Les Jones

Guns > Thursday Gun Links #18

John of Argghhh!!! has Part 4 of his history of ammunition.

CCW instructor Joel Rosenberg offers some holster advice and tips for newbies on how to behave in a gun store.

I'm all for shall-issue handgun carry permits (I have one myself), but I'm against special permits for retired cops and retired military personnel. GeekWitha45 gives a prime example of how special permits create a special class of "superior citizens" with rights not enjoyed by the rest of the us.

Publicola has his doubts about the safety bullet. Also check his roundup of the 50 BMG Rifle &Machine Gun shoot.

Around the Message Boards

Smith &Wesson Forum: Guns that draw attention at the range.

The High Road: I've mentioned the Knoxville-made Commando before. It's a .45 caliber, semi-automatic carbine patterned after the Thompson submachine gun. There's one for sale.

Rimfire Central: How well does snakeshot work?

Rimfire Central: This guy made a bullpup version of the Browning Buckmark rifle. Bonus! It has a built-in silencer. The barrel proper stops at the end of the forward stock. Everything beyond that is the silencer.

Results of Kim du Toit's gun survey

I mentioned this survey a few weeks ago. Kim du Toit asked his readers what vehicle, rifle, and handgun they would pick if they could only have one of each for the rest of their lives. He's since posted the results and the top picks:

Vehicle: Ford pick-up truck
Rifle: Springfield M1A in .308 Winchester
Handgun: 1911 in .45 ACP

Now Triticale has a variation. If you could pick just one vehicle, rifle, and handgun for the rest of the summer, what would they be? Email him your answer. My answers are posted in his comments (which isn't what he wanted, but I apparently can't follow written instructions).

Gun Pic of the Week

(The Gun Pic usually comes at the end, but this one is tall and skinny so it's going in the middle.)

I'm amazed at this shot. It's a close-up of the breech (the rear part of the barrel) taken from the muzzle (the front part of the barrel). It's a great feat of very selective photographic focus: the muzzle that's close to the camera is fuzzed out, but the breech and the firing pin that are three to five inches away are in focus. All of this is happening down a tube that's .45 inches in diameter.

The Ayoob Files

When your gun jams in a firefight

Near miss: the Andrew Patti incident (the Dartmouth murders)

I knew about the Dartmouth murders. What I didn't know was that the two victims weren't the first targets. The killers had targeted another family, but the father, Andrew Patti, thought something was suspicious about the two boys at his door. Instead of letting them in as the two Dartmouth professors did, he showed them the gun that he carried even when at home. In doing so, he saved the lives of himself, his wife, and their son.

Sure, That Makes Sense

The Kentucky Coalition to Carry Concealed has 40 reasons for gun control. Via Curmudgeonly and Skeptical. Here are some of the funniest:

• We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
• The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns &Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
• Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.
• Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with cops, need a gun.
• The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the Constitution.
• Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.

Next week: a special shotgun issue

Posted by lesjones