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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1366 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 19, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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So, what are you reading?

I'm picking up Hankins and Guelzo's The Golden Thread, Volume 1, on the strength of this review. So far it is hitting the right notes.

Working my way through a collection of Harlem Detective novels by Chester Himes.

He does a superb job at capturing how the criminal class talks to each other and interacts with each other. The setting is black Harlem, but it could easily be my white and hispanic clients, too. Just endless jabbering that goes nowhere, trying to pull one over each other or the cops with "clever" blather, trying to hype themselves up, etc. Utterly transparent once you see the pattern and usually only works at fooling themselves or other criminals who are stupid/high.

Always interesting to read pre-70s crime fiction and see the guns mentioned (not that the authors are necessarily that accurate or know much about guns). Mostly revolvers like 38 specials or .32s, maybe the occasional .25 auto, but rarely a .45 or 9mm. Whereas now when my clients get caught with guns, 90% of the time it's a 9mm, with a .45 or .40 putting in an occasional appearance.

According to the ATF, in years 2022 and 2023:

Among the 770,000 traced pistols (part 3 table CGT-03):

CaliberProportion (%)
9 mm60
.4013
.3808
.457
.224
.251
7.62 mm1
10 mm1
.57 (typo for 5.7 mm?)1
5.56 mm0.8

Among the 25,000 pistols recovered in Mexico (part 7 table SWB-10):

CaliberProportion (%)
9 mm45
.2217
.38012
.457
.406
.254
.383
7.62 mm2
.322
5.7 mm0.4

Was that 7.62 a Tokarev or is there another 7.62 handgun cartridge?

The document doesn't specify. Table CGT-21 seems to imply that it's actually recorded as just "762" with no decimal point at all.

Rolling up with the siege mortar, I guess.

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