After all the original Liberator was designed as a throwaway ‘gun to get a gun’ that could be dropped to resistance fighters behind enemy lines during World War Two. It seems that some overseas governments may be scared of letting this genie get out of the bottle.

As crazy as it sounds, this is for real.

Read the rest in my article in Firearms Talk.com

Shotguns are not new. They have been around for hundreds of years, it’s just that in the past century, or so we have decided to increase their magazine capacity. Early shotguns were single shots, with the double barrel being brought on the scene to increase magazine capacity by 100%.  In the late 19th century, the first tubular magazine shotguns came out. They allowed faster follow-up shots as well as being more tactically sound in a combat situation. Today almost every serious rifle in the world uses detachable box magazines– so isn’t it time that the shotgun caught up with the times? Black Aces thinks so.
Read the rest in my article at Firearms Talk.com

Outside of the small village of Silver Cliff (pop 529) in Marinette County, there was a small cabin. A rural, back-to-nature way of life is central to this part of the country as the area’s two main rivers, the Peshtigo and Menominee, and many lakes, streams, and forests make it an outdoor destination. As reported by the IBTimes, WPRI, the Green Bay Gazette and others, it was here that 74-year old Gerre Ninnemann and his 71-year old wife Marie were spending a quiet spring day relaxing. That was until Gerre noticed their pet dog barking and went to see what the commotion was all about….

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Inside the case that I had grown to casually inspect every time I passed through the Big Box, I had gotten used to not seeing anything more technologically advanced than a bolt-action rifle or pump-action shotgun. Both of these concepts had come about in the 1880s. Sure, there was a lot of polymer and synthetics in the guns that were there, but you couldn’t really call them modern. With everyone afraid that pending legislation would forbid access to more current designs, the modern sporting rifle had vanished from store shelves in January 2013.

Now, five months into the year, to walk by this case and see no less than four semi-auto centerfire rifles with pistol grips, detachable box magazines, and accessory rails swelled by heart.

Finally, supply was starting to catch up to demand….or so it would seem…..Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

In 1954, RSAF Enfield and BSA began production of the 7.62x51mm NATO caliber L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle for the British military to replace their long-serving stocks of Short Magazine Lee Enfield Rifles, a design that had lasted the Brits for nearly 70 years. The L1A1 was a version of the Belgian FN FAL rifle, set up in semi-auto and using SAE or ‘inch-pattern’ templates rather than metric. It proved a hard serving rifle and saw use in the Suez, Malaysia, Aden, Northern Ireland and the Falklands as well as being adopted by close allies Canada, Australia, and New Zealand among others. However by the late 1970s, the L1A1 was a bit long in the tooth, and well, a bit long overall (45-inchs) as well. With most of NATO at the time already using smaller, 5.56mm-chambered rifles such as the M16, FAMAS, and HK33, the UK decided to get on the smaller caliber/smaller weapon bandwagon.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

(Which one of these stalls would you pick? If you choose the one with the dead wall on the strong hand side that your firearm is on…good choice!)

But with all the recent interest in prepper long guns, it’s important to remember that these rifles are not brand new designs by any stretch.  The AR7, the Air Forces’ favorite backpack .22, has been around for over fifty years, looks almost identical to the newest survival rifle offerings and, unsurprisingly, is still going strong.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

From the article, “Flyers urging violence against law enforcement in service of the “insurrection” were commonplace during the riots.  The flyers were written and printed by Communist organizations—which seemed ironic, given the fall of the Berlin Wall only two-and-a-half years before.  Strangely enough, the El Salvadoran Communist guerrilla group FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) has an ongoing presence in Los Angeles, where they participate in the city’s annual May Day parade, carrying their red banners.

On May 3, with the military taking a lower profile, gang members began to show more defiance.  Rumors were flying around that the military had no ammunition or wasn’t allowed to shoot.  We were very concerned about what might happen the next night when Mayor Tom Bradley was expected to lift the nighttime curfew.

As fate would have it, a gang member wannabe tried to run over a team of Guardsmen at a checkpoint.   On his third pass to try to kill the soldiers, they fired 10 rounds at the tires of the onrushing car.  He pressed on towards the checkpoint.  So, the soldiers shifted fire, killing him with two bullets to the head and one in the shoulder.  The next morning, the gang members wouldn’t even look us in the eye as we made a limited number of patrols.  They knew the Guard could shoot to kill.”

Read the rest here