The gun control debate is breaking out again across the country. In diners and around dinner tables, at the water cooler at work, on Facebook pages and Twitter feeds we’re seeing advocates of gun control square off against the defenders of the right to keep and bear arms and the human right of self-defense. Even college campuses are getting into the mix. At Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, for example, College Republicans and College Democrats recently debated amending or scrapping the Second Amendment, though as you might imagine, the side that wants to scrap the Second Amendment isn’t too clear on how that would work, exactly.

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We've all felt it. That twinge of regret, that sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach, that pain in our wallet after buying a gun that was all wrong. Whether it happens as we leave the gun store or after years of use, eventually we all realize that the dream gun that was the apple of our eye just a short time ago turned out to be a real lemon. So what went wrong? Why did we buy the wrong gun, and how can we avoid doing it again in the future?

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Funny enough, I remember working for a firearm manufacturer that wouldn’t allow employees to carry on the job. Even though there were people who worked for that company that didn’t like guns and didn’t carry concealed — even though it was a permitless process in my state — you could just about guarantee that in almost any car in the parking lot, there would be a gun located somewhere out of sight.

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Handgun trainers typically come from a variety of shooting backgrounds. But do these background necessarily make them the best trainers for armed citizens?

What are the typical backgrounds of most handgun trainers?

• Handgun trainers have three main backgrounds: military, law enforcement, competitive.
• A military trainer must make a successful transition to instructing civilian gun owners.
• LE trainers have experience in dealing with interpersonal violence.
• But, LE trainers also are sworn to confront violent situations when they see them.
• Competitors can teach speed and accuracy, but might miss self-defense nuances.
• Ideal trainers are those who understand the proper application of self defense.

For the purposes of this discussion, our mission will not be military operations nor uniformed police patrol duties. Our task will be to ensure our ability to protect ourselves and our loved ones from death or grievous bodily harm at the hands of an unlawful, predatory criminal attacker. With our end goal well defined, we can look at different training paradigms and see how they fit our needs.

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If you've been around guns for at least five minutes, you've undoubtedly heard the terms "negligent discharge" and "accidental discharge".  Some people use these terms interchangeably.  Others will pedantically insist that "there is no such thing as an accidental discharge, only a negligent discharge."  The truth is that there is such a thing as both a negligent discharge and an accidental discharge, and while both involve an unintentional firing of a shot, they are not the same thing.  Let's examine the difference in an effort to make you safer when handling a gun.

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In part 1, we addressed basic 2-handed manipulations of common semi-automatic handguns for left-hand dominant shooters.  Now let’s talk about one-handed manipulations specific to the left hand.  As a left or right-handed shooter, who knows which hand you will have to use for this?  For the sake of argument, let’s say that it is the left hand, as right-handed manipulations have been covered more than adequately by other sources.  Keep in mind that this is increasing the level of difficulty, so a corresponding increase of good sense is needed while practicing or executing these moves to prevent injury to yourself or someone else, maybe someone you don’t intend to injure, so…be careful.

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Over the past few months, threads and discussion have often become a lively debate on choosing instructors and the merits of training in anti-terror tactics. This article addresses many of these discussions. Not surprisingly, an honest appraisal of the current situation finds the author coming up short in certain areas, and willing to admit it.

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Anyone familiar with firearms can tell you: there are loads of different kinds of ammunition. Walk into most sporting goods or local gun shops and you’ll find a huge variety of ammo in different calibers, ranging from smallbore plinking rounds all the way up to hulking .50-caliber long-range ammo, and loads for pistols, rifles, shotguns, and more.

Despite the seemingly endless variety of rounds available, virtually all of them fall into two types of ammunition: rimfire and centerfire. These two kinds of ammo are named according to how the primer ignition system works.

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