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Updated: 6 days 23 hours ago

Capitol Hill Shooting UPDATE: Female Suspect Killed by Police

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 14:53

 

“A woman suspected of being involved in a car chase across central Washington was shot and killed by police outside the U.S. Capitol building this afternoon,” chicagotribune.com reports. “The incident, which sparked a lockdown of Congress, began when the woman tried to ram through security barricades outside the White House. An official said a Capitol policeman was injured when the car driven by the suspect crashed outside the Capitol.”

BREAKING: Shots Fired, Capitol Hill on Lockdown

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 13:45

“U.S. Capitol Police announced on their emergency radio system that there have been reports of gunfire on Capitol Hill,” politico.com reports. “People in the many Capitol Hill office buildings have been asked to shelter in place, and move away from doors and windows.” They’ve received the following email: “Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows. Take annunciators, Go Kits and escape hoods; and move to the innermost part of the office away from external doors or windows. If you are not in your office, take shelter in the nearest office, check in with your OEC and wait for USCP to clear the incident. No one w

This is What Happens to a Disarmed Populace: Cartel Kidnapping Edition

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 13:00

“Mexican federal and state police have rescued 73 kidnapped migrants being held in a house on the border with Texas,” the AP reports. Let’s think about that. How do you hold 73 people hostage? With guns. How do you rescue 73 people being held by people with guns? With guns. How do you prevent someone from kidnapping 73 people? With guns. As in a person with a gun isn’t as easy to kidnap (not to mention rape and torture) as someone who’s been disarmed by their own governments. “The agenc

Self-Defense Tip: Think the Unthinkable

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 12:00

 

I remember watching United Airlines Flight 75 plow into the second World Trade Tower. I’m sorry if this offends anyone but my first thought was “clever bastards.” I was stunned by the terrorist’s audacity. While there were some people who predicted a deliberate air crash (including recently deceased author Tm Clancy and Morgan Stanley’s head of security), it was still an enormously surprising event. Obviously, there wasn’t anything the victims of this heinous crime could do to forestall their fate. But I’ve never forgotten the fact that . . .

9/11 was perpetrated by murderers with imagination, patience, intelligence and determination.

So when I heard of Kenya’s Westgate attack, I knew it wasn’t a simple a matter of a bunch of madmen d

Thursday Moment of Zen: Slow Motion Machine Guns

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 11:00

In retrospect, I should have gotten some slow-mo video of the MP7A1 as well. But that’s something that can be rectified the next time I visit El Dorado.

CA High School Sophomore’s NRA Shirt “Promotes Gun Violence”

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 10:00

“Sophomore Haley Bullwinkle said when she wore her NRA shirt to Canyon High School last month, she landed in the principal’s office for violating the school’s dress code that forbids offensive, violent or divisive clothing. ‘They were treating me like I was a criminal,’ she said. ‘I was not allowed to wear that at school because it promoted gun violence.’” Today’s tale of government school anti-gun thuggery comes from Anaheim Hills, California via cbslocal.com . . .

Canyon High’s (“preparing our students for the globa

Video: TrackingPoint Predicts the Future of War

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 09:00

Naturally, their vision for the future has their scopes on every single firearm. But how useful would a massive, computerized optic be on a standard carbine, especially when the trend is toward lightweight guns and gear? And what about mounting night vision on those things? How about getting a battery runtime longer than a few hours, preferably approaching Aimpoint’s recommendation of replacing their batteries “every few years?” Many questions and hopefully Oren “Silver Medallion” Schauble will be forthcoming with some answers. Yes that really is TP’s marketing director in that video and yes he doesn’t seem to understand that acceleration and gravity are two different forces. Anyway, there’s no doubt that TrackingPoint has a nifty product. But ready for the military? We’ll have to wait and see.

Quote of the Day: Ivory Tower Edition

Thu, 10/03/2013 - 08:00

“Carrying a gun comes with an implicit threat. Gun holders can, at any moment, kill the people around them, and college campuses cannot remain centers of free inquiry and exchange if students and faculty are faced daily with the threat of violent death. In our view, the only place for a gun on a college campus is in the holster of a trained police officer.” – The Duke Chronicle’s editorial board in No guns at Duke [at dukechronicle.com]

Daily Digest: Fountain of Brass Edition

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 21:00

Lake Mary, Florida police officer Zach Hudson is running classes to teach teachers how to deal with potential school attack scenarios in ways that don’t involve using guns. He urges them to “tap into that anger” and do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of their students. With the exception of the HSLD interaction at 1:55, it’s all about taking the initiative to give resistance to the bad guy. Since most of these pathetic individuals give up as soon as they hit any real resistance at all, that can’t be anything but good. Click here for the video . . .

Elliot Fineman, president of the National Gun Victims Action Council, on economic pressure: “We would target a couple of these states — Wyoming for example, where both senators voted against the background check law,” Mr. Fineman

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Reid Interrogation Technique

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 20:00

Second Call Defense writes:

West Chester, OH - -(Ammoland.com)- If you’ve ever been involved in a traffic accident with another driver, you know that responding police have one primary task: to assign blame. One way or another, either you or the other driver is going to get nailed for the accident. Shooting investigations are similar. Once police show up, their task is to find someone who is most likely to be guilty of a crime and gather evidence to prove it. This is fine as long as the police investigate someone who has done something wrong. But when you have justifiably used a firearm to defend yourself, and the police suspect you of

New Yorker Offers A Few Stupid Ideas on Gun Control

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 19:00

You gotta love intellectual gun control advocates. They’re so . . . intellectual. Eggheads like New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik [above] would like nothing better than to sit you down and calmly explain gun control—so you can see that he’s right and you’re a brainless inbred racist redneck. I mean, wrong. Here you are, Mr. Gun Owner: A Few Simple Ideas About Gun Control that you, even you, can understand. If you try really really hard. So, idea number one . . .

No one disputes that there are sane reasons for ordinary people to need a rifle. But there is no imaginable, meaningful sense in which Canadians, or Australians, are “less free” when it comes to gun

Men Demand Action for Automobile Control [Almost] Punks Post-Dispatch

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 18:00

TTAG reader Rich Weatherby read a comment about the need for a group to counter Moms Demand Action for Common Sense Gun Control. I mean, Gun Sense in America. Anyway, it inspired him to Onion-up a letter to the editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They posted it, revealing the fact that they “got it” with their headline: ‘If we need gun control, then we need car control, too.’ Which reminds me of the immortal line, I’ll disarm you, my pretty. And your little dog, too! Nice work Rich.

As I was driving home from work today, I

Texas Armoring Re: Range Rover Running Over Bikers in NYC

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 17:00

From texasarmoring.com:

Many of you have probably seen the new shocking Live Leak video of a motorist driving a Range Rover in New York City. In the video, the driver has a frightening confrontation with a large group of motorcyclists who create a road block by surrounding the vehicle, repeatedly try to force open the car doors, and spawn a chase that lasts several minutes. The chase ends as the driver is violently pulled out of his vehicle and is severely beaten in the street in front of his wife and five-month-old child. Although we don’t have all the facts (

CNN Pulling the Trigger On Piers Morgan?

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 16:00

The British people rejoiced when noted criminologist and renowned firearms expert Piers Morgan left their shores for the new world. The good news: we here in the United States may be doing the same thing shortly. Following months of plummeting ratings and negative press, CNN may be about to kill Piers’s prime time talk show in favor of, well, just about anything else in the world, really. The show hasn’t been doing CNN any favors in terms of drawing viewers and the powers that be seem to be coming over to Jeremy Clarkson’s way of thinking . . .

From FTVLive.com:

Sources tell FTVLive that CNN Boss Jeff Zucker is “actively looking for a replacement for Piers

Will Gun Control Advocates Please STFU About Declining Gun Ownership?

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 15:00

IL FOID [Firearm Owner's ID] Card Holders

Calendar year   Active FOID Cards

2010                   1,316,508

2011                    1,395,114

2012                    1,476,408

As of 09/06       1,633,039

Shooting the 2013 FNH USA 3-Gun Championship, Part 1

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 14:00

For the average 3-gun competitor, things run pretty seamlessly at matches. You show up, you run through the stages with the help of the range officers and then, at some point, you see the final scores and go home loaded with prizes. But for those working the event, if you want to shoot in the match you need to do it during the “staff shoot” during the days preceding the competition. And while it’s the same basic outline, it’s a whole different beast . . .

The staff match is kinda like the beta test of the competition. The match staff is supposed to find any faults or flaws with the stage design and hammer out the final details before the competitors show up. As a result, the stages have a tendency to be a bit flawed.

It’s a massive pain in the ass for the staff since any major design changes that come out of it will trigger a re-shoot, and as we know re-shoots are a fickle mistress. But it’s a necessary evil and I’m fairly proud to say that thanks

BREAKING: Tom Clancy [Not Shown] Dead at 66

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 13:00

“Spy thriller writer Tom Clancy, whose best-selling books became blockbuster films, has died, his publisher said Wednesday. He was 66.” CNN and the other news orgs are highlighting Clancy’s firearm-free thriller The Hunt for Red October. Most his 28 novels were far more gun-intensive—to say the least. [Click here for imfdb.org's database of films and video games based on Clancy's books.] The best-selling author’s

Question of the Day: What’s The Worst Gun You’ve Ever Owned?

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 12:00

I like the TTAG two-star Kel-Tec PF9. It’s a sweet shooting little pistol. Except when it isn’t. And? And then you fix it or dump it. I reckon there’s a big problem in play here: a lot of people buy carry guns and then never shoot them. So if they’ve got a bad one—a firearm that doesn’t feed properly or doesn’t like certain ammo (cough Kimber SOLO cough)—they don’t know it’s unreliable. They rely on someone else’s opinion of whether or not a handgun is reliable. Which is unreliable. Of course, some guns are justifiably known for their reliability. Even then, a sensible armed self-defender should run a couple of hundred rounds (including at least 50 self-defense rounds) through the gun before holstering it. So . . . what’s the worst POS firearm you’ve ever owned?

Why the Beretta M9 Gets No Respect

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 11:00

By ST

You poor non-military gun owners must be frightfully confused regarding the Beretta M9/92FS handgun. On the one hand law enforcement and many civil gun owners all but love their examples. On the other, it’s the rare vet who echoes those sentiments, as many military members seen to all but run from the M9 and anything associated with Beretta. Stories of malfunctions, accidentally engaging safeties and weak stopping power associated with 9mm FMJ NATO seem to paint a less than flattering picture. Who’s right? Ironically enough, both parties . . .

I write this as just another prior service gun owner who just happened to be in a position to learn a thing or two about the maligned M9. Back when I was active duty I acquired my CCW permit as a bachelor enlisted member. That meant I legally had to store my carry pistol at the Air Force Base MP armory. So,when I left post and returned, I ha

Pictures from the 2013 FNH USA 3-Gun Championship

Wed, 10/02/2013 - 10:00

Last week, I made the trip out to West Virginia for the FNH USA 3-Gun championship. I’ll have the full posts in a few days, but until then enjoy a few pictures of some of the snazzier looking competitors and gear . . .

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