Category: Guns

I’m a physics student. My studies, research, and ultimately my career relies upon facts. If I were to publish a paper with incorrect*, falsified, or made-up facts, I would be discredited and my reputation seriously tarnished.
I’m not sure what sort of student Ms. Clymer is, but I’m pretty sure that facts are important to her course of studies as well. In in a letter to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star, she claims,

In the hands of ordinary citizens, guns do more harm than good.

Since a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, I reply thusly:

In short: Prove it. The evidence certainly seems to favor the opposite conclusion: there are 80+ million gun owners in the US, with hundreds of millions of guns. A not-insignificant number of these gun owners routinely carry their guns on a regular basis with essentially no statistically significant negative effects.
It certainly seems that guns in the hands of ordinary citizens do not, in fact, cause more harm than good. If they did, there’d be some significant evidence of this…and, as far as I’ve been able to find, no such evidence exists.
“Gun-free” school zones have been implemented on a widespread basis across the country. There have been several high-profile acts of violence at schools over the last ten years or so. Maybe it’s time to try something else
Even if allowing law-abiding private citizens to be armed on campuses doesn’t reduce the overall rate of violent crime, it’d at least give folks a fighting chance to defend themselves from violent crime. Given the overall good behavior of concealed carry permit holders, I don’t foresee any particular downside.
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* Assuming that the correct information is presently known. Science is always advancing, and it’s quite possible for a hypothesis to be shown to be wrong in the future. If this occurs, a new hypothesis is created. In general, this does not reflect poorly on the author of the incorrect hypothesis.

The FBI has released information about criminal uses of firearms in assaults on police officers.
Some interesting bits:

• Most guns are stolen. None of the criminals in the sample group acquired their guns from gun shows.
• The availability of a gun was the primary factor, only one member of the sample group had a “weapon of choice”.
• The vast majority of guns found were handguns.
• Most criminals used “point shooting” techniques rather than using sights.
• Holsters were almost never used, with guns instead being stuck in waistbands.
• 40% of the sample group had military firearm training. Many of them practiced frequently (though not at formal ranges).

The ATF issued a new ruling on 8/15/08 that clarifies various issues relating to what is or is not considered manufacturing a firearm.
Evidently a gunsmith buying firearms, doing work to them, and then selling them counts as “manufacturing” and the gunsmith must be licensed as a manufacturer.
A gunsmith receiving firearms from individual customers, performing work on the gun, and returning it back to the customer need only be licensed as a dealer or gunsmith, not a manufacturer.
My Class III dealer friend is concerned that this might affect companies that do outsourced work like rebluing, hard chroming, etc. for gunsmiths (i.e. gunsmith receives gun from customer, sends gun off to be chromed, third-party company does the chroming, then sends it back to the gunsmith, who returns it to the customer). My reading of the ruling seems to indicate that this would not be a problem, as it’s not manufacturing a new gun.
However, a gunsmith buying up guns on the open market (rather than doing contract work for customers), modifying them, and then reselling them on the open market would count as manufacturing a new firearm. I can sort of see how this would make sense.

Because this could happen.

From the CCRKBA:

School district trustees and Supt. David Thweatt deserve accolades for changing school policy to allow staff and teachers to carry concealed handguns to protect against school shootings, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Cool.
Still, there’s some restrictions:

Under this new policy, school employees who have a state-issued concealed carry permit, and permission from the school administration, may carry their guns on campus. They must be trained in crisis management and use ammunition designed to minimize ricochet inside school buildings.

The training isn’t the big deal, but rather the fact that they need permission from the administration (hopefully the permission will be “shall issue”), and the fact that special ammunition is required. Since standard FMJ and JHP rounds are unlikely to riccochet off ordinary building materials (wood, drywall, etc.), hopefully that will be permissable. It would really stink if the school required that employees carry Glaser Safety Slugs or other such ammo — while they’re useful rounds, I prefer JHPs.
Next, more work needs to be done to expand college carry — the “gun free zones” policy on college campuses hasn’t made anyone safer. Why not try something different?

ColtCCO is a good guy, but seems to have nothing but trouble when it comes to interactions with the police.
In this particular case, the Gallatin, TN police police confiscated his $1,500 1911 pistol and have yet to return it, claiming they need several weeks to perform a “stolen gun check” prior to releasing it to him. This is bogus, as an NCIC check takes but a few seconds (including typing time).
Something seems fishy.
Update: The Gallatin PD seems to be doing a full ATF trace on the firearm, not just an NCIC check. The NRA’s on the case, and there’s been a bunch of publicity. Hopefully this works out all right.

The AR-57 looks really interesting. It’s an upper receiver that allows one to shoot 5.7x28mm ammo (the same as the FN Five-seveN and P90) from an AR-15 platform.
It takes standard P90 magazines on the top of the handguard. From the pictures on their site, the magazines don’t come up any higher than the optics rail.
According to the discussion at AR15.com, it shoots well. It also drops spent cases out of the magwell, which should make for easy gathering of one’s brass, as 5.7mm is crazy expensive.
Hat tip to Uncle, along with his suggestion to use a Crown Royal bag with a rubber band to catch the brass.