Yada yada yada SHOT Show protester. “For attendees like Jon Wayne Taylor, who describes himself as an ‘old school gun nut,’ SHOT show isn’t political, it’s about business,” thedailybeast.com reports. “A place for the gun industry to show off the latest and greatest in firearms and accessories . . .
But Taylor – who owns his own Texas-based firearms parts company and writes about guns for The Truth About Guns—said even if lawmakers followed Goodman’s lead and passed a law that somehow regulated the ownership of guns or ammunition, it is unlikely enforcement would work.
“I’m not going to comply,” he said.
But TTAG’s resident war hero did agree to let The Beast’s Kevin Maurer follow him around SHOT. The result isn’t entirely horrible People Of The Gun-wise, considering the publication’s anti-gun animus.
Lean with a salt-n-pepper goatee, Taylor leads the way into the show with a green Yeti coffee cup in hand. He seems to know everyone, stopping to talk with passersby and reps at the booths.
Taylor comes to the SHOT show wearing two hats. He is looking for fabrication machines for his gun parts business and the latest news from the industry for his readers . . .
Taylor grew up around firearms in a small town of goat ranchers about 40 miles from Austin in central Texas.
“My family stored guns under my crib,” Taylor said.
By 6 years old, he was hunting. He has hundreds of guns—everything from black powder rifles to an AK-47 he made by hand and uses to hunt pigs on his ranch in Texas.
“I grew up knowing a gun was a powerful tool,” he said. “It was a means to not get bitten by a snake and maybe get a deer to eat.”
When he joined the Army after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he was already a good shot. He joked that the M-16 he qualified on was less powerful than some of the rifles he grew up shooting.
“It felt like a toy,” he said.
Taylor deployed for almost two years to Afghanistan where he worked as an adviser with Afghan forces.
Taylor shoots about 2,000 rounds a month. For him, it is a Zen moment. He meditates daily, but shooting is different.
“I want all my focus solely on the target until the bullet appears there,” Taylor said. “That is my goal. The bullet is a thought propelled.”
Taylor called the “angst” about guns in society “purely emotional.” He fights the angst by hosting a Sunday shoot at his range in Texas. It is open to the public and Taylor teaches marksmanship and gun safety. Most leave with less fear of guns, he said.
Sorry JWT fans, Jon’s Sunday shoot isn’t “open to the public.” It’s by invitation only.
Should Jon have invited Mr. Maurer to join him on his SHOT Show rounds? Should he welcome Mr. Maurer on his ranch?
Before you answer, here’s the Beast writer’s final shot (not to mention his final SHOT):
When will the firearms industry address gun violence?
Never.
NOTE: The Daily Beast didn’t publish the picture at the top of this post. Left to right: Jon Wayne Taylor, Chris Heuss, Jeremy S.
What a shameless plug for something that isn’t even gun-related.
I only buy black guns now so my wife can’t tell the difference between the old ones & the new ones.
YMMV
I agree with the Beast writer.
It’s not the firearms industries’ job to police criminals and mental defectives. That’s the state’s job.
I really like watching Hickok45 because he actually talks as he demonstrates instead just talk, talk, talk. He is positive without being berating a firearm or product. A class act and actually get a feeling for quality vs junk. Yes, he is entertainment, but hey If you buy a firearm just based on a youtube evaluation, you probably should not be buying it.
Example: I build a lot of performance engines as a hobby, about one to two a month, I learned forty years ago, put down the Hotrod magazine and pick up a math book. Has served me well. Same thing applies to firearms. Quit watching youtube and pick up a book, you might actually learn something.
There actually is a lot of research that shows people have a “preferred method” and if that is removed then they are less likely to act. Also, firearms have a fatality rate of >90% in suicide while other means have much lower rate. There are a large number of people that try suicide once and have extreme regret and are glad to be alive. So, in essence, having less firearm access IS saving lives.
The bigger issue is improperly stored firearms. Accidental death in children. Children killing using parents firearms.
Personally, I’d be all for felony charges for adults who allow their guns to fall into children hands.
i hated this gun so much i thought of throwing it in a pond! i didn’t,kept trying different things,got it so it was very dependable, accurate way beyond what a gun this size should be.then i bought another for the laser.for its purpose its by far the best gun I’ve ever owened.would even buy another,color option.
I knew a person who committed suicide. She took a high dive off the dry side of Hoover Dam. Not sure, but that might have been Arizona’s jurisdiction, not Nevada’s.
I might lend a .22 to someone who has other guns, but needs a .22 to dispatch rats or other small vermin. Firearms are tools, you do not use a framing hammer to do finish carpentry. Lending a small, concealable handgun to a sketchy friend who already has larger pistols would need a real reason, but lending him a hunting rifle/shotgun for his hunting trip, is a whole different story.
I bet this might be fun as a semi-auto
When will the firearms industry address gun violence?
As soon as the Automobile Industry eradicate the ALL of the vehicular homicides let alone deaths. KAY?!!! Let’s get the big fish first.
If forced to shoot a predator in self defense I would think long and hard about saying anything to anyone with a badge or collecting a .gov paycheck. While to YOU the
necessity of such an act would be obvious to anyone not with you at that moment the
necessity would be subjective. And nobody loves to ‘Monday Morning Quarterback’ like
a bureaucrat. Reporting such an act exposes you to the vicarious and unpredictable whims of people with a MASSIVE amount of power over you and who face essentially
ZERO accountability. Many a person with a badge has the “arrest them all and let the
judge sort it out” mentality. The problem is the system has UNLIMITED resources to
persecute you. And unless you are a billionaire you have very limited resources with
which to defend yourselves. And even if the badge on scene KNOWS you are innocent
often they don’t care. They know that you will be acquitted….they just don’t care.
To far too many of them “THE PROCESS IS THE PUNISHMENT”. And when it can cost
tens of thousands of dollars to successfully defend yourself from frivolous and punitive
persecution that statement is a reality.
John Barsness
Wayne van Zwoll
Randy Wakeman
I saw not just the one witness, but several sets of feet moving around in that vid… was the knife-wielder alone? We’re some of those sets of feet accomplices? Would I, as a witness there, be outnumbered? Would my first instinct (a sound wallop to the noggin with my ever-present Cold Steel Irish Walking Stick) get me in deeper trouble than it would be worth? Why did the clerk make no move at all when the goon was bent over and oblivious while distracted picking up his loot? Was the situation less serious than we think?
Too many unanswered questions… which simply proves what we often say here: the victim IS the first responder, not the police, and I trust the victims account of what happened more than the report of the responding officer.
????