Category: All About Guns
One of the best vacations my family and I ever took was to Chicago. We did the museums, wandered about taking in the sights, and ate some great food. Unfortunately, several decades of left-wing governance have taken their inevitable toll. As anyone who has watched the news will tell you, Chicago has a bit of a violence problem these days.
It’s pretty tough to buy a legal gun in Chicago, though the illegal sort apparently litter the place. Until recent times, the Windy City had no gun shops. There are a few now, but you still have to have special cards, government permission, and similar stuff to obtain a weapon legally. Despite all that, in 2020 there were 780 murders in Chicago. Over the July 4th weekend in 2021 more than 100 people were shot. Tragically, eighteen perished.
Per capita, Chicago is far from the worst. In 2020 they had about 25 murders per 100,000 people. I’m disappointed to report that the reigning champion that year was actually Jackson, Mississippi, with a murder rate of roughly twice that. Our sordid tale this day takes us through both places.
My Credentials
I live in a small town in the Deep South today. A great many folks are armed, and, with blessed few exceptions, everybody is friendly. Crimes of violence are quite unusual. Property crime happens from time to time, but thankfully that’s rare, too.
I learned to be a doctor in Jackson, Mississippi, apparently per capita one of the most violent places in the country. I would assert that this was also the best place on the planet to learn medicine. The facility and faculty were indeed both top flight, but that wasn’t the secret to a stellar medical education. Jackson was a great place to learn medicine because of the patients.
That part of Mississippi is one of the most morbidly obese places on planet earth. It is a uniquely modern phenomenon that our poor people are fat. With such profoundly poor diets and a dearth of exercise come scads of metabolic maladies. Diabetes and hypertension were ubiquitous, and there was a thin scattering of venereal disease sprinkled over the top as well.
My patients routinely neglected to do what I asked of them. We often discussed stuff like diet and exercise, but that was clearly more for my benefit than theirs. Oftentimes some enormous Jacksonian endured my spiel about the many-splendored dangers of fast food, cigarettes, and a sedentary lifestyle before departing my clinic determined not to change a blessed thing.
Lastly, in their free time my patients not infrequently shot each other. I never did a shift in the ER at the Level 1 trauma center where I trained without at least one gunshot wound. My personal record was seven. However, those sordid attributes also made it a great place to learn. Once I hung out my shingle in a normal place with moms, dads, and patients who heeded my advice, being an effective doctor seemed relatively breezy.
Profiling
Terrion Pouncy was a thug. While I have not had the pleasure of meeting Terrion myself, I have indeed met many like him. At risk of being labeled whatever it is you get labeled with these days for simply describing the world as it is, here’s what these guys are like up close.
These are the gladiators. They’re often exceptionally fit and typically covered in gang tats. They are invariably combative and belligerent when they present to the emergency department acutely shot. I mean, who wouldn’t be? However, once you save their lives and get them out of that environment they’re most commonly quite friendly. I have had some of the most delightful conversations with these guys as they recuperated after surgery.
None of them had dads, and their moms often stayed in the rooms with them. These long-suffering ladies did the best they could considering, but there aren’t a whole lot of positive role models in that world. These guys gravitate toward crime, drugs, and violence in an effort at escaping their dreadful circumstances.
Occupational Hazards
At 6 am on a chilly November day in 2017, Terrion Pouncy approached a 24-hour hotdog stand at 11656 South Halsted Street in the West Pullman neighborhood in Chicago. The stand was manned by a pair of unidentified guys aged 39 and 45. Terrion was dressed in a dark hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head. He had a similarly dark scarf that concealed his face.
These were the days before covid, so facial coverings were not quite as commonplace as is the case today. Surveillance videos posted on YouTube demonstrate that modern criminals are exceptionally conscientious about mask-wearing. Regardless, it was cold and dark, so Terrion likely got pretty close before the hot dog guys grew suspicious.
Pouncy approached the two men, produced a .38-caliber handgun, and demanded the money in the cash register. The younger of the two victims readily complied. However, this man was also holding a bucket of hot grease at the time. As he fumbled for the cash in the register he accidentally dropped the bucket, spilling hot grease liberally across the floor.
Terrion lustily grabbed the cash, most of it in ones, and started shoving it into his pants. Before departing, Terrion availed himself of the man’s wallet and cell phone as well. All this was captured on surveillance video.
As Pouncy turned to jog away he stuffed his handgun back into his waistband and slipped on the spilled grease. Unfortunately, his hands were full, and he was in a rush. The trigger caught on something, and the gun went off. This is where Terrion’s morning took an unexpectedly dark turn.
Pouncy ran down the street to an abandoned car wash now bleeding vigorously. There he was seen throwing something, presumably his weapon, over a fence. He then called 911 and reported that he had been shot.
First responders found Pouncy with a through-and-through gunshot wound to his penis and another to his thigh. Both injuries were clearly from the same round. The cops later found his discarded hoodie and weapon. The younger of the two robbery victims discovered his wallet near the spot where the ambulance retrieved the freshly neutered criminal.
Pouncy was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and admitted. While there he missed his initial hearing, so Judge Stephanie Miller ordered him held without bond. I bet hers is a simply fascinating job. Despite an aggressive Google search, I never could find out what became of poor Terrion. Even if they just let him go, the argument could be made that he has already been punished adequately.
Closer to Home
I myself had a similar encounter while working in the ER in Jackson. A young unlicensed pharmacist got sideways with a competitor, and they both slapped leather. This guy’s Hi-Point 9mm went off on the draw stroke, centerpunching his male member mid-shaft but fortuitously missing everything else. His opponent apparently felt that justice had been adequately served and abandoned him bleeding on the sidewalk.
This guy was justifiably unsettled when we met, but the paramedics had gotten much of the bleeding staunched enroute. We packaged him up for the Urology residents who were thrilled to get an interesting surgical case. When your world orbits around bladder cancer and inflamed prostate glands a good old-fashioned gunshot wound to the shlong is a reliable crowd-pleaser.
I actually saw that guy for something else some months later and he offered to let me take a peek at his offended member. It had indeed healed nicely, no doubt a tribute to the rarefied skill of our resident Urologists. It did, however, cock off at a jaunty angle around mid-shaft. Our hero was thrilled to report that it still functioned as intended. He explained that his injury might have even made him more popular with the local ladies based solely upon the novelty of the thing. Thank goodness he could still reproduce.
The Gun
I write for the gun press, and I proudly own a Hi-Point pistol. Those who denigrate the performance of these inexpensive guns have clearly not logged a great deal of trigger time on one. My Hi-Point shoots quite well.
Originally launched in 1992, Hi-Point produces inexpensive, reliable firearms. Their catalog includes both pistols and carbines in a variety of calibers. All of their weapons are based upon the straight blowback operating system. This design mandates an unusually heavy slide.
Hi-Point slides are die cast from an inexpensive zinc alloy called Zamak-3. The frames are steel-reinforced polymer. Ancillary bits demanding gun-grade strength are cut from steel as well. The aesthetic result looks like a blow dryer had a baby with an electric toaster.
The single action trigger on the Hi-Point is a bit mushy but quite serviceable. The gun’s single-stack magazines are relatively easy to swap, and the safety is intuitive. One of the red dots on my rear sight fell out, but Hi-Point pistols shoot plenty straight. Mine has also been unflinchingly reliable. The bulk of the slide makes concealment a chore, but that doesn’t mean that literally countless young thugs haven’t successfully pulled it off. My Hi-Point C9 set me back $46 without a magazine from a Law Enforcement auction.
Ruminations
So if you were pondering a life of petty crime let me encourage you to seek out a career elsewhere. The money can be good, and the tax burden is admittedly minimal. However, Terrion Pouncy can no doubt attest that the occupational hazards far outweigh the potential rewards. Nobody wants to be shot in the Johnson no matter how much easy cash rides on the enterprise.
Hey, fair warning, if you are a big-time revolver nut, you might want to skip this week’s review. I have personally fired less than 1000 rounds out of a wheel gun in my life, and quite possibly less than 500. So why am I covering a revolver? Because I bought one to correct that, which is the point of this exercise. That said, our 325 review is not your normal expert look at something new and hot. It’s an amateur look at something Smith and Wesson doesn’t even make anymore, but probably should.
Now I’m also not a total noob, though that round count is real. I’m pretty handy with an auto, for starters. And I actually considered switching over to revolver class in USPSA a long time back, because it looked like fun. In researching that idea, I also got to sit down and talk wheel guns with His Majesty Jerry Miculek when we were squadded together once. My most important question at the time, as the USPSA capacity rules for revolver had just changed, was 6 shot major power or 8 shot minor? His answer was that he would bring both, and make the decision once he had looked at the stages. A single competitive revolver was already a heavy investment, two was absolutely out of the question, and so I stuck with my Glock 34 in Production class.
But the desire never left me. So last month when a friend of a friend knew an FFL that was selling off his entire inventory and retiring, my ears perked up when he said a 45 ACP Night Guard was in the offering. And once a quick Google search showed that Smith and Wesson presently produced ZERO wheel guns in 45 ACP, and Ruger makes one, I paid the asking price before they even listed it on GunsAmerica. I actually paid $200 more than Smith’s original MSRP, before they ended production of this model.
Why, exactly, would I pay that for a circa 2008 revolver? Because the Night Guard 325 met all the criteria I was looking for. Things I like about wheel guns are I can leave them loaded forever, in the truck or a kitchen cabinet, with no loss of reliability. I like that in theory at least, it always goes bang. I wanted a gun that was a gun that fed off a caliber I already had plenty of ammo for, considering the current market. That means an auto chambering in my house. Not only did I want it fed, but I wanted to be able to train with it. Like, correct those revolver shortcomings I have. And I wanted it short enough to reasonably conceal carry. The Dirty Harry model 29 with a 6.5-inch barrel is a bit much for me unless I also want to dress like Inspector Callahan. (Side note: ask HouseHold 6 if she likes the 70’s era California Detective look.)
Anyway, the Night Guard did all that in spades. It features a 2.5-inch barrel, which is very short for a 45. It is an N Frame (ie large, but not the biggest of the S&W frames sizes), but the Scandium Alloy body keeps it reasonably light at 28 ounces. The matte black finish might not be a work of art, but it would also hurt my feels less than chucking some engraved collector’s item in the glove box. And it included XS night sights, a nice bonus feature.
Out of production or not, I intended my purchase to be a working gun. In the interest of review, how does it feel? Like a Smith and Wesson. To say, everything that is supposed to be tight is tight, the moving parts are smooth, and it works. It’s not like I could really call out S&W on finish this time anyway since none of us really know the history of this gun for the last 12 years. The bigger question for you, dear reader, should be “Do I want one?”.
As I said, I am pretty inexperienced with revolvers. So accuracy testing would be a moot point if we want to talk real capability of the gun. However, if you are also a rookie you could expect I would say results similar to mine. Double action only (which is how the gun would be shot defensively), I had an easy time keeping them in a paper plate at 7 yards. 15 yards, not so much. If you are an auto guy, the long double-action pull of a revolver trigger takes some getting accustomed to. It is also a weird feeling to have things moving as you pull the trigger, as in the external hammer and the cylinder. Weirder even than a DA/SA auto such as a Beretta 92 or CZ 75.
It takes a little getting used to, but it does get better as you go. Within 100 rounds, I noticeably improved. There is still a long way to go before I would consider myself truly competent with this gun, but it is nice to feel progression come that early. I would also say that is part of the fun and challenge of owning a revolver.
Single Action, I was very surprised by how easy the 325 was to shoot. Now, this is a bit of a cheat, if you bought the gun to use defensively. Few, very few, would be the situations where you got to start with the hammer cocked. And almost none were would you be manually cocking the hammer between shots. I don’t know, a 50-yard firefight with good cover? It isn’t really how we think of using a gun like this. But it did make it easier to focus on the recoil. To be honest, I expected this gun to kick a little harder. 45 ACP isn’t exactly a powerhouse of a bullet, but it isn’t European for “stun” either. Having mostly shot 41 Magnum or 357 Magnum before, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice 45 ACP was in this platform. Hat tip to the synthetic grips, which provide a nice cushion.
Shooting steel at reasonable defensive ranges, I was very happy with my purchase. It is still quite possible to forget the long trigger pull and start chucking rounds, but with a bit of focus, hits are reasonably fast. Again, something I am sure improves over time. It’s also pretty cool to have all your brass stick together in a moon clip, so clean-up is a cinch!
A note on that, if like me you are planning a first-ever revolver purchase, I did choose an auto caliber, for the reasons noted above. One thing I did not realize going into this was that moon clips aren’t a nice accessory; they are required to shoot an auto cartridge in a revolver. I guess I had just never considered the physics of how a non-rimmed cartridge fits in a cylinder. The answer is, without moon clips, they don’t. That is actually true even of the original WW1 issue M1917 g45 ACP revolver, if it was made by Colt. In an odd bit of trivia, the Colt needed them but the Smith and Wesson did not. If you are buying a modern revolver, just consider that you probably need them and order a gaggle. My purchased model 325 was missing the two included S&W moon clips, which meant my gun was a brick until some arrived by mail. I chose polymer EZ brand moon clips, to make the Fudd crew even madder.
All in all, I am very happy with my purchase. While it is true S&W no longer makes the Night Guard series, they do pop up from time to time on GunsAmerica. And if you are as new to wheel guns as I am, I would also dare suggest you are just as well off with a Charter Arms Bulldog or Taurus 905. The challenge of learning a new gun is extremely rewarding, as is the security of knowing a bullet is coming out when I pull the trigger, hell or high water. Revolvers might be old tech, but they aren’t obsolete.
Categories
Pedersoli 1874 Sharps 3-Band Rifle
SPRINGFIELD, VA -(Ammoland.com)- When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) told Representative Michael Cloud’s (R-TX) office that it held nearly one billion out of business records, Gun Owners of America (GOA) called it an illegal gun registry. The legacy media newspaper, USA Today, issued a “fact check” stating that the claim was false. Now thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by GOA and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), we know how much of a role the ATF played in determining the rating.
Last January, the ATF answered an inquire by Rep Cloud’s office stating that it held nearly one billion records in its Out of Business Office in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The vast majority of the records were digitized, and the ATF’s Firearms Trace Center had access to the documents. Although the ATF claims the records are not searchable by anything other than the former federal firearms licensee (FFL) name, by just selecting a few options in the software, those records could be usable by using optical character recognition (OCR).
A new FOIA request by GOA and GOF shows the communication between the USA Today fact checker, ATF’s former Chief of the Public Affairs Division, April Langwell, and former ATF Associate Deputy Director Thomas Chittum. Mr. Chittum has left the ATF to work for ShotSpotter. Ms. Langwell also recently left the ATF to work as the Director of Communications for the United States Marine Corp (USMC).
In the exchange, the unnamed fact-checker asked about the alleged registry. Ms. Langwell and Mr. Chittum denied the existence of the gun registry. Mr. Chittum replied that there was no firearms registry and handed off the conversation to Ms. Langwell. Ms. Langwell repeated the claim that the database is only searchable by FFL name. She stated that the ATF doesn’t consider the digitally scanned records to be a gun registry. The fact checker did not follow up on how easy it would be to turn on optical character recognition. The fact checker seemed to accept Ms. Langwell’s claims at face value.
The issue the fact checker overlooked is that according to the email exchange, the records are stored in PDF format. The PDF file format is the product of Adobe. Adobe Acrobat is needed to read the documents in the file format. The ability to OCR documents is built into Adobe Acrobat and can be applied to a PDF in as little as two clicks.
The ATF also told USA Today that all records had been digitized as of 2017. This claim contradicts what the ATF told Congressman Michael Cloud (R-TX). The fact checker did ask Ms. Langwell about the discrepancy. The ATF repeated the claim to the fact checker that the ATF completed the move to a digital format in 2017. The fact checker never followed up on why the ATF told USA Today something different than what the Bureau told Congress. Someone received the wrong information from the ATF, and it is unclear who has the incorrect information.
GOF and GOA were deeply troubled by USA Today’s “fact checking” methods. They point out that the paper discounted the mountains of evidence and the ATF’s own statements on the matter.
“ATF openly admitted to USA Today that ‘scanning out of business records began in 2005’ and now ATF ‘processes an average of 5.5 million’ records containing private gun and owner information into its database per month,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs, Gun Owners of America. “We are disappointed that this ‘journalist’ simply reported ATF’s denial of an illegal gun registry as truth, without any critical thinking whatsoever.”
USA Today did not respond to AmmoLand’s request for comment.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
Categories
The US Army “Grease Gun”
My Dad had one in Korea
|
Categories