It’s the first Monday of 2021 readers! Welcome back!
I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend relaxing, working, or a combination there of. I hope it was safe and savory (at least the food) and that 2021 may bring us all great things. We survived 2020, we are stronger for it.
But onto the gift.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) is announcing the withdrawal of a notice and request for comments entitled “Objective Factors for Classifying Weapons with `Stabilizing Braces’,” that was published on December 18, 2020.
It is not over however, especially with a Biden administration inbound. I don’t particularly what the talking heads are saying about their latest ‘it’ll definitely work this time, guys’ scheme to overturn the election result from Trump to Biden. If we end up quashing some voter fraud and improving the election process for it, great. But Biden is going to be President and will likely mean an ongoing onslaught of pressure against the Second Amendment.
Unlike Obama, who took a fairly ambivalent track on the 2A, saying what they wanted to hear to who wanted to hear it for the most part until Sandy Hook, Biden has come strong on gun control proposals including a vast expansion of the NFA firearms classifications or a similar sin tax on firearms he and his people deem “dangerous,” in spite of evidence declaring they are a minor method of criminal activity and that this will do nothing… aside from bring in taxes and discourage ownership.
So, we knocked out 2020 out with a win. Let’s stay on our toes for 2021.
Over time, we’ve seen changes in focus by the hoplophobic elements of society. Originally, it was all about banning handguns or at least “Handgun Control Inc.” The “assault weapon”, that is, the AR ban of 1994-2004 followed, with no discernible effect on crime, homicide, etc. Movement mutation continued, with groups dropping wording advocating bans, moving to claims of fighting pure “violence” and promoting gun “safety”.
Now they want to address “root causes” of violence instead of just restricting legal gun ownership, though still advocating extending background checks while “not taking anyone’s guns”. Intervening within high-crime communities, and with those at high risk of committing and becoming victims of violence, is appropriate, though far more difficult than they may imagine.
Throughout, we’ve had no reason to believe that these anti-gun activists have had any real change of heart. Their “conversation” always comes around to the desirability of somehow limiting the rights of law-abiding American gun owners in some way, even if in “just” creating more hoops to jump through in order to purchase, keep or bear our arms.
However, there is a fundamental factor that will trump all their intentions, both open and disguised. That is us, the people (and voters) of democracies. As Andrew Breitbart famously said, “Politics follows culture” and culture is changing. Much of this is due to the past 2 years of violence approved and applauded by “progressive” politicians who thought this would garner minority votes. Their groupthink about ethnicity blinded them to the reality that people of all ethnicities, communities and societies want crime stopped lest it hit them.
People are simultaneously realizing that they can’t count on being protected and must plan to do that for themselves. Thus the huge rise in gun purchases by more diverse buyers than ever, including women, minorities (especially African-American women) and self-described liberals. It’s been speculated that this increase in valuing self-protection with firearms may transfer to an increase in valuing Second Amendment rights—and now, that’s no longer speculation.
The Trafalgar Group, a non-partisan polling operation, just released a poll in which over 84% of respondents believed that “strict gun laws” either make no difference in or worsen the current surge in retail thefts. Less than 16% believed such laws can make this better.
In November, Quinnipiac found that 48% of those surveyed opposed stricter gun laws versus 47% who support them—following a trend beginning in 2015, now over the tipping point to plurality opposition. Gallup’s polling in November correlates, with a new low of only 52% of Americans caring that “laws covering the sale of firearms” should be stricter (down from a high of 64% in 2019, falling through 57% in 2020).
Meanwhile, ABC/Ipsos found that 66% of Americans disapprove of how President Biden is addressing gun violence (which could imply wanting more or less strict laws). Republicans’ opposition to more gun laws has strengthened, Democrats’ preference for more strict gun laws is lessening, predictably. But the most important political demographic—independents—have shifted dramatically in favor of, shall we say, individual independence on this issue.
In the latest National Firearms Survey published in July 2021, nearly 1/3 of respondents acknowledged owning guns, more than half of those carry them and almost 1/3 of them reported having to use them defensively in one or more of the estimated nearly 1.7 million episodes of self-defense. In 82% of these DGUs, it wasn’t necessary to fire. Almost 80% of these incidents occurred in the defender’s home or on their property, with the rest mostly occurring in public or at work, still a very substantial number.
NSSF also found that 49% more Hispanic Americans (no, none use “Latinx”) purchased firearms in 2020 than in 2019. With 40% of all gun purchases during the past 2 years coming from new gun owners, it’s no surprise that Hispanics (as well as African-Americans) are increasingly voting more for individual rights than for government “protection”. In Berkeley, California, of all places, the Latino Rifle Association has grown by hundreds of members since 2020. Its “leftists . . . socialists, progressives” members realize that “The police and the government aren’t taking care of me, so I have to do things on my own.”
Funny thing, that’s what conservatives have recognized for generations. And a much bigger organization, the National African-American Gun Association, has added tens of thousands of new members since 2016, accelerating (along with many local gun clubs oriented toward minorities) during the past 2 years.
Even our less demonstrative Anglophone cousins, Canadians and Kiwis, aren’t cooperating any more with government orders to turn in their newly banned guns than Americans have. Neither are turning in their formerly legal, acceptable firearms—only 160 of an estimated 100,000 affected firearms have been surrendered in Canada in a year and a half. In New Zealand, the 2019 ban of most repeating arms “has had no impact on a rise in gun crime and violence”, except for a steadily increasing rate of the offense of still possessing such firearms.
This is precisely the cultural change that precedes and triggers political change. Most Americans already knew that protecting individual rights is the uncompromisable basis of the success of American society and polity. Many others know that now and more are learning. While Donald Trump improved the Republican share of the Black and Hispanic votes (especially among men), this wasn’t about him or the party. It is about the importance of each person’s rights as an American.
Most expect that the Supreme Court will affirm the Second Amendment with a ruling in Bruen voiding New York City’s may- (= non-) issue handgun carry permitting, along with the 8 other states that persist in that tyranny. The “progressive” left will keep caterwauling if they don’t get their way. But should the decision go otherwise, their wailing would be nothing compared to the anger of the majority who are now convinced that individual rights are more important than political correctness. And that would assuredly lead to even greater political change in favor of ensuring those rights.
To paraphrase St. George Tucker, “the true palladium of liberty” isn’t just “the right of self-defence.” The right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and opposing tyranny is necessary to a free people in a free state. But it is a means to the goal, along with representative democracy lustily embraced, which is “to keep our republic” (h/t B. Franklin). The ultimate mark of liberty is individual autonomy, where the rights of the individual are placed above government’s privileges, which are only bestowed by us individuals.
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— DRGO Editor Robert B. Young, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY, an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
Headspace-Operated Prototype Rifle – Yeah, it’s as Weird as it Sounds – Forgotten Weapons
Firearm invention in the early 20th Century was weirder and wilder than today. Today we benefit from a great deal of hindsight and the advances in machining technology and computer prototyping. One need only look at Brandon Herrera’s AK-50 project to see that they are able to skip a lot of development work simply on the basis that they have numbers to work with and computers to work with them.
When the Army Ordnance Corps and similar interested parties started looking at auto-loading rifles they started with the M1903, naturally. That trend would continue throughout the century.
We can see the obvious influences of the 1903 on the Garand at the behest of the Army, namely that it was 30-06 and in a familiar size and shape to the M1903. Then from the Garand to the M14 we continue to see the lasting legacy that stretches back to the US copy of the Mauser.
The M16 was the radical departure (that everyone else had already taken with the AK, FAL, and G3/CETME) in small arms but the developmental inertia always ties back to what is known and familiar.
That isn’t a negative trait, far from it. But it is something that must be considered with a critical eye as to whether keeping a habit is worth foregoing other benefits. As we enter 2021 the AR-15 remains the undisputed people’s champion and any rifle that could be called “better” in both objective and subjective senses borrows AR-15 elements ergonomically.
SIG’s NGSW, and the various service rifles in 5.56 and 7.62 of today as well, are perfect examples of just how influential the AR has been. It defined the latter half of the 20th Century designs in the way the Mauser and the 1903 defined the former half. Iconic milestones in development.
But they certainly spawned highly interesting one-offs as Ian goes through in the video. Weird. Cool, but weird.
Also Ian is nearing 2 Million Subscribers, let’s see if we can get him over the line. 2 Million for 2021!
NPR (among many) are recognizing that the Supreme Court with Amy Coney Barrett on it is stacked 5-4 on a number of issues where Chief Justice John Roberts may have not sided conservatively. Gun rights is among those issues, and one that has been suggest will get the momentum boost that Roberts made suspect. It may even come to pass that since Roberts is no longer the deciding vote he will be more comfortable siding with gun rights since the decision no longer hinged on him.
Honestly that is activism I would prefer not to see in the court but each of the Justices are only human and partisanship towards the President and party that seated them is expected. Most Justices though, including those currently seated, appear to take the “I am a Justice, first” standpoint. That viewpoint tends to get muddied whenever the court sides for or against a particularly contentious item, however reading the opinions, especially those I personally disagree with, has left me with the impression, far more times than not, that the opinion rendered by each Justice was one seriously considered and not a fly-by-night partisan allegiance agreement. Where I personally take greatest issue is where Justices seem to rely heavily on ‘intent’ of something like the SAFE Act to justify upholding an item, as if good intentions are a solid argument for constitutionality. If that were the case, all laws ever enacted could be defend as such.
On guns, though, the court looks — for the first time — to have a clear majority that is hostile to gun regulation. Last term, the court once again punted, and punted again on the issue, declining to hear 10 gun-rights cases. Presumably, Chief Justice Roberts’ then-deciding vote was still in doubt.
But now, with Barrett newly on the court and Ginsburg gone, there appear to be five conservative votes ready to march down the path of expansive gun rights, and Second Amendment activists are teeing up new cases.
“I can tell you people are getting more aggressive,” says professor Blackman, a gun-rights advocate. Gun-rights groups “are emboldened to try to push new frontiers” now.
2021 could shape up to be the year we get definitive and positive decisions on items like magazine capacity and “feature” bans, the cosmetic window dressing that passes for “Doing Something” about all the firearm violence committed with comparatively expensive rifles and all the lives “saved” because the stock on the AR couldn’t adjust for length of pull…
As we close out 2020, I want to end the year on a good note. Which is why I’m happy to point out that the ammo market is starting to show signs of price stabilization. The ammo crisis isn’t over, but we’re at an interesting mid-point.
Here’s what I mean. For the first time since June, I visited Lucky Gunner’s website and found that they had kept a SKU of 9mm FMJ in stock for longer than 24 hours. It’s 115 grain Blazer Brass ammo, but it was there on Monday and as I write this on Wednesday, it’s still in stock. It’s $38 bucks for a box of 50 rounds, which compared to pre-panic prices is insane, but it’s there and if you need it you can get it. No, the ammo crisis isn’t over, but this is an indicator that we’re reaching the first important milestone – price stabilization, which has to come before inventory stabilization.
Inventory stabilization means that you can walk into Fleet Farm or Academy, or go online to retailer XYZ and buy as much 9mm as you want with no limits. We’re not there yet, because the ammo crisis isn’t over, but before this, you would see Lucky Gunner sell out of an FMJ SKU like Blazer Brass in a matter of hours. Similarly, a check of Ammoseek shows lots of 9mm available, and not all gross steel cased trash or sketchy re-manufactured ammo, but actual Federal, Magtech, and Winchester ammo. It’s running around 60 cents a round for new manufactured FMJ from the big brands, but again, it’s available.
However, before everyone gets hyped about ammo coming back, I need to also put some caveats on this post. First, the pending Senate races in Georgia will absolutely affect the ammo market. The GOP losing two seats splits the Senate 50/50, putting the tie breaking vote on any anti-gun legislation in the hands of VP Harris, who is about as anti-gun as they get. We still have a ways to go on this one. Secondly, the week between Christmas and New Years is always a slow week for retail sales, and the ammo industry is no exception to that. It’s entirely possible that people are suffering from retail fatigue and not buying ammo right now. So no, the ammo crisis isn’t over…yet.
But I don’t want to be too much of a negative Nancy, because price stabilization is important. 9mm prices have stabilized around 60-70 cents for new manufactured FMJ. 40 S&W appears to be right around 70 cents a round for quality new rounds. The bad news for revolver enthusiasts is that 38 Special is running around $1.00-$1.30 p/round for quality new stuff. So if you’re a die hard wheelgun guy, it might be time to look at a Glock 43 to replace that J-frame. That feels like a weird thing to say, because in previous ammo crises, 38 Special stayed pretty stable. Not this time. Regardless of that, it does appear that we’re at or close to price stabilization. If this trend holds into the early months of 2021, we’re start to see inventory normalization next. The ammo crisis isn’t over, but this is a positive development.
The video is Aaron Cowan reviewing the FN SCAR 20s. I like the SCAR series, a lot. The 16 & 17 are still my favorite rifles, flaws and all.
The 20s, along with the HK417, the Knight’s Armament SR25/M110, and the Lewis Machine & Tool MWS are the dominant four faces in the semi-auto “Precision Rifle” world. At least from a military based perspective. While 6.5 Creedmoor has made its way into the every flexible SOCOM (.300 BLK is too, but it too is niche) the mainstays of the rifle in use remain 7.62 NATO with projected use to about 1,000 yards and accuracy hovering just above and below 1 MOA, making for a roughly 10″ group at maximum effective range.
The strength of the precision semi is not in its absolute accuracy, a bolt gun with good tolerances will always win out because of the lack of moving parts. The strength lies in its ability to add repeatable precise enough firepower to precision engagement.
There is always a point when you are accurate enough, where the margin of error on your equipment (and you, if you’ve been working on that. You have, right?) has been reduced to a nearly failure proof number that we can consider acceptable barring user error or equipment failure.
The job of a bolt gun has always been to make that first round count for everything it can. When we’re talking semi-autos, the second job becomes to have another round ready right behind it.
There are any number of practical reasons for this requirement, the two most prominent being a rapid follow-up shot due to an error or a second or subsequent critical target that needs to be engaged as rapidly as possible. The semi-auto can do that as rapidly as you can regain your sight picture.
This might be against two legged or four legged predators or destructive creatures, it might be a drill on a training schedule, it might be a stage on a competition… it might just be because you think that’s a neat thing to be able to do.
Doesn’t matter. In the end you have identified the want or need for a semi-auto instead of a bolt gun because rapid follow-up has value to you.
So go for it. Sounds like we have a gun fund booster of some size coming anyway.
Reform in police work, evolving tactics and practices, have been a long time coming. And in the digital age we’ve been able to see that there are definitively officers who act right, and officers who do not. Officers who are well trained and interact well with the public, and officers who do not. Officers who are an asset to their departments, their fellow officers and emergency staff, and their communities… and officers who are not.
We’ve seen officers make mistakes on camera, use force questionably in questionable circumstances, and it has called into review items like qualified immunity and civil asset forfeiture.
There is plenty to be critical of in today’s policing world, but there is also much to praise. We can solve much of policing’s problems by redefining, also known as passing laws for enforcement, that simplify the officers job. If it isn’t against the law then it isn’t the problem of law enforcement. You say we are over policed? I agree, and that in my opinion is a symptom of being over-legislated. Instead of refining rules we are quick to pass unreadable treatises worth of new ones.
And it appears Washington is all onboard that train and willing to gut law enforcement’s ability to deal with riots.
House Bill 1054 states that peace officers could not use: chokeholds or neck restraints; unleashed police dogs for the purpose of arresting or apprehending someone; or “tear gas”.
In other words. Washington wishes to further limit the avenues an officer has for less than lethal force against a suspect or suspects, further increasing risk to the officers and pushing their options closer to ‘lethal’ or ‘witness’ with increasingly little in-between.
Police used tear gas against rioters during the contentious summer events. The “summer of love” was chaotic and violent in many an urban locale. None of this is to say that police, whatever tactics they use, are not also civilly responsible for the health and well-being of anyone they put into custody. This is something we saw a failure of cause national outrage with George Floyd, one case among several where the use of force and the requirement to care for someone in custody met with tremendous failure.
The bill also states law enforcement agencies cannot acquire or use military equipment, defined as “firearms and ammunition of .50 caliber or greater, machine guns, silencers, armored vehicles, armed vehicles, armed aircraft, tanks, mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, long range acoustic hailing devices, rockets, rocket launchers, bayonets, grenades, grenade launchers, missiles, directed energy systems and electromagnetic spectrum weapons.”
To be fair, the list includes a bunch of items not useful to law enforcement. The MK19 with HEDP rounds on its belt isn’t going to super useful for serving a warrant. But there are plenty that are, armored vehicles, 40mm launchers for crowd control and less lethal munitions, acoustic devices, and many more. There is a flexible use for military equipment in policing, not the least of which has come about because of the policing nature of follow on aspects in GWOT. Slapping the “military” label on equipment to make it sound scary and warmongerish does nothing to meaningfully advance a conversation about policing. It is a cheap cop out (pun intended) and you should see it for what it is.
Departments often rely on being able use federal equipment through various programs because it allows them to better spend their budget on things like keeping their cruisers fueled and maintained, provide first aid training to officers and the community, set up community events and sponsorships, and 1,000 other ways that departments can spend their limited budgets if they can borrow useful equipment for the price of gas essentially.
Some places its .mil federal equipment or nothing, they don’t have the budget to buy things like improved temporary restraints or patrol rifles for all their officers so they go without.
In addition, HB 1054 requires agencies to provide updated training on vehicular pursuits. It also would change what is allowed in those pursuits, specifically saying officers have to be able to prove “the safety risks of failing to apprehend or identify the person are considered to be greater than the safety risks associated with the vehicular pursuit.” It also says officers are prohibited from firing into a moving vehicle “unless necessary to protect against an imminent threat of serious physical harm from the operator’s or a passenger’s use of a deadly weapon, not including the vehicle itself.”
This portion is interesting. Redefining and increasing the threshold for a vehicle pursuit is fairly standard for today. But there are myriad very high risks to chasing a fleeing vehicle and most start with collateral and end with damage. The second part though, officers cannot fire into a moving vehicle “unless necessary to protect against imminent threat of serious physical harm…” and then they specifically exclude counting the vehicle a person is in as a weapon… “not including the vehicle itself.”
In other words, if this passes, it is free game (so to speak) to run down police officers with a car. Just don’t shoot at them. Officers will be prohibited from firing into the vehicle to stop you from running them over. Only if the driver or passenger presents a weapon would the officer be authorized to fire into vehicle.
What this rule does, is create a force imbalance. One that heavily favors someone choosing to flee police and cause havoc. It drastically lowers a fleeing individuals risks from law enforcement by hoping to somehow “trickle down” less risk to the bystander community. The State is force. If the State cannot effectively utilize force, it is not the State. Cops are that force, and the end of the day in certain circumstances force is the ultimate arbiter of who gets away with what. And this further steepens the curve in the criminal actors favor.
Instead of writing a rule where liability and collateral may be held by the department if a review finds the officers actions inappropriate to the circumstances (AKA there was no reason to shoot into the vehicle as it didn’t pose a credible threat to you) the rule prohibits a broadly circumstantial behavior and gives anyone in opposition to law enforcement an easy exploit against getting shot.
As much as we would like to pretend its our appeals and reasoning to our better nature that can reduce injury and prevent loss of life.. sometimes that isn’t the case. Sometimes its because ‘if you try and run over the cop they’ll shoot you’ just like ‘if you break into that house, the otherwise nice lady or gentleman will shoot you’. This rule change is more for the utopian thought arc that believes because they, the rule proposer, are a reasonable rational human being with boundaries that all men and women conform to those boundaries. They cannot process the theory that people actually act outside their personal boundaries, they might know on an academic level but they do not understand a different priority set then the one they personally hold.
This is a garbage bill that will only do harm. If we want to combat over-policing and bad LE policy we need to do it by changing the rules and behaviors we consider worth enforcing. And yes, that includes enforcing at the end of a gun barrel because the State is, at its core, legitimized force.
I love gear belts, or battle belts, or war belts, or whatever the hell you call them currently. Ever since I first saw them start to become popular in 2008, I felt a natural pull to them. Why carry gear awkwardly on my chest and stomach when I can move a lot of it to my waist and have it naturally easy to reach and utilize. The Sentry Gunnar Low Profile Operator belt is one of the latest options that approach it in a different way. Instead of being a massive MOLLE belt, it’s hardly bigger than your average duty belt.
Before we talk too much about the belt, let’s do a down and dirty of why gear belts rule.
Belts Rule
First off, belts allow you to carry gear without the need for a plate carrier or chest rig. It’s a convenient way to pack a duty day’s worth of equipment without the mass and mess of a loading bearing vest. If that belt packs your medical kit, then you can remove the Gunnar belt and start to work with your medical equipment easily.
These belts even allow you to quickly remove your gear and hold it safely around your neck or over your head as you cross chest-deep water. Why would you be crossing water? I don’t know, name a reason. Fugitive search or search and rescue, hiking or patrol movement, your friends dragged you on an aggressive nature walk. The point remains, wearing the belt and moving it are convenient.
Gear on a belt is more comfortable to access than equipment on your chest in keeling and prone positions. It feels more natural to me in the standing position as well.
Gear belts can be used outside of things that go pew, especially the Gunnar belt. The low profile design makes it less obnoxious and more comfortable to carry than most other big, padded battle belts. You can toss on gear for hiking, hunting, camping, search and rescue, wildland fire, and numerous other tasks where you need tools, radios, medical kits, etc.
This is why battle belts rule and why I’ve become a big fan of them for both pew based tasks and non-pew based tasks.
The Sentry Gunnar Belt In Action
The Sentry Gunnar belt is a proper low profile option made up of both an internal belt and an external belt. The inner belt loops its way through your pant’s belt loops and has an outer layer of hook material from hook and loop.
You might be saying, Hook and Loop? isn’t that Vel…? (Click Here)
The external belt has an internal layer of loop material that clings to the inner belt with ease. It attaches tight to the other belt, and I’m talking real tight like 1911 and boomers tight.
The belt is 1.75 inches wide, so it’s basically the same size as any other duty belt. The belt has two MOLLE ladders per section. It has four sections to the right and left of the buckle that runs gear horizontally versus vertically. This is perfect for tool or light pouches or tools you need to access while driving. There is lots of room to attach stuff where you want it, from magazine pouches to holsters and beyond.
The buckle is a Cobra-style buckle that has become an industry standard for a reason. The belt itself is relatively light. While the Gunnar lacks an oversized pad that many battle belts have, it’s still quite comfortable and doesn’t dig or bend or sag in use.
To the Range and Beyond
Sentry makes all sorts of magazine and gear pouches, so I tossed on one of their SMG mag pouches on the Gunnar belt. I attached a knife, an IFAK, a spare pistol mag pouch, and then hit the range. At the range, I practiced reloads from the pouch in a multitude of positions. We took on kneeling, standing, prone, and from beyond cover. I also wanted to see if comfort or belt movement issues popped up at all.
The comfort remained outstanding, and the belt stayed in place reload after reload when hooked to the internal belt. I did a few sprints, box jumps and transitioned rapidly from prone to standing. I worked up a sweat, looked like a clumsy oaf, but the belt stayed in place, and remained comfortable.
Gunnar Out
I really love the system that uses that keeps the belt from moving without the need for suspenders. Suspenders are admittedly nice for heavy belt layouts, but if that’s the case, then the low profile Gunnar might not be for you in the first palace. The belt itself is superbly stiff, so it does support gear well and is ultra-comfortable even when moving like a Crossfitter on crack.
The Sentry Gunner Low Profile Operator belt is a slick option for those wanting something a little smaller than your average belt. It’s surprisingly stable, comfortable, and comes in every color you could imagine. Check ‘em out here.
Sig Sauer’s new P320 AXG Scorpion is the elite of the elite among striker-fired, compact 9mm handguns. The first offering from Sig’s New Custom Works shop, the 17-plus-1 round, 3.9-inch barreled 9mm AXG (Alloy X-Series Grip) is based on the P320X but with an aluminum frame rather than polymer. In going the all-metal route, engineers could machine very aggressive checkering in the front strap, integrally machine a slot in the backstrap for a customizable backstrap module and also fit interchangeable grip scales on the gun. The mottled G10 “Piranha” scales made by Hogue provide superior purchase over plastic and well as a distinctive, custom look. All told, physically the gun feels more like a 1911 than a polymer gun, what with its unflexing frame, non-slip grip combined with an angle that innately puts the sights on target for most shooters. In terms of price, this debut model from its Custom Works shop, like subsequent offerings in the future, are expected to fall between Sig standard production models ($600-$800) and its Legion Series ($1,200-1,500) at the top end.
Editor’s Note (if you need to save the video for later): It’s a damn fine pistol.
We’re back from the Christmas Holiday Weekend and in this year of stress and strange occurrences we were given two more.
On Christmas day at 6:30 AM local time in Nashville Tennessee an apparent suicide VBIED (Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device) was detonated outside the AT&T building. It caused significant damage and knocked out both common and emergency communications in the region and resulted in 3 hospitalizations. Significant damage to the adjacent structures was dealt.
What is, however, most curious is the fact that the time of the attack was chosen for minimum casualties and the RV played a warning message, reportedly for between 15 minutes to an hour, prior to the detonation. The message warned people to evacuate and clear the area. People did and the only death was the apparent driver/bomber, Anthony Warner. Warner was 63 and a self employed computer technician of some sort as is being reported.
The bombing, the act of violence on a day traditionally associated with peace and goodwill, is clearly a statement. But of what? We don’t know. And that troubles us, perhaps more deeply than the act itself. It’s why Mandalay Bay Las Vegas is so terrifying, we don’t know why Mandalay Bay happened, we just know it did.
While this attack only appears to have taken the life of the attacker, done some infrastructure damage, and rung a few ears, it remains as scary. Violence we don’t understand, that doesn’t have a motive we can fathom, is far more disconcerting than political or ideological motivations. We are more comfortable in uncomfortable, even horrific circumstances if can understand it on some level.
We can fathom rational motives, even if we disagree with them, even if we are ideologically opposed to them and would use our own violence in that opposition, we can still understand them. ISIS makes sense to us, radically motivated groups the world over have a rationale, a line of thought that we can follow to a logical if highly disagreeable conclusion. It might not ‘make sense’ to us reasonable folk in a manner suggesting we would do the same or similar, but we can track the pathway A-B-C-D-Violent Act because of [Motive].
We don’t know Warner’s motive. We can speculate anything from 5G fearmongering to a private grudge with AT&T, one that AT&T might not have been aware of, to a more abstract motive about drawing attention to the futilities of the world. But we don’t know.
And that wasn’t the only baffling attack of the weekend.
In Rockford Illinois the next day, just before 7:00 p.m. local time, an Army Green Beret, home stationed in Florida with 7th Special Forces Group, shot and killed three elderly male patrons of a bowling alley’s bar. He wounded a fourth older patron and two teens who were there picking up food.
This man is a 12 year veteran, an E-7, Sergeant First Class assigned as an operations and intelligence sergeant with 3rd Battalion 7th SFG. In short, he’s what we would call the ‘best of the best’ and he was in Illinois on leave when he suddenly shot six people at a bar for no known reason.
That no known reason scares us, we crave a reason, we need a reason because if there is a reason that we can fathom then there are steps we can reasonably take to bolster our own peace of mind. That we are not ______ and people we know are not ______ either.
Acts like these two remind us of the ever present, but rarely spoken of, fact that the only reason any of us make it home on any given day is that nobody decided it was worth their efforts to stop us and nothing unintended got us either. Nothing hurt us, harmed us in some way, tried to take our lives, for any reason known or unknown, not maliciousness nor carelessness nor natural acts beyond our control.
Unknown reasons terrify us. We want to know for our peace. To know it was racism, because we aren’t racists. We want to know it was bullying, because we aren’t bullies. We want to know it was extremism, because we aren’t extremists. Part of us desperately wants to disassociate with the violent actor(s) on a fundamental level and that becomes far more vague when there is no known motive.
Because ‘no known motive’ Anthony Warner was just some 63 year old man, like many other 63 year old men, not some identifiably distinct fringe. Sergeant First Class Duke Webb was a Special Forces soldier, a “hero” perhaps, up until he killed three elderly men, shot a fourth, and shot two teenagers in a Rockford Illinois bar the day after Christmas. Without a motive it becomes terribly difficult to disconnect Webb from the heroic soldiers we hold in such high regard, because until that moment he was was one, as far as we knew.
This Game of Thrones Little Finger look-a-like was an elite warfighter for this nation. And we don’t know if it was COVID restrictions, masks, no masks, an insult, radicalization, a fight at home with the family, or anything else under the sky. We don’t know.
Duke Webb: Credit…Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office via Reuters
Known vs. Unknown Motives
That is perhaps the reason why the Twisted Tea guy is getting all the social media coverage. That a man hitting another man comically hard with a large yellow beverage can, is more resonate with us than a bombing and a shooting.
We don’t know Webb or Warner’s reasons, they are a current mystery. But we know Twisted TeaHammer’s motive, we know an can empathize. He got called a racial slur, got kicked at by the same belligerent who called him the slur, and he then proceed to level said belligerent douchecanoe with explosive panache, in what appears to be a well earned concussive can collision to that man’s head.
The man then, clearly not learning his lesson after being taken out by a can of tea, tries to go fist-to-cuffs with the righteous tea wielding convenience shop patron and gets introduced to the floor a second time, where he is further informed verbally and concussively that his choice to call the tea wielder the racial slur was a very poor choice.
This is violence we can understand. Many would even call it an earned consequences for poor behavior. We don’t call it getting ‘tuned up’ or ‘an attitude adjustment’ for no reason, we can see justification. We can understand, even should we disapprove (I for one, welcome our new beverage overlord and the justice done at his hand).
The Point
The point.
Not every act of violence is going to be accompanied by a comprehendible motive. We had two poignant examples of that this weekend. One where there were clear steps taken, for some reason, to avoid killing anyone else, and one that took life seemingly at random and suddenly.
We don’t know, we can’t know, when an emergency of violence will visit us. We can’t know the motive or method. But it is an emergency, like any accident or one of weather, and you can either take steps to be better prepared for it, or hope it doesn’t happen to you.
We aren’t owed an explanation, no matter how hard we look for it. There will be times it simply isn’t there. Timothy McVeigh we understand, we were told the reasons. Anthony Warner we don’t understand, and we may never understand because no explanation was left for us.
Whether we get explanations or not, we need to be able to act in our best interests for life and limb.
I’m always interested in the search terms that pop up around guns. For example, a related term for Beretta APX is “Is the Beretta APX any good?” Well let me answer that one for you: yes. In fact, the Beretta APX might be the best deal you can get on a new 9mm carry gun right now.
If I’m answering the question of “is the Beretta APX any good” we have to start with the price point. For many reasons, the APX series of guns is priced very well. I looked on Gunbroker, and they’re in stock for around $450 for a standard model. Some upgraded models like the Beretta APX RDO or Combat are a bit more expensive, but if all you want for self defense is “pistol, 9mm” then you can get an APX for less than 5 bills. That’s…really good. In fact that’s so good it means no one should ever buy a gun from a second tier brand again. Why would you buy a Canik (at the disco) or an XD when you can get a quality piece of Italian engineering for a hundred dollars less than the XD?
Actually, when you start to examine this whole thing, the price point of the APX really starts to make other guns look unattractive. We’re in the golden age of striker fired 9mm pistols right now. You could buy an APX, a Sig P320, a Glock 19/17/45, HK VP9, M&P 2.0, or a Walther PPQ, and they’re all going to be good to go. The big difference between all those guns is the APX is 100-150 bucks cheaper at retail, but at the end they all do the exact same thing: carry 15-17 rounds, accept red dots, and are boringly reliable. As of right now, I’ve got 4,938 rounds through four different APX pistols, and they keep chugging along.
So if you’re asking “is the Beretta APX any good” the answer is yes. It’s reliable, it’s accurate, and it’s extremely affordable. The only knock is that there isn’t a huge aftermarket for it, but JM Custom Kydex makes holsters for it, and Beretta actually has a pretty good selection of parts. So yeah dude, it’s pretty good. Good enough to finish in the top 10 at Nationals with one!
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) is a federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice. It is overseen by the United States Attorney General, a member of the President’s cabinet. The BATFE is empowered by Congress to regulate the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms and ammunition in interstate commerce. The agency has been controversial over much of its history including during Prohibition and its involvement in the more modern Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents.
Following the November presidential election, the BATFE’s Acting Director Regina Lombardo began a process of arbitrarily redefining the definition of a firearm. The BATFE’s recent focus has been on 80% lower receivers and pistol braces.
The BATFE has begun raiding companies producing 80% complete lower receivers which, until recently, it had defined as incomplete and unable to be regulated as firearms. Gun control advocates refer to the unfinished receivers as “ghost guns,” a term also used for 3D printed firearms components.
Why the sudden change? On November 10, Lombardo admitted during a conference call that the BATFE has been in contact with the Biden transition team to discuss its top priorities. Those priorities for 2021, not surprisingly, include regulating 80% lower receivers and pistol braces.
The BATFE has, for years, wanted to go after pistol brace firearms as short-barreled rifles (SBRs). Two weeks ago, the BATFE felt emboldened enough to publish a notice of intent to further regulate pistol braces. The agency backed down this week after gun owners submitted over 48,000 public comments in opposition including a letter from 90 members of Congress which noted that the BATFE’s proposed regulatory shift could put millions of law-abiding Americans in serious legal jeopardy.
While gun owners are celebrating this Christmas week victory, the BATFE’s actions since Election Day are a foreboding of future battles that could be decided, not in the narrowly divided U.S. Congress, but by unelected federal bureaucrats who would only be accountable to the most anti-gun administration in American history. Will the executive branch attempt to bypass the legislative branch in its gun control efforts as some state governors have done with COVID-19 orders? We are about to find out.
Like many people during 2020 I had to find activities to occupy myself while not actually leaving home. I’ve shared my near obsession with pandemic gardening already but I haven’t yet told you about my baby-steps in bird-watching.
Right now that’s all I would call myself – a small time bird-watcher. It takes a whole other level of commitment to be called a “Birder”. There IS a difference. You can read about that here if you care to.
When I was a kid, my dad was a bit of an amateur naturalist. He could talk your ear off about all different kinds of game wildlife and their habitats. But he also enjoyed studying songbirds. Much to my mother’s consternation, Dad would scatter birdseed directly onto the porch in the winter so he could see the birds clearly and photograph them through the family room windows.
One of my dad’s porch photos of a Tufted Titmouse.
I have childhood memories of Dad describing the calls of various birds to me – the Towhee (Drink-your-Teeeeeeea), the Chickadee (Chick-a-bzzz-bzzz-bzzz), and the Brown Thrasher (Says it Twice – Says it Twice) among others. In addition he drilled into me how to identify a few on sight – the Black-capped Chickadee, the Slate Junco, the Tufted Titmouse etc in addition to the standard Robins, Blue Jays, and Cardinals.
Most of that faded from memory over the years – as childhood things tend to do – and Dad has been gone for almost fourteen years now. But events this year have brought a lot of my dad back to me.
Before this pandemic lockdown year I had not paid much attention to the birds in my backyard. I was busy raising children, going back to school, starting a medical practice – running here and there and everywhere. While I “accomplished” many things, spending any significant time just sitting quietly my own yard was not one of them.
That all changed in 2020, and I’m so happy that it did. I created a patio space. I built my own picnic table and “park” benches. I planted a pandemic garden. But a side-effect of these efforts was that I spent a great deal of time outside, often just sitting reading a book in the evenings.
That quiet sitting allowed me to notice how much bird activity there was in my own yard and the surrounding neighborhood trees and shrubs. So I re-stocked an old feeder that had been empty for at least a decade, and watched to see what would happen.
The adage “build it and they will come” certainly rang true. I’ve learned so much about birds in a very short period of time – thanks to online sources such as The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and their Merlin App.
I can now recognize the calls of birds such as the Carolina Wren, the Goldfinch, and even the Red Bellied Woodpecker. I now know that the beak of the lowly Starling changes color through the seasons.
Before this year I didn’t know that woodpeckers made any noise at all except the jackhammering sound when they were drilling trees. That is until I heard one happily “yakking” his call while munching at my feeder this summer. It’s all been quite fascinating, yet soothing at the same time.
I even imagined that the Cardinal who regularly came to inspect my garden in the early evenings was sent by my dad to check up on me. I know that’s probably silly, but a year like this will do those things to you.
Cardinal inspecting my container cabbage.
I don’t even want to think about how much money I’ve spent on bird seed this year. I even switched over to pre-formed blocks in cages – which are more expensive than bulk seed in bags – because the deer figured out how to upend the tube feeder and eat whatever fell out. Those hooved parasites emptied the whole durn feeder every single night until I finally got wise.
I eventually started supplementing the commercial seed blocks by making some of my own little feed cups out of peanut butter, old cornmeal, and the seeds from my butternut squashes. I got the idea from the Audubon Society, and this uses up squash seeds that I wouldn’t otherwise eat, but hate to waste.
Honestly, despite my complaints to the contrary, all of this was still way cheaper than an actual vacation, so that’s how I rationalized the expense. It also allowed me to rationalize an additional expense – I sprang for a new set of binoculars.
The feeder is only about 25 yards from the patio and the back slider, but my distance vision isn’t what it used to be. Clearly identifying beaks and color patterns required me to have some magnification. I started using a cheapo pair of binoculars that I originally bought for a cruise years ago, but soon realized that although these were fine for 30 yards or so, they were wholly inadequate for properly picking out the birds I was hearing in the neighbor’s treetops. So I started doing some online research.
It quickly became apparent that buying binoculars was a lot like buying a rifle scope. Just as with buying firearm optics, with binoculars you usually get what your pay for. Really hardcore Birders – just like hardcore shooters – can easily plunk down thousands of dollars for their glass.
I was not prepared to make that kind of investment right off the bat, so I looked for something more entry-to-mid-level. I was able to rationalize the cost with the thought that I could also ultimately use the binoculars in a deer stand and for squirrel hunting as well.
Still, with this year’s financial outlook being a bit unpredictable, I had to be brutally honest with myself and weigh what I thought I “wanted” to use them for vs what I knew I was “realistically” going to use them for. That gave me a price range to work with.
I am not anyone’s definition of hardcore anything, so I found what I consider to be a pretty decent set of binos for just about 300 dollars. I settled on the Vortex Diamondback 10×42 Waterproof model. I went waterproof and fogproof because even though things are fairly comfortable in my backyard, I know what the weather is often like up on the family property.
There’s a ridge up there somewhere.
I went with Vortex because I have a Vortex rifle scope which served me well on my Texas hunt last year. Thus I had at least a little prior experience with the company.
Vortex had several models of binoculars to choose from – all of which were consistently rated high on “top binocular choice lists” I found online. The next step up from my Diamondback – the Viper HD – was about $600, and the Razor HD was over a Grand.
The Diamondback gave me what I needed without feeling that I was buying Kobe beef for a hamburger palate. At least for now.
Since making my purchase in the late summer, I’ve been very pleased. I can peruse the treetops in the summer as well as enjoy the feeder activity from the comfort of my kitchen in the winter. After the holidays I’ll take these binoculars out to the property to see what I can make of the local squirrel population, too. Now, I need a longer zoom for my phone camera.
Woodpecker sloppily working on a block of mealworms while everyone else waits for what falls down.
So if you are despairing of what you are going to do with yourself this winter after the holidays are all cleaned up, don’t overlook the wildlife that is right under your nose in your own yard. It’s never too late to buy a bird feeder and download a bird app. Or maybe even invest in some binoculars. You may discover a whole new obsession!
Well, perhaps not that extreme a description, but it is welcome news that the efforts of the gun owning community are producing positive momentum towards rational definitions and regulations.
Just 5 days into a 14 day commentary period the Department of Justice withdrew the notice for commentary that the ATF submitted via regulations.gov for public input. The input was so overwhelmingly critical, and had garnered nearly 42,000 unique comments, that ATF pulled the plug early.
It is believed that they got the message. The vague and nebulous “Objective Factors for Classifying Weapons with ‘Stabilizing Braces’,” were entirely unsatisfactory and not in keeping with the stated goal of making the definitions simple to understand and comply with as either a Title I or Title II firearm, owners choice of which to pursue.
It’s not that we’re against rules. We aren’t. We like rules that make sense. The four rules of firearms safety and their logical application make sense. Rules for reloading ammunition and marketing ammunition as a certain caliber make sense. Rules for marketing a firearm as a certain caliber and that firearm operating safely make sense. We have dozens of common sense rules that actually fit the definition, but this garbled mess wasn’t one of them in the least.
DoJ and the Office of the Attorney General agree, they got put on notice. Everything is not well in ATF regulation land and if there is something that the DoJ really wants to avoid right now, it is a public so disquiet and irate that they make waves.
So what next?
We wait and see what the DoJ come out with next. This is not over, not by a long shot and certainly not with a Biden administration taking the helm. But they know, they have definitive proof, that gun control stokes fires that many other issues do not. Resisting gun control is a far more bi-partisan and grass roots movement than it has ever previously been. More Americans than ever have realized that at the end of the day, when all the civil systems and programs in the world have failed you, sometimes all that is left to save your life is you… and you gun.
So, now more than ever, any actions meant to limit that access, to limit that civil right that protects people with action as well as word, is going to be met with open hostility, angry voices, and extreme suspicion.
If you commented. If you spoke up concisely and put digital ink to the ATF’s notice board, thank you. It worked. The job isn’t done but this is a step towards making the government recognize the folly of overly complicated and meaningless regulation that wastes everyone’s time.
Ultimately the owners don’t care what the ATF calls a braced firearm. ‘SBR/SBS’ or ‘Pistol’ or ‘Firearm’ or ‘PDW’ or Belgian Waffle, they don’t care as long as access to them isn’t a pain in the ass. The braced firearm called into question everything about the NFA short of automatics and explosives. It turned on a bright light to a confusing legal conundrum and when ATF attempted to further obfuscate it by ‘clarifying objectively’ a topic they had flipped, flopped, and flipped again, the public called them to account.
I know it became popular to say, “Stop asking!” about the legal niches that have opened thanks to tech developments like braces and binary triggers, but these fights have been coming. Better to have them when the public is hopping mad at anything that looks the least bit suspect instead of when everyone is used to saying nothing to try and avoid notice.
We win round one. We came out swinging. But this isn’t done until we have a solid rules gain and clarification in our favor that actually makes a lick of sense. Explaining gun laws to people shouldn’t make their eyes roll from their sockets in sheer astonishment at the absurdity, they should be as sensible to explain as a speed limit.
Let’s gain some ground on repealing the NFA, we’ve taken a solid step. But it is just the first.
(Original Caption) Civil War: Negro Union Infantry corporal, holding a Colt model 1849 pocket revolver. Civil War camp photographers kept such equipment to add a martial touch to their portraits. Tintype. (Original Caption) Image via NPR Article
NPR has a tendency to be a place jaded by liberal sentiments, and that closes off their minds to certain topics. Human fallibility. But that doesn’t make them unintelligent, nor does it make it a place you should avoid just because you disagree. It certainly doesn’t mean their journalists, followers, and listeners won’t try and understand your perspective. Many will, if they do not it is their failing, not yours.
You can learn a great deal from the informed, partially or fully, perspective of others and we can advance the causes of humanity, civil rights, and individual liberties together because of that.
Oh, it might be a challenge, make no mistake, but it is a challenge we should continuously aspire to rise and meet.
And that is why the NPR piece linked above at the title (and here) should be a good read (it is, overall, in my opinion) to gain additional perspective.
The Black Gun Owner and the White Gun Owner of today occupy very similar societal spots, just as with any defining title be it factory worker, lawyer, doctor, what have you. Inequities have shrank, opportunities have grown, the world has advanced.
But the historical path to 2020, simultaneously the “worst year ever” and the best time to be alive, when it comes to ownership of weapons based on race and status are very different. One of our most progressive acts as a 2A community, using the proper form of progressive and not the modern take of ‘offended on behalf of others,’ is the increased championing of minority firearms ownership. It is the area we can make the most ground gained and better cement individual civil liberties.
And to do that, we need an understanding of where they came from. My white, Irish, centrist raised, Roman Catholic baptized, modernly educated, veteran, small town midwestern self cannot adequately grasp nearly any other perspective, without assistance. It doesn’t matter if that perspective is the impoverished inner city minority, the Central American refugee (both legal and illegal), the communism survivor, or the patriated middle easterner. None of those lives were my life, they weren’t each others lives either, and so we must read and listen to gain the perspectives we need.
So, regardless of your overall opinion of NPR, this is added perspective. That makes it valuable in our quest to expand civil rights and liberties for all.
It is also an unequivocal confirmation that gun control is, and always has been, racist.
So what you actually see here is this entire self-defense armament movement that restarts back up with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the 1850 October edition of the abolitionist paper, The Liberator, they say how Black people and abolitionist whites had flooded to gun stores to start purchasing revolvers [in response to the act] and how white accomplices and allies were actually donating firearms to their Black compatriots for self-defense. There is this rich history of fighting that goes up to and throughout the Civil War, where Black people [are doing what is necessary] to simply survive. -Northern Abolitionists and Free Blacks Response to the Fugitive Slave Act, NPR
