Eric's Gun Nut Page

From age twelve I always wanted to be a Heinlein character when I grew up. So I always knew I'd have to get around to learning how to use firearms someday. Also (partly as a result of early Heinlein exposure) I'm a libertarian with strong gun-rights convictions, and I've felt vaguely like a hypocrite for years not being armed myself. I finally got off my butt about this in early 1997, and have since discovered that I truly enjoy playing with guns.

Before picking up a weapon I took the NRA's safety and handling course. While I believe everybody has an inalienable right to be armed for self-defense, ignorance and unsafe gun-handling can kill you. Don't play stupid!

Before acquiring my own heat, I shot at targets with S&W .38 Special and .357 Magnum revolvers, a .44 Magnum single-action revolver, a S&W 9313 9mm semiauto, a Firestar .40 semiauto, a very odd pistol/SMG hybrid called a Kaliko, and a Colt .45 ACP. For comfort and accuracy I found the 9313 the best of the bunch, a sweet dream to shoot. But having done my homework, I'm partial to the big-slow-bullet theory of stopping power. And it happened that the first time I fired a .45 I scored a 30-foot bull's-eye, and that I was shortly afterward offered the opportunity to buy that same weapon. I jumped at it.

So my gun is a Colt M1991A Officer's Model semiautomatic pistol, the small-frame six-shot 3-5/8"-barrel version of the classic .45 ACP design. It's small enough to conceal but has excellent stopping power. Mine has a matte-black Parkerized finish, Pachmayr wraparound diamond-scale grips, and sure looks like something you would not want to be on the business end of.

To my pleasure (and somewhat to my surprise when I started), I am a fairly good shot. At twenty-one feet, shooting my .45 two-handed from either Weaver or isosceles stance, I can reliably put a clip through the palm-sized heart area of a human-silhouette target, or I can call head shots and make them. At thirty feet, or shooting one-handed either hand, I've almost never missed the torso.

I attribute this to having trained in Tae Kwon Do for seven years before I started. The state of mind necessary to shoot accurately is the same combat no-mind you need to take into the sparring ring. And the training helps me maintain the upper-body strength to hold a steady sight picture with a .45 while staying fairly relaxed.

I'm hoping to get into tactical shooting, the kind of pistol-combat simulation the International Defensive Pistol Association does. This seems like it would be much more fun than stationary targets, which are beginning to seem too easy.

I bought my girlfriend Cathy a Smith and Wesson Model 60 for her birthday (she'd taken the NRA course right along with me). This is a small-frame, five-shot alloy revolver with a bobbed hammer, designed for concealed carry. It's magnaported for recoil compensation.

For an excellent discussion of the ethics of gun defense, see A Nation Of Cowards. It is not only the right but the duty of free people to be armed and willing to use lethal force in defense of life and liberty.

If you disagree with this and are gung-ho for gun control, I suggest you live up to your convictions by posting a big sign on your front lawn that reads:

I wish you joy of all the delightful visitors you will attract.

No? Sound like a bad idea to you? Then perhaps you should consider how dependent you are on the kindness of "gun nuts" and rethink your position...

Here are some of my favorite quotes on the subject:

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue."

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."