The Gunner's Blog

Kel Tec's new shotgun bears a certain resemblance to the South African Neostead design. It is a short bullpup with dual magazine tubes. It is NFA legal but no longer than it needs to be to achieve that. Operation is pump action. The gun is liberally festooned with Picatinny rail, so you can suit yourself in regard to sights and lights. I post fairly often about scout rifles and the general purpose rifle question, but basically I'm a shotgun kinda guy. A good 12 gauge will solve most shooting problems that you can't hide from, which are the kinds you absolutely must solve. A bullpup configuration makes sense because of its compactness. The action parts are relocated back into the stock so the overall length is reduced. We'll see if this idea catches on. Other U.S. manufacturers have tried it, and not gotten very far, but they were working with adaptations of conventional shotguns, while the Kel Tec is designed from scratch to be a bullpup. No word on the delivery da...

Traver Off Target - National Review Online Pres. Barack Obama has nominated Andrew Traver, an episodically dishonest campaigner against Americans’ right to keep and bear arms, to be head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ATF is arguably the least competent of our major federal law-enforcement agencies and unquestionably the least impressive of them.... READ MORE... So begins Kevin Williamson's in-depth look at President Obama's controversial nomination of Andrew Traver to head the ATF. Some of the points he raises about the ATF's perennial problems are very interesting, and he coins the phrase "anti-policing" to describe some of it. (If you're with the ATF, pour yourself a Pepto-Bismol before settling down to read this. It's hotfoot journalism.)

This episode --and there have been too many like it-- shows why the Four Rules are everybody's responsibility all the time. Also it appears the shooter had been drinking, which is not okay. Innocent until proven guilty, but if it played out as the news report indicates, holy cats. I am pleased that the shootee survived. They don't always.

Here is a link to an astonishing news story. Perfectly amazing. Detroit's police chief and other leaders are urging the public not to fire guns in the air to welcome the new year. What kinds of morons do they have in Detroit, that people need to be told that? Oh, wait. I had this car once that... Never mind. Anyway, for those in Detroit, here are the rules you need to follow to avoid being a danger to self and others when you have a gun in your hands. Firing wildly into the air is certainly a no go, violating at least two rules out of four. If the good people of Detroit cannot be dissuaded from their cheerful custom, perhaps they could be persuaded to use blanks?

Check this out at Ruger Firearms News . Ruger has repented of its lapse in building scout rifles and come up with a new model that is interesting indeed. Until I get gun in hand I won't know all about it, but it is an M77 with--get this--a detachable box magazine holding 10 rounds, ear-protected front sight, rear 'ghost ring' peep sight and a rail for whatever long eye relief optic you like. The new rifle is called the Ruger Gunsite Scout because Gunsite Ranch and Ruger collaborated on the specs. Photo  © Sturm, Ruger & Co. Used by permission Now, this is a brand new announcement, dated today, and we have all seen guns announced that never materialized. I have high hopes for this one, though. We will have to wait and see about the questions of price, availability, reliability and accuracy, with reliability being a key concern. A number of manufacturers have muffed the question of making detachable magazines work properly in bolt actions. Ruger, though, has a co...

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop .         -- Herbert Stein The priests and acolytes of big government, the inside-the-beltway crowd, are in denial. The government, the idol they worship and serve, is showing signs of weakness and decline. The social welfare state is unsustainable, doomed by the simple but strict rules of arithmetic. They cannot see this because they will not look at it squarely. So instead of realism and reduction of bloated budgets we have cries for more money, in an eerie echo of D.H. Lawrence. There must be more money! There is, though, no more money after a certain point, even if you print more. At some point there is no more revenue to be had by squeezing distressed taxpayers. Business does not thrive when strangled. Investors hold back when returns appear uncertain. The statist response is to blame businesses and investors. But this is not where the fault primarily lies. The problem is we can no longer afford our ...

I was away from this blog for a while. I was busy with the run-up to the November election, then with the aftermath. I think it is safe to say gun owners bettered their congressional representation, in many cases. Here is a story I didn't get to when I was busy with other things. Earlier this month, Obama nominated a new head of the BATFE, one Andrew Traver, formerly head of the Chicago office. Pro-gun sources promptly decried this as appointing a notorious anti-gunner to oversee the gun trade. For example, there is this from the NRA/ILA: The National Rifle Association Strongly Opposes the Nomination of Andrew Traver to Head BATFE, Calls on President Obama to withdraw the nomination Wednesday, November 17, 2010 Statement from Chris W. Cox, executive director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action The National Rifle Association of America strongly opposes President Obama's nomination of Andrew Traver as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE)....