Today we’re taking a look at this interview with the Taurus CEO, Bret Voorhees. Bret was with Walther for some time, and recently moved over to take over the reigns at one of the largest brands in the firearms industry.
Taurus and I have a bit of a checkered past. I have owned several Taurus guns, including a PT92, a .45 ACP revolver, a .357 revolver, a 9mm revolver, and a famously bad Model 82 revolver. One of the things we talked about during the interview was Taurus’ past QC issues and how they’re working on getting them fixed, and I was pretty impressed with Bret’s responses.
One of the other interesting discussion points that came up was how they’re currently getting guns into the country. Right now the only domestic production they have is for .22 pistols, so the rest of their lines are made in Brazil. But because of COVID, the flights they were using to get guns air freighted into the country are shut down. So what did Taurus do? Started chartering private jets from Brazil to fly guns to Miami. It’s the most gangster thing I’ve ever heard of, and I love it.
Despite my best attempts, I couldn’t get Bret to divulge any secrets about new products, but they do have “something big” coming. I’m cautiously optimistic to see what it is, because I’ll say that Taurus has never lacked for creativity. I think a lot of people in the firearms industry, myself included, are really rooting for Bret at Taurus to do great things. It would be awesome if we had three quality revolver brands out there, and I’d also like to see Taurus bring more firearms production into the United States.
Under federal law, they require no background check or serial number, making ghost guns a growing weapon of choice for criminals.
CBS News 60 Minutes is set to enthrall us with the terrifying tale of the ghostgun… Because de Leon certainly failed too impress.
I don’t know about you.. but I am absolutely shivering. Not in fear, though. It snowed here in Michigan.
Let’s see what kind of universe realigning reporting the ole’ 6-0 has for us, shall we? Buckle up.
As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps through the country, panic and fear have caused a run on hand sanitizer, toilet paper and guns.
Yes, there was a run on firearms as folks came to the sudden realization that society is fragile and they are ultimately responsible for their own safety. Crisis has that effect on people.
Retailers tell us they have never seen such a surge in firearms sales.
Nope, it probably saved many small businesses by giving them a healthy revenue boost when they were about to be shuttered by the government over being, “non-essential”. It’s reported 3.7 Million NICS Checks in March and 2.9 Million in April, nice!
One kind of weapon that has been selling out is a build-it-yourself firearm known as a ghost gun because it skirts most federal gun laws. There’s no background check and no serial number, making ghost guns invisible to police and almost impossible to trace when used in a crime. We were surprised that it’s all perfectly legal. After a year and a half of reporting, we discovered that ghost guns, once mainly popular with gun enthusiasts, have also become a weapon of choice for criminals, manufactured by gangs and used in mass shootings.
… What?
Invisible to police!? The cops can’tfind a gun in someone’s waistband, pocket, or wherever if it just doesn’t have a serial number!? It becomes ‘invisible‘ through some magic mathematical process where a cop can only see it and use it as evidence in a crime if somebody put some numbers and letters on the side? Do the police have to let a criminal go free if they’re in possession of a ‘ghost gun’ because there is just some crazy voodoo where they can’t see the gun and therefore can’t prosecute a criminal for being in possession of it?
No? None of that is true? A felon in possession is still a felon in possession? Okay..?
Almost impossible to trace… Oh! I get it now. You’re still under the magical mystical illusion that just because a gun has a number written on the side and that number, at some point or another, is written on a piece of paper and in a book somewhere else that it generates some sort of legendary crime fighting powers.
Sorry to bust your bubble CBS but… it doesn’t. Serial numbers help with data organization, but just like anything else (any other product with a serial number on it) it doesn’t grant it some magical GPS capability or record its user history or anything of the like. It grants Law Enforcement a possible avenue to establish a custody chain or return a stolen item to its rightful owner.
Let me illustrate just how weak this argument is. I, me, myself, have been the victim of firearms theft. Three stolen guns from my vehicle, parked in a close friend’s driveway. My friend was also burglarized but they only took money and some little items from his car.
Did the fact that my guns have serial numbers prevent that crime from occuring? Nope. Did those numbers make the guns easy to find as the responding officer just said, “Hey Siri, find Serial Number _________.” and the mythical serial number matrix got to work? Nope. Did the detailed information I gave the officers, make, model, color, modifications, accessories, etc. even make it into the report that they followed up with me on a few days later? Nope. Did the one firearm that has since been recovered magically prevent its illicit user from doing a dastardly deed with it because it had a serial number that I owned and had gone through the requisite background check for, but they certainly had not? Nope.
Did the presence of that serial number in any way mitigate the risk of that firearm, in the hands of a criminal, to law enforcement or the public? Does a serial number alter the inherent risk posed by a 9mm handgun? Is a non-serialized 5.56 rifle more dangerous than a serialized one, if fired at you or a police officer in anger? Does the presence of a serial number meaningfully impact the likelihood that an officer responding to a situation knows that a firearm is involved?
Nope.
So why in the name of all that we hold holy are we losing our minds over GhostGuns again?
“They get used in crimes, Keith!”
So do guns that get stolen from the cops. All of which have serial numbers. Or that the cops sell to cartels… oh, are we not bringing that one up? Fast & Furious? Okay.
Oh, and how did I get my stolen firearm back, you may wonder? Funny story. The serial number helped there. But the only reason I have this one back is Crimey McCriminal, who was out on bail after committing crime.. and being found in possession of my stolen gun which is also a crime.. and being a convicted felon in possession of my stolen pistol which is yet another crime.. got himself shot and killed by Crimey O’Criminal, a rival in the whole committing violent crime thing. So since they no longer needed my pistol as evidence that Crimey McCriminal had committed a violent crime and other felonies, as he was now dead, they gave it back to me.
Now, what did the serialnumber accomplish in all of this? What did that mystical, wondrous, crime fighting and preventing series of characters do?
They allowed me to retrieve my property by driving across the breadth of the state. 5 hour round trip for the privilege of reacquiring my property. That is what the serial number did. And I am grateful the serial number was there for me in that way.
Serial numbers, like model numbers or names, are for inventory control and tracking. That is it, really. They are of incredibly limited utility beyond ancillary data. That ancillary may prove useful in building a criminal case for a larger crime like arms trafficking where inventory is a key factor, but is hardly going to be the make or break as a fact in a case if Crime O’Crimeboss sells a crate of rifles and handguns to an undercover agent or if O’Crimeboss’ convict crew gets caught with weapons on them. Serial numbers or no, they just caught all the felonies.
Most crimes involving firearms have nothing riding on the whether or not firearm has a serial number, except for if it had one and it was removed to further a crime.
Where did this stupid term take root anyway?
Oh, yeah. This lukewarm IQ’d MENSA reject. Then we turned it (and him) into the meme it so rightly deserved. Go team internet.
But we have digressed from 60 Minutes for long enough. Back to their brilliant Ghost Gun breakdown.
We sought out America’s top gun cops, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the ATF, to find out exactly what a ghost gun is.
Nobody tell the FBI they aren’t the top cops anymore. Also nobody watch Waco on Netflix… *Pssst, EVERYBODY should watch Waco on Netflix* But yes, the ATF is hand in hand with the firearm industry as the most prominent direct regulatory authority.
Thomas Chittum, ATF’s assistant director of field operations, gave us rare access to its West Virginia weapons repository and told us the latest additions here are ghost guns.
Rare access? I feel like a FOIA request would probably get you in. However check out this deep, informative, meaningful, totally not cherry picked, and chronically under detailed interview exchange.
Bill Whitaker: What’s the difference between these two guns? *shows two Glock like handguns*
Thomas Chittum: Well, this is a firearm that was manufactured by a licensed manufacturer. The law requires them to mark them with certain markings, including a serial number. This is not marked. No background check is completed when you purchase it. It’s made at home by somebody using commonly available hand tools.
One is a GLOCK, Inc. Glock, the other is an 80% frame completable with Glock parts.
Bill Whitaker: So, they both do the same thing.
Thomas Chittum: They both shoot.
My favorite part of this whole exchange is the “using commonly available hand tools” as if the Glocks that come from GLOCK, Inc. have some sort of secret extra machine that makes them “traceable” during final assembly. Newsflash: They don’t. It’s just a small strip of stamped metal with a number on it that they put into a book. The final products atGLOCK are assembled using “commonly available hand tools” just like the 80% ones.. less tools, in fact, because mass production has made it worth investing in a few tools to make it even more expedient to produce guns.
As Chittum says, usually, if you bought a gun at a store, it would have a traceable serial number and you would need to pass a background check under federal law. A ghost gun can circumvent all of that, because it’s put together from unfinished, untraceable parts.
“Traceable” is their magic word. It’s as “traceable” as a point of sales receipt makes it. The inventory can be tracked from the manufacturer to the first point of sale.. and that’s it. There is no reliable way to “trace” accurately beyond that point. It’s a shot in the dark. If they can they can, if they can’t, oh well. The whole thing is ancillary data. What are they going to do with it? What game changing piece of information can they track if someone passed a background check and took a gun home and then there is no reliable way to track movement of anything beyond that. That the gun was purchased and/or stolen? No shit.
“Traceable” is just ancillary data, but it gets treated like it’s this invaluable law enforcement tool that cannot be lived without, like thousands upon thousands of criminals are walking free from courtrooms and rearming “invisible” to cops because they couldn’t ‘tracethegun’. If only it had a serialnumber and CSI could solve it an hour plus commercial breaks!
Bill Whitaker: It’s virtually invisible to you and government.
Thomas Chittum: It also makes it challenging to keep it outta the hands of people who are not allowed to possess firearms.
Hmm, Chittum didn’t like term invisible. Maybe because “invisible” and “Ghost Gun” are patently stupid and their unique challenge to law enforcement and threat to the community at large is dramatically overhyped for gun control brownie points? Nah, couldn’t be that.
*Dramatic Scene Change*
Bryan Muehlberger: Up to that day, I never heard the term ghost gun. So I didn’t even know what that was.
I didn’t either until de Leon, Bryan, and I work in this industry. Then I learned the thirty caliber clip in half-a-second truth… and I was very very confused as to why they would less this man speak as an authority to anything.
Bryan Muehlberger found out one day last November. There had been a mass shooting at his daughter’s high school and 15-year-old Gracie was murdered.
And the young man who had brought the gun to school, the 80% frame built 1911, commited suicide. He fired one magazine of ammunition killing two classmates, injuring three others, and then killing himself.
Does Bryan or anyone else seriously believe that the lack of a serial number was the only thing that allowed this tragedy to unfold? Is that the theory? Not that mental health is an incredibly complex and multifaceted subject and that this child, who had just had a birthday, was suffering with something? Not that this young man clearly had demons he was fighting? Not that there are a myriad other ways to cause destruction and havoc and this was just the one chosen, the one convenient? Is our working theory that this unserialized 1911 was the only method that would have been convenient enough to fit all the necessary criteria for a tragedy?
“It might’ve helped…” – Someone who doesn’t want to postulate data realistically to see the actual odds of influencing the likelihood or outcome of a tragic event.
And so would the poor kid being killed in a car crash the week prior, but I don’t see anyone lining up to advocate that theory. All murderers should die in car crashes before they commit murder! Let’s start a hashtag. Criminals, take a break.
Bryan Muehlberger: They bring in one of the head doctors. And just like you see on the movies, he sits across from you with that real quiet kinda solemn stare, right at you. And I just– I just remember sayin’, you know, like, “Please, no. Don’t– don’t tell me the bad news, please.”
This was the aftermath at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. A typical Thursday morning disrupted, the quad littered with backpacks after students dropped everything and fled for their lives. That’s where Gracie was waiting for friends before class.
Bryan Muehlberger: She was about as close as I am to you right now. Shot her right through the backpack and right through her chest, And thankfully he didn’t aim at the back of her head. You know, at least we got to see her face one more time.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva arrived at the scene not long after the shots were fired.
Bill Whitaker: This kid shows up at school. What happened?
Alex Villanueva: He shows up at school. He has a backpack. His mom had– had packed the lunch for him. But in the backpack was also a .45 auto that was loaded.
Carrying that loaded ghost gun was Nathaniel Berhow, a high school junior. In addition to Gracie, he shot and killed Dominic Blackwell and wounded three other students. He saved the last round for himself.
None of this, none at all, is remotely demonstrating how a serial number improves the odds of preventing homicides. We’ve been told by an ATF employee that guns without serial numbers are a ‘thing that exists’ and then Whitaker tries to put words in his mount, “invisible.” which the ATF employee doesn’t bite on.
Now we are entreated to the emotional pain of a father who lost his daughter when another father’s son stole one of his firearms and committed a multiple murder/suicide at his school… and it is being leveraged to say that “Ghost Guns” are the problem. How did Berhow get a firearm? Stole it! From his father. Were any of the firearms illegal? Was Berhow’s father a prohibited person and had gotten around the law to illegally acquire guns that his son then stole and used to kill his classmates and then himself?
There is a lot to unpack here… and a lot of responsibility to lay at various feet long before we get to the gun without a number on its side.
Bill Whitaker: He’s 16 years old?
Alex Villanueva: Uh-huh (AFFIRM). Just turned– that was his birthday.
Bill Whitaker: How does a 16-year-old get his hands on a gun? He’s– he’s underage.
Stole it. You know who else was, ‘he’s– he’s underage’, Audie Murphy. Google him real quick, he also was famous for using a gun. He just used it against Nazis, real German Third Reich Nazis. Why are we still trying to imply that once people hit their teenage years that they cannot reason on an adult level? Oh yeah, if it fits the tragedy of a narrative you are trying push we can shift blame… so long as that shift doesn’t hit the wrong people.
Alex Villanueva: Underage, but his father was a gun enthusiast and was in possession of a lot of weapons. They were ultimately confiscated because he was detained for psychiatric evaluation.
Bill Whitaker: So he– the father was not supposed to have guns.
Alex Villanueva: And all the weapons were removed legally at the time.
Implication seems to be that Berhow’s father had his firearms confiscated for a psychiatric evaluation and may have been a prohibited owner from that point moving forward, and that this occurred before the murder suicide. If he was, and he broke the law by assembling an 80% 1911, that is on the Berhow’s father. As is control of his firearms, legal or otherwise. A legal statute is present in most localities that makes a minor’s misuse of a firearm a crime of the guardian, often a felony. But if Berhow wasn’t a prohibited person, even after the pysch-eval, then this whole line is just obfuscation. Meaningless drivel to drum up the sounds of a case that “Ghost Guns” are more dangerous than serialized commercial inventory.
Was Berhow’s father a prohibited possessor? Or did he just choose not to pursuit the legal hassle of reacquiring his property after the evaluation? Was he in that process anywhere but had purchased new 80% items legally in the meantime and assembled them legally?
The whole narrative feels like an emotional lever that tries very very carefully to lay justenough blame but also make that person being blamed a victim of the evil serial numberless 1911.
Sheriff Villanueva suspects that’s when the father turned to ghost guns and his son got his hands on one. Six months later, the Saugus investigation is still ongoing.
Ohhhh, ‘ongoing’ you say. They would be swift to tell us if Berhow’s father was an illegal possessor. Of that I am confident.
Alex Villanueva: This is the actual weapon that was used in the Saugus shooting. It is a ghost gun. It was assembled. We don’t know by who. But we believe it was the father of the suspect and it came into possession then of the shooter himself.
Ghost gun parts…
Regular gun parts. Like every other gun part. “Ghost Gun” only means no commercial serial number on the receiver/frame, which is and always has been one part.. The difference between a “Ghost Gun” and a commercial firearm is onepart that does or doesn’t have a random number on it.
…can be used to fabricate a handgun or even an AR-15. The parts are widely available across the country in stores and online. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, they have been flying off the shelves. They’re shipped right to your door. Not much harder than ordering a pizza.
And so are serialized guns too, but they’re landing at middleman FFL’s first. You said so at the beginning of the piece 60 Minutes. I would even hazard a guess that far more serialized guns moved, retail wise, than 80% items. 6.6 Million background checks in March and April. Why aren’t we losing our minds over those? Is that not a scary enough angle because those have serial numbers?
If you had to assemble a pizza with punches, drills, and it cost a few hundred dollars I guess the pizza comparison.. kind of works… But, whatever… it’s about as salient a comparison as they’ve made so far.
We bought a kit online for $575…
Just like a pizza.
…that has everything you need to make a 9 millimeter handgun. It came in parts…
Things have parts? And people but those parts together? I wonder if that’s what firearm manufacturer employees do?
…like IKEA furniture but for firearms, and even includes the drill bits you need to put the gun together in the comfort of your own home...
Scandalous! They made their product convenient for the consumer! How dare they!
… Why is it so easy to buy? Because federal gun law only regulates a part, called a frame or a lower receiver. But until you drill out holes and file down a bit, in the eyes of federal law, it’s just a hunk of metal or in this case plastic.
Engineering > “Law”
Where does the endless chase stop? Do you prohibit people owning CNC Machines, 3D printers, or even shopping for pipe at Home Depot without an FFL? Any line you draw in the sand is going to be meaningless, it won’t prevent people from building firearms because firearms are ultimately fairly simple machines. Ban “80%” and an engineer will come out with a 75%. Ban “any part intended to be used as part of an unserialized firearm” and you’ve mildly shifted the black market of firearms, and made another paper tiger law.
YouTube videos will show you step-by-step how to turn that piece of plastic or metal into a gun.
They also show you home plumbing tips, car maintenance, chemistry, and why the last two Star Wars movies were crap. The directions that come in the kit tell you how to finish it too, not just YouTube. Also, per the ATF and Federal Law, 100% legal to do.
Murder, still 100% illegal to do.
“bUt MaH TRaCeABilitY!”
Alex Villanueva: So you have pretty much it’s open season, anyone who is a prohibited person that wants to arm themselves now has a very easy way to do it.
They had easy ways before, too. That’s your job. These criminals weren’t failing background checks and got picked up, and they sure as hell weren’t unarmed just because they had a conviction. What is the ‘failed’ background check turnover rate again? How about the prosecution rate for failed background checks that don’t get later overturned?
Sidenote: The false positive rate in NICS is estimated at about 94% with prosecutions amounting to 0.1%… not 1%, 0.1%, 77 cases brought charges out of 71,010 initial denials. (2009, Federal numbers, CPRC)
But, if you’re a felon or judged mentally unfit for example, federal law says you’re not supposed to have any kind of firearm. Build a ghost gun? No one knows you have it.
Steal a gun, have a less scrupulous individual you know straw purchase a gun, trade for a gun, buy a gun legally because you can. Nobody knows that you have that one either, not really. There’s a receipt with a number on it somewhere called a 4473 that has a number or numbers of the guns you bought.. but it is in a dusty box, nobody knows.
There are upwards of 600,000,000 guns in this country alone. We don’t know where all the ones with serial numbers are, are you insane? Do you know how math works? Do you know how knowingthings works?
The ATF, FBI, Sheriff, etc. don’t know where all the legal guns are. They don’t even know where all the highly regulated NFA items are, they have the most accurate records on ownership of them but they don’t know. ‘Nobody knows‘ you drive drunk, distracted, or otherwise recklessly either. But if you were caught doing so in the past there may be a record of your history of past events, but that isn’t knowing either.
They don’t want to or need to know, either. It would be a huge mass of valueless data that they couldn’t even get a kickback on by selling it to ancillary marketers. Knowing will only ever become a valuable datapoint if a behavior puts them on LE’s radar. You want to know who would get the most value from “traceable” firearms data? People who sell firearms and stuff for firearms.
Ironically, California has some of the strictest state gun laws in the U.S., and yet it’s the epicenter of this growing problem.
Ironically? Predictably. California has a bunch of dumb unenforceable rules. Take a wild guess how many rifles are in California with illegal “features” among their 40,000,000 inhabitants. Go ahead. Make dumb rules, people ignore them, erosion of legitimate authority continues.
Bill Whitaker: Where on your list of worries do these ghost guns fall?
Alex Villanueva: Well, along with terrorism, active shooter, this is w– way up there on the list.
Hmm, the largest Sheriff’s office in the country and in anti-gun California is headed by a guy who says a couple other scary things, then adds these are, “way up there on the list.” Really? Terrorism and Active Shooters are on par with regular old firearm possession? I bet he’s scared of 11+ round magazines too.
Villanueva oversees the largest sheriff’s office in the country, and he says over the last year, the number of ghost guns turning up in LA county investigations has jumped by 50%.
Remember, going from 2 to 3 is a 50% jump. If it were from hundreds to thousands of incidents you would be seeing real numbers. But the numbers must not be scary enough so we need the percentages. Also, did total investigations go up 50%? Did they go up even 5%? Did they show a spike that is outside normal variability that is theoretically attributable to an increase in the popularity of 80% firearms?
Hmmmmm. Nope.
Odd as it may seem, it looks like crime in LA County has factors far more poignant, and independent of access to 80% firearms, that contribute to crime rates. Using anecdotes of crimes where an 80% firearm was found to make them seem more dangerous is as weak an argument is saying .50 BMG Caliber rifles are too dangerous for civilian hands and using a money embezzler who bought one was an example of why.
Alex Villanueva: Domestic assault, assault with a deadly weapon, distribution of child pornography, possession a child pornography, armed with a ghost gun. Domestic violence, domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, drug deal.
Bill Whitaker: Wow.
Wow indeed. I fail to see how ‘armed with a Ghost Gun’ is any worse than just ‘armed’ in any of those scenarios. Is any evidence presented that remotely suggests these crimes wouldn’t have taken place sans ‘Ghost Gun’? No? Is there any evidence that the only path to these criminal individuals being armed was an assembled non serialized firearm, or even the only reasonable path and that other avenues of acquiring a weapon would have been cost and risk prohibitive enough to dissuade them? No.
It’s an epidemic that has blindsided police across the country.
Blindsided? Really? Dangerous nuisance seems like a more apt description.. but so is a tweaked out meth head trying to squat one out naked on a sidewalk.
Without a serial number or paperwork, ghost guns are very difficult for law enforcement to trace or track. Which is why Thomas Chittum and the ATF are struggling to get a handle on the problem.
Bill Whitaker: How many of these guns are on the streets, you have no idea?
Thomas Chittum: Uh, no, I have no idea.
They have no idea how many guns there are period. The estimate has a ~200,000,000 unit margin of error.
Bill Whitaker: And how many crimes are being committed by these guns, you have no idea?
They have an idea.
Thomas Chittum: Well, not with precision...
See.
…They still represent a minority of the firearms that are being used in crimes. But we do see that they’re increasing significantly and rapidly.
So, they’re still a minority but are taking over a portion of the criminal gun market. Are crimes increasing overall? Doesn’t look like it. Or is this just a shift in preferred gun, not crime rate? Like we’ve seen time and time and time again as technology advances and the ‘Saturday Night Special’ of the era changes from one model to another depending on what is cheap and available.
Bill Whitaker: So you have no idea how many guns are out there, and you don’t know who has them.
Thomas Chittum: Uh, right.
They have no clue, they didn’t know before 80% receivers got big and they don’t know now. They can’t. It’s a Gordian Knot. The only way to “solve” it would be to violently rip out the entire system by its constitutional base. Not a good plan.
Here’s what our reporting found, contacting local and national law enforcement over the course of a year and a half: at least 38 states and Washington D.C. have seen criminal cases involving ghost guns.
Really? Not even all 50 states? With the amount of chaos and carnage these untraceable death machines should be sowing and we only have ‘criminal’ cases in 38 states?
There were at least four mass shootings…
You guys keep changing the definition on that one, are we at ‘literally any time more than one shot is fired in anger’ yet?
…violent police shootouts…
I don’t know many non-violent shootouts. Kent State, maybe?
…high-profile busts of gangs making and selling ghost guns on the street, and cases involving terrorism and white supremacists.
You mean to say that assholes use cheap available guns? Good thing Capannone didn’t have guns. Boy can you imagi… ohhh that’s what Chicago Typewriter meant.
But Dimitrios Karras says that’s not his clientele at all.
He is a former Marine and one of the first to get into the business of selling ghost gun parts in California ten years ago.
Dimitrios Karras: Between 300,000 and 500,000 individual units have passed through my hands.
Bill Whitaker: Over what period of time?
Dimitrios Karras: Last ten years.
Bill Whitaker: It sounds like a lot to me.
Dimitrios Karras: If I was–
Bill Whitaker: That– that’s just from your store?
Dimitrios Karras: That’s just– that’s just from what– what I’ve been involved in. There’s a lot of companies that are now in this industry and there are multiple millions of these things that have been created throughout the country at this point.
Bill Whitaker: So who is buying these kits?
Dimitrios Karras: It’s guys in hardhats. It’s also the people who like to work with their hands and do this sort of thing anyway.
It’s guys and girls who shop at Rockey Brass. Go get ya one and make Villenueva poop himself a little bit. It’s the American thing to do.
Millions, literally millions of these things in circulation but they’re a minority of firearm problems still and we aren’t seeing a significant shift in firearm related crime rates. It’s almost as if a $700 assembly kit isn’t the cheapesteasiest way for a criminal to get a gun. Some people are certainly taking advantage of it to avoid detection, but some people believe it’s none of anyone’s business what you own.
Alex Villanueva: I’d say hogwash to that entire idea.
Bill Whitaker: Hogwash.
Alex Villanueva: Hogwash. Absolute hogwash. The only (LAUGH) people that are interested in that are not enthusiasts into, you know, tinkerin’ around with machines.
Bill Whitaker: A hobbyist.
Alex Villanueva: No. They’re not hobbyists. These are people that should never have a firearm. And that’s how they found a way to get one.
Uh oh, sounds like someone has preconceived notions of guilt. That isn’t troubling from the County Sheriff of LA at all, is it?
Karras insists the store where he now works, which touts just how invisible their ghost gun parts are, has safeguards to prevent ghost gun parts from getting into the wrong hands.
Bill Whitaker: And what are they?
Dimitrios Karras: Um, I’m not gonna get too much into it because it would undermine our ability to use them.
And in the event something happens, Karras would be a fool to give out ammunition (pun intended) in the form of those methods that could sink his business even if they did nothing wrong and someone misused a gun after buying it and building it.
Bill Whitaker: Do you ever worry that someone who’s buying one of these kits might have a mental illness or, you know, be planning to use an AR-15 for something that’s horrible, unimaginable?
Dimitrios Karras: Does a car salesman worry that– someone might take a car that they’ve sold to them and drive it through a crowd of people?
Bill Whitaker: So you see them as the same?
Dimitrios Karras: I do.
They are the same. The misuse of an item, an object, a tool against other people is the same. The difference that people get so wrapped around is that a weapon is meant for fighting. That gun is a toolforfighting. They refuse to acknowledge, in some self-righteous delusional variant of human existence, that the ability to fight is a necessary thing. That tools to that end are necessary. They are the last chance for someone when polite society fails them (you know in like a national crisis or something) for any reason and under any circumstance. There is also no way for their to be good weapons and bad weapons, the idiocy of “assault weapon” bans and magazine capacity limits and “Ghost Gun” scare tactics all come from places of profound ignorance. A good person with every weapon is never a threat. A bad person with any weapon is always a threat, but much less of one to the person who also has a weapon.
Cliche? Yep, I hated writing that. But when this 60 Minutes deep dive into “Ghost Guns” and the threat they represent amounts to conjectural fear mongering over a microsegment of the illegal arms market that is trackable and explained as a product shift, not an increase outside normal variances, it’s really hard to lend credibility to the analysis as “thorough”.
Guns that are cheap and available will always dominate in criminal spaces. These are available but despite millions of kits flooding the market, they still aren’t cheap. Not like a throwaway used old semi-auto .25, old .38 revolver, or any stolen gun.
Karras’s home state, California, is phasing in a law to regulate ghost gun parts like regular firearms. Three other states and the District of Columbia have passed their own restrictions. But Villanueva says that’s not enough.
Alex Villanueva: We need national laws, or federal, from Congress that covers a total ban on the creation or the selling of these ghost gun kits.
Because prohibition works so well. It got rid of all the alcohol and bumpstocks! Meth too.
Bill Whitaker: State-by-state is not gonna do it?
Alex Villanueva: It doesn’t because then you can just defeat it by going to another state.
In today’s political climate, new federal gun control measures seem unlikely.
So that leaves it to the ATF to determine what is and is not a gun. Currently, ATF says a ghost gun not a gun.
Because it isn’t. And even if they change it now you can’t put the genie back. People keep trying and it keeps working about as well as a screen door in a flood.
But the ATF has changed its thinking on similar issues recently. After the 2017 massacre in Las Vegas, the ATF and the Department of Justice banned bump stocks, an accessory that turned semi-automatic weapons into machine guns.
The ATF made a calculated decision to attack a gimmick device that they had sketchy legal grounds to do so (a lot of ATF moves are based on precedent and the fact Congress does not want to change anything and lose seats) and hope that popular opinion and the opinion of the President would let the change stand without congressional action. They banned bump stocks, the specific device used in Las Vegas, similar items are still perfectly legal. Also, those bump-stocks aren’t gone. They didn’t all get turned in. We know this. Just as we know having Law Enforcement waste their energies hunting them down is an impossible task. The policy change is therefore a Paper Tiger. And the effect on any likelihood of a future event of similar catastrophic results as Las Vegas taking place were entirely immaterial, we’ve written on the here before.
Former acting director of the ATF, Thomas Brandon, helped implement that change and was ready to recommend to his bosses at the Department of Justice that they reclassify certain ghost gun kits, like the one we ordered, as firearms because of how easy they are to put together.
Bill Whitaker: You were alarmed at what you were seeing?
Thomas Brandon: Yeah. And so I said, “Well, right now we have a public safety concern.”
Bill Whitaker: You thought that the ATF should reclassify these kits as firearms?
Thomas Brandon: Yes as the head of the agency at the time– I said, “I’m gonna do everything I can for public safety with my team.” If you wanted to buy a kit and make your own gun, it’s just gonna hav– have a serial number on it.
Thomas Brandon retired last spring before any action was taken. We asked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives if there was any follow-up on Brandon’s plans and were told, “ATF routinely reviews our practices, procedures, and determinations; however, it would be inappropriate to comment on internal discussions. ” Thomas Chittum says the ATF is doing everything it can.
They are. They really are, but Congress being unwilling to act in any manner to make their jobs easier, like opening NICS access to the public for free to make conducting a background check a lesser issue, or removing any number of other hamstringing regulations, or making positive efforts to modernize, kind of limits what they can do under ‘everything they can’.
Bill Whitaker: Is this just one of those political hot potatoes that nobody wants to touch?
Thomas Chittum: Well, gun law’s one of the most divisive topics in America. And ATF sometimes finds itself in the middle.
Seriously, go watch Waco.
As for Saugus, it was the first high school mass shooting with a ghost gun. Bryan Muehlberger, a pistol owner himself, says if something isn’t done about ghost guns, it won’t be the last.
Bryan Muehlberger: I’m not against owning guns, but I also believe strongly that this is a serious problem that’s occurring that no one knew about. So I just feel like something needs to be done. It’s just– it’s become too easy.
Become too easy?
Bryan, you might be too young, as I am too young, to remember… but you could order a gun in a Sears catalog by mail and it came assembled and ready to go for a few dollars, before all the FFL’s and NICS and 18 or 21 to buy and any of the gun control in the last 90 years. A machine gun could be mailed to your doorstep if you wanted it. A full auto Thompson was $200 (yes, a car was $400 in that era for scale) we aren’t anywhere near that level access anymore. These changes started decades before Columbine brought us into terrifying era where school shootings became a violent outlet.
Become to easy from what? From when? Bryan I am truly sorry you lost your daughter, just as I am sorry for anyone who loses a loved one, especially before their time. But CBS used you. They used to in a obfuscation campaign to attack an issue within gun control that they see as an opportunity to gain ground and get more of the bans that they want.
Because they, unlike you, are against owning guns. At least they’re against you owning guns. They, of course, are special elite people deserving of armed protection.
The US Military has a brand new toy for precision shooting made by shooters for shooters. The Mark 22 Advanced Sniper Rifle, a variant of the popular Barrett MRAD.
The new rifle is a one stop, works for everyone’s needs, build the best rifle for mission system currently built. Topped with whichever service’s preferred glass (Nightforce for SOCOM, Leupold for Army, and usually Schmidt and Bender or Trijicon for the USMC) the MK22 offers precision static support fire out to 1500 meters and can be configured for both anti-personnel and anti-material missions in one kit.
The system comes with 3 calibers, the .308/7.62×51 is being relegated to a training round because it is safe to shoot on just about any available training range the military has access too, the .300 Norma Magnum is the high BC ‘standard’ sniper variation for precision shots against enemy personnel, and the .338 Norma Magnum will be used in the anti-material role and replacing M107’s
The move to replace .50 BMG with .338 Norma Magnum is one that is mirrored in SIG’s new GPMG, also in use with SOCOM/Marine Raiders, because it offers you almost all the range benefits and terminal effects in a substantially lighter weapon. The MK22’s can be deployed and rapidly reconfigured by a user in a maintenance environment or armorer out of the one travel case/deployment kit and can be maintained by mail back barrel parts instead of losing access to a rifle that has simply burned its barrel life.
Legacy systems like the XM2010, Mk13, and M40A(whatever we’re on) were often hamstrung by requirements to field a caliber already in use so they were only able to squeeze marginal improvements out of fielding the systems in the long run.
The MK22 was built as a ground up optimized mission sniper system and so the ammunition selections were purposefully not tied to legacy, with the exception of .308 as the sniper trainer. There is certainly something to be said for having the moderate velocity moderate ballistic coefficient .308 as the trainer due to snipers having to run the harder math and make better corrections to get hits, plus cost savings, and then installing the faster more accurate magnum rounds for training on ranges that can support it and on mission. The modular nature of the MK22 and MRAD systems means that if 6.5 became preferred for SOCOM guns they wouldn’t need whole new rifles either, just a new batch of easily made barrels.
The same could be true of the Army or Marines going to 6.8, easily available ammo pile for training by going to a new barrel as old ones wear out.
The only downside I can see is this makes me want to spend money on a precision gun… and I probably shouldn’t… but that hasn’t stopped me in the past.
The 3rd rule of gun safety seems to be the most straightforward of the four rules: never point a weapon at something you’re not willing to destroy. Makes perfect sense, right? We never want the muzzle of the gun to cross over something we wouldn’t want to put a bullet in.
But even that’s not true, because we all holster our guns at some point, and it doesn’t matter how you carry, because at some point that gun is going to be pointed at you. Sure it’s perfectly safe so long as you holster with good technique, but the real fact is that we’re pointing the gun at ourselves during the act of holstering. Now, it is possible to holster without ever flagging yourself, but that’s a conversation for later.
If we examine the 3rd rule of gun safety with the same critical mind we applied to the first two, we can apply some logic. When performing administrative gun handling tasks like loading, unloading, we always want to make sure the gun is pointed in a safe direction. A safe direction could be a brick wall that will stop a bullet, it could be a clearing barrel, or it could be 1,000 miles of empty desert. The point of a safe direction is so that if we make a mistake, or worse yet the gun suffers a mechanical failure and goes off, the bullet won’t harm anything, be it people, pets or property.
The 3rd rule of gun safety is also where we can start to appreciate the layered nature of the 4 rules. In order to have a negative result, you must break at least two of the 4 rules at once. Not that you should do this, but if you point a loaded gun at your cat you’re intentionally breaking rule 3. But if that’s all you do, and you don’t break rule 2 and pull the trigger, the cat will live. (please don’t point loaded guns at your cats)
That’s the genius of the Four rules. They build a layer of safety around gun handling, and if we apply a little critical thinking, like we’ve done, we can be even safer by understanding their intent and interpretations.
The video of the death of Ahmaud Arbery has sparked national interest in a way that only a story that has vigilantism, racial tensions, guns, law enforcement nepotism, and being in the southern United States could… seriously, it’s a perfect storm of controversy.
The narrative, depending on where you look, ranges from ‘Unarmed 25 year old black man, suspected of being inside a house under construction, pursued by former/retired LEO and his son in their pickup truck, confronted, a fight ensued, shot and killed.’ to ‘Jogging black 25 year old killed by white father and son caught on video.’
Also, depending upon where you look, the obvious overt racial aspect of this is played higher or lower in the motive que. I’ve heard and read all the explanations from either side of the story I could find. Read both 911 transcripts prior to the shooting. Read a story where a relative of Arbery was said to have ID’d him in surveillance video around the property under construction or maybe another property, it wasn’t clear. Been told that Arbery was in boots, not running shoes and shown grainy screen captures that purport to show an unlaced boot. Read that Arbery was a fitness type and ran regularly. Read a couple things that state Arbery had a record, but I haven’t seen it produced. Read that the local investigators marked this as a “clear case of self-defense” but that has since become highly questionable.
I’ve been told Arbery ‘shouldn’t have rushed two guys with guns’ from people who emphatically state that if two guys with guns corned them it would be game on because they, “always carry.” Having a conversation with someone who says they would take out two gun toters John Wick style after advocating Arbery “just comply” with the hostile commands of two gun toters (with no authority over him) is an interesting perspective…
The video, which gives us a 36 second window of information including the three fired shots, seems to indicate one thing above all else…
This was entirely avoidable.
As of this writing both Travis and Gregory McMichael have been arrested for murder and they, at best for themselves, must hope they have enough evidence to end up in a similar situation to George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in self defense, was able to prove with witness testimony and injury reports that Martin had been trying to crack his skull open… This after Zimmerman chased Martin with no legal authority, other than being the neighborhood watch captain or some such, and provoked a confrontation.
Provoking.
A.
Confrontation.
Is.
Stupid.
The reason Zimmerman is a free man is that he was not the person to escalate the confrontation to lethal, and he could prove it. What he did was still stupid.
The McMichael’s are going to have a damn hard time framing this in the same light. Jumping into the bed of a pickup truck with a .357 and having your son chase the man, who you said you think you saw trespassing in a residential construction site, down with a shotgun riding shotgun is epic degrees more aggressive than Zimmerman’s actions were chasing Martin.
If you were in the situation, as a concealed carrier from Arbery’s perspective, and had drawn and shot the two armed men who chased you down in a pickup truck while you were on foot, your defense attorney would have an absolute field day getting you acquitted. Any attorney with a pulse would be able to articulate that Arbery’s life was in danger as two unknown armed men cut him off in a pickup truck and then the driver got out and threatened him with a shotgun.
The video doesn’t show the first fired shot, we hear it happen out of frame. But whatever happened in front of the McMichael’s truck caused a shot to be fired, the next we see is a physical struggle between Arbery and Travis McMichael over the shotgun. During that struggle two more shots are fired and Arbery is hit. Arbery then collapses in front of the McMichael’s truck in the road, where he would die.
Known
We know, from the video, the 911 transcripts, and the McMichael’s own admissions that a call was placed to 911 to report a trespass in a home construction site and alleged that the individual they currently saw, Arbery, had been seen on surveillance camera prior to this. We know that a second call was placed to 911 that said the individual, Arbery, was running down the road. During both calls the dispatcher attempts to ascertain what was observed that was criminal and is not really given an answer beyond the alleged observed trespass of the construction site.
We know that the McMichael’s decided to pursue the running individual, Arbery, to make a “citizen’s arrest” as they claim. They decided to do so armed overtly and openly. We know that they drove down Arbery and cut him off with their truck as he is running down the road at a pace consistent with exercise.
We know Travis McMichael, who was driving, got out of the truck with the shotgun. Travis McMichael can be seen on the driver’s side of the pickup as Arbery runs around the truck on the passenger side. The camera follows Arbery.
We know a shot was fired, out of camera frame, and that when Arbery and Travis McMichael come back into frame Travis and Arbery are struggling for the shotgun in front of the truck. It isn’t known if the first shot was fired at Arbery or if it was the result of the struggle over the shotgun. At the point where they both come back into frame they are struggling in front of the truck. Travis, out of frame, had to have moved in front of the truck while Arbery ran around the passenger side. Gregory McMichael was riding in the truck bed.
We do not see the specific circumstances that led to the first shot being fired. We don’t know if Travis fired in an attempt to make Arbery pause, to injure him, or in response to Arbery grabbing or attempting to grab the shotgun after they had both come around the front of the truck. We do not hear what, if any, words were exchanged during the confrontation. We do not know if the first shot was deliberate, accidental, or negligent.
We do know that of the string of burglaries alleged to have been motivation for this confrontational “citizen’s arrest” the one actually on record was the theft of a 9mm handgun from out of one of the McMichael’s unlocked vehicles and in front of their house.
We also know there is a history between Gregory McMichael and the local law community, as he is a retired investigator. We know two people recused themselves from the case due to prior connections to the McMichael family and after an information request by an Air Force MP acquaintance of Arbery led to questions about the investigation. This began the line of inquiry into whether or not Gregory McMichael’s prior connections as an investigator led to favoritism or other misconduct on the part of investigators so as not jail one of their own retirees and/or his son.
Unknown
We don’t know what Arbery was doing prior to the video, if he was trespassing or not. There might be evidence to that effect out there but I have not seen footage to indicate Arbery was caught anywhere else on camera as has been alleged. We also do not know if any property or any other evidence of any kind of misconduct on Arbery’s part has been presented in direct connection with this incident. I’ve seen a couple blurry screenshots that allege to show a hammer Arbery dropped while running in an attempt to call into question the ‘just jogging’ narrative.
[Newsflash: The ‘Just Jogging’ Narrative, doesn’t matter. Arbery could have left the construction site with a sawhorse over each shoulder and pushing a rolling tool chest full of power tools and the actions of the McMichaels would still be lining them up to catch their murder charges.]
We do not know what, if anything, was said between Arbery and the McMichaels.
We do not know the exact circumstances of the first shot fired. We do know the shooter, Travis, and his father have a vested interest in claiming self defense as the motive for the shot(s) that killed Arbery. If they cannot claim that then.. well, murder charges. Manslaughter if they’re lucky.
Thoughts
What a stupid and entirely avoidable way to end or ruin the lives of three people…
Didn’t we learn this lesson? Wasn’t this type of vigilantism proven to be roughly as intelligent as playing with a live high-voltage line while drenched in flammable liquids? Do we need to have a Paul Blart: Mall Cop remake where he actually makes a “citizen’s arrest” but ends up in prison because he misread a set of circumstances and assumed outcomes he couldn’t possibly know for certain?
It’s a sad state to have put yourselves in when your best outcome is a jury believing you were idiotic, overzealous, but sincerely altruistic vigilanties just trying to help their neighborhood
When you make something ‘your problem’ that didn’t need to be.. you inherit the whole damn mess. Every detail that you know and don’tknow. And every mistake you make within that situation is yours to own, and yours only, because you stuck yourself into it.
Instead, always assume you don’tknow what is going on and make all of your conscious decisions about cautiously becoming involved atall from that point of view. Your lawyer will thank you.
The thought process that would have changed this entire scenario, resulting in one less dead man, two less murder charges, and one less racially charged police scandal – “Huh, I think that man is trespassing on my neighbor’s housing construction. I will call the police and tell them I believe someone is trespassing on the construction project and give them his physical description. I might even call my neighbor and ask first, or wait until I see him next time and ask, instead of making dangerous and potentially life altering assumptions.” The End.
Mine hasn’t arrived yet… You can see my review of Steve’s here. In short, these things are awesome and still fall on the middle end of the price spectrum for high-end LPVO optics.
I just found out today I have a couple more SIG optics on the way, so I will keep you up to date on those. More than anything else though Josh and Henry’s footage shows off a lot of what the Razor has that I couldn’t show with a freehand phone camera.
The Razor Gen III cracked the code on a great many elusive features on LPVO optics. Front Focal Plane illumination was one. Battery life is another and I have a theory on how. The third ties into the other two. A reticle system that is useable without being in the way at high magnification setting.
So how did they do it?
THEORY: They used RDS lens coating as part of the etched reticle, which solved the three problems.
Problem One: Thick reticle on maximum zoom. An RDS coating is translucent, using it on the etched reticle you can see through it even if the reticle is overtop of the target. The target is visible through the reticle which is pretty much the ultimate way to solve this problem. We have a way to see past the reticle that does not rely on the reticle being thin (and therefore nearly useless at low power and hard to illuminate).
Problem Two: Illumination brightness. This was also a problem that has been solved in red dots by a combination of coated lenses and high efficiency LEDs. But unlike in an RDS, the whole lens in a magnified optic cannot be coated to catch the LED without significantly affecting light transmission. Each light transmission medium you add makes keeping a useable image that much harder to maintain and a magnified optic uses far more parts than a red dot sight that affect that image. Luckily we don’t need to the whole system to illuminate, we need the center reticle to illuminate. Using the dark translucent lens coating as the reticle itself is brilliant (see what I did there). It would be far too dark if it were the whole lens, but it isn’t the whole lens. The dark coating also takes advantage of reacting to the LED at much lower power settings than other illumination systems, just like current generation red dots, which brings us to problem three
Problem Three: Battery life. LPVOs are battery hogs on a level that even older EOTech models would look at with disdain, if they didn’t have the benefit of variable magnification. This was always due, especially in FFP reticle systems, to the LED having to burn absurdly bright against very small portions of a lens to produce a useable contrast. The reticle is an absurdly small portion of the overall lens surface area that needs to react to the LED while also not flooding the optical housing with extraneous light that will obscure the sight picture. It’s a delicate balance and the compromise, until now, has always been battery life gets sacrificed and/or the reticle illumination isn’t bright enough. Vortex seems to have solved both life and brightness by using the coating or whatever equivalent has produced the translucent reticle.
Wendy Cukier, a Ryerson University Professor and president for the Canadian Coalition for Gun Control has hit the nail on the head. She just doesn’t seem to realize it with her other statements.
“If you don’t have the resources and the knowledge to actually implement them, the won’t work, and we have seen evidence in recent years that the provisions that are in the law are simply not being applied.”
Wendy, you are soooo close! So close to that mental leap, that final step into understanding that law does not and cannot dictate behavior if someone does not voluntarily comply with its edicts and that enforcement of any law is a challenge that must be quantified in the law’s crafting. You’re so close to realizing that gun control doesn’t work on the threats you are trying to control… But you won’t get there.
Cukier praised Trudeau’s move to ban 1,500 firearms by name (including AR15.com) but said there were significant gaps and that there could be problems enforcing the law. Her solution to this sounds like making it even harder by giving Canadian Law Enforcement even more things to enforce unjustly on folks who haven’t harmed anyone.
Trudeau has stated Canadians have rightful need for things like hunting rifles and shotguns but not for weapons designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Mr. Trudeau, you clearly have a knowledge gap that you are quite likely to refuse to correct as you have clearly never heard of HME.
This is a fundamental and willful misunderstanding of technology and the purpose of a firearm. There is no “safe” rifle or shotgun to be shot with. There autoloading and ergonomic firearms developed in the past century plus, starting during the WWI era, are all about as bad to be shot with is anything else.
The myth of the “reloading bad guy” is just that, a myth. Ammunition capacity limitations have never curbed casualty counts, look at Virginia Tech and University of Texas, that has always been dictated by the actions and counteractions of those directly involved in the incident.
I get it. I understand. You see no need for arms in private hand and do not have enough personal, social, and technological awareness to understand the glaring problems in plans like this but you are willing to praise them as “steps in the right direction” because they include the buzzwords ban and assault weapon.
It doesn’t matter how this gets done, or doesn’t because it cannot be effectively enforced, it had the buzzwords so it must be good. Like the SAFE Act in NY. Buzzwords = Good! Actual logistical practicality or encroachment on the free exercise of your citizens? Meh, don’t look too hard at that.
“Laws are only words on paper.”
Yes! Exactly correct! But your direct follow up to that statement is ‘more law’ will get the thing we want done, less homicide. Gaps in enforcement are always part of law. Inefficiencies are always a part of law. The law already prohibits killing, now it prohibits some methods of killing and leaves others untouched. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding or a willful deception of the public trust in promising these measures will work when you’ve already said, “Law are only words on paper.”
Gun controllers continue to be blissfully ignorant well meaning folks, or deliberately deceitful to leverage power. I am convinced most folks fall into the first category. I don’t think we have a large crop of power grabbers right now, they are waiting for the well meaning morons to do the hard work for them with that genuine misguided altruistic fervor. Then they, those who will leverage the power advantages put into place by the well meaning morons, will just slide into place and have the additional advantage of not being the ones who established the policy, it is just so convenient that it is there.
The ones fighting hardest against us out front do not understand. The ones quietly supporting behind them, do.
The 2nd Rule of Gun Safety is one we hear a lot: keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target. It’s sometimes obnoxiously phrased by internet dorks as “keep your booger hook off the bang switch.” Regardless, it seems like the 2nd rule would be one we can say is a hard and fast rule, never to be broken.
Not so fast, chief. Like the first rule, the 2nd rule of gun safety is more like a guideline. It’s an opportunity to get you to think about how and why you interact with the trigger. Obviously, for new gun owners we can treat the 2nd rule like it’s a firm go/no-go. Don’t touch the trigger until you’re aimed in helps build good safety habits. But what if you’re not a new shooter?
Experienced competition and combat shooters often get on the trigger earlier during the draw. Once the gun’s muzzle is level they’re on the trigger starting to press it as the gun moves towards extension. This is part of a technique called the Press-Out Draw, where the majority of the slack is taken out of the trigger during its movement. The sights aren’t on the target, but we’re touching the trigger.
That’s the best example of touching the trigger without sights being on target. A thoughtful consideration of this leads us to a new interpretation of the 2nd Rule of Gun Safety: Don’t touch the trigger until you’ve made a conscious decision to shoot. This allows us to get on the trigger early during the press out, and it allows us to fire the gun with a gross aiming index instead of always having to have perfect height and perfect light sight pictures. Should we teach newbies strict trigger discipline? Of course. But the point of these articles is to get you thinking about the 4 Rules in a new way.
Among things I didn’t know but kind of suspected was, ‘what purpose does the funny bulge in tank barrels serve?’
I figured it had to do something with the gases during firing but I didn’t know if it was some sort of “accelerator” that created a back pressure the recoil system needed or if it wasn’t gas related at all and had something to do with barrel harmonics, ease of maintenance, or some other such item.
Turns out guess one, gas system, was right on the mark. But my meandering thoughts that it was an accelerator that helped the recoil mechanism in some way was far more complicated a thought than the actual purpose.
Bore Evacuator
Cool title. What does it do?
Creates a pocket of slightly lower pressure behind the gun’s round so that it pulls the gases out of the barrel instead of dumping them into the turret. I’m sure some of you reading this have been ‘gassed’ by rapid firing a rifle or machine gun where the air wasn’t taking the expelled gases away quick enough and you got a facefull, especially on a suppressed gun that doesn’t use a flow through system like an OSS. Now imagine that with a round the size of a tank and the chamber is in the enclosed with you just scant inches from the chamber…
Yep, lovely. So in turrets where the gas would harm personnel or machinery they add the bore evacuator which creates that slightly lower pressure behind the round and helps pull the gases out instead of having them linger in the barrel and clear equally at the muzzle and into the turret.
Guns like the M777 155mm field artillery piece have no need for it because they’re an open air system. The gases have plenty of space to vent and not choke their personnel. On mobile systems that don’t have them, the turrets are either unmanned or the pressure generated by the cannon doesn’t expel into the compartment in enough volume to matter. On any system that you can avoid using them, it is best to do so. Just like adding a suppressor to the end of a rifle barrel increases and alters maintenance requirements, adding a bore evacuator makes the gun barrels more complex and maintenance intensive.
And now that we’re down the tank rabbit hole.
Big thanks to Scottish Koala for producing content to entertain us while we’re still in quarantine and avoiding murder hornets.
Gun Control Advocates are upset that a judge overturned the city of Pittsburgh’s rules they attempted to implement concerning the AR-15, carrying of firearms in certain public spaces, and Red Flag laws.
Attorneys for the city of Pittsburgh are asking a state court to overturn a judge’s order striking down firearm restrictions approved after a 2018 mass shooting at a synagogue.
The three ordinances were approved in April 2019 following the October 2018 mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 worshippers. Gun rights advocates fought the ordinances, and a judge struck down the measures in October, saying Pennsylvania law forbids municipalities from regulating firearms and the ordinances were “void and unenforceable.”
This is what preemption laws are meant to do. They make it so a smaller municipal government cannot make a more restrictive rule than the state implements and you avoid a patchwork of confusing laws. Pennsylvania has 67 Counties, 56 cities, 958 boroughs, 93 first-class townships, 1,454 second-class townships, and one town (Bloomsburg) making for 2,629 municipalities or other sub-state level governmental divisions. Imagine if every one of them restricted the 2nd Amendment in a different manner, that just by leaving your township you became a felon, how fair is that to a citizen exercising a constitutionally enshrined right?
City lawyers argue in briefs filed late last week that neither lawmakers nor the state’s highest court had ever “expressly said or held that cities are completely powerless to act in this area.” They said local governments’ authority to regulate firearms to protect citizens “may be limited, but it is not extinguished.”
Ah, so it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is. ‘Is’ the restriction or any restriction that Pittsburgh would try to enact in violation of the 2nd Amendment and the laws of Pennsylvania? Oh, almost certainly yes. And with the state having preemption in place, similar to my home state of Michigan, the smaller governmental units cannot slice and dice the state into patchwork legal pizza.
But that didn’t stop Pittsburgh from trying to ride the moral outrage train from the 2018 Tree of Life attack to do just that, even if none of the proposed laws could have altered the attack or the outcome. That seems to be the recurring theme. Tragedy occurs, implement rules that wouldn’t have prevented the tragedy but are in line with your political leanings and repeat on the next tragedy. Be certain to ignore objective analysis of the event that show the vulnerabilities of society to violent outliers no matter what is done in the legal realm.
Laws, ultimately, require voluntary compliance. People choose to obey them. The penalties are there as incentive to obey them. But every example of a mass casualty attack has come from a violent societal (not necessarily socially) outlier for which the penalty of breaking the law holds nosway. These outlier individuals, sometimes groups, will always exist and putting pressure, blame, and penalty on the much larger population as a whole won’t impede them. You cannot leverage someone with something they do not care about, including their freedom or survival.
The rules and societal directives put in place, especially for safety, need to have this rationale in mind during their crafting. Pittsburgh’s is pure political security theater.
Glock's G41 MOS can easily be configured for a multitude of action shooting events.
A few years ago Glock introduced the G41 MOS. This is their Gen4 frame with inserts to adapt the fit for professional basketball players. I found the standard frame fit me well, no slip on backstraps required.
You can see the barrel/slide length difference between a G21 and G41MOS. That extra 0.71″ gives you about 10fps more velocity, while the just over 2 ozs lighter weight of the G41MOS (from the port in the slide) reduces felt recoil.
I already owned a G21SF, so I didn’t really need another 45ACP Glock. What intrigued me about the 5” G41 was the MOS system that allows you to mount a mini-red dot (mrds) to the slide. Glock includes four plates that fit most popular mini red dots. It was good to see one of the plates fit a Burris Fast-Fire that I have used for a good many years. Adding a mrds to the G41 would allow me to use this pistol for Limited Class, Limited 10 and Carry Optics in USPSA as well as shoot CDP and Carry Optics in IDPA. One pistol with many uses, sounded like sound fiscal logic to me.
Trijicon’s fiber optic sights are clear and crisp. They deliver fast accurate shots. The TacRack, makes loading or clearing jams much easier under stress.
Before the G41 was ready for competition, it needed a few modifications. First I would stipple the grip for a better purchase on the pistol when it is wet. Next a Tac Rack would replace the striker cover. The Tac Rack is a low profile slide racker that makes clearing jams easier and racking the slide much easier with cold wet hands. Because this was a multi-use pistol I installed a set of Trijicon fiber optic sights for a G21 I had in the parts box. Lastly, I added an Overwatch Precision DAT Trigger. I did not want a “lighter” pull weight so I used the factory trigger spring. The DAT Trigger gives you a smooth flat trigger and a consistent trigger pull.
This is my lightly customized G41MOS with Tac Rack, DAT Trigger, Trijicon fiber optic sights. I leave the MRD plate mounted to switch between configurations. Some folks will bristle at my texturing, but it works well for me even in the wettest conditions.
With the enhancements made, I shot the G41 in several local USPSA and IDPA matches. Like all the Glocks I have owned, it ran flawlessly. In competition a reliable pistol that is modestly accurate, is far better than a tack driver that has feeding issues, but is a tack driver. Odds are you will not need a Bullseye accurate pistol in action pistol. You do however need a pistol that shoots every time.
OEM barrel top, LWD threaded barrel with dried purple LocTite..
Since the G41 could already be used for multiple divisions, I wondered is there a barrel/compensator system that could turn the G41 into an Open Class pistol. A quick serve of a few suppliers of Glock parts led me to Lone Wolf Distributors. LWD is virtually a one stop shop for all things Glock. A few emails and an AlphaWolf barrel with a three port AlphaWolf compensator were on the way.
LWD’s Alpha Wolf compensator tames hot loads like BHA’s +P 230 gr. JHPs. You can see how it mates with the slide contour.Make sure you apply purple LocTite to the set screw or it will disappear and the comp will work itself loose.
Having used many other Lone Wolf Distributor’s parts for many years, I was not surprised the barrel fit perfectly and the compensator looked like a part of the slide. There was no binding or hesitation when the slide was racked. Once I lubricated the barrel/slide assembly it was smooth as ice going in and out of battery.
Before going any further, I will answer the question; why a 45 with a compensator? Don’t comps work best with fast high pressure calibers like 38 Super or 9X21? Yes they do. However back when I started shooting a cutting edge “open gun” was an iron sighted single stack 45 with a single or dual port comp. As little as I shoot in Open Class, this set-up would be just fine. It would also be fun to just plink with.
Prior to installing the barrel, I chamber checked several rounds of homemade reloads and every round dropped into the chamber. Hand feeding the same rounds yielded the same results, all cartridges fed perfectly. Those two tests are generally good signs that your ammunition will feed reliably.
Installing the Alpha Wolf barrel was as easy as field stripping the pistol. Drop the magazine, rack the slide to ensure the pistol is clear, drop the striker and slightly retract the slide. At this point use the locking lever above the trigger to unlock the slide and remove it. Now remove the recoil spring and barrel. At this point install the Alpha Wolf Barrel, recoils spring and put the assembly back on the frame.
Next install the compensator and set screw; I suggest using purple Loctite, 222MS. This way you will be able to return the G41 Race Glock to its original barrel configuration. During testing I found 222MS performed as advertised and kept the parts secure. One side note, the compensator is aluminum, do not over tighten it or you will strip the threads.
With the Alpha Wolf compensated barrel and FastFire MRD installed, you have an accurate reliable Race Glock.
The real test would be shooting the “race Glock” for accuracy and reliability. I gathered test ammunition from Black Hills, Federal, Hornady, Sig Sauer and reloads from my Lee Pro1000. Bullet weights ranged from 185 grain hollow points to 230 grain full metal jacket as well as some 230 grain +P hollow points. While I would primarily be testing the Alpha Wolf/ Burris set-up, I also wanted to see how much Point of Aim/Point of Impact variance there was between the compensated and non-compensated barrel.
The multi-purpose G41 in all configurations shot tight groups with very little POA/POI shift. This is the Carry Optics G41. The loose ammunition are loaded with bullets from Ibjiheads, they are some of the best coated bullets I have shot in 25+ years.
To test the function I loaded a couple of magazines with 200 grain semi-wadcutters and 230 grain round nose Ibejiheads. From previous experience I knew the stock G41 liked these loads and shoots them well. With the AlphaWolf system installed, the G41 was nearly a tack driver and there were no reliability issues. I also verified zero at 25 yards with the 200 grain loads because they are a happy medium between 185 and 230 grain options. During this initial testing I found there was minimal Point of Aim/Point of Impact shift between the Alpha Wolf and OEM barrel. If I were shooting bullseye, I would have spent time getting it dead on. At 25 yards, I was still hitting a 6” target every shot which is good enough for me.
When I sat down and bench rested the G41/Alpha Wolf with factory loads the first thing I noticed was the reduced muzzle rise. The compensator made the +P loads feel like a hot 40 S&W. When shooting the 185 grain loads recoil virtually disappeared, 230 grain loads felt like a “match load” 200 grain SWC. While it might seem like this is no big deal, but hundredths of seconds add up in USPSA matches.
Accuracy wise, the full race G41 shot amazingly well. At 25 yards all of the 5 shot groups were under 2 ½”. There was no preference of bullet weight, ojive design or manufacture. The Alpha Wolf barrel was just wicked accurate in the G41 with Burris Fast-Fire. For a shooter traveling around the country to shoot this is a big deal. This means if you run out of ammunition you should able to use most any duty or full metal jacket load and be on target.
With the rising cost of specialized pistols for action pistol shooting it is nice to see you can still put together an affordable, reliable and accurate pistol reasonably inexpensively. The base Glock 41 will set you back about $775, the LWD AlphaWolf Barrel/Comp $200ish and a Fast-Fire $150-175, roughly $1250; add another $100 for the OP DAT Trigger. Compare that to $4000 or more for a full house custom open pistol, this multiple use Glock is a deal. The pricing would be comparable if you decide to use other Glock models so you have the caliber of your choice. No matter what you choose you will be able to get out to the range to shoot fast, shoot accurately and have FUN.
Brandon Herrara (aka AK Guy) takes on the 3D printed AK receiver project. Is a 3D printable AK rifle possible?
Kinda?
The video is another one where they deep dive into some of the engineering that goes into firearms that doesn’t always make it to the attention of the end user. Nor does it need to necessarily. But when you go from user to builder that engineering become critical need to know knowledge.
So… the Plastikov. An AK receiver group assembled from an online printable CAD file. The AK itself uses stamped steel and has heat treated parts for strength, elasticity, and overall durability. The plastics used in printing a receiver do not possess the same tolerance makeup that steel stampings do, it’s one of the reasons that most plastic AR receivers also failed. Plastic is neither aluminum, nor steel, and cannot be easily substituted as such for parts under operating stresses.
For ARs that usually manifested by the receiver snapping next to the buffer tube/receiver extension as the reciprocating mass of the carrier and buffer wore through the plastic until it snapped. For the AK… well, just watch.
In short, we can do a lot and I do mean A LOT of cool things with 3D printing. Prototyping is high on that list of achievable ends. But in the end when you pick a material based, at least partially, on its ability to withstand a certain level of stress it cannot easily be replaced unless the new material can take the stresses in the some way. The reason polymer receivers work in guns that were designed from the ground up with polymer parts in mind, like the G36 or the X95, is that the designs accounted for that material. The reason AKs and ARs have a hard time switching is because they accounted for the material.
Radically departing from a design is always going to run into its problems but that isn’t to say it is an unworthy goal. Finding new ways to do things is how we’ve gotten where we are and we need to keep trying them. But it will always be a trial and error process. Learning from those errors and finding weaknesses in designs is how better ones emerge.
The final point is material cost and effort. With material availability as it stands using wild methods to produce an item like an AK is often more expensive and time consuming than using far more readily available material.
The SKS was the prepper carbine for decades. It, during the mil-surp years, was the budget friendly way to get into a “fighting” rifle. Yes, budget friendly compared to $200-$300 dollar AK rifles. You could leave a store with an SKS and a tin of ammo (but probably not the can opener) for under $200.
The SKS was the first non rimfire rifle I ever fired, probably about the age of seven. I missed mildly and immediately put it down. I don’t believe I’ve fired one since. Thanks to the practical and comedic machinations of Phuc Long, Josh, and Henry I can probably continue that streak as long as I wish.
The SKS is the semi-short lived middle child the Soviet Union spawned between the completion of WWII, where a variety of weapons were in use by the Red Army, and the AK47 beginning the era of the infantry assault rifle in full. The SKS, the Type 56, was one of a family of weapon based around the 7.62×39 intermediate cartridge.
One caliber, many weapon systems, simplified logistics.
We saw early iterations of this doctrinal thinking with the M1/M1 in US Service. The M1 Garand was the fighting rifle while the M1 carbine was the support soldier’s service weapon, or a specialized item for Airborne Paratroopers and similar mission profiles who need a way to bring as much rifle and ammo as lightly as possible.
This was taken a step further by the Comm-Bloc states and Chinese who went to one caliber for several platforms. Where the M1/M1 shared a caliber diameter (.30/7.62/.308) which did simplify logistics to a degree, the 7.62×39 gave a single round to produce and supply for all troops. AKs, RPD, and later RPK machine guns would be used by combat troops and SKS rifles could be supplied to support echelons if AKs where in short supply. Those rear working soldiers needed something simple and effective but not the select fire capable hi-cap AKs necessarily.
We are actually seeing a reemergence of this trend in both the Marine Corps’ M27 and the Army’s NGSW. Neither rifle is slated for full service adoption at this juncture, they are assigned to combined arms troops who require and can utilize the more capable systems. Logistically this also makes sense, especially in the Marine Corps case where M4’s and M16’s still use the common round.
I suspect that the Army, and the Marines, have a plan for a phased implementation of the NGSW service wide too, but the focus of the full technology systems and improvements is going to remain on the combat arms troops first. We are likely to see various components cannibalized, especially optics, by non-frontline forces to round out their rifles even as they get the opportunity to switch and 5.56 will remain for a decade at the least.
This is because a rifle phase-out does not happen overnight. As an example, the Army had largely gone to the M4 over the M16A2 for forward deploying forces by 2005 but M16’s were still in Reserve and National Guard armories until 2019 (and may still be in a few). Being purchased in lots of 100,000-120,000 and implementing the A1 upgrades, the M4/M4A1 has been in a fluid state.
The Marine Corps uses a mix of the M4 and M27 for its ~17,000-19,000 infantry personnel and has a plan to equip the full force with M27 IAR/SDO setups in the immediate future as purchases are completed from Trijicon and H&K. The Marines, being a smaller force, are able to implement changes quickly and with smaller purchase orders. An order of 120,000 units would equip 2/3 of the FMF while only covering about 10% of the combined US Army Personnel.
All that said tangent aside, the SKS holds an interesting niche in both military and civilian arms history… as well as being the unfortunate subject of memery and fuddsmithing galore.
Image via Hallifax Today, RCMP conference announcing the Nova Scotia killings including the death of an RCMP officer.
“What I can say is that there was what could be considered a weapon that could be described that way,” Campbell said, adding that further ballistics testing was being conducted.
The confused mess that is the Canadian response to the Nova Scotia shooting continues apace. With the ban-by-decree of 1,500 firearms the powers on high assure the public that the two rifles recovered were both on the list. AR-15.com was on the list too. A website was listed as a firearm. That just fills me with confidence that all of these measures have been thoroughly researched…
Why should this matter in the US? Gun controllers like the action moms and Bloombergian mayoral minions want this to occur here.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair tossed the buck back to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police so they could again use the ‘ongoing investigation’ line to not answer the question on what firearms were used or their sources if known. The claims that both, or one, or a few, or it depends on who is saying what noncommittal half response at the time, firearms are on the new ban list or were smuggled from the U.S. all seem to get rather fuzzy when we look at any other official statement.
From Campbell’s quote above it would seem only one of the firearms may have been banned, illegal, or modified in some manner. From Blair’s statement both had to be outlined in the new ban laid out by Trudeau… so which is it? This would be so easy to figure out if we just knew the models involved. But RCMP Superintendent Campbell and Public Safety Minister Blair are too busy pointing at each other to give information to be bothered with something so trivial.
They conveniently gloss over the fact that the offending denturist didn’t have a license to possess any firearm, making all of his actions with any firearm he owned illegal.
Now it’s extra extra extra illegal. Or will be. In two years. I’m sure they just needed that extra extra to make it all stick and now evil has been vanquished from the land, deprived of its tools of destruction.
Except fire… and the RCMP handgun that was stolen from the murdered officer. And… wait literally nothing Wortman did was remotely allowed. What will this ban accomplish for the next incident? More helpless Canadians who can’t do a legal thing to defend their lives when a man, ostensibly an RCMP officer by his dress, comes and shoots them or burns their homes down?
The Trudeau government response to this is to say that every Canadian gun owner is just a mass murderer who hasn’t yet. When you point out that this is essentially their response they deny it and cite their support for legitimate ‘sporting’ and *harrumph harrumph* but it amounts to nothing. The powers in charge are just speaking around the issue, ignoring inconvenient truths, and plowing ahead with the ban agenda they always wanted.
The RCMP will likely release the model data at a time when it won’t matter anymore, if we haven’t already passed that point. A juncture where even if someone wanted to go back and check the legality of any models in question if Wortman hadn’t already broken the law, the ban already essentially retconned the whole thing and is now the new normal.
There is still a lot of ‘grace period’ in this legal shift for Canadians for now, who knows if they’ll declare and emergency and shut down the time window. It will be interesting to see if civil noncompliance mirrors New Zealand. The biggest whole in the scheme is the one that everyone from annoyed civil persons to hardened organized criminals already exploit for every law they break, deliberate non-compliance.
So, will the RCMP hold onto this information until it no longer matters? Until it cannot be used to attack the gun ban scheme as ridiculous, even though Wortman’s lack of a PAL already makes it so? The upper echelons of the Trudeau administration already has a track record of pushing the inconvenient aside for expediency so… no bet.
Pictured, NOT our Canadian. Image of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing the ban, via BBC.
“There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt” -Warhammer 40,000 –Also, Justin Trudeau, more or less
As you may have heard, Prime Dictator Justin Trudeau just banned an enormous list of guns here in Canada. Toronto, and points east, elected the Liberals to a Minority government in 2019, and the former Chief of Police for Toronto was right there, banging the gun control drum.
Toronto has a guns and gangs problem. Not compared to, say, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, or any of those other notorious spots with inner city violence. Toronto is a city of 3 Million people, and in the last fifteen years, 2005 and 2018 were the only two years where they had more than 50 people killed by gunfire.
[Editor’s Note: For reference, Chicago beat that in April… just April]
Well! (Hear that in an ‘aghast, offended Oxford British’ accent for maximum effect) That simply won’t do.
Toronto’s stats are strange. For the ten years Bill Blair was their Chief, Toronto saw between 250 and 350 shootings, between 20 and 52 people killed. In the years since Blair retired, shootings went from 242 to 429 to 581 to 594 to 604. So yes, they are worse since he retired than they’ve ever been.
(Minor side rant about civil rights activists pushing back against proactive street checks by Toronto police deleted here by author. Google “Toronto Police Carding” for more.)
Clearly, the answer is to punish law-abiding Canadians for whatever went wrong after Blair left. (Hear that in Justin Trudeau’s smarmy, condescending tone for maximum effect, but make sure you insert half a dozen “ums” and “ahs” to get it right)
The latest tragedy the Liberals are going to wring for all its worth, is the scumbag who went on a rampage in rural Nova Scotia. (I firmly subscribe to the Some Asshole protocol, so I won’t be naming him here). In case your social-distancing includes not watching the news, like, ever, Some Asshole in a quiet, rural part of Canada’s Maritimes had a fight with his girlfriend at a beach party, attacked her, lit his house on fire, went back to the party, killed seven people there and shot a bunch more. He attacked more people, burned more homes, and evaded capture by using an imitation police car and imitation uniform. He shot one responding police officer, rammed Constable Heidi Stevenson, murdered her, took her weapons, and continued his rampage. Eventually, after a twelve hour shitshow of arson and murder, he was shot by an RCMP ERT member (SWAT).
Do you know what these firearms prohibitions the Prime Dictator has dictated would do to prevent such a massacre?
Sweet Fuck All. (Hear that in a ‘Fuck You Shoresey/Letterkenny’ accent, at maximum volume, for maximum effect)
People who go on murderous rampages, don’t care about licencing. They don’t care about storage laws, they don’t care about magazine capacities, they don’t care about classification and they don’t care about jail. We Know people who go on murderous rampages plan to die at the end. They are hateful, spiteful, and murderous, and they just want to set the new high score before getting zapped.
The Prime Dictator and his minions want to paint law-abiding Canadians with the same brush.
Canadian gun control means passing a safety course and a criminal background check to get your licence to purchase and own. Canadian gun control means Firearms Officers at CFP review every violent offense reported to the police to see whether the suspect is licenced, and suspending it until the allegations are resolved in court. Anathema to Americans, I know, but that’s how our system works.
Canadian gun control means, when Prime Dictator Trudeau says “there is no need in Canada for guns designed to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time”, you know he’s full of shit because we already have five-round rifle mag limits, machineguns and actual assault rifles are prohibited, and none of the murders in Toronto are being committed with rifles in the first place.
Canadian gun control means, when Prime Dictator Trudeau says, “you don’t need an AR-15 to bring down a deer”, you know he’s full of shit because AR-15s are Restricted and therefore cannot be used for hunting. (Not to mention, .223 is too puny a round for proper deer hunting anyways, which he would know if he’d ever hunted instead of being a part-time Point Grey Drama teacher with a trust fund and a penchant for playing dressup and blackface.)
Deputy Prime Dictator Chrystia Freeland said “This was one of our key planks in our election campaign, and we received a strong mandate from Canadians to act on gun control” at a time where the Liberal Party has minority status in Parliament. The Liberals lost their house majority status, so they have to work with their political opponents to get anything done, and that’s a terribly gauche thing for the Natural Ruling Party (their words, not fuckin’ mine) to have to do. Rather than pass legislation to criminalize a whole demographic of Canadians, they bypassed Parliament entirely, by just issuing an order. The order was not read in the house, voted upon, passed on to the Senate, reviewed, and then sent on to the Governor General to make it law. Not in the slightest. They just said, “Make it so” and so they did.
Prime Dictator Trudeau was famously asked in 2013 what other country he admired. The Dictator In Chief replied, “There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say, ‘We need to go green … we need to start investing in solar.”
In this case, he’s dictating that peaceful, law-abiding Canadians will be criminalized for the sins of murderous assholes. Perhaps that Evil Twin goatee he’s sporting these days isn’t just a fashion statement, it’s a policy statement.
