a hail of tire smoke, leaving the old Cadillac in the dust.

That's probably the last time they drove down south.

I am planning some more shooting tests soon which I will document with pictures. I plan on using my shiny new Chrony to get some accurate velocities. Hopefully I will get the time this weekend to chrony my handgun loads.

Stay tuned

Movie Guns VIII.5

I was out of town last week so I bring you a better-late-than-never movie guns today staring the movie Pulp Fiction. If you have not seen this movie by now than you need to stop what your doing, grab your keys, and get your ass to the video store and rent a copy.

Pulp Fiction has a few guns and shooting scenes in it, but it is not a "gun movie." There are, however, some interesting handguns, some which I just can't identify. Here are some of the ones that I can get a make on.

The two gangsters in the movie, Jules and Vincent who are played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta respectively, both have chrome pistols.


Jules carries a Star B model 9mm which is based on the 1911 design. The gun noticeably lacks a grip safety, and Jules thumb cocks the pistol with his finger on the trigger:

I see that far to often. Here is a closeup with the gun in the face of "Ringo" the coffee shop robber:

Here is the gun at the beginning of the movie which shows the external extractor:


Intersting part about that scene in that it is filmed twice. This picture was taken from the beginning where Jules guns a man down until the pistol reaches slide lock. The scene is shown again from a different perspective later on, and Jules doesn't empty the gun in that shot. The reason it matters is that Jules and Vincent are confronted almost immediately afterwords by a crazed gunman and they have several rounds each left in their guns..


Vincent uses what appears to be an Auto Ordnance 1911 in .45 ACP. The muzzle sports a much larger barrel than the 9mm that Jules uses:


Here Hollywood shows us why you should always keep your booger hook off the bang switch with Vincent's infamous negligent discharge:


The crazed gunman mentioned above was carrying this weeks unknown gun:


It's definitely not a Colt Python, nor is it a Rossi, although it is very close. The ribbed barrel is different than any revolver that I have ever seen and is what sets it apart from the Python. I believe it to be a Smith & Wesson in .357 Magnum, but I don't know what model.

We also have a Remington 870 shotgun that the pawnbroker (NOT this Pawnbroker, who no doubt knows his way around a shotgun - ed) uses to capture Marsellus (Ving Rhames) and Butch (Bruce Willis). The pawnbroker racks a shell into the chamber as hard as he can, like he's trying to prove something, and those of us who actually shoot shotguns can audibly tell that the gun is empty despite the dramatic sound of the action.


Here is the same shotgun in Marsellus' hands in one of the most disturbing scenes ever put onto film:


Marsellus also racks the shotguns action and you can clearly hear that the gun is empty. Another question is why did the shotgun need to be cycled in the first place? It's as if Hollywood believes that one must prime the gun the moment before firing. Idiots.

Butch saves Marsellus from profound buggery with this katana of unknown make:


Here Marsellus draws his Smith & Wesson 5903 from a shoulder holster:



There are other guns that are found in this film like this suppressed Mac 10 that Butch kills Vincent with:



Notice the flinch from Bruce Willis, which is pretty much standard from all of the actors who fire a gun in this movie.

The last two guns I have for you are the two revolvers used by the coffee shop robbers. The one that Yolonda is holding looks like a S&W model 40:


The one that "Ringo" is holding is also a S&W, but I don't know what model:


Notice the terrible grip that they have on those guns. They have both pointer fingers in the trigger guard. Yikes!

That's all I've got. I should be back on track with another movie guns this weekend.

Update: The huge revolver that the crazed gunman has been identified as a Dan Wesson 15 by Robb Allen of Sharp as a Marble, who owns one of these beasts. I note that his has the bevel at the muzzle, and that the ribbing on others that I have Googled matches perfectly.

Thanks for the ID! I've been looking for that one for awhile with no luck.

Virginia puts "Only One" away

I had commented about this case some time ago. This now former cop got the maximum sentence of 45 years. He plans on appealing.

A good response

I received this in a VCDL Alert:

Nicely written statement on why many carry a gun, by a VCDL member named Steve. He is reacting to the item in last week's VA-Alert where the Lynchburg News Advance said "Holstered Guns Still Wrong in Restaurants" <http://tinyurl.com/47ya99>.

Steve writes:
--
"Do you know what gets me about things like this? Our side can't seem to articulate why we carry in the first place. There is a line in this editorial that illustrates this. They think we carry because we fear criminal activity.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I tell my friends this all the time. The reason I carry is not because I think there will be a need to use it. If I ever think there is a realistic chance that I'll need a gun, I would leave that place. If there was no choice, I certainly wouldn't bring a handgun. I would bring a rifle and friends with more rifles. A handgun is carried at every moment I don't think I'll need a gun, just in case I am wrong. Violence and criminal activity is unpredictable and comes when you don't expect it. That's why I carry a gun. If I could predict when it would be "needed", I would only carry a handgun to back-up my rifle.

Why can't we get this through to them!"

Well put!

Michael Bane's rant

On the subject of short barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, and the like. A good read.

Even more "Gun Free" shootings!

This one's way outside of my AO, but I thought it was worthy of a post.

Eight people shot in NYC? Really? Cos' I thought they had effective gun laws and stuff!

Weird!

Muggings and stabbings and shootings, OH MY!

Where, you may ask? Why, in "Gun Free" DC no doubt! Yup, those effective gun laws sure do make people safe!

Notice how Pat Collins says that all this happened in "places not known for violence." Oh, but "police and community leaders are growing concerned." So what actually makes them concerned? Has anyone just tried talking to these criminals, or maybe just try to "get them?" And I thought that if you just gave them what they wanted, then you wouldn't get hurt.

Maybe the "community leaders" should get their head out of their ass and try...Oh, I don't know....imprisoning these thugs for life, right after they give every DC citizen back their right to self defense.

CSI in all its hysterical glory

I'm home folks, and I just finished up an episode of CSI Miami called "Going Ballistic" that made me shake my head with all of the BS.

The story line is trying to follow the real life story of Efraim E. Diveroli who was a defense contractor in Miami who's company, AEY, had a contract with the US Army to sell ammunition to Afghanistan, but was busted for selling the wrong kind of ammo.

The first bit of ridiculousness was right at the beginning where a gunman on a rooftop cuts loose with a Glock 18, killing a new CSI. The gunman managed to place about 10 rounds into her chest at about 100 feet on full auto before the gun Kaboomed. Don't start flaming Glocks just yet.

Next we find out that a contractor has sold pistol ammo containing "black powder" to the DoD. This ammo is corroded to the point where a round rolls off Calleigh's desk, hits the floor, and discharges into the ceiling which blows a 4 bulb fluorescent light down onto the desk which starts a fire. And that's not all! Before the fire, Calleigh had cleaned the corrosion off the case head of one of the rounds where she had discovered that the ammo was produced in 1969. How did she know that? Why, it was stamped right onto the case head! Convenient! There was no possibility that the case was produced in 1969, and then loaded up later, nor was there any mention that ammo doesn't really go bad. This ammo is what caused the Glock KaBoom.

Lastly, the contractor was involved in trafficking the new terror ammo that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership is going to go nuts over. It's called "Fused Alloy" ammo. Apparently this super deadly ammo is pre-fragmented, and bonded with heat. When the conspicuously pointed bullet strikes something like body armor, it punches right through, but when it hits something hot like living tissue, the heat melts the bond causing it to come un-glued and fragment into dozens of pieces. The best line from the episode goes something like "so no matter where you hit someone, they're dead!" Great stuff.

That's not all. Right now I'm watching a CSI New York episode called "Hostage." So far we have a victim with two bullets in his body that are in the same wound channel. The theory is that both rounds came from the same gun, and that the gun must have such low recoil that it can place two rounds into the same hole, and guess what gun they name? The Kriss Super V!

DHS informs NYPD about the weapon, which CSI says doesn't match the caliber in the weapon that a suspected hostage taker is holding, which happens to be a .45 ACP caliber 1911. This is profound because the Kriss Super V is only offered in .45 ACP.

Anyways, I pick CSI apart all of the time because they are so clueless about firearms.

That's all I've got, see ya'll in the morning.

Update: As a reader pointed out in comments, the "fused alloy" bullets do not take into account the heat from being fired out of the gun. That is a good point, so I looked up the episode in Wikipedia, and sure enough, they noticed this as well as some other stuff.

Good catch!

On Travel

I'm going to be on travel for a few days so blogging will probably be light.

Menace to society

This scumbag was caught trying to sell cyanide to white supremacists.

This is the stuff that I fear the most. Some may whine about the dangers of firearms to society and the threat of militant looking weapons with scary accoutrements, but firearms are a poor way to conduct mass killing.

Chemical or biological weapons are not at all hard to get ahold of, or make, and it may not be haji sneaking across the border with stuff like this. It could be guys like this meth head trying to trade 100 lbs. of chemical for a pound of drugs.

Gun control

Because one more strong gun law would stop people like this guy from killing with firearms.

Sarcasm aside, this is probably the most bizaar story I've heard in awhile. Here's some...um...pieces from the story:

He said that on or about Feb. 19, his father told him that God instructed him that his son needed to get a sex change and become his wife, according to the affidavit obtained by the Journal. Shortly after that, he was raped, Jeremiah Berry said.

Jeremiah Berry said he shot his father in the back of the head and then stabbed him 199 times with a knife and dismembered him with an ax, according to the affidavit. Jeremiah Berry said he removed the head, the hands and the feet and skinned the body, feeding the flesh to coyotes.

For the next two days, Jeremiah Berry carried the body out of the canyon in five-gallon buckets, the affidavit said. The two buckets containing his father's head, hands and feet, he put in a storage room at a local dog kennel.

Whoa!

Marksmanship Training

I grew up in the midst of the greatest shooting range on earth. As a child, I had vast amounts of land to roam while honing my marksmanship skills, and it started at my parents house in Virginia.

When I was a teenager, it was no big deal to get up before sunrise, grab a rifle or two, and head out of the house on foot for a days worth of hunting; all the while my parents had no clue of my whereabouts, nor did they have a method of contacting me because people didn't own cellphones. I can remember one night, my friend and I had been hunting past sundown when we were stopped by a game warden in the dark while crossing a road. Here were two 13 year olds wandering around in the dark with 12 gauge shotguns, and all the game warden had to say was to get home safely.

These days, the land that I had once roamed about endlessly has turned into a sea of vinyl. The shear number of houses that are going up on a weekly basis makes me sick. The money hungry developers are not going to be satisfied until there isn't a tree left in this state. I can still shoot in my parents backyard, but it will not be long until the DC suburbia that is flowing South finishes off that too.

This shed is a testament to the large volume of shooting that my family has collectively done for the last 20 years.



I did a post about it a couple of months ago that can be read here.

This Sunday, my brother Seth and I spent a few hours shooting .22 caliber rifles at paper targets and clay pigeons. There is no finer way to keep your marksmanship sharp than to shoot at random targets at various ranges offhand with a small caliber rifle. We would throw several clay targets like a frisbee out into the grass and take offhand shots at ranges of 30 to 60 yards. The clay targets are challenging to hit like this because you only had the edge to aim at, and the grass partially obscures what little you can see.


Here is my brother Seth taking aim with his Ruger 10/22:


Here is another picture of Seth with one on those dreadful oversized magazines attached to the underside of his rifle:


He has to keep that scary looking magazine locked up just to keep it from wandering the streets at night looking for drugs.

Here is a video clip of Seth blasting the clay targets:


What a great time! You can see the mist shoot up from the ground with every shot because mother nature sucks and it never stops raining. I feel like I live in Seattle. Here is a picture of me with an old Marlin Glenfield model 25:


I've owned this rifle since I was a kid, and I will pass it on to my kids after they learn to shoot it. I plan on moving in the future to find a place where my family and I can shoot without worrying about hitting a house.

Talk about a fun way to spend an afternoon, and .22 caliber rounds are affordable too. I hope to spend many more days like this in the future.

Movie Guns VIII

I'm a big fan of Michael Mann movies. He takes the extra time to give a measure of realism to his gun handling and gunfight scenes, as can be seen in movies like Collateral, Heat, and this weeks Movie Guns: Miami Vice.

The general premice of the movie was OK, but the guns that were featured in this film were good-to-go. The end of the movie has an epic gunfight with automatic weapons, some of them with cool optics. Let's get started.

Early on, Rico uses a H&K 69 to open a warehouse door so they could steal some drugs:


Inside the warehouse, one of the BG's had left his Mossberg 500 with underfolding stock on a table:



Later on, Sonny and Rico visit with some high end drug dealers, and when the BG's move in with weapons drawn, Sonny pulls a M67 fragmentation grenade:


That makes everyone hold very still. You can see the grenade in Sonny's hand when they leave, and one of the BG's is holding a H&K MP7A1:


Afterwords, Sonny and Rico re-arm with more firepower, as seen here where Sonny is holding a compact 1911 of unknown make, and then preps his Sig SG551 carbine:





When Rico's girlfriend gets kidnapped, Sonny, Rico, and Gina find her location and move in to take out the BG's and get her back. Here is Gina who sports a H&K G36C:


She shoots one of the BG's in the face with the G36, and Rico kills a BG with the Sig P220 that he carries throughout the whole movie:


At the end of the scene, Rico accidentally drops his Sig on the floor of the trailer, but he doesn't notice it and leaves.

Pretty good gun handling from Jammie Foxx. Gina, played by Elizabeth Rodriguez, flinches badly with every shot, especially at the end of the movie. Here, Lieutenant Castillo is holding a Colt M4 with Aimpoint optic:


The end of the movie is where the big firefight goes down between the cops and the BG's. Everyone is armed with something bad-ass, like this BG with a Barrett M82A1:


The BG decides to load the rifle, but first has to seat the last round in the magazine for dramatic effect before jamming in the magazine into the weapon.


Two SWAT snipers take out two BG snipers; one with a Remington 700 wearing a Leupold LR/T scope:


The other has a Remington 700 with Nightforce scope, seated in a Choate tactical stock:



They might want to reconsider their choice of ammunition!

The BG's respond by opening up with a couple of H&K G3A3's, a few H&K MP5's, and a few short barrel AR-15's with CMore Scout optics:




One of the BG's has a fearless expression while firing a AR-15 on full auto, and going frame by frame shows that he doesn't even begin to flinch through a half of a magazine burst. Good job.

The cops fire back with various automatic weapons, as well as shotguns like Rico's Benelli M4:


..and this Remington 870 tactical wielded by Switek, who is played by Domenick Lombardozzi. Notice the horrible cheek weld, and that he's not even trying to look down the sights:


Here is Isabella's S&W 99 that she grabbed from a BG:



Overall, a pretty great job of weapon authenticity and accuracy during fight scenes. The BS moment arrives at the very end of the final shootout where the South American druglord's righthand man, Yero, is hip firing a H&K G3A3 on full auto at Rico, who has emptied his Benelli M4. Yero of course misses with every shot at close range, in part because Rico does the super tactical barrel roll, and then Rico draws a H&K 69 40mm grenade launcher stoked with canister shot, from concealment, and blows Yero away.

Yeah, sure.

Still a great movie for the action scenes.

Update: An anonymous commenter notes that Sonny's 1911 is a SVI Tiki Model. Great research!

Update: Two anonymous commenters note that the tactical looking shotgun that I labeled a Remington 870 is a FN Tactical Police, and that Sonny uses a SG 552 instead of the longer barreled SG551. Thanks for picking those up!

Defensive fire: 105 rounds on full auto

Found at The High Road, this story is from the Ayoob Files of American Handgunner - September/October 1995 involving a gun store owner who took on seven robbers with an AR-15 and a 9mm sub-machine gun.

Bad ass!

McCain speaks at the NRA convention

Reading from over at The High Road. I still don't like him. He lost me on the gun vote when he said:

Over the years, I haven't agreed with the NRA on every issue. I have supported efforts to have NICS background checks apply to gun sales at gun shows. I recognize that gun shows are enjoyed by millions of law-abiding Americans. I do not support efforts by those who seek to regulate them out of existence. But I believe an accurate, fair and instant background check at guns shows is a reasonable requirement.

Well I don't. John McCain is a scumbag; an honorable scumbag, but a scumbag none the less. Not that I would have voted for him anyways; he is not the 2nd Amendment friend that people think he is, and neither is President Bush.

I commented over at The War on Guns that I thought that the NRA should have passed on letting McCain speak at the convention because of the requirement to disarm just to see him. Then the NRA would have received my attention, and perhaps a check in the near future. Some may scoff at me for that remark, but I stand by it. I don't care what level of celebrity status he holds, if he doesn't trust his constituents when he is among them then I will not cast a vote in his favor. I don't disarm to see my own mother, so why should I disarm to see John McCain confirm that he vagely supports a right that I hold so dear.

Some say the the world has changed, that things are more dangerous now, but the reallity is that life is not any more dangerous now than it was 143 years ago. Theodore Roosevelt didn't feel the need to disarm his constituents even after one of them shot him in the chest, and he didn't even run away. He finished his speech.

I am sitting this election out. Some cry "compromise," but I call B.S. Compromise would be chosing between two candidates who you have some degree of interest in, and determining which one harbors values that are close to yours. I can say with certainty that John McCain, and definitely not those two marxist democrats, does not harbor anything remotely close to my values, so I will be here on election day.

Larry Correia said it best:

In national news, looks like Obama’s got the donkey party nomination all sewed up. So now our choice comes down to a conservative democrat versus a communist. Yay.

That about sums it up.

CTone's nuclear 1911

My primary carry piece for years has been a Springfield Armory Ultra-Compact V-10 in .45 ACP. It has somewhere around 5,000 rounds through it and it lately has become the most unreliable POS that I have ever owned. I keep getting a nosedive type jam with hollowpoint ammo that I cannot recall ever getting before that looks like it could be entirely magazine related. But what changed?



I cannot get through a box of fifty rounds without a few jams, so I tinker with it, and just as soon as I think I've got it running right....JAM..



The mouth of the bullet is not touching the feedramp, nor is it touching the extractor. The magazines that I have used for years are Chip McCormick shooting stars - 7 rounders (Officer frame), and I have not had any problems until recently. I am now using brand new Wilson Combat 7 round mags, and I still have the same problem. I have also replaced the recoil spring and guide rod.



Holding the two brands of magazines together shows the Wilson Combat holds the round a slight bit higher:



I have polished the feedramp and breechface which makes the gun run noticeably smoother with hardball. When I fire hot ammo like Cor-Bon through it, I often get a crazy looking stovepipe where the case mouth has four crimps in it. It looks to me like the slide is cycling way too fast and ramming the case mouth against the barrel hood before bouncing open enough to eject the case into a stovepipe; if that makes any sense. I will have to get a picture.

The ammo that I have tried so far (since the jam problem) are 185 and 230 grain CCI Gold Dot's, 185 grain Cor-Bon HP, and 230 grain Winchester White Box JHP. Hardball feeds fine, but I want ammo that can stop inside of a target. The only benefit of hardball that I can think of for this gun is the penetration that I am obviously lacking from having a short barrel with almost half of it ported. I am looking into getting a chrony to find out what velocity I'm missing.

I read on The High Road and the 1911 Forum that these 1911's with the short slide can give you headaches. Mine in particular has a 3.5 inch ported barrel. I would never recommend a ported barrel for a carry gun because if you have to shoot it inside of a car or house, it would be the last thing you ever hear. That, as well as the blinding fireball that you get in low light:



I'd make some lucky sniper real happy.


Also of note, the cases eject erratically. I re-tuned the extractor and now it doesn't hammer empties into your forehead, but it still is not like what it used to be. I would send the blasted thing to Springfield Armory for a tune up, but I'm thinking about fitting a commander length slide to it and calling it a day. I can't stand the ported barrel, and I think the extra length would give me more velocity and distance.

I've never done any substantial work to a firearm before, especially a 1911, so how difficult would it be to fit a Essex slide and an undetermined make barrel to this pistol? I've got good eyes and a steady hand, and I'm technically savvy.

What do you think?

Another prosecutor's DWI

This one in Cass county, Michigan. Michael Taylor resigned as an assistant prosecutor after getting a DWI. I wonder if his punishment will be as harsh as everyone else.

And what is it with prosecutors and DWI's these days?

Assault trucks

It's amazing that nobody was killed.

Maybe we should....I don't know....register these dangerous machines and license the drivers, you know, to protect the children.

Licensing and registration of firearms and gun owners is the holy grail of gun-grabbers nationwide, but I fail to see how it would prevent people from commiting a crime, and I see how it would be used at every opportunity to abuse lawful gun owners.

Ban on militant looking weapons not working?

A 16 year old autistic kid shoots at kids on a basketball court with an "AK-47."

Most law enforcement and reporters wouldn't know an AK-47 from a Ruger 10/22, so I don't give this story but so much credit. In other news, AK-47's are illegal in Connecticut.

More bottle bombs in schools

Three more were set off; one last week, and two this week in the ironically named Friendly High School.

This wouldn't be the first time kids have mixed toilet bowl cleaner and tinfoil, and it won't be the last.

9 year old hold knife to students throat

Do you reckon that kitchen knives cause violence? Look for a kitchen knife ban after this one.

Speculation from a former Only One

I found this trash in a local newpaper concerning armed college students on campus. The same boring and unfounded points are cited in this piece as in others: students are too drunk and stoned to be trusted; everyone will be shooting it out with the gunman because EVERYONE will be carrying a gun; the cops won't know who the bad guy is because every student is armed and shooting indescriminently while drunk and stoned; and my favorite, that students will kill themselves because they have a gun.

First off, nobody is saying that EVERYONE will have a gun. I doubt even half of one percent would carry, making these claims pretty silly.

Second, drugs and alcohol are not just problems that are found on campus, they're found everywhere, so playing this game of students having too many temptations around them to responsibly carry is false.

Third, suicide is also not just a campus problem, and guns do not cause it. It doesn't take a genious to figure out that firing a gun at your head will cause permanent death, and the same can be said for jumping from a tall structure. I have read about several people jumping from the Interstate 95 bridge over the Rappahannock river over the years. They just pull off onto the shoulder and jump. Should we ban gravity? Or maybe put up a fence around the bridge! That will surely stop someone from jumping off that particular structure!

Genious.

There are some other things that don't add up, so let's take a look:

This is not really a Second Amendment right-to-bear-arms issue; it is a need and safety issue. Do students really need to carry guns on campus for their own personal protection, and would the presence of more guns there make college a safer place for all?

Actually, it is a 2nd Amendment issue. Why should an American's right end at the border of the campus? And need? Give me a break. As far as making it safer; it's not about making the school safe, it's about an individual's choice of personal safety. Few will carry a gun, and it sure won't make it more dangerous, so let students exercise their rights.

Within the last decade, the Harvard School of Public Health conducted a random sample of over 15,000 undergraduates from 130 four-year colleges. In that survey, 3.5 percent of the student respondents indicated they had a firearm at college. The study concluded that students with guns on campus were more likely to binge-drink, to drive drunk, and to suffer an injury severe enough to require medical attention.

So what your saying is that 3.5 percent of students defy the sanctity of the "Gun Free Zone" and bring a gun to school, rules and laws be damned, and then act beligerent. No shit Sherlock! Your signs don't stop people from breaking the law, and it's because of these people that folks like myself carry a firearm.

Were all states to allow students and others to carry guns on campus, the danger for everyone at affected schools would likely increase. We know, for example, that the No. 2 cause of death for college students is suicide. Some 25,000 college students each year attempt suicide, and 1,100 succeed.

Further, 90 percent of individuals who attempt suicide with a firearm succeed. If we do the math, as college teaches us to do, the success rate of college suicide could increase dramatically if students were allowed to possess guns on campus.

Speculation. And it seems that students already have guns anyways, so what's your point? And has it ever dawned on you that people that commit suicide with a firearm are very serious about achieving death, and that the lack of a firearm is not going to hinder their determination, making them chose another method?

If a student or a college worker is able to turn to a readily available gun as a means to resolve conflict rather than talking or walking away, the danger to all increases. Put yourself in the shoes of the campus police officer, administrator, instructor, or anyone else who must confront someone who could be carrying a gun under his sweatshirt. The tension automatically rises to a much higher level.

Again, your point is moot if 3.5 percent of the students already have guns. Campus police have to assume that everyone is potentially carrying anyways, and if a police officer is confronting a student then there is a gun within reach anyways - the cop's. The idea that students will automatically resort to using a weapon in a conflict is absurd. Here in the really real world, normal people don't resort to violence, especially those who carry a defensive arm. The folks who are dangerous carry them anyways, and they're the reason why good folks carry a defensive arm.

What about at Virginia Tech last April? Would armed students or professors have known who among those with guns drawn and firing was the real shooter who needed to be stopped? How should the police officers who flooded the campus looking for the shooter have responded when confronted by one or two or 50 students and others wielding guns as that mob ran helter-skelter across the campus quad? Could the situation, as terrible as it was, have become even more tragic had innocents shot other innocents in panic?

Here we go with the "everyone will be armed" and "massive firefight" strawman argument. Very few will chose to carry, so there won't be but a handful of armed students in a building at best. That, and if an armed student responds to a gunman, the exchange will last seconds, and the cops will arrive to find a dead bad guy or a dead good guy. Either way, it is fantasy to think that students will all pull guns and start blasting one another. Grow up.

Many people are fully capable of making good decisions concerning the firearm they carry on their persons, but the chances are really slim they would ever need to fire in self-defense or to save others.

The only true statement in this whole piece.

The statistics, even allowing for a once-every-40-years scenario such as Cho at Virginia Tech, hardly justify the extra danger created by allowing guns on campus.

Until your the unarmed person in the room with a lunitic gunman.

Your Second Amendment rights are safe; just don't take your gun to school.

Well, your rights are not really safe if they can be stripped from you when you go to school.

Clinton Van Zandt, a former FBI profiler who now serves as a crime-news analyst, lives in Spotsylvania County.

There you have it! Straight from the guy who is used to being the "Only One" armed.

How come that "Gun Free Zone" didn't stop her?

This woman wandered into a Virginia elementary school with three handguns. She didn't shoot them, and was apparently off her rocker, but how come she didn't see the sign?

Don't mess with this guy!

I found a great read at The High Road about a watch shop owner who defended himself from 11 robbers on four occasions, taking 5 rounds and killing 5 of the six robbers that he shot.

Crazy stuff, now go read.

Educating kids about firearms makes them safer

Who knew? If tactical mall ninjas in the UK are handing kids MP5's and Uzi's and saying that it makes them safer, than they must be onto something.

I blame George Bush

A study in Canada links alcohol sales and violence; saying that those who live closer to where alcohol is sold are more likely to be assaulted. Funny thing is that alcohol in Canada is sold at government stores. Coorelation is not causation.

"I think we have to be careful in overinterpreting the results of this study," said Dr. Fred Berger, medical director of the Scripps McDonald Center for alcohol and drug treatment, and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. "The results are reporting a statistical association or correlation, and cannot, therefore, speak to causality."

Moreover, liquor is sold in far more locations in the U.S. than in Canada, and the link between alcohol sales and violent assault is much harder to pin down in the states.

ABC news shows its bias with the attached photo, even though there is no mention of guns in the entire article.

Wow...just...wow.

A 17 year old guy is bleeding out from a gunshot to the head, and this girl robs him. If you have ever been to Fayetteville, NC then this shouldn't surprise you at all.

Will he be EXILE'd?

I don't know how I missed this. Wicomico County State's Attorney Davis Ruark was arrested for DUI in February, and he had a .45 caliber Glock handgun in his car.

So what's the big deal?

Aside from being a states attorney, he is (was?) a [Member, Drug and Alcohol Abuse Council, Wicomico County, 2004]. He is also part of Project Exile. It seems to me to be very hypocritical, and now we will see if Maryland treats him like he's treated everyone else. Will he get a break because of who he is?

Why couldn't it have been Al?

Irena Sendler died today in a Warsaw hospital at the age of 98. This would be the same woman who saved thousands of Jewish kids from certain death during the Holocost, and was later passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was instead given to Al Gore for his junk science.

Too bad.

Rest in peace Mrs. Sendler.

Kalifornia concealed carry

Or lack thereof. Actor Dennis Farina busted at LAX security checkpoint because he forgot that his .22 caliber terror weapon was in his briefcase, and worse yet, he wasn't even authorized by the state to carry the death machine, nor was the blasted thing entered in an arbitrary government list!

To think that someone would ignore such commonsense laws! The horror!

Some may run this guy up the flagpole - the law sure is as he is being charged with a felony - but I cannot throw rocks at this man because I've been hosed at airport security as well.

I was arrested at checkpoint once for having several knives in a bag. It was all a mistake, obviously, as I was on my way to Iraq and was not able to check my rucksack at the ticket counter. I just forgot they were in there. I spent the night in jail, while my firearm and seabag flew out to the El Paso, TX airport where I found them 18 hours later on the floor outside of the baggage claim area.

Farina better have a good lawyer. I'm sure he won't have to struggle as hard as I did to pay for one.

Wear and carry?

What the hell are these jackasses talking about? I'm pretty much speechless so I'll just quote the article:

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. -- Police said there is a new violent trend in Prince George's County called "wear and carry" killings.

Detectives said they have noticed you men carrying guns as if they are pocket change and shooting with little cause.

The name "wear and carry" comes from a statute that outlines the penalties for wearing and carrying a weapon.

According to the Washington Post, police confiscated more than 1,700 guns last year.

Most of the county's illegal-gun charges involved men between the ages of 18 and 24.

I have a feeling that they are trying to demonize those who carry legally. Why else would they run some panty wetting piece like this? They make it seem like good natured gang-banger thugs are open carrying and then randomly shooting.

The Wild West

Which, by god, is the District of Columbia.

It's a good thing you had all of those hands on all of those...d ....oh never mind. The overwhelming police presence in the city failed to make any meaningful change. DC citizens still can't defend themselves, so they're killed in droves, and all the while thousands of cops are roaming around outside to make people feel safe, but not actually safe.

Next, Chiefy will have platoons of heavily armored cops with shiny new AR-15's patroling the streets "for the children," and then DC "leaders" will have the "power trip" that they so desperately want. Seriously, what's next?

Chiefy has already run the gauntlet of stupid ideas, including the coveted "reason with them" nonsense that is ripped right out of the irrational liberal ideas for dummies handbook.

I thought you were going to "get them" Chief?

This futile clown show can only get worse because the population of DC is controled by armed gangs, and the mayor, with his armada of police cruisers, couldn't stop crime if he doubled the number of uniformed officers. Not without finishing off the Constitution anyways; we can already see that that is a possibility.

Movie Guns VII.5

As promised, here is a review of the weapons seen in the movie The Outsiders. I was asked about the make of the balisong that Emilio Estevez carries in the movie, and I had not seen this movie for well over ten years, so I picked it up at Target last night to give it a look.

There are several firearms in this movie, as well as several different types of knives. I got a closeup of some of them, but there are others that I just couldn't get a good picture of.

The first knife that I could get a picture of is a black handled balisong with a spear point blade and a false edge. It appears to be stainless, but I could be wrong. Here is Two-Bit (Emilio Estevez) flipping the knife open right before a confrontation with the Socs:


Here's a closer look:


Later, Johnny (Ralph Macchio) pulls a stag handled switchblade from his pocket. It has a strange latch that he pulls down with his thumb:




This is the knife that he uses to fatally run through one of the Socs that is drowning his friend Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell), as seen here covered with blood:


Afterwords, Johnny and Ponyboy seek help from their friend Dallas (Matt Dillon), who promptly gives them cash, instructions, and this revolver:


As he is handing it over to Johnny, you can see a shotgun and a Hawken rifle hanging on the wall:


Later on, Two-Bit and Ponyboy are visiting Dallas in the hospital, and Dallas asks to see Two-Bit's balisong:


Two-Bit always flips open the latch with his right hand while the knife is tip-up, then rolls it tip-down in his left hand, and then flips it open with his right hand. He does a good job controlling the knife, but I don't think he caries one day-to-day.

Here's Dallas holding the knife:


If you look close, you can see a butterfly etched into the hilt. You can see it better on the second picture above.

At some point, Dallas starts carrying a "heater." Ponyboy says "heaters are for kiling people." Idiot.


I don't know what type of gun it is, but he uses it to knock off a convenience store towards the end of the movie:


The store owner pulls out a little revolver and shoots Dallas as he is running away with all of the cash:


I doubt the cops would have any problems with the store owner, even though he shot Dallas in the back.

Well, I have no idea who makes these weapons, but I have captured them for everyone to look at. I will try to trace down the make and model of these, and will update the post when I find something.

Update: Ahab identifies the small auto that Dallas is holding as a compact model of the Star B in 9mm. Good to go.

Now, does anyone have any idea who makes the bali?

Update: The auto knife that Johnny uses to kill the Soc is a German made Solingen Springer. Here's some more information. I found this info completely by accident.