SHOT show 2012

picture from armsbook.ca

Went to the Shot show this year with some friends, this is my third time, so somewhat used to it, the first time going for a shooter is like being a kid in a candy shop! I really enjoy going as it is so totally different than working in a government office, listening to small business owners talk about idea's, buying, selling, importing, exporting, regulations and what will happen next in the economy is refreshing and quite educational.

The show is divided into a few large groupings, the main floor is the big names like Ruger, Smith and Wesson, Remington and Winchester to name a few. Downstairs is the small businesses, this is where the real gems are, everyone down there has a better mousetrap or at least a better price on the widgets than someone else. Off to the side our the special sections for military and law enforcement.

The show was held at the Sands expo in Las Vegas and will likely be near for the next few years.
One thing I have noticed over the last 3 shows I have gone through (2008,2010 and 2012) is that women are becoming a force to be reckoned with.

picture from womanofuspsa.com

 The women I see see there are increasingly more involved with both shooting and the business side, this is reflected in the marketing that is going on. While a large group of retailers think all they have to do is put some of their products in pink, others are going far greater lengths to redesign their products to match the physique of the average woman. This explains the rocketing popularity of pocket pistols which are light, easy to concel and easier for most women to grasp and operate.

Around 61,000 people came to the show and there was over 1600 exhibitors. What I found to my surprise is that despite the economy and growing concerns for another hard recession, the firearm industry is booming (pun intended).
Some of the interesting highlights I saw are:

Turkish bling guns

Lots of air rifles

The "Rhino" revolver, unique as it fires from the bottom of the cylinder rather than the top, this reduces "muzzle flip".

How about some $257,000 shotguns, made by Perazzi The scary part is this is their "mid-range priced guns"  . they also have a set for over $400,000!!  They asked me if I wanted to hold one and I said no, if I dropped it I would have to sell the house to pay for it!!!!

Now this is the latest in Scottish high fashion, Bullet proof vests in the tartan of your choice!

Some interesting and novel shotgun slugs.

Zombies are all the rage right now, zombie ammo, zombie knives, zombie targets, zombie grips, everyone and anyone who could work the zombie angle did.

The show is wheelchair friendly, this one costs over $20,000 and uses 6 gyroscopes to stay stable.

T

Father daughter moment

Took my daughter shooting at the range this Saturday, she really did well! She was responsible and safe. She also hit the target 9 out of 10 times, very impressive for the 2nd time shooting. She was using a modified Ruger 10/22 with a short stock. After watching her shoot I have to make her a special rest, all of the ones there are to high. Also need to shorten the length of pull on the stock and smooth out the trigger so it's easier for her.

It's important when you are teaching kids to shoot, that you set them up for success, don't start them on a large calibre rifle with a target a 100 metres away! From the picture below you can see I set up a series of targets at 25 metres, making it easier for her to hit the target. In the beginning the focus needs to be on safety and learning how to hold the gun. Next time I will work a bit on trigger pull and breathing. Kids can only take in so much at a time, keep your learning plan for them simple and achievable. My daughter had a great time and didn't want to stop. I could see though that her attention was beginning to wander and her arms getting tired. After shooting I took her to Tim Horton's for a donut, which she also enjoyed of course! It was a great father- daughter day and daddy is very proud of his baby girl. Another lady at the range came up to me and said: "Watching you with her, reminds me of my dad teaching me to shoot. Lots of great memories"

I am the "Evil gun Lobby"

I belong to Canadiangunnutz (aka CGN) forum, a very active firearm forum on all things firearms and associated sports. It has about 70,000 members. Apparently certain Liberal politicans have been claiming CGN is part of the "Evil gun lobby funded by the NRA" They are wrong on 2 points, first the Liberals would not recognize a grassroots organization if it came up and slapped in the face, mainly as the Liberals are all about "big money" (hence their current funding problems). also if they bothered to check facts (Not a liberal strongpoint)they would note that the NRA is barred by it's own rules from donating money outside of the USA.

Firearm organizations in Canada do talk and visit the NRA and vis versa. However the Gun control groups do the same with their US counterparts and the firearm "Lobby" has never received a penny from government,unlike the gun control groups here that fed off the Liberal teat for years (Remember Adscam?) They still receive money from the Police Chief Associations. Meanwhile the "Evil gun control lobby" has to do with personal donations and membership fees. Which means that I and people like me are the "Evil gun Lobby" and I wear my badge with honour.

I have posted below Greentips (Owner of CGN)response to the bogus claims.

We have been reading the latest rhetoric's from certain politicians about our website. First of all, we must thank certain newspapers for giving us the exposure! We appreciate it!

Apparently, we have been elevated to the status of an Evil Radical NRA-funded Gun Lobby!! We will love to be funded by the NRA but to the disappointment of many we do not get any money out of any evil gun lobbies.

Let us say again: We do not get a single penny from any "gun lobbies or advocacy groups". Some people may think CSSA and NFA (the real gun lobbies) are "sponsors" of this website because of their banners. The sad truth for all firearms hating politicians and journalists is that : we did not get a single penny out of these organizations! Actually to the contrary, we are putting their banners up for free so our members will think of giving them money!

If we are anything, we are just tens of thousands of Evil Radical Grass root Canadians that have real jobs and pay real tax. We are in your offices, your workshops, your schools, your neighborhood, your churches(or temples/Mosques/religious joints)....And yes, we are spending too much time on the Internet!

Politics and the Schizophrenic’s Language

I was going to do a post on the nutbar that shot Congresswoman Giffords, but this blogger summed it up better than I could.

It’s now a major secondary story in the Giffords shooting: who or what’s to blame for the carnage? It began almost as soon as the story broke, when fingers were pointed quite prominently even before anything was known about the shooter except that he was a young man, and that he had been taken into custody.

The anti-gun contingent sprang to action almost immediately, as did the anti-Palin faction and a particular loud-mouthed Democratic sheriff, in marked contrast to the pleas from the MSM and the left for verbal restraint in speculating about the motives of the Fort Hood killer.

Almost all the blaming in the Giffords shooting comes from the left against the right. And this despite the fact that Giffords, a Blue Dog Democrat, could just as likely have been a political target of either side, since she stands roughly in the middle.

It would be easier to judge the finger-pointers as impartial if they were equally incensed against rhetoric and images from the left as from the right. A display of evenhandedness would at least serve to establish some sort of arguable sincerity. For example, when campaigner Obama advised supporters to bring a gun to the fight if the opposition brought a knife, wouldn’t he have been to blame, too, for upping the ante?

Or do mere words lack the power to ignite acts such as Saturday’s shooting? (If one is to believe a friend of Loughner’s, the killer himself thought that “words mean nothing.”) And if mere words have no such power, what does?

Read the rest here

A little "Bang-bang" is good for the soul

As I mentioned I love shooting and one aspect of that is pistol shooting. Today I was in Poco shooting a "Qualifier match" for International Pistol Competition (IPSC) I did ok considering I haven't had many chance to compete this year. Didn't get disqualified (they take safety seriously in these matches, make a mistake and that's it for the match, 2 goofs in a row and they will review your shooting to see if you need to retake the courses) But I have to pick up my speed a bit, as you can see in this comparison.

Coming out of the gun closet

Post 1.

Actually I “came out” quite a few years ago. Lesson learned, if you act like what you do is wrong, then people will build on that feeling even if there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. I thought I would do a series of posts to explain to the lay person about guns, gunowners, statistics, politics and laws of Canada. I will try to do it by the questions I am often asked. I hope you find the information and the format useful.

1. Question; Why do you own a gun?
Simple and short answer, I like them, I like shooting them, figuring out how they work and trying to hit the target. I also own some for protection from predators while I work and hike. Some people own guns for self-defence, yes even in Canada and it’s not as illegal as you think, this subject though deserves a post of itself. Which I will do later.

2. Question: Why do people collect guns?
For the same reasons people collect music boxes, banks, coins, cars, spoons, hockey cards, stamps or any other manner of things. Guns can be a good representation of the culture they came from, a German Luger is a complex piece made in that old world craftsman sort of way, each piece hand fitted to the next, a Russian TT-33 is rough, strong and no nonsense, similar to the Soviet Union that produced them. Each one has a story to tell. The mechanics of how it works, how it came to be is fascinating. Imagine something that has to move easily, suddenly absorb and lock up 50,000 pounds per square inch (psi) and then release itself and cycle another bullet smoothly to repeat, all using a simple spring, a chemical reaction and some mechanical advantage.
Many people collect guns from certain periods of history, some are early 17th century, others the Napoleonic period. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th saw a blizzard of new designs and new ideas, each causing the ones just before it to be obsolete, similar in nature to the lightening fast development of the personal computer. As mentioned each design and type reflects the culture and the technology of the period and place it came from.

3. Question; How many gun owners in Canada?
An excellent question with a less than clear answer. Under the current licensing system (PAL) there were 1,863,356 licensed firearm owners in Canada as of 2008. Yet in around 1995 there was close to 4 million firearm holders under the old system (FAC) almost half of the gun owners in Canada refused to comply with the new system, one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in our history and not a note of it in the media, interesting eh? There is also approx. 4,000 firearm businesses in Canada to support them, the majority being small family owned businesses.

The next post in this series
Part II
Part III

Self defence is a Canadian right

Canada laws are mind boggling. It’s illegal to carry something for self-defence, but it’s not illegal to use force, including deadly force to defend yourself. There has been about 6 recent cases that back this right where citizens used deadly force in self defence.
But it takes more than tools to protect yourselves or your loved ones. The first step is become aware of your surroundings, get to know your neighbours, get to know who the patterns in the area, so you can spot that which is odd. Don’t wander around in a daze glued to your Ipod, especially at night. Awareness is your first defence, If you are going to carry bear/dog spray, get to know how to use it, buy two cans and practice with one. Martial Arts are great being good for mind, soul and body. If you have daughters like me teach them to be aware, have self respect and how to defend themselves. Don’t teach your kids to be victims.