[TheForge] From: Sighting in Rifles - morphing to: reforging whooped old guns

[Andrew Vida]

toni smith wrote:
> ...yet the cops have the glock 10mm
> and what i consider to be terribly insufficient training to use it. with
> the training that they get i would not even allow them to carry a single
> action revolver and they are given no incentive to practice and improve
> their skills with them. to give you an idea when they first started
> using the glocks quite a few were known to shoot themselves in the foot
> trying to draw the gun.

	Worst firearms handling I've seen, and I've witnessed my share, was 
almost exclusively by police.   I was at the range one day at lunch and 
there was this local cop (Watchung NJ, I think) standing around, in 
uniform, waving his loaded service pistol in the face of the range 
officer who, after repeated requests that the cop get that thing out of 
his face, gave him the boot.  I just kept shooting.  It was terribly 
embarrassing, to be frank.  The cop left with this stunned look on his 
face.  I don't think he got it at all.  That is plainly frightening.  I 
don't wish to impugn all cops, but from what I've seen most of them 
should not be trusted with a sling shot, much less a firearm.  I think 
some of this comes from having one on their hip all the time, but that 
is not an excuse.  I know others that carry all the time and they don't 
misbehave in such ways.  Short of brain lesions, there is no excuse.

> in Victoria (southern part of Australia) you have to have a safe that is
> basically a bank vault with CCTV surveillance running 24/7 with the
> bolts stored in a separate safe as well as separate storage for the
> ammunition. NSW you just need a heavy safe that is capable of holding
> the firearms and again a separate one for the bolts and separate storage
> again for the ammunition. in NSW when you register the rifle you
> register the rifle using the serial on the action but not the serial on
> the barrel and in Queensland it is the other way around. and in
> Queensland you just need a lockable metal cabinet with the bolts and
> ammo stored in separate locations. it is illegal to have a semi auto
> rifle and the only reason they allow any semi auto handguns is that they
> are used in competition shooting but again they are calibre restricted.
> many people had to hand theirs in getting a fraction of what they were
> actually worth and from what i have seen a good many of the guns that
> were handed in actually ended up on the black market and not melted down
> as they were supposed to be.

	They could have at least handed them over to the smiths to reforge them 
into... erm.... *art*... yeah, that's the ticket.  Like the UK, Oz seems 
to have gone down the crapper in this respect.  Sad.
> 
> try telling that to the anti gun lobby.

	Anti-gun people do not operate on reason - just pure terror and the 
associated adrenalin.  You will almost never get through to them.  I 
would estimate that the problem is deeply seated in the personality 
type.  Some folks live on a fear basis.  I don't think there is much one 
can do to change that.  I have, however, converted a few mildly anti-gun 
people by taking them to the range and letting them bang away.  A few 
ended up into it far more than I ever will be.  Go figure.



	Has anyone ever reforged a whooped gun into something else?  Was it 
painful to do?  I always have some difficulty feeling like I'm 
destroying one thing even when it is to make another.  Even inanimate 
creations give me this feeling of something sacred there.  I'm sure it's 
probbly crazy, but that's how I feel about these things.