Category: Cops

The ATF Lawyer You’ve Never Heard Of: William J. Ryan’s Paper Trail on Braces, Forced Reset Triggers and Gun Trusts by John Crump

Court records reveal ATF lawyer William J. Ryan’s involvement in federal regulatory battles over pistol braces, forced reset triggers, and NFA gun trusts. AI-generated illustration.

Most gun owners couldn’t pick William J. Ryan out of a lineup. Nearly everything he has said about guns in public is buried in court filings. But if you owned a pistol brace in 2023, built an NFA collection through a trust, or bought a forced reset trigger, Ryan’s work touched you. Now he’s replacing Robert Leider as Acting Chief Counsel for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

From Marine Lawyer to ATF’s Classification Chief

Ryan joined the ATF in April 2009 as a firearms and explosives attorney in Martinsburg, West Virginia, according to his own court declarations and a conference speaker bio. Before that, he was a Marine Corps judge advocate at Camp Pendleton. By early 2023, he was Acting Chief of the Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD). By that summer, he was signing filings as Chief.

Today his LinkedIn profile describes him as “Deputy Chief Counsel for a Federal Agency” who supervises 100 attorneys. The profile doesn’t name the agency. ATF is the obvious bet given his whole career, but I couldn’t confirm the agency or when he took the job, so treat that title as his own description, not an official one.

Gun Trusts and 41P

Gun owners first saw Ryan in 2015. At the NRA Firearms Law Seminar in Nashville on April 10, 2015, he spoke as an NFA Branch attorney about gun trusts.

The account comes from Pennsylvania gun-rights attorney Joshua Prince, who sues the ATF and titled his blog post “Shocking Statements/Concessions by ATF.” Keep that in mind. According to Prince, Ryan blamed much of the NFA backlog on trusts drafted by non-attorneys and fill-in-the-blank forms. Ryan said trust applications went from 45 in 2003 to 36,000 in 2012.

Prince wrote that Ryan said the ATF was “still sorting through the comments” on ATF-41P, the rule that changed how trusts and responsible persons were handled for NFA transfers. On a prohibited executor, Prince reported Ryan said the person “can’t possess it” and “it is on that person to know that.” Ryan also acknowledged that a trust counts as a “person” under the NFA but not under the Gun Control Act.

Sutherland Springs

Ryan’s most consequential testimony didn’t come in a gun-rights case. It came in Holcombe v. United States, the lawsuit over the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting.

On April 13, 2021, the government called Ryan to testify before Judge Xavier Rodriguez in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. Ryan told the court he had been appointed ATF’s liaison to the Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General (IG) on the Devin Kelley case.

He also signed the ATF memo, using signature authority for the Associate Chief Counsel, that found Kelley was a prohibited person. The memo concluded Kelley was barred under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) because of a felony-level court-martial conviction and under 922(g)(9) for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. It found he was not prohibited under (g)(4) or (g)(6).

The court later found the Air Force liable for failing to report Kelley to NICS.

Here’s the irony. Ryan was a government witness, but his testimony laid out the exact point the families needed: Kelley was prohibited and should have been in the system. The background check system didn’t fail because the law was weak. It failed because the government didn’t send in the records.

The Pistol Brace Rule

In 2023, Ryan put his name behind one of the most hated ATF rules in recent memory. On March 10, 2023, as Acting Chief of FATD, he filed a declaration in Britto v. ATF in the Northern District of Texas. He walked through the January 31, 2023 “stabilizing brace” rule, including its claim that most braced firearms are likely short-barreled rifles and its 120-day registration window.

He also addressed the pictures the ATF posted of common platforms and commercial models it considered SBRs. Ryan said those examples were informational, not final classifications, and that owners could request a classification letter for their own setup.

Four days earlier, on March 6, 2023, Ryan’s declaration was filed with the ATF’s opposition to a preliminary injunction in Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition (FRAC) v. Garland in North Dakota.

It didn’t end well for the ATF. On August 9, 2024, the Eighth Circuit held that the ATF’s brace test was likely arbitrary and capricious and reversed the denial of a preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit ruled against the agency too, and the rule was eventually abandoned.

The government posted a picture of your gun, called it a likely NFA item, and then its own classification chief told a court the picture wasn’t final. That’s the brace rule in one sentence.

Rare Breed Triggers

Ryan showed up again in the government’s case against Rare Breed Triggers over the FRT-15 in the Eastern District of New York. As Chief of FATD, he filed a declaration explaining how his division works. He said it had about 28 Firearms Enforcement Officers across five branches. He said those classifications determine whether an item falls under the GCA or NFA.

Rare Breed moved to exclude him. The company argued he was an undisclosed expert with no personal knowledge of the case. The Department of Justice called him a pure fact witness.

The court sided with DOJ. According to the government’s witness list, the motion to exclude Ryan was denied by minute entry on July 30, 2023. In May 2025, DOJ announced a settlement with Rare Breed.

The Award

Ryan also picked up an Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award under Merrick Garland. DOJ listed him as “ATF Firearms & Ammunition Chief William J. Ryan,” alongside ATF’s regulatory affairs chief, rule writers, and the agency’s top lawyers. The release doesn’t say which rule earned the award.

What I Didn’t Find

AmmoLand News found no congressional testimony from Ryan and no Inspector General or GAO findings against him. A federal campaign finance search turned up no donations, though that search was limited and he may list a different employer or state. An X search found no posts naming him. I didn’t find any news coverage of him, including at AmmoLand.

The record does show a career ATF lawyer who sat at the center of the agency’s biggest fights over the last few years. He did it almost entirely out of sight. If he really is now one of the agency’s senior lawyers, gun owners should start paying attention to the name.

About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and constitutional activist with more than 26 years of experience in networking and cybersecurity for major Fortune 100 companies. John has written about firearms, the Constitution, and cybersecurity, and has interviewed people from all walks of life. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons. Follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.

Ayoob: How To Shoot Micro Pistols Better By Massad Ayoob

Post author By Grumpy
Post date November 2, 2026
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It’s not hard to see why “Micro Nine” pistols of the Hellcat genre are best-sellers today. Firstly, they’re chambered for 9mm Luger, almost universally recognized as a capable defense caliber with today’s best ammunition.

In addition, they are not only compact, but sometimes literally pocket-sized. Flat, to ride comfortably inside the waistband and conceal easily with maximum discretion. Carrying at least as many rounds as two of yesteryear’s standard, the “snub-nose .38.” And much faster to reload than those little revolvers.

how to shoot micro compact pistols — Flat, pocket-sized and chambered in 9mm, the Hellcat typifies the micro nine that dominates today’s concealed carry market. The author shares the techniques that help him get the most out of small guns.

Nothing is perfect, and everything has “cons” to balance against the “pros.” The trick is to determine the balance of needs, that balance being achieved by going toward the strengths of the thing in question, and shoring up its weaknesses.

The biggest weakness of the small handgun is that it is generally perceived as more difficult to shoot. The smaller the pistol, the less flesh and bone of the shooter’s hand(s) can be wrapped around it to stabilize it on target through the shot, and then recover from recoil for the next shot.

Aiming

Historically, small carry guns came with terrible sights: tiny, almost vestigial, and hard to get on target with quickly. At one end of the spectrum were compact .32 ACP autopistols with no sights at all. For a very long time, popular snub-nose revolvers came with a front sight only one-tenth of an inch wide, and a correspondingly tiny rear notch to line it up with.

There are a few different ways to go with the aiming devices: iron sights, laser sights or carry optics. The latter offer precise aim and encourage focusing on the threat, but also increase the height of the pistol and can be more challenging in terms of concealability.

I associate with a lot of genuine gun experts, and don’t know a single one who carries an optic-sighted pistol in their pocket. This is not to say that you can’t effectively carry such a gun concealed; it simply means that pocket carry and to some degree ankle carry are contra-indicated.

big easy to see front sight on Springfield Armory Hellcat line of pistols make for fast and accurate aiming — The Hellcat Pro Comp offers shooters a integral compensator in a compact pistol that helps manage perceived recoil and give you increased control. Image: Gail Pepin

It is not a coincidence that the increase in carry optics and the increased popularity of appendix inside the waistband (AIWB) carry occurred at the same time. When the gun is made higher top-to-butt with an optical sight, the broad expanse of the abdomen is a logical place to carry it, since there is more fabric draping down from the wearer’s chest.

Laser sights are great in the dark, but of limited use in bright light.

With iron sights, the pistol-packer has much better choices today. Consider the sights which come standard on the Springfield Armory Hellcat: a big U-notch rear mated with a large, glowing bulb of a front sight. Fast to index on target, accurate, yet not likely to snag on the draw or compromise concealability.

Grasp

We cannot change the laws of physics. Smaller, lighter guns are going to recoil more than big, heavy ones when the shooting starts. The recoil takes two forms simultaneously: rearward “kick,” and muzzle rise.

A smaller gun has less flesh in contact with its grip-frame, and may feel as if it is twisting in the hand upon recoil. How do we mitigate this?

One mechanical answer is a compact recoil compensator, as found on the Springfield Hellcat Pro Comp. As the pistol fires, expanding gases jet upward through the port on top at the muzzle, “compensating” for the recoil by pushing the muzzle in a downward direction. Caution: with the pistol high and tight toward the body when firing from retention position, this can direct those hot gases upward toward the shooter’s own face and eyes.

With compensator or not, you can mitigate both “kick” and muzzle rise with technique.

author demonstrates two handed grasp on Springfield Armory XD-S pistol — The author demonstrates a two-handed crush grip on a Springfield XD-S. The support-hand thumb crosses over the firing-hand thumb, thumbprint over thumbnail, and both bear down hard. Image: Gail Pepin

First, grip the pistol very firmly with both firing hand and support hand. The harder you hold it, the less it moves in your hand. In my shooting classes (http://massadayoobgroup.com) I encourage a crush grip, meaning maximum hand strength exerted.

In the after-class critique, one question asked is what techniques did the student find most useful. The single technique most often named is the crush grip. Many say it reduced the recoil This is not actually possible; what they are experiencing is that it reduced the movement of the pistol in their hand(s).

Combine that with upper body weight aggressively forward and “into the gun.” This helps to quickly snap the muzzle down from its recoil arc and back on target.

Although a hold with the thumbs straight forward works well with larger pistols, many shooters find that curling the thumbs down, particularly the thumb of their firing hand, improves their control. The reason is that the human hand’s opposing thumb, when clenched, tightens the grip of the whole hand. To see how that works, wherever you are reading this take your empty gun hand and, with the thumb up, tighten your fingers into a fist. Mentally measure your maximum strength.

Now, still crushing and still measuring, slowly close the thumb, bending it at the median joint and pointing the tip of the thumb straight down. You’ll feel it distinctly increase your hand strength over what it was before with your thumb up or in a neutral position.

aggressive forward posture helps to control recoil — The author’s aggressive forward posture affords greater recoil control during rapid fire. Image: Gail Pepin

That added strength is particularly advantageous with a smaller/harder-kicking handgun. For a two-hand hold, simply put the support hand’s thumb over that of the firing hand and crush down similarly, thumbprint over thumbnail.

Three fingers away from that thumb is the “pinkie finger,” and its role in controlling a small pistol is greater than with a full-size service handgun. Now, you can always get an extended magazine with a sleeve that gives you the equivalent of a longer grip-frame, but that makes concealment more difficult. Many users will carry with the short mag and simply switch to the long mag at the end of the day when the concealment gun becomes the bedside gun.

The Short Grip and the Little Finger

With a full-size handgun, all fingers except the trigger finger are wrapped around the pistol’s grip. With a sub-compact, there probably won’t be room for the “pinkie” on the gun. Don’t just leave it floating. I’ve found that if you tuck that little finger tightly under the gun butt, it helps the other fingers to grip with maximum strength.

author wraps pinky finger under the magazine base when the pistol has a short grip — When a short grip leaves no room for the little finger, the author tucks it tightly under the magazine base. Image: Gail Pepin

Remember, our fingers are sympathetic: they all want to squeeze together. It’s bad enough that we have to disarticulate the trigger finger to make it work separately; don’t increase the difficulty by relaxing that smallest finger.

With a short-butt sub-compact, that little finger can get in the way of a reload. It can cause at least three problems. (1) It can get in the way of the ejection of the empty magazine. (2) It can block the insertion of the fresh magazine, usually by catching on the front edge of the magazine’s floorplate. In the middle of a shootout, that could get a Good Guy or Gal killed. (3) Even if it’s only a match or a practice session, the trapped finger can be cut or subjected to a painful blood blister.

Solution: extend the little finger during the reload, the way you’d imagine someone holding their cup while having tea with a queen. It may look effete, but your pinky finger will thank you.

with good techniques excellent groups can be achieved with a subcompact pistol — With good techniques excellent groups can be achieved with a compact pistol like this LTT custom Hellcat Pro 9mm. This group was shot at 25 yards with Federal 147-grain HST ammunition. Image: Gail Pepin

Another problem with the little finger and a short butt comes when you brace on a hard surface like a range table or auto hood. If the little finger is between the gun butt and the hard surface when the shot goes off, even with a 9mm it can feel like someone took a hammer and whacked your finger with it. How do I know this? Sigh…trust me. I know this.

Trigger Time

If your carry gun is a micro, don’t do all your training and competition with your larger pistol just because they’re easier to shoot well. Devote the time to the gun you’re most likely to be using to protect yourself and your loved ones.

These little guns can be surprisingly accurate. I hope the above tips help you to find your best potential with yours.

All About Guns Cops

A Dark Day In Dallas By Will Dabbs, MD

Post author By Grumpy
Post date November 2, 2026
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Three Guns That Changed America

These three guns fundamentally changed the
landscape of American gun culture.

Every generation has its own seminal moment. You never forget where you were when you heard the news. In my grandparents’ case that was the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. For folks my age it was 9/11. American adults alive in 1963 found their seminal moment in the brutal assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

There are several reasons for this. Thankfully, American Presidential assassinations are fairly rare. There have only been four — Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and Kennedy. In JFK’s case, the whole sordid thing was also filmed in gory detail. The man got his brains blown out in public whilst sitting alongside his pretty young wife. This, plus the fact even today, nobody seems to be completely satisfied with the government’s version of who did it.

Three men ultimately perished. JFK was obviously the target. His presumed killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot and killed a Dallas patrolman named JD Tippit 45 minutes later while on the run. Oswald was subsequently gunned down by a local mobster named Jack Ruby. Bob Johnson’s iconic photograph of a grimacing Oswald just as Ruby touched off his modified Colt Cobra won the Pulitzer Prize.

These three killings involved three different firearms. Each had a quirky story. Here are the details.

For a few days at least, Lee Harvey Oswald was the most hated man in America. Photo: U.S. Government

The Shooter

Lee Harvey Oswald was a weird guy. He burned through 22 addresses and a dozen schools before he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at age 17. While serving as a Marine, he accidentally shot himself in the elbow with a contraband .22-caliber handgun and was disciplined for firing his M1 rifle into the Philippine jungle while on guard duty.

In 1959 after his discharge, Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union and attempted to secure Soviet citizenship. When the skeptical Russians refused, Oswald slit his wrists. He survived and went on to marry a Russian woman named Marina Prusakova. Three years later, a disillusioned Oswald returned to the States with his bride.

The Carcano 91/30 purportedly used by Oswald to kill JFK
was actually a pretty craptastic rifle. Photo: U.S. Government

The Rifle

We have Lee Harvey Oswald to thank for the 1968 Gun Control Act. The 68 GCA transformed gun ownership in America. Prior to that law, firearms could be freely bought and sold through the mail and need not even bear a serial number.

It was the GCA that established our familiar system of Federal Firearms Licensees. Oswald bought the assassination rifle under the alias “A. J. Hidell” via an ad in the back of the American Rifleman magazine. He had the weapon shipped to a P.O. box.

The advertisement actually listed the gun as a “6.5 Italian Carbine.” The illustrated weapon was a bolt-action Carcano Model 91 TS. However, Klein’s Sporting Goods had been unable to source this specific model. They replaced it with the very similar Model 91/38. Oswald’s 91/38 has a slightly longer barrel and left-sided sling mounts. Those of the TS are usually, but not always, mounted on the bottom. The two guns were otherwise nearly indistinguishable in dim light.

Oswald gave $19.95 for his Italian surplus 91/38 complete with a civilian optic mounted by the distributor. This would be about $195 today. The same rifle without the scope was $12.78. He paid $1.50 in shipping.

Oswald’s 91/38 Carcano was originally built in 1940 in Terni, Italy. It fired a Winchester Western 160-grain 6.5x52mm round-nosed cartridge and fed from a six-round en bloc clip. The 4X sight was produced by a company called Ordnance Optics. The serial number of the gun was C2766.

Roughly two weeks after taking possession of the weapon, Lee Harvey Oswald used it to try to kill white supremacist U.S. Army General Edwin Walker. Oswald attempted to shoot the segregationist military officer in his home, but the WWI-vintage round-nosed bullet deflected off of a window frame.

If the government report is to be believed, Oswald subsequently set up in the Texas Book Depository on November 22, 1963, and fired a total of three rounds as JFK’s vehicle passed by. Three empty cases were later found with the abandoned rifle. The average range was about 265 feet. One round passed through the president’s neck and was potentially survivable. Another took much of his head off. The third was never definitively accounted for.

In the hands of a skilled marksman, Oswald’s 91/38 rifle was fully capable of the kind of performance demanded of it that horrible day. However, subsequent firing trials with the actual weapon showed its zero to be 2.5″ high and 1″ right when fired from a rest at 15 meters. Most bystanders reported hearing either three or four shots.

Dabbs found this cool aluminum hammer shroud online (left). Mounting it up required drilling and tapping the frame, but he did so by hand with a cheap drill press.

Dabbs found this cool aluminum hammer shroud online.

The Escape

Lee Harvey Oswald fled the scene and was later confronted by Officer Tippit who was acting on a physical description of the JFK shooter. JD was Tippit’s actual first name. The letters didn’t stand for anything. Tippit had earned the Bronze Star for Valor while serving as a paratrooper in Europe during World War II and had three kids.

Oswald was carrying a snub-nosed Smith and Wesson .38 Victory Model he had also purchased under an alias through the mail. Without warning, he shot the cop in the chest, belly and head. Tippit was declared dead 10 minutes later in a nearby hospital. Oswald was apprehended in short order. It was not until later that he was officially tied to the JFK shooting.

Lee Harvey Oswald’s handgun was presumably a British Lend-Lease S&W Victory Model in .38/200 rechambered to .38 Special with a cut-down barrel. These modifications made it difficult to get a ballistic match on the rounds that killed Officer JD Tippit.

Comparison (L-R) — The 5.56x45mm, the Italian 6.5x52mm
and the 7.62x51mm. The round-nosed 160-grain WWI-vintage
6.5x52mm bullets were undeniably horrific downrange.

Vengeance

Oswald vigorously denied any involvement in the killings of either JD Tippit or the President. However, his palm print was found underneath the furniture on the Carcano, and the eyewitnesses tying him to the Tippit shooting were compelling. Two days after the murders, Oswald was being transferred from the Dallas Police headquarters to the County jail under heavy police escort.

Local nightclub owner and mobster Jack Ruby was a frequent visitor to police HQ. His presence aroused little suspicion. It has actually been postulated that Ruby might have been welcome for having habitually supplied loose women to some of the cops.

Without warning, Ruby lunged forward, shoved his Colt Cobra .38-caliber pocket revolver into Oswald’s belly and fired. That single round perforated Oswald’s stomach, spleen, aorta, inferior vena cava, kidney, liver and diaphragm. It ultimately stopped on the far side against his 11th rib. Oswald bled out in short order.

Ruby paid $62.50 for the Colt Cobra on January 19th, 1960 at Ray’s Sporting Goods in Dallas. A cop buddy named Joe Cody had recommended he get the gun given the large amounts of cash he handled in the course of running his strip joint, the Carousel Club.
Cody actually bought the gun for his mobster buddy as a straw purchaser because cops did not have to pay tax on firearms purchases. Cody and Ruby subsequently exchanged both the money and the gun outside the shop. Having the cop buy the piece saved Ruby $18.

Ruby was immediately arrested. He claimed he spontaneously shot Oswald to “save Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial.” Ruby subsequently developed disseminated cancer while in prison and died in 1967 at age 55. His actions and subsequent death have provided fodder for countless conspiracy theories.

Ruby’s snub-nosed Cobra was stock save for its curious aluminum hammer shroud. The shroud still allowed the hammer to be manually cocked but did make the gun much less likely to snag on loose clothing. There followed a 24-year legal fight over ownership of the weapon. In 1991 the gun was sold at auction for $220,000. The new owner sold fired bullets out of it for $1,000 apiece to fund his favorite charities. The pistol was confiscated by Capitol Hill police after being carried in D.C. illegally but was finally returned after yet another long legal battle. The owner subsequently sold it yet again, but I was unable to locate a reliable price.

The moment Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald was captured by photographer Bob Johnson. The image earned him a Pulitzer Prize.Photo: Public Domain

Ruminations

A local clothier named Abraham Zapruder captured everything on his home movie camera, establishing the specific timeline of the shooting. His is the most scrutinized motion picture in human history.

In 1999, the U.S. government paid Zapruder’s heirs $16 million to incorporate the footage into the National Archives. That works out to $615,384 per second. In all of American history, little has been more controversial than the JFK assassination.

Conspiracy theorists question absolutely everything and become angry just talking about it even today. What is not in dispute, however, is that these three guns did fundamentally change the American political landscape.

All About Guns Cops

Guns That Killed Historical Figures

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 31, 2026
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California Cops EVIL MF Grumpy's hall of Shame Paint me surprised by this

Just another reason on why I don’t miss my birthplace!

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 30, 2026
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A New York City man who walked cross-country from the Big Apple to California over five months had his belongings stolen after stepping foot in the Golden State. Bronx resident Chantz Rivera started his lengthy trek on May 31, walking continuously for 149 days while dragging all of his belongings in a shopping cart before reaching the West Coast.

After getting to San Francisco on Oct. 26, he went to a McDonald’s near Fillmore Street and Golden Gate Avenue – only to have a bag with his portable charger and USB flash drives swiped. Rivera said that he initially didn’t mind because he was tired and sick.

“I’m like, ‘Oh, somebody took something? I don’t care. It ain’t worth nothing. I’m already here [in California],” he told the San Francisco Standard. But then he realized his memory cards and flash drive contained videos and pictures from his journey. Which really sucks big time in my book! Grumpy

Art Cops

Hinterland Marathon | All Episodes

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 27, 2026
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All About Guns Cops Darwin would of approved of this!

MORE ANIMAL OUTRAGES BY COMMANDER GILMORE

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 24, 2026
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Ask you guys to send in funny gun-related stuff, and you don’t send squat. Run just one teeny little article about an attack by an assault monkey, and you menagerie-minded maniacs go into overdrive.

Apparently, some significant percentage of our readers are fish-and-fur-fight fanatics. I guess there ain’t no accounting for taste. So here’s a sampling of the weird critter tales you’ve sent me:

Coon Toss

You didn’t catch this one on CNN, but it was a headline in the Syracuse, N.Y., Herald Journal: “Woman Hurls Dead Raccoon At Lawyer.”

The lady was arrested following a scuffle with her neighbor, an attorney, after he allegedly knocked her down onto a road-killed raccoon. The story said she then grabbed the recumbent raccoon and hurled it with malicious intent.

The outcome of this case is unknown — perhaps a reader in Syracuse can help us out — but it should be noted that American Handgunner wants to go on record deploring the secondary use of brainwave-challenged victims of highway violence as missiles, even when thrown at lawyers.

In our view, not only is this an inexcusable exploitation of ravaged raccoons, but a fundamental violation of a long-standing American cultural value. Rotting fruit!, we say, over-aged eggs!, we implore you, but in the name of all that’s decent, leave our honored road-killed ’coons out of the messy business of barrister-bashing.

Haven’t they — the raccoons — suffered enough already?

Don’t Move! I’ll Fowl Ya

So, if you had a gun that could fire poultry at high velocity, what could you hunt with it? Aircraft, apparently, but without too much success. According to Business Week magazine, a testing laboratory used a “gun-like device” to blast fowl at a new type of aircraft windshield.

“To measure resistance against flying objects, engineers recently fired chicken carcasses at 300 mph at the windshield of the new Saab-Fairchild turboprop airplane.” The windshield held, but according to a spokesman, “Mud, blood, and feathers were everywhere.”

American Handgunner isn’t impressed. If they could develop a revolver capable of shooting frozen squirrels at 900 fps, now there, you’d have something!

No Kidding, Really

Now visualize a young man the medical journal called Dexter relaxing on the couch in his apartment watching TV. Very much like any other working stiff on the weekend, he’s just kicking back and enjoying the company of his pet rattlesnake, snoozing on his belly.

That is, the snake is resting on his belly on Dexter’s belly. Dexter later reports he suddenly sneezed, which startled the snake, causing it to bite Dexter on the lip.

The rattler — we’ll call him Ralph — is a fully-fanged, standard-issue unmodified venomous pit viper. Pause here to note that “experts in this area” remain unnamed. What area? Pit viper lip-bites?

Anyway, the experts do not believe Dexter’s story. Instead they think he is one of a select few nutcases who are fascinated, even sexually aroused, by close observation of the flicking action of snake tongues.

Caught up in their obsession, they sometimes actually try to kiss the snake. On the tongue. as circumstantial evidence, they cite the fact that Dexter was previously bitten under similar circumstances by a former pet, in that cased a venomous Habu snake, native to Okinawa.

So Dexter is bitten on the lip, causing him some degree of discomfort and involuntary animation, a condition possibly exacerbated by sudden onset of a neurosis we’ll call “fear of pending death.”

Now the real tomfoolery begins. Dexter’s roommate offers to help, explaining he heard somewhere that rattlesnake venom can be neutralized by running electrical current through the bite site.

The two rocket scientists adjourn to the apartment parking lot, where roomie hooks up jumper cables to Dexter’s lip, connects them to the battery of his car, jumps in and fires ’er up!

Concerned neighbors observe this unorthodox holistic treatment and summon paramedics.

When parameds arrive, they find roomie sitting in his ride revvin’ the engine and suckin’ down a cold one. They inquire as to how long Dexter’s been unconscious on the pavement, connected by 18-gauge rubber-shrouded twin-cabled lip-umbilicus, just twitchin’ and smokin’. Roomie answers that he ain’t sure, because the hood was up and he couldn’t see too good.

Dexter lived, and as far as we know didn’t even kill his roomie after being released from the hospital. Dexter lost a considerable portion of lip due to the effect of venom and electrical burns. He might also have lost some brain cells. Maybe. Who could tell?

Concealed Turkey

Two Haitians have been arrested and charged with stuffing handguns into frozen poultry and smuggling them to members of the Haitian secret police.

Patrick Louiseau and Florence Toussaint pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges after it was discovered they were buying .380 pistols, stuffing them into defrosted turkeys, refreezing the gobblers, and carrying them as luggage on trips to Haiti.

They could have stuffed a bazooka into a pig, but it wouldn’t fit under an airline seat.

Mark Moritz hung up his satirical spurs last issue to a collective sigh of relief from America’s gunwriters whom he had lampooned in “Friendly Fire” for two long, painful years. The 10 Ring is written by Commander Gilmore, a retired San Diego police officer who bases his humor, like Mark did, on actual occurrences. All the incidents described by the Commander are true.