You know, other than Magpul.
Weekend Photo Caption Contest
When all else fails…
ATF Death Watch 90: ATF Fast and Furious Epic Fail Hits Home
I don’t like the term “epic fail.” It’s misused almost as frequently as “awesome”—which should be reserved for something so impressive that contemplating its existence is like standing mute in the face of God. But the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious is an epic fail. It involves at least eight major U.S. federal law enforcement agencies: ATF, DEA, FBI, DOJ, CPB, ICE, IRS, DHS, CIA. That’s because the ATF’s “guns for goons” program was part of a wider America effort to get a handle on the American-financed (however inadvertently) Mexican drug wars. You know; the wars between the cartels, both with and against the Mexican government. The Obama administration’s government-wide covert effort has been—and will be—a failure of enormous magnitude. The chickens are already come home to roost . . .
How to Screw Up a Perfectly Good AK
Our friends at Advanced Armament Corporation are happy to sell a silencer to owners of the legendary AK series Russian rifle, provided your state doesn’t have a thing about quiet[er] guns and you fill out the necessary paperwork and you send AAC money for the can. But the silencer maker doesn’t recommend it. “Looser tolerances” and all that: “Most AK type rifles have M14x1LH threads for the flash hider. However, many times there is not a straight line on an AK and these flash hider threads may not be concentric to the bore. With a Flash Hider, this is not going to be as big an issue. Add a silencer to off-center threads and you can get end cap or baffle strikes. For this reason we do not make a muzzle device for mounting silencers threaded M14x1LH.” But wait! There’s more! Or less. More or less . . .
Gun Tweet of the Day: The Onion Pwns Capitol Police Edition
“Capitol Police were not amused by tweets and an article written by the satirical newspaper The Onion falsely reporting that members of Congress had taken a group of schoolchildren hostage,” the AP reports. Falsely? I think the word is “imaginatively.” Here’s The Onion article’s lede: “Brandishing shotguns and semiautomatic pistols, members of the 112th U.S. Congress took a class of visiting schoolchildren hostage today, barricading themselves inside the Capitol rotunda and demanding $12 trillion dollars in cash.” Obviously, it was a joke. Given America’s unfunded entitlement programs, they’d demand WAY more than that. Anyway, it’s The Onion’s masterful use of Tweets that really got the Cap cops’ knickers in a twist . . .
Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Chief Charles Hurley
Miami Dade Schools Police Chief Charles Hurley seems to subscribe to Caligula’s leadership theory; “let them fear me as long as they obey me’. Sure, that may not make him a lot of friends, but it can be effective. For a time, anyway. A lot depends on what you do to instill that fear…
Gear Review: Battle Arms Development Ambidextrous Safety Selector (BAD-ASS)
When you’re building your AR you have a lot of decisions ahead of you. Some of them are relatively inconsequential, like what color you want your handguards and whether the fuzzy dice will catch fire if you put them too close to the gas system. Other decisions are critical to how the gun will run and feel. In my opinion, the three most critical parts are the trigger, the safety, and the grip, in that order. Battle Arms Development’s Ambidextrous Safety Selector (which forms an acronym after my own heart) has gotten enough buzz that I decided to see for myself what all the fuss was about. And I have to say, I’m quite impressed.
Gear Preview: Konus M30 4.5X-16X – 40mm
Here at TTAG, we know we’re only as good as our last post. The same’s true for gun gear, only more so. A firearms accessory company is only as good as every single product that leaves their factory. While we understand that branding is a suitable shorthand for busy buyers, our reviews are based on actual performance rather than rep (cough SOLO cough). We want our readers to know how something performs in the field and on the range regardless of the name on the box. And so we turn to a rifle scope by KONUS, an optics company out of Europe. Konus may not have the sex appeal of Swarovski, Leupold or Nikon, but we’ll give them the exact same attention. From Konos’ website . . .
Question of the Day: What’s the Matter with (Most) Gun Stores?
Face it, most gun stores suck. Big time. Far too many of them are dark and dingy, poorly stocked, located in iffy neighborhoods and staffed by cranky, greasy-fingered old bastards as friendly as Brezhnev and sorely in need of a Tic Tac. Or six. It’s bad enough dealing with stores like that if you’re a reasonably experienced “gun person.” But can you imagine what shopping there is like for a rank noob? Let alone a woman wanting a little advice for buying her first gun…
West Palm Beach Mayor Scraps Police Escorts, Tries Again
West Palm Mayor Jeri Muoio is still making it up as she goes along. She’s been frustrated by the failure of her first two efforts to thumb her nose at Forida’s new enhanced state law that prevents her from enforcing local anti-gun measures that are more restrictive than anything on the state’s books. Now she’s reached back into her bag of too-cute-by-half gun controller’s tricks to come up with yet another new policy for dealing with lawful concealed carriers who want to enter city hall to transact business.
Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Detroit Piston B-baller Ben Wallace
“Detroit Piston Ben Wallace [above] is facing a five-year felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon after police found an unloaded pistol in a backpack in his car as they arrested him on suspicion of drunken driving early Saturday in Bloomfield Township,” freep.com reports. “Wallace told investigators the gun was his wife’s, registered in her name and he does not have a concealed-weapons permit . . . Wallace said he threw it in a backpack on the rear passenger seat ‘because he wanted protection as he drove,’ from his home in Virginia to metro Detroit on Friday . . .
Quote of the Day: Brady Campaign Like It Never Even Happened Edition
Gun grabbers don’t “do” irony. Hence The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence’s amicus brief in U.S. District Court. Brady Prez Dennis Henigan wants the court to know that his org supports the ATF’s emergency temporary trial new long gun registry for some 8500 U.S. gun dealers. “It is shameful that the gun industry would rather profit from bulk AK-47 sales to gun smugglers than help law enforcement stop the flood of assault rifles from American dealers to Mexico’s ruthless drug cartels. When someone buys 10 assault rifles at a time, why does the gun industry want to keep it a secret?” I dunno. Why don’t you ask the ATF, the law enforcement agency that secretly enabled the transfer of over two thousand weapons from American gun dealers to Mexico’s ruthless drug cartels.