“The Windsor Police Service is adding high-powered rifles to its arsenal,” cbc.ca reports. “The C8 patrol carbine rifle is beginning to replace the 12-gauge shotgun currently being used. The rifle is more accurate and fires more bullets with less penetrating power, thus reducing the chance of someone else being hit.” Funny that Vice President Biden is promoting shotguns for armed self-defense while every police police department from Truth or Consequences to Toronto is tooling-up with AR-15s. So what of Insp. Tom Crowley of the Windsor po-po’s contention that ARs are less likely to inflict collateral damage than shotties? I know a couple of California newspaper delivery gals who might beg to differ. You?

Our gun-aversive friends at nj.com have all the details of the gruesome attack above. A TTAG reader emails: “Just a thought…but if the ‘trained’ police had to shoot these dogs a total of 10 times, how many times would it take a lesser trained citizen? Furthermore, what if said citizen were only allowed to have a seven-round mag?” A law-abiding citizen restricted to seven rounds? As if! Oh wait . . .

This is the same story we keep hearing over and over again. Cops hears about Defense Distributed’s Liberator, test it out for themselves, and watch as any last shred of hope of being able to control the proliferation of firearms disintegrates. It’s something that supporters of the Second Amendment are loving, but gives police state advocates nightmares. The latest example comes from the former prison colony of Australia . . .

From The Age:

From 16 parts it only took police 27 hours to build the guns. Despite the how-to guide being removed from the web earlier this month at the request of the US government, it has already been downloaded 100,000 times across the world and remains available on file-sharing networks.

“Make no mistake they will kill at both ends,” Mr Scipione said.

“It is an offence to make, an offence to possess and an offence to use,” he said.

Yeah, their gun blew up. But I get the distinct impression they wanted it to blow, and did everything in their power to make it do so. As they said in the article, everything about this gun is already illegal in Australia. But there’s not a single damned thing keeping every Aussie with a 3D printer from cranking them out 24/7. So the only thing they have left is fear, trying to scare Ozzies away from making them.

The Tarkin doctrine has never worked. The tighter your grip, the more star systems will fall through your fingers. But it isn’t going to keep them from trying.

As I have said before, the Liberator design is not the end-all, be-all of 3D printed firearms design. It’s just a baby step. The original design has already been modified and remixed for increased durability and reliability. But that’s not something that the older generation understands. But it’s just beginning to dawn on them that it represents the destruction of the last hurdle that’s keeping every person in the world from owning a gun. Maybe not this specific gun, but the designs that it will inspire.

“How many gun rights activists does it take to change a light bulb? 301. 100 to blame the burned out bulb on a gun-free zone; 100 to call the replacement a threat to their constitutional rights, 100 to post prepper remarks about Hitler and the ATF and 1 to change a light bulb.” And there you have it. Martha Rosenberg’s opening salvo in opednews.com‘s Gun “Carry” Extremists Causing Accidents. Clearly, Ms. Rosenberg has nothing but contempt for those who work to defend and extend Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. What’s up with that? For one thing it’s good for her career . . .

Google tells us that the self-proclaimed “health reporter” has found favor as an anti-gun propagandist. The huffingtonpost.com has publisher her rants. The equally anti-gun Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Los Angeles Times, Providence Journal and Newsday have disseminated Rosenberg’s anti-pistol polemics.

That said, some of Rosenberg’s gun control editorials are too vitriolic for the mainstream media. Her anti-NRA rants and repeated calls for a national boycott of any “gun-friendly” business (via the National Gun Victims Action Council’s “Tell and Compel” campaign) are only found in the more obscure corners of the Progressive media machine.

Truth be told, Rosenberg is a anti-gun extremist. Ironic, no?

Anyone who covers the gun debate gets a volume of threatening and repetitive emails that seem like they are written by one person with 12,000 different signatures. Passionate and inchoate, the writer is both a “tough guy” not to be messed with and a victim whose “rights” are being violated. Make up your mind!

Rosenberg is stuck in an anti-gun animosity loop. The more aggressive her stance on gun control, the more aggressive the pushback, the more she becomes convinced that gun rights advocates are extremists, the more aggressive her stance.

This leads her to lump all her antagonists into one, dismissing their arguments as “half-formed” and illogical. Rosenberg pays them no heed—even as she rattles their cage. Switching metaphors, she loves the heat but avoids the light.

[The gun rights advocates] is terrified of gun grabbers and the government who want to disarm him. (Psychology books have a lot to say about that.)  He is terrified of “bad guys” even though he is in a rural or suburban setting that is virtually crime-free. He is a classic bully with a high fear level that only subsides when he acts fierce and makes others scared. He only feels safe if he can “carry” everywhere and becomes enraged at places that ban guns. He has a huge amount of time on his hands to “defend” gun rights and seems to lack a day job.

Speaking of Psych 101, file Rosenberg’s splenetic splendor under “projection.” Drilling down, there’s a theme running through her kvetch: fear. She believes gun rights advocates are motivated by fear. Just as she is. But there’s a difference between gun grabbers’ and gun rights advocates’ fear.

Gun owners manage their fear of criminal violence or tyrannical government by, wait for it, owning a gun. By taking personal responsibility for their own protection, they gain a sense of control. Contrary to Rosenberg’s thesis, gun ownership has a calming, civilizing effect.

Contrast that with gun grabbers’ fears. They’re oblivious to government tyranny—the single greatest cause of homicide the world has ever seen. They’re also blind to the possibility of firearms-related violence in their safe suburban or highly policed urban enclaves. And yet they’re deathly afraid of guns. Specifically, firearms freedom.

For gun grabbers, firearms represent chaos. Disorder. Moral disintegration. They are the literal embodiment of their fear that society won’t make progress towards, well, anything. How could it when individuals hold the power of life or death? Power over intellectually superior members of society like, gulp, them? People who chart the course of socio-political evolution over a skinny latte at Starbucks.

Starbucks! Where firearms accidents happen! Now that’s scary.

How do women carrying guns in their purses like cell phones “protect” themselves? How does such universal “protection” not cause accidents? Why does Starbucks allow armed people to stride in its stores with carry permits or without, as the case with the two women?

Starbucks has ignored pleas from customers and gun safety advocates to ban lethal weapons in its stores which is the right of property owners. And, in the height of  hypocrisy, it issued a statement following the Florida shooting which said, “At Tyrone Square Mall, our primary concern is always for the safety of our customers and store employees, and we are thankful that the injuries sustained are reported to be non-life threatening.” What?

Would a business whose “primary concern is always for the safety of our customers and store employees” allow lethal weapons on its premises.

Note: Rosenberg’s editorial ends without a question mark. For her, there is no question. Starbucks has allied itself with “them.” Ordinary people who cherish their gun rights. The fact that a Florida Starbucks was the scene of an armed robbery last year, with four perps, doesn’t figure. In fact, it makes her point.

Rosenberg believes civilian disarmament is the answer to “gun violence” and firearms-related stupidity. If that means creating a police state, well, as long as it’s her police state, that’s OK.

In truth, the world can never be the utopian gun-free paradise that Rosenberg envisions. Neither man’s nature nor the nature of government will allow it. An inherently precarious balance of power is as good as it gets. Maybe that lightbulb will go off over Rosenberg’s head someday. Probably not. When it comes right down to it, haters gotta hate.

“To hear Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly explain it, stop-and-frisk is a messy but invaluable tool used to keep weapons off the street. But an analysis of stops in 2012 confirms that the tactic is vastly more effective at generating marijuana arrests. The NYCLU [PDF] looked at last year’s 532,911 stops and found that while the NYPD recovered 729 guns, more than 5,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession. Indeed, marijuana was the top reason to be arrested during a stop in 2012, ahead of trespassing and criminal possession of a weapon.” – Christopher Robbins in Stop & Frisk Way Better at Finding Weed Than Guns [via gothamist.com]

That’s 200,000 active concealed carry permits in total since the Copper State started issuing on September 8, 1994. Obviously, those stats are not incendiary for The People of the Gun. But they’re like a red rag to a bull to the forces of civilian disarmament. In 2011, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership Violence rated Arizona second to last. (Rating system provided here, deconstructed here.) So the gun grabbers can’t be happy with those stats. Happily, it’s actually better/worse than that. In 2010, Arizona enacted Constitutional Carry (no permit required for state residents). So even though permit holders have privileges (e.g. restaurant carry), the actual number or Arizonans carrying could be even greater. And just so you know, Arizona has 6.5m residents, excluding undocumented inhabitants.

You may recall that Vice President Joe Biden’s Being Biden blog recently featured a letter from a third grader who expressed his wish that guns should fire chocolate bullets. Using scrawl that validates the theory that the Vice President is well along the path to senile dementia—and I’m only saying that because it’s true—Joe Biden replied that the chocolate ammo concept would make the world safer and people happier. I immediately contacted YouTube’s taofledermaus and urged him to put the idea to the test. To be fair, so did about a billion other people. Not that taofledermaus needed much motivation on the will it blend what weird sh*t can I shoot front. And so here it is: chocolate ammo fired from a shotgun. What does this prove? That Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut is by far the best chocolate bar in the known universe. Obviously.

You may recall yesterday post Trayvon Martin Was a Gun-Wielding Dope Smoking Delinquent Into Street Fighting. The Martin family attorneys have responded to the release of the deceased teen’s cell phone pictures and texts. Ben Crump issued the following statement:

“The only photos or videos that are relevant or admissible at trial are those of Trayvon taken the day he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. There is no evidence that Trayvon neither had gold teeth, nor gave anybody the finger the night he was shot and killed. Therefore, those pictures are irrelevant and will not be admitted into evidence . . .

“Is the defense trying to prove Trayvon deserved to be killed by George Zimmerman because [of] the way he looked? If so, this stereotypical and close-minded thinking is the same mindset that caused George Zimmerman to get out of his car and pursue Trayvon, an unarmed kid who he didn’t know. The pretrial release of these irrelevant red herrings is a desperate and pathetic attempt by the defense to pollute and sway the jury pool.

“The evidence that will be admitted at trial is the legally documented history of George Zimmerman’s propensity for violence, such as his arrest for battery on a law enforcement officer, his injunction to prevent domestic violence taken out by his ex-girlfriend, and evidence of his training as a bouncer for Data Whore Productions, Inc.”

Martin attorney Natalie Jackson was equally offended if slightly more pithy.

“The photo and documents released by George Zimmerman’s defense team today are irrelevant to his guilt or innocence. Their release was meant solely to prejudice a potential jury pool in the days leading up to the trial. As the Zimmerman defense knows, it is highly unlikely that any of these red herrings will even be admitted into evidence at trial.”

If the Martin family (and the prosecutor) think they can introduce evidence about George Zimnmerman’s character while blocking similar testimony or evidence about Mr. Martin’s character, they’re wrong. And they know it.

With the price of ammo on the rise and panic buyers still grabbing every last round they can get their grubby little hands on, practicing with an AR-15 has become an expensive endeavor. This has left a lot of people searching for an alternative means of getting in some trigger time without breaking the bank. At one time, a .22LR conversion kit was the answer, but cheap .22 ammo isn’t so cheap any more. And good luck finding it. Enter NextLevel Training’s, SIRT-AR Laser Bolt, a training device that replaces the AR-15′s bolt carrier group . . .

I have a lot of experience with the military’s MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) gear. When the ammo shortage developed into like mass hysteria, I began searching for something that would serve the same purpose as MILES without having to have a D0D-sized budget. And I was a bit surprised at the variety of designs that are out there.

There are several laser devices on the market that load into the chamber of your AR just like a cartridge and are activated by the firing pin striking a button on the back. That design is functional, but leads to a couple of problems. First, the hammer must be reset after each shot. Having to pull back the charging handle every time doesn’t really make for realistic training scenarios, unless you are practicing for a malfunction.

The second problem is the fact that a firing pin is designed to hit the metal primer of a live round hard enough to dent the small brass cup, thus initiating the primer and firing the round. Eventually, the laser device’s tiny switch is going to take more of a beating than it can handle and will have to be replaced.

There are still others gizmos that stick into the end of the barrel and are activated by the shock of the hammer striking the firing pin. They solve the durability problem, but the hammer still needs to be recocked after every shot.

The SIRT-AR solves both problems by taking the entire firing mechanism of the AR completely out of the equation. It’s a simple design, and the only laser training device for an AR-15 that allows the trigger to reset without cocking the rifle’s hammer. This simple feature makes the SIRT-AR capable of engaging multiple targets realistically, a necessity if you’re training to use your AR in a defensive role.

NextLevel has recently dropped the SIRT-AR’s price from $199 down to $139, so it won’t drain your wallet. With current prices on just about everything gun-related skyrocketing lately, it’s nice to see a company moving in the opposite direction and making their product more accessible. This tactic has apparently worked well for them. I had to wait through a backlog of orders for a couple of weeks before they could ship mine.

Initial installation of the SIRT-AR is a little tricky. The system consists of a plastic device that replaces the bolt carrier group, a small metal rod that serves as the link between the trigger and the SIRT-AR’s switch, and a small plastic guide for the rod with a magnet embedded to hold it into place.

The bolt is simple enough. Just remove the bolt carrier and charging handle, and slide the SIRT-AR bolt in. The tiny rod and guide, on the other hand, take some time to get into place. Since all AR lowers are not machined identically, the plastic guide may need to be trimmed to fit properly. To NLT’s credit, the instructions mention this and they included a second guide in the kit that will allow for installation in more than one rifle if the receivers differ.

My Palmetto State Armory lower was one of the offending lowers that needed a few minutes with a file and a knife to get the guide sitting straight. Once it was trimmed properly, though, the guide just drops into place and is held firmly by the magnet.

The metal push rod is also adjustable to get the proper length for your rifle’s trigger. It’s a trial and error process that can take a little time to get right. One word of caution: I discovered that the rod will work itself out of adjustment fairly quickly from vibration, but after a drop of Loc-tite on the threads, it hasn’t been a problem.

Once everything is installed and adjusted, the SIRT-AR has a fairly realistic trigger feel that’s similar to a mil-spec trigger. When the trigger is pulled, there’s a distinct break and the device emits a laser beam down the barrel that lasts a little less than a second.

The bolt has two small set screws that allow for the laser to be zeroed to your sights or optics and included the proper Allen key for the job. The screws can be accessed through the ejection port and the magazine well, so it can be done while everything is installed.

Once I had it installed and zeroed, I set about using my house as the primary testing grounds. I have to admit that while the SIRT-AR was designed as a serious training device, I haven’t had this much fun with a gun-related accessory ever.

First of all, I could finally run through all of those home defense targeting scenarios that were only possible before with the gun unloaded. After growing bored with reliving my military urban ops training, it didn’t take long before everything in the house became a target. The TV became a continually changing shooting gallery, and the hallway was turned ito my personal shooting range.

The little green dot dancing all over the house soon had the cat in full on freakout mode, and I couldn’t resist taking full advantage of a live moving target! This earned me a few dirty looks from the wife. Luckily, she was out of the room when I used her porcelain doll collection to practice double-tap head shots.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Before I got into any more trouble, I moved operations outdoors. The green laser was plenty powerful enough for daytime use in direct sunlight. It was still easily visible at the limits of my average sized suburban back yard. As the sun went down, the bright green laser lit up the moisture in the air for an effect not unlike shooting tracer ammunition.

For those who own a LaserLyte target system, there’s also a red laser version of the SIRT-AR that is compatible.

Battery life was excellent. Rather than tiny button cells that don’t last long and are difficult to find, the SIRT-AR uses a single CR123A lithium battery. I came nowhere near draining the battery, even after a few thousand shots during this test.

I do have a couple of minor complaints about the SIRT-AR. First and foremost, it wasn’t designed to work with the charging handle in place. I’m a nose to the charging handle AR shooter. That’s the way I was trained in the military and old habits die hard. Without the handle being there, I had to concentrate on getting the gun properly positioned more than normal to maintain the sight picture as if it were there. Would it really have been that difficult to mold in a recess for it to remain in place?

My other gripe is the plastic housing of the bolt itself. It’s seems fairly fragile. True enough, it’s installed inside the rifle and is well protected, but it just doesn’t feel like it’s tough enough to handle any real abuse.

Aside from those minor points – and they really are minor – the SIRT-AR is a great training device for the AR owner who wants to use their gun for more than just punching holes in static paper targets or just doesn’t want to deplete their precious ammo supply until it becomes plentiful again.

Now, where did that cat go? Here kitty, kitty…

Price: $139

Ratings (out of five stars):

Design: * * * * 
Simple and effective, it loses a star for not being able to leave the charging handle in place. I’m sure there was a reason for this, but I find it an annoyance.

Construction * * *
The plastic housing leaves a little to be desired. Either a tougher polymer or an aluminum sleeve would make a world of difference.

Versatility * * * * *
The SIRT-AR is adaptable to pretty much any AR platform weapon. The availability of both red and green laser models allows for use with laser sensitive targets or outdoor use in bright sun.

Value * * * * *
The training value alone from this device by far outweighs its shortcomings. The fun factor is a major bonus and pushes this category over the top.

Overall * * * * ½ 
The SIRT-AR Laser Training Bolt is a great training tool for the AR platform. Minor complaints aside, it really is the best solution I’ve seen for shooting laser beams down the barrel of your AR-15.

Yep, all is proceeding as John Boch has foreseen. So far, anyway. The latest iteration of a concealed carry bill in the Land of Lincoln, one designed by Speaker Madigan to split the baby between Chicago and downstate interests, passed today with an overwhelming majority in the House. It only needed 71 votes but drew 85. As John points out, the “historic” bill was opposed by Mayor Rahm and Governor Sockpuppet Quinn, which seems to be a good indication it will be, on balance, something RKBAers can live with, if not love. For now. Next up: the Senate, a probable veto and override votes. Watch this space.

“The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office says two suspects armed with a handgun and an axe invaded a house in Firebaugh near Fresno in the middle of the night Saturday intending to rob the home,” mercurynews.com reports. “The suspects, 34-year-old Aaron Baeza and 30-year-old Christopher Rupe, tied up the homeowner and his girlfriend and demanded money. They later freed the man to allow him to look for the cash. The homeowner then stabbed and killed Baeza with his samurai sword.” We’re a firearms website but it must be said: adapt, improvise, overcome. In other words, use what you got.

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.”

“Significant advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printer files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public safety risks from unqualified gun seekers who obtain or manufacture 3D printed guns.” That’s the warning in a May 21 bulletin distributed to numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies by the Department of Homeland Security’s Joint Regional Intelligence Center, as revealed by foxnews.com. Unqualified? Defined by who, exactly? Anyway, the DHS is Chicken Little-ing Cody Wilson’s DefCad 3-D printable gun by trotting-out ye olde undetectable plastic gun schtick. In a section called “Liberator design poses Public Safety Risks,” the bulletin explains . . .

“Magnetometers may fail to detect the Liberator, depending on device sensitivity. Though it is prohibited by federal law, manufacturers may deliberately omit the unnecessary metal insert, leaving only a small nail and ammunition as the sole metal component. Future designs could further reduce or eliminate metal entirely.

“Unqualified gun seekers may be able to acquire or manufacture their own Liberators with no background checks.”

I think they mean “without any.” And here’s news: the Department of Homeland Security memo admits you can’t stop the signal.

“Proposed legislation to ban 3D printing of weapons may deter, but cannot completely prevent their production,” the memo says. “Even if the practice is prohibited by new legislation, online distribution of these digital files will be as difficult to control as any other illegally traded music, movie or software files.”

Which means . . . more secret government surveillance? Count on it. Meanwhile, again, I’d like to point out that “unqualified gun seekers” (UGS) have no problem obtaining firearms at the moment. As far as terrorists smuggling guns through current security devices, I guess our guardians will have to be more thorough and, perhaps, consider the person rather than the thing.

By Jeremy S.

Summer’s coming this weekend. You know what that means. Shorts. T-shirts. Lighter clothes. And concealment issues. The time of year when even the most ardent caliber warriors make compromises. If you’re in the market for something smaller and lighter than your usual 1911 carry piece, you need to check out the Taurus PT 738 TCP. No, it’s not the first .380 ultra-compact that comes to mind. But despite being on the very bottom end of the MSRP scale of pocket .380 mouse guns – with a price ranging from $200 to $249 – it’s at the top end of the scale for reliability and quality. A Taurus? Yes, a Taurus . . .

My local range rents basically all of the .380 micro compact pistols on the market – Kahr, Diamondback, S&W, Kel-Tec, SIG, Ruger, AMT, Magnum Research, Colt, etc., etc. They’re popular rentals and popular sellers. Some of them have been trashed and replaced with new ones due to extreme wear and breakages. One had gone back to the factory a dozen times for repairs and had also been fixed in-house at least as many times before they just trashed it. In fact, they’re on their third example of that same gun and the same parts continue to break every thousand rounds or so (and weird parts, like the trigger return spring).

I’m telling you this because they tell me the TCP is the most reliable pocket .380 in their rental case. Their renter has over 10,000 rounds through it with no breakages. None of the other contenders can claim that. The SIG P238 is, however, a close runner up (one in-house repair). The Ruger LCP, known as a stout little gun, comes in third (with a warranty trip or two). But the others don’t seem to like high round counts and rental-type abuse.

Obviously that kind of feedback is great and it bodes well for the little pistol. That said, I wasn’t actually in the market for another carry gun, and I had basically chosen never to carry a gun in a caliber smaller than 9×19. After all, I can comfortably and properly conceal my Beretta Nano under just a light t-shirt and have been doing so almost every day for the past year. So why go .380?

I didn’t. Well, not to carry. Not on purpose. I bought the TCP just to do some .380 ACP ammo testing. However, the day after I brought it home I went out on a long bike ride with some family on a hot day. The Nano wasn’t going to work IWB under any shirt I wanted to wear, not hunched over the handlebars. While it would fit in the front pocket of the shorts I was going to wear, it wouldn’t be comfortable after 40 miles on a bike. And arrying it off my person wasn’t an option.

So…the TCP went in a Sticky Holster and into my front pocket (Yes, untested. You can yell at me about that later.) and, I’ll be darned, it was like it wasn’t there. Just 10.2 ounces of gun weight plus a few .380 rounds is nothing. And its scant 0.87” width and 3.75” height (with magazine) fits in just about any pocket with room to spare. I have since carried it all day long about six times. IWB, in a front pocket, or in a cargo pocket; it definitely gets an A+ for concealability and ease of carry.

Three main things clinched the Taurus over its competitors as my tiny .380 of choice: price, a slide lock and an excellent trigger. Most pistols in this category don’t lock back after the last round is fired. Nor do they have a manual slide lock. Check and check for the Taurus.

Most pistols in this category have extremely heavy, often gritty, stagey triggers. The PT 738 has an absolutely amazingly smooth trigger, measuring just a hair over four pounds on my example. The pull is long, but it’s super smooth with only a little bit of pre-travel and a nice, tactile and audible reset. Taurus says the gun is double-action only, however the slide must reciprocate in order to reset the trigger.

Also of note: the pistol is hammer fired. The hammer is hidden from fingers, but visible in the frame under a channel in the slide. The pistol has a loaded chamber indicator – a small blade that sticks out of the right side above the extractor – and the Taurus Security System, which allows the gun to be rendered inoperable by turning a security bolt with a special tool. No thumb safety or trigger safety.

Fit and finish is every bit as good as the competitors’ offerings. One detail that might help with the TCP’s reliability (and likely with accuracy as well) is its near-full-length metal guide rails rather than small inserts as you might expect.

After 50 rounds of Blazer Aluminum, 50 rounds of Blazer Brass, and 4 rounds of Buffalo Bore .380 +P loaded with the Barnes TAC-XP 80 grain bullets later, I can report 100% reliability in every way. Despite extremely small sights, which are machined into the slide and therefore not adjustable, I was more than sufficiently accurate with the TCP especially at the distances the guns intended for. The front sight will certainly be getting a dab of white paint to make it more visible, though, as I chalk up most of my misses to not seeing it properly.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recoil is, as you’d expect, stout. Even a .380 cartridge can push a 10.2 ounce gun around and a lack of surface area on the grip doesn’t help. Because it’s as svelte as Alessandra Ambrosio at the beach, your hand doesn’t really contact the side of the grip under your palm very much – mostly just the front and back. In the first couple dozen rounds, I found the gun was actually rotating in my grip from the recoil. A little tweak of my grip – squeezing harder with my support hand – fixed that right up.

Possibly my only nitpick on the gun is the corners of the slide lock are sharp, and that’s right where my thumb wanted to be. This was…uh… kind of “pokey” during recoil and it was fixed by lowering my strong hand thumb right into the oh-so-convenient thumb relief that’s molded into the frame. Who would have guessed?

With a street price of about $225 for this base model, high quality extra mags available for about $22, good looks, ease of carry, nice features like a slide lock and great trigger, a lifetime warranty and build quality capable of exceeding 10,000 rounds without a failure, I definitely think that Taurus has a winner on its hands here. Oh, did I mention it’s actually made in the U.S.A.?

Specifications:

Caliber: .380 ACP
Capacity: 6+1
Barrel Length: 2.84”
Overall Length: 5.2”
Width: 0.87”
Height: 3.75” (w/ standard magazine)
Weight: 10.2 oz
Sights: Fixed
MSRP: $249 (blued steel slide) or $362 (stainless steel slide, either matte or blued)

Ratings (out of five stars):

Accuracy: * * * *
Micro sights don’t help, but the gun shoots straight. It was better than minute-of-bad-guy rapid firing off-hand at 12 yards.

Ergonomics: * * *
A pinky extension would help with control, but the gun feels comfortable in the hand and is easy to manipulate. The thin grip (which is also a selling point) and the sharp slide lock knock it down a star.

Reliability: * * * * *
Yes, I only have 104 rounds through mine. However, I know and trust the owner of my local range and fully believe that they have 10,000+ problem-free rounds through their TCP.

Concealability: * * * * *
Doesn’t get much better.

Customize This: * *
Pinky extensions for the mags, grip tape for the frame, at least one laser, quite a few holster options…that may be it. Certainly no new sights.

Value: * * * * *
Solid features, lifetime warranty, free 1-year NRA membership (or 1-year extension), and an average sale price of about $225. Hard to beat for a reliable, nice little gun.

Overall: * * * * *
In the .380 mouse gun category, the Taurus PT 738 TCP beats most on function, many on looks, and nearly all on price. It’s a lot of little gun for the money.

Pro-gun control pols are hypocrites. They’re perfectly happy to pass laws that make it difficult if not impossible for law-abiding Americans to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms yet they, personally, have armed guards. In many cases, the politicians intent on disarming civilians are protected by a taxpayer-funded police detail. That’s bad enough. To my mind, this is worse: “State lawmakers are trying to carve out a loophole for retired cops in the sweeping state gun control law that Gov. Cuomo has touted as the toughest in the nation.” I don’t think “toughest” means what the New York Daily News thinks it means. But I do think the word “outrage” covers this. Take your BP meds and steel yourself for the deets . . .

A bill approved by the state Assembly Thursday would allow retired police officers to keep assault weapons and high-capacity magazines they purchased during their time on the force.

“They are going to have what they retired with, what they trained on,” said Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Brooklyn), who sponsored the bill.

Lentol said the bill — which was approved by a 96-15 vote — simply corrects an “oversight” in Cuomo’s original gun law that failed to account for retired cops and federal law enforcement officers, who, despite no longer serving, often take action during a crisis.

“We put this bill forward in order to make sure retired police officers have the firepower they need in the situations where it is necessary,” Lentol said.

To which the only possible response is: FOAD. This political hack reckons it’s OK for retired cops to have “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines” for self-defense but not law-abiding American citizens?

Did I wake-up in Communist East Germany this morning? What possible excuse could a democratically elected official in a Constitutional republic possibly provide for this “four legs good, two legs bad” elitism regarding a fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution, to which Mr. Lentol swore an oath?

Need more hypocrisy? How about this: Empire State gun control advocates are OK with retired cops keeping and bearing “assault rifles” and “high-capacity magazines.” Not to mention loading more than seven rounds in a ten-round magazine (which residents are prohibited from doing).

Cuomo has not yet weighed in on the bill. His office said he is reviewing it but the state’s gun control advocates do not object.

“Law enforcement personnel are trained in the use of firearms,” said Leah Gunn Barrett, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. “I don’t think it is going to weaken the intent of the law at all.”

The intent being to disarm American citizens—but not a protected class of citizenry. Remembering that cops are civilians, too. Gun rights advocates are understandably apoplectic. Well, I’m apoplectic. Tom King is resolute.

“When you retire from being a police officer you are just an ordinary citizen,” said Tom King of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, which has already filed a federal lawsuit against Cuomo’s law.

“There are just as many normal, everyday gun owners who have just as much training as many of these police officers do,” King said.

Which is completely besides the ‘effing point. It’s not about competency. It’s about exercising an uninfringed right to keep and bear arms. A pox on these politicians houses, the police who support them and all those who kowtow to their tyranny, knowingly or unknowingly. Now give me my damn coffee. I’ve got work to do.

One of the back door ways the Gun Control Industrial Complex brain trust came up with for disarming law abiding gun owners was via the EPA. Most bullets are…what? Lead. Which can be toxic. Bingo! When a group of “environmental organizations” petitioned the EPA to unilaterally regulate ammo, the EPA decided not to touch that hot potato. So a sub-group sued the regulators last July demanding they ban all ammunition containing lead. Today, however, the DC District Court threw that suit out. Here’s the NSSF’s wonderfully schadenfreude-laden press release . . .

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today dismissed a lawsuit brought by the radical anti-hunting Center for Biological Diversity and six other groups demanding the Environmental Protection Agency ban traditional ammunition containing lead components.

Traditional ammunition represents 95 percent of the U.S. market and is the staple ammunition for target shooters, hunters and law enforcement, with more than 10 billion rounds sold annually.

NSSF filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit last August. The court today agreed with NSSF that EPA does not have the authority to regulate traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

EPA had already twice denied attempts by CBD to have the agency ban traditional ammunition, and the court had dismissed an earlier case brought by CBD seeking the same relief.

“We are gratified that the court has found this second frivolous lawsuit, which is essentially the same as the one dismissed last year, was equally without merit,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. “This was a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and EPA resources spent in having to defend a baseless lawsuit.”

CBD’s serial petitioning of EPA and its repeated lawsuits were designed to cripple the shooting sports in America by banning the ammunition that millions of hunters and target shooters choose to use safely and responsibly.

“There is quite simply no sound science that shows the use of traditional ammunition has harmed wildlife populations or that it presents a health risk to humans who consume game taken with such ammunition,” said Keane. “Banning traditional ammunition would cost tens of thousands of jobs in America and destroy wildlife conservation that is funded in part by an 11 percent excise tax on the sale of ammunition. The protection and management of wildlife is properly handled by the professional biologists in the state fish and game agencies, as it has been for over a hundred years.

In addition to NSSF, the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International and the Association of Battery Recyclers intervened in the case.

Organizations that joined CBD in its lawsuit were the Cascades Raptor Center of Oregon, the Loon Lake Loon Association of Washington, Preserve Our Wildlife of Florida, Tennessee Ornithological Society, Trumpeter Swan Society and Western Nebraska Resources Council.

NSSF was represented by Roger Martella and Christopher Bell from Sidley Austin.

“Rather than attempting to resurrect a nineteenth century notion that Congress cannot regulate goods wholly within a state – as the California plaintiffs did in the marijuana case, and Kansas’s Second Amendment Protection Act would do – what we should be asking is whether Congress has the power to drive products out of the market altogether. Or whether that is a choice each state can make for itself. To the extent Congress is regulating to ensure a safe and wide-open interstate market, that’s fine. To the extent Congress is making value judgments about what is or is not good for us, that’s not its job – at least not so long as the states disagree.” – Barry Friedman in Guns, Pot and States Rights [via huffingtonpost.com]

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.

For those of you who wonder why I’m fundamentally antagonistic towards LEOs (and can’t play a Flash video on your smart phone) the video above features a squad of Maine State cops telling the world that Pine Tree State residents shouldn’t be able to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms (concealed) without their approval. Do they even know their objections violate their Constitutional oath and disrespects all those who sacrificed to protect our rights? In other words, they’re either ignorant bastards or self-serving sanctimonious pricks. Just sayin’ . . .

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!

“Philadelphia police have released surveillance video of a man shooting up a strip club with an assault rifle,” abclocal.go.com reports. Only no, no they haven’t. That would be an AK pistol. And if you thought firearms terminology is a slippery customer, check out 21-year-old Henry Pettigrew’s fancy footwork as he is seen “firing wildly” (they got that bit right) inside the Purple Orchid Gentleman’s Club. Yup, the Philly po-po have ID’ed the shooter. And how. “Henry Pettigrew is described as a black male standing 5’11″ tall, weighing 180 pounds. He also has a thin beard. Pettigrew’s last known address is in the 5500 block of Belmar Terrace.” No word yet whether the Philadelphia police have officially ditched their .40′s for .45′s to up their stopping power (in theory). FYI.

We all know Mosin-Nagants are cheap and powerful. They’re also fairly ugly, not terribly comfortable, and only hold five rounds. ProMag’s new Archangel stock can remedy those issues and turn your battered old mil-surp boomstick into a fancy M44 scout rifle or 91/30 sniper ‘stick’ . . .

The Archangel stock fits the fireball-spitting M44 shown here, as well as the longer 91/30 below. Detachable magazines go a long way to solving the Mosin’s firepower problems, and extra 5- and 10-round mags are available. If your Mosin shoots best with a corked barrel, the Archangel stock even has a barrel tension screw to keep it happy.

I know there are better sniper rifles out there, but remember that Finland used modified Mosin-Nagants as their military sniper rifles into the 1980s. And if the old Nagant was good enough for Vasiliy Zaitsev, it should be good enough for most of us mere mortals.

There will be many who question the wisdom of putting a $200 stock on what was originally a $90 rifle, but if a stock like this works as advertised, it could breathe new utility into some lonely old rifles. Is a restocked $300 Mosin a better rifle than a box-stock $350 Ruger American Rifle? Probably not, but 7.62x54R ammo is incredibly cheap. You might have a lot more fun with that $300 Mosin after all, because you’ll never find 440 rounds of Ruger fodder for ninety bucks.

And you’ll never buy Rugers by the crate for $2500, and every time an old mil-surp rifle goes shooting, an angel gets its wings.

Click here for more info from ProMag.

The more I do this job the more I believe open carry is the litmus test for gun rights. Sure, it’s tactically inadvisable. And yes, it scares firearms-averse citizens into full-blown hoplophobia. But any society that forces citizens to hide the free exercise of a natural, civil and Constitutional right is a society where that right is in danger. Besides, Sheriff Mink has it exactly backwards. The fact that there are “emotionally overwrought” people in court makes it even more important to be able to carry a gun openly than in other locations. Mink claims he has an obligation to “limit disruptions” when taxpayers exercise their Second Amendment. It’s all about efficiency? Bullshit. Colorado’s descent into slave state status continues apace.

“George Zimmerman’s defense attorneys on Thursday released photos and text messages from 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s cellphone ahead of a hearing that will determine whether they can be used at Zimmerman’s murder trial,” foxnews.com reports. “The photos show Martin blowing smoke and extending his middle finger to the camera. The photos also show [Martin holding] a gun and what appears to be a potted marijuana plant. In the text messages, Martin tells a friend that his mother has told him he needs to move out of her house and move in with his father since he was caught skipping school.” More importantly, lawyer Mark O’Mara told Fox’s Megyn Kelly that the texts reveal that Martin was into street fighting. The deceased teen promised to go back and continue a previous battle. Zimmerman’s chances of acquittal just went up. The possibility of rioting, too. Make the jump for a just-released photo of Zimmerman’s head injuries . . .

As a mobster might put it, Ronald Reagan was not a friend of ours. As California’s Governor, Ronnie curtailed gun rights. As President, he elevated the ATF to full agency status and supported the Brady Bill. Still, the Gipper knew how government thinks: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” In other words, they get you coming and going. We can see this all-embracing ethos in the current push for civilian disarmament. Specifically, surcharges. In its recent package of gun ban bills, Connecticut added a $35 per person fee for mandatory “eligibility certificates to purchase guns and ammo.” Not to be outdone on the tax side, California is working on adding to the cost of ammo . . .

The California Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee recently approved a new measure that places a 10 percent tax on all ammunition sold in California. Law enforcement agencies will be exempt from the tax.

The Board of Equalization estimates that the new tax will generate $92.4 million in annual revenues.

Democratic Assemblymen Rob Bonta and Roger Dickinson, who both support the bill, hope to use the new revenue to help cities that are plagued with gun violence. Bonta explained, “Cities throughout the state, including Oakland, are suffering horrific and increasing gun violence. AB 187 will provide the City of Oakland, and cities in similar circumstances, with sufficient street-level public safety presence to prevent gun violence and attend to it when it does occur.”

The 10 percent ammo sales tax would include gun show sales. But wait! This could well be a tax on a tax. Dickinson’s other bill on the matter(AB 760) would impose a five cent tax on every round of ammunition sold in California. As opposingviews.com points out, “ironically, the tax would be more expensive than the actual bullets.”

Ironic is one word for it. I bet you guys can think of some others. Anyway, a “tax bullets” measure failed in Illinois. What’s the bet it’ll make it through the legislature in America’s western-most slave state?

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.

My mother used to drag my father into some of the world’s most expensive stores. She’d point out how ugly something was (my Mom has impeccable taste). “At least it’s expensive,” my father would pronounce. That’s how it is with gun control. Not only is civilian disarmament ugly—in terms of trampling on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms—it’s also an enormous waste of taxpayer money. To wit this little gem from Connecticut’s stamfordadvocate.com: “State police are seeking 39 additional workers — at a cost of $2.6 million — to handle an avalanche of new duties brought on by gun laws passed after the Newtown school massacre.” Pah! That’s a drop in the bucket. The real cost of the Constitution State’s unconstitutional gun laws is .  . .

. . . the Office of Fiscal Analysis estimated the legislation would cost up to $17 million through the 2015 fiscal year, including more than $4 million for state police.

And we all know how good the government is at estimating costs. Come what may (i.e. a doubling from original estimates) gun owners and tax payers (and especially tax-paying gun owners) are on the hook for Connecticut’s feel-good security theater gun control.

Some of the cost of the gun bill will be defrayed by $35 fees for eligibility certificates to purchase guns and ammo, but the remainder will ultimately be borne by taxpayers . . .

Taxpayers would cover most of the $1.9 million in wages and $700,000 in fringe benefits needed to pay civilian employees to process paperwork for background checks, gun registries and permits established under the nation’s toughest gun legislation.

I don’t think the word “tough” means what the Advocate thinks it means. I’m thinking tough means unconstitutional, expensive and burdensome.

Administrators recently told a legislative committee that as of the end of last year state police had 1,000 gun transactions to log into its system. That number has now swelled to 62,000.

There are also 2,720 sets of fingerprints to be processed for pistol permits, along with 9,326 applications.

Which doesn’t include the new requirements for ammunition purchase. Can’t wait to see what that’s doing to the system. Meanwhile, here’s a heads-up from a reader named Brad in Maryland where legislators also “got tough” on legal gun ownership . . .

Have you guys been following what is pretty much infringement on 2nd Amendment rights in Maryland with respect to the background check process? Even now, before the dreaded new “Gun Safety” bill goes into affect on Oct 1st, the waiting period is horrendous. People getting the “Not Disapproved” back from the MD State Police has bee averaging about 70 days. The MDS has stated that it takes them a week to get through 1 day’s worth of applications.

Should these and other slave state wise-up and roll-back their gun control regulations, or should they be forced to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court, the bloated bureaucracy created by these laws will be a lasting legacy, and an ongoing threat to personal liberty. In case you didn’t know.

A reader writes:

As all those in the gun business are aware Square has blown off all gun-related sales. For those of you who have been looking for another payment services provider, don’t waste your time with QuickBooks. After waiting two weeks I got a call from a representative. She said they need three more items. 1. My website address 2. An explanation why my business address is the same as my home address and 3. A promise that “all firearms and ammo” [which I don't sell] will be performed “face-to-face.” My comment to them: it’s nice to see that QuickBooks knows nothing about the interstate shipment of firearms. I thanked them for wasting two weeks of my time and hung up. Guess I’ll be checking out Frontline Processing. Report to follow.

Louis Ringe
Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Armorer (Retired)
F&W Guns
Hudson Oaks, TX

As the Centennial State counts down toward governor Governor Hickenlooper’s foolish, unconstitutional and ineffectual ban on normal-capacity magazines, I brought one of my own beloved PMAGs back to its Boulder birthplace for one last photo op. Here it is, standing tall before the iconic Flatirons. For now. But soon . . .

On July first, my Magpul PMAG will become an exile. When Colorado’s magazine-ban bill goes into effect, the PMAG becomes magazinus non gratis.  Unless, that is, the state’s 54 Sheriffs succeed in their lawsuit to block it.

Boulder has always been one of the most leftist enclaves in the United States. But it used to be an item of pride that Boulder’s prized ‘diversity’ was broad enough to welcome Beat poet Alan Ginsburg, an accredited Buddhist college, the do-it-yourself anarchist Paladin Press and Bob Brown’s Soldier Of Fortune magazine, all at the same time.

I grew up in the People’s Republic. These days I find the thin mountain air to be stuffy and suffocating with the stench of socialism and civilian disarmament. Hell, you can’t even carry a Swiss Army Knife within the city limits these days. Not that it necessarily stopped me.

I wonder if the new law will stop Colorado residents from fully exercising their natural, civil and Constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear PMAGs. Or if PMAGgeddon is on the way.

“I don’t trust the government to do the right thing anymore.” – Retired factory worker James R. Colloca quoted in Hundreds of protesters call to repeal tough New York gun law [via foxnews.com]

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.

When I heard about the latest attempt at a concealed carry bill to bubble up in the Illinois legislature this afternoon (the 396th attempt, I think) I went to someone who I knew would be plugged into the situation: John Boch of Guns Save Life. And what do you know…he’d just put his thoughts up at gunssavelife.com:

“Here’s the situation. There is no June 9th cliff. We don’t have enough votes willing to go over the cliff. We do have the latest bill submitted by Brandon Phelps. Put your drink down and take a deep breath. In fact, you might want to pour yourself about three fingers of your favorite beverage and get a good start on it before reading further. I’ll wait . . .

You’re back. Good. Here’s where we are:

The Speaker of the House has blessed this latest submission by Brandon Phelps for the People of the State of Illinois.

HERE IT IS:  AMENDMENT TO SB 2193.

I haven’t even read it carefully yet, but from what I’ve seen it sucks. In fact, I believe I expressed an expletive or three upon scanning it. A $150 application fee – $300 for non-residents. Sixteen hours of training. Class B misdemeanors for prohibited locations first time. Goofy panels. An even LONGER list of prohibited locations.

However . . . It also has across the board pre-emption on all local firearm regulations and restrictions.

Chicago’s gun registration regime?  Gone.

Chicago’s ban on mags, lasers, etc.?  Buh bye.

Cook County’s black gun ban?  History.

Local “safe storage” ordinances? Into the dustbin of history.

It also means we only need a simple majority to tweak it in coming years, not a 3/5ths majority.Why am I writing like I’m trying to sell you this fecal sandwich? Because the alternative, as one downstate Democrat described it to  me, was a combination of the House Bill that Chicago introduced  that got a whopping 31 votes and Kwame’s proposal in the Senate  that hasn’t gotten any votes yet, but is may issue without any sort of pre-emption.

In short, the Speaker offered this proposal that Brandon is offering as an effort to split the baby. On one side he had downstate Democrats saying they are getting pounded by constituents for a shall-issue right-to-carry bill. On the other side, he’s got Rahm and the Chicago Democrats throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the legislature to pass gun control like we’ve never seen.

Madigan knows if either side gets a clean win, it’ll be a bloodbath either in Chicago or downstate. So he’s splitting the baby. He’s giving some red-meat to downstate voters to salvage some downstate Democrats their jobs in part because of some very unpopular votes to come (can you say gay marriage and so-called “medical” marijuana).

And he’s giving Chicago Democrats some of what they wanted in terms of no guns in parks, public transportation and a host of other prohibited locations.

“What if we decline?” I asked one source. He didn’t laugh. He was dead serious.

If we decline his offer, he’s going to stuff a may issue law up our rear ends, without any lube, and move on. He’s done “playing around” on the issue and will let the chips fall where they may as there are bigger issues in Illinois (see above list).

So, folks, that’s where we are. There’s no cliff. Too many politicians have gone squishy and don’t want to run over it. It’s this or another ten years of legal wrangling to undo

whatever else we can get done here and now. And the bright spot is we will only need 60 votes to tweak this in the future if the governor’s copacetic.

Didn’t we get screwed once before? Yes, we did. Again, the Speaker (not sure why I’m capitalizing as he doesn’t deserve the respect) has blessed this “compromise” and told the Democratic caucus that he plans on moving it forward and expects to it to pass. Madigan also expects the Governor will veto the bill and he’s planning on over-riding that veto.

There you go.”

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.

“British Prime Minister David Cameron. who cut short a visit to Paris to return to London, called the attack ‘truly shocking’ and said there are ‘strong indications’ that a brutal attack in London is terror-related.” Really? Wonder what give him his first clue. “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” quoth the man with the bloody hands, knife and cleaver into the camera of a passerby after hacking a British soldier to death in broad daylight. Both suspects were subsequently shot by police. In the unarmed utopia once known as the Land of Hope and Glory.

In his post-Newtown press conference, NRA Veep Wayne LaPierre tried to deflect attention away from Adam Lanza’s Bushmaster AR-15. LaPierre criticized society for fostering homicidal urges through violent movies and videogames. “Isn’t fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?” TTAG pointed out the lunacy of this strategy. If nothing else, firearms-intensive movies and video games are to gun culture 2.0 what Pamela Anderson was to California tourism. Forbes magazine exposes the folly of Wayne’s world with The NRA’s Amazing Hypocrisy About Hollywood Gun Violence. Turns out the editors of the NRA’s American Rifleman didn’t get the memo about cultural culpability . . .

American Rifleman just came out with its list of the 10 “coolest gun movies” ever. They include The Terminator, admired for how “Arnold Schwarzenegger played an advanced killing machine that is almost completely unstoppable,” and The Godfather, which “affected millions in many different ways with its cinematography, plot and underlying themes, such as how with determination anyone can become powerful, even if that power is of the criminal nature.” . . .

So now the NRA is praising, among other things, a movie hero who’s an “almost unstoppable” “killing machine,” a career in criminality, and making a shootout a dance with great music. Talking Points Memo’s Hunter Walker writes that “TPM called the NRA to ask how celebrating gun movies fit with the group’s past comments criticizing Hollywood. No one from the organization responded.”

Needless to say, Forbes, TPM, MSNBC and the other left-leaning media mavens picking up on this story were blind to the editorial nuance provided by American Rifleman’s caption writers. Here’s the rest of that Terminator summary:

This movie made shooters realize the importance of firepower, and that preparedness might be needed in the future. That is what this movie is about—the future—and how anything is possible, even the creation of cyber units that are a mix of man and machine, which isn’t that unbelievable since recent news reports reveal that scientists have built a bionic man that utilizes a working heart, a set of lungs and a face. Let’s just hope they don’t come for us.

One thing’s for sure: the mainstream media’s coming for us. Well, the NRA and us. To that end, these “gotcha” reports on the American Rifleman’s movie list also ignored the pro-liberty context provided for other flicks such as this capsule summary for Red Dawn:

Up until the fall of the Berlin wall, many folks prepared for a possible invasion by what Ronald Reagan called the “Evil Empire.” This movie emphasized that Americans fought, and would fight again, for their freedoms.

The Alamo: “While the movie is probably not historically accurate, it features some good battle scenes and the pioneering spirit that made this country a beacon of freedom in the world.”

Die Hard: “While few of us actually followed through and became police officers, which is probably best since this is very untypical in the life of most law enforcement officers, this movie reminds us that good can triumph over evil with skill, training, determination and a few well-placed shots. Yippee-ki-yay.

Etc. Clearly, the NRA sees the positive value of firearms-related violence in movies. Some movies, anyway. All the more reason Wayne should have STFU about the “cultural causes” supposedly enabling and/or encouraging spree killers. The NRA Veep played into the hands of the enemies of the Second Amendment and alienated the members of tomorrow.

Oh well. You win some, you lose some, but the love of liberty that drives the NRA membership is unstoppable. So to speak.

“An FBI agent fatally shot a Chechen man in Orlando, Florida early Wednesday after the man allegedly turned violent,” dailymail.co.uk reports. This much we knew. We now learn he did so “as [Ibragim Todashev] was preparing to sign a written confession to his involvement in a 2011 triple homicide.” What’s more, Todashev ”allegedly turned violent and pulled a knife on the FBI agent. The agent was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.” So much for Todashev’s mad skillz in mixed martial arts. Back to that triple killing . . .

No suspects had been arrested in that case, in which three men were found in an apartment in Waltham, Mass. on Sept. 11, 2011 with their throats cut and marijuana covering their bodies.

Massachusetts investigators had reported earlier this month that they were uncovering ‘mounting evidence’ that Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, were involved in the slaying. One of the victims, Brendan Mess, was a close friend of Tamerlan’s.

Officials told NBC that Todashev had admitted to being involved in the slaying and that he was preparing to sign a written statement based on his confession when he turned violent and was subsequently shot dead. The officials also told NBC that Todashev had some connections with radical Chechen rebels.

So what’s the connection between the homicide and the bombing? Did the boys suddenly develop a taste for killing? Were they blackmailed? Will we ever know?

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.]

MasterPiece Arms is out with an add-on folding stock for their 9mm, .45ACP and 5.7mm carbines. While the press release doesn’t specify, it folds to the left and appears to allow the rifle to fire while the stock is folded. While we’d love to slap one on one of their guns to see for ourselves, TTAG’s on MasterPiece’s no-fly list. If you own an MPA gun and decide to give the folder a go, ping us at guntruth@me.com and give us the full 411 . . .

COMER, GA (May 2013) - MasterPiece Arms, manufacturers of the MPA MAC Line of semi-auto submachine pistols and carbines, is pleased to announce the new MPA Side Folder Assembly Kit with Stock. The assembly kit includes a side folder mechanism, L-Bracket, a stock adaptor with 1 3/16 thread (accepts any AR-15 buffer tube), fasteners and the MPA low profile stock.

This complete system will allow an individual to attach the MPA Side Folding Stock to an MPA Carbine. The stock will fold toward the shooters left side, away from the ejection port. The side folder locks in both the “open” and “closed” position.

Please specify 9mm/5.7 caliber or 45ACP when placing the order. The 9mm/5.7 version will fit any 9mm or 5.7x28mm MPA Carbine (MPA930sst, 20sst, 5700sst). The 45ACP version will fit any 1sst Carbine (1sst).

Please note, if this item is added to any MPA Pistol, it will convert the weapon into an SBR, which is an NFA weapon. A tax stamp will be required to add this item to an MPA Pistol. NFA rules and law apply. Check with your local Class II dealer for details. MSRP is $129.99.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m old enough to remember when Kelly LeBrock was the world’s most beautiful woman. Actually, I’m older than that. I remember life during wartime. Specifically, growing up during the not-so-beautiful “police action” in Vietnam. The war in Southeast Asia amplified and radicalized America’s political and cultural bifurcation. It was Left vs. Right. Anti-Establishment vs. Establishment. The tension led to violence: Kent State, busted heads at the Chicago convention and deadly riots. I guess we didn’t learn from history. Two visions of America—Big Government vs. Small Government, Gun Control vs. Gun Rights—are competing for dominance. It’s like tectonic plates building up pressure; there will be a release and it won’t be pretty. Where? Odds are it’ll be . . .

in New York, where the SAFE Act is putting Empire State gun owners up against the wall (motherf*cker). Or Connecticut, where the current push for civilian disarmament was born. Or New Jersey, where anti-gun laws are well entrenched, and getting worse. Ditto California. But maybe . . . Kansas.

We’ve already seen Kansas vs. the Feds re: the Sunflower State’s Second Amendment Protection Act. But the breaking point could be between pro and anti-gun forces within Kansas. Check this from kansas.com:

A teacher at White Elementary was arrested Monday for having a gun on the school premises, police said Tuesday.

The 31-year-old man was seen with a gun by someone at the school, 5148 S. Kansas, which is south of Hydraulic and 47th Street South, Lt. Randy Reynolds said. Principal Marcia Shepler called police about 12:30 p.m., according to a police report.

When officers arrived, they found a gun on the teacher and arrested him on suspicion of misdemeanor concealed-carry weapon charges, Reynolds said.

The teacher is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, said Susan Arensman, a spokeswoman for the Wichita school district.

It’s not known whether the man had a concealed-carry permit. State law prevents identifying those with a concealed permit.

Could a Wichita teacher be a catalyst for the conflict to come? Probably not. Then again, it’s impossible to know where the socio-political fault line will fracture first. It could be anywhere where individual liberty is squashed by the jackboot of statists.

American gun owners are easily the most fervent of the small government activists. They can be pushed so far and no further. Some things, like Ms. LeBrock, change (and not always for the better). Some things, like gun owner’s dreams of individual liberty, don’t.

“A Central Florida man who was shot and killed by an FBI agent early Wednesday morning was being investigated by the FBI and Massachusetts authorities in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings,” orlandosentinel.com reports. “Ibragim Todashev, 27, was shot in a condo at 6022 Peregrine Ave. in the Windhover community, a quiet residential area near Universal Studios, said FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier, a spokesman for the Orlando region. A friend of Todashev’s said this morning that the Central Florida man was friends with at least one of the Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.” Apparently, the Fibbies and a brace of Massachusetts State Troopers didn’t secure the interview scene as well as they might . . .

Couvertier told the Orlando Sentinel that during the early morning hours Wednesday, an FBI agent — along with two Massachusetts State Police troopers and other law enforcement personnel — were interviewing Todashev in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by Todashev.

“During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries,” Couvertier said in an email statement. “As this incident is under review, we have no further details at this time.”

foxnews.com describes the deceased as “a former mixed martial arts fighter.” Anyway, the development raises the spectre of co-conspirators to the Boston bombing, additional “terror cells” and/or police incompetence. None of that was in the original narrative. Huh.

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 . . .

Have you ever watched a woman fishing through her bag for a bit of lippy? Imagine someone trying to get a gun out of a handbag in an emergency. If the gat’s not in a holster inside the bag, purse carry could be even more, shall we say, counterproductive. Sure, the holster folk make purpose-built handbags with secret gun compartments. An owner can slip her hand into the bag quickly and easily and either extract the weapon or fire it through the material. Which still leaves two problems A) Prada doesn’t make one (at least a functional version) and B) bag snatchers. As our off-duty cop above will attest. Oh and another issue: forgetful owners who inadvertently abandon their bag. And another: curious kids. Nope. No way ’round it. On body carry is the only way to go. That applies to you briefcase schleppers too.

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:

“They always present this theoretical – ‘well, what if there’s not one or two invaders to my home, what if there’s 10 or 12 and after I’ve killed the first eight or nine, I need to reload?’ Yes, let me know when that happens. And between now and when that happens, sadly, there’s going to be another Aurora, there’s going to be another Newtown.” – Bob Costas on Piers Morgan Tonight

Make the jump for a shot of the murder weapon and all the “spare” magazines carried by spree killer Jared Lee Loughner during his attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The two images are part of 600 released to the press. huffingtonpost.com has posted 17—the widest selection I can find.

Click here for more info on the Smith & Wesson Extreme Ops knife [far left] at The Truth About Knives.

When it comes to staying alive during a defensive gun use, you must master two basic manuevers: moving and shooting. There are a number of situation specific variations on the theme. Shoot and move. Move and shoot. Shoot then move. Move then shoot. I think that just about covers it. Of course, it helps to have an idea of where you’re going, so you can know which way to move: forwards, backwards or down to the ground. Simunition training is ideal for armed self-defenders who want to learn how to shoot while locating and/or using cover during an adrenalin dump. Meanwhile and in any case, whenever you enter a new environment—whether it’s Whataburger or Raven Aultman‘s favorite gym—look for some place to go if something goes wrong. That way, if you suddenly need to get going while the going’s good you’ll know a good place to go.