Tag Archives: gun

To Doc from Kate

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A .41 caliber double barrel 1866 Remington derringer counted as one of John Henry “Doc” Holliday’s last earthly possessions is coming home.

The gun, a gift from his common-law wife, Katherine “Big Nose Kate” Horony-Cummings, is engraved on the grip’s spine “To Doc from Kate” and was among the pauper gunfighter’s belongings when he died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado in 1887, aged 36, of tuberculosis.

The local Glenwood Springs Historical Society and Frontier Museum recently made a move to pick up the gun at auction. The gun, upon the gambler/dentist/gunslinger’s death, had passed to a local bartender as partial payment for the funeral and remained a family heirloom until it was sold in 1968.

Now it has come home.

Will Russian AKs and Korean war surplus M1s come ashore post-Trump?

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Some are hopeful the new management in Washington will be able to lift barriers to overseas firearm imports erected over the years, though the going could be slow.

President Donald Trump on Friday said it was “very early” to tell if the United States should lift sanctions on Russia, but that he seeks a “great relationship” with Putin and Russia.

On the campaign trail, Trump’s platform on trade concentrated on American jobs while floating the possibility of a tariff on all imported goods to help ease the current trade deficit. However, the Republican’s position on gun rights promised to curtail federal gun bans and limits. The two concepts, when balanced against one another, leaves open the possibility of action on foreign-made guns currently off-limits to buyers in the U.S.

I talked to industry insiders on both sides of the pond, the ATF, and the International Trade Commission to get the scoop on if bans going back to the 1960s could be reshaped.

More in my column at Guns.com

When things are so bad that you have to send it to the people

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So in California, which has had an assault weapon ban going all the way back to 1989 and yet still have mass-shootings with California-compliant firearms, lawmakers tried to pass over 20 legislative actions on increased gun control this session.

A baker’s dozen of these made it through the legislature in Dem-heavy votes of which Gov. Jerry Brown signed 7 into law and returned five with vetoes.

Since gun rights groups and Republican lawmakers couldn’t derail these, a group of gun owners on a gun forum (Calguns) got together and decided, “Let’s try for a ballot referendum to repeal these…”

And that’s exactly what they are doing.

With a pressing deadline of Sept.29, they are trying to get 450,000 signatures on 7 different propositions. Of course, California has 13 million gun owners, which by definition should all be capable of registering to vote, so it’s not far-fetched.

I’ve spoken with the man behind the effort, a San Diego tech company executive, and it’s a hail Mary play with a lot of spunk behind it.

More over in my column at Guns.com here and here.

Its nice to feel loved

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Back in August I wrote a piece for Guns.com on a fringe gun control group, the National Gun Victims Action Council, and their call to have the Tracking Point rifle banned because it was so dangerous, and so accurate that ‘only a terrorist would buy it.’

I am not making this up, guys.

Well, other gun writers went on to write other pieces, so I am not taking credit for this, but, it seems that so many people reached out to the NGVAC to inform them as to the lunacy of their football bat logic that they felt the need to post an open letter to Guns.com, Outdoor Life, Ammoland and Lee Williams at the Herald Trib.

Again, not making this up, guys.

From their letter:

“In defending insurrection-style weapons, you, Guns.com, Outdoor Life, Lee Williams and Ammoland are actually working against your own interests. Do you really think the first sniper attack with a TrackingPoint weapon won’t force the gun laws you fear including regulation of the military weapons you defend? Defending weapons like TrackingPoint’s Smart Scope Military-Style Precision-Guided sniper rifles is practically inviting the government to take your guns–and they will—and you will have done it to yourselves.”

I really don’t have anything to say to that flawless logic.

because-potato-that-s-whyFellow gun writer Lee Williams, also dimed out by NGVAC, did some checking and found that their tax exempt status was revoked back in May.

‘Doh

As Lee writes, “Maybe the good folks at the National Gun Victims Action Council  should focus a bit more on their bookkeeping and a bit less on their correspondence.”

What is in YOUR range bag? I go through mine

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While updating the contents of my range bag last week, I took a mini-inventory of its labyrinth contents. Now my grandmother was something of a hoarder when it came to her giant purses back in the day. She had something for every occasion. After growing up as a kid in central Europe during WWII, you can guess why. Well, in retrospect, I am my grandmother’s grandson when you look at my range bag

In my defense, I have been shooting for over twenty years. Have been an NRA certified instructor in many disciplines for most of that time, and spend what could be considered a lot of time compared to the average person on the range. About once every few weeks I will go through my bag, take out the remnants of the latest ranges (spent brass, scratched safety glasses, sunflower seed packages, etc.), and evaluate anything I think I need to add.

This week I photographed what I found after discarding the pile of trash and junk inevitable accumulates.

Would you like to know more about my range bag hoarding?

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Read the rest in my article at Firearms Talk

 

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