Important Random Gun Trivia

Steven R. Berryman

 

[from The Tentacle of July 22nd 2013]

In keeping with the lazy informal mode of the sizzling summer, here is an assortment of blurbs relating to firearms, keepin’ it short and tight to match the attention span of the season!

What’s the best home defense weapon?

Buy a slide-action 12-gauge shotgun with an 18” barrel. Load it with alternating rounds of 3” magnum loads of 00 buckshot and then bird shot. DO NOT do what Vice President Joe Biden suggests and shoot off warning rounds from the balcony (or deck).....because this will get you arrested, and any real burglar will have already freaked when you racked the slide a minute earlier.

The pellets of this recommended ammo will not over penetrate walls too much, yet spreads into a pattern so large that you don’t have to aim real good....know what I mean?

What handgun ammo has the statistically best odds of stopping an assailant in one shot?

A landmark study by Evan Marshall took in very broad real law enforcement data on “one shot stops” from a very large database. Evaluations were that a .357 Magnum round – almost always used in revolvers – in 125 grain (weight) is best. It beat out even the .44 Magnum, .45 Auto, and many other venerable contenders. This, because the kinetic energy of this round at ~1,300 feet per second penetrates just right, and transfers energy most efficiently. Use of a “hollow-point” intensifies the effect, by mushrooming out to a larger diameter; but it tends to bunch up in impacting winter outerwear a bit.

Should I buy an automatic pistol, or a double-action automatic pistol, or a revolver?

Revolvers carry less ammo, but are more reliable, and have great ammo available. Best for those that don’t shoot often or may have to shoot in a panic situation without much practice. Automatic, like the famous Colt .45, carried in World War II are widely available and carry a big punch. After the slide is racked, which loads a round from a removable magazine, the hammer is also cocked. Not safe to carry in this “cocked and locked” condition, no matter what they say! Double-action is better, as you may lower the hammer back down after racking slide. Then you may shoot and fully cycle the hammer by squeezing the trigger a full length. This action resembles shooting a revolver that has not been cocked. Cornfuzed yet?

Did Dirty Harry (as portrayed by Clint Eastwood) use a .44 Magnum Smith and Wesson revolver?

Well, yes and no. In the movie version, this weapon in a blued version was used in both 6” and 8” barrel versions, depending on the needs of a given scene. But as explained in the novel version, Inspector Callahan (Harry) loaded it with .44 Special rounds instead of Magnum rounds – which carry more powder. The .44 Special rounds – or cowboy loads – don’t over-penetrate, transfer energy to the target better, and “Harry” learned through trial and error that it’s much easier to get that second shot off with less barrel rise after discharge. Of course, it’s only a story.

What are the three most important rules of safe firearms handling?

· Always handle the firearm as if it were loaded, even when you know that it is not!

· Never point a firearm at anything that you don’t intend to shoot.

· Do not put your finger inside the trigger guard till you intend to shoot.

How should I safely store my firearms? [Except for a quick action safe used for primary home defense.]

· Unload firearm, and lock the ammo in a different, hidden location.

· Use a gun safe, and make the location secret and/or hard to get to.

· Use trigger locks even inside the gun safe as a second line of defense.

· *Safely dispose of anyone that has learned of your secret locations!

Only kidding.

True or False:

Guns only serve gun owners. False.

Non-gun owners are essentially allowed to freeload on the backs of gun guys. This is because the crooks and burglars never know who is packing a pistol, or who has that home defense shotgun ready to rack and rock. About half of Americans are gun owners, and thieves are chicken, by definition.

True or False:

Gun laws restricting firearms don’t work. True!

Criminals, by definition, don’t obey laws, they defy them. A crook will get a gun if he wants one. Law enforcement rarely enforces “straw purchase” laws, anyway; this is a true statistic. Burglaries are a chief source of guns in the wrong hands.

True or False:

If I don’t purchase a firearm in Maryland by October 1, 2013, I will:

· Be forced to visit State Police for permission;

· Be forced to pass a firearms training class at my own expense;

· Be fingerprinted like a criminal;

· Not be able to purchase magazines over 10-ten rounds capacity; and

· Not be able to purchase 54 specifically and generically named rifles.

UNFORTUNATELY ALL TRUE.

Lastly, if I already own a banned firearm, can I keep it, shoot it, hunt with it, and lawfully pass it down to my kids?

Thank God, YES

SRBmgr@gmail.com

Clutching Your Guns in Maryland - Activist Edition!

 

Clutching Your Guns in Maryland – Activist Edition!

Steven R. Berryman

 

[from The Tentacle - May 27th 2013]

Between now and October 1st is your last best chance to acquire firearms and ammunition before “the O’Malley Gun Ban” becomes fully implemented. Although the federal attempt to do much the same to all of these United States stalled in Congress, Marylanders will be treated to their own special tyranny.

This takes me back to my firearms roots; memories flash as I worry for future generations that may be treated oppressively as in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Respect for firearms and our God-given Constitutional protections, as afforded by our Founding Fathers in their eternal wisdom, has been a pet subject of mine for some 37 years, as I became a proud gun owner with eyes wide open at the earliest legal age.

At 18 I bought a .22 Magnum bolt-action rifle from a friend for plinking – legally without any paperwork needed. Purchased a 7mm Magnum Mark X shortly thereafter from Best Products with all of the proper gun transfer forms for a new purchase, and a lever action Model 1894 .44 Magnum rifle to boot.

On my 21st birthday I acquired a Smith & Wesson Model 39-2 9mm automatic pistol – nickel plated – from Herman’s Sporting goods in Rockville. And so it began.

Today I have purchased and sold many a classic firearms treasure. Some I have documented on the earliest pages of my gun blog www.MyFavoriteGunPics.blogspot.com.

Blogging came to me quite naturally well before 9/11, but really took on a life of its own then. Clearly firearms and the Second Amendment needed active protection in a “use it or lose it” fashion; so I actively obliged!

Before long the National Rifle Association’s Chris Cox asked me to write a local article for their NRA-ILA (Institute for Legislation Action) monthly publication. My picture was included along with that of featured Senator Richard Shelby (R) of Alabama.

Yet I digress...

I urge every capable Marylander who has ever had an urge to purchase a firearm to do so shortly – certainly before October 1st to avoid the nightmare. At that time, handguns will be next to impossible to obtain legally.

You would suffer a months’ long backlog of processing, fees, forced fingerprinting at a State Police barracks, mandatory hands-on training at your expense at a certified facility – not even close to being available at the present, and shortages of the guns themselves due to demand.

As long as you have placed your orders prior to the exaction date of the new Maryland legislation, you will be okay to lawfully possess a handgun ahead of the new restrictions.

Collect ammunition in the calibers you intend to use (consider .22, .40, .223, .308, and various 12-gauge shotgun shells) any time in the future, even before you obtain the rifle, shotgun, or pistol itself. This will be hard, as shelves are bare and product is rationed to retailers because of Department of Homeland Security contracts written in order to deny you an ability to stockpile. In any type of civil insurrection, ammunition would be an ideal item to barter with.

As we now know from the recent Internal Revenue Service investigation and other scandals in our government, what happens behind the screen of power – which is proven to be anything but transparent – will not be explained to you. When it is, it will be a distortion. We must judge by what we observe, as opposed to what we are told, and deduce our actions from that perspective.

Steps are being taken to disarm the American people. Government fears the people and seeks to control them more with each passing opportunity. Checks and balances and oversight by Congress have failed and have been corrupted.

Something is going to happen. Something the government projects and anticipates, but will not explain. A breakdown of society? A financial disaster causing a run on banks and grocery stores as individual states become insolvent and seek aid that is not available. U.S. currency devalued and refused as the worlds “reserve currency?” Inflation causing massive food shortages? Continued moral disintegration and flight from religion that binds honest men?

Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins has shared on several occasions that local law enforcement cannot protect the people all by itself. Law enforcement has become reactive and is losing an ability to be protective by the day. The people must become more self-sufficient as budgets are cut and meager resources are spread thin. Currently our Sheriff’s Department is already covering for Maryland State Police shortages in certain areas.

To compound the problem, Britain’s MI-6 Military Chief (their FBI) recently stated: “We cannot protect you [the people] against Muslim terror attacks.” This is all the more chilling as a London soldier was beheaded in a terrorist attack and it took the Bobbies 20 minutes to respond.

Followers of the Obama Administration’s agenda have noted that socialist tendencies now are permeating our great nation. We are becoming more like Europe every day. Our pattern of accepting illegal immigration is exactly like theirs. Sweden is under armed attack almost daily now; cars ablaze.

The future will belong to those most prepared, and most aware of where we are headed. Activism in all forms is essential to protect our greatness against a tide that would dilute our culture and make us a tad bit too global.

Wake up. You have been warned. Tell a friend.

 

       srbmgr@gmail.com

 

 

Forward this!..............  >>>>>   http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5801

Left Unsaid by “Obama on Guns”

Left Unsaid by “Obama on Guns”

Steven R. Berryman

from The Tentacle, January 21st 2013
 

http://thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5577 

Last Wednesday the president conducted a “high noon” news conference to announce and amplify upon 23 “executive actions” concerning gun ownership in America. Children were used as props; the resolutions and legislative suggestions were to propel a liberal anti-gun agenda. The centerpiece ban would not have stopped the psychotic shooter in Connecticut.

An “assault weapons ban” and limitations on gun magazines to a capacity of 10 rounds certainly would have been proposed sometime in 2013 with or without a showcase tragedy that had been foreshadowed.

[By now, sophisticated readers of TheTentacle.com will surely be aware that the term “assault rifle” is simply a prejudicial, made-up term to confuse low-information citizens about differences between machine guns and semi-automatic rifles that happen to look alike.]

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is proposing similar gun-ban legislation in Annapolis, and Del. Michael Hough (R., Frederick 3B) reminds us on his weekly informative video that “there have been zero murders by assault weapon (a misnomer) in the State of Maryland. The governor is grandstanding to position himself for a 2016 Democratic presidential primary against his New York counterpart Andrew Cuomo.

I was struck by the news conference, not so much for the predictable opportunism, but by the fact that the presidential pronouncements missed so much fertile ground had the real goal really been about preventing another Newtown from ever happening again. Some of the obvious items that could and should have been considered or clarified include:

·       Access to guns: The “universal background check” proviso is meaningless if those not qualified under law to own a firearm can borrow or steal one quickly.

·       The personal responsibility of the gun owners themselves is critical to a real solution.

Gun-safe minimum security standards should be set and mandated as a requirement of the ownership of certain guns. Criminal penalties must be determined for those allowing easy access of firearms to others. Young Ryan Lonza would not have gotten into his mother’s guns had they been stored in a Liberty Safe!

I would also recommend a second locked and separated storage cabinet for the ammunition element of the equation.

Also left unspoken, but foreshadowed, was the element of universal background checks that provides a loophole – person-to-person transfers and sales of guns. This one is tricky; it is also known as the gun-show loophole. What of a father wanting to hand down his guns to his own children? Yes, a gun store would need to handle the transaction under a new law. This will not go down quietly, especially in “red states.”

And getting back to background checks, exactly how is the doctor/patient relationship going to be compromised if the onus of evil detection becomes part of the doctor’s job? Are all general practitioners trained on psychological screening?

What would be the legal liability of a doctor compromising a sacred oath of the privileged relationship? What would constitute proper disclosure on the side of the patient or the doctor? Would the doctor be required to submit information on a patient that seemed to be withholding information!

Now for the medical/mental disqualification for gun ownership. Exactly which conditions and to what severity will automatically prohibit gun ownership? How about a one-time consultation about hyperactivity or obsessive-compulsive disorders? If a patient confessed a passing thought about suicide, however mild, is that to be an automatic disqualifier? How about an eating disorder?

Seems like a pretty tangled web we are weaving, perhaps conceding too much power to the state via the possible medical requirements alone.

Ironically of those mentally ill, statistically they are far, far more likely to be victims than they are to be criminals.

Now, back to Topic A, the gun ban itself. In Maryland alone there are over 10,000 legally owned firearms defined as assault weapons in the military-appearance sense. (There are many more than that with the same specifications – caliber and semi-automatic actions – in circulation with hunters and target shooters.) Will current citizen ownership of assault weapons be permitted as a “grandfather clause?” Will the resale of such grandfathered guns be permitted?

Lastly, a limitation on the capacity of a guns magazine, or clip, to one that holds but 10 rounds is bad law. By definition and usage, these clips can be owned in as many multiples as one wants, and can be duct taped together for even quicker reloading. This would not hinder the speed, methods, and actions of a deranged killer seeking maximum hurt.

Conclusion: We already have the right gun laws on the books; it’s a matter of enforcement. What has been proposed, and what has been – so far left out – does not afford much hope that we are pursuing gun law changes for the right reasons.

Could it be that our government is uncomfortable with an armed citizenry?

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srbmgr@gmail.com

            For the original post, see this link:   http://thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5577

            For the related preceding blog, see: 
http://mediahooker1.blogspot.com/2013/01/normal-0-channeling-rod-serling-steven-r.html

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