Federal Judge Thomas Kleeh struck down the long standing prohibition on 18, 19, and 20 year old adults form purchasing handguns. This ruling, if allowed to implement without appeal from the DoJ, will set the federal requirements to buy a handgun in line with those or rifles and shotguns.
This change effectively realigns all Title I firearms to the same age standard for ownership. This will not change state laws (yet) but could as the effects of the ruling trickle down and states either adjust on their own or are adjusted via lawsuit.
I found this meme upon the internet, and twas funny. IG disgruntled_vets
I know, I know. The quality of the modern optic means that “irons” are no longer a strict necessity and are omitted on certain systems, like certain competition firearms and precision rifles, in their entirity.
I’m not talking about for specialist systems. I am talking about your carry handgun and general purpose carbine, maybe your home defense shotgun too. The two or three guns you probably use the most, handle the most, touch the most, and will grab in an emergency. That use, handle, touch, and play with controls on also gives them the highest probability change that the systems that need to be on might be off when you need them.
What do I mean?
I mean you have to have a viable way to shoot certain guns regardless of their battery status at the time you pick them up. I have an extremely high degree of confidence in modern optics, I still prefer the on deck ability to shoot around or through the optic too.
Are all of my firearms set up like this? No.
Am I worried? Not particularly. The Aimpoints on my MP5 and AK that I can’t use the irons through are probably going to be alright. But I have had that Aimpoint on the AK die during a class.
Aimpoint CompM5 RDS
Yep, that one. That CompM5 decided it had been on long enough on its battery. Middle of the drill, most inconvenient.
Luckily, it was just a drill. I cleared from the line real quick and got a battery. My point isn’t how simple the fix was that got my optic back, my point is that when I needed my optic it was off.
No more dot…
If you have co-witnessed irons or a removable optic via QD, you’re still in business. Flip things that need to be flipped and get back on your sights. Its this ease of resumption that makes keeping irons and paired with your optics in a cohabitant manner preferred, in my opinion.
The options if you do not have irons or cannot remove your optic are not nothing though.
Shoot the tube
A red dot is still an aligned tube and depending upon how close and large your target is it might be good enough to start hammering shots.
Turn your dot off and give it a try at about 5 yards to see both what it looks like and what the impact location is. You may surprise yourself.
Living on the edge
Your sights represent an aligned line to where you want to place your shot. Your optic and irons are precisely aligned, however they aren’t the only things that can get you into the right spot depending on the shot. Take a look at the photo and see what edges on the firearm and sight could be used to line up a shot in a pinch. Yes the EPS Carry allows me to use the irons on the P365, think alternatively.
Edge of the optic
The slide, along a corner
The line made by the slide and frame
None of these are ideal, none of these will stack rounds accurately and the viability falls off quickly at distance. But you aren’t done yet. You aren’t out of options.
Don’t freeze
The most common issue I see when folks pull up a gun and all is not right is a tire screeching halt, this is true of malfunctions, optics off, gun not loaded, anything that causes something to happen that isn’t the expected shot. What we want are options, regardless of the problem, to get us back able to take a needed shot as quickly as possible. Available irons make several of these problems simple to solve.
Don’t be quick to dismiss ye olde iron sights, that’s all folks.
A few months back, I wrote an article reviewing the cheapest red dot I could find on Amazon. To the surprise of no one, it sucked. Other than the dot being surprisingly crisp, it was best used for airsoft. I decided to return to the well of cheap crap and Amazon, this time looking to find the cheapest handgun light on Amazon. For the price of 11.99, I got the IXF2021 weapon light.
My rules were the same as they were before. It had to be advertised to be used on real weapons. If it was advertised for airsoft for BB guns, it didn’t make the list. The first I came across that advertised itself for a real firearm cost only 11.99. The IXF2021 brags about its all-aluminum design and its 600 lumens of power. It comes in a simple cardboard box decorated as if it was a map. Inside, it comes with two generic rechargeable batteries and a charger.
Admittedly, my first impression isn’t great. The charger feels cheap and crappy, and the batteries don’t inspire confidence. They might double as fire starters, and I’m curious what would happen if I tossed a real battery in this thing. Let’s get the batteries charged and see if the IXF2021 was worth the 11.99.
The IXF2021 – To the Moon
The charger doesn’t inspire confidence, but I dropped the battery in the charger and plugged it in. I got three red LEDs, and with a lack of directions included, I assumed this meant the batteries were charging. Ten hours later, they were still red, so I adjusted the battery, and they flipped to green. Again, confidence wasn’t high. With a charged battery, I attempted to install the light on a gun.
It turned out to be way too tight for every gun I had except for the Glock rail. Even then, it was tight enough it shaved off a little polymer as I shoved it on. The release is a spring-loaded design that is pressed down to install and remove. A small hump on the release locks onto your rail.
The controls consist of a switch on each side of the light. Press it one way, and it turns on; press it the other, and it shuts off. The light cycles between two modes. Standard on and strobe. Momentary is a pipe dream with the IXF2021. It also has this neat mode where you don’t even need the buttons.
Shake the gun and light, and sometimes, it will magically come on! Who doesn’t love a truly wireless and press-button design? I’m sure it’s totally not an issue with the light being a piece of crap.
The Power
Six hundred lumens isn’t a ton of power, but it’s respectable for 11.99. I don’t have any professional equipment to test the lumens, but I can tell you right now that it’s not a 600-lumen light. It’s pitiful, maybe 200 lumens on a good day. I have a penlight from 5.11 Tactical that’s brighter and shines further than the IXF2021. It’s a joke of power.
Not only is the power weak and limited, but it also dims rapidly and might flare up here and there. The light dies, ignites, and dies again. It’s a total piece of crap, to the surprise of no one. Battery life seems to be 10 minutes or so at full power, which makes me feel the batteries aren’t really 3600 MAH.
Just for fun, I decided to drop-test it. I don’t know how to break this to everyone, but the IXF2021 did not survive the fall. The first fall. It just doesn’t come on reliably anymore. However, sometimes, if you really believe and you get a sprinkle of magic, then it fires up! The IXF2021 is all of 11.99, and it shows.
A while back, I read and reviewed a book by Osprey Publishing called US Combat Shotguns. I enjoyed it a good bit, and I recently finished another Osprey Publishing book called The MP5 Submachine Gun. Both books were written by Leroy Thompson, who is quite the expert in seemingly a wide variety of weapons. I know a lot less about the MP5 than I do combat shotguns, so I figured, let’s leap in and learn a thing or two.
Inside The MP5 Submachine Gun
Much like US Combat Shotguns, The MP5 Submachine Gun is a short and quick read. It’s roughly 80 or so pages. It’s a quick read, but it’s chock full of information. The book starts quickly with little need to ease you in. We know it’s about a submachine gun, so why would we need to flirt about it?
The book covers the history of the submachine gun but goes beyond just saying HK invented the gun in 19XX and leaving it at that. We get the context of submachine guns during this era, why the MP5 stood out, and how it went on to become the counter-terrorism and special operations choice of submachine gun.
We get snippets of stories of the weapon’s use in various operations and how its performance quickly led to its rise in fame. Readers learn what makes the MP5 different from the other options from Uzi and Walther during the same era.
It’s easy to read and not chick full of technical jargon that could leave some readers confused. It has an excellent description of what roller-delayed actions do and how it functions. It’s easy to understand and well-written.
The entire book is well-written and easy to follow. The MP5 Submachine Gun is easy to pick up and put down and gives you a ton of great information about the guns. One of my favorite pages was a table listing all of the variations, which revealed a few I had never heard of and made it easy to understand the slight variations of the MP5.
Yep, There Are Pictures
Hey, I’m a Jarhead. I want some pictures to go along with my books. The MP5 Submachine Gun provides plenty of them. This includes historical examples of the gun, as well as numerous photos of counter-terrorism teams from around the world using the weapon. The pictures are educational as well as entertaining. I’m always interested in seeing Cold War relics and old-school tactical gear.
In terms of history, we also get the history behind different variations of the MP5. We learned a bit about the MP5K and that it was built at the request of a South American sales rep. That makes sense since South America was a fairly violent place, and plain-clothes PSD teams needed something small and viable for defensive use.
U.S. Navy
The MP5K-PDW was built at the behest of 160th SOAR, the guys and gals responsible for inserting and extracting special operations personnel via aircraft. It makes sense they want something more than a pistol, but cockpit requirements ensure the weapon had to be small.
The MP5 Submachine Gun also details the HK SMG 2 project. I always thought it was an unsold prototype, but the book seems to allude to anywhere from 60 to 70 produced for a secret customer.
Fun Facts I Learned About the MP5
I won’t go too deep and reveal the whole book, but there are a few things I thought were interesting. I’m not an MP5 expert, but I know a good bit about the gun. Still, I learned several things about the MP5 and wanted to detail a few fun facts here.
First, I had never heard of the MP5F variant. The MP5F was a French variant with ambidextrous sling points and a beefed-up design. They increased the strength of the gun so it could withstand the +P+ SMG ammo the French were using. This beefed-up design would go on to become standard for MP5s.
A member of Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) Team 8, armed with a 9mm MP-5A5E submachine gun, gives a thumbs-up at the successful completion of a training mission aboard the USNS J0SHUA HUMPHREYS (T-AO-188). SEAL Team 8 is providing boarding teams to assist the ships of the Maritime Interception Force in their enforcement of U.N. sanctions against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.
The too cool to last MP5/10 series actually had a last round bolt hold open device, which is cool and missed on 9mm variants. These guns also had a two-round burst feature, which is also pretty neat.
HK also produced .22LR conversion kits for the MP5s. This consisted of a barrel liner, a new bolt group, and recoil springs. These kits weren’t reliable, and only about 400 were produced.
I learned way more than this, including Dick Marchinko’s tie to the MP5 and an interesting conversation about MAC-10s. It’s a quick read and one worth reading. The Osprey books aren’t expensive and are seemingly always full of information. I’m thinking about reading the Bazooka one next.
After an introduction and six bloviating quotes about how bad guns are, especially gas operated guns apparently, Senator King’s website finally tells me what the Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion Act holds in store for us.
King Introduces Legislation to Save Lives, Protect 2nd Amendment Rights for Law-Abiding Americans
Yep that headline is as full of shit as you think it is, folks. Here’s the bullet points.
Regulate Sale, Transfer & Manufacture of Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms
Much danger. Such gas.
The GOSAFE Act would regulate the sale, transfer, and manufacture of gas-operated semi-automatic weapons by:
Establishing a list of prohibited firearms;
Preventing unlawful modifications of permissible firearms;
Mandating that future gas-operated designs are approved before manufacture; and
Preventing unlawful firearm self-assembly and manufacturing.
But don’t worry, they protect the 2nd Amendment. They say so.
Protect Americans’ Second Amendment Right
The GOSAFE Act protects Americans’ constitutional right to own a gun based on a firearm’s established use for self-defense, hunting, and sporting purposes. The bill accomplishes this by including exemptions based on maximum ammunition capacity according to a firearm’s individual class: a rifle, shotgun, or handgun.
This capacity must be “permanently fixed,” meaning the firearm cannot accept a detachable, high-capacity magazine that would increase the number of rounds that can be fired before reloading and make reloading easier.
Exemptions include:
.22 caliber rimfire or less firearms
Bolt action rifles
Semi-automatic shotguns
Recoil-operated handguns
Any rifle with a permanently fixed magazine of 10 rounds or less
Any shotgun with a permanently fixed magazine of 10 rounds or less
Any handgun with a permanently fixed magazine of 15 rounds or less
God forbid you have a jam in your firearm while defending yourself that requires you to remove the magazine to fix the issue (that’s just about every hard malfunction or stoppage, by the way).
But this is fantastic news for classic H&K Roller-Lock and PCC fans, your guns aren’t gas operated.
They’re safe, according to these buffoons the PTRs and Zeniths and HK91s are going to be just fine. CMMG Banshee? Yep. Stribog? Those too. Gas operated is is the name of evil.
Would sure be a shame if they try and named non-gas operated firearms in their list of prohibited items and got called on their bullshit.
The PTR 32 KFR, and all of their firearms, are not gas operated. They are recoil operated with a roller delay. These are therefore totally safe so long as they have 10 round magazines or something.
Yep, magazine ban too. Don’t you worry they had that covered, of course.
The GOSAFE Act limits a firearm’s ability to inflict maximum harm in a short amount of time by directly regulating large capacity ammunition feeding devices. The bill would limit the number of rounds that large capacity ammunition feeding devices are permitted to carry to 10 rounds of ammunition or fewer. Additionally, the GOSAFE Act makes conversion devices, including bump stocks and Glock switches, unlawful.
Glock switches are already unlawful unless you are a machine gun manufacturer. That hasn’t stopped them before.
More illegaler, make them MOAR I L L E G A L E R!!
But fear not, oh reader! If you want to sell any of your super dangerous and no longer transferable gas guns, the government will buy them in their “voluntary” buy-back program. Still unclear how you can buy back what was never yours. I’m sure they will give going market value too. $100 Gift Cards for all!
Create Voluntary Buy-Back Program
The GOSAFE Act will protect the value of firearms already owned before enactment and prevent stockpiling of these lethal firearms and large capacity magazines by establishing a voluntary buy-back program. It would allow firearm owners to voluntarily turn over and receive compensation for non-transferrable firearms and magazines as defined by this legislation.
King, your GOSAFE rule is dumb. I am therefore assuming you and your staff are as ignorant as the legislation makes you seem on this particular topic. You would have done better if you possessed the capacity, some might even say high capacity, to do so.
Should I point out the majority of crime guns are the explicitly exempt recoil operated handguns again? Should I point out the third deadliest mass shooting in the US used those exempt handguns guns exclusively, a Glock 19 and Walther P22?
Should I point out that this is, technically/legally, a recoil operated handgun?
Or to put the title image quote in more modern parlance, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them and many of them stink.”
I do not know if the quote attributed to Marcus Aurelius, Stoic Emperor of Rome, was actually uttered by the man. I do however know the accuracy of the statement itself.
A news round up ends up on my inbox every morning and one of them looks for the term ‘assault rifle’. Karen Olson, who wrote the below, apparently has opinions on ‘assault rifles’ she expressed to the Portland Herald. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, no one is entitled to their own facts. Oregon is currently grappling with the consequences of constitutional republic v. ignorant mob vote democracy, so I believe these letters are in response to that change.
Letter in italics, my responses in plain text.
Why do we buy our assault rifles?]
Many reasons, Karen. But I assume this is a rhetorical question. We buy firearms today for the same reasons we have always purchased useful individual weapons.
[Who do we plan to assault?]
There it is. A betraying inquiry that lets me know that you, Karen, have never considered violence in a serious manner in your privileged, first world, super power inhabitant of a life. You’ve never had to. This doesn’t mean you haven’t considered violence or thought about violence as a topic, it means you have never had to consider it in an academic sense.
But you have seen a bad thing, the results of violence you do not understand, and it scares and upsets you. That last part is very reasonable, what isn’t reasonable is lack of understanding and the the expectation of your opinion being weighed expertly when you lack expertise. Your fear, anger, and pain do not translate to understanding the topic. Your privilege to live in a world, and a space in that world, that is as safe as it is does not imbue you with the opine authority to dictate back to reality when it rattles your perspective.
There is no ‘your truth’ here.
[Do we buy them “just in case?”]
Often, yes. It isn’t about assaulting, it is about potentially being assaulted. But no, they aren’t ‘just in case’ either. That implies these rifles would live in a vault or closet untouched until enemies are raining from the sky. That isn’t how the discipline of arms works. Know that shooting is a martial art too and firearms are used for many very lawful reasons.
The modern assault rifle, sure I’ll even use the term, is the best individual fighting implement currently in circulation. The problem is we are discussing it with people who are uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the concepts of the profession(s) of violence, the legitimacy of violence, and the currency that violence represents. It frightens them and because it frightens them they dismiss it quickly and try to ‘solve’ it simplistically.
“Your understanding and consent are not required for someone to destroy your world and everything you love.” -Dr. William Aprill, paraphrased.
[Do we fear foreign paratroopers will drop from the sky?]
I’m sorry, did we miss what happened in Israel on October the 7th? Literal paraglider troopers armed with assault weapons murdered 1,200 of the first people they could find and kidnaped hundreds of Israeli and international citizens. Hamas raped, pillaged, and retreated behind the civilians of Gaza, whom they are the defacto government of, as human shields.
That happened. That happened here, in the real world full of real people with WiFi, 5G, and McDonalds restaurants.
If you want to play the ‘Well… it couldn’t happen here’ card, I want you to pick which prejudicial form that comment comes from. Is it the prejudice of low expectations for the Palestinians? They can’t be bothered to act better. Is it the fault of the Israelis? Did the Jews somehow earn this outcome reasonably through their own actions or inactions? That’s a dangerous thought and aligns you with some unsavory types past and present, doesn’t it? Is it that we do not believe these groups, or other similar ones, capable of carrying out this attack here? Really? Despite dramatic successes in the past? We had a two decade long multi-front war about the last major one. Is it underestimating the cartels and groups south of our own border? Surely groups that are defacto power structures in Central and South America couldn’t replicate what the defacto power structure of Gaza could, right? They’re only better trained, better funded, and with much easier access to the logistics necessary.
‘Do we fear foreign paratroopers…?’, is trying to leverage Red Dawn as a silly ‘right wing’ power fantasy and dismissing real world threats even in the contexts of low probability. Low probability or probability in scale is not the same as ‘cannot happen’ by any stretch.
If you are going to immediately disregard all reasonable examples of how your rhetorical inquiry is flawed, don’t make it rhetorical.
[Do we fear a local militia will descend?]
Probably not. Have you seen your ‘local militia’ drill? It’s… something. It exists. Organized groups declaring themselves ‘militia’ have been, are, and will remain a part of the world in various states of efficacy. But there is actually a legal definition for the United States.
I know you’re being rhetorical and clearly have the following image mentally in mind. The ‘militia training montage’ featuring really heavy or too skinny to be healthy white dudes who ‘almost would’ve served ‘cept… [reason]’ doing vaguely tactical but valueless gun drills. That seems to have been a weird offshoot time of the training boom in the 2010’s after Magpul Dynamics showed us the way to dynamic dynamically.
But remember, Karen, you are also part of the militia. Given the modern interpretation of colonial concepts, it is all able bodied adults. All of ‘The People’ constitute the militia.
Legally speaking, however…
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
So Karen you are probably, legally, not part of the militia. If we update the definition for modern Equal Opportunity and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion standards then you probably would be. But as of now, legally, you are not.
[Do we fear our government will turn on us?]
Do we want to count the ways they haveinthepast? Literally the foundational principle of the 2nd Amendment is a preventive on the monopoly of force being centralized within the Federal government.
When the Federal government is acting in the best interests of and within the will of the people all is well (well… most is well) and continuing to grant them the legitimacy of the use of force has few negative consequences. However if we monopolize force in the state, then agree or disagree with it you no longer have the ability to say no and in a meaningful way. The US government has numerous past instances where they used ‘legal’ force and massacred people, they then promptly absolved themselves of responsibility.
Are we confident they won’t do it again?
[Do we fear a burglar will enter our house?
Yes. To a reasonable degree, home invasion should be ‘feared’ and guarded against. Next question.
Let us not devolve into hyperbolic absurdity. (But of course we’re going to…)
Where should we keep and bring our AR-15s? Should we carry them to the grocery store, out to dinner or a show?
Image via Quora, answering how common it is for Israeli reservists to carry long guns publicly.
I will point to Israel again, but let me just say ‘no’ for here in the US. No, because that is what discreet concealed handguns serve for rather nicely under most circumstances.
I must emphasize ‘most circumstances’ though. It would be, and has been, perfectly reasonable for US citizens to carry long guns in times of elevated threat. Riots and weather events that knock out the normal chains of logistics and authority in a region are the most common we experience. We know for a fact we cannot rely on the magnanimity of our fellow man at all times, even in good times. That compounds during times of larger scale environmental strain.
And, if so, it better be every time, because you never know.
I can agree to a degree.
But since you, Karen, mean this to be read in an absurdist tone and not as the fairly practical advice for carry of a concealed pistol it otherwise is, we are going to address that.
Yes, you should carry your firearm consistently. An emergency tool is not useful if it isn’t around in the emergency. That is for all emergencies and all tools to help mitigate and respond to them. An AED doesn’t help anyones heart if it isn’t around. A first aid kit doesn’t stop bleeding, aspirin a heart attack, or splint a broken bone if it is out of reach. A fire extinguisher extinguishes nothing it it cannot be presented to the fire.
I will say again that a concealed handgun is a both practical and effective enough tool under normal circumstances. Under circumstances of elevated environmental strain the ‘assault rifle’, as you say, is better at both deterrence and response to predations of hostile people.
Can we pull it from under the bed or a full grocery cart in time to do any good?
Evidence says… yes. We have numerous instances of rifles being used successfully at home and in public for the defense of people. The handgun is far more common because it is far more convenient and far more often carried. This remains true for crime statistics too, handguns are misused far more often than rifles.
But you mean this question, like your previous ones, in a rhetorical manner that mocks the concept of pulling a carbine, which you no doubt consider cumbersome, for defending oneself. You will be unlikely to take circumstances in which handguns or carbines were used to protect people as evidence enough to sway your opposition. That is fine, your opinion is yours. But stop asking things that have answers you will ignore.
If not, should we hang them from our necks? It already feels like they’re strangling us.
I… I don’t know how to ground this statement. Slings are things, I suppose.
But this prose is so out of bounds its probably closer to touching Mars than grass. How is the existence of tens of millions of rifles, and billions of rounds of ammunition for them, strangling you personally. How is it strangling society? Deaths at the hands of rifles represent a faction of a percent of ostensibly preventable deaths in this nation, regardless of how scary these deaths are.
I say ostensibly in this case because we act like an attack would not have occurred had the attack been somehow more illegal.
How many foreign paratroopers or outer-space aliens have we needed to shoot? How many of our neighbors, friends and family has this weapon shot?
Are we talking actual numbers? Because there are a lot of dead foreign troops due to the AR-15. I’m certain Karen does not consider authorized federal, state, or municipal use, as well as legitimate use against criminals and more mundane domestic threats, as ‘foreign paratroopers’. That does not fit the tone of the conversation. Karen is implying that because Red Dawn hasn’t happened the AR-15 is unnecessary.
How many neighbors, friends and family has the weapon shot? I don’t know. But it is far fewer in totality than have died from numerous other methods, including the aforementioned handgun murders, suicides of all methods, car crashes, alcohol, heart disease, and home accidents. Ostensibly preventable deaths due to the ownership of rifles are far outpaced by numerous other sources of untimely demise that simply rate ‘less scary’ to you.
People pull the trigger, but it’s the bullets that kill.]
So we acknowledge that it is the deliberate action of a person who fires the gun, but are then absolving that person of guilt in the injury or death? The bullet becomes independent and is ascribed its own motivation? Are we shifting focus to the existence of ammunition instead of the firearm? What is happening? What are we upset at now in the narrative?
[How many bullets at a time do we want to give a neighbor, friend or family member who suddenly or slowly goes berserk?]
Now who is scared of aliens, ‘paratroopers’ and other boogeymen? Which of your potentially nightmarish neighbors are going to go slowly mad due to the proximity of 5.56 ammunition? Should I also remove everything that could possibly be used to harm anyone from everyone on the off chance that any of all of our collective neighbors, friends, or family members suddenly or slowly go berserk? Is this reasonable?
No. Of course it isn’t. Yet we allow this emotive diatribe to stand in equal weight to reasoned argument. Why? Because guns, I guess. Gun bad, don’t think deeply about it. The threat of the AR-15 is outsized due largely to its popularity and has no place in a reasoned risk analysis.
[How many neighbors, friends and family members have to be butchered and die before we, the people, call out to our politicians to put an end to this evil-spewing weapon?
What happened to people pull the trigger? That opened this paragraph, Karen. If I must acknowledge it ‘spews evil’ in the hands of an evil person then you must acknowledge it does good in the hands of the good people, and no harm at all in the hands of the majority, because those are all true.
Karen Olson Portland
The potential to cause harm is inherent in every single person, it is not bestowed by a weapon. I hope these answers are helpful to you readers. I do not believe Karen will think they are, but I could be mistaken.
The history of hollow points goes back to the late 19th century. The first hollow points were molded lead rounds with a hollow point designed to reduce weight. A reduced weight meant a faster bullet. The fact that the round tumbled and expanded was a happy accident. Rounds like .32-20, the .38-40, and .44-40 were early adopters of hollow point projectiles. This led to them being banned from warfare under the Hague Convention, which is how the Geco Blitz Action Trauma rounds came to be.
According to the gun magazines of the 1980s, if you carried a 9mm, it should be loaded with Blitz Action Trauma rounds or BAT Rounds for short. These were exotic rounds from Germany that fetched upwards of a buck a round. A buck a round is pretty normal these days, but it was absurd in the 1980s. Still, they were seemingly popular, especially in an era where jacketed hollow points had taken root just yet.
(Gun Auctions)
The BAT rounds came in 9mm and .357 Magnum and were copper. I’ve seen the weights mentioned to be 84 and 86 grains, so it’s tough to say who is accurate and who isn’t. The solid copper slugs had a cavity that went all the way through them, and that cavity was filled with a plastic plug.
The plastic plug was to ensure the round would feed and depart from the projectile when the gun fired. The rounds moved at about 1,400 feet per second from a Browning Hi-Power. At first glance, it seems to be a bit of a mix between a hollow point and exotic loads like Liberty Defense.
Origin of the Blitz Action Trauma Rounds
Geco, a German Company owned by Dyanmit Nobel, apparently initially developed the rounds for shooting tires. Apparently, they could punch a neat 9mm size hold through a tire with little fear of overpenetration and ricochets. Some enterprising salesman also saw an opportunity to cash in on an exotic ammo type that could be an effective defensive round.
To me, it seems odd that the Blitz Action Trauma round would be needed to pop tires. How much action was that a necessity? This is pure speculation, but it seemed to me that the tire-popping action was just an excuse to produce an effective hollow point cartridge for police use. Geco is a German company and this time, the German police carried FMJs because that’s what the military carried. The BAT rounds were technically FMJs due to the plastic plug.
(CALGUNS)
As you and I know, FMJs aren’t great man-stoppers and aren’t great for police work. They pose additional risks due to the overpenetration of threats. This wasn’t a big deal when the police round of choice was the .32 ACP. In fact, FMJs make sense when you use the little .32 ACP cartridge.
The New World of 9mm
However, the Munich Massacre and the rise of left-wing terrorism in Germany caused the police to move to more potent firearms. The 9mm became the cartridge of choice, and the Walther P5, the HK P7, and SIG P6 became the guns of choice. 9mm FMJs tend to zip through things, including terrorists.
(HK PRO)
In 1977, the newly formed GSG9 stormed a Lufthansa airplane with HK P7s, S&W Model 66s, and MP5s. The rounds loaded were the Blitz Action Trauma rounds. In short order, the GSG9 killed four terrorists and freed all the hostages. I don’t know if the GSG9 used the rounds with permission or basically used the ‘Technically’ excuse.
The MP5 magazine went from straight to curved to aid in reliability and reportedly ensured the BAT rounds would feed. The BAT projectiles certainly saw some action in Germany.
Effectiveness
I can’t find any gel testing or wound studies on the Blitz Action Trauma rounds. If YouTube was around back then, we’d know everything there is to know about these rounds. Sadly, it’s tough to say how effective they were. They were available in the United States, but it seems like they were never evaluated, or the tests were never widely published.
The BAT Rounds worked here (GSG 9)
Compared to FMJs, I believe they were less likely to over-penetrate. I imagine they would expand and deform, but not as efficiently as modern JHPs. We know they worked well in putting down four Red Army Faction terrorists. The Blitz Action Trauam rounds form an interesting part of the history of defensive ammo.
I was an early adopter of the P365. In 2018, it was the gun to get, and since then, it’s grown into a family of firearms. I have the P365, the deep concealment SAS model, the larger P365XL, the even larger XMACRO, the Legion entry, the Rose model, and many more I’m missing. Is there anything the gun can’t do? Heck, according to The Drive’s Warzone section, it can even be attached to a drone. Yep, a P365 Drone exists.
FILE — A member of a volunteer battalion practices the launch and retrieval of a DJI Mavic drone as the group trains outside Kyiv, Dec. 3, 2022. A Ukrainian unit is tinkering with tape, a scale, a 3-D printer and other items to turn a fragmentation grenade into a tank-killer. It’s a steep and risky challenge. (David Guttenfelder/The New York Times)
That’s right, a drone. The Association of the U.S. Army had its convention in Washington D.C. earlier this month with SIG Sauer in attendance. SIG is so hot right now with Army contracts. They captured the MHS contest and followed it up with the NGSW system contract to provide a rifle and machine gun to the U.S. Army and potentially all four branches. How could they not show up and show off their wares?
They did, and we got to see how far the modular nature of the P365 could go when they strapped two of them to quadcopters. When writer Jame Hunter asked why, SIG replied with, “Why wouldn’t we?”
The P365 Drone
The rise of small aerial vehicles in warfare can’t be ignored. There are lots and lots of dead Russians because the Ukrainian military latched onto this technology. Prior to the war in Ukraine, commercial-grade mini quadcopters were in the skies of Iraq and Syria, being used by various forces against various other forces. Micro-sized drones are cheap, can carry a small explosive payload, and allow for what’s basically a flying IED.
If you’ve cruised the combat footage of the Ukraine war, you’ve likely seen Ukrainian forces drop grenades quite accurately with their drones on infantry and armored forces. We know they work with explosives, but what about small arms? Taiwan made a large, rifle-equipped drone called the AR-1.
What about a micro-sized, pistol-equipped drone or quadcopter, like the aforementioned P365 drone? Of the two drones on display, one is a standard XMACRO series, and another features a very interesting P365 that’s been trimmed and cut to reduce weight, and this allows it to be fit into a smaller drone. Both appear to be commercial off-the-shelf quadcopters equipped with P365s and servo moto-powered trigger pullers.
(Jamie Hunt/The Drive)
According to the SIG rep at the show, the guns are aimed via the camera and a laser aiming device. It’s a neat combo, but I’d be curious what laser is capable of. What’s its ability during the day, and is it I.R. capable for nighttime use? That remains to be seen.
Does the recoil generated from the gun firing affect the P365 drone’s ability to fly? It’s not super clear by how much, but according to SIG, it works.
The Purpose of Such a Drone
I think it needs to be stated that this isn’t a commercial product being offered to anyone at this time. It seems to be just an experiment for SIG that they wanted to display. This seems to be more of a proof of concept.
Let’s say it did work. They had a finished product for sale, with a P365 drone being a reality. What’s the purpose? Handguns aren’t great for range, but the P365 is small and ammo-efficient. Still, 17 rounds aren’t much in a military firefight. That’s two good SAW bursts. It’s also likely tough to aim if SIG can’t introduce a reticle system to make their drone more like a first-person shooter.
(Jamie Hunt/The Drive)
If they do, it’s still a very close-range weapon. It could be a scouting tool for urban areas. Maybe nothing long-range, but let’s say you have a compound with a fence. You run the risk of getting shot if you poke your head over the fence, so toss the drone up and in. It can engage if need be. Or it can cover windows or similar spider holes and still put lead on target. The P365 drone certainly seems very niche, but I guess you can dream up a scenario where it’s useful easily enough.
My main question is, is this legal? Does it run afoul of the NFA? What about the FAA? If I wanted one, what would stop me legally from having one? Or making one? There has to be a law against it, and I doubt SIG is lining up for civilian sales of this thing. As far as proof of concept goes, it’s wild, but hey, SIG promised us a modular pistol, and they are delivering.
One of my pet peeves is when people use “dress around the gun” as a catch-all answer for people trying to incorporate carry gear into their wardrobe. Check it out and let me know what you think! Are there any tips/tricks/hacks you’ve found that make incorporating tools into your wardrobe easier?
Yes… yes, I know. Pounds equal pain. I get it. I am an 0311, I’ve been on those long walks with stuff on my back with an M249.
What is supposed to be an admonishment to pack your kit smart, so you don’t bring unnecessary items, you distribute the weight evenly, you layer items properly so you can access them, and you can don and doff the items without much issue has devolved (as internet arguments do) into how much a rifle should weigh and how much is “too much”
From a SIG Social Media Group
I’m not sure what the target weight of the original poster was, or if this is merely a really good troll post, but I would ask the OP what they think the MCX Rattler is made from? It is aluminum, a light a tough alloy. The barrel, of course, bolt carrier, and operating mechanism are steel as they are the pressure bearing parts. Those parts need to be able to handle the heat and pressure of the firing cycle. The MCX LT line shaved a little weight but… c’mon folks, let me be real with you.
Expect 10 pounds.
Just expect it. And stop worrying about it. It is just 10lbs.
The M16A4 is 9lbs (8.81) loaded and otherwise slick. Now add an optic and add a PEQ15… oh, look 11lbs. The M4 shaves a little weight but can easily add it back with good accessories. So stop trying to cut ounces and start building the carbine you want in the the way you want it to work. It is going to be 8 to 11lbs, always is.
Did you manage to build one that is 7.6lbs with a red dot, an expensive lightweight mount, skeletonized everything, lightweight expensive internals that cost half again or more, and a light that you couldn’t save any weight with because it is a light and needs all its components? Cool. Nicely done.
4.5lbs 5.7lbs
The question is did you compromise gain any function, especially in a firearm you are very likely not carrying all that often?
The next question is did you lose or compromise reliability or function, did you give up something necessary or useful to save weight and is that function more useful than the weight savings?
Those aren’t rhetorical questions, they have answers based on your use philosophy and the role the carbine is there to fill. Weight is going to matter most within the context of everything carried and the time it is carried. It is also going to matter how it is carried. A pound saved is almost immaterial if the gun lives in/on a vehicle like a patrol carbine. It saves more if it is hiking with you in the mountains and you have a hard weight cap. But remember you are building for a capability, weight is a single factor.
Hefting capability
The two biggest weight adds, and fatigue points, you might be adding to a carbine are an optic and a suppressor. These also mount in ways that make them leverage on your body above their mass alone. They have a greater fatiguing influence as they are used because of where the weight gets added, especially with suppressors.
That balances against the increased capability the accessories provide the shooter and the amount of time the carbine is expected to be carried and used. Remember, shooting a 2-Day carbine course is not a realistic assessment of use.
Physics
As a final series of thoughts, remember the things that greater mass provides you. Weight absorbs recoil, heavier rifles transfer less recoil to the shooter. This could end up being telling, at least a marginal amount, in how fast you can run the gun and how comfortable it is to run. Heavier might equate to more fatigue, but less felt recoil. Balance. There is no free lunch.
So don’t sweat the small stuff, and ounces you aren’t hefting all that often are small in most realistic circumstances. Your home defense gun being 10lbs instead of 9lbs doesn’t matter if the 10lb gun does what you need and does it well. Your travel carbine bagged up or your patrol carbine in the cruiser being 8lbs or 8.5lbs isn’t going to matter, it is going to matter that you can grab it and it can do what you need on demand.
Now that said let’s not double the weight of a gun. A 15lb behemoth of an AR is going to degrade your capabilities in a way a 5lb one won’t especially outside certain roles. 15lbs on a precision rifle might be fine, but if you are carrying it and it isn’t making your job better/easier then it is likely too much.
Your sweet spot is likely in the 7-11lb range all set up. With 7lbs, maybe less, being a dot, a small light, and no suppressor on an SBR and 11lbs being a rifle with LPVO, suppressor, LAM, and probably an offset dot. Neither end of this range is unreasonable.
MARYVILLE, TN., (11/28/2023) – Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ Global Select: SWBI), a leader in firearm manufacturing and design, today announces the release of its latest Spec Series Kit with the new Performance Center M&P9 Metal M2.0. True to its design, this pistol not only sets a new benchmark for the Spec Series line but also places a heightened focus on performance, ensuring users encounter the pinnacle of what Smith & Wesson’s Performance Center models have to offer.
“Our M&P polymer handguns have long been recognized for their reliability and ergonomic design. By combining these trusted attributes with the durability of the Metal M2.0 platform and adding modern performance upgrades, we were able to elevate the Spec Series to next level. This design is a bridge between tradition and progress, and offers a distinct edge across today’s dynamic shooting environments,” said Corey Beaudreau, Product Manager.
The PC M&P9 Metal M2.0 Spec Series ships in a custom hardcase and includes two 23-round magazines, two 17-round magazines, C.O.R.E TM plate system for mounting optics, a karambit style knife, and custom M&P Spec Series Challenge Coin. The MSRP for this kit is $999.
Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ Global Select: SWBI) is a U.S.-based leader in firearm manufacturing and design, delivering a broad portfolio of quality handgun, long gun, and suppressor products to the global consumer and professional markets under the iconic Smith & Wesson® and Gemtech® brands. The company also provides manufacturing services including forging, machining, and precision plastic injection molding services. For more information call (844) 363-5386 or visit smithwesson.com.
CERAKOTE is a registered trademark of NIC Industries, Inc
Screencap of the WP's article header. Democracy dies in darkness in a rather dark scroll post.
“Editor’s note: The photos, videos and personal accounts below are extremely disturbing and may be too upsetting for some people. Read why The Post is publishing this story.” – Washington Post.
That line opens the Washington Post’s scrollable interactive. As you move down, the background brightens and a M&P-15 Sport rifle flanked by bloody pink flip flops is revealed. Blood stains the ground. A single line of text arrises next, not even a complete sentence.
[Editor’s Note, GAT Daily: Screen captures from the WP article are disturbing and show the violent aftermath of an attack, I believe these to be necessary viewing in a way not dissimilar from the WP writers and editors, our conclusions differ however.]
“When a gunman fires an AR-15…”
Then you scroll more…
And more…
…and more…
Kinda like I am making you do here… a little, but a great deal more. See below.
“…. a seemingly safe, familiar place instantly transforms into a hellscape of chaos, destruction and mass death.“
The image lands with effect, that is certain. Screen cap from Washington Post.
The screen then fades to black, a picture from the Vegas music festival comes into focus. People are taking cover, hiding, and running. The image is again effective. Two more come up in succession from different events.
Then we scroll into standard text.
“Mass shootings involving AR-15s have become a recurring American nightmare.”
Okay, full stop.
Let’s start here. “When a gunman fires an AR-15…”
No, when a gunman fires anything.
Nobody, and I do mean nobody is relieved when someone opens up with a Glock handgun or a snub nose instead. That isn’t a thing. Violence delivered into a space devoid and unprepared for it is always horrific. The weapon makes little difference. The AR-15 has no monopoly on that terror. It’s current popularity does not change the imbalance of force during an attack with any firearm, with any weapon, when no appropriate opposing force exists in the space.
The AR-15 doesn’t hold the highest place for death toll in a mass attack, not even close. I’ll get to that.
“The weapon, easy to operate and widely available, is now used more than any other in the country’s deadliest mass killings.”
Nope. Deadliest mass shootings. Those are listed below. The deadliest mass killings still go handily to explosives and hijacked vehicles, and Jonestown’s murder/suicides but that is an outlier even among mass attacks and lethal events.
Yes, AR-15s and AR-15 adjacent firearms were used in several of these. However, note the third deadliest shooting is still Virginia Tech, committed with two mundane handguns, one a .22 with limited magazine capacity.
The deadliest deliberate non-state killing in the US was still, unquestionably, the September 11th, 2001 attack. The next I found is the Jonestown mass cult murder/suicide, which killed 918. The Beruit barracks and the Kenyan embassy bombings come up next in the descending death toll, with over 200 dead each, although not ‘within’ the US. Oklahoma City comes next with 168 dead. Then Waco, which was a cited motivation for Oklahoma City if you didn’t know. Then we finally get the deadliest US mass shooting, Las Vegas, with 60 murders and the shooter’s suicide, motive unknown.
I skipped dozens of incidents, accidents and natural disasters, war deaths, plane crashes (including deliberate ones), storms, among all of this death the most lethal mass killing by the ‘especiallydangerous‘ AR-15 charts low. I suppose we could throw the recent attack from Gaza into Israel onto this list of AR-15 related events, since they had AR-15’s, but that would complicate the simplistic view presented in this narrative and is a foreign event. By adding an act of war/war crime to the list from what is the government of Gaza against the Israeli civilian population and tourists we would then have to consider other governmental/quasi-governmental acts against civilian populations, especially unarmed ones, and that is a very dark rabbit hole indeed. With the American death toll in Gaza at 29 however, it would rank as the 4th deadliest mass shooting, just behind Virginia tech, on those deaths alone.
Also from the same information as the above chart,
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition.[1][2][3] One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims. Using this definition, a 2016 study found that nearly one-third of the world’s public mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 (90 of 292 incidents) occurred in the United States,[4][5] In 2017 The New York Times recorded the same total of mass shootings for that span of years.[6] A 2023 report published in JAMA covering 2014 to 2022, found there had been 4011 mass shootings in the US, most frequent around the southeastern U.S. and Illinois. This was true for mass shootings that were crime-violence, social-violence, and domestic violence-related. The highest rate was found in the District of Columbia (10.4 shootings per one million people), followed by Louisiana (4.2 mass shootings per million) and Illinois.
[Pause. Let us marvel that Washington D.C. has the most mass shootings per capita by a factor of 2.5x of the next state/territory]
Perpetrator demographics vary by type of mass shooting, though in almost all cases they are male. Contributing factors include easy access to guns, perpetrator suicidality and early childhood trauma, as well as various sociocultural factors including online media reporting of mass shootings. In one study, 44% of mass shooters had leaked their plans prior to committing the act.
The Washington Post’s hyperbolically infused story omits context, lots and lots of context.
Context, something that is cold and analytical, is tossed aside in order to generate an emotive response in the reader. A tragedy, a mass killing, any horrific and traumatic event, requires analytical level context in order to act effectively upon. Without context we cannot make effective decisions on prevention, reduction, or any other future change to make things safer. Context matters. Context is often uncaring, it does not care for your or my feelings or how close we are to an event. Context is the temper to our horror and our anger.
One of those cold, hard, and uncaring facts of reality is that evil, deranged, unhinged, or ultimately uncaring people have just as much freedom of choice, and the ability to act upon a choice, as those of morally and ethically sound character. Period. That is an unchangeable facet of the human experience. Even prison or a psychiatric hospital only limits some of that freedom of choice and freedom to act.
This WP story is not information for their audience’s education, this is a story to evoke emotion. It is not to find solutions, it is to cause a reaction.
WP continues…
“Fired by the dozens or hundreds in rapid succession, bullets from AR-15s have blasted through classroom doors and walls. They have shredded theater seats and splintered wooden church pews. They have mangled human bodies and, in a matter of seconds, shattered the lives of people attending a concert, shopping on a Saturday afternoon, going out with friends and family, working in their offices and worshiping at church and synagogue. They have killed first-graders, teenagers, mothers, fathers and grandparents.“
Here, let me do that too.
Driving dozens or even hundreds of miles per hour, cars have blasted through intersections. They have gone the wrong way on highways, up ramps, and through crowded streets of innocent pedestrians. They have crushed and mangled human bodies in an instant. They have killed shoppers, commuters, and parade goers. They have killed babies, toddlers, children, teens, mothers, fathers, and grandparents. More than 30,000 people die every single year.
All of that perfectly true.
I am talking about Nice, France. I am talking about the Christmas Parade in Wisconsin. I am talking about the woman who murdered six people as she suicidally careened through an intersection because her boyfriend cheated… she ended up with minor injuries there by the way.
But now let’s add additional context, when was the last year the United States had under 30,000 deaths due to motor vehicles?
1945. Yep, nearly 80 years. Well over 2.4 million dead.
Let’s add some more, during that 8 decade timeframe we have also dramatically improved the fatality rate (cutting it about in half) while having more cars, faster cars, and all manner of illegal and dangerous activity that a person behind the wheel is capable of (and that regularly occurs).
About 1 in 8 drivers are uninsured. Approximately 1 in 6 are unlicensed or have their license suspended. Licenses haven’t stopped people from driving without them any more than other prohibitions have. Laws have not prevented people from driving intoxicated, making it illegal to drive intoxicated in a number of progressively more expensive and drastic levels hasn’t stopped people. All those deaths on the road are still occurring despite some of their illegality. The illegality of using a vehicle as a weapon of mass murder hasn’t stopped that from occurring either.
The WP continues…
“But the full effects of the AR-15’s destructive force are rarely seen in public.“
Maybe because they are greatly, often absurdly exaggerated by people who write for places like the Washington Post? Just a thought. Remember Kuntzman, from the Washington Examiner? Look that up, it’s… well… embarrassing. Another thought, as the AR-15 is a popular hunting rifle I would venture that the ‘destructive force’ is well known in public, at least the portions of the public who are interested enough in the information.
“The impact is often shielded by laws and court rulings that keep crime scene photos and records secret. Journalists do not typically have access to the sites of shootings to document them. Even when photographs are available, news organizations generally do not publish them, out of concern about potentially dehumanizing victims or retraumatizing their families.”
We also don’t publish gore strewn crashes or the charred bodies piled up after fires, like the recent one in Hawaii that killed roughly 100 people if I recall correctly. But worry not, dear reader, the Washington Post will disregard this practice in order to bring you the graphic and hyperbolically infused tale of murder being bad. Mass murder, of course, being mass bad. And AR-15 mass murder being mass… baddest? Mass worst?
I don’t mean for my tone to sound flippant here, I know it does.
I am tired of “journalists” taking a single method of injury and declaring it the source of all the ills in the world. Take the AR ‘away’ (an impossibility I am tired of entertaining as a serious topic of conversation, too. But that is a discussion for later) and people will use something else. Why? Because there is plenty to use, and violence will remain an attractive way to get attention and/or a resource for gain. That is not new. Nothing about that is new. The AR is 1950’s technology, which is only mildly updated from 1850’s technology. It is old. That technology is not the factor that changed and popularized spree killing.
What changed?
Modern mass media coverage started in the 90’s. The years 1994/95, with the OJ Simpson murder case, changed the way reporting happened and how much attention cable news could bring to an event. Oklahoma City Bombing, 1995. Columbine, 1999. How much attention a mass murder gets, and how quickly it gets it, was redefined in the 90’s by media companies and their evolving technology. Suddenly mass murder had a nearly instantaneous national, even worldwide, stage to be spotlit upon. That has compounded further with the rise of social media. When anyone anywhere can go ‘live’ with whatever they are doing it can be viewed. If it is wild enough, even horrifically so, it will ‘go viral’ and be seen by the world. Christchurch, New Zealand as a poignant example of just that.
But we don’t want to talk about that, or at least the WP doesn’t.
I think it is fascinating that the AR-15 was first commercially available in 1964, that the patents expired in 1977 so others could produce the AR-15 then too, that new machine guns were legal to purchase until the 1986 Hughes Amendment was added to the Firearm Owners Protection Act for a tax of $200, and yet it wasn’t until we had near real time coverage of tragedy in the 90’s that mass murder jumped in macabre popularity.
How many have now live streamed their crimes since the rise of social media? They don’t ‘need’ the news, the news will share it. We just had the release of the Louisville, Kentucky Old National Bank mass shooter’s motive. On the list of motives was how ‘horrible‘ current gun laws are. Do you think for a moment this shooter wasn’t influenced by the continuous reporting, and most importantly the tenure and tone of that reporting, on how our gun laws are the ‘worst in the world’ and enable acts like he committed?
Is it the AR-15’s existence for 70 years? Or could the tone of the media have the influence?
“The review lays bare how the AR-15, a weapon that has soared in popularity over the past two decades as a beloved tool for hunting, target practice and self-defense, has also given assailants the power to instantly turn everyday American gathering places into zones of gruesome violence.”
Given?
Given, when? The constant implication by anti-gun leaning journalistic organizations seems to be that would be mass murderers suddenly discovered a latent evil super power hiding inside firearms somewhere around 1999, or maybe 2005. They had to ponder on it for 41 years first, longer if we consider the Thompson or the BAR enough adjacent to the AR-15.
This was available in 1933
“This is an oral history told in three parts that follows the chronological order of a typical AR-15 mass shooting. It weaves together pictures, videos and the recollections of people who endured different tragedies but have similar stories to tell.”
Why not non AR-15 mass shootings? Why not Virginia Tech? Why not the Washington Navy Yard? Why leave out so much additionally relevant context?
I hazard that it is because a mass shooting scene looks pretty similar, regardless of the weapon. Bodies and blood.What does the greater context provide to, or remove from, the microcosm of an attack and the weapon involved? Contextualizing an event does not diminish any of the physical and emotional damage, but it can limit an over emotive response when a logical one is required.
Why the AR-15
The AR-15 gained more recent popularity, why? Simple, we’ve talked about it often here. The Global War on Terror and the advent of oft titled ‘Gun Culture 2.0’. The emphasis and attitudes of younger people towards firearms shifted to personal protection and home defense, away from hunting. This paralleled the continuing rise of concealed carry too, again an intellectual shift of emphasis towards defense. The general comfort of GWOT veterans with the AR-15 and the semi-fame of its use during the war fueled interest further. Younger people were and are interested in, and more comfortable overall with, modern firearms and the concepts of fighting with them.
The Gen X and Baby Boomer generations, overall, did not hold this same point of view and the Millennial and Gen Z consumers have very different methods of educating themselves and the resulting influence from information sources. Most of the sources are live, online, detailed and very frequently updated.
Why did mass murder rise in frequency decades after the alleged technology became publicly and easily available? Why did a rifle available and popular in its own right from the 1960’s onward not enable such murderers prior to the 2000’s. Why after modernized restrictions, including an assault weapon ban and background checks, were emplaced did the trend increase and not curb? Why didn’t it enable and empower the ascribed carnage for the first 40 years after its public release, only after the rise of the 24 hour news cycle?
The AR-15 was available and the murder rate during those decades was significantly higher than it is today.
But mass killings for attention rose later, and rather suddenly, because? We’ll get to that.
‘Easy to acquire’
I mentioned above that access to the weapon, and similar ones, didn’t change much. It actually became more restricted with the implementation of the FBI background check system and other gun control measures. We know the overall popularity changed, the Global War on Terror and GC 2.0, with troops showcasing how nice the rifle was and an increase in personal defensive awareness. Without doubt the AR-15 is an individual weapon that excels, it is a global standard in individual small arms, but nothing about it is new.
Popularity was also fueled by the governments attempt to ban certain variants in 1994 with the Clinton Assault Weapon ban, but that only passed with a sunset provision set for 2004. The ban is objectively absurd, declaring features like a threaded on flash hider to increase the lethality of the 5.56mm projectile in some incomprehensible manner.
The ban sunset with no demonstrable effect on violence, violence continued to trend downward, GWOT was on in force showcasing how excellent the rifle was, cue the American contrarian antiauthoritarian streak and self preservation planning. The AR and like firearms would not have had the surge they did had they been mundanely available the whole time, I still suspect a surge would have occurred in parallel to GWOT but not to the degree the ban helped fuel nor the talks of renewed bans consistently refuel.
The Gun Culture 2.0 attitude shift had something to do with it too, as advances in entertainment and information access made integrating all of these sources together more seamless. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and every sequel and similar game, have assuredly fueled interest in firearms directly. They used to link to the real world pages of the real world weapons. “Marketing to kids!” no, not so much. Video games became an adult hobby as video gamers (millennials) became adults and someone under 18 couldn’t buy a gun through the game, or anywhere else, until they were of age and could buy it regardless of seeing it in the game.
But did any of these AR-15 factors enable mass murder, where before the publicly available AR-15 and similar weapons were just lying dormant all unmassmurdery?
Mass murder isn’t new. It wasn’t as common, especially disregarding government or quasi-government (terrorist) actions, but mass killings involving firearms have taken place for centuries. The oldest school massacre on record here in the United States happened in 1764, Greencastle Pennsylvania. 11 dead, 1 injured at Enoch Brown school. This was during the Pontiac War and natives shot the school master then killed the children with melee weapons.
But don’t worry, only the AR-15 is capable of turning familiar surroundings into hellscapes of chaos, destruction and mass death.
Even with the elevated murder/violent crime rates of 2020, 2021, and 2022 we don’t match 1995, or the 1990’s, 1980’s, or 1970’s. So why the hyper focus on a specific method of murder, and a specific format, when it accounts for about half a percent of murders in the US? Additionally it accounts for only a fifth of a percent of gun deaths, majority suicide.
Why the out of proportion attention and why the blinder to the parallel rise of media coverage? The AR and ilk isn’t what enabled mass murder, this destruction has been ‘enabled’ for centuries if we are regarding ‘enabled’ as ‘possible’.
What made it alluring? What made it attractive as a decision?
Instant fame and attention, a horror drenched TikTok trend if you will. Write it down or stream it and people are going to want to know what you said, what you thought, why you acted, if only to see what brand of psycho you were and condemn you properly. It pains me to say that we are so fractious when it comes to violence of this scale that we regularly and nearly equally want it to be violence from another faction, not one we are associated with, in addition to wishing the violence didn’t happen in the first place.
Certain factions and demographics have stereotypical types of mass violence. Don’t believe me? What type of mass shooting does a Black man or small group of Black men commit? Something came to mind, didn’t it. Now how about a white man? Different shooting, right? This despite the fact we have every demographic represented as an example in mass killing statistics as shooters. Mass killings are such outliers we cannot draw statistical significance from vague demographic bracketing. Yet the stereotypes spawn anyway.
The Washington Post language holds the key to their intentions
Allow me to point out, again and still, that the AR-15 is an intermediatecaliber autoloading rifle. It is not particularly more or less dangerous than other firearms. It is, on a shot for shot basis, often less dangerous than many other firearms that are older, popular, and plenty available. Remember also that a 5-shot revolver, with no additional ammunition, is more than capable of committing what is the commonly accepted definition of a mass shooting (four or more people shot and injured or killed, not including the shooter).
The Glock handgun is the most recovered weapon in firearm related crime in the US, the AR-15 isn’t even close. Handguns account for the most deaths, the most injuries, the most mass shootings, etc. It is only when we apply the ‘deadliest’ filter, we discount the third deadliest shooting as an outlier among outliers, and discount whether or not a handgun would have been just as capable of the lethality in the situation as a rifle was does the AR become so allegedly terrifying comparatively.
This is not to suggest I do not understand that the AR-15, from a physics and ergonomics perspective, is ‘more lethal’ than a 9mm handgun. It is. But a 7.62, like an AR-10 or an M1 Garand even, is a magnitude more lethal than the AR-15 too. Yet those are not so utilized. There are other factors, other influences at play than raw vague ‘lethality’ alone.
On that list of 11 shootings. Only Las Vegas and University of Texas required a rifle to be as lethal in their environments as they were because, of the distances involved, given the circumstances of the attacks. In all the other shootings close proximity was involved and a shotgun or handgun could have served, and has in other shootings, to deliver a comparable effect. But they (as in hyperbolic gun control types) love to point out the ‘damage’ of the AR-15 in isolation. They use a vague but colorful and emotive illustration of AR-15 lethality without discussing comparative lethality to declare it a unique menace.
Why?
Context matters. So does lacking or omitting context.
The audience for this Washington Post piece has no context, or very limited context. These injuries are severe. The images are brutal and graphic. This is all bad and we do not like it. But they are not contextualized for study towards prevention. To do that would require an admission of comparative lethality and several other factors.
Firearms injuries are possibly fatal. Full stop. A firearm can kill. An injury from a firearm is a big deal. So are other injuries, both accidental and deliberate.
But WP and those like them can focus on the AR-15 as unique because the audience has little to no context for other fatal injuries. It isn’t something that is a common knowledge item in our collective societal thinking. So when a figure or an organization of authoritative knowledge transfer, like a journalistic publication, says AR-15 wounds are horrible, they can put an overemphasis on the carnage by leaving out contexts they choose. You can ‘lie’ with facts by both context and lack thereof.
WP doesn’t have to talk about vehicle fatalities, or how gruesome being killed by a car can be. They don’t have to talk about the fatalities and violence related to alcohol. They don’t have to mention how infrequent a mass shooting death is as a specific homicide. They don’t have to mention how infrequent a homicide is as a cause of death. They don’t have to put things into those contexts, their audience is trusting that they do so at some level. That is their power.
It is often called shaping the narrative.
Why? Because they, WP and kind, are an information authority. Journalists convey information and do so in short form so we can contextualize that information ‘accurately, in short’. But they possess the ability to dramatically shape that context, readers only reading the headline is often utilized this way. Consider the Louisville shooter at his bank and workplace an example again. If they want us to contextualize it a certain way because they want us to think about what they are saying in a certain way, they have that power. We are often trusting, by consuming the media we do, that the given media has enough context to ground us. It often does not.
Now we start to deal with Gell-Mann Amnesia.
What is that?
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
-Michael Crichton
So when I read a piece, like this, about firearms I can tear it apart for inaccuracy and hyperbole if it is full of such errors. But most of the audience, here or there, does not have my background. However much of that same audience, if reading a subject they are familiar with, will be just is irritated, bemused, or frustrated as I am on my subject and will mentally dismantle the inaccuracies within.
But, almost paradoxically, we all then have that tendency to turn/click the page to the next and just assume that the reporting authority, here the Washington Post, gets the rest of it right. They only suck at reporting our thing, because we have expertise in our thing.
Looking at the three young contributors to this particular piece, I highly doubt any could stand as an SME on firearms. That is not an aspersion on them, their character, or their good intentions. They do not know what they do not know, but they are making an obnoxious and ill supported attempt to make me and the rest of the audience feel a certain way. That peeves me.
This also leaves I, as an informed person in the space, looking like the irate reactionary because of course the Washington Post did all their homework and proper contextualization so I must just be a bitter clinger, right? Expect on subjects each particular reader is familiar with and can pull apart as readily as I do something on firearms, this trend will again appear.
How to lie with context instead of information or misinformation
Think about the simple question, “Do you support background checks to prevent violent crime?”
There is only one reasonable short answer to that question, asked in that manner, “Yes, of course.”
Why?
Because the context forced upon you with the question is that background checks prevent violent crime. They must at least help, right?
…right?
Of course they do, the question states as much. It is a given within the contextual tone of the question. ‘To prevent violent crime’ or if we want be a little more vague ‘to help prevent violent crime’ could be used. In this new context we’ve made the burden of efficacy so vague as to be meaningless, but still feel positive. Gone is the mandate ‘prevent’ replaced with ‘help prevent’ and that can could be as little as a ‘well intentioned’ effort to prevent. That effort has no burden of real world efficacy placed upon it. Thus the phrase, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
No requirement that background checks prove they are helping exists. If it did, data showing the false positive rates, improper records, number of felons who were caught with a firearm they acquired another way, number of denials that were and weren’t followed up on by law enforcement, and any events where harm came to someone who was denied a firearm or delayed purchase of a firearm by the system would all be relevant and tracked data. It would be necessary to prove efficacy.
But it isn’t. None of that it is monitored, especially not by NICS who do the background checking. We have only the number of initiated checks, delays, and final denials, we also have the number of appealed final denials that are overturned (approximately 29% of appeals) and the assumption that those people who did not appeal were in fact properly denied.
Stat analysis suggest the number of false positives is likely reasonably consistent or of predictable scale to the actual number of overturned denials on appeal. It could be around the actually appealed and reviewed 29% for all denials or could scale off lower if we audited all denials and more turned out to be proper legal denials. Appeals are not pursued for a variety of reasons. The appeals process is, notably, another bureaucratic pain point and people have enough issue keeping their IDs and other otherwise ‘simple’ legal processes updated. I have denied active law enforcement personnel through NICS, how would that stack up in the false positive column? Is the cop, who is wearing a gun, a prohibited person? My computer says so, it must be right. No other context needed.
One more comment, just a single word really. Marijuana. Think on that bit of absurdity.
The point being that background checks as an effective preventative with a low error rate is a complex matter and likely an inaccurate assumption, but it is one we are encouraged to make by the positive association of background checks as ‘preventative’. We are so encouraged to make that assumption that the number often quoted by advocates of the system for how effective it is at denying guns to ‘the wrong people’ are the initial denials, the delays. These are the checks that need more research and overwhelmingly clear and result in a transfer. I have been delayed for a transfer before, that would be counted in the pile of ‘keeping guns out of the wrong hands’ stats many gun controllers quote while advocating for ‘Universal Background Checks’.
For context, I have an FFL and SOT. I can possess guns most people cannot, I can even bring them into states where they otherwise aren’t allowed. How does a delay on my private transfer background check, likely because I have an FFL/SOT but could be for many reasons, count as a positive stat in the ‘kept out of the wrong hands’ pile when I assuredly have that gun in my hands?
Lack.
of.
Context.
So why, if the background system is so objectively full of limitations (even if it works alright within those in limitations), would an inquiry be made along the lines of that simple initial sentence I wrote above? That sentence dismisses all errors inherent in the background check system and dismisses any negative outcome those records, or lack of records, could possibly generate. It instead assigns a simplistic ‘positive’ effect to the vague notion of ‘background check’ in the in context of the inquiry?
The same is true of asking vague things like, “Should gun laws be ‘stricter’ to prevent gun violence?”
What is ‘stricter’? What is the efficacy associated with the ‘stricter’ gun law?
What if someone were to then point out the number of mass killers who passed their background checks? How about just those shooters who perpetrated the top 11 mass shootings listed above? Yikes, right? I’m not saying we start arming felons tomorrow (they have guns already anyway), I am suggesting an honest assessment of the limitations on a ‘background check’ be seriously considered for context.
Instead of a serious evaluation of the limitations, the notion of a ‘universal background check’ remains a popular ‘solution’ to this problem of terroristic level mass violence and all the other ills of violent crime. Or more accurately, ‘part’ of the solution. We can’t go locking in an efficacy requirement now, can we? It is implied therein that the solution and problem are both complex, which is true, but that any efforts made on behalf of solving the complex problem are all ‘part’ of the complex solution. They are all assumed to have positive efficacy as ‘part’ of the solution. They aren’t measured for actual efficacy, but because they are well intentioned to be part of the solution they are assumed to be positive parts.
This is once again why context and objective measurement is crucial to building better preventative and response initiatives. It also requires recognizing the unassailable limits of mankind to prepare for everything another human can or could do to them. You cannot. It is impossible. You cannot prevent the free actions of an autonomously acting person or group, you can only react and bolster the conditions that make the actions you would prefer people to take the most advantageous objectively (and hopefully subjectively, too).
The context given
The Washington Post authors deliver to us a three part story of fear and death. It is meant, it seems, to tell us how death is bad, very scary, and it is the fault of the AR-15 existing that this death is bad, and scary, and possible at all.
This all, again, is presented devoid of acknowledging many additional truths, many necessary contexts. It avoids the previous decades of the AR-15 existing. The nation’s murder rate being higher during those earlier decades, but mass attacks were less frequent. The rise in popularity of the mass attack coming in obvious parallel with the rise of 24 hour media, then the later rise of the AR-15 during the Global War on Terror and the parallel rise of Social Media influences. The confirmed ability for other firearm types besides the AR-15 to cause this ascribed level of death and injury. The confirmed ability for other non-firearm methods of injury to cause as much, or more, death and injury. The confirmed inability for government to protect you from threats of any scale from state, to quasi-state, to lone terrorist, to petty murderous criminal, with anything approaching total assurance, they can only assure you of some manner of response.
Here’s one more bit to consider. The AR-15’s popularity due to the combined factors of ease of use, ease of production, reasonable cost of use and production, denial of and return by the government to full production due to the ban, the inefficacy of the ban but efficacy of the firearm, the inefficacy of state bans, the popularity of it with US Forces, the parallel popularity of games and media featuring hero types using it righteously, none of that can be divested from its physical efficacy as a tool and therefore of unrighteous horrific violence too. If it is good at one, it can be good at the other. These combined factors can only explain its popularity within the populous at large, that large scale popularity does correlate and influence the rise of use across all contexts. This includes negative contexts. They are inseparable.
The AR-15 and ‘assault weapons’, AKA modern autoloading firearms, aren’t the best weapons for ‘mass shootings’ and slaughter, they are simply best individual weapons. Period.
But you could go with the Washington Post and the, ‘it’s totally the AR-15’s mere existence’. But it is weird how it took nearly 40 years to warm up. A great deal of effort went into this Washington Post visual horrorscape. And for all of that it has nothing more nuanced to say for its conclusion other than ‘bad things happening to people are bad’.
So we should (probably) make them more illegaler right? At least that is the implied conclusion from the given context.
Wood furniture might not be en vogue or the most effective option out there, but it still looks amazing. Who doesn’t love the look of wood? Polymer might be tougher, more weather-resistant, and more effective, but looks are half the battle! Woox knows this and famously produces some fantastic wood furniture for various rifle platforms that combine wood appeal with modern attachment options. They’ve recently dived into the world of shotguns with their Gladiatore furniture.
The Gladiatore furniture comes available for both stocked shotguns and Shockwave-style firearms. This includes a complete stock and forend, as well as a club-type rear grip. Woox sent me a set of the Gladiatore furniture for my Mossberg Shockwave, and it’s an addition that’s sticking around for a long time to come.
The Gladiatore Option
The Gladiatore furniture from Woox is wood, but Woox famously modernizes wood furniture. With the Gladiatore forend, we get a big wood shotgun pump that’s also outfitted with metal-reinforced M-LOK slots. Three M-LOK slots sit on each side of the pump, which allows for the attachment of lights and lasers as you see fit. Primarily lights, but hey, lasers and hip-firing these guns are pretty fun.
The Gladiatore pump features some nice aggressive checkering that looks at good as it works. These guns and having a texture to add grip make it easy to hold onto the weapon. At the rear and front of the stock sit small built-in humps. These prevent your hands from sliding off and in front of or behind the forend. It’s a smart design, especially if you are using the push-pull technique to mitigate recoil.
When we drift to the rear of the gun, we have the club grip. It’s similar to the standard Shockwave grip that ensures the length of the gun is over 26 inches. The difference comes from the size and slight design difference. Woox textures the Galdiatore club grip just like the forend. It’s also wider and fills the hand a bit better than the stock option. A bit more of a downward curve makes it easier to pull rearward as part of your push/pull technique.
A Striking Combination
The Gladiatore Club Grip and Forend transform the Shockwave into a much better-looking weapon that doesn’t give up function for looks. The Push/Pull technique works very well with this furniture combination. The added grip texture and the design of both the grip and forend come together to help make the Shockwave a bit more controllable.
Your hand resists slipping rearward and forward as you operate the gun, and if they do slip, the slight humps on the back and front give your hand a speed pump. The texture and little extra width of the forend make it easy to get a good tight grip on the gun, which helps keep the gun under control.
The rear club grip’s extra curve does make it easier to pull rearward and stabilize the gun for recoil mitigation. I never thought a better rear grip would help, but here we are. The Gladiatore furniture comes together to provide a stylish alternative for your shotgun that is actually functional and useable.
I’m currently looking at their Mossberg stock to replace the stock on my Retrograde and another Gladiatore forend. Their stuff is well-made and extremely solid. Give ‘em a look here and know they make all sorts of furniture for rifles as well as America’s favorite shotguns.
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