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A Christmas Story.

December 26, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 14 Comments

This picture appeared last night on a social media site visited and maintained by gun owners. I am a member of maybe a dozen such sites because I like to know what gun owners really think, not what some freelance writer who is paid to write 1,000 words on guns for some liberal news blog wants me to know what he or she thinks gun owners are thinking about.

The happy lady’s caption was: “Look at my new baby!” The first two comments were: “Love it, its for conceal carry or for home defense?” and “We use the Garand for home defense :).”

Incidentally, her new baby happens to be a Walther PPK. It is similar in design and function to the guns whose use causes nearly all the 125,000 intentional gun injuries (fatal and non-fatal) each year. This number happens to represent probably 90% of all gun injuries, by the way.

On the other hand, what would you expect this lady to say? Should she have captioned her pic by thanking someone who gave her a present that she could use to kill or injure 6 or 7 people happily sitting around their Christmas tree? On Christmas eve, 6 people were shot at one time in High Point, NC. The lady’s new ‘baby’ could have easily been used to do the trick.

I’m willing to bet you that this happy lady is the legal owner of that gun. And I suspect that if she picked up her telephone and someone said they were running a national survey about guns and then asked her if she would support a ‘reasonable’ gun law like comprehensive background checks, she’d probably say, “Sure. Why not?”

This woman happens to be clueless. She wouldn‘t understand what Art Kellerman and Fred Rivara said about the risk of handguns in the home if her life depended on it. Unfortunately, her life or the life of someone else does depend on it. Which is exactly what my friends in the public health gun-research community don’t understand. They don’t understand the issue for which the CDC has just added $25 million to its research budget because these happy academic folks never (read: never) talk to gun owners at all.

Why bother to talk to the people whose little hobby ultimately accounts for every, single gun injury that occurs every day? After all, you can always hire some hot-shot survey outfit who will do the talking on your behalf. Or you can wander around a bunch of gun shows looking for illegal sales, an activity which launched the career of one of our most celebrated gun researchers a number of years ago. If Garen Wintemute had spent some time just talking to gun owners rather than trying to get everyone hot and bothered over some illegal sales, he might have actually made a serious contribution to figuring out what to do about guns.

Am I asking too much of my gun-researcher friends in public health to devote a small fraction of that new CDC stash to try and figure out what’s in the heads of people like the woman pictured above? Because until and unless this issue is addressed and understood, too many people will submit to all those ‘reasonable’ gun laws while they stand in a gun shop buying a gun.

Trump’s Impeachment Firewall

December 23, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 4 Comments

Now that the leading Evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, has gottenwith Nancy Pelosi’s program to boot Schmuck-o Trump back to Kingdom Come, it makes me wonder if Trump has a fall-back plan to keep himself in office even if the Senate votes to make him step down. Because believe it or not, the 45th President is such an unmitigated jerk and buffoon that he might actually believe his White House lease continues through January, 2021 whether he’s impeached or not.

Which brings me to the good folks who live in Tazewell County, VA, a place where roughly 40,000 God-fearing Americans live, of whom 82% of the eligible voters went to the polls in 2016 and voted for Trump. And just to make sure that the Deep State doesn’t try to overturn those results, the County Board of Supervisors just voted to: a) make Tazewell County a ‘Second-Amendment Sanctuary’ and, b) to support a ‘well-funded and well-regulated’ militia just in case anyone tries to deprive the county’s residents of their sacred, 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’

The Board of Supervisors didn’t exactly state how they intend to pay the local militia but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are plans in the works to submit an application for funding to the Department of Homeland Security. In the meantime, I’m sure this bunch of super-patriots from a region which lynched more Blacks during post-Reconstruction than any other place in the South, are making plans to camp out around the White House and defend their hero from any attempt to kick his increasingly fat ass into the street. After all, it’s called the White House, okay?

And who exactly are the members of the Tazewell militia? We don’t really know because aside from the picture posted on Facebook the group has yet to actually form up. No doubt there are serious negotiations going on between the militia members and the Tazewell Supervisors to come up with a budget that will no doubt include the cost of pizza and beer for the weekend training activities. And let’s not forget to put out an RFP for the ammo which will be used up at the local shooting range. Oops! Maybe they don’t yet have a range.

Anyway, even though the Tazewell militia is still nothing more than a fantasy in a few semi-retarded heads (I know, I know, the word ‘retarded’ is now verboten in politically-correct circles) they will no doubt soon catch the attention of the national militia movement which also seems to be largely a creation of various left-liberal advocates needing something to get all exercised and steamed up about. Whether it’s the Anti-Defamation League or the Southern Poverty Law Center or some other well-meaning group which is on the lookout for every right-wing threat to the status quo, the militia ‘movement’ is basically a bunch of websites which always include a shopping cart where they can peddle their t-shirts and other crap.

Several years ago I spent time looking at the Michigan Militia after the group gained some notoriety when it turned out that Timothy McVeigh had attended some of the militia’s meetings before he went to Oklahoma City and blew up the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. The Michigan bunch got the usual treatment from the liberal media; i.e., these guys should be taken seriously because who knows? In fact, this ‘front line’ defending America’s core values was nothing more than a bunch of overweight, old men playing a 21st-Century version of Boy Scouts out in the woods. When I recently looked at the militia movement again, nothing had changed.

But in fact something has changed. What has changed is that we now have a President who will say anything to buy himself some votes next year, I suspect he has already appointed someone on his staff to be the liaison to the militia movement. After all, it’s pretty hard to keep reminding America’s gun-nut population that you’re protecting their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights’ when the budget you just signed contains $25 million to be given away by the CDC for so-called gun violence ‘research.’

On the other hand, who’s to say that Trump can’t cobble together a coalition to protect America against the ‘deep state?’ Let’s see, we have the anti-vaccination crowd, the anti-gay and lesbian crowd, the anti-everything else crowd and what’s left over from the anti-immigration crowd.

What all these groups have in common is exactly what aligns them with the militia movement, namely, that anyone takes them seriously. Looking again at the above picture of the Tazewell Militia, I mean, those shleps dressed up in their warpaint are going to protect the Constitution of the United States?

Give me a friggin’ break.

Is The Ar-15 A ‘Modern Sporting Rifle?’ Like I’m Voting For Donald Trump.

December 18, 2019

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              Back in October the FBI released their crime report for 2018 which showed that violent crime not only fell another 4% from the previous year, but dropped 14.6% over the last decade. Immediately the hot-air balloon for the gun industry, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) issued a press release contrasting this trend with the continued strong sale of assault rifles, the obvious conclusion being that guns protect us from crime.

              So the gun industry is finally admitting to something that they have been trying to deny for years, namely, that the so-called ‘modern sporting rifle’ is nothing more than a marketing scam to pretend that a gun that was designed for military and tactical purposes is just another good, old hunting gun. And how could anyone feel that any kind of hunting gun shouldn’t be protected by the 2nd Amendment, right?

              The fact is that the AR is advertised and sold as a ‘self-defense’ gun.  Now maybe companies like Bushmaster and Smith & Wesson are thinking of AR-owners as using their ‘black’ guns to defend themselves against an invasion from Iran, Iraq or from outer space. But let’s not quibble over technicalities; anyone who thinks that a bottom-loading gun which can discharge 100 rounds of military-grade ammunition in 4 minutes or less is a ‘sporting’ weapon has about as much of a grasp on reality as someone who believes that Rudy Giuliani is in love with the American way of life.

              When I first started writing about guns back in 2012, the most vicious and angry comments I received from Gun-nut Nation was whenever I stated that the AR-15 was a military gun. ‘How can you call this a military gun when the Army uses guns that are full-auto and this gun is just another semi-automatic gun?’  That was one of the more polite comments I used to receive.

              In fact, the current battle weapon carried by our troops, the M-4 carbine, can be set to fire in semi-auto mode or 3-shot burst. And I have yet to receive an answer from any of the Gun-nut Nation hot-air balloons when I ask them to explain how, if he sets the gun to fire once time every time the trigger is pulled, a soldier can go into battle with a modern sporting rifle.

              Which brings us back to the claim made by the NSSF that the decline in violent crime has something to do with the continued popularity and sales of the AR-15. Except this drop in violent crime happens to have occurred at the same time that the homicide rate has gone up.  Meanwhile, the percentage of murders committed with guns (72%) has remained constant over the last several years.

              In fact, guns have been the weapon of choice for people who kill other people for a century, if not more. According to Brearley’s study of homicide, data from the U.S. Division of Vital Statistics, of the 63,906 murders committed between 1920 through 1926, 45,666 were committed with firearms, which just happens to be 72%. Of course in 1920 the national population stood at 106 million, which means the homicide rate was, on average, around 10 percent. In 2017 the CDC says that the U.S. homicide rate was around 6 per hundred thou.  

              On the other hand, in both 1981 and 1991 the overall homicide rate was above 10 and in both years, guns figured in roughly 70% of all homicidal events. Up, down, no matter which way the murder rate goes, each year the number of people who kill someone else without using a gun stays more or less the same. And guess what? The U.S. murder rate which doesn’t have anything to do with guns is also higher than what happens in other advanced nation-states.

              The bottom line is that talking about gun violence as uniquely American may obscure the fact that America is an exceptionally-violent country with or without guns. Anyone have an answer for that one?

Reduce Gun Violence By Regulating Gun Dealers. What Else Is New?

December 16, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 7 Comments

              Last week a lawsuit that was filed in Chicago in 2018 was given the green light to proceed in the Federal courts which could possibly provide a new and different approach to reducing gun violence beyond what has now become a rather hackneyed and useless argument about how gun violence is a ‘public health threat.’

              The suit names the Governor of Illinois and the Illinois State Police as defendants. It claims they are violating the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) because gun violence in Chicago creates emotional trauma that is responsible for ‘trauma-related disabilities’ in children, chief among them being cognitive and emotional functions which control learning and the ability to communicate properly with other kids. It’s a class-action suit brought by the mother of a 9-year old boy who saw his father gunned down in the street, and includes many other children living in what can only be described as Chicago’s war zone; i.e., the neighborhoods that have seen over 500 murders this year alone.

              The suit names the Governor and the State Police as defendants because it argues that the gun violence which violates the ADA is the result of lax enforcement of the laws that cover the behavior of gun retailers around Chicago, thus resulting in guns that are first sold legally but then trafficked illegally into the neighborhoods where so many shootings take place. The suit lists 11 remedies that should be instituted in licensed gun shops, including the installation of video systems, inventory audits and more training of store personnel.

              This lawsuit builds on a state law, ‘Combating Illegal Gun Trafficking Act,’ which took effect at the beginning of this year and requires all gun dealers in Illinois to install security systems, keep more comprehensive records of sales and submit to annual inventory audits, as well as only hiring staff who are licensed to own guns. The lawsuit basically claims that the state government and the state police have been lax in enforcing this new law, the proof cited is the extraordinary level of gun violence on the Windy City’s streets.

              The problem with this lawsuit is that it assumes a causal connection between how well the government fulfills its regulatory responsibilities as listed in the law which took effect at the beginning of this year and the level of gun violence which occurs on the West Side and South Side of Chicago every day. In other words, if gun violence continues at its current horrific pace, this must be somehow tied to lax enforcement of the new law. The lawsuit cites data which shows that 40% of the ‘crime guns’ picked up by the Chicago P.D. were first purchased in gun shops located in suburbs around the city; hence, with stronger enforcement this flow of guns into high-crime neighborhoods would go down.

              Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn’t. Like so many other laws which seek to prevent a specific commodity from reaching a specific market, the Illinois gun dealer law doesn’t take into account the issue of demand. And as governments have discovered since the sixteenth century when the Valois Monarchy tried to regulate the commerce of salt, if people want something badly enough, they’ll find a way to get around any law which tries to control supply.

              This is the reason that I refer above to the ‘hackneyed’ arguments about gun violence being bandied about by my friends in public health. Because again and again I hear the gun-control community demanding that we enact stronger laws to keep guns out of the ‘wrong hands.’ But what if the size of the wrong-handed population keeps going up?

              As long as songs like ‘Bullets Ain’t Got No Name’ are best-sellers on the hip-hop charts, the idea that guns will somehow disappear from high-violence neighborhoods because we pass another regulation is not only a joke, but demonstrates just how far away from reality the discussion about gun violence has moved.

              Want to get rid of gun violence? Get rid of the you-know-whats, okay?

What Should Doctors Say To Patients About Guns?

December 12, 2019

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Today a group of well-meaning and thoroughly ignorant physicians are getting together in New York City to discuss for the umpteenth time the appropriate medical response to what is called a ‘national public health crisis;’ i.e., injuries caused by guns. They will no doubt draft yet another set of proposals to deal with the problem which will include all the usual things – more research funding, comprehensive background checks, ‘red flag’ laws, assault rifle ban, maybe even a mandatory delay in gun transfers or mandatory training before someone can walk around with a gun.

The reason I say these medical professionals are ‘thoroughly ignorant’ is because none of them know anything about guns. If they did know something about guns, they would understand that you can’t make something ‘safe’ which is designed not to be safe. How do we define the word ‘safe?’ It means that when we use something the way it’s supposed to be used that no injury occurs.

That being said, let me break the news gently to all those folks shooting their mouths off at today’s meeting in New York: The guns which are used to commit virtually every act of gun violence happen to be designed for one purpose and one purpose only – to kill or injure either the user of the gun or someone else. To use such guns in a ‘safe’ way is to invent a narrative that could only be taken seriously by people who know absolutely nothing about guns.

Want to ban assault rifles? Fine. Such a ban might result in reducing the number of people killed or injured with guns by, at best, 2 percent. What about the other 98 percent? Oh no, we can’t ban Glocks, we can’t ban tactical shotguns, the Constitution says Americans can own  those guns. And the last thing that medical professionals would ever want to be accused of doing is coming up with a response to a public health problem that didn’t align with 2nd-Amendment rights.

I have never understood how or why physicians need to be concerned about what the Constitution says or doesn’t say about guns when the evidence-based research that physicians are supposed to use to define all medical practice clearly proves that access to a gun is a significant health risk. Is the risk somehow lessened by locking the guns up or locking them away?  Sorry, but I have to gently break something else to my medical friends: There is not one, single study which has ever shown any connection whatsoever between ‘safe storage’ and the injuries caused by guns.

There are studies all over the place which find that when patients are counseled on safe behavior with guns, many of them later report that they have taken the doctor’s advice and are behaving with their guns in a safer way. But none of these studies are based on a before-and-after analysis of gun violence rates; it is simply assumed, with no evidence whatsoever, that behaving in a safe way with guns results in gun-violence rates going down.

When anyone puts their hand on a live gun (that’s a gun with ammunition ready to go) they have moved into a high-risk zone. And the only way to mitigate that risk is to make it impossible for anyone to put their hands on that gun. Now there happen to be many people (one of them me) who have decided for all sorts of reasons that they have no problem accepting that risk. There are also a lot of people who still like to ‘light up a Lucky’ or walk around with 40 extra pounds on their frame. And by the way, the Constitution gives every American the ‘right’ to do both.

Would any physician ever claim, in the interests of  ‘non-partisanship,’ that these patients should be advised to find a safer way to eat or smoke? Of course not. And that being the case, the physicians who think they can find some kind of neutral pathway to reducing gun violence are simply showing their ignorance about guns.

Want to get rid of gun violence? Get rid of the guns designed to cause gun violence. An approach which, by the way, doesn’t run counter to the 2nd Amendment at all.

Hunting And Conservation Are A Good Thing.

December 10, 2019

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You may recall that last month Rudy Giuliani’s business buddy, a.k.a. Donald Trump, threatened to cut off federal aid to California because the state wasn’t doing an effective job on fighting wildfires. Now the fact that the Federal Government owns half the forest land in California whereas state forest lands represent 3% and thus the problem is one for the Feds to resolve as opposed to being the responsibility of Governor Newsom’s administration is only yet further proof (as if we need more proof) that the 45th President of the United States is the most misinformed Chief Executive of all time. Be that as it may, this exchange brought back to mind a brief chapter of American conservation history which deserves to be recalled.

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was an effort to combat the high rate of unemployment during the Depression while, at the same time, use government resources to expand and protect natural resources, particularly forest lands. When it comes to conservation we usually think of the other Roosevelt, Teddy, because he was an active conservationist his entire life and created five major national parks as President from 1901 to 1909.

Today the National Park System covers 85 million acres and everyone has either visited or would like to visit parks like Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Yosemite, Zion, the list goes on and on. I have been in every national park and my own favorite is Joshua Tree outside of Palm Springs because it is mostly desert which means the solitude is immense. A close runner-up to Joshua Tree is Capitol Reef in Utah, another amazingly undisturbed place.

What is often overlooked when we talk about federal government efforts to preserve our natural space is that in fact it was Franklin Roosevelt’s CCC that enlarged the National Wildlife Refuge system which now covers more than 150 million acres, including 566 national wildlife refuges in all 50 states. In my state, Massachusetts, there are 11 refuges and I often wander in and around the Oxbow Refuge, which is 1,667 acres of totally unspoiled, natural swamp with nesting places for various migratory birds.  During the years when the CCC was engaged in wildlife conservation, one of their chief tasks was to fight fires that threatened wildlife sites.

As open space becomes an ever-increasing precious resource, the fact that virtually everyone living in the United States can gain access to these unspoiled places by driving a short distance from their homes, means that the ability to appreciate the wildness of nature remains an experience we all can share.  What group among us is dependent upon this environment to help them enjoy the outdoors? Hunters, whose purchase of hunting licenses, firearms and ammunition have contributed more than $14 billion to the upkeep and extension of these natural zones.

Much of the current debate about the place of guns in American culture ignores how the use of small arms for hunting and sport is a vital element in preserving the space needed by wild to flourish and grow. This may sound like something of a paradox, insofar as we usually consider hunting to be a threat to wild animal life. But in fact, hunters understand and support the Boone & Crockett idea of a ‘fair chase’ is really all about helping to maintain the vital balance between all living things – humans and animals sharing the Earth’s natural space.

For me, the importance of hunting for strengthening conservation is a much more fundamental argument for gun ownership than anything having to do with armed, self-defense or 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ Which is why I got involved with Conservation Centers for Species Survival (C2S2), a remarkable organization whose scientific research is moving our understanding of  how to protect wild species to an entirely new level.

I am going to be writing more columns about C2S2 but in the meantime I invite you to look at their website (https://conservationcenters.org/) and subscribe to their Facebook page. I guarantee you’ll like what you see.

Want To Learn About Guns? Try This Magazine.

December 6, 2019

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              One of the reasons I like to write about guns is because it was when I first started reading about guns that I decided to become a gun nut. I had been given a Daisy Red Ryder when I was nine or ten years old; I also was a member of an NRA-sponsored shooting team when I was eleven (and have been a member since that time), but I got my first, real gun in 1956 when I was twelve years old. I’ll save that story for another time.

              About a month before I bought my first gun, the first of at least a thousand I have bought and sold over the following sixty-plus years, I found myself on a train going from Washington, D.C. to Florida, looking for something to read. What I picked up from a vacant seat close by was a copy of Field and Stream. And right inside the cover was a full-page, color photograph of some hunting gun, probably a Winchester or a Remington, which was the most beautiful photograph of anything I had ever seen.

              Why do some boys become gun nuts instead of collecting model trains or getting into ham radios, which is what most of my friends did back in those days?  I have absolutely no earthly idea. But what I do know is that I started wandering around gun shops and gun shows in my late teens, an activity which continues to the present day. And I also never go into Barnes & Noble without wandering over to the magazine rack and leafing through Guns and Ammo, Shooting Times or Field and Stream.

              The last-named is rather interesting because it just so happens that of late I am devoting myself to animal conservation and the restoration and protection of animal species which live in natural space. But we can’t assume that open, natural space is likely to remain open or natural without conscious efforts being made to keep things that way. And we certainly can’t assume that these spaces are large enough to provide the environment required for all wild species to survive. Which is why I have become a supporter of a remarkable organization, Conservation Centers for Species Survival, but that’s also a story for another day.

              Getting back to Field and Stream, it was founded in 1895 and absorbed its chief competitor, Forest and Stream, in 1930. The editor of Forest and Stream from 1876 to 1911 was America’s first conservationist, George Bird Grinnell, who founded the Boone & Crockett Club with Theodore Roosevelt in 1887. Neither Grinnell nor Roosevelt ever wrote about guns, but they encouraged gun writers to contribute content to both of these magazines because they understood that hunting was an integral part of how humans have always interacted with the outdoors. And by the way, if you think for one second that the members of Boone & Crockett are just a bunch of right-wing yahoos running around in the woods with their AR-15’s, take a look at what the club says about climate change.

              As far as writing about guns is concerned, most of the writers who helped me become a gun nut happened to be contributors to Field and Stream.  I’m talking about guys like Townsend Whelen, Warren Page and Jack O’Connor who managed always to strike a wonderful balance in their work between the technical aspect of gun design and manufacture versus the joys and challenges of taking a gun out to the field.

              Many of the hunters and the gun writers I met growing up are long gone; for that matter hunting is also slipping away. When kids talk about enjoying the outdoors, they are much more likely to be carrying a kayak on the roof of their cars then carrying a gun in the trunk. But the outdoors is still the refuge for most of the wild species whose existence we both need and enjoy.

              And I am still grateful that I first became aware of this wonderment in the pages of a hunting magazine called Field and Stream.   

Josh Montgomery: AR-style rifles – What Should You Pay Attention When Buying.

December 5, 2019

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You’re probably very excited to buy your first AR-style rifle, yet you’re afraid you might end up choosing one that is not right for you. You’re not the first nor the last. After all, not everyone can be an all-around expert, right?

AR-style rifles are semi-automatic performers that are capable of being used in combat. They are of multiple types, such as polymer, AK-47, AR-15, compact and many others. However, combat is not the only way assault rifles can be put to work, as they can be used for hunting and self-defense as well.

Especially if you’re a first-time buyer, the many choices you find on the market could be overwhelming and can easily give you the “this is not for me” mindset. However, it is not as difficult as you think, and all you need is some guidance. So, if you’re thinking of purchasing an AR-style rifle, here’s what you need to look for before you spend your money.

  • Brand

Is it even worth mentioning that there are a lot of brands out there? Just like it’s the case for any other product, there are different brands that are trying to manufacture the best model on the market. In case you were thinking the brand doesn’t really matter, well, think again. Each one hires different experts to manufacture the weapons, so it’s only normal the rifles differ from each other, depending on who made them.

That being said, some brands sell their rifles for lower prices, while others seem quite expensive. While we don’t suggest choosing the pricier item, don’t settle for the cheapest one either. Unless you want to end up with a gun that will have a poor performance and won’t resist for too long, you should avoid it.

Look for one with a decent price. Some popular brands are Smith, Colt, and Wesson.

  • Triggers

The trigger is the one determining the bullet to pass through the barrel, so it only makes sense you have to consider this factor. Some triggers are harder to pull than others, and choosing the right pull weight depends on your strength and preference.

Make sure you choose one that’s not too easy to pull, nor requiring all of your power to work. Also, if triggers have screw adjustments, avoid them, as they may back out.

  • Feel

How you feel with the rifle while handling it is really important. So, this should definitely be one of the decisive factors before you invest in it. You wouldn’t want to feel any discomfort while struggling to shoot accurately, would you?

Of course, this also differs from one person to another. So, you have to test the assault rifle before deciding if it’s the right one for you. You can do this by picking it up and putting it on your shoulder.

If it feels uncomfortable, it’s best to avoid buying that model because you will have to spend extra money on adjustments.

Test each rifle you set your eyes on and make sure it feels comfortable when you handle it.

  • Fit

Whether the rifle fits or not is yet another very important aspect to take into consideration. Just like the feel, this depends on each individual. It can be figured out through a simple test.

You have to hold the rifle and use your dominant hand to make a firing grip. See if you’re able to reach every control, such as the safety, bolt catch, magazine release and, ultimately, the trigger. Don’t be surprised if some rifles make this the most difficult task in the world. As they are manufactured differently, not each one allows for smooth, easy operation, so reaching every control may not be possible.

That being said, choose one that allows you to reach the controls without putting in too much effort. Otherwise, you might drop the weapon and you’ll not be able to use it efficiently. Look for a different model if the one you tested doesn’t fit.

  • Durability

Let’s be honest, who would want to buy a gun knowing it will most likely die after barely being used? Nobody wants that, given the amount of money spent. It’s important to look carefully at the weapon and do some research before you settle for it. Assault rifles should be able to withstand years of usage without losing their good condition.

Coming as no surprise, the market has many low-quality rifle models that are not only about to crumble after a few uses but may also be really dangerous. So, you need to be really careful and not just choose a cheap option, or one from a brand you haven’t heard of. Check out the rifle, do some research and ask the shop worker for as many details as possible to be sure that you’re getting the right item.

  • Accessories

Sometimes, you have to look for some additional items that will make the experience much better. When it comes to AR-style rifles, you may want accessories such as optics, lights, and slings. So, the rifle you choose should have attachment points for them.

This is why you should look at how many attachment points the weapon has. Particularly if you want to do competitive shooting, the more attachment points, the better. This is because accessories can greatly improve your performance by helping you.

So, look for rifles with a higher number of attachment points, and you can add versatile and useful accessories.

Final Thoughts

AR-style rifles are not like children’s toys and looking for one is a task that should be taken seriously. Since assault rifles can be a really solid investment, you need to know what to look for to choose one that delivers exactly what you wish. Hopefully, our article has helped you in this regard.

Want To Find Common Ground Between Gun Owners And Non-Gun Owners? Think Conservation.

December 4, 2019

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 An interesting article appeared today on a website which caters primarily to residents of Ohio who earn their livings by owning or working on farms. There are still 75,000 farms in the Buckeye State, which means that the farmers and their families account for less than 3% of the population, but together agriculture contributes more than $100 billion to the state’s economy, which isn’t bad considering that taken together, farmland accounts for about half of all the state’s physical size.

The article, written by the Director of Agricultural Law at Ohio State, summarizes what landowners need to know when they allow hunters to go trekking across their land. Ohio has passed any number of statutes covering who can hunt on  someone else’s land, what kind of permission is required, how many hunters can be on a specific piece of land at the same time, who needs to be notified about trespassers, and so on. As the author of the article states, “hunting raises many questions and concerns for agricultural landowners. Ohio law offers rules and remedies that can ease those concerns.”

What I find interesting is the degree to which hunting and farming both help to sustain the natural balance  that allows all living species (including humans) to survive. The farmer plants a crop which both draws and restores natural ingredients to the land. After the harvest (which produces sustenance for animals and man) the stubble and vines provide nourishment for all kinds of living things. Then the hunters come and trim the flocks  and herds attracted to the open, farmed space and the whole cycle repeats itself again.

The importance of this process and the role played by hunting in maintaining the natural balance of this cycle was recognized by Theodore Roosevelt and George Grinnell when they founded the Boone & Crockett Club in 1887.  This followed from Roosevelt’s first hunting expedition in 1883 when he went out West to bag a trophy-sized bison. What he thought would be an easy hunting trip into the Dakota Territory, turned into an arduous trek into Montana because the American bison, once native to the entire continent, had become almost extinct in the continental United States. The founding of Boone & Crockett was the first of many steps taken by Roosevelt and other hunter-conservationists to regulate the taking of game so that herds and flocks would continue to flourish and grow.

I did my first serious hunting in South Carolina in the mid-1970’s, going after white tails both in highland and lowland sites. When I moved to Massachusetts in 1993 I froze my rear end several times hunting high-flyers from duck blinds on the Atlantic coast. I also briefly hunted elk in Wyoming and antelope in West Texas; in neither place did I even get off one shot.

What impresses me about this country is that we have almost an endless supply of open space, most of which represents farms that are no longer in production but offer all kinds of landscapes where hunters can go and engage in what Boone & Crockett calls a ‘fair chase.’ This means that at all times the hunter is aware of his responsibility to “conserve wildlife natural resources, especially game species.”

It just so happens that an organization, Conservation Centers for Species Survival (C2S2) has been working on ways to maintain and augment the natural balance so that wild species can survive in what is increasingly less amounts of natural space. The group is an offshoot of the Smithsonian, and the CEO, Katy Palfrey, just happens to be the great-great granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, I kid you not.

You can see what they are doing on their website, but I’ll just summarize it quickly and tell you this. They work with ranchers and farmers who have open land that can be used to study the most effective ways to protect and grow natural species, and some of their spaces are shared with hunters as well.

Want to find common ground between gun owners and non-gun owners?  Here it is.

Bruce Pankratz: Using Zoning to Limit Assault-style Rifle Violence.

December 3, 2019

mikethegunguy Blogs , , 5 Comments

This article is written out of personal curiosity about the merits of an idea. It is personal curiosity not advocacy.

A perhaps new,  interesting idea came long recently along. I cannot remember it being discussed in the many gun posts or articles I have read over the years or in places mentioning solutions to gun violence like the Bloomberg School of Public Health course on gun violence or in Tom Gabor’s recent book ENOUGH! Solving America’s Gun Violence Crisis.   The idea died as far as I know when Beto O’Rourke stopped running for president. But the idea was not confiscation. It was zoning. 

Recently the Des Moine Register said  “Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said Friday he was open to allowing people to use assault-style weapons like AR-15s and AK-47s at gun ranges and hunting clubs, despite his plan to ban the weapons purchase and to require owners of existing weapons to sell them to the government. “ (see Note 1)

America already has some forms of place control or zoning for guns so the idea is not really new.  You usually cannot hunt in a crowded city park or take guns onto private property without the owner’s permission being examples of place control. But applying place control to the so-called assault weapons seems new or at least seldom discussed. The concept described in this article then is to use zoning to help prevent made-for-television mass shootings with assault-style rifles while still letting people own them.

What this all means is there would need to be gun clubs with ranges for people to shoot their assault-style rifles where the rifles would be stored securely at the clubs and owners could clean or maintain their rifles but not take them off premises. Currently unless people live in the middle of nowhere they probably would have to go to a range to shoot anyway. The difference then would be the rifles stay at the club with the range so people cannot tinker with the guns at home in their basements. The clubs would need to have an  FFL who could only accept assault-style rifles from another FFL or send them to other clubs with an FFL and to state the obvious safe storage. Finally, with place control anyone who could legally buy an assault-style rifle could buy  one from an FFL and have it shipped to an FFL in a gun club who would accept it. They do not need to jump through all the hoops needed to own a machine gun.

Much of what we hear about gun control regulations has winners and losers. What follows are some tentative thoughts about who wins and who loses with this concept. 

Winners with place control:

1)School kids living in a world where the assault rifles only are used in gun clubs would not have to worry about them in schools. They would still have to worry about handguns so it may not be a big change 

2)Gun controllers would call it a victory

3)Fighting this idea would bring money into the coffers of the NRA and similar organizations

4)Assault-style rifle owners in the states where the ‘antis’ are trying to make the rifles illegal might be able to work towards legislation allowing people to keep their rifles in clubs instead of not at all

Losers:

1)TV news people (they would not longer be able to report on assault-style weapons used in school shootings and maybe fewer mass shootings)

2)People who live in the country who shoot assault-style rifles on their property

3)People who like to build or maintain assault-style rifles in their basements

4)Companies and dealers selling assault-style rifles could see sales slip

5)People who hunt wild pigs from helicopters using assault-style rifles

6)People who want an assault-style rifle for home defense

Some Open Issues (out of many possible others):

1)Grandfather clause for existing owners?

2)How get guns to a shooting match?

3)Would people actually obey the law?

4)How many aspiring school shooters would just switch to handguns?

5)How do families handle estates when the owner of a rifle dies?

This is only a first try at exploring the concept. Any constructive thoughts out there?

Note 1: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/candidates/2019/10/25/election-2019-democrat-beto-orourke-open-idea-letting-some-keep-ar-15-s-ak-47-s-hunting-clubs-gun-ra/2456493001/

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