Category: Guns

From Chicago:

It was the search of the crime that turned up troubling evidence: a shell casing from an FN Herstal 5.7 pistol. It is a 20-round, Belgian-made semi-automatic that is capable of firing armor-piercing bullets that can penetrate a policeman’s protective vest. Wednesday morning, the Chicago department’s rangemaster said the rounds used in Tuesday’s shooting were not the armor-piercing variety, which by law cannot be sold to civilians.

So what’s the damned problem?  Any center fire rifle cartridge can punch through level II and III body armor.  This apparently wasn’t that type of ammunition.   So who friggin cares?

But police are concerned that a concealable handgun capable of firing armor-piercing bullets is apparently in the hands of criminals.

“There is no reason for the average sportsman to have a weapon with a 20-round magazine capability for a handgun. There is just no point to it,” said Matthew Tobias, deputy superintendent.

Yeah, expect for the fact that the Five-Seven is a fantastic target gun, there’s no reason for anyone to own one.  But because it might be able to penetrate level II and III armor, we should restrict it, even though a lot of rounds are capable of doing that.

Oh well, at least they aren’t talking about Virginia Tech.

From Japan:

Japan, whose strict gun controls have long helped its image as the safest industrialized nation, has recently seen its reputation slip in the wake of headline-making shootings.

Let’s face it, Japan has low violent crime rates because Japan is a homogenius society that is culturally non-violent.  Japanese Americas, who are subject to the same gun laws as the rest of us, have a lower violent crime rate that the Japanese population in general.

Read the whole thing.

SayUncle does a good fisking of gun safety “experts” and tell us:

Sorry but to any gun owner out there, don’t listen to safety experts. Listen to gun experts if you want real advice that will save your life and the lives of others. Safety experts will typically tell you not to have a gun (see?), which is not conducive to safety but more political posturing. So, take it with a grain of salt. Anti-gun hacks like Matthew Miller are not safety experts. They are hacks. Take your gun advice from someone like Col. Cooper or Massad Ayoob. Or your local firearms instructor.

I keep my firearm in the safest location possible; on my hip.  When it’s not there, and I’m not home, it gets locked up, along with all the other firearms I’m not actively using at the time.   At night, it goes next to me on the bed stand.  Being that I live on my own, I’m not exactly worried about children.  My main concern is not giving a burglar a convenient weapon to use on me if I come home and surprise him.