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15 854
Image Source: FIME Group

You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Rex firearms. Most people in the U.S. aren’t familiar with the company despite being popular in Europe, but that may be about to change.

Rex pistols, made in the Arex factory in Slovenia, are imported solely by the FIME Group of Las Vegas (local dealers can order from FIME), so you may need to search a little, but, if you’re a fan of the double/single action platform, this may be worth looking at. Eve Flanigan writes,

For those familiar with traditional DA/SA design, such as the Sig Sauer P220, the Rex offers a couple of differences. First is 9mm chambering. Modern 9mm defense rounds are, of course, smaller than 45 ACP, but their higher velocity and improved bullet design offer undeniable destructive power. Also, you get higher capacity magazines. The standard model holds 17 rounds. The compact packs 15. A newer tactical model holds 20.

In addition to bigger capacity and the reduced recoil of a 9mm, the Rex adds a thumb-operated safety lever. It can thus be carried in the cocked and locked position, allowing the user to avoid the time and effort associated with its 13-pound double-action trigger pull. Of course, a sturdy holster that shields the trigger guard should be part of wearing or storing the gun in this configuration, keeping in mind there is no mechanical substitute for muzzle and finger discipline.

Additionally, the full-size model weighs in at 29 ounces unloaded. Flanigan reports the pistols has “very little felt recoil.” Interestingly, the grip of this pistol is shaped differently than you might expect, and this has a pleasant benefit. Flanigan writes,

Despite the thickness of the grip, I am able to operate the trigger in double action without much effort, thanks to thoughtful sculpting of the grip that makes it thinner right where the trigger finger lies. That’s not true for every DA/SA pistol, including full-size Sigs. A short and light five-pound pull is found in single-action mode. Trigger reset is good, crisp, and what I consider just long enough to be appropriate for a non-competition handgun.

All-in-all, the Rex pistol appears to be a good, solid, dependable pistol with nice forethought in it’s design to make it as user-friendly as possible. This is a pistol that at least deserves consideration for your next pistol purchase.

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16 718

I’m about to make a statement that will terrify many people in America: Children should learn how to use guns.

Now, to be clear (because some anti-gunners will think that I advocate giving a three year old a loaded fully automatic rifle), I’m not saying to be stupid about it. Teaching  your kids how to use guns includes teaching them gun safety, but, in our crazy world, our children have to be able to defend themselves even when they are children.

Take the example of seventeen-year-old Kimber Wood, who has a scary story. There had been reports of a number of police officers in her neighborhood. Because of these reports (presumably because this meant the police were concerned about something in the area), Wood’s parents decided that she should have her father’s .22 pistol to protect herself since she would be home alone.

It’s a good thing, too. A guy entered her home, searched the house, and came to Wood’s room last. It was then, when she didn’t have a choice, that she confronted him with the gun. He ran, and she chased him out of the house and out of her yard, firing a warning shot along the way.  She said, “I refused to be a victim.”

Good for her.

Herschel Smith has this to say about the story,

You mean to say that she hadn’t been trained in all of that tacticool super Ninja warrior stress control training, and she was still able to defend her life with a firearm?  This means massive narrative fail on the part of the controllers.  They won’t be happy.

In fact, in order to maintain the narrative and effect their designs for a defenseless utopia, they would rather she have been raped, or killed, or both.  Everytown and Bloomberg have already told them to try to change their names from controllers to “gun law advocacy groups.”  They’re very concerned about their image these days.

However, I would recommend in the future that she not shoot at fleeing people unless she wants huge trouble with the prosecutors and courts, and for heaven’s sake, don’t fire warning shots.

I agree with Smith about the warning shots (gun training may have prevented this dangerous action), but, unlike anti-gunners, I’m glad that Wood had her father’s gun to keep her safe. If you have a daughter, she needs to learn how to shoot so that she, too, has the ability to refuse to be a victim.

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Typically, when you hear someone talk about gun control, they try to moderate it by using terms that don’t make them sound like the type of nutcase who blindly trusts government to do the right thing (which is what they are). They’ll use terms like “common sense gun control” or “common sense gun reform.”

The first question that you have to ask is “What is common sense?” because, in my experience, common sense is actually pretty uncommon, and they probably don’t have it. It’s when you start pushing them for specifics (or when they think that you’re on their side) that the disturbing truth comes out.

A perfect example is Mark Glaze who is the former executive director of Michael Bloomberg’s organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (as if any mayors are for illegal guns). Glaze wrote a piece for a new anti-gun group called Guns Down. The NRA Institute for Legislative Action tells us about Glaze’s article:

Writing on behalf of a new gun control group called Guns Down, Glaze endorsed mandatory firearm owner licensing, alluded to a “government buy-back” for commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, and called for restrictions that would prevent even the law-abiding from accessing guns.

In a departure from Everytown’s messaging, Glaze downplayed the importance of background checks, claiming that they “alone aren’t the answer.” According to Glaze, “To truly tackle the gun violence epidemic, lawmakers must go further – after the guns themselves.”

Glaze’s central thesis, and Guns Down’s organizing principle, is that there are too many guns in private hands the U.S.; regardless of whether those guns are lawfully or unlawfully possessed. This oversimplified view of gun ownership harkens back to the handgun prohibitionist messaging of the 1970s and 80s.

Think about that for a moment. Glaze is advocating “mandatory firearm owner licensing.” In other words, he says that you don’t have a Constitutional right to have your firearm. He thinks that you don’t have a right to have a firearm unless the government gives you that right.

Now, we can get into a long argument about where rights come from, but I’ll just mention that the Founding Fathers believed that our rights, including the 2nd Amendment, are inalienable. In other words, our rights don’t come from government; we have them because we are human beings.

Radicals like Glaze need to wake up to the reality of the fallacy of thinking gun control brings safety, and they need to stop treating government like God, as if government is where rights originate from. It’s that kind of ridiculous thinking that caused our Founding Fathers to fight off King George in the first place.

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Handloading shells, if you’re not familiar with the term, is the process of packing your own shotgun shells. While not a wildly common activity, a number of people do handload their shells.

If you’re wondering why they would want to do this, then we have a few answers for you.

For some people, they just love to do things by hand. Let’s face it, it can be immensely satisfying to make your own things, whether that is furniture, or your own food supply, or shotgun shells. For some folks, it’s just the sheer satisfaction of being able to say, “I did it,” and, with the right equipment, it’s not a hard task (even if it does get repetitive).

Another reason to handload your own shells is to create shells for specific purposes. How you choose to load your shells can affect the pattern of the spread of the shot. It can also allow you to create shot for specific purposes or to be used for specific guns. For example, I know a small manufacturer who supplies shells to law enforcement. They had him design a shell specifically for urban law enforcement use such as apartment buildings. The shell was designed so that, whoever caught the brunt of the shot would be hurting, but the shot would not tend to penetrate beyond the initial impact point so that, unlike using bullets, the buck would be less likely to go through walls to injure innocent people in the next room or apartment.

Or, maybe, you’re like Jason Wimbiscus, who gives these specific reasons for handloading his own reduced length shotgun shells:

  1. You own an old shotgun with a chamber length shorter than 2.75 inches and local retailers don’t carry what you need.
  2. You are extremely frugal and want to get as many firings as possible from your hulls. Often, shotshell hulls will first wear out at the crimp and trimming off the tattered end can breathe new life into an old shell.
  3. You want to increase the magazine capacity of a gun with a tube magazine without buying an additional extension.

So, whether you want to save money, design shells for specific weapons and/or situations, or you just want the satisfaction of doing it yourself, you may want to consider handloading your own shells.

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11 671

Given the negative news about the U.S. court system’s hostility towards the rights of Americans to own firearms, it’s understandable if you expect every news article about the courts involving guns to be a frustrating read promoting gun control.

Fortunately, though, there are a few rulings coming through the court system in which the courts actually understand the 2nd Amendment and uphold an Americans right to bear arms. Yes, even when the case comes from notoriously anti-gun New York. Chris Eger writes,

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals this week said a New York woman who had her firearms picked up by the local sheriff five years ago should be granted a hearing to get them back.

The decision involves Christine Panzella who had her guns seized while she was the subject of a protective order filed by her ex-husband. Now with the order out of effect since 2013, the Nassau County Sheriff’s Department says she can’t get them back without a hearing. This week a three-judge panel upheld a lower court’s decision on appeal and unanimously said there is no apparent reason why she shouldn’t receive a hearing to get her firearms returned by the agency.

Five days after her ex-husband filed a protective order in New York Family Court against Panzella in June 2012, deputies arrived at her home to deliver it and in the process seized her pistol license along with two rifles and three shotguns, although the court did not specifically order their confiscation. The guns were locked up in the armory of the Nassau County Correctional Center, where they remain.

The temporary order expired and her ex eventually withdrew the filing in March 2013, leading county officials to return her pistol license. Since she is not prohibited from possessing firearms, Panzella has since purchased a new pistol. However, the county has a policy of not returning long arms seized from an individual unless they are given a court order to do so, and the family court does not have the authority to release them.

To get her guns back, in October 2013, Panzella filed suit against the county and sheriff citing her 14th Amendment due process rights and Second Amendment right to bear arms were being violated.

Panzella won her case. The county then (for whatever illogical and unlawful reason) appealed the decision which was struck down by the 2nd Circuit Court.

It’s beyond me why this sheriff’s department thought that they had any kind of legal standing to keep Panzella’s weapons even though they were seized without court order and there was no legal reason to to keep her from owning guns (they probably were going from the also-illegal thinking of civil forfeiture). Fortunately, though, even some courts rule on cases from anti-gun strongholds in ways that support the Constitution and our right to bear arms.

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Growing up in the 1980s, when I hear someone talk about a red light, I’m probably going to think of the song “Roxanne” by The Police as I am a traffic light. (If you’re unfamiliar with “Roxanne,” it references the red lights districts of Holland where red lights are turned on outside of a room when a prostitute is… um… open for business.).

Now, anti-gunners have gotten the idiotic idea that shining red lights outside of their homes will somehow deter gun violence. It’s, possibly, the most idiotic gun control idea that I’ve ever heard. Angry Patriot writes,

 It’s long been obvious that your average liberal does not understand human nature, and especially doesn’t understand the mindset of criminals.

Their latest idea proves that the average liberal honestly feels like they are impervious to becoming a victim of crime. Liberals have begun to indicate their home is gun free with red porch lights.

(hat tip to here for the lead)

I can’t be the only person who immediately realized why this is a bad idea. Once those with criminal intent realize that these homes are literally safe zones for them to do whatever they want, which homes do you think that they will target? It’s obviously the homes that they will almost certainly be able to walk out of uninjured and unconfronted.

Angry Patriot points out another oddity about this campaign:

There’s another odd element to this idea that I just can’t shake. This liberal meme implies that the people putting out these red lights are “activists.” Since when does changing your light bulb amount to political activism?

This just goes to show that to liberals; political activism is no longer about making good arguments and exercising your freedom of speech. Instead, political activism is about social pressure. I can just imagine liberals everywhere trying to convince their neighbors that they don’t want to be the only home on the block that hasn’t switched over to red lighting.

This “activism” also comes from the immature line of thinking that if enough patriots see enough people with red lights in their home, they will somehow start to think the Second Amendment isn’t that important after all.

It’s sheer lunacy to think that this will do anything but get anti-gunners robbed, assaulted, and killed, and, while I disagree with what they are trying to do, I do think that it’s sad that more people will suffer because of this silliness. I hope, for their sake, that this campaign disappears quickly.

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0 651

These days weapons are made from a variety of materials, metals, plastics, and polymers, but, every so often, you hear about a new material source that surprises you. For example, I will admit, this is the first time that I have heard about guns being made from… typewriters.

Eric Nado is a Canadian artist who decided to make art by taking apart old typewriters and recombining them in ways so that they look like guns (they are, unfortunately, non-functional). Lucy Wang writes,

Nado’s reconstructive artworks are crafted with all original parts of vintage typewriters, including brands such as Underwood and Royal. Though startlingly realistic, these steampunk-esque guns are non-functional. The assemblage artist has also worked with other mediums, most notably in his Seamstress Series where he transforms vintage sewing machines in sculptures reminiscent of workingwomen of the post-war era.

This is a refreshing change of pace coming from the art world which is almost notorious in it’s militant leftist politics including anti-gun hysteria. This is the kind of gun showing that you could take your political adversaries to (though, they’d probably be offended even by the idea of liking something that looks like a gun). Wang continues,

In an interview with Creators, Nado said he was motivated by his childhood memories of playing with his mother’s typewriter. “The sound of the keys evoked, for me, the sound of guns going off. It is this memory that initiated in me, years later, a new obsession, fueled by what were now years of experience in technical manifestations of art,” he said. “I wondered, could it be possible to transform these evocative machines into representations of a gun arsenal? My intuition was that it could be done and the objective was to do so by deconstructing and reconstructing solely the pieces of one typewriter at a time, making each and every gun an art piece with a history in itself.”

You can see examples of his work starting at about 2:00 in the video below.

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How many hoops did you have to jump through to get your license to carry your weapon? Chances are that you had to go through a little bit of hassle (though, obviously, some states and areas are easier to work with than others), but it’s unlikely that you had to go through the same aggravation that Richard Brandon of Pennsylvania did. He had to wade through a four year court case to be able to legally carry there.

Brandon applied in 2013 for a carry permit, and the Butler County Sheriff’s Office denied his license because the Pennsylvania Instant Check System showed that Brandon had twice been involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities. Here’s where the story gets frustrating for law-abiding citizens of Pennsylvania: even though Brandon was denied his carry license, the Pennsylvania State Police could not produce any records documenting that Brandon had been committed.

In other words, he was denied his right to carry based on hearsay. Chris Eger writes,

State Police did not have copies of the original notices from mental health authorities in their records and Butler County’s mental health department did not have any Section 302 petitions for Brandon in their files. Hospital records for the visits were no longer available and state law requires that medical records only be preserved for seven years.

Brandon’s attorney, Joshua Prince, could point out inconsistencies in even the limited records the state presented, noting that one form showed him admitted to a different hospital. He further pointed out that the FBI, as far back as 2001, had chastised PSP [Pennsylvania State Police] for denying licenses to individuals in cases where they did not have sufficient information to decide.

Fortunately, the judge followed the law and ruled in Brandon’s favor, but it’s utterly ridiculous that he had to go through this situation and wait four years to exercise his Constitutional rights.

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Ask many gun owners, and they will tell you that the best way to get better with your shooting is to shoot more, and there is no question that more rounds at the range is important. But not everyone is near a convenient gun range, and not everyone has a work schedule that will allow regular visits to a range during normal business hours. What do you do in those types of life situations to become a better shot?

Dry fire drills.

In case you’re not familiar with it, dry fire drills are using an unloaded gun or a dummy gun to repeatedly practice drawing your weapon (assuming that you carry) and aiming and shooting your weapon. The idea is to simulate as close as possible the real thing without using ammo (thus, less danger and less expense) and without having to be as concerned about accidentally shooting someone or something (and we all know how bad that would be).

If you’re considering dry fire drills, though, the first precedent, as in any firearms practice, is safety. Sheriff Jim Wilson writes about this,

However, dry-fire drills have to incorporate a serious concern for safety. Obviously, a lot of bad things can happen if you have a negligent discharge in your house, and firing a shot from a handgun you thought was unloaded is absolutely no excuse. It is best to get in the habit of unloading the handgun (check it twice) and leaving all of your ammunition in another room. Make this a major part of your dry-fire drills to guarantee your handgun is empty and stays that way for the entire session.

Remember that the focus of dry fire practice is to practice the right things over and over so that you don’t have to think about them in the heat of the moment when you need your weapon to protect you or a loved one. For that reason, Sheriff Wilson says he doesn’t like to practice his dry fire drills in front of a mirror. He says that, when practicing in front of a mirror, it’s too easy to become distracted to try to visually confirm that you “look” like you’re doing everything correctly instead of getting it down by feel. This makes sense because, in that emergency situation, you aren’t going to be able to see yourself to confirm that you’re doing it right. Ideally, you’ll be doing it by unconscious feel.

Because this type of practice can be accomplished anywhere at any time, dry fire drills may be the ideal daily practice for you to habituate your weapon presentation and shooting skills.

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It’s simply amazing how much blind faith people put into the government’s ability to protect us. Many Americans are of the absurd opinion that, just because government is involved, people will be safe from harm. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, a lady in Clay County, Kentucky was afraid that her ex-boyfriend was a threat to her. She feared for her life. She sought protection by the law and by the police. This protection failed. Fortunately, for her, she had someone with her who understood the safety value of firearms. Jennifer Cruz writes about the situation,

A Kentucky man was shot and killed Tuesday morning during a confrontation at his ex-girlfriend’s home in Clay County.

The deceased man was identified as 34-year-old Jody M. Sevier. The woman’s name was not released, but Matthew Caldwell was confirmed to be the shooter, not the ex-girlfriend. The relationship between her and Caldwell is not known at this time.

Authorities say the couple had a history of domestic violence and, in fact, the woman shot Sevier in the face just last month during an incident with an electrical cord and the woman’s child.

At the time of Tuesday’s shooting, Sevier’s ex-girlfriend had filed an emergency order of protection against him, although it had yet to be served.

No arrests have been made at this time and preliminary evidence suggests the shooting was an act of self-defense. The investigation is ongoing and, once completed, will be turned over to the grand jury to determine whether charges are appropriate.

It’s unfortunate that someone was killed in this situation, but it would have been even more unfortunate if Sevier had been allowed to continue to harm his ex-girlfriend, and it is good for her that Caldwell was there.

It’s simply more proof that legal gun ownership is vitally important for people’s safety. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

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