Tag: Weapons

Home Defense Options

Advice, The Gun Thing

Some honchos in the gun world have weighed in with their home defense choices:

Keeping all of this in mind, we sought out a variety of professionals to comment on their particular home-defense guns, and more importantly, why they have those guns — simply telling you they use a 12-gauge isn’t very helpful. You don’t have to be a Special Forces guy or SWAT ninja to consider their rationales, so our hope is that after you read this piece you’ll evaluate the contents of your own nightstand. While there are some brand-names mentioned, think of each configuration as a loose guideline for a given situation and not an internet special, where all the parts and pieces have to match exactly. This is about choosing home-defense equipment, not points on the ‘gram. Still, we’ll disclose all of those parts and pieces, because we dabble in gear nerdery.

Sheesh.  Talk about space-age stuff.

I’m not one of those “heavy hitters”, nor do I get free shit thrown at me by any manufacturers [sob]  so here are my home defense suggestions, based in my own circumstances.

Bedside:
DA revolver in .357 Magnum, because as I’ve said countless times before, your “people in the house, grope in the dark” gun has to be like a fork:  when you pick it up, it has to work simply and without any chance of failure.  My only “accessory” (which I don’t have at the moment) would be one of those laser pointer thingies that are activated by squeezing the grip.

Home defense:
AK-47.  I live in a suburban apartment complex, so there’s little call for any kind of animal varmint reduction.  Human  varmints, however, may be another (albeit remote) situation even in my affluent location, and I prefer an AK over a shotgun because 20 rounds are better than 2 (I don’t have a pump- or semi-auto shotgun, only a side-by-side).  (Also, nothing  says “RUN AWAY!” like the sight of an AK pointed at your midsection.)

Accessories:
Fenix FX-PD35TAC flashlight, because of the 1000-watt beam and the strobe option — which is so disorienting it actually causes nausea at the naughty end.  I carry one of these bad boys in my gilet pocket, and keep another next to the bed.

Sjambok for controlling angry dogs and/or assholes.

That’s it.  I have other options, so to speak, but the above are what I always keep (very) close at hand.  Well, they would  be kept close at hand, except for that unfortunate canoeing incident on the Brazos River a few years back.  This is just my wishlist.

Different Solution

Freaks & Loonies

I spoke last week about one solution to this problem (i.e., throwing the filthy scum off Waterloo Bridge).  However, as a couple of observant Readers told me, there’s a problem:  shit floats, and so there won’t be an adequate mortality rate.

So let’s ratchet the thing up a tad, shall we?  And will anyone be surprised that my next solution to the scum-in-the-streets issue comes from yesteryear?  Oh yes, it does:

It’s called the Sherman “Crab”, from WWII, and here’s what it looks like in action:

Imagine a few of these bad boys employed against this lot:

Try not to giggle like a little girl.

Next week, we’ll be looking at the Angry Bee Solution (developed by Your Humble Host).

I Just Call Them “Men”

Guy Stuff

Saw this article via Insty, and had to add my thoughts.

Who are the kind of men who still carry pocketknives? They are the type of men who earn an honest living, work hard and stand fearless in a world gone mad.  To put it simply, they are the type of men the world could use a lot more of these days.

To me, this whole idea is such a “duh” situation that I can barely articulate it.

Of course every man — not just the ones in the quote — should carry a pocket knife (and even more than one, maybe) on their belt or in their pocket [sic].  I for one cannot imagine leaving the house without a knife on me — as the writer’s father said, “I’m wearing pants, aren’t I?” — and other than when boarding a flight (don’t get me started) I can’t remember when last I went knife-less out of the house.  (Yeah, I carried a knife even in Britishland, where it’s streng verboten, sorry P.C. Plod.)

Sheesh… next thing we’ll be talking about men not needing cars or trucks*.

*with apologies to the urbanites, who like me when I used to live in downtown Chicago, don’t need one.

Action – Reaction

Gummint, Legal Stuff

In response to situations such as this:

Two teenagers have been stabbed to death within days of each other as Britain’s knife crime bloodshed continues.

…a judge in Britishland has come up with a solution:

A judge has called for a drastic rethink on the way we use knives in kitchens in a bid to reduce the number of young men dying on our streets because of knife crime.
And he has come up with an idea for a scheme that could be rolled out across the UK where members of the public could take their kitchen knives to be ‘modified’ and the points ground down into rounded ends.

After all, nobody except a professional chef (trained in its use) has any need for a pointed knife, anyway.

I report, you wet your pants laughing.

This Won’t Be Good

Military

So this little snippet arrived in my Inbox a while ago, sent on by Loyal Reader Max H., who asks, “Waddya think?”

Oh FFS.

The US Army’s PEO Soldier – Project Manager Soldier Weapons has issued an Request for Information (RFI) to obtain industry feedback on possible submissions to Sub Compact Weapons (SCW) evaluations. The specification details offered by the Project Manager Soldier Weapons (PMSW) are scant and extremely broad. Describing potential SCWs as being select fire weapons, chambered in 9x19mm and having MIL-STD 1913 rail (Picatinny Rail) space.
The RFI, published 2 May, makes no mention of physical dimensions such as size or weight and instead seeks to cast as wide a net as possible for potential submissions. It does, however, call for suppressors, spares and slings for the weapon (not holsters). Potential future SCW submissions will have to chamber ‘9×19 mm military grade’ ammunition – meaning both M882 ball and the new XM1153 Special Purpose 9mm Round from Winchester.
The RFI gives interested parties until the 18 May to submit their responses. It remains to be seen what purpose the SCW would serve and to whom it might be issued. If earlier Army references to a Sub Compact Weapon system are to be believed the new weapon is likely destined for rear echelon troops – in the traditional PDW / submachine gun role.

It starts when the new acronym SCW (Sub Compact Weapon) is used instead of the universally-known SMG (Sub-Machine Gun). (When did the .dotmil start this fucking bullshit? Never mind, I know the answer.)

People, this is not difficult. You take a simple, basic and easy-to-produce concept like the venerable M3 Grease Gun, add the doodads the Army wants, and away you go. Most of the serious firearms manufacturers like SIG, CZ or IMI could do this in their spare time, like over a couple weekends.

Why use the Grease Gun concept as the platform? Because it fucking works, as countless dead Nazis, Japs or Commies would tell you, if they could. With modern steel and production CNC machining, you could have a prototype put together in two weeks, and after a couple months of testing, into full production.

Which is kinda what the .dotmil did with the M3 (minus the CNC) back in the Big One, and it served until the 1990s when the .dotmil ditched it because OMG it wasn’t cool enough anymore. (That’s not the official reason, of course, but it’s the real one.)

Simplicity is just not gonna happen here, of course. What will emerge is some massively over-priced, over-engineered and over-complicated abortion which will be too heavy and too unreliable, because the current loose parameters of the RFI are going to be tightened and tightened until they cry for mercy, and the REMFs are going to get something which they’ll ditch in favor of their handguns at the first opportunity. Something like the HK MP7:

…which begs the question, “Why not just use the MP7?” (It sure as hell is ugly enough.) Of course, that would be just too simple. The .dotmil hates simple, which is why they got rid of the perfectly-capable M3 Grease Gun.

Also, the .dotmil would never adopt a foreign-made SMG with a simple operating mechanism — such as the MP7 or Kalashnikov’s KR-9 SBR (short-barreled rifle) — because OMG Russia, even though Kalashnikov USA is the same type pf corporation as Beretta USA (which supplied the .dotmil with the M-9 pistol, lest we forget).

And the KR-9’s operating system is simple — again that damning word — when we all know that the Pentagon will only consider whizzbang-gee-whizz-complicated guns because that’s how they’ve operated since WWII.

Never mind that everything the Pentagon wants is right there in that photograph, and ready to ship for testing tomorrow. But that would be too easy. Let’s rather take five years to reach a decision and end up with something that doesn’t work well, costs too much and will be in production only after a further five years. (The cost of the KR-9, in the quantities that the Pentagon would order, would be about $395 per piece. Unthinkable.)

And I haven’t even broached  the touchy subject of the .dotmil wanting to use the under-powered and pointless 9x19mm cartridge…

Bah.

Just so we’re all clear on the concept: I’ve fired some of the “modern” SMGs myself, notably the Uzi, Skorpion, the MP5 and yes, the Grease Gun. Of all, the little Skorpion was the easiest to manage and the most reliable, probably because of its dinky lil’ cartridge. But neither the simpler Uzi or Skorpion designs will ever be used because old and made by furriners. Also, they just don’t look ugly modern enough for today’s Army.