You know, normally, encountering a piece of crap like this report from Newsweek would result in my bursting out of the proverbial blood-pressure cuff, in a fit of cold and offended rage.
Well, let me tell you. The cold is there. And so is the offense. Rage?
No.
Mere contempt.
Journalistic Integrity and Newsweek. Now there is a true Oxymoron, as illustrated by a magazine published by Omni Morons.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Not on Newsweek. On morons. I ought not insult their limitations by comparing them to such an impaired entity as that corrupt, biased rag.
It's sleek, light and frighteningly lethal. How the 9mm became the weapon of choice for cops and criminals, civilians and soldiers—and a sick young man in Virginia.By Jerry Adler
Newsweek
As you'll see, this really won't be a Story of "a" Gun, not really even of how the 9mm became the choice of (per Newsweek), cops, criminals, civilians and soldiers. Or even a sick young man in Virginia.
Rather, this is truly the story of seven very biased journalists, their anti-gun prejudices and a very transparent effort to transmit that prejudice to an unwitting public by way of written inference, misinformation and much innuendo.
April 30, 2007 issue - The three students from Wilberforce University, near Xenia, Ohio, had a tremendous fondness for 9-millimeter pistols. They bought them as many as 25 at a time from the accommodating owner of the Hole in the Wall Gun Shop, James Dillard. As required by Ohio law, the buyers duly attested that the guns were for their personal use, which was good enough for Dillard. In fact, according to federal prosecutors, the pistols were passed to a gunrunner who resold them to street gangs. Seventy-six 9mm semiautomatics were sold to just one gang, the Double II Bloods of East Orange, N.J. Jamel Coward, who already had a .45, bought a Leinad 9mm and went out with a friend to try it out. On people. They drove down a street in what they believed to be the territory of the rival Crips, and Coward commenced firing. He wounded three bystanders before a bullet struck 19-year-old Erron Lewin in the neck. Lewin, who belonged to no gang, died on the spot.
Now, I'm no J school type, but even I can recognize the technique in the above paragraph. Really, any serious writer would have broken it down as follows....and in so doing, the ability to isolate several disparate elements in the story become evident:
April 30, 2007 issue - The three students from Wilberforce University, near Xenia, Ohio, had a tremendous fondness for 9-millimeter pistols. They bought them as many as 25 at a time from the accommodating owner of the Hole in the Wall Gun Shop, James Dillard. As required by Ohio law, the buyers duly attested that the guns were for their personal use, which was good enough for Dillard. In fact, according to federal prosecutors, the pistols were passed to a gunrunner who resold them to street gangs.
First, let me emphasize that any FFL dealer who knowlingly participates in straw-purchases is widely reviled in the shooting community as a dirtbag of the worst sort. Of the nearly thirty-thousand FFL dealers in the U.S., Dillard is of but a mere tiny number who have been provably amiss, much less complicit, in effecting the straw-purchases as described in the indictment. An FFL dealer properly convicted of such ought rot in prison for a long, long time.
Um, no....sorry, that doesn't include Bloomberg's highly illegal City of New York sponsored straw purchases, which were structured so as to be unknown* to the FFL dealers so targeted by their erstwhile (and illegal) "stings." (scare quotes courtesey N.Y. Times.)
* to be guilty of effecting an illegal Straw-Purchase, the FFL dealer must have reasonably known that the purchaser before him was in fact, not the actual purchaser. In none of Bloomberg's attempted entraptments was this element of law satsified.
Nowhere in the Department of Justice press release of the indictment is the caliber or type of pistol mentioned. Not in this one, either. Now, antedocetally, I recall reading that the preponderence of these pistols were HiPoint 9mm's.
One should note that the HiPoint is known for being inexpensive and reliable. But not for being small, compact or particularly sleek, light or frighteningly lethal. Fact is, the HiPoint is pudgy and bulky for a 9mm, and weighs about midway between the lightweight 9s, and heavier, all steel examples.
The Hi Point 9mm, above. Taller and Fatter than the 1911 below. A bit shorter in overall length. When loaded, the Hi Point weighs about the same, due to it's double-stack magazine. Ballistically, in 9mm, with 5" barrel lengths, they are identical.
Typical 1911 (Colt type) pistol, mfd. by Smith & Wesson.
Seventy-six 9mm semiautomatics were sold to just one gang, the Double II Bloods of East Orange, N.J. Jamel Coward, who already had a .45, bought a Leinad 9mm and went out with a friend to try it out. On people.
Not just on any people, but on people who were mutually considered as their equally vicious and bloodthirsty foes.
They drove down a street in what they believed to be the territory of the rival Crips, and Coward commenced firing.
A terrible thing to do in any circumstance, and even worse when not possessed of morals, scruples, tactical knowledge of who was actually their targets, and of course, the complete and total lack of human decency.
He wounded three bystanders before a bullet struck 19-year-old Erron Lewin in the neck. Lewin, who belonged to no gang, died on the spot.
My Google-Fu might be weak, but I can't find much in the way of reference to that brutal homicide. But what I'd like to see from Newsweek is a; a cite thereof. And, b; the identities of the "three wounded". I will accept that Erron Lewin was an unfortunate non-gang member. But what of those three wounded. Might they have been (the aptly named) Coward's rivals, and thus, the actual targets of the attack? Oh, and was Mr. Lewin "hangin' wit' da gang" as it were?
Lie with dogs, sleep with fleas.
No, that does not in any way mitigate the wanton slaying of an innocent bystander. But it does put the "....went out to try it out. On people." sentence into a more focused and far less random aspect than the Newsweek article conveys. Not more excusable, or excusable at all. But not at all the same as the article sought to convey.
When Cho Seung-Hui armed himself with a 9mm Glock for his rampage (he also carried a .22-caliber Walther) he was standing in a tradition of bloodshed stretching back more than a century, adding to a toll that almost certainly dwarfs that of the legendary Colt six-shooters. German officers in World War I shot deserters with their Lugers, the original 9mm semiautomatic. When four New York City cops mistakenly unleashed a fusillade of 41 shots on the unarmed Amadou Diallo in 1999, they were firing 9s. It's an icon of rap culture: "Cock my nine, and separate yo' head from yo' spine," Ice Cube memorably muttered in homage to the murdered Notorious B.I.G. Of the 188 shots fired in the Columbine High School massacre, which until Virginia Tech set the standard for depraved mass schoolroom slaughter, 55 came from Dylan Klebold's Tec-9.
Again, the sheer editorial incompetence regarding paragraph formation and sentence structure ought shame any national publication. But I rather doubt that it is accidental. How else to mix so many disparate concepts and ideas in the mind of the unknowlegeable reader, but than to introduce them as a melded whole. When in fact, elements of the paragraph bear little or absolutely no relation one to another.
When Cho Seung-Hui armed himself with a 9mm Glock for his rampage (he also carried a .22-caliber Walther) he was standing in a tradition of bloodshed stretching back more than a century, adding to a toll that almost certainly dwarfs that of the legendary Colt six-shooters.
Notice the deft and adroit introduciton (and indictment) of the anti-Cowboy aspect of the antigunner's rhetoric.
German officers in World War I shot deserters with their Lugers, the original 9mm semiautomatic.
German officers, noncoms and enlisted in WWII shot untold hundreds of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Christians, Homosexuals and other undesirables. They did so in Poland, France, Germany, Romania, Russia, the Ukraine and literally, in every land trod by the murdering jackboot. And, they used not only the 9mm, but countless thousands of .30 Lugers, 7.62 Mausers and other handguns and rifles of innumerable other calibers of both German and captured Allied manufacture.
It was not a particular caliber at fault. Or gun. It was the Germans, at fault.
When four New York City cops mistakenly unleashed a fusillade of 41 shots on the unarmed Amadou Diallo in 1999, they were firing 9s. It's an icon of rap culture: "Cock my nine, and separate yo' head from yo' spine," Ice Cube memorably muttered in homage to the murdered Notorious B.I.G. Of the 188 shots fired in the Columbine High School massacre, which until Virginia Tech set the standard for depraved mass schoolroom slaughter, 55 came from Dylan Klebold's Tec-9.
Sure. The New York Police Department selected the evil 9mm on the sound advice and reccomendation of the "gun experts" of rap culture. I'm glad the Brooklyn Bridge is also in New York. It will make closing that bridge sale to the N.Y.P.D. oh so much easier.
And roughly one-fifth of the rounds fired at Columbine by Klebold's Tec-9 so happened to be of 9mm? So, I suppose this makes the other 133 rounds less evil? That sentence takes moral relativism to a new, all time low. If for nothing other than this sentence alone, the writers of this article ought be suspended, without pay, for a considerable and fiscally painful length of time.
It's a lethal gun, but then all guns are. A 9mm round—romantically called a "parabellum," from the Latin slogan ("If you seek peace, prepare for war") of its original German manufacturer—weighs a little more than a quarter of an ounce, with a diameter of about three eighths of an inch.
All guns have the potential to deliver a lethal projectile. The true lethality is found in who weilds the gun, not in the gun itself. The gun, of it's own accord, can lay loaded, chambered and cocked with the safety off...... for centuries, and not be lethal to a single living being.
As for the translated Parabellum? That would be realistically stated from the Latin. Which isn't among the romance languages at all, but per every bit of education I've attained, is categorized as a Classical Language.
Way to go, Newsweek!
Exiting the barrel at about 1,100 feet per second, almost the speed of sound, it can kill at ranges in excess of 100 yards.
Same for Cho's .22 LR, jerks. Pity, the lowly .22 is not beloved of your revered Rap Ballistics Experts, and so escapes your critical gaze. (here's a note.... Robert F. Kennedy was done in by Sirhan Sirhan's .22 Iver Johnson. President Reagan was critically wounded by Hinkley's R&G .22 LR.)
Neither assailant used the uber-scary 9-millimeter.
Newsweek, along with Snoop Dog and Fiddy, are no more qualified to comment on things ballistic than I am to give a first hand account of giving childbirth.
But essentially, it's a weapon for short-range self-defense—a "very up-close and personal kind of weapon," says Dan Shideler, editor of the Standard Catalog of Firearms.
That's pretty much true of any handgun. Not so much due to ballistic limitations, but because of the great skill and dedicated practice which is required to be reliably skillfull with a handgun under stress conditions at much more than handshake distances.
In the hands of a novice shooter, as NEWSWEEK's Raina Kelley discovered at a Connecticut gun range last week, it delivers a fearsome kick, which leads to anticipatory flinching, causing the barrel to drop and the shot to miss low.
The 9mm is actually quite often prescribed as an ideal Ladies Gun, due to it's relatively mild recoil in the average sized pistol. As for the flinch? I'd love to know if this was a; an indoor range (indoor gunfire is much more audibly intense). b; if doubled-up hearing protection was employed. c; if the "novice" had first been properly coached, including ample dry-fire drills long before the first live round was chambered. And finally, D folks... "D"; was our erstwhile "novice" shooter actually a dyed-in-the-wool antigunner, who volunteered to sacrarfice her heretofore gun-virgin hands so as to dramatically overplay the reaction to the report and recoil of the gun?
A few experts maintain that lower-caliber rounds, such as .22s (about a fifth of an inch in diameter) can be equally deadly. They make a smaller hole, but a .22 "tends to bounce around in the body," whereas a 9mm round often passes right through, says Fred Starkey, a veteran LAPD officer. But the ones who should know best—the militaries of at least 70 countries, including, since 1985, the United States—have come down in favor of the 9mm sidearm.
It has been often stated: "The plural of antedocte is not data". No matter what a "few experts" say.
Who are these "few experts", by the way? The article, not surprisingly, simply does not say.
As far as the military's use of the 9mm, count that as it having been easier for NATO to standardize the U.S. to the Euro standard (9mm) as used by dozens of countries, than for the other NATO nations to have made a comprehensive (and most expensive) change to the U.S. .45 ACP. It has nothing to do with ballistic effectiveness, and everything to do with cooperative logistics among allies.
Oh, must not forget the history of the Ordnance Board's political compromise, too......after the U.S. having so upset the MilSpec applecart with first, the 7.62x51 round for the NATO main battle rifle, then forcing the international NATO adoption of the miniscule 5.56x45 barely ten years after.
Military logistical decisions are not made in an isolated bubble, no matter appearances to the contrary.
And increasingly so do American police forces. About 60 percent of the firearms in use by police are 9mms, many of them Glocks, whose relatively lightweight part-plastic bodies make them a good choice for someone who has to carry one around all day.
Again, a statistical claim without a cite. Sixty percent? I'd venture to say that more like 60% of all departments which used the 9-mm have traded 'em in for .40 S&W's, or, as the Texas State Department of Public Safety, the .357 Sig. I seldom see a cop carrying a 9mm these days. The S&W .40 seemingly, prevails.
The part about the lighter (relative) weight of the Glock would seem correct. But only if the Glock is compared to a similarly spec'd all-steel, high-capacity semiauto pistol. Actually, a Glock 17, loaded with 17 rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber, will weigh-in only seven ounces less than an L-frame Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum (4" bbl) revlover, loaded with six rounds. The Glock only weighs appreciably less when empty.
Which of course, is probably how Newsweek would love to see the police have to carry one.
But wait till you get a load of the erronious jaw-dropping whopper which follows!
The changeover began after a notorious 1986 shoot-out in Miami between three carloads of FBI agents and two heavily armed robbery suspects. Two agents (as well as the suspects) were killed, leading to a demand for more firepower for officers, who still typically carried the venerable .38-caliber Police Special. Those hold six bullets in a rotating cylinder that when empty has to be reloaded manually, one round at a time.
Where to start *sigh*. Okay, first. In the aforementioned shootout, most the FBI officers were in fact carrying and shooting their (then) issued 9mm Smith & Wesson model 459 semiautos. Here's a list of what the Agents used in that fight, and the number of rounds fired:
| McNeill: | S&W M19-3 .357 Magnum revolver, 2-inch barrel (6 rounds .38 Special +P fired). |
| Mireles: | Remington M870 12 gauge shotgun (5 rounds 2 3/4 inch 00 buckshot fired), .357 Magnum revolver (make & model unknown), (6 rounds .38 Special +P fired). |
| Grogan: | S&W M459 9mm automatic pistol (9 rounds fired). |
| Dove: | S&W M459 9mm automatic pistol (20 rounds fired). |
| Risner: | S&W M459 9mm automatic pistol (13-14 rounds fired?), S&W (model unknown) .38 Special revolver (1 round .38 Special +P fired). |
| Orrantia: | S&W (model unknown) .357 Magnum revolver, 4 inch barrel (12 rounds .38 Special +P fired). |
| Hanlon: | S&W (model unknown) .38 Special revolver, 2-inch barrel (5 rounds .38 Special +P fired). |
| Manauzzi: | Apparently lost possession of his handgun during the vehicle collision and was unable to locate and recover it during the gunfight (0 rounds fired). |
And in fact, they hit the suspects multiple times, but the ballistically inferior 9mm round(and .38 specials used in their .357 revolvers) did not serve to stop the assailants, even though several (eventually) lethal wounds were effected. The results and review of this shootout directly led to the FBI developing and adoption the 10mm cartridge, which was eventually itself replaced by the .40 $&W.
A 9mm holds 10, 15 or even more bullets in a magazine that can be swapped out in two quick motions, although it takes considerable practice to do it smoothly. Naturally, society wants the best protection for its officers. But there are trade-offs. Before 1993, when the NYPD phased out revolvers in favor of Glocks, the officers who shot Diallo could have gotten off a maximum of 24 shots altogether before stopping to reload—and, perhaps, to rethink.
First, note in the Newsweek article, the above paragraph and the one immediately prceeding it in this review, are the same paragraph! I've only separated them here, for proper review. The importance of this, you ask? Combined, the two paragraphs meld two events of extremely different circumstance into one, utterly incomprehensible problem. And by melding the two in the reader's mind, then goes forward to offer up a "solution" drawn from one instance, and insanely apply it to the other instance.
So here, we have the Newsweek authors advocating that the N.Y.P.D. revert back to a six-shot revolver, thus regressing to pre-FBI~Miami shootout capablities. Man, talk about coddling the (they're all armed with high-capacity 9s, right?) odds to the criminal's favor!
Pehraps Newsweek would have had our (sadly) slain and wounded FBI officers in Miami all armed with but six-shot revolvers? It seemingly isn't enough for Newsweek that two FBI agents died, and five were seriously wounded. No, according to Newsweeks logic regarding the N.Y.P.D., the FBI agents should not have been carrying high-capcity 9mm's. They should have relied only on six-shooters, taking more time to think about each relaod as they fought it out with bank-robbing, murderous scumsucking criminals.
Way to go, Newsweek!
This is the best that journalism has to offer? *shudder*
Criminals, who tend not to worry about the lives of bystanders, took to the 9mm enthusiastically. The 1980s represented "the perfect storm for the 9-millimeter," says Jorja Leap, a UCLA anthropologist and expert on gang culture—turf wars were erupting over crack at the same time that the U.S. military was adopting the 9mm, which meant a huge market in inexpensive surplus ammunition.
Well finally, one upon which thing I can agree with Newsweek; the criminals' disdain for bystanders.
That said, it's tripe to claim that the U.S.'s adoption of the Beretta 92 led to a "the perfect storm for the 9-millimeter." The fact is, the development of CNC tooling is what led to the tremendous increase in the reliability and resultant affordablity of volume-produced semi-auto pistols in the civilian world.
It had glamour; cinematographers fell in love with the automatic's sleek, sinister profile, in contrast to the almost feminine bulge of the revolver. The 9mm was a major visual trope in such powerful films of the early 1990s as "Boyz n the Hood" and "New Jack City."
Projection, liberal be thy name. And the anti-gun left accuses us of having a "phallic fixation" with guns? But look at who seems to always bring sexuality and guns into the same focus, every chance they get.
Today it's the gun of choice for the everyday criminal and cop alike, accounting for 263,000 of the roughly 815,000 handguns manufactured in the United States in 2005, according to government figures. The U.S. International Trade Commission tracks imports of handguns, which totaled 878,000 in 2005, but those aren't broken out by type, and so not even the government knows how many 9mm guns are actually sold in this country.
Actually, the criminal's gun of choice is whatever the hell they can steal, or illegally buy from their fellow theif. They don't tend to be picky, that way. And the police have all but dropped the 9mm, with sales to policie departments of the .40 S&W far outstripping the 9mm over the past decade.
But it's ubiquitous on the street, from gang-ridden South L.A.—where in one area, patrolled by the LAPD's Southeast Division, it figured in 23 of 58 gun homicides last year—to the ghettos of Philadelphia, where homicide detective John Ramsey estimates that "about 60 percent of the homicides I work on involve a 9-millimeter." They have one advantage, from the cops' point of view: they eject telltale shell casings at the scene, to the benefit of investigators. That's why some criminals still prefer revolvers.
So, a number running under 50% is "ubiqutous"?
u·biq·ui·tous /yuˈbɪkwɪtəs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[yoo-bik-wi-tuhs] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent: ubiquitous fog; ubiquitous little ants.
And the other 60.35 % are what...... vanishingly scarce?
Way to go, Newsweek!
Law enforcement scored a minor victory in the firepower contest with the 1994 law restricting assault weapons. Among other provisions, it prohibited the sale to civilians of newly manufactured high-capacity magazine clips, those holding more than 10 rounds. (It didn't actually ban using them, just buying new ones.) This was meant to give police officers, who were not covered by the ban, "a tactical edge over potential assailants," according to John Shanks, a former cop now with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Notice the presumptive tense, wherein Newsweek considers the 1994 (misnamed) Assault Weapons Ban to have been a good thing. Worse though, is Newsweek's solicitation of factual information about anything having to do with guns, from the Brady crowd.
Asking the Brady Foundation about guns, is like asking the KKK about race relations*. Those wells are poisoned; all information flowing therefrom is thus tainted and cannot be relied upon for factual accuracy.
(*I'd credit where I once saw that quote, but for the life of me, can't remember. If someone can attribte that for me, I'll be sure to credit the author!)
Fact is, Newsweek at least got the information in their parenthesis, correct. Credit where credit is due, and all that. But that the AWB was a "win" for Law Enforcement is disputed by the overwhelming percentage of rank and file officers. The AWB only made law enforcement equipment more expensive, by minimizing manufacture, which had a very detrimental effect on economies of production.
But Congress evened things up by allowing the law to expire in 2004. Cho reportedly purchased several 15-round clips for his Glock.
Congress did only what the overwhelming majority of voting Americans demanded that they do, which was to let the Sunset Provision of the 1994 law take effect, thus ending the 10 year life of this piece of legislative garbage.
And I hasten to beg the question. Would it have mattered to any of Cho's victims, whether he had reloaded nine times, or had reloaded three or four more times? The net effect would have been precisely the same, because there was no armed citizen there in that Gun Free Zone Unarmed Victim Zone, to have stopped Cho's murderous rampage. It transpires that Cho had bought at least two ten round magazines via Ebay anyway. That's ten-rounders, not fifteens.
Way to go, Newsweek!
Many ordinary citizens now have 9-millimeters for protection as well, which means, inevitably, that they get used to settle arguments between spouses or friends. Last month, according to police in Ft. Smith, Ark., a feud between next-door neighbors led to a confrontation that ended in gunfire—a bullet from a 9mm Ruger in the head. (Police believe the gun was legally owned.)
It's a Great Thing that many citizens do have 9-millimeters. But having them is separate from, and not the causation (inevitably, or otherwise), of settling arguments or any other result of private ownership. Newsweek's assertation would be laughed out of a Junior High School logic class. With a grade of F-minus.
The allegation that ownership inevitably results in anything, is prima facie evidence of Newsweek's anti-gun bias. Here, Newsweek, try this on for size:
Great that so many reporters have laptop computers for reporting, which means, inevitably, that they get used to mislead and misinform an unknowing public, and to inflame passions and encite disputes between honest citizens. Last week, in an article published in Newsweek, claims were made that the 9-millimeter cartridge and the guns that shoot it, are the cause of virtually all violent crime. The report in question was written on a high-speed computer, instead of the older, manual typewriters which had previously always served in journalism. Police believe the computer was legally owned.
See how it's done, Newsweek? Reporting, my aching cracker ass! The entire Newsweek feature in question is but Yellow Journalism, at it's lowest. How low, you ask?
Or they get picked up by children, who find the trigger much easier to pull than the one on a revolver. To the lives ruined by this weapon, you can add one more name, that of Jamel Coward, who, five years after he took target practice on a 19-year-old walking down a New Jersey street, faces a sentence of 25 to life after pleading guilty to murder.
Again, observe how Newsweek combines their emotional appeal for the safety of children (and we all want to ensure the safety of children!), with the death of an adult male of nineteen years. And it wasn't some innocent juvenille who pulled the trigger, it was Jamel Coward, who I hope serves every day of a life sentence for his despicable act. No, that wasn't the tragic outcome of some six year's deadly mistake. It was the murderous act of an adult criminal, and no one else is to blame.
Most certainly, not the gun. It didn't shoot itself, after all.
Further, at age 19, Mr. Erron Lewin was old enough to vote. He was old enough to serve and die if necessary, in the U.S. Armed Forces. He was certainly old enough to have possibly been a father. Or a husband. He was old enough to drive, to enter into a legal contract to buy a car or home, and was old enough to, hopefully, have been Royally Pissed Off for Newsweek's having blithely refered to him as a Child!
Way to go, Newsweek!
With Raina Kelley, Sarah Childress, Sarina Rosenberg and Matthew Philips in New York, Jennifer Ordoñez and Andrew Murr in Los Angeles and Hilary Shenfeld in Chicago
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
It took the author and another seven people to get that many facts wrong, and to insert that much fearful innuendo into one, relativley brief two page report? Must be some kind of record!
Way to go, Newsweek!
Idiots.
(I don't know whether to offer a tip o' the hat, or a kick in the ass to El Capitan of Baboon Pirates, for having pointed to this particular piece of Newsweek defecation. Still, the credit is his for where I found it.)
Way to go, Matt!
*grin*
I may be wrong here, but I seem to remember two things:
1.) Germany wasn't the only country to use handguns to keep the troops in line, most countries had similar rules/procedures. However, most European officers had to buy their own handguns, whereas the U.S. issued it, seeing a need for it.
2.) I seem to remember that 2/3 of all child firearms accidents do not involve handguns. The other part is rifles or shotguns or a combination of the two. (And rifles can have very light triggers if modified.)
Posted by: Anon | April 27, 2007 at 09:56 PM
By the way. The Ohio gun dealer was indicted on December 11, 2003. The Double ii Set was indicted in bulk around October 14, 2004. No where in the indictment is a "Jamel Coward" mentioned.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nj/press/files/pdffiles/doub1019rel.pdf
Posted by: Quilly Mammoth | April 29, 2007 at 12:01 PM
"Frighteningly Lethal"?
I hold all firearms to be worthy of respect, deserving of reasonable caution, and inherently (necessarily) potentially lethal.
"Frighteningly Ignorant"
"Frighteningly Gullible"
"Frighteningly Agenda-driven"
I hold that all liberals are potentially worthy (but not necessarily deserving) of the above listed terms.
May we preserve the 2nd Amendment to protect us all from the intellectual cancer of willful blindness, and the threat of disarmament to our citizens.
Posted by: Grinder | April 29, 2007 at 12:35 PM
I kept waiting for mention of a "speedloader". If you prepare properly, you need not reload the revolver chamber by chamber. I have seen LEOs with several speedloaders on their belts alongside thier revilvers - just as I have also seen others with extra magazines for their automatics.
The arguments betwwn auto- and revolver advocates continue and will continue. If the revolver misfires, you click to the next chamber.
I have also heard that a major factor in the US decision to switch from the M1911A1 to the Beretta was the Beretta's greater suitability for femail troops who found the .45 of blessed memory difficutl to handle.
Posted by: Rurik | April 29, 2007 at 02:15 PM
The tone of that article sounds like it was lifted straight from the script of HBO's original movie "The Gun in Mama's Purse" or whatever that bit of antigun fluff was actually titled.
Posted by: Rivrdog | May 01, 2007 at 12:50 AM
For Crying out loud,Newsweek is one rag of a mag,Seems like they have an antigun agenda and are grossly uneducated in the area,If your going to do an artical at least do enough research to put out something reasonably accurate,I guess like most rag mags,there out to sell magizines and make money thru sensationalism not report the facts.I have a Model 459 S&W and the serial number is one that would make a magizine like newsweek go wild ,much less a gun collector,666 you would think they wouldent even put out a weapon with that number on it ,I am an avid gun collector ,target shooter and I like to restore older guns,Yes i have more guns than i really need and most people ,like the anti gunners would say I shouldent have that many or the types I have ,but just because a few nuts in the world buy a couple guns and go crazy somewhere and shoot up the place ,or people they all seem to want to punish all of us law abideing gun collecting target shooters,Were all crazy gun nuts or criminals once some unbalanced person is sold,steals or obtains a weapon and uses it to do something horrendous,its like if a nut like that beat someone to death with a baseball bat are you going to ban baseball?? look at all those bat carrying baseball players as criminals or bat nuts?You can also obtain a great amount of safety in the home and avoid accidents thru proper security measures and educateing everyone in the home on the use and storage of the firearms ,most websites includeing the FDLE site said to show your children the firearms in your home and educate them on them so they will not be curious about them and try to get them and check them out which could result in an accident,I keep my guns locked in a gun locker with individual trigger locks and the ammo in a seperate place,I have owned guns since i learned to shoot in the boy scouts and have continualy owned them for 35 years and never had any problems ,Newsweek needs to be fair and not so pro anti gun and print something more like the above truth rather than trying to stir up the anti gun dogooder pot.I garuntee whomever wrote that artical has never fired a firearm much less knows anything about them .
Posted by: smalpecker | July 26, 2007 at 11:23 PM
The picture you have shown appears to be hi-point's 45 or 40 cal. pistol not the C-9, 9mm
Posted by: Ronny Pierce | August 12, 2007 at 03:56 PM