Colbert I. King is an “opinion writer” at The Washington Post’s. As opposed to? When it comes to the WaPo firearms-related coverage, facts are in short supply. But wait! Mr. King’s article The guns that don’t make the news — one by deadly one presents a list of guns confiscated by D.C. police over ten days! How much more factual can you get? So factual Mr. King needed to introduce the list with dark mutterings about those evil firearms. Like this:
The downtown reaction [to a valet’s discovery of an AR15 on the front seat of a BMW] was understandable. The thought of lethal weapons where they don’t belong is unnerving — even though the White House and Trump’s hotel are knee-deep in security.
It’s a different world for the rest of the District, where guns are as plentiful as the air. [Note to Mr. King: call me the next time you need a metaphor.]
Those guns, however, are in parts of the city where the political and social elites don’t live, work or play. Those guns rarely make the news — unless one goes off in somebody’s face or is recovered by the police.
Otherwise they share a silent, deadly coexistence with the community.
Here is a simple recitation of bloodless facts about our gun world, as captured in D.C. police reports that identify illegal firearms recovered across the city since the discovery of Moles’s gun cache on May 31.
Repetitive, boring reading? Don’t skip. Take them in — one by deadly one.
Am I the only one who hears those last words in the gravelly-voice of the guy who does horror movie previews? Anyway, here’s the list for official TTAG analysis. Have fun!
Wednesday, May 31
A black and brown Hawes Western Marshal model .357-caliber revolver.
A black .38-caliber Charter Arms revolver.
Thursday, June 1
A black H&R Model 732, .32-caliber revolver.
A black Hi-Point 9mm semiautomatic pistol.
A silver and black Smith & Wesson SD40 VE, .40-caliber.
Friday, June 2
A black Keltec model P11, 9mm handgun.
A black Taurus Model PT 24/7 OSSD, .45-caliber pistol.
A black and silver Glock 23, .40-caliber handgun.
A black and green Bersa Thunder, model Compact, .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
A black, SAR B6P, 9mm semiautomatic pistol.
A silver Ruger .357-caliber revolver.
A black Star Firestar, 9mm semiautomatic pistol
A black Remington Model 1911, .45-caliber.
A black Glock 43, 9mm.
A black Palmetto State Armory AR-15 rifle, 5.56mm.
Saturday June 3
A black Hi-Point, model CF-380, .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
A black Ekol Voltran P29, 9mm.
Sunday, June 4
A black HWM .38-caliber revolver.
A black Glock 22, .40-caliber handgun.
A black and silver Smith and Wesson 9mm pistol.
Monday, June 5
A 12-gauge Franchi Affinity semiautomatic shotgun.
Tuesday, June 6
A 12-gauge Companhia Brasileira De Cartuchos shotgun.
A .25-caliber Melior handgun.
A .25-caliber FIE Titan.
A .357 Taurus revolver.
A 9mm Taurus 709 Slim handgun.
Wednesday, June 7
A 9mm Glock 19, and at another scene
A 9mm Glock 19.
A .22-caliber Davis D22 Derringer.
A 9mm SCCY CPX-1-CBPK handgun.
Thursday, June 8
A 9mm Jimenez J.A. Nine handgun.
A 9mm Springfield Arms model XD handgun.
A 7.62x39mm rifle, unknown make or model.
Friday, June 9
A .380-caliber Taurus PT738 handgun.
A .22-caliber pump-action Winchester Model 190 rifle.
A 12-gauge Winchester Model 37 shotgun.
A .380-caliber Ruger LCP.
A 9mm Taurus PT709.
A 9mm Glock 17 handgun.
A 9mm Springfield Arms XD-S handgun.
Saturday, June 10
A .380-caliber Bersa Thunder handgun.
A 9mm SCCY CPX-1 handgun.
A .45-caliber Ruger P345.
Sunday, June 11
A black and silver .40-caliber Smith and Wesson.
A 9mm Sig Sauer handgun.
A black 9mm Ruger LC9s handgun.
A black .22-caliber Ruger handgun.
The Left’s interest in the gun’s color is odd. Kamala Harris and her “Handgun Roster” and now him.
IMO, the lefty types tend to focus on how something makes you feel thus appearance make it higher on the list things they notice.
If you took a savage, proto-blade runner steam punk flint lock nastygun and placed it next to a AR-15 in full my little pony regalia and a nerf sticker slapped on it, they will vote to ban the flint lock 4/5 times.
I thought that current PC BS is “unfair” to imprison so much blackness. Let the noir-ballistics go.
It’s racism!
My point exactly….is black more lethal than S.S. or OD Green?
This list reads like a pawn shop inventory !! DMD
You fools. D.C. criminals are carrying brief cases, and are dressed in a suit and tie. I understand they enjoy fine dining, and extravagant vacations and homes too.
Need an upvote button for the above 🙂
Yep. I’d hit that.
THIS!!!
Madcap… In the Godfather movie it was stated that a lawyer with his briefcase could steal more than a hundred men with guns. D C proves it !
My FIRST GUN EVER was an H&R .32 magnum that looked almost identical to the one in the cover photo. Mine had wood grips though. Bought it for $50 from a friend when I was 17. (Mid 90’s) That thing was crude, but it went bang every time I dropped the hammer on a live round and I was surprisingly accurate with it considering I had almost no handgun experience. I traded it for a Makorov .380
“This list reads like a pawn shop inventory !”
Having served time behind the counter in the pawn & gun biz, you sir, are correct…
“Ekol Voltran P29”
That is a blank-firing gun
came here to post this.
I’m sure this “journalist” would be totally honest if others on the list were replicas, right? Right???
What a relief ! At least no hyper-deadly assault-type .9mm’s were found !
Or point 762 high power caliber capable of easily bringing down an elephant.
.762 millimeter is what I heard. My question is, since I don’t know much about shooting elephants, can a rifle chambered in 7.62 X 39 easily take down an african elephant? I have heard that poachers take elephants with full auto AKs, but I don’t count full auto as easily.
I would think it’s like buying a home: location, location, location. I’ve never tried shooting an elephant.
Once you’ve crippled him, getting close enough to target the heard should be easy, especially if you’ve gained the experience to know exactly where it is.
And using full auto does make it much easier. Using full auto doesn’t mean a mag dump each time you pull the trigger. 2-4 rounds per burst with an AK is pretty effective, and accurate.
By saying that full auto doesn’t count as easy, I’m saying full auto is cheating. I could have been clearer on that. I agree location is probably the most important thing (no matter what the target or firearm). I’d venture that anything in which you have to have the perfect shot also doesn’t count as easy. I’d say it’s not easy to successfully hunt hogs with a .22lr. Plenty of people on the internet will go on about how they did it, so it doesn’t matter what caliber you use. I don’t know anyone who would admit to even trying.
Most African countries require something in .375 caliber or larger. The guide is happy when you bring something starting with .4
I figured an intermediate cartridge wouldn’t be enough to “easily” take an elephant. Thanks.
Nor the infamous “40mm” handguns the Left goes on about as well.
Only two Hi-Points? But I keep hearing thats the one murder throw away gun of choice!
Racist cops keep rounding up disproportionate numbers of black guns!!
That’s because they are all in the Potomac River
I know, right?!?!! Personally, I prefer black guns. Though all of mine tend to have shorter barrels than my others…. Genetics maybe?
no sks? or a super deadly break action .410? or a cricket .22? what has this world come to?
Remember when some asshole politician in NJ called a Marlin 60 a super deadly assault weapon that was only made for killing? That Cricket .22 is even worse!
Well, there was that “7.62×39 of unknown make or model”. I mean, it is apparently hard to identify an SKS nowadays… 😀
Or an AK, or a Mini-30, or a…
I wanna know how I can get my hands on that Winchester Model 1890 .22 pump! I’ve got one that was my Granpa’s, and I need some parts to restore it. Not worried about value, as it’s a family heirloom. All of them that I’ve seen in shops have been north of a grand.
You check Numrich? If your luck is anything like mine, the parts you most need will be out of stock, but it doesn’t cost anything to look.
Rossi and Taurus made the .22 pump a few years ago. Some of the parts will probably interchange.A family heirloom deserves a good gunsmith, not a parts changer. Find a good gunsmith and he/she can make or modify parts, that is what real gunsmiths did before Brownell’s.
Do DC cops stop and frisk?
What, pray tell, does the color of the firearm have to do with, well, anything?
My first thought as well, but that one of the Glocks is described as “black and silver” tells me it was stolen from someone who had some work done to it (or at least bought an aftermarket slide). Which is trivial in the grand scheme of things from most angles (unless it was yours, I suppose).
It also tells us that, for as much as these people focus on the superficial, they remain willfully ignorant to it as well. Put similar pieces of metal in front of them in stainless, chrome, nickle, raw aluminum, silver, German silver, platinum, you get the picture: they would describe the color of all of them as “silver.” They probably couldn’t see a difference between brass and gold.
Silver SMFH. Had to google ekol voltran, blank gun apparently.
Some of those listed scare me. (As a shooter, not a shootee)
WHAT?!?!? Not one uber-deadly GHOST gun with mouse fart quiet silencer? The streets are supposed to awash in deadly ghost guns with the shoulder thingy…..
Glad to know the color of these guns. Very important information.
Like MadCapp said above, this gun list is a big nothingburger. A distraction at best.
The truly dangerous criminals in D.C. are wearing suits and ties. They tend to occupy public buildings and legacy-media newsrooms. And their weapons are far deadlier than a few random firearms.
For those that don’t want to count, that’s 41 pistols, 2 intermediate caliber rifles, 1 .22 rifle, and 3 shotguns.
“A 7.62x39mm rifle, unknown make or model.”
What? They can determine it’s not an SKS, AK, AR, or Vz 52 but can determine it’s 7.62×39?
Oh! Maybe they found a unicorn and it’s a non-exported Mini-30.
I want to know how many were black, because obviously it is important for some reason. But I’m not going to count.
How many of which were black – the guns or the people from which the cops took them?
“It was a dark and stormy night and the rank stench of racism hung fetid in the humid atmosphere.”
I’m pretty sure he meant the guns. I don’t know what he meant by “I’m not going to count” if he meant the people.
It’s all right. Black guns count, too.
As I recall, once upon a time black guns only counted as 3/5 of a gun for census purposes. I guess I could be wrong about that, though. However, I’m quite certain that “Black guns matter”.
Hey my Taurus 709 made the list more than once! It’s cheap buts mine runs great… usual assortment of stuff. I honestly wonder who would willingly let the po-leece confiscate their gat. Cold dead hands…
I have one of the Taurus 709 Slim guns also. I got mine after reading the 10 gun test in Guns and Ammo where it, surprisingly, was just as reliable as the Glock and the Walther in the test. The writer even admitted to being biased against it from Taurus’ reputation which they truly earned at one time. According to all that I can find to read about them, it seems as the current CEO at Taurus, who used to work for Beretta, has turned their quality around.
This article is a completely impossible fabrication as there are no guns allowed in the District at all.
Bunch of cheap junk mostly
You insensitive racist.
Those are bargain-priced personal protection…
EDIT – *snicker*
“It’s a different world for the rest of the District, where guns are as plentiful as the air.”
Did Herb Kazzaz write this article?
“The air in 1830’s California was fragrant with the flowers of laughter, and the smoke of adventure.”
It was a dark night in The District. The stranger walked up. Tall, large hands. The vague scent of Ballistol hung in the air like the clear bell-tone of the 75 yard gong hit by a 22 Derringer. At night. In the snow.
“Here to clean up the town, Hickok?” I asked as he strode by…
He gave a slight smile, a nod, and said “Life is good.”
Well written!
The vast majority of these guns were undoubtedly taken off of black drug dealers or black gang members. And I can tell you, those sorts are utterly uneducated about firearms just as much as any other subject, so it’s no surprise it’s a random collection of models, most of which were almost certainly stolen from honest gun owners.
Grab a similar group from white concealed carry people and it would be mostly Glocks, SIGs, S&W, Ruger, 1911’s and the like, with a few quality .380’s thrown in.
Race has little to do with it. (Well, not much, anyways.)
I’ve seen whites drop guns like those on the counter at pawn shops to sell.
That’s a fairly representative mix of what guns *poor* people carry…
I want to know how many had “Birdman Sights” installed!
https://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w151/delray48209/birdmansidesightsnk9.jpg
One.
By.
Deadly.
One.
Oof. That’s heavy.
They’re ALL “black” save for maybe the FIE Titan (gun metal grey) so THAT’S “racist”.
What disturbed me is:
“A black Star Firestar, 9mm semiautomatic pistol”
I hope the owner it was stolen from gets that fine piece of Eibar back.
Oh snap, I missed that one. Dam shame, those are phenomenal pistols…
Ironically, a non-gun person might be the only person who doesn’t mistakenly call the black Firestar “blued.”
Yeah, that’s a great little handgun – accurate and reliable.
IF MPDC bothers to notify the owner that the firearm has been recovered, said owner had better keep close tabs on it through the entire trial, a possible appeal, and anything else which may require that it remain in police custody as evidence. Otherwise, there just might be a “clerical error” and that pistol “disappear” into a furnace or some MPDC cop’s off-duty holster. It’s been known to happen.
The DC Police will never voluntarily return a firearm!
A 7.62x39mm rifle, unknown make or model.????
I would imagine this was an SKS, A.K.A. M4….
The Taurus 709 Slim is undoubtedly a stolen gun. I have one, and bought it after reading the article in Guns and Ammo where ten different 9mm single stack polymer frame models were 1,000 round tested for reliability. At the end of the test, the Walther and the Glock were right there with zero malfunctions, but the big surprise was that the Taurus was too. All the guns had been taken straight out of the box and used without lubrication or cleaning. Any failure at all was reason to disqualify the gun from proceding in the test. The Taurus even posted the smallest group size and average group sizes throughout the test. The writer even admitted to a personal bias against Taurus because of their poor quality in the past. Taurus did earn a bad reputation at one time, and they have apparently been working to change. I bought one of the 709 Slim guns since they are inexpensive and I live in a hot climate. Why sweat on a more expensive gun and feel bad for it when you can get a less expensive one and be just as well protected and willing to wipe it down with your oil or rust prevention of choice. I sort of feel bad when I put any scuffs or scratches on a gun over about $500, but one under $250 doesn’t even bother me if it looks well used and properly cared for. In the triple digit heat of the summer, the Taurus 709 Slim is my choice. I just don’t think a gang banger would choose one for the intimidation factor.
I watched in horror as a brick house was built and the stonemason added them to the collection one by deadly one. Why, if one of those lethal bricks were to be swung with force and violent intentions, it could maim or even kill an innocent person who was just out in the fresh air minding their own business as they liberated valuable items left lying around in an unoccupied residence by an evil white conservative who could be-GASP-working! We need to ban bricks for the destructive weapons of prejudice that they are.