Baker family by Charles Ommanny courtesy slate.com

Early last year, a British-born photographer named Charles Ommanney traveled around the U.S. photographing Americans with their guns, on an assignment for the German magazine Stern. Instead of photographing the subjects at a firing range or at an NRA meeting, he wanted to capture them in their homes. He was seeking a sense of “normalcy” and trying avoid the “predictable NRA-bashing” that is often common in such projects. He was surprised at how easy it was to get people to let him take their picture, saying if he tried to do that in England they’d look at him like he was a lunatic. But for the Americans it was in no way abnormal . . .

because for these folks, their guns are a “perfectly normal extension of their lives.” Slate has a handful of interesting photos for you to look at, including one of sometime-TTAG contributor and friend-of-RF Dan Baum.

A 54-year-old employee of a for-profit South Carolina college was arrested today after she texted her daughter to report that she “could hear gun shots being fired inside the school.” She sent the message to her daughter April, who was in New York, and when the woman didn’t respond to her daughter’s reply texts, the daughter called police. They raced over to Virginia College and found no evidence of any shooting. When police located and questioned the woman, who had told her daughter she was “hiding for her own safety,” she told police that she “sent the text as an April Fools joke and that she has done such jokes on April Fools in the past.” I’m sure she won’t be doing similar jokes in the future, as she’s now been booked into the county jail on multiple charges, including aggravated breach of peace and disturbing a school.

An Lance Corporal marksman with Britain’s Coldstream Guards killed six Taliban insurgents with a single bullet while on a mission in December, according to a story by AWR Hawkins over at Breitbart. The LCpl took the shot from about a half mile away, hitting an insurgent wearing an explosive vest, which detonated and killed the man wearing it along with five men standing nearby. The soldier, who was not identified for security reasons, apparently also took out a Taliban machine-gunner at a range of about 4,400 feet with the first shot he fired on his tour of duty. One shot, six kills. That’s doing it the right way.

Typical media FUD in an opinion piece over at Liberty Voice in response to the recently passed Georgia law that allows carry in previously disallowed places such as churches and bars (if you’re not drinking). Apparently Gabby Giffords has termed the new law the “guns everywhere” bill, and the cynic in me wonders if she managed to come up with that by herself. The piece goes on to say that the NRA “got everything it wanted” in this bill (not true), and that “if a carrier tries to go through airport security the TSA has no rights to stop, detain, or confiscate the weapons” (also not true; it’s still illegal to take a gun through security). But the best part is where the author says that the new law “even gives felons a right to carry with protection to use a ‘Stand Your Ground’ defense in criminal cases.” Lies and half truths, the gun-grabber’s stock in trade.

One of the most important tools in your range bag is a staple gun, but have you ever thought of weaponizing one? Well, Jerry Miculek did. Complete with laser sight, flashlight, reflex optical sight, and 100-round magazine. The ergonomics look like they could use a little work, and the accessory attachment method is clearly a work in progress (I hear the final edition will use Spongebob duct tape), but still a dangerous weapon in the hands of a trained operator. Get some!

OK, obviously my title lied. One little April Fool’s joke. And Happy Birthday Mom.

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63 COMMENTS

  3. I hope for Jerry’s sake that OSHA doesn’t see that video. Pinning the safety back is a big no-no. You’ve got to hold it back with your fingers if you want to be legal.

    It is always fun opening up on the new guy when he’s in the kybo with the framing nailer.

  4. > she’s now been booked into the county jail on multiple charges,

    Good. What an idiot. Actually, anyone who does April 1 jokes are fools, but her even more so.

    • I fail to understand the appeal. Seems like anyone who out of middle school shouldn’t partake, because it’s idiotic and immature.

    • Ask not who the steel rings for…it rings for you!

      Those flechets need some fins to stabilize…shoot the bad guy up against a wall…..and he never falls down. So when exactly does he cease to be a threat?

  7. 1 for 6. I knew that the brits military budget was tight, but 1 for 6.

    Happy birthday Matt’s Mom. Got any embarrassing photo’s of Matt to post on the site for us?

  8. i thought i was reading about a call of duty kill cam when i read 1 bullet 6 kills. that is very impressive. way to save on ammo.

  9. I have my family convinced on Facebook that I got a tattoo today. My mom went apeshit. I’m like – Mom, I’m 37. Let it go.

  10. Matts Moms birthday is today? I had a cousin who’s birthday was April 1. Did your mom ever live in Texas, Matt?

  11. There is no stipulations in the Georgia law that you “not drink”. Where are you guys getting this from?

    • The actual restriction is that a licensed person may not discharge a firearm while under the influence of alcohol. The law says nothing about consumption while armed.

    • Yes, I wish everyone would stop getting this wrong. It’s popped up in all kinds of articles from the AJC to some paper in the UK, but I would expect better from TTAG. There is no law against drinking while carrying in GA and there hasn’t been since 2008.

  12. JWM, I’ve known Matt just about all his life so I’ve got plenty of embarrassing pics of him. As for his mom, I’m not sure I even know her real name. She’s always just been Mrs. ‘matt’s mom’. Almost used the family name there. And then everyone would know who Matt really is.

  14. Don’t check out the comments section of the Slate article if you want to be able to sleep tonight. There is a troll on there responding to everyones comments spewing false data and saying any time someone posts real data that it is dubious in nature. He says he owns guns but we need strict gun control like most of the rest of the world.

  15. Here is the original series that the Slate article draws from:

    http://charlesommanney.com/STORIES/Gun-Control/6/thumbs/

    The Miami realtor has quite the collection, including a KRISS Vector. Considering the prices around here, he need only make a few sales here and there to afford some pricey weaponry.

    That being said, I doubt the realtor OC’s like that. He probably wears a jacket or has a long shirt. OC is not legal in Florida except in the “camping/hunting/fishing” circumstance.

    The original series seems objective enough, I’m looking for the accompanying Stern article. The photos alone are technically great. Subject-wise I like it too since it portrays POTG of all walks of life, and not just what the intended audience (Europeans) think US gun owners are, which is to say they probably think all US gun owners are the ” ‘Murica!” type.

    The photographer is local to Miami according to his bio. I followed him on his social channels. He’s got a small following so even 1 new follower is going to make him go “wow a follower!” – maybe I can strike up a dialog with him and get his own perspective.

    • I agree. Great pictures done in a way that worked to normalize gun ownership to a culture that is very different from ours in that regard.

  16. “The LCpl took the shot from about a half mile away, hitting an insurgent wearing an explosive vest, which detonated and killed the man wearing it along with five men standing nearby. ”

    HA! Man, I wonder if he expected that. I was thinking it was going to be a through and through like Indiana Jones, but the explosive vest is even better.

    As to the photos… I don’t like using guns as accessories. At the range, sure, but posting with guns at the home seems a little like posing with a rake… kinda weird unless you happen to be raking at the time.

    • Posing with a rake? Funny you should mention that. My wife paints….pictures. I’ve asked her to do a remake of the famous painting “American Gothic” but with the couple holding ARs, not farm implements. She still hasn’t agreed, but I’m hoping.

  18. Good on that Brit, if I had to choose a foreign military member to be on my side in all out fight I’d choose them. They did give us Bear Grylls after all. This news also makes me wonder what explosives the vest was using. C-4 won’t explode typically if shot, there may be limits to that. As for the lady at the college, shame on you! How could that ever be construed as funny?

    • The amazing luck of the shoot, and the key to the newsworthiness, was that his bullet hit the trigger for the suicide vest. A bullet through the explosives would not have set it off.

      • Depends. Hit one of the detonators and whoosh. Detonators are just a tad touchy about being smacked, whacked or similarly abused. Also, the bullet strike could have made haji squeeze the pickle. Either way, Taliwacker kabobs for all!!!

  19. “But for these people, there was nothing in any shape or form abnormal about me wanting to do this; [their guns were] a perfectly normal extension of their lives.” That’s the message that needs to get out.

  20. Kyle Cassidy published “Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes” in 2007 with the same concept. It’s available on amazon. Both pieces of work are very interesting and insightful though.

  23. From The Telegraph:

    A British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded, The Telegraph has learnt.

    The 20-year-old marksman, a Lance Corporal in the Coldstream Guards, hit his target from 930 yards (850 metres) away, killing the suicide bomber and five others around him caught in the blast.

    Lt Col Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, said the unnamed sharpshooter prevented a major attack by the Taliban, as a second suicide vest packed with 20kg (44lbs) of explosives was found nearby.

    The same sniper, with his first shot on the tour of duty, killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards (1,340m).

    Several hundred British and Afghan soldiers were carrying out an operation in December when they were engaged in a gun battle with 15 to 20 insurgents.

    “The guy was wearing a vest. He was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch,” said Lt Col Slack. “He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.”
    “They were in contact and he was moving to a firing position. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said, ‘I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber’. The rest of them were killed in the blast.”

    It is understood the L/Cpl was using an L115A3 gun, the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon.

    • Don’t know how they determined the shot placement on the switch. Maybe a Dead-man’s Switch?

      • Six with one bullet is what strategists would say epitomizes “economy of force.”
        Muslims would say it epitomizes,”Inshallah.”

  24. I’m wondering if by “trigger” they are meaning the catalyst that actually causes the explosives to go boom. Typically most devices will have some sort of trigger that causes the primary charge to detonate. He could have had a dead mans switch, a lot of the time their will be a handler and the bomber. If the bomber gets cold feet he still goes boom braise the handler is watching from a safe distance. Even on ieds there is typically some sort of back up so that if one trigger is done away with there’s still a chance it could detonate.

  25. I’m sure they’re lovely people, but like most people in the West they need to go on a diet. That is a god awful picture and they’re doing their children a grave disservice by not caring about their health.

  27. their guns are a “perfectly normal extension of their lives.”

    And this is *precisely* the point that those who have no experience with firearms and/or are hostile toward private ownership and use of firearms simply can not comprehend. We may as well be on a different planet, so far removed is this reality from their experience and point of view.

    And this is precisely why we must continue to do all we can to present firearms as “perfectly normal” and simply something that is a part of our lives, and not come off like a bunch of raving nut cases, or do patently idiotic things, but as “going full Yeager” and thereby harming any possibility that we can help others come to regard firearms as, in fact, a normal part of life, even if not their’s personally, at least t hey wont’ be as hostile and automatically inclined to be anti-gun.

  28. Millicent Hunter- The look on her face holding that Shotgun says it all. Dont come here looking for trouble.

  30. Bit mixed on the pics, it has already been done and the images WILL be pirated and used for all manner of crap.

    Asa for the A1 joke woman, I would wager she and her daughter fall into the category of leftard. They clearly both need smacked a few dozen times, although I doubt that will fix them either.

  31. “The LCpl took the shot from about a half mile away, hitting an insurgent wearing an explosive vest, which detonated and killed the man wearing it along with five men standing nearby. The soldier, who was not identified for security reasons, apparently also took out a Taliban machine-gunner at a range of about 4,400 feet with the first shot he fired on his tour of duty. One shot, six kills. That’s doing it the right way.”

    Lewis Machine and Tool baby!!!

  32. That Coldstream Guard gets some serious respect from me. Six in one shot? That’s how we do it over here. When we do arm ourselves, we don’t mess about. CoH (Corporal of Horse) Craig Harrison holds the record for the longest recorded sniper kill in history, two Taliban in a machine-gun nest. He claims to have had to aim almost to the bottom of the scope to hit them. L115A3, I think. 338 Lapua, it’s chambered in. Nice gun.

  33. That staple gun video was a funny video, but I wouldn’t call it an April fools prank. Jerry did what he always does. No camera tricks. Just put multiple hits on target really fast.

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