Para Ordnance 14.45 LDA Limited

Para Ordnance has taken John Browning’s 1911 design and made a unique modification with its LDA action.  The LDA series are double action only, as opposed to the traditional single action only of the 1911.  But, they have managed to do it with a double action trigger pull which is comparable in smoothness to a traditional single action pull.

The particular model pictured is Para’s 14.45 Limited in 45 ACP, with an amazing 14+1 magazine capacity.

Second Amendment Sisters

Boston Magazine has an artice about the first Second Amendment Sisters chapter on a college campus.  I’m a big fan of the Second Amendment Sisters.  The group was founded as an answer to the Million Mom March (now renamed Billion Mom March, though they never got close to a million…).  As opposed to BMM, the SAS actually has some substance to go with the flash, and is actively working to educate women on the benefits of handgun ownership and training.

Overall, I think the article does a fairly even job of covering the story, but the author occasionally shows which way she leans on the issue by slipping in snide remarks and the usual anti-gun mantras.

At the Smith & Wesson Shooting Sports Center in Springfield, an indoor shooting range, the stink of carbon from gun barrels is unmistakable, even to the untrained nose.

 

Not a smell, but a stink.  I, for one, love the smell of burning carbon in the morning.

Larger guns are going off all around her ? .44s and .45s powerful enough to shake the floor.

 

Is she standing in jello?  How bought we lose the hyperbole?

...Second Amendment Sisters, a controversial national group dedicated to the right of women to bear arms…

 

Why controversial?  Isn’t every group which favors one political opinion over another “controversial.”

Had Little Red Riding Hood attended Mount Holyoke College today, her story might have made CNN rather than the fable books. “What big eyes you have,” she’d tell her snarling grandmother. “The better to see you with,” her hairy, hypothetical grandma would respond, drooling.

Red Riding Hood, who, let’s say, has been a Phi Beta Kappa inductee since her junior year, would be long past the point of suspicion. “And, Grandma,” she’d say with feigned astonishment while reaching slowly underneath her cape, “What big teeth you have.” Then, with neither ceremony nor the patience to wait for the wolf’s infamous punch line, she’d raise her semiautomatic and pump him full of lead.

 

Damn right.  Why rely on the woodsman why you can take care of business yourself?

These aren’t uneducated hicks getting together to go squirrel shooting; they’re overachieving women with bright futures at an elite school dedicated to empowering members of their gender.

 

Here the writer cannot fully understand why these bright, educated young women would choose to engage in an activity normally associated with “uneducated hicks.”  Can you get any more elitist than this sentence?

Angry alumni are chiming in, too. Some clearly feel the group is threatening the foundation of ideals upon which the school was built.

 

And what foundations would these be?  Certainly not belief in the 2d Amendment, or the right to express a contrary opinion.

“I can only partially understand your group by putting it down to extreme youth and ignorance,” one member of the Class of ‘42 wrote in a letter to the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly.

 

And I can completely understand your ignorance by putting it down to a complete inability to respect someone else’s opinion, or to see that there is life outside of your protected little bastion of liberalism.

“The fact is, guns don’t go off by themselves,” says Caywood, echoing more than one NRA talking point.

 

Yes, this is an NRA talking point.  The writer makes it sound like you can’t hold this opinion without being a slave to the NRA.

Then [the 12-year old boy] says something more jarring than the sound of the shots ringing out all around.  His words demonstrate exactly how complex this issue is, how it’s not as simple as those NRA talking points about gun-safety education.  “Do you know what the reason is why you want to shoot a .44 instead of a .22?” he asks, his voice full of authority.  “Because if you’re shooting a real guy, he’s dead in one shot. Shoot him once in the head, and he’s gone.”

 

The author is clearly shocked at this remark, but anyone who has been educated on handguns as a means of self defense knows this is one of the basic tenets.  There’s nothing really shocking or complex about it.  The kid’s statement merely shows that his father has done a good job educating him with regard to firearms.

Anti-gun Brits

Aren’t the British taking their ani-gun stance a little far?

William ‘kills deer with spear’

 

The funniest part is that the “deer” was 14 inches tall.  Sounds more like a small dog to me.

Guns Of The Matrix

This one is for you, Jed.  THE GUNS OF THE MATRIX

Anyways, the first guy that yells “FREEZE” is packing a SPAS-12.  This is a unique 12 gauge shotgun that allows the user to select pump action or semi-auto action.  It’s a good solid shotgun that offers high capacity, good reliability, a folding stock, and respectable accuracy when throwing slugs.  The downside is that it’s a rather clunky and heavy and a just plain clumsy design.  This is perhaps my least favorite tactical shotgun, but it’s popular with wannabe SWAT-pups and collectors… and evidently movie makers.

Link via Bad Money via Cold Fury.

Browning Hi Power Practical

I saw this beauty yesterday, and I almost brought it home.  Thank goodness I had family present to drag me out of the store before I blew my budget.

The Hi Power is John Moses Browning’s final handgun design, and arguably his best.  These guns are very accurate, and they’re so well designed that they seem to be an extention of your arm.

Like Browning’s 1911 design, the Hi Power is single action only with a non-decocking safety, so you can carry the weapon cocked, locked, and ready to rock.

Lack of Common Sense in Kalifornia

On 21 June, Park Station Police Lieutenant Mark Swendsen responded to an odd report.  Some kids tied over 150 large, metallic ballons to a chicken, and the chicken floated into high voltage power lines.  

The obvious problem for the police was how to get the chicken down without putting a firefighter in danger of being electrocuted.  So, Lt Swendsen went to his parents’ home and retrieved a Daily Model 777 Olympic 10-meter air pistol.

Lt Swendsen then proceeded to shoot the balloons one by one, until the chicken floated safely to Terra Firma.  As a result of his creative thinking, Lt Swendsen was rewarded with an investigation charging that he violated department policy by using a non-department issued weapon while on duty.

Lt Swendsen has attempted to defend himself by arguing that (1) the pellet gun is not a weapon, and (2) if the pellet gun is considered a weapon, he was justified in using it to prevent endangering the firefighters.  Sounds like a good argument to me.  

What do you think the department would say if a firefighter was electrocuted, and in the ensuing investigation Lt Swendsen disclosed that he had a pellet gun but didn’t use it to safely resolve the situation?

Common Sense in Kalifornia

In a rare display of common sense, Sonora school trustees have overturned a previous decision which implemented an absolute ban on all firearms on school grounds.  

As usual, there was a lot of whining from the anti-gun crowd, but the gun proponents won out by arguing that the ban precluded the school’s gun club from teaching proper firearm safety.  Though I applaud the existence of a gun club on a high school campus (I wish my school had had one!), I think the better argument against the ban is highlighted by Trustee Ed Clinite.  Responding to the argument that Columbine had a policy in place almost identical to the one reinstated by Sonora, he stated:

“A policy will not keep that sort of massacre from happening”

 

Amen, brother.  Criminals and suicidal teens don’t give a crap how many policies they’re violating by bringing a firearm on campus.  The only thing an absolute ban does is advertise that the school is a big, juicy, target-rich environment.

Now if only the school (and the state) would allow school employees to carry concealed on the premesis, then you’d see a real deterrent.

Beretta 96

I always found the Beretta 92FS to be a well balanced handgun, but couldn’t stand the wimpy caliber.  So here’s the perfect solution.  The same basic design in a more manly caliber.

Finishing finals presented me with the perfect excuse to pick one of these babies up, so…

The Beretta 96 in .40 S&W.

All Wrong

This Sheriff has it all wrong regarding concealed carry:

“I’m not an anti-gun person. I’m a deer hunter and a grouse hunter, and I appreciate the constitutional right to bear arms,” Hamblin said. “But I’m not at all convinced of the need in Wisconsin for citizens to be carrying concealed weapons at this time.”

(Emphasis mine)

The whole point is that it is our right to carry a weapon, regardless of what the hell this officer thinks.  Our rights should not be subject to a government official’s opinion.  It is not up to the government to decide whether or not we need to carry a weapon any more that it is up to the government to decide if we need to speak out against something.  What if he had said this:

“But I’m not at all convinced of the need in Wisconsin for citizens to protest at this time.”

 

Both the right to free speech and the right to bear arms are natural rights and are equally protected by the Bill of Rights.  The government seems to think that it has the power to decide when we can exercise our right to bear arms when they wouldn’t dare try to tell us when we can or cannot speak.

There is absolutely no reason that law-abiding citizens should not be allowed to carry a weapon.  This is not about crime statistics (even though the statistics are consistently on the side of allowing people to carry a concealed weapon), it is about civil rights.  And the State of Wisconsin continues to crush my civil rights.

Taurus Raging Bull

One final down, three to go.

Let’s celebrate by drooling…

Taurus’ Raging Bull in .454 Casull

This is just what every homeowner needs.  Not only will it stop unwelcome late-night visitors, it also works on your average charging herd of elephants.

SAR-1

As Kim Du Toit said when he purchased his, it’s a COMMIE GUN!  But hey, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse…

The Romanian/U.S. built SAR-1 in 7.62x39, with hi-cap 40 round magazines (unlike the one in the photo).

Photo courtesy of Kim Du Toit.

.45

Kim has done some research and discovered why the military switched from the .45 sidearm to the 9mm sidearm.

“I think the problem was that our military became too ‘kick ass’, and some measures had to be taken to make wars more challenging thus to keep our troops? interest. One such measure was a weaker sidearm that can barely kill a Commie at all, forcing one to instead use strangling, or his or her Ka-Bar.

Makes sense to me.

SA-58 Gray Wolf

It’s been a while since my last gun post, so here’s one from the wishlist.

The DS Arms SA-58 Gray Wolf in the very manly .308 Win (We don’t need no stinking .223!!!).

I love guns that look mean.  They send the local gun wussies into spastic fits.

Time Out

Hey!  The Million Mom March put John Ashcroft in Time Out twice!

Concealed Carry

Well, I finally got around to taking my concealed carry class today.  I’d been struggling to find time since I moved back to Texas, but the fine folks at DFW Gun Range set me up with a one-day class to get it out of the way.  It was a 2-hour class stretched into the required 10 hours, and most of the info was a rehash of criminal and tort law for me.  Hopeflly, I’ll have my permit in hand in 45-60 days so I can start carrying this:

The Kimber Pro CDP II in .45 ACP