Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 36

PINNED

The Pin Shoot, my favorite shooting match evah, wrapped up a couple of days ago. A good time was had by all. I got to see a lot of old friends. One was Al Burnett, who I met at the very first such match in Central Lake,Michigan in1976. Now 86, Al is a retired Michigan State Trooper, […]

REPORT FROM THE PIN SHOOT

As I write this it’s the morning of Day 4 of the five-day match known as The Pin Shoot. I’ve written it up here before, but for those who came in late… Picture a cornucopia of gun games with pistols and revolvers, rifles and shotguns, busting caps on everything from .22 to .50 caliber.  Except for […]

AGAINST ALL ODDS

In a Barnes and Noble bookstore in May, looking for something to read when it was my lovely bride’s turn to drive as we went between training classes, the impending Memorial Day drew me to the history section. One of the books I bought that day was “The Rifle,” reviewed in the last blog entry […]

ABOUT YOUNG ADULTS AND GUNS

With the recent Memorial Day observance and the memory of the countless Americans who sacrificed their lives for freedom fresh in our minds, let’s talk about the first thing that’s likely to get thrown under the bus in the current gun owners’ civil rights controversy:  Americans 18 to 21 purchasing rifles. I recently read “The […]

IN DEFENSE OF THE AR15

As the political/media assault on AR15 rifles and those of us who own them continues, we need to articulately defend why we have them and have the right, and indeed the need, to keep them.  I offer you this video, from our friends at Wilson Combat. Or watch video here. At this writing, it has […]

THE LATEST WILD GUN EXAGGERATIONS AND LIES

The latest anti-gun hysteria is reaching new heights of exaggeration and outright falsehood. Consider the following: The President now claims 9mm pistol bullets will blow your lungs right out of your body. Uh…no.  No they won’t. NPR claims .223 rounds from AR15s will decapitate human beings who are shot with them by others.  Um…no.  That […]

SPEAKING OF HATE SPEECH

Remember the roadside billboards the gun prohibitionists put up a while ago that read “NRA Is A Terrorist Organization”? It was a classic example of why reasoned dialogue so seldom takes place in the polarized debate over guns in America.  Our side feels like black folks trying to talk with Klansmen who are spitting the N-word […]

ANOTHER MAD DOG, AR-15, MULTIPLE POTENTIAL VICTIMS SITUATION – AND A DIFFERENT OUTCOME

Print and electronic media have all been inundated with the horrifying massacre at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Lost from the national media is another case of a would-be mass murderer with an AR15, who opened fire on a crowd of people in Charleston, West Virginia. It happened within hours of the Uvalde atrocity. […]

A DISPATCH FROM THE PLACE OF THE PARIAHS

Déjà vu. The scene outside the convention center in Houston today reminded me of the anti-NRA protests in Denver after the Columbine atrocity in 1999, only this group apparently didn’t get a license to march. So, they just stood there yelling and waving placards. “Shame on the NRA.” “You are responsible.” “Their blood is on your […]

ANOTHER ATROCITY, MORE MISLAID BLAME

Déjà vu. 23 years ago, I had been teaching at the Firearms Academy of Seattle when we received word of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.  The homicidal/suicidal duo who perpetrated it wound up on the cover of TIME magazine. The mass media and the Democratic Party blamed the National Rifle […]