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Learning your way around a modern American gun shop for the first time can seem a little bit like a college physics class, only with more facial hair and testosterone. This is particularly true of those who might not have grown up in this world, with the terminology alone bring seemingly overwhelming. Sometimes certain things that should be simple are not. As a case in point, let us consider the humble handgun.
A particularly insightful five-year-old once entertained me in my medical clinic extolling the many manifest virtues of frogs. He patiently explained that all toads were frogs but not all frogs were toads. So it is with handguns.
Revolver vs. Pistol
Any small-statured firearm designed to be fired with the arms outstretched is termed a handgun. In general, a handgun can be a pistol or a revolver. The origins of the term pistol hearken back to 16th century France. The French “pistolet” at that time meant a small gun or knife.
In modern parlance, the word “pistol” is typically used to describe a semi-automatic autoloading handgun. Semi-automatic means that the gun fires one shot with each pull of the trigger. Autoloading means that the gun’s mechanism ejects the spent case and loads a fresh cartridge using the gun’s intrinsic recoil energy.
By contrast, the word “revolver” is shorthand for revolving pistol. This particular design dates back to before the American Civil War. While the first revolving gun actions arose some 500 years ago, the mechanism was not made truly useful until Sam Colt designed his eponymous Colt revolver in 1836.
So, in terms of name alone, the revolver vs pistol debate should simply note that the revolver is a subset of the pistol genre.
The Semi-Automatic Pistol
The world’s first autoloading pistol was the obscure Salvator-Dormus semi-automatic handgun patented in July of 1891. There have been lots of different kinds since then, but today’s pistols follow certain common conventions. The typical modern autoloading pistol feeds from a spring-loaded box of cartridges called a magazine that is retained within the grip of the gun.
When you pull the trigger of a semi-automatic pistol, the cartridge fires, propelling the bullet out of the barrel. Recoil energy pushes a reciprocating slide backwards to extract and eject the empty cartridge case. Spring pressure then drives the slide forward to push another cartridge into the firing chamber. Pressing the trigger again repeats the cycle. This process can continue until the ammunition in the magazine has run dry.
The Revolver
Most modern revolvers carry six cartridges circumferentially in a round steel cylinder that rotates around a central shaft. In most cases, you activate a latch on the side of the gun that allows the cylinder to swing out of the frame. You then load the round cylinder with individual cartridges and snap it back in place.
Most revolvers can be fired two ways. When fired in the double-action mode, you simply pull the trigger. This maneuver rotates the cylinder, indexes an individual chamber in line with the barrel, and cocks the hammer and then drops it to fire the round. Releasing and then pulling the trigger again repeats the process.
As an alternative, most revolvers also allow you to manually cock the hammer back with your thumb. This mode of fire is called single-action. This maneuver automatically rotates the cylinder and aligns a cartridge with the barrel when you use your thumb to cock the hammer. Pulling the trigger then simply drops the hammer, firing the shot. As the hammer is manually cocked in this mode, single-action fire produces a shorter, lighter, crisper trigger pull over double-action operation which is longer and heavier. This is because the gun’s mechanism has so much less work to do when compared to the double-action mode.
Despite its age, the classic revolver still maintains a healthy following even today. Revolver actions are exceptionally strong and are as a result generally able to manage heavier cartridges than might reasonably fire in a semi-automatic pistol. The heavy nature of the design also lends itself to excellent accuracy. Lastly, the nature of the firing mechanism is such that revolver triggers are amenable to exceptionally crisp performance. Downsides include bulk, weight, and limited ammunition capacity.
Denouement
While revolvers are still widely used for target shooting and hunting applications, most modern shooters use semi-automatic pistols for concealed carry and personal defense. Advances in metallurgy and design have made these autoloading pistols comparably reliable to revolvers, and they are almost invariably easier to carry and conceal. However, variety is the spice of life.
Some shooters gravitate towards trim pocket pistols. Others will run a revolver or nothing at all. In shooting like most human pursuits our innate individuality expresses itself in our personal preferences.
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Makarov Pistol
Arguably the single most influential figure in American 20th century shooting, Col. Townsend Whelen’s shooting career began in 1891 and extended, literally, to the day of his death. Whelen was a member of the U.S. Infantry Team that shot in the first National Rifle Team Match at Sea Girt, NJ, in 1903 and in 1906 he was on the Infantry Team that won the National Trophy Rifle Match.
He would remain actively involved in the National Matches throughout his military career and contributed profusely to the literature of shooting. His first book, Suggestions to Military Riflemen (1906), contained what is probably the first description in print of the rifle sling as an aid to aiming (as opposed to being simply a carrying device) and in that sense ranks as one of the most significant marksmanship publications of all time. He would remain a contributor to American Rifleman and similar publications throughout his life and was instrumental in defining the classic American design of sporter rifle stocks.
Col. Whelen was for several years Commanding Officer at Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia, PA, and was later Director of Research and Development at Springfield Armory in Springfield, MA. Additionally, he was an important figure in the development of post-World War I stock design for the M1903 Springfield, including NRA and military-style stocks for the .22-caliber trainers and the full-pistol-grip type C stock adopted in 1927.
He also developed and promoted the cartridge that became known as the .22 Hornet. He was also an avid outdoorsman. Col. Whelen was as much at home in the wilderness as on the rifle range and made annual forays into remote areas in pursuit of the 110 head of big game that he ultimately collected.
Not least of his accomplishments was his active involvement in the early years of the benchrest shooting game—that basic research tool of the competitive shooting sports. Col. Whelen’s credo was, “Only accurate rifles are interesting,” and he spent a lifetime pursuing that interest.
Col. Townsend Whelen, U.S.A. (Retired)
b. 1877 – d. 1961
Anti-gun groups should know better than to hop in bed with each other. They’re too fickle and their relationships almost always end in tears.
The Trace and the Gun Violence Archive may be the latest two anti-gun groups to part ways.
The Trace is the propaganda arm of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun empire. It masquerades as a newsroom solely to provide cover for members of the corporate media who republish their stories as if they’re actual news. Trace staffers call themselves journalists, some even have journalism backgrounds, but in reality, they’re nothing more than ardent anti-gun activists paid in Bloomberg bucks.
The Gun Violence Archive has been debunked dozens of times for its fake mass-shooting data. Anytime four or more people are killed or even slightly wounded with a firearm the GVA calls it a mass shooting – even if the incident is gang and/or drug related.
Last year, the GVA claims there were 656 mass shooting, which equates to 1.79 mass shootings per day. Initially, politicians, gun control activists and the mainstream media treated the GVA’s reports as if were gospel, but many now see the ridiculousness of the GVA’s claims.
The Trace and the GVA had a long history of collaboration, which produced dozens of biased stories. The two groups are even working together on the Gun Violence Data Hub, which they claim will go live sometime in the fall. Their two staffs will “collect, clean and publish datasets,” which they will then push out to the corporate media. The Hub has become a major fundraising hook for both organizations. Never mind that their work product will be created by paid anti-gun activists.
A story published Tuesday indicates that The Trace may have found a new data source – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. Titled “Gun Deaths Fell in 2023 — Except Among Kids,” the story claims that “while overall gun deaths continued to decline from their post-pandemic peak, child gun deaths rose, and gun suicides hit a record high.”
The authors admit they used provisional data from the CDC. The actual numbers, they acknowledge, “are likely to change slightly before final figures are released in December. While the data is not yet final, it provides the most comprehensive and accurate accounting of gun deaths in America.”
Despite the temporary nature of the CDC data, the story makes some bold claims: Murders involving firearms are down, gun-related suicides are at an all-time high, and the South had the highest gun-related death rates. But nowhere in the story does The Trace make its calculations available so their work can be reviewed. Every single hyperlink, and there are more than a few, takes readers to the CDC website and its raw numbers.
Suspicious Timing
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable,” Mark Twain said that.
Are crime rates going up? Is crime down? Nowadays, you can find statistics to support both theories, especially just 90 days before a major presidential election. However, the best tool to determine whether you’re safe or likely to become a crime victim is not a news story, a spreadsheet or a dataset, it’s an old-fashioned Mark I eyeball. Believe what you see, not what the government or its lapdogs in the corporate media tell you is true.
Quite frankly, many Americans don’t feel safe, and they pushed their lawmakers to act. As a result, a clear majority of states no longer requires law-abiding Americans to bend a knee and beg permission from the government to sell them back their constitutional rights in the form of a permit or license to carry a defensive firearm. Gun sales have skyrocketed. July was the 60th consecutive month that had more than one million NICS background checks, a major indicator of firearm sales, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
If crime rates are decreasing, these are the reasons why. It’s got nothing to do with more restrictive firearm laws, which are patently unconstitutional and raging in non-free states.
As to The Trace’s new reportage and its bold claims, consider who’s paying their bills. The Trace is funded by Michael Bloomberg, who actually believes you will be safer once you give up your guns.
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