Dear Senator Dianne Feinstein,

I am writing you about the proposed Fire Legislation. While I think such legislation is well intended I do not believe that is will in fact make the people of the United States any safer in fact I believe it will have the opposite effect. The net effect is that firearms restrictions limit the liberties and defense of law abiding citizens while it has little or no effect on criminals or the insane.

I do not believe that greater restrictions on firearms will prevent events like the tragedy at Sandy Hook CT nor the other events that are similar in nature. I realize that it seems intuitive to try and pass laws to prevent such events from occurring but I do not see how restricting features on weapons, limiting magazine capacity or outlawing certain types of ammunition will prevent criminal or crazy people from hurting others. It will however have a negative effect on law abiding citizens, their safety, their liberties and their pocketbooks.

I think this reaction to the Sandy Hook Shooting was more emotional than logical. As you may know so called “assault rifles” are used in only a tiny fraction of murders in the United States of America. The term ‘Assault Rifle’ is really an amorphic label created by legislation and not a tangible item or group of items. I think as a common phrase it creates more fear and support for more legislation than is appropriate or meaningful. As it is I have not heard any new ideas about Assault Rifles or firearms restrictions that will cut down on crime or keep any of us safer.

Each state already has a background check system and these systems seem to fulfil their purpose. The people who obtain firearms who are not supposed to have them circumvent the law and I fail to see how new laws will prevent anyone from breaking laws.

I was in the South Land for the LA Riots, I saw shop owners and homeowners alike defending themselves with semiautomatic and none semiautomatic weapons alike. As you may already know citizens of the United States defend their own safety with a firearm in much greater numbers than they commit crimes with them. Further firearms restrictions will only further restrict their ability to do so. The people of California already pay higher prices for firearms because of California's unique restrictions, additional restrictions will come at additional costs both financially and in terms of safety.

Most citizens cannot afford private security like the Politicians, Celebrities and the wealthy, so further restrictions on firearms ownership puts the average citizen at more of disadvantage and makes them more of a target for criminals and the murderous maniacs.

In addition the Founding Fathers of our great country wrote at length about how private gun ownership was necessary for the prevention of tyranny. It is very important that the citizens of the United States of America be able to defend themselves against the their government should it turn Tyrannical. History has shown many examples of this happening.

So with that in mind I ask you to stop anymore support or proposal of firearms restrictions. In general I think our legal system, tax code and regulations are far too complicated and too expensive. I would like to see you lead a path back to a simpler form of Government. Government should be more local. I often ask people I meet if they feel they have any influence in Washington D.C., no one has answered ‘yes’ to my question yet. There seems to be a great disconnect between the citizens and the ever growing bureaucracy we have. I hope you could be apart of changing that.

Thank you for reading my letter.

AR-15 Strip and Clean

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Who said learning can't be fun?
At least the boys will enjoy this 'Training Video' "How to field strip and clean a Glock" with Ashley :)
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Thinking about Buying Your First Gun Part 4

Now that I have brought up the issue of size you might be wondering what is a good size?
Like a lot of things there is not just one answer, just about every model of handgun is at least a little different in size.

Often pistols are categorized into size classes like Large, Full Size, Mid Sized, Compact and Subcompact, but these terms are used not really standardize like they are with cars. I tend to steer new shooters towards the middle sizes.

In the picture above you can see 3 pistols, the top one is a Smith and Wesson 4506 (45acp)which is on the larger side of standard handguns.
The middle pistol is a Ruger P95 (9mm)which is pretty typical of your average current production 9mm or 40cal.
The Bottoms pistol is a Glock model 27 (40sw)which is consider a compact or subcompact pistol.

New shooters are often concerned about the weight and these days most pistols have frames made out of polymer which has cut down on the heft and the cost. Pistols in general do seem to be a bit on the heavy side to people in the beginning, but it is what it is. If you do choose a 22lr like the Ruger SR22 or the Walther P22 the weight is only 15-17 ounces. Most of your 9mm and 40SW handguns will be 24-30 ounces. There are plenty of compact pistols that start around 17 ounces but as I stated before a compact pistol is probably not the place to start for a new shooter. It seems as though once a new shooter starts practicing and spends some time shooting they don’t really seem to think about the weight much anymore.

This picture is of a Ruger SR22

The other concern some new shooters have is the grip size, people with small hands or short fingers are often wondering if they will have a hard time pulling the trigger. In my experience this tends to not be that much of a problem. For the most part many of the handguns on the market today are well sized for just about all full grown adults. More and more handguns are coming with grips that have changeable parts to make the fit more customizable. If you start out with a 22LR pistol you will find that they tend to have smaller grips then the 9mm/40SW weapons as well.

Here is a little explanation of Calibers or sizes of the bullets. 22LR is the common name for a type of round or bullet formally know as 22 Long Rifle. In spite of its name it is a small round commonly used in handguns as well as rifles. It belongs to a category or bullets known as Rim Fire. The projectile is usually made of lead and measure about 0.22 inches across.

1. .22 LR shot
2. .22 Winchester Magnum Rimmed
3. .25 Automatic Colt Pistol
4. .38 Smith & Wesson
5. .357 Magnum - budprop
6. .357 Maximum - budprop
7. 9mm Luger
8. 9mm Japanese Revolver
9. .40 Smith & Wesson
10. .45 Automatic Colt Pistol - budprop
11. .44 Special - cycle61
12. .44 Magnum
13. .45 Long Colt - budprop
14. .454 Casull - budprop
15. 5.7x33 Johnson Spitfire
16. .25-20 Winchester - budprop
17. 4.6x36mm Hk
18. .223 Remington
19. 5.56x45 NATO
20. .300 Blackout
21. 7.62x39 - budprop
22. 6.5 Grendel
23. .338 Spectre
24. .30-30 Winchester
25. .308 Winchester Accelerator
26. .270 Winchester
27. .416 Barrett
28. .410
29. 20ga
30. 12ga

New Pistol for a New Shooter Part 3

One thing I noticed while standing at a retail counter showing and selling firearms was that people are often drawn to the very small pistols. This has come up in many conversations as well, people talk about derringers and ‘gamblers guns’, ‘belly guns’, ‘pocket pistols’ and so on. I understand the attraction to the small pistols myself but I try to steer new shooters away from firearms like these. In short my reason is that the smaller the pistol the harder it is to shoot. I think most new shooters and perhaps experienced shooters will find small pistols very frustrating and far from ideal for self defense. This diminutive class of weapon does have the advantage of being easier to conceal, lighter weight to carry and are often less expensive but again there isn’t much point in having a gun if you can’t hit your target and hitting a target with a really small pistol can be very difficult. I suppose if you thought you were never going to shoot at something more than five feet away it might work, but I would not want to stake my life on that sort of limitation. I also don’t think it would be much fun recreationally to try hitting targets that close nor would it be an effective way to become a good shooter.

You will notice in the picture above that the sights are so small you can't even see them in this profile shot.

You may notice that small pistols often have very small sights on them. I always say I can shoot any pistol as long as is reliable and it has decent sights, so I put a lot of weight on the sights when it comes to evaluating a pistol. The grip or handle of the small pistols is also rather small and this adds to the challenge of being proficient. Another feature of small handguns that is less obvious at the onset is that they often have very heavy trigger pulls. Since very small firearms are often carried in a pocket rather than a holster they often come with a trigger that is hard to accidentally pull, the easiest way to safeguard against pulling a trigger is to simply make it very hard to pull back. By the way I don’t recommend that anyone carry a pistol in their pocket, I don’t recommend they carry it in anything but a well fitted holster, it is just not safe no matter how experienced you are.

Often times the less expensive to manufacture firearms are not quite as durable.


Not so much now but in past years there were a lot of inexpensive ultra compact pistols on the market. I suppose if that was all you could afford it is better than nothing but I would not recommend them. For one they were not all that reliable and I would not expect them to last very long, if you can’t practice with them then there is a good chance they won't do you much good if you really needed. You are also not going to have much fun at the range target practicing if the weapon is constantly jamming or just plain hard to shoot.

One interesting tidbit that may also encourage you to buy a regular size pistol is this, most people who draw or brandish a pistol in self defense do have to actually fire the weapon to scare off or discourage their assailant. So if you have a really small pistol that someone may not even see or recognize, you may have lost your chance to successfully defend yourself without a fire fight and let us not forget that you are just less likely to hit your target with a small pistol.

Well I hope to have plenty of photos and new links in my post soon.

Buying your first handgun continued. Part 2

I often encourage people to start with a 22lr and I have in fact tried this out with new shooters but lets say you don’t want to buy a 22lr, you want something ‘more powerful’? Well then I would suggest you just buy a 9mm handgun. (9x19mm or 9mm parabellum). Again the reason is economy, there are many fine 9mm available, so many it may be hard to choose and 9mm ammunition is going to be less expensive than 40 cal (SW), 45ACP, 380 acp,32, 38 spcl, 357 magnum etc. Other calibers such as the 45acp and the 40sw (cal) may have more “knockdown” power and are often suggested as superior self defense rounds. I recommend starting with the 9mm because it is more cost effective and more manageable. It does not matter how much knock down power you have if you don’t hit your target, so I think you are better off learning to shoot with the ‘lighter weight’ 9mm. If you are one of those people that tends towards a survivalist mentality or are a self professed ‘prepper’, you might find that after the ‘SHTF’ that there is more 9mm available then the other calibers. 9mm x 19 is very widely used, produced and is less expensive to ‘Stockpile’ should you be planning for disaster preparedness.

One other advantage to 9mm over say 40, 45, and most other rounds is that its smaller size and weight makes it easier to carry. should you need to carry ammunition around with you or store it in a small storage area, you can carry/store more of it. Here in California we are only allowed to buy 10 rnd magazines for semi-automatic weapons, but 9mm handguns often have higher capacities than 40 and 45 caliber weapons. At either end of the spectrum you will find that most 9mm handguns are designed to carry 15-17 rounds in one magazine, where as a 1911 45 acp typically holds 7.

Another notable advantage is the recoil. While the felt recoil of 40 and 45 are not particularly uncomfortable for most it can be a bit of hurdle for new shooters in a couple of ways. The more recoil the more the gun moves around. New shooters may find it more challenging to maintain a consistent grip with the larger recoil. There is also another consideration of the follow up shot. Follow up shots are the shots you take with a weapon after the first shot. After the first shot the muzzle of the end of the barrel where the bullet exits will tend to rise. The shooter must then ‘recover’ their aim. While just about every type of weapon behaves a little different, typically the lighter the round, the less recovery is needed. In self defense the follow up shot is very important. It seems to me that follow up is often not given enough weight when it comes to selecting a firearm. The same argument would apply to a 22lr over a 9mm as it does to a 9mm over a 40cal or a 45.

I have another personal bias I would like to point out for the purposes of purchasing a firearm and that is that I will lean towards buying American made or made in the USA. I figured with our current economics there was no point in buying a foreign made firearm without a compelling reason. I bring this up because I know quite a few people who are out of work, people who are losing their homes and many more who are just plain old struggling to make ends meet. I have heard it said that if each American simply about about 15% more American Made products then it would have a very positive impact on our economy.

Buying American may not be quite as straightforward as you might think. Take for example the Springfield XD series, a very popular handgun as of late. Springfield has produced firearms in the US for many years, the History of the name “Springfield Armory USA” actually takes some explaining that you can read about here and here , but the XD series Pistols are actually made in Croatia. (for those of you new to geography, Croatia is not in the USA). I have nothing against Croatia and I think the XD pistols are good products. On the other hand FN or FNH actually makes a Pistol in the USA. (FNP, FNS)

Another point on firearms from overseas is that unlike the Springfield XD pistols many of them have gotten very expensive. I think this is probably do mostly to the fact that the American Dollar has been losing value compared to other currencies. Your Sig Sauer P200 series and Hk USP pistols have risen from the $600-$700 range to the $900-$1100 range. Sig Sauer does have an American made pistol that is considerably less expensive than its European counterparts. the SP2022 AKA the Sigpro.

Are you thinking about buying your first gun?

I got an early start handling firearms and then I worked in a gun store and a gun factory. I have been a bit of firearms enthusiast for a long time, after decades of being around firearms I have spent a lot of time answering peoples questions of about guns. I figured it only made sense to write down the questions and answers in some form so more people could share the information. I am going to try and focus on the answers where my opinions depart from the traditional or more popular answers. There is plenty of other people out there that write and teach about these subjects and I don’t want to spend too much time saying what has already been said many times over.

I would say the most common question I have been asked is “What gun should I buy?”. There is no perfect answer of course but two of the biggest problems is that there is no end to individual opinions and style/brand loyalty. If you start doing homework you find that there is also no end to the technical minutia. You could spend the rest of your days weighing the details and never really find the ‘Best’ weapon.

To best answer the question of what is the best gun to buy you have to know what you want it for. Typically most people want something for home defense,plinking at the range and something to take with camping and what not. Often a pump shotgun is the first recommendation for home defense but we will get to that later. Most of the time people want a handgun or a handgun makes more sense for their needs so I will start with that.

In times past the discussion would have gone to revolvers vs Semi Automatic pistols. [inset pictures of a revolver and a semi auto.] These days revolvers are less of a contender if for any reason that the price of revolvers has gotten rather high and so has the price of the rounds they fire. The longer I have been discussing firearms with people the more important price has become. Maybe I don’t need to say this but if you have a large budget by all means ignore my low cost bias.

Let me explain that when I talk about keeping costs down I don’t want anyone to do it at the expense of reliability. But here is why cost is important. First of all no matter what you own in the way of a firearm the only way it is of any practical use to you is if can use it well. The only way you will be able to use it well is if you are confident, comfortable and well practiced. In order to get to this place of being proficient you need to shoot quite a bit. When you add the cost of buying a firearm to the cost of buying ammunition you can be looking at a sizable sum for most of us. In general I would say you are better off buying a $500 handgun and $300 worth of ammo rather than a $700 handgun and $100 worth of ammo.

Another reason not to spend too much money on your first handgun is that you can’t really develop a taste for what you like or what suits you until you have had spent some time shooting. I would hate to see someone spend $1000 on a nice Sig Sauer or HK USP and decide they don’t really care for it. While quality handguns often go up in value it could take some time before you could come close to breaking even when you factor in the fact that it is now a used weapon, sales tax, registration fees and the loss you are likely to take on accessories.

Even though 22lr is not a traditional self defense round it still has a lot of upside especially for a new shooter. I think people should consider starting with a quality 22lr handgun because of the lower cost. Currently there are several 22lr handguns around or under $400 and while you will pay around $25-$30 for 50 rnds of 45acp, that same $25-$30 will buy you 500 rnds or more of 22lr.

This is a picture of Ruger MKI 22LR

It is much easier to learn to shoot with a 22lr as well, it is far less intimidating and that helps a new shooter focus and builds confidence in aiming and operating a weapon.
list of American Pistol Manufactures
More later