After the train wreck of last week’s episode, the boys are back this week with one topic, and we’re talking about guns that absolutely flopped on the commercial market.
If you have ideas for a show, send them to us at gunnutsmedia@icloud.com
Do Better, CNN – “Why the President, Congress and the Supreme Court can’t – or won’t – stop mass shootings”
Can’t. The answer is, always has been, and always will be can’t. Anyone who tells you otherwise is stupid, high, selling snake oil, or trying to win an election off your misguided grief and righteous anger. I just read the headline that we could “Save 15,000 lives if we just did…” Didn’t click. I don’t know what theory was being pushed, I do know that whichever one it was (because there are only about 6 of them) it uses more wishful thinking than anything like enforceable policy measures.
This “wonderful” write up from my CNN newsletter “CNN What Matters” came in Wednesday, and ultimately I sit here disappointed. I don’t expect a lot out of CNN, I know their politics. But this hit raw because of just how asininely wrong Zachary B. Wolf is… but he is so close to being right on this.
CNN, like many, cannot get over the myth that if we just make the politicians write the right things down on some paper that we can magically interdict evil intentioned individuals or groups. We can’t. Never could. Never will be able to. That is fundamentally how life and free agency work.
Wolf’s write up on the politics of violence surrounding Robb Elementary is titled “Can’t or won’t” and it’s clear where he misplaces the blame.
Can’t or won’t – Zachry B. Wolf
This cycle of gun violence is sad, predictable and permanent.
Statement. Fact.
Zachary, you are correct here. This is permanent because all the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, and everywhere in between, cannot, with anything like acceptable accuracy, predict or assuage the human capacity for violence. Period. Full stop. The free agency of the human mind can choose to kill, can choose violence, and the intangibles that encourage people to be or not be violent are innumerable and vary between individuals. What a psychological nut to try and crack, eh? Let’s talk about gun show loopholes instead, amiright?
We as a species and as societies have trends, we have social behaviors and contracts, we have laws which are simply those social behaviors written down, either well (don’t commit unjustifiable or negligent homicide) or stupidly (AsUzaUlt WeePon BAD!).
But where does the blame rest? Where does this buck for human violence and dead children stop?
It is permanent because presidents lack power, while Capitol Hill is paralyzed by minority rule. And federal courts, though poised to give the power back to the people’s representatives on abortion, have routinely struck down state laws to reasonably curb gun access.
Ah.
Part of the country thinks the answer is fewer guns, while another part wants to see more guns everywhere to take down deranged gunmen.
Two gross oversimplifications of the popular polarizations that this argument always centers around, so oversimplified as to make both points meaningless to mention. “Fewer” guns is a snake oil salesmen doing their best and “more guns everywhere” ignores the obvious necessity of very well trained, very real, and very motivated security professionals who have methods to harden schools and reduce the likelihood of and the efficacy of the next event.
But sure, let’s just make it about taking away guns or tossing guns into every classroom willy-nilly.
This is an adult discussion.
Journalists like me aren’t even writing new stories about how little can happen to address the problem. They’re regurgitating old ones written after previous shootings because nothing has changed.
You know why nothing has changed, right? We saw a little bit of that change.
Harken back to just after Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where good ole’ David Hogg made his name and has since become a predictable mouthpiece you can give quarters to so he’ll scream the right anti-gun obscenities. Harken, I say.
Remember immediately after that? When the students hated the security measures. Security measures like transparent backpacks, metal detectors, pat downs, and so forth. Remember when that was stressful and invasive, so they stopped?
Security is inconvenient, that is why it works… to a degree. Security is primarily dissuasive and then reactive. Dissuade people from doing, and reacting when someone does anyway. That is all security is. Both of those failures have come glaringly out of Uvalde.
We know that gun violence can happen anywhere because it has happened everywhere. Schools, churches, supermarkets, ball fields, Walmarts. Gun violence targets young children, Black people, Asian Americans, random citizens and politicians from both parties.
It has happened everywhere, correct. In total spite of every single law against it, it happened. Weird. It is almost like the only thing that actually prevents a violent act is… the violent actor not doing it. Illegality, oddly enough, does not seem to factor into the thinking of the extremely violent.
More US kids 17 and under died from gun violence in 2021 than have died from Covid-19 during the pandemic:
- 1,560 gun violence deaths in people ages 0-17 in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
- 1,070 Covid-19 deaths in people ages 0-17 during the pandemic, as of Wednesday, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Not to be that guy… but COVID killed the old and infirm more than any other demographic because its a virus that savages the lungs and not a human being angry at other human beings. Kids tend to have strong developing lungs, so their numbers were lower. Kids are not immune for the anger of others, especially their peers.
Funny, you don’t use the number of children and number of teens distinction GVA uses. Considering the deaths at Robb Elementary fall under the category children, far rarer, and teens start the demographic bracket used in another circle. Military Aged Male. Put another way, the age males are most likely to become criminally active.
So how many of those 1,560 ‘kids’ were children? 313.
Leaving 1,247 ‘kids’ deaths in the teen category where 15, 16, and especially 17 are going to be the ages where they were killed.
Why?
Take a guess.
That starts the most violent time of male life, and the rates for suicide increase too. Using that overly broad demographic (male), the rates quiet back down in our thirties. Criminal involvement starts in the teens, the consequences for criminal involvement start in the teens too. Pointing out the death of ‘kids’ without that distinction gives us no basis to solve the various reasons they are dying.
But no, let’s just say more ‘kids’ were killed by ‘gun violence’ than COVID, like that actually means something useful, that we can formulate a plan around that information to reduce those deaths.
We don’t like to say out loud that these could be criminally associated, just like we don’t want to admit security is hard, or that our Government can’t, not won’t, but truly can’t do much about it. Not in the way we wish we could stop horrific events. That authority over human behavior doesn’t exist and no amount of ink will make it exist.
Free will sucks sometimes, doesn’t it? Why doesn’t literally everybody will only the things that you want willed, within an acceptable margin by your standards? Why are there outlier events like mass killings that don’t make sense to us? Free agency, free will, a motivation we don’t understand ourselves but must accept as the reality we live in.
We use that phrase a lot, ‘The Reality We Live In’. We use it disparagingly too, like we could solve “gun violence” if we just remembered something as simple as the light switch in the bathroom. Like we can align 7 billion moral compasses if we’d just remember to take out the trash on time.
Zachary, this isn’t easy. It’s life. Work on the workable solutions and stop worrying about the unworkable. I’d love if it Joe Biden actually had the power to meaningfully stop violence, he doesn’t. I’d love it if he could speak in coherent sentences too, but not much luck their either.
Powerless President
President Joe Biden couldn’t even get a director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed in the first year and a half of his presidency. His first nominee, though a career ATF official, had ties to groups that support gun restrictions. His second nominee, Steve Dettelbach, had his confirmation hearing Wednesday.
Chipman is a dirtbag who was tied to Waco and Fast and Furious, on top of his clear anti-gun biases. He should never have been close to the running of a neutral federal agency any more than I should be. Less even, since I at least look critically at data instead of party/organizational talking points. I don’t want Wayne Lapierre in that seat either. I want an unbiased data analyst and good manager since they have an agency to manage.
Biden, doing what he can, has begun administrative efforts to crack down on home-assembly ghost guns, but lacks the power to do much about the guns used in mass shootings.
Ha! HAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!
That’s because, among other reasons, most mass killers have clean criminal and mental histories and ‘red flags’ are just as much snake oil as ‘assault weapons bans’ are. We are running up against the extreme points of free agency and instead of taking steps to lower the collective stress in this nation, which would lower the probability of outlier events, we keep poking at things that make it worse and creating more extreme hot points. We then just point at team ‘not us, them’ and blame them.
The Ghost Gun Ban is laughable. Oh, 77% of mass shooters use handguns by the way. Just a reminder.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration tried to reinterpret an existing law against civilian ownership of machine guns to ban so-called “bump stocks” like the one used to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in 2017. Gun rights groups have sued the Biden administration over the rule.
They sued Trump too. I don’t know what Trump is going to say at NRAAM over the weekend but I wouldn’t be surprised if he admits the bumpstock ban was an error, it would drum up political base power in the 2A crowd for those he soured with that move. He won’t get everyone back but he doesn’t have to.
Paralyzed Senate
Good. The less they mess up with crap like the S.A.F.E. Act, the better.
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, a majority of senators agreed to a bipartisan bill to expand background checks to all gun purchases except those between family members. It failed because a bipartisan minority opposed the bill.
Remember that most mass killers have clean backgrounds? Remember that? Did we check the noncompliance estimates in states that have implemented so called ‘universal’ background checks? How’s enforcement of that rule going? Not well? Shocking.
Notably, the three Democrats who opposed that 2013 bill have all been replaced by Republicans in the Senate. Another Democrat opposed the bill for procedural reasons.
Three Republicans supported the bill and two of the seats they represented are up for grabs in tightly contested elections this fall.
Oh, this is just about getting Red Team or Blue Team seats? Cool. Because if we could just pass more laws the other laws will work better! That’s how laws work, right? If you make a thing super-extra-ultra illegal, it goes away.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had no answers for how to move gun legislation other than to encourage people to vote in November in the midterm elections. But no likely election outcome will give either party the 60 votes needed to pass meaningful legislation.
Good. Gun legislation isn’t going to accomplish anything. We need infrastructure and socially positive legislation to harden schools, punish actual criminals who hurt folks, treat the mentally unwell, and economically boost the nation competitively. Every artificial equity initiative we put in place is going to be ruthlessly exploited, look at the PPP fraud alone, so we need to be extremely cautious with handing out and setting rules for that. We should look at logical methods for debt easement nationally and personally, we should be looking at ways to make businesses grow and educations work to pay bills instead of feeding fat checks to university coffers. There are all manner of things we should be looking at to promote the general welfare and contentment, which in turn would lower the likelihood of outlier events.
We don’t need to do a thing on gun laws except trim the books. NFA, axe it. ATF, rolled into the FBI where they belong and stripped of a ton of weird authorities. GCA, kill it with fire.
New bill.
The Firearms Clarification Act. All semi-automatic or manual action firearms are hereby Title I firearms, must be 18 to buy from a Federal dealer and do the 4473/NICS thing. The categories of AOW, SBR, SBS, Suppressor/Silencer, and Handgun are eliminated. It is all just now Firearm. Select fire and automatic firearms are Title II NFA transfers, transfers will be conducted through electronic or mail-in updates as now. Transfers will take no more than 30 days from proper submission, or the tax is refunded. Transfers taking longer than 60 days are automatically transferred upon completion of a 4473 and NICS check.
FBI can use their own resources to recover a wrongly transferred item.
We’d solve a lot of wasted time and effort with a paragraph, and you can keep your background checks since they make you feel so warm and fuzzy. I’m willing to be reasonable.
Partisanship is growing
Democrats, who narrowly control the Senate today, have moved toward a vote on a background check bill, but it is doomed to fail without those 60 votes.
Gotta get those “I tried” votes in before mid-terms.
There are efforts to legislate in other ways, with red flag laws to take guns from people who raise concerns about a shooting, for instance. A red flag law was enacted in Florida after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, for instance. Read more about red flag laws.
I’ve read about red flag laws, its more feel good nonsense that never works well in practice. Voluntary removal of your own firearms or court ordered efforts in conjunction with compulsory institutionalization for mental health have always been around and work about as well as they can. They hover dangerously close to civil rights violations (not just the Second Amendment) at the best of times. Broadening the definitions are going to hurt a lot of people and help few to none who wouldn’t already be eligible for help under other laws.
These laws will either be abusive or lose their teeth in civil rights violation trials. Better to not even try to navigate the absurdity of pre-crime. That is what a red flag law is, pre-crime but with none of the plot magic that makes pre-crime actually work. We’re back to challenging free agency directly again.
Any compromise seems a long way from becoming reality. And it’s not clear those bills would have kept guns from most of the people who carry out these horrible crimes.
No, it is clear. It is clear they wouldn’t have mattered a fart in a windstorm, which is one of the primary objections to every one of these pieces of legislation. I won’t even dig into the constitutional protections problems, just stop pissing on me and calling it rain with laws that won’t prevent a free person from doing the horrific end of the spectrum of what free people can do. If you say loophole or universal or assault weapon in your proposed solution, it’s a bad idea and it won’t stop another violent actor from acting violently.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he worries red flag laws would also take guns from people who don’t need them taken away.
With ample reason.
“Virtually every one that I’ve seen here has been one that sweep up law-abiding gun owners into what I consider to be an overreach,” Tillis told CNN on Tuesday.
This is all overreach on the slim hope that we might, maybe, if we are really lucky, stop a mass killer. Screw anyone who gets hurt by the law too, we won’t talk about them until a civil rights lawyer gets angry enough. Almost like a false rape accusation, or how the gun laws currently on the books disproportionately impact the impoverished and minority groups negatively without anything positive to show for the law’s efforts. It’s hard to say, “Well we’ve lowered the homicide rate in the Black and Hispanic communities thanks to all those background checks…” when you look at the numbers.
Many states keep loosening laws. Other states’ laws don’t work
Loosening is a leading term, like ‘kids’ when we are talking about the whole 0-17 year old range. There is a mountain of difference between the cognitive free agency of a 7 year old and a 17 year old.
The Texas Tribune looks at how Texas, despite seeing many mass shootings in the state, has moved toward ever looser gun laws. Last year, it moved away from gun permits, allowing most people to openly carry guns without a permit or training.
Because, say it with me, the right to keep and bear arms. That is the default. You, a free person of this nation who is not adjudicated in any way shape or form to be unable to participate in society or act on your own behalf, have the right to the ownership and carriage of a weapon in your own defense and the defense of your community.
Also, what would have disallowing it have prevented? What does it prevent? Would there be 21 people alive in Uvalde if they still had handgun carry permitting in place?
No? Then why are we having the argument that every gun law, even ineffectual ones, need to stay on the books? Like if we just pile up enough stupid rules that don’t work, while also ignoring their negative consequences, a magic shield will form and the country will be safe. Odd variant of the monkeys writing Hamlet thing.
Meanwhile, laws in other states have been ineffective. Red flag laws failed to identify the shooter who targeted Black Americans at a Buffalo grocery store this month. A red flag law in Indiana failed to identify the shooter who killed eight people at a FedEx facility in 2021. The law has since been tweaked.
Tweaked, that is an adorable phrase. I love it when all we need to do is tweak a law that has the potential to dramatically impact someone’s life in a variety of negative ways and think it’s all good now. Red Flag laws are a well meaning attempt to try and catch a bat, in the dark, while blindfolded, but their are a whole lot of birds flying around inside too and you don’t mean to grab or hurt any of them… but you’re going to.
We are accepting a bunch of negative things that we don’t want to talk about to try and get ahead of, maybe, maybe just one negative horrific event we are terrified of. And we now openly admit it doesn’t work.
Courts strike down laws
That is literally there job. Not all laws are good ones. Not all laws remain good ones. We are a group of flawed humanity doing our best. Just because it says SAFE doesn’t make it do anything. If that were the case we could pass the Just Be Kind Act, and everyone would. Kindness would overflow, our patience with each other would be nearly limitless, communication would become easy, misunderstandings would decrease significantly and be quickly forgiven.
That would be nice. But that whole free agency, differing perspectives, and flawed nature of humanity thing rears its ugly head again.
Most restrictions on guns are enforced at the state level, and there is a patchwork of laws across the country. Even in states where strong majorities support gun control measures, federal courts have stood in the way.
That. Is. There. Job.
The courts exist to make certain the rules passed by legislatures pass constitutional muster, this way a motivated or subverted majority cannot just vote rights away. We aren’t perfect at this either, but it is a good system for checking the power of an uneducated mob at the ballot box. Something that both sides are fond of accusing the other of.
Citing the heroism of musket-wielding young people who he said fought in the Revolutionary War hundreds of years ago, a federal judge earlier this month threw out a California law that banned sales of semiautomatic guns to anyone under the age of 21.
Yep. That checks out.
If you can vote you can be armed. If you can serve you can be armed. You don’t have to wait out some arbitrary three extra years because a semi-auto rifle should only be purchased after you can legally drink too. Sorry that stands in the way… of what exactly? What is it preventing? Where are cases where a semi-automatic was denied to a legal adult teen who has the power of their vote, they can drive, and they can be sent to war, and it has prevented anything worth preventing? Why did it take that rule to do it?
How about we make the age to do every adult thing 25? Drink, drive unrestricted, vote, own a gun, serve in the military, serve in public office? 25 for all of it, so we can get those extra years of development in.
The Supreme Court appears poised to increase the number of guns on US streets – that is, if it chooses to strike down New York’s law governing concealed handguns. A decision is expected in the next month or so.
Ohhhh, guns on the streets is it? You mean the removal of the absurd rule requirements, the cronyistic and ripe for abuse nature of the ‘may issue’ standard for concealed carry? Forcing a state to have a public ruleset that you either meet or you don’t in a fair manner, not subject to whether somebody just doesn’t like you, or guns in general?
Imagine a human right not being subject to the whims of a bureaucrat. What a wonder to have an objective, clear, and achievable standard for being in compliance with or being in violation of the ruleset established for the bearing of arms. Crazy.
The country is clearly split on the issue of guns and how to restrict them. There is an apocryphal belief among many Americans that the Constitution views gun ownership in the same way it views life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. An increasingly conservative Supreme Court has turned that belief into precedent.
Its “apocryphal” that the Constitution views life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in any way, at all. Those were in the Declaration of Independence, 15 years earlier.
The Constitution does state,
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It then, in the Second Amendment, the Bill of Rights, says,
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
In our modern and enlightened interpretation of who ‘the people’ are, we are therefore to infer that all these people have the uninfringed right to keep and bear arms, for the security of a free State. Part of that is the security quite logically in their own persons.
This isn’t ‘a precedent’, it is the common sense that everyone else keeps claiming in their ineffectual bills.
You’ve certainly read that large majorities of the country support certain gun restrictions – and that is true.
In biasedly written poles answered by people who lack meaningful understanding on a deadly serious topic, that is probably why there is a constitutional amendment about it.
Remember all those videos of people happily signing away women’s suffrage, because suffrage is phonetically similar to suffering, do we really want to weigh those opinions heavily? Should they perhaps demonstrate some practical knowledge on a subject before opining?
Support for gun restrictions rises and falls
Thankfully, it is down since Gen Z appears to be very personal liberties focused and a little more educated on the subject that Boomers and GenXer’s, and to an extent Millennials. Boomers can’t figure out the basics of the internet and social media and are regularly confused by slang, but we sure do have a mess of them making rules about all this important stuff.
We did it, Joe!
But it is not a vast majority of the country that wants a wholesale rewriting of the nation’s gun laws.
Because that requires thinking.
CNN’s director of polling Jennifer Agiesta notes that “support for stricter gun laws tends to spike after high-profile mass shootings, such as the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, which occurred a few weeks before Gallup measured its recent high of 67% support for stricter laws in March 2018.”
I wonder why? An emotional reaction, perhaps? Something that hasn’t been thought through very well even?
Just lash out and do something, because that is how good policy decisions are always made.
In more recent Gallup polling, only a narrow majority of Americans are in favor of stricter laws on gun sales, and a survey last year from ABC News and The Washington Post found that about half the public says that neither stricter laws nor stricter enforcement would reduce the amount of violent crime in the US.
Uh oh, looks like people are paying attention.
All that could change after this new, horrible string of shootings.
You hope. You can say it, I know you mean it.
We aren’t kidding when we say that the gun control crowd certainly seem to have wet bloody dreams over mass killings, because dumb irrational emotive responses are how they get their way. What a way to win… Imagine your idea sucking so much that it can’t pass a logical analysis of its merits and problems, so you need dead children to ram it through. And if you don’t get it passed you’ll be able to make your political opponents look bad. Win either way.
There is broad support in a Pew Research Center analysis of polling last year for some specific ideas that go far beyond what’s possible in Congress:
- 87% supported preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.
- 81% supported making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.
Okay… Stop… Just stop, Wolf. Have you read a 4473?
It is already illegal for people with a diagnosed mental illness to purchase a firearm. It is a question that is required that I ask, via the form, and that it is required that I deny the transfer if it is marked yes OR the background check, which includes adjudicated mental health items that are NICS applicable, comes back as a denial.
Unless you mean prevent in some way other than… a law.
And private sales at gun shows subject to NICS? Okay… what does that improve? We know ‘universal’ check rules are ignored so why are we talking about ‘universal’ lite? Do we think these killers are sneaking about gun shows looking to hop through that loophole that really isn’t one? They could just leave the gun show and then its a regular private transfer.
People do support specific things
Support does not equate to efficacy. We could all support lowering earths gravity by 10% to lose weight and ease off on the joint pain, but that doesn’t mean much.
Smaller but sill substantial majorities supported more controversial ideas, according to the Pew analysis:
Still, I assume. It’s okay, I mess up on this page all the time. What controversial ideas are these?
66% backed creating a federal database to track gun sales.
Cool. Highly illegal.
64% approved of “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”
Neat. There are only several hundred million reasons in circulation that this is an awful idea. The first among them are the myriad of mass killings that have taken place with ‘safe’ magazine capacity weapons.
63% approved “banning assault-style weapons.”
Fashion over function after all. These have only failed several times to stop massacres, I’m sure they’re a great idea minus the obviously not working part.
Despite the Supreme Court’s skepticism of New York’s permit law, just 20% in Pew’s polling, including only 35% of gun owners nationwide, favored a law “allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit.”
Just more reasons we shouldn’t listen to ‘polls’ about things people do not understand. Polls can make things sounds either scary or desirable at will. Suffrage, great example still. It is a rather meaningless data point unless you can establish that the polled group understands the subject matter in the poll.
What this all means is that despite the cries that something – or anything – must be done, the US government is predisposed to inaction, the courts are very respectful of gun rights and the absolutists have a chokehold on the system.
Or. And just hear my out on this one, because you REPEATEDLY mentioned it yourself, all of these ideas are ineffective and they won’t do a meaningful thing to prevent the next person from choosing violence.
So why should the government waste the time? Because you’re yelling about it? They will absolutely waste your time and your money to get that sweet political capital if you are riled about something. They are under no compulsion then to do something that would actually improve anything, just ‘try’ and do the thing their base is yelling about and that is good enough.
Until one or all of those things change, and as long as there are more guns than people in the US, this cycle will continue.
Oh, was that the problem the whole time? I’ll let the nations around the world, like Mexico or Brazil for example, know that they’re doing this whole murder rate thing wrong. They have far too few guns to be out murder rating us. It’s all in the guns per capita. Nothing to do with violent crime, poverty, declining mental health and facilities to do anything about that, cheap untrustworthy politco machinations of opportunists, or any of that.
It’s just all these darn guns we got piled up.
Thanks Zach, nice job figuring that one out.
The Stick Up Drill and Taking the Tactical Advantage
Months ago, approximately February 1st, the Active Self Protection Facebook page posted an interesting observation that led me to come up with something I call the Stick Up drill. John discussed the adage, “there’s no timer in a gunfight,” and why in many ways, that’s wrong. He went on the describe the advantage of a fast draw, specifically when a violent and armed attacker gives you the opportunity to draw and take a shot.
ASP specifically talked about the need for speed when an armed threat turns his attention away from you or when you decide to draw when a bad guy has the drop on you. He mentioned three times that applied to different, real-world situations.
The slowest time is 2 seconds when the bad guy presents the back of his head. The second time is 1.5 seconds when the bad guy presents the side of his head. The third is 1.0 seconds when the bad guy looks down but faces you, and 0.6 when the bad guy has the drop on you. For the Stick Up drill, we are going to focus on the 1.5-second turn-away time.
The Stick Up Drill
The drill requires a handgun, at least two rounds of ammo, and a concealment holster for the shooter. The targetry can vary somewhat between shooters. To me, the best way to do this drill is with a Caldwell Target Turner and a 3D torso target of some kind. This Target Turner turns the target 90 degrees and can be set to various speeds, including as fast as 1 second and as slow as six seconds.
This gives less of a beep and more of a visual signal to draw and shoot. There is a timer in every gunfight. It just doesn’t go beep. Instead, it requires you to watch the threat, and when it turns, engage and fire.
That’s a specific gadget and gizmo that costs about a hundred bucks, and a hundred bucks can be a lot for a specific drill. That’s a hefty price to pay. Instead, you can also combine a normal shot timer with a reduced side target to represent the side of a bad guy. An easy way to do so is to use a piece of cardboard and just draw out a target. The Marine Corps’ latest ARQ target is a good target to work off of.
It’s 12 inches wide at the body and about eight inches wide at the head. A couple of straight lines are all you need to make a side-facing target. With a timer set, the par time for 1.5 seconds, and you’re ready to rock and roll.
Running and Gunning
Regardless of which target setup and timer you choose to use, you’ll start in the surrender position. That means hands in the hair like you just don’t care. Your handgun is holstered and concealed. Stand anywhere from three to five yards from the target.
At the beep or the visual movement of the target on the target turner, you draw and fire one or two rounds at the target. The Stick Up drill brings you a fairly easy drill with tight time limits and still requires you to land head or chest shots to be successful.
The reason I think the Target Turner is valuable is that you watch for the visual cue rather than hearing the loud BEEP. Sure the BEEP and timer combination will work well for building those quick draw skills. Something about the 3D target turning away from you signals you to go and better represents the purpose of the drill.
Additionally, when you run the Stick Up Drill dry, the beep works, but the moving target works even better. It gives you something to see and draw against.
Going Fast
If you’re still new to firearm training, then 1.5 seconds might seem to be blazing fast. For experts, it’s nothing, but for the average person, it can be intimidating. Feel free to add time to your par time and walk it down slowly as you get a little faster. You can do the same with the Target Turner to increase or decrease the speed of the turn.
The Stick Up Drill is a fair bit of fun that represents a tactical advantage you might find yourself having. Obviously, getting that 1 second or sub-second draw is a goal to work towards. The Stick Up drill can act as a stepping stone to that skill level as well as a simple and fun exercise in taking the tactical advantage.
Just The Right Size 9mm- Hellcat Pro Reveiw
These days it takes a lot to write a check for another handgun. So many perform so well I am very selective. Among the pistols I have purchased lately is the Springfield Hellcat Pro. The pistol is slightly longer than the original Hellcat- a scant .6 inch- and a little taller-.8 inch.
The grip is redesigned and the pistol accepts a fifteen round magazine. The Hellcat Pro is just slightly larger than the original Hellcat but it shoots better. Nothing wrong with the Hellcat’s performance in the sub compact realm, it shoots better than most. But the new pistol is the better shooter and a better shooter than most anything it its size and weight class. Let’s look at the specifications
- Cartridge: 9mm
- Barrel: 3.7 in. 1 in 10 twist
- Slide: Steel, Melonite® Finish, Optics Ready
- Frame: Black Polymer
- Sights: Tritium/Luminescent Front, Tactical Rack U-Notch Rear
- Magazines: (2) 15-Round
- Width: 1″
- Weight: 21 oz
- Length: 6.6″
- Height: 4.8″
- Average price – should be less than six hundred dollars in shops, the MSRP is $634
The Springfield Hellcat Pro is surprisingly comfortable in the hand. The new grip is squared off more so than the original and the grip treatment is excellent. The balance of adhesion and abrasion is good, even ideal. The coverage isn’t spot coverage but full coverage of the gripping surface.
Springfield calls the treatment Adaptive Grip Texturing. Folks have paid good money to have their Glocks and other polymer frame pistols treated to this texture. A smaller gun often is more difficult to draw quickly and more difficult to get on target quickly. The Hellcat excels as a sub compact. The Hellcat Pro is even faster on the draw and on target as it should be. The original Hellcat is a very good deep cover pistol. The Hellcat Pro is easily concealed in a proper holster. The Hellcat Pro makes a great home defense handgun. With the ability to mount a modern combat light and with a fifteen round reserve the pistol is formidable against unwanted boarders. But don’t forget the Hellcat Pro is only an inch wide making for easy concealment. The trigger breaks at a crisp six pounds. Reset is sharp.
Among the best features of the Hellcat is the sights.
Carried on from the original the front sight features a bright white circle around a self luminous tritium front post. The rear sight is a U notch type with white outline. These sights are excellent personal defense sights. The open notch rear mates well with the front post. Put the post on the target and you have a hit if you have mastered the trigger press. These sights are also capable of fine longer range accuracy. The pistol’s magazine release, slide stop, and trigger are all crisp in operation.
During the firing test most of the ammunition fired was Remington’s 115 grain FMJ loading. This is a clean burning load that offers good practical accuracy. The pistol never failed to feed, chamber, fire or eject during the test. The Hellcat Pro is pleasant to fire. Recoil may as soft as Glock 19 and far easier to handle than the smaller original Hellcat. I fired the pistol at 7,10, and 15 yards with good results. Firing as quickly as I could recover the sights and fire again accuracy is good. This isn’t an across the table gun-although it could be- but a pistol you could save you life with at 25 yards if need be. I fired a quantity of the Remington FMJ and also the Remington 124 grain Golden Saber to test absolute accuracy. Five shot groups at 15 yards were as small as 1.5 inches with none over 2.4 inches. The pistol is plenty accurate for any conceivable defensive encounter. I like the Hellcat Pro. This is a reliable handgun that shoot like a big gun- but it isn’t. It is just the right size.
NRAAM 2022 – See you at the show
GAT Daily is at the NRA Annual Meeting checking out the summer selection of guns and goodies.
How many?
So we’ll be walking… so much walking… It’s good for us.
Unlike SHOT, NRAAM is a members access meeting and membership to the NRA is sold at the door for discounts, so if you want to see the goodies it’s an easy in. The guns that weren’t ready for SHOT are likely to be here and in the open to order, pre-order, or jump on lists for.
With the summer slump actually set to return (kinda) this year by all indications, product availability should start to push closer to normal realms. There is unfortunately no accounting for the secondary market demand and hype for certain products ballooning well above MSRP.
Market is going to market. That is that. So I am sorry you can’t find the new XMZR597 Ninjafied Awesomesause… I can’t either. But we’ll be happy to show you what is out there for grabs.
I don’t have any good read on what ILA is looking to take on here, I get the feeling they’re just collectively waiting for the Supreme Court to come in and take an axe to New York’s may issue law and give pro 2A that win, finally. I expect them to be stirring up support for counters to the ATF on braces and grab onto funding any available legal push back to the frame rule.
But again, we shall see.
Remington Ammunition Introduces New 10mm Loads
On the tail of the SIG P320-XTEN announcement, Remington hits us with three new loads for the 10mm. In fact, they have three new Golden Saber loads. The press release is still hot enough off the presses that the loads are not on the Remington Ammo website. However, if they’re anything like the classic Golden Saber loads they will be true 10mm defensive loads. None of these 40 Short and Weak.
Here’s what Remington has to say.
Remington Ammunition Introduces Golden Saber Rounds
Lonoke, Arkansas – May 26, 2022 – As part of the 2022 new product lineup, Remington Ammunition is thrilled to announce the introduction of 10MM AUTO throughout its trustworthy personal defense lines of Golden Saber Bonded, Golden Saber Defense and Golden Saber Defense Compact.
Formerly a law enforcement only product, Golden Saber is now available to the public. The ultimate in defensive and tactical handgun ammunition, the 10MM AUTO Golden Saber Bonded rounds offer the same features as other products within the Golden Saber Bonded family:
- Lead core hot-bonded brass jacket
- Exceptional weight retention
- Reduced bullet noise diameter for precise bore alignment
- Match-grade accuracy
The Golden Saber Defense and Golden Saber Defense Compact 10MM AUTO rounds are non-bonded, budget friendly options that carry many of the same features that make Golden Saber an icon in the personal defense handgun market. Golden Saber Defense Compact is optimized for peak performance in compact or micro-compact pistols and handguns.
“Adding 10MM to our Golden Saber line is exciting and it allows us to bring another great personal defense product to self-defenders and concealed carriers nationwide,” said Joel Hodgdon, Remington’s Director of Marketing. “We have a defensive load for everyone, and the three offerings in this caliber give 10MM fans a leading option.”
Stop by the Remington booth, 2739 at the NRA’s Annual Meetings in Houston for more details on Remington’s new 10MM offerings.
The SIG P320 XTEN – SIG Embraces the 10mm (again)
SIG and the 10mm don’t have much of a relationship. Sure, years ago, they tossed us a bone with the P220 in 10mm a few years back, but it’s been a caliber that’s largely ignored by this Total Systems provider. So it was quite a surprise to see the P320-XTEN. Of course, the XTEN isn’t a P320 with a 10-inch barrel but a 10mm P320 model.
The P320-XTEN goes big with the X-Series grip module and wisely makes the gun optics ready. With the flat nature of the 10mm, the gun will certainly benefit from the extra range and flat shooting nature of the 10mm. A skilled shooter won’t have any issues hitting targets out to 50 yards with such a handgun, add in the X-Series trigger and a 5-inch bull barrel, and you have an accurate, hard-hitting pistol.
Here it is directly from the mouth of SIG Sauer.
Introducing the SIG P320-XTEN
“The P320-XTEN is the most powerful P320 SIG has ever built combining the features of our XSERIES models with the punch of the 10mm round. The superiority of this pistol begins with the all new XSERIES grip module, designed specifically for 10mm and 45 AUTO calibers, featuring the XSERIES deep trigger undercut, extended beavertail, and aggressive stippling for a high grip making recoil easier to manage,” began Tom Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President Commercial Sales, SIG SAUER, Inc. “Another premium feature of the P320 XTEN is the 5” bull barrel. The additional mass and weight of the barrel absorbs the power of the round lowering recoil and providing exceptional accuracy shot after shot for the premium performance you expect from a P320 and an XESRIES model to become the P320-XTEN.”
The SIG SAUER P320-XTEN is a 10mm, striker-fired pistol featuring a polymer XSERIES 10mm / 45 AUTO grip module, a 5” Bull Barrel, flat XSERIES trigger with a 90-degree break, Nitron finished stainless steel optics ready slide compatible with a ROMEO2 and RMR optic with front and rear serrations, and XRAY3 Day/Night sights. The P320-XTEN ships with (2) 15round steel magazines and is optimized for use with the SIG SAUER Electro-Optics ROMEO2 open reflex red dot sight.
SIG SAUER P320-XTEN:
Caliber: 10mm
Overall length: 8.5 inches
Overall height: 5.6 Inches
Overall width: 1.3 inches
Barrel length: 5 inches
Sight Radius: 6.8 inches
Weight (w/magazine): 33 oz.
The SIG SAUER P320-XTEN is now shipping and available at retailers. To learn more about the SIG SAUER P320-XTEN or to watch the product video with visit sigsauer.com.
Modern Day Marine: Blue Force Gear
This year Modern Day Marine was held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC. on May 10-12th. It had a full list of exhibitors from Sig Sauer showing off their NGSW, FN and their Evolys Machine Gun, Magpul, L3Harris, Atlantic Signal, even F45 Training which is a local fitness company. They set up a couple workout drills for the Marines on the showfloor.
Blue Force Gear showed up with a couple of newer items like the GMT Sling and the Initiator coupler. They also showed off some upgrades to their current items such as the CHLK Belt.
GMT Sling “Give Me Tail”
We all know Blue Force Gears slings to be strong and easy to manipulate. The GMT Sling comes as a worthy addition to the line up after a large entity specifically asked for this type of sling to be made. Imagine the BFG Vickers Sling. Now, imagine that sling with a longer tail. The same easy adjustment remains, just with further away access, more adjustment, and a different type of pull. This isn’t like other tailed slings that the tail ends up being way too long, getting stuck in ejection port covers, looped, or anything like that. During testing the tail of the GMT sling did not get caught into one piece of equipment or gear and shown that whether running the GMT over kit, on a gun attached to a tripod, or prone, it proved to be quick and easy to adjust with no hindrance to the operator.
“The BFG proprietary solution dyed CORDURA® nylon webbing used for the GMT sling has more “loft” (thickness and softness) than traditional sling materials. This makes it especially suited for a sling application since it works well with the adjuster under tension and is also comfortable against the skin under load. Importantly, the same loft that makes the material a great choice also makes it less likely to be a snag hazard.”
The Dual Initiator Coupler Kit
“The Dual Initiator Coupler Kit streamlines breaching and explosive use with worry free initiator pairing and alignment. The Coupler Kit holds two dual purpose M81 igniters for use with shock tube or M700 timed fuses aligned so that both firing pins can be pulled at once if needed. “
The Dual Initiator Coupler Kit solves the problem of having to line up, remove, and reapply tape to your pair of initiators. Oftentimes operators will simply take some tape and wrap it around two M81 ignitors to enable them to pull both firing pins at once. This takes time and some reapplication if not properly aligned the first time. This kit fixes those issues by using “two injection molded halves secured by a section of ONE-WRAP that can be reused over and over again. “
As with all Blue Force Gear, the Dual Initiator Coupler Kit is made in the USA.“
CHLK Belt
The Blue Force Gear CHLK Belt, being seen as one of the lightest and most comfortable battle belts currently on the market. While this belt was made for helicopter assaulters due to its “fewer snag liabilities and load rated to be able to ‘clip in’ and provide life saving tethering to the aircraft.”, it is well loved by the other gunfighters within the community. BFG will be making belts without the two tether points however mag pouches will easily mount right over the clip in loops so it doesn’t make you lose any mounting space. Another update is the construction of the belt. A highly praised point of the CHLK Belt was the curve that was designed in. This helps ensure that the belt doesn’t dig into your hips. BFG has since updated that curve after another year of testing making it more natural to the body shape. The inner belt will also feature an easier way of tightening whether it is worn with hook and loop out to wear with the outer belt, or in to be worn as its own belt.
Note: I have actually cut the tether points off myself and it didn’t hurt the belt construction in any way. So that is an option if you don’t want to wait for the other belt to be released.
Modern Day Marine Next Year
MDM will take place during the same time next year, May 10-12 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. It is said to be on a different level which is much bigger. The 2023 floor plan and exhibitor list is already finalized and can be found here. Follow Modern Day Marine on social media to stay up to date.
See you next year!
The SIG P322 and Why 2022 Is The Year Of The .22LR
2022 is the year of the .22 LR. It’s made quite the comeback, likely fueled by the fact that ammo costs are constantly rising and .22LR remains somewhat available, surprisingly enough. FN released the 502, Beretta has relaunched the Bobcat as a tactical variant, and now SIG graced us with the P322. SIG’s released plenty of .22LR handguns before. We had the controversial Mosquito, the P250 .22LR, and the .22LR variant of the P220.
The SIG P322 is a bit different. From the nomenclature alone, you’d assume this was a .22LR version of the P320. You’d be mistaken. It’s also not the .22LR version of the P365. (Although, I’d love to get a P365 in .22LR for training purposes.) The P322 is neither. SIG designed the pistol to be a completely different firearm that’s unique.
SIG designed the P322 to be its own thing but very similar to dang near every modern firearm out there. You can use the P322 as a training replacement to the P320, the Glock, S&W, Walther, or whatever else has a doublestack magazine, a polymer frame, and striker-fired action.
The P322 – Inside and Out
What are we getting with the P322? Well, it’s fairly simple. Like most rimfire handguns built to be more modern and tactical, the P322 uses an internal hammer. It’s quite common, and Walther S&W and Glock as use internal hammers for their modern tactical .22LRs. The new FN 502 uses an external hammer, as did the older SIG Mosquito. It’s an SAO hammer that does its best to mimic a striker-fired gun.
SIG made the pistol lefty friendly with ambidextrous safety and slide lock and a reversible magazine release. Since it’s 2022, SIG decided to make the P322 optic compatible. (Take a hint, Glock.) The rear sights are connected to a plate that’s removable, so you can toss on a Shield RSMc compatible red dot like the Holosun 507K.
The biggest surprise, at least to me, was the magazine capacity. The gun uses flush-fitting magazines that pack 20 rounds of .22LR. That’s impressive in a genre of pistols dominated by ten-round magazines. You get two of them, and SIG is also producing a 25-round variant that’s slightly extended. To save your thumbs, SIG tossed a magazine loader in the box.
Also included with the P322 is a threaded barrel with an adapter. The barrel sits flush with the slide, and the removal of a nut and the addition of an adapter make it easy to toss on the muzzle device of your choice with a ½x28 thread pitch. Shooters can also swap the flat-faced trigger shoe with a standard round trigger shoe.
The P322 comes with more than I need, and my only complaint about the package is the box is too damn small to hold it all.
Plinking For Days
Plinking brings me great joy. It’s a no-stress, no-timer hobby that lets me just focus on putting little holes in whatever I choose to make targets. That’s where I started with the P322. Just some good old plinking. I let my oldest son shoot it and my wife. We all had a fairly good time turning money into noise. In that realm, the little P322 rules.
It’s reliable, accurate, and easy to shoot. If you just want a gun for plinking purposes, the P322 won’t let you down. With a price of around 400 bucks, the gun is not out of the bounds for plinking pleasure, but you might get more out of it if it acts as a training pistol.
Train, Train, Train
The SIG P322 works well as a training firearm. I ran through the FBI Qual with the P322 and had a blast. Let’s address the downsides first when training with a .22LR. When it comes to recoil, you won’t get the same control challenges with a .22LR. Recoil and muzzle rise will be minimized.
It’s a step above dry firing that will give you real bangs, accuracy, drawing skills, and reloads. With the P322, you can exercise all those necessary skills with ease. It matches the size of compact to full-sized pistols and gives you a decent, if somewhat generic, recreation of most modern handguns.
The P322’s ability to use red dots allows you to train that presentation and target focus sight picture for pennies on the dollar. The high visibility sights aren’t night sights but are easy to see like most modern combative pistol sights.
The controls are full-sized and not minimized for a .22LR. Working reloads, the slide, and more allow you to replicate those necessary skills. You can always work your general accuracy with a .22LR. The big grip replicates the design of a 9mm doublestack well and allows you to draw and engage as if it’s a truly defensive firearm.
SIG delivers a reliable firearm design in the P322. It allows shooters to plink their way through just about any bulk ammo out there. I used Winchester, Federal, and Remington with no real issues. I had more duds with Remington than the other two, but that’s what happens when you buy literal buckets of ammo.
The Downsides
There are two downsides to the P322. One involves the design, and one involves using a unique design. That unique design means there are hardly any holsters for the gun. SIG produced an IWB/OWB convertible, but it’s been perpetually out of stock as of this writing. For training purposes, the Phalanx Defense Stealth Operator worked okay.
The other downside is the somewhat stiff and spongy trigger pull. It won’t win awards by any means. It’s useable but feels stiffer than the FN 502 and TX-22. It feels like it could be improved and made a little cleaner.
The P322 In Action
While the trigger holds the gun back, I think it’s likely the best modern .22LR tactical style pistol out there. SIG made some wise decisions with the design and delivered a modern, easy shooting handgun well worth the rather affordable investment. At 400 bucks, it’s tough to buy the FN 502 for just a slightly better trigger.
I’m planning to take my P322 to my next steel challenge match, so wish me luck.
Slugs or … Slugs?
For today’s post I thought I would talk a bit about the vagaries of the English language. Wait don’t go to sleep yet, I promise I’ll try to keep it interesting and fun.
For instance, if I say the word “slug” what comes first to your mind? This page being what it is I’ll bet you think of a large rounded piece of lead commonly fired out of a shotgun, right? Well, that’s one definition out of many that come from Merriam-Webster, which actually says, ”a lump, disk, or cylinder of material (such as plastic or metal): such as a(1): a musket ball (2): BULLET’
That type of slug isn’t actually my favorite though. In fact I’ll wager that almost anyone who has taken a defensive shotgun course with a pump gun will agree – 12 gauge slugs are not a lot of fun to shoot in rapid succession. Unless you get the giggles making ridiculous size holes in your targets, which is admittedly legit. I just prefer not to be in a sling the day after a shoot.
I’ve got a silly variety of 12 gauge slugs which I’ve tried over the years for 3-gun and defense, trying to find something that is accurate-ish and doesn’t beat me up too much. Despite those efforts and acknowledging that there is a niche for them, I STILL don’t love them. But there are other slugs with which I am familiar as well.
Another definition of slug you may have thought of is a verb – as in to slug someone with a fist. I have not personally had the dubious pleasure of giving or receiving such since childhood. But having been raised with brothers and neighbor boys it was definitely a thing. In fact I remember my father saying he heard his sweet little five-year-old daughter yelling “I’m gonna SLUG you!”, and he knew she wasn’t so sweet anymore. I have been admittedly fortunate in my life that this hasn’t happened since childhood. I would imagine that the memories of many of you aren’t quite so charming, however.
Yet another definition that may go well on this page is “A quantity of liquor drunk in one swallow”. The previous definition above is sometimes known to happen after several episodes of THIS definition. Some of you may be familiar with that as well. That’s probably enough said, right there.
There’s also the definition of slug which comes from it actually being a shortened form of “sluggard” – a lazy worthless person. I’m sure we all know a few examples of that as well.
Then there is the definition which caused me to think of writing this article. Given all my endless gardening posts I need to mention,
“: any of numerous chiefly terrestrial pulmonate gastropods (order Stylommatophora) that are found in most parts of the world where there is a reasonable supply of moisture and are closely related to the land snails but are long and wormlike and have only a rudimentary shell often buried in the mantle or entirely absent.”
Yes, garden slugs have arrived on the scene in my cultivated paradise. The slimy little b@stards were eating my snap peas and cabbage, and I had to break out the soapy bucket of death in which to drown them. I’ve had my share of garden pests over the last few growing seasons but slugs are a first. Ewww.
It’s been a pretty rainy spring, and I think that the raised beds and containers have been in place and amended often enough and long enough now to no longer be just store bought potting soil – they are now part of the ecosystem – to include “terrestrial pulmonate gastropods”. I’ve been told beer can help, but I found out afterwards that I was supposed to set it out for the slugs, not drink it myself. Oh well, better luck next weekend.
But after all of those, by far my favorite definition of slug from the dictionary is:
“: the gravitational unit of mass in the foot-pound-second system to which a pound force can impart an acceleration of one foot per second per second and which is equal to the mass of an object weighing 32 pounds.”
I know I was lying awake nights wondering about that, so if you were too – you’re welcome.
Come to think of it, you might use that definition of slug to win a bar contest, after which a customer who has had too many slugs may choose to slug you, forcing the bartender to bring out his slugs to calm things down and throw both of you sluggards out of the bar.
It’s enough to make a non-native speaker’s head spin.
Given all of those slugs from which to choose, which one is YOUR favorite?
NEW .22 MAGNUM Pistol from Walther – LIGHTWEIGHT. RUGGED. READY FOR ADVENTURE.
In life, sometimes the unexpected can happen. Whether it’s an opportunity for fun and recreation or maybe even a life-threatening situation, it’s your duty to be READY. So, when it’s time to hit the outdoors and you need a reliable firearm at your side, the Walther Magnum Pistol (WMP), 22 magnum semi-automatic is the only choice. This isn’t just another target practice plinker, this pistol is a high quality, lightweight, easy-to-shoot and affordable option for shooters who want to stay READY while maintaining an active lifestyle.
Walther’s unmatched quality sets this slide-mounted red dot rimfire pistol apart from the competition with a wide range of features. Featuring an optics ready slide, best-in-class ergonomics, and even a first-time patented ambidextrous reloading mechanism including both the paddle and button release. With 4 total activation points, the Quad release mechanism is the most versatile ambidextrous mag release ever created. Together, all these features help to give shooters a truly premium experience. With two 15-round magazines and 2 optics adaptor plates included plus easy field strip capabilities, unparalleled accuracy and ultra-low recoil, this pistol is READY right out of the box to tackle any adventure you set out on.
Walther Vice President of Marketing and Product Development, Jens Krogh had this to say about it, “The WMP puts Walther in a whole new Category, this pistol is a completely new Platform and is a game changer for us and our customers. We have worked tirelessly to create the most reliable and ergonomically correct .22 Magnum pistol ever made and it turned out perfect.”
Find out more https://waltherarms.com/wmp/
About Walther
“It’s your DUTY to be READY” is a message to clearly and concisely show that Walther is doing everything in its power to support shooters everywhere with not just the absolute best in firearm innovation and performance but also access to the best training and informative firearms community as well. History has shown Walther’s dedication to this message, beginning in 1886 and continuing today with the innovative spirit that builds off the invention of the concealed carry pistol by creating duty grade weapons such as the PDP and world-class rimfire products such as the P22. Walther will continue its long tradition of technical expertise and innovation in the design and production of firearms to meet the demands of any customer. Excellent service and superior quality will continue to be benchmarks of Walther’s success. www.waltherarms.com
WMP
MSRP – $549.00.
Primary Use: Concealed Carry
KEY SALES FEATURES:
• SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT ALUMINUM SLIDE
• .22 MAGNUM
• QUAD RELEASE
• CANADA APPROVED
• RED DOT ERGONOMICS
• RED DOT READY
• HIGH GRIP TEXTURE
TECHNICAL DATA
| Model: 10 Round Model: | 5220300 5220302 |
| Caliber: | .22 WMR |
| MSRP: | $549.00 |
| Barrel Length | 4.5” |
| Slide Length | 8.2” |
| Mag Release | Quad Release |
| Magazine Capacity | 15 RDS or 10 RDS |
| Total Included Magazines: | 2 |
| Sights: | Fiber Optic Front, Serrated Rear |
| Optic Ready: | Yes |
| Trigger | Double Action with Integrated Safety |
Uvalde Texas – What happened at Robb Elementary?
As is usual in the aftermath of horrific violence, speculation has run the spectrum and fingers have already been pointed. CNN is saying this is the 30th shooting “at K-12 schools” this year, which I am sure they pulled from somewhere like Giffords and will include anything that happened on or near school properties, at any time, to include a stray round landing on the property.
NPR in particular has wasted no time in tying this directly to the NRA and the NRAAM being held in Texas this weekend. They posted the video that has been seen of the NRA leadership debating canceling the NRAAM meeting after Columbine in 1999, and deciding that if they did the NRA would look to have been cowed completely by the anti-gun lobby. NPR rather clearly see this as bloody profiteering instead of defending a civil right from a coordinated attack.
They are brazenly framing the circumstances today in that exact light. And in that they are mostly, technically correct. The circumstances are very similar minus one crucial legislative detail that nobody is going to bring up. Columbine happened 5 years into the Assault Weapon Ban. The very ban that is being touted as one of the cures for this type of extreme violence event.
It didn’t stop it then and it won’t stop the next one, but that isn’t slowing down NPR’s correlation or anyone else who wasted no time in hopping upon a grandstand to shout their asinine snake oil sales pitch…
Chain of Events
As far as we can put together at this point, the 18 year old shooter shot his grandmother and then fled in a vehicle. The grandmother survived.
He then crashed the vehicle at Robb Elementary and law enforcement was either in pursuit of him already or was on scene for another reason.
Law enforcement officers saw the assailant exit his crashed vehicle wearing a tactical vest, at this point stated as non-ballistic (so it was not ‘body armor’ as has been reported), and he reportedly had a rifle and handgun, unknown details beyond that.
The shooter fled into the school from law enforcement.
He barricaded himself inside a classroom and killed the nineteen children and two teachers who were inside.
Law enforcement was able breach the classroom and killed the shooter in the subsequent gunfight. There were numerous related injuries. Two law enforcement officers were also reported shot by the assailant.
Unconfirmed items, things we do not know
We do not have confirmation on whether law enforcement was actively pursuing the shooter when he crashed at the school or they happened to be there when he crashed.
We do not have confirmation on whether or not law enforcement fired on or was fired upon by the shooter outside the school before he fled inside, although indications that might have been the case are present in certain reports.
We do not know how the shooter was able to get inside the school. Schools these days are kept restricted access for child safety purposes, although the efficacy and adherence to policy varies wildly. In general though, exterior doors are locked during school hours with usually one controlled public entrance.
We do not know if the school was the target of choice or one of convenience while the shooter was being pursued. We do not have an alleged motive, unlike we do with Buffalo, NY. The Elementary school could have been deliberate or could have been the panic reactive target of opportunity while he was being pursued. The vest, ammunition, and two firearms indicate some level or prior planning but for what specifically and to what end are unknown.
Things we do know
Beneath the shrill cries of opportunists using this to further their pet gun control projects, those that won’t move the needle of violence a single solitary degree, there will be a case study on school external security. I pray that someone actually pays attention this time because indications are that the lessons from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Florida 2017, got ignored as politically inconvenient. Nobody wanted to harden schools because it would send “the wrong message” essentially. Everyone wants security. Nobody likes what it looks like and is. Certainly nobody wants to hear that it never works perfectly either, it’s just throwing enough things in the way of possible assailants to try and make it not worth their time.
That is it. That is security.
So instead, once again, we will either do nothing at all, or worse do nothing worth doing and pass a bunch of useless hot take solutions that punish the wrong people. The latter is the solution that the President and friends would prefer to do.
Best Defense Foundation Auctions Two Pearl Harbor Commemorative Pistols
The Best Defense Foundation has launched a charity auction for TWO commemorative Pearl Harbor guns. These one-of-a-kind 1911 pistols were custom designed by SIG SAUER and feature the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma. In addition, the guns and cases are signed by USS Arizona survivor, Lou Conter and USS Oklahoma Survivor, David Russell. Own these important pieces of history while supporting the mission!
The auction is open until May 31, 2022.
About the Best Defense Foundation
Founded in 2018 by former NFL Linebacker, Donnie Edwards, the Best Defense Foundation honors and celebrates our veterans from past conflicts, including WWII, Korea, Vietnam and those who have recently retired. To date, the Foundation has taken over 100 WWII veterans on battlefield return programs to remember their fallen comrades and gain closure of a time in their life that had an impact on the world. In addition to the Battlefield Return Program, the Foundation created a Transition Program to help retired Special Forces operators return to civilian life and connect with the community around them. The Best Defense Foundation strives to create personal relationships with veterans to ensure they know they will always be cared for and remembered. BDF volunteer team members hail from all parts of the U.S. and Europe, but are united by one simple goal: Taking Care of the Ones Who Took Care of Us.
Learn more about the Best Defense Foundation
The Primary Arms GLx With 9mm Gemini Reticle- PCC Optic Perfected
I did an entire article on experimenting with magnified optics on pistol-caliber carbines. I experimented with 1-4X LPVOs, Prism sights, red dot, and magnifier combos and found that minimal magnification can be useful with a PCC, including taking a 9mm round out to 100 yards with greater hit probability. Apparently, Primary Arms read my mind and produced the GLx 2X prism sight with the ACSS Gemini 9mm reticle.
The GLx 2X prism is built and designed with your average PCC in mind. It’s built to maintain the close-range nature of the PCC while adding in a little extra magnification and ACSS reticle for those longer range shots. Primary Arms was polite enough to end me a GLx, and I’ve been running and gunning with it on my Aero Precision EPC.
Breaking down the GLx
The GLx comes with a box full of goodies beyond just the optic. In fact, it’s not an optic you are stuck with using AR-type rifles with in-line stocks. Primary Arms include three different spacers to raise the optic’s height to 1.64 or 1.535, or 1.41. Or heck, run it without the spacers to position it low on your gun.
PCCs like the Scorpion work best with low-mounted optics. Customizing the GLx’s height for your specific weapon allows it to function with a multitude of PCC options. Primary Arms also uses the mini ACOG tyle mounting interface, which opens up the mount marketplace for your optic.
Most prism optics have the worst eye relief, but GLx comes equipped with an eye relief of 3.5 inches. That’s fairly far and a wise idea. If you are working a PCC, it’s likely within 25 yards. Inside of 25 yards, the longer eye relief makes it easier to get the gun to your shoulder and on target. You don’t have to fight scope shadow as much.
Inside the ACSS Gemini reticle is backed by 11 illumination settings. The first two are night vision modes, and beyond that, you get daylight bright capability. That reticles positivity glows and is easy to see in the brightest of sunlight.
The GLx goes beyond daylight bright. That illumination will automatically shut off if the optic remains stationary for three minutes but spring right back to life when it detects movement.
The Reticle
ACSS reticles rock, right? Primary Arms makes a lot of great optics, but the best thing they’ve ever done is create the ACSS reticle. Also, their ability to ship orders at lightning speed is nice. Anywho, the ACSS Gemini reticle gives a big three-quarter donut of death. That big donut captures the eye and makes close-range shots on target quick and easy. It also acts as an 8.6 MPH lead for hitting moving targets.
Inside that big donut sits a chevron for your precise aiming. If you need to hit a small target with precision, put that chevron’s tip on it and pull the trigger. Below that sits a couple of dots that act as your ballistic drop points.
Primary Arms provides scales for both 7.5-inch barreled PCCs and the standard 16-inch PCCs. Zero the tip at 50 yards, and the drop zones will go to an optimistic 200 yards. The bottom of the chevron can take you out to 100 yards with ease. A ranging scale sits beneath that to give you a down and dirty way to measure range out to 200 yards.
Putting In Work
I installed the medium mount on the GLx, and it sits at the perfect height for me to shoulder and snap-on target. The eye box is huge, fairly generous, and allows you to peep in on targets quickly. For close-range snapshots, you shoulder the rifle and unleash hell. Getting on target quickly and at typical PCC ranges isn’t much of a challenge.
The GLx might not be as fast as a red dot at super close ranges, but it’s so close we’d measure the difference in fractions of a second. Two power magnification isn’t much, and at ranges as close as 5 to 15-yard ranges, you can use occluded shooting.
Beyond 15 yards and the 2X gets you a little closer, but it’s not so much power that you can’t see the target and make those shots. At 25 yards, you’re up close with small targets and can instantly deal some damage. It’s not quite as good as a red dot, but GLx is pretty dang close.
Stepping Back
Up close, it works just fine. It’s not perfect for CQB, but it’s versatile. Move back to 35 yards, 50 yards, 75 yards, and out to 100 yards the optic makes a lot of sense. That little 2X magnification the GLx offers does give a little bit of a boost without adding the size of a red dot and magnifier combo or an LPVO.
At 50 yards, I’m not just hitting the bad guy target. I’m punching it in the A-zone repeatedly because I can see the A-zone. Aim small, miss small, and all that jazz. At 100 yards, it’s surprisingly easy to ring gongs over and over. Put the bottom of the chevron where I want the rounds to land, and they magically do.
I have a series of gongs ranging from 4 to 10 inches in size, and I ‘ran the gongs’ with the GLx and EPC and was able to ring all four in under 8 seconds at 100 yards. That being said, it might have taken more than one shot for the 4-inch gong.
Primary Arms installed some seriously clear glass in the GLx. It’s brilliant, and I can see the colors of the various gongs and the shape and size well. The finely tuned chevron is glass etched and leaves plenty of room to see the targets.
The Ultimate PCC Optic
If your PCC serves as more than just an inside-the-house gun, this little 2x Prism is an awesome addition. The GLx 2X prism with the 9mm Gemini reticle is an outstanding way to pull out every little bit of your PCC’s potential and range. I’d love to see Primary Arms take out calibers like 5.7 or 10mm, which are both better rounds for longer ranges. Even so, if you’re a 9mm PCC fan, the Primary Arms GLx is a great way to go.
Review: The FR-F2, with 9-Hole Reviews
I am 100% sharing this because of the screen capture that either Josh or Henry shared cursing the internet for not leaving them in a nice place view wise.
The review itself is the typical entertaining and informative format that the pair have fallen into and covers this somewhat odd bolt action sniper of French origin.
The rifle is a curious mix of forward and backward features and has an unusual mid frame bipod that centers off the chamber area. It has a pistol grip, but its is made of wood and appears to just be bolted beneath what was once a more traditional rifle stock that was modified to fit it. Why this wasn’t done of polymer, I have no clue.
It is a curious looking weapon, second only perhaps to Walther’s WA2000.
Europeans and firearm designs can go to some interesting places aesthetically. See also the AUG, the G36 and XM8, and the FN F2000. All of them aren’t just rifles to fill a role, they have an aesthetic about them. The lates 70’s into the 2000’s had a knack for producing smooth and futuristic looking firearms while we had… these.
These worked. Well. But from the aesthetics standpoint they certainly kept the utilitarian looks of the 50’s and 60’s, even entering the full quad-rail era.