I attended a gun show this past weekend. It certainly was not my first and won’t be my last. This was one was very average to say the least. I didn’t really go with anything in particular in mind to buy, but was just looking for bargains. I did manage to pick up a gently used Beretta 8040F (chambered for the .40 S&W round). I really didn’t want another .40 as I already have one I am quite happy with. They tend to be expensive to shoot, with a box of .40 ammo going for about $5 – $7 more dollars than a box of 9mm Luger for 50. Considering I shoot around 200-300 rounds per gun per trip, that adds up. I’ve read that some folks have had accuracy issues with this model, which I suspect is due to the heavy trigger pull, but I haven’t had it out at the range yet. I’ll give a report as soon as I do. My dad is a former law enforcement officer who carried a Beretta 96 for the last few years of his career, was quite jealous.
One of the things I did notice is that the price of EVERYTHING has gone up. From ammo to common guns, everything is through the roof. This is especially the case with semi-automatic rifles. Last year at this time, it wasn’t uncommon to see AK’s in the $400-$500 range, SKS’s in the $150 range, and AR-15’s for around $1000. This is not the case anymore. The cheapest AK I saw was a Norinco that had been beat all to hell, and it was still $699. Russian made SKS’s were in the $400-$500 range, and Chinese made a little less. AR’s were through the freakin’ roof. The fear that there will be another gun ban has really driven prices up. In fact, I heard more than one person tell the dealers that they were looking for guns that would be targeted under a ban. Hi-cap magazines were going at a steady pace as well.
Given some of the senseless violence that we have seen over the past few days and weeks, it would surprise me if there wasn’t a renewed push for more stringent gun control laws. There is nothing worse than cowards who go after soft targets or set up ambushes intent on killing innocent people. No, we don’t want people like that to have guns. But people intent on killing others will find a way to do it regardless of what laws are on the books. Guns are readily available on black market. Restricting law abiding citizens from legally purchasing and using firearms is counter-productive and counter-intuitive. With all due respect, I think that Americans should want some people to own guns, especially those of us who grew up handling them from childhood, who have been thoroughly trained in their use, who are licensed by their state to carry them in defense of self and others.
April 6, 2009 at 3:51 pm |
Robb,
I’m pretty far on the other end of the spectrum from you on the 2nd Amendment issue. I think the Supreme Court screwed up their ruling on the DC gun ban, for example.
I’ve heard this “self defense” argument you make before, but I’ve never been convinced of it. Are there any good statistics out there showing how a well-armed citizenry makes us safer? It makes some logical sense, maybe, but logic doesn’t always translate into reality. Can gun-owner rights organizations point to statistics on the use of guns for self defense, that such use has made our communities safer and led to a reduction of crime in areas where there’s a high level of private gun ownership? I can’t remember the last time I heard a story in the news about a private gun owner interrupting a crime or defending themselves with their own weapon.
Guns for recreation and hunting are fine with me, and access to and use of such guns should be appropriately regulated. But I think the self-defense argument is weak . . . or at least it has been weakly argued to me in the past.
April 6, 2009 at 4:39 pm |
Chris –
Needless to say, I was thrilled with the Heller decision.
I think that is a totally legitimate question about statistics. The study that is most often pointed to is one that was originally done in 1995 by Kleck and Geertz and published in a peer reviewed journal that suggested an average number of 2.5 million crimes stopped per year by armed citizens. Another study done by Clinton’s DOJ showed the number to be between 1.5 and 3 million times per year. Even critics of the methodology used still arrive at numbers in excess of 800,000 crimes per year.
Adversely, DC has had some of the most stringent gun control policies in the nation, and yet has a murder rate that has risen since the policy was instituted.
If you are interested in general stories about guns stopping crimes, there is a blog that does good job digging through local news. Be warned, you get the good and the bad of it. Anyway, you can look at it here: http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html
The NRA also publishes “Armed Citizens” stories every month in their member magazines.
Let me say one thing to follow up: I pray to God that the only things I ever shoot are empty cans, range targets, and plenty of wild game. I don’t know a single gun owner in my circle of friends who would ever want to shoot another person.
April 6, 2009 at 5:21 pm |
Quite some years ago, I read that the two counties that contain the two largest cities near me had the highest gun owner to non-gun owner ratio in the country yet the lowest incidence of gun fatalities. But that just goes to show how one can bend statistics and/or interpret anything, including the Bible, to one’s own interests. These two “metropolitan” counties are actually mostly rural and very hunting orientated. Not too many years after that, this county, probably the largest in the US, had a rash of murders of women by the men in their lives. Well, the only time I’ve felt scared because I had no way to protect myself was when my neighbor was murdered and we knew that the guy who did it was on the lose in the woods around here. But he had pushed the lady down the steps, so he had no gun to threaten me.
Although I’d favor gun restrictions, I don’t think that they’ll help because the kooks can get them too easily. And the responsible owners will have their guns safely locked up, so they can’t grab them quickly.
April 7, 2009 at 12:53 pm |
Thanks for the info and the links. I won’t be looking at them right now – Holy Thursday sermon to write, Easter children’s program to plan – but I’ll be returning to these pixels in a few weeks to take a look.
Thanks.