A Geek With Guns

Since the release of the Gen4 Glock 17 there have been a great number of reliability complaints. I’ve seen some of this first hand with my Gen4 Glock 17. Although it functions flawlessly in my hands it’s a regular jam-o-matic when a smaller person tries to use it. After long last Glock has finally issued notice that they are swapping recoil springs free of charge.

It has been discovered that Chiappa is going to start adding radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips to their handguns for inventory and quality control purposes. RFID, like any technology, has good and bad uses. The Firearm Blog has a nice writeup on the whole situations including a press release from MKS Distributing which is rather snarky:

RFID Removal: For those still concerned you can simply remove the grip and remove the hot glued RFID from the frame in the grip area when (over a year from now) these begin to appear. Others may prefer to wrap the revolver and their head in aluminum foil, curl in a ball and watch reruns of Mel Gibson’s 1997 film, Conspiracy Theory. Well, that’s a plan too!

I smiled a little at the snarky remark and then shook my head as its obvious MKS Distributing doesn’t understand the very real concerns over implanting RFID chips into firearms. Although MKS Distributing claims the RFID chips can only be read a few inches a way that was proven to be completely incorrect at last year’s Defcon. RFID chips are very simple, thus they have no built-in security mechanisms meaning anybody with the right equipment can read them without your knowledge.

Combine this with the fact that obtaining RFID readers is pretty cheap these days and you can see a problem for people carrying concealed. Although I would rip these chips out the second I obtained a gun with embedded RFID chips, most people would not know to look for or pull out these blasted little identification chips. With simple equipment somebody would be able to read the RFID chip on your firearm and instantly know whether or not you were carrying a firearm. Part of the reason people carry concealed is because they don’t want anybody else to know they’re carrying. Often this is to make others feel more comfortable but another reason is to have the element of surprise should you ever have to pull it. Embedding RFID chips into firearms would give criminals a means of know whether or not you were armed and take appropriate actions.

Of course there is also the possibility of using the RFID chip to identify homes of gun owners (a person staking out your home could just drop an RFID reader in your area and see if they come across any hits). If a person has one gun (for instance if they’re carrying it out the door when leaving for work) it’s likely they have others which would make their home a desirable target for the would be thief. On top of that, if you left the reader in the area for a couple of weeks a potential thief could figure out when the homeowner is away so they could move in and rob the place without resistance.

Putting a passive remotely readable device into anything isn’t a great idea, but that idea becomes far worse when that object is a firearm. Personally I won’t support Chiappa as I feel that would be promoting this type of behavior but I also believe what MKS Distributing said is true, RFID chips will become far more prevalent in firearms down the line.

Kahr Arms was recently sued by the family of a man shot by one of their firearms. Kahr settled and ended up paying the family a sum of $600,000. Why was Kahr responsible? Because they hired a guy who was stealing guns from their production line:

The lawsuit alleged that Kahr employee Mark Cronin — who had a drug problem and a criminal record — stole the gun before it had a serial number stamped on it and sold it to Robert Jachimczyk for a gram of cocaine. The man charged in the shooting, Edwin Novas, then bought the gun from Jachimczyk for some heroin, according to the lawsuit. Cronin pleaded guilty to the gun theft and was sentenced to two years in prison. Novas was never caught; he is still listed on the Worcester Police Department’s website as being wanted in the unresolved killing.

I agree with Jay G, this settlement is a bunch of malarkey:

Since dirtbag drug addicts don’t have deep pockets – but Kahr does – they wound up on the wrong end of a wrongful death suit.

Kahr didn’t kill Mr. Guzman, Edwin Novas did. Kahr was a victim of theft plain and simple. Of course Novas was never found and even if he was I doubt he has a sum of $600,000 lying around.

It’s a liability to be successful in this country. When a crime is committed the criminal isn’t the one targeted for punishment, whoever has the most money that can be tied to the criminal act in any way is targeted. When somebody is killed by a scumbag that scumbag usually becomes a secondary concern to punishing the company that produced whatever weapon was used to commit the murder. Why? Because we don’t have a justice system in this country, we have a monetary exploitation system. If you’ve been successful in life by providing a good that consumers want you will likely be sued some day because your product was used by a criminal in some illegal capacity.

Now that the family of Mr. Guzman has $600,000 from Kahr they may want to look into whether or not Novas used a vehicle to flee the scene of the murder. Who knows, maybe the family will be able to get another $600,000 from Ford, Chevy, Toyota, or Volkswagen.

I understand that the AR-15 is a great rifle and producing one generates easy income. As I have this understanding I hold not ill-will towards companies that manufacture some kind of AR-15 pattern rifle, it’s good business, but I will also admit that it’s getting to be a complete non-issue when a new company introduces a new rifle. Why is it a complete non-issue now? Because every new rife announcement is yet another AR-15 pattern rifle and honestly it’s boring.

I’m saying this as Mossberg has introduced an AR-15. The fact that Mossberg has made this announcement isn’t the news item, the fact that they didn’t already have an AR-15 on the market is a news item. Every time another gun manufacturer announces that they’re producing an AR-15 I’m not shocked by the introduction, I’m shocked by the fact that a manufacturer still existed that didn’t have such a rifle on the market.

I love the AR-15 but honestly I’d like to see a new rifle announcement that isn’t yet another AR-15. How about a manufacturer drum up some hype about a new rifle they’re going to be introducing and actually introduce something completely new. I’m not talking about yet another AR-15 style rifle like the SCAR; No, I’m talking about something totally off the wall. I’m getting bored with all of these AR-15 announcements and damn it it’s the job of the gun industry to keep me entertained and excited.

Springfield Armory has been busy with their line of imported pistols and I must say they’re certainly working to make sure all the holes in their product line are filled. A new pistol in the XD(m) line has been unveiled and this one is specifically for competitions.

It comes out of the box with a rear adjustable target sight, a fiber optic front sight, and the slide has a large cut out across the top to bring the weight down. Beyond that it looks like a standard XD(m). Personally I think it looks neat and I’m glad to see Springfield working diligently on ensuring there is a XD model for everything need.

I don’t know what it is exactly about the Styer AUG but ever since I first laid eyes on one I’ve wanted it. Maybe it’s because the gun is fairly unique looking or perhaps I really want a rifle that doesn’t have a property trigger guard surrounding the band switch but either way I’ve always said I will buy myself one when I get a large surplus of cash to spend on some random pointless thing. Well it seems my hopes haven’t been totally dashed in acquiring one as Steyr have announced that they will continue importing their AUG rifles into the United States at some future date. What that future date is remains uncertain but either way this is good news in my opinion.

It seems Ruger is slowly throwing off the chains place upon it back in the day when Bill Ruger ran the place. The Firearm Blog has the scoop on Ruger’s new and official 25 round 10/22 magazines. One of the Ruger spokesmen stated the following in regards to the magazines:

“These are genuine Ruger factory magazines. We designed them. We didn’t license and rebrand someone else’s magazines,” said Ruger CEO Michael Fifer.

That doesn’t fill me with a whole lot of confidence. My main hope is that these magazines aren’t complete shit like the standard 10 round affairs. I’ve not been able to find a single standard 10 round magazine for my 10/22 that doesn’t end up being a jam-o-matic. Frankly it’s embarrassing that the manufacturer of one of the (if not the) most prolific .22 rifles can’t even manage to make a magazine that works for that gun.

Regardless of how well the magazines work it’s nice to see Ruger is moving further and further away from Bill Ruger’s ideas. Good work guys.

I’ve seen a few people mention the new 7.62x40mm WT cartridge but never read any real detail about it. Thankfully a guest blogger over at The Firearm Blog has the scoop. Basically the 7.62x40mm is a .223 casing necked up to accept a .30 bullet. It’s also yet another caliber I’ll toss onto the list of cartridges that seem like a good idea but are obscure and thus will be prohibitively expensive and difficult to come across.

I like having my guns in fairly common calibers even though I reload all my own ammunition. For instance my main handguns are in .45 ACP while my main rifles are in 7.26x51mm (can you tell I have a preference towards larger calibers). Both are common as they were military issue leading them to be easy to find. Likewise I can go to the range and find discarded casing for either which allows for some cheaper reloading.

I’ll give credit to Wilson Combat for coming up with a cartridge based on the .223 which is as common as water now. My bet is that this new cartridge will join the 6.8 and 6.5 on the list of cool but uncommon rounds and I still want to get but probably never will. Still the idea of firing a .30 using a standard AR lower is neat.

Glock is celebrating their 25^th year in the United States. This celebration is being done by the released of 2,500 limited edition Glock 17 pistols. What makes them limited edition? A small metal plate on the grip that says 25 Years. Whoopty do!

Although I love Glock pistols I fully admit that they have an ugly and uninspired design lacking anything beyond the necessities for functionality. I’m fine with this because their guns work well. But if this is all Glock can manage to come up with for their limited edition pistol they might as well not even bother trying.

Still congratulations on 25 years in the United States Glock and here’s to another 25.

It appears as though Mexico hasn’t gotten the memo about the United States government smuggling guns into their country and instead opting to attempt lawsuits against American gun manufacturers. That probably makes a little bit of sense since the United States government isn’t going to allow itself to get sued but as the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) points out Mexico still doesn’t have a case:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms industry, respects the work of President Calderon to willingly take on his country’s powerful drug cartels; however, we are disappointed that he would seek to hold law-abiding American companies responsible for crime in Mexico. This is especially troubling given investigative reports that show more than 80 percent of the firearms recovered in Mexico do not come from the United States. The most recent of these reports, from the independent research group STRATFOR, determined that less than 12 percent of the guns Mexico seized in 2008 came from the United States.

Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), firearms traced in Mexico were originally sold at retail not recently, but, on average, 14 years earlier. This is completely inconsistent with any notion that a flood of newly purchased firearms are being illegally smuggled over the border. And let’s not forget that no retail firearm sale can be made in the U.S. until after an FBI criminal background check of the purchaser has been completed.

Have fun wasting money you don’t have Mexico. Maybe you should spend that money on fixing your failing state instead. Then again Mexico probably has just as likely a chance of accomplishing that as successfully suing American gun manufacturers so the point is really moot.