I was waiting in the lobby of the hotel when Larry Houck emerged from the elevator and gave him the bad news. Mark Hanish had misread the sign the night before – breakfast didn’t start until 8 AM, and the shooter’s meeting that morning started at 7:30. As we loaded our gun cases into the back of the bright blue FNH USA truck, our dreams of freshly cooked, fluffy pancakes quickly were replaced by greasy Egg McMuffins from the McDonalds that Mark decided to head toward. The day didn’t have an auspicious start, and the oppressive heat and humidity that awaited us didn’t bode well for our scores . . .

Since my score didn’t technically count, I was lumped in with the smallest squad just to keep things moving. In this case, the ladies’ squad. A couple of the shooters tried to give me a hard time about being assigned to the girl’s squad, but a quick reminder that I wouldn’t be forced to stare at hairy, sweaty old fat guys all day shut that down pretty fast. While the girls might not post the same blazing fast scores that the guys regularly do, they still shoot miles better than the vast majority of 3-gun shooters in the world – myself included. I would have been happy simply to stay in the middle of their pack, and figured that it was a foregone conclusion that I wouldn’t come close to their top shooters.

The women’s squad started on stage 5, rotating around and ending on stage 4. I’ve already talked about the stages and broken them down in a prior article, so just be aware if you’re comparing notes.

For stage 5 I decided to run it the way that I had gamed it out with Larry, starting with a shotgun on the start table and working my way around to the rifle at the end. It just made the most sense to me, avoiding my weak handgun shooting and playing to my strengths with loading the shotgun. It worked pretty well, allowing me to shoot the targets quickly and loading on the move. The only problem came when I went to grab the rifle.

This is where the muscle memory from my previous competitions took over. In just about every other shoot, firearms are staged “cruiser ready.” That means the chamber’s empty, but the magazine is loaded and inserted on a closed bolt. For this competition, though, guns are staged “hot” with a loaded chamber. I was so used to racking the action before firing my first round that I found myself automatically grabbing the charging handle even though the gun was already loaded, wasting precious seconds in the process.

Another issue I had was with the ammunition. Larry had said that he’d take care of ammo for me during this competition, so I had left my beloved Winchester stuff at home. While the rest of the team had bright, shiny match grade Federal ammunition, I was handed a brick of American Eagle XM193 ammo. You know, the stuff that comes in the black box and is dirt cheap. The ammo showed that cheapness when, less than 10 rounds into the box, I had a failure to fire. A quick TAP-RACK-BANG put things right, but it planted the thought in my mind to be aware for future issues.

In the end, my plan for the stage worked fine. I came in two seconds behind Lena Miculek, which isn’t too shabby. If that round had fired, I would have caught her.

Stage 1 was a little more challenging than I had expected, and the rifle work was the first thing that gave me some trouble.

I had planned to take a couple of the targets while moving from one position to the next, but I couldn’t seem to get my rifle to play along. No matter how slowly I moved, the reticle was bouncing all over the place. I eventually resorted to throwing a whole bunch of rounds at the targets and hoping that some of them hit (they did), but I would have preferred to conserve ammunition. They only had 200 rounds for me, and I didn’t want to run out.

Transitioning to the shotgun, I once again automatically racked the action, dropping a shell out of the gun and throwing off my count. I had planned the reload for after I had finished the first set of targets on the left side of the course, but one miss over there and I was forced to perform a standing reload before hitting that target and moving on. Another small mistake that cost me a couple of seconds.

When I drew my handgun, it took a couple shots for me to get back on target. Again, having been so accustomed to the way the Sig P226 points and shoots I had forgotten to adjust for the FNS-9. But as soon as I remembered those long hours on the range I was back to singing steel and punching targets again.

The other handgun-related issue I had was that my feet were moving faster than my handgun. I had planned to slowly advance and take a couple targets while moving, but while I was walking one of the targets disappeared behind a barricade and I needed to back up to engage it.

That sort of set the theme for the day. I didn’t really make any big, glaring mistakes, but a series of small errors that added up to some serious time added to my score. And as the day got hotter and more humid, I started making more of them.

I knew that stage 2 was off to a rocky start when I missed a clay pigeon. Twice. Firing two additional shells threw my count completely off, and I no longer had enough rounds in the “load 2” carriers to complete the stage. That’s why I always carry some of the more traditional 4-round shell caddies as a backup. But in this case, even that older loading method was bungled. I couldn’t get a good grip on the shells, so I kept dropping them when I tried to load them in the gun. You can see them flying out of my hand as I try to load the tube in the video. I eventually got the gun loaded and finished the steel targets, but it took far longer than I had wanted. Moral of the story: bring more ammo than you think you need.

Another issue I had with the shotgun was once again walking too fast for my own good. Loading the shotgun took a little longer than expected, so that put me about one step further down the line than I anticipated and way too close to the 180 line for comfort. Rather than be disqualified at my first pro series match for a rookie mistake, I took a bunny hop to the rear and fired from there. Again, wasted seconds.

Handgun shooting went fine, and then I ditched the gun for my rifle. Some people don’t like the offset iron sight thing that I run on my gun, but I absolutely love it. Optical sights are nice for long range, but when you need to hit something at contact distance, there’s nothing better than a set of irons. In fact, I zero my optic for 50 yards but I have my iron sights set for 10 specifically to give me a better chance of hitting the X ring on those close-in targets.

If there was one stage that I could point to and say that’s where I screwed up the most, it would be stage 3. This was the memory stage, the one where you needed to remember your plan exactly and which targets had to be hit from certain positions.

I was doing fantastic throughout the entire stage, hitting my planned positions right on the spot and getting all the long range targets. But as I was reloading the shotgun in the middle of the stage, I made a terrible discovery: I had completely forgotten the three paper targets on the right side of the stage. The plan was to hit those when I was getting ready to dump my rifle, but I just plain forgot.

While my error cost me some time, it’s a perfect teachable moment for 3-gun shooting. Stages used to be heavily scripted (starting in box A with rifle, shoot X targets then switch to shotgun…), which was a hold-over from the control freaks that run USPSA/IPSC and IDPA matches. But as 3-gun has evolved, the stages have started to be designed to give shooters more options. Especially in the pro series, competitors are allowed to use as many or as few guns as they want to finish the stage and in whatever order they choose. There’s no hard and fast script. The instructions simply lay out what needs to be shot and there are few if any restrictions (like shooting clay pigeons with shotgun only).

For this stage, I decided that I wanted to plan not use my handgun. I could hit all the targets with either the rifle or the shotgun, so the handgun was unnecessary. But despite not planning to use it, I brought it along anyway. The stage description allowed me to have it, and I always like to have a backup. What if the shotgun went down before I could shoot all the steel? What if the rifle had a catastrophic malfunction before the paper targets were all hit? I wanted another option, and having a handgun allowed me to have a backup plan no matter what happened.

So when I realized that the paper targets were still untouched, I finished what I was doing with the shotgun and immediately transitioned to the handgun to hit those targets. I altered the plan in the middle of the stage, on the fly. I improvised, and did it so seamlessly that people thought I had planned to shoot the stage that way.

As Erik Lund says, the difference between a master class shooter and a high master is that the high master makes a better caliber mistake. They instinctively know when they missed a shot, and fire another one off so quickly that the untrained observer doesn’t know the difference. While I definitely lost a couple seconds transitioning to the handgun, that mid-stage problem-solving saved me 15 seconds worth of penalties.

That’s what I love about “action” shooting sports like 3-gun and USPSA. No other sport gives you the same kind of challenges, where critical thinking and problem solving under pressure are essential skills.  That’s what makes the stages fun and keeps me coming back.

Stage 4 was the last one of the day, and the longest. Us fat kids don’t do well in the heat and humidity, and I think I was already on my 20^th bottle of water for the day when we rolled up to the stage, still a tad overheated. Nevertheless, I think I put in a pretty good run.

The rifle work went pretty well with the exception of missing my mark next to the screen on that stage. One of the longer range steel targets was obscured by a poster and could only be seen from a certain spot, and I stopped too short. So I had to spend an extra second to re-position myself before taking the shot.

As I rounded the corner to the next bay I made sure to look over my shoulder at the dump barrel and ensure that my rifle had stayed in. One shooter had already been disqualified when their rifle had flopped out of that same barrel, and I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.

With rifle safely stowed, I whipped out the handgun and proceeded to shoot more conservatively than I had on any previous stage. I couldn’t see my hits on the targets from that far away, so I tried to call my shots and ended up firing five rounds at one target to make sure that I hadn’t missed. It wasn’t very efficient, but it worked.

The shotgun portion was the last stretch of the stage, and that went well. I did miss twice, but quick follow-up shots put things right in each case.

After we finished, we stuck around to watch the top ten guys shoot against each other for the top prize, and each of them had finished the match somewhere around 3 minutes and 15 seconds. On the other end of the spectrum was Karla, who was very disappointed with her score. She was so disappointed that she wouldn’t tell us the whole number, only saying that “it starts with a six.” She was lamenting that she thought she had shot so poorly that I might have beaten her.

My scores didn’t show up on the board, so I had no idea how I had finished. After the match we decided to head over to a local restaurant for dinner, but apparently the women decided that they wanted to shower off before they ate and left us guys to drink beer and watch the NASCAR race while we waited, our offensive odor apparently not affecting the waitstaff. Much. Somewhere around the second round of drinks I pulled out my score sheets and started to tally up my total time, adding in the couple targets I missed (a 2.5 second penalty for each one). I had just finished with the math when Karla sat down next to me. I couldn’t resist – I leaned over and said “I just calculated my score.”

“And?” she replied.

“It started with a five.”

From WNYT:

The Columbia County District Attorney is making good on a promise not to prosecute a man arrested under the SAFE Act.

DA Paul Czajka told NewsChannel 13 he would not prosecute Gregory Dean Jr.

Dean was pulled over earlier this month after police say the light over his license plate was out.

Police say he also had a gun in his car.

While they say it was possessed legally, it had nine rounds of ammunition, which exceeds the state’s new limit of seven rounds.

There are few moments in life I can remember as clearly as the first time I sat in the front right seat of an ambulance. I’d been aware of the risks of being a 911-dispatched EMT, but there’s something about being the Officer In Charge for the first time that makes you realize just how vulnerable you really are. You can be sent into anything at any time, and it’s up to you to keep your crew safe. That’s what really drove the disaster in West, Texas home for me, the idea that it could just as easily have been me arriving in the first unit on scene. Now someone is organizing a 2-gun match near Marble Falls, Texas with all proceeds going to benefit the West, Texas EMS . . .

From the match website:

The West, Texas Benefit Match is being held in order to raise much needed funds to help the West, Texas EMS system rebuild.

In the aftermath of the tragic explosion that occurred in West on April 17th, 2013 the town has been left with a severely crippled EMS system. Relying heavily on mutual aid from adjacent agencies since the event, the citizens of West need their EMS system restored to full capacity to begin the difficult task of rebuilding.

There are a hundreds of news articles out there with the details of the explosion, the many lives lost, people injured and the horrific damage caused. However while the town, state and nation mourn the loses, look for answers to very difficult questions and try to figure out how to proceed and rebuild, the first responders (Police, Fire and EMS) still have the same job and responsibility they had before the explosion. They are still tasked with providing the emergency services needed by the community, but they are now doing it with drastically reduced capacity. These people are still responding to car accidents, medical emergencies, fires and saving cats from trees; they’re just doing it with less people, less equipment and even without an EMS station!

I have been in contact with the West, Texas EMS president and some of their medics. They appear to be in a situation that we could directly assist with support. They need to make extensive repairs to their building before it is operational again, replace their communications system and replace their ambulances. These are all steps that can be taken one at a time, each achievable step will restore a significant amount of capability to the EMS system in West and bring the community one step closer to restored service.

I have been told that West is in fact a Central Texas town that has many firearms enthusiast! Some of which will be attending the benefit match, off duty West EMS personnel will be at the event to provide medical standby if they are available.

We are doing everything possible to not only raise money for West EMS services but also let the community know that we support them. We will be bringing the famous Kolache’s from West Bakery down for lunch, and some of the Heart of Texas Cowgirls from West will also be assisting at the event.

The benefit match will help raise some of these much needed funds, it may only be a drop in the bucket compared to what they need, but I plan to do everything I can to make the biggest splash possible!

I ask anyone in the area to come out and show their support, if you can’t spend a whole day to shoot the match, come out for an afternoon and shoot some machine guns, grab some Kolache’s, meet some of the amazing people from West and show them that we care.

The match is being held at the Copperhead Creek Shooting Club on June 8th and 9th, although the match takes only one day to shoot (you can shoot it either day). Registration is $65 and I’ve already mailed off my application to shoot on Saturday. The match is a handgun and rifle only match, shotguns need not apply!

As I was standing around watching the first of the 3-Gun Nation Pro Series competitions, one of the FNH USA PR  people asked me how I felt watching a 3-gun match and not being able to shoot it. And to be honest, it was painful. I wanted to see how I would do, to test myself against the stages and see how I ranked. I wanted to shoot. So after the match, I asked the guys at 3-Gun Nation very, very nicely to let me shoot in the next competition. To my surprise, they agreed. So as I was mentally breaking down the stages in Tulsa before the second competition, I wasn’t just looking to see how the pros would shoot it, I was trying to figure out how I would shoot it given my own strengths and weaknesses . . .

I’ll talk about how I did at the competition later. First, let’s talk about the stages.

Stage 1 was about as straightforward as it gets. Starting with a rifle, the shooter engages a bunch of close range paper targets before hitting two small round steel plates at 50 yards (offhand, by the way). You then ditch your rifle in a barrel and grab your shotgun, taking out some mixed clay pigeons and small steel targets on your way to the back of the bay. Once there another dump barrel relieves you of your shotgun and you finish off the stage with a handgun.

While this set-up may have appeared straightforward, the challenge was resisting the urge to shoot everything you could see. A perfect example were the paper and steel targets just to the left of the screens in the middle of the course. They’re visible from almost the entire stage, and they keep taunting you to attack them. But you need to resist.

At the start of the course, the shooter moves to the first bend in the shooting area. You need to hit some long range steel that are only visible from that point, so there’s no getting around that position. From that same position you can see that paper target that’s just inside your peripheral vision. Because you can see it, your natural reaction is to shoot it. But that’s a terrible idea.

While the long range steels are required to be shot from that position, the paper targets can be hit with a handgun from a much closer range…if you wait. Closer range means quicker, easier shots, and in a competition where fractions of a second are what differentiates the top shooters, you need to resist the temptation to take that shot with a rifle.

The steel is a similar situation. The middle section of the stage is required to be shot with a shotgun, and there are a few pieces of steel that are visible from the shotgun dump barrel. But they’re just on the edge of the effective range. Again, the time it would take to load the extra rounds to engage those steel plates and take the shot would take the shooter longer than hitting them with a handgun.

I have to admit, when I first saw the next stage layout that was my initial plan – hit everything I could see as soon as I saw it, and sort out the chaos later. But that’s not a winning strategy, and Erik Lund quickly changed my mind.

Stage 2 started with some close range shotgun work, then a quick transition to the handgun for steel and paper targets. Finally, you’re presented with a choice of continuing with your handgun or swapping for a rifle for the run across the back of the bay shooting some paper targets. And as with most of the stages, the shooter’s presented with some interesting options.

Clay pigeons are required to be hit with a shotgun, but steel can be hit with a handgun if the shooter wants. If you look at the stage layout, you’ll notice that the targets start out with all clay pigeons (9 of them, just enough to empty the shotgun), then switch to small steel targets (6 more). And very conveniently there’s a dump barrel placed where the clay pigeons end, and another at the end of the steel targets. What this means for the shooter is they have the option to reload the shotgun or swap to the handgun to take out those six steel targets.

Larry Houck, ever since he mastered the ‘load 2’ method, has always favored his shotgun in this scenario. Even factoring in the need to load 6 additional rounds in the gun, he figures that it’s quicker to do that and engage the targets with the shotgun than to dump the gun, rack a round into the handgun and carefully aim at the tiny steel targets. I happen to agree, since my handgun shooting isn’t exactly one of my best skills. However, if you’re someone who prefers their handgun, then it might make sense to dump the shotgun early instead of having to reload it.

The second decision to be made is which firearm to finish the stage with. As Larry pointed out to me, the targets at the end of the stage are just outside the comfort zone for most people (pros included) to hit with a handgun. If they were a couple yards closer (as he’s intending to do at the FNH 3-Gun later this year), they might entice people to try their handgun instead of the rifle. In this case, it didn’t make a lot of sense to finish with the handgun and most people switched to the rifle. But the option was there for those foolhardy enough to try.

Stage 3 was what is commonly referred to as the “memory stage,” since it required people to make a plan for how to shoot it and remember which targets need to be shot from which positions in order to get them all. The stage consisted of 15 paper targets, 6 steel targets and 8 clay pigeons behind a number of screens and barrels blocking the shooter’s view. No more than three targets of any kind were visible from any given position, so movement was very much required.

Watching the pro shooters try to figure this one out was entertaining, to say the least. I walked it with Larry first, and we formulated our own plan as to how to shoot it. Then Jerry Miculek, along with Lena and Kay (hereafter referred to as the “Miculek Clan”) joined in and added their views on the matter, which changed our plan slightly. Finally Erik Lund and Randi Rogers chimed in, changing our plans just a little bit more. So in a very Borg-like manner, each person incorporated the parts of others’ plans that they liked to their own, making the final more of a collective effort than any single individual’s strategy.

This is also one of the great things about 3-gun. Even at the highest level, shooters still love to help each other out and collaborate. Whether it’s sharing their plan for an upcoming stage or sharing ammo with someone who just ran dry, there’s a definite sense of being part of a supportive community when you’re at a match. Larry was telling me about a time at a match when one of his fellow competitors ran out of shotgun slugs in the middle of a stage, and the rest of the squad kept handing him slugs from their own stash until he finished.

Then again, these are the same guys that took pleasure in plastic-wrapping some guy’s SUV at the Texas Multigun last month. Gentle, kind-hearted folks with a penchant for evil, twisted practical jokes. Exactly my kind of guys.

But back to the stage. For this one, there was actually a mistake in the setup. The diagram shows everything nicely laid out in a symmetrical configuration, but there was one spot where you could barely see half of a target through a gap in the screens, and it just happened to be the one target you needed to see to skip an entire half of the stage. The only drawback was that you needed to hit your mark exactly to shoot it, and if you missed that mark you were screwed and wouldn’t be able to find it quickly enough. Using that gap was a gamble, one that paid off big-time if you hit it but knocked you out of the running if you didn’t.

Stage 4 was another version of the longer, multi-bay layouts that required plenty of running and about 100 yards of movement. While it might have been a lot bigger than the other stages, it was much less complex.

The beginning was all rifle, with some long range steel targets and a bunch of close range paper. The only decision that needed to be made was at how many positions you wanted to stop to shoot the steel. The paper was best shot from the starting position (due to the layout of the stage), but the longer range steel could be hit from a couple spots. Well, with the exception of those center steel targets. They could only be shot from the left side of the barricade, since they were blocked from view from just about everywhere else. The consensus seemed to be to shoot the paper from the start position and as you were moving to the barricade, and then hit all the steel from there before moving on.

The dump barrel here proved trickier than expected. You were required to dump your rifle in the barrel before going around the corner, as only your pistol (still in the holster) was allowed to be on your person when moving through that section. So people would ditch their rifles hard and fast in that barrel, then keep moving without checking that the rifle was safely ditched. In one case, one of the top shooters was disqualified when their rifle’s magazine caught on the side of the barrel and the gun cartwheeled out, landing on the ground.

Mark Hanish had a solution to this issue. Instead of gently placing his rifle in the barrel, he speared it in so hard that the muzzle actually punched through the bottom of the plastic can and impaled itself a good two inches into the soft earth underneath. It was stuck in the ground so hard that not only did it stand on its own without touching the sides, he had to put one foot on the barrel and yank with both hands to pull it out. When asked if he was worried he’d damaged the gun, he responded in typical Mark fashion: “It’s a SCAR, It’s a battle rifle!”

After rounding the turn, the shooter is able to draw their handgun and engage five paper targets. With your pulse now elevated and breathing a little harder, those small targets become harder to hit. 3-gun shooters are used to IPSC targets, which are cutouts the size of humans and much more forgiving in terms of shot placement. But for the 3-Gun Nation series, they use round targets with much smaller scoring zones. The reason for the change is mostly politics (human shaped targets send the wrong signal to non-gun people when watching on TV), but it also makes the competition that much more challenging.

Once you engage those paper targets, the rest of the stage can theoretically be completed with the shotgun. But shooters are given the option to re-holster their handgun and take it with them right up to the end of the stage. At the end there are eight steel targets in a row that can be shot with either a shotgun or a handgun, along with a convenient dump barrel to ditch your shotgun if you prefer not to use it. It’s another moment where the shooter needs to decide if they can reload their shotgun quickly enough to keep up with the handgun shooters, or if their handgun accuracy is high enough to keep up with the shotgun shooters. It allows each shooter to play to their strengths.

Stage 5 was as straightforward as they come — a symmetrical design intended to allow both right-handed and left-handed shooters to have the exact same issues — that can be shot a dizzying number of ways. Starting at either of the far tables, the shooter has to engage four paper targets, six long range steel, ten short range (handgun or shotgun) steel and eight clay pigeons (shotgun only).

Most people shot this the way you see it laid out here – start with the rifle, switch to the handgun for the first five steel, then swap to the shotgun for the rest. I disagreed, starting with the shotgun, taking out all the small targets while moving and reloading. I had staged my rifle at the far right table and took the rifle targets from there. Considering that I finished only two seconds behind Lena Miculek I’d say my plan worked…not that anyone else did it quite that way.

So that’s the overview of how the stages broke down. But as any good strategist knows, no plan ever survives initial contact. 3-Gun requires the ability to come up with a good plan. But even more important is the ability to improvise on the fly. Stay tuned to see how well I was able to adapt and overcome as I shot my first pro series match.

Kris Koenig is the mastermind behind the upcoming documentary titled Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire. The project started as a look into the gun control debate raging in California, but as the debate heated up nationwide this past winter they broadened their scope to include the national debate as well. The project has been funded entirely through the website Kickstarter (initial funding – second push), where individuals pledge their own money to support a cause they believe in, and the finished product is nearing release. Kris has released a trailer that has been approved by the MPAA for use in movie theaters (see it above). The film will be shown in a limited number of theaters starting on June 20th (list coming shortly), with an “on demand” style release system planned thereafter. And to be honest, it looks like it’s a pretty darn well made product.

Oh, and the narrator? Ice-T.

This was the scene yesterday, where thousands of pro-Second Amendment New Yorkers descended on Albany to make their voices heard in opposition of the SAFE Act that was rammed through the legislature and signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo. It was a throng that made every gun control meet-up look like a Sunday morning sewing circle by comparison. And yet the mainstream media really couldn’t be bothered. A dozen gun control advocates outside the NRA convention will get national coverage, but thousands of pro-gun Empire Staters, pissed off at their government, goes almost unnoticed. Head on over to the Times Union site for the full story, but here’s the highlight of the article for me . . .

Saratoga Springs resident Kayla Sarro said she had been looking forward to getting her pistol permit when she turns 21 later this month. Sarro said she works 65 hours a week at three jobs; she had sacrificed a rare day off to come to the rally. Wearing a headband with red-sequined bow along with other patriotic accessories, she lamented the lack of young people at the event.

Having a gun, she said, would help her feel safe. She hopes to purchase a small handgun, maybe a Smith & Wesson.

“I will not lay down,” she said. “I will not lay down and let these people walk all over my rights, my freedom and my birthright as an American.”

There’s a major gap in the level of intensity of gun control advocates and pro-gun folks. Always has been. Those in favor of more restrictions on our freedom don’t see it as a priority — it’s just another checkbox on their wishlist of more government control. They they see it as inevitable and thus have relatively little passion. But for those who support gun rights, this is the most important issue. People who used to consider multiple facets of a politician’s platform before voting have become single issue voters.

I don’t think the mainstream media and gun control advocates quite realize the hornet’s nest that they’ve kicked.

The Connecticut Civil Defense league has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Connecticut looking to block the recently expanded assault weapons ban from going into effect. The suit is based on the recent Heller and McDonald decisions, which held that commonly used firearms cannot be banned and made the Second Amendment an incorporated civil right. Make the jump for the press release . . .

Today, a widely-anticipated lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, challenging the constitutionality of the new firearms law that was passed hastily by the Connecticut legislature in response to the tragic shooting in Newtown by a disturbed individual. The lawsuit seeks immediate injunctive relief and a ruling declaring the new law unconstitutional under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It alleges that Connecticut’s new firearms law is not only unconstitutional but dangerous, since it makes both citizens and law enforcement less safe by depriving citizens of firearms that are in common use throughout the country. The very firearms and design features banned by the new law are commonly used in part because of safety, accuracy and ease-of-use features that make them effective in the hands of citizens who must defend themselves and their families against criminals and the mentally ill who do not obey such laws.

Brought on behalf of individual gun owners, retailers, and citizen’s defense and sportsmen’s organizations, the lawsuit seeks to vindicate the constitutional rights of citizens who are harmed by the broad prohibitions and unworkable vagueness of the new law. The legal challenge focuses on Connecticut’s ban of more than 100 additional common firearms that the law now dubs “assault weapons” and on the ban of standard design features, including magazines that hold more than 10 round of ammunition, that provide improved safety, accuracy, and ease-of-use. The lawsuit also challenges the practical bans imposed by the new law on an even broader array of firearms due to the law’s vague language and interpretative confusion combined with severe criminal penalties.

Plaintiffs bringing the lawsuit include individuals such as an elderly widow who lives alone in a rural area where the emergency response time of a lone resident trooper serving the area is 45 minutes, a rabbi whose synagogue in the Bridgeport area has been broken into by intruders, a young professional woman whose efforts to defend herself are made more difficult by the loss of an arm due to cancer, among other individuals.

In addition, retailers whose businesses have been severely harmed by the law have joined the lawsuit, which was conceived and organized by fellow-plaintiff organizations the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, commonly known as CCDL, and the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen. Both organizational plaintiffs represent large numbers of Connecticut citizens whose rights to own the firearms of their choice for self-defense and other lawful purposes, such as sports shooting and hunting, have been harmed by the new prohibitions.

Despite the new law being called “An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety,” Connecticut’s new firearms law makes Connecticut citizens less safe. Among the individuals harmed by the law’s provisions are women, the elderly, and anyone of a smaller physical stature — individuals who typically lack the strength to operate older style, heavier, or difficult to use firearms and yet who need to be able to protect themselves in challenging home-invasion and other self-defense situations.

CCDL’s President, Scott Wilson, who has seen his organization’s membership grow from 2,500 to 7,600 in just a few months, says “On behalf of our members and all of the plaintiffs, we wish to thank the National Rifle Association, whose vision and stalwart defense of citizens’ fundamental rights has helped make this important legal challenge possible.” Wilson says, “Connecticut’s new gun ban violates Second Amendment rights by depriving law-abiding citizens of firearms that are in common use throughout the country precisely because of their known effectiveness in the protection of citizens, their families, and homes. Criminals and the mentally ill will not abide by this terrible law, which means it has the perverse effect of actually making citizens and law enforcement officers less safe.”

Bob Crook, Executive Director of the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, says, “This law will do nothing to prevent a tragedy or solve the problem of crime committed with guns. Instead of violating constitutional rights, we need to get serious about addressing violence and mental illness.” He continued, “Two recent independent studies by Pew and the federal government have just revealed that gun homicides are down almost 40% and general crime involving guns has dropped a whopping 70% since 1993, which corresponds with the elimination of the federal assault weapons ban. In contrast, the few areas of the country where gun crimes have increased dramatically are the very places where local or state governments have banned or severely restricted gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.”

Many of the design features now banned by Connecticut’s new law have long been standard in firearms design as they enhance safety, accuracy and ease-of-use, and include: design features that enhance a citizen’s ability to balance a firearm properly so that it can be shot safely and accurately based on the size of the owner – especially if the owner is smaller-sized like many women, the elderly, and youth shooters (retractable shoulder stock); design features that allow a long gun to be held more easily for accuracy and to be held onto by its owner if an attacker tries to take the gun from a victim (pistol grip and forward pistol grip); design features that allow those who are in stressful situations with multiple home-invaders or attackers to have sufficient bullets for meaningful self-defense without impractical situation of having to try to reload or access a second gun (standard magazine capacities over 10 rounds), etc. The specific firearms now banned by the law include some of the most commonly used and popular models in Connecticut and in America today, including the light and versatile AR-15.

Some local retailers supporting the lawsuit say that in addition to the increased dangers created by the law, the law is vague and unworkable. Although they are knowledgeable about various types of firearms, many are having difficulty trying to determine which firearms are banned and which are legal to sell. If they decide incorrectly, they could be facing years in jail. Some say it is difficult for reputable dealers to continue serving the law-abiding citizens of Connecticut under these circumstances. If licensed dealers leave the state, it will become increasingly difficult for the people of Connecticut to acquire firearms to defend themselves. Meanwhile, these retailers say, the criminals will still be armed and in an even stronger position to harm and terrorize the people of Connecticut.

The Connecticut lawsuit, like similar legal challenges in New York, Colorado and Maryland, is expected to better define the limits of a citizen’s right to own a commonly used firearm of personal choice for self-defense, defense of family, and other lawful purposes. Each of these states has enacted new firearms laws that make citizens and law enforcement less safe as they try to defend against criminals and the mentally ill who do not obey these laws.

Read the whole suit here.

Read the press release here.

After the Liberator was introduced, Californian State Senator and gun-grabber extraordinaire Leland Yee immediately proposed that 3D printers require a background check to purchase, be registered and subject to all the other draconian laws that California places on firearms (no pistol grips on your printer!). Anyway, it looks like Yee might be backing down from his typical authoritarian control freak stance. According to the IB Times, Yee’s press secretary issued this statement: . . .

“While Senator Yee is looking into the matter of guns manufactured by 3D printers, he is not, nor does he intend, to push for the registration of 3D printers. The quote in the CBS piece was referring to the guns lacking background checks and serial numbers.”

Gee, his position sounded pretty clear when it was originally reported. The technology being referenced was 3D printing, not firearms. But I’m guessing Yee has had been taking some significant blowback from the tech industry and maybe even his hippie constituents, and is now trying to walk back his Luddite position.

Arsenal, the Bulgarian manufacturer of some of the higher end AK clones sold in the United States, has decided to end production of their 5.56 caliber AK-74 rifles. The decision comes after what the company describes as an audit of recent trends in the gun industry, which I’m taking as CYA language for “scary black rifles are being demonized and we don’t want to take the heat.” Make the jump for the press release . . .

After nearly a decade since its initial introduction into the firearms marketplace, the SLR-106 series is getting a change in to “Collector’s Item.” Production on the series officially ended. The SLR-106 rifle and pistol series was Arsenal’s answer to the 5.56 caliber as the company looked to compete in that arena. The years to follow brought much success with several variations and configurations, robust sales and recognition as one of the industry’s best — due in-part to its chrome-lined and hammer-forged barrel.

“In my opinion, the SLR-106 series of rifles, perfectly bridge the gap from east to west. Furthermore, the advancements made in the manufacturing this rifle series will be seen on future models by our company for years to come.” – Walker English, Sales Director, Arsenal, Inc.

A comprehensive audit of the current offerings in the firearms industry, recent trends and near-future shifts with regard to technology and advancement all factored into the decision to discontinue the series. Arsenal’s obligations with military and government contracts, production for the movie industry and commitments to distributors and dealers also shaped this decision. The current stock of SLR-106 5.56 caliber rifles and pistols will continue to be sold until supply runs out. Arsenal’s availability list is displayed below. Additional SLR-106 products can be found by checking with Arsenal’s distributors and various dealers nationwide.

Plastic, schmastic. While the 3D printer was the first step toward easily making your very own firearms at home, the technology still has its limits. Namely, it can only really print in plastic — not exactly the optimal medium for something that goes bang. For centuries, metal’s been the gunsmith’s medium of choice. These days, crafting it into pistol parts is a job for a CNC machine. Unfortunately, they’ve been way too big and far too expensive for the average Jane or Joe to have one in the privacy of their very own home. Until now . . .

A Kickstarter project is aiming to take CNC milling out of the machine shop and put it in your living room. Or garage. Or basement. Pretty much wherever you have a little free space. I get the idea that the two San Francisco design whizzes at Otherfab who are behind the Othermill weren’t really thinking of firearms fabrication when they started their little project. Printed circuit boards! Jewelry! Molds!

As they state in their promotional video, the original goal was to make an affordable, easy-to-use CNC machine that’s small and light enough to carry on public transportation. But can you guess who we really have to thank for this brainstorm?

We began our work as part of a government funded push to revive high school shop class, with a modern twist: tools for digital design and CNC manufacturing.

Heh. They don’t specify whether that’s the state or federal guvmint. Talk about unintended consequences.

If all goes according to plan, it looks like an Othermill will run you somewhere south of two grand to start. And prices would only drop from there. They say they expect to start shipping the first machines in August. Of 2013. Of course, how you choose to use your machine will be totally up to you. Just imagine the possibilities, though — milling your own firing pins, small barrels, frame components…almost any metal gun part that needs to be CNC’d could be fabricated on one of these. Right there on your desk.

They reached their original goal of $50,000 in 24 hours. As of now, they’re well over $200,000 with 13 days more to run. If they get to a quarter million, they have dreams of creating an easy-to-use software package to make better use of the project at home if more people donate. You in? [h/t Nathan B.]

The original Liberator handgun was printed using an $8,000 piece of equipment the size of a refrigerator. But for most people, something like a “Lulzbot AO-101” is more affordable at around $1,750. Unfortunately, the original plans were not completely compatible with that kind of printer and needed a little tweaking. Which “Joe,” an engineer in Wisconsin, has done and successfully tested . . .

From Forbes:

Eight of Joe’s test-fires were performed using a single barrel before swapping it out for a new one on the ninth. After all those shots, the weapon’s main components remained intact–even the spiraled rifling inside of the barrel’s bore. “The only reason we stopped firing is because the sun went down,” he says.

Just how the Lulz Liberator survived those explosions isn’t exactly clear. Joe claims that the plastic he used, the generic Polylac PA-747 ABS fed into most consumer 3D printers, is actually stronger than the more expensive ABS plastic used in a Stratasys printer. In fact, before using a Lulzbot-printed barrel, he and Guslick tested one made on Guslick’s Stratasys printer. That barrel exploded on firing, though Joe blames the problem in part on its having been printed with a smaller chamber, the space at the back of the barrel into which the round is inserted.

Joe’s printed gun contains a few more pieces of metal hardware than the original Liberator. Rather than print plastic pins to hold the hammer in the body, for instance, he used hardware store screws. Like Defense Distributed’s gun, the Lulz Liberator also uses a metal nail for a firing pin, and includes a chunk of non-functional steel designed to make it detectable with a metal detector so that it complies with the Undetectable Firearms Act. The rifling that Joe added to the barrel is designed to skirt the National Firearms Act, which regulates improvised weapons and those with smooth-bored barrels.

So there it is. People claimed that the Liberator was a flash in the pan, something that was only capable of being printed by expensive machines, impossible for the average consumer to make. And, even if they could, they said the barrels would explode. It looks like every one of the fairy tales that gun control advocates have been telling themselves to make this seem like it isn’t the end of gun control as we know it have been crumbling, one after another.

Oh, and the best part is this comment under the Forbes article:

Why isn’t everyone screaming to ban this technology! This is exactly what’s wrong in this country, allowing anyone with the capability to make guns at home! Don’t think for a minute that the scum bag criminals aren’t going to jump on this like a dog on a bone. Stop this now before it’s too late!

I don’t even know where to start with that cry for the government to step in and regulate away the bad guys . . .

When it comes to which amendments in the Bill of Rights modern liberals support, they’re highly selective. All rights are equal, but some are more equal than others. Especially when they involve scary guns, those inhuman baby murdering machines. Rachel Maddow froths at the mouth and claims the Constitution to be a living document when someone starts talking about gun rights, but as soon as the AP’s phone records get a peek from the FBI, she provides a full throated defense of the first amendment as-written, as if it were a commandment from God above. So naturally, now that a series of posters started springing up in Washington state comparing gun rights to some other personal liberties, the local hippy population is up in arms about the affront to their sensibilities. Salon.com picks up the party line . . .

A new campaign cropping up around Washington state is intended to strike a chord with gay and lesbian gun owners by comparing gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination.

The illustrated posters feature slogans like, “We won our right to marry, now it’s time to defend our right! And we sure as hell aren’t going to take shit from homophobes in the process!” and, “Some people dislike gays. Others dislike guns. We should not base our laws on personal dislikes.” [...] The campaign’s origins remain something of a mystery.

I can’t remember where I read it, but there’s a brilliant breakdown of the classic modern lefty response to any argument. It starts with the liberal in question evaluating the status of the speaker; do they have the right background to make the claims they do? It doesn’t matter if what they’re saying is true, or factual, or effective, it only matters if they have the necessary bona fides. A dumb argument by the correct kind of person trumps a logical argument by the wrong type of person. Which is why Salon is so intent on looking at the origin of the poster campaign in question rather than its content.

As for the response to the new ads, I think this comment responding to the article sums up the beliefs of the readers pretty well:

As we posted this morning, the Charon is a 3D printable lower receiver for the AR-15 that combines the ergonomics and solid construction of the PS-90 with the benefits of the AR-15 platform. The files for the part were released earlier today, and within hours the Dropbox account of the author was suspended for using too much bandwidth. But never fear, there’s a mirror of the files available for download. At least, until the DoJ gets wind of this and shuts it down as they did DefCad.

Download the files here.

I just got back from Tulsa, where I attended the second Pro Series competition. And not only did I watch, they actually let me shoot in this one. And I didn’t come in last place! Stand by for a full report, but in the meantime check out some of these photos I snapped. They stuck me on the ladies squad, so unfortunately, these are all pictures of female shooters (including Robert’s latest crush). I know, I can sense your disappointment from here.

There’s a damn good reason why we keep harping on 3D printing as the biggest thing to happen to firearms design since the CNC machine became cheap enough to put in every machine shop in America — namely, that cool stuff like this is now possible. This is a prototype (found on Reddit last night) of an AR-15 receiver with a P-90 style stock called the Charon. 3D printing means that anyone with an idea can make their dream happen, even if it’s in the form of this unholy union.

UPDATE: Want to print it yourself? Here are the files. How about if you want to improve it? Download the source files and edit to your heart’s content.

It looks like every Democrat politician that has seen the latest James Bond movie thinks that biometric security on handguns is something that A) actually works, and B) is a good idea to mandate for every single firearm. In their orange sky fantasy world, where the movies are for real, this is a great idea. I, however, think that requiring biometric security on firearms is proof that John Tierney lacks basic critical thinking skills . . .

Here’s the story from The Hill:

The idea is to produce guns that can only be used by the gun’s owners. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) cited the latest James Bond movie, “Skyfall,” as inspiration for the bill.

“In the most recent James Bond film, Bond escapes death when his handgun, which is equipped with technology that recognizes him as its owner, becomes inoperable when it gets into the wrong hands,” Tierney’s office said in a statement introducing the bill. “This technology, however, isn’t just for the movies — it’s a reality.”

Tierney said his Personalized Handgun Safety Act, H.R. 2005, would help prevent accidental deaths, like the case in New Jersey last month when a six-year old accidentally shot and killed a four-year-old child.

“Accidents like this are not as rare as we want to believe, and they are preventable. Whether a gun owner or not, a NRA member or not, we should be able to agree on gun safety measures that will make our families and communities safer. This technology needs to be put into action.”

Under his bill, guns made in the United States would have to be built with this technology two years after the bill becomes law. Older guns being sold by a business or individual would have to be retrofitted with this technology after three years.

There are only three issues I see with this. First, the technology is still many years away from being “perfected.” Second, assuming it works and is available, it will get people killed. And third, even if it were working, and wasn’t dangerous, it would be massively expensive and a huge burden to American gun owners and gun manufacturers.

As for the technology being available, it really isn’t. While Tierney would have you think that fingerprint scanning pistol grips are already widely used and available in other countries, the reality is that the current state of the art is nowhere near that level of sophistication. The guns Tierney is referring to as being “available” are the models we’ve already seen that require the owner to either wear a wristwatch with an RFID tag in it or be implanted with a chip that the gun reads.

As for the actual biometric readers, are we talking about the same fingerprint scanners that I’ve fooled by photocopying my finger and swiping it across the scanner? Because those seem less than secure. And I’m sure that every single person’s finger will be in the exact same position when they grip the gun. That’s why they only make one size grip, right? Oh, wait…

Which brings me to point number two. This technology isn’t reliable, as it stands now. It adds another level of complexity to a firearm that someone will depend on in an emergency to save their life from an attacker.

What if the batteries in your gun or your RFID wristwatch died and you didn’t notice? Will the murderer running towards you stop and wait for you to find a spare LR41 battery in your pocket and replace it? A large percentage of people who buy guns take them to the range once and then store them somewhere in their house, never thinking to perform basic maintenance, let alone check batteries. Yet when an intruder crashes through their window in the middle of the night, they expect the gun to work. With this kind of technology, it won’t.

Also, remember that we’re talking about a general population that can barely program their VCR. Back when we had VCRs. And Congressman Tierney wants to introduce more advanced technology into firearms that people will depend on to protect their lives.

What about the internal mechanics of the gun? Firearms are complicated pieces of machinery. It’s taken centuries to perfect the current state of the art in terms of reliability. But even now, things still break. And Congressman Tierney wants to mandate that another untested, possibly unreliable bit technology be layered on top. That adds an additional point of failure to the gun, one that can’t be fixed in the heat of the moment with a simple tap-rack.

The Congressman seems to think that guns are used solely for recreation and hunting. What he forgets is that guns are often the only thing keeping families safe, especially in rural areas of the United States where police response times can be upwards of an hour. There’s a reason guns don’t currently have this technology, and reliability is the reason.

Smith & Wesson tried to introduce a similar — though much simpler — gizmo in their guns not too long ago when they added an internal lock to their firearms. They said it was to make the gun safer, prevent access by unauthorized people, yada yada yada. But in reality, all it did was make the gun malfunction when it was needed most. In short, they tried this already and failed. Miserably.

So let’s assume a breakthrough is made and this electronic personalized gun stuff actually works. And is reliable. What happens if this bill passes? Well first, every firearms manufacturer in the United States will be forced to stop production and completely change the design of their firearms.

In current firearms designs, there’s no wiggle room. They’ve slimmed down the guns as much as possible to keep them concealable and easy to hold. By mandating that some whiz-bang biometrics be inserted into each one, they’re requiring that the size of the guns be changed. Which means every single production facility will need to re-tool for a brand new design. That will cost millions of dollars and take months to complete. And three guesses where all that expense is going to end up. You guessed it — gun owners will be footing the bill.

Not only will we be forced to pay higher prices for the new tech, we’ll also be forced to pay for the price of the mandated manufacturing changes. Uncle Sam isn’t going to foot the bill for gun companies to change their “evil anti-biometric” ways. It will all be passed onto the customer.

What that means is this essentially becomes another way to increase the price of a firearm. That will make it harder or impossible for the poor to avail themselves of the right to keep and bear arms. A lot of the people who need the ability to defend themselves the most won’t be able to afford it. Guns will be reserved for the elites in society.

It also appears to be a bid to restrict concealed carry. These pieces of technology require additional room in the gun, and carry guns are already stripped down as much as possible for conceal ability. If the guns become too big disappear under your shirt, fewer people will carry them. It’s going after the practice without repealing the laws themselves.

Congressman Tierney says that this law is feasible, that it wouldn’t put undue restrictions or hardships on gun owners, and that the technology is safe and reliable. He’s wrong on all counts.

This comment from the article just about sums up this bill:

Tierney’s idea is so stupid it’s almost cute, kind of like a monkey trying to do algebra. While we’re on it, maybe we can also outlaw killer bowler hats.

I know I’m not the only nerd out there hoping to be able to buy a TrackingPoint system for less than the price of my car sometime soon. And the more we hear about the Venture X project (Remington and TrackingPoint’s bid to make a less expensive TP rifle) the more excited my nerd-self gets. Make the jump for the latest proposed button layout — it looks like they’re planning on having the “tag” button be located somewhere other than the frame of the firearm . . .

There’s a reason that equipment divisions exist in 3-gun matches, and that’s to keep everyone competing at the same level. Pitting someone with a pump action shotgun and a 7-round 1911 against another shooter with a Saiga 12 and 33-round Glock 17 isn’t a fair comparison. Divisions keep people from being able to ‘buy’ their way to a championship, and make the competitions about shooters’ skills rather than who can buy the best muzzle brake. And at a national level competition, with professionally-sponsored shooters, you expect that a fair amount of attention would be paid to making sure that equipment is properly configured for your division. But for one shooter, a failure to properly read the rules recently kicked off a rather large controversy and might lead to a change in how rules are enforced at USPSA multigun events . . .

Let me preface this by saying that the shooter in question (Barry Dueck) is, by all accounts, a great guy. And from what I’ve been able to gather, there was no malicious intent at any point on his part. It looks like an honest mistake, and one that he has already made right. But it’s still a good idea to take a look at what happened, and how it might be avoided in the future.

Barry came in second place to Erik Lund (of Team FNH USA fame) at the Texas Multigun Championships in the Heavy Metal Optics division a few weeks ago. At that match, which features .308 caliber rifles, shooters were allowed one optical sight on their rifles. Normally the “heavy metal” division is restricted to iron sights only, making both recoil and target acquisition much harder. But since the Texas guys don’t follow USPSA rules, they can change the divisions however they like.

The following weekend was the 2013 USPSA Multigun Nationals in Las Vegas, Nevada. That competition used a different ruleset, one in which no optics were allowed on a heavy metal limited division rifle. Red dots were okay for the standard limited division (5.56 rifles), but not for the heavy metal shooters. Yet when Barry pulled his rifle out of his case, it still had an Aimpoint red dot mounted.

This is where reports of the incident become a little sketchy. One guy at Brian Enos’ forum says that Barry was made aware of the issue (his firearms not being within spec for the division) before the end of the match, but didn’t alter his equipment to comply and didn’t report himself. Whether that happened or not, at the end of the day when the scores were posted, Barry had won his division using an illegal firearm (in terms of the competition, that is, not the kind of illegal weapons that can land you in prison).

After a match is finished, competitors have a one hour period to challenge their scores and bring questions to the attention to the match staff. This is something that has bitten me in the past, finding things out only after the challenge period had ended. That’s a problem because once the challenge period ends, the scores are declared final. As in, not subject to change. Over.

So when it was revealed to the match director that Barry’s equipment was not in compliance with USPSA rules, the period for challenges had ended and the match staff said it was too late to change the scores. At that point, Barry accepted the win and picked a up a prize from the prize table.

The normal process when a competitor shoots with non-compliant equipment is to kick them into the “open” division and let them continue competing against everyone else. But since the challenge period had ended, there was nothing at that point that could be done.

There has been a ton of discussion online about ways to keep this from happening again, ranging from mandating equipment checks at the beginning of a match to allowing an exception to the 1-hour rule to alter match results. But at the end of the day, Barry himself decided to make things right. Here’s the post from his Facebook page:

Barry Dueck, winner in the Heavy Metal Limited division of the USPSA MultiGun Nationals has DQ’d himself from the match after discovering that he inadvertently shot the match with a non-compliant optic. Below is a copy of the message sent by Barry to Phil Strader, President of the USPSA several days ago.

“Phil, please invalidate my score in Heavy Metal Limited from Nationals. I Put my gear together specifically to fully comply with what I read in the rules online a couple weeks before the match. After reviewing the rules since returning from the match, my rifle did not comply due to a 1x non-magnified optic. I was confident that I had read the rules correctly but I was incorrect. I will send the Trophy and the prize from the match to Jeff Gross who with my score invalidated won the match. Thank you, Barry Dueck”

USPSA officials have responded acknowledging the difficulty of this situation. Rules where reviewed in to see if Barry’s scores could be transferred to the Open Division but since the match was completed this was not possible.

This is an unfortunate incident but not without merit. We can all use a reminder to check and double check our information, and when we find that we screwed up, own it, make it right and move on.

There are still all sorts of juicy rumors flying around, but since this story isn’t about shaming a shooter – someone about whom I can’t find a single bad comment anywhere on the internet – I won’t get into them here. Instead, let’s look at how this happened and how it can be avoided.

The biggest pain in 3-gun shooting is that every match seems to have its own ground rules, and reading the rulebook each and every time can be tedious. But if you’re competing for prizes, it’s something that you probably should do. Personally, I like to double check the rulebook the day before the match to make sure that I haven’t left something on my gun that will get me in trouble.

Another issue is that, whenever you see something happening at a match that you think is unsafe or against the rules, you need to let someone know. The only thing that keeps competition shooting so safe is strict adherence to the rules of the sport, so any infraction should be reported to the match staff. If there is an problem, it can be handled promptly and settled then, once and for all. If it’s a false alarm, no harm done.

In general, always err on the side of caution. For both competitors, and for match staff. And when in doubt, ask someone.

Despite the gun control advocates’ continued collective pants browning over the idea that they may have permanently lost the ability to control anyone’s access to firearms, more and more of Cody Wilson’s children are springing up across the world. Forbes has even devoted an article to some of the better examples. One of the main themes of the piece is that while the gun itself is indeed being printed as-is, more interesting developments are happening as people are improving on the Defense Distributed design and sharing them. One guy is even making a metal barrel insert to let the .38 gun shoot .22LR , something much more practical and less prone to splitting the barrel. And that’s just the start . . .

Travis Lerol, a 30-year-old former military software engineer in Glen Burnie, Maryland, printed his Liberator (shown at right) within days of its appearing online. Unlike the original printed gun, he says he’s altered his to have a rifled barrel, a move designed to avoid the National Firearms Act, which regulates improvised and altered weapons and has a provision covering “smooth-bored” pistols. He’s also built another version of the barrel for .22 ammunition that uses a metal insert for reinforcement, instead of the entirely-plastic barrel for .380 rounds used in Defense Distributed’s original. And he’s cast versions of the Liberator’s barrel in epoxy that take .380 and .45 ammunition, a design he argues will be more durable than the pure ABS plastic Defense Distributed tested.

“When the Liberator came out, I was pretty curious and also surprised that the barrel hadn’t exploded when they fired it,” says Lerol. “I want to progress it from the entry level it’s at now to something more advanced, and then put that information back up to share.”

When the Liberator was first introduced, the reaction from the mainstream media was that the gun (as is) was useless and dangerous. They claimed that it was irrelevant, that it didn’t really matter. They argued that since that iteration was flawed, 3D printed guns were thus proven to be impossible. That was the fairy tale they told to make themselves believe that control was still possible.

As always, the internet has proven the establishment wrong.

As an EMT, there are a couple things that I always carry on shift. One is a Benchmade Triage knife, another is a Littman stethoscope (because using the same one that’s been in everyone else’s ears is just disgusting), and the last item is a Surefire E2D LED Defender flashlight. Sure there’s a flashlight sitting in a charger behind the front right (AKA my) seat anyway, but it’s massive and weighs a ton. My Defender, with its variable output, allows me to either light up the scene of a car accident or check a patient’s pupils with a single flashlight. That versatility has also earned it a spot as an every day carry item, giving me a non-lethal option when dealing with bad guys (i.e., blinding them). Now Surefire has come out with a new version, the Ultra, that’s twice as powerful as the old one for the same price. Make the jump for the presser . . .

The E2D LED Defender Ultra is a compact, dual-output self-defense flashlight that boasts an impressive 500 lumens of white light on its high setting–enough to temporarily overwhelm the dark-adapted vision of an aggressor. This blinding, tactical-level light, shaped by a TIR lens that creates a beam with plenty of reach and enough surround light for peripheral vision, is always just a click away in high-stress situations, thanks to ergonomic tactical tailcap switching. The E2D LED Defender Ultra’s virtually indestructible LED also produces five useful lumens of light output for general use and tasks where 500 lumens of light may be overkill. To enhance its self-defense capabilities, the flashlight features SureFire’s crenellated Strike Bezel® and a scalloped tailcap, both of which pack a wallop should 500 lumens of blinding light not be enough to convince an attacker to walk away. You get all this self-defense capability in a lightweight but strong Mil-Spec-anodized aluminum body just over 5 1/2 inches long.

Features and Benefits:

• Virtually indestructible dual-output LED produces two useful outputs: 500 & 5 lumens

• Total Internal Reflection (TIR) lens produces tightly focused beam with reach and enough surround light to accommodate peripheral vision

• Crenellated Strike Bezel® and scalloped tailcap provide enhanced self defense Capabilities

• High-strength aerospace aluminum body, Mil-Spec hard-anodized for extreme durability

• Ergonomic tactical tailcap switching for instant access to max output in high-stress situations

• Includes high-energy 123A lithium batteries with 10-year shelf life

Leave it to Donny Deutsch to distill the entire mindset of the Gun Control Industrial Complex into a simple phrase. “Technology equals terrorism.” The thrust of those pushing for more Second Amendment restrictions, and Democrats in general, is, after all, control. They want the .gov to have a say in every aspect of our lives, from telling us where to go to school (fighting school voucher programs), to what to think (Department of Education, standardized testing) and even what size soda you can purchase (thanks Mayor Mike!). But the result of technological advancement is, more often that not, a weakening of centralized oversight. It allows an individual, in the privacy of their own home, to create their own news website, publish videos expressing their opinions, or print objects without the government being able to see what they’re doing. The specter of that kind of freedom, with a lack of government dominion über alles, drives the Donny Deutsches insane. And I love it.

We just looked at some fine choices of 5.56 ammunition, and to balance it out I think it’s a good idea to do some .308 ammo as well. With the ammo shortage hitting all the major calibers, the local shelves are starting to re-fill and this time there’s nothing available except some brands that either I’ve never heard of or don’t usually associate with quality. But just because they aren’t Hornady doesn’t mean they’re not consistent. So let’s look at Winchester and Herter’s locally available .308 Winchester options.

Here’s a quick reminder of what’s going on: we run 20 rounds of each brand through a chronograph and look at the IQR or InterQuartile Range to get an idea of how tight the group is going to be downrange. There are plenty of other factors in accuracy, but velocity is the only one that’s “clean” enough to calculate and compare (as everything else can be influenced by the shooter, equipment, etc.). For the full methodology check out this article. Just remember LOW = GOOD and we’ll be on the same page.

First up is Winchester White Box, their lower level product. The “el cheapo” version that is mass produced and no one really expects much. But is it actually just the gun shop’s best kept secret?

Next we have some Herter’s “select grade” brass cased ammo, which is really just Wolf ammo in Cabela’s clothing. Wolf is recognized across the internet as some of the worst ammunition available, and certain firearms manufacturers actually put a clause in their warranty that voids it should a single round of Wolf ever touch the chamber. But is it really that bad?

Strap yourselves in, here come the charts!

Ah, the standard boxplot. Useless as always, but some people like to use my posts to get an idea of what the true velocity of a round is compared to what is stated on the box. Normalized is how I like my data, though:

That’s better. And as we can see, Herters appears to be about as consistent than the current leader, but Winchester appears to be much more consistent. In fact, both of these brands beat the current leader, taking the new #1 and #2 spots on the chart.

And no complaining from the peanut gallery — this is the same rifle I’ve been using for ages now, and the atmospherics were roughly identical to the last time we tested Hornady’s ammo.

So, we have a new winner! And surprisingly, Herter’s ammunition isn’t that bad! Well, at least the brass cased stuff. Looks like I’m heading to Cabela’s again to get the steel cased version for comparison.

In the panic buying of the last few months, manufacturers were left scrambling to find parts to complete their rifles and ship them out the door. In this case, it looks like Bushmaster may have skimped on the quality control of the parts they get from third parties. According to Reddit user SarcasmTroll, the brand new bolt he says is a Bushmaster part but purchased from a third party (so really, no telling if it’s true) disintegrated four rounds into its lifecycle. It appears that not only did the locking lugs shear completely off the bolt face, but the cam pin housing cracked and separated as well. If it truly is a Bushmaster part that broke, could this be another instance of a Freedom Group company selling substandard parts to meet demand? Is Bushmaster heading the way of Marlin? Will Superman defeat the dreaded General Zod? Stay tuned.

Okay, now they’re just showing off. Not only are they shooting moving targets, they’re doing it from a moving platform (a helicopter). Definitely seeing a military application here, but I still can’t justify the $Volkswagen price tag, personally. Then again, they just started shipping the first sold-out run of guns, so apparently there are indeed some people with the coin and the inclination to do so.

Concealed carry only gets you so much protection. It’s a reactionary measure, one that punishes those who have already taken action against you. But what about surviving that initial exchange? And what if you’re in a place that doesn’t allow concealed carry? In that case, SafeGuard Armor‘s Stealth series ballistic vests may be just the ticket for you . . .

When the folks at SafeGuard Armor offered to send us a ballistic vest to test (and they MEANT that testing part), naturally I jumped all over it. I mean, what’s cooler than a freaking bullet proof vest?! Especially one that you get to shoot! But before we got to the shooting part, I took it out for a test drive.

And before you get your hopes up too much, at no point were any TTAG writers downrange of a live gun. We might be looking for the truth, but broken bones and possible additional orifices aren’t on the menu. And definitely not covered by our medical insurance.

First things first. We’re trying out their Level II vest (with the stab protection) which is their lower end model. Then again, in this business “lower end” is relative. The vest itself is made of some high quality materials, and the fit and finish on it is perfect. On the outside is a “CoolMAX” carrier. It uses some sort of padded moisture-wicking material that makes up the shoulders and the inside portion of the vest, which adds a ton of comfort to the thing. And in the heat of the Texas sun, oh boy do you need it.

Wearing the thing around on your daily appointed rounds, it does add some noticeable weight to your body. The website lists it as an additional 2.5 kg of mass, and while it does feel pretty light by itself, there’s something about the way it hangs that makes it feel heavier. But once you’ve worn the vest for a while, you no longer really notice the added weight. It just sort of blends into the background, like any other garment.

Wearing it around town, no one noticed a damn thing. I wore the vest under the tightest fitting and thinnest shirt I could find, and not one person realized anything was different. Or if they did, they didn’t say a word. I even wore the thing to work, and the only person to notice was my boss (the former police officer and Air Force NCO). Even then, the only tip-off was the lack of definition in my, erm, chest. We heavier guys have some “man cleavage” going on sometimes, and the vest has a tendency to flatten that whole situation out.

One thing that will be a dead giveaway, though, is getting out of cars.

While I was wearing the vest, every single time I got out of my car, I forgot to take my seatbelt off. I’m so used to feeling the seatbelt and using that as a cue to remove it that when the vest took away the sensation of being strapped in, I completely forgot. I had a couple strange looks from people as I tried to extricate myself from my seatbelt while half way out the door. According to my former LEO boss, that’s a common occurrence with police officers and to be expected. Just make a mental note and you’ll start to remember.

So, the vest is comfortable, and concealable. But does it work?

Click here to view the embedded video.

In a word, “yes.”

In fact, we tested this vest wrong. The actual test requires a block of clay as the backing, to simulate the “give” of human flesh (as the more time a projectile has to slow down, the less likely it is to penetrate the material). We used wood instead, which is, obviously, much more rigid. But the vest still stopped every applicable round that we threw at it and performed as expected.

But we couldn’t let it stop at that — we tested this thing up to and past the breaking point. And FYI, full size rifle cartridges didn’t even slow down. So while the vest protects from everything up to and including a 9mm round fired at contact distance, it isn’t 100% perfect.

As for the stab protection, let me put it this way. I was sitting at home trying to dig the rounds we fired out of the vest with my set of knives and probes in front of me, and I couldn’t get through the material. In fact, this vest dulled all of my knives. I couldn’t penetrate it at all. And upon closer inspection, the metal chain mail that’s woven into the vest would seem to deter all sorts of stabby sharp implements from doing much damage.

So, the vest works. But are there any drawbacks?

In the immortal words of Sterling Archer, “Shut up! That vest is bullet-proof! But it is, y’know, a vest.” And a vest it is, indeed. The only places where the vest provides protection are the front and rear panels, meaning the arm holes, as well as the top of the vest, is pretty much as useful as a couple of shirt layers.

At the end of the day, the best defense is still a good offense. But it doesn’t hurt to have some extra insurance on your side, just in case a bad guy gets in a lucky shot. The SafeGuard Armor Stealth vest provides an excellent level of protection against the bullets it’s rated to stop as well as edged weapons. And it does so without any telltale signs that you’re wearing much at all under your shirt. The vest was designed to protect all (well, most of) your vital squishy bits, and as far as I can tell it does a fantastic job.

My only regret is that they only gave me one to test (which is now thoroughly ventilated, thanks to Tyler Kee). Now I don’t have a spare to wear.

Specifications: SafeGuard Armor Level II Stealth Vest

Weight: 2.5 kg
Sizes: XS to 3XL
Price: $581 (as reviewed…and destroyed)

Ratings (out of five stars):

Ease of Use * * * * *
The velcro straps make adjusting the thing a breeze. As simple as putting on those shoes when you were a kid.

Utility * * * * *
It stops bullets and doesn’t give you away. For concealed carry, it’s perfect. But if you expect some higher velocity threats, you might want something with some steel plate inserts.

Overall * * * * *
Honestly, my only regret is that they didn’t send two and I had to shoot up the one I got.

There’s a story developing in south Florida about the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office experiencing a high number of malfunctions in their GLOCK handguns. Specifically, firing pins are cracking and chipping in the handguns, causing failures to fire. The local CBS affiliate has the story . . .

Obtained by CBS4 News, the confidential sheriff’s department document outlines a series of incidents in which problems with the Glock firing pin caused the gun to malfunction and not fire.

Issued by the department’s armor, or gun expert, the March 13 report is titled simply: Firing Pin Issue. In each case where there was a misfire, the gun was taken apart and the firing pin was found to be cracked or chipped.

[...]

A spokesman for Speer Ammunition, the company that provides ammunition to the PBSO, told CBS4 News:

“We are committed to providing our customers with the best ammunition available to meet their needs. We have been working directly and swiftly with the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department and their firearms manufacturer to determine a solution for their concerns about premature firing pin erosion. We are confident that we’ve jointly addressed their concern.”

It sounds like GLOCK is focusing on the ammunition that the department is using as the culprit, and that seems to make sense. Every incident that the PD’s report lists seems to have been from the last few months, a time when we were at the height of the ammunition shortage and some substandard ammunition was making its way into the supply chain.

The real clue here is that this seems to be an isolated incident. Only one police department is reporting the problem, and even surrounding departments have re-checked their weapons and found no issues. So whatever the problem happens to be, it should be something related to either a unique maintenance method used at that one department or some sketchy ammo purchased there.

ATK, which already owns ammo brands such as Federal Premium, CCI and Speer, as well as Blackhawk!, Weaver and more, just added Savage Arms to their extensive holdings. Savage is known for their accurate bolt action rifles, which should pair nicely with an ammunition manufacturer. Could this be ATK looking to build themselves into a Freedom Group killer? Or simply expanding their operations to work on some new and interesting projects? Make the jump for the press release . . .

ARLINGTON, Va., May 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — ATK (NYSE: ATK) announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Caliber Company, the parent company of Savage Sports Corporation. Savage is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of hunting rifles and shotguns, delivering innovative products for more than 100 years. The acquisition would expand ATK’s portfolio offering by adding long guns to its leading brands in commercial and security ammunition, shooting sports and security-related accessories. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. ATK anticipates closing the transaction in the first quarter of its Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14), which ends June 30, 2013.

Under the terms of the transaction, ATK will pay $315 million in cash, subject to a customary working capital adjustment. This represents a trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2013 EBITDA multiple of approximately 5.5 times (unaudited). ATK believes the acquisition will be accretive to FY14 earnings per share. ATK will finance the acquisition with cash on hand and funds available under its existing credit facility.

“The acquisition will complement ATK’s growing portfolio of leading consumer brands,” said Mark DeYoung, ATK President and CEO. “This opportunity will allow us to build upon our offerings with Savage’s prominent, respected brands known for accuracy, quality, innovation, value and craftsmanship. Savage’s sales distribution channels, new product development, and sophistication in manufacturing will significantly increase our presence with a highly relevant product offering to distributors, retailers and consumers.”

Operating under the brand names of Savage Arms, Stevens, and Savage Range Systems, the company designs, manufactures and markets centerfire and rimfire rifles, shotguns and shooting range systems used for hunting as well as competitive and recreational target shooting. The company was organized in 1894 by Arthur Savage and has expanded into market-leading positions. Savage is located in Westfield, Mass. and Lakefield, Ontario, and employs approximately 600 skilled employees.

“Savage offers customers a unique value proposition that is unmatched by any other firearms manufacturer and will be a tremendous complement to ATK’s existing ammunition and shooting accessories portfolio,” said Al Kasper, Savage President and Chief Operating Officer.

ATK will integrate Savage within its Sporting Group business. ATK’s Sporting Group is the established leader in sporting and law enforcement ammunition and shooting accessories. ATK’s ammunition brands include Federal Premium, CCI, Fusion, Speer, Estate Cartridge and Blazer. ATK’s accessories brands include BLACKHAWK!, Alliant Power, RCBS, Champion targets and shooting equipment, Gunslick Pro and Outers gun-care products, and Weaver optics and mounting systems.

Caliber Company has been a portfolio company of Norwest Equity Partners (NEP), a leading middle market equity investment firm, since January 2012. NEP is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn.

ATK is an aerospace, defense, and commercial products company with approximately 15,000 employees and operations in 21 states, Puerto Rico, and internationally. ATK is headquartered in Arlington, Va. News and information can be found on the Internet at www.atk.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/atk, or on Twitter @ATK.

Certain information discussed in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although ATK believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Among those factors are: failure to obtain necessary governmental approvals; assumptions regarding the timing and certainty of the transaction; failure of the parties to satisfy the closing conditions in the purchase agreement in a timely manner or at all; changes in interest rates or credit availability; the risk that the anticipated benefits and cost savings from the transaction may not be fully realized or may take longer than expected to realize; the ability of ATK to retain and hire key personnel and maintain relationships with customers, suppliers and other business partners of Savage; costs or difficulties related to the integration of the business following completion of the transaction; and changes in the business, industry or economic conditions or competitive environment. ATK undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For further information on factors that could impact ATK, and statements contained herein, please refer to ATK’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the recent panic buying spree, one of the things people were snatching up left and right were s0-called “high capacity” magazines. The fear was that these mags would be banned in the near future, and people naturally wanted to stock up. What this meant, especially for Glock handguns, was that there were no longer any factory magazines to be had. Enter the aftermarket magazine manufacturers, looking to capitalize on the demand. But are they any good? . . .

ProMag makes aftermarket magazines for just about every firearm out there, from the Sig P226 to the Glock 19. In some cases, their magazines are indistinguishable, or actually better than the factory magazines. But in this case, there are some noticeable differences.

On the outside, and in the packaging, the magazine looks like just any other Glock magazine. But on the inside, where it counts, there are some issues. Original Glock mags have a metal insert that keeps them from breaking or bursting. Only the outside is plastic. The ProMag magazine, on the other hand, is 100% plastic. And not the nice, sturdy plastic that Glock uses. Instead, they went with something that’s just south of Lego standards.

That lack of quality shows through, especially around the feed lips. Where Glock magazines would have been clean and precise, the ProMag lips have residual flaps where the two halves of the injection molding machine came together. Not only are these flaps annoying visually, they could potentially lead to an issue with feeding ammo into the gun.

So, the magazine is cheaply made and feels like it contains less plastic than a Barbie doll. The real test, though, is how it works.

Well, you can actually load all 31 rounds into the magazine without excessive force. Which is already a step up over the Korean PW Arms Glock magazines, which I was unable to load to capacity. That’s an interesting quirk, though: these magazines are clearly marked on the packaging as “32 round” magazines, but the mag itself is only labeled for 31 (and holds exactly 31). False advertising? Or perhaps someone just mixed up in the labeling department.

Once the magazine is in the gun, though, you won’t notice a difference. It works exactly as advertised, and I couldn’t get it to malfunction.

In the end, this isn’t something that I would trust my life to. This is a range toy that keeps me from having to reload so often. And on that level, it works great. But if you’re looking for something to stick in your bug-out bag, you’ll want to wait until the legitimate Glock magazines are back in stock.

Specifications: ProMag 31 Round Glock Magazine

MSRP: $30

Ratings (out of five stars)

Overall Rating * * *
It’s cheap, in all senses of the word. But it works.

I fully admit to being a complete and utter nerd. Which explains why the very first thing that went through my mind when I realized I didn’t have anything planned for this past weekend was “Oh sweet! I can go chronograph some ammo!” Some of you may remember my ongoing series where I chronograph commercial ammunition to see which ones are the most consistent. Thanks to the now plentiful supplies I’m finding at local gun stores here in south Texas, I can continue my research. Well, shall we? . . .

Here’s a quick reminder of what’s going on: we run 20 rounds of each brand through a chrony and look at the IQR or InterQuartile Range to get an idea of how tight the group is going to be downrange. There are plenty of other factors in accuracy, but velocity is the only one that’s “clean” enough to calculate and compare (as everything else can be influenced by the shooter, equipment, etc.). For the full methodology check out this article. Just remember LOW=GOOD and we’ll be on the same page.

You may notice that I’ve changed guns again, and I’m doing this on purpose. Some of you have expressed a concern that changing certain environmental variables (the gun, humidity, air pressure, etc) have an impact on the results we’re measuring here. Every time I run one of these tests, I run another 10 rounds of my personal (and ever dwindling) stock of XM193F through the chrono first. This is the same cache of ammo that I used for the very first test, coming from the same lot number, and even from the very same case.

I’m down to my last three boxes, but it’s the same ammo. And every time, the interquartile range of the velocity comes back the exact same. In other words, none of the external factors matter. The velocities absolutely do change — up or down — depending on external factors. We’re comparing this ammo to itself in identical conditions for the entire run. The velocity changes, but the IQR remains the same. Now, on with the test.

First up is the Winchester 55gr 5.56 ammunition that was generously donated by Winchester to help me practice for the competition shooting season. This is the exact same stuff that you can find by the crateload in your local Walmart or big box store, relatively cheap and (at one time) readily available.

Caveat: testing this ammunition from one of my sponsors presents a definite conflict of interest. But because this test is based on calculated figures and ends in a repeatable and verifiable result, I’m okay with going forward. In short, there really isn’t any way for me to skew the results.

The challenger is a brand of ammunition that American shooters have become more familiar with as the ammo shortage has continued: Independence Ammunition. Manufactured in the land of RF’s favorite supermodels and armed schoolteachers (Israel), this imported ammo has often been the only brand available for purchase due to the large quantity that has suddenly appeared on our shores. Available and cheap, the ammo seems to be a welcome change from the overpriced and unavailable name brand ammo. But is it any good?

Just for fun, I once again did a chrony comparison of 5.56 ammo both with and without a silencer. Here’s the boxplot without any normalization (and comparing to the current leader):

There it is again — the velocity of the ammunition increases slightly with the addition of a silencer. Then again, on the SCAR, there’s an adjustable gas port that you tune to adjust for the increased back pressure with a can. It’s possible that the smaller gas port might account for the higher velocity, but seeing as the gas is still trapped (unlike the AR-15′s open gas system) it’s not likely to have this level of an impact on the velocity. Cool, huh?

And here’s the normalized plot:

The IQR of the “suppressed” Winchester rounds was a bit off, but to be expected since I only fired around 10 rounds instead of the full 20. Speaking of being off, the Independence ammunition not only had a huge IQR but also had the biggest whiskers of any ammo I’ve tested so far. That indicates even more inconsistency in the ammunition than we usually capture with the IQR calculations.

So, what’s the final word? How do these stack up against the other ammo we’ve tested?

What I find interesting is that the IQR for the 55gr version of Winchester’s 5.56 ammo matches up almost exactly with the IQR of their 64gr variety. That 64gr test, by the way, was conducted in a completely different climate with a completely different firearm. In fact, it was the first test we ever did. So, (A) nice to see some validation for our assumptions and (B) interesting that ammunition from the same factory and of the same price range is roughly equally consistent.

Here are the latest charts. Keep in mind that prices reflect the actual price per round at the time the ammunition was reviewed. I’ll be going back through and re-researching all the ammo again shortly, as soon as things calm down a bit more. Stay tuned, I’ll have some more .308 ammo coming up later this week!

Ages ago, when TTAG was still in its infancy, RF reviewed the modernized and shiny Charter Arms Undercover .38 Revolver. I’ve tried a couple of the newer .38 snubbies out there, and I absolutely hated the way the big, over-molded rubber grips made it look like I was smuggling a pineapple in my pants whenever I carried them. So when I ran across this very lightly used classic version in a local gun shop, with thinner wood grips and a more 1920′s look to it, I had to try it out for myself. But is it any better? . . .

First, a little backstory.

I carry a Wilson Combat Bill Wilson Carry 1911 as my normal everyday carry gun. Well, at least I used to when I lived in Virginia. The temperate climate allowed me to at least wear a concealment garment of some sort (usually just another button-down shirt left open) to make sure I wasn’t printing too much. And even then, worst case scenario, Virginia is an “open carry” state so I could have done away with that whole “concealed” rigamaroll altogether if it was too warm.

Texas is…different. During the summer it’s often too hot to wear anything besides a light t-shirt outside, meaning that trying to conceal a 1911 (even a baby one like mine) is difficult. Factor in the inability to open carry and what you have is a situation where my best option was to leave the gun in the car. That wasn’t good enough for me, so I decided to buy a small wheelgun that I could slip into my pocket on those warmer days. That’s where the Charter snubby comes into play.

I tried carrying a tiny Smith & Wesson J-frame of some sort for a while, but there was something about the way the grip was angled that meant it was always peeking out of my pocket. Not so with the Charter .38 — this puppy stays nicely concealed in the depths of my pants all day long. It’s only visible if you take a flashlight and go poking around inside my pockets.

On the outside, though, it does make the pocket bulge just a tad. And by “just a tad” I mean that the thing looks like I have a soda can in my front pocket. Then again, no one ever seems to notice, and putting my hand in that pocket seems to make the bulge less noticeable. So it works for the intended purpose: pocket carry. But does it work as a firearm?

Robert had some issues with his snubby’s timing being off (the cylinder not locking before the hammer drops on the cartridge), but mine has been just peachy. I made sure to test the timing before I plunked down the cash for it at the gun shop and it was solid as a rock. Everything else, though, sucked.

The trigger rates a solid “meh.” The double action pull is long and tough and doesn’t have a real “wall” before the final break, so you just keep pulling and eventually it goes off. And in single action mode, there’s noticeable creep to the trigger. Then, after about 20 rounds, the cylinder release stopped working. The only way to get the cylinder open was to pull forward on the shell extractor rod.

Things only get worse when I tried to fire it.

I finally understand why people love those big, over-molded grips so much: they make recoil much less painful. Especially with my gigantic bear-like mitts, every time I pulled the trigger the metal trigger guard would crash down into my knuckles and cause considerable pain. That pain translated into some terrible shooting. I had to move forward to the five yard line to get the pitiful grouping you see here.

Despite all that complaining, though, the fact remains that it’s a functional firearm that goes bang every time I pull the trigger. It’s something that’s easy to conceal, cheap to pick up, and light enough to slip into my pocket in the morning and forget about the rest of the day. In short, it works, and for that reason I’m keeping it. Although it might be quite some time before I ever voluntarily take it to the range again . . .

Specifications:

Caliber                 .38 Special
Capacity               5
Barrel Length    2”
Weight                 16 Oz.
Sights                   Notch and post
Price                     $300 (About $200 – $250 is what I see around here)

Ratings (out of five stars):
All ratings are relative to other similar guns, and the final score IS NOT calculated from the constituent scores.

Accuracy: *
Minute of bad guy at 5 yards. Not exactly a tackdriver, but good enough for the statistically average shootout.

Ergonomics (Handling): * * *
Feels great in the pocket, if a little wide. Not much to hold onto when you draw it, though.

Ergonomics (Firing): *
Gah!

Reliability: *
Yes, it goes bang every time the trigger is pulled. Then again, there’s that non-functional cylinder release. Beyond that, it’s like pulling the handle on a slot machine.

Customize This: * * *
Ummm…new grips? Maybe? It does fit into the standard J-Frame sized pocket holsters.

Overall: * *
For its intended function, it works. It’s just a terrible gun in almost every other category.

If there was one guy who could stand up to the U.S. Government, thumb his nose and shout “come and get me!” it would be Kim Dotcom. Made famous after Uncle Sam failed to bring him down for his Megaupload website (which was being used as a major repository for illegal music, movies, child porn and other questionable online activities), Kim’s latest website (simply “Mega”) was the last public online mirror where people could download Defense Distributed’s Liberator files (for their 3D printable gun). But now it appears that Kim himself has browned his pants at the idea of the files being on his server and decreed that they be removed by his web minions . . .

ZDNet has the story:

Kim Dotcom, founder of Mega, has said that the designs for a 3D-printed gun were “scary”, and has deleted public links to its blueprints from his file-sharing website.

[...]

Dotcom said he was not contacted by the US government, but became aware of its plans to shut down public links to the designs.

“I think it’s a serious threat to security of the community. I think it’s scary that people can print 3D guns that can’t even be detected by metal detectors … This should concern everybody,” he told Radio New Zealand.

If I were a betting man, I would have wagered that Kim Dotcom would have been all for freedom of speech and openness. Instead, it looks like the man who is most famous for proving that the internet is incapable of being censored is trying to do the exact same thing himself.

Let me (using my network security hat here) take the example of child porn to illustrate exactly how useless it is to try and censor the internet. We can all agree that files depicting the abuse and exploitation of children are despicable and should be erased from the internet forever. But those files keep popping up and new ones are added every day. They won’t go away, no matter how much we as a society want them to.

You can’t delete something from the internet. You can’t stop the signal. For better, or for worse.

Definitely more entertaining than the zombie targets . . .

There’s no doubt that the Call of Duty series has just about peaked in terms of actual gameplay. I point to the first Modern Warfare title as the moment when the game finally hit that glass ceiling, and everything since has simply been the same tired old mechanics and increasingly uninteresting plotlines. From there, everything else has been a regression toward the mean. Case in point: Black Ops II . . .

Let me get this out of the way first: the guns are pretty cool. There are a couple that you’ll recognize, and then the game designers appeared to have gone on an LSD trip and come up with some interesting designs of their own for some futuristic firearms. I’m actually a fan of the PDW that appears to use PS-90 magazines in a side-loading mechanism.

As for FNH USA’s guns, they’re everywhere. The FNX-45 is a frequently seen handgun, and the SCAR-H one of the most prominently used “assault rifles.” You can probably guess which rifle I went with for the majority of the game. Maybe it’s just a case of my noticing their guns more since I’m with the team for the year, though.

In terms of the actual gameplay, it’s the exact same “long hallway” design that we’ve seen since the Call of Duty series started. There are one or two sections where you get an option of how to shoot through the hallway, or whether you stay as a sniper or move in for close quarters fighting. But the hallway is still there. There’s no room for strategy — you just bust in and shoot everything that moves.

As if the long hallway clichés weren’t bad enough, the game just keeps throwing them at you. Rail shooter section? Check. Driving section? Check. Avoid the sentry stealth section? Check. The only really different feature was a section where you fly an airplane. And that was so poorly thought out that I’d be happy to never do it again. Then there are the optional “tower defense” style missions, trying to shoehorn some Starcraft real-time strategy into a fast-paced shooter. That actually might have been OK if the controls didn’t completely suck.

It’s like the game was designed for 14-year-olds with borderline ADD. As a 25-year-old with ADD, though, the repetitive nature is getting a bit annoying.

So if the gameplay sucks, the storyline must be good, right? Well, you’ll be let down there too. Firs there’s the fact that that the audio in this game is so screwed up that I needed to crank my speakers all the way up to hear the dialogue, then instantly turn them back down to avoid blowing out my eardrums when the action started (playing the PC version here). If you can actually hear the audio, though, the storyline tries to be all convoluted and cool. The thing is, it does it in a way that makes you think they took a class from Ronald D. Moore. Mr. Moore, by the way, was in charge of the newer Battlestar Galactica series and admitted that they simply went episode by episode doing stuff that they thought was cool, with no real idea of how to tie it all together in the end.

As a network security professional, the storyline had me hanging my head in shame that I was listening to so much technobabble. As someone who recently spent some time in a drone testing lab talking to the guys that break them, all the talk about autonomous drones was laughably over-played. Worst of all, where did all of these bad guys come from? According to the game, the main bad guy is a drug lord, but how does that make him suddenly able to raise and control a massive army for the pitched battles all across the world?

Just as with the other games in the series, the storyline is like the bread in a bacon cheeseburger. All it really does is convey the real meat of the game (those long hallways). It doesn’t actually provide any real substance in and of itself.

So the gameplay sucks. The story sucks. Do the graphics at least look good? Um, no.

Let me put this into perspective: Crysis came out in 2007 and was one of the best looking games I’ve ever seen. That was SIX YEARS ago. Far Cry 3 came out last year, and was similarly dazzling. Instead of using one of those engines for Black Ops II, they came out with their own. And it looks worse than anything I’ve seen in the last three years.

Every once in a while you’ll catch yourself thinking, “hey, that guy’s head looks pretty good.” But then you’re thrown back into a mediocre landscape that could have been rendered just as easily on the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare engine that came out in the olden days of 2008. Nothing has changed.

And then there are the cutscenes. These are essentially pre-rendered movies that don’t require any processing for a high-resolution version — and they looked even WORSE than the game itself. Usually it’s the other way around. Then again, the main game was so glitchy that I wasn’t sure if my character was on drugs and simply hallucinating the whole thing.

If I moved a certain way, the image of my gun disappeared from the screen. And my buddies kept walking straight through solid objects. And as always, the artificial intelligence LOVES to walk straight in front of my gun when I’m shooting something, which makes me automatically fail the mission because of “friendly fire.”

Oh, and seriously, “clips?” For a game that tries to be all technical and cool, referring to magazines as “clips” is one of those telltale things that lets you know you’re playing a crappy game.

The multiplayer was similarly boring, and had a much different “feel” than, say, Battlefield 3 (which is, by far, my favorite multiplayer shooter at the moment). The best way to describe it is to say that where BF3′s arenas are made using the small Lego bricks (high-resolution, attention to detail, places to hide in the shadows if you know what you’re doing), CoD:BO2′s multiplayer feels like it was made using the rather chunky Duplo bricks (low resolution, not a lot of detail). The scenery looks and feels more toy-like, and not realistic in the least. There really isn’t anything new about the gameplay mechanics in multiplayer that would justify spending more money if you’re happy with your existing shooter.

Far Cry 3 was an amazing game. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas were brilliant. Heck, Borderlands 2 might be among my favorite games of all time. But playing Black Ops II, I found myself praying that every level to be the last one so I could bail and get back to Train Simulator 2013. Yes, Train Simulator beats this all to hell.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Price: $60
Platform: Reviewed for the PC
Multiplayer: Yes

Overall Rating: *
I bought this on sale at Steam for about $40. I think I would have had more enjoyment lighting 40 $1 bills on fire and watching them burn.

USAToday is running a story about kinds and guns and accidental deaths, and as expected it’s one of those “oh no, think of the children!” pieces. You know, the kind where the author sensationalizes a couple ostensibly illustrative examples, trots out a few irrelevant statistics, then blames the NRA. It’s a time-tested formula that the mainstream media uses to simultaneously paint guns as evil killing machines and the NRA as emotionless, uncaring monsters. Let’s take a look at how it’s done in practice, shall we? . . .

He didn’t know the gun was loaded.

The 14-year-old Massachusetts boy had recently found his mother’s handgun, which she kept hidden under her mattress for protection.

“Promise me you’ll never touch it,” his mother, a single mom, had asked him.

But the lure of the gun was irresistible. He decided to show it off to his neighbor, 12-year-old Brian Crowell.

Yep, start with one specific story of a family’s loss. There’s no shortage of people whose political views follow their emotions, and that opening gets them on the author’s side right off the bat. Obviously, if guns didn’t exist, children would never die, right?

And while Congress voted down gun legislation last month, children’s advocates such as Crowell are urging parents and communities to take their own steps to protect kids.

Crowell, who attended the State of the Union address in January as President Obama’s guest, has devoted her life to gun safety, urging parents to ask whether there are guns in the home before sending their kids for playdates.

“I had never thought to ask about guns in the home,” says Crowell, of Saugus, Mass.

Saugus says she’s aiming for common sense, not sweeping political change. Nearly 40% of American households have guns, studies show.

Next step: establish that your child may not be safe even if you don’t own guns. With the threat is outside the reader’s control, the only way to keep a child safe from the evil guns is by passing “common sense” laws to eradicate the scourge of firearms in civilian hands. Because obviously, since children die from drowning in pools gunshots, we must eliminate pools guns. Never mind the legal or moral implications, think of the children.

Buried deep in the body of the story, though, the author lets slip a small, inconvenient detail.

Fewer children are dying from gun accidents today than a decade ago, as well. The number of kids under 14 who died in a gun accident fell from 86 in 2000 to 62 in 2010, according to the CDC. [...] Arulanandam credits programs like Eddie Eagle for helping to reduce deaths in children.

So the events she’s so worked up about are actually declining all by themselves. Without any new laws in place. Oops, there goes the narrative! Quick, to the Batmobile! We obviously need to “balance” that fact with some unfounded speculation!

Yet Arthur Kellermann, a policy analyst at Rand Corp., said programs such as Eddie Eagle have never been independently assessed to measure whether they really make kids safer. He worries that gun safety programs could give parents a false sense of security.

Perfect. The “Eddie the Eagle” gun safety program actually makes kids less safe. Another shot at the NRA.

Never mind the hundreds of thousands of lives that are saved by guns each year. Never mind the joy they bring to millions of Americans. Never mind that swimming pools are a bigger scourge to the well-being kids. Obviously guns are the problem.

We have to think of the children – and only the children. Forget your rights, forget your personal responsibility where it comes to making sure your children are safe. It’s the guns that caused these deaths — not the negligent parents who allowed the unsupervised access.

“What I don’t understand is why the industry hasn’t done more to make handguns childproof, since we have no evidence to date that it is possible to make children gun-proof,” Kellermann says. “And as recent tragedies have proven, they are not bullet-proof.”

Right. Because it’s the product’s fault. We can’t blame the grieving parent for their own negligence. That would be insensitive. Instead, we need to change the laws in this country to protect the lives of 62 kids per year, ignoring the 200,000+ lives they save over the same time period.

In the wake of the release of Defense Distributed’s “Liberator” firearm many news organizations around the world have responded in a typical manner, namely by claiming that it sucks and that it doesn’t work, so therefore it should be ignored. “Continue about your lives, gun control is still effective.” Let’s take El Reg for an illustrative example . . .

Seriously. That’s all a Liberator is: a particularly crappy pipe, because it is made of lots of laminated layers in a 3D printer. Attached to the back of the pipe is a needlessly bulky and complicated mechanism allowing you to bang a lump of plastic with a nail in it against the end of the pipe.

[...]

When the nail hits the cap in the cartridge base in a Liberator, the expanding gas likewise pushes the lead bullet off the end of the cartridge and down the “barrel” pipe. Much of the gas leaks past due to the loose fit and soft material of the “barrel”. The lump of plastic with the nail (probably) stops the cartridge case spitting out of the back, which is pretty easy as the bullet pops out of the extremely short, basically smooth* “barrel” almost immediately with very little push from the gas required. Most of the cartridge’s hot gas spills out of the muzzle without getting a chance to do any work on the bullet, which is the main reason the cruddy “barrel” doesn’t (always) come to bits on the first shot and the cartridge case (probably) doesn’t just spit backward into the user’s face.

Their argument is that since the very first version of such a firearm is the modern equivalent of a Saturday Night Special, it should be completely ignored and PROVES that 3D printing CANNOT POSSIBLY be used to print guns. Forgetting that whole open source movement thing, where crowd-sourcing of operating systems and other software components have led to amazingly fast and stable platforms which work fantastically well. It’s like proclaiming Linux a dead and useless OS because the very first kernel was barely able to function as a calculator, not seeing beyond the object to the possibility of what lies beyond.

And that’s the main issue with the mainstream media. They see the “Liberator” as a finished product, and the only possible iteration of what can be made. Instead it is merely a proof of concept, a blueprint for what could be done in the future as more people work on the problem of printable firearms and contribute their own ideas.

The cat is out of the bag in terms of firearms production. And the “establishment” wants to cover their eyes and ignore what’s going on, because that makes them feel safer.

Well, voluntarily, of course. Tyler forwarded this video on to me, and from one hunter to another, the guy makes a lot of sense. Hunting with lead projectiles might indeed pose a danger to the health of the hunter as well as the health of the environment. And with the ready availability of all-copper bullets from Barnes and other producers, making the switch is easier than ever. So why don’t more hunters do it? And why does hunting ammunition still offer lead projectiles? Given ready availability and a price that’s close, would you switch?

I thought we were supposed to embrace change. Thanks to Defense Distributed, the old model of gun control no longer works. If people can simply print out a gun in the safety and anonymity of their own home, then all the infrastructure that California has put in place to disarm their subjects is completely useless. So what’s the first thing that famed anti-2A state senator Leland Yee proposes? Gun control, chapter one, page one: registration, background checks, and licensing. For printers. Yes, printers . . .

From the Sacramento CBS affiliate:

Video showing a plastic gun being test-fired appeared online last weekend, prompting Yee’s fears.

He’s concerned that just about anyone with access to those cutting-edge printers can arm themselves.

“Terrorists can make these guns and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free, and that is something that is really dangerous,” said Yee.

He said while this new technology is impressive, it must be regulated when it comes to making guns. He says background checks, requiring serial numbers and even registering them could be part of new legislation that he says will protect the public.

Civilian disarmament proponents have absolutely no idea how to respond to Defense Distributed’s Liberator, and it’s starting to show. They can’t countenance the idea that their population might actually be able to defend themselves against criminals (of both the petty and the governmental variety), and 3D printing represents a permanent loss of control over that means of self defense.

They can’t handle not being in control, so fall back on what they know, and decide to start regulating one step up that chain. In this case, it’s 3D printers. Which, especially for a state that prides itself on being high-tech, is more than a little ironic. If the younger generation wasn’t already turned off on this Yee character for his crusade against people’s First Amendment right to produce video games, then trying to shut down personal 3D printing in the cradle of Scilicon Valley should start people looking for the pitchforks and torches pretty quickly.

Oh, and even if Yee’s 3D printer control legislation is signed into law, 3D printing is an unstoppable force. Take for example the RepRap project, the entire point of which is to make self replicating 3D printers. Like tribbles, you start with one printer, and you end up with as many as you want for all your friends.

People laugh at us for using the “slippery slope” argument when it comes to gun control. Well, here it is in action. And it ain’t pretty.

There’s an old saying: any publicity is good publicity. This, though, might be just a tad over the line. A movie theater in Jefferson City, Missouri paid a man to walk into a showing of the new Iron Man 3 movie wearing “tactical gear” and carrying what appeared to be an AR-15 rifle. The man was part of a group of actors who were at the movie theater (pictured above via Reddit). But in a dark room and with memories of Aurora still fairly fresh in people’s minds, things could have gotten a little hairy. Which they did, when the police were called, reporting an active shooting incident. Oh, and just FYI, Missouri is a “shall issue” state that honors permits from almost every other state in the union. The local ABC news station has more . . .

During the opening weekend of the latest ‘Iron Man’ movie, a man walked into the theater in full tactical gear and carrying a fake gun.

Jefferson City police and witnesses, however, are not pleased with the stunt and are questioning the theater’s logic after recent shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Newtown, Conn.

John Molock is a retired Army war veteran and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He told ABC 17 News this most recent trip to the movies triggered memories he never wanted to relive.

“We had just finished watching Iron Man 3,” said Morlock. “We’re just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M-4 and 9 mm on his side.”

Morlock did not call police, but several other moviegoers did.

“We received a series of 911 calls stating that a man dressed in all black and body armor and a rifle was walking into Capital 8 Theaters,” said Capt. Doug Shoemaker.

Officers thought they were responding to an active shooter investigation.

“Everything was in place, it’s the opening night of a superhero movie, it’s somebody walking in all-dark clothes, everything pointed to bad things about to happen,” said Shoemaker. “There’s really no good that can come of this.”

Instead, it was all part of a publicity stunt for the movie opening. The man in tactical gear was an actor carrying a fake gun.

Capital 8 Theaters manager Bob Wilkins told ABC 17 News this was planned months in advance and only a few people were upset, but hundreds were entertained.

The local news station is playing up the “PR stunt to drive sales” angle here, but they do have a point. What would you do if, in the middle of a superhero-themed movie, some guy walks in and looks, for all intents and purposes, to be about to shoot the place up?

Apparently this theater makes a habit of paying actors to dress up as characters from the films, which they apparently think adds something to the whole movie experience. Something that can’t be had by downloading the flicks and watching them at home. And while that may be the case, a quick warning beforehand might have been in order. Especially given the circumstances.

Back when Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed started up their DefCad downloads, they made a promise. Cody looked square in the camera and promised that there would be no takedowns. Ever. And set the vow to some trendy music. But when the rubber actually met the road and Cody was faced with the full might of the U.S. government if he didn’t comply with a takedown request, they folded. They pulled the files, like every other depository has before them. On the surface, it seems like DefDist isn’t living up to its promises. But was that really a lack of personal convictions and flinching when the moment of truth arrived? Or is Defense Distributed simply biding its time until they’re in a more sustainable position to thumb their nose at the government? . . .

When I was talking with Cody, he mentioned some servers in a western European country that they had set up. He quickly moved on to other topics, but that was all I needed to hear. My day job is doing network security for a large hosting company, so not only did I understand what he meant and what he’s trying to do, but also how hard that is and how long it takes to set up.

For an idea of what Cody was hinting at, let’s take a look at another popular website that continues to host content despite numerous takedown requests and even a trial: The Pirate Bay.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is actually an excellent documentary about TPB and I recommend you watch it, but the takeaway is this: it takes time and technical skill to set up a website on servers that are legally protected and hard to locate. The guys behind TPB are such geniuses when it comes to routing protocols that they actually appeared to be hosted in North Korea for a period of time, and no one could prove otherwise. Still, even with that level of expertise, keeping the site online and free from government raids is a massive undertaking.

Defense Distributed, by comparison, is in its infancy. They merely adopted the internet; TPB was born in it, moulded by it. They didn’t see a TOR connection until they were already under indictment. Setting up servers with the level of redundancy and protection that even the United States government couldn’t interfere is a massive undertaking, and one that we here at TTAG understand all too well (as we’re making the same preparations — just in case).

From what I could glean from Cody, it seems like their internet-fu isn’t quite there yet. They have the blueprint, but the building isn’t complete. They want to be able to run to their offshore servers when Uncle Sam busts into their local datacenter and starts ripping out server blades. Right now, though, there’s nowhere to run.

In the meantime, it looks like our old friend Kim Dotcom (yes, that’s his real last name) is lending a helping hand. There’s a copy of the files on Mega, which was founded and run by people who have a proven track record of being able to host files the U.S. government finds objectionable and have yet to see any legal action. Sure, KD’s crib was raided at the request of Uncle Sam, but the charges didn’t stick and he’s fighting back bigtime.

Is the inability to shrug off takedown requests like water off a duck’s back annoying Cody? Probably. And the inability to keep his promise isn’t doing anything good for their credibility. But despite the files being removed from DefDist’s site, they remain available on the internet. And they will be, forever.

I like SciAm. It’s a great science-related magazine, and does the nerdy stuff very well. But it starts to fall apart when it tries to enter the political realm. For example, they published an article yesterday called The Science of Guns Proves Arming Untrained Citizens Is a Bad Idea, in which they don’t actually use any, you know, science and fall back on the same tired cherry-picked studies that we’ve debunked time and again. As I’ve never before had an opportunity to point out inaccuracies and lies in a ‘Scientific American’ article before, please excuse me as I indulge in a little point-by-point rebuttal . . .

The article opens with a completely useless comparison:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31,672 people died by guns in 2010 (the most recent year for which U.S. figures are available), a staggering number that is orders of magnitude higher than that of comparable Western democracies.

Well, yes, that seems like a big number. Keep in mind that the entire country of France can fit inside the state of Texas and the fact that the raw number of homicides is larger than those of other countries is meaningless. The valid comparison is the homicide rate, which is the number of homicides per hundred thousand people and a more accurate representation of the probability of being murdered. That’s the normally quoted number, one that any high school statistics student would use.

But the author (Michael Shermer) doesn’t care about accurate comparisons, he’s out to strike an emotional note right off the bat. So he chose a number intended to shock people while having no logical bearing to the discussion at hand. Good job, SciAm.

By the way, in terms of the murder rate, the United States is running right around 4.8 per 100,000. Which puts us about in the middle of the pack worldwide. And if you want to get all scientific about it the real driver behind murder rates is the number of large urban centers, which the United States has more of than any other “Western” country. So the best comparison would be murder rate by urban centers. Bet you dollars to doughnuts we’re on the bottom of that comparison.

What can we do about it? National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre believes he knows: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” If LaPierre means professionally trained police and military who routinely practice shooting at ranges, this observation would at least be partially true. If he means armed private citizens with little to no training, he could not be more wrong.

Um, actually, once again, Shermer is completely wrong. And thankfully, we just had an infographic with properly cited sources that we can use to debunk his main argument.

That seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. Civilian gun owners kill more criminals every year than do cops. And they do so while killing fewer innocent bystanders. Which eviscerates the argument that only “highly trained police officers” are capable of taking down a criminal without hitting innocents.

In other words, Michael Shermer, you are the one who couldn’t be more wrong. Something you would have realized if you’d actually done a little basic math. Something readers have a right to expect since this article was written for, you know, friggin’ ‘Scientific American’ and not some conspiracy theory rag. But instead of actually looking at the statistics and drawing conclusions from data, you decided to use your “common sense” reasoning to make assumptions based on your personal biases. And as any scientist can tell you, assumptions and bias are never a good thing.

Consider a 1998 study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery that found that “every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.” Pistol owners’ fantasy of blowing away home-invading bad guys or street toughs holding up liquor stores is a myth debunked by the data showing that a gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault, an accidental death or injury, a suicide attempt or a homicide than it is for self-defense.

Ah, the old “you’re more likely to shoot yourself if you own a gun” argument. You’re also more likely to be in a car accident if you own a car. And more likely to be killed by a Komodo dragon if you own a Komodo dragon.

Let’s also keep in mind that this study which Michael Shermer cites only looks at legally justified shootings, those in which a law abiding citizen actually dropped the hammer on a bad guy. While interesting, that ignores the larger proportion of defensive gun uses where the gun was used simply as a show of force and no actual violence was required to diffuse the situation.

One of my friends here in south Texas was forced to draw his gun for the first time a couple weeks ago. He stopped the threat simply by showing the gun and didn’t need to pull the trigger. As soon as the bad guy realized that this scrawny white kid could actually ventilate him, he backed down and turned tail. Everyone walked away alive and in tact thanks to a gun. A situation that will never be included in a study.

It’s a classic case of cherry-picking the numbers. Shermer trots out the same old studies that “prove” how dangerous guns are. Also, note that the study he selects as his lead-off hitter was from 1998. You’d think he could do better than 20-year-old numbers.

I harbored this belief for the 20 years I owned a Ruger .357 Magnum with hollow-point bullets designed to shred the body of anyone who dared to break into my home, but when I learned about these statistics, I got rid of the gun.

That’s nice. He’s one of those Road to Damascus converts, someone who strayed from the true willing victim path, but ultimately saw the light, reforming his ways and rejecting the satanic allure of the firearm. Nice touch. I suppose he thinks that will impart some “cred” in the gun world.

More insights can be found in a 2013 book from Johns Hopkins University Press entitled Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis, [...]

This rather large paragraph is simply devoted to the total number of people killed in the United States, giving no other numbers to compare the statistics to and therefore making them useless and inflammatory. However, he does take a brief moment to note a rather important fact:

Of those 31,672 dead, 61 percent were suicides, and the vast majority of the rest were homicides by people who knew one another.

A brief moment of clarity and rational thought in the middle of a gun control polemic? A realization that perhaps the number of deaths being reported as “caused” by firearms is actually artificially inflated? Because, after all, people will always find a way to kill themselves, as our own Bruce Krafft has shown time and time again. But no, it’s simply a segue into an attempt to paint gun owners as prone to lapsing into a blind rage, being impulsive and unable to control their latent aggression, uncivilized beasts that they are.

For example, of the 1,082 women and 267 men killed in 2010 by their intimate partners, 54 percent were shot by guns. Over the past quarter of a century, guns were involved in greater number of intimate partner homicides than all other causes combined. When a woman is murdered, it is most likely by her intimate partner with a gun. Regardless of what really caused Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius to shoot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp (whether he mistook her for an intruder or he snapped in a lover’s quarrel), her death is only the latest such headline. Recall, too, the fate of Nancy Lanza, killed by her own gun in her own home in Connecticut by her son, Adam Lanza, before he went to Sandy Hook Elementary School to murder some two dozen children and adults.

So his argument is that those people wouldn’t have been killed if a gun wasn’t available? That an emotionally unstable person wouldn’t have just as easily snapped and murdered their partner with a kitchen knife, a bat or a car? That’s where Michael’s logical train of thought ends: he apparently believes that if the guns had disappeared, those people would be walking around today. That they wouldn’t have resorted to other means of murder, as the 46% of victims in that statistic were. No, everything would be just peachy if only we’d get rid of the guns. As he then suggests later in the same paragraph:

As an alternative to arming women against violent men, legislation can help: data show that in states that prohibit gun ownership by men who have received a domestic violence restraining order, gun-caused homicides of intimate female partners have been reduced by 25 percent.

Yeah, “gun-caused homicide” (perhaps “homicides committed using a gun” might be more accurate there, Michael?) dropped. But does that mean that homicides overall dropped? My bet is “no.” But Michael doesn’t provide enough data to let the reader draw their own conclusions, he’d rather draw the conclusions for you and then spoon feed you hand-picked stats and studies to make his case.

Inductive reasoning doesn’t go well with the scientific community, Michael Shermer.

Another myth to fall to the facts is that gun-control laws disarm good people and leave the crooks with weapons. Not so, say the Johns Hopkins authors: “Strong regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers—defined as having a state law that required state or local licensing of retail firearm sellers, mandatory record keeping by those sellers, law enforcement access to records for inspection, regular inspections of gun dealers, and mandated reporting of theft of loss of firearms—was associated with 64 percent less diversion of guns to criminals by in-state gun dealers.”

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, most of the guns used in crimes are stolen. Which inconveniently conflicts with the narrative that Shermer is trying to present. He’d like you to think that criminals are getting their guns from gun dealers, licensed individuals under the scrutiny of the ATF and are required to keep meticulous records of each transaction.

Sure, those kinds of sales happen, but Shermer would have you believe that if we could just register every firearm and enter them into a national database, maybe we could then reduce “gun crime.” I’m not buying it. When theft is continuously the number one source of firearms for criminals, it doesn’t seem that tracing law abiding citizens’ firearms would be much of a deterrent. That’s me using my own “common sense,” by the way.

Finally, before we concede civilization and arm everyone to the teeth pace the NRA, consider the primary cause of the centuries-long decline of violence as documented by Steven Pinker in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: the rule of law by states that turned over settlement of disputes to judicial courts and curtailed private self-help justice through legitimate use of force by police and military trained in the proper use of weapons.

I have my own book recommendation for Dr. Shermer: More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott. He can continue to enjoy reading his intellectual investigations of the “better angels of our nature” by ivory tower intellectuals, but facts and logic seem to be scarce in his piece. And that, for an article in ‘Scientific American’, is a mortal sin. One that their astute readership seems to have picked up on. I quote the very first comment under this article:

I was disappointed by the Shermer column for several reasons. First, he quotes Wayne LaPierre and then goes on twist that quote as follows: “If he means armed private citizens with little to no training, he could not be more wrong.” Yet, where is any citation provided by Shermer even remotely suggesting that LaPierre has taken such a peculiar position? It was years ago when I received NRA training in handling fire arms, but I have no reason to believe the organization doesn’t still today stress the need for thorough training in safety for all who handle fire arms.

Second, Shermer seems to argue that the fact that prohibiting gun ownership by men who have received a domestic violence restraining order reduces gun-caused homicides of females is proof that it is a myth that arming women would protect them against violent men. Shermer’s logic escapes me. The two issues are entirely separate.

Third, Shermer claims that it is “another myth” that gun-control laws disarm good people and leave crooks with weapons. To prove his point he cites a study showing that strong government regulation significantly reduces the “diversion of guns to criminals by in-state gun dealers.” The obvious mistake in logic is the failure by Shermer to understand that criminals have numerous opportunities to obtain guns aside from purchasing them from in-state gun dealers. Burglary is one common source. Another is the purchase of a gun from a fellow criminal.

Countries such as Mexico make the point unambiguously. Criminals who want guns will obtain them regardless of tough gun laws that effectively keep guns out of the possession of honest people. Mexico proves that the myth attacked by Shermer is, sadly, the true reality.

The Shermer article isn’t up to the standards set in the usual material I read in Scientific American.

But Shermer isn’t the real problem. Rather, the problem lies with the editors who for some reason suspend their editorial requirements when Shermer submits his columns. And, the only reason I can think for that lapse is politics.

Bruce Henderson

From the NRA: “Tracy Scarpulla is a mother of three from Albany, New York. Her husband, Joe, is a U.S. Marine who has always believed in the right to bear arms. Tracy believed, however, that guns were dangerous so their compromise was one gun locked in a safe. It wasn’t until her husband phoned her one night to tell her there was an escaped convict on the loose in their area that she realized, “I have a tool here to defend my family, but I have no idea how to use it.” So she quickly set out to change that and now Tracy is a huge proponent of gun rights.”

Found this over on DefDist’s twitter feed, and it appears to be a Liberator printed in New Hampshire. The first of many, I’d bet.

As soon as Robert texted me to let me know that Defense Distributed had been targeted by a Department of State letter to take down their files, I gave Cody a ring. I figured he’d be knee-deep in crisis management mode, but when he came on the line he sounded like the same calm, cool and collected Cody we had dinner with only a couple of days before. I asked him about this latest development, and the plan going forward and he laid his cards on the table for me . . .

What’s happened is that the State Department Defense Office of Trade Controls believes that Defense Distributed’s publishing of their Liberator files constitutes a breach of the ITAR regulations. These laws keep American-designed firepower from leaving U.S. shores without the approval of the State Department, kind of like a “prime directive” for information about firearms that keeps high tech guns out of the hands of developing nations. In theory.

In the mind of State, by publishing the technical details of a firearm on the internet, Defense Distributed violated one of the provisions of the ITAR regulations. In response, they drafted a letter to Cody and requested that he remove the files from his website. “Requested” being the operative word — there was no forced removal of those files by government hackers from DefDist’s site, and their website’s DNS remains unchanged. In other words, nothing on their website was touched by anyone but Cody and his crew.

In response, Cody decided to comply with the government’s request. For now. But as he noted when we talked, this isn’t the end of the road. The government has provided a period of time for Defense Distributed to reply and prove that their actions were lawful. And according to Cody, he thinks he has this rap beat. Apparently there’s an exemption from the ITAR regulations for non-profit organizations working in the public domain, which is exactly what they are doing.

What’s their next step? Cody said he’s reaching out to the EFF and some other California-based lawyers for help. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is to civil rights on the internet as the Second Amendment Foundation is to gun rights out here in meatspace. They’re a massive organization of lawyers and fundraising geniuses that have fought and won some important cases regarding privacy issues and copyright protection on the internet, and a fight like this one would seem to be right up their alley. However, since this involves guns and the majority of EFF donors seem to be of the Democratic persuasion, Cody might get the cold shoulder and have to resort to other lawyers to help him out.

Either way, this ain’t over. Not only is it impossible to undo the damage that’s already been done (over 100,000 downloads from Defense Distributed’s site, plus untold thousands via P2P torrents), but there’s no way to stop someone else from advancing Cody’s work.

Cody believes that this is a purely political move, one that will eventually be beaten. Though he hasn’t ruled out the possibility that he’ll end up in jail anyway. I asked him if he had any plans as to which books he’ll read. He said, “I already have my reading list picked out. It’s just a question of how many will be allowed in, and how many will be branded as ‘subversive material’.”

You may have heard about a recent Pew survey poll that showed only 12% of Americans believe that gun crime has been on the decline in the last few years. Naturally, this misconception conflicts with the truth of the matter — that firearms related deaths have been declining every year since 1993. Even the BBC begrudgingly admitted to the facts . . .

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics said firearms-related homicides had dropped to 11,101 in 2011 from 18,253 – a reduction of 39%.

Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center found gun homicides fell to 3.6 per 100,000 people in 2010 from 7 in 1993.

The figures were released three weeks after US senators rejected proposals to extend background checks on gun sales.

President Barack Obama has campaigned for tighter firearms laws after 26 people died in a school shooting in Connecticut in December.

[...]

Despite the drop, some 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than two decades ago and only 12% think it is lower, according to the Pew Reseach Center.

A quick aside about the Beeb. We (Robert, Dan and myself) were seated across the table from the BBC’s correspondent in the media center at the NRA Annual Meeting this past weekend. He tried to seem indifferent about guns and gun control, but instantly challenged any figure we brought up that portrayed guns in a positive light. He seemed unable to accept the possibility that guns aren’t the scourge that the network regularly makes them out to be. Which might explain their lack of eloquence when it comes to a story about how gun crime in the United States isn’t actually as bad as the public is lead to believe.

Yes, 924 adults (the size of the Pew study group) is a fairly small sample size, but that doesn’t mean the result is completely off the mark.

Assuming that the survey is valid, what are the odds that these numbers are the real reason behind the support for increased gun control regulations? Despite facts and logic being on the side of gun rights advocates, could the “feeling” that gun crime is worse than it is be fueling the emotion fueled decision-making process of low information voters? Perhaps, then, the best route to preserving the Second Amendment is educating the public about the truth of the gun crime numbers.

Then again, who has the time to watch a commercial about crime stats and logical arguments when you could be watching Kim Kardashian latest OB/Gyn visit on cable?

I walked into my local Cabela’s the other day and was greeted by a strange sight: ammo on the shelves. Powder in stock. AR 30-round magazines by the crateload. Even the 33-round Glock 19 magazines were in stock, and available en masse. So my question to you is this: are you seeing the same in your neck of the woods? Or is this just another reason that Texas is the land of milk and honey for gun owners?

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of taking Cody Wilson, mastermind behind Defense Distributed and the Liberator firearm, out to dinner. Well, technically Robert took him out to dinner and I tagged along. But since Robert is otherwise occupied and can’t post at the moment, I get to write the story the way I want. Anyway, while we’ve already interviewed Cody Wilson about the nature of his work and his beliefs (we liked him before he was cool) it was nice to get an update on how he’s doing since he became one of the most feared and hated people to gun control advocates. And let me say that anyone who can make Chuck Schumer brown his pants is a friend in my book . . .

The first thing we wanted to know is if he’s worried about a possible stretch as a guest of the the federal government in one of their high security greybar hotels. Cody’s response: “I’m looking forward to it. It’ll give me time to catch up on my reading.”

As far as he’s concerned, the government might get him on any number of technicalities. Cody started listing the ways that Uncle Sam could justify putting him away, almost as if they were badges of honor — thumbing his nose at their attempts to control the proliferation of firearms. It fits well with the “crypto-anarchist” persona that he’s developed as his efforts with 3D printing have progressed.

Robert was concerned that Cody didn’t have a lawyer already on speed dial in the event of his arrest. We started spit-balling lawyers that might be interested in taking his case, and Cody wasn’t too impressed with any of them. Alan Gottleib was definitely a no-go. “Didn’t he support that Toomey-Manchin background check bill? No, f*** him.”

As the appetizers were being served we started talking about the gun itself, the Liberator, and its technical specifications. At the moment, the only working model is a smoothbore .380 caliber version that technically falls under the “Any Other Weapon” category of U.S. firearms law. Cody says there’s an alternate version available with rifling, but that the rifling would either not survive the first shot or the added pressure would split the barrel. He says he hasn’t tried yet, but based on his experience it won’t be effective. Translation: it won’t work with rifling.

We asked about shotgun shells, and apparently they’ve already tried — and failed. “There’s something about the rapidly expanding cartridge” that Cody says splits the barrel whenever they fire it. Either that, or the plastic wadding gets caught on the side of the barrel and obstructs it.

But the gun isn’t what the members of the mainstream media he’s talked to are most interested in discussing. They want to hear about the implications of the technology, and Cody says that’s exactly the way he wants it. “They all accept the premise,” he says, “that now that the gun is out there nothing can take it back. And that’s the way he wants it portrayed, as if it’s an unstoppable force that governments can’t control. That it has happened, and all there is to do now is watch the aftermath. Can’t stop the signal . . .

“I’ve talked to people who have walked into hacker spaces and seen a row of printers all printing Liberator parts,” Cody said as his roasted chicken dish was being placed in front of him. Hacker spaces are collaborative locations where exceedingly nerdy people get together, pool their money to buy equipment and space and experiment with technology, usually including 3D printers. Hacker spaces have popped up in cities across the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., London, Helsinki and Lisbon.

Cody says that there are even Liberators being printed in China right now, which is the reason that there’s a Simplified Chinese version of the “readme” (instruction) file in the download package. “I’m actually meeting a girl later tonight to translate it better.”

“The next big thing is getting a picture of one of these things printed out in another country,” Cody says. He says that he isn’t actively enticing people to break the law in other countries, but according to him a picture of a fully assembled Liberator in the middle of London isn’t far off. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a picture leaks out after he finishes his final exams this weekend.

As for his own future, Cody says that he’ll keep refining the design, but doesn’t want to stay in the limelight. Robert kept offering suggestions as to how to increase his profile and get more publicity for the project, but Cody says that he’s happy to melt back into the background once the furor dies down. But while the spotlight is still on him and his plastic fantastic, he seems to be having tons of fun debating the talking heads. Well, most of them. “I still have to decide if I want to go on Colbert,” he mentioned with some trepidation.

In which I talk with Bill Frady about the NRA Annual Meeting, competition shooting and other gunny topics. As always, it’s up on the podcast as well (I just checked and it does indeed work).

I like how they designed it to encourage a “yes” decision. The “no” target was a tiny steel plate, but the “yes” target was a MASSIVE IPSC silhouette. But far be it from me to discourage anyone from stacking the deck.

Everyone loves a good infographic. You know, those giant images that contain a large amount of information presented it in an easy-to-understand manner? One of our readers sent along the following graphic [click here for the original in glorious high definition] that puts in perspective the number and type of gun uses in the United States every year as opposed to how they may be perceived. Make the jump for the image . . .

We heard about this little confab after the meeting had already taken place, but thankfully they recorded the whole thing. In the wake of the failed background check bill and the rest of the gun grabbers’ agenda in Congress, representatives from every major civilian disarmament organization met to discuss the future of their efforts to further restrict Americans’ right to keep and bear arms and how best to accomplish their goals. Naturally, the meeting took place at Newtown High School. They apparently couldn’t get into the elementary school to literally stand on the blood-stained floors while preaching their message, so they did the next best thing . . .

Panelists included Colin Goddard, activist for the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence and a Virginia Tech Massacre survivor, Elliot Fineman, president and CEO of National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC), Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) and a representative from Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In short, for gun rights advocates, it’s as if the Legion of Doom televised one of their meetings from inside the giant helmet. Enjoy.