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User	Rokhal | 2006-02-07 |
Subject	untitled
Message	No, sorry . . . the single gangster movie in question was "My Blue Heaven"---Steve Martin, funny.

User	Avril54 | 2006-02-06 |
Subject	untitled
Message	and The Sopranos? do you watch that too? oh, and...... *GOOOOOOEEEEESSSS NUUUUUUTS!!!!*

User	Rokhal | 2006-02-06 |
Subject	untitled
Message	I was in the 4-H gun club. Then my dad went nuts and accumulated ten guns of various types in a year. Now my brother wants to design guns. Plus discovery channel, for the impact-wound stuff, and gangster movies.

User	eowyn | 2006-02-05 |
Subject	thankyou all
Message	big cheers to all who contributed and if you have any other helpful info, or just cheesy stuff to add, go nuts people. by the way, rokhal... how did you learn/know all this?

User	Avril54 | 2006-02-03 |
Subject	untitled
Message	yeah, that’s great info! ha ha ha Some people say guns kill people. I don’t believe them. I mean, have you ever once seen a gun pick itself up and shoot someone?

User	Rokhal | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	Oh, wait, that wasn’t eowyn.

User	Rokhal | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	Oh, and you’re welcome. Didn’t notice you down there.

User	Rokhal | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	Oh, yeah. Shooting ranges. Shooting off lots of guns at pop cans from the back of a pickup truck is a great American tradition. Google for firing ranges in your area: you’ll most likely find places that are more like target clubs, with actual targets and covered benches to shoot from, with lights that tell everyone when the range is clear. If that’s all you find, ask around for more casual firing ranges, like a big hill of dirt next to a gravel parking lot. That’s where the fun is. Gun people are very safe. You’ll be safer watching them than you were driving over there, even if it sounds like a firefight in German trenches. You should find rifles, revolvers, semi-auto handguns, and shotguns, and an amazing variety of targets. If you ask, people will be happy to show off their guns and how they work. They’ll tell you the merits of the ammunition they use, the model they got, how old the gun is, and where to buy cheap reloaded ammo. This is only an option if you’re willing to wait for spring or the weather is nice in your area. Pick a sunny weekend to go to the range. Otherwise, find a gun store. If he’s not busy, the owner can tell you everything you can ask about his weapons.

User	Avril54 | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	wow, Rohkal gave a lot of fantastic info!!!!!

User	Avril54 | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	uh.......pull trigger, shoot shiney piece of metal!!

User	Rokhal | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	Brady Law is supposed to be Brady Bill. Oops.

User	Rokhal | 2006-02-01 |
Subject	untitled
Message	Caliber is a measure of bullet width: one caliber = one hundredth of an inch. It’s a measure used in American guns, as most of the rest of the world has switched to millimiters. One brand will use the same measurement for all its guns: Glock, a popular handgun brand which uses light plastic grips, produces 9 millimeter semi-automatics, the modern police standard. A cartridge is the whole bullet package: the big brass shell, the lead potruding from the top, and the powder inside. Sometimes a round (piece of ammunition) is a dud and doesn’t fire. Every gun has some way of getting rid of empty brass (some are steel) shells, so a firing range is always littered in old shells. It may important to distinguish between loading mechanisms. In handguns, the oldest style in common use, and by far the most reliable, is the revolver. In a revolver, cartridges, usually six, but in the Taurus brand, seven, are arranged in a rotating cylinder with holes in it. If the shooter isn’t in a hurry, to fire it, he first draws back the hammer, a lever at the top of the grip above his thumb. This spins the cylinder so that a fresh bullet is lined up between the barrel of the gun and the hammer. Then he gently squeezes the trigger until it releases the hammer, which is springloaded. The hammer flies up and forward, striking a firing pin hidden just behind the cartridge, which strikes the casing, denting it. The denting creates heat in the metal, enough to ignite the powder and drive the bullet from the casing, out of the barrel. The two more modern handgun types are automatic and semi-automatic. Both use the energy from the cartridge’s explosion to move a new bullet into the chamber, ready to fire. They can be quickly reloaded using clips that slide into the gun’s grip. Before firing, the shooter must painstakingly stuff bullets into the clip, a long, flat metal box with a spring inside, through a small bullet-shaped hole in the top. Once all the clips are loaded, he can blow off all the bullets in a few minutes with only small pauses to reload. The problem with automatics and semi-automatics is that if one of the bullets fails to fire or a casing gets stuck, they can be difficult to un-jam. Revolvers never jam, but they are slower to fire. The difference between automatic and semi-automatic is that a semi-auto only fires one shot at a time, while full automatic will fire as long as the trigger is being pulled, or more commonly in three-round bursts. Automatics are illegal in the US except for the military. Modern clips hold ten rounds, but before the Brady Law, much larger clips could be legally manufactured in the US. Now, in many states, it is still legal to sell very large clips (also called magazines.) One of the most effective types of ammunition for use on humans is 357 Magnum. (Magnum means the cartridge is longer and contains more powder than the standard model. Many guns fire both standard and magnum in their caliber, but some fire only standard.) A hollow-point bullet is a deadly, damaging round. Its tip has a small hole, about the size of a blunt pencil tip, which catches the flesh of the target, tearing the bullet into a mushroom shape and causing massive internal damage---far more than would a smooth-ended bullet, which might pass straight through. Entrance wounds are always small and neat, while exit wounds, after the bullet has transfered some energy to the flesh it met, and perhaps expanded on the way, form craters. A small, light round, such as 22 caliber (popular for target practice, fairly quiet, and cheap) may bounce around against bones and might not come out. The most common handgun calibers are 22, 9 millimeter, 357, 44 (powerful and loud), and 45 (stronger and louder). As the weight of the bullet increases, so does the kick, or back-force into the shooter’s hand. The muzzle of the gun will jump upward just after it fires, but this does not affect the shot’s accuracy. A heavy gun is more stable and comfortable to shoot, especially if it fires large rounds. Weak shooters may have a hard time controlling a 44, and if the grip is hard plastic, not rubber-covered, shooting might be painful to the palms.