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About mikethegunguy

Author of 7 gun books and more than 1,000 gun columns on my website and Huffington Post. Lifetime Patriot Legacy NRA member. Gun retailer, wholesaler, importer and safety trainer.

The American West: How Hollywood Promoted Guns and Then Promoted Gun Control.

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From our friends at Ammo.com

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control


Hollywood has a clever way of distorting our perspective on history, and a great example of this is Western film – a movie genre we’ve all come to love. Cattle rustlers, guns blazing, outlaws running loose, and vigilantes dishing out vengeance indiscriminately. These scenes have become more synonymous with the American Frontier than Winchester and their “Cartridge That Won the West.” But these fictional tales have produced more than entertainment for over a century; they’ve also contributed to an ongoing, subtle push for gun control, all while making Hollywood millions.

Revisionist history books tell us that the “Wild West” was an anarchic period of time that was not conducive to human prosperity. Images of a Hobbesian nightmare – a life that is brutish and short – are ingrained in our consciousness thanks to decades of public schooling and violent images on the silver screen which are light on actual history and heavy on creative license.

However, individuals who believe in liberty and developing their critical thinking faculties should be skeptical of most mainstream narratives regarding history, especially American history. After all, these narratives by and large have been created by Hollywood, a legacy institution that has historically advanced politically correct content with the support of Washington in order to perpetuate the cultural status quo.

When the curtain of political correctness that’s been draped over this particular period of history is pulled back, we see a much more nuanced picture of the American Frontier. In fact, research by historians such as Peter J. Hill, Richard Shenkman, Roger D. McGrath, Terry Anderson, and W. Eugene Holland shows that this period was rather indicative of a “not so wild, Wild West.”

For the purposes of this article, the Wild West will now be referred to as the Old West. This is by no means a pedantic distinction, but rather an acknowledgment of the fact that this time period was not “wild” by any stretch of the imagination when compared to other chaotic periods in human history. Indeed, the Old West had its fair share of challenges for American settlers. But as we’ll see below, crafty settlers found ways through ingenuity and mutual cooperation - all done with very limited state interference - to create a stable order for generations to come.

So let us delve into the “not so wild, Wild West.”

  • The Not-So-Violent West
  • Understanding Violence in the American West
  • Northfield, Minnesota vs. Tombstone, Arizona: A Tale of Gun Rights vs. Gun Control
  • Gun Control Could Not Save Tombstone
  • Why the American West Matters

The Not-So-Violent West

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

The Old West was not a paradise by any stretch of the imagination. There existed conflict between groups, such as American settlers and Native American tribes, once they came in contact in the Great Plains and other parts of the frontier. This was natural due to the cultural differences that existed between these groups and the lack of defined property rights in those regions.

However, in more settled towns on the frontier, there was not as much violence as the Hollywood flicks would like you to believe. One of the most important texts disrupting this depiction of the Old West was W. Eugene Hollon’s Frontier Violence: Another Look. Hollon argued that “the Western frontier was a far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American society is today.” Additionally, historian Richard Shenkman makes the case that the popular depictions of the Old West belong more in a movie script rather than a real-life historical account.

Shenkman noted:

“Many more people have died in Hollywood Westerns than ever died on the real Frontier.”

Dodge City has become a landmark for Western movies, but its portrayal is more fiction than reality. Shenkman also dismantled the Dodge City myth:

“In the real Dodge City, for example, there were just five killings in 1878, the most homicidal year in the little town’s Frontier history: scarcely enough to sustain a typical two-hour movie.”

Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton also pointed out that the infamous bank robberies that captivate movie audiences were not very frequent. His research uncovered that there were fewer than a dozen bank robberies in the frontier West from 1859 to 1900. In essence, Schweikart argues that there are “more bank robberies in modern-day Dayton, Ohio, in a year than there were in the entire Old West in a decade, perhaps in the entire frontier period.”

Arguably, the strongest and most concise text reclaiming the true history of the American West, Terry L. Anderson and Peter J Hill’s The Not So Wild, Wild West has forever changed the way Americans view the American Frontier. Anderson and Hill’s research found that the establishment of property rights was key in taming the American West. Indeed, this process took time, but it was well worth it. The Old West was a demonstration of human ingenuity and long-term planning that eschewed the quick fixes of modern-day politics.

In mining-related matters, American settlers found ways to peacefully adjudicate disputes, which Anderson and Hill noted:

“In the absence of formal government, miners in a particular location would gather and hammer out rules for peacefully establishing claims and resolving disputes over them.”

The authors went as far as to say that the “rules that govern western mining and mineral rights evolved literally from the ground up.” These developments in the Old West were no trivial occurrences, they set the stage for even bigger developments that the authors note below:

“Not only did the miners pave the way for mineral rights throughout the West, but they laid the foundation for western water law.”

This manner of peacefully settling property rights disputes carried over into other sectors, such as ranching and farming. There were obviously various roadblocks at the start, but settlers still found free-market ways of getting around these obstacles. In sum, Anderson and Hill’s findings demonstrated that the Old West was not so chaotic:

“In the mining camps and on the open range, the six-gun seldom served as the arbiter of disputes. Instead, miners established rules in camp meetings, and cattlemen used their associations to carve up the range, round up their cattle, and enforce brand registration. Though not all attempts at dispute resolution succeeded, institutional entrepreneurs found ways to define and enforce property rights that created, rather than destroyed, wealth. In short, the West was really not so wild.”

Such scenes of mutual cooperation on a voluntary basis are almost unheard of in today’s political climate. For many busybody politicians, all meaningful economic activity must be conducted under government supervision. As a matter of fact, had any of the problems in the Old West surfaced in present times, there would be instant calls for the government to step in and try to fix things. Once the unintended consequences of these interventions set in, the same calls for more government “help” would come back to life.

Thankfully, our forebears were much wiser in the late 19th century. By maintaining a relatively hands-off approach, the federal government allowed the unsettled American Frontier to naturally tame itself through the voluntary cooperation of settlers.

Understanding Violence in the American West

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

The most infamous images of the American West always consist of scenes of extreme violence and vigilante justice. Many history books have implanted in the minds of millions of students that gratuitous violence was a normal way of life in the American Frontier. It also does not help that Hollywood’s greatest Western films were laden with epic shootouts and cliche conflicts between outlaws and law enforcement.

Although there are some slivers of truth in these depictions of the American West, they tend to be exaggerated. Since the 1970s, a wide array of literature has challenged these common assumptions.

In Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes, historian Roger McGrath looked at notable western cities in California, Bodie and Aurora, to see how they stacked up to modern cities as far as crime rates were concerned. McGrath provided some context to famous scenes of bank robberies in the Old West:

“Next to stagecoach robbery, bank robbery is probably the form of robbery most popularly associated with the frontier West. Yet, although Aurora and Bodie together boasted several banks, no bank robbery was ever attempted. Most of the bankers were armed, as were their employees, and a robber would have run a considerable risk of being killed.”

Armed citizens also deterred the robbery of individuals, while armed homeowners and merchants discouraged the burglary of homes and businesses. So it’s clear America’s long established gun culture and civic responsibility of providing defense transitioned quite seamlessly to the American frontier.

McGrath provided some interesting statistics on robberies in Aurora and Bodie:

“Between 1877 and 1883, there were only 32 burglaries – 17 of homes and 15 of businesses – in Bodie. Again, Aurora seems to have had fewer still. At least a half dozen attempted burglaries in Bodie were thwarted by the presence of armed citizens.”

The historian then compares these numbers to American cities:

“Bodie’s five-year total of 32 burglaries converts to an average of 6.4 burglaries a year and gives the town a burglary rate of 128 on the FBI scale. In 1980 Miami had a burglary rate of 3,282, New York 2,661, Los Angeles 2,602, San Francisco-Oakland 2,267, Atlanta 2,210 and Chicago 1,241. The Grand Forks, North Dakota, rate of 566, and the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, rate of 587 were lowest among U.S. cities. The rate for the United States as a whole was 1,668, or thirteen times that for Bodie.”

Even general theft was not much of a problem in cities like Bodie:

“Bodie’s forty-five instances of theft give it a theft rate of 180. In 1980 Miami had a theft rate of 5,452, San Francisco-Oakland 4,571, Atlanta 3,947, Los Angeles 3,372, New York 3,369, and Chicago 3,206. Lowest theft rates among U.S. cities were those of Steubenville, Ohio, at 916, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, at 972. The rate for the United States as a whole was 3,156, more than seventeen times that for Bodie.”

McGrath came to several powerful conclusions when observing Aurora and Bodie’s robbery rates:

“Institutions of law enforcement and justice certainly were not responsible for the low rates of robbery, burglary, and theft. Rarely were any of the perpetrators of these types of crime arrested, and even less often were they convicted.”

In McGrath’s view, armed citizens were the key factor behind low burglary rates:

“The citizens themselves, armed with various types of firearms and willing to kill to protect their persons or property, were evidently the most important deterrent to larcenous crime.”

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

This is consistent with findings that gun researcher John Lott uncovered in More Guns Less Crime when he analyzed states that liberalized gun laws during the 1980s and 1990s. Many of these states witnessed substantial decreases in robberies when citizens were allowed to not only defend their homes, but also carry firearms for self defense.

As far as rape was concerned, women were virtually safe from all occurrences of rape in Aurora and Bodie:

“Aurora’s and Bodie’s records of no rapes and thus rape rates of zero were not matched by nineteenth-century Boston or Salem. From 1880 through 1882, Boston had a rape arrest rate of 3.0 and Salem 4.8. A conversion factor of 2.6 – a figure consistent with FBI data in 1980 – gives the towns rape rates of 7.8 and 12.5. Nor are Aurora’s and Bodie’s rates matched by any U.S. city today, although in 1980 Johnsontown, Pennsylvania, had a rate of only 5.7.”

McGrath did concede that homicide rates were indeed high in the Old West, but there was a caveat – these cases of homicide were confined to fights between willing combatants, i.e., duels, as was common during this period where “honor culture” prevailed.

McGrath explained: 
                        
“While the carrying of guns probably reduced the incidence of robbery, burglary, and theft, it undoubtedly increased the number of homicides. Although a couple of homicides resulted from beatings and a few from stabbings, the great majority resulted from shootings.”

When we think about it, this makes sense. Firearms are very effective tools in dishing out legal damage. Guns did facilitate homicides, but McGrath argued that there was some nuance to this:

“The citizens of Aurora and Bodie were generally not troubled by the great number of killings, nor were they very upset because only one man was ever convicted by the courts of murder or manslaughter. They accepted the killings and the lack of convictions because those killed, with only a few exceptions, had been willing combatants, and many of them were roughs or badmen. The old, the weak, the female, the innocent, and those unwilling to fight were rarely the targets of attacks. But when they were attacked – murdered – the reaction of the citizens was immediate and came in the form of vigilantism.”

Even in a relatively anarchic environment like the American Frontier, there was a tendency for society to police itself in some shape or form. When the weak were attacked, citizens in these towns responded in vigilante fashion, but McGrath showed it was not as chaotic as people think:

“Contrary to the popular image of vigilantes as an angry, unruly mob, the vigilantes in both Aurora and Bodie displayed military-like organization and discipline and went about their work in a quiet, orderly, and deliberate manner.”

All in all, McGrath concluded that the violence we see in major urban centers today bears very little resemblance to violence in the American West:

“The violence and lawlessness that visited the trans-Sierra frontier most frequently and affected it most deeply, then, took special forms: warfare between Indians and whites, stagecoach robbery, vigilantism, and gunfights. These activities bear little or no relation to the violence and lawlessness that pervade American society today. Serious juvenile offenses, crimes against the elderly and weak, rape, robbery, burglary, and theft were either nonexistent or of little significance on the trans-Sierra frontier. If the trans-Sierra frontier was at all representative of frontiers in general, then there seems to be little justification for blaming contemporary American violence and lawlessness on a frontier heritage.”

Because of nearly a century’s worth of historical misinformation spread in popular culture and schools, Americans have been led to believe that the American Frontier was the violent period in American history. On the other hand, progressive urban centers like Chicago and Washington, D.C. are held up as enlightened cosmopolitan hubs, when in fact, they have witnessed crime sprees in recent decades that were unheard of in other points of American history. These cities are in political jurisdictions that feature stringent gun control like universal background checks and make it nearly impossible for citizens to acquire firearms.

And it’s more than just the guns. These areas are already filled with a bevy of socialist policies like public schooling, minimum wage laws, and subsidized housing that create sub-optimal socio-economic outcomes. On top of that, many urban centers have questionable policing practices and criminal justice policies that don’t effectively apprehend criminals, nor prevent them from reverting back to their criminal ways once they’re back in normal society. In turn, many individuals resort to crime in these cities as a way of making a living. Adding gun control into the mix just makes things even worse.

Northfield, Minnesota vs. Tombstone, Arizona: A Tale of Gun Rights vs. Gun Control

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

Any proud gun owner should celebrate when an armed citizen steps up to defend himself against criminals. Researchers like Gary Kleck point to over 2 million cases of individuals using firearms in self defense. This is no recent phenomenon though.

Law-abiding citizens standing up to criminals actually occurred on numerous occasions during the Old West. The most notable case was the failed bank robbery attempt conducted by the James-Younger Gang in Northfield, Minnesota.

The James-Younger Gang gained national notoriety for waltzing into towns and coming out with all the loot through well-orchestrated robberies. With so many robberies under their belts, their next robbery attempt in the sleepy town of Northfield, Minnesota seemed like a walk in the park. On the fateful day of September 7, 2024, the gang of outlaws would be in for a rude awakening once they entered Northfield.

The last thing these criminals expected was an armed citizenry that was willing to stand up against their devious schemes. As the outlaws proceeded to carry out their robbery, Northfield’s citizens quickly realized what was going on. Instead of turning to law enforcement, they took matters into their own hands.

The armed citizens of Northfield fired back at the outlaws and successfully killed several members of the James-Younger Gang. This incident had its fair share of tragedy when members of the James-Younger Gang killed the First National Bank’s cashier Joseph Lee Heywood and Swedish immigrant Nicholas Gustafson. However, these deaths were not in vain.

After the smoke cleared, the rest of the James-Younger Gang bolted out of Northfield, which marked one of the biggest reversals in Jesse James’ criminal career. From there, James lost considerable prestige as a criminal and would later be murdered by one of his partners in crime, Robert Ford, in 1882.

Despite the chaotic nature of the Northfield incident, armed civilians made a positive difference to thwart this criminal act. Had these citizens been disarmed, Jesse James and company would have made their way out of town with a cool wad of cash. This is definitely one story American students won’t find in their history textbooks.

Gun Control Could Not Save Tombstone

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

Although the Old West was marked by high degrees of freedom, especially when compared to present times, it still had pockets of gun control throughout certain regions.

Take the example of the infamous O.K. Corral standoff. This shooting has become legend throughout American folklore and an integral part of Hollywood Western movies. However, there is much more to this story than meets the eye. When we look past the dramatic effects and scruffy gunslingers, we see a much more nuanced picture of this event.

What many people don’t realize is that the O.K. Corral shootout took place during a dispute over gun control legislation in Tombstone, Arizona. According to an 1881 law, it was “unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.”

This law, however, did not deter the outlaw gang of Ike Clanton, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. For them, criminal behavior like cattle smuggling and horse thievery was a way of life. No law was going to stop them – above all, Tombstone’s gun control ordinance.

The gang of outlaws were ready to up the ante with their criminal behavior once they set foot in Tombstone. From the get go, they encountered resistance from the Earp brothers – Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt – and Doc Holliday, who were ready to stop these outlaws in their tracks. The law enforcers even demanded that the bandits hand over their guns. But much to the law enforcers’ dismay, the outlaws could not have cared less about Tombstone’s gun control laws and continued to disobey them like any seasoned band of criminals would do.

Eventually, this conflict escalated when both sides drew their firearms and engaged in an explosive shootout. Once the smoke cleared, three of the outlaws died during this confrontation. Thankfully for the citizens of Tombstone, there was an armed law enforcement presence to push back against the outlaws. However, this just goes to show that laws are not enough to prevent criminals from committing heinous acts. Armed individuals are ultimately the best first responders againsts criminals.

Gun control laws like those in Tombstone were not the norm in the American Frontier. That being said, there is still a valuable lesson behind this experience – gun control legislation will not magically make criminal activity nor gun violence go away. Even in a not-too-distant past, gun control legislation could not stop criminals.

Why the American West Matters

West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

In sum, the Old West has not received a proper historical assessment that is free of Hollywood dramatization and pro-government bias. Advocates of gun rights and other facets of limited government would be wise to closely examine the history of the American Frontier and restore it to its proper place. The United States is currently in a narrative war of sorts, where advocates of Progressivism will distort historical events to advance their agenda.

The misleading depiction of the Old West is a historical sleight hand that not only advances false history, but also associates foundational freedoms such as gun rights with sprees of violence that never even existed. That’s why it’s so important to think critically and do thorough historical research. Gun rights have historically served Americans well, providing them a means of defense against violent criminals while checking the state from embracing all-out tyranny as witnessed in present-day Venezuela.

We must remember that it’s not those who have the right ideas who win. It’s those who create the most compelling narratives who come out on top. Political outcomes are ultimately value neutral. The forces of good are not always guaranteed victory.

Americans have been misled about capitalism, Americans have been misled about the New Deal, and it’s become clear they’ve also been subject to many falsehoods about the Old West. History departments across America by and large have failed in providing their students with the right material to understand our country’s most cherished political practices. When institutions of higher learning drop the ball, it’s incumbent upon us to defend our history and culture by stepping up to ensure America has “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” as President Eisenhower famously remarked. Learning the true story of the American Old West is one step in that direction

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Two Valuable Articles on Mass Shootings.

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              Two articles on mass shootings have just appeared which deserve some Mike the Gun Guy™ space. The first is an article by our friend Eric Fleegler, M.D., who hangs his hat and stethoscope in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital where he’s seen his fair share of kids killed and injured by guns. You can download his article right here.

              In his article, Fleegler notes that more than three-quarters of all deaths in the age cohorts 16 to 34 are due to guns and that annual gun deaths are now almost 40,000, the highest rate in twenty years, the rate has increased nearly 20 percent in the last ten years alone.

              This continued surge in gun deaths is particularly interesting because it undercuts Gun-nut Nation’s basic claim that the more that are floating around, particularly the more guns being carried concealed, the more that crime and violence is supposed to go down. Now it’s true that the rate for all violent has dropped from the mid-700’s in the early 1990’s to less than 400 the last couple of years, the murder rate has also declined by roughly half over the same period of time. But the number of states which issued ‘shall-carry’ CCW in 1999 was thirty, the number today is forty-two. How come the murder rate since 2000 is basically unchanged?

              The other paper, downloadable here, is an addendum about mass shootings from Adam Lankford, whose original paper went to print in 2016.  In his initial piece, Lankford claimed that a review of sources showed that the U.S. experienced a level of mass shootings that was not only an anomaly for advanced countries but for just about every country worldwide. The problem with that paper, whose conclusions vaulted Lankford into the front ranks of researchers engaged in gun violence work, was that the journal which published this piece did not allow access to the data sources which he used.

At the time, I mentioned that the lack of source material not only created some doubt in my mind about whether his work was based on sufficient data to be considered true, but that such data needed to be made available to the entire research community precisely because accurate information about gun violence outside the U.S. is often quite difficult to obtain, never mind understand.

Lankford has mitigated both my concerns in this new piece which contains links to all the data sources he used to compare mass shootings in the rest of the world versus mass shootings in the U.S. Moreover, in talking about mass shootings he introduces a novel concept that creates a different, and I believe, an extremely substantive argument to differentiate between mass shootings which are simply the result of a nut-job who walks into a public space and shoots the place up, as opposed to the mass shootings which we consider to be the work of terrorists both here and abroad.

Basically, Lankford argues that mass shootings in the U.S. are entirely committed by one individual who usually plans and carries out the attack alone – perhaps the only exception being the massacre at Columbine, which occurred twenty years ago this month. On the other hand, mass shootings carried out by self-proclaimed terrorists (or announced to be the handiwork of terrorist organizations) are almost always events in which there are multiple shooters who operate in tandem for the purpose of using the violence to promote a political point.

I happen to believe that differentiating mass shootings based on the number of shooters, rather than the number of victims, is a very significant issue in defining the relative levels of violence between the U.S. and other both advanced and underdeveloped states. I’ll have more to say about this next week when I discuss Lankford’s argument with John Lott. In the meantime, studying mass shootings as a variation of the behavior which is responsible for just about all our gun violence, namely, someone pulls out a gun and - bang! – is a good place to begin.

It’s About Time! Shannon Watts Tells It Like It Was And Is.

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              Well it’s about time. The Indiana housewife who revolutionized how America talks and thinks about guns has finally sat down and explained how she did what she did after hearing about the tragedy at Sandy Hook.  I’m of course referring to Shannon Watts, whose accounting of her journey from her kitchen to Mike Bloomberg’s office and back to her kitchen, with many stops in between, will shortly be published by Harper Collins and I hope will force Shannon to get back on her horse and do the requisite book tour.

              The book is entitled, Fight Like A Mother, and the sub-title, which I really like, is How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World. The good news about this book is that while most folks write memoirs to sum up what they have done with their lives, Shannon is just getting ready to star in Act 2. Her first act, of course, was when she transformed a little Facebook group that she pulled together after Sandy into the first, truly grass-roots challenge to the NRA. And if anything, referring to her as the ‘NRA‘s worst nightmare’ is something of an understatement in this regard.

              I have been involved in the gun business in one way or another for over fifty years, actually for more than sixty years because my first connection was as a consumer when I bought a Smith & Wesson K-38 at a tag sale in Florida when I was twelve years old. Okay, okay, I know it was a straw sale. But in 1956 there weren’t any straw sales because there were hardly any laws covering gun ownership at all.

              When the feds got into gun regulation big-time, first in 1968 and again in 1994, the impetus for regulating the gun industry came not from the bottom but from the top. GCA68 was initially a response to the assassination of JFK in 1963; it was passed following the shootings of RFK and MLK in 1968. The gun law passed by the Clinton Administration in 1993 were also first introduced in 1991, although the idea behind the bill had been floating around since both Reagan and Jim Brady survived an assassination attempt in 1981.

              Not only did the 1968 and the 1993 laws pass muster without any great degree of grass-roots support, but in the aftermath of the 2000 election, when Al Gore couldn’t hold his home state because of pro-gun messaging from the other side, it became axiomatic in Democratic Party circles that the gun issue was best left alone.

              I am a Life Benefactor Endowment member of the NRA and I never thought that the organization’s alleged power and strength was such a big deal. Why not? Because I never met a single person who ever told me they would vote for the candidate supported by America’s ‘first civil rights organization’ who didn’t own a gun. And since a majority of Americana don’t own guns, how come everyone has always been afraid of the big, bad NRA?

              I’ll tell you why.  Because until Shannon went out there and began putting together a plan, the grass-roots movement to stop the madness known as gun violence didn’t exist. It was one thing to do what our friend Donna Dees Thomases did in 2000, namely, to fill the National Mall with nearly one million people for a demonstration against gun violence. It’s another thing to organize and sustain a national movement which puts out a coherent and continuous message every single day.

              Last month I attended a meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of MOMs.  Several hundred people filled a large room in a community library and listened to remarks from gun-violence survivors, community activists and other like-minded folks. What is most attractive about Shannon’s book is that it is not only a recounting of what she has accomplished over the last half-dozen years, it’s also a guide to building your own movement, to pushing your own community forward into making effective change.

              And by the way, with all due respect to the strengths of women in this regard, my male friends will profit from reading this book too.

Where Are All Those Concealed-Carry Killers?

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              Last week our friend Ladd Everitt published an op-ed in The New York Post where he called on Bill DeBlasio to change a New York City gun-control law, the Sullivan law, that has been in effect since 1912. Basically, what this law does is to make it very difficult for a New York City resident to walk around with a gun. Additionally, it also prohibits transporting a handgun for which a city resident has a license outside of the city itself. For that matter, a resident of any other county in New York State outside of the five counties within the Big Apple, can’t bring a licensed handgun into the city.

              The law is being challenged by some pro-gun group which believes that if someone happens to own a home both within the city as well as another home somewhere else in the state, that it’s a violation of 2nd-Amendment ‘rights’ to require said individual to have gun licenses issued by both jurisdictions in order to move from one location to another with said gun. After all, the same driver’s license can be used both in Da City and the rest of the state. How come we can’t enjoy the same ‘equal protection under laws’ when it comes to transporting our guns?

              For reasons that we will only learn if and when the SCOTUS publishes an opinion on this case next year, the great fear being bandied about in Gun-control Nation is that the High Court will use this case to strike down various state and local concealed-carry laws (CCW) and pave the way for one, national CCW that will let every armed American wander around anywhere he wants to go toting his gun.

              I happen to believe that the gun violence prevention (GVP) movement’s opposition to national CCW is correct. I also happen to believe, however, that the GVP opposition to CCW is based on arguments which have little or no validity at all. So before you get all hot and bothered that Mike the Gun Guy™ is once again showing his true colors as an NRA flack, read on.

              The opposition to CCW is based on the wholly-unsupported claim that CCW increases the possibility that gun violence rates will go up. Now you can always find an example of someone shooting someone else with a legal concealed weapon – the murder of  Trayvon Martin being perhaps the most notorious case in point. But one example is simply one example, okay?

              Our friends at the Violence Policy Center (VPC) issue an annual report on the number of times that folks with CCW kill someone by using a gun. In fact, of the 722 documented cases analyzed by the VPC between 2007 and 2017, it turns out that 45% were either non-criminal suicides or unintentional shootings.  In other words, over this eleven-year span, fatal injuries committed by CCW-holders averaged less than 40 per year. This country finds itself awash in intentional gun assaults which rack up more than 14,000 homicides a year, and the 40 or so people killed by CCW-holders constitutes a threat to public health?

              The reason I am opposed to national concealed-carry is the same reason I am opposed to all local or state-level CCW, namely, that I have yet to see a single jurisdiction granting CCW that actually imposes any kind of test to determine whether the CCW-recipient actually knows how to use a gun. Sorry, but sitting in a stuffy room, listening to some old guy drone on for a couple of hours about the ‘three rules of handgun safety’ and then firing a few shots at a fixed target doesn’t constitute any kind of ‘training’ at all. And for all the difficulty imposed by New York City to get a CCW license, there’s no training requirement whatsoever. Read: none.

              My problem with CCW is that it’s just another marketing scam to make guns as normal and useful as a droid. But guns aren’t just some household or business convenience. Guns are designed to kill. Get it?

Want To Understand Gun Violence? Try Hip-Hop.

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              One of the major talking-points Gun-control Nation, particularly now when some kind of gun control law may actually be coming due, is the idea of ‘knowing’ or ‘understanding’ gun ‘culture;’ i.e., why do people own guns?  Because to pass some kind of ‘reasonable’ gun law, we need to make sure that ‘reasonable’ gun owners will go along for the ride. Hence, the term ‘gun culture’ becomes the shorthand for understanding why 90 million Americans live in homes that contain guns.

              I happen to believe this idea to be pure nonsense and just another manifestation of the liberal fantasy which believes that some of the more ‘enlightened’ gun owners can somehow be made to agree with non-gun owners on how to regulate their guns. Did gun violence prevention (GVP) messaging play a role in various Congressional campaigns?  Yes, it did. But did all those House seats flip because gun owners voted blue instead of voting red? Yea, right.

              Anyway, back to gun culture. As far as I’m concerned, if my Gun-control Nation friends want to really understand why Americans own guns, it seems to me that what they need to do is stop worrying about why the average, law-abiding redneck in Kentucky or Pennsylvania keeps some bangers in his closet and get real by asking a question which goes like this: Why do the people whose behavior results in the overwhelming number of gun homicides and gun assaults own guns? This particular population’s behavior happens to account for at least half, if not more, of the total number of all gun injuries which we suffer from each and every year.

              Who are these gun-toting and gun-wielding folks?  They happen to be inner-city residents between the ages of 16 and 34 who listen to hip-hop music all day long. And know who they hear when they listen to hip-hop?  They hear Dr. Dre sing ‘A Nigger Witta Gun,’ or Sticky Fingaz crooning away with ‘My Dogz is My Gunz,’ or Gang Starr belting out ‘Who Gut Gunz.’ And then there’s always the greatest hip-hopper of all time, Tupac, who’s hit ‘Me and My Girlfriend’ was an ode not to a real woman but to the Smith & Wesson revolver which he carried around in his pants. The picture above is of Ice Cube holding what he refers to in a big hit as ‘Man’s Best Friend.’

              I keep hearing how the kids are turned on to guns because they play video games involving guns. In 2017, the video industry generated 36 billion in revenues, of which roughly one-quarter came from shooting games, which works out to $9 billion in gun-shooting video sales. Know what the hip-hop business is worth today? Try $10 billion, okay?

              Of course the quick and easy answer which will allow the GVP to continue ignoring this issue is the fact that most hip-hop songs don’t necessarily evoke guns or gun violence at all. Know who these people are? Yadi Kadafi, B.I.G., Fat Pat, Big L, DJ Uncle Al, Half A Mill, Mac Dre, Blade Icewood? These are less than one-quarter of the hip-hop artists who have been gunned down since Tupac was shot and killed in 1996. And believe me, this is a very incomplete list.

              So tell me. When was the last time any GVP group ever held a candlelight vigil for victims of gun violence like these? Do any of my Gun-control Nation friends talk about coming together with the hip-hop community to discuss issues of common concern? If you don’t think that hip-hop culture and gun culture aren’t one and the same, you don’t know very much about either kind of culture – you really don’t.

              Want to get a taste of what I’m talking about? Just click here and listen for a bit. Then tell me about how all we need to do is contact all those responsible gun owners and get them to line up behind all our reasonable ideas to control their guns.

Greg Gibson: Survivor Apocalypse - Sections 3 and 4.

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III – Survivor Apocalypse

How difficult is it, in the wake of the 573 killed and injured in the Las Vegas shooting of 2017, to imagine unhinged nut jobs across the nation vying to top the Vegas shooter’s total? There are madmen enough, God knows, and we have guns for them all. Something just shy of 300 million guns already in circulation in this country. How difficult, then, would it be to further imagine an ongoing National Gun Slaughter Insanity Olympics? That’s why we buy guns for ourselves, isn’t it? To keep us safe from people with guns? I have forearm tendinitis from swatting flies. One problem leads to another.

For each of the 35,000 killed by a gun, and for each of the 100,000 people wounded by a gun every year in America, there are, what… ten friends, relatives, loved ones, co-workers, and classmates for whom the world will never be the same? Say 135,000 X 10. That would be more than a million people each year whose lives have been turned to shit by a gun. The NRA has five million members. How long will it be until survivors outnumber them? We already do, of course. We just don’t understand this. We don’t know who we are, and we’ve forgotten where we come from. The purpose of the “Survivor Apocalypse Manifesto” should therefore be clearer still.

I’m going to make the long trek into town and buy me a Dustbuster battery-operated vacuum thingie, the portable kind you use to clean off the mats in your car. I’m going to use it to suck the flies off the windows and window ledges. There are solutions. There are things that work. Sensible gun laws save lives.

IV – The Zombification of Gun Violence

Gun violence is a virus, a sickness deep in the body of our nation. It was dormant like the flies. Then some change in the environment animated the virus and it began running its fucked-up program, the sole purpose of which is to replicate itself. Like cancer except it’s highly contagious. That’s how it works with zombies, right? My grandson spends a great deal of time killing zombies. He’s six-years-old. If I’d had a computer when I was six it would have been the same for me. Maybe bad genes in our family. Or maybe that’s just the way healthy males are in America. We’re a brutal, violent people; it’s in our DNA. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand stayed calm, negotiated deals with Britain for their sovereignty. We shot our way out. Then we polished off the redskins. Now we turn on one another. Or on ourselves. Two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. Mostly old white guys. And troubled teens. White people tend to be violent toward themselves, black people toward one another. I don’t know why. It’s just a statistic. A number. It was not a number to my father, however. He was Wendel. She was his darling Wendy.

It is a scientific fact that dying stars emit mysterious radiation which traverses the universe at light speed and penetrates everything, causing constant mutation in the genetic material common to all forms of organic life. The zombie virus is therefore constantly mutating, as is the flu we fear every winter. That was how we got zombies in the first place. A virus that might’ve started as chicken pox for all anyone knows. One day the mutation took a deadly turn and people everywhere were stricken with it, soon to be reanimated as the living dead, doomed to shuffle around, tortured by the constant desire to gorp human flesh. It must be awful, that desire, the relentlessness of the gorp-urge. You can hear them moan from it on the zombie TV shows. It’s a metaphor for something that’s wrong with us, I think. This is what Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, has in mind when he says, “Colleges are breeding grounds for socialists who will take our guns.” Socialists being like zombies, which he hates and fears. Socialists, and zombies, presumably.

But here’s the thing. Sooner or later, after zillions of genetic combinations have been rolled, we’re going to arrive at, can you dig it? VEGETARIAN ZOMBIES! A rustling in the back yard. You look out the window and it’s them again, a pack of zombies chowing on your hydrangeas. Hey! Get out of there! Shoo! You have to squirt them with a hose. They hate that. Sooner or later they’ll mate with the meat eaters – I don’t think any of the TV shows have delved deeply enough into zombie sex - causing the meat eaters to turn veggie too, because the new mutation is stronger and more vital than the weary old trope of whatever we did wrong to deserve the virus metaphor in the first place. I’m going into town.

Can The NRA Get Back In Front Of The Gun Debate?

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              I was going to take a week off and let some of our pro-gun friends contribute the rest of the content for this week, but a rant on ‘the failing’ NRA-TV gave me no choice but to respond in kind. I’m talking about a spiel by Cam Edwards who’s joined the parade marching against that Socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is attracting lots of attention from the alt-right attack-dogs because she’s using some of the same language about Trump that Sleazy Don uses against everyone else. After all, she had the unmitigated nerve to call Trump a racist. What could be more contemptible than that?

              But the problem facing the NRA isn’t going to just go away just because the boys in Fairfax can serve their membership some red meat by saying something nasty or stupid or both about AOC. The problem is much more fundamental, namely, the fact that for the first time since America’s ‘first civil rights organization’ began promoting itself as a true-blue defender of everything that’s great about America (and guns), there’s serious competition from the other side.

              The last time a gun bill became law at the federal level was 1994 – the Brady bill along with the assault weapons ban. But these bills had two things going for them which don’t exist right now: (1). Control of both houses of Congress by the blue team; and (2). a liberal Southerner in the White House who could grease the legislative wheels with federal cash. Which happens to have been the same political alignment which produced the previous national gun law in 1968.

On the other hand, and it’s a big other, both in 1968 and again in 1994 you didn’t have the upsurge of grass-roots energy on the gun-control side of the ledger that we are seeing right now. And if Gun-nut Nation wants to continue promoting the idea that the noise being made by the other side since Parkland is nothing more than money being secretly funneled into a gun-control campaign by Socialists like Bloomberg and Soros, they can go right ahead. They happen to be wrong. Dead wrong.

              The problem facing Gun-nut Nation is that a majority of Americans have always supported gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, but the percentage of Americans who hold negative views of the NRA has not been as high as they are right now since 1995. That year, the annual Gallup gun poll found that 51% of respondents held ‘mostly’ or ‘very’ unfavorable views of the boys from Fairfax, last year the percentage was 42%, but the number was only 34% in 2005.

              What seems to be clear is that, for the very first time, lots of Americans are now thinking about the gun issue and not thinking about it in a very positive way. I don’t notice, for example, that the boys in Fairfax have yet figured out how to deal with yesterday’s Senate hearing on ‘red flag’ laws, at which time two of Gun-nut Nation’s most stalwart supporters, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said all the correct things about gun violence and even suggested that maybe, just maybe, a legislative response might be coming down the road although nobody’s holding their breath. On the other hand, if the Senate in 2020 goes the way the House went in 2018….

              So what does the NRA do? They have no choice but to try and stick more fingers into the 2nd-Amendment ‘freedom’ dike before it springs some real serious leaks. And the way you do that is to double-down on  the red-meat messaging which your base wants to hear. Which is why Cam Edwards filled his anti-ACO spiel with just one lie after another, in particular alleging that her support for the New Zealand buyback means she’ll vote in favor of the confiscation of every, single privately-owned gun in the U.S. of A.

I’m not saying that the NRA is the Emperor without clothes. What I am saying is that this particular Emperor may be riding the wrong horse, because the NRA horse is no longer the only one in the race.

Josh Montgomery: World Armory Looks Like Terminator 7

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In the past, one would think that nearing 2020, we would have a lot of flying cars, robots, and other fancy futuristic items. Plus, every Terminator fan would watch the movies, thinking how fancy those weapons look – and how unlikely it is for us to see anything like that in the near future.

Well, it’s 2019, and while we may not have flying cars, we have the world armory growing more and more every year. While the guns of the past look so “western” and old-fashioned, the world armory nowadays looks like someone dived into the Terminator 7 armory and took the guns out from there.

So, here are some examples of guns that make it look that the World Armory is preparing for a new Terminator movie.

·       The AA12 Atchisson Assault Shotgun

As far as the Terminator movies go, it is likely that in the 7th installment, the guns will take a life of their own and start shooting the targets themselves. This is why a gun such as the AA12 Atchisson assault shotgun is something you would definitely find in Terminator 7.

This gun can fire around 300 rounds per minute – which is perfect, especially when you have enemies surrounding you from every corner. Plus, compared to other shotguns, this one has reduced recoil – making it perfect when you have to get back on your feet quick and find your other enemies.

  • The Armatix iP1

The Armatix iP1 is one of the safest futuristic guns – and the one you always want to have around if you tend to drop your gun in a brawl. Considering that this gun needs a fingertip enabled watch in close proximity – 25 cm distance, at most – there’s almost no risk of someone using this gun against you.

So, if you drop your gun and someone picks it up to shoot you with it, they’ll find out that the gun cannot be fired. This would certainly save your life in a Terminator situation, where guns are flying all around the place. It is also compact, so it is the perfect kind of gun for a surprise.

  • The CornerShot

Lt. Col. Amos Golan from the Defense Forces of Israel created the CornerShot – a gun that would allow you to shoot a target from around a corner. This gun was initially designed for terrorist situations where hostages were taken – but considering its futuristic design, it is difficult to imagine how this gun would not play a good role in Terminator 7.

  • The XM23 CDTE

When you are in a Terminator situation, you may have a bunch of enemies coming at you with a thirst for blood – and you will have to get rid of all of them at once. So why not use a grenade (or a couple of them) to get that done? This is why it is not unimaginable to think that this gun would have a special place in the Terminator 7 armory as well.

The CDTE is practically a gun-looking grenade launcher that would send grenades through the air like footballs. Plus, since the gun can be tracked and detonated at any second, it makes the weapon perfect for a life or death situation. Considering that the gun has also received the nickname The Punisher, it’s actually a perfect fit for Terminator 7.

  • The PHASR Rifle

There’s something futuristic and sci-fi-like about this gun. It is not exactly a bullet-based gun – and in truth, it’s not even lethal. But it can sure be convenient when you have a bunch of angry creatures coming at you – and you have nowhere to run. 

So what does the PHASR rifle do? Well, it’s a non-lethal weapon, so it obviously doesn’t kill – but it can stun your enemy. The laser that it has been equipped with can temporarily blind the target, making them disoriented and allowing you to make a run for it. The weapon is still being worked on – but by the time Terminator 7 comes around the corner, so will this gun.

  • The FN P90 Compact Rifle

This compact assault rifle is shaped like nothing you’ve probably seen before, being a gun you’d most likely see in a video game – or a Terminator movie, for instance. Only that unlike those guns from video games, this one is as real as it could possibly be.

What makes this weapon outstanding is the fact that it has an incredible fire rate – one that can get rid of a lot of your enemies in a very short time. It’s a perfect fit for the Terminator 7 world – and it’s amazing to know that such a weapon actually exists in the world armory.

  • The FN Five-Seven Pistol

When your life is on the line, you can’t always carry large shotguns with you wherever you go. Sometimes, you may just need a small, yet powerful gun that you can take out at short notice.

This gun is so deadly that a civilian can only buy it with sporting ammunition; imagine what it could do with actual ammunition. It can practically penetrate any kind of armor, giving it a Terminator 7 vibe that can kill every target.

Plus, it is extremely lightweight despite having a large capacity. This way, even if you have to carry the gun around for many hours, you should not be inconvenienced by it.

  • Full Conceal M3G43

When you are going full Terminator, compact weapons are your best friends – and this super compact concealed carry gun is exactly what would fit the Terminator 7 movie set. Whenever you would be attacked, you would have to take out the gun, unfold it – and start shooting. It can carry around 12 bullets, making it perfect for surprise situations.

Final Thoughts

We may not have flying cars – but we have guns that look sci-fi enough to be thrown into the Terminator 7 movie. The world armory today is so advanced that we are not even surprised by laser-shooting guns anymore. They seem natural. Deadly, but natural.

Why Should The Gun Debate Have Anything To Do With Facts?

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              So now that Democrats no longer have to fear that talking about gun control is a big no-no on the campaign trail, how will Gun-nut Nation respond?  For the last twenty-five years, the alliance between the GOP and the 2nd-Amendment gang held firm, and with the exception of a few Congressional seats in Communist states like California and New York, all a politician needed to do was wave the ‘don’t tread on me’ flag as regards gun ‘rights’ and the issue would disappear. 

              Thanks to some serious spending, the media spotlight grabbed by the Parkland kids and some overreach by various pro-gun Congressional candidates, the case can probably be made that the ability of the blue team to wrest control of the lower chamber of Congress certainly wasn’t hurt by a more aggressive gun-control pitch in many swing districts and might have even helped.

              So the question which now looms for 2020, particularly in key swing states whose votes will probably determine whether or not we have to put up with that schmuck for four more years, is this: How does Gun-nut Nation move the needle back to the center-right or at least the center of the gauge which measures the respective strength of the two sides in the gun debate?

              For the last twenty-five years, the gun-nut noise machine has promoted itself through a combination of patriotism (2nd-Amendment ‘rights,’) and protection from crime (concealed-carry and stand your ground.) But what made the NRA appear to be such a fearsome political opponent was the simple fact that there was basically no opposition from the other side. Occasionally there would be a break-through, like the Million Moms March put together by our friend Donna Dees Thomases in 2000, but by and large the pro-gun narrative went unchallenged in most parts of the country, even in places where a majority of voters didn’t own guns.

              Without doubt, Sandy Hook was a watershed event, because out of the tragedy of senseless violence emerged a true, national, grass-roots effort funded primarily by Mike Bloomberg and his friends, and organized by a little lady from Indianapolis named Shannon Watts. For the first time the pro-gun narrative was countered by a gun-control argument which continues to shape the entire gun debate, namely, that you just can’t justify 35,000 or more fatal shootings each year as representing some kind of support for ‘civil rights.’ Sorry, but the argument just doesn’t work, particularly when, every once in a while, some of those 35,000 victims happen to be kids sitting inside a school.

              So what do you do if the health and welfare of your particular industry depends on whether the average, law-abiding American consumer can still have more or less free access to the products on whose sale your industry depends? You come up with a way to argue the issue which may or may not have any connection to reality at all.

              What caught my eye in this respect was an op-ed in The Daily Mississippian, ‘The Truth About Guns,’ whose author approaches the subject without even the slightest concern for the relevant facts. Here’s the formative statement: “States like Illinois and California have implemented increasingly strict laws against gun ownership, but numbers of gun deaths per capita in those states is significantly higher than in places like Mississippi, where permits are not required in order to own firearms.”  

              Ready?  The gun-violence rate in California from 2010 to 2016 was 7.92, in Illinois it was 9.29.  In Mississippi, the rate was 18.15.  This op-ed was published in the student newspaper on the campus of Ole Miss, so we shouldn’t expecting the editorial staff to operate as if they are running The New York Times.

             But I have a funny feeling that this is the kind of narrative, devoid of even the slightest concern for facts, which is how Gun-nut Nation will define its side of the 2020 gun debate.  After all, the guy who’s still heading the GOP ticket wouldn’t know a fact if it hit him in the face.

Commercial Ammunition: The Untold Story

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From Ammo.com.

To understand how American citizens today can get their hands on ammo, which rolls off the same factory lines as those that supply the world’s largest militaries, it’s important to first understand how munitions technology developed. Starting in medieval Europe, on a battlefield where a mounted knight in armor could defeat almost any number of peasants, the development of more advanced and accurate ways to destroy enemy personnel and equipment by launching a projectile is one which combines trial and error, scientific ingenuity, and private enterprise. It’s a story of power and technology dating back to the 13th century, at the height of “the divine right of kings,” and tracks the subsequent diffusion of that power held by a chosen few as the individual became capable of breaking the state’s monopoly on violence.

The first recorded use of gunpowder appeared in Europe in 1247, although China had used gunpowder for centuries before that, mostly for fireworks. The cannon appeared nearly 100 years later in 1327, with a hand-sized version making its debut in 1364. The first ordnances were made of stone, and while it might have been theoretically possible for anyone to own one, this would have been outside the financial reach of anyone but the nobility.

Stone was quickly discarded as a source of materiel for one simple reason: It wasn’t effective against stone fortifications. Thus did the first ever arms race begin, as medieval armies sought ways to fire heavier and heavier projectiles. The first recorded example of a metal ball being fired from a hand cannon came in 1425, with the invention of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus, which led to lead balls becoming the gold standard for projectiles. This is where we get the term “bullet” – boulette is French for “little ball.”

Ammunition remained largely the same for centuries: Little balls of metal virtually anyone could make. This was true until the invention of rifling in the mid-19th century. Even this invention was, at first, not terribly useful for military purposes. Not only did the barrels quickly become useless, but the barrels often could not be fitted with a bayonet. This made early rifles impractical for military use and mostly a bit of a toy. Not until the advent of progressive rifling (which came, depending on one’s point of view, fortuitously or not, in the middle of the U.S. Civil War), did rifles become practical for military, and also widespread civilian purposes.

Copper jacketed bullets arrived in 1882, but since then the development of both military and commercial ammo has largely been about degrees rather than revolutionary innovations like rifling. The same basic design for cartridges has been in place since the late 19th Century.

Advancing technology was likely a driver in the move toward ammunition produced for commercial purposes, rather than simply military use. While in the past, it was common to simply make lead balls in front of the fire as a family after dinner, making a modern rifle cartridge is far beyond the means of most people. Further, it requires safety procedures above and beyond simply molding lead balls.

What Is the Difference Between Civilian and Military Ammunition?

For the most part, the distinction between civilian and military ammunition is largely down to marketing. However, there are some important differences between civilian and military (often known as “milspec”) including:

Treaty Restrictions

All military ammunition is full metal jacket. There are military treaties requiring this on an international scale, beginning with the Hague Convention in 1899. Civilian ammo is not subject to such requirements and can be full metal jacket, composite, hollow point or any other configuration.

As a rule, civilian ammunition is designed to expand upon impact. Military ammo is not, due to treaty restrictions. Military ammunition frequently passes through a target with no serious damage, whereas civilian rounds are designed for “one shot, one kill.” This is not a purely humanitarian consideration: Wounded soldiers are a greater burden for an army than dead ones.

Climate Protection

Military ammunition comes with moisture sealant, while civilian ammunition does not. This is due to the wide array of climates that military ammunition might be used, as well as the fact that military ammunition might be stored for decades before it is actually used.

Primers

Military ammunition primers are harder than its civilian counterparts. This helps to prevent accidental discharges, the worst case scenario of which is when a weapon gets stuck in automatic fire mode.

Chamber Pressures

The chamber pressures are different between military and commercial ammunition, though the degree to which they are different varies significantly from one caliber to another. As an example, the  7.62x51mm NATO and the .308 Winchester are basically the same round, but the NATO(military) version has lower pressure.

Sometimes the military version of a round can be fired through a weapon chambered for the civilian version and vice versa – but sometimes the compatibility only works one way. For example, the military weapon can fire the civilian round, but the civilian weapon cannot fire the military round. Never assume that a military and civilian round and chamber are cross-compatible.

Consistency

Civilian ammunition tends to be far more consistent in terms of its dimensions than military ammunition. Because every round simply must feed and fire properly, military ammo allows for looser tolerances than civilian ammunition.

Casings

Military ammunition casings tend to have thicker walls because, as a general rule, they are subject to higher pressures than civilian rounds.

It’s common for civilians to buy military ammunition, either because they want the particular qualities of that cartridge or because they simply want to get a deal on price. For the most part, there’s no problem with buying surplus ammo provided that your weapon can handle it. You should also examine the ammunition when you receive it — as stated above, it’s not uncommon for rounds to sit in storage for decades.

The Springfield Armory and Commercial Ammunition

Commercial Ammunition: How Ammo Went From the Military to the Civilian Market

Today, the Springfield Armory is a historic site. However, it used to produce the lion’s share of American military hardware and, through the secondary surplus market, a good deal of the commercial ammunition floating around. All told, the site manufactured ammunition from 1777 all the way until 1968. It was both the first federal armory and one of the first American factories dedicated to the manufacture of ammunition.

The use of the location for military training dates back to the colonial days, when George Washington personally scouted and approved of the site during the Revolutionary War. The entire city of Springfield was built around the armory, which wasn’t much to speak of at the time: Little more than an intersection of rivers and roads. These features, however, are what made the location optimal for the manufacture of weaponry for the war effort. What’s more, the Connecticut River provided a natural defense against naval attack.

Shays Rebellion attacked the Armory, but was unsuccessful, as the state militia was able to defend it from attack using grapeshot. The Armory started producing ordnance in 1793, which included everything from paper cartridges and musket balls all the way up to howitzers. Flash forward to the post-Civil War period, and for a brief time this was the only federal armory in operation after the destruction of Harpers Ferry. It produced the first firearm native to America, the Model 1795, a .69 caliber flintlock musket.

The Springfield Armory was a huge driver of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. This was part of the United States military’s need for replaceable parts on the battlefield under the theory that it was easier to replace parts than it was to repair weapons on the battlefield. In turn, this made it easier for the average person to own and maintain a firearm. No longer did one have to know anything about gunsmithing or pay a gunsmith to keep a weapon in good working order. Now one could simply replace parts as they broke down.

Commercial Ammunition in America: The Big Four

For clues to where the story of commercial ammunition comes from, it’s worth looking at the history of America’s oldest weapons and ammunition manufacturers: Remington, Smith & Wesson, Colt and Winchester. These are four American brands as iconic as Coca-Cola, Levi’s, McDonald’s or General Motors. And they all play a role in the transformation of the arms industry from a martial enterprise into a commercial one.

Remington

Remington Arms is the oldest gunmaker and operates the oldest factory still making firearms and ammunition to this day. It is also the largest domestic producer of rifles and shotguns. Remington is responsible for the development of more cartridges than any other ammunition manufacturer in the world. As such, they are not just an early adopter in the world of commercial ammunition manufacturing and sales – they are also a world titan of commerce.

The transformation of Elijah Remington from a shooting enthusiast into a gunsmith gives us a bit of insight into commercial ammunition development. He designed his own flintlock rifle for a shooting competition. He didn’t win, but observers were so astonished with his custom-made weapon that offers started pouring in.

Weapons like the Remington Model 1858 were a big part of what won the West. Buffalo Bill Cody carried a modified version of this weapon, in the form of a New Model Army .44 with an ivory handle – which sold for $239,000 at auction in June 2012. Likewise, the Remington Rolling Block rifle helped to clear the West of buffalo, and it’s estimated that more of the American bison fell to this weapon than any other, along with the Sharps rifle.

Colt

The next big name to appear on the scene was Samuel Colt. While his company did not incorporate until 1855, his game-changing percussion revolver, the Colt Paterson, hit the markets in 1836. This was the first revolver and Colt held a monopoly on the production of revolvers through his patent until 20 years later. Unlike earlier weapons designed by Springfield specifically for the purpose of the military, Colt designed his weapon and then later, in an act of shrewd business, was able to sell his design to the United States military. While the innovative design was able to give troops some firepower advantage, the weapons were also notoriously unreliable in combat and were more suited for civilian purposes.

Colt’s New Model Revolving rifle, an attempt to port revolver technology to the rifle, was likewise a hit on the civilian market. It was the preferred weapon of armed guards on the Pony Express, particularly those guarding the extremely dangerous stretch between Independence, MO, and Santa Fe, NM. This particular leg never lost any mail.

Smith & Wesson

Smith & Wesson first began tinkering around with weaponry in 1852. The fruit of their labor was the Volcanic rifle. They were also the first company of note to develop a revolver after Samuel Colt’s patent expired in 1857.

The Civil War represents a turning point in the history of American commercial ammo. Many of the pistols carried by enlisted men, and officers alike, were purchased privately. What’s more, in middle of the war, modern rifling was invented, meaning that weapons became far more accurate, useful and deadly. Handloading became a far more niche hobby – and in any event, the innovation was mostly coming out of the Big Four. Though, it was also the post-Civil War period which saw the rise of wildcatting, where amateur gunsmiths and handloaders were finding ways to improve the commercial offerings on the market.

The post-Civil War period also saw both the United States military and civilian communities turning toward the final conquest of the Old West from the native population. While the impact of the United States Army on this cannot be overstated, it was armed American civilians who settled the West, and demand for weapons and ammunition was high.

Winchester

It was also the period after the end of the Civil War that saw the entry of the final of the Big Four onto the scene: Winchester. The pre-history of Winchester lies in the first company incorporated by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, not to be confused with the famous company bearing their name to this day. Their original company was responsible for the Volcanic rifle, the world’s first repeating rifle. Known as Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, it was largely funded by Oliver Winchester. The pair left the company and it was reorganized as New Haven Arms Company, and then as Winchester Repeating Arms Company. While Winchester was the last entrant on the market, they quickly made up for lost time by debuting the Winchester rifle, which quickly earned the sobriquet “The Gun That Won the West.”

While the Winchester rifle saw action in the United States military during the series of conquests known collectively as the Indian Wars, it was an enormously popular civilian weapon, with a whopping 720,000 sold and built. The original Winchester rifle, the Model 1866 (nicknamed “the Yellow Boy”) saw high demand all the way to the end of the century, due to their low cost. The weapon continues production to this day and is approximately as synonymous with the Old West as a Stetson.

Its successor, the Model 1873, was the first Winchester rifle chambered for the 44-40. If the Winchester rifle was the Gun That Won the West, this was certainly the “Cartridge That Won the West.” The primary market for this round was not the military, but lawmen, settlers, and cowboys for the simple reason that it could be used in both a rifle and a pistol. This eliminated the need to carry two different types of ammunition at all times and was a genius stroke of both engineering and marketing on the part of Winchester. Their competitors quickly scrambled to release their own weapons chambered for this enormously popular round. The 44-40 is, among other things, known for killing more deer than any other cartridge.

The Decline of Commercial Ammunition Manufacturing in America

Commercial Ammunition: How Ammo Went From the Military to the Civilian Market

As with other sectors of the manufacturing economy, ammunition and weapons manufacturing went into deep decline, beginning in the late 1960s.

Somewhat ironically, the Springfield Armory was one of the first to go. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced to the public that the plant would close in 1968, because it was in his view “excess to the needs of the federal government,” believing that private arms suppliers would be more efficient.

Many of the outer parts of the Armory were sold off. The core of the campus became property of the City of Springfield and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the site is now a party of the National Park Service, known as Springfield Armory National Historic Site. Several former buildings of the campus are now home to the Springfield Technical Community College. The main building is the home of the Springfield Armory Museum, which houses the Benton Small Arms Collection.

Colt has a slightly different story. It ceased production entirely between 1945 and 1947, with several big retirements occuring at the end of the Second World War. However, the Springfield Armory’s destruction was a boon for Colt, as Secretary McNamara moved a lot of the business from the Armory over to Colt – which finally started seeing its profits fall after the budget cuts at the end of the Cold War.

It all began with a five-year strike. The Colt factory employees were organized by the United Auto Workers, one of the longest-lasting strikes in American history. Replacement workers took the line and there was a noticeable decline in the quality of arms, which negatively impacted the brand’s reputation. By the end of the strike, Colt was sold to a group of investors, the State of Connecticut, and the United Auto Workers. By 1992, the company declared bankruptcy. A boycott, organized in response to CEO Ron Stewart’s statements to the Washington Post that he would favor a federal permit system, didn’t help matters. In 2002, the company spun off its military, defense, and law enforcement wing entirely as Colt Defense. The company reunited in 2013, but declared bankruptcy again in 2015.

Winchester’s decline came in the late 1960s, largely due to a unionized workforce and the increased labor costs that come along with it. A number of hand-tooled weapons were discontinued because the company could not compete with the cast-and-stamped Remington competitors. Much of their product line had been replaced in 1963 and 1964. And for the commercial market, it was no longer seen as a prestige brand, but rather another company selling discount firearms for the mass market. Winchesters made after 1964 continue to be less valuable and less sought after than their earlier counterparts.

A labor dispute proved to be the beginning of the end for Winchester. The strike took place between 1979 and 1980, and ended with the company being sold to the employees as the U.S. Repeating Arms Company. It went bankrupt in 1989, and is now owned by Belgian firm Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. The New Haven plant closed in 2006. Winchester is now an ammunition brand owned by Olin Corporation. It does not produce its wares in Connecticut.

Smith & Wesson fared the best, perhaps, after being sold to American conglomerate Bangor Punta, who diversified the company’s products to include gun-related products such as holsters, as well as breathalyzers and handcuffs for law enforcement. The War on Drugs served to break the back of the company, as law enforcement agencies adopted Glock, Sig Sauer and Beretta. Between the years 1982 and 1986, Smith & Wesson profits fell by a whopping 41 percent, with ownership changing twice during the decade. A boycott organized in response to “smart guns” development nearly destroyed the company. Its current marketing is extremely commercial focused, with the main target being customers at big box stores.

Remington was able to weather the storm a little better than its competitors, in no small part because it was acquired by the DuPont Corporationduring the Great Depression. The manufacturing was moved from Connecticut to Arkansas, and from New York to Alabama. Nevertheless, the company took on hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and suffered from an increasingly diminished reputation among the commercial market.

The commercial ammunition market is now bigger than it’s ever been. Popular and common rounds can be purchased at just about any big box retailer in a state with a high degree of gun freedom. Smaller mom and pops have a smaller selection, but if what you need is common enough, you can get it there. Online retailers like us cater to virtually every ammunition need, from the common to the incredibly niche and obscure. And whatever the commercial market doesn’t cater to, handloaders and wildcatters can make.

It’s important to note that when reading the history of commercial ammunition manufacture in the United States and abroad, the commercial market takes a definite backseat to the military. Indeed, the downturns in military spending are a key factor in the downturn of American ammunition manufacturing in general. As unfortunate as it is to read, it’s simply the honest truth that the needs of the military shape the needs of the overall ammunition market in the 20th and 21st Century.