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I'm a "gun guy", AMA

A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:

Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.

Technical questions

Gun control proposals for feasibility

Industry

Training

Wacky opinions

General geekery

Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173

https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE

https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xVh4CjbgK7s

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0IK2RUxVq3A

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Great question, I'll take a stab too.

  • A lot of people believe that Defensive Gun Use (DGU) involves high-accuracy shots from ~25 yards. This is... not the case. They're still incredibly high-stress and having training is important, but the distances we're talking about are < 7 yards. On Mass Transit, nobody will be trying to get a headshot from across the car (hopefully). It will be an up-close confrontation. Bystander hits come from inaccuracy and overpenetration.

    • As /u/JTarrou mentioned, statistically CCW holders are (brutally and hilariously in a laugh-to-not-cry way) far more cautious and accurate than police officers. The difference is significant.

    • Regarding overpenetration, a carrying best practice is to use expensive anti-personnel ammunition with high expansion and controlled penetration designed to kill one person as quickly as possible. Neither of these is 100% foolproof but it's a point to be made.

  • Mass Transit is a hive of scum, villainy, and harassment, and it's gotten worse the past two years. Not carrying on mass transit is pretty much not carrying at all.

    • For better or for worse, the attitude in the CCW community is "Better judged by 12 than carried by six", a pithy / trite quip depending on who you ask. What it means concretely is that many people who have already gone through a background check, mandatory training, etc. are doing their best to be law-abiding but will also rely on their concealment working well in some "Gun Free Zones". People have guns on mass transit all the time.
  • Like all CCW liberalization over the past 20 years, the doomsday wild west doomsday that hath been prophesized has simply never materialized. 6-12% of this country has a permit, and 2% of them carry every day. Meanwhile, crime rates have dropped and no serious problems have been identified in CCW holders as a group. Even the trivial effort required to obtain a permit in many states is acting as a reasonably effective filter. What I'd consider great criteria for CCW permits is another discussion entirely (TL;DR: I'd support more if I thought they'd be implemented fairly across the US)