Guns & Ammo

In October, 1992 I began working for an attorney, Jerry, who used to work for the NRA.  He was heavily into guns – even had a safe put in his basement for all his guns.  We would go to the range during business hours or on the weekend.  He was the one who infected me with an interest in guns which went beyond my normal intense interest in the military.

 In the past, I’ve had a few guns.

 Beretta 92FS.  This was the first gun I bought, when I was working for Jerry.  It’s a 9mm automatic, and replaced the Colt 1911 .45 as the US military’s handgun of choice.  It comes with a double-stacked magazine holding 15 rounds, and I secured a few extra mags, and an inside the belt holster.  It’s also the gun Riggs (Mel Gibson) uses in the “Lethal Weapon” movies.  At some later point I sold it.

 AR15.  The civilian, semi-auto version of the M-16.  My version had the standard barrel and jacket, making it look like an M-16.  I fired it once, shortly after purchasing it in 1993 (right before the assault gun ban went into effect).  It fires .223, aka 5.56mm.  I sold it to Jerry.

 .32 Revolver.  My dad’s brothers were cops, so they gave him this gun, and he had a DC (!) gun permit for it.  Unfortunately, it was a small, underpowered gun.  Compared to the Beretta, the sound was “pop!” and the recoil nonexistent; with the ear protection on the impression is of firing a cap gun.  Not only that, the permit was non-transferable and not valid for any other gun, i.e. worthless.  I ended up selling it with my dad’s OK.

 At this point, I only own two:

 Mauser Kar98K.  A few years after buying the AR15, I bought this one.  This is the standard infantry rifle of the German Army during WWII, in 7.92mm, best known in the US as 8mm Mauser.  It has a 5 round internal magazine, typically fed by stripper clips.  The recoil is noticeable but not too bad.

            Arguably, the Mauser rifle deserves a blog entry of its own.  The design was perfected in 1898 with the Gewehr 98 model, which served the German Army throughout WWI.  In the 1930s, the K98 model was designed, a compromise between the longer Gewehr and the shorter carbine.  Even the US copied it to make the 1903 Springfield (they had to pay a royalty to Mauser).  So many countries used a Mauser variant that it might be easier simply to name the ones which didn’t.  The notable non-Germans were the Israelis, Yugoslavians, Chinese, Russians (captured from the Germans – and supplied to Soviet satellites as late as the Vietnam war), Portugal, Norway, and even France. 

            Ages before I got my rifle, had been collecting WWII German militaria.  I had the ammo pouches (black leather) and the bayonet.  Sure enough, the pair of pouches fit 12 stripper clips of 8mm Mauser (60 rounds) and the bayonet slipped right on. 

 Walther PP.  Jerry gave this to me.  The PPK (K = “kurz” or short) is the better known variety of this gun, which comes from Germany.  It’s .380 ACP, just short of 9mm.  James Bond carried the PPK, and Hitler shot himself with a PPK, so it’s not an obscure gun.  Personally, my preference would be for a Luger, but I’ve never been able to afford one.

 Revolvers.  I never really liked revolvers, never had any interest in a .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum, Dirty Harry notwithstanding.  “Lethal Weapon” gives the clear example: the young guy, Riggs (Gibson) uses the Beretta, while “I’m getting too old for this shit” Murtaugh (Glover) still carries his revolver.  And don’t get me started on single action revolvers; last I had one was a toy cap gun as a kid.

 Shotguns.  I never really got into shotguns, whether for hunting or “combat”.  All I can say is that a 12 gauge has a heavy kick to it.  I never really got into skeet shooting.

 Ammo.  Aside from shotgun shells (and slugs), the main deal is FMJ vs. JHP, regular bullets (full metal jacket) vs. jacketed hollow points.  What I’d typically do is get a single box of (expensive) Cor-Bon JHP for self-defense and rely on tons of surplus or reloaded FMJ for target practice.  The hollowpoints have a hollow point (obviously) which is designed to expand into a mushroom shape when striking human flesh, doing considerably more damage (!) than a regular bullet which might simply pass through the body. 

            But by the same token, against body armor a hollowpoint would be useless – it would expand against the vest instead of penetrating it.  Thus to call hollowpoints “cop killer” bullets is stupid.  Really what would qualify as such are armor-piercing bullets, which would go right through a bulletproof vest.  Such vests, though, tend to be designed to stop handgun rounds (up to .357 magnum) and not so much even against rifle rounds.  Rifle rounds tend to have twice the velocity of pistol rounds.  Only Type III and IV body armor are proof against rifle rounds, only Type IV against armor piercing rounds.

 Class III.  All of these were/are semi-auto, or in the case of the Mauser, bolt-action.  I’ve been to a Class III shoot at which various wealthy non-drug-dealers brought a variety of fully automatic weapons: an MG-34, an MG-42 (on tripod), a Browning .30, a Lewis, and maybe a few more I can’t recall.  These require a special license from the BATF, but the main obstacle is price:  there is no such thing as a cheap full auto weapon.  Most WWII submachine guns, M-16A1s, or machine guns run $20,000-40,000.  The cheapest I could find was an M2 carbine for $7000.  Of course, that doesn’t count all the ammunition you’d run through.  Well, if I win the lottery…

 Concealed carry.  I’ve noticed that most jurisdictions have a law that says you don’t need a carry permit to take your gun to and from the range, provided you make NO detours and securely lock up the gun en route.  The exceptions are so narrow, that getting a concealed weapon permit makes sense even if you have no intention of carrying the gun around with you all the time.  Unlike the 90s, by now most states – including Virginia - have passed “shall issue” carry laws, which means that if you aren’t a criminal or a wacko, the local court has to grant you the permit.  In the past, the laws gave the court discretion to deny the permit based on need, and of course the liberal courts found that no one – even Oliver North or crime victims – had any legitimate need to carry a weapon around.  They do require that you take a handgun safety course, which is sensible enough.  I let my earlier permit expire, but I plan on getting a new one as soon as I can find my safety course certificate.

            Florida was the first state to pass that kind of law (aside from Vermont, which has no law regarding concealed carry) and the anti-gun, Brady Bunch crowd predicted mayhem in the streets, Dodge City, as anyone with a beef and a gun would be settling disputes with bullets and not words.  Didn’t happen.  Nor did it happen in Virginia, or any other state which followed suit.  The Brady Bunch are liars, plain and simple.

 NRA.  The National Rifle Association gets a bad rap.  Their national headquarters is in Fairfax, very close by and convenient.  Their indoor range is fantastic: decent distance, open 7 days a week, and they allow you to fire rifles, not just handguns and shotguns. 

            As for their politics…a few years ago Guns & Ammo magazine posted an “Election Guide” which warned off voters from Libertarian candidates.  “They don’t have a chance, don’t waste your vote.”  The NRA Guide was more lenient:  it made no recommendation one way or another, and simply said, “Libertarian candidates as a matter of ideology are consistently pro-gun.” 

            Back to the Brady Bunch: the NRA has never advocated that “everyone” should have a handgun or weapon, or that basic gun regulations (e.g. felons and insane barred from having guns) are objectionable per se.  What they object to are blanket bans – no one can have weapons – or hidden bans, such as prohibitive taxes on guns or ammunition.  As usual, the Brady Bunch plays the “straw man” game, of attributing bogus arguments to the NRA to discredit the organization.

            Where the NRA went astray was focusing too much on hunting.  Somewhere along the line they decided that no one would ban hunting, so to associate guns with hunting would be a good way of protecting gun rights and ownership.  Of course, they ran afoul when liberals took the ball and ran with it, proposing to ban anything other than a hunting rifle, making the NRA look foolish for defending handguns and “assault rifles” which few people hunt with. 

            But it’s not just about hunting – which I don’t care for and have no interest in – but personal protection, and even “tyranny deterrence.”  In terms of the former, we have a right, under criminal laws of most states, to defend ourselves with deadly force when faced with an immediate threat to life or property.  Even with a duty to retreat, that duty does not apply when you’re in your own home.  The law never requires you to be a victim at home.  Moreover, the police are not, and never were, our bodyguards.  The police simply come by to pick up the bodies and maybe (!) solve the crime after the fact, which doesn’t do us much good.  As hard working or brave as they may be, their duty is not to protect us before a crime is committed.  Most rank and file police officers tend to support gun rights, it’s their politically motivated police chiefs and FOP/union heads who have to fall in line with the liberal agenda of disarming America’s lawabiding citizens while being unable to effectively disarm the criminals who would harm us.

            As for “tyranny deterrence”, as radical as it seems, ordinary citizens have the right to military style weapons, not just sporterized hunting rifles, precisely to deter Obama, Janet Reno, or whoever, from trying to oppress us and take away our freedoms.  To those who shudder at the thought of illiterate inbreds from the backwoods of our country constituting our “militia”, the answer is, as Daily Kos put it, that there is nothing in the 2^nd Amendment preventing the Paul Wellstones, Al Frankens, or Michael Moores from strapping on a rifle and declaring their own militia.