Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 10

GOLDEN YEARS

So, I heard of the book “Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Re-Invented Old Age” and bought it, ‘cause I figured I exemplified the target audience. Should have read it on a park bench as befits someone of my years, but I was in Chicago for the Christmas holidays and it was too damn cold. […]

GANGSTER HUNTERS

My parents lived through the Roaring Twenties and the early Thirties when “motor bandits” and assorted gangsters were always in the headlines. I became fascinated with the era hearing them discuss it in the 1950s, when the “Dillinger Days” were closer in time to them than 9/11 or the Columbine High School atrocity are to […]

RESOLUTIONS

New Year’s resolutions seem to be an American tradition. I managed to get all the way through 2024 without ONCE dating a letter or check “2023.” And was pretty proud of myself until the fourth day of the first month of 2025, when I dated my first check of the year 1/4/24. Dammit! If any […]

AND YOU THOUGHT “GUN CONTROL” HERE WAS BAD?

Prime Minister Trudeau wants to ban – and confiscate from Canadian citizens – a whole bunch of sporting rifles which have been legal to hunt with there for over a century, and which have not figured in criminal activity there. More proof that the Other Side lies when they say, “We don’t want to take […]

AVOIDING MISTAKEN IDENTITY SHOOTINGS

If you’ve taken one of my classes or read enough of my articles, you know how emphatically I remind people that someone they perceive to be a stranger in their home might, in any number of scenarios, be an innocent party with every right to be there. Please read this article, brought to my attention […]

HERE’S A (HOPEFULLY RARE) SELF-SERVING BLOG ENTRY

A kind reader recently reminded me of something Professor David Yamane had written a while ago. Allow me to return the compliment. Professor Yamane and his Gun Culture 2.0 blog and book have done a tremendous service to the truth of the polarized “gun debate.” A self-identified liberal and sociology professor, his “Sociology of the […]

GUN DIGEST 2025

Ah, Gun Digest. When I was a boy I couldn’t afford to buy it out of my allowance – it was the price of a book, since after all, it was a book – but thankfully, the library in the city where I lived since age nine bought it every year. I had to read […]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

All of us on the Backwoods Home magazine team wish a very merry Christmas to you and yours. Over the years, it has become a tradition in this space to ask our readers what guns or firearms-related gifts they received or gave for the holidays. This includes memorable Christmases past. My own single most memorable […]

SINGLE ACTION REVOLVERS: THEY AIN’T JUST “RETRO”

The single action revolver has been obsolete for most practical purposes for well over a century, yet you still find them on display in gun shops today. It ain’t just about “retro” or cosplaying at a cowboy action shooting match.  Ruger’s inexpensive but very functional little .22 caliber Wrangler single action has been a regular […]

THE VALUE OF RELAXED ALERTNESS

My friend Greg Ellifretz recently reminded me of this article I wrote a decade ago. I think it’s still valid. Notice the photos. There’s no reason to be casting your eyes downward to your smartphone when you can just hold it up in front of your face and retain your scan of what’s around you […]