I’ve been considering ankle carry as a possible solution to the concealment challenges posed by my workplace Dockers/button-down attire. As a medical professional, I’m extremely mobile; I sit and walk constantly and have up-close-and-personal interactions with dozens of people each day. Tuckable holsters work well, but they’re uncomfortable and I’m extremely reluctant to change my entire wardrobe to accomodate a pistol. Pocket carry works—until I sit down. So I ordered up a Model 53 Thumb Break Ankle Holster from Renegade. The telephone-only customer service was excellent. The holster arrived in two days. The price was right ($57.95). Saying that . . .
Gear Review: Model 53 Cozy Partner Ankle Holster
CDC: More Guns, Less Death
The CDC, or Centers for Disease Control, keep track of the “cause of death” for every known fatality in the United States. They update the numbers every once in a while and publish them on their website, where Linoge over at Walls of the City grabs them and whips up a handy chart for us lazy bastards. For the third year in a row the total number of firearm related deaths (including suicide and accidental) has increased. BUT taking into account the population the rate of firearm deaths has leveled off or even declined slightly. So while there are more deaths you’re less likely to be included in that number. Even more interesting . . .
ATF Death Watch 85: NRA Veep Wayne LaPierre Quotes Farago
NRA President Wayne LaPierre is standing guard against the gun grabbers, apparently. In an editorial of the same name, LaPierre [finally] takes on the Fast and Furious scandal (a.k.a., Gunwalker). That’s the ATF’s black bag job that’s implicated an entire alphabet soup of federal agencies in a criminal conspiracy to put U.S. gun store guns in the hands of drug thugs, who eventually used them to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata (amongst others). As to the why of the matter, Mr. LaPierre quotes your humble correspondent, tapping directly into my early ignorance.
Florida SWAT Team Swoops on Bikers at Machine Gun Preacher Preview
“A movie about a biker-turned-preacher drew bikers, in leathers, to a preview screening in Winter Park And that earned the attention of a Winter Park Police Department SWAT team, six of whom interrupted the Monday night showing of ‘Machine Gun Preacher,'” blogs.orlandosentinel.com reports. “[The SWAT team] entered the crowded theater, pistols and assault rifles drawn, and arrested three 40something year old men in Warlocks biker gear.” Skipping to the good bit: “Police identified the three men as members of the Warlocks gang and that determined that no laws had been broken, no charges filed, but asked the bikers to leave the theater.” You pay for a militarized police force, you get a militarized police force. And how.
Quote of the Day: Calderon Repeats the Assault Weapon Lie Often Enough Edition
Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s Council of the America’s speech: “The sales of assault weapons to criminals must be stopped. The increase in drug related violence coincides with the year in which the assault weapons ban expired here in the United States in 2004. In less than five years my government has seized more than 110,000 weapons from the criminals. Eight-five percent of them were sold here in the United States. And there are more than 80,000 gun shops in the American territory, only in the border with Mexico.” See above. Or click here for STRATFOR’s annihilation of the “Iron River” myth. Well, attempted annihilation. Truth be told, the overwhelming majority of the U.S. guns flowing to the cartels “seeped” from American military and police sales. If Mexico released the full gun data (as they used to), we’d could tell him the exact percentage.
$1m Colt Revolver. Well Almost . . .
The above handgun—a 9-inch barrel 1836 Colt with attached loading lever —sold for $977,500 at Heritage Auctions. “The revolver is the finest known surviving example of Samuel Colt’s first revolver, produced by the legendary gunsmith in Paterson, N.J. in 1836,” the auction house reveals. And it was worth . . . exactly what someone paid for it.
Question of the Day: What’s a Good Drinking Game for Tonight’s Top Shot?
I’m going with a shot every time Colby takes his hands off his hips. You? [Note: the above photo is the only one ever taken that doesn’t show his teeth.]
Print Your Own AR-15 Receiver at Home, Annoy Cory Doctorow and the Brady Bunch
Back at Penn State one of my friends has had an interesting idea percolating in his head for a while. The machine shop on campus has some rapid prototyping machines where you feed it a 3D model of something in a computer file and it will happily “print” that object for you, turning a virtual rendering into a real world (and metal) object. My friend’s idea was to model a 1911 receiver using the software, print it, and then smuggle it off campus before the local cops got wind of a student using University machines to make guns. My friend eventually gave up on the idea (and now writes for TheFirearmBlog, actually), but it turns out someone else took the master plan to the next step. And then released the files online.
Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Leah Louise Porter
RF aroused the ire of some Glock-lovers yesterday when he posted some hearsay about a blocky gun in a knapsack “going off” near some kids in a car. Given that the story was relayed by someone’s best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend who heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw the whole thing happen near thirty-one flavors, it’s probably reasonable to doubt that the story’s entirely accurate. This story, however, seems to have a little more substance behind it…
NY Daily News on Bulletproof Fashion: “God help us”
I’ve got news for the NY Daily News: there’s no such thing as “bulletproof.” There’s bullet resistant. Somehow I think the paper’s resistant to that idea, as well. Writer Joanna Malloy’s got her tongue planted so firmly in her cheek it looks like she’s giving Peter North oral sex. “[Miguel Caballero] may have found the answer to gun violence – stylish clothing for men and women that is completely bulletproof. God help us . . . You can order your chic shields ‘mild’ – they’ll stop a bullet going at 1,120 feet per second, like a 9-mm.; a ‘medium,’ which they say will stop a .357 magnum bullet; and a ‘high,’ which Caballero claims will stop the fusillade from an Uzi. Best of all . . .
Somali Kids Win AK-47s, Hand Grenades in Koran Contest
Time sure does fly when you’re living in a failed state. Somalia recently held its annual al-Shabab sponsored children’s Koran recital competition. And once again this year the winners were awarded AK-47s, cash and hand grenades. I’m not sure if National Talk Like a Pirate Day was observed in Somalia yesterday. If not, they should probably consider it as piracy is about the most lucrative profession to which a Somali youngster can aspire. You have to wonder if the al Qaida-associated group would consider giving extra credit to kiddies throwing in the occasional ‘arrgh’, ‘matey’ or ‘scurvy dog’. Unless, of course, the child is a girl in which case she’s more likely to be buried up to her neck and stoned to death…
Mainstream Media Gun Cluelessness of the Day: Stock Photo Edition
This lulz-worthy photo appears next to the Syracuse Post Standard’s on-line editorial opposing national concealed carry reciprocity. According to the leading lights of syracuse.com, it’s an “alarming proposal.” No shock there, but let’s focus on that pic. Can, um, someone tell me how the pictured carry method might work? Which hand do you draw with? Does this only work for contortionists? Never mind. It’s only an illustration, after all. But we can’t blame the paper’s photogs for this public display of editorial excellence. No, for that we can probably credit the site’s director of photography, Nick Lisi, who pulled the pic from the unintentionally hilariously named thinkstock.com. Sure, most Syracusans won’t have a clue as to the pic’s cluelessness. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a collective coffee-spit at Nick’s expense.