Accidents involving firearms on shooting ranges are rare, but The Arizona Rifleman has some tips just in case. Most accidents don’t involve someone getting shot, but you might remember my friend Jason had his M950 blow up on him once. It’s not common, but it does happen. The worst injury I’ve ever gotten on the range was putting a staple through my finger tacking a target up to the cardboard target holder.
Category: Guns
Banning Sport Shooting
Mayor Miller of Toronto thinks it’s an idea who’s time has come. But you know, we’re just a bunch of paranoid gun nuts. What do we know about slippery slopes?
More Controversey over The 5.56x45mm
AP article on the ineffectiveness of the M855 round.
Dr. Martin Fackler, a former combat surgeon and a leading authority on bullet injuries, said the problem is the gun, not the bullet. The M4 rifle has a 14.5 inch barrel — too short to create the velocity needed for an M855 bullet to do maximum damage to the body.
My understanding is that the 5.56×45 needs to be doing over 2800 fps to do serious tissue damage, which it achieves being fired out of an M16, but not an M4.
Rules of war limit the type of ammunition conventional military units can shoot. The Hague Convention of 1899 bars hollow point bullets that expand in the body and cause injuries that someone is less likely to survive. The United States was not a party to that agreement. Yet, as most countries do, it adheres to the treaty, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
I would argue if our adversaries can behead people, we can use effective ammunition. To me, this is the real problem. With the right kind of ammo, I think the M4 would be much more effective than it is with M855.
“One of the things I’ve discovered in guns is that damned near everyone is an expert,” he says. “And they all have opinions.”
No doubt.
Republicans Running Serious Against McCarthy?
According to Jacob, it looks like the New York GOP mean to front a serious challenger against anti-gun Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, architect of HR1022, a sweeping semi-automatic ban, and expert on barrel shrouds. I wish they would have done this in a year where it the Republican brand wasn’t smelling like a truck full of used diapers.
Michael Bane’s NFA Rant
Michael Bane argues that the regulations applied to short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and suppressors, are worse than stupid. I couldn’t agree more. Even most European countries don’t regulate suppressors, and regulating barrel lengths has never made much sense. Suppressors particularly, with more and more shooting ranges under threat from noise ordinances, would be particularly useful for ranges in keeping friendly relations with neighbors. But suppressors aren’t common in the US like they are in Europe, because of their excessive regulation in this country.
I think it’s politically feasible to create a movement against these aspects of the National Firearms Act, but if Obama ends up in the White House, we’ll be two decades just undoing that damage, if we ever manage at all. If gun owners don’t win elections, we don’t win. Michael also isn’t too happy about the candidacy of Bob Barr on the Libertarian ticket. I agree with him that it’s no time for a feel good vote. If Governor Richardson had gotten the nod, I might feel better about telling the GOP to go to hell, but the idea of an Obama presidency scares the ever living crap out of me.
Good
Word from Dave Hardy is that there’s a major shakeup at ATF. Hopefully they can clean this mess up before we’re looking at President Obama. Also, Dave points to an article that talks about the kinds of justices that Obama would likely nominate.
Special Ops Trade Show
Just when we start to think we Second Amendment Blog Bash attendees are the cool kids, Greg proves us wrong by attending a Special Operations Industry Trade Show. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know there was such a thing, but it sounds like a pretty cool show.
Thoughts on The Second Amendment Blog Bash
Bitter decided to do a car interview on the way back from Kentucky, to get my thoughts on how our first Second Amendment Blog Bash went. I talk about the genisis of the idea at least year’s Annual Meeting in St. Louis. The idea that NRA should do something with blogs actually originated with Dave Kopel, and before we could reach out to NRA, they reached out to us.
By the way, Eyeblast.tv has an entire channel dedicated to the Second Amendment Blog Bash, so be sure to stop by an peruse the videos.
E-Mail Evidence
From David Olofson, we have the e-mail that ATF claims proves he purchased M16 parts. I see a lot of talk about M16 magazines, which are identical to AR-15 magazines, and talk about a bolt, which are also identical, AFAIK. But I only see one mention of M16 parts, and I would agree that in the realm of “proof” this isn’t it.
Giving Up the First to Exercise the Second?
I’m glad to see that Red’s Trading Post will continue to operate, but it sucks that it appears removing his blog was part of the settlement. Maybe not though, and it just comes down to it being a good will gesture. Either way, we really need to get some momentum going on HR 4900.
UPDATE: According to comments at Joe’s, this was not the case. That doesn’t mean HR 4900 isn’t still important. No doubt this legal fight has cost Ryan a hefty chunk of change.